Enough too much

How are you holding up, friends? It was about a year ago we started to realize the seriousness of the covid-19 pandemic. Places were bracing for a possible shutdown. Silly me, thinking it might be a couple of weeks. Little did we know just how much would change over the next 12 months.

And, geesh, as if that weren't enough... there was the election thing, attempted government overthrow, conspiracy theories, economic collapse (for some), church interruptions/changes, employment “hiccups”... Which doesn't even begin to touch on the 500,000+ extra lives that have been lost just this year, in just this country! 

Sometimes I wonder how we'd be doing even if covid never came 'round. Is it possible it may have actually helped some of us cope, or did it make it worse. I don't know...

Anyway, I've been contemplating this quote from Pastor/writer/theologian Brian Zahnd recently...

"We live in an age where the amount of daily information we receive that should enrage or grieve us far exceeds our capacity to bear it. Only God can bear all the sorrows of the world. We, on the other hand, have to choose what sorrows to bear. This is complicated, but true."

 

Yeah... there is a boatload of information we receive. It's incredible. And it's not just any ol' information. There is soooo much that SHOULD enrage or grieve us. Heavy stuff... and complicated.

I don't know about you, but more and more it seems like it's just too much. There's no way we can maintain. All is lost.

Or, like Brian says, maybe we need to learn to be selective in what sorrows we choose to bear. It's not all up to us, you know. We need help. In fact, maybe admitting that is where we need to start.

One of the best bits of advise/writing/musicianship I've heard to date is still the old song 'Hold Me Jesus' from Rich Mullins. It says it all as far as I'm concerned (though I hate this canned version compared to a live, raw one). Sometimes that has to be enough...

***

1 Peter 5:6-11

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Down in the hole

I remember when I first heard the Rolling Stones song "Down In The Hole" on their Emotional Rescue album. I bought it the summer before my junior or senior year in high school. I remember it being a really good mix of craziness at the time. Friends and fun, but plenty plenty plenty of uncertainty. While life was such a dream at that point, there was also this impending dread of decisions needing to be made. What if I made/make the wrong one(s)?

I thought about that song, and that summer, as I read this insightful article by James K.A. Smith 'I'm A Philosopher. We Can't Think Our Way Out of This Mess.' It's a tad on the long side, but worthwhile when you get a chance.

Anyway, I especially liked this story he shared.

This guy’s walking down the street when he falls down a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, “Hey, you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription and throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts, “Father, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey, Joe, it’s me! Can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

You know, I'd have been okay if instead of the friend saying "I know the way out," he just said, "Yeah, but I didn't want you to be down here all alone."

...

I cringe every time I think about all the 'how to' sermons I preached, and all the easy answers I've given to people who were going through such crap in their lives...

Sometimes there’s really nothing we can do to help... Nothing. And that’s hard. 

But I’d like to think we remember the people who stuck by us in the hole.  

***

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity." - Proverbs 17:17

Center for civil and human rights

We visited the Center for Civil and Human Rights when we were in Atlanta last weekend. It was another of those really interesting places that left us feeling inspired, ashamed, and somber all at the same time.

Perhaps the biggest eye-opener of all (or re-opener) was the dark realization that the whole MAGA (make america great again) phenomenon is about UNDOING the progress that's been made in civil and human rights over the years. I'm guessing this is not a popular place with Trump supporters. Anyway...

One of the more powerful exhibits was this interactive station where you sat at a lunch counter with headphones on. It gave you a chance to hear AND FEEL what it was like to have been an African-American during the early days of the civil rights movement with people yelling and screaming at you and kicking the counter and your seat. It was pretty intense. I cannot imagine having had to go through that.

I was actually quite surprised with this display citing Atlanta's place in civil rights. I think this is pretty cool. If you can't read it, it says:

Atlanta differed from other Southern cities in important ways. Since the early 20th century, the "Atlanta style" of managing race relations had white and black leaders meeting behind the scenes to decide what was in the best interest of the community. The emergence of black political clout in the 1940s contributed to the election of relatively moderate mayors, rather than hard-line segregationists. Mindful of the city's image, in the 1960s Mayor William B. Hartfield and other local promoters cast Atlanta as "The City Too Busy to Hate," to distinguish it from other Southern communities. A violent reaction to desegregation was seen as bad for business, and key leaders embraced negotiation and compromise instead.

Certainly, a deep gap often existed between the rhetoric of "The City Too Busy to Hate" and the realities of life in a segregated city. And Atlanta experienced its share of violent episodes and failed leadership. Yet the city's more moderate views on desegregation and the personal relationships established across the color line helped set Atlanta apart.

I also liked this quote from Diane Nash. Although, it can be used equally by different people depending on their beliefs. I suppose gun-rights activists feel they are doing the same thing as protesters using non-violent means. Anyway, it was interesting.

And this one...

This exhibit outlining nonviolence training during the civil rights movement was pretty interesting as well. I wish I'd taken a picture of the entire thing. If you click on the pic you can enlarge it and read what people had to go through. Again, I can't imagine what it must have been like during that time - which wasn't all that long ago!

These last two pictures were from the human rights area. It was not as large as the civil rights exhibit because it's just been added and was on just one floor of the building. Still, I thought these signs "The basics of being human," and suggestions for "forming a more perfect union" were pretty good.

It seemed there were some other things I was going to share about this visit but I must have waited too long to write about it. Anyway, it was definitely interesting and not just a tad bit eye-opening. I'm glad we went.

Quotes for mindfulness

I finished reading through Carol Kelly-Gangi's nice little book "Quotes for Mindfulness: Timeless Wisdom For the Modern World." Though mindfulness is a practice rooted in Buddhism, it is not specific to it. The book contains quotes from a broad spectrum of people of faith - from Gandhi to Mother Teresa, the Pope, Oprah Winfrey, and even the Christian Bible.

Basically the book is a collection of quotes grouped into different categories. I liked using it as a devotional guide each morning, reading through one chapter of quotes on a specific topic each day. I always found at least one quote to center my thoughts around as a sort of guidepost for the day.

