Still down under in Australia

So Day 2 saw me awake in Australia ready for the reason for my long travels to begin. Day 1 of teaching.

So to prepare I went a 5 mile run around Ascot Racecourse and along Swan River. My mind was cleared - partly due to being chased by a dog and the clarity running can bring.

It all begins with God, and so theology took centre stage in Session 1.
Who is this God that we have given ourselves to?
Who is this God that we preach and declare?
Who is this God that we lead our congregations to give themselves fully to?

Enter ......... trinitiarian theology.

Not the easiest beginning topic to handle, and tonight I'm rewriting some of it, but at its core stands a trinitarian God who incredibly moved with the sole purpose of human redemption.

3=1
We believe that God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is One God.

3-1=0
Each person is God only with the other two.
So, the incredible death of Christ on the cross and his cry 'my God, my God why have you forsaken me' describes not only the suffering of Christ but the suffering of God. God was 'damaged' due to the cross.
But this was all purposeful. God the Father sent the Son (at such a cost) to rescue humankind.
His purpose flows out of God being missional - a sending God.
Christ was sent to bring about God's rescue.

3+1=1
The Missio Dei accomplished, you and I are joined to God, heirs, co-heirs. We are brought into the union of the Godhead.

The Trinity was not exclusive. It moved to include you and me. God is inclusive.
Its moving was at the ultimate cost.
The Church is called to live out that cost - radically, sacrificially, selflessly give ourselves to see others included in God.

.....and there were too many blank stares hence my rewriting tonight.

But its core.
Miss who God is and all the pain and effort in trying to lead and serve in a local church becomes vain.
Grasp how far God went ....... you'll not pull back, pull up or pull away.

Session 2 was simple - lets talk leadership.

But over lunch conversations began, and what rose to the surface was here in Australia, like in America, Britain, most places - church leaders sit around and discuss how to help dysfunctional Christians grasp the scale and the urgency of reflecting the image of the God we worship and who made us.

Tonight I sit watching another storm hit Perth. Gallons of rain are falling as i eat Cadbury's chocolate and hit my netbook.

Trinitarian faith in all its depth and complexity being contemplated even outworked by a simple Scots guy slightly carnal and slightly tired trying to help a bunch of Aussie pastors lead towards health.

The key is knowing it is God working purposefully to bring about his one and only purpose - the missio dei ....in and through jars of clay.

Off to watch a movie and eat more chocolate.

Australia Day 1

Travelling for 19 hours on a plane to reach the first city in my tour of Australia passed as slow as you think it passed.
19 hours on a plane – add on the airport waiting time and it brings you to a total of 28 hours.
Even trying out the new A380 double decker super jumbo made it only interesting for the first hour –when they had a sky cam attached to the tail of the plane for you to watch the takeoff from! But then it was back to ordinary airplane food and cramped leg space – trying your best to sleep as you flew over nothing but water.
When I did the short 5 hour flight across Australia from Sydney to Perth the monotony was broken by the incredible golden coastline we hugged and the three bars of Cadbury chocolate I eat in place of more yuck airplane food.
Thank the Lord for Cadbury’s down under.

And while I seem to have begun my travels complaining, it is absolutely amazing that I am sitting nearly 10,000 miles from California reaching here in just over one days travel – safely.
Thank you Jesus and Qantas (which I discovered stands for Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Services).

Apart from watching three pretty good movies Lincoln Lawyer, The Adjustment Bureau and the weird but funny Paul, I finished off two good reads.

Read #1 (which I finished between waiting in Fresno and reaching LAX) was a leadership book called It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy @ Captain D. Michael Abrashoff.
Fun read.
The story of turning the USS Benfold from one of the most dysfunctional ships into the go to ship in the Gulf War. Basis premise – give every sailor ownership of the ship, hence the book’s title. Revolutionary thinking in a highly pyramidical US Navy culture.

Read #2 was about Dean Karnazes called UltraMarathon: Confessions of An All-Night Runner.
This guy is incredible – he’s run the Badwater Race (Death Valley to Mount Whitney) in the summer heat where your shoes actually melt on the road surface! He’s run the Western States 100 (yep – 100 miles not 100km). He ran a marathon at the South Pole. The Relay Race is teams of relay runners running from Calistoga to Santa Cruz – 199 miles! Dean Karnazes ran it without a team ……. he ran all 199 miles himself and then ran a full marathon (26.2 miles) immediately after it!!!
Crazy.
Fanatical.
Possessed.
Or …..committed to what he can do well.

