James 24:7

Howdy!  You may have noticed (or not!) that I've been away a while.   We have been pretty well occupied since my father-in-law suffered a stroke back in late Spring.  He's improving a little everyday and so I'm picking up the old keyboard and starting to write again.  

Today, I drove over to Snellville and visited the new screen printing operation of my buddy, Dave Robison. Wow!  Was I impressed?  Yep!

Dave has been doing graphic design since 1979.  During most of that time he farmed out the printing to other shops.  Now he's brought it all under one roof and is just kicking off that side of it today. 

Dave is a great guy and a great artist.  (He's married to super gal too...His wife, LeRae, is our church secretary.)  After seeing his operation today I thought I'd throw his business out into the blogosphere. 

If you ever need large project screen printing done, get in touch with Dave. (i.e. t-shirts, bags, any textile printing I 'spect) Dave can handle it. 

His web site can be found by clicking here.   (He's updating for the new side of his business but you can see some of his work.  He'd done work for everyone from Coca Cola to the rock groups Blue Oyster Cult and Kansas to the Atlanta Olympic Committee to the Boy Scouts to...North River Community Church!

I highly recommend Dave to you.  Give him a buzz.

Have you ever had the experience of coming upon something as if it just fell out of the heavens only to find out that a whole lot of other people already know about it?  Sort of makes you wonder where you've been, huh?

I don't know...maybe it's like the old Buddhist saw that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Maybe I just haven't had ears to hear what was blasting around me. 

As our dear Flannery O'Connor put it: Sometimes when folks are blind they need big pictures and when they are deaf they need screams.

Or maybe I had been lulled to sleep...

I am a relative newcomer to the contemporary Christian music scene.  For a long time, I kept myself pure and unspotted from such as I clung tightly to formal liturgy and the best of the old (even real old) hymns.

But then the Lord graced me with North River Community Church where He and the good folks allow me to preach.  North River was doing contemporary Christian stuff when they took me and my ragged heart in.  I confess that it took me a while to get with it.  (Which is ironic given that I am an old rock 'n roll guy from way back)

But then, there's plenty of blame to go around for my holding contemporary Christian music at arm's length...I mean in addition to my arrogance.

As much as anything it was the metrosexual, boy-bandishness of some of it and the inauthentic oozing sensuality of some other of it.

Of course, I recognize the powers at work here....There's a reason so many contemporary Christian artists look like Ryan Seacrest and sound like Ryan Seacrest looks.  (I'm talking about the male ones here...)  It's because the record labels have this idea of "the look" and "the sound" that will appeal to 12-year-old girls and their moms.  

I have since learned to like much of it.  So, I don't mean to be slamming on folks here.  But I have to ask: "Is the preponderance of Contemporary Christian music really so much mall-muzak for church?"

If the gospel is in large part about reaching those on the margin, then where is the soundtrack for doing so?  Where's the soundtrack for the lost?

It seems to me that much of our music is recorded to encourage us folks at ease in suburbo-zion.  It reaches those of us whose greatest sin is usually the failure to get the dishes washed before we go to bed.  (Okay..I know...our hearts and all that)

But where's the music that would make a drunk sit up and say, "I'll have some of what he or she is having!"  Where's the music that can reach the one whose heart is so broken that they must wonder how it goes on beating?  Where's the music that could make the most ardent and jaded Skynard fan ask for a shot of gospel in his Jack Daniels?

I'll tell you where...Ashley Cleveland's award winning CD  Before the Daylight's Shot.   Where have I been? This woman is fabulous!

I ask "where have I been" because she's been around a while doing what she does.  She even has a couple of Grammys for her efforts.  Before the Daylight's Shot was awarded best album of the year for 2006 by Christianity Today. 

I don't know...I guess I was reading a book. 

There a couple of great covers here.  Ashley covers Leon Russel's  Roll Away the Stone as well as Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground (w/ a decidedly Stevie Ray Vaughn riff and feel.).  I'm telling you...if you play those two songs in your car CD player you stand a good chance of being pulled over for speeding!  (And they aren't the only two to put you in that spot...How could such a nice Christian girl put me in such jeopardy with the po-lice?)  Crank up "The Blessing"...Lord, this ain't your grandma's blessing!

