Should I have done more?

 Do what you can while you can says Keith Hampton

Ireceived a call yesterday from Jenny*, obviously very upset by the hesitant, quiet whisper between her tears. I eventually understood her to say that her husband (who along with Jenny I had been privileged to ‘join together’ in matrimony only five months ago), had suffered a heart attack and died.

It was a shock for me in the first instance, a sad one at that. Jenny and her new husband Stan* had lived together for 12 years before their marriage. He called me the Padre because of his War years experience of the Salvation Army, and I was happy to play along with that. (We have such an incredible heritage don’t we to live up to, when we think of what the real Padre’s in the war did for everyone who called them that).

“Padre,” Jenny inquired “we can’t afford a proper funeral, but they said at the Funeral place we can go and see him for 30 minutes this morning for free and they don’t mind if you come too!” she whispered. “And at 1.00 o’clock, we’ve organised for a BBQ and Drinks at the Caravan Park and hoped you could come and lead a little something for Stan there as well?”

Well, obviously I said yes, even though she’ll never know how many verses of “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me” I needed to get through the ‘viewing’. They really aren’t my thing! But you do it don’t you, in God’s strength?

As I stood around Stan’s body, with his immediate family, a very big man with very grey skin lying on his back with his eyes closed … before our eyes, the families muffled cries  in the background as I read the 23^rd Psalm again…(I’d only just read it the other day at Wedding, it certainly gets well used doesn’t it, I thought to myself! It’s funny what goes through your head at times like this…)

 Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me …

A week or so off 70 years old, Stan had been a drinker and, smoker all his days, which could well have been a bi-product of his years in the military. where he learnt to love and respect the Salvation Army Padre and with bullets blazing around your head, having a smoke, really wasn’t up there with ‘health concerns’ at the time I’d imagine!

Next time I do a Wedding, especially of someone almost 70, I’ve decided that I’m going to take down their details and write them in my diary, and each month drop in and see them and include them in my pastoral visitation and send them an invitation to our meetings with a copy of our weekly newsletter!

I have someone posting off newsletters every Monday now to anyone on our corps address book who misses the Sunday meeting, which is great as from time to time we re-connect with some of what we used to call people  ’on the fringe’ and they start attending once again.

It’s my prayer that we’ll be able to introduce them all to the Saviour through their contact with us before I receive another call like the call from Jenny this week.

(Names changed for privacy reasons)

Writer: Major Keith Hampton is a married man of 36 years to his childhood sweetheart Ruth (nee Terracini). Keith and Ruth have a grown up family, Daniel (31) and wife Emma and Rachel (26). Keith is currently the Corps Officer of Caboolture Corps on the outskirts of Brisbane and Ruth is the Salvation Army Workplace Relations Manager for Queensland. He was a member of the Overcomer’s Session and has served as an officer in both Australia Eastern Territory and New Zealand Territory in field, public relations and divisional youth work. With a fundraising, marketing and theological bent, Keith is always seeking ways to “Improve the Product” and has been responsible for new corps openings and building programs in various corps and plants in both territories.

Declaring an Amnesty

Even Leaders “sin and fall short” - says Geoff Ryan

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” (Thoreau)

Ithink that there are dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of pastors throughout the world who live their daily lives and work their ministries in various stages of “quiet desperation”, due to the fact that somewhere along the line they messed up and sinned. Maybe it was an isolated incident, maybe more than once - a pattern emerging… Whatever the cause and effect, they gave in and are now trapped. Like one of those bottles that we hang up in the summer months to catch wasps and flies, once the victim crawls in there is no way back. That’s how it is if you are in ministry in the church, if you are a leader in evangelical circles. Who do you tell? How do you tell? There is no one to talk to and nowhere to go. The price to be paid is too high. The higher up the ladder you may have climbed, the farther the fall and so the deeper you bury it and more trapped you become.

Admitting fallibility may be hard simply due to pride. But even pride aside, the reality is that there simply is no way to admit that you have failed. Failure in our driven, corporate and success inspired culture is the unforgiveable sin. Truth has a way of outing itself though and so the fear becomes a daily, aching burden, a flickering fear awaiting the day all will be “proclaimed from the roofs.”