Both books stirred me as I flew to Australia.

My trip here is to work alongside the Salvation Army in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney and coach on church transformation.

It was initially a 10 day trip talking in 2 cities; it’s now 17 days, 39 talks, 4 cities!

I needed stirring for this trip - so these books, amazing scenery and Cadbury chocolate has brought me that.

So to read #3 and the most stirring:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Written over 400 years ago, the first modern novel, it is a classic and one of only 20 or so pieces of literature that have survived for more than 400 years.
Steven Sample suggests we give up reading new books and if all we read every year are the 20 or so true classics we would have done ourselves more good.
So here goes.
I’m at page 43 and its slow, different but in a strange way refreshing and intriguing.

Today (Thursday) I saw the Indian Ocean for the first time as I explored Western Australia.
Tomorrow – my main reason for being here begins.

I begin it with a 2 hour teaching on the Theology of the Trinity. Wonder if any will return for more on Saturday and Sunday.

So far I’d describe Australia as an English feeling place with an American overture. Unsure if that is a compliment.

Tomorrow I meet church leaders ……. brings purpose and the tangible to why I’m here.

Can’t come soon enough.

Heading to bed ……. still fighting the old jet lag and too much Cadbury’s!!

Warning - this blog may cause constipation.

Welcome to another blog that hopes to stretch thinking and cause rethinking.

Will we poop in heaven?

Let’s start with heaven.
Let’s start with asking will Osama Bin Laden be in heaven?

Bin Laden believed so …….. being met at the gate by 72 vegans!
(Sadly there was a screw up in the paperwork and the virgins he’d hoped for didn’t show up.)

But could he be in heaven?
Some of you might think that he’s the poop.

Now in case I am misunderstood, I am not in any way minimizing the violent and hate-filled atrocities Bin Laden perpetrated over the past 15 years including the bombing in Nairobi, Kenya where 224 died and over 5000 injured; and the tragic events of 9/11 and the over 3000 killed and countless victims injured.
Bin Laden lived a life of violence and murderous hate.

But could he be in heaven?

Is he beyond God’s grace?

The difficulty with celebrating anyone death is the sense that we are celebrating someone receiving God’s punishment of hell …..as if they deserve it and we (those celebrating) don’t deserve such.
If Bin Laden had been captured and as a war criminal now faced justice being done to him that might be a more celebratory outcome. But, celebrating his death - and by all accounts people celebrating are assuming he is now in hell receiving due justice – seems to suggest he is getting what he deserves ….and we will also get what we deserve but we will get heaven.

Really?

The core of Christian teaching is that no-one deserves heaven. Heaven is an act of God’s free gift of grace. No one deserves it but all can receive it.

Now I’m not suggesting that I know Bin Laden accepted God’s grace (but he might have); and if he had he would be in heaven!

This for some is the scandal of the Gospel.

The scandal says - no one is beyond God’s grace, and God’s grace is all you need to enter heaven.

The scandal, or perhaps the surprise of heaven, is that it will be full of the unexpected, none more than who is there and who isn’t!

Will there be poop in heaven …that could be unexpected.

Sitting in an airport Chili’s last week I shared the question I was pondering and one person quickly retorted – “Of course we all know there will be, we all say it ‘holy ****!’”

But the original questioner was reflecting on a theological point. If poop is the body’s way of removing impurities, if heaven is void of impurities will we still poop!

Heaven.

Oftentimes we think of heaven as ethereal, intangible, esoteric and immaterial.
To say that an easier way – floaty, dreamy, hazy.

I grew up with the idea that it was a place above earth where we would sing hymns and worship all day long, every day, for ever and ever …like one everlasting church service.
For me that sounded more like hell!

Scriptures teaches that there is a place, a space, a realm beyond the one we currently inhabit.
Scripture teaches that just now we have a body that gets old, weary and eventually will give out on us – but there is a second kind of body one that is ‘imperishable’.
Scripture also teaches that not being here will be better.

