Motives and Minivans

We have a minivan. I hate to admit it and have never been happy about it. With apologies to minivan lovers and a confession of my unhealthy attraction to cars, I have to say that I see minivans as nothing more than boring and utilitarian boxes of transport for middle America. Please don't take offense - it's just a matter of personal preference. My disdain for minivans, however, doesn't really have any bearing on what I want to share; it's just I find it impossible to say that I own one without adding that disclaimer. I'm sure it's rooted in some deep insecurity I have regarding other people's opinion of me.

But enough of that tangent - here's the story: One day I was standing behind the minivan, and the rear door was up. My wife, not aware that I was standing close to the van, reached up and pulled down the door to shut it. Now understand, she didn't pull it down slowly and gently; she yanked that boy down hard. I know this for a fact because she yanked it right down on my head. After several minutes of pain and incoherence, I came around and realized what happened. And when I came to my senses, I certainly did not accuse her of doing it on purpose. To the contrary, I assumed it was purely an accident and she did not intend to cause serious brain damage or death. Why was that my assumption? Because she is my wife, I love her, and I choose to trust her heart.

Assumptions are a powerful force, and many of the divisive conflicts I witness in the church occur simply because we decide to assume the worst. Christians too often refuse to give other believers the benefit of the doubt. Instead, we choose to believe that they intended to hurt us, they deliberately ignored us, they willfully excluded us, they purposely lied to us, and so on. Our inability to see the motives and hearts of others does not seem to keep us from making serious judgments, judgments that refuse to consider the possibility of unintentional misunderstandings or miscommunication. Believing our perceptions are infallible, we stubbornly hold to our feelings and judgments as absolutely accurate and justified.

Now I know that there are times when people do intend to hurt and destroy. I realize that when there is a history of hurtful behavior that is not confessed or changed, even though it has been confronted, a relationship of trust cannot be established. But let's get honest about life in the church - our quarrels and divisions usually do not fit into that category. More often than not, a small and insignificant event is perceived wrongly, the worst is assumed, and rather than dealing with it in a spirit of love and reconciliation, we become a prisoner of our inaccurate judgment. And once that judgment takes root, we look at everything through the lens of our misperception, turning every word and action of that person into some intentional slight and deepening the divide we created.

Do I realize how completely proud, arrogant, and sinful it is to assume that my perception of a conversation or event is completely without error? I am a broken human being, who is in the process of being restored by the grace of God. As such, I still carry a boatload of issues, problems, and baggage. I am given to miscommunication, mistakes, and unintentional stupidity. I am not God, my perceptions are not infallible, and I cannot see the heart or motives of others. As one who desperately needs the people in my life to extend the benefit of the doubt and the willingness to assume the best, it is only right and just that I offer that same grace to others.

When the prophet Samuel set out to anoint a new king of Israel (I Samuel 16), God pointedly reminded him not to be swayed by the outward appearance of others. While in the context of the passage that statement refers directly to the physical stature of an individual, I believe it reveals a truth that translates more broadly. What appears to be so, as I perceive it, can be deceptive. God alone knows and sees the heart, and accordingly is the only One qualified to pass judgment.

More than ever, I am convinced that most of the personal conflicts within the church flow out of the arrogant assumption that our perception of what others say, feel, or do is without error. Refusing to allow for the possibility that our perception might be distorted, we are unwilling to grant others the benefit of the doubt and choose, instead, to act out in judgment. As we walk down that path, misperceptions continue to pile on, pushing us to the relational breaking point. But humility calls us to a different path, a path that confesses we are not God, a path that admits our inability to perceive all things clearly. It asks us to trust the heart of others, assuming the best of our brothers and sisters for the sake of love and unity. It reminds us to extend the grace to those around us that we so desperately need ourselves.

Even when they smack us in the head with the door of a minivan.

Defining "Essential"

Like so many others, my family spent some significant time this week without any power due to the windstorm that swept through the Ohio Valley on Sunday. As my kids complained about all that they were doing without, I encouraged them to stop and reflect on those in our world who live every day without our conveniences and luxuries. Of course, while teaching them a valuable lesson, I was secretly bemoaning the fact that my computer would not come on, the phone didn't work, and I couldn't find an open gas station. I'm pretty good at teaching others lessons I have yet to learn myself.

