So, here's the thing. I'm currently engaged in multiple conversations within the church. Discipleship, missions, multi-ethnic diversity, community, prayer and worship, as well as being a sociologist. *I admit, as a sociologist I have a mere Bachelor's degree in the field, but I venture at (and risk) calling myself a sociologist, because when social theory is going through your head constantly and you're applying it to life and work, that is a good sign that you're an 'ist' in the field. ...Though your skill level may vary. After all, if my path and life convictions took hold in a different place and at a different time, chances are I would have gone after my graduate studies in that field. I would have a lot to overcome if I chose that direction, though, because my name isn't Herbert. It seems that all the Herberts that I've ever heard of are sociologists...almost as if it's a prerequisite.

Anyway. Memory Residue's site design will be changing a bit. I'll still offer my music and creative projects here, but I'll be including much of my off site discussion online now for two reasons. 1. I might as well share in the discussion more broadly and on the web, I'm doing the work and working ideas; and 2. Many of these topics are in the pioneering stage for the current state of the western church (with growing post-Christendom), which means others will be following. Time to clear a path.

Jesus didn’t go to the cross so we wouldn’t have to. He went to the cross so we could join him there. - Dallas Willard

Last night we had some friends over to sit, have wine, have bread and talk about Jesus. Very informal. We had the movie The Gospel of John playing in the background, and during that time we talked about our favorite Jesus account. One thing turned to another in the conversation and somehow we ended up talking about suffering. It got me thinking, because as we talked I found that a distinction needs to be made in the way we think about suffering.

On one hand there is the distortion of sanctification through suffering, that it is the process of suffering that makes me holy. Daily looking for a (physical) 'martyr's death'/suffering, or even (as we see in some traditions) causing oneself meaningless physical pain. Meaningless, that is, in that it is disconnected to the situation that causes the suffering to be in witness for Christ: i.e. whipping oneself.

On the other hand, suffering is a part of the Christian life, because it was a part of Christ's. We can't avoid it...well, we shouldn't avoid it. Granted, it seems that (especially in the West) we have come up with a doctrinal way of thinking in order to avoid it, but "no servant is great than his master" and if they hated Christ, they will hate us. Of course, this suffering isn't self-inflicted, but rather out of submission to Christ. It is not our suffering that sanctifies, but Christ who makes us holy. But we don't need to look for the suffering. If we are following Christ it will find us.

Finally, with these things considered, this B.C. cartoon has been floating around:

As a worship leader, I want to lead others in being authentic; because I believe that when we are authentic and real (with God and each other), our worship is authentic. I fully believe that our identity as Believers is tied up in and defined by Who God is and what He's done. At the same time, I believe that only when we are willing to come to God as humans in our sin and humanity, broken, needy, and honest, is there 'worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:23). There is the 'real truth' of God that needs to break through the false truths of how we define ourselves based on our shame and brokenness, or our self-righteousness. Every week, every worship set, every day I find myself awaking to a grey and skewed version of what creation 'ought' to be, to this place that needs a Savior, and needs new mercy...possibly even more than it did yesterday.

Brennan Manning touched this deeply throughout his Ragamuffin Gospel (1990), a snippet is seen here:

The prayer of the poor in spirit can simply be a single word: Abba...In this sense, there is no such thing as bad prayer. A third characteristic of the tilted-halo gang [ragamuffins] is honesty. We must know who we are. How difficult it is to be honest, to accept that I am unacceptable, to renounce self-justification, to give up the pretense that my prayers, spiritual insight, tithing, and successes in ministry have made me pleasing to God! No antecedent beauty enamors me in His eyes. I am lovable only because He loves me (p. 83).

And in that place He bears our shame, our false self, and sees us (somehow) as who we 'ought' to be. He sees Jesus. "Somehow," that is. I don't know how exactly, but He does it. And Christ becomes our 'true' (actual) self in His eyes. Hallelujah. And because it is truly grace, we can count on it, as we pray for Him to make that revelation true and enduring to (and in) our hearts.

