futurePRIMITIVE

Welcome to the conversation.

I am now some six weeks into this experiment and a holiday offers me the opportunity to reflect on some of the big things to come out of this.

Reading-wise, I have just completed a slow journey through Practicing His Presence - and there are some final thoughts from the editor of that small booklet, below - and have I have begun to read Erwin McManus’s Uprising as my special holiday reading (so you’ll find a few quotes from him).

Most recently I have found myself thinking about freedom.  These words from Lawrence Kushner especially caught my attention when I read them again this morning:

It takes more than a master to make a slave.  A slave is someone who allows someone or something else to define him or herself.  Not until we recognise our bondage can we begin to move toward freedom. (God Was In This Place and I, i Did Not Know)

All of what we can be might is lived out in the context of what we have chosen to be, and more often than not this is the lesser life.

It is this smaller self, we are responsible for which holds us captive more than anything else. As Erwin McManus points out, it is this person we are trapped within at the end of our day, after work, after choices, after all those other things and other people we blame: You’re stuck - with yourself (Uprising).

What I know only too well is this journey out of the captivity of my own making is one of the hardest things to do.  McManus puts it well when he says:

All of us long to play the song within our soul, and imagine we would all do so if it didn’t require endless hours of studying the notes (Uprising).

Somwehere in amongst all of this is our liberty.  It does not so much matter where we are, as who we are.  Th e freedom of the early believers found itself expressed amazingly in unexpected places: How many of us read the book of Acts as the work of slaves under the dominion of the pagan empire? (Uprising).

These thoughts have been important to me in the past and they are important to me again, because if I begin to blame others and blame situations for my imprisonment  I might never find the freedom that I am meant to know in my life.

Last year I had been reading through Jeremiah 8:18-9:2 and I had been intrigued how the prophet in one moment could be weeping for his countrymen and women, and in another moment wanted to be far from them, and I had asked: Who would be a person who MUST, seeing what others do not, disregarded and misunderstood by one and all?

But this experiment is leading me to see how the person who MUST can live in unexpected places, and they can introduce new words into the vocabularies of churches as we encourage others to explore the freedom they have in Christ, that they are: explorers; adventurers; provocateurs, revolutionaries, and more.

These are words we must ewncourage one another to give expression to in our experiments.  There is no-one else who can live this gifted life from God for me or for you, and we do not want these words to be true of us: We are in a sense even dead to life. We merely exist and think we are alive.  We have traded the authentic for the imitation (Uprising)..

I do not walk around apologetically for how I want to live with God, connect with others, and hope for the future.

Gene Edwards, the editor of Practicng His Presence, closes with this thought:

And, in the first century at least, all believers had a vital part in the daily and very practical experience of that kingdom.  They called it the body of Christ.  We call it the church.

We believe there is a greater life, and we seek to make others aware of this.  Just before he died Brother Lawrence shared this thought: I am sure you know that most people’s love stops at a very shallow stage.

But let us go beyond the lesser life.

What do you think?

Welcome to the conversation.

You are not in control.

So states the fourth elemental truth.

Sorry to point this out.

Mark Earls perhaps offers an illustration of this truth as he comes to the end of his excellent read; he is referring to marketing but he might as well be making a more vital remark to life as a whole:

No, the best we can hope to do is cast a pebble on the water.  Choose the pebble wisely, choose how to throw it but once the stone leaves your hand we have to let go.  Watch its flight, by all means, but then sit back and watch the ripples it creates roll across the water. (Herd)

A comment on life and a comment on the gospel.

There is a self-organising dimension to the gospel, the thing that happens when the gospel is welcomed into a life.  Christian Schwarz refers to this as the all-by-itself principle, from Mark 4:26-29, from the lips of Jesus:

This is what the kingdom of God is like.  A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then thehead, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.

I believe this self-organising or all-by-itself characteristic of the gospel manifests itself in different ways in different communities and persons.  If we trust what God is doing in people’s lives and they respond as only they can, then we need to admit that something far more impressive then we could imagine is taking place.

Here, then, the well chosen pebble is the gospel, and the water the world and throw is the way only we can live it and share it.

You are not in control …

But …

There is more to be seen for those who know this, who receive and pass on the gospel.

But we must pick up the right pebble.

