Being shaped.

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Jon Tyson writes:
Breaking the Mold

How exactly does the world shape us into its image? I recently asked my eight-year-old daughter a question, and she replied, “Whatever.” I asked her where she learned to respond to others’ questions in this way. Her response: “Everywhere.”It’s this “everywhere” that shapes our lives.

Paul was asking the Romans to consider the larger forces that formed people into Romans. Then he wanted them to consider how Jesus transformed Romans into Christians.

For us, rather than simply asking how to make Americans Christian, we first need to ask what makes Americans American, and then decipher how Jesus can transform Americans into Christians. That allows us to see substantive progress in spiritual formation.

Pastoring in New York, not unlike the city of Rome, I’ve struggled to decipher these forces of cultural formation, and to open our people’s eyes to them.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault called this shaping of people into a worldly mold “the normalization of the individual.” Think about how these forces press us into the world’s view of “normal.”

  • Education: Almost all education is secular, even at a kindergarten level. At the college or graduate school level, belief in God is often seen as childish at best, and a serious intellectual impediment.
  • Media: Media is pervasive, pouring story after story into our lives, most of them contradictory to the way of Jesus. What was once held sacred has been transformed into entertainment. In most media, truth has been reduced to sound bites, and the sensational drowns out the substantive.
  • Marketing: One commentator estimates that we see more advertisements in a single year of our lives than someone 50 years ago saw in an entire lifetime. We ourselves have been branded.
  • Economics: We learn from our earliest years that more is better, and better is not enough. We spend much of lives trying to keep up acquire things and experiences in order to feel good about ourselves. The supreme value of life is how much we can acquire. Success is defined by one word: more.
  • Sexuality: The message of our culture is that sex is purely physical, and that as long as no one is hurt, people can determine their own sexual practices. The rise of pornography has taken sex out of the bedroom and turned it into a form of entertainment.
  • Religion: All religions are seen as equal and valid, and to claim that one is true and the others are not is cultural treason. The only belief you can hold with conviction is that there isn’t any true-for-everybody belief.

Growing up in a culture like this, we quickly find that a sermon on Sunday, or a weekly youth group talk, can hardly give us the tools to renew our minds and be transformed into the image of our Creator.

—Jon Tyson, “Breaking the Mold: Christian formation means not letting the world press us into its mold,” Christianity Today, June 13, 2011.

Paul shows us God’s heart in Romans 12:1-2:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

In whose image are you being remade?

 

Off with the old, on with the new (part 2).

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» continued from last time …

“If I only had an enemy bigger than my apathy,
I could have won.”
—Mumford & Sons, “I Gave You All”

Poor Children

It’s often remarked by those in the West how happy people seem when they visit developing nations. They have so little, and yet they are so happy!

(Really? Being poor and living hand-to-mouth makes one happy? I thought being comfortable was necessary for a joyful life.) Perhaps they have developed more strongly what we miss in our comfortable bubbles: contentment and gratitude. While we may think that a mixture of a perfect environment, coupled with optimal opportunities will make for a great life when combined with the dreams of our parents. You know, the one’s where we accomplish everything they envisioned for us. Call it living vicariously through one’s child, and I call it pretending. Have you noticed how grateful pampered kids are today? Are spoiled kids content with what they have? I’ve said it before, kids are just mini versions of us adults, and ingratitude and greed run in our family.

Being ungrateful comes from our having unmet expectations, specific desires that go unfilled. More to the point, ingratitude means we think we deserve better. Reality is what remains when all we hoped for disappoints us. Since we know that true hope does not and cannot disappoint (Romans 5:5), our shattered dreams must instead be a sorry substitute for the life God envisioned for us.

Why do we resist His grand vision for our lives, and pursue our own tiny versions?

I tend to think we do this because we desire to be the heroes of our own story. All our lives we are  told we can do anything with our lives, that we can do amazing things. If only each of us would choose to replace our “old” life for a brand “new” one. Simple as that. Believe in yourself, try new things, and whatever you desire can be yours. Yes, we are a big deal.

Of course we think we’re a big deal. Consider how much history is being made … right this moment:

Population-weighted history of the past two millennia.

