What do you hope for?

Sometimes—all too often, actually—I’m not sure what to read next for my personal Bible reading. So the other day I resorted to the tried-and-true “flip open the Bible randomly” method. I came to Colossians. Hadn’t read that lately. And I’ve been reading the gospels more than the rest of the New Testament recently, so it sounded good.

I quickly came to these verses: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ and of the love you have for all his people—the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven…” (Colossians 1:3-5).

I was immediately struck by the phrase, “the faith and love that spring from the hope…” Hope actually precedes faith.

Wow. I’m not sure I’ve really thought of it that way.

Elsewhere Paul says that the most important things are faith, hope, and love, and that the greatest is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Love is what matters. Jesus says we need to love God and love our neighbors—the Great Commandment.

And Jesus also says that the important thing is to believe in him, to have faith (see John 6:29 or even John 3:16). In the church, this is what we tend to focus on: having our beliefs all in order.
And so it’s easy for me to overlook hope. After all, isn’t the main thing to help people believe the right things? And if we want to please God and all get along, isn’t encouraging people to love each other really important?

So what’s the big deal about hope?

Here in Colossians, Paul is saying that hope makes faith and love possible. Without hope, people won’t particularly be moved to believe in Jesus. Without hope, loving God and loving others isn’t a compelling concern. Without hope, I might as well live for myself and not be bothered about faith and love.

I recently had a conversation with a guy who understood the basic Christian doctrines but wasn’t compelled by them. He’s a decent guy, but simply didn’t feel like Christianity had much too offer him. He didn’t need it.

As I reflect on that conversation now, I see that at least part of the deal for him was that Christian faith was presented as just so many ideas to be accepted. Hope wasn’t part of the equation. There was nothing to look forward to. Believing in Jesus is then reduced to a matter of the intellect, or a matter of duty, or worse, a matter of guilt.

We need a robust Christian hope. Not just a “I get to go to heaven when I die” hope. Yes that’s part of it. A big part of it. But Christian hope is so much more. It’s a hope that defines our future as well as our present. It leads to faith and it leads to love.

What is our hope? Try this: check out chapters 2–3 of the book of Revelation. You’ll find seven short letters to Christians, and each ends with a promise that gives a glimpse of the hope we have in Christ. See if that gives you an idea of what Christian hope really is all about.

Sun, fun, and jellyfish

We're on a beach vacation. Sunburns? Check. Running out of water while browsing markets full of overpriced kitschy stuff? Check. Daughter stung by jellyfish after being in water for less than five minutes? Check.
I ran to get the lotion, and by the time I got back, Evelyn was already recovering pretty well. The jellyfish aren't like the deadly kind in Australia; the stinging wears off relatively quickly. And by the end of the day when we talked about the high and low points of the day, Evelyn said everything was a high and there were no low points.
Goes to show that attitude is everything. I got sunburned on our first day on the beach and have been been griping about it under my breath for the past four. Whenever we go on vacation, it takes me a few days to realize that things will cost more than I think they should, it takes longer to get around than I think it should, and things won't always go according to plan.
And Merideth always rolls with it. Unfazed. No problem. Me? I get agitated, overly concerned, and forget that I'm supposed to be enjoying myself.
I'm pretty much into the swing of things now. Merideth got some braids and beads in her hair from one of the local ladies on Front Street here. And then they said, "How about you?" and proceeded with me (without really waiting for me to answer). Okay. Cool. Five little braids and beads. Carolyn, age 5, now has four (we'll see how long they last). Evelyn? She wanted no part of it.
For her, jellyfish turned out to be no big deal, but don't try to put braids in her hair.

Some great art

Back on line for a few minutes today.

Last Thursday we went to the Art Institute of Chicago, a world class art museum. The much parodied American Gothic is there (you know, the old guy with the pitchfork standing next to his daughter in front of the farm house). So is Nighthawks by Edward Hopper (also often parodied). And A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. My girls recognized it because I have a coffee mug with it on it. There are a bunch by Georgia O'Keefe, Monet, Manet, Cassat, Sargent, Whistler, and on and on. I could spend an entire day there.

But I was glad we managed three hours with the kids.

Standing at a painting to take it in isn't exactly an everyday experience for most people now. We're accustomed to TV, to movies, to endlessly moving images. It's a rare thing to focus on a canvas and try to draw out the stories it conveys, try to uncover the intentions of the figures, their motivations, their feelings.