The fact is we all mess up, we all sin … every single one of us. If you are reading this and you’re alone sitting in a room or an office - raise your hand if you’ve messed up, if you have crossed some sort of a line somewhere, at some time, and even though you didn’t linger there for very long and may have quickly hopped back over, you still crossed that line and you carry that with you night and day… Sound familiar? But what to do with it, how to shake it off, put it behind, get on with life and calling and faith?

“But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (NIV, Matthew 6:15)

Following Nathan’s confrontation, David admitted that he had sinned (and rather more terribly and thoroughly than most of us will ever sin). But in his repentance Psalm, he points out to God that: “Against you and you only have I sinned…” Sin, once committed, is largely a matter between the sinner and their God. Other people are usually involved and this hurt and damage needs to be addressed. The main issue, however, is between God and prodigal. So although we may sin against God first off, repentance to God alone is not really an option.

I guess one thing that appeals to me about the Catholics is that, everything else aside, they would take my humanity seriously, if I gave them the chance. Confession in the Catholic church is now termed the “sacrament of reconciliation”. Evidence of a weak and compromised theology, my Jobian friends would say. the only (inadequate) thing the Catholics could offer their people - a way station on their endless cycle of sin. To me it suggested a profounder understanding of grace than maybe we evangelicals are willing - or able - to grasp. Maybe it’s something more realistic and practical?

Perhaps the Catholics know the world and understand the human heart better than us because they’ve been around longer. They know that people are frail and give into temptation and are prone to sin. This is our human side. This is our legacy of living as fallen creatures in a fallen world.

The Catholic concept of calling, of the priesthood, differs from most evangelical concepts of ministry calling. They have more of a “once-a-priest-always-a-priest-and-besides-its-a-thing-between-you-and-God” sort of theology. We would have a hard time getting our heads around how they view their leaders (priests) but at least they have some clarity about the nature of the call and the life of service. It is a developed and sure theology. It is a clarity woefully lacking in most evangelical circles, my own denomination in particular. Maybe because of this, the Catholics own their prodigals far more readily than we Protestants, we evangelicals. They send them to retreat houses and try to heal and restore them in most cases. Their bent is to deal in mercy, dispense grace and maintain respect for their fallen colleagues. The Catholic church defrocks with far more reluctance and fear than we do in giving the boot to an errant leader. Our eagerness for condemnation and swift judgment is a little embarrassing.

The recent sex scandals involving priests in the United States has garnered an enormous amount of media attention. It is a heinous thing these priests have done. No one, the Catholic Church included, is disputing this. But quietly in the background grace is moving At a conference of Major Superiors of Men, an association of Catholic Orders (about half of all American priests belong to these orders) last year, a decision was made, after a vote, not to cut the errant priests loose, but to work to restore them. The order felt strongly that their approach should be guided by the Catholic belief of redemption for sinners. “Just as a family does not abandon a member convicted of serious crimes, we cannot turn our backs on our brothers”, a spokesman said. I wonder how most evangelical denominations would have handled this?

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”     (1 Timothy 1:15-16, NIV)

Dr. Tony Campolo was asked by President Clinton to be one of his three spiritual advisors after the Lewinsky scandal broke. This request and Tony’s subsequent acceptance of the offer brought a firestorm down on his head. He was pilloried by the evangelical community, accused of all manner of motives and judged with a certainty and swiftness that would have seen the Pharisees of Jesus’ day green with envy. And remember, Tony was only in the position of counseling a sinner. He had not sinned himself, although he might as well have. I remember how Tony broke down at a conference we were both speaking at in Los Angeles during this time, as he shared about the viciousness of the attacks on him. One pastor wrote: “Don’t you understand that this man does not deserve grace?”

Evangelicals have high standards, maybe impossibly high. We are prone to an unconscious dualism, all but ignoring our humanity to instead invest almost solely in idealizing and striving for divinity. When a leader’s humanity rears up, when the “old man” refuses to stay dead, it is an affront to our convictions and so the instinctive reaction is to distance the church or organization from the sinner in order to preserve intact our reputations and integrity. The one will be sacrificed for the sake of the many. He or she will be cut loose and isolated. Kind of like the Amish practice of “shunning”.

For many of us, our heritage in the Holiness movement is an added pressure. Our second blessing paradigm has oft times edged out our tolerance for mercy and grace. Doubtful of the possibility of resurrection once we’ve blown it, we crucify with almost indecent haste. Indeed, we shoot our wounded.

