• Archive of "stories" Category

    Evangelism as the Sharing of Ache and Hope

    August 14, 2010 // No Comments »

    I love it when objects of two different worlds come colliding together.  Think “Say Anything,” “Bringing Down the House,” or “The Toy.”

    In each instance people who have virtually nothing in common are thrust into one another’s lives creating the opportunity for, to borrow a phrase from my friend Geoff, “generative tension.”

    This happened in my life recently.

    To the list of ‘socially awkward misfit meets valedictorian,’ ‘lawyer meets convict,’ and ‘poor black adult meets rich white kid,’ I can now add, Dan Allender meets Eminem.

    A few days ago I began listening to a series of talks offered by Dan Allender, a Christian counselor, author, speaker, and the President of Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, WA.

    In one of his talks, he offered this little nugget,

    Evangelism is essentially sharing our stories long enough to discover a common ache and a common hope.

    Now, as my friend Annie pointed out in a conversation about this sentiment, it doesn’t capture the full scope of what might qualify as evangelism (and I don’t think that was Dan’s intention anyway).  However, I do think it pushes us to a place of realization that, inasmuch as Jesus was God’s way of entering into the story of humanity’s deep aches and fulfilling its greatest hopes, we are called to do the same for others.

    Somewhere in the course of listening to these talks, I came across a new music video by Eminem featuring Rihanna entitled, “Love the Way You Lie.” (ht: Jonathan Brink)

    I’ll embed it below, but let me offer 2 things first, a disclaimer and a reflection.

    Disclaimer: The video contains language and imagery that some might find objectionable.  If you can’t get past that, please do us both a favor and skip it.  I’ll say this though, the language and imagery is far from gratuitous.  I think it is used appropriately and poignantly to convey the weight of the issue.

    Reflection:  The song and video tell the story of a couple who quite transparently have deep aches and deep hopes.  The tragic irony of the situation is that they are trying to come to terms with both through a violent and endless cycle of love and hate, truth and lies.

    I think the reason that I like this quote from Allender so much is that it asks us to be come alongside people as guides as opposed to stand at a distance and offer directions.  There is this great tendency we have to get so focused on telling people that they need to arrive at a particular destination that we completely neglect the more important matter of identifying the “You are here” spot at which they stand.  Directions, after all, are of little use unless you know where you’re starting from.

    The last observation I’ll make as a result of the generative tension between Allender’s quote and Eminem’s video is that without the right direction, we create our own personal hells – something that is visually captured at the end of this clip.  As people of ache and hope, when we try to alleviate our aches and fulfill our hopes in ways that God never intended, we suffer.  All the more reason for those of us who have been met by God at the point of our ache and who place our hope in God’s salvific work in the world through Christ to listen to the stories of others as we share ours and allow God to do that same work all over again.

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    Posted in God, Jesus, evangelism, hell, salvation, stories, truth, video

    San Francisco, Strangers, and Stories: Part 2

    June 22, 2010 // 4 Comments »

    I ended my previous post about Amy’s and my trip to San Francisco by saying that one of the highlights for me was seeing Wicked for the first time on account of its similarity to my favorite recent TV series, LOST.

    The connection I want to make is well articulated in the quote,

    Strangers and enemies are merely people whose stories we haven’t heard yet.

    We saw this at play in LOST inasmuch as our assumptions and assessments about the nature of the main characters were subverted over the course of getting to know their history and background.  Let’s face it, it’s just way harder to be so critical of Sawyer once you learn that someone was responsible for conning his mother out of money resulting in his father killing her and then himself right in front of him.

    Similarly, in Wicked, we are given a story behind the relationship between the “good” witch and the “bad” witch from the Wizard of Oz.  We learn that the “good” witch was actually a fairly empty-headed, spoiled brat who always got her way and was extremely judgmental.  At the same time, we learn that the “bad” witch was a product of years of scorn and ridicule from her father and peers.  Not only did she blame herself for her mother’s death, but she was extremely mindful and caring toward her invalid sister.

    Let’s be honest, life is easier when we pretend that we can engage it in black and white.  Truth be told, our need to control life in this way is probably directly related to our own fears and inadequacies.

    It is when we lack contentment in who we are in Christ, that we default to judging others so that we can feel better about who we are.

    … I am more valuable than him because I work hard and he’s a lazy bum.

    … I am nicer than her because I saw how rude she was to the bank teller.

    … We are a more devoted family than them because they are constantly missing church services.

    Little do we know that…

    … he was born addicted to crack and never had the sort of love and support it takes to help someone to recover from that sort of disability.

    … she just found out that her 2 year old son was diagnosed with Lukemia and their family is uninsured.

    … as a family, they are trying to spend time with their neighbors who think Jesus is a joke.

    Stories change everything.

    Identifying with others by entering into their stories is risky because we almost always discover that we have more in common with the people that we would just assume distance ourselves from as strangers and enemies that we’d like to admit.

