Church vs. State

I used to think America should be a Christian nation. I don't anymore. The fundamentalism I was raised in had melded the two. In Vacation Bible School, we pledged allegiance every summer to the American flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. Looking back, that's a little scary. 

I realize now the Christian church and the United States are completely different and should be. I value deeply a country where all faiths are free and where the Supreme Court has consistently sniffed out attempts to Christianize American government. Should prayer be in public school? Absolutely not, especially since that question always means, "Shouldn't Christian prayer be allowed?" I don't remember a single case where Jews or Muslims wanted their prayers recited over the loudspeaker before a football game.

I've had this sense for awhile what the church is not. The church is not the state, not even America and its beautiful religious liberties. But what is the church? I don't think I've wrestled well with that question yet, but  I need to for the work I'm doing in education. 

One of my sons passed along a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxes. I didn't realize until I started it that Bonhoeffer wrestled with, "What is the church?" his whole life. He eventually gave his life to the Nazis as he fought for the answer he landed on. In defining the church's role with the state, he had to think through the actions of the church against, not melded to, government. 

The church has three possible ways it can act against the state. First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate. Second, it can aid the victims of the state action. The church has the unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society even if they do not belong to the Christian society. The third possibility is not just [to] bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself. 

I recognize clearly that America is not Nazi Germany, and I'm still mulling the implications of the church jamming a rod into the spokes of the state's wheels to disable it. More importantly, I recognize how Bonhoeffer's view of the church lines up well with that in the Bible. The Christian church is weakened every time it allies itself with the state. America will be a stronger nation when the church questions its action as often as necessary.

I believe in a free state. I belief in a pure church. May we never be a Christian nation.   

Christmas Reflections 2011

I was surprised by Advent this year. It came late, my realization this year that Christ has truly come. I was driving by myself to the Christmas Eve service at our church. I wasn't even looking for Advent by then. It had been a hard December, and I had already let go this year the desire for Christmas to come to my heart. It just wasn't going to happen for me in 2011, especially since it was December 24th, and I felt nothing.

And then, without any effort on my part, Emmanuel showed me that he was with me still in the muck and dirt of the stable of my life. And it happened through the very unlikely Little Drummer Boy.

Until now, that's been one of a few Christmas songs that I think the border on just dumb. Do You Hear What I Hear is another. Neither song gets the facts right about the Christmas story. King Herod was a mighty king, but he definitely didn't tell the people to "pray for peace everywhere". There wasn't a drummer at the manager, and after all, drumming isn't a good lullaby for a newborn. Those songs aren't on my Christmas playlist, and when they come on the radio, I just skip them in my mind.

Erin McCarley's recording of Little Drummer Boy had caught my attention this year, though. (You can hear it here at Reverb Nation. I had run across randomly: I downloaded Tenn Out of Tenn's christmas album, which had showed up on Swackett, a new weather app my son had showed me.) I think I was listening to the song mostly because it was recorded by a woman. I liked the twist that a woman was the drummer boy. I also liked the quiet, slow arrangement. There wasn't any mind-numbing snare drumming thankfully.

When I was driving on Christmas Eve, the line in the song, "and then he smiled at me" really hit me for the first time ever. I've listened to that song for almost 50 years, and I never really thought about how Jesus's smile has made all the difference. I would have missed it again this year except for how Erin's version lingered on "he smiled at me," repeating it three times toward the end of the song. The gentleness of the repetition got my attention, and then my Advent happened. I was expecting nothing from Christmas, and I found myself crying as I drove when I realized how Jesus has smiled at me. He sees me. He loves me. His care for me has made all the difference in my life.

You see, I am the little drummer boy. I'm the guy who would show up at the manager with a drum. I'm the kind of guy who writes books about teaching evolution. That's a definite drum. Drums are all I have; I don't have anything appropriate to bring with me to Jesus. In fact, much that I bring is not even appropriate. My sin and brokenness should startle the Baby Jesus, like snare drum at a crib side. The scary parts of me should make him cry. Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, and all the other good people at the manger should tell me to take my drum away and leave the Baby in peace.

And then he smiled at me. At my drum. At my brokenness. And his smile becomes the only thing I know. I'm no longer the odd little boy who showed up at the manger with a drum. I am simply lost in the love of that smile. And Christmas has come again.

