Breaking Old Cycles

I'm now in the St. Louis, Missouri area, becoming increasingly nervous and excited as I await the event of this evening. In a few hours I will make my way downtown to see the University of Missouri Tigers open the 2008 football season against the strong and vastly improved University of Illinois Fighting Illini. The pressure is always on the favored team, which is Missouri, especially when the other team wants to even the score from last year's match-up.

Regardless of the outcome of the game, this day I feel a sense of hopefulness from an odd source. We're in an election year in this nation. I'm a fiercely defiant independent voter. I feel that neither party hits the mark in addressing the needs of this nation and the world. However, the landscape of this year's presidential election is pretty impacting. History will be made, regardless of the outcome. Our country could have its first non-Caucasian president. We could have the first president from among the combatants in the Vietnam conflict. And, as of yesterday, we could have our first female vice-president. As I awoke this morning it occurred to me that it really wasn't that long ago that African-Americans and women could not vote, much less run for political office. And it definitely was not that long ago that the nation was trying hard to ignore and forget the dark cloud of the Vietnam era and those who served bravely within it.

Some say that life is cyclic, and nothing really changes. Different players, same script and stage...I hear this presumption a lot as I listen to pastors and leaders from various established Christian congregations. The same people always hold power in churches, they say. The same established procedures shoot down any needed changes. Congregations stay more focused on themselves than on those outside their walls. What goes around, comes around, and nothing changes.

I don't believe that. Seemingly insurmountable barriers do fall. New ground is plowed. Sometimes we who are Jesus-followers forget that we serve a God who makes all things new. During the persecution of Christians in the first century, God reminded a follower of Jesus named John that the same old powers of spirit-crushing, destroying, and death-dealing would not keep running their destructive cycles. God unveiled before John a vision of a new heaven and a new earth.

I'm not saying that this year's election with bring about the Kingdom of God...far from it. The best of human effort does not bring about that which comes from the hand of God alone. Still, it's symbolic of the fact that things do change. We're not bound by the same categories and constraints forever and ever. This is especially true under the Lordship of Jesus the Christ.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Completing What Has Begin In You

I've spent the last eleven Wednesday evenings with a real dynamic and faith-seeking group of people from our local congregation. They've been examining what it means to encounter and experience a God who is living, who is at work all around us, and who is pursuing a personal relationship with each one of us. It's been a powerful joy to watch them journey together. I was looking for a way to express my thanks to God and my appreciation to them. I ended up using Eugene Peterson's expression of Philippians 1:3-6 from his paraphrase, The Message: "Every time you cross my mind I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears." (italics mine.)

The last line is the one that really caught my attention tonight. If you are reading this blog and you feel discouraged in your faith journey, these words are for you. Maybe you sense no direction and no fire in your walk with Christ right now. Maybe you're been hurt in your journey, and maybe it's been fellow believers who have been the vehicle of the wound. Perhaps others seem to "get it" in a way you feel you never have. It could be that you wonder if this whole following-Jesus-thing is worth it at all.

Know this - the very fact that you even face these struggles indicates that God has stirred something in you. God will not abandoned what God has started in His love for you. God will bring to completion what God has started in you. Don't give up. If you need help on this journey, reach out and get it. Find a Jesus follower who will walk along with you for a time. If I can help in that search, let me know. (gwp@sikestonfirstumc.org.)

Let's group up and float around this next bend together.

Power

People assume a lot from the activity known as prayer. We assume it's a way to influence God so we get what we want or think we need. We think of prayer as a way to keep close to God. Prayer guides us, we hope. Some may even regard prayer as a way to listen to God. There is another facet of prayer, I believe, that may speak especially to a techno-driven age.

Prayer is about tapping into power...real power.

