Rich "Richie" Merritt :: Friends blog

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I have been reading a book by the brilliant Catholic theologian and ethicist George Weigel called Faith, Reason, And The War Against Jihadism: A Call To Action. It just so happens that I was reading it as the Mumbai terror attacks happened and so I post the headings of his insights here. His issue is not with Islam in general, but with the particularly dangerous brand called Jihadism, and I do find these insights very honest, insightful, and confronting. I am inclined to agree. What think ye?

• Lesson one: The great human questions, including the great questions of public life, are ultimately theological


• Lesson two: To speak of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “three Abrahamic faiths,” the “three religions of the Book” or the “three monotheisms” obscures rather than illuminates. These familiar descriptions ought to be retired


• Lesson three: Jihadism is the enemy in the multi-front war that has been declared on us


• Lesson four: Jihadism has a complex intellectual history, the chief points of which must be grasped in order to understand the nature of the threat it poses to the west


• Lesson five: Jihadists read history and politics through the prism of distinctive theological convictions, not through the lens of western assumptions about the progress of dynamic of history


• Lesson six: It is not “Islamophobic” to note the historical connection between conquest and Muslim expansion, or between contemporary jihadism and terrorism. Truth-telling is the essential prerequisite to genuine interreligious dialogue, which can only be based on the claims of reason.


• Lesson seven: The war against jihadism is a contest for the human future that will endure for generations


• Lesson eight: Genuine realism in foreign policy takes wickedness seriously, yet avoids premature closure in it’s thinking about the possibilities of positive change in world politics


• Lesson nine: In the war against Jihadism, the political objective in the middle East and throughout the Islamic world is the evolution of responsible and responsive government, which will take different forms given different historical and cultural circumstances


• Lesson ten: in the war against global Jihadism, deterrence strategies unlikely to be effective, because it is almost impossible to deter those who are committed to their own martyrdom


• Lesson eleven: Cultural self-confidence is indispensable to victory in the long-term struggle against Jihadism


• Lesson twelve: Islamist salami tactics (also known as the salami-slice strategy, a divide and conquer process of threats and alliances used to overcome opposition) must be resisted, for small concessions in the name of a false idea of tolerance inevitably lead to further concessions, and into further erosions of liberty and security


• Lesson thirteen: We cannot, and will not, deserve victory (much less achieve it) if we continue to finance those who attack us, therefore, a program to defund jihadism by developing alternatives to petroleum based transportation fuels is a crucial component of the current struggle


• Lesson fourteen: Victory in the war against global jihadism requires a new domestic political coalition that is proof against the confusions caused by the Unhinged Left and the Unhinged Right


• Lesson fifteen: There is no escape from US leadership

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The explorations of communitas (the theme for the next series of posts around The Forgotten Ways) took on a very personal form in my own experience as leader of South Melbourne Restoration Community (now called RED), the church I had the privilege of leading for 15 years. When I look back to the early dynamics of that vibrant community, especially as it was still forming, we were functioning as missional church in a very naïve, pre-cognitive, and instinctual kind of way. All we did was set out to build a community that was radically open and engaged with all kinds of people on the edges and fringes of society. Things happened. It was exciting— the community was focused and sharpened by a sense of destiny and mission and as a result we grew in a strange and wonderful kind of way. We were missional, even though at the time this was as yet largely unarticulated, and as a result we experienced a remarkable form of community.

But something seemed to change as we grew and self-consciously became a more trendy, pomo, Gen-X church. For understandable reasons lots of grounded middleclass Christians from Melbourne’s Bible belt moved to the inner city to be part of what God was doing—and we welcomed the newfound stability in what was to that point a very chaotic experience of ecclesia. These were established Christians weren’t needy and that was a wonderful change for us and we basked in a period of sublime stability. But something shifted as we became more stable. And while we gained a lot from the participation of these wonderful people, nonetheless something significant was inadvertently lost as the church culture changed and became more middle-class and steady.

