prayer

Do You Really Want What You Pray For?

Laurie Russell — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:44:35 -0800

Do you ever find yourself praying away your circumstances? I do. However, when I look at my “wishes” I often find contradictory statements… “Please let us have a bigger house so we won’t be so crowded.” Then…“If we had a smaller house it wouldn’t take me so long to clean it.” Or…“May I have a job that is more mentally challenging?” To…”I wish I had an easier job so I wouldn’t have to think so much.” and on and on it goes.

As I drove in to work this morning, my prayers were filled with petitions to God for Him to change a circumstance in my life. But my mind floundered. What would happen if He removed the circumstance? Would that solve the problem and bring me peace? Or would I be bored and complacent?

I thought about this and then Mary, the mother of Jesus, came to mind. If there was ever a woman tempted to wish away her circumstances, Mary was probably it….

She was a woman (obviously), living in a time when women weren’t all that popular. She’s engaged to be married, shows up pregnant, but not with her fiancé’s baby. It was another man’s – God’s actually. (Like that excuse ever goes over well.)

No one seemed to believe her so God intervened and convinced her fiancé, Joseph, to believe her. Joseph, now on board, stepped up and protected her from a possible stoning. Phew – maybe life will get easier now.

Oops – don’t think so. Months later she’s on the verge of delivering God’s son and she has to travel miles by donkey because some silly census and a prophecy. She delivers in a stable, in the cold, filled with dirty animals – without an epidural! Surely the hard part is over.

Umm…doesn’t look like it. Jesus is born and just as things seem to be settling down, some crazy ruler wants to kill her baby so they all flee to Egypt and live as refugees. Are you serious? Wouldn’t it be easier for God to remove the crazy ruler?

Life starts to normalize again but her son is a bit “odd”. He’s not like the other kids and parents know how hard that can be to watch. He sneaks off, not to flirt with girls or tip camels during the night, but to “talk God” with the leaders of the Temple. Before long He’s claiming to be God’s son and challenging the Temple leaders. Uh oh.

I wonder if she ever wished away her uncomfortable circumstances? Did she ever lay awake at night and prayed for a normal, easy-going life?

Maybe. I know I would have.

What if she did and God had granted her the wish and gave the job of raising his son to someone else?

Think about all that she would have missed out on?

The heartache, trials and struggles would have been less, but she also would have missed out on…

…hugging and kissing baby Jesus.

…knowing Him better than anyone.

She knew and felt His love firsthand. She literally saw it manifested in His life and His death.

Life would have been easier but it would not have been better. Not even close.

True peace doesn’t come from our circumstances. It comes from saying “yes” to God and following through on what He asks of us.

God sent an angel to tell Mary what God had asked of her. She didn’t refuse or pray it away.

Nope.

She told the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said.” Luke 1:38

God’s called us all to do something great for Him. We just have to be willing to say, “Yes!”

Do your circumstances tempt you to pray away God’s call on your life?

There may be painful moments but the rewards will be eternal.

Advent Prayer Requests

Brett McCracken — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:41:53 -0800

Oh Jesus, come. The world groans for you.

The streets are bloody and the debts are rising. There are riots all around, anxieties about the future, 72-day marriages, 5th grader suicides, political stalemates, crashes of every sort, too-high heating bills, faucets that don’t work, pencils that smear instead of erase, milk that goes sour, teeth that get cavities, and cancer that keeps coming back.

Messiah, come.

Come and bring justice to the perpetrators of evil: The dictators who oppress, the pedophiles who abuse, the rich who swindle, the thieves and murderers and liars and cheaters and addicts… Basically, all of us. Judge us, refine us, renew us oh Lord. Cast our sins into the depths of the sea. Show your faithfulness to us oh God, as you did to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Bring a father to the son who’s never known one. Bring a day of rest to the mother who hardly stops. Bring buckets of cold, clear water to the parched lands throughout the world. Bring peace to the places where war has settled in. Bring hope to the suffering in Japan, and Joplin, and every place in shambles.

Oh sprouted blossom from the root of Jesse, come and heal the nations.

Give hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, joy to the lowly. Bind up the wounds of your people.

We are all hurting. Broken feet. Infected cuts. Insecurity. Heartbreak.

