Goin' Deeper

2009-04-22T20:25:00.002-04:00

New Blog Site

My new blog is located at HERE!

Sorry if I lost some of you because it didn't automatically forward.

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

2009-04-22T20:25:00.000-04:00

New Blog Site

My new blog is located at www.martycauley.org

Sorry if I lost some of you because it didn't automatically forward.

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

2009-04-07T10:09:00.001-04:00

When Will the UMC Get It?

I believe one of my life callings is to help the UMC get it! That is, get how to leverage our amazing influence, locations, passion for social change, and evangelical roots to make a significant difference in our communities. One of the ways we COULD be doing that is through open source media and idea sharing facilitated by our denomination.

LifeChurch.TV was founded by a former UMC pastor, Craig Groeschel who left the denomination to plant a church. It is now, arguably, one of the most influential churches in America, rivaling Northpoint Community Church and Andy Stanley.

Below is their idea to help make Easter more visible online to the billions on the internet and engaged in social media. I think its time we took a lesson from churches like this and started reaching the next generation, one YOUTUBE video, on Twit, one Facebook message at a time! What would happen if UMCOM took a page from this book and asked every UMC blogger, Facebooker, and Twitter to share an extremely well done Igniting Ministry invitation to Easter worship? That is why I remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Marty Cauley

2008-11-17T09:17:00.001-05:00

Cauley Impact Triangle

How do you increase the impact of every ministry event, class, or worship service? Here is a quick tool that I use in the design of curriculum and events that help me maintain balance. The goal is to engage each learner, worshipper, or participant at multiple levels of learning. I call it the Cauley Impact Triangle.

The first side is the learning side. This is where the ideas are conveyed and the information that is required to meet the pedagogical objectives are laid out. In determining the ideas it is important that communication methods be decided upon that engage the learners, worshippers, or learners at their level of understanding. It is worthless to convey information that cannot be understood.

The second side is the doing side, this is where ideas are combined with experience. The experience involves creating the proper communication environment, determining the actions that reinforce the ideas and then debriefing the experience to clarify the ideas communicated.

The final side is the being side, this is where information and experience come together and a challenge is offered that will allow for the ideas to be fully integrated for the learner, worshipper, or participant. With every idea that is incorporated into one’s life, their area choices that have to be made from that point forward. Those ideas can be integrated, ignored, or rejected. The being side of the impact triangle provides the opportunity for that decision to be actively, rather than passively, made.

Lastly, if all sides of the Cauley Impact Triangle are held in tension, the best outcome is a new way of living, or transformation, the center of the triangle. This is where all sides combine to form a holistic change in living. In this space the idea is understood, the experience clarifies, the challenge is accepted and the learner, worshipper, or participant can improve their personal outcomes.

2008-11-12T13:22:00.001-05:00

First Love…A Modest Proposal

After hearing Jim Collins speak recently about the Hedgehog Principle, I have been reflecting almost constantly upon this simple concept and its value to faith based organizations. The Hedgehog Principle, to review, is:

The essential strategic difference between the good-to-great and comparison companies lay in two fundamental distinctions. First, the good-to-great companies founded their strategies on deep understanding along three key dimensions—what we came to call the three circles. Second, the good-to-great companies translated that understanding into a simple, crystalline concept that guided all their efforts—hence the term Hedgehog Concept.

More precisely, a Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:

1. What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what you cannot be the best in the world at)? This discerning standard goes far beyond core competence. Just because you possess a core competence doesn’t necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.

2. What drives your economic engine? All the good-to-great companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator—profit per x—that had the greatest impact on their economics. (It would be cash flow per x in the social sector.)

3. What you are deeply passionate about?. The good-to-great companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.

(from Jim Collins' website)

How does this relate to work that is faith based? I believe that the reason so many faith based organizations, including the one I serve, are struggling is because they have lost their “hedgehog.” They have forgotten the one thing that can truly drive them, the central and most important reason for their existence. They have fallen victim to Revelation 2:4 means of operation and lost “their first love.”

In the case of the organization I serve, in 1913 the Methodist Church built an assembly center. Essentially it was just a large, round, outdoor arena to hold missionary and revival type services. While there was the sale of small lots for summer cottages to help finance the building and land purchase, the center of all activity was the ministry done at what would become Stuart Auditorium. The driving force behind the creation of the organization was ministry, everything else, including the construction of inns, lodges, and hotels were designed to support the ministry events and activities. As a matter of fact, most people stayed in hotels and homes in Waynesville and made the daily commute on the train that ran between Lake Junaluska and the small mountain town. Somewhere along the way, the focus changed.

Today ministry is not the driving force but a secondary support venue to increase lodging business. The motels, inns, and lodges have become the primary focus and driving engine of the organization. Ministry events have been reduced to a means to put “heads in beds,” to quote a commonly used term on the campus. The problem is that this is in direct violation of the “hedgehog principle.” Unless there is a significant financial investment our motels and lodging will never be the thing that this organization can be “the best in the world” at. Within just a few moments there are quaint Bed and Breakfasts, cozy mountain inns and cabins, and hotels with high thread count sheets and multiple amenities at significantly less costs per night for the average family. While lodging is the driving revenue engine, it does not seem to be the activity that can generate passion and fuel to drive the overall organization.

If I were to offer my modest proposal upon the future direction, they would be three-fold. First we should continue with the events that are making the most impact upon The United Methodist Church. Secondly we would put a renewed focus and investment upon creating high quality, impactful events that encourage discipleship decisions, train leaders, and transform congregations, primarily United Methodist ones. Lastly we would concentrate our focus upon meeting the needs of our parent organization, The United Methodist Church. I believe with this strategy we could re-capture the hearts and minds of those within The United Methodist Church who have abandoned Lake Junaluska as an obsolete and irrelevant ministry organization.

First and foremost we must continue with the vital ministries and events that have made Lake Junaluska a place of spiritual renewal and faith commitment for thousands of people each year. Last summer alone during times of testimonies at summer youth events several youth workers commented on how those events had saved their marriages, renewed their call, and encouraged their hearts. Youth stood up and spoke of their decision to invite Christ in, to renew their faith, and more than 150 decided to investigate pursuing ministry as their primary profession. This does not mean that some events will not be eliminated. Each event must be evaluated to determine if it has lived out its effectiveness, and if so, discontinued so that from this death new life can spring forth. Some events need a complete overhaul with a focus upon building relationships with attendees, creating networking opportunities, and taking greater care to create the appropriate environment to facilitate its pedagogical and spiritual objectives. Continuing these events will prove to be the foundation upon which the future is built.

Secondly, there must be the intentional creation of high quality, impactful events particularly aimed at the issues and struggles facing The United Methodist Church. Each week The United Methodist Church loses 1,500 members across the United States. Churches are faced with an emerging culture beyond their ability to understand, an aging membership, and a loss of an entire generation. Lake Junaluska is uniquely positioned to pull together prophetic voices to speak to each of these issues. We have the ability to draw upon the historical resources of The World Methodist Museum, as well as the evangelistic resources provided by having The Foundation for Evangelism situated upon the grounds of Lake Junaluska. These events must include voices from nationally known leaders and speakers, include worship that renews the heart, and music that stirs the soul. No longer are “talking head” events what connect with the learners and leaders in today’s congregations. The event must also be an experience. All the senses need to be utilized, the participants must be “surprised and delighted,” to use Starbucks’ phrase, with all that they encounter. Details must be attended to, transitions must be smooth, hosts must be engaging, and information must be cutting edge and state of the art. Only then can the impact of these events reach a tipping point where they are able to be the “hedgehog” that drives the ministry.

Lastly, Lake Junaluska must concentrate its efforts on the people it was created and designed to serve, the people of The United Methodist Church. Does this mean that we will be exclusive and turn those away from other faith traditions? Of course not. But, as Yogi Berra once said, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll probably miss.” By concentrating our event design, marketing strategy and ministry focus upon those who we are best able to serve; we will build bridges to local congregations and renew a once loyal following of the faithful, or as Seth Godin calls them, create a tribe. A tribe is a group of engaged individuals, focused upon a single idea, organization or product, lead by a leader, and radically committed to that idea, organization or product to the point where they become “customer evangelists.” Once the tribe is created, every marketing dollar multiplies. Every encounter energizes the base of the committed.

I am a theologian, not a business person. I do not know all of the answers, but I do know what Einstein said, “"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." What I have proposed is currently only an intellectual exercise that allows me to process what I think, observe, and feel about the future of Lake Junaluska, and faith based organizations as a whole. I do know that we must return to our “first love,” that we must renew our hearts for ministry that is theologically grounded in United Methodist doctrine, that is culturally relevant, that is practical for application is struggling local churches , that is empowered by the Spirit and the sacrament, and that is biblically centered. These should be the values by which we measure all that we endeavor to undertake. This is my modest proposal. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Reverend Marty Cauley

2008-10-30T09:03:00.004-04:00

Great Events Give Back

One of the goals of my recent study leave (which after the work related travel and having to completely re-do the budget that I finished in September amounted to about three actual days for reflection) was to evaluate and determine transferable principles regarding what makes a great ministry event. During the month of October I attended the annual Catalyst Conference in Georgia, coordinated and led the Lay Academy of Christian Witness for the North Carolina Conference and participated in Ginghamsburg United Methodist Churches Change the World Conference. From these three experience, combined with notes from other conferences I have either attended or worked during the past three years there are seven factors evident in events that give back that continue to emerge, they are: excellence in everything; engaging environments; exceeding expectations; engage participants; encourage community; embrace challenges; equip for mission.

Across the board the conferences that seem to be making the biggest impact do everything with excellence. They remember the details like fair trade coffee and bottled water, their staff see every problem as an opportunity to excel. The pre-event material is crisp and clear, the directions to lodging, restaurants and local attractions are precise and support materials provided are professional. There is a seeming unwillingness to settle for “good” when “great” is within reach. How many conferences have I attended where the details were left hanging? Where the handouts were poorly copied, the coffee was stale, or the transitions were poorly planned and awkward? The message should never be sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity. Events that give back pursue excellence.

Additionally the leaders of the excellent events understand that engaging environments are absolutely essential. Environment teaches as much as content. In each case the leaders of these events took an ordinary space and created an environment that reinforced and assisted in transferring the information and experience. Whether it was the ability to make 12,000 people feel like they were in an intimate space talking to the speakers at Catalyst, to the fresh baked bread served every morning at Ginghamsburg, the environment welcomed you in and allowed you to relax and receive the teaching and instruction being offered. Additionally, despite the fact that the events were held in rather boring spaces, they were re-made to support the central theme of the conference. Visual elements were added, color was present and music was presented that helped determine the mood and direction of the sessions. So often we attend events in sterile conference rooms or boring lecture halls that presume that environment doesn’t matter, this is far from the truth, everything informs, from the lighting to the choice of graphic image chosen for the PowerPoint slide, it comes together to create an environment. Events that give back create engaging environments.

Not only do powerful events have engaging environments and practice excellence, they consistently exceed expectations. In the book The Starbucks Experience the author talks about Starbucks commitment to “surprise and delight.” Events that give back provide a “wow” factor. Every participant comes to an event with a set of preconceived expectations. Consistently, events that give back keep raising the bar and providing far more than the attendees expect. Whether it was the gourmet box lunches provided at Ginghamsburg that included a vegetarian option, the “experience packs” at Catalyst or simply providing all the materials needed to do a complete church evangelism audit back home at the Lay Academy, the participants indicated that their expectations were exceeded. At the Lay Academy one participant remarked, “this event is so good, I can’t believe it’s sponsored by the Annual Conference.” Providing a few “wow” moments in an event takes careful and intentional planning and execution, but these moments when expectations are completely blown out of the water are what define an event that gives back.

Engaging participants at a higher level is another element of events that give back. So often events and conferences are simply about conveying a large amount of data in a short period of time. The participant is expected to come as a kind of intellectual sponge to soak up the information and, hopefully, go away with something useful. In every one of the events that give back that I have attended, the attendees were engaged in the learning process, often through the use of multiple intelligences, to learn at many different levels. There was active participation, interaction with the presenters and a chance to engage those around you in vital debriefing and processing. Often there was even an interactive website where participants to prepare for their conference learning experience or comment on it when they returned home. These websites become places where they can share their learning and how they applied the information that they received. Engaging participants in their own learning is central for events that give back.

In addition to facilitating participants’ engagement in their own learning, events that give back also encourage community. They establish online communities, maintain relationships and encourage interaction between those who have shared the experience. The most amazing example of this desire to create community was last years “Catalyst Roadtrip.” Two of the young staffers jumped in an ‘80’s era video equipped Volkswagon Vanagon and trekked thousands of miles to connect and build relationships with group leaders across the United States. They called ahead, usually a week or so, scheduled an appointment and showed up with a bag of stuff (pens, t-shirts, etc.), pulled you in the back of the van, showed you the Catalyst promotional video and encouraged you to come back to Catalyst next year. As they were finishing up, they took a digital picture that they printed and stuck some where in the Vanagon and posted online with a quote or insight that you gave them about your Catalyst experience. This kind of community building was sheer genius. Now, the people on the other end of the phone weren’t just telemarketers trying to get you to come to some conference, they were LV and Chad, your friends who you had dinner with and had your picture with on the web. No wonder their attendance jumped by more than 2,000 participants this year…they understood that events that give back encourage community!

Events that give back embrace challenge. They look boldly into the future and realistically at the present and embrace the cultural and functional challenges that the participants face. Most people go to conferences for two reasons, one is to get away and experience fresh ideas, the other is to discover possible solutions to pressing problems. They are seeking answers. Events that give back research and discover the pressing problems of the people they serve and attack them. They provide multiple options for answers, realizing that there is no “one size fits all” solution, even when problems seem similar. They encourage creativity and the community that is formed allows for interactions that may provide the sought after solutions. Being solution focused and embracing challenge is central to every event that gives back.

Lastly, events that give back equip participants for mission. They expose attendees to ideas and opportunities that call them to live and reach beyond themselves. At the Change the World Conference, Mike Slaughter kept reminding us that “Christmas is not your birthday.” His challenge was that we should match our gift giving dollars with dollars for mission. At Ginghamsburg they meet that challenge and in four years have given more than $3 million dollars to create sustainable agriculture and schools in Darfur. Events that give back realize that they live beyond themselves and can equip and empower the participants to become leaders in their own organizations to make the world a better place. This stands in direct opposition to the consumerist nature of our culture and allows participants to envision a better world because of their attendance at an event that gives back.

Colossians 3:23 reminds us that, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” So often those of us who spend time designing and implementing events see them as tasks to be done and not as ministry. Events that give back practice excellence in everything, create engaging environments, exceed expectations, engage participants in their own learning, encourage community, embrace challenges and equip participants for mission because they realize that it is for God that they do this work. They put their heart into their work realizing that the greatest return for their effort is not in the event, but in the eternal difference that will be made because those who attend will leave changed, challenged and ready to do amazing things for God. That is why I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley
Gracious God help me to never lose sight of the Kingdom reason for desiring to do events that give back. In the name of the one who gave all that all might live, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

We strive to make all of our summer youth events at Lake Junaluska, great events! We focus upon solid United Methodist theology, powerfully mission focused and fun youth retreats.

2008-09-25T13:26:00.003-04:00

Why I Believe in the Next Generation…
Marty Cauley

I work with young adults. That is to say, that when I employ them to be on my staff my goal is to work with them, not have them work for me. I have learned over the years that people rise to the level of the expectations placed upon them, so I raise the bar as high as possible and challenge the young people I encounter to rise…and they do! I believe in the next generation for five reasons: ingenuity empowers them; injustice enrages them; challenges enthrall them; culture equips them; and hope inspires them. The future they face is not as bright as the one they should have inherited but I know that they will rise to the challenge!

Ingenuity empowers the young adults I encounter. A simple example is the I-Phone. It was supposed to be a closed system; applications would have to be approved. Young adults took this as a challenge and “hacked” their I-phones and created a myriad of specialize applications for it. They are not bound by pre-conceived ideas or limitations. One author contends that those of us who are older (that hurt since I’m “only 43”) think linearly, but Mosaics (my preferred name for this generation) think in webs. Every line interacts with, informs and influences every other line. This allows for a level of creativity and ingenuity previously unheard of. Young adults are ingenious; if you don’t believe me, just ask one.

Secondly, injustice enrages them. There is a seemingly inherent moral compass inside of this generation that is completely intolerant of social injustice. Whether it is it the crisis in Darfar, the AIDS pandemic in Africa, or local poverty, they attack injustice. Whereas Boomers found injustice a minor bother and were willing to send $10 to the cause of the day, Mosaics pack their bags and head to Bolivia to dig wells and to India to distribute mosquito nets.

Additionally, challenges enthrall them. Mosaics love to be told what they cannot do and what is “impossible.” Challenges give them the opportunity to utilize all of their resources to attack and discover new ways of beating the system. Mosaics think fast and act fast. They love a fast-paced, challenge-laden environment.

Part of their ability to adapt to any challenge so quickly is that culture has equipped them to be flexible, fast and focused. The speed of change in our culture is moving faster than at any time in history, and Mosaics swim in the waters of change almost effortlessly. Cutlure has taught them to be flexible and keep their options open, to think and act fast because the opportunity will pass you by and to be completely focused on the emergent problem at hand so that, once it is solved, you can move along to the next one.

Lastly, an perhaps most importantly, hope inspires them. Amdist the rapid pace of change, the challenges of our world and the injustice that surrounds them, Mosaics continue to manifest hope. They are not blind optimist, but deliberate realist who still believe they can change the world. They are unwilling to accept the status quo and are ready to make their mark upon the world.

I believe in the next generation because they are persons of ingenuity, compassion, and hope. It is now our job to help them mold that energy into a synergistic force for good and then get out of their way. If I were to offer faith-based leaders three words of advice they would be to expose Mosaics to big ideas; equip Mosaics to lead; and encourage Mosaics to follow their dreams.

Never underestimate the power of a Mosaic to be willing to study, research and grapple with big ideas. Expose them to a myriad of speakers, teachers and ideas, even some with vastly competing views, and let them weigh out the options. This is a generation built upon the idea that intellectual capital is the greatest force on earth, expose them to as much of it as possible.

Allowing Mosaics to lead is risky but rewarding. They will not follow the path of those who have gone before them but that does not mean they will go astray. Mosaics will try new things, come up with vastly different ideas and be willing to take risks. So what if they fail as long as they learn and are able to take their experiences and move forward. Let them lead.

Lastly, be a dream enhancer rather than a dream squashier. Help them grasp the scope of their dream and map out a way to accomplish it. Help them understand the cost of following the dream and the benefit if it is accomplished. One ridiculous dream may be what it takes to save the planet!

I believe in the next generation, in their abilities, their ideas and their values. The future rests in their hands, lets help them by investing in them with all that we have.

I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley, Believer

Gracious God, who gives dreams and inspires hearts, help we who are older equip, inspire and enable the Mosaics to take their place in Your history and make this world, Your world. In the name of the young adult who has made a way for our salvation, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2008-09-10T09:35:00.002-04:00

3 C's of Youth Ministry

I have been in quite a few conversations about the emerging generation of young people, their needs and concerns and the challenges that they face. Most of the conversation has been how do adult workers relate and assist the youth and young adults at meeting those challenges. No matter what the challenge, a vital interpersonal relationship with each young person is essential. There are three key elements to forming such a relationship, they are caring, consistency and credibility.

The first element to a faithful and productive ministry relationship is caring. This may seem obvious, but you have to actually care about each individual not just how many you can get to show up on Sunday or Wednesday evening. The difficulty with caring is that it takes time, and to be quite honest, it is easier to care about some youth than others. Caring is lived out by have an attitude of unconditional positive regard for each young person despite their present behavior, attitudes or activities. More than once I have heard well meaning youth workers remark that as soon as a certain young person got it together they would be able to be in relationship with them. This type of attitude actually alienates rather than draws young people in. They have a very sensitive BS (“baloney sandwich” for those who are sensitive of language issues) meter and they do not like baloney. That also means they can tell when you pretend to care but really do not. Caring is a necessary and difficult first step.

The most effective way I have found to really begin caring for each young person individually is to spend time in prayer for them. When I was in a local church I used to have each youth write their name and contact information on an index card. I would have those cards at each youth meeting so that they could add prayer requests and concerns to the back of the card that they wanted me to pray over. This allowed a place for the shyer young people to be able to interact with me and let me know about issues in their life. I used these cards as prayer reminders, working my way through the box weekly. Additionally, I would write a short note letting the youth know that they had been prayed for and to let me know if I could do something more. This type of personal response goes well beyond the FACEBOOK message approach to youth ministry and makes it about caring relationships.

The second element is consistency. Our world is full of false promises, products and people who don’t keep their word and inconsistency. As a youth worker you must continue to show up. Again, this seems obvious, but event the obvious cannot be overemphasized enough. A mentor of mine who has gone on to become a United Methodist Bishop once told me that 90% of success and survival in ministry was just showing up. You keep coming back, day after day, week after week, month after month. You build a reputation of reliability. Being consistent will overcome lack of “coolness,” little experience, and the occasional misstep. Think of how many young people have parents who are absent and friends who trade up at the first opportunity, to have somebody in their life that is consistently in their life’s corner, cheering for them, is an amazing asset. Research reveals over and over again that adolescents crave real, accountable and functional adult relationships. Be that person by being consistently present for them.

The final element of a real relationship with young people is credibility. Youth and young adults want a relationship with somebody they can believe in. It is not that you won’t ever “let them down” but when you do, you own up to it and live authentically with them. This requires a commitment to community and authenticity, to being real 24/7. It means that if you say that family time is important, you model it by setting aside time to spend with your family. If you say that worship is vital, you model it by being a full participant in worship, even when it is not the worship style you would have chosen. The key thing to remember about credibility is that it can take years to build and moments to lose. As leaders with young people we must be ever vigilant to maintain our credibility rather than take short cuts. Having a level of credibility will allow them to share their hurts and victories with you and trust you with the important decisions and challenges they face.

Certainly caring, consistency, and credibility are not all that is required of an affirming youth/youth worker relationship, but these three elements are the foundation upon which the relationship rests. These are not “three simple steps to amazing youth ministry,” they are hard work, demanding relationally and costly personally. They require us who value youth and young adults to live lives that are authentic and vulnerable. It also means we may not be the hippest youth worker on the block, but at the end of the day, I would rather be the most trusted than the coolest, trust lasts longer than trends.

I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, help me to live a life of caring, consistency, and credibility in the name of the Savior who was and is always true, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2008-08-24T19:59:00.001-04:00

Rediscovering Sabbath

From 6:00 pm Saturday until 6:00 pm Sunday Danelle and I have determined that whenever possible we will practice a time of Sabbath. We begin on Saturday evening with a huge meal of gathered friends in our dining room that overlooks the Pisgah National Forest. For the past two weeks friends have gathered, eaten well, shared life stories, played silly games and for a few short moments released the ties that this world has upon us. On Sunday we rise, often late (after 8 am which is really late for us! LOL), eat breakfast, talk and slowly enter the day. We attend worship, spend a quiet afternoon reading, listening to the sound of the mountains or just being together. I believe that if we can keep this practice it will have a profound effect upon our souls.

Our world is fueled by adrenaline. The heartbeat of our culture is faster, louder, longer, better! We fill our ears with music from personalized players, keep our lights burning late into the night so that we can fill every moment with work and activity. Rather than relax we run from activity to activity, accelerating our heartbeat and living on an addictive adrenaline rush. This is now what God has in mind for our lives.

Exodus contains the story of the children of Israel, under than hand of the Pharaoh, forced to work day and night without ceasing. Their yoke was heavy and they cried out to God, God sent Moses (Charleton Heston if you grew up watching the 10 Commandments) to lead them out of bondage and into a Promised Land. Once they were beyond the reach of their captor, God set out guidelines for them to rule their communal lives with. Of those rules was one unique to pre-modern culture, the command to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” This command called upon God’s people to stop, to reflect, to listen for God’s voice, hear from the Torah and to force themselves to remember that they were creation serving Creator. They were not to build, construct or make anything during that twenty-four hour period. They were called to just be.

Sabbath is all but lost in our 24/7/365 world. Cell phones enable us to be reached in every corner of our lives. Laptop computers and wireless internet means that we can work from almost any coffee shop or public space. Our employers expect constant availability and think nothing of calling us late into the evening or on our rare time away from the office. What is this doing to us? I think it is killing our souls.

You can’t hear God when you are in constant motion. If your ears are always filled with sound, your mind is always cluttered with noise and you are always riding the adrenaline surge that occurs when you are constantly stimulated, you do not allow enough space for God to speak. Carving out margin is hard. I am addicted to that adrenaline rush. I like to have a multi-page “to-do list,” it makes me feel important. But I am not called to be important; I am called to be a servant. Right not it feels as though I’m called to wander around in the wilderness and see where God will lead me to go next. If I am going to hear God I have to stop and listen, I have to get off the adrenaline train and stop for a while. It has not been easy, and it is not going to be easy. Our culture pushes against Sabbath taking, but my soul cries for it. It is good to be rediscovering Sabbath.

