Speaking of Jesus

This week is the introduction to a new book and Bible study at St. Philip's based on the book "Speaking of Jesus: the Art of Not-Evangelism," by Carl Medearis.   I first read this book in the spring after a friend of mine had recommended it to me, and then in an email wrote:

I found that it has really made me think about how I say things now.  And it was a really good thing when I met with an African American woman last week.  I had no idea about her beliefs and she asked me one of those loaded questions along the lines of “don’t you think you are ruining African traditional culture and beliefs by importing Christianity?”.  Fortunately, I was able to tell her (truthfully, of course, but I wouldn’t have known how to say it without having read the book) that I wasn’t really interested in importing Western church traditions.  I looked at it more as I had a best friend, Jesus, that I wanted to introduce my African friends to.  And that I thought they needed Him as much as I do.  Turns out, she is a Christian too, but she had been wrestling with this idea that somehow Christianity would destroy African culture.  Religion might – but not Jesus.

Over the summer I read it again, and then read two of Carl's other books.   Over the weeks and months between my first and second read of "Speaking of Jesus," I asked friends both at St. Philip's and other churches to tell me what they thought about Jesus.

I would ask about Jesus and they would tell me about the Church they went to.  I would ask what their (or our) church thought about Jesus, and they told me about the choir, or the praise band, or their pastor.

If someone asks me about my wife Suzanne, I don't tell them about the house we live in.  If someone asks me about that new restaurant we like so much, we don't tell them about the tablecloths.  If someone asks about that movie, or sports team, or musical artist, we don't tell them about the venue.  Why is Jesus different?

I am excited to read this book with others, and learn from them how we can really speak about Jesus.  Will you join me?

Read the first chapter [click here]
At Amazon [click here]
A Google eBook [click here] (but is missing chapters 8 & 10)

The Innkeeper of the Heart, part 1

It is now 12 days before Christmas and Suzanne and I are looking toward our kids coming home from college and we’re looking at our house, which is the smallest we had since they have become full sized, and we’re wondering how are we all going to fit? There is not so much room in the inn, so I might be coming to asking, Do you have a guest room in your house?

In the Christmas Lore that has evolved over the years, these would be the ones that are not in scripture, like the names of the Magi or Wise Men or even that there were three, there is another one, Innkeeper. He’s gotten a rather raw deal it seems to me. If you’re like me you have this image of a Bethlehem Hotel 6 and its one of those places that maybe would not be your first choice early in the night, but the later it gets…

Do you remember what it was like before Cell Phones, and Smart Phones, going from hotel to hotel late at night, looking for a room. Each hotel interaction would take about a half hour, to find it, and then go in to ask for a room, and anymore it seems like always have VACANCY signs even when there is no room in the inn. All the while you’re kicking yourself for not calling ahead, and it gets later and later, the kids are asleep in the back seat, the parents are tired and road weary and all you want it is place to rest for the night. As the night drags on your standards drop, it really doesn’t need cable or a swimming pool or even a comfortable bed. You’re so tired you’ll take anything.

You feel like you are in the wilderness that Isaiah spoke about in today’s reading, and yet, Isaiah says: “The arid desert shall be glad, the wilderness shall be rejoice” (Isa 35:1, Tanakh)

I got to tell you, that is not what Suzanne would say on those late night jaunts finding a hotel, there is no one glad, there is no rejoicing. We’ve finally come to the last hotel in town, our standards are zero. We drive up and the turn signal starts making that special sound that it only makes really late at night.

We turn in, I get out, Suzanne stays in the car, her face reveals anxiety and distress that late night travel brings on. I’m at the front desk, ringing the bell, waking the night attendant who says “No, I am very sorry, but we filled up the last suitable place just a few minutes ago. There is no room. However there is a place out back where you can rest for the night, its not much…”

But that’s not how it was. The City of Bethlehem wouldn’t have had a Motel-6, or really any Inns to speak of. Those were usually on the Greek Trading Routes, The Interstate, and Bethlehem was far off the beaten track. What some houses did have, is roughly equivalent to what some of us have today: guestrooms. Rooms that are not generally used, but stay ready for visitors. If you look at the Greek word that is translated as Inn in our Bibles, you’ll see that it most often means guest chamber or inn as a lodging place or an eating room or dining room.

