10 That Made Life Sound Better In 2010

Don't get a chance to see many movies in the theater, but saw Tron Legacy with the kids today. Considering I fell asleep during the original Tron (what 20-25 years ago? as second of a double feature with Blade Runner), this was a better movie than I expected, and actually a pretty good film. There were a couple of theological thoughts I had while watching:

1) Why is it that every "futuristic" vision looks more apocalyptic, sterile, minimalist, and monochromatic than our current reality? Why doesn't our future look more human, not less? When I think of the trajectory of scripture, we are to be more like the nth century church than the 1st century church, with the future breaking into the present making us a new humanity. The question is, Does the church create a more promising and colorful future, or a more boring and monochromatic one?

2) The main message of the film, I thought, was that perfection is ruthless, where perfection is the absence of mess, chaos, and what is ultimately human. It is perfection in a cold, steely, clinical sense - and ultimately dehumanizing. What to make of Jesus call then to "be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect"? Jesus' call is not to perfection as our ruthless and merciless accuser, but as call to a higher love, where perfection is the expression of love for that which is precisely imperfect - that is us. It is a radical call to relationship, a call to embrace all that is imperfect in the arms of grace.

Currently Reading

In many ways, these two outstanding books could not be more different - one from an important Latino theologian, the other from a National Book award winner in fiction. But both are similar in one respect - they are about hermeneutics, about interpretation, about the dissection of culture. Santa Biblia about the topics of poverty and marginalization from a Latino-Christian perspective, Freedom about those same topics from the context of suburban malaise and loneliness, from the absurdity of contemporary life.

Pics From JOYA Benefit with Clara C

Thanks to Clara for an amazing show and for being so great to JOYA! Some of our students got to meet Clara backstage, where they were greeted with words of affirmation and encouragement for pursuing their education. Such a wonderful evening...thanks to everyone for coming out to support our students and our program!

This Friday!!
Come out and support my non-profit JOYA Scholars and enjoy a great evening of music!
JOYA Scholars presents singer/songwriter Clara C, recognized by the OC Register as a You Tube sensation. Clara is premiering a new band and performing a full album set of her debut The Art In My Heart. The concert is a meet & greet with Clara after the show.

Friday, December 10th, 8pm to 11pm at the historic Spring Field Center in downtown Fullerton. All ages show.

Tickets are $25 at www.joyascholars.org

$30 at the door (cash only)

All proceeds will benefit JOYA Scholars

The Radical Call to Stay

Here is a revised version of a talk I gave at LA2010 last week, an unconference on Discipleship. Each speaker was asked to present a Big Idea on the topic.

SLOW COOK DISCIPLESHIP IN A MICROWAVE WORLD

I was born in the mid 60’s, right up the 101 Freeway at the Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, but my earliest memories and formative years were from the 70’s. Besides growing up on L.A. soul music, like any of us who were around then, it was a time before CDs and DVDs, before computers, before answering machines, and before microwave ovens.

Being a third-generation Japanese American, we weren’t dirt poor, but we were hardly wealthy either. Both my parents and their families were forced into internment camps during World War II, returning to nothing when they got out - having lost homes, businesses, and work – and forced to rebuild their lives from scratch.

I’ll never forget the day my dad went to the local electronics store and brought back our very first microwave oven. We were the first family I knew who had one in their home. It was amazing. You could heat up water, make cup ‘o noodle, pop popcorn!

Before microwaves, TV dinners had to be heated in conventional ovens. They came in these aluminum trays with their separate compartments that neatly kept the main entree (usually turkey, fried chicken, or meatloaf) separated from the assorted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and dessert. TV dinners had been around since the 50’s, but with the advent of microwaves, the TV dinner really came of age. The microwave promised to revolutionize our lives!

Except in the end, it didn’t.

The only thing the microwave revolutionized were leftovers; all of a sudden you could pretty much reheat anything, which for a kid is just about the worse thing ever. The fact is, the microwave was incredibly convenient for some things, but it never did replace conventional cooking. If you wanted a great meal, you still had to cook it the old fashioned way: with real food, putting in hard work, time, planning, and a touch of love.

