NeilCraigan.Com

Lord, when did we see you...

Lord when did we see you...

Hungry and feed you...

Or thirsty and give you something to drink?

When did we see you a stranger and invite you in...

Or needing clothes and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'

211 Days To Comrades

Between now and May 29th, 2011 all of my running will have a single focus... getting to the finish line of Comrades Marathon in under 12 hours!

I'll chronicle my journey of running through the Minnesota winter as I prespare for the 56 miles from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. Just the thought of running under African skies already has me excited, and to be running in the childhood home of my mother will be an even greater thrill.

One of my goals in running for Team World Vision is to find sponsors for 56 kids, one for each mile I run. As soon as I find out who the 56 kids are the I'll be finding sponsors for I'll let you know.

Meanwhile I'll be running a 5k tomorrow morning... gotta start somewhere!

What's your opinion of music in worship?

What's your opinion of music in worship?

I serve a congregation in which the worship service could best be described as "traditional." By that I mean play our music on the organ and piano and we have a choir that sings at least one special piece of music each week. Most of the folks in our congregation, myself included, grew up with this kind of music in worship and accept it as "normal" for a mainline protestant congregation.

However we do have a number of people who feel otherwise. I have heard comments  about a dislike of all the traditional music elements, others have questioned why the choir sings every week and why they sing an anthem every week. Still others feel like the music we sing is outdated, irrelevant and foreign to the culture we are trying to reach with the gospel, it might as well be in Latin or Greek. I have heard people question the use of the organ in our contemporary culture as an outdated instrument.

I have seen congregations throw out all the hymnody of the past, opting only for new songs. Occasionally those new songs will incude some "traditional" elements, eg The Wondrous Cross, Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone). I don't believe this is helpful.

I have seen other congregations refuse to sing any of the new songs because they aren't part of the "tradition." Duh, they ony become part of the tradition after they've been sung for a while and past the test of time.

I drive to worship on a Sunday with either my iPod blaring or listening to the local Christian radio station. I like my music loud, like a concert and the style of music I prefer is rarely heard in any church, whether I'm listening to the Clash, Rich Mullins, U2 or Bob Dylan. Yet my most worshipful music experiences have been at concerts by U2, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Chris Rea, only two of whom would even claim to be a Christian.

So how should the church handle this tough issue of music?

A thought on narratives

Over the last few days I've been thinking a lot about stories. I love a good story, among my favorite stories are Tolkien's "Lord of The Rings" trilogy, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." There are many other stories that I have enjoyed over the years but the question I have been pondering again is which stories have influence and power over my life?

The world is full of narratives, there is the narrative of the  American dream, the narrative of the Muslim extremist, the narrative of the white supremacy, the narrative black power, the narrative of... these are the narratives, the stories that shape our lives. 

Billy and I both grew up in Northern Ireland. I was raised in Belfast, he was raised in Larne. My story is the story of a middle-class kid who was raised believing that Catholics and Protestants could get along together. My mother marched with the Peace People to demonstrate against the sectarian violence in the community. Meanwhile Billy was being raised in a working-class Protestant neighborhood and was learning a story in which Catholics where the enemy and while my mother was marching with the Peace People, Billy was learning to March with the UVF. 

My mother and those with her had stones thrown at them, meanwhile Billy was now serving time in prison for terrorist activities.

My story and Billy's story came together when we both found a new story, the Christian story, to live by. A few years later that new story would see me move to the United States to serve God and would see Billy being given 24 hours to get out of Northern Ireland because he was now a truth teller and the world of evil that he had lived in did not like it.

Leonard Sweet says, "whoever tells the best story wins." 
I like that, because the Christian story is, I believe, the best story, it is the true story of hope, redemption and life.

The challenge is, that for many, maybe most Western Christians, we try to accommodate this great story to other stories so it becomes diluted, even heretical, Jesus becomes a supporter of western political theory, a supporter of wars against terrorists, a supporter of the philosophy of John Locke and the other enlightenment thinkers that formed the basis of American republicanism. 

Billy learned that he had to abandon everything for the sake of the gospel. The apostle Paul learned the same thing. I've been learning to let go and abandon the old stories I was raised with so I too can be fully devoted to living out the Christian narrative in the world.

What stories, what narratives in your life do you need to let go off so you can be truly abandoned to God?

Do We Have A Yellow Pages Church In A Broadband World?

