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Strangers in a Familiar Land

Some folks have been asking about the sermon I preached last weekend. At this time our church doesn't record the sermons on a weekly basis but because of the interest expressed what follows is a close approximation to what I said. It differs in a couple of ways, I have expanded here on the Philippian church and removed a portion of what I said about us being ambassadors for Christ and the sanctuary being God's sovereign ground in the same way US embassies overseas are considered sovereign ground and guarded by Marines. I never follow a precise script when I am preaching so these are not my exact words but they do reflect the intent and passion of my thoughts on this subject.

Strangers in a Familiar Land

Once a year when the 4th of July rolls around I find myself in a slightly odd position. you see the front cover of my passport reads, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the flag of my country is, well, the Union Jack. So every fourth of July I am reminded once again that we lost the war! Come to think of it we didn't so well in 1812 either.

According to the United States government I am a permanent resident alien. What exactly does that mean? It means that I get to live and work here, it means that I can interact with people who live here, it means that I can travel freely around the country, it means that I have to pay taxes here in the same way that any American does. The one major difference between a citizen and a permanent resident is when it comes time to vote, I can't vote here. When I cast my ballot is in another kingdom, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

While I am a resident alien in the United States and have the accompanying documentation every one of us as followers of Jesus Christ is, as Peter states it, an alien and a stranger in this world.

The Apostle Paul in writing to the Philippians uses a different metaphor as he declares to them that their citizenship is in heaven. When Paul make this statement it is not simply a pleasant allusion to everlasting life in heaven. It is a radical declaration that their allegiances are shifting right here and now from an allegiance to the emperor and the Roman Empire to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. The power of this image would not have been lost on the Philippians.

Paul in writing to people of Philippi is writing to a people who were been very proud of their Roman citizenship. Citizenship was a much sought after privilege in the Empire. There were three ways you could become a citizen of Rome, you could receive it as a reward for the service you performed for Rome, you could buy for a large sum of money or you could be born a citizen. For the people of Philippi, a Roman Colony, they enjoyed all the rights and privileges that would come from being citizens of Rome.When we read in Acts of Paul and Silas' visit to the city of Philippi, we find that the accusation leveled against them by the Philippians (Roman Citizens) is that they were "advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept of practice." (Acts 16:21) As Fred Craddock notes in his commentary, "Proud of itself as a little Rome, official, patriotic, suspicious of any persons or movements not aligned or loyal to Caesar, probably quite anti-Semitic, this city could and did make it difficult for the disciples of Jesus."

Aliens, strangers, citizens of heaven, citizens of another place, as Jesus reminds us, "My kingdom," Jesus states before Pilate, "is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."

Here's the rub for us, as citizens of God's kingdom we are called to be much more than merely good citizens of this world. We are called to be ambassadors, representatives of God's kingdom to this world.

We are "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession." We are here for a purpose, "that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

I recently had lunch with the moderator of our presbytery, Jin Kim. Jin is the pastor of Church of All Nations in Columbia Heights. We met at their building and Jin gave me a tour to show me the work they have been doing in renovating the church. As you enter the sanctuary you can see flags of nations from around the world hanging the full length of the room on both sides. African nations, European nations, South American nations, Asian nations, Autralasian nations all hang, nations that are our allies and nations that our enemies hang there together. Jin pointed out to me that they had made a conscious decision to have the Korean and Japanese flags hanging side by side, as a reminder that old enemies can stand together in Christ because they now have a new identity, a new citizenship in the kingdom of God and that they now lived aliens and strangers in the nations of this world.

This stands in contrast to another story I heard about a large congregation in the Twin Cities that began their worship service by having an emotional video presentation on the Pledge of Allegiance and followed this in their worship service by playing the National Anthem and the congregation stood, placed there hands over their hearts (presumably in reverence) and sang pledged their allegiance to flag and country as they worshiped God. When I heard this story I was left wondering how the body of Christ around the world would fit in a service like that?

