Following the directions

The bedrock issue for evangelicals usually is the Bible.  If you look at our doctrinal statements, and you can see the one for my church here, it is easy to see that all our beliefs come from what we think the Bible teaches.  If  you go to the websites of the various evangelical churches and denominations you will always find similar statements about the Bible.

This consistency always yields 100% uniformity on all doctrinal and life issues, right?  Since we all believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God and, since we say something akin to the Bible needing to “believed in all that it teaches” we can take comfort in knowing that we will never disagree, right?  But reality intrudes on that happy scenario doesn’t it?  What are we to make of that? 

For the most part, discussions on that subject devolve into trying to decide who is right and who is wrong in their beliefs, and there are some situations where this is the correct discussion.  But more and more I am convinced that the key issue is not if I will follow Scripture, or even what Scripture says, but how do I follow it in the circumstances I actually face.  And sadly, particularly for those who view our current times as a struggle between Scripture and culture, culture must be considered in our applications.  Here are some examples of the issues where application puzzles me.

-        Romans 14 clearly teaches that we should be willing to not offend the weaker brother.  In Paul’s day those encounters were always local, most often one-on-one.  It is a new day.  Church web sites, Facebook, Twitter, and the ability of smart phones to record anything anywhere and send it to the world have changed this dynamic.  If you look at any church website for example, it is almost certain that somebody can find something that offends them.  If a church is brave enough to say anything about music it is dead certain to offend someone.  How do we apply Romans 14 in a global media environment?

-        We are told to “go into all the world and make disciples.”  Our world is industrialized.  For us the term “make” conjures up an image of making cars or toasters or something.  I think a lot of discipleship teaching focuses on methodology, they are “here is how you do it” studies.  The implication is that the instructions they give are akin to those that come with the swing set you are assembling for your kids.  You have to follow it to the letter or you are in trouble.  But Jesus spoke into an agricultural world.  Is it possible that for them “making” was more like “growing?”  My wife takes care of a variety of houseplants.  She knows that this one needs more sun, that one has to be turned regularly to grow straight, this other one is water thirsty while the one next to it you don’t want to over water.  She knows that you treat them differently in different seasons and a dozen other individualized variables.  Is that more like what Jesus meant when He said “make” disciples?

-        Other issues get more controversial.  During Bible times the average lifespan for women was somewhere between 28 and 30.  Infant and child mortality was so high that, if each woman did not bear 5 children in that short time, the population would decrease.  Medical conditions were so bad that you could truly call child-bearing a death-defying act.  Do we apply the passages on women and childbearing exactly the same in our day?

 I am not trying to create conflict or in any way cast doubts on the authority and inspiration of Scripture.  What I am saying is that “following the directions” is a lot more complex that it seems.  We need to show grace to others as we all interpret and apply the Bible to our lives.  We need a community of believers to help us choose rightly how to make those applications. 

For me the doctrinal statement I reference above, and indeed the entire church website, is our way of saying that this is what we, collectively, think it means to be a Christian and this is our model for living it out.  As with all church websites it is meant to inform and invite.  But we know you are not a cookie cut out of a uniform mold, God has made you unique.  You are welcome to join us as we try and follow the directions.

Will I dance for your Jesus?

My wife, Peggy, is at a conference this week for women who minister to suffering and abused women around the world.  At times the things they discuss get pretty heavy.  Girl children get poisoned in Afghanistan simply for going to school (a second major incident just last week), sex trafficking is rampant in Southeast Asia and the republics of the former Soviet Union, Muslim women live behind the veil, AIDS and female genital mutilation are rampant in Africa, blatant infidelity is the norm in South America.  These are good women from around the word but, as I can tell from the way Peggy acts when she gets home, the days are hard.

So it was that, after dinner the other night, they had a time of worship together and, as part of it, asked a dear sister from Africa to sing.  She sang in her native language, Swahili, and put the English translation of the words up on the projector.  I know this woman, she is an incredible saint, and as she began to sing she began to dance.  If you’ve ever had an opportunity to worship in an African congregation you know what I mean when I say they sure know how to worship.  Before too long she was really moving with the music.  Overhead the translation of the lyrics told the others “daughters of Africa, give thanks to the Lord, glorify His name, sing praise to Him….”

