Lent

From Churchmarketingsucks.com

We're playing telephone today: we got a link from the Cheapertising blog who highlighted the Got Religion blog who covered a story from the Telegraph. It takes a timely look at the season of Lent in the Netherlands, and a current re-branding that's under way. I'll quote:

"Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the 'Christian Ramadan' in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity."

As the season of Lent has become less important for the Dutch over the past years, they feel something must be done. Martin Van der Kull, director of Vastenaktie, a Catholic charity, had this to say:

"The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent."

Defining a Christian event in Muslim terms is a foreign concept, especially here in Protestant America. But thinking deeper, is it really so bad to explain Lent as a "Christian Ramadan?" It seems like at least a good way to communicate what happens during Lent to a non-Christian listener. Either way, it's sure an interesting way to market your church in a Muslim location, and it keeps with our international theme of late.

Prayer and Sex

from Prayer by Yancy p159

"I think prayer is analogous to sex. Most people would complain about their sex lives; a few do really well. Sex and prayer are intimate and over-glamorized relationships. We all are led to believe that we should be in the stratosphere in sex and in prayer. It sets up a false expectation. And breaks down intimacy.

Why Pray?

From Prayer by Yancy p56

Years ago, when I was beginning a writing career at Campus Life magazine, I used to discuss these problems with colleague Tim Stafford. He later wrote about them in his book. Knowing the Face of God, and I will simply quote him:

"Silently gazing into a friend's eyes may seem purer, and certainly more romantic, than mere talk. But conversation, not silence, builds relationships. Though I will never minimize the effect of beautiful eyes, I expect to talk to the people I care about- and to hear them talk back. We do not build relationships on a sentence or two spoken every few conversation between real friends is a constant stream.
So, I have a problem with God. I have never had a conversation with God; I have never heard his audible voice. Though I sometimes feel powerful religious emotions, I am cautious in interpreting my impulses and feelings as messages from God. I do not want to take the Lord's name in vain. i do not want to say, "The Lord told me," when in reality I heard a mental recording of my mother's voice. I have spent any number of hours talking to God, and he has not yet answered back in a voice that was undeniably his. "

Tim adds that he continues to pray, making requests of God and offering praise and worship, but questions persist. Why praise God who, unlike friends, does not need a lift? Why inform God of needs that God already knows about? Why thank God, who hardly needs a pat on the back?

"Some people say that we should pray not because God needs it, but because we need it. When we praise him, we remind ourselves of what is fundamentally important. When we thank him, we humbly remember our utter dependence on his care. When we pray for people, we are encouraged to then go out and do something to help them. From this perspective prayer is a self-help exercise.
No doubt prayer does these and other good things for me, but if they are the principle reasons for praying, my "personal relationship" is in trouble. Prayer that is only a useful exercise is not conversation. It is more like writing a diary, which is also good for you, but it is entirely private and one sided."

Married Prayer

Walter Wangerin Jr. tells of a time early in his marriage when he had committed some wrong against his wife, Thanne. Even though he was studying in seminary in hopes of becoming a pastor, he had always avoided praying aloud with her. It seemed too intimate, too personal an act. This time, with a riptide of guilt sweeping away his shyness, he agreed. They lay for a while side by side in bed, each waiting for the other to start. Walt began with a hymn like, formal prayer in the style he had learned in seminary. After a silence, he heard Thanne's simple, clear voice speaking humbly and conversationally to God about him, her husband. Listening to her, he began to weep. The guilt dissolved and he learned that humbling was no end in itself, but a necessary step to the healing.

Tempation

From Prayer by Yancy p30

A few years ago I received a letter from a reader I'll call Mark. He began,
I have suffered froma very serious emotional condition all of my adult life- borderliine
personality disorder- with the attendant depression, extereme anxiety, and debilitationg
physical symptoms. In way of explanation, and not blame, during the first years of my life I
was the subject of ver seriaous sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of my mother. Enough
said on that.

He went on to say that accounts in my books of inspiriting people only made him feel worse about himself.
I suppose my question is: what is the heavenly reward for those of us who are not laboring in God's fields in the inner city? Or who struggle daily with pornography, where a major
breakthrough is a day not on the Internet. Or who at the height of our recovery may have
maybe 10 percent of the moral character of the average unbeliever. Does one have to be a
healthy Christian servant to receive God's grace?

Aliens

From Prayer by Yancy

For several years I have tried to help a Japanese family, the Yokatas, in their desperate search for justice. In 1977 their thirteen- year old daughter Megumi vanished on her way home from badmitten pracitice. Police dogs tracked her scent to a nearby beach, but the distraught Yokatas had no clues that might explain their daughter's sudden disappearance.

Sixteen years later, long after the Yokatas had resigned themselves to Megumi's death, a North Korean defector made a stunning claim: a Japanese woman named Megumi was living in North Korea at a training institue for intellgenice agients. Scores of Japanese, he said, had been kidnapped and forced teach Korean spies the Japanese language and culture. He provided heartrending details of Megumi's abduction: agents had seized her, wrapped her in a straw mat, and rowed her to a waiting spy ship, where she had spent the night scratching against the hold with bloody fingers crying out for her mother.

