Stark Absentism

You know what my real problem is with all of this creating, don't you?  (See yesterday's post.)  It's that I try too hard to make things a little too real.  Because my idea of "perfect" is kind of God's idea of "good."

If, for instance, I decided to use an umbrella as a gimmick for experiential worship, my first thought is to figure out how to make it rain.  I will lay awake honestly more hours than I care to admit trying to figure out how to simulate the pavement, the clouds, the storm, and the rain.  When you walk into this holy moment I'm trying to invite you into, I want you to be there.  I want you walk in like that is really the thing.

Then it inevitably occurs to me that I haven't the slightest idea how to make it rain.  Not without some elaborate hook-ups and the church eldership on my back about ruined carpets.  More than that, I'm not even sure I can get the backdrop of "regular church" to go away.  You know, the purple carpets, the toys in the toddler room, the flowers and Bibles and pencils and all the stuff that goes into "church."

Which makes my job harder because I really, really want you to transcend the space and be in a wholly-other holy moment.

At some point, the image in my head shifts drastically.  I can't make it rain.  But what if you walk into the space I am creating and there is just an umbrella?

That's all.  Just an umbrella.  Maybe a few words.

What if that's all you got?

I think that's a holy moment.

It's a holy moment because it's not distracting.  It doesn't risk becoming about "not the thing."  While it makes perfect sense to have an umbrella when it's raining, it is when it's not raining that you get to bring your own storm.  It's when there is nothing else going on that you get to bring your own heart into it and fully engage with the opportunity at hand.

Engage the umbrella.  Engage your God.

The truth is that any holy moment is not so much about what is as what you bring into it.  It is about opening doors for you to bring your heart and still find Jesus.  It's about creating a space for you to have what you have and have a portion of God to go with it.  It's about inviting you to have your experience, not mine.

And it's about leaving no doubt that the wonder of the experience if what God is doing in you and not wondering how I managed to do that.

It doesn't change the goal too much, this stark absentism in place of elaborate realism.  It doesn't change what I'm trying to do; it humbles the arrogance with which I am doing it.  It makes me stop thinking I can create your moment, that everyone's holy is the same, and reminds me that my mission is only to create the space.  And that's still what I am trying to do.  When you walk into a holy moment I am trying to invite you into, I want you to be there.  I want you to have the fullness of the experience, and as cool as it would be for me to make it rain for you, that's not the thing.

The thing is what happens in a holy moment between you and God.  The thing is getting you to walk into that space and encounter God in such a powerful way that you are in a wholly-other holy moment.  The thing is getting you to let down your guard, bring your own rain, and engage.  The thing is getting you to understand what is really the thing.

And that is God.  God is the thing.

Maybe an umbrella.

Holy Moments

Preparations have begun for our congregation's second Easter/Holy Week experiential worship...experience... - Stations of the Cross.  The journey of Christ's final days.  As part of our worship arts ministry creative team, it falls partly on me to bring these moments to life for all who will grace our building in those three days.

No sweat, right?

Wrong.  I gotta tell you - I'm feeling an awful lot like Job right now.  And not the good Job, either.  Not the afflicted, wrongly condemned man who had a right to have a few questions Job.  No, I feel like the Job standing before God while God is railing Him with obvious taunts and rhetorical questions.

"Oh, you think you understand these things?  Well, go ahead!  Create a holy moment.  Just one!  Try it! Do you know what it takes to make one holy moment?  Just one?  Think of the millions I have created, and those are just in your life.  I have made that many for everyone in every generation.  And you think you can make even one?  Go for it!"

I laugh because this is not a new experience for me.  But I'm throwing myself into a little more, for the sheer pleasure of the humor of God, this time around.

This is actually a thought and a pressure I feel every time I put my gift to (hopefully) good use.  Every time I come to this blog and hope to have something worthy to say about my God.  Every time I open up a new chapter in my book and pray that I don't ruin it with my flesh in the way.  Every time I stand before my congregation and share a thought or an invitation.  And every time I try to put something together for them to experience Christ in a tangible, honest, authentic way.

It's a lot of pressure.  And the natural byproduct of being gifted by God as a communicator.  Or storyteller.  I kind of like that better.

Don't get me wrong: this pressure does not come from God.  This pressure comes from love.  That is, it comes from that within me that loves God and seeks to honor Him.  That piece of me that cannot settle for anything less than honor in my gift and honor through my gift.  That part of me that has to get this just right not so that I look good, but so that God looks good (like He needs any help from me).

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

God could not have blessed me with more apt a gift.  Maybe it's because I was created for this, but I feel like I was created for this.  The pressure, the agony over getting it just right, only fuels my fire more deeply.  It only inspires me to throw my heart into it.

