I just sent out a version of this post to families at my church. Check it out there if you’re interested. Otherwise, read on!
***
Summer continues, and with it a seemingly indomitable sense of freedom for so many of us, an unstoppable wanderlust. Many of us will find ourselves away from our home communities and in various parts of the nation and world over the summer months. I remember the trips we took as a family with great fondness, the weightless way I felt packing a small bag of goods while my parents worried about whether or not I had enough socks, the feel of cruising far from home in our teal 1996 Astro van.
One trip to the American West comes to mind. I was about 14, I think, when we visited Glacier National Park in Montana. The year was 2001, and we had only recently discovered that Y2K had not ravaged the internet. Not entirely anyway. As we traversed the byways of the Great Plains and made our way to the National Parks, my mom made note of how intricately God created the world. She had a way of letting us know how she was spiritually processing the experience, and that revealed to me how her confidence in God made a difference, even on vacation. She would often read a Psalm in the morning and we would begin our vacation days with a few simple prayers of gratitude, asking God to be present with us.
The way vacations happened in my family made a big spiritual difference for me. Looking back, I realize we were not taking a break from the spiritual journeying that happened at church. Instead, we were continuing the spiritual journey in other more ways. The ways we experienced God were radically influential precisely because I saw the integration of my life with God at church merge with my family life.
This year my family and I will be doing a short staycation here in San Francisco and taking time to see a few different places in the area. We are also doing another little adventure in August and going to Stratford, Ontario, for a week of theatre with Kaile’s parents and brother. As our son grows and vacations commence, we are excited to discover new ways to introduce him to Jesus and to the journey of faith that orients us to the God who created us. Seems vacation time is the perfect time to journey forward with our Maker.
It’s something about the sights, the newness, the readiness that comes during vacation. It’s something about leaving your home in the early morning to catch a train or place. It’s something about being somewhere completely new and breathtakingly gorgeous.
In all these places, God is there. So.. will I acknowledge Him?
Let me be honest. Having gone to sleep early, I woke up at 1:36am last night after a very full day at my new job. I’m a youth pastor now [with some other things also on my plate] at an urban church in San Francisco, California. Between the various stresses that have marked the recent season of transition, my mind was filled with anxiety stemming from an upcoming event at our church that I am planning.
I could not go back to bed.
the valley of Elah, where the biblical David found Goliath [just for fun]What choice had I? It was clear: I had to seek refuge. I turned to our family Bible. It’s a wide-margin leather Bible we received as a gift prior to our wedding. Like a hungry teen searching the fridge after an exhausting day, I asked God to provide me with nourishment. Soon, I felt directed to the Psalms. The 103rd Psalm captured me within seconds.
We had left this family Bible out at our wedding back in 2013 with instructions for our guests to annotate its text and note chapters and verses that had been meaningful to them over their years. People I love dearly and folks on my wife’s side that I barely knew filled the margins with reflections and affirmations. When we transitioned from the RiverTree, the church in Grand Rapids I served for three years, we repeated this annotation practice and received the gift of our congregation’s thoughts and responses to Scripture. And now, reading this Bible is like reading Scripture with a host of spiritual friends.
Psalm 103 happened to have a little note from my parents next to it as well as a message from my cousin Chad and his wife Jessica. Here’s what I sensed God showing me last night, during a moment of anxiety.
Verse 1-5
“Praise the Lord… who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
You really should read this Psalm. It’s that good. So, honestly, I’m not sure how youthful eagles are, but God has deeply satisfied my desires for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a great family and maintain good relationships with all of them. Though I had my share of struggles and issues and still have tons of problems, God has met me with grace at each turn in life. I went to an amazing undergraduate college and I’m in close touch with numerous friends from this all-too-brief chapter in life. Seminary was filled with learning and spiritual growth. During this time, I met my lovely wife, Kaile. Sooner than we both expected, we were given the gift of a beautiful son, Silas. Sooner than we expected, we were invited into a faith community in a distant yet beautiful city for a job that is difficult but already rewarding. Sooner than we expected, people have reached out to Kaile and me in friendship. God has been redeeming me for a long time, and I guess I shouldn’t sit here anxious that he will stop now.
