Ahmed and God

I met Ahmed at the mall.  I wasn’t looking to talk to him, but I was asking God that I be aware of anything He was doing around me.  This isn’t something I do regularly.  Its partly because I am often turned in to myself, only thinking and doing what relates to my little slice of the world. But, it is also due to the fact that God usually answers that prayer by showing me something He is doing.  He interjects me into someone else’s little world, and a lot of times in my selfishness I don’t want to deal with that.

But in this instance, I was asking for it.  I was leaning on Ahmed’s counter at his booth in the mall, watching the teenagers I was supervising.  Ahmed asked if he could help me.  I told him that I wasn’t looking for a watch, and then asked him some general questions, which he answered willingly.  We introduced each other and shook hands.

Active Christians are really weird this way.  We make a lot of eye contact, shake a lot of hands, and ask un-superficial questions.  It is pretty annoying to the uninitiated, but it is also how humans were meant to be.  I sometimes tell foreign exchange students how Americans often greet each other with “How’s it going.”  This isn’t really a question at all.  It is not meant to be answered, and the person asking it doesn’t want any answer other than, “Good, and you.”

But active Christians are always waiting around for a real answer.  People aren’t used to that, and it makes them uncomfortable, and if they get past that, they often find it a breath of fresh air.  It is how we are supposed to be.

But back to Ahmed…

After we shook hands, he must have known something was up, because he immediately asked me “What do you do?”

“I am a youth minister,” I said.

He looked at me and immediately (as if he was prepared) asked, “Do you ever feel the presence of God?”

I told him that I did, that sometimes it was very powerful and sometimes it was less so, but it was always there.  In fact, sometimes it was almost overwhelming.

“What’s that like?  Does it make you want to hurt people?”

“Umm..no.  It is pretty much the opposite of that,” I said.  And then I explained how I sometimes feel God’s love pouring over me like rain, letting me feel loved and making me want to love.  “Do you ever feel that?” I asked.

“No.”

I listened to him tell of his faith background and about his life.  I suggested we pray together, and he let me.  Although I couldn’t stay much longer after that, I promised I would see him again, and I have.  He told me he’d have more questions, and he has.  A couple days later I introduced him to my wife as we were cruising the mall food court to pick up free samples.  He told my wife we were “soul buddies,” whatever that means.

I don’t know that I’m going to end up with Ahmed on one knee in the middle of the mall accepting Jesus sacrifice for his life.  I don’t know that it will even make a massive difference in Ahmed’s life.  I do know that Ahmed has reminded me that God is always at work around me, and that I like most Christians am too often dissolved into myself.  Every little invasion by God into my life is disruptive to my reality, because that reality is wrapped up in myself.  But also, every interruption reminds me that my reality is all too small and weak.  I thank God for that.

*Ahmed’s name has been changed from his real name.

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Small Miracles

One of my favorite quotes comes from G.K. Chesterton.  I won’t quote the whole thing verbatim here (although I can from memory).  But basically it says that God has the eternal appetite of youth, and makes every single sunset and daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them.  “For we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is far younger than we.”

The more I think about that, the more I see the beautiful truth in that.  The more every sunset becomes special, and the more even simple little acts become miracles.

I have always had a difficulty with people who find an angel around every corner.  When I slip and fall or cut myself shaving, the natural order of things is for the wound to heal.  It is no miracle.  The human body is meant to heal itself.  Even deep wounds usually fix themselves over time.  People who loudly proclaim miracles in everyday occurrences have always been a minor annoyance to me.  It has often felt that these people are grasping at straws, as if God healing a minor abrasion or stopping an itch is the proof of His existence that they need to keep on going.

Recently, a small boy reminded me of the foolishness of my position.  The boy had a particularly painful insect bite that was significantly bothering him.  He came to me and a group of others to pray for his bite.  He looked cute limping along as if the leg was going to need amputation.  I suspect that he had been approaching quite a few others for prayer as well.  We prayed for him.  I confess that although I was sincere in prayer, I wasn’t praying the “Oh God, help us,” type prayer.

The next day, the boy ran in to meet me and loudly told me that I had to “come see what God did for me!”  He had no pain.  The bite was there, but it was much smaller.

Do spider bites naturally shrink and grow less painful overnight?  Of course they do.  Was this a true miracle?  It was to the boy, and I don’t think that anything else matters.  I believe in a God who would heal a young boy of a vicious and non-life-threatening spider bite for no other reason than that He wants the boy to know He loves him.

The Message version of Ephesians 5 says, “Mostly what God does is love you.”  I find that passage annoying mostly because it isn’t what the actual text says.  But I’ve been thinking for quite some time over the possible truth of that statement.  I am still not sure.  What I am sure of though, is that God uses a lot of outrageous and extravagant gestures to show His creation that He deeply loves them.

I believe that God created stars millions of light years away.  There are galaxies that dwarf our own.  There are cosmic events that make our lives seem less than footnotes of universal history.  God also made the platypus and the frog, small, strange creatures, which in my opinion exist primarily for me to giggle at.  I can’t believe that complexity and the intricacy of it all is by chance any more than I can believe that my cell phone is the product of random chemicals.  It must all have a purpose.

