Holy Week 2011

By Chaplain Mike

Note: certain words have been rendered in Swahili to pass the censors’ muster.

Last year, we here in Indianapolis celebrated Holy Week with renewed faith and hope. All week long we prayed and focused our attention on the Great Day to come, when victory would be revealed.

Each day, we had fellowship with our brothers and sisters, aware of the building excitement. Events and gatherings throughout the week prepared our hearts and minds for the great celebration to come on the weekend. We studied and listened as our teachers and mentors gave their perspectives and helped us enter into the spirit of what has always been the highpoint of the liturgical year, the Sunday of Sundays, the day of triumph.

We picked out our finest clothes, planned a special menu for our festive Sunday gatherings, invited family and friends to join us, and prepared to spend the day together.

When the great Day arrived, we rejoiced!

We celebrated!

We enjoyed fellowship that was a foretaste of heaven!

And then the New Orleans Saints beat our Colts, 31-17, and won the super bakuli.

Continue reading “Holy Week 2011”

Some Light Housecleaning

As I am stuck inside my ranch (ok, suburban ranch-style house) here in Tulsa waiting for the snow to melt, I thought it might be a good time to try to catch up on some light housecleaning. I have a number of books piled up that need to be reviewed. I’ll touch on a few here and try to get to more in the coming weeks. If you have sent me a book to review, I apologize for not getting to it sooner. And if you have a book for me to review, email me (jeff@internetmonk.com) for my mailing address.

Ok, now for the reviews. Remember, these are just my thoughts on these books. Your mileage may vary.

Continue reading “Some Light Housecleaning”

Where Is God When We Need Him?

“At different times on the journey I have tried to fill the emptiness that frequently comes with God’s presence …” – Brennan Manning

“The emptiness that frequently comes with God’s presence …” So that’s what this is? In recent days, some in the Internet Monk community have especially touched me. I can identify with the despair that has prompted comments in the vein of wanting to give up after seeking intimacy with God and not finding it. They are expressions of emptiness and the fear and frustration that he is not present – the same fear and frustration I’ve struggled with for a year.

My business is struggling. My emotional well is down to the level of mud … and my God is being ever so quiet. Then, another phone call a few nights ago and another sad story was added to my extended family’s anthology of recent trials. It knocked the remaining wind out of me.

I confess that I have begun to succumb to the thought that we are all on a fixed income metaphorically speaking. There is a finite supply and an increasing demand for everything from material wealth to the less tangible, though no less longed for, emotional and spiritual riches. Access to a newswire gives me a daily window to devastations around the world. Natural disasters, war, persecution, famine and disease leave people without resource. To make matters worse, they are also without any comfort in their sufferings. The earth labors. Its people groan. Lack reigns. Am I right to think this way?

Without diminishing the sobering circumstances that are the lot of so many and also without purporting to espouse a prosperity message either of material wealth or of an unrealistic life devoid of all struggle, I make a submission. It is that we are ignoring the reality of God’s provision and presence in this world and in our lives when we survey our spent surroundings and see no supply. Being a glass-half-empty person by nature, I preach to myself most of all. It is conformity to a way of worldly thinking I have struggled with since childhood.

From the first pages of Scripture to the last, God demonstrates that where there is need, there is also provision. Where there is emptiness, there is also a remedy. Where there is the aching fear that we navigate our days on earth alone, there is a loving God always present and actively sovereign. But our perception fails at times.

Perhaps we see only brokenness, captivity and ash heaps of ruins. Isaiah prophesied and Jesus reiterated that his coming would bring restoration, freedom and beauty. That is where I long to live.  Yet the road there is often messy and doesn’t necessarily look as we think it should. Jesus’ own life is Exhibit A. Israel expected her Messiah to come conquering. Yet, “he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.” Not exactly what they were looking for.

Continue reading “Where Is God When We Need Him?”

Mockingbird Conference

By Chaplain Mike

Just a note to encourage those of you in the New York City area, or who may want to travel to NYC for a good conference. The 2011 Mockingbird Conference, sponsored by our good friends over at the Mockingbird blog, will be held March 31-April 2 at St. George’s Church.

The theme of the conference is: “Grace for Today: Freedom in a Culture of Control.” One reason I’m keen to mention this is that Mark Galli will be the keynote speaker. We have featured discussions this week mentioning a few of Galli’s articles on the subject of Christians and “transformation.”

Click on the image to the right or here for full information and a registration form.

Transformation a Myth? Clarifications

The Holy Coachman, Chagall

By Chaplain Mike

A relationship with God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit will change us. A church grounded in God will be transformed, and it will likely transform its surrounding culture. If living in Christ makes no difference, we of all people are most to be pitied.

But my concern about transformation can be summed up in a simple question: Should our left hand know what our right hand is doing?

• Mark Galli, “Are We Transformed Yet?”

