Category Archives: discipleship

Sorry Jesus, We’re Just Not That Into You?

Posted on 3 March 2010 | Leave a comment

Stephanie of Jacob’s Well – one of my inveterate combers of cyberspace sending me stuff I should have on my radar – sent me this article from Emily Bennington of the Huffington Post this morning under her subject heading, “Why Jacob’s Well matters.”

There is a lot more to the “why it matters” debate than moral discourse, but it important and is probably a good place to start. Particularly for those who have given up on church, God, faith and (without a doubt) religion. God matters. Faith matters. Jacob’s Well and others who are willing to wade out into the waters before they have fully parted… let’s go. We’ve got real, hard, honest work to do – there is a lot of wilderness between us and the Promised Land.

Here’s the link to the article. Sorry Jesus, We’re Just Not That Into You?

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Posted in change, church, church transitions, commitment, discipleship, doubt, emerging church, God, jacob's well, Jesus, precarious, Vision, what if, Why Believe?

Come on… you gotta give God a chance

Posted on 21 February 2010 | 1 comment

I was just below half a tank a few days ago and thought to myself, “Gotta get gas.” That happened a couple more times in the next two days, as the needle moved south. There was still quite a bit, but then yesterday I knew I had to do a bunch of driving and I knew it was going to be tight. Today the needle is falling below the E, and I’m still driving and thinking, “I really need some gas.”

The problem is simple. I think about it a lot. I know I need it. I just never stop to get any. Funny thing, gas doesn’t just show up in your tank because you need it.

I get pretty dry spiritually too. The tank I filled up earlier can take me a long way, but not all the way. Maybe you know the feeling. “God, I really need your help on this.” “God, I don’t know what to do!” “God, I know there are better ways to use my time and money and abilities… what are they?” And we ask, and wait, and ask again… but we never stop at the gas station.

The gas station isn’t church. It may be, but it’s more than church. Basically refueling is doing the same thing you do to fill our auto’s gas tank. You stop what you are doing and you take the time to be available to actually get refilled.

  • Turn the radio off in the car and just talk – and listen – to God.
  • Get up 15 minutes early, get a cup of tea or coffee, and read the Bible or some other spiritually enriching book for 10 and pray for 5.
  • Look someone you talk to in the eyes and look for God inside them. Keep looking until you think you see God there.
  • Journal.
  • Invest in a weekly (or bi-weekly) small group that gets honest and explores faith.
  • Serve. Regularly. In ways that use real gifts you have. Even when it’s inconvenient. (It’s always inconvenient, by the way, so get over it. But that’s another post.)
  • COMMENT below and add your ways to refuel.

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Posted in discipleship, God

Most of us aren’t here yet!

Posted on 28 January 2010 | 1 comment

We believe this with all our hearts. It’s got two sides to it.

One – “Jacob’s Well is mostly made up of people who aren’t here…” Jacob’s Well isn’t for or about ‘us.’ It is about and for the people God has called, the people God has in mind when God said, “Let there be Jacob’s Well.”

Two – “Yet!” We expect them to come, or better yet, we expect to go to them. It is one thing for us to know we are incomplete, it is another to believe that God is at work to fulfill us and for us to live and act in that expectation.

What is so amazing about this is how this is coming to life within the community as we prepare to launch our second site. The night before the first preview service the Board and spouses met for a social dinner together (it is a whole other story about how we could possibly afford to do that the night before our first preview!) and while we were talking about the journey that has been Jacob’s Well our chair noted how close we had all become and how much we had done together that we loved and were proud of. And (this is the clincher) that if it were not for Jacob’s Well no one in that room would have known anyone else (spouses excepted…)

The next morning, about 45 minutes before the first service was to begin at Longfellow, we gathered for last minute details and prayer. Our Site Leader who has only been around for about six months made a similar comment. He noted that most of us haven’t known each other very long but we were all here because of God’s work in Jacob’s Well. He asked us to think forward six months when this circle would be vastly expanded with people we by then knew, loved and had shared significant experiences with, but right now we don’t even know exist. And just imagine what we will accomplish, be and reach with them as the next layer of who we are.

God’s vision for Jacob’s Well may have started in my mind and heart, but it is contagious and owned by so many other people now. That giving away and ownership by others is the fulfillment of a vision. That is why I get up each morning to help Jacob’s Well remain faithful to it. And it tells me to start listening for the next stage of that vision.