Discipleship is the same way. It’s more real cooking than TV dinner, more crock-pot than microwave oven. TV dinners may look like the real thing, might even smell or taste familiar, but they can never give you the satisfaction nor nutrition that real food can.

Let’s state the obvious: If I were to ask if we believe discipleship takes relationship, long-term investment, and time – I think we’d all nod our heads and say “yup.” I think most churches would say the same thing, too. But let me go on a limb and say though this may be true, I have the sinking feeling that many churches are still trying to make disciples using microwave ovens. On one hand, we know it takes time, but if we're honest we’d still prefer to press the minute button and hope people come out heated and looking like Jesus. In some ways it’s still about information and technique. It’s still the hope that if we just find the right content or the right the vehicle it will heal and transform people.

One of our assumptions has to be that the gospel of the kingdom of God is for people, all people. The goal is to get the beautiful gospel story that God loves us into people, not get people into an institution called the church. Our objective is not to build a church, but to build people.

And that does take time, it is heavily relational, it does require an intentional commitment to give ourselves to one another so we can look more like Jesus. It is more slow cook than microwave oven.

THE RADICAL CALL TO STAY

At Epic slow cook discipleship has looked like the radical call to stay.

For my generation (I’m an old Gen Xer) the default was to stay home. That was pretty much the worldview of everyone I knew. That meant attending college close to home, getting jobs close to home, settling into places close to home. What we feared most was that Jesus would call us to go somewhere…far…like Africa…somewhere foreign and dangerous where we didn’t want to go. The radical call then was to go anywhere Jesus called us. The belief was that only crazy, hardcore missionaries would find any delight in this. Obviously, the call to go was necessary, appropriate, and fitting. There was a lot to be corrected and challenged with this worldview, about mission, about God, about us.

Somewhere, however, things changed. Where the default for my generation was to stay, I think the default for today’s generation is to travel. This generation actually wants to go to Africa. For them, the planet is a smaller place, many just assume they will see the world, even make an impact through something meaningful. And I want to applaud that. I can admire the desire to make a difference somewhere, especially among the poor and the least. It is good to see how the rest of the world lives. For today’s generation, instead of staying, the hope is that Jesus will call them somewhere; anywhere, but here. The worse thing that could possibly happen is to remain home.

That’s why I think for this generation the radical call is to stay. At Epic we don’t call people to stay in any absolute sense – we don’t encourage everyone to stay, all the time, for any reason. People do leave, and for good reasons. We celebrate every time we commission someone for the work of the kingdom somewhere else. But we probably do call people to stay more often than not – or at least make people think about it. We do this especially with the serial movers. And we do this too with those who seem lost, unprocessed, and disconnected. We believe enough in the primacy of community to call people to be more rooted, not less.

The problem with moving from place to place, repeatedly, is that relationships become transient too. People are not in one place long enough to be known, and in fact a lot of folks prefer it that way, we think to their detriment. Instead, at Epic we tell people to stay, get mentored, be in community, be invested in. We let people know that we believe in them in so much and believe in God so much that we think that despite whatever opportunities are out there for them, they will grow more if they stay than if they pick up and leave. It’s a call to grapple with what’s in front of them, to look at what’s inside, and to deal with the very real, often scary, usually painful things in their life - in relationship with others – precisely because this is what is most needed and what is actually good for them.

If it’s always (ding) - time to go – it’s too easy for people to become phantom ghosts, not human beings rooted in community. And I’m sorry, but e-mail, tweeting, and Facebook are not relationship. I love those tools, use them often, really helpful, but it’s not the kind of relationship discipleship requires.

It’s hard, right, because to go somewhere else looks more sexy, sounds more radical, appears more faithful. But what if that isn't always true? And pastors might be the biggest culprits. It’s rare these days for pastors to stay long-term with their congregations, especially the ones who make it big. What we end up teaching people is that when you’re successful, the real important stuff is out there at the next place, not right here, with them.

Ultimately, at Epic we encourage our people to stay so they can be developed for ministry, so that whatever it is God is calling them to, wherever that might be, whenever that might be, they’ll be a better, more mature, more processed person when they get there. Because it matters not just that we get to our destination, but the kind of person we are when we arrive. This is the discipline of discipleship.

