Jesus Jazz

What If?

2008-03-03T11:09:00.038-07:00

What if…?

Let your imagination run wild. How would you finish the question ... What if?

The first thought that comes to your mind might be something personal like:

What if I had someone who loved me?
What if I had more money?
What if I painted my house?

It might be something that feels more whimsical, like:

What if we could fly (without an airplane)?
What if coffee and gas were both less than a buck?
What if Superman wore Jack Bauer pajamas?

Your what if question might be something more cosmic like:

What if God did not exist … or did exist?
What if there was no hunger or poverty?
What if there was a cure to cancer or AIDS?

The band Coldplay asks

what if there was no light, nothing wrong, nothing right? What if there was no time and no reason or rhyme?

To dream, to wonder, and to imagine is part of what makes us human. Whatever your question or dream might be, let it be something.

Many consider the definitive song of John Lennon's life to be his invitation for the world to imagine. Before he was shot, he wondered outloud:

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people, living in peace.

The imaginations of regular people change the world. There was an unknown farm boy who, of all things, liked to draw. His name was Walt Disney. There were the dreams of a young man who grew up in the segregation of inner-city Atlanta named Martin King. There is the constant wondering of a nerd who began by tinkering in the garage. His name is Bill Gates. The stories go on and on. Most amazing, there is you and me.

What question would you ask? What if …?

I wonder, what if we started inviting people to ask the question, what if? What if we began dreaming together about what could be, and what might happen if it was? We are collecting questions and need your help. Let’s have fun with this. Would you:

Take a moment now and over the next couple weeks to write what if questions? What immediately comes to your mind? Jot down any questions that jump out to you. Brainstorming is fun because anything is allowable. If it comes to mind, write it down. Don’t judge or evaluate it. Let’s collect as many ideas as possible. Click the “Comments” link below to add your ideas right now. I also encourage you to continue to think about it and come back to add more. You have the option of remaining anonymous if you like. Please don’t be shy. Go for it! It’s good for the soul.
Send this link to as many of your friends to invite them to brainstorm with us. The sky is the limit. Let’s start a dreaming movement. It doesn’t matter what a person’s background is, where they live or what their spiritual beliefs are. Let’s make the imagination as global as possible. Simply e-mail your friends and ask them to imagine with us by clicking the link What If .... to add their questions to the collection!

Someone once wrote that God

is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us (Ephesians 3:20).

I am inspired by these words because they invite us to imagine. Too many people hesitate to wonder and dream. These words not only kindle imagination, they tell us we reflect God’s image when we do. They tell us that God begins where the height of our imaginations leave off. When that happens, the world changes.

What if?

Click below to leave your What If questions 6 or comments.

Living A Caucus Life

2008-02-22T11:36:00.010-07:00

My wife and I showed up excited to vote. It was presidential caucus day in Colorado, our first since moving to the state. We met after work and arrived at 4:00 in the afternoon. We were surprised to be greeted by signs: Caucus Tonight 7:00.

We were used to primaries. Stay with me on this. At primaries a person shows up at a convenient time during the day, steps into the privacy of a voting booth, casts their secret ballot and leaves having fulfilled their civic duty. It is an important, furtive, private affair.

Caucuses are different. Rather than individuals showing up at a convenient time in the day, they show up at the appointed time. Rather than slipping into the privacy of a booth, you step into a gathering of your immediate neighbors. Rather than a private secret ballot, each person literally takes a public stand for their candidate. Primaries are stealthy, caucuses are boldly public.

“So, how does this work?” I asked a man standing in front of me in line to check in. “This is my first caucus. We just moved here.”

“It’s my first caucus too,” he answered, “but I’ve lived here over 30 years.”

It was the first time he felt it was important enough to take a public stand. He explained there was more at stake now than any time he could remember.

Most States have moved to primaries. People prefer them. They are more convenient. They are private. There is no risk of your stand being exposed to public scrutiny. Primaries let us think what we want without having to say anything. We like it that way.

In some ways I believe we have lost something as a nation and as individuals by moving from caucuses to primaries. Taking a stand requires personal responsibility. It invites thoughtful reflection. It necessitates meaningful dialogue. It puts a higher value on the wellbeing of the whole community than a priority of personal camouflage.

The movement from caucus to primary politics in our culture is paralleled in faith. Many prefer being primary disciples rather than caucus disciples. We prefer to participate when it is convenient rather than showing up at the appointed time (I am not simply talking about church attendance here. Being an apprentice of Jesus is much deeper than that.) We prefer to follow Jesus in the isolation of a spiritual booth rather than engaging our neighbors in plain sight. We would rather cast a private ballot for Jesus than take a public stand.

