Now we know how to be happy, just make sure all the variables in the equations are filled in properly! In a new study scientists (so it must be right) worked out this relationship. Maybe it's all overstating things, but in essence it seems that the short term state of mind depends on whether experience matches expectations. Personally, I think the word "happiness" is the wrong word here; the equation is really about contentment; when experience matches expectation then you're not disappointed. This contentment equation raised two new thoughts for me; one about the the poor, and one about the apathetic pew sitter -- one is poor in possessions, the other is poor in spirit. 1. It's one of those dinner table conversations when someone remarks how poor people often seem happy; "how admirable it is that they have found the real secret that all us materialists struggle with". It's said almost as a proud confession to make us seem wise now that we have recognized we're trapped in our materialistic world. After dinner we drive home contentedly in our fancy car to our warm home in a pretty little suburb. Lets stop the stupid of thinking that I don't have to be personally convicted about my wealth if someone can be happy and poor. Someone who is poor has an experience of being trapped in a cycle of poverty. Their expectations are low, the reality of each day matches their expectation, and so for sanity's sake they find a way to be content with their lot - but that's not Joy! Yet if someone holds expectations that are constantly higher than experience, then discontent grows - one becomes driven and slavery, apartheid, and many other ills of society can be overcome. But if we do not live with high expectations then we become apathetic and live with our lot in life - "happy". 2. Which brings us to the apathetic pew sitter. Why does 70% of the church limit their Christian experience to a weekly attendance (optimistically speaking) at a somewhat dull and pedantic gathering of disparate people in an old cold building. The pew-sitter has low expectations of God, and so when their experience matches this expectation they become content with the status-quo and live ever-seeking and never-finding true joy elsewhere. But imagine if the pew sitter truly learned the expectation of God's promise. What if we allowed that scary tug of the Spirit to actually lead us out of our comfort zone, what if we really responded to the urge God puts in us ... what might then happen? Christian hedonism is what happens - we become pursuers of God for the expectation of the joy. As Paul said, "I press on to make it my own", and as Jesus' story tells "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." There's an expectation of something way beyond their current situation, so they invest in pursuit. When the pew-sitter raises expectations to match God's words, then church leaders can no longer ride on the security of institutional tenure; there is a cry for pursuit, and true community rises up to overthrow the passivity, indifference, and listlessness that grips so many Christians. We would seek God's heart, we would worship, and as Tozer so nicely put it, "No one can worship God in Spirit & Truth for long before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist". The world would change - if only we would let raised expectations nurture a Godly discontent with apathy. It's rooted in this nasty equation that we let determine our state of mind, so nothing happens. Let's nurture a Godly discontent
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If the bank manager was God, each child would probably be welcomed with a letter such as:
Dear _____ Welcome to life. We are pleased to inform you that we have opened a new account for you, and that it has an initial balance of 70 (which is non-transferable). There is a 1 unit debit per year for service charges. If you fail to maintain a positive balance your account will be immediately terminated, and all your activities audited. You are encouraged to invest your resources wisely. In so doing some people have managed to add 10, 20 or even 40 to their balance through careful investment in lifestyles, diet, and exercise. Conversely, others have experienced significant losses due to unwise expenditure. You may acquire other forms of assets during your life, although you should realize that most of these will be non-realizable as credit on termination of your account. They may, however, temporarily help your lifestyle decisions and any related investment choices (e.g. being nice, learning to forgive, etc.). Be alert that theft is a real risk. This may be through subtle scams (e.g. "try these fun drugs" or "smoking is so cool"), or by blatant robbery (e.g. wars, famine, muggings, murder, or dread disease). Such events could rapidly reduce your balance to zero. There is no insurance policy against theft and the management takes no responsibility for these eventualities. We remind you to be thankful that you have any credit balance to start with. When your account is terminated all additional assets will be converted at the prevailing exchange rate. However, as just about every asset has a net exchange value of zero, these will be of little final benefit. Hence we would advise you to not put much hope in the perceived value of any of these assets. There is of course the one asset of value that is freely available from the management on request. You may choose to receive this gift at any time. However, to do so you will be required to agree to joint power of attorney on all your assets. Further, you carry responsibility for the care of this asset through to the account termination in order for it to have any final exchange value. Should your final audited balance (after all asset conversions) be non-zero and positive, then a new account with unlimited credit will be opened in your name and placed at your disposal. If not, then unfortunately you will be subject to all due bankruptcy proceedings. We wish you a happy life (although the odds are not in your favour). Yours sincerely, The Auditors. Fortunately, God's accountancy is a little more personal. A child's life is ... simple; everything is just so, no grey areas. Then we grow up!
