The Art of Listening

I was with a guy today who seemed like he could have enjoyed his dinner just as much if I wasn’t there.  It wasn’t apparent that he heard anything I said.  I asked questions about his life and spirtual journey and he told me with great enthusiasm.  But I honestly don’t think he heard a word I said.  He actually loves me. . . . he enjoys being with me a lot. He said goodbye as if something incredible had taken place in our time together. 

I used to get pretty judgmental in situations like this.  I wish I could be heard. I wanted my opinion to be valued and respected. . . blah, blah.  But I realized that this guy just hasn’t learned what it means to hear people. In fact, at this point in his life, it seems like he is actually incapable of doing so.  It’s like we have this listening impaired person, attempting to follow Jesus and puruse ministry with all his heart.  So I listened. . . and listened. . . and listened.  He talked, and talked, and talked. He never heard or really cared about my responses.  And I didn’t get mad about it. (Altrusim at its best for Front Porch’s Jennifer, Jenna, and Aric). 

Since we’ve been back in the States, I’ve been noticing how little is said in most conversations.  Living in a culture where English isn’t understood that well requires you to slow down and listen more. People here are so busy and consumed with whatever, that not much goes on in all our busyness.  It’s just packed full of noise and gestures with little communication.  I want to be the kind of person who hears people.  I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t value my own voice and opinion above all else.  I would trade in any 45 minute inspired sermon for ten minutes of listening to someones story, motivated by sheer love and compassion.  Listening is indeed as much of a art as public speaking.  Motives are everything.  Why do we or don’t we listen?  Why do we get frusrated with others who don’t listen when they simply don’t get it at that point in their lives.  Hard lesson tonight and I passed, but at least the pizza was good.

A little something, something from my heaad on Monday

Vacation and traveling a little bit has been wonderful.  I have enjoyed my time talking with people and hearing what is going on with them.  We just got back from Minneapolis last night where we visited some friends of ours.  I wish the trip wasn’t so quick but we had fun.  We attended a multi-ehtnic church (pastored by Efrem Smith, one of the authors of “Hip-Hop church”).  It was a cool experience.

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So again, I bring up my thoughts on the emerging church (vacation has allowed me a good deal of time to process some of this) and its mission.  Living in commnity is cool.  Being real is cool.  Being missional. . . that’s cool too.  I’m all for loose structure, spontaneious spirtuality, and less instituationalization.  But what aobut Eph. 2? “Christ has broken down every wall of hostility and believers now display a new humanity to the world of what it means to be a reconciled worshipful community” (my translation).  If we’re going to live like Jesus and be truly missional, we certainly are going to see racial reconcilation.  It troubles me that so much of what I read in the emergent movement is “white”.  We can talk about our target culture or traget audience, or whatever. . . but Jesus loves everybody and all are welcome.  How much sense does it make to be intentional about being missional and building community, living toegether, etc., yet be unintentioanl about building churches in mutiethnic areas that reflect true unity?. . . will we miss it again?  I hope not. Here’s a cool article

There is a growing conversation happening about diversity or the lack of diversity in the emerging church conversation. Thankfully there are several people of color responding, and sharing their thoughts. So here are snippets from some of the conversations.

Over at the Ooze in a conversation about Seeking diversity in Emergent sacred narrative writes

“Maybe we study African Christianity and South American Christianity and Eastern Christianity and Mexican Christianity and tell those stories.”

I’d add the many facets of African-American and Afro Caribbean Christianity as well.

Another ooze conversation responds to a blog by Maurice Broddus on Black People in the conversation  he writes

“In a lot of ways, the emergent church struck me as, well, the Christian equivalent of the grunge movement. A little subversive, a little edgy, and whole lot of white, middle class evangelicals trying to make Christianity look cool. In other words, originally I saw a lot of style over substance. However, once I dug a little deeper, read some of the foundational works, a lot of the substance of postmodernism resonated. I was left wondering how this would translate to black churches, wondering what an emergent African American church would look like or what a multi-cultural emergent church would look like. “

This is exactly how I feel sometimes about t Emergent. What we are trying to do at my church Mosaic Life is figure out and life out biblical emerging church values in a real multiracial faith community.

