The Importance of Spiritual Disciplines

So, I am at this conference in Florida that will go unnamed (the wifi at this place blocked my blog, I must have sworn in it somewhere) and the first speaker was fine, but said the same thing that every speaker I have ever heard talk about church growth has said, "The key to being an effective minister is personal quiet times." I am going to go ahead and take the liberty to include all spiritual "disciplines" into this statement...and for the record, this particular speaker set the bar at a 1 hour daily quiet time.

The focus of this particular talk was that we, as ministers, need to be at the feet of the master and in the word in order to have the kernels of wisdom needed to minister effectively. That we can gain lifetimes of wisdom by learning from the testimony of the scriptures.

Seems like a fine talk, one that most of us in Christian circles have probably heard numerous times...here is my issue: All we need to minister effectively is the Spirit working within us and through us at the behest of the Father on account of Christ's death on the cross and subsequent resurrection. Reading the Bible, Prayer, Fasting, etc. are all good things that are necessary to the life of the believer, but they are not things we do in order to gain Christ. And if we are talking about ministering effectively, what else do we need to minister well? If there is anything we need to do beyond responding to the call of the cross in order to be used by God, then we are screwed.

The Spiritual "disciplines" are not disciplines at all, they are not something we train ourselves to do becuase we do not get anything from doing them. Let me say that again, we do not get anything from doing the spiritual disciplines . We sit at the feet of the Lord in prayer, fasting, and we read his word purely for his sake, not ours. We do it in response to the incredible, generous, and totally undeserved love that he has first shown us. It is only on account of his first loving us that we can ever hope to come to him in worship. Any benefit we perceive getting out of these actions are benefits that we have already freely received on account of God's work, not ours, regardless of whether or not we read the Bible, pray, or fast.

Firefly/Serenity

Alright, I must tell the world about this. If you want to know about leadership development and what a true priest, pastor, leader looks like, watch the "Firefly" series. It was put out by FOX a few years back and only lasted a season becuase they never gave what may be the most important show of all time a chance.

If you want a movie about the power and necessity of love and our lack of control (even as Christians) over sin, then watch the movie "Serenity," that came out as a conclusion to the series (hopefully there will be more to come, but who knows).

The movie has all the same characters as the series and it is wonderful. Give it a shot, especially if you have Netflix. Well worth your time.

If you watch it and love it and want to talk about it. Email me or respond here and we will talk. It is incredible and a tremendous resource for the church.

Are We Able to Let Go?

We are seeing a continuing shift of center of the Christian Church. More and more of our brothers and sisters in Africa and Asia are coming to know the Lord while the Western church communities are in decline.

Along these lines, there is an excellent opportunity offered by an African theologian Kwame Bediako in his book, Christianity in Africa. Bediako suggests that the shift in the Church is not from the West to the South and East, but a shift to include them.

The universal church does not need a linear unidirectional theology eminating from one center, but a pattern of centers understanding theology in context and culture creating an overlapping system of theology that makes room for different perspectives and understandings.

I think this is of the utmost importance for us in the West because if we are not willing to let go of our staunch propositional beliefs and our hold of the center of our faith, then we are going to be left behind instead of joining in the ever increasing universality of God's Church as described in Rev 7.

I hope we can let go of our own agendas and really ask ourselves if we can trust that God is just as much in the midst of communities in different cultures and traditions. Can we really let go and be a unified Church? And if we are able to accept the beliefs and interpretations of those in other countries, can we also do that for those here at home? Are we willing to let go of control and allow belief in Jesus to be the basis for our communion? Or are we going to make dogma the basis?

What If We're Wrong?

I continue to go over the issues plaguing The Episcopal Church. I consider the looming split in our communion over the issue of sexuality (and I am convinced it is an issue of sexuality and not an issue of the authority of scripture) and I wonder why the Communion cannot even entertain the idea that we may be wrong.

We no longer worry about whether someone has been baptized more than once, we are simply concerned that they are baptized. We believe that only one baptism is necessary, but if the church decided that we must be baptized again as adults, would we split over it?

The Trinity is one of the most confusing doctrines in the church, if some of us decided we believed in modalism, would we split?

These are issues that were such a big deal to the early church that they wrote responses into the creeds and yet now I doubt it would create the crisis that we have today.

What if we're wrong?