Category Archives: Jesus Money Materialism Reflection

Stop Being Weird and Start Being Different!

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It’s time Christians start making more intentional choices about how we’re going to be weird. If you’re going to be awkward, if you’re going to be different, if you’re going to stand out then do it for good things! For too long those who call themselves followers of Jesus have been defined by making really odd and straight up weird choices. It’s time we stop.

The two lists below are not exhaustive in any way (is any list?) but I’ve outlined some of the things that I think Christians should be “weird for” and I’ve also identified a few of the ways that someone just needs to slap our foreheads and say “Hey, seriously stop being weird!” I understand that for most of these, each point deserves a whole discussion all to itself, so try not to get too worked up about small things. Also know that in every single instance here I do not have a specific person or people group in mind (unless noted otherwise) rather I’m ranting, thinking out loud, and potentially overstating (or understating) things to make a point…that’s just how I roll.

Be Strange!

  1. Community—the way we live together, the way we invest in our neighborhoods, the way we live for others should be a defining and really different characteristic about those who call themselves followers of Christ. So if we’re going to be weird, let’s be radically awkward in our willingness to love each other, to be hospitable, to entertain others, and to throw good parties. Let’s have people think we’re weird because of our willingness eagerness to die to ourselves for others.
  2. Love—let’s be known as the odd people who love everyone regardless of race, belief, or background. We’ve got something to learn from the LGBT community because I think they do this pretty well. We don’t have to agree with a person’s beliefs, with their lifestyle choices, with their theology, or any of that to love and respect them as creatures deserving of dignity! While I understand that in many ways I am opening  Pandora’s box because of the varied ways that we could define what it means to love a person (some would argue that the best way to show love to someone is to “not let them live in sin”…I would disagree…but that’s just me)
  3. Compassion—who needs health insurance when you’re meeting each other’s medical needs? Who needs pantries and clothes closets and other similar social services when people are freely giving of what they have, creating opportunity for others to grow and buy what they need (at affordable prices) etc? If compassion was more primary to our identity many of the political arguments would not matter because needs would already be met within our communities! What if Christians were known as those weird people where poverty wasn’t much of a problem (either because many of them embraced being poor, or because there was so much sharing, or…)! What if Christians were looked on as oddballs because they had compassion for those that others might normally reject?
  4. Learning—if God is creator then we need not fear knowledge. We need not fear truth even if that truth is found in a not-very-truthy-feeling-place because Jesus has stated very clearly that he is Truth. So if you discover truth, and it’s really true, then you’ve discovered something originating in Jesus. You can own it because it belongs to the one that you follow. Science, history, alternative medicine, etc. are all areas where God can be found. Christians should be known as the odd people whose thirst for learning is never satisfied. We crave learning, we love learning, we see it as a way of life not as something you accomplish. And because it’s all about a lifestyle, all about a journey—it ceases to be about right and wrong. It’s not about figuring out the right and wrong way to see the world, it’s about the journey of growing closer and closer to our creator. That would be a weird set of people.
  5. Innovators—God is a creator, an artist. God created the naked mole rat, he created pinkies and balsa wood. Can we say that God is an innovator? Or must we say that God is THE innovator? Christians are notorious for being behind the times. Our music is traditionally a mirror of what was popular three years ago, our art is not usually cutting edge, the schools we open are not usually on the cutting edge of educational research, etc. Christians are not known for their innovation, they’re known for opposing innovation. I love tradition, I value tradition, but tradition is not the end—it’s a means. So let’s try to be identified as those odd balls who feel an amazing sense of freedom to experiment, to explore, and to innovate. How can we follow THE innovator without a sense of innovation?

Stop being so weird!