Verse 8
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…”
Sparing you the details, this phrase appears much earlier in the Bible, and it is repeated in various parts of the first [“Old”] testament, Genesis through Malachi. There are moments when I need to be reminded of God’s justice, moments that I need to know that God can take care of people responsible for genocides and rapes and recruiting child soldiers. He can even take care of that lady who was really mean to my dad when he was helping us get moved into our new apartment here in San Francisco [ok, it wasn’t that big of a deal!].
This phrase strikes me, and all of us I think, with a rich sense of God’s justice, but even more so of his love. The second [“New”] testament features Jesus, God’s Son [crazy, I know!] who embodies love. In one little New Testament book, I John, the author tells us in chapter four that God himself is love. It’s as plain as that. At his core, the God who created all things is love itself. He defines it! Amidst the anxieties that struck last night, I am reminded that if God, abounding in love, who is identified as love, loves me and my little family. It’s not just a general, abstract, conceptual love, no. It’s a personal love.
I could keep going with that theme for a long time, but there is more Psalm left, and I should close this up before I lose you entirely.
Verses 15-16
“As for man [and woman too, of course!], his/her days are like grass… the wind blows over it and it is gone…”
In case you hadn’t checked on this lately, you’re going to die. That reality puts all of life in perspective, doesn’t it? And no matter how cool my turntable and bicycle and furniture are, just like my life, they won’t last forever. God is reminding us of the brevity of our lives, and with good reason! He wants us to enjoy life! I used to think God was pulling some kind of doom-and-gloom tactics so we’d notice him, but no. Not so much. Read on. That little section on people fading away like plants is buttressed with a sweeping finále.
Verses 17-18
“But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children…
Do I need to wax on about God’s love? Right after we’re reminded that our lives are limited, the focus shifts to how much we are loved. Oh yeah, and then, after that, there’s that bright Christian hope of being raised to eternal life when Jesus returns to finish the work he started on earth [see the New Testament book of I Corinthians, chapter 15]. Just like Jesus was raised from the dead, we will also be raised.
Verses 19-22
“…Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, O my soul.”
Ancient Jewish followers of God pictured the world totally differently than we as post/modern people imagine it. We have this tendency to strip away everything except empirical data. They saw things differently, poetically writing about the various layers and facets of the spiritual world. God had created all things, and there had to be more, good and bad, than what meets the eye.
I have, over my life, experienced a great many moments that seal, in my soul, what I believe in my brain. I do believe God created; I see a world filled with beauty. Though obstructed with so many evils that we as humans perpetuate, God has still blessed us with so many good things. One good thing is music. Just last night, I walked home with Kaile and Silas alongside a huge group of people that had just filed out of the San Francisco Symphony. I don’t know which composers they drew from that evening, but I have no doubt it was beautiful.
Over my lifetime, God has spoken over and over again in my life through music. Most recently, it was at my new church. Karl, the worship leader [or whoever] picked a song that I had sung and led for a number of years. I had sung it with students at a little Episcopal church, Grace, and sung it with [mostly] middle-aged folks at RiverTree. And now, I was singing it with a lot of Asian people in the middle of San Francisco. It was hard to sing, because it felt so deeply true last Sunday. Though I was filled with emotions that day, I sang some of it:
You alone can rescue, you alone can save; you alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us, led us out of death, to you alone belongs the highest praise
Written by an English guy named Matt Redman, the song is called You Alone Can Rescue. If your heart doesn’t believe the words, doesn’t it want to believe them? Would you entertain the idea of letting yourself wonder if they could be true? That Psalm 103 is really speaking true things about God?
I pray that each of us finds God at work in the cracks and fissures of our lives. I pray we see God at work in the counseling session, in the workday, in the park, at the ball game, in our marriages, in our friendships, in our failures and in our moments of triumph.
And I thought I’d take a moment to share my experience of God’s care for me during a 1:36am moment of nighttime anxiety.
I still remember the very first contact I had with my RiverTree church family. It was a weekday afternoon, and I was privileged to sit down with our very own Christian Shearer at a Biggby coffee place in Byron Center. At the time, I was engaged to my wife and entirely anxious about the future. Gently, Christian shepherded me through the details of my potential role leading worship and guiding a ministry team. He talked about the potential for continuing to discern my vocation and learning how a small, missional church operates, how relationships matter so deeply and community involvement drives vision. He has consistently supported me at every point of life, as long as I have known him.
