Testing - Do Not Disturb

My favorite theology professor from Southern Seminary, Dr. Russell Moore says, "To experience spiritual growth, read the opposite of your tendency. Doers should try reading theology and prayers, while Thinkers should try reading evangelism and service." To grow, it helps to place yourself in challenging positions that test your faith. Too often I just want to jump into fertile soil and live it up. But sometimes I need to revisit that rocky back yard of faith, be handed a jackhammer, and remember what it is like to chisel my way slowly to God.

Yet, probably the greatest challenge to spiritual growth is coming from within the Body of believers. Pastors or leaders have been attempting to unify communities around doctrine for centuries. Constantine sort of made this popular. In this culture, there is a tendency to be more about our beliefs than we are our faith. The difference simply being, we can argue each other’s beliefs but not each other’s faith. Yet, too often, the mark of spiritual growth or maturity in today’s Evangelical Christian culture is determined by a person’s rote memory skills pertaining to specific doctrine. And you can be really impressive, the better you are able to regurgitate the popular literature. Not much has changed really since Constantine.

We live in a day where we have more choices and less time, and our tendency of discipleship is often reduced to racing around, consuming anything with a “Christian” label without ever asking questions that matter.

Have you ever heard a spiritual leader say something like, “I don’t care what other pastor’s believe, what I am sharing with you is the truth.” What ever follows that statement should probably be run through a "bull crap" filter, because if you think about it, this is a set up for division and faction forming. Far from being Kingdom minded language, it’s called indoctrination. Or as some cult leaders are known for, Brainwashing.

This is only compounded if you are in a “Literalist” culture that doesn’t allow you to think or ask questions. Then you have to buy into whatever comes from the mouth of the appointed. We should follow our Rabbis, but we should also have the freedom to challenge them as well. We were designed to ask questions. Sadly, for the literalist, in many cases, a question is often interpreted only as a threat.

Another statement that gets tossed around in Christian circles is, “I believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.” Those who need a literal interpretation need not be concerned with thinking. If we come at the Bible with a filter that says, everything written within is literal then it does away with the need for any questions. The object of faith is truly at odds with a literal interpretation of scripture. How you ask? Your faith is not the sum of all that you can memorize from a literal table.

One of my favorite movie scenes is when Forrest Gump is in boot camp, and the Drill Sergeant asks, “Gump, what is your mission in my Army?”
Gump replies, “To do whatever you say Drill Sergeant?!?!”
You could say this illustrates that military life is a “literal” life. It is an easy life. You don’t have to think about a lot of things. Your uniform, when to eat, what to say, who to shoot at. You sure don’t need to be asking a bunch of questions. Just do what your told and everything runs smoothly. The literal filter of life says loud and proud, “I will do whatever you say Drill Sergeant!” “I will align myself with the rest of the company.”

If questions weren’t allowed, then why do we see so much of it in the Bible? Even God during the fall of man asks, “Where are you?” I think it’s quite possible He is still asking this question.

Now, I believe the Bible to be infallible, but our interpretations are not. Jesus once said, “If your right eye offend thee, pluck it out… or if you hand offend thee, cut it off.” Obviously, and I am grateful for this, Jesus was not meaning for these particular words to be taken literally. If that were the case, the entire human race would be disabled, Christian or not.

Yet, where in Holy Scripture does it say that our ability to quote or articulate a particular set of doctrine with verses to support it is a testimony of our maturity in the faith? My strongly held belief that Jesus only borrowed a tomb is not proof that He lives today. Rather, my life being changed is testimony of an empty tomb.

Doctrine truly is a gift from God, and the ability to articulate our beliefs, a treasure. A wise and crazy pastor once asked, “Is Jesus still bigger than your theology?” The ivory tower of exegesis is truly a great place to hang out, but maybe not the best place to live. Because the tower is safe, clean, and protected.

