Revealing, A Glimpse

Mike Cope is a pastor of Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, TX. (You know, where I went to college - Abilene Christian - Go Wildcats!)

Anyways, I didn't get involved with the church while I was there, but it's one of the bigger Church of Christ churches in the area - especially taking into account how many ACU students went there. (I was a heathen and attended one of the popular Baptist churches during my ACU days - Beltway Park - but that's neither here nor there!)

So anyways - wow, I'm starting off on a tangent! Mike Cope, however, is quite an amazing guy - and great communicator, even if I didn't choose his church! I've read some things by him recently that have really impressed me. Not because they're profound, so much - of course, maybe to some they are, but because he's saying the things that I've been thinking. Or maybe better put - he's on the same page as me in regards to God, church, and what that should look like in a Christian's life. And that's both refreshing and exciting. I'm very excited that he's communicating these things to the students and people of Abilene!

In his latest blog entry he mentions that he spoke in chapel at ACU this past week on behalf of a new student group at ACU called Awake 3:18. Here's what he said:

They've taken their name from 1 John 3:18: "Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." They are focusing on the 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa. Specifically, they have targeted one village in Kenya, where they know a woman who is trying to care for all the orphans there. I am meeting more and more students who have no interest in the version of Christianity that is obsessed with fine-tuning obscure doctrinal matters or nailing the perfect worship service. Instead they are opening their hearts to the mission of Christ in this world.

I also want to direct you to an article of his, found on the Vision419 website, called "How to Be a Christian Despite Attending a Christian College". Pretty risky title for some, but I really applaud his candidness about the fact that there is a true battle to maintain authentic Christianity (Christ-likeness) while attending a Christian college. I know, I've been there and lived it!
I guess I felt the need/desire to blog this because it's part of what's been on my heart lately. I'm in the same boat as some of those students Mike's been talking with. I'm tired of Christianity as it is. I'm ready for us to start trying to figure out what it means to be like Christ, instead of trying to be like church. What this world has seen of church, they don't want. As Brian McLaren has said, they don't want our sales-pitches. They want Jesus. The guy who would have been standing outside with the smokers, not inside figuring out how to "gently" tell them that church isn't the place to do that. I'm fed up with Christians who want a neat, clean-cut, prim and proper Jesus. The man had dusty feet, and touched a leper's skin with his bare hands! That's the kind of Christian I want to be. Absolutely at home around the people modern Christians want to "clean up".

Matt Chandler has often said that he enjoys the "rough-ness" of his congregation. That there are smokers on the front steps. That there are countless couples on the brink of divorce, people constantly struggling with addictions, and believers who haven't gotten "the church life" down yet. He says he hopes they stay that way. I do too. Because I've been part of a church the last 12 years that's filled with people who have "the church life" down. And they're annoying. Because they're fake. They are struggling through some severe pains, and fighting some losing battles in their lives, but they get to church on Saturday night or Sunday morning - and somehow, "miraculously" - they're "Fine." or "Great!" or "Blessed!" I don't know - I just know it'll take a real miracle for the people of my church to get back to a place with being ok, communally and publicly, with being broken, beaten down, torn, and failures at being "good little Christians".

I guess I'm just ready for us to stop fooling ourselves into thinking that Jesus Christ is in any way a spiritual bandaid. That if we just slap his name on top of it, it somehow makes it all better. Because the problem is that we never cleaned the wound, so all that "bandaid" is doing is covering up the infection that's developing underneath. Maybe that's a dumb analogy, but that's how I see it today. If I wasn't so involved, I'd walk away from church and never look back starting tonight. Because I get the feeling that I'll be a lot more like Christ wants me to be when I get out of the damn building, and onto the streets and into the coffee shops where the real hurts of this world aren't being avoided and ignored. It's the non-churchy people, the "non-believers" (a term I'm begining to loath), who are the most real about the pain in their lives, and the struggles with meshing God with what they see everyday - which is what the Bible talks about on every page. Unfortunately, distancing myself from the church building isn't going to happen overnight. But it will happen, sooner than later. No worries, all my evangelical brothers and sisters. I'm waiting on God's timing, and I promise not to "forsake the body". (Which I think is a misinterpretation of that passage, personally, in the way it's commonly stated and used.)

Ah me - another soapbox! I'll quit. I hope something I might of said (or quoted) makes you think today, makes you open the lid of the box where you've stored the easy-to-manage, compacted, one-size-fits-all version of God a little bit wider, so that some of His true self escapes and broadens your understanding and knowledge of who He is and what He's about. That's what's been happening for me the last couple weeks. God's not easy to handle anymore. It's scary, but freeing all at the same time!

