Category Archives: spirituality

FACT: Christians Cannot Be Boring…right?

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Very few people, if any, want to be considered dull. I certainly don’t want you to think I’m boring…or even worse, I don’t want to actually be boring! Boring people are…well…kind of boring to be around.

On the side of a hill one day Jesus powerfully told a group of outcast followers that

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

These are especially powerful words if you consider them written to marginalized people with little financial, political, or legal control in their lives. Think about it, how many of us have moments where we approach a migrant worker and let them know that their lives bring flavor to our world, that if they stop being who they are our world will lack zest and flavor–that essentially we not only need them but want them to be a part of our world! (as a side note, this is the potential beauty of a little idea festering on Facebook called “Vancouver Speaks” that seeks to honor the often invisible people who bring life and meaning to the city of Vancouver. Check her out and engage)

Even though it’s a powerful idea to remember that Jesus often elevated marginalized people into places of honor and beauty it still does not actually get to the point of his words about flavor. His point, I think, was that in following Jesus–in taking up his invitation to live radically, to love radically, to be transformed by an alternative (and redemptive) story one becomes a flavor changing force in the world around! Those who follow Jesus cannot be boring people because they are living out the epic story of hope, significance, meaning, sacrifice, and generosity! If you’re not bringing flavor then what are you doing?

Christians should be genuinely worried about being boring. They should be genuinely concerned with living out of the reality of the Jesus story which is one that brings joy and empowerment to marginalized peoples, it invites us to honor and dignify our children and elderly, it questions our selfishness and invites us into otherness, it should be tasty, flavorful, refreshing, and useful.

Because if your story doesn’t taste good…what’s the point?

Children and the Imago Dei

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Watching my son walk through the living room just now I was struck by the fact that he’s such a little person. I don’t mean to say that he’s a small child, but that he’s actually a functioning, living, breathing, thinking, feeling short person who has not yet lived on earth for an extended period of time.

I realize that right about now I’ve confused or annoyed you, but here’s the thing: we treat children as if they’re sub human (definitely sub ‘adult’ human). We naturally desire to control them, to manipulate them in order to facilitate meeting our own needs as adults. We don’t view them as little people (think human being) we view them as sub-human people. Think about it, if you’re in conversation with a friend over a cup of coffee you will either ignore your ringing cell phone or you will give ample explanation why you’re going to answer it in the middle of your conversation. What do you do if you’re talking to a kid? If you’re in conversation with a child and your phone rings how often do we simply answer the phone without worry about the fact that we’re interrupting our conversation with a child? I teach my children constantly (not intentionally) that my phone ringing is more important than my conversation with them. How tragic!

How much easier is it to scream at a child than it is to scream at an adult? How much easier is it for some to justify hitting a child (think spanking) than to justify hitting an adult (please don’t think spanking)?

While children are obviously in a much earlier place of learning–learning how to function, how to read and write, how to use their words kindly, how to cope with stress, etc. the fact that we’re helping to train them should not give reason to treat them with lesser respect than we’d treat an adult. Adults are learners as well right? We’ve just had more time to learn more things…sadly I question whether we’ve learned more than children about how to respect others (could this be because it wasn’t modeled?)

We’ve probably all heard that respect is earned not given and I think I agree with that to an extent. But there’s also that small little fact that as a follower of Jesus I believe that every person (whether tall or small) was created in the image of God and therefore deserves respect and dignity because of his or her identity as beautiful icons of God himself. Age or learning curve cannot change this fact…can it?

Defining Rhythms to Life Together

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Eat-storytelling-dream-act

Those four things have become central to our life in downtown Vancouver. When people gather three of those four things nearly always happen. Those four things are not only rhythms to our gathering but they’re really rhythms to how my brain is starting to function.

Eat– Eating is one of the most deeply spiritual things we do. In the western world much of this has been lost to capitalism because we’re more concerned with getting things quick and cheap than we are with engaging the actual process and experience. Good parties happen around food and drink, the historical accounts of Jesus happen around food and drink (especially the story that the gospel of Luke tells), relationship happens around food and drink, life doesn’t happen without food and drink. Food and drink should never be worshiped, but food and drink is an act of worship. It’s a celebration, its a proclamation of our togetherness–togetherness with each other, togetherness with our soil, togetherness within ourselves (our hands prepare the food, our mouth enjoys the food, our body needs the food, etc.)

Storytelling– storytelling is not just about regaling people with a fantastic narrative, storytelling is what happens around a table. Storytelling is why I’m writing this in a coffee shop. Storytelling is what you discover when you listen to others. Everyone’s got a story to tell there are just not many people who are willing to listen and care about others stories. When we choose to listen, to ask questions, to remember and value others lives we are engaging in and valuing the practice of storytelling. We are all storytellers at heart, we’ve just lost our audience. Storytelling however is not just an individual thing–neighborhoods and cities have their stories, communities have their stories, even our house has a story. One of the most beautiful gift we received at our housewarming was a nicely written chronology of our house. A woman did research and discovered who its owners were, when it was built, and some of the things that had happened in the life of our house. I don’t know about you but I get consumed myself–with the fact that nobody wants to hear my story. I get so caught up with what’s next that I stop pausing to learn the story of my city, my community, even my own home. We don’t care about the past we care about the future! Innovation! Discovery! New ideas, new places, new experiences! But what is so profoundly true is that there’s no better soil for dreaming a new future into existence than the rooted and powerful stories of our past.

