restored to grace

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
(Daniel 3:16-18 ESV)

Exactly one year ago I lost my job at Liquid Church. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming; after all, my title started with the word interim. Regardless, it still hurt. It felt weird and wrong somehow. When I was told that I would be finishing up in two weeks, Pastor Tim was wrapping up a series on the book of Habakkuk. I wasn’t listening at the time, but after exactly one year, God has given me the opportunity to do what my heart yearns to do and to do it full-time.

I honestly don’t know how I continued. I was angry. I was sad. I even fell into depression. I questioned God over and over again. Why had he placed this calling on my life, yet he had given me no avenue to act on my calling?

But I kept serving him in the flawed ways I knew. I cried out to him in song every Sunday, begging him to give me a ministry to call my own.

And then I looked around me and realized that he had given me an avenue to act on my calling. He had given me a ministry. There were so many opportunities he had given me, but in my grief and self-absorption, I was unable unwilling to see and grasp the opportunities he’d given me.

In the middle of it all, I still remembered the cross. I was failing. I was destroying myself. But God was still there, reminding me that he bought me with his blood.

And then it got worse. The opportunities that I’d missed—the ministry God had given me that I was blind to—they were all taken from me.

“My God is able to deliver me. . . and he will.”

These words were so difficult to say, let alone believe. But I tried.

“But if he does not. . .”

Even more difficult to swallow this thought. If God chose to keep me from my heart’s greatest desire, would I still worship him?

Even now, as I type the words, they are slow and deliberate. I have to ask myself again, “Would I still worship him?”

I pause for what feels like an hour.

Yes. I will.

Because when I trusted Jesus as my Savior I knew that I was not asking him to enter my life and empower my agenda or my motives. I knew that I was not asking him to come along for the journey of my life.

I was asking him to lead me. I was asking him to go before me. I was asking him to pave the way in my life, and I know that whatever pain I may experience, he’s going through it before I am because he’s leading me.

That is how I can defiantly say that even if my God does not deliver me, I will still worship him.

How can we, when trials come our way, persevere if we’ve asked Christ to empower our agendas? We cannot. Instead, to truly defy our circumstances, we must understand that trusting Christ as our Saviour is following him through life and not requesting that he follow us.

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One of the beauties of my job right now is that I’m not jumping onto a boat that’s already sailing (metaphorically speaking, of course). Instead, I’ve been given the unique opportunity to build the boat. It’s a pretty liberating feeling to be able to start a program from scratch, but at the same time it’s rather daunting as well. So as I go through the process of building this program from the ground up, I’ve been chewing on some questions in my mind.

I’ve got a whiteboard in my office where I do most of my brainstorming and thought-wrestling. (Steve, our Pastor of Development here at Emergence, claims that getting an iPad will effectively eliminate my need to use a whiteboard, but I’m skeptical.) So on this whiteboard I’ve posted a few questions that I’ll be wrestling with over the next few months. Here are a couple of them.

What makes a kids’ environment successful? Is it the “wow” or “cool” factor? How big of a role does the environment play in the effectiveness of the program? Is it the ability for kids to do something at this environment that they can’t do anywhere else?

How do I actually get parents involved in what we’re teaching their kids? Should I rely on Sunday take-home materials? Should I fill the parents’ inboxes with review/wrap-up emails? What about a blog solely devoted to engaging parents in the mission of our program?

These are just a few of the numerous questions I’ll be asking myself as we draw closer to the launch of this program. What about you? Are there any questions that you think I should be wrestling with?

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I’m about to get a little bit raw here.

I’ve got a handful of pretty big fears (especially because of the kind of work that I do). Sometimes my fears are in response to questions that people have posed.

I’ve been asked before (though thankfully not as often as one would expect) how I expect to be effective in family and children’s ministries if I have no family of my own. And to be honest, I don’t have a legitimate answer for that. And that scares me.

I’ve found myself echoing that question in my own mind over and over again. And I truly am afraid that I’ll be ineffective until I gain that hands-on experience of leading a family of my own.

