All posts in Family

  • May 13, 2011

    Love the Church

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 9

    If we love Jesus, then we will love what he loves. Or at least we will commit ourselves to grow in love towards what Jesus loves.

    What does he love? Jesus loves the church.

    Biblical writers are fond of playing with the groom/bride metaphor in describing Jesus and the church. Jesus loves the church, like a groom loves his bride. I struggle with this metaphor as a man, because it is difficult to think of myself as a bride. (Not to mention the sexual overtones when talking about brides & grooms!) Nevertheless, I see the point of the metaphor. Jesus loves the church and Jesus desires the church. He has committed himself to the church in a never-ending covenant. He pledges, as it were, to love us in sickness and in health for richer or for poorer. He chooses us (or did his Father arrange this marriage as the Calvinists say). We are the object of his desire.

    If Jesus loves the church, then shouldn’t we?

    The church is not an institution; the church is made up of fellow followers of Jesus. Buildings and organizations are important, but they are not the true church. From Primal Credo, Chapter 9:

    The North American landscape is peppered with chapels, cathedrals, and storefronts—a variety of places of worship where Jesus is worshiped as God and Savior. We call these places “churches” and rightly so. Gathering with other followers of Jesus in a special place, a sacred place set aside for nothing else but the worship of God, plays an extremely important role in our spiritual growth. We need not reject the central role of a church as a physical structure in the lives of both the worshiping community and the civic community. Places of worship, regardless of their size or shape, stand as a visible reminder that life is not only for business, consumption, shopping, entertaining, eating, and drinking. Our creator designed life to be built around worship. As important as the building is, it can become a distraction, pulling our focus away from the true church, which is not made of wood, steel, brick, and mortar but of breathing, flesh-and-blood human beings with all of our messiness and idiosyncrasies.

    I am thankful for the five churches I have been a part of over these twenty plus years including: Frederick Blvd. Baptist Church (St. Joseph), Word of Life Church (St. Joseph), Church on the Move (Tulsa), Believers Church (Tulsa), and Cornerstone Church (Americus). I love these churches and I am thankful for how I have grown through my participation in each of these local expressions of the body of Christ, especially Cornerstone. I have been a part of Cornerstone for nearly 12 years, longer than any other church. I have served as the Youth Minster and now Pastor. Sadly our time is coming to a close. I have only two Sundays left, before my family and I are sent out from the church back to St. Joe, where I will join the staff at Word of Life. I cannot say thank you enough to the members of Cornerstone Church for the years of love, encouragement, prayers, support, and doing life together…let me say it loud:

    THANK YOU CORNERSTONE CHURCH. I LOVE YOU.

    Cornerstone Church is an example of a church that has become “a colony of heaven in the country of death.” Again from Chapter 9:

    The Holy Spirit empowers the church by establishing the rhythms of the kingdom of God within her midst, rhythms of humility, kindness, meekness, mercy, purity, and peace. With the absence of the Spirit’s presence, the local church is quiet, still, lifeless. “So why church?” asks Eugene Peterson. “The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death.” In light of the prevalence of death, the Spirit establishes these rhythms in the most unique and unpredictable ways. His work in one generation of the church may look vastly different than his work in another generation. The rhythms of grace, peace, mercy, and forgiveness remain the same, but the shape of our individual local churches may take on different forms. Moreover, local churches must change or die. As the culture around us shifts and changes, we must change in order to stay the same. We must change in order to stay faithful to Jesus, to his message, and his story. This includes changing our style, our vocabulary, and our emphasis, so that our old, worn-out ways do not become a hindrance to the gospel.

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    1 Comment / Life, Theology /

  • May 13, 2011

    I left the Charismatic Farm

    After spending over ten years of my spiritual journey being shaped by the charismatic renewal something began to happen to me in 2004 and 2005. I became aware that the “charismatic” label seemed not to fit me anymore. For a long time, I proudly wore the label “charismatic,” but something happened. I was no longer reading books by Pentecostal/charismatic authors. I was no longer investing in relationships with those who call themselves “charismatic” Christians. I slowly began to see the unhealthy values of the charismatic movement (which I called charismania). I went to a gathering of Pentecostal/charismatic pastors and church leaders and I realized I no longer fit in.

    Something had changed.

    Something had changed in me.

    I left Maggie’s Farm.

