We Have Testamints To Make and a Sacred Heart Auto Club to Join

Consuming the World

The world in which we live has changed and is changing at a remarkable rate. Our culture--what we might call the Western Way--has spread touching and impacting every culture and society. Many people are no longer isolated and "indigenous societies" are in deplorable circumstances. If not in "terminal phases" of acculturation; many have in fact died out and are lost to future generations.3 Indigenous peoples and the known third world countries exist in detrimental poverty compared to their American and Western counterparts. Transnational corporations hold or employ many of their natural or human resources. The entire world has been undergoing rapid, dramatic culture change over the last century. We have a global economy knit together and forever (using the metaphor of Thomas L. Friedman) "flattened." Regional economic independence and self-determination no longer exist. 

In the year 2000, 51 of the 100 biggest economies in the world were corporations. More than 20 million Americans now work for major transnational corporations, often in other countries.5 The rate of globalization has been accelerating over the last decade. Contributing factors in making the world a smaller place have been the spread of Internet and e-mail access as well as massive levels of international travel. Meanwhile most people in underdeveloped nations do not travel and only 1% of people in the Middle East and Africa have internet. I once wrote in my diary these words from Murray Sheard, whose essay is now lost to me but whose words are perhaps profoundly important to us today, "Religion has declined whenever consumerism gets hold of a nation. Religion is also seen as a barrier to consumption. It's something people are committed to above their own appetites."

American Pop Culture 

Americans have appetites. We hunger to eat, drink and own. As many of you know Americans consume 25% of the global resources and are 5% of the population. If everyone on the planet consumed as we do, we would need four other planets for the waste.6 We twitter and tweet. We Facebook and MySpace. We EBay and Craig's list. We blog and epublish. We Ifun, ITune, IPod and IPhone. We Wii and XBox. One million, thirty-nine thousand and thirty one people subscribe to the New York Times, while TV Guide has 9,072,609 subscribers and battles it out with Better Homes and Gardens who has 7,602,575 subscribers.7

Some of our cultural core values according to George Barna in his book Boiling Point are: 

convenience, options for expression, time maximization, belonging, comfort, experiences, happiness, independence, flexibility, authenticity, education options, entertainment, diversity, customization, participation, gender equality, technology, instant gratification, meaning, skepticism, image, control, relevance, impact/influence, personal empowerment, relationships, self-image, simplicity, compassion, teamwork, integrity, youth care, family cohesion, humor tolerance, volunteerism, reciprocity, generosity, networking, spiritual depth, risk taking, change, wealth, physical health, and achievement.

I can take my whole music collection, the first season of the television show the "Big Bang Theory," a selection of my favorite movies, and the latest news from my top podcasts from NPR to Wall Street Journal everywhere I go on my telephone, which I can use to update my social networks, figure out my global position, level a picture or call a friend.

As Jack in "Fight Club" wondered in 1996:

"The Klipske personal office unit, the Hovertrekke home exer-bike. Or the Johannshamnh sofa with the Strinne green stripe pattern...Even the Rislampa wire lamps of environmentally-friendly unbleached paper. I would flip through catalogs and wonder 'what kind of dining set defines me as a person?' I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard working people of...wherever. We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow Collection. 

 Video clip: Who do you say that I am? 

Jesus Talk: Having Testamints in your Pocket or Rediscovering the Art of Discipleship

 

Dan Kimball, author and pastor at Vintage Faith church in Santa Cruz, California, wrote:

Jesus is everywhere. I recently walked into a gas station to pay for some gas and saw some Jesus bobble-heads for sale on a shelf. I was kind of surprised to see Jesus in the gas station, but there he was, three or four of him standing in a row. As I waited to pay for the fifteen gallons I had pumped into my rusty 1966 Ford Mustang, the Jesus bobble-heads silently stared at me, all politely smiling and nodding in unison.

Not too long afterward, I visited a major clothing chain store. Near the entry was a display for the Jesus Action Figure. Probably a dozen or more Jesuses hung in nice plastic packaging that declared, “With pose-able arms and gliding action!” While I stood there looking at them, a woman in her early twenties grabbed one from the rack. She enthusiastically said to her companion, “I love these!” and off she ran to the cash register with Jesus under her arm.”

I love Jesus and I love all things Jesus. But it really is amazing how many people love Jesus but don’t love the church. If we are going to reclaim the art of discipleship we are going to have to reclaim it in the midst of our world and our culture in America. We are going to have to reclaim discipleship from a dying Protestant Christianity as it exists today. We are going to have to reclaim discipleship from the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. We are going to have reclaim discipleship even though there are theological and practical stumbling blocks.

I am a missionary and I want to work within a missionary church alive within a growing missionary field, in relationship with disciples who wish to follow the way of Jesus. I believe that Christianity, particularly Anglicanism through the lens of the Episcopal Church, has something fundamentally unique to offer those who are seeking to follow Jesus. I believe and am committed to an Episcopal Church and an Episcopal Diocese in Texas that is actively making the world a better place tomorrow than it is today. I believe that our church and our people, you and I, are called to be partners with Jesus Christ restoring the world around us.

I have invited several friends to visit with us about their views and their experience and so we will hear stories from the mission front about God, Jesus, Christians and communities. We will look to the past through the lens of our Gospel (Mark, Luke, and John specifically). And, we will think about methods and models for our future. Tonight I want us to begin to reclaim the art of discipleship, by: understanding the world and culture in which we are living; understanding the challenge organized religion faces in this culture; and, understanding the stumbling blocks that lie before us as Episcopalians. Many of us here have been having these conversations about emerging topics of interest. We have been listening and engaging in a conversation of “generous orthodoxy,” “off road disciplines” and the “renewing of our heart.” But it is time to bring it home to the Episcopal Church.