Prayer-less

I'm not sure exactly what's going on with people at Oak Mountain Prez and Paul Miller's book, A Praying Life, but putting the two together is powerful. Today, I started teaching a Sunday School series based on the book in the Generations class, and many of the us were deeply moved by the lesson. I was caught off guard by the emotions people were feeling, and I had to slow down with what I was focused on and pay attention to what was going on in the room. This is similar to what happened when I taught on prayer this past winter to another class. That was by far the most I had ever seen a class moved by what we were studying.

"For you, what about prayer is hard?"

My guess is that it comes from the deep sense of failure most of us feel about prayer. We know we don't do it well. Our lives are messy and confusing, and slowing down to pray about these things just makes us realize even more how out of control we are. Then, evil comes in and puts us to shame: "You know better...," "You should pray more...", or "God's not really listening...".

I'm thankful that there's hope ahead for this class.

Desiring Prayer

Several people in my class wrote how they struggled with even having the desire to pray. I read those cards this morning, and then asked my class how they would respond with grace and in humility. The image here shows most of their responses, and I thought they had a real beauty to them. As the discussion continued, one man summarized the discussion well with the thoughts in the square in the image. He was hearing how God constantly allows us to lose control in life, which then causes us to surrender in the futility, and then we pray. All we have to do to realize our desire to pray is to simply pay attention to the brokenness in life. 

Messy Prayer

I really do love teaching Sunday School, especially at a grace-centered church at Oak Mountain. Imagine a place where people talk about their struggles and questions as they wrestle to find the truth. Only in a place like that would I admit to having the kind of prayer life shown in this diagram. Yep! That's pretty much my typical prayer time during my devotions. (Click on the image, and I bet it will pop up bigger for you.) Do they make a special ADD medicine for people who only get ADD when they pray? I'm usually a really focused person until I start praying.

This morning, I started the lesson with a brainstorm about how the gospel of grace makes us free. I really enjoyed hearing what people had to say. That's on the left side of the white board picture below. Then we brainstormed the right hand column, taking what we know about how the grace makes us free in general and applying it to how grace frees us up in our prayer lives. I wanted people to be able to see prayer, which Paul Miller calls the last bastion of legalism, in light of gospel freedoms that they were beginning to really know in other parts of their lives.

Dependence and Prayer

Yesterday's Sunday School class was on how the Father molds the circumstances of our life to keep us dependent on him. But, that's not to cripple us. In the context of "a praying life" (not a prayer life, as Paul Miller puts it in his book in Part 1), that dependence is what should cause us to learn to pray continuously, like breathing, throughout the day.

I decided to start the lesson by asking, "How did children come to Jesus?". The responses in purple on the white board were what the class came up with. I then asked, "Why do children ask as they do?". Those are the responses in blue around the outside of the board. Of course, getting our heads around how messily children came to Jesus and how they ask without shame or inhibition was a good way for use to begin to process how we don't usually pray that way. We so often believe that we have to clean ourselves up and get our prayers right. If we can't do that, we stay away from Jesus until we can get ourselves together. All the time, he's saying, "Child, come."

One of my favorite things about teaching at The Oak is the honesty that grace has given us. As we got into the lesson, I guided people to see that the messiness and brokenness of life is what often draws us to pray. When I asked them, "What are the messy places in your life?", I got answers like the ones in black in the center of the board. The first one was "screaming at my children," and the man who said that wasn't trying to be funny. He said his answer with a tone of how wrong he was to talk to his children that way. He lead out with courage and humility in talking about our lives honestly, and the other answers posted in black then flowed. 

And then, I think God's Spirit moved among us to draw us to his Son in our humility and poverty of spirit. We are broken people with messed up lives. We need to pray, not because we're spiritual and disciplined, but because we're desperate. I closed the lesson with the Jesus Prayer from the Orthodox church: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." That prayer is something I've learned to breath throughout the day in the quiet desperation of my life, and God draws me to himself and comforts me when I come like a child.

Intro Lesson on Prayer

[I originally posted this as a Facebook note. Just now, I realized that I should probably blog my reflections on each lesson, and then link them back to Facebook. plm]

I'm teaching a Sunday School class on prayer at Oak Mountain Prez in January and February. We're using Paul Miller's A Praying Life as our resource for looking at how to pray in a gospel- and grace-centered way. On Jan 9, I taught an intro lesson designed mostly to help me take the pulse of where everyone is regarding prayer and how they want to grow. See the attached picture for the white board from the lesson. Around the edges are the answers to, "For you, what's hard about prayer?". In the center was the analogies for their prayer life that many people threw out. I covered briefly key content from Part 1 of A Praying Life. The next lesson will be on Jan 23, and it will focus on Part 2 of the book.

