So, could you list “Weald” as a strength in a reflective essay?

Are you familiar with the overgrown parts of your soul?
Do you have the scrapes and cuts that testify to your exploration of those dark wooded areas?
Have you trusted anyone enough to bring him or her with you? to guide him where there is no path?

…If not, maybe it’s time to find that place in your heart and venture in.

Yesterday, on two occasions, my life intersected with tensions created in the above verse.  James does not rebuke for heretical dogma, but rather rebukes for the fact that the correct dogma is held by a heretical heart.  The demons know the truth and hate it, and know they hate it. I sometimes wonder if many Christians have a similar posture toward the Christian creeds, but while not outright hating them with trembles of terror, dilute them with the water of their own apathy, or idolize them (and themselves) by infusing them with their own ego.

Theology is filled with controversial topics, and therefore, strong opinions about such topics.  Consider the last time you got into a conversation about the nature of hell, men and women in ministry, homosexuality and the church, or any other hot button issue.  You may have had a strong opinion about this topic.  You may have had great biblical arguments to back up your opinion.  The question I would want us all to consider is this:  Is my desire that the world know the truth or fall in love with the truth?  This greatly effects how we ought to go about engaging with one another.  

To help a soul fall in love with the truth takes tremendous skill and is an art that must be learned, practiced, and most importantly developed by the Spirit’s inner purging of ones own heart. I must let go of my agenda.  I must actually be humble (not just practice a form of cordiality that feigns humility).  I must believe that the good, true, and beautiful truth is so complete in and of itself, it has no need for my authoritative rhetoric.  It is equally expressed with word or silence. 

In my encounters with many Christian leaders and seminary students, I have observed a pattern of discomfort in this open ended posture.  Why is this?  How has Christian culture prevented this essential pastoral skill from developing in so many?  How do we grow?

What are your thoughts?

The First talk, “The Gospel of Spiritual Formation,” starts with the Gospel, and argues that we, as evangelicals, have been working with a reduced Gospel. Because of this, discussions of the Christian life and salvation are bifurcated into two discussions. If this happens, both will inevitably cease to have true life.

The second talk, “The Formative Power of Communion,” builds on this and focuses on where we currently are as evangelicals. I do some broad cultural analysis and ask questions about the language we use (such as “kingdom” and “discipleship”) and try to point us in a new direction. At the heart of this talk is a desire to nail down what is one of the great errors of our day so we can see it for what it is.

The third talk, “Beyond Spiritual Disciplines” tries to refocus the spiritual formation conversation away from spiritual disciplines as such, and onto communion with God.

The fourth talk, “Formation in Spite of Yourself,” addresses how knowledge of God and knowledge of self are intertwined.

The last two talks end with me guiding the pastors through a prayer exercise. There will be significant empty space on the audio, so if you listen I invite you to enter into those prayer exercises with us.

I alluded to this in a previous post, but what I mean is that, most of the time, when someone says “I need more time” what they really mean is “I need more wisdom”.

“I make bad choices”
“I fill my life with useless things”
“I am not strong enough to do what needs doing”
 
Probably, the people in my life who seem to get tasks done with time to spare take less time playing video games or napping.  They probably have less frivolous apps on their iPad than I do.  They probably choose important things over recreational things.  They probably write their blogs without interrupting the process by checking facebook every few minutes. Maybe fitting in my nap wouldn’t be an issue if I just made better decisions about when to go to sleep at night.

 
I envy people who have all their tasks done in a timely manner but I don’t usually look at the set of choices they made to get there.
Having wisdom leads to having time.
 
 
On the other hand, I  think one significant way to develop wisdom is to practice Silence and Solitude.  In short, having time leads to having wisdom. 
Not time that is full of video games, simply time.   
Not time to catch up on the chores or get a head start on paperwork, simply, empty vacant time.
Time that isn’t suffocated by mindless technology use allows, and even causes, one to slow down and reflect.
Time that isn’t full of busyness leaves one alone with one’s self …and God.
 