Source: The Economist

You know what happened at the beginning of that graph? A poor man born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth made more history than we would. He didn’t carry much economic clout back then, though He owns the whole universe.

It’s been said it’s not the number of our days that matter, it’s the worth of our days. In Jesus’ short three decades He accomplished more than we ever will in our medically-augmented 72-plus. His life is not even a tiny dot on that graph. Ours show up collectively as two tall lines, part of the economic output and years lived. On this scale, we could easily think we are better. Or at least we live in a better world now, right? The world was cruel back then, and remains just as cruel today as 2,000 years ago.

Even in our global village, we keep ourselves confined to our family-friendly edge of the village, in climate-controlled palaces and carriages. All the while — remember the graph — more history is being made today than ever before. More people means more opportunities for good, and for suffering. As we near 7 Billion people on planet earth, multiplied by 3,600 seconds every hour, and every moment carries more weight than every before. The question, do we want to stay apathetic, or get involved? Mumford and Sons is on to something; I think apathy is the strongest “force” in the first world today.

Consider the following, brought to us by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, in his great book The Hole in Our Gospel:

“When Evangelical Christians where asked whether they would help children orphaned by AIDS, assuming they were asked by a reputable Christian organization that was doing this work …

  • only 3 percent said that they definitely would help;
  • 52 percent said that they would probably or definitely would not help!”

—ch. 17, “AWOL to the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of All Time”

And this on the current plight ongoing in our little space in history:

“Fifteen thousand Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases — AIDS, malaria, TB — for lack of drugs that we take for granted.
This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening to Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment to the whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not North America or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives — African lives — are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.”
—Bono, quoted in The Hole in Our Gospel, ch. 8, “The Greatest Challenge of the New Millennium.”

Since we know, there is no longer any excuse.

The question remains: what are we going to do about that?

Let’s make history.

… to be continued …

 

Off with the old, on with the new (part 1).

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Love that will not betray, dismay, or enslave you,
it will set you free;
be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design, an alignment,
a cry of my heart to see
the beauty of love as it was made to be.
—Mumford & Sons, “Sigh No More”

Are you past-, present-, or future-oriented? When someone asks you to explain why something is the way it is, do you envision would it could be (future), should be (present), or do you dig deep in the past to see the string of events that brought about the present? Like, when asked, “What’s the deal with the housing market?” how do you process an answer? Are you prone to think of how bad it is right now (perhaps if you are selling a home), or where the market could be going, or the myriad factors that brought us up to this point?

(I am past-oriented, by the way, prone to consider the history of successive events up to the present. More on past-present-future-orientation here.)

We are all born present-oriented hedonists. Think about it: we crave food (milk), must be cared for constantly, and cannot even fathom what shall be in the future and quickly forget what just was. We live according to our strong cravings. Somewhere along the line, we must be weened off our self-centered nature and develop into responsible, mature adults. Plenty of factors play into this, such as encountering difficulties and overcoming them, devoting ourselves to faithfulness and perseverance. Though we try to find them, there are no shortcuts to true maturity. Parents may try to enter their kids into the best schools, pay their way onto the optimal select sports teams, and protect them from the big, bad, dark world.

The problem?

You cannot do all of that and properly school the human heart, or train yourself to unselfishness by taking the easy route. Environment alone, however refined and optimal, does not produce a refined and optimal man. Again, there are no shortcuts.

How many times have you watched a movie that displays all our vein attempts at the great life — of success, power, money, and pleasure? Consider the popular Limitless, and the more critically-acclaimed Lincoln Lawyer. The latter, starring Matthew McConaughey highlights the attempts of Ryan Philippe’s character to live a secret life of perverted pleasures. Philippe’s journey shows how pride destroys a whole family as they refuse to deal honestly (and personally) with their inner evil. The former stars the upstart Bradley Cooper chronicling a desperate grasping for significance and riches. (What if you could take a pill and instantly become awesome?) Both men lived in the fast-line, greedily trying to ADD a new life to their present one. Instead of confessing their faults and building a new life by turning from their sins, they sought to hide their former self and pretend their new awesome lifestyle was their true self.