SOME DISCOVERIES FROM STAYING PUT

As we’ve called people to stay and commit to community for the sake of their own growth, we’ve made a few discoveries along the way. Let me share two as it relates to staying.

1. The Need for a Framework of Lifelong Development

One of the traits I noticed of people today, one of the conditions of those who don’t figure staying in one place very long, is that they want to change the world and expect to do it now! We realized that most of our people, especially young people, had no vision beyond next month. Getting people to commit to a year is nearly impossible. But nevertheless we try to help our people entertain a lifetime perspective of growth and maturity. We’re training people to think about where they’re going, to convince them there is a life to plan that God cares about and is deeply involved with. We are trying to help people see that discipleship is not a sprint but a marathon, that God works slowly and over time to form and shape us, using our entire lifetime to get us to a place we’re really effective, when we minister out of who we are.

This is where Dr. Bobby Clinton (Making of a Leader) has been extremely helpful. Clinton in his work provides a leadership framework in which to understand stages of development over a lifetime. We help people understand their own story, interpret what God is doing there, what he’s showing them and teaching them, and where he’s leading them. It’s not just about getting people the right content, but teaching people how to learn, how to interpret their lives, listen to his voice, learn how to respond – so that it can last a lifetime. People who stay get to journey with others who have chosen to stay - others who know them and can provide valuable and necessary input and feedback. Again, it’s not a minute-made program, but engagement slow cooked over a lifetime.

2. People Need a Language for Their Souls

As we’ve asked people to commit to community and relationship, one of the things we are better able to do is explore with them, in a significant way, their internal worlds. In doing so, we’ve found that it is a foreign place for a lot of people. One of the biggest hazards of a microwave life is a general lack of depth and self-awareness. People are simply unaware of their own souls.

We think that one of the key reasons people weren’t developing at Epic like we had hoped is because in part they had no idea how God was shaping them. We realized that people were not able to identify or articulate what God was doing in their lives. They needed a new vocabulary, a new language. As a church we needed a common language to describe our souls.

Again, this is where Bobby Clinton has been so helpful. Our people really had no handle on the kinds of processes and checks and tests God uses to shape our souls and build character in us. And when we don’t successfully push through the hard lessons God is teaching about obedience, about pain, about generosity, about forgiveness and reconciliation, about truth telling, about justice – mostly because we don’t even see them as such – we end up in remedial class having to learn the same lessons over and over again. Consequently, we get stuck in our development. We get older, but not wiser. Staying in relationship gives people the advantage of a context and a community to work this stuff through - and a way to talk about it.

In the end, slow cook looks like calling people to stay and commit, where commitment is a necessary aspect of growth. It’s the call to stay and grow together in a particular place. Because if long-term relationship and engagement is key to development and an antidote to microwave discipleship, then there is a way that traveling with Jesus can only happen by staying put. In our age, part of "Go and make disciples" may look like "Stay and be a disciple."

The Technicolor Wardrobe Strikes Twice

Hey Everybody, my dear friend Ryan Pak is back with two shows Nov 13 and 14 in Santa Ana. He's a talented writer, storyteller, musician, and songwriter. He'll be sharing his stories, skits, and music - a good ole variety show - with some depth! My daughter Charis and her partner in crime Allison will give their comedic turn. Shows also feature our friends My Parasol, Nate Haveman, and Art Pang. Come out for a great evening and support the arts! Follow the link for more info and to buy tickets.

LA2010

Hey Epic, as Erin has been announcing I'm speaking again at LA2010, an (un)conference - this year's theme is discipleship. It's this weekend, Nov. 5-6. I'm scheduled for 11:40AM on Saturday. Here are details if you're interested in attending - it's free! 14 speakers given 14 minutes to share about their big idea on discipleship.

JOYA Benefit Feat. CLARA C

Clara C is performing a benefit show in Downtown Fullerton on Friday, December 10 at 8PM. She will be playing a full-length set of her just-released debut album "The Art In My Heart." All proceeds benefit JOYA Scholars. We're extremely grateful to Clara for offering her talent to support our program and kids!

JOYA Scholars works with 8th-12th grade students from the Garnet Community to inspire and prepare them for college education.

