What Drives Mission

The first question of the Shorter Westminster Confession of faith states, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s Chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” As a person of faith, I cannot deny that part of being human is that we are imbued with a purpose.  People across societies’ wide breadth are driven, or paralyzed, by the sense that they have a purpose, need to correctly decipher that purpose, and ultimately attain that purpose.  Humanity is all too often tempted to settle for secondary purposes.  As though we are tossed to and fro in the stormy ocean, we grasp hold of the life ring, but refuse to let go and swim on to greater safety and comfort in the boat come to rescue us.  We hold too tightly, and drift back into the storm we tried to find our way out of.

Christians also complicate the matter for themselves and those who would seek a great understanding of human purpose.  Rhetoric used by Christians regarding purpose often sounds more like religious self-help methods instead of holy guideposts.  The great elders of our faith did not seek “greatness.”  Rather, they rendered themselves obedient to Christ in humility, driven by the idea that they are small and He is great.  Luther did not set out to start the reformation; rather he called for debate to bring Rome back to orthodoxy.  Calvin had no intention of remaining in Geneva, but did so out of obedience.  C.S. Lewis found faith trying to disprove the One Holy God, who then directed his talent to the purposes of Our Lord’s glorification.  It would serve us well to look at their primary motivation for what drove them to do what the Lord led them to.  It was a deep abiding desire to glorify God and to enjoy Him.

But, what does this mean?  What does it mean to glorify God, what does it mean to enjoy Him forever and how are the two intertwined?  Only to often, both unconsciously among believers and consciously among non-believers we separate the two.  Glorification is seen solely as sacrifice and work, and enjoyment comfort and selfish.  The Scottish Divines, who wrote the Shorter Catechism, understood that in glorifying God, we enjoy God.  What a strange concept to us today.  The idea that we could enjoy a person let alone our God.

Stuck on Salvation and our own greatness or lack thereof, we forget that the God we serve is a person.  For that matter, in our desire to do great things for God, we forget that the people we serve are persons.  Personship is a powerful existence.  Of all creation, only Humanity shares this type of existence with the Trinitarian Lord.  But, the idea of enjoying a person is foreign to us.  Sometimes it seems our compliments do everything but come right out and say that we enjoy a person.  If I were to say, “I enjoy my fiancée Rachael,” the connotations listeners would hear initially run the gamut from the sexual to the selfishly abusive.

In truth, however, I do enjoy Rachael.  My enjoyment of her is far and beyond what she does for me.  Rather, what makes my enjoyment, indeed my relationship, whole (though not perfect) is the way I love serving her.  It even seems that I most enjoy those times when she, being sick, tired, or sad, is most incapable of doing anything to affirm me beyond, perhaps, a weak smile, if that at all.  Perhaps the idea of enjoying another person is uncomfortable because it is too intimate a concept.  Enjoyment holds the connotation of ownership.  Not only was a ride on the rollercoaster fun, I enjoyed it…the fun was mine.  There is no room for qualification in enjoyment.

Where does God fit into this idea?  Simply put, God enjoys us.  Christ said that He considered us not just servants, but friends.  The Holy Spirit does not simply hover over and around us; He abides in us.  Enjoyment of us is what allows for anger when Israel strayed like lost sheep from God, Jesus to tears at Lazarus’ tomb, and to feel betrayal by His friends when Judas turned Him over and everyone else fled.  Disappointment stems from the broken structures that enjoyment builds.  In a backwards way, this proves the depth of enjoyment.

When we properly enjoy God, with all that entails, He is glorified in us.  Therefore, all other purposes, regardless if they are divinely directed, fall down subject before this encompassing truth.  The complexities of theologies, beliefs, and actions are rendered mute before holy simplicity.  Success is defined in a simple and broad existence.  This one thing is that which connects the greatest Woman of God to the lowliest maid in a second rate town.  It connects the most intelligent academic to the smiling joyful simpleton.  None are greater and all are equal when we enjoy God and glorify Him.  This places us in right relation, where God alone is good and we are united by our love for Him and His love for us.

This is the focal point of the Theology of Mission.  First, the people whom we share the Gospel with are in fact Persons.  Second, to truly live life, all of life, it is inherent that a person glorifies and enjoys God as made possible through Christ’s atoning death on the Cross and His triumph ally empowering resurrection on the third day.  Mission errs in two ways, which for effective and Christ-like mission to happen, must be avoided.  One is concerned with salvation to the exclusion of the person’s present life and needs.  The second is concerned with the person’s present needs and life to the exclusion of their eternal life.  This second one is in danger of becoming the predominant erring as Christians “rediscover” social justice.  Just as it is shameful to get someone saved and then wish them well, never to care for them in any meaningful way again, it is shameful to avoid the terminology of salvation and eternal life for fear of sounding quaint, or outdated.

Salvation of a person, in any form, glorifies God.  When we save someone from hunger, God is glorified in the restoration of His creation.  When another is saved from the crushing weight of their addiction, God is glorified in a person who can live their life as it was intended.  When both get to begin eternal life in this present age, God is glorified because He receives the enjoyment of these persons He created, and duly gets to enjoy them as was intended.  There is no higher calling in Mission than to bring persons into relationship with their creator.

As people of mission, we must look also at the obedience part of glorifying God.  That gift, which we have been given, is ours to pass on.  It is a gift that readily reproduces itself for the purpose of being shared with those who do not already possess this gift.  And, since we do not know who will accept this gift and who will, not, we should always be ready and willing to share it with anyone we come into contact with in life.  This must be done both in our word and our deed.  Moreover, it should be our desire, like it is Our Lord’s desire, that all should receive His gift.

Also, in reference to obedience, we should be willing participants in His restoration of this fallen world.  Controversy, even such that we might fear would run prospective converts off, should not be avoided if the cause is righteous.  Anything that should reduce the dignity of human beings, that denies personhood, must be stridently stood against.  In our life and doctrine, Christians must display a livelihood in which no other’s personhood is degraded for our convenience.  There is, however, a deeper component to this.  Christians should fight for the dignity of sinners.  Though their sin may degrade their own personhood, our actions should not add to that degradation.  It is important to remember that it is not our holding that a behavior, belief, or thought is sin that makes something sin.  The reason such behaviors are sin is because they degrade personhood, the image God.  A person’s sin does not give us permission to further degrade their humanity.  As God responded to our person-degrading sins with compassion and offer of friendship, so ought we respond to people who carry they (often unknown to them) burden of sin.

Mission is ultimately about glorifying God and enjoying Him.  It is also about restoration.  Mission must be conducted in thoughtful and compassionate ways which are unwavering in holding to the orthodox faith.  We partake not just in our own generation’s work, but the work of so great a cloud of witnesses that have gone before us.  As we glorify God and enjoy Him, we continue His work in the world and in us.  Indeed, through this we see how Our Holy and Gracious Father did in His infinite love make us for Himself.  Mission brings us and the world into participation in the Lord’s enjoyment of us.

Theology of Mission

Reform Theology, commonly known as Calvinism, comes under much criticism in regards to mission and evangelism.  Beset by criticism from two sides, Arminianism on one, Hyper-Calvinism on the other, it is easy to dismiss Reform Theology as being wholly incompatible with evangelistic and missional endeavors.  Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.  This paper will address many of the charges laid against Calvinism in regarding evangelism, briefly discuss the undeniable impact Reform Missionaries have had upon the modern missions movement, and explore the benefits of approaching missions and evangelism from a Reformed perspective.

