Treasure Where?

"There's an old story of a bishop whose cathedral was about to be robbed. The bandits demanded the "treasures of the church." So the bishop went into the shelter and gathered up the poor, saying, "These are the treasures of the church." The bandits left empty-handed that night."

What Did You Get Out of Church Today?

When Michala and I first moved out here to Denver just over two years ago, we discovered the joy of church-dating. For the uninformed, this is when you attend a handful of churches and 'try them out.' When you find the one, you commit, just like dating. And just like dating, there are awkward churches, quirky churches, very attractive churches with no depth, and if you're lucky, that perfectly imperfect place that just feels right.

Each time we visited a church we would quiz each other following the service, asking all sorts of questions to see if we both agreed in our admiration, apathy, or disgust. We would ask, "what did you get out of that?" This seems like a perfectly valid question, one that no doubt takes place every Sunday after church all over the country. What we implied in this question was how we were served: "was the preaching good?"  "Did we enjoy the music?" "Did they have child care?" These are important questions to ask, but I now see they are also misguided questions to ask.

The core around which Sunday morning gatherings are centered is worship of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. Nothing more, nothing less. This can look a number of ways, singing, praying, conversation, thanksgiving, thinking deeply, but put simply it is an act of love.

Our worship has zilch to do with "what we get" and everything to do with what we offer. This is not another opportunity to feed our egos bloated by a system of consuming that makes us insatiable. We gather to give our meager lives together to the one who gives every good gift.

The receiving of good gifts comes with our every breath, each meal, each smile, and every child. The trees and the mountains are given to us to enjoy and it is only natural that we respond with praise. This is what Sunday morning is all about. Instead of asking "what did you get?" we can ask "what did you give?"

This giving goes far beyond our finances and demands our minds, hands, and hearts, our very being. And yet this is a free sacrifice, God does not look out at our confused, hap-hazard attempts to say thanks and say, "that's it?" Instead he joins in the dance of giving and gives us the greatest gift ever, Himself.

Jesus hinted at this mystery of receiving in our giving, when he said that to find our lives, we must first die. When our weekly meetings become another opportunity to consume, we miss everything. Instead, let us have the mind of Christ who being God himself, humbled himself to execution and in the doing found himself seated at the right-hand of the Father and also found us all.

Michala and I did not settle for the "one." We did not find our home until we found a church that would not let us remain comfortable, that forced us to give of ourselves, and asked a lot of us. We were too busy loving these imperfect people and loving a perfect God together to ask if this was the 'one?" It just was. I've come to realize their is no perfect church and this forces me to stop critiquing the church and simply commit.

May we seek to be a committed people, not seeking to be filled but to be emptied. To give back our money, time, energy, minds, and hearts and to maybe find a God who gives us everything we need.

What is a Trader?

Hope is bursting forth into our dark worlds and somehow we have the ability to carry its banner.

What is the Church? Part 3: A Dream

"Jesus made his church out of human beings with more or less the same mixture in them of cowardice and guts, of intelligence and stupidity, of selfishness and generosity, of openess of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us...it is a point worth remembering." -Frederick Buechner

"I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

I have entertained a passion for daydreaming most of my life. They have been dreams of football glory, car chases, my last days. and kissing the most beautiful girl in the world (that one came true).  I could spends hours sitting in the grass, peering into the sky dreaming of flying.  In some way, these dreams came to life in me.  I'm keenly aware that I am far from alone in this endeavor of dreaming but I wonder, what drives us to fantasize so?

Our dreams can in fact have a very negative effect on us, causing us to become disenfranchised with reality.  In the recent blockbuster, Inception, the deep-dream escapades become a sort of drug, a way to escape and in extreme cases, characters were unable to tell the difference between the dream and reality.  I perceive that this is not far from the truth.  We can believe in something so much that although it is not real, our faith gives body to our illusions. On a smaller note, we often dream just beyond the grasps of our realities leaving us always hungry. But we dream on.

And I pray that this continued dreaming is good.  Dreaming allows us a chance to reshape our hopes, to believe that escape is not the answer but that victory can be grasped.  We must dream new dreams when the world declares that we are bound to our dismal lots.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. most exemplified the power of a dream, a dream that dared to hope for freedom, a rainbow colored hill filled with the songs of every nation hand in hand.  His was an unrealistic dream, but because he not only dared to dream it, but to share it as well, a new reality was unleashed.  So we dream on.

Each of us was meant to ponder the stars and the language of that pondering is that of the dream.  Yet as we gaze into the heavens, our feet hold firm to the dirt beneath it.  It is only then, with our heads in the sky and our feet on the ground that our dreams can gain traction.  We must deal with reality as it is, not as it should be but also dream for reality not as it should be but as it will be.  We are indeed complex human beings and within us is the power to kill and the power to give life.  So we must choose what our lives will say, what our hands will do.  And we dream on.

