A Few Days with Dallas Willard

God molded me in two different ways over the past two weeks. Both were spiritual challenges, but one came through the molding of my mind and the other the molding of my heart.

As I mentioned in the last post, I took two trips back to back. I'll cover the first trip in this post. The first was a conference with Dallas Willard as the keynote speaker. It is not an overstatement to say that Dr. Willard's work has been one of the most influential factors in my Christian life. To spend a few days with him listening to his insights on the state of human depravity and the call to make disciples of Christ-like character was both a thrill and a challenge. It was an honor to be able to sit down with a man like this and thank him for the influence he has been on my life.

A few quotes will give you a taste of my experience:

On the question of original design: "What did God create us to be? For many Christians there is no answer to this question."

On the source of the human problem: "All of the troubles and failures of human existence are rooted in failure to think rightly about God."

On the Lord's prayer: "Unless we desire to hallow his name, then we will not want his kingdom to come or his will to be done."

On the full message of the Gospel: "Put your confidence in Jesus and live with him as a disciple now in the present Kingdom of God."

On the question of who we are: "You are a never ceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe."

On the relationship between faith and knowledge: "We are a people of knowledge, not of faith. Faith is based on knowledge." "It is on the basis of knowledge that people come to faith."

On the sermon on the mount: "We make a mistake when we try to do the things in the sermon rather than trying to become the kind of person who would do these things naturally."

On the relationship between grace and effort: "Grace is God accomplishing in my life what I cannot accomplish on my own." "Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Those touched by grace exert tremendous responsive effort."

On the use of God's commandments: "Once you begin to grow in the Christian life, you see that God's commandments are a natural expression of who we are."

On becoming like Jesus: "As Jesus' apprentice I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of God as he would lead it if he were I. I am with him in all my circumstances learning to be like him."

Dr. Willard's thought inspires to think more deeply about my spiritual growth. We are told to be renewed through the transformation of our minds, and I believe Dr. Willard is a Spirit-led guide for those pursuing this sort of transformation. If you are thinking of reading something from him, I highly recommend The Spirit of the Disciplines.

2 Weeks, 2 Extraordinary Trips

Tomorrow morning I set out on a two week whirlwind trip that will take me to both exotic Zimbabwe and exotic Wisconsin. You heard me, exotic Wisconsin.

Though I have to kiss my family goodbye and send them off to Michigan to stay with family, which I'm not excited about, I am excited about these two trips I'll be making back-to-back over the next two weeks. First, I'll be hanging out with about 40 other pastors in Green Lake, WI. Our host? Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy at USC and and author of some of the best books you'll ever read on spiritual growth, spiritual discipline, and life in Christ. His big ones are The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines, but almost everything he writes is golden.

On Friday I come home for two days; long enough to wash my clothes and repack. Then it's off to Zimbabwe where I will be staying with a small team at an orphanage just outside of Bulawayo. There I will be doing some work projects, playing with the children, and preaching. Mostly what I will be doing is working with my friend and travel companion John Hetrick to learn about the orphanage for the possibility of future partnership.

I'm sure I'll have plenty to share when I return. Please pray that God will use this time both to pour out his Spirit in me and to use me for solid ministry. Also ask God to make the time away from my wife and son bearable. Thanks.

How Do You Start Your Day?

Here's a bit of biblical teaching that absolutely astounds me with its clarity and depth. It is from a wonderful but weighty book entitled Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Lovelace. Lovelace addresses what I believe to be the principle problem for both guilt-ridden Christians and nominal religious people.

Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God's holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that conciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification... drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.

Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand on Luther's platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

Sadly I think Lovelace is exactly right. Justification is God's legal pronouncement that we as Christians are pardoned because of the substitute death of Jesus. That is the ground of all our hope. And yet, I meet people within the church all the time that cannot articulate this hope, and it's clear that being justified by Christ's sacrifice and being bathed in Christ's righteousness (his sinless right standing before God) is not where they draw their strength and joy. The guilty hand-wringers feel like they haven't done enough to earn God's favor and the cultural religious types see no need for a deep, passionate embrace of the Gospel that results is a transformed life. It would not be an overstatement to say nearly every counseling situation I have had falls into one of these two errors.

