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A thought from F. Scott Fitzgerald

Certainly we become more ingrained in our ways of thinking and behaving as we get older. This thought from F. Scott Fitzgerald just doesn't sit well with my activist tendencies yet it seems to bear itself out in the lifecycle of most mainline churches which have buried themselves from the changing cultural environment around them.

"People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide." 
From Bernice Bobs Her Hair

When Narratives Collide: The Possessive Pronoun

After writing the other day about the competing narratives in our lives I found myself listening to Pandora radio when a song by Third Day played. It was part of a live recording at the end of which they talked about going on a USO tour and singing to "our troops." The crowd went wild in applause and praise.

I stopped in my tracks, my mind was racing, here was a Christian band, ministering to God's people, representing Jesus Christ, talking about "our troops." I find the same words being used on local Christian radio, a venue in which the name of Jesus is supposed to be being lifted up, a radio station that is supposedly ministering as the body of Christ to the world through the medium of radio and yet they too continue to talk about "our troops" and "our country."

The apostle Paul reminds us that in the church, "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumicised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free." National, traditional, cultural, geographical and social barriers are done away with in the church. Our calling as members of the body of Christ, as citizens of the kingdom of God, transcends our earthly citizenship in all its forms. 

The collision of narratives takes place in the use of the possessive pronoun, "our." 

As the church, as those who represent Jesus to the world, we have to be very careful what we claim as "our" possession. For what we declare "ours" says a lot about the narrative that shapes our lives and impacts how others view us.

Imagine for a moment you are Iranian or Somalian and much of what you have heard about Christianity is that it is the religious arm of the military complex of the United States. You decide you want to see for yourself if this is true and you search the web and find this song by Third Day and hear the local Christian radio station station use "our" as they do. How do you hear the words listening from that perspective? Can you see how the words "our troops" would be heard to mean the troops of the Christians and "our country" to mean the land of the Christians?

When as Christians we reference "our country" we should be referencing our new citizenship in the kingdom of God.

I am not suggesting that anyone turn their backs on the nation in which they live. I simply believe we have to be careful to be aware of, and separate when possible, the narratives that compete for our allegiance. To separate this particular narrative I would propose that Christians, as representatives of Christ, should reference "our country" as the "United States" (or whatever nation you are a citizen of), and "our troops" as "the United States military." For those who would want to thank troops for their service I would again encourage the dropping of "our" and thank them for their service to "the country." 

I also find a huge collision of narratives in the economic realm. As people talk about "my hard earned money," "my possessions," "my stuff." This too is a serious area of growth in terms of overcoming a dominant narrative of the world. The gospel teaches us that everything belongs ultimately to God and that we are stewards of what God has entrusted to us. Again the use of the possessive pronoun says a lot about the narrative that directs our life. Imagine how generous we could be if we got over the possessive pronoun here!  

 Jesus even goes as far as using possessive pronouns to redefine his family.

"Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”"

Are you aware of the narratives that shape your life? Are you aware of how the various narratives compete for your allegiance? May the narrative of the kingdom of God dominate all competing narratives in the life God has given each of us.

What does your legacy smell like?

When life is over and your days are done what will be left behind? Everything that is of material value, money, home, cars, jewelry etc. these things are of little or no eternal value. Much greater than our material posessions we will also leave a legacy of how we used the material resources we have while we are alive, the memories others have of us, the lives we impacted and the influence we had on the kingdom of God in this world.

"Your legacy is the fragrance of your life that remains when you yourself are not present." 
 Daniel Taylor

The question is what fragrance is your life bringing to the world today? Roses or skunk? For this will determine the legacy you leave.

A thought on preaching

I was flipping through the channels the other day when I came across a guy giving a motivational speech. I stopped and listened to him for a few moments as he told his audience how they could feel better about themselves, live a fuller life and become all they were meant to be. His ultimate goal was to motivate people and make them feel better about themselves.

While this may, in many ways, be an admirable goal it is not the goal that pastors have in mind when they preach. We are called to proclaim the gospel message of the kingdom of God from the pulpit. While it is a hope filled message it is also a message that calls for repentance, it is a message that idnentifies and challenges the sin in our lives, it is a message that exposes us in all our weakness before calling us to come to the cross and surrender our lives to God in Christ who died for us.

It is good news for all but it is not motivational news. It is a calling to another way of living but it comes through surrender to the Holy Spirit and not self-motivation. It is an uncomfortable, disquieting message that brings ultimate comfort. It is not a call to doing certain things but rather to live in relationship with a certain person, the triune God. It is not a call to a better life, it is a call to the only life truly worth living.