In this new place, with a new body, in a better place will we still poop?
I truly don’t know.

BUT, Scripture doesn’t only talk of heaven as being somewhere else, sometime else.
Jesus taught, lived, that heaven had come to earth.
For Jesus heaven was not ‘someday’ but was a present reality.
Scriptures teaches that it is both here, now and yet fully to come.
Eternal life does not start when we die; it starts now.
Jesus’ prayer, our prayer was and is “thy kingdom come”.
Christians are about bringing heaven to earth ….. today.

The original questioner was wondering if in the other reality our bodies will be perfect, sinless and therefore poopless.
But the better way to look at heaven is to see it not as somewhere else, sometime else - but the focus of our attention and purpose now.

If as a Christian you pooped today, if today you have been about what God wants you to be about - bringing heaven to earth, then theologically you pooped in heaven!

Sorry if this blog causes constipation.

Rob Bell - poet, prophet or pest?

There’s something about poetic language that draws me in.

Take this poetry:
“Many have these questions.
Christians,
people who aren’t Christians,
people who were Christians,
but can’t do it anymore because of questions about these very topics,
people who think Christians are delusional and profoundly misguided,
pastors,
leaders,
preachers – these questions are everywhere.”

There’s something about the way the poetic weaves together groups of people who would not normally go together.
The poetic finds way through a phrase even a word that pulls the unusual into community.

Take this poetic phrase:

“Honest business,
redemptive art,
honorable law,
sustainable living,
medicine,
education,
making a home,
tending a garden – they’re all sacred tasks to be done in partnership with God now, because they will all go on in the age to come.
In heaven,
on earth."

Poetry.

Putting together words that on earth don’t go together.
Merging what’s normally unmerged.

There’s something about poetic language that draws me in.
For some the movement of poetry appeals, for others it raises questions.
For me the rhythm evolves poetic license; for other its vagueness confuses or denies.
For me it draws me to think and consider possibilities; for others it causes them to think that the poet is considerably wrong.

Chesterton once wrote: “it’s the mathematician that goes mad not the poet”.

The mathematician is trying to get heaven, God, faith, truth into his head, the poet is just trying to get his head into heaven.

The poet can hold vagueness; the mathematician can’t.
The poet can write something unconcluded; the mathematician must see the conclusion. The poet in this case is the pastor and author Rob Bell.
The mathematicians in this case are the pastors and Christian leaders lining up to shoot the poet.
The topic is Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

The poetry written above comes from this book.

I loved the book, in all it inconclusiveness, vagueness and poetry!
Excellent.

Like everything else Rob Bell has written he weaves new thought alongside orthodox thought and invites you to be shocked and stirred and intrigued and scratched, question and disagree and agree and applaud, and want more and want less all at the same time.
As a poet he lets you swim in the sea not curtailing its vastness ignoring the ‘don’t swim here’ signs.

It’s the work of a poet not the work of a mathematician or a scholar or a theologian.

Is he really preaching universalism as some charge him with?
Is he really presenting a false God as others charge him with?
Is he really denying the atonement?
Should he really be burned at the stake for heresy?

He’s a poet.

Another poet Eugene Peterson endorsed the book indicating that while he doesn’t agree with all that Rob’s written, he’s my brother in Christ writing nothing new but continuing a worthwhile discussion.

To some extent it’s a classic modernity/postmodernity clash.
The clash of formulaic, propositional truth with narrative.

I live in the borderland between two cultures.

I can be the poet, but I can also be the mathematician.

There are times when the ‘modern’ in me wants better supporting evidence for the new definitions Rob gives.
There are times when the ‘postmodern’ in me wants him to pull back from wording that seem to be too deconstructive.

But I enjoy Rob Bell and his poetic exegesis.

For me, God is as much a poet as He is a mathematician.

The intricacy and preciseness of creation; the clarity and formulae of The Law He gave enable the mathematician to claim God as his friend.

But the mysteries left hanging; Jesus’ answers that were more questions; the both/and of His Being (three but one; fully God but fully human); the Psalms, the Revelation, the Book of Songs ……reveal a Divine Poet.

There’s room for both; and both should allow room for the other.

