We used to have to walk to school uphill, both ways....

Over the years I’ve read several books on the subject of spiritual awakening. The topic has always been of high interest to me, for reasons I can’t take the time to fully explain here, but I am drawn by fascination to the process of how and why social change occurs. Every author has his or her reasons, or solutions, but there seems to be one common thread woven through most writing to which I am familiar. Most everything I’ve ever read about spiritual awakening describes the process in terms of returning, or getting things back to the way they should be.

You can find works written about how to take our cities back for the glory of God, or for those who are interested in returning America back to Christ, or how to get our world back on the right track. In each case, the operative word is “back.”

Why not forward?

The wisdom of Solomon led him to propose this idea years ago. “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” I believe he recognized that in every generation, there is a tendency to think backward instead of forward. We do so because of personal experience. We’ve seen the past, but we’ve not seen the future.

But this kind of perspective requires very little faith. Faith is the essence of what is unseen, not what is seen. It takes less faith to look upon what once was and think it should be the norm. As I described in a previous post, I saw leaders who wanted me to recreate the Jesus Movement of the 70’s by telling stories in such a way that assumed they should be normative for my generation. All it created was a bunch of frustrated students.

This is why Solomon chides us to stay away from looking back on the good old days with anything other than fondness. It’s one thing to enjoy history, collecting antiques, and eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel, but when that affection turns into an obsession to remake the future in that image, it’s a good sign that faith is starting to erode.

Future Pastor, this is why I believe in you so much. I don’t want to become Bobby Bowden or Joe Paw. They are both legends in their field, but they are relics because the game has changed significantly. I know there will come a time I need to get out of your way and turn the reins over to you to lead your generation according to the vision you have that is instigated by your faith.

I love Al Pacino’s speech in the locker room scene of the film, Any Given Sunday, where he stands in front of his team at halftime and with the cadence of a gospel preacher, paints a picture of what it will take to win the ballgame. At one point in the speech he tells them clearly, “Now I can’t do it for you...” which is how I feel about finding the Church of the Future.

Future Pastor, you have a better opportunity to move forward than I because you have less of a past than I do. I can lead you, inspire you and walk a while with you, but it’s up to you to see what the future can be by faith. Trust what you envision. The old days were fine, and old guys like me will always look at them differently than you will, and that’s why you will change the world, not me.

He's an Unidentified Flying Object...

It will be interesting to see how this generation of students will look back on their faith development 30 years from now. I wonder if they will feel the need to react or adapt with as much vigor as my generation.

I was spiritually raised in a post-Jesus-Movement era by leaders who experienced the awakening first hand. If I could narrow down what I got from them, it was built around the importance of having people pray a prayer of salvation. This was the cornerstone upon which all other components of my faith were laid. If I didn’t have a story to tell about how I witnessed to the person I met in line at the post office in 90 seconds, I felt a little less than whole.

It was commonplace to hear unbelievable illustrations about countless people in that day that were deciding to wake up, abandon their life of sex, drugs and rock and roll and follow Jesus. The stories were fascinating, and to a young college student, inspiring, but there was one major problem; they were told out of context.

The Jesus Movement happened in a unique period of time which, depending on who you cite, began sometime in the late 60’s and effectively was played out within ten years. I do not deny its historical importance and my point is not to criticize it. I am only trying to make sense of the shift that has come since then.

I believe a common yearning in every generation throughout the ages is to see society correct its course away from decline and redirect it toward goodness. I think most of us would agree that in any case, a reduction in crime, a shift in the divorce rate, lower teen pregnancies and greater charitable giving would be preferable. The Jesus Movement was one of those historic times that presented an answer to which many, especially young people, responded.

But I was handed the Jesus Movement ethos as normative, without realizing that the circumstance for it had already passed. My leaders were not aware either, and continued to tell their 15 year old stories, wanting me to replicate their experience. I tried for quite some time, until I discovered we weren’t in the 70’s any longer.

What I have kept with me on my journey toward the future is that same desire to see spiritual awakening occur in a new generation. How it will come about, however, is a whole new ballgame.

Awakening implies a transition from a state of unconscious slumber to one of conscious awareness. I physically underwent that shift this morning around 5am, when I no longer was asleep, to getting up out of bed, making a cup of coffee and typing this post. Does this same changeover occur spiritually? I believe so, and here’s why I think that way.

It has to do with why so many people leaving the Church As We Know It.

The last 30 years after the Jesus Movement has allowed a person like me to become aware of how I have been asleep. I am awakening to find what is not working, and to seeing what needs to be done, and eventually toward what could be, if only I stop looking for results that happened in the past. We can’t recreate the Jesus Movement, or the Student Volunteer Movement or the First and Second Great Awakenings, nor should we. It’s time to wake up to a brand new day, one with new mercies and new beginnings.

I would be willing to guess that the reason you read this blog is because the topics about which I choose to write are connecting with you in some way, that they arouse your spirit and make you ponder whether or not you are stirring from your sleep also.

Future Pastor, lets look ahead, not behind. Let the past inspire us, but not limit us. I’ll continue this vein of thought soon…

What are you so mad about?