Below are some of the quotes I highlighted while reading, if for no other reason than to have them written down for later remembering. If you're reading here, feel free to contemplate and meditate upon them as well - though there are many more in the book that I did not include here.

----------

MINDFULNESS IS...

"Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, no-judgmentally." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn 

"Mindfulness is often spoken about as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

LIVE EACH DAY

"Nothing is worth more than this day." ~ Seneca

THIS IS THE MOMENT

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh 

"Living in the present moment creates the experience of eternity." ~ Deepak Chopra

FREE YOUR MIND

"If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?" ~ Confucius 

"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." ~ William James 

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

FIND YOUR INNER PEACE

"Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our power and our freedom." ~ Viktor E. Frankl 

"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment." ~ Henry David Thoreau 

"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having." ~ Henry Miller 

"With all the demands places on our time and energy by the world around us, it might seem counterintuitive to think that seeking stillness, rather than picking up the pace, is the key to become better people, friends, citizens of the world, and business-people." ~ Russell Simmons 

"Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It's a way of entering into the quiet that's already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day." ~ Deepak Chopra 

"Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already." ~ Pema Chodron 

"Peace is joy at rest and joy is peace on its feet." ~ Anne Lamott

NOURISH YOUR MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT

"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers." ~ Kahlil Gibran 

"When you discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough to make room for it in your life." ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

SEEK SIMPLICITY

"How many things are there which I do not want." ~ Socrates 

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." ~ William Morris 

"How many things can I do without?" ~ Socrates 

"Besides the noble are of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." ~ Lin Yutang 

"Beware the barrenness of a busy life." ~ Socrates

LOVE AND KINDNESS

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly speaking, loved in spite of yourself." ~ Victor Hugo 

"Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation." ~ Osho 

"Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone." ~ Mitch Albom 

"Perfect love means putting up with people's shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest of good qualities in them." ~ St. Therese of Lisieux 

"My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to live, toward whom to direct my will to love. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision." ~ M. Scott Peck 

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity." ~ George Bernard Shaw 

"The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life." ~ William Wordsworth 

"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" ~ George Eliot 

"One kind word can warm three winter months." ~ Japanese proverb

COMPASSION AND FORGIVENESS

"Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge." ~ Albert Einstein 

"Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to places where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it." ~ Henri Nouwen 

"To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless." ~ G.K. Chesterton 

"Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me." ~ Audre Lorde 

"Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat." ~ Audre Lorde 

"The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." ~ Marianne Williamson

JOY AND HAPPINESS

"Do anything, but let it produce joy." ~ Walt Whitman 

"There is a very simple secret to being happy. Just cease your demand on this moment." ~ Buddha 

"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." ~ William Butler Yeats 

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." ~ Albert Camus 

"The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is." ~ Erasmus 

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP

"Parents must provide not only outer warmth for their child but also inner warmth. They must create an atmosphere with a sense of security in which the child feels love and acceptance." ~ Dalai Lama 

"Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade." ~ Leo Buscaglia

"There's only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child's embrace, that is true." ~ Barack Obama 

"Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend." ~ Albert Camus

OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES

"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure." ~ Abraham Lincoln 

"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake." ~ Confucius 

"Inside of a ring or not, ain't nothing wrong with going down. It's staying down that's wrong." ~ Muhammad Ali

SUFFERING, HARDSHIP AND LOSS

"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh 

"If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart." ~ Socrates 

"The world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." ~ Helen Keller 

"You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle." ~ Julian Seifter 

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable." ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow." ~ Mary Anne Radmacher 

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." ~ Ernest Hemingway 

"It isn't for the moment you are stuck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security." ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

GRATITUDE AND HOPE

"Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into." ~ Wayne Dyer 

"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude." ~ Cynthia Ozick 

"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope." ~ Barack Obama

OUR SHARED HUMANITY

"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche 

"One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men." ~ Thomas Merton 

"Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude." ~ William James

THE BEAUTY AND WONDER OF LIFE

"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." ~ Bob Marley 

"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood...
Let me keep my distance, always from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads." ~ Mary Oliver 

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein

COMMUNE WITH NATURE

"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day." ~ Henry David Thoreau

SPIRITUALITY AND PRAYER

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 

"That is the religious experience: the astonishment of meeting someone who is waiting for you." ~ Pope Francis 

"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes." ~ Alan Watts 

"Faith does not contradict reason but transcends it." ~ Mahatma Gandhi 

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." ~ St. Thomas Aquinas 

"Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." ~ Paul Tillich 

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." ~ Martin Luther King Jr. 

"Praying is not asking. It is a longing of the soul." ~ Mahatma Gandhi 

"God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer." ~ Mother Teresa

BECOMING YOUR BEST SELF

"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." ~ Henry David Thoreau 

"Experience life in all possible ways - good/bad, bitter/sweet, dark/light, summer/winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become." ~ Osho 

"How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unknown?" Esmeralda Santiago 

"We do the best we can with what we have and when we know better, we do better." ~ Maya Angelou 

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi

MINDFUL WISDOM

"All of man's difficulties are caused by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself." ~ Blaise Pascal 

"You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day -- unless you are too busy -- then you should sit for an hour." ~ Buddhist proverb 

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward." ~ Soren Kierkegaard 

"We do not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the short for a very long time." ~ Andre Gide 

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~ Anne Frank 

"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how your'e going to live. Now." ~ Joan Baez 

"There is more to life than increasing its speed." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Definition of an addict

During one of our recent small group gatherings, a new member - who happens to live in a homeless shelter for veterans - said something that really struck me. In fact, I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, but it seems significant. He was talking about his struggles with drug addiction and said...

"An addict is an egomaniac with no self-esteem."

I think what he meant was, someone who wants the world to revolve around themselves (or thinks it does), but they can't handle the pressure. Therefore... they turn to some form of addiction to help them cope.

I'm having a hard time fully wrapping my mind around this, and I don't know where he came up with the idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me. So, that has been occupying some of my thinking lately. What are the implications of this on a society increasingly becoming more preoccupied with self, and ever more lacking in self-worth/esteem??