While the terms “Reformed” and “Calvinism” technically are not identical terms, they have become intertwined due to the impact of Calvin through his treatise the, Institutes of the Christian Religion which is considered to be “the textbook for Reformed theology.”[1] Calvin used only Scripture as the basis for his arguments and beliefs, rarely appealing to “philosophy or Christian tradition as absolute authorities.”[2] Augustine, Luther, and Zwingli heavily influenced Calvin.  He was a monergist who held a strong view of God’s sovereignty emphasizing God as the “all-determining reality and taught God’s meticulous providence over nature and history.”[3]

Calvinism as we know it today is highly influenced by the Protestant Synod of Dort, which produced the Cannons of Dort.[4] These cannons were eventually summed up in the acronym TULIP: Total Depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.  It is important to note that not all Christian monergists “affirm all five of these points, and even those who do (so-called five-point Calvinists) debate their meaning among themselves.”[5]

A commonly associated doctrine with Calvinism actually does not come from Calvin.  The first reformer to argue for predestination, or monergism of salvation, was Luther, who drew this from the theology of the Cross.  For Luther and other reformers, the only proper response to the cross is to acknowledge our “complete unworthiness and dependence on God’s Grace.”[6] In essence, predestination is the doctrine that God chooses some to embrace (salvation) and some He chooses to show His wrath upon (damnation).[7]

First to be addressed will be objections rising from the Hyper-Calvinist corner.  Then, objections rising from the Armenian corner will be address.  Hyper-Calvinism is a wing within Reform Theology, that holds a view of election that negates any need or purpose for evangelism.  In fact, some Hyper-Calvinists see active Evangelism counter to the purposes of God.

Arminianism is the other side of the spectrum.  Arminianism is a synergistic view of salvation based upon the theology of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacob Arminius.  Arminianism holds that election is not unconditional and that predestination simply refers to God’s foreknowledge of who will freely accept his offer of salvation through Christ.[8] Arminius held that the “human ability freely to believe in Christ, repent and be saved” was based on the “prevenient grace of God.”[9] Essentially, it is this prevenient grace, which enables fallen sinners to freely respond to God’s offer of saving grace.[10] It is prevenient grace that liberates the depraved wills of sinners to freely accept salvation, and this comes to sinners by “the proclamation of the Word of God.[11]

Regarding Hyper-Calvinism, the argument is best made by William Carey who, in addressing the objections of Hyper-Calvinist and attempting to win them over to a scriptural view of missions, wrote An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, To Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.  Starting from Jesus command to the apostles to go out and teach all the nations the Good News, Carey approaches the main objections of hyper-Calvinism.

One argument made by Hyper-Calvinists is that Christ command to teach all nations of his love was meant only for the apostles.  To this Carey responds that if this were the case, to baptize anyone would be wrong.  Second, if indeed the only people who were charged to take the gospel to the “heathen” were the apostles, then every minister who did so up until that time (and this time) were wrong and without authority in their endeavors.[12] Another argument by Hyper-Calvinists is that it is not yet the time to convert the heathen.  However, if this is the case then it must also be wrong to pray for their conversion.  Still, this objection comes to late insofar as the Gospel has already taken root among many non-Christian peoples.[13]

The Arminian criticism is the mirror image of the Hyper-Calvinist argument.  Rather than making the arguments that the Hyper-Calvinist makes, they raise these arguments as reasons why Calvinism is incompatible with missions and evangelism.  Calvinism, one might argue, removes the motivation for evangelism.  I will discuss motivation later in this paper.  At this point it is pertinent to discuss two of significant doctrines that Arminians and those opposed to Calvinism take issue with: limited atonement and predestination.

Limited atonement is a theological idea arising, somewhat naturally, from the doctrine of predestination.  Also known as definite or particular atonement, Limited Atonement is a view held by some Calvinists that Christ’s atoning death on the cross was only meant for the predestined elect.[14] That is, there is only enough atonement from Christ’s death to cover the need for only the elect.  In this we see the divergence of the understanding of predestination within the Calvinist fold.

As Olson points out, believers in Limited Atonement is “peculiar” to only some Calvinists, often referred to as “five-point” Calvinists.  Many Christian monergists do not hold to Limited Atonement.  Limited Atonement stems from the same problem that besets many people when it comes to this doctrine, a failure to understand that predestination is an ineffable mystery of God.

Pre-Destination is a doctrine, theologically speaking, is attributed first, not to Calvin, but to Augustine.  Augustine describes in, Faith, Hope, and Charity, “the paradox of salvation”.[15] In this writing, Augustine explains that the entire work of salvation should be credited to God, “who both readies the will to accept assistance, and assists the will once it has been made ready.”[16] Then, in his one of his final treatise entitled, On the Predestination of the Saints, Augustine affirms unconditional election and denies that God’s sovereign grace could be denied by free will.  Reformers such as Luther and Calvin would adopt this same idea of pre-destination.[17] Yet, it is a misrepresentation to say that they denied the human role in salvation entirely.  Rather, they prioritized diving grace and attributed meritorious human choices and action to God.[18]

Calvin, in introducing the topic of predestination ties it to the origin of election and as flowing from God’s good mercy.[19] In essence, Calvin sums his view of predestination up by stating “God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death.”[20] This does not mean that Calvin rejects foreknowledge, or “prescience” as he refers to it.  Rather, he simply criticizes those who place foreknowledge in front of predestination in priority.[21] This highlights the emphasis that reformers like Calvin and Luther place on the sovereignty of God.  God does not now know things simply because he can see in the future, and thus acts on the future.  Rather, because God is at the center of history itself, he is always acting in the present and all things that will ever happen (upon which we place into the construct of time) he inspects as they are happening.[22]

Calvin points out that while it is good to think on predestination up to a certain point, we ought not “be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning.  Rather, let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous…”[23] Just like the Eucharist or baptism, election is not clearly spelled out.  There are many views on how it works, but there is a breakdown in the understanding of the meaning of predestination when one tries to explain something that is an attempt to understand the workings of God in mere human terms.  It is a scriptural fact that God will have mercy on who He has mercy, and harden who He will harden.  Paul himself speaks of the futility of attempting to understand this mystery by reminding the reader that God is God and who are we to question Him?[24] That is not to say it is wrong to discuss or debate or seek after these mysteries.  What is clear is that Paul is contending with those who find this doctrine unpalatable.  In making his argument, he points out the inability of the created to question, much less understand, the ways of the Creator.  In this argument, moreover, we see the grace of the sovereign Lord, in that God extends his saving mercy beyond the Jews unto the Gentiles.  Mostly, in this we see the mercy of the Lord in that he allows those who do not pursue righteousness to attain righteousness.[25]

Only God knows why the elect are chosen by God.  Why some choose to accept Him and others do not is a mystery beyond our understanding no matter what one’s view of salvation is.  One thing we do know is that, “salvation is an entirely free gift of God’s grace received by faith alone.”[26] Salvation is initiated by God and is a display of His total sovereignty over all creation.

Far from deterring mission work, predestination makes mission hopeful[27] Christ calls the Gospel and it is he who gathers in his sheep.  For some missionaries, like John Alexander the former president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, predestination gives him hope that Christ has “other sheep’ among the nations.”[28]

Simply put, for the reform or Calvinist missionary or evangelist, predestination is not a deterrent for exercising the Great Commission.  Reformed missionary Kevin Greeson puts the motivation for reform missionaries bluntly, “I share the Gospel because God told me to do so.  The outcome is up to Him…Reform missionaries share the Gospel because Jesus told us to do so.”[29] The reform missionary is not deterred by the mechanics of how the Holy Spirit acts to bring people to Christ, rather they are encouraged by it.  Belief that salvation is totally in the hands of God frees the reform evangelist and missionary to take up their part in God’s redemptive work. Keeping in mind that Greeson rightly sees no difference between the work of Arminian and Reformed missionaries, he highlights the difference differences they do have in motivation.  “Reform missionaries tend to work with the mindset of ‘find where God is at work,’ rather than ‘make something happen for God.’”[30]

The Reform missionary sees the Great Commandment as just that, a commandment.  Therefore the reason we do missionary and evangelistic works is out of obedience to God.

Truly Hyper-Calvinists go too far in removing the human responsibility out of evangelism.  Hyper-Calvinism is a purely unscriptural and false doctrine, and when Reform (and Arminian for that matter) Missionaries come across this practice, Greeson states that we should, “take them to the scriptures.”[31] Scriptures like Rom 10:14; how will the lost hear the Good News unless someone takes it too them?  This chapter comes immediately after Paul’s explanation of predestination in Rom 9 and is therefore very much worth taking note of.