  1. It’s weird when your biggest mobilization movement in recent memory is to defend marriage as one man and one woman. I’m one man and I’m married to one woman. I think it’s a good idea. But if I were to choose an area that I could imagine (maybe the problem is with my own imagination?) Jesus standing up and rallying the troops to fight over, it doesn’t seem like it would be the definition of marriage! And it’s not like there haven’t been other fights to mobilize for in recent memory. AIDS, child abuse, adoption, divorce (seriously, maybe we should defend marriage by pursuing having healthier marriages first), extreme poverty, genocide, and the list could go on. Seriously, we should stop being weird.
  2. It’s weird when we have our own mini-culture. I might not be saying this clearly, but I’m referring to Testamints, to 89% of the things found in a Christian bookstore. Let’s be honest, most of the stuff in those stores are incredibly weird and if you walked in there with your neighbor who does not follow Jesus it would be very clear how weird it really is.
  3. It’s weird to imply that following Jesus is concerned with Sunday “church” attendance. If Jesus died so that we could go to church we’re all screwed. Seriously. It’s weird to look at the life of Jesus, a man who lived radically, died radically, and sent his radical Spirit to transform the world and think that somehow this could be captured, encapsulated, lived out, or practiced on Sundays! That’s weird, it doesn’t make any sense. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that the communal gathering of Christ followers is crucial and hugely important. But it is a result of a life of following Jesus. It is not the beginning, it is not the bulk of our faith expression, it is the natural response to living your whole life for Jesus. Let’s stop being weird and not try to pretend that living for Jesus has anything to do with your Sunday attendance.
  4. It’s weird that some Christians won’t see doctors. Ok, I realize that there are lots of marginalized extreme Christians that we could spend all our time talking about. The only reason I bring this one up is because I just read a story in the newspaper about a family who let their infant almost go blind because they wouldn’t let her see a doctor. They anointed her with oil, they prayed, and they just had their child taken away by CPS. I won’t say much more here because I think a majority of my readership would agree…but I think it’s important that we not be weird and allow our children to die or suffer when God has given us great freedom to use what he has provided us in his creation.
  5. It’s weird that we’ve created such a static system of morality that is not consistent in Scripture or in Jesus’ life. Most Christians look down on someone who smokes a cigarette or drops the F-bomb often while turning a blind eye toward the more destructive and sinister sins of gossip, materialism, gluttony, laziness, and greed. It’s weird. Remember when previous generations said it was wrong to play cards (I understand that there’s some contextual stuff here)? Can we be less about our position of right and wrong and more about whether our direction is taking us toward or away from Jesus (love, goodness, peace, etc.)?
  6. It’s weird when politics and faith have become so incredibly enmeshed like they are. I think that my choices about politics are intimately tied to my choices in faith. The two are incredibly and undeniably connected. But when the Christian vote becomes a sought after chip in the high stakes game of political power, when Christianity has become associated with such political stances as: supporting war and opposing anything that will make the rich poorer, when our views on society are shaped more powerfully by a political agenda than by the kingdom message that Jesus proclaimed…that’s weird. It just is.

There is so much more that could be said. There are so many ways that we’ve become weird, so many ways we’ve become caricatures of  real people. It’s like when we put on our Christian hat we start acting all goofy! So why don’t we all make a concerted effort to be intentional about what kind of goofy we choose to embrace. Lets be goofy lovers, caretakers, servants, learners, and creators! That’s worth being weird for.

Top Ten Recycling Habits From a New Perspective

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You should be all about recycling. If you aren’t, you should be. If you’re a Christian you should be especially passionate about recycling. Recycling is core to the Christian message, recycling is just smart and common sense, recycling is better for our world (and our kids world).

Recycling is core to the Christian message if you consider the fact that in recycling you are taking something that is spent, used up, and old and giving it new life, purpose, and usefulness. Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the old stuff, but to fulfill/complete it. In other words, he doesn’t throw out the old stuff, he restores it and reinterprets it and gives it new meaning. Some words that can be tossed around here might be redemption, renovation, transformation, new creation, etc. Christians should be all about the idea of recycling. If God isn’t into restoring broken and old things, making them new, and bringing new life all of humanity is in trouble!