We are all sick. Coughing. Contagious. Medicated. Prone to wander.

We are all tired. Of work. Of failure. Of the persistence of disappointment.

We are all hungry. For a community that will last. For love that doesn’t fizzle. For something–anything–of permanence. To know ourselves. To know the truth. To understand how it all makes sense. To see the face of God.

In the midst of all this, Jesus came.

Is coming.

Is here.

I've Decided To Pray In Church Of All Places

Chris Tomlinson — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:56:00 -0700

As I have been contemplating prayer of late, I’ve found my times of prayer to be growing in both occasion and place. I find myself before God in prayer as I face a decision that needs to be made, or to ask Him wisdom as I read His word. Or I find myself offering bursts of praise as I see His hand in a sunrise, or asking Him for grace when I need help with a hard conversation. But I have also realized there is one place where I’m pretty certain to not be praying: church.

You’d think this is all mixed up, and you would have a point. But our church doesn’t have a specific time for congregational prayer. We have corporate prayer, but I can just listen to a pastor pray over the service or the congregation without doing much of anything other than listening to him pray over the service or the congregation. We also have prayer over the Word, and prayer over our singing, but again, I find it far too easy to watch rather than pray.

But Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, and I want to connect more deeply with God, so I’ve decided that I’m going to pray at church. And short of disrupting everyone throughout the service with constant, outspoken prayers, I’ve realized there are plenty of opportunities to be praying.

1. Pray as we drive in to church: God, do a work in your people this morning, to open our eyes to Your glory and to awaken our affections for You above all other things.

2. Pray as we walk in the door: God, may I be a minister of grace to someone in need, and may You bring someone to minister to my needs as You see fit.

3. Pray as the band begins to play: God, grant us to worship you together with united hearts of praise and adoration for Your name!

4. Pray as we begin to sing: [Insert song lyric, and mean it rather than mouth it].

5. Pray as we shake each other’s hands for 15 seconds: God, love this person through me right now. Give us words to build a relationship of mutual love and encouragement.

6. Pray as the pastor prays for our service: [As he prays], God, may this be so. Do this, for Your glory and our joy.

7. Pray as the teaching pastor walks on stage: God, grant His lips to speak and our ears to hear the wisdom and beauty of Your word, and awaken our minds to understand and our hearts to feel the weight of Your truth.

8. Pray as the Word is being taught: God, shine the light of your Word deep in my heart; show me my sin, reveal to me Your grace, teach me Your truth, and do this for all who are here.

9. Pray as the gospel is being shared: God, awaken faith in those who don’t know You. Help them to see their sin and delight in Your mercy, and help them to respond to the gospel and receive Your Son as their righteousness, their Lord, their Savior, and their Treasure.

10. Pray as we give: God, I give because You own everything I have. Multiply this offering to expand Your kingdom and the reach of Your name.

11. Pray as we leave the sanctuary: God, give me eyes to see friends to encourage and loners to befriend before I reach the door to leave.

12. Pray as we talk to a friend in need: [Stopping to pray during a discussion rather than saying “I’ll be sure to pray for you.”]

13. Pray as we walk out the door: God, consecrate this day for Your sake. Help me to rest in You, obey Your Word, follow Your lead, and love others today while I have breath.

Pray with me this Sunday. And each day until then. May God help us to see our need for Him throughout each day, and may we be found in unceasing prayer before His throne.

Question: When do you pray at your church gathering?

The Realness of God

Chris Tomlinson — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:35:27 -0700

I have been contemplating prayer recently. By contemplating, I mean I’ve been thinking much more about prayer than actually talking to God about prayer, which of course would be praying and might just help the whole situation. But here I find myself, wondering why something so central to this faith we share is such a mystery.

Here’s what I do know about prayer. It’s hard. It’s important. It’s much simpler than we care to make it. And it’s far more complex than we understand.

I also know that pretty much every Christian thinks his or her prayer life isn’t all that great. When you ask a Christian if Jesus died for their sins, they will say yes. When you ask a Christian if communion wafers are too dry, they will say yes. And when you ask a Christian if their prayer life could be better, they will say yes.

