In context: we were talking about God’s immutability (unchangeableness) in a worship briefing last week and someone chimed that the word immutability always makes them think of God not being a mutant (here I resist a commentary on how pop culture has influenced the English language) - moving on…

I picked up Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy this week. I love Tozer’s vantage point, but there is always something that is left ‘wanting’ for me when I read this book. I’ll call him “Aquinas lite”. He hits the big ideas on God’s nature and holiness. He proclaims the Father. However, I wish He brought Jesus into the center of the discussion more often. That’s where Aquinas has him beat.

For those that don’t know, St. Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Catholic theologian who created one of the first ’systematic theologies’. Translation: he tried to examine every attribute of God, and the church. Impossible of course, but reveals he had a king’s heart to search out the depths. Being catholic, and medieval makes Aquinas a bit too lofty for most 20th century believers. His Treatise on the Incarnation covers pages 2973-3451. Of course, Aquinas has his problems, but I’m very forgiving of the medieval believers. It was a tough century.

Let me put it this way: What happens to the immutability of God when we consider this verse, “Jesus grew in stature”? I’ll tell you what happens, Jesus now redefines immutability through His incarnation. Whatever we thought immutability was, gets turned around. It is no longer conceptual, but about the nature of a man, or at least a trait and characteristic of a man.

I love incarnational theology. Keeping the central truth, Jesus, as central. Not that we have to ‘name drop’ Jesus; or implying that if we are not talking about Him 24/7 we are missing it, but our theology must come from Him and go towards Him.

One of my frustrations over the last week was in interactions with someone who is attached to their inability to change because of what they refer to as ’social conditioning’. I’m not a fan of this mentality.

Too many people paint themselves into a corner as a victim of their social or genetic circumstances - while I don’t deny we all have certain ‘unchangables’ - often people use their social status or genetic tendancies as their primary reason for doing what they do.

The bottom line is the power of God has the ability to transform our behaviors - to prevail over our family dysfunctions, social status, and even our genetic predispositions. The unfortunate reality is most people will never appeal to the power of God to transform them. They will continue to use their life circumstances as an excuse for their behavior.

This is essentially a means of self-justification. It is becoming disturbing how even the legal system is becoming attached to these theories to the degree of claiming morally and legally deviant behavior as genetically pre-determined. For example: some people are just ‘born’ with a predatory instinct related to children. This is a rabbit-hole that ends in the depths of hell. Suddenly murder, theft, and adultery become genetic pre-dispositions - not choices made in a human heart. Human choice is removed from the picture and we all become victims of our genetic code or our socio-ecomonic milieu.

The irony in this is that those humanists who shout the loudest for ‘human rights to choose’ - are the same ones claiming that we really don’t have much of a choice. We’re simply ‘born’ to murder, steal or lie.

Of course, this is the natural state of the unrenewed mind, to submit to a harsh master, a ‘ba’al’. In this case the master is genetically hard-wired, relentless and exerting it’s power from within our own DNA. Talk about a bleak future. Of course, one of the biggest proponents of this type of determinism is quite infamous: Adolph Hitler. He claimed that the genetic code of the ‘Aryan race’ was the answer to our problems - while the genetic ‘deviations’ of the Jewish race were the source of all of socities’ ills. Is this really a path we want to start down?

Again, it is obvious there are many things that are not within our power to see changed; but this list is far smaller than more people wish. God has placed within us His Spirit - the very power of God that brought forth all of creation. The good news is that our family situation, where we were born, or our ‘genetic predispositions’ are not what primarily defines us. God is the one who names us, changes us, and has the Divine right to determine our identity. That is good news indeed in my opinion.

 A Question of Conscience.

I’ve got a comment and I’ve got a question. Comment first.

The comment: In our poetry writer’s group tonight we looked at a poet, by a poet who is definitely not a Christian – yet my conscience is clear reading her work. Her themes aren’t explicitly anti-God (yes…theologians…I know that unredeemed people and ideas are all anti-God…but track with me for a minute). I mostly brought the poem to look at a few techniques, the general literary strength of the poem, and to examine the fact that her theme (introspective and personal) was something to actually be avoided in our poetry.