Both characters — Philippe’s and Cooper’s — came across as future-oriented mature men in society, though they were secretly present-oriented hedonists. These were not men; they were juveniles not challenged in life to move past their childhood folly. Every pursuit was for pleasure — their own — and in the one more legally-minded tale, justice was served in the end. I think the reason we make, and watch, movies like this is that they reflect a deep longing in our souls. And a reflection of our arrogance. We want to be like them, because we are like them. We are thirsting for more, and wish we were more.

Too bad we cannot set aside our old lives and live new and better ones.

… to be continued …

 

Uk trip: Renfrew. Finding hospitality in a royal burrough.

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I’ve been remiss on writing up a reflection of our final day in Scotland. We arrived back in London late on our anniversary, It’s a challenge to move all these people around this island without some delays, and so we braced for a few. There were some sweet moments (like finding Kari’s sunglasses at the check-in desk as we boarded the plane — someone was kind enough to put them there after finding them someplace nearby). And there were some funny moments (like when about 100 newspapers previously handed out as we boarded the plane were eventually tossed into the rubbish bin; as an avid recycler from the ‘crunchy’ Pacific Northwest, I cringed). As I told the conference attendees, I am a people-watcher. Apparently, I watch what they throw away as well.

More fun than all that rubbish is watching what people value, that is, where they focus their time and energy to see cultivated. I mentioned the Burns family in Glasgow, who is endeavoring to see Glasgow flourish by the preaching of His Word and the praising of His Name (true to the city’s motto).

Our stay in Scotland was a quick jaunt, a mere 48 hours perhaps. The first half with the Scott and Monica Burns was followed by a night and day with Brian and Shauna Luse (and their amazing five kids). Brian was actually the first person we saw as we got off the plane in Glasgow on Sunday evening. With a smile and a hug we hopped into their van and headed to downtown Glasgow, on the west side. The Sunday night gathering of RE:HOPE was winding down, and we caught part of the closing responsive worship time. About 21 hours later Brian picked us up and we were off to Renfrew to get a glimpse of their life.

Although brief, both visits have stirred my soul. They let us peek in on their lives — and gave up much of their time — and we are better for it. I pray we were a blessing to them as well.

A sunny day in Scotland


There were many highlights at the Luse ‘mance,’ such as:

  • Grilling up sausage on a grill donated by our home church; seems like we cooked up every sausage in the UK.
  • Talking through life and ministry with Brian and Shauna late into the evening on Monday.
  • All the kids choosing to sleep in one room, so we could enjoy a guest bed.
  • Waking up Tuesday morning to Brian preparing pancakes and bacon and sausage; they celebrated our being there like it was a Saturday morning. All the kids stayed home from school to give us the full experience. (We missed our own kids all the more!)
  • Playing Thomas the Train, imagining how I would relish the opportunity to do the same in short order with our son.
  • Marveling at how Shauna cares for five kids (sixth to be born shortly!), and how they care for one another. Siblings were serving one another.
  • The kids creating us KARI and JEFF necklaces out of their letter toys. Inventive and creative. (And generous.)
  • Getting a sneak preview of Brian’s birthday present created by little artist Caileen, a couple days before the day.

In short, I left that time resolving to be a more intentional father, loving, caring… present. Brian loves his kids, leads his family, and set an example for me to follow. This is where discipleship takes place.

Renfrew is a royal burrough, which from what I am told, means back in the day they had unique authorization from the monarchy to organize a marketplace, for the buying, selling, and trading of goods. It would become a happening place to be, and a privilege to live there. Just down the River Clyde from Glasgow (westward, towards the sea), Renfrew these days looks positioned for a comeback. Business is booming; there were malls and construction all around, and it seemed that young professionals will want to settle down in this attractive city.

We are praying for the leaders and saints of Renfrew Baptist Church to be faithful to Christ’s call to be and make disciples, and for God’s grace to be upon them as He prospers them to be in the city, and because the Gospel is good news for all who encounter Christ, they shall be for the city.

 

Better than expected.

