Book Recommendation: Hannah Coulter

I don't think that those who know me would expect me to highly recommend a novel in which the narrator is a twice widowed woman in her 70's. And yet that's exactly what I'm doing. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry is one of the better novels that I've read.

Now I wouldn't pretend that this novel will be to everyone's taste. For one thing it is a novel driven by characters rather than plot telling the story of the small community of Port William, Kentucky in the mid 20th century. Hannah, a young mother, marries Nathan Coulter after her husband Virgil dies in the second world war. Together they raise three children, run a farm, and live a very ordinary life.

So why should you consider reading Hannah Coulter?

1. Wendell Berry, an author that I was familiar with but had never read, is an uncommonly good writer with an almost lyrical style. His insight into the human psyche is matched only by his command of the English language and his ability to describe ordinary life in an interesting way.

2. I found the community of small town pre-war America to be attractive. Christine and I just marked the sixth anniversary of living in our current home. This is the longest that we've ever lived in one place in our 21 years of marriage. More families are spread out and our mobility means that we are less relationally connected than previous generations. While there are no doubt benefits to this lifestyle, there is also a price to pay.

In Port William the community was more of a "membership" made up of like minded individuals and families who bound themselves together for mutual support.

“This membership had an economic purpose and it had and economic result, but the purpose and the result were a lot more than economic…the work was freely given in exchange for work freely given. There was no bookkeeping, no accounting, no settling up. What you owed was considered paid when you had done what was needed doing. Every account was paid in full by the understanding that when we were needed we would go, and when we had need the other, or enough of them, would come.”

3. This is a love story without the silliness that passes for falling in love today. Hannah and Nathan have a love that shares life together, possesses mutual respect, does not obsess over equality, and has a substance and selflessness to it that is often missing today. Here's Hannah describing the beginning of their relationship...

“My life with Nathan turned out to be a long life, and actual marriage with trouble in it. I am not complaining. Troubles came, as they were bound to do, as the promise we made had warned us they would. I can remember the troubles and speak of them, but not to complain. I am beginning again to speak of my gratitude.”

Are there any novels that you'd recommend?

Why Are We Named “The Crossing?”

Keith and I answered that question eleven years ago when we wrote out our Mission and Core Values. When you start a new church, as we did eleven years ago, what you name it is kind of a big deal. It needs to capture the imagination of what and who we wanted to be as a new church.

This is the paragraph Keith and I wrote eleven years ago:

Why are we named "The Crossing?"

The Crossing invokes the image of an old ship on a journey to the New World. For those aboard, there was much hope and anticipation. They were driven by a sense of adventure and the promise of a new life. Yet there would also be fear and uncertainty. The threat of storms, unfamiliar waters, and many other sorts of dangers lay ahead. A safe and successful crossing not only demanded a sea-worthy ship, but also an able crew, accurate navigational instruments, adequate supplies, and favorable winds.

We think life is a lot like that. It’s a journey full of adventure and promise, as well as the realities of difficulty and hardship. For most, there’s a hope for the future mixed with the uncertainties of what time will bring. Sometimes we hit storms. Sometimes we get blown off course. But like the sailing ships of old, when we’re rightly equipped, we’ll safely and successfully make the journey and reach our destination.

The Crossing is a place where people are committed to making this journey together. No doubt there will still be storms, treacherous waters, and times of pain and trouble for all of us. But there are also the experiences of adventure and fulfillment. At The Crossing, we’re making the journey, but we’re doing it together. We’re all in the same boat, heading in the same direction. While none of us have yet to reach our destination, our course is driven by the promise of a new life. We hope you too will join us so we can make The Crossing together.

Looking back on that statement, now 11 years later, I still really like why we are called The Crossing. I like every sentence in that description. It really is a good metaphor that imagines a picture of our purpose as a church. We’re making our hopeful but dangerous journey together until we reach our destination of a “new world”—the Promised Land—the redeemed and restored earth and humanity and creation that Christ will accomplish by his death, resurrection, and return.

I particularly like this sentence:

“A safe and successful crossing not only demanded a sea-worthy ship, but also an able crew, accurate navigational instruments, adequate supplies, and favorable winds.”

Whether or not we make it to the New World depends upon making the journey successfully. Our “sea-worthy ship” is the church community—the local body of Christ. And to get to The Land, everyone must remain in the boat (Heb 3:12-15; Eph 2:19-22; see Acts 27:31 as a picture of this).

Our “able crew” is the biblically and theologically trained pastors and teachers in the church who rightly handle the Word of truth (Eph 4:11-15; 2 Tim 2:15). Good pastors and teachers are Christ’s gift to his church (Eph 4:11). So always pray for good pastors and teachers.

Our “accurate navigational instruments” are the scriptures—the word of God—the Bible—that constantly points us to the gospel and all that God is for us in Christ, so that we are able to keep our faith pointed in the right direction and reach the Promised Land (Matt 7:24-27; Luke 6:47-49).

Our “adequate supplies” are the many ways we as a church community are gifted by God to serve and care for one another, give of our income for the health of the church, and learn to teach and counsel and encourage one another in life’s journey (Rom 12:4-12).

And the “favorable winds” is the Holy Spirit—who is the only means by which we will successfully make this journey and arrive on The Shore (John 3:5-8; 2 Cor 1:21-22; Eph 1:13-14).

So we called this church The Crossing because the Christian life is a journey toward a Promise in Christ that is reached only by a persevering faith in him (1 Cor 15:2; Col 1:21-23). You cannot live the Christian life on your own apart from a church community (Heb 3:12-15; 10:23-25). So we sail together, through life’s storms and challenges, toward all that God is for us and has promised us in Christ. Together.

That’s The Crossing.

I’ve previously discussed our Mission Statement and our First and Second and Third and Fourth and Fifth and Sixth Core Values in previous blogs.

A New Religious Test?

“If a candidate for president said he believed that space aliens dwell among us, would that affect your willingness to vote for him? Personally, I might not disqualify him out of hand; one out of three Americans believe we have had Visitors and, hey, who knows? But I would certainly want to ask a few questions. Like, where does he get his information? Does he talk to the aliens? Do they have an economic plan?”

So reads the opening paragraph of a recent piece by New York Times executive editor Bill Keller entitled “Asking Candidates Tougher Questions About Faith.” If, as a Christian, you find this opening a bit unsettling, you should. After all, Keller has not so subtly compared religious faith with believing that aliens live in our midst.

Unfortunately, things don’t improve a great deal from there. To be sure, Keller raises legitimate points and asks a few important questions. For example, he suggests, “This year’s Republican primary season offers us an important opportunity to confront our scruples about the privacy of faith in public life — and to get over them.” I don’t have a problem with that. The relegation of faith to “private” life has always been artificial. But then again, I’d want the freedom to ask how any candidate’s larger worldview influenced his or her policy positions, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or secular humanist. (To illustrate the point, see this from Marvin Olasky.)

Beyond this, however, there’s a healthy dose of thinly veiled insults apparently designed to cast particular religious adherents as crazy. Two examples:

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are both affiliated with fervid subsets of evangelical Christianity—and Rick Santorum comes out of the most conservative wing of Catholicism—which has raised concerns about their respect for the separation of church and state, not to mention the separation of fact and fiction.
………
Every faith has its baggage, and every faith holds beliefs that will seem bizarre to outsiders. I grew up believing that a priest could turn a bread wafer into the actual flesh of Christ.

