Faith Conversations with Pastor Dennis

For the past decade or so I have included the Psalms in my personal daily reading of scripture.  It has done more to enrich my soul than any other spiritual habit.

When you read the Psalms, have you ever noticed that strange little word selah that often shows up at the end of a line?  It appears 71 times in the book of Psalms.  Its meaning is not totally clear, but most scholars believe it to be a musical term that calls the singer to pause — like a rest in a measure of music so the person can catch a breath.  But since the word was sometimes used in the Old Testament in non-musical passages, it became a call for readers to pause and reflect on what they just read.  I like how the Amplified Bible translates selah: “pause, and calmly think of that!”

Selah doesn’t come naturally for me.  My wife frequently observes how fast I gobble down my food at the dinner table.  I sometimes display the same eating manners when it comes to reading the scriptures.  Let me finish my devotional assignment as quickly as possible so I can move on to more productive things!  Yes, I’ve read the Bible, but I haven’t taken time to chew it slowly so that God’s Word can “dwell in me richly” (Colossians 3:16).

I’ve been working on slowing down and pausing to reflect on what I’ve read.  Sure, it takes a few more minutes, but it’s helping me ingest the Word so that I’m able to carry it with me through the day.  I’ve noticed how some truth I’ve read in the morning comes back to my mind when I’m engaged in other activities.  I seem to have a deeper, more lasting sense of peace and joy in the rush hours of life.

Mom always said, “Chew your food slowly.”  I challenge you to do the same when it comes to the Bible.  It may mean taking smaller bites, but you’ll be much more satisfied when you’re finished.

How about you?  Have you worked selah into your daily life?  If so, how?  I’d love to hear from you.

First, my apologies for the long delay in putting up a new post.  Blame it on a lack of inspiration.  I need to feel that I have something worthwhile to say before I ask you to take the time to read!

Awhile back I started to raise the question of whether the modern church is producing shallow or deep followers of Jesus.  I’ve been trying to observe people who seem to have a deeply-rooted faith and asking, “What makes them different?”  I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts.

One of the main things — maybe the main thing — I’ve noticed about these people is that they are pursuing something.  That something is actually a some-One.  They are hot on the trail of God.  They are hungry to know Him.  This is an interesting irony to me, because as I watch their lives they seem to already know the Lord in a way that most run-of-the-mill believers don’t, but they don’t seem aware of this.  And they certainly aren’t satisfied with it.  They tend to use “I have so much farther to go” kind of language.  I get the impression it’s not some kind of feigned humility — they actually believe it.

I like the word pursuit because it suggests strenous effort.  Deep people aren’t casual about their faith at all.  They exert themselves in ways that more complacent church-goers don’t.  They tend to get up early to meet with God and spend substantial time with him.  They prioritize Bible reading instead of snatching a little fast-food devotional morsel on the run.  They build in time to read good, rich spiritual literature.  They work hard to unload the sin that entangles their steps.  They recognize their need to be with spiritual friends whose examples spur them on.  And you consistently find them engaged in Kingdom of God service.

Now please understand — these people aren’t trying to impress God or earn their salvation.  They know that their relationship with Christ is a sheer gift.   But they are persuaded, in the memorable words of Dallas Willard, that grace is opposed to earning, not effort.  Deep Christians take seriously Paul’s challenge to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).  The Holy Spirit provides the energy, but He requires their effort.

When I look around the church, I realize that one of hell’s most effective schemes is to get God’s people consumed with lesser pursuits.  Anything to distract us from the most glorious pursuit that will make our lives strong and sturdy and fruitful.   I know because I’ve succumbed at times.

So what do you think?  What does it look like for a person to be in hot pursuit of God?  What are the lesser pursuits in our day that distract us?  Please join the conversation.

Today is the Christian feast day of Epiphany.  For centuries the Church has designated January 6 as a day to remember the wise men’s long journey to worship the newborn King.  The day also officially closes out the twelve-day-long Christmas celebration (how many of us packed up Christmas on December 25th?).

I’m blogging these days about a hunger for spiritual depth, both in my own life and in the people I pastor.   As I think about the people in my life whose faith seems rich and robust, one of the qualities I admire is their constant quest to know Christ more.  It’s a strange irony.  The more they get to know Jesus, the less they feel that they know Him.  It’s akin to human beings’ exploration of the universe.  The more that we discover, the unknown becomes that much bigger.  So it is with this pursuit of Christ.