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Posted in change, church, church launching, church transitions, discipleship, emerging church, God, jacob's well, Longfellow, ministry, precarious, Uncategorized, Vision

What is faith?

Posted on 2 April 2009 | 5 comments

I wonder why I don’t have enough or strong enough faith sometimes. But really, that is just a roadblock I construct, not one that is actually there.

Faith is a gift. It isn’t miraculously or heroically pulled out of our insides, but dropped in our hands and heart when we open them widely enough. And it often hurts when it lands there. You do not get what you need from God by having enough faith, but you ask for faith so you can experience what it is that God has already given you.

The act of turning to God for more faith, is an act of faith already. To ask for it is evidence that the request has already been granted. Trust it.

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Posted in discipleship, God, life lessons, precarious

The Best News in the World!

Posted on 18 February 2009 | 1 comment

This past Sunday [Feb 15, 2009 worship series Relationship911 at Jacob’s Well] I had everyone read this passage aloud with me. Ephesians 5.1-2. It’s The Message paraphrase. I knew it was strong, but when I heard everyone read it together the power of it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Read these verses. Slowly. Repeat.

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. Ephesians 5.1-2 (The Message)

In the evening I led the spoken word part of the service at The Source in Stillwater and we read it together again and it was even clearer. How can anyone NOT want to be part of this guy Jesus’ movement? How can you NOT want to be loved by this God?

Okay, it is The Message paraphrase and if you read these verses in a straight translation they aren’t quite so inspiring. But I did some careful comparison. The paraphrase captures the heart of what the Greek is trying to say, but does so in a way that speaks to the hearts of people today.

We have the best news in the world!

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Posted in bible, church, discipleship, emerging church, God, jacob's well, Jesus, preaching, what if, Why Believe?, worship

“Education is an inoculation against exploitation.”

Posted on 13 February 2009 | Leave a comment

CB068378I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson say this on a NPR Science Friday interview today. Tyson is the noted astrophysicist who recently published The Pluto Files, chronicling the fall of Pluto from planetary status.

I’m not writing about that controversy (I think they are right, however. I was a math and science geek in my earlier life… still am, I suppose), but I am very interested in Tyson who takes his obscure and hard to understand discipline and does two very important things with it. 1) He makes science understandable and very interesting to the larger public. And 2) he steps from his field to make some very clear and important observations that relate to everyone.

That’s what I hear in the quote above; a profound observation that could change the world. The world would have far fewer victims if we all did our homework. His insight applies to religion as well. While I believe God’s truth is from beyond our understanding, I also believe it is understandable. We may not be able to author it ourselves, but when articulated it resonates with us and recognized by us. Something like John 10.4.

When Martin Luther was defending his works in 1521 he purportedly said,

“Unless I am fully convinced by testimony of Holy Scripture and evident reason… I am neither able nor willing to recant, since it is neither safe nor right to act against conscience. ”

God’s wisdom is greater than human knowledge, but not illogical. It is what human knowledge reflects when it approaches wisdom. That was what Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and it is the premise of the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament.

The best educated person will not fall for the phony side of religion, but will see the value of God’s wisdom manifested in an authentic community of faith. Education, knowledge, sophistication are not antithetical to God or faith, but innoculations against bad theology and poor practice.

Was not wisdom the first of God’s creations? (Proverbs 8.22)

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Posted in church, discipleship, doubt, God, knowledge

Speak to the Pilgrim

Posted on 13 February 2009 | 5 comments

winding-roadBeing the pastor of a church that was created to reach people who have given up on or don’t like church, I have to speak differently. I can’t assume Bible or theological knowledge, and even more so, I can’t assume “buy in.” People are skeptics or at least questioning. And since we aren’t just trying to get a batch of those folks in and up to speed so that we can  move on this is a permanent, not temporary, mode.

Here’s the question I get asked and struggle with a lot: How do you create a worship experience, especially the teaching/preaching part, that meets the needs of those totally new and even outside faith, and those who are now in and ready for more? Can you speak to both at once?

My answer: Yes you can, and here’s how. The temptation, and even the downfall, of many established churches full of established believers is to speak to where people are in their faith, and that creates a split between the different places people are spiritually. Lyle Schaller says this is what we call “preaching to the choir.”  Think about it… faith is process, it is either growing and changing or dead. In reality there is little difference between the person who is new to faith and the one who has a long history. We all have a long, long way to go.