Yes, sermons can and indeed often should be motivational, but at it's heart the sermon is not about motivating people to action it is about proclaiming what God has done. 

Is the story of God's kingdom your all informing narrative for life?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the narrative, the stories, the paradigms that shape our lives. We have mulitple narratives shaping our lives at any given time. These include our family history, our national identity, our economic status, our ethnic background and our religious life. 

As followers of Jesus Christ we are called to have our lives shaped by the narrative of the coming kingdom of God. This has to be the dominant, perhaps even sole driving force behind our lives. While this may be easy enough for us to give assent to it is extraordinarily difficult to live out in practice. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple." Such is the level of commitment that Jesus calls us to when we seek to follow him and be kingdom people.

I have know people who have been rejected by their family and friends for their commitment to Jesus Christ. I have known people forced to leave their country under the threat of death because of their commitment to Jesus Christ. When the kingdom of God becomes the narrative by which we live then everything drops away and it is seen as a threat to the world. Again quoting Jesus, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." 

It is not easy to overcome the power of the competing narratives that seek to claim our allegiance. We hear people say that family comes first, in the kingdom of God Christ always comes first. From an early age our children (or perhaps it was you too) are indoctrinated in the ways of the nation, being asked to pledge their allegiance to a flag rather than Christ, being asked to sing a national anthem that celebrates a nation at war rather than the reconciling work of Christ on the cross. We are encouraged to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps rather than recognise our reliance on the grace of God.  The list could go on and on, but the point is simple, we have to overcome these competing narratives and be solely committed to the kingdom of God.

How do we do that? How do we commit to the kingdom of God and overcome these other powerful narratives that compete for our attention? 

We commit to the church, to surrounding ourselves with other disciples on the journey to seeing God's kingdom come and will done on earth as it is in heaven. We also commit ourselves to renewing our minds, as Paul says, so we can be transofrmed, undergoing a metamorphosis in our way of thinking. The Bereans we are told, "received the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." And the disiciples in Ephesus we are told, "had discussions daily in the lecture hall of the Tyrannus. This went on for two years..."

Most of us have adopted the narrative of the kingdom of God as one that sits comfortably alongside our other narratives, family, nation, ethnicity etc. This is a compromise of the radical nature of the kingdom narrative. We are to live in the world as aliens, strangers, ambassadors of God's kingdom, as a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

It is no easy task overcoming the power of these other narratives in our lives. But all things must be submitted to the narrative of the kingdom of God.

 

A Thought From CS Lewis

I've just begun rereading CS Lewis' classic, Mere Christianity. I don't think I've picked this book up in well over a decade and I'm really enjoying reading again.

Here's a couple of my favorite thoughts from chapter 5.

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward deos not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."

"Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness."

Yep, the best way forward, the way of progress, is to examine our lives in the light of the authority of the triune God as revealed to us in the Scripture and to repent, do an about-turn, from anything in our lives that is contrary to the written word of God. As the Westminster Confession reminds us, "The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." Chapter 1:10

When Merely Running Isn't Enough!

My year of running started out with a couple of half-marathons in Febraury and in March. I set personal records for the distance at each of these races. From that point all my running was focused on being able to cover the 56 miles of Comrades at the end of May.

This  meant that I was logging more miles than I had ever run but was doing so at a much slower pace. The emphasis on how far could I go and not how fast I could there. I stopped all interval training, although without The Running Store folks I've found interval training really hard to do since leaving Virginia. I also stopped doing any tempo runs. Everything I ran was at what I called my "all day pace."

I became very comfortable running at this pace and would think nothing of going out to run anything up to 20 miles. 20 miles at the all day pace was easy! 

Comrades came and went and the Twin Cities Marathon was next on my training schedule. It was time to kick it up a notch, time to refocus my training. It was time to add in some tempo runs and speed work. But I didn't, I liked running at a very casual pace and so I just kept logging the miles. Come race day I was easily in shape to cover the 26.2 mile distance but I was in no shape to race 26.2 miles at the pace I wanted to, even the more conservative pace I hoped for proved far to difficult for me to handle. 

Training for a race requires more than mere running, at least it does if you want to compete to the best of your ability. Training has to be race specific.

The same is true in life. You have to, as Paul writes to Timothy, "train yourself to be godly." For the Christian that means spending time in worship with other believers, it means spending time in prayer, it means spending time studying (not merely reading) Scripture, it means living in such a way that we reflect Jesus to the world.

Worship, prayer, study and lifestyle are all needed for us to have a complete training regime that allows us to live as disciples of Jesus in the world today.

