Know

A phrase in a lot of church mission statements is "to know and be fully known." This phrase sounds really good but the more I think about it I wonder how many people who use it have actually taken the time to unpack the millions of theological trails it leads to. It came to my mind as I was thinking about relationships.

As a pastor I don't think I do a very good job at really knowing the people in my church. I mean they are good friends and all, and I know a lot of facts about them. I've been around them a long time now and I have watched them, lived life with them, and grown with them for over ten years. But somehow the question of how well I really know them is still rattling around in my head.

I think that a lot of people don't reach a significant level of intimacy with the people they live and worship with because people aren't willing to ask each other the risky questions. There are a lot of reasons for that. We live in a society that holds individualism in high regard. We are "trained" to hide our vulnerabilities. And, quite frankly, we think all the really gory details about us are nobody else's business. So we happily go through life trying desperately to ignore that one little place deep down in our soul that yearns to be truly known.

We also like to spiritualize it by saying that we are only truly known by God. Or we may be willing to come off of that stance just enough to include our spouses in the picture. The goal, though, is to justify keeping everyone else at arms length.

So what are the high risk questions we don't really ask? What are your hopes and dreams? How would you describe your relationship with God right now? What are you really struggling with? What brings you the most joy? Where do see your relationship with God going in the next year? How can I help?

When was the last time you were asked questions like that in an environment where you felt truly free to give an honest answer and were compelled to do it with accountability in mind? I suspect there is a good chance the answer is never and we probably like it that way. Oh sure, we might have got close with our spouses or a good friend at times but we always had room to wriggle out of it. We really don't want to be confronted with it.

But being known in this way is crucial to growing as a follower of Christ. We can do a pretty good job of faking it. And we can certainly go through the motions and even make ourselves feel good about our actions. But we need to get ourselves in an environment where we are eventually confronted with our spirituality in a seriously intimate way. If not we are just taking another step in our effort at avoidance.

Lenten Breakfast

It seems like over and over again in the last few weeks I've found myself trying to remember what I did last year for certain things. My friend Dan is very good at logging stuff and I envy his ability to access all that information. So here is a log of the Men's Lenten breakfast we hosted yesterday.

For the menu we had 4 breakfast casseroles, 3 bags of frozen biscuits, 5 bags of sausage gravy , and a fruit salad made from 1 part tropical fruit, 1 part mandarin oranges, and 1 part diced peaches. We had around 25 people and this was way too much food. Could have done with half the fruit, 2 bags of biscuits, and 4 bags of gravy.

I gave the devotional on perseverance from Psalm 129. I went too long but still got done before 9 AM.

Being

One of the great dangers in North American Christianity is that a lot of Christians have experiences that allow them to feel spiritual with out actually being spiritual. This creates a false sense of spiritual awareness that leads to a stunting, or even halting, of one's spiritual growth. In extreme, it derails faith altogether.

I obviously have missional ideas rolling around as is evidenced by the number of posts on the topic, but it serves as a good example of this because I think it is easy to act missional without actually being missional. Let's simplify missional down to "being a blessing." A church might create opportunities for the church community to be a blessing. They might see this as part of their equipping role. They figure some good lessons will be learned in the process and several of the participants might catch "the bug" of being a blessing. So let's say the church organizes a food drive and distribution for needy families in the community.

No doubt the activity would be a blessing to the recipients. You could probably even find participants who found serving others to also be a blessing. In fact all of those who did the serving would probably feel pretty good about what they have done. But my question is whether they have been transformed, or in the process of being transformed, into some one who is a blessing, or if they are simply people who have participated in a blessing activity.

I think there is a danger of filling people's calendars with blessing activities and creating the impression that they are "being" spiritual when actually there has been very little heart transformation. They could end up as very good people with no relationship with Jesus.

I think being a blessing as a community is a good thing and I think there are a lot of valid reasons to create those opportunities. But I think we need to be clear that the outward expression needs to go hand in hand with an inward transformation. We need to be people who are a blessing whether it is in an organized event or just out on a grocery run. It just becomes who we are based on a relationship with Jesus. God doesn't want obedient slaves, He wants sons and daughters.

Missio 2

No this isn't some world wide conference that you missed that is meeting for the second time. And it isn't a .{point} anything (as in 2.0) in an attempt to be cool and relevant. It is just the second post I am making about the Missional Leadership Initiative I've gotten myself into.

Last weekend was the first of 6 gatherings we will have over the next two years with Reggie McNeal. It is sponsored by another denomination so I was one of only two participants that weren't part of the family, so to speak. I am friends with two of the other pastors though so it wasn't too weird.

This session focused on self-awareness which was good but it will take some time to process. If you think you do a pretty good job with self-awareness does that automatically make you self-clueless? In the effort to make me even more self-aware I was also subjected to yet another personality/cognitive style test. This one was called the Success Style Profile, a title that practically made me throw-up, but was pretty good anyway.

I've also been assigned to a cohort with four other guys I've never met. We are supposed to meet once a month to cover various topics but I think a lot of people are suspicious of them. Reggie referred often to the group of pastors he has been a part of for a long time. He talks about how they mentor each other, counsel each other, and serve each other, even in little things. He said they have even vacationed together. I think he counts that experience as invaluable and wants us to have a taste of it, even if these groups don't develop into that. He sees that kind of peer mentoring in the Acts church and I think he thinks it is an ideal fit for today's context. Sounds good.

One thing I liked about this gathering was that no matter what situation you came from you obviously had a common interest in thinking missionally or you wouldn't have signed up. As far as I could tell there were people from all kinds of churches. At a lot of conferences there seems to be a tension between the various philosophies of ministry represented. In this case, the majority had to favor a missional philosophy or you wouldn't have come. (Yeah, there are always a few who may have ulterior motives.) I think that allows for deeper thought and dialogue. You think deeper about the philosophy rather than wasting time defending your belief or gritting your teeth at what else is being said.

I should also mention that we stayed at the Salt Ford Resort in the Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. Nice place. They have a ton of deer wandering around. I stepped out on my balcony one morning to watch 4 or 5 of them wandering around right below me. They just looked up as if they were waiting for me to feed them something. I think that must happen a lot. I am interested to see what this place will be like in the warmer months. It was too cold for me to go out for a walk in the woods at this time of year. Yeah, I'm a wimp.