A prayer chain of faith, hope, and love

I’ve been making and using my own prayer beads for a couple of years now. I find the practice not only stretching, but somehow comforting. Jenell has picked up on the practice too, and we’ve each experimented with our own approaches to praying through them.

Recently Jenell created a set of prayer beads for a close friend. I thought both the beads themselves and the instructions were so beautiful I should share them here. The whole piece – more of a prayer chain really – is designed to be worn around the neck. The beads are turquoise and divided into three sets of ten – often called “decades” – with each set divided by little metal plates that say “faith”, “hope”, and “love”, respectively. The whole set clasps together at a wire cross, which divides one of the decades in half.

Here are the instructions Jenell wrote:

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First Decade
Start out with Hope. Stop and think about hope and what you truly need. Go from bead to bead and ask God for the things you hope for. Petition him for the things in your life you need and desire. Each request counts for one bead. These 10 beads are for you. You will have the chance to pray for loved ones in a minute.

Second Decade
Next move to Love. Stop at the love bead and think about whom you love and are thankful for. Ask God to be with these people as you move down the first five beads. You will then stop at the cross. Thank God that you only have the ability to love because He first loved you. Think about the cross and His willingness to die for you! Thank Him and then continue to move down the next five beads praying for, and thanking God for your loved ones.

Third Decade
Finally move to Faith. This may be the hardest set to pray through. Ask God to provide you with the faith and perseverance to act in accordance with his will. Pray for the things in yourself you need to change and don’t have the understanding, courage, belief to give up. Pray for the things in your life that you don’t think God can touch.

Stop at the Hope bead one more time and ask, pray for, hope for, peace in your day and finish by thanking God for giving Himself to all those who ask for Him.

A Few Notes

• You may or may not find it hard to come up with 10 things in each category. When you get stuck just wait a second and ask God to bring something else to mind. He will. Just wait.
• If you find yourself having more than 10 things to pray for, move on anyway. Remember you should come back to it in the next day or two and can pray about it then.
• Once you feel comfortable praying through the beads the way I have outlined start switching it up. Use the three beads as a jumping off point to pray for other categories, for example: Faith that the sick will be well (pray for 10 sick friends); Hope for the war to end and our soldiers to be safe! (pray for 10 soldiers you know); and so on.

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What are your experiences with the use of tactile prayer tools such as beads, candles, etc? Does this practice help you? Does it concern you? If you don’t have experience with this kind of practice, are you interested in trying it out?

Taking the leap into non-professional ministry

For years I said I’d never plant a church. I said it publicly and I said it often. When people asked why, I always had a simple answer:

Church planters need to be bi-vocational and I’m not qualified to do anything else.

In a way it was true. I spent 14 years in professional ministry. Ministry is my passion, my main experience, and my only education. Yes, I’ve worked all kinds of jobs and have some good skills and experience, but the truth is I’d become accustomed to making a decent living as a pastor in a large church. I liked having a good paycheck, a car allowance, a cellphone allowance, a book allowance, and a 403(b). I liked preaching to a thousand or so people on the weekend. I was good at it.

Things began to change rapidly in 2005. I became convinced that putting on a good show for Jesus wasn’t the best way to teach people how to follow Christ (and that it wasn’t a good way to be a follower of Christ either). By the summer of 2008 this led me and Jenell to move from Ohio back to California to pursue a form of church that would probably never pay us a full-time salary. So, I determined to find a new career that would enable me to be more immersed in culture and foster a more egalitarian and decentralized form of church life.

Two years and three months later I finally have a job. Two, actually.

Okay, maybe that’s being a bit melodramatic. The truth is, I spent the better part of the past two years as a grad student at Fuller Seminary. On the other hand, I did take two quarters off school in order to pursue an opportunity that I thought would turn into a new career path for me. (Maybe I’ll share more about that little nightmare someday.)

Aside from that catastrophe, I dipped my toe in several part-time waters, always looking for a career foothold. I wrote for blogs, designed websites, developed marketing copy, ran real estate social media campaigns, designed product brands, interviewed Christian authors, produced audiobooks, developed sermon briefs for a Las Vegas mega-church pastor, and wrote youth coaching certification test curriculum.

It was an incredibly frustrating two years. I made very little money and there were times I knew we weren’t going to make it. We spent a sizeable savings (I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much), a retirement fund, and incurred significant debt in order to pay my tuition and generally make ends meet. I went outside at night and shook my fist at God a lot. He’d just stare back at me blankly and sort of shrug, which, you know, just pissed me off even more.

But we did make it. Somehow money always came.