Calvin himself does not see predestination as an excuse for inaction in preaching the Gospel.  In his institutes Calvin writes:

Since we do not know who belongs to the number of the predestined and who does not, it befits us so to feel as to wish all would be saved.  So it will come about that, whoever we come across, we shall study to make him a sharer of peace…even sever rebuke will be administered like medicine, lest they should perish or cause others to perish.  But it will be for God to make it effective in those whom He foreknew and predestined.[32]

As though responding to critics who use predestination as a method to accuse reformed Christians as cold and elitist, as well as those who actually use predestination as a reason not to evangelize, Calvin reminds us that it behooves us all to hope for the salvation of all.[33] Why should the fact that some people are going to reject the Lord, for any reason, stop the faithful from, not just spreading the Gospel, but wanting all the be saved, just like the Lord.  For Calvin, preaching the word is necessary because God has chosen this as the method to bring the predestined to salvation.  Insofar that in the last days people from every name and tongue will be with the Lord, it is clear that the work of the Great Commission did not end with the Apostles, but is all Christians for all time responsibility.

This was the situation that William Carey found himself in before he began his ground breaking missionary endeavor.  The “pulpit doctrine” of the English Baptists, of which Carey was a part, was “extravagantly hyper-Calvinistic.”[34] Erringly, the Baptists of his time removed the responsibility of the elect to participate in God’s work of ingathering “His guests,” by claiming to affirm God’s great sovereignty.  Before Carey could begin his work abroad, he first had to essentially evangelize the English Baptists from the paralyzing force of Hyper-Calvinism.[35] It was Carey who pushed his Association to take “the ‘great offensive’ of Christ’s forces” to conquer the world for the Lord from just prayer to actual action.[36]

The outcome of this was “The Particular Baptist Society of the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Heathen” (hereafter referred to as the Society).  The name of the Society was derived from the Anglican group of similar name, but with the added important phrase, “amongst the Heathen.”  The Anglican group was created for the sake of her “Loyal Subjects,” while the Baptist venture was created specifically as a missionary enterprise.[37] In March 1793 Carey left England for India, where he ministered until his death in 1834.[38]

And, while Carey’s groundbreaking action to actually take the Gospel to the world, starting the moderately successful Sarampore Mission, is what he is remembered most often for,  his greatest impact came in the way that he and his partners spread these evangelistic fervors beyond a small zealous group of Protestants.[39] The work Carey did, in convicting his Hyper-Calvinist brethren of the error, to the establishment of The Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen, to his work in India were the catalyst of change among evangelical Christian groups.  Carey and his group of “evangelical Calvinists” began a movement, which would culminate in many more missionary societies springing up.[40] The enthusiasm of Carey was embodied in his famous phrase, “Expect great things.  Attempt great things.”[41]

Carey set out and conducted his missionary enterprise with the postmillennial view that, in his lifetime, God would do great things in the world.  This was Carey’s view as well as those who supported him in the Society.[42] This enthusiastic strong belief that if people will expect of God and go, they will find God at work, with themselves part of His work, spread out from the Baptists in England.  In 1774 The London Missionary Society was formed, followed by the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) in 1799. In addition the Religious Tract Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society were formed in 1804.  In America, societies in New York and Boston sprung up around the turn of the century.  By the time of Carey’s death in 1834 there were fourteen missionary societies in Britain, aside from others in America and on the Continent.[43] Carey’s obedience to God and the scriptures began a movement, the effects of which, is still seen today.

Reformed Christians have been deeply woven in the fabric of missions, evangelism, and revivals.  Carey, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and others who are so often associated with passionate spread of the Gospel; all were Reform in their theology, if not out-right five-point Calvinists.  Why are so many evangelists associated with Reform theology?  I suggest that it has to do with motivation and a desire for humble obedience to God.

The Elect should not be ever, nor is it seen in any of the major works of Calvin or other great Reform theologian, seen simply as ones who are chosen to go to heaven.  This is a distortion of predestination and election that leads to the sort of evangelistic laziness seen in Hyper-Calvinism.  Indeed, Arminians who level this criticism are right.  But, it is unfair to apply this to all Calvinists.  The elect are not called to sit back comfortably in their pew and peacefully await eternal life.  No, the elect have responsibility to be obedient to the work the Lord has commanded us to do.

While Bishop J.E. Lesslie Newbigin is best know as a Missionary Theologian, in his book, The Open Secret, Newbigin explains the purpose and responsibility of election excellently. Referencing Abraham, Newbigin equates those who are elect as “bearers of a blessing.”[44] According to Newbigin, election is not for privilege, but for responsibility.  The elect, moreover, are not called for comfort, but to suffer.[45] It is great when one takes the good news for God with joy in their heart, but at the root the elect goes because God cares and loves for those who are not yet part of the elect, for the pagan.  Consider Jonah, who suffers mightily in his spirit because he just cannot understand why God told him, a member of the elect, to go tell a city full of ignorant heathens about the saving grace of God.  As Newbigin wittily puts it, “What is the point of missions if hell is going to be unnecessary?”[46]

But, God’s will cannot be changed and it cannot be called off.  To the elect God gives an irreversible call to take his Gospel to those who have not heard it so that the hearts of His elect not yet softened will bow at hearing the good news.  But, the path of the elect is a path of suffering.  This path of suffering is the way of the Cross.[47] It is important to note that the Cross is the place that Calvin begins and ends his theology.  It was this belief in the nature of the way of the Cross that was behind Calvin’s support of over eighty-eight missionaries into Roman Catholic France in spite of the risk of great injury or death.  Missionaries from Calvin’s Geneva went as far as Brazil, where they too were faced with suffering.[48] The way of the Cross leads us to the Cross, which is the symbol of God’s total Sovereignty.

Missions must start with the Cross, with God’s Sovereignty.  Newbigin affirms “God’s kingship” as being present in the church, while reminding his reader that God’s kingship is not the property of the church.[49] Mission is not simply just a way of self-propagating the church or bringing more power to it.  People who comprise the church or even their desires to spread the gospel are not the “active agent of mission.”[50] The power that enables mission is “the free, sovereign, living power of the Spirit of God.”[51]

It is important for the missionary or evangelist to remember this.  It is not us, or our eloquent words, or own determination that brings about conversion.  When we allow that, when we try to make things happen for God, our mission will falter under the burden of our own arrogance and inability to bring about only what God can wrought.  Words alone announcing the Kingdom of God will not in and of itself bring about the softening of hearts to join God in His Kingdom.  It must be accompanied with the mysterious reign of God, which is “present under the form, not of power, but of weakness.”[52]

When the motivation for missions and evangelism is based in the responsibility of the elect, the missionary is more incline to remember his or her own weakness.  When they find success, their theological underpinnings will lead them back to the Cross, back to the real power that enables people to come to faith in Christ, God Himself.  This motivation is augmented by gratefulness to God.  Gratefulness for the same saving work of God that the evangelist expects they will see God do again among the lost.  God desires the nations to hear of his love and to draw men from all tongues into His presence.  For the Lord’s glory, and because of His loving command, the Reform missionary or evangelist heeds the call.

WORKS CITED

Augustine. “Faith, Hope, and Charity (Enchiridion).” Translated by Louis A. Arand, 1963. Quoted in Roger Olson. Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries ofUnity & Diversity. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002.

Calvin, John.  Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008.

Calvin, John. “Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God.” translated by J.K.S. Ried, 1961. Quoted in Ray Van Neste. “John Calvin on Evangelism and Missions.” Founders Journal 33, Summer 1998. http://www.founders.org/journal/fj33/article2.html accessed on Oct. 25, 2009.

Carey, Pearce S. William Carey: The Father of Modern Missions. London: The Wakeman Trust, 1993.

Carey, William. An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. London: Baptist Missionary Society.

