What God is Saying

The Ultimate Story that Fires the Imagination

2009-07-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

I have been considering the postmodern reaction toward metanarratives that are used to impose cultural biases. When Jesus began preaching the gospel of the kingdom he faced many competing understandings of life even within Israel. People had so many hurdles to overcome, if they were to understand the kingdom of heaven he preached. The Essennes were so negative about the temple and life under Rome that they "headed for the hills" and a more serious faith. The Pharisees looked for a more tenacious response that was to be lived out in th.e face of the occupying Roman forces. The Hasmoneans blended their Jewish understanding with Greco-Roman Culture like a modern New Ager swimming in the winds of change. We could go on to list even more people groups within the Jewish nation; all of them with a bit different story of what God is at work doing. Each world-view had its own prejudices and misconceptions. Jesus didn't appeal to the Maccabeans, or to one of the prophets or even to Moses as other people did. I believe that Jesus took his hearers way back to the vision of the Garden of Eden and the new man. He subverted the cultural understanding and laid a foundation in his person (the rock) which is eternal and universal. Jesus was there at the beginning. after all, with the Father and the Spirit. He quoted from the Torah but spoke authoritatively from his vision of creation about what it really means to be human as he considered the gosple of the kingdom. Adam and Eve and Jesus walk together to show what our world would look like if we lived in God.

Rather than settle for "the way it is" he fanned the flames of the imagination so that people might begin to envision the kingdom and actually live the words of Jesus. Matt. 5:22-48 get us thinking "what if" we actually began to live as we are meant to live and as the kingdom of God promises? When Jesus talks about anger, lust, sex, marriage and divorce as well as oaths, retaliation and loving our enemies he has in mind the power of the blessing of his beatitudes. When we are at the evangelistic end of our rope (poor in Spirit) then we are on the verge of a spiritual awakening. The blessing of being "poor in Spirit" is the blessing of being restored to a God-conscious, God-initiative and God-compassion.

Jesus offers to walk alongside you if you will work out this stuff as you prayerfull become more aware of the holiness of his presence with us in the Holy Spirit. What if God really came to live in you by his Spirit so that you really began to live in the power of Jesus?

Getting Rid of the Crust

2009-07-14T14:11:00.001-07:00

Mark Labberton said something last spring that reflects on all denominations and the stuff that grows around our commitment to Jesus Christ. Mark spoke of Jesus in the Sermon On the Mount, removing the crust around what it means to be really all about God. Crust, you know the way Baptists, Pentecostals, Bible Church folk and especially Presbyterians do church.
We want to be all about Jesus but end up being about denominational distinctives, orders of worship or disorders, pastoral dress or the lack thereof, music traditional or non and all the other stuff that build up around Jesus but are really culturally conditioned not scripturally or theologically.
I just met with a Lutheran pastor friend that I have know since the mid 80's and we discussed what it looks like to set aside the crust and preach the gospel in ways that actually leads into doing what Jesus says. What a novel idea! Not really. But if only it were all about Jesus and not about the crust.
I have a dream that all the pressures of this crazy post modern time will strip us of our crust and leave something that is truly transdenominational: the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That is what I want to be all about.

Back from Some Sabbath Time

2009-07-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

Kerry and I spent last week travel down the Smith River, up the Oregon Coast and visiting with our youngest son Micah and his new wife Stephanie. We walked the beach, swam in rivers, talked, prayed and read God's Word. It is good to be reminded that God is the one who does the work.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it would look like to have God as the constant center of my life. That is the life of one who has repented and entered the kingdom. It is all about giving up the illusion of our control and focusing on entering into God's initiative, providence and living in faithful obedience.

God I pray my friends and family find that You are their center through Jesus Christ. Without Jesus serving as our center we are runaway planets drifting away for God and in constant conflict with all those around us.