What I'm tying to get at here is the question of identity. Who are you? What defines you? What framework or paradigm do you see the world through?

You see as Christians we have to learn to see this world and our life in this world as if we are aliens and strangers in this land. This land we call the United States of America, this land that many of us love and have even served, this land that is part of the world that God loved so much "that He gave his one and only Son" to redeem it, is still a foreign land to those of us who are citizens of God's kingdom, for it is not the kingdom of God. It may be a great land by the world's standards, it may have one of the best forms of government and may offer greater freedom than other nations but we cannot and we must not mistake it for being a Christian land or in some way representative of the kingdom of God.

Perhaps you've never thought of it like this before but as followers of Jesus Christ we are called to adopt a way of looking at the world that is different from the way nations of the world see things.

Christian conversion, that is initiation into the kingdom of God brings with it a shift in perspective of the same magnitude that the shift from Ptolemy's view of a universe centered around the earth to the Copernican view that saw the sun at the center with the earth moving round it brought. It was a view that was met with great suspicion and would see Galileo accused by the church of heresy for supporting it.

Christian conversion, initiation into the kingdom of God requires a paradigm shift in how we view the world. It requires us to learn, as the title of the sermon states, to be strangers in a familiar land.

Paul is quite clear about this when he writes to the church in Rome and tells them, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world." Don't conform to the way the world thinks. Don't conform to the way the world reacts and responds to various situations. Don't conform to the values of the world, materialism, prosperity, greed, selfishness, wealth etc.

"...but be transformed..." Be changed, this change is a process. Undergo a metamorphosis (this is the actual Greek word) in the same way a caterpillar undergoes a metamorphosis in becoming a butterfly. A caterpillar sees the world for a perspective that is locked into the gravitational forces of the world as it crawls its way over plants munching on leaves focused on nothing more than eating and having a very limited perspective. Yet that caterpillar is transformed into something completely different, a butterfly that can now throw off the forces of gravity and take to the air. moving through the world in a very different way it gains a whole new vantage point from which to see things. The butterfly can see the whole forest while the caterpillar only saw the tree it was on. The transformation brings with it a new paradigm.

How sad it would be if the butterfly never took the air and spent its entire life in the same tree it had been in while still a caterpillar. Yet so often I find that we, as Christ followers, remained stuck, trapped, in old patterns of thinking and we never stretch our wings and see the wonders of the world from a kingdom of God perspective.

"be transformed by the renewing of your mind." We are to learn to think in a new way, we are to learn to think from a new perspective. We are to have renewed minds, Godly minds, minds that learn to see the world as God sees the world. We are to develop Christ-like imaginations that allow us to dream and envision a different world, a world in which God's kingdom comes and God's will is done on earth in the same way it is in heaven.

This transformation begins with a wholehearted commitment to following Jesus Christ into the world. It's the kind of commitment that allowed Francis of Assisi to see things differently from others in his day and rather than support the crusades as much of the church did he crossed the front lines in 1219 to share the good news of God's love for us in Christ with the sultan.

It is the kind of simple commitment that Shane Claiborne had when he boarded a plane for Iraq in March 2003. Why did he go? In his own words he makes it clear, "I went to Iraq because I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.
    I went to Iraq in the footsteps of an executed and risen God. The Jesus of the margins suffered an imperial execution by an oppressive regime of wealthy and pious elites. And now he dares me and woos me to come and follow, to take up my cross, to lose my life to find it, with the promises that life is more powerful than death and that it is more courageous to love our enemies than to kill them.
    I went to Iraq to stop terrorism... I went to Iraq to stand in the way of war. Thousands of soldiers have gone to Iraq, willing to kill people they do not know because of a political allegiance. I went willing to die for people I do not know because of a spiritual allegiance.
    I went to Iraq as a missionary" (Taken from "The Irresistible Revolution.")

You may or may not agree with Shane's actions but can you see how Shane is living his life shaped by a different paradigm? Shane is living his life based on the premise that Jesus meant what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and that he meant it to be applied here and now.

