John Piper wrote the following powerful statement from his twitter account. A tweet worth reading! Pause and consider.
“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.” – John Piper
Working through the gospel of Mark, I’ve worked my way to Mark 4, and the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. I focus today on the seed sown into the third soil.
Is there something that is choking out my Christian life?
Is there something trying to get me to tap out on my commitment to Jesus?
What hinders and what sin entangles me?
What is trying to snuff out my Christian life?
Greg Boyd wrote a book called, “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.” I thought this book might interest you, as it perks my ears. I have not read it, nor will I carve out time in the near future to read it. However, you may want to pick it up, it should be worthwhile. Let me wet your appetite with this quote from the book:
“I believe a significant segment of American evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. To a frightful degree, I think, evangelicals fuse the kingdom of God with a preferred version of the kingdom of the world…For some evangelicals, the kingdom of God is largely about, if not centered on, ‘taking America back for God,’ voting for the Christian candidate, outlawing abortion, outlawing gay marriage, winning the culture war, defending political freedom at home and abroad, keeping the phrase ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance, fighting for prayer in the public schools and at public events, and fighting to display the Ten Commandments in government buildings…Fusing together the kingdom of God with…the kingdom of the world is idolatrous…This fusion is having serious consequences for Christ’s church and for the advancement of God’s kingdom.” (p. 11)
My thoughts of 21st century Christianity…or whatever it is we find ourselves in:
Vanilla gets associated with a lot of things besides being an ice cream flavor. Vanilla sometimes means bland, boring, or the most commonly chosen option. Well today I’m going to tell you why nothing beats good old trusty, sturdy, always reliable vanilla. But I’m going to do it within an analogy of the explosion of ministry methods in our current times. So get your ice cream scoop, and your mental taste buds ready.
Vanilla ice cream used to be one of the only options. Chocolate and strawberry came along to hug vanilla in Neapolitan ice cream. Now there’s any conceivable ice cream flavor imaginable. Some of which don’t sound too appealing. It’s pretty much akin to my asking for a booger jelly belly blizzard mixed with peppermint ice cream. So suffice it to say, more flavors, combinations, and options doesn’t always lead to better ice cream. Likewise, our creative and imaginative juices in rethinking ministry, it’s tools, techniques, methodology, and philosophy doesn’t always lead to better ministry.
I want my vanilla! My root beer floats, banana splits, malts, shakes, and my pie all demand for vanilla ice cream. Hmmm, yummy. Some new fangled ice cream flavor would absolutely destroy my root beer float! Arrgh, how depressing would that be! Likewise cutesy ministry has the potential to destroy Jesus.
Jesus is my vanilla. Vanilla is the pillar, standard and measuring stick in the ice cream world. Jesus is the pillar in the ministry world. It seems at times merry-go-round discussions of organic, emergent, house, and 1st century church models leaves me puking up my totally good vanilla ice cream. Dude, that was my vanilla ice cream I threw up with some side tangent, peripheral, lack of focus, non-issue issue, never ending merry-go-round and round ramblings. High church, low church, suits or shorts, choir robes or charismatic tambourines, organ or guitar and drums, smells and bells, liturgy or no liturgy, I don’t care. Jesus wants to be preached. Jesus needs to be preached. Preach Jesus with passion and the vanilla is honored.
Now, as a concluding remark. Do I ever push the ministry envelope and try new things? Of course, and I want to do it sooo much more! But I always want to honor and rest on that tasty vanilla bedrock foundation. But I ask you this deep deep question. What would a malt or shake be without whipped cream and a cherry on top?! Not as good for one thing! So keep preaching the vanilla timeless base with “priority Jesus,” but feel free to add your own decorative and stylistic toppings.
I remember a common denominator across most students’ testimonies when I was in college. When students spoke of their conversion experience they often spoke of their being content. They said they had this peace now, like they had arrived, that their life was in balance, that they found a purpose, and they had this restfulness about themselves now. For whatever reason, I’m not sure why, but many threw in that “their life wasn’t perfect now, they still struggled and had trials, but that it was far better.”
My initial serious flurry reading of God’s Word, which I most often speak of a “testimony” type of experience in my life did not include this contentment idea or ease with the Christian lifestyle as my classmates described it. Yes, I had peace about certain aspects in my relationship with God. But I certainly could not identify with the totality of their “contentment” idea. In fact, I experienced as a college student, and continue to experience quite the opposite.
My experience of holy discontentment contains the following features:
1) Peace, what peace?! My eyes are opened to the fact that I’m a terrible sinner. That’s more than slightly disturbing!
2) My life is not more in balance after coming to Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the center. But, this God-man certainly does an awfully good job in repeatedly turning my small world upside down to keep me off balance. I’m constantly scrambling to recenter myself on the Rock.
3) No need for me to make a disclaimer that “I still struggled and have trials.” I think that’s pretty obviously that I’m in a Romans 7 battle everyday of my existence. And boy, is it ever a battle!
4) To increase in hunger and intensity in pursuit of the Lord.
To summarize, I remember my initial reading of the gospels to be Jesus calling me to a radical paradigm shift. That did not equal peace and contentment, that equaled me being shook up with sleepless nights. I heard the constant ringing in my ear of Jesus saying, “Come, follow me,” and me frozen with fear. I was a wreck at the gravity of living as a “called out one.”