There is something about middle-class culture that seems to be contrary to authentic gospel values. And this is not a statement about middleclass people per se; I myself am from a very middleclass family, but rather to isolate some of the values and assumptions that that seem to just come along as part of the deal. In the chapter on discipleship we noted that much of what goes by the name middle class involves a preoccupation with safety and security developed mostly in pursuit of what seems to best for our children. And this is understandable as long as it does not become obsessive. But when these impulses of middle class culture fuse with consumerism, as they most often do, we can add the obsession with comfort and convenience to the list. And this is not a good mix. At least as far as the Gospel and missional church is concerned.

Operating under the influence of these ‘bugs’ in our middleclass software, our community became a marketer of particularly zesty religious goods and services vying for the attention of discerning spiritual consumers. Flattered by the numerical growth, and driven by our own middle-class agendas, we thoughtlessly followed the ‘gather and amuse’ impulse implicit in church growth theory and so we grew in numbers, but something primal and indispensable was lost in the bargain. We got more transfers from other churches, but the flow of conversion slowed down to a trickle and then ran completely dry. Paradoxically, we became busier than ever before, but with less and less real missional impact. We had moved from the missional idea of ‘me for the community and the community for the world’ to the more consumptive ‘the community for me’ and it just about destroyed us. We recovered only by recalibrating the community along fundamentally missional lines, and this was not achieved without pain and numerical loss. But in doing so, we moved from an experience of church as community to that of communitas.

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“Jesus was truly free.  His freedom was rooted in his spiritual awareness that he was the Beloved Child of God.  He knew in the depth of his being that he belonged to God before he was born, that he was sent into the world to proclaim God’s love, and that he would return to God after his mission was fulfilled.  This knowledge gave him the freedom to speak and act without having to please the world and the power to respond to people’s pains with the healing love of God.  That’s why the Gospels say, ‘Everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all!’” - Henri Nouwen

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that for which i’m thankful

Originally uploaded by slight clutter

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful to God for the opportunity to have a blog and interact with so many people all around the world. I have been encouraged by the kind of response that this blog has been getting, according to StatCounter, Google Analytics and MyBlogLog. I am always encouraged when you make comments and interact with some of the stuff I write about.

I have been particularly encouraged by the response to my post on A Primer of Today’s Missional Church. The amount of comments, links and responses confirmed my sense of call to put those resources together. Thanks for linking it so others might read it.

EXPERIENCE THANKSGIVING EVERYDAY

According to the Apostle Paul, everyday should be thanksgiving, which is why he said, “In everything give thanks.” John Henry Jowett, a preacher from England says this about gratitude:

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” What did he mean? He meant that gratitude, like a vaccine, can prevent the invasion of a disgruntled, discouraged spirit. Like an antitoxin, gratitude can prevent the affects of the poisons of cynicism, criticalness, and grumbling. Like an antiseptic, a spirit of gratitude can soothe and heal the most troubled spirit.”

Why is practicing gratitude so important for our lives? Because every day is a gift from God, that we are called to unwrap; yet so often we miss many of the gifts that God gives us, because ingratitude is moral blindness. A blindness to the goodness of being alive, the beauty of creation, the love of friends and the joy of work. It’s a blindness to the fact that life is basically good. The Psalmist said, “Praise the Lord, I tell myself; and never forget the good things he does for me.” Ps. 103:2 NLT

One of the best examples of someone who has learned to count their blessings in difficult circumstances and choose joy is a guy by the name of Tim Hansel. Tim was a Stanford graduate who for the last thirty years, has lived with chronic physical pain. He has authored ten books and each one that I have read I have been thoroughly encourage by. As a man who lives in grueling chronic pain, he exudes great joy, because he has learned that joy is a choice.

In his book You Gotta Keep Dancin’ he writes: “Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid joy. God has given us such immense freedom that he will allow us to be as miserable as we want to be.”

He says, “I know some people who spend their entire lives practicing being unhappy, diligently pursuing joylessness. They get more mileage from having people feel sorry for them than from choosing to live out their lives in the context of joy.

Joy is simple (not to be confused with easy). At any moment in life we have at least two options, and one of them is to choose an attitude of gratitude, a posture of grace, a commitment to joy.

There is no question that life is difficult. In fact, it has been said that God promises four things: peace, power, purpose and TROUBLE. For example in John 16:33 Jesus reminds us quite boldly that in the world there will be trouble. There will be tribulation, but we are not merely to endure it but to “be of good cheer for he has overcome the world.”