For years North Korea dismissed all such reports. But in the face of mouonting pressure, Kim Jong-il himself at long last admitted to the abduction of 13 Japanese, including Megumi. Five returned to Japan, but North Koreans insisteted the other eight had died, including megumi who, they said, in 1993 had used a kimono to hang herself. Much information supplied by North Korea proved false, however, and the Yokatas refused to believe the reports of their daughter's death. All over Japan, prayer groups sprang up to support the abductees. Mrs. Yokata traveled across the globe in her quest for justice, becoming in the process one of the most familiar faces on Japanese media. Eventually she visited the oval office and told her story to President George W. Bush, who took up her cause.

In 2004, 27 years after the abduction, the North Koreans gave Megumi's parents three photos of their daughter. The most poignant taken just after her capture, shows her at age 13 still in her Japanese schoolgirls' uniform, looking unbearably forlorn. "We couldn't help crying when we saw the picture," her mother tearfully told reporters. Two other photos showed her as an adult, a woman in her 30s standing outdoors in a winter coat.

The Yokatas fondled the photos over and over, finding some solace in the fact that the later photos showed their daughter looking healthy and reasonably well cared for. They tried to imagine Megumi's life. Had she met with other abductees and conversed with them to keep from forgetting her mother tongue? What had helped her remember who she was? Had she tried to sneak a message back to them? Attempted an escape? What memories did she retain of her life in Japan, life as their daughter? How many times had Megumi looked toward the island of Japan and scoured newspapers of clues of her former house?

Angry God

After worship on Thursday, a girl came up to me a serious faith question on her mind. She couldn't have been older than 11. She said, "Hey, Spencer, can I ask you a question."
"Of course."
"I gave up sleeping with my stuffed animals for lent."
"Ok," I said with some surprise and hesitation on what she was going to ask me.
"But this weekend I'm having a sleep over and do you think God it would be ok if I slept with one?" So, now I'm wondering how to respond but I decide to engage this.
"Why would God not want you to sleep with them?"
"Because it will make him angry." Now my heart breaks because I see the conception of God in her mind. It is too similar to how I have seen God in my life.
"Why would God be angry with you?"
"Because it makes me happy to sleep with them."
"Does God not want you to be happy?" I ask, hopefully she will see the clear stupidity of that thought.
"Well, no God wants me to be happy...I think...that's a good question."
I see that she will clearly not come to this conclusion on her own so I go ahead and help her out.
"I think it is ok for you to sleep with your stuffed animals. God loves you and wants you to be happy. Giving something up isn't because God wants us to be miserable. God wants us to be happy and so you should go ahead and do this."

John Wesley

From a sermon on assurance:

Wesley was the leader of the revival that led to the Methodists. Wesley was born to two godly parents, one was even an Anglican priest. He grew up under the instruction of the church and under the testimony of God’s presence in the world.

He even decided to be a priest himself and went through all his studies and graduated from Oxford. Convinced by guilt, he even went on a mission trip to the wild frontier of America to this new place called Georgia, a slave colony that was surrounded by Native Americans. He thought he could surely convince them of the truth of Jesus Christ that he had heard time and time again in his studies and from his parents.

On the ship on the way over to America, he disciplined himself in order to be productive and acceptable to God. Here is what a typical day looked like as he was going over to America

4:00-5:00 am private prayer

5:00-7:00 am Bible study

7:00-8:00 breakfast

8:00-9:00 public prayer

9:00-12:00 German lesson

12:00-1:00 Met together to give an account of the morning

1:00-2:00 lunch

2:00-4:00 Reading

4:00-5:00 Evening prayer

5:00-6:00 dinner

6:00-7:00 Reading

7:00-8:00 Worship

8:00-9:00 Bible Study

9:00 sleep

During the journey he met a group of travelers from Germany that utterly amazed him. This difference was shown in their moment of crisis. As they were sailing across the Atlantic they were hit by a series of storms that Wesley calls hurricanes. Now, I went on a cruise a few years ago and our ship was huge. And the ship even had stabilizers the counter the weight and shifts of weight and waves, and I still felt ill from the constant rocking of ship, and we had nothing but calm weather. So, I then think what it would have been like to be in a small wooden ship with the creaking of the ship and the constant rolling of the waves, and the water breaking over on to the deck and I can’t imagine how miserable that would have been. How frightening that would have been.

Wesley described it like this, “during their service [that is, the Germans worship service] the sea

broke over, split the main-sail pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans sung on. I asked one of them afterwards, “Were you not afraid?” He answered, “ I thank God, no.” I asked, “But were not your women and children afraid?” He replied, mildly, “No; our women and children are not afraid to die.”

So, John Wesley, the man who would one day lead a great revival found himself utterly afraid of his own death. He had lived his whole life in pursuit of salvation and when it came down to it, he learned that all of his pursuits had been in vain. Wesley couldn’t understand how these Germans could have such confidence in their salvation.

