The Between Journey

Sunday morning was a trip, wasn’t it?  It was proof positive that the worship of the gathered people is not dependent on what happens on the stage.  Can we make a pact to call each other to deep engagement with God each Sunday regardless of style and music and band or no-band, that God is the one who deserves to have our attention and that we will work hard to help each other come into His presence?

It’s not that what happens on stage is irrelevant.  It’s not.  But when the people of God gather, we all interact and impact each other.  You are important, and though your ability to make a difference in people’s lives and worship experiences is not always apparent, it is critical.  A smile, a welcome hug, an eye of encouragement, a glance of support, an example of someone lost in emotional connection, or an example of someone connected to worship in intellect and thought…all of these are places of touching between people as we enter into worship.   Let us all be worship leaders, if you catch my drift.

May we be people who love to worship.

May we be people who love to sing as well.

They’re not the same.

It was good to talk about the Kingdom of God yesterday. A friend of mine wrote me about the emotional upset that comes with relinquishing control of old patterns, old sins, old kingdoms, and wondered if perhaps we could study on how to handle some of the inevitable, but often surprising, emotional upheavals that come with the territory. I thanked her for those words, because I think she’s right. Change in any direction, except in the direction of going deeper into our selfishness, is hard. There are emotional reasons, as well as physiological reasons, which is to say nothing except that there are human reasons.

We are spirits, and we are bodies. We are human beings birthed and nurtured by God, created by Him to live and move and breathe and work and play and worship and praise and walk in the cool of the evening with the divine. We are free to think and decide and accept and reject, even when it seems like that freedom is illusion because of the unconscious mind and hidden layers of bias and nurture that prod us to act in ways we can barely understand.

Romans 8 says it plainly that the ways of the Spirit are set against the ways of the “sinful nature.” That “sinful nature” is something we’d rather avoid, explain away. But conflict is conflict, and battles and wars are fought in stages, and frankly, sometimes we just get tired. Think of your life as a country, and the various longings, desires, and willful strivings of your life as cities and territories under siege by the Holy Spirit. What we want is for the Holy Spirit to come in and do some shock and awe, and for the whole nation called us to just lay down and be done. But that’s not how it works. The Spirit most often has to go house to house, because we lay down our sins an inch at a time, though occasionally there’s a major breach, and progress seems more rapid.

The point is that battles are fought, and if there’s one thing we know about battle (even if we’ve never been in a real one) is that battlegrounds are extremes of emotional experience.  It requires all of who we are.  Battlegrounds are not peaceful enclaves, but are intense fields of faith and fear facing inevitabilities, where death and woundedness rampage around us.  We shouldn’t be surprised, maybe, when we begin to turn to the Lord in a deeper way that some of our insides stand up and begin to shout in protest.  Cognitive dissonance they call it, and the truth is, we want what we want.

I wondered out loud yesterday whether praying “Thy Kingdom Come” really meant we wanted God to sweep into our kingdoms (the range of our effective will) and take command, take control, reign as sovereign over every corner. I challenged us to write down those areas we haven’t given over yet, and pray that God would help change our hearts.   And as that change begins, pray for that peace that passes understanding that Paul says will guard our hearts, just as the Proverbs writer encouraged us to do centuries ago.

Guard your hearts…

Life is rich, isn’t it? I am feeling the desire for more simplicity rather acutely this morning as I ramp up to take on what is shaping up to be a very busy period of time. The next three weeks will find me traveling to Canada to perform Leaving Ruin at a Pastor’s Conference, and then back here only to take off once again to travel to the Willow Creek Arts Conference to teach four different classes. I also have family in town for Daniel’s senior musical, Me and My Girl, running Thursday-Sunday of this week at Roosevelt High School, and then of course, comes graduation. Not to mention that things continue to gain momentum here among the people of the NW church as our sense of mission, values, and vision comes into clearer focus with each passing week.

But even as rpm’s keep climbing, I am reminded this morning that prayer is everything. As we saw this weekend, without Jesus, we can do nothing about advancing His Kingdom, and though just now I am tempted to skip the prayer because the days are too full, I know that temptation is a devastating one if I give in to it. Power and wisdom and discernment and patience and insight…these are what we all need in these busy days, and that comes from God and His Spirit’s real-time presence in our lives. Don’t unplug, and pray that I won’t either.

• Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

Peace…

These are the assignments from last Sunday.

1) Memory Verse: John 15:5 - “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

2) Prayer:

• a. For power to grasp the love of Christ, the love He has for You, and the love He has for the people around you

• b. What is God’s Spirit calling you to do? I am especially talking about those things that we know that need to change. Again, ask the simple question, am I being obedient in the small things? Am I serving in the small things? Where are you fighting what He is asking you, telling you, revealing to you through scripture, that you need to yield to him?

