Is this the greatest Easter painting of all time?

Les Disciples

Wishing you a very happy and meaningful Easter. In step with these wishes, I came across a 2017 post by Mike Frost that’s fitting and worth a read.  (link is here)

It's a tradition in some circles to greet one another on Easter Sunday with the phrase Christ is risen! The reply: He is risen indeed! Knowing the practice spans the centuries for more than 2000 years, I actually look forward to hearing it again today and knowing the rootedness of the tradition is millennia old sets the practice in the context of history and narrative that undergirds its meaning today. 

Yet, springing from a real place, real persons, and real time in history it's a helpful reminder to remember there was a day when the words were uttered for the first time. How incredible it must have been to hear in that day "He is risen!" - and to see again the Risen One - having "put death in its grave" - this side of the his cross and tomb!

Quoting the prophet Isaiah from more than 800 years before the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ:

“He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”

 So, to that end, may I say: Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

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Half Built Towers

“Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. If he offered men his salvation, he also demanded their submission. He gave no encouragement whatever to thoughtless applicants for discipleship. He brought no pressure to bear on any inquirer. He sent irresponsible enthusiasts away empty. Luke tells of three men who either volunteered, or were invited, to follow Jesus; but no one passed the Lord’s test. The rich young ruler, too, moral, earnest and attractive, who wanted eternal life on his own terms, went away sorrowful, with his riches intact but with neither life nor Christ as his possession…The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half built towers—the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called “nominal Christianity.” In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great, soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism…The message of Jesus was very different. He never lowered his standards or modified his conditions to make his call more readily acceptable. He asked his first disciples, and he has asked every disciple since, to give him their thoughtful and total commitment. Nothing less than this will do”
― John R.W. Stott, Basic Christianity

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Far Too Easily Pleased ...Indeed.

The following C.S. Lewis quote from the "Weight of Glory" is striking- at least too me. And, based on how often I've seen it shared over the years, it is to others, too.

This week it resonates true even moreso as I sift through puzzled thoughts triggered by seeing  - seemingly aimless and easily entertained - tourists wandering the "The Strip" in Vegas taking photos of sham Roman statues and sitting in the shadow of a faux Tour Eiffel whilst paying too much for a small Starbucks coffee to drink in the surprising state of being whisked away as imaginary actors in the Bellagio water show scene from "Oceans 11". I mean really?  ...this is enjoyable?


Admittedly,  I'm jaded by too many working visits to "grown up Disneyland", yet Vegas - at least the fake, plastic, neon bit- doesn't suit me well.  I find it akin to a Potemkin Village seeking to hide a collective pool of creaturely emptiness from a people intended for deep and abiding joy. Intended for joy, yet now broken and losing their way in the course of being led by the nose further into the innards of an ages old deceit.   


So, let me get out of the 105 Degree F  heat and back to work.  And, as I do, let me leave you with the fitting - and aforementioned- quote:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ---from The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis

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Believe It or Not: A Telling Hermeneutic

"How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it." – Lesslie Newbigin

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Holy Love :: Offensive Cross :: Needed Win

With my thoughts turning towards the Lenten and Easter seasons and the continued shaping of our community, I'm often - and may it always be so - reminded that the benefits of the Gospel and Kingdom come only on the basis of the blood, death and resurrection of our King. Whilst being boldly loving folk and doing "good" things should lead us towards the peaceful fruits of justice, mercy, humility and the "blessing" of others - especially the "least of these", I cannot step over the stumbling block and offense of the cross which remains foolishness to some and the very power of God to others.

Seeking to anticipate the "sparks in the wind" sort of varied influences - especially the markedly heretical - that may contain the embers needed to influence, confuse or harm the folks of our community, I came across the following poem. It is an excerpt from Timothy Stoner’s The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith (p. 30).

Certainly worth the read methinks.

Holy Love Wins

The love that wins is a holy love.

The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness.

