Waking up...
You ever have those mornings where you don't want to get out of bed? Okay, that's probably like asking if you ever have to go to the bathroom or if you've ever caught a cold. You could answer me, "Of course...idiot." Yes, of course...I would speculate everyone has mornings where they don't want to get out of bed. If you're the rare exception of a person who is always eager to wake up, then you've never been sick, have some sort of mental illness that triggers perpetual happiness, or you're a liar. But enough about you...
I hate some mornings. I hate that feeling of hearing the alarm going off...when my mind wakes up but the rest of my body still feels as close to comatose as I ever want to feel. When I'm almost too lazy to hit the snooze button and the alarm just keeps going off, and I hope that eventually I'll just get used to the incessant beeping and be able to ignore it and fall back to sleep. Of course, thoughts about things I need to get done creep into my head, so gradually my body - reluctantly - begins to move. But though I'm now awake, I'm not happy. My body protests every move. And on days like this, it's hard not to spend the rest of the day longing to get back to bed. Eventually, a grouchiness creeps in that cannot cured by coffee or even the sweet caffeine-sugar nectar called Mountain Dew. The feeling of lethargy hinders my productivity all day long. And at day's end, all I can do is look at the clock and count the wasted hours.
To be honest, I don't know if that's a problem with my body simply being tired or my own lack of willpower and determination to face another day. I imagine it's a mixture of both; however, there are times I've been really tired but ready to face anything because I'm determined and motivated to do so. Therefore, I tend to think that this grouchy, lethargic, lazy condition that attaches itself to my willpower like an anchor has more to do with my attitude than it does with how much sleep I got the night before in most cases.
Maybe it's a symptom of a larger problem. Have you seen me lately? Yikes. I'd post a photo of what I look like, but it's frightening. I've gained too much weight...as if I'm walking, talking caricature of the lazy American who'd rather sit around and play my XBOX or surf the internet than actually get up and do something productive. Okay, I am my own worst critic. I do get a lot done. I work hard at what I do.
But something is obviously amiss.
A while back, I blogged about this feeling of inconsistency at a lot of things in my life: Exercise, getting stuff done around the house, working, spending one-on-one time with God. I can make excuses. I can complain about being too tired. I can complain about how much others' problems have weighed me down.
The reality is that those things usually aren't what has caused my spiritual narcolepsy; rather, they are more symptoms of it - sad testaments to how much the world around me affects me, instead of my affecting it.
...
I spent this past weekend at a church conference in Granger, Indiana. Awesome week...I could spend a lot of time talking about everything I felt and experienced, but it's just too much to share in one blog entry...
But I can say this: One thing leapt out at me as I met other people engaged in the same kind of work, ministry, and vision that I'm engaged in, and it was - to be blunt - very humbling.
- I heard a story about a guy who grew a church to over 6,000 people in just 6 years.
- I heard one speaker say that most people spend 90% of their time engaged in activity that isn't worth their life.
- People ought to know you for what you're for, not for what you're against.
- I watched guys who do the same things I do (playing music onstage/leading worship) with greater excellence and greater passion than I demonstrate.
I could go on and on listing small 'bytes' like these of things that impacted me. But the one recurring theme that has hit me over and over is this: I am asleep, and I need to wake up.
I am asleep, and I need to wake up. I need to wake up - not reluctantly, dragging my feet, whining to others about how tired I am. Instead, I need to LEAP to my freakin' feet in my walk with God and my engagement of the mission to reach people.
For the past few years, I've been whining about this southern, Bible Belt town's domination by Christian culture: Wear coats/ties to church, restaurants can't serve alcohol on Sundays, church marquees with cheesy messages like "there's no A/C in hell," big-haired women scowling at you at the Cracker Barrel after church because you're in there in a T-shirt and jeans, so you look like a "I didn't go to church this morning" heathen in their eyes... Surrounded by a culture that has reduced faith to a once-every-Sunday dress-up party that doesn't interfere with the rest of the week, except where it applies to being shocked by anything non-Christian and imposing pseudo-Christian values upon the surrounding culture and calling it "changing the world for Jesus."
Okay...that's harsh. Maybe I'm losing my gift of mercy. But though there may be many God-loving, caring people in these churches (of that, I'm sure), the pseudo-Christian culture that is being maintained socially and politically by people calling themselves Christians seems to truly do more harm than good when it comes to sharing the good news the people matter to God and that Jesus died so that they may live, not be persecuted outside Books-a-Million for buying the latest Harry Potter release.
