In the Name of What?

I grew up in a mainline denomination. There was a lot of good stuff there, but they were missing out on things. They'd given up on, or turned away from, miracles (they aren't for today) and the gifts of the Spirit (ditto, though the fruits of the Spirit are mostly fine today, thank you).

But just as the mainline denominations were missing some things, so were the charismatics and the non-denominations. Many have missed wisdom in one area in particular.

Some of us have wasted a lot of time looking for the secret formula, the right phrases, the right attitudes, some hidden message we've all somehow missed, the secret to getting God to do what we want done. "The Answer" has allegedly been revealed many times under many guises: Name it and Claim It, Word of Faith, Positive and Negative Confessions, etc. While all of these had a grain of truth to them, they ultimately became either an attempted means of controlling God (the very worst form of sorcery) or The Thing We Needed To Do To Please God (a kind of works-based grace).

The phrase "Christian Sorcery" is, I trust, an obvious oxymoron. But what are sorcery and witchcraft except finding the key words or works to force someone or something supernatural to cause a desired effect in the natural? God makes no distinctions I can find between "black" and "white" or "good" and "bad" witchcraft. He simply says, "No. Don't be trying to manipulate." He doesn't distinguish between killing curses and love potions, between lightning strikes and rain dances. He just says, "No."

There are even prayers that get into this territory. It's irrelevant how they are phrased; if what we're after is getting God to force someone to do something they don't want to, we're in a dangerous place. It's one thing to cry out to God that we need rain; it's another thing altogether to demand it, much less to try to to do something to force him to rain where and when we want.

Some Christians get irate at this concept. "Sorcery involves the Devil!" If you want to be picky, we can be picky. That's Satanism, which is a subset of sorcery or witchcraft. But it makes no difference. God is about relationship, not rules. God cares about the means, not just the ends. The means involve our relationship with him, and if that relationship isn't about getting to know him and trusting him, if it's about getting our way, it's an attempt to manipulate God. Do you really think that goes well?

Quit looking for the secret, the magic words, the right gestures and attitudes, the correct phrasing, to produce miracles, healings, or provision. If you pay any attention at all as you read the Gospels, you will notice that of the recorded things Jesus did, he seldom did them the same way twice. How many different ways did he heal the blind? How many different ways did he approach the lame? In some cases (the woman in the crowd) he did nothing, the woman reached out in a desperate faith and was rewarded.

If, indeed, there is An Answer, it's simply to have a desperate faith, a faith that recognizes there is no other answer, that one has nothing to lose. But that's not something you can work up. It has to be real, from the heart, giving up hope in anything else. If nothing seems to happen right away, just keep asking, reaching, touching. I can't tell you why we sometimes need to keep on this way, but Jesus recommended it. And when something does happen, recognize it is simply grace, a gift from God, a work of love. Don't check the last thing you did and think it's The Answer, a way to reproduce the miracle, a way to force God to do it again and again and again. He knows what we want and what we need, and he's capable of doing all those things. And he loves us. Trust in that, and see what happens. You won't always get the miracles you wanted, but you will always get expressions of his love. It's simply a question of whether we're willing to recognize and accept them.

God Is Enough... But Not In The Way You Think

Fellow blogger and all round cool sister Alise Wright recently wrote that God is not enough (do not bother to reply to that unless you read her blog). It was in reply to something on her Facebook wall that said, "If God is all you have, you have all you need."

This was my reply.

God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone (note that God said this even though, technically, Adam was not alone-- Adam had God there!), so he gave Adam and Eve the gift of each other, then gave them more family and friends and community, growing over time. I would contend that if you have God, you have family and friends and community. That's what I see in the Bible, and what I see all around me. Those who try to live without family and community have serious problems.

If, indeed, God alone is all you have then he will be and provide all you need. But how many of us end up like Jonah or John in the book of Revelation? Precious few, thankfully.

I suspect the provider of the quote above was trying to encourage people (or themselves) in the latter situation, but honestly, if we have a computer and internet access, we probably have no clue what it is like to have nothing but God.

I've known people who went through times they had no one but God, and he became enough, but he brought them to a place with others in their lives. Because we were never meant to be alone.

One of the last things Jesus did on the cross was to provide family for two people he loved dearly-- Mary and John. Every time his followers turned around he was loving on people, and doing things that caused relationship... with their Father first, but never just with their Father.

Don't try to make it on your own. Love people. Let people love on you. Does it open the door to hurt? Yeah, it can. But in the words of Alfred. Lord Tennyson, "tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." But if you really, really love people, you don't lose. They might, but you won't. I think I Corinthians 13 covers that one pretty well. (I'll try to address that soon.)