And I've found that's really the only way to get there.

When I was younger, I was a timid girl.  I was questioning, afraid, and lacked any measure of confidence.  There were very few times that I would take on a project without asking for multiple input, without letting little hints leak, to make sure that whatever I was about to undertake was not, uhm, "stupid."  It would make sense to me, but maybe nobody else would get it.  Maybe they wouldn't appreciate it.  Maybe it would pass them by and they'd miss out on a moment because I was too stuck in myself.

Not any more.  Now, I just throw my heart into things and trust the creative instinct within me.  Not everything I come up with is going to be a smash hit for everyone, but I consider what it is that would bring me to the cross.  What is it that would connect me with Christ in this moment?  I find that when I go for it that way, the end result hits a lot more hearts than just mine.

Though it hits mine, too, and I can't wait to walk through Stations and participate in the moments this team is creating.  My moments included.

You'd think that by the time I get it all put together, it would be old hat.  That knowing the "gimmick," for lack of a better word, knowing what's coming when I step into that place would take some of the passion out of it for me.  Not so.  Not at all.  Because in putting it together, I play it in my mind.  I schematic it out.  I work it together.  When the moment finally comes, I get to do it - I get to actually do this thing that came from a burden on my heart that wanted to do it in the first place.  Now here it is, come together.  Inviting me to engage with my Lord.

The same is true for blogs I write, books I write, and thoughts I share.  They come from this raw place in my heart that is able in the moment to get just as much into them as anyone else who had no idea this was coming.  I treasure that authenticity in my gift, and I thank God that He has provided the grace for it.

So I'm working on holy moments and loving this one.  I've got the voice of God in my head, asking, "Can you create one holy moment?"  By His grace, I think I can.  He created me to do this.

May I honor Him.

Faith Out Loud

Yesterday, I talked about something Ray Lewis said in a pregame interview on Sunday.  Aside from being grossly inaccurate about the nature of God, there's something else that bothered me about what Ray Lewis said.

The way Ray Lewis said it.

There is a right way and a wrong way to vocalize God the glory, and the way Ray said it rubbed me wrong.  Because what Ray said was: "God uses me because I am a good man."

It's a statement that takes the focus completely off of God and puts it entirely onto Ray.  Or anyone else who dare speak it for that matter.

But I don't think that means we cannot, or should not, speak publicly of our faith.  Or engage in public displays of affection for our God.  Not at all.

Donald Miller would argue with me on that one.  In fact, he sort of did in this morning's post on the Storyline blog.  (If you're not reading and following Storyline, I recommend that you do.  The content there is practical and generally poignant, a good read even if you don't always agree with the argument behind the heart.  The men and women who share their stories there, as an invitation to yours in the grander invitation to God's, simply live - and write - out loud.  It's an authentic read; read it with grace.)

Today, Miller argues that so many of our public displays of faith come off as awkward, contrived, and inauthentic.  That too often, we're playing for an audience of men rather than an audience of One.  He goes so far as to say that it dishonors God for a football player to pray in the end zone.

I disagree.

I mean, I understand the cynicism and I commend Don for speaking up about something I think grates against a lot of us.  As I quoted in another post, a comedian I heard once said, "Even people who love Jesus don't want to talk about Jesus."  There's something about that dude kneeling in the end zone that makes us shudder and cringe a little bit.  It does seem inauthentic.

That doesn't mean it is.  And it doesn't mean there's no value in it.

Maybe it's because I'm keenly aware that I'm living in a culture that progressively tells me that I'm not allowed to publicly have a faith.  Maybe it's because I know the stories of house churches in foreign countries that surge and then die because it is illegal to have faith.  Maybe it's because I repent of all of those times in my life where I've had the chance to say something about God and chosen not to out of my own insecurities, questions, and doubts.  Maybe it's something else, but something makes me firmly believe that we need public displays of faith.

God has always worked best in community.  In fact, God's story is wrapped in community.  It's wrapped in the very public things that God does among His people.  The greatest stories in Scripture - and in fact, heavily most if not all of them - are what God is doing through the people.  Plural.  As much as it seems that way, God's story is not one of a man here, a woman there, another man here, a woman by a well, a Messiah, and a missionary.  Every one of the stories He uses speaks to the broader community of "God's people."

Our relationship with God was meant to be lived out together.  Until we get the Vulcan mind meld down, the only way to do that is to live it out loud.