I am no different, but I’m also tired of lamenting this fact. I can see spending the next forty years dipping my toes into the shallow pools of God while shouting over my shoulder that’s it’s just too far to jump into the deep end. But who wants to stay in the shallow end shouting all the time?

As I consider why my prayer life “isn’t as good as it could be,” I have to acknowledge the reason this is so: because my experience in prayer hasn’t been worth the effort. By this I mean that the reward hasn’t been worth the cost. While there are a hundred other reasons I don’t pray more earnestly, or more fervently, or more expectantly, or more willfully, or more joyfully, the ground-level reason is because I don’t think it’s worth my time.

I say this with conviction because I believe that tasting the sweetness of God and seeing the beauty of God will lead to the savoring of God over anything else, because He is the greatest of all realities. And I’m coming to see that taking hold of this truth, that God is real, with all the strength I can muster, is necessary if I’m ever going to change my mind and see that time spent with God is absolutely time best spent.

It sounds silly to say God is real. Of course we believe God is real. We’d take a bullet to show that God is real. We’ll give our money and our time so that more people will see that He is real. We’re committed our lives to following Jesus, and worshipping God, and serving Him, and repenting from sin, and sharing the gospel, and all sorts of things that pour from a well-deep belief that God is real.

But if God is real to us, why do we cut Him off mid-sentence? God, I pray for our group tomorrow, that you would work…oh shoot, I forgot to send out that email about the time change.

If God is real to us, why do we continue to teach when we pray in front of a group we just taught? God, help us to see, that as you say in your word in the passage we looked at today, that actions speak louder than words, that we need to let go and let God, that the knowledge we gained today should change our hearts and sink down into the roots of our soul, which will bring forth the fruit that will evidence the change in our hearts and [fill in any other bullet points you might want to reinforce from the message].

Real people having real conversations speak in a certain way, and people praying to a God they aren’t deeply convinced is listening speak in a different way. Now this may be a reality of our faith, that the process of being made into the image of Christ comes with stretching and growing and yearning, and that’s OK. But as one preacher says, “It’s OK to not be OK. It’s just not OK to stay that way.”

So this is my prayer today for all of us: God, be real to us. Help us to pray, hear us, speak to us, and give us a heart that desires you most.

Question: How’s your prayer life?

Oddly Ludicrous

Abbie Smith — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 09:27:15 -0700

Picture this scenario—You’re observing a cluster of people gathered in your home. Maybe you’re sitting in a corner chair, or at the base of a stairwell, savoring people you know…friends who are practically family and maybe a bit of family you’re quick to call friends. Sounds of laughter and familiarity fill the air. And as conversations settle around a table and meal, you’re touched by the mere gift of presence in the midst of these people.

For some, maybe this picture is too lofty. It’s a far out dream for community that you’ve yet to experience. For others, you’ve had glimpses of this communing—nights, or meals, or conversations you wished would never end. Experiences where you actually felt present in the company of others, and recognized as who are you really are. It’s a delightful and I daresay, Biblical, picture of intimacy. But actually not the place I want to focus. The place I want us to go is back to the scenario of being gathered in your home.

At some point in the evening, a friend says she really wishes you were there. With that subtle twinge when anyone messes up our name—especially one who knows you—you turn toward her. “What?” She keeps talking though, oblivious, as others join in agreement. “We texted and called. No response. Hopefully she’ll just show-up.” Is this a joke, you wonder? Or some stupid reality tv deal? Are my friends suddenly blind and deaf?

The picture seems odd. Or oddly ludicrous. So in a slightly different scene than the one above, why does this exact scenario happen so often?

"God, we really want you to show-up tonight...to be with us in this gathering…at this meal…in this prayer meeting..."

Why do we ask God to show-up, when ESV speaking, God already told us seventeen times, I am with you, throughout Scripture? Though absent in body, He said in various ways and settings, I am with you in spirit (Colossians 2.5). And I am within you. “For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, "Peace be within you"” (Psalm 122:8)! “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God” (1 Corinthians 6:19)? And I am surrounding you. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shalllead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Psalm 139:7-11). God is omnipresent, everywhere, at all times. “For from him and through him and to him are all things" (Romans 11:36).

