New Life Assembly

Book Review: Primal

How is it that I have time to write a book review three days before Christmas, you ask?  Well, when I took the Strengthsfinder test several years ago, my top strength assessed out in something called "responsibility".  So when I agreed to receive a free preview copy of the book, Primal:  A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, I signed on to be part of a blog tour in which I would write a review of the book between the 15th and 22nd of December.  The responsibility combined with a knack for procrastination leads me to writing the review here, at the last hour, but absolutely compelled to keep my word.

This is the first book I've read by Mark Batterson, who pastors National Community Church in Washington, D.C.  I've heard a lot about Mark and his church, particularly since he is a pastor in my denomination (Assemblies of God) and his church is often held up as a model of a great church doing a great job connecting with a postmodern culture. 

Batterson's contention is that we as Christians have lost the soul of our faith, and that if we hope to find it again, we need to start with Jesus' great commandment:  that we should love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.  If Jesus identifies this as the greatest command, then it would make sense that we would "spend an inordinate amount of our time and energy trying to understand and obey it."  He'll get no argument from me there, nor when he says that, for the most part, Christians have become more known for what we are against than what we are for.  What we are for, in his mind, is supposed to be great devotion to this great commandment.

The Heart of Christianity - Primal Compassion

Here he describes the ability for us to feel what God feels, to have our hearts broken with the things that break the heart of God.  If we are to genuinely love God, then we must love and care for what he loves and cares for.

I was only marginally engaged with the book until I read the following words that finally grabbed my attention:

What makes you glad or sad or mad?  What puts a holy smile on your face?  What causes your spirit to sob uncontrollably?  What makes you pound your fist on the table out of righteous indignation?  Somewhere in the mixture of that gladness, sadness, and madness is your God-ordained passion.  Or maybe I should say compassion, because you are feeling what God feels.

I believe many Christians simply go through the motions without ever thinking through questions like this.  If you had the chance to read the book only to be challenged with those questions, and allow your spirit to rise to answer them, I think it would be worth it.

The Soul of Christianity - Primal Wonder

If the heart of Christianity is to feel what God feels, then the soul of it is to stand in awe, wonder and worship at the beauty and majesty of what God has done.  He writes that there is something about staring at the stars that is good for your soul, and I felt myself resonate with that.  We live about a mile from the beach, and on a clear winter night I can stand in my driveway and hear the sound of waves on the beach while I stare up into a sky clouded with stars and all I can do is wonder at the creativity of a God who could make all of this.

In the pages of Scripture, Batterson argues, we find the soulful revelation of God's character to us.  And here he encourages us not just to read Scripture, but to allow Scripture to read us.  To get lost in the wonderful story that is the gospel, and allow ourselves to be consumed by its raw power is good for the soul, inspiring truer worship than simply going through the motions.  We must think about its implications not just with our mind, but from the soul.

The Mind of Christianity - Primal Curiosity

But the soul is not the only place for thinking and expanding our understanding of who God is.  Batterson encourages us to use our brains (both hemispheres) to be continual learners in the kingdom of God.  Here he encourages us to pursue logic, humor, imagination and every other aspect of our brains for the purpose of understanding God and the world he has made to a greater degree.

I loved his thought that eventually holy curiosity will drive you past simply looking for things to make sense, or be reasonable, and will eventually push you past what your senses can hold, and past what your brain can make meaning out of.  Eventually holy curiosity will push you past the ideas that are just good ideas, and into a pursuit of a God idea, an idea that would transform you, and others, in its fulfillment.

The Strength of Christianity - Primal Energy

If we have heart and soul and mind, but do not engage our bodies and our strength in the loving of God, then ultimately we will have missed out on perhaps our greatest task.  At some point, our love for God will push out of those inner worlds of heart, soul and mind and will express themselves in actual physical ways on the earth.  Perhaps you could say this is where it begins to cross over from loving God to loving our neighbors as ourselves.

If there is anything that I think speaks loudly to our culture and world it is precisely this.  It will not do for us to contend for theology without the world seeing that our theology drives our service to the world.  If we work with all of the energy that God has given us (and will continue to give us), then what can't we accomplish?