Before I knew it, I was hired and we were swept up in our new community. We received so much grace as we transitioned; we must have missed five or six Sundays that first summer alone. Granted, we were engaged, then married; but regardless, we are so thankful for the flexibility we experienced.
photo credit: Naitsirh Nitsu
We cannot say enough about the generosity and grace that mark the community we call RiverTree. Loving God and loving one’s neighbor are not catchphrases; they are the deepest sense of mission and identity, the truest marks of every aspect of the purposes directing this faith community. These spacious concepts, breathed through Scripture, are the signposts for evaluating everything RiverTree pursues.
Our Grove grasped this reality. The Birds and the Sischos walked with Kaile and me over the bulk of our time at RiverTree, encouraging us and respecting us in our journey. Our Grove met us where we were, but gently prodded us forward in love and faith, carefully helping us to humbly yet boldly practice our faith. When we were at our financial low point, our Grove cared for us in a very practical way: they purchased a high efficiency washing machine for cleaning our cloth diapers. Tangible and spiritual needs alike were, at all times, our Grove’s priority.
The whole of the church did, in its own unique way, what our Grove did in its particular way. We have received friendship, encouragement, and grace. Russ Roseman plumbed the majority of our house for a pittance. Mark Kershner and Alan DeBoer have made my job a thousand times easier with their consistent work ethic and careful feedback. Heather Shearer has gladdened my heart with her humor every last time we have interacted. Jesse Byker has been ever-present with humor and willingness to serve. Mark and Janna Hasselbring have extended kindness and grace to both Kaile and me as long as we have known them. Gary Bird and Bruce Rhoades have listened to me and encouraged me. Paula Roseman, Sherry Bird, and Maria Kelly have encouraged and spiritually supported Kaile and me with gentle candor. Candace Carey has faithfully [and often humorously!] led our congregation in worship throughout every season of her life journey. Ken DeHart has given me feedback and grace and honest encouragement at every turn. Amy DeBoer has sung beautifully every time we have led together. Dan Pletcher and CJ have laughed with me and given my heart joy. Dan Vanderlaan Jr has been a friend and support while his father has given me new insights in many areas of life. Chris Lock has worshiped God with me and stepped forward in his faith journey, allthewhile befriending me. Jennifer and Bryan Pickett have been incredible friends both to Kaile and to me. Eli Shearer has been a companion to me and to Silas, always willing to throw his football with me, and his sister Shiloh has done the hard work of caring for Silas in the nursery. Fred DeJung has given me incredible insight and helped guide me in the ordination process. Dan Lehman has been a friend to me, and at times even asked for my perspective on things. I could list many more relationships that have encouraged my heart if space allowed. Each and every person in the RiverTree community has been of great value to me.
Ok, here is a tough piece of this letter. Would you permit me to leave each of you with a small piece of parting insight? Please, please, receive this with affection. Alright. Here goes. For the grand journey of humanity, life experience often proves an excellent teacher. As we gain years, we often gain massive insights. Sometimes we believe, however, that this process is somehow automatic. As middle aged people, we can fall into a belief that we have “more” than those who are younger, that we know better because we are older. My friends, age does not necessarily equal wisdom. Have you learned from someone younger than you recently? Have you met an older person who graciously listens to a child? In all sincerity, there have been times when I have felt personally diminished because I am younger than some. For a church to deeply embrace people of all ages, respect and curiosity must be the glue between generations. In a church that consists of many in the 30s-50s range, remember what it meant to be 13, and remember that you do not yet know what it is like to be 94. And remember that each of us experiences life differently! Telling someone, “you just wait!” is not helpful insight. At every life stage, we have no choice but to wait.
Please receive this insight with grace. Let it sit with you for a while, and please, please, search yourself and ask God if there is truth in my words that relates to you. For many of you, it may be general insight that seems helpful but not to you. For others, it may prick your spirit and lead you to a deeper examination of your attitudes and habits.
All of that said, I really sense that RiverTree will continue to flourish. I can just picture God continuing to do, through RiverTree, what he began to do many years ago. My little insight on a growth point for the community is only my little contribution. Surely there are other ways to grow as a community. But I would be remiss not to affirm the great strengths of RiverTree while also commenting on one blind spot.
