Occupy, protest, vote, join, reform, transform . . . Really? The flood of legitimate issues and causes to care deeply about is overwhelming. So many desperate needs. How can anyone truly make a difference?

“On earth as it is in heaven.” A well-worn phrase, one that perhaps we are numb to.

Earth – visible, tangible, in our face, demanding our attention, our time, our lives.

Heaven – unseen, a distant destination, the sweet by-and-by, already-but-not-yet.

Scripture says our citizenship is (not will be) in heaven. What does it mean to be the citizens of a seemingly distant and unfamiliar country? For now, we essentially have dual-citizenship or maybe something like an earth visa.

The realm of earth is familiar. It is what feels like home to us. We are accustomed to the language, the currency, the economy, the politics, and the culture.

Two realms, coexisting concurrently rather than sequentially. The predominant view of “earth now, heaven later” has handicapped our understanding of the ways in which heaven impacts earth today. We not only have hope of a better future, but we are ambassadors of a better future in a land which groans in anticipation of a better day.

Faith in heaven as a current reality can be nurtured and can grow; we can breathe in the vitality of heaven. The realm of heaven has its own culture, language, currency, economy, and politics. Familiarizing ourselves with the culture of heaven will inform and shape our involvement in the issues of earth.

What are the things that matter in heaven? What are the things that have eternal significance? What about “earthly things?” What should be invested in here?

Things that bring creative goodness and love to the earth are eternal in the currency and economy of heaven. Creative goodness and love are expressed according to the unique gifts and talents of each person, not according to a predetermined, super-holy formula. To bring the impact of heaven to earth today, live in the reality that we can invite eternal, God-life to earth through the investment of goodness and love, heaven’s currency, in this not-yet-healed world.

When we measure value according to the economy of heaven, there is not license to neglect justice, mercy, and love on the earth. Understanding the economy of heaven instead gives us perspective about how we spend ourselves during our sojourn here. Whether we are involved in prominent causes or ordinary events, we invest according to the values of heaven, ever mindful of heaven’s culture and our allegiance to it.

In the realm of heaven:
the small gift is made large,
the weak are strong,
the rejected are chosen,
the cast down are lifted up,
the broken are made whole.

What difference can one person make? There are no small or insignificant acts of creative goodness and love in the economy of heaven.

Remembering that daily I have the opportunity to act with eternal purpose helps me to not become numb to the overwhelming need in this world. I can’t do everything that I would like to do. However, I can step into each day, willing to respond to whatever I encounter that day with the grace-empowered goodness and love of the Spirit of God. I get to participate in impacting earth today with the eternal life force of heaven.

This post is part of November’s Synchroblog – Calling Us Out of Numbness. You can read other, insightful, posts at these links:

• Joy Wilson at Solacetree- The Blessing of Losing Your Faith
• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – I Have a Dream
• Glenn Hager at Breathe – Uncomfortably Numb
• Linda at Kingdom Grace – On Earth as it is in Heaven
• Sally at Eternal Echoes – Where are the True Prophets?
• Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved – No Compromise
• Alan Knox at The Assembling of Church – My Word of Prophecy:  Quit Listening to Prophetic Voices
• Liz at Gracerules – Listen
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Surrounded by Prophetic Voices: Clouds of Witnesses That Call Us Out of Numbness
• Amy Martin – The Window of Suffering, the Beginning of Hope 
• Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head- Rising Up From Below 
• K.W. Leslie at More Christ – What is God Challenging You to Do?

• Katherine Gunn at Truth Makes Freedom – Where is Your Heart? 
• Steve Hayes at Khanya – Murder of the Cathedral
• Leah Chang at desertsspiritsfire – Wall Street, Our Street

That really is the question. A few thoughts about being and non-being…

First, George MacDonald:

“There could have been no darkness but for the light. Without God there would not even have been nothing; there would not have existed the idea of nothing, any more than any reality of nothing, but that He exists and called something into being. Nothingness owes its very name and nature to the being and reality of God.”
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George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons

Like fireworks in my brain, Athanasius:

“The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good.
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As they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again.
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It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits.
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The solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all.
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For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us and put an end to death.”
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St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation

On being, from Paul:

“The God who made the world and everything in it…gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth…God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.”
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Acts 17:24-28, NIV

And in conclusion, only Jesus could and does restore our existence in God:

“Apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.”
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John 15:5, Amplified Bible

Existence disconnected from Life is futility. While final and lasting death has been defeated, to experience the fullness of the life for which we were saved, we must lean into the grip of God as our source of Life.

