Blog Fast

No, not speed blogging. Fasting. As in, the Biblical model. Although, to be more precise, it's probably more like blog lite than a complete fast.

As our YWAM field experience phase of the DTS picks up momentum, I'm finding that I just don't have as much time as I'd like for posting. So, while I won't be completely absent from this blog over July, it's highly likely that my posting will be somewhat sporadic.
Looking forward to July 1 (Canada Day), here's a picture of a band that I really miss playing with, taken on Canada Day at the ScotiaBank Stage at The Forks in sunny Winnipeg.

Why?

We've had this "Whatever!" clock for years. It doesn't work anymore, but we keep it as "art" on the wall anyways. Today, one of my fellow DTS-ers, a 22-year-old woman named Anne, asked me one of those questions that kind of brings you up short.

"Dude, can I ask you a totally personal question about something? You DON'T have to answer if you don't want to," says Anne, as our team of workers was sweating in the hot Okanagan sun.

Her choice of words made me laugh. "Wow, with an intro like that, you've definitely got my absolute, unmixed attention", I replied.

Anne got serious immediately. "You and Wendy have been through a lot, in church situations. How do you keep doing the stuff? What keeps you going?"

Wow -- a huge question, especially in a dusty yard filled with junked autos and other household debris that we were removing (four industrial dumpsters filled and counting), and as we dodged the occasional black widow spider (three so far).

Not the kind of question you want to answer glibly or off-handedly. The "whatever" clock doesn't apply here.

We chatted about it for awhile, off and on, in between gathering up broken glass, finding auto parts and tools in the grass, tearing out dead bushes, moving/removing stumps and old logs, and battling (stepping on) the afore-mentioned spiders.

It was one of those "why?" questions that lodges in your brain cells long after the original conversation. As I've continued to ponder Anne's question of this afternoon, here's some thoughts that have come to mind:

1. While going through tough times at the hands of churches and leaders can really take a round out of you, whenever I read the "Hall of Faith" (Hebrews 11:36-38), or St. Paul's resume of pain (2 Corinthians 11:24-27), my own journey seems carefree by comparison.
   
   While I wouldn't want to re-live any of our church horror stories again, I haven't been martyred, beaten, shipwrecked, or bitten by snakes in a woodpile. That's a helpful, if sobering, perspective.
   
   
2. Like the beach ball metaphor that Roger Helland gave us a few weeks ago, our vision/passion of ministering among the emerging generations just won't go away. Trust me, there have been times where we've wished that God's gifts and callings were negotiable! But as long as we call Jesus "Lord", we don't really have the option of opting out.
   
   
3. Honestly, it's people like Anne that God uses to keep us "doing this stuff". Meeting and becoming connected to other genuine God-seekers and Jesus-apprentices gives us hope and encourages us to keep on keeping on. Often wounded by church experiences, but still with a flicker of the flame of the Holy Spirit within, they are looking for like-minded people to journey with; we consider it an honour to be a part of their stories.
   
   Younger people who are needing spiritual mothers and fathers (1 Corinthians 4:15). We just cannot ignore how many are leaving churches in frustration and/or disillusionment; we are simply unable to sit by and do nothing.
   
   People who have emailed us or taken us out for coffee to talk about their own post-charismatic journey; friends like those of the old "Dead Pastor Society" who gather in a pub to work through their disillusionment as they are detoxing from church, and dreaming of seeing the Body of Christ acting like, well, the Body of Christ.
   
   And last, but most important,
   
   
4. Where else could we go (John 6:66-69)? Who else could we turn to? What would we do with our lives if following Jesus didn't matter? If His Spirit were not inside us, prodding us to action and steadily moulding us into His likeness?

I hope that last one doesn't sound like a trite, religious bit of Christianese-inspired spiritual jargon. Because it's not. Not to me, anyway.

We follow Jesus, who instructed us to focus our absolute unmixed attention on two things: loving God and loving our neighbour (Mark 12:29-31). And ultimately, it is Jesus who enables us, calls us, and equips us to keep "doing the stuff", in spite of the bumps and bruises along the way.

Thanks for making me think more about this, Anne! Your questions have caused me to reflect, and in so doing, have brought me encouragement. You rawk!

Adventures In Missing The Point

Sometimes, there's nothing like a good comic metaphor!

Beaver Trumps Bull

One of the funniest things I've seen recently was the Red Bull promo car parked in front of St. Arbucks -- sort of like "here's where the Bull goes for HIS caffeine".

Today is Father's Day, and while Europeans don't normally celebrate Father's Day, the European students at YWAM Okanagan decided to give gifts to the Canadian dads anyways (all two of us).

Among the gifts was a can of Beaver Buzz, which is a caffeinated drink that provides the drop kick of an ornery caribou, and is made here in Canada for Canadians. As it turns out, it's made right here in Kelowna BC.

So, if anyone wants a caffeine-extreme drink that features a buck-toothed rodent with a hockey stick and an attitude, Beaver Buzz may be for you. If nothing else, drinking a heavily caffienated beverage that boasts "Siberian Ginseng" (eleutherococcus senticosus) should provide a few interesting stories.

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On a completely un-related note, I will now publicly say something that I thought would never enter my mind, escape my lips, or emerge from my typing fingertips: GO OILERS!!!

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UPDATE: June 19

Alas... reality comes to visit.

Charismissional Resource

Roger Helland, author of "The Revived Church", was perhaps the most encouraging and challenging speaker we've had in our DTS here at YWAM Okanagan. Roger spoke on "Gifts and Callings", and gave us the beach ball metaphor that I used in the previous post, Dreams in the Dirt.