During our journey as a community, all of you have seen my flaws, some much more than others! Some of you have been kind enough to provide me with insights on how to serve the church more effectively. If you have been around me enough, you will have noticed the difficulty that administrative details present me. Curating the worshipplanning website and the song database did not come as naturally to me as other dimensions of my role. Even as there have been numerous opportunities to see my weaknesses, you have also [I hope!] seen my strengths. You have seen my passion and drive, my sense of purpose and God-given direction. You have seen my concern for bearing witness to the power of God made evident in Jesus, and my interest in following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
As this season of discernment continues, please know that you are each in our prayers and thoughts, even as we adjust to a completely new area. San Francisco has been kind to us thus far, and we are growing greatly as a family. Our faith is enlarged and our compassion for the lost and the least is also expanding. From our hearts, thank you for everything. We miss all of you and ask God to be close to you in and out of season. In Jesus Christ, grace and peace to each of you.
Maybe you’ve heard this Taylor Swift song, Bad Blood, from earlier in 2015. It’s terribly catchy [consider yourself warned!]. The following are a few selected lines:
‘Cause, baby, now we got bad blood
You know it used to be mad love
So take a look what you’ve done
‘Cause, baby, now we got bad blood
Hey
Now we got problems
And I don’t think we can solve them
You made a really deep cut
And, baby, now we got bad blood
Hey
Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes
You say sorry just for show
If you live like that, you live with ghosts (ghosts)
Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes (hey)
You say sorry just for show (hey)
If you live like that, you live with ghosts (hey)
Mhmmm
If you love like that blood runs cold
There it is. And who among us does not relate to the difficulty of a damaged relationship? Maybe it’s someone we work with. Maybe it’s a member of our immediate family or a distant relative. Maybe it’s a former dating relationship. There is not a person alive who cannot honestly relate to Taylor Swift’s piece. It’s not possible.
The question of the day isn’t whether or not the song hits home. The question is this: where do we go from here? What do we do when we find ourselves steeped in the pain of a broken relationship? Most importantly, what do we do when we really feel distance between ourselves and God almighty, our Creator? There is serious distance between us and God, according to Scripture. It’s summarized rather well in question and answer format in a 450 year old church teaching document, the Heidelberg Catechism:
Q. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22- Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
I don’t know about you, but I certainly haven’t been loving all neighbors as myself, and I certainly don’t always show my love for God in every action, even toward people I really do love dearly. And I have certainly had Taylor Swift’s experience of rotted relationships: bad blood has been my experience at various junctures in life. According to Scripture and careful reflection, I am fallen. I am unable to earn God’s grace. I’ve got bad blood with my Creator.
Here’s the good news, and maybe you’ve heard this before and it never hit home: Jesus stepped in. That old church document summarizes his mediating work well:
Q. And who is this mediator-true God and at the same time truly human and truly righteous?
A. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was given us to set us completely free and to make us right with God.
So the biggest problem was separation from God. But, through the Son of God, Jesus, we are reunited and forgiven and declared righteous! With the problem of separation from God addressed through Jesus, we can now live in a different reality. For Christians, the biggest concern-separation from God-is taken care of in Jesus, and we can now learn to live different kinds of lives.
And the God of the Bible is no distant, impersonal force in the universe. Instead, Scripture points out how close God is by explaining our relationship to him as adopted children. God is the parent, and Jesus is our sibling! Theologians point out how this is a double grace: not only are we delivered from sure separation from God, but we are also freed to act as children of God! We are freed from certain death and for his purposes of restoration to the good of all people.
We learn that we are all in need of forgiveness, and this makes forgiving other far, far easier. As I head to a close, I’ll use a story that Jesus tells. It’s in the book of Matthew in the Bible’s New Testament, and my version is a paraphrase.
There was a guy who owed a rich person a ton of money, like 5 million dollars. The rich person was about to litigate and have this guy and his family taken into prison, but the poor man begged. There was a subsequent change of heart, and the rich man forgave the debt completely.
He was stoked beyond belief. The next day, however, he was walking to get coffee and saw a former friend on the way there. This guy had borrowed money to pay rent and never paid back the $500. He slams the guy up against the wall and tells him to pay. He can’t. So, he calls his lawyer and gets the guy in huge trouble.
Then the rich guy finds out.
“So I’m told you’re after a guy in court. You know how I canceled your $5 million debt? Shouldn’t you have mercy on your old friend just as I had mercy on you?” As the poor yet vengeful man stood there quivering, he nodded to one of his workers who had him hauled off to prison.
Isn’t this our story? Do we not fail to recognize the gravity of our debt to God? And when we catch a glimpse of the depth of our forgiveness, does this not put all other human errors into perspective? In Jesus Christ we are set completely free. Our debt is paid, our account is settled.
