I know, I know. I don’t really write enough any more to warrant a break, but still…
There are a lot of things going on in life right now and between summer ministry, vacation and getting ready for Beth’s wedding (rescheduled from last Dec to Aug 2) I am not going to try and make the time to blog. What little brain I have left is pretty tired.
Try to keep the weeping and wailing to a dull roar. Peace.
The subject of war has always been interesting to me. My Dad served as a United States Marine, stationed in Okinawa, Japan, between the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Though he never saw combat, he’s always considered a Marine to be a cut above the Army, Navy and Air Force and will probably insist that Semper Fi be carved into the lid of his casket.
I grew up in the cold war, believing that the Carter administration had left us vulnerable to a potential Soviet attack and being thankful for the arms buildup under Reagan. I remember watching on TV, January 20, 1981, as a senior in high school as the Iran hostages were released just 20 minutes after Reagan’s inauguration, ostensibly as a result of the incoming president’s promise to secure the hostages’ release from Tehran, via the United States military. The biblical doctrine of Just War is one that I still hold believing it to be a valid interpretation.
The struggle that I have had since September 11, 2001, is that although the scripture allows for just war, all wars are fought by humans many of whom are not just and those who’d like to be are not necessarily equipped to lead nations or armies. What should be the position of a Christian who’s country has the biblical basis for either attacking or defending yet the leaders are either not believers or are incompetent? How do we know that when Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” he was not referring to political enemies? Believers in Jesus really should be careful when we cede to political entities and political leaders the right to determine who our enemies are or should be. Did Jesus not shed His blood for Afghan warlords as well as American school kids? One of the more thought provoking lines I’ve heard lately was this: When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” He probably meant don’t kill them. I’ve always thought, based on Ephesians 6, that those who “despised, persecuted and hated” me were not the enemy, but victims of the Enemy.
Recently, I ran across full video of Academy Award winning director Errol Morris’ excellent documentary, The Fog of War. The entire 107 minute movie is based on the actions of Robert McNamara in his role as Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, including events from his life leading up to that time. It is worth watching even if you have to break it up into several sections.
In a very thought provoking sequence, McNamara ponders the fire bombing of Tokyo in which 100,000 civilians died in a single night (March 9-10, 1945). He insists that General Curtis LeMay’s thinking along with his own planning led to the fire bombing. Approximately 67 Japanese cities were bombed in the same way, many of them more than 50% destroyed along with substantial loss of life. The facts of the raid, though, are not what caught my ear. It was McNamara’s admission that had the U.S. lost the war, that he and LeMay would likely have been prosecuted as war criminals. Quoting McNamara, “He, and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals.”
Then has asks the unanswered question, “What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”
Indeed.
I thought that, as believers, we were being held to a higher standard, a standard, in fact, that reflects the ethics of the Kingdom of God. I’m not saying that I have answers about Just War or war in general, but I do have many more questions that I once did.
This is so stinkin’ cool.
Prolific author, missiologist and all around good guy, Ed Stetzer, has teamed with Georgia pastor and all around really good guy, Philip Nation, to author the WMU theme book for 2008, Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living. As part of their “Blog Tour” the authors have graciously agreed to an interview at ie:missional.
The word â??missionalâ? is being used by many people. What is your brief definition?
Ed: You are right. And for most people, it does not sound like a real word. For the purposes of this book, we use a very simple definition: missional is to live sentâ??living like a missionary and focused on the Kingdom. To the average Christian, they know that missionaries go places to tell the Good News of Christâ??s redemption and serve a place to show the effects of Christâ??s redemption. They live for Jesus and his mission. For a more extensive conversation on the word, check out my blog at http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/meaningsofmissional.html
Give us a sense of what biblical love looks like to you.
Philip: Biblical love is much more sacrificial than I previous admitted. Like most, I had grown accustomed to romantic-comedies giving the definition of love: boy meets girl, happily ever after stories. The Bible gives the sense that love has a purpose and a cost. God wants to glorify himself and one way he chooses to do it is through the death of his Son.
How do you want people to be changed after reading this book?
Philip: Changing perspectives is one of the big changes I hope people experience. I want the people who read this book to look at their neighbors with a new mindset that is birthed out of their kingdom citizenship.
Ed: My hope is that people will engage their communities with a deeper passion and at a more rapid pace. From all that we know, the church is not impacting culture as it once did. Being missional will mean that Christians seek to immediately get in the middle of their community to make a difference through serving the hurting, showing Christ, and communicating the Gospel.
With so much being written about the missional idea, how is this book different?
