Her Name Is Lucy

"And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in his glory." - Paul in Colossians 3:4

Last night was the annual, Scott, study break tradition of midnight breakfast. On this auspicious occasion you usually find us at Denny's grand slamming our bodies with food that nobody should be eating in the unholy a.m.

After much slap-happy laughter purposefully caused by sleep deprivation, we devoured our midnight food which somehow transformed into 5-star dining by my eager clan.

We all finally crawled into bed at around 1:30 a.m.

I squinted my eyes at the alarm clock and saw 6:30 a.m., but quickly convinced myself how deserved I was to sleep in. After all, it's Saturday... and last night's traditional breakfast gives me license to snooze. I did so until about 7. That's when I started thinking about Ellie (see yesterday's blog). I had been supernaturally stirred and awakened with her on my mind... like God and a prayer had pushed me out of bed to try and meet this woman.

I knew I only had this beckoning morning and tomorrow to try and meet the stranger I had curiously named Ellie.

On the beach by 7:15 or so, I had my cup of hot tea in hand as I sat in a beach chair and gazed at the storm-stirred waters. I saw something unusual that had washed up on shore. It looked like an old, wooden crate. I quickly imagined drugs from Cuba or lost Aztec treasures being in the crate, but I looked and disappointedly saw nothing but seaweed and barnacles.

I gazed about 150 yards down the beach, and noticed what had become a very familiar frame walking my way. I couldn't tell for sure, but it sure moved and walked and looked like Ellie. As the thin and frail figure came within clear visibility, my heart leaped with the reality of my morning prayer walking right towards me.

Funny how nervous and tentative you can get in these God-designed moments.

As Ellie came within feet of my beach chair, she stopped and looked at the washed up crate. I popped up and blurted, "What do you think it is?" Ellie, with keen, salty-dog insight, surmised it was an old abandoned crab trap. She sees them occasionally come to shore like this.

I quickly introduced myself with brief descriptions of my occupation, purpose for beach dwelling, and curiosity of this stranger I was talking to. I somewhat embarrassingly explained how I had been watching her walk by for nearly two weeks, and I just had to satisfy my writer's inquisitiveness by engaging her.

Ellie is actually Lucy. She has lived on this beach since 1981. Best she can, she walks on the beach every morning. She sometimes walks with manufactured walking sticks... but that keeps her hands tied up. What Lucy really likes to do is pick up cans and bottles as she walks. She just doesn't understand how people can be so insensitive and careless. This would probably explain the beer can she was holding... I think. Lucy never married and didn't have any kids. All of her family had "gone on to the next life." When I briefly described my family of four kids, Lucy gleamed at me and said, "Oh, you'll have plenty of people to take care of you when you are old."

With that, some lightning flashed, the wind starting picking up, and a storm quickly blew ashore. After we snapped a picture together, Lucy hurriedly bid me a kind farewell and twinkled that maybe she would see me next year. This whole exchange was a mere fifteen minutes, but I believe was supernaturally, divinely, and gloriously designed by a God who so desperately wants to live in, through, and with me... to and for others.

It's one thing to read about churches becoming missional, relational, and incarnational. It's quite another thing to just do it. There's much I've read this week about how to move the church ahead in the tenuousness of a post-Christian world. I've been inspired, soaked in principles and concepts, and allowed charts, graphs, and statistics to keep pushing me forward as a leader and as a disciple of Jesus who loves His Church.

One of the best experiences of this study break, however, may have been this incredible, God-designed 15 minutes with Lucy. All of the books, conversations, graphs, pie-charts, and vodcasts cannot contain the profoundness of this simple lesson.

For the Church to move forward, we need to let Jesus incarnate himself within us... to the point that we can't wait to engage people (maybe even waking up with a prayer and a name). It's really as simple as looking down the beach at who's coming your way. Then... any old crab trap will do.


BLOG POSCRIPT:
It's incredibly interesting and insightful for me (and perhaps nobody else) to understand some of my feelings and thoughts through this experience God gave me this morning. For example...