But setting my hypocrisy aside for a moment, I have to admit that this week did force me to wrestle with the question of what is truly essential. Apparently, we have an innate ability to turn non-essential things into necessities we cannot live without. In our consumer-focused, convenience-minded culture of abundance, we are undoubtedly shaped by that tendency more than we care to admit. Somehow, in our minds, non-essentials become essential. As I thought about that in the material sense, I could not help but think about how that same tendency also reveals itself in the realm of church, ministry, and the spiritual life. Even there, we find it all to easy to turn non-essentials into core values.

Think, for a moment, about the conflicts that Jesus faced during His ministry. It seems to me that many of those battles revolved around the issue of what is truly essential. For the Pharisees and others, matters like picking grain on the Sabbath, fasting on the appropriate day, washing in the right way and at the right time, what particular day of the week you came to be healed, and not eating with the wrong kind of people, were all seen as essential matters of God's kingdom. When Jesus conveyed a different understanding of what is truly essential, they took offense and conflict ensued.

For Jesus, what mattered most was loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving others as we love ourselves. These were the priorities that governed His ministry, determining what, where, and when He did what He did. Jesus, quite simply and deliberately, set non-essential things aside for the sake of living out the essential character of God's kingdom, a kingdom of love, grace, mercy, and justice. He did not allow outward traditions and rituals to overrule that which is genuinely essential, which brought him into conflict with those who wanted to make such matters primary.

Now, I'm probably already in trouble with some of you, because you know where this is headed. But in all honesty, I don't think we can deny that many of the conflicts we face in our churches today revolve around the same issue. Just as we so often do with the material things of life, we can elevate non-essential elements of church life to the status of necessity. As a result, our particular forms and styles of worship and ministry become battlegrounds; music styles, what time and day we have church, how the pastor dresses, and whether we have Sunday School on Sunday morning or small groups on Tuesday night, are fought over as if these matters provide the essential foundation of the Church.

It's not that these non-essential things are wrong in and of themselves; it's just they are not essential. And when we try to make them the essential issues of the church, we blind ourselves to what matters most. We argue about styles of worship, and in the process lose sight of what worship really is. We debate about the process of making disciples, and ignore the fact that we aren't doing it anyway. We rise up in defense of how we are supposed to "do" church, but fail to see what God has called us to be as His people.

Even good things, when given the wrong priority, become idols. As the followers of Jesus, when we allow non-essential issues to become more important to us than what is truly essential, we cease to be salt and light in our world. Just as the Pharisees, we can become consumed with defending our particular way, and in so doing, fail to live out God's heart and purpose.

The definition of what is essential has not changed. As Jesus revealed to us, and expressed so clearly in His own ministry, this is all about loving God and loving others, living out what it means to be the people of His kingdom through the transforming power and grace of His Spirit. To let anything else become more important in my life, or the life of the church, is to sadly miss the point.

Don't Quote Me

It wasn't long after my son started school that he came to me with the critical question of whether or not Santa Claus really exists. In my best fatherly spirit, and with a hint of scholarly depth, I discussed with him the origins of Santa Claus and the identification with Saint Nicholas, the 4th century bishop of Myra who gained a reputation for secret giving. Of course, he promptly went to school the next day and told his friends, "My dad said the real Santa Claus died over over 1600 years ago." Nice.


Sometimes it doesn't pay to be quoted.

Maybe that thought should cause us to take a second look at the ways we quote God. Like those times when we rip a passage of Scripture out its context and use it to get our way or prove our point. Or the times we so quickly and easily say, "God told me." It's amazing how often what God tells us seems to line up with what we wanted anyway. What about the times we "defend" God or His Church, but do so in a spirit that is less than Christlike? I can't help but think that there must be times when God winces and says, "Please don't quote me - I'd rather my name not be attached to this."

For people who claim to value the Ten Commandments as a critical foundation of faith, law, and society, we often do a good job of ignoring the spirit and intent of the words, "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God." I grew up in a church culture where that simply meant you shouldn't use God's name as a curse word. Now that's true enough, but it's hardly the whole picture. The reality is, whenever we knowingly invoke, attach, or apply God's name to something that does not reflect His character, we misrepresent Him and wrongfully use His name. Like a fake Rolex watch, we put a genuine name on something that is not genuine.