Many of us have only gotten half the message. We recognize the difficulty of life and drearily drag ourselves through each day, mumbling about our burdens. It can be different – but the choice is ours.”

He says, as I learned after my accident, I could not live by the maxim “When I get stronger, than I will be joyful.” It’s an attitude so many people share, agreeing to be joyful when the circumstances improve.

Tim Hansel’s thoughts are even more meaningful, as I for the last year and a half have had his wife Anastasia in my Fuller Cohort. We shared a small group together and one week she wrote me this e-mail:

I just wanted you to know I am once again facing the possibility of losing my husband. I went to bed at 2 a.m. on Monday morning and at 4 a.m. Tim was calling for me. He could hardly breathe. The paramedics came and off to ER we went. Tim’s O2 level was at 50%! He has been ‘intubated’……..an absolutely horrific procedure. He has a severe case of pneumonia. It seems like his lungs have become his Achilles heel. His body has been paralyzed to keep him absolutely stilled. The opening chapter of the latest book, DANCIN’ ON THE CHAOS! we titled, “No Pulse” because that is what we have lived with for years…….doctor’s diagnoses telling us he’s not going to make it. It will be a miracle this time if he does pull through. Doing my Fuller assignments has been a blessing as well as tough to meet ‘the deadlines’. I’m not sure I made a great deal of sense trying to think through the last assignment. I have a speaking engagement this Saturday on top of all of this……..so, as I would appreciate your prayers that I would not ‘cry my way’ through my talk. I don’t mind the tears but it’s tough to understand someone when they are in tears! As Tim and I have shared with people, life isn’t just difficult as Scott Peck has written…….life can be desperate at times!

The more I have lived, the more that I have noticed that People who say “thank you” to God have a way of looking at life. They see life differently. The good, the bad, the ugly—they see all of it as a part of the package of life—that great gift of life that God has given us. And they know how and who to say “thank you” to. They regularly say “thank you” to God. They know how to truly celebrate the great stuff, like being in love. They have learned to thank God for the stuff most of us overlook. When they see a beautiful sunset, they say “thank you”. When they listen to music they enjoy, they say thanks. When they eat a delicious meal, or when they enjoy an evening with a friend, they are thankful.

They also have a way of being able to live with and live through the hard and difficult and disappointing things. Because for them, it’s all part of the gift of life that God has given. And they live out their thanks to God. Their life is lived out like a big thank-you note to God—a thank-you note to an amazing and forgiving and grace-giving God.

A teacher asked her students to list what they thought were the present Seven Wonders of the World. The students cast the most votes for: 1. Egypt’s Great Pyramids 2. Taj Mahal 3. Grand Canyon 4. Panama Canal 5. Empire State Building 6. St. Peter’s Basilica 7. China’s Great Wall

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student had not turned in her paper yet. She asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The girl replied, “Yes, a little. I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.”

The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.” The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: 1. to see 2. to hear 3. to touch 4. to taste 5. to feel 6. to laugh 7. to love

This little girl understands something that we all need to remember, and that is the simple wonders of life. Every morning when we wake up and live out our day, we are simply unwrapping God’s gift to us. We have so much to be thankful for.

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• Adizes' lifecycle of organizations | Realize!
  Lifecycles, Management Roles

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I am about to start blogging on the whole idea of communitas as one of the key elements of Apostolic Genius (the latent power inherent in God’s people).  But I can’t get beyond a few quotes which I put at the top of the chapter.  I love them…here they are.

“That which does not kill you will make you stronger”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

“The ship is safest when it is in port. But that’s not what ships were made for”

-  Paulo Coehlo

“It is the unknown that defines our existence.  We are constantly seeking, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions.  We are explorers…”

- Cmdr Ben Cisco, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

These seem to get at the heart of what this part of human experience is on about.  the whole idea of communitas focuses on putting the adventure back into the venture.

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Earlier this month I was introduced to Tumblr, a creative way to communicate pictures, quotes and ideas.  I asked people to share with me their tumblr page, if they had one or if they wanted to make one.  So now I would like to make mention of these different pages.

