Author Archives: hummingbird

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Imagining Glory

 

“Now we see dimly; then, face to face.”

Not, perhaps, the most utilized portion of I Corinthians 13 at the ubiquitous summer wedding – but oddly, one of my favorite parts of the familiar chapter. It seems to distill the essence of faith: trust that we will eventually see “face to face” what we now discern only dimly, in fragments and sketches.

“Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Do we really believe we can know in part now? Postmodern instincts have eroded much of the basic confidence necessary to make simple statements of what we know; not what we believe, but what we know. If we can know, not fully, but truly – then we have that glimpse of the reflection.

What will we see face to face? The mysteries of the atom? Perhaps. A headcount of mysterious sea creatures inhabiting Loch Ness? (Fingers crossed.) Or the knee-bending, earth-shattering reality of Glorious Love? Of Triune Love, in all its glory? We get tantalizing hints of holy glory, sneak peeks of thunderous love and galaxy-spinning Triune chuckles. The book of Revelation teases us with vibrant portraits of the cacophonous zoo that is heaven – or is it Eden? No, and yet – paradise.

Glory is a concept a bit neglected by 21st century Americans – nonbelievers and faith-followers alike. We’ve been Goodyear-blimped and hyped and wowed and spectacled. Conversely, we’ve been flooded by dystopian literature that has all the arresting charm of London’s post-war architecture. We’ve dissected ourselves in the flickering light of the basement morgue and labeled the result “monster” (vampire, anyone?). We may be impressed or depressed but rarely awed.

And that’s where love comes in. Love, the gateway to awe. Awe – the suspicion of glory. Holy love – beating from the heart of the Trinity, sacrificing itself and leaving awe in its wake, awe opening our minds to the possibility of unforeseen glory.

Imagining glory keeps us human. To glimpse glory is to receive grace, the kind that results in plain, sunburned lips uttering “truly this was the Son of God!” To glimpse glory is to receive grace, the kind that cauterizes and compels:

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

We need to discipline ourselves to notice glimpses of glory; these close encounters are a means of grace.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Hospital Field Trips and Spiritual Training: Why Kids Should Learn to Make Hospital Visits

As a grown-up, I traveled to a hospital once to visit a friend who’d had surgery. A mutual friend accompanied me. I watched his anxiety with amusement. He was anxious about how to find the elevators, anxious about reading the hospital map, anxious about the visit itself. I discovered that this otherwise rational, intelligent adult was uneasy and uncomfortable in hospitals. Meanwhile, I felt relaxed and confident.

It took a while to understand why. Finally, I blurted to him, “but I’ve been doing this since I was a kid!”

And it was true.

My regularly ill grandparents had been hospitalized locally from time to time and my Mom would take me to see them for brief visits.

Later, when she entered pastoral ministry, she occasionally took me with her on hospital visits. I wasn’t completely conscious at the time of all that I was learning.

And in the past year, my young son has put on his beloved fedora and accompanied me to the hospital – twice. Once when he was three, once when he was four.

I can hear the gasps. “You’re a pastor and you took a three year old on a hospital visit? You’re brave!” Or even, “but that’s unprofessional!” Or “I’d never have the nerve to take my kids on hospital calls, what if they act up?”

So here’s why I think it’s valuable to take kids with you to hospitals, and a few tips on how to have a good visit.

When you take a child to visit someone who’s ill, it teaches them to think of people other than themselves. It inherently widens their perspective and begins to instill compassion. You can frame it something like this: “So-and-so is sick. We want to let them know we love them and are sad that they don’t feel well. Let’s pray for them, and let’s thank God that today we feel good.” After I took my four year old son to visit an elderly church member, I wasn’t sure what he would take away from it. I found out a couple nights later. “Jack, who do you especially want to pray for tonight?” “For Bobbie who we saw in the hoppitall.” I was surprised but pleased. So we prayed for Bobbie.

When you take a child to visit someone who’s ill, it provides your kid with an opportunity to ask about sickness, bodies, and death. I know – not conversations any parent relishes having. But kids learn about these concepts either through deliberate chats or through osmosis – and when they learn through osmosis, you don’t know what misunderstandings or fears they may be developing. These don’t have to be conversations that breed neuroses (either for kid or parent!), but rather are opportunities to talk about faith, pain, hurt, loss, death, resurrection, and hope.

And, dear ones, if you have unsettled emotions about some of these topics, you’ll likely be avoiding them whether you realize it or not. I find one of the most helpful things to keep in mind is the simple phrase “age appropriate.” How can I answer the questions my kid has both honestly and age appropriately? If you feel ill-prepared, take advantage of some great resources out there; you and your kids can grow and process together.

When you take a child to visit someone who’s ill, it gives them a great foundation for future hospital visits of a more personal nature. If you take kids to a hospital, then when it’s their grandparent or even parent or themselves, they have some frame of reference for the experience. And it has introduced not only the sensory world of elevators and hospital beds and IV racks, but also some concepts that may help guide them through grief and pain. Which is easier, to talk about how sometimes bodies don’t work right before a beloved grandparent is in the hospital, or in the midst of a crisis when you as a parent are likely upset as well?

And when you take a child to visit someone who’s ill, you brighten the day of a lot of people. When my four year old accompanies me in his jaunty fedora and rain boots, I see a wave of grins spread over the faces of nurses and aides, of doctors and family members, and of the patients themselves. Hospitals are difficult environments. A large percentage of doctors are burned out. Nurses encounter difficult or rude or racist patients. Dealing with the loss of a patient can be hard on physicians. Those in the medical field work long hours away from their own kids. Children can be – they are not always, but they can be – a ray of sunshine on a difficult day.

So what are some steps you can take to guide the experience into “ray of sunshine” territory and not “hurricane of disaster”?

1.) Describe what kids will likely see and prepare them in advance for what will be said and done. The first time I took Jack – a three year old obsessed with vehicles and machinery – I emphasized that sensory world of motion. We will park in a parking garage with lots of cars. We’ll walk across a street with lots of traffic. We’ll go into a building and visit the potty. We’ll ride an elevator way up high and would take a break to look out the window at all the cars far below. We’ll spray foam hand sanitizer on our hands. We‘ll go to her room where she is lying in a bed that bends up with lots of buttons. Important buttons. Buttons we’re not allowed to touch. She might have a tube in her arm that puts medicine in her body. When we go in, he should say he hopes she feels better soon. Mama will ask her how she’s feeling and will listen while she talks. Mama will pray. We won’t stay long because she’s sick and doesn’t feel good. We’ll leave the room and spray more hand sanitizer on our hands. Then we get to ride the elevator again. And if Jack follows hospital rules, he will get a prize from the prize bucket when he gets home.