2009-06-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sycretism Jesus and Moses

2009-06-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have been increasingly aware of the "new spirituality" that is so prevalent around us. That is the mixture of Jungian psychology and Joseph Campbell religion that appeal to a universalism which is alien to the One God of the creation as revealed in Jesus Christ. Responding to this postmodern rotten religion is crucial.
The one element that is immediately clear is that those who claim that all religions are rooted in a universal myth is that they are making intellectuals claims that are neither sensitive to the historical nature of Judaism and Christianity nor personally familiar with real faith in Yahweh and the Father revealed by Jesus who is the Christ through the personal work of the Holy Spirit.
The common thought today is that there is a universal myth that is born witness to by different religious traditions. But Judeo-Christian understanding is rooted in the reality of the One God who is not creation but the Creator as believed in the Shama: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." (Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV) and reflected in the baptismal words commanded by Jesus Christ himself:

"Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”" (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)

C. S. Lewis was thoroughly Christian in his writting when he suggested that there is some correspondence between Christianity and other religions. This is to be expected. But Christians believe that the problem with humanity is that we would rather worship a projection of our own making than the real and Living God. Jesus came to reveal the face of God to us in his human-divine nature. Jesus is the same Word that God spoke to create the universe. He came among us in human flesh but we killed him. This is not a myth this is a historical reality.

To believe less is to buy into the religion of Jezebel and the spirituality of Babylon which the bible teaches us is the anti-christ.

2009-06-21T19:48:00.000-07:00

Thankful for Friends and Crazy about Jesus

2009-06-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Kerry and I just traveled again to Scott Valley and Etna for dinner out. It is always a walk down memory lane. We only lived there two years but I still dream of those years and the adventures in ministry with Bill and Sue Birch and on the ranch. Creation shouting everywhere you turn of God's glory. Ministry here in Weed and McCloud is similar. We have old friends and new friends. Kerry's best friend from high school lives in Yreka. She married Tim Nielsen and her name is Debbie. They attend Covenant Chapel and assist the pastor as self supporting servants in the kingdom. The ministerial in Weed is really pretty incredible. With all the denominational differences our Lord Jesus binds us together. My new friend Bernie Van E is an awesome pastor in the Christian Reformed church who understands our reformed theology and appreciates historic orthodoxy. He rocks. My pentecostal brother Keith has a keen heart for God and there is of course Rev. Henry Gaines an African American Baptist and Bill Hoefer with the dispensational fundamentalist Bereans. The later are both old friends.
I just finished writting friends in Waldport and frankly I am in awe at how the fabric of life is dripping with such love and tenderness. God you rock because your faithfulness is everlasting. I pray for the renewal and revival of all these little churches and communities. Lift up the name of Jesus and glorify your name.
Tear down the denomination barrier and root us in JEsus Christ the center of life.

2009-06-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Dead In the Crosshairs

2009-06-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last night I was driving home from McCloud after an Alpha meeting. I was thankful for the conversation that really had opened up. We have a unique dynamic in that we have three Catholic ladies attending and we are beginning to think about what it would look like to worship together one Sunday not only with other Protestant congregations but also with our Catholic brothers and sisters. That really would blow the minds of people. Jesus prayed that we would be one that the whole world would know that he is alive. God rock our world. We talked about the risk of ministry that really trusts Jesus, does kingdom work and prays strategically (ala Ed Stetzer). We may be small but God who is in us is mighty.
On the way home from the meeting thinking of this work I hit a four point buck on Hwy 89 driving at 65 mph. Feeling sorry for myself I thought of people who are risking so much more and suffering for their witness. Feeling sorry for myself doesn't accomplish anything but getting on with the ministry does. A little part of me died so that I can share the love of Jesus.

God is Doing a New Thing

2009-06-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

When I think and pray for the congregations I serve and the communities they minister to I am reminded constantly of how surprising new life really is. The scriptures turn our focus back constantly to God's wildness in our midst. I cannot make the kingdom grow only Jesus can do that and my job is to trust him to work. That trust must be put into practice as I pray, study and meeting with people. Faith works if it is real faith. Strategy is then rooted in prayer as I pray not only for my own personal revival but for the revival of the people so that we trust and enter into the work of the kingdom by the power of the Spirit. It is simple: Trust Jesus, live that faith and pray strategically about what God calls you to do.

Micah and Stephanie Howe's Wedding

2008-12-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

Check it out our baby was married in October. The wedding was to Stephanie Lilly in Sheridan, Wyoming. What a great day and time of praising God and celebrating.

