Who's The Man?

Jeff Hawkins replied to my previous post:

"Personality Cult leadership is a HUGE factor in the church today. Churches are built around a "man" and not THE Man, Christ Jesus. New Testament pattern of "plurality" in leadership is crucial...."

Jeff went on from there, but I wanted to focus on this topic first.

I certainly have to agree. A few weeks ago I turned on CNN as I was eating a snack and listened to Piers Morgan interviewing Joel Osteen and his wife. Besides all the problems with his theology and view of God, what struck me was how he was clearly the center of a church and a financial empire. While he talked about God, everything was really about him.

That is an extreme example, but, though maybe more subtle, not really all that uncommon. We don’t have to look far to see many examples of this and in fact, there are times in almost every church when you can at least see shades of this. In many churches, no one questions the pastor, and if they do, it becomes a huge and divisive issue. There is a Chinese saying that you might hear in a Taiwan church which roughly translates as “To be submissive is to be blessed (祝福就是夢福)”. In other words, we'll all be better off if we just do what the pastor says. Leaders lead, the rest follow.

But, is this really the way it is supposed to be? I remember a quote by Peter Jensen to the effect that God is sovereign and he does not delegate and I think that is true. It’s not that God doesn’t give us the privilege of serving and even the privilege of some kind of authority. The issue is what that means.

Do we really believe that we are sinners; that we really are depraved? Do we really believe that this sin nature has affected every facet of our selves? Or, do we think that this is somehow changed when a person becomes a pastor? I can't see anything in the Bible that would imply this and all we have to do is look at so many examples of “fallen” pastors to know that this isn’t the case. Pastors fall just like everyone else at times and it’s a bit disingenuous to think that this is because they are somehow not real or something like that. If we truly believe in a sin nature that is common to all, then no matter how good our intentions are, no matter how strong our faith is, we must keep that in mind. We are still sinners and if so, we cannot completely trust any decision or action that we (or others) make.

I don’t in any way mean that we should become suspicious people, no more than we should be suspicious or our own selves. But, maybe that’s a key to understanding the concept of servant leadership. We know that we ourselves are not always perfect (unless we are a bit psychotic). We know that our motivations are not always the best. We know that we make mistakes and some are big (and embarrassing). We know that we are not always completely honest. That doesn’t mean that we don’t trust ourselves (otherwise we wouldn’t argue our points so forcefully and defend our views or ourselves), but it does mean that our trust is tempered with reality. It means that we study “experts.” It means that we ask others’ opinions about things. We even define “smartness” sometimes by saying things like “smart people are people who know what they don’t know.” We know that we need other people to get by and make progress.

So, why would we build a church around a single man? In a sense, to the extent that a church does that, it is to that extent setting itself up for failure. But, even if we leave out the possibility of catastrophic failure, anyone time we give one person too much power or influence in an organization, we then limit that organization so that it can never grow beyond that person’s limitations. It will develop along the lines of his strengths and those are the things that may be most obvious in the beginning, but it will also build in his weaknesses. The longer this goes on, the more “warped” the organization or church will become.

I think that’s why we need to go toward a type of team leadership. That doesn’t mean that we lead by consensus or that there can’t be one person in charge. Those mistakes are recipes for failure or at least mediocrity. But, leadership is not absolute and untempered. It's not enough to say that the leader must depend on the Lord to guide him. Certainly that is true, but the reality is that no one ever fully depends on the Lord, and we need the help of others. A man who cannot follow has forfeited the potential to lead.

There are Bible passages dealing with this that I think we sometimes overlook or explain away. Paul includes in his exhortations on submission to authority the statement that we are to be submissive to one another. Even leaders have to submit. Jesus mentions the Gentile rulers who rule by authority and power and then tells his disciples that they can't do that. He destroys the argument "but I'm doing this for their own good" by a little aside that these Gentile rulers consider themselves to be acting out of benevolence. It's not enough to have good motivations. You can't be like that. He uses the example of a servant (who might have some authority over another servant, but still are quite limited) and then to make sure that we don't explain that away, he mentions the example of a small child.