Last Wednesday afternoon I pulled a small book off my shelf, it was titled, "Attracting New Members" by Robert Bast. Published in 1988 Bast notes that, “Market research indicates that people under age 40 use the Yellow Pages frequently." He then goes on to suggest that, " A wise approach is to take as large an ad as possible...”

Needless to say I found myself laughing out loud at the thought of this and decided to do my own market research (sort of).

I went home and asked my two oldest daughters, 13 and 11, not if they used the yellow pages, but rather if they even knew what the yellow pages are. My oldest daughter knew that they had something to do with phone numbers but had no idea what phone numbers and when I explained it to her she had no idea that there was such a thing as the white pages! My younger daughter simply had no idea what the yellow pages were. It's been years since a copy of either of these made it into my house, its straight from the doorstep to recycling.

If I need a phone number I simply go online and look it up.

This left me wondering, do we have a yellow pages church in a broadband world?

Research also indicates that in my denomination, PC(USA), that 79% of people in worship on a Sunday morning are over the age of 45. This is in stark contrast to the US population where 50% of the population is under 45 (these numbers don't include children under 15).

What may have been a good marketing tool 20 years ago is essentially obsolete today. 
It's only a marketing tool, but I was left wondering to what degree does the way we communicate alienate people from the church, from the body of Christ, and from Christ himself?

To quote Leslie Newbigin,  "If the gospel is to be understood, if it is to be received as something which communicates truth about the real human situation, if it is, as we say, to make sense, it has to be communicated in the language of those to whom it is addressed and has to be clothed in symbols that are meaningful to them."

Does the church speak the language of the under 45s? Does the church cloth itself in the cultural symbols that are meaningful to them? As someone who fits that demographic, I have to answer with, "No." The church as a whole has little comprehension of the cultural issues, and appears to have little desire to engage and embrace the cultural shifts that will allow for the faith to be passed on to the next generation.

Politically Correct

We live in a world that values political correctness, but what is politically correct?

We no longer seem able to use the term "man" or "mankind" to refer to all of humanity yet we are still OK with the terms man and woman as descriptives of humanity's gender differentiation. Does this strike anyone as odd since "woman" is the derived from two old English words, 'wife+man' = woman. I just learned that the word, "lady" comes from an old English word that means "bread kneader" while the word "lord" is derived from the old English term that means "bread keeper." I'm not sure that's how I want my daughters to think of themselves.

I understand that language can play a huge role in shaping people's perceptions but language alone is not enough. Just because something is PC it does not mean there is no underlying resentment or discrimination taking place. Indeed a PC environment can be used as a cover up for discrimnation.

What we need are changed hearts and minds, we need people who have been transformed by Christ and can see all of humanity as beautiful creatures, created in the image of God, who while imperfect are loved by God. The church should be the first place (and often has been) in declaring the value and worth of all people.

What's Important?

Is there anything in your story that will matter years, decades, centuries from now? In this short video from the TED Conference Kirk Citro asks which news stories will matter in the future?

 

 

As you think about this video ask yourself what questions the church is wrestling with today that really matter, which "issues" are the truly noteworthy ones that will make a difference in a hundred or more years?
Worship styles? Aesthetics? The sexuality questions? Current Christological issues e.g. the Jesus Seminar? Epistemological questions? Others?

Can we be discerning enough to focus on areas that really will matter, perhaps for all eternity, rather than on temporal issues? I hope so.

What are the big issues I think we need to focus on? Discipleship, there is no doubt that we need to learn afresh what it means to live as disciples of Jesus in the world. This will lead to a renewed focus on mission. Mission that seeks to bring the redemptive story of the gospel to bear on all creation, calling all of humanity into a relationship with the God who has been revealed to us in and through Jesus Christ.

I am a runner... (part 2)

I am a runner... when I toe the line at the start of a race I've never once had the thoought that I could win the race outright. I've had a couple of top ten finishes in small races and won a couple of age group awards but nothing special at all.

So why do I  race if I know there is no chance of winning? I race to see h0w far I can push myself, I race to see if I can improve on my previous best times. I race because I love to compete, even if its with myself.

On any given day there can be only one winner, everyone else falls short of that. At any given time there is only one world number one, everyone else falls short. Does that mean that I give up trying to do my best? No. Does that mean that I slack off on my training and discipline because I will never be as proficient a runner as someone else? No. I simply run to see how well I can do on any given day. I train hard for these races, working in time around work and family commitments to get out and run, sometimes long, sometimes fast.

