lifeasmission
exploring the mystery of life and mission as one and the same
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Archive of "love" Category
A Life Narrated by Love
The life I live is one narrated by Love.
The other day I was looking for something and when I couldn’t find it where it should have been, I was forced to consult “the box.”You know “the box” right? It’s where you have stashed your odds and ends for years upon years. You have no real idea what all is in there, but you also know equally well that there is no chance you would ever throw that box away!
As I worked through the contents of the box, I was moved to tears. I found collections of letters, notes, cards, and pictures that I had all but forgotten.
A soccer ball that all my players signed for me when I coached.
A scrap of paper with simple words of encouragement that a good friend tucked in my bag right before I boarded a plane to embark on one of the hardest journeys of my life.
Letters from students with words of love and affirmation from my days as a student pastor.
Today is my 31st birthday – the first that I celebrate with the woman who vowed to love me for the rest of my life. And if the last 8 months are any kind of gauge, the rest of my life is looking pretty great!
As I stop to think about how I have been loved for the last 30 years, how I am loved now, and how I may yet be loved in the future by people (and, Lord willing, children) that I don’t even know yet, I am overwhelmed with inexpressible joy and gratitude.
May I have the courage to love others as I have been loved – to help narrate the lives of others with the sort of Love that has characterized mine.
Truth & Love
Just got done listening to Father Richard Rohr on the Homebrewed Christianity podcast (itunes link).
He said two of the greatest things I think I’ve ever heard..
The first isn’t original to him.
Truth is so needed at this point in history that it can only be entrusted to people of love.
The second is a direct quote.
I’m not trying to promote relativistic thinking; in fact, just the opposite. I’m all for the journey toward truth, but too many people’s truth comes too soon, too quick, and it’s too filled with them.
I wonder if we can even conceive of an expression of Christian faith where Christ-like love and spiritual maturity are understood as basic prerequisites for the handling of truth?
1 More Week & Then I’m Free
This is my last week as a single guy. Come Sunday, I’m a married man and I couldn’t possibly be more excited about it.
Handicapped by a devastating view of what freedom is really all about, marriage is often portrayed as the end of freedom – think Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, etc. Here’s 3 reasons why, in opposition to that sort of notion, I am so excited to get married that all have to do with a new freedom I am about to embrace.
1) I don’t have any regrets from my season of singleness so I am free to embrace the adventure of marriage. I embraced, celebrated, and enjoyed my singleness. Happily, I had good friends and mentors who taught me that singleness is a gift and should be treated as such as long as God grants it. Shame on our culture (especially any Christian culture) for making people feel inferior for being single for as long they are able to embrace it as a gift. Spend your single years pining away for a companion and you are all but destined to struggle with being married.
2) I don’t have to play the dating game anymore anymore so I am free to pursue God in the context of a covenanted relationship. I can’t count the number of couples that have spoken of marriage as a context which brought them face to face with their own selfishness and shortcomings like never before. With all the guessing, ambiguity and semi-commitment of dating, this just doesn’t happen. Again, fortunate enough to have come across people and books that dispelled lies about the purpose and aim of marriage, I am anxious to embrace marriage as a crucible toward Christlikeness.
3) Amy is not “The One” or “Mrs. Right” (since these only exist in fairy tale land), so I am free to never ask ridiculous questions like, “Did I marry the right person?” Don’t you love how freeing that is?! The ability and opportunity trade in a cheap and shallow freedom along the lines of, “Well if this isn’t working I can always just bite the bullet and admit that I made the wrong decision,” for the true freedom of moving forward in the context of vows made and kept, is priceless to me.
And though it doesn’t pertain exactly to freedom, it’s nonetheless true that a big part of my excitement has much to do with the incredible woman who said, “Yes.” To partner in life and ministry with Amy from here on out is the single most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.
Amy G. Drops the F-Bomb!
That’s right – just the other day, for the first time ever, Amy G., dropped the F-Bomb, and in reference to me no less! The F-Bomb of course being, “fiance!”
Amy and I got engaged this past Friday night, and in just 5 minutes and 30 seconds, you can hear the whole story in the video below!
Of course we welcome your congratulations in the comment section, but we are also taking our time to think creatively, imaginatively, and theologically about all the details between now and the honeymoon. So if you have any ideas, thoughts, resources, links, stories or whatever to contribute, please, please, let us know. No, we don’t know the date yet. Yes, we will have more updates as stuff gets decided on.
Consuming Jesus
I have been looking forward to reading Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church by Paul Metzger for some time. For the sake of an alternative context and experience, I was even more excited to read the bulk of it amidst my time in Africa and its deep seeded tribalism.
In Metzger’s words, his aim is to…
confront the ways evangelical-consumer or niche-church Christianity fosters racial and economic divisions, and I wish to offer an alternative theological paradigm to the one that is often embraced in the evangelical subculture. (11)
In my words, this alternative theological paradigm comes only by way of rejecting the version of the gospel which has led to a consumer-oriented faith/church and embracing one that prophetically strikes at the very heart of that reality.