One by one, moved by the moment, the other women got up to dance with her.  Before too long women from Sweden, Singapore, Indonesia, Turkey, Uruguay, Brazil, the US, and Canada were swaying to the music with her, hands lifted up, face alight in worship.  According to my wife it was a magic moment.  Other women, smart phones in hand, recorded the moment and, before the night was over, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts shared the images and story around the world.

But in the morning came the feedback from those posts, many of them disapproving.  How dare they dance, particularly in such an uncontrolled way!  What was wrong with them?  They needed to project the dignity and honor of Christ, not dance!  The women were hurt and embarrassed.  My normally quiet wife was indignant.  “We were a group of middle aged Christian women praising God and they make it sound like it was ‘Girls Gone Wild.’” 

That day they did their best to take down all the postings of the worship time that had gotten out.  In doing this they quoted Romans 14 and their desire not to cause offense to weaker brothers (and sisters, for much of the feedback was from women).  I honor them for that but I do have to wonder.  Is the purpose of Romans 14 to bring worship down to the tolerance level of the most restrictive of us?  Why did the feedback of the “weaker” sound as if they thought themselves the morally superior?

The title of this article comes, as I am sure you know, from the song “I Can Only Imagine.”  So let’s do a little imagining about heaven, shall we?  I can imagine that, as they stand before the Lord, perhaps the women of that night will “in awe of you be still.”  I can imagine too that our Lord, with love and grace, might say to them “You know, we don’t have any ‘No Dancing’ signs here.”  I can imagine too that they will dance with joy before Jesus as they did that night.

But that is not all I can imagine.  I can imagine Jesus turning to those who disapproved of the dancing; that they too will feel His love and grace; and that He will say to them “You can dance too, if you want.”

Good news about the Good News

I like polls and it seems as if a lot of people do.  They take polls on nearly everything.  For some time now they have been doing a “daily tracking poll” on the upcoming presidential race with news reporters happily giving the results of the day-by-day shifts in opinion.  They only thing I can glean from watching the polls is that it appears that a large number of Americans change their minds every day about who they are going to vote for.

Christians are not immune to the fascination with polls and virtually everything we think, believe and do is being polled by our fellow Christians and the secular world.  I’ve noticed that when polling data supports what I already believe I tend to feel rather smug and confident.  When polling data among other Christians differs with my opinions, well, there is always the “I must obey God rather than men” line to fall back on.

There is one thing on which we evangelicals regularly get polled that disturbs me however and that is evangelism.  For many years now the number of Christians who believe that it is our responsibility to witness and evangelize has remained well over 50%, even if it is drifting slightly down.  On the other hand, the number who report that they actually do it has never reached 20%.  If we take this information at face value, and I pretty much do, then it appears that 30% or more of us live with an ever-present sense of guilt that we are not doing what we think we should do.

I recently saw an opinion piece written by a young evangelical that appeared to me to be an attempt to work out guilt feelings on this issue.  His article was entitled “Why I never witness.”  It was well-reasoned, articulate, and even appealed to Scripture to support his views.  I felt sort of sorry for the young man and had some sympathy for his concerns.  I think the core problem he has, and a lot of us have it, is that we perhaps don’t know what it means to witness.

I grew up in an Evangelical Free Church.  The EFC shares with the Baptists and other evangelical denominations a strong tradition of witness.  We’ve been urged to do it, taught how to do it, been given organized opportunities to do it.  Yet questions remain.  Why do I feel awkward and uncomfortable when I do it?  Why, no matter how much I try to learn, do I continually feel ill-equipped?  Why does this, alone of all the spiritual gifts, seem to also be a command?  But I think there is good news about the Good News.  We can do it and, in fact, we may already be doing it without being aware of it.

The young man in the article, citing things he called “rude” included “knocking on the door of a total stranger and asking him to change his entire life assumptions.”  As with all his negative examples, it was what could be called confrontational evangelism, where we actively create situations for the sole and express purpose of sharing the plan of salvation.

I have become convinced that, while we are all equipped to witness, only a tiny fraction or us are equipped to do confrontational evangelism.  Yet, if you look at them, most training and exhortations about witness are based on confrontational principles.  We are to create situations, and even entire relationships, for the purpose of witness and use current relationships with this end in mind.  The truth is very few of us are comfortable doing this.

My wife is quiet, shy and likes to work behind the scene.  I suspect she would rather have a root canal than knock on the door of a stranger and present to him the plan of salvation.  Yet she is active full time in ministry.  All this week she is in a conference with women from every continent discussing strategies her ministry is using to reach oppressed and abused women with hope and the Gospel. 

