“You have to let your father and father figures go. You must stop seeing yourself through their eyes and trying to make them proud of you.

For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.”

Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

I’ve long been a fan of the raw, authentic, transparent nature of slam poetry but no one has captured my attention more than Anis Mojgani. Recently Soul Pancake did an interview and included a couple of videos of him in action. I highly recommend checking them out and listening to the thoughts of life, spirituality and relationship that run deep within. Below is an excerpt of the interview that Soul Pancake did with Anis on spirituality and religion. Very thought provoking responses…

On spirituality, God, and (gulp) religion…

SP: Is spirituality a trend?
AM: Sometimes I think it is. Our society is weird: It’s a non-secular society that pretends it’s secular and is filled with a people that want the benefits of religion without recognizing religion as being something beneficial. We have all these things that supply us with what we hunger for—new clothes, tasty food, hot kicks, movies, television, music—but there are aspects of our make-up that don’t get fulfilled. We’ve created a society where it’s not even kosher or cool to discuss the emptiness, the unexplainable longing that passes in and out of all our lives. I feel that is connected to the spirit. There are these moments in all of us when we are inexplicably joyous or sorrowful, but we’ve boxed ourselves up so as not to talk about this as freely as we may discuss 30 Rock or Seinfeld.

That’s why spirituality becomes trendy. There is a hunger that many of us have for some divine and spiritual connection, but there is no arena to have that without committing to a religion, which a good number of us hold zero interest for. So what to do? Well, here’s this thing “spirituality.” And it allows me to feed my soul and commune with my spirit without having to deal with the connotation of organized religion.

SP: Chanting, chakras, and chopras aside, what does being “spiritual” really mean?
AM: I believe it to refers to maintaining a connection, a communication, a relationship, with the inner mechanics of the world—the same mechanics that power us.

SP: Where does God play into all of this?
AM: God is the builder of those inner mechanics.

SP:Then why is talking about God so awkward?
AM: Cuz it’s abstract! We want to be right in our thoughts and our beliefs, and for many of us, the thought of discussing that could mean that we are wrong. And that would be bigger than being wrong about a math problem—it’s being wrong about our entire structure of being.

SP: Have you ever had a moment when you felt God?
AM: I was riding a bicycle in Savannah, Ga., and something clicked. Things made sense. The blades of grass and the size of them and how small and how big they are, and it felt like I was in the lap of something bigger than all of this. I started crying—just bawling—and then I started laughing at what a sight I must have been, crying and biking in the middle of the day, and the tears came down even more and the laughs came out even harder, and the whole time, I felt him.

SP: Do we need religion?
AM: We need a new definition of religion. I think ours is outdated? Maybe too small. I need what religion actually is, which is a way to reveal to humanity how to exist as strongly and nobly as we can—and how to maintain that.

SP: What gives ‘religion’ such a bad name?
AM: People.

SP: Would the world be better off without religion?
AM: Based on the results of what we have done in the name of religion, yes. But based on what I feel religion actually is and has the potential to be, no.

Wednesday night I made my way down to Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park to hear the L.A. Times Religion writer, William Lobdell talk about his new book Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace. I didn’t really know what to expect walking in, but I was quickly overwhelmed at the large gathering of people that had come to listen. I would estimate there was in upwards of 125 people packed in (standing room only) to listen to William talk about his journey. (You can read, a short version of last nights lecture here.)

As an investigative reporter (and Christian at the time), Lobdell turned his investigative prowess on Christianity and the church to help ease some of his doubts created in large part (by his own admission) to what he was experiencing in his investigation of the Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal. His doubts emerged from one experience (recounted in in this article) where the church came to the defense of Father Harris, a priest accused of 12 counts of molestation. Lobdell found himself perplexed and devastated at the church’s misplaced compassion–they were rallying around Father Harris, but didn’t seem to care for the victim one iota. This was only one step in his journey that included investigating The Trinity Broadcasting Network, their preaching/practice of the prosperity gospel and specifically Benny Hinn whom he labeled as a fraud. (Hinn rakes in an estimated $90/year in salary while his followers “pay” for healing to the point of poverty.)

These investigations led Lobdell to specifically investigate the validity (fruits) of the gospel in the lives of Christians. His basic thesis/assumption was: If the gospel is true, then the behavior of Christians should be better than that of Atheists. Unfortunately, Lobdell found what most of us know to be true–there is no difference, statistically speaking, between professing Christians and professing Atheists–divorce rates in the church are higher, Generosity is lower, and scientific studies of prayer found no difference on healing for a Christian vs. non-healing for an Atheist. Lobdell concluded, “Every investigation led me against faith.” (Lobdell seems to be the “anti-Strobel“)

As Lobdell spoke about his investigations I resonated with his conclusions regarding the actions/behavior of Christians vs. the rest of the world (much like everyone else present in the room), however I could not and have not been able to come to his ultimate conclusion that “Faith is wishful thinking, not reality.”

