A Holy Discontent Part 2... Hollywood, Jesus, and the Missouri Synod

I'm sitting on a couch in a rather warm, un-air-conditioned room at Concordia University in Irvine. I'm here with the LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) for a conference on mission. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the alphabet soup of denominationalism, the LCMS is known widely as the conservative branch of Lutheranism in North America. They would point out that they are WAY to the left of the Wisconsin Synod. I'm just entertained by the fact their both named for other states and yet they have churches in California.

I got to go out to dinner last night with a few presenters and some mission-minded Pastors. Around the table was a guy who worked on a bunch of TV shows (including House!!!), a veteran producer, a guy who produced Snoop Dogg DVDs, and a couple of guys from the band The Daylights who just finished opening up for One Republic (...it's too late to apologize... - you know the song). All of them were Jesus' disciples, and all of them took their art and their faith seriously. It was an amazing conversation to witness and be a part of.

It used to be that these guys working in hollywood would have been villified for being part of the evil establishment of the "liberal" entertainment industry. Instead, this group of theologically conservative pastors embraced these young artists as brothers, fellow-pilgrims, and fellow apprentices - learning to follow Jesus and live as Jesus would in a place where Jesus and his followers are often mocked.

There is indeed a holy discontent alive and well in the Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod. The pastors I got to know last night are tired of fighting the old fights. They are looking for the Church to move past knee-jerk reactions and criticisms so that the Church can be known for its love, its intelligence, and its support for good art.

In the words of Bono, "God is on the move"...

A heartfelt thanks to my friends in the Missouri Synod. Keep dreaming Jesus' dreams...

God's Peace, Rich

God's Mission in the Bible part 3 - Covenant

Here's part 3 of our 8 part series on God's mission in the Bible. Just click on the title to download. The beginning is cut off - sorry about that. To all the good folks at La Canada's ER, email me at info@lifesongchristiancommunities.org and I'll send you an audio file of me recounting the story of your little prank in Worship last Sunday.

For everyone else, you can find parts one and two below if you'd like.

Sorry this took a few days...

God's Peace, Rich

Some Good Books...

I've been doing a lot of reading about the New Atheism and skepticism. There are some really great books out that question some of the basic assumptions of many of those who argue against God's existence. The Reason for God is written by a Pastor who has built a church of over 5000 people in Manhattan, many of whom are young and new to the faith. He reasons for the faith intelligently and with grace. Really good stuff.

Alister McGrath is a scientist and an Oxford theologian. He examines the conclusions presented by Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion). McGrath presents some clear arguments that make a lot of sense, but he's a little nasty about it in places - disappointing because he's a brilliant thinker and a faithful Christian. Still worth a read for sure.

Guess what happened in Communist Russia when Christianity was banned by the government? That's right, Stalin became the new deity! Within years of the destruction of the Church in Russia and the murder of many clergy, songs sprouted up that claimed that "Stalin lives in your heart". Former Time journalist David Aikman makes a great point: We are wired to worship something, and if it isn't the Christian God it will likely be something more harmful - such as (he would claim) atheism.

Why does the Church insist on meeting in large buildings? Where does the idea of a paid Pastor who is uniquely gifted to preach come from? Frank Viola is a committed Christian who claims that most of the modern Church's traditions come from assimilated pagan rituals - not from the Bible. I'm being stretched by this book, but I think he's on to something here...

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/

A few years ago, every conservafundagelical church in the country advertized the greatest evangelism opportunity in the history of the world: The Passion of the Christ. I saw it. Twice. I took over ten people with me. It was perhaps the most important movie I've ever seen, and it shook me to my core.

It fell flat with just about everyone else.

As Christians, we sometimes think that if we just get the story out in a bigger venue, then people will flock to the faith. The lack of conversions caused by the Passion seems to refute that point. Before the gospel can be welcomed, we need to earn the right to be heard in the public marketplace of ideas. The Church sometimes still acts as if our neighbors are just waiting for us to shout the message in the right key or at the right volume or in the right pictures for them to flock to our doors. They are not waiting for us to say anything differently. They are waiting for (if anything) us to repent.