Introducing Surprising Grace

Surprised by Grace is a really good read, and I'd like to introduce it to you. It's high on my recommendation list, especially if you're wanting to understand the movement of grace in American Christianity or more importantly, if you're soul is hurting and you're needing grace poured out into your life.


Introducing Jonah. You've probably never seen Jonah as Tullian describes him. I've always thought of Jonah as one of the super-spiritual Saints of Old. Sure, he didn't get off on the right foot--that whole rebelling-and-running-to-Tarshish thing. But, he eventually obeyed, right? Tullian helps us see how Jonah is Everyman. He's me. He's you. We aren't obedient people, no matter how much we like to claim that we are.

Mostly, Jonah is angry, as I am angry often. He's mad at God, he's mad at Ninevah, he's mad at the vine dying, he's mad at the world. Jonah also doesn't want God to be merciful to his enemies, as I often feel that I'm the only one who deserves mercy. And, in the midst of Jonah's anger and hatred, God's response is totally surprising.

Introducing Tullian Tchividjian. It's a tough last name. If it helps, "Tchividjian" rhymes with "religion." (Knowing that helps me not just bleep through his last name when I see it in print.) Tullian is the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, and he blogs and is on Twitter. You may know Tullian as one of Billy Graham's grandsons. He is one of the new voices of the gospel of grace, and he speaks grace with humility and tenderness.

Introducing Grace. If you're like me, you grew up in a Christianity that was harsh at its core. We were gracious to people to get them converted, but once they were in the flock, we loaded them down with rules and warnings. We created Jonahs, angry believers who moped on a hill when God showed mercy to people who we knew deserved hell, fire, and damnation. But the Book of Jonah, as Tullian shows us, reveals that God is very different than the Harsh Idol raised up by many modern Christians. From start to finish, God is gracious in the Book of Jonah. He's gracious to the sailors in stopping the storm. He's gracious to the Ninevites in staying his wrath. But mostly, he's gracious to Jonah, his angry, self-righteous servant who never really gets that in the whole book.

Surprised by Grace made me a more hopeful person. If you can't tell, I'm a lot like Jonah, but Tullian helped me realize how that's not the point. I don't need to focus on the 7 Steps to Becoming Less Like Jonah. Instead, I need to focus on my gracious God and how he is going to keep surprising me with his grace.

2 Cycles in 1 Day!

I'm really impressed that we made it through the 7 Trumpets and the Fall of Babylon in one lesson. We really do move faster later on in the book as people get better at interpreting the symbols, where at the first of the series the going is often really slow. I'm also glad everyone voted for today's bonus lesson. Now, next week's final lesson will focus on the really good stuff of the Rider on the White horse (chapter 19) and the New Jerusalem (chapter 21).

BTW, if you're a student in the class, you can actually watch me build the week's lesson by keeping an eye on the master Prezi I use for the class. Right now, it looks just like the one linked above. As I begin working on the lesson, the pathway will change, and you'll begin to see the new elements I'm adding for this next lesson, including any artwork I find. Remember also that you can find the artwork at my Delicious site and look at the Revelation Art tag bundle.

Enduring well

One of my favorite things about teaching Sunday School is when I learn from my students. That happened again this morning as I taught Revelation 12-14. I wasn't planning any emphasis on the passage's statements about endurance in the face of evil. As we read the passages, I could tell some people were connecting with Jesus' admonitions to endure and persevere. Toward the end of the lesson, someone brought out the call to endurance, and several people nodded their heads.

On this section of the Prezi for Revelation 12-14, I used to have the caption saying, Evil is real. Expect persecution. Now, thanks to my current students, in the future I'll focus on Evil is real. Expect Persecution. Endure well. It was a good word to me as well, and actually a timely one. I've faced evil this week in my life in a way I never have before, and Jesus' words to me to endure are encouraging me even now.

The 6 Seals (and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)

Here's the Prezi from last Sunday. You can click through it here or click the link below if you need to see it in its own screen. Please let me know any questions you have. If you leave me a comment here, I'll get back with you as soon as I can.

