Bubby's Blog

Okay, so my brother writes some worthwhile stuff on his blog, and, occasionally, puts photos of my ridiculously cute nephew on, too. If you want to read some worthwhile stuff from someone who vaguely knows what he's talking about and is still a legitimate, all be it, second-rate, minister, check out his stuff at Kethuvim.

I normally wouldn't advertise for him, because, frankly, he's a poopy-head (Oh, yeah, I went there!), but his stuff is worth your time and consideration.

shalom, matt

Ahhhh...Yes....

I'm shamelessly ripping off my brother here. He posted a link to a good article and I'm linking to it here. It's a tad long, but worth the read, especially toward the bottom of the article.

shalom, matt

God in the Factory

I came to the realization of something this week, something extraordinary for me, something I've not experienced in years: I'm actually content with my life right now. I know, I know: stop the presses, right? Can I be honest with you? I can't remember the last time I was content with my life. The last year has been one long, seemingly unending nightmare of criticism, lies and vilification, with a dash of not making enough money to pay the bills, and a sprinkle of not having a clue what God was up to. I still don't know what God is up to, but I'm content with that. I like my job. I'm starting to pray more and worry less about the outcome of my prayers. I'm starting to focus less on myself and more on the people around me: family, friends and coworkers. Here is the greatest part of the whole contentment thing: I have an increasing awareness of God's presence all around me, especially in the factory. While I'm sure that God isn't unionized and working the line or anything, He is present nonetheless. It's obvious. I can't just right it off. I'm content with my line job, something I never would have pictured myself doing or being okay with. I actually don't mind going to work, even at 6 in the morning. I find myself praying at work, listening to God, meditating on Scripture, running random God-thoughts through my head. I find that worship songs are constantly running through my head. God is blessing the work of my hands. After only two weeks, the supervisors are talking about making me a team leader. This is all good. But the deciding factor in my awareness of God all around me is this constant feeling that there is an "Other" surrounding me, subtly, but truly present nonetheless. It's this "Otherness" that I can't explain, but that is simply too real to ignore and write off as emotion. Vocabulary fails when trying to explain it; I simply just experience it and trust that you know what I'm talking about. It's as if I'm contained within Something, like the feeling of being gently wrapped in a warm blanket. It is the reality of the passage in Acts that says, "In him we live and move and have our being." It's what Brother Lawrence called "practicing the presence of God." It is me living in the present moment, not looking ahead or behind, just simply taking in each moment as something holy and good and right, knowing that God has me exactly where he wants me. I don't have to force anything, push to understand Him or pull away in an attempt to go it alone. I just simply have to be in the moment. God tells Moses in Exodus to "Come up on the mountain and be here." Basically, "don't come up here, Moses, and immediately start thinking about how you're going to get back down, what the people are doing down below, or anything else for that matter. You come up here and be present in this one moment with me. I want all of you, every part of you, right here, right now."

And all of this is happening in a factory, working twelve hour shifts, and doing demanding, physical labor. I didn't experience this kind of Presence while working in a church (go figure). I've not experienced anything like this perhaps ever before in my life.

And I am happy.

May you find contentment in the present moments of your life.

shalom, matt

The Trouble With Evangelism (Part 3)

Okay, so now that we've stopped selling Jesus and have begun to love our own spiritual flesh and blood family, what do we do? What's the program, the formula, the recipe for bringing others into the glorious fold over yonder in Beulahland? First off, what does Beulahland mean and who came up with it? Does it sound like a land full of blue-haired, overweight women crocheting lace doilies and sipping Lipton Iced Tea, or is it just me? Secondly, stop looking for formulas. We are dealing with human beings, not cyborgs with automated responses. We are dealing with human beings with broken hearts, broken lives, broken relationships, broken families, real and definable problems with not-so-simple solutions. To gloss over the grief and heartache, the flesh and blood reality of their lives is to do a great injustice to their God-breathed humanity.

So, we agree then? No more formulas, right? Good. Let us away with ourselves to higher plains of conscience thought...or something less pretentious anyway.

I know when I talk about loving others as the key to evangelism, nay, to everything we do as Christians, people who have grown up with formulas tend to get glassy-eyed and start nodding off; or they get out the pitch-forks and torches and storm the castle keep chanting, "New Age hippy! New Age hippy!" Either response is what scientists would "bad." But if we read the gospel narratives carefully, picking over them with a fine tooth comb, we will find a God who, defining himself as love, incarnates himself into human flesh simply because he "so loved the world" (John 3:16). And it is this same love that compels Him to offer his own self as a once-for-all-forever sin atonement sacrifice. And it is this same love that drives the grace-for-nothing forgiveness that he foolishly and extravagantly endows to every breathing human being. And it is this same love that Jesus says we are to have for God--and for every human being on earth.

"You are to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength."

"You are to love your neighbor as yourself."

Told you so.

