Confessions of a Sporatic Blogger

I have a confession to make.  I must say I haven't made a real post in quite some time simply because of my superfluous desire (used a thesaurus for that one, cool word huh) to sound good (case and point with the thesaurus).  See, what I write here shapes your perception of me.  How I act, how I look, all those things shape others' perceptions of me.  So I never write much because I don't have something super spiritual sounding to say and therefore would effect your perception of me.  Even this post I've been laboring over trying to figure out how to communicate what I want to say.  Well today I discovered it in a most unexpected place, in the book of Song of Solomon and a sermon from the 3rd century.

In his First Homily, Origen relates the first 12 verses of chapter 1 of the book of Song of Solomon to Christ's relationship with the church.  In verse 6 the Beloved declares she's become dark skinned because her brothers made her work in the vineyards all day.  She's ashamed because she was caring so much for the other vineyards that she couldn't care for the vineyard of her own body.  Origen's point being that God loves us no matter how we look on the outside, but I think we as the church have it backwards.  We're so busy caring for how spiritual we look outside that we neglect the true relationship.  It's been said before in many ways, the church has come to look an awful lot like Pharisees.  But these messages that have been preached to me so many times before, that I've repeated to others, are beginning to take deeper root in my soul.  Rather than trying to deceive myself into believing that I'm more spiritual than I really am - and that even if I were, that would make God accept me any more or less - I need to count myself in the ranks of the lost, only drawn close to the Father because of the gospel of grace.

Brennan Manning writes, "As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often unloving, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to me.  When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed.  God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am.  Because of this I don't need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him.  I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness."

Ok, this post is getting long enough (thanks to those persistent few who have endured).  And if these thoughts seem redundant for you, continue to read them and continue to listen, because maybe not this time, or the next, but one of these times, like me, it'll start to sink in.  Then it'll be the sweetest thing you've ever known and you'll never hear enough.  Thanks for stickin with.  Peace.

The following is the summary letter about my trip to Namibia this summer that I wrote to my support partners. I thought I'd also share it here for anyone interested. If you'd like to see pics from the trip you can check out either Mike's Photo Gallery or G.O. Team Namibia 2005 Photo Gallery.

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Dear Friends and Family,

Well the weather's starting to cool and the leaves are starting to turn and the summer life of this traveling vagabond is finally settling back into some semblance of routine. This finally gives me opportunity to try and put into words the incredible opportunities that God's allowed me to be involved with this summer, in large part due to your prayers and support.

I've been to Namibia four times now, but have never quite had the trouble trying to describe our trip as I now have. As many of you know, we partnered with Melissa Hoffman Dance Center to form this year's Global Outreach team to Namibia, that included 1 dance teacher, 14 dancers, 2 family relatives, and 12 Christ's Church members. The majority of the team from MHDC had very little experience with God or church, so I quickly found myself in a position of challenging many of their preconceived ideas about church, pastors, and God with simply the way I lived my life.

While our "mission" in Namibia was to bring hope and the message of abstinence to Namibian secondary school students, the majority of my ministry took place back at camp amongst our own team. Sitting around the campfire at night and long car rides to our next performances offered the perfect forum for open, honest conversation about how God desires relationship with people. They asked phenomenal questions like what is "born again", what does it mean to dance for God, and how come I've never heard this before. These were conversations we could've had here at home, but probably never would have. It wasn't until we had shared such intense experiences that these questions even came up.

Now we expected to have some of those conversations in Africa, but what we didn't expect was for them to follow us back here. Through team reunion socials, families visiting Christ's Church, and the ever popular instant messaging technology we've been able to continue those conversations that started around the campfire. God's story that was seeded in their hearts long ago and watered in the plains of Africa, will continue to grow up in them long after our influence has come and gone.

During a few afternoons, after our school performances in the mornings, we were able to go to Vyf Rand, the squatters' camp community where our missionary friends, Dieter and Joan Morsbach, minister regularly. We would drive into town and kids would chase our vans all the way to the soccer field where we would pile out into the crowds of their eager, young faces just to play and dance with them. It didn't take long before each team member had their own little attatchment. For me it was Jonas. And every time we would pile out of the vans he would find me and come running up to jump into my arms. It was these kids that we had grown to love that were the hardest to leave. And it strikes me that God went a lot farther than 25,000 miles over 5 flights to show me how much He loved me.

There are so many stories to tell that a letter like this cannot begin to explain. But my hope is that you are encouraged in God's relentless love for you, that He would go through such extravagant means to show you how much He loves you. Thank you for joining me in this adventure by your continued prayers and financial support. I'm excited to see how God will continue to use the experiences and relationships of our trip for His glory in each of our lives.

In His Grip...

Mostly I like life to be predictable because then I know what I'm getting myself into, but it often seems that what impacts your life the most are those things that take you by surprise. Such was the case for me in Africa. For the last two weeks I've been in Namibia with a team of 15 dancers and 13 others. I expected to go into this trip and love on these dancers like I do all my youth group kids, get to know them and experience life together with them. What I didn't expect was to have their love in return. And I don't just mean knowing these kids like you loving them, I mean always there for you, open their hearts to you, care about what's important to you kind of love. That's what took me by surprise. It's hard to explain the true significance of receiving love from others. For the longest time that seemed like a prideful, selfishness, but now it seems more like the consummation of the lover, to be loved by the beloved.

