Where's the Superglue?

My journey from the front door to the bedroom took less than a minute when I arrived home from work today, but along the path I identified a growing list of things to do. Things I recognized from past procrastinations, plus a few new ones. Like the hot plate. Or whatever you call it.

On the kitchen counter was that plug in skillet thing that my wife uses to make pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches, except that it was (quite literally) belly up. The plastic piece that had broken off, presumably while she was cleaning it yesterday since I had seen it in the sink, that piece was laying on its belly and turning it over, I discovered where it belonged.

Hard plastic, a clean break. Superglue. I knew right away what my go-to fix-it solution was.

Now rewind 30 minutes. I was finishing up the day with a conversation with a student worker. We had talked for over a half hour about issues relating to a habit of tardiness to work. She had responded to recent rebuffs with a sarcastic text and we were now meeting to discuss future employment options. The parallel with the broken kitchen gadget may not be obvious, but to me it is, because it has to do with the assumed go-to solution.

In the case of the student worker, I had met with colleagues earlier in the day to ask for their advice on the situation. After listing a few options, I had my go-to fix-it plan. I would confront the student and ask them if they really wanted to work for me. I would suggest they try a different job and see if that position was any more forgiving of tardiness, and I would strongly encourage them to consider what life in the "real world" was going to be like a few months from now when they hit graduation.

So I steeled myself for an uncomfortable conversation and put the pedal to the metal and drove in with gusto. Thirty minutes later, I was teared up and asking for forgiveness. So what happened?

Turns out, my confrontational solution wasn't the superglue that was needed. I needed to talk and so did she. And we both needed to listen, which we did. It was genuine communication. I learned some things about her. Things I didn't know. Things that helped me understand her tardiness. And what I perceived as a careless attitude turned out to be a perfectly understandable one based on bad information that I had failed to clarify about the working relationship.

It's actually the second time in a week that a slow, honest, deliberate conversation has stopped me in my tracks. The previous time, just a week ago, the roles were reversed. It was me and a superior at my job. By the end we were both in tears and what had looked like a dire situation was bathed in grace.

So I want to highly recommend the superglue of honest, humble and intentional conversation. It works!

Lead or Leave

I don't mean this post's title as an ultimatum. Far from prescriptive, I'd like to consider for a few lines here that it might in fact be descriptive. Maybe it's the answer to the perennial question of why young people largely don't remain in the church even if they start out there. Could it be that "Lead or Leave" is the instinct that many young people feel, and those that don't (ie, the natural followers) are just following the leaders who leave because leading isn't an option offered by most churches?

It seems that we're most likely to follow our peers first before we'll go out on a limb with people that are of a significantly different demographic than us. And those that are the natural leaders, then, have the greatest influence over those in their own demographic. So here's this great synergistic ecosystem of thoughts, actions and influences flowing between leaders and followers in every generation. But the church almost completely lacks the mechanism to matriculate that generation into the mainstream flow of church activities because once they outgrow the "youth ministries" box, they are not allowed to take the helm at the next logical echelon, that of adult ministry.

Sure, we'll let a few through. Those that are willing to march to the beat of our drum. But those that are doing their own drumming and the peers that are marching with them, are for all intents and purposes shown the back door because we don't give them control of the front door. And they very effectively march onward and outward but not with our blessing and not with our vision.

Ahem...

It's been a long meeting and others have made their points over and over. You're beginning to think all the options are on the table and then, someone new clears their throat. All eyes turn to the understated member of the committee who has been thoughtfully listening, and when they begin to speak, clarity seems to come into the conversation like fresh air from an open window.

Ahhh. To be that person.

Solomon prayed for wisdom and I'm still not sure why God gave him all the other things because in the end it seems like it was those other things that diluted the wisdom gift and ultimately posed the greatest threat to it. So let's just stick with wisdom. Or better yet, Wisdom. Because in the book of Proverbs, Solomon personifies wisdom and points it right back to its divine origin.

So as much as I'd like to be the person that listens and then has the last, magical words that draws everything together into a wise package that everyone agrees on, it's really all up go to the real Author behind my life. So I'll try spend more time listening to Him too, before I speak.

Open to the Public

I was at the weekly meeting of pastors from around my community when this phrase came up and it generated a lot of thoughts, so I'm going to work through some of them here.