We started this organization in collaboration with Solidarity, a CDC in the neighborhood, after discovering that there had not been a college graduate from Garnet in over decade. Our students come from low-income families who attend schools in one of the wealthiest counties in America. Yet if you look at the statistics, nearly 70% of Latino students in the local school district drop out of high school. These are our kids. We're changing that.

Our program features long-term mentoring, workshops, parent involvement, college tours, and college-ready plans preparing our students to succeed in college. Our mentors walk with students through the often confusing, challenging, and intimidating process of college applications and enrollment, and then college life.

In one year of existence, we have grown from 17 students and 8 mentors last school year, to 27 students and 15 mentors this year. Our 3 seniors from our first year have enrolled and are enjoying college this fall.

This event will help us provide further opportunities for our students, including special programs offered by colleges, travel, and scholarships.

For tickets visit our website at www.joyascholars.org or our Facebook event page.

Currently Spinning

JK Rowling Speech

I
I stumbled across this stirring 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech by Ms. Rowling (here Part 1 of 3 on YouTube) after being recommended to view Steve Jobs' speech at Harvard, also a good one. Though like the rest of the world I was well aware of her slightly famous wizardry books, having read a few of them, I should have figured she'd have a certain way with words. But I was still taken aback by her sheer brilliance at articulating both the painful and profound with such vividness and power, speaking so vulnerably and humbly from her own life about failure and imagination. Before this, I hadn't known much at all about her story, only that she'd enjoyed success only after struggling as a single mother in poverty. All the more I was struck by her frankness and sensitivity, her scope of compassion and courage, to call those privileged graduates (and the rest of us educated, too) to consider our responsibility in the world. With her charming, self-deprecating humor, it was refreshing to hear someone so astronomically successful appear so genuinely grounded and grateful and magical.

Abiding #2

It's been almost a month into the project and to be honest I don't feel like there has been any significant change internally for me. Things are a bit more normal schedule-wise since Dorene is back to working part time, so I do feel like there is more "space' in my life, which is equivalent to some breathing room. I feel less suffocated, frazzled, and plain irritable. But I want my abiding to exist and work whatever the state of my life.

However, there have been a few minor adjustments.

First, I noticed that at the very least, I'm thinking about abiding more. Having this project keeps my accountable in a good way, keeps me honest, never too far away from the subject, always pulling me back kind of like a holy centrifugal force.

Secondly, every morning it has been my habit/discipline to pray using the Lord's Prayer as a framework, to commit the day to the God, to cover my family, to submit to him the things that lay before me. I've now added to that time a prayer of abiding. Basically a "Lord, teach me how to abide." I pray this, I suppose, even as I am actually abiding through prayer.

But I want more. More relationship. More fruit in my life.

But it's a start.

From the Mouth of Sherlan

On Sunday at Epic, we interviewed a panel of nine artists from our church community who shared their thoughts about art and the creative process. They also shared their thoughts about Epic as a home to artists. It was part of a series about "what got us here" as Epic celebrates 10 years together. It was an amazingly diverse group: made up of musicians, painters, graphic designers, an interior designer, a writer, songwriters, a dancer, and photographers - each providing such rich and thoughtful answers to questions about their craft and faith and church (and how the three intersect). One of those artists, illustrator and photographer Sherlan Abesamis, [that's his photo] shared something with me afterward that I thought was simple, but profound. The panel had succeeded in being wonderfully inclusive during the interview time, more than once making the point that though not everyone may be artistic, everyone is certainly creative. To that Sherlan added, after not being able to share this with the congregation because of time: "God has given everyone a voice. [Art] is a matter of finding that voice and letting it be spoken." Well said.

Currently Reading

Like Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City," this is history telling at its finest: Gripping, almost unimaginable, and absolutely haunting.

Abiding #1

As I get started, just some preliminary observations:

In my bible, I can tell from what I've previously highlighted, that I was more interested in "fruit bearing" than I was "remaining." Whatever my state when I made those markings, looks like I was drawn more to output than input, effect than affect - to make some interpretive assumptions about my world at the time.

Is the passage more about fruit bearing or abiding? Was Jesus emphasizing one more than the other? One before the other? Like so much of the spiritual life, it is probably a false dichotomy; both/and versus either/or. But the question is worth asking.