From this, it’s apparently obvious that we should cast doubt on the ability of certain (“fervid”) evangelicals and doctrinally conservative Catholics to draw a proper line not just on the contested and complex question of how we should separate church and state, but also their ability to grasp basic reality. Similarly, Keller makes clear in so many words that any Catholic who actually believes Catholic doctrine (!) regarding a sacrament of the church is deserving of dismissal. No, I don’t subscribe to my Catholic friends’ doctrine of transubstantiation either, but do we really need to belittle a group that boasts of such a rich history of intellectual and cultural achievement?

Then there's this paragraph:

But I do want to know if a candidate places fealty to the Bible, the Book of Mormon (the text, not the Broadway musical) or some other authority higher than the Constitution and laws of this country. It matters to me whether a president respects serious science and verifiable history — in short, belongs to what an official in a previous administration once scornfully described as “the reality-based community.” I do care if religious doctrine becomes an excuse to exclude my fellow citizens from the rights and protections our country promises.

Again, this begins by touching on a legitimate issue. But one wonders if Keller is troubled by those who once argued, on the grounds of a higher authority no less, that it was wrong for the Constitution to legitimize the institution of slavery. And what is “serious science” and “verifiable history”? More importantly, who gets to decide what fits into these categories? Who belongs to the “reality-based community”? What are the “rights and protections” Keller mentions? In what are they grounded? One gets the impression from Keller’s presentation that he thinks the answers to these questions are self-evident for any right thinking individual. At best this is naïve. In reality (pun intended), these are a few of the very questions that are so highly contested in our current society. Bill Keller is certainly welcome to offer and defend his own answers, but assuming the place of final arbiter of such issues is something else entirely.

Understand that none of this is meant to endorse or defend the political positions of any of the particular candidates Keller mentions. It is, however, to question whether a man who writes things like “asking candidates, respectfully, about their faith should not be an excuse for bigotry or paranoia” and “it is worth knowing whether a candidate has a mind open to intelligence that does not fit neatly into his preconceptions” is a physician capable of taking his own medicine.

See also:
Mollie Hemmingway on Bill Keller’s Modest Proposal
Anthony Sacramone on The New York Times/Bill Keller Irreligious Litmus Test
Ross Douthat on journalists writing about beliefs they don’t share
Douthat critiques Ryan Lizza’s characterization of Francis Schaeffer in The New Yorker

Seek the Flourishing of the University (Part 2 of 2)

An Interview with Steven Garber of The Washington Institute

Steven Garber is the director of the Washington Institute, which exists "to encourage the recovery of the integral relationship of faith to vocation to the responsible engagement of the culture across the country and beyond."

As a sponsoring teacher, advocate and friend of Covenant Seminary's D.Min. Cohort on Faith, Vocation and Culture, Steven is helping several graduate students reshape their ideas about how Christians are called to be a redemptive presence in an increasingly diverse and post-modern American culture, as well as respond to questions raised by his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness, available from Hearts and Minds Bookstore in Dallastown, Penn.

If you missed Part 1 of this interview, published Aug. 22 on ESI, you can find it here.

---

QUESTION: In chapter 2, "The Problem and Its Parameters," you wrote that, "True education is always about learning to connect knowing with doing, belief with behavior; and yet that connection is incredibly difficult to make for students in the modern university." In the simplest possible terms, can you briefly explain why this is so? How is today's model of higher education stacked against an honest exploration of belief?

RESPONSE: The simplest possible terms, huh? Take two of the words I have already used to describe our moment, e.g. secularizing, pluralizing. As the days pass we are an increasingly secular culture, with most windows to transcendence and truth denied. And at the same time we are an increasingly pluralistic culture, with every vision of the good life presented on equal terms. What do I mean? Over the last few years I have argued that one of the oldest ecclesiastical traditions in America is more "Hinduism with an Enlightenment face," than it is a church that has a meaningful claim to historic Christianity. In reality it is more Hindu - every god is believed, every pathway is trusted. And also it is proud of its Enlightenment legacy - and so more shaped by dualisms like facts/values, sacred/secular, objective/subjective, modern/non-modern. Moving from the church to the academy, the same cultural pressures are seen. A "street-level" Hinduism, marked by an Enlightenment face, is normative in the academy. Anything is believed to be true, as long as it does not claim to be true.

But twined together with the pantheism-of-sorts that it is, is also a fierce commitment to the Enlightenment, and a strange pride that we "know" because we are modern or strangely, even post-modern. But they are not only ideas in the abstract. The very structures of learning are shaped by the forces of secularization, and so it is in the questions that are asked, and how they are answered pedagogically, that is in many ways even more destructive to "true education." T. S. Eliot gave four lectures in 1952 at the University of Chicago, "The Aims of Education," and brilliantly analyzed this phenomena, arguing that we cannot define the purpose of education without inevitably defining the purpose of man, the nature of the human condition, i.e. who are we? why are we? what is the point of life? If we are to think and live coherently as Christians in the university we will have to do our homework, and develop intellectually honest and rich paradigms that can make sense of life and learning in a secularizing, pluralizing world. I would recommend reading Lesslie Newbigin, most of all, with a good dose of Vaclav Havel too. There are thoughtful voices that can help us think through these difficult questions. If we don't, we will compartmentalize and then privatize our faith, and it will have no forming power in our lives or in our communities.

QUESTION: In chapter 3, "Education for What Purpose? Competence to What End?," you state that the primary challenge facing higher education today is that, "meaningful education is possible only if questions of meaning are allowed in education." That's a concise, memorable way to phrase the issue at hand. The problem, of course, is that we live in an increasingly anti-Christian society, with the majority of university faculty and students rejecting outright the meta-narrative of faith. How do we winsomely inject questions of meaning back into higher education given the chilling societal climate of "Culture Wars?"

RESPONSE: You don't let up, do you?! The first rule of engagement is always to be excellent at our work, whatever it is. As students, as professors, as staff - if we are not known as people of true integrity, then whatever we believe will be seen as irrelevant to the common good. Integrity is a rich word, with meaning for relationships as well as responsibilities. The hardly-interested student has a hard time persuading the professor about the importance of honest faith; the laggardly professor will not win the respect of colleagues or students. But from the position of real integrity, we can talk about ideas, and the reality that ideas have legs. Sometimes in some places, people are deaf to meaningful conversations about anything. But that is more rare than the rule. Most people can be engaged by an honest question, asked by an honest person. We probably need to do more within the Church to help people understand this. Again, I love Havel for many reasons, but one is that he is a world-class intellectual leader who, while not a Christian, sees the line-in-the-sand clearly about the most important things, viz. he argues that if we lose God in the modern world, then we have to give up talking about meaning, purpose, accountability, and responsibility. Not unlike another European more than a century earlier, really. Nietzsche argued that if we lose God, we also lose the ability to speak of meaning and morality. That is stark, and in the "Enlightened" world of the academy, their critiques will not be happily received - as honest as they are. Sometimes our best friends are not other believers, but simply other human beings who are willing to be more intellectually and historically honest.