We need to think seriously about leadership and what it means in the church. I'm afraid we've taken our own understanding of leadership and read that into the Bible. The problem is not just pastors who make themselves the center or who don't listen to others. The problem is maybe even more that this is what we expect and what we promote.

Children, especially in the society that Jesus lived in when he spoke to his disciples, were not allowed the room to express any of the traits that we would normally associate with a leader. But, Jesus told his disciples that they needed to be more like a small child and even that the more they took on the position of a child, the greater they were.


It may not make sense to us, but we can't dismiss it just because it doesn't make sense. These are the words of Jesus, not just the words of a disciple. He said it. Do we understand? The more we try to explain it away, or the more it doesn't make sense, the more it means that we are off the mark. Maybe we are clueless, but we need to look at this further.


Your thoughts?

There Has to Be a Better Way

I just finished leading a church through a vision retreat. We only had one and a half days and had a lot to cover. The church is very conservative and though all present were key coworkers and leaders, they were all at different stages in their thinking on the church. Most did want and hope for change, but how much and where? And, even when we agree on the need for change and can agree on what needs to be changed, it is still a lot harder to actually overcome the inertia to do it and then work on all the other areas that this change affects to stick with it over the longer term. It reminds me of a statement by Shaun King, former pastor of of Atlanta's The Courageous Church. He says:

"Political campaigns based on radical change win.  Books written about radical change sell.  Sermons on radical change boost Sunday morning attendance.  The idea and thought of change is exciting to people, but mistaking that excitement for an actual willingness on behalf of those people to change now or later could be a miscalculation."

I'm praying that this church will be able to actually make some significant change even if not radical. Whatever reservations I have are not so much a lack of confidence in that church as it is a general statement about all of us. It really is exciting to go to a conference or a meeting and be challenged with making great changes, but then you go home to "the real world" and there is just too much to distract. Maintaining the status quo may not be the best, but it is a lot easier and more comfortable to most people.

I'm still thinking about the discussion raised when Pastor King resigned from the Courageous Church several weeks ago. I'll quote him again, "Big buildings. Huge crowds. Few disciples. I'm not with it. It's inefficient and just doesn't feel right with my soul. This is not a rejection of big buildings or huge crowds, but an indictment on how few disciples are being made in the process of it all. A better way has to exist."

I've been coming to similar conclusions over the years where I work. We talk a lot about how we must impact society and that the church is a lighthouse to the community, but in reality, how much impact is the church having on their neighborhood much less on society. If it were just my church or the country I worked in, I would need to look around at local issues, and certainly that is a part of what must be done. But, the problem is pretty universal and that means that we also need to look at the whole model of "church" that we've been doing. We must go back and think further about what we are doing and why.


That means going back to the original mandate. I would say that what we call the Great Commission was not really a mandate for missions but a mandate for the church. This Great Commission is not referring just to one of the programs of the church raising money for people who "go." This is the mission of the church--to make disciples of all peoples. Certainly our first "target" would have to be those we are closest to, but the mission of every church is the world.

But, I've been saying that all along in this blog and I don't want to focus on overseas missions right now. Even if we overlook the "all nations" part, we still have to look honestly at the rest. How good are we at actually making disciples--not converts, not members, but disciples. I don't think we're doing very well at all.  I'm ready to really rethink our idea of what the church is, and I believe that we have to start from this "mission statement" for the church. If the mission of the church is to "make disciples," that means that we order all that we do around that statement. The ultimate question for everything that we do should be, "In what way does this help us to make disciples?" and, "Is this the most effective thing that we could do to make disciples at this time and with the resources that we have?" Of course, we also need to think about whether we are giving the "all peoples" part a strong enough priority in our work, but let's skip over that for the moment. Even if all we are looking at is the immediate circle of people we have contact with (relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors), are the things we are doing really what is needed and are they the best way to accomplish what Christ has demanded that all believers do? One way to start on that is to go back to the beginning and look at the early church.

