Kingdom Come!

And I am convinced that it is true.  Reminded of God’s love.  Reminded of God’s grace and mercy.

I am convinced as Jesus Followers that our greatest problem is spiritual forgetfulness.  We hear it (sometimes over and over again), we read it (right there in black and white), we assume we “learn it” and yet somehow we walk away and forget it.  We just forget.  We let it slip from our minds and hearts. And sometimes we forget so long, it becomes spiritual amnesia. 

Maybe we could call this sort of a spiritual Alzheimer’s.

One of the “jobs” of the Holy Spirit is to bring to remembrance the things of Jesus.  Because we have spiritual short attention spans and the tendency toward forgetfulness, I’m sure He works overtime. 

Lord, by your Spirit, please remind us and remind us again.  And in your grace and mercy send us reminders - Ebeneezers of a sort,  people places and things - so that we might walk in all we know of You and Your Kingdom.

CT does a contrast article here of Ed young Jr. and Neil Cole.  Ed is flamboyant, on TV, multi-site, mega, mega, mega.  Neil on the other hand is introvert and micro - doing church in coffee shops and parking lots.  (Neil’s book Organic Church is a great one to study regarding doing church differently.  We’re considering it for our next Globe EDGE interactive study for missionaries…)

As a missionary, I understand that the church reflects the culture in which it is found.  Or at least it should.  When we export culture intertwined with church, we develop something that becomes ugly and alien, untrue to the original purpose.  Separating culture from church is like - to use a biblical analogy - separating bone from marrow: difficult and almost impossible.

But church - whether micro, decentralized and missional or mega, centralized and attractional - should have several elements in common.  I call these the spiritual DNA of the church.  They are:

• Organic
• Relational
• Cellular
• Charismatic
• Generative

You can see the slide show here and give me feedback.

But I think every leader, pastor or church-planter should read thr CT article and see how best it fits in your life, minitry and culture.  Because mega doesn’t work everywhere.  And maybe micro won’t either.  Most of the last years we were overseas, we worked with micro congregations often in life-and-death situations.  Mega would not have worked - although every leader and every missionary seemed to secretly long for the mega impact.  “If we were big enough, and strong enough and powerful enough, we would not be persecuted!” 

My concern in both models is depth… depth of conversion, depth of commitment, and depth of community.  In each model, how deep are we challenged to be different, to see the world differently, to live differently?  Or our commitment?  How committed are we to the vision of the Kingdom, to righteousness and justice?  Or community?  Either model should lead to depth in these areas.

So read the article, look at the Powerpoint and let me know.

It’s what I dream about, yearn for and for which I am willing to lay down my life.

I woke up this morning 57 years old.

I’m not sure how I got here.  It seems like a blur, until someone recalls a happening or I see a landmark or I hear a song or even smell a smell: turkey in the oven, confederate jasmine, cow manure – all bring up memories of people, places and events.  Then my mind rests for just a moment, like a red Cardinal in winter on naked branches; resting, pensive then moving on.

I thought about my birthday as we drove in yesterday from Pensacola over I-10 and then through the backwoods of Jefferson County, Florida and Brooks County, Georgia.  It was sunset on an autumn afternoon and the nostalgic juices were covering my brain and heart.  We are going to Valdosta!  We are gong to Valdosta!  The tires sang and the sun closed it’s eye.

How does one get from high school to fifty-seven in a few heartbeats?  How does one get from newly-wed to grown children?  Or from knowing it all – which I did when I began college – to being amazed at it all, like I am now?  Not sure.  And I’m not sure that saying, “Life happens,” really covers it.

We’re in Valdosta, Georgia, today, my birthday.  I attended high school here.  (The building burned down years ago, but the football stadium – although renamed several times to reflect new generations of heroes – still stands next door.)  I attended college here and graduated after a start-stop-start few decades.  Yes, decades. 

Most significant things in my life happened here in this small Georgia town, or nearby.  I met Jesus here, for real and for certain, and that has both allowed and caused all the major events since to have great significance.

Jesus brought me together with the wonderful and beautiful Phyllis who has been the encouragement and stalwart of my life for thirty-six years.  (We’ve been married for thirty-six years and I’m 57 years old; you do the math.)  I first saw her in high school, considered her unobtainable.  But somehow, years later it all came together.  Obviously a God-thing.

Our children, Zachary (“God has remembered”) and Jane (“God’s gracious gift”) were born nearby with their own unique story.  And each one in their own unique ways has changed our lives.  And continue to do so.  The morph goes on.

We ministered here in Valdosta.  First in a large Baptist church with a bunch of kids in an uncarpeted back room rounded up on an old school bus – painted green and somehow named Butterbean – and church kids mingled together.  We taught them choruses and how to clap and lift their hands.  In church – albeit Children’s Church.  And we ministered in house groups and storefronts and small groups when it was considered cultish.  And years later we lived between the frat houses and gave our lives to college students.  Right here in Valdosta, Georgia.