    I had a “head full of ideas that were driving me insane.” While my friends in the charismatic renewal lived with a “bedroom window made out of bricks,” I began to look outside of Pentecostalism and saw a wealth of knowledge about God and his church outside of the charismatic establishment. I wasn’t mad at anyone; I just needed to move on:

    Well, I try my best
    To be just like I am
    But everybody wants you
    To be just like them
    They sing while you slave and I just get bored
    I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
    – Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm” (1965)

    I felt like everyone wanted me to continue to endorse a spirituality that was a mile wide, but only an inch deep. I was bored. I was trying to be who I know God wanted me to be, but I could not become that person if I only drank from the charismatic stream. I could not continue to grow on the Charismatic Farm, so I left. But…I never stopped believing in the power, presence, and person of the Holy Spirit. From Primal Credo, Chapter 8:

    I believe the Holy Spirit is God. The Spirit shares all of the attributes used to describe God’s nature. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God, but the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. Christians have faced the temptation since the beginning of the church to speak of the Spirit as something less than personal and relational. Augustine described the Trinity in terms of lover, the one being loved, and the love shared between the two. Love is indeed a part of God’s nature, and Augustine’s description of the Trinity attempts to describe God in relational terms with the Holy Spirit as the personification of love. However, a personified virtue like love is still less than a person. If the Holy Spirit is God, he must be as personal and relatable as God the Father and the Son. The biblical descriptions of the Spirit are nothing less than personal. He is not a power or energy. He is nothing like Luke Skywalker’s force from the Star Wars universe. We refer to the Holy Spirit as “he” and not “it,” because the Spirit contains all the personal attributes of God. He becomes our experience of God, making God very real to us in our lives of worship.

    I believe the Holy Spirit interacts with God’s creation. The Old Testament bears witness to the unity and oneness of God. The New Testament testifies to the plurality of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we begin to read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, fingerprints of the Trinity begin to appear. In the very opening lines of Genesis, we see “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). The Spirit hovered over creation and served as God’s instrument in the act of creation. As God spoke creation into existence by his very breath, vestiges of the Spirit can be seen. He works also in God’s special creation—the human family. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and gives us a new birth into God’s kingdom. He empowers us, speaks to us, and gives gifts to build us up and enable us to serve others. The Holy Spirit makes the difference between empty religion and a real relationship with the Triune God by making our encounter with God experiential. We know God not by memorizing a collection of God-facts; we know him by personal encounter. We experience his grace, his forgiveness and kindness, his promptings, his healing, his glory and beauty not by categorizing information about God in a mental checklist; we know God personally and experientially by the Holy Spirit who gives us access into the very life of God.

    I believe in the Holy Spirit and refuse to allow him to be co-opted by religious fanaticism. Not everything promoted as the “moving” of the Holy Spirit is actually the work of the Spirit himself. Our belief in God the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of holiness and truth, requires a discerning ear to what some well-meaning Christians claim to be the activity of the Spirit. Too often the Holy Spirit has been maligned by emotion-infused propaganda, which may generate excitement for God but fails to produce lasting fruit, the evidence of the Spirit’s presence. Gandalf, the wizard of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, warns Frodo through a poem not to dismiss a potential friendship. The poem opens with words remarkably reminiscent of the Holy Spirit:

    All that is gold does not glitter,
    Not all those who wander are lost;
    The old that is strong does not wither,
    Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

    The Holy Spirit may not always sparkle the eyes of religious fanatics. He very often may not feed their need for sensational novelty, but his roots are deep in the heart of the church. As we seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we can have great confidence in his ability to keep us free from the frost of spiritual apathy.

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    5 Comments / Life, Theology /

  • May 12, 2011

    Jesus is coming, just not May 21

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 7

    I wonder what Harold Camping will do on May 22 this year. Camping is a part of the group declaring the world will end on May 21 and this cataclysmic end of the world includes the return of Jesus.

    He gets one thing right: Jesus is coming.

    He just isn’t coming on May 21, 2011.

    Sorry Harold.

    This isn’t new. People have been talking about the end of the world for more than 2,000 years. And nearly every generation has some group claiming to know the exact day the world will end. They have all been wrong. Still people get stirred up whenever anyone talks about “the end.” From Primal Credo, Chapter 7:

    End of the world slogans have embedded themselves in popular culture, slogans like: “The end is near” and “Jesus is coming soon.” Nearly every hundred years or so some fanatical group seems to stir up enthusiasm for the end of the world marked by the return of Jesus to the earth. Among Christians in the United States, apocalyptic fever has surged since the publication of Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth in the 1970s and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkin’s very popular Left Behind series in the 1990s. For the last few decades people inside and outside the church have debated, discussed, feared, and dismayed the day of the Lord, the day Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead.