Bad blood between other people in our lives is diminished. It may not go away entirely, of course; certain acts like murder or egregious slander can place lifelong distance between us and others. But we learn that because God has forgiven our great debt, the small debts-the bad blood-that others may owe us can so much more easily be dismissed. And this grace, this rich forgiveness from God shines so brightly in a world starved for reconciliation and forgiveness, a world torn apart by terrorism, racism, and lots of other isms that subvert the way God created us to live.
The zeitgeist of our current age eschews any kind of classicism or racism or elitism. In many ways, this is a good thing. Even 35 years ago a wise author noted that even the president of the United States carries his own baggage.* We are as self-reliant as we are radically individualistic. The 21st century world, at least in the West, has also become pluralistic to the point of postmodern tribalism. To cite an example of this, consider the new working definition of fame that has carefully crept into our now-digital consciousness: it’s someone who has a “following.” Maybe it’s Instagram or Twitter followers and the accompanying re-tweets and likes. Maybe it’s hits on YouTube. However fame is measured, it has certainly changed from its older definition once familiar to a culture in which Walter Cronkite was the primary teller of “facts.” Now, fame is distributed in smaller doses but to greater numbers of people.
Alongside this monumental change in our perception of fame comes the distinct recasting of how success is perceived. Success has been redefined and reshaped in light of the new meaning of fame. Because of our communication platforms, everything is accessible all the time. And this has forced us out of the realm of absolutes and deeply into the realm of the relative: postmodern tribalism.
What I mean by the postmodern tribalism is that society is trending toward a thundering change in human existence: all ethics are essentially relative to our tribe. If our tribe happens to support freedom in gun ownership, we put that particular bumper sticker on our SUV and vote accordingly. If it’s concern for LGBT rights, we find our support and identity there. If it’s violent fundamentalist religious practice, there are organizations that are ready to radicalize and to equip toward acts of violence conditioned by particularized beliefs. If it’s Pokémon or Call of Duty that is so greatly adored, there is a supportive community to be found, whether locally or online. In our city there is a group of moms who only use baby carriers; no strollers allowed. It seems they’re feeling united.
For the record, I’m a big fan of carrying babies; it seems to really help them see the world.
Anyway, as I consider the various tribes that interact in my corner of the world, West Michigan in the Midwestern United States, I observe how we interact with tribes in other cities, not to mention tribes around the world. What or who could possibly unite such diverse tribes as the ones we see around us?
Our society cannot agree on a working definition of marriage, even if it’s worked into our law codes. We cannot determine who deserves health care and how to effectively establish economic justice. Each tribe, progressive or conservative, homo or hetero, guns or no-guns, seems to possess answers for everything.
Though I may have concerns regarding all these examples, these associations are not the places where I find my primary identity. For me, the tribe with which I most closely associate is the tribe of Jesus followers. We are Christians: Catholics and Protestants, Presbyterians and Quakers, each of us nuance slightly differently our understanding of God’s work. And what is his work? It’s sending Jesus, the Son of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to redeem humanity. But we’re all one big tribe, held together by the union that we all share in Jesus the Christ.** We’re all called out of darkness and into the light of Christ.***
For members of the Christian tribe, our help is in the name of the Lord, both immediately and ultimately. And this message goes out to all who do not yet associate in any way with the Jesus of Scripture. Members of the Christian tribe insist that God invites all people to know him through Jesus, and, in so doing, to be transformed. Members of the Christian tribe insist that we have all strayed from God’s goals from us and, to use the appropriate word, we have sinned. Members of the Christian tribe insist that God has sought to forgive us from our sin through the ministry of Jesus, and that being forgiven leads us to greater acts of forgiveness.****
In an age when nearly every tribe’s message can be so overwhelmingly different, this is a message to which I will cling. For me, it’s in many ways an interior journey, but the interior journey is made concrete in relationships and in the way I treat the poor and in how I use money and in my family’s priorities: in all these areas, we’re going to follow Jesus.
When I was little, one of my friends moved away. After I began to feel the loss, I complained to my mom. “Mom, I want just one friend who will never move away.” She wisely responded by suggesting that maybe people get married for this reason. I still missed my friend, but she made a good point.
Regardless, when close friends leave town, it’s never really an enjoyable experience. I certainly don’t have an easy time with it at least. It’s really rough saying goodbye to people who mean a lot to us.