Revelation: The 7 Seals 21Nov2010 on Prezi

How People Learn (at church)

Here's the link to the Prezi I'm using during the first session of OMPC Teacher Training. With Prezi, you can click the arrows to follow the path I use, or you can click around anywhere to explore on your own. Remember also that all of the links should be active so that you can click over to web-based resources.

Baptism Follow-Up

OK, OMPC singles, I'm very curious about your reactions to the 1-2 punch of my lesson and then Bob's sermon. I was just plain amazed at the overlap between what I taught and what he focused on. Did you see the overlap? What were you thinking? Please post a comment here (or e-mail me if you'd prefer).

Also, feel free to post any questions you have about today's lesson and check back later for my reply. I'll respond as soon as I can.

A Lodge on the New Earth

I've had trouble sleeping off and on for the past year; there's been a lot going that's made me restless. Part of it was a lot of chaos in life. In the midst of that, I started thinking a whole lot about the New Earth, trying to imagine what it would be like. The more I thought about, the more comfort came into my soul and even some hope to face the chaos.

Thinking about the New Earth really all started on a trip to the Seattle area in August. I love going up there because it's beautiful, and it's a beauty unlike Alabama. The trees are what get me. They're just so huge! If you've never been there, they're not as big as redwoods, but the red cedars there can have a circumference of 30, 40, or even 50 feet. When I was around the cedars again on my trip, for some reason I got to thinking about a cedar forest on the New Earth.

I think we'll live in an actual City of God on the New Earth, but I also think that we'll go out on amazing adventures to the rest of the earth. I pictured going walking through a cedar forest like the ones in the Pacific Northwest with dear friends and seeing up ahead a lodge. It's an amazing lodge, built up in the trees with many levels and rooms. (There are shades of Swiss Family Robinson here, but better, so much better.) It's truly beautiful, but in a rustic, earthy way.

We go in and there's no one there. But, it's ready for us. There are hand-woven blankets to take the chill off, soft beds, and a den with a huge fireplace. It has this ancient feel to it, but nothing is old or dusty. It's ancient, of course, because we've been on the New Earth in the new order of things for centuries, and this was one of the first things built. So, we're not the first group there by far. It's an amazing outpost in a solitary, beautiful glade.

As we unpack and get settled in for the night, we start putting together the story of how the lodge was built. We've all heard different bits and pieces, some directly from one of the builders, but mostly through word of mouth back at home in Zion. Long ago, a group left Zion on one of the first adventures after the world was made new, and they came to this glade. There was no lodge then, but they were struck by its beauty. And they stayed. They stayed in the glade for a long time. It may have been 5 years that they stayed there. It may have been 5 months. It could have been 50 years. It's hard to remember, and it's hard to tell time in a place where no one dies. There are no clocks on the New Earth, kind of like when you're arrive on vacation and time is pointless.

And they began to dream together. They began to dream about building this lodge, a place to come back to and enjoy the glade forever, both for them and for all of their brothers and sisters back home in Zion. So, they began work. They knew it would take time, but they knew that they had eternity to finish the lodge. They also knew that the work would be hard and good. It would be work with their hands. (There's no heavy machinery on the New Earth. In a land without time, you don't need to go fast. Besides, who would really want to work in factory making Catepillar products when you could be out building lodges with your bare hands.) Some tools they would have to make, and others would need to be fetched from Zion. They had to think and plan. They made mistakes and had to tear out and rebuild. But everyday was filled with the joy of the work, the beauty of the glade, and the companionship of brothers and sisters who had know each other for centuries. Ever build a fort with a few buddies when you were a kid? It was like that, but much, much better. They were building for eternity.

And so they worked. They worked for what we now would call years. It may have been decades. It's hard to remember, especially since how long it took was irrelevant. Sometimes, they wondered what was going on back in Zion, but they weren't sad. They knew that once they got back, they would catch up on everything that had happened, and it would be like the really they had never been gone. Also, other groups of adventures came through occasionally, bringing word from Zion and staying to help for awhile.

Eventually, it was done. It was a lodge fitting the glade. The two played off of each other. They realized that the glade had needed a lodge all along and was just waiting for them to come and build it. And they worshipped. After staying for many nights, they moved on with their adventure, knowing they had an eternity of coming back to the lodge whenever they wanted to.

(Of course, by now in the new world, there are places like the lodge all over: villas at the beach, A-frames in mountain snow, pueblos in the desert, and simple bamboo huts on remote islands accessible only by ship. Have I mentioned the ships yet? They're hand-made too, but that's another adventure!)