Church as Unusual

2008-08-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

The battle that rages around us is subterranean. I am thinking of the cultural war that so many Christians and pastors are involved in fighting. The left is fighting the right and the right is fighting the left. Various groups involved in this battle could be enumerated ad infinitum. The point is that the we don’t know what time it is and we are having a very hard time thinking like missionaries in our own backyard. It is easy to say that we need to change while holding on to Jesus Christ, our sacred texts and creeds. But doing this is another thing.

Churches, especially those in small communities are extremely resistant to change. Perhaps this is why Paul went to the urban centers of the ancient world because they were more receptive to change and new idea. But around me as I serve in Siskiyou County my beloved “red neck” State of Jefferson the cultural currents are deep. Rural economics are driven by a tourist market and a need to survive. Yet the “good old boys” of these communities are holding on to the good old days of their small towns even though they are long gone. Global warming, gas prices, same sex unions and economic change are not unfamiliar topics to even the long term rancher and logger. In fact you often find that those closest to working the earth and most in touch with the needs of our globe. Ranchers and farmer are very in tune with the economic global make up that is driven by Bangkok, Dubai and China.

Being a pastor among other pastors I find that many of us are angry at the world. The energy is wasted however because that same world ignores us completely. They don’t care about our pronouncements and don’t even know where our churches are located in most instances unless there is a death and that is becoming more the exception than the rule. But we are being called by God to serve as Christ’s hands, mouth, feet and body to this generation. The boomers are disappearing from our midst and the following generations are all but gone.

We can’t continue to do church as we have. PowerPoint and contemporary music aren’t enough. That was an eighties thing but today we need to meet and serve people where they are but we are all but cut off. The anger only exasperates the problem.

So I study the scriptures looking for missional themes and counterculture threads. I pray all too little and suffer from weak faith. I have been thinking and praying the scriptures. One of the clear things that is needed is a faith that is lived. This is one of those chicken and the egg things. We need communities that natural missional Christian and we need missional Christians to spark missional engagement. But we have to remember the “God thing”. God, this is your Church, your time and so I read and pray. I am like Mary pregnant with your word. I hope for a real birth not a still birth. Make me large with Jesus, O God. I am challenged to be like Joseph who dreamed while listening. Let your words saturate my life so that I dream, dreams after God and his kingdom. When God sends his messenger to me like he did to Joseph let me be as faithful to make room for Jesus and to honor his presence.

So I am thinking that we need to begin on a radically Christ-centered foundation. Only the Spirit can show us what God is doing in our churches and communities. I am committing myself to pray and listen. God remove the anger I see in myself and in other pastors so that we overflow with the love of Jesus. Then maybe we can show Jesus to the world again.

Blessings, Jim

God’s New Adventure

2008-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

March 2 I begin serving the two congregations that make up the Parish of the Siskiyous. This is clearly God’s new adventure. I am discovering that this new time of change is an opportunity for all of us to examine our world and ride the wave of gospel innovation. The struggle that all of us face is that we feel forced to either react to the changes around us or to simply “go with the flow.” The challenge is to let new dimensions of the gospel that we perhaps have not seen before provide direction and to let the Spirit that speaks from the future empower us to be cutting edge people who speak with a prophetic voice.

“Let go and let God” is not adequate to the kind of radical obedient faith we are being called to by Jesus Christ. Our whole culture is now a mission field and it is no longer optional to vital faith as to whether or not to open ourselves to the love of God that is meant to be shared with our neighbors. We have a choice to either cling to the garment of Jesus or be swept along by a tidal wave of change. We either keep our eyes set on him as he calls us out to walk on water or we sink. We are being called to a deeper spirituality that is more profoundly shaped by Holy Scripture, empowered by prayer and engaged in all our relationships. God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is calling us deeper into relationship with him so that we can have the relational capacity to love our neighbor as Christ does. Change is not about cosmetic changes in music, sanctuaries or preaching styles it is all about clinging more closely to the simple command to go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mission is the basic DNA of the kingdom that brings change in a proactive dynamic way.

People are talking about “postmodern monks” and spirituality that is communal as people awaken to the needs right outside our doors. The kingdom of God is coming; will we align ourselves with the work of the Spirit?

