cairns

we had the big weekend with all the displays, we had the fun game and brought them down to laugh through some facts, then invited them to take a week or two and sit with us to learn something more. We had four classes waiting. One lady came. Go to the world, to their neighbors, to our crosstown/cross income/cross race, cross cultural neighbors? They didn’t even come upstairs.

The day of Missions Departments in churches may be dead. Either God’s people develop an outward focus, learn God’s love for those who are not us, hear God’s cry for the lost, see His footsteps walking away from the temple to the sea shore, or we are painting posters in the corner for ourselves.

peace

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It was a good week, a busy week, a tiring week, but a very good week.

My youngest and I have chosen a trip for this summer that will stretch us both in new ways and connect us to new people.

I also found out that I am switching what I teach again next year.  Looks like I will have a self contained room full of fourth graders.  Fourth was always my favorite grade before I moved into administration, and I love having the same group of kids all day so there is enough time to use different methods and to teach concepts across subjects.  Plus, it will keep my work with graduate students more real to be adjusting to a new format and experimenting in my own room.  There is also the possibility that I might be allowed to stay with the students for two years as their fifth grade teacher and make a real impact on their lives.  I am excited about it.

Still, there was my presentation of Missions 101 today.  There I was again, choking up when discussing God’s unrelenting mission to bring mankind back into full fellowship, celebration, and worship.  It went well.  People said, and were past expressing, that it struck some very deep chords.  And, I know my heart is longing to be doing this 24/7.  I am wired and called to teach things more eternal than multiplication facts and parts of speech.  They do matter.  The youngsters I teach, matter.  I enjoy doing it.  And, I live out the message, demonstrate their greater worth in every way I can, teach every concept within the knowledge that Jesus is there whenever we approach the “truth.”  But, I am not allowed to speak freely, to declare openly how divine they were created to be, to call them knowingly into the presence of God.

It was a good week — enjoyed in its own right — and in looking forward to new opportunities to  point far more directly to the cairns on the path into the kingdom.

peace

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She stood at the podium full of years, wisdom, and honorable service, with undeniable right to speak.  She congratulated the collective representatives of world missions on improvements that have been made, scolded them over shortcomings long discussed and little changed, and challenged them to be more.

Then she said it.  “As a lifelong evangelical always ready to share my hope, I no longer believe some of our basic theology.”  She went on to point out that the god who would condemn every person who died in ignorance to hell, just isn’t the One she has known all these years in India.  She mused about how it might work after death when Jesus meets the departed and makes all things known.  She apologized for offering her doubts about basic evangelical teaching to such an assembly which had not asked.  Yet, it was clear they loved her and would receive and consider any word from her.

I sought her out later and we shared the most wonderful conversation about Truth beyond easy answers, a God of grace much larger than our western view of individualistic reward for the privileged western few who “know,” the gift of resting secure in the knowledge revealed over time that our hope is based on who we have believed, not what. 

We discussed the reasons for sharing the incarnation story if/when it turns out that He really meant “so loved the world.”  What if He meant it?  What if the redeemed is the whole planet, mankind and sister-kind, animal kind and plant, rock and water and sky?  How would it change our message, our tactics, our approach? I used to fear such questions outside my comfortable little prison box.  Now I can say with adoration, I would share with more hope, more joy, and more love for the One who is bigger than all we imagine in our puny theologies.

peace

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I don’t know how anyone from the group would find my little blog, but thank you to each of you there.  I was made welcome among mental health professionals, agency heads, and pastors without exception. 

And, I learned a great deal about current issues in this critical area.  Confirmed some fears — what must the world think of our supposed connection to the God who is real when they see the condition of our workers?!  Saw encouraging trends in improved training for broader understanding, professionals with huge hearts for front line workers, and folks who have turned their own most negative experiences in living out their faith to a serious determination to care for others.  That is largely why I was there.  Twice burned by the ending of ministries by the action and inaction of others, and all too frequent witness to the same in the life of worker after worker, I want to know how do I come along side those who need the care of a brother in the absence of a community.