• c. Pray that this church will be obedient. That we will not move until God’s Spirit moves us. That when he tells us to stop, or prevents us from moving in some direction we want to go, just as he did with Paul in Acts 16, that we will stop. Pray for us to unafraid of the Lord’s presence, even if it means his discipline and warnings, which are nothing but strong evidence for His love for us.

3) Examine what you are “joined to.” Paul speaks in I Corinthians 7 of the absurdity of joining a body that is a temple of the Holy Spirit to a prostitute. It’s an absurd notion, yet I wonder where and to what our temples are joined? What will joining more fully in the Mission and work of God’s Spirit cost you? Are you willing to pay that cost?

4) Conversation: Where do you think Gnod’s Spirit is moving in this congregation as He prepares us to move out into the world to speak the word of God with more boldness? What are you seeing? Do your friends here at church differ with your analysis and understanding? What are the common threads? How can you join in?

5) Commitment: Do you consider yourself to be joined to this church, as families are joined together? As a body is joined together? In other words, that you are committed to being here for the long haul, investing in both the good and the bad, the successes and the failures, the missteps and the plans that come to bright fruition? We pray that if you need a spiritual family, that you will consider joining us as we join the Spirit’s work here.

6) Get a notebook. Bring your Bibles. Don’t back off your prayer.

In preparation for Sunday, read Acts 3 and 4. As we move beyond Pentecost, in the coming weeks we are going to be focusing on the emerging mission and vision for this church. As you know, this week is Missions Sunday, when we are going to be funding much of our missions outreach for the year. $93,000 is a lot of cash, especially in this economy, with gasoline near $4.00 and housing prices on the retreat. As you plan your giving, remember that at the other end of your decision is a person. A person in Kisumu, a teacher who is struggling to make ends meet in a way that we can’t really understand, because our hard times are rich compared to their best times. In Acts 4:32ff, Luke describes the believers as having all things in common, even going so far as to sell property so that all had what they needed. We all need to be praying this week to understand what God is calling us to give. He will guide, He will provide, and He will bless.

As you read Acts 3 and 4, pay attention to the dynamic interaction and relationship between the arrival of the Holy Spirit in power, and the bold declaration of the word of God. Of course, the spectacular healing of a man who had been crippled since birth, at this point over 40, is the catalyst of the story, but what unfolds after that event is the meat of the message. Look at how the healing event leads directly into the great testimonies of Peter both in the Temple and the Sanhedrin. On Sunday, we are going to be paying special attention the prayer of the believers in 4:23-31. Do we have the courage to pray that prayer?

Also, be praying for the people of China and Myanmar (Burma). Don’t let the headlines wash over you without impact and prayer. If any of you feel called to respond in a more direct way, pay attention. What can we do?

A church on a mission…

Celebration is the word around here at NW.  Friday evening, nearly 200 people squeezed into the worship center to launch Celebrate Recovery’s new year of ministry.  Midlife Chrysler led the worship, there were six powerful testimonies of people whose lives had been changed dramatically by Jesus and the community of Celebrate Recovery, and the whole evening felt like church ought to be.  Good food, good music, good worship, good fellowship, and good truth-telling.  Hats off to Ed Clark for leading this ministry the past several years, and thanks to Wayne Northfield for all his good work as well producing the event.

Stories of abuse overcome, drinking and drug addictions beaten, and even the normal traps of living like Pharisees escaped from.   The real stories of men and women changing their lives are probably some of the most compelling tools and motivators we have as we look at our own lives and the changes we need to make.  If you weren’t there, you missed it…

I was in a meeting last night with several people and we talked of dreams. Dreams of ministry for this church, dreams of bigger ways in which we could reach out and get involved in more and more peoples’ lives. One person said it had been a long time since they’d been in a meeting where so many positive possibilities had been talked about. Throughout the evening, the conversation kept turning to the need to dream of what was possible, rather than what wasn’t. Obstacles are always in front of us, but the vision God brings for His people is far larger than any obstacle. As we move toward Pentecost, I can’t help but feel maybe this is the moment for people to begin to reignite passions far too dormant.

How many of us over the years have been dissatisfied with this, that, or the other in regards to the church. Maybe the programs aren’t right, not geared toward my own interests, maybe the demographic seems wrong, or the music isn’t what I like, or the teaching’s some direction that doesn’t jazz me. But as I said Sunday morning, when I dream of God’s Kingdom, I don’t dream of music styles and curricula and programs. I dream of hearts of compassion, hearts in which the first move is not toward selfishness, but toward the other and toward alleviating suffering and building life out of sheer care and love. I dream of hearts that take on sacrificial living as if it is the most natural thing in the world, being the DNA of the heart of God as it is.  I dream of people meeting Jesus and finding Him to be the Lord and King they never believed could be real, but the demonstrated love of His people is all the evidence they need to see His reality.