Lobdell went on to lament that Christianity and the Church is unable to live with and embrace doubt, that it’s not valued by Christians and the Church and as a result, it something that pushes people away more than it gives them certainty. I have agreed with this assessment for years. There is a tension that is always prevalent between faith and doubt, and it’s living in that tension that allows space for growth, space for relationship with God to build, and space for a new way of life to emerge. Faith is not a verifiable, provable certainty in the same way that doubt is not a verifiable, provable certainty–many see doubt as the opposite of faith, the polar-opposite and in a sense a polar-certainty (atheists included–see Richard Dawkins). Lobdell, although stating that he is now more comfortable with his doubts moved paradoxically to state definitively that he believes there is no personal God, trading in one set of certainties for another instead of living in the tension he claims to desire. This is a philosophical dilemma he seemingly doesn’t recognize and blatantly obvious in his final, ironic statement of the evening: “If I were on the plane that landed on the Hudson, would I be praying? I hope not… but the flesh is weak.”

Last Sunday was my final Sunday at the Shorewood Campus and Community Christian Church. I must say that it was bittersweet, however I can’t imagine a better place to have served.

When I started at Community 14 months ago I was in a completely different place than I am now, fresh off a gut wrenching and soul draining experience—in short a hellish year of ministry (somehow even those words can’t quite sum it up). Tracy and I came to Community extremely wounded, limping in on our last legs and expecting the impossible from the people and staff of Community. We came in expecting them to restore our hope in the church, to restore our wounded psyche, our broken hearts, and help us on the road back to wholeness. What was unfair on our part—we didn’t tell them of these expectations.

What’s amazing about the staff at Community and in particular the people of the Shorewood Campus: they didn’t bat an eye, were completely unfazed and immediately surrounded us with an amazing presence of love, support and encouragement like we have never experienced before. It’s the same sort of love, support and encouragement that they give to everyone—yet for us it hit the spot and did more than we could have ever hoped or imagined.

Fourteen months later I am leaving with a renewed sense of hope and faith in the church, a firm belief that the church can actually be a healthy, vibrant, world changing force. This post doesn’t come close to giving Community its due for how it has shaped and impacted me over the past year, but I am far different and a far better person because of how this church pushed towards the mission every day. Thank you Community… I wouldn’t be heading to San Francisco if it hadn’t been for you.

Last week while spending time at the North American Christian Convention I was able to make my way into a session on Spiritual Formation led by Dr. Neal Windham of Lincoln Christian College. A few of the statements that Dr. Windham made led me down a particular path of thought that juxtaposed our current emphasis on leadership with our lack of emphasis on spiritual formation as necessity.

I have had the opportunity throughout the past couple of years to spend some time at various conferences throughout the country focused specifically on being the church and bettering yourself as a leader. However, I have never found it odd that spiritual formation was never mentioned in the same breath as leadership until Dr. Windham said this:

Ministries can become small, shallow and confused when we neglect the doxological life.

In other words, leadership is important, vision is important, but without a leader who walks with God they are worthless.

It seems as if in our conferences and even in many of our churches we almost assume that spiritual formation is happening even though we do not have the necessary means of measuring or examining the inner life in accountable relationships. Leadership, it seems is all we’re focused on learning about and growing into.

There must be a radical transformation among the people and specifically the leadership of God’s church… yet, in our conventions and conferences the emphasis sits squarely upon the idea of leadership. It is great leaders we bring in to teach us and speak about leadership issues but we rarely, if ever, bring in a great person on spiritual formation to speak to the masses. I do wonder how many leaders, when looking underneath the mask, truly struggle and are unaware with what spiritual formation truly is and how to go about it.

As a church we need to recover a new attentiveness to the Other, a new understanding and emphasis on formation by the work of the Spirit not only in our people but perhaps more especially in our leaders.

I believe the emphasis on leadership has been extremely effective without it I’m not sure we’d see some of the amazing ministries that are on the landscape today. As a result, I’m not advocating we reduce the notion of leadership or reduce our emphasis on it. Rather, I believe what we need is to elevate the role of spiritual formation in our conversation and practice to the level or above where we currently hold leadership. It will be then and only then that the church will begin to move forward into a new realm of revival.

Leadership and spiritual formation is not an either/or issue… it’s both/and.

An excerpt from my journal…

Nearly 2 months have gone by since journaling or really paying much attention to Scripture… and 2 months later I can certainly feel myself out of joint, out of rhythm, and out of sync. I’m amazed at how this discipline and this time truly helps me to slow down my thoughts, focus on the day and the tasks ahead and settle into the rhythms that God has created in me.

Journaling isn’t just for my relationship with God, but it’s also for my own sanity…

I’ve always enjoyed journaling, always found it rewarding and exciting to fill up page after page with my thoughts and reflections… but that might just be because I really do like to write more than anything. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I was able to finally put my finger on exactly what the benefit of journaling is for my life… and why it’s such an important discipline for me to undertake. This is one of those journal entries that I will undoubtedly come back to time and time again, and more than likely repeat in some form throughout the next several months as this discipline truly takes root in my heart, mind and soul.

My journal has a lot of pages dripping with anger, angst, emotion and remembrance. I really enjoy going back through it and seeing just how much God has done throughout my life, especially in just short amounts of time. I think this discipline is a keeper.