Even in a grand museum like the Art Institute it's hard to do. There is so much to see, it's hard to give attention to any one piece for more than a few moments. More often, people breeze in to see the big work (like the Seurat), take a cursory look at the smaller canvases that most any other museum would be proud to display with fanfare, and then it's off to the next important work.

Maybe someday I'll go back and spend the day taking in just a few of them. Try slowing down today to take in something that you normally pass by without noticing. What might you learn?

Cutting the cord--if only for a few weeks...

I'm heading out of town today for some vacation followed by meetings in Seattle with other church planters. So my blogging may be sketchy.

I've decided to take the radical step of not taking my computer with me. Just a jump drive with a few documents I may need in Seattle. I keep telling myself it will be okay. Merideth will have her laptop... I will be able to check hotmail and blog a bit... It'll be fine. Really.

I realize how wired I am now to get up, email, check my schedule, blog, see what my favorite bloggers are up to, etc. It's true that the tools we use shape us.

During part of our travels we'll be out of cell coverage. No calls. No texting. We'll have to track down an internet cafe for email. Practically Gilligan's Island—

"No phone, no lights, no motor cars,
Not a single luxury,
Like Robinson Crusoe,
As primitive as can be...."

Actually, we'll have a rental car, and there will be electricity and modern conveniences and plenty of very good food. But take away my computer and cell phone and suddenly it's like being trapped in the 70s...

Do you ever get a week without your computer, without your phone? What can't you live without?

On the move

I mentioned in my last post that our core group met for the first time the other night. And we're already making plans for our next open house event, coming up on Sunday, August 24. It will be a different location (after it became clear from our first one that my house wasn't designed to have fifty people meet together!). One of our team has found a great location for us and I'll be working on the details of that today. Hopefully we'll get that firmed up soon and be able to let you know where the event will be.

The next open house will also be different from our last one: less of me just talking, more involvement from our core team. You'll get a taste of what we're about and a glimpse of what life in our church could be like.

Stay tuned!

forging ahead: mission and buildings

Tonight the core group of the new church got together to begin charting our next steps. It's already great to see how God is putting this group together. I am continually reminded that this is his work, we are his people, he is leading us, and he will see this thing through.

It was particularly cool to hear the people sharing their hearts, talking about what they are looking forward to being a part of. And it was so great that I wasn't pulling this stuff out of them; people were spontaneously bringing up values and ideals that they would like this new church to have. It was great.

A recurring theme was our desire to be more about our mission in Helena than about bricks and mortar (that is, getting a building). We discussed how it happens that a church turns from being outward-focused to focused on having a building.

My answer to that? I think it's a product of the church's vision that gets established on day one. We can aim toward getting the building and settling down, or we can keep our focus on the mission and let the building be a secondary issue. If the building doesn't drive the ministry, it becomes less critical whether we own or rent. If our goal is to grow and multiply our influence—to not only grow, but reproduce—then the building question takes a back seat to our mission. Where it belongs.

More ways this blog is changing the world! Or at least helping you see the books I've been reading...

There are some pretty cool things you can do with blogger. I've added a widget that shows five random books from my library. (It's on the right side toward the bottom.) I use librarything.com to catalog and tag my books. It's pretty cool.

I've also made it easier to keep up with this amazing blog by adding subscription features. The easiest way is to use the subscribe via email box (below the archive list). It's safe, secure, and easy. You can also subscribe using an RSS reader, but that requires a few more steps. So just sign up for email thing. It'll be great.

Finally, I also recently added the World Vision latest news feed and put their logo above it. Click on it to go to their homepage. Merideth and I have been sponsoring children through World Vision for years now and have also participated in some of their other programs. They do very good work.

They have a cool program for mother's day (and probably other holidays as well). You can buy practical things for people in developing nations--a duck, a goat, a bag of rice, stuff like that. And then they'll send a card to the person whom you're honoring (your mom, or whomever). If you go to their site, click on ways to give/gift catalog (or click here) and you can give an Ecuadorian family an alpaca today! It probably costs less than your car payment and will change a life!

What's right with Helena

Helena is a great town. Good people, great spaces, lots going on.

Alive @ Five, our midweek, free music in the park festival is well under way. Live music is going on somewhere almost every night. I’m hoping to catch at least some of David and Deidre Casey’s show at Riley’s Irish Pub tomorrow.

