The Pop Para Digm

Yeah, you read that right. Only a couple of days after posting this Tweet…

“Pat Robertson is a complete moron who has completely lost touch with the world around Him AND with the God He claims to represent. This was the last straw for me. Hopefully, the world around will understand this guy is NOT a true representation of Christ and His love.”

…I am writing a blog post called ‘Pat Robertson Makes Me Smile’.

Now if you are to assume that I have lost my mind, you might not be too far off base. But that’s not the cause of this supposed about-face. I still don’t like what Pat Robertson had to say. I still think he has lost touch with the world, and I personally am not sure he EVER did a good job of reflecting a balanced view of Christ’s love for the world. He definitely wasn’t and isn’t a good spokesmen for my generation anyway. [And for the record, I may or may not have used the word ‘moron’ in the aforementioned Tweet to stir up a little controversy…but don’t tell anyone].

What I loved to see [this is where the smile came] about the backlash that followed his comments last week [click HERE to get caught up to speed if you didn’t read the initial report] was that people actually stood up and took a stand. And that stand wasn’t even them disagreeing with the opinion he had offered. The revolt came because what he said disagreed with what Christ offers us in Scripture.  Mr. Robertson’s words were seen as something that wasn’t Biblical, and the majority of the world [Christian or not] called him on it. Let’s just say…I would have not wanted to have been working in the TBN Call Center that night!

When Christians take stands based on Scripture and on the set of principles they have formed through their study of Scripture [and don’t take them in an arrogant or demeaning way], the world respects that. They might not agree, and might not have any desire to be ‘converted’ to our way of thinking, but they respect it. When people like Mr. Robertson use his access to a large viewing audience to share opinions that not only violate Scripture, but are just down-right crazy…his bluff gets called. And in the process, Christians like myself and millions of others who work hard to reflect Christ and ALL His teachings in a grace-filled, truth-driven way lose credibility.

My objective can’t be [and shouldn’t be] to belittle Pat Robertson for one phrase that came out of his mouth. If I think he’s not a good representation of the God I’m serving, then I should work that much harder to BE that representation. I’ve heard it said many times…don’t offer problems without solutions. The world has plenty of problems. You can either be the one spreading the news of this painfully obvious reality, or you can do something about it. I want to do something about it. 

See the problems in your world today…and then aim to be a part of the solution!

Yesterday, my LifeGroup embarked on a new study from Q Ideas called ‘Staying Grounded in a Shifting World’. It’s all about returning to some of the ancient disciplines and practices in our quest to know Christ in today’s world. One that really stuck out to me was brought out by a lady named Phyllis Tickle. She’s a cute old lady that had some great things to share. She re-introduced me to an idea called ‘Fixed-Hour Prayer’. I have heard of this a couple of times before, but it didn’t really hit home with me until last night.

The premise is simple…you pick certain times during every day to offer up a short, themed prayer to God. It provides an opportunity for you to step away from whatever hustle and bustle you’ve got going in that moment, but it also grounds us in the discipline of prayer on a daily basis. Now I’m not telling you to lessen your prayer life into scripted moments…but I really like the idea of being consistent with when and how we pray. I think that helps it to become a habit and not just a temporary, flash in the pan, sort of thing. This might be a good way for a new believer to begin the discipline of prayer, or for a long-time believer to reacquaint themselves with consistently going to God in prayer. 

So after watching her talk and talking it through with my group, I decided I was going to begin to practice this concept, at least for some period of time. The times I settled on using were 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm. There’s a 6am option, but let’s face it…I’m not even sure God is up that early to hear the prayers if we pray them :-)

I wanted to share the prayers I am praying. As I searched my own heart and asked God, these are the prayers that came out. These are the things I am most passionate about, and the things that I am giving my life to. They might change after a season, but for the moment, this is the good stuff. 

9am - God, I pray that my life would reflect You today. In every circumstance, every interaction and every moment…I pray that the words that come from my mouth and the way in which I carry myself would not hinder someone from seeing You, but would in fact point them toward You. I pray that you would provide tangible opportunities for me to speak words of hope, wisdom, discernment, etc into the lives of people who need it today. And help me to be in step with you and your will for me today.