He got the prize.

2.) Choose visits that you know aren’t end-of-life or requiring special visit gear. There are many hospital visits you can make appropriately with kids. But use common sense: if a person is in the last days of his life, likely there will be a lot of family in the room; you may be able to take a 12 year old into that environment, but not a four year old. Often, surgeries don’t start when they are supposed to or end at the estimated time – not a good environment for attempting to care for the needs of a small child while connecting with family members. If someone has an infectious disease or compromised immune system for which you have to wear a mask or gown and gloves, you’re looking at a solo visit. In this context, spiritual care for the patient is primary and the gravity of the situation will dictate the appropriate availability of the spiritual caregiver.

3.) Keep it short. Usually, those in the hospital don’t feel well – something so obvious it can easily be forgotten. And most patients aren’t willing to tell friends or extended family that the three-hour visit is tiring them out. If they’ve had testing or a procedure done that day, they’ll likely be particularly drained, and some medications will leave them woozy or nauseous or confused. So keep it short, but leave a token – kids particularly enjoy presenting flowers or a balloon or even a card. And when you keep the visit short, you’re able to curtail it before the small fry gets bored or distracted.

One of the side effects of the amazing specialized hospital care we have in modern life is individualization – most North American hospitals don’t have “wards” anymore, communal rooms. And with this individualization comes certain barriers.

But the Body of Christ is called to be community – with. I believe physical presence matters; it is important. We must physically be with those in hospitals, in nursing homes, in Hospice care. If someone is sick or dying we act as if we must stay away. Instead, let’s act like we can’t stay away.

And let’s teach our kids to feel comfortable in medical environments. What if physicians in every hospital knew Christians by their willingness to quietly, cheerfully, sensitively share their time with the ill, or knew them as the people who were always leaving snacks or flowers for the break room?

Now that could revolutionize health care.

Kimberly Reisman ~ The Strong Name of the Trinity

I’ve got a lot of Irish in me. Lots of Malone’s & Patrick’s and Lilly’s dot my family tree. Plus a good deal of English and even some Native American – two of my great grandmothers on my dad’s side were Choctaw.

It also draws me to Celtic spirituality. A while back I used a book, A Song for Every Morning by John Davies for my devotional time. The subtitle is Dedication and Defiance with the St. Patrick’s Breastplate. I’m thinking it was the Celtic influence that caught my eye when I bought the book, but it may have been that I’m just attracted to anything that has the words dedication and defiance in the subtitle.

St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a wonderful morning prayer. It was probably written about 300 years after St. Patrick’s time but no matter. It’s powerful no matter who wrote it or when. Soon we’ll be celebrating Trinity Sunday, so this prayer feels timely; but that very timeliness is unfortunate in a way; because this is a prayer that should start our days far more often than on a single Sunday.

Translated from the Irish the first stanza reads:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the Threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

In the early part of the 20th century it was put into hymn form:

I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

Understanding the Trinity isn’t very easy. A little over two months ago Phil Tallon lamented that we don’t focus on the Trinity more than we do. He asserted – and I think he’s right – that if we thought about it more, it might not be such a confusing concept.

Yet, despite my (and Phil’s) desire to explore the Trinity more often, it remains difficult for most people and it’s definitely not something we start off with when we think about our faith. We usually add it on at the end, like a bow on a present after it’s wrapped – after we’ve talked about God as our creator and Jesus as our redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as our sustainer, we try to sum everything up by referring to the Trinity. In my mind, that just seems to make it all the more confusing.

A Celtic understanding of the spirituality the Trinity on the other hand isn’t as much a problem as it is a blessing. I like that. Not that it’s going to solve the whole mystery – why would we ever think our minds are big enough to get around the whole God thing anyway? Anyone who thinks they can give a complete description of God is either unbelievably arrogant or delusional. But the symbol of the Trinity hints at something wonderful. I like where the threeness in oneness takes me.

The problem for me is that our culture seems to be all about polarities. Everything comes in twos and each one is usually the polar opposite of the other. Or at least that’s what the culture says – male/female – young/old – rich/poor – liberal/conservative – extravert/introvert. If we don’t fit on one side or the other we at least have to find someway to fit on the spectrum in between.

But maybe life isn’t all about polarities. Maybe things come in threes? There’s space in threes. Instead of a line with two points, maybe we should think about triangles with three points. Maybe it’s not about locating yourself on a line between two opposites but about moving around a triangle.

In the Bible, the meaning of the names Joshua and Jesus is “Savior.” Davies points out that the underlying idea of savior is “one who gives space.” I don’t know how you feel about that, but it resonates with my spirit. I can bind myself to a God who’s spacious, who is a space-maker.

Early in my ministry I was told that I was “gender confused.” You can imagine how that rocked my world. What prompted the comment was that I was a woman going into a “man’s” field – ministry. The person who said this thought it was odd that I showed so many “male” traits; yet, was so “feminine” at the same time. Apparently the fact that I love to wear nail polish, am a sucker for the latest fashion, and can’t pass a shoe store without being sorely tempted didn’t jive with my assertiveness, confidence and tendency to move into roles of leadership – or so I was told.

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three – the space-maker who is the source of my freedom, the one who empowers me to defy the forces that seek to restrict me to unbending characterizations or rigid roles.

Yet even as I bind myself to this God, I have to stay watchful and alert. It is easy to become complicit with and conformed to our culture. As Christ followers we are called to stand in opposition to such conformity. If it is wrong, we’ve got to stand in defiance.

But our spirituality can’t always be about opposition. Opposition isn’t nourishing in the long run. That’s the blessing of our spacious Three in One and One in Three. It may be mystery. It may only hint at a way of understanding God. But it’s a beautiful hint, a blessing of a mystery. A space-making understanding that leaves room for the divine yes.

Kimberly Reisman ~ Sleeping Right Through

My husband, John, is a soccer nut. Did you know that soccer is being played somewhere in the world at all times? It is. I know this. I know because the magic of digital cable brings it right into our living room. A lot.

That sounds a bit snarky on my part, but I actually love it. I love watching the Premier league and Barca & Real Madrid. Nothing beats curling up in a blanket on the couch in our basement and watching a good match. Every now and then, however, I’ll decide to close my eyes – just for few minutes – which inevitably leads to a nap (another thing I love.) The only downside is that when I wake up the game is almost always over.

