A new beginning...

There is nothing like a fresh start.

Unfortunately, in todays world, we are seldom actually given a fresh start.

Today I began my new job as Senior Pastor at Pullman Foursquare Church. I spent my day reading budgets, building furniture, meeting staff and unpacking books. As I was unpacking I realized something: much of what I packed with me was junk! I packed three quarter used notepads complete with scribbling (my kids, not mine - well not all mine). I brought broken pencils, dried up pens and dead highlighters from college. And then there was the reams of paper! Anything I thought might be useful, I packed it up and brought it down the hill with me.

Now find that I have a pile of junk that I don't need and it's cluttering my new beginning.

I am such a pack rat!

How often are we given a fresh start, a new beginning, and find that the clutter of our past lives follows us? More importantly, how often does God give us a fresh start, but we, being the spiritual/ psychological pack rats that we humans are, pull out the boxes of junk that we were given freedom from?

We all need a fresh start from time to time, and fortunately for us God offers us one each day. The trick is to leave the boxes of junk in the past and move forward - enjoying our fresh start.

So - questions for you...

Have you ever been given a fresh start? Was that fresh start later spoiled by the opening of a box of junk from the past? What are some ways of dealing with spiritual/psychological clutter that you have found helpful in experiencing a fresh start each day?

Waiting...

The space between where we will be and where we have been is a difficult place. It’s a blank space between the lines filled with interminable waiting. I’m in that waiting place right now, between the lines of my story, one foot here and one foot there, and I can’t seem to overcome the sense of anticipation that I feel.

To put it frankly and succinctly: waiting sucks.

So much of the stress we feel as humans comes from waiting, anticipating, looking too far ahead and trying to scheme our way into what appears to be best for us. Right now I’m facing the sell of our home on the other side of Washington state, Taxes and a job change – all at the same time. I don’t really know what the outcome of any of these things will be or what my life will look like in just two weeks time.

And yet, I think there is purpose to the waiting. I believe it is in the white space between lines that God best has our attention and can form and shape us, direct us. And that growth, that shaping, cannot be hurried.

On another level, the waiting space is the only space we ever really live in. The past is gone, and the future – which we so anticipate – is not yet come. All we are left with is the present moment, the place where we really exist.

So we are left with just a few choices. We can live in the past, fretting about what went wrong or living on past glories. We can live in the future in hope that things will be better or in fear of impending calamity. Or, we can trust in “the slow work of God” and live in the moment and really live.

Here is a little prayer that was just handed to me (and that sparked this blog) by my friend and pastor, Todd Scranton. The prayer is by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, a French mystic monk with a hard name to pronounce. This is my hope and prayer for each of you.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

To reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way

To something unknown,

Something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made

By passing through some stages of instability

And that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on

As though you could be today what time

--that is to say, grace--

and circumstances

acting on your own good will

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit

Gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

That His hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

In suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God,

Our loving Vine-dresser.

Amen.

I wish I wrote that!

Just one thing...

So, for the last few weeks I’ve been engaged in a study of the book, “Irresistible Revolution,” by Shane Claibourn, with a few guys from church. This is a great book, and I highly recommend it – though, if you read it I would caution you, it could mess you up!

This morning’s discussion was quite disturbing… in a good way. Shane was discussing the idea of following, really following, Jesus, and what that might look like. He pointed out that, at some point, “we stopped living Christianity and started studying it (pg. 71 paragraph 2).”

It forced me to take a look at my beliefs (not a short job, and certainly on going) and ask myself – “how much of what I believe get’s in the way of living a Jesus-life?”

He quotes SØren Kierkegaard – and I want to put that quote here as well as a challenge to us all.

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the World? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to insure that we an continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall in to the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” (SØren Kierkegarrd, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegarrd, ed. Charles E. More (Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002), 2001)

So – here’s my thought. One - what of your beliefs, your Theology, gets in the way of following Jesus? And, two - what if we were to take any teaching in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging ourselves to act accordingly? What would it be, and how would it change you?

Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes!

Many of you now know, but for those of you who do not, I am going to be having a little change of scenery in the next month or so. It was announced on Sunday here at Simpson that I have been posted to the position of Sr. Pastor of Pullman Foursquare Church.

