In the early years of my spiritual growth, there were two Anglicans that God used to make a rich contribution to my development. First was John Stott, (left above) rector of All Souls Church, Langham Place, London. In that generation, no one could rival him for his clear, articulate, and gracious exposition of the bible applied to the pressing issues of the era. John Stott represented everything that was the best in the Anglican tradition. His writings did much to shape and form my convictions as a young follower of Jesus and the several times I was privileged to hear him speak were highlights.

David Watson (above middle) was his charismatic contemporary and the rector of St. Michael-le-Belfrey in York. I had the privilege of studying under him during my doctoral studies at Fuller Seminary in the early 80s. He was an Anglican and a charismatic which, at the time, was an oxymoron to me. I had a tough time putting the two together. Exposure to David Watson did much to open me to the reality and power of the Holy Spirit.

And now in this decade, I am growing to appreciate the writings of N.T. Wright, prolific New Testament scholar and the present Bishop of Durham. As the Church struggles to navigate the transition from modernity to postmodernity, I suspect N.T. Wright may make an immeasurable contribution in keeping us grounded in historic biblical orthodoxy yet engaged with our culture as effective ambassadors of the living Christ.

Influences like these could almost persuade to become an Anglican.

“Let others complain that this age is evil. My complaint is that this age is paltry. It lacks passion.

– Soren Kierkegaard

“If there were only one prayer which I might pray before I died, it should be this “Lord, send Thy Church men filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Give to any denomination such men, and its progress must be mighty: keep back such men, send them college gentlemen, of great refinement and profound learning, but of little fire and grace, dumb dogs which cannot bark, and straightway that denomination must decline.” – Charles Spurgeon

There are a variety of criteria I look for in those who should be serving Christ in ministry that is missionary or apostolic in nature. Most of those competencies can be grouped into four broad categories:

1. Spiritual maturity and character
2. Emotional and social Maturity
3. Theological, ecclesiological and intellectual acuity
4. Leadership giftedness and apostolic ministry skills

But there is one intangible woven throughout these characteristics to which I am instinctively drawn. This intangible is, at least for me, a game breaker. That attribute is passion. Passion for God. Passion for God’s calling on one’s life. Passion to make a difference. Passion to live a life of ultimate significance …

Certainly, passion can be misdirected and immature. It can be misused, manipulated and expended foolishly. But even when less than perfect, I would much rather pull-in-harness with those who have a sense of holy unction than be held back by those unmotivated, stifling souls who “cannot bark.” I want to labor the rest of my days with men and women who are, as Spurgeon describes above, “…filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire!”

In the same Renovare newsletter, Foster goes on to articulate three principles related to “spiritual formation based churches.” In summary, he says:

1. God alone is the One who creates and grows spiritual formation based congregations ...we don’t create it or make it happen. In Life Together Dietrich Bonhoeffer wisely notes that Christian community “is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”

2. Spiritual problems demand spiritual answers …we can never solve a spiritual problem with a programatic answer.

3. We must never use spiritual formation efforts to shore up a dying institutional structure …our focus can never be institutional survival …structures come and go.

One of the major influences and trends throughout the North American Church in the past several decades has been the growing understanding of and emphasis on spiritual formation. And one of the leading voices in this movement has been Richard Foster who started and leads Renovare to help foster (no pun intended) such ministry.

In the May 2006 Renovare newsletter, Foster outlines a fascinating list of what he believes makes up a spiritual formation based congregation. It is a good pardigm and worth repeating. In such fellowships:

1. The process of Christian spiritual formation and life-long discipleship is the foundation of individual and congregational life;
2. Everyone is encouraged to be involved in an intentional process for formation in Christlikeness;
3. The natural outcome of events for individual participation in the fellowship is ever-increasing formation and transformation into the ways and heart of Jesus
4. Spiritual formation in Christlikeness is a process not a program;
Pastors and lay leadership are fully committed to and participating in the spiritual formation process;
5. There is great diversity of sources to draw from for Christian faith and practice;
6. The classical Spiritual disciplines—such as prayer, fasting, service, and guidance—are highly valued, taught on, and practiced; and
7. All are encouraged to explore the writings of the great devotional authors of the Church such as Saint Augustine, Julian of Norwich, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Wherever one goes around the world, this simple symbol stands as a beacon:

o Ornately carved over a Coptic church in Cairo;
o Illuminated on a hillside overlooking a California freeway;
o sitting on a small alter in an apartment where a Chinese house church meets;
o Held high leading an Anglican processional;
o Around the neck of a missionary as she cares for those suffering and dying in a slum;
o Atop the glistening gold onion dome of a Russian Orthodox church;
o As two sticks tied together stuck in the ground under a tree in the African bush;
o Adorning row upon row of symmetrical graves overlooking the beaches of Normandy

No other symbol in human experience is as widespread and has evoked such emotion, power and allegiance. The remembrance of the cross and what happened upon it – liturgically and in memorial – has been the focal point of worship for the Christian movement in very epoch and in every culture into which the movement has spread.