This fall our fellowship of Jesus-followers will offer a discipleship-building class on the last book of the Bible; the Book of the Revelation. I can't begin to tell you how many people over the years have told me how the Revelation to John scares them. (It was written during a time of intense persecution of the followers of Jesus in various places throughout the Roman Empire.) The Revelation is about the clash of powers. Christians in the first century dealt head-on with the issue of central power. On the one hand, there was the Roman Empire, the trappings of which surrounded them every day. Rome claimed to be the center of power. Those whom the gods have ordained to rule had power, Rome declared. Whoever had the strongest military presence had power. Whoever amassed the most wealth and, thus, the most control over other human beings had power. Those who had the right connections, the right political and social maneuvering, the right name and lineage - those were the ones who had power. On the other hand, this small grouping of insignificant people in various places throughout the Empire claimed that the one who died on a cross just outside of the remote city of Jerusalem, and the One who they claimed walked out of a tomb alive - this one had the only real power that mattered. That's the choice the Revelation puts before us, the entire Bible puts before us, and all genuinely evangelical presentation of the good news of Jesus the Christ puts before us. Are all who claim the stuff of power around us the ones with real power? Or is Jesus really Lord, and does genuine power originate and end with Him?

Prayer is tapping into that power. That's both scary and exciting, I think. What do you think?

I'll be involved in an extended meeting on Monday and Tuesday, so I probably won't post again until Wednesday. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Crisis and Adjustment

As a child I spent much time in a canoe on lakes with my dad. He'd be in the stern (back end) of the canoe, while I manned the bow (front end). I became pretty proficient at what was then called the "bow stroke" with a canoe paddle. With one hand over the handle of the paddle, the other hand gripping the paddle just above the blade, and keeping the latter arm straight, I would reach as far as I could into the water ahead of me. I would then bring the blade in a straight arm pull through the water, providing the vessel with power. My father would add power in the stern, but his primary job was to take charge of guidance for the canoe. As a power and guidance combination, we were a pretty good team in a canoe. (Once we even won a father/son canoe race at a YMCA family camp.)

When I was 12 years old I started formal training in river canoeing. I hoped to continue my role in the bow of the boat, providing the power, while someone else did the navigating from the stern. However, my new instructors wanted us all to learn how govern the stern of a canoe. They taught us what was called the "J-stroke." This stroke involves a push-away move with the paddle blade, gauged as needed to guide the vessel. It was more complicated than the bow stroke, and I wasn't anxious to use it. The bow stroke provided more comfort for me.

I remember the first time I was put in the stern of a canoe on an Ozark river. I'll never forget coming up on my first set of rapids. It was a crisis moment that demanded immediate adjustment. My bowman would provide the power through the swift rocky water. I had to decide right then and there if my teachers were trustworthy and if I could adjust to using a totally new and different paddle stroke for me.

Long story short - 40+ years later, the J-stroke is as natural to me as breathing. I can't imagine my outdoor recreational life without it. I never would have embraced it, though, had a crisis moment not challenged me to make an adjustment.

"Crisis" does not mean something bad, necessarily. It means being brought to a point of decision, at which we will have to make an adjustment. To become the Jesus-followers God longs for us to be, God will bring us to such moments. They may seem overwhelming and impossible at the time, but they will help us to decide just how much we trust a God who loves us better than we love ourselves.

I really need to get on a river soon, or you all will start hearing more river canoeing metaphors than you can stand. I'll see you around the next bend.

Goals

Basically, I'm a goal oriented person. For instance, I have a certain procedure and series of actions required to accomplish the goal of a prepared sermon for worship. When I float a stream in a canoe, I know my destination, and I know what pace is necessary to meet my goal in a timely fashion. When I fish I find the right combination of tackle, lures, habitat, and presentation to produce the goal of a smallmouth bass or a rainbow trout.

Goals give direction and they keep us focused. Without goals, individual lives, organizations and congregations of Jesus-followers flounder. Time spent developing goals is time spent purposefully.

For those of us who have chosen to align with Jesus, though, goals can take on a different nature. Specifically, goals are not always what we set and govern, but instead they are targets that are given to us. Consider the story of the Hebrew slaves set free from the empire of Egypt over three millennia ago. Their goal was to get safely and quickly from the Egyptian empire to the land God had promised to their ancestors. When they were without food, God provided birds and a flaky, dew-produced substance (manna) on a daily basis. Immediately some of the Hebrews set a goal of saving some of this bounty for the days to come. Makes sense, doesn't it? God would not allow it. Instead God said, "Your goal is to trust me fully."