QUESTION: In chapter 6, "Masters, Mentors and Moral Meaning," you affirm the importance of our students entering into relationships in which they can find mentoring, older - and presumably wiser - teachers and advisers who will shape and influence the thinking of our students. But the quote that you included from Cardinal Newman - "An academic system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified cast-iron University and nothing else" - hits squarely on the outcome that most Christian parents fear the most, i.e. that their "good Christian kids" will fall under the influence of a charming professor who positively delights in dismantling their faith and confusing them precisely at that critical point in life when they are making lifelong belief commitments. So what would you say, for example, to the Christian parent who absolutely does not want their child to be mentored by "godless academics?"

RESPONSE: What would I say? Either keep them at home, or send them off to a place where there are no "godless academics." More and more, people make that choice - and it is not a bad choice, for a time. But we all have to realize that at some point, our dear ones will have to live in the world, the globalizing, secularizing, pluralizing world. And then what? Years ago I wrote an article for a magazine, Christian Home and School, "Don't Leave Your Brains at the Box-Office: Teaching Our Children to Be Prudent, Not Prudish" (and later published by Critique). While it was focused on teaching children to make sense of movies, the point is a larger one. Being "prudent" is learning to see truthfully, while prudishness is always a knee-jerk reaction which can never be healthy over the long-haul. If we are not teaching our children - and this is the task of both home and church - to make sense of faith in the face of the challenges of secularization and pluralization, then they will not grow into people with faith that lasts for life. And here we are all glad for the gift of thoughtful, able Christians who are professors at the Mizzous of this world, offering another way to imagine living and learning in the "godless" world of the academy and beyond.

But one other thing. If there is one theological truth that changes the terms here, it is the reality of common grace for the common good. Most of the work of the world, the university included, is a work of common grace. Learning to build buildings, to write novels or screenplays, to analyze biological systems, to understand the complexity of history, each is what I would call a work of common grace, a gift that every human prizes - whatever we believe about the deepest questions of the cosmos. We need bread, justice and roads. So Christians can be fully engaged as professors and students in the work of the university - with gladness and singleness of heart - knowing that most of what is done is able to be done for the common good, for the flourishing of the city - to remember Jeremiah writing to the exiles.

QUESTION: In the preface to the expanded edition of The Fabric of Faithfulness, you make the statement that, "Men and women who sustain visions of faith over a lifetime learn to take into their hearts the disappointments and sorrows that come to them, finding a deeper, truer faith as they do so." Given that all men and women will one day face disappointments and sorrows, why is it that only those with a meta-narrative of faith can find meaning and learn from these events? Would you say that the ability to make sense out of suffering applies to all people of faith, or is that truthfulness unique to the Christian?

RESPONSE: Let me say very plainly: I don't think anyone can "make sense out of suffering" in a way that is final and definitive. There is too much mystery in our brokenness, and at our best we see through a glass darkly. Often our experience of the wounds of the world is terrible and tragic. So the question in the question you are asking is complex, and difficult. But to press into your question, I suppose the important words here are "all people of faith." What does that mean? Hindus, animists, Maoists, materialists, Jews, Christians, and on and on?

One of the good gifts of Christians to the academy is to speak truthfully about the reality that all people are people of faith. We all have pre-theoretic commitments that shape us in the most implicit and explicit ways. The myth of philosophical neutrality is just that - a myth. Believing this then about all of us, I think that Bono is our best apologist here (and is helped by the thinking of people like C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Francis Schaeffer, Lesslie Newbigin, N.T. Wright). He is onto a profound truth when he contrasts grace and karma, arguing that they are deeply different accounts of life in the world. I am going to smile as I use a word from the contemporary university, but I don't use it to be mean, or pejorative. Bono "privileges" the gospel of grace, arguing that its vision of life is unique, completely different from every other religious vision, which in their own different ways are forms of "faith." His thesis is that they are each a kind of karma, whether a version of Eastern pantheism or Western materialism, e.g. Hinduism or determinism. I think he is making a cosmically-important statement about who we are and how we live. Karmas of any kind cannot have a good answer to disappointment and sorrow. In different languages and cultures, it finally comes down to "it is the way it is," viz. fate - and we cannot act against fate. "Things are the way they are, and I am the way that I am."

But if we choose against karma as an adequate account of life, what does grace mean, beyond a theological category? Simply this: if there has been an incarnation in history, then we are able to take the wounds of the world into our hearts - and still live, and love.

God knew the world in its sorrow and injustice, and still chose to love the world - an amazing grace. But knowing the hurts and wounds, God cried over them. That he did matters tremendously; if he didn't, it would be hard for me to be a Christian. The tears of God are complex, though; if we are willing to work this through carefully we will learn from his tears, making them our own, crying for what God cries about - and laughing over what he laughs about. It is as Bono says in the song, "When I Look at the World," viz. "I want to feel it like you do!" We cannot be romantics about the hurts of the world. They are devastating sometimes, and always painful. The hard question is this: knowing what we know of the complex wounds of the world, can we still love the world? Can we give grace, be grace? If there has been an incarnation, yes. And if we can, then we see the implications of this for our callings and careers within the university: it is in and through our various vocations that we know the world, and love it - physicists, agronomists, historians, and on and on. When we see it this way, we can keep at it, sustaining our visions and commitments over a lifetime - because we are called to do so, in imitation of Christ.

Steven Garber, Director
The Washington Institute

Jeremiah 29:7 (ESV)
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Songs and Scenes from Sunday, August 28, 2011

This week's Songs and Scenes features photos courtesy of Scott Patrick Myers. You'll find links in the song titles which allow you to purchase recorded versions of the songs (when available). This setlist, along with many other churches, is archived at the Sunday Setlist blog at The Worship Community.

We began our service with a call to worship (adapted from The Worship Sourcebook) asking God to open our eyes, minds and hearts to see Christ and worship Him in spirit and truth.

Here I Am to Worship by Tim Hughes

Light of the world,
You stepped down into darkness,
opened my eyes, let me see.
Beauty that made this heart adore You,
hope of a life spent with You.
Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down,
here I am to say that You're my God.

With Melting Heart and Weeping Eyes - Words by John Fawcett (1740-1817), Music by Clint Wells

Does not Thy sacred word proclaim,
salvation free in Jesus' name?
To Him I look and humbly cry,
"Lord, save a wretch condemned to die.
Lord, save this wretch condemned to die."

We heard God's word from Isaiah 55:6-7 (adapted by Eugene Peterson in The Message) which invites us to seek Him and turn away from the things that harden our hearts toward Him.

Seek God while he's here to be found,
pray to him while he's close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.

Here is Our King (chorus only) by David Crowder

Here is our King, here is our love,
here is our God who's come
to bring us back to Him.
He is the One, He is Jesus.

Psalm 34:4-6 and Psalm 34:8 assured us God hears our prayers and He rescues us from our fears and troubles.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.

Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

Gloria by King's Kaliedoscope

The photo above is an 8 year old's notes from the service this morning. Her heartfelt expression of worship is a picture of what Chad Gardner writes in a blog post about the song "Gloria" and Psalm 34, "Christ delivers us, making us unashamed and radiant. When we really see who Christ is, when we actually taste his goodness and are overwhelmed, how else could we respond but with a resounding “Gloria!”

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
all you people, all you saints
all you children of the king.
Gloria!, Gloria!, Gloria!, Gloria!

I Fear the Lord by David A. Cover, Patrick K. Miller and Christine Cover

I Fear the Lord is a companion song to The Crossing's new sermon series on the book of Proverbs which enables us to emotionally respond to the truths we're learning together.

