See You Later Wylie

See You Later Wylie

My daughter and grandson disappeared down the drive with my wife, headed for the airport and home to San Antonio. When the brake lights went out and the car turned left onto the street I found myself unable to hold back the tears.  It has been a wonderful week with my daughter home and the joy of wooing the affections of Wylie my newest grandson of 8 months.  He is a bundle of energy, smiles, and love that a proud Papa could never resist.  To have my sweet daughter home again has been a wonderful treat made the more enjoyable by the gathering of her brother and his wife, her sister and the other grandkids to celebrate life and family around our table…I am so blessed.

So why the tears?  I am not sure I know except that one more separation seemed for the moment more than I was prepared to bear.  Life seems to be full of them of late, either threatened or real.  I lost my Dad last summer, my dog this spring, and twice this year we thought we had lost Jan’s dad, Wylie.  It seems such a struggle some times to keep everything together in a world where so much is coming undone.

I have far more for which to be thankful than to be sad.  I met a man today whose wife went to another state to visit his daughter and new grandchild. For reasons he and no one else can fathom, she jumped off a bridge rather than returning home.  He seems far more together after 6 months than I could imagine myself being if I were in his shoes.

I just finished reading a book today by Lee and Bob Woodruff, the ABC anchor, who suffered a near fatal head wound covering the war in Iraq.  The miracle of his recovery and the unbelievable resilience of his wife and family are an inspiration, but at the same time the tragedy of his injury and so many like him highlights the terrible mess of life.

So, am I just depressed?  Should I take a Valium and get a grip on things?  I don’t think I’m depressed and I feel strangely comfortable, maybe not manly, but comfortable with my tears.  The pain of separation and the celebrations of time together seem to join in the tears.  The pain and the hope are felt with equal intensity and I long for the day when He will wipe away the tears.  I find myself drawn with the psalmist to the words, “How long, O God?”  Chris Wright, in The God I Don’t Understand, notes that today we are prone to ask God, “Why?’  The Hebrews in the time of the Psalms asked, “How long?” 

Certainly there are plenty of separations to bring tears, but there is also great hope in the redemption that is already present and the sweet promise of what is to come.  So I will savor the good life brings along with the bitter…just pass me another tissue.

As You Go or As You Gather?

As You Go, or As You Gather?

As you go, make disciples…  (Mt. 28:18)

These are the final words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and these words are commonly viewed as Jesus’ commission to us as we become His body in the days after his ascension.  It seems to be intended to express both the goal and the methodology of Jesus for us.

The goal is to make disciples, followers of Jesus.  A follower is one in whom there is the desire to be with Him both in proximity (presence) and purpose (the glory of God).  It has apparently been in the plan and purpose of God from the beginning to create a people for Himself that would glorify Him.  In the beginning He created Adam and Eve and charged them with the task of propagating His people through procreation and family.  We managed to make a mess of things the first time around so He began again with Jesus to create again a people for Himself.  Having begun again a people for Himself, He has once again trusted and entrusted us with propagating His people, the Church, this time by disciple making.

The methodology is, “As you go make disciples.”  As you go can look like almost anything.  My work, my play, my family, my worship, or what ever I do in word or deed, as the Apostle Paul says can become disciple making when I come to view it as such.  Disciple making is a relational business, life on life, face on face.  Significant transformation of any kind, including from death to Life as the disciple John describes, always happens in the context of relationship.  Disciple making is a “giving” activity, not a “taking” one.  Love is giving of my self; it is a sacrificial act costing me something.

It strikes me as I look at how we often practice being the body of Christ that we have adopted a methodology of disciple making that is an “as you gather” rather than as you go.  As a pastor once said to me, “I am just trying to create a place where people can come (Gather) to be discipled.”

I may be choking on a gnat while swallowing camels here, but let me try to contrast some methodologies to explain what I mean.