Keeper quotes

I generally dislike those big quotes on pictures that people are always posting on Facebook. These are two exceptions. I like the content, as well as the way they're displayed. I wish I could have them each blown up and framed somehow to hang on my walls. The poem is from the school our daughter-in-law teaches at, the second from one of my favorites. Things I want to and strive to remember.

Love does

I recently read Bob Goff's little book Love Does. It was a very easy and enjoyable read of just over 200 pages. Bob is actually a lawyer and founder of a company, but he paints himself as just an ordinary fellow who believes that love should DO and not just be something we say. As he writes on the back cover:

When Love Does, life gets interesting. Each day turns into a hilarious, whimsical, meaningful chance to make faith simple and real. Each chapter is a story that forms a book, a life... Light and fun, unique and profound, the lessons drawn from Bob's life and attitude just might inspire you to be secretly incredible too.

I'm thinking the book was heavily influenced by Donald Miller, so if you like Don's writing, you will probably like this too. It is definitely not an 'academic' book, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't read it. I think it's one of those books just about anyone could get a lot out of. My only negative about the book would be an overuse of false humility (or something like that). He likes to paint himself as this poor, nobody, fool... but he IS a lawyer, and he must have some amount of money to do all the traveling he does and whatnot. But that's minor. It's a good book.

Jane actually bought this book for me just after I was told I was no longer wanted at the church I was serving and was at a pretty low point in life. She's pretty smart. I'm glad she bought it and shoved it in my face and told me to read it. It helped. :)

I will go back to one of my old habits of listing some of the underlined parts that I found most helpful:

• p. 17 - "I used to think being loved was the greatest thing to think about, but now I know love is never satisfied just thinking about it."
• p. 25 - "I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter."
• p. 29 - "Failure is just part of the process, and it's not just okay; it's better than okay. God doesn't want failure to shut us down. God didn't make it a three-strikes-and-you're-out sort of thing. It's more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so that we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups."
• p. 31 - "I used to think I could shape the circumstances around me, but now I know Jesus uses circumstances to shape me."
• p. 59 - "I used to think you had to be special for God to use you, but now I know you simply need to say yes."
• p. 80 - "I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven't really been invited. But you see, we have been invited -- every day, all over again."
• p. 94 - "I used to think religion tasted horrible, but now I know I was just eating the fake stuff."
• p. 103 - "I used to think I had missed the mark and God was mad about it, but now I know 'missing the mark' is a stupid analogy."
• p. 113 - "I used to think life could be shared with anyone, but now I know choosing the right people is pretty important."
• p. 136 - "You don't need to know everything when you're with someone you trust."
• pp. 141-142 (whole section about God 'passing by' Moses) - "I think God passes by me a lot, and it serves to show me the direction he's going... He wants followers, not just onlookers or people taking notes."
• p. 143 - "I think God's hope and plan for us is pretty simple to figure out." [whole paragraph]*
• p. 145 - "I used to be afraid that if I was authentic I might take a hit, but now I know that being real means I will take a hit."***
• p. 159 - "I used to think I should talk about everything, but now I know it's better to keep some things a secret."
• p. 160 - "The truth is, the task would probably be even nobler if we didn't talk about it and just did it instead. It's not about being secretive or mysterious or exclusive. It's about doing capers without any capes."
• p. 162 - "The thing is, 'Justus' sounds a lot to me like 'just us." [whole paragraph]
• p. 163 - "We all get a chance to be awesome if we want to be. Not surprisingly, the way to do it best is by being secretly incredible."
• p. 173 - "I used to think there were some prisons you couldn't escape, but now I know there's no place I can go where God can't rescue us."
• p. 181 - "What I've learned the more time I've spent following Jesus is that God delights in answering our impossible prayers." [plus the next paragraph]
• p. 197 - "I used to think I could learn about Jesus by studying him, but now I know Jesus doesn't want stalkers."
• p. 199 - "Bible Doing" instead of "Bible Study" group.
• p. 201 - "I think Jesus had in mind that we would not just be 'believers' but 'participants.'"
• p. 201 - "It's not about just being politically correct; it's about being actually correct."
• p. 202 - "Stalkers are ordinary people who study from afar the people they're too afraid to really know."
• pp. 204-205 - **(great section on how to face confrontations - with our palms up; instead of fists clenched) "Palms up means you have nothing to hide and nothing to gain or lose. Palms up means you are strong enough to be vulnerable, even with your enemies. Even when you have been tremendously wronged. Jesus was palms up, to the end."
• p. 208 - "If you're a sincere friend, folks around you will quickly understand that there's no hidden agenda and nothing on the other side of the equals sign - just you."
• p. 217 - "We're not just a cosmic biology experiment that ended up working. We're part of God's much bigger plan for the whole world. Just like God's Son arrived here, so did you. And after Jesus arrived, God whispered to all of humanity... 'It's your move.' Heaven's been leaning over the rails in the same way ever since you got here, waiting to see what you'll do with your life."

Good stuff. Recommended.

Live life...

I just saw this thing on Facebook and thought it was pretty good:

Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live life.

I like that. You know, it's not complicated. Kind of like the Jason Ringenberg lyric from his early days: "The point is dying if we don't live when we're alive."

The wounded healer

I finished Henri Nouwen's book The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society today. As with all of his books that I've read, it has left me feeling very contemplative, warm, unsure, yet hopeful. I was a little disappointed to find out that I was reading the 2010 edition by the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust. It says, "Second Edition: Text complete, Updated, and Unabridged." It was first published in 1972, and apparently someone decided it needed updating. At any rate, it was an excellent read. I think it should be required reading for anyone that thinks they want to go headlong into ministry.

At first I thought it funny that the subtitle was "Ministry in Contemporary Society"... since it was from '72. But it really is timeless. Anytime ministry becomes separated from dealing with human beings and the human condition I think it ceases to be ministry. Perhaps that is what riles me so much about so many "church" books today... They seem to be more about the organization than they are about the people.

This is not a complete review (or even partial)... but just some thoughts. Firstly, reading Henri's work always slows me down. And I mean that in the very best way. It makes me think; it makes me ponder; it fills me with awe and wonder; it almost makes time stand still.