Our congregation had a God-event on Sunday. Sensing a need for our congregation to face some of the divisions within us and seek God's healing within us, we combined our worship services into one healing service. God, in God's great good grace, poured out the Holy Spirit on us. Why did God call us to this moment, and what's in store next? We don't know at this point. God has a goal in mind, and we have to trust Him to make clear the next step.

Sometimes our goal is to trust God with the goal. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Direct Prayer Impact

Jesus followers claim that prayer makes a difference. Any prayer has impact, we say, no matter when it happens, no matter who does it, and no matter for whom the prayer is raised. There is, though, a unique power to prayer that is offered face-to-face, with appropriate human touch involved.

Throughout the 1990's and in the first part of this decade, I was involved extensively in Jesus-following movements known as Camino-in-Christianity and Cursillo. I also had limited involvement in the uniquely United Methodist form of these Christian efforts, known as the Walk to Emmaus. These weekend experiences offer a bathing in the grace of God in Jesus Christ, through worship, prayer, talks and testimonies, small group discipleship building, and living together as a community in Christ. Speakers in these weekend events enjoyed a unique preparation for our presentations. Prior to speaking, we who were to speak went to a small, temporary chapel. In that chapel, we were invited to kneel before an altar, as several people in the chapel gathered around us. They all laid their hands on our shoulders, and one-by-one they would pray for each of us before we offered our talk. As we spoke to our audience, people would stay in the chapel, taking turns kneeling before the altar and praying for us as we made our presentation. One of them would go with us as we made our speech, so that we could see someone praying for us as we spoke. At the end of each presentation, each speaker would be returned to the chapel, and prayed for again.

Do you think that makes an impact on someone offering a message about Jesus? Do you think speakers speak with greater conviction, confidence, and passion when prayed for like that? You bet we do! As we're invited to pray for our churches, our communities, and God's will for our Christ-centered, disciple-making mission, maybe that's a clue. Maybe we all need to be more grace-direct and assertive in praying for each other person-to-person, face to face. What would it be like for all pastors and proclaimers to be prayed for this way before, during, and after every worship service? How would our churches and communities be impacted if all teachers and Bible study leaders had this kind of prayer...or all mission team workers...all evangelism team people...all musicians and worship leaders....all office workers...all church custodial personnel...etc., etc.? What if we took this kind of prayer out into our communities, for school teachers, law enforcement personnel, civic leaders, social workers, community developers, and anyone else who needs prayer?

The sky's the limit, I believe. Prayer really does change things, especially direct prayer. I'll see you around the next bend.

Sweetly Broken, Wholly Surrendered

Whenever I need to be reminded of the real nature of worship, I pull up a video from the sermonspice.com website. It's called "The Gift of Worship." Behind masterfully done visuals, you hear the music of Jeremy Riddle. The words, images, and sounds combine to remind us that worship is not about us. It's not about whether we sing from a hymnal or words on a screen, whether we hear music from a pipe organ or an electric guitar, or whether we sit in pews or chairs. It's not about whether or not we like the songs or how the service makes us feel. As the video brazenly proclaims, "It's not about us; IT'S ABOUT HIM!" (...the one who died on a cross for us.)

Riddle's song contains this haunting phrase: "Sweetly broken; wholly surrendered." What an ironic concept - sweetly broken. Usually, when we think of the breaking of our spirits, our hopes, our goals, our wills, we think of that as being something unpleasant or undesirable. Yet in the hands of an ultimately loving and seeking God, this "breaking" is not something designed to ruin our lives, to make us miserable, or simply to show us that God is boss. It is for our healing, strengthening, molding and shaping; that we might be what God has longed for us to be all along. With the "it's all about me" in us broken, then we can be wholly surrendered to God. Then, in a deepening relationship with God, we can hear God more fully in prayer, through the Bible, through other people, through circumstances, and through the Body of Christ itself.

Back to my on-going image of a river canoe trip...The rapids will not bend to our desires; the canoeist must yield to their power and flow. When I do that, the mainstream is supremely trust -able, and I will experience the ride of a lifetime.

May we all be sweetly broken. I'll see you around the next bend.

(If you're interested in the video mentioned above, go to www.sermonspice.com/videos/9109/the-gift-of-worship.)