Don’t get me wrong. People can be annoying as they stump for their candidate at a political caucus. The annoying ones do little to constructively represent their candidate or advance their cause. However, much is accomplished by those who boldly represent their candidate through articulate dialogue and meaningful engagement with others.

Similarly, people can be annoying as they stump for Jesus. They too do little to represent Him or advance His cause. However, on a much deeper level, a great deal is accomplished by those who boldly represent Him through articulate dialogue and meaningful engagement with others.

The world is in desperate need for caucus Christians who are articulate and represent the Kingdom of God through meaningful engagement. The call to follow Jesus is the call to step out of the façade of a privatized booth of spirituality to take a meaningful public stand through the content of our lives.

Paul said people like that are beautiful. The idea wasn’t new. He quoted Isaiah who said:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7, cf. Romans 10:15)

Paul made it sound like this kind of beautiful life is also urgent. Eugene Peterson translates Paul’s words that follow:

“But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?” (Romans 10:14-15, The Message)

How can people hear the good news if votes are cast in silent isolation? How can they see if we live sequestered behind the curtain of privatized spirituality? Primary Christianity is preoccupied with anonymous self-preservation. Caucus Jesus followers passionately embody the good news out loud with grace and truth. There is much at stake for a watching world.

The man checking in before me at the caucus felt this year’s election was important enough to take a public stand. He was convinced there was more at stake now than any time he could remember. As true as that may be about American politics, there will be another caucus and election in four years with new candidates and rhetoric.

If his urgency around this year’s election is high enough to get him out to take a public stand for the first time in thirty years, how much more urgent is the need for grace and truth-filled public stands of the one Gospel that lasts? That may seem obvious, but our watching world wouldn’t necessarily know it by how they see us vote. Because it matters for a watching desperate world, it also matters to our watching Lord. Jesus said:

"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self? If any of you are ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." Luke 9:24-26

He later added:

“I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever publicly disowns me will be disowned before the angels of God.” Luke 12:8-9

I am not suggesting Jesus is a political candidate. He frustrated many and liberated others because he transcends nationalism and political correctness. He is not up for election. His reign is secure by Who He is and what He has done. At the end of the day, we don’t elect Him, He elects us to represent Him in the caucus of our contemporary world. This is your appointed time for His redemptive cause in our broken world. He has assigned us to the precinct of our neighborhoods. It’s time to show up, step up and take a stand.

What do you think? Please click "Comments" 6 to leave yours.

Looking Poverty in the Face

2008-01-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

What happens when poverty has the face of a child?

It can mess you up.

But poverty is too big to have a face, isn't it? It’s an enormous, blurry, ugly reality … out there. Half the world’s six billion people live on less than $2 per day. Global poverty’s not a face, it’s a blur. We are left to feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of it. What could we do anyway? The attempt to make a difference feels like we are emptying a pail of water in our hand. Anything caught is at best a proverbial drop in the bucket.

Something as big as global poverty can’t have a face of someone so small anyway, can it? Even if did, how would we recognize a face that doesn’t live in our neighborhood?

I met Marcello in rural central Ecuador the day before yesterday. I was there to see the work of Compassion International first hand. Marcello is a handsome, soft-spoken 12-year old boy. He lives with his four sisters and parents in a small two room, dirt-floor home. Most reading this blog may consider their humble home too rundown to use as an outdoor shed.

I was humbled by their hospitality and graciousness. Marcello’s mom and dad love their children and sacrifice daily for them. They are filled with hopes and dreams. In that way, they are not unlike any parents in our own neighborhoods.

They also love God and trust Him - for their very survival. Marcello and his family give a face to the oft preferred, easily ignored, vague blur of poverty. They give a godly face; faces you cannot ignore. When I look away from Marcello’s face, I look away from the face of God. Jesus said:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40.

Jesus was talking about the hungry, the thirsty, and the imprisoned. He was talking about the poor. Jesus didn’t say “whatever you did for all these brothers and sisters of mine.” He said “whatever you did for one.” Poverty is addressed one life at a time, one Marcello at a time, one face at a time.

Facing poverty is at the heart of God because it is facing people made in His image. Perhaps the greatest form of poverty is the convenient attempts to see it as an ambiguous distant blur rather than the reality of people loved by God. Half the world lives on two dollars a day, and half the world is under the age of 16. Can there be a more compelling call for those set apart to bear witness to what is at the heart of God? In an interview with Christianity Today, Bono said:

"A third of the Earth's population is incarcerated by poverty. It is, as they say, the drive of the Scriptures. Why isn't it the drive of the churches?"