Some people would accuse Shane of being naive, a fair accusation if you are looking at things from the perspective of the kingdoms of this world, in other words from a different paradigm. From the world's perspective it is most certainly naive to think that prayer and non-violence can impact the like of Saddam Hussein, Bin-Laden and other despots around the world. Others would accuse him of being idealistic, I have to say that I've usually found that accusation thrown out by people who simply don't have the courage to live out their beliefs in the world. It is an accusation that is often tainted with a hint of jealousy.

If we were to take the Sermon on the Mount or Luke's Sermon on the Plain and state that they were to normative for follower's of Jesus we would have to acknowledge that the systems of this world would not understand and may even oppose us for doing so. Following such radically subversive teaching may even get us crucified. Let's be honest, from the world's perspective, as Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas state in their book, Resident Aliens, "nothing in the Sermon on Mount suggests that the way of disciples is "rational.""

We are strangers in a familiar land.

While we are all works in progress I want to ask how is your transformation into a citizen of God's kingdom coming along. As you grow and mature in your faith are you able to more clearly see and live in this world in a new way, in God's way, from a new paradigm or are you still still trying to see and explain things the way the world does?

May we learn to live faithfully as strangers in a familiar land.

Paradigm Shifts...

I've been trying to figure out how to help people shift paradigms. No, I'm not talking about shifting from a modernist to post-modernist paradigm (although that might be helpful). What I'm trying to figure out is how to help God's people shift from a Christendom based view of the church and world to a post-Christendom / missional view.

Any thoughts on interim steps would be greatly appreciated.

A thought on American Religion

It's that time of year again when patriotic fervor spikes and I try to hide (not really) the fact that my passport reads "British" on the front cover! This Saturday there will be lots of bombs "bursting in air" as fireworks light up the sky in celebration of a war that took place some 200 years ago. It's a great celebration and people will have a lot of fun.

As a pastor I've been charged with thinking through events like these with a theological lens.To that end we have to remember, as Augustine taught us, that all nations of the earth no matter how great are still part of Babylon, that is they are kingdoms of this world. The kingdom of God is different and stands apart, over and at times against every kingdom of this world. That is why Scripture tells us that we are to think of ourselves as strangers, aliens in this world.

You see every kingdom also has its own religion, America is no different. As Greg Boyd notes concerning the "religion of American democracy."

"Like all religions, this religion has its own distinctive, theologized, revisionist history (for instance, the 'manifest destiny' doctrine whereby God destined Europeans to conquer the land). It has its own distinctive message of salvation (political freedom), its own 'set apart' people group (America and its allies), its own creed ('we hold these truths to be self-evident'), its own distinctive enemies (all who resist freedom and are against America), its own distinctive symbol (the flag), and its own distinctive god (the national deity we are 'under,' who favors our causes and helps us win our battles).

As Christians we need to be careful not to buy into this religion. Yes, we can and should celebrate all that is good and right in the nation but we must never lose the prophetic edge that allows us to stand up and speak of those things that are wrong.

Church Music: Me, My Family, Tradition and the Future

I've been thinking a lot about church music recently. For the first time in my career I have found myself in the position of selecting the hymns for worship as our choir director takes the summer off.

I grew up in a traditional Presbyterian church in Ireland and we sang songs from the hymnal every week accompanied by the organ. The vast majority of those songs were over a hundred years old and represented a long tradition of Christian hymnody going back Isaac Watts, Martin Luther and others. I came to appreciate the best of these songs and dreaded the rest.

As I grew older (around 9 or 10) I came to understand there was a disconnect between the songs we sang on a Sunday and the music of the world in which I lived. This disconnect was heightened in my teenage years as I discovered the music of The Jam, Madness, AC/DC, Deep Purple, Duran Duran, U2, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and many others. When I became a Christian I was introduced the world of contemporary Christian music, Petra, Stryper, The 77's, Altar Boys, Larry Norman etc. but even though this was "Christian" music it didn't seem to find a place in the worship services I attended.