So what then? Do I settle for a second-rate ministry until God sees fit to put me in the role of a husband and then father? Does my ministry have an “effectiveness ceiling” because my understanding of the family has a ceiling?

Or how do I answer the angry parent who doesn’t fully understand my approach to teaching his/her child when he/she asks me what I know about raising children?

Do I even have a clue?

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They say confession is good for the soul, so here goes.

I haven’t fully repented of my legalistic and judgmental mindset. Now, let me preface this by contextually defining the term repentance.

The Greek word from which we get the English repentance is quite different from our common understanding of the term. Even Webster’s Dictionary definition of repentance differs from the biblical definition of the term.

Metanoia (and its verb form metanoeo) is defined as a change of mind and carries with it the connotation of turning around and heading in the opposite direction you once were heading.

So when I say that I haven’t repented, I say that I haven’t completely changed.

This morning at church I saw a couple dressed extremely well. The man was dressed in a dark suit and wore a necktie, and his wife (I assume) was wearing what I would consider typical “Sunday best.”

And the first thought in my mind was, They’re going to experience some culture shock today.

A buzz-phrase often thrown around in churches is, “Come as you are, and leave different,” or some variation. (Sadly, most churches that carry that kind of phrase don’t actually live by their mantra, which is why my church avoids pithy sayings like that one.)

Churches like Liquid Church and Emergence hold very closely to that kind of ideal. Our goal is to allow the grace of God to permeate everything we do so that people feel comfortable enough to be authentic and express their inner selves outwardly.

And I didn’t allow for that. Instead, I assumed that this couple “missed the memo” and were showing up for church expecting what I perceived was “their kind of service” and that they would be shocked by the loud alterna-rock worship and the pastoral staff wearing ripped jeans and flip-flops (or, in Ryan’s case, some form of moccasins). I assumed they were going to look around the room and judge everyone for their overtly sinful lifestyles, and not once during my observation of this couple did I give them the benefit of the doubt.

What if they’re completely on board with our mission at Emergence? What if they simply feel more comfortable dressed like that because that’s just how they’ve always done church?

Or worse yet (for me), what if they were victims of the 1950s church “ideal” and had come to Emergence to check out the whole “Jesus thing,” but were fed the lie that you had to “dress up” for church?

And I have to repent of this mindset. I thought I’d changed. I thought I’d begun to allow grace to identify me. Instead, I’ve found myself to be the same judgmental pharisee I was five years ago. I’m just pointing my Bible guns at different targets.

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I don’t know about you, but there are certain styles of music that really speak to me. There are styles that I like, styles that I don’t like, and styles that disarm me and move me emotionally.

I like indie rock, electronica, and alternative (not this kind of alternative, this kind of alternative). I don’t like baroque, screamo, or metal. And post-grunge, alternative rock, and opera disarm me and move me emotionally.

So you can imagine which styles God will use to reach my heart. But one thing I’ve learned is that what works for me may not work for someone else.

The traditional song “The Solid Rock” never really spoke to me growing up. For some reason I just never felt like I totally connected with the words, and they didn’t resonate with me. But I heard it again a couple years ago sung in alternative rock, and now it’s become one of my favorite songs.

So what about you? What style speaks to you?

A?

or B?

And which style do you think would resonate with your neighbor?

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I can’t help but be thankful for the life I’ve been given. These past couple months have been such a phenomenal blessing, I don’t even know what to highlight. It’s astounding, even to me, to continue seeing God’s hand at work in my life.

My heart has longed to pour into people in the venue of the Church, and God, for whatever reason, has decided to fulfill that wish and give me the opportunity to do exactly what I’ve longed to do for years. But I never would have believed that my journey would unfold the way it has.

More than three years ago God guided my steps to a place where I could come to him on my own terms, and not feel forced into it by other people. And it was there, at Liquid Church, that God called me into his ministry.

He placed that desire in my heart, but as I grew closer to him, I discovered that I wasn’t ready for that mission.

