Oddities

God’s Beauty Plan

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Edgar Degas - 'The Star'We’ve talked about issues in discipleship in the last ten days (though, honestly, this whole blog is about discipleship), but I wanted to say one more word.

Let’s step into Dan’s Magic Imagination Machine and consider what follows.

Scenario A: A proud father knows his daughter will be beautiful. He takes care of the child and allows her to develop slowly over years. Childhood is encouraged, outside play is cherished, friendships with other children are promoted, and time for rest and recuperation are given. When Dad realizes his daughter is mature enough, he enrolls her in charm school. When ready, the girl is given ballet lessons. Her father also oversees her education, adding one lesson at a time as the girl is ready to receive new knowledge. At eighteen, that young woman is revealed to the world. What a stunning beauty! A woman whose elegance, sophistication, and loveliness capture the hearts of all who meet her.

Scenario B: A proud father knows his daughter will be beautiful. To hasten that day, he has the girl pumped full of growth hormones, with bone stretching rods inserted into her limbs to make certain the girl grows tall. At five, the girl is subjected to calculus and physics classes, plus courses in three languages. The girl is only allowed five hours of sleep each night because her schedule is packed. And because Dad was never allowed to waste time in outdoor play, neither is his daughter. When the daughter doesn’t score well on her tests, Dad berates her, telling her how badly she’s failed and how she’ll never be the beauty queen she’s supposed to be. Then how will her Dad be perceived by the world? And on and on…

I’m sure that everyone reading this will agree that the Dad in Scenario B sounds like a psychopath. What normal person would treat a child that way?

Why is it, then, that Scenario B (the irrational one) is the way portions of the American Church try to make disciples?

And now for the NtBV, the “Not the Bible Version”:

He has made everything beautiful in our time…
— Not Ecclesiastes 3:11a

One word: Unlikely.

As we know, the real verse reads this way:

He has made everything beautiful in His time…
—Ecclesiastes 3:11a

As I’ve gotten older in the Lord, He’s taught a me an inescapable truth: if we try to make disciples in our time (or any other way that is ours and not His), we’ll only break them and make them less than useful to Him.

I see now that we must view disciplemaking with the following understandings:

1. The Lord builds the house. We do not build the house.

2. The Lord builds disciples on His timetable, not ours.

3. The Lord does not break reeds and quench smoldering wicks. We, however, do so with reckless, clumsy abandon.

4. The Lord has expectations. We do, too. Ours, however, do not matter.

5. The Lord sees the final, perfect end-product of discipleship and fully comprehends all the stages along the path of growth. We look in a temporal mirror and wonder why the end-product does not look exactly like we did at every stage of our own personal development.

6. The Lord disciples with love. We disciple with impatience.

7. The Lord disciples perfectly. (You can probably guess by now how we disciple.)

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a “discipler”—typically loaded down with one agenda after another—run roughshod over a “disciplee.” I’ve lost track of how many people have walked away from the faith or turned irrevocably bitter because a discipler didn’t take the time to ask, “What is God doing in this person’s life?” Asking that question rather than stating, “And now, this is what I will be doing in this person’s life,” would have made a world of difference.

Some disciplers pump their disciplees with more knowledge than they’re fit to handle. Others get upset that the process of growth goes more slowly than they would like, so they ramrod truth down immature throats. Some disciplers are unwilling to be at peace when their disciplees occasionally feel discouraged because the disciplers believe “a true disciple always lives in victory.” Or—and this is one of the trickier ones—the disciplees are actually further along in an area of discipleship than the disciplers and the disciplers are unwittingly asking them to take a step backwards.

You can probably come up with you own “discipleship gone bad” stories. Sadly, those stories should be rare to non-existent.