While the cross is all of this, is is also nothing apart from an empty tomb. Without the resurrection, the cross becomes a minor footnote in Jewish history lost among all the cruelty and tragedy of the Roman occupation of Palestine. But with the historical reality of the resurrected Christ, the cross represents “...the power of God for salvation to all who believe.”   Therefore …

“Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
til all the world adores His sacred name.”

“But when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”

The cross stands as the apex of human history. All of reality in our universe is defined and has ultimate meeting because of what happened on that hillside outside of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

o The cross is the supreme act of sacrifice.
o It is the visible definition and incarnation of love.
o It is where the legal, forensic act takes place whereby the justice of a holy God—which is the essence of His very nature that cannot be denied or ignored—is satisfied.
o The cross is where all the supernatural forces of evil, reveling in false triumph, are defeated. Is is where God in human flesh dies.
o The cross is where an incomprehensible, unexplainable cleavage in the indivisible Trinity occurs.
o The cross breaks the power of sin and death.
o As an instrument of death, it is a gruesome, horrible, excruciating way for any person to die—the epitome of torture.
o It is where all that is broken is made right.
o The cross gives meaning to all suffering and puts it into eternal perspective.
o It is where the curse on creation—psychologically, sociologically, and ecologically – is lifted.
o The cross is a beacon of hope for all who are hurting.
o It is the final arbitrator of right and wrong and the consummate definer of morality.
o The cross is where the Kingdom of God and His rule over all are sealed.
o And it is where eternity is opened for those who are bought and redeemed by the death of Jesus.

***********************

Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
til all the world adore His sacred Name.

O Lord, once lifted on the glorious tree,
as thou hast promised, draw the world to thee.
Let every race and every language tell
of him who save our souls from death and hell

For thy blest Cross which doth for all atone
creation’s praises rise before thy throne.
So shall our son of triumph ever be:
Praise to the Crucified for the victory.

—Refrains from “Lift High the Cross” by George William Kitchen, 1887
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Matthias Grunewald, 1470-1528, a German, was one of the greatest painters of his age and his crucifixion, one of his most outstanding masterpieces.

“The most extensive, pervasive strategic error in the Christian tradition lies squarely in our coveted and generously supported, but unquestioned, concept of years of “schooling” as the way for leaders to develop and be trained ….In this country and abroad, every church movement which has come to depend solely upon residential school products for its ministry is dying.” – Ralph Winter in “Mission Frontiers”, March-April 2003

The fact is, information rarely transforms lives. Relationships do.

While accurate information about God is certainly necessary, it’s relating to God in a deep and personal way that actually produces substantive change. And if I want to see genuine transformation in the lives of others, it’s most effective through the power of a relationship, not through the passing on of facts or concepts regardless of how true they may be.

Truth becomes most powerful when it is embodied in a person and made manifest in a relationship. It’s called the incarnation.

It was miserable with the heat, humidity, and incredible fatigue. We’d been walking through jungle since before dawn, attempting to do a 35 mile trek in one day. For some of the men, their legs had already given out and we had to hoist them onto the few mules we had used to carry supplies. Most of us were close to exhaustion.

I was 19 and was in the midst of a summer at Wycliffe’s jungle training program near the Mexico/Guatamala border. Teams from five university ministries, all with the Navigators, were participating.

It was tough. Yet God met me in an unusual way on that trail. He did it through (more…)

Roberta Winter writes further regarding “the expulsive power of a new affection…”

“For Peter, fishing for mere fish lost its attraction…

The very proper young Wesley abandoned his high church connections for the field and mining camps because God’s hand was on him …

Carey, just a poor village cobbler, became history’s foremost missionary statesman …

Wilberforce poured his riches into legislation for the slaves …

And the list goes on….

I’ve often wondered, given the chance, what Christ would have done with the rich young ruler – the only one about whom it is written, ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him.’ But he ended up a rich unknown. Could he have become a Paul, a Luther, a Wesley?

But he was rich and ‘the attractions of this world and the delights of wealth, and the search for success and lure of nice things came in and crowded out God’s message from his heart, so that no crop was produced.’ (Mark 4:19)”

These are timely, poignant and convicting reminders.

Early in our ministry, Patty and I become friends with a young attorney and his wife. Through an array of ministry involvements, the husband had tasted some incredible results in the lives of people and was seriously considering whether God would have them change careers and pursue a role with CRM in vocational ministry. He was thoroughly infected with the ministry “bug.”