It is a love that flows out of the heart of a God who is transcendent, majestic, infinite in righteousness, who loves justice as much as he does mercy; who hates wickedness as much as he loves goodness; who blazes with a fiery, passionate love for himself above all things.

He is Creator, Sustainer, Beginning and End.

He is robed in a splendor and eternal purity that is blinding.

He rules, he reigns, he rages and roars, then bends down to whisper love songs to his creatures.

His love is vast and irresistible.

It is also terrifying, and it will spare no expense to give everything away in order to free us from the bondage of sin, purifying for himself a people who are devoted to his glory, a people who have “no ambition except to do good”.

So he crushes his precious Son in order to rescue and restore mankind along with his entire creation.

He unleashes perfect judgment on the perfectly obedient sacrifice and then pulls him up out of the grave in a smashing and utter victory.

He is a God who triumphs . . .

He is a burning cyclone of passionate love.

Holy love wins.

Grace & Peace,

-T

Read entire originating post: Holy Love Wins

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The Gospel - know it well, teach it to others, & beat it into their heads continually

“The law is divine and holy. Let the law have his glory, but yet no law, be it never so divine and holy, ought to teach me that I am justified, and shall live through it. I grant it may teach me that I ought to love God and my neighbour; also to live in chastity, soberness, patience, etc., but it ought not to show me, how I should be delivered from sin, the devil, death, and hell.

Here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel, which teacheth me, not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me : to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel willeth me to receive this, and to believe it. And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth.

Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.” –Martin Luther, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., 1860), 206.

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Ed Stetzer - A LifeWay Research blog on theology, missiology, missional church, church planting, church revlitalization, and innovation.

Ed Stetzer - A LifeWay Research blog on theology, missiology, missional church, church planting, church revlitalization, and innovation.

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O Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic is Your Name

Wrapping up a short but refreshing break in the WNC mountains I thought it good to sort out a quick post. The reading schedule I follow is returning to the Psalms again for this year. This morning's reading reminds me why I so much enjoy the Scripture's hymn book that spans from generation to generation.

This appreciation of the Psalms hasn't always been there for me. In fact, I found it difficult to sort out the deep emotions and honest - at times seemingly "ungodly"- requests and cries of the various psalmists. I knew the emotions but wondered how to transact what I was reading in light of the cross and resurrection. Yet, in time, seeing the breadth of the scriptures through the prism of the gospel leads me to read the psalms within the context of God's redemptive thread. At least for me, this transforms my approach to the Old Testament.

Anyway, enough rambling on. Here's the Psalm that evoked today's post.
Hear now the Word of the Lord

How Majestic Is Your Name

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(Psalm 8; ESV)

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An Encouraging Perspective

I met Penn Jillette about two years back. A simple nice to meet you near the elevator at the Rio. Too many people and not much time to say much else as folks began to approach with paper and pen in hand to ask for his autograph.

I was struck by his willingness to stay put and meet the folks that drew near when it seemed clear he'd probably like a little space and a chance to enjoy a coffee in peace. Who knows, maybe he doesn't even drink coffee but he struck me one who requires time for contemplation.

This morning, in my own time of contemplation, I came across this video. It's a snippet from Penn Says. I'm struck by his honesty and take heart in his exhortation and what he took away from a conversation with a gracious follower of Christ. Penn was touched by the encounter. The manner and gracious heart of the one that spoke of Jesus is instructive.

Thank you Penn for sharing. I would that many who name the name of Christ would take notice. May we speak in a way "seasoned with grace". May we not acts as jerks when kindness should issue from the heart of those who know the gospel. One who has been "forgiven much" will be gracious with others for she knows what it means to be forgiven without the means to repay.

Take time to watch and listen to the link below. It's worth it.

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Divine Afterthought or New Community?

Pure Church: What God Has Joined Together, Let Not Man Separate

Taking time over coffee today to read a bit, I really must pass on the above post with pure and simple gratitude to Thabiti Anyabwile, at Pure Church, and the heart expressed in the above post. Follow the link. It merits note.