Another wise pastor friend of mine, Dr. Mark B. Hale of Bowling Green, KY has often said, “A faith not tested, can’t be trusted.” Growth is found in the battles for your heart. Growth is discovered when we stop saying, “That’s just the way I am”, and begin to allow Jesus to define the way He see us. Growth is found in the questions that we are truly invited to ask. It is found in relationships, because there’s not a single one that isn’t messy. It's found in the stretching of everything you may have once believed strongly. Growth is found when we stop running for shelter in what we believe about Jesus, and begin to lean on Him again. You can start by finding that person you really can't stand, and love the hell out of them.
Shalom.

A Pastor's Lesson

During a challenging time in ministry, while I was serving an older established church, I received some advice from two pastors who did not know each other, but knew me and the challenge I was faced with. Their advice is as valuable today as it was fifteen years ago, when I first heard it.

One Pastor friend told me, "The Shepherd never puts his ear down asking the sheep which way to go."
My other Pastor friend said, "The Shepherd never butts heads with his sheep."

The last fifteen years of ministry has been in part, me finding the balance that rests between the two.

Whether a leader in a church, community group, or business, may you discover a balanced relationship with those who have been placed along side you. And that's something you can bet on. Happy Derby Eve.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

I hear from people all the time, "I feel like there is something I am supposed to do, but I don't know what it is."
If you are feeling that way, be foolish. Do the very thing you feel in your gut, and know that God put that gut there for a reason.

If I had based my ministry or my walk of faith on what everyone told me was the proper way, I wouldn't have found the way that was meant for me. I would have missed the calling set aside for me.

Everything else is telling you to align yourself with the status quo. Most people give their life to the status quo. This is about your soul coming to life. Every voice in your head from the past, is telling you right now to stop reading. Go ahead. Be foolish and read the rest. More importantly, be foolish and read your gut.

The following is some excerpts from a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University given by Steve Jobs. In spite of Steve dropping out of Reed College after six months he now works as the CEO of Apple and Pixar. He chose to follow his intuition. I'm sharing this in hopes that you may begin to follow yours. Enjoy.


"I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you."

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Pill Bug Doctrine

I received a text from my friend, (we will call him Carl), saying a woman told him rudely he needed to “get in a doctrinal church.” He asked me what she meant. I think he should have asked her. Instead, replied that apparently doctrine was really important to the lady, and that she thought it was the most important thing for him to be connected to. And apparently she didn’t approve of the church he was a part of either.

By definition, Christian doctrine is simply “man’s” way of describing what God is doing, has done, and will do. It’s a set of beliefs. It is our way of understanding and defining for ourselves, God’s character and desires for humanity, all of which we should base upon the Bible.
In other words, doctrine is sort of our collective perception of who God is, and what he is doing to connect with us humans.

So doctrine can be viewed as a really cool grid-like gift from God. The challenge becomes if we begin to believe our doctrine or grid is the unifying factor for the Church. How could this be a problem when almost every denomination is constructed around a different set of doctrine? Basically, because our beliefs about God will always be limited and arguable.

Let’s put this in perspective. Say there’s a cute little pill bug. And, let’s say you are a human. Now, introduce yourself to the pill bug and tell him all about yourself. Problem! Every time you try to get his attention, he crawls underneath some other piece of wood, or coils up into a little ball and ignores you completely. It’s like he isn’t even listening to you at all.

Excuse my tongue in cheek, but I think you get the picture.
There is an answer for our positioning challenge as we little human believers. “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” – Isaiah 55:8-9

What God is saying is that even on our best day, loaded with commentaries, concordances, various translations and other extra-biblical texts, we are only taking stabs at describing God.

I know that this woman mentioned in the text message is not alone in her thinking. There are a great number of Churches who declare their unity around a certain set of doctrine and will often exclude people who refuse to line up with them. I do believe in the importance of being like-minded on certain issues, but to form policies or dividing attitudes toward others because of a doctrinal bias, is giving too much authority to that particular doctrine. Rather, it is giving too much authority to ourselves really.

This also brings up the question of what God thinks about our rules and doctrinal stances.

This issue of doctrine worship seemed to appear in almost every situation where the Pharisees are mentioned in the Gospels.