All the resources necessary to stamp out the degrading affects of global poverty are available, should the hearts of Christians break for what breaks the heart of God. It is doable, one life at a time through communities of Jesus followers in partnership with ministries like Compassion International and World Vision.

How we treat the poor, Jesus said, is the same as how we treat Him. If you knew Jesus was poor, how would you respond? Really; what would you do? Even more, what did Jesus do in the face of our poverty? How far did He willingly go for you, me and our impoverished world? Marcello (and his sister in the photo above) give poverty a face. In their face we discover Jesus.

So, what happens when poverty has a face?

What do you think? Please click "Comments" 6 to leave yours.

What's Your Dream?

2008-01-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

“I have a dream!” These words of MLK are known by people of all ages and used by those across all political persuasions. MLK has become a symbol and these four words the banner. They evoke emotion and imagination. Of all the millions of words he spoke before equal numbers of people, these four from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial remain synonymous with his identity. His influence continues, already making an adolescent appearance in the current presidential race.

Today businesses, schools, banks, post offices – and even churches take a rest to remember the man and his mark on our culture. He is more universally popular today in America than he was when he walked in Birmingham, or when he stood on the steps in Washington or when he died in Memphis. He had a dream – a prophetic dream. Unfortunately, the content of the rest of his speech and dream is less remembered than the inspiration that he had one.

King’s life and work are most often and rightly remembered as prophetic inspiration. I will never forget first visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church and the MLK National Museum and Memorial in Atlanta. The museum preserves much of the content of his life in the past while inviting conversation and imagination for the future. The site includes MLK’s elevated tomb in the middle of a reflection pool. I found it so profoundly moving that I brought the rest of my family to experience it during our summer vacation only a few months later.

With my profound admiration, there are details of his life and work I don’t completely agree with. He didn’t expect people to. How we remember King’s legacy would be more important to King than the fact that we do. An Associated Press article put it this way:

That does a disservice to both King and society, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. By freezing him at that point, by putting him on a pedestal of perfection that doesn't acknowledge his complex views, "it makes it impossible both for us to find to new leaders and for us to aspire to leadership," Harris-Lacewell said. … "If we forget that, then it seems like the only people we can get behind must be popular," Harris-Lacewell said. "Following King meant following the unpopular road, not the popular one."

In that way, King’s life followed Jesus’ example. Jesus’ life challenged the dominant power structures of His day. Jesus’ identification and advocacy for the marginalized were dangerous for the status quo. His Kingdom dream was revolutionary and unpopular. He was on the unpopular road to Calvary. Nobody wants to be on that road. Yet, it was the necessary and only road that led to the redemption of the world.

Jesus said:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? If any of you are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34-38

What are practical ways you and I can follow Jesus’ prophetic inspiration in our real world today? What is the most pressing “social” issue in America for you? (Before you read further, take a moment to cast your vote with one click using the poll at the top of the page).

The Barna Group released its most recent findings today on what Americans say are the current top social issues in the country. These are especially interesting in an election year. The top three might surprise you. Based on their polling research across the country:

Americans are troubled by a diverse palette of concerns. Three types of issues are of particular concern, perceived as "major" problems facing the country by three-quarters of the population. Those included poverty (78%), the personal debt of individual Americans (78%), and HIV/AIDS (76%). (You can find the rest of their detailed findings and where other issues ranked at: http://www.barna.org/.)

What do you think these results say about us? What does Jesus’ Dream of the redemption of the world mean in practical terms for our daily life and society? What do those who follow Jesus need to recognize or do to make a real prophetic difference? What is your dream?

What do you think? Please click the comments 6 to leave yours.

Exhilarating!

2008-01-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

Exhilarating!

~ The thrill of flying down a mountain on skis with the sun and wind hitting your face.

~ Gorgeous vistas only possible at these elevations. (This photo was taken on a ski summit at a little over 13,000 feet overlooking the Loveland Pass in the Rocky Mountains).

~ Enjoying the day with my family on the slopes filled with new memories and comfort zones.

The list sounds a little like a MasterCard commercial that ends with the word ... Priceless. In some ways it was.

Yesterday we spent the day skiiing and snowboarding as a family in the Rocky Mountains. It was a rare opportunity and gift. My sons ventured onto snowboards for the first time and tore it up. My daughter was awesome on skis. It felt great for my wife and I to be back on the slopes together. It was a day of awe and worship.