You are my God!
Help me walk in your wisdom's way.
You are my God!
Father, teach my heart to obey.

Music and Tech Team for August 28, 2011:

Kristen Camp - vocals
David Cover - electric guitar, percussion
Sadie Currey - violin
Nick Havens - bass, percussion
Rhett Johnson - acoustic guitar
Scott Johnson - piano, keyboards
Alyssa Kelly - vocals
Andrew Luley - drums
Joel Schirmer - vocals, percussion
Alison Tatum - violin

Kamerson Bong - stagehand
Chris Halsey - lights
Darrin Nichols - music media
Jake Wandel - stage, media and light coordiantor
Tim Worstell - sound

Forever/Home, a collection of worship songs for the family by The Crossing Music, can be found in The Crossing's bookstore or online. You can follow The Crossing Music on Twitter and Facebook.

Links of the Week

Vacation is nice. But it's always amazing how much make-up you have to do the following week. In honor of going on vacation last week, here's a simple links of the week post for you.


Mizzou Football season is upon us (1 and 2) - I found it neat that in one edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune two articles discussed faith and football. The first talks about James Franklin, the second some of our defensive players. I was encouraged to be even more of a Mizzou fan than I already am. High profile athletes who give interview about their Christian faith. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Newsflash: Addiction isn't your fault - At least that's the aim of this article detailing a shift in the medical community. Many researchers are pushing common perception towards the idea that addictions (alcohol, gambling, drugs, sex, etc.) are not immoral actions driven by choice, but neurological brain functions that predetermine behavior. A direct quote - "Simply put, addiction is not a choice." Soon child abuse, sleeping in to the point of getting fired, adultery, divorce, and who knows what else will be explained away by neurology. Predispositions to behaviors or actions, whether it is lust, anger, addiction, or laziness are not get-out-of-jail-free tickets to excuse our actions. We all still make real choices. Reminds me of Paul to Timothy - "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." ~ 2 Tim. 4:3-4

Who is going to church - One writer's analysis of incoming research on this question. I find things like this interesting even if I don't have an immediate application for the information.

I'm not a Christian and coming to your church - I linked this several months ago, but I'll do so again because it fits in nicely with the previous article.

Have Duty and Honor Become Cliche'?

Honor and duty are two reoccurring themes throughout the book of Proverbs. As we embark on a new series at The Crossing, working our way through this ancient book of wisdom, I couldn’t help but see examples of these themes in a widely circulated report from last week. The story concerned the Japanese earthquake and tsunami recovery efforts. It appears that over $78 million dollars in found money has been turned in to authorities by Japanese citizens. Japanese police forces report approximately 95% of the money has already been returned to the rightful owners or the next of kin.

There are quite a few different avenues through which one could process a story such as this. There is the very real tradition of the Japanese holding honesty in high regard. It is also, without a doubt, an encouraging story regarding its light of hope in the middle of such a terrible human tragedy. One could also highlight the diligent detective work needed to uncover the original owners of the over 5,700 safes that were returned.

My first reaction was to wonder if such a display of duty and honor would have been exemplified in a similar tragedy on American soil. I couldn’t help but recall many images from hurricane Katrina and the rampant looting by New Orleans citizens and even crimes committed by local police during that terrible event. I’ve read enough sensationalized reports in the media to recognize most feel-good stories aren’t as rosy as depicted and similarly most discouraging reports aren’t always as “chicken little” as they initially seem. Even the most discerning pessimist would have to acknowledge the report of the returned money in Japan is simply amazing.

I don’t think one could really effectively argue that the Japanese are simply genetically programmed for honesty. Instead, there appears to be a sincere cultural emphasis on doing what is honorable and just. What is the origin of this type of thinking? The consistency in behavior is almost overwhelming. I will admit the behavior seems so robotic and uniform in nature that it appears almost insincere. How pessimistic indeed!

Our culture, on the other-hand, seems enamored with duty and honor, but only at a safe distance. We appreciate the duty and honor of those serving our country in the armed forces. We appreciate duty and honor in movies like Star Wars and Braveheart. But what does our collective consciousness scream when the open safe is at our feet? Take the money and run!

Here is where I believe the Christian culture has a very tangible opportunity to influence those around us to examine the gospel with open eyes and hearts. What if Christians were known to forgo individual gain for the good of the group? What if Christians were universally known as givers and not takers? I am afraid our track record to date does not exemplify the character of Christ, nor the motivation provided by the gospel. Even when we happen to choose the more noble path when faced with a dilemma, it is simply to appease a guilty conscious, not because we believe the promises of God are more satisfying than sin.

Imagine the witness of an entire gospel believing community who would turn in 5,700 money filled safes. Not because it is just the right thing to do, but because they collectively believe someone else’s money is just as unsatisfying as their own money! Wouldn’t that cause a few heads to turn?

“The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame”
-Proverbs 3:35

Three Service Update

Everywhere I've gone this week, people have asked me how the first Sunday of three services went. So I thought I'd write a brief update.

Last Sunday went exceptionally well in the sense that we were able to accommodate almost 2,500 people in the auditorium, 615 kids through 5th grade and 250 students in Middle School, Junior High, and Senior High. Except for this past Easter (when we also had three services), this was our largest Sunday attendance in our 11-year history, and could never have happened without adding the additional service time.

If you helped in any way, big or small, we really appreciate it. Your willingness to serve or change your normal routine didn't go unnoticed by us nor, more importantly, by God. That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of challenges still facing us.

For example: During the 9:30 service, we had to close five children's classrooms due to over-crowding and lack of space. And, during the 11:00 service, we had to use the overflow room due to overcrowding in the auditorium. These are just some of the issues to which we're still trying to come up with both short and long term solutions. Quick Solution: If you have the flexibility to go to the 8:00 service, that would be a huge help. There were 550 people in the first service, leaving 450 seats available.

This transition to three service is motivated by one reason alone: God cares about people and therefore so should we. We have never had growth or attendance goals. We've only prayed that God would bring the people He wants to come. As long as He keeps bringing people, we believe it is our responsibility to provide a place for them to meet God just as we have done. Let's keep praying that God would work in our lives, families, church, and community.

Remember Your Leaders: John Stott (1921-2011)

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” These words might seem odd to a culture that (1) evidences a robust suspicion of authority in general and (2) is regularly inflicted with news of Christian leaders falling from grace.

And yet, originating as it does from Hebrews 13, the command is one that remains appropriate for the believing Church. That it does so is a testimony to the grace of God. Pyrotechnic human failures occur with far more regularity than any of us would like. But God, as he always will, still regularly calls and equips leaders to live lives in his service that are worthy of imitation.

One such man was John Stott. Long-time pastor at All Souls Anglican Church in London and prolific author, Stott passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 90. Over the course of his long and productive life, Stott was channel of grace literally to millions of evangelical believers, whether they knew him or not.

Unashamedly committed to authority and trustworthiness of the Scriptures, Stott also insisted that effectively communicating the biblical gospel and expounding its implications for all of life demanded a thoroughgoing engagement with the surrounding world. Understanding the church as truly global, he championed its development in what he called “the majority world,” where training and resources have historically been scarce. In fact, he reportedly channeled the royalties received for his many books toward that end.