I say that cautiously, because nobody should rely on unexpected checks for several thousand dollars to come from people one hardly knows. But that’s exactly what happened. Also, a couple dozen of our friends and family pitched in to help support us while we chased our insane little missional dream. There is no possible way to overestimate how much these gifts meant to our family. We wouldn’t have made it without them. To all those who have contribute to our mission, I thank you dearly.

The low point came about two and a half months ago. The bottom dropped out of another part time contract job. Maybe it’s that I was expecting this one to turn into a full-time gig. Maybe I was just overly stressed from going to school full time, working part time, and trying to get a church plant off the ground. Whatever the cause, I went home and suffered a kind of personal breakdown that turned me into a hysterical heap of flesh on the bed. It’s a strange thing to be split in two – one half of you crying-laughing uncontrollably at the hopeless absurdity of a life gone off the rails, the other half hovering above, just staring back at you blankly and sort of shrugging.

It scared Jenell. Hell, it scared me.

Then, two unexpected turn of events: First, a good friend named Roy asked me to help him with his small business start-up. We have great chemistry together and strong overlapping gifts and values. I’ll be ready to tell you more about this start-up after the new year, but suffice it to say I’m excited about being involved. However, as a startup, it isn’t able to pay me and probably won’t for quite some time. Even then, it will likely be a supplemental income for a while. So I still needed a long-term, full-time gig.

Then, 3 weeks before I completed my final coursework, I stumbled across an ad for a Communications Coordinator at Interfaith Community Services. I applied on a Sunday night, was interviewed on Tuesday, attended their annual business meeting on Wednesday, won a second interview on Friday, and started the job the following Monday.

Crazy. In a few short weeks, my whole world changed.

After two years of struggling to make ends meet as a grad student and church-planter I had somehow landed two jobs, just a few weeks before graduating. I’ve been collaborating with Roy for about 10 weeks now and working at Interfaith for 6. Both allow me to be creative and catalytic, and both  are connecting me with some of the most remarkable ministry and social service opportunities I have ever seen. I’ll be blogging more about both of these organizations in the future. Most importantly, having this work and being out of school has enabled me and Jenell to pursue the ministry we feel called to, in the way we feel called to pursue it.

In the end I’ve learned that God really is good, but mostly in unexpected ways and through unexpected people. I’ve learned that faith/faithfulness means persevering through uncertainty, and I’ve learned that hope and love make that experience bearable, and even at times joyful.

Mostly, I’ve just learned.

3 questions about Jesus: JR Woodward

My friend JR Woodward is the last to tackle our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark | Ben Sternke | JR Rozko | Amy Rozko | Steve Burnhope | Jason Evans | Daniel So | Bryan Dormaier | Sean Campbell).

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I was driving in Columbus, Ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up.

His name was Mike, and I soon discovered he was a hard-core Aryan, pointing to a passage in scripture about being “a chosen people” as the reason for his convictions. I asked if he would be willing to reread the passage in context. He agreed.

As I reached in the back seat to grab my Bible he pulled a gun and pointed it at my head. I assured him I was just getting my Bible, so he put his gun away, and my heart started to beat again.

I realized Mike had no place to stay that night, so I invited him to stay with me.

“You mean you would trust me to stay with you after pulling a gun on you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “because God has given me a love for you that I can’t explain, and He loves you.” Tears welled in Mike’s eyes.

We talked until 4 a.m. and I told him about the Jesus the apostles wrote about, this Jesus who had become my hero, my savior and my example. I told him how Jesus was the liberator of those oppressed, the lover of those rejected, and the deliverer of those seduced by consumerism. He cried most of the night.

Later that week he took me to a Chinese restaurant and continued to inquire about Jesus.  I told him how Jesus lived his life for the sake of others, how he died so we could live, and how he rose again to show what God was going to do for the world.

Something in Mike changed that evening; he understood in a profound way who Jesus was and what he had done for him and the world. When I left Columbus, Mike’s heart wanted to share with his Aryan friends what he had learned, hoping they would let go of their racism and be part of a community that included people from every race, tongue, tribe and nation.

As I reflect on his story, I’m reminded that Jesus invites each one of us to partner with Him in the renewal of all things. And if Jesus can turn a racist into a lover of all, there is hope for everyone.

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JR Woodward is the co-founder of Kairos Los Angeles, a network of churches in the LA area.  He is also co-founder of the Ecclesia Network, a relational network of missional churches, and the co-founder of the Solis Foundation which gives micro grants to help start small businesses in Lodwar, Kenya.  He is finishing his Masters of Art in Global Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary and he compiled and contributed to the book ViralHope.  You can learn more about him at (jrwoodward.com).  You will find him blogging at (jrwoodward.net) and tweeting @dreamawakener.

