In just a few hours Alie and I, along with four other team members, will be boarding a plane once more more Asia.  This year will mark my 8th trip to Myanmar and my 6th time taking a team with me.  Our connection to a local church/orphanage/school/community in Myanmar has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life as I am continuously blown away by their faith, and the willingness of our home community to contribute to our work there.  Over the years we’ve had some incredible and miraculous experiences as we continue in our friendship with our friends there and so much has been accomplished that it’s hard to even begin to catalog.

As I was reflecting and preparing for this years trip I decided to add up some totals to help us understand just how much has been accomplished because of friends and family who have supported our ministry.  Just FYI these numbers are estimates based on my math and my phone calculator.

Over the years:

8: Number of times we’ve visited the same church community.  In Myanmar Christians are a minority and are often persecuted, in fact most churches are illegal, so visitors are rare and very cherished.  Because we go back every year, we’ve developed a very special bond with this community, we know their names and they know ours.  Incredible.

21: Number of  made by people who have traveled with us to Myanmar over the 8 years. 33 is the total number of trips including repeat travelers.

165:  Total number of flights over the 8 years. (33×5; 5 is an average of how many flights each traveler made per year)

5: Total number of guitars we’ve donated over the years.

1: Number of tractors purchased/donated.  This ended up being the orphanages primary means of transportation!

2: Number of computers donated.

2: Number of cameras donated.

1: Iphone donated.

120: Number of sermons/messages given! Crazy!

22: Number of church services led.  This number does not include the home group meetings.

60+: Number of home group meetings.

95: Number of times we’ve song songs/ led worship.

100+: Number of times we’ve prayed with individuals.

1: Number of weddings we’ve been in attendance as honored guests (it was as silly as it sounds).

1488.88: Number of total miles traveled inside of Myanmar.

4: Number of times we’ve paid for the orphans to go to the beach.   Typically, we rent a bus and take all the orphans and church community.  The kids had never seen the beach before this, and this is one of the most memorable experiences of the whole thing.

5: Number of beer tasting fundraising events we’ve held.  Yes, beer tasting.

150+: Number of beanies made and sold for fundraising.

4: Number of various other events held for fundraising.  This includes a 5k run, and a Chili’s fundraising night.

$86,000:  The total number of funds that have been raised in support of our ministry.

$14,000:  The amount we’ve been able to donate to the local orphanage/church.  This goes to various supplies and needs ranging from food to medical supplies.

1: Number of churches that have started.

Wow.  This list doesn’t even come close to actually telling the story of this connection.  When I think about how much has happened I can’t help but be in awe of God to the point of tears.

Here are some dreams of ours:

_: Number of times we continue to go back.
_: Number of times we can sponsor our friends to visit us.
_: Number of the orphans we might be able to help with college.
_: Number of people forever changed by the God who is big enough to hold the world in his hands and yet intimately be present both here and there.

As we make our final preparations and head to the airport I just want to say thank you.  First, to God, whom none of this is possible without.  And second, to everyone who has come with us, prayed for us, donated to us, and been a part of this in any way.  From the deepest part of my heart, thank you.

One last thing: Would you pray for us as we travel and dream about the future?

There is no single event in human history that means more to every person ever born or yet born than the birth we remember tonight.  Sometimes we forget the controversial significance and provocative claim that we make when we proclaim that God became man in an animals feeding trough in a small town 2000 years ago.

This is the night everything changed.  

No longer are we isolated in the cosmos enslaved to our mortality, depravity, and sorrow.  No longer will corruption, oppression, and injustice prevail over us.   No longer will brokenness, sinfulness, and cheating be the norm.   No longer will sadness, sickness, and suffering burden us.  No longer will darkness reign and death rule.

For unto us a child is born… 

All the momentum of history could not prevent what happened that night when everything changed.

Dustin Kensrue’s song portrays well the heaviness of that night:

This is war like you ain’t seen.
This winter’s long, it’s cold and mean.
With hangdog hearts we stood condemned,
But the tide turns now at Bethlehem.