I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God, who created us to work and to rest, allow me to spend time remembering you by remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. Amen

2008-05-24T22:11:00.002-04:00

Fighting an Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is composed of the underlying thoughts, assumptions, attitudes and values that really guide an organization. These are not the clever words placed on the wall or filling the personnel manuals, but rather the way the life of the organization is lived out day to day. Whether or not you acknowledge it or not, organizational culture is the true measure of an organization. Having served in several churches, businesses and religious organizations, I have seen that organizational cultures that are contaminated with distrust, uncertainty and self-interest will not only cause the organization to struggle it will torment and burn out the best people in those organizations as they often feel unsupported and ill-equipped to deal with the unacknowledged and subversive nature of bad organizational culture.

I have a friend who is struggling in such a situation now. We share a similar story of coming into an organization and having those who surround us intentionally and irrationally working against us. I see her struggle, as I have struggled, to side-step landmines and work around obstacles that are placed in her way by an organizational culture that allows them to continue. I see her struggle as I have struggled with a culture that supports mediocrity and accepts as the norm the practice if insubordinate innuendo and the propagation of unsubstantiated rumor.

So, what are my words to my friend in her time of trial? How have I survived thus far?
1. I discovered a purpose beyond my daily vocational objectives that allows me to focus upon the bigger picture.
2. I found friends, there are others in any organization that understand the struggle and desire to help you survive despite the obstacles.
3. I had to personally realize that my entire self-worth was not determined by my vocational accomplishments. My work has always been important to me but I have moved it from the center of my life by remembering that God should be my center and not my work.
4. Practice the biblical precept of loving those who hate you. This is by far the hardest and most difficult, but I have truly tried to love and pray for those who have intentionally sought my failure and worked against me.

For a while I pushed against the organizational culture. I complained about its injustice. I internalized the struggle. I then began to realize that I may not be able to change the entire culture but I could continue to practice a different way of life within the culture. I could rise above the distrust, uncertainty and self-interest by living out my faith in everything I did. I could stand against mediocrity by working to bring excellence to my work, I could stand against innuendo by speaking the truth in love and squash rumor by remaining silent. Do I continue to struggle? Yes, everyday I struggle, but I am surviving, and despite it I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley
Gracious God who walks with us during the valley in the shadow of death, grant that we who serve you would live our lives in such a way as to reflect your love and life amidst those who need to embrace you love the most. In the name of the one we desire to reflect, Jesus, amen.

2008-04-25T10:35:00.004-04:00

The Forgotten Ways

What am I reading? I am posting short synopsis of what I am reading. I will not be critiquing, for that is for you to do after you engage the material for yourself.

The Forgotten Ways: reactivating the missional church
www.theforgottenways.org

Bibliographic Citation
Hirsh, Alan. The Forgotten Ways: reactivating the missional church. Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Brazos Press, 2006.

In Alan Hirsch’s follow-up to The Shaping of Thing to Come he systemically lays out a paradigm shifting pattern for a new way to understand church, or has he contends, an ancient way to understand church. Using a model he defines as Apostolic Genius, combined with a truncated study of both systems theory and chaos theory, he proposes are return to a more fluid organization and missional focus of the church. The six components, each defined in a chapter with both practical application steps and real life illustrations, are:
1. Radical commitment to a Christocentric theology.
2. Focus up intentional and ongoing disciple making.
3. Allowing for organic systems to develop instead of institutional structure.
4. Creating an apostolic environment that allows for gift based leadership to emerge.
5. Commitment to a missional-incarnational impulse where the church and the world intersect and interact
6. Communitas not just community as a gathering but rather community that practices a radical, accountable and dangerous journey of Christian life.
Hirsch contends that church that forms itself by this model becomes “profoundly ‘sneezalbe,’” easy to export and adaptive to the culture where it exists. This form of viral Christianity is the kind that has survived, even spread, in areas like Communist China, where normal practices of faith had to give away to a more organic model.

2008-04-25T10:32:00.002-04:00

The Missional Leader

What am I reading? I am posting short synopsis of what I am reading. I will not be critiquing, for that is for you to do after you engage the material for yourself.

The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World

Bibliographic Citation
Roxburgh, Alan J. and Fred Romanuk. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World. San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2006.

“Missional leadership is the key—but how do we do it?” Roxburgh and Romanuk begin by identifying six critical issues for helping churches transition into a missional mindset. The other five are: most models repackage old paradigms, discontinuous change is the new norm, congregations still matter, leaders need new capacities and frameworks, and that a congregation is a unique organization. They go on to address organizational behavior and characteristics, helping the leader/pastor embrace the instability of change and the uncertainty that comes with a cultural shift. With the explanation of “The Missional Change Model” the authors explore the “how tos” of the transition. The steps are: awareness, understanding, evaluate, experiment, commitment. Each step builds upon the previous to systematically and skillfully effect change within a congregation. Not only focusing upon the congregation, Roxburgh and Romanuk are careful to also focus upon the internal fortitude and characteristics of the leader who will implement missional change. They discuss personal maturity which includes “being present to oneself and others,” “being authentic,” and “being self-aware.” Additionally they take on the issue of “personal courage” as a determining factor since change always involves stress, conflict and difficulty. Lastly they answer the question that began the conversation, “how do we do it?” With a careful exposition of how to embrace and become a missional leader they provide tools and methodology for personal growth and development.

2008-04-25T07:51:00.007-04:00

Emerging Churches

What am I reading? I am posting short synopsis of what I am reading. I will not be critiquing, for that is for you to do after you engage the material for yourself.

Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern cultures

Bibliographic Citation
Gibbs, Eddie and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: creating Christian community in postmodern cultures. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005.

The culture is changing. According to authors Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, there are six essential cultural changes that are causing the marginalization of the church:
1. Shift from modernity to post-modernity.
2. Shift from westernization to globalization.
3. Communication revoloution featuring a shift from print media to electronic media/cyber communication.
4. Economic revolution with a shift from industrialization to an information based economy.
5. Breakthroughs in health and biology creating a myriad of ethical dilemmas.
6. The convergence of science and religion.
With the onset of Generation X & Y’s “emancipation of self” they are coming of age and realize that the like Jesus, “Jesus is not the problem. It is the church they dislike, because they do not readily see the church living out his [Jesus] teachings.” They go on to observe that, “In postmodern cultures of the twenty-first century, a linear or text-based ecclesiology perpetuates secularity in the church and denies the church’s call to live incarnationally.” The ecclesial shifts that will facilitate the church living incarnationally include a shift from systematic to non-linear methodology, from elitist cultural disconnect to engagement with visual culture, an embracing of both transcendence and immanence of God, and an intentional incarnational engagement with the wider culture. Lastly, the creation of Christian community in postmodern cultures requires six practices (each with a featured chapter): welcoming the stranger, serving with generosity, participating as producers, creating as created beings, leading as a body and taking part in spiritual activities.

2008-04-16T18:58:00.002-04:00

Unanticipated Consequences

I received word today that another annual conference is divesting from conference level youth ministry. They insist that the congregations will pick up the slack and that if it is a priority for local churches they will do what needs to be done. I have three primary concerns with such a divestiture. First, we are essentially “cashing in” our long term investments for short term savings. Secondly, we are living out one of the primary complaints I hear from young adults, a contradiction of spoken and lived values. Finally, we are saying to the next generation, you are not nearly as important as we were when we were your age. These are dangerous, and I believe eventually disastrous precedents to set that are sowing the seeds of an eventual demise of my beloved United Methodist Church.

When I was younger I began investing in my retirement plan. There are times when I could have really used those extra resources to help feed my family, pay tuition or just make ends meet but I still had it withdrawn from my income and place securely in long-term investments. It has been tempting to move my retirement to shorter term, potentially higher yielding investments but since I am for the long hall (another 25+ years I hope) it is wiser to ride out the trends and fluctuations in the markets.

In the United Methodist Church I am consistently seeing staff person after staff person in every level of the Church get the word that their position in youth and young adult ministry is being merged, refocused or simply eliminated. I have just seen an interesting graph by Craig Miller that shows that in the age group 40-69 we are approximately even with the US population but with those 18-39 we are well behind the population trends. I grew up with well staffed, well funded youth ministry (I’m 43) that will soon be a thing of the past. We have yielded to the “day trading” nature of our culture wanting microwave results. We are abandoning the long-term investment that is youth and young adult ministry and using the funds to prop up ailing programs, support special initiatives and finance the “flavor of the month” programs that we hope will fill our churches and our offering plates. What will this divestment yield? In twenty years, if trends continue, our churches will be coffee shops and pubs like they are in England and Australia. Perhaps those institutions will invest for the long-term.

Secondly, we are living out a contradiction of spoken and lived values. Every decision is a theological decision. Our words are filled with admonitions about the importance of youth and young adults. Our actions are saying that what is really important is the maintenance of the institution. We clamor to establish an Division of Ministry with Young People but do not fund it adequately to make a significant impact. We support vocal resolutions and cut positions. We turn youth ministry into a revenue stream rather than a place for investment in the future.

If there is one thing that young adults abhor, it is inconsistency between spoke and lived values. I have written about this before, but this blatant disregard is almost unfathomable. If we want to insure that the youth of today will not be United Methodist, then lets eliminate United Methodist centered youth ministry.

Now to respond to the argument that the “churches will fill in the gap if it is valuable to them.” This is absurd. Churches tend to follow the leadership of the Conference. If the bishop says its important, then it is important. The old adage still stands, “what gets measured, gets done.” The opposite is also true, what gets ignored gets eliminated. While it is true that some churches, especially those that are large and well-funded will continue to do significant ministry with you and young adults, most of our United Methodist Churches are not large or well-funded. Most struggle to pay their pastor, keep the lights on and do vital ministry in their community. Their youth leaders are part-time or volunteers who have a heart for ministry but maybe not the training and resources needed. Conference level youth and young adult ministry provides events that encourage young people and shows them that there are other faithful followers of Christ in the UMC connections. Conference ministry provides training that is affordable and accessible to those with heart that need help. Let us not fall victim to claiming that ministry with young people is important to us in one breath and eliminating it in another.

Lastly, and perhaps hardest for me understand, is why the Boomers who are making these decisions can do so when they grew up in the age of explosive youth ministry? They are essentially saying to they youth and young adults of today that they are unimportant and that other “missional priorities take precedent” to them. These men and women who grew up around camp fires de-fund camp ministry. Those who answered their call to ministry in a Wesley Foundation gathering or college chapel are advocating eliminating the line items that fund campus ministry and telling the directors to find “alternative revenue streams.” Those who gathered crossed arms with their friends and prayed the prayer of dismissal are now performing the benediction on youth and young adult ministry by draining its funding and eliminating those who would speak boldly and work tirelessly to reach the next generation.

What shall we do? I have a few suggestions (for those of you who read me often you not be surprised)…
1) Challenged your annual conference to expand your youth and young adult ministry, especially those events and training that will benefit small and mid-sized churches.
2) Support your staff person who works in these areas with your prayers, your presences as a volunteer, even if its just to stuff envelopes and make nametags, and your gifts. Provide funds directly to sponsor youth who may not be able to afford to attend events.
3) Send your United Methodist youth to United Methodist camps, youth events and activities. Help them begin to realized the power of the connections and buy into to being a part of our Church for the long-term.
4) Advocate with General Conference, Jurisdictional Conference and Annual Conference members and delegates to support youth and young adult ministry with connectional funding. After working in the connection for several years I have come to realize that there is money for whatever is deemed “vital and urgent.” If this need, that goes to the very existence of our denomination, is not “vital and urgent” then I do not know what is!

I am employed at the offices of the Southeastern Jurisdiction and am not even sure that at the end of July when our Jurisdictional Conference meets if I will have a job, but that is not why I advocate for youth and young adults. I advocate because I was a youth from a broken home that was sent by my church to camp and there, beside the popping of a roaring fire, got on my knees and bowed my head and received Christ as my Savior. I was the kid in who discovered my identity in Christ at my weekly youth group lead by good-hearted volunteers and made life changing decisions and youth events. I am the adult worker who has seen my children mature because they spend a week with other United Methodist youth getting to know Christ and each other building relationships that will last for eternity. I will, with my last breath, call for our church to reach the emerging generation no matter where they are or who they are because another generation did the same for me. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty
Gracious God, who seeks the least, the last and the lost to lead the Kingdom of God, let the voice of Your Church cry out in unison to change the world, one young person at a time. Amen

2008-04-03T15:25:00.002-04:00

Indigenous Jesus:
What An Emerging Community
Looks Like

What would a truly indigenous community look like? If I were to list a few essential components they would be:

1. The Arts! This is a generation of expression. Art speaks to the heart of who they are. One of this generation’s artistic heroes is Banksy, a mysterious graffiti artist from London. http://www.banksy.co.uk/. His art is more than images; it is filled with meaning, metaphor and messages that connect with the people that encounter it. Our modernist culture has reduced art to entertainment when it is so much more. Art is a prophetic expression of life. It is commentary and criticism with a paintbrush or on stage. Art is a spiritual encounter with reality.
When I do this type of worship I invite local artists, Christian and pre-Christian, to express the theme in visual arts (painting, sculpture, etc) or dramatic arts as part of the worship service. Rather than trying to copy the culture, real art creates culture. So much of “Christian art” is simply a sanctified copy of what secular artists are doing. We do not need to be afraid of letting the art speak for itself rather than trying to interpret it. An emerging community of Christ followers would be filled with art that caused people to pause and struggle with life, purpose and passion and invite them to see Christ in the struggle.

2. Mystery! So do you want the red pill or the blue pill (if you don't get that, watch The Matrix). This generation believes that the real world is hidden from them and they are willing to embrace the divine mystery far beyond their pragmatic Boomer parents. They know that everything can't be explained by the scientific method and they crave the sacramental embrace of the Savior. They do not shrink from the unexplainable. They know that the four simple rules of life do not come anywhere close to explaining the complexities of existing in the twenty-first century.
Worship that embraces mystery includes both powerful, sensory filled music and times of silence. It values the proclamation of the scripture, but allows times for lectio divina, the simple reading and hearing of the text without anything added or taken away. The emerging community will gather around the table of God to receive the sacrament, knowing that what happens in them and to them is beyond simplistic explanation. An emerging community of Christ followers would embrace and live with mystery.

3. Conversation! Conversation (blogs, discussion boards, coffee houses) are the heartbeat of spiritual discovery for this generation. Venues allowing them to receive solid teaching and then interact with it as to how they embody the gospel are essential. This is a generation unafraid of the deep teachings of scripture. They want to wrestle with the difficult texts and discover the deeper truths. They crave to live in a community where life can be lived together. They want to discuss their discoveries, hear the stories that mold other Christ followers, and find their points of intersection and points of contradiction. An emerging community of Christ would be open to engage in conversations of life, love and the difficulties of life.

4 Ritual! This generation craves to tap into something ancient with roots. Their lives are filled with disposable philosophies and short-term realities. They seek a deeper life and desire the experience of something that has lasted through the ages. There is even a kind of resurgence of postmodern monasticism (ie. Shane Claiborne) that has sprung up and become very popular. This is a generation that is ready to fully embrace ancient rituals if it they are well explained and clearly taught. An emerging community of Christ followers would embrace ritual as part of their ongoing spiritual journey.

5. Mission! This generation would rather make a difference than make a dollar. They throw themselves into their commitments with abandon. They want to change the world, they want to feed children with AIDS in Africa, find racial reconciliation in their communities and solve the problem of poverty. They are moving into marginal neighborhoods and staking a claim for justice. An emerging community of Christ followers would find ways to change their community and the world with their resources, time and talents.

In my dream world, were I to be given another chance to plant another church (my last one was cool, hip, emerging and not financially viable...lol) I would consider a private/public partnership by starting a fair trade (social justice) coffee house that hosts artists and Christian conversation and also hosted worship every Saturday evening and Sunday morning. The coffee shop could cover operating expenses and the congregation would be free to pour their resources, time and talents into mission. See http://www.cravestl.org/ as an example.

2008-04-02T15:28:00.003-04:00

Emerging Worship: A Meandering Email

So, I have gotten lots of response from my article, "Why We Are Losing Ground..." One of the emails I received was from a pastor who is committed to reaching this generation and asked for my thoughts. Below you will find the email I sent him. I hope it helps you think about things in a whole new way as well. If nothing else, there is a great reading list at the bottom!

Jim,

The good news that you realize you don't know everything. The biggest obstacle I run into is the "it worked before" syndrome of successful pastors. The willingness to engage in a completely new visioning process is a healthy place to be.

Secondly, if you have "googled" me you realize my strong evangelical commitments. I hope you don't think I was advocating abandoning Scripture an any form. I am a strong Wesleyan believing in the primacy of Scripture. But I also am committed to social action, for as Wesley observed, you can't hear gospel if your stomach is growling (that the Marty version of course).

I might suggest you gather those committed young adults and spend 6 weeks working through the Catalyst Groupzine on Culture (http://www.catalystspace.com/resources/groupzines.aspx). It has some serious discussion and reflection questions. You might also visit Mars Hill Church (Rob Bell) or Imageo Dei Church in Seattle to see how some pastors are connecting with their indigenous young adults.

In my dream world, were I to be given another chance to plant another church (my last one was cool, hip, emerging and not financially viable...lol) I would consider a private/public partnership by starting a fair trade (social justice) coffee house that hosts artists and Christian conversation and also hosted worship every Saturday evening and Sunday morning. The coffee shop could cover operating expenses and the congregation would be free to pour their time and talents into mission.

These are the meanderings of a would be post-modern prophet with a heart for evangelism and mission. I hope I answered some of your questions. I included a reading list below that will be far more helpful that my above comments. I'd be happy to come and help you engage a visioning process if you like. Until we meet, I remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Reverend Marty J. Cauley, Director

Some suggested reading:

Kimbrall, Dan. Emerging Worship

Kimbrall, Dan. They Love Jesus but Don't Like the Church

Cunningham, Sarah. Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation

Kinnaman, David and Gabe Lyons. UnChristian.

Frost, Michael and Alan Hirsch. The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century.
Hendrickson, 2003.

Gruder, Darell L. The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Eerdmans, 2000.

Hirsch, Alan. The ForgottenWays: Reactivating the Missional Church. Brazos Press, 2006.

Roxburgh, Alan J. and Fred Romanuk. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World.
Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Setzer, Ed. Planting Missional Churches. B&H Publishing Group, 2006.

2008-03-25T20:39:00.001-04:00

Nobody Really Has It Together...

Nobody really has it together. There are a lot of us who kind of pretend we have it together. Who have a nice façade of “togetherness” but some where there is a soft spot, a problem or a life difficulty that isn’t really all together.

I have often taught what I call the storm principle. The storm principle states that everyone is in one of three places in their life. They are either in the middle of a storm, just finally coming out of a storm or in that brief calm before the storm. A lot of our storms are not even of our own making, they are the result of other’s actions that impact our life. The storm is always nearby, so if you are in the calm place, enjoy it while you can.

This brings us back to the statement above about nobody really having it together. I guess a truer statement is that at any giving time everything that you have together can fall apart. The law of entropy takes over and things really do tend to move to a state of disorder. I know of not less than three competent, capable and respected professionals that in the past couple of weeks have been told, for no apparent reason, that they were being laid off. These are not the people that that kind of thing happens to. These are the “go to” people who come early, stay late, and go above and beyond. These are the people that their coworkers turn to in times of difficulty and trouble, but decisions above their pay grade were made to eliminate them from their respective organizations. They thought they had it all together and it fell apart. The storm came, seemingly out of the blue, and it hit hard.

Others of us have been asked to endure the storm a little longer, or indefinitely. We discussed opportunities and options that never occurred. Our ability to trust has been diminished and we feel like we are forgotten or at least taken for granted. Our storm is not one of crashing waves and lightening, but one of being stranded in the middle of an endless ocean with no breeze in our sails and no pull upon our lives. It is a storm of deafening calm, of waveless waiting and of mirages on the horizon that turn out to be nothing more than hopeful figments of our imagination. So you sit and pray for a breeze, a direction, a destination.

I used to think I knew people who had it together. Who never faltered, who never doubted or who never struggled. But, eventually, even they had a storm that, at least for awhile, overtook them. They to were caught unaware and unready for the unexpected blow from the storms of life. Nobody really has it all together.

We travelers in the storm, what do we do? How do we continue when the skies are dark and the rain is cold? Today I do not have words of encouragement, I only have words of the one who promised to be a light into a dark world. Today I am looking for the light and hoping that the light I see is not a train at the other end of the tunnel. I remain…

In the Storm,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God who comes to us in the storm, bring light into the darkness and peace into the midst of the storm. In the name of the One who endured a storm beyond compare, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2008-03-18T14:08:00.001-04:00

The Problem with Theodicy

There is evil in the world. That much is true. I seriously doubts that anyone with any sense of reality would deny the presence, even the seeming omni-presence of evil in the world. Whether we call it original sin or the condition of the human heart yearning to please self over the common good, evil is present.

I have been struggling, however, with theodicy. Theodicy is the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of evil in the world. Rather, the idea that eventually, God and good will win despite the incredible cruelty that this world dishes out. This is particularly true in light of the past several days. In the last ten days I have been utterly confused and jaded by the church vocationally, Danelle has failed to have her teaching contract renewed after three years of stellar reviews and evaluations, it seems that evil has won at every turn and today one of the back windows just fell off of the van. Its like its not enough that we have both experienced the equivalent of vocational rejection, we had to have some just plain old personal aggravation as a side dish. Yep, there is evil in the world and sometimes it is present in a window falling off.

So I have spent hours trying to figure this out. Trying to understand if there is some lesson that I should be getting or some profound message that is being sent. I have struggled with whether I have done something recently that has unleashed a torrent of evil in my families direction, though I know that is the perception of a flawed theology. None the less, you know you think it too when a bunch of stuff happens to you. I have asked, what have I done to deserve this? I have given my life over to helping others get closer to God, Danelle has given herself over to helping young people discover their passion and embrace their future. These are vocations that would seemingly be replete with opportunities for selfless giving and long hours but would provide abundant blessings, yet evil seems to beset us on every side.

I understand Lamentations and the lament Psalms when the writers spoke of the enemy surrounding them and prospering while all they had to eat were tears. I also know that the best lessons are the hardest learned, yet that does not diminish the pain of the present. I will just have to endure a little longer. I remain:

In the Desert,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, I know that you are a Savior in the desert who leads His people through. Give us the strength to learn without becoming hardened and to grow without becoming jaded. In the name of the suffereing Saviour, Jesus. Amen.

2008-02-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

Reformation is an Inside Job

The Church is at a crossroads. Maybe its time, every 500 years there is usually a major shift. There is a seismic change in understanding; an overturning of power and a restructuring of the world. Mainline denominations, whose foundations were laid during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, are starting to crack and crumble. They are all losing members to other churches, schisms and to the vast depths of unbelief. Maybe this will be the generation that sees another Reformation.
Reformation is an inside job. It begins from within. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Wesley knew the Church. It was part of their lives. They all had theological training. All but Calvin were ordained. They all sought to call the church back into vitality. Luther’s theses were a call to change. Wesley remained an Anglican priest until the day he died. They all sought to stimulate the church to action, to realize what was going on inside the church and around them in the culture and to do something about it.
There are several key points about those Reformations and the ones that are starting to form on the horizon of today’s church that need to be considered. First, they all broke with the past and innovated. Secondly, they were all solidly anchored in the text. Next, they sought to communicate to the culture using the vernacular. Additionally they believed that practical application of belief was essential. Also, they did not seek to abandon tradition and they had a thorough understanding of historical theology. Lastly, they embraced the sacrament as transformative mystery.
The past is comforting. We understand the patterns and expectations. Breaking with the past requires loosing the ties that bind us and drifting into the unknown. That is not nearly so comfortable. We must break with what is comfortable and expected and begin stretching and innovating. This is already happening with churches, some of them quite large, that refuse to tie themselves down with real estate and indebtedness. They devote their resources to mission, not maintenance. This kind of innovation makes the establishment uncomfortable. It seems unstable and irresponsible. To those who practice this radical faith, it is a call to fiscal freedom and mission availability.
The reformers went to the scripture for insight, courage and inspiration. They looked again at the ancient stories and read them with new passion. The emergent church is seeing scripture with fresh eyes as well. They are digging deep into the text and uncovering meanings usually hidden by commentaries and interpretation. The stories are coming alive all over again with fresh meaning that calls them to a deeper level of discipleship.
Translating the Bible into the vernacular was a radical idea for the reformers. Reading it in the vernacular during public worship was even more radical. They could not envision a day when most people have a couple of dust covered Bibles laying around unopened because the text was such a precious gift. What will it look like to communicate to a culture that virtually ignores the Church? I have often stood within sight of a downtown church and asked passersby where it was and they had no idea we were standing in its shadow. Emerging churches are struggling with how to communicate to the culture in ways they understand. They are re-discovering art and icons as means to communicate. The lines between sacred and secular are blurring with the realization that the segmented lives of modernity are hollow and empty. Communication is moving beyond words to become embodied into the entire life of the believer.
This brings to mind practical, life application. The reformers had clear expectations of how the believer should live. Calvin had fines for missing church. Wesley had class meetings to monitor lives of the faithful. Today’s churches on the edge also call their fellow travelers into lives of accountability and sacrifice. Some move into low-income neighborhoods to provide a Christian haven amidst the struggles and trials faced by underprivileged children. Others live lives of radical generosity, living on half of their income so that they can give the other half away, they dedicate their lives to AIDS orphans in Africa or volunteering at underperforming schools. Living out their faith becomes their life, it moves beyond a segmented hour on Sunday to being a lifestyle of obedience.
The touchstone for the last reformation that must not be forgotten was their grounding in tradition and historical theology. They did not forget the shoulders they stood upon. They had read Augustine, Benedict and Tertullian. They were familiar with the desert fathers and the mothers of the faith who had faced persecution and martyrdom. In pursuit of innovation and change, it is vital that the reformation occurring today does not neglect to learn from those who have gone before us, those who gave their lives for their beliefs. Today, beliefs are cheap. You can embrace any idea without worry of trial or tribulation. The coming reformation, like the ones before it, must dig its roots deep into the soil of tradition and historical theology so that it is not blown over by the wind of challenge.
For decades one of the major controversies of the Church was what happens during Eucharist. The controversies of the holy meal segmented and divided the Church, but no matter which side of the argument they stood, they did agree that something powerful happens through the Lord’s Supper. I have been amazed at the passion and faithfulness and the serious study and attention that is being give to the Eucharist by emerging churches. Many of them practice the sacrament weekly and include it as part of the functional lives of their congregations. Sacramental renewal is bedrock of the coming Reformations.
Will we benefit and thrive from these reformers calls to the church or will we enter into another era of divisiveness and division? Can we as the Church united around a common table, hear the Word proclaimed in the vernacular, change our lives to live out our faithful sacrifice while keeping our faith firmly rooted in the text and historical orthodoxy? I pray that God will use me to be part of these reformations so that the Church can, once again, reach a culture that it has abandoned.

