A* is reading a books called In the Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, the lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. A*'s sister sent us the book as she had attended NCC when she lived in the DC area a number of years ago. We visited that church once, and I remember enjoying it. They met in a movie theater in Union Station. The book is also being used as the summer sermon series of the church we've been going to, so for A* it has been helping her to evaluate from her perspective whether we should stick with this church or not. Me, well, as I mentioned previously, I'm at the point where I don't care much about going to this church or any church right now.

So given that attitude, A* found a section in Chapter 4 of the book that she thought would be helpful to me. I'm really glad that she read it to me because I think it is true and I also think it connects with the a major topic in the first chapter of An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. She read me parts of this excerpt:

Let me share something I've learned from some of my personal struggles. When I get into a spiritual or emotional slump, it's usually because of I've zoomed in on a problem. I'm fixating on something I don't like about myself or someone else or my circumstances. And nine times out of ten, the solution is zooming out so I can get some perspective.

So how do we zoom out? The one-word answer is worship.

A few years ago I had a thought that has become a worship mantra at National Community Church: Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worship what's right with God.

Reframing problems is about shifting focus. You stop focusing on what's wrong with your circumstances. And you start focusing on what's right with God.

Paul and Silas could have zoomed in and complained about their circumstances. We cast out a demon, and this is what we get? We're on a missionary journey, and we get beaten and thrown in jail? Instead of God watching our backs, our backs are bleeding from a beating! They could have complained till the cows came home. But they made a choice to worship God in spite of their external circumstances. And that is often the most difficult and most important choice we can make.

Worship is zooming out and refocusing on the big picture. It's refocusing on the fact that two thousand years ago, Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sin. IT's refocusing on the fact that God unconditionally loves me when I least expect it and lease deserve it. It's refocusing on the fact that I have eternity with God to look forward to in a place where there is no mourning or sorrow or pain.

Worship is forgetting about what's wrong with you and remembering what's right with God. It is like hitting the refresh key on your computer. It restores the joy of your salvation. It recalibrates your spirit. It renews your mind. And it enables you to find something good to praise God about even when everything seems to be going wrong. (p. 66-67)

That is a huge reminder to me. For worship is what my life used to be about. I longed to worship God anytime I could, in and out of an organized meeting. But now I have been so down about our circumstances with church, with community, with anything else that isn't going the way I want it to go, that I have failed to worship. I am way too zoomed in.

I think about when we've gone to LCBC and how no matter when we've gone, we've always been able to worship, leave everything else at the door and walk away refreshed. It's because we've zoomed out of what we'd been focused on before walking into that worship opportunity; we've opened our hearts to be reminded of God's love for us; we've desired the Spirit to refresh our souls. There was no plan, no preparation. There was no analysis of what happened later. It was worship, pure, simple, and naively real.

Naively real? Well, I just learned that phrase this week in the first chapter of An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. The author is discussing the theological differences between the church in Jerusalem, led by the 11 remaining disciples of Jesus turned apostles, and the church in Antioch, which is led by Paul, a self-proclaimed apostle by the revealed Spirit of Jesus. The first chapter is full of interesting narratives of how the theology that came out of Antioch (through Paul) differed so strongly from the theology steeped in traditional Judaism of the disciples, and how that conflict played out. The major point of the chapter was that Paul claimed the entire basis of his theology was from revelation from the Spirit of Christ. His support for it was not just his own personal claim, but also the fruit of the work the Spirit of Christ was doing within the community he was ministering.

So how does naive realism come into this? Well, the church in Jerusalem criticized the church in Antioch for removing the requirement of circumcision, and various other traditional Jewish elements. Similar to how emerging churches today are criticized for "lacking theological sophistication," so was Paul similar criticized. The author shows that Paul responds in a naive realism, which means that he approached his revealed theology of the Spirit of Christ as "reality as something that involves more interaction between what is real and a person's perception of it." It is dynamic, not static, described also as "modest realism" as "the way that knowledge of reality involves something of the knower as well as openness to a more-than-meets-the-eye (or fills the mind) experience of reality. (p.39)