I will probably be posting a few thoughts about issues raised at the conference in the next several days.  But, it was very good.  I am grateful.

peace

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Beginning at least in the sixties, and clearly observable in the post-modern present is another world view that I would label chaos-order.  In the midst of protest, alternative life styles, and economic uncertainty many conversations about the desirable life turned to order and security.  Even in those days with their strong carry-over from earlier dogmas, discussions of what “should be” often focused on a desire to avoid disorder rather than on the rightness or wrongness of a position.  MLK Jr. was often criticised not for pushing an unjust cause, but for creating turmoil and exposing hard feelings.  I suppose Muller and his fans would explain this as some mixture of fear (of chaos) mixed with shame (at the exposure of hatred).  But, in our property oriented system, I would propose that it really had more to do with social and economic order.  It represents a conservative bias for constancy over change.

In the current decade of fragmented local beliefs and world terror, it seems to have increased or at least maintained force.  Americans are sitting by and watching their constitutional rights be eliminated in the name of protecting us from the evil doers.  We are willing to accept a president’s authorization of torture (or as close as we can get without applying the term) and abandonment of any pretense of international influence for basic human rights — again because we need the information detainees may have if they are actually terrorists.

On a less dramatic level, I would postulate that most of the western middle class operates within this system.  The issue is not whether the pastor, mayor, employer, or little league coach plays free with the rules(based either on guilt or shame) as much as on whether anybody has the gall to rock the boat.  The whistle blower is more often criticized for upsetting everyone’s predictable world than praised for defending right or honor.  It represents an avoidance of discomfort.  This is why I would not lump it together with fear cultures and animists.  There is little fear of larger forces or even meaningful judgment and payment for wrongs.  We just do not want to be bothered.  Give us order and a big flat screen and all is well with the world.

OK, I am looking for conversation if anybody is able and willing to open and read these!

peace

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I believe a strong case can be made that since the time labeled “the enlightenment” with no lack of hubris by the secular west, there has clearly been a world view in force which is best defined by the contrast of enlightenment vs ignorance.  This view condemns the animist cultures which Muller dubs fear-power not for their attachment to actual demons, but for the lack of scientific sophistication which would relieve them of all such ignorant beliefs.  Likewise it sees ignorance as the most shameful of conditions and often dismisses guilt among the enlightened as acts beyond the understanding of the unenlightened.  To play Muller’s garden game, one could easily point to the desire for knowledge as central to the story of original sin with knowledge as a godlike quality and ignorance as a condition humans have always sought to escape.

I grew up during the years when this world view was perhaps at its zenith.  Math and science could explain everything that was real or meaningful in the universe.  Those who sought more human approaches could apply logic and reason within the field of philosophy.  But, it clearly presented man’s struggle and journey in terms of knowledge rather than moral virtues.  The enlightened man in pursuit of knowledge was even presented as beyond moral codes which might limit his pursuits.  Thomas Jefferson is a hero of this world view along with the Greek philosophers, scientists, and academicians.

A recent sermon questioning quotes by a college president to incoming freshman that the university would make no effort to teach them anything of morals points to the importance of including this view.  The pastor giving the sermon appeared humorously confused by such statements.  I wonder if he has awareness of how pervasive this view has been until recently weakened — not by a return to faith — but by the postmodern turn to rejection of grand answers in any form.

Would any of Muller’s worldviews explain what happened at Los Alamos?  Could men controlled by fear, guilt, or shame cultures have pressed the original button while still wondering if their calculations were correct or whether it might be the end of all things?  I do not think any of those views would have allowed it.  But taking the next step up to the alter of ultimate knowledge enabled them to do just that.

peace

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She left again this morning, one of the most traveled short term missionaries form our area.   A young wife too shy to speak in Sunday School class has become a woman leading an all woman team on her fourth trip to that magic continent.

By the time Thanksgiving break ends here they will put together photo books for our long term missionaries to share their story back home, prepare and host Thanksgiving dinner for 40-50 people, host a luncheon for women Young Life Workers, get the missionary out of town for a few days of safari and sisterhood, decorate a church for the wedding of two friends in Arusha, visit Zanzibar…beyond that one can only guess.

And life will be different for a few workers — a few workers dedicated to reaching every teen, everywhere, for eternity.  And they will come home different.  I can hardly wait to see what the next page holds!

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