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I get this question all the time: "So, ... how do I become like Christ?"

Thoughts?

What do you do? Where do you go? How do you engage in the process?

http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/its-open-phones-wednesday/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/363802733/

Why Your Faith Does Not Work: (Excepts from The Trouble with Paris)

She looked like a girl who had it all. She was strikingly beautiful, confident, and hip. Half the guys in the room were looking at her, and all the girls in the room wanted to be her. She had ticked all the boxes: she was deeply involved in her church, had a high-paying job, travelled all over the world, and had a social life most of us would be jealous of with a bevy of male suitors. Yet for her this meant nothing.

She looked me square in the eye with pain in her face and told me, “I was promised an awesome life!” I was immediately thrown. This girl had everything that society tells us will make us happy. Yet as I listened to the reality of her life, I realized nothing could be further from the truth. Behind the glamorous exterior was a person who was struggling, who was unsure of who she was, who struggled with feelings of depression and with the dissatisfaction of constantly feeling as if she needed more. Her life was in limbo, and she was constantly waiting for this awesome life to turn up, yet it never came. She had finally come to the realization that she was miserable, and she felt very, very, ripped off.

This is a story that can be heard among those who have left the Christian faith because it didn’t deliver them the perfect life they believed they were promised. It can also be heard in the dissatisfaction and frustrations of those who still have faith. And finally, it can be heard in those who never have had faith yet have invested all of their hope in the fact that one day the perfect future will arrive. If we are to live lives of meaning, satisfaction, and happiness, it is essential that we understand what effects our culture has on our quality of life and quality of faith. Let’s begin with faith.

Something Is Eating Your Faith

Throughout the developed Western world, a corrosive epidemic is eating away at the faith lives of Christians. It assails us in our darkest moments; it comes to us at three o’clock in the morning when we can’t sleep. It confronts us at every corner, three to ten thousand times a day. It whispers to our hearts that “we’ve got it wrong,” that our faith should not be in Jesus Christ of Nazareth but in something else. In this context your faith is getting torn apart and most likely will not survive. Contrary to popular belief, you and your friends probably won’t lose your faith because of sex, drugs, or doubt but for a much more insidious reason. Sure, you can fight it, you can think, It won’t be me, but how do you fight an enemy you can’t name, an opponent you can’t see?

The thing that will eat away at your faith, make it impotent, and finally kill it off cannot easily be named. It is a framework, a formation system, an entire worldview. It tells us how to live and how to act. It speaks to our sense of identity. It shapes our personality. It tells us what to love, what to commit to, and what to have hope in. It is a virus that eats our faith from the inside out. This virus is the allure of the hyperreal world.

If you want to blame someone or something for your life not ending up as wonderfully as you were led to believe it would, a good place to start is the cultural phenomenon called hyperreality. The combination of a hyper consumer culture, mass media, and rampant individualism has created a world of hyperreality. What is hyperreality? It’s a term I learned from a French guy named Jean Baudrillard. He was a twentieth-century philosopher who took a trip across America, visiting places like Las Vegas and Disneyland. He said that our culture had become hyperreal, meaning that we could now have things that were even better than the real thing. The media-drenched world in which we live has overextended our expectations of life.

Following are some examples of hyperreality:

• A fairly pretty girl works as a model to support her studies. She does a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. The photographer skillfully uses wardrobe, lighting, and makeup during the shoot. After the shoot, computers are used to take away the model’s imperfections and to improve her overall look. The magazine hits the newsstands, and through the magic of technology, a fairly pretty girl has been turned into a stunningly beautiful cover star. Thousands of women buy the magazine and wonder why they cannot be as beautiful and glamorous as the model on the cover, not realizing that if they walked past the actual model in the street, they would not even notice her.


• A man drives to work every day past a billboard advertising vacations on an idyllic Pacific island. As he works in his stressful office job, he fantasizes about relaxing on the white beaches under the palm trees of the beautiful Pacific paradise he sees on the billboard. The man purchases a two-week vacation on the island. Upon arrival the man discovers that for most of the year it rains. He tries swimming only to find that the coral cuts up his feet and that he has to be careful not to contract malaria from the mosquitoes on the island. The man spends most of his vacation watching satellite TV in his resort room.