Before Jesus asked us to believe, he asked us to repent - to examine ourselves, confess our brokenness, and commit to a new way of living. Repenting comes before believing in Mark 1: 14.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers gets it. Dan Merchant is a believer, a committed-to-his-core disciple who understands that WE need to follow Jesus' example of repenting first (something about a splinter and a log comes to mind...) and telling others what to believe later. Perhaps even deeper, Merchant argues that it is more important to love than to get our theology right.

This is a brilliant movie. Check it out at the links above or below and click the free preview.
http://lordsaveusthemovie.com/

God's Peace, Rich
www.lifesongchristiancommunities.org

A Holy Discontent...

I recently took my Lutheran pilgrimage. Once in every Lutheran's lifetime they have to go to the holy land of the Midwest, where all things Scandinavian still prosper, where the sacraments are happily discussed on a Tuesday morning in a coffee shop. The Midwest is in many ways like an entirely different world than Southern California. Denominationalism still runs strong there. There are 29 Lutheran churches in Bismarck, North Dakota. 29!!!!

That's why I was so schocked to find such a holy discontent in many of the Pastors, worship leaders, and lay-people from Bismarck to Minneapolis. Now - let me be clear - this is a HOLY discontent because it is not negative name-calling of the church. It is a clear understanding that the world has changed but the Church has refused to speak to the world in terms it can understand. There are so many Christians who are tired of seeing the world through the eyes of the 16th century, and we are desperate for the Church to come together and find a way to BE the Church the world needs in the 21st Century.

So I am heartened to see a holy discontent is alive and well even in the heartland. One leader in a church said that this is God's refining time for the Church - letting the dead parts die off so something new can rise up in its place. We are starting to "get it". God is up to something new. Let's pray even more fervently, study with more missional eyes, and give our very lives so that we might be a part of God's ongoing mission in the world.

God's peace, Rich

God's Mission in the Bible 2: The Fall - Rich Gregory

Click on the title to hear the second in our 8 part sermon on God's mission in the Bible. You can download it and listen on your computer/mp3 player...

God's Mission in the Bible 1: Creation - Scott McClaury

Click on the title to download Scott's sermon on creation and how it applies to God's mission. You can then download it to your ipod or play it on your computer...

Life After Death (after life after death)...

We slipped. We've all done it - just said the wrong thing at the wrong time. The other night while we were putting Nate to bed he asked a TOUGH question, to which we replied, "you'll have to ask God when you get to heaven"... A reasonable enough response.

"I DON'T WANT TO GO TO HEAVEN!!!"

"I WANT TO BE HERE WITH YOU!!!"

I wonder if we ever really get over that response to our own death.

Nate knew that "heaven" was the place people went after they "died" - a concept about which he knew very little except for the fact that when someone "died" and went to "heaven" he NEVER got to see, touch, talk to, cuddle, wrestle, or laugh with them again. This "heaven" was becoming the place where our loved-ones went so that we couldn't be near them again. To a 4 year old, "you'll see them one day" doesn't hold a lot of meaning...

But WE grown-ups know better, right?

What is heaven? What happens to us after we die? We know as Christians that we have the same hope that saved Jesus from a sealed tomb, but I think our models and metaphors for what that might look like are really quite inadequate, unimaginative, and often-times unbiblical.

The only time most of us ever think about "heaven" is after a friend or family member has died and we're at the funeral. Trying to cope, various people will stand at the microphone and either claim that their friend is looking down on us, or has become an angel, or is in a better place. Where do we get these ideas? Are they biblical?

The short answer is yes. And no.

The Bible does promise us that for those of us who are "in Christ" there is a hope. Those who have departed are not, as we fear so deeply, just simply gone.

For followers of Jesus, we know that we will share in His resurrection at the end of the age. But the end of the age isn't here yet, so what happens to us if we die between now and then?

The NT concept is that we are "asleep" in the Lord.

The British Priest and Physicist John Polkinghorne says that in this sleep we are conscious and cared for, but we are not yet fully and bodily resurrected. One way to look at it is that our software (our thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories - everything that makes us, us!) is downloaded onto God's harddrive until our hardware (the physical body) is renewed. After our bodies have been transformed, our "software" is then downloaded and we are - for the first time - whole.