This Saturday more great stuff is happening than I’ll have time for: a friend has invited us to an art show at his home; the Summer Outdoor Film Festival starts at Performance Park in the walking mall. First up: Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn. Great film. It starts at 9pm and it’s free. (Call 406.442.4647 for info about upcoming shows.) And also on Saturday, Tango Helena is hosting a Tango and Argentinean potluck. Details here. Too many great things on one night!

A couple of weeks ago we caught a great Johnny Cash Tribute band at the Mt. Helena Music festival. I also took in four of the five free lunchtime choral music concerts that Musikanten Montana put on for Helena Choral Week. And then we took the family to a fun Sunday afternoon Brewers game.

Just a few of the things I love about Helena. It’s a good place.

Church of Starbucks

Last night I went down to Starbucks to meet with Lauren, one of the people who is on board with our new church. (Usually I'm a Fire Tower Coffee kind of guy, but I make exceptions.) We were getting together to talk about ideas and possibilities for the new church.

When I walked in I saw Russ Danaher, who is also planting a church in Helena. He was leading a groups of people in a Bible study.

(Russ and I and Steve Bostrom, a Presbyterian (PCA) church planter, have been getting together for lunch a few times a month lately. It’s good to meet with other church planters for encouragement, to learn from each other, and to keep focused on the fact that even as we’re leading different efforts, we’re also working alongside each other.)

I ordered my drink from Samara, who is part of Steve's new Presbyterian church.

While I was waiting, Dan Green, who is a youth pastor with the Salvation Army here, walked in.

It was cool to see four churches—three of them new church plants— represented at the coffee house last night. God is certainly at work in Helena. Good things are happening. I can see lives being impacted. I can see people getting fired up about being a part of God’s mission here. I’m encouraged. Let’s see what happens and see how we can be a part of it.

Praying, planning, and an interesting film

Latest update: Yesterday was a great day for praying about the new church and reading through the gospel of Luke (that's one long gospel!). I also met with one of the people who came to our open house and talked about the new church with some other people I know in town.

I'm making plans to meet this weekend with those from our open house who have said they're "in" and ready to go. We'll be making plans for future open house kind of things as well as spending time on some of practicalities of what the new church will be like.

Completely unrelated thoughts: we went to see Mongol the other night at our local art house theatre, The Myrna Loy Center. It’s an entertaining tale covering the early life of Genghis Khan, and certainly the first film I’ve seen in Mongolian.

While it has been criticized for taking historical liberties (I know, a shocking thing in a movie), I was struck by its portrayal of a completely different culture. In particular, how Temudjin (Genghis Khan’s name prior to becoming Khan) was taken by his father to choose a wife. He was only nine years old. They visited a neighboring clan and his father discussed with him what to look for in a mate. And then they had the girls of the clan line up and young Temudjin looked them over and made his choice. Not exactly an arranged marriage, but a far cry from anything in our culture.

Sometimes it’s good to see something completely foreign and see that the world doesn’t revolve around our culture, our assumptions, our view of things. Mongol gave me a glimpse of the life of people with different commitments and different expectations of the world. The world is bigger than America.

I’m also reminded that God is bigger than all of our issues and problems. Every day we can hear about an endless litany of dire circumstances, from rising gas prices and the latest dead in Iraq, to murder and corruption, to fires in California and pine beetles on Mt. Helena, and on and on.

But as I watched a film about a people who lived a thousand years ago on the other side of the world, fighting their enemies and fighting to stay alive, I see that our problems are not the end of the world. Time marches on. People live and die. Empires rise and fall. And still, God is at work. God is in the midst of it all. He is not overwhelmed by gas prices or wars or any other troubles. I can take comfort in that.

A day to pray

Jesus would get up early, while it was still dark, and go out to pray. Mark tells us that. Luke tells us that Jesus would get away from the crowds and go off to “lonely places” to pray. And that he even spent the night on a mountainside praying before he chose twelve of his disciples to be apostles (and the Father still gave him Judas!). Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe how Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness in preparation for his public ministry.

It’s actually easy to be busy for God. And it’s easy to focus on grand ideas and plans and strategies. It’s tempting to ask God to bless what we want to do, what we think is right.

But Jesus took time away from the crowds. He spent a great deal of time in prayer prior to embarking on his public ministry and before making big decisions. And in his most famous prayer, his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, he submitted his own desires to the Father’s.

