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Breaking Narrative Cycles

Is a broken society shaping our conversation? 

I’ve noticed we have Narrative Cycles 

A narrative cycle goes like this: 

Tragedy strikes. We instantly join the narrative of a divided, political world instead of speaking as representatives of a Kingdom of peace and perfect wisdom 

It makes me wonder how much of current social and news media content shows up in our narrative versus the theology of the Kingdom of God. 

When a shooting happens we instantly start a left/right narrative cycle. Gun control versus 2nd amendment rights. The narrative cycle kicks in. 

It’s almost always met with overly simplistic solutions that never seem to lead us anywhere and certainly aren’t producing change or progress in our world. 

One side of the conversation instantly goes to gun control. My heart grieves for the victims of these shootings. I have to believe we can put in practical regulations that would help. 

The problem is laws don’t always get enforced and criminals certainly don’t abide by laws.

Also, we are experiencing a government that is increasingly overreaching its role and removing rights. The rights of people especially those of parents and, in some instances around the country, the right of religious freedom has been challenged. My personal trust of our government right now goes about as far as I could throw a sumo wrestler holding 2 bowling balls. 

The other side of the conversation instantly goes to protecting our 2nd amendment rights. As stated before I’m concerned with the infringement of Governmental control as well. 

None of that negates a needed conversation on respecting rights, but putting in common sense legislative change. Such as pushing back the age of gun ownership, adding mental health into the equation as to whether or not someone should lose the right of gun ownership. 

Both sides of the narrative deserve to be discussed. However, the narrative cycle avoids any complexity of the issues. These two issues in themselves in no way reflect the complexity of the problem we are dealing with. 

This isn’t exhaustive, but there are two other big pieces of our civilization that in my mind contribute to the degradation of our community. It needs to be a part of the narrative from a kingdom perspective. 

The first is simply faith. Post modern philosophy has been applied to our society and it is leading to the deprivation of the soul. Souls deprived of hope and minds void of truth dive deep into the darkest places of humanity. A hopeless and empty mind is the devils playground. Faith is where we find purpose and purpose makes the pain of life make sense. Without purpose young men are taking their personal pain out on our nation in the most painful way possible. 

The second is family. The building block of nations are its families. We were created to have two sources of family. The first is a natural family and the second is a faith family. It’s from these two God given sources we discover an identity. A purposeless soul absent of identity is a frustrated and lonely person. What boils out of that climate of frustration is rage and outbursts of anger. 

I don’t have all the answers on how this applies on a national or even global scale. The simplistic answer is build the family unit around faith in Jesus. Those families become pillars of a spiritual faith family called the church. 

That still leaves a lot of questions around how we move in that direction and I don’t have all the solutions. However, I have to believe breaking the narrative cycle we are stuck in has to be a good starting point. 

We break the narrative cycle when we don’t simply point left or right, but we point up to kingdom principles that transcend politics. I don’t believe we should avoid politics. It’s the opposite. I believe we should bring kingdom principles to the political narrative. 

I love you. I’m so sorry for the pain people are experiencing. We are literally groaning and waiting for the day of redemption. In the meantime, I pray our communication will be echos from a kingdom that is not of this world. 

———

The Boundary and the Blessing

One of the buzzwords of this cultural moment is something called deconstruction. Deconstruction is a complicated word that has a myriad of meanings when applied to different aspects of society. Rather than identify and comment on the different shades of deconstruction I would rather look at what makes it such a draw.

What’s the attraction to deconstruction?

It’s because demolition is easier than construction.

In other words, it’s easier to tear down than it is to build up.

Almost anyone can go in and start bludgeoning and gutting an environment. Construction requires training, skill, consistency, learning, and growing.

If you want to build a better life or a better world for that matter it’s best to not haphazardly deconstruct values without understanding what those values uphold. That’s why the Bible tells us to use caution before removing ancient landmarks. Sometimes we need to deconstruct traditions that were man made and have run their course. However, sometimes we don’t need to remove a boundary that God placed that is literally holding God’s plan together for our lives. Maybe the value you see as a boundary that seems to be holding you back is actually God’s goodness holding your blessing in.

Before you go full on Chip and Joanna with a sledgehammer to your belief system maybe take Paul’s advice to Timothy.

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭2:15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Before you deconstruct and start removing ancient landmarks all willy nilly like ponder these 3 points on how to develop a strong faith structure that will ultimate guard God’s best for your life.