Please don't get offended (although I can't stop you if you must), but really let yourself open up to the reality that we all try in some form and fashion to get ahold of God and put him into something we in our humanity can handle. We all view God with spiritually shaded lenses. Why else are there so many paintings of a white Anglo-Saxon Jesus? Why else do we think that Jesus was scrawny and weak on the cross? I encourage you take a few moments today and reflect on your subconscious images of Jesus especially, since he was God incarnate. In what ways have you "Americanized" him? I've personally had some bitter revelations as I've allowed myself to become humbly honest about the reflections I've allowed my culture to impose on Jesus, and Father God. It's difficult, but I promise it's worth it, if you do it wholeheartedly and humbly. The best thing we can do in our walk with God is be willing to be corrected and challenged. I finally realized that I don't have many answers, but I've got a whole lot of questions. Especially when it comes to the Bible. And it is the most freeing and exciting place I've ever been!!

Nature, it's all over me! Get it off!

I'm now officially a "pro" at this camping thing!

I never went camping as a kid. My mom doesn't think that life is worth living if you can't soak in a tub of warm bathwater before you crawl between the sheets. She also isn't much of one for sleeping on the ground, even if there's a blow-up mattress between you and the gravel! Her idea of "laying down" must first involve the process of "climbing up" onto the bed!

I love my mom, she's just not what you would call, "outdoorsy"! Which makes my parents an odd pair, because my dad grew up sleeping in a hammock under the stars in the jungles of Brazil. They prove the theory that opposites attract!

So anyways, like I said, I didn't grow up experiencing the "family camping trips" that many of my friends enjoyed. But during college I began endeavoring on it a few times with friends! Unfortunately, I do have some of my mother's tendencies, I discovered. While I tend to enjoy the morning shower over the night-time bath on most occasions, it was very hard for me to not have access to the morning shower at first. I like to be clean, and to smell nice. I'm girly that way. There's something blissfully wonderful about feeling fresh each and every morning!

However, I've come to love the camping experience, as long as it doesn't encompass more than two days. I've gone two nights once, and nearly came out of my skin the third day, I felt so gross! Anyways, I do love the campfire experience - talking, laughing, toasting marshmallows/S'mores or hotdogs. I love, absolutely love, the smell of campfire on my blanket and sweatshirt when I get home. It's sort of hard to wash them, because the smell will go away. I'm weird, I know. And now that I'm a proud owner of an inflatable mattress, with both electric and battery-operated air pumps, as well as a brand new cozy sleeping bag, I even enjoy sleeping on the ground! I just need a tent, and a lantern and I'll look like I know what I'm doing! Well, maybe!

So anyways. Some of my college students went camping this weekend, and we had a blast! So much so that a Texas Ranger had to come enforce "quiet hours" when a few rounds of "Apples to Apples" became a little too rowdy and exciting! Who goes into the wilderness on a Friday night to get a good night's sleep anyways? C'mon! (Oh, and by the way, "the eyes of the Ranger" really are upon you! And I need to start looking behind me more, because that's where he was - just like the song says! *Theme song from Walker, Texas Ranger for those who didn't get my little attempt at humor!)

So that was my last 24 hours! Fun times! I hope we plan some more camping trips before fall is over - of course, in Texas, I don't have to get too concerned about winter feeling much different from fall! And now it's time to go shower up! Cause I have a lot of cleaning to do - and I'll start with my grungy self, first!! That's the downer to camping, everything is dirty when you get home! As fun as it is, it sure is a lot of work in the end!

Pondering "Judgment Day" with C.S. Lewis

In a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's; his hair was like pure gold and the brightness of his eyes, like gold that is liquid in the furnace. . . . In beauty he surpassed all that is in the world, even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust of the desert. Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honor) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be [king] of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, "Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?" The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed accepted. Does thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yes I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.

C.S. Lewis

The Last Battle, pp. 164-165

Boats and Planes

What a week!

Not sure what to say, really. Or at least where to begin. The book I talked about, A New Kind of Christian, has really been rocking my world - in a very literal way! My theology, my view of church, my understanding of how to display my faith - it's all changing, growing, being shaken. And the job situation is coming into transition again.

I'm at a place that I'm not really ready to describe. And I'm beginning to believe some things that I'm not ready to put in writing. But I want it to be marked down, here, that it's beginning to happen at this point in time.

But I'm wondering something today. And I know that it sounds random at first. But here's my thought: Why was Jesus able to sleep soundly and peacefully through the storm that caused the disciples to fear they were on the brink of death? (see Mark 4:35-41) What I started thinking about was - maybe, just maybe - Jesus is calmed by what causes us to be shaken. When our faith gets turned upside down, and we come to a place of searching and struggling, and growing through digging into Him - it brings Him such peace! It quiets His heart to know that His disciples are going to have to rely on faith. And I don't mean to suggest that God is not at peace. So maybe I'm not articulating this very well. Hmmm.... let me think for a minute.

OK, so the disciples in the boat are fishermen. Definitely not easily frightened by a storm. I'm sure they must have experienced plenty in their lifetimes, and are quite skilled at handling a boat in rough weather and choppy seas. So, this storm is a huge deal to them. It's like their Hurricane Katrina or something! They don't think they're going to survive this one!

