Category Archives: Foundation

Foundation

Schizophrenia Not Allowed

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One of the interesting realizations along my journey has been how schizophrenic the traditional views of God, His Word, and His Ways tends to become.One is the way we tend to look at the Old Testament and the New Testament in different ways. While there are more ways we look at the front and back of the Bible with differing views, this only deals with one particular aspect of our perception.

It occured to me that we tend to look at the Old Testament as stories holding truth about what we should and should not do as God’s people, but we tend to look at the New Testament as primarily a record of what we should do. It’s like we turn the magic page between old and new and the very nature of the complete story changes.

I remember one of the major themes of the Old Testament is the fickleness of the God’s people. Story after story after story details how the people of God ride the roller coaster of loving God and following Him and then ignoring God and going their own way; or worse yet intermixing the ways of God with the ways of the God-less.

Wouldn’t it make sense that this theme played out throughout the entire record of God’s redeeming work? Or did that propensity for man going his own way magically disappear between Malachi and Matthew? I’m beginning to realize that the theme indeed continues as we see the closest followers of Jesus, after the resurrection, return to fishing where Jesus finds them and puts them back on the right path (sound like an Old Testament theme to you?). Then there’s the page turn between John and Acts. The very first act in the “church age” was for the closest followers of Jesus to create the first nominating committee and “throw the dice” to determine who should replace Judas among the twelve. (I personally believe this was taking matters into their own hands as we later see God replace Judas with Paul; His work, His time, His way vs our work for Him, our way, our timing)

Where did the disciples see this method of determining the will of God? Do we have record of them sitting under a tree or beside a road with Jesus during the three years they were with him so they would know where to go and what to do? Some have challenged my interpretation by pointing out that Jesus was filled with the Spirit and was able to hear the voice of His Father that way, while the disciples at this point had not received the gift of the Spirit so they had to use another method. Again, I don’t see Jesus instructing them to do that or showing them how in the record we have of His time with them.

I would cite more examples, but that would incite a riot here and I’m not after that. What I’m trying to do from this point forward is test everything I see in the New Testament (as well as the Old) against what I see Jesus doing and what I hear Jesus saying in the record of His time here among us. If there’s a difference between what Jesus said and did, it leaves room for considering if that was something we’ve added to what Jesus and His Father intended.

So, to me, this thread of the fickleness of God’s people continues throughout the story. So where are the turns back to the old ways? What events in Matthew-Revelation are the record of God’s people returning to old ways instead of following the new way Jesus showed and left them? What pieces of an old way of life do we live out today because “it’s in the New Testament” even though it’s in there to show that even after Christ’s sacrifice for us was fulfilled we still battle with the draw to our old ways of unbelief? At least I’m watching for those now as I read the New Testament too.

Unity in the Spirit

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I had an unusual experience this week and it brought me to a greater appreciation for the concept of unity in the Spirit. When I look around and see all the disunity in what’s supposed to be the communities of believers I see some managed unity, but nothing like this experience this week.

A God-appointment orchestrated via Facebook brought me back across a former high school mate, Steve Villanueva. While we each knew of each other during our high school years and that we both were involved in church, that was pretty much it as far as being friends.

We Have Been Lied To

We Have Been Lied To

We met at a local Macaroni Grill for about two hours. The first 10 minutes was about the formalities… where and what since high school. Then Steve told me he had a book that was published and was being released this month (We Have Been Lied To by Stephen Villanueva which is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target now, and Borders later this month). WOW! How cool is that.

As we continued to talk throughout lunch I was overwhelmed with how two guys, vaguely acquainted for four years over two decades ago could come together after barely knowing each other so long ago and having zero contact since could be so on the same page. I listened intently as he laid out the things God had been teaching and showing him. Recalling the same stories from Scripture with the revolutionary understanding which God had given me over the last couple of years. It was as if we had been hanging around with each other and heard the stories time after time so we were able to speak as one.

