At New Life Fellowship Church we have launched a church-wide initiative to keep Sabbath during the seven weeks of Lent. We asked people to choose  a 24 hour period –either from Saturday night, 6 p.m.,to Sunday night, 6 p.m., or from Friday night, 6 p.m., to Saturday night, 6 p.m. We also asked them to mark the beginning and end of their Sabbath by lighting a candle.  To listen to the sermon and see further resources , go to www.newlifefellowship.org. 

One larger goal of Sabbath, I believe, is that the qualities of biblical Sabbath (STOP, REST, DELIGHT, CONTEMPLATE) infuse our other six days. John Freeman’s book, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox has been a gift to me these last few months as I seek creative ways to eliminate hurry and multitasking from my daily routine. The following are the suggestions that I found most helpful that I am adding to my “fast” this Lent:

1. Don’t Send.  E-mail only  creates more e-mail.

2. Don’t Check it First Thing in the Morning or Late at Night.

3. Check it only Twice a Day. This allows you to set the agenda for your day.

4. Keep a Written To-Do List and Incorporate E-mail into It.

5. Whenever Possible, Call or Talk in Person.

What might you add?

Last week we did an exercise listing our “Turning Point Lessons” out of our twenty-one year history. The following are my edits and summary out of that discussion.

1. Character is more important than gifting. Being is more important than doing. When we have overlooked issues of character because of anointing, effectiveness, leadership abilities, etc., we have always paid a price.
2. Don’t rush. When decisions were made quickly, without pausing to pray, think and process implications, we have had regrets. Seeing the Promised Land is one thing. The pillar of cloud and fire saying it is time to go in is another.
3. Leaders need to take responsibility for their growth and development. My journey, along with Geri’s, has had a profound impact on NLF. As we invest time in our personal growth and development, we are shaping all those who look to us for leadership.
4. A clear, differentiated vision results in a unified leadership and church.
5. Sabbatical rest for leaders releases new, life-giving initiatives from God and enables them to serve out of a cup that overflows.
6. Face the truth and act on it, even if it hurts. Great courage is needed to do this.
7. We must enforce our values and not skim. When we have not taken the time to discern if we are really practicing what we preach, we have paid a large price.
8. Structures must support the vision. Ones that do not need to be reworked. We are stewarding the tithes/offerings of our people, not our own.
9. Be faithful to our “charism”. In other words, learn from other streams and ministries, but be content in our particular grace and gift from God, our unique DNA.
10. Taking the time to reflect in order to capture insights, reflect theologically, record insights and develop new tools for discipleship has always taken us to a new level of maturity.

My family growing up was never very good at delight, play, and enjoying the healthy, God-given pleasures of life. Added to this was a Christian formation in my early years that reinforced a subtle theology that the more you suffered for Christ, then the more loved you were by Him. We were to work, to do for Christ, especially among those of us serving in urban centers like New York City.

The journey of emotional health and contemplative spirituality have helped me enormously, but it has been a long, slow process of growth. I am slowly getting there, learning to enjoy pleasure, gifts, fun, dance, wine, and celebrating!

I’ve just completed The Good of Affluence by John Schneider, a professor of theology out of Calvin College in West Michigan. I do not agree with all he says, but he makes a number of excellent points. One, humans were designed by God to enjoy and delight, unashamedly like our God, in material, physical things. Two, we are small kings and queens (as image-bearers) placed in a pleasure Garden called the world with all its delights. Thirdly, Jesus is the Lord of Delight. When wine runs out at Cana, he turns water into 180 gallons of the very best wine! He allows Mary to pour out precious nard on his feet that is worth a year’s wages. This is so outrageous to Judas that it is the last straw for him. They said of him, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Lk. 7:34).

“A strikingly distinctive activity of Jesus and his followers was their regular celebration with festive meals, almost certainly a celebration of the presence of the kingdom.” As a result Jesus was accused of associating with people who were indulgently enjoying life rather than observing Torah. I like that!