By the mid-80's I was aware that some Pentecostal churches were now singing new songs in worship and a couple of other churches had started "contemporary" services, in which music born out of the folk tradition was sung.

Today the only place you hear a pipe organ is in a church. It is for me a nostalgic feeling singing with a pipe organ (real pipes or digitized) but it is nostalgia, it is like a comfortable old sweat-shirt that I like to wear once in a while. But it is not the world I live in and more importantly it is not the world my children live in or have any desire to enter. They were not raised in this environment and entering it is like visiting a foreign country in which the language and culture are alien.

Last Saturday our family visited a large church in our area with a very simple service of worship, singing, prayer, offering and sermon. The music was led by a worship leader (we used to call them cantors in the days before church choirs, we have come full circle) and played on guitar, drums and keyboard. The music, while being God honoring, reflected the music of the world in which we live. I believe, Luther, Watts and Wesley would be delighted by this. But more than that my daughter was delighted by this, she lifted her head high, as did Jenny and I, and following the lyrics on the screen we sang our hearts out.

I asked her what she thought of the service and she said she loved it. I realize my children will not end up in what I think of as a traditional church. There will be no hymnals in the church they raise their kids in as the print media gives way to digital media. Many of the classic hymns will be rewritten or consigned to a place in the history books and rightly so as the music of a new generation fills the air in praise of God.

I do pray my children will end up in a worshiping community that honors the tradition of the church to proclaim the gospel in a culturally appropriate manner.

Two quick questions on "classic" hymns...

1. All Hail the Power of Jesus Name - without resorting to a dictionary, what is a "diadem'?

2. All People That On Earth Do Dwell - what does "serve him with mirth" mean?

Hospitality

I've been thinking about hospitality... On Friday evening as I was attending the Manitou Day paraded in White Bear Lake I saw a man with t-shirt that read, "Welcome to America, now learn to speak English." I would call this conditional hospitality. You're welcome as long as you meet a certain set of criteria but if you fail to meet those criteria then you are no longer welcome and the outstretched hand will be withdrawn.

This is a far cry from Christian hospitality that arises out of the tradition of hospitality in the Middle-East. Christian hospitality welcomes both friends and strangers for who they are, not who we want them to be. Christian hospitality is based on a love for the stranger and extends the same love and grace to the stranger that God extended to us.

Unfortunately all to often people in our churches could wear t-shirts that read, "Welcome to our church, now learn to do things our way." We not not be brazen enough to put it quite like that but I've met many non-Christians who have quit looking at Christianity as a viable option because they were not welcomed by people in the church. A good dose of real hospitality would go a long way to promoting the gospel in our culture today.

Thought from Bryan Burton

Great thought from my friend Bryan Burton... here

Bryan challenges us to live for the kingdom of God.Publish

Getting Back to "WHY"

I have just finished reading Jim Collins new book, "How The Mighty Fall." It is a fascinating, albeit brief, look at why organizations that appear to be highly successful falter. It is well worth the read and church leaders need to take heed of the warning signs.

One of the first markers of decline (take note church folks) is when "what" replaces "why." As Collins notes, "the rhetoric of success ("We're successful because we do these specific things") replaces understanding and insight ("We're successful because we understand why we do these specific things and under what conditions they would no longer work"). I'm not sure that there's a greater issue than this in struggling mainline churches.

I've never been in a church that hasn't had a deeply rooted way of doing things and old-time leaders who staunchly defend them. Oftentimes we call them "traditions" and that somehow makes them sacred, but what happens when that tradition (the what) no longer conforms to the tradition (the why), which one wins out? In the church it's usually the tradition of what and not why that triumphs.

I believe that the church needs to once again get back to the "Why" of everything it does and make sure that the "What" and the "why" are aligned with one another. 

I should also add that churches need to honestly and candidly be clear about the "why not" as well. It's not enough to say, "we've never done it that way" or "some people won't like that." The "why not" answer needs to be that it doesn't serve God's purposes for the local church.