See why I said evangelism begins and ends with love? It's not a New Age thing. It's not 1960s free love residue clinging to my underarm hair (I wasn't even born in the '60s!). It's the way of Jesus: love. It's love that drove his mission; love that drove him to the cross; love that moved him to have compassion on the sick and insane, the criminal and creepy, the murderous and pathetic, the hungry and homeless, the least, last, lost and lonely.

This love is not a general sympathetic feeling for humans in general, like when you watch T.V. and see all of those starving African children with flies buzzing around their eyes and mouths, and you say to no one in particular, "Someone should help those kids; it's so sad," but you then change the channel over to TNT to watch old re-runs of "Everybody Loves Raymond," muttering to yourself how Oprah will get around to it eventually...or Bono...or BrAngalina. This love is specific and intentional, rooted and founded in relationship; it is dirty and involved, simultaneously painful and joyful, exhilarating and exhausting, so simply you smack your head and say, "Duh!" and yet so difficult that you could curl up in a corner and suck your thumb in frustration. This love is drenched in blood and guts and tears and mystery. It is infectious and transforming and I dare anyone to walk away unchanged by it, whether lover or beloved.


This is why formulas are so dangerous: they can be done without love, without relationship--and without effect.

"Yes? I see there is a question way up in the Mezzanine section. Go ahead...Yeah...Can you speak up, please?...You want to know about the Great Commission. You say it's a formula for making disciples. Okay, let me address that very simply and then expound upon it verbosely: not it isn't! It is not a freaking formula, thank you very much!"

My brother did some studying up on the Great Commission and discovered that the Greek word we translate as "go" can also be translated "as you are going." Stop and think about the implications for that difference in translation. We always read the Great Commission in such a way as to make it seem like a separate part of our life, like another compartment we open up at the correct time, such as during a mission trip or a VBS. We sequester it off from our real life, where it will make the occasional intrusion into our conscience in the form of guilt (usually) at having never "made a disciple." This is why we program evangelism, because it is not a realistic extension of who we are as Christians. It is something we do (a program), instead of something we live (a relationship).

"As you are going..." As you are eating, working, playing; as you're walking the halls of school or commerce; as you are driving or riding to work or school with someone, your family, a friend; as you talk and listen, love and serve, laugh and mourn--make disciples. Evangelism has to be a natural extension of the loving relationship we share with God, on down to our relationships with humanity. We can't put ourselves into a mode of evangelism, as if flicking a switch or engaging your 4x4 system on your Jeep. You can't go into evangelism mode. You can't jump into a phone booth and all of a sudden become "Evangiman," able to convert tall people with a single word. If it isn't part of who you are then it will be uncomfortable for you and awkward for whatever fish is (unluckily) caught in your evangelism net.

Here is a cuckoo thought: what if we actually trusted the Spirit to transform people's lives? What if we showed-then-told people what discipleship under Jesus is really like, honestly and completely? There is a distinct lack of trust among Christians when it comes to allowing the Spirit to work in HIS time. He doesn't work fast enough. He allows people the freedom to make mistakes. He allows people to be...well...people, individuals with a distinct and often dirty humanity. We don't like that. We want to create people in our image, who look and act like us. We don't want them to do un-Christian things (even though we did...and still do). We don't allow them the process of discipleship that we were allowed (and are still in the midst of). Esther de Waal in her commentary on The Rule of St. Benedict says this:

...the only person who has rights over the inner life of another person is God Himself...growth is not something which can be manipulated by human rules or ideologies; maturity cannot be mass produced. __From Seeking God: the Way of St. Benedict

We, generally, will wrest "control of the yolk from the Pilot and send the whole mess into the sea" (with apologies here to The Shins). We weary them with dogmatic declarations and legalistic rules and soul killing morality that strips them of their freedom in Christ and turns them into one more Spirit-starved pew sitter who looks just like us.

My friends, this cannot be.

Leave people in the hands of God. "As you are going" love people, serve people, rejoice and mourn with them, share your life with them, let God do His work, and, who knows, the kingdom may just grow by one.

shalom, matt

...thy kingdom come...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20761374/?gt1=10357

Amazing. Amazing. And amazing.

May we all live up to this standard.

Makes your anger at the guy who cut you off in traffic look a little silly doesn't it?

shalom, matt

The Trouble with Evangelism (Part 2)

Author's note: This was written several weeks ago while I was still a car salesman. I'm no longer a car salesman so you'll just have to pretend.

“It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch.” --From the movie The Big Kahuna

I'm a "salesman." I use quotes because I'm a ghastly, horrendous salesman. The Bush Administration is better at selling Iraq to the nation than I am at selling cars. It's not just that I'm bad at selling cars, I actually hate trying to sell cars. People with Ebola or the bubonic plague are looked at with less revulsion. I am the Untouchables of India, the 1980's AIDS patient, the 1st century leper. No one likes a salesman. I'm not even sure my wife likes me anymore.

I used to hate salesmen; now, I pity them. They're just trying to make a living. But I understand why no one likes us: we pretend to be your friend, but we really only want to sell you something. No matter how friendly or interested a salesperson may seem in you, your hobbies, your family, your waist size, whether you can divide by pi, etc., the conversation always ends up with us trying to sell you something. We are trained to steer conversations, control the customer, moving them along a pre-determined path to an eventual sale. This is why we are shunned.