Here's another thought: God is not a micro-manager. Imagine a micro-managed relationship ... ghastly! Instead, in his amazing grace he calls us to partner in his work. In any functional relationship each partner understands and respects the role of the other with a mutual expectation that each will "get on with it". Of course there's consultation, but on the level of dependency and on big-issues within a relationship of mutual trust and accountability. May I speak bluntly? Why not? It seems its only this generation that has built Christianity around saccharine statements of comfort, lest we offend or disturb anyone. This post seeks to speak plainly (too bluntly perhaps?) to three groups: (1) church visitors, (2) church regulars, and (3) church leaders - you decide which you are (and see the afterthoughts at then end for my own church’s context). So here we will build on the recent blog posts on worship, with three overriding concepts.
So with that in mind, let me bring this into the context of the church, and pose some issues and questions I have about each of our three identified groups. Lets also recognize that church is about relationship and communication (more on that later) with God and with each other. It's not about building and maintaining an organization! 1. Church visitors Sorry to bundle you into a group, and I hope you'll pardon my shining a light on you, but there's something you can help us with. You see, as a visitor from outside our church culture you have something that we who are inside the culture desperately need. Perspective! You come as a stranger to our opaque language, our odd activities, and our archaic imagery. Yet even so you may also find some unexpected points of familiarity, perhaps most especially where you encounter contemporary music styles that would be right at home on MTV. If I could venture to say that as a visitor you have a responsibility, then it's to talk to us, and tell us when we're being simply too strange to understand - meaning that then we've plainly failed in our attempts at communication. Please tell us when we fail! It's really helpful, and as we're polite Christians we'll smile and say "thank you" rather than bite your head off. 2. Church regulars. Ah, what a large group you are, by ratio at least. Sorry to point generalized fingers here - I know there are always individuals who are exceptions to the rule. And of course I know that you, the reader of this, are one of those exceptions. But think about the rest of the regulars. You see, unfortunately most churches operate on the 30:70 rule -- 30% of the people (if we're optimistic) do 70% of the work. The remainder are consumers ... pew-sitting "clients" ... that is, when they find it convenient enough to actually turn up. Now, in the understanding that a Christian's top priority is total immersion in breathing worship, this means engaging in creative expression of God's values through all we are uniquely created to be and do. Creative expression is no passivity, its passionate personal investment. The 30:70 rule is all good and fine in a young family. Think of a Mom and Dad with three young kids ... the parents do just about everything. But as the children grow they find they have duties, responsibilities in the family, commitments to each other, merely because they are a family. And so the family evolves from 30:70 responsibility to mutual shared responsibilities where each has a role, and in this we find that true joy and love flourishes and touches all those they connect with. But the family where kids are allowed to stay consumers; there the parents are depleted, the kids become arrogant, selfish, unpleasant, unloving and unloved individuals that nobody wants to relate to unless they can be leveraged for some other benefit. Families grow up! New kids come along, but the ones already there also grow up! And growing up means engaging in the responsibilities of leading. It's not simply a duty, its participation in relational leadership where each has a role founded in mutual trust and an expectation out of a love for what God created us to be. So Church, if you want to be known as a worshipping church in the truest sense of the word, then grow up. Else you've become parasites on the worshipping service of others. 