Even within the church culture itself, I've seen the Christian culture absolutely BURN people out. I've seen them run away screaming having found nothing fulfilling in a culture of rules and regulations and arrogance and religiosity. I've seen them shirk responsibility in their own life and, having felt so disillusioned by the church, they question everything about their reality... I've seen people try hard to salvage Christian faith by redefining it and infusing it with other beliefs, hoping there's still some truth to it, even though what's left may itself be just another half-truth, only this time on the side of counter-culture. In all cases, exchanging truth "for a lie."
Now in some of those cases I don't want to dismiss the role that some of these guys' struggles with their own integrity and character has also played in their spiritual struggle, but if you live in a world where what could be a dynamic walk with Jesus is reduced to mindless religiosity, no wonder burnout and frustration happens. People have bitten into a lie - or at least a half-truth. And it leaves people wanting more...
Jesus wasn't about political or social conquest. He didn't guilt trip people into giving money to the church in his sermons. I doubt he expected his disciples to wear a suit and tie on the sabbath (or whatever the 1st century equivalent was). I just can't see him at the front of a church on Sunday mornings putting people to sleep while exhorting his followers to vote Republican and abstain from alcohol on Sundays.
He expected more than that from people. He expected their lives. Not casual commitment to rules and church attendance, but a die-hard, sold-out, 'sell all your possessions' commitment to following him and telling people the good news. And his disciples did that. They did that until they died (until they were killed for it).
Am I talking Christian radicalism? Maybe...but not in a Eric Rudolph, "let's bomb the abortion clinic" sort of way. Not in a "let's go stand outside the next rock concert at the VBC and condemn anyone going who doesn't look Christian b/c of their t-shirts.
I'm talking about waking up and finding a faith that moves us to live, move, and act for Christ. A faith where our time, our talents, our money, our relationships...everything is leveraged toward following him and using those things to let the world know how much they're loved by God and that there is hope.
A Christian culture that is asleep can't do that. But I may not be able to change that. What I can do myself is wake up. I can change my own life. If this walk with God matters to me...if I truly believe that the God of the universe sent his son to die for my sins, then that ought to cause me to stand up every morning and shout out loud, "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!" It ought to make me want to connect with as many people as I could...it ought to drive my mission. I ought to leave less and less time for, oh, eating too much, spending hours on the XBOX360 or watching TV... Those things aren't worth my life.
But Jesus is. And I need to wake up and quit dragging my feet, and leverage my own time, talents, and creativity towards that end.
I hate some mornings. I hate that feeling of hearing the alarm going off...when my mind wakes up but the rest of my body still feels as close to comatose as I ever want to feel. When I'm almost too lazy to hit the snooze button and the alarm just keeps going off, and I hope that eventually I'll just get used to the incessant beeping and be able to ignore it and fall back to sleep. Of course, thoughts about things I need to get done creep into my head, so gradually my body - reluctantly - begins to move. But though I'm now awake, I'm not happy. My body protests every move. And on days like this, it's hard not to spend the rest of the day longing to get back to bed. Eventually, a grouchiness creeps in that cannot cured by coffee or even the sweet caffeine-sugar nectar called Mountain Dew. The feeling of lethargy hinders my productivity all day long. And at day's end, all I can do is look at the clock and count the wasted hours.
To be honest, I don't know if that's a problem with my body simply being tired or my own lack of willpower and determination to face another day. I imagine it's a mixture of both; however, there are times I've been really tired but ready to face anything because I'm determined and motivated to do so. Therefore, I tend to think that this grouchy, lethargic, lazy condition that attaches itself to my willpower like an anchor has more to do with my attitude than it does with how much sleep I got the night before in most cases.
Maybe it's a symptom of a larger problem. Have you seen me lately? Yikes. I'd post a photo of what I look like, but it's frightening. I've gained too much weight...as if I'm walking, talking caricature of the lazy American who'd rather sit around and play my XBOX or surf the internet than actually get up and do something productive. Okay, I am my own worst critic. I do get a lot done. I work hard at what I do.
But something is obviously amiss.
A while back, I blogged about this feeling of inconsistency at a lot of things in my life: Exercise, getting stuff done around the house, working, spending one-on-one time with God. I can make excuses. I can complain about being too tired. I can complain about how much others' problems have weighed me down.
The reality is that those things usually aren't what has caused my spiritual narcolepsy; rather, they are more symptoms of it - sad testaments to how much the world around me affects me, instead of my affecting it.
...