To a degree I need there to be a box – call it Orthodoxy.
I need there to be lines drawn and conclusions reached and The Faith handed down.
I need the Didache, the Creeds, the Confessions of Faith, the completed Canon.

But I’m nervous of a box with the lid fully closed. (In fact the only box I know of where the lid is fully closed is a coffin!)

I’m wary of theology that has systematized God into concluded theories.
I’m skeptical of faith built upon conclusions.

Does faith not require lines to sometimes bend or be dotted?
Does God not stand bigger than even the biggest box we can find?

I need perhaps not vagueness – what if we call it largeness.

I need space for more – more redefined, or more to be defined.

I need the poet.

“And to that,
that impulse,
craving,
yearning,
longing,
desire – God says yes.
Yes, there is water for that thirst,
food for that hunger,
light for that darkness.
If we want hell,
if we want heaven,
they are ours.
That’s how love works.
It can’t be forced,
manipulated,
or coerced.
It always leaves room for the other to decide.
God says yes,
we can have what we want,
because love wins.”

Poetry.

“Is the cross about the end of the sacrificial system
or a broken relationship that’s been reconciled
or a guilty defendant who’s been set free
or a battle that’s been won
or the redeeming of something that was lost?

Which perspective is the right one?
Which metaphor is correct?
Which explanation is true?

The answer, of course, is yes.”

To some it’s misleading, indecisive, confusing, heresy.
To me its poetic thought invites thinking, engagement, discussion.

For some, including a good friend of mine, the debate is irrelevant – God’s sovereignty answers it all.
For some, Rob Bell has struck his final nail in his own coffin.

But for others, myself included, Rob Bell has enabled us to keep largeness a big part of God; a largeness that allows us down here to discuss and disagree, but do so respecting our brothers and sisters rather than displaying both the arrogance of claiming to be right and the arrogance of stating the other is wrong.
It allows largeness in thought and worship that quickness my heartbeat, thrilled by the vastness of God and The Faith I’m a part of.

The poet never sets out to complete the box; the poet sets out to express their emotion and in that expression wonder if they’ve latched on to something divine.
If they have – the poem will deliver, it’s an outward journey.
If they haven’t - the poem is but an inward restlessness revealed.

For the poet while the former is best, the latter still holds meaning.
For the reader if they seek to critique it they will deduce one of either of the endings.
Or, if they can, they become the poet and the circle continues.
And continues.
And continues.
And continues.

Freaks some people out!
Helps some of us to breath.

Crikey, I Didn't Choose the Fish Tacos!

Something strange happened to me tonight.
You may not think it very striking or of any importance.
Here it is - I didn't choose fish tacos!!

Pow! Bam! Wham! Yikes!

Everyone knows that I always, always, always choose Daniel's fish tacos. Always.
Comment away, but I do.
Tonight I didn't.
I made another choice.

Listen to this line from a stretching book I am working through:

"The burden of choice is a peculiarly modern phenomenon."

You could argue that the freedom to choose is one of the great signs of progress in modern life.
Those who live in abject poverty worry very little about which kind of food to eat precisely because there are no choices before them.

They would not see choice as a burden, but as a blessing.

My argument is, it is never a blessing, it is always a burden.

Its is our contemporary nihilism (as Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly term it in All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age.)
Choice, even in the most basic case, amounts to profound questions, questions that revolve around how possible it is to live a meaningful life.

To live a meaningful life always returns to the ultimate question - 'on what basis do I make a choice ....even the most basic of choices, even choosing Hearty Omelette over my regular, loved, favorite Fish Tacos?'

For Ancients and Middle Agers life was already defined. Circumstances defined it. Things were unchangeable. Additionally, there was a belief system that whether or not you believed in God or gods, there was one framework, one system, one defining reality.

For the modern world ........ nothing is defined.
Everything then is a choice.
Every choice therefore defines.
Every definition makes up the fullness of who we are.

That makes choice a burden.
Even the choice of food.

Sitting tomorrow at Daniel's restaurant choosing from the menu is an existential life defining moment.

Every choice counts.
Every choice has a basis.

Remember Hamlet's famous soliloquy "To be or not to be, that is the question."

This is your choice.

Week 8 - A Saturday dialogue.