I don't think that means we speak God everywhere.  We have to live God louder than we speak Him.  But we cannot be afraid to speak Him when moments arise and we really, really want to.  When God feels like more than the right thing to say and simply feels like more, we ought to speak Him.  When God is present and we have nowhere else to turn, nothing adequate to say in our joy, our sorrow, our pain, our triumph, our grief, our harvest, or any other moment - we ought to speak God.  When we haven't given thought to who is looking, who might hear, what someone might say, or what a thing it might be to do so, and instead, we simply feel like it is the good thing to do - we ought to speak God.  And I dare say, in those moments that are good beyond our goodness, when we know we're not even close, when moments arise and we are burdened by knowing we haven't lived what we're about to say - we ought to speak God.

Not because we're doing God well.  Not because we're getting God right.  Not even because we're good at the God thing (if you can narrow God down to a thing).  But because God is.

He is.  And He ought to be talked about.  How else do you give credit to a God who is good than by praising His goodness when you have the chance to do so?  Than by verbalizing the source of the good things in your life?  Than by redirecting the conversation to something greater than yourself?

It works - it works well and it is absolutely necessary - only when the conversation comes to God and nothing else.  It doesn't work if we're all talking about the guy kneeling in the end zone.  It doesn't work if we're debating the authenticity of public displays of faith.  It only works when the result of your actions is that man stops looking at you and starts looking at God.

We can debate all day how to do that.  How to come across as authentic.  How to come across as kneeling before God and not kneeling for the sake of man.  How to come across as being an honest man before God.  How to look like you're not just "doing Jesus" and instead, like you're hungry for something.  But we don't need to debate that.  We know how to do it.

Come before God.

That's it.  Come before God with all you've got - everything you are.  Come honestly before Him for the sake of Him.  For the sake of Love.  For the sake of praise.  For the sake of worship.  Come before God and take the moment captive, not to the cameras but to the Christ.

People will see when the moment is real.  And in the real moment, they will see the real God.

Think again about the man kneeling in the end zone.  It seems fake, doesn't it?  Contrived?  An awkward place to pray?  You'd never really pray like that, not in real life.  Right?  You wouldn't just stop everything in the midst of the action and drop to one knee.  You can't just do that.

But what about the team that drops to its knees while a brother lies fallen on the field?  What about that picture circulating on Facebook?  That is a moment.  A real moment.  We value it as such.

Donald's is right, we should never spend our time orchestrating how our faith looks.  We are best investing our time in how our faith lives.  Or better yet, how it loves.

We should not, however, work on living our faith privately.  A faithful man looks an awful lot like a good man.  Unless we go public with our God, how will an unbelieving world come to know Him?

No man lights a candle and puts it under a basket.  Neither does God.  He does not set a man's heart on fire and then tell Him not to burn out loud.  We were meant to live faithful lives with a world watching.  Not because they are watching.  But because they see us.

For God's Glory

If you watched any of the Super Bowl pregame yesterday, you likely saw an interview with Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens.  The interviewer did not shy away from the taboo tabloid question and hit Lewis directly, asking about the murder of two young men in Atlanta.  It is a case with which Lewis was connected more than a decade ago  When asked, Lewis responded in the following manner (words as remembered, not precisely quoted):

"Anyone who knows God at all knows God don't work like that.  I mean, God don't use people for His glory who caught up in that kind of mess.  He just don't."

The implication being, of course, that Ray Lewis has been used for God's glory and that this obviously disqualifies him from any serious wrongdoing or God would have chosen another man.

It made me cringe.  It made me shudder.  And I think it's the kind of statement that made a lot of questioning Christians and seeking hearts hang their heads.

Let me make this clear to both Mr. Lewis and to anyone who heard his words:

He couldn't be more wrong.

It is grossly inaccurate to say that God does not use sinners - even the worst or sinners - for His glory; the truth is that God has only used sinners for His glory.

Go ahead.  Read His memoir.  Check it out if you don't believe me.  Every man, every woman, every Israelite, every foreigner, every king, every priest, every layman, every craftsman, every spy, every warrior, every body God ever used for His glory was a sinner.  Prostitutes among them.  Liars among them.  Cheaters among them.  Thieves among them.  Even - yes, even - murderers among them.

God does not pick perfect men to reveal Himself.  If He did, we would never see His glory.  There are no perfect men to choose from.

God does not even necessarily pick good men to reveal Himself.  There are maybe a handful of those here and there, but what does a good man demonstrate about grace?  What does a good man demonstrate about forgiveness?  What does a good man show for mercy?  If we argue that we serve a gracious, forgiving, merciful God (among many other noble qualities) - then where in a good man does God show that glory?

No, it is in and through the sinners that God reveals Himself.  He even declares as such in His word:

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:7-8

God demonstrates His love - His very nature - in His relationship with the sinner.  Not for the righteous. Not even for the Good.  No, He died for the fallen man.