[Picture provided by Air Ninja]

Animals One Day

Going to sleep recently, I found myself trying to picture the New Earth, and I thought of animals. I don't think that animals will die when Jesus makes all things new, and I'm not even sure that they'll reproduce. (Where would all those bunnies go if none of them ever died!) Then, the tears started coming when I realized the amazing relationships we will would have, if all that's true, with these beautiful, wonderful, wise creatures that we will share eternity with.

I started dreaming about a cat that had been in my home for 100 years. Or, let's say 1000 years. How well we would know each other. To walk in from the day to the room that Jesus has prepared for me and to see that cat whom I have shared my life with for centuries. The connection we'd feel--the love.

Then, I realized that I was thinking in old ways. I was thinking, "My cat." But, wouldn't the truth be that she would be our cat. She would belong to all of the saints, and they would all belong to her. Maybe she'd call my room home for a while, but she's a cat, right? She'd go explore your room and the other rooms around. She would weave her beauty in and out of our lives as she visited us. And, she'd never grow old. She'd never die. She'd always be quick and strong and bright. Occasionally, we'd see the kitten come out in her, but we'd also see her getting wiser and wiser.

I thought a little bit about other animals, but then I realized I was still caught in thinking the old ways. I was thinking about domestic animals like cats and dogs. It hit me, though, that when Jesus makes all things right, all animals will be our companions. All of a sudden, I realized that the kitty visiting my room could be a leopard or a bobcat. I could take a nap with one of those majestic creatures. I will really run my hands through a lion's mane, like Lucy in Narnia. Then, I started thinking about how the New Jerusalem would have to have animals adding to its beauty. I would walk out of my room, and a macaw would be in the tree outside. I guess I could really talk to the animals because of the words that he'll know and all the words he'll keep on learning. Or maybe it's a koala in the tree. Or a mongoose curled up under my bed. A monkey sitting on my shoulder as I walk to talk to a friend.

I then thought about an adventure with friends outside the Heavenly City. We walk out on the plains to the west of the city, and a herd of mustangs gallop toward us. Of course, we're not afraid because they're just coming to nuzzle. We know them each by name. We have their favorite treats in our pockets. We easily slip up on their backs, and we all travel together toward the sunset. As we reach the edge of the great forest, we dismount and start walking again. The woods are bursting with life. A falcon swoops close, you hold out your arm, and she lands. Field mice scamper up, and we scratch them behind the ears. Two bears lumber by, and we all get another true bear hug. The stream ahead is perfectly clear. Rainbow trout glint in a pool of sunlight, and crayfish peer out from under rocks. They're not hiding, though. It's just that we woke them up from a nap.


There's more, so much more that I can't imagine now. The coral reefs. The dolphins and the whales. The gazelle and the elephants. The snakes with their legs restored. I can't see it yet. But, Jesus died to release the Earth from the weight of sin. I dream of the day when i will know the animals as God intended them to be, undying and unafraid.

Edwards Class Eschatology Questions

You found the right place to post your questions about Eschatology. Click on "Links to This Post" below this text, and you'll be in the section to review and post comments. You can look through questions that have already been posted and you can post your question by clicking there on "Post a Comment".

The Gospel According to John (Mayer)

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on today's lesson on "Waiting on the World to Change." I'm curious to know how you responded to it.

I've certainly enjoyed my time with the EPIC class. I'm afraid it may be a while before I get a chance to be with you all again. The teacher rotation probably means that I have many other classes to teach in before I get back to be with you again. Please know that you're in my heart until then, and I look forward to seeing you around OMPC.

Theology and the I35W Bridge Collapse

I've had several good comments on yesterday's lesson about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I'm glad to hear that--I actually was feeling out of it and didn't think the lesson went well. Please post here any questions or comments you have on the lesson (or anything else you want to bring up).

The Bad Theology of Evangelism (LindsAy's Story)

Please let me know any follow-up thoughts you have on yesterday's lesson on evangelism. The lesson seemed to go well; the looks on people's faces made me think a lot of processing was going on. Click the title of this post to go to an on-line commentary on Question 67 from the Westminster Larger Chatechism; that may be helpful to some of you. Also, feel free to post a question if you have one.

Any thoughts?

Didn't have time to post a debrief of Sunday's lesson (The Bad Theology of Serendipity). Please use this thread to post any thoughts you have about that lesson, about possible topics for future lessons, or anything else you'd like to talk about.