While serving as a missionary in Russia I learned that while nowhere in the theology of the Orthodox Church was there instruction or teaching to worship icons, I came to understand that the reality “on the street” was different. Most of the little old ladies who haunted the churches in daily in droves to light candles and pray, for all intents and purposes did worship the icons. They bowed down to them, kissed them, prayed to them and bought replicas of them to carry around with them. Whatever the Church Fathers may have taught, the foot soldiers lived a different reality.

It is often much the same with us. Whatever John Wesley did believe about perfectionism (hard to get a straight answer on this and if you think you’ve got it nailed, try reading his journals sometime) and whether or not the holiness proponents in my own tradition were, at the end of the day, prophetic theologians or simply devout men who built theologies around personal experience - the understanding is that we live under the threat of an all but unobtainable goal. I was weaned on this as an evangelical, as a preacher’s kid. It is an all-pervasive understanding, an embedded conventional wisdom that sets us all up for failure.

Leaders are expected to be perfect. To sin is to admit weakness and failure and to invite punishment. Such is the church culture that we are a part of. Why is it that the most common reaction to the word holiness seems to be fear? If you think about it, it is an odd and even profane reaction. Fear as an instinctive, gut reaction to the winsome, attractive character of Jesus, the most holy of people. Why is this? Because we have little experienced this face of holiness, we have experienced something else in its place, something that smacks of legalism and fear. I sometimes wonder if we are among the most graceless of God’s people. The word in the trenches is this: If you mess up, keep it hidden or you’ll get crucified. Jesus claimed that his Father desired mercy, not sacrifice, but we know different - it is sacrifice and not mercy that will be extracted.

And we evangelicals pick our sins, do we not? Illicit sex, financial impropriety, addictions, abortion, divorce, homosexuality - all the obvious biggies. Yet simultaneously will accommodate such things as materialism and consumerism, worldliness, power and control issues, theological infidelity and hate, to name a few. If God has a hierarchy of sins these latter are surely the worser. It is sins like these that can displace God in our hearts, raise up true idols and slowly rot the fabric of our souls. The others? Bad enough, to be sure. But things that someone can move beyond, can get over, can pick themselves up from and dust themselves off and keep walking. If there is a helping hand to grip and not a heavy hand that spanks and pushes down and away.

So here is my idea. It is a gamble as risky as the one God took that dark afternoon on Calvary. Hold a denominational jubilee year. Announce an amnesty!  I’m issuing a challenge, I suppose. If our denominational and ministry heads are chosen and hired by us but also appointed by God, then the challenge is for them to be the “Father” in the parable of the prodigal son. Could a denominational head not travel from one end of his or her area of responsibility, stopping in strategically targeted towns and cities, central points covering that are announced well beforehand, and in each stop set up shop in a particular place…and wait. Pastors and other leaders within traveling distance would know that on certain days, their leader will be waiting at this certain place…waiting to hear confession. Just like those priests in the park in Toronto, they will dispense the sacrament of reconciliation and pronounce their benedicere. No human resources people present, no lawyers, no pastoral care specialists, no counselors - just the man or woman that God appointed as their spiritual head. Leaders would come to privately confess their sins, receive prayer and absolution and then go on their way. Sins forgiven and forgotten. No retribution, no comebacks, to “…go, and sin no more”, as Jesus would say.

“…you should act and speak as men who will be judged by the law of freedom. The man who makes no allowances for others will find none made for him. It is still true ‘that mercy smiles in the face of judgement.’”      (James 2: 13, J.B. Phillips)

I can hear the protests now. Sure it would be messy - but grace is messy. Sure there are people who would take advantage of it. But that’s ultimately between them and God, according to David. There are some parameters that would have to be in place and legal breaches might have to be considered. This is all understood. But the concept is doable - it can be done!

It would generate much public criticism in our evangelical world and from the world outside our churches. Our post-Christian societies understanding of grace is as poors as ours and their bent is to hold us Christians to higher standards than they would ever ask of themselves. But I also believe it would garner much private admiration. I believe it would  bring freedom and release back into the church. Good pastors, good leaders, long paralyzed by a bad choice or haunted by a moment of weakness, would be set free to once again move ahead with their calling and ministry. It would bring grace back into our pulpits and pews. Grace which would then flow out onto the streets and into the offices and homesof our countries, restablishing a trust long broken and dispelling fear. “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners…to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”, Jesus declared.