How about some of the other songs?  Well...there's "Queen of Soul" that pays homage to Aretha Franklin (and every woman with big old confidence) as well the woman at the well.  "Ooo Lord, there is a woman in the house!"

"Girls let your voices ring

like a shot heard 'round the world

You be wise in your choices

Pave your path with the tiny pearls.

Pray for your sisters,

We all need your support

Turn you love light on your misters

But remember what you're learning for."

My favorite song on this CD is "Streams of Mercy", which you can hear by going to Ashley's site here. 

Ashley Cleveland has a fabulous life-shaped voice and soul that reaches all the way down to the heart of your "anger and  failure."

On top of that, although it doesn't show up on this CD, she also loves the hymns.  (So there!)  She brings the right stuff to the hymns just like she does on Before the Daylight's Shot.

This morning a guy named Gerry van Mansfield dropped by our church office to leave some information about his ministry called Empty Vessel Ministries.  The church secretary called me and told me he had come by and was met with my usual, "Yeah, yeah...someone else looking for money."

Well, something (someOne?) told me to at least check out his website. 

Wow! What a cool ministry!  I won't go into what all Empty Vessel does but I think this is a very innovative idea.  So, rather than go into all the details I'll send you out to their web site.  (Click rat cheer)

I'm meeting with Gerry tomorrow and will let you know more.

During my exploratory foray into the corporate world, I had a boss who would  walk by my desk with some memo or email detailing some difficult Human Resource matter and issue his favorite command: "Deal with this.  Sooner is better than later."

When he did that, I felt my stomach twist into a square knot.   How was I supposed to "deal with it?"  What made for "dealing with it?"  How would I know when I had effectively "dealt with it?"   And what did "sooner rather than later" mean?  

The problem was that I did not trust this boss and these orders always felt like a set up to me.  He seemed to leave himself in the position of setting the standard of what made for "dealing with it" and what "sooner rather than later" meant while purposefully concealing his meaning.

I  learned the hard way that you could never do anything "soon enough" and that you could never do an adequate job of "dealing with it."

Yes...my boss was a sadistic crazy person...bless his heart. (In the South, you can say anything about anyone as long as you follow it with "bless his/her heart."   It cancels out all that stuff Jesus said about speaking ill of others.  Can you imagine Peter raising his hand after Jesus taught them not to call their neighbor "Raca" and asking, "Can we call them Raca if we follow it with 'bless his heart'?"  But I digress....)

Back to my boss....My point is that I came to believe that my boss, through the use of vague language, was more interested in exercising power than he was in resolving issues.  

I thought about that boss this morning as I thought about one of the vaguest expressions we use in prayer.   That phrase is "be with..." 

We have all said it: "Lord, sister J- is sick.  We pray that you 'be with her.'"   I remember as a kid in church hearing us all pray: "God, 'be with' the missionaries in the foreign fields." or  "Lord, 'be with' the sick and the shut-ins." (When I was a kid, I didn't know what a 'shut-in' was but figured it wouldn't hurt for the Lord to 'be with' them.  As an adult, I"ve come to realize that we are pretty adept at making God a 'shut-in.'  But I digress..again...bless my heart.)

What's the problem with asking the Lord to "be with" someone?   From the Lord's side there may be no problem at all.  After all, God knows what the subject of our prayers need before we even ask. 

I think the problem is not the Lord's, the problem is ours.  I think the phrase "be with"- unless it names the form of how we want God to 'be with' others- is vague, lazy, and thoughtless. 

When we ask God to 'be with' someone (and from henceforth I mean that as the extent of our intercession for the other) we usually don't have a clue what we mean.  

Is God not 'with' another until we ask God to 'be with' him or her?

What if God suddenly spoke from the heavens and asked: "And what should I do when I am 'with' them?" 

"Lord, be with the shut-in missionaries in the foreign fields..."