Thankfully, Lovelace and Luther's answer to this problem is also entirely accurate. In fact, it is the core of the Gospel message: you are accepted. You cannot earn acceptance by cleaning up your life, but you can lean on the acceptance of God in Christ and let that truth turn your life into passionate, sanctified worship. In Jesus, you are accepted. If this truth is the fuel of your life, it will drive you into the relaxed "quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude."

Amazing Grace on the Field

As a life-long fan of the Detroit Tigers, allow me to throw my hat in the ring with all the others who have commented on the extraordinary events surrounding the Tigers vs. Indians game last week. Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game, but a blown call by first base umpire Jim Joyce robbed Galarraga of his spot in history as only the 21st pitcher ever to retire 27 batters in a row, and the first in Tiger's history.

What makes this story extaordinary is not the blown call. That happens all the time. It's not even the perfect game, though that's why everyone is taking such notice. In my opinion, what is truly amazing is the outpouring of grace by Galarraga himself that began the moment the call was blown and history was lost. You see, it was Galarraga himself who covered first base for the final out. He was the one who caught the ball and looked to the umpire for the out-signal. And in that moment, when Galarraga's hands started to climb to the air in victory, and he saw the safe call from Jim Joyce, all Galarraga did was smile. He smiled.

I was watching the game. I was yelling at the screen, nearly waking my son. And my anger compounded when seconds later I was subjected to viewing the replay from about 6 angles, all clearly portraying a not-even-close out. But not Galarraga. He just walked back out and coaxed a ground ball from the next guy, giving him the only 28 out perfect game in MLB history.

Grace. This is costly grace. When he saw the replay, Galarraga simply said, "Nobody's perfect. Everyone is human." He's right. But it's one thing to say that in retrospect, when the emotions subside. It takes a new level of grace all together to let this be your guide in the heat of the moment when it costs you everything.

The next day, Galarraga walked the line-up card out to a very contrite, emotional Jim Joyce standing at the plate. This is normally a task for the manager, but in perhaps the classiest move I have ever seen in sports, Tiger's manager Jim Leyland asked Galarraga to walk out there. And with grace unbounded, he not only gave Joyce the card, but shook his hand and showed the sporting world the power of forgiving grace.

Are We Really Ready for This?

In a letter to one of his missionaries, Jack Miller, a pastor and the founder of World Harvest Mission, discussed his desire to see the churches he wanted to plant grow in biblical character. Miller wanted to move beyond a small, human-sized vision to embrace a grand, God-sized mission, but he also understood the sacrifice required. Here is a portion of that letter that challenges me as I think about the new visions being formed by the various outreach bodies of my church. (The North he references here is Brownlow North, a Presbyterian leader who challenged his church about the lack of prayer and leadership development within the church.)

Our aim is to gain a bigger vision for what God can do in church planting and mobilizing leaders. As I believe you have put it, "I have been thinking too much about planting a single church, when I should also be thinking about how we can moblize and train our own missionaries and leaders to plant 200 churches..."

The rest of us share your vision, I do believe. But if North is right about us, then we have problems. It simply cannot happen unless we learn to pray better and train better--and also to think more clearly. We all have a heart burden to plant churches in the world's darkest places. But think for a moment. This requires sacrifice, suffering, endurance, even death on the part of American and national missionaries. Are we really ready for this?

I do believe that of ourselves we would never be ready. But in spite of our many weaknesses, I am persuaded we are moving in the right direction. The glory is all God's.

Three items draw my attention here and deeply humble me as a pastor.

1. We are right to seek the bigger vision of God. It is good for God's people to be so passionate for his glory that we want to see the Gospel proclaimed everywhere. We don't need to settle for what is currently working, or even for what seems possible. If God gives us a vision for what seems impossible, we should pursue it and assume the Holy Spirit will act in ways we cannot.

2. We will almost certainly underestimate the cost of God's bigger vision. That first point makes me feel good. This one doesn't. To press into God's bigger vision does not mean we will be safe or happy. All wars have casualties, and it was Jesus himself who said that those who lose their lives for his sake and the Gospel's will find eternal life. Sometimes we lose our lives metaphorically by obedience and sometimes we lose our lives physically by obedience. But make no mistake, all followers of Jesus lose their lives. And if we embrace a greater vision given to us by God, it will certainly come with greater personal sacrifice. Miller is right to ask, "Are we really ready for this?"