    So here’s the challenge before you you and I today (and for the rest of our lives!) – to risk entering into the pain and uncertainly of the stories of the people we consider strangers and enemies that we might identify with them as Christ entered into the story of humanity and identified with it – such is the nature and meaning of incarnational ministry and witness.

    I will never be able to watch The Wizard of Oz with as much innocence as I once did. And regardless of what you and I thought about the conclusion of LOST as a television series, there is something profound about this notion of our salvation being bound up with our willingness to truly know and be known by others, especially those we are most unlike us.

    Stories change everything.

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    Posted in salvation, stories, travles, urban

    San Francisco, Strangers, and Stories: Part 1

    June 11, 2010 // 1 Comment »

    A wedding between our friends Matt and Brianna last weekend gave Amy and I the opportunity to take our first trip to San Francisco.

    The wedding was held at the Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill and was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever attended.

    Thursday and Saturday we stayed in Gilroy, just south of Morgan Hill and apparently the “Garlic Capital of the World.”  Sounded pretty ridiculous to me until we drove into Gilroy and all we could smell was garlic – seriously!

    After the mandatory trip to In-N-Out…

    We of course felt compelled to visit the Garlic Shoppe.

    Amy was even brave enough to taste the Chocolate-Garlic Ice ream.

    We spent Sunday with our friend Jeanelle seeing some of the sights around the city of San Francisco including Hyde St. Pier, Ghiradelli Square, Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and the adjacent beach.  We also took the perfunctory trip across the Golden Gate Bridge.

    Sunday evening, Amy and I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum in the Union Square district of downtown.

    ~~ Lots more pictures here and videos here

    Now, Amy is a musical buff, she’s seen em all (multiple times in many cases!) but this was my first time seeing Wicked and I loved it.  It was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Why? Because Wicked bore a striking resemblance to one of my favorite TV series’ of all time, LOST. Let me offer a quote I heard recently as a prelude to my explanation of that observation.

    “Strangers and enemies are merely people whose stories we haven’t heard yet.”

    More on that in my next post.

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    Posted in stories, travles, urban, wedding

    Attractional/Missional: From Pragmatics to Formation

    December 18, 2008 // 8 Comments »

    Beginning with Dan Kimball’s “Missional Misgivings,” there has been a recent flurry of discussion over the whole missional/attractional thing in the blog-o-sphere.  Responses by Hirsch here, Cole here, Fitch here.

    A good bit of what is being said in response to the topic (much by patently reformed folks) has to do with “cultural appropriateness.”  Some seem to be suggesting that the seeker-sensitive/mega-church model of the church was a culturally appropriate model within Christendom and in a modern framework.  By implication, this would then be the preferred model of church for areas which still fit this description.  There is also an addition to the discussion pertaining to models for preaching and gathering.  Again, the argument seems to be that we need to allow the culture to determine the right model.  I submit that this the wrong approach to this discussion.  It may appear to be an incarnational approach, but it is anything but.

    My friend Sam reminded me of a quote by Lesslie Newbigin recently,

    …if we begin with culture we are never taken back to gospel, if we begin with gospel, we ourselves are transformed and enter into culture to put flesh on the gospel.

    This is the way we need to understand what it means to be incarnational – gospeling a culture, not culturizing the gospel.

    The primary question church leaders need to always be asking is not, “What is the culturally appropriate way to be the church?” but “What is the most formational way to be the church?” The first question lends itself to our ingrained consumeristic tendencies and begets attractional churches; the second invites us to consider a different goal altogether and serves to cultivate missional communities.

    We ought to always do what we do as the church specifically because it helps people to become more like Jesus. Willowcreek was probably the best example ever of a church that did everything right in terms of cultural appropriateness only to announce to the world how horribly they had failed to actually help people become disciples (my thoughts on their REVEAL study here and Fitch’s here).

    I hope this makes sense.  It is not my intention to question the motives and hearts of my well-intentioned brothers and sisters, but I beleive this to be a pivotal conversation for the future of the Church in the West and when the questions we seem to be asking have more to do with cultural pragmatics than faithful formation, I get nervous.

    Let me end with a quick story.  I recently attended a church planting conference where a supposedly “missional” church planter told those in attendance,

    …the south is home to some of the greatest preachers in the world.  If you are not a great preacher or teacher, you have no business trying to plant a church in the south.

    I can’t even dream up a better illustration of what it means to so completely miss the point of everything missional is about.  For this guy, it’s the culture, not the gospel that determines what you do, how you do it, and who exactly it is that does it.  I just don’t think this is the best way forward for us.

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    Posted in Jesus, christendom, church, conference, consumerism, corporate worship, culture, discipleship, gospel, missional, modernity, preaching/teaching, questions, spiritual formation, stories, western culture

    No Conviction

    October 8, 2008 // 2 Comments »

    I have a hundred things in my head to write about, but no time, it would seem, to get them down.  So, in the midst of my own blogging silence, please enjoy a penetrating parable from a favorite theologian/pastor/author of mine, Peter Rollins.

