Then he got an email (well, he got several actually, but this one stands out).

The writer told him that she was very saddened by the news and she emphasized the point with many emotive statements like,

“I don’t know where else I will serve….”

“I felt most impacted when I participated in…”

“….was the only reason that I was part of this church”

What I find so interesting about this exchange is that this person used language that is no different than language you or I might use to describe any product or service we may acquire.

in other words, these are the statements of a consumer.

Imagine a cell phone provider discontinuing service in a geographical area:

“I don’t know what other service provider I will find.”

“I really enjoyed the service I received, I’m concerned another provider will not serve me as well.”

Notice that these are all “I” statements. The troubling reality about these “I” statements when used in reference to someone’s interaction with the church is that these statements are antithetical to a faith that embraces such teachings as:

“Not my will, but yours be done”

“whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”

“Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”

“Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!”

Now, it would be one thing if this woman’s comments existed in a vacuum, but unfortunately this type of perspective is pandemic.

This is what I call consumer christianity.

So many “believers” interact with communities of faith looking for what the community has to offer them, instead of seeking to discover how they can share what they have (resources, experience, wisdom, skill, love, etc) with others.

I don’t believe this is the only variable, but I believe it’s at least one variable to the equation that ends in someone finding little different between someone of the faith and someone not of the faith.

May we abandon this “consumer christianity” and move to “post consumer christianity.” It sounds new, but really it’s just a new term for what was intended all along.

Do we really believe that people can change?

Here’s why I ask this question.

Several months ago, our local newspaper published this article about a man trying to run for political office. His name was removed from the ballet. The reason? He committed a felony when he was a juvenile….in 1966.

He has no other convictions. He served a 6 year prison sentence, and he has been a productive citizen since.

Now, this is interesting to me, because don’t we love stories and movies where someone has a life that’s a mess and then rises to become something better than they were?

Is this only a value that embrace in fiction?

With the beginning of the next presidential race taking on steam, we will no doubt be inundated with stories of candidates past failings.

Pundits will dredge up these details as proof that we should not trust someone now.

Sure we don’t want to brush over the past (there could be some real muck in there still), but I have to think that a person’s past should be held in light of the context of who they are now (especially when the past is 45 years ago).

For my part, I am always impressed by stories of redemption and recovery that led to new changed life.  They are the people I want to listen to, they are the people I would follow.

This weekend in our worship services at CFC our teaching will come from 1 Peter. As we prepare for the weekend, consider the following passage which will feature in the message:

1 Peter 4:7-11 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self‑controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Think about an unfavorable situation you are in. Maybe you have tension with a co-worker. Or, perhaps the organization you work for stubs it’s toes more than it strides. Maybe you have strife with a parent, or a spouse. Or, it could be that your health is failing.

Why is it that our default setting is always to blame the circumstances or others? Why is it that when we see shortcomings in others, organizations, bosses, friends, or governments, our default response is to stand on the sideline and point fingers?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that in every one of these circumstances, there is a problem. The problem is us. It’s you and me.

If we really read that passage above. If we chewed on it, and we savored the wisdom in it, we’d have a path forward that is more fulfilling than complaining that something is broken.

What if your circumstance doesn’t change? What if your boss never affirms your work? What if your family members remain hostile? What if your health doesn’t improve?

You have a powerful, life-changing tool to use in these circumstances. That tool is our attitude.

I know far too many people who walk around with a chip on their shoulder (I used to be one of them) waiting for someone else to fix the circumstances. All the while, there was something powerful each of us could do that would change the situation immediately, it’s an attitude adjustment.

What if we adopted clear minds and we exhibited self-control? What if we choose to love deeply? What if we choose to offer hospitality to one another without grumbling? What if instead of waiting on someone else, we used whatever gift we had to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms? I believe it would change everything!

Spend some time today considering this new path, this new attitude, and pray for it to become reality, in us first, and then in others.

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Last weekend I lead a discussion with a bunch of college-age young adults on a difficult passage of scripture (1 Cor. 11), and afterword I got the following text from one of the participants :

“As much as it drives me INSANE, thanks for always making us fight for our answers and pushing us to go further than where we are”

It’s responses like this that keep me excited about teaching.

Now, I’ve learned some things about teaching and about teachers in specific. I’ve learned that there is a delicate balance to be kept as you teach.

This delicate balance exists in the space between teaching students how to think, and teaching students what to think.