Asked a few years ago how he most wanted to be remembered, Stott replied, “As an ordinary Christian who has struggled in his desire to understand, to expound, and to…apply the word of God.” This he did through decades of preaching and writing. As a pastor, I’ve always particularly appreciated Stott’s numerous biblical commentaries. His work always reflects profoundly on the text, yet remains accessible and applicable enough for other “ordinary Christians.” Additionally, The Cross of Christ—a biblical exposition of Christ’s substitutionary atonement and what many consider to be Stott’s finest work—is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read. His Basic Christianity rates as a classic introduction to the faith.

In his multifaceted ministry, Stott conducted himself with a widely acknowledged humility. This brief anecdote, chronicled by Tim Stafford in Christianity Today's obituary, underscores that assertion:

Latin American theologian Rene Padilla remembers vividly one of his early encounters with Stott. "On the previous night we had arrived in Bariloche, Argentina, in the middle of heavy rain. The street was muddy and, as a result, by the time we got to the room that had been assigned to us our shoes were covered with mud. In the morning, as I woke up, I heard the sound of a brush—John was busy, brushing my shoes. 'John!,' I exclaimed full of surprise, 'What are you doing?' 'My dear René,' he responded, 'Jesus taught us to wash each other's feet. You do not need me to wash your feet, but I can brush your shoes.'

Scanning my bookshelves for his name while writing this, I was mildly surprised to count up as many as seven or eight books bearing his authorship. In a way, this act of inventory was an apt metaphor for Stott’s life and ministry: a steady labor that, rather than attracting a great deal of attention to himself, faithfully and effectively encouraged others to know Christ and grow in their faith.

John Stott would be the first to insist that he was a deeply flawed sinner. And he’d undoubtedly be right. Still, by the grace of God, Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 serve as a fitting epitaph for Stott’s own life:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

He will be missed.


For more on John Stott:

The New York Times
Justin Taylor

Check out several of his books in The Crossing Bookstore.

Seek the Flourishing of the University (Part 1 of 2)

An Interview with Steven Garber of The Washington Institute

Back in May, I was given a tremendous opportunity to join a "D.Min. Cohort" dedicated to studying the intersection of faith, vocation and culture...even though I have no plans to pursue a doctorate in ministry degree. As a master's student at Covenant Seminary, I was assured that there would be "other M.A. students added to the mix," so I needn't feel like the odd man out when the group convened for its first week in St. Louis.

So you can already see where this is going, right? When I arrived at Covenant, it turned out that everyone else at the table already had their M.Div and/or doctorate degree(s) or had begun pursuing thier Ph.D. I was, I am quite certain, the only guy at the table who could not read, write or adequately pronounce a word of Hebrew or Greek. All the other M.A. students, apparently, had sufficient sense to quietly pursue their degrees in less-intimidating environments. As the other guys around the table began to open their mouths and discuss the topic at hand, I became quite certain that a clerical error had been made somewhere, that I was an interloper of the worst kind. Surely I would be found out before too long!

And then Steven Garber, director of The Washington Institute, arrived a bit late, his flight delayed. Steven had committed to spend five days with our group, gently challenging our presuppositions about how, when and where the Christian church best interacts with society at large, and otherwise blowing a few circuit breakers in everyone's head. The topic of how to live faithfully in an American culture that is increasingly hostile (or, more often, uninterested) in the Christian meta-narrative of Creation, Fall/Rebellion, Redemption and Consummation is not an easy study, to be sure, and so it was comforting to have Steven on hand to relay several instances of how believers are actively engaging in the culture - as opposed to walling themselves off - and profit from his considerable experience.

As just one measure of his ability to persevere and endure unspeakable suffering, Steven agreed to allow me to interview him for ESI once I had completed reading his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness. And here's just one indication of how Steven thinks differently on a seemingly-simple topic: While his book is available for purchase through just about any outlet you might normally use, Steven would instead encourage you to open an account and get to know the folks operating Hearts and Minds Bookstore in Dallastown, Penn.

Our conversation took place via e-mail; Part Two will be published next Monday (Aug. 29) on ESI.

QUESTION: Mr. Garber, your book, The Fabric of Faithfulness, makes an excellent case for the idea that the modern university is seriously short-changing its students by failing to connect vocational education to a student's larger sense of purpose.

As you know, Columbia, Mo., is a college town of approximately 108,000 and serves as the main campus for the University of Missouri. As you and I speak, many parents in and around Columbia recently shipped their college-age high school graduates off to Mizzou for the Fall 2011 semester. Doubtless, many Christian parents are terrified that their children will very quickly abandon their faith, never to return. Worse, statistics from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life tend to back up the reasonableness of that fear.

Additionally, the congregation that today comprises The Crossing Church in Columbia is made up of hundreds of faithful individuals who serve the University system in one capacity or another. Many are perhaps "silently dismayed" at how the person and work of Jesus Christ has been excluded from meaningful discussion in the public square. In an increasingly diverse and multicultural society, what might you say to an individual who works at Mizzou who is genuinely interested in redeeming education for the glory of God...but at the same time fearful that they may well lose their job in the process?

RESPONSE: It is a good question. We are called to honestly be in the world, but not to be of it. That dynamic runs through the Church's history. So while the first years of the 21st-century present challenges to people who long to be in-but-not-of, a deeper reality is that we are perennial people, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve that we are. Some things change, but most things cannot change - we are still living in the only world that is really there, i.e. God's world, and we are still image-bearers of God, whether we want to be or not.

We do live in a globalizing, pluralizing, secularizing moment in history. And in the West, the university is all of that, and intensely so. That reality does make working at a school like the University of Missouri an honest challenge. Professors are not hired on the basis of their creedal commitments to mere Christianity, obviously. In fact more often, though not always, faculty hires are made with the intention of keeping people out who have known loyalty to transcendence and truth. That is one of the harshest faces of contemporary liberalism, i.e. that in the end it is not very liberal at all. See Steve Turner's brilliant poem, "Creed."

The perennial call that is ours is to be salt and light, remembering the wisdom of the Anglican pastor and theologian John Stott, who taught that we are not to blame the world for being the world. When meat rots, we don't blame the meat. Rather we ask, "Why wasn't it salted?" When rooms are dark, we don't blame the rooms. Rather we ask, "Why wasn't the light turned on?" So Stott taught a sober truth, viz. if there is blame to be given, it is first of all ours for failing to take our vocations seriously.

The Mizzous of this world need the Church, whether they ever acknowledge that. Otherwise they are rotting places, dark places, and human beings will not flourish. And that has to be the yearning that keeps us going. We are to do all we do so that human beings might flourish. In the words of Jeremiah to the exiles, "Seek the flourishing of the city, pray for its flourishing - and remember that when it flourishes, you will flourish." (Jeremiah 29:7) He was speaking to the Daniels of that world who of course were hearing him in their city of Babylon, the most iconically pagan city in history.

We are not romantics. So we will groan and sigh, sometimes we may even suffer - but we are still to pray for the strength to be what we should be and need to be, viz. the salt and light of the gospel of the kingdom, in and through our varied vocations seeking the flourishing of the university.

QUESTION: Isn't the task of "redeeming higher education for God's glory" too massive and daunting for the individual worker? What kind of realistic expectations should we keep in mind as we consider how each of us can work for the glory of God?