We were created to pursue Jesus. We were also created for joy. But have taken a wrong turn as we think about these two ideas in tandem. Our pursuit of Jesus is supposed to intersect our pursuit of joy. This intersection is to mesh into a singular idea, namely, to find joy in pursuing Jesus. However, these two paths have diverted and now they are as far from each other as one could ever possibly imagine.
The ideas of joy and the ideas associated with pursuing Jesus and Christianity in general are grievously held by many to be two radical different things. Our thinking is so far out of whack that Christianity has become duty driven. “What?!,” you say totally caught by surprise. “Christianity in my experience has always been duty driven!” I know it has, but it was never intended to be this way.
Many hold an affinity to the idea of duty driven Christianity. It was what they were brought up with, and for many older people it’s still the idea they maintain because it’s been pounded into them since birth. Unfortunately the idea of duty driven Christianity is an absolutely bankrupt idea. In fact, it is a complete offense to God, and God in no way honors such an approach to Himself.
Instead of a duty driven pursuit of Jesus we are to have a joy driven pursuit of Jesus. If I present Jesus about as grand and glorious as having to clean my room I have destroyed the gospel. It is a terribly sad, terribly grievous, and terribly sinful way to misrepresent Jesus to others.
So today, I say, “Come to Jesus, it’s not at all like cleaning your room! He’s come to give you life, and life abundantly, and joy too, tremendous joy! But not like the world understands joy, conjuring up ideas of fun, pleasure, or entertainment, it’s an otherworldly mind blowing kind of joy. It’s the joy for which you were created. It’s the kind of joy that can only be found in pursuing Jesus.”
Here are some of my current thoughts of the Christian life in general…
On Evangelism:
To see a revitalization of baby Christian exuberance and passion from older Christians (my prayer for myself).
To share the joy we have in Christ with others is one of the most powerful witnessing tools.
Do I make Jesus look glorious, or do I make Christianity look stale?
On Faith:
To have a paradigm shifting kind of faith.
To have a faith worth remarking about.
To have a faith which the world is struck by and doesn’t understand because it’s profoundly not of this world.
How must I budget my time differently so I can sit at my Master’s feet more to learn, cultivate, and experience a consuming faith?
God has been challenging me to read Hosea feeling the weight of Hosea. I must say up front, I’m doing quite a miserable job at it. It is a monumental task. But regardless of my not catching most of God’s attempt to make me feel the weight of being in Hosea’s shoes, the part that I do catch is still powerful.
21st century U.S. is in Hosea 4. Most can see it, and see it quite plainly one could argue. But God’s asking me to see it in a new way. To see it and be moved by it. To see it and be stirred by the reality of the situation we found ourselves in. To see where my life really intersects the ultimate reality of the grand metanarrative of God’s story. To see where our culture is amusing ourselves to death with meaningless entertainment.
I’m challenged to feel Hosea 4. To feel our 21st century lostness for what it is. I find myself as part of the confusion. I have no categories for such burden, weight, or the power of this reality check.
Treasure Christ. This is my desire for you whatever your age. If you are a student, this is my desire for you. If you are a senior citizen, this is my desire for you. If you go to church on Sundays, this is my desire for you. If you stay home and never go to church, this is my desire for you. I desire that we move beyond the idea of believing in Jesus and pursue the idea of treasuring Jesus.
Digging deeper I’ll explain the idea treasuring and how in our society today it tends to reach beyond the idea of believing. First, let’s start with the idea of belief. The idea of belief in our world has become stripped of meaning. (This same idea of stripping words of meaning was happening 2,000 years ago as James articulated the misunderstanding that was occurring between faith and works, James 2:14). On Sunday mornings I feel pastors labor at restoring belief to its proper definition with mixed results. The word, belief, intended to be rich in meaning has shriveled to exclude ideas of action and love in many people’s minds. To help combat this problem, I would like to add supporting words like “treasuring” to help regain a biblical concept of belief.
Statistics report that 70-80% of students “lose their faith” when they make the transition from high school into their first years of college. This gives me fits when I think about how to build a healthy youth ministry at my current church. I try to help students find their footing grounded in Jesus as they try to make sense of the world that is wildly spinning out of control. To do this I like to think of the idea of treasuring Jesus as a compass for what I’m doing. Some of my compass questions follow. Am I teaching students to treasure Jesus? Are they compartmentalizing what they believe in from what they treasure? Am I displaying Jesus as infinitely precious in my life? Do they know that Christianity is about cherishing and savoring Jesus? Is their delight in Jesus and does their soul leap for Jesus?” These are questions that cut to the heart of the matter. These are questions that I think Jesus would ask.
I now conclude inviting you to take a final step with me. As the reader of this post I want to ask you to be bold enough to personalize these compass questions for yourself. Test yourself to see if your notion of belief is robust to include the idea of treasuring Jesus and displaying him as supreme in your life. May Jesus regain reign in our hearts when we permit him a voice to ask tough questions of our soul.
May Jesus be displayed as glorious in our humility and brokenness.
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