According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, it all exists to glorify God and enjoy Him.  I concur (which I am sure validates it all).  I can’t picture God with the sternness and seriousness of the crotchety old man that we make Him out to be.  In art and fiction we’ve envisaged Him as gazing down on humanity with some serious need for Botox for the frown lines.  I picture God in some heavenly council somewhere, leaning off the edge of His great throne gazing on us with our small needs met, with a giant smile on His face and a glint in His eye.  The God I see in my head is more like some Norse king with laughter echoing through the great hall than He is diplomat.

The story of God and humanity is one of continuous extravagant love.  It is the story of God caring deeply that two people suddenly had lost intimacy with Him.  It is the story of God promising a childless old couple that they would have not just one, but millions of kids.  It is the story of God rescuing a slave nation in dramatic fashion.  It is the story of God becoming part of His creation and paying the fine that He had set.  It is the story of God creating sunsets and stars and galaxies and platypuses, and healing a little boy’s bug bite for no other reason than that He enjoys loving us.  And that brings Him glory.

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The Most Holy Time

I admit it.  I’ve been in some kind of funk lately.  No actually, not lately, this has been going on for some time now.  The exact nature of this funk is difficult to describe, and especially so when I am trying to do so without offending the sensibilities of proper and sincere religious people.  I am one of those proper and sincere religious folk myself, which means that my internal dialogue has been offending me for quite a while.  So, if you are reading this, and happen to get offended, then we can commiserate together.  Just don’t shoot the messenger on this one.

The problem exists because I am naturally a part of two separate worlds.  One of these is the land that all of humanity lives in.  It cannot be escaped, save for moving to the jungles of Brazil or becoming some sort of religious hermit (but more on that one later).  It is dark at times, beautiful at others, yet always convulsing and turning somehow.  This world, like my barely functioning clothes drier, is making loud noises, fits-and-starts, and sometimes barely functioning in any measure of success.  Yet, it is where we are, and there is also great beauty in it.  From natural creations, to the Burj Dubai, and even a stranger picking up something you dropped on the street there is wonder.  God loves it, and like an abused spouse, so do I.

The other world I straddle is the world of the Church.  All kinds of people, from poufy-haired, multi-pinky-ringed televangelists to African children in Sunday school are a part of it.  There is amazing beauty in the Church.  The great array of what is good in the world is all a child of Christ’s bride.  It doesn’t matter what the likes of Christopher Hitchens says, God’s goodness is reflected in His Church.

I have often throughout my life taken refuge and comfort in the world of the Church because I know that the other world is victim of a fatal disease that rots its flesh, a cancer that grows and devours.  I expect it to be this way.  The problem that I have been increasingly having is that the world of the Church I have allowed to nurture me is seemingly growing increasingly very ill herself.

Yes, I am aware that the Church being an institution full of humans, is subject to all the frailties of man.  But those have always been beautiful scars in my eyes, reminders of the grace and power of God.  Maybe it is just me, but those scars are looking less and less romantic.

Now, I am in no danger of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, and leaving the Church entirely.  I know that there is no chance that I can tread water on my own long enough to point out all the holes in the ship for everyone else to plug.  Further, God gave us the institution of the Church for a reason, and His wisdom infinitely trumps mine.

This difficulty in the Church world was highlighted to me a few weeks ago as I looked back on the events of that particular week:

I started the week with my day off (Monday), working on different chores and things I had to do to keep my life going, pretty bland, but it is life.

Tuesday was spent planning at another staff meeting.  We talked about events and programs that were coming up.  Staff meetings are not part of the fun of ministry in any way, really.  But they are a necessary evil (if I can use that word so flippantly).  Nothing would get accomplished  if proper planning was not done.  I spent a lot of time in staff meeting this week wondering what lasting value much of what we were discussing would achieve.  Maybe that is the wrong thought to have, but it was my thought nonetheless.

Later Tuesday night, we had High School group.  As we lead worship, played games, and taught, I kept wondering if any student would remember anything I said past 9:00 PM, when they left the building.  I was later corrected (gently) by one of my students, who told me that Tuesday night had a big effect on him, and there were probably others.  But I guess my real issue is with the general effectiveness.  I will not belittle the powerful impact God may be having on one person in the group, or even pockets of them.  I have also learned that times when I think no impact is being made can be the most impactful.  But after doing this for many years, I know the look in the students’ eyes that say “If we could have left after game time, I would have.”

Wednesday was similar to Tuesday in that I did office work to further the ministry, and Wednesday night was Junior High.  In the case of Junior Highers, small victories matter.  I had to rejoice that no one was injured and no one was sent home early.  Also, one of the students gave a testimony of how God had a powerful impact on him over the last two months.

Thursday, I spent a big portion of the day at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop writing, reading, and hanging out.

Friday, I did general chores, and ended the day at a church gathering at someone’s home.  It was fun.  Like all church gatherings, it has to be concluded with an extended time of teaching about something.  Let me break down the fourth-wall and ask the reader a question here: How many sermons in your life can you remember, and had a lasting effect on your life?  Well, this Friday night teaching was for me in the pile with the majority of teachings I’ve heard.

Saturday, Peichi and I had fun and hung out with some friends at our house that we know from the foreign exchange community.  I ended up in a very deep conversation with one of the ladies at our house.  She talked about how she felt alone and kind of floating in her life.  She wanted to be a part of doing something that made a difference in the world.  I asked her if she was willing to help do some work at the church for us.  She said she would, and she has.  In the back of my head I have been hoping that she continues in her quest for meaning, and hoping her involvement in helping at the church isn’t leading her in the wrong direction.