RESPONSE: Yes, probably it is "too massive and daunting." It is why I have taken the poetic imagery of Bono as seriously as I have, who, in reflecting on his own vocation, wrote, "I'm a musician. I write songs. I just hope that when the day is done I've been able to tear a little corner off of the darkness." They are words we can all live by. We believe in the coming of the kingdom, and we believe that in and through our lives we are to be signposts of the coming kingdom - not only individually, but to long for institutional transformation, too. That is what is meant by "seeking the flourishing of the city," where cities and societies reflect some measure of the truth of the universe. But even as we give ourselves to that vision, we must make peace with proximate justice, even as we make peace with proximate happiness in the rest of life, e.g. in our marriages. "Proximate" is an important word, as it allows us to stick with things that are not all that we want them to be, all that we think the kingdom of God will someday be. If our only choices are "all or nothing," then in the end it will always be "nothing," because in this fallen world it will never be "all."

Next Week: Steven Garber tackles some challenging issues relative to "being in the University...but not of the University." [Read Part 2]

Jeremiah 29:7 (ESV)
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Songs and Scenes from Sunday, August 21, 2011

This week's Songs and Scenes features photos by Gerik Parmele. You'll find links in the song titles that will allow you to purchase recorded versions of the songs (where available). This setlist (along with many other churches) is also archived at the Sunday Setlist blog at The Worship Community.

Gloria by King's Kaliedoscope

This new song (based on Psalm 34) was written by the worship band, King's Kaleidoscope, from Mars Hill in Seattle. It expresses the confidence and joy we have in Christ who delivers us from our sins and fears.

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
all you people, all you saints
all you children of the king.
Gloria!, Gloria!, Gloria!, Gloria!

Holy, Holy, Holy (Lord, God Almighty) - Words by Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Music by John B. Dykes (1861)

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

I Fear the Lord by David A. Cover, Patrick K. Miller and Christine Cover

This week we started Foolproofing Your Life a new sermon series on the book of Proverbs. I Fear the Lord is a companion song written by the Crossing Music to help us commit to heart the truths we'll learn together in the weeks to come.

I heard the sound of Wisdom's voice,
call me from my darkened path:
"Turn your heart at my reproof,
to the light of my word's truth."
You are my God!
Help me walk in your wisdom's way.

David lead us through a reading of 1 Corinthians 2:7-9.

We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived—
these things God has prepared for those who love him”

A Place For You by Christine Cover, Jake Wandel, Chris Binkley, Molly Cover and David A. Cover

Let your heart not be troubled,
trust in God and also in me.
Do not fear, My child,
I’ll come back for you, to take you home.
In My father’s house I’ve made a place for you
so that where I am you will be too.

How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves and Ed Cash

The splendor of the King,
clothed in majesty;
Let all the earth rejoice,
all the earth rejoice.
He wraps Himself in light,
and darkness tries to hide,
and trembles at His voice.
How great is Our God!

Like His Love by Patrick K. Miller, David A. Cover, Christine Cover, Andrew Camp and Andrew Luley

Even though the stars are good,
Like all God made, like air and food.
Nothing is as good as God!
Nothing fills me like his love!

Music and Tech Team for August 21, 2011:

Taylor Bonderer - acoustic guitar, violin
Kristen Camp - vocals
David Cover - vocals, electric guitars, percussion
Nick Havens - bass, percussion
Alyssa Kelly - vocals, piano
Andrew Luley - drums
Kerry Maggard - keyboard, organ

Kameron Bong - stagehand
Josh Burrell - media coordinator
Jamie Stephens - media
Jake Wandel - light and stage design
Tim Worstell - sound

Forever/Home, a collection of worship songs for the family by The Crossing Music, can be found in The Crossing's bookstore or online. You can follow The Crossing Music on Twitter and Facebook.

Temporal Losses, Eternal Hope

The dorms on the MU campus opened up this week and, as always, thousands of college students rushed to fill them. This annual event usually causes little more disturbance in our home than some grumbling from my husband, since he works on campus, about how the quiet streets and all the good parking places downtown are gone.

But this year it was different for me. This year, our oldest daughter was among those students moving into the dorms.

The start of this new school year represents what feels like a fairly significant loss for me. My daughter's bedroom downstairs is empty. Well, kind of empty. There still seems to be an awful lot of clothes, dust bunnies and half-empty water bottles left behind. But she no longer resides down there. The picture to the right is of her new home on campus.

I've obviously seen this change in my life coming. I helped her plan for her life as a college student, and in many ways I've been excited for the change right along with her. But I also knew that her moving out would be a loss for me, and that I would miss her being a daily part of life here under our roof. I tried to brace myself for that change. But I've found that just because you can see a loss coming doesn't really change that sense of emptiness once the loss is upon you.

These kinds of losses are the ones we all experience.

A friend of mine drove her "baby" to kindergarten this year, and I knew without being told what that loss felt like - the end of an era of being home with preschool children, and all of a sudden life turns a corner you're never quite prepared for.

Another friend of mine is walking the same path that I am; having had a close relationship with her college-age daughter, she is now living in a home with a similarly-empty bedroom. But these kinds of "life losses," as my husband reminds me, are inherently designed to be losses; they are transitions in life that are healthy. It's a good thing when a child grows up and becomes independent. Our roles as parents include preparing our children for this kind of departure.

Some losses, we know deep in our souls, are not the way it's meant to be.

Death is obviously the ultimate example of the kind of loss that never feels "right", no matter the age of the person we lose. I got word just yesterday that my great-aunt died after a lengthy season wherein she slowly lost her mental faculties. She couldn't care for herself, or even feed herself. She was often confused, not knowing where she was or who her own family was. And yet, her death brings a sadness to all of us who loved her. She was the third of this generation in my family to die in 2011. The last of my grandmother's siblings, she was the "baby" of that generation, at one time, and so there's something in her passing that marks the end of another kind of era.

So this week I have struggled, honestly, with feeling great loss in my own life, in the empty bedroom downstairs, and in the empty space in my family that my great-aunt's life once filled. In a few short weeks, I will feel great and piercing loss in the lives of all those who will attend this next session of DivorceCare at The Crossing.

My husband and I are getting ready to meet another room full of people facing a loss they never anticipated - the death of their marriage. This is another one of those losses that is not meant to be. Marriage between a man and woman is a picture of God's covenant promise to us, His chosen people. "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5; Deuteronomy 31:6) God promises this to us and, in turn, we make this promise to our spouse on our wedding day. Not knowing the future, we nevertheless say to each other, "Yes, we might have financial difficulties. We may even suffer the loss of our health. We may struggle through rough seasons time and again, but I commit my life to you until my life is over." But increasingly often that promise simply is not kept, and we are left with a hole where we never thought there would be one.

Our hearts ache with the loss of things that we believe should not be lost to us, and they ache even when the loss is simply the end of one good season and the beginning of another.

Too often, losses reveal areas where we have put our hope in people or circumstances that were never designed to fill us. It's natural to be sad when your last child heads off to school, or your teenage children move out of the house and onto college life. It's also entirely understandable that death, the demise of our marriage, a sudden health crisis, etc. throw us for a loop. But when these changes inevitably come, we should recognize them for what they are - reminders that we live in a temporal world, and nothing in this life is going to last forever. This world is not our final home; everything about our lives is temporary. It's God's mercy on all of us that He is continually (perhaps even "relentlessly") pointing us to this solid, unchanging Truth (2 Corinthians 4).