The closer Lucy walked towards me, the more I began an inner rationalization as to how crazy this little game I had conjured up in my head really was. What if she's just an angry, old, crabby lady who doesn't want to talk with anyone? What if she thinks I'm trying to stalk her? What if I can't point her to Jesus? What if people just really want to be left alone? What if I come across as some dorky pastor looking to score points with God? What if...

There were also a few moments inside my head (especially when the storm clouds were obviously cutting our time short) when I panicked because I hadn't shared Jesus yet. Would I be a failure if God DID design this exchange and I didn't spew forth a verbal gospel tract in the allotted time frame?

There was another God-moment inside of me when I relaxed about trying to be a beach preacher to Lucy. The Spirit seemed to tell me to relax. Just live. Just be... because being IS Jesus. I don't have to get the whole evangelism thing done in one, fifteen-minute experience. This is not about another notch in my evangelism belt, but rather God using me and living through me because he loves Lucy way more than I ever could. I can tend to forget that I'm a third party joining in on a conversation between God and Lucy that's already been going on. I tend to forget that all I can really do is water and plant.

I also noticed how enlivened I became through this whole ordeal. The Spirit inside me "quickened" --- as the old revival preachers used to say. Purpose and passion and life and excitement and all kinds of good stuff began to well up within me as Jesus was really living incarnate through me... even if I didn't preach a sermon. I think this is why many of our churches are dead and boring. Can you imagine a church filled with Jesus followers who are engaging people outside the church walls with an incarnate Jesus? Wow. People would come hungry for the Word, already inspired and anxious to engage a Mighty God, and completely disinterested in goofy church-world arguments that cloud real-world needs.

I'm seriously hoping I'll see Lucy one more time tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is my last day of study break. If I see her, I'm going to invite her to supper. I think the whole thing might go beyond my enlivenment, and would perhaps even ignite my family. We'll see...

Ellie And The Evil Twins

"Born again lazy is common among

Christians today. They fill the seats of
both megachurches and small-town
fellowships. There's inaction, idle worship,
and a tendency to stay exclusive as a
fellowship and not go beyond the parking
lot. As a church, we have become Born Again Lazy. Lazy with outreach, lazy with
money, lazy with our families, lazy with prayer, lazy with fasting, lazy with studying God's Word, lay with Him."
- Craig Gross


For almost two weeks now, an elderly woman has walked the shores of Siesta Key and created burning questions inside of me. Most other people parading in front of my beach office are forgettable and only stick around for a day or so. But this elderly lady (whom I've named Ellie because you can only say "elderly woman" so many times in a blog) has taken early morning walks every day. She must be a local. Sometimes she walks with professionally manufactured walking sticks. Some days she goes solo. Some days her skinny left leg is wrapped, and then not. There are certain days that seem to go better for her as she briskly walks the beach. On other days, she stops every 50 yards or so and takes a long scan forward of the territory she has yet to conquer. Everyday Ellie is alone. Is she a widow? Does she have kids? Who is this woman? What's her story? Does she live here? I wonder if Ellie knows Jesus.

Meanwhile... Michael met a couple seven-year-old girls at the pool yesterday. I could tell by the way he was dancing with his water noodle, talking and laughing at accelerated volumes, and strutting his sun-burnt feathers like a male peacock ... that I had lost my beach bum son to summer love. Upon my first attempt at inquisition, Michael downplayed his new acquaintances with great animation. He even labeled the identical button-nosed bikini babes as "the evil twin girls." I'm fairly certain this dramatic disdain was to conjure up a "That's my boy," from his father. I absolutely gave him the thumbs up, but I so know my son's heart and motivations. He telegraphs them never-so subtly. There seems to be some kind of weird-but-natural fear factor going on with dad that is currently keeping Michael from a full-out admission of his boyish crushes. Weird... but I'll milk it for as long as I can.

However, last night as Michael was sacked out on the couch from too much sun, ocean, and women, I awakened him abruptly with, "Michael, the evil twin girls are here!" Mind you, I was only trying to get Michael to get up and use the bathroom before climbing into bed. On most nights Michael has prematurely fallen asleep, cajoling him to get ready for bed is a slow, comical, should-have-filmed-that-to-win-$10,000 ordeal.

With a scant whisper announcing the evil twin girls we're in the building, Michael shot up like it was the last day of a long year of school. Wow. That boy was motivated. I've never seen him move faster.