Constantly asking "why" while not a panacea for all church ailments will go a long way to helping the church connect in a relevant way with people of the twenty-first century (that's the present) rather than the mid-twentieth century or earlier (that's the past and no one lives there as time has progressed).

Making people homesick

This morning as I was reading Oswald Chamber's devotional, "My Utmost For His Highest" I was struck by these words,

"You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have."

I began thinking about evangelism and the proclamation of the gospel and wondered how well we were doing at making the world "homesick" for what we have? When I talk with people who do not know Jesus I often learn that Jesus's followers make them sick, rather than homesick, with their approach. 

Ever since the fall of humanity as recorded in Genesis the great story has been one of trying to get home. To get back to that harmonious relationship with God, creation and one another. We have been a people in exile searching for a way back home. Unfortunately many of us have settled for life on this planet as all there is, but we, Christ's followers, know better.

May we learn to live in this world in such a way as to make others homesick!

The Church Dance

I asked the question, "How would you describe your favorite song to a person born deaf?" One of the answers I received was that they would communicate the emotion and passion of the song through dance.

For those of us who enjoy full use of our haring faculty seeing someone dancing and not hearing the music might appear strange to us. Not long ago we might have immediately assumed some form of mental illness, today we look to see if they are wearing an i-pod! If they are dancing beautifully we may find ourselves drawn into the moment wondering what music is playing in their head as they bob and weave to the rhythm of the sounds they hear. If the dancing is ugly and poor we will, no doubt, quickly pass by and move on our way dismissing them as being a little crazy.

For the spiritually deaf, for those who have never heard the gospel, whose ears have not yet been opened by the Holy Spirit to the wonderful music of God's movement in the world, what does the dance of the church look like? Is is appealing and attractive, full of grace? Are the movements graceful and not forced, does it convey the beauty of love, joy, peace, patience... or is it an aggressive angry dance full of judgment and condemnation?

Does the dance of the church connect with the people around them or is it a quaint memory of a largely bygone era? Like the morris dance in England, quaint, great to see at folk festivals but not exactly connecting with life in the 21st Century.

I am not a dancer, but I pray that the dance of my life would reflect the beauty, power, majesty and love of our God for the world to see.

Dance well!

A life of luxury!

A week ago today the moving truck pulled up to our home in Virginia and all our worldly possessions were loaded onto it for the the move to Minnesota. Today all that "stuff" is sitting in boxes or stacked in the garage and basement of my in-laws as we wait to get into our new home on May 27th.

When I moved to the United States in 1992 I brought with me all my worldly possessions, two suitcases and one box. Three years later when I moved into the apartment that would be the first home Jenny and I would share I managed to get all my possessions in one car load and that car was Geo Metro! My how times have changed. We still don't have a lot as the average US home move averages 15,000lbs of stuff and ours topped out at 11,000lbs but its still a lot of stuff.

One of my children tried to tell me how we needed all this stuff and when I tried to explain that it was almost all luxury she wasn't convinced. But luxury it is virtually nothing we moved was a necessity to living and some of what we moved won't have a place in our new 2200 square foot house!

Tonight I'm going to be moving some 25 boxes of books into my new office space! There are pastors in this world who don't even have a complete copy of the Bible.

I live a life of luxury. I'm writing this as I sip on a latte at Caribou Coffee. I spent more on the coffee than one billion people make in four days of work!

So what's at stake here? Everything is at stake here. Luxury can lead to complacency and half-hearted devotion to God (check out the Church in Laodicea). It can lead to apathy and a sense of entitlement, but God hasn't blessed us because we are good (we are all broken) but rather, if we are blessed with material resources, it is to be a blessing to others.

How much do you need?
How can you be a blessing to others?
KIVA
World Vision
International Justice Mission
Amnesty International

These are just a couple of places to get started.

A Christian Worldview?