1. Study the Bible diligently.

2. Be skilled in basic Bible theology. Skilled, as in able to articulate scriptures that settle basic doctrine.

3. Seek God’s approval not culture’s approval.

Let point 3 be an honest evaluation. Who’s approval are you looking for? Sometimes the boundary we want to deconstruct is actually the blessing God has established to help us.

5 Things I’m Feeling Right Now – Part 3

3. Church is becoming and will become more experiential

I believe that by necessity church will increasingly become more experiential. By that I mean people will need to feel something before they can know something. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, in fact it’s the opposite, but we are living in dark days. I’ll get to the positive and faith filled perspective in a minute. For now let me unpack the dark days.

People are in spiritual darkness with little awareness of the light. Basic biblical understanding that was present in previous generations even among the non religious is now scarce to be found. What was once a battle of beliefs is now a battle of understanding and knowledge itself. By the way I think it has always taken the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of the spiritually blind. However, I believe the blindness is deeper than it’s ever been. Our culture is no longer differing from Christianity in what it believes, but also in how it believes. I’ll write soon about this phenomenon, but it permeates modern thought. Once we all operated from the same operational system, but with different applications. Today we are operating on completely different operational systems.

The deeper how of knowledge puts self as the center of truth. To stand and try to proclaim the Gospel is met with a person who believes you are sharing your truth, but it differs from their truth. In true human form the person believes their truth supersedes your truth even though the truth you are proclaiming is the truth of God’s word. There is very little idea of truth being something that is other or outside of a person that needs to be discovered. This all gets very confusing, but we are not battling over what is right and wrong, we are battling for who gets to determine what right and wrong even is. The center of truth is the center of self which is problematic. A person can hear the truth and internalize it and produce the opposite of the truth. For instance, God loves you is the truth. When that truth is shared with someone who sees self as the center of truth it is translated God loves me so there is little reason to change or deal with the sin that is destroying my life. After all, I’m the one who determines what is sin and what isn’t

All of this to say that people have to experience something outside of themselves. The “other” that we have as the church is the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s the experience of God in the power of the Spirit that creates the opportunity for light to begin to penetrate the darkness. Think Paul on the road to Damascus. Completely aware of the teachings of Christianity and completely opposed to them until an experience with the power of God that simultaneously blinded his natural eyes and opened his spiritual eyes. People need an experience with the power of the Holy Spirit in order to have their heart opened to receive the truth of God’s word. It’s the experience with God’s presence that creates an awareness of something real outside of themselves. Some of this is generational. It’s different for my age and older. We were given an operational system that said truth was out there and need to be discovered. We were and many still are looking for the truth and once we see it we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes of understanding. However, there is a younger generation that has a different OS. Like Paul they will need an encounter with the presence of God before being able to be aware that there is a truth to know and be seen. We certainly shouldn’t give up the practical preaching and teaching of the truth of God’s word, we just need Holy Spirit moments in our services more than ever before.

Here’s the incredibly positive part of the cultural moment we are living in as the church. Once people experience the presence of God there is an openness to the truth of God’s word. The walls of unbelief crash and the truth of God’s word replaces the lies the enemy has built into people’s lives. I know it sounds cliche, but the darker the night the brighter the light. There is darkness and there are spiritual strongholds, but we have this wildcard called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will make the difference. The Holy Spirit will build the church through God’s people. The Holy Spirit will lead and guide people into all truth. Lifeless and spiritless expressions of church will most likely gravitate towards error. Churches alive by the Holy Spirit will turn cities upside down. Let’s be seekers of God’s presence and power. It’s not really anything new. We’ve never been able to do any of this without God’s power and presence anyway. It’s just a fresh perspective on what’s always been our reality. We have no existence without God’s presence.

5 Things I’m Feeling Right Now – Part 2

I don’t know if I will be able to articulate what I’m feeling about this second thing as well as I would like. I’m nervous and trepidatious to even think it, must less to put pen to paper or whatever it’s called now that we type words and post publicly. Here’s the second thing I’m feeling:

2. There will be a wealth shift

I believe there will be and is perhaps already happening a shift of wealth and property. Again, it’s difficult for me to articulate what I’m feeling, but perhaps it will help to define at first what I’m not talking about. There is an eschatological belief in some circles that money and finances will transfer from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God at the end of the age. If my understanding of this belief is correct, I’m not sure it is, it comes from the idea of Israel plundering Egypt before making their exit. Scriptures like Revelation 11:15 which states the kingdom of the world have become the Kingdom of our God help reinforce this view. Also, Proverbs 13:22 which states “the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous.”