As a follower of Jesus, listed below are some of the ways both big and small that I think the invitation to recycle is available. It is obviously in no way an exhaustive list, and neither is it listed in any particular order. So without further adieu here are my top ten recycling habits:

  1. Food. If you don’t have chickens to give your old scraps to (and thus produce eggs and great fertilizer) then get a compost pile so that your old food will turn into rich soil. Also, using old veggies and animal parts (eww) to make stock is a great way to recycle stuff that you will not (and should not) eat.
  2. Water. There are some pretty amazing ways you can recycle water, but I’m too lazy or inept to practice most of them. I know some people who collect the water from the bathroom sink in a bucket and use that bucket to flush the toilet. I know others who have water from dishwashers and washing machines drained out to use for gardening etc. I don’t do that stuff. But I do collect our rain water and use it to water the garden! I do use my kids kiddie pool water to water my plants (instead of dumping it every few days). Next time you’re about to dump out the remains of your glass of water, dump it in your houseplant instead.
  3. Bags. You can buy cloth bags for grocery shopping. We do. But we also forget to use them as often as we remember. So if you have to do the unthinkable (haha) and use plastic shopping bags, they work great as your new garbage can liners. We have nor purchased garbage bags in years ’cause we just use these from our local supermarket. Sure you have to empty the garbage a bit more often, but it’ll shave a few bucks off your grocery bill and it will put those bags back to use.
  4. Money. Buy locally. If you buy locally from local businesses and local owners and local shops and local food and…then your money stays in the community you love. The money you use to buy your kids a birthday present will go to a local family who owns the local toy shop that employs local individuals who buy things from their local supermarket who…etc. When you spend and shop locally, your money is recycled within your community to grow and develop the community you love.
  5. Clothes. Buy from used clothing stores, give your old clothes to others, but also old clothes can be quite useful for household projects! I grew up with a giant canvas tent for camping. The tent bag for our giant tent was a pair of my dads old jeans. The pockets were where the stakes were kept, the tent slid into the legs (that had been sewed together into one large space), and a drawstring was put through the belt loops. My wife has made purses out of old t-shirts, hats out of old sweaters, skirts out of old shirts, etc. Put those old clothes to work.
  6. Travel. Ok, this is a bit of a stretch, but if we change our behaviors so that our travel accomplishes more than getting us from A to B then we are creating more out of something than previously existed. If you ride your bike, not only are you cutting down on emissions and traffic, but you’re also exercising at the same time. If you take the bus not only are you cutting down on emissions and traffic, but you’re also being able to read or work on homework. If you carpool not only are you cutting down on emissions and traffic, but your also creating community and relationship.
  7. Death. Even in your death you can allow life to emerge by being an organ donor. Don’t hold out, you won’t need your heart anymore, so give it away.
  8. Yard. We American’s love our grass. I’m not totally sure why we’re so hardcore about our grass, because how often do you usually play in it? That’s what parks are for. Our yards can be so much more than pretty grass, instead we can make them work for us by putting garden plots, by growing strawberries and lettuces where grass might have been before. Get some chickens, grow some blueberries or grapes, allow your yard to do something for you, to be useful, and to bring more to your life.
  9. Books. I love books. I hate borrowing them, I love owning them. But as I work to get over my ownership mentality I’m seeing that not only is borrowing books from the library a great recycling practice, but loaning your books out to others and borrowing others books is a great way to let books have a greater life than the shelf. How cool would it be if we began to loan our books out and asked people to mark them up, highlight them, and jot down notes in the margins so that when you got the book back it would carry with it some of the life of the previous reader!
  10. Paper. This one should be redundant in our culture, but don’t use paper. Read your newspaper or magazine online. Use email instead of snail mail. Cut down on your junk mail by opting out (whats that website to do this again?). Setup your bills so that you don’t receive hard copies but only electronic copies. Dare I say buy a Kindle? Ok, I’m not ready to go there yet, but it’s probably inevitable!

I’m certain there are many other creative ways to recycle. Spend a few hours on Etsy.com and let your brain cram all the amazing and creative ways to recycle old materials. Shop at recycled stores, shop less, etc. There are so many ways we can embrace the beautiful opportunity to be a part of giving old, spent, and used up things new life and purpose. I mean, isn’t this what God does with humanity? Why should we do anything different?