This is where my thoughts are today, and I wanted to share.

Gracious Father, we pray for your holy catholic church.
Fill it with all truth, in all truth, with all peace.
Where it is corrupt, purify it;
Where it is in error, direct it;
Where in any thing it is amiss, reform it.
Where it is right, strengthen it;
Where it is in want, provide for it;
Where it is divided, reunite it;
For the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.

As I was pondering this on my Sunday morning walk, two pastors from the neighborhood passed me on their way to services – one the pastor of a large contemporary church, the other the pastor of a small fundamentalist church.

May the prayer above be so for both of them and their congregations, for me,
and for all of the church, wherever and however we gather.

• Over 90% of the leadership material is written by men.
• Over 90% of the mentoring material is written by women.

It would seem that there is something about the typing of these roles that is gender-specific.

How does that translate to practices of church leadership and disciple-making? Have the same stereotypes been assumed in the practices of christian life? Visible leadership is a male role? Women serve in relational roles?  Is the reason disciple-making has been neglected because of an embedded female typing of that role versus the primarily male typing of “leadership” in the church?

What are your thoughts?

Thesis: Evangelical fixation on hell allows us to not take scripture seriously, particularly the words of Jesus.

If nothing else, the dust up over Bell’s upcoming book has unmasked the evangelical fixation with the afterlife and the fact that it has become a disproportionate focus in our understanding of the gospel.

The point of this post is to suggest that it is this fixation and the lens it creates in the reading of Scripture that has allowed evangelical christians to misunderstand, dismiss, neglect, and even ignore the example and words of Jesus.

Jesus told us of the things that degrade our soul and make us ineffective at demonstrating the life of the kingdom – anger at our brother, lust, greed, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, empty religion, shutting the door of the kingdom in others’ faces, neglecting justice and mercy.

His words do not present hell as the negative counterpoint to heaven. They emphasize the violence of obstructing sinners, the poor, and the least from participating in the Father’s love. The message of the Father’s love and our redemption through Jesus certainly does not need the contrast of eternal torment to make it good news.

Scripture does not fully reveal the circumstances of the afterlife. The details have been debated over the centuries by followers of Christ. Rob Bell’s understanding of heaven and hell may not line up with your views or mine; but whatever his views, he does not know with certainty and neither do you.

What do we know?

• We know that love wins and that our eternal destiny is in the hands of the loving Father who provided for our adoption.
• We know that we have been given the message of reconciliation, which is the opportunity to share the good news that we are loved by this Father.
• We know that it is hell to live under the lie that we are separated from God.

The question of evangelism is not whether we have given someone adequate information about heaven and hell. The in-or-out mentality that is hyper-concerned with what is stamped on your eternal bus ticket will always fail to reflect the life of the kingdom to the very ones to whom Jesus would have spent his time with.

The question is whether we have adequately witnessed, with our words and our actions, the depth of God’s love for every one. Will we take scripture seriously about the life of the kingdom now, during our years in this life?

(I shouldn’t be posting, but I needed to say that.  I always enjoy reading your comments, but will not be able to respond this time.)

My almost last semester is in full swing with a teacher requiring way too much reading and writing. In addition to my regular life and classes, I have added an internship requiring additional hours of work. I do have a summer class, but I’m hoping for an easier load by then.

So alas, probably no blogging until May. If you are kind enough to leave me in your blog-reader, I may be back.

The sentiment and nostalgia of Christmas sometimes overshadows the earth-shattering truth that it was God who came to our world in flesh, who took on the nature of broken humanity, and who willingly entered into our darkness.

The humanity of Jesus Christ makes relationship possible between mankind and a divine God.  The entrance of the eternal into time and space, into the language and shape of humanity, orchestrated our adoption as children of God.