Grace and Peace
-T

Here's an excerpt:

"First, I am assuming that we are all committed to the church. We are not only Christian people; we are also church people. We are not only committed to Christ, we are also committed to the body of Christ. At least I hope so. I trust that none of my readers is that grotesque anomaly, an unchurched Christian. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very centre of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God's new community. For his purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in history, and to be perfected in a future eternity, is not just to save isolated individuals and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build his church, that is, to call out of the world a people for his own glory. ... So then, the reason we are committed to the church is that God is so committed." - Rev. Dr. John Stott

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Merry Christmas

Came across the above video whilst catching up with a friend. Thought it was worth passing along. It may lose a bit in the translation from UK culture to US; nonetheless, it merits a look see.

Grace and Peace,

-T

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The Pressures of Missional Living

Wrestling to integrate faith and praxis is a good thing. Since meeting Christ and setting off in His embrace to follow Him, I've not been - nor do I desire to be- at ease with the status quo and pre-packaged pat answers. What's more, this tension between expediency and truth seeking remains after nearly 30 years of new life. In fact, it persists across the varying roles of my life as husband, father, employee, boss, elder, co-labourer, etc.

Staunchly resistant to consumerist Christian practice, I yearn, in His grace, to run towards the unsettling tensions of the seemingly necessary internal pressure that results as the pieces of my life puzzle continue to emerge in their formation and are fitted together through the ongoing “death and resurrection” process of continuing transformation. ( Soren Kierkegaard said, "Life can only be lived forward and understood backwards". Maybe there's some truth in his observation?) Yet, one surprisingly - albeit totally to be expected based on the Scriptural narrative of creation and redemption- positive point is my work.

I enjoy my industry and delight in adding benefit to the lives and work of customers. Granted there are times I’d like absolute liberty to stop,wrestle in solitude, and more actively (full time) pastor; however, I remain confident in the value of staying in the the struggle. Tension, whilst integrating and persisting to resist compartmentalized living as a believer, bears increasing fruit- especially over time. Plus, the requirements of my work spark necessary travel and provides the basis to nurture cross cultural and global friendships.

Recently, a friend and fellow shepherd, whom I see with some frequency in my travel to work, took time to share a reply he made to his sending organization. As I (I believe) am called to remain non-vocational as a pastor, my friend – and I believe he is called to do so- is working out his "calling" in the context of pioneering a church plant in the Midlands of Britain. Reading his reluctantly shared note builds empathy in the common struggle and heartens me, his friend and Christ co-labourer, to be a bit of a Barnabas and encourage his family and him in their missional endeavour, as well as, respond in praise to Christ.

My friend reminds me that he appreciates the encouragement he receives as we keep up with one another from across "the pond" and I suspect he doesn’t recognize – even though I have said it clearly- that the encouragement flows both ways. Anyway, here’s his note. (Location and denominational specific references deleted for the sake of anonymity.) I think you'll find it quite worth the read:

"What pressures have you, as pioneer missional pastor, experienced?"

I answer this for the sake of those who are romantically attracted to this role and those with responsibility for selecting and managing us.

I have felt pressure and, over the past winter, felt extremely bleak at the sense of slow growth and my own inadequacy. I am not often operating in my ‘comfort zone’ or my perception of my strengths. It has been crucial to know that I am called to this, and to believe that existing expressions of church (and even ‘freshly-tweaked expressions’) are wholly inadequate as a response to Christ’s calling to engage with him in His Mission.

Initially the pressure comes from all the space. There are no guidelines, no set role, and no fallback function. There are only a few who have ‘gone before’ so there is little possibility of specific guidance. My own sustaining spiritual discipline is key along with intercessors and encouragers. I give thanks for those people who are these to me.

The pressure to fill the space is intense and comes from my own sinful patterns of earning acceptance by achievement (I observe similar patterns in the institution which employs me). I could fill my diary with church meetings – filling in for clergy, meetings which exhaust rather than energise, speaking to people who have little intention of either being part of the project or responding to the call to do likewise (I still can’t discern exactly what people are really asking when they ask ‘How’s it going?’).