Maybe, just maybe then, we’re missing the boat when we ask God to show-up and be with us. Because maybe, just maybe, He’s already present at the start of our prayers. And seated at our dinner tables, and listening at our Starbucks tables. So what if, instead of showing-up to prayer in a posture of hoping God will join, we showed-up asking for grace enough to join Him, laying-down our agendas and blind-sighted approaches, asking for sight beyond our own? What if prayer meant showing-up to God in all that we are, and all that we’re not, and begging for a belief in all that He is? What if God was already here—with us. And in fact, solely capable of being here, as the Counselor, Provider and Abba that our prayers actually desire the most.

How can we participate with Your presence today, Father? How can we move toward You, aligning with Your spirit, in our work and rest, eating and talking, holiness and sin? Lead us into worship that’s dependent. Help us be with you, lest we run ahead of grace, exhausting ourselves in attempts to create grace alone. Give us senses that recognize you, Jesus—your skin and your voice, the direction that you’re walking—and lend us the courage to follow.

Ramadan: Deny Yourself

Carrie Nye — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:09:13 -0700

Years ago I worked with a woman who fasted for one month out of the year. I didn't understand then, why, when our lunch break would come, she would drink a juice or water while I stuffed my face with that days craving. Now I know she was a practicing Muslim keeping Ramadan, the annual month long fast.

Ramadan is August 1 - August 30th. Thirty days of prayer for the Muslim World is a Christian international web based organization that encourages Christians around the world to pray specifically for Muslims to come to know Christ during the 30 day fast.

Click here to see the 30-days of prayer August 1st prayer guide.

Nataka is a Muslim woman who I spent a few hours with at her mosque in Cambridge, MA. I stumbled into the Mosque, unannounced and hoping to ask someone there what objections the Muslim faith has to Christianity. At the time, I was taking a class on Islam that helped prepare me for what answers I might hear. I didn't plan for this to happen, but as I was arriving so were a lot of taxis. Taxi drivers got out of their cars and began to greet one another and laugh together as they entered the mosque. I looked at the time and duh; it was time for the noon prayer that day. A little unsure of how I would be treated upon walking up to the main door unannounced and with my frizzy hair flowing down and exposed. It was the Imam who first welcomed me inside. After slipping my shoes off, he directed me to a staircase where a young woman, Nataka, was waiting to greet me.

Once at the top of the stairs I realized I was in a prayer room. The carpet all around had lines of duct tape marked so that one would know where to kneel in order to face Mecca while praying. Nataka informed me they were just beginning their prayers and that I could wait in the back where a handful of metal folding chairs were hugging the wall. I took my seat and heard the Imam lead the prayer downstairs and watched the handful of women in front of me, sit, bow, stand and all over again for about 12 minutes.

I took the opportunity to pray myself.

Nataka and I sat on the floor of the women's prayer room for over 2 hours as she patiently answered my questions about objections to Christianity. She had only one question for me. "If Christians believe it was Jesus, Gods only Son, who was crucified, then why do Christians wear the cross that killed him around their necks?" What a beautiful question she asked. After a little more talk, we wrapped up our conversation and I thanked her for allowing me to sit in the room while her and her friends prayed. I then asked her if it was okay if I pray for her in return. Muslims do not see God as an intimate Father who adores them, rather they think of Allah as a distant God who must be radically feared. So as I prayed for Nataka out loud on the floor of the Mosque, I prayed to Nataka's father. Nataka's name means Peace and I also prayed that she would meet the Prince of Peace. It was an unforgettable time with a beautiful daughter of a King; she just didn't know it at the time.

I share that story because when I think about Ramadan and when I think about praying for Muslims to meet Jesus, I can't help but wonder and think about Nataka. I have heard many stories of Muslims coming to know Jesus in a dream or a vision. Ramadan as one of Islam's 5 pillars, stems from the Old Testament act of fasting, otherwise referred to as 'to deny yourself.'

If you have the time, check out Leviticus 16 where this ordinance is being established. In Lev. 16, God is revealing the Day of Atonement to cleanse his people since they cannot fully obey his laws on their own. Leviticus 16:29-30 says,

"This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work - whether native-born or an alien living among you - because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you."