And we must throw it (pass it forward) as only we can.

It seems that Paul knew a thing or three about not being in control, so I’ll leave you with this thought:

I have been crucified with the Liberating King … the Libertor is living in me, and whatever life I have left in this failing body I live by the faithfulness of God’s Son (Galatians 2:20; The Message).

What do you think?

Welcome to our story.

It’s been an interesting weekend.

First of all I was at a friend’s induction into his new work in a small town’s Baptist church.  The small “church” described how it believed this linking up was meant to be and how prayer was such a large part of their decision making.  I felt excitement for what my friend might well see happening through having a very focused ministry in this one church, in this one town.

I couldn’t help but begin thinking of what might happen through a group of people whose main aim was to get so close to God and live out his purposes from their community and personal lives that they would be a blessing to anyone they met - the aim not being to “get people into the church” but to be a blessing to the people they meet.  Even as I write this I find it an exciting possibility from a switch of thinking in how we Perceive “church.”

Later that same day I was at a friend’s birthday party at which were present both those who didn’t know God and those who did.  One of each - having in common the same first name - got to talking whilst some loud music played around us.  I can’t remember the music but I can rememeber the conversation.  Before I knew what was happening, the God-believing guy was laying on heavy how the world was in a real mess and what the other guy needed to do so he wouldn’t get caught out by the rapture at the end of time.

The girlfriend of the guy on the receiving end of this came up and pulled him away; I had to find them a little later and apologise to them for what had happened.  I was left wondering where was the good news in what the God-believer had shared.  I couldn’t find any.

Earlier in the weekend I’d read something from within my own “church” about how people didn’t feel very enthusiastic about sharing the good news about Jesus with others - almost the opposite to the “witnessing” at the party.  As I ponder these two different experiences on Saturday I just have to hope for something between the two extremes that means the good news will be shared in a non-violent, very attractive way.

On the Sunday I went along to the service in the church I serve at and when I took my place I held this thought in my mind: If God told you that he would speak something important to you in the service then what would you do?

I mentioned this to Alex, who was sitting close to me, after the service and he replied that he’d probably listen very carefully, and take notes.

Here are some of the things from the service:

• From a song:
  • “I want to serve the purpose of God in my generation … while I am alive … for something that will last forever;
• From a reading:
  • “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?”  I spoke up, “I’ll go.  Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8);
• From another song:
  • “Here I am, Lord.  Is it I, Lord?… I will go, Lord, if you lead me.  I will hold your people in my heart.”;
• From another reading:
  • “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.” (Luke 5);
• From the message:
  • “When have you had to trust in God when seems to be leading you further and further from what makes sense?”;
• From yet another song:
  • “choose again the pilgrim way.  The challenge of tomorrow’s day”.

There were so many significant thoughts and ideas running through these parts of the weekend which I carry into this new week.  And did I mention that this year the review of my work - with an eye on the the future - takes place?

How was your weekend?

Welcome to our story.

Paul’s life was one of the most powerful arguments used by God for the truth of the gospel about Jesus Christ.

I’ll just pause to let that sink in.

That’s alarming, methinks.

Although we don’t have an overall picture of Paul’s life, there are a few places where he tells something of what happened to him.  When it comes to facing the problem in the Galatian churches - that they are leaving this good news about Jesus behind - he decides to begin his letter with his story.

And here’s why this is so alarming, because I wonder, should I not see my life as being one of the powerful arguments of God for the gospel?

Brother Lawrence ponders with a brother how they have spent their years: You and I have lived a monastic life many years.  Have we employed those years in loving God?  After all, it was by His mercy we were called and chosen.  And for what purpose?  To love Him (Practicing His Presence).

I have just turned 34 years in my following of Jesus Christ.

I did not come to this new-birth-day by an expected route, not having any connection with a “church,” nor any “church” connection within my family.

It was by the invasion of God.

Even now I wonder whether I am here despite my experiences of so many “churches.”  And neither is it because of any of my doing.  Each year, when I come to this new-birth-day, I find myself simply amazed and so grateful for God at work in my life, though I get more wrong than right .

When we look back we do see things quite differently. Paul looks back and sees how God set me apart before birth and who called me by his grace - chose, to his great delight, to reveal his Son in me so I could tell his story among the outsider nations (Galatians 1:15-17; The Message).