I notice that the first two paragraphs begin and end speaking of fruit, in other words, have topic and summary sentences emphasizing fruit bearing. The third paragraph begins and ends with abiding. Though it has to be said that paragraphs in the English translation are translator decisions, not part of the ancient manuscripts. By the numbers (in my TNIV translation), there are 6 sentences that mention fruit bearing, 9 mentioning abiding, of which 2 refer to both in the same sentence. The actual word "fruit" or derivative of such occurs 9 times; abiding 11 times. What I really need to do is go to the Greek manuscript to see how these numbers differ, if at all.

On a purely devotional level, I wonder if Jesus knows that what the disciples desire is to "bear fruit" - that being associated with the visible signs of the kingdom of God/following Him - is what occupies their ambitions, their concerns; that they are intent on what great works will be credited to them, invested on what effects will stick with them as perceived by others. Or is that merely my concern? Whether that is a legitimate motivation or not, concern or not, Jesus makes no hint that it is not. I think the opposite is true - he validates the desire for fruit. But is the goal abiding or is it fruit-bearing? Or as I've said above, is that a false distinction? What seems to be clear is that there is no fruit bearing apart from remaining in him. One seems to be the necessity of the other. You can't put the cart before the horse no matter how much you might want to.

Reading & Spinning

Intro: The Year of Abiding

God is speaking to me. He has pressed upon my mind, more than a few times now, the word abide. As in, "If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). I know the word is for me.

I know because I am tired. Someone asked me the other day how I was doing, and I told her, "I'm fried." That kind of burned out feeling, the result of going too hard for too long, which no amount of days off can cure.

About nine months ago, my wife was invited to be one of only four therapists in the country to work on a special project for the U.S. government involving a new prosthetic. It was a prestigious opportunity, and after some discussion, we decided it was something Dorene should participate in. But it required her working full-time instead of the 2 days/week she normally puts in. The short of it is that she has loved it, and I am happy that it has been a source of growth, esteem, and meaning for her. She discovered a real enjoyment for research, and that is probably worth its weight in gold.

On a practical level, however, it has not been nearly as good for me. I still kept my full-time job as pastor while also taking on full-time dad duties, too. We have two wonderful children, a 12- and a 10- year old, the older also a special needs child. On my more generous days, I am glad for the extra time I have had with the kids. But most days, if I'm honest, I am acutely aware of the havoc the extra responsibilities have wrecked on any sense of normal in my already abnormal clergy/non-profit kind of work rhythm.

But it wasn't just Dorene's work hours that was making things tough, it was also the perfect storm already brewing from commitments that just demanded more of me. All good stuff, but all at the same time. At Epic things got more wonderful, and more complicated, as we grappled with growth issues and bringing on new staff. With Oasis USA, I somehow became chair of the board which required a big investment of time with an influx of new board members and a new executive director search to manage, all the while trying to keep the organization financially afloat. JOYA was going really well and heading into our second year, with a doubling of our students and mentors in the program, but I remained the primary driver for fundraising. Without realizing it, I became event planner, concert promoter, and grant writer to go along with co-founder. I made good on a promise to stay on the board of Solidarity for another year. And places like Fuller Seminary began calling asking if I could participate in various discussions and conferences.

Like I said, all great stuff, and stuff that I enjoy, but it resulted in no margin in my life. Every week rolled into the next with no end in sight. My health took a beating, as well as my sleep, and our wonderful three-week vacation to Hawaii in August seemed like a distant memory as soon as I got back. I was glad Dorene so enjoyed her work, but frankly, most days I couldn't wait for her project to end. For the first time ever, I resigned I could live without ever preaching again. I was bored with my own voice. I had nothing fresh or interesting to say. When is that sabbatical coming?

Into this malaise and blur, God spoke to me. Repeatedly. "Abide."

I am a pastor, I know what abiding means, at least intellectually. But I hate to admit it. In reality, maybe I don't know anything about what it means. Like how to do it. Like knowing what it's like to experience that kind of relationship from the inside. Like living it.

