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Waking up; Part 2

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

In the fifth stage of grief we come to a place of acceptance where the offenses and hurts that mark and dampen certain stages of life can be called healed. But there is more work to be done. One therapist friend referred to this stage as no longer carrying the weight of the offense.

The sixth and seventh stages are my own additions to the five stages of grief.

The sixth stage is blessing. This is by far my least favorite stage in this model. It is the stage where when every time you think of the group, organization or person that hurt you, you bless them. Frankly it isn’t fun, initially my thought is that it would be better to be depressed, or angry or anything other than blessing these horrible people in whatever form they take. The funny thing is that once you can genuinely bless them the next stage becomes much easier.

The seventh stage is forgiveness. Forgiveness means accepting what has happened and moving beyond it. The ancient Hebrew word for the action of forgiveness is the symbol of the head of a man (resh), a mouth (pey), and an open palm (kaph) and means to cover over, or put out of sight. It is the offended person acting as though the offense never occurred. It is atonement, giving the other person freedom. This doesn’t mean that you have to return to the same situation you were in, if it was an abusive spouse or a deeply narcissistic friend you need to act with wisdom and allow the freedom that comes from forgiveness to cover both of you.

When you have gone through all seven stages you now leave room for God to act on your behalf. But, more importantly you can move away from the anchor that this cycle can cause in our lives. As my parents often say “the only one that can keep you from your destiny is you.”

The three steps to waking up. Within each step it is crucial to focus on God. Let his light and warmth be your guide.

Step one: create goals. Work with God, you may have been stuck in one spot for quite a while it is time to start making progress. These can be anything to praying for a set period of time everyday to career changes.

Step two: focus on your goals. Keep these goals in mind and act in communion with God and your community to get where you are going.

Step three: stay soft. Don’t be afraid to get hurt again. Fear keeps us from seeing and doing so much that we could have done. Very uncharacteristically I’ll close with Garth Brooks.

“Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire “

Life is short, make the most of it.

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Waking up; Part 1

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

When you play a steel string guitar just an hour or two a week you develop calluses on your fingertips that mean that over time you can play and play without the pain that initially sets in. But, after months of not practicing the calluses fade. Similarly when I first started working in professional kitchens I burnt myself daily and often pretty badly. Over time handling so many hot pans in and out of the oven, hundreds a day over the course of a 10 or 12 hour shift I discovered that I could take a skillet out of the oven (quickly) with virtually no damage to my hand. Last year I tried a similar move at home after 10 years out of professional kitchens and discovered that I really can’t do that anymore. Wow, that really hurt.

In life we have painful situations that occur to us, around us or to friends and family that cause similar calluses to our hearts, our emotions and inevitably our spirits. These calluses or hardenings happen and they are real. Just like working in kitchens you don’t always notice that you are getting hard until one day it begins to dawn. It is a dawning that often lacks feeling it is simply the awareness that you feel less.

What happens next is quite similar to the 5 stages of grief. These stages are not necessarily a right or wrong response, simply the way that most people respond. The first stage is denial and isolation. Denial is not accepting that something is wrong and isolation is caused by the discomfort that something may in fact be wrong.

The second stage is anger. This anger typically has three areas that it is present. First; anger towards those that you feel have wronged you. Second; anger directed internally for allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Third; general anger directed at everything from friends and family, to strangers and on bad days inanimate objects. This is a stage where even small offenses feel big and much of life feels overwhelming.

The third stage is bargaining. This can come in the form of open ended prayers “If God will do this, I will do that”. This can be one of the longest stages because we feel that we are taking steps to progress, but any progress is hampered by our own justifications.

The fourth stage is depression. The sadness of the situation finally seeps through the cracks of the calluses that have been built up. Depression has many levels but for most this is a stage that feels low, life feels to slow down. During the fourth stage rationale sometimes slips away and bitterness becomes quite prevalent.

The fifth and final stage is acceptance. This is the place where your calluses have slipped away and you suddenly feel again. Suddenly your calling begins to feel relevant again. Your emotional bandwidth expands beyond feeling angry to the place that you can be so happy you cry, and life returns to a much healthier balance. Best of all in this stage whatever sent you down the path of hardness gently slips away, the old boss, the former friend, the cheating business partner, the abusive pastor; whatever they were and whatever they did simply doesn’t matter anymore.