Otherwise, I think I will just jot down some highlights. These are not all - I wrote all over this book - but some, mostly from the last part of the book.

• p. 45 - "Compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence, not only that God is God and humans are humans, but also that our neighbor really is our fellow human being."
• p. 46 - "...the authority of compassion is the possibility for each of us to forgive our brothers and sisters, because forgiveness is only real for those who have discovered the weakness of their friends and the sins of their enemies in their own hearts, and are willing to call each human being their sister and brother."
• p. 72 - "One compassionate gaze or one affectionate handshake can substitute for years of friendship when a person is in agony. Not only does love last forever, it needs only a second to be born."
• p. 76 - "The basic principles of Christian leadership: first, personal concern, which asks people to give their lives for others; second, a deep-rooted faith in the value and meaning of life, even when the days look dark; and third, an out-going hope that always looks for tomorrow, even beyond the moment of death. And all these principles are based on the one and only conviction that, since God has become human, it is human beings who have the power to lead their fellows to freedom."
• p. 77 - "It is a paradox indeed that those who want to be fore 'everyone' often find themselves unable to be close to anyone."
• p. 82 - "Leadership therefore is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event, which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness... Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priest, and Christian laity have become disillusioned, bitter, and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts." (wow... powerful stuff)
• p. 90 - "But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is actually like the Grand Canyon - a deep incision in the surface of our existence that has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding. Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: the Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift... The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for those who can tolerate its sweet pain."
• p. 92 - "Many churches decorated with words announcing salvation and new life are often little more than parlors for those who feel quite comfortable in the old life, and who are not likely to let the minister's words change their stone hearts into furnaces where swords can be cast into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks."
• p. 95 - "How does healing take place? Many words, such as 'care' and 'compassion,' 'understanding' and 'forgiveness,' 'fellowship' and 'community,' have been used for the healing task of the Christian minister. I like to use the word 'hospitality'...
• p. 98 - "The paradox indeed is that hospitality asks for the creation of an empty space, where the guests can find their own souls."
• p. 99 - "Ministers are not doctors whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, they deepen the pain to a level where it can be shared. When people come with their loneliness to ministers, they can only expect that their loneliness will be understood and felt, so that they no longer have to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of the basic human condition."
• p. 99 - "Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons."
• p. 100 - "A Christian community is therefore a healing community, not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and shared weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength."
• p. 105 - "When imitating Christ does not mean living a life like Christ, but rather living your own life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways in which someone can be a Christian."

Well, that was kind of a lot. There are so many more gems in this book. It was good; and it taught me that I have much to learn. Much.

Peace out, my friends; and in.

Jean vanier quotes

I ran across a quote by Jean Vanier the other day and couldn't remember where I saw it, so I googled him and came across this page of quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/123458.Jean_Vanier. Here are some gems that I liked...

• “To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.”
  
• “We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. ”
• “Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.”
  
• “Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.”
  
• “If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.”
  
• “Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.”
• “All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.”
• “People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.”
• “When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can't approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.”
• “When children are loved, they live off trust; their bides and hearts open up to those who respect and love them, who understand and listen to them.”
• “A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of man is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.”
• “Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.”
• “It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.”
• “We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.”
• “To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.”
• “A Christian community should do as Jesus did: propose and not impose. Its attraction must lie in the radiance cast by the love of brothers.”
• “...Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.”
• “I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.”
• “One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.”
• “Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)”
• “I have discovered the value of psychology and psychiatry, that their teachings can undo knots in us and permit life to flow again and aid us in becoming more truly human.”
• “But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time. (163)”
• “Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness”
• “I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?”
• “This evolution towards a real responsibility for others is sometimes blocked by fear. It is easier to stay on the level of a pleasant way of life in which we keep our freedom and our distance. But that means that we stop growing and shut ourselves up in our own small concerns and pleasures.”
• “The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace is to work for a true political solution; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. It is to work to enable every one to live and taste the secret joys of the human person united to the eternal.”
• “[...] We have to realize that this wound [of loneliness] is inherent in the human condition and that what we have to do is walk with it instead of fleeing from it. We cannot accept it until we discover that we are loved by God just as we are, and that the Holy Spirit in a mysterious way is living at the centre of the wound.”
• “We discover that we are at the same time very insignificant and very important, because each of our actions is preparing the humanity of tomorrow; it is a tiny contribution to the construction of the huge and glorious final humanity”
• “The poor are always prophetic. As true prophets always point out, they reveal God's design. That is why we should take time to listen to them. And that means staying near them, because they speak quietly and infrequently; they are afraid to speak out, they lack confidence in themselves because they have been broken and oppressed. But if we listen to them, they will bring us back to the essential.”
• “A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!”
• “A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.”
• “The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.”

The same death every time...

I've been thinking about this quote from Bonhoeffer...

The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death - we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time - death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and his call are necessarily our death and our life.

...Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p.44

Search and rescue (the book) - pt. 4

This is the fourth and final (I think) posting of my notes from Neil Cole's book Search & Rescue: Becoming A Disciple Who Makes A Difference. You can find part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE, and part 3 HERE.

p. 180 - "It's time for Christian leaders in the Western church to make the same determination that these apostles made. Not that we need to lock ourselves up for an even longer time in our study, preparing for our sermons, but we need to be fed by a steady and voluminous intake of Scripture with no purpose other than to hear from God and obey his voice."

p. 183 - "Jerome, an early church father, once claimed that the Bible was shallow enough for a babe to wade in without fear of drowning yet deep enough for theologians to dive into without ever touching the bottom."

p. 185 - "The DNA for the healthy growth of disciples, leaders, churches, and movements is: (1) Divine Truth - the reading of Scripture introduces divine truth into the heart of the disciples and sets a foundation on which to build. (2) Nurturing Relationships - the confession of sins in a vulnerable yet safe relationship establishes the foundation of nurturing relationships. (3) Apostolic Mission - begging God for the souls of lost friends and family members on a daily basis is the foundation of a heart set on apostolic mission."

p. 185 - **** "Your church is only as good as her disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs, or property are; if your disciples are passive, needy, consumeristic, and not radically obedient, your church is not good." *****

p. 187 - "Christianity must mean everything to us before it will mean anything to others."