Early this morning, Michael was up and peering somewhat mysteriously out our front door. By noon, we all knew the girls were from Snellville, Georgia, had their family history memorized... and Sherry was engaged with a poolside chat with the twins mom. Michael has now dropped "the evil twins" distinction from his vocabulary. Seems like the more he dives in and gets to know these bathing beauties, the less evil they really are. My son... the chick magnet!

Today I was able to start my fourth study break book. Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon are edgy, irreverent, and funny prophets as they have penned "Starving Jesus." It's a simple call to missional action. It's a clarion message to stop ignoring God's calling for His people to do something.

If Jesus really has come incarnationally to dive into our world, and still lives incarnationally in, through, and with us --- then we must do something. Why don't we? Why so often do we hear God whisper and then choose to ignore? Gross believes we have "worked ourselves into comfortable lifestyles that rarely encompass others and their needs."

Mahon convicts with these words: "When you have a relationship with Christ, he calls you to action. When heard and ignored, the resulting action will always result in failure. Always. How do you know you are ignoring God? If you're asking the question, chances are you are."

I've got two more morning chances at Jesus living through me and talking with Ellie. I think I'm supposed to talk with her. I'm hoping that sometime during the next two sunrises, I'll see Ellie and have the chance to talk with her.

For me, the more I think about how Jesus came and embraced this life... and the more I realize how he still wants to live vibrantly like this through me and TO others... the more inquisitive I become about others. The more Jesus incarnates himself through me, the more curious I am about others lives, needs, hurts, and salvation.

I think growing old and comfortable creates plenty of excuses for not engaging. But shouldn't my aging actually increase the life of Christ that should come through me? The older I get, the younger-like-Michael I should become, and the more Jesus comes through.

What if Ellie is an evil twin? No rationalized fear there. Do I call her "potentially evil" because there is a weird fear factor going on inside me that keeps me from a full admission of my inadequacies? Probably. God knows my heart and motivations, and I so need Him to hold me accountable for what He sees (Prov. 16:2).

In the past, when I have dove into the life, hurts, and needs of someone... it has sprung and flung me back into really living. It has motivated me. It has moved my spiritual journey faster and deeper. Interestingly, I've found the more I move outside the church walls and into someone's life to really get to know them, the less "evil" they really are. This is also the exact place where Jesus becomes brilliantly incarnate again and again. That's really, really cool.

I hope I see Ellie on the beach tomorrow morning. Maybe I should take Michael. After all, he IS a chick magnet.

An Open Letter

"The more I learn about the incarnation of a Jewish Jesus, the more I begin to understand how He wants to live incarnationally through me." - Me



An Open Letter To Cincinnati Christian University (formerly Cincinnati Bible College, aka: CBC)






June 4, 2009

Dear CBC,

I last walked your hallowed hallways as a wide-eyed graduate in 1987. My experience there atop Price Hill in Cincy was a good one. More than just experiencing a holy Skyline Three-Way, I was able to make great strides in gaining a Biblical, collegiate foundation, securing an initial preparation for full-time ministry, and finding my smokin'-hot wife. For this, I am very, very grateful (especially the hot wife thing).

I would hope, however, that young graduates leaving your spiritual institution today might gain something beyond what I was able to lasso. For example...

It has not been until the past 6-8 years that I've been exposed to the wonderment of the Hebrew/Jewish ways and culture of Jesus. Learning from people like Ray Vander Laan, Rob Bell, and Lois Tverberg has brought new insight and hunger into the Bible... which, by the way, is almost completely a Hebrew/Jewish book. As I preach these days, I love to hear people say things like: "I never knew that," "This makes the Bible really come life," "I never knew all of this was in the Bible." Of course, I'm slow to tell them I never knew much of this was in the Bible until recently either.

I'm really not saying all of this with a vehement sarcasm as much as I am bemoaning the lack of almost anything pointing to the richness of a Hebraic or Jewish culture during my tenure at CBC.

I do remember passing all my classes, but being somewhat sleepy through many. This is comparative and tantamount to a medical student snoozing through a cardio class. You just don't want someone with a plaque on the wall that says "doctor" or "pastor" sleeping through some of the very basics. Am I right?

