Medicated?

Ever get a headache? I'm sure you have. I don't like taking medicine if I don't have to. Something about it just doesn't sit well with me. Every once in a while though I get a killer headache that calls for something more than just waiting for it to go away. It's then that I reach for the pain meds. Sounds simple doesn't it? Just pop a couple pills and magically the pain is gone, right? Not exactly. The physical symptom that is causing the pain remains. Pills don't stop the headache, they simple slow the production of certain chemicals that cause pain. In the short term that's ok I guess. It's basically giving your body a good 6-8 hours to figure out how to fix the problem and get rid of the pain permanently. If the pain meds wear off the pain returns because the root cause hasn't been dealt with.

It seems that "church" can sometimes be like those pain meds. People come, get medicated, and go home feeling "ok". The headache is dulled enough to get through the week until another fix is needed. I know too many people who spend years in church "medicated" and supressing their symptoms without getting truly healed. Many of these people have left church and upon leaving their "symptoms" explode resulting in major moral failure, sinful patterns developoing, and failure of marriages and relationship. Some might say that this is the reason for staying in church. That way all of these symptoms are suppressed and everyone is ok, right?

My question is this... What's better, to suppress symptoms or to be healed and whole? We know the answer don't we? I'm not saying that healing cannot happen in church, it most definitley can. But what if it doesn't? What if given pastors and leaders best efforts people aren't getting healed but are postponing the inevitable? What if we didn't have church to medicate the masses? Would it be like emptying the hospitals and telling all the sick people to try to cope with their syptoms without medication? Some surely would be able to, others would be unable to cope with life given their malaties, yet others would likely die without their meds. If our church experience is postponing healing and trading it for medication is it working?

Can we follow Christ and not got to "church"? Can we be healed outside of church? Our reliance must be in Jesus and his Kingdom not a system, not a person, not an institution even if it is the church. The church can never and will never supercede Christ and his Kingdom. This is not an indictment, just an observation. Let's get healed so we don't have to worry about getting our next fix. I'd rather be whole than reliant on meds to get me through the day, wouldn't you?

dry dock

I spent last night with some dear friends. We ate, we laughed. We talked, we laughed. We prayed, we laughed. We so enjoyed our time spent together. Right in the middle of prayer we hit on something... a picture of sorts. A picture of us and of the church I think. Here's the picture...

On the shore of some vast body of water is a fishing wharf. A place frequented by those who brave the seas to bring in a catch of fresh fish. In the unfortunate event that some damage befalls their boat they take it to "dry dock". The boat is removed from the water to be able to repair it correctly. Time is of the essence because the longer the boat is out the water the longer the captain must wait to catch fish. The quicker the repair the faster one can return to the danger of the ocean to catch fish. As simple as this sounds let me say this... boats belong on the water and fish are not caught on land.

Jesus said follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. The question is when is the last time we've but out fishing? Are we even on the water? Or have we been spending our time in dry dock meticulously caring for out "boats" and believing that some day just maybe our boats will be seaworthy. Maybe someday we'll catch some fish we think... maybe they'll even come to us. Being an avid fisherman I know that fish don't come to fisherman, the fisherman must seek out the fish.

But maybe our boats are not seaworthy? What if we lauch out into the deep only to be swamped by the waves and driven ashore by the wind? Maybe we're not asking the right questions. Maybe the most important question is not "is it dangerous out there?" but "are we catching any fish here in dry dock?". Remember Jesus also said "go into all the earth and make disciples"? He never said you just sit right there and they'll come to you. He said in essence, get out there and find some fish. The key to fishing is not having the best boat or having your boat perfectly in order.... the key is being where the fish are.

I remember in high school I had a good friend who shared the same love of fishing and being on the water that I did. We fished one particular lake with great success almost everytime. We could fish from shore and keep our feet on solid ground and we'd even catch a couple fish. But if we really wanted to catch fish we would have to ge on the water and go to them. Our boat was nothing special. Just a 12 foot aluminum rowboat with a junky 2.2 horsepower "Kingfisher" outboard that leaked gas and sounded more like a weed wacker than an outboard motor. The best thing about our craft? It floated. Sounds simple doesn't it? Well it is. All we needed was something to get us to where the fish were. When we got there we caught fish one after another.