But first, the context was a discussion on the service which our local congregations could be to the public schools in the area with regard to counseling and encouraging staff and students through life's difficulties. Specifically, there has been a recent series of teen suicides in our county high schools and as a result, a loosely coordinated effort is underway to have school administrators and pastors meet together. In our own realms we obviously sense that there is a common goal of providing stability and hope for our young people, and in spite of concerns on both sides over church-state separation, there is a sense that churches can help in some way to assuage the mounting anxieties on the part of our public school constituency. Maybe even minister in a helpful and healing way to the real need underlying the very real dilemma.

As we shared around our pastoral circle about programs that were already in place among us to help support families, one pastor asked another about his services. "Are those open to the public?" He asked. "Well, all of our programs are open to the public," was the response.

I reflected on the ministries and programs at the church I serve. "Of course, all our programs are open to the public." Ours, too. But being 'open' to the public is kind of like a guy that tells his new church-going girlfriend that, 'sure, I'm open to religion.' It's a kind of way of saying, 'yes, no, maybe so.' That we're mutually existing in the same global background field of noise and that we each have a message, a mission, a meaning for our existence, but not necessarily any kind of mutual interest in each other's. I'm speaking of the public citizen toward the church as well as the church toward the citizen. Even one church to another.

Lest I be misunderstood as simply decrying the breakdown in trust that people have for the church in our society, let me focus more directly on the reverse of that challenge: namely, how public do our churches really want to be. I have heard arguments on both sides of the equation. That churches have to get 'out of the shaker' and 'into the world' in order to be salt and light to the lost, as well as the cautiously sanctimonious warning 'to maintain our distinctive nature because otherwise we can't be a help to anyone.'

It seems to me that it all boils down to influence. And here, like with gravity, we don't have a lot of options. The laws of influence are rather inflexible and we can either work within them to achieve our flights of fancy or ignore them and perform one epic face plant after another. And let me just say that I sense that my church and I are more accustomed to broken noses than breaking the sound barrier.

The first law of influence I see in operation is we're all influenced by others. As a Christian, I am no less affected by my environment, community and culture, than any one else. What makes me a Christian is that I actively choose to be influenced by Christ and His values, the community of saints, and the culture of heaven, even though I live in an earthly setting which emanates its own influences on all those fronts. But this is precisely what a teenager who is wanting to emulate a particular 'look' is doing. He or she is attentive to someone or some group of people who are modeling a particular way of relating to the world. Each young person is open in a particularly active way to these. In fact, as a young life that is trying to forge a personal way of being, teenagers are seeking influences that resonate with them. They are evaluating these influences based on their perceived merits, and they are aligning themselves with these influences by reflecting their values and styles in the way they think, act and communicate in their daily lives. Thus, a corollary to the first law is that, influence is a hot commodity, particularly during formative times of life. This need not be just the teen years. Educators look for 'teachable moments' during all times of life, which are points at which we feel our need for outside influence, either because one way of dealing with life has just failed us and/or because we sense in someone else a better way.

So while we may be 'open to the public,' the bigger question for a church is whether the public is 'open' to us. That is, on what basis do we think that we can have an influence in people's lives? Again, I sense that the challenges to a church influencing its immediate community are much higher and wider than we are ready to recognize. Thus 'our' efforts to influence 'them' are largely stumbled through with hopes much higher than we deserve to have, and these are sanctimoniously counted on to be amplified by our good intentions. More often than not it's like a toddler calling out across the grand canyon, hoping to hear an echo.

This brings into light another dimension of influence and a corresponding law, namely that influence must be earned and its cost is determined by how different we are. The parent wanting to be a real and significant source of influence in their children's lives must understand that 'because I said so,' buys only the cheapest and most basic level of influence. Churches wanting to overcome the abundant public stigmas against them will find the price of influence to be extremely high. Church leaders may bemoan this fact, may seek to lay the blame on the public for being set in their ways, but the ultimate question for the card-carrying members of any organization is, "What makes us think anyone will listen to us in the first place?" The answer is simply and painfully "nothing," unless the price of influence has first been paid. If we're trying to influence someone who already dresses like, talks like, thinks like and values things we do will be easier to influence because we've already made a down-payment on the price of influence by being more like them. This, however, can have a counterintuitively negative effect on influence. Because unless we are personally living the things which make us similar and are fully convinced that these values are truly compatible with the distinctive values we hope to inculcate, our 'sameness' will come across as fake and manipulative. Which is to state another law, that there are a number of short-cuts to achieving influence and that number is zero.