    No one knows the day or the hour. God has not given any secret knowledge to anyone or put hidden messages in the Bible tipping people off to the exact day Jesus will return, but one thing we do know—Jesus is coming. Again from Chapter 7:

    Our hope rests in Jesus, who is coming to judge the living and the dead. We continue to put our hope in God not just for that looming final day, but for every day. Hope is both a kind of expectation for the future and patience in the present. We put our hope in God for today, because he is the grand architect of our story. God is writing our story, day by day, and we can trust him through the challenging chapters of life, knowing the next chapter will be good. We also patiently wait in hope for the future when Jesus comes. We call this the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). Our hope in Jesus’ appearing is a good hope, not because we are going, but because he is coming. Much of the excitement generated recently related to the coming of Jesus surrounds the idea that he will come secretly to take all the Christians to heaven and then he will return visibly to destroy the earth and all the wicked people on it. As exhilarating as this sounds, the Bible does not paint such a picture. The blessed hope of the church is not we are leaving the earth, but Jesus is appearing on the earth. He comes to make all things new. He comes to “make his blessing known far as the curse is found,” as we sing at Christmas-time. He comes to establish the kingdom of God, of which he is King, fully and permanently. He comes as the King to judge.

    As much as people get excited by the thought off physically leaving the planet and rocketing through the atmosphere, this is simply not what the Bible tells us about the coming of Jesus. There will be those who are alive when Jesus comes and they will be suddenly “caught up” with Jesus in a moment when their physical bodies will change. The experience of being “caught up” will be the dramatic change of those who are alive while those who have died in faith experience bodily resurrection. The story of Scripture in talking about the coming of Jesus draws our attention to Jesus not to us. This is our hope, not that we are going, but that he is coming. And the creed reminds us that he comes to judge. Again from Chapter 7:

    We can easily turn Jesus the judge into a caricature of the nature of God himself. The cartoonish image of God as a cranky old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne of judgment waiting to lash out in lightning bolts of rage distorts the biblical picture of Jesus the coming judge. God does not judge in fits of rage. His judgments are securely fixed within his sense of justice and he tempers his judgment with mercy. Furthermore, God connects his judgment with love. When Jesus comes to judge he will do so both to reward and to punish. Not all judges in our world hand out sentences to the guilty; some judges hand out rewards. For example, the judge in a competition does not punish those with low scores. Rather the judge hands out accolades, crowns, medals, titles of honor, and awards to those who score high in the competition. When Jesus appears, he comes in his wrath to judge those who are guilty and to reward in love those who are righteous, who have a right standing with God.

    The wrath of God, the anger of God directed towards sin, evil, and wickedness remains a debatable issue in the church. We may debate how God expresses his wrath, but there is no doubting the existence of it. He does not express his wrath in fits of rage. Rather his judgments are true. He is not capricious in handing out judgment; his judgment for sin is calculated, honest, and he tempers his judgment with mercy. He will come to judge, but not only in terms of punishment for sin. He also comes to judge in order to reward the righteous.

    The question on everyone’s mind is “when.” When is Jesus coming? Harold Camping gets it wrong, but I have the answer clearly expressed at the end of the book of Revelation. There is a biblical answer to the question. I explain at the end of Chapter 7:

    The most pressing question by those fixated on the end times is: When is Jesus coming back? The answer to this popular question can be found hidden in the Bible. At the end of our story in the book of Revelation, Jesus himself gives us a clear answer to this most puzzling question. The answer is, “Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:10). He will come back as part of the story of redemption, to permanently bridge the gap between God and man, between heaven and earth. He is coming soon, to which we respond, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

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  • May 11, 2011

    The Second Alive

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 6

    Death is the silent specter hovering over every human being who has ever lived. We try to shield ourselves from thoughts of death, but we have all been touched with the sting of death as we have watched the death of friends or loved ones. And our own death is looming the distance.

    But for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we have no fear of death, because of the resurrection. Everything changes with the resurrection of Jesus, because the cold winter of death began to thaw and new life began to spring up from the ground. Jesus who died and was buried is the Jesus who rose up from the grave. From Primal Credo, Chapter 6:

    Jesus sounds the final defeat of death through his resurrection, which Christians around the world celebrate every year on Resurrection Sunday, otherwise known as Easter. It has been the tradition of Christians since the beginning to worship on Sunday morning in an every-week celebration of the resurrection, and once a year we set aside one Sunday for the ultimate celebration of the resurrection. Sadly for some Christians, Easter passes by with chocolate bunnies and Easter egg hunts and they miss out on the celebration. We cannot fully experience the joy of the Resurrection Sunday without reflecting on the sorrow of the cross of Christ. We commemorate the death of Jesus on Good Friday, day one. We reflect on the experience of his burial on Holy Saturday, day two. And we celebrate the joy of his resurrection on Resurrection Sunday, day three.