New missional opportunities in theological education

One of the more exciting recent developments in Christendom is the radically changing nature of ministry training. Education in general is being severely tested in our rapidly shifting culture, and seminary education is not immune to those pressures. Consequently, we’re seeing some interesting experiments on the landscape.

I was fortunate to be part of one of those experiments. Many of you know I just finished an MA in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Rather than train college graduates how to be professional ministers in Christendom churches, the MAGL was designed to equip ministers from all over the world to be missionaries in their own context, and to shift the locus of learning from the teachers to the students by grouping experienced and highly diverse students together in small learning communities called cohorts. It was an amazing experience that deeply affected my perspective on the Kingdom and on culture. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a ministry education that challenges the status quo.

Since the MAGL started about 10 years ago other schools and programs have followed suit, developing their own highly unique approach to missiological training programs for ministry in the 21st century.

One of the latest programs to enter the fray is the Doctor of Ministry in Missional Leadership from Northern Seminary in the Chicagoland area. My good friend, and fellow Fuller alum, JR Rozko has been working with some amazing missional thinkers and scholars like David Fitch, Alan Roxburgh, and Craign Van Gelder to put together an exciting new program of missional training that not only unique in content and format, but relatively affordable as well.

Things are changing fast. If you’re a minister looking to be further equipped at the graduate level for leadership in a post-Christian and post-Secular Western world, consider checking these programs out. You won’t be sorry.

James Smith roughs up Brett McCracken a bit for lacking a theology of culture

There’s a reason James K.A. Smith (right) is a rising star in the Christian intellectual world: Aside from being brilliant – which isn’t all that noteworthy in academia – he’s an immensely effective and even entertaining communicator – a quality that is frustratingly rare in academia. Smith brandishes these gifts ferociously in recent books like Desiring the Kingdom and Thinking in Tongues.

It hardly seems fair, then, when Smith turns his critical attention to populist fare like Hipster Christianity by Brett McCracken, concluding he “lacks a theology of culture.” It’s nothing less than brutal.

I link to it, and quote from it, here because the mindless bashing of Christian movements en masse that continues to flow from from the conservative evangelical camp has swelled to such a ridiculous volume that it nearly deserves it’s own niche publishing category. I think Smith does a fine job of calling McCracken out for his lack of depth and thoughtfulness.

That Smith has at least one foot solidly in the Reformed camp makes his critique all the more refreshing. Here are my favorite parts:

While McCracken’s analysis perhaps pertains to a bunch of suburban kids who have adopted hipster as a style—just as they might have adopted “urban” as a style—his analysis doesn’t even touch those students I know who, from Christian convictions, have intentionally pursued a lifestyle that rejects the bourgeois consumerism of mass, commercialized culture. They shop at Goodwill and Salvation Army because they have concerns about the injustice of the mass-market clothing industry, because they believe recycling is good stewardship of God’s creation, and frankly, because they’re relatively poor. They’re relatively poor because they’re pursuing work that is meaningful and just and creative and won’t eat them alive, and such work, although not lucrative, gives them time to spend on the things that really matter: community, friendship, service, and creative collaboration. And despite McCracken’s misguided claims about autonomy and independence (192-193), the Christian hipsters I know are actually willing to sacrifice the American sacred cow of privacy and independence, living in intentional communities as families and singles, working through all the difficulties and blessings of “life together” as Bonhoeffer describes it. In short, the lives of the Christian hipsters I know are a gazillion miles away from being worried about image or trendiness; they live the way they do because they are pursuing the good life characterized by well-ordered culture-making that is just and conducive to flourishing—and this requires resisting the mass-produced, mass-marketed, and mass-consumed banalities of the corporate ladder, the suburban veneer of so-called success, as well as the irresponsibility of perpetual adolescence that characterizes so many twentysomethings who imagine life as one big frat house.

And:

The Christian hipsters I know are pursuing a way of life that they (rightly) believe better jives with the picture of flourishing sketched in the biblical visions of the coming kingdom. They have simply discovered a bigger gospel: they have come to appreciate that the good news is an announcement with implications not only for individual souls but also for the very shape of social institutions and creational flourishing.

Also:

If McCracken is lamenting the fact that Christian colleges are producing alumni that are smart and discerning with good taste and deep passions about justice, then we’re happy to live with his ire. The fact that young evangelicals, when immersed in a thoughtful liberal arts education, turn out to value what really matters and look critically on the way of life that has been extolled to them in both mass media and mass Christian media—well, we’ll wear that as a badge of honor.