So based on what I've discovered and am trying to share here, thus is the lay of the land: I must live a life consistent with what I truly value; and to precisely the extent that any of these values match those of other people, I will have a down-payment on the cost of gaining influence with them. For example, if I listen to country music, I will have a down-payment on influencing other country music lovers. If, however, I listen to classical music and merely tolerate country, I won't have the funds in my pocket to really make a down-payment when I begin communicating with a country music fan. Since music is such a universal language and because almost everyone possesses a personal set of likes and dislikes regarding it, our musical tastes will always be one of the currencies upon which influence is bartered.

But let us not think that mere musical tastes would establish the common ground needed to move someone toward a major groundshift of thinking by our influence. For instance, just because we both like classical music in general or even late Mozart symphonies in particular doesn't mean I could presume to influence you to believe in my God-centered worldview. Mozart would just be a down-payment. I still have a fortune to spend before I have afforded the influence needed for such a personal appeal.

Even though this may all be common sense and rather obvious to the reader, it helps me to talk about things this way because in our super-fragmented society, my hope of reaching the world for Christ still springs eternal. However, the reality that I must accept is that only the fraction of the world that I truly care about and invest in will want anything to do with my Christ.

The funny thing is

that I feel tempted to stick up for myself and to cherish hurt feelings.

But it seems to me that there is no place for sticking up for ourselves in the Christian world. In fact, it completely misses the mark, or at the very least, the point.

Not all Christians see eye to eye. No two of God's children have exactly the same experience with Heavenly Father and His work of creation and re-creation in their lives. No two of us gaze day after day on the same mission field nor do we sense the same burdens to reach that field or to reach it in precisely the same way.

Frankly, I am happier to rejoice in these differences. Because it means it's more likely that the whole world can be reached by the broken masses of blood-bought people who dare to call themselves saints.

As I look around my community, the Spirit calls my attention to different people and I am filled with compassion for them the way others aren't. Others, in turn, see people I don't even notice and as a result experience their own burden to reach out and care for those.

My hope is that in our differences, we can still march arm in arm into the fields that are white for the harvest. It is my prayer that we remain unafraid and courageous in love to seek and save the lost.

Blessings, Imagined and Real

I'm thinking about the liability of my imagination this morning.

Sure it's a gift and a bountiful one at that. But it seems to me that it can also get in the way. Particularly in the area of God's blessings. Here's my train of thought: I can spend a lot of time imagining how I would like God to bless me. And for me, because my power of visualization is so overdeveloped, thinking about how I'd like my life rearranged can easily segue into long moments wasted daydreaming about how good things would be, if only.

I'm sure you're familiar with if only.

Not too long ago, the Hewlett Packard Corporation ran an advertising campaign under the rubric "What if?" The genius of this slogan is immense, because HP didn't have to actually claim as reality any of the things they were describing or depicting in their ads. And, in fact, most of the ideas remain very elusive in the computing world: seamless communication between different machines, unbridled power to express your creativity. I'm sure the same kinds of images are employed under their latest ads as well.

But "What if?" begged us to dream. To imagine what was possible if only we were to purchase one of these shiny new trinkets of technology.

I don't know about you, but as an over-spoiled American consumer, I don't need the slightest bit of encouragement to dream about the possibilities. Or, more to the point, as someone securely fitted with a fallen human nature, I don't need the help of any corporate marketing department in order to wile away a few hours thinking about how much better my life would be if only.

A few days ago at lunch time, my son was seated with his friends around our kitchen table eating mac and cheese. They were freshly invigorated from a morning of intense pretending, interspersed with PBS programming downstairs in our basement. So even as Caleb was partaking of the literal blessings of a genuine, kid-approved lunch, his mind was still reeling in the imagination space that I vividly remember being such an immense part of my own childhood. So I wasn't the least surprised to hear him announce shortly after they had said their prayer for the food, "Let's pray that Jesus will give us the power to jump into a book!"

You have to understand that he was referring to the mantra of a super-hero clad cartoon boy named "Super Why" who, on the public television show by the same title, solves his friend's problems by reading classic children's stories. Only in their world, when they want to get "into a book" they really do, by donning their superhero costumes and teleporting into the land of imagination.

What makes the overheard moment from Friday's lunch so memorable, though, was that moments after uttering this admonition, Caleb further suggested, "Let's pray to Jesus... And Santa Clause!"