After a few days, the storm finally passed after damaging the ship in several places. Life got back to normal on the ship, but Wesley couldn’t shake the experience of the storm. So, he sought out the pastor of the Germans and had to ask him about this experience. Wesley wrote about it in his journal. He wrote,

I soon found what spirit he was of; and asked his advice with regard to my own conduct. He said, “my brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God?” I was surprised, and knew not what to answer. He observed it, and asked, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” I paused, and said, “I know he is the Savior of the world.” “True,” replied he; “but do you know he has saved you?” I answered, “I hope he has died to save me.” He only added, “Do you know yourself?” I said, “I do.” But I fear they were vain words.

This experience with these German Christians continued to haunt him. Had he worked his whole life in vain? All of this discipline, all the hard work, had it led to anything because in the end he couldn’t answer with confidence the question of did he know Jesus Christ.

The ship finally came to port in Georgia, and John went ahead with his planned mission trip. His confidence was shaken though and he wondered how he could preach to others when he himself didn’t even know if he was saved. Little surprise then that his mission trip was a complete failure in his eyes.

He returned to England feeling like a failure and struggling with these questions of faith. He began to seek answers to his questions. He took three strategic steps to find answers. First he sought out those with the confidence he was looking for. Second, he decided to begin to pray for this confidence. Third, he renounced looking for holiness in what he did with his actions.

And a few months later he had this experience that he wrote about,

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Praying with Bill Mason

Every week the Asbury staff gets together to share some things going on in the church and pray for the prayer requests that had been submitted the week before. I was sitting by myself towards the front, in my usual place, and I noticed that Bill Mason was also sitting in the front, in his normal place. Our normal friends we sat with were not with us. So, I approached Bill to pray with him.

Now I have heard before that Bill Mason is a man of prayer who rises early to pray every day. He is the one who grew Asbury from a few families to thousands of members. As we got together the leader that morning, a youth staff person, had shared about a ministry in the youth department that was about healing the hurts of life such as divorce, death, abuse, etc. She challenged us to share with our prayer partners a struggle we were going through as well.

I put that out of my mind because I couldn't really think of any struggles I am facing right now. They all seem rather petty. I feel good about my marriage. I feel balanced in my work, recreation, and exercise. I'm spending more time with God. I've decided to stay on as a pastor at the church. Everything is going well right now.

So, I prayed. I prayed for a woman who was going through an abusive situation. I prayed with gusto. I tried to evoke the emotion and the stirring of my faith. Sometimes I feel that if I pray with the right amount of emotion then I "feel" the faith I need. This brings to mind sitting in a Christ's Church small group at Jay and Jodie's house in Joplin. We were talking about faith and Jay shared that we don't have to conjure up faith in order to pray. For some reason this really resonated with me. I've heard a lot of emotional prayers in my day, and it seems that the emotional prayers are really the effective ones. So, sometimes I am sorry to admit I take the lead by conjuring up the faith needed for God to move.

So, I took this approach yet again trying to show Bill Mason my own level of faith.

Then it was Bill's turn. He simply read the prayer request out loud by saying "Lord, so and so asks for ... won't you help them?" Then he said, "the speaker this morning challenged us to share our issues during this time..." I didn't share mine because I was with Bill Mason. I didn't really know what to say and I didn't want to say anything that was superficial. He went on, "Its hard to think of a hard one, but I do ask that you help me and my wife with our weight. Amen."

The simplicity of this man's prayer floored me. I think of Jesus' words about not going on and on for men to hear.

Lord, have mercy on me for my hypocrisy.

Global Warming?

I read recently in National Geographic that the American Southwest experienced the wettest century in nearly 1500 years last century. Based upon studying the thickness of tree rings, scientists can tell the amount of water that fell in a given area. Because the land is so dry, trees are able to stick around for over a thousand years after they die. National Geographic worries about the amount of water that will sustain the area with the great population boom. These worries are highlighted by the threat of global warming.

Tulsa experienced a record high for February 4th. Today reached 81 degrees, which of course, meant that I had to be outside instead of working on a computer in an office with no windows. On my way from lunch with several guys from Asbury, someone made a joke about global warming and two of the guys preceded to talk about how they thought global warming is a sham. After all, the scientists have to be guessing, right?

I've heard one of these guys at another time talk about the lack of available data supporting global warming. Why is this? Why are Christians so scared to admit that global warming could be a serious threat. Is it because it is an affront to the sovereignty of God? Is it because American interests and Kingdom interests have become so closely entwined?

Looking for the trail

After months of inactivity, Abby and I found ourselves enjoying the blessing of warm winter weather. We loaded up our bikes and the dog and headed south towards Okmulgee to find some trails the Oklahoma State Parks website was advertising. To our dissapointment there were no such trails, at least we couldn't find the trailhead. We explored the park, and yet came up empty handed as far as trails go. I think Abby was relieved.

One thing I did discover though. We were sitting by a lake, presumably Okmulgee Lake enjoying the stillness of the day, the lack of traffic noise, and the pristine waters when I realized how I needed such trips. I live my life driving through traffic, sitting through meetings, and working out of a windowless office. I must be outdoors! Getting away for an afternoon, even if it was still inactive was good for my soul.