Many years earlier he had heard his call as a promise, a number of words, but now as he looks back and sees more of what happened when because of the journey that took him to Arabia, and then back to Damascus.

As I looked  forward thirty fours years ago, I thought I knew what this life would be like, but now as I look back they don’t look anything like what I thought they would.

Just what happened in Arabia?

God takes Paul, this Jew of Jews, off to a Gentile country, immersing him in a different culture.  He explores his new faith in a non-Jewish setting, and perhaps it is no wonder that when he returns, he has a different perspective that would not have been developed had he stayed in Jerusalem.  Later he would speak in places like Corinth and Athens.

I see my life has been the other way around.

I see how so much of my young faith was lived in “church” settings, and only now am I exploring my Arabia and my Damascus.

Paul’s life is a powerful argument for this good news of God in Jesus Christ.  The gospel invaded his life and developed in a way that only this good news could.

So it ought to be in my life.

How I need this experiment: I am over 50 years old, have been following Jesus for 34 years, and I have so far to go.

How are things for you?

Welcome to our story.

My experiment is no into its second month and I am very thankful for those who are exploring with me.  My hope rises for what might emerge from 2010.

I am thinking of how we all need to identify our simple way for walking with God through all the things our lives include and involve.  I hope our sharing with one another will help each of us identify what this might be and be encouraged to push on further into living it daily.

I sense Brother Lawrence has found his simple way which he lives through all the other things of his day:

My set times for prayer are exactly like the rest of the day for me.  They are but a continuation of the same exercise of being in God’s presence (Practicing His Presence).

When I was eading of his experiences yesterday, I noted the doubts that still came to him, over whether he was right pursuing the presence of God as his simple way, but reading more today, he has this matter resolved, putting aside troubling thoughts by pressing on with what he called his secret conversation.

I am wondering whether it is important not to ask too many questions of the deep times we have with God, but to live our simple ways before him - and before others - open to what he has to bring both in challenge and encouragement.  Our simple ways with God carry their own questions, often more searching than the ones that put us of our way.

As I read these things I have begun to read Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia.  He begins with a summary of the gospel and for good reason: these churches have given up on this simple message for something made by some to be no gospel at all.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5)
This simple gospel is the one thing that can properly organise human life towards the future: the human person and the human community.  And I have to wonder, what might these look like?

All complexity serves this simple way, this simple good news.

Problems occur with complicated gospels, where the complexity is seen as and end in itself, when the the supporting complexity replaces the primary simple.  Instead of “all these things you have to do” the simple way of living our life with Jesus Christ - as only we can - will be layered, nuanced, multi-dimensioned, deep and one.

What do you think?

Welcome to our story.

As I read more from Brother Lawrence, he is telling of how he isn’t into methods used by others for meeting with God.  In his experiment, I began to use my regularities of devotion in the same way I did the rest of my time, in fixing my mind on the presence of God (Practicing His Presence).

I read this alongside finishing off my reading of Matthew’s gospel.  The disciples arrive in Galilee at the rendezvous mountain with Jesus: some worship him and some have their doubts - still trying to figure out how to relate to this Jesus.  Do they follow and worship?  They haven’t got it all “locked down,” but right there, in all of their figuring out of things, he calls them to their work, what we refer to as the great commission.  Perhaps their getting heads and hearts around who Jesus is and what’s been happening will work out through the adventure before them: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life (The Message).

Reading this familiar passage again, I found myself asking: Is this what it’s all about?  Surely it has to be more complicated than this?  But I have to concede that Brother Lawrence took a very simple approach over life with God, and yet I find that sometimes he too had his doubts, confessing: On occasion I even thought perhaps my simple touch with God was just a wilful delusion on my part, and that I didn’t even have salvation.

Am I oversimplifying things?  

Are all the words written and taught about this life with God (I am reading The Enneagram at the moment - over 250 pages long) attempts to help us get this simple way?  

Here is what the Gospel of Matthew leaves us with though: I’ll be with you as you do this day after day after day, right up to the end of the age - a way of life to be lived and taught out of the daily experience of the ever-present Jesus Christ, this marked by following, worshipping, and sharing.

I am thinking that here we have a simplicity on the far side of complexity, that is, something complex, deep, nuanced, multi-dimensional, significant and endless, held together as one within a simple way.