My book of Acts class could have really come to life if, for instance, the study of Pentecost in Acts 2 would have been dynamically tied to the Old Testament, Hebrew-Jewish festival of Pentecost. My gospels class would have really popped if the final week of Jesus was laid side-by-side with the seven image-laden festivals celebrated by the Hebrew-Jewish people for hundreds of years.

I'm just saying... so many CBC graduates have gone through a lot of information, but the truly transformational stuff of a Jewish Jesus was just missed. Theology of the incarnation was covered, but the reality and authenticity and Jewish-ness of Jesus' incarnation was not something I can recall grabbing me before being handed my Bachelor's of English Bible diploma.

Here's why this matters... and Henry Blackaby says it best: "If your heart is like the shallow soil on top of a rock, you will accept God's word in your mind, but the truth will not penetrate your heart to make a difference in your actions."

As I made my way through "Old Testament Survey," I needed to see the rich soil of the Jewish faith that would have shaped and influenced Jesus. Trudging through "History of Christianity" was hard because HIS Jewish story... the Christ of Christianity... just wasn't there. "Revelation" was informative and a tough class to get through, but I'm not sure I ever saw a revealing of Jesus. There was a lot of good stuff for my mind, but the real penetrating stuff of Jesus born in the richness of a Hebrew culture... the stuff that is heart-grabbing, eye-opening, life-changing, and penetrates your heart to make a difference in your actions... just wasn't there.

Here's why this matters... in my words: The more I learn about the incarnation of a Jewish Jesus, the more I begin to understand how He wants to live incarnationally through me. As my Christology has evolved over the past several years, my missiology has begun to change, and that is affecting my ecclesiology (and all of these "ology" words I learned at CBC!).

Does anything I'm saying make any sense to you? Could any of this Jewish Christology talk I'm talkin' be a possible application of Paul's inspiring words to Timothy... a young, fresh, Bible-college-grad-like pastor: "...be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" (II Timothy 2:1)?

You taught me good stuff; really you did. I'm just not sure it was the best. You placed me in rooms full of desks facing the front so I could listen to the professors expound Bible truths (which now seems like training for how you wanted me to do church as well). You DID give me good stuff to think about. However, as I've learned, right thinking does not necessarily translate into right living. All these years of right thinking has created an inside church that is no different from the outside. Coming out of Bible college, my Christology was limited, so my missiology tended to be somewhat status quo. This, in turn, placed my ecclesiology inside a box that just doesn't play as we move into a post-modern, post-Christian world and still try to do church the way we've always done it.

Couldn't we have bantered the scriptures around with the professors like Jewish Rabbi's did with their students? Couldn't we have embraced all aspects of life like a Jewish, incarnate Jesus did? Maybe THAT would have settled issues stemming from guitars and jeans tainting our mandatory chapel services. Couldn't we have asked questions about the life and culture of Jesus and how deeper insights of the holy scriptures might surface? Why didn't we fully understand an incarnate Jewish Jesus, and then let that same Jesus live through us incarnationally to, at least, change Price Hill if not all Cincinnati. Sure, I know we had missions week and were encouraged to take on weekend ministries... but it was all so minimalistic. Our burgeoning but weak Christology gave us a somewhat anemic missiology, and then we graduated and bought into an ecclesiology of church that just doesn't effectively produce disciples of Rabbi Yeshua.

Do you see why any of this matters?

Here's why this matters: The evolution of church from traditional to contemporary to missional in a blossoming post-Christian America is now calling for revolutionary tactics. You... my beloved alma mater... have the capability to train up a new generation of revolutionary leaders that can take our churches beyond attendance, propositions, buildings, and finances.

And just to show there are no hard feelings, I'm hoping some or all of my kids will attend CBC for at least one year. If this happens, I hope they are exposed to and challenged with more than what I was. Additionally, I'm not even asking for a refund on my incomplete education. I'm merely asking you to create a new breed of church leaders, and be revolutionary by espousing and teaching and following the greatest Revolutionist ever. And He, by the way, was Jewish.