Coleman, Keith. “Calvin and Missions.” WRS Journal 16:1 (February 2009): 1-5.

Greeson, Kevin, Cluster Strategy Leader – Diaspora Affinity of South Asian People for the International Mission Board. Interviewed by Author, 6 November 2009. By E-mail. McAfee School of Theology, Atlanta.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Open Secret. London: Wm. B. Eardmands Publishing Co, 1978.

Olson, Roger E. The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002.

Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999.

Piper, John. Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

Van Neste, Ray. “John Calvin on Evangelism and Missions.” Founders Journal 33 (Summer 19998)  http://www.founders.org/journal/fj33/article2.html accessed on Oct. 25, 2009.

Smith, Christopher A. “The Legacy of William Carey.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16 (January 1992), 2-8

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[1] Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 408.

[2] Ibid., 410.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Roger E. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 278.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Olson, 383.

[7] Ibid., 411.

[8] Ibid., 280-281.

[9] Ibid., 281.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (London: Baptist Missionary Society) 2.

[13] Ibid., 13.

[14] Olson, Mosaic, 279.

[15] Olson, Mosaic, 270.

[16] St. Augustine, “Faith, Hope, and Charity (Enchiridion),” trans. Louis A. Arand (Westminster, Md: Newman, 1963): 39-40, quoted in Roger Olson, Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 271.

[17] Olson, Mosaic, 271.

[18] Ibid.

[19] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 607.

[20] Ibid., 609.

[21] Ibid., 609-610.

[22] Ibid., 610.

[23] Calvin, 608.

[24] Rom 9:18-20 (All scripture citations are New American Standard Bible unless otherwise noted)

[25] Rom 9:22-30

[26] Olson, Mosaic, 282.

[27] John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, 2d ed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 55.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Kevin Greeson, Cluster Strategy Leader – Diaspora Affinity of South Asian Peoples, International Mission Board, interview by author, 6 November 2009, e-mail, McAfee School of Theology, Atlanta.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] John Calvin, “Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God,” trans. J.K.S. Ried (1961):9 quoted in Ray Van Neste, “John Calvin on Evangelism and Missions,”  Founders Journal 33 (Summer 1998): http://www.founders.org/journal/fj33/article2.html accessed on Oct. 25, 2009.

[33]  Ray Van Neste, “John Calvin on Evangelism and Missions,” Founders Journal 33 (Summer 1998): http://www.founders.org/journal/fj33/article2.html accessed on Oct. 25, 2009.

[34] S. Pearce Carey, William Carey: The Father of Modern Missions, (London: The Wakeman Trust, 1993), 8.

[35] Ibid., 49.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Carey, William Carey, 85

[38] Ibid., 110-123

[39] A. Christopher Smith, “The Legacy of William Carey,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 16 January 1992: 3.

[40] Smith, 4.

[41] Ibid., 5.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Carey, William Carey, 122-123

[44] Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (London: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1978), 34.

[45] Ibid., 35.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid., 37.

[48] Keith Coleman, “Calvin and Missions,” WRS Journal 16:1 (February 2009): 3.

[49] Newbigin, 62.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid, 38.

A Cloak Worthy of Worship

    Over lunch one day I was having a conversation with a friend about the church.  They told me that they really didn’t have a reference to what the Church in America was because they did not attend one of those typical huge churches that so define Amercian Christianity.  The church they attend is small and very different. From their persepctive, its more communal and intimate.  This is a church that prides itself in not being like those other churches and in being more new testament in its outlook.

    It seems quite en vogue to discuss and debate how we should do church in America.  The questions revolve around how the church should look, how its members should act in relation to the church, and how the church should express its influence in the surrounding society.  Discussions of strengths and weaknesses abound, but what is our purpose?  These discussions have, of late, come to make me unsettled.

    Church should not and needs to stop being a show.  It is not a production, it is not entertainment.  That doesn’t meant that it shouldn’t be engaging to the mind, spirit, or emotion.  There is nothing wrong with beautiful music, language, or architecture.  If anything, Churches are sliding away from these high forms of worship.  In new church plants, the model regarding collective worship seems to be one that appeals not to our higher forms, but to our base passions.  The concern is for ease of entry into worship and ease of mantaining worshipfullness.  Thus, litergies are reduced to simplistic improvised benedictions, worship has come to soley mean singing and such commanded rememberances such as Communion are relegated to once a quarter if at all.  Does the modern protestant church equal the death of reverence?  

   Individualism is killing the church.  The more, it seems, we talk about community, the more individualistic we become.  This is illistrated with two examples.  If a person is looking for a church, for the sake argument lets say that they are already a Christian, and they are taken two different churches.  The first Church is a litergical church, say Episcopal/Anglican (or Catholic, even), and the second a non-litergical non-denominational/community Church.  Regardless of the fact that a whopping 90% of the litergical worship service of the Epicopal/Anglican (Catholic) is straight out of scripture, that person is more than likely going to choose the non-denominational, non-litergical church.  An unscientific, rough estimation would be 1:20 will choose the litergical church.  The reasons for this range from the service being to stuffy to the worship style being too hard to follow.  Or, is it that it is too hard to learn?  Learn worship?  Learn in Worship?

  In Exodus Chapters 26-27 God gives the specific details of how the Isrealites should build the Tabernacle.  Exodus Chapters 35-39 depict the Israelites building the Tabernacle to God’s specifications along with God’s instructions for how the Tabernacle and its worship impliments should be used.  In Chapter 40, God tells Moses how he shall go about erecting the Tebernacle, including how he should anoint the instruments of worship according to God’s design.  In verse 34 the glory of God fills the tabernacle.  In Leviticus chapter fifteen God speaks Moses and Aaron about what will make a person unclean, and in verse 31 states, that they should keep those who are unclean separated so that they will not defile His tabernacle.   

  Matthew 5:23-24 Christ tells us that if we are offering our sacrifice and we remember that we have wronged someone, that someone has something against us, we should first go and be reconciled to them and then come back and complete our offering.  Paul spends a significant portion of 1 Corinthians decribing proper, thoughtful worship.  Prescription of worship found in scripture pains our societally influenced individual focus.  

   One can survive, strictly speaking, on a diet comprised of foods produced by the Mars and Lays companies.  However, beyond the shorter life expectancy, the quality of life erodes into a heavy, lack-luster, and tired muddle of agony which only seems to be amiliorated by more of the same junky cause.  If one lives one a balanced diet of good wholesome food, though at times it may not satisfy the impetuous stomachs craving, the whole body will be stronger, lighter, and overall better joy because it was given what it needed, not what it wanted.

  Eventually we have to heed the biblical advice that we allow ourselves to be weaned from the milk which nourished us when we first came to faith and begin to eat solid food.  Surely Peter admonishes us to nourish ourselves on spiritual milk, but even he must have said so with the organic sense that we would grow in our faith and not remain spiritual infants forever.  Yet, this seems to be where we have gone.  Far from allowing the intellect to be a driving force in our growth, we have turned it to rationalize our lack of growth. Knowledge of scripture and moral living is not maturity in Christ.  Looking like a Christian, being a part of the Christian subculture is not maturity in Christ.  Maturity in Christ is submission to Him who alone can bring it about, the Holy Spirit.

  While this is reflected in all our life, it is most reflected in our worship. Hence, why scripture speaks to the subject of worship prescriptively so often. Insofar as worship is not about us, we should not seek to worship in such a way that makes us feel good, for that is the same logic the hedonist uses to excuse his fornicating lifestyle.  Rather we should seek to always remember that worship is about God.  In order to feed at the banquet table, we must first die to ourselves.  Moreover, when we come before Him to feast, we must shed the clothing of our common days and don the special coat the is befitting the ocasion, lest we find ourselves cast into the darkness.  Let us never forget that fearless “worship” is pretentious and repugnant.