I don't know about you but I've spent too much time in dry dock wondered what to do with my boat and not doing any fishing. I think "we" have spent too much time worrying about whether our boats will float and whether they will be sufficient enough to actually help us catch fish. Lets make it simple... what did Jesus say to the disciples? "Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men" right? Are you following Jesus? If you are than you can catch fish. If we're not catching fish then why not? Let's get out of dry dock and start catching some fish. Otherwise we could spend a lifetime working on our boats without ever catching a single fish. Let's go fishing.

Eye contact

I pulled up to Starbucks today, my favorite caffienation stand and sat in a parking spot facing the window of Quizno's next door. A woman in her 30's sat in the window slowly eating a sub and watching me talk on the phone. At the same time a younger girl and I'm assuming her boyfriend sat in the window of Starbucks also watching. Everytime I would look up to and notice them looking they would immediately look away... why? Why not look back?

I talked to a new friend of mine who also is a professional dancer. She hails from good old North Carolina but took a job in Chicago for a year with a great dance company. She was sharing how most folks in Chi-town are very cold. How people would run into her on the street and never say "excuse me" how people wouldn't speak on the subway. The few rare times that people did speak to her they ended up propositioning her for sex. What is it with people? What's wrong with eye contact?

Remember the old days... when people talked? I know it sounds silly but it used to happen. People who talked and made eye contact weren't considered suspect of some ulterior motive, they were considered kind. People would stop to help a neighbor in need instead of passing by and saying, "I'm sure someone is already coming to help." Somehow our society has grown cold and distant from each other. Why? Come on you see it too don't you? You try to make eye contact and "they" look away. You're watching someone else and they look at you then you look away. Come on we all do it. Here's what I think. I think that making eye contact creates a responsibility people feel. It might go like this... if I make eye contact then I am somehow responsible to respond, to smile, to say hello. Then what? What if they think we're "weird" or something. What if they do?

Here's my challenge to myself and to all of you. When you make contact visually or if someone makes contact with you, look right back. Smile and say hi. Maybe every glance that we hide from is a missed opportunity to share love with the unloved or truth with the misguided. Maybe every eye to eye connection that we turn away from is an on ramp to relationship and to being able to be like Christ.

What are we hiding from, being ourselves? Surely everyone can't think we're "weird". What if we operated on the premise that everyone who looks at us wants to know us, what if they do? How will people know who we are if we are too shy to even return a glance and a smile. People will know us by our love... love is a language... let's speak it.

Villiage thinking...

What's all this talk about "the village"? Have you heard it? I have. I hear men in business suits and ministers in white collars talking about the village and about tribes; who's tribe is who's and which tribe their in. No one in loinclothes, no huts or teepees, not even so much as a campfire. What is it they're talking about?

I think that what they're talking about a mindset. Here's what I mean. Walk through downtown Cleveland or any other major city on any given day and you'll see it. People who don't make eye contact with each other, who run into each other without an "excuse me" or "oh I'm sorry". This is not village thinking. This is "downtown thinking"... who can I beat, can I get there first, will today be they day when they pick me instead of everyone else? I just drove through Chicago over the weekend during rush hour in a huge van, try merging into another lane with the "downtowners" trying to get home from work it was almost impossible.

Village life is slower, more deliberate. You don't exist in the same place all alone without crossing paths with others. You see the same little group of people day after day, year after year. You can't hide. People know you, they know your stuff. It's not like that downtown. Villages always have a fire right? Over the ages fire has represented life and the center of existence around the world. Now I hope you don't think that they did searched monster.com for a "incendiary specialist", worked out a benefits package and had him show up to keep the fire going. The village kept the fire going. It was a group effort. People gathered wood, stoked the fire, cooked over it, were warmed by it. Families keep fires going. Village thinking says that I am my brothers keeper and I need to watch out for him. When my neighbor is in need and I have the ability to meet that need, I do. In the big city people either "don't make it" or "slip through the cracks". In the village there is a sense of personal responsibility that many times is obviously absent from the city.

Have you ever watched the movie "The Village" by M. Night Shyamalan? I have and though it's another topic altogether I think he's a genius with film.

STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE VILLAGE AND DON'T WANT ME TO BLOW THE WHOLE PLOT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway the Village is a place created by men. Because of hurt and a sense of loss they decide to create a place that is like something out of the early 18oo's in the year 2004 in order to try to insulate themselves from further pain. The long and short of it is, they can't. Just see the movie, you'll see what I mean. The bottom line... they couldn't take it downtown and didn't no how to escape it so they really tried to escape it literally. Here's the question though... ready? How do we live downtown with a village mentality?

Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.
Romans 12:9-16 (The Message)

How do we perceive the reality of our existence? Do we feel the need for human contact and interaction or do we mistakenly believe that we are alone and can only exist alone? These are pivotal questions for us to ask because they set us on a track toward or away from people.

The success that I'm looking for is not measured dollars and cents, in status or position. It's measured in friends gained or love sent and received. In knowing this God and living for him. In changing lives one at time because of love. Let's slow down and go back to the "village" even if we live "downtown". There's life in the village.

The 12 friends?

God. Who always was one day decides to create the earth. He creates unimaginable beauty. It's amazing... perfect, well not quite. In all of his creation there is no one for him to love and no one to be loved by. Enter man. Man who is created in God's own image, who longs to be loved just like God does. Enter woman.

All of humanity is still created in God's image and designed deliberately with a need for relationships and a longing for love. Enter Jesus. God became flesh and dwelt among us. We understand that Jesus is fully God and fully man. It's not either or... it's both and. Somehow it seems that along the way we have so diefied Jesus that he has been dehumanized. We understand him to be so far away that we have a hard time connecting with him and introducing him to others in a way that they can relate to. It's in his humanity that we find solace. In his manhood that we relate to his Godliness. If he had never taken on the burden of humanity then how would we relate to him? If then Jesus was like God and we're like him then didn't he need friends too? Though you see Jesus many times pulling away from the crowds he was never there long except for a 40 day stretch in the desert. Most times we seem to see Jesus as some emotionless teacher with 12 ministry interns taking notes as he taught. Jesus lived life with these guys. He shared meal after meal, thought after thought, day after day with them. He knew them and they knew him. In short, they were friends. Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? He took Peter, James, and John not because he saw such promise for leadership in them that he gave them a special intern round table disscussion. They were his friends, his best friends. If you were walking through the most difficult time in your whole life would you want to do it alone or would you rather walk with your friends? He says to them watch and pray so you don't fall into temptation... good advice no doubt but he also said can't you even stay awake for one hour with me? I believe that the struggle within Jesus' humanity led him to not just teach his "interns" why they should pray but to ask them to stay close to him as his friends. Remember at the last supper when Jesus says that no one's love is greater than the one who is willing to lay his life down for his friends. You realize he wasn't referring to some other noble leader or father or friend that would appear on the world scene at some time in the future. He was talking about himself and calling his "interns", the disciples, his friends. I don't know about you but I don't just want to learn facts and truths about this God-man from a distance, I want to be his friend. What if we all started to realize that we were his friends? What if we were friends together. Maybe, then we would really know him and really walk with him. Sounds like the first and second commandments to me. May the friends of God hear his voice clearly and begin to befriend new disciples into friendship with God.

Community >>>

Community. You see it on billboards advertising banking opportunities as you drive down 480. You hear people in the business world throwing it around as well as people in religious circles ooohhing and aaahhing when it is spoken of. The word community has become a buzzword of sorts that seems like no matter where or how it is used draws the attention of almost everyone within earshot. What is it really though and what does it mean for us? Is it just another program destined for the same fate as so many other religiously oriented ideas? Why is it that it seems that culture is so primed for community?

I think there are a lot of reasons. I've heard it said that though the pendulum swings it always swings back. Through technology and other cultural shifts people have become more and more distant from their "neighbors". Globalization has in many ways had a direct impact on village thinking and living. There is a basic reality in human nature that causes people to want and actually need human interaction. Man is most often not satisfied with a solitary existence.

A couple weeks ago I was in my office working when I saw an instant messenger window pop up on my computer. It wasn't someone in another nation or even another part of the city, it was my wife on the laptop only 15 feet away from me. We laughed as we "chatted" for a couple minutes then realized how stupid it was that we weren't talking instead. I say this only to illustrate a point. How many people have placed themselves out of reach from others because of technology and chosen a computer screen and a keyboard as a best friend? Before you think I'm anti-technology remember that I'm sitting here on my laptop enjoying free wi-fi and getting ready to post a blog on the internet for perfect strangers to read. The point is that I believe our culture is in a way primed to receive truth via community. I know many people who may never darken the door of a church but who are very serious about having a spirituality that they can own. Is it possible that God is so focusing on relational issues in the body of Christ because he knows the profound impact that people can have on one another relationally both in "church" and in the streets?