I learned my lesson the hard way at the Twin Cities Marathon, I neglected part of my training and I suffered. There have been times in my life when I have neglected part of my training in godliness and I have suffered in that area too.

Lesson learned: to compete well you have to train well.

Mankato Marathon Report

It was a beautiful morning, albeit a chilly 38 degrees at the start of the Mankato Marathon. The sun was rising and a gentle morning mist hung over the fields, there was no wind to speak of as we ran away from the campus of Mankato State University for morning run of 26.2 miles.

I entered the race on a whim. My run at Twin Cities Marathon has to go down as the hardest run of my life so I decided to see if I could run and enjoy a marathon before winter. It turned out to be a great race and a great day!

I set off from the start with a goal of finding a comfortable pace to run and qucikly settled into 8 minute miles. The miles began to tick by. There are two challenging hills in the first half of the race but other than those the course was beautifully laid out with a nice downhill section starting at mile 17 and taking you most of the way to mile 20.

I found the first half of the race very enjoyable running through the half in 1:46:10. I felt really good about this and kept on going. I held it together up until the downhill section at mile 17 when I felt a lot of tightness in my hamstrings, I stopped and stretched a little before carrying on.  The tightness quickly returned and I slowed down, I knew my stretch goal of 3:30 was gone.  

The remainder of the race was a combination of running and walking that saw me cross the finish line, with nice jump and a slap of the overhanging finish banner, in 3:55:28. Not an impressive time by any means, indeed any other day I'd have been disappointed with it, but on this occasion I was safisfied.

I'd highly recommend this marathon and half-marathon to anyone looking for a late October race in Minnesota. 

A thought on pride

I've been thinking recently about what it means to be proud. The book of Proverbs has quite a bit to say about pride some of which includes...

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Proverbs 11:12
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18
Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor. Proverbs 29:23

Indeed a quick survey of all the biblical texts will make it clear that pride is not seen by God as a favorable attribute for people to have. So the question is, "Can a Christian be legitimately proud?"

The answer I would give is a qualified yes. 

A Christian can be proud "of" something but should never be proud "to be" something. Let me explain how I see the difference. To be proud of something external, say some accomplishment by your children, is to maintain an outward focus, it is not about you, indeed it has nothing to do with who you are at all, it is about the other and truly celebrating the accomplishment of the other. Indeed moments like these, if we are truly focused on the external can be quite humbling. 

The problem is that most of us fall into the trap of pride "to be" which is internally focused, it is about ourselves, it is inherently selfish and falls under all the judgments that Scritpure proclaims about pride. If I am proud to be my children's father then it is about me and not about them and it becomes self-centered, it puffs me up and gives me an artificial sense of grandeur.

We need deeply discerning hearts to be able to tell the difference between times when we say we are "proud of" someone and really mean it and times when the words are a deceptive substitute for "proud to be." 

Weight loss programs may save Medicare $15B

A new study suggests that a simple weight loss program could save Medicare $15 billion. That's a lot of taxpayer money and that's only the money that could be saved by targetting adults between the ages of 60-64.

I wonder what the health cost savings would be if we actually got a handle of the obesity epidemic across all age groups?

Weight loss programs may save Medicare $15B.

Weight loss programs may save Medicare $15B

Irish Maths Test!

I was sent this by my brother and I found it too funny to not post here.

Paddy wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little maths test. 
Here is your first question, the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." 
"Without numbers?" Paddy says? "Dat's easy." And proceeds to draw three trees.

"What's this?" the boss asks. 
"Have you no brain? Tree and tree plus tree makes 9" says Paddy. 
"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." 
Paddy stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree... "Ere ye go."

The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?" 
"Each of them trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, plus dirty tree. Dat makes 99." 
The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire Paddy, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100.." 
Paddy stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere ye go. One hundred."

The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!" 
Paddy leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and whispers, "A little dog came along and pooped by each tree. 
So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes ONE HUNDRED!" 
  
Paddy is the new supervisor.

One step at a time

32:30 for 2.2 miles, normally I could have walked that distance faster than that but not on Sunday. I had nothing left to give, there was no desire to press hard for the finish and my fluid levels were severely depleted. It was a bitterly disappointing experience and one where I could easily have thrown up my hands and quit but I didn't. I made it to the finish.

How did I get to the finish? Simple really, one step at a time. Truth be told that's the only way we get anywhere at all. 

