Six-Pack (48)

Happy weekend, friends! Here is the latest Six-Pack of recent posts on faith, ministry, and who-knows-what!  I think it’s one of the best in a while.

If six is too many, start with my two *Picks of the Week* as an easy entry point.

For a steady stream of such links, follow me on Twitter ( @JasonBandura ) to the right of this post.  Sharp quotes and solid articles are tweeted 3-4 times daily.

Today’s edition:

1) 21 Skills of Great Preachers
There are few things I enjoy discussing more than preaching. Let’s start there with a lengthy quote I found on Josh Reich’s blog, though I’m unsure where it’s from.

2) The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill (*PICK OF THE WEEK*)
This short piece, from HBR, starts with Ultimate Frisbee and ends with a great reminder for anyone wanting to influence others, from kids to friends to whomever.

3) Alister McGrath, On Spiritual Transformation 
Scot McKnight shares some insights, from Alister McGrath, on what it takes for real transformation to happen in a life of faith.  If you don’t know McGrath, he was a prof at Oxford until 1998. Translation: He’s pretty sharp.

4) What is the Dark Night of the Soul?
This short TGC post strives to clear up some of the confusion, due to misuse, that swirls around this rich centuries-old and spiritually-rich phrase.

5) Can Noisetrade’s Free Downloads Still Save Music?
I’ve been discovering great music on Noisetrade for a couple years now. Here, CT tracks why the idea of giving away free music was birthed in the head of Derek Webb.

6) How to Focus: The Four Best Secrets to Unitasking (*PICK OF THE WEEK*)
I love A.J. Jacobs. He’s funny and curious, and that’s enough for me. In this post, he plays right into my long-held conviction that multitasking is a myth. And makes me laugh a couple times along the way.

There you go!

May your weekend be one of renewal as you rest and play and praise!

YOUR TURN: Which link above was most intriguing–why that one? Direct others readers to the best of the bunch. Your input makes this post better!

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When Worship Keeps You From God

I have deceived myself into believing that I love to worship.

Man-Driving-AloneThis epiphany has arrived (and re-arrived) in my car. Given the choice to drive somewhere with friends or alone, I will often reveal my introverted portions by selecting solo. One of my simple pleasures is to sing along with a worship album, transforming my little Pontiac into a 21st-century Tabernacle on wheels.

When Worship Isn’t

On one particular drive, it dawned on me that the song I was singing was authentically and deeply prayerful. However, a second dawning followed: Minus the music of that moment, I found it very difficult to pray.  This is coming from a guy who thinks driving alone is one of the best available prayer times. This is also coming from a guy who believes that deep and personal interaction with God is essential to spiritual transformation. This is even coming from a guy who, on a significant level, enjoys that level of interaction with the One I call Father and Master.

hard-to-pray1But on that evening, silence made me squirm. I realized that I was wielding worship as a wand to make me–the real me–disappear.  The music was my mask, and the harmonies were my hiding place.

What do you do when worship is keeping you from God?

You strip.

Strip down the worship–it’s got too many layers.

large_19_agent_orangeTraveling Vietnam in 2008, we were amazed to see the lingering impact of Agent Orange. Most notably, the human toll of this wartime herbicide is seen in lingering birth defects and health damage, now five decades down the road. Geographically, it is observable by the obvious lines in the forests where all previous growth was killed off in the deforesting attempts at flushing fighters from their lush cover.

Beneath the ugliness of chemical warfare, there is a sound strategy here: Strip off the layers, and hiding becomes hard.

If your worship–whatever its form–has created enough nooks and crannies that vulnerability and honesty can be easily avoided, it’s time to strip down your worship. It has become a stumbling block.

And that’s the easy step. Step two…

Strip down the worshiper–he’s got too many layers.

Even more key than your habits is your heart, though be aware that you may need to hit your outer expressions in order to target your inner essence.

Somehow unguarded openness needs to be fostered. For many, this is where journaling becomes a powerful habit. Some will even say, “I wasn’t actually sure what I felt until I started moving my pen.” That’s a writer’s way of saying, “I know a way to strip myself down.”

Writer or not, do you have a way of unveiling yourself?

It might involve visiting with a mentor or trusted friend–somewhere where hard questions are asked and honest statements are made. It might be through music or solitude or exercise or gardening. I see few limits on method, but a means is mandatory. ChangeMinus some thought here, the average person will merely move with the worship currents of assemblies or masses. While important, these frequently fail to strip us down to a place where life-altering intimacy with our Maker unfolds.

And if worship isn’t changing you, it’s time to change your worship.

YOUR TURN: Have you ever felt the limitations of your worship to connect you with God? What do you do to create or foster authentic interaction with God? How do you combat the inclination to hide or limit vulnerability?

Leave a reply–your input betters this post!

 

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Grace is What Works

There is a pragmatist within each of us.

Bent toward the rational and the results,this inner dweller unintentionally opposes some of God’s most profound movements in our lives.

This logic-loving, get-the-job done approach to life, a staple of the Western society in which I’ve grown up, struggles to grasp the life-Creator, who strangely–yet frequently–insists on operating in “obviously” impractical ways.

Grace is the finest of examples.