The Death of the Cool Church

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If you’re going to start a church there are a lot of dumb things you can do. At Renovatus we’ve done many of them, and I think I’ve written that blog post before. But more and more I am becoming convinced that one of the worst things you can do is aim to be cool. Being a cool church is a terrible idea. It sounds fun, it is most definitely appealing, and it could possibly feel very successful. Local Christian college students will flock to your church if you’re cool enough. Depending on your definition of cool you’ll attract decent crowds from different demographics. We all want to be cool, so we are drawn to join and be a part of a cool church. It’s like being invited as an 8th grader to hang out with a senior. I’m pretty sure it’s a subplot to every episode of Glee. It’s a part of our broken nature, we want to find acceptance and dignity through those that live and act as if they own it. In other words, we want to hang out with the cool kids. So if you have the choice between two churches on your street, and one of them is filled with cool soul patches, cool artwork, and cool pastors that wear sunglasses inside the building like Bono part of us wants to be involved in that church…because if we’re a part of a cool church then we might be considered cool right? It’s Jr. High all over again.

I don’t claim to be able to identify which churches are trying to be cool churches. It’s not that easy. There are some really cool churches that actually have little vested interest in being cool, it is actually a byproduct of their commitment to mission and justice. (There’s always something appealing and kind of cool about a person or group who is confident and sure about who they are and what they’re about…even if it’s an “uncool” thing like loving poor people) As far as I am aware, there are only two definite ways of knowing if a church is seriously trying to be cool:

  1. You name yourself Cool Church
  2. You make your website www.coolchurch.com (Sorry Abundant Life Church but…well…you chose the url!)

Anyway, the reality is that following Jesus is not cool. Dying to yourself is not cool. Loving the unlovely is not cool. Caring for orphans and widows is not cool. Eating meals with those living on the streets is not cool. Following the child of a teenage mom who grew up as a peasant refuge and claimed to be a king only to be murdered as a criminal is not cool. It just isn’t.

When we try to make church cool, we water down what makes us unique, we begin to lose our voice. The Christ follower is invited to be different. And, no, we’re not different because we listen to Michael W. Smith music, we’re not different because we make T-shirts that play off already made products, we’re not different because we don’t sleep in on Sunday mornings, we’re not different because we don’t say cuss words, we’re not different because we don’t smoke cigarettes. I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that Jesus died so that we could be free from smoking cigarettes. I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that Jesus died so that we could go to church on Sundays. I’m sorry, I don’t believe that Jesus died so that we could say “darn” instead of “damn”. I’m sorry, I don’t believe that Jesus died so that we could listen to poor quality and less innovative music (Oops, I’ve got an obvious bias here). Those are all fine and dandy things, but they have very little to do with following Jesus! (though I do believe that the Sunday gathering CAN and should break this mold). When we make our aim to be cool we shift our focus from trying to please God to trying to please people. There’s a difference between pleasing people and loving, accepting, and caring for people. God invites us to be radical. Cool invites us to be mainstream. Mustard seed is not cool, it’s noxious, it’s an annoying weed, its invasive, and it’s the metaphor Jesus uses for his kingdom. Nope, joining in Jesus’ kingdom movement means that you’re going to be an awkward and annoyingly passionate lover of people. It means that you’re going to choose the path of sacrifice and generosity over the path of power and prestige. It means you love the unlovely (including yourself) it means you love people regardless of whether they are considered cool or un-cool.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Pursuit of cool and pursuit of crucifixion don’t really mesh. I wish they did because it’s always been my secret dream to be cool. I want it like the desert wants the rain. I grew up a poor black child …I mean, a preachers kid, a homeschooler, I married the only girl I ever kissed…while my experiences cause  me to have a different definition of cool than most, it has always been my dream to be cool. But the more I fall in love with Jesus, the more I get to know him, the more I find myself being freed from the oppression of cool.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Galatians 5:1

Heresy

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“Jesus reveals God to us; God does not reveal Jesus to us…We cannot deduce anything about Jesus from what we think we know about God; we must deduce everything about God from what we do know about Jesus…”

As a Christian Jesus is my ideal starting point. If I want to better understand the mystery of God I should seek to better understand Jesus. If I want to better understand the whole of Scripture I should seek to better understand Jesus. What does God feel and think about suffering? Look at Jesus. What does God feel or think about rejects and freaks? Look at Jesus. What does God think about money, materialism, and consumption? Look at Jesus.