This August I hope you think of the Muslims you know and I hope prayers are offered up on their behalf. They are incredibly devoted people who are incredibly misled. May the King of Kings hear your prayers and reveal himself to Muslims in our communities this Ramadan.

Cape Town 2010: A Short Documentary

Carrie Nye — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:53:22 -0700

I enjoyed getting a glimpse into what all took place at the 2010 Lausanne Congress gathering and I hope you do too.

Pushing Back Against the World

Holly Ordway — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:54:36 -0700

Christians are called to be in the world, but not of it. I think that we often acknowledge this as true (perhaps even by putting a NotW sticker on our cars) but fail to recognize how hard it is to follow Jesus as Lord without caving in to the world’s way of thinking and doing… and thus slowly caving in to the world’s way of being.

The obvious examples are ones like sexual behavior, or greed, and so I’m not going to discuss those. Instead, I want to look at a more subtle pressure from the world: on our prayer lives.

Because of my writing, speaking, and study, over the past five years I’ve had the opportunity to pray and worship in a variety of settings, in different Christian traditions and with different styles of prayer: liturgical and structured, or extemporaneous; charismatic, or very low-key; low church, high church; with a pastor, with a priest, or with fellow lay people; in a beautiful church building, gathered in a community center, in a living room, or sitting on lawn chairs outdoors.

I’ve learned a great deal about prayer from all of this.

I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone.

I’ve helped push other people out of their comfort zones.

And here’s something of what I’ve learned.

People who have a living, vibrant relationship with the Triune God are people who have living, vibrant prayer lives. People who truly know Jesus and are committed to following him on the way of the Cross pray in a different way than those who are just tagging along with Jesus without a radical commitment to following him.

Style of prayer is absolutely irrelevant to the level of seriousness. Depending on a person’s personality and circumstances, the best way to interact with God in prayer might be through praying the Daily Office using the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, or having a daily quiet time; it might be through blasting praise songs or walking in silence. What matters is taking Jesus seriously; taking the work of prayer seriously; immersing oneself in Holy Scripture and taking God’s Word seriously; this is what cuts across the lines of church tradition and personal preferences.

I repeated “taking it seriously” for a reason. Because another thing I’ve learned from seeing all these different prayer styles and worship traditions is this: no matter what style of prayer you use, the world will still press in and try to distract you from the work of prayer.

Here’s what the world says – at least a few of the whispers I’ve heard, and had to deal with:

1. Prayer’s a good thing, but in moderation. If you pray too often or too intensely, you’re a Jesus freak.

2. Prayer’s a good backup plan. Sure, pray if you want to about your issues, but God helps those who help themselves. You have to take action yourself.

3. Prayer is about getting what you need. (And you know best what you need, of course.) It doesn’t have anything to do with shaping who you are.

4. Prayer is about spiritual things, so pray for general “blessings” but don’t bother God with specifics. (Note that between 3 and 4, the world can effectively shut down a Christian’s prayer life by converting it to a vague wish-list.)

5. Prayer is a little embarrassing. It’s ok to ‘forget’ to pray before a meal (especially in a restaurant) and the proper etiquette is to keep it short and general.

6. Prayer is strictly personal. Taking seriously the idea of God actually listening and responding – much less the idea of acting on guidance from prayer… hmm, that’s Jesus freak time again.

Notice a common thread in all these little whispers. The Enemy doesn’t try to say “Don’t pray.” (That would be too obvious – as Christians we know we’re supposed to pray.) Instead, he tries to moderate, mute, constrain our prayer so that our conduit to the Holy Spirit becomes a narrow trickle rather than a overflowing well of life-giving water.

The way we act affects what we believe. Lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer is the law of belief. If we fall into the habit of acting as if prayer were an optional extra in the Christian life, then it won’t be surprising if we find ourselves believing that Jesus is an optional extra in our worldly life. Nice to have for comfort, but that’s it. Radical call to holiness? Thanks but no thanks, right?

I spent two weeks in Massachusetts this summer volunteering for the C.S. Lewis Foundation at the site of the future C.S. Lewis College. For two weeks, 24/7, I was around people who love the Lord in an exuberant, no-holds-barred way, and are passionate about beauty and truth, and about doing everything to the glory of God.