p. 190 - "One way to gauge ministry is to ask yourself, 'If the Holy Spirit were to back out of this effort, would it collapse?' Many ministries would continue because they are humanly produced programs." (the Navigators)

p. 193 - "...there is not a single command in Scripture to plant a church or to multiply small groups. There is a lot of church planting and multiplying of groups going on in the New Testament, but not because the church was instructed to do so. The reason that groups and churches multiplied is because the first generation of Christians was obeying Christ's very specific and simple command to make disciples. When Christians are obedient to this single command, it results in the multiplying of groups and churches. To attempt to multiply groups and churches without multiplying disciples is not only disobedient, it is downright impossible."

p. 197 - "ABC evaluation to determine if a disciple-making tool or method is a healthy or a faulty system: ACCESS - Does the tool continue to release the disciple to tap into his or her own access to God for guidance, power, and values rather than create an unhealthy dependence on others? BIBLE - Does the authority come directly from the Scripture or does the method simply use the Scripture to borrow undue authority for the system itself? COMPASSION - Does the tool catalyze the compassion of Christ for others from the heart rather than from obligation or duty?

p. 198 - "I don't think hell is our greatest threat right now... The real question we need to ask is, 'What will we do when all heaven breaks loose in our churches?' Would we be prepared if revival really came? Can we handle the lack of control? Can our egos manage not having the answers? Could we be comfortable with the chaos? Our church structures, our doctrinal statements, and our denominational polities and distinctives are insufficient to contain the wealth and the power of heaven. Heaven is beyond our grasp, beyond our comprehension, and beyond our control. Perhaps we should count the cost before we pray, 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'"

p. 200 - "When Jesus spoke of an entry point into salvation and the kingdom of God, he didn't attempt to lower the standard so that more could enter in. He did the very opposite. He said, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'"

p. 201 - "If an aircraft flies thirty-five thousand feet, the air pressure in the cabin must be equalized to make people comfortable - and to survive. In the same way, the more we read the Scripture and pray, the better prepared we will be to handle life's external pressures."

p. 208 - "Poor Disciple Selection Syndrome"... "It is very important to find desperate sinners if we want to make disciples..."

p. 211 - "Jesus told us that there were four kinds of soil and only one was good soil and produced fruit (Mark 4:3-20). Expect to lose some of your seed in less than fertile soil."

p. 215 - ***** "If suddenly all the garbage collection trucks broke down, everyone in town would soon know about it. If all waiters and waitresses were suddenly sick and unable to work, many of us would go hungry. If teachers couldn't work, we would have a crisis on our hands. But if all the churches in your community suddenly disappeared, would the average person in your town even notice? If just your church closed its doors for good, would people who live within a fifteen-mile radius even know about it?" *****

p. 217 - "The issue of slavery provides us with an interesting comparison between England and the United States. On this side of the Atlantic, we attempted to settle the issue with a war, and it was the bloodiest war in all our history, especially considering every casualty was one of our own. It is called the Civil War, but there was little civil about it. Eventually the war won the freedom of black people in our country, but don't be deceived, we are still battling this war in our nation. The 'civil war' has ended, but the battle over 'civil rights' continues./ England, however, did not shed a drop of blood to overcome slavery, and they have not had nearly as much difficulty getting along after freedom was acquired. Why? Because slavery was overcome in England by the revival of God's people. Their hearts were changed from within rather than being ruled from legislation and the barrel of a musket... (continued)."

p. 219 - "We must not become content with lesser things."

p. 220 - "If truck drivers can have a big impact on our society, how much more someone who loves Jesus with his or her whole life? Shouldn't we at least try?"

p. 221 - "Legalism is a very severe threat to the church and is not treated lightly in the Scriptures. There is no other sin in the New Testament that receives a more severe condemnation."

p. 221-222 - "The intent of questions is not to define what sin and righteousness are but to be a platform for opening up discussion about what is going on in one's character development."

p. 223ff - some really good accountability questions from a variety of places. I will likely put some of them in a separate post later.

That's all. Peace out; and in.

Search and rescue (the book) - pt. 3

Part 3 of my notes from Neil Cole's book Search & Rescue: Becoming A Disciple Who Makes A Difference.You can find part 1 HERE, and part 2 HERE. These notes are taken from section 2 of the book, where he outlines his system for making and multiplying disciples. I thought he did a good job of explaining it plainly and clearly. He details his Life Transformation Groups, which consist of Scripture reading, accountability, and prayer.

• p. 151 - He gives four common problems of a curriculum approach to disciple making (Leadership malnutrition, Leadership bottleneck, A false linear approach to leadership development, and Borrowed authority).
• p. 158 - He points out that his book 'Cultivating A Life for God' is where he fully explains the LTG concept. [ yes, I will be getting this book]
• p. 159 - "There isn't a method or system that will change a life. It is the Good News of God's kingdom that changes a life. It is the power of God's truth that transforms a willing soul. It is regularly confessing sin to one another that brings healing. It is begging God for the souls of the hurting people around you that changes your heart. The system is just a simple, easily accessible package for those things; that's all."
• p. 162 - "Albert Einstein once commented, 'When the solution is simple, God is answering.'"
• p. 162 - "Simplicity is a step beyond complexity."
• p. 164 - Criteria used by Church Multiplication Associates that they use to determine if tools or strategies are worth producing. Can it be: Received personally, Repeated easily, Reproduced strategically?
• p. 164 - "It is good to give some thought to ministry systems, but the systems should not be the main thing. In fact, if done right, they should hardly be noticed at all because the life of Christ has captivated our attention and affection."
• p. 167-168 - "An LTG is made up of two to three people, all of the same gender, who meet weekly for personal accountability in the areas of spiritual growth and development. A group should not grow beyond three but multiply into two groups of two rather than remain a single group of four. If a fourth person is added to the group, it is recommended that the group consider itself pregnant and ready to give birth to a second group. Once the fourth person has demonstrated sufficient faithfulness (two to three weeks), the group should multiply into two groups of two... There is no curriculum or training needed for the LTG. The Bible and a simple card, which stays in the participant's Bible, is all that is needed. The LTG consists of three essential disciplines for personal spiritual growth - confession of sin, a steady diet of Scripture, and prayer for others who need Christ."
• p. 171 - "For a steady diet, I strongly recommend reading twenty-five to thirty chapters each week..."
• p. 175 (summary of the system) - LTG's meet once a week for approximately an hour. LTG's are groups of two or three (a fourth person is the beginning of the second group; multiplication is imminent). The groups are not coed. There is no curriculum, workbook, or training involved. There is no leader needed in the group. Only three tasks are to be accomplished: Sin is confessed to one another in mutual accountability; Scripture is read repetitively, in entire context and in community; Souls are prayed for strategically, specifically, and continuously.
• p. 176 - "...we are educated beyond our obedience, which is not to say that we know a lot, but that we do not practice the elementary things we do know."