This is war and born tonight,
The Word as flesh, the Lord of Light,
The Son of God, the low-born king;
Who demons fear, of whom angels sing.

This is war on sin and death;
The dark will take it’s final breath.
It shakes the earth, confounds all plans;
The mystery of God as man.

Sometimes it seems like there are two types of people:

On one hand there are the those of us who are always fighting back the need to feel significant.  We look at heroic individuals and feel insecure or guilty that we aren’t more like them.   We look at our mundane lives and wonder about what could have been.  We feel lost and trapped in the normalcy of our jobs, friendships, and hobbies. We often ask this question: “Why can’t we do something more meaningful?”

On the other hand there are those of us who overcompensate our apparent fear of insignificance by pretending we are of importance.  We walk with a strut, look at ourselves too long in the mirror, and think that we are God’s gift to other people.  We often ask this question: “When will everyone see how unique I am?”

If I’m most honest, I am both of those people at times.

But what if there is a third hand?  What if we could live on the other, other hand?  The truth is that we can, and just like having a third hand seems counterintuitive and outside of normal biology, there is in fact a higher logic and  new way that won’t make sense to us at first.  Jesus called this a new wineskin, or being born again.   This other, other hand breaks the mold and challenges us to live differently.

Living life on the other, other hand means that our identity does not come from this world, but from God who calls us his child.  He made us, gave us life, forgave us, bled for us, and resurrects us.  In him we are significant, not because of what we have to offer, but what He already offered.  This is the most freeing and liberating truth.  We don’t have to have all the answers do the darkness, we just need to trust the light.

When we feel like we are nobody we need to remember that we are alive and that this alone is a miracle.  We must  awaken to the infinite beauty always around us, and remember that we too are beautiful; and not just beautiful, but loved by the divine Himself.  We need perspective.  We need humility.

When we feel like we are somebody we need to remember that we did not make ourselves, nor do we in any way hold things together.  We need to be reminded that the world existed before we came into being, and will continue to exist after we die.  We need perspective.  We need humility.

The fact of the matter is that we are already significant, but not by our own will, but because of the great Will.  The battles we have been fighting all along were over before we even stepped foot on the battle field itself.

The truth is that “the most courageous thing you might ever do is to accept yourself and be that man, and no other”. (Rohr)

Here is Richard Rohr’s devotional from On the Threshold of Transformation that sparked this blog:

The commonly held myth of the self made-man is a trap.  The idea that we can manufacture our own identity or worthiness is a project surely to fail.  Thinking that we can and must create our own significance turns every other man into a rival and leaves us fighting over the scraps.

The soul lives on meaning the way the body lives on food.  Without a larger meaning, our lives are “disasters”, which literally means “disconnected from the stars”!  It is absolutely essential that we find this larger meaning.  Jesus has already declared you inherently important: “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven,”  he says.  you cannot declare yourself important any attempt to do so is delusional, even though many try.  The problem we try so hard to solve is already completely solved, and most of us don’t even know it.  We are searching for what we already have.

Whoa! As of this week one quarter of seminary is completed.  It’s been a unique experience thus far – one I am still in disbelief I get the privilege to have.  So few people get the opportunity to study in this capacity and in this environment.  What a blessing.   Here are a few reflections/lessons from the past few months:

My classmates remind me that I’m not that smart
It’s kind of intimidating being around so many brilliant and motivated people. Within the first few hours of interaction with other students I quickly realized that my peers are incredible people.  Many will go on to write books, create ministries, and plant churches.  It’s fun to think about where the person sitting next to me in Patristic Theology will be in 5, 10, 40 years, and what kind of legacy they will leave.  So many people passionate about the kingdom – what a privilege!

Theology is fun…
I know that sounds crazy to write, but it’s true.  Reading, discussing, and writing about how people have experienced God through the ages brings a level of perspective and humility to our understanding of the divine.  On one hand I’ve realized that the more think we know about God, the less we actually do, while on the other hand, I’ve been blown away by the common thread within Christianity of God making himself known to us.  Even though Christians are separated by culture, geography, and time we’ve still come to the same realization that this Jesus guy is pretty important.  It’s amazing that over thousands of years we still love him for the same reasons that the early church did.