Worship Background

One of the questions we must ask ourselves when we enter into worship is, “what does it look like”?  Does it look like a bunch of people standing in, what in any other context would be considered a rock concert, with their hands lifted and their eye closed in that kinda worshipful squint?  It is sitting in church singing songs composed 400-600 years ago?  Is it a capella (no instruments) voices working for perfect harmony?  Is it falling on our face saying nothing?

Worship can be all these things.  All these things can also be a complete abomination to God.  That’s right, the most fervent emotional worship can be a stink in God nostrils.  Worship in interesting in that, very often, it is not the form that makes it pleasing to God, its what lies beneath and behind.  It is the motive and it is the action that backs it up.

In Isaiah 58, YHWH depicts the junky “worship” of Israel.  The people seek just decisions from the Lord (now days we’d say, they seek His will and plan) and they delight in nearness to Him (we’d say they want a relevant, intimate relationship with Him).  Great, but God is frustrated that while the people ask for that, they fight and quarrel, oppress their workers, and deprive the poor.

The kind of worship that please God is worship is backed by the following things:

“Loosen the bonds of wickedness,
undo the bands of the yoke,
let the oppressed go free,
Divide your bread with the hungry,
Cover the naked,
Hide yourself from your own flesh.”
-Isaiah 58:6-7

If we look at Worship as a form of sacrifice, then it is important to remember that for a sacrifice to be a sacrifice it has to be worth something.  Its all well and good to desire God’s guidance in your life and to want to be intimate with Him, but what do you bring Him?  Ultimately, you bring Him the only thing you can give, yourself.  What are you worth?  How have you honored the image in which He has made you?

Here’s a disclaimer: the list above often does and will come into conflict with the values of this world.  It may even come into conflict with your values.  If you submit yourself to the Holy Spirit, you may find that God’s principles of mercy to not match up with the world’s.  The world’s may be either too lacking in compassion or too lacking in meaning.  This is why Jesus told us that people will hate us for His name (Matt. 10:24, 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 6:22, 21:17)…not just people far off, but people near to us.  Which, again, illustrates the sacrificial nature of worship.

Darkness II

 

         Sometimes these memories we desperately want to go away simply will not.  They don’t leave, and I don’t think they ever will.  I don’t think that Jesus sits at the right hand of God devoid of the memories of the nails going through his hand or the look in Peter’s eyes as the cock crows.  Wouldn’t that lessen the sacrifice?  There’s something not right about looking into your savior’s eyes, saying thank you, and Him responding, “for what?” because the memories of the love he showed you are gone simply because they were painful.

            It is such folly to think we can escape our memories.  To think that the past can be erased to such an extent that we cannot even remember it anymore is ridiculous. We can wish and demand that such things happen, but when we are alone with our doubts we know the truth.  Look at all the things that people do to escape their memories.  They drink themselves to death, offer the bodies up in search of a real lover to erase innocence ripped away, they accumulate wealth and toys to negate their former poverty, they lie in the name of faith to deny that they feel far from God.

            Why do Christians have such a hard time believing that bad things just happen sometimes?  Have we become so purpose driven that we can no longer be honest with ourselves?  Very often when people are going through bad times, we quote Job to them.  Ironically, it seems that most of the time the stuff we say sound a lot more like Job’s three shallow-minded and insensitive friends.

 ”Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” 

While this is definitely an example of God reminding one of His creations where their place is, does it not also show us how we just can not know or understand the reasons for or why?  “Tell me if you have understanding,” God asks Job.  God was being sarcastic; of course Job had no understanding.  So, why then do we insist on having understanding?  Worse, why do we insist on having understanding of why bad things happen to others?  “Who sinned?  This man or his parents?”  Isn’t this what we ask all the time instead of acting with real compassion and mercy?

            Sometimes there are obvious reasons for why things happen.  They are made apparent to us.  I suggest that it is not our job to decipher the when’s, why’s, or how’s if the are not made clear to us.  I suggest that our preoccupation, as a Christian culture, harkens us back to the oldest sin, our prideful desire to be “as God.”

            This does not mean that we should not seek to know and understand God.  But, there is a vast difference in knowing and understanding God, and attempting to be able to explain why everything happens.  We are limited in what we can know of God by what He chooses to reveal to us.  The same revelation He gives us in the Word is the same voice which admonishes us that, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  Between us and God, there is an inherent mystery.  We are the work of his hands, we are not privy to the depths of His mind or reason.  We exist because He made us, we are sustained because He loves us, but the truth is that God did not make us gods, He made us human.  And, an integral part of being human is existing within the mystery of our relationship with Him.

            And, accepting this mystery isn’t something we ought to do begrudgingly.  The depths of the beauty of the mystery between us and Him is as deep as the beauty which He is.  This mystery is that feeling you get when you look out upon the vista of a desert evening as the sun goes down, or the beauty of a full moonlit sky when your looking the at the sky opposite of where the moon is.  Beauty found both in the face of the sun and its backside glory.  This mystery is the feeling you get when you read a well written book or hear a passionately composed piece of music and, though many others may have read or heard, its like both were written with you in mind.

            Mystery is not a drain on faith.  Too often we hold to faith as this bank account against which we make withdraws in order to complete the holy actions and thought the “true Christian” is supposed to have in their life.  No, mystery warms our faith and gives it passion.  Mystery is where we stand the scoffer down, be they pagan or over-confident believer and say, I do this not because I’ve got a manual detailing the intricacies of my religion, rather I do this because I serve someone, not something, Who is bigger than the most beautiful place in my life and dreams.  My evidence?  That once I, as scoffer like you, came to believe against my better, earthly judgment. 

            What does mystery have to do with painful memories?  What does it have to do with the way in which we minister to those who hold them?  Mystery reminds us that we are not God and that if we are going to be of any help and not a burden to those who’s memories, recent or old, crush them, we must remember that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit alone that we can accomplish this.  To Him be the glory forever and ever, Amen.

            But, do we mean that?  Are we trying to serve someone who is so inexplicably bigger than we are, or are we trying to be that person?  Are we trying to be a part of something so vast and wonderful, or are we trying to be the leader of it?  Does part of us say as those words come from our mouth, “yeah, but I was the one actually here”. 

 

 

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Job 38:4 (NASB)

 

Ibid

John 9:2 (NASB)

Genesis 3:5 (ASV)

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NASB)

McAffe Essays

These are essays I wrote for McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University.  While they are more self-promoting that I would regularly post here, the thoughts contained therein are ones I feel are valuable and want to share.  Enjoy.

1.  Give an account of your Christian pilgrimage.

          When I was born, in Austin, Texas, my dad was a Methodist minister.  I was baptized a few months later as an infant, in accordance with my parent’s beliefs.  Around the age of three, my father decided to return to the denomination he grew up in and was ordained an Episcopal Priest.  Thus, at that time, I became, along with the rest of my family, an Episcopalian.

            My religious affiliations as a child may have had more to do with the vocational decisions of my father, but I am haunted by a recollection that as a young child, I understood things of God better than I have as a teenager and adult.  I sometimes wonder if I will spend my life in the pursuit of knowing God more, only to die and see, hear, and know the things I knew as a very young child.   Paul writes in 2 Corinthians of a man he knew that was caught up to the 3^rd heaven, who saw and experienced things inexpressible by human words.  Could it be that as my cognitive and communicative abilities grew, my innocence diminished and no longer could I conceive the beauties of God?  Perhaps this is inconsistent with the doctrine of original sin, which I hold to, but Jesus did suffer the little ones unto him insofar as to such belong the kingdom…I don’t think he was just making a metaphor.

            At the age of 14 I was standing in church reciting the Nicene Creed, which we always recited after my dad finished his sermon, when a sudden realization came over me.  “I believe in Jesus His only Son…” did not make sense to me.  If God was love, if he was a loving God, then why did I need Jesus?  Somehow, though I grew up in a Christian home, the son of a pastor, I never made the connection either in my mind or in my heart that Jesus was the expression of that Love which is God.  For whatever reason I could not make the justification for belief in Jesus.  It was not for a deep theological reason.  As far as knew, this Jesus wasn’t God and chose to no longer profess Him.