When loss enters our life and removes something we value - whether we see it coming or not - we will always be deeply shaken, unless we can look to Christ for that unshakable hope, that solid ground. The best response, for those of us who profess to believe in God's Word, is to allow those temporal losses to once again drive us to the Unchanging One who alone can fill those empty spaces in our hearts.

1 Peter 1:3-7
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

England Bans Airbrushed Ad

Stephanie Gosk wrote a surprising article for MSNBC.com explaining how the British government recently forced the cosmetic giant L'Oreal to remove an ad featuring the American actress Julia Roberts. The reason? False advertising.

Roberts appeared in an ad promoting the brand's newest age defying products. When approached by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), L'Oreal admitted that airbrushing was used to...

'"lighten the skin, clean up makeup, reduce dark shadows and shading around the eyes, smooth the lips and darken the eyebrows,' but that the benefits of the facial cream were not misrepresented."

In a statement from L’Oreal on the Turlington [another actress] ad, the company writes, “Even though the ad features an obviously illustrated effect, some lines are still clearly visible beneath the illustration and we do not believe that the ad exaggerates the effect that can be achieved using this product.”

A brief observation...

We are bombarded with a constant stream of images that undoubtedly affect how we see both ourselves and other people. If Julia Roberts doesn't look attractive enough to showcase your facial cream, doesn't that say something rather significant? What does it say about our values and culture that even the most attractive people in the world need to be "airbrushed" before they can appear in an advertisement? Do you think that we are unaffected? How about young girls?

Moms and Dads, this might be a good story to bring up at the dinner table. It could lead to a discussion about the importance of inner beauty vs outer beauty and which is more important to God. Of course we'd be naive to think that this is just an issue for our kids as if we are unaffected by media definitions of beauty.

The Crossing's Sixth Core Value

In April of 2000, two months before we held our first worship service at The Crossing, Keith and I wrote out our Six Core Values that would shape who we are and how we would do ministry as a new church.

And those who are part of The Crossing will see that the same Six Core Values we wrote out eleven years ago still shape our approach to ministry today.

I’ve previously discussed our Mission Statement and our First and Second and Third and Fourth and Fifth Core Values in previous blogs.

Today I want to discuss our Sixth Core Value, which in all candor has perhaps been our most difficult value actually to carry out as a church.

This is the paragraph Keith and I wrote eleven years ago:

Core Value #6—Transformational Community
God created us to live in community. Our passion is to be a loving, magnetic, and transformational church community. This means much more than just being a church made up of friendly people. It means being a community bound together by real and authentic friendships. Many important things happen when we commit ourselves to a real and loving community. It is the context in which we grow spiritually, minister most effectively, and become truly attractive to outsiders. It brings us joy, synergy, and a blending of giftedness that we cannot experience merely as a collection of individuals. Real and loving community always requires a real commitment. That’s why it’s important that we distinguish between “newcomers” and “members.” While we seek to welcome newcomers without asking for any commitments on their part, we also believe that growing in a church body is a process of growing in commitment—both of the individual to the church body and the church body to the individual. Commitment is something our culture has seriously devalued in recent times, and this is manifested in the apathy in many churches today regarding the issue of membership. Contrary to this trend, we value the role meaningful membership provides in developing a loving, magnetic, and transformational church community.

That’s a long paragraph, but each sentence is important to what we’ve always strived to be:

• A loving, magnetic, transformational church community.
• Authentic friendships.
• Magnetic to outsiders.
• Something far more than merely a collection of individuals sitting together.

God created us to live in community. That’s the “one-another” Christian life the New Testament talks about more than fifty times in its pages. And you cannot really live the Christian life apart from it. Not really.

But there is a kind of catch-22 in all this, because the more a church really is a loving, magnetic, transformational community, the larger the church will become. And then the larger the church becomes, the greater the challenges of new comers being able to build authentic friendships and connection within the church. That’s why most churches reach the size of about 100-300 people and then plateau.

The Crossing is now about 2,500 people (including kids), give or take a few hundred depending upon the Sunday. Every Sunday we have around 200 more people in attendance than we had that Sunday a year ago. And the last thing we want is for new people to come to The Crossing and sit in an auditorium chair and call that “church.” A church is a transformational community. They must connect relationally or they are not really in “church” yet.

The earliest New Testament church was a local church in Jerusalem of thousands of people and growing.

We read in Acts 2:41 TNIV
"Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day."

Then later we read in Acts 4:4 TNIV
"…Many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand."

And then later in Acts 5:14 TNIV
"…More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number."

Still later, in Acts 6:7 TNIV
"So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly…"

This is a local church that was well over 5,000 people. And God was the one adding the people. More and more. Thousands, all in one local church—a large local church that the Holy Spirit built by the word of God. So if the earliest church that we see in the New Testament was well over 5,000 people by the will and work and word of God, we quickly learn that the large, multi-thousand person church is not a modern American deformity at all. It’s a good thing. It’s something that the Holy Spirit does when he so chooses. And, at least at this point, he has chosen to do so in Columbia at The Crossing (among other churches).

But what’s absolutely vital is that The Crossing function as a biblical church community. And we read how important that was in the earliest church in Acts.

Acts 2:41, 46–47 TNIV
"Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. …Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

They made a large church “small” to them by investing in smaller community within the church. Small groups of various sorts are the means by which a large church becomes smaller to each member, creating personal connections and authentic friendships and transformational spiritual growth in our lives. Joining a men's study group or a women's study group is another good way. Serving on Sunday’s on a team is another way to do some of this as well. All ways that make a large foyer full of hundreds of people suddenly shrink down to a smaller number of people you’re in connected community with.

[Update: You can read my next blog on Why Are We Named The Crossing?]

Can You Believe That Guy is Here?

Have you ever been surprised to see someone you know show up at church? In other words, have you ever thought something like, “Wow, judging from what I see of so-and-so’s life, I would have never thought he/she would darken the door of this church”? If so, here’s perhaps a more important question: what else ran through your mind in that situation?

That’s the question I found myself asking recently as I read through Jerram Barrs’ Learning Evangelism from Jesus, a book we selected for The Crossing’s most recent book discussion this past Monday night. And I bring it up because it’s important to consider our answers in light of biblical teaching.

In these situations I’m guessing that there are plenty of instances where our thoughts have contained something similar to the following:

“She sure doesn’t fit here.”
“Him? Here? Really?”
“Note to self: steer clear of those people.”
“He’s probably just trying put up a good front.”
“This isn’t really the place for someone like her.”
“It’d be better for everyone if they’d just go away.”

Many of us would never say any of this out loud. We may not even think it actively. It might just be an inarticulate feeling that reflects those sentiments. But behind it all is our desire/belief/attitude that church is the place for people who have got it figured out, who are serious about following God and leading a life pleasing to him. It’s supposed to be a nicer and tidier here, where we put on our best face. Those with dirty laundry had best take it someplace else to wash.

Biblically speaking, all of this would be silly if it wasn’t so repugnant. Such thinking ignores two prominent points that are underscored again and again in the Bible. The first is the fact that God actually delights in pursuing and saving sinners. For example, Luke 15 records Jesus famously telling a series of three related parables: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, and what is traditionally called The Prodigal Son (though as many have pointed out, The Two Lost Sons is more accurate). In all three parables, the character representing God in the parable expresses great joy in finding the sheep, coin, and son respectively. Through these stories, Jesus is offering three pictures into the heart of God.