For the man whose fallen shorts bound his ankles, God suspended Himself from the cross for the chance to clothe the man in righteousness.  Then He looked to His side and promised, "Today, you will be with Me in paradise."

That is where God's glory lies.  Not in the good man, but in the redeemed man.  And no righteous man has ever been redeemed.  Only the sinner.  Even the worst of the worst.

You don't have to be a good man to tell God's story.  You simply have to be a man.  You have to be a man who doesn't pretend to be something else.  You have to be a man dependent on God, a man who can humble yourself and show His grace.  You have to commit yourself to telling God's glory with every bit of your life - your breastplate of righteousness and your fallen shorts.

Fallen shorts that can only be held up by a belt of Truth.  The truth is: God has only ever used sinners for His glory.

Be a man.  Be a sinner.  Be God's.  And He will use you for His glory.

He already is.

Unbridled Passion

The following post is for anyone who has ever tried to tap the gift of God in their life.

The gift God has given you - and yes, He has gifted you well - is not unlike a wild horse.

It first catches you with its adventure, galloping and gallivanting about, unbridled and untamed.  Unwilling to settle down but ready to go wherever the pasture leads it.  You get excited because you catch a glimpse of this thing that is in you and it seems awesome and you throw yourself into it with all the wild fancy of a dreamer.

And you suck.  You are so not good at what you think you ought to be doing that you wonder if it's worth doing any more.  You wonder if this wild adventure can be brought down, can be tamed or reined in.  Yet you wonder, as well, if it would be worth the same to you if you corralled it.  Bring a horse into the paddock, and it seems that you've killed something in its spirit.  It's confined.  It's cornered.  It's stuck.

It seems neither a good place for a horse nor a gift.

Yet the wisdom of those who have done this and done this well tells you there is something to be said for the discipline.  So you bring your horse into the stable, rein in your gift, and get down to the nitty gritty of honing your craft.

It's not easy.  With every passing day, you see the way that the bit in the mouth is killing the spirit.  You feel how the discipline is sucking the life right out of the passion.  You understand keenly that this isn't so fun; this isn't the grand adventure that mesmerized you any more.  This is more like...work.  It's more like...hard work.

And you still suck.  After all of this investment of discipline, you might even suck worse now than you did before you bridled this horse.  You feel less talented, less steady, and less gifted now than you did when you decided to sit in this saddle.  You wonder if it's worth it, all this discipline, if all it serves is to suck the fun and the passion and the thrill out of everything.  You wonder if this gift is worth this stable.  I mean, if you're going to suck, you'd rather suck in unfenced pastures rather than rot in the excrement of the barn.

Truth.

This does no honor to the spirit of the horse nor the passion of the gift.

But there is a payoff.  It comes with a delicate balance of the two.

The point of the bridle is never to break the horse; it is to train it.  The point of harnessing your passion is not to break your gift; it is to develop it.  If you find yourself sucking the life out of your calling, then you're not doing discipline right.  On the other hand, if you find yourself running amok and dragged around by the idea of your gift, then you're not doing adventure right.

It's when you skillfully combine the adventure and the discipline that you are able to touch the thrill of the gift and the journey of the ride.  A horse that's been bridled learns to honor its rider and its boundaries.  It learns where it belongs, where it can go, where it cannot go, what gait to use and at what speed.  It learns to travel its terrain without bucking its rider.  As a result, you can set it out to free pastures and trust the horse to remember its discipline in the expanse of its spirit.

You do, however, have to set it free.  You have to let it run again.  You have to give it clean air and green pastures and open space to be a horse.  To do what horses do and go where whimsy takes it.  You have to invite the horse to an adventure.  If you bring the horse in and never let it back out of the barn, it simply wastes away and becomes lame.

Ever feel lame?  Give yourself a little space to roam.

You see, it is this balance that captures the adventure and the thrill.  It is this balance that honors the gift and the journey.  It is this balance that sets the horse free.  It is balance that frees you as a writer.  To maintain the spirit of adventure and passion that drew you to what you do in the first place and to instill in it a sense of discipline that enables it to honor the same.

And you still suck.  Because you're an artist, a creator, and you're never going to be perfectly happy with anything you do.

But something magical happens here, in this unbridled yet disciplined place.  You suck, and it doesn't make you wonder.  It makes you wander.  It makes you take off for pastures unknown, to see where this horse can take you, to embrace the adventure because you have invested the discipline.  You know you're not about to get bucked off.  So you take a chance.  You go on a journey.  You ride your gift wherever it might take you, just to see.

This...does honor to the horse and the gift.