So fling open the closet doors and lets haul out those skeletons and bury them forever! Throw off the shackles of guilt! Get on with life! A new day is coming!

“In Latin, to bless is benedicere, which means literally: saying good things. The Father wants to say, more with his touch than with his voice, good things of his children. He has no desire to punish them. They have already been punished excessively by their own inner or outer waywardness. The Father wants simply to let them know that the love they have searched for in such distorted ways has been, is, and always will be there for them. The Father wants to say, more with his hands than with his mouth: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

 

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder of theRubicon and was publisher for three years. He is co-ordinator of the 614 Network and organizes the bi-annual Urban Forum. His interests include writing, politics, coffee and his children. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.   

I was a teenage fundamentalist - part three

Barry Gittins says - A Spirited conversation is required

Prologue: First up, I want to thank those people who have added to this ongoing discussion of ‘things Salvationist and theological’ through their posts. I am enjoying the walk as we cover some much-covered terrain, but readily admit my navigational skills may prove to be ’suss’ at times. If I start going down dead ends, or ambling along in a daze, then I apologise; I hope everyone who crosses the Rubicon in this discussion enjoys the chance to stretch their legs and dip their toes.

I also trust the Holy Spirit will continue to guide us.

I

don’t know about you, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that I started to hear people preaching about the gifts of the Spirit, as opposed to the fruits (love, joy, peace etc.). It was about the same time that people started praying to the Holy Spirit in corporate worship in the various Salvation Army corps I attended. (People had previously seemed much more at ease praying to the Father, and to Jesus.)

I later found it a bit odd, that people would focus on a specific person in the Godhead to address and prioritise; at the time it just seemed a case of going with ‘who you know’, and for an evangelical body heaven-bent on ‘the whole world redeeming’ that meant Christ crucified and the father who so loved us that he put Christ there on that cross.

A deeper experience of holiness, a la sanctification by the Holy Spirit, had dropped off as a focus of teaching by the time I was a teenager. And as a mid-20-something - I am now 41 - more and more corps in Australia were going with a single Sunday meeting for adults and/or a seeker-sensitive service for those not in the know. So holiness wasn’t seen as a ‘biggie’ compared with the chance to preach to the choir, or the choristers’ mates if any were present.   Why?

Perhaps the lack of pursuit of the Spirit was because we hadn’t yet received some of the teaching on the Holy Spirit that kicked in during the 1980s. There were Spiritual gifts surveys, a flotilla of books and CDs, Televangelists and earnest ‘books on tape’.  Perhaps it was because earlier generations had been rendered gun-shy through corps schisms, as some congregations split over the influence of Pentecostal and charismatic preachers/officers back in the 1950s and ’60s.  Or perhaps it’s just because we didn’t (don’t?) have a great deal of teaching on the Holy Spirit on offer in the Army itself. Of our doctrines, there is no specific doctrinal teaching on the Holy Spirit, who gets   mentioned as a co-equal partner in the Trinity in the third doctrine, and described as our ‘regenerator’ (my description) in the seventh.

All up, we didn’t offer up much coverage of the Holy Spirit. But that’s not an insurmountable obstacle if we accept the third doctrine: ‘We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.’ Doctrinally, one plus one plus one equals one. If that’s accepted, then mystery is mystery and we abide by it. I’ve always thought the examples of steam/water/ice and St Patrick’s patented three-leaf clover were useful analogies for both kids and adults, in terms of coming to grips with the gradual revelation of who God is in the persons of Father, Son and Spirit. I also think there is a heap of confusion in how we view those persons co-existing. But the inexplicable is what you expect to find in any good mystery, and God is the ultimate author.

As a kid I sang pieces from the musicals of those dashing generals-to-be, Johns Gowans and Larsson. I also got to catch some staged performances of shows, such as Jesus Folk (writtenin 1972), Spirit (1973) and Glory (1975). One lasting impression was that God’s Spirit works through willing hands. Another was that there were gaps in my understanding of the subject matter up on stage; gaps that The Salvation Army’s Sunday school, junior soldiers and corps cadets weren’t up to filling. (The biblically- and culturally-based librettos and dialogue were exciting and pointed to stuff outside of my experience.) In fact, some of the best Salvation Army teaching I have ever received came from those musicals.