Two things stand out to me at this point.

1.) Spiritually speaking, each of us has something that we are skilled at. Something in our lives as related to our faith, in which we feel confident due to a lifetime of experiences that have built up our knowledge and some level of mastery. A place spiritually where God has tested us and tried us enough times that we have a degree of confidence (not necessarily arrogance though), that stirs within us the feelings of "I can handle this. It's not going to be easy, but I can handle this." Which, again - spiritually speaking, can be both good and bad. Good in the sense of knowing that you've grown in an area, and bad in the sense that the door opens to feel self-reliant, rather than God-reliant (the arrogance part).

2.) It is often when we are in that place, that God brings a storm that is so big that it causes us to question that confidence. God causes us to go through a time where we find out that "Nope, I don't think I can handle this! I'm going to die! Lord, save me!" So maybe, when God brings these big trials, struggles, or losses that threaten to overcome us - God is reminding us that we are still small. And no matter how much we've come through - there are still bigger waves than we know how to handle. And only He has the power to say "Peace! Be still!"

But I also wonder at how His nap beforehand affects us. I think about times when I really have fought and struggled through something spiritually (like I am now). For awhile, it feels like Jesus is off sleeping somewhere, because I feel really alone.

Like take the rest of that passage:
The disciples ask Him, "Don't you care that we're about to drown?!" How many times have I prayed with the spirit of "God, why aren't you fixing this?! Where are you?! Hello??" In my theology, which some may disagree with, I hold to the belief that God sometimes "plays possum". I'm sure other children besides me have done this. (Although I still have no idea, really, why I did/do it!) When my parents would come to wake me up, I pretend to still be sleeping, "play possum".) I remember often being perturbed, because I was semi-awake, knowing that my alarm clock was going to go off pretty soon, but enjoying those last few moments before you have to open your eyes (moments which can be lengthened with a handy- dandy snooze button!) - and their "Kathryn! Get up!" was almost worse than the annoying alarm buzz/beep because it robbed me of that blissful not-so-awake moment prematurely. but at the same time, I kindof knew it was coming. So by pretending to be still sleeping I gave them one last chance to turn around and trust in my ability and wisdom to use an alarm clock. So I wonder if God sometimes "plays possum" to give us one last chance to shut our mouths and trust in His ability and wisdom to direct us through the storms in our lives.

I guess I ask that question because of the end of the passage, where He asks the disciples, "Where is your faith?" Will you ever trust me? Will you ever just sit patiently in the boat and believe that as long as I'm with you, this boat will not sink and you will not drown?!

So let me recap.

• What if God sits back and rests during those times when we are being truly shaken?
• Because it makes us have to rely on Him instead of our own knowledge or confidence.
• And what if He "plays possum" through some of those times of uncertainty and fear as an opportunity for us to choose to have a "childlike faith" and just simply trust?

Here's what I'm imagining at the moment (it's a scary place, so don't say I didn't warn you!). Imagine you get knocked unconscious by someone. When you come to you are sitting in the cockpit of an airplane high above the treetops (but obviously not in the pilot's seat). All of the sudden warning lights start flashing and sirens start sounding, and it becomes obvious that you are going to crash! The plane is going down! But your horror intensifies when you look to the pilot. Because, instead of finding him calling maydays and trying to bring the plane back into flight, he's quietly humming with his eyes closed and his hands crossed behind his head in a thoroughly relaxed position as if he were in a recliner on a Sunday afternoon! You start shaking him and screaming at him to "Do something!" And then he just as casually sits up and speaks into the radio, "OK guys, shut it down." Slowly your horror turns to confusion, and then your confusion to baffled recognition that this whole thing was merely a simulation! A controlled environment. You were never really in a true cockpit, you were never really flying above the trees, and you were never really crashing! And then the pilot turns to you and says, "I wanted to know how much you trusted in me."

I wonder if that's how things are with me and God sometimes. Because I believe that He is sovereign, and therefore, absolutely in control of my situation at all times. And I think that his purpose in sitting back (knowing full well that in a few minutes I will begin freaking out) is not to mock me, not to trivialize the pain and fear that I'm experiencing. It is a test, but not in a sadistic, mean sort of way - but rather as a means of bringing understanding to my eyes and mind of my limited vision. Of my lack of understanding or knowledge of "The Big Picture". And sometimes, no, often times, sadly, He has to say, you still don't really trust me. You say you believe in me, you say you know who I am, and what I'm about - but you don't have faith that I really am those things, that I really am capable of flying an airplane with my eyes closed and my hands behind my head! That I am GOD!

So that's where I am today. Sortof. In the midst of some pretty chaotic, scary, not-so-sure-I-can-handle-this types of things. And God is somewhere between calming the storm and looking at me saying "Where is your faith?" (Or something a little more like "Oh good grief, just trust me! I've got you! You won't drown or crash! I'm here, and that should bring all the confidence, comfort, and hope you need.")