That said: My position is that the form of writing is such that it makes it easy to filter through falsehoods and resist ideas that are contrary to our established values. If we are aware of our values we can spit out the bones. Whether I read something depends upon my personal conscience. I feel that this is a secure, biblical stance. I would not approve all of the aforementioned author’s poetry b/c I haven’t read it all – but don’t feel conviction in reading it, nor examining it for learning practicals of construction related to form in poetry.

The question: It is a question “literally” of conscience – meaning:  If I could speak to that general thing referred to as conscience in the Bible, to whom would I be speaking? The key verse, one which is both well-beloved and much misused is Paul’s famous remark that: all things are acceptable but not all are beneficial. My understanding is that conscience is that power of reason within our soul, in agreement with the Spirit that determines whether something is acceptable and beneficial.

A key premise: I think music and film are in a different category than writing related to the conscience. Music and film are experientially immersive, writing is not. The mediums of film and music require that you submit to the entire product – you cannot sample ‘bites’ and be said to have ‘listened to’ or ‘watched’ a song or movie. You can sample writing.

Another supposition: We all know that it easy to disagree with a writer. We can comment on their blog, write in the margin, or simply skip a section or take our handy Sharpie and do a little ‘edit.’ We filter writing, we cannot (easily) filter film or music.

My question to you: Does my stance on writing and definition of conscience fit within Paul’s biblical framework of acceptable and beneficial? I believe it does. I believe to resist (in an absolute sense) non-Christian writing would be akin to refusing to receive healthcare from an non-Christian doctor or enter a building designed by a non-Christian architect, or eat food prepared a non-Christian chef, etc, etc. I believe it is the ideas of the author which threaten to corrupt, not the poem, article, or screenplay. When examined critically we can learn about the skill of writing from non-Christian sources.

A framework for disagreement: If you disagree, please comment; but I’d like you to do so acknowledging two key premises. 1) Not all literature labeled as Christian, sold at Christian bookstores, or marketed as Christian is edifying, biblical, or beneficial. 2) If we apply a high-degree of intensity to ‘sorting out’ which writing is acceptable and beneficial we must not limit it to certain formats (i.e. poetry or fiction) but apply it any form of writing which transmits ideas (periodicals, non-fiction, news, and commentaries).

Bret was bugging me - in the best sense of that word - and asked why I don’t post.

 I don’t know the answer to that question, but I said something about it not being my preferred format…blah…blah.

 Then I logged in last night and discovered that people still look at my blog - and that jenny powell did a whole schpeel (sp?) on how I’m cool and people should check out my blog. So…

 A quick announcement: I am starting a second ‘writer’s group’ dedicated to prose. The Friday night group will continue and be poetry only/(mostly). Details will soon follow on meeting time/place for the mid-week prose group. If the word prose is tripping you up, click on the link.

 Peace.

When you are in a bunker you become short-sighted, jumpy, and things feel cramped and lonely. It becomes easy to define yourself almost entirely by what you are against - at the risk of forgetting what you are for. Ultimately, this leads us to a rather dangerous elitism which sets our view as higher (and…have mercy Lord…more holy) that the church/movement/group, etc, that is located someplace else.

My point is this: we need to be quick to listen and slow to speak because the prayer movement that God is raising up (how many times have we heard our leaders say it?) is going to happen many places on the globe with many different expressions.

God is changing the understanding and expression of Christianity - that will be very messy. That’s good news and bad news because it means all of our sacred cows (that is the optional, personal, private predjudices and idols of our lives) are at risk of being killed and made into hamburger.

The good news: he’s given us God-TV and our support raising efforts to keep us humble. How many people know that we began broadcasting in Pakistan in May? Two cities (Karachi and Lahore…don’t ask me to pronounce the second one) in a predominently Muslim nation now see the Prayer Room. This thing called ‘our lives’ is out of our control. God-TV is a way for God to connect us profoundly to the lives of people with different values, personalities, languages, that all of our personal preferences will be deeply challenged.

