The Orange Oasis...

I'm tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I reserve this blog space to write about what is going on in life, to be transparent, to share things that may help others if they may be going through the same things.

It's been a long year, a longer Summer, there have been good things and frustrating things, successes and failures, the normal ebb and flow of life that everyone deals with. I know this, I recognize it, I don't really embrace it but who wants to embrace fatigue?

Orange has been an oasis for me, a chance to be in the company of great leaders, to get ideas, to network with others.  I was able to share it with J and will be sharing it with people from the church at Orange Tour DC.  I'm happy about it, I can't wait to do it, I want them to catch the vision and feel the best way for this to happen is for them to experience it themselves.  All of that is good, all of that is needed, all of that is daunting.

When you're leading a church, especially one that's been around over a hundred years, you have a different set of circumstances to deal with than when you are planting a church, or coming to a church that is less than 20 years old.  There is a dynamic that has to be understood and the only way to understand it is to spend time living in the reality that the people are living in and have lived in.  In the World of Orange there is so much support for moving forward, embracing social media, leading change without losing it, having hard conversations, understanding you don't have to be a jerk to lead.  There is this support system for church plants, and strategic partners, for birthing family ministries, starting next gen conversations, and helping married people.

For the record I've drunk the Orange Kool-aid  I love it, I tout it with every person I can, but there is room in the Orangiverse for growth, particularly in the area of the small church that is struggling to reinvent itself.  How do you birth and Orange culture in an ultra traditional church that knows it needs to evolve but struggles with that evolution.  How do you have the tough questions with leadership when you've spent a year and a half building relationships and still you know that some of the things that need to happen are a huge stretch for them.  How do you afford to paint your church and community Orange when the 6 month's free runs out and you're just starting to scratch the surface, just starting to see positive things happen and you know that another 12 months could make the difference between success and adoption and skepticism and moving back to what was because it was comfortable?  How do you get an awesome organization like the ReThink group to see Baltimore as it's own very special entity not related at all to DC?

These are just some of the questions that run through my head on a daily basis, along with the daily work of ministering to a community that may or may not even realize Locust Point Community Church is there for them, not because we haven't been intentionally pushing into the community but because as the only staff person it's just exhausting doing 90% of the work that many churches share among others even if it is a part time secretary and a volunteer or two.

How do you take a much needed vacation, one that you know you should take but that you are just not sure how to do it without setting things back, because you don't want to disappoint the leadership that hired you, and even while you type that statement you feel guilty because you know the answer is supposed to be more about being a disappointment to God and yet you realize that you're a disappointment to yourself, that you really thought no matter how many times you tell everyone else and yourself that it didn't take 6 months or even a year to get where we are, it's not going to take that long to come back stronger, it's going to take time, because you secretly thought that attendance would double or triple in the first year, and now you're moving toward two years and it didn't happen.

How do you deal with the guilt you feel because your kids are in a city that they would rather not be in, in a school that isn't as great as the one they were in in the other part of Maryland and your wife is working at a job that takes more of her time and energy than it was supposed to, and you feel selfish because you know that they are all doing this for you?

But most of all how do you not feel any of this?  How do you live in the moment that God has brought you too?

I think what makes it hardest of all is I know it's all a choice, I know that in many cases and in many ways I choose how I feel but I'm tired, and more than anything I need the Oasis that is Orange to be exactly that.  I need someone to tell me it's going to be okay, for one of the many great leaders and speakers to do what they do so well, to be accessible, help sharpen me again.  I need to not be so tired, I need that fresh wind of the Spirit of God to blow out the hurt and sadness and frustration and anger and sorrow (different than sadness in this sentence) because I'm just so tired, and admitting it to everyone is the first step to being okay but how do you tell people who are just as tired or more so that you really don't know how it's going to work?

Orange is an Oasis for me, but it's more than that, it's a place that makes me feel like I belong to a greater story, that I can do it, that I can keep walking... So no pressure guys... Just know that I need you...

The Greatest of these...

Looking at life through the lens of religion can turn a person into something they never meant to become.  I am more and more convinced as I continue on in the life that God has brought me too that I have had it wrong for a long time.  I have always felt a bit out of sorts with the traditional interpretation of Christianity, or at least the one that I and countless others are supposed to hold dear.  It's no secret that I don't really have loads of time or space for right wing political Christians, people using the faith that I hold dear as a platform to fulfill their dreams or desires.

The willingness of many to stand for their rights and freedoms, to claim a Christian nation, all of those things has been bothering me as well, mainly as it doesn't line up with what I see Jesus doing throughout his time on earth.  Some point to the Old Testament and attempt to shoehorn our country into it in some allegorical missive of being Gods chosen nation.  I don't really see that either. For a long time now I've been struggling to figure out what it is that has caused American Christians, at times myself included to lose touch with what Jesus said was important, then I found the quote posted above on a friends Facebook,this friend also happens to claim Christianity as their faith... and it all slipped into place...