3. Church leaders Its dangerous to generalize here, because there is such diversity of leadership. So while one can always identify some issue or other (Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, you listening?) with any individual (myself included), perhaps it's best to speak plainly on things that leadership needs to address. a) Communicating First of all is this simple and incredibly important fact: Spend a long time immersed in any one culture, and you lose effectiveness in talking to other cultures - more quickly than you'd care to believe. Cross-cultural communication requires constant contact. So to the career ministers, lay leaders, when did you last try and really comprehend the stresses, strains and attitudes when walking the path of someone in the secular world around you. When did you last converse with, "immerse with", rather than talk at, someone who finds our church culture incomprehensible? You see, we live in an age where communication is not governed by hierarchical authority but by effective conversation; outspoken, opinionated, and rooted in the power of the individual. In ages past the assigned authority was enough to command attention, now no longer. With the power of the blog, the reach of twitter, the infiltration of social media, and the expectation of self-promotion, anyone and everyone can command (perceived) authority. Anything can be said, any position taken, and any argument initiated. Its no wonder militant "New Atheism" has taken off ... today's society is totally geared to giving an audience to anyone who wants to be provocative. Church leaders, do you understand the nature of contemporary communication, and how people learn in today’s society? Do you realize how the power of conversation and story is dominant, the teacher is in decline. We buy learning, its a product framed in new educational paradigms. Even in the church its "have you done this course" and "you must go and do that course". In this we acquire knowledge, but have we really learned anything? Add the incremental dumbing down of language such that the nuanced meanings and complex richness of our vocabulary has lost so much power? Today the voice that is heard is the one that is accessible, not just accessible in practical terms, but accessible by the common persons mind. The one that speaks in language and concepts that are quickly understood, the one that has the ready hook to capture fleeting attention, the one that entertains. That voice is sadly the one that communicates (something), teaches (what people want to hear), and is followed. Is this right? Of course not. Is it reality? Absolutely. So church leader, what do we do? For one, lets use the fact that worship (defined as the breathing of a Christian), is intended to be a creative expression. Worship-breath is that which esteems God directly or indirectly through elevating Gods values. Lets get creative in our communication! There's a world out there that does not comprehend our church culture. Do we wait for them to find their way through to us, or do we speak plainly? What does plain speech mean? It means communication in the language of the listener, with examples drawn from their experience, in metaphors that they can resonate with, using music, visuals, and other non verbal expressions that are familiar to the cultures outside our doors. It means combining the communication of the culture with the timeless truths of Jesus. Church leaders, converse in the cultural commonalities! b) Leadership If the culture of communication is so different from the forms used inside our churches, then what about church leadership structures? Christianity is hierarchical. There's God on top, and everyone else below is more or less on the same level -- we're all priests. Yes, God appoints some to be apostles and teachers, he gifts some to be healers and helpers. But he differentiates this human mass not as the more important and the less important, but as a body where the foot is no more or less important than the eye. God gives roles! Institutional church has taken this and stratified the human layer into a myriad of new hierarchies. So what then is church leadership? It's leadership-in-relationship! Each has a role, each grows up into roles, and each role has functional authority in relationship to everyone else. Yet in the church institutional culture we have instead individuals who, because of their position in the hierarchy, presume to incorporate a breadth of authority over areas that is beyond their God-given role. Speaking bluntly: In institutional church leadership there has been a substitution of relational authority and co-dependency with instead a hierarchical authority having no relational accountability to the members of the body. In this age of extreme secular individualism, in a time where communication is increasingly not by community relationship but instead determined by access to resources and voices, this is a time where true relational-leadership is needed more than ever before. Afterthoughts In my church we have visitors, but we don't really know where our communication fails. We have our regulars, and some are growing into leadership, but we also have those for whom church is an option in a personal lifestyle of choices. We are blessed with a leadership that is well engaged with relational authority, but exists in an external hierarchy that is deaf to the extant realities. The sixth and final in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical.
Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 6. Closing thoughts and questions First a quick note on what you all thought this was really going to be about: singing in church! Why corporate worship with music? It's because it is a public expression of the unity of the body in spirit around the orthodox truths (which is why the lyrics are so important!); music is a powerful bridge between the mind and heart. Both become engaged, and so it's an expression of our total being expressing a creative gift, able to transcend those barriers we build against being touched by God. To fully engage in worship through song is dangerous, because it may open doors we've been struggling to keep closed. It's the equivalent of jumping into a pool in which you cannot stand, and suddenly you find how important having a lungful of air is. Second, some questions
And some final words from A.W. Tozer "Worship, I say, rises or falls with our concept of God .... and if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is." "No one can worship God in Spirit & Truth for long before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist." The fifth in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical. Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 5. The outworking of worship (how to swim) All the discussion so far is largely useless unless we touch on "doing" and "being" worship. The starting point here is to stop thinking about church for the moment. By now it should be apparent that what happens in church is only a minute part of worship. How do we do breath worship, in case we die for lack of breath? For a start, re-think your perceptions. Worship is:
We were walking in our neighbourhood recently and dropped in unannounced on some friends who we had not seen for awhile. Within minutes we were discussing Christian matters, and we only left 3 joy-full hours later after an impromptu dinner. Our discussion throughout was peppered with God-things. We worshipped, because in our conversation we were unconsciously esteeming God - both explicitly and implicitly. We breathed worship without even being aware we were doing it. As Heb 10:24-25 says "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another." Many people use this verse to say you must go to church, but I think it means as much, if not more so, that you must drop in with friends, stay 3 hours, throw in a meal, and talk around God. This is the less obvious and arguably the more important side of worship, because it reflects "breathing worship". When you breath, you don't say to yourself "breath in, breath out". When you walk you don't say "left foot, right foot". When you love, you don't mechanically say "now I'll hold her hand, and then I'm going to lean in for a kiss". No, as when we swim, sing or play music, or breath - our actions are unthinking and natural as we live immersed in simply being. My motions in swimming are the unthinking revelling of the body in the medium. Making music is not thinking about where to put my fingers on the instrument, but on creating a beautiful expression through the instrument. Breathing - my sighs, deep breaths, gasps, panting - are all unconsciously feeding my simply being. That's our target; a foundation of worship that is unconsciously part of our existence, on top of which we build the conscious choices of expression. In my marriage my conscious choice to kiss comes on top of a natural continuing intimacy. Such worship is uncontrollably expressed in confidence and commitment, not subdued or contained. If you swim tentatively, you splutter. If you walk cautiously, you go slowly. If you breath shallowly, you black out. Such hesitance has no joy. But you can be joyful in the deepest crisis when you can see something what is above the crisis. David danced, nearly naked, unconsciously and exuberantly! For as A.W. Tozer said, "Without worship, we go about miserable." What does it really mean when it says “the joy of the Lord is our strength”? It means we have a certainty that surpasses our circumstances, is beyond our expectations. And when we have strength, we can be free to be in creative worship. We can let God's values define our actions – we invest because its important, we expend energy because He is worth it, we value giving our best because God values the best, we worship not because of any rule, but because we value God. If valuing God means knowing what God values, then we need to spend time on thinking about what God values in me. What does God value about me? Arguably what God values the most in us is Humility: which is not being a shy little weakling, but is simply not being more than we are (pride), not being less than we are (deception), and that presumes we know what we are. So from God's perspective, what are we?