Jesus responds to a group of Pharisee regarding their rules (doctrine) for ceremonial hand washing before eating a meal.
“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules (doctrine) made by men.’” – Matthew 15:7-9

Jesus then concludes with, “… eating with unwashed hands does not make a person unclean.” – Matthew 15:20 (paraphrased). Just before that in verse 14, Jesus tells his disciples to “Leave them. They are blind…”

To say that the love of doctrine has caused division within the Church would be a huge understatement. This is the simple answer for why there are so many different denominations today.

The Apostle Paul writes, “I urge you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.” – Romans 16:17

Pharisees still exist today. They are those in your church community putting principle before people, and who often appoint themselves as the doctrinal police in a sense. And… they like being seen, so they dive after jobs like passing out bulletins, ushers, and even deacons.

So what do you do if you encounter one? So far, we got Jesus and the Apostle Paul both strongly endorsing a distancing. Maybe the church isn’t a journey for ALL people after all.

Titus 2:1 gives instruction to a pastor, “You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.” So what is sound doctrine? The Bible describes it as the law of God, and the words of the prophets. However, Paul again sweeps in with clarity saying, “The entire law is summed up in a single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Galatians 5:14. In other words, everything God was trying to tell you in the First Testament about how to live, Jesus sums it up in a word, “LOVE”.

So to (Carl), my texting buddy and brother in the struggle of faith, you are right to love the doctrine lady because God created her and loves her deeply, but I better not catch you hanging with her at Starbux. Now that’s a heavy doctrine

Makes you wonder why God doesn’t just squish us like… uh... pill bugs.

Earth Day Gets Kinky

A friend of mine is an elementary school teacher. This particular event began when the school she teaches in decided to expand part of their building. In order for the new build to take place, a 100-year old tree had to be cut down. This teacher saw an opportunity to really shine. She started by arranging a chainsaw artist to carve up the old tree into a bench that could remain in the front office of the school. Then began a campaign to raise money among the student body to buy a new tree to plant on this Earth Day. The students made posters that read, “Bring your loose change” or “Give your Pennies”. One student made a poster and misspelled a word.

It read, “Bring your Loose Penis."

What a difference two letters makes.

Happy Earth Day

Ski and Ski some more

Carrying a vision or a dream is like snow skiing. The object is not to just make it to the bottom of the hill. The object is to get as many good runs in before the sun goes down.

I think often times, people give up on their dreams after just one run at it. They don’t prepare for a full day of skiing, instead they show up on the slopes, ride the lift, and cautiously and calmly slice their way to the bottom and allow that first short trip down the hill be the deciding factor on whether to go again.

Truth is, if you are new at skiing, and you wipe out a couple times on your first run, then the odds of you getting back on the lift right away lessen greatly.

Living out a vision can be like this, and is why so many new ideas die before they ever really have a chance to get started. It is fear. But this kind of fear is instead a fear of investing more time in skiing and the people you may ski with. Why? Because we live in a time when we have more choices and less time, and it is easy to begin to think you only have one shot at this and it better be a perfect run.

Often, people will not invest in a vision or people carrying a vision, if their first experience with the vision is a scary unpredictable ride down an icy slope where you engage in intimate relationships with trees. You don’t want those people riding with you anyway, so keep your black diamond attitude that drove you toward carrying your vision to start with. You want to bring along side you other people who live to ski until the sun sets. People who actually help you get up and back on the lift, over and over again no matter how many falls.

The sun is setting on all of us, and there isn’t a great deal of time left to live out your vision. So before you begin, you must decide if you are going to base the life of your vision on the low points of just a few runs. It isn’t an issue of whether you had five bad runs out of ten. The issue is whether or not you keep getting up. That’s how a vision sticks. And that is how you change the world.

So what are you willing to forgo to see your life’s calling come to fruition? How many crashes can you get up from and say, “Let’s do it again.”

Here’s how all this “Ski” talk plays out in my pursuits:

As a pastor, one of my roles is to create a community that is being guided by a vision.

This simply means I want to connect with as many people as I can before I check out.

I remember watching the Winter Olympics as a kid. Skiers do the same thing today as they did back then. They wipe out sometimes. If you are convinced of your vision, but are experiencing a mogul salad of set backs, just remember the lift is still moving and the day isn’t over. Your best runs are ahead of you. Get up and do it again. There is nothing safe about living out a meaningful vision.