Academics are hard
I’ve never been the best student.  I mean, I can get the job done and earn a good grade, but I’ve always had trouble with my study habits when it comes to school.  Because of this, Seminary has already been extremely challenging.  Learning ancient Greek and reading two or three-thousand year old books is not easy.  I’ve got a stack of a few hundred flash cards on my desk that remind me of my daily burden to remember a seemingly endless list of names, words, and concepts.  A few times over the quarter I’ve felt discouraged, and in over my head.  It’s at those times that this passage and my wife have been encouragements.

Too Liberal?
Because I don’t come from a super churchy  background this came as a surprise to me.  Within the realm of seminaries there are some that say Fuller is too conservative, and some that say it’s too liberal.  More often than not it gets painted as the liberal seminary for a few reasons.  First, Fuller seeks to critically examine the scriptures in context.  This means that tradition with regards to who wrote certain books may prove to be historically inaccurate, and if that’s really important to you, it could seem threatening.  Second, Fuller seeks to have conversations with differing perspectives both within the church and outside of it.  For some this is seen as condoning beliefs or views that may be outside of familiarity.  As crazy as it sounds, some churches or organizations won’t hire Fuller grads because they aren’t comfortable with a person who critically examined their faith and scripture in light of outside opinions.  They’d rather have some one who can just recite denominational jargon.  To me, there is no alternative to the practice of listening to different perspectives and understanding where our beliefs actually came from.  While some people who begin to investigate the origins of their faith end up loosing it because they realize that it’s not always simple, black and white, or as warm and fuzzy as they heard in Sunday school, this process for me has only strengthened my conviction that Christianity is true, even amidst it’s flaws.

It could become a bubble…
Just like any academic institution, community, club, or sub-culture- grad school could potentially become overly introverted in it’s focus.  For a seminary, an ivory-tower mentality would be nothing short of a tragedy as the purpose of what is taught and learned should not be to just have a conversation with ourselves, but to engage the whole world in God’s salvation, reconciliation, love, and grace.  In my first quarter at Seminary I’ve already noticed the pattern in others and the temptation in myself to just hang out with other students out of convenience and familiarity and overlook the needs of those outside of our bubble.

I don’t deserve it
When I think about what an incredible opportunity seminary is I’m both humbled and terrified.  So few in history have had the means and privilege  of studying theology formally.  In a way if feels like I’ve been given a huge investment and I’ve got to steward it as wisely as I can.  It reminds me of this story.  In general, we Americans are unbelievably blessed.  All too often I think we miss the point of using our blessing to impact others.  For me, the seminary experience is a constant reminder that I have been given so much and I hope I can use it for good.

Beginning to dream about what’s next
I can’t wait to see where this season will lead my wife and I, and what God has for us next.  It feels like I’m one of those wind up toys that gets wound up and then eventually released.  So far, seminary feels like a season of being wound up.  One of the most exciting dreams Alie and I have been thinking/praying/talking about is the possibility of beginning a new faith community in the Bay Area.  The possibility of planting a church that reaches people with the gospel in the Bay is probably the thing I day dream about the most (besides Alie), and if it’s what God has for us, than we would be unbelievable privileged to be a part of it.

On the day our nation OKs our outward signs of gratitude
We remember the gifts we’ve inherited
Freedom, Health, Family, friends, and Wealth,
Were these really so stealth on all the other days?
Or are really so trapped by those voices, we keep our thanks wrapped?

More than all the grains of sand on earth
Are the ways in which you’ve made You known
How could I possibly keep track of their endlessness?
Can even the night lights analogize your fathomlessness?

So she greets me this morning and tells me she loves me.
She lay beside me as I slumbered
She keeps me company through all my days
And shows me affection in so many ways.