The first two that I wanted to introduce you to are by Luke Mysse, who also happens to have designed the cover of my first book that should come out sometime next year.  In regard to that book, you can go to my writings and read the first three chapters.  It’s called: Re-Sketching the Church and it is about reimagining leadership in the church.  Anyway, Luke is a great designer, you can find out more about him here.  He has a lot of cool pictures at his tumblr personal blog site.

The other site that Luke is a part of is Eaglez - America’s Sentinels, where he and others post pictures of everything eagles, so check it out, especially if you are into those birds.

The other tumblr site that I wanted to introduce you to is SOMA.LIFE by Chris Thomas.  I like the layout of his pages and the quotes are excellent.  He has six different pages, so check them all out.  Beautiful photographs mixed with meaningful words.  Chris is the one who turned me on to Tumblr.

And of course, if you didn’t check out my tumblr page, you can still do that.  Now it is time for me to tumble out.

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• Q 2009
  An annual conference on culture, future, church, gospel

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Here is my analytical review of Dan Allender’s latest book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only is the book rich, but take a closer look at the cover of this book, what an excellent design. If you hit the cover it will get larger. The way in which I do this review is share a bit about the author, the authors thesis, an overview then some of my own thoughts on the book. With that said, let’s dive into the review.

AUTHOR

Dan B. Allender, PhD. is founder of Mars Hill Graduate School near Seattle, where he currently serves as President. He is a therapist in private practice as well an author of a number of books. He writes in a heart-revealing way. He is a popular speaker, the husband of Rebecca and father of three children.

THESIS

While many leadership books today focus on knowing your strengths and leveraging your power, Allender in Leading with a Limp argues that the best leaders live paradoxical lives, where they lead with power because of their weakness, find success through acknowledging their failures and lose their life, so that they might save it.

OVERVIEW

Allender makes it clear that living a paradoxical life requires faith and has enormous costs, but meaningful rewards. He paints a realistic picture of leadership through stories and by guiding us through five universal challenges that every leader faces and calls us to respond in a paradoxical way. When we face crises, we should respond with courage (brokenness and confidence) instead of cowardice (blame and control); when facing complexity, we should respond with depth (foolishness and creativity) instead of rigidity (dogmatism); when confronted with betrayal, we should respond with gratitude (reluctance and humility) instead of narcissism (envy and self-absorption); when faced with loneliness, respond with openness (honest hunger and community) instead of hiding (manipulation), and when faced with weariness, respond with hope (disillusionment and boldness) instead of fatalism (busyness). He encourages us to define our calling not just with nouns (sage, seer, mouthpiece, coach, catalyst), but also with adjectives, like broken, foolish, reluctant, hungry or disillusioned. He reminds us that limping leadership happens in the context of community and is more about forming character than running an organization. He ends with practical advice on how to tell secrets and explanations of the three leaders needed for any organization – king, priest and prophet.

MY THOUGHTS

I found the book refreshingly challenging. Refreshing because as Dan shared the beauty and effectiveness of limping leaders, he shared his own brokenness, foolishness, reluctance, hunger and disillusionment. Challenging, because being a limping leader has enormous costs and risks involved, and it takes a nuanced discernment for each of us to apply such wisdom in our life. Leading with a limp requires that we name “some very painful realities about life and leadership, about others and yourself” (7).

His chapter on telling secrets was paradoxical and helpful. He says the way that we embrace honesty is by: “giving up what is already painfully obvious, tell the truth without telling all the truth, and embrace the gospel in your failure to live the gospel” (173). He says we need to tell stories without all the spin, that include failure and the need of grace, stories that share “the already and the not yet, the call to be strong and tender, and the ways of being wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove” (177).

Here are some short quotes I want to contemplate: “There are no easy decisions. To decide requires a death, a dying to a thousand options…” (14). “A good leader will, in time, disappoint everyone” (14). “If you want a friend, get a dog” (33). “Ineffective responses to any of the biggest challenges of leadership – betrayal, crises, complexity, loneliness or weariness – result in failures that eventually come home to roost” (45). This book is worth reading annually. In my next reading, I hope to write out more of what I want to remember and do as a result of reading this rich and realistic book.

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“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” Proverbs 17:22 NLT

The Disastrous Wedding Ring Exchange (44 seconds)