"And what should I do when I am with them?"

"Uhh...whatever they need you to do???"

I think that maybe we say 'be with' these other folks because we haven't given enough thought to their situation; we have not tried to learn about them; we have not taken time to enter into their world and empathetically experience their situations. We haven't asked God to help us see our neighbor as God sees our neighbor.

In other words, we haven't given attention or taken time- we have not laid down our hours- so we say "be with."

Why don't we just pray: "Lord, deal with this.  Sooner is better than later?"

I think the story of the Good Samaritan is instructive on this point.  You know a man went down onto the Jericho road where he fell among thieves and was beaten, robbed and left for dead.

A priest and a Levite passed him by.  (I bet they muttered: "Can't stop Lord.  In a hurry.  Dare not be made unclean.  Be with him.  Deal with it.  By the looks of it, sooner would be better than later.  Bless his heart. Amen")

This outcast Samaritan came along the Jericho road. He saw the battered man.  He stopped.  He attended to him.  He took time with him.  He took responsibility for him.  He took 'ownership' of him and cared for him.

I wonder how our neighbor would be affected and how we would be affected if we prayed like that Samaritan acted.   What if, rather than rushing through our prayer list with a few 'be withs', we took the same sort of time and offered the same quality of attention that the Samaritan did?  How would our prayers, how would our lives and the lives of our neighbors be affected?

Now I know...we sometimes say 'be with' because we don't know what else to say.  If we are praying for a parent who has lost a child and we have not had that experience we certainly do not know what to say. 

However, I think we can imagine.  We can ask.  We can read and research.   And we can offer up even our faulty and inadequate prayers for them trusting that the Spirit will intercede for us since we do not know how to pray.

I would encourage us all to drop "be with" from our prayer vocabularies...at least for a while.  If nothing else, we may find that one of the by-products of our prayers for others is that we are becoming more compassionate and thoughtful ourselves.

Not long ago I wrote a bit about what a "praying church" might look like.  I received several thought-provoking emails and comments.  You can scroll down and read some of those in other blog posts.

One comment in particular set me to thinking about whether it is more important for a church to have a reputation as a "praying church" or whether it is more important for a church to have a reputation for a quality of life and ministry that could only be accounted for by the fact that they pray. 

An analogy that came to my mind as I thought about the question is the analogy of a great hitter in baseball.  Such a hitter is known not for the hours and hours of practice he puts in but for how he performs at the plate.  His performance at the plate is the evidence of the hours of practice.  If he somehow practiced and practiced but failed at the plate he would not become known as a great hitter even though he put in hours of practice.

I guess the point is that it is conceivable that a church could put in hours of prayer but fail to bear fruit, especially if the hours of prayer somehow became a competitive event.  (One commentator spoke of visiting a church that is known as a "praying church" and found the prayer meeting to be something of a competitive sport.  Who could pray the most passionately?  Who could pray the most breathlessly?  Who could pray the longest or the most eloquently?   When we allow ourselves to get into that, we would do well to remember Jesus' words concerning doing things for show versus doing things in secret and remember under what conditions it is that we "receive our reward." )

Prayer is part of the fabric of our relationship with God.  Prayer is not a competitive sport or a self-aggrandizing performance.  Just as verbal and non-verbal communication is part of the fabric of a friendship or a marriage, so prayer is part of the fabric of our friendship with God.

In such prayer we may express our praise, our wonder or our thanksgiving.  However, in the context of that friendship we may also make requests, offer petitions and intercede.  In any case, prayer is a God-appointed practice that builds and expresses friendship with God. 

Like everyone else I have had the horrible events at Virginia Tech on my mind all week.  This morning I sat down and wrote a little piece on intercessory prayer.  While it does not speak directly to what happened at Virginia Tech, I hope it does remind us that there really is nothing more loving than to pray for those who are suffering.  I hope you find it helpful.  If you do, please feel free to pass this page link on to others who may also find it helpful.  Thank you for reading my blog.  I do appreciate your many kind and encouraging words to me.