Just like the night stars whom embody your grace
She captures more than I can possibly say
Her touch reminds me of your provocative incarnation
And her voice sings my favorite invocations

Within this union beats the sweetest of songs
A reflection of heaven from which our soul longs
She is that, which I am most grateful
As she is a story of how you’ve been faithful

I recently was struck by how silly we humans can be.  We accept blindly and openly so many mysteries and unknown aspects of life, and then in the same moment, without even batting an eye, reject so many others.  We live in a reality marked by the mathematical impossibility that any of us should exist in the first place, yet we live each day like it’s nothing, as if each breath we take is not a miracle.  

A couple years ago stumbled upon some aerial pictures online taken of a previously unknown tribe (to the outside world) in Brazil.  The people from the village were all outside looking up at the helicopter with spears in hand ready to defend their homes.  They had never seen a helicopter before, can you imagine what must have been going on in their minds? “What the heck is that thing floating in the air?”

What if you were to take one of these people to your home to show them what the modern world is like?  How strange would it be if you walked in your house and turned on your lights or TV and their reaction was anything less than amazed?  What if you opened up your fridge, or turned on the hot water and they just shrugged their shoulders as if it was no big deal?  And yet this is what we do each and every day as we coast through life and pretend that existence as we know it is as simple as our daily list of activities and chores.  Our rational, scientific minds have stunted our ability to get under the familiar and shallow experiences of life and wrestle with the hanging questions that remain when we reach the end of our understanding.

Take music for example.  It seems simple, and yet it’s so dynamic.  Author Karen Armstrong says this of music, “It is the most corporeal of the arts; it is produced by breath, voice, horsehair, shells, guts, and skins and reaches and resonances in our bodies at levels deeper than will or consciousness”

We are romanced by the invisible vibrations of sound waves sung and played, and yet the mysterious nature of music is seen as nothing more than coincidental, nothing more than waves of nothing floating through the air. Music follows the basic and logical structure of chords and scales, but why does it have so much power?  Where does it’s transcendent ability come from?  What does it say about us that our emotions, moods, and personalities can be moved by music?  What is music?

Our apathetic response to reality doesn’t end there.

All around us, all the time, we are spinning at unimaginable speeds, in an incomprehensibly expansive universe, and most of the time we don’t even notice the stars above us.  What’s holding it altogether?  How did we end up?

When tragedy strikes in disaster or crime, our hearts grind with anguish at the sight of injustice.   But why?  Where does this deep longing for justice and fairness come from?  Isn’t it just the way things are?  Shouldn’t we be used to it by now?

When a child is born, and later a personality develops, we don’t even stop to wonder what drives life.  We carry on interacting with co-workers, family members, and baristas without ever noticing that they’re alive – and how amazing this fact is.  What generating force propels egg and seed to become a life, to grow, split, and create flesh and mind?  Where does our consciousness come from, is it limited to our bodies?

If we touch an object we are touching a collection of atoms gathered together in a specific place and order.  If we were to look closer we would see that the space within and between each atom is mostly made of emptiness.  In fact, the majority of all matter is empty space.  Most of everything, is nothing.  And yet we grab, sit on, throw and catch an endless list of things without even wondering what these things actually are.

And then there is love… When we experience love, any form of it, our reaction exhibits our aloofness the most.  What a paradox of reality, that in this universe of supposed accidental and coincidental existence, cold and personality-less matter, and endless cycles of destruction and production, love exists!  Why doesn’t the very existence of love frustrate our apathy towards life and force us to ask why?

How odd is it that we never stop to realize how miraculous everything is?  It’s like if some one took us in an airplane for the first time and we just sat bored through the entire flight, instead of being on the edge of our seat, looking out the window at the buildings and people below, in a state of total marvel.

Molecules, music, stars, personalities, love….. they’re all so unbelievable!  How is it that we’re so unaware and bored all of the time?  How is it that we don’t stop and become overwhelmed at how little we know, and how much understanding it all seems forever beyond our grasp?  How can we not sense that all of this somehow divinely orchestrated?  I’m starting to think that to marvel at life is the beginning of living.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
-Psalm 19:1-6

“The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.”

- William Osler

My wife is amazing.  Seriously.  At some point during high school she felt a tug in her heart to make a difference in the world; to serve people and show God’s love.  For her this was embodied in the idea of being a nurse.  So, after high-school she got into a great college for nursing and completed what is according to many, the most challenging bachelors degree in America.   The work load, catheters, bed pans, and  psych patients didn’t phase her, as she was soon hired at a hospital in Southern California.