She has discovered her “evangelistic personality.”  She has learned that caring for abused women opens doors to letting them know that God cares too.  She has discovered that working in a team in expressing this care is effective.  She has figured out that a well organized introvert like her does not need to be the front person in the work; that she can support, encourage, equip and empower her coworkers in vital ways.  And there is an interesting side benefit.  As she shares her excitement for this ministry, she “witnesses” by doing no more than telling others what she like to talk about.

I have a different evangelistic personality, although I am no fan of confrontational techniques either.  I like being out among what I call the hard-core unsaved, people who have no interest whatsoever in the Gospel and may even hate it.  Confrontational techniques would be more likely to end with my nose broken than their hearts broken. 

I think we all have evangelistic personalities.  There is some way that God has equipped us to be part of seeking and saving the lost.  We need to set aside all those things we have been taught about “how to” evangelize, look into our hearts and ask a simple question.  What way, however unlikely it may appear to be, has God equipped me to share His love?

What did you mean?

One thing I have learned by blogging that has been instructive to me when I read Scripture is that it is very easy to misunderstand the written word.  I’ve had times when I’ve written things in sort of a neutral matter-of-fact way and had different readers interpret it as a disgusting political opinion, a horrifying blasphemy and an inspiring piece of insightful prose.  Oddly enough, it is the latter that is most troubling to me.  When someone tells me how blessed they were through something I said and I stare blankly at them while I try frantically to remember what the heck I said if makes me very nervous. 

A key lesson from this is that, when you write, there is no such thing as tone or inflection.  When speaking to someone in person and you say “I’d be happy to.” your tone and inflection tells them whether you are communicating cheerful obedience or sarcastically telling them they can wait forever before you’d do that.  We can’t do this when we write.  This does not mean that written words communicate in a neutral manner; it means that the reader gets to supply the tone and inflection for you.  The net result is that there are always people out there who know better than you what you meant by what you said.

In blogging the worst that can happen is misunderstanding; be it puzzling, heartbreaking or hilarious.  I take comfort in knowing that I have the protection that absolutely nobody thinks my words are either inspired or particularly clever.  They are free to agree, disagree, or think me an idiot as they choose.  But when we turn to Scripture it is a whole different ball game.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  Its teaching is instructive for my life so I read and study it regularly and desire to understand it.  But the words on the page are tone and inflection free.  When Thomas, in John 11:16, responds to Jesus’ intention to go to Jerusalem by saying to the other disciples “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” were those words of heroic self-sacrifice?  Sarcastic mocking of a suicidal idea?  Resigned defeat of one who feels his cause is lost?  The tone and inflection told his hearers but the words don’t tell us.  For all we know they could be the cheerful babbling of someone who is going off the deep end.

Yet we all read that passage, and frankly the whole Bible, with an assumed understanding of what we think the words mean.  I think the term Biblical scholars use to describe the making of those assumptions is “guessing.”  We always live with a degree of uncertainty when we read the Bible.  No matter how sure we are that we know what the Bible means by what it says we really should not be absolute.  We don’t need to throw our hands up in despair but we do need to read and follow the Bible with humility and show grace to those who differ.

In relationships, be it pastors and teachers with a congregation, husbands and wives, or any other we also need to take time to be sure we are on the same page in regards to our understanding of Biblical passages.  My wife and I can agree that wives submit to husbands but if I think that submitting means I am the boss and I don’t want any backtalk, while she thinks it means that after we discuss things and work out what we think it best she will defer to my decision, we’d be headed to some nasty times.

Some time ago I was privileged to have a private dinner with a very well known, if somewhat controversial, pastor and author.  He had just written a bestselling book on the meaning of the Gospel.  We got to talking about the controversy the book had caused and how some who were followers of his were more or less beating other Christians over the head with what they thought were his opinions; even going so far as to say, with this poor man as their authority, that vast portions of the church were unsaved.  He rolled his eyes, shook his head and mumbled a prayer I will never forget.  “Lord, please save me from those who think I am right.”

I like that prayer; particularly when I am the one who thinks I am right.

Follow the leader

Just out of curiosity I did a search of “Books in print” on the subject of leadership and came out with 77,871 books.  It certainly seems as if there are more than enough people willing to aid us in being good leaders.  Out of curiosity I did another search on followership and came up with 111 references.  Frankly, I was surprised it was that many.  But it still seems that 778 to 1 ratio is about right in terms of the advice given to leaders as opposed to followers.