Have you ever noticed that when you fall asleep the game doesn’t stop for you? The game will always go on even if you’re sleeping right through.

I suppose there are worse things than sleeping through a soccer match. That’s what I try to remind myself when I realize I’ve slept right through; but that experience reminds me that there’s an even more costly kind of sleep – spiritual sleep – when we go to sleep on the inside and become oblivious to the God-part of us.

When I nap, I’m oblivious to what is going on around me. Spiritual sleep is like that only instead of losing physical consciousness, we lose spiritual consciousness. We sleep right through all the things God is doing around us and we’re not aware of God’s presence or able to sense God’s direction in our life.

When my kids were growing up I would always check on them before I went to bed. Just go in and look at them, maybe give them a soft kiss if I could get away with it. My middle daughter, Maggie was always very aware of this habit and it meant a lot to her because sometimes she would wake up and accuse me of not checking on her. And every time I’d have to say, “Yes, Maggie, I did check on you. I just didn’t wake you up.”

Even though I was really there – in her room, right next to her bed, she was oblivious to my presence. When we’re spiritually asleep, even though God is intimately involved, right there with us, present with us, even speaking to us – we’re oblivious and unaware.

Now I’m not talking about being comatose. There are always going to be times when we’re jolted into consciousness. Maybe something intense happens in our life – either intensely good or intensely bad – and that intensity is enough to wake us up. But it usually takes something pretty major.

When I think about the resurrection that’s one of the things I think of. This huge God-jolt that’s big enough, intense enough to wake us up. It’s so powerful you don’t have to be right with Jesus to experience the miracle – even 2000 years later we’re still feeling the reverberations of that God energy released through the resurrection. That’s the way it is with miracles of God really. God never draws a circle around miracles and says “ok, we’ll do it right here.”

Sometimes I wonder whether or not as Christ followers we might be asleep, and if we are whether we actually like it that way. We can ask other people who won the game, find out what God was doing, but still stay safely oblivious. The problem with that is that God doesn’t stop the game just because we’re asleep. God actually doesn’t even wait for us to wake up. God just keeps on playing, keeps on doing God’s thing regardless of whether we sleep right through.

When I think about my own life though, and how it felt to suddenly “wake up,” it makes me sad that people might be sleeping right through the amazing things God is doing. It’s like you’re in some kind of dream state, thinking you understand who you are, and then all of a sudden you wake up and discover a part of you, you never realized was there – this whole new self in there that you never knew about.

Apart from marking one of the most world transforming phenomena in history, Easter is about experiencing the present reverberations of that mind-blowing event 2000 years ago. It’s about being jolted awake. In the resurrection God wakes up the sleeping part of your heart, the part that has been asleep to God. God wakes up those dreams God has placed in your heart that have always been there but that you were only vaguely aware of. Suddenly you realize that there is this incredibly exciting game going on and it’s unfolding right in front of you; and you don’t have to sleep through it but can actually be a part of it. That’s a pretty powerful jolt.

That’s why it’s important to keep talking about it. That’s why Easter doesn’t stop at Easter. That kind of God energy can’t be contained in a one day, once a year celebration.

If you know me, you know I’m not a big morning person. When the alarm goes off I don’t just hop out of bed. There’s always that choice to hit snooze and roll over for a few more minutes. That’s the way it is on our spiritual journeys as well. We can either get up or hit snooze; but no matter what we choose, the game is going to go on – with or without us.

Here’s the deal with the whole alarm clock thing – the wake part is God’s work, and God did a pretty good job of it in releasing all that God energy into the world 2000 years ago. But now it’s the get-up part. The question is, are we going to sleep right through?

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Way Roads Shape Us

I’ll bet there are roads you could drive blindfolded if you really needed to.

Maybe it’s the road from your house to the entrance of your subdivision, or the route you take to work, or the circuitous path you carve in your daily routine – stop, start, turn, pause, start again. The rhythm of acceleration, brake, the swing of the vehicle as you round a curve – commuters, too, know the rhythm of train stations and bus stops, so that travel becomes second nature.

We see the construction workers and construction equipment so big it nearly qualifies as a building on treads that squelch their way through mud and we think we build roads; oh, maybe not you and me. But our proxies are out in all weather spreading hot asphalt and leveling hills, that’s us – that’s Our Civilization Out There Building Roads. We think we build the roads.

I think the roads build us.

Recently I returned to central Kentucky, where I had lived for several years. I’d been away a while, and when I came back I was confronted with a new highway snaking through the rolling horse farms where an old one used to be; safer, undoubtedly, but out of sync with the old drive.

It was disorienting. I found glimpses of familiarity in unfamiliar proximity and proportion. Finally I discovered remnants of the old highway remained, running parallel to the new installation, and immediately pulled onto the original road. My body relaxed. Here was a landmark. There was a familiar farm. I knew the curves of the aged tumbling stone wall that marked old boundaries. The lift of the hills, the force of the turns – it was almost like muscle memory.

Hikers will tell you to leave your surroundings as untouched as possible, to preserve nature, to protect wildlife. But whatever trail you take, you won’t remain untouched. The path itself will have shaped you in some way.

Maybe that’s part of the reason that, over and over again, God reminded the Israelites to tear down the high places – those elevated perches of idolatry. Those paths needed to grow over and be forgotten. Those trails needed to be neglected; new roads needed to be established. Those muscles needed new memories. We hear stories of absent-minded drivers accidentally driving to their old place of work, or their old house – the same principle.

We think we shape the landscape, but the roads are shaping us.

How is it that the angle of a foot planted on a sidewalk can feel familiar? But it can. And the angle of the soul is similarly directed and shaped.

What roads are shaping you? The sentimental route to a loved ones’ house? The familiar trip to Sunday worship? The freeway journey to your job? The worn path trailing down to a beloved grave that you tend? The swaying course of a city bus to night class?

It’s best to be mindful of what roads are shaping you. Roads can be sly, shifting you this way and that when you’re lulled into complacency. Once, while driving, I mindlessly followed the person I was supposed to be following, only to look up and discover I’d been led past a Do Not Enter sign and was driving headfirst into oncoming traffic.

Examine your roads.

They shape you when you’re not looking.

And as pilgrims, we’re called to be mindful travelers.

 

 

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Too Big To Fail

“Too big to fail.”

A few years ago – and it doesn’t matter what your personal political opinion was on the government bailout of American automakers – this phrase rang repeatedly in American consciousness.