My Thoughts

As I said in the opening paragraph on the heart - I was off to a slow start with the book.  At times I felt like too many examples and illustrations overwhelmed the message the author was conveying.  I can hear the influences of different writers (Erwin McManus and Rick Warren are the two that come to mind) in Mark's writing, and so I felt like a lot of what I read was not new information for me.  That does not, however, take away from the impact of this book on my own spiritual journey.  I see its potential to be a personal catalyst for sparking my imagination at what God could and would do with me and through me if I would devote myself to loving him this way.

I would recommend the book for you if you are seeking a personal, spiritual reformation.  Batterson does a great job opening up the heart, soul, mind and strength avenues to the great command, and provides some strong challenges for you to consider.  If you are willing to engage with the hard questions, and do some soul-searching in the process, I would consider taking your time to go through this book with an open heart and mind (and notebook) to see what God will show you about the road ahead.

Almost There

I'm 60% of the way through a week that's got my head spinning with different responsibilities and opportunities, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to unload some of them here, and also look forward to Sunday.

• Monday night was an "Open House" of sorts for a group that I've been working with for about the last six months or so called Beautiful World.  We're looking to create a collective of men, women and children around the US who will serve as advocates for impoverished communities around the world.  We're asking those advocates to take on one creative fundraising idea for the year that will raise money (obviously) for a specific community, and will also raise awareness among their friends and families of the tremendous needs around the world.  Right now we're working with two communities:  Lamothe, Haiti and La Chureca in Managua, Nicaragua.  This August I'll be taking a 10 day trip to La Chureca with about 6 or 7 others who are part of the Beautiful World team.  Looking forward to what God is going to do in my own heart and life through that trip.  If you're interested, check out the site for more information!
• Tuesday night was worship practice, with our special guest Mance, running the sound for us and hopefully getting our sound cleaned up.  I know it's been a little muddy lately, so hopefully having Brian come in and tweak the board will get it to sound more crisp and clear.  He also stuck around to jam with us, which was great.  I have to say it's been so much fun getting to play with these guys every week - I'm honored to be working with good musicians who also get that we're there not to play for ourselves, but for God's honor among us.
• Last night was my first manager's meeting for Jacob's instructional league team I'm coaching this year.  I've actually never coached before, so even though it's really basic, I'm actually quite nervous about it.  It should be a fun year, a good bonding experience for Jacob and me, and hopefully an opportunity for him to learn the game I love!
• I'm really looking forward to this next series on Sunday:  Conversations with Jesus.  It's a title I've used a few times before, and in the past I've just taken a conversation right from the Gospels and looked at what Jesus is saying to a specific person in that conversation.  This time I'm going at it from a different angle - a more topical angle - and I'm trying to draw together different scripture references to formulate what I think Jesus would have to say in certain kinds of conversations; the kinds of conversations that happen all around us, even if we're not aware of them sometimes.
• Last week I started writing for the next book we'll be using in our character development partnerships.  It's going to focus on the beatitudes from Matthew 5.  I'm using one of my old sermon series as research, but I feel like I had a fresh take on it as I considered what I wanted to communicate, so it's going to require a lot of new writing, and rewriting.  I've got a bit of a deadline, since the last book is about 7 chapters, and so if the partnerships hit one chapter a month, I've got until July to get it done!

So, with that said, I guess I should get back to work - which today is going to involve a trip to Starbucks, a hot cup of java, a good pen and my moleskine writing journal.  That, my friends, is a good day.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

Wednesday's a weird day, it's the day I always feel like makes or breaks a week.  If I get a lot accomplished today, I feel like I can take a deep breath and Thursday and Friday flow nicely along.  When I struggle on Wednesday, I start dreading the last two days.  So I'm hoping today is productive.  Some midweek thoughts:

• Involved in some good conversations with a group of pastors about discipleship, commitment and what it requires to truly follow Jesus.  It's good timing for me as we work on re-vamping our process for making disciples at our church.
• Just signed up yesterday for an account at Twitter.  We'll see if/how I like it.  Not sure the advantage over Facebook status updates, but I've wanted to give it a shot for a little while, and now that I'm mobile with the Blackberry, figured now was as good a time as ever.  I question, however, whether I'm really interesting enough to follow.  Doubtful.
• Our Sundays have been a struggle family-wise lately.  Rita and I are in conversations about how we can make Sunday better for our kids.  I'm becoming increasingly aware as they get older of the particular challenges of being a pastor's kid.  We still haven't figured out how to balance all of it out, so if you're a pastor reading this, feel free to hit me with an email (keith.mcnamar@gmail.com) and let me know how you've handled it.
• Wrote a brief article on Seth Godin's book, "Tribes", a couple weeks ago for Alex McManus and the International Mentoring Network.  You can find the article here.
• Working on putting some of my recent thoughts re: discipleship into an article form and submitting it for publication.  It's been three years since I submitted anything (and got my first rejection), so hopefully I can find my courage again :)
• I've lost 17 pounds since Labor Day.  Looking forward to the next 18 coming off to get to my goal weight.  Also hoping that next Tuesday when I weigh in, I've lost more than Jim, otherwise I have to pay for our Texas Roadhouse dinner :)