Sincerely,
Alan

Jesus Is In The Sparklers

"Failure's hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever."
- Po Bronson
(from a Starbucks coffee cup in Florida)


Last night a dear friend from Indiana was trying to get a hold of me. She tried Facebook. She left a voice message on my cell phone. We just weren't connecting... especially within a timeline determinedly etched in her mind. Later in the evening Marsha finally caught me live on Facebook with an IM, and I had to quickly explain we had been out on a very busy night. She said curiously, "Doing what... sparklers on the beach?"

Apparently my second-born posted some cool, slow-shutter-speed photos on the internet just minutes after we had been "busy" doing the beach sparkler thing. Marsha just so happened to see the sinful, indicting photos. Yep, I was busted. This was my study break where I'm supposed to be busy and business like, and in a moment of carnal weakness had lit a few illegal sparklers on a fireworks-banned piece of sand.

Was there ANY redeeming value of waving momentary sparklers into the evening ocean breeze? Could I justify to the church elders and a holy God above as to why I had promiscuously spent time and effort on something as frivolous as cheap fireworks bought somewhere along northbound I-24 in South Tennessee?

Early this morning beside serene gulf coast waters, I started my third study break book. I'm always amazed at how God weaves my annual study break time together in coherent fashions without much intentional effort on my part. My first two books seemed to compliment each other as differing authors were referring to and quoting each other concerning possibilities of the western Church. This was both curious and affirming to me. Both of my first two books ("So Beautiful" & "The Shape Of Things To Come") referred to the absolute necessity of Jesus. Having a proper Christology or understanding of the Jewish-ness of Jesus was of the utmost importance in my first two reads.

If a post-modern, post-Christian missional church is to succeed in our culture, than a proper understanding of the relational and incarnational ways of a Jewish Jesus is key. Our Christology will determine our missiology... which will in turn form our ecclesiology. So guess what (or maybe Who) my third book selection pointed me too? Go ahead... just guess!

As I dove into my third reading, "Sitting At The Feet Of Rabbi Jesus," what had been somewhat theoretical in my first two reads, was now coming to life and stirring my soul. I had devoured and read through half of this third book by late afternoon.

Jesus embraced and shared life in the richness of Jewish tradition. Jesus entering into our world of life seemed to focus more on transformation than mere information. His way of life majored on living instead of what most Bible colleges ask students to major in: thinking & maintenance.

Jesus told his closest friends (and us) to pray for their daily bread. The Hebrew/Jewish word for bread is "lechem." Lechem focuses beyond a slice of Wonder bread or a meager meal... to the whole meal. Lechem actually points to a God who provides all that sustains and blesses us. Lechem is also closely kin to the Hebrew word "L'chaim which means "TO LIFE!" Was Jesus pointing us to something abundantly and aggressively more than what western, American, traditional, Christian, rich, republicans have thought to be true when we pray the Lord's Prayer... having mustered up some semblance of confused humility to pray for our daily bread when we can barely get up from our embarassingly-extravagant daily feasts?

Jesus had powerfully incarnated himself into all of life... not just an hour or two on Sunday mornings. As Lois Tverberg suggests: How is it possible that so many people go to places called "church," but still live alone together?

Perhaps Jesus WAS in the sparklers. There was laughter. Talking. There was excitement. Richness and family were abounding. A family of 6 spending time away from the media and with each other is a significant, noteworthy, and holy task. There were spiritual memories created. Moments of brilliance came flooding into flesh and blood as the clash of heavenly light and darkness were unsuspectingly caught on a digital camera and in our souls.

Maybe we need to let the Jesus who resides inside of us live fully in our lives as well. Maybe we've relegated him enough already to our church buildings and the hour we have sincerely dedicated to him every Sunday. Maybe my Starbucks cup was right. We've been successful at building church walls and church attendance, and now the accolades, praise, and mortgages have become our own religious prison.

And the way out? Sparklers. Jesus. Allowing Jesus to be a continual fireworks display in all parts of our lives seems like a reasonable an inspiring way to live. Serving inside our churches on Sundays is ONE good thing, but letting the Prince of Peace incarnate our lives and culture fully the rest of the week MUST be our new directive and purpose. All our life being all the Church because Jesus is still incarnate in all we do, is how we light the way forward and reach a searching, curious, hurting, lost world. This is how we can be real disciples of a very real and Jewish Jesus.