            My sophomore year of high school I went off to boarding school at Subiaco Academy for Boys.  Typically, I would go home on weekends, since my family lived a short distance away.  One weekend my parents were going to be out of town so they gave me the choice of staying at school that weekend or going to a retreat up at our church camp.  I chose the retreat for the very pious reason that there would be girls there. 

            I was exposed to the love of Christ in a powerful way at this retreat.  Suddenly I was enveloped in warmth that I had never experienced, warmth that was beyond description and emanated from the depths of my soul and body.  The whole episode was entirely surprising to me.  At one point we were sent to be by ourselves to think and pray.  I don’t remember the exact point I accepted Jesus as my Lord, as God.  I still really can’t, it just happened.  What I do remember is my reaction when I realized I had changed not only my mind, but also my heart about Jesus.  My confession was not the one they write about in hagiographies of the great saints.  My confession was literally, “Holy <foul explicative>, I believe in Jesus!”

            It wasn’t so much that I found Jesus, it truly was that He found me.  I rejected Him, and he came for me.  Moreover, Jesus met me where I was.  Nothing in my behavior or selfish teenage mindset was or could have been attractive to Him.  To be more succinct, nothing about me earned me the right to have Jesus have an intimate relationship with me.  It was His desire for me, which brought Him to me.  The Father’s Desire, Jesus Love, the Holy Spirits Action…this is what drew me to God.  No longer was mine an interaction with God of getting rules and laws right, now it was a relationship based in His love and expressed in my gratitude, lacking as it often has been.

            A few years later I started going to a Baptist Church.  I was living with my parents during a hiatus from school, and I had decided that I wanted to attend a church where my dad was not the pastor.  Since accepting Christ, I had struggled with how baptism works and when the appropriate time to be baptized was.  My reading of scripture suggested, at the very least, that adult believer’s baptism was the more orthodox approach to baptism.  Moreover, I could hardly consider my personal experience of infant baptism an experience, because I had not the cognition at that time to remember, let alone meaningfully participate in it. 

        Thus, I decided to be baptized as an adult by full immersion and joined the church I was baptized in.  My faith pilgrimage is one that lead me from the very true and real faith of my parents, to a faith that was truly and really my own.  The paradox of my pilgrimage is that as my faith has become more my own, I have been led ever closer to the idea that my faith is not my own.  My faith cannot exist solely on its own; it exists within Christ’s Holy Church.  Binding myself unto Jesus inherently means becoming part of a body comprised of fellow believers and workers of the Kingdom.  As I write this, this is where my pilgrimage has taken me and through which obstacles and turns I am still led by Him.

 

2. Tell the story of your personal commitment to ministry.

           There is a wonderful girl in Cheng-du, China serving as a missionary with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  Her passion for God, sweet disposition, warm company, and, honestly, attractive features, drew me to her with immeasurable magnetism.  She had my commitment, my devotion, and my heart.  She knew better than to accept it.

            She was going to China.  She knew this two years ago.  As I write this, she has been in Cheng-du for about three weeks.  How mad I was at her when she told me we had to go separate ways.  Now, I am deeply thankful that she looked through her own desires, her own pain at having to make a sacrifice for Him.  She and I are still very good friends.  Often, when we talk we are struck by how our relationship is a living parable of the supremacy of our commitment to ministry in Christ.  We sacrificed a passionate romance for our greater passion Christ Jesus.  Moreover, we sacrificed that passionate romance so that we may fully attain the ministry He set before us.

            I remember sitting in an older friend’s office one night as she emphatically stressed to me that I was to “teach!”  People, she said, understand God and His things when I talk to them, be that in conversation, in the pulpit, or in front of a class.  The supremacy of God’s call in my life was burnt into my heart that night.  “And, everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children for My Name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29, NASB)

            Truly, the rewards for following Christ are great.  But, even if they weren’t, if in this life I were to receive nothing, I would continue to follow Christ in the ministry he has set before me just like Peter and the others who alone remained with Jesus after the hard teaching, “to whom shall I go?”  I believe Christ has, “the words of eternal life.”  They are a river of living water flowing from my, “innermost being” (John 7:39, NASB)

 If I were to dam them up would be to cause them to stagnate and cease to provide life.  The words He has put in me were not meant to be for me alone, but to further His kingdom.  Life begets life, when life is hoarded, it ceases to be what it is and becomes corruption.

            My friend in China is one example of how even the beautiful things and people of this life must be subjected to the Supremacy of Our Commitment to Ministry in Christ Jesus.  While I had chosen to follow His call to ministry many years before, it was at that point that I realize that in my zeal for Him and His work, there could be no compromise.  Does He allow me beautiful things in this life?  Yes, I do not believe that he has called ministers to some sort of ascetic masochism where we reject all that bring us happiness.  But, when those things conflict with the true joy of serving Him, I believe that we must willingly return them to God as a sacrifice and as an acknowledgment that He is sovereign over our ministry and us.  Moreover, when we do so we show our belief in His unfailing goodness and love for us.  We submit to the fact that even in the ministry He sets before us, He is the one taking care of us.

 

3.     What factors have led you to apply to McAfee School of Theology for your theological training?

         Many of my professors have spoken very well of McAfee in my classes.  They spoke well of both the ministry preparation and the scholarship at McAfee.  In my opinion, ministry and scholarship go hand in hand.  Scholarship has played an important role in the seminaries and divinity schools that I have chosen to apply to.  My experience in my undergraduate program is that my ministry has been greatly benefited by my studies.  I want to continue this trend in my graduate studies.  Ministry, whether it is the formally trained pastor or the lay person to whom the pastor is charged to equip, must be informed.

            As I was researching McAfee, I came across a quote by Jessie Mercer, which conveyed to me a belief that McAfee was very much a school I wanted to consider studying at.  The quote was something to the effect of, “Lord, deliver us from ignorant preachers.”  I believe that Christianity in this country is in desperate need of leadership that is as sound of mind as they are full of passion.  We are told by our Lord in Matthew 22:37 to love God with all of our heart, soul, and with all our mind.  Too often in my life I have found myself confronted with well-intentioned, but thoughtless and ignorant Christians who have, rather than provide comfort and peace in hurting times, made things worse…both to others and myself.

            I have for some time felt that the cornerstone of the ministry God has given me is to develop, by my teaching and example, a love for God in the minds of those to whom He sends me to minister.  McAfee has presented itself as a school that strives to allow the Holy Spirit to seamlessly merge the passion of the heart and soul with the renewing of the minds of their students in order to form well educated and heartfelt ministers of the Gospel. 

4.  What are your ministry goals? (The kinds of ministries you envision for yourself)

        The ministry I envision for myself is one that is characterized by compassion and intelligence all to the glory of the Father.  My talents and gifts lay in two areas, giving counsel to people (be it discipleship, or in times of grief and hardship) and in teaching.  I have found that the counsel I give people affects the way I teach, and my teaching informs the way that I counsel.  Not that I do ministry to feel close to God, but one of the times I feel closest to Him is when my mind snaps and pops to the order of thoughts He has given me to respond to the hardships and confessions of a person in need, or of a person who desires to do the Lord’s work and seeks guidance for that endeavor.  It never ceases to amaze me the verses of scripture that come to mind and the seemingly obscure theological concepts that suddenly are so useful in speaking the gospel into someone’s life.  And, that is not just for believers, this happens with non-believers as well.

