I gave the message this past Sunday on the rich passage of John 13. It was entitled “Loyalty Tests and Dirty Feet” (you can listen/watch it here) and it’s the familiar scene of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples during their meal on the week of Passover. This is the night where he gives the “Farewell Discourse” (John 13-17) and shortly after will be praying in the garden where he will be arrested. This is the night that Peter will deny Jesus three times, the other disciples will also disappear and this is the night that Judas will forever be known as the betrayer of Jesus.

As you read the Gospels, Jesus keeps trying to prepare the disciples that this is coming. But it’s unimaginable to them. They know Jesus is a “spiritual guy” but they cannot get past the idea that this Kingdom he keeps talking about is not an earthy kingdom. I mean, who wants a spiritual kingdom?

One of the moments that has gripped me is after Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, he tells them that one [Read more…]

Some quick thoughts for this new Lenten season:

1. Lent is about preparing our hearts for the journey of Easter.
It includes themes like brokeness, redemption, self-denial, forgiveness, death and life and many more. I have found that if focus on only one of these themes and neglect others that I miss out on part of the goodness Lent can offer. A Lenten journey that covers a lot of ground is the way to go.

2. Whatever you do, don’t become a legalist.
What to give up, what to add, which devotional, how much do I say or not say to my right  [Read more…]

Doug Pagitt is releasing his new book Flipped this Tuesday and I hope you check it out. I was able to obtain a pre-release (without any promise/payment of a review/endorsement). Like with any pre-release I try to get my hands on, I was hoping I would like it, but with high expectations sometimes comes disappointment. In this case, I’m happy to say Flipped delivered and I really liked it.

The basic premise (from Author/Publisher):

“We all have stories in our heads about God, humanity, life, and the meaning of it all. One of the most common—and misleading—stories is “If I’m faithful in doing this, then God promises to do that.” Jesus didn’t believe it and neither should you. God does not insist that you play by the rules before he will respond to you. A careful reading of the Bible will free all of us from trying to make a deal with God, inviting us instead to live in God.”

And a thought from Doug:

[Read more…]

Brian Williams is the cautionary tale of the week. As you probably know, he’s taken himself off the air and has admitted to being untruthful in his accounts such as his helicopter being shot down while he was covering the war in Iraq. Many of his other stories are now under suspicion as well and it’s likely going to be a long year for him. And of course, when you are found out today, you get made fun all over cable and flogged on social media.

There’s a lot in this story for me. One his actions represent to me why we cannot take the media to be a reliable source of information and truth. At best, it’s a system of partial half-truths. The news business is compromised with its competition for ratings, advertising dollars, reputations, status and more. In a world uncontrolled by business and status, could we get better news? I believe so but the question still remains, how well we can actually know something?

This of course sends me back to the posts from last week, “I don’t know what to believe” from the significant to the trivial, to current events, to the spiritual, etc. I used to think if I just had the right data, I could arrive to reliable conclusions. If I applied the right hermeneutics, and prayed just enough, I could understand this particular passage of Scripture. The experience of life has taught me (and probably you), that this is not a reliable strategy and being Spirit-led is more for the journey than the occasion. 

Back in college, there was this guest preacher who came and gave these messages filled with some amazing stories. On this particular night following the chapel service, the campus pastor invited me [Read more…]

To paraphrase philosopher Peter Rollins, there is a tendency to outsource our faith and have someone else do the believing for us. At first, I thought it was another one of Pete’s interesting conjectures but felt it was a bit of an overstatement. Then he offered this next thought: Imagine a pastor announcing to his congregation that he/she no longer believed in their Christian faith. Likely such a confession (or anti-profession) would shatter the faith of a significant number who identified that person as a pastor and spiritual leader in their life.

As a pastor, I’ve often thought about this, not because I am on the brink of abandoning my faith and overwhelmed by the guilt of ruining the faith of others but for two reasons: One is what the pastor represents and two, the fragility of faith.

There are pastors who abandon their faith, there are those who have done so quietly but keep on pastoring (this is scandalous) and of course, there are those that truly believe despite the madness of the world. Further, whenever I hear of a pastor publicly renouncing their faith, I feel more sympathy than threat. My faith is more troubled by the evil and suffering we encounter in this world. All this said, when I imagined what I might feel should my favorite theologians/thinkers abandon their faith, I was bit more bothered.