During my senior year of college, this hit hard for me. I was looking out my bedroom window onto the campus of Spring Arbor University as it glowed with that perfect combination of moonlight and some strategically-placed halogens. I thought for a long time that Fall evening about the relationships I had built during my time there. And soon, life would necessarily pull each of us away from one another.
I was pulled to Grand Rapids. Other friends headed other directions. Some stayed a bit closer, sticking around Southeast Michigan. One left for Virginia. One left for Louisville.
Leaving is hard.
More recently, I’ve had some newer friends leave. A few weekends ago, we had one goodbye event on a Friday evening then got up the next morning for a goodbye breakfast. One family left for California for a new job. The other couple left for Scotland to pursue education.
Did I mention leaving is hard?
Over the years, I have realized that some friends seem to stay friends over the long haul. And that fact seems to soften the blow. If I bear in mind that we will, in fact, see those people again, it seems to prop me up psychologically. But it’s not enough for me. I wanted to push further on the topic.
After a little thinking, I’ve been left with two distinct impressions. First, that we deeply miss one another when we are apart reveals the importance of human relationships. Because we have that feeling of absence, the strength of our relationship is underscored. Proverbs 17:17 is spot on: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” [NIV].
Second, I am reminded [and this may seem like a leap, but stick with me] of the reality of death. At 28, I have experienced the loss of just a few family members and friends, and I am sure plenty more pain is ahead for me on the death front. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says this: “God has made everything fitting in its time, but has also placed eternity in their hearts, without enabling them to discover what God has done from beginning to end” [CEB]. That same chapter talks about seasons for pretty much everything, including celebration, mourning, and dying.
So we’ve established that God has created all people to think long-term. Now check out this, from Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
In summary, mourn away; leaving is hard, and death is far worse. But don’t forget that hope remains. Revelation 21:5 tells us this: “behold, I am making all things new.” And that’s Jesus doing the speaking.
Certain conversations have a way of staying inside my head.
One such conversation was about faith and its meaning. We were speaking with Duncan, a Chinese man who was visiting my parents’ home in West Michigan. I was in high school at the time. It was 2003.
Duncan was the father of our exchange student and visited to spend time with us, the hosts, and with his daughter, who we had supported during her time in America.
During his brief stay, we delved into the topic of faith.
Amidst the conversation, Duncan told us that one of his biggest regrets in life was not having imparted faith to his daughters.
That’s the part that stuck with me.
And now, over a decade later, having witnessed the first six months of our son’s life, I have become convinced that imparting faith to one’s children is vital.
Why? Because I have experienced God. I have witnessed God’s work in the lives of others. Jesus Christ is my role model yet also my Savior. He is also a friend. I really do want people to know about this, and our son is one of those people!
Now let’s take a step back.
Various families take various approaches when it comes to parenting. Some families allow their children to sort of “make their own way” and figure things out. Telling themselves they don’t want to restrict their children, they allow them to explore and encourage them to check out all kinds of faith systems, allthewhile making sure they assure their kids that no religion is superior to the other.
That’s one approach. Here’s another.
Some families are terrified that their kids will question their faith. They’re scared that another faith system will become attractive, so they make sure to create barriers against those other faiths. They may emphasize the negative aspects of other faiths and underscore the truths of their own beliefs and the significant leaders in their own theological and spiritual leaders.
Both sets of parents care about their kids and desire for their progeny to flourish. That’s not in question. What’s in question is this: how should a family guide their children spiritually?
This NPR interview tackles this question. I end up thinking much like Kara Powell, author of Sticky Faith, an influential book [and blog] on the process of imparting faith to the young. Listen and check it out if you have time.
Anyway, as a Christian, I think of Jesus as the ultimate. His teachings are true, and his provenance is divine; he’s God’s Son. But how should I communicate this to my children?
Here are several key steps I feel compelled to take ::
Trust God.
When Silas was baptized, it was a mysterious way for God to say, “I’ll take care of Silas.” We took him to the feet of our Savior, and we trust that God will work through his power to bring Silas to an awareness, first, then a simple trust, and then strong confidence in his Creator. And we trust that God will use us in this process.
Model the spirituality that I desire for my child to eventually own.
It starts very close to home–in my soul, actually. My wife and I need to be the kind of people who embody faith in every aspect of life. It’s how we treat strangers. It’s how we talk about people who aren’t in the room–especially people with whom we may not fully agree. It’s our deeds and our words and our inner predisposition.