12pm - God, I take this moment to pray for Aubrey [my wife]. I pray that you would bless her today in whatever she is doing…and that you would give her strength and clarity in her mind as she lives out your call for her today. I pray for my LifeGroup…that you would grant them the deepest desires of their heart as they seek after you today. And I pray for my family…that you would watch over them and guide them in the journey they take today.

3pm - God, I pray that Your Kingdom would be advanced in our city and community today. Through my life and the lives of those who call You their Savior…I pray that you would open the eyes of our neighbors and co-workers to see the Hope we have that can only be found in you. I pray that the poor would find resource, the lame would find healing, and the hurting would find hope…and all so you would be glorified in our city!

6pm - God, I pray that you would strip away the things in my life that are keeping me from living in the fullness of your plan for me. Whether people, environments, or material possessions, help me to see the things I need to leave behind so I can move ahead as you lead. I want to take this journey traveling as light as possible, so I can move at the pace you set and not be burdened or weighed down by the trivial things of this world.

9pm - God, I thank you for another day you have given me to serve you. I think you for life, breath, strength, and resource, but most importantly, I thank you for another day where you extended me your grace. I have abused it time and time again, and you have offered it time and time again. May the mistakes of today become the victories of tomorrow, and may you be glorified in every single one of them. I recognize that my existence hangs on your willingness to grant me another breath, and I will do my best to utilize every breath you give to see Your Kingdom come in mid-Missouri and in my world.

Now obviously, you don’t have to end there. You may have things you want to expound on that are specific to what is happening that day…which is totally cool. But these are meant to be brief moments that can happen almost anywhere.

I hope you may be encouraged by this and will want to give it a try for yourself. It has been a blessing to me, and I’ve only been doing it for half of a day!

CR

I may not be all I could be, but at least I’m better than _______________. How many of us have heard someone make this statement in an attempt to justify their poor job performance or lack of some attribute in their own life.

I have recently heard supporters of Barack Obama justify him taking a vacation in the middle of a pretty important span of time for our country by letting everyone know that George W. Bush had taken more time off at this time in his presidency than Obama…and thereby justifying his actions. That’s not necessarily meant to be a political statement…but it is meant to challenge us and our view of our current situation. It’s not about Obama-VS-Bush. It’s about a 15 trillion dollar debt and 10% unemployment. That’s our current reality and comparisons alone without action won’t make that any better. 

I see churches constantly hold their ministries up to other ministries in other parts of the country, when in actuality, there’s a pretty good chance those churches that are thriving are doing so because they cared more about knowing their context and building a community around that than trying to mimic someone or something else.

God didn’t create us just to be better than someone else. He created ME to be the best, world-changing, people-loving, Jesus-reflecting ‘ME’ I can be. I’ll do things better than some and some will do things better than me…and that’s how it’s supposed to be. 

If you’re only out to be better than the guy before you, you will fail every time. We were made for so much more than that!

Over the course of the past few months, I have come to the realization that a relationship that I’ve had for quite some time in my life has become a little more strained. There’s not really any major signs that things are much different, but it’s just something I have sensed through dialogue and actions. It has been an interesting ‘case study’ to watch and experience this situation unfold. There’s a couple of things I’ve noticed in the process.

1 // I HAVE TO WATCH MY MOTIVES MUCH CLOSER.

When you get in situations of strain like this, it’s easy to justify certain actions in our own lives. We tend to give ourselves a free pass to do or say things we should’t just because we feel like we’ve been justified to do so by the other person’s actions. I have done my best [definitely not perfect though] throughout this process to commit it to prayer and ask God to keep my heart and motives pure. If I am adding to the tension, I need to stop and turn from those actions or words as quickly as possible.

2 // PURE RELATIONSHIPS TRUMP EVERYTHING.

What I’ve really gotten out of all this is pretty simple…when relationship is the priority, you can’t go wrong. So many times, relationships get burdened by the realties of the contexts they reside in. Take a boss and his employee. If the main objective is ‘people-driven’, that employee will feel empowered and engaged, because he feels like he is cared for. And because of that, he’ll bend over backwards to help see that boss’s vision come to fruition. But if the organization’s bottom line or the boss’s fear of failure takes top billing, that employee probably won’t be able to catch hold of the vision like he should, and slowly but surely, the organization begins to suffer from a lack of engagement from the top down.