Sunday was a church service.  It was similar to most church services.  I like our church.  I think God does work in people’s hearts there.  Although I can’t remember any of the Prophetic Words and I don’t know of anyone who got healed during prayer time, or anyone who made a decision for Christ, I am sure that God worked in people’s lives.  I am not self-important enough to believe that I am qualified to determine the effectiveness of these things.  There are weeks when I leave feeling just tired.  Then again, I’ve spent the last 14 years making church services happen.

That was my week.

When I looked back on it all, the powerful times where I really felt God doing stuff was not on Tuesday, of Wednesday, or even Sunday.  I know He did do stuff.  I’m not denying that.  But the times I really felt like God was using me to make a difference was on Thursday as I wrote in the coffee shop.  I had two long conversations with total strangers.  We talked about everything from geopolitics to budding technology.  We also talked about faith.

Mind you, I am not one of those people who is always walking up to strangers and acting like they’re my best friend.  I am more inclined to be deeply involved in internal dialogue when in line at the supermarket than to carry on a conversation there.  But these coffee shop conversations just naturally happened.  They felt easy and natural.  Even the parts when we were talking about God felt fun and light, as if the His Spirit were guiding us in them.  I wasn’t the guy sitting and waiting to accost someone with a canned salvation message.  I was the guy watching God unfold something in front of me.

It was beautiful.  For the first time for me in a long time that Thursday, the feverish outside world was crashing into the holy world of the Church, and I was right in the middle of it.  I left the coffee shop feeling energized and excited.  God had actually showed up.  He had done something in front of me that gave me the impression that there was some sort of lasting difference made.  It felt like getting in the shower after a long afternoon of gardening, with dirt under your fingernails and the smell of soil on your skin.

I can’t do the spiritual hermit thing.  I know that there is a great value in keeping oneself from being polluted by the world, but I can’t see that as being separable from looking out for widows and orphans and being a light to the world around me.   In fact, the more I approach those semi-cloistered places lately, the more I have an asthmatic choking feeling, like there isn’t enough air.  I’m not leaving the building.  I just need to keep the windows rolled down and the fresh air flowing.

Addendum: I know that this brings up some real issues, and I don’t write this as a sermon.  I often feel that people write the word “I” too much, and I am always scanning my writing trying to get rid of as many instances of that as I can (that sentences contained 4).  This piece is riddled with them, but that is because it is one of the most stream-of-consciousness things I’ve written in a while.  I saved it for a week, and edited, but I still have the sinking feeling that someone might read and want to misunderstand, argue, debate.  I don’t really have a desire to enter that fray.  This is really just an opened internal dialogue of sorts.  I am not trying to be self-defeating.  I think honesty in this regard honors the Lord.  If you have thoughts or feelings that will honor this dialogue, please feel free, though. -Ryan

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Learning Faith -Part 3

This is part three in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith.  Read part 1 here, and part 2 here.

Raising Parents

Parents mentoring their kids in matters of faith and life isn’t what seems to be happening as much these days.  Gone are the days of boys learning to mow the lawn alongside their fathers.  Now, they pay to have someone else do it.  Most girls aren’t learning how to cook with their mothers.  Dinner is now too often provided by KFC.  With all of our modern conveniences, we have forgotten to teach our children how to live and how to be adults.

The same things can be said for matters of faith.  As consumers, we have fallen prey to the idea that spiritual education is what happens at church.  Spiritual education does happen at church, of course.  But if that is the primary place that we plan for spiritual education, we are destined to fail at this task.  This kind of outsourcing will not work.  When spiritual matters are reserved for church, the lesson is that one may do whatever one wants and live however he chooses, as long as he puts on a smile on Sunday.

Parents are the primary teachers about faith, not necessarily how to exegete a Pauline epistle, but about how our faith affects our daily lives.

I don’t want to sound like I’m griping, and I don’t level any accusations on everyone.  But I think one of the largest complaints I have about the state of the family is that it seems to me that many parents have forgotten that one of the primary roles of parenting is to end up with your offspring as functioning adults.  The goal should be to produce adults that are even better than you were.  This is true in regard to career and intelligence, and it is also true about faith.

Case in point: In the last 10 years of ministry, I know of no teen (male or female) who has access to the Internet in their own room and does not have an addiction to pornography, or inappropriate sexual relationships online.  I know this, because the students come to me and tell me.  I have gone to their homes and moved their computers for them (upon their request).  I have prayed with them for freedom from these addictions.

Despite this, when parents tell me that their child wants a computer in their room (this happens often), I tell them my experience, yet 100% of the time the student ends up with a computer in their room within a month.  When I occasionally ask the parent why this happened, they shrug their shoulders as if to say, “Oh well.”

No, not “Oh well.”  Children don’t need a buddy.  Teens don’t need a hip mom or dad.  They need a parent.  The teens that tell me how cool their lenient parents are, are the same teens that come to me crying to say that they feel constant chaos.  Kids need parents.  The message that parents send to teens when they don’t take leadership on these issues is that there is no moral standard.

I have no doubt in my mind that parents who are not teaching their kids important skills for their future adulthood are not teaching these kids the stories, principles, and reasons for their faith.  I cannot believe that the Church will fail and disappear.  But I do believe unless this is changed quickly, the state of the Church in the West will read like a passage in Second Kings.  This is an emergency.

