Fitch on Psalm 37

David Fitch put up a good post yesterday. He's at it again, outlining right-thinking for churches and their leaders.

Here, he's talking about when times get tough. Belt-tightening, all that kind of stuff. The pressure is on to keep cash flow going. You've got to pay the bills, or as he puts it here, you've got to get pragmatic. And this is in the context of a missional church, where you're already straining credulity, you're already pushing the envelope. Let's face it, you are not doing things just like the successful church down the block.

He says there are three things about missional churches that ought to help.

• They tend to keep building expenses minimal
• They tend to utilize multiple bi-vocational pastors that can weather difficult economic times
• They tend to live more communally, achieving economies of scale

Then he quotes Psalm 37:1-6 (TM), recommending it for - get this - spiritual formation! This is potent stuff, radical even, a true humility right in the normal practice of a front-line pastor.

I really like David Fitch.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Alan Hirsch on Planting the Gospel

Alan Hirsch has a fine post based on a quote by Dr. D.T. Niles of Sri Lanka. Hirsch suggests that we replace the term church planting with gospel planting. Here is Dr. Niles' quote:

The Gospel is like a seed, and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Israel, a plant that can be called Jewish Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries come to our lands they brought not only the seed of the Gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flowerpot, take out the seed of the Gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.

I think this is quite powerful, and I would suggest that cultural soil is fractal in that this principle of soil applies not just to the largish entity thought of as a culture, but it applies equally as well to each successively smaller sub-culture, right down to the individual level.

I particularly like how Dr. Niles talked about breaking the flowerpot. A lot of rejection we see in evangelism is not an out and out rejection of Jesus, it's a rejection of our flowerpot, the container in which we bring the gospel. A lot of situations where people do not go forward with Jesus are simply flowerpot problems.

Like it or not, we add a lot to the gospel when we share it. We do this without realizing it; it's unintentional, but real nonetheless. I think Hirschy is encouraging us to plant the gospel as cleanly as possible, enabling the hearer to really accept it, embed it into their lives.

Powered by ScribeFire.

contamination video

This is a really great video over at small ritual.

grace - contamination 1 from steve collins on Vimeo.

What do you think?

Powered by ScribeFire.

Radical Humility 2

Let's look in Philippians 2, verses 5-8 (TM).

• "Let this mind be in you..." This is an invitation to a kind of incarnation, this mind "... which was also in Christ Jesus..." It's also a doorway into His humility.
• "...Who, being in the form of God..." This echoes:
•  Paul's words in Hebrews 1:3 (TM) where he calls Jesus "the express image" of God.
• John's words in John 1:1 (TM) where it says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
• Jesus' words concerning Himself in John 14:9 (TM) where He tells Philip something like, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father."
  
• "...did not consider it robbery to be equal with God..." This is a really difficult translation. I don't think the NKJ does it justice. NIV says, "...did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." which seems much more clear. This seems (to me) to reveal so much about the Lord's humility:
  • "...equality with God..." - This is Jesus. Equal. With. God.
  • "...did not consider..." - Jesus had a choice, an opinion. There's no hubris in Him. 
  • "...something to be grasped..." - For one thing, Jesus could step out of and back into these privileges at will. In Matthew 4:6 (TM), we see through Satan's quote of Psalm 91:11, 12 (TM) that this is true. Through this sober self-assessment (TM), the Lord saw Himself as He truly is and acted confidently based on that.
• "...became obedient to the point of death..." - Here we see this extreme form of humility resulting in an absolute form of obedience. No wonder that Jesus labels obedience the truest mark of love (TM).

Powered by ScribeFire.

Quick Look: Psalm 146

Let's take a quick look at Psalm 146 (TM).