And last, but not least:

It turns out [McCracken is] just worried that young Christians might be (gasp!) smoking and drinking a bit too much and have not sufficiently considered injunctions about dress in 1 Peter 3. Well, yes, indeed: those do seem like quite pressing matters for Christian witness in our postsecular world. By all means, let’s get our personal pieties in line. For as McCracken sums it up, “the Christian hipster lifestyle has become far too accommodating and accepting of sin” (200)—and by this, he means a pretty standard litany of evangelical taboos (did I mention sex?). It’s funny: my Christian hipster friends think conservative evangelicals have also become too accommodating and accepting of sin, but they tend to have a different inventory in mind—things like the Christian endorsement of torture and wars of aggression, evangelical energies devoted to policies of fiscal selfishness, and lifestyles of persistent, banal greed.

Emphasis most definitely added.

3 Questions about Jesus: Sean Campbell

We have a couple of late addition to our 3 Questions About Jesus series. This week, my good friend Sean Campbell tackles the questions, Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark | Ben Sternke | JR Rozko | Amy Rozko | Steve Burnhope | Jason Evans | Daniel So | Bryan Dormaier).

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After losing what seemed like the same argument again and again, my wife finally clued me in. She had probably been telling me for a while, but I tend not to pick up on these things quickly. She said that behind every difficulty we’ve ever had, she always wanted to know that I still loved her, or, rather, that she was still lovable.

God gives us relationships as metaphors to better understand how he relates to us and how we can relate to him. One clear metaphor he gave us was that of husband and wife. Jesus came that we might know not only that we are lovable, but, also, that we are desperately loved.

What’s more, when my wife handed me this epiphany, I was offended. (And this is the risk God takes when giving us relationships as metaphor. They’re nearly always flawed.) I actually wondered how my wife could suspect me of not loving her; I tell her I love her multiple times every day and I always have. How could she have such a warped picture of me? But as I reflected on this, I realized that this assurance is a deep need of hers and it is also an important part of the metaphor.

Jesus came not only to demonstrate the Father’s love for us, but also to defend his character. You see, God also wonders how we could have such a warped picture of him. We all do. And this is why he sent his son, to daily tell us he love us, that we’re still lovable, and he hopes, that as he remains faithful in this, we might begin to correct our image of him and see him for who he is. This is what Jesus accomplished.

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Sean is software engineer for a startup in Carlsbad, California. He is married with four children.

Why do homeless people piss us off?

This is a bit of a re-post from an older blog, but news today brought it back to mind: Attacks on homeless will be hate crimes in Florida:

The slaying of the homeless veteran, Daniel Case, on Florida’s west coast is an example of that brutality. Two street gang members were charged with wielding a baseball bat and golf club to beat him while he slept in a lawn chair behind a Bradenton business.

Nearly two years ago I sent out an e-mail to Twoshirts members inviting people to join our efforts to collect food and clothing for homeless teens in Oceanside, Ca, I received this response from a (now former) member:

“they can get jobs like most normal people!! dont send me your bull**** !!!”

Why all the anger?

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, violence against homeless people are on the rise nationally, and this story in the Detroit News from back then covers the murder of a homeless man by two young teenage boys who were allegedly involved. The motive remains a mystery, and in all fairness, we presume their innocence until they’re proven otherwise.

Still, there were a couple of quotes in the article that struck me. One of the boys mothers believes her son is innocent, partly because, in her words:

“We were homeless once,” Hazard said. “We don’t have much, but I raised him and my other children to respect others. I was a working mother and taught them morals and to be honest.”

I’m sure she did, but perhaps her son saw a bit of himself in the homeless man. Often our anger towards others is rooted in self-rejection and shame. When people represent the worst of us, or by their very presence seem to confirm our greatest fears, we can lash out in anger.

Or perhaps the motive is even more banal. At the time, Michael Stoops, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless, said,

“We think crimes against the homeless should be classified as a hate crime…People feel it is safe to hate and attack the homeless.

Michael Stoops touches on a deep-seated human reality: we often repress the evil inside of us until we have a safe, anonymous target. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have that inside of us. Wherever the anger and hate comes from, the poor and homeless are practically relegated to the category of non-human in cultures of affluence like ours, and are particularly vulnerable to all manner of attacks, abuses, and crimes.

My wife Jenell and I have been particularly challenged by Jesus’ words: ” Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back” (Luke 6:30), and of course, John the Baptist’s words, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11). We’ve tried to live these words out in concrete ways. What are some ways you’ve been challenged on this issue?

If you’re looking for ways to help or get involved, check out the Homelessness Resource Center. Or, check out Interfaith Community Services here in North County San Diego and, better yet, get involved by volunteering or even becoming a facebook fan and helping to spread the word.