Gracious God, who calls us to be all things to all people whereby some might be saved, use me to be your voice and vessel through the one who came that we might have life, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen

2008-01-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

Jenga and Church Change

I am not a Reformation minded theologian. As I am taking a class in Reformation era history, culture and theology, it occurs to me that change comes in the church world much like kids play Jenga. I used to think that Martin Luther came up with his 95 thesis in a vacuum or by some source of divine revelation. Then, when he nailed them to the door, they caused a tidal wave of change to sweep across the theological landscape. The more I read about the era, the more authors and sources I discover from the years before Luther and Calvin, the more I realize that they were just the linchpins to a change that began hundreds of years before they came on the scene.

When kids play Jenga, the pull wooden blocks from the bottom of a stack and place them carefully on top. As they continue to pull from the bottom, of course, the structure becomes unstable. Eventually, the instability of the structure becomes irreversible and it tumbles over in a loud crash. To the outsider it seems like the person who pulled the last piece was the one at fault for then collapse of the entire structure. However, everyone playing the game and removing pieces is really, equally at fault. So it is with change in the Church.

Just like Luther may have been the one who visibly pulled out the last block causing radical change in the pre-existing understanding of the Church, he was not the cause of the overall change. He was simply the one holding the last block. His ideas were informed by many others before him. Change in the church may often seem revolutionary when it has been, in actuality, evolutionary. The evolutionary nature of the change is not at a steady pace, rather it moves slowly forward and occasionally takes a lurch forward.

In local churches, like yours and mine, a similar truth prevails. It seems like change may not be coming. Change can be good or bad. Change can meet ecstatic growth or slow decline. From the outside it may seem that the change experienced by the Church is sudden, but a careful study unveils the previous groundwork that was laid prior to the radical outcomes. The blocks were being pulled out long before you or I arrived. We just get to be the one holding the last block.

What has this taught me? First, to be slow to take credit for the great things that are happening in the church I may be serving. Those great things had a history that probably pre-dates me and may even pre-date my predecessor. Secondly, not to escape accountability in anyway, but be careful not to accept all of the blame for everything that goes wrong. This is even harder for me. While I don’t have a problem not taking the credit, I tend to take all the blame. The troubles also have deep roots. Roots that, unless somebody takes the time to pull them out, will crop up again and again.

So, change is like Jenga, and like Jenga you have to play. So, go ahead and pull out another block, it could be the one that releases amazing, God-directed change! I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, who is the cause of all change and whose very word called forth creation, the greatest change that has ever existed, help me to be bold in following your call to lead and love as Jesus lived and loved. Amen

2007-11-06T20:03:00.001-05:00

The Certainty of Uncertainty

I hate uncertainty. I don’t mean to say it makes me a bit uncomfortable, I mean that I hate uncertainty. Having been raised in aura of uncertainty by a single wage earning mother and absentee father bred in me the desire, actually the need, to find some place of certainty. When I was called into ministry God saw fit to use the United Methodist Church as my place of spiritual grounding. It is, essentially, the only denomination that guarantees every ordained pastor a place to serve. I thought I had finally found my place of certainty.

Now, again, I am living in uncertainty. I want to know what is next but I do not. My wife and I are standing in this place of being in the between times. We did not anticipate the level of uncertainty at this point in our lives. We had thought that I would serve where I serve, she would teach where she is teaching, but now all we have is uncertainty. She is having to reapply for her current position as it transitions to becoming “tenure track.” I am struggling with whether what I am doing fulfills my ordination vows to make disciples and serve the church through “service, Word, order and sacrament.” We have both been praying for God to give us clear direction about our life’s directions. I have been waiting on the burning bush, but so far all I have is uncertainty.

I know the spiritual lesson here is to trust God. I am personally eating my words for every time I have told that to somebody else. It is a lot easier to give that advice than it is to take it. It is a lot easier to sit in a place of certainty and security and encourage others to step out in faith and to live in the spiritual certainty that God has it all under control. Now I’m on the other side of the equation, putting all of my faith into trusting God and pushing aside the demons of uncertainty that keep whispering in my ear, I understand how tough it is to hang on and push through. How difficult it is to wait, watch and listen for God to speak in a still small voice the direction and call of the future. Yet still I wait, in uncertainty.

There are a few things of which I am certain, however. I am certain that God wants me to do a work that fulfills my call to lead in some part of the United Methodist Church through “service, Word, order and sacrament.” As I have finished another DMin class, studying American cultural issues and how they relate to the Church I am more convinced that the Church is the hope of the world. It is the place where there is a chance for the world to find redemption, both personally and corporately. It is uniquely positioned at the crossroads of the economic, political, cultural and spiritual spheres of influence an can marshal the people and resources to make an impact on problems like poverty, at least on some microcosmic scale.

I am certain that Danelle is called to continue working with young adults. The impact she makes through her classes, counsel and concern for their well-being grounds them during their difficult college years. She is a source for unconditional love and guidance in a sea of ambiguity and indifference. Her passion truly lies in giving herself to help others discover their life’s path.

Lastly, I am certain that these two callings were meant to compliment each other to further the Gospel. Not that we may be called to work together (which would be awesome) as much as we are called to assist each other in our own individual endeavors. Our work has often created a sort of synergy when we combine our talents. I know that God has brought us together for a reason and a purpose, and now we wait to figure out what that is.

I still hate uncertainty. Thanks be to God for the few things in life for which you can be certain. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God who walks with us through the valley and the shadow of death, be a lamp unto my path through this time of uncertainty. In the name of the one who is the Light of the world, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2007-11-01T12:28:00.000-04:00

Deserts and Burning Bushes

I went to a conference with some friends in early November and told them I was looking for a “burning bush.” That is to say I was seeking clarity about the future of ministry for me and a clear path to what God wanted me to do and be about. This, of course, comes from the story of Moses coming across a burning bush that was not consumed in the wilderness and God giving the reluctant prophet clear instructions about his ultimate task in life. Four different speakers during those two days mentioned burning bushes. It become such a recurrent theme that one of my friends looked and me and said, “you know I paid for this conference too.” The problem is that I’m still not sure how to get out of the desert.

I pulled out my Bible and backed up a bit, before the burning bush narrative and had a profound, if not disappointing realization or two. First, Moses spent a lot of years in the desert before his path was clearly laid before him. This was not very encouraging actually. Forty years is a long time to spend with sheep. When Moses left Egypt it wasn’t under the best of terms. Then he spent years of his life, having gone from a prince to an employee of his father in law, essentially doing what he needed to do to survive. I am pretty sure that during his time herding sheep and chasing off bears, he may not have been living ‘his best life now.’ He was doing what he needed to do to survive. He was, however, learning essential lessons about desert survival that he would not have known if he had stayed in Egypt. He was learning how to live as a nomad, rather than as a settler. Surely this lesson would prove invaluable when we would spend another forty years wondering around the desert.

Another thing I realized is that Moses wasn’t really looking for the bush when it found him. He was not praying to understand God’s will or to figure out how to invest his life to make a the biggest difference for the Kingdom, he was just going to work every day and doing his job. I have spent a lot of time trying to hear God, and all Moses, the preeminent leader of God’s people did, was “tend the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro.” We live in a culture that tells us to create opportunity. To “make things happen.” I like that idea, that I have the ability to make things happen. That I can make my plans and work out a strategic path in order to obtain a goal. I like seven habits of effective people and master planning my way to success, but so far it hasn’t worked for me. Every time I make a plan, it falls apart. Like the biblical author wrote, “there is a way that seems right to a man but that is foolishness.” Here is the amazing thing, the bush found him. Surely he had been by that area before, he had passed the Mount of Horeb many times and there was nothing extraordinary about it, but this time the bush was ablaze and not consumed. It seems to have been a confluence of timing, training and Moses ability to hear the call. The timing was right for God to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses had learned what he needed to learn from his desert experience and now had the ability to hear the call of God. Waiting on divine confluence is extremely frustrating. God does not work in accordance with our Daytimers, rather God’s time is perfect and call is sure.

Thirdly, when God gave Moses the instructions, he wasn’t all that excited about them. How many times have I benignly prayed, “God, if you will show me what to do, I will do it”? Really? If you spend any time at all in the Scriptures, there are a lot more reluctant prophets and leaders than there are people who are pursuing leadership. Actually, those who pursue and cling to leadership (ie. Saul, Herod, etc.) are usually those who should least have it. When God told Moses of the destiny before him, he repeatedly told God why he was NOT the right guy for the job. Maybe that is how you know when it is God, when the calling is so big and overwhelming everybody knows that you can’t do it alone.

God asked Moses what was in his hand. Rick Warren did a great job with this. He explained that in Moses’ hand was a shepherd’s staff. What we are is most often defined by what we “carry around.” In this case the staff defined identity, income and influence. It was essentially the three gifts God gives each of us that allow for some degree of self-understanding. Identity, the staff told of Moses position in the community. Income, lets face it, when we are identified in the community, everybody had a general idea of how much we are worth, at least in the world’s eyes. Influence, position carries with it the ability to influence. The words that keep ringing in my ears are “what is in your hand?” I do not know how to answer that? What unique skills, abilities and talents do I have “in my hands” and how is God calling me to use them? What is it I need to put down to allow God to use?

Lastly, God’s instructions were going to be darned inconvenient and costly. I have some understanding of this. I have never taken a significant raise to change ministry positions. A couple of times I have even moved backwards financially. Where I am now I am moving backwards with astounding consistency. I have not even received enough of a raise in the three years I’ve been here to make up for the rise in fuel costs to get to work. Moses was about to sacrifice stability for insecurity. Sure he had a tough job, but working for Jethro had its advantages. There was food, shelter, a warm bed and a wife to come home to. I can’t even imagine the conversation with his wife when he told her a bush told him to go back to Egypt and get a few hundred thousand people and walk across the desert to a “promised land.” This isn’t the life of the prosperity gospel proponents. This is a life of costly discipleship.

So, where does that leave me? In the desert I’m afraid, trying to figure out what is in my hand and waiting on God’s sense of timing. Every time I think that God is giving me a sign, it turns into a disappointment. We are humans are ‘meaning makers.’ We create meaning even when there is nothing there. Perhaps that is what I have been doing, trying to make meaning and get direction. I guess I’ll just keep wandering.

I must say, I’m a little sheepish about the prospects. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, give me the strength to live in the desert with the sheep and to see the burning bush when you put it in my path. In the name of the One who calls us to follow, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2007-10-29T11:05:00.000-04:00

Profit or Prophet: Measuring Ministry by the Bottom Line

Beginning Dec. 1 where I currently serve we will begin measuring ministry by the bottom line. Everything we do will be weighed on a profit or loss spreadsheet. How often is ministry profitable? How often do people generate profit by raising money for missions or serving youth? Are we simply feeding the consumerist nature of our culture by making ministry another commodity to be bought and sold?

I live to make a difference in people’s life. I know where my heart is, and it is in helping people realize and go after their God-shaped destiny. I love to see the light go on and the passion ignited when somebody realizes the amazing impact each of us can have upon the world. My call is realized when dozens of youth kneel at an altar of worship to declare themselves fully devoted followers of Christ. My call is affirmed when I consult with a congregation and a church awakens to the fact that they exist for something beyond their walls. They exist to serve and save the world. The world around the globe and the world right outside their doors.

In 1992 I left the “for profit” world. I left to follow my heart’s call and serve God in vocational ministry. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are amazingly effective “ministers” in every vocation. There are those who serve God best in auto body shops, in sales, in executive positions and in political office. My calling, however, was to equip those saints to serve. To spend the capital investment of my life pouring into others so that they could do ministry wherever God called them. Essentially I traded “for profit” to be a prophet.

Now I am at the place again. Maybe I had been in denial up until today. Maybe I had not fully realized the direction of the organization, but today as I read a briefing on “rebranding” and saw that my email address would change from a “.org” to a “.com” it struck me that I would be working for a company and not a ministry. That is rather disturbing because what companies do is serve their customers for the primary purpose of making a profit. The profit becomes the goal, the reason they exist, the central factor in all decisions. Microsoft doesn’t measure changed lives and Target doesn’t count professions of faith, they count dollars. These companies even make a selling point out of their contributions back to the community. Most recently Target has been saying, essentially, shop here and by doing so help your community. Another example of commodifying consumerism.

Awareness always generates the need for a decision. Can I sacrifice being prophetic for profit? Can I measure my ministry by the bottom line? I hear the words of Jesus ringing in my ears, “"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew 6:23-25

Gracious God, who calls us to be in the world but not of the world, guide me in discerning what is profitable and what is prophetic. In the name of the one who gave the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2007-10-01T10:17:00.000-04:00

Painful Worship

I have discovered why the mainline church is in decline. I have made a revolutionary discovery! I have uncovered the problem that, if solved, could reverse the drain upon local church attendance and return them to vitality and effective ministry. The problem is painful worship.

There was a time, even before I was a minister, that I had the philosophy that I didn’t “have to go to church,” I “got to go to church.” That worship was the most exciting and empowering part of my week. To gather with a body of believers who were radically devoted to following Jesus, who sang songs of praise with passion and intensity, who listened intently as the Word was preached with integrity and interest caused my heart to leap. I knew that my life would be challenged, my soul stirred and my eternal perspective restored allowing me to face another week as a disciple. I am afraid that those days are gone.

I have visited literally dozens of churches, mostly United Methodist and almost all mainline. In nearly every one of them worship is simply painful. Either the music is so bad that earplugs should be issued upon entrance or the people so distant and internally focused that it felt as though I was invisible or the preaching so disjointed and disconnected it could not possibly be called a sermon. My most recent experience was to hear a twenty minute (which felt like an eternity) lecture on being prepared for a disaster. That I should have six months of income in my savings account, gallons of water in my basement and lots of canned food on hand in case of emergency. I spent the entire message waiting for it to come back to the scriptural text or relate to living life as a faithful disciple but it didn’t. Richard Lischer of Duke Divinity School always said make sure you know how you are going to end your message, then you will always know where you are going. This preacher (dare I say he was preaching?) just abruptly stopped, no conclusion or challenge, just lurched to a homiletically disconnected ending about like slamming on brakes in the middle of the highway. It is a good thing too because I was just about to fall asleep.

So how do we overcome painful worship. I have a few suggestions that you can take with a grain of salt.

1) Do what you do well. This sounds obvious but at church we insist on doing things we do badly, over and over again. If your music isn’t strong, limit it. If you can’t do children’s messages, then don’t. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We spend way too much time trying to become average at our weaknesses when we should focus on becoming excellent at our strengths.

2) If you preach poorly, preach briefly. How do you know if you don’t preach well? Have somebody you trust will tell you the truth to evaluate you (not your spouse or your mom, they will lie!). We are not all great preachers and that is okay, we all have different pastoral gifts. If preaching is not your primary gift, find ways to make it bearable for your parishioners. Focus on the text, preach the Word clearly and succinctly. The Word will not return void!

3) Do not embarrass guests. I could not believe that the pastoral team wanted my wife and I to raise our hands so everybody would know who the first time guests were, as if they didn’t already. In this small church we had already been visited by both pastors, the president of the United Methodist Men, a representative from United Methodist women and four other random people. It was clear that we were outsiders. Then, from the pulpit during announcements, they wanted us to raise our hands. I am a church person and I don’t like being pointed out, can you imagine what it would feel like for somebody just test driving their faith to be singled out in a group and pointed to? Most people want to blend into a crowd the first time, not be given special attention. Acknowledge the with personal contact not impersonal pointing!

4) Watch the “Metho-speak.” My wife was raised Roman Catholic and still has trouble translating into Methodist language or “Metho-speak.” The bulletins at the churches we have visited were full of it. Women’s groups called “circles,” charge conferences and interior names for committee meetings. If you are going to print it, explain it. If you don’t need to print it, then don’t. Please do not fill up fifteen minutes with self-serving, internal announcements. Nothing turns an outsider off more than the feeling of being an outsider.

We are killing ourselves by unawareness. We are dying the death of oblivion. I do not think fixing these obvious problems will suddenly cause massive United Methodist revival, but I do think they will keep us from scaring away the people who want to learn more about us. Worship should not be painful! Worship is the time when we set aside time to gather with God’s people and enter into God’s presence. It should be a time of awe and inspiration, not aggravation and napping. God forgive me for all of the painful worship services that I may have planned without taking time to consider the eternal consequences that the service might have upon those in attendance. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Gracious God, who calls us to gather, give our praise, bring our sacrifice and worship you fully, grant that we who are given charge of your precious children may take seriously their care and devote ourselves to helping them encounter you faithfully and frequently in worship. In the name of the one we worship and adore, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2007-09-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

The Sin of Acceptable Segregation

Acceptance of diversity is a myth. I am coming to believe that when the church says it is “accepting of diversity” what it is really saying is that it is practicing acceptable segregation. As I have been reading Jonathon Kozol I have become increasingly aware of our willingness to practice acceptable segregation. To segregate and silence the voices of those who we do not want to hear. To set aside the lives of the poor, the abused and the addicted and to discount any concern they may present.

I was raised poor. Working poor. Free lunch poor. Turn in bottles for dimes poor. Diversity in my neighborhood wasn’t an option it was a fact of life. You didn’t embrace it, you lived it. People who were different than you, who saw life through different eyes than you lived next door, down the street and around the block. Even though we lived in close proximity, worked in the same places and attended the same schools we parted ways in our relationships. We lived together but we didn’t play together. We worked together but we did not worship together. We practiced acceptable segregation.

Tolerance is un-Christian. Tolerance is the root of acceptable segregation. No where did Jesus instruct us to tolerate one another. Jesus told us to love one another. Love is a conscious, directed act of the will that involves decision and sacrifice. It is wrapped in empathy and centered in respect. Tolerance, on the other hand, is usually wrapped in disdain and centered in mistrust. Tolerance is what leads to acceptable segregation. It allows us to exist together without ever letting our lives touch, much less intersect. Tolerance allows for keeping people in their place, which usually means out of the way and in the background. As a matter of fact the church should be the most intolerant place on earth. It should be intolerant of racism. It should be intolerant of sexism. It should be intolerant of classism. It should be intolerant of injustice, prejudice and paternalism. Tolerance is what allows these things to continue, even to thrive.

So what are we to do? We who strive to be faithful followers of Jesus, what is our response to acceptable segregation? I believe we need to follow the example that Jesus set. First of all we elevate people as creations made in the very image of God. Jesus constantly and consistently elevated people above their social status based upon gender, class or race. Women became heralds, servants became masters and Samaritans became heroes. Secondly we must embrace people as equals. We must realize that their eternal value is exactly the same as our own, regardless of their status, skin color or standing. Jesus died for them just like Jesus died for us. Lastly we must encounter people who are different than us. We have to see them. We are selectively blind. There is somebody in your life, and in my life, who is invisible because they make us uncomfortable. It is time to open our eyes to our acceptable segregation.

I have a few heroes in my life and one of them is Laura Early. Laura refuses to practice acceptable segregation. She elevates people most of us don’t even see, she embraces them with complete, unconditional love and encounters them every day of her life. She weaves her story, the story of a middle class, well educated white women, in with their stories. Stories of impoverished children, invisible minorities and battered persons struggling with addiction. She sees Jesus in everyone she meets, even people like me who sometimes think they have risen above their circumstances.

Gracious God help me to see others like Jesus sees all of us. As divine creations of an ever-loving Creator. Forgive me for the practice of acceptable segregation in my life and guide me to practice a life of love. In the name of the One who made heroes out of Samaritans, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2007-09-18T12:54:00.000-04:00

David vs. Goliath...kinda

So when I heard that the Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tn. was taking on Kathy Griffin after she insulted most of mainline Christianity the other night on the Emmy's I was surprised. It is not often a business, any business, takes on anything the least bit controversial. Kudos to them for actually taking a stand, especially as an organization that does a Passion Play as its centerpiece.

If you would like to see their HUGE USA Today ad or sign their petition against discrimination against Christians visit http://miracletheater.com/

I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

2007-09-03T19:19:00.001-04:00

On Love & Work

We spend most of our time pursuing our vocation and yet most of our art focuses on love. This is the core revelation I have had today. I have watched a few movies this weekend with my wife, Danelle, and it occurred to me as we watch Becoming Jane how much of our art is about love. It weaves its way into visual arts, plays a significant role on the stage and screen, its melodic vitues and tales of its trial and tribulation fill our IPODS and airways. Even the great stories illustrated by ballet and dance are centered upon the pursuit, acquisition and continuance of love. Yet in our daily lives, how much time do we spend maintaining or nurturing love.

Most of our time is filled by the pursuit of vocation and the acquisition of resources by which we “make a living.” But is making a living the same as making a life. We spend more than two thousand hours a year working. Whether it is sitting behind a desk, shuffling paper or doing back breaking labor, far more of our time is spent working than loving.

Not only does work sap us of time, it drains us of joy. How many meetings have your truly left with a profound sense of joy about what has just occurred? How many days to you rise out of bed and count the moments until you can be at work? Our identity is wrapped up in our position and success at work and yet work is a fickle mistress. One day you feel as though you are on the top of your game, making sacrifice after sacrifice for its pleasure only to discover that she is equally pursuing others. Actually, she prefers others regardless of your sacrifice. You, who have wrapped your identity in your vocation, are then left alone, sitting at your desk wondering why you made these sacrifices to begin with. On the sidelines you see love, sacrificed upon the altar of vocation.

Can you imagine what a relationship would be if it received two thousand hours annually of nurture and care? How much more joy would be in our lives should we devote more time to love than to vocation? To relationships that will survive the fickle hand of vocational downsizing and re-alignment. After suffering from yet another vocational disappointment I am beginning to think that my life would be better invested in love and in work.

2007-08-29T11:36:00.000-04:00

Problems or Heroic Opportunities

I hate problems. I grow tired of solving problems. I especially hate other peoples problems that become my problems. But here is what I know about problems, they are usually heroic opportunities. If you help somebody solve a problem, if you create solutions where there don’t seem to be any or find ways around obstacles you become a hero. Now you are not a hero in the Supeman understanding of heroes, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but to the person who was struggling you become a hero. A hero is defined as, “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act.” It is, therefore, a matter of perception. Some people see problems as obstacles, others as heroic opportunities. Some see them as a chance to pass the buck or avoid work or find an easy way out, others as a chance to “make some one’s day” or improve the lives of others, even if for only a short time.

My friend Tawana looks for heroic opportunities. When a problem lands in her lap, she marshals her resources, makes phone calls and does everything within her power, and sometimes beyond her power, to solve the problem. Some of the problems may be small, like helping a youth worker find a computer to use to check email from home or making sure their room has extra towels, but other problems can be much more serious. Like the time when one of our speakers needed a glucometer to check their blood sugar because they were diabetic or when a staff member was struggling with problems at home. In either situation she saw their problem as her problem and found ways around obstacles to find solutions.

I know another person, Jim Mousemount we will call him (not his real name) whose primary talent if finding problems and complaining about his problems. Then, instead of finding solutions, he attempts to pass the buck. He doesn’t see a problem as a heroic opportunity as much as a chance to fall short and make excuses. “We don’t have enough money.” “We don’t have enough staff.” He has a “we don’t” attitude and it infects everybody he comes into contact with. What is particularly aggravating is when the organization he works for internal problems become problems for their clients. When, instead of finding creative solutions, he attempts to pass his problem along to the person who is paying him to solve the problem. This, my friends, IS a problem!

I have this ridiculous notion that a client’s problem should be our problem and that our internal problems should NEVER be the client’s problem. That the reason they come to us is to help them find solutions and to provide them with answers to their needs. and their problems If we fail to be creators of solutions then we will have a problem, since then our clients/customers will find another place to solve their problems.

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us in positions to become heroes. I demands that we find creative solutions, explore unheard of ideas and open the box of our minds to possibilities that have never been tried before. Like I said earlier, I hate problems, but I love heroic opportunities.