(intro to “The Art and Method of Discipleship,”The Blandy Lectures, SSW, 2009)

Technorati Tags: Blandy Lectures,mission,Christians,Jesus Episcopalians,Discipleship

After The Darkness …

And finally, in that quietness came clarity. There came a clarity that I did not have at that time or that I had experienced before. There was beauty. There was love. There was purpose. My theology and spirituality became formed through the action of prayer. An understanding of my work, my vocational work began to form. Out of this moment of prayer came the sense of purpose for me and the whole church. Out of this moment of prayer came the inklings of my life that could be lived out in the assurances of God's grace and love.

Through that prayer work, a number of truth statements became truly a part of my own belief system in a deeper, clearer, more personal way than I had ever known possible.

• I understood God's love for me through Jesus Christ, and that there was nothing in heaven or under heaven, of powers or authorities that would or could separate me from God's love.
  
• There was no challenge too great that could not be seen through to its end because of God's love.
  
• There was no pain too deep that could not be healed by the grace of God's love.
  
• There was nothing that could keep God's hope from raising my head and eyes to see the path of Jesus Christ's kingdom before me. All I had to do was take that step back onto the path, back onto the way that lay before me.
  

  
  

It was then, as I rose and walked to the door of the sanctuary, turned out the lights, and walked out into the night that I took my first steps again. Every step would be bathed and supported and buoyed by the prayer of a humbled, grateful, and delivered heart.

The Rev. Dr. Leonel L. Mitchell wrote a commentary on the Book of Common Prayer with an intriguing title: Praying Shapes Believing. I believe that praying does shape believing. Out of this certainty that I have about prayer and belief arise two other thoughts and they are: Prayer is work, and work originates from prayer. These are the themes that I want to play with, hold up, turn in our hearts and minds, and to which I wish to give some intentional thought in the next posts.

Coming up: A Survey of Scriptural Posts tagged #Prayer and #Jesus

There’s a Reason They Call It “Working” The Program

(continued from previous post "When Work of Ministry Just Isn't Working"

Some of you may know, I began "working the program" of Al-anon about twenty years ago. I started this work as a result of finding my life and ministry in a pretty bad place. On a regular basis, I read my One Day At A Time, went to meetings, got a sponsor (God blessed me with a good one!) and started working the Twelve Steps.

Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

I breezed through this step. That was easy enough and true and apparent. I got it, and I got it immediately. I thought, "This program is pretty good. I can do this."

Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than our-selves could restore us to sanity.

This was a little harder. I could get that God was greater than me, but I wasn't thinking clearly at all; I had been trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results, and I wasn't so sure I couldn't take care of things based on my own power of reasoning. I worked at it until I came to realize the crux of my dilemma: either I really, truly believed that God had the power to do this for me or I didn't. I decided God had the power to restore me. After all, isn't that the meaning of redemption? It took me several hard weeks of work to fully accept this truth.

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Now here was an embarrassing problem. I'm an ordained priest! I could do theology, talk theology, preach the Gospel, read Holy Scripture, lead the Eucharist, and do all manner of priestly things. But I wasn't sure I was ready to turn my "will and my life over to the care of God." Especially, I wasn't sure I wanted to submit to the God that I understood at this particular time of my life.

And so here it came: the dark night of the soul. Here was that moment when a man decides what he is made of. Here is the moment when he decides what he really believes. As any good procrastinator will tell you, you can stretch some things out pretty far. My avoidance of this step, led to my whining about the step, which led to my deepest sorrow over seeking God who seemed to have abandoned me. My sponsor listened to me. My sponsor talked with me. My sponsor allowed me to really work this step, to wrestle with it and didn't try to fix it for me.

One night after a particularly difficult meeting followed by one-on-one time with my sponsor, I went home, sat on the red couch and poured out my trouble to my wife, JoAnne. JoAnne said, "You need to get out of this house and its distractions. You need to leave the comfort of this couch and go up to the church. You need to pray and sit with God until you get this soul work done." So I said, "Ok." I couldn't really argue, and it was a good idea. I went to the Church. I entered this holy space and I prayed. I prayed on my knees. I prayed sitting down. I cried. I talked to God. I yelled. I was quiet. I was quiet, some more.

Coming Up: After the Darkness ...

When the Work of Ministry just isn’t Working

There was a certain time in my life when things were not going well for me in my ministry.

• It was the time of the tragic Texas A&M bonfire: I had been forced by circumstances to deal with this trauma, to witness the deaths, and to minister to the friends and families of those who had died. I was one of many clergy providing pastoral care; the Catholics were the first to arrive and Sandi Mizirl, our own campus missioner, did a yeoman's work with the families at the hospital. I had stayed on the site to visit, to pray, and to be present with the police, firemen, and other rescuers who were seeking the young people still trapped beneath the fallen stack.

• It was a time that I was struggling under the weight of my own ministry goals, forgetting for the moment, the lessons I had learned about shared ministry. I was spinning a lot of plates, most of my own creating, and they felt like they were going to fall any minute.

• It was a time that my relationship was very strained between me, my father, whom I love, and my family.

• And it was a time that I was in solo flight. I did not have a clergy support group or anyone with whom I felt like I could confide my struggles. My prayer life was in the dumper. Life was hard, and I was making it harder, and I wasn't reaching out for help, though help was all around me.

Eventually, I had no choice but to change a couple of things as a course correction; some changes occurred naturally, some by my invitation. Most of these changes revolved around reaching out to others. I found a counselor to help me better understand myself. I found a clergy group to gain new ministry perspectives. I moved into a relationship with a monastery in order to renew my prayer life. And I got into Al-anon.

This course correction did not have immediate, but rather long term effects.

Coming Up: There's a Reason it's called "Working the Program"