Now that I am years along in my exodus from the Church As We Know It, I can say that I have gotten to the point now where I can say that what I experience on a day to day basis is normal and no longer reactive. This is a good place to be, because it helps free me from the one thing I did not want to become, and that is angry.

In my experience, Anger was a sanctioned, justifiable evangelical vice that shaped me slowly, much like a steady flow of water makes it mark along it river banks. Over time it has an enormous effect, though at the time it was never really evident. But eventually I came to realize its constant force, and that it would take great effort to recover from it.

Running the risk of hyperbole, as a young man of faith, it seems like everyone I listened to, most every source of teaching, felt like it was motivated by some kind of anger. God was angry at what a lousy follower I was. He was angry that I didn’t read the Bible enough. He was certainly pissed that I was not more concerned for the unsaved or that I didn’t give enough money.

I learned all this from those who spoke for Him. They were quick to remind of all these shortcomings, and usually with a sense of anger in their voice. Therefore if God was mad, then that gave license to be the deliverer of the Good News in a very livid way. Even last night, on my way home from work, foolishly tuning into my Christian porn radio station (porn is any medium where its power is a promise of something it can’t deliver), the preacher was boldly defending your right to attack people doctrinally. Yes, attack was the word he used. Some easily accept this premise. My spirit rejects it.

I reject it because of what I believe the nature of anger is meant to do. It is a reaction. Not a motivation. This is why I believe the Scripture is descriptive of God being slow to anger. It’s also why we are to never discipline children in anger, or let the sun go down on our anger. Anger reacts, but to what does it lead us to do?

Love, on the other hand, is a motivation. It acts. It doesn’t react.

So the anger I absorbed from the pulpit, I have now come to see it as a reaction of shortsighted men. Were they really speaking for God, or were they aware that without their anger, they would find themselves powerless, out of control, and maybe even deeper, fearful that they were going to be punished by the God they were attempting to serve?

No, I am not one of those that pick and choose the verses out of the Bible he wants to believe. The anger of God is evident throughout the Whole Story, but maybe we are inclined to preach that way because it is that with which we are most familiar. The lack of love experienced leads to a lack of love expressed.

Francis Schaeffer, Toby Keith and Me

Years ago I read a little book by Francis Schaeffer titled Escape from Reason. It’s a comparatively thin paperback, which is probably why I felt I should attempt reading something by Schaeffer. In it he drew a timeline describing how a cultural change will unfold. On the one lefthand extreme of the line he started with the works of the writers and philosophers, and how we tend to see ideas written and espoused long before we see actual cultural change occur. These folks are labeled extremists and often pegged as weird, since their thoughts are just too far away from the norm.

Next from the philosophers, are the artists and musicians, whose work will also start to reflect a desire for societal change. Often theirs may be reactionary or angry, but their yearning will become much more accessible, because their efforts are visual and auditory, and not just in written word form. I am old enough to remember war songs from the Vietnam era, and also now today in the Iraq conflict. While there are the occasional Toby Keith “boot in the ass” songs that express support, art will generally make its voice known in opposition and there is a reason for that.

While not its only role, good art raises questions. It makes you think and ponder what lies beyond, to what could or should be. Artists are artists for a reason. They don’t always fit in. They march to a beat of a different drum. They think differently. It’s this mentality that allows them to be known by labels such as starving or strange. Their thoughts are not like everyone else’s.

The third point in Schaeffer’s continuum is the general public. Eventually norms or mores start to shift due to enough impetus from the leading edge, and social change starts to become mainstream. Our last presidential election was an example of this. The use of the key words, Hope and Change, merely helped seal the deal that had been brewing for several years. The status quo was not working for enough people and a swing occurred.

The final place Schaeffer says that change will come is in the area of theology or the Church, which makes sense, because the theologians are the keepers of orthodoxy and tradition, which is not a bad thing, because in our world that had embraced the phrase “thinking out of the box” for everything from food prep to redesigned floor sanitation devices (a broom still works fine for me), we lose the place for ideas that don’t budge easily.

All this is to explain why I believe I grew restless with the Church As We Know It. It is my natural inclination to think ahead and ask, “How can I do better?” It really is as much a curse as it is a gift, because it makes it hard for me to shut my mind off and rest. Take this morning, for example. What am I inclined to do when I wake up at 5am and can’t go back to sleep? I step out on my patio with my laptop and I write thoughts like these. I wish I could just watch a movie or even go back to bed, but the fire in my bones always smolders and it won’t let me.

This is why Schaeffer’s time line makes sense to me. I am pulled far more by the thinking on philosophical/artistic side than I am the theological side. I lived in a world for many years that required me to sell a never changing product that I myself wasn’t even using, and it had nothing to with whether I believed in God or not, but it had everything to do with how that faith was expressed. Once it became clear to me that this cursed gift I hold needed to somehow be set free, I could live with new found joy and sense of place.

It is with this realization that I will probably never fit back into the Church As We Know It ever again. Knowing this, I no longer feel the need to look back into the tunnel and curse my darkness, but now look forward to open waters and blue skies again.