Connect to a community of faith–in my case, a church–where other people are doing the same thing, and allow them to help with the parenting process.
Asking other Christians to intentionally mentor our son is one way to mitigate the problem of family systems. See, no matter how hard Kaile and I try, we will unwittingly pass on our bad habits to our son. In our tradition, it’s called “sin.” When we humbly admit our own issues and permit other people to speak into our child’s life, there are new opportunities for transformation, and we trust and pray that God will work through our community.
We cannot foist faith on our children; instead, we invite.
And the alternative is terrifying. Think about how many systems for understanding the world exist! Peruse a newspaper or Flipboard or Instagram or turn on the tube and you’ll be greeted with a host of organizations seeking to disciple your child and offer their spiritual wisdom:
*Exercise is the key to happiness!
*Money is the goal, for it brings about so much opportunity for relationships!
*The right job will bring you the sense of purpose your heart longs for!
If we are unintentional with our childrens’ faith formation, we leave the task to the next most attractive influencer. Maybe their peers will be the ones who guide them in uncertain paths. Maybe it will be a really nice group of people that get lost in mind-altering substances. Maybe it will be a questionable website. Maybe they’ll stumble into Zoroastrianism. Hard to say, isn’t it?
This is what I’ve learned throughout seminary. Here’s why.
Having graduating seminary, I have continued reading books within the world of theology. But I have also ventured into new territory. Recently I finished Annie Dillard’s classic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Before that, I devoured Eric Metaxas’s eponymous 2010 biography of Bonhoeffer.
My college chaplain, Ron Kopiko, always said that we say what we believe but we do what we value. If one is interested in finding someone who genuinely did what they valued, look no further than the unassuming Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Born early in the 20th century, he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and men just as a then-obscure Austrian man grew in hate and anger and favor not with God but with a few nationalistic henchmen. As Adolph Hitler carefully assumed control in a debt-laden and politically compromised Germany, Bonhoeffer pursued his vocation in pastoral ministry and professorship.
Before it dawned on most of the elites in Germany, Bonhoeffer sensed Hitler had the worst of intentions. Wooing over the clergy in Germany who were willing to pay a high tax for a very fragile peace, Hitler did his best to spiritually legitimate his actions by subverting Christian beliefs. Attempting to obscure the reality that Jesus himself was Jewish, the Hitler-subservient Reich Church of Germany tossed out essentially the entire Old Testament. It simply didn’t fit with their current goals of destroying lives and calling on the German people to denigrate and destroy the Jewish people. Jewish theology, to them, had no place in their version of “Christian” practice.
True, many leaders in the church bowed to Hitler’s increasingly uncompromising demands. But there were many brave clergy who said no to Hitler. Risking income, status in the community, and their lives, Bonhoeffer carefully coordinated a resistance plan to Hitler’s grab for spiritual power. He leveraged his influence in various international church councils while petitioning his fellow German believers to practice a bolder faith. Bonhoeffer helped sift out the true disciples, the true Christians whose faith meant coordinate action.
Eventually, Bonhoeffer realized Hitler was politically unstoppable. The way he had managed to leverage nationalistic fervor through propaganda made any kind of resistance futile. Begrudgingly and with great fear for his soul, he became a part of a plan to assassinate Hitler. This was for the sake of the Jews, the disabled, the homosexuals, and all other people groups Hitler sought to exterminate, but it was to him a duty to God.
Bonhoeffer’s beliefs were strong enough that he risked everything–even his standing before God, the way he saw it–to live out his discipleship after Jesus.
There are few people who, like Bonhoeffer, have taken Jesus literally when he said, “take up your cross and follow me[1].” He was imprisoned for several years and eventually hanged on April 9th, 1945. Bonhoeffer’s no to Hitler meant a yes to the call of Jesus Christ.
May we, as Christians living in the 21st century, search for ways to take up our own crosses. Theology is not abstract or distant or irrelevant; at its core, our theology informs how we act in the world. And whether or not we talk about theological things, we say what we believe then do what we value.
Bonhoeffer valued Jesus.
That’s the start. Then comes the taking-up-our-cross part.
This is one of the most important discoveries of my entire seminary journey. After studying the difficult aspects of Christian faith and practice-the peripheral-the core components of faith burn way brighter.
To me, seminary was a time to lean into the most difficult questions of all.