3. To achieve God's bigger vision, we need to pray, train, and even think better. If we are going to embrace a grand, God-sized vision for our ministry, and we know with it will come greater sacrifice, then we need to prepare spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and even physically. If we are going to do greater things as a church, we need to pray more fervently and think through the plans with more clarity. I know that I have a tendency to assume I can do more work without exerting more effort; that somehow success will just "happen." But the fact is God calls his church to pray, work, and think hard. That's why he gave us a day to rest: he knows how hard we need to work to do our part in the Kingdom of God!

Contemporvant Worship

There's a new video getting a lot of attention around the web in evangelical circles. I'm not sure what to think of it. It's very funny. I love parody, especially when it's produced by those who are making fun of themselves (This was produced by North Point, a big church in Atlanta that looks just like this.) I'm 32, so I'm supposed to like this sort of service, and sometimes I do. Most of the time, though, I prefer a more contemplative form of worship that prizes Scripture reading, communion, corporate prayer, and lengthy expository preaching. But I see a place for sevices like this, and I think elements of these services should be incorporated into all church services. So I'm torn. Watch it and decide how it makes you feel.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

You Give and Take Away...

How do you understand the trials of life? Do you explain them away? Do you believe there are certain aspects of reality over which God has no control? Or do you, like Job, James, Paul, Peter, and Jesus himself, give God the glory for everything, understanding that he is in full control?

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

Hudson Taylor on Leadership

In his book Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders records a letter that the missionary Hudson Taylor sent to his secretary while serving in China. In the letter, Taylor outlined 6 areas he felt needed improvement within China Inland Mission, the organization he founded. The 6 points are pretty insightful for pastors, leaders at all levels within the church, and really for leaders anywhere.

I have listed them here in Taylor's words, followed by a brief description of each offered by Sanders.

Improve the character of the work
The leader must discover which departments are functioning below standards and remedy the defect.

Deepen the piety, devotion, and success of the workers
The spiritual health of the leadership group should be the top concern among higher echelon leadership.

Remove stones of stumbling, if possible
Friction among a team should be minimized. When problems are neglected, morale drops and performance decreases. If the problem has a remedy, it should be put into place at once.

Oil the wheels where they stick
Warm relationships among team members are vital. Some workers prefer to administer; others want to love people. Only the latter are leaders.

Amend whatever is defective
Creating problems is easy; solving them is difficult. The leader must face the problem realistically, and follow through until the solution is reached.

Supplement, as far as may be, what is lacking
Criticizing plans is easier than creating them. The leader must see the goal clearly, plan imaginatively, and employ tactics that lead to success. In this department there is always a short supply of people ready and qualified to perform.

In these points I see both my own weaknesses, strengths, and the weaknesses and strengths of the teams with which I work.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

If you're downtown tomorrow afternoon, be sure to check out the Cinco de May block party between King St. and the Square all along Main St. And be sure to stop by the King Street Church booth, which will be near the KSC Main St. office. It should be a really good time.

If you're wondering, Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the unlikely victory of Mexican forces over the invading French army in 1862. It is not Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated Sept.16. You can read an excellent article here.

What I find most interesting about the history of Cinco de Mayo is that this French invasion was taking place during the middle of the U.S. Civil War. There was a significant threat during the Civil War that France and England would join forces with the Confederate army in order to secure cotton imports. Had the Mexicans not held off France in 1862, France would have been in a very good position to help the Confederates and there may have been a different ending to the war in the north.

So if you love the U.S., you should be thankful for Cinco de Mayo and our neighbors to the south! Viva la Mexico!

Antony Flew Dies

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Antony Flew was a British philosopher renowned for his commitment to atheism. He was an author and debater committed to the notion that in the absence of confirming evidence, and by that he meant scientific evidence, one should not hold to belief in God. He held this view from the age of 15 to the the age of 81.

When he turned 81, Antony Flew changed his mind.

Al Mohler wrote a very good article here, in which he processes Flew's transformation from an evangelical perspective.

One of the most striking aspects of Flew's change of mind is his willingness to radically shift his worldview later in life and in the face of his legacy. The man wrote dozens of books arguing for the futility and nonsense of belief in God, and then, when impressed by theistic philosophers and the discoveries of design through scientific inquiry, he was willing to set aside his life's work and accept the view of his partners in the debate at the age of 81.

There is much to learn from Antony Flew, not the least of which is that there is something far more important than human ego. There is truth.