God's Word for us

Alright confession time...have you ever been bored reading the Bible? I know that I have. For the longest time I kept trying to read through the Bible in a year. This is what so many around me would hold up as a great spiritual accomplishment and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. But the more that I did it, the more I began to wonder why this was pushed? What after all is so spiritual about reading the Bible in one year? Sure there is the aspect of discipline, which is good. But why a year? What makes that more spiritual than me accomplishing the same thing in 3 or 4 years? To be honest with you, I became increasingly more and more frustrated about my "times" with God because I needed to maintain a pace and stay on schedule. The result of this practice was that I became well versed in hearing God's Word for everyone else but me.

Recently I was reminded of a practice that the early church used to combat hearing God's Word for others as opposed to hearing for one's self. This practice became known as "Lectio Divina" (divine or sacred reading). The movements that follow are based upon the belief that God's Word is alive today for you and for me (Heb. 4:12).

Movements (taken from Ruth Haley Barton's "Sacred Rhythms"):

1. Pick a passage of Scripture that is no more than 12 verses (if it is a story it could be longer).
2. Pray a something short and simple asking God for guidance.
3. READ- As you read the passage slowly, listen for a word or phrase that jumps out of the text and sit with it.
4. REFLECT- Read the passage again and then ask God why this is the word that He wants you to hear.
5. RESPOND- Read the passage one more time and write down your HONEST response to it (fear, excitement, guilt...). 
6. REST- Read the passage one last time and remember that the One that is showing you this word fiercely loves you. 
7. RESOLVE- This is the time where you choose to incarnate this word from God in your everyday life. Pick something to remind you of its message (a picture, symbol, something on your phone) to encourage you to continue to chew on the ways that God has been leading you.

If you do this, please let me know how it went. God wants to speak to us through His Word, the question is...are we listening for ourselves?

Standing on Their Shoulders

As I sit in my office looking at my bookshelves, I cannot help but think of the rich heritage that I am a part of as a Christian. Names like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Moody, Graham, Bonhoeffer, and C. S. Lewis stare back at me. Just seeing their names alone remind me of who I am and who I long to be. It seems somewhat strange to say this, but find myself at the same time both inspired and intimidated by these people who knew God so well and lived single-mindedly for Him. I am inspired by these heroes of mine because they made themselves fully available to God. Fortunately not all of them were extremely academic, cultured, socially connected, or even possessed a blameless past, yet what they all hold in common was a willingness to surrender themselves wholly to God. Listen to their passion:

"For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee" (Augustine).

Martin Luther prayed, "I am Yours" as he wrestled with the implications of his new understanding of the Gospel and what that meant for the church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man He bids him to come and die."

D. L. Moody was shaped by the statement that he often repeated, "The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him."

These people wholly offered themselves to God to do whatever He wanted of them regardless of the cost. Luther was condemned as a heretic, Calvin was kicked out of his own church, Bonhoeffer was killed in a WWII concentration camp. Each of them were ridiculed for their obedience, but persevered nonetheless. And as a result of their obedience, their influence continues to this day. Their legacy continues to speak.

With all of this being said, I have to ask myself, am I learning from and emulating their example? Am I willing to answer the call for this generation by making myself wholly devoted to God? Will I stay the course when I am attacked or ridiculed for my obedience? To quote my one of my heroes Martin Luther, "God help me. Amen."

Pull Up a Chair...

I don't know if you are anything like me, but I have honestly become a Facebook junkie. Rarely a day goes by when I don't check it at least several times just to see whose birthday it is, what my "friends" have been putting on my wall, or to flip through pics that they have posted. I have to tell you that I have also been able to get back in touch with all different types of people going all the way back to grade school! I have had fun saying to another friend, "you'll never guess who I found..." Now when I combine all of my "friends" from way back to present, I have, at least according to Facebook, several hundred of them. These "friends" are people that range from the one time acquaintance (that I have difficulty placing) to long time friends, roommates, and even family members. Yet when I go through my list of "friends" I have to ask, "How many of these people really know me?" Sure they have the ability of seeing pics that I put up, reading my status updates, and even tracking my blog, but how many of them know the real me? Now some of you might be thinking that there are spheres of friendship and not everyone is in our "inner circle" nor should they. Granted you have a point, but I want to ask you how many people are in your "inner circle"? How many people know the real you? How many people know your joys, struggles, longings?