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Learning Faith -Part 2

This is part two in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith.  Read part one here, and stay tuned for part three.

Shoveling Dirt, and other spiritual lessons

So, we have seen how the Bible is pretty clear about the importance of passing on faith memes, in order to cement and pass on our rich Christian faith and heritage.  We have seen how in the past Israel’s neglect of this duty led to apostasy, syncretism, and moral decline.  The next obvious question is, “So how are we doing now? Are we passing on these memes?”

I contend that we aren’t.

OK, that seems a bit harsh.  Yes, there are Christian children and teens who are growing up with a deep faith.  There are young people learning how to lead worship services, run ministries, and do evangelism.  But there are also ridiculously high numbers of men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 who are leaving the church, never to return.  The percentage of Americans who are claiming an allegiance to Christian faith is declining, and the socio-political influence of Christianity on Western culture is undoubtedly in retreat.

A large reason for this according to the book Essential Church, is that many Americans (This book deals with American church statistics, although I would contend that this holds true in other Western countries) see the Church as an institution that is not essential to their lives.  They see the ceremony and programs, and can’t find a vibrant and valuable relationship with God happening.

More anecdotally, in 14 years of youth ministry I have noticed a growing loss of biblical literacy within the next generations of the Church.  There is also a lack of practiced disciplines of faith in these generations.  Many teens know each and every part of the church service, but don’t have any understanding of fundamental elements of Christianity.  This is not something I have noticed as tied to a particular church or denomination.  It is much more of a cross-section than that.

To take a small detour:

After I take a shower at night, I use a squeegee to wipe down the walls.  This helps keep my shower from getting mold and mildew.  But that isn’t really the reason I do it.  I use the squeegee because my grandfather did the same thing.  He had a squeegee in his shower and I heard him use it after he finished with his showers.

Every time I sweep the grass clippings off of my sidewalk I hear his instructions in my head.  When I sort laundry I hear my Mom’s voice, and when I spell Renaissance, I hear my 8^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Maddox.  I am who I am because of those people’s example in my life, and not just in instructional ways.

I read my Bible because I know that God grows me through that communication channel, and He makes me more like Him.  But every time I open my Bible I remember my Grandad with his Bible open on his desk, and all of the highlights and notes he had put in it.  In case I ever forget, I have his Bible on my shelf.  It is one of the few things of his that I have.  In it is a picture of generations of my family together at a family reunion.  My Mom was pregnant with me, her only child.

My grandfather obviously had a mental connection to reading his Bible with the faith strain running through the generations of our family, and that connection has passed on to me.  It is a meme.  It is good.  It is the plan of God.

These things came to my mind recently as I was moving a large amount of dirt in a pile with one of the students in my High School group.  He is a good kid—a little squirrely—but a good kid.  He has a good dad.  But as we shoveled dirt, he needed me to explain how a shovel is used.  I didn’t mind explaining.  He responded by saying that he didn’t know, because he never did these things with his father.  I told him that his dad was a busy man with too much on his shoulders, and that is true.

The point of this is that things even as rudimentary as shoveling dirt have to taught, and that requires things like mentoring.  Boys and girls learn how to be men and women by watching their parents, teachers, and mentors, and by doing things alongside them.  How much more is it important to instill things of faith to your children?

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Learning Faith -Part 1

This is part one in a 3 part series on how we educate the next generation in matters of faith.

Faith as Meme

I am currently reading a book about memes.  Everyone I mention this to asks me the same immediate question.  “What in the heck is a meme?”   Then I begin the inordinately long process of explaining what this is.

Basically, a meme is a unit of cultural understanding that is passed on through a culture by repetition.  The easiest way to understand a meme is to think of it as the same as DNA, except for culture.  It is passed on from one person to another.  Old-Wives-Tales are memes, and so are the words to traditional songs.  Auld Land Syne is a perfect example of this.  It goes deeper than that, though.  You wear dark colors at funerals and you wear lighter colors at weddings.  A woman going to a wedding wearing all black would be offensive.  Famous ad slogans are also memes.  If I said, “The best part of waking up…” You would most likely immediately think, “…is Folgers in your cup.”  That is a meme!

The reason that I bring this up is not because I have a particular interest in information science, although I do.  Reading and thinking about this has brought up other ideas in my head, ideas about culture, ideas about faith—both my individual faith and the faith of the Church.  It might seem at first heretical to say that the message of Jesus, the stories in the Bible, and both the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of Christianity are all memes, but I believe that they are.  I believe that God intended them to be.

When that thought first occurred in my head, my immediate reaction was, “Whoa, Ryan—hold the phone.  Lightening may soon strike.”  But no lightening struck, and as I thought about it, all of it seemed to fit.  It is scary at first to think of Christianity as anything other than an immediately apparent truth that is written somewhere in the sky, accessible to anyone who bothers to simply look up.  And I am not saying that the truth of Christ is something that is just a cultural way of thinking and doing.  It is the Truth.  It can be found by anyone.  So I am not demeaning the things of God in any way.  All this just means that Natural Theology can only get us to understand that there must be a creator-God, but it can’t tell us anything more, really.  To really get to know God, we need to acquire these bits of faith memes.