That's enough for now. Hopefully one more post and I should be done.

Peace out; and in.

Search and rescue (the book) - pt. 2

Part 2 of my notes from Neil Cole's book Search & Rescue: Becoming A Disciple Who Makes A Difference.You can find part 1 HERE.

• p. 75-76 - Walter Henrichsen's display describing the power of multiplication... As well as the story of the father who offered his sons the choice between one dollar a week or doubling one cent each week (p. 76)...
• p. 81 - details about 'Pay It Forward' (the movie, and the idea)...
• p. 83ff - Chapter 6 on "Motivations That Make A World of Difference" is a good chapter detailing internal/external and spiritual/natural motivation...
• p. 86 - "Much of what consumes the mind of the typical pastor today is figuring out how to motivate unmotivated people. How do we make people want to do the right thing?" ***
• p. 89 - "The motivation for following Christ and reproducing disciples must be INTERNAL rather than EXTERNAL."
• p. 94 - "It comes when we 'remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead' (2 Tim. 2:8). We love ONLY because he first loved us. This is why Jesus was so careful to instruct us to take the bread and cup regularly - to remember him and the body broken and the blood shed for us. This is where the internal, spiritual motivation comes from. When we forget Jesus Christ and him crucified, things of less value motivate us."
• p. 96 - "The blood of the saints is the seed of the church."
• p. 96 - "The key to effective disciple making and multiplying is tapping internal motivation."
• p. 97 - "If the Spirit of God does not grip our hearts and move us to invest our lives in the most important cause of all, no manipulative tactics, gimmicks, and persuasions will get the job done."
• p. 97-98 - story about the Satanist who thought he might become a Christian.
• p. 100 - "There is nothing more futile than trying to get unmotivated people to be moved. My life is too short to spend it trying to manipulate unmotivated people to do important things. I would much rather give my life to a few motivated people who will make a difference."
• p. 103 - I wrote "preach this" at the beginning of chapter 7 "Being Prepared and Equipped for a Great Work"
• p. 107 - "Confession is verbal agreement. When police officers want a confession, they are looking for the perpetrator to agree with the charges. When we confess our sins to God, we are saying we agree with God that our sinful behavior is wrong and unholy."
• p. 107-108 - clearing up that 1 John 1:9 is intended for confession to be to other people, not just to God (like most assume).
• p. 113-114 - "Often I ask audiences if they like to read instruction manuals. Usually there are a small handful of people who do; the rest of us do not. We are the ones who use only about 10 percent of our computer software capabilities, and our VCR is still blinking '12:00'. The few who read the instructions use their equipment much more effectively than the rest of us... Then I ask the audiences if they have ever received a love letter from someone they really have a thing for. When they raise their hands, I ask them how they read their love letters. 'Did you read the first line, "Dear Joseph," and then set the letter down to meditate on the deeper meaning of those words rather than going ahead to read the rest? Of course not!... How do people read love letters? They read the whole letter, every word, all the way through, and then they read it again and again. They even smell the letter, wanting to consume every part of it. They may even take it with them in their coat pocket or purse, so that if they end up waiting for a bus or in line at the bank, they can take it out and read it again... We must begin to see God's Word as a personal love letter that God has written to us. It's not just an instruction manual. Yet often we approach it like an instruction manual. When something goes wrong we turn to the troubleshooting section (the concordance) to find the text that addresses our problem, and then we read just that paragraph divorced of context, flow, and unity of thought..."
• p. 116 - Four characteristics to initiate a multiplication movement... (1) It must be incarnational... (2) It must be viral... (3) It must be transformational... (4) It must be universal...
• p. 117 - good story about Neil and the gang member over the need to both exhale AND inhale; we can't be willing to only exhale (confess) our sin, without also inhaling (taking in Scripture)...
• p. 120 - Summary of Spiritual CPR: Confessing our sins to one another; Planting God's Word in our heart; Reaching out to others with the message of the gospel (this is what Life Transformation Groups are all about).
• p. 123 - He gives his reasoning for his belief that the best context for life change is a community of two or three... ***** "Consistently throughout God's Word there is reference to two or three. The phrase "two or three" is mentioned at least ten times in the Bible. It seems to consistently say "two or three" not "two or more," for that could be endless numbers. It also doesn't say "three or less," for that could also include a solo disciple not in relation to others. No, the perfect size group for life change in the Bible seems to allow for options, but only two: two or three."
• p. 126 - "Church planting is my calling and passion. It dawned on me one day, however, that I could not find a single verse in all of the Bible that commands us to plant or multiply churches. It's just not there! The command that God gave was to make and multiply disciples - not cell groups or churches. Jesus wants to build his kingdom through church planting and multiplication, but his plan is to do so by multiplying disciples..."
• p. 134 - Court case about the guy who was sued because he sat by and watched a man drown and didn't do anything about it. Chuck Swindoll says, "You and I have a legal right to mind our own business - to turn a deaf ear to anyone in need, to continue sunbathing while someone is drowning. We are not obligated to respond. Indifference may not be illegal, but it is certainly immoral!"... (Neil) "I cannot accept that if we love Jesus, we will be able to sit back and sunbathe while millions around us drown. We cannot afford to turn a deaf ear to those who are drowning. Indifference is not an option for any follower of Christ. Indifference is an insult to the initiative and sacrifice of Christ."
• p. 136 - "How do you spell faith? R-I-S-K. You simply cannot live a vibrant life of faith in a safe and protected place. If you do not have any current story of how God has stepped in and rescued you, you are probably not living with enough risk." "We must be willing to go into harm's way for the sake of others to see the hand of God intervene on our behalf."
• p. 138 - (in an interview Neil had) "If I am a good lifeguard, it is because my relationship to the ocean is much like my relationship to God... I love the ocean and feel most at home when I am in the water. I play in the ocean and enjoy it. But I also know what the ocean can do, and I fear it with a healthy respect. That is how I feel about God. I love him and enjoy him, but I also know what he can do, and I have a healthy fear of God that shapes my life and character. That is what makes me a good lifeguard."
• p. 139 - "When Cortez landed in America, his first order to his men was to burn their ships. Retreat was not an option. They were now committed to this life, come hell or high water. Because of this, the men were motivated to move forward in their mission."
• p. 140 - The story about the little boy giving a blood transfusion to his sister, who then said, "Will I start to die right away?" (he thought he was giving his life, not just his blood).