Odd, isn’t it?   I wonder why that is so.  Perhaps there is an attitude that leading is hard while following is pretty easy.  I mean, all you need to do it get in line and do what the guy ahead is doing, right? 

Or maybe it is an ego thing.  Maybe admitting that we are, more often than not, following and not leading is a bit humiliating.  This theory can be somewhat substantiated by the fact that, when you look into the books on followership a great many of them hit the theme of “leading by following.”  I haven’t actually read any of them in full but their promos imply that you can lead your leaders by being a good follower, which sound sort of like a covert leadership book.  It is almost as if they are teaching a way to get the benefit of being a leader without the burdens.

Two undeniable facts make this dearth of followership books difficult though.  One is real life.  When it comes to being a follower there are so many more of us and almost all of us spend a significant portion of our life and time following somebody or something.  To do this without instruction and aid is a shame.

Secondly, in both the Bible and Christian history, there is a clear assumption that we are going to do a whole lot of following.  Jesus calls us to follow Him.  Paul wants us to imitate him as he imitates Christ.  We are told to obey those in authority.  We are even warned about not all being leaders and the extra burdens given to those who lead.  We respond by writing songs like “I have decided to follow Jesus” and “Where He leads me I will follow” and declare our status as happy followers.  But are we? 

Maybe there are not a whole lot of instructions on followership because we just don’t want any.  I can make lots of excuses that sound really, really good when my pride doesn’t want me to be a follower.  I can warn against authoritative leaders.  I can call myself a Berean and say that I am exercising discernment.  I can say I am following Jesus and not the person in leadership.  I might even say I am being led by the Holy Spirit, which makes my claim unassailable.  Of course, on that last point, it is amazing how often following the Holy Spirit ends up with me doing exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.

And it is true that human leaders, as much as we followers, are frail and subject to human weaknesses.  Every time a leader stumbles, or even makes a wrong choice, it gives us more ammunition in our resistance to following.  While we have no call to be blind followers of whatever the person in authority says, that we will follow is often assumed in Scripture.  So what are the rules of followership?

I frankly don’t know and I am still looking for the definitive book on the subject.  But for me it starts with this – I have to admit that, more often than not, I really need some help in figuring out how to live.  I don’t have all the answers; I don’t always know what to do; I have a pretty good track record of being wrong.  I know I want to follow Jesus but don’t often know exactly how that translates to the circumstances I face day to day.  I need grace if I am to be a good follower and that probably means I need to show grace to leaders.  In the meantime, if you’ve got this followership thing down pat, drop me a line to tell me how it is done.

 

Grace comes strangely

Many of you know that, for more than seven years, Peggy’s mom, Miss Evelyn, lived with us.  Getting her to move down from her lifetime home in New York was a struggle.  She always treasured her independence and, for her, dignity and propriety were the paramount virtues.  Taking care of herself was only one of them.  She had hundreds of unwritten rules that you followed to be dignified and proper.  One Sunday morning when it was pouring rain she got out of her car to go to church.  While everyone else was dashing to the church door she strolled in a slow and dignified manner.  One simply did not run to church, it was not dignified.  Being drenched was a small price to pay for dignity.

But, at 88, it finally became clear to her that she could no longer live alone and she moved in with us.  Advancing age made this necessary.  Nevertheless she struggled to maintain an appearance of dignity and propriety at all times.  But time is relentless and her infirmities piled up.  Severely diminished eyesight and hearing, loss of feeling in her hands and feet, increasing loss of continence, and severe shaking from ongoing Parkinson’s disease made her courageous struggle to be dignified harder and harder.

Peggy and I gradually became her co-conspirators in her struggle.  We ignored or casually responded to the various accidents, spills and misfortunes she had at home.  We did all we could to be sure that, when she left home, she was presentable and dignified in appearance.  We guarded her schedule to help her avoid potentially embarrassing incidents.  As time went by things got gradually worse but she never stopped fighting and was always mortified by every spill or accident.  Our task because as much consolation as cover-up as she struggled to maintain dignity. 