This goes back to the start: our number 1 priority is the totality of our engagement in worship. To engage all we are in our worship, we can consider that there are two necessary aspects to breathing worship; the individual and the collective. → The individual starts with a choice to take time. Without that simplest yet hardest of choices individual worship goes nowhere. For myself, I have lots of ways to express this. I write to myself … a lot. I have debates with myself and God in the early hours of the morning. In those twilight hours when you can't sleep, I preach long sermons to myself knowing God is paying attention. I will sit in a darkened room with worshipful music and simply rest (which is an action) in the comfort of God. All these are choices, yet each person needs to find their own individual expression, because each person is unique just like everyone else. → The collective: This is the church service, or the formal gathering of Christians. We come together to put intensity of focus on our standing before God as his body here today … and we affirm his worth, we express our unity in God, and encourage others. Eph 5:18-21 has this to say about gathering together: "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." Finally, it's worth considering that worship is especially about pro-active individual choice. Ps 100 classically covers this, but sadly is often talked about in a way that misses the key point; action! Consider: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! [i.e., be creative, its not kept private] Serve the Lord with gladness! [Service is worship, we serve God in worship, in worship we serve] Come into his presence with singing! [don't keep your distance, move forward] Know that the Lord, he is God! [engage your mind, the brains consumes 20% of your energy!] It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, [Don't stop on the threshold - that is simply being in church - instead dive in and swim] and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; [More than saying thanks, demonstrate thanks with gifts] bless his name! [to bless is an action] For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Make, Serve, Come, Know, Enter, Give, Bless - a totality of immersion. The fourth in a 6 part series on worship. I was invited to speak on worship in church; to articulate in 30 minutes the breadth and depth of what I have long experienced and believed to be biblical. Click for sections: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Wonky (defn) : 1. shaky or unsteady 2. not in correct alignment; askew 3. liable to break down or develop a fault My assertion: Worship is one of the most wonky and misconceived aspects in the contemporary church! 4. The perceptions in worship (cont.) Now onto the second question; following on from the previous "what do you think of God?" Q2. What does God think about you So here's a thought: can you remember what is was like to be a teenager, or if you are now a teenager then think about your first crush where the other person doesn't even seem to know you're alive. There's someone you think is awesome, someone who stirs up all those belly butterflies, someone whose merest glance cause you excitement, someone who if they speak to you makes the rest of the world fade into the distance. You're consumed by how they look, speak, act - and they can do no wrong, you'll defend them against any attack, yet to them you're a nobody. To such a person you're willing to be an absolute fool in their and anyone else’s eyes. You live in hope that they will someday desire to talk to you. Until once day you grow out of it, you become jaded, and you move on to new passions. So when we read God saying "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first", we go "Huh, but you never paid me any attention." Understanding how wrong this is, is really important for worship. Many Christians live consumed by their sense inadequacy, their failure, whether consciously or behind a façade of "I'm OK", and think that God is not paying any attention because we don't deserve any attention. How massively wrong we are. We forget that despite our massive shortcomings (for they are real), God really does desire our intimacy, and he is not that unattainable object of desire. When we comprehend (more than just hear) that God is a lover searching for a lover and so he made me, it transforms how we approach God. Usually when we think about God's perspective on us (if we do at all) we gravitate to comforting verses like Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." We like these sentiments because it talks about a God of provision without having to deal personally with God. He's simply out there making sure things happen, like local government, or a companies CEO, busy with managing the system while we get on with our lives unseen, unrecognised, merely a cog in God's universe. But then we also have verses like:
Imagine if I were to approach my spouse in that way, what sort of a relationship would that be. Quickly I would lose any benefit of friendship, of any comfort from intimacy, of encouragement and support -- all because I will not accept the intimacy offered, all because I don't accept their yearning to be close to me despite my inadequacies. All because I'm too proud. In worship God says "I am worthy, not just because I am worthy, but in addition because I desire intimacy with someone like you". God is a lover searching for a lover, so he made me ... and you. In worship God is also asking, will you take a lover? Do yourself a favour: watch this video. (Alternate link if you can't see the video) |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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