The Morning After (Burning Ones)

I wrote the original version of this on Oct. 4, 2009 about an experience the night before at the Burning Ones Youth Conference. Nolan Clark blew us all away explaining what it meant to be a burning one, whether the beings of flame such as Isaiah saw (Is 6), or the human kind. I've expanded a little here.

I've prayed for years for God to burn out of me the things that were unlike him. I prayed this Saturday night as I have many times. Only this time I wasn't letting go; like Jacob I was wrestling with God until I got what I came for. If I ended up with a limp (metaphorical or real), so be it.

When God really got hold of me back in my hippie days, I had a vision. At the end of the vision I was floating before God, like we were the only two things in existence. I was this tiny speck, and he was an all consuming, blazing sun of pure love and holiness (among other things). I couldn't understand how I could continue to exist; I should have been reduced to subatomic particles.

As I prayed at Burning Ones, that fire reappeared-- only this time I was inside the fire, and it was inside me. God's holiness, his utter otherness, his alien-ness, overwhelmed me and became part of me, became me. The things that were not of him were suddenly as other to me as they are to him, and they just vanished.

Another thing I've prayed many times was to be able to see people as God does. A while back he told me clearly that if he did that for me, it would destroy me. "The intensity of even simple aspects of their nature-- like their maleness or femaleness-- would overwhelm you." So I quit asking, somehow knowing this wasn't a forever answer.

In the midst of the fiery experience last night, one of the things God said was, "Now you can ask." I knew immediately this was what he meant so I asked. And he did it. Everyone around me was now made of living fire-- holy, beautiful, pure. So this is what it means that we are made in the image of God! Or at least a glimpse of it.

The rest of the night was beyond anything I had ever experienced. It made the most intense acid trips in my college days look boring and pathetic. I knew who to pray for as God would let me see a dark spot in someone's fire. But I not only knew who to pray for, there was no question of how to pray. God showed me what to pray, or at times just prayed through me, or just spoke through me deep down into the beings of whomever I was praying for. I don't even know everything I prayed for; it wasn't for me. This was beyond prophetic insight. It was beyond merely understanding that I was made in God's image. I recognized God's image that was (is) me, that spoke and moved through me and everyone else. It happened again today a couple of times, too, though much more matter of factly, without the overwhelming awareness of the Burning One above all other burning ones.

And that's my prayer for everyone; that you not only see who God is, and who God made you to be, but that when you look in the mirror, you see the image of God he made you to be. And that you can then see others the same way.

I've only seen people as beings of fire a couple of times since, but the clarity, intensity, purity, and sheer joy and power of that night remains. To God be the glory, but a special thanks to Nolan, who brought us to a place where such things could happen.

Never Give Up.

Working with teens is one of the coolest, more rewarding, most fun things about my life. Some of you read that two or three times-- blinking, shaking your heads, knowing you misread it-- but it still reads the same. "Don't you mean most frustrating, Miles?" No, I don't, Sure, there are times it can be frustrating, but that's true of everything in life worth doing.

There are these two siblings I've never been able to connect with. Since they were able to walk and talk, they've just never had any interest in me. And that's fine. I don't expect to be friends with the whole world (though that would be awesome). But we're friends with their parents, we go to church with them, we occasionally eat with them. I love them all.

I've given these siblings their space, just been there, offered hugs, interest, and jokes. I haven't pushed-- too often (their mom told me a while back, "Every now and then just hug them, anyway. They need it.")

But now that Sharon and I are officially working with the youth I want it clear they matter as much as anyone else, that they're loved, that they aren't being ignored or shut out. So this weekend at the lock-in I paid them a little more than usual. Nothing looked any different.

Tonight we had a dinner for the youth who'd made a special commitment, to spend time with them and start the process for what they had committed to. When I got ready to sit down, the only open space was also the only table with no adults. The slot was between these two sibs. My first thought was to give them some space; I don't want them to feel pressured. But it was the only open spot, so I sat down. And within a couple of minutes of talking with them and the other teens there (both of whom I'm very close to), these two pretty much took over the conversation. You'd have thought I was a long lost uncle or something.

It wasn't anything deep. It wasn't anything I (or, I presume, they) needed. It was just different. Suddenly, there was relationship. Suddenly, there was trust. Suddenly...

No. There was no suddenly. These were built up over time, with patience, love, and respect. There was no agenda. There were no demands. There were no expectations.

How did I learn to do this? From the way God pursued me, and from a handful of people over the years. Most of us haven't noticed anyone treating us this way, or we thought they were weird because nobody else did this, or... It really doesn't matter why. The reality is that real love-- patient, kind, unenvying, modest, humble, honoring love[1]-- calls out the good in people, and always has a chance of making a difference. Anything less is going to fail, one way or another, sooner or later.

