Humility

Jabez, Swaziland, and Christmas

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The Wall Street Journal earlier this week broke the story of Bruce Wilkinson's African folly. The Prayer of Jabez author prayed his patented prayer and yet still managed to bomb out in his attempt to transform Swaziland's orphans into productive citizens populating a Disney-esque dude ranch and tourist trap. The intentions were good: The Prayer of Jabez Coverthe money for this lofty idea—called Dream for Africa—would be plowed back into fighting AIDS and poverty in a country where the heads of AIDS-ravaged households are the eldest children left behind in the wake of death and sorrow. Dream for Africa was the quintessential utilitarian Christian response to devastation.

But unable to crack the vagaries of African culture, Mr. Wilkinson resigned from heading his visionary venture, pulling up his personal stakes in Swaziland and taking his figurative ball back home. This has left his supporters in the country in a lurch. The end result is bitterness. (Like they say, read the whole thing.)

Wilkinson has taken quite a bit of flak from some Christians who are hooting over his failure. Their point is that the Rick Warren model of Christian dominionism that Wilkinson epitomizes is anti-Christ. I contend that there is a greater reality here.

First, although I'm a firm opponent of the Evangelicalized version of the Pentecostal "Name It and Claim It" theology that The Prayer of Jabez espouses, I must ask this of Mr. Wilkinson's critics: What have you done for orphans in Swaziland? How simple it is to point fingers in the aftermath of Dream for Africa's failure and say, "I told you so." How hypocritical to judge someone else's failure when we ourselves have done little or nothing. Frankly, I find this piling on by supposed Christian people who want to get their licks in on Bruce Wilkinson to be despicable and anti-Christ. There—I said it.

However, Wilkinson is not without blame here. His is a cautionary tale that all Christians should heed:

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
—Psalms 127:1 ESV

It is one thing to believe we are doing the Lord's work, but quite another to be doing it as He alone leads. Dream for Africa's greatest mistake was to try to do things on Man's timetable with Man's strength using Man's cleverness. Wilkinson had a decent vision to help the poor, orphaned, and ill in Swaziland. But the hubris at work here is the way it was planned and executed. In short, the Lord was not allowed to build the house.

Part of the blame here goes to Western presumptions about whether God works in mysterious ways or easily explainable, manufactured ones. In far too many churches today there is a mentality that we go ahead with our plans and ask for God's blessing. When this is coupled with the raging anti-supernaturalism inherent in so much of Western Christianity, God becomes little more than a rubber stamp on what we desire for an outcome. As Bruce Wilkinson learned, we can pray the Prayer of Jabez till we're blue in the face, but unless the Lord makes all the pieces fall into place, we're building a house that will not stand.

Wait for the LORD and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land….
—Psalms 37:34a ESV

Waiting is, indeed, the hardest part. Somehow, today's expression of Evangelicalism has developed an inability to wait on God for anything. The history of world missions consists of laborers who went years and sometimes decades without seeing a single convert, but then the floodgates of heaven were opened and the harvest made plentiful. Wilkinson's African involvement was cut off after three years. So much for waiting.

Again, what we see in Wilkinson's Swaziland disaster is a greater problem with Evangelicalism in America in the 21st century. We want things done now and we want them done according to our plans. Sadly, this kind of brute force manipulation of God's will amounts to little more than wind. And while the most vociferous of Bruce Wilkinson's critics are hooting over his failure (and their hope that Rick Warren will fail miserably in Rwanda), they, too, often embody this problem—only in a blind way that is uniquely theirs.

Even though I don't approve of the manner in which Dream for Africa charged in and did things under Man's power, it saddens me even more that there are people gloating over its failure, while offering nothing else in return. Surely there are people out there who God has blessed with a heart for Africa that are willing to take the decades it may take to bring about the end of AIDS, orphans, and poverty in Africa by God's way alone and only under His timetable.

Two thousand years ago, the religious intelligentsia thought they knew it all, but God built a house His way. He brought His Son into the world in poverty, made His Son's Kingdom not of this world, and confounded every person who thought they knew just how the Messiah would come and what He would look like. Man's confusion as to God's way made it all the more easy to take that supposed Messiah and crucify Him. Those upholders of all that was right knew what they were doing, or so they thought.

One of these days, we'll see just how many of our enterprises failed because we second-guessed God. It's all too easy for any of us to do. Bruce Wilkinson and Dream for Africa failed. And yet, so many of our own whims have gone up in flames for the very same reason.

Phariseeism is not far from any of us.

Hidden Messages of American Christianity: The Outstretched Hand

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This is the seventh (and last) in a series of posts covering the hidden messages that sneak into American churches' proclamation of the Gospel. For more background, please refer to this post.

Though today's post addresses what is a hidden message, I don't have any answers for it. I'm throwing it out there because I hear it all the time. I'm hoping that you readers have more insights than I do. (I'm also going to ask readers to bear with me because I sense this post is going to ramble excessively.)

