Friday's Quotation: Matt Redman on Worship

"God imparts to us His heart for restoration, and a burning desire to see His love and justice heal the nations. But if we're really to have integrity in our worship, somewhere along the line this desire has to turn into action: share our food with the hungry, clothe the nake and satisfy the needs of the oppressed. We cannot be worshippers who simply walk by, ignoring the realities of this broken world. God longs to bring us to the place where we ache so much with His heart that to do nothing is simply no longer an option."


Matt Redman
In The Unquenchable Worshipper

Book Review: The Justice Project

I recently received the book, The Justice Project, in order to read and review it.  The book boast an all-star cast of contributers from Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Peggy Camplolo, Rene Padilla, Lynne Hybels, Bart Campolo, and others.  There are also many contributors who I had not heard of, but was thankful for because they represented various ethnic backgrounds and locations.  This book is not just written my white, western men, but seeks to find more of a global approach to the idea of justice.

The book consist five sections (The God of Justice, The Book of Justice, Justice in the USA, A Just World, A Just Church) where each section consist of small chapters or articles on various topics that would fall under each category.  I appreciated that there was an attempt to view justice from both a liberal and conservative lens as well as creating space to challenge many presupposed ideas of justice for someone, like me, who grew up in a conservative, evangelical home/church.  There were several noteworthy chapters and thoughts throughout the book, but I will not go into detail here. 

My critique of the book is that no one topic gets fully fleshed out.  Yes, the entire book speaks of justice but so many of the chapters could have been turned into 2 or 3 chapters- or maybe even an entire book.  Just as you get your appetite whet for what the author is saying, the chapter ends.  In this way, there is little flow in the book from idea to idea other than the articles being grouped under one of the five sections.

I've been thinking about how I would use this book, other than personal reading/study.  In a group setting, it might be more useful to pull an article around a topic rather than trying to read the entire book.  It could also be used for study around the five sections and talk about the ways in which the articles work in the sections.

Overall, I thought this was a good effort by McLaren and company, even if it fell short of my expectations.  Regardless, the Church must continue to wrestle everyday with what it means to "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God." 

Some Thoughts On Health Care

I've been wanting to write something about the proposed health care reform that is taking place in Washington D.C.  National Health Care is a huge issue with potentially huge ramifications.  For some, it's a step towards providing health coverage for everyone.  For others, it's a step towards socialism.  For some people are divided along politcal lines. 

First, a few thoughts of my own...

1. Health Care in America is broken- When there are millions without health coverage, it is a broken system.  Health care has become a dividing line between the "haves" and the "have-nots"
2. Many people's view of the governments role in the reform is uneasy, at best.  I'm not a fan of big government, but how can we fix a broken system that is this big?  Are there other ways that reform of this magnitude can happen (if you believe that reform needs to take place)?
3. Captialism has contributed to the problem.  Now, don't paint me as a socialist.  The bottom line of Capitalism is the bottom line.  When you put that together with the sinful nature of humanity, it's a recipe for disaster.  Corporations outsource there manufacturing to foreign lands, which exploits women and children, so that profits can increase.  Oil companies, in difficult economic times, have posted huge profits.  Insurance Companies/Health Care is not immune to this.  The price of health care keeps escalating.  Medications keep going up in price.  Our sue-happy culture raises the price of malpractice insurance...and the trickle-down goes to the average joe/jane who comes into the doctors office/hospital.

I'm certainly not advocating any answers, but some biblical thinking on the issue.  To do that may require one to set aside their preconcieved ideas about health care reform, political allegience (remember, Jesus wasn't a Republican or Democrat), or other views on the issue.

1. We know that Jesus was just as concerned with the poor as he was the rich.  Jesus restored the health and dignity of those who had been made outcast in society.  How do we as a society create systems that do not discriminate on the basis of race, income, gender, disabilities, etc. How do we restore the dignity of those who have no health care; those who can't afford basic coverage? End of life care? Etc.?
2. You can go through the Gospels and see many examples of Jesus healing the blind, the lame, the diseased- if the Church is the Body of Christ, is there an opportunity here for us to be a greater part of the healing process?  Can we work to provide more free clinics? Affordable vaccines/flu shots/etc.?  Can we provide/create ministries on greater scale that are healing in nature?  If we do not, are we missing an opportunity to be light in the darkness?
3. In John 17, Jesus prays that his disciples would not be removed from the world but would be kept safe from the evil one.  How often do we as Christians refrain from getting political?  We are called to engage the world and the culture around us...and this means even in politics. We must use what we know about God, Jesus, and the Bible to inform our beliefs and our actions and let that lead us as we participate in our democratic system.
4. Micah 6:8 says, "What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  What would God's justice look like in the health care reform?  How do we, as Christians, work torwards that on this issue?  What would  God's mercy look like?  How do we, as Christians, work towards this?