This change has come as much of a surprise to me as it has to many of you. I wasn’t looking for a job and was completely taken off guard when I was asked if I would be interested in the position. But, after a great deal of prayer and soul searching and talking as a family, we felt that this was the direction God is calling us in.

So - there you have it. No cheeky comments. No witty lesson. Just information.

The next few months will be a major transition for my family and I, so please pray for us as we begin this new adventure. The exact start date is not yet set in stone, but I will keep you all posted. And, I plan to continue blogging. The name may change, but the ranting will go on!

Peace,

Jamie

Walking the Labyrinth

Walking the Labyrinth…

I’m on fire! Not physically of course – how could I be typing if I was on fire? No, what I mean is, spiritually speaking,I am in a place of deep passion for, and experience of God’s presence. When it comes to God I feel… well… fiery!
To some of you, this way of being is far from foreign. For other, I might as well be talking about what it feels like to be an amoeba – it’s so far from your experience that it makes no sense at all. And, that’s why I wanted to write about it.
This “on fire” feeling is not normative for me. In fact – I would say that feeling far from God has been more my speed. I usually live in the spiritual valleys, trusting that God is there too, even if I can’t feel him.
So, how do I account for this spiritual high/low experience; how do I reconcile the down times (which are longer, and more frequent) with this current high?
The other night, while on a terrific date with my beautiful wife, we were walking and came across a large Labyrinth located at the local Lutheran Church. We decided to take a little walk through the labyrinth, just to experience it. For those of you who don’t know, a Labyrinth is a path within a large, single, circle (see image – print it and walk it with your fingers!). This path begins by heading straight to the center (for spiritual purposes – toward God), then, just as it gets close turns and back tracks it’s previous direction and circles away. Back and forth the path takes us – close to God, then away from God and back again. For part of the journey you are walking along the outermost ring, furthest away from the center, then just as quickly you are heading back in.
It took Heidi and I the better part of 15 minutes of quick walking just to get to the center.
Labyrinths are pictures of our journey with, and to, God. Our paths are circuitous routes that moving toward God, and away, and back again. Or, to use the mountain metaphor, up to the mountain top, back to the valley. The going is slow, the path is long and it’s not often easy. When we get to the top (or the center) though, the view is worth it.
On our spiritual journeys we are not always going to feel God. But, the good news is – sometimes we will. And when we do, even though we know at some point our path will move away, we should just go with it. Experience it for as long as you can – hang on to God’s presence with all your strength. Savor it – because this glimpse may have to be enough for a long while.
But, rest assured, at the end of your journey – you will find God, for God has been with you all along the way.

Where are you in the labyrinth of life? Have you experienced this mountain top/ valley floor movement in your spirituality? What was one of your mountain top experiences? How has that experience shaped the rest of your journey?

Toasted Jesus

While doing some research for an upcoming message series I ran across this picture. Jesus on toast! No, this is not the latest dish du jure at a fancy-shmancy restaurant. Someone actually found the image of the Son of God on their perfectly browned, cheap white bread, breakfast, or so they believe.
It seems that lately there have been a large number of Jesus sightings on food items ranging from grilled cheese to a Kit Kat bar, and frankly I find that to be pretty creepy. I mean, I would not want anyone showing his or her face in my food (I make a point of not eating things that are staring at me.)
All kidding aside, while I find good food a spiritual experience, I have never found God himself lurking there - and I am a person who is on the constant look out for God. Is it possible that in our desire to find God (conscious or sub-conscious) that we are fabricating him just a bit?
We were created to be in relationship with God – so it’s only natural that our eyes would be peeled for any sign of Him. But, I think, that our current cultural situation has created so much visual bling, so much eye candy, that people are largely unable to really recognize God when they see Him. The goings on in our world have created an environment of distraction where the average Joe can’t hear himself think, much less see the Divine.
Which leads to the question that has been on our minds for so long: “where is God?” We see all the devastation in Haiti, the utter hopelessness of Darfur and the loneliness of everyday Americans and have to ask the question over and over again: Where is God?” It feels like the world is crumbling, and again: Where is God?
Apparently some would say he’s on your toast, but I would disagree. When Jesus was still walking the earth he described to his followers just what the end of the world would look like. He said, (my paraphrase) “when the Son of God returns to earth all the nations will be gathered before Him – and he will separate the sheep from the goats.” Who are the goats and who are the sheep? The sheep (word picture for the children of God) are people who feed the poor, who visited the prisoner, who clothed the naked. The goats (those who take no part in the life of God) are those who very simply did not.
Jesus says, “what ever you have done to the least of these brothers of mine (the sick, naked, hungry or in prison) you have done unto me.
Where is God in the suffering, chaos, and injustice? He is in the thick of it, suffering along with everyone else. And, what’s more, if we want to see God all we really have to do is to look into the face of a stranger.
So, I leave it up to you to decide which is the true image of Christ; the one on a chocolate bar or the one in the eyes of the homeless person.