Time, simply time, leads to wisdom
 
 
I know it’s a fuzzy comparison, but I encourage you to reflect:
Instead of worrying about your schedule and the unrelenting to-do list that constantly harasses you, desire wisdom; seek wisdom.
 
…and perhaps one way to find it is in the silence and solitude of an entirely empty span of time, time that you pass slowly and deliberately, enough time that your mind exhausts the frenetic surface issues that crowd your thoughts, enough time that you settle into quiet reflection on your heart and the heart of God.

Why has this happened? What are we doing wrong? How can we fix it?

These are the questions that are now circuilating amidst pastors and church leaders. I do not question the veracity of the data, but I am concerned by the nature of our response. I am concerned that a passionate desire to reach the next generation has turned into an idolatry of youth. I am concerned that our response is more governed by fear than it is by prayer.

Reaching the young has become the answer. It is the answer to our fears. We fear that our church will die. We fear that our church will lose its relevance, which is in many ways a death unto itself. So, we focus our energies on cracking the code to reach this next generation. The answer to sustainability, to legacy maintanance, etc. is youth. The action, the energy and the revival can all be found in reaching the next generation.

The irony is that amidst a renewed interest in reaching the next generation another generation (or generations) has been forgotten. We are now ignoring the boomers. We are certainly ignoring the elderly. They have merely become those that we already “got”. They are faces we have seen for years, and while we are thankful for their continued support they are in effect old news. They are not where the action is.

These are merely some initial reflections. What are your thoughts? Have we actually turned a renewed interest in reaching the young into a form of idolatry? Are we now neglecting the older generations in an effort to reach the young?

 He had gotten he scan while on a trip home during first semester 
but he had not been able to talk to the doctor about the results.  His mom had explained it to him as best as she could over the 
phone.  He had also been told to do some physical therapy exercises but hadn’t kept up on them. The scan showed him what was happening to his back in a way that a conversation over the phone could never do.  The conversation directly with the doctor convinced him more than a second-hand explanation ever could.  The bottom line is: Your back is going to continue to give you pain and deteriorate to the point that you will need surgery unless you do these stretches daily. 

So he’s doing the stretches.
 
And his back pain has virtually disappeared.
 
Even as he was talking, I couldn’t help but draw a connection in my mind:
What if we could see the “MRI scan” results for our souls up close and in person? What if we could hear from the “doctor’s mouth” what the long term results of our actions were?
 
Obviously, the bible and godly mentors are echoes of this but I think they correlate to the phone call from mom, more than the conversation with the doctor.
 
What if we could actually see the damage we are doing to our souls by not “stretching” each day. 
 
What if we could sit down and look at a picture of our souls, hear the explanation of each decision we make, know the trajectory of our actions?
 
Would you stop reading celebrity magazines if you knew what it would do to your self-worth?
 
Would you stop playing those games on Facebook if you knew the effect they’d have on your ability to concentrate?
 
Would you read your Bible regularly if you knew the character you’d cultivate?
 
Would you pay more attention to those around you if you knew you’d become a more loving person by doing so?
 
 
 
Would you stretch everyday if you knew that if you didn’t you’d have to have surgery?

There is a growing belief in the evangelical church that “good” preaching covers a multitude of sins. This is simple another way of saying that the ends justify the means. The question we need to ask, I think, is whether or not it is fitting for a pastor to lack humilty, lack wisdom, and clearly project so many of his own psychological issues onto God’s work. Again, it seems to me that both sides agree to these things, and both think they are at least regretable. The main difference, as far as I can tell, has to do with how we view those things in light of Driscoll’s position as a pastor. One side, the pro-Driscoll side, claims that everything else he does out-weighs these particular sins, or else they invoke something like: “Boys will be boys.” The other side, believes that Scripture is clear about what a pastor is like, and because he breaks these Scriptural mandates so freely, frequently, and publically, that he should undergo, minimally, church discipline.

At the heart of the issue is spiritual formation, and whether pastors are called to humility, grace, and a higher level of scrutiny, or if these things are more like desires that will never actually be fulfilled.

What are your thoughts?