Discipleship as Plot Advancement

Good Afternoon!

It's Monday, already running towards Easter Sunday in 6 days.  With the early date, it has definitely snuck up on me very quickly, but I'm looking forward to a good week and a great Sunday.  I love preaching on Easter Sunday, and I'm excited about the way my talk has taken shape in the last couple of weeks, so do what you can to be there on Sunday, and to bring a friend or two along with you!

I think we finally managed to capture the sermon audio yesterday, so check back later today or tomorrow to see if I was actually able to get it up here on the site.  There will be a link for the page on the right sidebar of the blog.  We'll get the audio up here first, and then work on submitting it as a podcast in iTunes so you'll be able to subscribe to it there, and maybe pass along the info to friends or family you'd like to have exposed to the Gospel.

This week is the last post in a series on Discipleship using the metaphor of a story.  Next week I'll plan to flesh some of this out into a more practical form, to try to get us thinking about what we can do to make some of these things a reality in our church community. 

3.  Discipleship as Plot Advancement

If God has been telling a story from before the beginning of time, and if God really wants to shape our character to really represent his heart in the story, then the rubber meets the road of our lives when we begin to use our lives to advance the story that God is telling.  It's not sufficient for us to know where the story has been, we have been invited into the telling in order to influence where it is going from here.  Often our thoughts about making disciples have focused on the past, as if by memorizing and repeating some facts about the past, we might be able to repeat what has happened back there.

I don't think that's what God plans to do, however.  God has called us to develop our character in ways tat reflect his heart and his desire, and then he actually entrusts us with the advancement of his agenda, his plot, towards the future.  If we find ourselves sufficiently connected to the story of the past, and we have been able to truly find ourselves there; and if we have submitted the pen of our lives to the author in order for him to write our character his way, then God actually commits his Kingdom to us.  He enlists our gifts and talents in his service, and then unleashes us to be part of his Kingdom coming and his will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

There is nothing exciting about a story in which the plot just goes in circles, where the only ambition the characters possess is just to develop their character and then repeat the actions of history.  Stories like that are boring. We lose interest in them within a few pages.  But when we can see the ways the plot is advancing, and can see the steady unfolding of a greater design, then we really do enjoy the story.  I don't think it's any different with the story of God's advancing Kingdom in the world.  There is a steady unfolding of a greater design - sometimes we see glimpses of the bigger picture, but most often we are engaged in the slow and arduous task of just pushing the plot forward a little bit today, in our particular plot of ground.

We also find that we have been surrounded by other characters in the story - others who are working towards the same goal as we are.  They might come from unlikely places, or be extremely different in their personalities and characters, but God puts us around them.  He does this because to advance the plot will require more than just our energies, it will demand that we collaborate with others along the way.  It is this collaboration in the advance of the Kingdom plot that causes the church to come together in unity of purpose and mission.  This fellowship trickles down from the church as a whole to smaller "bands" of revolutionaries who conspire for good, for hope, for the Kingdom in their own unique ways. 

So, next week we'll explore some ways that we might make all of this happen.  I hope you'll come back and join me as the story continues...

Discipleship as Character Development

Good Afternoon!

It's not Monday, I know.  Eventually I knew my blogging schedule would get blown up, so I'm a day late, but I'll hope to get back on track with the Monday blog next week.  Since I'm already behind, I'll skip all the fluffy details, and we'll just jump right into the topic for the day, continuing to work with the metaphor of a story for our concept of discipleship.

2.  Discipleship as Character Development

Every story needs characters.  The good stories get us to identify with the characters they portray.  God's story is no different.  We resonate with the characters we read on the pages of Scripture, and then realize that we are also characters in the unfolding drama that God has been telling throughout history.  The question we must ask ourselves is:  "what kind of a character am I in this story?"