I know it's late and maybe I've just had too much sun, but I'm thinking about replacing the candles at church with sparklers. I think Jesus is in the sparklers.

Sticky Buns

"The kind of thinking that will solve the world's problems will be of a different order to the kind of thinking that created them in the first place."
- Albert Einstein

Thanks to a good friend, Sherry and I closed out yesterday by watching an old, old-school movie called "An Affair To Remember." It was a long movie, a definite chick flick, was over a little after eleven... but I think I scored some points.

I was really tired so I went quickly to bed.

About 2:30 in the morning I was frustratingly awakened to some banging dishes and cupboards. What in the known world was going on? I shuffled my sorry, sleepy self into the kitchen only to find my two teenagers doing... something. They should have been doing nothing, and I irritatedly suggested their SOME thing turn into NO thing quickly. With that, I made my dad-like anger officially known (as much as any dad can in his underwear), and went back to bed. Oh, I closed my bedroom door with a bit of volume too; something my wife and smaller kids had to appreciate.

I began to stir again at about six a.m. this morning. It was time to get up, and I began thinking and plotting how I would go into my teens room and obnoxiously ask them if they wanted to get up with me. This was nothing short of a horrid display of maturity and getting even. I didn't actually do the early-morning rail and wail, but it sure felt like I should have... just to accentuate some point that I thought I should make.

After a few morning hours of reading on the beach, I got a phone call: "Breakfast is ready! Dad, come back up to the room to eat." Breakfast? Nobody has fixed me breakfast since last Father's Day. I was curious and hungry enough to go see this anomaly seemingly unfolding before my inquisitive eyes.

Sure enough... breakfast was being served. The warm, comforting smell of cinnamon sticky buns filled the morning, coastal air. Apparently Brooklynn and Lauren had been whipping up a batch of sticky buns at 2:30 in the blessed morning so Sherry and I could enjoy a nice little study break surprise breakfast. Hmmm... didn't see that comin'.

I'm so very glad I didn't wake my teenagers up at six a.m.

I am glad I hugged Brooklynn, and profusely thanked and kissed her for the wonderful sticky buns. I am glad I went into Lauren's room to hold her, kiss her face, and tell her thanks for the incredible sticky buns (she had slipped back into bed after her long night). I hope they'll remember and continue to be shaped by my affection and appreciation. I sure won't forget their sticky buns.

I certainly don't always get it right, but this time I did. Barely. This embracing was the right thing to do. It was redeeming and redirecting life. It was right living which enabled the environment of right thinking. It was living out a Hebrew active faith of "emunah" that embraced life first and beyond thinking, propositions, or Greek "pistis" faith --- one that focuses merely and mostly on the intellect. (When Paul said, "I have kept the faith" in II Tim. 4:7... was that an intellectual or actional faith... a thinking or acting faith... living or theological...pistis or emunah?)

Late this afternoon, I finished my second study break book ("The Shape Of Things To Come"). I've been exposed to some really good, challenging, Biblical thinking of where God seems to be moving His church. There's been some great ideas to really sort through... especially the APEPT leadership concept stemming from Ephesians 4. There are some revolutionary ideas to sort through in seeing what God is doing and asking if I can jump in.

However, with that said, I've been a bit frustrated by a few gross generalizations about how established western churches are and have been wrong, must die, and make way for newer, emerging, missional churches. I think we have to be very careful here. This is territory that can be difficult, at best, to navigate. Is the American, Western church off track? Yes. Is there a need for revolution? Yes. To paraphrase Mr. Einstein: "The kind of thinking that will solve the Church's problems will be of a different order to the kind of thinking that created them in the first place."

But... has God been totally devoid in our churches until now and the advent of missional, relational, incarnational thinking? No. Is it possible that the attractional, propositional, colonizing churches have actually been evolving/learning about mission, relationships, and Jesus invading culture in preparation for a revolution? Yes. Can an existing church change in revolutionary ways? Maybe. Can an attractional, propositional, colonizing church become a missional, relational, incarnational church? Yes, but perhaps only a few might be able to see their way through such a revolution.