Between the hours of 7:00 pm and 8:00 am she’ll be found running from room to room checking on her patients as they are nursed back to health.  Some of her patients are crazy and some are endearing.  Sometimes she has to help them go to the bathroom, and sometimes she is there when they go into “Code Blue”.

It absolutely blows me away that while I’m at home studying or watching TV, she’s there; dealing with pain, body fluids, brokenness, confusion, and everything in between.

Being there, in the most humble and intimate times, ever present in the frailty and vulnerability of humanity, she finds herself, night after night.

Divinely, she contemplates the story of each individual, as their family comes to visit, or sometimes is altogether absent.

Checking their paperwork, she dutifully tries her best to be fully present in the practicalities as well as the personalities.

Bravely, she deals with impatient patients, jaded doctors, and checked out staff.

Tirelessly, she cleans soiled bed-sheets, administers medicine, consults doctors, and answers countless questions.

Caught in the tension of seeing every person as just another name on a chart and the Imago Dei, she becomes prayer.

Is there another vocation as selfless as nurse?  They are there in our lowest, in our sickest, in our least glamorous moments, and even in our last breaths.   They do what is within their reach to ease our pain.  They are tasked with the burden of listening, discerning, observing, and deciding.

To my wife and all my nursing friends,  you have been given the most noble of jobs.  You have the opportunity to care for people like no one else can.  What is required of you in compassion, stamina, intelligence, sharpness, and love is like no other job.  It is a thankless and often times gross way to make a living, but that is what makes it blessed.  A nurse in other words, is simply a servant.  Your relationships with your patients are one-way, self sacrificing endeavors.  You are healers, listeners, dignity-givers, pain-relievers, advocates, and friends.

When I think about my own health,  and its inevitable expiration, and when I reflect on the last days of loved ones under professional care, I am convinced that a nurse can be there for people like no one else can.  Your job, while at times it may not feel like it, is nothing short of a divine calling.

Thank you for the inspiration.

I just spend the morning reading some of my old posts, both from this blog and my old blog.  Man, I’m so glad I did!  How often do we remember and reflect on where we’ve been? Sadly I think most of us are so caught up in our daily list of chores and duties that we can’t even recall what lessons we’ve lived.  We end up not knowing why we are doing what we’re doing, how we got there, and where we are going.

—

Last month Alie and I went on our Costco honeymoon to somewhere tropical.  It was awesome -we felt undeserving.  We played in the water, enjoyed the weather, and adventured the scenery.  One of the activities we decided on was a “Cross-Island-Hike”, through the lush, mountainous interior.  The hike would take us by one of the landmark points on the island called “the Needle” (a large rock pillar jutting towards the clouds), around a waterfall,  then finally to the crashing waves of the south shore.  Some of the people we ran into and who had gone on the hike, highly recommended we hire a guide to help us through the overgrown trail.  Being the young, confident, American, honeymooners we were, we opted to venture the trail on our own.

It started out great – beautiful vegetation, breath-taking topography, and musical rainforest harmonies.  As we continued the trail seemed to get less and less clear.  We started to become anxious and less confident that we were in fact on the right path.  Vines and cobwebs began to cross the trail giving us clues that hikers had not been where we were recently.  Instead of looking back and seeing where we may have missed a turn we chose to continue until we were certain a mistake had been made.

After sweaty few hours of jungle traversing and second guessing, we finally looked behind us and there it was.  Through the trees we could see in the distance the Needle, and we were nowhere near it.  The trail that we were supposed to be on would have taken us to the needle, not away from it!  We totally missed it.  Humbled and confidence shattered we began the journey back to where we began.  There was one problem:  The trail was so overgrown and under-marked that we could hardly tell where we were heading.  I started going over the lessons in my memory from watching episodes of Man vs. Wild and Survivorman.  So we attempted to trace our steps back the way we came, but quickly everything started to look the same – everywhere we turned the jungle walls camouflaged our path and we were becoming lost.  So, we started leaving notes for ourselves, breaking branches in obvious places and kicking leaves so we could see where we had been.  Those trail markers showed us where we had been and helped guide us to where we needed to be.

