Vacation violently thrusts you out of the everyday rhythm and routine, providing you with ample opportunity to rest… if you seize the moment. In our nine years of marriage, Tracy and I have only been on two extended vacations. (This one now in Hawaii being our second). We’ve attempted the three-day weekends in the hopes that they would provide us with some rest, allowing us to re-engage our worlds in a healthy and fresh way. What we found was that although those three-day excursions were a great start, they didn’t complete the process of getting us out of our everyday rhythms and routines.
Seven days. That’s how long this trip has been and that’s how long last years trip was as well. It has usually taken us 3 days just to finally get everything out of our heads: the deadlines and events that are on the horizon, the projects and ideas we need to get started once we return, the list goes on and on. A three day vacation was just long enough to briefly clear our minds… not really rest. Seven days has been good, mainly because the last four days are truly filled with rest, relaxation, excitement, fun, and good conversation that have all been waiting to pounce from behind the busyness of our every day. Seven days.
Today is our last full day of vacation before catching our flight back to San Francisco tomorrow afternoon. I am looking forward to getting back, I am looking forward to what’s next… but I wish there was another 7 days just like the last four.
My friend Brian Moll, a pastor at Forefront Church in New York City recently visited us in San Francisco just before we left for vacation. He was entering into the second 7 days of a 14 day vacation with his family. I was astonished that he was taking two-weeks off consecutively. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how on earth that could actually be possible. He said they tried it for the first time last year with an RV trip and absolutely loved it. It was an opportunity for them as a family to connect in healthy ways, an opportunity for him to come back to NYC and Forefront in a completely refreshed state ready to tackle any challenge that would come his way. Two-weeks. That’s their new norm in the summer as a family for vacation.
Two weeks would definitely be a vacation that would violently thrust you out of your everyday rhythm and routine providing you with ample opportunity for rest. I’m not sure I can make that jump just yet, but sitting here on day six of a seven day vacation, I certainly long for another seven days like the last four.
This is Holy Week. It’s the week prior to Easter commemorating the final week leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross and eventual resurrection on Easter Sunday. There is a great deal of emphasis on Holy Week, simply because there is a great amount of scriptural text devoted to this one particular week of Jesus’ life (over 30% of the Gospels are about Holy Week and beyond… in fact one whole semester in college was focused in on this week in the gospels, whereas another semester covered the other 3 1/2 years of Jesus’ life. It’s kind of a big deal.)
As I prepare myself for Easter this year, I’m going to be walking through a reading plan and meditating on the final week of Jesus’ life. I want to invite you to join me in this week of reflection.
Monday - Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Read John 12 and reflect on why Jesus is worthy of honor and worship as our King. How are you expressing that honor in your life?
Tuesday – Read John 14.5-14 and reflect on who Jesus says that he is and what a stronger relationship with him can look like.
Wednesday – Judas agrees to betray Jesus Read Luke 22.1-7. Reflect on the times that you’ve agreed in your own heart to betray Jesus…
Thursday – Last Supper. Read Luke 22.7-20. Every week we walk through this story at IKON as we prepare ourselves for communion. Reflecting on the sacrifice that we know was about to take place, how do you see this differently?
Saturday – Darkness Reigns and Jesus has been laid in the tomb. Read Hosea 6.1-3 and reflect on the darkness of the day and the hope of resurrection, the hope of rescue that awaits in the morning.
Sunday – Resurrection! Read Luke 24 and spend some time Thanking God for sending Jesus to rescue us and then join us at IKON at 9:30a or 11a to celebrate as a community!
Be still.
Be still and quiet yourself.
Be still and allow all the distractions that surround you, the noises of this place, the sounds of creation calling out, the voices in your head + the anxiety of the day, allow them all to quiet and cease.
Be still.
Be still and breathe.
Inhale deeply.
Allow the breathe to cleanse your spirit as you simply relax.
Be still.
It’s here in the silence of the moment that we begin to truly listen.
It’s here in the silence that God’s voice can truly break in.
It’s here in the silence that we are able to know God, to rest in His presence-not our own-and hear God say, “You are my beloved.”
Be still.
Be still and breathe
Be still and listen
Be still and know that God is present
Be still and know that you are His beloved.
Be still.
Last week I had the opportunity to join with over 3,000 church planters down in Orlando, Florida for the annual Exponential Conference. It was a good time of networking and connecting with people from all over the country, hearing their stories of triumph and defeat, excitements and challenges. Coming together like this as a community who are on a similar path is extremely valuable to anyone in the preparation stage or early stages of planting a church.