When life, or a race, is going well we don't often think about each step, we have our sights set further down the road, closer to the goal that lies ahead, looking toward the goal we are trying to reach. 
When life, or a race, is going poorly, when we are struggling with pain, sorrow, doubt, anguish, we can still press on toward the goal. The way to do that is to focus on taking the next step, just one step and then another and slowly and steadily we will make progress in the right direction.

It is easy to abandon the race when things get really hard, when the burdens of life weigh us down, when we struggle to see the goal we are pursuing because of the pain we are in in the present. But we press on, one step at a time, encouraged more by the other runners around us than by the crowds on the sidelines. Those other runners know what it's like,  (I started to get annoyed with some of the crowd encouragement near the end of the marathon, they didn't know or understand what I was going through), they've been there, they've suffered as we are suffering and they understand.

Is there someplace in your life that you're struggling and hurting? If so move forward one step at a time and take courage from those who are travelling this road with you. 

The mystery of suffering: A before-and-after photo story

Why do I support World Vision? This powerful story is one reason, so people can live and not die from what Bono refers to as, "stupid poverty." The mystery of suffering: A before-and-after photo story.

Twin Cities Marathon - my race

When the alarm sounded at 4:30 I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast. After some orange juice and a couple of pieces of toast with marmalade it was time to get dressed. By 5:00 we were in the car and heading toward St. Paul to catch the bus to the start line in Minneapolis.

Before the race we attended the ecumenical worship service at Augustana Lutheran Church. I was the guest speaker and shared a message with the congregation of around 200. I challenged them to consider whether they were running from, toward or for something. Acknowledging that we do all three but that running for something in both the race and in life is by far the most satisfying and best way to run.

After the worship service Jenny and I took off our sweats, kissed and headed to our respective starting corrals. I was feeling great and was really hoping to break the 3:30 barrier by running fractionally under an 8:00 minute pace.

The gun sounded and we were off, I quickly settled into what felt like a comfortable pace which turned out to be exactly the pace I was looking for. I headed through 5k in 24:43, right on target and with 49:33 at 10k I couldn't have been happier with my pacing.

It was a beautiful day, clear skies and a cool crisp morning with only a very light breeze. Absolutely perfect conditions to run in. I was thrilled to be running and was soaking in the environment around me. They say the Twin Cities Marathon is the most beautiful urban marathon in the country, it's true.

By the time I reached the halfway point I was still feeling strong and right on target for a 3:30 finish, I was relishing in the day running about 40 seconds ahead of the 3:30 pace group. At mile 15 I had lost a few seconds and was averaging exactly an 8:00 minute mile.

Then somewhere between miles 15 and 18 the wheels started to come off. By the 30k split (18.641 miles) my average paced had slipped to 8:05 from this point on it was a serious slide into oblivion! My 20 mile split was 2:42:40 which is about an 8:08 average. While this may not sound like much it meant that I had given back about another minute over 1.4 miles.

I was really starting to slow, my stride was shortening and my muscles where tightening. I was beginning to feel a little dehydrated. It was getting warm out and in the early miles the cups at the water stops weren't very full. Could I hold on? In a word, NO! I was quite dehydrated by now and was trying to drink plenty but drink it slowly to keep it in and the next 4 miles took me 49:05 to complete, that's a 12:16 pace, unbelievable! Well, not quite unbelievable but at least I only had 2.2 miles left at this point. I could hardly run, after a few steps of running I felt like I was going to lose the contents of my stomach so I slowed to a walk taking another 32:30 to run/walk the final 2.2 miles. 

At least it was a beautiful day for a walk with temperatures getting into the mid-70's by the afternoon. Oh well, it's the first time I've had a marathon  disaster like this, it may not be the last, time now to look forward to the next adventure!

Thanks to Molly, Heidi, Katy, Milt, Barb, Mum, Dad, Clare, Michaela, Kendall, Eric, Kelly, Julia and others for coming out and cheering for us on the way.

A thought on the church from Eric Liddell

Here's  a timely thought from Eric Liddell. I think both evangelicals and progressives could read this and agree with it but their understanding of it would be very different. Perhaps that's what Jim Singleton was getting at when, at the Fellowship of Presbyterians gathering, he stated that we (progressives and evangelicals) use the same words but mean different things. 

But alas! The organized church is desperately ill. There is plenty of room for different types of services, mehtods of organization, and differencs of opinion. It is not the will of Christ that there should be bitter rivalry and ill will among the different organizations. This is contrary to his Spirit; it is breaking his body which is the church.

It is not uniformity but unity that is part of the essential nature of the fellowship (church).

Beware of bigorty and spiritual pride. "We saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbade him, becuase he followeth not with us" (Luke 9:49). Jesus rebuked that spirit.