2007-08-26T15:31:00.000-04:00

Missing Church

On Saturday I visited St. Lukes United Methodist Church, Lubbock, Texas. I stood in the sanctuary. I stood in the sanctuary, like many other sanctuaries built in the 1970’s with is wooden curved pews and comfortable cushions, its rich new carpet and hardwood altar. It smelled clean, like polished wood and candles and had the feel of three decades of prayer soaked into its beams. There was a giant cross and a choir loft off to one side that seems to be waiting for the resonating sound of the baby grand piano to strike a worshipful chord. The rich, dark wood pulpit with etched cross stood on the left with the communion table centered against the wall under the cross. I could not bring myself to climb the six or seven steps up to the chancel area and look out over the congregational seating feeling that its pull may overwhelm me. I sat in the third row and just listened to the stillness of the worship space that would fill with worshippers less than twenty four hours from then. I sat there a few moments until I saw something drop upon the legs of my slacks and realized it was tears from my eyes. Then I felt the hot tears streaming down my face as I sat there waiting upon my host to do some last minute tasks to prepare to lead music the following morning. I got up and went out into the foyer to insure that he did not see me in such a state. I stood there looking out the front door at the weathered parking lot and tried to get myself back together.

I sat down this morning and tried to figure out why I had that response to being in a church. I have been in dozens of churches in the past three years since I left the pulpit to work at Lake Junaluska. There was something familiar about the place, something about the way it looked and smelled that triggered some powerful pastoral memories. Whether it was the look of Trinity UMC in New Bern or how it smelled like the sanctuary at Trinity UMC in Fayetteville or just how it felt to be in a church that really felt like a church again? I am not sure. So, I made a list of what I miss, and don’t miss about pasturing a local church.

Things I don’t miss:
• Contentious church members.
• Endless meetings.
• Charge conference forms.
• Colleagues with a competitive mindset about ministry, always comparing worship attendance and offering numbers.
• Proofreading bulletins.
• Vacation interruptions.
• Budget meetings.
• Tax headaches.
• Hospital visits at 2 a.m.
• Temperamental music leaders and staff conflict.

Things I miss:
• Knee hugs from children on Sunday.
• The smell of fresh flowers in the sanctuary.
• The taste of communion bread soaked in grape juice.
• Rehearsing and rewriting my sermon in an empty sanctuary on Friday or Saturday afternoons.
• Doing funerals for the saints of the church.
• The smell of infants on the morning of their baptism.
• The hugs of new members who found a church that they can feel loved and accepted in.
• Reading Christmas stories to pajama clad children before Christmas Eve worship.
• Good Friday worship ending in darkness and bolting the door.
• Weekly Eucharist and holding the loaf up and breaking it.
• The rhythm of the church year.
• The pressure to write a better sermon this week than last week, fifty-two times a year.
• Writing sermons in coffee houses and asking myself at the end of all the work, “so what?”

My call is here, now. So here I will serve until Christ leads me to another place. Until then I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

God, who makes the rough path smooth, and the winding path straight, grant me the ability to be fully present in the ministry I am living out right now. Show me what you would have me to do and be and keep me from vain ambition or change for the sake of change. Light my path with the light of the One who knows the way, Jesus. In whose name I pray. Amen.

2007-08-22T12:56:00.000-04:00

Highest and Best Calling

Arlene Hewitt sat in her office one particularly reflective, dreary afternoon and said, “So I often wonder, is this the highest and best calling for this time in my life?” We had been discussing our work and our institutional frustration, irritation with bureaucracy and just the vocational angst that often accompanies those in ministry. If she had taken out a sock, put a brick in it and hit me in the head it would have been no less jarring. That was an incredible question. The question is far deeper than it initially seems.

First, is what I am doing my highest and best calling? Is it the most God-honoring thing I can be doing (highest) and is it the most effective use of my time (best)? What would the highest calling look like? Would it be constantly certain that I was in the presence of God in all that I do?

My highest calling, it would seem, would be actions that lead to eternal results. I mean, my job is to engage youth and young adults in matters related to their spiritual formation facilitate significant faith decisions and put them on the road to being fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. That seems pretty significant, even if I rarely get to actually see the fruits of my labor. I have stacks of commitment cards from last summer indicating that serious decisions were made, yet the question remains, is this the highest calling for my life? Is this the vocation that resonates with my heart song?

Next, is it my best calling? Am I doing what I can do most effectively to yield eternal results? Does ordering two-thousand Hawaiian leis count as a spiritual venture? Am I playing to my strengths and fully engaging my spiritual gifts? A lot of what I do does seem counter-intuitive to my gifts. I spend a lot of time in meetings and doing administrative tasks which are certainly not life-giving for me. Additionally, I spend precious little time communicating and teaching. Being one whose primary joy of the local church was the time I spent leading Bible study or preaching each week, it seems that I don’t often get to do what I used to love to do. Actually, I have even begun to doubt my abilities in these areas, partially from being out of practice I am certain, and also due to simple exhaustion. Is this my best calling?

The other part of the question is just as impactful as the first. When she said “for this time in my life,” it called into account our mortality. How often do I live my life certain of tomorrow? I’m not being morbid but I do have to realize that at 42 I am more than half done with the active, functional time of my life. Let’s say I make it to mandatory retirement for the United Methodist Church, 72. I essentially have only thirty years to make whatever mark upon this world I will make. When you are sixteen, thirty years seems like a lifetime. When you are 42 it looks significantly shorter.

There are books to read and, maybe, books to write. There are sunrises to see break through the dark of night and reflect upon God’s continual testimony of hope. There is laughter to share and tears to shed. So, is this the highest and best calling for my life right now? I honestly don’t know. I do know that it is what I am called to do at this moment and I will continue to honor that calling until God shed light upon the next path I am to travel because I continue to struggle and remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Marty

Gracious God, lead me in Your highest and best calling for my life for this time in my life, in the name of the One who lived that out with every breath, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2007-08-16T08:54:00.000-04:00

Vocational Redemption

What is the most important result of your work? At the end of the day, week, month or year, if you have accomplished X then you will know that all of the time and effort has been worth the sacrifice. Is it a positive number at the bottom of the profit and loss statement? Is that the most important thing? Is it the lives that have been improved by your product, service, church or ministry? Is it the building of a building or the care of the poor? What is the most important result of your work?

You don’t know do you? Most of us don’t. We are seldom given clear direction and information about what we should consider vital and essential to our daily tasks. That is highly frustrating, especially for those of us Type A personalities that like clear objectives and goals. We spend nearly 2,000 hours a year (more for us work-a-holics) at our vocation without clear institutional priorities. Our supervisors try to give us “pep talks” and motivate us but their objectives are ambiguous. Yes profit is important, but so is quality and service. Of course we want you to make other’s lives better and serve the poor, but only if a profit can be generated in the process. Make disciples and make money, yeah, that’s your objective. We have carefully crafted mission statements, purpose statements, and value statements. We then have statements about our statements. Definitions about the words in our statements, reformatted vision statements. Most of these statements in placed carefully on the cover of a three ring binder or hanging on the wall over the entrance or water fountain and promptly forgotten. Then we go back to work and try to please everyone, customers, supervisors, CEOs and board members, never quite sure who is the most important master because it changes by the day.

Didn’t Jesus say something about not being able to serve two masters? Don’t I recall something about you will love the one and hate the other? He didn’t define which was the “right one” and which was the “wrong one,” just that one will resonate with your heart song and the other will annoy you and cause you heartburn.

So what is the answer? If we aren’t going to get a divine pronouncement from above about what is vital and essential, what do we do? There are a few things we can do to help us keep the main thing, the main thing.

• Focus on your passionate strengths: Marcus Buckingham does a great job teaching people to play to their strengths. He advises us that we should spend 50-80% of our day doing things that “strengthen us.” We should do things that we love, that resonate with our heart song, that are the reason you took the job in the first place. Now very few people can spend all of their time playing to their strengths, as he says, that’s why they call it work. But if we can spend some significant time each day doing things, activities, tasks and building relationships that we enjoy and are passionate about, it makes the other stuff bearable.

• Define what is important to you: This is key. If nothing you do during your daily existence really seems important and vital to you, then you either need to reformat your vocation or change it. You can starve your soul to death by simply doing things that drain it and empty it day after day. If it doesn’t matter then why is it being done? The days I feel best when I return home are the days when I feel like I have accomplished something important. It might just be one thing, one phone call, one contact, one task, but that one thing was important to me and it puts the rest of the day in perspective. On the contrary, on the days when I go home without feeling like anything I did mattered, like I just went through the motions and filled the seat behind my desk, then I feel worthless.

• Plan your day: You need to know your rhythms. Are you a morning person? Then do what you love at the time you are best, save the email and mundane tasks for your least productive time of the day. I am freshest and most productive in the morning. That is when I need to do things that require my utmost attention. I go into a slump around 2 pm. That is when I should answer mundane email, go through the mail and do things I dread. Why waste my optimal time doing the most dreaded tasks. But that is exactly what we do isn’t it? We go into work, if we are morning people, full of caffeine and energy for the day and then get bogged down with email and busy work, forgetting to utilize our best hours of our most enjoyed tasks. Master your day, make a plan.

So, how do I deal with lack of real, institutional priorities? I have to set personal priorities and work from there. Working from my strengths, knowing what is important to me personally and making an action plan will redeem the time and allow me to deal with the frustration of the lack of true institutional priorities. So my goals will be:
• To spend the first hour at my desk writing and reflecting every day.
• Begin defining the task that is most important for me to do that feeds me each day.
• Spend fifteen minutes each day to maximize the important and minimize the mundane.

How about you?

Consumed by the Call,
Marty
Gracious God, who grants me 1,440 minutes each and every day, help me to live in the awareness that You should define what is most important in my day and help me live in the shadow of your will. In the name of the One who lived every day on purpose, Jesus the Christ, I pray. Amen

2007-06-10T09:21:00.000-04:00

Theological Foundations of Ministry with Young People
To navigate the passage from attempting to do ministry in the middle to transformational ministry with young people a theological foundation is essential. A well-defined theological foundation provides the under girding for solid transformational ministry. Being United Methodist, the appropriate beginning of a solid theological foundation begins with finding the balance and living in the tension between Scripture and reason, tradition and experience. It must fight the tendency, especially in youth ministry, to polarize the two opposing ideas that salvation and spiritual maturity comes from “faith alone,” often represented by emotionally made decisions during events and rallies, and “holy living” and mission activity, where social justice and righteous causes are substituted for real faith development. Therefore, my theological foundation has five key components:

1. Graceful: grounded in grace and the realization of God’s unconditional love toward all of humanity.
2. Incarnational: beliefs and practices that reinforce the imago dei, the understanding that all of humanity is created in the image of God.
3. Transformational: willing to embrace and struggle with mystery.
4. Missional: balancing proclamation of the gospel and social action.
5. Communal: formed in the context of community where the whole people of God are welcomed.

Grace, God’s unconditional and underserved love toward humanity is foundational for a theology that will govern ministry at the crossroad. It is at its most basic, “God’s gracious activity…has been and is being offered to every human being.” Being grounded in grace means, as Lesslie Newbigin wrote, “we shall expect, look for, and welcome all the signs of the grace of God at work in the lives of those who do not know Jesus as Lord.” This theology embraces that understanding that God is already working in the lives of those outside of our “camp” or “group” and is present and beckoning every person, indeed all of humanity, into a relationship with God through Jesus. A relationship that is welcoming and stable in a world of instability. A theology of grace that expresses God’s desire to be in a real, intentional and ever-present relationship stands as an answer for the acute pain of abandonment so often felt by emerging generations. Grace, as God’s self constantly and consistently extended as love toward humanity, fills in the void left by human relationships and their inherent frailties. A theological foundation that is graceful embraces God’s continual movement toward humanity.
Not only is grace essential to a theology that serves in the crossroad, but also so is the understanding that all of humanity is created in the very image of God. Indeed, practicing the idea of imago dei requires that it is understood that we see something of God in every heart, hear something of God in every voice. That Psalm 139’s voice rings in our ear that God knows every person from his or her mother’s womb. That every person is known by God fully and completely and is not beyond God’s constant and consistent love and concern. A theological foundation that affirms the presence of the imago dei in all of humanity affirms its presence in the most difficult individual. It embraces them with the same unconditional love and affirms the presence of God, pre-existent in their life, no matter what their actions or life-choices may indicate. Indeed, as Dean reminds us, “the imago dei remains faint but visible.” Essentially “to every human life God is antecedently and enablingly present.” Our theology must recognize God’s presence in all of humanity, but more vitally, in each individual. An incarnational theological foundation seeks and find’s God’s presence even in, perhaps especially in, those far from God.
The struggle with mystery and transformation is vital element in a solid theological foundation for youth and young adult ministry. It allows and embraces a struggling with mystery and realizes that true transformation is a work of God. The mystery involves that struggle that occurs through the transformational nature of the sacraments where God’s presence is evident and encountered in ways that are not rationally explained. In the Eucharist, for example, there is “a physical taking of bread and wine, and a spiritual appropriation of the true body and blood of the Lord.” The struggle with mystery means that, particularly with young people, we may be “moved ecstatically beyond the boundaries of the self to the posture of awe.” The embracing of mystery allows us to “fill the existential cavern—Pascal called it a ‘god shaped void’: that is present in every person. The pursuit of transcendence and the seeking of the eminent presence of God in us and through us can only be found by embracing mystery. It is in the embracing of mystery and the allowance that everything of God is not so easily explained where transformation occurs as an essential element of a sound theological foundation.
In addition to struggling with mystery, a theological foundation of ministry with young people must be missional in nature. It is easy to focus on the experiential and powerful expression of ministry that mystery provides and neglect the moving beyond self to self-sacrifice. To balance this, a solid theological foundation of ministry must strive to form missionaries and not simply spiritual consumers. Reflecting back to the need for this theology to be graceful in practice, to be missional is the realization that God’s grace comes through “words and deeds that [meets] the person’s deepest needs and [offers] that person salvation.” By missional in nature, the practice should not be the self-serving practices where we are actually “meeting our own needs (wanting to feel good about what we do) rather than truly serving others.” Often, especially in youth ministry, activities reinforce the idea that we have a “superior sense of what the world needs.” “We have to affirm that redemption is never salvation out of this world (salus e mundo) but always salvation of this world (salus mundi). Being missional requires that we respond to two central “mandates.” They are “the commission to announce the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ; the second calls Christians to responsible participation in human society including working for human well-being and justice.”
Lastly, a solid theological foundation of ministry must be communal in practice. This, like the call to be missional in nature, is a counter-cultural ideal. It must move beyond a religion of me that reinforces the consumerist nature of our culture to seeing the individual as part of a greater, divine whole. The theology must struggle with the revelation that no one is self-made. Indeed, as Stanley Grenz writes in A Primer on Postmodernism, “Individuals come to knowledge only by way of a cognitive framework mediated by the community in which they participate.” We are formed and transformed by a God who models living in perfect community and whose story is the foundation of our belief. Community, by its very existence, invites the sharing of stories. A crossroad theology is one where our stories are shared. We, as the people of God are called to be narrators of our stories, or as Newbigin states, “The human story is one which we share with all other human beings—past, present, and to come.” It is these stories, shared in the midst of community that is the locus for transformation. “God’s chosen location for transformation is the Christian community.”
A theology of ministry at the crossroad holds many factors in tension. It strives to be graceful, incarnational, transformational, missional, and communal. It is a theology that is informed by scripture, honors traditional, allows reasonable discussion and doubt and allows credibility to be given to the experiential nature of faith. All of these factors mold a solid theological foundation for ministry with young people.

2007-05-08T19:52:00.000-04:00

Ministry in the Middle

Today I had a revelation about why real ministry is so hard. It is hard because it involves living in constant tension. It is what I am beginning to call “ministry in the middle.” Ministry in the middle requires that you stand treacherously in the middle of a four quadrant plane and attempt to balance seemingly opposite forces delicately so as to be both effective and faithful.

The first balancing act is between sound, orthodox theology and pragmatism. To do ministry in our postmodern, deconstructed culture there must be a balance found between right teaching (orthodoxy) and practicality. If one errs on the side of being overly traditional, the messages and ministries of the congregation are completely irrelevant to the community. On the other hand, if one sacrifices foundational beliefs to connect with the community, then the integrity of the community is at stake. Real ministry has to be both theologically grounded and practically designed.

The second set of scales balances the mysterious and transformational nature of the sacrament with the desire to be culturally relevant. If you become overly focused on the mysterious and sacramental nature of ministry, you loose all contact with the world beyond your monastic walls. On the other hand, if you become so culturally relevant and “hip” that you loose all sense of mystery because your are busy being “in the world” you loose footing on your faith and end up doing ministry by holy sound “to do” lists and end up with a self-help philosophy rather than a transcendent faith.

So we stand in the middle. Being pulled by four forces that we must hold in tension. Keep the faith and hold fast to ministry in the middle.

Peace,
Marty

Gracious God of tensions who lived in divine tension give me strength to be both theologically sound and practical, to be both sacramental and relevant so that Your Son Jesus might reach me and mine for You. In the name of the Savior who held humanity and divinity in tension I pray. Amen.

2007-03-01T11:58:00.000-05:00

Work and Worth

I get my self worth from my work. I’m not proud of that, it has been a constant struggle since I can remember. I started working when I was thirteen, scraping dozens of black-green shutters in ninety-degree weather for about $2 an hour. I hated the work, but I needed money for school clothes and, at the end of the day, there was something that was different in the world because I exerted effort. School was, or maybe still is, the same way for me. Worth is derived from the papers produced and the grades earned. While my grades were never perfect, they were always good. The effort produced a positive result. It was measurable and determinable.

I liked things that were measurable when I was growing up. I liked things that stayed the same and could be understood. So much of my life was not understandable. I didn’t understand why I was the only kid in my class with no dad in the house (or at least it seemed that way), why we never had money to do the fun stuff or why I sat in the library during class trips (also because there was no money). Life was complicated, but work, work was simple and understandable. By the time I was in fifth grade, I began to understand that the marks on the report card were definitely correlative to the effort you put forth. I hated vocabulary tests and math tests, but I would spend hours making flash cards, memorizing facts and figures trying to get the best grade possible. Maybe then my life would be better. Isn’t that the deal? If you get good grades you grow up to be a success, have plenty of money, live in a big house and buy what you want?

All through high school, I continued on fostering my addiction to work and its support of my worth. I found other ways to work, I could join clubs, work with the student council, participate in plays and choral ensembles, all while working thirty hours a week at a grocery store and trying to keep my grades up. I was busy, and I equated busy with valuable.

I still work hard and find myself believing that how productive I am equates to my self worth. That financial remuneration equals value. Since I have been working with SEJMYP I have had to have a gut check on that, however. For two of the years I have been here we have had a freeze on raises, not even give cost of living raises. For somebody that grew up believing the harder you worked the more you would get paid, this has been a hard blow. Does lack of financial reward equate to worthlessness?

Additionally, results in this job are hard to measure. When you do events, you never see if there are any long-term results. You do everything you can to facilitate life-changing decisions, but you don’t get to go home with the youth and see if they stuck. You negotiate contracts, go to meetings, plan and implement the plan with no ability to determine whether your job matters, whether my job matters.

Of course, this is not different from pastoral ministry. My days in the parish had a similar ring. Change in the hearts and minds of a congregation, or an individual for that matter, are often slow to manifest themselves and when you are closest to them you can see it the least. Those of us in ministry, heavily influenced by the American culture of productivity feel as though we need to produce a product rather than facilitate discipleship. In the church I attend the pastor spent last Sunday describing a cold mechanical process that the church was implementing for stamping out disciples. He used the metaphor of the Toyota plant he recently visited and how they stamp out cars out of sheet metal. I don’t want to be stamped.

So how should worth be measured? I think that perhaps it should be measured by proximity to the Holy One of God. The closer I get to Jesus, the more aligned I will be with what God wants me to be about. That is so much easier said than done. It requires a re-writing of a forty-plus year old internal script. It requires a re-centering of my life. It requires a re-alignment of my focus. For me not to measure my value with my paycheck and the numbers who show up at the events I arrange will be a radical departure from my definition of success. I am not sure I can do it and I know that the process will not be fast. It will be slow and painful but if it can be done, I will be closer to God than I have ever been before. Until then I will struggle with finding my worth in my work. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God who defines us as Your children and as keepers of the Imageo Dei, give the ability to re-define who I am by your measure. In the name of the Holy One of God, Jesus, I pray, amen.

2007-02-25T14:26:00.000-05:00

Youth Culture: Struggle, Identity and Community

Youth culture is about struggle. It is a complex confluence of historical influences, societal forces, developmental stage and the need to settle two primary needs in the young person’s life, the need for identity and the need for community. This confluence of forces has created a youth culture that forms and shapes youth into seemingly indecisive, self-absorbed individuals who can maintain seemingly opposite views and beliefs simultaneously. They are struggling to self-identify and to discover a place in community where they fit. “Youth culture,” therefore, it literally a season of struggle.

Historically, the move from childhood to adulthood has been much clearer than it is today. With the removal of rites of passage and clear lines of demarcation, the adolescent is often left to self-determine the definition of adulthood. While certain lines are still part of the overarching culture, such as obtaining a driver’s license and the ability to vote, we have moved away from a definitive mark of adulthood. To complicate the loss of lines of transition, the Baby Boomer generation grew up as the first group of young people with time and money to waste, the ability to delay, as long as possible the acceptance of adult responsibilities and the ease and availability of dependable birth control. The current youth culture is the product and offspring of the Baby Boomers. They have continued the pattern to delay adulthood as long as possible. It is now acceptable to delay the acceptance of full adult responsibilities until the late twenties or early thirties. What this means to youth culture is that they have the “privileges” of being an adult (ability to drink, have sex, etc.) without the previous generations constraints (marriage, children, mortgage, etc.). They can put off commitment and obligation for more than a decade. The struggle that used to last only a couple of years to make the breakthrough to adulthood can now last a decade and a half. That is a long time to struggle.

Societal forces also influence the youth culture that emphasizes struggle. Society rewards accomplishment. Standardized testing focuses on measurable, concrete objectives rather than abstract thinking. At the same time, society is formed by the non-competitive ideals of the 1960’s & 1970’s where everybody wins and everybody is “special.” There are exceptions to every rule. Even though everybody is “special” there are always those that are more “special” and who get privileged treatment. Societal structures have proven, like family structures, to be unreliable and inconsistent. Their struggle continues as they attempt to determine what is fair and just amidst changing societal targets of success. The seeming invincibility of the United States was threatened by a small band of radicals. The President “gets away” with having oral sex with an intern. Society speaks about consequences but inconsistently applies them. There is always an exception. Youth culture is fueled by the tension between everyone winning and there being only one winner, between non-competitive sports one day and high school coaches encouraging victory at all costs the next. The struggle continues.

The adolescent life stage is also a time of struggle. The hormonal changes, occurring younger and younger, along with improved physical health and early maturation prove to force the young person into appearing more mature than they actually are. They struggle with an unparalleled level of sexual temptation fueled by dozens of sexualized images per day in media. While they seem physically to be an adult, the delay in their cognitive functioning and inability to think abstractly means they have the ability for sexually function like an adult without the full awareness of all the consequences, emotionally, spiritually or psychologically. This combined with the normal move of personal allegiance from parents to peers, as part of the adolescent stage of life, creates even greater struggles. They struggle with parental boundaries and peer influences.

Lastly, the struggle culminates in the tension between the young person’s need to discover their own identity and their need for community. Clark is partially right when he observes that youth culture is a reaction to abandonment. Young people are looking for stable structures after watching both familial and societal structures crumble. They are desperate to discover a holistic community of hope and care that will embrace them for who they are without the desire to sell them something or make them into idealistic clones. While struggling to find community they are also struggling to discover their own identity. To find the person they are and where they are truly unique in the world. How is it that they can be so different from everyone else and so much the same? How can they feel so alone in the world and be surrounded by others sojourning on the same path? They cluster to find community. They blog, pierce and tattoo to express identity.

Youth culture is struggle. Struggle with maturation, socialization, historical forces and the need to find identity and community. It is struggle and crisis. Out of the struggle will come adults who will face the world either fearfully or fearlessly, but the season of struggle cannot be avoided.

2007-02-14T14:31:00.000-05:00

The Starbucks Experience
Lessons We All Could Learn From Coffee!

By my own admission I am not a Starbucks fan. I usually prefer the funky, fair-trade coffee shop to the large chain. This book The Starbucks Experience, though, has really opened my eyes to the total package of a large corporation Starbucks represents. The more I read this text, authored by Joseph A. Michelli, the more passionate I become about the importance of this book, both in my work at Lake Junaluska, but also about how the Church works to connect with those normally outside of its bounds. This book is a word in due season, not only for businesses struggling to understand the “experience economy” but also for those seeking to build bridges to the postmodern world.

The book highlights five seemingly simple, but important principles that guide the coffee giant:

1. Make it your own.
2. Everything matters.
3. Surprise and delight.
4. Embrace resistance
5. Leave your mark.

While I wont’ go into detail about each of these, I will say a word about “Everything Matters.” This principle is the most forgotten, both in ministry and in business. We forget that it is the details that make the difference. That both success and death are in the details. In the book, and on Michelli’s podcast, he talks about the decision to continue using two-ply toilet paper rather than saving thousands of dollars by switching to one-ply. Starbucks understands that every moment of the experience, even the one’s most overlooked by the business, make an impression.