I aim at the movement of my target; flying, not sitting ducks. I don’t preach to where any one (seeker or believer, if you want to use that language) is, but to the movement within them. We are all on a winding road that takes attention, practice, skill and grace. None of us can see down the road too far, and it should never be an option to stay where we are right now.

Preach to the pilgrim, the sojourner, the learner, the restless within each person and yourself. That is what we all have in common, it binds us together, and it is the place that God’s Spirit is most at work.

I’d love to hear the reactions of people who hear my preaching. Is this a concern or a frustration for you? What works or doesn’t work for you? I’d love to hear!

Other preachers… what do you think?

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Posted in bible, change, church, discipleship, emerging church, jacob's well, pastor, preaching, worship

Baby Jesus with a full set of teeth

Posted on 16 December 2008 | Leave a comment

dangersignOn Sunday, Dec. 14, at Jacob’s Well I was exploring what it meant that the magi (or kings or wisemen) – a bunch of outsiders – knew that “the king of the Jews” had been born, but no one inside knew it.  [Read Matthew 2] Interesting… in fact Herod not only didn’t know, but when he caught wind of the possibility he used that information to try to stop it.

I commented that, at its worst, the church does the same thing. The institutional church is humanity’s plot to acknowledge God, because it can’t do otherwise, but to de-claw and render God harmless. It doesn’t want God upsetting what it has going.

Then I shared that it is the hope of Jacob’s Well, and the need for every person who is part of it, to make sure that God is allowed to be dangerous. To let the pregnancy of God’s advent turn our world upsidedown and never leave things the same.

The infant Jesus is a beautiful and gentle sign, but it is important to remember that he had a full set of teeth. He meant and still means business. We want to be the kind of church that lets God be dangerous.

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Posted in change, church, discipleship, emerging church, God, jacob's well, Jesus, precarious, risk, what if

Advent Conspiracy

Posted on 15 December 2008 | 4 comments

I wish I’d known about this project a few months instead of a few weeks ago. (Where was I?!? Well, anyway, see the video we showed Sunday, Dec. 14, below.)

While the project is new, the conspiracy of which it speaks has been going on for a long time. Jesus was God’s trump card in the process. As we talk about “Missing God” at Jacob’s Well these four Sundays before Christmas (Nov 30 – Dec 21) we are looking at all the places that God is around, bigger than life, but we keep missing it. Advent, God coming into the world, is exactly this. It is the world pregnant with God’s presence waiting to burst out at the right time – and it is continually the right time.

This was God’s conspiracy to disrupt our complacency, to wake us from our indifference, to get our eyes off ourselves, to open our hearts and minds to God’s presence and the possibilities which exist when God is that real and present. May we be part of the change!

Thanks to the work by the folks at www.adventconspiracy.org

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Posted in change, church, commitment, discipleship, God, jacob's well, what if

Practice what you preach (or just practice?)

Posted on 5 December 2008 | 4 comments

I was meeting with my GroupLife group on Sunday evening and Steve, one of our hosts, said, “You hear people say you ought to practice what you preach, but I wonder if we shouldn’t just practice.” Wow.

Of course that brought up a very good conversation about the virtue and pitfalls of preaching. Legislating faithfulness or proclaiming judgment are dangerous areas for us human beings and this ‘bad news’ method of sharing ‘good news’ seems dubious. But there is value in connecting actions to words. You can be good forever, but aren’t you – at some point or other – obligated to tell people why?

I suppose so (I am a preacher after all), but I really like Steve’s inclination to just practice. Here’s why. Preaching – especially outside the bounds of the Church – has a tendency to do more than share, it likes to hold agendas, to hustle people into its camp rather than their camp. Is it insecurity about the preachers’ camp that drives this, because your joining my camp rationalizes why I’m in this camp?

I imagine that if you are heaven-bent on practicing (excuse the pun) there will be a time when you will speak. Practicing your faith would mean not just acting from your source, but pointing to it. If I want to give people something very special, by practicing what is most valued by me, then I will want to connect them with it so they can receive it without having to go through me. It’s not about convincing anyone, it is about giving my best away. Practicing speaks when the time is right. It doesn’t strategically wait, but is just ready. That’s what’s so interesting about Jesus; he wasn’t about collecting people, he was ready to give what was needed and did it for our sake.

Was it Augustine who purportedly said, “Proclaim the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words”?

PRACTICE!

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Posted in church, discipleship, God, jacob's well, Jesus, pastor, preaching