Questions for comment and discussion: Where do you clearly see Jesus in our world? Where do you really want to see Jesus right now?

A homeless person in my office...

Note: This is a very raw, uncorrected, not pre-meditated, post – that is happening to me right this moment. I have not had much time to think this through - so my writing will be reactionary. My opinions and actions are subject to change.

----------------------------------

At this moment there is a homeless person sitting, asleep, in the church waiting room, looking for a handout, smelling of urine, cigarettes, and general uncleanness. She suffers from multiple-personality syndrome and wanders in and out of different persona in the middle of sentences. She is waiting because she insists on speaking with the Senior Pastor, who I am most certainly not.

The question I am asking myself right now is – if I were Senior Pastor, what would I do?

She has offered to work around the church, cleaning, dusting, doing whatever odd job we can find. All she wants’ in return is a bus ticket out of town. I know the church does not have the money for a bus ticket; our policy is to give food vouchers – which we are out of due to high demand.

I believe, and preach, that the church needs to offer real help to people such as this – but how? What do we do? What can we give that would possibly change her situation? How can I really make any sort of difference here?

Some would suggest prayer, which I have already engaged in. Undoubtedly, many people have prayed for her, to deliver her from her affliction, for healing – but God has obviously chosen not to do anything about it, and perhaps with good reason.

Part of my job is to help people find need in this world and address it, and now need is sitting right outside my office and I don’t know what to do. I want to believe that my hands are tied, which they are to a certain degree, so that I can absolve myself of any responsibility.

At the moment the best I can do is offer her a bottle of water and part of my lunch, and a little human companionship – which I think I will go and do. I think that, even if he couldn’t perform a miracle in this situation Jesus would do at least this.

But first some questions for you…

What would you do? What do you do when faced with a situation like this? What feelings arise?

My story - pt. 6, Being shaped

The final installment of my spiritual pilgrimage... the break between this post and last is a bit rough, so you may want to re-read the the end of the last just for the flow of thought! Feel free to comment on this post, or in response to the whole story. - Jamie

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The message in Deuteronomy 6, “I am One God,” is more than a call to the Israelites live and believe differently than the cultures around them. Through these words God is saying, “I created it all. I rule over everything and when you live My way, you find wholeness. I Am in field, I Am in Water, I Am in Joy, I Am in pain – there is no where that I cannot be found.”

Jesus echoed this sentiment with every fiber of his life. As Emmanuel, “God with us,” he entered our sufferings, our poverty and our experience, showing us a God who is present in all aspects of humanity; a God who can be understood and experienced in things like taxes, harvests, weeds and soils.

Christ’s message of salvation is not small, only covering the person who will keep the commandments, toe the line and keep up with the do’s and don’ts. Jesus called men friends who were doubters, backstabbers and hotheads. His message came to prostitutes and tax collectors, to the sick and the poor – people living in column two if you will.

Seeing Jesus for who he is, and who he was, led me to a transformational realization: In living a two-column faith I had created a fence, and Jesus was standing on the other side, knocking, asking to come in.

My experience with cancer, and the resulting questions, doubts and pain, became formative for me. In a sense, it was the reuniting of the “crystal” of my spirituality. The end result of my treatment was more than the removal of cancer; it was the removal of the fence I had placed around my life separating me from the work of God in the world and in my own heart. This apparent tragedy transformed into blessing and gave me the ability to declare God, Lord of the good, the bad and the ugly.