If you think about it, Jesus' mandate was audacious if not even a little ridiculous. Before Jesus ascended into heaven he had the small band of disciples gather together on a nearby mountain. There was the core 11 (Judas had betrayed him and was now already dead) and beyond them were maybe a few hundred more. They were ordinary people without a lot of education or money. They were fishermen, farmers, and even at least one tax collector. Probably most of them had never traveled beyond what is a daily commute for some of us. They knew very little about the world. They were out on the edges of the Roman Empire and Jesus' challenge was the world. That must have seemed unbelievable to even imagine that this group could do. But, not only that, when Jesus told them to make disciples of all nations (all peoples) that's about all he said. How should they proceed? Who should lead this movement? How should it be financed? I think that if I were there, I'd probably have said, "You've got to be kidding. You can't leave us with this and nothing else? How in the world can we even start on this?" You've got to give us a plan. You've got to be practical.

And yet's that's basically all that is recorded. Just do it. You figure it out. That's your mission. Get it done. It seems so radical, so huge, so impractical, and so skimpy. He does tell them that all authority in all the universe has been given to him--in other words, the outcome is already certain and he is already ruling. He does tell them that they will receive power when the Spirit comes down among them, but the strategy and planning are pretty open.

While that must have seemed scary and inadequate, at the same time, it is also freeing. There isn't a set plan beyond a few fundamentals. Other than those few things, it's all open. It means that we can be as creative and imaginative as we want and experiment as we see fit within those boundaries.

So, if we have some much freedom, why is it that all churches look basically alike? Yes, there are some huge differences in some areas and there are differences in theology, but they still look about the same (I'm talking about the "church" as a body and not about buildings, though that is true of buildings also). Some are liturgical, some free and open. Some are traditional (some even "ancient") and some contemporary. But beyond those surface things, churches still follow basically the same model.

If we have been given so much freedom, why are we still following the same basic models? And, especially when that the church is not keeping up and not fulfilling its mission, how is it that we are not crying out for change?

I want to explore that over a number of posts and hope that I can instigate some thinking and some discussion. I'm gathering a team to start a new church in the next year or so and I want the help. I don't want it to be just one more church. I want to go back to the beginning--both the original mandate and also the early church. We are in a different world than 2,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean that we can't learn from them. The growth of the church during those first few centuries was phenomenal. Some of the reasons for that don't exist today and can't be duplicated, but there still has be be a lot we can learn.

I'm listening. Let's talk.

The Courageous Church

Shaun King, the founding pastor of The Courageous Church in Atlanta has resigned after 3 years. I've never been to the church and didn't really know of its existence until just recently, so it would be foolish to take sides and make generalizations. I assume that there's always more to the story than I could possibly know, so I want to keep that in mind as I write.

But, reading about the church and Shaun's resignation stirred up emotions and pressed some buttons inside. I don't know all that Shaun was leading the church through and how he was trying to develop the ministry, but his description of the church ministry as being focused on making disciples and the feeling that the church was not doing a very good job of fulfilling that mission resonated. He say, "Big buildings. Huge crowds, few disciples. I'm not with it. It's ineficient and just doesn't feel right with my soul. This is not a rejection of big buildings or huge crowds but is an indictment on how few disciples are being made in the process of it all. A better way has to exist." 

The Courageous Church. What a name that is and what an expression of faith! It is a name that probably no church can really live up to and yet evokes something that we wish all churches would strive for. The idea of courageously forging ahead towards what you know is right no matter the cost and no matter the inconvenience is reminiscent of the church of the New Testament. It assumes that there will be suffering and there will be martyrs. In Atlanta, that wouldn't likely mean dying for one's faith in the midst of persecution, but it does mean living for our faith in such a "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead" way that one's life (and position, honor, comforts, etc.) is not really important as you strive for the goal. And, isn't that what Christ said when he told his disciples that anyone who strives to preserve their life would lose it and those willing to sacrifice their life would save it?