• A group of friends share a house. Each week they watch a situation comedy about a group of friends who share a house as well. As they watch, each person wonders to why they cannot be as close and as happy as the characters in the sitcom. In real life the cast of actors cannot stand each other.

Hyperreality means that often we cannot tell the difference between what advertising tells us about products, places, and people and what they are like in the real world. In the rush to sell us things, corporations have sacrificed reality; truth telling is gone. Sociologist Krishan Kumar explains :

“Our world has become so saturated with images and symbols that a new “electronic reality” has been created, whose effect is to obliterate any sense of an objective reality lying behind the images and symbols. In this “simulated” world, images become objects, rather than reflecting them; reality becomes hyper-reality. In hyper-reality it is no longer possible to distinguish the imaginary from the real . . . the true from the false.1”

An ad by the New York tourism board is not going to tell us about the street crime, high prices, pollution, and poverty we would find in the city. Rather, they are going to show us the New York we know from countless movies and TV shows like Seinfeld, Sex in the City, and Friends. And if they are smart, they will use the Frank Sinatra song “New York, New York” to top it all off. After seeing an advertisement for New York and experiencing New York, we would be left scratching our heads and asking, “Which is the real New York-the metropolis we know from our years of watching popular culture or the actual city situated on the East Coast?” We would have confused the symbol (the popular culture imagined New York) with the real city. Of course, the popular Hollywood version of New York would be the more attractive one. This is hyperreality. It gives us a world of symbols that are detached from the reality of what they are supposed to be symbolizing and appear more attractive than the original objects they are representing.

From The Trouble With Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises. Mark Sayers. Thomas Nelson. 2008

http://timhoeksema.blogspot.com/2008/08/multiplication.html

http://timhoeksema.blogspot.com/2008/08/filled-with-holy-spirit.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BlogOneAnother/~3/362632240/the-recl

Neighbor M's father died recently, so I bought a condolence card, and took it around for each of the neighbors to sign. I'm sneaky, you see: I want to bless M. I want to bless the neighborhood by rallying them to a neighbor's cause. But I also saw an opportunity to visit each neighbor, and if invited, enter their homes.

"Looks like except for W, you have everybody," R said.

"Yeah, I'll get W. But I also want to get S," I replied.

"S? Oh man. If you don't come out, I'll come look for you," he joked.

The neighbors don't know what to make of S, who lives with her grown children but is never seen. Some of them are scared of her. R tells me that once S came into the court with a handgun, which W removed from her.

So I headed over and rang her doorbell. Little dogs inside responded, trying to sound vicious. A voice: "Get away from there!"

"S? Is that you?" I asked.

No reply.

"S? It's your neighbor, Jon. May I come in?"

S came out instead. She hadn't heard the doorbell, she explained, and was yelling at the dogs. We sat and visited. I already knew some history: She was a pastor's wife, until he divorced her. She's experienced chronic back pain since an injury years ago. Her life is dark. "I think if I died, nobody would notice. The neighbors might notice my children wearing black -- except that they wear black anyway," she said with a sad grin. "Nobody comes to see me. I don't want to think that God has forgotten me."

"That's why I'm here," I said, apologizing for not coming sooner.

For some it is always easier to through money at a need or mission rather then actually becoming physically involved with the issues at hand.

 In what ways do we as leaders encourage people to take part and "do/live" mission rather then simply bankrolling it?

What constitutes a missional activity? It seems that in the name of being missional and engaging our culture, any random act of kindness is heralded as being a move in the missional direction. I personally find this a troubling trend among young church leaders and church planters. In an effort to distance ourselves from the fear-driven scare tactics and the bait-and-switch practices of yesterday, many are proudly declaring that they have “no hidden agendas” when it comes to “missional activities.”