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Few things in life are ‘as advertised,’ and far fewer are better than expected. As my wife often writes about, expectancy is better than having expectations. True Hope does not disappoint, though we live in constant disappointment it seems, a frustration on our ill-fashioned ‘hopes.’

This week Kari and I celebrated eight years of marriage, and I must say that life with her is better than expected. I did have ‘high hopes’ for our life together, yet the trajectory of our shared life, growing in gratitude and humility together daily, as Christ leads us, has been the true joy of this adventure. Here’s to eight times eight more years together in this life!

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UK trip: a visit to Glasgow. How about pressing Snooze 17 times?

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View from the Burns' flat

After the Single-Minded conference wrapped up, we said our goodbyes and take a ride with some new friends to the Stansted airport. Sunday night we hopped on a plane bound north to Glasgow, Scotland.

The story goes on, but I would be remiss to mention that on Monday morning I apparently hit ‘snooze’ on my phone 17 times. A normally-would-be-sleeping-in 7:00 AM alarm turned into a 10 AM wakeup. Apparently the jet lag was finally being overcome! We were spent quite well from the conference, which was a pure joy. And the second leg of our journey had begun. In Glasgow we are visiting two missionary families, friends we know from the States, and who serve alongside one another albeit in two uniquely different church contexts in neighboring cities.

The ever-joyful Brian Luse picked us up at the Glasgow airport and drove us to join the end of the Sunday evening service at RE:HOPE Next Generation Bible Church in west Glasgow (Partick neighborhood). There we joined in the worship gathering until greeted with a hug by our gracious hosts, Scott and Monica Burns. We met “Scottica” when they were two single seminary students back in Portland at Multnomah Biblical Seminary. As God crossed our paths, our hearts were knit, and we knew that any trip to the UK must involve a glimpse of life and ministry of both faith-inspiring families.
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A quick update from London (day 1).

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I think we are now a bit rested, though we have been on the go every since we left for the airport at noon on Thursday. Right now it is 5 PM here, though it is 9 AM back home in Oregon. A hour ago we video chatted with our kids, as they begun their day. Nana is taking great care of them! (Plus, we are so grateful for some really helpful technology!) One great piece of technology was inadvertently left at home — our new digital camera is waiting for us on the kitchen counter. (Oops!) So, as a result we likely will not have many photos to share.

The Single-Minded conference is going very well. A full group of singles from around England, representing I think a dozen churches. They are eager. Eager to listen to the Word, to learn, to grow, to encounter God. I dare say that they are rubbing off on me too — and not just because the voice in my head as I type this is narrating in a British accent! They’ve shown me what it means to be a people of the Book. They’re eager to hear God’s words, because they want to know God’s will, His ways, His worth. They want Him. We’ve spoken much about how Christianity is a Person, not a set of principles. You can apply yourself to all the principles in the world, but they will not in and of themselves change a person. We need the power of a new affection; we need Jesus. We need to rescue (save) us, and to change us. And so we are seeking to do what one friend on our missions team reminded me before we headed this way: “make Him famous.” He is worth being known, and we are seeking to make much of Him. May His name be great in this place!

I’ve really been struck by the community-minded nature of our fellows Brits. Someone said they would be stand-offish. Uh, nope. At least not these Brits. In our brief time with this group, we’ve notice how friendly they are, welcoming even. They are not into pretense and especially not overly into themselves. What a cup of cold water this is for this foreigner come across the pond to speak with them. They have welcomed us like old friends.

For the conference, our text has been Psalm 27. We’ve been all over Scripture but the main text in the first three sessions (see summaries by scrolling down under the “London” tag) have taken us through the first five verses of Psalm 27. In a couple hours we will pick up verses 6-9 in our fourth session — WORSHIP: the joyful sacrifice. I must especially applaud our hosts, Matt and Diana Kottman, who are as gracious as they are hardworking. They labor to shepherd this group well. Wow. They are brilliantly generous and full of courage.

 

Connected: becoming obedient by cultivating intimacy.