         My gifts and passions being what they are, I look to minister in such a way as to best use them such to grow the kingdom.  Essentially, I envision myself in a bi-vocational ministry. As a counselor, I envision myself in the pastorate, preaching, listening, and equipping men and women for the service of gratitude we are all called to.  As a teacher, I envision myself teaching young minds how to minister effectively and compassionately.  To show them that passionate ministry does not preclude intelligent ministry. The ministry I envision in the future is much the same as the ministry I now see myself in, one in which my teaching informs the way I counsel and guide, and my counseling effects my teaching.  For me, the two are intertwined such that I cannot imagine one without the other.  And, I find that beautiful, as true reflection of God’s work in my

Experience

          Everyone one experiences darkness.  It is folly to ignore that fact.  Yet, I am forced by the experiences of life to wonder if in fact everyone experiences the same lack of light in their darkness.  Perhaps what is more dangerous is the inability, or the lack of desire of people to admit that they have not experienced the darkness that the person across the table, over the phone, through the Internet, has experienced.  As Americans, we have a great desire to shove absolutely everything into a convenient box, claim that God alone can lighten the night, and then proceed to tell you that you haven’t pushed the button on the flashlight God has given you correctly and that is why God alone can’t lighten your night.

            Dallas Willard writes, “The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy.  This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  We live in a Christian society that preaches that it wants to help us, but don’t become a burden to us.  If you can’t accept the advice we give you, unreflective and simplistic as it often is, then the problem is not we, its you for not having the faith to get the job done.  Combine this with those whose darkness exceeds the typical pale eerie fear of being a burden on others, even those who God sends into their lives to help with healing.

            Yes, God sends people into others lives to be His instruments of healing.  Yes, as the Church we are an indispensable part of God’s plan of healing and salvation.  There is a quiet heresy that many many people in the Church hold today.  Perhaps it is more insidious even than Prosperity Doctrine, more dangerous because of its paralyzing effect.  I shall express it in the terms expressed to me.  Upon coming into a certain group of people’s lives I was exhorted by them to “trust people, because in order to trust God, you have to trust people (by people they meant people in the Church, Christians)”.  However, later upon a very sudden and wrenching rejection of love, many of the very same people expressed with genuine shock, “of course she hurt you, you can’t trust people, you can only trust God!”  Aside from being a great example of how Christians walk up to their wounded and with kind soothing words put a bullet in their brain, it demonstrates a disturbing tendency away from responsibility among Christians.

            Hypocrisy aside, the problem demonstrated is that Christian’s have found the perfect method for doing absolutely nothing while sounding very holy.  We speak words of invitation to come and be supported.  We tell the world, “Come!  Let us shoulder your burdens!  Let us soothe your wounds!”  Yet, when they enter in, quickly they find that there are only so many burdens and wounds we are willing to shoulder and soothe free of charge.  The charge?  Only too often is that our egos and understandings are pet at the same time by the one we are helping. 

            Give God the shout out, the one really important here is us.

            Christians don’t walk with people when their own lives and spirituality are in danger.  As soon as we see our good feelings (which we use the phrase, “spiritual lives”) being infringed upon, we set a line in the dirt…we construct a box, and if the person we are trying to “help” can’t put their issues in that box, we blame them and walk away.  We set ourselves up as god with pat answers and methods to healing.  In our desire to help, we have become blasphemers.  We don’t trust God enough to put our well-being on the line.  God blesses us with streams of living water that flow from within us[1] and we turn around and dam those waters up because we lack the faith to believe that the source is eternal.  Like a tank on a Texas ranch around mid-August, that water ceases to be life giving and becomes putrid, slowly drying up leaving cracked ground in its place.

            Maybe the truth is that we don’t trust God enough to be helpless.  How uncomfortable we become when our words and actions don’t elicit the response of healing and gratitude we seek.  We may genuinely seek gratitude from our hurting sister to go to God and not us, but when it doesn’t appear in the form we look for, how despondent we quickly become.  Is it that our faith is only as strong as the amazing and undeniable miracle we need God to do in the one who hurt’s life?  There is a truth to be known, one not readily accepted…perhaps one not seen because we’ve blinded ourselves to true miracles in the way we will only accept the “big” ones.  The truth is that when you are looking at your mother, best friend, girlfriend, pastor, or complete stranger and the tears will not stop flowing from their eyes and the words of despair will not be stopped up you are doing more good than your ego will let you know.  Maybe the greatest miracle that can happen is that you will stop praying for a sudden miracle, a quick change of heart or emotion in that dear person, and will start praying for your own patience. 

            Most of the time we pray for patience we pray for it only in light of bearing with difficult people and situations.  Most of us need patience to complete the work God is doing in and through us, with “fear and trembling.”[2]  Yes, its not good to loose your patience with a annoying situation, but may it be suggested that it is far worse to loose it when you are walking with someone who is in darkness?  Patience is not just avoiding aggravation, it is also dieing to yourself and your own wishes.  The romance of love is so often portrayed as the beautiful part of love (among Christians, this can not be shoved off on the secular world), but the most beautiful part of love is how two people bear with each other and lives full life with them.  Just as the joy of the gospel heard in a sermon is completed by the remembrance and partaking of a death in communion, so is the romance is sealed in walking in each other’s darkness.  People who are truly deeply in love do not desert one another when they feel helpless to help the other.  They partake.

            Jesus, for whatever mystery, had no choice but to suffer on the cross.  Do you really think that Peter, James and John had the answers for Christ that night in the garden?  Are we so arrogant to think that we would have?  In such darkness that blood droplets flowed from his agony and fell quietly into the dirt from which we all came knelt the Son of Man, Son of God, our Hope’s Revealed and Completed, all alone because his friends were asleep.  They were heavy of heart and didn’t know what to do or say.  So they left him alone.

            Jesus has borne the darkness of the hurt and abandoned.  Jesus over came it.  He over came it for us all.  Why, then, do we fail to grasp the wondrousness of it?  Why instead of silently giving strength do we fall asleep when our objections to the words we are hearing, and our declarations of complete and total devotion fail to change things?  We were not called to that.  To do such is to throw our pearls before swine and mock the sacrifice Christ made for us, it is to abuse grace.  Christians have gotten so far from what we were meant to be.  We make corbin for our beloved, and leave them to die alone in their darkness.

            Truly it is time for us to lay ourselves down before our neighbors, once again.  The world should not marvel at our smiles because of what we have in our lives, rather they should marvel at our smiles in spite of what we have.  Moreover, our smiles should not be the shallow masks of the content, but evidence of workmanship wrought in the heat of the fire and the pounding of the hammer.  They should be the evidence of things not seen.  Seals of faith.

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[1] John 7:38

[2] Philippians 2:12

Fathers

I remember once while I was a boarding school at Subiaco, my dad drove in to visit me and take me out to eat.  We drove to this pizza place on the far side of Paris, Arkansas, near the school.  It was a warm, spring evening.  There were storms blowing in from all over, so though it was yet to rain, lightning flashes illuminated the clouds in the sky that had yet to form a complete blanket to block out the stars.  What causes that night to stand out in my mind is that it was one of those times where that feeling that the world just beyond our perception is a little bit closer.  It was an occation where the joy of a son getting to have some alone time with a father he adores is intensified, where it was more than an outing, indeed was religious feeling in nature.  Religious not in that it was God, but that God was in it, revealing Himself with power and fury, like the flashes of lightening in the sky, and we, father and son, saw the beauty of Him as His light reflected off one another’s countenance.

This God we serve, He’s so dangerous isn’t He?  How great it would be if he stood guard over our houses and churches as a flaming pillar by night and a cloud by day.  Oh, that we could see the glory of our God in such a way.  But, I wonder if we would still remain faithful to Him.  The Hebrews saw all this glory.  When Moses states, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:24 NASB) they would have remembered the pillar of fire, insofar that it wasn’t a distant memory for them.  Earlier, Moses had exhorted them to, “…give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.” (Deuteronomy 4:9 NASB)  But, we all know that in a few short generations, the people of YHWH had in fact forgotten those things which God had done before them.  No longer did they keep their souls diligently or themselves righteously.  They had ceased to fear God.  Israel no longer stood in wonder before YHWH’s powerful and mighty works.

Do we stand in fear of God’s powerful and thunderous works?  We’ve worked so hard to erase the false image of God as a Long Bearded Meanie in the sky, only to replace them with equally false images of a big huggable teddy bear in the sky or cosmic vending machine waiting for us to pull the lever that will give us what we want.  How is it that we have such a hard time understanding that we can both fear and love God at the same time?  When people talk about God, He’s either your best friend who’d never do anything to make you feel bad or He’s this judge just waiting to send you to the hotter part of eternity for your sins.  