This ends the first section of the book. More to come later...

Search and rescue (the book) - pt. 1

I just read Neil Cole's book Search & Rescue: Becoming A Disciple Who Makes A Difference. I thought it was a good book, though I wish the first part of it had been shorter. He says on p. 12, "This book is about being the hero you were born to become"... and the first half of the book deals largely with his exploits as a lifeguard, alongside a study of 2 Timothy. It's not that it wasn't interesting or anything, but I'm not interested in being a 'hero'; I just want to make disciples - which he covers in a pretty simple and organized way in the second part of the book. Overall I liked it, and it was a quick and easy read.

The gist of the entire book centers around his Life Transformation Groups system (or LTG's). I had heard of this before, and it was nice to read about it in more detail. I have to admit, it did get me excited. So I will try to capture some of the bits and pieces that stuck out to me and share them with you. However, if you are interested in making more disciples, I recommend you get the book and read it for yourself. This is stuff that ANYONE can do. So, here goes part 1...

• p. 20 - "The best lifeguards are not the ones who make the most rescues, but the ones who prevent the need for rescues."
• p. 21 - "If Christians started to take responsibility for our communities and cities, began being more proactive in prayer, and established a real presence of grace and truth, we could have a huge impact."
• p. 23 - "Real heroes do not emerge from places of comfort, elegance, and privilege, but from pain, hardship, and trouble. It is under the pressure of great diversity, conviction, and challenge that heroes are forged."
• p. 28 - "...it's not special powers that make a real hero; it's courage and the willingness to be self-sacrificing to help a desperate person."
• p. 29 - "Heroes may be found in a moment, but they are not made in a moment; it takes years. If we simply wait for a big crisis and hope we will respond right in that crucible, we are hanging a heavy weight on a very thin wire. Heroes are not made by dangerous circumstances, but they are recognized in them. Heroes are made in the simple decisions made each day in ordinary life... You cannot be selfish in all the little choices of life and expect to be self-sacrificing in the moment when it counts."
• p. 32 - "Sleeping the sleep of innocence upon the bed of no regrets." (Dezi Baker)
• p. 35 - 'Red pill vs. blue pill' scene from The Matrix... "You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes"... (see book).
• p. 48 - "If we truly believed that the good news is what we say it is, we would not be ashamed to tell others about it. We could surmise that, if we really believed in our hearts that the good news is true, we would all be sharing it boldly. If you found a cure for cancer, you would not be shy about letting people know."
• p. 49 - "When you choose to commit to Jesus, it's not the culmination of your salvation - it's the beginning."
• p. 65 - "The kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self." (Chuck Colson)
• p. 66 - "The closer I get to heaven, the more aware of hell I become." (Billy Graham)
• p. 66 - "There is a paradox in the salvation process. We may think that as we grow closer to Christ's likeness, sin decreases and our need for the gospel aslo decreases, but this assumption is wrong. While it may be true that our life of obedience will include a decrease in sin, at the same time we should become more aware of sin and the grip it has had on our lives. Thus we should develop a more dependent attitude toward our Savior, his sacrifice and his ongoing ministry in our lives."
• p. 70 - "The task is to make disciples; in fact, that is the actual imperative of the passage in the orginal Greek language. The rest of the commands (going... baptizing... teaching) are participles carrying the weight of the imperative to make disciples. In other words, the main thing is to make disciples, and the rest of the passage is about how to go about doing it."
• p. 70-71 - "I have heard that if you took all those who are starting churches in the world and made a composite of the average church planter, she would be eighteen years old, Chinese, having read very few books, and without seminary training. The average American Christian already knows more than this hero who is starting dozens of churches each year. While we emphasize knowledge at the expense of obedience, it isn't what you know; it's what you do with what you know that is important."

Part 2 will be later...

Organic church stuff...

I've been reading Neil Cole's book Search & Rescue: Becoming A Disciple Who Makes A Difference, and am quite enjoying it. I also happened to run across an article by Neil published in Leadership magazine (I think) called "Defending The Organic Model." It has also been posted on the blog Out of Ur as, Defending Organic Church (Part 1). I like how he ended the article:

In organic church life the flow of fruitfulness is from the inside-out. In an institutional approach we try to form disciples from the outside-in by using conformity and behavior modification practices. This will not work.

The goal should not be to plant a church, but to plant the seed of the gospel in good soil. Instead of seeing church as the agency of change, we must see it as the outcome of changed lives. Jesus is the Savior, not the church, and we must plant Jesus rather than churches.

I really like this idea. But I have to admit, I'm a little hesitant to separate Jesus and the church quite that much - the church is the body of Christ, after all. But... I think I like what he's getting at.

Out of Ur also shared a second post by Neil, Defending Organic Church (Part 2), where he outlines three great points:

1. Make disciples, not organizations, and let Jesus build the church out of changed lives.
2. Lower the bar on how church is done and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple.
3. He pushes his LTG's (Life Transformation Groups) as a 'simple method of empowering ordinary people, even brand new Christians, to connect to God's word and obey without creating a dependency upon others who will tell them what to think and do.'