For all the length of their book, Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert offer this simple hope: We hope it will make us more capable of loving other people, loving ourselves - and loving God (The Enneagram).

What the disciples were to find is this simple way was the opening of more and more before them.  Even as they gathered on their rendezvous mountain they were already feeling measured or weighed: Just what did this encounter with the risen Jesus say about them?  (We often can read this the other way around.)

I work with many people on identifying and expressing their Strengths naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour).  (Added to this there can be an exploration of gifts, dreams, and ways of experiencing the presence of God.)  But perhaps even here, in the positive world of our talents and abilities, we look upon our brokenness – just how far we are from what God intended us to be as bearers of his image.

Here is one of God’s great creation trajectories through history: that we are to be bearers of his image: Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness […]. So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27).

The other great trajectory comes through what happened in the calling of Abram and Sarai, to be a people of blessing to all the peoples of the earth: I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:2-3).

What if the life and work of Jesus was the re-establishing of these twin trajectories (as I believe they were)?  These were passed on to the disciples and therefore on to us.  So, what might happen if we pursue these today?

All people groups (the right translation of “nations”) on earth can be blessed by a new people being renewed as the bearers of God’s image (Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded - Matthew 28:20, The Message), and in turn become blessings to others.

How are these trajectories manifested or expressed in my life?  

What are the commands Jesus refers asks us to pass on to others?

What if they are they simply the way he lived his life being passed on to others, in order that they can live in the same way, although not identically? So, when I read Christian Schwarz’s description of what Natural Church Development principles have to be like, the description fitted.  Jesus is asking for us to “teach” the principles of life he lived, which must be: universally valid, proven, found essential, and which need to be individualised – only then can they be a true expression of our lives, as “the person I am” (NCD descriptions from Color Your World).  There is something co-creative about this - a term Mark Earls uses to describe how the best creators realise they borrow from others (Jesus said he took his lead from his Father) and must leave their “audience” with the possibility of continuing to be creative (Herd).

But there is more to this simple way.  These principles will only be lived out in an uncorrupted way out of a trinitarian experience of God (baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as Jesus puts it).

What do you think?

Welcome to our story.

There is a great need today for a crowd of people to be explorers in their relationships with God, deepening lives through more of their days, in ways that only they can because of who they have been shaped by God to be.

Each person will find their words and phrases and pictures which describe their life with God - and these will form their thankfulness to God, their inspiration and encouragement of others, and their service and kindness to the world.

I must explore my way.  You must explore yours.

I am not talking about aggressive individuality - “everyone a church” - but the kind of explorations which must emerge out of our common life together - whether that common life be local, extended, or virtual - a common life bound to Abba through Jesus Christ, made possible by the Spirit.

I know I can’t live your life with God, but I want to hear about it, and my guess is that I will be inspired, I will learn, and will be encouraged - and I have to wonder, what kind of worship might arise from expressions of sharing such as these.

Everyone has to begin this adventure somewhere.

These words from Brother Lawrence caught my attention, not because his faith-brother sounds somewhat aggrieved at the impoverished experiences of others, but because he knows there is so much more of God to know and wants others to be open to experience this:

This brother sometimes complains of our blindness.  He says that those of us who content ourselves with so little of God are to be pitied.  He has said that “God’s treasure is like an infinite ocean, yet if even a little wave of feeling, which lasts for only a moment, comes to us we are content.  By such blindness we hinder God and stop the current of His graces.  But when the Lord finds a soul permeated by His living faith, He is able to pour into that soul an abundance of His grace and favour.  Such grace and favour flow into the soul like a torrent, which, having been forcibly stopped from its original course, once it has found a passage, spreads and flows again, unleashing its pent up flow (Practicing His Presence).

I then read these words from Richard Rohr: Religious people are even harder are even harder to transform because they don’t think they need it (The Enneagram).  Some years ago, when I was getting to know a group of people with whom I would be working, I was asked what would be the hardest thing when it came to developing our mission.

I replied that it would be aligning the hearts of people with the heart of God; I still think this is true.

Perhaps your experience is the same.