But, the reality is normally quite different when you look at the church overall. There isn't much risk taking even in small areas much less those that would risk our life. Comfort, peace, harmony, stability are far greater values than courage. The typical church is much more of an institution than a body (an organization instead of an organism). Most of the energy, effort, time, money, and man-hours goes into the maintenance and preservation of the organization and its property. Often, little goes into direct ministry to those who most need it. Those who most need it are usually not those who attend "the church" but are outside the walls. Look at the business meeting agendas (whether the governing members are called deacons, elders, trustees, or whatever) and see what items are up for discussion and what items take the most time. It's normally organizational details and physical plant issues. Ministry discussions are usually because of a problem or because someone wants to do something. Not much time is often given to the mission of the church (either what it is, how to accomplish it, or whether what we're doing is accomplishing it).

That certainly wasn't true in the New Testament Church. What we see there is not an organization (in fact, there seems almost to be nor organization at all) but an organism. They were putting their lives on the line and it wasn't just a theoretical possibility. It was very serious. But, it wasn't the brash, "I know I can do it," proud kind of courage. It's more of a humble pressing on in spite of the dire straits, like Frodo and Sam at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There was no certainty of success and a strong likelihood of failure, but they just knew that they had to do it. Giving up was not a reasonable option. They were just a group of ordinary people who had heard the gospel and believed it. They didn't just believe that it was true or that it was the best thing they'd heard so far and therefore ought to be at least close to true. They didn't believe that it would solve their problems, get them a better job, give them health, or give them a good support group. In fact, all the evidence so far showed them the opposite. It was going to make their lives very uncomfortable and maybe painful, maybe even to the point of being stoned to death. What they believed was something quite radical and sacrificial. They believed that Jesus, the Jesus that the leaders in Jerusalem (Jewish and Roman) had killed, was the Son of God. The believed that, even if they weren't a part of the decision to kill Jesus, they were still eternally and alienated from God. The believed that he had risen from the dead and after the shock that a man could return from the dead, the next (and greater) shock was that instead of taking vengeance, this Jesus was offering a superhuman grace of forgiveness and acceptance.

Look at the response after Peter's sermon to the crowd at the end of the second chapter of Acts. They were struck with fear and said, to paraphrase Francis Schaeffer and Ezekiel, "How then should we live?" "What does this mean for us?" The conclusion was radical. This changes everything. Nothing comes close to this in importance. We cannot live as we once did.

That's courage, and of a kind that I've seldom seen in today's church outside of some areas where there is great persecution. So, when I read about this church and Shaun's desire to lead it into a total rethinking of what the church should be and read of his description of what he expected, I wanted to say a hearty Amen!  The church should be making disciples and not just collecting warm bodies. I don't know the details of what he wanted to do, and maybe they aren't the best way, but still have to agree with him that something does need fixing. I applaud his courageous goals and his courage to step down when he felt he could not take the church there with him.

But, where do we need to go? I'd love to hear your comments. What do you think?

The Fellowship of the Ring

It’s interesting how we can know something and yet suddenly something happens that reminds us that we've missed the significance of what we thought we knew. I've said before that preaching, teaching, or Bible study doesn’t necessarily give any new information but often just reminds us of what we should already be thinking about or challenges us to put into practice what we already know. Sometimes little, seemingly unrelated occurrences can trigger a sudden realization of something important.

A few weeks ago I casually posted on Facebook about a restaurant in Taipei. The restaurant is named "Dreams of Hobbitton” and it’s pretty easy to guess from the name that the theme is built on Tolkien’s novels. It has a website and really looked interesting. I noted that I hadn’t been there and didn’t know what the food was like but the theme and décor looked really interesting and it was just kind of cool that there was a Taiwanese so interested in Tolkien’s Hobbits that they would take a 4 story building and turn it into a restaurant based on that theme. This posted a few days before my birthday and a number of people suggested that we go there for my birthday meal (we haven’t yet but plan to go there belatedly). One friend suggested that if my wife took me there we could also enjoy the “Fellowship of the Ring” which was a cool play on words and it got my attention.