When I was young in the faith, I thought I had everything pretty much figured out (especially after four years of seminary!).  Doubts were few and the answers seemed obvious.  But the longer I continue in this journey, the more I realize how much more there is to grasp of this life of faith.   I have just started, and at age 55 I’m realizing that my earthly life can’t even begin to contain this pursuit of an infinitely beautiful Christ.   That’s why eternity is so necessary.

So on this Epiphany 2012, may you follow the example of the stargazing Magi.  May you begin your search for Jesus.  Or resume your search.  Or continue your search.   The more you know of Him, the more of Him you will want to know.

Beckoning God—
who called the rich to travel toward poverty,

the wise to embrace your folly,

and the powerful to know their own frailty;

who gave strangers

a sense of homecoming in an alien land

and to stargazers

true light and vision as they bowed to earth—

we lay ourselves open to your signs for us…

Rise within us, like a star,
And make us restless
Till we journey forth
To seek our rest in you.

Kate Compston, Bread of Tomorrow

Last summer I attended a nearby Christian Writers Conference.  In one session we were given the assignment of creating a proposal for a book theme we felt inspired to possibly write one day.  I entitled my proposal “Out of the Shallows — Cultivating Spiritual Depth in the People of God.”  The class liked my proposal and encouraged me to take it to a publishing company representative who was at the conference, so I did with some trepidation.  He listened to my proposal and then gently responded, “It’s a good idea, but it will never sell.”  Months later, I still haven’t had the courage to pick up the pieces of my book dream and try again.

Fortunately, I have discovered that the agent was wrong in one way.  Gordon MacDonald, veteran pastor and one of my favorite authors, has just written a book entitled Going Deep: Becoming a Person of Influence — a fictional account of a pastor who sets out to cultivate spiritually deep people in his congregation.  I’m reading it and gleaning some helpful wisdom from it.  (I need to call Gordon and let him know he stole my book idea!)

But sadly, I have discovered that the publishing agent was right in another way.  It seems that in the contemporary church, deep doesn’t sell — at least very well.  Let me first of all admit that I don’t see myself as a particularly deep Christian myself.  I am subject to emotional fluctuations that I would be embarrassed for the people in my congregation to know about.   But I do have a growing hunger for greater spiritual depth, both in my own life and the lives of my people.   The kind of “deep-rootedness” that the Psalms and the teachings of Jesus call us to.  The kind of robust Christian living that can’t be produced simply through emotionally-stirring services or positive-thinking messages.

I would like to spend two or three blog posts in conversation with you on this subject.  I guess the place to begin is to ask the question, what does spiritual depth look like in someone‘s life?  I have trouble defining it, but I know it when I see it.   Here’s a starting list of qualities I’ve observed in spiritually deep people:

* They spend priority time with the Lord reading the Bible and praying.

* They talk about what they’re learning in their reading from the Bible and other good books.

* They’re consistent — they have a long-standing walk with Christ through the changing seasons of life.

* They don’t tend to embrace every new Christian fad that comes down the pike.

* They serve (inside and outside the church) with glad and generous hearts.

*  They’re humble and aren’t afraid of being open in appropriate ways about their own spiritual struggles.

* They have influence upon younger and less mature Christians.   They mentor others in formal and informal ways.

Will you join me in the conversation?  What does spiritual depth look like to you?  And what do you think of the book publisher’s statement that “deep doesn’t sell” among average Christians today?  I’m keenly interested in your response.

This morning I’m working on my Christmas morning message that will be based on the carol, “Joy to the World.”   I’m drawn especially to Isaac Watts’ invitation, “Let every heart prepare Him room.”  Part of me responds, “I’ve done that.  Thirty-eight years ago I asked Jesus to take up residence in my life.”  But there’s another part of me that says, “Jesus, I want you to be more of a conscious, daily reality to me.  How do I make room for you in my heart today?”

Mama Maggie Gobran is a little Egyptian Christian woman who works with destitute children in the slums of Cairo.  In a recent interview with Leadership Journal she said, “The hardest task of a leader is to get to know the Almighty and to keep your heart pure.”  She won’t get any argument from me there.  But how do we do that?  Mama Maggie says that one of the best ways is through silence — that’s where she says “you discover a taste of eternity.”