My fight with this fearsome illness led me into very deep and difficult questions about God, His goodness, justice, love and mercy; questions about pain and suffering, life and life hereafter. These questions were cavernous and without immediate satisfactory answers. The space that I had set aside for my faith was unable to hold such large and copious questions. At times my belief was squeezed out and doubt was all that was left.

Undergoing this self-inquisition, I felt that the questions I was asking were completely inappropriate, and yet I could not help but ask them. Now, rather than taboo, I understand my questions to be the reordering of my faith, the desegregation of the sacred and secular and the true beginning of my pilgrimage

Thankfully, my journey through the questions has not been a road I’ve traveled alone. I have met many fellow travelers along the way, most of whom no one will ever hear of. Others I have met through their writings, and through their books they have become friends, fellow pilgrims and mentors in my journey.

The works of Brian McLaren and Donald Miller have introduced me to a new world of faith beyond dogma and rules, a world where God is present in doubt and in pain – places where most American Christians fear to tread.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Shusaku Endo and a former tax collector named Matthew, have helped me rediscover the authentic Jesus of Nazareth.

Eugene Peterson and Henri Nouwen have helped me to re-imagine who and what a pastor really is. And, Sara Miles and Shane Claiborne have helped me to imagine a church that is active and alive in the margins of society.

Each author has encouraged me to expand my mind, my faith and my perspective on God’s action in our world. They have caused me to believe in God, the church, even in myself “with all kinds of doubts” (Madeline L’Engel.)

Through these men and women I have learned that the calling to holiness has very little to do with behavior. Behavior, I now understand, is the result of inward realities; a response to what God is doing in and through the believer. We believers in Christ are called to a daily living that is distinct and set apart, flowing out of faith, hope and love, but which is not out of touch. Holy living begins in the heart and can never be separated from the context of the world in which it’s lived out. We are called to be in the world but not of it.

God is always taking old things and making them new, and He is making something new of me. My struggle through questions, doubts and pain has been key parts of this recreation, leading me to become a man who is able to find, and serve, God in a pub as well as in the Church.

However, the journey is not over. Old sections of fence still stand in the deep country of my soul; fractures in my spirituality still exist, waiting to be stumbled upon as part of the lifelong process of self-examination and self-discovery. The embrace of the two intimate strangers is still tentative, even after 12 years of movement toward one another.

And, this journey has been, and always will be, irrevocably tied to my work in the church, which is itself undergoing deep and painful change. I am caught in a middle place, between emerging church and established church – sort of like the painful place a butterfly must be when between caterpillar and winged beauty.

And in this pain lies my call: To be an agent of reconciliation between the world and the church by helping believers cross “the fence,” going into the edges of the society, to “the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), to the place where Jesus is weaving himself into the hearts, lives and stories of all humanity.

How has God used others to shape your life? What is the single most important book (outside scripture) that you have ever read? Where is your life lived in relation to the "real world" - the world outside the church?

Jesus knocks over a fence.

I find it interesting to look back at this formative event (cancer - see previous posts), now twelve years past. I see the angry and confused young man sitting in his apartment in complete spiritual devastation and feel sadness and excitement for him simultaneously. The years to come would be filled with healing, self-discovery and a foundational reimagining of Christian faith.

Sister Wendy Beckett has said that “God is coming at us all the time, we just fail to see Him.” For me perhaps, rather than failing to see Him, I chose to believe that He only existed in my “Christian sub-culture,” my tidy Christianity. I developed a faith that sequestered God to the clean places. I kept, at least publicly, the filth of the world away in the same way we once placed lepers in a colony – safely quarantined from the holy.

At the time of its occurrence, I believed that cancer had broken my faith, but, in actuality, it was broken to begin with. The two-column system that I had espoused defined holiness exclusively in terms of external actions and not on the state of my innermost self. I had fallen into the Pelagian trap, believing that I could somehow earn the favor and blessings of God. Working hard to gain this heavenly goodwill, I stood in judgment of everything and everyone that was worldly, seeing them as defiled, ungodly and unworthy.

This judgment left me divorced from the work God was doing in the world and among humanity. As the borders between good and bad shrank, so did the portion of God I was able to see and experience. My desire was to be with God, to get to heaven, but I inadvertently managed to separate myself from Him.