I like all three, but especially 1 & 2. I will be discussing LTG's later, and I really like the idea behind them too. However, I admit that I still struggle with the lack of dependency thing. Not that I am in favor of institutionalism, but I am hesitant to go completely the other way and say we should not be dependent on the church at all either. I think there is something to be said for submitting to community. So I'm a bit conflicted, but I'm still working through it. Good stuff, nonetheless.

Highlights of jesus manifesto (the book) - pt. 4

I posted my after-reading summary of Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola's book 'Jesus Manifesto' in a post HERE. Part 1 of my highlights are HERE; post 2 is HERE; post 3 is HERE; and this is the 4th and final one (though the last 2 quotes here could probably stand on there own):

• p. 124 - "No man knows how bad he is, 'til he has tried very hard to be good." (C.S. Lewis)
• p. 128 - "Resting in Christ doesn't mean being passive. It means allowing the Lord to do the heavy lifting. Laziness is no more the way to follow Jesus than is busyness."
• p. 129 - ******"The meaning of the tree of knowledge of good and evil can be understood by the serpent's promise: 'By eating from this tree, you will be making your own decision. You will be like God, determining for yourself what is right and what is wrong.'/ The fall of humanity was all about women and men assuming the posture that they don't need anyone to tell them what to do. They would decide for themselves what's good and what's bad. They would be self-sufficient and self-determining."*****
• p. 130-131 - More on choosing between the two trees (great chapter).
• p. 133 - "The Bible teaches the highest possible moral values. But the Bible is fundamentally not about morality. Following the Lord Jesus Christ involved living out the highest moral values. But following Jesus is fundamentally not about morality. Conversion to Christ involves a moral transformation of life. But conversion is not fundamentally about morality either. The most moral unsaved person on the planet needs Christ just as much as the most immoral one. It is Christ, not religion, that saves us."
• p. 136 - "When you enter into a dark place, it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
• p. 138 - ***"The written Word is a map that leads us to the living Word. Or as Jesus Himself put it, 'The Scriptures... testify about Me.' Every part of the sacred text breathes the same oxygen - Christ. So the Bible is not the destination; it's a compass that points to Jesus - heaven's Lodestar."***
• p. 138 - "The Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. So the fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. That's why Jesus did not leave His disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He left them with breath and body. He didn't leave them with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. He gave them wounds to touch and hands to heal. He didn't leave them with an intellectual belief or a 'Christian worldview.' He left them with a relational faith and an indwelling presence."
• p. 139 - "The Bible is not reader-indifferent or history-independent. Each age draws new insights from the Scriptures based on what that age brings to it. This means that revelation is always veiled in mystery. We bring to it our culture, our history, our gaze, and our glasses. The fundamentalist idea that the text has only one meaning is of relatively recent invention (it was spawned from Enlightenment rationalism)."
• p. 139 - ***"...we must begin living by the forgotten tree rather than the forbidden one."
• p. 143 - "...the church is the reassembling of Christ so that He might be made visible on the earth."
• p. 143 - "...we know Jesus Christ through one another, not just by ourselves."
• p. 144 - "The calling of every person involved in church planting, then, is to build the ekklesia upon a ground-breaking revelation of the Son of God - a revelation that burns in the fiber of their being and leaves God's people overwhelmed, bowled over, reeling, and awash with the glories of Christ."
• p. 144 - "The occupation of every local assembly can be summed up in two words: discovering and displaying - that is, discovering and displaying Christ."***
• p. 147 - "Receiving Christ also means receiving all who belong to Him." ***
• p. 148 - "Every first-century rabbi had male disciples only. Jesus was the exception. He was the only teacher in antiquity to include women in His circle of followers."
• p. 151 - "Every crisis you face is a God-given opportunity to rediscover Christ in a bold new way. For that reason, every painful encounter we meet bears the fingerprints of God."
• p. 151 - "So be prepared to meet a God who seems to have the disturbing habit of leaving the scene when you most need Him."
• p. 151 - "But remember this - especially when you're tempted to go into light panic mode. He IS the resurrection and He IS life. And if you endure, outwaiting your impatience for His timing, Christ will roll the stone away and raise you from the dead."
• p. 154 - "Herein lies a great truth: When the vessel is broken, the fragrance of Christ pours forth."
• p. 169-170 - "Jesus didn't die just to take you out of hell and into heaven. He died to take Himself out of heaven and deposit Himself in you."
• p. 171 - *****"To say that He is our Savior and Lord is correct, of course, but it's inadequate. he is so much more. Christ is... your Shepherd, your Advocate, your Mediator, your Bridegroom, your Conqueror, your Lion, your Lamb, your sacrifice, your manna, your smitten Rock, your living water, your food, your drink, your good and abundant land, your dwelling place, your Sabbath, your new moon, your Jubilee, your new wine, your feast, your aroma, your anchor, your wisdom, your peace, your comfort, your Healer, your joy, your glory, your power, your strength, your wealth, your victory, your redemption, your Prophet, your Priest, your kinsman redeemer, your teacher, your guide, your liberator, your deliverer, your Prince, your Captain, your vision, your sight, your beloved, your way, your truth, your life, your author, your finisher, your beginning, your end, your age, your eternity -- your all and all./ He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; yet He is new every morning. But beyond all of this, He is your King, your judge, and the True Witness."*****
• p. 172 - *****"Though we have never discussed any of these issues, the two of us might disagree about many things - ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, economics, globalism, or politics. But in this book, we have sounded forth a united trumpet. We have sought to present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the body of Christ - we have said in unison, One thing [we] know... and that 'one thing' is Jesus the Christ. He is the root and essence of Christianity. For that reason... Christians don't follow Christianity; we follow Christ. Christians don't preach themselves; we proclaim Christ. Christians don't preach about Christ; we simply preach Christ. Christians don't shout from the rooftops, 'Come to church'; we shout from the mountains, 'Jesus Christ is born - come to Christ!' Christians don't point people to core values; we point them to the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, ascended, enthroned, exalted, triumphant, glorified, reigning Lord - Jesus of Nazareth, the King, the Messiah - the Christ beyond the tomb."*****