The other day, I was in an odd position in a group of Christians when each of us was asked to share one area in which we might be disappointed with God. After no one said anything for a while, I volunteered a disappointment, hoping my vulnerability would encourage others to share on a deeper level. I related a tough situation that launched a series of tangential events that I still deal with today. Immediately, several others felt it necessary to tell me why I shouldn’t feel disappointed. (Talk about walking into a baited theological trap!) Needless to say, I was surprised that others felt my disappointment was somehow invalid. Oddly enough, only one other person volunteered to share and that sharing came with trepidations and qualifications to keep the others from repeating their disapproval.

That type of story happens too often in Christian circles today. I know I can handle that kind of response, but what about a more fragile person?

Anymore, I feel that my role in discipling consists of one thing: to be available for other people. Just to be there. When they struggle with an area of life, rather than me telling them, “Oh, you shouldn’t be struggling,” or “You should be doing this, this, this and this,” instead I’ll be asking , “How can I be there for you to help you become more like Jesus?”

Because when it all comes down to it, God makes disciples. And He makes them by His means, in His time, under His conditions. What He asks of me is that I be available for His use as a tool in other people’s lives. “Here am I, send me” is not just a call to the mission field, but the call of one person to walk alongside another.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t teach people the things they need to know. It doesn’t mean that we don’t reprove. Only that we do it in a way forged through that incalculably valuable question, “How can I be there for you to help you become more like Jesus?” I’ve got to believe that such a perspective on discipleship, that availability, that desire to love others no matter their issues, makes all the difference when it comes to making disciples.

Because when God makes all things beautiful, they are filled with a loveliness beyond our comprehension. And that’s how it should be.

Jobs, Networking, and the Church

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So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
—Galatians 6:10-11

Regular readers of Cerulean Sanctum know that I write pointed posts about the need for Christians to help each other, especially when it comes to finding a good job.

Tim Challies put out a call for a job for his brother, Andrew, who has a mild form of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. Tim’s brother lives in the Chattanooga, TN, area and would like to find clerical or data entry positions. Details can be found at Challies.com.

I’ve never been one to understand the odd way we American Christians view the unemployed. I remember sharing with a group of men at a wealthy church my wife and I were visiting (with hopes of possibly joining) that I had lost my job and was looking for work. They stared me over for a few moments, then returned to chit-chatting, literally turning their backs on me as if I were no longer there. I will never forget that horrid sensation that I had suddenly become a non-entity to them.

Many people can tell these kinds of awful stories. In truth, those stories should never occur within the Body of Christ. When the Lord says that we are to love Him and love our neighbor as ourselves, there can be no truer love for a brother or sister in Christ than to help be their network when they are looking for a job.

After Pentecost, the first thing the nascent Church did was ensure that no one among them lacked for basic physical needs. As far as I see it, no need could be more basic than to have a decent job.

Which is why I’m continually perplexed at the American Church’s slighting of the unemployed. I’ve written many times here that we’re under this cursed Charlie Brown and Linus offer some useless helpbootstrapping nonsense that says that “God helps those who help themselves.” That’s the antithesis of the communion of saints, though.

If anything, the continued presence of the unemployed within our congregations is a damning statement about our inability to walk beside our brethren in their time of need. One brother (who recently did find work after nearly a year of searching) asked me for advice on his search. I advised him to ask the church leadership for permission to stand up before the congregation and discuss his need for work. He told me that if he asked for employment in front of his congregation, dozens of others would clamor to make the same request. To which I said, “So? Isn’t that supposed to be the way the Body functions?”

Well, isn’t it?

I’m concerned about the economic state of North America. Disparities between the rich and poor are growing, with the middle class sliding down the pay scale. I believe we’re on shaky ground, shakier as the subprime mortgage fiasco ripples out to touch all parts of our economy. Signs are there for another recession. I also believe we’re in a boom and bust cycle that will have longer busts and shorter booms as time goes on. You think the last recession was bad? Just wait.

If we’re not there for each other, working hard to meet the job needs of our fellow believers (especially those in our local congregations), aren’t we rejecting one of God’s major reasons for the Church to exist?

Honestly, I get really tired of witnessing the following:

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
—James 2:15-16

Indeed, what good is that?