Not long ago, I sat with a church planting pastor who proclaimed that he was leading his church to be missional. He told me that he and his congregation had gone to the middle of their major metropolitan city and passed out flowers at Valentine’s Day to random people who passed by as a way of doing something nice with no strings attached (they intentionally didn’t mention their church or anything about them because they did not want to have any hidden agendas). I will get into the issue of hidden agendas at a later time (should we consider the Gospel a hidden agenda?), but here I want to talk about what constitutes an activity as being missional. Is handing out flowers to random people bad? Of course not. Is it missional? I say it is NOT MISSIONAL because unbelievers never had an opportunity to take the next step towards encountering Jesus Christ as a result of this activity.

What do I mean by “next step towards encountering Jesus Christ?” I mean this: missional activities seek to gain influence in the lives of unbelievers in the hope and expectation of inviting them to encounter the person of Jesus Christ. An activity that is disconnected from relationship lacks the ability for gaining influence. However, an activity that allows a Christian to meet a tangible need or show genuine love to a person who is disconnected from God, it creates the opportunity for influence. Relationship is key because Influence is key!

Being good citizens is good and being nice is good – but being a good citizen and doing nice things does not necessarily lead to spiritual transformation. Only Jesus Christ can change people’s lives, and apart from the opportunity to encounter Christ, nice activities are just that – nice. They may make us feel good about ourselves, but let us not confuse feeling good and helping people as being about the task of making disciples of all nations. There are plenty of atheist philanthropists who are doing nice things and feeling good.

So, as we as church leaders think through how to become more missional, let us think two questions: (1) How are we going to build relationships with unbelievers and gain influence in their lives? (2) What is the next step that I hope my new friend will take in encountering the person of Jesus Christ?

People are free to take the next step or not – we have no control over that, but we do our community and our friends a disservice when we fail to do our part to lead people to the only one who offers hope.

I am currently in the middle of a series of posts titled, “All Mixed Up, Don’t Know What To Do”. However, the Lord has been teaching, and speaking to me lately about my desperation for Him, or lack thereof. I will be writing a few entries on desperation, and pick back up with the series shortly after…

“Inashmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips , but have removed their hearts far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men, therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”

Isaiah 29:13-14 (NKJV)

Notice the title to this post is The Godless, and not the godless. We are certainly not “little ‘g’ godless”. We serve many “little ‘g’ god’s”. It is as if “Big ‘G’ God” has been pushed from our society, culture, church, and country right out from under our noses. In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to dine with him, and he with Me.” This letter was written to the lukewarm church. Alan Hirsch, the author of “The Forgotten Ways”, has responded to this verse by saying, “How in the world did Jesus get outside of the church in the first place?”

We live in a day, time, and country unlike any other in the history of the world. In America we have “freedoms”, and opportunities that surpass that of any other place in the world. People die trying to get into our country to experience “a better life”. The foundation of our country was built upon God, and the Ten Commandments. We’ve got it all together, right? We are a Christian nation, right? Wrong. (When I refer to “Christian Nation” I do not mean that many people sit in a church building on Sunday morning. We’ve got that part down. I am referring to radical followers of Christ who take the Gospel seriously, and die to themselves daily in pursuit of the growth of the kingdom of God; this is something I struggle with daily). But what other country has a cluster of states referred to as “The Bible Belt”? What other country has a church on every corner? We are desperate for God, right? Wrong. We DO NOT need God, right? Right?

This idea of desperation and need go hand in hand. If you do not need someone, or something, then you are not desperate for them. If you are not desperate for them, then you certainly do not need them. This word desperation has intrigued me lately. The root of the word is desperate. Are we desperate for anything other than “The American Dream” that we cling to so…desperately? The definition of the word is: a state of despair, typically one that results in extreme or rash behavior. So, are we desperate? Yes, for many things, but not for God. Does our desperation result in extreme or rash behavior? Yes, our pursuit of comfort and security has led to greed and complete self-dependence. We have successfully removed the need of God from our lives. After all, we have everything we could ever need, and most of what we want. If we are hungry we instantly fill our stomachs. If we are hot we crank on the A/C. If we run out of something we simply go to the store and buy it. If we want something we cannot afford we finance it. If we need to contact someone we pick up our cell phones, which are now in the hands of six year-olds! If we get a flat tire we call roadside assistance. If we’re sick we immediately go to the doctor and get drugs prescribed. (No need to pray to the God we’re supposed to be desperate for to heal us). I could go on and on. Are these things bad? Not necessarily, but where does God fit into our daily lives? Is it even possible for us to be desperate for God? I, in my own power, have the ability to provide for my every need, and the needs of my family. Where can my need for God be found? (I have recently become desperate for God in the area of my marriage, and being a husband. I am desperate for God to be in me, what I cannot be on my own. This is a good start, I suppose, to learning what a daily dependence on my Savior looks like. However, I believe it is far from a Biblical view of “denying myself, taking up my cross, and following Jesus”.) How often do we, in all reality, deny ourselves of anything that we want or need?