I’m trying to figure out what this looks like in my life. Not all of us are bosses, but we all have relationships, which means we have the opportunity for influence. No matter how hard it is, fight to make PEOPLE andRELATIONSHIPS the top priority. You will always have to make tough decisions, and this doesn’t mean you won’t disappoint friends or family from time to time, but if they know you care and you have been intentional about investing in the relationship, you will almost always get the benefit of the doubt.

Who do you need to be investing in this week? Month? Year?

Recently, I saw an ad for a new Dell Computer with what they are calling a ‘color switch’ top. Basically, the premise is they offer different colors and designs of tops that snap on the exterior of the top of the computer to give your laptop a little different look.

Now, I will say on the front end…I am an Apple fanatic. I own a Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPad 2, a 24” iMac, and some other random Apple things. So I love Apple, and pretty much think that all their competitors are second-rate at best. 

As I watched this Dell ad, the first thing that popped into my mind was the fact that they were trying to provide these aesthetic options to make up for the fact that their product just isn’t that great. Instead of focusing their dollars on developing and evolving their product to a place where it could legitimately stand a chance against a Macbook Pro, they just come up with these covers, throw a bunch of marketing dollars toward them, and hope that the public won’t know any better.

And unfortunately, I think this happens all too often in today’s world. Individuals will get plastic surgery or work out excessively to try and make up for all the pain they feel on the inside. Politicians will pass surface-level legislation that may temporarily put a band-aid on a problem, knowing full well that the problem will peak its ugly head up again some time later. Churches will buy more moving head lights and big screens rather than tackle the deeper issues of discipleship and moving people closer to Christ.

Dell will inevitably sell a good number of these computers just because a 16 year old girl wants to be able to have a pink laptop one day and a purple one the next. But six months down the road, when she turns her laptop on only to discover that a virus has corrupted her hard drive through a random email attachment, she will be wishing she owned the plain ole’ silver Macbook Pro that doesn’t even have antivirus software because there are so few Mac viruses.

This is not an Apple ad…I promise. This is a challenge to look deeper in every situation. There is almost always more than meets the eye. And sometimes, in our own lives, we need to be acutely aware of that. We might be content with some surface level tweak, while God may be calling us to deep, uncomfortable change or introspection. The pain will be real, but so will the reward. Be OK with the tough questions along your journey…they usually bring the most powerful answers.

I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t want their life to make an impact on the world around them. Whether or not Christ is a part of their life, ultimately most people want to do good. But many end up settling for a fraction of the impact that they could actually have because of one little problem…they’re simply too busy.

Whether you work on Wall Street or WalMart…I don’t know of many people [if any] who aren’t legitimately busy with tasks and things in their life. It is most definitely the default in modern-day America. If you’re not busy, you’re not successful…or so everyone thinks. 

But what if you had enough time in your day…in your week…in your life…to actually do the things that you want to do. And to do the things you are passionate about. For starters, that would just be cool! But more importantly, it could and would be incredibly beneficial to your life, your family and the people in your sphere of influence.

As a Christ-follower, I’m looking for more opportunities to simply give God space to do what he wants to do in me and through me. If I don’t give him space, he’s not going to force himself in. He’ll simply move on to someone else who has done a better job of prioritizing and work through them. That’s a pretty simple way of describing that chain of events, but I really think that’s how it is. 

My challenge to myself and to anyone who is reading this…take the next 7 days of your life and intentionally shine a spotlight on every variable and aspect of your life. Ask yourself if this ‘task’ is worth taking time away from things of greater value. Sometimes the answer has to be YES. But many times, the answer could probably be NO. I want to do a better job of creating this space for things of HUGE value and not just things of short-term worth.

How about you?

Every time I truly stop and take a moment to try and fathom the reality of God’s grace in my life, I am left astonished and completely awestruck. The reality for us all is that we are living in the fullness of a grace we’ll never be able to wrap our heads around. And for some of us, that actually muddies the water. If we could grasp it, then we could define it. And if we could define it, we could add our own parameters. But we can’t grasp or define it, and therefore we tend to grossly underestimate it.

Think of Peter. He walked with Jesus. He saw his miracles and his connection to God the Father firsthand. But more importantly, he saw Christ’s humility and vulnerability. And even after all that, he still denied that he knew who Jesus was. We think we’ve fallen short…this guy takes the cake. And yet, after what seems to be this unforgivable transgression, not only does Jesus forgive Peter, but gives him the chance to play an extremely instrumental role in the advancement of God’s Kingdom on earth. That is an astonishing grace. It doesn’t fit into a cute equation or formula. 