This chapter reminds me of another blog I wrote a couple of years back about what I learned from Walt Disney World. How they manage every moment of your experience, down to the moments you spend in line waiting. They have understood these five principles longer than anyone! Where else can waiting be part of the adventure?

It is time for us to realize, in the Church world, that everything matters. That the thing you didn’t think of is the thing that will cause your downfall. The little thing you think will go unnoticed is what causes the biggest problem. Surely, if running out of wine at a wedding mattered to Jesus, shouldn’t the details of every experience matter to us? I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God, who knows every detail of our life, help us to realize that everything matters. Make us people who create experiences that open the door for soul transformation. In the name of the one who knows me, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2007-01-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

Sanctified Consumerism…the disgust with buying church.

I was sitting in worship recently when I realized that I had heard the message before. I had seen the graphics before. I picked up the bulletin and it dawned on me, I had seen the design before. I had seen it hundreds of miles away in another church. Same message series, same topics, same graphics, same bulletin covers…another case of buying church. I have noticed that many congregations, of all sizes, are practicing the copycat syndrome of purchasing an entire worship series and importing it into their church. To be honest, when I was serving a local church I, too, did the Purpose Driven Life series, but normally I developed and designed the service, the music and the metaphors based upon the needs and concerns of the people I served and community I lived in.

All ministry is indigenous. It is only done well within the context of where we served. The practice of actually listening to the people is disappearing. The discipline learning the environment and studying the circumstances seems to be quickly being replaced by four point pithy messages downloaded from a favorite sermon site along with slides, bulletin covers, skits and metaphpor support material. The only thing missing is having the pastor who actually did the intellectual and theological work actually present the sermon on video (which is also available for some markets/circumstances).

The first cause of this syndrome that I will call Sanctified Consumerism is the professionalization of ministry. By paying ministry staff we place upon them the expectations of leader, visionary, administrator, manager, servant, counselor, teacher and administrator. I have known a lot of pastors and none of them can do all of those tasks equally well. Some are amazing communicators but cannot administrate. They may be visionaries but not able to manage staff. The professionalization also serves to excuse those in attendance from any responsibility to do ministry. It makes we who sit in the sanctuary “giving units’ or simply consumers.

The second cause of Sanctified Consumerism is closely related to the first. The “professionals” think that in all cases they know best. That nobody can preach better than they can. No one can organize, perform music, arrange worship or create an environment better than they can. How could they? They are the paid professionals. They are the resident experts who are the keepers of the knowledge. This is a place of insecurity because what is really going on is that they are afraid that an “amateur” may have talents and skills that surpass those of the professional. They don’t want to be proven to be less than the best by somebody who is not the professional.

Lastly, the pressure to perform drives Sanctified Consumerism. These three are all closely related but this one is often self-imposed. The “professional ministers” go to a great seminar or workshop and see something that is awesome. They wonder to themselves “ why can’t I do something as cool as that?” They are pushed to produce by their church but are given little in the way of creative time or resources. The easy thing to do is to simply purchase the “new and improved” version of “church in a box” and bring it back and implement it carte blanche. They feel pressured to perform by the audience, which has lost its cohesion as a congregation and become a gathering of spectators with the “let’s see what you got” mentality. So the professionals, with no time to prepare and no desire to do the hard work of ministry, open the box o’church and roll out the pre-packaged program, never taking time to do the theological and intellectual reflection necessary to determine whether this product fits the need of the people being served.

Faith…Packaged for your Convenience

I hate microwave pizza! It isn’t really pizza. It is cardboard covered with “cheese product” and pre-cooked to mediocrity. I like my pizza done New York style buy some guy named Al who makes the dough every morning, then when I walk in he pulls it out, kneads it, throws it up in the air and then spreads it out on a pan. He takes real pepperoni, thick tomato sauce and unhealthy handfuls of mozzarella cheese and creates a masterpiece that he then fires in a brick oven for twelve to fifteen minutes. When it comes out, it is messy, cheesy and delicious. That’s pizza!

My son loves microwave pizza. You know why? Because he hasn’t really grown to have the experience of delight that a real pizza brings. Of course, he also things peanut butter is a gourmet food, like all seven year olds do. There will come a day when he “gets it” and realizes that one good pizza is better than a hundred microwave specials.

That is what is happening to church. We are forgetting what authentic church is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be messy but real. Churches are resorting to buying the package rather than building the ministry from scratch. Why don’t they do the work? There are several reasons:
• It is hard work! It takes time, effort and energy to produce a solid, theologically sound product each week. Exegesis (intensive Bible study) is laborious and means you have to understand more than three pithy points that all rhyme or start with the same letter.
• It takes reflection. When was the last time you just stopped to think and reflect? We do not value reflection in our culture, we value productivity. Building an authentic worship experience requires reflection, setting aside time to listen to God and God’s people as well as the mission field outside of your door.
• It requires the practitioners to think theologically. Theological reflection is lost when pre-packaged material is purchased. There is the assumption that the person or persons who developed the material did good, sound theological reflection. Their work, however, does not excuse us from our work!
• It requires the practitioners to think practically. Will this work in the community I serve? Will it work in the space that I utilize? Does it make sense? If the sermon was designed for a thousand listeners and we have a hundred, some things just won’t translate. Get real.
• It requires an understanding of the total environment. All ministry is indigenous. Pre-packaged ministry does not take into account who is in the seat in the local church or the unique community the local church serves.

It is easier to buy that to build. There is no doubt about it. Our culture encourages us to buy rather than to build. Evern homes are not “modular” so that they require little assembly by the carpenter. They are just giant puzzles, screwed together and placed on a foundation. We like things packaged four our convenience, I’m am just not convinced faith is one of those things that is best served from the microwave.

How to Build…steps to indigenous ministry.
1. Know who you are. That sounds obvious, but it is not. This takes personal reflection and time alone with God. It begins with the practitioner, a process of self-discovery is undertaken. Then it moves to the church and community. Who is actually in the pew, not assumptions but actual data? Who lives in the community? Where is the disconnect? Where can bridges be built?
2. Know where you are. Every community is unique. Do research to understand the congregation’s and the community’s history. How are they woven together?
3. Know who your mission file is. You cannot reach everyone in the community. You must determine who you are best suited and uniquely gifted by God to reach. That is not to say you can’t reach beyond that point, but you have to start where you are most likely to connect and move from there.
4. Determine your direction. Planning is the most neglected discipline of the church. Create a map with checkpoints along the way where you can make course corrections.
5. Listen to the Holy Spirit. There are people in your congregation that are gifted and crying out to do ministry. Listen to the hurts and concerns, the burdens God has placed upon their hearts, then equip them and get out of the way. God uses those who aren’t on staff.

My prayer is that we will move away from Sanctified Consumerism to authentic ministry, even if it isn’t as polished and pre-packaged. I hope it is as messy as a good New York pizza! I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God, call us back to your heart. Help us lay aside ease for effort, lay aside convenience for connection and let us be the Church again. In the name of the one who chose the path of difficulty rather than the path of ease, Jesus, we pray. Amen

My new terms for this type of church:
Plug and Play Christianity
Sanctified Consumerism
Faith…Packaged for your Convenience
Buying Church

2006-12-05T18:37:00.000-05:00

Reflections on Selling Ministry

We all do it. Whether in the local church trying to get our folks to bring their friends, through mass mailings or newsletters, or like me, on the floor of Youth Specialties this weekend. We are selling ministry. I have spoken to hundreds of youth workers trying to get them to see the advantage of bringing their youth group to Lake Junaluska for their next winter or summer youth retreat. I have passed out countless posters and brochures, stood for hours on the concrete floor and explained what our ministry would do to enhance theirs. Why do we have to sell ministry?

I have struggled with this since I was a pastor in a local church. When I discovered that my entrepreneurial tendencies suited ministry and my salesmanship helped build my attendance I have wondered whether that is really a good mix. Does the end justify the means? Is the life change affected by a youth attending an SEJMYP event justify the slick marketing, hours of negotiation with bands and speakers and the time building a set? On one level the obvious answer is yes. There is no price to put upon a soul. That one youth could one day lead dozens, hundreds or thousands to Christ. In that way the work is certainly worth it.

The question I struggle with is how is this better than the world? I mean, Apple has a minister of evangelism to get people to convert from Microsoft to Mac. Should we have to talk a youth worker into bringing their youth to a life changing experience? Should we have to convince them that our program is flashier or will have a great impact than somebody else’s?

I often hear stories of when the LJ events were filled to the gills. Across the SEJ the thing to do in the summer was to bring your youth to have an LJ experience. It was in the culture. If you were Methodist you’d never consider taking them to a “Baptist” or “non-denominational” camp (not that there really is any such animal as ‘non-denominational’, but that is another blog). You wanted your youth to experience your theology. It mattered what was taught. It made a difference what they heard. It is not that you discriminated but that you were more discriminating. Now, youth workers aren’t concerned about theology but about splash. Is the production the best? Is the show the coolest? Is the destination the hottest?

We wonder why we are loosing youth? One reason may be that we have sold out and cheapened our theological commitment. That we don’t expect or even care of our youth believe what we teach as “long as they believe something.” Theology matters, and because it matters I will continue to sell ministry…one youth worker at a time. So if you want a youth event where mainline, orthodox teaching matters, I’ll see you at the LJ. I remain:

Consumed by the Call
Marty

Gracious God, who calls us to live out our faith and walk our talk, lead us to think before we act and not to buy what is best but what is needed. In the name of Jesus, AMEN.

2006-11-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Open the Door but Where are the People?

Churches are closing all across American and I am beginning to understand why.

I witnessed this weekend perhaps the most manipulative political maneuvering I have ever experienced and it was at a meeting of church people. When asked why they are leaving the church, young adults say that one of the key reasons is a blatant difference between spoken values and lived values. This weekend whole sets of people were de-valued and silenced so that they could not raise questions about an issue that would shape their future.

I am not sure what is more disturbing. The fact that the political process was so shamelessly manipulated or that nobody who could speak seemed to care. In one sweeping motion ethnic ministries across the jurisdiction were marginalized and ministry was diminished to profit generating programming all in the name of expediency.

What about those of us most affected by the change. We were forced to sit in the back of the room in silence. It reminded me of Thanksgivings years ago when the kids sat at the children’s table and were told that they were to be seen but not heard. So we sat and watched people who did not fully understand what was happening wipe away two decades of progress in ethnic ministries and discipleship.

When questions were raised, they were glossed over with phrases like, “that will never really happen,” or “there is no need to duplicate ministry that is happening in other places.” One defender even spoke of a very capable and effective leader as a “token employee.”

Even a cursory look at several of the annual conferences and their free fall in membership and, more importantly, worship attendance, proves that even if ministry should be happening there, it isn’t. That national “comprehensive plans” are merely paper until a person acts as advocate and catalyst for ideas of implementation.

One friend, sitting silently in the back while watching her ministry dissolve without question from the floor said it best, “I thought this was the Church?” It wasn’t the Church; it was politics, plain and simple. Politics that manipulate the system to get a desired end without fully explaining the long-term implications of actions or providing adequate time for reflection and input. It was top-down policy making. If it was the Church, then it is no wonder that the Church is in danger.

What now? I do not know. The implications of this action have kept me awake for four nights. How many more of our churches will fall to ruin upon the altar of political manipulation? Let us save money but continue to loose souls.

Gracious God, who brings dry bones to life. Let us live again, give us hearts filled with courage to speak for those who are silenced and hands to work for those whose hands are tied. In the name of the author of resurrection, Jesus, I pray. Amen

Marty

2006-11-12T08:22:00.000-05:00

Real; Relevant & Revolutionary

To keep young adults in our churches we must find a way to connect where they live. What they seek is not much different from what their parents sought twenty or so years ago, but of course that was when we were “anti-establishment” rather than being the establishment. It is time to find ways to be real; relevant and revolutionary and to foster those tendencies in our young adults rather than fighting against them.

This generation knows that the Christian faith is not about “happily ever after.” They are the products of single parent homes, gangs, drugs and STDs. They realize that just because you bend an knee at an altar and commit to Christ doesn’t mean that when you get up your life won’t be just as difficult. They understand what it is to be “real.” To be real is to be completely authentic and to tell the hard truth. They are the product of about 3,000 commercial messages every day and don’t appreciate infomercial Christianity.

How does this translate to the church? First, no false promises. Don’t promise their lives will magically come together or that they won’t have existential struggle once they let God in. Rather, help them understand that our power is in the power of the shared community, the mystery of the sacrament and the foundation of a faith system that will endure even when our lives are unendurable. Help them realize that this is a battle not a theme park and that it will be a struggle. Let them know that faith is a daily decision and not a mushy feeling you get at camp, that way when they go home they are ready for the fight.

Secondly, look around. This is not the world of the past, it is the world of now. Wil Wilimon once said when he teaching at Duke Divinity School that if the fifties ever come back the United Methodist Church will be ready. Amazingly (at least to me) being relevant is not about having electric guitars and fancy graphics as much as it about helping them connect the unchanging Gospel to an ever-changing world. They are saturated by the culture and only get a sprinkle of the Truth. We have to give them real tools to help them cope rather than generic platitudes and churchy clichés that fall apart when assaulted by their real lives.

Being revolutionary is even more of a struggle than being real and relevant. It is against our nature to embrace revolution. The status quo is where we have learned to live; allowing a complete turnover of all that makes us comfortable is hard to embrace. If we have done our jobs and been good mentors, allowing them to test their leadership skills and grow in their faith, we should feel fine with giving over the reigns of leadership to them. Let them create, develop and lead. Provide areas where they can stretch their revolutionary muscles. Let them fail. That’s right, helicopter parents and hovering pastors, let them fall flat on their face and flop. There is no better way to learn than to fail, as long as failure is done in a loving community that will pick you up and give you another chance.

Lastly, embrace the revolution. Support it and make way for it. Certainly, serve the congregation that is but make way for the community that is coming next. Were it not for the life-lengthening work of modern medicine most mainline churches would already have given the reigns of leadership over to this generation or have ceased to exist. Just because we are living longer does not, necessarily mean we deserve to strangle the church and mold it to our preferences. Remember, its not about you…it’s about the Gospel.

Gracious God, who created out of chaos, grant that we can embrace the chaos of revolutionary creation once again and let your Holy Spirit lead our church back to life. You who lived in a real world, allow us to be real, You who caused a revolution, let us embrace the revolution that you are bringing again. In the name of the real revolutionary, Jesus, I pray. Amen

Marty

2006-11-08T10:35:00.000-05:00

Pile it High!

Consumerism has become the plague of our culture. We want more and more for less and less. We want it fast, instantaneous if possible. Somehow we believe that if we have more “stuff” then we will be happier. We have supersized our lives. When we run out of room for our junk in the house we fill up our garage. When that’s full be rent a storage space down the street and fill that up. Soon we can’t find anything because of the everything that we have in the way. I’m not sure we were designed to accumulate.

I understand the primitive nature of those who, due to some trauma or significant loss in their past, have a reluctance to throw anything away. These are the people who save every newspaper, magazine and grocery bag. However, many of us grew up with plenty. We never really worried that we would have dinner on the table or clothes to wear; yet still we are filling our closets to the max. We tend to accumulate for a few reasons. First, we are told we need it. We think it will make us feel better. We have culturally infused competitive natures and we find our security in what we have rather than who we are.

The average person sees more than 3,000 advertisements per year. We are inundated with the media telling us what we need. There are banner ads on our email, commercials on television, direct mail and now, the bane of my existence, cell phone telemarketing. Each ad is designed to tell us that the product or service they are providing is just what we need to fill that last remaining gap in our lives. There are choppers to smash stuff and super glues to put it all back together. There are toys that entertain and cases for those toys to keep them safe and make them even more stylish.

Not only do we need it but also if we have it we will feel better. There is a sensation that is commonly known as “buyer’s rush” which is that surge of adrenalin that you get when you make a purchase. There are even those folks who so crave to that feeling that they addicted to shopping. That feeling is fleeting, however, and is only fueled by another purchase. Before long you are watching infomercials and trying to find what will make you feel better if you purchase it next.

Competition also fuels our consumerism. We want to keep up with the Jones. Make sure that we also have the newest SUV and the biggest, flat screen television. Since we were children we have had the philosophy that “my dad is bigger than your dad.” That has grown into “my SUV is cooler than your SUV.”

Stuff also makes us feel secure. We like to be surrounded by “our stuff.” We begin this with our teddy bear or blanket as a small child. Every parent has stories about forgetting a prized stuffed animal and driving back an hour to get it fearing that their child would never get to sleep if they didn’t have it at bedtime. As we grow, we accumulate more security stuff. Before long we have closets filled with memorabilia. We fear that if we get rid of that ceramic doll painted by great aunt Sue or the journals from middle school, a part of our “selves” will be lost.

Jesus told the disciples to go and serve with only the clothes on their back. How often has my stuff held be back from doing everything God has called me to do? Have my physical possessions tied me to the past rather than freeing me to live out my call to the future.

Gracious God, who is the giver of all good gifts. Forgive me for worshipping stuff rather than You. Grant me the ability to clean out my closets and clean out my heart. In the name of the one who gives us the gift of freedom, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2006-11-01T20:06:00.000-05:00

People Don’t Pay for Average

Each year I attend a conference that provides me with tons of material to reflect upon. Ever since I first attended, seven years ago, I have tried to boil down my key learning point for each day into one, powerful moment when I got what I needed to learn most. This year it was the central truth that “people don’t pay for average.” My friend, Tim Elmore said it to me first on Thursday morning and then I heard it again at least three more times that day.

People pay for excellence. That’s why we pay 25% more for a Toyota of the same size than we do a Kia…we trust Toyota. Everywhere boutique specialty shops are springing up, leaving the big box stores to fill their stores with average, to sell the exquisite. Their shelves are filled finest cheeses and wines and imported, organic vegetables. Somewhere along the line we have grown sick of average. Our lives are filled with average but we crave something more. Something better.

Then we go to church where average is rewarded as excellence. So often the church, as a whole, has often settled for average. We have failed to give our very best, holding that back for our personal or professional endeavors. The church has spent the last few decades doing the bare minimum to survive, mortgaging our tomorrows by making shortcuts today. We have let our facilities decay by delaying maintenance; we have cut our staff to the bone and forsaken missional commitments for short-term survival. The more average we become the more our resources dry up. People don’t pay for average.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s how we know what’s working and what is a desperate attempt to cling to the past. I’m not saying that every church that is growing is excellent, or even Christian, but I am saying that it is time for Christ-followers to be willing to give their very best in pursuit of what God wants to do with their life. To step back and ruthlessly evaluate what is the best we have and offer that as a thanksgiving offering to God. We must stop living our faith life on leftovers and live it in radical discipleship.

Gracious God, help me to give you my first and my best and to not just give you the leftovers of my life. You who gave us Your best grant me the strength to do likewise. In the name of the divine gift, Jesus, Amen.

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

2006-06-26T12:09:00.000-04:00

Why we are loosing ground with young adults...

I have the amazing privilege of working with spiritual sensitive and passionate young adults from across the southeast every summer. I am also charged with understanding why the Church, and The United Methodist Church in particular, is loosing ground with young adults. Why are they leaving our churches to attend college or enter the job force and never returning? What is it about the mainline church that seems to be alienating young adults who seem to be committed to Christ but never darkenour doors after they turn eighteen. After dozens of conversations during the past year and some in-depth input from the young adults with whom I work closely seem to be some common strands that run through their choice to leave the Church, or at least our version of it. Their reasons include: passionless worship; incongruity in spoken and lived values; greater focus on political agenda than spiritual formation; lack of a clear, unified vision; extreme criticism of things of little importance and finally tokenism regarding their presence. These perceptions that they carry, true or not, determine their actions.

Mainline churches seem to have worship based in the head and not the heart. The perception of passionless worship came up again and again in conversation. The music is mundane and mediocre, the pastor reads a sermon without inflection or conviction and the people fail to respond to either what is sung or what is preached. This is not to say that young adults do not care for traditional worship or liturgy. They just will not tolerate watered down, unexplained ritual and liturgy or poor quality, half-hearted worship. There is actually a resurgence in higher forms of liturgy among young adults, but the churches that they flock to for this type of experience do it very well and make it very clear why they do what they do. There is not the feeling of just going through another set of motions, another set of creeds and movements without understanding. This generation desires to experience God in wholly different ways than did their parents. They want passion in their worship. As long as they perceive our worship as passionless, they will be unlikely to return.

Secondly, the obvious incongruity of spoken values and lived values plagues them. They see this type of behavior in their culture and it sickens them. To see a Greenpeace bumper sticker on a Suburban bothers this generation of revolutionaries. Since their birth they have been told that they can change the world, and they intend to do it. Why do they perceive this lack of incongruity? First of all, within The United Methodist Church, we created a new division, the Ministries with Young People division, but did not adequately fund the division to allow it to do all that is required of it. Our denominational agencies affirm Fair Trade practices but fail to follow them at their conference retreat centers, preferring lower price to the welfare of small, struggling farmers. The rhetoric about wanting young adults in our churches and ministries while slashing funding for college ministers, Wesley foundations and campus ministry offends their sensibilities. Many of our Methodist “related colleges” do not even employ a chaplain and have removed all spiritual focus and demands from their curriculum and academics. Some have even removed the name Methodist or Wesleyan from their names to make them “more approachable.” Is there any wonder that there is a correlation between the percentage of funds going into campus ministry and the failure of young adults to return to United Methodist Churches? Or the fact that more conservative movements are experiencing growth proportional to their investment?

Another factor that plagues The United Methodist Church’s ability to reach young adults is the constant political in-fighting. As the 2008 General Conference approaches the denomination will once again be defined by its political agenda and not its commitment to make disciples for Jesus Christ. Year after year annual conferences fight over the same political issues while their membership continues to decline. Even in growing annual conferences they are failing to keep pace with population expansion. The Church’s persistent nature to make mountains out of molehills seems ridiculous to this highly practical and pragmatic generation. This is complicated when it becomes apparent that even our clergy do not have a clear understanding of our theology. Whatever happened to Wesley’s mandate to be clear in our focus and to follow his statement: “In essentials unity; in all else charity.”

Much of this confusion stems from a lack of clear, unified vision. Without grassroots understanding of the Church’s purpose and its vision for the future, it is difficult to reach young adults who desire clarity in a world filled with uncertainty. The abandonment of our heritage’s commitment to balancing social justice with evangelism leaves us without the needed bifocal emphasis that would be most appealing to young adults. They want to change their world and they realize the necessity of beginning at the local level. We must find a way to clarify our vision and renew our commitment to making disciples and changing our world.

Criticism of things of little consequence also drives young adults from our doors. Churches that balk at having a young person with blue hair or a pierced nose as part of their congregation are essentially assuring their absence. This is a generation of individuals seeking community. They are striving desperately to identify who they are and where they fit into a loving community. If that accepting, loving community is not found in the local church they will find it elsewhere. Does it really matter how many piercings or tattoos they have?

Finally, the Church’s token attempts at placating is actually alienating and not attracting young adults. Implentation of miserable “90’s style” praise services designed “for” them and not “with” them. A complete disregard for their input in the mission and vision of the local church and hypocritical statements about their importance and then complete disregard for their input. This is a generation of “doers” and not “watchers.” They do not want to send money to missions as much as they want to go be part of a missionary endeavor. They desire to put their hands where their heart is.

There is hope, however. The young adult movements that are growing have some powerful similarities. First of all they are sharply focused on spiritual formation. These movements worship with complete abandon in services filled with symbolism and depth. They realize that this is a culture of micronarratives and Myspace© accounts desiring to tell their own story and how God intersects them where they live and listen to them. They put young adults in positions of influence and responsibility and they empower them to live and lead boldly into the future. These movements have a clear understanding of their purpose and vision and are guided by them. Lastly, movements that are growing have the bifocal focus of local mission and a global vision to change the world.

Panic is setting in as The United Methodist Church continues to grey and its young adults continue to stray. Conferences are seeing their membership drop by hundreds, sometimes thousands, per year. We are loosing our connection with the next generation of church leaders allowing them to either leave the Church or migrate to other places of worship. There are several steps that will have a dramatic impact.

First of all there is the need for the Church to validate youth and young adult ministry as a primary calling especially for the best and brightest of up and coming United Methodist clergy. For years the Church has made college chaplains and campus ministers feel like they were not doing “real” ministry because they were in an extension connection. Since they were not in revenue generating ministry positions, their ministry was not considered valid. Most have stories about fellow clergy asking them when they are going to return to “real ministry” in the local church. These women and men are on the front line of ministry but often feel as though they have little connection with the Church that needs for them to be there.

Secondly, we must seal the hand-off gap between church youth groups and college ministry. Pastors need to make actual contact with the campus ministers where they are sending their youth. More than just completing a form, these interactions need to include introductions, information and contact details. Then, the campus minister needs to take pastoral responsibility for these new members of their “flock.” The lines of communication between the local church and their college students must reinforce the importance of spiritual connectivity.
The Church must reinvest in campus ministry. This may mean capital improvements to outdated facilities that have deferred maintenance due to fund shortfalls. Salaries for campus ministry must be comparable enough to be attractive to the best and brightest.