I once heard someone say, “Many of the churches in America are so ‘man operated’ that they could grow without God.” What he was saying is this: Find a fascinating speaker who is good at communicating moral behavior, a great “worship leader” who can generate butterflies in your tummy, a staff of motivated (not to mention very well paid) and driven professionals, a cool, modern, and “hip” building/location, furniture from Ikea, a coffee shop, etc., and you can easily get a few thousand people into your building each week for a “service”. For some reason I do not believe the New Testament Church we read about in Acts was led by rare professionals. The early church grew and spread like a virus because it was easily reproducible. It didn’t take a superstar pastor, a rock star worship leader, and a huge building, etc. to multiply. In fact, I would say the above “model” we are accustomed to is nearly impossible to multiply. (Please do not misunderstand me by thinking I promote a particular “model” of church; anyone who thinks that any ONE model will offer “effectiveness”, or “success” proves their ignorance.) We may see addition with our current form of church, but not multiplication. The early Church spread and multiplied because ordinary, everyday people encountered Christ, and it messed them up for good, and for their good. They were transformed. Can our current form of church lead to transformed Christ followers? Of course! I am a product of a great one. Are many of these churches very effective in doing great things all over the world? Yes! Can we always be striving to be more effective? Of course. Might this require drastic and radical change for some churches and individuals, including myself? Yes. I am reminded of a business term I learned in college: Kaizen. It originated in Japan, and is the term used for continuous improvement. It simply means for us to constantly be looking for better ways of doing things. We must never come to the conclusion that we have it all figured out. This births pride and leads to ineffectiveness. As you know, we in America have this mindset. There is no attack here, but a simple submission that the Church (People of God, not a location or building) may be entering a new chapter, or era in what it looks like to be a Christ follower…maybe it doesn’t come with such ease anymore…maybe it requires much sacrifice…maybe it challenges us to be uncomfortable…maybe it BECOMES our everyday lives, and not just a part of our lives.

I was speaking with a student pastor friend of mine the other day. We were thinking hard about this absence of desperation for God in our country. We were chatting about what could be done differently in the area of student ministry. It would seem as if the days of great Wednesday night services, unbeatable camps/events, funny speakers, rockin’ bands, and the most thought provoking messages are quickly coming to an end. Are these things bad? Of course not. Can all of these things be present, along with hundreds of students who attend these weekly events, and still lack a true understanding of what it means to follow Christ? Sadly, the answer is yes. Erwin McManus, in his book, “Chasing Daylight”, writes on the idea of Christians being moved but not mobilized. He was referring to a group of men who came to a weekend retreat and got excited. They were certainly moved, but not mobilized to action. What will it take for us to be more than simply moved, but radically mobilized to live out the Gospel. Can we proceed in the same fashion we have for years? I think not. Do we, as adults, model a need for God to teenagers? I think this would be a good start for us. We must portray a selfless/desperate attitude to the next generation of Christ followers, or they will not be Christ followers at all.

There is a movement taking place all over the world. The truth is that the Huge God that we speak of, and sing songs about here in the states is performing miracles in other countries regularly. He is healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, and raising the dead. Wait, did I just say, “raising the dead”? We are instant skeptics. Once again, we talk about our God being Big. Do we truly believe it, and do our actions prove our belief? I wonder if our lack of faith has prohibited the Lord from doing things He desires to do in our lives. I am reminded of a story in Mark 6 where Jesus returns to His own country to teach and do miracles. Verses 5 and 6 say, “Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief…” I pray that my unbelief will cease to hinder the Lord’s work. I beg the Lord everyday to give me faith that believes He still raises the dead to life.