The Salvation Army, a Christian movement aka as a denomination, a charity and a paramilitary, parachurch paramour of Christ’s, has never been accused of being overly-focused on the mind; so it probably should not surprise me that, with its love of and obsession with music, the Army actually does some of its best theological work in its lyrics. I think that’s especially when you me ntion the lyrical output of Gowans, and his fellow general, Albert Orsborn.

The ways we approach our faith and the voices we listen to are always in flux. That’s part of the joy and grief of being human. There are times we get it. There are times we fall down.
As I’ve said previously, I make it my job as a person of co-mingled faith and doubt to read scripture and work my way through life’s choices to the best of my understanding, with the hope and expectation that God’s Spirit will help guide me through whatever vehicles (revelation, others, my own conscience, etc.) he chooses.

That means taking Jesus seriously and not judging others. That’s not tough; in fact, in practice, it’s a relief. But it is slightly taxing; there are times I’d love to hurl self-righteous denunciations. We give up our desire to throw stones at others when we recognise we make a decent target ourselves. Take an upcoming feature of the Boothian ‘Go for souls’ conference in Melbourne, Australia, at the end of October. Billed as an event for ‘teaching, equipping and empowering the body of Christ to fulfill the great commission through aggressive evangelism!’, the Go for souls gig invites folks to ‘ Come and get filled with the Holy Spirit’s power to win the world for Jesus!’.

I’m all in favour of people being filled with the Spirit. And if the guys are that enamoured with the exclamation mark, then more of the Spirit’s power to them (!). I reckon if we are going to try to live as Christians, then pursuing God and hungering for God’s presence is as natural as craving food, water or oxygen. I am there, I am on board fully, if you want to share your faith with respect (genuinely sharing with people in a dialogue about beliefs and values and life, rather than ’sharing at’ people). But I baulk at some of the descriptions the ‘night of mayhem’ party the event organisers are promising: a “Holy Ghost party to coincide with Halloween”.

I’m a diehard advocate of utilising pop cultural reference points, and I’m up for Paulian ‘Mars hill’ chats. But I admit my unease at the prospect, among the ‘ Best Costume Competition’, ‘Great Worship’ and ‘Lots of Lollies’ on offer, to receive ‘Destiny Words, Healing, Curse Breaking, Depression Lifting’ and ‘Nightmare Stopping’.

‘Get Filled with the Holy Ghost!’ is the invitation: ‘Come and have an encounter with the Holy Ghost!’ Anyone who has seen the Steve Martin film ‘Leap of Faith’ knows where my mind is at regarding this invitation. I’m praying for the guys, and I hope there are beautiful moments of God empowering people and uplifting worship through the Spirit. I hope the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost as they prefer, rocks their world. But I am concerned that some of those advertised wares would be better found at a carnival, or in therapy with qualified counsellors.

So, to be crystal clear, I am not judging the message but I am not sure of the medium; content is cool but I fear the context is a bit wobbly. But I am praying for the gig. I also recognise something of a chasm in the way we variously pursue our faith and the Holy Spirit.

I think it’s worth considering the Holy Ghost reference (as opposed to the reference to the Holy Spirit - ‘ghost’ primarily refers to the supernatural remains of something dead, while ’spirit’ literally meaning ‘breath’ in the source languages of Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek). To describe the Holy Spirit as the Holy Ghost is passé in the context of postmodern Christians and the general public. Many Christians don’t want to equate God the Holy Spirit with trivialising literary references to Shakespeare, or Dickens -or, even more bizarrely, link God to that jocular bogeyman Caspar and his cohorts.

In one of the more obscure and troubling of his teachings, Jesus enjoined us to avoid grieving the Spirit. This applies to all humanity and we all need to look at every step we take in matters spiritual and practical. How we communicate faith is crucial; thankfully the Spirit is greater than the sum of our efforts (thank God for that!). It may be helpful to note that when Jesus spoke against blaspheming the ‘breath’ (the Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit), the term he used for ‘blaspheme’ was the Hebrew word ‘naqab’, which can be translated to mean the act of deconstructing, belittling or cheapening. It’s what we say, how we say it and why we say it. Moreover, it’s how we live it.

Jesus enjoins us to love. His golden rule? To exercise love in our actions. I trust that the Go for souls conference will do so as part of the participants’ zeal and love for Christ. The source of power that God the Holy Spirit represents is also promised as our comforter; our guide; our disciplinarian; our advocate. Being open to God’s will through his Spirit (i.e. through God the Holy Spirit) and treating others as we would want to be treated ourselves is the challenge that confronts us all.