At the same time I was reading Acts 2 and preparing a sermon taken from the very end of that chapter after Peter’s message to the crowds who had witnessed the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. After the sermon, it says that 3,000 were added to the disciples that day and then that they met daily in the temple courts devoting themselves to four things—the apostle’s teaching (the Word), fellowship, the breaking of bread (seemingly not just communion but meals together), and prayer. This is also where it says that the believers sold all that they had and shared everything together and giving to those in need. It’s the only place in the New Testament where we see a church doing anything like that and the picture that comes to mind is almost like a socialist or hippy commune except that the church in Jerusalem isn’t closed off from the rest of the world but is right in the middle of it (the temple courts were the most public place you could find in Jerusalem). It's also not imposed, but voluntary.

As I contemplated the “fellowship” mentioned here (and separate from meals together in homes, which is something we often think of as “fellowship”) I was reminded of the comment from the friend about the restaurant and the “Fellowship of the Ring.” Suddenly it hit me. When I think of fellowship, I think of small group meetings of a church—the youth fellowship, men’s fellowship, couples fellowship—and food together. I think of fun and comfortable times together. I think of a warm spirit of friendship and love. But, that was certainly not how Tolkien used the term. The "fellowship" that came together to dispose of the ring certainly included those things—the celebrations together, enjoying each other’s company, and good food and drink.

But, that wasn’t the Fellowship of the Ring. That fellowship was a life giving commitment to an arduous task that would be enormously difficult but was necessary to save the world. They were giving their lives (literally) to a cause and to each other. They didn’t know how it was going to end, but it seemed that it may not even be something that could be accomplished and certainly that it was at great risk. Some of them or even all of them might not come back alive. Their families and friends might think they were just crazy adventurers or naïve fanatics. The world would never be the same in some way or another. It would either fall into darkness or would enter a new and glorious age.

It hit me. What is fellowship? I don’t think it’s at all what most of us think about. Look at the context in Acts. The Spirit had come down upon the believers. Peter had just preached a sermon in which he told them that the Messiah had been among them, the hope of 2000 years of Jewish expectation. But, they had either participated or at least stood by while the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the nation and the world had been crucified. The people's response was something like, “Oh, my God! What have we done?” and in this context these are not taking God's name in vain. There was a sense of the awfulness of the situation that had been laid out in front of them. The awesomeness of God having become a man and dwelling among them. The awful thought that they had put him to death. The terrible thought that their actions were from the powers of hell itself and that they had willingly joined the wrong side.

But, their next response was, “So, what can we do about it? Is there any hope for us?" Peter told them to repent and be baptized, and that they could then be forgiven. The relief was palpable. Three thousand people were added to the church that day. That may sound spectacular, but the situation was pretty spectacular also. These were people who likely knew a lot about Jesus and they had just witnessed a pretty spectacular event. If God could forgive this monstrous sin, he could forgive anything. Now, they were committing their lives. The leader they were now going to follow had already been executed by the religious leaders and the Romans. Their fate might well be the same but it would be better to die following God than to live in peace and security.

That's the fellowship that Acts is talking about and it's not much different from the fellowship of those little Hobbits and the others who joined that cause. It's more of a commitment to a cause and to others who are committed, than it is a warm, secure, social kind of fellowship. Can we say of ourselves that we have that kind of fellowship? Most of us will never face the choice of life or death for the cause, but we are faced with choices every day that call us to face our fellowship commitment. What are we willing to give up for the "fellowship of the Gospel?" How committed are we to Jesus' last words to us, to make disciples of all the different peoples of the earth? What are we not willing to give up?