For the sake of clarification I’m not advocating that there will be a mystical transfer of funds in the world as a great sign of the end times. I’m not for sure that Joe Blow sitting in the church pew is going to be flush with cash anytime soon just because he loves Jesus, Momma, and America too. I’m also not advocating that merely believing for money by pulling an imaginary lever of faith and chanting “money cometh” is going to produce those dollar, dollar bills y’all.

My feeling is more nuanced than that. On a personal level I believe the wealth transfer will happen because the principles of God’s kingdom are far superior to the value system of the world. As long as the USA is a capitalist and free market society there will be money to be made. Increasingly the values of the world are oppression, entitlement, and victim hood. The idea of oppression being celebrated means we are championing the oppressed instead of championing those who overcome oppression. Entitlement is the sense of being owed something. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life and that is no one owes us anything and an entitled attitude does not lead to blessing. The reason these values are being promoted is because the wealth of our nation is being taken for granted. We’ve had wealth so long we don’t really understand how wealthy we are and we assume it will always be there. If there are those that succeed in transforming the economic systems of our nation and removing the ideas of personal property and individual rights then the wealth we’ve known will begin to dry up. However, my hope is in Christianity as a whole. The principles of God’s word teach us to be overcomers, more than conquerors, to take personal responsibility for our lives, to value and be appreciative of the things we have, and here’s the big one, be generous. In a world that says everyone owes me, the Bible teaches a principle that releases blessing and it’s the principle of generosity. Again, the principles of God’s word are vastly superior to the ways of the world. Here’s short list of what I believe it takes to be set apart and ultimately blessed:

1. Take personal responsibility for your life

It seems every week there is a legislation that is promised to solve all of the problems of the world. Nearly every week there is someone complaining about Big Business and those that have extreme wealth. The sooner we realize that the Government and other people’s money aren’t probably going to make me successful, the sooner we can start working on improving our own circumstances

2. Work hard at whatever you do

Have a Joshua mentality. If you are sold out by your brother’s to Potiphar’s house then go ahead and work with excellence. If you are betrayed by Potiphar and get sent to prison then shine in prison. The Bible is full of stories of people like Joshua, like Daniel, like David who were given extremely adverse circumstances yet had a prevailing and overcoming attitude even in hard times. The company you work for, the city you are trying to start a business in, the university you teach at may feel like Potiphar’s house, Babylon, and Saul’s Palace all rolled into one. Work hard, be excellent, stay in faith. God’s favor is on you. The world that hates you will also be inexplicably attracted to you because of the principles you live by.

3. Steward your money in a biblical way

There are a ton of resources out there. My best recommendation is to attend Financial Peace University. Many churches offer it as a small group, but you can also find ways to participate online. Jesus had more to say about money than he did heaven and hell. It’s not that heaven and hell are unimportant topics to discuss it’s just that’s how important money is. Maybe Jesus talked about it so much because the direction of your money in a lot of ways sets the direction of your life. When you have a God focused, heaven directed, biblical view of money your life will follow.

4. Practice the principle of the tithe and be generous

I can’t passionately type this enough. Don’t take the bait of entitlement. Don’t take the bait that church only wants your money and it’s just a corporate power structure that needs to be deconstructed. The windows of heaven still open when we tithe. The hinges aren’t broken just our culture. Tithing isn’t an escape all. You still have to work, endure, and handle money well, but the blessing of God will find your life.

5. Get out of debt (See number 3)

The borrower is slave to the lender according to the Bible. One of the ways you can escape the victim hood mentality of the world is to be debt free.

6. Make solid investments

Believe bigger than just paying bills. Think legacy, think blessing your children’s children. I’ll clean this up for the kids, but you need some “screw you” money. When your company demands you do something unbiblical or be fired, you need some screw you money. When a business says they won’t allow you to work with them because of your biblical beliefs (literally the spirit of antichrist at work), you need some screw you money. Even when schools and universities reject our children because of their values, we need some screw you money. That’s money to be able to take care of ourselves, start our own business, and build our own schools and universities. God’s given us the power to do it.