These businesses were too big to fail. We couldn’t afford to lose them, no matter the cost. They were essential to our identity and our economic well-being. Of course, the argument itself was faulty. Since when do the merits of saving something – or attempting to save something – rest solely on its size? Nonetheless, Americans were pressured to act with these four words. Too big to fail.

It’s an interesting concept – too big to fail. What about the church? Can a Christian denomination ever be too big to fail?

Certainly, the Roman Catholic Church had immense power and wealth stored up – in the year 1516. The year before a monk hammered a long notice into some wooden doors.

(That’d be Martin Luther.)

And I’ve wondered if a similar sentiment is present behind increasingly urgent calls for unity within the United Methodist Church – that the denomination is too big to fail. It’s certainly been part of the fabric of North American life for a couple of centuries (going back to its origins on this continent, and not just to its most recent incarnation since The Merger of ’68). Before the locomotive connected sea to shining sea, there were Methodists. Before Wilbur and Orville Wright, there were Methodists. Before the stock market crash of ’29, there were Methodists. Before Neil Armstrong left a boot print in lunar dust, there were Methodists. Before the World Wide Web, there were Methodists.

The Main Street Methodist church has an almost Rockwell quality to it, like Woolworth’s used to. And all of these industrious Methodists sent missionaries around the world, and now it’s a global denomination, too, and has been, for years. But even if Methodists are the apple pie on the American religious potluck table – are they too big to fail?

Have we fallen prey to the idea that others can’t do without us? After all, the world – not to mention the Kingdom of God – will continue, UMC or no UMC. It would be egocentric in the extreme to suggest otherwise.

But it is my belief that the Methodist movement has value in the family tree of the faith. And Methodism was a movement, before any Main Street churches ever became a fixture in thousands of communities in our country. After all, John Wesley never set out to create a denomination; he was a Church of England lad, if not quite a proper one.

In fact, Methodism almost had the feel of a religious order in its infancy – the kind that St. Benedict or St. Francis set up within the Roman Catholic Church. There was a strict rule of life (have you read those questions early Methodists had to ask each other regularly?!), and Methodism was a sect in the context of a larger body of believers (originally, the Church of England).

And if the roots of Methodism do have the feel of a religious order, how might that affect how we understand our identity today?

The Methodist movement, as it grew, was an expression of a calling that all were invited to, but few were likely to be interested in.

Wesley organized the movement to maintain a high expectation of lifestyle among members. Methodists served anybody, kept little, and went anywhere. They were teased – or criticized – or violently chased – for always being preoccupied with preaching, the Bible, and prayer (though perhaps less teased for their regular care for the poor and the imprisoned and ill).

Taken together, it’s almost a description of a Protestant monastic order that intersected with public life: a religious order for that beloved Protestant cry, the priesthood of all believers.

This Methodist movement didn’t start out too big to fail – only, perhaps, too eccentric to last. And certainly not mainline.

No historical or cultural expression of the Body of Christ is too big to fail – though it may be too big to survive. And that’s alright. If we perceive ourselves as too big to fail, then we’ve actually already failed – at least in our sense of prevenient grace, and in the awareness of our roots as an odd Protestant religious order.

All I know is, I’m more interested in taking part in the Methodist movement than I am in being a member of a certain denomination.

Which I think Wesley would’ve understood all too well.

Kimberly Reisman ~ The Sacred Right of Refusal

About this time back in 2006 I wrote a post about Abdul Rahman, who caused quite a stir across the world when he was put on trial in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity – he faced the death penalty. At the time, Afghanistan’s constitution was based on Islamic law, which holds that any Muslim who chooses to become a Christian is to be put to death. That’s why senior Muslim clerics – both hardliners and moderates – demanded that Rahman be executed.

As you might expect, there were a lot of facets to the controversy.

There was a political aspect, which necessitated attention from President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It was pretty touchy and western aid and support seemed to hang in the balance. The trial also raised a values issue – western verses Islamic – including the irony that Muslims living in the west are afforded rights which Christians living in Islamic countries are denied. Religious leaders from across the Christian community – Protestant and Roman Catholic – and across the world – Germany, Italy, the United States – voiced their concerns. For a brief period of time, the fate of Abdul Rahman was at the forefront of media attention.

In the end, Rahman was released on a technicality and was able to receive asylum in Italy. I have no idea what became of him. The media and the world moved on to other controversies and attention grabbing events.

But for whatever reason, I continue to recall Abdul Rahman. One reason may be the marked contrast it highlights between Islam and the Jesus way. At the time, Rahman stated, “I am not an infidel or a fugitive. I am a Christian. If they want to sentence me to death, I accept that.” He chose to stand firm in his choice to be a Christ follower and it’s that choice that provides the contrast.

At the heart of the Jesus way is the revelation that God desires to be in a relationship of love with each one of us. God is constantly seeking and searching, aggressively pursuing us and reaching out to us in order to offer love and forgiveness, wholeness and restoration. That reaching culminates in the event of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s ultimate offer of love to the world.

Yet even as God seeks and searches, pursues and reaches out, God never forces, manipulates, coerces or bullies us into relationship. God may seek, but we must always respond. Even those who have grown up in the Christian faith – who are “Christian by accident of birth” – must eventually respond. And our response is sacred. God honors that response – even if human Christ followers have a hard time doing the same. God will never stop reaching, but God always honors our sacred right of refusal or acceptance. One of the beautiful things about the Wesleyan understanding of the Jesus way is that it highlights this sacred right of refusal or acceptance. We are always free – to respond in love to the love God so graciously offers us, or to decline God’s offer of love – to go our own way.

The fact that Abdul Rahman was in danger of having his head chopped off because he chose to become a Christian tells me that this isn’t the nature of the god of Islam. Clerics stated that because Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace, Rahman would have been forgiven if he had changed his mind and returned to Islam. But short of recanting his newfound faith, he was destined for the death penalty.

Obviously Muslims freely welcome those converting to Islam; in fact Islam is openly evangelistic. The intent of Islam is to convert as many people as possible and countless people in the course of history have been forced to convert. This isn’t a popular fact – it seems much more acceptable to highlight the Christian missteps in this regard – but it’s true nonetheless. But converting to Islam wasn’t what put Rahman’s life in jeopardy, it was choosing another way that so endangered him.