It's one of the most prevalent excuses I encounter in my area of the country for people not attending church. Men who avoid church like the plague cite it more than any other issue for their lack of attendance, Offering platefrom what I've personally heard. The older the commenter gets, the more likely this issue sticks in his craw.

It's money.

No, I'm not talking about folks who are ticked off that the church is preaching budgeting instead of preaching Christ, it's their complaining about the church asking for money. It's as if no other message can get through once the offering plate is passed. The "There they go again shilling for money!" lament is raised and the sermon message is now permitted to go in one ear and out the other.

"Always with the money thing! Why do they need so much money, Martha? The pastor makes twice what I do and I caught a whiff of Chanel No. 5 on his wife when I walked past. How much does that stuff cost? A thousand dollars an ounce? And he's asking for money? How low can you get?"

Now I'm not naive enough to think that the majority of these grumblers aren't using money as an excuse to sleep in on Sunday or to justify their rejection of Christ. But why do I hear this complaint so often if it didn't carry some actual weight?

At one point in my life I attended a well-known Presbyterian church in the toniest suburb in Pittsburgh. The corporate elite of Pittsburgh occupied the pews every Sunday. It had a chauffeur's entrance. The choir (paid) consisted of the leads of the city opera. When industrial meltdowns and financial strife rocked the area in the mid-Eighties, this church was targeted by activists and their Sunday services disrupted for no other reason than wealth. The church I left last year was suburban, middle to upper-class, and rarely asked for money. The pastor had a hard time bringing up the issue. As a result, this huge church was always encountering one cash flow problem after another. My present church is more rural ("penturbian," if you want the exact, trendy word), is lower to middle-class, has a mini-sermon about tithing shared by one of the elders every Sunday, and seems to do a reputable job staying in the black. Not only that, but every time there is a need over and above the regular giving, people always come through with an amount that surprises me.

I'd love to draw some kind of conclusion about these three churches, but there are too many variables. One never asked for money because it was loaded. One rarely asked for money, should have had it in abundance anyway, but didn't. One talks about money every Sunday, doesn't seem to want for it, plus it always has reserves. No matter the case, money plays into every aspect of how each of those three churches operate. That's true with every church, every ministry. But is there a way to downplay the whole issue of money so that those who complain that churches are only out for money have no more ammo for their assault?

It's Christmastime, so we're now under bombardment by Project Angeltree, Chuck Colson's organization. We donated money to them a few years ago to send the kids of prisoners to summer camp. Christian camping being near and dear to my heart, I couldn't say no when my wife suggested it, even though it violated our decision to only give to charities run by people we personally knew. Starting in September, I swear we get letters from Angeltree every week, plus scores of e-mails.

I'm not the type to complain that Christians are always asking for money, but the sheer volume of mail we get from Angeltree makes me uncomfortable. Whatever we gave a few years ago has been more than eaten up from the cost of their mailings to us.

So I can understand how some people have a problem with Christians asking for money. This isn't to say that money is not needed, but the sheer amount of money that some churches and ministries burn through is incredible. To sustain whatever they're doing, more and more money is solicited. But is this hidden message that churches and parachurch organizations are always on the lookout for cash really a message we want to send, even if it is not entirely true in every situation?

Now I can't speak for parachurch organizations, but I wonder if the way we do church today relies too much on money. I think our buildings are too expensive, not only to build, but to maintain. I don't see in Acts that the early Church spent their money on buildings. Nor was there much in the way of expensive programs and church initiatives. Benevolences were turned around and filtered back to the neediest in the community of believers in the early Church, yet the way we collect church monies today often leaves the givers in the dark as to where their money went. And too often, overhead consumes the majority of money rather than benevolences. Shouldn't we be asking if we're handling money for the Kingdom in the best way possible?

Shouldn't that advise the way our churches are structured and operated? What if a church met in homes rather than an expensive church building? What if the pastoral staff went unpaid (or partially compensated), but was large enough so that one person didn't carry the whole ministry load, each staff member living the life of a genuine "tentmaker"? What if we went beyond tithing and set everything we caretake for the Lord on the table so that anything needed was available to anyone at any time for his or her need? What if the Church functioned to unite giver and receiver personally, rather than having our monies go into an ethereal pool of funds? What if our newfound financial reliance on each other allowed us to step out of the rat race? What if churches didn't ask for money at all?

Most of all, what if the Church handled money so uniquely that it took away any objections by those who believe that Christianity is all about the Benjamins?

I know that Americans are funny about money, but I still hold out hope that one day our churches will look different because we've found a better way to handle it. The house churches in China are destitute compared with the Communist-approved state churches, but somehow they keep growing, effectively making disciples in a way we in America long ago forgot. While there are many mitigating factors in that growth in Chinese house churches, I've got to believe that our attitudes toward money in the American Church are partly to blame for our lack of effectiveness. We've built some fancy churches and installed some expensive programming, but what do we have to show for it?