I get labeled as a dour guy sometimes. My problem as I see it is that I am hopeful that we’ll live up to our high calling. That we seem to have so little care to live up to that calling makes me sad. Yes, it’s a high calling, but it’s not an impossible one. Yet we act as if someone’s unemployment is as unmanageable as a tornado.

How big is your God? Mine’s pretty blasted enormous! And that universe-eclipsing Lord we serve is looking for people who believe He can rip up the mountains and toss them into the sea! A job? How hard is that to get?

Well, it may be very hard if no one cares to use the contacts and networks we’ve all built to guide someone to gainful employment. We can bury that network in the ground. We can say that we’re just too busy to get involved. But if that’s our attitude, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the Lord comes back and isn’t totally pleased with how we’ve managed the resources He gave us.

We all know we need to improve our community in our churches. Making sure we help people find work is one of the keys to that better community. Because if we in our plenty won’t actively labor to help those searching for jobs, who will help us when we’re the ones laid off?

Two Halves of the Whole Gospel

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Goin' nowhere fastDo you sometimes feel like we’re not hearing the whole Gospel? Hang around the Godblogosphere long enough and you get the eerie feeling that no one truly knows what the whole Gospel entails.

And it’s not just the Godblogosphere. I suspect that many of our churches can’t articulate the entirety of the Gospel.

As I see it, we’ve made this mistake of viewing the whole Gospel as two halves. The mistake—one of typical human nature— is to wrap the entirety of our brains around the one half that resonates with us the most, then act as if the other half doesn’t exist.

If we must delineate the error of the two halves, it’s best to look at the one passage of Scripture that defines those halves. We find both in Ephesians 2:8-10.

Half A:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
—Ephesians 2:8-9

Half B:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
—Ephesians 2:10

Those who cling to Half A are the folks I’ll call the Elect. They obsess about doctrine, detest even a whiff of works righteousness, and are enormously concerned with getting people saved. They got their marching orders at the Reformation and consider it the high point in modern history. And heaven help anyone who’s not in total agreement with them.

Those who adhere to Half B are the folks I’ll call the Fieldworkers. They obsess about  helping those in need, detest the hypocrisy of not walking the talk, and are enormously concerned with bettering the lives of everyone around them. They can’t point to any one point in time for their marching orders,  but earnestly believe that we need a new Reformation. And heaven help anyone who’s not in total agreement with them.

The problem with the Elect and the Fieldworkers is that they are so focused on their half of the whole Gospel, they simply can’t bring themselves to understand the other half. The blinders are on so tight that neither group  can even acknowledge the other side’s main propositions are just as Scriptural as theirs.

The Elect easily trash the loose theology of the Fieldworkers. The Fieldworkers quickly note the clean, uncalloused hands of the Elect. To the Elect, the Fieldworkers are false teachers and heretics. To the Fieldworkers, the Elect are uncaring, self-absorbed Pharisees. Both sides point to the other and claim, “You’re not living the Gospel. I doubt you’re truly saved!”

And you know what? On that claim, both sides may actually be right!

Worrying about how you come to Christ is great, but Elect, what are you supposed to do with the sixty or so years of discipleship you have staring you in the face afterwards? Worrying about the needy is great, but Fieldworkers, how do you receive the heart of God to do so if you can’t articulate how to know God at all?

The whole Gospel contains both the power to raise the dead in spirit to spiritual life in the name of Jesus AND the power to tenderize the human heart toward the service of others in the name of Jesus.

What baffles me is why this is so hard to understand.

Why do we slice the Gospel in half then whine about the half we don’t like? Why the venom between the Elect and the Fieldworkers? Why?

The whole Gospel is the whole Gospel. If we’re not concerned with seeing people saved through hearing the message of salvation, maintaining the integrity of our doctrine, and preaching that we can’t earn our way to heaven, then we’re blowing it. If we’re not concerned about taking care of those in need, living out the love of Christ in practical ways, and fighting for the betterment of everyone we meet, then we’re blowing it.

Please Church, it’s time to believe and live the whole Gospel!