Additionally it is time to call our colleges back into the connection to claim their spiritual heritage. These institutions were founded with for the purpose of combining academic study and spiritual formation. It is time to encourage them to either take this charge seriously or for them to break their ties with the Church.

Lastly, the Church must empower entrepreneurial ministry including the intentional planting of emerging churches. Churches must be planted, in missional ways that are designed to reach young adults with the understanding that these will be mission churches rather than revenue sources for the annual conference. They will require greater investment that typical church plants and returns will need to be measured in life-change rather than in offering plate receipts.
It is not too late for those of us in the mainline trying to reach youth and young adults. The key is to redouble our efforts and refocus our mission toward being prophetic and effective in our intentional ministry toward them. We must stop with token attempts and make the next generation a mission effort. The United States is the second largest mission field on earth. It is time we become missionaries and stop loosing ground!

2006-06-04T08:57:00.000-04:00

10 Things I’ve Learned from Staff Training

Validity: I’m convinced now more than ever that team building and value understanding is more important than task training. Understanding the inner why helps with the outer performance.
Intensity: Training must be intense. The intensity helps break through resistance and helps the staff move beyond superficial into real depth.
Pace: I still have some work to do here. Next year’s schedule will reflect my learning about the pace. The campfire needs to be the last big session of self-revelation. The fun time at Fun Depot was an excellent counter-balance to the heavy stuff we’d been doing. Lastly, a plan for a couple of check-in sessions will also prove helpful.
Questions: Life and ministry have no easy answers, only questions. I am glad Maria brought that to a head making them think by never answering a question. By struggling early they will be better equipped to work with youth who have questions as well without easy answers given by “bobble-head” Jesus types. Live in the questions.
Tension: good training made the inter-personal tension much more positive than last year. There will always be tension, spiritual tension, inter-personal tension, theological tension, etc. The key is to be able to live in that tension and let it strengthen you, not consume you.
Focused Fun: Danelle did a great job helping them have fun but learn something at the same time. Often they had to dig out what they were learning because at first glance the activity was so fun, they didn’t realize how much they were learning. How often do we treat rubber chickens more importantly than glass balls?
Direction: Nilse did a great job helping the teams have direction. She is the list master, after all. This provides meaning and understanding to the overwhelming tasks at hand. She is definately a "navigator" in her leadership style.
Variety: Having a variety of trainers allowed everyone to do what they do best and connected with the staff in completely different ways. Having a variety of activities allows for creativity of expression and balance between physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional.
Values & Goals: Revelation came for a lot of the staff when they had to actually start defining what they valued. For some it was the first time they sought to understand their “why” and not just their “what.” Goals as tangible and measurable objectives means being accountable to yourself and others for what you are striving to accomplish and become. I think that this section is where the staff realized that this isn’t just another job, it is a ministry.
Learning from the Learners: Here is where I personally grew the most, learning from those who were being taught. Seeing what connected, what caused struggle and hearing great ideas. Jessica completely re-focused the Cross Walk on Thursday night and it was far better than I had originally designed. There were several times when we (the trainers) had to re-work our plans to make sure we were helping the staff on their journey. I’m sure I’ve learned as much or more than any of the staff.

What I’m keeping…

Here are the things I know I’ll keep for next year and beyond:

Values and Goal Setting
Staff Manual and Ministry Values
Habitudes
Nooma Videos
Danelle’s workshops (hopefully Danelle will continue to be willing to volunteer to help!)
Theological teaching times
Cross Walk (though it will be last thing)
Rafting
REAL workshops
Collages
S’mores & campfire
What else? Email me and let me know!

What I may change….

Here are the things I’m considering changing:

Pace
Location (my allergies were really affected by Colonial though I liked the space)
Schedule (better balance of reflection and tasks, maybe afternoons off instead of evenings?)
Environment design (a way to get people to move around to get to know each other better)
More staff contact prior to training
What else? Email me and let me know!

Praise God for a great staff. I look forward to a summer that is:

Lost in Grace,
Marty

2006-05-30T20:41:00.000-04:00

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Richard Ramsey was a precise man. This seems to be the year I loose the few men who have known me more than half my life that are not blood-related to me. Richard, aka Dick, taught me a lot about life. He was a man who modeled stability and discipline to a fault. I have never known anyone, before or since, who was so organized, structured and focused. A lifetime IBM-er, he modeled the phrase, measure twice, cut once.

I think the first time I heard that phrase from him was a cool autumn Saturday when we were building what would become the garage on his retirement lot near the intercoastal waterway outside of Bath, NC. The wind was brisk, and so cool it felt as though my face was being stretched across my cheekbones. I was helping, as best as an inexperienced carpenter can, him frame the structure. I noticed that he measured ever cut from at least two directions. He either measured top to bottom and then bottom to top, or left and right then reversed. I asked why and he said, “measure twice, cut once.” What does that mean? It means to weigh your actions because every action has a consequence. In this case he was determined to waste as little as possible during the construction process because he was on a tight budget. As a matter of fact, so little was wasted that I was amazed.

This is not the way they build houses (or garages) today. They build in a certain amount of “waste” counting on speed to make up for it. The philosophy is that faster is better, that 87 degrees is close enough to 90 that it won’t really matter and that somebody else down the line can make up for your sloppy work. I’m not sure Dick knew how Biblical the principal he taught me that day was. The Scripture tells us that we are to do our work as if it were for God and not just our earthly bosses. That we must live into a calling, not just scrape out a living. Our work is our testimony.

I am really trying to embrace this concept in my life. To measure each decision I make whether personally or professionally much more carefully than ever before. The loss of these two men really makes me aware of how fleeting life is and that every decision matters. I love Richard Ramsey as though he were my own father. His focus and determination was a model that I only hope I can follow in some small way as I try to “measure twice and cut once.” Until then, thank God I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley, Pastor

Gracious God who calls us into account for our lives, grant that I may follow you completely, weighing every decision with prayer and discernment and living a life that reflects my love for You and respect for those who have mentored me to follow in your path. In the name of Jesus I pray, AMEN.

2006-05-04T21:00:00.000-04:00

Real Influence

Last Saturday I did a funeral for my best friend’s father. I did the funeral in the same chapel and the graveside standing beside the grave where my best friend is buried. I did that funeral twelve years ago. On Saturday it seem like I did it yesterday. These funerals were more like family events than friends. I spent a significant part of my childhood playing in their yard, eating at their dinner table and playing games on their den floor. As the child of a single parent in the seventies I was an anomaly. The Evans family essentially adopted me into their lives as a surrogate son. Mr. Evans has definitely taught me life lessons I carry with me to this day.

Thomas Earl Evans is probably not a man that you know. He never wrote a book or climbed a mountain. He was the son of farmer who moved to Raleigh from Louisburg to marry his childhood sweetheart, Janet. They eventually scraped together enough money to buy a small starter home in an unassuming neighborhood filled with blue collar families, children up and down the block and several retirees. He went to church every Sunday, served in the National Guard for more than twenty years, worked hard all of his life and loved his family with every ounce of his being. He was a good man in an age where good men are rare things.

Mr. Evans (I just can’t call him Tom, even though he tried to insist that I should) taught me three life lessons that have molded who I am today. He taught me about how life brings sacrifice. He helped me understand the true meaning of success. He taught me about the importance of accepting a Savior in my life to help me navigate the tough waters of adulthood. Mr. Evans was a mentor with far more influence than I am sure he ever imagined.

Sacrifice is not a popular word. It was, however, a way of life. Mr. Evans worked hard, very hard, often double shifts, so that his wife could stay home and raise their two children. This was a mutual decision. A decision that they made early in their marriage. He drove older vehicles, pinched pennies and made things last to provide stability for his family.

Sacrifice, according to Tom Evans, is what brings success. Now if you measured success with bank accounts, annuities and possessions, then he may not measure up. He taught me long ago that this was not how you measure success. You measure success by the laughter of your children, the number of friends that you have and the depth of your faith. Success is more about inner contentment than outer possessions. Success is living a life without regret.

Lastly, Tom Evans taught me about the Savior. He used to take me to church with his family every Sunday morning and back again for youth group on Sunday nights. He lived out his faith daily. He taught me the value of praying before every meal as a spiritual discipline, no matter where you are. There was something about him that let you know that he was connected to God and wanted you to be connected too.

These are lessons I have learned from a good man. A man who lived with integrity and intensity. A man that if somebody told me I was like, I would take it as a compliment. I do not believe I will ever be able to fill his shoes but it is certainly a goal to strive toward. Thank God for people in our lives that mold us without ever knowing that they have real influence. I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley, Pastor

Gracious God, who loves us deeply and puts people in our lives to point us in the right direction, help us to embrace these mentors, to learn from their lives and to live for You with every ounce of our being. In the name of our Shepherd, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2006-04-25T20:22:00.000-04:00

The Dumbing Down of the Church

I never thought I’d agree with Marva Dawn when I first read her diatribe against so-called “contemporary worship.” In her text, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down she sharply critiques the move toward the simplification of liturgy and the modernization of worship services. At the time I read the book I was embroiled in worship wars with a church that practiced inbred liturgy and had a very cliquish attitude about worship. Any attempt to make the liturgy or worship service warmer and more welcoming to those outside of the faith was seen as an abandonment of tradition. Unfortunately we have now, in a desperate attempt to be “relevant” and make up for staggering membership losses, have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Now churches, striving to connect with people long neglected, are practicing Wal-Mart liturgy, sacrificing the power of mystery for acceptability and following a discount Jesus. Essentially they are abandoning depth because there is the belief that if it is deep it must be offensive to the non-churched ears. Quite the contrary is true. Our world craves depth, they are searching for meaning. If the Church does not provide it they will search for it elsewhere.

During a recent Palm Sunday service there were no Palms. Holy Week is historically practiced to allow the Church to experience the days from the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem through the Last Supper, facing crucifixion on Friday and glorious resurrection on Easter morning. I went with friends and family to the Palm Sunday service expecting palms and celebration and singing. The proclamation of the Messiah was to be proclaimed. I arrived on the scene knowing it would be a celebration that contained crucifixion tension to be experienced on Good Friday. There were no palms. Instead there was a vague message about nailing our difficulties to the cross (a practice usually reserved for Good Friday). There was no liturgy, no Psalm of praise or Old Testament prophesy being fulfilled in our hearing. There was just a Wal-Mart liturgy, barely a liturgy at all.

The abandonment of deep liturgy is a cheapening of the power of mystery that surrounds and is embodied by resurrection. We are a people of mystery. We practice the mysterious presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We live out the mysterious presence of God constantly with us and in us through our salvation and living out our baptism. Let us not abandon that which proclaims God’s mystery. Let us, instead, embrace it anew!

Not only do we practice Wal-Mart liturgy, we follow a discount Jesus. Jesus, creator of heaven and earth, true God of True God, light from light is now a self-help method. There are four steps to a better marriage, three ways to love your kids, how about one way to a True God? Jesus calls us to bear a cross, not become the owner of a Land Rover. Ours is a faith of sacrifice and delayed reward. Christ came to give us real life, not the easy life! “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.” That is not a discount Jesus, that is a Savior!

Lastly, we crave depth. I know I sound like a broken record but look at the movies, listen to the music of our culture. There is an undercurrent that is rising that is seeking something deeper the Wal-Mart liturgies and a discount Jesus. They know that life cannot be understood in ten easy steps. They realize that there are things we will never know and that our soul craves mystery. The abandonment of depth does not have to occur when we design worship to connect with those outside of the faith, it just has to be explained. The disciples asked Jesus, “teach us how to pray.” Why, because they wanted a pattern? No, because they wanted the passionate, deep, abiding prayer life of their rabbi. The church’s charge is not to be user friendly, simplified and easy to swallow. It is to be a real, authentic body of Christ that teaches people how to get connected to God and live in a world gone mad. Let us be the people who burn so brightly that the world comes seeking light and warmth from the depth of our faith.

Gracious God, who calls us to follow you, to count the cost and to abandon ourselves that we might have real life, make us a people, make me a person, who is willing to live deeply and faithfully in a land of Wal-Mart liturgies and discount Jesuses. In the name of the One who made the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus my Messiah I pray. Amen

2006-04-05T07:25:00.000-04:00

Here is an outline I've worked on for a workbook for local churches, especially small, struggling churches, to help them become more effective and to experience renewal. If you think this is a project worth me pursing further, leave me a comment! I am committed to finding a way to help local churches, laity and pastors reach their communities. What do you think? I remain:

Lost in Grace,
Marty

CPR For the Church

Introduction

CHURCHES: Been There, Done That!

Construction of No Hope UMC as a teaching model

1. A compilation of several of the churches I have served highlighting some

common personalities and problems. The names have been changed

to protect the pastor!

PREPARE for

Prepare for tomorrow

Realize the potential

Embrace past success

Paint the picture:

Assess assets and ministries

Resource responsibly

Encourage constantly and consistently

I. Prepare: Quit Dozing, You Ain't Closing:

Step One, harnessing the tenacious spirit of survival within small churches.

A. Making the determination to survive. This year a UMC will close every 7 days. (get stat.)

People say they prefer small churches, You are wanted!

1. Overcoming objections [no money, opportunity, community growth, etc.]

2. Teaching "as if" thinking.

3. You have to believe it before you see it!

B. What do most small congregations have that they are intensely proud of? History!

1. Building on your positives.

1. Have a "Time Line Dinner" to hear and see the church's history.

2. Mine the older members for "glory days" stories.

C. Small churches tend to be survivors! Harness that instinct for forward movement.

D. How it worked at NO HOPE!

II. Realize the need--Re-Fired Instead of Re-tired!:

1 Step Two--Pray, Stay & Play: Renewing the relational flame.

A. Decide to Pray

1. Prayer Partner Resources

2. Never too old to pray!

3. Photo Ring of Prayer

B. Decide to Stay

C. Decide to Play

D. NO HOPE become LITTLE HOPE!

III. Embrace past successes--

Step Three--Standing on the Promises!

A. You've been through the fire [or flood, or tornado, or Depression, etc] with God's

help, and you can get through this.

IV. Paint the Picture--

Step Four--Vision: You have to see it to be it!

A. Vision Bearing

1. Preaching on hope and faithfulness--God is still a God who rescues.

2. Favorite texts: Moses at the Red Sea/Nehemiah Preparing to build the Wall/

Elijah at Mt. Carmel/ II Cor. Paul--determined/Joshua "me and my house"/

Sarah "is anything to difficult for God/ Hebrew 11--Hall of Fame of Faith/

Daniel--Shadrack, etc. or Lion's Den.

B. Vision Sharing

1. One with many

2. One with some

3. One with one

LITTLE HOPE become SOME HOPE

V. Assess Objectively-- Stepping Up to Reaching Out: Harness the Power of Big Days

A. Look Around--check out the spiritual temperature

B. Look Inside--check out the space

C. Look Outside--check out the "visitor appeal"

D. Look Beside--check out the smile quotient

VI. Resource Responsibly--There is Power in Those Pews: Plug those folks in!

A. Find out what they want to do, then let them do it.

B. Listen for the clues! "why I remember when we used to..."

C. Don't Be Invisible:

If I told you that you could double, probably even triple you average attendance for one service would you at least give it a try?

D. Carr's attendance after homecoming from 15 to 20.

1. H-coming attendance at 98, lost 78, no gained 5!

2. Perspective matters--keep the hope alive!

E. People say they prefer small churches and will come back for special days, USE THEM!

Easter Prayer Book Marks doubled worship attendance over previous Easter

Friend Day and Dinner--If you feed them, they'll come.

VII. Encourage Continuously: Live, Give, and Grow: Sharing your overcoming faith with your underachieving small church.

A. Live it: Walking and Talking faith, friendliness, and faithfulness.

1. Integrity is everything.

B. Give it: Giving away faith, friendliness, and faithfulness by example.

C. Grow it:

Plant it with love: they don't care how much you know till they know how

much you care!

Water it with encouragement: 1:1:1 Rule if <>

Shine on it with praise!

SOME HOPE becomes HOPEFUL UMC!

VIII. RENEWAL

Recommit to

Empower

Nurture

Evangelize with a

World focus

And

Local mission

IX. Closing the Door on Closing the Door

Afterward

Write and tell your small church story. I love to hear about churches that move from despair to desire with God's help! Who knows, you story could be in my next book! I hope so!

2006-04-03T11:02:00.000-04:00

No Organizations

It occurs to me that one of the reasons that mainline denominations are in significant decline is that they are intrinsically “NO organizations.” They are not designed to be permission giving but, rather, to be permission denying. Rather than embracing a “whatever it takes” philosophy of ministry, the “never done it that way” mentality is prevalent. A friend of mine likes to say that often the most obvious solution to a problem escapes us because it is too easy and too obvious to be considered. NO organizations can’t see these answers for three basic truths prevail in their operational mindset: 1) NO organizations are reactive; 2) NO organizations use obstacles as excuses for their failure; and 3) NO organizations discourage creativity. It is time to break the cycle if we as a denomination are going to move beyond our NO organization mindset!

NO organizations are reactive not proactive. They wait for something to happen so that they can criticize it thoroughly and respond with knee jerk policy statements and self-righteous pronouncements. Reactivity is a dangerous state of existence because it means you live in constant stress. Those who are acting are always waiting on criticism and weighing their decisions on their willingness and ability to stand further assaults, often of a personal nature. For those in authority, being reactive means they spend far too much time looking for problems rather than finding solutions. Problem identification is not a spiritual gift! Any fool can find a problem; it takes a leader to find a solution.

NO organizations use obstacles as excuses rather than conquer them. They see every problem as a reason to justify their struggles not realizing they their worst enemy may, indeed, be themselves. My favorite pastor once said “problems are simply opportunities for God to bless.” NO organizations are managed by the philosophy of the path of least resistance. That path usually in characterized by mediocrity and “good enough.” There is no reward for going above and beyond the call of duty or striving for excellence. When some one tries to rise and attempt conquer problems constructively they are criticized for not following procedures or used for target practice since their heads are above the crowd. NO organizations are always looking for a target rather than team member. Any fool can criticize; it takes a leader to find a solution!

NO organizations discourage creativity. They are bound by paradigms that reward stagnation. Turf wars and entrenched methodologies discourage creative thinking. More time is spent avoiding interpersonal difficulties than actually finding solutions. The obvious solutions are ignored because they would require a change in behaviors and an embracing of new levels of creativity. Any fool can discourage; it takes a leader to creatively find solutions.

So the real key seems to be leaders who are proactive, desire to conquer obstacles and embrace creativity. How do we raise up a generation of these leaders? How do we release them to create YES organizations? God help us to live and lead boldly. I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley, Pastor

“You can do no great things, just small things with great love.” Mother Theresa

God who continues to say YES to me despite my failures and struggles, grant me the ability to say YES despite being surrounded by NOs. In the name of the divine YES, Jesus, I pray, AMEN.

2006-03-19T17:35:00.000-05:00

Postmodern Cathedral

Today I journeyed to a postmodern cathedral, Southpoint Mall (streetsatsoutpoint.com). Southpoint Mall is designed to have the look and feel of community with the purpose of allowing young adults to part with large quantities of money. There is both an inside and outdoor portion of the mall but the inside is deigned to look and feel like it outside. It has green spaces, high glass ceilings and event above the stores are shells to make it seem like the store is located on a busy street rather than inside a giant retail shop. Southpoint is trying to mimic the small town shop feel while housing big-dollar retailers like The Gap and Pottery Barn.

The sound of splashing water and the constant feel of a breeze caresses your face as you walk through the inside of the mall. On the outside a vendor sales fresh roasted nuts and flavored ice shavings on the Streets of Southpoint while a young man juggles for tips. The restaurants in the vicinity fill the air with the scent of expensive food being prepared from around the globe and across the street. It seems like everyone is here, from the young adult with a dozen piercings, slashed jeans and black eye liner to the soccer mom with toddlers in tow. At Barnes and Nobles grandmother is buying childrenÂs books with a curly headed little girl while a few feet away a man is talking on his Blue Tooth enabled cell phone while pounding the keys of his laptop feverishly. In the Metropolitan young adults browse expensive home accessories as well as funky and risque' gifts including decks of cards with different sexual positions for every day of the year. Everybody is looking for something, but I don't really think they are going to find it here, no matter how good the ambiancence is. This is, however, the church of the culture.

All of the elements of worship are present. There is music to set the mood piped in with hidden speakers so that your spirit is lifted with upbeat popular tunes and old familiar songs. The offering is collected with the ring of every cash register. There is a ritual of standing and sitting as hosts usher people to their table to break bread. The sacrament of Marble Slab ice cream welcome the worshippers. The preacher for the day, with messages of hope or despair, is shown on the sixteen screens of the movie theatre with Dolby sound and amazing graphic effects. The benediction of each service ends with the words of the friendly merchants saying, "Thanks! Have a good night."

How can today's church stand against this retail community of our culture? Leslie Newbegin, in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society shares how we can speak to this society of spenders whose worship is purchase, entertainment and consumption. We must construct a community that stands over and against the culture by including Newbegin's six characteristics:

Community of praise: we must be a people who give up on being proper we have to be people of radical praise. Praise which looks up in admiration and love to God in radical self-giving as well as praise that is filled with thanks! This community will praise and not practice the illusion of praise that fills the stores to encourage more purchase.
Community of truth: authenticity is essential to break past the illusion of truth that is prevalent in our society.
Community that cares for its neighborhood: all ministry is indigenous! While retailers are trying to create the illusion of concern with their greetings and salutations, the body of Christ needs to really care for those in need around them. Those who worship with them and live near them.
Community of priests: everyone is a spiritual leader. While the church may still have pastors, everyone will see themselves as a spiritual being able to convey and share the message of the cross and hope eternal.
Community of mutual responsibility: the illusion of real community is everywhere. That is why the mall is trying to look like a small town. The body of Christ must be real community that lives and breathes as a community. We must care for our sisters and brothers.
Community of hope: most importantly the illusion of self-help has to be replaced real hope that comes from God. Hope that permeates our culture of doubt and that stands in stark contrast to the bleak headlines that fill our omnipresent screens. (Newbegin, 163-170)

As I wandered across the paved, brick walkways I was keenly aware that I had failed in my attempt to reach this community. A couple of years ago I attempted to start a worshipping community that gathered in the theatre right in the middle of this postmodern cathedral. Though we gathered nearly one hundred souls the community did not reach viability before my time and my funding ran out. My burden for this generation is even more acute now that it was then. Can we reach them or must we just give them over to worship with retail liturgies and entertainment sacraments? God help us if we do not commit ourselves to reach this generation no matter what the cost. Thanks be to God that they, like I, remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-03-15T12:49:00.000-05:00

Theology of Koontz

Perhaps I’ve been reading far too much literature on postmodern theology and thought by the likes of Stan Grenz and Brian McLaren with complimentary reading by Leslie Newbegin but what has been tickling my brain lately is the theology of Dean Koontz. I learned years ago that cultures’ beliefs are far more prevalent in their fictional/mythological literature than in their text books. Indeed, text books lag behind the theology, thoughts and beliefs of the people by as much as a decade. You have but to read the texts burning up the book club circuit to see what people really believe and embrace.

Koontz turns out novel after novel, astounding to people like me who can barely conscieve and construct a cohesive short story. Across the board there is a mystical, metaphysical theology that permeates his texts. His books seem to embrace three components with regularity. First, there is an unlikely hero with a sixth sense or unusual gift. Secondly, there is an amazing prevalence of evil whose presence is made palatable by Koontz’s descriptive narrative. Lastly there is the necessity for the hero, to prevail, to be willing to be completely self-giving to overcome unimaginable circumstances.

From the redeemed Frankenstein monster to the child who intentionally shifts from one reality to another to avoid raindrops to the quirky frycook who sees dead people, Koontz’s heroes posses something beyond the norm. They often seem normal or only mildly odd to the casual observer, but there is a secret that haunts their existence. There is an aura of unfulfilled destiny that haunts their waking dreams.

The heroes also have the essence of a divine spark that the narrative often indicates lies dormant in most of us. The allusion to the “imageo dei” seems to resonate for him as he writes. Many of the supporting characters also seem to carry the spark of God but it is not as fully embraced as the hero of his works.

Regarding evil, it seems to ooze around the narrative like dense smoke. The closer to resolution that the characters get the more dense the fog of futility and evil becomes. In Odd Thomas it even takes the form of nearly opaque shadows that attempt to impede the hero from fulfilling his destiny. This evil seems to indicate an other worldly essence that is striving against the divine spark within the hero. The real power of Koontz’s description of evil is that it is disturbingly familiar.

Lastly, to sieze their divine destiny a willingness to be absolutely self-giving is demanded. They must be willing to give themselves away to achieve a greater good. The good that is achieved only comes after demanding struggle that always has a price. There is a presence of loss that makes the narratives seem real rather than the “happily ever after” works that lack the connection with life that makes them believable.

Koontz’s work depicts postmodern theology and values. He dismisses science as the sole source of knowledge and embraces the mystery that surrounds us. He calls into question all “realities” and leads us down the amazingly believable path of alternate existence. Embracing forms of “trans-realities” seems completely acceptable when you read Koontz. Lastly, he often has his characters look back with a fond critique of back when life was easier because everything was “knowable.”