The day is soon approaching when with new eyes we shall at last see the beauty of ugly things, when our starving neighbor will hunger no more, when the man who lives down the road says goodbye to loneliness forevermore, when no child will have to suffer the fate of being fatherless.  There is a day coming, soon I pray, when unrelenting rain will fall on our parched hearts, when we no longer judge one another on any basis at all but by love. Do I dare dream on?

May we look at our hopes of restoration and repair and see them not as unrealistic, but share them till a new reality is unleashed and then, perhaps, we will dream a new dream.

 

What is the Church? Part 2: A Story

In December of 2005, I lost my life.  It was, in many ways, coming to an end.  I could almost feel the noose around my neck.  My life was defined by addictions to drugs, drink, and depression.  I was simply dark.  But as the Grateful Dead once sang, "you can see the light in the strangest places if you look at them right."  And sitting on a barstool in a frat bar that I bounced at, a friend came to me and asked what was wrong.  It was such a simple question, one that I often answered "nothing" to, but this night I was in a strange place and with whatever shred of hope I had left, I was straining see some semblance of light.  So I laid my troubles before this friend and in his confusing religious speak, something burst forth.  Grace, perhaps.  

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

Two days later I awoke in a Baptist church in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas; surreal, I know.  And whatever it was the burst forth in that bar, exploded that morning.  I fell in love with this person named Jesus and all the things I had done, that had defined me so, ceased causing me pain and finished their torment upon that man.  In my new freedom, all I could hope to utter was a tear-drenched "I'm sorry."  And in that most honest of prayers, I felt the arm of my cousin and the sweet forgiveness of my God.  I went home after the service and repeated the act of confession to my mom, who like our God prior, shushed me and simply said, "I forgive you, I love you, I am so glad you're home."   The invitation was before me in the outstretched arms of my crying mother.

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

Despite being home, I felt like a stranger.  I had never gone to Sunday school, I had never sung "I'll Fly Away," and I had sure never prayed believing that it made some sort of difference.  But this was my new home.  And something special burst forth in this strange place, I became part of a family.  These people had no reason to trust me, no reason to care about me.  I was a recovering addict from God-only-knows-where, but this community, Mammoth Spring First Baptist Church called me "son."  Less than a month in, I was already teaching.  They gave me a place helping out with the 4th-6th grade class.  Little did I know at the time, but those kids would teach me more than I ever taught them.  I could not help but lay awake at night back then and think about what was happening to me.  I once was alone, purposeless, blind, and drunk, but somehow God pulled me out of that mess and put me into a family, I was in every way a new man.  I soon began to to know the stories of this new family and I was invited to become a part of their next chapter, I was invited to dinner, to play music, but most of all, to simply be together.

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

People who were complete strangers a month ago, showed me the Grand Gulf, invited me to pick my mandolin back up and play in front of everyone, got on their backs and crawled underneath my car to see what was the matter, hugged me when I most needed it, and reminded me constantly that Jesus loved me whether they said it or not.  For someone who felt that love had slipped him by, this tasted the most sweet.  I thank God that He loved me so much, that he gave me to this thing called church.  I know these past few years have been both difficult and wonderful and everything in-between but I still made it, I survived by God.  Yet, I still wonder what tomorrow brings, whether or not I will continue this game of survival.  And in the midst of that doubt I sense something strange bursting through, whispering "trust me." And I also see something strange in the beautiful mess that is my church, extending its hand, asking me to come along to suffer and celebrate together.  It is a beautiful offer.

Having little choice, I leap at it.

What is the Church? Part 1: An Origin

I have recently been challenged to articulate what exactly the church is.  In many of the circles I have found myself in, the answers often included multi-syllable words ending in -ism and -ology.  While these words hold a depth of meaning, they lack a sense of heart.  To say that the church is a "heterogeneous, multi-ethnic, fellowship committed to orthodoxy and worship through a prescribed liturgy" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Do not get me wrong, I think the definition is accurate, just not palatable.  I need something to sink my teeth into, something that speaks to me as a person who gets up at 4:40 am to go to work to support my family.  While the -isms and -ologies translate in the classroom, they sound an awful lot like a clanging gong to those of us not so well-versed. Beyond this, these words lack a vitality that dresses the church in rather drab cloakings.  The church is a fierce, living, breathing entity, a story in the process and it deserves to be described as such.

The very first church was like this:

" They spent everyday eating together, laughing and crying, relishing honest conversation over good meals.  They strived to live together in a radical way, giving away everything if they had too, so that no one suffered.  They would cry out to God for help because they desperately needed it and would sing songs of "thank you" whether He answered or not.  They committed themselves to live out Jesus' love commands as taught by his closet friends.  They were one despite being so different, daring and hoping to change the world one act of intentional kindness at a time.  And by this, the world took notice and smiled and some even risked it all to join this group so devoted to one another that they could truly be called a family." (Acts 2: 42-47, My paraphrase)

This is a story I can give myself to.  This is the story I have given myself to.

This week I will explore this story of who the church is and I thirst for your thoughts and convictions as well.