Open Mike

'The Holy catholic Church' Shatters Our Dreams

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that the church is the place where our dreams are shattered—and that is a good thing.

This week at Lake Forest Church we learned that to 'believe in the holy catholic church' is every bit as essential for believers of 2,000 years, according to the Apostle's Creed, as is our belief in the Trinity.  And honestly its the most offensive part of the Creed for already- or long-time Christians, particularly in our cynical, tongue-in-cheek age. The rest of the Creed is about high theology, things we can't touch or immediately access. But this phrase is about the group of believers we gather to worship with every seven days, in all of its particularity, for better and for worse.  Here's one reason why it's essential (you can listen to my sermon from last Sunday to hear 'the rest of the story' if you'd like www.lakeforest.org ):

Everyone comes to church with a certain set of expectations. New believers often enter the church expecting to find a little bit of heaven on earth. We all think and hope and expect that our new family in Christ will treat us better than the people of the world. And we all have certain ideas about music and worship and preaching and about what the church should do and how it should go forward.

But sooner or later we discover that the saints are not always saintly, and the people of God are not always godly. Sometimes they can be mean-spirited, unkind, and sometimes downright cruel.

The church—I mean the local church—routinely disappoints us.

When that happens, for some of us our faith is shattered and sometimes our hope is destroyed. Bonhoeffer teaches this is another work of grace by God.  "He who loves his dream of a community more that the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial." - Bonhoeffer

Once our false expectations are shattered on the hard rocks of reality, then (and only then) do we begin to experience the genuine grace of God. It is only in the nitty-gritty of life together with all its disappointments and rude awakenings that we discover the Holy Spirit at work in us. This is often the very means God uses to shape us into the image of Christ.

More from Bonhoeffer (forgive the male-centric language, please):

"Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge    of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great    disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate,    with ourselves.

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world.  He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream.  God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.  Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.

The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community, the better for both.  A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community.  Sooner or later it will collapse.  Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive...

 

And is not what has been given us enough: brothers, who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of his grace?  Is the divine gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most difficult and distressing day?

 

Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ?  Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Christ Jesus?  Thus, the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by the one Word and Deed which really binds us together--the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.  When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship . . ."

To read Bonhoeffer's full essay, click here Bonhoeffer: The Church Shatters Dreams

 

Beside St Patrick's Grave: My Ode To Cathal in an Irish Pub

My doctoral dissertation concluded with this story from my Ireland travels.  After I completed research on the transforming missiological leadership of St. Patrick, i had the pleasure of travelling through Ireland to tie off my studies. For a week i drove around the emerald isle in a stick-shift, other-side-of-the-road volkswagen.  I visited the earliest known Christian archaeological sites, and the latest pagan Celtic sites.  All i can say is the trip was glorious. 

The first day i was in Ireland, I drove straight from Belfast's airport to Patrick's reputed grave. 
After a time of reflection and journalling around the huge burial stone, i then obeyed my English friends' instructions (I had been in a monastery in northeast England for a week before, the Northumbria Community) - go to the first pub you find and order a Guiness.  I followed their lead.  The results are as follows, and are recorded as the concluding section of my doctoral dissertation on St. Patrick. I pray that I could actually be the answer to my own prayer, to post-Christian culture in Charlotte NC. I hope  you enjoy:

 

 

To Cathal[1]

    The town of Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, is the reputed burial place of St. Patrick.[2]  A great stone bearing a carving of a Celtic cross and the inscription “Padraig” lies beside a church on a hill.  Down the road, the first pub on the right celebrates four hundred years of continuous service.

    After visiting the burial site, the American traveller slipped into Denvir’s pub on a rainy June evening (2005).  While journaling thoughts inspired by proximity to Patrick, conversation is begun, in the Irish way, over a pint of Guinness offered to a stranger.  Cathal (ca-hal) is a twenty-two year old, fresh in from his father’s wake.  His offer to buy the American ‘writer’ a drink is hospitable, particularly considering the circumstances. 

    Pleasantries are exchanged, cultural jokes indulged.  It comes out that Cathal’s late father’s name was Padraig (Patrick).  A second Guinness is poured, the conversation turns serious as Cathal’s eyes suddenly brim with tears as he recalls his loss. 

    MM: “What a tremendous loss – your father, so young, so suddenly.  I’m here because of the strong leader his namesake was – Padraig, Patrick.”

    C: “Ah yes, I heard he was…Protestant…eh?”

    MM:  “Patrick was part of the Catholic Church.  He fascinates me because of the way he stood for the hope you are wishing for and speaking about right now – that all is not futile, that God exists, God is good, and there is more on the other side of death.”

    C: “I know these things are true, somehow.”