—

One of the most significant and fulfilling things in my life as of late has been finding ways to mark or track what I’m going through at any given time.  A lot of time I forget or get busy, but when I do catalog my experiences and then, even more rarely, read over my notes it is ALWAYS worth it.  It seems to me that leaving notes or trail markers for ourselves is one of the most valuable things we can do with our time.  When life gets foggy, when we get discouraged, one of the best things we can do is to reflect on where we’ve been and what we’ve already persevered through.

As the Israelites in the Jewish scriptures were lost in the desert, wandering aimlessly for decades on ends, they often left alters of rocks when God showed up or when they needed to reflect on an important lesson.  In so doing, they created a sense of who they were and where they had been.

It’s the same for us.  We need trail-markers.  We need to remember where we’ve been so we won’t loose sight of all that we’ve been through.  In many ways who we are is shaped and formed by what we’ve been through, but how will we know ourselves unless we can own our stories?  John Calvin argued that to know God we must know ourselves.  I totally agree, as in the process of understanding who I am and where I’ve been, I’ve seen God’s powerful and subtle presence in new ways, but I wouldn’t have had access to those insights had I not kept track of them.  This is the sad truth: we forget things.  Because of our human forgetfulness we must find ways of leaving notes to ourselves for future reference.  In fact, I would argue that this is part of our design, a life riddled with belated discoveries of the divine.

As we explore the photo-albums and journals of our journey, we begin to form a deeper sense of who we are.  We begin to own our scars, even to the point of affectionate celebration.  Our high points become sentimental reasons for humble and sincere gratitude as we remember them, and come to terms with the truth of their fleeting nature.  In the process of remembering where we’ve been and who we are, we are freer to chart our course and dream about who we will become.  The most enjoyable and sobering moment I encountered this morning as I read through some old blogs was this thought; the future is yet.  For all that God has taught, and the even deeper intimacy that has been, new lessons lay ahead.

It was at the end of High School that a youth leader challenged me to journal.  At first I hated it.  It was work, and still is a lot of the time.  However painful the task of keeping track of my days has been, the pay off has already proven worth it.  So here is the challenge.  How do we leave notes or trail markers for ourselves?  Journaling? Blogging?  Photography?  Painting? Song-writing?  If we don’t capture, record, and document our experiences somehow, we will likely forget, and as the memory slowly looses it’s clarity, a part of where we’ve been, who we are, and who we could be will also fade away.   

–

In case it wasn’t obvious, Alie and I found our way back to where we wanted to be…

This morning I woke up and did what I do most mornings, I ground some Jones coffee beans while I checked my facebook page for updates.  My waking eyes were drawn to the announcement of a brand new facebook service called Timeline.  I took the bait and got sucked into a fantastically communicated webpage chalked full of cool videos and hip font.  It didn’t take long for me to to get the “longing butterflies” (you know the excited feeling in your gut when you want something new, kind of like the “Christmas Eve bubbly’s”, or the “on-the-way-to-the-store-to-buy-something-new-and-cool-buzz”).  Essentially, the application works as a timeline of your entire life, done in the most sophisticated and media savvy fashion.  You can post pictures of yourself, highlights of your life, favorite quotes, formative moments, movie clips, and more all in chronological order from cradle to grave.  Anyone looking at your timeline can not only see who you are, but see your entire life story.   It’s pretty cool.

As I realized how I really wanted a Timeline of my life to show off, I started asking myself why.  It seems like more and more we’re striving to not only be known and remembered, but to attain significance.

—-

Recently I was jogging on a trail where I used to live.  The trail winds itself along a creek, crossing over the babbling stream periodically like a grapevine wraps around a trellis, through a series of wooden bridges.  The final bridge floats over the water in an area completely inclosed by trees, creating the feeling of a room or canopy.  Usually I pause for a moment here, to catch my breath, as the oak branches above protect me from the sun, and the flowing brooke below calms my mind.