Like Jesus in his day, I find myself surrounded by needs (and that is without thinking of the rest of the world!). Yet, there is something profound in the tension of following The Lord of Delight and enjoying life, while at the same time taking responsibility to serve others and steward our God-given resources.

I hope to finish my service to Christ a lot better at unabashedly delighting in God’s world than when I started.

What do you think are the implications of seeing Jesus as The Lord of Delight? if we miss this aspect of His person?

 “A time is coming when men will go mad, and whey they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘Your are mad, you are not like us’” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Benedicata Ward, SLG, 5).

Imagine the Body of Christ choosing to live a contemplative life of Daily Offices, Sabbath keeping, meditation on Scripture throughout the day, simplicity of life, a commitment to purity of heart (watching our intake of information/media/etc. for the sake of seeing God) – yet all the while activing serving others and making Christ known to others. Imagine the impact of our evangelical churches around the world filled with people who are not consumers of religion for a better life but men and women filled with passion for God and delivered from this present evil age!

How can we escape the illusory Christian identity proposed by the world  (that is our present worldly church mindset) and choose a a “white martyrdom” so that we can see the root system of the illusion itself? How do we bear witness to the tension of living in this age and yet being members of another kingdom that is not of this world?

I like Karl Barth’s comments on the “way of the desert,” so far from being an escape, may be seen as a “highly responsible and effective protest and opposition to the world, and not least to a worldly church, a new and specific way of combating it, and therefore a direct address to it.” (quoted from Rowan Williams The Wound of Knowledge 103).

Hope I am not getting too lofty, but what might a protest to the worldly church (which I love and of which I am a  part) look like in our day that might bring glory to Christ?

In this final and fourth section of the Rule of Life we are piloting at our local church, you will notice that I have intentionally kept this section short (It contains only 3 of the Rule’s 16 points!)  I will conclude with a little example of how this is working out in my own life.

Work/Activity
• Savor the sacred in all I do – at work, rest or play. Psalm 104; Eph. 6:5-8; I Tim. 4:3-4. All of life is a gift from God.  The word savor carries the notion of pausing to taste the deliciousness of our work, rest and play.  It is the God-like celebration of delighting over His creation, exclaiming that it is “very good” (Gen. 1:31).
• Remember the poor and marginalized.  Exodus 2:23-25; Matthew 25:31-46; James 1:27.This is about a heart that carries the poor and marginalized, that remembers them like God. We are referring to a passion, not so much about a specific behavior or action.  God remembered the Israelites in their groaning and suffering while in Egypt.  His heart is with the poor, the orphans and the widows in a unique way since they cannot speak for or defend themselves.
• Share my gifts, talents and resources, in and beyond our community.  Deut. 15:7-11; Matthew 25:14-30; Ephesians 4:7-13.  An encounter with Jesus transforms our views of possessions, goals, and time.  In a culture absorbed with hoarding and fear, we give freely of our time, energy, and resources to others, trusting God to take care of our needs as He sees fit.

Geri and I have been involved with a two families in our church the last few months that are in serious crisis. One has had a child in the hospital in Manhattan hanging on for life for almost two months. Imagine the stress of working, taking care of your other children, dealing with doctors and insurances, and being with your child 24 hours a day in shifts to ensure your child gets proper medical care and lives!

Another family has such significant crisis that they could lose their children, marriage and house. Sometimes I would watch Geri on the phone, or getting up to bring a meal to a family, or mobilizing other families and I say, “Geri, what are you doing? Isn’t your life full enough?” She simply looks at me and says, “What’s the church all about? Why live in New York if we are not about this?”

All I can say is that it preaches and reads more easily in a Rule of Life or a sermon than it lives. The Rule (with a little help from Geri) helps keep me centered.