So what we REALLY are looking forward to is not "life after death" - the state of sleep described above, but instead "life after life after death" - in which our bodies will be resurrected and transformed without the effects of sin and decay. We will be as Jesus was after his body passed through the grave clothes - remember, the wrappings were empty - it wasn't his soul that was resurrected, it was ALL of him.

We will be, like Jesus, the same, yet different.

And when we become like Jesus, God will bring heaven and Earth together in the act of new creation. War will end. Poverty will end. I won't be able to manipulate you to get what I want any more. God will save and transform everything, and we get to be a part of that "new creation" NOW, as we follow Jesus. Wow.

Unfortunately, I can't explain all this to Nate yet. I'll just tell him that heaven is a happy place where we will be together and where we'll be even closer to God. But I can't wait to one day tell him the whole story...

I owe almost all of these ideas to Polkinghorne, NT Wright, and Dr. Nancey Murphy.

Faith and works...

I spent A LOT of time teaching Jr. High kids in confirmation classes about the tension between faith and works in the Christian faith. The more I read the Bible, and live my faith, the less tension I'm seeing.

Maybe it's time to put this classic debate from the reformation to rest. It has divided denominations, and it has led to many Christians having an anemic faith that is purely "spiritual" or emotional. If you have a faith that is divorced from how you live, your faith isn't worth much to your neighbors.

I think most Christians would say something like this: Our faith inspires and empowers us to live differently. There is a myth that all Christians who sin are somehow hypocrites. The truth is that becoming more like Jesus takes time. When we first say that we want to follow Jesus, God doesn't simply remove our natural desires and tendencies. He works in and through us to reveal in us what He needs to change for us to serve Him better. He is patient with us. But over time God does change us, and we are able to live for Him more and for ourselves less.

My faith is a God-given gift, and it is the greatest gift I could receive. Faith saves me. But my faith, if it is genuine, will naturally work its way out...

Wisdom.

James 1: 5

"If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you."

Wisdom seems to be in short supply these days. Many of us (often myself included) seem to be living in a world that defies reality. The recent mortgage crisis is just one example; we were led to believe that home equity lines were like Monopoly money, that our homes would grow in value indefinitely, and that the measure of our worth was how beautifully and quickly we could remodel our homes.

Reality bites.

And when reality bites, we're left with the consequences of the unwise decisions we've made.

So where can we get some wisdom? The kind of wisdom that helps us to know what is sound and what is foolish; the difference between good and bad, right or wrong?

The New Testament answers this question repeatedly - for those of us who follow Jesus, we can go directly to God and ask for guidance and wisdom. The tough part is that we're all interconnected - the decisions that we make have a profound effect on our neighbors, and so even the wisdom and guidance we receive from God don't always take away the negative repurcussions from the bad decisions made either by ourselves or by our neighbors. If God is to honor the integrity of our decisions, and our dignity as creatures made in His image, His change and wisdom has to take time. And that can sometimes feel like an eternity, or like God just isn't there...

But God's promise is that He will be faithful. If we ask, He will answer. That is a truth that is too profound to really wrap my brain around...

Think about that for a second: The creator of the universe has come down to our level and told us that we can approach Him with whatever we need. We don't need a Priest or a Pastor. Because of what God has done through Jesus, God has brought us near to Himself. That is the heart of the Gospel: "...God's peace and justice has been made available to you... (Mark 1:14).

God cares.

Take a moment to tell Him what's on your mind, and ask for His thoughts to become your own. As God transforms us, His wisdom begins to inform our practical decisions, and if we'll allow Him in, He can and will change us to be more like Him.

May the God of all wisdom speak His truth into your life, and may your life be used in His service for all time.

Amen.

Two BIG Questions...

1) What are the biggest problems facing our future?

2) What does Jesus have to say about them?

It seems to me that for those of us who follow God in the way of Jesus, these could be the two biggest questions of our lives.

I wonder what the world would look like if our faith began from this starting point, instead of my own personal quest to attain heaven (or escape hell)?

What would your community look like if living the answer to these questions was as mandatory for our faith as Church attendance on Sunday morning - what if every Christian took these questions seriously?

I can't take credit for coming up with these questions. Read more deeply about them in Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change...

www.lifesongchristiancommunities.org