From Valdosta, we launched into the big wide world of missions.  I remember the Joseph Food Service truck (a story in itself) backed in our front year – across from the college – and being filled with our belongings to be shipped to Nairobi.

In 57 years, I’ve been all over the world.  And not as a tourist, but as a spokesman for Jesus.  I’ve been in Thailand and India and all over Kenya and Tanzania.  Siberia to Morocco, to Egypt to Spain, I’ve spoken and ministered and prayed to impact the church of Jesus.

But we always came back to Valdosta, Georgia. 

Our church is in Valdosta.   We’ve been part of it forever it seems.  I have photos somewhere of us being sent out under a Kenya flag and me weeping uncontrollably.  New Covenant Church has always looked out for us and loved us and encouraged us.  They made Valdosta a place of “roots” and a place of fruitfulness.

Phyllis’ mom, Grace, lived here.  And she opened her heart and home to us whenever we returned.  Her big house over at 2500 Winding Way was always open.  She gave me a key right after Phyllis and I were married and said, “You’re always welcome in my house.”  And she meant it. When we flew in for two months from Africa, she allowed us to “be at home” and pile school clothes and toys and books and cooking goodies unavailable in our world in corners (often half-way to the ceilings) in anticipation of the return to Nairobi or Nicosia.  I know this disrupted her neat orderly life.  We messed up her house and her schedule.  Grace became, by default in the pre-cell phone days, our appointment secretary and receptionist, taking messages and passing them along.  She hosted our friends who dropped by making them feel as special to her as they were to us.

When Grace died in January of 2006, it jolted us and caused us to ask questions about home.  But God in His grace made it clear that Valdosta should be our “home” and Pensacola our “mission station” and place of ministry.

So on my birthday, we came home.  Where our children are.  Where our memories are. 

And we will make new memories over this birthday and this Thanksgiving and this Christmas.  Text messages, email and Facebook have bustled with friends sending birthday greetings!  We’ll file them away in that special place of holiday wishes and holiday smells and mealtime laughter and goodbye tears. 

And I’ll begin my 58^th year… oh my God!

So what’s happening:

• Books…
• • I’m reading the first chapter of Alan Hirsch and Mike Frost’s new book ReJesus.  I ordered it a loooog time ago and is supposed to arrive tomorrow.  I downloaded the first chapter here and read part of it last night.  As always, Mike and Alan will challenge and encourage.  I feel like Alan and Mike are my best mates!  I studied The Forgotten Ways with Alan via internet (that amazing invention!) and have watched and listened to Mike speak (again via internet) numerous times.  Often when they say something, I say “Boy! I wish I’d have said that!”  When we studied The Shaping of Things to Come through Globe EDGE, over and over students said to me, “Wow they’re saying just what I wanted to say.  They’ve just given me the vocabulary!”  I’m sure ReJesus will do the same. 
  • I also just received Shane Claiborne’s Becoming the Answer to Our Own Prayers.  I will begin reading it quietly and devotionally since it’s about prayer.
  • I bought Eddie Hammett’s Reframing Spiritual Formation while I was in North Carolina.  Eddie was one of the instructors there and I read a lot of this book on the plane coming home to Pensacola.  I wrestle with his wording and use of “secular” to refer to the current culture.  I think the prevailing culture is very “spiritual” - although non-churchy - and regards itself as spiritual and connected to God.  But otherwise, I find Eddie’s thoughts intriguing.  In one place he says, “Only as we flesh out in community something of the right side-up values of God’s new order do we have any basis on which to speak or act.”
• Globe
• • I’ve been planning IGM which begins 6 January.  It looks like we will have a sister school in Pennsylvania in 2010!  That’s exciting!  And there’s talk of one in Michigan.  We’ll see!  This year we’re adding three optional weekend seminars: Building on Your Strengths, Finances and Support-raising, Biblical Story-telling.  These will help folks be better prepared to engage culture and people-groups as they go!
  • GSOM (Globe School of Ministry) will be up and running again by the first part of December.  We’d had a small hiccup but now have it “fixed.”  I think.
  • We’re looking at several books (some not yet in print!) for the upcoming Globe EDGE
• Family
• • We’re heading off to Valdosta today.  Today will basically be a travel day.  We’ll be in Valdosta tomorrow as Phyllis cooks and cooks and cooks for Thanksgiving.  Then on Thursday, we’ll head to Donalsonville to have lunch - big old South Georgia thanksgiving lunch! - at my mom’s.  The whole family should be there - Keith, Karla, Matt, Levi, Alexa, Jane, Zach and Mike, Jane’s friend-who-is-a-boy (although since he’s 6′7″ it’s hard for anybody to call him a “boy.”  
  • I’m planning on touching base and meeting with a bunch of people while we’re in South Georgia over coffee and pumpkin or pecan pie!  One old high school pal wants to get together so he can show off photos of his granddaughter.  (Obviously he’s old enough to have one!  Not me!)
• Coaching
• • I’m going to talk about all that at length in the next few days.  I’m adding new tools to my ministry toolbox and looking for ways to use them for th Kingdom.  I’m excited!
• Prayer
• • I’m planning at least one extended teaching trip in 2009.  Maybe two.  Right now, it will be a trip in March to southern Russia to be with Nick and Olga and to do some teaching in their house church network there.  Can you pray for this?
  • I’m still working on my book Why God Thinks He Can Use You.  When I say “working” it doesn’t mean, I’m actually writing.  But I’ve decided I will somehow set aside three weeks in the next year to complete it.  Can you pray with me for this?  Wisdom!  Wisdom!  Wisdom!
  • Finances.  We’re still faith missionaries.  And giving is down and the economy is in a jumble.  We still live and travel and teach as God’s people give.  Can you pray about this? 