I believe a teacher is in balance when he or she not only imparts knowledge, but also imparts the skills needed to discern whether or not the knowledge imparted by the teacher should be trusted.

This balance is delicate because if you get out of balance in either direction you are in trouble.

If, for example, I merely taught my students what to think, I would not in fact be teaching them, I would instead be indoctrinating them.

If, on the other hand, I merely taught them to ask questions without providing them with skills to synthesize the results and come to defendable conclusions, I would be like a general sending soldiers onto a battlefield with weapons they were never trained to wield.

I know that I am keeping things in balance when I get responses like the one above. I not only gave the students information, but I raised questions that threw them into enough tension that they had to wrestle with the information and come to their own conclusions.

It’d be a whole lot easier for me to just tell them what to think, but this would lazy on my part, and it would set my students up for failure on the day when they have to give an answer for why they believe what they believe.

So, if you teach, learn to love the delicate balance.

This is a dangerous statement.

Sure, the thing you were raised to believe may be right and good, but if you can’t articulate why you agree with that which you were raised to believe, you’re going to be in trouble.

My grandmother is convinced that people must clean their plate every time they eat. She gets upset with me when I stop eating because I am full and have met the limit of calories I have determined (through research & study) are healthy for me to consume. She says, “Josh, you have to clean your plate!” “Why grandma?” “Because, my daddy told me to clean my plate. That is how I was raised.”

I recently met with a young couple (not married) who live together. The young woman of the couple has tension about the decision to share a bed. When asked why she has tension about the current living arrangement, she confides that she was raised to believe that it is wrong.

For most of it’s history, America has embraced christianity. The typical answer given for why people are christians….”that’s what I was raised to believe.”

Now, I embrace the orthodox teachings of christianity. I believe they are right and good. I believe that the death & resurrection of Jesus offer the only real hope in this world.

Yet, let’s be clear, I don’t just believe this because that is what I was raised to believe. I have dug into my beliefs. I have asked tough questions. I have stretched and challenged my faith, and I now know why I believe what I believe. I can articulate it.

If you’re best answer for why you embrace a belief is “that’s how I was raised,” you are going to have problems. You will find that your beliefs don’t hold a lot of water.

When you face a period of trial, “that’s how I was raised” will be empty.

When someone confronts you about your beliefs, and the only defense for your positions is, “that is what I was raised to believe,” your only recourse will be to plug your ears and hum.

When faced with a decision where economics collide with faith, you will chose economics, because “that’s how I was raised” doesn’t have any power of economics.

When your kids are asking you why you do the things you do, or say the things you say, and your only answer is, “that’s how I was raised to believe,” you will have nothing to offer anyone but dogma, and dogma destroys.

Reject dogma. Find better answers for your beliefs.

Constraint and innovation cannot be separated.

They must exist together.

If you remove constraint, than you lose the ability to innovate. Innovation happens within constraint. Innovation is change, for the better, in something already established.

If you are working for an organization and you find yourself believing that the only answer to organizational problems is to replace whomever is in charge, than I do not believe you can ever call yourself an innovator.

Instead, you should identify yourself as a whiner. (I have too often been the whiner).

An innovator (that which I am aspiring to be) is someone who looks at the constraints and figures out ways to move the organization forward even if the establishment doesn’t change.

An example:

My brother played football at a large university. When the team was struggling, I remember listening to talk radio and suffering through all of the arm chair quarterbacks calling in with the suggestion that what the team needed was a “big name head coach.” They believed a change in the coach would fix everything wrong with the program.

There is a word for this perspective. Stupidity.

The team needed to figure out how to use the talent, resources, and abilities it already possessed to win football games. It had all of this in spades, and my hypothesis is that most of the organizations we work in do as well. The problem is that we look at what we can’t do, or what we aren’t doing, and we give up. Or, we hold out hope for some messiah to come in and change everything from the top down, which is not going to happen.

Another example:

There is a great story in the scriptures of a people being faced with a constraint. God had promised these refugees a great land to live in, but when they got there they found out the land was inhabited by giants. Most of the people looked at the constraint and caved. The exception was this one guy named Caleb:

Num. 13:30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

I wish I could tell you that they listened to Caleb, but they didn’t. They listened to a bunch of whiners, and then spent the next 40 years wandering around in the desert…..bad decision.

I constantly have conversations with people who tell me what they can’t do because of this constraint or that constraint. Their hope is in removing the constraint, and that is why they will always be frustrated. The answer is found inside the constraint.