Is it possible that something better could arise in the American Church if all our money disappeared some day? Maybe if it did, the lost might be able to look beyond the our hidden message of money and to the true heart of the Gospel.

Hidden Messages of American Christianity: “We’re Cool, Too!”

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This is the fifth in a series of posts covering the hidden messages that sneak into American churches’ proclamation of the Gospel. For more background, please refer to this post.

High school is the grand social experiment wherein hormonally-driven young people seek to establish a place in the social pecking order. Any keen observer of the high-school scene will easily note the depths to which some teens will sink in order to be perceived as cool or attuned to the latest vibe. CluelessNo one wants to be left out.

Everyone knew (or some of us may have been) that kid who spent every waking hour trying to fit in. The tragi-comedy of the teen years is observing the desperate lengths to which some kids go to keep from being deemed irrelevant to the greater theatrical production. If all the world’s a stage and we are merely players, no one wants to be the understudy.

Hopefully we all move on and grow into maturity. Even then, a high school reunion will expose that handful of people who are still trapped in the “Please look at me! I’m cool, too!” phase.

We can excuse our teenagers for this desire, but we can’t excuse adults who never get over it.

Large swaths of the American Church can’t get over it. There is a desperate longing to be perceived as smart, “hip,” and worldly wise. Step into a few churches today and note that they not only serve you a latte you can take into the worship service, but the coffee is pitched as being free trade, so no one can accuse the church of not being cool enough to be sensitive to economic and environmental issues.

Like the teenager screaming, “Please look at me! I’m cool, too,” American Christians have become obsessed with not being left out of the “be there or be square” party everyone’s attending.

If you’re an American, you had to have been squatting in the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns for the last year to have missed the fact that THE MOVIE is debuting this weekend. All of us having sucked long on the marketing teat behind THE MOVIE, I need not mention its name. You and probably everyone you know are aware of THE MOVIE. Many of us are planning on seeing THE MOVIE either Friday or Saturday for fear we won’t be able to discuss it on Sunday before and after our church services.

After all, we let Hollywood know that we demand more movies like this, movies that cater to us, because hey, we’re cool, right? We have money as well. And we don’t ever want to be left out of what’s cool for fear the world will think less of us. What good is a Church that avoids the world’s party?

In far too many churches in America today, the message on Sunday is that Christianity is cool and hip. It’s a faith that makes cultural demands that need to be met by the world’s power brokers. It cries out for Christian-themed amusement parks, Bibles with dimpled steel covers, and stuffed Aslan dolls that better darned sure look exactly like Aslan (or else we won’t buy it.) It’s a new and improved Christianity that walks with a swagger and demands to be on student council so that popularity is assured. Sure, we may talk about a savior who was killed by crucifixion, or we may espouse ideals of dying to self and to the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look cool doing it. Or so the conflicted message goes.

For a lot of churches and the Christians who populate them, the greatest fear is to jammed into a locker and have the door slammed on us. Once you’ve been assaulted in that manner by the school’s alpha jock, you’re relegated to loser status forever.

I seem to remember this Bible passage, though:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
—Romans 8:35-36 ESV

Regarded as sheep to be slaughtered? Highly, highly uncool.

Or how about this:

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
—Luke 6:22 ESV

You’ll never be class president if you’re reviled. They’ll vote for that Pedro guy instead.

This one stings a little:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
—Philippians 1:21 ESV

It’s hard to be a debutante when you’re dead, isn’t it?

Or…

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
—1 John 2:15-17 ESV

I guess the prom is out then, huh?

Or…

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
—Luke 9:23-26 ESV

But the popular kids like me now!

We’ve got to stop this high school behavior in the American Church. We’re so wrapped up in our image that our main message of the Gospel is threatened with becoming the real hidden message. We’re glorying in worldly acclaim, but that acclaim is worthless. We’re excited about the power we supposedly wield politically, culturally, and so on, but it’s all a façade. We’re high school kids caught up in the social milieu, desperately trying to be cool and popular.

Th result of our dalliances is that we’ve made Christianity nothing more than a check mark on a To-Do list somewhere next to “Get a date for Homecoming” and “Buy more Clearisil.” The transforming power of the Gospel has been replaced by a message that’s a salve for getting dumped before prom night, or strength for revenge against the stuck-up girl who made us look bad in gym class a month ago. Dying to self, loving Christ and others, making disciples, being salt and light—that’s the heart of the Gospel, not all that kiddie stuff.

High school isn’t the real world, folks. “Please look at me! I’m cool, too!” is like…so yesterday. It’s time we American Christians grew up and acted like adults.

{Image of the movie poster from Clueless — Paramount Pictures.}