Win As A Team; Lose As A Team

If you are following the Olympics, and if you stayed up late enough on Sunday night, you saw a stunning victory by the United States men's 4 by 100 meter freestyle swimming relay team. The USA's foursome edged out the heavily favored French team by a scant .08 of a second.

Michael Phelps was the lead-off swimmer for the USA team. He's getting a lot of press, as he closes in on matching or exceeding the record for Olympic gold in swimming, currently held by Mark Spitz, from the 1972 Olympics. He had a strong 100 meters, holding a slim lead, as did the second swimmer for the USA team. The third swimmer was Cullen Jones. Cullen Jones is an excellent swimmer, specializing in shorter, "sprint" sort of races. He is an African-American, promoting competitive swimming among African-American youth. (Caucasians tend to dominate the sport, simply because many African-American boys and girls don't have access to the swimming venues and opportunities that white children enjoy.) The third swimmer for the French had a strong 100 meters, and the lead slipped away from Cullen. Still, Cullen held on to second place, resolutely. Jason Lesak anchored the American effort. For three quarters of his leg of the race, he held that second place position. Then, after a strong turn, in what seemed like the last 15 meters, Jason dug deep for a herculean effort, and barely outstretched the French swimmer.

In the celebration afterwards, all four men celebrated as one. Michael Phelps did not take center stage, even though he is the swimmer getting the most press. Jason Lesak did not crow and strut as if his leg of the relay saved the race. No one acted as if Cullen Jones did anything but his best in his leg. The would lose or win as a team. If they suffered defeat, they would accept it together. If they stunned the Olympic world with victory, they would do it hand-in-hand, not as individuals.

The Body of Christ could take a lesson from this. We have a goal to accomplish, just as the swimming relay team did. We have nothing less than the call to invite people into a relationship with a living, life-changing, world transforming Lord. We each have our leg of the race to accomplish. We do it together, not as a collection of individuals. If one of us is struggling, we all rally around and struggle alongside the one struggling. When we accomplish what God has given us to do, the victory belongs to all of us.

It really does matter that I have you all upstream from me and downstream from me on this journey of life's river. We're in this together. I'll see you around the next bend.

Prayer...It's Complicated

Sometimes prayer is more multi-layered than I think.

For example, I pray regularly for the victims of the genocide that is going on in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Over 200,000 people have died in ethnic violence there, and 2.5 million people are displaced. What exactly am I asking of God when I pray for that area? Am I saying, "God, you just step in and find a way to make it stop." Or am I saying, "God, change the minds and hearts of people who have power over the outcome of this horror." Is my prayer just me trying to force God's hand? Am I doing the same as many people of governmental or celebrity status, who are trying to force the Sudanese government to stop the killing, or to force the United Nations Security Council, and/or the government of China to pressure the government in Sudan to step in and stop it.

Regarding the latter country, I've had mixed feelings about the Olympics being held in China. Basically, I think international politics and the games should be kept at arms length. However, China is the biggest global buyer of Sudanese petroleum. They don't want to risk a slow-down in supply. That angers me, as consumer convenience seems to outweigh human mercy and justice once again. Yet even as I pray for God to make justice happen, I have to face the number of times my own country has let economics override human beings in need. And I'm a part of that. I accept the international economic and political complexities that keep my lifestyle opulent, while the vast majority of humanity does without. So my prayer, expecting God to do something about some situation, seems to come back around to God saying, "I'm doing my part; what are you doing to join in with me?"

Prayer is not always about me being in some warm, fuzzy, spiritually comfortable place with God. Prayer is not just wishing God would do something while I lay inert. Sometimes it's discomforting. Sometimes a God who loves me deeply takes my finger-pointing and gently but resolutely aims the finger back at me.

Prayer...it can be complicated. What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend.

Prayer: Like An ATM?

There's a significant difference between my relationship with my wife and my relationship with the ATM outside our local bank. (Duh...right?) With the ATM, there's something of a predictable relationship of sorts. I feed it the right instructions, punch in the right numbers and codes, follow the right sequence, etc. In return it gives me that for which I ask. If it fails to respond as I've programmed it to do, then I may get mad at it, complain about it in the main bank, and/or avoid it for a while...at least until I come up with some immediate need for cash.