Then it hit me. I had always talked about the unity that should exist for believers because the same Spirit was alive in both, but never had I experienced it quite like this. I had even joked that the Spirit was not schizophrenic so when there was disunity one or the other was not led by the Spirit. Story for story, words lining up with words, experiences akin to the others. It was truly amazing.

Then I began to reflect on the work God had done to inspire the writing of the Bible into the amazing book of unity it is today and was further in awe of the moment.

If you are walking in the Spirit, then the Spirit in you should be in full agreement with the Spirit alive in another Christ Follower. Have you experienced a relationship/conversation like this? If not, wonder which Christ Follower is the one not consistently walking in and being led by the Spirit?

There IS truth to be learned from Star Wars (and beyond!)

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Anakin Skywalker… watching the final installment in our Star Wars epic watch-a-thon (several evenings through episode 1-6) a thought occurred to me…

(haha, check out this article I found looking for the picture to the right…)

Thinking of our brother Aaron Horton’s now famous (with me anyway) quote:

No matter who you are, where you’re from, or what perspective you have in life, all of us can recognize a common theme emerging in the world. We see it in the stories we love, we see it in history, we see it in our own lives. There is beauty and innocence, interrupted by tragedy and sadness, followed by longing for rescue, and hope for a better day. We love the stories best where a hero comes along to set the world right and bring a new day to pass where we return to that place of beauty and innocence again…changed of course…but back home again. That story is older than the middle ages, the roman empire, or even the Bible. It is the story written on the very heart of God…woven into our lives because we were made in His image.

… I began to realize that if I believe what Paul talks about in Romans and understand that we were all created in the image of our father originally, only we’ve lost touch with it through our sinfulness…

… it becomes apparent that there WILL be hints of the character of God in all the stories even the fallen man tells. In the things we (mankind) hold to as ideals; love, peace, hope, etc., and the things we loathe; hate, lust, jealousy, even from a worldly perspective; we can see and point to God. Because God’s image is “in our DNA” the hints of that image will be present in the work done by the creator’s creation. WHOA!

That’s why so many of the amazing quotes in movie after movie, book after book, song after song, etc. after etc. can point to the essence of real truth! Sometimes even more honest about it than we tend to be in our own religious lives:

Anakin Skywalker
“Mom, you said that the biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other.”

Qui-Gon Jinn
“Your focus determines your reality.”

Anakin Skywalker
“Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden.”

Qui-Gon Jinn
“Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel… don’t think. Use your instincts.”

Luke
“Jedi Masters don’t go crazy — they just get eccentric.”

… just a few… many more there are! (sorry, could not resist)

I think the depth of Aaron’s insight sunk in to a whole new level last night! All those stories which portray pieces of kingdom truth just askew from our naturalized man point of view…. hints of truth from the wrong foundation/perspective… Wow!

Press on!

Involved in church’s ministry = serving God?

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Okay, so this just illustrates the point. It amazes me how easily we accept this rhetoric. At the big Shift event going on this week Kara Powell, the executive director of the Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, had the following to say:

If there is one thing that everyone in youth ministry seems to be talking about it’s how to keep students following Christ after high school….

Her data reveals that 50% of high school students who had been deeply involved in a church’s youth ministry will not be serving God 18 months after graduation. And that’s not counting the many other high school students who are only going to church because their parents are forcing them.

She said this standing in front of a mountain of “youth resources” making the point that there are more resources available than ever before and yet students are walking away from God after High School. Then, she poses four critical questions for youth ministry. I’ll only highlight one here:

4. How can we train students to feed themselves after graduation?

Doesn’t that establish a bit of an oxymoron? On the one hand she laments that teens in alarming rates are not coming to church, then out of the other side of her mouth she prods how those same teens can be trained to feed themselves. If they are feeding themselves and out amongst the unbelievers but fellowshipping intentionally with believers in some manner isn’t that awesome!? That is, unless someone has embraced the myth that dragging oneself to the table is synonymous with feeding oneself.