Hmmm. Maybe my five year-old is onto something there. At least he must have sensed that Jesus wasn't going to answer a prayer for an imaginary blessing! For that, he needed to invoke an imaginary benefactor. I could wish that he realized the frivolity of praying for something he saw in a televised cartoon; but more likely he quickly surveyed the miracles he had read in the gospels, the stories he had heard in Sabbath school, plus the prayers his mother and I had modeled over the inaugural years of his life, and concluded that Jesus just wasn't into such things.

In any case, it got me to thinking about the blessings I'm hoping for. Real or imaginary? I ask myself.

In my Bible reading this morning, David pours out his petitions to God in Psalm 59. Once again, David is addressing the issue of his many mortal enemies. I thought for a moment that maybe he shouldn't be so worried about the threats around him, but then I read the italicized introduction printed above the opening verse: "To the Chief Musician. Set to 'Do Not Destroy.' A Michtam of David when Saul sent men, and they watched the house in order to kill him."

OK. So David really did have something to worry about. And I realize that much more is at stake than David merely thinking how much better things would be for him if God would "consume them in wrath" and "let them know that God rules in Jacob..." (verse 13) His very life and livelihood hang in the balance. And woven in and through these feelings is David's sanctified zeal for God's great name to be honored by the nations surrounding him and by his own nation.

While pondering David's dilemmas, I began to think about the situations I would change if I could press the right combination of keys on the vending machine of heaven. Wouldn't my life be so much better if only God would take care of a few things down here to my liking?

But then the Holy Spirit suggests this to my mind: that things can only get really better when we ask God to take care of things to His liking. Or, expressed in the genre of my musings this morning, maybe I ought to be praying more realistic prayers. Prayers I know Jesus would really love to hear, full of petitions I know He would love me to ask of Him. Maybe more prayers about what blessings God imagines for the real people He's watching over 24-7. (Food for dying orphans and shelter for homeless refugees?) In humility, I conclude that at the very least I need a massive change of heart in order to be praying more according to the mind of Christ than in the spirit of my overactive imagination.

Or, I guess I could always cc: Santa, just in case.

My God!

Read Psalm 63 this morning and didn't make it past the first half of the first line before having a thought to share. Here's the text: "O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You;" (NKJV)

The point for consideration is this: what a privilege it is to be able to say, "O God" and what a different thing it is altogether to be able to say "You are my God!" In fact, four times in Psalms does David juxtapose these two, most notably in Psalm 43:4, "Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God." All of these references are in the context of praise and most are in direct connection to the sanctuary, God's dwelling place and also the place where, on earth, these two expressions merge into one: "O God" and "My God." (The remaining two of the four are in Psalm 68:24 and 71:12.)

These two expressions feature the two most impressive dimensions of God's character. First, that He simply IS and as such is THE AUTHOR of all things. Genesis 1:1 makes no apologies for the existence of God, nor does it try to explain it or, more impossibly, Him. But His very nature throughout Genesis 1 is encapsulated in the divine name employed by Moses: "Elohim." This is a reflection of the omnipotent, the majestic, the completely other. It is God in the plural or rather the divine plural as He is everywhere all the time and is Himself three-in-one. It is the name employed by the Genesis chronicler when God declares, "Let us make man in Our image" and indeed He made us plural as well, "male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27)

And so is hinted that even in the ultimately transcendent nature of God there is relationship. Such didn't arise merely when God had man to communicate with. God had already the perfect communion within Himself as Father, Son and Spirit. But once He does have His very nature reflected in one of His own creations, men and women, He is known by them as "Yaweh-Elohim," or "Lord God" as is employed from Genesis 2:4-25, the second telling of the creation account from the now unique perspective of life on earth.

It is this wonderful connection of transcendence and relationship that David celebrates when he pens, "Oh God, You are my God." But when one considers the corpus of the entire treasury of the Psalms, one senses that such is not taken for granted by the Psalmist. A third reference to this couplet occurs in Psalm 71:12 where David exclaims, "O God, do not be far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!" We want God near us, but the very God we need in such times is the All Powerful and Majestic, who can not only draw near, but truly help in every circumstance.

As Mr. Beaver admonishes Lucy in their approach to Aslan's throne, "Safe? Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you." So we also want both a safe and an un-safe God. One bigger than everything in the universe, yet One who is a friend and a helper to us: "Oh God, You are my God!"

Thanks to David Shore's blog entry, Your God is Too Safe, from whence I copied the C.S. Lewis quote.