Beware of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Let truth and love, justice and mercy mingle so that the Spirit of truth and love may lead you.

Beware of a broad-mindedness that has no solid foundation for its opinions and outlook.

A guiding attitude:

In things essential - unity
In things doubtful - liberty
In all things - charity 

 Taken from The Disciplines of th Christian Life by Eric Liddell.

Comrades 2012

It may not start until 5:30 am on June 3, 2012 but I am now officially registered to run Comrades again next year. 

2012 will be a "downhill run" from Pietermaritzburg to Durban which some say is harder than the uphill run I took on last year. I'll let you know after it's over but I think I'd rather be running down Field's Hill near the end rather than up it near the beginning. This really is the ultimate race and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in running a distance greater than the 26.2 miles o the standard marathon.

Once again I'll be running with Team World Vision and I continue to seek people willing to sponsor kids in South Africa so together we can make the world a better place.

As Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me." I'll give money, I'll give time and energy, I'll sponsor kids and I'll run 56 miles for the least of these brothers and sisters and I'll be doing it all in the name of Jesus as I continue to seek raise awareness, compassion and response for the poor of the world. As Bonon says, "an accident of longitude and latitude should not determine whether you live or die."

How great of an experience is Comrades? In this picture I am just yards away from crossing the finish line and I still have a smile on my face!

Michele Bachman's error on the greatest force for good

Every once in a while I hear someone who publicly states they are a Christian come out with an outrageous comment that raises serious questions for the discerning listener. Such was the case several weeks ago when presidential hopeful Michele Bachman stated, “You will not see me apologizing for the United States of America across the world, because the United States of America is the greatest force for good in the history of mankind, and we will be that again.”

Surely every Christian should know and understand that the greatest force for good in the history of the world is the church and not a nation. The church, instituted by Jesus Christ who on the cross defeated the powers of darkness, broke the bonds of sin and who today is reconciling the world to Himself.

While the United States may be a great nation in the modern world, it is still a nation of this world and as such is represented by the image of Babylon on the book of Revelation. It is no equal to the church and is, in many ways very similar to ancient Rome.

Rome brought great peace to the world in it's time. The result was that trade flourished and a strong infrastructure of trasportation existed. Of course behind that peace was the constant threat of a great military, "don't mess with us and our ways or we'll bring the full force of our military might down upon you." It was fine to worship any God as long as it didn't threaten the supremacy of the state. Indeed it was the very sense that Christianity was subversive to the state at led to Christians being persecuted. The early Christians would not pledge allegiance to the Caesar and the state, they reserved this for God alone.

Of course Rome eventually fell, as all empires in this world have done.

The United States has much to offer the world but please let's not be so arrogant, proud or wrong in trying to claim that it is or ever has been, "the greatest force for good in the history of mankind." Perhaps Michelle Bachman would consider, in the light of her Christian faith retracting this statement.

A thought from Howard Schultz

I wonder if these poignent words spoken by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, aren't perhaps equally important and relevant to the life of the church today?

"I would not return to the role of ceo dwelling on our storied history. Instinctively I understood that we had to return to our roots, but if that heritage was not linked to a willingness to reinvent and innovate, then we would fail." Onward p.56 

HELP NEEDED: 18 Sponsor Packets Expiring Soon

Sitting on a table in my home are eighteen sponsor packets for children from World Vision's, Nkonkobe Area Development Project that I visited back in June. If I can't get these packets into the hands of people willing to sponsor a child they will have to be recycled at the end of August. That will mean these children will be put on hold for sponsorship until their information is recirculated through the system.

You could sponsor one of these children for $35 a month.
OR
You could find someone to sponsor one or more of these kids as an advocate.

Our family sponsors five children, one for each of us. It's an easy way to make a difference in the world. Please join us by sponsoring a child.

A thought on the death of John Stott

Today the world lost a great man of God, John Stott.

I am thankful for John's writing over the years, many of his books sit on my shelves with notes in the margins and large amounts of text highlighted. His contribution to the Christian faith over his decades of ministry was profound, his writings always challenging us to come back to the gospel and the centrality of the cross of Christ.

First published in 1976, Christian Mission in the Modern World, was the first of his books I read 25 years ago, it was a book ahead of its time as Stott argues that both evangelism and social action are critical elements to mission. This idea has become very popular in the decade with the works 0f Mark Labberton, Rich Stearns, Shane Claiborne and others. 

I am honored to have met John when he came to Minnesota a number of years ago. I had hoped to pick his brain on theology and ministry but when he learned that I was British and living here all he wanted to talk about was cricket!