In conclusion. Is this a blog or a book? Who knows? The last thing I “feel” in regards to this is that property matters. I have a strong feeling to the point of conviction that churches need to physically own property in the US. We need to take physical terra firma. As believers we need to give towards buildings and properties. As leaders we need to cast vision for churches owning property and land. The church doesn’t need to be at the mercy of another organization over whether or not it can meet. To truly be free to preach the Gospel we need to hold the keys to the facilities we meet in. It’s not wasteful to build houses of worship for Jesus. It’s not poor stewardship to put buildings in the middle of cities that are solely dedicated to expanding the Kingdom of God. We need growing, thriving churches owning property in the hearts of every community. Part of this shift will be churches merging with other churches. I believe God is serious about his church and will sovereignly begin to move on churches that are struggling and unproductive to join with churches that are experiencing growth and revival. I see it as a type of pruning in order to cultivate more fruit production. The days of churches gathering together as denominations are gone, but the days of churches being international incorporations are here and still on the way. Don’t give up on gathering, and don’t think “the 4 walls” don’t matter. When Jesus brings a New Heaven and a New Earth the meek really will inherit the earth. Until then, churches owning property, Christians owning business, believers owning culture, and Jesus owning the hearts of those that own all those things is the establishment of God’s kingdom in our nation.

That’s a lot. Thank you if you stayed with me. I’m not taking a doctrinal or theological stance on this. Just sharing some thoughts and feelings. I’m excited to share part 3 with you soon.

5 Things I’m Feeling Right Now

As the title might imply this will be a series of posts that are based on things that I’m feeling. Please note the title isn’t “5 things I”m certain of right now.” These are things that have been rolling around in my heart and mind for quite sometime. Maybe that’s me hedging my bets, taking the cowards way out, or being insecure. You can judge me accordingly, but the title is an honest assessment of what I’m working out in my own personal thoughts. These will also probably be lengthy. Heck, this introduction is longer than most blogs and I haven’t even gotten to what I want to say just yet. If you are looking for brevity this probably isn’t the place, but I do have somethings in my heart that I hope you will engage, ponder, and possibly dialogue with me.

Here’s the first thing I’m feeling:

1. Excellence Matters More Than Ever Before

One of the most popular illustrations the Bible uses to describe people is sheep. From the Old Testament to the New Testament the gathering of people and even the idea of an isolated person getting lost or scattered brings multiple uses of the illustration. We are the sheep of his pastures. Leaders are often referred to as shepherds, and God self describes himself as our Great Shepherd. It’s almost a little insulting when you consider the IQ level of sheep. They aren’t known as the brightest or most intelligent of the animal kingdom. The point of the illustration probably isn’t to insult our intelligence, but to highlight the flock mentality of people. Sheep function best when gathered and flocked together under the faithful care of a leader known as a shepherd. This may surprise you or even shock you, but I’m not a shepherd by vocation. So this is where I will direct our thoughts more to a spiritual application versus an actual study of sheep and their innate habits.

In a spiritual sense sheep gather where they are cared for and protected. We, people and not sheep, it’s 2021 so I felt compelled to clarify. We tend to go where we are valued, loved, cared for and protected. You could say we herd where we are heard. We gather where there is an acceptance placed on us. For this reason I believe excellence is a virtue that will win the day. Something happened during the height of the Global Pandemic. In the name of safety extreme inconveniences were placed on people. I live in Southwest Florida where the temperature consistently hovers around the same temp as Satan’s radiator. During the height of the pandemic it wasn’t unusual seeing people standing in line before being allowed in a store to make a purchase like they were in line at Disney awaiting a thrill ride on Space Mountain. Sweating profusely while they waited. Many, many rules were placed on people. I have no explanation for this, but many stores and restaurants seemed dirty and unkempt. Most likely that was due to being short staffed, but it also feels like its more than that. Recently my family and I took a day to experiment with a situation. I was on hold with an airline that I have been loyal to for many years. We stayed on hold for as long as we possibly could. It became a family event as I had to frequently respond to text messages and return phone calls from a family members phone. We took turns holding the phone and listening to the hold music and intermittent messages about how valuable I was and how important my call was to them. We made it over 5 hours and never got anyone on the phone before finally having to surrender to defeat and end the call. I had so much time invested a little piece of my heart broke off when my son hit the button to end the call.

Here’s why I think excellence matters like never before. It feels like people aren’t being cared for. Whether it’s being judged harshly at their work place for what should be private and personal decisions. Being misinformed, sometimes it seems intentionally, by political or health leaders. Even companies and stores whose revenue is generated from customers and customer service have no problem placing burdens on people spending their hard earned cash with them.