Jose over at cracked pots has this perspective on the diversity from the urban side of things

“i think you’re right about an urban presence. reverend ray rivera, executive director of LPAC (south bronx) will say that people want to “parachute into the city” and try to save us. it becomes less about being missional (coming along side), and more about the old-school, missionary mentality. my other question is how do we preach relocation, and for those who are already there to remain?”

And Finally Anthony smith at postmodern negro is exploring/imagineering the postmodern black church

“I want to be a part of Christian community…a local ekklesia. But I want to feel at “home”. Not in a consumeristic sense, but in a sense that it will challenge me, provoke me, encourage me, to be a part of the missio Dei or God’s mission of salvation in the Land. When I think about the kind of church community that would draw me…my imagination always goes to images like these. Am I crazy?”

This is how many of the spiritually searching people of color I know feel. I really do resonate with this. This is where I think Emergent has missed the boat.

I think is all boils down to creating new churches that speak this yearning. As my church planting  coach (grandfather to biracial kids said on the need for diverse and new churches “my grandkids need churches that haven’t been started yet.”

Emergent Esmergent. . . here we go again

Props to Front Porch. I just want to start off by saying a little about my visit to my friend’s church in Columbus.  I had heard that they were starting an “Emergent/Postmodern” church for the last couple yrs. It was cool to finally check it out.  It was actually better than I expected. . . not that I don’t expect much from our friends. I don’t really want to get into the cosmetics of what was done in their meetings for I feel that kind of misses the heart of this blog. . . and the heart of what is happening with many Christians today.  I will say they did have a pretty slick venue and the cosmetics certainly assist in bringing a cool environment conducive for people wanting something different than what they would get at the typical church.

But I don’t want to talk about cosmetics.  Lighting, music, preaching style. . . that’s all important, but it’s certainly not what I want to talk about.  A girl named Ryan started off the service by reading a prayer of repentance.  The presence of the Lord was so strong as she got into the prayer that it was almost unbearable.  As she cotninued to read, I just found myself saying, “yeah, definitely Lord, I do repent for that.”  It was very cool.  There was preaching. There was music. There was art. There were a lot of cool things which had only been in my dreams about what a church could be.  I didn’t matter that there wasn’t a big crowd.  It didn’t matter how long stuff took.  Nobody seemed worried about much.  At the end there was a time where 1 Cor. 12 took place and everybody contributed something.  Some people gave words of wisdom. Some prophecy.  Some encouragement.  Some even gave postmodern rebukes.  It was incredible.  People weren’t evaluating if this was prophecy or if that was a “word from the Lord” or if that sermon was exegetical or topical.  I wasn’t even evaluating that and that is a miracle. (I did afterwards lol).  To all that read and to puff Front Porch’s pride. . . this was the coolest “church” experience I may have ever had . . . well at least since my discontentment with systems and programs started 4 yrs ago.  For the first time in my wife’s life she felt completely free and at home while in a public gathering of believers.  Incredible.  

When stepping back and evaluating my own heart and what it means to truly follow Jesus, this experience has helped.  So often I get hung up on trying to build our youth ministry or start this or do that.  Usualy when I hear an extremely convicting message from God, I immediately run to how I can position my heart and others to a place where the Gospel can mean more.  It usually goes back to how I can do things better for the ministry. But that again misses the point.  This journey certainly is about community, but  it is very much about the individual finding his dance in God. Learning to walk in raw obedience motivated by the proper motives can only be directed by the Holy Spiriti.  This is the real journey I am after.  I find myself continually trying to evaluate my ministry on Rota after this experience, but that’s not the point.  The point is having a heart that is driven with a motivation to be just like Jesus. I want that.  I really do. If I do this, the cosmetics will take care of themselves.  It’s kind of like my wife trying to use make up to make herself look good. . . she doesn’t need it. She simply neeeds to wake up in the morning, smile, and be herself. She doesn’t need any help to determine her beauty.

But on to missions. . .