Most of us are all too familiar with the broken, incomplete types of love (or the fakes that masquerade as love), with the resulting failures. Try the real deal. If you don't know how, find someone offering it and experience it for a while. There's some serious healing in there.

Some times it takes a while.

Don't give up.

God doesn't give up on you.

Neither will I.

[1] I Cor 13

A Suit, a Car, and a Spotlight?

I was 21. I was at work, talking with God about something (I don't recall what, but it was hardly Earth-shaking). As conversations often do, it suddenly changed tracks. "One day I will call you into full time ministry."

While I hadn't yet been fully co-opted by the day's Modern Church Culture, I was far enough down that path that what I envisioned looked fairly traditional. Startlingly so, enough to make me nervous. I wasn't any more traditional then than I am today. And only a year earlier, I wouldn't have had any preconceptions; I would have simply asked what that looked like. (I once asked how many hairs I had on my head. He told me.)

At some point in my 30s while happily wearing the skin of an unofficial assistant youth pastor, a young lady named Elizabeth came up to me and said God had showed her something. "Right now you're in the background but one day you'll be in the spotlight, too. I know that's not something you're looking for, but it's true." I have to admit, I took it literally, thinking of being on a stage with hundreds, perhaps thousands of teens hanging on my every word. In the spotlight. It was scary. It was intriguing. It was exciting, It was tempting.

...

For years now in many cultures, most peoples' definition of a "successful" ministry has included certain things:

• a stage
• a huge audience (congregation or otherwise)
• a good salary
• nice clothes
• a nice car (*too* nice can look bad) or two
• a nice home (ditto) or three
• TV cameras and radio microphones
• fame and popularity
• rubbing elbows with celebrities, maybe even world leaders
• book deals
• a spotlight or twelve

There have always been exceptions such as Mother Teresa, Margaret Gaines, Crystal Walker, Rick and Jan Waldrop, Paul and Rhonda Stockard, Gentjan and Pranvera Dervishaj. Mother Teresa could have had all the trappings of a "successful" ministry but she was too busy ministering. You've heard of her. Most of you haven't even heard of the others. And that's fine with them. They aren't in it for the money, for the cars, for the fame. The were and are in it for two reasons-- they love God, and they love people.

...

After a long and bizarre (the norm for me) road, I became an official youth pastor. That youth group, once well over 100, was down to six when I was asked to pastor it. I didn't care. I loved them and poured myself into them. No stage. No spotlight. No salary.

I was given influence with a much larger youth group. Still none of the trappings; it came about through just loving people and showing them God.

As things got bigger and better (in the traditional sense), I had a vision that called me to walk away from the title and formal youth ministry. I just kept loving and offering God. I ended up with "ministry" all over the place, including (gasp!) adults, from 90 miles north to 90 miles south, to 200 miles east... and around the globe via travel, friends and the net.

Occasionally there's a stage, even a spotlight. Occasionally I end up hugging a celebrity or a local or state leader. A couple of times there has been a fairly large audience. But the thing is, I had to rack my brain across the list to come up with those. They're cool because God is doing something in those moments, not because they are big deals.

And I am a full time minister. It's not what I'm paid to do. It's a part of who I am as a child of God. It doesn't look much like Mother Teresa or (insert your favorite full time minister here), because God made me to be me. Unique. Weird, even. And I'm totally down with that. Why would I want to be anyone else? We already have one of each of those.

Ministry looks different for each of us. It might mean simply being a good husband or wife, mom or dad, brother or sister, child, etc. It might mean stopping to hug and feed the people on the side of the road begging for money. It might be as obvious and simple as loving, honoring and supporting everyone at work... or in your congregation or neighborhood. It might mean praying for the sick. It might mean preaching. It might mean teaching. It might mean performing marriages and baptisms (perhaps without a license or official approval in a hostile environment). It might mean waiting with the dying, laughing and crying with the bereaved, burying the dead. It might mean smuggling Bibles. It might mean loving a tormentor. It might mean nice clothes, a car, and a book deal. If it all flows directly out of loving God, and loving others as yourself, doing what we see the Father doing, speaking what we hear Daddy saying, it's ministry. And it's good.

How about you? What's your ministry look like?

---

This was inspired by Sally Hanan, who asked, "When you think about being in full-time ministry, does your vision instantly go to a stage where hundreds sit and listen to you, or does it go to you washing old bed-ridden women and letting people move into your space and eat your food ...? Just a thought, because if love is not the motivation for your ministry ..."