That's such a huge difference.  I think that there are times when what I'm free to do is more important to me than loving others.  Okay I think is the wrong thing to say, I know that there are times that this is the case.  I only have to look at this past Saturday to prove this point.  J and I were getting ready to head to the church for an all day event.  The morning didn't start out the way I thought it should and I was in a bit of a mood.  There were some guys working on the steps at a business where we had to park for the evening, another thing that ticked me off as I'm sure there were people who didn't have area 9 parking passes and yet they took our spot in the neighborhood.   The truck that the guys were using to work from was behind our car, I told him I needed him to move, and he said okay give me a minute, I reacted in a decidedly not loving manner and said no you will move now I need to go now... Of course as an american I'm free to be a jerk, but as a Christian I'm supposed to put aside that freedom in deference to loving others.

For some reason it seems the American Church and the American Christian is more concerned with Freedom, rights, and all that stuff and less concerned with Faith, Hope and Love.  If we really believe that we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, if we really believe that we have been given a commission, why on earth do we all myself included forget the things that Jesus did when he wrestled, and when he reached.

Ayan Rand is a great author but when Christians begin to live totally by the principles she has set out, it by necessity will put them at odds with the person that lived and died and rose again.

In a nutshell here is what Ayan Rand believed...

Ayn Rand's Philosophy for Living on Earth, Objectivism. reality, reason, self-interest, capitalism.  https://www.aynrand.org/ideas/philosophy

That's not what we are supposed to be about, and yet I find many times that Christians in America, (based on my news feed, popular christian leaders, and political Christians.) seem to be right there chasing after our freedoms, what makes sense to us, what we want people to be when it comes to faith and the money to minister.

It's hard to read what Rand says and then Read what Paul said to the Corinthians and not see the problem with Christianity in the USA, more problematic though is seeing the problem in my own walk, because if I'm going to really be about this whole living and moving and having my being in Christ.  If I really am trying to be a Christ Follower as opposed to a Christian then I have to change, I have to give up my freedom and take up his burden, not just when it's convenient, and not just when I'm feeling good about it, but daily, even when a guy is parked behind me and I'm in a foul mood and I may be the only interaction he has with a Christ follower that day.

Reedeming the Time...

I know I devoted an entire post to the whole Kim Davis thing.  It was one of the most popular posts I have written if you read it thanks.

I don't want to beat a dead horse either but something is sitting in my spirit like a brain freeze after a particularly yummy Slush Puppie (look it up if you don't know what that is.)

Today Kim was released from jail, her office has been running normally in her absence and things are all fine and good, except they aren't.

In the past 5 days...

• Runaways: approximately 969.2 kids ran away in the past five days this is of course based on 2014 NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) data.


• Homelessness:  According to the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year 3.5  million / 52 * 5 = 336538.461538, so over 33,000 people in a five-day span.


• Hungry:  we start with 45.3 million and do the math


• Jail: On any given day 2.2 million Americans are in Prison or Jail according to the sentencing project


• Suicide: According to the CDC 105 people take their own life  each day...so 525.

All these numbers are of course approximations but they serve at least to me as a very real visual of what should matter...

Eph. 5:15   Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— 16 making the most of the time,a,b because the days are evil.

What is sitting in my spirit is the facts I read from the article detailing her release.  People camped out overnight outside the courthouse to support her, they waved flags, came from across the country to sing songs, wave crosses and stand up for her rights.  Presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz came to town to "stand up" with Kim...Five days of spectacle, five days of christians (small c on purpose)

This is what bothers me about this whole situation. They gave her Rocky's theme song. The vowed to fight, they did all of this and yet all those statistics kept happening.  Would the same people who staked out a place waved their signs and protested for five days, spend one day helping deal with any of the people I wrote about a couple of paragraphs ago?  I guess it's possible, but I'm sad to say I think unlikely.

I feel like people have lost sight of what matters, we have forgotten about all the people we need to reach, in our desire to stand for what we think is right.  I guess I'm ashamed of what American Christianity has become, ashamed of what so many people who are part of my past have decided matters, ashamed of the fact that there was a time when I would have cheered this whole process on.

Christ followers don't really have time for this, at least not in my estimation.  Those numbers in those bullet points above don't have time for us to fight the good fight of a Christian Nation, they need us to fight for them, to stand in the gap in prayer and in deed so that they have a chance to fill that God shaped hole I talked about in my other post.  That is what matters, or at least it's what should matter. Perhaps the most damning thing in this whole post though is the fact that I spent time writing this rant, instead of figuring out how to redeem the time.

 

Definitions matter..

mar·tyr

NOUN

1. 
   
   
   

   
   

   a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs:

   
   "saints, martyrs, and witnesses to the faith
   
   

   
   
   
   

I wish I could say that this post will make everyone feel warm and fuzzy.  I wish there were some way to get the people I respect and love from the past and the people I respect and love from the present to realize that there are whole segments of our faith that we all can agree on.