The emergent church and its development of postmodern believers will only continue to grow.  I cannot imagine that this movement will not eventually sweep the globe.  Western culture dominates our world.  Hands down.  Most countries seem to be attempting to become more like the West.  I don’t know what this will mean for misssions in the future.  Pretty much most of what is happening in missiology worldwide is based on the modern church experience.  However, there are hundreds of contextualized movements happening in places that havne’t heard the Gospel before.  But where the Gospel has been preachied, it seems the mentality is “the West is the best.”  I can only think that the emergent church will hit these areas eventually.

The thing I don’t like about the emergent movement is that it seems too much like the enlightenment.  While they embrace experience to a much larger degree than the intellectuals of the centureis before, it focuses highly on the educated and ”enlightened”. . . whatever that means.  I was reading a book on hip-hop culture and they termed the post-modern hip hop generation as post-soul.  It is interesting that the hip hop church movement too has its story of journey and movement.  People are desiring communities that reflect Jesus, not just laws made by men. 

Looking back throughout our history and clinging to the wonderful things people have taught us seems to be a goal.  I believe every religion and every tradition that has ever existed has something to offer us.  Each contextualized “emergent” (i hate the word) church will have to come to grips with what the essentials are.  I pray to God that emergent churches don’t try to emulate one another.  It will again miss the point and become a system in its own right. 

So what’s the moral of the story?  I have no idea.  These are just my thoughts on everything in my head today.  Jesus is so cool and he puts up with a lot of our stupidity.  He puts up with a lot of people (like myself) who claim to know something.  But I really don’t.  I simply am learning and looking for God in all of life.  I am finding him and he is finding me.  I love the fact that even today I have found God in the way my wife smiled at me.  She snorted at me just to make me laugh and God was in that.  God was in the conversation I had with my father.  He was in my search for a coffee mug and the dimly lit counter.  How incredible is this life! I have learned more today than I knew before.    

Sons of Hell

 Have you ever witnessed a good fight?  Not that any fight is good . . . it’s just the terminology we have I guess.  Like a boyfriend or girlfriend going at it, or a husband and wife dishing out the accusations?  Jerry Springer comes to mind at the moment. What is said in those moments is horrid.  Each one pump more ammunition into their arsenal and blast after blast is shot out.  You always or you never do this.   You always and you never, ever do that.  The guilt and accusation is placed extremely high and much that is said and done is never fully reconciled.  It’s left undone.  The words and the burdensome load demanded takes an extremely long time to be repaired, if ever.

 

Jesus said to the teachers of the law and Pharisees, “You weigh people down with loads that they cannot possibly carry.”  At one point he calls them sons of Hell.  Sons of Hell?  Dang.  Could he have said it any clearer?  In one moment we can be listening to our favorite worship song, shaking our booty to the magnificence of God.  The next moment, we are pointing the finger because our workmate or spouse doesn’t fully agree with us.  You give people a load that they were never intended to carry. 

 

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about love the last few weeks. It seems to communicate louder and stronger than anything in the world.  I think it’s why Song of Solomon says, “It’s stronger than death.  Waters cannot quench its fire.”  Love grounded in loyalty.  Love grounded in friendship.  Love grounded in affection.  This is what God had in mind.  May we continually become a people who give people what they need.  I am so good at pointing the finger.  Driving from the passenger seat is so much easier.  Talking people down in my head and outside of it is horrible.  I still am captivated by that phrase “sons of Hell”.  It’s like Jesus is saying we’re making the path straighter and clearer for people to be carted into Hell as we heap on the accusations and guilt.  May we continually become a people who are motivated and driven by the love of God which is seen in all of life.

We are here

 No more soft-spoken Asians. . . we are in the land of white, high-volumed people!!! Very cool.

Christian extremist – I pray that isn’t an oxymoron

Shane Claiborne is living it up for Jesus in Philly. He spent time in India.  He opens with this quote from Søren Kierkegaard in his book:

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alon with the New Testament.