I'm bone-weary of Christians trying to convert everyone they meet. I'm tired of programmed evangelism turning disciples into Jesus-salesmen (he has a lifetime warranty, you know?). How many sermons have you heard extolling the benefits of becoming a church-going, money-tithing, baptized-in-the-baptistery Christian? Does it sound like a sales pitch to anyone else? Not that there isn't some truth to it all. But should we really be selling Jesus like we would an '08 Avenger or a Kenmore refrigerator?

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Evangelism has to start here, deep within the community of Christ. There has to be love amongst the brethren or our message of God reconciling all things to himself, and us to each other, falls on its face, trailing off into pathetic, garbled attempts to convince a skeptical world of a reality that we don't even live out. Don't even bring up the Great Commission either until we get this lovin' each other thing down. Why try to bring someone into a community that hates, bickers, fights and backstabs as much as the rest of the world does? How many churches have destroyed themselves through lack of love and sacrifice? How many lives have been destroyed, how many souls damaged by the church's desire for supremacy, for bigger, better and more? How many teenagers have been forever turned off to the very idea of church simply because they saw through the facade of the church's business-driven, not love-driven, emphasis?

And this love cannot be a mirror of the cheap, fraudulent love that the world tauts as authentic. We've mirrored the world for far too long. Love must be sacrificial, willing to give up anything and all things for the sake of the beloved. It must be willing to give up the ultimate possession: control. Control over a situation, circumstance, an individual: to relinquish these is to pursue a Reality deeper and more beautiful than what the mind can conceive of or grasp--the Kingdom of God. Our love must be intentional, too, if it is to be dynamic and life-changing, unifying and freeing. Loving lives are not naturally habitual; they must be cultivated, grown organically in the garden over time, with care, patience, and a little bit of self-forgiveness along the way. We are intrinsically selfish (due to the annoyance known as the Fall) and seek our own best ends before others. It's why the Bible continually admonishes us in infinite ways to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us," to "love our neighbors as ourselves." We have to set out each day, with purpose and intentionality, to form loving habits, a gait of loving compassion for one another.

Love is the beginning of all evangelism. And true, authentic love (I dare say) ONLY comes through true, authentic relationships. The spread of the good news of free grace given without condition can only come within the context of a substantive relationship. You can't start a relationship with the idea of converting that person. Why? Because it will only be a matter of time before you start steering the relationship. It's a cheapening of all that loving relationships should be, Controlling the relationship to any designed end, no matter how noble or right, makes you a salesmen and dismantles the weak foundation the relationship is built upon.

You are not a salesman. You are a lover of God and of man. Let's being our move towards a new way of witnessing to the grace and love of God by being luminaries of love, shining brightly on our own brothers and sisters sitting next to us in the pew.

shalom, matt

The Trouble With Evangelism (Part 1)

Let me just say this at the outset, something I've said a number of times to people I know, have probably written about on several occasions, and will probable say again: I hate evangelism and all evangelism-brand products. I don't want to be contagious (ever notice how people want to avoid things that are contagious?). I don't want to be relevant, because if I tell you I'm relevant, or try to be, then I'm not (plus, there is nothing relevant about the gospel's call to die). I don't want to be postmodern, emergent, or ancient-future, because no one can agree on what that looks like or even means. If you have to try and convince people to follow Jesus then something is missing in how you are living because they haven't noticed anything extraordinarily different in you from themselves. That's one of my beefs with evangelism seminars/books/programs: they revolve around a formula of some kind that ultimately end up with Joe Christian convincing Ken Pagan that they need Jesus to cure all of life's ills and help them get a summer home in Vail. Sure, the program may be relational. Sure, the program may even "work" occasionally. But at its core I think it's missing the boat of Jesus' intent for his disciples and the spread of the good news that God has forgiven the totality of man's sin through the slaughter of his Son on the Cross; the good news that there is a new way of existence, a new way of being human (which is really the ONLY way to be human), shown to us through Christ; the good news that God is reconciling the created order back to himself, of which, we are a part.

I think we over-complicate evangelism. I hated when people would teach me how to evangelise: the Roman road, the five-finger exercise, cute, fold-out tracts depicting every step to avoiding hell. I recall with vivid horror and revulsion the feelings of guilt and shame I felt knowing that I was not leading the legions to Christ, that I hadn't "taken my school for Jesus." I was a failure of a disciple because I wasn't leading my lost, heathen, drunken/stoned schoolmates to the cool, quenching, cleansing waters of baptism. "What If I don't have the right answers?" I remember worrying.

So I didn't talk to anyone about my faith.

I know I'm not the only one with this experience. Many of you have been down a similar road with similar emotions, and you are in a similar spot asking the same question.

Now what?

That is the question I would like to take up as I begin a series of posts on evangelism. I'm not an authority on this, but by looking at what isn't working and what hasn't worked we can perhaps forge new ground towards a better definition of evangelism.

shalom, matt