Because I believe that Jesus Christ is God’s ultimate gift of love to the world – God’s ultimate self-revelation – it’s a sad day for me when someone willingly chooses to reject that gift of love. But being a Christ follower includes an obligation to offer love, care and respect to all persons – even those who have rejected us and the God we serve. That’s a foundational element of faith in Jesus Christ. Our failure to always adhere to that foundational element doesn’t alter the fact that it exists. Yet clearly in Islam there’s no sacred right of refusal at all. Clearly, rejecting Islam isn’t an option unless you’re prepared to die.

So I’m left with a stunning contrast – and it’s not just the contrasting way governments balance civil and religious issues. It’s the contrast between two gods. On one side stands a God who honors each human being’s sacred right of refusal – who honors each person’s freedom to respond in love to the love offered, or to go his or her own way. On the other stands a very different god – a god who doesn’t recognize that freedom – who is insulted and demands that followers defend this god against humiliation by executing anyone who chooses a different course.

Some have said the Abdul Rahman controversy was more about democracy and the freedoms it affords than it was about religion. Though my response is that the seeds of democracy are to be found in the Jesus way, the reason the controversy remains in my mind even decades later is much deeper than that.

When I recall Abdul Rahman, I recall the magnificent love offered in Jesus Christ – a love that comes to us freely and waits for our response without pressure or manipulation; a love that respects our sacred right of refusal; a love that Abdul Rahman was willing to die for. And that’s a love worth sharing.

Kimberly Reisman ~ The Beautiful Gate

I recently returned from a two-week trip to Nigeria. I will be processing my experiences there for quite some time, but one encounter impressed me greatly and returned to my mind when I read a recent post by John Meunier – We Are All Disabled. Like John, my thoughts are not fully formed on the theological issues raised by disability – I’ve never been encouraged to actually contemplate it. But for some reason, I keep returning to it as a significant topic of reflection. While in Lagos, my conversation with Ayuba Buri Gufram intensified that interest.

Ayuba contracted polio as a child and has never walked upright on his feet. Instead, at least until he was a young adult, he crawled on the ground like most other polo survivors in Nigeria. Unlike others, however, his family kept him in their home rather than turning him out to survive alone by begging, or, as some families do, place him as an apprentice with a more experienced beggar in order to develop his skills, before then turning him out to go solo. Rather than these options, Ayuba’s family kept him at home. He was able to go to school for a while, but the fees were expensive and his father did not see the need to continue to send him.

The turning point came when Ayuba was able to obtain a wheelchair. That was a game changer. He was able to go to school for the first time in years, he met his future wife, and he discovered his life mission – to give polio survivors the opportunity to stop crawling on the ground.

Ayuba founded Beautiful Gate, an organization dedicated to building uniquely designed wheelchairs for children disabled by polio. This is definitely a cause worth supporting, but that’s not what I want to explore here.

The name, Beautiful Gate, is taken from the story of Peter and the crippled beggar in Acts 3. Peter and John go to the temple for prayers and encounter a crippled beggar at the entrance area called The Beautiful Gate. Every day this man’s friends would bring him to the Beautiful Gate where he would beg for money. The climax of the story is when Peter heals this man, and rightly so. But from Ayuba’s perspective two other details are significant.

First, the man’s friends brought him to the Beautiful Gate each day. For Ayuba, that was a sign of caring and devotion. But his next question is a valid one: Why did they leave him at the gate? Why not take him all the way in? Did they not understand that he had spiritual needs as well?

Now I understand that there are all kinds of scholarly answers to Ayuba’s question – laws about purity, understandings of sin, disease, and punishment. But those scholarly answers make his question even more poignant, did they not understand that he had spiritual needs?

For Ayuba, the fact that the beggar had spiritual needs is emphasized by what happens when Peter heals him – the man immediately enters the temple praising God. Certainly, his praise is appropriate; after all, he’s just been healed. As significant as the healing is, however, Ayuba goes on to ask another question: Might the man have wanted to praise God before he was healed? Each day, as he sat outside the temple, might he have wanted to bring all kinds of things to God in worship and prayer – his praise, his supplication, his intercession?

Obviously the beggar’s healing is worthy of praise, and it provides the opportunity for Peter to preach to the crowd that gathers, which is of course, a main focus of the overall story. But what about the man? Was he only defined by his crippled condition, which others determined placed him outside the context of worship? Was he only defined by his crippled condition, which others assumed gave him no reason to praise?

Ayuba left me much to think about. My tendency is to move to the theoretical – to ask wide open questions like, as Christians, who are we leaving at the gate? Or, what are our preconceived notions about praise and our reasons for offering it? Those are good questions, worthy of contemplation and conversation.

But Ayuba is less interested in the theoretical than the practical. And so he asks, what about this man, this crippled beggar who is sitting at the gate, this man with spiritual needs and reasons for praise? What about him? And I’m left thinking that’s where I need to start as well.

Elizabeth Glass-Turner ~ Folk Religion & Ford Pick-Ups: How a Missiological Approach can Transform Small-Town Ministry

I’m a Yankee.

Specifically, I was born in central Michigan, where the air is scented with pine needles and damp sand.

I live in northeastern Texas – a region known for its own Piney Woods – but a world away from the cornfields of the Midwest, where I grew up.

It may seem like a small question, but how does someone from the Big Ten have a fruitful ministry in Texas when, just a few years ago, she neither knew nor cared about the famed University of Texas vs. Texas A & M rivalry?

I remember asking seminary friends who hailed from Texas (and a proud, boisterous lot they were) where, in the Lone Star state, they were from. They would tell me (proudly and boisterously) and all I could return was a blank, uncomprehending smile. One friend told me that she had gone to Texas A & M. This was accompanied by an air of deep significance, like a secret handshake or a password.

If she had said University of Michigan or Michigan State, I would have comprehended; Purdue or IU, I would have known intuitively that she was stamping her identity, proclaiming her camp.

After living in Texas for several years, I sent her a message on Facebook: I get it now.

Cultural elitists from coastal metropolises probably see all small towns in the flyover zone as one in the same.

They, in fact, are not: a reality borne in on me in my first year of pastoral ministry – and this “profound” reflection came from pastor’s kid – and not only a pastor’s kid, but a pastor’s niece, and a pastor’s granddaughter, and a pastor’s daughter-in-law. I grew up swimming in pastors. The windows I looked out of as a child were parsonage windows. How could I be surprised that local context mattered?

Luckily, the Texan-ness of Texas seemed foreign to me, and that was beneficial, even if it yielded some culture shock – because I automatically began to respond, not so much as a local pastor, but as a missionary. (Please don’t be offended, Texans – I invite any Texan who moves to Michigan to view those inscrutable northerners in precisely the same way.)