Now, mercifully, God was breaking through my divides – coming at me through pain, fear and betrayal.

Faith is born in pain. Just look at the miracles of Christ: feeding the hungry, healing illness and deformity, casting out demons – not to mention loving some really unattractive people. Each of these miracles addresses a sort of pain. As I look back at my journey, I see that Christ has always been addressing my pain and using it to bring my attention to the heart of the matter: “I, the Lord your God, Am One God (Deut 6:4).

The author of Colossians put it like this…

“He (Jesus) was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.” Colossians 1:18 MSG

It was this Jesus, the real Jesus, who pulled together all the broken pieces of my faith and sewed them into wholeness.

Questions to comment upon: How has Christ crossed the line in your life? What barriers have you erected? Who do they really keep out? Do you believe that God can create vibrant harmonies from the broken pieces of your life? Your pain? What role has pain played in your spiritual journey? Comment away!

My story pt. 4 - And the walls came uh-tumbling down...

Note: For those of you who didn't quite get my two column idea - this should flesh it out a bit more. That's the trouble with posting in pieces! Please, read and respond. I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences! - Jamie

I entered college full of life and a desire to serve God. I filled my course schedule with ministry classes and spent most of my time serving in youth groups. Academics took second place to practice and my grades were only so-so. I did well putting into practice the things I was learning, but not so well at reproducing them in papers and tests.

As I made my way through the years of school, my fervor for ministry began to dim, my energy levels dropped and my grades slipped further. I spent much of my alone time with feelings of isolation, sadness and depression. I was undergoing a change I could not understand, and chalked it up to metabolism change or homesickness. By the time I reached my senior year, I couldn’t get up for 8:00 a.m. classes, regularly had uncontrolled nose bleeds and had gained 85 pounds.

If everything had gone according to “Gods’ plan,” by the time I reached my senior year I was supposed to be doing well in school, leading my fellow students, making a difference in my world. Instead, I was floundering. I was depressed, tired, sick all the time and fat. The words of those prophecies (mentioned in the last post!) only magnified these feelings as I struggled with the gulf between a happy vision and reality.

I managed to graduate with the help of friends and the good will of professors who worked with me to produce papers of acceptable quality and to pass tests, because they saw in me something that I was increasingly unable to see. In the end, I completed my course work, but in less than stellar style. I had my degree and I could now do what I was called to do, be a pastor, and I thought, perhaps, the prophecies will be fulfilled later.

And so I began my glorious career as a youth pastor in a large non-denominational church. I worked hard to prove myself, putting on airs of knowledge and having it all together inside. But, there was a great disconnect between the façade I was creating and the inner reality. A skunk can’t hide its stink forever, and from time to time my true odor arose. Those who knew me best (roommates and youth staff) started to see me as lazy, always making them do the hard work while I sat back and took the glory.

It was four months after my graduation, just 16 weeks into my “calling,” that the façade came crashing down. I walked into a doctor’s office with a cyst on my neck and walked out with cancer. All the years of sickness, weight gain, nosebleeds and lethargy were diagnosed as, “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma located in the left neck.”

One moment. So much can happen in one solitary moment. Two people can discover love. Buildings can come crumbling down. A life can be brought into the world. Faith can be shaken to its very foundations. For me, this one moment, these three words – “you have cancer” – were like an earthquake that moved the ground beneath my feet, rattled my core beliefs, sent a shiver through all my theological formation and left my faith swaying.

Now remember my column analogy? Suddenly I realized that, rather than getting the items in column 1, I was experiencing everything from column 2! I was doing the right things. I didn’t drink, smoke or cuss. I was a pastor for heaven’s sake! I’d given up my personal dreams and aspirations (note to reader - I really wanted to be an astronaut!) to devote my life to God’s work, and cancer is my thanks?

My faith began collapsing in light of this complete incongruity. Overwhelmed by thousands of different emotions, all my thoughts and theological presuppositions were moving about like pool balls scattering around the table. I was groping about, unable to hold all the pieces together in their proper places. Once again, column 2 reared its ugly head and I was plunged into hell on earth.

Question for you: Have you experienced a collapse of faith? How has the two column, black and white, right and wrong system played a role in your life? In your experience has the world really worked this way?