Heresy of the Month

Big Changes

Well, I am here today in Seattle.  I had an interview yesterday to be the operations manager of a company in the Snoqualmie area.  The owner is a friend of mine, and he made me an offer that is very difficult to refuse.  In fact, I don't really even want to refuse the offer.  Also, in this area, I would be very well connected with people and organizations that are alive, dynamic, and progressive.  I am taking a bit of time, while we are here, to seek God and pray a bit before making a decision.

You see, I have struggled in the past with obeying God.  I was talking a bit about this at our weekend service for church this Sunday.  Forgive me, but I am going to use this post as a bit of cathartic and therapeutic work.  I could really use some of your thoughts and input.

Anyway, like I was saying (before I rudely interrupted myself), we talked a bit about this subject on Sunday.  We were discussing Abram (later Abraham) and his call to leave the land he knew and move to Canaan.  God promised him the land as his inheritance.  God also promised that he would have many descendants, who would multiply and fill the land, subduing it and taking possession of it.  I notice two distinct responses from Abram that are rather striking in terms of his faith.

First, he just went.  He was a stranger in that land.  He was leaving his family and friends behind.   There is no sense that he struggled with it at all.  God told Abram to go.  Abram went.  He didn't walk around, seeking counsel and support from wise friends and neighbors.  He didn't do a "recon trip" before deciding whether to obey.  He didn't ask God for lots of signs and confirmations of this call.  He just went.  It is almost Forrest Gumpish in how Abram just seems to wake up and do what God says.  I am actually pretty good at this first part.  As I have sought to be a man who says "Yes" to God with my whole life, I actually have a fairly strong gift of faith to just unquestioningly obey.  It's Abram's second response of faith that is the one with which I struggle.  It is also the one that I think has to be the most difficult for all of us who consider ourselves human.

Abram pitches a tent.  He has been promised this land.  It is his, and he is secure in that.  He builds stone altars and permanent memorials to the God who sent him, but he builds nothing permanent for himself.  In fact, for his entire life, the only permanent structure that Abram will own will be his tomb.  Now, I have heard people say that this was a bit of a lack of faith on Abram's part.  Abram had no idea what God meant by possessing the land, and he had no descendants, so he only trusted enough to go there.  If he had truly believed God, he would have settled in a permanent home there.

I think it's just the opposite.  I think Abram acted in a faith that I can only dream of having.  He trusted God enough to get up and go where sent.  Awesome.  I've done that as well.  But Abram trusted God enough to NOT take the promise into his own hands!  He remained mobile, based on the information he had, which was limited at best.

In 2001, Teresa and I felt that God was calling us to go and plant a church in Green Bay.  We went, with the promise of a great career position that would support our ministry very well.  We were excited for a future full of hope and promise, as we loaded up the truck (and moved to Beverly).  I would have the best income of my life, I had solid networks in Green Bay from my Catholic ministry days, and I felt like God was sending me with the promise that I would inherit the land.  God would do incredible things, affecting the entire city of Green Bay, through our ministry there!

When we got there, the job offer fell through.  I had signed a lease, because I had my plan for how the "inheriting of the land" would go.  We were not starting the church for another year, because we were going to take a full year to pray and work, building a united leadership team.  Suddenly, with two very young children, a pregnant wife, a year lease on a place, and no income, I panicked.  My plan was being messed up.  In Green Bay, with winter coming, I could not just pitch a tent like Abram.  So, I did what I knew how to do: I started the church.  After all, God had promised me the land, right?  So, I wasn't going back with my tail between my legs.  I would behave as if the promise was for right now.  I was going to will it to happen.

That, right there, is why I say that Abram had great faith.  "Name it and claim it" approaches to faith are held up by many believers as THE way to claim the promises of God.  In other words, as I am a person with a very powerful will, I get my orders and promises from God, and then I make them happen.  That is not faith, I now realize.  That is pride.  We were created to rule and to reign.  We were given dominion.  But we were not built to independently reign apart from God.  The power, the glory, the reign is all God's.  Even the perfection, the righteousness (or being in right standing), and the mercy are all God's.  We simply move in it.  We have the authority to use that power, as long as we submit our reign and will to that of God.

It is a lot like a police officer.  The police officer is not the law.  The law is the law.  The law has power and force of will to guide and govern a society.  The police officer is bound (theoretically) by that same law.  At no time does the officer obtain or possess the power of the law.  As a sworn officer, he or she has the authority to carry out and apply the will of law, as long as he or she is in a state of compliance and submission to the law.  As soon as they move outside of that state of submission, overstepping their authority, the law-breaker is set free.  We say all the time that no one can "take the law into their own hands".