My suspicion is that we’re losing our value of people. Which is why I believe the Bible uses terms like sheep and shepherds. Gathering people and caring for them is how God wants us to value one another. Excellence plays a role in this because excellence is how we honor God, but it’s how we care for people. Excellence is our practical expression of love for people. In other words, we don’t just say we love you. We show it by having a clean campus, a well orchestrated service, a safe and orderly kids ministry and the list could go on and on. Excellence comes from understanding your worth, the value of what you do, and the value of who you do it for. Ultimately all church is an expression of worship to Jesus so obviously we want to do our best. In addition, we need to see the value in the sheep God is sending our way. People are lost, broken, hurting, confused, fearful, lonely, and many times taken for granted.

Excellence shows that we care for people. Our attention to excellence shows that we see and value people. Excellence shows that we don’t take people for granted.

Gathering is important. It’s actually more than important, it’s vital. We are compared to sheep because like sheep we gather. Even people who are anti community and anti society will form a community and society to be anti community and anti social with. Let’s care for the flock with diligence. Caring for the spiritual needs, but also the practical needs of people. I really feel like the role of a shepherd in these days is to make sure people don’t feel like a burden or a problem. Let’s see the value in people. For church it’s far more than “customer service” it’s shepherding well the broken and hurting of our world. I truly believe the sheep will gather where shepherds care for and protect them.

Stay connected for the second thing I’m feeling in this season.

Little + Little = More and More

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. – 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)

I wish there was a transformation event. You know, a place you go for about 14 hours. At the end of a long and exhausting day, you come out bleary eyed, clothes wrinkled, hair in disarray, but you are completely transformed. Not a little transformed, just completely transformed. No more toxic thoughts, no more being prone to succumbing to temptation, complete control over your tongue. If that were actually possible I would start the first transformation event and I would charge a hefty fee because I bet people would be standing in line to get perfected.

Alas, there is no single event like that. Transformation isn’t one service, one conference, one prayer sesh (abbreviation for session cause I’m cool like that), or one worship moment. I once heard a lady say that she had heard enough sermons to last her a lifetime. The problem was based on her attitude, her commitment to Jesus, and overall spiritual health, my guess is that she needed at least one more. It’s not all of the sermons we’ve heard, it’s all of the sermons we’ve heard plus the next one that keeps us focused on Jesus, his mission, and our purpose in his plans. Transformation doesn’t happen instantly, but it does happen. Paul said it happens by going from glory to glory. In other words, transformation is a journey and not a destination. That may feel frustrating because we will never “arrive” on this journey called life. However, I do have some good news. God isn’t a going backwards kind of God. He takes us from glory to glory and may I add glory to glory to glory. God is relentlessly moving forward. Glory to glory isn’t a process of frustration of never arriving, it’s actually God’s plan for progress and abundance in your life.

Little + Little = More and More

Unveil – Paul says the veil is taken away when we turn to Christ. It’s a powerful picture of authenticity and vulnerability. So many times we hide. We hide our sin. We hide our shame. In the context of this scripture Paul is referencing those who are blinded by a veil of religion. The cure to this blindness is turning to Christ. The veil is removed. We can own our story in the light of his grace. Paul writes, “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” When we lose the veil, God’s presence comes, and we have access to grace, hope, faith, confidence, blessing, purpose, and an infinite list of God’s goodness. We can’t transform behind a veil.

Behold – Paul says what we behold is what we become. If you focus on something long enough you will start to look like what you behold. Transformation isn’t an event, it’s a focus. That’s why my lucrative dream of a high priced transformation event will sadly and unfortunately never come true. After 14 hours of transformation people would leave and ultimately slowly become what they behold. If they behold politics they would become politically driven. If they behold the world, they will slowly become like the world. That’s why, out of all of the sermons we’ve heard, the most important one is the next one. Out of all of the times we’ve spent praying, our most important prayer time is the next one. The most important church service is the one this weekend. We may not be completely changed, but little by little, we are going from glory to glory. Prayer = Progress. Church = Progress. Worship = Progress. God’s Word = Progress. And all of God’s paths drip with abundance. Little by little God is taking you into more and more.

Little + Little = More and More

Is Church Gaining or Losing Importance?