One iconic moment for me was when I was walking back from lunch with Kevin and Eric, two of my new friends. Kevin commented that he had a really horrible headache that was interfering with his writing. I said something sympathetic. Then it suddenly occurred to me that it would be good to lay hands on him and pray for healing.

For a moment, something in me resisted: that seemed excessive. A little embarrassing. Better to just shelve the impulse to pray in public, and say a little prayer on my own, later.

Then I recognized the temptation: not to reject prayer entirely, but to minimize it, to not take it seriously—to say to God, “Sure, I hear Your call to pray for my brother in Christ, but I’m going to do it in my own time, and in my own way. Because it’s really about me.”

No!

I turned to my friend Kevin and said, “Hey, can I pray for you?” He said, “That would be great!” So he sat down on a stone wall outside the dormitory, and Eric and I laid hands on Kevin’s shoulders, and I prayed for his health and for a blessing on the work he needed to do. And then Kevin thanked me, and went up to his room. Remaining behind for a moment, Eric turned to me and said, “You were obedient to the Lord, in doing that. Well done.”

Those words, from someone with a deep connection to the Lord, stuck with me In the face of all the world’s pressure to minimize, contain, and sterilize our relationship to the true and living God, prayer is a precious way to push back.

Every moment of conscious, deliberate prayer is an act of profound obedience. It doesn’t matter how we feel at that moment – whether it’s a joyful moment of connection to God, or fighting against a sense of futility – He is there, and hears us, and responds. In ways that run deeper than we can imagine.

Where in the World is Samaria?

Carrie Nye — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:26:20 -0700

Recently I heard Brenda Salter McNeil say that Samaria is the place where you do not want to go. It’s the place where the people who you despise live. Samarians are hostile. Samaria is the place we build freeways around so we don’t have to drive through.

There are two significant passages of red letter scripture where Jesus is clear as newly washed glass windows regarding a place called Samaria and a people group called Samarians.

The first is the all too famous story of Jesus` encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Jesus is fully present with the woman at the well. He goes straight to her heart and penetrates her deepest well of her soul. The Samaritan woman is then quick to determine Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus is a credible witness to her in her life.

Luke, the disciple of Jesus and the author of the book of Luke and Acts records words spoken by Jesus shortly before his resurrected body ascended to Heaven. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” –Acts 1:8.

Brenda summed up Acts 1:8 as Jesus basically asking, “Can I get a witness?” I love that. When you get right down to it, being a witness is a movement outward and one that might be uncomfortable.

Jerusalem is where we feel culturally at home. Jesus pretty much tells us his witnesses can’t stay in Jerusalem.

Judea is close to home but it’s the place of sub cultures. Things may look the same in Judea, but when taken a closer look, there you’ll find subtle differences that divide people. For example, I might look the same as people in my Judea, but when it comes to politics, world views and church denominations, there exists a great chasm.

During the time when Jesus walked the Earth, no self-respecting Jew would ever go to Samaria. In fact, they purposely took the long way around to avoid Samaria all together. Samaria is the place that’s just not safe.

Jesus says his witnesses will go from safe to hostile; from the known to the unknown, from the comfortable to the uncomfortable and from a Disney movie to an action movie. I heard Gary Haugen say the same thing a couple months ago.

We absolutely must move from what we know to what we do not know.

Jesus revealed his credibility to the Samaritan woman and it radically changed her life. Credibility is given to us; it is not something we can give ourselves. This is what Jesus was talking about when he told his followers in Acts that when the Holy Spirit came on them, then they will be his witnesses.

In order to earn credibility, we must be in the right place at the right time for the right duration of time. Credibility takes time and patience to develop with people.

Take Chicago based social activist and Catholic Priest Michael Pfleger for example. No matter what your views are on many of the decisions he has made and continues to make, one thing’s certain; Chicago is his Samaria. In the early 1990’s Pfleger began protesting billboards going up in the neighborhood and very close to a school advertising drugs and alcohol. When his protests got him no where, Pfleger and company climbed the billboards and defaced them by painting right over them. Pfleger was of course arrested and what was his defense? Simply put, he was compelled.

Jesus said we will receive power when we show up in Samaria. We seek the face of God and we follow his banner. That is what we must do.