What if N.T. Wright came out and stopped believing? What if his next book was Simply Atheism, Why I No Longer Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? What if Ruth Haley Barton started to teach that prayer is not actually transcendental, merely psychological for incremental self-improvement? What if Tim Keller preached his last sermon and it was entitled, “Richard Dawkins is Right”? I’ll admit, it would stun me.

The previous post discussed the issue of spiritual laziness, in this one I’m aiming to confront it. When framed this way, it feel like the first question then is asking, “Who is doing the work of believing for me?” or “Have I outsourced my faith?” and the second is “What is it that I actually believe (and/or trying to figure out)?”

Similar to the first post, it’s tempting to just yell out, “Jesus!” and while this is true in the big picture, this doesn’t actually help that much in the local and immediate. Yelling “Jesus” at your billers, or in the middle of a conflict or at Isis does not solve the problem. It’s who Jesus is to us and what this means to the situation that makes the difference. Thus, this unpacking, believing and practicing requires work and diligence.

For some, believing is outsourced to a particular media outlet (or a defined ideology), or to the consensus of their friends, whether be trusted friends or people they aspire to be or be accepted by. For some, believing is outsourced to their tribe, whether it be familial or occupational or some other marker of identification. Lastly, some outsource belief in a number of different directions, held together by what is most convenient or alluring to them in the moment.

While I believe we must hold our convictions with an open-hand, we must be careful that our beliefs are not whimsical and superficial. The great revealer of weak belief is how it endures during times of testing and the storms of life which brings to mind Jesus’ parable of building your house on rocks versus sand.

Who is doing the believing for you? That’s a harder question than it first appears to be. It’s in exploring how I come to my beliefs that cause me to wrestle.

Can I disagree from your favorite authors and thinkers? For me, I need to remind myself that N.T. Wright, Martin Luther and C.S. Lewis are not infallible. Not only that, I’m finding that not only can I disagree with them but I must on some level so I can preserve my own thinking. Further, as great as certain minds are, there all contain blindspots and weaknesses. Apparently C.S. Lewis was terrible at math, Luther was a racist, and I’m not sure that N.T. Wright knows any music outside Bob Dylan and the Beatles, which isn’t bad, but there’s certainly much more.

Wright probably has the better handle on soteriology, Pauline studies and historical Jesus, but is it possible that you might have a better understanding of say, the doctrine of creation? Is it possible that in heaven, you might have tea with C.S. Lewis and help bring clarity to his understanding of the atonement? And it’s safe to understand that many in the church have a better understanding of multiculturalism/multi-ethnicity that the great reformer Luther (but we certainly have a ways to go).

To avoid outsourcing our faith does not mean that we practice belief in a self-contained vacuum. But not just the brilliant minds of those whom we read but we also need each other’s presence to have dinner, wine and coffee with and  to gather in each other’s living rooms. We need different forms of community. Not so the community thinks for us in some sort of tribal group think, that’s unhealthy as well. Thinking in community means we contribute to each other, listen to each other,  process our confusion together, correct, rebuke, reform, reframe, create, and continue walking together.

For Christ-followers we must be rooted in Scripture as well. This blog often critiques the shallow Christian thought and cliches that we hear. This series of posts has taken special aim to “Jesus is the answer” (which He is). But it’s been my experience that some Christians have used this excuse to refrain from being a student of Scripture. After all, if it all comes down to a revered, five-letter name, why read the 66 books? In short, we need to study the 66 books, we need to read the books about the 66, we need to hear sermons, study privately, and study in community. This is part of the tradition of “Sola Scriptura” that the Reformers (including Martin Luther) fought so valiantly for.

Lastly, we need to depend on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Inevitably, our best minds will fail us, even the best of our communities will bring hurt at one point or another, and our own understanding of our God-given Scriptures may even impair us. We need to be people committed to the leading of the Holy Spirit as we pray, serve, learn, unlearn, gather, and worship in general. This latter point, is the only one that is exclusively divine, and unimpaired by our own personal/collective deficiencies. And it’s through this process that we confront our spiritual laziness and construct a robust faith for belief and practice.