But this is not something that someone simply looks into the air to find.  God didn’t intend it to be this way at all.  Yes, it is true that Romans chapter 1:18-20 says,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

This passage makes Christians in the West quite happy.  Although we don’t think this consciously, we understand it to mean that the job of communicating the basics of God, sin, and redemption have already been done automatically and genetically by God.  And certainly that is true, to a point.  It does mean that everyone has no excuse for rejecting God.  But it does not in any way get Christians off the hook for communicating this news, for no one can look up at the stars and deduce that a loving God must have become man and died on a cross during Roman times for our forgiveness.  This must be taught to them.

The Bible makes this perfectly clear.  In God’s economy, we are one hundred percent accountable for transmitting the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of our faith memetically (this is not mimetically, although that word would be appropriate as well).  This is to happen in two distinct ways.

The first of these is the more obvious.  We are to affect the world around us by spreading the good news of Jesus through the world.  There are myriad verses that address this point, and it forms the basis of much of New Testament Christianity.

The second way that Christians are to spread the ortho-’s of our faith is through our own people, particularly the next generation as we raise our children.  This point is spread throughout the whole Bible, but the Old Testament covers this repeatedly.  It is clear in the Old Testament that it was very important to Yahweh that the next generation hear all about what He has done and how He related throughout history with His people.  Look at what God had them do when they finally entered into the land that He had promised to give them in Joshua, chapter 4.

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

We see this also in Exodus, chapter 12, God tells His people to commemorate their freedom from slavery in Egypt through God’s miraculous hand with a special celebration and ceremony.  This was to be done for generations to come as a reminder, so that the people would never forget.

In fact, most of Israel’s holy days were commemorations of what God had done.  This was not for means of celebrating the past.  It was for the express purpose of reminding those in the present of God’s faithfulness, and their shared history with God.  They were also use this to speak into the future generations to ensure that the faith of Israel would not be lost.

One of the most striking glimpses of this in action can be seen in the 22^nd and 23^rd chapters of 2 Kings.  After numerous kings that did not honor God, Israel had become quite a mess.  Instead of following Yahweh, the people had mixed a bunch of religions all together.  It was anything-goes spirituality.  After generations of doing this, people had no spiritual compass whatsoever.  Their worship of these gods included burning their children to death in fires, having sex with prostitutes in temples, taking hallucinatory drugs for spiritual purposes, and a whole host of other nasty and amoral practices.

But more than that, they had completely forgotten much of their history (especially the aspects dealing with God) in many cases, and corrupted it with complete myth in many others.

God was angry.

But Josiah, who really wanted to do what was right, discovered the Law and was powerfully rocked to learn that God’s word had been completely forsaken.  It wasn’t like Josiah had known what God wanted all along, and was just the first in a while to actually follow it.  Josiah finding God’s word reads like a scene straight out of Indiana Jones.  Suddenly this revelation of God is found that people didn’t even have any clue about.  Josiah reads this and tears his robes, weeping at finding out all this new stuff about who God really is, their history with Him, and what He expects from them.

Following that is a full list of draconian measures that Josiah went to in order to fix things.  One set of verses gives a window on how this fall from morality and spiritual faithfulness could have happened.

Then the king commanded all the people saying, “Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God as it is written in this book of the covenant.”  Surely such a Passover had not been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.  But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was observed to the LORD in Jerusalem.

God’s command to remember and teach about what He had miraculously done for His people, as mentioned in Exodus 12, had been completely neglected for hundreds of years!  The people now had no concept of it at all.  Their history with God had been completely forsaken, and now forgotten.

The importance of passing on history, faith, and cultural values is not something that is contained only in the Old Testament.  Jesus tells His followers in the New Testament to commemorate His death through Communion.  As the early Church interpreted this, it was not to be done as a ceremony once in a while at a service, but the kind of thing that was followed as people ate together.  Communion was to be celebrated at the dinner table with the family.

The Epistles in the latter New Testament talk about this idea as well.  Both Titus and First Peter talk about younger men and women learning from older men and women.  The early church clearly invested in the ideas of mentoring younger Christians in the faith, and educating those who were spiritually younger using creedal statements and liturgical prayers, as well as hymns.

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Rated Argh!

I recently had a discussion with one of the older members of my youth group present where we discussed the movie Schindler’s List.   I said that movie was one of the very few movies I’ve ever seen in which the sex scenes were valuable to the story-line, and that I felt weren’t a barrier to me watching.  She seemed a bit shocked that I would say something like that.  So did several others (everyone else was an adult), and I felt myself trying to back out of the rhetorical corner I had put myself in.  I don’t feel that I did a good job of explanation.  Maybe I’ll do better here.

First off, I concede that a very valid and well thought out rebuttal could be made to everything I am about to say, and I don’t feel that this is a philosophical hill that I am prepared to die on.  But I do feel that what I said had validity, and I do stand behind my point.

Most of the Christian reaction to sex scenes stems from two things.  First, most movies contain sex scenes that are designed only to titillate.  Whole summer blockbusters are often created just for the possibility that teenagers might spend money to see their favorite star mostly naked, and hear graphic talk about sex.  I would firmly agree with the Christians who are against that.  Heck, I would lead the charge.

The second reason is a bit less reasoned, though.  In much of unspoken Christian theology is the idea that sexual sins are worse than other sins.  While there is a defining element to sexual sin that makes it very insipid, there is no biblical allusion to sex being worse than any other sin.  In fact, most of it is vestigial from Catholic doctrine of original sin being passed through sexual contact in procreation.  In short, Mary must have been a virgin because otherwise Jesus would have been born sinful already.  Further, Mary must have been born of a virgin, otherwise her sin would have passed to Jesus.