Then there was Saul, who spent much of his early life persecuting Christians and doing all he could to get them to see the world without Christ. This guy was a bad dude, and yet God reaches out to him and changes his reality. He didn’t have to do that…there were plenty of other guys in Jerusalem that God could have gotten to play the role that Paul ended up playing. But He chose Paul…in spite of all he had done…He chose him. That is not a fathomable or definable grace. 

When Paul told the Romans in his letter to them that ‘there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’, he was talking from experience. This guy could have and should have lived a life of guilt and second-guessing all the terrible choices he had made. But I think, on some level, he was able to see the grace of God for what it was and just live driven by that reality. 

We all have plenty of reasons why we should feel guilty. We are born with a tendency to separate ourselves from Christ, and many times we fall right into that trap. But there is a better way to live. The Christian who embraces God’s grace is the one with a smile on their face. They’re the ones who know they’re jacked up…but they’ve sided with Christ and that’s the only variable that matters to them. Don’t try to fit God’s grace into your life equation. Simply lay your life in the fullness of God’s grace and live. Everything else will fall into place.

Sometimes I wonder if the new age of Facebook and Twitter are good for us or not. One thing I have noticed that I don’t particularly enjoy is seeing so many status updates and Tweets from Christians about the perils of the world and how we must stand strong and continue on the path we’ve created that we think leads to life-change and culture impact. Unfortunately, the path we’ve created that we thought would lead to people being drawn to Christ is actually leading people away from Him. The problem with the plan is this…when we see the world getting ‘worse’ and moving farther away from Christ, we have the tendency to move farther away from the world we’ve been called to reach. We think we must guard our hearts and morals to the point that we just have to withdraw and pray that God does something big without our help. The world is just too jacked up for us to risk getting stuck in the middle of it…or so we think.

The extent of our outreach and personal evangelism is inviting people to church without having built any trust, relationship, or influence with them. Do we honestly think that someone will come to a church that they are undoubtedly skeptical about on some level when being invited by someone who hasn’t showed any interest in them until until the moment they invite them to the aforementioned church? I’m not sure that really ever worked, but I am certain it doesn’t work in today’s disconnected culture.

People in every sector of society are looking for real connection. Why do you think Twitter and Facebook are so immensely popular. It gives us the feeling that we are connected with people…old high school friends, friends from the place we used to live, etc. While these aren’t connections on the level that we need to really have influence, they aren’t a bad thing if we can use them to lead to something greater.

We as the Church have a great opportunity to play an important role in the redemption of the culture around us…but that simply won’t happen from a distance. We can’t be afraid to get dirty. We can’t be afraid to fail. We can’t fear the unknown. Jesus has promised us that He will provide all we need as we navigate this new ground. That’s all the assurance I need.

I’ve noticed the word ‘intentional’ coming out of my mouth a lot more in the past few months. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but the more I heard it, the more I realized it could be a part of something deeper that’s going on in me.

For instance, my wife and I wanted to be more intentional about spending quality time together. So we decided on two nights of the week that would be technology-free hang out nights. These are nights where she nor I will be on a computer or iPhone while we’re spending time together - NO EXCEPTIONS!

I have wanted to become more intentional about digging into Scripture. Not just sitting down and reading it for the sake of reading it…but really looking to find ways to apply what I read to how I live. If you read the Bible just to do it, you might as well not read it. There was a time where I felt guilty if I wasn’t diving into Scripture daily. Now…not at all. And that is a very liberating thing.

I am also become more intentional about seeking out opportunities to do life with people in my community. As a guy who works in a church, my default is being around Christians all day, every day. And if I’m not seeking out opportunities to get outside that realm, they won’t happen. The first step was to pray and ask God to give me new ideas on how to do it or just throw me in an opportunity where it could happen, and he has done both. 

I’m not sure what intentionality looks like in your context, but I do know this…if its about the Kingdom [and if its not, that’s a whole other issue], you can’t go wrong. Will it always be easy…nope. Will it look and feel just like we thought it would…nope. But it will bring about a fresh urgency and passion for the places and spaces God has called you to. 

-CR-