So, here are some questions that come to mind:

  1. If the churchites can keep them there, does it really mean they are growing and serving Christ?
  2. When exactly was it that attendance replaced personal contact (discipler to disciplee) to determine growth?
  3. Isn’t it kind of presumptuous to assume that someone participating in a program is engaged personally?
  4. If the youth ministries we rabidly defend are doing their jobs maybe the teens are just the first new generation of self-sustaining Christ Followers going out into the world to fulfill the Great Commission. Maybe they get it that the Great Commission cannot be fulfilled hiding away, in-breeding in our super-structures.

Okay, like that was not jarring enough, this will be really unpopular. While it may not be at the forefront of the thinking of these “ministry professionals” I do believe an underlying concern they have is the realization of the lost revenue after the business has spent so many resources to raise up future foundational support. They know if they cannot keep them they cannot sustain the super-structures they built on “new believers” alone. How can I say such a thing? I just reflect on my own meetings applying formulas which divided the total giving (revenue) by the number in attendance to arrive at a per person figure which can be applied to the increase in attendance to get a increase in available funds to “grow the ministry”.

Skye Jethani, the author of the article and managing editor of Leadership poses his own questions as he closes out the article:

48 year olds may not be leaving the church the way 18 year olds are, but are they really growing? Are we feeding them a Red Bull gospel? Are we teaching them to be self-feeders?

What is needed is a complete re-evaluation of what serving God truly means; a re-evaluation of what personal growth is; a re-evaluation of what the Church is. One of the most common concerns I’ve heard among staff members about believers or groups of believers feeding themselves is the issue of “control”. Control only becomes an issue when the numbers become so big that personal involvement can no longer be maintained. This is when rules and structure become necessary. It amazes me that in statements like the ones in this articlt the writers look right past the obvious laying in front of them… isn’t teaching church-goers to be self-feeders and expecting them to be dependent on the super-structure for food (I know, this is not what we say going to church is about, but really it’s part of how the necessity of the institution is protected) a great oxymoron?

Where, O where is the outrage at statements such as this? (truth is, folks will be more outraged that I’ve said what I’ve said than they will that these speakers and writers have equalized serving God with going to church activites)

Bursting the Christian Bubble — The Cart Running Over the Horse

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It appears that Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus But Not the Church, speaking live at the Shift conference shared some thoughts on “Bursting the Christian Bubble”.

In an increasingly post-Christian culture fewer people have contact with real Christians. We’ve hidden ourselves in a Christian sub-culture bubble.

I would totally agree with the sub-culture bubble concept. We emerged from that bubble last February and ever since folks think we have backslidden (one of those sub-culture terms used to help protect the organization and keep people inside) and “lost our faith”. In fact, just the opposite has happened since we purposefully stepped away from that social bubble which demanded way too much time for us to be out impacting the lives of those outside the bubble. In fact, a friend with whom we’ve become reacquainted with since returning to the Denver area, tells us about the stealth inquisitions she often undergoes from those in the church we formerly served on staff at while here. Yet not one of them has picked up the phone and called us to ask what’s going on. Wonder if that means life outside the bubble is way weird to those inside.

In one of my first mywalkblog posts was The New 80/20, I reflected that “my time was so tied up in good things at church and in ministry [that] I spent little time engaging with people outside my church in the community or my even my own neighborhood.”

Inevitably the cart gets before the horse and before too long the cart actually begins running the horse over and killing it. Of all the things I reflect back on of value during my years serving the organization it’s the relationships with precious people that I am most fond of today. Those don’t require the institution itself to exist. In fact, those relationship often thrived and were most founded from any time we spent apart from the bubble.