Never was that more clear to me than the time I spent working for Liquid. If there was ever a time I felt like a failure, it was that season. Time and time again, I looked at the ministry I was entrusted with and thought, What am I doing wrong?

Don’t get me wrong; I loved each day I spent working for the church. But the hardships I faced then were hardships I wasn’t ready for. I knew I could do better, but I didn’t know how to improve.

Fast-forward to now. I’m about to step into that role yet again, only this time with a new church called Emergence. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more than just a little nervous at the prospect.

But last weekend, something put me at ease. My friends Kimberly and Michael and their kids were visiting New Jersey, and the short time I spent with them reminded me that I do what I do because of Christ’s love for me.

And I found myself falling in love yet again with the over-the-top joy from their oldest daughter’s laughter, the quiet compassion in their son’s smile, and the simple beauty in their youngest daughter’s not-quite-fully-formed sentences.

Why? Because Christ was revealing himself to me yet again. He was loving me through these kids and telling me, “You can’t do this on your own. But I’m going to empower you for the task I’ve given you. And there will be more Rachel’s, more Ethan’s, and more Sophia’s that you come across, and through them I will show you my love.”

To Rachel, Ethan, and Sophia—

You guys aren’t yet old enough to fully grasp the fact that God has used you immensely in shaping what I do, but the next year of my ministry is dedicated to what his Spirit has taught me through you. Thank you for letting me teach Jesus to you and for being Jesus to me.

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My friend Bill has told me several times that much of my life is reactionary. This blog is reactionary. My associations and friendships are often reactionary.

Most of what I’ve used to define myself is a reaction to the traditional Christianity—namely, Independent Baptist Fundamentalism—that I spent seventeen years of my life identifying with. I go to church wearing shorts and flip-flops because I grew up in a religious system that told me that I had to wear a jacket and necktie every Sunday.

I attend churches that use really loud alternative rock as their primary vehicle for worshipping God musically because I grew up in a religious system that taught me that rock music is inherently evil.

I make friends with people at bars and taverns because I grew up in a religious system that told me that going to those kinds of places is sinful.

Okay, to be totally honest, that’s not entirely true. I wear flip-flops because I really like them. I worship with alterna-rock because it’s the music style that speaks most clearly to me. And I hang out at taverns because I enjoy the taste of a good lager.

But do you see what I’m getting at? There’s a lot in my life that can easily be a reaction to the religion I grew up in.

And by reacting to that religious system, I’m creating a new religious system for myself instead of embracing the grace that Christ offers me daily.

How is reacting to a religious system creating a new religious system? In balking at the standards that were placed on me at my former church I created a new standard for what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. And it wasn’t necessarily a biblical one.

A true follower of Jesus should look like this.

Not like this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or even this.

Being a missional community, to borrow once again from Bill, means going into the culture, speaking the language of the culture, in order to be a counter-culture for the culture. In other words, we as a Church should learn to contextualize in order to better reach the culture we find ourselves in.

And I’m beginning to believe that applies to the individual in a different way. Yes, I found it easy to embrace being missional in the culture I identify with (as mentioned above). But the question I face now is this: can I still apply a missional lifestyle if God called me to reach out to the people who are trapped in the religious system I came from?

Would I be able to lay aside the “look” I’ve created of a follower of Jesus in order to allow the people I’m called to reach a little bit of comfort?

Would I be able to contextualize by putting aside my love for rock, my love for beer, and my love for shorts and flip-flops in order to reach certain people with the gospel of Christ?

Would you?

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I’ve been reading through Acts lately thanks to the latest sermon series at Emergence. I was struck by an interesting dichotomy between two conversions in chapters 8 and 9.

In the first conversion, we find the story of an Ethiopian eunuch whose curiosity for the things of God led him to discover Jesus. Let’s assume this guy has had no contact with any sort of religious education. After all, according to Deuteronomy 23.1, he wasn’t allowed in the temple anyway.