What is a real-life example of this heady definition? The author describes a team of theologians and Young Life leaders discussing papers about evangelizing to young people. One person asked a professor present how it was that they could discuss this without challenges "on the basis of recent textual criticism theories?" The professor responded, "Some of us have concluded that redaction criticism of the text has come to a dead end and that we should simply accept th text as Word of God given to the believing community and read and use it as such!" (p. 39)

How freeing that is! To allow the Bible to simply be the Word of God given to us as believers. Paul wrote to us as Word of God given to him, revealed by the Spirit of Christ, his faith founded in Jesus revealing Himself to Paul on that road to Damascus. So anyone (like the church in Jerusalem) who demanded his sources for his theology and teachings, Paul simply pointed to the reality of Christ as the basis of the truth of Christ. He needed no philosophical proofs, no empirical data, and no historical evidences; simply the reality of his experience with Jesus and the Spirit, which revealed to him his knowledge of Jesus. So while modern thinkers look for evidences of truth, Paul looked for evidences of reality, supported by evidence of the Spirit revealing and moving through the community of believers. (p. 41)

So in this way we should read the Gospels as they were written, "in an unapologetic way - reality and knowledge were assumed to be true, not parts of the truth." (p. 40) For what is written is the reality of Christ as witnessed by the Gospel authors. The truth of that reality is the Word of God revealed to them - to us; the kingdom of God arriving; the Way mapped out.

And so with all this in mind, it is freeing to be able to focus on the Spirit of Christ in worship, to sing of the love of God given to us, to simply believe in the only reality that our souls know - the longing to be in relationship with God, worshiping Him, and receiving His love. If I can let go of my frustrations, let go of my idealistic viewpoints, let go of my Utopian desires for church and community, and live in the moment of worship, that would be heavenly.

Does it sound naive? I hope so, because it also sounds real.

I have been having difficulty sleeping again; actually I don't know that I've not had difficulty sleeping recently, and I wonder if it isn't partially because I'm spending my time in some solitude here writing the thoughts of my heart and mind. While A* and I were talking about church stuff recently (and we've talked about that a lot) I mentioned that I really want to fall in love with Jesus again. The best memory I have is when I was in college, and I wonder if my love and passion for Jesus wasn't connected with the love and passion for Jesus my community had. More on the communal part later, but the key to my comment was that I was passionate about following Jesus. I was hooked on Him in the way the sick, the outcasts, the "sinners" were in the gospels - like they could spend all day and all night just listening to Him, knowing that being around Him was 1000% better than whatever their lives had been up to that point. A couple of times in my life I knew that exactly, and in the second half of my freshman year I made a choice to be around Jesus and His followers, gathering with people as much as I could and get as much of Jesus as I could.

Now, I feel like taking a break from the gatherings we call church. I've said a couple times this week that I just don't care where we go to church or if we go to church. I realize this sounds like a crappy attitude, but I am so burned out from the frustrations of the shortcomings of the organization of church that I'm getting blocked from any opportunity to truly worship. And in short, I've got very little passion left for the kingdom of God, which just kills me. I don't want to be this way. I want to fall in love again with Jesus.

I don't remember where I read or heard this, but somewhere I heard or read that generally as modern, American Christians we spend way too much time thinking about the individualized, decision of salvation and faith we have rather than seeing our salvation and faith as holistically encompassing our entire life and community. The point was that we spend way too much energy depending on ourselves to maintain our than living out our faith in community with the Spirit of Jesus. I can see this in my own life. A number of years ago, my faith was as alive as my journey was within the community of believers. There was balance between what unique characteristics individuals brought with how the community moved toward and with Jesus as a whole. For me, as I look back, I might even say that I put too much emphasis on the community to hold up my faith, but that is another series of posts for many, many days. (read: my biggest fear is to be alone, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually.) But I certainly believe that there is a need for communal faith to follow Jesus, and this is what I'm lacking right now.

But that isn't an excuse to not follow Jesus, it's merely identifying the hole in my life, the missing piece from the passion I desire. Not to get too heady in theology, but if we are to be the body of Christ, then right now I feel like a part that has been severed and looking for where I need to be re-attached. And in the midst of this, I am looking for leadings from the gospels, from Christian authors, from A* and the ramblings here of my soul about were I fit. So I picked up some light reading this week in the book An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. In previous blog conversations, I have admitted knowing very little about this emergent conversation. Most of the fundamental and conservative viewpoints try to point out evil in this movement, but it's clearly only a one-sided viewpoint. I finally found a book that may share clearly what theology is behind emerging churches. It is a heady book, written by a professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. But the author promises that this book was written for those leaders in emerging churches, as well as those participating or looking at emerging churches. It has become clear to me that the only structure I've known of about being a Christian has little to do with living in the kingdom of God, that there is a dimension that I've never considered. I'm excited to go through this book and find out if there's something really to what I'm concluding.