That is what it means to have free will and authority in the will of God.  God gives us parameters and direction.  God's will is done in our lives when we submit to that will, and only that will.  That is what we pray in the Lord's Prayer: "Thy will be done".   Abram had an order and a promise.  The order: Go to the land I will show you.  The promise: I will make you into a great nation, and you will have many descendants, who will take possession of the land.  Now, Abram has the authority to obey the will of God.  He also is a free agent in the deal, in that he could easily choose to obey or to just stay in his homeland.  He has free will.  Everything he knew was in his homeland.  He was comfortable and established there.  God did not say there would be a punishment for Abram if he disobeyed.  He would just cut himself off from the promise.  He may still have been abundantly blessed if he stayed.  He may have had many descendants that ruled and reigned over the land of Harran.  Abram's father, Terah, had taken the family toward Canaan, possibly on the orders of God, but he had settled in Harran on the way there.  He seemed to have been blessed with offspring and possessions anyway.  It is not as simple as the black and white idea of "obey or be punished".  It would almost be easier if that was the M.O. of God.  Faith is much more gray than that, even if we wished that reality were otherwise.

So, armed with a clear direction and a broad promise, Abram left for Canaan.  The simple obedience of going there was within Abram's domain.  The promise was in God's.  He understood that, so he was a man of great faith.  He did what he was told, and then he stayed mobile.  He had no idea how God planned to fulfill the promise, and he didn't seem to be too bothered by living in that tension.  God said go, so I went.  Now, rather than falling into triumphalism and claiming the fulfillment of the promise immediately, as if it were some act of great faith to do so, he merely remained mobile, ready to obey again.  You see, "name it and claim it" is not faith.  It is overstepping our authority.  It is a battle of wills against God.  Pride.  God makes promises in order to encourage us, as a deposit to help us persevere in obedience.  How and when God plans to fulfill that promise is none of our business.  This is evidenced in the very next passage, where there is a famine, so Abram goes to Egypt where there is food.  Upon getting there, he has a failure of faith, fearing for his life.  He did not consult God to ask if he should go to Egypt.  He just goes, in the absence of further orders.  But, because he was open to hear what God wanted next, even though he was going away from Canaan and the promise, God used Abram's sin to bless him!  This is the opposite of the sin/curse dynamic.  When we are submitted to God, even our sin can be redeemed by God for blessing.

So, we have felt like God was uprooting us from Green Bay for quite sometime now.  I really believe the God is calling me to increase my writing, coaching, consulting, and speaking dream.  I have the best opportunity for that in a more progressive area like Seattle.  I also need to do that outside of the role of pastor.  So, we have been called to move to the Seattle area.  Now, I have a job offer.  That job has nothing to do with writing, speaking, or ministry.  It is a completely secular position.  So, what do you think?

When I went to Green Bay, I took things into my own hands and steered them toward the promise.  I missed the mark.  In my obedience, I trust that God will still fulfill that promise in Green Bay after we are gone.  We were faithful in obedience to work hard at laying the foundation there.  God will fulfill the promise through those who come after me, just like the experience of Abram.  Many descendants meant only one heir for Abraham, but God multiplied and expanded that deposit into a great nation.  God will do the same with me.  This is a wide open door for me, and it will provide a nice home, more income than I have had before, and the time and flexibility to continue to pursue my dream.  As far as day jobs go, it looks really good.  It is away from the dream right now, but God can make connections and bring me to the fulfillment of the dream as God sees fit.  That's God's department, not mine.

I am moving here in 10 days.  Teresa is following with the kids in June.  I am obeying.  I actually hesitated too long, sweating out whether it was God's will to give up the church to others.  I get nervous about losing all of the networking connections I have made in the Vineyard Churches.  The cost of living is higher here, and I worry about moving my family all this way, only to struggle again.  All of that made me drag my feet.  I just wanted to do it right this time.  But even that is out of my hands.  I need to obey God's lead to the best of my ability.  If I do so, I am freely submitting my will to God's will.  Then, even if I'm making a mistake, I am in God's will.  Instead of being punished, I will be blessed.  So, I let go of the worries, and stop looking everywhere for confirmation, signs, and reassurance.  I move forward, and I let God work out the details.  I am not running around here, trying to promote myself.  I am letting God promote me.  I am learning how to trust.  Maybe that's the freest way to live.

When have you had to just obey God in your life, without knowing all the details of how and when?  What was that like?  Are you taken aback a bit by my assertion that God's will and the details are none of our business?

God Chooses Messy People

Models don’t work.  Programs don’t work.  Doctrine as the basis for faith, doesn’t work.  Universal moral truths and principles don’t work.  Life is far too messy and too complicated.  God, while the same yesterday, today, and forever, is not static.  God is a dynamic reality with constant and ever developing plans and purposes.  Why would be so arrogant to think that God would fit in our tiny definitions, models, and doctrine?  If God did fit in our boxes, would that being still be “God”?