There are a couple other drafts of thought regarding “being informed,” seeking the balance of worldly matters and having your head stuck in the clouds and being manipulated/brainwashed or lied to. Would welcome feedback on what’s connecting and/or what could use some fleshing out. Feel free to comment or private message me via email, text or Facebook.

Grace and peace, Tim

It happens every day. I hear something, I read something online, is it true? Then see its immediate rebuttal. “It’s not a true story!” He’s lying, “The media is making it up for the gullible.” or “It’s factually inaccurate and empirically unverifiable.” Statistics, study findings and a touching anecdote to reply to the posters. I find myself thinking way too long about what is true and if relevant and what should be done. For me, this results in a stalling in what to think, and therefore what to do.

The previous post described the frustration of trying to buy a burr coffee grinder on Amazon and how this simple experience illustrated the decision-making process and belief formation in countless other things. The post concluded with the idea with the idea that Jesus may be the ultimate answer but what if you’re not actually asking the ultimate questions? What about all the normal, everyday things that range from extremely important, fairly significant, important but temporary, all the way to trivial and fleeting? Merely shouting “Jesus!” to such things may not actually help our faith or bring clarity and instead, may actually be a form of spiritual laziness. 

Spiritual laziness can be seen in many forms. Perhaps the most common is moving through life in this heavenly-minded, cruise-control. It’s the consumer-Christianity, the going through the motions, the mindless easy-believism,  “If it feels good, do it” and “just give my piece of heaven” sort of thing. This is the type of spirituality that slips away from sacrifice, refuses to answer the door commitment and avoids suffering at all costs. Think of the religious leaders who cross the street to avoid caring for someone. I loathe this type of spirituality because I know first-hand how easy it is to slip in and out of it.

Another aspect of spiritual laziness is the “quick to arrive at conclusions.” Some might call this efficiency and encourage me to read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink (I did read it, this isn’t what he means). I’m criticizing going with the first decent answer, insert convenient, somewhat workable philosophy here, and settling too soon if you will. While I am not suggesting that we agonize over every decision, the opposite process proves to be unwise as well. There is a temptation to cut to the chase and “just believe.”  There is a satisfaction to it, there’s closure, no more wondering, wrestling and at times, no more worrying.

And while there are probably more versions and aspects to spiritual laziness, one of it’s biggest problems is that it deludes us and those around us into feeling more Christian and loving than we really are. It disguises itself in a piety that when examined or challenged, false apart fairly quickly. Further it sabotages opportunities for growth because it prefers never to struggle, suffer or grind – again, because it’s lazy.

For example, a few weeks ago someone posted a status update that contained tragic news. Many wonderful and sincere people offered their support and sympathies (the situation did not call for condolences at this point). One person chimed in with a “Chin up – God’s in control!”

I assume this person was a fellow Christian, probably a wonderful person. I’m certain this person will track me down and I’ll hear all about how she single-handedly saved their church nursery ministry, led the entire congregation to Jesus, including the pastor, and then later foiled a terrorist plot. Indeed, this person is a saint, in the tradition of Jack Bauer. That said, on this particular day at that particular moment, the saint acted umm, to put it politely, less than saintly and more insensitively and flat out lazy.  The triteness of the update was not encouraging, it felt more like, “Get over it, keep you eyes pointed to the heavens (literally), your pain is of little cosmic significance and God is still alive and good.” 

Of course God is in control, in the sense that He is sovereign over all things, we believe this to be ultimately true but in the moment what we need to remind each other is that God is here in the midst of the pain. God being in control does not necessarily mean that our particular crisis will be solved. God being in control does not guarantee that our loved one will be cured or that there will not be another terrorist attack or school shooting or any other of our countless nightmare scenarios.  God being in control ultimately means that those who put their trust in Him will abide with Him but that does not mean we will win every battle until then. 

This I believe. Not only does none of this feel lazy to me, this feels anything but as the lazy thing would be to avoid any sense of pain and struggle and settle for a more optimistic sentiment. Still, there’s more to confronting the spiritual laziness issue which I’ll keep unpacking in the next post. Have a thought or pushback? Know that I’d love to hear it. Thanks for reading.