    Everything we believe as followers of Jesus rest upon the truth of the resurrection. We do not proclaim a gospel of death and burial, but of death, burial, and resurrection. If Jesus did not experience resurrection then he was a fraud and our faith is worthless. And yet what if Jesus did NOT rise from the dead? Is there any possible explanation for why the early church would proclaim a risen Jesus if indeed he did not rise from the dead? Again from Chapter 6:

    From time to time, skeptics offer reasonable theories in the attempt to disprove the resurrection of Jesus. Some theories are more probable than others, but each theory presents some kind of objection to the validity of the resurrection. Each theory can be formed into a question. What if Jesus wasn’t really dead? What if he just passed out on the cross and he was buried alive, but in a coma-like state? What if some of his disciples stole his body from the tomb and faked the resurrection? What if the real Jesus was never crucified, but rather it was a secret, unknown twin brother who was crucified? What if he was given some kind of ancient sedative that knocked him out for a while on the cross and then the sedative wore off while he was in the tomb? What if a group of people just made this whole story up? Skeptical objections to the resurrection help us wrestle with this all-important truth.

    None of these theories are completely inconceivable, but they do not hold up against historical evidence. All of these theories implicate the followers of Jesus in some kind of cover-up conspiracy. Each theory assumes the original followers were lying at some level. The primary response to these skeptical objections is a set of alternative questions regarding the early followers of Jesus. Why would they lie? What would be their motivation for lying? How did they personally benefit by lying about the resurrection?

    There is not reasonable explanation for why his followers would fake his resurrection. He did rise from the dead and he is alive. This makes Jesus the big boss of the planet. This makes Jesus Lord and Savior. We do not make Jesus Lord. God made him Lord when he raised Jesus from the dead giving us the hope of new life.

    Jesus’ birth connects God with human birth. His suffering on the cross connects God with human sin and suffering. Jesus’ burial connects God with human death and ultimately Jesus’ resurrection connects God with renewed human life. God in Christ overcame the hellish darkness of death to offer humanity new life. N.T. Wright describes this as, “The love which has given itself in death is now renewed with the new life of the resurrection” (The Resurrection of the Son of God, pg. 674). Within this new creation world of renewed life, Jesus gives us a new orientation around the primary Christian virtues: faith, hope, and love. First, the resurrection of Jesus gives us a renewed faith. Jesus told us he would rise from the dead, and he called himself “the resurrection and the life” (Luke 9:22). His physical resurrection adds an exclamation point to those claims. We have no reason to doubt; we can trust him.

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  • May 10, 2011

    The Death of God

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 5

    The death of Jesus makes it impossible to ignore him.

    His teachings continue amaze the masses, although the masses tend to misunderstand him. (His stories and sermons were neither common-sensical wisdom nor universal principles on how to do life. His teachings were bold proclamations that the kingdom of God had come.) His miracles caught the attention of the crowds, but it was his execution by Roman crucifixion that makes Jesus stand out from the crowd. His death means the death of God. As impossible as it seems God died on the cross. And now the cross is the symbol of the Christian faith. From Primal Credo, chapter 5:

    The cross makes Jesus unavoidable. It began as the symbol of violence, humiliation, and death, but it has become the symbol of faith, hope, and love. The early church used many different symbols for the faith, including a dove, an anchor, loaves and fishes, the icthus fish (which is still around on car bumpers), and Greek letters such as chi/rho and alpha/omega. These all served their purpose, but the cross became the enduring symbol of the Christian faith. Clement of Alexandria in the third century called the cross “the Lord’s sign.” It seems like a foolish symbol for Christianity, particularly in light of the awful history of crucifixion. The cross served as a cruel instrument of execution. Imagine driving by a Christian church near your house and looking up to see an executioner’s electric chair in blazing, bright white atop the steeple. The cross was hideous in the days of the Roman Empire. Everyone recognized it as a violent symbol of failure and death, because it signified the failed plot of would-be revolutionaries—failed revolutionaries do not rescue anyone.

    Crucifixion is not the most expedient way to execute criminals. It is bloody, gory, and cruel, yet at the cross of Christ we see the love of God. Again from Chapter 5:

    Jesus suffering upon the cross is a hideous and abhorrent figure, yet it reveals God’s love for us in an unforgettable vivid image. The Romans used crucifixion to heap shame and humiliation on their enemies, to disguise their dignity in defeat. However in the crucifixion of Jesus, Rome accomplished just the opposite of what they intended to do. Instead of shame and rejection, the Roman cross became the place where the love of God and his embracing of the world are most clearly seen. Jesus had told his disciples that if he would be lifted up on a cross, he would draw the nations of the world to himself. What the Empire intended for evil, God meant for good. At the cross we see Jesus not as our life coach, love guru, therapist, motivational speaker, or mystical guide; we see Jesus as the Savior of the world. We see the God of self-giving love in real human flesh suffering such hellish torment for the sins of the world.

    It is easy for us to overlook the cross, because we know about the resurrection. We know the resurrection is coming, but for a moment put yourself in the shoes of his original disciples and look at the death of Jesus through their eyes.