Silence.  A vanishing resource if there ever was one.  Turning off the TV.  Pushing back from the laptop.  Withdrawing from constant chatter in order to listen for the Voice that whispers in the quiet.   I’ve become convinced that two of Satan’s chief strategies against my soul are noise and busyness.  And I suspect it’s the same for many people besides me.

The people of spiritual depth that I know are all people who seem to build quiet into their lives.  People who aren’t always available.  People who aren’t always connected to their cell phones and their social networks.  People who, like Jesus, know when it’s time to step away from the crowds in order to have company with the Father.  People who, like Mary, in the midst of the noise around them know how to store up spiritual treasure in their hearts (Luke 2:19, 51).   It’s not a personality thing; it’s a priority thing.  People who keep silence are seeking something that outward noise and activity can’t produce — a deep, soul-stabilizing sense of Christ’s presence.

So my wish for you and me this Christmas season is a space for the kind of silence that Mama Maggie invites us to experience:

“Silence your body to listen to words.

Silence your tongue to listen to thoughts.

Silence your thoughts to listen to your heart beating.

Silence your heart to listen to your spirit.

Silence your spirit to listen to His Spirit.”

So how are you preparing room in your heart for Jesus this Christmas?

This year during Advent I’m preaching from some of the great Christmas hymns.  Last Sunday I focused on Phillips Brooks’ words “How silently, how silently the wondrous Gift is given” (O Little Town of Bethlehem).  This Sunday I will speak about this glorious phrase by Charles Wesley: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see” (Hark! the Herald Angels Sing).  I feel like I’m mining precious gems for my people as I’m preparing each week.

But I’m finding something else, something deeply personal, stirring within me.  It’s a feeling of loss . . . akin, I think, to homesickness.  Here’s the best way I know to say it: I miss the hymns.

I hope you won’t instantly dismiss me as a 55-year-old relic dreaming nostalgically about days gone by.  I don’t think that’s it.  I’m not one of those grumpy old-timers who is angry because “someone has stolen my church.”  I don’t want to go back to the time when we considered anything besides hymns played by piano and organ “the devil’s music.”  I really enjoy many of the modern worship songs and feel that our worship is enriched by a variety of musical instruments.

But I miss the hymns.  Not all hymns, mind you.   As I thumb through the old Nazarene hymnal, I’m frankly a little embarrassed by some of the waltzy tunes and extravagant claims that bear little resemblance to Christian life in the real world.   I’m talking about the classic, time-honored and tested hymns that present a vision of the majesty and wonder of our God and His ways…songs that have sustained His people for generations.

I’ve started to notice how our contemporary worship songs tend to use first-person personal pronouns (I, me, us, we) a lot.  This is how I feel about God.  This is what God has done for me.  This is how I want to serve Him.   There’s certainly a valuable place for those kind of expressions in worship.   In contrast, however, many of our classic hymns don’t mention “us” much.  It’s not that we’re unimportant — it’s just that the writers seem too mesmerized with the Person of Jesus Christ to put us in the spotlight.

I would argue that a steady diet of “I feel this way about God” in worship may stir our emotions (not a bad thing), but over the long haul it’s as nutritional to the soul as cotton candy is to the body.   We simply need times where our vision is lifted beyond our feelings to the unchanging reality of our Creator and Redeemer.   If that doesn’t happen in corporate worship, it’s unlikely that people will learn to do it in their personal lives.

Singing hymns allows us to sit at the feet of people like Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts, John Newton and Fanny Crosby, people who wrote their lyrics from hearts and minds transfixed with divine truth.   Yes, their words may sometimes sound archaic, but instead of dismissing them as irrelevant, maybe we should ask “What do they mean?”  (A parent recently said that after singing a Christmas hymn her young child asked, “What is a virgin?”  Now that’s a teachable moment!)

Paul told believers to teach each other by singing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16).   I would plead that we restore hymns to their proper place in worship.   It doesn’t need to be either/or.  Let’s sing the glorious truth about God (hymns), then let’s respond with love and adoration through modern choruses (spiritual songs).   Hymns don’t have to be boring.  Let’s sing them accompanied by keyboard and guitar, brass and drums.  Let’s just not let them die through our neglect.

So what do you think?

I’m done with facebook.  There, I’ve said it in front of the world (at least the tiny slice of the world that reads this blog).  So I better mean it or you have every right to question my honesty.