I spent this past weekend at a church conference in Granger, Indiana. Awesome week...I could spend a lot of time talking about everything I felt and experienced, but it's just too much to share in one blog entry...
But I can say this: One thing leapt out at me as I met other people engaged in the same kind of work, ministry, and vision that I'm engaged in, and it was - to be blunt - very humbling.
- I heard a story about a guy who grew a church to over 6,000 people in just 6 years.
- I heard one speaker say that most people spend 90% of their time engaged in activity that isn't worth their life.
- People ought to know you for what you're for, not for what you're against.
- I watched guys who do the same things I do (playing music onstage/leading worship) with greater excellence and greater passion than I demonstrate.
I could go on and on listing small 'bytes' like these of things that impacted me. But the one recurring theme that has hit me over and over is this: I am asleep, and I need to wake up.
I am asleep, and I need to wake up. I need to wake up - not reluctantly, dragging my feet, whining to others about how tired I am. Instead, I need to LEAP to my freakin' feet in my walk with God and my engagement of the mission to reach people.
For the past few years, I've been whining about this southern, Bible Belt town's domination by Christian culture: Wear coats/ties to church, restaurants can't serve alcohol on Sundays, church marquees with cheesy messages like "there's no A/C in hell," big-haired women scowling at you at the Cracker Barrel after church because you're in there in a T-shirt and jeans, so you look like a "I didn't go to church this morning" heathen in their eyes... Surrounded by a culture that has reduced faith to a once-every-Sunday dress-up party that doesn't interfere with the rest of the week, except where it applies to being shocked by anything non-Christian and imposing pseudo-Christian values upon the surrounding culture and calling it "changing the world for Jesus."
Okay...that's harsh. Maybe I'm losing my gift of mercy. But though there may be many God-loving, caring people in these churches (of that, I'm sure), the pseudo-Christian culture that is being maintained socially and politically by people calling themselves Christians seems to truly do more harm than good when it comes to sharing the good news the people matter to God and that Jesus died so that they may live, not be persecuted outside Books-a-Million for buying the latest Harry Potter release.
Even within the church culture itself, I've seen the Christian culture absolutely BURN people out. I've seen them run away screaming having found nothing fulfilling in a culture of rules and regulations and arrogance and religiosity. I've seen them shirk responsibility in their own life and, having felt so disillusioned by the church, they question everything about their reality... I've seen people try hard to salvage Christian faith by redefining it and infusing it with other beliefs, hoping there's still some truth to it, even though what's left may itself be just another half-truth, only this time on the side of counter-culture. In all cases, exchanging truth "for a lie."
Now in some of those cases I don't want to dismiss the role that some of these guys' struggles with their own integrity and character has also played in their spiritual struggle, but if you live in a world where what could be a dynamic walk with Jesus is reduced to mindless religiosity, no wonder burnout and frustration happens. People have bitten into a lie - or at least a half-truth. And it leaves people wanting more...
Jesus wasn't about political or social conquest. He didn't guilt trip people into giving money to the church in his sermons. I doubt he expected his disciples to wear a suit and tie on the sabbath (or whatever the 1st century equivalent was). I just can't see him at the front of a church on Sunday mornings putting people to sleep while exhorting his followers to vote Republican and abstain from alcohol on Sundays.
He expected more than that from people. He expected their lives. Not casual commitment to rules and church attendance, but a die-hard, sold-out, 'sell all your possessions' commitment to following him and telling people the good news. And his disciples did that. They did that until they died (until they were killed for it).
Am I talking Christian radicalism? Maybe...but not in a Eric Rudolph, "let's bomb the abortion clinic" sort of way. Not in a "let's go stand outside the next rock concert at the VBC and condemn anyone going who doesn't look Christian b/c of their t-shirts.
I'm talking about waking up and finding a faith that moves us to live, move, and act for Christ. A faith where our time, our talents, our money, our relationships...everything is leveraged toward following him and using those things to let the world know how much they're loved by God and that there is hope.
A Christian culture that is asleep can't do that. But I may not be able to change that. What I can do myself is wake up. I can change my own life. If this walk with God matters to me...if I truly believe that the God of the universe sent his son to die for my sins, then that ought to cause me to stand up every morning and shout out loud, "I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!" It ought to make me want to connect with as many people as I could...it ought to drive my mission. I ought to leave less and less time for, oh, eating too much, spending hours on the XBOX360 or watching TV... Those things aren't worth my life.
But Jesus is. And I need to wake up and quit dragging my feet, and leverage my own time, talents, and creativity towards that end.