    Imagine the shock of the disciples when Jesus died. They saw the death of Jesus as the end. Their dream died. Their hope was dead. Their king was dead. Their entire understanding of God and God’s kingdom died. In their eyes, the death of Jesus meant Jesus failed. He had worked hard for three years to promote God’s kingdom, but he failed. A dead king is a failed king. Even more than failure, Jesus’ death in the eyes of those who loved him meant he was wrong. He said he was coming to bring the kingdom of God. But how can you lead the expanse of God’s kingdom when you are dead? He was wrong. He was dead wrong. He had said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and now he was a lifeless corpse lying on a cold rock slab in a dark tomb.

    As unbelievable as it sounds, God in Christ experienced death; the death of Jesus was, in one sense, the death of God.

    Jesus was dead. He did not play dead. He did not pass out. He was not sedated. He was dead and lifeless. The one called “the Light of the World” now lay in a dark sealed tomb. God was active within Jesus reconciling the world to himself. God joined us in human birth at the manager and then God joined us in human death at the sealed tomb of Jesus. God did not die in the sense that he ceased to exist. God died in that he experienced human death. How can this be? The source of life experienced death.

    God in Christ experienced death on the cross, but that is not the end of the Jesus story—Sunday is comin’.

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  • May 7, 2011

    Mystery

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 4

    Every mother can tell you the coming-into-the-world story of each of her children. They are often unique. I have witnessed the birth each of my three boys and they each came into the world in their own unique way. Wesley, my oldest, was born early. Taylor, son #2, came late. And Dylan came right on time.

    There is one coming-into-the-world story that has been told and retold more than any other; it is the Christmas story. Christmas continues to capture the imagination of people, in part, because of the magical virgin birth. Revisiting the magic and mystery of the birth of Jesus is what puts Christ back into Christ-mas. From Primal Credo, Chapter 4:

    Mary’s virgin birth remains the deep mystery of the Christmas story. For those who bemoan the shift in our culture from the Christ of Christmas to the Consumerism of Christmas, the creed offers a response, but not a response of angry protest. The creed does not lead us to boycott department stores that choose to use the phrase “Happy Holidays” over “Merry Christmas.” The creed offers a different response. It extends an invitation to explore the mystery of the virgin birth of Jesus. We reintroduce a Christ-centered meaning into our Christmas celebration by inviting people to explore the mystery of God becoming a man. Augustine explores this mystery in a Christmas sermon from the fifth century: “He lay in a manger, and yet the world rested in his hands. As an infant, He was wordless, and yet He was the Word Itself. Him whom the Heavens couldn’t huddle, the lap of a single woman could easily cuddle. She was toting about on her hip Him Who carries her about the universe.” How can the all-powerful God be a tiny, helpless baby? This question among others nudges us to explore not only the mystery of his birth, but also the mystery of Jesus as the God-man.

    The human birth of the eternal Son of God is one of the most central truths in the Christian faith. Again from Chapter 4:

    Mary, as a real flesh and blood human being, gave birth to Jesus, a real human being. He looked and acted and smelled like every other baby born on the earth. He did not have a super-human, spirit-like body. His newborn body resembled every other baby born in the Middle East at that time. What makes this birth such a wonderful mystery is he became a human being while remaining God. Jesus was neither a god who took on human qualities nor a man who transformed into a god. He was not some kind of mutant hybrid of half man, half god. He was (and is) the most unique being who has ever existed. He is simultaneously fully God and fully human. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called this mystery “the sign of offense and the object of faith.” To confess belief in Jesus the Son of God born of a woman offends all rational sensibilities. More than illogical, it demands more of us than we are ready to comprehend. If Jesus is God embodied in human form, if he is the God-man, then shouldn’t we pay attention and take the things he says seriously? Some find the offense too overwhelming. They find it easier to ignore Jesus, than to take his life and words seriously. Yet for those of us who believe, the God-man has become the object of our faith, the centering point for our very existence, the foundation from where everything becomes stable and begins to make sense.

    Jesus as true God and true man remains the reason we, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “due away with any talk of him being just a good moral teacher.” If Jesus is not indeed God when he went around claiming to do the works of God with the power and authority of God, then he is certainly not good. Indeed he would be quite wicked, evil, or deranged.

    Either oppose him, hunt him down and try to kill him like Herod.

    Or bring the him the gifts fitting a king and bow down and worship him as God.

    He leaves us with no other choice.

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  • May 6, 2011

    We Follow the Lamb

    Primal Credo
    Chapter 3: Jesus

    We believe in God.