Reconcile: bring together, unite, harmonize, conform, mediate, make compatible, synch, integrate, retrofit, adapt, format, correlate, attune, orchestrate, renew, redeem, restore, revive, resolve, consolidate, incorporate, embody

In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.  (Eph.1:5)

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  (Gal.4:4-5)

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way.  (Heb.2:17)

“Redemption was accomplished by an intimate, personal movement of the Son of God himself into the heart of our creaturely being in order to save us from within.”  (Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, p.187)

“The personalising Person of the Son of God became incarnate, but, instead of becoming insincere and hypocritical himself, he healed the ontological split in human being through the hypostatic and atoning union which he embodied within it, thereby reintegrating image and reality in and through a human life of perfect sincerity, honesty and integrity in the undivided oneness of his Person as Mediator.”  (Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p.69)

“He who is the eternal Son of God, of one being with the Father, is he who is now also man and the fact that the same person who is fully and truly God is now fully and truly man, means that his person is and constitutes in itself the union of God and humanity.  In his one person, therefore, God and man, God and all humanity, are now irrevocably and eternally united.”  (Torrance,  Atonement, the Person and Work of Christ, p.37)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

(John 1:1-5, 14)

Merry Celebration of the Incarnation and Happy New Creation!

It is difficult to have this conversation without first defining the underlying assumptions and values regarding relationships and organizational structures.

To the degree that growth, efficiency, effectiveness, success, and influence are the aspired values, business principles of leadership are applicable and helpful.

It may be completely appropriate to apply business principles to the administrative functions of church. The complexity of the structure determines the complexity of organizational leadership that is necessary.

However, if your personal theology or ecclesiology assumes that the church should reflect an alternative way of relating that is different than a successful business organization, business principles may be antithetical to your aspired values.

Also, if your personal theology or ecclesiology values leadership roles, authority, and headship, it is likely you can “prove” your position with the appropriate scriptures.

However, if another person values mutual submission under the leadership of Christ, they will come to different conclusions about “biblical” leadership.

One of the reasons discussions about church leadership are confusing is because there is a strong tendency to transpose organizational structures and roles into the relational life of the church.

It is typically assumed that positional roles of organizational leadership translate into authority over other believers. By attaching the verbage of servant leadership, gifts, and callings, the role of leadership is given a benevolent, spiritual spin.

The most visible leaders today do not necessarily exemplify the best leadership that occurs in the church. Leadership is evident in the service of others, not in the assertion of position and titles. Organizational leadership does not equal spiritual authority.

In our society, it is difficult to use the term leader without assuming an elevated status. It is nearly impossible for people to understand leadership without attaching some form of hierarchy and creating a role of control or dependency. I do not believe that there are people selected by God to be in a position of spiritual rulership over other believers. Relationships in the body of Christ are mutual and always mindful of Jesus as the Head and Leader.

There is a form of kingdom leadership that will not lead to organizational success. It will take you down a path that few want to follow and it will put you in positions of service that go completely unnoticed. It is counter-intuitive not to expand your influence, not to capitalize on your efforts, not to sell your vision, not to create a following. It is counter-cultural to serve in obscurity, without recognition, with little to show for yourself in comparison to those who hold up the fruit of influence. There is a point where you choose to let go of the opportunity to be important or to command attention. You actually reject situations that would contribute to your personal influence and instead pour yourself into situations that hold no potential for personal advancement. You leave the leadership track in pursuit of a value more subversive than greatness.

We won’t hear much about these radical examples of kingdom leadership.

If you aspire to the “success” model of leadership, I wouldn’t recommend this route.

(ht David Fitch, Rick Meigs)

“Back to Church Sunday” is aimed at reaching the unchurched and dechurched — people who used to go to church, but don’t any more. The campaign is based on a simple idea. If you ask unchurched people to come with you to church–mostly likely they’ll say yes. Many dechurched people are a simple re-invitation away.

There are probably people and churches for whom this is effective. If so, great!

The failure to acknowledge or address the issues behind declining attendance leaves the impression that this campaign is either oblivious or indifferent to the real attitudes of the unchurched and dechurched.

If you are churched, why aren’t you inviting more people to church?
If you are unchurched, are you interested in attending with a friend?
If you are dechurched, will this strategy reach you? Why or why not?