Wendy & I first met Roger many moons ago when we were all still pastors in the Vineyard movement. We've always respected him as a man of the Word and of the Spirit, who has provided rare balance in the "radical middle" (although it eventually cost him his pastorate).

So, it was awesome to meet an old friend from our Vineyard days, and to listen to his thoughtful and encouraging teaching for a week. Roger and I talked a bit about my Post-Charismatic project, which he'd read and liked, and he gave me a copy of The Revived Church to read. I'm only part-way through it, and I LOVE IT.

So far, there are few resources for those of us who are exporing/pursuing a charismissional expression of the Body (HT to Emerging Grace for creating the phrase "charismissional"). Roger's book gets my vote as an excellent place to start. I highly recommend it.

An interesting discovery was that Len Hjalmarson was one of the editorial readers of Roger's manuscript, much as Jamie Arpin-Ricci and Brother Maynard were for Post-Charismatic. Small world, eh?

On another YWAM note, this is the t-shirt design for our group. Outreach started last weekend, which explains my posting-silence recently. We're mostly focused on local Kelowna ministries among the poor, the addicts, and disenfranchised. The team has become a fairly tight community, despite many cultural and language differences, and we're enjoying seeing God work among and through us, although there have been our fair share of difficulties and growth points as well!

Dreams in the Dirt

Dreams and Visions is a topic that just keep popping up here, like the proverbial beach ball that can't be held under water. No matter how hard you try to hold a beach ball down, eventually it pops back up to the surface; it's irrepressable.

So it is with dreams and visions: no matter how many times people, circumstances -- and even ourselves -- try to shove them down or stuff them in a hole somewhere, they keep popping back out and shooting up to the surface.

Sometimes, dreams get buried because we feel as though, no matter how hard we try, we always get hurt and stymied in following what we thought were our God-given dreams and passions. Other times, we've been slapped down by those we respected, and learned from painful experience the truth of Proverbs 18:21: "The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit." Words can bring life and encouragement to us, but DANG, can they ever deal death and discouragement, too.

So, for some people, dreams have been buried in the ground. We have tried our best to walk away and live life "post-dreams". We have created philosophical justifications for burying our dreams and visions, and have done a pretty good job at convincing ourselves that we're somehow smarter, wiser, and better off without them. But deep down, there is a beach ball trying to get back to the surface.

But then I think about the parable of the talents as found in Matthew 25:14-30. Here, we find that two servants, given five talents and two talents respectively, have invested them and been able to double their talents before their Master returns. And the Master commends them, and says that they will share in their "Master's joy".

The third servant, famously, hid his talents in the ground. His whiney, grovelling justification for this was that he was -- to paraphrase -- afraid of screwing up, afraid of failure, and afraid of trying.

The Master acts immediately and decisively: he throws the "wicked lazy servant" out of his kingdom. I don't think the problem was with the lack of return for the Master, it was that this servant gave up on using something that the Master had given him.

I know a lot of us have had our dreams, visions, and passions -- God-given though they may be -- trashed by others. We've been trying to follow what God put on our hearts, and we've been stomped on for it. We've been faced with, and perhaps given into, the temptation to bury our dreams in the dirt.

To quote St. Paul, "I urge you" not to let those adverse circumstances and people cause you to bury your dreams. Dig them up. Brush them off. See them with new eyes, perhaps. Remind yourself that you answer to God, not other people, for how you live.

And allow His Spirit to breath new life into those dreams. The Body of Christ needs Godly dreamers.

Charis-missional?

Ever since writing Post-Charismatic, I've been thinking from time to time that we should really come up with a term that better describes what post-charismatic people are positively moving towards.

In the interim, I've been saying "post-charismatic, but not post-Spirit" to differentiate myself from those former charismatics who have simply ditched anything even remotely charismatic. While I've been generally content to use the "but not post-Spirit" phrase, I still wanted something more pithy, more forward-focussed.

It's important, as people work through various issues of Detoxing from Church, that we not get stuck on defining ourselves based on where we've already been (and are leaving/deconstructing) -- hence my desire to find a better phrase than POST-charismatic. It says where we're coming from, but not where we're going TO in a healthier re-construction of what it means to be Christ's apprentices in the advancing Kingdom.

Emerging Grace may have just come up with the phrase I've been looking for, in a recent post entitled Missional Schmissional.

The phrase?

Charis-missional

Grace defines charismissional as "Spirit-led missional living".

Wow. I think I may have found my new phrase!

Peace, Love and... Dandelions?

First of all, happy 5th Blogiversary to the height-endowed New Zealander, Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi)! Andrew has been a linked Journeymate here since pretty much the start of robbymac.

Andrew provided an interesting link that portrays your website as if it were a graph. Now, I was math-challenged in high school, so graphs typically have little effect on me other than providing the inspiration for searching out whatever Advil may be in the house. But, hey, when Andrew Jones posts one for his blog, well, y'know, it made me curious what my blog would look like.

Again, not being math-endowed, the only reasonably profound observation that I got from viewing my own blog being graphed was: "Dang, looks like my front lawn. I gotta get more weed-killer!"

Still, it was an intersting experience, watching all those little dots bounce around the screen before resolving into this dandelion-like constellation.

Happy blogiversary, Andrew, and for those more romantically inclined, Brother Maynard writes a winsome and thoughtful piece about today being his wedding anniversary, and some lessons they've learned along the way. There is much more to this man than simply Linux and an enviable personal library!