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:23-25‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Let me start by saying I love church. I’m very pro church. I pastor a church, my family attends church, and I spend my week working at a bar… just kidding, it’s church. I’m better because of church. Left alone I would simmer in my dysfunction. The friction that comes in serving and worshipping with people is like iron sharpening iron. It makes me better. It’s also God’s plan for my life and yours as well. My ambition is to build God’s house also known as the church. You can talk bad about my wife, you can mock my children, you can make fun of me, but don’t talk negatively about the church. Again, it’s only jokes. Please don’t do any of that. One of my favorite Christian authors who will remain nameless once wrote about how he no longer needed church. It was ironic that after selling books to the church, booking preaching engagements in churches, and speaking at church conferences that built a global market for him and a huge revenue stream that he no longer needed the church. It fired me up. The author is still successful, but I would make the case there is a difference in being successful and having eternal impact. It’s funny how we can get dislodged from the foundation of our faith. I know Jesus is the cornerstone, but we are also built on the apostles and prophets and all of those that have come before us. Our desire should be to faithfully stand on the foundation built for us, while building higher for the next generation to go farther. After all, Jesus isn’t coming back for a fragmented and isolated group of believers, he’s not coming back for para church ministries, or consultants, itinerate ministries, or Facebook groups. He’s coming back for the church.

The admonishment of the writer of Hebrews is that church would grow more important as time goes on, not less. In a digital age of disconnectedness we need church more than ever before and we need it more frequently.

Here’s 4 Important Things to Know About Church:

  1. The Bible doesn’t give us a day, it gives us a priority

People love to argue about stuff. When you step into the world of religion that love can get expounded. One of the things people love to argue over is when you should go to church. There is actually an entire denomination built on the idea that church has to be on a specific day. The Bible tells us the disciples gathered on the first day of the week. For us that would be a Sunday. Our church has services on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t believe the Bible mandates a specific day to worship. We can get together and worship anytime we choose. I don’t believe the early church got together on the first day of the week because one day was better than the other or was more ordained by God than another day. It just speaks to the priority of church. Church comes first. It comes before work. It comes before hobbies. It comes before other things we spend our time. It’s important to God that we gather from our lives, to gather with each other, for the purpose of worship, praise, thanksgiving, and declaring the Word of God.

2. It’s difficult to stay connected to Christ and be disconnected from His church

The Bible speaks of connectedness. Jesus is the head of the church, we the church, together are the body of Christ. Only serial killers like disconnected bodies. I guess what I am saying is don’t be a serial killer. Also, we haven’t grown to the point that we don’t need each other. We haven’t matured to the point that we don’t need leadership. We haven’t arrived at a point that we are okay on our own. My spiritual health is directly connected to my connectedness. Jesus is the vine and there is no life outside of him. I’m not saying it’s impossible and there are certainly extenuating circumstances like sickness that cause people to not be able to gather, but it is difficult to stay connected to Christ and be disconnected from His body.

3. Church is the Battleground of God’s Kingdom

When the church prays the kingdom advances. When the church grows the kingdom expands. When the church worships the darkness trembles. When the church acts the kingdom is there. Yes, you can certainly do all of those things by yourself, but we are better together. We can accomplish infinitely more together than we can alone. Jesus talked about at least 2 or 3 being gathered in His name. The writer of Ecclesiastes talks about 2 being better than 1 because they get a better return for their labor. It’s hard to have a global perspective when you only have private devotion. A personal prayer and worship life is powerful for you, but a corporate prayer and worship life is powerful for the world we live in.

4. God Fulfills Those Who Fill His House

Hebrews 10 tells us that encouragement and motivation happen when we get together. It flows between people who come together on a consistent basis to serve, worship, give, and preach the Word of God. God has a way of building those who build his house. He fulfills those who fill his house. I personally think it’s because you are never closer to the heart of God than when you are working in the House of God.

The church isn’t losing importance. It’s gaining importance with each passing day. The one thing Jesus said he would build is his church. Let’s commit our lives to building, leading, loving, and serving God’s great church.

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Woe Is Me

Woe Is Me – Isaiah 6:5

Let’s face it. Part of the role of a Prophet in the Old Testament was to say woe is them. It was certainly part of Isaiah’s assignment as he would give admonishment and warning to people through his prophetic gifting. It was an assignment of prophet’s of old to point out when people had strayed from the path and were off course with where God would have them to be.

Woe is them was the message until Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up with the train of his robe filling the temple. There was something about that encounter that shifted his narrative. It was no longer woe is them, but the message shifted to woe is me.

That’s the power of the presence of God. It changes our awareness.

We live in a culture that is hyper aware of the faults and frailty of others. I suppose we’ve always been self righteous. It’s our tendency and the default setting of our souls. Our thoughts originate with us and are very familiar to us, so how can they be wrong, right? We have the innate ability to justify the words we say, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. That would otherwise be known as self justification. With the advent of social media and a device to keep us constantly connected to an online world we now have access to express our thoughts on every subject known to man. A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a word called tolerance that was celebrated. The idea was to tolerate and be kind to people who were different than you. Tolerance was a novel idea I suppose. Like a whale breeching the surface with mouth agape engulfing anything in its path, the behemoth of social media and our own self righteousness consumed that idea in one gulp.

