unity

Intimate Union

Frank

Brennan Manning makes the point in the fourth chapter of The Furious Longing of God, ‘Union’ that unity is part of God’s design for his creation. Jesus prayed for it and the perfect image of this union is God walking alongside Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Jesus’ mission was to restore this unity. Manning writes:

“the outstretched arms of Jesus exclude no one, neither the drunk in the doorway, the panhandler on the street, gays and lesbians in their isolation, the most selfish and ungrateful in their cocoons, the most unjust of employers and the most overweening of snobs. The love of Christ embraces all without exception.” (pgs 59-60)

Why is that so hard to embrace? It sounds nice and looks good on paper. But living this out? Our fallen nature likes to draw lines in the sand that divide us for any number of reasons- skin color, politics, denomination. This division, this disunity is never what God planned for us. It does not reflect the love of Christ.

But in order to be united with one another, we must first enjoy union with God.

Ultimately, it is God’s furious desire for us to be one with him, and all the rest of our relationships hinge on that. The father in the parable of the Prodigal Son saw his son returning “while he was still a long way off” implying that he was keeping watch for him. Paul taught in Athens that God places us exactly where we need to be so that we can “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:27)  James, the brother of Jesus promised that if you “come near to God… he will come near to you.” (James 4:8) In fact, the Bible is often described as ‘God’s love story’ where the repeated cycle of rebellion, repentance, and restoration shows God’s love never giving up on his creation, always longing to be reunited with his people.

God is pursuing union with you. Let that sink in for a moment. The creator of the universe wants a intimate relationship with you.

Even more dramatic, every one of your relationships relies on this. Marriage, friendships, family, even strangers- how we approach each of these depends first on our relationship with God. Selfishness, pride, mistrust, hurt- all of these are symptoms of missing out on God’s perfect union and the consequences can be seen in our broken relationships, hurt feelings, and bad memories.

It is no coincidence (there are no coincidences in the Kingdom of God, one of my friends is fond of saying) that this chapter falls right before Valentine’s Day. The best Valentine you can give the one you love is to love Him first. Manning writes, “love by its nature seeks union.” (pg 68) So he offers this sage advice, again perfect timing for Valentine’s Day, “if I had to do it all over again?.. I would simply do the next thing in love.” (pg 66)

God seeks intimate union with you. Welcome Him.

Consider this:

How often do you monitor your spiritual growth-Several times a day? Once a month? Every thirty days? Twice a year?

Would you, could you, devote not one more minute to monitoring your spiritual growth? If so, it’s possible you just might find you like green eggs and ham.

This post continues discussion on Brennan Manning’s book, The Furious Longing of God. Please check out Jason Sasyzsen’s and Sarah Salter’s blogs for more discussion. The “consider this” questions come straight from the book- use them as a springboard for your own thoughts and feel free to share them here.

I Wish I Could Just Show Up

Frank

Once upon a time I just showed up. I didn’t think twice about it. In fact, if I did think twice it meant I probably wouldn’t show up at all. And it wouldn’t bother me a bit. Too hungover? Sleep in. Feel too guilty over the sins of Saturday night to show up Sunday morning? No problem, there’s always next week.

But then that all changed. One Sunday while in college, God’s Word spoke to me like it never had before. I knew at that moment I couldn’t turn back. I began to devour the Word. I would spend hours in Barnes & Noble flipping through every book on the shelf in the Christianity section. I started to listen to different preachers on the radio. Like a sponge, I absorbed everything I could read, see, or hear about how to live like Christ. I could no longer just show up.

I look around some Sunday mornings now and wonder if anybody feels the same as I did, or feels the same as I do now. When I reach out to another and they tell me they attend such-and-so church, I wonder if they are just showing up, or if they have a fire burning inside of them like I feel.

But I wish I didn’t feel this way. I wish I could just show up. I wish I didn’t care. Because the more I read the more I wrestle, and the more I wrestle the more I question. So I read more. And more. And more. I wish I could just show up, nod my head at whatever preacher-man has to say and close my Bible as I close the door of the church behind me.

As they say, you can’t un-ring the bell. I wish I didn’t care. I wish church was just religion and God was just an idea. Instead I now wrestle over theology that is way over my head. I wrestle over the tension between Gospel and Kingdom; between Paul and Jesus. I wrestle with the New Perspective of Paul and am curious about the Federal Vision. I am fascinated by the subject of soteriology. And yes, all of these are related.