Is the Lord doing miracles in the states? Yes. Are we aware of the miracles, and in turn, directing the glory to Him because of them? Not usually. (We must first become aware of the miracles taking place all around us if we are to give Him glory for them) I’ve been to Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and seen a movement taking place. I have heard about it in China, and have friends who are a part of it in India. To describe this movement we can think about the early Church in Acts where thousands were transformed by Christ in a day. Notice, I did not say that thousands prayed a prayer of conversion in one day. We have seen that in the states regularly for many years. I am speaking of people who witness a Christ follower heal the sick, or raise the dead to life through the power of the Spirit of God that dwells in them. Upon this encounter of a miracle they can do nothing but desperately beg to know this powerful God. They are forever changed, forever transformed. That is a movement. Christ is equipping His Church. He is taking His Church back into His hands, and out of the hands of man. He is doing what He is doing, and graciously welcoming us to be a part of it. Thousands of Christ followers in America are waking up to this call of what it truly means to radically follow Christ. A restored desperation for God is flooding into the hearts and lives of Christians all over the United States, and world. This of course, is contrary to everything in our flesh. The question is whether or not we will truly die to our flesh in order to live in this movement.

“Father, continue to wake us up. Challenge us. Move us to action and mobilize your Church. Instill in us a holy discontent for the status quo. May we begin to take the teachings of your Son, Jesus, seriously. We submit to You, and beg for your guidance.”

http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2008/07/are-short-term.h

A Washington Post article last week entitled "Churches Retool Mission Trips" examines the criticism that short term missions are high cost and lack value. HT: Seth Barnes Its a good article and worth reading. I share many of the same concerns. Yes - a $2000 house built for $30,000 by an overseas mission team might not be the best use of money and someone needs to rethink these kinds of trips. But what are the costs of NOT sending out our youth on altruistic Christian missions? Here are ten quick responses.

1. Short term missions might be an expensive past-time but if they are a far better alternative to overseas vacations and holidays. They are a lot cheaper, especially when teams stay in homes or sleep on church floors rather than hotels. Short term missions are less selfish, and they help redirect resources away from tourist destination to more needy areas.

2. A cross cultural experience, even if only for a week, is good training for a career in overseas social enterprise or preparation for long term missions. Sometimes the impact is felt more in the volunteer than the community she is sent to but this is also a viable reason to continue in short term missions.

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3. The fall in number of long term missionaries worries me but I am encouraged by the number of missionaries being sent out by the global south.

4. We should send out young people for longer periods of time. My short term mission lasted two years. I think the article rightly criticizes the 'religious tourism' aspect and the often selfish and consumeristic nature of these trips. But tell someone they are going for 2 months (or 2 years) and they will have to put their career on hold and you will weed most of them out.

5. Short term mission should be more relational, connected with local authorities, churches (if they have any) and local families.

6. Missions today is multi-directional and it is a mistake to talk about missions only in terms of our country sending missionaries to others. Christian communities in every country should expect short term missionaries to be sent to them and start making provision. For example, a suburban church in Manchester or Dallas or Sydney might have accommodation ready for mobile missionaries, or even camper-van facilities in their car park. Families should expect to be hosting internationals in their homes and know how to orient them to the local scene.

7. Pilgrimages and self-guided mission experiences, although not mentioned in the article, are also on the increase and sometimes offer a better posture of learning and receiving hospitality than traditional short term missions.

8. When I was with Operation Mobilization, I heard founder George Verwer say that churches must stay involved in both sending overseas missionaries or they will lose their vision within one generation.

9. Partnering with an established mission organization is a good way to get some cross-cultural sensitivity training for the team. CMS (Church Mission Society) in the UK do a great job in this and many American mission agencies also. Short term missions like OM and YWAM normally offer their own training and their expertise can be utilized for your teams. See if they are connected with Global Connections (UK) or Standards of Excellence for Short Term Mission (USA)

10. And lets not forget the massive resource we have with retired missionaries now living back home who can guide and train short term mission teams. Hey . . . invite them along!