The people I see who are doing great work have figured out how to use the tools already in place to bring about great outcomes.

These people don’t look at constraints and give up. Instead, they embrace them as a challenge to overcome.

So, what constraints are you facing? Have they boxed you in to the point that you have given up? What resources do you have access to which you can leverage to move the organization forward? What responsibilities can you take on? What problems could you beat if you stopped whining, and started using resources you already have to do something great?

Go be a Caleb.

Everyone has a degree to which they are unhealthy. The healthy person recognizes (or attempts to see) that which is unhealthy about themselves. Madmen have no doubts. I have doubts. So, I can hopefully rule out a future path of maniacal rampage.

There are lots of options of places to purchase, but there is definitely a couple of places I will not purchase from…..all of these places are christian bookstores.

Now, before I get lynched by those with a soft spot for the local christian bookstore, let me explain.

The other night I was walking through Walmart and I passed the book aisle.  Do you know what they sell at Walmart? Yeah, that’s right, they sell Bibles.  Do you know why they sell Bibles? It’s because they sell.  Do you think Walmart would carry anything in their stores if they didn’t think someone would buy it? Absolutely not!

Walmart is known for hyper competition when it comes to space.  When you deal with Walmart, your product had better move, or they’ll give the space to someone else.  It’s not personal, it’s business.  In fact, it’s simple economics.  They will supply what is demanded.  They’re about maximizing profits, not feeding your soul.

So, imagine if every christian only bought Bibles from christian bookstores.   With the decreased demand at Walmart, Borders, Barnes & Noble, or some other bookseller, the christian bookstore would be the only place you’d be able to buy it.

This would be a problem.

Notice that I saw the Bibles for sale at Walmart while I was shopping for other things.  There are other reasons that I go to Walmart, or Borders, etc.  The path of resistance to me checking out a Bible or other work of christian literature is less because I am already there.  Now, it doesn’t mean I will purchase, but it does mean the probability is more likely than if I had to go to a specific store to purchase it.  This is especially true for someone who is not a christian.

I want someone wrestling with the greater questions of life to walk through Barnes & Noble and find the Bible next to the Tao Te Ching. I want the college student wrestling with ideas of spirituality and world perspective to find Ravi Zacharias next to Christopher Hitchens.  I want someone reading Shaw to be able to find Chesterton.  I want someone reading Ekhart Tolle to be able to find Donald Miller, Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, John Perkins, Jonathon Edwards (not the southern political womanizer), Heschel, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, Sproul, Piper, Niebuhr, & Chan.  I want someone reading the Secret to be able to find Osteen…..oh wait, I don’t want anyone to read Osteen.  Nevermind.

If titles aren’t purchased, their space is given away or left vacant.  Imagine walking into the spirituality section at Barnes & Noble and not being able to find one title that unpacked orthodox Christianity.  You do realize that someday these authors aforementioned may not be side by side, and the reason won’t be some new age conspiracy.  The reason will be simple economics.

So, this is why I won’t be purchasing my next Bible or work of christian literature at the local christian bookstore.  It’s nothing personal against christian bookstores.  It’s just simple economics.

“We’re a disease, not a vaccine!”

Let me unpack this.

A disease spreads. It is contagious. Some (who are infected) have it, and transmit it to those of whom they come in contact with. If you are infected, you don’t have to work hard to spread it. The only way to keep from spreading is to quarantine yourself from others in hopes that they will not catch it.  A disease thrives on being spread.  By nature, a disease is designed to be spread.  Quickly, efficiently, thoroughly.

A vaccine inoculates. It kills infection, and prevents further spread.

We’re a disease, not a vaccine!

I am infected with Jesus & his message of grace, redemption, love, peace, hope, and resurrection.  I hope it spreads.

It’s the word I use to describe the endless connections between spirituality and economics.

It’s a dynamic that unveils the answer to the mystery of what really motivates us.  It lifts the hood on our faith (what kind of engine is really running in there)

It describes the tension between that which we are compelled to do and that which keeps us solvent.

It was present when southern preachers leveraged scripture to subjugate a race.

It was present when 19th century Americans forced first nation people to walk the trail of tears.

It was present when the German church sang louder to drown out the cries of Jews being led to slaughter.

It’s present when I could open my home to the lost and hurting, but I don’t because I know what it will cost.

It describes the tension between my stuff and the call to live the upside down life of following the way of Jesus.

I believe it’s why it’s so hard to follow Jesus and be an American.