Sunday, May 28, 2006

A Few Crazy Weeks

The last few weeks have been crazy in more ways than one. In the midst of all our scheduled celebrations, culminating with Adrienne's high school graduation on Wednesday, we've also been dealing with our friend's decision to leave ministry — a decision that was finally made fully public this morning. Yvonne in particular has had many different emotions over this time, which inevitably spill over onto me.

But in the midst of it all, I've been able to do some very good reading and listening. I didn't realize it when I started, but Mark Strom's Reframing Paul really fit precisely into where we were living as I came to the last three chapters. The way we are accustomed to doing church does indeed look more like the Corinthians' missing of the implications of the gospel than it does Paul's example and admonition — and we really are in danger of devouring one another in the process. But it was particularly helpful to realize that Paul doesn't make being "right" the issue — he acknowledges truth on both sides of the major battle lines, but then urges the parties to accomodate the other's "weakness" because they are both in Christ, and Christ is not divided.

Rod Wilson's course on Dynamics of Pastoral Leadership has also been extremely timely and pertinent — I may have more to say on that later.

The final event of our Focus 3 experience — a four day "High Adventure" camp — is coming up fast. What little detail there is about this camp suggests that it's a bit of an endurance event — last year everyone seemed to return totally exhausted. But there is so much work yet to be done in so few hours, I expect I'll probably be pretty much wiped out before I even get there.

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Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The PAPA Prayer

I picked up this book by Larry Crabb last week, and could hardly put it down. He provides a framework for talking about something I've known for some time now — that petitionary prayer that is not based firmly in prior relationship often becomes simply a "to do" list for us to hand to God, as if He were our butler, or the grandfather we've learned to wrap around our little finger.

More importantly, in this book Crabb describes an approach, using the acronym PAPA, to firmly embed our prayer in a first thing relationship with God, as primary and prior to petitionary prayer.

This way prayer becomes truly conversation with God — a conversation in which God Himself becomes our deepest desire and the primary request of our prayer. Such prayer will always be effective.

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Exekiel's Visions of God

Yvonne and I spent last week at the Regent College Pastors' Conference, featuring Dr. Maxine Hancock, Dr. Rod Wilson and Dr. Larry Crabb. It was wonderful refreshing and rejuvenating time.

In one session, Larry Crabb spoke on the three passages where Exekiel had what he called "Visions of God". In the first vision, Exekiel sees the Glory of God, which overwhelms him more than had the pains of the people we was exiled with. In the second vision, Exekiel is shown the depths of human corruption, extending even into the temple, indeed into the very inner heart of the temple. The corruption is incompatible with God's glory, and Exekiel sees the Glory of God depart by stages from the temple, until finally the Glory departs completely, an extremely painful experience to observe.

But Ichabod is not the last word. Near the end of the book, Exekiel has the third "visions of God", in which he sees the Glory of God return to the temple, into the very place of human corruption — because God is not willing to give up His people. God's Glory invading the site of human corruption is even more overwhelming that the previous two visions. The book ends with the words "The LORD is there."

As I was walking the next morning, it struck me that these visions provided a new lens through which to see some of the experiences of my life. The second vision, the vision of human corruption in the very heart of temple, was a true and sobering vision. It just wasn't the last word. So too, my profound disquiet at several things I found at the heart of the church was a true and sobering reality — it just wasn't the last word.

As I thought about it more, it occurred to me that as much as it may be necessary to speak prophetically against the evils of human corruption when God shows them to us, it is always a mistake to settle down and live there as if the judgement of damnation were God's last word on such evil. It isn't. God does not abandon his creation to destruction, but rather He returns to the very heart of the messiness of life, to be present there with His people, and to transform them at the root of their resistance, their evil.

The last word is never Ichabod, it is always Immanuel.

And the Glory of God is never so vastly overwhelming as when it invades the heart of our sin and evil to bring us into the Glory of God.

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Monday, May 08, 2006

Half Past Easter

Here we are, half-way from Easter to Pentecost, I'm half-way through Eugene Peterson's book, Living the Resurrection, and I wonder just which of the list of things I've done since Easter really fit that theme. I've

  • helped my eldest child move out of the house
  • picked up a tux
  • managed three hours of solitude on a drive back from business in Edmonton
  • drove around the city picking up decorations for the wedding
  • tied numerous chair bows, arranged asian screens, setup benches and trees
  • pinned on flowers, chatted with guests, smiled for pictures
  • watched my son get married
  • listened to numerous people rave about how stunning my wife and daughters looked
  • kept the wedding program moving, more or less as planned
  • dismantled and returned all those decorations
  • witnessed three bikers get baptized
  • attended a Focus 3 sponsored event in Red Deer, to help us understand how differently we're wired, and how that affects where we'll be most effective in work, in life, in ministry
  • went to a high school Jazz concert, ate dessert, and talked about Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy
  • watched my wife receive her Masters degree
  • chatted with people, took pictures, visited Stanley Park
  • turned 49, becoming a perfect square
  • read how John Stackhouse became Finally Feminist
  • wondered anew at how absolutely fantastic Yvonne looks in black silk and high heels
  • talked at length about a friend who is burned out in ministry, wondered about how to help, and what changes this whole thing will bring
  • developed the worst cold I've had for a long time
  • tried to talk with friends about spiritual mentorship with my head plugged with antihistamine and sinus congestion
  • wondered at how patient God is, and how willing to accommodate his plans to where his people are at, and to move them slowly at a pace they can endure, no matter how long it seems to take, how impatient they get, and how totally clueless they can be at where he is taking them
  • had lunch with a friend who is higher than a kite over the fact that his son, who was nearly dead from drugs and substance abuse, is alive again, clean since Christmas, and now gainfully employed
  • worked too late, coughing and losing much of my mental focus, trying to finish a list of things that really shouldn't wait until my return from a week's break
  • tried hard to sleep off this cold
  • fixed some fancy cheese and meat plates for a house full of women
  • read too many of the wrong blogs
  • wondered at how incredibly easy it is for Christians to become so belligerent with each other over so many things, to the extent that they can't hear each other at all
  • hardly blogged at all
  • watched a movie with my daughter, had coffee with my wife
  • did uncounted loads of laundry
  • tried to get ready to return to Vancouver for the Pastors' Conference, with my wife, the pastor

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Feed or Fan Hunger?

Which are we trying to do? Satisfy people's needs or intensify their hunger?

That's how Mark Labberton ends his recent article on LeadershipJournal.net.

When I think about it, I find that my own growth has been spurred more by good questions than by answers, by things that fanned my hunger than by those that just gave me food — although answers and food have been valuable at times. But I also find that I like to give answers — maybe we all do — and often find myself pushed in that direction.

Nevertheless, I find the prospect of being part of something that fans hunger far more exciting and energizing. I think I need more of that in my life.

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