Thanks to all our readers who have commented and continue to weigh in on the subject of transformation. In yesterday’s post, based on recent columns by Mark Galli, we noted and critiqued the way evangelicalism overstates and oversells the notion of dramatic spiritual change—in persons, churches, and the world. I called it “the evangelical myth of transformation.”

Today, I would like to give some clarifications.

Continue reading “Transformation a Myth? Clarifications”

Chapter Two Continued: Work

(This is the third in a series of articles on the Christian life.  The other two can be found here and here.)

There is an old and persistent heresy.  It involves separating the earthly from the godly, the material from the spiritual.  Gnostics, Cathars, and others have fallen into the error of equating material things with evil and spiritual with good.  This has expressed itself over the centuries in extreme physical mortification; secret societies of initiates; iconoclasm; puritanical rejections of holidays, sacraments, or art; and complete withdrawal from the world.  The reason that orthodox Christianity has always rejected this heresy has to do with the nature of God.

God is both spiritual and material, unknowable and yet with us, very God and very man, the Trinity.  And we are made in the image of God.  We too are spiritual and material.  Anything we do to worship or serve God will need to be both spiritual and material if we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength – with all of ourselves, in other words.

In modern Western Christianity, this error manifests itself more as intellectual versus material.  The Gospel is perceived as an idea to be grasped or a tenet to be affirmed.  Worship is thought of as reading the Bible, singing religious songs, and listening to a sermon.  Many modern Christians, suspecting idolatry, have a horror of the physical, material side of worship.  Whole denominations throw out sacraments, which are physical manifestations of spiritual realities.  They don’t want to do things with their bodies, like crossing themselves or bowing.  And they don’t want to discuss the place of human work in the Christian life.

However, I refuse to scrap the word “work” from my vocabulary.   Work is an essential element of Chapter Two of the Christian life.

Continue reading “Chapter Two Continued: Work”

The Evangelical Myth of “Transformation”

The Publican and the Pharisee, Dare

By Chaplain Mike

Go Galli, go!

Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, is one of my favorite authors, and one of the most realistic and theologically grounded commenters writing about the church and Christian life today.

Back in 2008, Michael Spencer reviewed his book on worship, Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy, which is as fine an introduction to liturgical worship for evangelicals as anything Robert Webber wrote. He has written other books, which I can’t wait to get my hands on, and Galli continues to write thoughtful and challenging essays online for CT, including his biweekly Soulwork columns.

You would not go wrong with a steady diet of his writings.

I urge you to click on the link above for the Soulwork pieces immediately, bookmark it, and read at least one column every day.

One of the great contributions he has made to my life has been to help me rethink the pervasive evangelical mantra and concept of “transformation.” It seems like every church and teacher out there today is calling people to come experience services that offer “life-transforming” worship, Bible studies and discipleship programs that will “transform” our Christian lives, new corporate strategies and leadership insights that will “transform” our churches, visionary missional approaches that will “transform” our communities, even our world.

This is a classic case of over-sell. Our unbridled optimism about the potential for dramatic life-change and “impact” (another evangelical mantra) owes more to the myth of progress that we’ve eagerly embraced since the days of the Industrial Revolution than it does to how the Gospel actually works in lives, the church, and the world.

I’ll let Mark Galli take it from here. He says it so much better.

Continue reading “The Evangelical Myth of “Transformation””

“Big” Decisions and God’s Will

By Chaplain Mike

When I was a Christian young person, I heard a lot about “seeking God’s will.” This question was especially prominent at Bible college, where young men and women training to go into ministry were trying to discern God’s leading in several key areas.

First and foremost, we were trusting God to lead us to a perfect marriage partner. Battling our hormones and feelings for the guy or girl we really liked, a lot of times, I might add. (Not me, of course, dear.) And then there was the whole decision about whether or not God was calling a person into missions. If, on the other hand, a person believed God wanted one on the “homefront,” there were questions of location, location, location.

A lot of angst, prayer, counseling sessions, Bible studies, dorm discussions, long walks, and sleepless nights revolved around “seeking God’s will for one’s life.”

Frankly, I don’t hear so much about that any more. The “traditional” view of receiving special guidance from God seems to have faded from prominence. For the better, I believe. In my opinion, we’ve come a long way theologically and pastorally in realizing that God may not have one “perfect plan” that a believer must “find” (as though he’s hiding it from his people, as though one day he might pull back a curtain and voila! there it is) in order to be in “the very center of God’s will” for one’s life.

A classic book that led to a change of emphasis in this area of Christian living was Gary Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View. Friesen emphasized that making decisions in our lives is more a function of wisdom than of special guidance or revelation. In the introduction to the book, Haddon Robinson says,

If we ask, “How can I know the will of God?” we may be asking the wrong question. The Scriptures do not command us to find God’s will for most of life’s choices nor do we have any passage instructing us on how it can be determined. Equally significant, the Christian community has never agreed on how God provides us with such special revelation. Yet we persist in searching for God’s will because decisions require thought and sap energy. We seek relief from the responsibility of decision making and we feel less threatened by being passive than active when making important choices.