Over the years I've been in ministry I've watched many people give up trying to grow in their faith. They've decided that they could never love God like (enter name). They've decided they don't understand the Bible so have stopped reading it altogehter. They've adopted the creed of our culutre that if you're not a winner then you're a loser.They've forgotten that competing well is what matters.

I'll never write like Tolkein, preach like Spurgeon, love like Theresa, have courage like Bonhoeffer or understand theology like Barth. I will however be faithful with the gifts that I have, I will nurture them and train myself to fully utilize them to the best of my ability with the help of God.

The final fruit listed by Paul in Galatians is "self-control." We have to learn to control ourselves to become all that God would have us be. Look to those who are better/further ahead in their faith journey as sources of inspiration and hope for you, and not as an excuse to drop out of the race of faith.

I am a runner...

I am a runner. At least I am led to believe that I am a runner, its not a label that I've accepted easily over the last few years but it appears to be one that others are quite happy to associate with me.

Often one of the first questions I'm asked by friends I haven't seen in a while is, "How's the running going?" Or if I am introduced to someone new who runs its often with, "Neil's a runner too." I have to  admit that I'm still a little embarassed by this for my running is very average. When I think of runners I think of my childhood heroes, Seb Coe,  Steve Ovett, Johnny Walker (New Zealand miler not whisky) and others. These were "real runners," world record holders, people that could hold a faster pace for a mile than I could hold for 400 meters!

Sure I run, but does that make me a runner? I run about 30 miles a week, I've run a few marathons and ultramaratons but I've never come close to winning and at 41 never will. Still others call me a runner, so for now I'll accept their judgment and allow myself to be known as runner.

I am a runner, not because I chose to call myself one but because others call me one.
I am a Christian... is it becuase I call myself one or because others see me following Jesus and call me one? We can self-identify as a follower of Jesus, but we can only authenticate it when others acknowledge it for us.

Is it time to abandon "Christianity"? Anne Rice thinks so

This past Tuesd author Anne Rice psoted this comment on her Facebook page,"Gandhi famously said: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” When does a word (Christian)become unusable? When does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy?"

On Wednesday of this week she announced, "Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." She then added a few minutes later, "I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

Yesterday she (sort of) clarified things when she posted, "My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become."

I suppose the question has to be asked, "Is she right?" Has Christianity, as a major world religion, drifted so far from its roots that followers of Jesus need to abandon the monikers "Christian and Christianity?" Anne Rice points to the hate language of the "religious right" but we could also look at the "liberal left" and make similar arguments.

What do you think? Can Chritianity be redeemed? If it was to be left behind how long would it be before the new group of "pure" Jesus followers would become corrupt and fail to fully follow Christ?

"The Things I Take for Granted"

As I walked over to Subway today to buy my lunch I received a text from my wife who was an hour away driving the speedboat on the lake with the kids riding in the tube behind the boat. Just last week we upgraded my wife's phone from the outdated Motorola Razor to an iPhone. She loves her new phone.

I've come to take the technology of the iPhone for granted, I would feel lost without the texting and the internet access it provides me with. This past Monday, when I was in a place where I couldn't access the cellular data network I found myself a little annoyed and perhaps even anxious that I was unable to connect to the world in my usual way and I felt a clear sense of relief when I was finally able to access "my data" once again.

Monday, while it is a day off for me, it is not a time to be offline, being offline is reserved for very special occasions when I make a conscious choice to do that. It has been suggested that within a generation or two we are going to have to teach people what it means to be "offline" because their new "natural environment" will be online all the time.

Anyway, my wife's text got me thinking about all I take for granted... Just today I took for granted clean water, indoor plumbing, a dependable electric grid, having $10 in my pocket to buy lunch, having a car to drive and the resources to maintain it, air conditioning, online access, books to read, a copy of the bible in my spoken language, lighting, and cellular phone and data service. These are the things that jumped to my mind when I started thinking about all I have taken for granted.

The truth is that all of you who are reading this probably all, or almost all, of these things for granted as well, but for most of the world these are not things that can be taken for granted. About 1 in 8 people don't have access to clean water, 1 in 3 people lack access to proper sanitation, more people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet!