My relationship with my wife does not follow such a formula. Sometimes I ask things of her, but I don't get a programmed answer. I might get the answer I want, or I might be directed in some different way. Either way, I know that love drives her response. She asks things of me as well, and we both expect our relationship to be this way. Most times, though, it's not that we want things of each other; we just want to be with each other. In a very significant way, just being in each other's presence and trusting the commitment we have is really the thing we want most of all.

An ATM and a spouse - what a stupid comparison. Yet how many times do I treat God as an ATM rather than as Someone I love and Someone who loves me. How often is my prayer life nothing more than punching numbers into an ATM screen and expecting to get what I want if I program in the right formula? How often is my prayer life based on the sheer joy of just being in the presence of the One who gave me life and the One who, in and through Jesus, laid down a life for me?

So how's your prayer life? Think about that...heck, pray about it! I'll see you around the next bend.

God's Up To Something

Sometimes when I travel by canoe on Missouri Ozark streams, I come to long, slow pools of water. Few canoeists like slow stretches of a river. It's too much like a lake, which river rats regard as boring. You lose the mainstream, you have to paddle through water that feels dead, and sometimes you have to fight wind. You long for the gradient of the river to take a significant dip, so the water will shoot through rapids again. Big, slow pools on river trips can be discouraging, especially if they come near the end of a long, tiring trip.

I can get pretty sour and negative when slogging through a lake-like stretch of dead water on a river. If I was smarter, though, I'd focus less on the slow water and slow-going, and more on what lies ahead. Because a long, wide, deep pool in a river usually means that the water is going to empty into a fast, choppy shoot ahead. In other words, the river is about to do its best stuff.

Some days are like that for me, or I let them become that way. Today was one of those days. For a variety of reasons, I allowed my spirit and outlook to drag somewhat. I came to one of those moments in which I wondered if commitment to Jesus Christ and to the mission of the Body of Christ is really having impact at all. Then, out of nowhere, came a serendipitous reminder of God's presence, power, and grace. That happens to me a lot. When I think all around me has gone gray and aimless, the Lord's about to do some of his best stuff...just as a long, deep, dead pool signals that a river is about to do its best stuff.

I need to make that connection more often, and to be sure, on gray days, to look around the horizon in expectancy. If you're in a long, deep pool right now, I pray you experience a God who is just preparing to ride with you through an exciting shoot of rapids.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river. Who knows what it will bring.

Faith Amidst Genocide

Since I first understood that faith-sharing is central to the mission of the Body of Christ, I have been fascinated by the rapid growth in commitment to Jesus throughout many regions Africa. This week I heard the story of an African woman which may serve as a clue to the strength of the Jesus movement in that part of the globe.

Iphigenia Mukantabana lives in Rwanda, about an hour away from that nation's capital. Iphigenia is a master basket-weaver. In fact, she and many others make items called "peace baskets," which are sold in some Macy's stores here in the United States. Iphigenia is a survivor of the 1994 genocidal holocaust that swept through Rwanda in that year. As bitter ethnic divisions erupted into widespread violence and death, Iphigenia was forced to watch the murder of her husband and five of her children. Where many in Iphigenia's position would chose to descend into total despair and/or bitter hatred and vengeance, Iphigenia has chosen a different direction. She takes very seriously Jesus' admonition to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. In the midst of her grief and despair, she has aligned with other Jesus-followers in a determination to take a road of forgiveness, justice, restoration, healing, and renewal. She is a vibrant follower of the risen Christ, who has come through the bowels of hell, clinging resolutely to a Savior who has overcome the world.

As I look at my own Christianity, and at faith expressions among we who are the more privileged folks in the Western world, I realize that Iphigenia's discipleship goes way beyond Christian slogans on T-shirts and bumper stickers, toting a study Bible back and forth to worship, or forwarding e-mails saying, "If you really believe in Jesus, you'll forward this to all your Christian friends." Iphigenia has faced the powers and principalities in way that most people I know have not yet had to do so, thankfully. That's a level of faith that has strong credibility. Maybe it's just an isolated story. Knowing what's going on throughout Africa in warfare, poverty, and the AIDS crisis, I doubt it.

What do you think? I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

(P.S. For those who a part of the same congregation in which I've involved, I'll tell Iphigenia's story in detail in worship this weekend.)