Back to community. Being a place for ragamuffins clothed in Christ, I believe, is essential. My friend Mike's life message is: "being a safe place." Being a 'safe place' can at first seem slightly subjective to varying perspectives (how one defines 'safe'), but in this sense I believe that 'being a safe place' is to be a place that allows the walls come down: walls of self-righteousness, of weakness, of brokenness, and even apathy. A safe place to say "yes, I am part of the grey, skewed, world that I woke up inside of today...and I need a savior (the Savior)."

In his book Life Together (1954), Bonhoeffer wrote:

The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners 

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth (p. 110-111).

Being a 'safe place' is to be a place of the grace of the Gospel, that realistically approaches the Throne of Grace (Hebrews 4:16) as a Body and says corporately and in confidence: "We need Your mercy, Lord. We are in need, Lord. Abba!" And I've found that taking this message (of unconditional love), to a world of conditional love is powerful. To embody that testimony of such a love (while being honest in our failures of carrying that love perfectly), I believe, is hopeful and contagious. There is joy there. When we come to the point where we realize we don't have to perform, but be honest and laugh and cry.

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing (Zeph. 3:17)

Reference:
Bonhoeffer, D. (1954). Life Together. NY: Harper Row, Publishers.
Manning, B. (1990). The Ragamuffin Gospel. OR: Multnomah Books.

I like structure. That is, I like it as long as everything is in place. I've operated in jobs and ministries that have been bad 'fits.' Leaving me feeling like a square peg in a round hole, those experiences left me with an orphan mentality of 'no one understands me.' Throughout the years I found out that the problem wasn't necessarily in the structure, but in my identity (though, I've worked in a lot of poor structures!). I was letting the structure define me and not Christ. Spending time at the International House of Prayer (Atlanta) helped me in my journey, but even there, the more I spent time in that structure, I didn't feel like I was called long-term to that environment. However, in the place of prayer God began to re-structure my heart (the most crucial structure). I love prayer and what God is doing in the prayer movement, but I have a titanium thread of social justice and evangelism that is a part of my identity in Christ. The lens through which I look has been shaped by Bonhoeffer, Wilberforce and St. Francis: all strong voices for justice, the poor and oppressed, and most importantly, all lived lives of strong devotion and prayer (which is sometimes overlooked).

Working at IHOP-Atlanta, and now at a church that is passionately developing a discipleship-culture, I have found that a very crucial thing in setting a culture is shared values and language. It's not that things can't be discussed, challenged or even contested along the way. Rather, when they are it's done as a process of hammering out and building stronger instead of tearing down.

Because of these common languages (IHOP: Intimacy/Bridal paradigm; 3DM: Discipleship). I'm learning how to be a better Jesus apprentice, how to be better mentored, and how to better mentor and lead. I'm learning how to not take myself so seriously, and how to enjoy others more. I'm learning that a big part of discipleship is being transparent, honest and humble, as well as believing that God wants to miraculously work through the little things as well as the big. It's walking out the Sermon on the Mount through the mundane as well as the overtly outward expressions.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - Jesus the Christ (John 13:34-35)

It's no wonder, and is a beautiful fact, that Christianity is done in community. True, there are hermits, and those on the fringe who feel called to abandon themselves in the place of solitude and singularity of one-on-one communion with the Lord. However, I believe that is more the exception than the rule. Christianity, I believe, is meant to be lived out in community with one another because humanity is meant to be lived out with one-another. True, this complicates things. This means I must bear my humanity (good and bad) with you, as I accept you for who you are. In time, (in our walk with Christ) we will see the ugliness in each other, and in that place we must learn to see the beauty in each other and point each other towards that; because the Holy Spirit in us is always beautiful, regardless of what is being purified.

Vanier wrote in "Community and Growth":

The more a community grows and puts down roots, the more it must discover its own deep meaning and own philosophy of life, which cannot be cut off from the fundamental questions of the world and of the Church. The more it lives authentic human relationships, and the more it becomes a place to live in rather than a gathering of 'doers', the more it must find answers to the fundamental questions of human life. It must give meaning to suffering and death, to healing and to wholeness, to the place of man and woman in society and in the world, and sexuality, family and celibacy. It must be clear about the use of power, the role of authority, and about the meaning of growth to freedom and responsibility. It must have a deep sense of the place of God, prayer and religion in human existence. It must have a vision about poverty and wealth, and clarity about the relationship between love and competence (p. 112).

