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.

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

REVOLUTION:

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

George Barna

Here are some key points from a book IÂ’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)

1. The changing of the guard.
2. The rise of a new view of life.
3. Dismissing the irrelevant.
4. The impact of technology.
5. Genuine relationships.
6. Participation in reality.
7. 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 itÂ…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 church—your church.

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

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 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:

1. God is still God.
2. All you have is today.

3. You don't have to be strong all the time you know...its okay to struggle and not to know.
4. A hug is better than a doughnut and a lot healthier.
5. Prayer heals.
6. Table manners are very important and eating is more about the relationship than the entrée.
7. Respect is a taught/learned value. It is not automatic.
8. People are more important that projects.
9. Significance is more important that success.
10. It is worth the risk of being hurt to let people get close to you.
11. 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.
12. Never listen to country music when you are down.
13. Promises spoken are not necessarily promises lived.
14. You can’t buy love, you can only rent it. (from RENT the movie)
15. Even worthwhile work is still work. It should not take precedence over relationships and should be a priority, not the priority.
16. Grief is an inescapable process…just embrace it.
17. Authentic love is unconditional, unfathomable and unceasing and really only comes from God. We can only try to show it.
18. You cannot make somebody else love you. You are only in charge of your own feelings.
19. Being right is less important than striving to live rightly.
20. You should be careful about valuing vocation over relationships.
21. Every sunrise is God’s way of saying you get another chance.
22. M & Ms are the perfect friend maker.
23. I cannot control how others feel or what they do.
24. No relationship is perfect. It is what you do with the imperfections that determine the level of commitment.
25. Grief is an unavoidable process.
26. Feeling badly is better than not feeling at all.
27. Love really doesn’t go away, though it can be neglected.
28. Feelings are okay, crying is healthy.
29. Chatting is not really communicating and should never replace real interpersonal contact.
30. Eating badly yields feeling badly. Eat better, feel better.
31. Nobody’s theology is static.
32. Christians throw a lot of rocks.
33. Life has lessons in unusual places if you will just listen for them.
34. Love should always surprise you.
35. Never give up.
36. The less you have the less you want.
37. The best hugs come from five year olds.
38. Thankfully God give second chances even when people don’t.
39. You never know when the day will be that changes your ideas of the future.
40. You should not be so busy that you have to talk on your cell phone in the bathroom stall.
41. Friends love you even when you don't believe it!

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

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.