The theology that seems to seep from these texts is a theology that embraces mystery. There is more that can be seen or known but that must be embraced to fulfill your God-shaped destiny. There are pressing, unanswered questions of God. There is the realization that there is something beyond this trifling existence. There is a desire to bridge the gap between experience and intellect. Lastly, there is an intense seeking to understand the unknowable.

To the sacramentalist in me this sounds amazing like Eucharist. May this body be broken and blood spilt to redeem a people who know that there is more than can be known. I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

PS: visit www.deankoontz.com to see samples of his work.

2006-03-13T08:24:00.000-05:00

Self-Giving

In following the line of thought from the previous blog I came across the following quote in my devotional reading this morning. Before the world was post-modern, God was!

Thankfully I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

That God exists is no secret. It is clear to see!

That the human being is eternal is no secret.

It is the experience of every ready heart…

That God is immense is no secret.

All you have to do is look at the universe.

That God is the memory of the world is no secret.

All you have to do is glance at the computer.

That God is near is no secret.

You need only look at a couple on their honeymoon, or a hen with her chicks, or two friends talking, or an expectant mother.

But then, where is the secret?

Here it is: God is a crucified God.

God is the God who allows himself to be defeated,

God is the God who is revealed himself in the poor.

God is the God who has washed my feet,

God is Jesus of Nazareth.

We were not accustomed to a God like this.

From Why, O Lord? By Carolo Caretto

2006-03-09T09:49:00.000-05:00

Deep thought of the day:
I believe that as a general rule, the weight of my prayer when I turn to God to acknowledge my failure should rest neither on self-blame nor on petition for forgiveness but on my overarching need for divine help, for wisdom to see and strength to do what is need; "O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts." C. Bryant in The Heart of the Pilgrimage

2006-03-09T09:43:00.000-05:00

“Why do events?” That was the question of one youth worker who called me as she struggled with organizing the first trip of her ministry. “What’s the big deal, we can do everything you guys do right here at home.” For her, and for you, there are four reasons that immediately came to mind: place; passion; presenters & participation in something bigger than their micro-community.

Place: Changing Environment

The first reason is that often times we need a change of location to hear the same truth that we are hearing at home. Environment molds the message. If the location is overly familiar often the message is ignored. Taking your youth to a retreat center allows them to be in a completely different environment so that they can alter their perception of everything they hear and see.

Passion: Burning Hearts

Secondly passion is why off site events matter in the lives of young people. Try as you might, you and your staff get tired. You have preconceived notions of the young adults you work with that color how you view them. When you are in a retreat setting lead by an alternative group of people we are not bound by your conceptions. The Ministries with Young People staff are chose because of their burning passion to serve Christ and invest in young adults. They are not doing it every week with the same young people so they bring fresh eyes and intense passion to what they do.

Presenters: Fresh Voices

Not only do we recruit the best and brightest young adults to staff our events, we bring in bands and speakers that really connect to where your young people are. We intentionally find a diversity of styles and cultures so that you will be able to find in our summer line up a speaker and music team that you think will reach your youth.

Participation: Bigger Community

Young people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. SEJMYP youth events allow them to connect with a community that stretches across the southeastern United States. They begin to realize that the Church is bigger than their Sunday morning assembly and youth group. They expand their ideas of what the Church is and what is possible. Every year youth connect with people from a myriad of other places and maintain contact, share their struggles and spiritual journey across the miles thanks to the internet.

NETWORK, the magazine of the National Network of Youth Ministries, in their Spring 2006 issue listed “Church Camp/Retreat/Special Event Conferences” as the most frequently indicated influence on why young people begin their spiritual journey and make ongoing deeper commitments. That is why we do what we do at the SEJMYP, to facilitate those decisions and empower them to live as radically devoted followers of the Savior. Thanks be to God that we are:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-02-21T10:46:00.000-05:00

Giving Yourself Away…

So, for this class I have been watching a lot of movies that, according to the prof, illustrate a “postmodern milieu,” whatever that means. So between Blade Runner, What Dreams may Come and The Matrix a theme seems to have arisen that is being played out in this type of movie…giving yourself away.

Then I started skimming through my favorite author of late, Dean Koontz, and started seeing a similar theme. That it is through the primary characters self-giving and sometimes self-sacrifice, that the ultimate good is accomplished. That life is not fully lived if only lived for self. There is more out there than can be seen or even imagined and it is only revealed when you are willing, even desiring, to live beyond the now and live into the future.

What is it that is worth living, or even dying, for? Will we give ourselves away so that others can fully live? So that we can fully live?

Self-sacrifice is the cost of real relationship. Now by self-sacrifice I do not mean it in some self-demeaning, accepting abuse way. I mean that the willingness to live beyond the me and embrace both micro-community of accountable relationships and macro-community of larger relationships. We live interwoven into each other’s lives, realizing that we are changed and molded by every relationship and that in those relationships we are given the opportunity to live Christ.

Isn’t this the way Christ teaches us to live? The life with the shadow of the cross ever before us. Jesus illustrated that to live fully is to embrace the cost of life. I pray that I can live the kind of life that is lived fully and that I live until I die! I can only do this if I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, grant me the ability and desire to live and die in your presence and for a purpose far greater than my own. In the name of the One who died that we might live, I pray. Amen.

2006-02-17T06:13:00.000-05:00

Live to Tell by Brad J. Kallenberg
Evangelism for a Post-Modern Age

These are the notes I took from Live to Tell. For the past few years I have worked with the North Carolina Conference in developing a program called The Academy of Christian Witness. This idea came about when I discovered, as part of the NC Conference Commission on Evangelism, how few pastors felt comfortable sharing their faith or teaching others how to share their faith. Kallenberg captures the heart of what I have been teaching for the past few years, simply that telling your story, then telling God's story then telling where your story was divinely interupted by God's story is the best way to share your faith. Thankfully, as I struggle in my story, I remain:

Lost in Grace,
Marty

Metaphysical Holism—groups behave like real entities that both constitue each member’s identity and have top-down influence on them.

Linguistic Holism—language is the means by which we think and act in the world and cannot be pried off the world of experience and analyzed in isolation because the conceptual language we speak determines the shape of the world we inhabit.

Epistemological Holism—set of beliefs or paradigm we have of our world that forms an interlocking set that we share with the rest of our community. It is very resilient and typically reisists change. When change comes it comes all at once (paradigm shift).

“Conversion involves a change in social identity. Second, in large measure, this new social identity is accomplished by the acquisition new language skills. Finally, conversion is constituted by a paradigm shift that results in bringing the world into focus in a whole new way.” (p. 46)

“Because conversion involves a change in social identity, evangelism must be a corporate practice, executed by a community that is the source of the new believer’s identity. Second, conversion involves the acquisition of a new conceptual language, evangelism must engage outsiders in conversations spoken in that language. Third, because conversion involves a paradigm shift, evangelism must seek to assist that shift by being dialogical in style and by, wherever possible, enlisting potential converts in telling the story.” (p. 64)

“Conversion is a timeful process of enculturation into community.”
There is a “persuasive power of participation in a form of community.”
The God factor enters in because of “the Spirit-ordained power of narrative.” (p.118)

Metaphors:

Evangelism is more like…
“sailing than proofreading.” (p. 123)
“questing than archery.” (p. 124)
“acting kindly than cobbling.” (p. 124)
“medicine than parallel parking.” (p. 125)

2006-02-16T18:51:00.000-05:00

Rethinking Thinking

So we were talking about epistemology today in a class I’m taking on emerging cultures.

Epistemology is about how you know what you know. How do you know what you know? Does it come from inside and is acknowledged outside or does it come from outside and then is affirmed inside? Is there really anything that you “know” that is true, objective knowledge or is it all filtered through the subjective filter of our life?

Wow, that was a mouthful. I’m not even sure it said anything? The next point that struck me today was about understanding. It was tied to epistemology. Why don’t we understand? Communication is about understanding and sometimes when we are communicating with people of different filters and cultures we just can’t understand eachother. That is because we bring to ever circumstance, thought or conversation an internal construct or paradigm that helps us make sense of what we are hearing in light of what we already “know” (see, its getting a confused again, isn’t it?).

Maybe because we think completely differently than we ever have before. Maybe we will need to think completely differently than we are thinking today. For instance, there are some things my brain just hasn’t mastered yet that my nineteen year old son understands instinctually, like HALO. HALO is this complicated battle game that requires you to navigate your persona through obstacles while defending yourself against attack. The controller requires that you move at least four fingers independently of the other to perform separate functions. I can’t hardly walk and chew gum, so this manner of thought and action seems way beyond my ability…it drives me crazy. My son, on the other hand, finds it hilarioius just to walk up to me and blow me away. I guess I have to relearn how to think.

David Bosch said it this way:

“Worldviews are integrative and interpretive frameworks by which order and disorder are judged, they are standards by which reality is managed pursued, sets of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns.” Believing in the Future, p. 49

Our relationship with Jesus does that to our soul. It re-arranges how we think, believe and live. It calls us to a whole new life…transformation is scary business. Thankfully I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-02-13T22:32:00.000-05:00

The Culture of Too Busy

Why are you so busy that you have to talk on your cell phone in the rest stop bathroom stall? During the holidays I’m traveling down the highway between Waynesville and Durham. It is a four hour drive that I make fairly often to pick up my daughter. I usually stop at the same rest stop which is about ½ way between the two places. As I walk into the restroom I hear this guy talking. I look around but don’t see anyone, then I realize, he is sitting in the rest stop bathroom stall talking business on his cell phone. A couple of questions came to mind..

One, why are you so busy you have to talk on your cell phone in the rest stop bathroom stall? I mean is there really any deal that can’t wait a few moments. Remember, back in the day, when you were on the cutting edge if you had an answering machine? When you weren’t home, you just weren’t home. They would call back later. Faith Popcorn, the wacky futurist, says that a lot of people are throwing out their electronic communication equipment, selling their suburban homes and moving to the country. She calls it “unplugging.” The day I heard this guy getting all torqued about something he could not control three-hundred miles away sitting in a public restroom, I almost threw out my cell phone…almost.

Two, does the guy on the other line have any idea where you are? Wouldn’t that gross you out? What if you knew that the guy you were talking business with was sitting in a public rest stop bathroom stall? Would that make you respect him more or less? It just seems kind of odd. In our culture it seems that image is everything. What you where, where you live, who you hang out with all define you. We all have skeletons in our closets. Things that would diminish others views of us. I would think this picture would definitely diminish his co-workers opinions of him, plus if you got that mental picture, wouldn’t it be hard to take him seriously ever again?

Lastly, what if he dropped the phone, would he retrieve it? I’m thinking as tied to that piece of equipment as he was, he would definitely dive in for it. This goes to priorities. What matters? It seems t me two things have a chunk of the market shares of our lives, business and busyness. They both will take all you have to give and require more. When I say business, I’m not just talking about vocation, though that is part of it, I’m talking about anything you give your life to. It could be school or work or a hobby, whatever becomes a time-idol for you. Busyness is the same way. Some of us may not concentrate on one thing but spread ourselves to thin that we are constantly in motion. If I have learned nothing else from therapy it is that busyness is usually a coping mechanism to keep us from reflecting and listening to the still small voice in us and outside of us.

So, if you catch me in the bathroom at a rest stop on the phone, remind me to unplug. Five minutes of silence won’t kill me (or you). Stop, shut up and be silent, then you may find that you will be, like me…

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-02-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

The Sacramental Prophet…

Reflections on The Church in Emerging Culture edited by Leonard Sweet

My favorite line in The Matrix may well be when Morpheus tells Neo, "there is a difference between knowing the truth and living the truth." It is time the Church decided to live the Truth instead of just acknowledging it's existence.

With passion in heart and pen in hand I read Leonard Sweets collection of articles and responses from five of the Church’s postmodern prophets. In The Church in Emerging Culture Andy Crouch, Michael Horton, Fredrica Mathewes-Green, Brian McLaren and Erwin McManus write and discuss how the church effects the culture and it’s call to transform it and not hide from it. I found myself resonating with of the writers who seem to be at opposite ends of most of the discussion.

Andy Crouch is a Haurwasian leaning Methodist with strong Arminian sentiments and a focused understanding of the power of sacramental theology. His critique of the postmodern understanding of the culture does not seem to jive with my understandings of it, but his reflections on the importance and necessity for the sacraments to form and transform the world is right on. As Crouch states, when reflecting on the consumerist nature of our culture, “the Eucharist is the place where the church practices post consumerism.” (p. 83) He goes on to illustrate biblically and historically how the Church views the Eucharist as a place where real presence meets the real problems of our world. The answers, according to Crouch, can be found in embracing and practicing the sacraments in a much deeper way than the post-enlightment Church has done so in the past. “The sacraments answer the postmodern hunger for a true story after modernity’s impoverished recital of facts and figures.” (p. 85)

On the other end of the sacramental argument is futurist and social justice advocate, Erwin McManus. His church, Mosaic, attracts a rag tag, fugitive group of people who find meaning and transformation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. His critique of the Church is around its bowing to the culture instead of standing over and against the culture to implement change. He states, “To speak of culture we must move from talking about who we are to who we are becoming.” (p. 237) He goes on to argue against the church attempting to live apart from the community when he says, “Whenever the church assumes the role of an institution committed to protecting its constituency from the emerging culture, we reduce our impact to a drop in the bucket.” (p. 238)

Is it possible to bring these two together? What rings in my heart is what Wesley called the marriage of piety and social justice. Can we practice the real presence of Christ in the sacraments so that we can become the real presence of Christ in the world? Can we stand with one foot anchored in the ancient practices of the Church and speak the language of the emerging culture? That is the challenge for the church today. Perhaps this is, indeed, my challenge. My challenge may be to become a sacramental prophet. One who calls for action informed by the sacraments. One claiming the promise of baptism and desiring to live a life of dying to self. One molded and shaped by the frequent practice of the Eucharist and, thereby, called to feed those who hunger for food as well as righteousness. We, the Church, must be ancient and future without compromise. We must be transformed by our faith so that we can live transformation for a world hungry for mystery. Essentially, it seems to me, that the sacraments provide the mystery to a culture hungry to reach beyond it’s self and the practices of social justice provide the action that speaks louder than words. Thanks be to God that in this struggle I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-02-12T17:27:00.000-05:00

There Is No Spoon…

A young “buddah-ish” child sits in the middle of the floor staring at spoons and “bending” them with his mind as Neo walks in to see the Oracle. This scene comes in the middle of this version of a postmodern gospel, The Matrix. This turning point in the movie weaves together the movie’s two messages. Those messages, inextricably woven together, are that we are to question reality and embrace mystery. The Matrix requires the viewer to grapple with the known and seek out the unknown.

How do you bend the spoon? You can’t until you realize that “there is no spoon.” Reality is not really reality. All that you perceive is simply a construct of electric impulses to your brain. The world is a product of your perception, therefore changing your perception allows for the changing of your world. All of reality is, then, up for grabs. Once you become aware that your reality is not reality, you have the ability to control it. To control it, you must first question its very existence.

Isn’t that how we got in to this mess in the first place? We questioned. Neo begins with an unsettling feeling that the world is not complete. That something is askew. He begins questioning and seeking answers. The answers he finds only lead to more questions. His reality isn’t real and the real world is an abysmal place of struggle and pain. Question reality.

The second message is to embrace mystery. Rather than being the definer of his own destiny he must accept that destiny is discovered amidst the struggles of embracing mystery. Signs and symbols lead to actions. Metaphor and encrypted messages from a cookie-baking Oracle provide direction but not decision. Neo discovers that he is no longer living just for himself but is living beyond himself. To fully live his destiny he has to embrace what he cannot believe and live what cannot possibly be true. He has to believe and, perhaps more importantly, allow himself to be believed in. Embrace mystery.

How like the Christian walk? Reality is not formed by perception but by mystery. We have to question reality when viewed through the lens of the Eucharist. Our baptismal eyes, newly formed in light of our embracing of the mystery of Christ, allow us to realize that all that is, is simply perception and not Truth. That which is Truth is far deeper than our ability to perceive. When we begin our faith journey it is not simply the beginning of our life believing in God but beginning to realize that God believes in us. Our God-shaped destiny is out there but seems to be difficult to discern, much less, fulfill. It requires that we question reality and embrace mystery. This is the struggle that I continue as I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2006-02-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

Indigenous Faith...Believing Where You Are

All lasting faith is indigenous. It is birthed inside the language and culture of the tribe or group that embraces it. The names for God and the scriptures must be understandable by the people who God is laying claim upon. This explains while colonialist evangelism never made significant inroads into the two thirds world. There was the assumption that to be Christian was to be Western. It can be seen by the Christian expansion of the last decade into these areas of the world that it was not the message that was being rejected but the means of communicating the message.

In Whose Religion is Christianity, Senneh states, ÂThe indigenous discovery of Christianity, by contrast, describes local people encountering the religion through mother tongue discernment and in the light of peopleÂs own needs and experiences.Â (Sanneh, 55) Reading Sanneh with the words from United Methodists bishops serving in the two-thirds world ringing in my ears, the symbiosis of their words was like spiritual stereo. While western Christianity barely holds on to its ever waning base, the two thirds world is exploding as the Word becomes flesh to them in their mother tongue. They are embracing God that can be named and claimed in their own language and embracamidstist the circumstances of their life. The Western church must return to a missional understanding of the faith, embracing an ever deepening understanding of the culture, in order to be able to proclaim the gospel effectively again.

What is the mother tongue of the Barnes and Noble, X-box and internet generation coming of age today. It is certainly not the language of the mid-to late nineteen hundreds. It is more attuned to the language of the first century. They are image driven and desire connections far deeper than their parents. They seek to replace broken families with whole relationships. They are spiritual but not religious, worshipful without an object of worship and seeking but not finding. During the next few days there will be multiple posts regarding the language of the post-modern culture as I journal on discoveries in literature, cultural observation and, of course, movies. How can we get them to understand that they are...

Lost in Grace,
Marty

2006-01-31T08:04:00.000-05:00

You Ought to be in Pictures

The verbal church is dying. The church based solely upon the talking head in front of the room espousing profundities and relying upon printed text to convey truth is on life support and most people do not even know it is sick. I think I began this discover process a few years back and have seen it become more and more a reality in the past few years.

We are visual people. As a matter of fact, if you were cruising blogs you probably stopped because of the picture rather than the title of the entry. We are people who receive information through environment, metaphor and our multiple senses. I would venture a guess that most of us could not go more than a few days without receiving or conveying information in picture or metaphor. Movies understand that. They create the full environment. They are changing culture not reflecting it and are delving into much deeper spiritual issues than some churches. I’m not saying they are proclaiming the truth but they are testing the boundaries of acceptability about the truth. Movies are challenging us to think (now that’s a change) and to discuss what is reality and what is truth.

Now while some of you are aghast, others are realizing that this need to teach on multiple levels in not new. As a matter of fact, this is the way Jesus taught. He spoke of fish on the beach where the smell of fish would be hanging heavy in the air. He spoke to farmers of planting and reaping, taught while eating with sinners and even the Eucharist is a completely multi-sensory experience embodying sight, sound, taste and touch.

So, what do we in the church do to embrace this move? We have to return to using all the senses to share the Gospel. We must be intentional about creating an environment that teaches. Creating metaphors that teach, using visuals that illustrate and music that inspires are the first steps toward becoming multi-sensory. The other step we can make to teach with sight, sound, taste and touch is by sharing the Eucharist at every worship service. Not only does it make every worship service multi-sensory, it assures that Christ is mysteriously present (another value on the rise!) amidst the body of Christ gathered.

There will be controversy. Revolution always causes controversy. The change will happen, whether we embrace is or it is forced upon us, it is on the way. Will we learn and grow or continue to whither away? I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God who teaches us in many ways, help us not be limited by our own prejudices about methods but be willing to embrace the move of your Spirit. Help us to share the gospel like Paul by doing whatever it takes to help others discover You. In the name of Jesus, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

2006-01-29T05:07:00.000-05:00

It Looks Like Rain

Have you ever had a dry spell? A time when everything was hard? Relationships were hard, work was hard, and play was even hard? I usually think of myself as a relatively creative and positive person. Now don’t get me wrong, I have my “Downer Dude” days, but most days I can get up and keep going. Lately, however, I have been in a dry spell.

There are a lot of desert times in the Bible. Almost every prophet has those times of complete desperation. The people of God wandered around the desert for forty years, now that’s a dry spell (literally and proverbially). Even Jesus spent time in the desert and faced some of the biggest challenges of His life until he was crucified when He was tempted. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the dry spells.

Tonight, or rather early this morning, an amazing thing happened. For the first time in months I awoke with an idea that wouldn’t let me sleep any more. Now it wasn’t an idea that’s going to change the world. It was, essentially, a new way to share a message that just hasn’t been working during the teaching times at the winter events at Lake Junaluska. The key thing is that the idea woke me up…the passion to write it down would not let me sleep. I can’t remember the last time that has happened. During my more creative times it happens all the time. I usually keep a legal pad and a pen beside my bed so I can dump these midnight brainstorms onto it and get back to sleep. Now I’m up at 4 a.m. writing down these ideas and my mind is going 100 m.p.h.

It looks like rain. Now this little spiritual rainstorm may not be the end of my season in the desert, but it is enough for God to encourage me now to keep going. The desert times won’t last forever. Thank you God for the rain…let it pour! I remain, waiting for the storm…

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, who does not abandon us in the desert, who sends the rain when the drought seems to be never ending, thank you for your grace. Help me to be willing to accept the dry spells and trust in your everlasting love. Let my soul yearn to be quenched by your Spirit. And help me to dance in the rain and give you the praise with it pours! In the name of God our Father, who holds fast in the desert, Jesus, the giver of Grace, and the Holy Spirit, who rains upon me, I pray. Amen

2006-01-25T10:43:00.000-05:00

Cosmic Disconnect

“The dispute concerns an unbearable mismatch between lived reality and traditional explanations that proceed by their own logic without reference to lived reality.” Walter Brueggeman

I have a friend whose father is dying. That sounds harsh and I wish there was a gentler way to put it but that would reinforce the purpose of this meditation. Though, admittedly, it may be less meditation and more ranting and raving.

Don’t you wish Christians would occasionally live in the real world? The world of pain and suffering. Of struggle and discontent. That they would put away their pious platitudes and see that original sin is alive and well in the twenty-first century and that though we can seize our God-shaped destiny we are still guilty of only living a shadow life of what God has for us. There is still sickness and death. Still hurt and loss, and to be honest I don’t like it.

My friends laugh at me because I don’t like movies with sucky endings. You know the type. The one I use most often as an example is Message in a Bottle. The “hero,” some lovelorn man who lost his wife, throws messages in bottles out into the ocean. A woman finds them, follows them and they enter into a relationship. He (of course he because in romantic movies it is the man who always screws it up) pushes her away only to later realize he loves her. So he gets in this blasted sailboat he has been working on the whole move and sails off to find her…getting ready for a happily ever after ending? Yeah, so was I, then he hits a storm, tries to help somebody and dies. What? That ending sucks! Don’t we have enough of suckily ever after?

This is where the “unbearable mismatch” exists. Traditional explanations offer things like, “it must be his time” or “God must need him in heaven.” What a bunch of holier than thou bull-oney. Lived reality is that our world is separated from God and as such it is plagued with death and pain.

The lived reality is that my friend appreciates that, even though I’m a spiritual person, I don’t offer platitudes. Actually, I make her face some hard realities so that she will be better able to deal with things as they come. Certainly, I offer a shoulder to cry on, but I also offer faith balanced reality. I believe that God heals, but I also believe that people die. In the Old Testament, those three guys are about to get toasted in the furnace and they say the coolest thing to the king who orders their execution. To Marty-phrase it they say, “Our God can save us, but even if God chooses not to we won’t worship you.” That is powerful faith balanced reality. That is how I want to live.

We mess up when we think Jesus came to give us an easy, happily ever after life. People who believe that really didn’t actually read the Bible. Jesus said his yoke was easy, he didn’t say life would be easy. Jesus was crucified. Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament and planted churches all over the place, was shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, run out of town and eventually martyred. That does not sound like a positive career path. Are we saying he wasn’t Godly enough? Faith balance reality allows us to understand that our God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly amazing things but that that we live in a world separated from God where sin, pain and death are real. That sometimes God does not deliver us from pain but travels through the pain with us. God bears those burdens, shares the load and carries us through.

One last thought on pain. I used to think it would be cool not to feel pain. Actually I intellectualized my emotional life and was attempting to control all my feelings, but especially pain. What I’ve learned is that to understand real happiness, to experience bliss the pain is a small price to pay. Now, I don’t go looking for pain, but the other side of the coin is an amazing thing. I think that maybe that is what Jesus meant when He said he came to give live and to give it abundantly…real life. Life lived to its fullest.

I still don’t like pain. I still hate movies with sucky endings, but I know God can take the crap the world throws at us and redeem it. How do I know, because God redeemed me. That is yet another reason I’m glad I am:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God, I grow tired of pain but I know you are with me in the midst of the struggle. Help me to be the kind of friend that tells the truth and offers a shoulder of hope and support. Help me carry the pain of others when their burdens are too much to bear and help me to release my own when I can carry them no longer. God, allow me to embrace the bliss of life and enjoy its blessings and not be bound by its pain. In the name of our pain-bearer, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2006-01-14T11:52:00.000-05:00

People Who Make You Better

One of the things I have been learning during the past year is to hang around people who make you better. People who challenge you. People who make you think and who think with you. People who, when you work together, synergy happens.