This passage starts to make a lot more sense when we think of that kind of fellowship. It gives us a new definition of the church. The church is a group of people joined together in a The Fellowship of the Gospel. When we decide to trust Christ, we are making a life changing, life giving commitment to Christ and to the accomplishing of the mission he has given to us. That's the fellowship that we have together The Fellowship of the Gospel.

Bin Laden is Dead; Should Good Christians Rejoice?

I heard the news Monday evening in Taiwan (Monday morning in the US): Osama bin Laden has been killed. At first I was not sure whether to believe it or not, but it seems to be true. Pictures today show rejoicing at ground zero in New York and elsewhere. Twitter and Facebook is showing plenty of activity around this topic. Should we be happy? Is it okay to celebrate?

Of course we are human. We don't always feel what we should feel. We are not really disgusted with sin, especially when it is our own and even when we know it is sin. Sometimes we don't even admit that it is. We often don't praise righteousness, even when we know we should, and sometimes we don't even see what is right. So, as I muse on this here, keep in mind, I'm not talking about what we all might feel. I'm talking more about how we should feel and think if we we had the mind of God. Of course, even here, there is a huge danger of false pride since I certainly don't have the heart or mind of God. I should be the last to speak on that topic.

But, at the same time, it does bear thinking about since we should be seeking the heart of God even as we admit that we are light years away from it.

Maybe we should first ask, "Is God happy?" The question seems almost silly, and maybe it is, but for the sake of discussion, let's go there. Is God glad that the US took out such a notorious mass murderer. The answer is right at the heart of the gospel and in the Bible verse that is usually the first one that we memorize. "For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son...." Does that include bin Laden? I think it's pretty clear that it has to include him if we want to take the Bible seriously.

Some have quoted Ezekiel 33:11 as well: "...As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live...."

At the same time, Psalms 5:4-6 says "

For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness;
with you, evil people are not welcome.
The arrogant cannot stand
in your presence.
You hate all who do wrong;
you destroy those who tell lies.
The bloodthirsty and deceitful
you, LORD, detest."

There are many things that language is not really good at expressing and the heart of an infinite God is certainly at the top. However, I don't think that God is happy that bin Laden is dead, at least not the kind of "happy" that I see on TV. If we believe the verses above, I believe that he weeps over one of His creatures, one of His beloved, who was so thoroughly blinded by evil that he saw no problem with mass slaughter and felt no remorse afterwards.

But, at the same time, I also believe that God detested bin Laden for what he did. He was gracious, patient, longsuffering, and not willing for bin Laden to perish. But, in the end, He looked at this death with something indescribable (as most really deep emotions are) that included pain along with satisfaction--but no words are really adequate.

But, I also don't think it was the giddy kind of joy that we are seeing on the news. It isn't celebration. It's something else that I don't know how to describe even if I knew that I really understood. I think that the closest might be that of the mother who watches her son executed for multiple murders. Even if she agreed that it was just, she couldn't possibly be happy. One can hardly imagine the mixed emotions but also the overwhelming pain.

I think that it should give us pause to reflect. Our feelings might be swayed by patriotism, by pride, by the desire for vengeance, or a multitude of other things. Some people might be swayed in the other direction by a sense of pity or even by a view that America has mistreated Muslims and bin Laden was their defender. But, we should remember that salvation is by grace, not because we deserved anything. This isn't a defense of either bin Laden or of America. It is to say that, while it is natural to be glad that a mass murderer will kill no more, I also don't deserve God's grace any more than he did. I think I'm better than bin Laden. At least I haven't killed thousands of people and spread hatred on that scale. But, I am still wholly unworthy to be accepted into the presence of a holy God. It should push us to fall back on his grace.