On Sunday evening I took the "Political Ideology Quiz" on Facebook, the result suggested that I might be "moderately liberal." I think this is a fair assessment of where I fall in the grand scheme of American political ideology. Of interest to me was the comment from my dear friend Mark, "So, as a follower of Jesus, pastor and serious student of the Bible, would you then say that God's word espouses a moderately liberal worldview?"

So how do I respond to Mark's question?
The simple answer to the question Mark poses is "no!"
God's word doesn't espouse either a conservative or liberal worldview, it gives us a kingdom of God view of the world. It reminds us that our allegiance is no longer to any nation of this world but rather to God and the building of His kingdom. Quite frankly there are simply too many people who try and describe the so-called "Christian Worldview" as a set of political and social positions that one must hold in the world, nonsense is all I have to say to that.

So what then is a Christian Worldview? The answer is that it is one informed by a relationship with the living God through Jesus Christ. It is a subversive position in regards to every kingdom (nation) of this world in that it challenges the assumptions of power and authority structures as they currently exist.

It is a worldview that gives special recognition to the poor in spirit (just poor in Luke), to those who mourn, to the meek, to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, to the merciful, to the peacemakers and to the persecuted. It is a worldview in which the first will be last and the last will be first. It is a worldview that turns the pride, ambition and arrogance of the world's systems on its head.

A truly "Christian Worldview" will recognize the danger of anger (Matt 5:22), the reality that lust is the equivalent of adultery (Matt 5:28) and the importance of faithfulness in marriage (Matt 5:32 this passage needs further explanation). A "Christian Worldview" is one where we can trust one another to be truth-tellers (Matt 5:37).

At this point I don't think there is anything here that is inherently conservative or liberal.

A "Christian Worldview" does not resist an evil person but rather turns the other cheek, gives more than is asked, goes the extra mile and gives to the one who asks.

 A "Christian Worldview" is one in which we love, don't kill, our enemies. Indeed it is a worldview in which we pray for our persecutors so we may be known as children of our Father in Heaven (Matthew 5:44). If our enemy is hungry we are to feed them, if they are thirsty we are to give them something to drink (Romans 12:20) this is how we do battle with our enemies in the kingdom of God.

A "Christian Worldview" is one in which we give to the needy but don't boast about it, are prayerful but keep it simple and fast not for show but for growth in our relationship with God.

A "Christian Worldview" doesn't worry about about things beyond your control and serves God and God alone, it is a call not to self-fulfillment but rather to self-denial. (Luke 9:23)

A "Christian Worldview" in contrast to the worlds view doesn't judge others before taking a long hard look at youself. It understands that that God has good gifts to give you and to all who would follow Christ.

A "Christian Worldview" is not a big wide easy road, rather it is a narrow gate that leads to life.

Would I dare suggest that a "Christian Worldview" demands equality? I might but certainly Scripture does... "Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality." (2Cor. 8:13)

Conservative or Liberal? Wrong question.
Are you seeking to follow God with all you have? Right Question.

 

A Thought from Peter Drucker...

"Every few hundred years in Western society there occurs a sharp transformation. We cross... a 'divide.' Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their parents were born."
                                                    Peter Drucker

I believe we are living in such a time and that presents unique challenges for the church. I'm almost done reading "Who Stole My Church: what to do when the church you love tries to enter the 21st Century" and will write a review here shortly. There are many today who feel "their church" is being taken or "stolen" from them. There is a great challenge before us in creating a truly intergenerational worship service.

A few thoughts on change...

John Adams writing on the possibility of American Independence said...

"All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects. No man living can foresee the consequences of such a measure." (John Adams, David McCullough p. 105)

None of us can foresee the consequences of change and that to me is what makes it exciting.

In the move based on the life of the Irish revolutionary, Michael Collins, we find Collins speaking to his best friend about the future leader of Ireland, Eamon De Valera.

"He's scared Harry. We might achieve that Republic he wants to talk to the world about."

Change can be frightening and unsettling so we often end up talking a lot about it without ever embracing it and moving into it.