• "...Do not put your trust in princes..." This is not in contradiction to the radical humility of Psalm 141 (TM) where it says, "...Let the righteous strike me..." and indicates God's person, the righteous, acting on God's behalf - the trust is really in God, resulting in our submission to God's correction through even imperfect man. Here in Psalm 146 it simply says not to put your trust in princes, meaning don't put your trust in any man, even those at the top of the food chain.
• "...on that very day their plans come to nothing..." This is why you can't put your trust in them: they won't necessarily be around to put their plans into action or make their stated intentions reality.
• "...Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob..." This is in contrast to princes.
• "...the Maker of heaven and earth..." This emphasizes the scope of His power, infinite, and the length of His days, without beginning or end.
• "...the Lord, who remains faithful forever..." Here's a killer reason for putting your trust in God: His faithfulness, His loyalty. Power alone isn't sufficient criteria. The very powerful might be completely indifferent to you, or worse, might be bent on your destruction, but the Lord has pledged Himself to us, and His word is true.
• "...Who executes justice for the oppressed..." I love this justice stuff, and so apparently does God. It's what defines the good guys versus the bad guys, even though we now know that there aren't necessarily any strictly good guys other than the Lord, but this is the criteria for trying to be part of the good guys' team: 1) identification with the oppressed - we've all been there, even if we're only oppressed by our own foolishness, and 2) an interest in basic decency and fairness, a desire to treat people well and live in community with them.
• "...The LORD sets prisoners free..." Notice how similar this language is to Isaiah 61 (TM), which is the passage Jesus read from in Luke 4 (TM) when announcing the beginning of His ministry. All this is named here as appropriate reasons for trusting the Lord instead of man and it has to do with His stated purpose for being on earth. I think that's a slam dunk. It's convincing; it's compelling. Folks go for self-help or personal growth all the time, with a fraction of these prospects.
• "...the LORD gives sight to the blind..." Talk about personal growth. I need this. I'm so blind to all kinds of things - the truth about myself being at the top of the list. The Lord is worth of your trust because He shows you how things really are.
• "...the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down..." Do you feel beaten or bruised or just really, really tired? He lifts you up if you allow it. This is a picture of restoration. Has the weight of whatever it is you've been carrying gotten just too heavy? The Lord lifts you up. "Come to me," says Jesus (TM). "Cast all your cares on Him," Peter tells us (TM).
• "...the LORD loves the righteous..." The Lord loves those who join Him. He loves everyone else, too, I believe, it's just that this is how you allow His work in your life. You join up.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Radical Humility

Brenton Brown has a song called "Humble King." In it he says, "You are the God of the wounded / The friend of the weak / You wash the feet of the weary / Embrace the ones in need / Oh I want to be like You, Jesus / To have this heart in me / You are the God of the humble / You are the humble King."

In an earlier post, I was talking about the radical humility that occurs when we tell the Lord we will accept correction, not only from the Lord Himself, but even from His people, the righteous. This is all the more remakable for the knowledge that these people will be hypocrites, failures, people coming up short personally in the very same areas in which they are giving advice. In essence, people just like us.

This takes some kind of nerve, some kind of desperation, or, most likely, a little of both. Desperation, because we must be desperate to not isolate ourselves, not cocoon, not withdraw to lick our wounds in private. That's the first instinct for so many of us when trouble comes or when we've failed. We're embarrassed. We retreat.

Nerve, because not only are we not retreating, but going public - not just going public, but submitting to the kind (or not so kind) words of the very ones from whom we wanted to hide. It takes some kind of nerve, and some kind of desperation, to stay a course like that.

Paul instructs us to admonish one another in both Romans 15:14 (TM) and Colossians 3:16 (TM), and that requires this kind of humility. I like the fact that love covers a host of sins (TM), because that's what is needed for this to work. We have to be a community of humility in order to receive this kind of input from each other.

Required In Both Directions

Radical humility is required for the one giving the correction as well. Jesus warns us against hypocrisy when He tells us to remove the log (TM) from our own eye in order to deal with the speck in our brother's eye. I think it's noteworthy that He doesn't say just stick to your own eye and leave your brother's eye out of it. That's what generally happens when we manage not to meddle. We say, "it's none of my business." Jesus, however, calls us into community and instructs us on humility.

Blue Parakeet: Chap 3 - 5 Shortcuts

Chapter 3 is really good! Scot outlines five shortcuts that we typically take in reading the Bible. Before I give them, here's a kind of structure for all five.

Overview/Generalization

• we see God in some exclusive way or system - the emphasis is shifted, changed
• our relationship with God is determined by this system
• this leads us to hide something and lie to cover it
• the better way is to be non-exclusive, i.e. get over our need to have everything explained

Okay, now on to the details...

Shortcut 1: morsels of law

• sees God as cranky, impatient, judgemental - the emphasis is on His righteousness
• our relationship with God becomes dependent on our being good
• this leads us to hide our behavior and lie about it
• the better way is found in the writer of Psalm 119 - the law leads him to deeply love the Lawgiver

Shortcut 2: morsels of blessings

• takes a lot of those blessings out of context - sees God as a doting grandmother
• our relationship with God becomes diagnosed by "are we being blessed?"
• this leads us to hide our circumstances and lie about them
• the better way is to read the entire story, seeing the ups and downs

Shortcut 3: inkblots

• sees God as we see ourselves - emphasis becomes justifying our story
• our relationship with God is defined by tweaking the facts
• this leads us to hide non-supporting facts and lie about their existence
• the better way is to admit that I can't explain the mysterious

Shortcut 4: mapping God's mind

• sees God as finite, understandable - the emphasis becomes categorization
• our relationship with God is defined by how smart we are
• this leads us to hide our doubts and lie about our certainties
• the better way is to admit that we don't know

Shortcut 5: maestros

• sees God from a chosen POV - emphasis is on code words more than relationship
• our relationship with God is defined by our personal, particular Biblical view
• this leads us to hid parts of scripture and lie about their significance
• the better way is to take it all in without ignoring things that don't fit - of course to do that, you have to admit that your favored way of viewing things is unable to explain everything

More about each of these later.