So it occurred to me it would be a good idea just sit on this passage (John 15:1-17) for a full year. From 10/10/10 to 11/11/11. To mediate upon it. Reflect upon it. Study it. Sift it for its truth, for its life. Attempt to live it. Try to see what it's all about from the inside. To get into Jesus and to ask if Jesus could get into me. Then to see after a year - and along the way - if there is any discernable change. What will I learn? How might I live differently? Feel differently? Know Jesus differently? Will I become a different kind of person?

I've called it a blog project because I'll post my progress (or is it process?) here as a sort of diary of reflections. A place of some accountability. A place where some of my thoughts and findings and feelings can abide.

What Truth Sounds Like

Last Sunday, I spoke about "Church As Therapeutic Community" and the symbiotic nature of grace and truth, which of course, describes Jesus (John 1:14). Grace is unbroken, unearned acceptance. Truth is describing things as they really are. They work together. Grace without truth becomes permissive; truth without grace results in judgment. But together, grace and truth invite us out of isolation, out of going solo, and into relationship. Grace combined with truth invites the real us, uncensored, into relationship where we are understood and embraced. In the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, the truth of her life comes out, but for the first time it doesn't condemn her, because Jesus does not condemn her. The truth isn't used to further hurt her, but to heal. The truth is revealed about her life, but grace frees her to live truthfully: "He told me everything I've ever done." Jesus is truth and grace to her, and she leads the whole community to him.

Over the years, I have found other "voices" who have taught me what truth sounds like, and through their writing, also what grace feels like too. When we grow up grace and truth deprived, it is an oasis to the soul to drink from the well of others who have told the truth and found a kind of grace because of it. I had planned to share some of these voices last Sunday, but because of time didn't get a chance. Here are some of the truthful voices that have made an impact on my life.

Frederick Buechner
Telling Secrets; Also The Sacred Journey; Now and Then
Probably my favorite author. This trilogy of memoirs covers his father's suicide and his daughter's bout with anorexia. No one writes truth more beautifully or poetically.






Henri Nouwen
Life of the Beloved; Also The Return of the Prodigal Son
The quintessential work on self-identity by listening truthfully to the voice of God instead of the world.







Anne Lamott
Grace (Eventually); Also Traveling Mercies; Plan B
Where the aforementioned authors take the serious route, Lamott is all irreverance, self-deprecation, and side-splitting humor...precisely because she tells it like it is. She writes about faith, parenting, death, and eating like no one else. You feel better just by reading her.





Caroline Knapp
Drinking: A Love Story
This brutally honest story of alcoholism had a profound effect on me and my understanding of addiction. Knapp mines deeply, and her ultimate search for the love her father never gave her speaks to both emptiness and hope.






Donald Miller
Searching For God Knows What; also Blue Like Jazz; A Million Miles In A Thousand Years
Sometimes described as the male Anne Lamott, even endorsed by her; not as intense as the other writers on this list, but some real nice gems of insight, and always an enjoyable read. I heard him speak in person, and the dude's refreshingly humble and honest.




Ray Anderson
The Gospel According to Judas
I had to get Dr. Anderson onto the list. He's had more impact on my understanding of truth than anyone. This is really his only accessible book. But it is still, in my opinion, the most profound telling of the depths of God grace.

Exclusively Inclusive

On NPR a few weeks ago, I happened upon an interesting interview with the director and the star of a new South African film called, "White Wedding." In the film a groom named Elvis travels across South Africa with his best man who along the way cross paths with a British tourist who has come to the country to forget her own broken engagement. According to the director Jan Turner, the hope of the film was to portray ordinary South Africans going about their ordinary lives. The film deals with racism, but also the cultural divide between races - as when the bride's mother wants a traditional wedding whereas the bride has something completely modern in mind. The NPR interviewer noted that most of the film is in subtitles. Lead actor Kenneth Nkosi pointed out that South Africa has 11 official languages.

What I found provocative is a statement by the director to this issue of language: [Because of this] "South Africans use language to include and exclude each other...Translation jokes and misunderstandings are part of day to day life."