Now almost two years later I’m going to propose something that will be very unpopular to those inside their bubbles… I don’t believe it’s possible to have the organized institution which is called church without that bubble inevitably becoming a dominating reality. I’ll concede that in some smaller communities in secluded areas where the “churches” themselves are small, I believe the bubble-syndrome is less likely to be as crippling to true Christ Followers. But that’s where it stops. Even as those institutions increase in size it will require more resources to keep them going and ultimately there won’t be enough time to serve Christ and their church any longer. (ouch… I can’t believe I just said that) The very nature of the organizations we’ve created and called “church” (given, Christ established His Church as the global body of all who profess a faith in Him but I’m less inclined to say the establishments find ourselves slaves to today and call church are what He had in mind at all) will inevitably turn inward in focus and create a sub-culture of isolationism because of what they strive to be. Maybe that’s why the disciples were scolded when they asked Jesus about having a position in His future organization.

Nature Illustrates True Life

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Today I came across an article about a recent study at Exeter University citing how a significant majority of captive-bred carnivores reintroduced to the wild are unable to adapt and die. (Most Reintroduced Carnivores Die in the Wild.) It was very interesting and timely given one of this week’s observations and revelations as I was reading Mark.

As my two readers (probably my mom and some obscure person who has nothing interesting to do) will know, last year I set out on my first “through the New Testament with filters of what I’d been told removed” to see what Jesus really did say and not say about “church”. It was an amazing journey.

The turn from Acts to Romans was very interesting. To date the record which had been recorded was of the Apostles and Jesus’ closest (Jewish) followers using the Law and Prophets in the attempt to convince other Jewish individuals who had also been raised from day one to expect a Messiah that Jesus whom they crucified was the Messiah they had spent their whole life expecting. Then, in Romans we see the clash of cultures. Paul obviously begins to wrestle with how to communicate with this new audience who was not raised with those expectations of a Messiah and truly have very little background in things which were givens in the Jewish culture. I was astonished as Paul began to explain that the evidence of our Creator was evident in everything around everyone which left those who had not heard without excuse. That reality began to grip me. For so many years I had been using things of nature to illustrate things of the Kingdom. As if the Kingdom should be grateful for how nature lent itself to help it’s cause. But what I began to understand was that you can see God and His ways in the things of nature because that which is created is always a reflection of the one who did the creating. It prompted me to begin looking at things all around me a little differently.

The other day I was reading in Mark, I don’t exactly remember where while I’m sitting here now, and read something that made me think about how cautious those who handle wild animal rescues are about creating too much dependence in those whom they are caring for because too much human contact will limit the chances for re-introduction back into the habitat to which they belong. In fact, it could cause their death. Suddenly it hit me. The institutions most “Christians” grew up in need to learn this lesson from nature. Most of those who claim to be Christians are not capable of surviving and growing on their own because the “rescuers” have over cared for them. There is little or no hope of the rescued being able to go back into their native environments and feed themselves so they can be interacting as those sent out. And the article was about those who were raised in captivity being so at risk being reintroduced to the wild. Sit back and think about that in relationship to how many children “raised in the church” struggle as they get older and find themselves “in the real world”. Think about how ineffective individuals are in their workplace… especially comparing the tsunami of resources leveled every week at equipping them for ministry. I’d wager to say more resources leveraged weekly against “discipleship” than has ever been available in time and yet individuals have less influence on those around them than ever before.

Maybe we’ve just been bred to be addictively dependent on our care givers and cannot be reintroduced to the very place we are most needed. I know for Julie and I this has been a true struggle. Trying to find a way to thrive in relationships where we can do the most good but were encouraged most of our “Christian lives” to avoid often leaves us dumbfounded.

Operation De-tox – 365 days and counting

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A year ago today was the day Julie and I began a process a writer calls de-toxing. Little did we realize how much in our life would be changing in that year. Little did we realize how much that would begin to realize how much more needed to change.

Since moving back to Colorado I had the opportunity to hang out with a guy named John White, US Coordinator for DAWN ministries. John’s background is similar to my own in that he has religious oriented education and served for a number of years as a church staff member before his journey led him outside the walls of an established organizational structure and into this wild world where we now find ourselves. On my first occasion to hang out with John we both told our stories. It was very interesting when John indicated his own de-toxing experience has lasted for almost two decades so far. And here I was thinking we were “almost there.”