We know the statistics, let's try and be mindful of how greatly blessed we are and not just take things for granted. Lets use that blessing to bless others, let's take our gratitude and allow it to be transformed into generosity!

Preconception as an obstacle to evangelism

The problem we face in evangelism today is not so much ignorance of the gospel but rather preconceived ideas. People think they know and understand the gospel and therefore think they know and understand what they have rejected, but rarely is the thing they have rejected an authentic expression of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in the world today.

I found myself laughing when I heard Hans Rosling share in his TED talk from 2006 that Swedish undergraduates, "know statistically significantly less about the world than chimpanzees!" In his class on global development he gave the students a pre-test on infant mortality rates in the world and simply asked the students to select from a pair which country had the highest rates of infant mortality. A chimp would be right half the time, the students were right less than half the time. Why? "The problem was not ignorance it was preconceived ideas."

So what are some of the preconceived ideas people hold of the gospel? Ideas that those of us who love Jesus have to take seriously in our attempt to share Christ with our world. I have no doubt there are many and they can form an almost infinite number of combinations of preconceptions for individuals. They include, the role of faith in politics and the close ties with nationalism, religious oppression, fundamentalism, exclusivity, hypocrisy, incompatibility with science, faith is irrational or anti-rational perhaps even dangerous... the list could and does go on. My concern is that the people of God adopt a form of apologetics that adequately addresses the preconceived ideas of those outside the community of faith, so they may begin to hear the truth of the gospel and have an opportunity to respond to the call of Jesus Christ in their lives.

Thin Places

In Celtic spirituality thin places are places where heaven and earth almost touch each other. For me there is no thinner place than the north coast of Ireland, I meet God there every time I show up. I shot this video on the north coast over the last three weeks and have put it to my favorite worship song of all time. Enjoy.

A Thought From Eugene Peterson

Eugene Peterson is one of my favorite writers today. Here's a thought on worship from him...

'Christians worship with a conviction that they are in the presence of God. Worship is an act of attention to the living God who rules, speaks and reveals, creates and redeems, orders and blesses. Outsiders, observing these acts of worship, see nothing like that. They see a few people singing unpopular songs, sometimes off-key, someone reading from an old book and making remarks that may or may not interest the listeners, and then eating and drinking small portions of bread and wine that are supposed to give nourishment to their eternal sous in the same way that beef and potatoes sustain their mortal flesh. Who is right? Is worship an actual meeting called to order at God's initiative in which persons of faith are blessed by his presence and respond to his salvation? Or is it a pathetic, and sometimes desperate, charade in which people attempt to get God to pay attention to them and do something for them?'

Hmm, I wonder...

A Balanced Life

Full time Christian ministry is notorious for creating burnout in individuals. Stories of preachers kids going astray abound. Of course burnout and family breakdown are not unique to full time ministry. How do you structure and prioritize your life?

In a world where it rarely feels like there is enough of us to go round who or what loses out? In his great little book, Choosing to Cheat, Andy Stanley asks us who wins and who loses when work and family collide? With a constant reminder that we are to do our jobs and love our families, Stanley tells us that we should "cheat" at work rather than at home. 

What's the best piece of advice you have received to help you maintain healthy boundaries and balance in your life? I recently heard a business entrepreneur say that he handled the demands on his time by reminding himself that, "my kids only have one dad and my wife only has one husband," almost all the other tasks in life could be taken care of by others. This thought was always front and center in his decision making. It may be a necessary corrective for many of us as well.

Do you read the Bible? How often?

As Christians we say we are a people of the book and that book is the 66 writings that make up the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation we say that this is God's word to us, God's people. It is the story from creation to consummation. It is a fabulous story, but how many of us really know it?

Krish Kandiah of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK was quoted in Christianity today saying, "We in the West, despite owning more bibles per household than we will ever use, are slowly starving to death because we have lost our appetite for Scripture."

Is this true? Have you lost your appetite for Scripture or do you eat heartily from its pages regularly? I'd love to know what your pattern for Scripture reading is and hear some honest confessions and struggles you have with it. I try and read the Scriptures in personal devotion five days a week, I read a Psalm and then several (usually 3-5) chapters. I also use Oswald Chambers devotional, My Utmost For His Highest, which gives me a single nugget to chew on. 