I'm learning that community doesn't work as an amoebic gobbly gook of no authority, relativistic truth, and mixed philosophies of how to live in community. As tempting as egalitarian community may be, I'm starting to see how it will truly fall apart without loving, relational authority, enduring foundational truth (found in Christ and the Word), and shared values of how to live together. There can be discussion on these topics, and on how they're best lived out, but there must be a strong foundation, or else the community will crumble.

Discipleship is crucial to the life of the Church/Christianity. But crucial to discipleship is a culture of prayer. I do believe that being a "house of prayer [for all nations]" is an underlying identity of the Church. My experience with the (primarily) program driven church in the U.S. is that true discipleship is rare. I mean we have Bible studies, small groups, and meetings, but intentionally coming together for learning how to do Jesus-stuff is often not done. I've even experienced outreach efforts without intercession for those who are intended to be reached. Now, my goal isn't to complain. My goal is to point out, encourage, maybe even confess :-) We must abandon to Christ if we want to experience all He has for us individually, with one-another, and those not (or some, not yet) in the family of Faith.

"Our Father"
I am so blessed that the Lord stoops low, so low in His love, that He chooses us, redeems us, calls to us, and beyond every interaction that we have recorded (or may hope to record), He goes even further to reveal that He is "Father" above all else. Not judge, not cosmic teddy bear, not transcedental buddy-o-pal, but our intimate Father.

"Thy Kingdom Come"
"Jesus, 'Thy Kingdom Come,' not mine. And in a world where Your Kingdom has only partly come, let it draw closer today. Let it draw closer than ever. Open my eyes to see You reveal it. I want to partner with Your heart. Rabbi, teach me. Father, let Your holiness invade this world through little ol' me, and Holy Spirit purify, counsel, and lead me - not where I go naturally, but where You would take me."

"Give us this day our daily bread"
"Father, please provide. Give me eyes to see the difference between my wants and my needs. And please give me a posture of giving."

"...and forgive us...as we forgive..."
Contemplative and social-activist Thomas Merton wrote:

"Remembering that I have been a sinner, I will love You in spite of what I have been, knowing that my love is precious because it is Yours, rather than my own. Precious to You because it comes from Your own Son, but precious even more because it makes me Your son." 

I have witnessed (and been a part of) religion that seems to be founded on guilt and shame. Unless the identity of a loving, kind, completely just, and completely merciful Father is the foundation of our belief, then getting to the part about sin is frightening. Unless that foundation is set, confession will be primarily fear based, and reconciliation may not genuinely happen. There are calls to repentance and there are absolutions, but even after forgiveness may be declared, shame can remain. I'm started to pray freedom in this portion of the Lord's Prayer. "Lord, forgive me where I've fallen, and free my heart to forgive others."

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
      an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
Amen. ~ Attributed to Oscar Romero

A few weeks ago I grabbed lunch with a friend at Red Robin. Munching on Buffalo Chicken Strips we were talking about the churches that we were serving at, and about where the Lord is leading in those place. Community is the word that came up. God has me (and some leadership of our church) parked on that, and what it looks like in discipleship. My friend then mentioned another conversation that he had where the person shared his dislike of the word community: arguing that it is a buzzword, and not found in the New Testament. While "community" is mentioned once in Acts, depending on your translation, the word 'family [of believers]' appears a lot. I'm finding that semantics aside, one of the biggest issues is sociological. Moving past our largely cold -climate culture (task oriented with social customs to close us off to others), to becoming more hot -climate (relationship oriented with social customs embracing inclusiveness of others) (Lanier, 2001). We may call it community in our culture. A more hot -climate culture may call it family. The point is that it moves past the basic protocols of our society and welcomes others into a Kingdom of inclusiveness, of being dangerous for that Kingdom (reaching out to the poor, oppressed and outcast), and we learn how to share life together. It's not just making a new category of friends to fit in a compartmentalized life, but breaking down and shattering barriers that we've set up to keep us 'safe' (or, rather, separate) from the needs of others.