And yet as Philip talks with him about the ancient book of Isaiah, this eunuch very readily and simply trusts Jesus.

In stark contrast to the story of the eunuch’s conversion is Saul’s conversion in chapter 9. While the eunuch followed Jesus without the need for any real coaxing, it took a supernatural slap in the face for Saul to finally follow Jesus. And his road was marked with pain, suffering, and humiliation.

He was slammed off his horse, exposed to an extremely bright light, lectured by Jesus himself, left blind and completely dependent on someone else’s help, and cared for by the very man he was planning on executing.

Here’s the funny thing—Saul was the religious one.

So what have I learned from this? For starters, no one is outside of God’s reach. From the broken and remorseful sinner to the passionate and violent religious leader, God reaches all of us.

But I think he has to hit religious people a little harder. We’re stubborn, set in our ways, and we believe we’re right about everything. So he steps in, introduces a little bit of pain because, unlike the “sinner,” we haven’t experienced life’s hardships that would draw us to him, and confronts us directly.

So what does that mean for me? I’m not totally sure. I think God’s telling me that I need to love religious people just as much as I love non-religious people. They need his grace just as much as anyone else. The problem is that we’re often very unwilling to accept it.

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Here’s a poem I wrote—believe it or not—in the “Notes” app on my iPhone. It’s a bit cheesy, but I suppose it could work as a song at some point.

“I Bear Witness”

Let the mighty oceans roar
And the rain from heaven pour
As the great Almighty stands
With the Christ at his right hand

Let the nations testify
And the earth in wonder cry
That this awesome God of all
Would redeem us from the fall

Listen to the words of love
That call out to you and me
Through a purchase paid in blood
Heaven’s Son has set us free

See the guilty human race
Beat and spit upon his face
Yet he reached down from above
Kissed the world in perfect love

Now I bow before the throne
With perfection not my own
For I’m clothed in righteousness
Saved by grace, no more, no less

Sacred blood was shed for me
That through death new life I see
Bought by heaven’s love divine
Endless life I claim as mine

I bear witness to the love
That calls out to you and me
Through a purchase paid in blood
Heaven’s Son has set me free

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I got up this morning with an unusual sense of excitement for the day. There’s nothing special about today (other than the fact that it’s a holiday), but something inside told me that I had something to look forward to.

I got out of bed, did a handful of pushups, brushed my teeth, and grabbed a bowl of cereal before heading into the heat to mow the lawn. The day was loud; kids were running up and down the street or playing in their backyards as parents did yardwork in preparation for the arrival of their barbecue guests.

As I started my lawnmower’s engine I felt my name being whispered in the breeze. Nate, I sensed. There’s something I want you to see.

The vibrating hum of the lawnmower lulled me into a rhythmic daze, but each time I turned I looked up at the nearly cloudless sky, unable to shake the feeling that something was happening to me.

As I rounded another corner it hit me. I came face to face with the Creator of the universe right there in my front yard. It was the last place I expected to have an encounter with God, but there he was, waiting for me to listen.

He reminded me of the cross, of what he did to tell me how much he loved me. He reminded me of all that I have, of what he does everyday to show me how much he continues to love me.

And he reminded me of his overwhelming majesty and power. The sun peaked through the trees, calling my attention to the limitless power of the God I was witnessing. The power to both sit on the throne of the universe and at the same time preside over the tiniest detail of the most insignificant life.

“Through Christ all things hold together. . .”

With all that I’ve been battling internally, I was begging God to comfort me. But he didn’t. Instead he chose to show me who he was, is, and will forever be—the God of all days.

Nate, he said. Each day I’m writing a story. You’re a part of this story. As insignificant as your life is, it’s still crucial to what I’m doing. And while it may be crucial, it’s still only a part. This story isn’t about you. It’s about my Love. It’s about the Christ.

Drenched in sweat and covered in grass clippings I discovered—or perhaps rediscovered—something about God. That he is in everything—every sound, every sight, every smile, every hug, every kiss, every moment—and that this God will never stop relentlessly loving me.

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