    The following parable will be included in my forthcoming book The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales (March 2009). A compilation of 33 parables and commentaries. This parable is called, ‘No conviction’,

    In a world where following Christ is decreed to be a subversive and illegal activity you have been accused of being a believer, arrested and dragged before a court.

    You have been under clandestine surveillance for some time now and so the prosecution has been able to build up quite a case against you. They begin the trial by offering the judge dozens of photographs which show you attending church meetings, speaking at religious events, and participating in various prayer and worship services. After this they present a selection of items that have been confiscated from your home: religious books that you own, worship CDs and other Christian artefacts. Then they step up the pace by displaying many of the poems, pieces of prose, and journal entries that you had lovingly written concerning your faith. Finally, in closing, the prosecution offers your Bible to the judge. This is a well-worn book with scribbles, notes, drawings, and underlings throughout, evidence, if it were needed, that you had read and re-read this sacred text many times.

    Throughout the case you have been sitting silently in fear and trembling. You know deep in your heart that with the large body of evidence that has been amassed by the prosecution you face the possibility of a long imprisonment or even execution. At various times throughout the proceedings you have lost all confidence and have been on the verge of standing up and denying Christ. But while this thought has plagued your mind throughout the trial, you resist the temptation and remain focused.

    Once the prosecution has finished presenting their case the judge proceeds to ask if you have anything to add, but you remain silent and resolute, terrified that if you open your mouth, even for a moment, you might deny the charges made against you. Like Christ, you remain silent before your accusers. In response you are led outside to wait as the judge ponders your case.

    The hours pass slowly as you sit under guard in the foyer waiting to be summoned back. Eventually a young man in uniform appears and leads you into the courtroom so that you may hear the verdict and receive word of your punishment. Once seated in the dock the judge, a harsh and unyielding man, enters the room, stands before you, looks deep into your eyes and begins to speak,

    “Of the charges that have been brought forward I find the accused not guilty.”

    “Not guilty?” your heart freezes. Then, in a split second, the fear and terror that had moments before threatened to strip your resolve are swallowed up by confusion and rage.

    Despite the surroundings, you stand defiantly before the judge and demand that he give an account concerning why you are innocent of the charges in light of the evidence.

    “What evidence?” he replies in shock.

    “What about the poems and prose that I wrote?” you reply.

    “They simply show that you think of yourself as a poet, nothing more.”

    “But what about the services I spoke at, the times I wept in church and the long, sleepless nights of prayer?”

    “Evidence that you are a good speaker and actor, nothing more.” replied the judge, “It is obvious that you deluded those around you, and perhaps at times you even deluded yourself, but this foolishness is not enough to convict you in a court of law.”

    “But this is madness!” you shout. “It would seem that no evidence would convince you!”

    “Not so,” replies the judge as if informing you of a great, long forgotten secret.

    “The court is indifferent toward your Bible reading and church attendance; it has no concern for worship with words and a pen. Continue to develop your theology, and use it to paint pictures of love. We have no interest in such armchair artists who spend their time creating images of a better world. We exist only for those who would lay down that brush, and their life, in a Christ-like endeavor to create it. So, until you live as Christ and his followers, until you challenge this system and become a thorn in our side, until you die to yourself and offer your body to the flames, until then my friend, you are no enemy of ours.”

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    Posted in stories, theology

    From faith (as an idea) to Faith (as a way of life)

    June 2, 2008 // 2 Comments »

    This past Sunday I had my first opportunity to address the Living Hope community. I must have had a thousand different thoughts on what to share. Ultimately, I really wanted to share some of my story and highlight something that I found relevant for where we’re at as a community of faith.

    What I decided on was the way in which God used grad school to change me from someone who placed their faith primarily in a system of belief, to someone who tried to practice faith as a way of life and to put my trust in God as one who could never be contained or exhausted by my ideas or beliefs.

    We looked at the Exodus story and the way in which even after being rescued and redeemed by God, the people of Israel wanted to relate to God from a distance, wanted to avoid the fear and unknown of continuing to follow God, and opted to worship a idol created by their own hands rather than worship the living God by living in the way he had directed them.

    These were all reactions I was tempted to embrace during some of the tumultuous times of grad school and more importantly, reactions which I often fear the average church in the United States facilitates.  To be a church which refuses to allow for a two-tiered model of discipleship (leaders and the rest of us), which constantly asks, “what’s the next fearful and risky adventure God is calling us into,” and is more concerned with passing on a way of life than a system of belief, doesn’t exactly lend itself to our individualistic, consumer-driven, instant-gratification-seeking, culture.  Yet, this exactly the sort of future I hope for our community.

    Over and above merely having the opportunity to share my story and what was on my heart and mind, I also enjoyed being able to invite some friends to participate in the service along with me.  Liz led a responsive reading, and Mike and Zach led the congregation into the Exodus story, by reading Scripture.  I shared an excellent quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that my friend Eric reminded me of, and offered our community some questions to stew on as we concluded.

    Anywho, it was a great time.  Thanks Living Hope for being awesome.

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    Posted in Fuller Seminary, living hope, preaching/teaching, questions, quotes, sermon, stories

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