The church was always supposed to be cross-cultural, multi-lingual, ethically diverse, economically diverse, etc. We are transformed people by the journey from Jerusalem to Samaria. As we participate in the move, we transform to credible witnesses into Samaria. Our ‘withness’ becomes our witness.

Jesus gives life giving water to all who thirst. As John brings the writings of his vision of Heaven in Revelation to a close, he speaks of a mighty river of life that flows from the throne of God, through the city. This river is lined with trees and the leaves of these trees are for the healing of nations.

Collaboration with our Samaria’s always begins with a posture of prayer. Praying for God to break our hearts for what breaks his is our foundation when on the move to Samaria. Justice lives will flow out of this discipline of prayer.

Samaria is the place where we feel God’s wrath if deserved and where we want to help God take people to hell.

So where’s your Samaria?

*The post here is a combination of what I heard Brenda speak on at a recent conference called The Mighty Waters: Preaching and Living God’s Passion for Justice as well as my own reflections and thoughts on what I took away from her talk. In the next few posts on CL, I’d like to share with you more of what I took away from the 2 ½ day conference from some of the other speakers. Cool? :)

5 Questions for Brian McLaren

Guest Voices — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:45:46 -0700

Brian McLaren, heralded as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals by Time magazine, is an author, speaker, social justice activist, and pastor. His work has been covered in the New York Times, and Christianity Today. In his newest book, Naked Spirituality, McLaren shares practical wisdom for living a truly spiritual life as he presents 12 exercises for beginning and sustaining a meaningful relationship with God. Brian was kind enough to answer 5 Questions posed by ConversantLife.com.

In Naked Spirituality, you list four typical answers to the question, “What do you mean by spiritual?” Since these are all generic answers to some degree, how do you nudge people from a general desire to be spiritual to Christianity, or more specifically, to Christ?

I'm so glad you distinguish between Christianity and Christ. The longer I live, the less interested I am in adding adherents to a religion called Christianity, and the more passionate I am about helping people to discover what it means to live, move, and have our being "in Christ." My hunch is that there are people in the Christian religion who aren't living "in Christ," and there are people "in Christ" who are nervous about affiliating with the Christian religion because of what it seems to stand for in too many cases - things that, in their perception at least, are contrary to Christ. Speaking personally, I am a committed Christian and also, I trust, a follower of Christ - imperfect, unfinished, full of imperfections, and need of grace, to be sure, but I think that's true for all of us.

I can't speak of spirituality without speaking of my own experience, and all of my experience centers in Christ and is rooted in the Scriptures. So in the book, you'll notice I'm constantly connecting what I'm talking about with stories from the gospels, episodes from the Bible, insights from other followers of Christ, and so on. I find that the more I talk about Jesus and the Bible, the more people are interested. By the way, I also find that the more Christians attack other religions, the less people are interested in Jesus. It may be that they sense something sinister in any form of Christianity that can only lift itself up by putting others down.

Your 12 “spiritual practices” upon which Naked Spirituality is based, are very practical, yet very different from the classic spiritual practices, or disciplines (prayer, solitude, worship, etc.). What are the advantages of your practices over the traditional ones in the life of the Christian?

I'm a little surprised you'd think they are different. Really, you could say that all twelve of the practices I consider in the book are classical forms of prayer - invocation, thanksgiving, worship, confession, petition, intercession, aspiration, agony, lament, meditation, surrender, and contemplation. Sadly, many of us haven't thought much about prayer beyond the first five or six kinds, so I try to explore a wider range of spiritual practices than contemporary people may be used to. But if you go back in our tradition, you find that this full range was celebrated and cherished.

I also try to use fresh language to explore these classic practices, and I do so for at least two reasons. First, for us Christians, familiar words sometimes create a kind of false security: the words feel familiar, so we assume we're also familiar with the full depth of meaning to which the point. Second, for folks who aren't Christians, some of these words carry baggage that actually gets in the way of encountering the meaning to which they point. I'm not against the traditional words in any way, but I try to augment or complement those words as I am able.

In your chapter on “O” (as in O God, O Lord) you talk about the importance of living in the tension between God’s accessibility (immanence) and God’s otherness (transcendence). Why is it so difficult to live this tension? It seems as though we pick one or the other and live there, or we vacillate back and forth depending on what we think of God at any given time.