May God bless you so that you are a blessing to others,

Jim

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2007-11-19T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hope for Exiles

A Meditation on Ezekiel 11

Sitting by the fire praying and reading from scripture has caused me to pause. It is dangerous to listen to God speak in a world that is so quick to seek comfort and ease. God reminds me of this as the windows shake. The God who sends the wind through the trees outside my home is not a wimp. God calls us out of our comfort zone into his kingdom adventure. Today that quest for those of us in the Western world is an experience of exile. As Christians we are no longer in the positions of power. We are being humbled and God is using this to lead us to a more cross-centered witness.

The ancient Jewish prophet Ezekiel lived in a time like our own. God had been domesticated and shrunken. Ezekiel’s job was to make him wild and holy again. How many of us today think that God looks like Morgan Freeman? I guess he is a big improvement over George Burns! The Living God rocked the ancient world and judged the nations so that people would awaken to his reality and have room for his Spirit. The real God, not the god of our imagination is doing the same today. Not, so much, as the angry judge but as the One who seeks us in the cross of Jesus. Holy yes; but so merciful.

Israel had enjoyed a very brief time in the sun under David and then under the early kings of the divided kingdom. David’s reign for many of us reminds us of the glory days following WW II. American’s were extremely popular from New Zealand to Italy. We put a man on the moon and for a very short time our form of democracy was the hope of a new world order. I dare say that this is not true today. Television beamed our luxury around the globe and billions of people began to long to have what we have. The average American was looked at by most of the world as a millionaire and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Guess what, they are buying their piece faster than we can imagine from Bangkok to New Delhi. Like Israel we are finding ourselves no longer on the top of the pile but somewhere in the pieces that are being cut up and sold.

Ezekiel’s message in the eleventh chapter of his prophecy is directed toward the kind of affluence and complacency that seems to be engulfing us. Their country was in shambles but they were living it up. Apparently these people (Jaaziniah and Pelatiah) felt that they were special, that their new homes and comfort were proof that God held them to be like choice meat in a pot. But the exact opposite was the case. The choice people of God had already been sold into exile. American Christians need to let go of the money and power so that in our exilic brokenness we too can know the blessing of being God’s chosen. I fear that our affluence and exposure to the media in America is hardening our heart and closing our minds to the reality of God in Jesus Christ. We have more than even the kings of ancient times but who do we thank? How are we sharing our wealth so that others also can be blessed. So many of us thank ourselves for what we have earned and accumulated with our own two hands. The sad reality is that religion is marketed and many of are consumers of religion not missionaries serving in God’s kingdom. Spirituality is packaged to be nice and comfortable. The result is not just the hardening of our secular categories so that God no longer has a place in our thinking but there is not even much room left for our humanity.

Our exilic experience offers a door of opportunity. There is a new hope that God has set before us. Most of us have lived without God and without hope in our world. May be we had retained some self concocted vision of God. But it was nothing more than an idol or image of our own making. Life lived on this level is dull at best and hopeless when confronted by a person who dares to live a self-examined life. The famous painting The Scream by Edvard Much, seems to capture the anxiety and ethos of what so many of us have lived. The spiritual detours we take seem to last only as long as the drugs we take or the newness of some self-help approach may offer. Disillusionment is upon us as we become more and more aware of a world in pain and face the reality of being what Mother Teresa of Calcutta called the affluent poor. “The one with the most toys wins.” Really? We can face our need and discover that God is there to meet us in it.