There is a reason God refers to himself as Father.  A good father instills love and fear into the heart of his children.  Fear?  Yes, fear.  Not terror, which is often confused with fear.  Terror is unbridalled, fear has an inherent amount of respect.  One can love shooting a shotgun, but don’t take me shooting with someone who does not fear the capacities of the shotgun.  My father did not raise me up to be a good man with flowery words and logical arguments.  Those came second, first he raised me up with expectations and consequences.  Flowery words and logical arguments, expectations and consequences; all were derived from a position of love and compassion for my well-being.  The strength of the muscles that were used to inflict punishment were (and are) the same strength that encircled me in loving protective embrace.  That, in a paradoxical way, communicated my father’s love to me as true, strong, and legitimate.

Some people have violent, filthy men for fathers.  That is sad.  They see only the power and fury, which without love is vile hatred.  Other people have wimpy, unengaged, placating fathers.  They hear only the words of love, but see not that which ensures love’s vitality.  YHWH loves strongly.  YHWH loves compassionately.  YHWH loves perfectly.  

A friend of mine wrote me telling me about her day, and in the process wrote that she had “spent time with Abba.”  Truly interesting was that for some reason, in this instance, I did not find it cheesy. Because I know her, I read that and saw a person who regarded God as her Father, her Dad, her Abba.  She understood all her writings entailed.  I’ve heard criticism laid against referring to God as “Father” in today’s society where so many people have abusive or negligent fathers.  The critics say that it is a block to people knowing God, because they associate Him with their poor earthy fathers.  However, bad fathers are not new to our present age, they are found throughout history.  Fallible fathers are not anything new either.  From the earliest days, Adam who failed to raise his son in such a way that he wouldn’t be jealous and Noah who failed to raise his son to be a respectful and shameless man, fallible fathers have been with us.  The most perfect (earthy) dad is not God.

Yet, we still have an a priori knowledge of what a good father is.  We know that a good father is just, fair, protective, loving, kind, enacting discipline, gentle.  Do people with good fathers understand this easier than those without them?  I rather imagine so.  But, the truth is that we know what a good parent is.  We know what is good and we know what is wrong…

That night as we drove back from getting pizza, as the tumult raged around us and lightning excited the night sky behind the monastery where my boarding school was, I remember being filled with the most tangible feeling of my earthly dad’s love, and having newly professed faith in my Heavenly Father, I was struck by the depth of my father’s love for me, a love that was derived from our Father’s love for both he and I.  I enjoyed Abba in the warm love of my dad, and in the power of creation I possessed, willingly, the fear of the Father.  The truth is this, the weakness of my dad matched with the power of my Father brought me to touch the plane of divinity.  Christ’s mediating work enabled this son, to know the Father.  The work of one Son, brought a dad and son closer to each other, and closer to their Father.

Have you ever wondered, at the end of a bad day, week, month, or year how you made it there?  Why is it that sometimes hurt inspires us to do our best?  Are you ever scared that simply existing gives people a reason to turn their eyes away from your pain?

Have you ever been so exhausted, so ready to sleep, only to lie down and not be able to fall asleep for all the helplessness you feel?  The phone, you pick it up and put it down ten times.  You pick it up due to an unrestrained impulse to try and fix something you know you can not fix.  You lay it back down, restrained by the knowledge that there is nothing you can do, and if you could no one would care.

 Oh, people care.  So many people care and for that you honestly and truthfully, with joy in your heart, lift up your praises and thanks to God.  Immediately thereafter ask Jesus to take hold of your heart because you just noticed that you’ve unconciously said outloud, “I’m not going to make it” for the third time.

 Maybe you didn’t know what love was.  Maybe you didn’t feel it.  Maybe it was to pie in the sky.  You were sure you knew it was love, but now you “know” you never knew what in the hell it was…

“Love is patient, it is kind, and it is not jealous.  It doesn’t brag, and is not arrogant.  It does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, does not take into account wrongs suffered.  It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures all things.”

Conviction.  Turns out that you yourself have fallen short of what is in fact love.  But, with honestly you can say that you have strived far and wide to perfect your love.  There is an element of turning your sword on yourself.  Doesn’t take into account wrongs suffered seems to fail in light of all your suffering.  Lord, help me.

Knowledge.  It wasn’t that what was happening didn’t feel like love.  Its that love stopped, and that’s why what was happening stopped.  No more bearing, no more enduring, no more belief…no more hope. 

It wasn’t you that gave up, but all the same its gone.

Storms II

Are you ever glad that someone near you is experencing the same suffering that you are, yet at the same time you would do anything to make their pain go away because since you too are experiencing it, you know how terrible it is?  It is an odd paradox.  Its the place we get stupid comments like, “God is allowing you to go through this so you can help others who experience it.”  I think the “God is allowing it” stuff is pretty much a complete load, seriously, I’ve been so blessed by people who (thankfully because why would we wish pain on another person just so we can feel better?) are not and have not gone through what I have gone through.  That being said, I also don’t think that God is just going to let our pain and suffering sit in isolation.  If there is a way to get some good out of it, He will.

That is where I found myself one night as I drove toward a thunderstorm the next county over with a dear friend whose pain I would gladly of taken from her if I could.  I guess there were plenty of other places we could drive, but perhaps it was the recklessness that has been borne from our confused hurt, or the desire to be near something so obviously greater than ourselves, or maybe we’re just freaks for thunderstorms, but that’s where we drove and that’s where we wanted to drive.  For thirty minutes or so we drove as lighting streaked miles and miles across the sky in front of us.  Have you ever stopped to realize that?  The lightning we see are miles long streaks of electricity.  We see them from our perspective, but lighting is so powerful.

We didn’t see a raindrop until we got about two miles or so from the storm.  As we drove closer, passing cars and trucks on the side of the road, we began to see a well defined super-cell which was illuminated periodically by lightning flashing behind it.  It was definately something to behold.  Once we started seeing hail, we turned around and drove the other direction for about five minutes.  After five minutes though, the reckless desire returned, and we turned around and drove back toward the storm.

This time we met the storm much quicker than before.  We stopped in the midst of the down pour and I tried to catch a piece of hail but soon realized that, one, if I did actually catch a piece of hand, it would hurt really bad.  And, two, the hail was very large and blowing in almost horizontally.  so, we turned around and started to drive away from the tornado that we had not-so-accidentally driven into.  Long story short, we made it out, but only after much prayer and my appologies to my friend for “killing us.”

So many storms come our way in life.  Some of them are outside of our control, but it seems like others we drive ourselves into.  By that, I don’t mean that they are nessisarily created by our own bad decisions, though that does happen.  Sometimes they are created by our pursuit of good things like friendship or love.  More, if we seek to truly follow Christ, it is inevitable that we will find ourselves surrounded by the storm.  Think of how the disciples found themselves in stormy weather as the rowed across the sea.  When we let Jesus guide us, the path He sets out for us will take us through storms.

Jesus told a parable that went like this: ”Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” {Matthew 7:24-28}

Perhaps he just speaking about life generally.  But, I think there is something to it for us.  If we follow Him, if we say that we want to pursue God and a life of holiness, we must build it upon Christ’s words.  The word that tells us to follow Him we must bear our own cross, drink from His cup, partake in His suffering.  It seems that the longer I live out my Christian life, that most happiness is fleating and joy is all that is left.  Its not a happy thing to have the storm blast against your house, but when you can walk out when its done and see your house still standing…there’s some joy in that.

So, though sometimes we just get caught in the storm, sometimes we really do drive into them.  Joyfully even.  And, there is hope insofar that in our reckless desire which takes us into the storms, Jesus had no problem walking or sleeping through the storms.  Its like Jesus is telling us not to worry so much that we don’t enjoy what beauty we can find in the storm.