Still Reading...

2 Weeks, 4 days... That's how long I've now been birthed out of my sabbatical and out into the world. I'm still debating how public I should go with my new commitments. Every day it feels less and less pressing that I share them with anyone. Yet there is one thing that's certain, I have so far maintained a discipline of reading that I long to make a sustainable discipline throughout my next season of ministry.

At least for a while, I'll continue to write about what I'm reading. I certainly don't expect anyone to follow my ramblings, but it's a good discipline for me. It lodges the reading in extra corners of my memory, and perhaps over time it will allow me to see streams of what God is doing with me through study.

As a part of my devotional life, I've been working through A.W. Tozer's The Attributes of God. It's a short book for such an audacious title; it's just 10 chapters and 195 pages. Yet, I found myself captivated by Tozer's unrelenting insistence on a God that is bigger, better, and bolder than anything than I can imagine.

I live in a culture that fills conversation with modifiers, qualifiers, and conditionals. Often, that is a good thing. In pastoral ministry it can be the better part of valor to give people room to listen and maneuver with what they are dealing with. Wriggle room is good.

But reading Tozer made me wonder if modifiers maybe just adding mud to something already muddy. What if what we needed is more clarity and fewer qualifiers? Tozer offers 10 attributes for our contemplation:

God's

Infinitude

Immensity

Goodness

Justice

Mercy

Grace

Omnipresence

Immanence

Holiness

Perfection

I'm prone to assent to all these categories, perhaps you are too. Yet I know that I am just as like to put boundaries on them, somehow seeking to make God more manageable. "Nope," says Tozer, "Go bigger." If you can imagine God's characteristics in any of these categories, you must go one step beyond and then one more beyond that. I was moved to worship God, and with more clarity, as I read this book.

I had a seminary professor who advocated that we find a couple of theological conversation partners and authors, perhaps even decades or centuries old, that would challenge us and anchor us. I have some of those, but I think I'll be adding Tozer to my table.

Butterflies and Balloons

Yesterday was my return to 'normal' life. I've been thinking hard about my return for the last couple of weeks.

Where is God leading me to pastor differently because of this sabbatical gift?
What about our church culture should I embrace?
Will students remember my name?
Will I remember their names?
Am I ready for this?

Those questions, and a million besides, were at the forefront of my mind as I took the oddly unfamiliar (but memorized) drive to work yesterday morning. I'll confess. Walking up the stairs to my office I had butterflies like it was the first day of school.

And then, when I get to my office, this is what greets me:



Wow! That's about all I can say about that... Wow!

I suppose I still have some of the butterflies and questions but that was an awesome welcome back! Thank you especially to Lisa, Rush, and the students who spent all kinds of lung power getting that office filled. It was great to be back with people I love, talking about common work that we love, and having a great dose of laughter in the middle of it.

I don't think I'm quite done with this blog yet, there might be more updates to come as the meaning of my sabbatical unfolds with more clarity in the weeks to come. But in the meantime, thank you to all who have gone out of your way to support us on our sabbatical journey... and on our return.

Peace,

Erik

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

So, I've just come back from Grand Rapids, Michigan. While I was there I went to Rob Bell's church, Mars Hill. He planted this church several years ago, and it's grown into a huge mega church. They worship in a converted mall and people come in droves, etc. etc.

You might be surprised to hear I enjoyed my worship time there; it was creative in surprising ways; they spent good time and money preparing ministry for my children; there was a general buzz of joy and friendship.

In youth ministry circles, Rob Bell has become something of a celebrity. Early on in his career he made exegesis cool for the masses by taking his unique style on the road to Youth Specialties events and the like. At my last convention they handed out this book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, to everyone who attended.

Over the last couple of weeks, I  engaged this book in an interesting way: I read it or listened to it, but I didn't do both. I also have it in audiobook format, so I would sometimes listen to it while I was in the bag yard putzing around, and I'd sometimes sit to read it. It may not be the best way to really to engage with someone's ideas.

That said, it was a thought provoking book, and if I hadn't recently been reading NT Wright, or had read George Eldon Ladd in seminary, then I would have been thoroughly captivated by his notion of the church in exile, already beholden to Christ as a bride but not yet fully at home with Him. This theological notion of being in the Already/Not Yet carries real consequences for those who are Christians. And this is where Bell wants to take his readers.

Salvation is not only from something (namely, sin) but also to something (namely, radically re-oriented life). And we are saved to this life in a world still straining away from redemption. So, we find ourselves in exile in our very own home town, in our own work places, sometimes in our own families. This book strives to introduce that reality to Christian community, especially for those who have not come against this understanding of salvation, or God's Kingdom before. We all need this reminder. After all, don't most of us (even those of us who know better) just blithely go on living our life in our little bubble of habit and safe acquaintances? Of course. And that's the ultimate call of this book: Let the pattern of Jesus Christ overtake you, living as one who is at home in exile ready to be spent on others.

Amen. And Amen.

Now, time to stop writing and start living in exile.

Not a bad view...

We're in Grand Rapids Michigan, seeing some very close family friends for the week. My friend is a carpenter and yesterday I traveled with him up to Pentwater MI right on the shore of Lake Michigan. He worked. I wandered around a very lazy town that supposedly buzzes during the summer. I believe it.