Let me quickly add one caveat before I move on. Things are not simple! Just looking at Jesus is not simple. The reality is that I don’t have a clear picture of Jesus. I only see him through my own world view, through my own baggage. So while it is an incredible and difficult task in a sense to look at Jesus, I do believe that it is a forgiving task full of mercy and grace along the way. One of the beauties of following Him is that he knows my baggage, he knows my (in)ability to comprehend and understand who he is and what he is about. And most importantly he is able to meet me where I am at and create transformation and a new creation despite my ignorance or brokenness!

My purpose in this blog is to talk about church. If we are honest about ourselves we must accept the reality that most of what we practice and believe about church is solely taught or read about in the book of Acts and the letters in the latter half of the Bible. Very little of how we define and practice being the church is founded in our reading and understanding of Jesus. While I do not believe that Paul (who wrote many of those aforementioned letters) and Jesus would disagree with each other or throw down in fisticuffs if given the opportunity, I do think that we have improperly done our theology about church (in biblical theology circles this is called ecclesiology). Similar to how we try to fit Jesus into our understanding of God instead of the other way around, with church we have spent more time trying to fit Jesus into our understanding of Paul. Would things be different if we started with Jesus? Would things be different if we attempted to define what a movement of Jesus followers (church) would look like based on the life and ministry of Jesus himself and then look into Paul and the other New Testament writings to see what they came up with in doing the same process?

Take a step back and think about the early church. What did they have? They had the stories about Jesus. They had the Old Testament. They had their own context. And they had the working of the Holy Spirit. WE, on the other hand, get all that PLUS the stories of what those early faith communities did, what they struggled with, the questions they asked, and the dysfunctions they developed. If I created a formula to better describe how the early followers of Jesus came up with what church looked like, it might look like this:

  • Jesus + History (including the Old Testament) + Context + Spirit = first century church

Couldn’t you look at our churches, our ways of defining how to do church and suggest that our formula looks more like this:

  • Paul + your grandpa’s context + Spirit = western church

What if we tried to craft a different formula? Would church today look different if we made an authentic effort to live and practice out of this formula:

  • Jesus + Church History (including rest of Scripture) + OUR context + Spirit = ?

I’m no scholar, but I know that much of the early churches structures, practices, and disciplines were not new. They were things that they borrowed from out of their own context, history, and surrounding culture. They borrowed things that were of value in following Jesus. We, in turn, have made those things concrete. Have we made the wrong things concrete? Have we inadvertently practiced idolatry by elevating that which is not holy (the practices and structures) to a place of holiness? In Paul’s writings we see a community of people struggling with the equation, with the formula. In those writings we see the churches journey, their story, their “becoming”.

Have we I ignorantly tried to adopt their culture, their context, their problems, and their journey without following their lead? Would it not be more true to their journey, to Scripture, if I was to follow the early churches lead by looking at my Lord, looking at my context, looking at my story (history), and listening/looking for God’s untamed Spirit? I wonder what type of church I would end up with?

Sorry for the heresy. I’m an out loud processor, I grow most through dialog, through putting things out there that I may not even agree with…though, to be perfectly honest, I’m kind of liking what I’ve come up with.

A Warning to All Peacemakers Out There

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I found these words to be very powerful. They were spoken in 1984 by Ron Sider, a man who has done much to transform the world. He is speaking at the Mennonite World Conference when he says,

Unless we are prepared to risk injury and death in nonviolent opposition to the injustice our societies foster, we don’t dare even whisper another word about pacifism to our sisters and brothers in those desperate lands. Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce international conflict, we should confess that we never really meant the cross was an alternative to the sword. Unless the majority of our people in nuclear nations are ready as congregations to risk social disapproval and governmental harassment in a clear call to live without nuclear weapons, we should sadly acknowledge that we have betrayed our peacemaking heritage. Making peace is as costly as waging war. Unless we are prepared to pay the cost of peacemaking, we have no right to claim the label or preach the message.