The careful reader of the New Testament will quickly observe the inadequacy of human efforts toward salvation. However, that doesn’t stop us from trying! Bent on saving ourselves, proving ourselves, and sustaining ourselves, responsibility and duty–praiseworthy qualities within themselves–kick into hyper-gear.  In the process, pride awakens and pressure builds, all the while we are unaware that we are building brick walls between God’s salvation and our souls.

Legalistic tendencies seem wired into the human hardware.

The hymn-writer called grace “amazing”. We call it “unbelievable”. We may never use the word, but we feel incapable of grasping the concept, and embracing it feels even less likely.  That is the pragmatist within us, speaking with conviction: “Grace is impractical.”  You hear it in the push back we feel obliged to offer against grace, particularly religious or responsible citizens: “What about discipline? Grace alone is too soft; it won’t take people where they need to be. It takes more than grace to transform a life.”

Grace is not practical enough for our liking.

Or perhaps we are not nearly practical enough.

The dynamic at work here is something like John Piper describes in “Desiring God”, a book carrying the subtitle of “Meditations of a Christian Hedonist”. Piper argues that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, is an attitude built into the very human nature. Other than spiraling our souls into self-destruction, this pleasure-seeking drive is what drives the soul toward God.  Paradoxically, Piper suggests that the reason we get lost along the way is that we are not nearly hedonistic enough!  Settling for watered down forms of satisfaction, our pursuit of pleasure is revealed as too weak, rather than too strong. We chase happiness like slackers, at the expense of our souls.

C.S. Lewis was developing the same thought when he famously observed:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

So back to where we began: We resist grace because it seems out-of-touch. “This won’t work in real life,” we critique.  Even more common might be the unspoken thought that Christ’s role in our lives is to provide a much-needed “reset” button. By his death and resurrection, he presses it and we sigh with relief.  We can take another kick at getting things right, in practical and reasonable ways, of course, powered by the fuel of self.

In this sense, we are part of a rich heritage of Christians who don’t get it.  Paul’s question to such folks:

Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. 2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. 3 How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? (Gal.3:1-3)

Beyond the Galatian goofballs, is anyone else’s “reset” button worn out from use?

“Seeking free-flowing forgiveness so we can take another futile kick at life on our terms”: Give me Impractical for $1000, Alex.

And there’s the rub.

Grace, in all its mystery and apparent irrationality, is the most practical of solutions to the human predicament.  The God we dismiss as idealistic or illogical actually, shock of shockers, knows what He’s doing, with His “power move” of offering freedom through surrender and victory through defeat.  Much to our surprise, perhaps chagrin, grace works.

In fact, it is only grace that works.

YOUR TURN: Why does humanity buck so hard against God’s grace?  What do you grasp about grace today that God has faithfully taught you over time?

Please leave your comment below, and enter the conversation.

[You can subscribe to this blog via RSS or email, in the upper right corner of this page. As well, follow me on Twitter ( @JasonBandura ) for 3-4 daily tweets daily of of insightful quotes or intriguing articles, sprinkled with occasional goofiness.]

Closing a Massive Gap

A favourite Scripture for many is Isaiah 55:8-9:

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Typically, this passage causes reverence, even worship toward this God so vastly different from ourselves.  Any who choose to pursue Him will experience wonder and taste mystery; sometimes the encounters are downright bewildering, but the sentiment in Isaiah 55 is that we are grateful that God is unlike us.

Within context, the surrounding verses place the emphasis squarely upon God’s unlike-us characteristics toward compassion, pardon, and forgiveness. In these ways particularly, God’s ways are vastly removed from ours. And that is reason to praise him.

But when we are not hailing hallelujahs, we may be moaning for mercy. The possibility of enjoying intimacy and walking closely with this God of outrageous grace hinges upon significant shifts in our mindsets. To the extent that our touch is ungracious with our fellow creatures, we can expect Creator God, the One who deals in the currency of grace, to undertake the work of renovating our lives with an incessant force.  Among the first parts of Creation that the Creator longs to make new are the hearts of those who wear His name.

His thoughts may not be our thoughts, and His ways may not be our ways.  But you can bet that He is dedicating His power and focus to closing that massive gap.

Miraculously Natural

With three daughters under the age of four, I have read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” more times than the average man. For the uninformed, this is the tale of caterpillar who breaks free from his egg with a serious hunger. After five days of colourfully-sketched fruit, he goes on a dietary tear, eating his way through desserts and delicacies, meats and treats. A stomachache lands him back at a green leaf feast. By this time, our tiny protagonist has become a pudgy worm on the verge of cocooning. The finale of the book begins on the second-last page:

Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out, and… (final page turn here)

He was a beautiful butterfly!

 

[The story can be viewed HERE, if you wish.]

A colourful story of how worms become butterflies, this children’s book has yet to educate me on what really happens.  How does a slinking and slimy caterpillar become a soaring and stunning butterfly?  What magical tailor lives in that cocoon to design, craft, and attach those wings to that thing?

It is no error that we use the word metamorphosis to describe this process:

A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.

No exaggeration is necessary to tie the term “miracle” to such a definition, yet the reminder quickly follows: “This is natural.”

Miraculously natural.

A paradoxical phrase. Continue reading