I believe it is possible for a once-revolutionary, attractional, propositional, colonizing church to still be revolutionary. Through Bible teaching, prayer, Holy Spirit empowerment, experiments, ever-learning leadership, and a culture embracing change (just a few minor things), existing churches DO have the ability to begin turning the ship towards the ocean of missional, relational, and incarnational waters. I don't think this is an easy hypothesis, but neither is planting a church --- of any kind.

Is it possible that what some count as religious, irritating, banging dishes and cupboards, may end up being a wonderfully recreated and revolutionary surprise by morning? The wrong thing to do is rail and wail on the Church and make our expert-like anger known. The right thing to do is love, hug, and kiss the bride of Christ today and anticipate how God will shape her tomorrow.

A Theology Of Wine

"One of the great strengths of the Jewish people throughout history has been their sheer love of life. L'chaim (to life!)." - Alan Hirsch

Yesterday... Sunday... was the perfect day. We went to church on Saturday night, and literally felt like we had checked it off our list because the whole deal was deemed poor by even the most positive of Scotts (guess which one). Quite simply, it was just very boring.

But Sunday was wonderful. Sherry and I slept in a bit, and then headed off for breakfast without the kids. We dined like king and queen beach bums at a small, outside, island cafe. We had a great time talking, laughing, enjoying the morning. I tried preaching my theology of wine to Sherry. My sermon thesis poignantly stated how most normal people who enjoy life drink wine. She smiled as she finished her orange juice. I couldn't tell what she was thinking because of those darn, stylish, reflective sunglasses of hers. There was a bit of a smirk pursed curiously on her sun-blossomed lips.

We went to wake and shake the kids, and then off to a local aquarium. From there it was back to our beach hangout, two episodes of Friday Night Lights, taking our family pictures on the beach, eating pizza, and taking a night walk with Michael down the coastline. What a great Sunday. This was a real Lord's Day.

Jesus came and dove into life. The humanity of Jesus was spectacularly human, not barely alive. In fact, Jesus was often belittled for living life too much... something I hope to be accused of some day. Jesus never, as Hirsch and Frost write (The Shape Of Things To Come), conjured up holiness by negation or avoidance; defined more by what we shouldn't do than by what we should.

Jesus' version of holiness was to live all of life and hallow every moment. I'm confident he had some really great Sundays too.

That was the way of the ancient Hebrews and of their Jewish faith. Right living was heralded more than right thinking. However, the further away from a Jewish thirst for life we moved (into Rome, Greece, and the West), the further away from zestful living we moved. Thinking, propositions, and philosophy began to take precedence over actually living. After a couple thousand years promoting right thinking causes right living (orthodoxy), we've accomplished a holocaust and a church that has no statistical separation from a pagan world in areas like pornography, divorce, and greed.

The Hebrew/Jewish people were proponents of orthopraxy... right living can provide the context for us to embrace right thinking. Think about how much the Bible focuses on living, abundantly, as opposed to nailing down correct theology.

And I'm beginning to reflect on the differences... There's a popular flavor of Christianity which relies on theology, propositions and compartmentalized thinking that boxes in our living and attempts to keep secular and sacred separate. The sucking sound you hear is the life being drained as right thinking tries again and again to create right living. It's also the reason so many people... especially those who might enjoy a nice glass of wine... really don't want anything to do with a church that would actually want and teach a minimized version of life itself. Quite simply, it's just boring.

Of course those who place a fish on their bumpers to prove their faith, and listen to only music with a CCM label to prove their holiness, will cry foul here. All of this "living" can get out of hand, right? Wasn't Jesus diving into life, however, always under the moral will of God while he was constantly redeeming and redirecting the life he lived and encountered? Embracing an abundant life didn't negate scripture and God's guidelines, it energized and validated them.

And therein lies the key. Redeeming and redirecting life, not negating it. Jesus jumped into life. That's the real theology of the incarnation. He embraced life. Celebrated it. Jesus of Nazareth placed himself in the mess and hurt, and now wants to continuing living as such in and through us. Someone has called this Jesus channeling. Wow. Turn the channel, right? Sounds weird and new age-ish, but it's exactly right. We are dead, and now Jesus lives in and through us. Jesus channeling.