I am always studying ways of doing church and working out faith in daily reality.  There is always so much to learn, and I have, in no way, “arrived”.  I am on a journey, like anyone else.  I have simply embraced my status as a “failed pastor”.  This does not mean I define myself that way.  As a matter of fact, I have rejected that completely as a definition of my inner and outer self.  I am not a failure.  However, embracing that, by all current model and success based definitions and models I am, indeed, a failed pastor, this frees me up to see the deficiencies and failures of the system itself, rather than focusing on my own.  Of course, my own failures are legion, but they are all learning experiences.  I have merely learned the 99,999 ways to NOT do church.  I do not walk around as a failure.  I am a man who says, “Yes!” to God, even if it leads to me looking like a fool or dying.  No matter what, it always leads to God’s glory, and it is for that glory that I live and breathe.  My own reputation and life are God’s anyway.  I have no say in how they are spent.  Does that make me weak?  Sure.  But it is in my weakness that God is strong.  I am a “Yes Man” for God, and I have grown in incredible wisdom and strength as a result of being weak and foolish enough to do whatever God asks of me.  We cite Romans 8:28 all the time, “…all things work for the good for those who love the Lord, Jesus, and are called according to His purpose.”  That’s awesome, and it is encouraging!  ….until you think about all of the martyrs who loved the Lord, Jesus, and were called according to His purpose.  How did they feel about all things working for the good?  When we make ourselves truly available to God, when we pray the life-threatening prayer of “Thy will be done…”, we just have to be aware of counting the cost.  By embracing how I completely serve at the will and whim of God, I am free to look at all of these church and faith things with nothing to lose.  I like that position.

So, back to our Willow Creek and Bill Hybels example, God has used him and his church mightily.  No question.  In terms of current measurements of success, Willow Creek would be in the upper echelon of all models of successful church.  But I have two damning observations to make here, as I see church after church adopt that model and fail.  First, none of the people who seek to copy the Willow Creek model are named “Bill Hybels” or live in Barrington, Illinois.  God did a very specific thing in a very specific time and place with a very specific person who bore a very specific gift set.  If Bill Hybels, himself, was starting Willow Creek right now, I doubt he would have the same level of success.  As a matter of fact, to his immense credit, Hybels is re-thinking the whole thing.  He is no longer seeing the impact with this generation that they saw with wealthy, suburban, mostly white, already-believing Boomers.  He is moving with the Spirit to see where God is leading into the future.  My point is, his model and formula worked, not because it was a great formula or model, but because all of the factors were perfectly in place for radical success.  Like pulling the handle on a divine church slot machine and seeing all the reels come up with “7’s”, Hybels was lucky.  I think he would say the same thing.  His “Yes” to God led to this path.  It may have, just as easily, led to utter failure and poverty.  He could have had all my struggles, and I could have had the massive church in Barrington, Illinois.  C’mon, God!!

The second observation I would make is one of lasting success.  This requires some linguistic common ground as well.  By “success”, do we mean “a big church with lots of people and resources?  Lot’s of people being willing to attend church to hear about Jesus, who might, otherwise, not attend?  Lots of people being evangelized and even seeking salvation (a term which has lots of baggage of its own to deal with)?”  If those are our definitions, then, without a doubt, Willow Creek is a success.  Billy Graham was an incredible success.  Rick Warren is the most successful Christian leader of all time.  But, if we dig into that definition, we expose some problems.

This is not intended to, in any way, take away from how God has impacted hundreds of millions of people through the ministries of these three men.  I am only raising questions that each of them have raised, themselves, in times of introspection.  How many people, of those who have responded to altar calls, prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer”, and committed their lives to Jesus in all three of these ministries, are still following Jesus with anything resembling fervor, commitment, and passion today?  What percentage of those affected by these ministries have a solid walk of discipleship that perseveres like a rock in times of storm and trial?  My definition of success would be more about leading people to experience the Presence of Jesus Christ, so that Jesus can do a work in them that will last an eternity.  In the process, I give people the skills, encouragement, and support to be able to say “Yes” to Jesus, regardless of circumstances.  Any ministry that can do that is an incredible success.  Why?  It’s Multiplication vs. Addition.