In this book, Dr. Garry Friesen insists that we must change the question. Instead of wondering, “How do find the will of God?” a better question to pursue is, “How do I make good decisions?”

Young people, of course, think about these things more because they are at a point in their life and spiritual formation when the issue getting established in one’s life vocations is front and center. In our teens and twenties, matters of education, family, career, geographical location, and so on will be decided. What part does God play in the process?

These questions have become more important for people at all stages of life. Society has changed, and for many of us, choices like these now take the stage at various and multiple ages like never before. The simple fact that we live longer necessitates more life-affecting decisions. People wait longer to marry. More marriages break up. People often take longer to find careers, and they may change career choices several times throughout the course of their lives. Society is more mobile and we have many more options, domestic and foreign, about where to live.

Rarely does a person in our world follow the path many in my father’s generation did—college/military, marriage to one spouse, family, lifelong career with one company that followed a logical course of “climbing the ladder,” retirement. And, I would answer, ongoing membership in churches of one denomination.

  • Is it odd that we have more choices and more uncertainty today, but less emphasis on determining the will of God? Or am I just in the other room, missing out on the conversation?
  • What are you hearing these days about this subject? If you are a pastor or someone who counsels others about making decisions, how are you encouraging them to trust God and seek his wisdom for choosing their paths?

The Monk Who Wouldn’t Go Away

Today is Thomas Merton’s birthday. Merton played a big role in Michael Spencer’s spiritual development. In one of my conversations with Michael, I asked where I should start in reading Merton. He said I had to read The Seven Storey Mountain first in order to really understand Thomas Merton. I have since enjoyed many a great hour with Merton’s other writings, prayers and sketches. His journals are especially rich and deep for me. He is not an easy person to grasp—as a matter of fact, he cannot be grasped at all—but he is an easy person to like, for he was of all men most human. Here is Michael Spencer’s tribute to Thomas Merton.

One of the joys of having a hero is sharing him/her with someone else. If you know me very long, you’ll hear about my hero, Thomas Merton: monk, writer, poet, activist, Christian, enigma, good looking bald man. Merton (1915-1968) is one of the most significant religious writers of the twentieth century and a lasting influence on untold numbers of Christians (and non-Christians) from every tradition and culture. For those of us in the Bluegrass state, he also holds the distinction of being perhaps the most significant religious figure to reside in Kentucky, being a monk at Our Lady of Gesthemeni monastery near Bardstown for twenty-seven years. He is buried there today.

Merton is a strange kind of hero for me. I am a conservative Reformed Protestant. He was a liberal Roman Catholic who could easily have become a Buddhist. Merton was a former communist sympathizer turned Democrat who found Gene McCarthy too tame. I am a libertarian-Republican who wishes Pat Buchanan’s brain could be surgically altered and put in George W’s body. Merton befriended and praised the sixty’s liberal pantheon; wrote poems about them, wrote letters for them. I think those people- Baez, Berrigan, etc- were alternately amusing and frightening. Merton hated systematic theology and loved modern literature. I hate modern literature and love systematic theology. Merton choose monasticism over marriage. I think that was a crying shame. Merton thought a good time was walking barefoot in a cornfield reading Muslim mystics. I’d prefer a Dave Mathews show. He loved jazz. I love bluegrass and rock. Merton died by touching a faulty electrical fan after taking a shower, thus becoming the patron saint of all clumsy people. I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to go, but it could possible involve all the White Castles I can eat.

Continue reading “The Monk Who Wouldn’t Go Away”

Children’s Sermon: Jesus’ Blessing Is Here for You

By Chaplain Mike

I like the children’s sermon in a worship service. Many have suggested that adults usually get more out of it than they do the pastor’s sermon! I’ve heard my share of them over the years, good and bad.

The best ones were simple, short, and directed to the imagination.

It’s obviously wise to avoid difficult theological language when speaking to children. Since they are not asking adult questions, little ones don’t need an apologetics course or heavy arguments proving something about Jesus or the Bible. Detailed exegesis of a passage?—no. I don’t think it’s a good idea for adults to be recruiting children to be little evangelists or missionaries. Nor should they be scolded as little sinners or encouraged to become good little law-keepers.

I do think it wise and loving to help kids gain a sense of the wonder and love and acceptance of God. The children’s sermon should fit in with the rest of the service as a celebration of the Gospel. Young boys and girls should be inundated with the Gospel, impressed with the words and stories of Jesus, and made to feel like a special part of the church family.

Our pastor does the children’s sermon in our congregation. A woman who is a teacher does it each week at the church where I’ve been preaching. I think it’s good to have a consistent voice or at least a small group of regulars. A children’s sermon is not a Sunday School lesson. It is one simple Gospel point, made briefly and lovingly by a friendly adult to a group of children.

I’d love to receive comments about the children’s sermon and how it works in your congregation.

They asked me to speak to the children this morning. You can read what I said to them after the jump.

Continue reading “Children’s Sermon: Jesus’ Blessing Is Here for You”