It is interesting to search the New Testament and find that word is used only in only one other place, and in that other place it is translated to mean “The Upper Room.” On the night of his betrayal, when Jesus gathered with his disciples for the Passover meal, we know they gathered an Upper Room, but it’s the same word used for Inn in the text that tells the story from Luke 2, and it means a large guest room. Which if you think about it, gives some almost perfect symmetry to the life of Jesus, that His first family and last meal could have been in the guest room, except there was no room in that Inn.

He was a guest in our world, but the guest room was full, and so he Mary and Joseph had to make do in the stable. There was no room in the Inn.

Like Liquid Paper on a CRT - Adaptation is not Change

First the lot emptied, then one day a crane appeared and lowered the huge sign. Next day it was being boxed up and day following, gone. All that remains in the large capital H that is built into the building and now I’m guessing will stand from Hewlett. I remember when they built that Hummer dealership and all those years of driving by when its lot was filled with the different models and colors, and especially the ones parked at precarious angles in the drainage ditch. "Over at Don Hewlett Hummer," writes Autoblog.com, "customers can test-drive the full-sized SUVs on an obstacle course." The obstacle they didn't test drive was the changing world.

It’s a contrast to the abandoned Movies Plus store over in Taylor. This store joins Blockbuster, that announced Chapter 11 today and may soon go the way of VHS, Circuit City, Linens 'n Things, and Sharper Image.

Five years ago, who could imagine that any of these great companies would be history? For some it was a change in the marketplace or economy; factors outside their control. For others, it was an unfortunate decision or series of that either bet the company and lost, or failed to adapt when the world changed. Their marketplace and competitors still exists—people still need cool gadgets, appliances, electronics, DVDs, kitchen and bathroom soft items, only their company ability to sell them doesn't.

Each morning I dry by that big H, I think about God’s Church. According to the Wall Street Journal,

“Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.” [WSJ]

I wonder if these now empty storefronts are just the first wave, a wave that will eventually empty our pews, reduce our once great churches. Years from now, we in the local church may realize the signs we missed or ignored. The larger governing bodies of the United Methodist Church understand problem, and are doing their best to educate the rest of us through studies, briefings, webinars, and called sessions of the Annual Conference.

But faith is an intensely personal experience and despite evidence to the contrary, most of us still think the way we experienced Christ need not change, even though most everything else about our Western world has. We act like all we have to do is rebrand it, or ReThink it, or jump on the latest technology or social network. I believe that unless we change from the inside seeking an almost fanatical dedication to our core purpose, these efforts will fail.

I mean consider the difference between Amazon.com and Cokesbury.com. Amazon and later adapter BN.com changed the whole way we buy, research, and experience books. Cokesbury also has an online presence, but it is an online catalog. No rethinking of the way they do business.

Because the denomination has asked that we support our Methodist Publishing House, I go to cokesbury.com. Twenty minutes later and still trying to login (first trying to find my account number, and password, finally giving up and trying to create for a new account). Click [Next], nothing happens. Finally I give up and call Cokesbury’s 800 number.

They find my account information immediately:

“Now what is the ISDN?” I tell her the title of the book.

“What I need is the item number?” I don’t know it, I say.

“Can you look it up on-line?” Sure, I say, and I go back to my laptop, go to cokesbury.com, find the item, and read off the numbers. Like I said its an online catalog, but a prime example of how we have embraced technology without adapting to it, how we use it. Its just an electronic form of a paper catalog.

Its like the old blond joke, of seeing Liquid Paper on the CRT. (if you don’t know what either are, here are the wikis Liquid Paper, CRT).

I guess my point is that I believe the church has more in common with Circuit City than with HUMMER. With HUMMER, the economy changed and suddenly people realized that they didn’t or never needed these huge SUVs, they still need personal transportation, just not this kind. Where as with Circuit City, the market still exists, people are still buying exactly what Circuit City used to sell.

I believe the “market” still exists for the Church too. It is not the case that the world will wake up one day and realize they don’t need what the Church has to offer. However if we don’t wake up and change the way we offer it, the world may decide it just doesn't need it way we like to offer it.

Adapting to change is only change when we allow it to go both ways; that is allow the adaption to change us and how we use it.

PS: For an interesting read on the demise of Circuit City, read How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins, available at Cokesbury: http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=819624 1-800-409-5346

Links to how Penn and Teller did it (9:30-FLC)

On Sunday in the 9:30-FLC service, we showed a clip from The West Wing in which the illusionists Penn and Teller appeared to burn an American Flag in the White House, as part of Zoey Bartlett’s birthday party. We showed the clip as a way to begin a discussion of the threatened Qur’an burning this week by the pastor in Florida.