As people have come they bring their own pressure, as anyone in leadership has experienced. The imagined enthusiastic able and uncomplicated team does not quickly appear! Instead we have gathered a community filled with pastoral issues (real people with real problems). The temptation is to revert to chaplain/pastor problem-solver and so lose the missionary focus.

Growing community and growing networking with the demands of communication and development increase the pressure of administration. As I have become known and met strategic people in networks of media, local government, education, business and in the voluntary sector as well as potential partners in Christian organisations I have become pressurised by the need for administration to help develop these links as well as ensure the accountability, equipping and releasing of our fellowship’s members and communication through website etc. Because I have no base except the family home, the family shares this pressure. My children have no space except their own bedrooms and, as they are entering teenage years this is becoming difficult. Finding time to read and write this (and other) reports is a pressure and yet I know that time for reflection is vital. I just about manage a day each month at a local retreat house.

There is a pressure in reconfiguring and reconceiving the Gospel. For many years I’ve been aware that it is too simplistic to say that we need to hold fast to the Gospel and simply to repackage it culturally. We have to go through the insecurity of asking ‘What gospel am I holding too?’ With a lack of rigorous theological reflection around this is a challenge. I find myself wanting to challenge many ‘gospel’ assumptions proclaimed in word or action by Christians around me as well as having to ask hard questions about my own inheritance. This is the challenge of transformation, which involves both death and resurrection in Christ. There is a concern about syncretism if we do not defend the uniqueness of Christ and the foundational doctrines of the faith. We will be ineffective if we can’t communicate with emerging cultures and irrelevant if we are merely assimilated into the prevailing cultures.

There are also the pressures that come from the lack of an ‘official’ building. I can’t ‘go’ somewhere to worship and I can’t refer anyone to go there either. I’m sometimes isolated in a role that feels so different to any other and among people that are culturally very different to me.

Please don’t respond by preaching to me, or telling me I’m doing well really! I know that I’m called here. And that I’m God’s person for here and now. I know that He will help me in my weakness and lead me on. His grace is so wonderful – and there are signs of it. So pray for me and praise our Lord Jesus Christ!

A Fellow Elder in Christ
Church Planter/Mission Pioneer

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Joy in the Trenches (A Razz to the Self-Righteous)

OK. Time to check in before May hits the books. Two thoughts strike me.

First, the earlier pastoral challenges (as one elder amongst others who altogether are charged to lead, protect, and nurture) remain but there is encouragement in seeing the faithfulness of our folks. This is particularly true in the case of a young woman in our fellowship who, whilst in the midst of relational challenges with a key person in her life who is living markedly out of step with God’s Word and persisting in a destructive direction, is staying the course of obedience to Christ – amidst tough circumstances.

Seeing Christ increasingly formed in her is overwhelmingly a source of deep joy. Granted, I hurt (and we as a community hurt) for her (and the erring one, too); nonetheless, what would otherwise be a wholly terrible happening is being redeemed by her obedience to Jesus and the instruction of the Scriptures.

Christ is getting glory and the on-looking village sees a glimpse of Christ engendered courage and grace that somehow allows our sister to find the strength to love a stiff-necked loved one as Christ loves her rather than acting to destroy a things or run away. Humbled and exhorted I am. May her tribe increase?

Secondly, two village "brothers in Christ" made the marquis (actually the tavern events email reminder that goes out weekly into the community) at the local pub. How about that! I am absolutely tickled to bits. The note read, “A and B, of XYZ church, share their musical talents and acoustic styling this Thursday at the Tavern”. Wow. A church making the pub mailer- how sweet is that?

Seeking to be friends – and make friends- to our village neighbors, a number of our folks faithfully gather at the village restaurant and tavern and hang out most Thursdays. Moreover, we really love our neighbors and miss their company when a weekly meeting is thwarted for one reason or another. Likewise, we are grateful to the owners for providing a “third place” – really the only one in the village since our beloved coffee house closed- for our community and it is brimming with folks whom Christ loves. Therefore, we seek to know and love them, too.