I’m excited about what God is doing in so many places, in so many ways!
And still there is room…

I’m back in Pensacola, Florida after spending a week with a great group of people in North Carolina.  We were attending classes for certification as Christian leadership coaches.  And I’ll talk more about that at a later time – when all the pieces are in place.

Although this group was not all that large, it was amazingly diverse.  The oldest was a very accomplished retired pastor who was 73 years old.  The youngest was a food-service manager who was 23; fifty years of fun, pain, accomplishment and failures separating these guys, and we’re all sprinkled in between.  There were two women in our cohort: one a thirty-five year old mom of three who wants to serve leaders in ministry as well as parents of children with special needs and a middle-aged mom with two in college who has more academic letters after her name than you can read.  (I might add that this vivacious thirty-five-year-old serves in a denomination where she could never be a pastor.) 

There were pastors: Evangelical Free, Southern Baptist, American Baptist, Free-Will Baptist and an unnamed African-American Baptist denomination.   We had been born in New York, Georgia, Scotland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.  We gathered from Wisconsin, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Florida and Kentucky.   Two of my fellow students were black.  There were at least three PhD’s in our midst.  And two published authors.

We all talked about family and ministry and children and spouses and life in numerous contexts.  We laughed a lot – at least once until we almost cried.  We enjoyed numerous a-ha moments – those times when you can almost hear an audible click when all the dots are joined and the picture becomes clear.  There were a few tears.

Our instructors were amazingly transparent and jovial fellow-travelers.  They made it clear that they were still on the journey and had not “arrived,” as they shared struggles and wisdom.

It was evident that we all shared a great love for Jesus and His church, although our understanding and priorities regarding that church were different.   Some of these guys/gals were very institutional in their approach.  They pastored (or were in some capacity attached to) large – sometimes rural – congregations and had a vested interest in the system.  Most had attended seminaries and dropped names of people I didn’t know but to which others nodded, smiled or grimaced.  They spoke of classes that taught them things and classes that didn’t.  They spoke of churches that didn’t “get it” but they never bashed the church.  They spoke of out-of-the-ordinary experiences and opportunities that were realized and some that were too big to manage.

So why am I writing this, other than to just unpack my week?  I guess it’s because community happens.  Somehow in the midst of lots of pain and sorrow, joy and exhalations, hurt and uncertainty, sharing life’s drama and our personal stories together brings life. 

As I think about this, I can hear Jesus saying, “Whenever and wherever two or more of you come together in my Name, trying to act like Me, talking about the stuff I’m interested in, I’m there too.”  In His Name, we meet together and do non-religious things – eat, talk, learn – and because we are sharing our Jesus-redeemed and enriched lives, He is there.  And wherever Jesus is, community, koinonia and love happens.

But obviously he doesn’t understand.  It’s easier to change structures.  It’s easier to make new packaging than new contents.  It’s easier to talk about change while continuing to hold the same values.  It’s hard to have a value-change. 

Because values are descriptive rather than prescriptive.  “Values” really describes behavior.  What we value will determine how we spend our talent, time and treasure.  What we value will be reflected in the way we live our lives.  Check out how much time you spend with your wife and family and you’ll see your family values.  Look at how much you give to world missions - really give (look at the checkbook!) - and you can see how much you value the Great Commission!  Look at what you do with your “leisure time” and you will see you values.  If you live with a TGIF mentality, how much do you value your job?

We think we are in a time of great structural change, but I’m not so sure about the value change.  And in spite of all our chatter about change and the need for change, because we don’t know how to change our values, I’m not sure we know how to change anything for long.

Maybe more later…

• Phyllis and I have always thought of ourselves as “pioneers” in a Wild West setting kinda way (not because we thought that was cool or chic, but somehow always found ourselves not “fitting in,” bucking tradition and always being “on the edge”) and have commented to each other that because of this we are often misunderstood, maligned and “shot at” by both the homesteaders and the Indians…
• A line from a movie that we ofttimes quoted to Jane as she was growing up… “Why do you want so desperately to fit in, when obviously God made you to stand out!”