Thinking about this, I wondered how Jesus used language? Did he ever use language to exclude others - like on purpose? On one hand, his whole ministry was given to include those who were religiously, culturally, and socially excluded - from the tax collector to the prostitute, to the Gentile and the children. Certainly he must have used everyday language so that the lowly, marginalized, and uneducated had access to him and his message and could comprehend the love of the Father - as was probably the case with the Sermon on the Mount. But did he ever use language to exclude, too? I wonder about his conversation with Nicodemus (John 3) and his indirect if not veiled birth language. Then there is his apparently baffling parable about the Sower and the Seeds (Mark 4) in which Jesus says to the disciples and a few others, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables." Sadly, a lot of people went home that day "on the outside."

After some reflection, seems to me that Jesus was completely inclusive to all, hoping beyond hope to draw everyone to his Father. But he also wasn't shy about exposing people's hearts or desires - often using the tool of language - even if that resulted in some people on the outside looking in - kingdomly speaking - depending on how they chose to respond (or not).

If this is true, then I wonder if some evangelical churches have gotten this part backwards - making their "sermon language" seeker-friendly (thus appealing to the common denominator) all the while being stubbornly exclusive in their relationships (as is evident in their homogeneous congregations)? At Epic, I think, we have tried to let the "open" nature of Jesus ministry shape us, with varying degrees of success, by being inclusive in our relationships - loving anybody and everybody - though this is maddenly difficult - while at the same time remaining parabolic in our preaching (like not giving answers as much as calling people to Jesus). The result is that some people want to deal with Jesus, others don't.

In the end, who it is that stands on the inside or the outside depends not on us, but on the work of Spirit in every person's heart. Those who go home thinking they have all the answers have their reward in full. But those who seek Jesus humbly for the answers they lack are given the "secrets of the kingdom" and even better, Jesus himself - exclusively.

Beautiful Sunsets

My family had a wonderful vacation in Hawaii - a week on the Big Island with 3 other families, then a week on Oahu visiting family and friends, learning to paddle surf and canoe, and basically eating a lot. While staying in Kona, we suspended dinner one evening to see 'the world's best sunset.' It did not disappoint. The photo on the left doesn't do it justice, by a long shot. But all the time looking at this breathtaking feat of nature, my mind kept wandering back to one of my favorite quotes, written by author Mike Mason in his book "The Mystery of Marriage":

“If man really is fashioned, more than anything else, in the image of God, then clearly it follows that there is nothing on earth so near to God as a human being. The conclusion is inescapable, that to be in the presence of even the meanest, lowest, most repulsive specimen of humanity in the world is still to be closer to God than when looking up into a starry sky or at a beautiful sunset. Certainly that is why there is nothing in the New Testament about beautiful sunsets. The heart of biblical theology is a man hanging on a cross, not a breathtaking scene from nature. Nature (by comparison with the wonders of human relationships, healed and restored in Christ), touch only remotely on love. We cannot really ‘love’ a sunset; we can only love a person.”

What Mason reminds us is that people are the crown jewel of beauty. Surely all other forms of beauty can wow and astound us, and ultimately point us to God, but it is the human person who is solely created in God’s image and capable of confronting us with the presence of Christ in a way that even the greatest natural wonders or finest works of art can never do.

Not surprisingly, standing at the edge of the vast blue Pacific Ocean with the wind in my face and the orange glaze of the sunset in the horizon, the setting makes me a believer in God. But surprisingly, it simultaneously makes me a doubter in the loveliness of humanity as the loveliest of them all. Who can blame me in a moment such as this?

Until our family and friends step into the camera's focus in front of the Hawaiian sunset in all their glorious beauty.

Missional Church Part II: Kingdom Without Buildings

Thank God for buildings - they're very practical and useful. On Sunday's we meet in the gym of our host church, and during the week they provide us office space. We love it here. Suffice it to say, we like what buildings can do. But we don't own any. In fact, we're serial renters.

We'll be celebrating our 10th year anniversary next year as a church community, having had a nomadic existence for all of it. At the beginning, people would commonly ask, "So, when are you going to have your own building?" My answer was, "I don't think we'll ever own a building." The answer was partly philosophical (the church is not a building, but the people), and a lot of it economics. But it's an assumption I've been all right with from the start. Sure, there are some fleeting moments of wishful thinking when having our own place would seem to solve so many problems; but then I also think of all the problems a building would create too, and I stand content. But hey, if someone wanted to give us one for free...