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For many of us, the changing tide of the economy heaves us into the search for meaning, for the eternal. And in this search, we find Jesus having dinner with his closest friends hours before his death. During that dinner, we see a mysterious breaking of bread and drinking of wine. Two thousand years later, he calls us to that same dinner, in remembrance of him. And so we partake. The sacrament beckons us into the blessedness of following after him. “I am the true vine,” he says. And we are his branches. “Abide in Me, and I in you.” (John 15:1, 4 NASB)

When we partake of Christ through the bread and the cup, it’s as though we inhale him into our very being, carrying him around with us, his presence powering our lives. He says that if we don’t abide in him, we will be like the branches that don’t produce any fruit; they’re cut away and burned, useless, meaningless.

Apart from Christ, the world is meaningless. Apart from Jesus, we are nothing. We can do nothing. “Abide in me,” he says. “See the world from a new perspective.” But
how do we abide?

—
Kierkegaard helps us understand what it means to abide. He tells the story of a couple in love. The girl, seeing that her relationship with her beloved could be facing obstacles, asks him to wait for her. And he does. But what happens if the circumstances strain, making the wait too long? What if her beloved moves on? Kierkegaard says that when we cease to be loving, we were never loving in the first place. “For love abides.” (Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (New York: HarperPerennial, 2009), 281 – 82.)
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London » HOPE: the courage to wait.

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What makes waiting so hard?

Psalm 27:13-14:

13 I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!

We mentioned the first five themes for the Single-Minded conference we are speaking at, beginning tomorrow near London: confidence, vision, beauty,  worship. and consistency. The final theme:

#6 Hope: the courage to wait (Psalm 27:13-14).

We all are waiting for something. Not just singles. But it is true that many perhaps deep down still have the ache and longing for that glorious counterpart hand-picked by God. Whether waiting for a wedding or a job or a ministry opportunity or a change of scenery, we spend much of our life waiting. So we must learn how to do it well. God’s word is replete with exhortations to wait, and wait well. Will we wait on God or wait on circumstances? What is the difference and how can we tell? Here we’ll learn how to wait for the Lord with expectancy without expectation. With confidence and security we can be strong and let our hearts take courage and wait, wait for the LORD.

Married people can tell us how waiting for a spouse is a fruitless endeavor, for both husbands or wives make awful gods. Single people are not ‘waiting’ for their life to be meaningful, as if having a spouse is the end-game. (Or being in a relationship is all that matters.) Waiting for the LORD is the true joy; and because our Maker is our Husband, we can daily encounter the most loving, generous, courageous, and supportive spouse ever.

As Kari frequently writes, there is a world of difference between having expectations and living in expectancy.

 

London » the level path.

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Consistency and stability are undervalued in our day. Why is that?

Psalm 27:10-12:

10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.

11 Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
12 Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.

We mentioned the four themes for the Single-Minded conference outside London: confidence, vision, beauty, and worship. Here’s a preview of the fifth theme, with one more to follow.

#5 Consistency: the level path (Psalm 27:10-12).

Few characteristics are more critical to the Christian life than consistency. In our experience, the single life can sometimes be characterized by extreme ups and downs, difficulty finding balance, and a challenge to develop the kind of structure and consistency so necessary for long-term growth. Certainly married folks struggle here too, but are often forced into structure and consistency due to the fact that a family depends on it! The “freedom” of singleness can be both blessing and curse. Too much downtime can lead to sin or unhealthy habits. Lack of accountability can lead to laziness. Freedom and flexibility in a schedule can lead to haphazard patterns of life. So ask, “Teach me your way, O Lord,” and we pray that He will “lead us on a level path.” A level life is a life of joy and stability, the soil where godly fruit can abound.

Verse 10 has been included with this session, for a related point shall be made: no matter our family of origin, and even the effect in our lives of years of hurts, habits or hangups along an un-level path, we can become new people with a new trajectory — and a level path — in life. What ‘has been’ does not have to remain the norm. The Gospel takes the can’ts and wont’s and remakes them into new people — who are being made new daily by the Spirit. The Father has welcomed us. We are His children. He will teach us His ways. In this session we will look at the daily practice of abiding in the presence of the Father, and preaching the Gospel to ourselves continually.

 

Only a fraction.

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“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many … have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification … drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.”

—Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 101 (emphasis added).