I think that very much mirrors our relationship with God. I think a lot of things about guy-girl relationships mirror our relationship with God. I think that's why God gave them to us. But it seems like God is crying out to His beloved creation and waiting for our love in return. Like the infamous DTR, God has laid His feeling all out on the table and now longingly waits for us to say those simple words, "I love you too." Maybe that's what spirituality is all about, us coming to say more and more, "I love you." If you're interested in following up on this idea with me, check out Psalm 139 where David recognizes God declaring His undying love and then his response in the last two verses. Sounds very much like a prayer I once read in the back of a 4 Spiritual Laws tract. Could it be that coming to faith sounds a lot more like committing to a relationship?

As much as I always skip over it when people leave random lyrics (it always seems like half a song, the lyrics work together with the music to create a harmonic whole) I'm going to leave these incomplete lyrics for you to ponder. It has to do with how our relationship with God is a lot like a DTR. Then maybe someday you'll have to ask me to play it for you so you can get the whole experience. :)

I don't know if I can take what you want me to say
I don't know that I can live up to all my expectations
Here I'm paralyzed at the edge of all I've ever wanted
Putting up a fight against the fears of everything I've ever known
So I'm found in that place where I jump or come back down
And all I want to say is...

I love you even though I don't know how
May my silence speak in better words than any I have found
I need you to right the ship I think I missed what
You were trying to say
So I close my eyes and I think of life without you here
I deeply sigh and I wake up, I wanna wake up where you are

How can I say for sure you're the only one for me
When my wandering eyes and feet are my tendency
Yet Your love remains the same despite my constant harlotry
Will I let my fears decide the fate of all my dreams
So I'm found in that place where I jump or come back down
And all I want to say is...

I hate it when people only post once ever other blue moon. Why even bother at all! Ok, that's me, I know, j/k. :)

So my thoughts of late have gathered around this mysterious paradox we call faith. I can't help but question the conditional/unconditional nature of this faith. I'm firmly convinced there is nothing good in me that seeks after God on my own, so this faith in Him is not, indeed can not be from me alone...and therefore, unconditional, by the grace of God. (Note: There are many references I could quote such as Romans 3 or Ephesians 2:8, but I choose not to because of the recent abundance of what one may call "proof-texting". I would rather you search the whole of Scripture and judge my conclusions and questions based on what you discover of the character of God.) On the other hand, I have different fingers...I mean ;) I'm also firmly convinced that any so called faith that does not result in the obedience of love is really no saving faith at all, but merely belief, like that of the demons who believe in God, and therefore, conditional upon the free choices I make. So in any attempt toward delicately balancing the total sovereignty of God and the free will of man, even in regards to faith, one must be quite comfortable with the mystery of a God who's ways and thoughts are higher than ours, which is where I find myself during my deliberations.

Other related questions include the idea of two levels of justification, that of the nation of Israel when they made the Levitical sacrifices, and that of the faithful saints like Moses who was declared the "friend of God", and then, recognizing the process of the spiritual life, when exactly is that moment of regeneration when the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts. I suppose scholars have long since debated and will continue endlessly to debate far deeper questions of theology than mine, so I suppose I'm ever condemned to an incomplete understanding, like Paul, until the day we see clearly and no longer as though through a glass. Although at that point, how important will understanding really be. :) Either way, thanks for pondering with me.

ps. If you haven't checked it out yet, take a look at the blog site for my team going to Namibia. You can follow along with all the latest happenings during our trip from July 1st-17th.

Lately I've been reading this great book (HIGHLY recommend it) called Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. It's been instrumental in reshaping how I think about spirituality, which seems to be quite the theme in my posts of late. We seem to equate spirituality with the absence of sin. The more I grow up spiritually, the less sinful I become. So why is it that the most spiritual people I know are the ones most conscience of their sin? Since when have we ever had to clean ourselves up before we come to God? Why do we think we can hide our sin from God to look spiritual like we do with everyone else on Sunday mornings? Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees? God isn't looking for spiritual people! He's looking for people who know nothing but their sin, and therefore their great need for Him. Perhaps true spirituality looks quite different from the very spiritual people we see, or pretend to be, on Sunday mornings. Perhaps God's much more ready to move in the lives of sinners than of spiritual people. Perhaps we need to stop turning messy sinners away from the doors of the church and instead, invite them into the love of God. Perhaps it's not until we become unescapably aware of our sin that we start to understand true spirituality.

Of course, as with anything else, this sounds far easier said than done. And what about sanctification? Aren't we suppose to be pursuing holiness? I mean, sure people can be messy before they meet Jesus, but then after that don't we want to assimilate them into little church people? Kinda reminds me of Paul writing to the Galatians saying, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by human effort?" But more on that later....