I am hungry. I am hungry for less of me and more of Jesus. I am hungry for sacrifice. I am hungry for a community that meets people where they are...a community more concerned about following Christ than studying Christ. I am hungry for authenticity and transparency. I am hungry for bondages broken, addictions busted, and oppressions laid low. I am hungry for the consumer church to stop gorging itself and start feeding the hungry and the hopeless. I am hungry for radical obedience and uncommon self-denial. I am hungry for danger, for risk, for un-comfortable zones. I am hungry for the church to stop confusing tradition with traditionalism. I am hungry for worship to be a lifestyle and not a worship style. I am hungry for a movement and not a methodology.
I am hungry for the kingdom of God.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Christian Cliches
It has been nine years since I became a Christian. In my near decade long pursuit to follow Jesus I have come across a number of Christian cliches that get tossed around with little if any push back. Many of these phrases have a second-cousin-twice-removed like connection to a Scripture verse or passage which gives the impression they are "Biblical" i.e. the Protestant litmus test. It may be phrases like: accept Jesus into your heart; washed (or cleansed) by the blood of Jesus; seek God's will for your life; anything using "righteousness;" we agree in prayer...; seek God's face; the Lord spoke to my heart; get into the word; turn it over to the Lord; or ...Spirit filled...
Of late the cliche that most troubles me is "personal relationship with Jesus." You can't be among a group of "Bible believing," "Evangelical," "Christ centered" Protestants for more than 30 seconds without the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" getting launched into the hearing sphere. Lo ye dare to question thee phrase in public or thy may be smite(d). But honestly I have no idea what people mean by the phrase. Are Jesus and I buddies? Are we boyfriend/girlfriend? Are we roomates? Do we bowl together on Tuesdays? I'm afraid in our me-driven, experiential, consumer culture, "personal relationship with Jesus" looks more like Twilight without the fangs - "Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Let's be immortal forever xoxo."
When Jesus became a person God became personal and because of that we can personally encounter God. But the encounter is and must always be on God's terms and not our own. God is at center of our encounter and he always makes the first move. Any pursuit of a "personal relationship" with Jesus that seeks emotional highs and new frontiers of experience ultimately puts "me" at the center of the relationship (and I think that might be idolatry). Truly encountering God may require despair, crisis, and the utter absence of God's perceived presence. It may mean the implosion of all our cliches. God forbid, it may mean fewer hand-in-hand walks down the beach with Jesus and more deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
Of late the cliche that most troubles me is "personal relationship with Jesus." You can't be among a group of "Bible believing," "Evangelical," "Christ centered" Protestants for more than 30 seconds without the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" getting launched into the hearing sphere. Lo ye dare to question thee phrase in public or thy may be smite(d). But honestly I have no idea what people mean by the phrase. Are Jesus and I buddies? Are we boyfriend/girlfriend? Are we roomates? Do we bowl together on Tuesdays? I'm afraid in our me-driven, experiential, consumer culture, "personal relationship with Jesus" looks more like Twilight without the fangs - "Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Oh Edward...Oh Bella...Let's be immortal forever xoxo."
When Jesus became a person God became personal and because of that we can personally encounter God. But the encounter is and must always be on God's terms and not our own. God is at center of our encounter and he always makes the first move. Any pursuit of a "personal relationship" with Jesus that seeks emotional highs and new frontiers of experience ultimately puts "me" at the center of the relationship (and I think that might be idolatry). Truly encountering God may require despair, crisis, and the utter absence of God's perceived presence. It may mean the implosion of all our cliches. God forbid, it may mean fewer hand-in-hand walks down the beach with Jesus and more deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
Friday, November 18, 2011
A Faith Beyond Feeling
It seems the term "Dark night of the Soul" coined by St. John of the Cross in the 16th century has become for some a trite synonym for not feeling it with God. "God I'm just not feeling it. I need a goose-bump, Holy Spirit quiver...hook a brotha up!" But what if the last frontier of faith is utter absence? In the moments before Jesus' death we are told that he cried from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I have begun to wonder if our own faith journey should be leading to that moment as well.
C.S. Lewis once stated that he longed for "not my idea of God, but God." We have all created ideas of God. Some of them are packaged and marketed by companies and industries while others take on names like Methodist, Baptist, conservative, liberal, or charismatic. Our culture both in and outside the church is feverishly manufacturing an emotional, experiential "God." Our ultimate reality, purpose and meaning has become dictated by feelings, emotive moments, or spiritualized encounters. In such a societal/church culture, how do we reconcile the words of Mother Teresa, "He has destroyed everything in me. The only thing that keeps me on the surface - is obedience."
I don't think Abraham was feeling it when he tied Isaac to a wooden altar; I don't think Moses was feeling it when he spent decades in exile; I don't think David was feeling it when Absalom usurped his throne; I don't think Jesus was feeling it when he sweat blood in Gethsemane.
I wonder if I am willing to sacrifice my intimacy, my experience, my feeling, my idea of God for God? I wonder if I am willing to one day say, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"
C.S. Lewis once stated that he longed for "not my idea of God, but God." We have all created ideas of God. Some of them are packaged and marketed by companies and industries while others take on names like Methodist, Baptist, conservative, liberal, or charismatic. Our culture both in and outside the church is feverishly manufacturing an emotional, experiential "God." Our ultimate reality, purpose and meaning has become dictated by feelings, emotive moments, or spiritualized encounters. In such a societal/church culture, how do we reconcile the words of Mother Teresa, "He has destroyed everything in me. The only thing that keeps me on the surface - is obedience."
I don't think Abraham was feeling it when he tied Isaac to a wooden altar; I don't think Moses was feeling it when he spent decades in exile; I don't think David was feeling it when Absalom usurped his throne; I don't think Jesus was feeling it when he sweat blood in Gethsemane.
I wonder if I am willing to sacrifice my intimacy, my experience, my feeling, my idea of God for God? I wonder if I am willing to one day say, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"
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