I’ve spent countless hours dreaming and planning and coming up with all sorts of ideas for this new church. And certainly I’ve prayed. But today I’m going to spend some time getting out of town and just praying about all of this, trying to listen to God’s voice about all of this. No books, no laptop.

So if you read this today, pray that I would be able to hear well.

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. (Psalm 145:18)

Freedom words

How about some scriptural words about freedom on this Independence Day:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
—Galatians 5:1

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
—Luke 4:18-19 (quoting Isaiah 61:1-2)

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
—2 Corinthians 3:17

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
—1 Peter 2:16

Have a great Fourth celebrating the freedoms we have.

What do you really, really want?

I have this posted on my wall: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” That’s what Paul says in Philippians 3:10-11.

The first part is easy to desire: knowing Christ, knowing the power of his resurrection. Those are great things.

But then comes “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,” and “becoming like him in his death.” That’s different. That’s harder to want.

I want comfort and friendship, deep conversations and meaningful prayers, good times watching great movies and having people over for dinner, going on trips and experiencing new things, reading Till We Have Faces and listening to Barber’s Violin Concerto. I’m not so sure about sharing in Christ’s sufferings. I’m not looking forward to becoming like him in his death. Maybe that’s just Paul’s deal.

I hear a lot of people claim a different verse from Philippians as a favorite: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (that’s Philippians 4:13). That’s easier to get into. Of course, when Paul said he could “do everything”, he was talking about living in comfort or living in need, “whether well fed or hungry.” He could endure difficulty through strength that comes from Christ.

And so maybe through Christ, through his transforming power within me, I can desire to know him and identify with him completely. I can desire to know his resurrection power—and desire to know and share in his sufferings.

Hebrews says that Christ endured his sufferings “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). He didn’t relish the suffering; he endured it—for the joy of conquering sin and death and securing our salvation. And that’s what Paul was looking at, too. He wanted to be a part of what Christ was doing.

So the question comes to us: do we want to fully identify with Christ that way? Do we want to be a part of what he’s doing? Even at the cost of suffering—but knowing that there is great joy to come?

First steps

I thought of another way our open house was like a wedding—lots of great food that I didn’t have time to eat! (I’m sure our wedding cake was good, but I certainly don’t remember eating any of it.) I was pretty focused in on greeting people and on what needed to be said; so it was hard to want to munch on chips and seven layer dip.

Exactly fifty people attended our open house. A number of people brought great munchies and desserts. Justin brought a bouncy castle and set it up in the front yard, which had the kids (and some adults) jumping for joy.

After spending some time meeting each other and finding out silly facts about ourselves, we got into looking at what this new church will be like. We looked at what it means to be missional—getting into the community to transform it—rather than focusing on trying to attract people with super cool programs. We saw how our primary mission field is... Helena. We explored what it would be like for the front door of our church to be our small community groups rather than a worship service. We looked at how our children could participate in the life of the church. We discussed where we go from here.

And just where do we go from here? Over the next few months we’ll be focusing on gathering people to join on this church planting endeavor. We’ll host more events for people to come and catch the vision of what we’re about. And toward the latter part of the fall we’ll take our first steps toward publicly worshiping together.

So stay tuned. Get involved. Pray.

Tonight's the night

So here it is, open house day. It kind of feels like getting ready for a wedding. People to contact, plans to be made, food to get ready, details, details, details. But at least at my wedding, I knew what was coming. Most importantly, I knew who I was getting married to. So I was actually very relaxed at the ceremony: I got to stand there and make my vow. It was my friends who had to play all of the difficult music I’d written for them!

Of course, marriage is an adventure and the wedding ceremony doesn’t really predict what married life will be like.

But tonight, as people come to the open house, we don’t even know who all is getting on this ride. People will be checking out this opportunity and seeing if it’s for them. The future lays open before us, full of promise—but full of the unknown as well.

In my daughter Carolyn’s favorite movie, The Sound of Music, Maria worries about becoming the governess for seven children (far more daunting than planting a church, no doubt!). She finds her resolve and sings, “I have confidence in confidence alone, besides which you see I have confidence in me!”

My confidence isn’t in personal resolve, in strategies, in all of my great ideas, or in “confidence alone”. It’s in God. It’s in the fact that this is his mission, his church, his work here in Helena.

So tonight belongs to God. Let’s see what he has planned.