This is the second of four sections on the Rule of Life I have been developing for New Life Fellowship Church in Queens. We have only just begun to pilot it.   My concern is to keep us faithful to our charism, that is, our unique grace and calling. I think we are in great need for fresh, creative ways of understanding who we are as God’s people and His call on our lives.

 I know I need this personally. What amazes me is that every week has more to do in it than available time. I don’t know how I ever lived without that 24 hour Sabbath each week!! 

In a conversation with Basil Pennington that I had with him before he died (he was a Trappist monk for 55 years and prolific author), he shared with me how he longed for greater time with God, more contemplation now that he had just “retired.” And that was from a monk having 7-8 Daily Offices a day! He also shared that every Trappist monk needed their own personal rule of life within their larger Rule of St. Benedict to which they were committed. I believe the same is true of us – although I suspect few will take the time to think it through that thoroughly.

Here is Part 2  — Rest
• Value my own dignity as a human being made in God’s image through self-respect and self-care.  Genesis 1:27; Luke 15:-17-24, Galatians 4:1-7.        An accurate, genuine grasp of Scripture and the gospel delivers us from self-hate into self-respect and self-care, out of which we can love others well.  We are image-bearers of God.  This is the greatest compliment that could be given regarding our value and worth.  Then, in the gospel, we are no longer slaves or orphans, but adopted sons and daughters.  Jesus took our sin record, taking our death on the cross.  At the same time, we are legally declared righteous in Christ and treated as if our record were perfect before God.
• Ruthlessly eliminate hurry.  Ps. 46:1-3,10; Prov. 19:2, 22:3; Luke 10:38-42. These famous words by Dallas Willard capture one of the great challenges before us as we seek to live authentic spiritual lives in our 24/7, multi-tasking worlds.  The word ruthlessly was chosen intentionally because that is what it takes to begin eliminating hurry from our lives.
• Remember God’s history of faithfulness with each new challenge.  Exodus 14:10-14; I Samuel 17:34-37; Ps. 106:6-14; 2 Tim. 2:13.  We each face “Goliaths” and “Red Seas” during our lives as we journey with Christ.  God invites us to remember both His powerful acts through history and the specific ways He has delivered us from the “lion and the bear” (as done by David).  Forgetting leads to unbelief while remembering fills us with courage to follow Him wherever He leads.

As you ponder the words above, devotionally, what speaks to you as it relates to your journey with Christ today?

      The church, in the Western world in particular, is in serious trouble. The culture has so overwhelmed us that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the church and the world. Historically, when there has been decline in the church, often new monastic movements have emerged (e.g. desert fathers, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, the Cistercians). I interpret the yearnings of the emergent movement and the younger generation towards the contemplative as a cry for something different, a cry for God.
   I bring with me a strong ecclesiology. I believe God loves the local church bought at the price of His Son’s blood, and the development of mature, healthy communities is essential for global mission.  So, after 4 + years of  ponderings, I have written a Rule of Life to pilot in our local, missional, evangelical church.

      I believe that simply calling people to spiritual disciplines as we have for decades is not enough to slow us down so that we are in the world but not of it. We do need a new monasticism. This, however, needs to be somehow wedded to the local church. So this is my attempt to help focus our local community at NLF to see membership differently, to see themselves differently. 

      It is broken down into 4 categories- Prayer, Reset, Relationships, and Work/Activity.  This is a work in progress. I will share each category -one by one- over the next week with you.  

PRAYER

• Be a lover of God, seeking to live in the love of Christ above all else.
Deut. 6:4-9; Psalm 27:1-4; Matthew 22:36-38.
Jesus identified this as the greatest commandment and the summary of all Scripture. We want to be people who know God in our experience (heart and soul) as well as with our minds.