Jean Vanier (1979) wrote:

A community which is just an explosion of heroism is not a true community. True community implies a way of life, a way of living and seeing reality; it implies above all fidelity in the daily round. And this is made up of simple things - getting meals, using and washing the dishes and using them again, going to meetings  - as well as gift, joy and celebration; and it is made up of forgiving seventy times seventy-seven. 

A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognised that the greatness of humanity lies in the acceptance of our insignificance, our human condition and our earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of people is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day (p. 109).

The Lord, in His goodness, has put a hunger in me for the Body of Christ to truly be a family of Believers (or community...regardless of the word's buzzyness to some). From as early as I surrendered my life to Christ (the first time), to every surrender (mostly each day) since, 'community' has been an underlying conviction foundational to my life. I've failed at it numerous times, but Holy Spirit has been graciously persistent in bringing me back to it. I'm learning how to be a family member, and I hope that in my places of leadership within the Body, I'll be able to help establish a Kingdom culture of community/family.

Reference:
Lanier, S. A. (2001). “Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures.” Hagerstown, MD: McDougal Publishing

Today is Christmas Eve, and below I am posting a video containing one of the Christmas songs that I've written over the years. However, I use the word "Christmas" gently, lightheartedly and passionately all at once.

Gently, because yes, I know the arguments behind the calendar days on which Christmas and Easter holidays occur as having pagan roots, I know the realistic theological and historical argument that Jesus was not born on December 25th. I use it gently because I don't want to come across as one who thinks that December 25th by its very nature is a magically holy day. It is a normal day that has been made holy, by the intentional and cultural meditation on the incarnation. Some people slam Christmas trees, but people through history, St. Boniface and Martin Luther included, used them as spiritual illustrations pointing to Christ. The nativity? St. Francis wanted to people to taste, feel, and smell what it must have been like to experience that special night of Christ's birth. (My friend Ben wrote about it well on his blog) And even me, I look at the materialism that surrounds Christmas and often have a heavy heart, yet I choose to use this day as an excuse to speak of the incarnation on a day that, culturally, some are more open to hearing about it. That is reflected in my song. If it ends with presents and a tree then we've missed it, but if we use it as an opportunity to speak out when the rest of the world may have ears to hear, I say, "Yes! Merry Christmas!"

This time is lighthearted for me too, because there are warm memories attached to Christmas. Yes, I'm not calloused to peppermint mochas, or spicy mochas (thank you Caribou Coffee), decorating a tree with ornaments of years gone by, and watching silly Christmas movies. Christmas is a lighthearted time for me, because there is so much heaviness in the world (and in my brain), that sometimes I have to not take life so seriously, otherwise I miss the little joys that are waiting behind every corner.

Lastly, this time of the year is something that I'm passionate about, because the reality is: just like the argument that the seasonal celebration of day on which we celebrate Christmas has pagan roots, the reality is so do we. Christ died for us when we were not just sinners, but when we were the very enemies of Him (Romans 5). So, let's use any opportunity to meditate on the incarnation: the master plan of redemption set forth by our Creator. And let's speak out about it, let's share the awesome story of God becoming man, and relay the significance of that to a world that definitely needs life/hope/mercy.

Great are You, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; Your power is immense, and Your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise You – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that You thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising You may bring us joy, because You have made us and drawn us to Yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in You (Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 1).

This morning about 5:30 my baby girl awoke hungry, and since the past couple of days she's been fighting a fever possibly due to a slight ear infection, my wife and I both ran to her side. After she was satiated (more or less), I decided to get up, throw a pot of coffee on, and have some time in the Lord's presence. As I meditated on Scripture (Psalm 46), I remembered Augustine's words that "our hearts are restless (unquiet) until they rest in You." Like a baby who will not be satisfied in any other way than its mother's milk, so our souls are actually designed to hunger and thrive for God. All else will fall short. "Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You" (Psalm 63:3-5).

"Father, forgive us for looking for satisfaction in anything other than You. Let our lives put on display our hunger for You...that the world would see You in us. This Advent awaken a hunger in Your Bride, Your people, a hunger that cannot be quenched by the fleetingness of this plastic world, and release an undying desire in Her heart to proclaim You and Your love and mercy. Amen."