In the last several months, God has been opening my eyes to this deficiency. He has brought to my attention several friendships that remain undeveloped and has even brought along new ones that show promise. But in order for any of these to be of value, I have to first choose to be vulnerable. I have to let people see more of me than what I post. I have to let them see the real me.

As scary as this sounds, I have to tell you that by beginning to take steps towards vulnerability, I have actually come to find an increasing sense of freedom. Where I once felt alone and isolated, I now find myself becoming deeply connected to my real friends. They know me and I know them. We no longer have to exert effort in maintaining an image of who we're supposed to be, but rather can simply come as our true selves. And you know what, it is there at the intersection of Vulnerability and Community that we find God's sacred, awe-inspiring work being accomplished: our transformation.

I don't know if you have any of these kind of friends, but I pray that God sends them your way or opens your eyes to the ones you have been neglecting to develop. And may I suggest as counter-intuitive as it might sound, that the church is the perfect place to develop these types of relationships. I say this because the church is and always will be a fellowship of sinners, who are forgiven. All who are honest, still walk with a limp. And still have a need to be deeply connected to others for that is our Maker and Redeemer's design.

Taking the Time to Listen

I have always half-jokingly told people that I struggle with patience because I'm from Chicago. I hate going slow (especially in the car) in anything! Yet this lack of patience transcends the time I spend waiting in line at stores or sitting in parking lots known as our Chicago highways, it also effects my relationship with God. I struggle being still before Him. Listening to His voice. Waiting for His direction. Being in silence.

In Henri Nouwen's book, "In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership" he says, "God is a God of the present and reveals to those who are willing to listen carefully to the moment in which they live the steps they are to take toward the future." After reading this, I paused and asked myself, "What does God want to say to me that I'm not taking the time to listen to?" To be perfectly honest, this is a question that I'm still asking. With all the craziness of the Christmas season, I have yet to seriously entertain this question. I know that I need it, but keep filling my schedule with so much that I can't "schedule" Him in for more than our usual allotted time.

I don't know if this is true of where you are at, but it is for me. I so desperately long to be used by God to do something big for Him, yet too often forget that He is far more concerned about doing something big in me! I'm planning on breaking away this week to listen. I encourage you to do the same. To be still and let Him speak.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd ask me if I did break away to listen the next time you see me and post your own struggles/successes of how God is speaking to you during your "quiet" times.

The Face of the Church

Do you ever look back on things that you wrote a long time ago? I don't do this often enough, but whenever I do I can see how various thoughts, burdens, or struggles seem to resurface in my life. Just the other day I was talking to my good friend about ministry and was reminded of something I wrote in a journal many years ago. I brought it out and read to him the following, "Mike, you are to connect all ethnicities under the banner of Jesus Christ. Partner with them to stand TALL for Jesus. This will fulfill the 2nd greatest commandment and show the watching community that God is with us! Make Him real to those who do not know." The date on this is 12/31/03, when my wife and I lead a group of college students to the Urbana Missions Conference. It is amazing to see how this journal entry of nearly 6 years ago, has taken on a new life in the last two years. Not only have I had the pleasure of working next to Ramiro Cruz (our wonderfully gifted Pastor of Hispanic Ministries) and being on staff at The Bridge where one of our values is to look like the community that we live in, but I have also been recently shaped from reading a phenomenal book called "The Next Evangelicalism" by Soong-Chan Rah. Each of these factors have fanned the flame of desire to intentionally do church differently than what I have seen and mostly experienced in my life. "The Next Evangelicalism" vividly paints a compelling picture that whether we want to acknowledge it or not, the landscape of the Evangelical church is changing here in America. One of the biggest questions that it poses is how should the church respond to the nations moving next door in "OUR" neighborhoods (especially when quite a few of them are our brothers and sisters in Christ)? It convincingly concludes that any model that fails to recognize this shift as anything less than a divine opportunity for "their" church to look like the Church (i.e. the historic, redeemed, multi-ethnic people of God) must be quickly discarded. Preserving the status quo is nothing short of idolatry. So I am compelled to ask, "Are you willing to lay aside 'your' church to be the Church? If so (and I pray that is where we all land), what would this practically look like for "your" church? And most importantly what are you going to do about it?