Models are all about Addition.  They are about growth and adding more people to our list of those who hear the Gospel.  That is far too shortsighted.  Jesus did not waste time with addition.  He was all about multiplication.  How does one man change all of human history?  He makes disciples.  He doesn’t make sure he always preaches to at least 100,000 people, to add the most possible.  He focuses on 12 people, speaks into their lives and hearts in a special and unique way (in their vernacular), in order to make them into disciples, willing to say “Yes”, even unto death.  He did not change His message to appeal to the masses.  That would be easier and more spectacular.  He did not sit down with the 12 and plan out a marketing strategy and PR scheme to reach the most people.  He poured life into the 12.  He had a single conversation with a single, promiscuous, Samaritan woman at a well, so that she became a zealous herald of the King.  We see multiplication at work through that story, as the people she tells about Jesus proclaim that they now believe.  They even say that they no longer believe because of what she told them, but because of seeing Jesus, themselves!  That is multiplication.  His last words to His Disciples while still in the flesh before them did not involve any kind of tactics, outreaches, models, programs, doctrine, principles, or numbers-based-goal-setting.  They were about multiplication: “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  Multiply yourselves.  Then, when Peter preaches for the first time, the 3000 who are added as a result are tacked on at the end as an afterthought.

From my time as a youth minister, alone, I have more than 20 people who, as adults, have gone on to do full-time work for the Kingdom: pastors, youth pastors, evangelists, missionaries, liaisons to the Muslim community, teachers, writers, and many other pursuits of a life of discipleship.  I never had a flashy program that put lots of butts in seats.  I was never good at adopting models.  I simply introduced a lot of kids to Jesus.  As a result, I multiplied myself by more than 20.  Some of them stay in touch.  Some are not even talking to me because of issues or baggage or something stupid I did.  Nonetheless, as I stalk them on Facebook, I see they are still following Jesus.  I have been multiplied.  They are making lots of disciples, who will make lots of disciples, and on it goes.  I become the indirect spiritual father of a multitude, all because I was foolishly willing to say Yes to God’s direction to pour into some teenagers.  That is a pretty cool success story.

Where we run into trouble is that the models currently rule the day.  They are unquestioned.  They are absolute.  We define ourselves by them.  We are a “Willow Creek Church”.  So, Bill Hybels, himself, blessed you and sent you out with people, support, a plan, and a blessing?  No…it means that we pay the yearly fee to have their models and resources sent to us…

We are a “Small Group Church”.  Cool!  I haven’t heard of that community of churches.  How is that working?  Well, we aren’t affiliated with a larger community.  And the small groups seem to be going ok.  Some of them are a little inward-focused.  Some are kinda “support group-ish”.  I am more of a large group presenter, but they need me to come up with the lesson, discussion questions, and plan for each week.  It’s a lot, with meetings, sermons, counseling sessions, etc., but I do it.  It’s way outside my gift set, but this is a conservative area, where people are very private about faith, emotions, and life stuff.  If I don’t give them lots to do, it’s torture for the leaders.  Then they burn out, and I have to lead some of the groups or shut them down.  If I do that, the congregation starts to thin out, because people perceive that we are failing.

We are strictly “Urban Church”.  Cool!  What’s that like?  Well, it’s good…I guess.  This is what God called me to do.  It’s hard, but it’s really good!  Really good!  I mean, He’s doing great stuff in me!  Awesome, but what is the fruit of your ministry?  Well, these are really hard people.  There is a lot of addiction, so we have to get people clean and sober.  There is a lot of poverty, so we have to feed a lot of people. God is good, but none of these people have money.  We are in a loosely affiliated group of churches, so there is no common pool of resources to support urban church planting.  Our population is not only broke, but they are also transient.  We aren’t able to do consistent ministry with them.  It’s really hard…but it’s so good!

We are “Home Church”, just like the 1st Century Church!  That’s what we want.  We want do church, just like the apostles did it!  Cool!  So you guys fight and disagree all the time about the requirements for entry into the community?  Huh?  No way!  I told you, we have the unity of the first century apostles.  We have a common purse, just like Shane Claiborne.  How is that working?  Well, I’m no Shane Claiborne.  We have had a lot of trouble adapting that to a modern age where people no longer live like that.  We are also having trouble with people refusing to grow and reach more people.  They all say that they have just grown to trust the people we have gathered already.  Adding more people would just change the dynamic, and we’d have to start over with building trust.  We have been the same size for the last 10 years, with the exact same 20 people.  They are not really developing in their discipleship, because they never encounter people who aren’t like themselves.  There is no “iron sharpens iron”, because they all agree, and we are all preaching to the choir every week.

This list could go on and on with an incredible number of conversations I have had with struggling pastors.  Those who are successful are not model or tactic focused.  They are simply people who say Yes and trust God to use their gifts.  Bill Hybels didn’t even have a model.  As a matter of fact, he was 20 years into the Willow Creek experience, before he asked his team if they should maybe start writing some of this stuff down.

God does not call the people who have the best plan or model.  God does not go after the smartest and the most articulate.  God doesn’t even call people to tasks for which they will necessarily be successful by any definition.  God calls people according to character.  God calls those who will say yes, drop their nets, and follow.  When we take our focus off of our little structures, and put it on the response of Yes, we are set free to succeed, fail, thrive, or falter all for the greater Glory of God and the expansion of God’s Kingdom.