This post is not meant as a comprehensive argument one way or another, but a way to begin thinking critically as Christians on the issues at hand. 

How does your faith inform you on the issue of health care reform?  Talk it out in the comment section!

Book Review: Simple Spirituality

One of the most recent books that I've read is Simple Spirituality by Christopher Heuertz. Heurtz is the International Director of Word Made Flesh, which is a community who ministers to the poorest of the poor around the world. I really looked forward reading this book as Andrea went with WMF to India and I have had friends serving in India, Brazil, Peru, Romania, and Sierra Leonne through WMF. The book did not disappoint as I have read it twice in recent weeks.

The books is organized by WMF's five Lifestyle Celebrations; Humility, Community, Simplicity, Submission, and Brokeness. As Heuertz writes in the introduction, "As I pray for the grace to live into a spirituality that embodies these simple commitments, I invite you to join me." These Lifestyle Celebrations are central to WMF and their commitments and mission to serve the poorest of the poor. It would do good to do a quick synopsis of each from the book

Humility
"Humility affirms our need for God." Heuertz goes on to write, "Humility is not a means to an end. Rather humility is the door through which we must enter to be welcomed into God's presence." How often do we allow pride to get into our way of seeing God and seeing our desperate need for God. The only remedy for our pride is humility that bows before God.

Community
Community is that which provides orientation and clarification for our identity. Our identity is not found in what we do or what we own- our identity is found in community with God and with others. The book challenged me to be willing to step into other people's community rather than expecting them to come into mine...to try to view the world through a different lens.

Simplicity
Here in the Western world, much of our value and worth is ascribed by our paycheck, possessions and neighborhood. When we live simply, we live without extravagence and with an eye and heart to our neighbors. Heuertz writes, "We want to make the issue about what we give, but in truth the issue is about what we keep." Are we engaged in a lifestyle that frees us to give? Or are we trapped in a cycle where we strive to accumulate more and more possessions?

Submission
"Submission is giving up oneself to the power of another." When we submit to God, we give up our desires and wishes and allow God's desires and plans to shape us. Submission is realizes that our lives are not our own- our lives belong to God and that we must seek each day to submit our lives to God.

Brokeness
"Brokenness is different- a voluntary surrender to God's will over our own will...brokenness is open even to the grace in pain." Brokenness is proactive rather than reactive.

Certainly the review above could be more in depth. But you'll just have to read the book in order to get more. This was just to whet your appetite.

Heuertz does a great job of weaving personal experience to convey the points that he is making. Some of the stories are light hearted while many of them are a gut wrenching reminder of how the majority world lives.

One critique, and I don't know if it is a major one. Heuertz speaks a lot of seeing Jesus in the poor. That is certainly true, but it is not the only place where we can see Jesus. Each of us is made in the image of God, and thus we can see God work in and through us in the way we live our lives. Heuertz's emphasis on this certainly ties in with WMF's mission to reach the poorest of the poor. It's not major...there is another side to where we see God in our world today. The poor may be our most visible reminder, though.

I'm interested in your thoughts...have you read the book? What's your take?

Are We Awake?

I've been continuing the book I began reading a while back called The Dangerous Act of Worship by Mark Labberton. It is a challenging look at worship in the American church and how what we do on Sunday morning is often detached from acts of justice and mercy.

Labberton writes that there is no right style of worship. It's not about traditional, contemporary, modern, post-modern, or emergent worship. These are all just forms to fulfill a function. The function is the worship of God the Creator which is done throughout our week.

Labberton writes:

"Everytime we meet in corporate worship, whether in our Gothic sanctuaries, our industrial park warehouses or wherever we gather to worship while violence, suffering and injustice don't imss a beat. Worship leaders especially may want to focus only on what seems cultuarlly and socially immediate. But if we ar coming to worship the Lord of all creation, the Savior of the world, then while we are setting up and checking the sound sytem or pondering prayers or sermons, we have to hold on to a wider vision of God's love, a set of very different circumstances and an outcome of our worship that is meant to land is in places of need."

Our church has been discussing why some churches grow and others don't. We have a few churches within three blocks of Avenue that are dying congregations while we continue to grow. I think it comes down to our passion for God, and our passion for his people. We (Avenue) began to grow when we started to develop a broader understanding of God's love and began to live in that love by serving others. This is not meant to be a how-to, but we have found that people want to be involved in a church that is taking part of something bigger than life. When we participate in God's work, that transcends our everyday lives as something bigger.