Today, it’s not uncommon on social media, the news media, or probably our own conversations to find out what is wrong with “them.” You can use any medium you like to impute wrongdoing on a person who is different than you. It’s funny how tolerance has led us to extreme intolerance. Funny in an ironic way and not an “lol” sort of way. The other day the phrase “fake Christian” was trending on Twitter. Enough people in our nation felt self righteous enough to condemn christianity as a whole. The debate was centered around a political issue of our day. It’s an important issue for sure. The problem is the term “fake Christian” was trending the same day as an event called “serve day.” A day when thousands of churches from all over the USA and even the world go out of the four walls of the church to simply serve in their communities. Thousands of teams went to paint, clean, serve food, provide clothes, sit with the elderly, and in general just meet the needs of the hurting, lonely, and poor. Yet, feeling self righteous and self justified, christians and non christians alike, chose one political talking point to paint the whole of Christianity as fake.

So, people who can point out problems are a dime a dozen. Solutions are priceless. Don’t you get annoyed by the person who can find all of the problems, but never come up with the solution? What is the solution for self righteousness in the world at large, in our own personal world, in our phones, and in our hearts?

Here’s my offer for a solution whether its the self righteousness of the world or a religious type of self righteousness. We need the presence of God. Like Isaiah, we need the presence of God to bring self awareness. When we’ve been in God’s presence it shifts our narrative from woe is them to woe is me. It shifts the focus off of what’s wrong with them and begins to bring awareness of what’s wrong with me. Our righteousness dominates until we are in the presence of His righteousness. In a world of intolerance, its the presence of God that brings grace. God didn’t condemn Isaiah, he helped him with his unrighteousness. The presence of God is the presence of grace. Without God’s presence we live in an intolerant and cruel world that looks for the wrong in others. With the presence of God we live in a grace filled world that sees our own ineptness and the sufficiency of God’s grace to help us.

Here’s what God’s presence does:

  1. It creates self awareness.

The presence of God illuminates our lives with a clear picture of our deficiency. It brings us back to a place of God awareness and self awareness that changes our message from woe is them to woe is me.

2. It shifts the narrative from “me versus them” to “me versus me.”

We live in a culture where each group is fighting for the rights of their own particular group. Not realizing that we are splintering ourselves into a place of disunity, distrust, and anger. As the pastor of a church I never want the narrative of our church to be us against them. As a church we don’t exist against the world, we exist for the world. Separated from it? You betcha. Taking on the characteristics of it? Not in a million years. But here for it. Absolutely. It’s God’s presence that brings the kind of grace that says “I’m not here to fight against you, I’m here to fight for you.”

3. It reminds us of who is really in control.

We fight over authority, government positions, and places of leadership. Isaiah was worried about a vacant thrown in Israel, what was revealed to him was Israel’s thrown is vacant, but heaven’s thrown is not. Fear drives us to hate. Faith and confidence drives us to grace. God’s on his thrown. He will vindicate justice. I don’t have to lash out in fear. I can reach out in grace because God’s still in control and God’s still on the thrown.

If someone will please play a warm pad on the keyboard I will bring this to a close. When was the last time you were in the presence of God? Not in the presence of hype, not in the presence of religion, but in the presence of God. Here’s my best solution for a hurting and subsequently angry world. Find a place of worship. Don’t just stand and observe singing this weekend at church, worship and engage God’s presence. Find a personal and private place of worship and prayer before the weekend. Are you angry at the world, angry at liberals, angry at conservatives, angry at your spouse, angry at your kids? Go to God’s presence. Stay there until you say woe is me.

How to Spot Pride

I was signing up for a coaching group a few years ago. The desire was to improve in my leadership. The group was great and I learned a lot. However, there was a questionnaire to fill out so the group facilitators could get to know you and find out what areas of your leadership you needed help with. One of the questions on the form was “what are your blindspots?” My snarky response was “I don’t know. That’s why I’m joining this group.” We all have blindspots and the problem with blindspots is that they are problems we don’t know we have. I heard Andy Stanley say once that “pride doesn’t show up in the mirror.” We don’t tend to look at ourselves and see accurately when pride has entered our lives. Pride is difficult to spot, but here are three ways you can spot pride:

  1. Inconsistent results

Here’s the scenario: A leader asks you to take on a project and produce an outcome. You take on the project and bring it to a completion, but the end result looks drastically different than the vision and plan that was put in place. Unavoidable circumstances could have changed the outcome of the project. That certainly happens. It also could be a sneaky form of pride arising in your life. The leader had one vision, but yours seemed better so you delivered on your vision which was vastly superior. Cue frustration and feelings of being misunderstood. The leader is disappointed in the outcome. You are disappointed in the disappointment because you delivered an outcome. A better outcome in your humble opinion. It might not have been circumstances that changed the project, it could have been pride.