I am indebted to the world of scholars and theologians who have gone before me.  I continue to study and maximize all the tools under the sun.  I am a student of theology, culture, and sociology. . . But, the Bible seems to say a whole lot more about the way we love and live in the world than it does about how smart we are, how much we know.  Most of us emphasize beliefs to the detriment of love in action.  SermonsRus. . . we should start our own store. This week has been one of introspection.  My heart doesn’t look much like that of Jesus with the despised and forgotten.  The Pharisees knew the Scriptures. Most of them had the entire Torah memorized.  Still Jesus writes again and again, “haven’t you heard that the law says”. . . “don’t you know that the Law says”. . . of course they knew it.  But knowledge doesn’t change peoples lives.  Education and raising awareness won’t get the job done.  Love and compassion unleashed 24/7 seems to be what Jesus was seeking.  If you’re a seminarian or theological person, can you please not speak a critical comment on this post?  Just let me revel in the fact that I want to love like Jesus.  Don’t chop up my comments and analyze them and Pharisee me.  I do that on a regular basis to myself and others, and I miss the point.

I

Yo, yo from teh ghetoo. . . not exactly

For all u on the Encounter 2006 and Solid Rock blogrings. . . Sup!?!? I didn’ realize u had these going. . . would have joined sooner. I’d get our students here to hook up with the blogs but Rota ain’t got internet yet. (psyches) Just want to say hey and encourage you guys to live it up for Jesus this summer. We’ll be going back to the States to see my family.

Jesus could come back at any moment. Remember whose you are. Nothing but love.

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Most embarassing moment:

In seventh grade I was at an awards ceremony in front of my entire school.  We had about 1500 students in my jr high and they were all gathered.  This was back in the days )1993ish) when everybody rolled their jeans and made them tight at the bottom.  Commonly known as “tight-rolling.”  So I’m walking down to get my award and it went smoothly.  On the way back to my seat however, I decided to do this,cockly  ”I got my award, ew look at me” hop up the bleachers.  In the process of my pimpish jog up the stairs, combined with my rolls on my jeans taking off my circulation, I slipped.  I fell.  The technical legal term here is “moron”. Everyone noticed (or at least I thought). 

Do you ever just have one of those moments of inspiration that isn’t divine?  I had one.  So instead of getting up and going directly to my seat.  I posed.  I put my arms out in dramatic fashion, as if I fell on purpose.  What was I thinking?  In case not everyone noticed, they were all staring at this point.  7th grade. . . acne city, voice change, hormones, not being able to press the last digit when you call that cute girl, the divine realization the deodorant is a gift from God still in operation today. . . I guess it wouldn’t be 7th grade without crap like that happening to us.  I encourage you to share your experiences.  Part of the Kingdom life is laugher. . .actualy that is a huge part of spirituality.  Blessings all.

PS – Not too bad of a movie I’m watching. I just ordered the book Hip-hop Church and was in the mood for some flava.

Still on my calling kick

I just signed up to this “a missioary’s life” blogring and I have been so encouraged about what God is doing in the lives of people all around the world.  The stories of pain, victory, status quo. .  . they are all encouraging to me because I see that the process of sharing life with the world is taking place. 

The tendency however, is to put clergy on this platform/pedestal.  (I wish you could see some of us in action). Most missions agencies really scrutinize its members, ensuring that they have a calling on their lives.  Most of the time I am in agreement with this.  But I have noticed among the people we have served in the Philippines and here on the island this great divide between clergy/missionaries and the laity.  Sometimes it really makes me wonder what in the hell Sunday has to do with Monday.  I mean, honestly, if the divide is this great among people that I am extremely close to, surely the general Christian force has this same notion.  Missionary up here. . . called by God. . .divine.  Laity. . . down there. . . strugging to get my rice for the day. . . I work to feed my family.  It is like a huge dichotomy that seems unreconcilable.  I don’t see how that mentality is biblical.  Why have we passed so many things down through the generations that aren’t necessary?  Youth ministry will continue to be a counseling session correcting false beliefs if we don’t confront such ungodly notions. (pastor on the platform, 18 different levels of pastor in Korea, assumption that pastors pray and fast all day. . . sure we need respect but the wall has been built way too high)