But, there is one part of this story where we Christians do bear some of the blame. Most of the world, and especially the Muslim world, doesn't have a real testimony of the gospel. I remember once when I spoke to a church group about Taiwan and someone said, "Well, if they hear the gospel once and don't believe, then they deserve to go to hell. Why waste your time on people who don't want to know God." Does God love an Iranian as much as he loves an American? Does he love a Chinese as much as a Guatemalan? Does He love Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus? Why do we want God to be longsuffering with old Uncle Jeremiah and not with Mr. Khalid or Mrs. Chang?

Where is our passion for the world (the people) that God loves? We were created to be with God, to not only glorify him but to be a part of his glory. Man was offered the tree of life in the garden, but when he choose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead, the tree of life was taken away--or a better description may be that man was taken away from it. But, the offer is still there to those who are willing to forsake their sin, to repent and cast themselves at His feet. That is what God offers to us--eternal life with Him, sharing in His sovereignty and His glory, and it painsHhim that anyone not receive it.

C.S. Lewis preached a sermon on this called "The Weight of Glory." He notes that we were created for something that we can hardly even imagine in this world, the participation in God's rule over the universe and a share of his glory. Lewis even uses the terms "gods and godesses" to describe and emphasize the enormity the role that God is preparing for us. He writes:

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."

We can all point to people who fit into the category of "horrors" as Lewis describes--Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden, and interestingly, Lewis published this sermon first in late 1941 when it looked as if Hitler were about to conquer all of Europe. I wonder if he had Hitler in mind, or maybe Stalin. What makes them all the more horrible, however, is not just the gravity of what they have done, but the loss of what they were created to be. And yet, they are dead. It is too late for them. God will be their judge. They should remind us that while we may feel some sense of justice and maybe even satisfaction with the death of a terrorist, we must also be grieving at the loss of the same human, created by God and precious to Him--so precious that He gave His only Son for this person.

But, it should also remind us of the living--those around us who have not yet reached that great divide. What Lewis reminds us of goes to the core of the gospel. The people we see every day, whether on the news or face to face, were created to be everlasting splendors but have the potential to be eternal horrors. What we most often notice are those who are further along to one or the other of these extremes, but all will be one or the other and the lubrication of our sin natures makes the slope toward "eternal horror" much slipperier. But, there is no one who can't be saved while there is also no one who deserves to be saved. How can we ignore those who are objects of God's love? What are we doing to turn them to Him? How can we say that we deserve his salvation more than another?

Lewis goes on to say:

"And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

While I certainly understand the sense of gladness that such a murderer has now finally been brought to justice (and feel it myself), this doesn't make the world all right. It's still a sinful world and there are plenty like him to some extent. We can't rejoice and we can't relax in this victory.

Instead of celebration, it should bring a sense of sadness at the degradation and corruption that sin has wrought. It should also drive us to love the world as God did--that He gave His only Son. And, if we could do that, what would it drive us to do? It drove Christ to humble Himself as a servant and even to a humiliating death on the cross. It drove him to take action. What does it do for you?

Fun and Community

My daughter is always one for a bargain and I have always admired her gift for finding things and making more out of them than what others may see. Sometimes she does things that we might even shake our head at, but at the same time, there is something in me that still thinks that she is the right one and I'm the "lazy" one.

She has returned to school for graduate study in Wales and found a chair in a consignment shop that would be perfect for her room. She convinced a classmate to help her carry the chair from the shop to her room to save the delivery charge It's not a long distance, but not just a couple of blocks either. It took 2 hours for them to get the chair to her room.

But, the reason it took so long was not the distance or because the two girls couldn't lug it very far without resting. She made it fun by taking a camera and some props along. They stopped along the way to take pictures of "the chair" in various locations along the way and with one or both of them sitting in it. Some people (mostly the young, she says) shook their head in disbelief, but others smiled. Some came over and offered to take the picture for them. One older lady even came up and asked them if they would let her sit in it for a picture. It became a focal point and a starting point for many conversations.