In John Perkins’ words,
The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God and to each other. A gospel that doesn’t reconcile is not a Christian gospel at all. But in America it seems as if we don’t believe that. We don’t really beleive that the proof of our discipleship is that we love one another.” (9)
I love that Perkins understands the gospel by what it does. Like love, the gospel takes on its true nature only when it is enacted.
In the beginning of the book. Metzger insightfully traces the various streams, characters, and events which have so vitally contributed to the dominant expression of Christianity in America. From here, he probes into the ways in which “the dominant structure of the evangelical church today favors, fosters, and shapes its structures around the key ingredient of individual choice…” (79) Key to understanding this tendency is his discussion of the popularization of the Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) by Donald McGavran as a method for church growth. The remainder of the book features insightful biblical and cultural reflections, helpful examples and a sustained discussion on the vitality of Scripture and sacraments for the formation of communities of reconciliation across racial and class boundaries.
Of Scripture, Metzger says…
We must move people with God’s word on Sunday mornings to move beyond their addictions to race and class affinity groups. Authentic witness to Jesus is at stake, and we must stake our lives on it. (117)
– a quick aside here: just as the goodness of the gospel lies in what it does, so too the sermon is only good inasmuch as it results in changed lives. Don’t ever tell a preacher his or her message was good unless you are prepared to also tell them how it resulted in your changed life
And I love that he includes Marva Dawn’s words on the Lord’s Supper…
How can we share the eschatological feast if we don’t participate in displaying God’s future, in which all will be equally fed and we will all join together in universal praise? It seems to be that if we eat the body and blood of Christ in expensive churches without care for the hungry, the sacrament is no longer a foretaste of the feast to come, but a trivialized picnic to which not everyone is invited.
The end of the book is the author’s attempt to move into a discussion of partnerships amongst churches across racial and socio-economic lines. His desire is for the church to…
re-envision its understanding of communal identity in view of its communal and co-missional God as involving solidarity with society at large…. This will entail a radical break from the dominant American individualistic mindset that keeps us separate from others. It will require that we lay down our lives and die for our enemies rather than try to take back America from them. (149)
I found this to be a fantastic book. A bit narrow at places where I though the discussion (at least by way of footnotes) should have been expanded, but definitely a much needed message for the American church. I suppose the big question I am let with is how to think about local congregations that are seeking to incarnate themselves in places that are intrinsically homogeneous. If anyone wants to weigh in, please feel free, I’d enjoy the discussion.
Lots of People in Hell Have Perfect Doctrine
I was listening the other day to a message given by a teaching pastor that I respect. He was teaching on baptism, specifically whether or not aspiring members needed to share the official doctrinal stance of the church before being accepted as members. Rather than addressing that question directly, he decided to take a round-about approach.
He spoke of how important it is for the church to create a
relational culture…that is more intentionally and radically servant-like, other-oriented, thoughtful, outgoing, humble, thankful, aggressively concerned and caring, moving into the lives of others rather than moving away from them, committed to the hard work and sweet rewards of loving other people in the church.
He drew these characteristics from Colossians 3:12-17. And his point was essentially this; it is in this sort of context that wisdom flourishes and when wisdom flourishes we can hope to come to agreement about baptism.
And here was my first thought. If you have successfully created a relational culture of the sort mentioned above, who in the heck cares if you are in agreement about baptism?!
Do you see what I mean here? It’s like finding ways to mutually inspire love, affection, connection, commitment, and excitement in marriage and then, when you do, thinking that it would be a good idea to talk about how you define love. Who cares how you define it if you ‘re already both experiencing it? In fact, defining it might be the most sure-fire way to kill it as you nit-pick at nuanced differences.
I am not in the least bit saying that there is no connection whatsoever between doctrine (what we say we believe) and praxis (how we live). I am just saying that if you are living out a faithful Christian witness and example where God is glorified, your doctrinal stances matter very little.
Another problem. At another point the pastor said,
As a member of this church, you can be wrong on election, wrong on the power of sin, wrong on the extent of atonement, wrong on the power of grace, wrong on perseverance, and wrong on the sovereignty of God… [but you can still be a member]
Man, I chafe under this sort of mentality. “We, as the pastors and elders, have all the important doctrinal stuff worked out, and you don’t have to agree with us to be a member here, but this is the way it is, and we will pray for you to come around.” I can imagine nothing more inhibitory to what Chritian community is all about than this sort of mindset. How is the church supposed to listen to the Holy Spirit and fall in love with God through Scripture together if it’s a 1-way street?
I seriously pray for myself that I would always be more passioante about God than my limited ability to understand and articulate God.
Hi There…
Hey, I'm JR - welcome to the blog.
I'm just an average guy trying to shape his identity around God's dream for the world and his place in it. This blog is a place for me (and you!) to reflect on and discuss all that might mean. Looking for a bit more on me? Check out the about me. Peace.
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