If you look at the whole of Scripture, you can see that we are called to belong, called to be, and called to do.  Maybe all you homeltic freaks could write a 3 points sermon that is irrelevant in your context with that.  Preach it and go stand up on a platform raising your voice with increasing fervency in hopes to get a hearing. Sure God calls people to preach.  Sure he calls people to China.  But God has a very divine calling on all of our lives.  The missionary boy or Mr. bishop that can talk a good line do not have an elevated call.  I wish I could take some of you to the conversations I have.  “O Pastor John, I hope you’re not tired of me emailing you my little concerns.” (it certainly speak for how busy I appear to be.  If I’m so busy that people resopnd like that, I’m just fraeking too busy. Somethings gotta change). Or this comment:  ”for a student of the Word and scholar like yourself, you’ll have no problem respoding to the Da Vinci Code or other such arguments, but for a chump sitting in the pew like me, it might be difficult.”  This is orthodoxy at its worst.  It has been handed down and we do have a big mess on our hands.

Interestingly, career comes from a word meaning “track” or “path” while the word vocation comes from a Latin word meaning “calling.”  So if we switch up the semantics does this liberate us?  Of course not, but certainly the context should change our viewpoint from a man-made path or track to doing and being who God called you to be.  Do most pastors think what their laity do everyday is divine?  Do we really believe that?  Or do we simply want them to get off their butt and help with the children’s ministry?  We talk all this 1 Cor. 12 jazz about having different gifts, then in the same breath, we greet our disciples by saying, “how was your week, another day, another dollar?”  How tragic.  Why preach?  Why talk about the Kingdom with a mentality like this?

If we cannot reconcile this, than people’s understanding of living out the Kingdom of God here and now will be futile.  We are all called to be.  We are all called to do.  And certainly we are all called to belong.  There is something incredibly divine about a mechanic that embraces his calling.  The teacher that realizes the role they have in forming the lives of students is extremely spiritual. The guy in my church that makes 3 bucks and hour making sure the golf green looks good is on a supernatural missions from God. He loves it and God made him for it. It’s time I start beliving and living this stuff. Its a matter of LIFE and death. 

 

 

Called: Why do some people “go” and some people “stay”?

I have been pondering this whole idea and biblical theme of a calling from the Lord.  Having been involved with teenagers and college students for six years now, I have come to the stunning realization that some people do what God tells them to do and some don’t.  I’m spreaking primarily of individual’s call to missions. It’s not like this is a new revelation, but it has just hit me in the last few days.  I could take you to over twenty students I attended college with who had a burning desire to serve God overseas who are not doing that.  Does that mean that they’re defiant, disobedient, and not living under the calling and blessing of God?  I’m not sure.  But certainly the zeal and sense of calling that they had has waned.

So what is it that makes that calling stick?  Some would say that when the calling is authentic, then it results in obedience.  I’m not so sure that is neccessarily true either.  Maybe finding a missions agency is difficult and the process is annoying so they bail out.  Maybe family discourages it.  Maybe people want to make money instead of answering the knock of the Almighty on their door.  Maybe they get married and Mr. or Mrs. Right leads them away from the calling of Jesus into a different life.  Obviously, there are multiple reasons.  What if Charity and I were sidelined because of the above conditions.  How tragic.  I can’t really imagine doing anything else.

I guess the bottom line is choices.  Our loyal friend and kick-butt missionary out here, Sara Echanis, (shes been here four yrs now) sums all this up quite frequently with her comment: “Choices.”  Often we’ll be thinking of someone who was derailed by the cares of life or struggles with their sins and she says the word, “choices”. . . . followed by a long pause and again whispers in disappointment “choices”.  Learning to live with the ramifications of our choices is hard.  I can’t really express what it would be like if we were working in a suburban church, doing youth minstry.  That calling is noble; it needs to happen, but it would not be honoring the call to missions God placed on our lives.  I can’t imagine if my wife was resistant to serve Christ cross-culturally.  What a blessing to not have to fight through all that.