So, here’s some observations after a year of our own experience (side note… don’t misread any one observation as a standalone… they all must be considered in light of and interdependent upon the others…):

  1. We are spiritually richer and deeper. I’m guessing due to the fact that we MUST feed ourselves and can’t depend on spoon feeding that comes as “going with the flow” of the busy life inside the walls.
  2. We have missed the social comfort provided by the established organizational approach.
  3. More people matter. Having made a move during the first year of our de-tox experience it has become obvious to us how much we depended on the established organization to find and maintain friendships. After nearly five months of standing on our front porch longing for God’s prompting to engage one of our neighbors I was delighted to finally have an extended conversation with someone on our street this last week. It was exhilarating! I never longed for relationships with those around me or those I’d encountered until my social crutch was removed. Maybe this phenomenon of having comfortable friendships was unique to Julie and I, but nonetheless we are so much more observant as to who God has placed us around and opportunities to engage them in conversation.
  4. Less seems to promote more. (Now before I go any further with this one and lest some say it wouldn’t be the same for everyone, I have to say I agree. I’ve watched numerous folks “walk away from church” because they had a bad experience or found other things to entertain themselves.) I can’t tell you the number of times during 22 years of “serving the church” either as a staff member, or a denominational employee and lay leader I heard the phrase “we need deeper Bible study.” I won’t say we’ve spent more time in “personal study” in the last year, but I can tell you we’ve spent more “as you are going” time learning and looking. Here’s the biggee in this one… more impact on how we think and how we live. Almost like our spiritual lives were on auto-pilot before and we were free to be distracted by all the other stuff going on around us. Now we find we wrestle more often and more instantaneously, without requiring a sermon or song to prompt us with things like forgiveness, faith, hope, grace, and more.
  5. Relationships are still vital and valuable. I have a whole new understanding of the phrase “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.” This past year I realized I have always interpreted this statement in the context of what I have always known rather than interpreting what I’ve always known in the context of that statement.
  6. People think we’ve gone off the deep end. It’s interesting to hear some of the “theories” circulating out there about why the Kendall’s have “turned their backs on God.” (I guess that’s another thing that’s been great about this experience… we truly are outside the rumor mill – even though we still hear some of the funny hypotheses.)
  7. We struggle more. This is not the “ah ha” some of our skeptical friends are hoping for related to our journey. And it goes hand in hand with the next observation.
  8. Greater sensitivity to God’s prompting. Now if we can just be quicker and deeper in obedience. Hence the reason we struggle more.
  9. Seeing more people more like it appears Jesus and God see them. It’s interesting on this side of things how much time and energy is spent trying to get the unchurched into church and then how much worry really exists about how much they might mess things up in there. So, lots of time is invested trying to turn those on the outside, who may come in, into little us-es. And often it’s not the non-negotiable principles of The Way which we have to change. It’s the social aspects that make us uncomfortable.
  10. Control. I still remember a conversation I had with a staff member about some amazing things that were happening outside the walls and how quickly, though there was a desire to mass produce what took months/years to slowly germinate, the issue of control entered into it. Since then I’ve been consistently amazed how much “control” is a key issue. And the truly humorous thing about it is how little control there truly is within the structure. Only the sense of control exists.
  11. We are not alone out here. Others precede us. Others are joining us out here. Some were never “in” but are out here ahead of us.
  12. I still need more de-toxing. I keep referring to “us” and “we”.

So, as we enter our second year of de-toxing today I’m more committed than ever to figure out what it means that the Kingdom of Heaven/God is here… now! After about 22 years of focusing on Jesus as “the truth” I want to see why early followers called themselves “The Way.” I want to learn to become more immediately sensitive to seeing God and His work all around me. I want to see more clearly and learn how to communicate the simple truth that God’s testimony to Himself exists in everything alive around us. And, I want to do my best to be so on His agenda that all these ideas can change or turn on a dime so I can follow Him wherever and whenever.