Specifically, of all my ministry classes in college and seminary, I drew on “Primal and Folk Religions” and “Contextual Theology” as resources. Not because I have witch doctors feeding baby chickens poison in order to divine whether or not a woman is telling the truth, but rather, because every culture has symbols that carry meaning – explicit and implicit – and language, traditions and acts carry layers of meaning that sometimes take decades for anthropologists to tease out and discern.

I couldn’t afford decades.

My little frontier church was lurching towards disaster when I arrived. For years part of a two-point charge, congregants seemed accustomed to a certain level of benign neglect. Immediately before I arrived, the charge was split; but so, too, was the level of employment: the church would have its own pastor, but the pastor would be part-time.

So I had a church in decline with wistful memories of full pews,  a spate of deaths leaving raw grief, and an identity crisis – in the midst of a regional context that centered on agricultural and environmental disaster in the form of an epically damaging drought that affected the economy at state, regional and local levels.

Here are a few missiological principles that helped to breed renewal, optimism and fruitfulness.

1.) Respect the local culture for what it is.

It doesn’t have to reflect your personal tastes: I’ll never carry a camouflage purse emblazoned with a rhinestone cross, okay? But people here like what they like, just like Jersey Shore likes its tans and the Pacific Northwest likes its ethically sourced, organic free-range chicken.

If you disdain the local culture in which you find yourself, it will come through. I’m proud of where I come from; I grin gleefully if my Detroit Tigers beat the Texas Rangers; that’s who I am. But I respect the people here, which means that I respect this culture of rodeos and firearms, of trapping feral hogs and driving forty miles to get to the nearest Target.

I don’t have to like the blistering heat or the “water bugs” (code for giant roaches); but if I am to have a fruitful ministry, I must genuinely like the people.

Understanding a bit of area history helps uncover how a local culture has developed, too. I was amazed at how many residents regularly carry concealed weapons, for instance.

But consider this: the oldest houses in some East Coast towns I’ve visited have plaques bearing the year they were built – and many of those plaques start with the digits 16…imagine a house standing in the United States built in the 1600’s. Our little town here wasn’t founded until the very late 1800’s; Texas wasn’t a state until 1845. (Before that, it had won its independence from Mexico, meaning that when it joined the U.S., it was its own free republic.) And ranches are huge, with “the law” centralized in scattered towns that are few and far between. In short: if you’re a middle-aged resident whose family is from this area, it’s likely you had a grandparent or great-grandparent who was responsible, a la the Wild West, for protecting their family in a very real and vivid way.

What does that mean for a part-time pastor of a flagging mainline denomination rural church? It means that many of my members don’t live “in town” but drive in to church from outlying areas without thinking twice about the mileage. It means that there is a strong streak of independence and mistrust of centralized authority. It means that there is a hybrid blend of self-sufficiency and conscientiousness of the importance of looking out for one’s neighbor. And it means that every week, in the weekly mailer, there’s an ad for “licensed to carry concealed” classes.

Understand how the local culture developed. Respect it for what it is. Only then can you empower your local congregation to discover how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can flourish in the local soil, and what unique growth can occur.

2.) Actively observe and listen for the first year, at least. You are watching local customs, learning local words, discovering patterns. This could take twenty years, not just one: but one year’s worth of good watching and listening can leverage a small window of opportunity.

I learned that the local high school has its homecoming every four years rather than every year, and that girls are given mums to wear. I had to explicitly ask if they were chrysanthemums before learning what a “mum” is (a large badge of ribbons, for lack of a better description). With several teachers and school board members in church on Sunday mornings, it was good to know.

I learned that several significant town figures and, more pertinently, church members, had very recently died, and that the wounds of these losses were raw and gaping within my congregation; it needed healing, then, before turning too forcefully outward in its vision.

I learned that in the surrounding area, there was still a culture that reflected the reality that many residents were only second or third generation immigrants, many from eastern Europe, with the delicious result that every donut shop (and there are a staggering number of donut shops) sells little pigs in a blanket called “kolaches.”

All of these examples aren’t just anecdotal sketches: they’re examples of collecting information, of sifting what is important and what isn’t, of analyzing behavior, mood and attitudes in an attempt to establish a sense of local cultural norms.

Because in ministry, leaders are called to discern cultural norms and to seek change through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, or to seek opportunity for a dovetailing connection between culture and faith, or to seek adoption of those norms as a vehicle of communicating faith.

And while the church universal bickers about how to respond to cultural currents on a macro level, I believe that a vibrant local church will, on a micro level, discern its place in local culture consciously or unconsciously.

This shows up in such mundane matters as discussing the possibility of holding a drawing for a firearm as part of a fundraiser (remember our regional history) or hosting a senior luncheon for every single graduating student of the local high school (most community events revolve around the local school system). But it also show up in slightly more potent situations – such as when a Caucasian church family adopts an African American daughter; and while on the national scale this may not register as culturally significant, on the local level, it distinctly challenges cultural norms – unfortunately, a great deal of latent racism.

Absorbing local patterns can help prevent blunders, too: reflecting on an annual event that had seen waning success with every passing year, I was tempted to do away with it altogether and plan an alternate event – until I realized that as much as the fundraising aspect was discussed, the event functioned much more potently as a gathering of community and, even more, as a way of honoring the people who had recently died, who had figured so largely in its organization every year. But I had to tease out what was explicitly communicated about the event from what was implicit and behind-the-scenes. Recognizing the emotional and even spiritual import of this, a serious mistake was avoided: the event stayed as it was. (Cultural anthropologists and religious phenomenologists spend years attempting to glean from “the locals” the levels of significance of certain rites. Surely we pastors can spend a fraction of the same effort; after all, we share the Word Made Flesh.)

3.) Discern the particular strengths of your individual members and congregation as a whole.

In my experience, churches have a difficult time seeing themselves accurately: either they think they have everything in the world to offer, or they question whether they have anything of value to offer. And a fruitful ministry in a small church requires leadership that gently holds up an honest mirror.

When I arrived, it was like the article that recounted an experiment in which women were asked to describe themselves to an artist who couldn’t see them, and then were also drawn simply by an artist’s observations. The two pictures represented a stark contrast: in almost every case, the sketches created only by a woman’s description of herself showed distorted features that were unattractive compared to the image drawn simply by an artist looking at the subject. What a telling study.