One time as I silently stood in this spot I noticed an engraving on the wooden rail of the bridge.  It read “Eric Stevens was here, 2005″.  Some one wanted to leave their mark and be remembered, literally, I thought.

There seems to be a pattern in our behavior.  We want to be known.  We long to express the fact that we were here or there at one point in time – and it seems to be intrinsically woven into who were are.

—-

Why do we long so desperately to be remembered?  Why do we build intricate websites, construct companies, erect buildings, and carve our name onto trees?  What does this tell us about ourselves?

It doesn’t take long for one to look around at human culture and come to find that the desire to be remembered is a driving force behind so much of what we do.  A few weeks ago  we remembered the ten year anniversary of 9/11.  One of the most well known sayings or slogans I’ve seen on bumper-stickers and I heard that weekend is “Never Forget”.   It’s as if to us, the greatest tragedy of all would be that we would forget.   To forget about someone is as if they never existed.  Deep down the possibility of this fate, being forgotten, being unknown, being insignificant, haunts us.

So we build, write, accomplish, and conquer all with the hopes that others will know our name, providing our hearts and souls with the significance we urgently long for.  We tweet, post, and comment, waiting for a reply, waiting for someone to bear witness that we were here.

As I processed this seemingly essential characteristic of us humans I found a few ideas that I hope we can cling to in all of our striving to be remembered:

First is the idea that within each of us is the potential of offering relief to one another as we frantically attempt to leave a legacy. If each of us truly desires to be known by others, this means we are actually the remedy for those around us.  What if we lived lives that bore witness to the stories of one another by being present and intentional about knowing people?  This means listening, thinking about, and caring for others in a way that goes beyond just hanging out.  It means getting deeper, to the level within a person where you begin to know who they really are, both scars and strengths,  and choosing to celebrate their story.  I think if we begin to shift our focus from making sure our story is remembered, to bearing witness to the stories of others, we will begin to find a different level of significance that may in fact provide some relief to our neurotic and selfish legacy building endeavors.

Secondly, is the provocative concept that we already are remembered in a way that goes beyond what any Timeline page or name engraving can or will ever accomplish.  Our lives, every single aspect and moment of them, from our names to each one of our hairs, is known and cherished in the heart of God.  This is what is essential to Christian teaching, that before we even knew oursleves, or before we were even followed on twitter, God knows us.  He not only knows us, but he cherishes us.  He not only cherishes us, but he weeps for and with us.  He not only weeps for us, but he bleeds for us.  The core message of Christianity it that the most significant and important voice in all the realms and in all of history became a humble human and gave himself away.  Not only does he collectively choose to bear witness to all humanity, he personally and specifically and intimately knows each person.  I don’t know about you, but being known and loved by God far outweighs any sort of ego boost I might get by being known and remembered by others, and this is the foundation I hope we can build our significance on.

In conclusion:

It seems to me that all of our desires and longings to be known are in fact insatiable.  No level of wordly accomplishment or recognition will ever be enough.  It will take something other-worldly to satisfy.  How humbling the notion is that we are already remembered before we even tweeted or accomplished anything.

Here is a link to the Timeline introduction I watched this morning:  Timeline

For the past 8 or so years I worked for a medium/large contemporary church.  I loved my position, I believe in our cause, and I admire the community.  I can’t wait to be back.  While being engaged in church work for a time I began to see some patterns among church-goers and the church structure itself that I never felt comfortable bringing up.  Sadly, the Kingdom oriented body of church has become enamored with the business principles of markets. Because the organization of church operates on donations, and donations come from people, churches compete for the finite number of people in a given area.  We design and build programs to entice people to come to our services.  The winner ends up being the church who can have the coolest building, most inspiring speaker, and provide the congregation with the highest amount of “spiritual warm-fuzzies” (self focused, emotionally charged moments).  In so doing we lose sight of what makes us a global and historic community, we demonize our competitors, we starve and stunt our intimacy with the divine, and we encourage the consumption based approach to being a part of a church family.  Congregants no longer see church as a privilege or as a family, but rather a place to spend their “spiritual capital”, where the market of churches must prove that it’s deserving of a person’s time and contribution.  Usually the coolest, slickest, biggest church wins while the health of the larger community suffers.