Because of this theological fallacy, and the inherent personal nature of sex, many Christians view sex on film as being the thing that makes a movie particularly unwatchable.  But gross violence is often an afterthought.  Coarse language?  Not a big deal.  Violent crime…eh…OK.  But sex, NO WAY!

The fact that Schindler’s List depicts the horrific murder of over 6 million people, and uses actual footage in many cases was never shocking in my conversation the other night.  But when I mentioned that there were 2 sex scenes, looks of horror were shared.  This does not make sense to me, the more I think about it.

There is another step that we must take in looking at all of this.  For the Christian, watching a movie cannot be merely an exercise in entertainment.  We have a mandate to connect the story of our lives, others’ lives, and all of humanity, with God’s story of redemption.  We are committed to the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19-20).  We must look at a movie like Schindler’s List and see God’s ever-reaching arms.  There are many movies that I have A-little desire to see and B-little desire to try and connect to that story of redemption, but any good story that isn’t pure trash I feel differently about.  Schindler’s List is one of those movies.

The sex scenes in that movie show a deeply flawed man, who is moving through a process of learning to see the great value in these people who are being treated as vermin by those around him.  Could those scenes show the same thing without being graphic at all, probably.  But the same could be said about telling the story without showing people being gassed to death, or cremated en mass.

I would never recommend a child see such a movie, simply because the themes are far too mature.  But there are many real life things that adults should know about that I don’t think little children should.  I think that adults should know of genocide in Rwanda, or Terrorist attacks on buses of Israeli school children.  The story of Oskar Schindler is a true story, an adult story, and ultimately a story that helps reveal a little of the heart of God.   -Ryan

Please stay tuned for Part 2 of this short series to debut later this week.  If you’d like to stay updated on this and other posts from RyanShinn.com, consider clicking the small RSS button on the very upper right of this web page.

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Leading a Mutiny?

I need to start off this article with a short disclaimer.  I got started down this philosophical road by an article in Matt Crosslin’s blog, which he started as a response to a Relevant Magazine article, “Is There a Church Mutiny Afoot?” I started my part of the discussion several weeks ago, but was unsatisfied with what I’d written.  I felt that my thoughts on the issue were too muddled, and in some ways I still feel that way.  One of the reasons I write this blog is to put legs on ideas, and in so doing, bring a little clarity to them.  That is the only reason I have put this up.  It is important for any reader to understand that none of this is combative, although the issue of Christian ambition does strike a bit of a sore spot with me.  Further, I have no animosity toward Matt or Relevant.  In fact, I feel the opposite.  Some great illumination has come to me through the reading of both.  It is in the healthy debate that I feel the greatest good is served.

“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.” G.K. Chesterton

A recent article in Relevant Magazine equated ministry to young adults as a mutiny, particularly when it is “a young adult service” aimed at creating a new expression of worship in a gathering at the church.  I must start this rebuttal by saying, I wholeheartedly agree.  I think that young-adult ministries trying to create their own worship service with younger sounding music and younger-sounding preaching (whatever that is) is at its core born in rebellion.  But in my mind, the real questions are “Why is rebellion always bad?” and “How can younger leaders take over the reins of Church leadership without it being seen as rebellion?”

So if this is rebellion, what is being rebelled against?  Is it the adolescent rebellion that says, “Whatever you say, I’ll do the opposite”?  I don’t think so.   It is less a rebellion of theology, or a rejection of older people in the faith, but a rejection of structures that have been broken for a long time.  Erwin McManus is one of those rebelling.  He has said that his goal is to dismantle the Church, and rebuild it as Christ would want it.  He isn’t rebelling for the sake of wanting to do his own thing.  He is rebelling because he says a deep fundamental brokenness that needs to be fixed.

We also have to look at modern church history and realize that these people aren’t rebelling against Christ-instituted structures that have been in place for more than 2000 years.  In fact, many younger people are more counter-rebelling against a rebellion that started in the late 60’s and flourished through the 80’s.  During that time, much of what the defined the Church was thrown out, sometimes because it was not working, but other times because it was “old.”  I recall hearing a successful Christian leader in the early 90’s say, “People are just interested in hearing about things like salvation anymore.  They just want to know how to fix their marriage.  We can’t talk about those old concepts any longer.”  That was rebellion.

But we have to admit that things seem to be broken at the moment.  Church influence in America is waning.  Fewer Americans are claiming a Christian allegiance.  Young Americans are leaving the Church in droves.  The Relevant article points to this statistic as a sign of arrogance and in some sense, I must agree.  This generation is an arrogant one, and this arrogance must be partly to blame.  But all statistical analysis of this trend shows that the primary reasons for young people leaving the Church is that they just don’t find it essential to their lives (see The Essential Church).  This is also not because the young have decided to go it alone, but because the Church has often made itself irrelevant by continuing to do things because “that’s just what we do.”  Often times people walk away from these events thinking “That simply wasn’t valuable to me at all.”

Younger leaders in the Church see all of this happening and want to do something about it.  After all, eternities hang in the balance.  Matt Crosslin writes in his blog that

“People in the 20 somethings age bracket really do feel that older adults have nothing to offer them. I have heard them say it directly occasionally.”