When we started our church, not having a building was thought of something of a negative in a lot people's eyes, including some of our own members; it was considered a kind of weakness or liability to growth, or a sign that we hadn't yet arrived. To me it often felt like we were being judged, looked down as a junior church, or worse yet, a completely illegitimate church until we owned our own place.

Fast forward to this summer. Because of budget cuts to schools, a handful of churches in Fullerton were approached by the Fullerton Collaborative to provide programs for the youth in three of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Five local churches were asked to take the lead, Epic being one of them. Like most cities in SoCal, there are a good many churches in our city - a lot of them with big, beautiful buildings. But what's interesting, is that none of the five churches being asked to serve the city's youth through art, education, and sports owned their own places.

I think part of the reason these five churches are sometimes considered more "missional" in nature is precisely because we don't own our own buildings. We all rent. Mostly on Sundays. That forces us to see church not as a building to fill, but wherever the body of Christ meets, whether that's 2 or 3 people for coffee, a dozen people in an art gallery, or 50 of us on a playground. Instead of assuming the neighborhood will come to us (as churches that own buildings often do), we have to be the church in the neighborhood. At one level, we don't have any choice. But I also know, at least for Epic, that we choose to do church this way. Ironically, what was deemed a weakness just a decade ago seems to have such upside today.

I really am grateful for the buildings we get to meet in - they too are a blessings, as is the host church we partner with. We couldn't be more happy where we are. Including being happy renting.

Last week as 210,000 gallons of oil continued to gush daily into the Gulf of Mexico, my son coincidentally happened to be studying "Ocean Pollution" in his 6th grade Earth Science class. It's been sobering to read how devastating and even unprecedented this disaster may well be when it's over...if it's ever truly over...especially for the environment, wildlife, and those who live and work along the shores of the Gulf. It's even hard to fathom just how much oil that is pouring into the sea at one time. Even today BP CEO Tony Hayward was quoted on NPR as saying that the massive leak may still not be shut off for weeks or even months...unbelievable.

With that fresh in my mind, I was taken aback by a pie chart in my son's text book showing a breakdown of where most of the oil that pollutes our oceans actually comes from. It goes like this:

51.4% Runoff from land
19.4% Routine ship maintenance
13.0% Air pollution
8.8% Natural seeps
5.2% Oil spills
2.2% Offshore drilling
(Holt California Earth Science 2007)

If these figures are correct, then the kinds of devastating spills like the one in the Gulf make up only about 5% of oil pollution in the ocean. The rest is mostly caused by us consumers, which is a reminder that even as we may be tempted to wag our fingers at BP and proponents of off-shore drilling, we are not innocent in all this. If a majority of the oil polluting our oceans stems from non-point sources such as oil and gasoline from cars that washes from streets into storm sewers and eventually to sea, the underlying issue is not just how to prevent platform disasters from happening, but our entire nation's dependence on oil.

Missional Church Part I

If you're reading hoping I have something clever to say about the missional church, I'm sorry I may disappoint you. But I've been meaning to mention this for over a year now especially when it was really getting tedious. What I don't get is the latest obsession and attention with all things 'missional'. Well, yes, on one hand, I think I do get it: In an unintended way, it's seems to be a commentary on the sorry state of the church in the U.S. which gives rise for the need to write, discuss, conference, and program our way out of insularity and irrelevance. But when mission becomes an agenda or identity, it too often takes the practice out of the realm of neighborliness and into presumption. Seriously, do we really need another adjective in front of the word "church" to make us feel like we're onto something new and revelatory? To say we're the 'missional' church seems about as useful as saying we're the 'loving' church, or the 'hospitable' church, or the 'faithful' church. Isn't that a given? I mean, is there any other kind? I find it slightly tragic that we have to convince our congregations to be missional, as if it is the next wave of church development, as if it is a cool thing all of a sudden to actually know our neighbors and to care about people in our communities. Last time I checked, the church was inherently missional because God himself is missional. To say we are a missional church, then, is to be redundant; it is not stating the new, but the obvious. My hunch is that by needing the word 'missional' in front of the word 'church', we are actually betraying who we think we are by what we actually are not.

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