And in this age of Starbucksation, small local churches often feel they’re unable to offer anything of worth compared to large, shiny metropolitan churches pastored by impeccable grins; which is tragic, because both churches offer Jesus Christ; and that is the only thing of lasting worth that either church has, no matter what the insurers say.

So because you respect the local culture for what it is, and because you’ve listened and observed local values and traditions and norms, you’re now able to call forth the unique gifts of this specific body of believers in this particular local context; and to affirm that unique offering as valuable.

One of the strengths of my little church was the number of dedicated (read: burned out) volunteers, many of whom were strong women of immense leadership abilities. But as I heard one male athlete say once, “guys, it’s not just about the biceps and abs: if the rest of you is unfit you’ll just look ridiculous.” I felt it would be valuable to draw out some of the quiet abilities and gifts of our men. I approached a father of three that I perceived to have innate leadership and asked if he was interested in starting a men’s group of any kind – Bible study, prayer, study group, projects, anything. He led a cluster of men who began meeting weekly to work on property improvements; they developed camaraderie, tore out an old sidewalk, put in a new one, added handicapped accessibility, offered friendship to a hurting widower, enclosed a cluttered carport as a multi-purpose storage space, tore out overgrown landscaping and established new plantings, took out old tree limbs, repaired the sanctuary ceiling…

These “outward and visible signs of an inner invisible grace” began to cheer discouraged hearts; the community driving by saw signs of life and liveliness. I had a vision: spreading out volunteer responsibility, disbursing power to multiple stakeholders, engaging men beyond Sunday morning worship: and because I entrusted the nuts and bolts of the vision to the local church members themselves (remember the independence, self-sufficiency and mistrust of centralized authority?), they implemented their version of preparing to invite Kingdom opportunities into their midst.

And in several instances, I encouraged and invited “grass roots” implementation of a broader vision that was constantly threaded through Sunday morning sermons: how is God calling us to be a light in our particular community?

As I saw it, it was my job to be out front, proclaiming the Gospel hope of Jesus Christ, steering vision, but not imposing my idea of what the particular cultural incarnation of that Gospel vision must be.

In that way, when the pastor leaves a local setting, the cultural embodiment of that Gospel vision has the opportunity to live on because it is rooted in local soil. We have enough short-lived programs that survive with an individual pastor’s tenure but fade as soon as that individual is gone. And why do they fade? Because they’re artificially imposed as a blanket response by the pastor everywhere the pastor goes – and if it works one place, the pastor reasons, it will work another. And if it doesn’t, the pastor blames the congregation.

Meanwhile, in small town Texas, the little church that had stood so battered and worn now stands refurbished and proud. Discouraged tones have been replaced with optimism, confidence and vision. The number of Sunday School classes offered grew by 300%. Church members began initiating and carrying out stellar events that fostered community, spread the Word and offered healing and hope. Record numbers of visitors began to show up on attendance sheets. Despite heavy losses occurring due to deaths of elderly members, church membership held steady due to the number of new members being added. A crop of new babies led to the need to get the nursery in order.

Not every small rural church will embrace a vision and hope for the future.

But perhaps it’s time to see how many would be willing, if only we gave them our best.

Which is what they – and the Gospel of Jesus Christ – deserve.

Davis Chappell ~ Staying Out of Trouble

Acts 17:16-34 contains Paul’s message to the Athenians at the Areopagus. Athens was considered the intellectual capital of the world. It was home to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Paul came to Athens during his second mission trip, seeking refuge. Earlier, he had been run out of Thessalonica by the synagogue crowd. He found a more congenial reception in Beroea, until the ruffians from Thessalonica arrived and ran him out of town again.

Interestingly, the Gospel tends to generate two responses in its hearers: repentance, leading to conversion; and resistance, leading to hostility. Things became so heated on this mission that Paul’s colleagues felt it best to get him out of Beroea until things simmered down. And so they sent him to Athens for a brief respite, before moving on to Corinth. But Paul was never one to take a holiday from the main business of his life, so he found ample opportunity to share his witness.

—

Someone stopped by the office recently to say hello. He shook my hand and said something rather odd: “You staying out of trouble?” I wasn’t sure if it was a greeting, or a question. I wanted to say something cute. But I decided to treat it as a legitimate question. I said: “I try to stay out of trouble, but trouble seems to find me! In fact, I’ve about decided that the nature of ministry is trouble.” There was an awkward silence. He gave me one of those funny looks, as if to say, “I’m sorry I brought it up.” I’ve thought about it since. And I’ve come to a conclusion: if you’re looking to stay out of trouble, don’t follow Jesus!

The more I study Acts, the better I understand, that trouble follows Jesus. And trouble follows those who follow Jesus. If you’re earnestly seeking to be a witness, trouble will come to you!

Early on in ministry, I think I envisioned discipleship as a perpetual safety net, a safe haven, a warm blanket. But it isn’t true. Discipleship always leads to a cross. Disciples don’t avoid trouble. They inhabit trouble!

While Paul was seeking refuge in Athens, he runs into trouble.

The text begins with the angst of the apostle: “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens. He was deeply distressed.” The word for distressed is paroxyno. It’s a medical term for a seizure, an epileptic fit. We use it today when someone gets upset. “She had a fit.” “He spazzed out!” Another translation says Paul was “irked.” For good reason!

The city was full of idols. Nothing irks a Jewish Christian more than idolatry. It’s a violation of the Shema, the Jewish confession of faith, which begins, “The Lord our God is one.” Our theology is rooted in monotheism. One God. Athens was a violation of the first two commandments: No other gods before me, and no graven images. A monotheist in a polytheistic town? Of course, he was irked.

Nothing evokes the ire of God more than idolatry. Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.”

One of the ancient historians said of Athens: “Its easier to find a god there, than a man.” Everywhere Paul looked, there were shrines and temples. There was one to Athenia, Zeus, Ares, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Bacchus, Neptune, Diana. Athens was a veritable forest of idols.

Normally, when Paul visited a new town, he went first to the synagogue. He had connections there. He found hospitality there. A place to stay. Food to eat. A bed to rest. Community. And there he would teach on the Sabbath and explain the Scriptures. But on this trip, he also did some street preaching. He didn’t just stay in the synagogue, he went into the marketplace. And this is where the trouble begins. As long as you keep your faith private, in the church, its okay. But when you go public, there’s trouble!

But despite the fact that Paul was irked by the culture, he didn’t detach himself from the people. He engaged the community. It’s impossible to be a witness if you don’t engage the culture. It’s impossible to influence the world, if you never leave the church. For the bread to rise, the yeast has to penetrate the loaf.