    The conversation moved to the back room, where Cathal’s friends gathered to drink, smoke, and talk the evening away after the wake.  The American 'writer' was invited down.  Football, life and death were visited as topics, with Cathal’s sister offering neo-druidic thoughts, and the others wisps of philosophy, hopefulness, and stark naturalism.  Despondence ruled over hope in the words and countenances of those gathered, none of whom had ever attended church regularly their entire young lives.  Genuine interest was expressed in the American’s talk of a post-Protestant/Catholic Jesus, and humanity’s destiny found in his story, including the souls of the recently and anciently mourned Padraigs.

    The private room quieted, more Guinness was poured, then Cathal spoke.  “I think Jesus must be the way.  If church were like this, where priests just simply talked about God and life from the heart without talking down to everyone, people would listen.  And it would be good.”  The visitor invited Cathal and his friends to try an experimental form of ‘church’ the following week – Ikon.[3] 

The American traveler left,  walking while lifting up hands in the cobblestone street and praying for Cathal to encounter a Jesus-community that speaks his post-Christian, neo-barbarian language.  The traveler asked God to raise up an apostolic leader for this generation, in the spirit of Patrick, a leader whom God might use to transform disaffected people into a gathering, a movement, a church.  Who will that leader be?  For twenty first century Ireland?  For post-modern America?  Whom will the Lord send?

 

“Ego Patricius…”

Here's a picture of the pub where I met Cathal:
 

---

[1] Closing reflection from the author’s Ireland travel journal.

[2] The connection of Patrick’s burial to Downpatrick is based upon legend.  The pointed hill in the middle of town was the ancient seat of tribal power in northern Ireland (Ulster) during the time of Patrick’s arrival.  There is no solid evidence for the location of his resting place in Downpatrick or elsewhere.

[3] Visit http://www.paperstreet.org.uk/ikon/ for a glance at this experimental alt-worship community in Belfast.

'The Tools of the Spiritual Art' to become 'A little center of blessing'

I just ran across a truly wonderful practical description of life following Jesus, and had to share it with you.

You may know of my admiration for the monastic approaches to Christian life and mission.  I especially love to learn from the early and eastern forms of the movement, because they honed and shaped the holiness and leadership of my great life hero, St. Patrick.  Today I ran across the following pithy description of what it means to follow Jesus by obeying his commands, as exemplified by the earliest and most widely shared approach to the monastic life - the 'Rule of St. Benedict.' I think you're gonna love this:

"The basis of (practicing our faith) is the 'keeping of the commandments.' These 'commandments' in the ancient church refer less to the Decalogue (ten commandments)... than to the injunctions and the actions of Christ, and above all the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes.  For the Beatitudes describe Christ himself, his beauty - and through him the very mystery of the God... of love.  To obey Christ's commandments is to love him, to beseech him, aided by our very weakness, to take possession of us and transform our life with his..."

"We can see the essentials of the commandments in the sober and practical arrangement of the Benedictine Rule.  In every line we find the example and the words of Jesus, whether he is taking up an Old Testament commandment and illuminating it or delivering the Sermon on the Mount or the Parable of the Last Judgment in the twenty fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel: 'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me... as you did it to on of the least of these... you did it to me.'."

"The monk becomes little by little a center of blessing.  His trust in God's infinite mercy enables him to hope.  Knowing himself to be fundamentally loved, he feels himself not only able but obliged to serve his neighbor and love his enemy... Here is section IV of The Rule by Benedict of Nursia (written in the early 500's):"

What are the rules for living a good life?

In the first place, to love the LORD with all one's heart, with all one's soul, and with all one's strength.

Then to love one's neighbor as oneself.

Then not to kill.

Not to commit adultery.

Not to steal.

Not to covet.

Not to bear false witness.

To respect all people.

And not to do to others what one would not wish to have done to oneself.

To deny oneself in order to follow Christ.

To be master of one's own body...

To help the poor.

To clothe the naked.

To visit the sick.

To bury the dead.

To assist those in distress.

To console the afflicted...

Not to let anything come before the love of Christ.

Not to give rein to one's wrath.

Not to meditate revenge.

Not to harbor deceit in one's heart.

Not to offer a pretended peace.

Not to forsake charity.

Not to swear, for fear of perjury.

To speak the truth from heart and mouth.

Not to render evil for evil.

Not to commit injustice but to bear patiently what is done to oneself.

To love one's enemies.

Not to render cursing for cursing, but rather blessing.

To endure persecution for righteousness' sake...

To place one's hope in God.

If one sees any good in oneself, to ascribe it to God, not to oneself.

To fear the day of judgment.

To dread hell.

To desire eternal life with all one's heart and soul.

Every day to keep death present before one's eyes...

Not to hate anyone.

Not to entertain jealousy.

Not to give oneself up to envy...