In the background of the comfort and affluence of the people who remained in Jerusalem there was the new reality of a people in exile. We can make the same discovery. They were no longer in their native culture, they had been taken captive. Our culture never was really Christian but it Judeo-Christian foundation has crumbled and the remains have been taken captive by the new hordes in blue jeans and carrying a lap top. The Babylonian captivity was an act of God’s discipline and in their captive they found that God was their sanctuary. Perhaps God is working to reawaken the Church to his bigger reality? Ezekiel put it this way: "Therefore say: Thus says the Lord God: Though I removed them far away among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a little while in the countries where they have gone." (Ezekiel 11:16, NRSV) Suffering exile seems to be one of the ways that God makes himself known to his people. It is not through material blessing but through the turmoil of history and the cultural upheaval of our time that God breaks the silence that so many of us feel in our postmodern secular time. Those who are cast out of the culture and live as exiles begin to know God is here. He really is. The more we join with the world’s poor and the more we face our own emptiness the more we realize that we are not the center of the universe. God is. When we make this self-discovery the kingdom of God can become our home not our national heritage, as blessed as it has been. As a Presbyterian pastor who believes in the unique Lordship of Jesus Christ I find myself in a denomination that was mainstream but has become increasingly politically correct in a mainstream culture that is repulsed by our one Lord, one Faith, one baptism and one God and Father of us all. So the basic orthodox belief in Jesus Christ as the only Savior and Lord given to humanity, drive me out of Wall Street, Washington and Hollywood. I won’t find life there though there is a remnant of God consciousness. More and more followers of Jesus are waking up to the reality that we have been cast out. We are exiles. People see us more and more often like straw chewing hillbillies and throwbacks to some era of the past. But it is in this humble setting that Jesus likes to work.

Here is the good news it is in our exile that we breathe the Spirit that speaks to us from the future kingdom God is building. Exile worked a transformation in the Jews that the Lord our God is one and that no idols were to be tolerated. We have believed in progress, IRAs, our careers and our general ability to manage our own lives including our own churches. But in exile we are discovering that we are not in control and that there is one dominating need in our life and that is our need for God. Radical trust opens us to a renewed vitality that can be very convincing and effective.

Perhaps we can awaken to how we have wrapped our Christianity in a form of cultural captivity not unlike Israel in Ezekiel’s day. Everything else is slowly being stripped away. Many of us have wanted to go back to the day when we were mainline, where we had the power but the road back is lined with arrogance and abuse. God has disciplined his people so that we could find that he is our sanctuary in exile. Living on the margins of our culture we find that we are returning to the center of all things: our sanctuary is God alone. It is in the waste land of our time that we may discover God doing what he promised: "I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh," (Ezekiel 11:19, NRSV) That is what Yahweh promised Israel in exile and it is what I am discovering in my own brokenness as a pastor. It is in this desert waste land that I am finding that I have so much in common with Lutherans, Catholics, Charismatics who also are finding their hearts breaking and the Spirit doing something new. God is choosing a new people who look to him alone as he continues to build his kingdom on the earth.

Exile comes in all forms today but the one common denominator is brokenness. Like the bread we share is broken and like the wine we drink is poured out but blessed. In that suffering the exiles by the river of Babylon sang the blues but found God was right there with them. Their spirituality took on a new vitality that rippled through the Jewish people and was alive and waiting when Jesus was born. His family was exiled and Jesus was an alien who was raised in Egypt until it was safe to return. Exile breaks your heart so that there is room for the Spirit and room for the Son. In the suffering I have faced, small as it is, I have found that God is my sanctuary too. The new heart is a daily result of the breaking and softening that takes place. Now it is time for us to arise and follow him on this new adventure.

A Prayer for Thanksgiving

2007-11-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

We confess how much we need to remember that our purpose is to celebrate you Father, Son and Holy Spirit all day, every day. What we mean is to revel in You! We have been reminded today how easy it is to get caught up in the news and lost in our own problems. Forgive us for forgetting to pray; forgetting to meditate on what is true, forgetting to thank you. Life is transformed when we remember that you are rescuing the world and judging evil and our Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! We remember your holy word that calls to us, “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” So our perspective changes when we turn our eyes upon Jesus, when we look up and begin to give thanks.

So here we are broken people but also blessed like the bread we eat together around this table. So broken that it is hard to see straight unless we remember how you have blessed us. Father we hear you calling to us by your Spirit and by your Word. We hear you saying, “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my beloved, on you my favor rests as it rests on my own Son. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I am your Father and nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”

Give us faith and give us the strength to meditate on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Fill this week with thankfulness and gratitude for your blessing in the brokenness that is the source of this new life we live in Christ.

Life is Precious and So are You

2007-11-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Precious Friends and Family,

I came across a quote from Henri Nouwen today that I just wanted to share with you all:

When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant. What fascinates me so much is that every time we decide to be grateful it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.
Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

I have learned thankfulness more from you Kerry than anyone else I know. Thank you.
Love, Jim