He says that this disdain is often veiled in an explanation of how older adults advice on how they dealt with a problem 20 years ago is not helpful in dealing with similar circumstances today.  I would agree with Matt that any person who thinks along those lines would be falling prey to the same fallacy that Chesterton’s quote in the beginning of this article mentioned.  I would also agree that there are significant numbers of 20-somethings who would think this.  But I don’t think that forms much of the basis for why wise leaders of this movement of young adults are doing what they are doing.

Why are wiser leaders leading this rebellion?  The common cliché is that “leaders lead.”  But I am sure that the truth of that quote goes far beyond stating what leaders do.  The depth of the statement comes from its reflexive nature.  Those leading are often leading because they are leaders.  Leadership is in them.  It is who they are, not just what they do.  Young leaders are doing exactly that.

Steve Robbins, the director of Vineyard Leadership Institute, points out that one of the reasons that churches must church-plant is that young leaders will leave when not given the opportunity to lead.  He point out that this isn’t because these young people are arrogant or rude, but that they feel they have a call from God to lead.  They feel that they can do something to make a difference in the world around them.

But much of Christendom seems to think that any time that younger leaders want to lead that is inspired by some form of insipid disrespectful, ego lead, rebellious zeal that undermines the Church.  For some reason, the Church is one of the few institutions where it is seen as somehow evil for young people to have ambition and a desire to lead.

Paul instructed Timothy to not allow others to look down on him because of his youth (1 Tim 4:12).  He set up Timothy to lead, and took joy in him.  He also taught him how to lead, and instructed that he learn from those more mature.  Isn’t that what any good leader would do?

I think that we primarily bristle against the idea of young Christian leaders in general because it seems to smell a little like ambition.  We all know that ambition is against God’s will…Um…oh wait…is it?  The Bible guards against “selfish ambition” (Gal 5:20, Phil 1:17, Phil 2:3, Jas 3:14, et al.) and “vain conceit” (Phil 2:3).  But the Bible doesn’t decry ambition on the whole.  In fact, it was Paul’s ambition to take the gospel to Rome.  It was King David’s ambition to build God’s temple.  It was Hezekiah’s ambition to rebuild Jerusalem.  Proverbs 25 somewhat cryptically says, “it is the glory of kings to search out a matter.”  One must interpret this as a validation of ambitious pursuits.  If ambition were an unbiblical quality, then those positive examples would be antithetical.

We can see this in Christian history as well.  Was William Wilberrforce’s ambition to eradicate slavery in the British empire against God’s will?  Was Martin Luther’s ambition to return the Church to Biblical truth ungodly rebellion?  How about Mother Theresa’s dream of changing a nation, or Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a nation free of racism?

Leaders lead.  Young leaders lead.  Some of them lead out of selfish ambition.  Others lead because God built them that way, and for them to exercise the gifts that God made them is glorifying to Him who made them.  Sometimes they will make mistakes.  But they will do what God made them for.  To prevent that is the real rebellion.

I heard Leonard Sweet once say that God leaders in the post-modern Church must lead like a child on a swing set, leaning back into a rich Christian history and tradition, but kicking forward into the newness of God’s present and future calling.  Good leaders will not forsake the wisdom of those who went before them.  They will stand on those elders’ proverbial shoulders.  They will see farther, Christ willing.  They will stand taller.  Some will think that all old ideas are bad, but I bet on the whole that they will embrace those ideas more than many in past generations, and seek to reach out across generations.  The worst thing we could do is to throw out all of the good that this new leadership will do simply because of the ignorance and childishness of a few.   -Ryan

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Think love, Piece

I have a friend in the ministry who is a big Beatles fan.  We often playfully debate philosophy and music history together.  She included this quote in a recent email, and I thought I would respond.

“Get out there and get peace, think peace, live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like.”
John Lennon

Friend,
I have thoughts about your John Lennon quote.
Now, I know that you don’t just quote him because of his philosophy, but mostly because you are a big Beatles fan…

We have the extreme luxury of being one of the few generations to grow up with almost no understanding of war.  Yes, in my lifetime there has been the Iraq war, Kosovo, Iraq 2, War on terror, and other small conflicts.  But those weren’t of the scale or effect of wars in past generations.  Wars now are things we hear about on the evening news, not things that actually claim the lives of our friends and relatives (for the most part).
Think back on what it must have been like to live through WW2.  Germans were using their submarines to destroy ships off of the East coast.  Hundreds of ships were sunk right off of our coast–even passenger cruise ships.  Japan attacked HI and we were under constant threat of invasion on the West coast.  At one point late in the war Japan launched helium balloons with bombs attached into the air.  Those fell in Alaska, but no one was ever hurt from them.

Women in America couldn’t buy leggings (which were a fashion essential back then) because the fabric was needed for parachutes.  Other things that were rationed state-side: tires (most people couldn’t buy them), many cosmetics, gas, cars, certain grocery products.  Women and children saved money for the government war effort.  Cities had “bomb drills” where everyone turned off all the lights and hid in their closets and basements.  It was a difficult and scary time.  This all is not to mention the fact that we were fighting a war on two fronts (Japan and the Axis powers of Europe), and there was the very real possibility for much of the war that we could lose.