Why it wounded me

In my time at our church I watched many families and friends become caught up by their consumption based appetite for spirituality, leading them away from our community (which was at one time the hip/cool/cutting edge church), to a church down the road that had a younger speaker and Starbucks coffee.  To be honest, it usually hurt when people left.  Some of those relationships were years old, filled with memories, personal investment, prayers and time.  Sometimes their move was veiled underneath an apparent frustration with the lack of “depth”, or a “questioning of leadership” but was usually just about feeding the hunger for “warm-fuzzies”.  While some issues are valid to bring up, their approach to resolving their frustrations was typically immature at best.  Instead of finding a way to serve and get more involved, or have a conversation with leadership they just left.  Just like a middle school dating relationship, one minute they were singing the churches praises, the next they were MIA, with no explanation offered.  What’s most frustrating is that many of these individuals were significantly impacted by the church, often it was the place that first welcomed them into a faith community, and for many it was the place they became Christians in the first place!  Unfortunately, most of those people were amnesic when it came to how their faith began in the first place and the immeasurable amount of sacrifices others have made to make that possible.  It’s like the suburban kid who was given everything and then in their teenage years complains that they have nothing.

Family vs a Show

This is not how family works.  Your family is something you cannot just get up and leave, or at least you shouldn’t.  It seems like modern social phenomena like divorce and child abandonment are seeping into the way we view our commitment to a church community.  If you aren’t feeling infatuated with your wife anymore, then it has become socially acceptable to trade her in for a new model.  This appears to be true with the modern american church as well.  Lost are the long-term commitments and scars that come from years of being intrenched with a certain group of broken people and their needs.  Instead we’re continually occupying ourselves with the surface layer, light shows, pop songs, and shallow 5-minute conversations.

Everyone suffers

When we choose the best sound systems, shows, and convenience over the challenge of remaining committed to a relationship with a church long-term, everyone suffers.  The health of the church suffers, the new-comers who might learn from the more seasoned congregants suffer, and the next generation suffers.  At one point during my time working with kids I had a student in my group who was connected and growing.  He was actively pursuing his faith beyond just showing up to the service on Sunday mornings.  Even though this young man seemed to be thriving, his parents seemed to be bored with the adult service.  Instead of finding ways to get more involved, to serve, or to “self feed” (something I believe we’ve neglected in training altogether in favor of getting more and more people to just show up), they just up and left after years of friendship and memories.  Naturally this hurt.  I had gone above and beyond to reach out to the student and his parents, but regardless of this, they saw church not as a family, but as a commodity to consume, and we weren’t the best product on the market anymore.  A few years later, after consistently trying to reach out to this student, he showed up and described how he has neglected his faith, mostly because he didn’t have the same depth of relationship with anyone at his new church.  Even though I really like the church he was going to with his folks, any church without community is powerless.

Who’s to blame

As I reflected on this, both then and now, I think the blames first lies with the larger church.  Leaders, cross-generationally, cross-culturally, and cross-denominationally, need to come to terms with the fact that to a certain extent, we are perpetuating the consumption based church model.  Once the leaders stop putting on commercials each week and start communicating the value of church as it is, in addition to what it means to be covenentally committed to a church community, then we can address individuals when they leave the church for reasons of vanity.  With this said, I also think that the blame lies with the individuals who have not done the work of remaining connected to a church even through rough seasons, making the church your family.

So what do we do?

I think it’s time to stop seeing church as a spiritual buffet, where we can sample everything we want, and continuously consume.  It’s time we pick one community, accept it for it’s inevitable flaws, and grow roots in the trenches of our new family.  When leadership changes arise, when programs get cancelled, or when we stop feeling the “warm-fuzzies”, we should remain committed, and it is then that I believe we we reap the fruit of weathering through storms that will most certainly come, realizing deeper intimacy with our church family, ourselves, and our God.