• As you go is incarnational, going where the undiscipled are, not asking them to come to where you are.
• As you go means discipling out there where you are “going,” living life.  This can be where we work, play, raise our families, shop, or live in our neighborhoods. As you gather tries to create a place and programs away from those places for transformation to take place.
• As you go moves into a community and asks how it can serve, as you gather moves into a community and creates an organization that offers membership requiring (Asking) you to conform to “gathering” norms.
• As you go values the discipler, his vocation, and location and requires that we trust and entrust the discipler to do his/her work by the power of the Holy Spirit. As you gather tends to create structures and programs that take the discipler out of their location and creates a staff of "professionals" to do and regulate rather than trusting and entrusting them.
• As you go values the “out there”, the work, the play, the family, the neighborhood, as relevant context and tools for disciple making.  As you gather feels the need to create context (Small groups, programs) and tools (4 laws, bridges, etc.) in order to begin disciple making.
• As you go seeks to be salt and light in a culture, as you gather becomes an alternate culture.

It is not my premise that all structure or programming is bad, they are many times necessary, but I do think that both structure and programs should serve to enable “as you are going” rather than inhibit or compete with it.  It is often easier and more comfortable to gather for the purpose of disciple making, there is more control, more uniformity, efficiencies, etc, but we are not called to a life of ease or comfort, we are called to faithfulness and obedience.  If the Master said to do it as we go, I have to believe that there is purpose in the methodology as well as the goal.

I confess that as I write these thoughts I am pretty clueless as to how to implement them in an organized church setting, especially in a mega church setting.  To do this would “deconstruct the church,” again the words of a pastor.  I would agree with this sentiment, though I would use the word reconstruct rather than deconstruct.  I am convinced that the “as you gather’ mentality predominates in our churches and until we recognize what we are doing we will never begin to move toward something different.  If we begin to think differently we will begin to act differently. We will never think differently if we do not question our current paradigm.

Wondering about 9/11

Wondering about 9/11.

We can all remember what we were doing and where we were as the events of 9/11 began to unfold on that fateful day.  I was working on a dental patient who would periodically interrupt me and point to the overhead TV screen as first one plane and then another struck the twin towers, then other planes crashed in Pa. and into the Pentagon. This followed by the horror of the towers crumbling into oblivion.  Remembering can conjure up many emotions; fear, anger, and sadness come readily to mind.    9/11 has become more than just another memory, it has become one of those landmark signposts around which we define our history and has significantly shaped who we are becoming as a people and how we view the world we live in.  I find myself wondering, how has it has shaped us?  How are we different because of what we experience?

One question in particular has drawn my attention.  What impact does the church have in the shaping what is happening?

It was interesting, for example, that immediately following 9/11 there was an immediate shift in interest in spirituality, prayer, and faith.  Houses of faiths of all kinds experienced a significant increase in attendance.  It became instantly more relevant to speak of faith, prayer, and God.  Even the media, which normally excludes any spiritual dimension to life as they “report” events seemed more apt to make mention of prayer and faith as we witnessed acts heroism, loss, fear, and grief, and began to try to make sense out of what we were seeing and experiencing.

As we noted the influx of people into churches and houses of faith, I like many, was skeptical that this interest in things spiritual would last.  The expectation has become the reality as over a relatively short period of time we have reverted back to the same patterns with decreased attendance and a marginalization of things spiritual in our daily lives.

Now I wonder… if the events of 9/11 exposed something missing in our lives as would seem to be indicated by our fear, grief, interest in spirituality, and questions that turned so many to the Church for answers and comfort, what is the meaning of their subsequent leaving in essentially the same numbers?  Does it say something about them, or about us, the Church?  If they came seeking help and comfort for their fears, doubts, and wounds and have now left, does that mean we had little to offer, so they moved on?  It can certainly mean that they did not want what we had to offer, because a call to follow Jesus is not always a popular one, but should we be quick to jump to that conclusion?  When a national trauma of that magnitude exposes such a deep hunger in so many, did/does the Church have a credible answer, or more importantly, a credible life to speak into the times?  Does my/our rush to cynicism expose a weakness in them or in us?  And if it exposes a weakness in us, what is my part in that?  I wonder?