 So many students today are called to missions but only for “x” amount of years, I’ll serve Jesus in Asia for 2 years and then go back to the States and do something else. Or maybe you’ve heard comments like, I think I’m called to missions for a season. I am not saying God can’t or won’t call like this, but it seems so methodical and humanly devised to me. The calling of God isn’t something that we choose.  Christ chose us to be a light to the nations. It’s incredible when you think of it. 

Most days I don’t really feel called. . .its just like anything else. I get up, struggle to find my way, and pray that I walk with Jesus as I should.  Man, I complain a lot about the calling.  I complain that things should be this way  or that way.  I complain that people aren’t on board w/ my ideas.  The list could go on.  Sometimes the suddle predjudices creep in and I judge the locals because they are being who God made them to be.  That isn’t cool at all.  The sense of calling is pushed aside in that moment.  In spite of it all, God keeps me grounded.  I feel supernaturally anchored to the mission.  Though I squirm, push, and demand my own rights on what I think the mission whould look like, Christ keeps me grounded.  The call motivates me and drives my life.  What a wonderful reminder to keep going, to keep journeying, to keep enjoying this sacred life that has been given to me.

We moved

We moved from our rental house to a small room at the Christian school.  All the Filipino staff stay in these apartments but there has never been a married couple staying in these rooms.  It is basically like a hotel room and we will have a communal cooking/kitchen thing going on.  We’ll have no house payment, electricity, phone, or lawn bill now.  We are basically down to a tv, clothes, and books and I’m thankful for the downsizing.  So much of our crap we don’t need and it good to throw it out or give it away. Hopefully this will save us some money.  Finances are the main reason we’re doing this and I really don’t like the idea of a “missions compound”.  Throughout missions history, such housing situations have been risky in terms of deeming the missionaries ineffective.  The good thing is that the living set up is extremely modest, not like the typical mission compound that is tucked way away from reality.  Also, we’re the only Americans living here so we won’t soley be with “our kind.” It was a struggle to give up our little house but I think this is for the best.  Hopefully we’ll be able to bond with the incoming staff and even learn Tagalog.  I’m really hoping when the staff come, we can get them more involved in the community.  I noticed with the staff we had last yr, they were almost afriad to go out in the community and kept very much to the compound.  Hopefully we can break that and form true community and offer true community to the locals.

Other Thoughts

On a different note, we’ll be having our Sunday service in the morning.  I’m preaching out of 2 Corinthians 10, discussing the weaponry with which believers are instructed to fight.  Truly we don’t wage war with the weapons of this world.  I’m excited for what God will do.  Since school is out, I’ve had a lot more time to spend in prayer and meditation on God’s direction.  If anyone reads this before tomorrow, could you simply pray for clarity and receptivity to what God desires for us.  Just this week I started to grasp, to a very small degree, the power and divinity of the proclamation of the Gospel and its obedience lived before people.  These weapons that God has given truly are divine; part of the mystery of the Church and the power of the Gospel is that God takes incredibly weak vessels, making the message and mission divine (wow, I’m really getting into the apostles Paul’s mind. . . how’d you like that run-on?).  Study 2 Cor. 10 sometime and I think you’ll walk away in awe. 

We come home in just a few days.  We leave here the 12th for Saipan.  Fly from Saipan to Japan, Japan to Detroit, Detriot to Evansville.  I can’t believe we’ll finally be home.  I’m so excited that I can’t really put it into words.  I haven’t been around more than ten or twenty white people at one time for over two years.  We’re pretty consumeristic out here, despite the poverty on the island so hopefully the greedy, judgemental trend will stay away.  Right now gas is 3.95/gallon on the island.  But, I’m sure there will still be some major shock.  Like the cost of the churches platform chairs costing more than our entire sanctuary. . . its hard not to be critical.  I just have to keep viewing myself in light of the mercy and grace of God.  We’re all quite  weak and none of us fully have it together.  We struggle to try to figure this whole thing out and we’re on the path, walking.  Some of us have ventured far from the main trail.  Some have created their own way.  Some are very close to the narrow path.  This is all part of living in the Kingdom, a dynasty of which I am priviledged to be a part.