Then, last August, came the stroke that seemed to be the final victory for the ravages of time.  After a few tense days when we didn’t know if she would survive she stabilized.  But, physically she had taken a huge step back.  She was no longer able to do even the smallest task of bathing, dressing, eating, etc.  Mentally she was confused and slow.  She left the hospital for a skilled nursing facility where she resides to this day.  It would appear that dignity is gone however.  Physically, she needs care akin to that of an infant. 

Our fear was that this woman, for whom dignity was everything, would live in constant mortification.  But she does not.  While she is aware of all that is being done for her, one thing that is gone is her worry and obsession with dignity.  She simply accepts all that now needs to be done for her.  There are no comments, no expressions of mortification.

Miss Evelyn is now 95.  She has survived cancer, two strokes, several bouts of pneumonia and other illnesses.  We have no idea why God has allowed that but we have come to see the loss of her obsession with dignity as a grace from God.  It is almost as if God has said that, instead of her fighting for dignity, He will simply remove that worry from her.  Grace sometimes manifests itself in ways we would never have chosen and could not foresee.

In the meantime, we have chosen to continue to fight her war for dignity on her behalf.  She may no longer be able to do it, she may no longer even care, but we still want to honor her lifelong quest.  With each visit we tend to her grooming and appearance.  Sometimes the smallest, most unlikely thing can restore her.  Even handing her a small stuffed animal toy can, as we take her out for a spin in her wheelchair, restore the smiling dignity she always wanted. 

Grace begets grace.  We sometimes need to respond to the strange grace of God with grace of our own in the circumstances He gives us.

Robin Gibbs, Leisure Suits and why I need church

Robin Gibbs, one of the famous Brothers Gibb, or BeeGees, died yesterday at 62.  If you are of a certain age you remember the Bee Gees, fondly or otherwise, as the kings of the Disco era when they had hit after hit culminating in the smash hit soundtrack to the movie Saturday Night Fever.  Oddly enough, Gibbs’ death comes on the heels of the death of the “queen of disco” Donna Summers. 

The late 70s, when disco fever swept the land, were a peculiar time.  In music, hairstyles and fashion there was a massive surge to styles that dominated the scene, only to be followed a few years later by an equally massive dropping of those styles.  Little more than a decade after they were all the rage leisure suits were gathering dust in closets and the BeeGees had become cartoon characters.  It was almost as if an entire country woke up one day and said “What were we thinking?”

For me, my most memorable moment of the disco era came when, in my late 20s, my wife and I attended the season-ending dinner of a church bowling league.  (Church bowling leagues are yet another relic of a bygone era.)  I had been aware of the fashion trends of the disco era but hard largely ignored them.  This was not due to a keen insight into cutting edge fashion trends or some prophetic knowledge that they would soon be history, I just didn’t like them.  As we walked into the room for the dinner I looked around and realized that virtually every other man in the room was wearing a leisure suit.  I had never felt more like the guy who didn’t get the memo then I did that night.

Through the night I endured a lot of kidding from my teammates and their wives.  One of the men at the table was my leisure suit-attired father, who was kidding me along with the others.  Do you know what it feels like to have your dad kid you about how old fashioned and out of touch you are?  Eventually they shifted to “But seriously…” pleas of how comfortable and hip they were and urgings for me to get one that they delivered with an evangelistic zeal.

I wish I could say that, using fortitude and keen fashion foresight, I stood fast but I found myself thinking that, although I didn’t like the things, perhaps I ought to give in.  I was saved from making such an ignominious decision by my wife.  Although we had never discussed it, I found that she thought that leisure suits as unappealing as I did and expressed that opinion.  I was never more grateful to hear her speak up and, with her at my side, I was able to smile at the kidding, resist the urgings and get through the night. 

Not too many years later the leisure suit fad had fizzled out and I looked like a genius in bypassing it.  By the grace of God I had enough good sense not to say “I told you so” to my dad and the others.  But the entire episode has taught me why I need church.  No matter how good we are at reading Scripture, grasping correct doctrine and understanding the application of it into everyday life, unless you have the support of a family, a church family, it is powerfully difficult to stand alone.  I need a church family every bit as much as I needed my wife’s support that night.

At Trinity Community Church I am blessed to have not only a great pastor but a church family that loves the Lord, loves His word, and is passionate to apply it to their lives.  They also love each other.  We don’t always all agree on all the fine points, frankly it would worry me if we did.  But those small differences don’t divide us, they strengthen us.  And I always know I have a family that will tell me the church equivalent of “You are right about those leisure suits.  Don’t get one.”