Of course, Jesus’ practice perfectly matched his teaching. He was consistently happy to rub shoulders with those whose lives were judged to be so characterized by sin that they were ostracized from the respectable circles of society. The man whose life was the very definition of righteousness ate and drank with prostitutes (self evidently problematic), tax collectors (despised both for their corruption and collaboration with the hated Romans), Samaritans (half-breed heretics) and the like. Nowhere is he recorded as looking down his nose as he did so.

The second point we often ignore is the fact that all of us, even as people who believe in and follow Christ, remain sinners in desperate need of grace. Unfortunately, this is all too easy for us to forget when we consider—however legitimately or necessarily—the sins and shortcomings of others. Rather than soberly acknowledging truth from a position of humility, we act as blind persons condemning others for their inability to see.

Who is it we should expect to find in church? The answer should be obvious: people who fall painfully short of God’s holiness. And that description fits us as well as it does those we’re surprised to find walking through the doors.

All this means that we should be excited—delighted even—to find every manner of messy person whom God has drawn alongside us. And along with the apostle Paul, we can confess, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Does God Ever Initiate a "Plan B?"

In a couple weeks - on Aug. 31, to be precise - my wife and I will begin facilitating our sixth semester of divorce ministry at The Crossing. While we both think quite highly of the curriculum and enjoy getting to meet and befriend new people through the class, DivorceCare is one of those ministries where you secretly (perhaps naively) wish that "customer demand" was not quite so high. Alas, separations and divorces continue along at an epidemic level - both inside and outside the church - with little to no sign of tapering off. Marriage itself may be on the wane in our culture, but certainly not divorce.

From our vantage point, it would seem that the single-hardest notion for the recently-separated to accept goes something like this: "God never has a 'Plan B' for your life...what you are walking through right now, hard as it may be to hear this, is 'Plan A.' What's happening to you right now...today. What's happening to your children, what's going on with your ex, your finances...all of it is the 'Plan A' of a loving, faithful Creator God." Because this is such a difficult message to deliver to anyone experiencing tragedy, we typically prefer to wait for Pastor Dave Cover to show up and lay out this hard truth, as it has so many implications for how a believer will choose to walk through heartbreak.

If what Dave is saying is true, though - and I have come to believe that it is - how can we continue to joyfully worship a God Who has allowed so much evil to infiltrate and destroy our lives? My first answer would be to point to Joseph, "faithfully rotting away" in Pharoah's prison for several years (Genesis 39:20; 40:23) with absolutely no clue that he would one day be exalted to the position of prime minister over all of Egypt. I would probably cite the same passage used yesterday to close out The Crossing's sermon series on the book of Genesis: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." (Genesis 50:20) In short, Joseph trusted God even while in prison for a crime he did not commit; his faith enabled him to see that the evil committed by other men could be shaped and molded to God's good purposes in the life of one faithful believer...and an entire nation of people saved from starvation.

Whether or not you believe that "there is no such thing as a Plan B in God's economy" really comes down to your view of God Himself. If you are someone who sees God's power in your life as necessarily limited or in any way contingent upon the response of human beings, you will tend to allow yourself to think things such as, "God would never have allowed me to marry this man if He knew that it would end in adultery," or perhaps, "God would never have allowed this sort of suffering in the lives of my children." This "smaller version" of God's sovereign power in our lives allows us to place ourselves in the judgment seat and presume to tell God - rather than ask Him - what is "best" for us and for those we love. Even more dangerous, when we deny that whatever is going on in our lives is God's merciful Plan A for us, we prevent ourselves from seeing whatever He is trying to do within that particular trial.

A few years ago, when Dave was honing in on his "No Plan B" message, I finally - for whatever reason - had my ears enabled to really hear it. For me, anyway, the issue at hand always boiled down to whether or not God was capable of "changing His mind." Of course, I was well aware of the passage in 1 Samuel 15:11, wherein God "regretted" making Saul king over Israel, but it seemed to me that the word itself - regret - contained within it the (untrue) implication that God had not already known how Saul would turn out when he had him anointed as king. Was God somehow "surprised" by this (or any) turn of events? Here again, the ESV Study Bible notes are an excellent, accessible source of information on thorny issues such as these:

1 Samuel 15:29: The term "regret" poses a difficulty, since verses 11 and 35 say that God did regret making Saul king, while here Samuel denies that God will ever lie or have regret (cf. Numbers 23:19). The term for "have regret" (Hebrew: nakham) can be translated "relent" or "change one's mind" (e.g. Exodus 32:12, 14; Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 24:16; [1 Chronicles 21:15]; Psalm 106:45; Jeremiah 15:6, 18:8, 10, 26:3, 13, 19, 42:10; Ezekiel 24:14; Joel 2:13-14; Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9-10, 4:2) or "have pity or compassion" (Deuteronomy 32:36; Judges 2:18; Psalm 90:13, Psalm 135:14) as well as "be sorry" or "have regret" (cf. Genesis 6:6-7). Thus the term as used in 1 Samuel 15:11, 35 describes God's own feeling of sorrow or regret that Saul had turned out as he did (and does not even address the question whether God knew it beforehand), while in verse 29 God will not regret or change his mind concerning a decision once he has made it.

I suspect that for most of us, the issue of Saul's failures as Israel's first king and whether or not this was God's Plan A for His people Israel does not resonate all that deeply while we are facing our own failures - like bottoming out in alcohol addiction, losing our home, being dragged into court or having our children taken from us. I do not use these examples lightly, either, as I have personally lived through all of those experiences. Doubtless, in the moment of greatest pain, I responded poorly to the idea that any of that garbage was God's perfected Plan A for my life. Yet, in hindsight, I can say with confidence that these were all part of God's plan to redeem my life from the pit (Psalm 56:13; 103:1-5) and refine me more and more into the image of His Son (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 4:1, 6).

Having a large view of God's sovereignty and all-encompassing power is really quite liberating, though (like most people) I greatly resisted the rather-obvious ideas that I am finite, frail and utterly contingent upon God's grace in every way. To this very day I suffer through some situations that are absolutely appalling in their lack of sense or reason; I am frequently tempted to ask, "What good can possibly come of this?" In those desperate moments, as emotions swell, quickly recalling the simple words "No Plan B" allows me to take hold of the freedom to trust God, submit myself once again to His authority, and rely upon His Body, the church, to help me pull through the worst of it.

To anyone struggling through a particularly difficult season in life, I would strongly encourage you to memorize Romans 8:28 and work through whatever amount of Bible study you find necessary to accept the truckloads of sound theology supporting the idea that nothing we say, do or experience catches God off-guard. Not the sins we commit, not the sins that are committed against us, not the sinners we marry (or give birth to), not the financial mess we've gotten ourselves in...nothing. It can all be used for our good, and for the good of others, if we will fully and finally surrender all of it to His care.

Note: If you are currently going through a separation and/or divorce, please do not go through it alone. Sign up for DivorceCare at The Crossing by visiting our Online Registration Page or (if you would rather not attend Divorcecare at The Crossing) please visit the DivorceCare Find-a-Group page; entering your ZIP code into the quick-and-easy web form will help you find other groups operating nearby.