Ed: This book is for everyday believers â?? not only pastors. It will be helpful to pastors in their own lives, but our focus is people, not just leaders. Hopefully, the book will give the â??whyâ? behind much of the â??whatâ? pastors are asking their people to do.
Both of you have varied backgrounds but church planting is the common denominator. How did church planting prepare you for writing this book?
Philip: Iâ??ve always been around traditional churches. And I entered the ministry as a teenager. But planting a church has taken me way outside of the church sub-culture I had grown accustomed to in my life. Church planting widened my perspective of just how far most of my neighbors are from God. Planting has also made me more patient with the â??sinners and tax collectorsâ? Christ was so fond of hanging with â?? whereas before, they scared/offended me.
If churches and denominations do not adopt a missional understanding of the church, how long will it be before they are not merely philosophically irrelevant but functionally so?
Philip: As you have here, we all normally think of relevancy as an issue of how we engage culture. So the short answer is–not long. Speaking in and working in understandable ways is critical to any work we assign a missionary sent to foreign fields. It is equally important for all Christians who â??stay at homeâ? to work on our own turf. Without speaking in the koine language of our setting, it is a bit silly even to speak.
Additionally, let me set my answer in another-and I think more important-direction. A church without an understanding of Godâ??s mission is already irrelevant to Godâ??s purposes. So, as in our book, I would point peopleâ??s attention to be in step with the heart of God first and then his work through our lives will be a more naturally outworking.
Compelled by Love is available through amazon.com and at Lifeway stores.
The late minister and poet Thomas John Carlisle penned a series of poems based on the prophet Jonah, whose story is recorded in the biblical book of the same name. Writing from Jonah’s actions, attitudes and perceptions, this short volume of poems is as insightful as its poems are brief. The book, You! Jonah!, included poems that Carlisle had published in various newspapers and magazines both sacred and secular, as well as previously unpublished poems on the same subject matter. The book was first published in 1968, but has been out of print for 35 years.
Here are four of my favorites:
Coming and Going
The word came
and he went
in the other
direction.
God said: Cry
tears of compassion
tears of repentance;
cry against
the reek
of unrighteousness;
cry for
the right turn
the contrite spirit.
And Jonah rose
and fled
in tearless
silence.
Reprimand to a Naive Deity
I will not advertise
this crazy scheme
of Yours.
God, what a farce
that men should sin and find
escape.
I mean, of course,
not me
but all our mutual
antagonists.
Dear God, kind God, don’t listen
to their prayers.
Sunk
A man overboard
gasping and drowning,
does he actually look
at his own disappearing
identity?
Jonah could see
only an admirable
ambassador of God
sunk by his own
superior
opinions.
Personnel Problem
Jonah cherished chips
on both his shoulders.
He was in the wrong
business. On the accounts
he clamored to handle
he was calculating
to liquidate
the customers.
However, his Employer
computed profits
on another basis
and kept the dynamite
too readily
defusable.
While specific to the SBC, this article hits many of the same issues that I posted previously. When you hear over and over that the issue is getting “back to the basics”–the same basics that most churches never left–you know that any denomination’s leadership is as clueless as they can be about the reality surrounding their own decline.
The issue is that “the basics” are no longer a part of the culture, thus getting “back to the basics” doesn’t affect the culture. Sadly, it gives us a sense of false hope as if merely doing things by rote is the answer. “Pray more.” What about responding to and living out the answers to prayer that God is already giving? “Pray more.” What if God has given the answer, but we’ve so assured ourselves of what the answer should be that we don’t recognize the voice of God when He speaks? “Pray more.” What happens when the answers to those prayers are then equated with “worldliness” or “cultural accommodation”?
“Witness more.” Really? What if it takes years to prepare the soil so that the seed of the gospel can even be watered, much less take root? Have we forgotten that seed thrown on hard soil can actually be washed away by water, not to mention plucked up by the Devil? All those smashmouth evangelism efforts may have accomplished absolutely nothing in the way of preparing human hearts. “Witness more.” What if damage control from a thousand hypocritical Christians has to be put into place before the unbeliever will even give us a hearing? “Witness more.” What if they have never understood one word of our gospel spiel since we are, for all intents and purposes, not speaking a language they understand?
“Don’t be like the culture.” I’ve got news for you we are already like the culture. Our presence is part of what makes the culture. What we do not need to be like is the world: living by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Playing an Eagles song in a worship service is no more worldly than going to an opera the night before. “Don’t be like the culture.” And how, exactly does one suppose to get the gospel into it? Open the windows of the temple and throw the seed toward the target? If we are not living in the culture, not only are we not living like sojourners and pilgrims, we are not living like Christ.
