It was the public enthronement of the Son of God, inaugurating the new reality in which he could do all of the following work:

He lives in perfect union with the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit
He watches the planet for hearts turned toward him
He intercedes for us
He holds the universe together by the power of his Word
He pours out the Spirit on all flesh– giving visions, dreams, gifts and grace
He authors and authorizes all prophecy– hence the need to especially desire the gift of prophecy. ;0)
He sings
He listens
He absorbs all our anxiety and exchanges it for his Peace– he guards our hearts and minds
He encourages the saints
He provides the target of our fixed gaze
He abides in us
He bears fruit through us
He hides us in the shadow of his wings– in the Temple of the Almighty
He completes our joy
He pours out special favor on those who are suffering for the sake of his righteousness.
He is making all things new
He rules as the sovereign king of the creation and the cosmos.
He awaits the order from the Father to return and consummate the New Creation

And he’s only getting started.

;0)

Always remind me,

jd

Where have I been?

I’ve been working with some friends to launch a social media resourcing hub for worship leaders and designers called, leVite camp.

I’ve been doing some writing over there.

If this interests you, I’d love you to join the conversation.

Much creating in the world only inspires consumption. Like Lays potato chips, “no one can eat just one.” The more they create, the more we consume.

Some creating in the world reaches further to the place where consumption inspires copying. But this really only leads to more consumption. Think about church music. How many worship songs have we heard that sound strangely like the last one we heard?

A few creators in the world create in a way that causes us to “behold” instead of consume. Their way of creating mysteriously inspires us to create. We learn to “imitate” them without copying, enabling our participation to make a distinctive contribution to an endlessly original work.

That’s what it should mean to be a Christian, to partake of the Divine nature and participate in the New Creation.

That’s what happened on Maundy Thursday so many years ago when He broke the Bread and Shared the Cup. He invited us into a way of consuming that inspires creation.

Might we press through the mindless consumption of a distant memory this time? Might we get beyond merely copying the motions this time? This time let us consume the Meal in a way that embraces the Mystery and ushers us into the Miracle of the New Creation.

The Movement calls………

We’ve started a new series of short (2-3min) teaching clips on worship design and leadership over at www.levitecamp.com The one featured here is just for fun. I had no idea I was being filmed. And yes, the first time I saw it was live on youtube. I’ve not said a lot about Levite Camp here yet as it is in its early stages of development. In short, we are developing and hosting a conversation on worship design and leadership from a theological angle. We find that most of the conversation about worship centers around music, which is fine, but woefully incomplete. We will be posting a new teaching short from this new series once or twice a week. I’d love your feedback.

J.B. Phillips classic book, “Your God is too small” makes a good point, but what if the opposite point is true? What if our God is too big?  I’ve got an open search going for references in the Bible to God being “big.” Certainly this might be implied from some of the big things God has done, but is God actually referred to as “big?” To be sure, I’ve sung my share of songs that claim God’s “big-ness”  over the past decade. (i.e. big house, big table, big yard, etc.) What if all this big-ness is an adventure in missing the point?

Advent leads us to remember that God actually came to us quite small, wrapped in swaddling clothes and able to fit into a feeding trough. Maybe that was part of the problem. God’s people were expecting something bigger. When you look for BIG you often miss small. The image of the invisible God actually fits into a single person. The fullness of God dwelt in the physical body of a lone Galilean peasant carpenter. One can be powerful or mighty or awesome or majestic or glorious without being big.

What if the secret of life is found in embracing your smallness? What if the will of God actually does cohere in the frail, broken frame of a crucified Nazarene who rises from the grave? Isn’t there something marvelously small about this huge reality? Could small be the essence of humble? Doesn’t the boast of bigness seem to defy it. After all, the one being in very nature God humbled himself and made himself nothing.

That’s big.

I’ve often lamented here about the way most Christians these days separate the speaking from the “worship.” The music, of course, is considered the worship. The speaking is most often categorized as “the teaching.”

We can learn a lot from the African American Church on this front. Have you ever noticed in this tradition how a sermon is not something the preacher “delivers” to the people? The message is alive and belongs neither to the preacher nor the people but to both. They actively participate together in the ministry of Word and Spirit. Something genuinely new takes place that is not replicable. It’s a gift always readily available, but never repeatable.

People often want to isolate this kind of preaching as a “style” in a particular “tradition.” It excuses us from really exploring it as a possibility by claiming that it’s not “who we are.” And let’s be honest. There’s nothing worse than to hear a “white” preacher trying to preach like a black preacher. Here’s what I think. I think the African American Church’s practice of preaching transcends “style” and delves into the place of the true “essence” of what proclamation in the Kingdom of God looks and feels like. We must ask ourselves the question:  What would that “essence” look like if it were captured in my own native style of preaching?

Christian preaching is not a one-way information highway. Nor is it a two way conversation. True preaching is a Divine engagement with a human community in the holy milieu of Word and Spirit. Preaching is not an interesting, insightful and entertaining lecture. Preaching is a human encounter with a Divine Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. Preaching is a supernatural event that happens  in the space between speaker and hearer as we together learn to lean forward into the World of the Word of God and breathe deeply of the Spirit who inspired it.

The biggest revolution required to move into this approach:  the way we prepare. More on that to come.

Everyone wants to be part of a movement; don’t they?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a movement. Here’s where I am in my thinking.

1. Begins with a MYSTERY. Something extraordinary happens to upset the apple cart of the status quo and something new begins.