The conversation in the car on the way home was animated and interesting. One of my kids said "What a great day! It pushed me beyond my comfort zones, which is good for me." Another said, "I realized that one of the secrets of skiing and snowboarding is confidence. When you hestitate you fall. You just have to relax and go for it." I loved where the conversation was going. I was thrilled for their new discoveries about skiing - and life.

Successful downhill skiing is counter-intuitive. For example, there is the importance of putting your weight on your downhill ski. Everything in a new skiier wants to keep the weight on the uphill ski. It sounds safer and less risky. It is also the sure fire way to go nowhere, or more often, to become intimate with the snow! It leads those who keep doing it to ask "is this all there is?" Making a turn with your weight on your downhill ski feels more risky at first. It aims you, at least for a moment, straight down the hill. However, it is in that risk one gains momentum and direction. As my son said, "you just have to relax and go for it."

The exilaration of life and following Jesus is similar (John 10:10). Our inclination is to put our weight on the uphill ski of self-preoccupation and self-preservation. Everything in us and around us promotes what one author called "self-addiction." Those who keep putting their weight on this uphill ski go no where, or worse. It also leads people to ask "is this all there is?"

Jesus said counter-intuitive unexpected things like "The Son of Man has come not to be served, but to serve and to give himself as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). He later said "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you" (John 13:15).

Mark Labberton has done a marvelous job in his new book The Dangerous Act of Worship to call us back to the urgent neighbor-loving world-changing worship rooted in God's radical and freeing love. It was recalibrating for me as I begin this new year. In his final chapter he challenges all of us who put our weight on life's uphill ski:

The consequence of this unshakable love of God is that it sets us free from the compulsion we have to protect and provide for ourselves, so instead we can turn our hearts and energies toward others. When we are held by the unbreakable lifeline of Jesus Christ, we can reach out to others. ...

Jesus says wake up! ...
Are we ready to live life in God in our town, or do we still insist on living in our town and try to fit God in? .
Are we willing to let the gospel do the deep redefining work of establishing us in our new humanity, or will we only let it do a little sprucing up?
The Dangerous Act of Worship, Mark Labberton, pages 182-184

Putting our weight on the downhill ski is an intentional choice - on the slopes and in life. It is the only way to experience the thrill of flying down the mountain with the sun and wind hitting your face. It is the only way to experience gorgeous vistas only possible at these elevations. It is the only way of making new memories and comfort zones. It is the only way to follow Jesus and live the life we were created for.

How will your new year be intentionally different? What does keeping your weight on the uphill ski of your life look like? What would it mean to put your weight on the downhill ski of radically trusting Jesus in this new year? What would it mean for a community of Jesus followers?

As my son discovered again: relax and go for it!

Exhilarating!

What do you think? Please click the comments link 6 to leave yours.

Living in Anticipation ... The Day After

2007-12-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

The countdown began sometime around Halloween. Deadlines heighten urgency. Retailers remind us how many shopping days we have left. The frenzy escalates as time grows short. Concerts, parties, decorations and expectations unique to this season transform our daily lives. In all its forms, it is the anticipation of Christmas.

Then it hits. The anticipation of Christmas climaxes as a whirlwind. Expectations, celebrations, traditions, and surprises all meet. At the end of the day, the carefully decorated packages, plates of food and living rooms meet their purpose. Torn wrapping paper, empty boxes, dirty dishes and a variety of emotions are strewn around the house as evidence. Old memories are relived; new memories are made. Another Christmas has come … and gone.

Or has it? How does the anticipation and reality of Christmas affect the day after? Does Christmas day mark the end of something long anticipated, or the beginning of a new way of anticipating life? This season I have reflected on and been deeply moved by a quote from Frederick Buechner:

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If the holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant's child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him that he comes most fully.

Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark

Christmas is God’s radical action and declaration that things are not over. Because He loves you and this world, there is no telling when and where He might show up. There is no place He won’t. Anticipation is no longer for a season; it is a transforming way of life that moves us to the edge of our seat. That’s why some of Jesus’ last words in the Bible intentionally assure us that:

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

Revelation 21:5

For centuries, followers of Jesus have celebrated the anticipation of his arrival – His first coming and His second coming. They have called it Advent, a word which means “to come.” He is Emmanuel. He has arrived on the scene. He is with you. He is with us. The good news isn’t just that He was here, but he is here. He is actively present in the world – and nothing is out of His reach. He is making everything new.

It beckons me to live in a way that joins Him in His edge-of-the seat anticipation as a way of life. It challenges me to ask not only what I can anticipate from Him, but what is He anticipating from me? That changes everything.