Yes, I think this really is a struggle. We face it in all our relationships, I think. For example, I can wake up day after day with my wife and think, "I know her." This familiarity can breed complacency. But even after almost 32 years of marriage, I keep discovering that there are new mysteries to explore in my wife's personality, and she discovers the same in me. And if we can keep this in mind, our marriage is wonderfully enriched. We have the depth of experience and shared memories to share, and we also have the continual discovery of newness and surprise.

I think one of the reasons contemporary Christians struggle so much with the beautiful integration of knowability and mystery is that we are contentious people. As Isaiah said, we are people of unclean lips. So much of our speaking of God is polemic - intended to persuade others that they're wrong and we're right in our understanding of God. Now I'm all for honest disagreement and spirited debate, but if we spend more time and energy arguing about God than in communion with God, I think our hands will begin to clench. And real worship, real adoration, real communion with God require open hands. I don't think it's accidental that the Psalmists invite us to raise our hands - not our fists - to God.

You divide your 12 spiritual practices into four seasons. Given that we are quickly approaching Easter, how do you see the seasons following the path of Jesus in his birth, growth, death, and resurrection?

Maybe I could offer this brief quote from the book (p. 185). This is from a chapter where I talk about those deepest, darkest valleys of the shadow of death that we sometimes pass through.

When you practice lament, when you are stretched and suspended on the cross of abandonment, you do not feel heroic. you do not feel like a runner about to cross the finish line. You do not feel that a hopeful Sunday is coming after a nightmarish Friday and a blank, lifeless Saturday. You feel exhausted and finished. You feel as though you're fading, dying, letting go. And so you do. Having kept the question [Why have you forsaken me?] open as long as you can, you let go. Dare you do so now? Dare you drop, crying why, falling not from the God above you, but into the G-d below you?

You might say that of the four stages I explore in the book—Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony—simplicity is like birth, complexity is like growth, perplexity is like death, and harmony is like resurrection. Of course, we all want to get to resurrection as soon as possible, but each stage is essential. Each has much to teach, and we are formed by each.

You get a lot of criticism from evangelicals, yet you seem to always maintain a very winsome and open spirit. What keeps you in such a positive and calm frame of mind when just about everybody else seems agitated for one reason or another?

I grew up in an extremely conservative and contentious fundamentalist movement or sect. It was filled with wonderful people who loved God, but the sociology of the group depended on exclusion and exclusiveness. When I "emerged" from that exclusive fundamentalism into a broader evangelicalism, I was hoping to find less contention. And I think I did. But in recent years, I think a contentious form of fundamentalism has been making a comeback and is in the process of a takeover attempt in evangelicalism. (I think similar movements are afoot in Catholicism and Mainline Protestantism too.) When I see this, I am not impressed by it, because I grew up with it and saw what it does to people.

I've learned in my own experience that it's way easier to think oneself right than to be loving. So Paul had it dead right when he said that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up, and that without love, no matter how right you are, you gain nothing but produce a lot of noise.

So really, I'm grateful for my religious heritage in fundamentalism. It taught me many things including that if you live by contention - theological swordplay, if you will - you will die by it. If you seek to argue and fight against an argumentative and combative spirit, you become what you are against. (Paul said that if you bite and devour each other, you'll consume each other, which describes our situation pretty well.) So my background forced me to seek a better way—what Paul calls the most excellent way, the way of love, the way of the Sermon on the Mount that transcends the way of the scribes and Pharisees.

Of course, I often trip up and slip back into things I am trying to grow beyond, but even that experience of failure humbles a person and makes it harder to try to put oneself in the position of an equal, much less a superior, in relation to one's fellow Christians. I guess so much comes back to Paul's words in Philippians 2, where he urges us to consider others as better than ourselves and to follow Jesus downward into servanthood. I suppose that to whatever degree I am, albeit imperfectly, able to maintain a winsome, calm, open, or positive spirit, it's because God has used the practices I explore in Naked Spirituality to form me. I still have a long, long way to go, so even though I wrote this book, I need its message as much as anyone else.

Thanks for the interesting questions! I hope these replies will be helpful.