2. An inability to listen to and receive feedback

Here’s the scenario: You perform a task or fulfill a role and then are provided feedback on said performance. I’ve done this. You’ve most likely done this, because there is no way you are better than me. The feedback is given. We then so very delicately, artfully, and skillfully provide an explanation to them that they don’t understand various aspects of our performance or they wouldn’t be providing the feedback at all. Are there things that occur when performing a task or role that others outside of the role weren’t aware of? Yes, there was also a different perspective than yours and those are the people who observed from the outside. Their feedback is invaluable to improvement and moving forward with excellence. It’s hard to spot it in ourselves, but when we meet feedback with defensive explanations it could be a sign of something. I would like to humbly, whilst sitting on the colt of a donkey, offer to you the idea that it could be pride.

3. Making hard conversations hurt

Let’s face it. All of us need someone to have a hard or difficult conversation with us at some point. In my most humble and lowly opinion, a lack of these conversations is one of the main causes of stagnation in people’s lives. We get stuck in bad thinking, bad behavior, or bad attitudes and we need someone to show it to us. The problem is that its painful to hear. We all crave and need encouragement. However, sometimes we are doing a stupid thing and need someone to tell us, “hey, stop doing, saying, thinking that stupid thing.” Here’s where the ugly monster of pride begins to emerge from the swamp of the soul. It takes an ocean of humility to say thank you to the person that is hurting you, but trying to help you. The Bible says that no discipline is pleasant when the discipline is happening. It’s the fruit of discipline that is enjoyable. The monster of pride emerges when we make it painful for someone who is trying to help us. It’s hard to see that its pride. It feels like vindication because we, the victim, are defending ourselves against this horrible person who is saying that we have room for improvement in our lives. What kind of horrible, maniacle, psychopath would talk to us about areas of our lives that need to be improved? It’s probably someone who loves us enough to tell us the truth. When we play the victim and them the enemy it’s pride taking us lower. It’s humility that will lift you higher. Humilty makes it easy for people to have hard conversations with us.

The Blanket

Anonymous businessman with bowler hat
I know there is prejudice and racism in our world. Unfortunately it may always be a part of our world. It happens in obvious ways and not so obvious ways. Prejudice comes from throwing a blanket over an entire group of people. People are generalized into groups like “cops,” “black,” “white,” and any other description you would like to use.
When you take away the blanket you find that there are many different descriptions within the “groups.” For instance, there are good cops, bad cops, average cops, superstar cops, lazy cops, and even perhaps some crooked “cops.” Now, change “cops” to any other race, group, or people and it remains the same. Heck, you can even throw the word “christian” in there and all of the previous descriptions could still apply in some cases on some level.
Once the blanket is removed you realize something else. Within each group there is a better description. We aren’t black people, white people, hispanic people, or asian people. We are just people. We are hurting people. We are scared people. We are lonely people. We are forgotten people. We are marginalized people. We are people who long for hope, but are sometimes hopeless people. We are people who desperately want to find meaning and purpose in this world.
Blanket removed, generalizations set aside, and focused narrowed. Now, you begin to see something even more powerful than people. You see a person. A person uniquely made in the image of a creator. A person uniquely loved by God. A person that Jesus laid down His life for. God loved the world, interpreted as each person in the world, so much that he laid down his life for them. He did this so that “whoever” regardless of their “group” might find eternal and abundant life in him.
Governments and political parties divide us into voting blocs. We divide ourselves based on culture and common walks of life. God loves us personally and individually. I wonder how a God view of this world would change the current climate of our culture. Let’s remove the blanket. Let’s take away the generalizations. Let’s the see the unique person that is only on this earth for a limited amount of time. A limited edition. A one time offer. A person made in the image of their Creator.
Take away the blanket. Remove the generalizations. I am a person. I am a person in need of grace. I am a person in need of love. I am a person that needs to be heard. I am a person in need of faith. I am a person that longs for respect, honor, and significance. And so are you.
Let’s shape the world around that view.
“There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28