Week 8 brings me to start by quoting a passage some of the guys in our church dialogued about on Saturday morning:

Christian faith is about Christ, not about experiencing Christ. There's a difference and it matters. We put our faith in a person, not an experience........
We do experience Christ in our faith and that's a very good thing, but it's not the really important thing in Christian faith or even in Christian experience. The person in whom we have faith is the really important thing in Christian experience.

Its a great quote. Its a thinking quote.

I grew up in a tradition that seemed to worship doctrine over Jesus.
You could be a hard, difficult, angry man .... but if you were solid in your doctrine everything was good! I came across many men like that. Full of truth, but no grace.
Doctrine was everything.

For years I've been puzzled by this reality.
It's like churches called "Bible Church" or "Baptist Church"!!
Why are they not called "Jesus Church"?
Do we worship the Bible, or worship a sacrament? No. We worship Jesus Christ.

But recently I've been rethinking my attitude towards the elevation of doctrine.

Listen again to our Saturday book:

More than any other religion Christianity makes a big deal of doctrine.
Most religions are fundamentally a way of life, but Christianity is fundamentally a faith, because it's centered not on how we live but on what we believe about how Christ lives (and died, and rose again).

So today at church a girl walks up to me and thanks me for the past 2 years. She has been a part of our church while attending a nearby two year YWAM mission project. Specifically she wanted to thank me for every week teaching from the Scriptures and not trying to just be topical or relevant.

Interesting that it came a day after discussing this topic.
Interesting that most of our critics see us as anything but doctrinal!

Here's the kind of church we have worked hard at being for the past 7 years - a church that elevates orthodox doctrine heard in fresh and creative ways, leading people to Christ, and from that knowledge of Christ come to a vibrant, life changing experience with Christ .... from the outside in.

Maybe our presentation of doctrine has not been wrapped in the same wineskins as a previous generation or other churches, but we are a solid doctrine teaching church.

Final quote from our book [Good News For Anxious Christians @ Phillip Cary]:

The work of the church is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, which forms hearts by the word of God, so that Christ may dwell there and make a lasting change in people's lives. This has been the work of the church from the beginning, since our Lord poured out his Spirit upon his Body at Pentecost. We need not worry that the Holy Spirit will cease to accomplish the work for which he has been sent, no matter how many falsehoods and failures we see in the life of the church.

I got robbed in Nairobi!

Week 6 and I've just returned from a quick trip to Nairobi, Kenya.
Again I return because too easily I forget how the majority of our world brothers and sisters live.

Seems rather ironic that we have to spend nearly $2K on trip costs to remember that over 70% of the world live on less than $2 a day.
Ask the four young guys who lead the Furaha Community Foundation that we partner with in the Huruma slum or any of their 23 employees and they will tell you that for "mzungus" (white people) to care enough about them to visit them ...... is better than sending more money to them. In a culture where relationships are more precious than money somethings truly are priceless.

As I return from another trip it is too easy for me to ignore how far away we were.
Eerily we flew over Cairo, Egypt as the country below us was sitting on the edge of a revolution. Just hours earlier we had flown at 36,000ft over Darfur seeing its sprawling sand hills - unable to see the pain on a people who had and are experiencing modern day genocide ..... sadly the world flies over it too with politicians ignoring the reality. We watched as Vienna lit up in the early evening and its huge cartwheel shaped road pattern distinguished it from the other European cities we passed. With nightfall on us we landed in the cosmopolitan capital of the world - London with its 9 million people representing over 270 nationalities.

The sad thing is I'd seen it all before and the awe of how far we were from home and what we were seeing no longer gave me chills.

Some say familiarity breeds contempt. For me, it just breeds ordinariness.
Maybe that's sadder.
When the sense of wonder, awe and excitement get diluted, life shrinks down to your size.
When life becomes your size - ordinary is too grand a word to describe the pettiness of your existence.

Of course, where ordinariness is the norm, faith is extinct.
Faith only exists in the world of extraordinary. Ordinary has no need of faith - it is content to remain where it is.

That is always the challenge of Kenya.
How do you prevent the regularity of visiting robbing you of the faith needed to visit?

Same is true in your life, in your context.

The challenge is to prevent the theft.
The need is to be wise to the thief.
The technique is to protect your soul.