I vividly remember the evening in our living room when the discussion turned to the lifestyle cost of such a decision and the atmosphere became tense. (more…)

In some old files, I came across an article written over a dozen years ago by Roberta Winter (of U.S. Center for World Mission fame) entitled The Non-Essentials of Life. In it, she outlines six principles regarding lifestyle that she and her husband Ralph lived by during their long and distinguished missionary careers:

Principle One: Our lifestyle must please the Lord, yet it should not in small matters be so shockingly different from those among whom we walk as to make unintelligible the message we wish to convey.

Principle Two: A simple lifestyle in the U.S. can still seem extravagant to most of the people in the world. Yet our geographic isolation does not reduce our obligation in God’s eyes to people at a distance.

Principle Three: We don’t really need most of the things our culture would push off on us. Once we learn to resist social pressure, it is far easier to determine what we really want or need.

Principle Four: There ought not be any connection between what is earned and what needs to be spent. You don’t buy things just because you have the money.

Principle Five: It is much easier to adopt a simple lifestyle if you join a support group (or be part of a community) that covenants together to live on less.

Principle Six: The foundation of the simple lifestyle is “the expulsive power of a new affection.”

One of the characteristics of the emerging church is the abolition of the sacred, secular divide and corresponding dualism that such an artificial and unbiblical distinction fosters in how followers of Jesus in postmodern culture live their lives. As Bolger and Gibbs put it, “For these communities, there are no nonspiritual domans of reality.”

As has been true with other renewal movements, this not a new perspective. While powerfully articulated at various junctures throughout the history of the Christian movement, one of the more interesting case studies of such holism is the English Puritan movement of the 16th and 17th century.

LeLand Ryken calls them “…worldly saints – Christians with earth as their sphere of activity and with heaven as their ultimate hope.” Few in Christian history have lived out biblical holism as fervently where all of life belongs to the Lord and His kingdom rule permeates all. (more…)

“Be still and know that I am God …” – Psalm 146:10

Even living in a densely populated metro area, one can find places where the soul can more readily decompress and connect with God. And there are usually places, nearby and sometime hidden to first glances, where that pursuit can be more readily encouraged through the simple magnificence of the created order.

These are sites this morning from my own moments of wandering prayer. They are scenes from one of the venues where I regularly walk and pray …places where I can “be still and know that he is God.”

From the Scopes Monkey trial to the present day, it is discouraging in North America to see followers of Christ choosing battlefields and going to war culturally on the wrong turf. Lines get drawn in unfortunate places and the Christian faith suffers from self-inflicted wounds.

Regarding this issue of origins, what really makes a difference is the understanding and commitment to the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27). Contrary to lots of the populist and emotional rhetoric, the real crux of the matter is not how creation happened, but the fact that humanity’s origin is not a matter of time, plus, chance plus matter but that we are created and have our genesis in the very being and essence of the triune God.

It’s when the Imago Dei goes that humanity inevitably descends into the nihilism of a Nietzsche, the hopelessness of a Camus and ultimately the practical consequences of an Adolph Hitler. Without the Imago Dei, the whole basis of morality and ethics in Western culture simply evaporates. It’s the image of God that really counts and where historic Christianity has always drawn the line.

One of the best elaborations of this theme that I have found over the years is the treatment given it by Francis Schaeffer in his little, often overlooked volume, Genesis in Time and Space. It’s worth the read.

Genesis in Time and Space by Francis Schaeffer

“…prayer is a form of thinking. In long wandering prayer, we let our subconscious generate our thinking in prayer, we open up our vast personal wilderness before God.” - David Hansen

I am not a contemplative. Nor will I probably ever be.

I’ve struggled over the years with prayer and particularly with the guilt of not being able to spend large blocks of time in focused intercession. Some of the popular concepts of spiritual formation (as I understand them) and the templates for what really spiritual people do when it comes to prayer and solitude simply have never been a fit for me.

So it has been with great pleasure that I finally found someone else who understands and can identify with my frustration and sense of failure. David Hansen, in his book, Long Wandering Prayer, has introduced me to a whole new perspective on intimacy with God that defines and approaches prayer in what, for me, is doable. It’s liberating.

Essentially, he advocates utilizing the body and the physical world as an integral, essential ingredient of extended prayer …running, walking, being outside in nature, and actively engaging God in my thoughts and thinking in the process. It’s what I’ve done for years but never considered legitimate. He writes:

We have construed prayer as something so preposterously body depriving, so mind-numbingly inactive that it is impossible to imagine praying for eight hours and still have a heartbeat. (more…)