I sat here for a good chunk of the day yesterdeay, sipping coffee, listening to my iPod, and reading a bit. Overall, a very satisfying day.

This morning I met the sheriff, the coffee shop owner, and 5 regulars over coffee and a cinnamon roll. I don't think I've ever had an experience quite so quintessentially small town.

They were both warm and welcoming and very curious (in both senses of that word). We had a good talk about pastoring, evangelism, California, diversity, and a few more things beside.

Good times.

Big Blue

Do you remember where you first were when you realized you would never be the president? Perhaps you wondered where you went wrong... or pondered that one decision that lead to that other decision that lead to you being a middle-manager in a below average company with 2 kids, a spouse, and a mortgage rather than leading the free world through its latest crisis.

NT Wright has that effect on me. What's that you say? You haven't heard of him? He's no Barak Obama but in the world of the historical study of Jesus, in the world of biblical studies and theology, there are few who stand taller than NT Wright. He's absolutely brilliant, prolific, persuasive and irenic (although those last two might be prejudice on my part since I find myself wanting to agree with him often).

I just finished rereading Jesus and the Victory of God, a book which I sped through in seminary over 7 years ago. In it Wright strives to take a fresh look at Jesus in his historical context and build a portrait that is faithful to the source documents and to what we think we know about 1st century Israel (and Rome).

Some of you might know that saying 'Jesus' and 'history' can cause all sorts of controversy not least because of the speculative and media-grabbing work of the Jesus Seminar. As he strives to do the primary work of understanding Jesus, he has a secondary project of seeking to rehabilitate the discipline of rigorous historical inquiry for those who have come to mistrust its motives when it comes to Jesus, the Bible, and theology.

On both fronts, Wright is compelling. Starting with a summary of the various historical approaches to Jesus (studying Jesus has a history in its own right) he spirals into a method and conclusion that is thoughtful, 'new', satisfyingly faithful, and also troubling. Summarizing 600+ pages in this little post will never do, so I'll stop trying... Well, let me just take a hack at a one sentence summary:

Jesus is a a thoroughly 1st century Jew who self-consciously and purposefully gathered up the symbols, praxis, and expectation of the Jewish nation and recast them in faithful but surprising ways, announcing himself as the long awaited messiah who is in himself bringing unexpected restoration from the cycle of deepening exile that describes all nations and all people, not just Israel.

Whew! That was a mouthful. And I missed some stuff. You should read the book if you want to discover the gaps.

A friend of mine who used to work with a college ministry calls Wright's book 'Big Blue'. It's easy to see why. It's blue. It's a major paper-weight. But it's also weighty. Anyone who seeks to understand Jesus, or study Jesus on purely historical terms, must reckon with this book and its conclusions which are ultimately more orthodox than many might desire.

So, I'm no NT Wright. Never will be. I'm not even sure where I went wrong, but I can be sure I won't be contributing to the church, theology, or history the way he has. No one will be reading what I wrote 50 years from now... I'll have to come to terms with that.

Incidentally, I think not running for 7th grade student body president was my downfall in the world of US politics.

Getting My Hands Dirty

For years Amy has thought I should have been diagnosed with tactile defensiveness when I was a child. Maybe. I don't like finger paint. I avoid mud (even while playing soccer), slimy stuff, and even steered away from my own boyhood sandbox. Food texture is an important consideration for me when I consider what I like to eat.

Fatherhood has knocked out some of this. Babies are just messy - what goes in, and what comes out. And you just do what you have to do.

Still, Amy is at least partially right. And that's why I'm especially proud of this picture. Part of the health theme of my sabbatical was to try doing something I would not otherwise do: something creative, meditative, indulgent. I considered a number of things, but finally decided to accept a friend's gracious invitation to teach me pottery.

So, I go to his studio. We talk about clay. Handle clay. Center clay. Make clay slimy. Shape clay. And I love it. As I and my friend noticed it's easy to see how pottery turns into a spiritual experience. For me, the expression of friendship being extended to me was part of the spiritual experience. His hospitality was God's presence to me yesterday...

Back to the picture: it's a cut away of my first attempt at a cylinder. As I learn the various techniques at the pottery wheel we'll destroy more than we keep so I can see what's actually happening to the clay between my fingers. Yes, that's right, slimy and malleable clay right in my hands. I did that.

Without the impetus of my sabbatical there's no way I would have done this and I would be missing out. It makes me wonder, what else am I missing out on because I have some sort of undefinable and unjustifiable defensiveness: maybe I should take a hip-hop dance class. Maybe not.

Monday Morning Mentoring

I finished Monday Morning Mentoring by David Cottrell today. I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit I read management/business type books. I've never really explored why that might be, and I'm certainly not going to do that here. Embarrassment aside I occasionally find them helpful, sometimes convicting and often affirming (of my instincts at least if not my actual behavior).

This one didn't offer anything particularly new. The principles of management and supervision are told in the form of a narrative between a wrung out manager and an old family friend he turns to in a moment of overwhelmed panic. What I did like about this book was its emphasis on character as the core thing that must be developed, nurtured, and uncompromised as we work with others. Focusing on developing as a human being always trumps striving to be a better human doing.