I mention this because my experiment for 2010 is not only about walking more of my days with God, but through the things that make up these days, to be changed.  Such an exploration - of what it means to be creations of God - is an uncommon venture, but perhaps this age before us will be one which will be marked by tribes and crowds and movements and communities connecting ever more deeply with God, with the resulting transformation in their lives.

What a dream: the very essential things needed to shape newchurch in a many-varied way of different shapes and flavours.

But, where to begin if Rohr is right when he points out, But the church, strange as it seems, has always been a bit uncomfortable with saints and mystics; it is content just to have people “in the pews” (The Enneagram)?  Perhaps the truth is that saints and mystics are not full people, but empty people - I know how true this is for me.

There are many ways of exploring this relationship within our creation-shape - mine is only one - but I am thoroughly enjoying walking with those I share conversation-journeys with, exploring talents and abilities, spiritual gifts, dreams, and, of course, how connecting with God.  My hope is for these explorations together to be big and open enough for people to know God, to who they are, and to know others better.  I try not call this a course or a programme, although there is a shape to it.

It is always more than “only this.”

It is always more than we expect.

We will never know what “it” is completely, because at the heart of it is a God whom we can never fully know in this lifetime.

There is always more.

I hope you know and feel this.

There is always another day, another thought, another challenge, another idea, another step, another person.

It will be interesting to see just where these conversations and adventures break out.  When I read these further words from Rohr, I don’t believe it will happen if we only allow the churches as they are to take the lead.  And perhaps to think about them as happening “in church” is unhelpful anyway, because we need to think about them taking place “in life” (of which an element is church): If we are unwilling to live askew for a while, to be set off balance, to wait on the ever spacious threshold, we remain in the same old room for all our lives.  If we will not balance knowing with a kind of open ended not knowing - nothing new seems to happen (The Enneagram).

When I was reading this, I was also noting that the closer Jesus got to the religious institutions - including the people - the less impact he appears to have had.

What do you think?

Welcome to our story.

I am writing a longer piece to be published in the next few days, so I am wanting to be careful about overfacing, but I love this thought from Lawrence Kushner about the name of God:

Yod, Hey, Var, Hey. … How do you pronounce all the vowel sounds at once?  The reason God’s name is unpronouncable is because the Name of Being is the sound of breathing (God was in This Place and I, i Did Not Know).

In the moments of the days I am gifted, I breathe in - God.

I cannot hold this breath forever and must take the risk of breathing out.

No promise of my next breath.

Then it comes, the gift, the fullness and I am alive.

But before the next gift, I must breathe out, must empty myself.

Deep breaths.

Welcome to our story.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and today have been really busy days: meetings and appointments following one another in unrelenting procession, but through this all of this I have been trying to keep certain important things in mind. All of this is the stuff of exploration.

Here is something from Brother Lawrence which caught my attention yesterday and struck me as capturing the heart of my experiment:

We ought to purpose ourselves towards this end: to become in this life the most perfect worshipper of God we can possibly be (Practicing His Presence).

I am not thinking the songs and prayers kind of worship, but the spirit and truth kind - all that I am meeting with all that God is more and more of the time.

How might you put it?

Welcome to our story.

So many churches act as if they are the “clients” for what church is about, but they are not.

Joint founder of Naked Will Collins set out to create an advice companythat looked after its clients, not itself: We are determined not to get involved in building a factory for making ads […]. The factory has become what matters for these kind of companies and not what the client needs (Herd by Mark Earls).

Naked was born out of the frustration of some advertising guys wanting to serve the client not the company.

This set me hoping for a different kind of community of faith, one that doesn’t exist for itself, and is able to stay alive to this.  Brian McLaren writes about how the “secret message of Jesus” was hidden in parables, and then it became hidden in the lives of the disciples.  Then he ponders:

Can you imagine yourself and your community of faith as a living parable where the secret message of Jesus could be hidden today (The Secret Message of Jesus).

As I continue in this experiment I can’t get away from the thought that we needs to come before me - something counterintuitive in the Western world - how I need to be an explorer of community that understands itself tobe the bearer of not only this message, but the image of God. Is it possible for such a community to exist, or will it always turn in to care for itself?

I wonder am I right to try and imagine “church” this way around?  What do you think?

Those who know where they’re going and what’s nonnegotiable liberate themselves for confident, evan radical, experimentation. (Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney)