Dependent, Intimate Prayer

So I was reading in a book yesterday (The Contemplative Pastor - by Eugene Peterson), and he suggested some thought provoking ideas.

Early in his ministry he taught seminars, archaelogy, church history, and was very successful at it. In a sense, he operated as a local mini-college professor within his own church. Yet what he discovered was that people really weren't coming to learn what he thought they wanted. Really, they were coming because at the core, these people wanted to learn how to have an intimate relationship with God.

So what did he learn? He learned that what the people wanted, and what the people needed most, was in fact Not the ability to talk about God, but rather to talk with God. In short, he realized that the single greatest thing he could do as a pastor was to teach people how to pray.

People need to learn how to attend the inner being. They need to learn how to talk with God themselves, to have an intimate relationship with God, and I agree. We all need this. Myself. Parents. Students.

He suggested that there are three types of language that people learn.

     Language I: This is the language of intimacy and relationship...not so unlike a baby's language. It
     is our primary and basic language for "expressing and developing the human condition."

     Language II: This is the language of information, most commonly understood within the education
     system.

     Language III: This is the language of motivation. Words have power and can be used to
     accomplish a goal, most commonly found in advertising and politics.

Which language is the language of prayer? Language I. Prayer is the language of intimacy and relationship. It's about expressing, within the limits of the human condition, a desire to be known, which is not a coincidence, but rather a result of "the fall"...and so each of us intrinsically and innately, whether we know it or not, crave a have a relationship with God, our creator, who created us in his image. But interestingly we swap out this language of intimacy of relationship for lesser others, which, ironically, often removes intimacy from prayer. We know to talk about God, or even to God, and often at God, but not with God.

It's about time that we moved ourselves into a primary proficiency of relationship with God, hence talking with him - not to him, or at him - where we find that our love for God awakens as Jesus asked, a "child-like" faith, that is dependent on God. After all, nothing we do demonstrates our dependence on God (an intimate relationship) more than prayer.

This couldn't be more important during seasons like Christmas, when God sent his Son to do what we could not, that is offer a sacrifice of atonement, that we might regain a proper standing with God, reconciled and redeemed, promoted from death to life, lifted out of darkness and into the glorious presence of God the creator.

The QUESTION is, do we have the type of relationship with God that demonstrates a constant dependency on him? Does our prayer life reflect this type of intimate language...like that of a baby who needs constant help?

So, what things have you learned as parents that encourage this type of prayer life in your family?

Relationships

So I've been married for...oh...just over a year now. And I'm finding that the statement "marriage is the most rewarding thing you can ever do, but it's also the hardest" to be very true! In fact I was talking with a student the other night and she said, "yea, my parents have been saying that for 25 years!" Ha! Awesome. I love finding new ways that I'm selfish...sarcasm. But in light of all this, I find myself face to face with the greatness of God's grace and mercy, especially through my wife. What a blessing! 

However, if the process of coming to grips with the reality of how selfish we are and how difficult it is to actually live out the call to "love your wives as Christ loved the church" is difficult for adults then how do we hope for students to get it? 

Last night we had our Rated "R" for Relationships night. I started by talking about how we were created with a DRIVE inside of us that's different than any other drive. It's the drive to be known "fully" - there is a reason why in the OT the word in Hebrew for intimacy between spouses is "to know." Deeply we all crave to be in a relationship where there is total exposure...to be known fully. We crave in the deepest way for someone to know all our faults, all our failures, and to look us in the face and say "I love you and I forgive you." 

But here's the kicker - it's all too easy to fill that DRIVE with another person. Even for married people that's difficult. That's why Paul redefines a fundamental piece of our theology...in Ephesians 5 he quotes Genesis 2 by saying "man shall leave his father and his mother and be united with his wife. and the two shall become one flesh." Paul makes it clear that this mystery is great, but at its deepest core it touches what we need most: a relationship with God. All of us need a God first mentality before others. In any marriage the common thread on both ends must be GOD FIRST, spouse second. If both the husband and wife have this mentality, like Ephesians 5, God first, then it becomes easier for one to sacrifice for the other, to love the spouse like Christ loved the church, by meeting their needs...like Christ met our needs. I'm learning that both spouses must sacrifice themselves to meet the others needs, with the result that each others needs are met, thus both satisfied. 

But how do we teach students about healthy relationships? We have to start with the GOD first. We can't strive to fill our DRIVE with another before Christ. We must fill the need to be Fully Known first with God...after all, only God can know me fully. Teaching students to fill their hearts with Christ is the valuable thing we can do to help students prepare themselves for a healthy marriage. More than dating, more than healthy exposure (though I don't discount it), having a solid relationship with Christ - being known fully and striving to know God - is the most important thing. 

Thoughts? 

Family and Relationships

Parents,

Apology first...this was to be out yesterday but I ended up with the day off...long story short...It was a GREAT week filled with many blessings and much fruit of the Spirit (from small groups to FCA) but I was shot! Thanks for understanding :)

So excited to start this conversation with you parents to see how we can all together engage in the body of Christ to fight against both Satan and the barriers we face that hinder spiritual depth!

We'll start today with a statement: All churches have struggles. Can we agree to that? Yes. Ok. We can move on. This isn't where we're going to spend our time, but the problem with churches is that they're filled with people. We should all be able to laugh to that I'd think because it's true. A little bit of self-depracation (in relationship to our total depravity...I'm being serious!) is necessary to understanding the gospel. But one of our main struggles at Calvary is that we're a commuter church. Now don't resign to leaving and going somewhere else! Goodness no! There's nothing wrong or unbiblical with being a commuter church, but it creates different dynamics that we must together intentionally battle. 

We can't expect church to be perfect. PAUSE:  I (Seth) think, we should never "expect" a church to do anything, in the sense that we'd selfishly demand of others, which can push us towards a "works" oriented structure. However, UNPAUSE: what can we "HOPE" a church might demonstrate? Now that's a question worth pursuing. 

CONTEXT: We represent anywhere from 10-15 different major subdivisions and communities, with an equal amount of schools (if not more). That's tough! Try getting students to really, I mean to DEEPLY connect with others when they're not doing life together! Trying to get students to share deeply is like trying to get two badgers to talk. What do badgers have to talk about? Nothing! In fact, they'd rather sit there and claw at each other! (you may laugh, but as you know, with teenagers this isn't so uncommon!). Even their concept of relationships (or youth group as a family) is messy. Too many students these days think that relationships are purely about hanging out, watching movies, gossiping, trying on new clothes at the store, playing video games, eating together are all characteristics of a quality relationship. NEWS FLASH! All that means is that they "dislike" that person "less" than another person. Interesting isn't it? I think I have friends like that too! Those friendships are good for fun...and for witnessing (!!!), but they lack seriously in the department of what Christ calls the church body to do. 

So how do we move forward? It's my HOPE that all churches, including ours, demonstrate both inside and outside the walls, DEEP and BIBLICAL RELATIONSHIPS. That goes for in youth group, adult classes, during worship, connecting afterwards...BUT IT STARTS WITH FAMILIES. If deep and biblical relationships are modeled at home, then it is that much easier for us all to live out and overflow biblical relationships at church. How I treat my wife at home needs to be my primary focus and source of overflow for how I treat people at church. And it all focuses around one figure: CHRIST.

Below are the five principles that I would "hang my hat" upon when discussing the nature of biblical relationships. The first being love. These are what I HOPE that we as a church body, both pastors and volunteer staff, along with Parents and families, can begin to model both at home and at church. 

1. Unconditional Love - healthy families have a deep sense of Christ-like love. 

Ephesians 5:1-2 says, "...be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for for us, a fragrant offering a sacrifice to God." Jesus himself said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." I could add another dozen verses if space allowed. Love is not how we'd use it today: sexualized, eroticized, even in how we talk of cheeseburgers. It's impossible, and I hope not experienced, to have an intimate relationship with a cheeseburger. Love as Christ examples it is this: the commitment to sacrifice oneself unconditionally and ceaselessly to those who (like ourselves) don't deserve it. Are committed, devoted to one another so much that we would die for those around us? Next to us in the pew? I told the students, and I mean this from the very bottom of my heart, that I would die for any student in that room. If it required of me to risk my life I would. That's not to boast of me, but to boast of what Christ did for me and how he has instilled that same love in me for the students I am privileged and called to shepherd. But would I die for the man or woman getting coffee in front of me? What does our love look like and for whom is it for? Do we have in our hearts and demonstrate the sacrificial love of Christ? 

2. Forgiveness - (healthy families forgive each other because CHRIST died for all and no one person in a family is More or Less sinful than another - Rom. 2:1-11, also Eph. 6:4 specific for dads)

3. Acceptance (of uniqueness and differences without judgement)

4. Accountability (in love - spurring each other out of sin and towards good deeds)

5. Prayer (no one person can do this apart from Christ and the work of the Spirit)

What if our families, youth group, church, schools, were learning this type of a community? That relationships are more than late nights and mountain dew? More than trying on clothes? What if students, the next generation, knew how to engage each other by LOVING the way Christ loved? WOW!!! So exciting!!! Perhaps, just perhaps, they could learn quicker than some of us, the true meaning in marriage, when Paul said, "Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church." That would be seriously awesome. 

What are your thoughts on these principles laid out? How have you seen things work in your family? Not work in your family? What stories can you share? 

Parents,

I apologize for the length of this...I got carried away :)

This Sunday we had a full out debate between three groups (hypothetically of course...though interestingly many found themselves condemning their own lifestyle!!!). The three groups were:

     1) Christians who believe that while sin is forgiven, it still has consequences

     2) Christians who believe that once forgiven - always forgiven...so why not sin?

     3) Non-christians who don't believe in sin or its effects

It was interesting to see them engage with one another, but in the end, I had to award (to my dismay) a bag of candy to group three, because despite all attempts, they remained unscathed. Now, that's a bit unfair, like pairing goliath against a young boy (oh wait, maybe that's a bad example? sarcasm)...to award the team who in a sense believes in nothing, but what does that say about us?

I think it shows two key things:

     1) that it's fairly easy (in fact too easy!!) for students to play a relativistic devil's advocate because let's face it, it's a pretty common agenda and lifestyle...especially in the larger public liberal schools.

     2) It also demonstrates our low view of critical thinking. It's pretty common for students to self-reflect before they self-examine. They see something they like and they put it on; metaphorically or literally. If they don't like something, they take it off and discard it...much like last years clothes (fyi - the new thing in HS is mismatched socks...I know, I don't get it either).

Let's take a look at the different groups. The scenario was this: one student catches another student cheating on a test and confronts them in the hall after class.

GROUP 3: was definitely the easiest. It's easy to play the part of the relativist because it doesn't require much critical thinking. If morality doesn't exist, then God (whether he exists or not - in whatever form) cannot hold it against me...thus cheating is fine...more specifically it's not "good" or "bad" - it just is what it is...and as one student said "it's a clever use of my resources."

GROUP 2: was slightly harder. The common thread in their argument was that once I'm forgiven I'm always forgiven...and here's the kicker...it DOESN'T MATTER if I shouldn't continue to sin (Romans 6:1) because I'm forever forgiven. So why change? In this view we engage the world under the false presupposition that sin, whether forgiven or not, still has no consequences...or if it does, we choose to live with them because I have eternity in heaven all stored up!!! This has such a low view of sin that it unwittingly espouses an extremely cheap view of grace. What then was the purpose of Christ's sacrifice? Did he intend for us to live life this way? To quote Paul "may it never be!" I always tell our students, "you can never understand the depth of God's grace until you understand the depth of your own sin." Of course this ongoing as us adults know. However, to allow students to see sin as "shallow" will reap long term fruit.

GROUP 1: had the most difficult job. Their responses to other groups seemed to convey a great sense of confusion. To be sure this is common, as we cannot expect the unspiritual to understand the spiritual (1 Cor. 2:11-13). I think most students felt that they could "win" over another if they simply shared the right words. Teaching students to engage any material, capture every thought, and to weigh it against the Truth of Scripture is a mighty task...especially if it requires more effort. Why would a student want to take the harder road, especially if what it teaches is that I have sacrifice the "fun" stuff of the world? But believe it or not this is what we are asking of students!!!

But don't lose hope parents! God is faithful and sovereign in all things. In fact I just heard another story from a mom who's daughter has turned a significant corner after years and years of tears, pain, "f" bombs, etc. You cannot make your son or daughter choose right over wrong (though we may sometimes try to force or manipulate it). All you can do is open doors for relevant conversation, and with heavy doses of daily, sometimes hourly prayer, with the hopes that students take steps themselves towards the Truth.

Our conversation on Sunday ended with the idea of how we ask for forgiveness. I think that we, all too commonly, offer our sin to God like they were little black balls. Once they pop up, we hand them over, ask "please forgive me" (more as a statement than a question) and we move on. But there is a fundamental flaw. We presuppose (sometimes errantly and sometimes correctly) that God forgives my sin. Wait, what? Let me explain: If I say "God please forgive me?" he might say "ok" or he might say "which one?" Let's think of it this way. What is the purpose of forgiveness? It's purpose is to restore a relationship. But if we examine how we ask for forgiveness, our motives become alarmingly visual. We don't often ask for God's forgiveness to be restored, and to change our lifestyles. Rather, we ask for forgiveness because we don't like feeling guilty. If I ask for forgiveness with the presupposition that God forgives all sin (1 John 1:9) and the false-purpose being to "not feel guilty" then I have in fact cheapened God's forgiveness. I've reduced planet earth to the size of pea. Where is the forgiveness in this? Again, I feel like God would say "which sin are you referring to?" and further, "do you really want to be changed?" Dietrech Bonhoeffer defined this forgiveness as cheap grace. We ask God to justify our sin, without justifying the sinner. In essence, we want to feel as if we can continue to live a guilt free life while sinning all we want. Is this Biblical? No! Romans 6:1, "if we have died to sin how then can we live in it any longer?"

So questions for you this week to engage your sons and daughter:

1. do you think that sin has effects?

2. is more forgiveness necessary if we're already forgiven?

3. what do you think your motives are when you ask for forgiveness?

Hope this helps!

seth

PRAYER

A mom recently emailed me with the question below, which she gave me permission to use. I have posted my response to her, but I thought we could use this blog for parents to engage with real questions together as we strive to see sons and daughters own their faith and make it real.

          Dear Seth,

Is there a way to let kids know that it is ok to ask parents for prayer and to talk to them about life's challenges?  I see it as a big stumbling block in our lives right now.  It is funny how my husband and I separately study the Word, I pray privately, I know the girls read their Bibles, but there's no "togetherness" in it. Feels odd.  I would sit next to each girl and pray some time back during bedtime, but now they don't really want me in there.  We pray over our meals together, but it is the same prayer.  I don't feel it is heartfelt; rather, rehearsed and reciteable in our sleep.  Are there other parents who struggle with their kids in this way?

I'm not a parent...yet. I get that. So I understand my response may not be built of out of years of experience. But I think it contains some good truths. As a church body, we can all sharpen each other, which is where you come in :)

My response: (for sake of space I have only posted the first part of my response...and a few additions)

          Dear (anonymous),

          Yes, I believe it is absolutely possible to have serious conversations and family togetherness 
          and NO you are not the only parents to struggle with it. It takes time, patience, and 
          intentionality.    

          Most students shy away when cornered by a parent, and yes, even their youth pastor. They
          clam up, shut up, seal everything inside. Or with parents they brush it off, say things like "it
          was fine" or "you know, the usual" when asked about church. Why? Because they're fearful.
          They don't know how to handle a situation like that...often because they anticipate judgment,
          repercussion, or consequences if they don't give the right answer. After all, who wants a
          scolding? I sure don't. So what do we do?

          Below, I've outlined some goals. These goals are not a "fix it" strategy...and whether or not 
          you choose to try them is up to you. But I think they contain some helpful principles. Most 
          particularly...being open about life struggles, asking for prayer, and using language that 
          emphasizes TRUST over obedience

Goal 1. You want to disarm the students "programed" response

Idea: start with yourself. Model what it "could" look like. 

How: by asking them if they would be willing to pray for you. Do this instead of cornering them and asking how you can pray for them.  

Looks like: Ask either son or daughter if they could grab some coffee. Be open and share how you're struggling in life. Then ask if they'll pray for you. This should 

open doors for their willingness to share and ask for prayer. 

Important: if a student feels like sharing will bring either judgment or exclusion...they won't share. Try offering a FULL "pardon" if they remain silent and choose 

not to share. Giving students permission to let anything out without repercussion can be a powerful catalyst. The theological idea is that you've already chosen to  forgive them without even having heard the sin...much like what God does for us. He forgives without judgment. 

Key Words: use words like "TRUST" in God, rather than obey. The goal is to get students to own their faith. Trusting God is build out of a dependence on God. I heard someone say the other day, "nothing in your life demonstrates your dependence on God more than prayer." Students need to learn to live out their own dependence on God...not legalistic obedience. 

Key phrase: WE can both trust God together this week. students need to feel like they're not the only one struggling. further, we can do life together.

What are your thoughts as a parent?