I’ve had a bumpy, on-again, off-again relationship with facebook over the past three years.  But some recent occurrences have caused me to realize that my facebook involvement has conspired against emotional maturity and spiritual depth in my life.

Now I realize that you may really like facebook.   When I dare to challenge its value, you may feel this hostility rising in you as if I had just told you your mother is ugly.  But before you write me off as some weird out-of-date extremist, let me tell you why I’ve decided to say goodbye to facebook:

• It can be addicting.  Maybe it’s my personality, but I found myself being drawn to it just about every spare moment I had.  With hundreds of facebook friends, there are always status updates to read and comments to make.  Not only is it a time-waster, but I’ve read articles that talk about how this emerging addiction to social networking can consume a person’s life.  350 million people reportedly suffer from something called Facebook Addiction Disorder (not a FAD I want to follow!).
• It can breed an unhealthy preoccupation with self.   Why do I feel the need to update my status 2 or 3 or more times per day?  Why do my friends feel the need to tell the world what they’re serving for supper . . . or what TV show they’re currently watching . . . or how much they like (or hate) today’s weather?  It’s like we’ve made ourselves the star of a show that we’re broadcasting to whoever will tune in.  As a person who Jesus calls to deny myself, I realize that this preoccupation with self is antithetical to the authentic Christian life.
• It can be a poor medium of communication.  OK, maybe you’re safe describing what you’re eating at Wendy’s tonight.  But if you dare to be open and transparent, you risk being misunderstood.  The readers can’t see your face or hear your voice or feel your emotion.   After a recent post that someone took personal offense to, I realized again how facebook can be a communication minefield.
• It can be a deadly substitute for true community.  As a person who longs for genuine relationships, I have found facebook to be a shallow substitute indeed.  Apparently I’m not alone.  Christine Rosen, editor of The New Atlantis, observes in a recent article that in face-to-face community, I come to you as I am.  But in virtual communities like facebook I come to you as the image I want to project.  What we end up with is narcissistic groups of false selves.  In these so-called “friendships,” we have a lot of surface information about each other but we don’t really know each other.  People can have hundreds of facebook friends yet be dying of loneliness for want of truly being known by one person.  My fear is that we in the church are outsourcing true community to modern technology, which can never deliver it.

So I’ll say it again.  My involvement with facebook has conspired against emotional maturity and spiritual depth in my life.  Maybe it’s not the same for you.  I’m not calling for Christians everywhere to boycott facebook.  But I would ask you if any of the above seems to resonate with your own heart.   How is your involvement with social media affecting your relationship with God?  your relationships with those closest to you?  Is it helping to form you as a Christlike person?  Sorry . . . someone in your life needs to ask you those questions.

This week my wife and I will be going to our Ohio hometown for Thanksgiving — a suburb called Reynoldsburg on the east side of Columbus.  In recent years I’ve noticed how hard it is to distinguish Reynoldsburg from Columbus.  What used to be a quiet rural community has been all but swallowed up by slow yet relentless urban sprawl.

It makes me think about how “Christmas sprawl” has all but swallowed up the holiday we call Thanksgiving.

I love all the sights and sounds of the Christmas season, but I love Thanksgiving for a different reason altogether.   Thanksgiving has always seemed untouchable by the forces of materialism and consumerism.   It’s a simple day to gather with loved ones and be grateful for what we have been given instead of lusting for what we don’t yet have.  Thanksgiving to me has always seemed to represent the quiet calm before the maddening pace of the Christmas season engulfs us.

I fear this is all changing.  Has anyone else noticed all the Black Friday sales that now begin Thanksgiving afternoon?   The stores that are now having pre-Thanksgiving Christmas sales?  Some of my friends started playing Christmas music and putting up Christmas decorations weeks ago.   Before we know it, Santa Claus will be making his annual appearance, not at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but on Trick or Treat night!

Even if we don’t lose the holiday of Thanksgiving anytime soon, I’m afraid that we’re rapidly losing the meaning of it because of our inability to fend off Christmas sprawl.   Who has time to quietly sit and be grateful when the early-bird specials are screaming for our attention?   So in the spirit of the Christmas Grinch, let me make a few pleas to anyone who will listen (especially my Christian readers who are supposed to be marching to the beat of a different drummer):

• Let’s wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start playing our Christmas songs.  If you want music, there are plenty of hymns of gratitude to sing to God on Thanksgiving day.
• Let’s wait until Black Friday to start our Christmas shopping.  Can’t we first take a Thankful Thursday to simply enjoy what we already have?
• Let’s wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving to put up our decorations.  Let’s not lose the quiet joy of gratitude in the premature glow of Christmas lights.