Discipleship is about allowing God to show us our character, which can often be a pretty painful thing to see.  As we live in relationship with him and the Scriptures he reveals our hearts, our motives, our desires - and what we see as a result becomes the impetus for us to change the direction we are taking.  He does not reveal these things in order to condemn us, or to drive us away from him, but rather so that we would draw near to him, and cause our lives to more fully conform to his image for us.

It's almost as if we yield the destiny of our character to the hand and pen of the author writing the story.  Rather than fighting him, and seeking to write our own story, in our own fashion, with our own objectives, we trust that if we allow him to, God will write a better, more beautiful and courageous story than we would have written ourselves.  This, of course, is tremendously challenging for us because we'd like nothing better than to perpetuate the illusion that we are in complete control of our lives and our destiny.  But to be bound in discipleship to Jesus is to agree that we will follow where he leads, and we will give our lives to his purpose.

To be a disciple is to be with Jesus, and to allow him to press into our hearts and lives in such a way that we come away from the encounter bearing his image to a greater and greater degree.  We see the heart of God beating in him, we see God's deepest desires for the world and those who live in it, and by our closeness to Jesus, we begin to bear that heart ourselves.  The things which move his heart move our own hearts.  We see more as he sees, hear more like he does. 

So we must begin to ask ourselves the kinds of application questions that are the meat of discipleship and interaction with Jesus and the Scriptures.  How does what I see here in the words of Scripture need to shape my life?  My relationship to my spouse?  My kids?  My work?  My church?  How would my character in this story that God is telling be different if I were to begin living this way?

Next week we'll look at the ways in which God is inviting his disciples to collaborate with him in the plot of his story - the plot of the advancing Kingdom of God. 

Discipleship by Immersion

Good Monday Morning, if that's possible :)

The flu has made its way through most of our family, and despite how hard I've tried to run away, I think it's finally caught up with me.  Nothing major, just really, really tired, with a headache and that kind of soreness in your body that doesn't seem to go away no matter how long you rest.  I was fighting it yesterday, but it's taking a toll on me.

Our first attempt at capturing sermon audio didn't go so well, so we'll have to try it again next week.  Not sure what the issue was, but my voice was barely audible, so hopefully we can correct that soon.  My test run earlier in the week went well, but not so much yesterday.  So, if you missed the sermon and want notes, you'll have to settle for the written variety.

As promised, I talked a lot about discipleship, and I hope you were as challenged by it as I was.  I definitely feel like we're at a gut check moment in the life of our church - a moment in which we need to look really hard at the priorities in our lives to make sure that they're lined up with God's and that our lives are really bound to Jesus and the advance of his Kingdom in the world.  As always, I'm open for discussion on the idea, whether in person, or through an email, or a comment here.

Last week I mentioned that I would take some time to outline a little further my thoughts on three critical aspects of making disciples in the way of Jesus, so today we'll look at the first of those.

1.  An Immersion into the Back Story of God's actions in history

In the Scriptures we have the story of the ways in which God has acted and spoken in history.  I think it's important to note that God did not breathe the scriptures in the form of a textbook, or a series of philosophical propositions to be memorized in isolation from each other.  Rather, he has given us a sweeping, epic story.  It's an epic story that reveals the patience, faithfulness, compassion, and justice of God who created everything, called it good, and then watched as the ones he made as the pinnacle of his creation spoiled the goodness through disobedience.  It's the story of God choosing an obscure, wandering man by the name of Abram to become a nation that would live in covenant with him.  Sometimes the story moves forward with incredible details, as we see in the story of Joseph.  Other times the story is surprisingly unsatisfactory in the plot points left out. 

And as the story pushes forward we see the weakness, selfishness, greed and pride of the human actors in all of their painful detail.  We see Abram lying about his wife Sarai.  We see Jacob deceiving his father and stealing his brother's blessing.  We see Moses strike the rock in anger at the people God called him to lead.  We see David take the wife of another, and order the murder of the one from whom he has already stolen.  We see the disciples who repeatedly misunderstand Jesus, and seek their own gain from him.  We see Peter swear up and down that he's never met Jesus.  We see humanity in all of its frailty and flightiness.