That’s this week.

That’s why I blog. That’s why I read other blogs. That’s what keeps my faith fresh and keeps me ever-striving to learn what it means and how to be Christlike. If you’re a regular reader here, I expect you feel the same way. If you’re another writer, blogger, theo-thinker, I appreciate your unique perspectives and reflections. I thank both of you. We are growing together. Prayerfully, we are doing this as Paul described:

“… being built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” (Ephesians 4:12-15)

What is the Perfect Church

Frank

To continue my rants and raves from last week on the big-c Church, I want to follow up on Friday’s post asking us to identify our strengths and weaknesses. What makes a perfect church? Do we need every attribute Ed Setzer describes in the Transformational Church? How about every characteristic in Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church? What if we modeled every feature in every book on how to do-it-yourself, fix-er-up church? It would be overwhelming. In fact, I bet if you went into your local Christian bookstore, or even to the faith & spirituality section of Barnes & Noble, you could close your eyes, throw a dart at the books, and likely hit a book either complaining about the state of the church or offering ways to make it better, bigger, more seeker-friendly, more missional, more somethingorother…

No, let’s simplify. What does every church need? This is off the top of my head and isn’t all-inclusive, but I think it’s a good starting point for discussion:

  • Reverence of God the Father
  • Reliance on the Holy Spirit
  • Discipleship of Jesus the Son (sorry, I tried really hard to find another “R” but the only synonym I could find was “rooter” but I didn’t like the ring of that)

That looks obvious, so let’s get more specific:

  • Takes sin seriously (really, I’m serious)
  • Holy, set apart from the world (not the same as removing ourselves from the world in something like a commune, but separate from the world’s values)
  • Evangelistic
  • Serving, both inside the church and out
  • So Missional and Benevolent
  • Worshipful (This could mean a lot of things to a lot of people, so I’ll leave this open-ended)
  • Teaches (“For the Bible is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” Paraphrasing 1 Timothy 3:16-17)
  • Relational (your relationships in your church fellowship actually mean something)
  • Prayerful (any prayer warriors in your fellowship?)
  • Faithful (no duh, but how many of us actually are?)
  • Loving
  • United
  • Global (not just world missions, but with the attitude in your heart that we are to go make disciples of “all nations”)

Again, this may be simplistic. But what I’ve found is that churches that excel in one or two of these neglect the others. There is an ongoing debate right now amongst missional churches remaining Christ-centered and not just “doing mission” because that’s the latest fad. Churches that are strong in fellowship may be weak in calling one another to account for sin. I’ve seen churches that emphasize evangelism on the standard of the Great Commission, but neglect the rest of the command to “teach them to obey everything I [Jesus] have commanded you”. I’ve seen churches emphasize one another accountability, but lack love. I guess the bottom line is that I have yet to see a single church excell in every one of these.

Maybe it’s not realistic to expect. We are all sinners saved by grace after all. And churches are man-made institutions that will always be imperfect by their very nature. Then again, isn’t the Church Christ’s bride? And doesn’t Paul instruct husbands to imitate Christ “to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her [the Church] to himself [Christ] as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless”? (Ephesians 5:26-27) Aren’t we to present Christ’s bride perfect?

So we fall short. We identify a weakness and have a “campaign” to correct it, meanwhile neglecting what made our church strong to begin with. No one single church program can cover all of these bases. But only a church culture, where “every part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16) and every person strives to be Christlike in every area of their lives (prayer, worship, service…) can truly capture the fullness of Christ. Christ’s bride is not a church defined by walls, staff, or programs. But rather by people, each striving to apply their unique spiritual gifts passionately for the Glory of God in the Name of Jesus. Then, when they come together in unity, can we finally see a “church” as described above.

Mosaic

Frank

The second chapter of Unleashed, titled Kaleidoscope by Daryl Reed, discusses the need for racial diversity in our churches. That’s something I’ve always admired in our family of churches. The most common reaction from visitors is surprise at the diversity of our congregation. I don’t say that to boast, only to point out that our racial diversity gives us diversity in cultural perspective. For example my wife just learned some cultural norms regarding Latin families that helped explain an issue that came up in a Bible study. What is interesting is how some of our cultural habits affect not only our relationships but also our relationship with God. For some of us, it’s a pressure that we have to be perfect. For others, it is patriarchal roles we feel we need to fulfill. Yet the diversity in our churches, when put together in unity in Christ, overcomes these traditions to create a beautiful mosaic.