Is God setting us up? I think so. I talk to people frequently about their desire for "true community" having seen the counterfeit at least a few other times. What if we the family of God were to build a structure who's only structure was relationship? What if that structure was sufficient to meet all of our needs and all of the needs of new believers? What if it could feed our souls and our stomachs? What if people who don't do "church" would do dinner? What if the church is really me and you and not a building or a program? The questions go on and on.

I believe we live in a time when God is giving a grace and a desire to people, many people, to be the church and to see the church grow and flourish the same way it did in the first century after Jesus' return to heaven, house to house and one meal at a time. This is a journey. A journey for old friends and new ones. Let's see what God will do in Cleveland with a few friends who are willing to love God and each other. It just may be that the dreams that God has put in our hearts can't be born within the four walls of a building. It just may be that the dreams in our hearts are waiting to be born in our living rooms and local restaraunts. The question is how will we ever know if we are to afraid to at least try? Let's be the family of God everywhere we go all the time and see what starts to change in us and around us.

Love... for real

What is true love? Everyone talks about it. Secretly everyone longs for it. A few think they have it... maybe they do... but what is it? How do you find it? If you're looking for the answers to all of those nagging unanswered questions in the universe you'll probably come away after reading this blog disappointed. What I know is that love can be a very illusive thing. I've heard people talk about love. I've even heard some pretty uncaring people even tell me how sensitive and loving they are. Love isn't words, after all we can say anything and not mean it. Love can't be actions alone because I could do things that look kind or "loving" without really being motivated by love. So what is love? I think love is a process. It's a processs that doesn't happen in a vacuum or with one person all alone in some solitary place. Love happens with people, face to face and hand to hand. Love isn't an event... it's a process. It happens among people and God, it's mysterious and tangible. It's invisible and visible. Love is patient and grows more patient. Love is kind and grows more kind. It's forgiving and grows more forgiving. Love lives between between people and between people and God. Love comes from God but somehow people have tried to lay claim to love as if it were theirs. Love so many times gets hijacked by well meaning people and takes a beating when people fail at loving, that's what people do, mess up. God on the other hand, the creator of love, shows love. Love, for real. His love has no short comings, no flaws, no failures. He is love. True love is real, oh yeah. It just doesn't happen because of me of me or you. It comes from somewhere else, from God. I've said to people how I've loved so well in certain situations and then fall flat on my face sometimes within minutes. We need love to come from somewhere other than us but to still live between us. How do I love the homeless guy on the street corner, by saying God bless you or by putting a hot meal in his hand? How do I love that guy at church who drives me crazy, come on you know that guy. How do I love the people that don't love me? We need love... not just the words, not just the actions... love....... for real.

commune... ism?

So I'm sitting in an old theater writing in my journal and compiling some thoughts about community. As I attempt to write the word "community" I involuntarily write the word communist. Communist? I thought that was strange and crossed out the word to rewrite "community". As I did it I heard the Lord say,"No, I said communist!". Now this is strange I thought. Communism has been such an evil and oppressive system surely God can't be calling me a communist... I DON'T WANT TO BE A COMMUNIST! So I look up the definition for communism... here it is:

Communism. A concept or belief that proposes an ideal of equality and shared resources in a given society.

This of course is the short version of what communism stands for. The reality is that as God spoke he began to show me that it was communism but actually commun.... ism. "Commun" is the root of many words that represent ideals that we are searching for.

*commun-ity
*commun-e
*commun-ion
*commun-ication

Isn't that what we want? Isn't it? A place to belong, a place to be loved, a place to share the deepest darkest fears of your heart in total safety. A place where life lives. Aren't you longing for a place where love flows so freely that needs are met by each other? A place where we find Jesus together? How does it happen? To be honest I don't know exactly how. We are asking all of these questions in order to find the truth and walk in it. I know this, two heads are better than one. Maybe through committed love motivated relationships we'll begin to see the thing that our hearts long for begin to be formed. Maybe commun-ism is for me after all, maybe you too.