Jim

The Most Loving Thing You Can Do

“This is the very best way to love: lay down your life for your friends.”  -Jesus

            I confess that for a few moments I stopped entering into prayer with my friends and observed what was going on.  I listened as each one prayed his or her prayers of praise and thanksgiving and confession.  I listened as each one named the concerns of friends and strangers who stood in need of prayer and I asked myself: “What can be more loving than this?  What can be more loving than to ask the God of all might and power to act on behalf of one who is not even present and who may even be unknown to us?”

            As the calming rhythms of prayer ascended to the Father, I gave free reign to my imagination.  I thought of the simplicity of the moment, of how these kind people gave their time to close their eyes and bow their heads and humbly approach the throne of grace on behalf of those who were not present.  I listened as they prayed for the suffering, the grieving, the dying, and the lost.  I heard them lift up the names of the unemployed, the unhappy, and the uninspired.  I watched their prayers span the globe on behalf of the strange and the stranger and ascend like the smoke of incense to the presence of the Creator God who makes all things new.

            I thought about those for whom they prayed.  Some of them had scribbled their requests on a Prayer Concern Card and dropped the card into the offering basket on Sunday.  Some had emailed their concerns to the virtual prayer box.  Some had requested prayer face to face.  Some concerns had simply crossed our paths.

             I wondered how many of those who made requests gave another thought to the subject of their concern after making their request.  I know some did. (I recalled the request I made to the gathered when my granddaughter was born with a health problem that could affect the rest of her life and how comforted I felt in knowing that the people to whom I made my request known would actually pray.)

            I wondered how many of those who made requests remembered that there would be those who would “lay down their lives” for a couple of hours on Monday night for no other reason than to pray for the very matter they had brought to the church.  “Were they praying too?”  I wondered.  “Were they genuinely appreciative that others took time to pray?”

            As I listened to the prayers I thought about all of the times I had failed to pray for people who had asked me to pray even though I had assured them that I would pray.  I also thought of the many requests I had uttered and then forgotten.  I thought about how often I had failed to appreciate those who laid down their hours for me and my concerns.

            An odd memory crossed my mind.   When I was a rock musician standing on a stage for the thousandth time while aimless crowds danced the night away, I sometimes pretended that there was no music, no pounding rhythm, no heavy beat on 2 and 4.  I would secretly smile as I imagined that these folks had just suddenly burst into rhythmic gyrations for no apparent reason.  Dancing looks funny when there is no music.

            “What if there is no God?”  I heard myself asking as I listened to the prayers.  “What if there really is no God to hear our prayers?  Would this moment of be like those moments in those dark clubs when I imagined there was no music and people engaged in spontaneous group gyration.  Would this be the ultimate absurdity….people with closed eyes and bowed heads believing that their words ascended to God while in truth they only climbed to the ceiling and bounced back down as empty as when they rose?  Would that be as funny as spontaneous group gyration?"

            I decided that prayer even in the absence of God would not be funny or absurd.  Even without God, prayer would be among the kindest things we could do.  To remember the suffering of others, to call it to consciousness and to name it out loud would conceivably be an act of simple kindness even in a Godless world.  If nothing else it would serve to remind us…

            My mind turned to a profound moment in my life when I lay flat on my back for the eleventh day in a hospital bed.  I remembered hitting the bottom as I wondered whether my ragged heart would ever stop with its fibrillation and tachycardia.  I remembered how there came the sweet and reassuring word that not only is there God but that “God is love” and that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God we find in Christ Jesus our Lord.  I remembered the assurance I received that day when I realized that whether I lived or died I would do so into the love of God. 

            We pray to God who lives, who loves, who is love, and who holds us in the palm of His mighty hand.  Our prayers arise to God on the fragrance of praise and thanksgiving.  Our prayers arise to the God who not only hears but leans forward to listen to the word spoken, the word unspoken, the word unspeakable.

            When we pray to God about the suffering and concerns of others- whether friend, foe or foreign- we do one of the kindest things we can.  We lay down our minutes and hours – we lay down our lives- for them and we lift them up to the loving grace of the infinitely compassionate God.