Of course change is a sign of life and vitality, as GK Chesterton notes...

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

Tragically many churches are dying and simply floating down the stream thinking that movement is a sign of life, but its not. Life in the church is characterized, not by style of worship, volume of music or zeal of the preacher but rather by the presence of the risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit working transformation in the life of God's people.

I'm fascinated by change and how people respond/react to it.

Do we pray as if the USA is a theocracy?

In the latest edition of Leadership the commentary on the back page comes from Mark Labberton and it's titled "What to Pray for a New President." I really enjoyed what he had to say and was struck by this comment in particular...

"When we lead our people to pray for our national leaders, we are praying for them to be wise. That means that they will be men and women led by the truth, who will act with discernment and justice. We may be tempted to pray that certain policies or political ideologies are enacted by the government, or for the authorities to establish our own utopian vision. This kind of prayer mistakenly treats the United States as a theocracy."

I wonder how many on both the left and the right have fallen into this trap? How often do we confuse kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of God? It's been a problem since the conversion (or political savvy) of Constantine in the fourth century.

Wake up to the present

Why are churches are still doing battle over contemporary versus traditional worship formats when they should be concerned about what is culturally relevant and connects with people living in 2009?

In a wired world of web 2.0, blogging, Facebook, i-phones etc. how is the church using technology? The answer, with a few exceptions, is not well!

Perhaps it's time for the church to wake up, leave the past and arrive in the present so it can shape the future.

Was there really no room in the inn?

The Christmas story of Jesus birth in the stable is tied to one verse of Scripture, Luke 2:7. That's it, no other mention of the manger or the inn! It reads, "She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, for there was no room for them in the inn." (NIV) or as the TNIV puts it, "She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room  available for them."

Now there's a big difference between a guest room and an inn. Ben Witherington raised this important point in an article he wrote for Christianity Today last Christmas. He also wrote on his blog, "But there is one more surprise at the end of the tale. When it came time for Mary to deliver the baby, the Greek of Luke’s text says--- “she wrapped him in cloth and laid him in a corn crib, as there was no room in the guest room”. Yes, you heard me right. Luke does not say there was no room in the inn. Luke has a different Greek word for inn (pandeion) which he trots out in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The word he uses here (kataluma) is the very word he uses to describe the room in which Jesus shared the last supper with his disciples—the guest room of a house."

Dose this change the story? Perhaps a little, it certainly makes it less sentimental. It also helps explain why Mary, Joseph and Jesus where still in Jerusalem a couple of years later when the Magi arrived. They were staying and working with family.

Perhaps our traditional understanding is wrong.

Civil or Religious Marriage

There has been a great deal of conversation in churches about the subject of marriage. The big topic has been homosexual marriage and the impact that state recognized marriages of homosexuals would have on the church. Today I want to raise another question, a church wedding without a state marriage license.

This is a real life scenario, not one made up to make a point.

A couple wants to join a congregation and have their children baptized. The church leadership and pastor welcome this family into the fellowship of the church. The couple, (perhaps I should add, male and female) are not married and on the lower end of the economic scale. After they joined the church the pastor has a conversation with them about marriage. Here's what he finds out...

They love each other very much, they are passionate in their desire to follow Jesus Christ, they want their children to grow and know Christ but... because of their income levels if they were legally married they would lose the health care benefits they receive from the state for their children. This is a real concern for them. They are not trying to mooch off the state, they are simply caught in the poverty trap.

What would you do as their pastor? Tell them they need to get married because its the right thing to do? Leave the whole subject behind and forget about it? In this particular case the pastor suggested that they could have a church service in which they could take their vows before God, friends and family and celebrate being married in God's eyes.

It's not necessary to take out a marriage license to be married in the church.

If you'll excuse the pun, when did the church and state become so tightly wed on the matter of marriage as both a religious and civic ceremony? (This is a rhetorical question, I know the answer)

Being married in the eyes of the state and being married in the eyes of the church are not the same thing.

Peace on Earth?