Of course, if we are actively raising support (AHEM. I hope this is the case for most IHOP-KC staff) we get to experience the same internal shaking. My trip back to Pittsburgh brought me into contact with Episcopalians, urban missionaries, Mennonites, recovering Emergent church folks, a recent Harvard grad, representatives of the  “New Monasticism, missionaries to the Muslim world, and homeless people. In each case, I had the opportunity to affirm what God is doing in their lives, and invite them into what God is doing me.

We need to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Avoiding elitism will take our energy, time, finances, and above all, our patience. The bridal paradigm demands we be patient with those ‘outside’ of our lingo and expression of faith. Remember who you were before you spent six hours a day in prayer. God loved you in your weakness. He loves those who don’t have the privilages we have. Yes, we have privilages. We live in a greenhouse of God’s presence. We have privalages, we are rich.

Some may ask: What does that look like? I’ve got an answer to that. Get to know one of the teens here for the Summer Teen Internship - better yet - email KJ or Brent and tell them you have some floor space. Humility invites action, not pious thought.

I’m currently sitting in Mike and Tina Wurschmidt’s house, we are cooking out and things are getting a little surreal.  I’ve been awake for over 28 hours and counting.

 The beginnings of a support raising trip, starting with switching over to a daytime schedule so I can have meetings.  Did I mention things are surreal right now?  I’m in the middle of the Shepherd’s Heart Community and I just shared the excitement of the Borgious Pig….

 (TWO DAYS LATER)

I finally got to bed at 8PM that day. It’s now Sunday and the Wurschmidt clan (the folks who lead Shepherd’s Heart Fellowship) are all in town for Joel Wurschmidt’s graduation later today. Earlier in the week Tina indicated that since Joel is a “W” in a class of over 200 it could be a very LOOOONG graduation ceremony. I’m thrilled to be here to celebrate Joel but do not relish the idea of watching a slow procession of hundreds of unknown names and faces across the stage.

I’ll keep everyone updated on my continued journeys here in Pittsburgh over the next week.

(again - a repost to bring us up to speed for more on this topic)

So, we’ve already established that Zadok has about 291 days a year committed to fulfilling his commitments as an intercessory missionary. This alone, however, doesn’t really establish for us just how much he is actually working – since every hour of those days could be spent in a multitude of ways.

Let’s do the numbers on those 291 days.
291 x 24 hours in a day = 6984 potential ‘work hours’ a year

Of course, Zadok has to sleep and gets an average 8 hours a night. We’ll factor this into the number for rest at the end.

291 x 8 hours of sleep = 2328 sleep (rest)

That leaves us with 4656 potential waking hours for working. Zadok has been given grace by God to do the night watch – a lifestyle that suits his character as a contemplative and his predilections as a night owl – and he goes whole hog jumping into it for 6 hours each working day.
291 x 6 hours in the prayer room = 1746 hours in the prayer room

That brings him down to 2910 hours for the rest of his IHOP responsibilities and the mundane activities that make up the rest of life. A man of habit, he decides to clean IHOP four hours a day 6 days a week.
291 x 4 hours of service = 1164 hours in service

That brings him down to 1746 hours for personal household responsibilities. He’s a family man – and he’s consistent in helping his wife with the kids and the household chores for a solid 4 hours each day.
291 x 4 hours of ‘family time’ = 1164 hours of personal household labors

That leaves Zadok with 582 potential leisure hours a year – or about two hours every day. (And that’s for a workhorse who does a fourteen hour day six days a week.)

I’m not going to ask for a show of hands of people who regularly do a fourteen hour day.

If we add up those 582 hours with the hours spent sleeping – and factor them into our percentages – we get…
291 x 10 = 2910 hours of leisure in the average year

plus

73 days off x 24 hours = 1752 hours of leisure on days off

equals

4662 hours of leisure a year

divided by

8760 total hours in a year

equals

53% of hour time each year is spent in leisure, recreation or rest – with a fourteen hour work week six days a week (including sleep in leisure).