I know many of my older friends will be upset with this post, but as many of you who have been reading for a while, and it's been a while, I don't shy away from those types of things, in fact I write what I write because it's where I am at this time.

I put the definition of a martyr at the front of this blog because I have a problem...



This is what a martyr looks like today, if you really want the picture of what a modern-day martyr is then head over to persecution.com the website of voice of the martyrs.  Real stories of real martyrs for the cause of Christ.



This is an angry misguided and ill-used elected official.  She is not suffering persecution, she is not being told that if she continues to be a Christian she will be beaten, or tortured or killed.  She is not being told she is not allowed to hold her opinions on any number of issues.  She is not being told she has to go to the weddings of any of the people she is supposed to issue marriage licenses for.  She is being told as an elected official of the state of Kentucky that she has  a job to do for all citizens of that state.

Kim Davis is not an employee of a church, a Christian school, a religious non-profit.  Shoot she isn't even an employee of Hobby Lobby.  She works for the government.  She has a job to do, she is not in private employment.  There is a difference, but that's not even what bothers me about this and other similar situations.

Many conservative religious people point to any time someone stands up for their beliefs or their rights as an attack on the Christian Nation that is the United States. I said religious people because I struggle to label them anything close to what a Christ follower really is.  The church in America has traded authentic Christ Following for American Christianity, and the two couldn't be further apart.

Matthew 25:42-45 (New Living Translation, Second Edition)
^{25:42 (NLT)} For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink.⁴³ I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ ⁴⁴  “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ ⁴⁵  “And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

This set of verses should inform our interactions with each other and with people who don't know who Jesus is or who have a distorted view of who Jesus is because they have had such bad experiences with American Christians.  We are all about our rights, we are all about our freedoms, granted by the constitution, we are all about conservative values, earning what you get by hard work and determination.  We like to point out when someone impinges on our religious freedom because we are right, but when someone from any other religious persuasion tries to do the same, to claim the same rights we have, suddenly we are being persecuted, or misunderstood, or misquoted.  We are being discriminated against for our faith.  We are the victim and everyone else is the bully, except that's not really true, at least not that I can see.

This woman is being used by modern-day pharisees to further their agenda and to line their pockets.  Others have dug into her background already, not something that I would do or would want to do. Pointing out her past issues with marriage is not really an answer or way to prove that she's wrong it's just a way to prove she's like every other human being that walks this planet, gay, strait, transgender, republican, democrat, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist... you get the point.  Every human being no matter who they are is born with a need, the God Shaped Hole problem that affects everyone.  Humanity is on a constant quest to fill this hole in their lives and we all try to fill it up on our own, except we can't fill this hole up.  We don't have the material needed but we do have the tools.

Revelation 3:18 (New Living Translation, Second Edition)
^{3:18 (NLT)} So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see.

I think this is a big problem for American Christians,  they have been buying their materials from conservative politicians, Focus on the Family, the moral majority, denominational leaders, and their pastor for so long that they assume it's the same stuff God would provide.  It's easy for me to start a project or begin a movement, say God told me too, and reap the rewards, even if those rewards come in the form of the publicity bump I get from claiming persecution or religious discrimination.  But what if?

What if we would follow God's advice.  What if we did our best to live in peace with all, what if we were willing to reach out to the very least of these and offer tangible real help as often as it's needed for as long as it's needed?  what If American Christians would start following Christ instead of complaining that our nation needs to get back to God... What if Christians worried about getting themselves back to God and then doing what Jesus said to do.  Not go and protest, not go and stand up for your founding father provided freedoms, not claiming persecution or discrimination.  What if instead of all of those things we got down in the dirt next to a hurting lost person right where they were and protected them, what if we put on a towel and grabbed a bowl of water and started washing feet, even the feet of the people who don't like us, who don't trust us, who are all about betraying us?  What if we were more concerned about a person than we were about their sin?

What if she would have just issued the license like she was told?  What if she had a conversation with the people asking for a license, explained her personal conviction in love, and then asked if they would mind if a co-worker who didn't share her conviction or beliefs get them their license?  What if?  But most of all what if American Christians were wiling to pray for, reach to and love unconditionally with as much tenacity as they are willing to claim persecution, discrimination and righteous indignation.  What if for every dollar donated to the ACLJ or any number of Christian Law firms American Christians donated one dollar to ricebowls.org.  What if every time we upgraded and updated the church building and equipment, we upgraded and updated a local section 8 home? What if American Christians spent one hour visiting at the local jail or the local nursing home, or the local juvenile center for every hour they spent hanging out in their small group?  This is what I wonder.  It's not so much that America needs to "get back to God"  it's that American Christians need to start getting their directions from the person they claim to follow and actually do what He said to do.

Kim Davis is not a Martyr, she's not being persecuted for her beliefs, she isn't being discriminated against.  Countless people the world over are, just like the person in the picture above.  When will American Christians start to realize what they have and run with the freedom given not by the constitution but by their relationship with Christ?