            What can be more loving than that?

I came across this wonderful statement by theologian Walter Wink not long ago.  It's from his book, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium. 

The statement is worth pondering again and again.   On the heels of Enlightenment and modernist thinking many people questioned the value of intercession.  All petitionary prayer was seen as a throw back to a more primitive way of thinking. 

For them, the true aim of prayer- if there was any point at all- was to come into communion with God or to simply remind oneself of what one should be doing.   Prayer became a form of mood music for the divine encounter or simply a mental Post-It Note to go do some good for someone.  For many, prayer became so much superstition.

Walter Wink reminds us that intercession matters.  As disciples of Jesus, we are called to envision God's future, receive it,  pray for it and live into it today.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Our intercessory prayers are, as the late Stanley Grenz has written, a "cry for the kingdom."  We live the not (completely) yet, in the already and pray for the coming fullness that God has promised.

I've been re-reading Pete Greig's and David Roberts' book Red Moon Rising.  I read it last year and am repeating it.  I'll write a little review later.  However, I just noticed that Pete Grieg has a new book called God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer.  I haven't read that but I bet it's great. 

Pete is a founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement and Red Moon Rising is about that.   His new book is about his and his wife's struggle with her severe epilepsy following the removal of a brain tumor.  

I'm passing along a podcast interview of Pete Grieg conducted by Mel Lawrenz, Senior Pastor of Elmbrook Church.  It's an interesting interview.  I look forward to reading the book.

The time has been changed for Eric Metaxas' presentation in the Atlanta area.  The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. instead of 11 a.m.  Same location...see below.

For several weeks now I have had a phrase repeating itself in my mind: "The enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called."   That thought entered my mind as I prepared a sermon on Acts 1:14.   That text speaks to the response of the 120 disciples in Jerusalem as they waited for the promise of the Holy Spirit to be fulfilled.  

Jesus had taught this group- some had denied him, some of them had fled at the moment of His arrest, some had hidden out- concerning the coming of the Kingdom.  He had called them to mission and ministry and told them that they would be His witnesses in familiar and unfamiliar places both near and far away.  He had told them to wait on the Spirit of God who would clothe them in power.

And there they gathered...an inadequate people facing an enormous calling.

They did not flee this time.  They did not scatter.  They did not deny what he had said.

They prayed, all of them, together with the women.

The phrase rolled through my mind again last night as I listened to the news about what had happened at Virginia Tech.  Having spent a number of years ministering and teaching on college campuses, I could just imagine the trauma that the students, staff and faculty must have endured (and will endure for some time...for some even a lifetime.)

I wondered yet again about the state of our world.  And I wondered about the state of the church.

I asked myself: "What ought we be doing differently as the church that could help stem the tide of violence in our society?"

The answer I heard in my own heart and mind was that we need to do a better job of equipping one another for ministry out in the day to day world.

I wondered how the world might change if all Christians were better equipped to listen to people who are lost and in pain.  I imagined an army of people wearing t-shirts or buttons that said: "If you need to talk, I will listen."

I thought about those Kleenex commercials with the guy who sits in a chair and listens to a person sitting on a couch in the middle of a downtown sidewalk.  I thought about how that might be one way of going about being the church...be willing and able to pull up a chair and just listen to someone lost and in pain.

Not long ago I was talking to a couple of guys who are on the staff of a large church.  I asked them about a particular ministry in their church and they replied: "All they do is listen to people; they never get around to ministry."

Hmmm.....

Yesterday I was reading a book on prayer. (I am reading several right now)  The author reminded me that prayer is a 2-way street.  God initiates prayer.  We pray.  God listens.  God speaks.  We listen.

Prayer is listening.

I'm rambling....

It just seems to me that the world might be a different place if all of Jesus' disciples made listening one of their central ministries.

And maybe...just maybe...the best place to start such a ministry is in prayer where we speak to God but also listen to God... especially as we contemplate the "enormity of the call and the inadequacy of the called."