In Part 2 I’ll look at the sixth and seventh stages that as Christians we have access too.

Thanks for reading

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Your Ministry, My Church, His Kingdom; Part 2

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Where does His Kingdom begin? How can we tell if we are part of it? I think that the simple answer is if we have to tell people that is what we are doing – we are probably not doing it right. As I understand it ‘The Kingdom’ is self evident and produces lasting, eternal fruitfulness.

One gauge I have found helpful is looking at the role models I have, this gives me a gauge of where I am likely to end up. I refer to these role models as spiritual parents, and grandparents. I once remember someone that I thought of as a spiritual parent telling me that I can never let my marriage (we were newlyweds) interfere with ministry. It was a wake-up call telling me that I was not on the right path. The kingdom should be seen in all parts of our lives. A kingdom that requires us to neglect our marriage/family is not a kingdom that I feel is worth building. This single moment was etched in my mind with all the warning bells and whistles you can imagine. It was clear to me that I had a poor role models. But that sort of change can be painful and takes time and community.

I remember going to an event that was hosted by The Alpha Course in London. There Nicky Gumbel the head of the Alpha Course, was talking about serving the people – about leaders needing to be in the middle of what was going on. Sometime late, to my surprise, at an actual alpha course meeting Nicky was there with dozens of other leaders right in the middle a group. Here was the top guy, doing the same trench work as everyone else. He was doing what he taught, not just talking about it. That is the type of leader that when you find you know that you are interacting with a Kingdom minded leader.

I said I would talk about where I thought I was wrong and what I would like to change. For years I was taught that the Kingdom mindset was something that was a spiritual state. It was something that you have when in the midst of doing ministry. I now think that a kingdom mindset is something that you have when you aren’t doing ministry – it is what you have interwoven into every part of your life and that becomes your ministry. It is doing all things unto God with excellence – not because you are a perfectionist, but because it flows naturally as a fruit of the kingdom. It means dedication and connection.

The other thing that I think that I had wrong was my focus on how to do ministry. I tended to focus on broader, short term impact. Then I met a guy named for the sake of this story Mikey – whose focus is on disciples. Meaning regular contact – regular communication and actually walking out his disciples’ trials, tests and victories side by side. That is an example that I want to follow – I want to have deeper fuller contact with the people that I labor with. I think that is not only good, it is crucial to long term effectiveness.

At this stage of my life I feel communication and community are the keys to learning and growing into contributing to God’s Kingdom. These are not the only keys – just two that I feel i need to work on right now. As always, if we keep moving in right direction we will get there eventually.

Thanks for reading

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Your Ministry, My Church, His Kingdom; Part 1

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Do you attend a church? Or are you a member? Do you ask “what can my church do for me”? Or, “what can I do for my church”? Or, is your distinction one of that is Kingdom related?

It sometimes feels that things have become so incredibly segmented. Divisions, connections and realignments that would make any grocery store tabloid blush occur on a daily basis. How on earth did we get here? What happened to The Kingdom – the ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ has become the now look at this little movement or that revival. We make pilgrimages to these special awakenings, super churches and conferences. We test the new model of cell, house, small, missional, dispersed groups that all too often become smaller versions of what was trying to be fixed in the first place. We build and deconstruct and reconstruct so often – what are we really doing?

I have been thinking a lot about this since my Wife and I moved to a new area and started to attend a church that we are in the midst of becoming members of. It is a great church, with an incredibly broad and diverse array of programs primarily focusing mostly looking at ways to bring more people into the kingdom. The two churches I attended before that also had a Kingdom growth focus in their own way and I saw a tremendous impact on the communities they were part of as well.

My thinking has changed a lot over the last couple years – largely from the influence of three friends. Each in their own way have humbled themselves below the station that could be available to them so that they can serve the community and make disciples. Let’s call them Markus, Alvin and Marty then I will share how their actions have exposed areas in my thinking that was wrong and what I want to do to change in my own life.