    This conviction puts us on a different trajectory from atheists, those who do not believe in God, but there is nothing uniquely Christian about claiming belief in God. From Primal Credo, chapter 3:

    The overwhelming majority of people alive today believe in God. We do see a growing, grassroots revival of atheism spreading throughout Europe and North America. However, these new atheists remain in the minority of the world’s population. It seems many who claim to be atheists are not true philosophical atheists; rather they are angry theists. They do not deny the existence of God as much as they are angry with a misconstrued view of God. Nevertheless to confess belief in God, or anger towards God as in the case of so many self-proclaimed atheists, is not enough to give full expression to the Christian faith. We uniquely believe in Jesus, who we call “the Christ.”

    Christ is a title meaning “anointed one or King,” specifically the Jewish king called “Messiah.” Christ Jesus is King Jesus.

    We uncover the mystery of Jesus Christ when we consider the truth that he is both God and a man. Jesus is really God and a real human being, at the same time. We worship him as God and we follow him as the earthly King. We follow him and we give our allegiance to him and his kingdom, the kingdom of God. To confess “Jesus is Lord” is to acknowledge he is the “landlord” of the planet. He is in charge. He is running the show. To pledge our allegiance to King Jesus is to undermine the authority of every human government of the earth. We may be the citizen of a certain political nation, but our deepest loyalties lie with Jesus. The confession “Jesus is Lord” got the early Christian in trouble with the Roman Empire not because it was a religious claim, but it was a political claim. Again, from chapter 3:

    Citizens living in the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus and the early church began to worship and honor the various Caesars, the Roman Emperors, as god-like men. The people gave whichever Caesar was in power titles like “Lord” and “Savior of the World.” They even called Caesar divi filius in Latin, meaning “Son of God.” The titles early Christians used for Jesus were originally given to Caesar. First-century Christians living in the shadow of Roman dominance deeply subverted the authority of the Caesar when they called Jesus “Lord” and “Son of God.” Caesar wanted all honor and authority in his empire; honoring another king above him carried the potential sentence of death. Christians who saluted Jesus as King implied that Caesar was no longer running the show. This subversive confession of our creed—I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord—put Christians at odds with the mighty Caesar. Jesus and Caesar could not both be King, Lord, Savior, and Son of God. Emperors do not conquer the world by sharing the throne. Caesar would be dethroned if indeed Jesus was Lord.

    Many followers of Jesus found themselves the targets of Rome’s rage in the first few centuries of church history, not because they believed Jesus was Lord of heaven, but because they proclaimed him to be the Lord of heaven and earth. The political implications of their confession caught the attention of the empire. As Roman officials grew irritated with these small bands of Jesus-worshippers, they responded with violence. Many Christians died because they made this simple, bold, subversive claim: Caesar was not Lord; Jesus was. We call those who died for their faith in Jesus “martyrs,” which comes from the Greek word martus, meaning “public witness.”

    For those of us who are followers of Jesus living in the United States, confessing “Jesus is Lord” means we do not give ultimate honor to our national Caesars. We do ultimately pledge our allegiance to governmental officials at any level of public office, regardless of their political affiliation. We do not put our hope in one political ideology, because our hope is not in a political party; our hope is in the King. We do not follow the donkey, or the elephant; we follow the Lamb.

    When we boldly declare, and live in light of the truth, that Jesus is Lord, Christ, and King, we separate our Christian identity from our national identity.

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  • May 5, 2011

    Father & Creator

    Chapter 2

    The creed opens with “I believe in God…”. Everything else the creed has to say is oriented around this life-altering statement. Our creed is much more about God than it is about us. This may disappoint some people, but it is necessary to be honest—we probably spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about ourselves. The creed turns our attention away from ourselves and towards this God who, according to the creed, is “the Father almighty and creator of heaven and earth.” The descriptors “Father” and “creator” tell us something about our God. From Primal Credo, chapter 2:

    “Father” and “creator” are action-packed titles showing us the God we believe in is living, moving, doing, relating. He is not a stationary God, but he is fathering and creating. God as Father is a peek into how personal God is. He is not an abstract spiritual energy. He cannot be reduced to a set of ideas, moral principles, or pithy statements. He is knowable and personal like a father, and he is our Father. God as creator reveals how powerfully active God is in creation. He does not hide out in some forgotten part of the universe doing nothing; rather, he creates.

    God as creator was revealed to us in creation.

    God as Father was revealed to us in Jesus.