Surprisingly, some “Christians" in the village –maybe moralists, legalists, or the self-righteous are better descriptors- view our presence there as a “bad witness”. Well, to tweak a comment from the gospels (tweaking it to shift the subject from the poor to the pompous), the “self-righteous” we will always have with us. So, let's get on with the mission and love as Christ loved. Certainly, we must practice loving respect for all; yet, in this matter the moralists can just get over it. Where our neighbors are – there we will be. So, let the criticisms continue. For me, I pick the publican over the Pharisee.

Anyway, I hope to write more often but working, loving my family, serving my neighbors, and doing the work of a co-laboring shepherd and participant in the Body of Christ do really compete for attention and time to write. And you know what- I’m glad it is so.

How I love the trenches. For, in them, I find the nurture of my Savior and joy in following His way for His glory, the good of His people, the blessing of others.

All the Best to you and yours,

Thom

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Dr. King, a Jail, and a Timely Admonition

I'm not sure it's an exception to the norm but, as a progenitor from a small southern town, I spent time reading the sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr whilst in the early days of my spiritual wrestling to live out my faith in a culture that was swimming (and I mean vigorously so) upstream against the current flowing from the headwaters of Christ's example and commands in the scriptures.

My roots, without question, sprout from the scriptures, His Spirit, regeneration, the influence of my father, and the nurture of the body of Christ; nonetheless, the example and words of an exemplary man who was murdered when I was seven can inform my practice in the context of life into which I was born and the broader context in which I now live.

So, when I came across the following excerpt from Dr. King's writings from a Birmingham jail, I was struck again by the relevance of his words. May it resonate for you, too.

Read and enjoy- even more- change and lead.

"There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from Birmingham Jail

Thanks to Austin at emergingtruth for his post that set this recollection in motion. It's a good reminder to challenge the status quo.

I don't know your ecclesiology; but, it seems reasonable that if a group of people, gathered for a purpose, miss the example of Christ, they may be called many things but a church - faithful to "obey all Christ has commanded"- is not on the list of monikers they should embrace.

“It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.”
-Richard Foster

(Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. San Francisco; The 25th Anniversary Edition: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.)

The issues (albeit racism is still more of an issue than we may admit) today may vary; however, are we not called to be a people of God (with local expression) about the purposes of God, in step with the Word of God, and empowered by the Spirit of God, in a culture to whom we are called and set apart to serve? If this is true, drifting at ease with the status quo is not an option. Why? The gospel changes everything.

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The Areopagus at Star Coffee

This week of work came to a close with a Saturday to spare before returning home. I’m looking forward to getting back but, with the day free, seizing the chance to hang out in Heidelberg is a good option.

It’s not the Areopagus at the invitation of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, however, Star Coffee, in the Altstadt, seems like a good place to get a feel for the city.

Hanging out with the locals is a practice I cherish. It’s a good one, too – at least if you’re more into people than castles. Lingering to read, to chat, to people watch, and take in the relational and local context environs is a good way to check the pulse of most communities. Heidelberg is no exception. It is buzzing with folks meeting, engaging, gazing to listen, and smiling – for the most part – at least it is so today.

I think Paul would add Star Coffee as a point of contact - along with synagogues and the marketplace in his practice of initiating in the culture - if he were here in this slice of time. Who knows? He may have ordered a double espresso macchiato and enjoyed a chat with a few of the folks lingering here, heute?

I know it’s not exactly preaching or reasoning with the Jews in synagogue but I really don’t think café preaching is on the list of best praxis for “how to engage the people of Heidelberg at Star Coffee”; nonetheless, I suspect he’d hang out - maybe frequently-here anyway. And, I bet, if he’d keep at it long enough, he’d find numerous invitations to visit the Areopagus of numerous hearts here in Heidelberg.

Tschüß

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