But most importantly, when we immerse ourselves into the story of the scriptures, we see ourselves there in its pages.  That's the power of a good story, and the story God has told is remarkably adept in its power to pull us in, and punch us in the gut once we're there.  We read the scriptures not just to find answers to questions that we're asking, but to allow God to open us up to the questions we're not asking, but should be.  To be a disciple in the way of Jesus is to read the scriptures not as the story of someone else, somewhere else, but to read them as our story - yours and mine, in all of our maddening qualities, in all of our injustice, ineffectiveness, insincerity and insecurity.  It is to read them all and still see Jesus loving us deeply, passionately and with grace and forgiveness, and hope and future.

When we read the story this way, I think it gives us some clue as to how God would want to shape our character in order to continue his story.  Any good story moves forward on the development of its characters, and the ways in which they contribute to the author's plot.  The more we are immersed into the back story of the scriptures, the more we will understand the ways in which God, the divine author, is moving his plot forward.  And when we understand where the plot is going, then as characters in the divine drama, we are offered the invitation to have our character shaped to reflect the author's heart.  And when we reflect the author's heart, we actually collaborate with him in the advance of his plot.

Next week we'll take some time to explore the ways in which God, as master storyteller, seeks to shape our character in ways that will be more reflective of his heart, his values, and his passion.

Discipleship in the Way of Jesus

It's late Monday morning and I'm struggling to get out of the school vacation schedule and back on to a more normal routine.  I did succeed in getting Jacob to school on time today, with his lunch made, and then Aislinn and I went over to the Y so I could work out and she could enjoy Kid's gym.  Three plus miles on the elliptical and five miles on the bike made for a decent workout, but I'm not as sore as I wanted to be :)

Over the weekend we used part of our tax refund to get some new furniture - so we've got a new couch and chair in the living room.  Rita's been waiting for this for at least two years, so I know she was pretty happy to bring them home from Ikea on Saturday.  The other big chunk of our tax refund went towards the wireless mic I purchased for myself to use at church, so we're hoping to be up and podcasting within another couple of weeks.

And, on the church front, I am really, really hoping that we can get back to a normal Sunday next week.  Between the flu and school vacation we've been hammered attendance-wise, so I'm looking forward to having all of you that have been away back this Sunday!  And, while I'm on the topic of Sunday, you really don't want to miss this week.  God's really been dealing with me for the last couple weeks on the topic of discipleship, and so this week when we look at Jesus calling the twelve to follow him I think we're all going to be challenged in some significant ways to step up our commitment to being a true disciple of Jesus (well, maybe you do want to miss it, but you really shouldn't!).  Of course I wrote last Monday that discipleship was going to be a writing topic for me for the next few posts, so let's get into it for just a bit this morning.

Most of my thinking about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is shaped in the context of me wanting to effectively make disciples within the world of the church that I pastor.  But there's another aspect to my thinking about discipleship that is much more personal and intense:  I want to make sure that I disciple my two kids to become true, devoted, passionate followers of Jesus.  I put my thoughts about this process in terms of a story, because for me, the metaphor of a story is the one that best captures my way of thinking about the Scriptures, and about what God is doing in the world today.  I also think that stories resonate deeply within the human experience - we love to hear and tell stories - and so it seems an appropriate way to express what it means to follow Jesus (especially since he seems to have been a master storyteller).

So here are three elements I think are essential to being a disciple in the way of Jesus.  You could argue with them, push back against them, or challenge me on any of them.  I think they'll stand up reasonably well and maybe give us a framework for thinking about discipleship:

1. An immersion into the back story of God's actions in history leading up to today.  A disciple of Jesus becomes familiar with the ways that God has acted in the past, as those actions reveal his character and nature, and give us an indication of how he might continue to act in the present and future.
2. A commitment to develop one's character in ways that will add goodness, beauty, passion and life to the telling of God's story in the present.  A disciple of Jesus expresses (and acts on) a deep rooted desire to have her character shaped and molded by Jesus, so that as a result she becomes a person who reflects the heart of God in human form.
3. A passion to plot for the advance of God's storyline in human history.  A disciple of Jesus conspires together with other revolutionaries in the mission of God to subvert the kingdoms of this world and see men and women ushered into the everlasting Kingdom of God.

So, the way forward looks like this:  the next three posts will deal with each of those items in greater detail.  Then from there I'll round up some thoughts about how we might make that happen, and what it might look like in the context of our particular church.  As always, you're invited to make this a conversation; to talk back to me on anything and everything you find here.  I' have often found that a healthy conversation between friends sharpens my thinking.