The same is also true in denominational diversity. “Non-denominational” is a popular evangelical marketing term that only means you’re not a part of a larger governing body over your church, but it says nothing about your doctrine or your historical tradition. True non-denominationalism is when the only thing that unifies is not doctrinal agreement, but the single standard of the Word of God. This diversity was evident in another Bible study my wife and I were having. Looking around the room, and talking about our religious backgrounds, it became clear that every one of us came from a different brand of “Christianity”. But we were able to put aside our personal traditions when faced with the truths found in Scripture. The study was filled with, “I used to believe ____ but then I studied it out for myself and found that ___.” Just as the multicolored mosaic creates a beautiful picture of unity in Christ, so does the mosaic formed by our unique religious traditions.

Daryl Reed notes that racial diversity is necessary in our churches for the sake of reflecting those to whom we are called to spread the Gospel (“every nation” or ethne in the Great Commission) and to reflect the unity Christ compels us to that overcomes any racial barrier. The same holds true for our doctrine. Carl Medearis makes this point in a recent CNN belief blog article. His point is that our evangelism should not be focused on converting to a specific doctrine, but rather to lead others to Jesus. It is in Him alone that we are saved into a single, unified body. This is not ecumenism or inter-denominationalism, for those do not create unity within walls but rather sweeps issues under the rug as “non-essentials”. Instead, this is taking our experiences as a whole and examining them through the lens of the Bible and the example of Christ’s own life.

If our churches can overcome racial divisions in the name of Jesus then we can unite under the banner of Christ alone.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:3-6)

Do You Agree with Rachel?

Frank

(A rare Saturday post to participate in the Rally to Restore Unity being hosted by Rachel Held Evans, author of Evolving in Monkey Town. When I first heard about this from other bloggers I follow, I thought “hey, that’s cool” but didn’t go check it out. I finally did take a look yesterday, and wow! There’s a lot to digest there, but it’s all worth reading. I don’t agree with everyone, but that’s kidna the point. On with the show…)

When I was converted in a campus ministry I left behind the traditional, religious experience of most of my life. It was hard. Harder, was knowing that there were good friends of mine who I knew sincerely loved God and Jesus but, in my new found convictions, were way off-base. I felt like Paul lamenting over his people:

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” (Romans 9:2-5)

Then I read Jesus prayer in John 17 and this became my new prayer: “God, I pray for all who believe in you through your Son, that we may all be one just as You and He are one, so that the whole world may believe.” (v 20-23) Well God answers prayers in funny ways.

Not long after I started praying this prayer I started to see fliers around campus reading “Do you agree with Rachel?”. The next day, the same question written in sidewalk chalk. And this continued for week or so before the signs were updated with a date, the next Saturday. The next phase of this viral campaign (before there even was such a thing!) was t-shirts that others started wearing around campus. But the message again changed. On the front the t-shirt read “Do you agree with Rachel?” and on the back it read “Rachel believes in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for your sins and rose again three days later.” No denominations. No direct tie to any campus ministry (though one of the more prominent ones was behind it). Unity under one message: the Gospel of Jesus.

At the time there was a lot of competition between different campus ministries for numbers and reputation. One group would tell incoming freshmen not to go to another group. The larger groups would intentionally schedule devos and events on top of smaller groups to take away their membership. And gossip, lots of gossip (you wouldn’t believe what what’s her name got away with in that group!). Rachel simply wanted it to stop.

I met Rachel before anyone knew who she was, or what we were even agreeing with. My small group co-leader and I had a nice conversation with her one day at the food court. Here was a girl that I could tell struggled under the weight of Jesus’ prayer in  John 17. Who loved Jesus so much she was willing to risk her reputation for him. Who was grateful to meet other believers who felt the same way she did. Of course I didn’t know she was behind the campaign. It never even occurred to me to put two and two together (her name was Rachel, duh!). But I walked away from that conversation thinking, “there’s someone who gets it” while at the same time hoping she’d come and check out my campus ministry because it was obviously better than all the others.

Of course when word got out who Rachel was and what her message was going to be there was significant backlash on this liberal campus. Jesus was mocked. Teachers who wore her shirt were suspended (separation of Church and State and all that), and she was openly persecuted.

When I found out who Rachel was I smiled and thanked God for answering my prayer. Then I skipped her rally because my church had something else going on that was more important.

Maybe I didn’t agree with her after all.