How about let’s get back to these basics: (1) Exegeting the culture so as to infiltrate it with the kingdom of God. (2) Befriending those who are victims of the Enemy rather than treating them like the enemy. (3) Using stones to create God-honoring landscapes, rather than throwing them at those who aren’t like us (that’s actually a metaphor). (4) Actually being salt and light in our cultures rather than thinking that we already are by virtue of being saved. (5) Leaving behind all the quasi-religious, expired denominational, hindering traditions that weigh us down so that we can run with endurance the race that is set before us.
End of rant.
Late on the evening of May 1st, I received a phone call from a former church member who had maintained some close relationships with folks inside New Bethany. He informed me that the house of two of our church members was on fire. I threw on some clothes, called to get some folks there ahead of me and started toward the site.
The couple whose home was involved are in their 80’s are retired from the furniture business and have traveled the world. When in his late 70’s, the man became a published author having written a collection of stories about his life beginning in south Georgia during the Great Depression. They are a good natured couple, quick to laugh and always been very appreciative of me.
I arrived on the scene about 25 minutes after the initial call to find the fire, for all intents and purposes, extinguished. The ladder truck’s primary attachment was extended and one of Hall County’s finest was raining down a full spray from about 30 feet in the air. One glance told the story: complete loss.
Tours and travels, years and years of accumulation of memorabilia and furniture that can never be replaced gone forever. The fire started in the HVAC system and spread so rapidly that the only things saved were the car, the truck, her purse and the clothes they were wearing. As I approached them standing in the neighbor’s driveway, he turned and said with a laugh, “Well, the bad thing is that we’d just got back from buying $109 worth of groceries!” I asked, “Are you guys okay?” He said, “We’re fine. Marty, it’s just a house and stuff. It doesn’t matter.”
I was amazed. We talk that, don’t we? Echoing a friend, I’ve often said, “All this stuff is just fuel for the fire.” But, dang, eighty years of accumulation? Needless to say, I was grateful to God for such a biblical outlook in the face of calamity. (After a day or two of sifting through the rubble, they informed me that my book, JOURNEYS, had survived both the fire and the water unscathed. Another reason that you should buy it: home protection.)
After waiting for the inspector and salvaging a few things from the basement, I took them to Wal-Mart at about 1:00 am to get some clothes for the next couple of days until the insurance settling could begin. Talk about a trip. Nothing like going clothes shopping with two senior adults in the wee hours of the morning. He and I were finished with his in about 5 minutes. When we went to find her she was still looking at the first housecoat she’d picked up. I tried to get her to buy some lingerie, but she said, “I might as well not wear anything at all!” He said, “I thought that was the idea!” Neither was she too up on my idea for a T-shirt that said, “I’M PREGNANT!!” We had a blast.
One family in our church owns a bed and breakfast where I dropped them off at about 2:00 am. One of their other guests, some guy from California, collected several hundred dollars and left his credit card number with instructions to let our newly homeless family stay as long as they needed. Another church member called the next morning and offered their second home (nearby on the lake) for them to stay until they could rebuild. In almost no time, they had living money and a place to stay.
This week we received a note from them. It started,
We were not surprised at the way our New Bethany family responded to the fire of May 1.
“We were not surprised…
I want to let you know that was music to this pastor’s ears. The expectation was that the church would respond and that expectation was not disappointed.
In a video that I recently watched, Michael Frost made the observation, “If your church went away, would your community notice?” Normally, when Christians think about that question, the emphasis is on how we would feel if our church went away. Missional churches, however, ask Frost’s question.
Is our church known for being a blessing to our community, or only a blessing to itself? There are very few more important questions for churches in 2008 and beyond. Do your local schools know that there are people inside your building? If they do it’s because those people have been inside those schools to be a blessing. Does your local government know that you exist? What about the Homeowner’s Associations nearby? Business owners?
This September, we will be hosting the first annual New Bethany Community Benefit Run, a 5K walk/run to bless the Hope Housing Initiative, a local organization that seeks to find housing for single parents, provide budget training for them and assist with mentoring needs. All the profits raised by the run will go directly to Hope Housing, New Bethany will receive nothing. We’ll even be donating money as the primary sponsor. Next year we’ll pick another community group to bless with that effort. Frankly, I can’t wait.
How great are the expectations of your community for your church? If we don’t consider and constantly address that issue, then we will miss the purpose to which God has called us and placed us where He has.
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