My friend Maria is an excellent example. I had been struggling with summer themes and helping young adults understand grace at a whole new level. Maria came and spent a few hours over a long lunch and an idea session with me and we worked out a lot of what to teach this summer at the LJ youth events and how to teach it. She took my ideas and compounded them, enhanced then and allowed the explode with potential. My other friends, Rob and Emilie, are working on creating a teaching atmosphere and set design that will bring the young people into the environment. My friend Danelle is helping me learn a whole new set of young adult teaching and coaching skills as well as providing a whole new set of group building games. All of these people understand my passion to help young people experience God at a whole new level and share some of that passion in their own area of expertise. They get it! What I provide them is an opportunity to create something completely new with a spiritual underpinning that could affect young people and their churches across the southeast and beyond. It is true that you are defined by those you hang around. The cool thing is all of these people are way ahead of me in a myriad of areas but the choose to hang out with me to see what God’s gonna do next.

Isn’t that why the disciples hung out with Jesus. They wanted to be defined by the ultimate rabbi. They knew of his teachings, they knew he would challenge them at a whole new level. I’m not sure they had any idea that he would push them to amazing levels such that the movement they started would eventually change the world, reconstruct reality and redefine faith.

Choose who you hang out with carefully. Choose people who challenge you and your ideas. Who push your reality and make you think. Change in you is usually caused by change in your concepts of reality and how you think about it. That change comes by hanging out with people who push you to see clearer and farther. I only hope that I push others and add value to them the way they do to me. Praise God for friends who love you enough to push…I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, thank you for those who push me to live a better life for You. Let me be the friend that pushes them to pursue their God-shaped destiny with passion. In the name of the ultimate Rabbi and teacher, Jesus, I pray. Amen

2005-12-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

Change Environment…Change Attitude

I am affected by my environment. Actually, we all are to some extent. During the past couple of weeks I have been in the process of moving from one home to another. The house we moved from is a quaint cottage but it is very dark inside. There is dark paneling and it doesn’t get a lot of sunshine. I rented it furnished so that I could see if I was going to make the adjustment from the local church to this position at the jurisdiction. I realize now that this was probably a mistake.

First of all the dark rooms and paneling were not really my style. I need light and sunshine. Secondly the house was cold because there was no central heat and the windows leaked very badly. Lastly, the stuff there was just not my stuff. I am pretty much a minimalist and this house was rather over-furnished for my taste. All of this contributed to it not ever really feeling like home.

In the past couple of weeks I have retrieved all of my stuff from storage, rag tag as it may be. Gotten a new favorite chair from my brother…all fluffy and reclines to make it the perfect nap chair and moved into a condo that gets excellent morning sun and that is painted off white throughout. Essentially it is warmer (thanks be to God for central heat!), sunnier and brighter. It makes me feel better just being here, especially since all the stuff is my stuff. The pictures on the walls are my pictures. The furniture, sparse as it is, is my furniture. Suddenly coming home is something I look forward to rather than something I avoid. It has become my place to seek solitude and silence and listen for God to speak to me again.

Sometimes to change your attitude you simply have to change your environment. Changing where you are changes how you see things. Jesus understood this better than anyone. So often when the world pressed in upon him and the burdens of ministry became wearisome he retreated into silence and solitude. He changed His environment so that He could better hear God. When was the last time you shut down your computer, turned off your IPOD and listened to God whisper? It is time to change environments. I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God help me to come away, change my environment and seek to hear Your voice again. Grant me silence to listen and solitude to dwell in Your presence amidst the trials, struggles and busyness of my life. In the name of the One who so often went away to spend time with you, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

2005-12-11T21:57:00.000-05:00

For my forty-first year I want to:

Live passionately
Love with abandon
Laugh loudly and often
Weep heartily to wash away life’s pain
Pursue significance over success

Lost in Grace,
Marty

2005-12-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

REVOLUTION:

Worn out on church? Finding vibrant faith beyond the walls of the sanctuary.

George Barna

Here are some key points from a book IÃ’d recommend as a resource for those seeking to understand youngadulty! For more information on George Barna, his research, methods and services visit http://barna.org .

Lost in Grace,
Marty

Two Key components of Revolutionaries:

o They have no use for churches that play religious games.

o They pursue intimate relationships with God.

The Seven Passions of Revolutionaries (p. 22)

1. Intimate Worship

2. Faith-Based Conversations

3. Intentional Spiritual Growth

4. Servanthood

5. Resource Investment

6. Spiritual Friendships

7. Family Faith

The Seven Trends Characterizing a Movement (p. 42)

The changing of the guard.
The rise of a new view of life.
Dismissing the irrelevant.
The impact of technology.
Genuine relationships.
Participation in reality.
Finding true meaning: accepting sacrifice and surrender.

Transformation: a significant spiritual breakthrough in which you seize a new perspective or practice related to the seven passions; consequently you are never the same again.

Four Macro-Models of Church Experience (p. 64)

congregationl Model
House churches: some form of ‘simple church
Family faith experience
Cyberchurch

Jesus' Priorities that guide a Revolutionary (p. 75f)

o Obedience to God

o Love

o Justice

o Peace

o Holy Living

o Integrity

o Generosity

o Spiritual connection

o Spiritual wholeness

o Biblical literacy

o Faith in God

o Blessing people

o Disciple-making

Jesus'’ Character Traits that mold the Revolutionary

o Merciful and grace-giving

o Reconciliatory

o Diligent

o Teachable

o Courageous

o Accepting

o Surrendered

o Repentant

o Humble

o Servant-minded

Five Reactions to the Revolution (p.119f)

1. Ignore it.

2. Fight it.

3. Coexist with it.

4. Late adoption of it.

5. Embrace itÃ…become a revolutionary.

Blending your church and the revolution (p. 137f)

o Learn from the revolutionaries.

o Seek ways in which your church can add value to the Revolution

o Reflect on what it really means to belong to a churchÃ—your church.

o Figure out how to create more Revolutionaries among those who are aligned with the Christian faith.

2005-12-08T08:51:00.000-05:00

Quit Yelling!

There will be more on this later but for today it is a quote I came across, again, in my reading that reminds me that love wins! Thankfully I remain:

Lost in Grace,
Marty

“In the form of bitter and threatening accusation spreading alarm and terror, the proclamation of the Gospel, even though it has made an impression, has never really reached the world or set it on the way of knowledge to which it should be called by the community. Without either deviations or reservations, its appeal must call men [people] to the rest and peace of God, inviting them to the feast which is prepared and thus summoning them to joy.” Karl Barth

2005-12-05T07:59:00.000-05:00

2005 Lessons

I am turning 41 this week and have been mulling over the lessons I am learning from the past year. I say “I am learning” intentionally for I do not presume to have accomplished or even fully comprehend the magnitude of the lessons below. Some are whimsical, some profound, some are stupid and some are revelations that have occurred to me in moments of illumination. They are not in either chronological order or in order of importance, they just are…so here are forty one things I’m learning in my fortieth year:

God is still God.
All you have is today.

You don't have to be strong all the time you know...its okay to struggle and not to know.
A hug is better than a doughnut and a lot healthier.
Prayer heals.
Table manners are very important and eating is more about the relationship than the entrée.
Respect is a taught/learned value. It is not automatic.
People are more important that projects.
Significance is more important that success.
It is worth the risk of being hurt to let people get close to you.
Those you love the most will sometimes hurt you the most, even if they don’t mean to. It is worth the risk to love.
Never listen to country music when you are down.
Promises spoken are not necessarily promises lived.
You can’t buy love, you can only rent it. (from RENT the movie)
Even worthwhile work is still work. It should not take precedence over relationships and should be a priority, not the priority.
Grief is an inescapable process…just embrace it.
Authentic love is unconditional, unfathomable and unceasing and really only comes from God. We can only try to show it.
You cannot make somebody else love you. You are only in charge of your own feelings.
Being right is less important than striving to live rightly.
You should be careful about valuing vocation over relationships.
Every sunrise is God’s way of saying you get another chance.
M & Ms are the perfect friend maker.
I cannot control how others feel or what they do.
No relationship is perfect. It is what you do with the imperfections that determine the level of commitment.
Grief is an unavoidable process.
Feeling badly is better than not feeling at all.
Love really doesn’t go away, though it can be neglected.
Feelings are okay, crying is healthy.
Chatting is not really communicating and should never replace real interpersonal contact.
Eating badly yields feeling badly. Eat better, feel better.
Nobody’s theology is static.
Christians throw a lot of rocks.
Life has lessons in unusual places if you will just listen for them.
Love should always surprise you.
Never give up.
The less you have the less you want.
The best hugs come from five year olds.
Thankfully God give second chances even when people don’t.
You never know when the day will be that changes your ideas of the future.
You should not be so busy that you have to talk on your cell phone in the bathroom stall.
Friends love you even when you don't believe it!

2005-12-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

Bumpily Ever After…

You know why I like the Shrek movies? Because they aren’t “happily ever after.” I love the introduction to the first movie where he is reading a fairy tell with its normal “blah blah blah” and then comes to the page about “happily ever after” and rips it out to use as toilet paper. The first time I saw that I almost caused a scene in the theatre because I was laughing so loudly. I knew then and there, I was an ogre.

An ogre is not a bad person. We over think and over process things (like onions), have tender hearts that we hide with rough exteriors and are usually not the best looking guys on the block. We are sometimes sarcastic because that kind of covers our sensitive side and we get our feelings hurt very easily. We have to spend time off to ourselves in our huts or caves but we do really like to have others around, no matter how much we complain about it. We take on big tasks for small rewards and try to do the right thing even if it is hard. We say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing and make mistakes...alot. On the bright side, we always go back for our a…donkey, we care deeply about a great many things and don’t mind hard work. Most of all, we know that happily ever after is for fairy tales, not life.

That is the problem I have with a lot of popular, media driven Christianity. The underpinning message is that if you believe enough, are spiritual enough, give enough and are nice enough you will have big bank accounts, nice homes and live the Christian version of happily ever after. What a bunch of BS (baloney sandwiches according to my friend Connie Shelton). Do these people read the Bible…I mean actually read it. The New Testament super hero, Paul, was shipwrecked, starved, beaten and eventually killed. Not exactly a career path with fortunes galore these folks proclaim. Does this mean that we are to extrapolate that the author of a huge chunk of Scripture got it wrong…heck no! He got it right! He understood that this journey of faith is about living with, for and in Christ and that sometimes that requires sacrifice. It means you don’t get to have the “happily ever after” that you have in your mind. It also means, and this is the best part, that God will always be with you, never abandon you and unveil to you your God-shaped destiny one day at a time.

So I’m an ogre who has give up on happily ever after. Oh well, at least here in the swamp I am continuing to realize the power of being:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

My Lord and my king, let me continue to pray, “Thy will not my will be done.” Amen

2005-12-01T09:48:00.000-05:00

What Kind of Story?

There are times when I wish my life had a musical soundtrack to I could get a foretaste of what was coming up next. You know how that works in movies. The suspense music comes on when things are about to get tense. The sunshine music plays when all is well and you are walking through life holding hands with a friend. Mushy music comes on at mushy times, anger music when somebody is about to get mad. It is usually just enough lead time to get you prepared for what’s next so you can anticipate it. That would be awesome!

In the Lord of the Rings, Sam asks Frodo, “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?” We, sitting comfortably in the theatre munching popcorn know what type of tale this is but those in the middle of the story don’t really have a clue. We can see the signs, feel the music get more tense by the moment, see the skies darkening. You don’t get to see that in your own story.

In our own story we don’t see the signs. We don’t see the coming challenges, don’t feel the impending losses or see that one you love will leave. We don’t get to know when joy will spring upon us or grief will overtake us, we just get to live the story out and see it unfold one month, one week, one day, one moment at a time. To be honest, I hate that!

I like a plan. One of my friends kids me incessantly about being the “plan man.” I plan what I’m going to do next, what I’m going to do six months from now, what I want to be when I grow up. My mind works in plans. I build entire worlds of preferred futures and then work on helping them come to pass. When my plans go awry, when my dreams crumble I am not a happy camper. I don’t mind adjusting the plan, that is why you have a plan, so that when the unexpected occurs you have something to fall back to and adjust, but the world doesn’t work that way.

Jesus tells a story about the farmer with the bountiful harvest who tears down barns to build bigger barns figuring he is set for life. That night all his plans get washed away as well, he dies. It really doesn’t matter what you are planning to do tomorrow if you die today.

How do you live in that tension between being wise and good stewards of your time and resources, planning for tomorrow without sacrificing the joy of today? To be honest I don’t have a clue. I have spent some time reflecting on “living like I am dying” as the country song says, but certainly haven’t mastered it yet. I struggle with practicing the presence of Christ in my life every day so as to get the greatest joy out of the simplest things but lingering in the back of my soul is the desire for a better tomorrow. It is in this tension, between today and tomorrow when I am most glad that I am:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God give me, this day, my daily bread for that is all that I may be able to receive. Heal me from the pain of loss that I have suffered yesterday so that I may fully live today. Free me from the obsession with tomorrow that I might see the blessings of this sunrise and sunset. Help me embrace every day as Your day and as a gift from You, my Lord and my King. In Jesus name, amen.

2005-11-29T14:41:00.000-05:00

Change and Struggle

There is no real, substantive change without struggle. Having had to sit through meetings for most of this week as the organization that I work for as they attempt redefine themselves as the enter into the next century it occurs to me that no real change happens without struggle. Struggle is never easy and sometimes does not lead to positive results, but it is inevitable. We all struggle, personally and corporately.

Struggle occurs as we continue to grow and change. Age brings change, and anybody who has gone through adolescence knows that growing older is another level of change. Change of location, vocation or relationship brings struggle. Often this struggle is both inside and outside. Inside your heart and mind strives to make sense of the change. Tears may be shed or joy experience, but in either case it is still a form of struggle. Outside everyone who has any contact with others understands that all relationships bring struggles. A constant renegotiation of the relationship is absolutely necessary. Any two people in relationship have to continue to work on that relationship if it is to last. This too is a form struggle.

Struggles also are part of our spiritual life. Throughout the Bible God’s people have struggled with God. Jacob wrestled with God at Penel, trying to get a hold of what God wanted from him. Paul, according to Acts, kicked against the prodding of his heart until Jesus got his attention on the Damascus road. God is a God of the struggle. God promises never to leave us or forsake us, even amidst of our struggles. That in our most isolated time, God is with us. Thanks be too God.

I am struggling on several different fronts these days. Professionally and personally my struggles have been many. Relocating to a new area, building new relationships, being so far from my loved ones, struggles in a very demanding career, extensive travel and times isolated from others due to that travel have all contributed to that struggle. The only constant is the presence of God in my life, even at times when I don’t feel that presence. I am weary of the struggle. I am ready for a time of stasis. God grant me a time to find an anchor. Until then, thanks be to God I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley, Pastor

Gracious God, I need a time without struggle. A time of respite and stasis. Abide with me as I strive to find peace, your greatest gift. During the season we celebrate your coming, come again and grant peace on earth, and let it begin with me. Amen

2005-11-24T08:09:00.000-05:00

525,600 Minutes

On the way back from Durham we stopped in Asheville to see Rent, the movie adaptation of the very successful Broadway musical. I knew that it was a deeply written play about the inter-relationships of a group of people in Bohemian New York but I was in no way prepared for the intensity of the work. The driving theme was about the precious nature of life and how to measure the time you have and make the most of it. Again, it seems to me, that God is sending me the same message over and over again.

How do you measure a year? When you look back at the last twelve months? By what standard do you count the days you have spent? Do you measure it in laughter or love lost? In tears or fears or moments of pure bliss? There were times during the show when I felt hot tears on my cheeks and felt the love and the loss that was being portrayed so deeply it was as if I was part of the drama, and not just an observer of a motion picture.

The holidays always do this too me. Since I was a child I have always spent part of the holidays looking back to figure out what I was supposed to learn. What is it that you can learn from your heart melting into tears? What is it that can be gained by watching hundreds of young adults on the side of a mountain on a clear mountain night speak of things holy that God has done in their lives? What lesson from closing of a door you thought would always be open and from the opening of another quite unexpectedly? What great teaching lies in holding hands with a friend and just sitting in silence? What clear message from the voices of those crying in the wilderness? What have the last 525,600 minutes taught me?

By the end of the year I think I’ll publish a blog on the things I’ve learned this year. Right now a lesson I’m learning from Jesus and his relationships with those closest to him. It is worth the risk of being hurt to let people get close enough to you to see your flaws (not that Jesus was flawed…you know what I mean…). Jesus let people get close even though He knew that in the context of those relationships He would be betrayed and denied by those who claimed to love Him most. That is because He knew what we need to know, that real significance only comes from within the context of real relationships. I have been guilty of keeping people at a safe distance, not letting them get real close. Only in the past year have I begun letting my guard down and letting more and more people get closer and closer. It has been hard, but if I am going to make the most of the next 525,600 minutes it is essential. In the end, it won’t matter what kind of car I drive or how big the house I live in is, what will matter is who I have been in relationship with and how I have loved. The world changes one relationship at a time. Let’s change the world.

I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2005-11-22T10:33:00.000-05:00

Life as a Chalk Line

It is funny how some things stick with you. I wrote in my blog on Sunday about walking by the crime scene and seeing the chalk line left over from the night before. How police officers were milling around the crime scene and how somber were the faces of those who had been caught up in the drama of life and death quite unexpectedly. I did not really think too much about it at the time but the images of the tortured faces and the starkness of the thick white line on the black pavement has hung around.

I woke up this morning around 2 a.m. wondering how my life would be different if I knew that tonight my life would be reduced to a chalk line. What if I knew that the things I did today would be the last things I would ever do? Who would I call and tell them that I loved them one more time? Who would I seek out to resolve difficulty and differences, what guilt would I lay aside and what joy would I pursue if I only knew?

The biblical metaphor for the fleeting essence of life is a vapor or a mist. That is the biblical equivalent of a chalk line. The scriptural author reminds us that life in all of its complexities and difficulties is not guaranteed, that it can be blown away with the changing of the winds.

I used to say that my goal was to have one thousand people attend my funeral. That it didn’t matter if I left this earth penniless if I had spent my last breath adding value to others, that would be enough for me. I really don’t care how many people show up to mourn my passing as much as I am concerned with living a life of significance. That is why I do what I do, because I believe in my heart that it matters. The investment of every sleepless night and endless day is worth it if one young person gets connected to God and discovers his or her God-shaped destiny. If the people I am in relationship with count it a blessing to be in relationship with me and I add some value to their life and help them live more passionately. That is a life worth pursuing. So, during this week of giving thanks I want to strive to renew my commitment to do the following…I want to:

Live passionately
Love with abandon
Laugh loudly and often
Weep heartily to wash away life’s pain
Pursue significance over success

Until next time I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, I know you have called me to live a life of significance and I confess I often fail to seize the destiny you have called me to. Forgive me. Grant me the ability to be who You have called me to be. To let go of what it out of my hands, to embrace those who you have put in my path and to love without fear of loss. In the name of the One who lived and loved that we might fully live, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen

2005-11-20T10:52:00.000-05:00

Morning & God’s Second Chances

I am a morning person. Though my schedule often does not allow it since most of my ministry carries me late into the night more often than not, I still love mornings. Mornings are fresh and new. Especially those late autumn mornings like this one when everything is cool and crisp. Leaves crackle under your feet as you walk and the air smells of winter that is just over the horizon..

I am on Eastern Standard Time while the rest of Nashville, where I am working this weekend, is on Central Time, meaning that I’m up an hour or so before the rest of the world. With nothing to do until noon in a strange town I just started walking. During this walk in the cool air I was reminded how wonderful morning walks can be. Everything is new. The sun, just peaking over the horizon, reminds us that God is always breaking through with a new dawn to overwhelm the darkness in our lives.

Mornings remind me of resurrection. I don’ t know about you, but I am always better after I have slept and when I allow myself to wake up without the troublesome noise of an alarm. No matter what happens the evening before, the sun always comes up and a new dawn is born. That serves to remind me that our God is a God of second chances. We get to start over afresh. It is not that what is before is gone, but there is at least the chance to reframe it and begin anew. Relationships that have fallen upon dark nights of their existence may be able to see dawn again. Hope that was lost in the prior evenings darkness can be restored with the warming grace of the Son. The light of the morning allows us to see things again in a new way.

Ironically, however, just as I was reflecting upon the awesome power of grace and God’s unending pursuit of resurrection in our lives I happened upon a crime scene. Just like the one’s you see on television with yellow tape, half a dozen police officers and a chalk line drawn in the middle of the street. The moment in time, carried over from the previous evening, was frozen. Cars were still in the middle of the road, nothing had moved since whatever happened, happened. For somebody it would not be a day of resurrection, it would be a day of trial. Some family had lost a son or brother. Somebody had lost a friend by an act of violence. Seeing the strain upon the officers faces and the pain of the bystanders standing over and against the beauty of the dawning sun made me cherish the dawn all the more. I prayed silently for those families affected by this event and desired to hold those I love more closely upon my return to them.

I want to take more morning walks. Spend more time savoring the power of resurrection. Listen more intently to God’s voice in the rustle of the leaves and see God’s face in the waking of the sun over the horizon.

God, grant that I may cherish ever dawn as if it were my last. Let me honor those I love with a love that is true, authentic and without condition. Help me to live and love like you love me. Amen

2005-11-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

See You on the Journey

Native American speaker, Ray Buckley, was speaking at an event I attended this weekend and explained that in his tribe there is no word for good bye. They do not believe that any parting is final. Rather, they say a word, far beyond my ability to spell or pronounce, that means “I will see you on the journey.” Additionally, he went on to explain the concept for his people of the parting is the claiming that that person would be remembered. Not remembered in our modern understanding of simply recalling who they are, but as a part of who you are you are connected to who they are. To remember them means that they are now part of you.

Every person influences others. I once heard my friend Tim Elmore (www.growingleaders.com) say that even the most introverted person contacts and influences up to 10,000 persons in their lifetime. What if we too the two truths from Ray to heart. What if we really began to realize that every person we remember becomes a part of who we are? What if we really believed that no parting was final, there would always be another time on the journey when we would encounter them again? How would we then live?

Relationships are about remembering. We retell the stories of our meetings and partings as part of that process. By retelling and re-membering each story, we reclaim and restore that person’s part of our lives and incorporate it into us. We are designed to be part of one another. Relationships thrive when we are able to recount the positive stories with more passion than the negative ones. They dissolve when the negative stories overwhelm the positive. It is hard sometimes to embrace the best parts when the worst parts seem most evident.

Jesus had a similar understanding. In the service of communion we recall His words when we say “do this in remembrance of me.” What he was really saying, similar to what Ray explained about re-membering, was that when we did these simple acts we would bring Him present to where we are. Jesus shows up by the divine mystery. We practice the sacrament to help us to remember the best parts of our relationship with God. It is not that we do not struggle with fear and doubt, but that despite these “worst parts” God will loves completely. It is in these divine re-membering moments that God is most real to us. Where we are able to embrace the joy of Christ, to embrace the forgiveness offered in the divine sacrifice and seek restoration of relationship with God and others.

As I received the sacrament at this event, I knew Christ was re-membered in it. I began thinking of the relationships in my life and began reclaiming the best parts and releasing the worst parts because I know that every one of those relationships is part of who I am. I know that I will see them somewhere down the road, on the journey. That no parting is ever really final, at least so long as I remain…

Lost in Grace,

Marty

2005-11-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

Do you know where you are in time and space?

I was allowed to sit in on a rehearsal at UNCA (www.unca.edu ) recently with my friend the director and observe her as she worked with collegiate actors. She may be one of the best coaches of young adults I have ever seen. They respond to her with enthusiasm and true respect. I am sure that comes from the vulnerability and authenticity with which she presents herself, her material and her direction. She aptly separates the critical direction of their performance from their identity. During the evening’s rehearsal, at every pause or scene change, she would ask a question that caught me off guard. Having done several plays and productions throughout high school and early in college I had never heard this type of centering used. It seems to me that it speaks to life as much as it does to theater. She would have them stand perfectly still for a few seconds, close their eyes and ask them “Do you know where you are in time and space?”

That is a question that could be used during any time of spiritual retreat. In the midst of crammed calendars and packed Palm Pilots we never stop to assess our global positioning. We do not stop and look around at the scene that is our life and determine where we are in time and space. What season are we in, where are we heading, what is God attempting to teach us by the circumstance and situation in which we find ourselves? Not only do we not assess where we are, but we do not take time to see where the others in our lives may be. Why has God brought this person into my life at this time? Why are we called during these days to journey together?

The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that that for everything in life there is a time and a season. There are times to dance, sing, laugh, cry, mourn and dance. We are where we are because of God’s sense of time. Time is a demonstration of value. That which you value you invest time in. Time, being the only resource that is not replaceable, is your most precious gift. If we do not know where we are or stop and see what God is trying to convey to us we will squander God’s most precious gift.

Forgive me, gracious God for not stopping to assess where I am in time and space. God grant me the wisdom to reflect, the courage to assess and the ability to discern where it is that I am to be so that I can better hear your voice about where I am to go. In the name of Jesus, Amen.