In a future post, we’ll compare these numbers with the ‘average American’ ratios for work and leisure - though I’ll tease you by letting you know that ‘technically’ we work more - but then, we haven’t defined work OR leisure yet - which could certainly turn things on their head.

Several months ago J. Diehl was asking what it meant to be a man - to be fully ‘in the club’ so to speak.

That’s a tricky question, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and thought it might serve to help if I talked about some principles that I feel contribute to maturity and stability in the lives of young men.

The first one is simple - and comes directly from David’s mouth. This was his charge to Solomon before he ‘went the way of all the earth:  Be strong, show yourself a man.

To put it another way:  you are male by birth, but you are a man by choice. It is self-evident that simply because a someone turns eighteen years old - he is not necessarily ‘a man’. (We’ve all me the unfortunate forty-year old who has yet to pass the test) Being a man involves many other factors - but I feel the primary factor is choice.

What you choose (and in a very real sense IF you choose) determines whether you stay a boy or emerge from the shadows of immaturity into strength. If anyone told you it would be easy they were not filled with the spirit of truth. It is a daily choice - and often a difficult choice. Embracing the difficulty, the labor, the toil with a humble spirit is a big piece of what shows you to have passed from boyhood (a state of constant dependancy and little consequential responsibilty) into manhood.

Show yourself a man:  Put another way. Don’t tell me that you are a man, but show me by what you choose. Show me by what you pursue. Show me by restraining your eyes, tongue, and $$$. Show me by serving with joy and not complaining.

More to follow…

I’m reposting this - and will be back in a writing flow through the summer:

Leisure and the Gospel: Zadok’s Labor and Rest

The last few weeks I’ve been thinking about the nature of rest related to the unique work of prayer which we engage in as intercessory missionaries at IHOP-KC. I’ve had the opportunity to engage in some discussions related to our revised absence policy – and thought it would be a good topic to examine critically over the next few weeks.

My basic premise is this: we have no idea how much time we spend ‘resting’ and how little time we spend ‘resting well’. When I say ‘we’ I mean myself as well. One would be hard-pressed to deny that we (in America) live in one of the most privilaged, entitlement-driven, self-serving cultures in human history. Because of this fact, I think an honest examination of the actual quantity AND quality of or leisure can only lead us further into the grace of God.

The question, ultimately, comes down to how the Bible defines work and labor and how the Bible defines rest, recuperation, and leisure, but before we get into the discussion as it relates to the Bible – I’d like to simply look at a few of the basic facts.

-the IHOP-KC missionary lifestyle - by the numbers -

The average IHOP-KC missionary – (we’ll call him ‘Zadok’) - has a ‘work-week’ of six days, assuming he takes one full Sabbath day off a week.

(6 x 52) = 312 ‘work-days’ a year

Then we subtract Zadok’s 21 personal days (any day off where he misses a scheduled sacred trust prayer meeting).

312 – 21 = 291 days

So that means Zadok is ‘working’ 291 days a year - (this assumes that he uses his 21 support/ministry days to do ministry and raise support – which certainly counts as work).

So Zadok ‘works’ 291 days a year (about 42 weeks), and he ‘rests’ an average of 74 days a year (about 10 weeks). Of course, there may be those who have all of their prayer meetings scheduled scheduled within a span 4-5 days – which would change these numbers radically – but we’ll stick with Zadok’s schedule for the sake of simplicity.

So, by the numbers about 80% of his days are spent working and about 20% are spent resting.

These numbers are a little deceiving, however – since every moment of those 291 days isn’t spent ‘working’ – within each day we spend a certain percentage of time working AND resting.

More numbers on that later.

There is a thoughtful (if i do say so myself) series coming on what it means to be ‘in the club.’ Ask Jared about the club. He’ll know what your talking about - and if he doesn’t tell him I told you to ask. And if not then, well, tell him we talked about it at the House of Pancakes one day.