During Jesus’ ministry, he didn’t settle in the synagogue. He went out to where people lived and worked and played. In fact, Jesus didn’t call a single disciple at the synagogue. He called disciples at the dock, at the tax office, on the hillside. Luke 5 says, Jesus invited Peter to follow him while Jesus was sitting in Peter’s boat.

You can’t catch fish unless you go where the fish are! Jesus calls us to be fishers of people, not keepers of the aquarium. And Paul knew it. He goes where the fish are. He goes to the marketplace. He goes to the Agora. The gathering place. The hub. The place where people assembled to get the news, to share information, to exchange ideas.

The agora was the central spot in Greek city-states. In Athens, a university town, academicians and philosophers gathered there, and debated, argued and discussed the latest ideology. So Paul went there.

Paul himself was no slouch intellectually speaking. He was a graduate of UT (University of Tarsus), educated in Jerusalem by the finest Jewish scholar of the 1st century, Gamaliel (5:34), a PhD in the Jewish law. Gamaliel was the grandson of Hillel the Elder, one of the great minds of his day. Paul could stand toe to toe with these sophisticated elites. It’s interesting also, that at first he didn’t just lecture and preach to get the word out. He used an Athenian technique. The Socratic method. Q&A. Dialogue. So he’s not just using Jewish methodology, he’s playing by their rules.

The initial response was fairly brutal. They called him a babbler, a cock sparrow, a bird-brain. Spermologos. A retailer of second-hand scraps of philosophy. A picker-up of learning’s crumbs. Others referred to him as a propagandist for foreign deities. Suffice it to say, many of these cultural elites were not buying what Paul was selling. Paul would later say in 1 Corinthinians 1:23, that the Gospel message is a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks.

Some however, were impressed enough to invite a second hearing. Verse 19 says: they brought him to the Areopagus, the hill of Ares, the Greek God of War, the son of Zeus. The Roman name for Ares is Mars. They took him to Mars Hill, the place where the Supreme Court of ancient Greece gathered. And here at the place built in honor of the son of Zeus, Paul proclaims the son of the one true God.

In many ways, this is Paul’s finest preaching. He’s having to adapt. He’s communicating to people who do not share his Bible. These Athenians don’t know the Scriptures. The Bible is not their story. It has no authority for them. Of course, as people belonging to the way, the Bible is our starting place. But how do you teach/preach to people who have no concept of Scripture? Who don’t recognize the Bible as inspired, God-breathed, sacred?

Paul has to find a bridge, a cultural connection whereby he can begin to teach biblical truth. So watch what he does. Though he’s irked by their idolatry, he actually uses their idolatry as a point of contact.

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” It’s an under-handed compliment. In other words, I appreciate your piety. I thought I was pretty spiritual, ’til I met you. But you guys take the cake! You’re up to your ears in religiosity! You see what he’s doing? Rather than using their idols to beat ‘em up, he uses their idols to relate. “You guys are so spiritual!” I see it in your statues and shrines. And I applaud that!

“But as I looked carefully at your objects of worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘to an unknown god.’ What you therefore worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” And starting with creation, he tells the Gospel story. He shares his witness.

It’s interesting that when we don’t really know God, anything and everything can assume the place of God.

When I’m not living in devotion to God, anything can become God. A form of government. A political party. The church. Drugs. Alcohol. A relationship. Self. A job. Money. Sex. Power. Food. Porn. Knowledge. You may never ever actually build a shrine or burn an offering, but our attachments and obsessions reveal our idols.

We’re all made with a god-shaped hole in our hearts, and we often try to fill it with god-substitutes, which cannot satisfy. Indeed, they only serve to make us dissatisfied. But everybody’s looking, everybody’s searching, groping. We all have an instinct for God. “We are His offspring,” says Paul. Notice, that’s a direct quote from one of their poets, Aratus. Then he quotes another, “In Him we live and move, and have our being.” Talk about connecting. Paul knows the music of Athens, the poets, the culture. Paul has been studying the culture, not because its cool, but so he can relate, connect, and bridge the gap between the unknown and the known.

The better you know the culture, the better you can empathize with the people, the better you’re able to be a conduit to God. As a missionary, you must not only be a student of theology, you must be a student of the culture!

This is incarnational ministry. Think about it. When God chose to make himself known to the world, He didn’t come as some weird alien that nobody understood. The shepherds didn’t come to Bethlehem, and say, “What is it?!” They said, “Its a baby.” And the unknowable became knowable! Not in a generic child, but in a Jewish kid. God is a Jewish boy? Yea. From Nazareth? A carpenter? A teacher? Who is betrayed? Who’s nailed to a tree? Like a lamb that is slain? And He rises from the dead on the third day? And is coming again to judge the earth? He’s not just a divine mystery. You can know Him! In fact, He wants very much to know you, right now, in this moment. Indeed, He is not far from you! Proverbs 18:24, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

This is what Incarnation means. Its not just our theology. It’s our ecclesiology. It’s the way we do church. We seek to make known the unknown, by building bridges. Chuck Swindoll has said, “People who inspire others are those who see invisible bridges at the end of dead-end streets.” That’s what it means to be a witness, to build invisible bridges, so that the unknown God becomes known!

Sometimes you see it. We saw it in the life of Barbara Redmond. She died unexpectly last year. We had her homegoing service a few days later. Her father was one of the original sculptors of Stone Mountain. He died when she was a teenager. Her mother had to go to work, and she helped raise her siblings. She cooked, cleaned, washed, nurtured and loved. For many years she worked at Dekalb Community College. She had a love for the students there, particularly the foreign students who were far from home. She adopted many of them. She fed them and cared for them. In one situation, she moved an entire family into her own home. The family was Buddhist. Another was Muslim. They didn’t even share her faith, but because of her faith she loved them, and cared for them.

Often, I’m told she would take a plate of barbeque and peach muffins to the men who serviced her car. She loved her doctor, her chiropractor, and both of them wept when they got the news. She was a bridge.

Her daughter told me that she even learned how to text on her cell phone. Nearly 80! But she learned. You know why? Because she loved her grandchildren. She wanted to be a part of their lives. And that’s the way they communicate. So she learned their way. She connected, on their turf, to their world, and showed love on their terms. Because they were “worth the trouble,” she said. That’s what God has done for us in Christ!

She spoke a language that is cross-cultural and cross-generational. She spoke Gospel. She was fluent! She was a witness!

Staying out of trouble? Not a chance! Not in this lifetime. I’m a witness!