With a thirst and zest for life, Jesus wants to live incarnationally through us. That might include an early-morning breakfast with a spouse, laughing with your kids, watching a great TV show, eating pizza (you know Jesus would have loved a deep-dish, Chicago-style, supreme pizza), and hand-in-hand walks with sons and daughters as you help them navigate land and sea. It would as Hirsch and Frost contend, "Free us to perceive life as ministry, work as mission, and play as worship."

Heck... all of this really just proves my theology of wine. From the goodness of the earth, and the fruit of the vine, we have an aromatic, rich, compelling, and relationally connecting glass of wine. This is not something to just drink. This is life-to-be-lived in a glass. No wonder Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding party. I'd bet (and this one will surely give me the heretic label) he may have even danced at that shin dig.

The Church As An Outpost

"A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling... We must play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment." - Hans Kung


On this cloudy, overcast, threatening day, I'm sitting on the balcony overlooking a cemented, bounded swimming pool, and a vast, unrelenting ocean. Both are full of energizing salt water.

Here's what's really random... I'm thinking of the 1990 movie Dances With Wolves. I'm sure you remember Kevin Costner as John Dunbar and Mary McDonnell as "Stands With Fist." It's one of Sherry's favorite movies, and every time we get to the sexy teepee scene, I have sudden urges to go camping with my bride. (And btw, dressing up as Indians would just be icing on the cake.) But I digress...

In Dances Wolves, John Dunbar's job was to pioneer the west as part of a Civil War, American military initiative. His job was to establish a western outpost where soon coming troops would gather and establish a larger fort... which in turn would eventually proliferate an entire town.

As the United States Cavalry pushed westward, the heathens (known also as native Americans) could either find salvation or be killed... it really didn't seem to matter which. They could "become like us or die"... but the real goal was forts, roads, and buildings, or as we would say, "Brick and mortar."

But John Dunbar didn't do things by the Cavalry rule book. He befriended the heathens. He learned their language. John Dunbar, dubbed "Dances With Wolves," sheds his white-man ways and becomes one of a local, albeit smelly, Sioux tribe. Indian causes and concerns became Dunbar's causes and concerns. Dunbar was entrusted with the very lives of the Sioux people. Best of all, he married what we now know as one of the best looking Indian woman of all time!

Guess which tact had more soul influence --- the harsh extractional ways of the Cavalry, or the missional, relational, incarnational ways of John Dunbar? Take one stab at which way Jesus did ministry on earth as God came with skin, pitched a tent, and started an outpost.

What kind of an outpost should the church be? Do we prefer one that forces heathens (also known as God's creation) to become like us... because our real concerns, if boardrooms could talk, are about brick and mortar? Is there really anyone who would raise their hand and say yes to this? But that's exactly what many, many churches do. Churches hope, pray, and cross their fingers for people to be attracted to accommodating buildings, urge they become people who only buy books, movies, and music in Christian bookstores, and trust they plug into all our programs so we can either afford the buildings we have or go in debt for bigger ones.

This is attractional, dualistic (separating sacred from secular), and heirarchial church. In post-Christian and post-modern Europe it's all but killed the church. Did you know that less than 3% of England currently makes any kind of claim of Jesus? We are seeing warning signs in America as well. Only 9% of American Christians live out of a Biblical worldview. If this is true, and I believe it is, the attractional, dualistic, heirarchial church in America seems to be on life support as well.

What if our understanding of how Christ came incarnationally would affect our mission, which in turn would affect how we view and lived out being the Church? Michael Frost, in "The Shaping Of Things To Come," puts it this way: "Christology determines missiology, and missiology determines ecclesiology."

I say we all sit down for a movie and some popcorn. John Dunbar seemed to have it right. Becoming a Sioux affected his mission, and that impacted the very way he lived out his life.

I'm thinking about going for a swim now. I can choose the chemically-treated pool whose depths only go as far as seven feet. At least I would be safe. There are posted rules to ensure this. Currently only three, very white people are in the pool.

I could also choose the ocean, it's only a few steps further. It is riskier, but there are more people there, more life, and the depth is unfathomable. The pool is very controlled and only open til 10 pm. The ocean is vast, constantly in motion, and filled with opportunities to experience the very nature of God.