What do you dream of? How would you describe life in the kingdom of the Heavens? Are you living that dream? Are you moving toward it with all your intention, your prayer, your heart, your muscle? I’m an idealist, I know, but in the end, the church we dream of begins inside, in our moment-to-moment yielding to the Spirit. Who knows what He is bringing to us, but let me encourage you to open your heart and mind to ideas to dreams that are ridiculously impossible. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a vision of a church that could only happen if God did it? Again, repeating Sunday, I long to have a heart that only God could create.

Pray for Myanmar…

I’m going to start posting the weekly assignments here on the blog. The printed assignments have been getting mostly left behind, and we’re trying to make the move to a more online culture. So here’s is what you need for this week.

Memory Verse: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27

Pray: Pray for the Holy Spirit to come with power. Ask God to reveal through His Spirit what you are being called to in this church, and ask Him to gift you specifically to do it. And pray for him to “move you” to follow his command, so that you (and all of us) will be obedient to his word (remember “action”) for us.

Study: What else? The Holy Spirit. Ask Him to guide you in that study.

Conversation: Ask someone close to you if you have any interesting Holy Spirit stories. Things that have occurred in your life that seem to go a bit beyond (or maybe a lot beyond) the normal everyday things that happen. How was the Holy Spirit involved? What makes you think so?

Go: To the NW celebration of Celebrate Recovery. Friday Night @ 6:30. See you there!

Peace…

This morning, I’m rushing.  Not as in scurrying around, but inside, my spirit is restless, agitated, and I’m wanting to move on, write something on the blog that sounds good, which is a temptation to not stop and listen.  But slow me down, Lord, and let me hear truly.  Set my anxieties aside, and let me sit with You in the Quiet.

Silence.

God’s love.  Christ’s love.  A partnership in bringing love to a world that cannot grasp it.  All of life is the love of God.  I don’t mean the evil, I mean the notion of life itself, that strange mystery that is the crazy exchange of energy that occurs when life connects with life, and more life pours in.   Metabolism, growth, creativity…all of it is a gift, a grace, a straightfoward act of love from the hand of the Triune God whose DNA has been love from before the beginning.  The vastness of this love is unfathomable, its force moving through history and time and planets and generations of people like us making our way over the surface of our lives.

Yet, for its vastness, I struggle to take it in.  Receiving love is natural to us, but take a slap to the face, a word delivered with brutal viciousness in order to win a petty battle, a betrayal where those we trust strike our very hearts to pieces, and receiving love becomes difficult.  Trust is lessened, and it takes some of us a lifetime for the heart to open again, for the basic faith to reappear that we are not only lovable, but loved.

The love Christ exhibited in His death, the love God exhibited by bringing Him back from the dead through His Spirit, the love the Spirit exhibits in residing in our broken and corrupt, but ever changing hearts…it is simple, and deeply profound.  What I hear this morning is that His love is–and I find it hard to type the words–for me.  He loves me.  Whether my preaching is “successful” or lame, whether I win the wars of my daily struggle or not, whether I find the words to encourage the people in my life who so desperately need encouraging–in all of this, He loves me.

You, too.

Pray that we all receive everything He has to give us, all of it love…

vs. 18-27.  Phrases come up at me.  “Creation waiting in eager expectation.”  It reminds me of Paul “straining toward what is ahead” in Philippians 3.  In I Corinthians 7:29-31, Paul says to live as if the time is short, and here he is groaning as he “eagerly awaits (his) adoption as sons, the redemption of (his) bod(y).”  Is there an eagerness for eternity, an urgency to living that feels, as my friend Ken Cukrowski always puts it, as if we are living in a two-minute drill?

The glory Paul says will be revealed in us and in creation is at least one part freedom.   Glorious freedom, Paul calls it.  As the church works on describing its values in both the Eldership and the Transition Team, it’s made me reflect on my own deep values.  Freedom is one of them.  Personal freedom as we enjoy in this country, certainly, but what Paul speaks of is far deeper, I believe.  Freedom from sin, inner turmoil, confusion and uncertainty, all of which will plague in some degree until that full redemption Paul refers to, a freedom we experience in increasing quantities as we are changed from “glory to glory” even in this life.

“And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”  Here is something insinuating itself into my thinking a lot these days.  The Holy Spirit praying for us “in accordance with God’s will.”  To pray what God wills is perhaps where the power is.  I don’t mean a “this is what I want, but whatever You will” prayer, but a “I understand You will this, and so I’m praying that You carry it out quickly and with power” kind of prayer.   But “How do you know what He wills?” is the next question.  It’s that listening question again, but its also a relationship question.  How eagerly and urgently am I seeking to know the heart of God?  Know His heart the way I would know anyone’s heart, a knowledge that comes through time spent, attention paid, conversations into the night, shared hours just hanging out?

The passage says we don’t know what to pray for, and we often don’t.  I certainly don’t.  So we ask the Spirit to help us.  And as we groan, the Spirit enters the heart of God even as God searches our own hearts, and somehow in the core of who we are, God and the Spirit commune, and our deepest longings are heard.

Help me pray inside Your will, even as You search my heart…