Why did all of this happen?  Evil.  When Hitler invaded Poland and Austria the British PM, Neville Chamberlain said “We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators.”  He signed a peace treaty with Germany, allowing them to keep Poland, Austria, and giving them parts of Czechoslovakia and said “I believe it is peace for our time…peace with honor.”  Merely months later, Germany attacked France and Britain.

Fast forward to the 1960′s: America was involved in a war that we probably shouldn’t have been involved in, Vietnam.  It was a very unpopular war.  We weren’t fighting in a way that we could win, and against an enemy we couldn’t really identify.  Young men all over America lived under the real threat that they could be shipped off to Asia to fight in a war that they didn’t really believe in.  Those that went either came home in body bags, or with permanent mental and emotional scars.

In response to this artists started talking about peace and love, and how if everyone just gave peace a chance, we could create a world without sorrow, greed, or war.  There is an amazing truth to that.  If everyone gave peace and love a chance, that is what would happen.  That is our view of heaven, really.  “The wolf will live with the lamb…the lion and the yearling together…and a child will lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6).  Peace.  Perfect.
On a plane flight recently I saw a movie called The Invention of Lying.  It isn’t a movie that I can recommend you see, but like most things I watch, I see a tie in to the cosmic and spiritual reality that surrounds us.  In the movie Ricky Gervais’ character lives in a world where no one has ever lied.  The concept of telling a falsehood has just never been thought of.  Somehow he accidentally figures this out.  Hilarity ensues.  He ends up using this power to take advantage of everyone around him.  He uses it to their detriment and his benefit.

The reason I mention this example is that if we all decided to live in a world with no guns, no army, no violence, none of that would actually be what would happen.  Instead we would live in a world where someone, somewhere would realize that suddenly he/she had the power to steal everything from us and hurt us.  We would be led off to slaughter like sheep.  The end result would be a world of slavery and pain—War and chaos, not peace and love.

The only way for this heaven to come about would be for all to place control in the hands of a being who both has ultimate power, and is permanently incorruptible, a king who is perfectly benevolent.  I wait for that day.  A day when all can lay down arms with no possibility of violence propagated against us.

This cannot happen as long as there is sin in the world.  Sin is at its heart selfishness.  Anytime we say “but I want…” we are walking a path toward sin.  This does not mean that we should have an ascetic view and allow ourselves to be beaten down by evil under the guise of living Christianly, either.  In fact, the Bible tells us that we are in a war.  That we must fight.  Our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil that exist around us.

Throughout the last 2000 years there has been a dichotomy between those who cling to Jesus world as a call to embody peace, over and against those Old Testament passages where God tells the Israelites to war against other peoples.  This dichotomy is usually a false one.  Jesus gave great instruction to Christians to be known as those who turn the other cheek (which if you study is actually a course in radical non-violent resistance—read Martin Luther King), and to be known by our love.  We cannot believe that Jesus intended that message to mean that countries never defended themselves against hostile forces.  Think about this: what would Jesus want Neville Chamberlain or FDR to have done in 1938-1940?  Would he have had them sign peace agreement after peace agreement while Hitler came marching through Europe killing millions?  I don’t think so.  Either way, it isn’t as simple as ‘think happy thoughts and buy Hitler a coke.’

Artists and musicians often live in an idealized world of symbolism, beauty, and absolutes.  But the world is seldom a thing of perfect beauty or absolutes.  We are all shades of grey, striving to become repristinated, yes all the while getting a little grayer.  When the musician sees the world as different from their dream, it seems out-of-joint and wrong.  That is the greatest truth.  The world is a marred painting.  We can see the beauty there, but we are all ever-aware that some black stain has covered its surface.  Sadly, we cannot paint it back to perfect.  We cannot remove the stain, only try and cover it with something much less than the original, and every attempt reminds us all the more that it is not as perfect as it was intended.  Trying to fix the problems of violence and pain with anything other than the rule and reign of Christ is just as effective as trying to paint the grass greener or the sky bluer.

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A Great Communicator -part 4

This is the fourth and final part in a brief series on communication as part of the very quality of God and His Kingdom. It is also a clarion call to that Kingdom to become excellent at this vital issue, the very thing we were made for. You can find part one in the series here.

When people don’t see what we are doing as vital in their lives (and I mean everything from a church picnic to a Sunday sermon) then they begin to look at church services and events as religious duties performed by the faithful, but having little real meaning or import.  They actually begin to view these times as something that must be endured, often primarily in order to maintain their fellowship with the people in the church.

This premise is held up by statistics.  Our young adults are leaving the Church in record numbers.  The reason that they list for this boils down to the fact that they don’t see Church as being something vital and essential in their lives.  These statistics are addressed in both The Essential Church by Thom and Sam Rainer, and Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger.  These 18-30 year-olds are not leaving randomly.  They are leaving after fellowship in their church is interrupted by going off to college, graduating youth group, and a change in job schedule.  Put simply, people are leaving Church when they are unable to maintain fellowship with the people they are close to in their church, because they don’t see the other functions of the Church as being important to their lives.

We cannot believe that the other functions of Church are not essential, but maybe we are making it seem that way.  Our fellowship seems to be very good.  In all of this, I am suggesting a deep examination of our communication styles, methods, and practice.  Then based on that, we should endeavor to be the world’s foremost experts in communicating.  Our pulpits should be studied and taught as the model of how to best share, motivate, and inspire.  It is not just a good idea, it is our mandate. -Ryan

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