A Further Thought on Church Music

James White in his book, 'A Brief History of Christian Worship,' writes, "By the end of the twelfth century, composers were writing for three or four voices and polyphony had become a distinct alternative to plainsong. This demanded competent musicians, not ordinary lay folk."

While the plainsong of Gregorian chant has been making a comeback in many circles. There has also been a movement toward songs with a basic melodic structure born out of folk and rock and roll music, the music of the people, the music of the culture reclaimed and reworked for the kingdom of God.

To some this movement has felt like a rejection or a neglect of the great hymnody of the church, but this is really far from the case. If we were to look at the big picture of church history, going back to the time of Jesus or even before that to the time of the Psalm writers we would find that there has been no "standard" for church music and that the songbook of the church is wide and varied and changes radically over time.

The primary purpose of music in the church is to provide God's people with an opportunity to sing with one voice their songs of praise and cries of lament to their God. Style is only relevant in that the songs should be intelligible (in the language of the people) and accessible to the culture in which the local church worships. There is nothing "spiritual" about the style of music or the way it is presented (choir, band, soloist etc).   

A thought from Michael Horton

I've been a huge fan of the work of Michael Horton ever since reading "Beyond the Culture Wars" some 20 years ago. His latest work, The Gospel Driven Life, is a terrific read. One of Horton's passions seems to be painting an accurate picture of the relationship between the church and world, the sacred and the profane, the common and the holy and, yes, he does address this topic in his latest work. Here's part of what he has to say...

Christ's kingdom is its own culture: holy rather than common. That does not mean that it is an alternative subculture. In other words, there is no such thing as Christian sports, entertainment, politics, architecture, or science. In these common fields, Christians and non-Christians are indistinguishable except by their ultimate goals and motivations. Ironically many of the statistics we read today show that professing evangelicals do not differ from non-Christians in their core beliefs and ethics, while an elaborate "Christian" subculture flourishes. In contrast, the second century Epistle of Diognetus reported that Christians are distinguished from others "neither by country nor by language nor by customs." They do not live in their own ghettos or "use a strange form of speech." They do not differ in cultural customs of their respective lands or in dress and food. Yet in their ordinary lives "they show forth the remarkable and admittedly strange order of their own [heavenly] citizenship." "They live in fatherlands of their own, but as aliens. They share all things as citizens, and suffer all things as strangers. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land... They pass their days on earth, but they have their citizenship in heaven." 

There is in this paragraph something for us all to wrestle with, some will wrestle with the idea of forgoing the Christian subculture, for others it will be the challenge of giving up our church culture (a culture more reflective of the a prior century than the one we live in today), for other the challenge will be to see their home country as a foreign land and perhaps the biggest challenge of all will be for us to learn to live for Christ in the world in which God has placed us.

Spiritually Bulimic Christians!

Are you a spiritually bulimic follower of Jesus?

What I'm asking is whether you showed up hungry to hear a word from God at worship this morning, hoping that the church would feed your spiritual craving only to have you go home and throw it up tonight so that by the time you go to work tomorrow what you received today will have nothing to do with you life on Monday. You will then spend the week without taking any spiritual nourishment in the form of focused prayer or Bible Study, either personally or with a small group, and be starved by the time you arrive at worship next Sunday wanting to gorge yourself again on what it is offered only to repeat this process week after week.

As followers of Jesus we need to engage ourselves in a steady healthy diet of spiritually nutritious food. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." (3:16)

A little spiritual food taken regularly can make a big difference. Try reading a few verses of Scripture each day with breakfast and allow them to shape and mold your day for you. Start with Matthew chapter 5, The Sermon on the Mount, and just read a line or two until you're got through it all.

A Good Friday Poem From Steve Turner

I've always enjoyed the poetry of Steve Turner, here's a Good Friday thought from his, now out of print, book, "The King of Twist."

The Nail Man

Which one was it
that held the nails
and then hammered them
into place?

Did he hit them
out of anger,
or a simple
sense of duty?

Was it a job
that had to be done,
or a good day's work
in the open air?

And when they
clawed past bone
and bit into wood,
was it like all the others,
or did history
shudder a little
beneath the head
of that hammer?

Was he still there,
packing away his tools,
when It is finished
was uttered to the throng,
or was he at home
washing his hands
and getting ready
for the night?

Will he be forgiven
on that Day of Days,
his sin having been slain
by his own savage spike?

May you have a blessed Easter as you reflect on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.