Dream– As was just alluded to, dreaming is a natural extension of healthy interaction with our stories. When we listen to others we catch some of their dreams for the future, when we learn about our community we start to hear potential new realities emerge from the movement of the past. Dreaming is rooted in our stories, in listening to each other, in knowing who we are and where we’re from. Part of the reason that listening to each other is so important to dreaming is that for a dream to become a reality we’ve got to share it, it’s got to become the shared dream of the community. Dreaming invites to question what could be, it engages our often dormant imagination, it invites us into the godly pursuit of creation.

Act– Dreamers don’t change the world unless they or someone else carries those dreams and makes something happen. Action is not only important it is essential for life together. We do not act on everything  (can you imagine the exhaustion?!), but we do act. We do not always take action, but it’s always a part of the horizon. Acting, innovating, actually creating is not an end goal as much as it is a healthy natural response to eating together, to listening to each other, and to dreaming new realities. I’m starting to believe that if we throw ourselves into the first three rhythms the fourth will be inevitable.

Jesus is not gluten free

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My family eats gluten free. My wife has been cooking gluten free for most of our marriage and is actually quite skilled at it. She can bake really good bread, chocolate chip cookies, scones, etc. But I think there’s something inherently off about the gluten free culture. The gf culture is completely concerned with mimicry. All they do is try to recreate gluten-filled foods. They spend great energy (and lots of money!) trying to make bread that is as close to wheat bread as possible. But it is not wheat bread. It’s an impostor. It’s a faker. Instead of a cup of wheat flour you end up throwing in a little brown rice flour, xanthum gum, tapioca starch, and corn starch among other things. It’s not wheat bread. Some really good bakers can make gluten free pastries that taste nearly identical to regular pastries. Its awesome. I love it and crave it.

For quite some time the church has been the same. With regard to being creators (like a baker) they’ve been completely consumed with mimicry. For years there was no innovation or creativity, they’d look at the world around them and try to create “Jesus-versions” of what they saw. Like gluten free food they spend all their time trying to look like everyone around them…but they’re not everyone around them. The TV show Glee is creative and it has an identity, but this is not creative and its identity is tied up completely in being a crappy and cheesy version of something else (a terrible identity to own!). That shirt isn’t creative. It’s not cool. Its a faker and an impostor. Even still, however, some Christians crave this stuff. They buy up cheesy ‘Jesus knock offs’ like mad and sport those shirts with pride.

What if both groups (gluten free eaters and Christians) stop trying to be something they’re not? What if they both come to peace with who they are and stop trying to copycat those around them? What if gluten free eaters started viewing healthy and delicious eating apart from a wheat existence? Fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, nuts…they could live off this stuff quite happily if they own it. Christians would be better off if they simply owned who they were. If they stopped defining themselves based on who they aren’t and started defining themselves based on who they are (and could be) everyone would be better off. Caring for the poor, compassion toward the marginalized, and taking risks for the sake others are all things Christians should own. I love seeing Christians wearing more t-shirts with non-profits on them because they better represents their identity. Other Christians refuse to wear labels on their clothes because they don’t want to be defined by these labels and neither do they want to support businesses that propagate pain in the world.

Own it. It’s a risky move, you’ll lose yourself before you find yourself, but at least it’ll be real…and I think it’ll actually be better.

You are god(like)

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I don’t buy the lie. While I agree that any student of history can easily observe that ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ insomuch as we repeat the same mistakes over and over again in history, there is a cycle to our foolishness, etc. But I believe that is a shallow and hallow view of history, of future hope, and of the present reality. In scripture Jesus claims that “(he) makes all things new” which I believe is not just a claim about resurrection, about the future kingdom of God but about today–about you and me–about what God IS doing not simply about what God WILL do.

Every single one of us, every single one of you is created in the image of God. God doesn’t make shit. He made you in his likeness. You are special and beautiful and amazing and (dare I say) god-like. No person was a mistake.* In and through you and I God is actively making all things new. We are invited to partner with him in restoration, transformation, and reconciliation. We are invited to partner with him even as we ourselves are experiencing it new and fresh.

No, everything is new under the sun. We might follow some of the same cycles of life, we might make the same mistakes over and over again. But that is not because there’s nothing new under the sun. It is because sin and failure is not a creative empire. God, however, is in the business of creating, of creating new things and he invites us to do so with him. In you and I, because of our identity as image bearers, because we follow a creative God, because we are unique and special we we are seeing new things emerge in our world. Everything is new because you’ve never been where you’ve been before, no one else has been you nor will anyone else ever be you. Therefore you have the opportunity to digress into the simple and uncreative life of brokenness or you have the invitation to step into a life of creativity, innovation, imagination, exploration, and purpose. Another phrase to summarize that might be the kingdom of God.

*  Honestly this is an intimidating statement for me to make because I can easily think of multiple people in history who I wish were never created. If they never existed I think we all would have been better off. It’s an honest clashing of my belief system and my experience. In this instance I’m choosing to believe.