During the conference, it seemed that at every turn, with every speaker and each of the breakout sessions the “topic” of the Holy Spirit was mentioned, sometimes in great detail. (It was nice to hear the Holy Spirit show up in conversations and presentations not being used as a weapon to win an argument or make a point.) It seems as if the Church is having an easier time talking about the mystical nature of the Holy Spirit even if we don’t necessarily know what to do with Him/Her. Yet, at each turn it seemed as if there was a “silo affect” taking place in our approach to the Holy Spirit. It seems that we, as the Church have become fairly comfortable with two separate trains of thought, or silos, that we use to understand the Holy Spirit and yet we never allow these two thoughts to merge into a more holistic reality of who He/She is and how He/She works.
One of the stated categorizations that is perhaps more well known because of how outspoken its proponents are is that Holy Spirit works and it’s our job to join in where the Holy Spirit is working. There’s nothing wrong with this statement but the application of this statement is less than desirable. In this silo, the Christian’s responsibility is to simply wander around aimlessly, with no strategy, no plan, no ideation and simply hope to stumble upon where the Spirit was moving. (This idea was blatantly visible in a couple of breakouts that I attended.) Although there can be some tremendously good experiences and benefits that can grow from this mode of understanding–faithfulness, follower-ship, a submissive spirit–it removes responsibility of the mind from the follower. The Christian, therefore becomes a mindless wanderer hoping to stumble onto the movement of God. Secondarily, we find that the Holy Spirit is already working without the activity of humanity and our participation is voluntary at best and unnecessary at worst (especially if you have a high view of the sovereignty of God.)
The second silo that was evident is the exact reverse. This silo gives more credit to humanity than it does to the Holy Spirit. In this stated silo, the mind of man with strategies and planning, a heavy sense of responsibility for success, is in the forefront. This mode of thinking places a tremendous sense of responsibility on the Christian to go out and do your best with the best thinking that you have at your disposal and in the midst of the “task” simply hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will bless it. This is more of a Type A personality approach to the Holy Spirit. Just lead and “hope” the Spirit follows. This approach relegates the Holy Spirit to an after-thought. The dilemma: If what we’re doing is working, then why is the Holy Spirit necessary? The Holy Spirit’s only role then is to catalyze an already existent human idea. Blessing, therefore is seen as catalyzing a good idea–any idea that fails was obviously a bad idea according to the Holy Spirit’s standard no matter how good it may seem on paper or in practice.
As we continue to transition out of modernism as the church, it seems that we’re still maintaining a categorization approach to our theology. We are still more comfortable with an either/or approach, especially when its in regards to the Holy Spirit. (I wonder if this may have more to do with the schism that’s prevalent between the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement and everyone else.) This is grievously unfortunate when understanding the Holy Spirit.
Jim Collins unveiled for the world in his book Good to Great the valuable and important slogan “The Genius of the And” whereby two seemingly contradictory or incompatible ideas or methods somehow find their way together to create an even stronger or more powerful idea than previously possible. The two silos that the Church is working from needs to be blended together under the moniker of “And” so that we can enjoy a more holistic and fuller understanding of not only who the Holy Spirit is, but how the Holy Spirit works.
Since the beginning of the 1900′s with the reemergence of Charismatic Christianity we have worked hard to entrench ourselves into one of these two silos of understanding in regards to the Holy Spirit. We’ve worked hard to nail down the Holy Spirit to one particular form of working or another. (In fact, it seems as if we’ve treated the Holy Spirit more as an object rather than a subject.) What’s truly interesting about this approach is that I don’t think it’s possible to truly nail down the Holy Spirit to one of these silos. I woud argue that the Holy Spirit will do what he/she wants, when/where he/she wants to do it, to whomever or through whomever he/she wants, however he/she wishes!
It’s when we try and silo the Holy Spirit that we miss out on a great deal of possibilities not only in our own lives, but in the life of the Church. I truly wonder what a holistic understanding of the Spirit looks like, how a truly blended ideation of these two silos functions and what else beyond the two understandings we’re missing out on as the Spirit works throughout the Church and beyond…
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Love, Pray talks about the divine spark of creativity. There is much to chew on and a great deal to wrestle with in terms of how we have shifted the self and human expression to the center of creativity, accepting all the credit, instead of seeing the Divine as the center utilizing humanity as the vessel through whom He wishes to express Himself to us. There are interesting implications and a great tension between the two.
So then, who ultimately is creator? Is it a Divine expression working through humanity? Is it humanity expressing itself back to the Divine? Is there a tandem at play, a Divine dance, between humanity and the Divine?
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.
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.