    There has been a running debate over the last 30-40 years in the church regarding to the masculine reference to God in the title “Father.” Some feel that calling God “Father” only reinforces male chauvinism and the domination of men over women. I believe hanging on the traditional, male reference to God is important and we can overcome the male chauvinism without changing how we speak about God. Again from chapter 2:

    “Father” is an unmistakable masculine reference. Jesus reveals God as a father not because God has chest hair and a desire to watch football and eat buffalo wings (which is a poor caricature of masculinity anyway). God is a divine person and we understand the concept of a person in the context of gender, either male or female. We cannot conceive of a genderless person. People may not understand their gender or they may attempt to change their gender, but they cannot remove gender altogether from their identity. Jesus reveals God as a masculine father, not that we would overlook or marginalize our mothers, sisters, and wives. God does not have a gender per se, so we cannot hold masculinity in higher esteem than femininity. God is the creator of human beings—male and female. Both men and women reflect the goodness of God’s creation. Jesus shows us God as Father, first and foremost, so we can see him as a person.

    God is a personable as a father, but he can never be our buddy; the creed reminds us that he is the Father almighty. We can know him and love him and communicate with him, but we can never become too casual (or even too comfortable?) in his presence. He is after all the Almighty.

    In addition to the fatherhood of God, the creed tells us that God is creator of heaven and earth. God made everything that has been made. The creed serves as a synopsis of the biblical story, which begins with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis, and the creed, gives us the “who” behind creation, but does not tell us the “how.” Science guides us in understanding the “how.” Science can certainly get it wrong. History reveals the errors of science. A part of the scientific process is forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and accepting or rejecting the hypothesis based on data. We need to guard ourselves from making the scientific community the enemy of the faith. Instead of “fighting science” we should dialogue with science:

    Our belief in God as creator rises from the beginning of our story in Genesis, written by a pre-scientific author to a pre-scientific culture using the language of story and poetry. To force the Genesis account of creation into scientific categories is one of the quickest ways to drive the wedge between faith and science much deeper. Trying to use the biblical story and our creed to make scientific claims is, as Adam Hamilton says, “… a bit like trying to use a paintbrush to drive screws into a wall. It is the wrong tool for the job.” Our creed, as informed by the story of Scripture, does not answer the “how” questions; it answers the “who” and “why” questions. We need not fear when listening to the scientific community telling us how the universe moves in rhythm and harmony or how the cells of the human body replicate themselves. We have much to learn and much to benefit from listening to science. Equally, we need not fear entering into conversation with the scientific community using the language of the creed.

    The language of faith puts life into the soul of truth. Science can guide us in understanding how, but faith guides us in answering the big “why” questions.

    Why existence?

    Why is there something instead of nothing?

    Why is there a universe?

    Why is there scientific laws?

    Why is there a planet sustainable for human life?

    Why is there human life?

    Why do we exist?

    When we confess faith in a God who is creator, we acknowledge that there is meaning, intention, and purpose behind our creation. With meaning and purpose behind our creation, we can find meaning and purpose in human society.

    Order Primal Credo today!

    1 Comment / Life, Theology /

  • May 3, 2011

    I Tremble at the Thought of Belief

    Today is a good day. I am happy to announce the official release of Primal Credo: Your Entrance into the Apostles’ Creed.

    Writing this book has been a laborious, but worthwhile, 10-month experience. It started last summer when I began to hammer out the opening paragraphs of chapter 1 and finished last week when I approved the final proof. I have had an interest in writing a book on the Apostles’ Creed for a couple of years now. Churches like mine that are young, hip, cool, contemporary, evangelical, and nondenominational are not known for giving the creed much attention. We are known for untucked shirts, jeans, cool glasses, expensive coffee, and conservative politics (all of which are a caricature).

    When we look past the cool glasses and overpriced-coffee, we find something missing in these wireless, highly-mobile evangelical churches. Truth be told, there is a gaping hole in evangelicalism, a hole we could call tradition. The rediscovery of the Apostles’ Creed has become a way for many to begin to fill the hole, to infuse our paper-thin spirituality with the richness and the depth of the Christian tradition. Primal Credo is your guide into the creed.

    It all begins with Chapter 1: Creed. The English word “creed” comes from “credo” the Latin word for “I believe” or simply “belief”. And…

    “I tremble at the thought of belief.”

    This is the opening line of Primal Credo. These are literally the first words I wrote in the book. I tremble at the thought of belief. I tremble because belief is what makes us human. Belief exists in the deepest part of a person’s soul. Belief makes us who we are. It shapes our identity. So to mess with a person’s beliefs is to mess with the core of who they are. And our creed, our belief about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, challenges every other belief system out there.

    We work in vain whenever we try to separate people into two categories: “believers” and “non-believers.” Belief does not require religion or theology.

    We are all believers, because we are all human beings.

    We are all believers, because we all believe something.

    Doubt is not the opposite of belief. Even doubters believe something. In fact, every doubt is based on an alternative belief. Fear (and its coordinating anxiety) is the opposite of belief.