Alvin is a church leader – his material has been featured in thousands of churches and reached dare I say millions. He is full of charisma that is contagious and his energy is limitless. He is also one of those ‘cool’ people that you feel proud to be able to say ‘yeah, he’s a friend of mine’. Simple association somehow improves the image I carry of myself. Because hey, this guy is so cool and we’re friends – I must be cool.

But, what I love about Alvin is that despite all these gifts, credentials and raw natural favor he has stayed were he started and continues to submit to others. He serves the community and more importantly you see the impact it has in the community. That is good fruit; that is the kind of fruit I want more of in my life.

Markus is also a church leader – His impact across the globe is amazing. Everywhere I have been I have seen little clue that he was there first. He has lead churches and he has lead them well. In the British vernacular he is a legend. Years ago he decided that to really do what he needed to do he had to free up time and focus on his primary calling. He had to have more time for the relationships that the Lord wanted him to restore. He moved from a super church to community. He drilled deeper into the meaning of community and has found something many have searched for.

He gave up much of his status in order to serve. Again he was at the top and chose to humble himself.

Marty was the leader of a massive group of churches with a strong presence in several countries. He is the classic apostolic figure – strong, direct, kind, wise and so much more. He and his wife have faced every possible situation you can think of within the role of church leaders and they have always in my experience handled all these situations as Christ-like as I think I have ever seen.

From my perspective Marty hit a point where he was leading so much, giving direction to so many people that he was above and not completely in the community. He also saw a huge need in one of the most un-churched cities in his area. So, he largely walked away from the palace of leadership on high and chose to jump into the center of the struggle for the nations soul. He got down in the trenches, and dove into community peer to peer. It is amazing to see such a great man decide to lower himself in position to a place that is reserved for the young and inexperienced. Even better is the fruit that could be seen almost immediately by his example many, many more leaders have started to pioneer again. What looks like a demotion in the natural seems to be rewarded with fantastic spiritual fruit.

These people have moved beyond My Church, your Ministry into the place that we really should all be – they have existed in the mindset of HIS KINGDOM!

Thanks for reading

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Remembering Our First Love

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

We Christians are all provoked at one time or another by the desire for God and His ways. There is a marvelous beauty in the ways of our God that is meant to woo us and bring us deeper into Him. He initiates by causing our affections and our attentions to arise towards Him. Being provoked by Him can come in so many ways; we can look upon some aspect of nature as would be a beautiful sunrise, we can enter into a hardship, or we can meet someone or read another’s testimony that stirs our soul. The reality is there is not a lack of things that can provoke our affections towards our Creator.

This desire often leads to a hunger to hear and see signs of His power and awesome nature. Our God is magnificent, He is so other than most of which we interact with upon the landscape of our day. We were created to fellowship with Him. We were created bearing His image. It is within the very fabric of our natures to want to see and hear the manifest presence of God.

The modern prophetic movement has allowed for events and moments that inspire awe in those who witness them and even in those who hear about them later. I have been at some phenomenal meetings where whether through visible manifestations or laser sharp words of revelation were spoken with piercing accuracy those in attendance were witness to a mighty display of God and His ways. These moments can so inspire us that we want more and more inspiration in this way. We end up seeking after even greater events of this nature as the people at the hearts of these events hone their gift and amplify their anointing at bigger and bigger venues.

Our God will move within these moments and His presence manifests in corporate ways that demonstrate His tangible goodness. The danger that lies within this reality is twofold. First we enter into a place where if we are not careful we end up looking for the awe of God in the acts of anointed men and women and needing them to be more anointed as to see more of God. It becomes a spectacle and the glory of God cheapened for the sake of entertainment. A satisfaction of watching an event or another’s life with God fills a hunger but with the likes of junk food instead of a rich full meal.

The greatest risk in this is the potential for losing the awe of our first love and replacing it with an awe of what He can do through men. Then, we fall into the trap of revering others as having a higher or better relationship with the Lord. We enter into a worship of the event and the manifestation instead of the Lover of our souls.

We need fan into flame the awe of our first love. While we can appreciate how He flows through our brothers and sisters, we not give into the temptation of lazily eating only off of their plates. He beckons us all to come to the table and sit. He loved us first and without stint or measure, this is where our awe should live. This very fact should put into perspective the signs and wonders. They merely point to Him who loves us so very well and desires to manifest Himself in very real and personal ways to all.

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