So when I twist Scripture to fit my own agenda, I'm attaching a "God said so" to something that is not so. When I easily and carelessly say "the Spirit led me," when in reality it was my own desire leading me, I have turned His name into a disingenuous stamp of approval. And when we call ourselves the followers of Jesus, and take that name upon ourselves, but choose not reflect His character and spirit in the people that we are, we misrepresent and misuse the very name we claim to honor.

Day by day, in what I do, in what I say, in the person I am becoming, I am in a very real way quoting God. I pray that I will see the many ways that, in my weakness, I misquote Him. But more than seeing, I pray for the grace to respond to those failures with humility, genuine repentance, the necessary apologies, and with gratitude for the amazing love and patience of my God. My heart tells me that's the kind of response God is willing to attach His name to - but don't quote me.

The Appearance of Change

I've spent the last few days in a leadership conference. I'll be honest, my attitude going into such conferences is usually not a positive one. The prospect of sitting in a room all day listening to an "expert" tell me the right way to do something, which will be contradicted by another "expert" at the next conference, doesn't really excite me. My grumbling begins a full week before and continues until I return home. (I know that comes as a surprise to you, given my usual sunny and positive disposition.)

But today I was truly challenged as I listened to Alan Roxburgh, author of The Missional Leader, discuss what it means to live missionally in this period of dramatic cultural change. Change has always been a part of life in this world, but most of the change we face takes place within the normal, expected paradigms. For example, we expect to get old, to move to a new home, to change jobs. Such changes are a natural part of life for churches as well. They expect pastors to come and go, the death of members, and the birth of new ones. These are all changes that we have learned to manage with our existing skills and abilities.

However, there are some changes that happen outside our expected paradigms, changes that take us beyond the skills we currently have. Something like the death of a spouse is so disruptive that it takes us to a place we have never been before, rendering our usual coping skills insufficient. In the face of such dramatic, unanticipated change, our current habits and solutions fail to address the challenge. There simply can be no return to "normal."

The world we live in is undergoing a deep and disruptive change. A shift in culture and worldview continues to take shape around us, and the church is faced with the reality that many of our traditional approaches and solutions are no longer working. Roxburgh shared that churches are responding differently to this cultural change:

• Some churches are reactive. They know the culture has changed, they don't like it, and they respond by becoming even more entrenched in what they have always done, isolating themselves from their community. Rather than confront the change, they put up a higher wall.
• Some churches are developmental. They believe that if they just develop what they already do, and do it better, they will be more effective. So, they change their music style, remodel the building, put in a coffee bar, hire some new staff, etc. The problem is, they are still doing what they did before; they are just trying to do it "better." While improving what we already do may attract more "church" people, it will do nothing to attract those who are completely disconnected from the church. If they weren't interested in what we were doing before, they probably won't care that we are now doing it differently.
• Some churches become transitional. Instead of asking how they can do the same thing, but do it better, they ask questions of a totally different nature. They begin to wrestle with questions like: How do we move out of our church and into our neighborhood? How do we begin to listen to the people in our community, so we truly learn who they are? What can we do to begin to understand the culture of this place and this time? What does it really mean to be missionaries to our own neighborhood?
• The church that humbly asks these questions has the opportunity to become a church that is transformational. These are the churches that truly enter the lives of people in their community, expressing the redeeming love of Christ. Rather than continue in their same pattern of ministry, they step out into a place they have never been before. Not hiding from the culture around them, or being consumed by that culture, they become a transforming presence in the culture. In their place and time, they sacrificially embody the love and grace of God in the midst of ordinary people.

As I thought about these different reactions, I had to confront the painful truth that much of what I did as a pastor was really developmental change. We simply changed the appearance of things; the culture and mindset underneath remained the same. Although it looked different, it did not move us outward to engage the culture around us. We did it in the name of being missional, but it did not advance the mission of God's kingdom. It made us feel good, but it did not reveal Jesus to the broken people of our neighborhood who would not think of darkening the church door.

I wonder if I am really willing to do what is necessary to become a transformational, missional kind of Christian? Am I willing to step beyond the comfortable things I do and truly move into the world around me to listen, learn, and serve? Am I willing to go to that place I have never gone before, embodying the love of Jesus in the midst of this culture? What is God really calling me to be and do in my neighborhood? What does it look like to live out the kingdom of God in my particular place and time?

I invite you to wrestle with these questions along with me.