To respect the aged.

To love the young.

In the love of Christ to pray for one's enemies.

After a disagreement, to make peace before the sun goes down.

And never to despair of God's mercy.

Such are the tools of the spiritual art."

(from The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary, Olivier Clement, pages 137-139)

I Will Never Forget the First Time

I was nervous.  This is totally new to me.  "What if I don't do it right? What position should my body be in?"

It was the first time someone taught me how to spend a solid chunk of time in solitude and prayer, otherwise known as Contemplative Prayer, or Extended Prayer.  On our Lake Forest staff we call it a DAWG Day - Day Alone With God.

The Season of Lent is traditionally marked by a renewed level of fasting and prayer In a person's life, to identify with Jesus' deliberate journey to the cross and prepare our spirit for the feast that is Easter.  One way to deepen and broaden your prayer life is to learn how to be with the LORD in extended times of prayer, which includes solitude.

If you're interested, I'm inviting you to spend next Thursday March 12 with me in a farmhouse, learning how to spend a DAWG day. (details below, as well as other unique learning experiences coming soon)

I WAS nervous the first time I was involved in a learning experience to set aside an entire day for prayer (a whole day? I thought!).  It WAS totally new to me.  And I DID wonder what to do with my body for that long of a period of time, and worried about doing it right in order to not waste my day.

My mentors that day taught me how to break an extended prayer day into manageable chunks, with a scripture reading, prayer, writing, or walking agenda for each chunk. They gave me resources to use for guidance.  They taught me how to position my body at various times to help focus my wandering attention.  And as I tried on what has been called 'Contemplative Prayer' for centuries, I found that I was not alone at all.  I was given the gift of true companionship with God, in a way that translated to a more common sense of His friendship with me throughout the next month. It has become one of the most important ways that I 'pray without ceasing' as God says is possible in His Word (I Thessalonians 5:17).

I wish for all of my friends who are disciples of Jesus to learn this means of prayer.  It makes a person less dependent on external teaching about Christ, more able to feed on Him and His grace in the interior of our spirit, where He dwells through the Holy Spirit.

So I'd love for a few of you to join me in a farmhouse during the day next Thursday, 1.15 hours away, for this experience that I will lead you through.  You can also join Joe Essick or Cammie Howard on a Thursday in April or May, respectively. Here's the skinny, and some other helpful courses:

DAWG Day (Day Alone With God) Take a day away (9am-4pm) with one of our pastors or ministry directors who will mentor you in how to be alone with God, in a way that feeds your spirit and leads to closer communion with Christ daily. You may attend any single DAWG Day, or multiple days.

• with Mike Moses: Thursday, Mar 12 in the mountains
• with Joe Essick: Thursday, Apr 23 in LKN (men only)
• with Cammie Howard: Thursday, Apr 23 in LKN (women only)

To register for next Thursday or any other of our Discovery Courses, click here LFC Discovery Courses

Here are a few more GREAT courses about to begin at LFC:

The Holy Days Leviticus 23 outlines a series of annual Holy Days that God commanded Israel to observe from “generation to generation.” We will examine the seven annual Holy Days and how each festival represents a step in God’s plan of salvation. We will see how echoes of the gospel message can be found throughout the Bible and how each of the Holy Days are (or will be) fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  LFCHuntersville: Sundays, Mar 8 – Apr 26 from 6-7:45pm

Christ in the Passover: A presentation of a Jewish Seder Dinner, Led by Jews for Jesus. Passover, the oldest and most important of Jewish religious festivals, commemorates God’s deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and His creation of the Israelite people. Come experience part of this tradition through a visual representation of the Passover meal, known as the Seder. LFC-Huntersville: Tuesday, Mar 31 at 7pm. (Angie and I will be at this - we've done this twice and it is immensely powerful)

Bible Burger: Part Two Continue to journey through the Bible by learning how to study it on your own and with others. In this two-week class, Joe Essick will teach you tools for interpreting scripture and how to apply it to your life. LFC-Huntersville: Sundays, Mar 8-15 from 6-7:45pm.

Redeeming Conflict Led by licensed counselor and Ministry Partner, Steve Benson, this course will help you to address a variety of conflicts in your life that God can use to redeem. Weekly topics will include: Discovering your Conflict Management Style, Seven Principles of Conflict Resolution, Forgiveness and Reconciliation and more. LFC-Huntersville: Sundays, Apr 19 – May 24 from 6-7:45pm.

Trading Places: Caring for Aging Parents Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Mary Kent Splain and Pastor Mitch White will give practical advice and guidance around the difficulties and privileges of caring for aging parents.  Both Mary Kent and Pastor Mitch will share many of their own experiences as both are living this out with their own parents. LFC-WestLake:Sunday, April 19 from 6-8pm