Criminalizing the mentally ill

Two articles in the news today converge in an interesting way for those interested in mercy and justice work:

First, The Texas Tribune interviews author Pete Early, who says we’ve criminalized the mentally ill:

Right now, as we’re talking, you’ve got 365,000 people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depression in jails and prison. You’ve got a half-million on probation, you’ve got a million going through the criminal justice system every year, and the largest public mental facility is not a hospital; it’s the Los Angeles County Jail.

Second, and a little closer to home, the San Diego City Council is off to a slow start on the discussions for this year’s downtown Winter Shelter. Of particular interest to me are some of the public comments on the article. There’s this…

You can sleep anywhere you like on City streets, you have dozens of free food outlets to choose from, you have a constant flow of tourists and others to panhandle from and when the weather gets cold the City builds you a cozy warm shelter to sleep in. How is the City planning to address the homeless problem or do they just look at it as an alternative lifestyle that they need to support?

And my nomination for idiot of the week goes to..

No homeless magnet.

We already have more than our share of bums. Why attract more with freebies, handouts, and “services”?

I’m moving to Reston VA in two weeks. No bums in Reston Town Center. Want to know why? It’s private property. Bums will get thrown out. It’s wonderful to be able to have a drink and a meal without a parade of smelly, drug-addled bums demanding money, screaming incoherently, fighting over booze and cigarettes, etc.

No “services” for bums == no (or fewer) bums.  Simple math.  If you love homeless, move to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

No services = no homeless? Wow, that’s brilliant.

Homelessness is, of course, massively inflated by the impact of the mentally ill. The simple fact is that, one way or the other, we are going to pay for the care of people who can’t completely care for themselves (can anybody, really?), either by throwing them in jail when they break the law (which is inevitable), by putting them in government institutions, or by subsidizing private and non-profit programs (check out the Fairweather Lodge model we use at Interfaith).

Two questions: What are the humane, just, and responsible ways to care for such people in need and what kind of biblical guidance is there for this topic?

How important are interfaith efforts today?

Please take just a few minutes to answer these 7 questions. Your perspective is very important to me!

3 questions about Jesus: Bryan Dormaier

My friend Bryan Dormaier is next to answer our 3 Questions About Jesus: Who is Jesus the Christ? What has he done? And why does it matter? (Previous installments: Jason Coker | Jesse Schroeder | Cari Jenkins | Jason Clark | Ben Sternke | JR Rozko | Amy Rozko | Steve Burnhope | Jason Evans | Daniel So).
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Is there anything worse than a person who only does things looking out for themselves?

You know the type- the only thing they worry about is how things will effect them. And we all know if we’re honest that we do it, but at the same time we see it in others and it disgusts us.

If I am to talk about Jesus in the most basic way I know how, I think that Jesus was all about saying that worrying first about oneself is not a good way to live. One of the sayings of Jesus that I find most interesting was about wheat. He said, “think about wheat – if the kernels stay on the head, what good do they do? They remain just one grain. But if they are willing to give their lives, ‘if they fall to the ground and die,’ they produce something much greater than themselves, something exponentially greater, for think, from one kernel of wheat, an entire plant grows and that plant grows many kernels.” And so in this way, Jesus says, “if you want to have a meaningful life, it has to be about something greater than your self preservation.”

Another time, Jesus was asked to sum up what it meant to live the spiritual life. He answered two things: love God first and foremost, and love others as much as you love yourself. In doing so, he said, you really would be living the spiritual life.

But Jesus didn’t just put this forward as some sort of romantic idea, this idea – that life is best lived for serving others than for serving ourselves was the message that Jesus lived in his actions. That is, the Christian story says that Jesus willingly let himself be arrested and killed for teaching this message, he took his message that self-preservation isn’t what life is all about to it’s logical end, that when it became an unpopular message he allowed himself to be murdered to illustrate his point.

Now, the Christian story is told by people who followed Jesus and believed that not only was he a fantastic human, but he was also God. And as proof they offered that after he had died, he came back to life – an almost unbelievable thing. But for these early followers of Jesus, it was an authentication to that entire way of living, that life is about more than ourselves and that God wants us to not be focused on ourselves because God is not focused on Godself but on serving others.

This is why I think Jesus is so important, because if that kind of God exists, I believe it is very, very good news.

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Bryan Dormaier is a graduate of Multnomah Biblical Seminary where he received his Masters in Pastoral Studies. Bryan also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Whitworth University, in Spokane, WA. He is currently involved with a missional church plant in the Portland area.