School for pastors should include some of this, right? One would imagine that Christian leaders, with all their various abilities and giftings and sense of call, would still struggle with particular questions.
It’s true.
Instead of offering a straight-up theodicy I’ll say a few words on God, then tell a couple stories. The stories really do communicate the best.
But first, a few words on God.
Early in the Bible, we learn that God has created all things. Genesis 1-2, the accounts of creation, are poetic. But they are also brazenly polemic! They speak strongly against any other God but Yahweh, the God of Israel. With forceful language, these two chapters subvert other gods who were held in high esteem by neighboring peoples, and exalt the God of Israel, the true God.
And the place of people within the order is very high. And yet, God gave people free will. Humanity had the ability to decide how to act. So, ultimately, humans allowed evil to enter their world. Bad news, everyone; it’s our fault. And we can either blame our ancient ancestors or blame God.
Or, we can blame ourselves. Then, from the depths, we can cry out to God and observe his multifaceted plan for transformation. We can look to the hope he gives us in the history of the world, recorded in the pages of Scripture, and seek Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit he left his for his church.
Ok. On to the story.
The first story comes from my final Old Testament class. We had been moving through the Pentateuch [the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy] and noticed these monumental acts of God. The biggest, without a doubt, was the Exodus.
The Exodus was God’s act of delivering his people, Israel, from the superpower of the day-Egypt. Egypt is still fairly powerful, but not like the second millennium BCE! The only real competitor was Babylon to the far east.
After all the talk about dates, miracles, and the moral authority of God, things got personal. I probed and questioned. One other student and I really got after our professor about miracles. We wanted to hear about his own experiences with miracles.
It all started with a question. I now feel a little embarrassed about it. I asked, after pressing him on a bunch of questions, “care to share?”
Share he did.
Our professor shared the story of moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan, from the East Coast. Amidst the busyness of moving, they had not the time to fully establish their son in the network of doctors in West Michigan. See, their son had a genetic condition that causes severe internal difficulties. One such difficulty lay within the young boy’s intestines. On one of his first evenings in Michigan, our professor’s son experienced an intussusception. This meant that a part of his intestine was folding in on itself.
As the boy sat, racked with severe abdominal pain, our professor and his wife paused to consider their options. They could go to the emergency room, where none of the doctors knew their son’s medical history. They could attempt to contact their physicians back east, but it was late in the evening. They planned to take him to the emergency room, but first they cried out to God for mercy.
A few minutes later, they gathered their things and prepared to leave. God, as it appeared, did not answer them this time.
Then, their son came to them from the living room. “I’m tired,” he explained. “I’m going to bed.”
Astonished, they asked him if he was feeling alright. “I’m fine, just tired,” he went on to explain, then climbed the stairs and headed to sleep.
Turns out God did listen to their prayer, and that he did act, and that he did show himself fully capable. Sure, maybe it was a fluke. Maybe the prayer had nothing to do with the healing. Maybe. But I doubt it. I guess about 3 of every 4 American doctors believe in miracles. They’re the ones who have witnessed such things, the ones with decades of training and experience, the ones on the forefront of medicine.
As I sat listening in class, I felt very small. I felt faithless. I felt as if I’d challenged and failed. I felt as if I’d been put in my place.
In my smallness of question-asking and challenging, I had become distracted from the largeness of God, even in my own life and my own experiences.
And today or in 50 years I may not understand the intricacies of exactly how the historical events of Scripture have been recorded. I may have a few doubts, concerns, and questions that hold out in the recesses of my mind regarding the formation of the Bible. But I don’t doubt the basics anymore: God is good. Jesus lived, ministered, died, and was raised to life, then ascended. He’ll return. Scripture speaks to the reality of God. These things are true.
Much of my seminary journey took me to the fringes of faith. My studies took me to tough places, and my classmates and I were burdened with difficult questions. But all the unknowing that takes place at the fringes pointed us back to the core dimensions of faith.
Because of my newfound linguistic skills, I learned that Oikos, the Greek yogurt that you may love, is called “home” in Greek.
“Home yogurt.”
My Greek skills hold up okay in the world of Koine Greek, especially when I conjoin my seminary skills with Bible software like my Logos 6 package or my languages collection from Accordance.
It’s true that working on a biblical language helps one to see Scripture differently. One professor who used to teach at my seminary likened it to, as opposed to black and white, seeing in color.
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