My thoughts are starting to jumble in my head, so I think I can finally get good rest. I hope that I can find the type of passion that fueled my faith before again. I sure miss it.

I am finding myself in a state of frustration the last few weeks. Frustrated at work because I have so many projects to complete and there is no clear directive for priorities of these projects. Even when I tried to set some, others don't necessarily agree because everyone's project is most important.

My frustrations with the church we've been going to were confirmed by others who have decided to leave the church. But unfortunately, my overall frustration with church as it exists, at least out here in the east, isn't helped by this information. As I was telling our friends the other night, I just don't have any desire to go back to church. Especially after reading So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore I am finding myself wanting that type of community - the community that is focused on living in the Spirit, focused on the kingdom all around them without the weight of organization and self-preservation, hierarchy and trying to put on a perfect Sunday service.

So as I was reading This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley, pastor of the Imago Dei Community in Portland, OR, I was finding myself envious of the community that is alive there. The examples McKinley gave of how that community is practicing the presence of the kingdom of God make me want to be around that community or a community like it. But it is in the appendix that McKinley identifies my biggest frustration in trying to find such a community. He writes about how we find two gospels in the New Testament, the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus.

The gospel of Jesus is usually taken to mean His announcement of the kingdom and the life He embodied in His loving actions toward the world. The gospel about Jesus refer to His atoning work on the cross and His resurrection, through which we can receive the forgiveness of sin through our faith and repentance.

The "two gospels" even correlate to a schism in the church, with more liberal churches living the gospel of Jesus and doing the good deeds of the kingdom, while more conservative churches preach the gospel about Jesus, focusing on the personal salvation He offers to those who put their faith in Him.

I believe, however, that the two are actually one gospel and that when we lose the tension that comes from holding both together, we experience and unhealthy and unbiblical pendulum swing in our faith.

If all we value is the salvation gospel, we tend to miss the rest of Christ's message. Taken out of the context of the kingdom, the call to faith in Christ gets reduced to something less than the New Testament teaches. The reverse is also true: If we value a kingdom gospel at the expense of the liberating message of the Cross and the empty tomb and a call to repentance, we miss a central tenet of kingdom life. Without faith in Jesus, there is no transferring of our lives into the new world of the kingdom.

This dichotomy, however, doesn't fully describe how we may or may not participate in what God is doing on earth. People don't stand outside the doorway of the kingdom waiting to get through the salvation gate in order to go in and experience kingdom realities. Rather people are tasting, touching, and embracing pieces of the kingdom all the time. The love of creation, for example, is experienced by those who follow Christ and those who do not. The invitation to embrace the kingdom the becomes an opportunity for us to get side by side with those who don't know Jesus but are attracted to His creation and point out to them that what they love is compelling evidence that they were made for another world and that that world is accessible through faith in Christ.

In this way, their participation in the kingdom becomes a point where the gospel can be more fully articulated. If we're participating along with them, followers of Christ get to explain to them both the worldview of the kingdom and the salvation our King offers. And they get to encounter Christ without having to find a way through the sterile walls of religion in search of Him.

Therefore participation in the kingdom life by those who follow Jesus becomes an opportunity to serve the great commission in a much fuller way. Our joyful announcing of the reign of the God through His in-breaking kingdom becomes a beginning point of gospel proclamation. (p. 177-19

This is the kind of church community that I want to be a part of. This is the kingdom that I want to be a part of. The church, like the one we've been attending, that needs to send out a letter to encourage people to bring their "unchurched friends" to church because they are on pace to be over $100,000 in debt at the end of the year is not what I want to be a part of.

My frustrations with all of this are distracting me from the kingdom. I'm distracted from finding solitude in my heart, distracted from being hospitable, and most importantly losing focus on the prayer of my heart.