We sometimes miss the joy of life in everyday things. We sometimes are too proud and worried about what others might think. Sometimes we are too "efficient" and don't want to waste so much of our valuable time. We have a life to live and important things to do. It's worth it to just pay someone else to do it. But, is it really? In trying to fill our life with "being productive" could we be missing much of what life is supposed to be? And, we certainly are missing out on many opportunities for interaction with others. We may say that people come first, but in the end, does our schedule often overrule?

It also affects our sense of community. We have friends but those are chosen. We have coworkers, but that's our job and we tend to separate work from personal life. We attempt to make a community at church or in clubs but those are closed groups for "people like us." Most churches attract people with tastes and values in common. But, we don't often just sit and chat for more than a couple of sentences at church and most churches are large enough that people can attend and be anonymous if they want. We don't really know most of the people there. And for those who we do know, while we may be interested in asking how they are doing, we don't often go much beyond that. In the end, because the church has become our community, we have become insulated from the rest of the world and even this community can be pretty shallow.

More than anything, we are in too much of a hurry to have much time for frivolous things--sometimes even for the important things. Or, maybe we've lost touch with what really is important so that we we are stuck in a rut of doing the frivolous things that only seem important. We are too busy getting things done and trying to be efficient to realize that what we are doing might not be the most important or the most effective.

We'd rather pay the cost of delivery and avoid the drudgery and even embarrassment of carrying the chair ourselves. We've lost the sense of joy and play that can come from common things. And, we've lost the sense of community. Real communities are random, not chosen. They are natural, not artificially created. They are the people around us who may not be at all like us. We may not have much in common with them. But, they are people whom God has placed her near us and we may be their only real contact point with the Gospel. I don't mean that we should be giving the Four Spiritual Laws and trying to evangelize everyone we meet and I certainly don't mean that we should be just seeking out people only to give them the gospel.

One man asked Jesus how to enter the kingdom and Jesus turned the question back to him and asked what he thought. What an expression of respect for the person! He didn't just give the answer. He asked the man what he thought. But, when the man answered that we love God totally and completely and love our neighbor as ourselves, Jesus told him he had it right. We might have given a theological explanation, or handed him a tract to explain the need for faith and asked him to pray a prayer. Love God thoroughly and completely. That certainly includes faith. But, love my neighbor? Surely there is some limit to that. What if I don't like my neighbor? That's where Jesus told the story about the good Samaritan--and Samaritans were not just unloved, but thoroughly and completely despised by Jews. But, here was not just a Jew who loved a Samaritan, but a Samaritan who loved a Jew. How did he love him? It wasn't planned. It was natural. It was concrete. It met a need. It was a sacrifice. It was an interruption. It was not just flippant. He even came back to do more later.

How do we interract with our community--the natural one that includes everyone around us whether we have anything in common or not, whether we like them or not. We make natural and uncontrived contact and we enjoy their presence. We have fun. We slow down. And, by doing so, we become a testimony of grace, love, acceptance, and the joy of the Spirit. We earn the right to be heard when we do have an opportunity, as Peter says, to give an answer to those who asks us to "give the reason for the hope that you have." I don't think that the Bible is just talking about our need to learn apologetics. It's just being able to answer when someone says, "Oh, so you're a Christian" or even when talking about every day topics and someone wonders why you might take a certain position on an issue. Most people only know caricatures of Christians and the caricatures are likely not very positive. We can be the real thing, a fragrant addition to their life.

But, we need to slow down, enter into the community, enjoy little things, and get outside the fences we have built around ourselves. Maybe you won't carry your furniture purchases home in America. Most of us don't live in that kind of town where stores are not far from our homes and there are sidewalks. But, we still have neighbors and they aren't just those whose yard touches our yard. What should we all be doing to break down the walls? How can we get to know people around us in a natural way? How can we slow down? Have we become so obsessed with the trivial that we have mistaken it for the important and labeled what is truly important as trivial? Who is your neighbor? Do you get out where they are? Can you love them? If you moved away, would anyone miss you? And, most important, do they see Christ in you? Would they know what Jesus would do from seeing what you do?