They are familiar words to us all this time of year, “For unto us a child a is born, unto us a son is given… and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It is this last title, Prince of Peace that intrigues me.

Shortly after the Prince of Peace is born we see Herod ordering the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. This is hardly an auspicious start to the life of the one we know as the Prince of Peace.

On Saturday August 15, 1998 a car filled with 500lbs of explosive was detonated in the center of Omagh in Northern Ireland. The explosion left twenty-nine people dead and over two hundred injured. This tragedy led Bono, of U2, to write a song titled “Peace on Earth.” The lyrics of which read in part, “Jesus this song you wrote / The words are sticking in my throat / Peace on Earth / Hear it every Christmas time / But hope and history won’t rhyme / So what’s it worth? / This peace on Earth”

Today we live in between times, we celebrate during Advent the incarnation of God in Jesus the Christ but we are also waiting for that time when the New Heaven and New Earth are established and peace on earth becomes a reality.

Perhaps my favorite Christmas story (outside of the Biblical story) is the story of Christmas 1914. It is beautifully articulated in Stanley Weintraub’s book "Silent Night." It was Christmas Eve 1914, the War had been raging for several months and to celebrate Christmas the German high command had sent miniature Christmas trees to the men on the front lines. They set these trees up on the parapets and lit the candles. The British soldiers had been sent ‘Princess Mary’s Christmas Boxes’ filled with goodies from home. As the German, British, and French troops settled in for the night, a young German soldier began to sing to well known carol “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.”  Soon others joined in. When they had finished, the British responded in English singing “Silent Night, Holy Night.”
A ceasefire was called for Christmas day. One by one the men from both sides left their trenches and met in no-man’s land. They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their families. Informal soccer games took place and a joint service was held to bury the dead of both sides.

The high ranking officers, who were not at the front, were not pleased when they heard of this. Men, who have come to know each other’s names, play together, seen pictures of each other's families and exchanged gifts with one another are much less likely to want to kill each other!

When the fighting resumed the men on both sides, who had participated in the ceasefire spent a few days simply firing aimlessly into the sky. The war didn’t start back in earnest until the frontline troops were relieved and new troops who hadn’t participated in the ceasefire where brought to the front. The war would rage until the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918.
For one moment there was peace. We, God’s people are called to be peacemakers, glimmers of hope in a world of spiritual, emotional and physical violence.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will called children of God.” I’d like to be known as a child of God.
My grandfather was on the front in 1914. He was not part of the ceasefire. He never spoke of his experience in the war, but declared forever after that violence of any kind was never the solution.

John McCutcheon wrote a song about it that I like to post this time of year...

A thought from a white guy!

I am white
I am middle-class
I am heterosexual
I am male
I live in suburbia
I am part of the dominant class in our culture

I can only begin to imagine what it means to the African-American population (particularly the older generation) for us to have a black president. It was only a short time ago that Civil Rights demonstrators were marching in Selma, Alabama.

I have watched, with great joy in my heart, the reaction of so many in the black community as tears of joy have flowed over the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of President of the United States.

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. It is now one giant step closer to being realized. Racism is not dead in the United States or around the world, but it's ugly head has been stepped on once again.

As a white guy in suburbia there is no way I will ever be able to truly understand what this means to those who grew up oppressed by segregation.

Are Pastors Human?

A few days ago someone said of me, "I found it so funny and likable that a preacher could let down his guard enough to sound human." I really appreciated that comment, I am human.

The comment also troubled me because it implied that a great many pastors appear to "outsiders" as living guarded lives, they appear aloof or distant, sometimes they appear superior or "holier than thou." They fail to allow people to get close to them, to know them as real people, as fellow sojourners in this life of discipleship. 

I believe the days of the aloof, distant pastor are numbered, if not done. Today's pastor is like the captain on the soccer team, leading and encouraging the team forward, hopefully to victory, but they still breathe hard, sweat and smell like the rest of the team!

How do pastors create (intentionally or unintentionally) this image of being aloof and distant?