2. Becomes a clear MISSION. People begin to unify around something and it moves forward into action of some sort. There is a shared sense of mission. (Note, I’m  not talking about a “mission statement.” The crafting of a mission statement is often a sign that the mystery has been lost.”

3.  A focused MESSAGE usually comes to the fore. It’s a clear, compelling idea and people “get-it.”

4.  An army of MESSENGERS emerges. They come out of the woodwork. They are passionate about spreading this message and  they develop all sorts of creative ways of spreading it. (if necessary they use words)

5.  MELODIES seem to spring forth from the sky. Poets and songwriters go to work, capturing the deeper essences of what it is that so compels people to give themselves to this movement. The songs spread like wildfire, freighting the message in a way only music can.

6.  The movement takes on distinctive MARKS. Marketers would call it a brand, only it’s a brand in the real sense. People will literally have their body “branded” with this mark. Think Tattoos.

7.  Finally, you know you have a movement when you have MARTYRS. This takes the idea of “marks” to the next level, when people willingly endure suffering of some sort, at times literally scarring their bodies (inside and out). . . . even to the point of death.

MOVEMENTS abound. They come and they go. For a movement to endure, it requires one more element:  MEMORY. More specifically, it calls for a kind of Remembering that includes but transcends historical memory. It takes a way of remembering that narrates us into the MYSTERY itself– in real time.

More on that to come. Thoughts? Can you cite examples of the above realities?

We so want to “do something” now. Yet the great lesson of discipleship is to learn to allow something to be done for us and to us and in us and through us. How do we learn this. The Super Practices of baptism and eucharist give us something to “do” that actually puts us in a place where something can be “done.”

First, note where these practices happen. Gathered worship is the setting. It’s through worship, (gathered and scattered) that God renews the face of the Earth. New Creation blossoms every where and every time the people of God gather for worship. The seed of New Creation is sown and the fruit harvested every time and everywhere the people of God scatter for worship in the World. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit in and through the  worship of God’s people that effects what I like to call the “seamlessness of sacredness.” In the mind of Christ we find no distinction between sanctuary and streets. It brings us back to Super Practices. Where do we practice the seamlessness of sacredness? In the concrete-mysticism of the bread and wine; in the supernatural ordinariness of the water. In the indivisible Divine-Human Son of God, Jesus.

If we would see the seamlessness of sacredness in the World, we must first see it in our own communities and selves. Hence our frenetic activity is to try to go and do it, to make it happen, to change the world. However, we can’t make this happen; only God can. So if we can’t just do it, what do we do? We can do this– baptize and feast; be washed and be filled. Note the activity– we are offering ourselves.  Note the passivity–something happens for us and to us. It prepares the way for something to happen in us and through us.

For-To-In-Through. . . . . . that’s the way.

Worship must become more about hearing and seeing and less about reading and thinking.

Think about it. ;0) We are born with the ability to see and hear but not to read. Why, then, have we made so much of reading? Jesus and the prophets don’t say, “Who has eyes to read– read.” No, they speak of “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.” Worship creates a revelatory setting for Scripture; one where hearing can lead to seeing. Scripture bursts with vision and gives birth to epiphany. To read along while Scripture is being read actually distracts hearing and disengages seeing. So why do we do it? Habit? Do we think the reader is going to try and slip something in on us? If so, we are in the wrong community.

Scripture was written to be heard, not read; else reading would be pre-requisite to salvation. (i.e. salvation by grace through reading??)

1.  Renounce distraction in the name of Jesus and welcome him to take captive your thoughts.

2.  Take whatever posture enables the most submissive attention. Pray for ILLUMINATION– ears to hear and eyes to see.

3.  Welcome the Holy Spirit to give “sight” and draw forth “in-sight.”

By learning to “hear” Scripture in a way that kindles sight, we will learn to “read”Scripture in a way that fosters hearing.  In this way we may break free from our “I think therefore I am” Cartesian worldview and into the “I behold therefore I become” view of God, the world and worship.

Can we test some deeply held assumptions?

Where did we get the idea that the aim of a worship service was the presentation of some kind of rationally driven message? That people should leave with a “take-away” and that everything needs to drive toward that?

Take a look at the average worship facility. Most look like something between a concert hall and a classroom. Does this help explain what so often happens in worship. . . . . . consuming music and capturing message. . . . . experiencing emotion and downloading information. . . . . . . people sitting in rows facing the stage?

It’s interesting. These days people don’t even consider the speaking or message a part of worship. Anyone under the age of 40 these days almost universally refer to the musical portion of the service as “the worship.” Why is that? The average person prefers a participative concert to a passive classroom?

Why don’t people consider the message a part of the worship? Could this explain why leaders want to design the whole service around their message? Does the way we approach and fashion preaching somehow disqualify it from the category of worship? Could the design of the worship service around the “message” or “series” be a subconscious effort by the leaders to re-capture preaching as worship? Or is it to capture the worship as part of the message?

What if worship is actually much different than we presently conceive of in this age? What if it’s more about Divine embrace than evangelistic education; more unadulterated devotion than programmed discipleship; more mystical union than rational comprehension; more of a seamless experience of the World God is making than a quest to present derivative principles that make  God relevant to “our” World????

More questions than answers. Needing your help.  And please, resist the temptation to push the that-was-easy we need “balance” button. I’m not so much trying to create dichotomies as I am trying to lure us out of our present paradigm to explore something refreshingly new.