What does that look like for you? How might His radical presence affect our relationships and how we relate to people? How does it change how we view the world and what is going on in it? How does it impact the challenges we face? How does it affect our lives as followers of Jesus and the church as His anticipation-filled people? How might the world be different because of our edge-of-the-seat anticipation?

What do you think? Click comments (below 6) to leave yours.

Mission Possible

2007-12-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

“Here is your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

A dangerous assignment was always attached to this message in the popular Mission Impossible television programs and movie trilogy. People were glued to the screen because the message, with its attached mission would always be urgent, difficult, exciting and … impossible.

The community of Jesus followers has a message with an attached mission. The mission is urgent, difficult, exciting and … seemingly impossible. That has never been more true than it is now.

It fascinates me how new epochs of church life and history parallel epochal changes in global communication. Does anything define a culture more than its language and forms of communication? At the heart of the Church’s com-mission is to translate the Gospel through its words, actions and life. Any act of translation always begins with an understanding of the culture and language one desires to communicate with. Done well, that process also leads to trust.

Much has been written about how we live in a time of epochal shifts in Western culture and communication. These shifts are multi-faceted and simultaneous. For many, they are disorienting and disconcerting. For example, people used to look to a few established “trusted news sources” for credible interpretations of what was going on in the world. Today, the institutional news establishments are declining; people are turning instead to the ever-growing interpretive options of blogs and alternative sources. Current technology allows access to a seemingly infinite assortment of platforms at our fingertips. This monumental shift is moving our Western culture from a hierarchal structure of power and communication (where a few control the printing presses and network broadcasts) to a flattened structure where virtually anyone can have a voice – including mine on this blog. Thanks for choosing to read! We live in a world of an increasing democratization of ideas. Sally Morganthaler described it well in her chapter of the book An Emergent Manifesto of Hope:

Now eighty-year-old Uncle Harold can post his very own book review on Amazon.com. Aunt Sarah can finally sell her Hummel collection, not at the neighborhood garage sale, but on eBay. Now we have Google in our hip pockets, and our cell phones double as personal computers, televisions, cameras, video recorders, and stereo systems. … Suddenly it actually matters that we exist, that we live in a certain place and time.

(An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, Chapter 15: Leadership in a Flattened World, Sally Morgenthaler, page 177)

The shifts in culture and communication taking place around us are changing how people perceive themselves and their own voices in the world. This is liberating for many. However it threatens the existing structures and positions of power. It is also unsettling for those who find their security in the existing structures and positions.

What does this mean for the community of Jesus followers? Some suggest it means we have to batten down the hatches to resist these shifts. We need to redouble our efforts to reclaim lost ground and control, they say. There is fear that the multiplicity of voices will lead to chaos. The church exists to preserve the past, including its forms and structures of communication, right? This passionate point of view has a long history that dates back to the time of Jesus. Religious leaders worked hard to preserve the prominence of their power, structure and voice. Contrary voices would be nailed silent.

Jesus is a revolutionary. He kept giving voice to the marginalized. He kept asking questions like “what about you? What do you say?” He gave the outcast a broadcast. With Jesus, their voices had the interested ear of God. Jesus was more concerned with people not speaking than with what they might say. In an uncanny way, Jesus never compromised the truth He embodied by silencing those without a voice. He engaged people in dialogue, and extended unlimited value in the process.

A few years ago the leadership of a church I was serving decided to employ a marketing research company to better understand what self-described unchurched young adults were looking for spiritually. We set up ten focus groups throughout the day, each lasting two and a half hours. One participant described her experience of churches to be places where they wanted your time and money, but didn’t care what you thought. In fact, worship services were primarily set up so someone up front could tell you what to think. She was frustrated that her common church experience was never a time of dialogue. After two and a half hours of focus group discussion, another participant said “if church was like this, I would give my life to it.” I sat there stunned.

This time of epochal shifts in culture and communication is an incredible opportunity for the Church to reflect the nature and message of Jesus. We can resist these massive changes or we can engage people in the conversation. We live in a new and changing culture that requires translating the Gospel in languages emerging generations understand. That happens through dialogue where every voice has an opportunity to be heard and encountered. To be honest, it is easier to try to control and preserve the structures of our past than it is to open ourselves up to engaging people where they are. The first option tells the world you can come in if you want to be like us. The second goes out to discover where and who people are. In these places and moments, people can discover Jesus. In these conversations we carry out the mission by translating the message. This mission attached to a message is much more urgent, difficult, exciting and possible -- should we choose to accept it.

What do you think?