• Value my own dignity as a human being made in God’s image through self-respect and self-care.
Genesis 1:27; Luke 15:17-24, Galatians 4:1-7.
An accurate, genuine grasp of Scripture and the gospel delivers us from self-hate into self-respect and self-care, out of which we can love others well. We are image-bearers of God. This is the greatest compliment that could be given regarding our value and worth. Then, in the gospel, we are no longer slaves or orphans, but adopted sons and daughters. Jesus took our sin record, taking our death on the cross. At the same time, we are legally declared righteous in Christ and treated as if our record were perfect before God.

• Love my neighbor as I love myself, giving first priority to my spouse and children as my first neighbors, OR embracing my singleness while bonding with others and bearing fruit for God.
Genesis 2:24-5; Matthew 19:1-12; Mark 12:31; 1 Cor. 7:25-38.
We recognize both marriage and singleness as valid vocations/callings. For those who are married, bonding with and serving our spouse comes before all else but Christ. For those who are single, voluntarily or involuntarily, we affirm our call to be the bride of Christ, bond in healthy ways to others, and serve as mothers and fathers who bear fruit for Christ.

  What are your thoughts? Comments? Wonderings?

I receive e mails regularly from people who are troubled that I am quoting and learning from people who do not have a solid evangelical theology, who might be universalists, or tend towards a works-righteousness, or pray to saints. The following are a few points to consider to help us remain humble and teachable as we seek to listen to God.

Firstly, many of our great evangelical heroes also appeared to have some large holes in their theological armor. Consider Jonathan Edwards who owned slaves like his father before him and even defended the practice, arguing the colonies were dependent on it. (However, he also was the first pastor in Northampton to baptize “negroes” and admit them into full membership.)

John Calvin endorsed the drowning of an Anabaptist, that is a fellow-believer who believed in baptism by immersion for believers alone! Martin Luther was an anti-Semite. Hitler quoted those portions of his writings. CT Studd and William Carey, the Father of modern Protestant missions, had terrible marriages.

C.S. Lewis loved to drink beer and smoke cigarettes and a pipe. He also held out the belief that moral people who did not acknowledge Christ in this world would be given another chance (see the Last Battle where the followers of Tash are also saved by Aslan). Lewis also believed in purgatory and prayer for the dead; he prayed regularly for his wife after her death.

John Wesley, while he opposed slavery and the slave trade, had terrible relations with women. Augustine of Hippo argued that Donatists should be compelled by force to convert – at the end of the sword.

Add to this the Bible’s accounting of God using people like Jonah (a racist prophet), David (a murderer and adulterer), and Hosea (married to a prostitute), and I think humility is in order. I am not advocating we accept errors of theology or judgment in those who have gone before us. The arrogance is to think we too are not wrong in some areas and limited by our culture and time in history. I believe we can learn from believers very different than ourselves (and need to I may add), despite our differences and their inconsistencies. And we want to study Holy Scripture with all our hearts, asking the Holy Spirit for revelation on her application in our difficult times.

As my friend Scott Sunquist, church history professor of twenty-five years with author of History of the World Christian Movement (Orbis, 2006) says, “There are no perfect Christians, so as we find Christ in the saints and lift that up for our edification.”

How do you feel/think about God moving through such fallen vessels? What can you/we learn from that?

One of the great challenges for leadership, and the church in any generation, is to see itself as clearly as possible within the large scheme of history so as to not limit or distort the gospel to a cultural, ethnic, or nationalistic agenda. How do I be a Christian in the 21st century West dominated by pleasure, comfort, money, secularism, upward mobility and in a conflict with Islam that looks like it will go on well-beyond our generation? How do we be the church when nominal Christianity is the norm ? 

Last week my good seminary friend, Scott Sunquist, came and taught a church history course at New Life on Friday night and all day Saturday. For twenty plus years, I have longed to partner with someone like Scott. He is a PHD from Princeton Theological Seminary, a former IVCF staff worker and now a professor at Pittsburg Theological Seminary. He has been studying and writing on global church history for 25 years. Scott sees the large sweeps of history. The following are my applications for us at NLF and the evangelical church at large today: ( I will give just a few now as this blog is getting long!)