Maybe we can’t stop our cultural Christmas sprawl from swallowing up the Thanksgiving holiday.  But in our homes and in our hearts, we can build a flood wall around Thanksgiving Day and hold off our Christmas celebrating for one more day.   That way we’ll preserve this holy day of gratitude to God, and we might enjoy Christmas more in the process.

So what do you think?

Yesterday was known simply as the day after Halloween to most people in our culture, but to Christians — well, to those who pay attention to the Christian calendar — it was All Saints Day.   This holy day has been around for about 1,500 years.   It’s a time to honor those people who paved the path of faith in Christ long before we showed up on the scene  — especially those who were martyred for their allegiance to the Lord.

We don’t talk much about All Saints Day in my own theological camp.   I suppose that’s because we don’t want to be confused with those of other traditions who believe we have such a spiritual bond with departed souls that we can pray to them for heavenly assistance.   We also don’t like to canonize people to a position of sainthood, although we do tend to call our white-haired senior citizens of the faith “saints.”

But I’m rethinking our allergy to All Saints Day.  I’m wondering if we should brush it off and reintroduce it to our worship calendars.   It would allow us to get reconnected to our rich Christian history.   It would reacquaint us with the stories of great heroes of the faith who have gone before us.   But I think it might also remind us that these saints are walking among us right now — often in disguise.

You see, in the New Testament the word “saints” isn’t reserved for those who have reached some elevated spiritual status.  It’s a name given to all those who belong to Jesus Christ.  Even the rough and rowdy crowd at Corinth were people whom the Apostle Paul called “saints.”   The New Testament word simply means “a person reserved for God.”   It seems that sainthood is a process, not a point of arrival.   We are all saints-in-the-rough.

I like the way Frederick Buechner says it in The Sacred Journey:

“On All Saints’ Day, it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.”

Seedy sainthood.  I like that.  I think I may even qualify.

When we were young, our parents told us not to call other children names.  It seems that as we get older, those rules no longer apply.  Especially when we disagree with someone else’s belief system.

This morning I read an article in the New York Times that, quite honestly, made me pretty upset.  The title is “The Evangelical Rejection of Reason,” written by two Christian college professors (it’s especially troubling that they come from my own denominational tribe).  In case you’re interested, here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/opinion/the-evangelical-rejection-of-reason.html?_r=3&src=tp&smid=fb-share

The authors say evangelicalism has been overtaken by an anti-intellectualism that rejects the clear findings of science and cultural progress.   Mr. Giberson and Mr. Stephens label as “fundamentalists” those who cling to such notions as creation sans evolution, a young earth, and the definition of marriage as solely between a man and a woman.  One by one they dismiss people like Ken Ham, David Barton, and James Dobson (who is shockingly “a defender of spanking children and of traditional roles for the sexes”) as proponents of “discredited, ridiculous and even dangerous ideas .”

Don’t get me wrong.  I think there’s some validity to the notion that evangelicals often display an anti-scientific bias.   I’m not convinced that you have to believe in a young earth to be a Bible-believing Christian.  But what bothers me is the authors’ claim that those who resist our changing cultural values are all “fundamentalists.”  “Fundamentalism” has become a dirty, scary word in our world.   Once you label someone that way, you can dismiss outright anything they have to say.

Unfortunately, this kind of name-calling has become standard fare on both sides of our cultural debates:

• If you have concern about the way we are treating our planet, you get branded as an “environmentalist wacko.”
• If you don’t agree with gay marriage, you are labelled as “homophobic.”
• If you have a passion for social justice, you’re a “communistic liberal.”

If you ask me, that’s not fighting fair.  Those are below-the-belt cheap shots.  If I can label you as an extremist, then I don’t have to listen respectfully to your position.  What it really exposes is my insecurity that my own belief system might not be able to stand up to well-reasoned debate.

I guess I’m not surprised that secularists resort to name-calling as a means of winning an argument.  But I’m shocked when Christians such as Giberson and Stephens do it to other Christians.   If followers of the humble Savior can’t fight fair, our culture is in a heap of trouble.

What do you think?  You can disagree with me, but please, don’t call me any names.