Riding the Storm Out

My friend Bill wrote me an encouraging email yesterday, expressing his thanks for our friendship and what he referred to as my life outside of what is the church norm. I often feel misunderstood for my move away from the Church As We Know It, and that’s one of my top fears as a communicator, but to hear someone say that the direction I am taking now makes sense to them, that’s a pretty good feeling.

For so long my writing on this blog has been wrapped up in what I am not doing, about what I don’t believe any longer, and reasons why I stopped going to the Church As We Know It. I recently decided that I wanted to steer away from a negative stance to more of a positive one. I had no idea how hard it would be to generate thoughts accordingly.

Regular readers have noticed a lack of posting, and I have to admit that I feel I have very little to say in my new found theme. As a writer it makes me feel inadequate, and I in turn call myself into question, wondering if I really do have anything to say about the Church of the Future.

To lend myself a break, I would guess any true explorer experienced the same vague uncertainty. Pioneers, settlers, astronauts, scientists, entrepreneurs; the list could go on. The one difference in most of these is that what I am exploring has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with an inner journey. They mapped out the frontier, I am still charting my own heart.

I went to the State Fair last night to hear REO Speedwagon, a band I cut my rock-n-roll teeth on in the 70’s. It’s been several years, so I don’t know what triggered this thought, but I asked myself, “Why do I feel so free here?”

It had less to do with the freedom that I could enjoy the music with a cold one in my hand and not fret about being seen by someone at church who would report me back to an elder or other church member and call my integrity into question and recite a scripture about me making someone stumble and me not being concerned about giving an appearance of evil and that I should make a commitment to never drink in public or if I was in full maturity to never touch the stuff ever again…Whew.

No, I was simply enjoying a wash of freedom, of being glad I am alive, of reliving the sapling memories of my teen years, of holding on to today, and not grasping at tomorrow, of the preference I have for this kind of presence of soul.

And this is a sign of what I am looking for as I search for the Church of the Future, that I just might be on the right trail.

Where the Wild Things Are

When Lewis and Clark were sent out to explore the west, they kept a journal of their experiences and regularly sent word back to President Jefferson regarding what they were finding. Those who love history may find themselves jealous of this kind of adventure, asking what it would be like to explore the frontier again.

This past weekend, while waiting for Public Enemies to show, a preview for Where The Wild Things Are rolled through. I remembered reading this book to my both my kids when they were young, but now that they are at the age of not wanting to be seen in public with me, I didn’t have a good excuse to plan to see this movie.

Filmmakers are savvier these days, because they know that the key to making a movie for kids is to interest, not only the children, but also the parent who will be spending the time and money to take them. Toy Story made me laugh more than my two little ones.

The hook, it seems to me, in the preview of Where The Wild Things Are is the word adventure. It appeared over and over again, appealing to every child’s fantasy of being a part of something wild and exciting. Scenes of bravery, battle and heroic quest imagined through the eyes of a pajama wearing boy. I leaned over to Karen and said, “This is not a kid’s movie. It’s for their parents.

Every adult was once a child, and some things we never grow out of, and I believe adventure is one of those urges. But like most longings, we fail to see the true meaning of their fulfillment. Hitchhiking across country, having an affair or playing the craps table may sound and even feel thrilling, but what is left at the end of the exploit?

Is there a frontier any longer? GoogleEarth can take us anywhere on the planet, and its not likely that you or I are going on a space mission any time soon. So where is adventure? Where are the new places to explore? Where do we go from here?

Maybe it has nothing to do with a physical destination, but more about taking a step of faith? Lewis and Clark had the Great Northwest to find, but it also took faith on their part to go there, to believe there was something out there to find, and that it was worth the risk to do so.

Over the last few years, faith has taken me on an adventure of both physical and personal discoveries. A restaurant exists now because of my faith. The Church of the Future is in better view, but more importantly, I have discovered myself more deeply. Terra Incognita has now become Terra Firma.

Now faith is being assured of what you hope for, and certain of what you don’t see…

Most changes aren't permanent, but Change is

It dawned on me that I haven’t posted here in a month, and I realized why. I have less to say in this riff.

My Watchman blog has had much to do with processing a part of my story that in many ways has been reactive. I sensed a need to make a drastic change, and with that came an onslaught of reaction, reaction that required much thought and justification, if you will. I needed constant reassurance that what I was doing was OK, and since I had very few voices providing that, I had to look within to sort it all out.

Writing from this posture came easy, but I believe as a writer, I need to push myself to bring new thoughts.

According to my Gallup Strength Finder profile, one of my strengths is Futurist. My guide told me this is one of the more rare strengths on the grid, and that maybe one in a hundred have this. In Gallup fashion, I want to lean into that strength more. I want to see if I can provide more forward images of what I see ahead, and not just speak from where I’ve been. This may take time, and I may not be able to post as often as I have, but I will see what I come up with.

I am contributing to a new blog called CommuitasCollective.com. You can point your RSS reader to The Survivor page. My stuff will be there a couple times a month.

Thanks for reading. Who knew this little thing would turn into what it has become.

Power to the Pastors. You’re gonna get the Church back.