First, while Scott spent little time on the desert fathers, our time confirmed for me our need to find a desert spirituality, not as a place of escape but as a means of countercultural engagement in response to the churches’ spiritual poverty. Thus we need to press in on moving our membership and church to a rule of life and calling our people to the riches of contemplative spirituality and the monastic tradition while remaining faithful to evangelism and mission

Second, the Bible and theology truly do matter. Scripture has been critical and foundational to the church to combat heresy, twists on the truth, and the church caving in to the wider culture for 2000 years. We too must develop rooted disciples who know Scripture.

Third, Jesus started a movement, not an institution. The Holy Spirit is more powerful, creative, and incredible than we realize. Without written NT Scriptures, a plan, a trained leadership, the Holy Spirit exploded through the 11 disciples at Pentecost and penetrated the Roman Empire. We need the church to contain the wine as a wineskin but the wine of the Holy Spirit is what this is all about! What God might be waiting to do if we would be listen to Him?   

What might the Holy Spirit be saying to us as the church to break out of old ways in order to follow Him as the church today?

Last Friday a judge acquitted three NYPD detectives of all charges in the shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell who was killed by 50 bullets fired outside a Queens strip club on what would have been his wedding day in November of 2006. It was a tragedy for all involved. There were no winners in this case.What does it mean for New Life Fellowship Church as we find ourselves in the midst of this crisis? In fact, a father of one of our young adults told me his son actually was the one who introduced Sean Bell to his finance and that he attended the funeral. We have police officers in our church that will probably be guarding the picket lines for the protests this week. We also have members who will be marching in protest. So we have Christians protesting and Christians guarding the protest. Apparently some of the Bell family knew Christ as well as at least one of the police officers.A huge range of emotions are evident both in conversations and the media – anger, hurt, rage, grief, relief, helplessness – to name a few. This is the not the first time in our twenty year history we have found ourselves making public statements on a Sunday worship service about a similar situation. If anything, this crisis once again reinforces the complexity of racism and divisions between races, ethnic groups and social classes.I do not feel qualified to make judgments about the judge, the details of the case, what is the right response is for us as a church or for you as an individual, but I do know that we are dealing with powers and principalities of darkness that are much more powerful than we think (Eph. 6:10-20). The distrust and division between the African- American community and the Police Department is profound, going back generations. Deep institutionalized racism is very much alive in our city and country. Take some time and listen again to those in our community who have been on the receiving end of racism. Imagine the pain, fear and confusion of African American mothers and fathers as they raise their sons to respect authority only to wonder when or if that same respect will be given to their sons should conflict arise. At the same time, being a police officer in the present NYC police department is incredibly difficult. The pressure they are under is great and their training is inadequate. They themselves feel under siege from their bosses who demand results and arrests. They also feel under siege from the mayor’s office (they have been without a contract for over three years), and from the media whom they feel are just waiting to pounce on them at the earliest opportunity. Take some time and listen to the police officers about the injustice they feel coming at them from all sides. Add to that the complexity of the racial divisions within the Police Department itself. It is painful and tragic.Our mission as a church is that, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will bridge racial, economic, social class and gender barriers. Jesus paid an infinite price, the price of his blood, to reconcile us to God and to one another. Our call is to lay our lives down and to do battle against the powers and principalities of hell that tell us it is hopeless and will never change. That is a lie.Jesus is alive. The kingdom of God is here. We are here as His church in the midst of a divided city. We are called to exhibit by our lives together that the gospel truly is the power of God! What appears like a setback may actually be an opportunity for the light of Jesus to shine. May we pray for the Bell family, the police officers, our city government and civic leaders, and for the church of Queens New York as we seek to be agents of reconciliation for His sake and His glory.What do you think should be some ways to respond as a Christian community to the Sean Bell protests and crisis around us?