Our Media Team had found this The West Wing clip, as one it was based on from, I’m guessing, Penn and Teller’s Las Vegas show, which goes on beyond the one we showed, and explains how they did it. Its a really interesting clip, and quite profound for not only what it says, but how.

Here is the clip we showed on Sunday: [The West Wing]

Here is the Las Vegas show: [Penn and Teller in Las Vegas]

Member or Disciple?

It is unfortunate that the term “member” has become synonymous with the word disciple. It is unfortunate because being a disciple requires that we apprentice with people who have let their Hearts be Opened to Jesus, and their Minds be Enriched by Jesus whereas being a member might only mean showing up on our membership rolls. Being true to the Great Commission (Matthew 28), means we must first be concerned with disciple making, and make means that as a Church, we take this responsibility seriously.

My friend Rev. Paul Gravley, who is pastor of Hutto United Methodist wrote:

The word disciple, best translated, means apprentice. An apprentice is part student and part follower, with the goal of learning from the teacher in order to be as good at what they do as their teacher. In the case of the 12 disciples, they studied and learned under Jesus so that they, to the best of their ability, might be able to do what Jesus did! Then, at the end of his ministry, Jesus offers this incredible edict to the disciples: “go and make more disciples, and teaching them…” Jesus apparently thought that the 12 could actually do what Jesus did and not only that, that they could pass on to the subsequent generations that they can do what Jesus did.

This doing what Jesus did has been passed down to each of us so that each of us, through God’s grace, in Christ, and through the movement of the Holy Spirit, we too can do what Jesus did when people come Home to God, at St. Philip’s United Methodist Church.

The word Home is incorporated into our logo at St. Philip’s Logo. H.O.M.E. - where each letter has meaning

H – Hearts

O – Open

M – Minds

E – Enriched

When we welcome people into our church our hope is that they will come H.O.M.E. to God, that is become disciples of Jesus Christ with their Hearts Open, and Minds Enriched. But this has not been an articulated, or disciplined hope. Instead, it has been our practice to get people involved in choir or a Sunday School class, or in one of the committees of the church, and hope that they would figure out what it means to be a disciple. Disciple-making is too important to be left to chance. It takes training and intentionality – just as Jesus trained the first Disciples, so too we must be trained to be disciples of Jesus.

It may not be how we in the church today became disciples, but I submit to you that the world is very different than what it was, and we too have to adapt and change. Paul Gravley writes:

Consider that families move. Often, on average, once every five years. As nomadic people if who live on average to 80, we would have moved 16 times. In the community that we find ourselves in (the greater Williamson County area), that rate is probably much higher. This fact has major implications for the church, particularly with regards to disciple making.

Quite simply, St. Philip’s has a small window in a person or family’s life to help create disciples out of seekers, and it is time we become intentional about our disciple making process.

Over the next few weeks and months you will hear about an intentional disciple making process Connecting Ministries has been working on called HOMESteading, our local answer to the practice of intentional discipleship.

Coming Alive in Passionate Worship

This week as we talk about Passionate Worship around the St. Philip’s community, and I have been reminded of a conversation I overheard this summer, on a bus in Ghana. We were packed in pretty tight so I couldn’t turn around and see who was talking. For three hours I listen to these two Peace Corps volunteers talk. I wrote this in my personal blog when I was in Ghana. These two women are on their way to join volunteers from around the country for a 4^th of July Celebration.

They catch up on each other’s lives, discussing everyone in the program and who they are currently “with”. I can’t avoid listening; they talk non-stop for three hours. One boy they talk about extensively, “like when you’re talking with him, he looks all thoughtful, and he gets that like far off look, like he’s thinking deeply about what you are saying…” the other jumps in, “but he’s not” she says. “There is like nothing going on inside.” I’m sure I’ve dropped a couple hundred usages of the word like. These women are such verbal processors, but their words burn in my ears. Am I like that? What would they say about me if they knew me? For three hours I hear them analyze their friends and colleagues, and that boy. “He’s passionate about nothing,” they say. Not that he isn’t passionate, its just that his passion does not have an object. Its talk without action, music without expression, art that can’t evoke an emotion. Passionate about nothingness except looking or feeling passionate. I think about myself, my situation, and wonder what makes me come alive, or back to my current situation, what would I jump across the crevasse to do, ignoring the danger of possible failure?