    Belief is not a matter of choice, but confidence. Our system of belief describes our deepest convictions, our most trusted knowledge base, and our most tightly held values. And Jesus entered into our world to challenge every system of belief. From Primal Credo, Chapter 1:

    Into a world of conflicting beliefs comes the son of a carpenter, heralded as a prophet. He proclaims the goodness of God’s kingdom. He heals the sick. He challenges the religious establishment and breaks social norms. He turns water into wine and walks on water. He teaches. He shows people a new way to live, a new way of living in right relationship with God, a new way of believing in God. People celebrate him, talk about him, and betray him. He is arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed. He dies a gruesome, horrific death, but not until he cried out in a breathless prayer: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He died. He is buried and then—silence, a day of mourning and despair by those who loved him and gave up everything to follow him. Then on the first day of the week, life overcomes death. Resurrection. Conversation. Ascension. His suffering seemed unending, but not even the grave could conquer him.

    The fledgling group of Jesus-followers watches in disbelief as he dies and they experience a new kind of belief when they talk to him alive and resurrected. This new Christian belief enters the world to challenge every other system of belief, which in turn challenges everything in our lives and relationships. The Jesus-followers say goodbye to God in the flesh and they wait eagerly for the Helper, the God-like-a-dove, the promised Holy Spirit. As they celebrate the Jewish Passover, the Holy Spirit enters the house where they were gathered with the power of gale force winds. The Spirit overwhelmed these early Christians. They spill out into the streets of the Roman world, speaking in new languages and declaring the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. As three thousand new people enter into the community of the forgiven, the life of this new community was formed by devotion to four things: “the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

    The Apostles’ teaching would eventually become the New Testament. But before all the books of the New Testament had been written, the teachings of Jesus and his apostles’ were passed from person to person, from church to church, as a part of an oral tradition. After the 27 books of the New Testament had been written and began to grow in acceptance as Scripture, the church put together a succinct statement of Christian belief. Today we call it the “Apostles’ Creed.” Originally it was verbally confessed by those who were being baptized as followers of Jesus, but through the centuries it came to stand as a symbol of the faith. This is what it means to be a believer in Jesus…we believe THESE things:

    I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

    I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.

    On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

    I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

    Amen.

    When we as present-day follower of Jesus allow the Apostles’ Creed to shape our system of belief, we discover our DNA as followers of Jesus. Again from Primal Credo, Chapter 1:

    The creed is the DNA of our new life with God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Scientists have discovered the building blocks of organic life, which they call DNA. Each individual strand of DNA contains all the information for a person’s genetic code. Every cell in our bodies carries our unique DNA. The creed is the DNA of faith. God has designed it to live in the heart of every follower of Jesus as the building blocks for our entire life. The creed, as a primal summation of Christian belief, lives in our hearts as much as it lives in our heads, because to believe is not merely to know or to obtain knowledge—to believe is to live. Deep convictions govern our lives, because we consciously or unconsciously affirm these convictions to be true. As followers of Jesus, we live differently because we confess this creed to be true.

    Order your copy of Primal Credo today.

    3 Comments / Life, Theology /

  • April 30, 2011

    The Blog is Back

    So as you can see, I have not blogged since October 24, 2010, more than six months ago. Shame. Shame. Shame. I am now blogging for the first time this year and there are a few reasons. Let me explain:

    First, I have been writing a book. It is my reflections on the Apostles’ Creed and it will be released next month. It is difficult to write sermons (my primary calling and vocation), write a book, and write blog posts. There will be more on the book in future posts.

    Second, I am a slow writer. Eugene Peterson, who I met at a pastor’s conference, told me in a letter that he is a slow writer. I find it hard to believe that a guy who has written 30 or so books and translated the entire Bible is a “slow” writer, but I think I know what he means. Writing is a slow process. To be a writer is to be slow. I am a horrible proofreader. (I assume there are errors in this blog!). So I have to read and reread what I write to remove errors and clean it up. Writing takes time…whether it is a book, a sermon, or a blog.

    Third, twitter is killing the blog-o-sphere. I have become much more active on Twitter and Facebook. I have been posting to these sites, things I have blogged about in years past. It seems to me that this has become a trend for other bloggers as well. The average blog (for me) is 300 to 500 words. The maximum tweet is 140 characters. You do the math. By the way, you can follow me on Twitter @DerekVreeland.

    Fourth, my family and I are moving. As you can read on my previous post, my family and I are moving to St. Joseph, Missouri in less than four weeks. Getting a church ready for a new pastor and getting a family ready to move across county and getting a house ready to sale has taken a lot of time.

    With all of these excuses out of the way, I am announcing that the blog is back. I am going to be blogging over the next few weeks talking about my new book, Primal Credo and then I would like to do my best to blog through the move. The posts may be short, but now that the book have been written and gone through five re-writes (no joke – the manuscript has gone through five rounds of edits), I have no excuse. The blog is back.

    2 Comments / Family, Life /
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