Someone once said “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” [Howard Thurman] So have been compiling my list of things that make me come alive…

And one of the things on my list of passions is worship and that alone raises many questions. (If you want to read about the other two, here is the link to the complete blog post [click here]).

Being passionate about Worship, I wonder is that the same as Passionate Worship (AKA loving God in return)? Or is Passionate Worship the act of loving the love of God, that is the emotion of love without the object of it.

If there is a purpose to Passionate Worship, then is it to evoke passion in us?

Is Passionate Worship’s affect to increase our passion for God? Or is it like what I heard someone say about art, “I’m not sure what it is, but I know it when I see it,” or in our case experience it.

Here is I know about being passionate about worship:

Worship - I’m not just saying that because I’m a pastor, and should include something religious on my list (how sad would that be?) I do love worship, I love planning it, attending passionate worship services, feeling the playful love that goes into the service when everything works together, the danger when someone calls an auditable. I love being lost in the experience, as the work of worship helps me approaching the divine. This work can’t be measured by minutes, but only what that experience does, where it takes you. I love a well structured sermon, singing hymns I’ve never sung, connecting words of the hymns with the message, being lead by a talented lead worshipper, or listening to the perfect song following a sermon, like a good cup of coffee after dessert. I love that feeling after the benediction when I feel changed, encouraged, or challenged. I love it on Wednesday when my mind is still working through a “some assembly required” aspect of the sermon, or when I’m wondering years from now, about a particular point or story I heard.

So maybe I can adapt that Howard Thurman quote to look like this

“Don't ask yourself what your church needs. Ask yourself what makes your faith come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people of faith who have come alive.”

Radical Hospitality - You Are Welcome

There is this expression in Ghana that everyone new to the country grows to understand.

“You Are Welcome!”

Even now as I write these words, they sound perfectly normal to me, but I remember when we first moved there, how odd they sounded, like the response to someone saying thank you. But what these words “You Are Welcome” mean is just that, that you are welcome in this place, be it our home, our church, or in our company.

The practice of radical hospitality is generally considered a keystone to a church’s success, of making people feel welcome. In his Oct. 6, 2009 blog posting, “The Battle is Won or Lost in Your Lobby,” Bishop Schnase reflected on a talk given by Claudia Levy at the Leadership Nexus event in Shreveport, La., in September.

“She said a preacher may preach the best sermon since the Apostle Paul … but if someone walks in your front door and is ignored, neglected, rudely treated, pounced upon in an overdone fashion, or welcomed in a mechanical and perfunctory manner, then you will likely never see the visitor return.”

Schnase responded: “I’m not suggesting every usher, greeter, staff member and volunteer must be perfect. But they must be authentic, hospitable and attentive. Directed by the right motivations, sustained by a right Spirit, attentive in a right and caring way, we can do this right. We have to look at the guest experience through the eyes of a visitor,” or how we would hope to be welcomed.

“Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7)

For the past year United Methodist Churches have been challenged by figuring out what Radical Hospitality means to them in their ministry setting. We wonder where does Radical Hospitality lead, and I believe that if it does not lead anywhere, that is OK. The blessing of Radical Hospitality comes from its practice in our lives, in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and in our church is enough because of what it does to us, not to where it leads or it’s affect on the people around us. Practicing Radical Hospitality makes us better people, a better church, it helps us become more like what we were created to be, and that my friends that is reason enough.

Archbishop William Temple once wrote, "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members." And as long a we remember that, we’ll do OK at extending Radical Hospitality, but when we shift our thinking to believing that it exists for us, we’ve lost any context for Hospitality.

There is another expression in Ghana, “Am I Invited?” that one will ask when waiting outside a room one wants to enter. This lesson came to us in a hospital where our daughter Grace was being treated for Malaria, and the chief nurse stood outside the curtain saying “Am I Invited?”

I think that is the implied question that guests to St. Philip’s ask, “Am I invited?” Are the people here going to invite me into their lives, their practice of faith, their community? Is St. Philip’s a place that has room for me? Its not only our gests asking, “Am I Invited?” is the question that I think God asks us every day. Am I invited into your life, into your relationships, into the joy and pain of a believer’s life?

So if the question is “Am I Invited” then as we grow in faith, and practice Radical Hospitality, our unspoken answer to God and those around us will be “You Are Most Welcome!”