That’s also the summation of the ten commandments, and the preliminary, illuminary summation before Jesus launches into the surprising parable of the good Samaritan. May God temper our desire for aggression; unchecked zeal becomes rabid and we are in danger of losing ourselves in our own sense of superiority or moral certainty. Ultimately we need to recognise that the mystery of the Trinity, and the very mind and will of God, are beyond us.Ultimately we need to accept Jesus’ teachings about the unpredictability of the Spirit’s guidance and the transitory responses made by people ‘born of the Spirit’; the Spirit, like the wind, moves in ways we can’t fathom, insulate ourselves from or safeguard against.

Writer: Barry Gittins is a Melbourne-based writer, lifelong Salvationist, husband (to Trudy) and father(to Emily and Benjamin) who seeks God in everyday encounters. A frustrated poet and playwright, he has worked for the Salvos’ Australia Southern Territory in various roles since 1991: as a journalist (for Warcry, The Young Soldier/Kidzone, The Musician),technical writer and CD-ROM author in corps program (mission development), senior review editor (Warcry) and editor (On Fire). He currently works as a social program and policy consultant (writer/researcher) for the social program department.

Put Down the Fly-swatter!

 Spare the rod! says Jonathan Gainey

What is the thing with smacking children for doing wrong? If someone smacked me every time I did something wrong, I’d have to wear body armor.

A couple of years ago, while sitting in a restaurant with a few others, there was a table across from us with a family who had a small child eating with them. The little boy was probably less than two-years-old. On the table beside the baby lay a flyswatter, and each time the baby did something wrong, the woman sitting beside him would pick up the flyswatter, look intently at the little boy, and give a stern, NO! If the child stopped, the woman would put the flyswatter down. If the little boy didn’t stop, the woman would swat his hand with the flyswatter.

I’m pretty sure that we weren’t the only other family that was feeling uncomfortable about the situation. None of us like to see someone constantly threatened by authority with a hovering punishment tool sitting beside them as a constant reminder of the penalty for every mistake.

Why do so many Christians place the gospel beside people and use it as a reminder of punishment for sin?

Jesus’ message was the Kingdom of God. And within his Kingdom teaching, Jesus taught about mercy, forgiveness, and grace. Jesus shared that the wages of sin is death, and that those who do not do the will of God are in danger of being eternally separated from God. Jesus spoke of a place of endless punishment which is usually translated in English by using the word hell, though Jesus himself did not use the word “hell.” Jesus used the words:

1. Tartaroo - a word borrowed from the Greek world which was a reference to the place where angels were punished in the world of mythology.

2. Hades - A Greek translation of the Hebrew word Sh’ol - only word used for hell in the Old Testament and refers to the world of the dead, grave, pit, and sleep. The Gates of Hades is a physical place in the Decapolis where the pagan God, Pan, was worshiped, as his worshipers believed that he would come up from the fresh water spring I that place. Standing water like a lake or spring was thought of as a gateway to Hades.

3. Gei-Hinnom - A reference to the Valley of Hinnom. 2 Kings 23:10, “He (King Josiah) desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech.” The valley of Gei-Hinnom was still used as a garbage dump in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. The people would have been very familiar with the constant burning of the trash, the stench of burning sulfur and the fighting dogs that battled over the food that were weeping and gnashing their teeth as they fought.

Jesus’ teachings of hell were visual reminders that the useless things in our lives are only good for death or the town dump, and that those who do not serve as a part of God’s purposes are the useless things of God and are only good for God’s dump.

However, Jesus did not lay hell on the table when he ate with sinners, reminding them that they will be smacked with fire and brimstone every time they get out of line.

Jesus ate with sinners, and lying on the table beside every one of them was mercy, forgiveness, empathy, compassion, and love.  

In fact, those whom Jesus dangled the flyswatter around were the religious people who loved lifting their flyswatters instead of handing out compassion.

In His dust,

Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

Do YOUR job!

It’s pretty simple really!

Ayoung man I know has been in the Australian Armed Forces for the past couple of years and just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. As he prepares for his next step (quite possibly the SAS) I asked what was the most important lesson he’d learned so far. “That’s simple!” he said, “do YOUR job”.

What a simple yet profound statement of warfare and something that I think we could learn from in the Salvation Army. Just imagine how much more effective we could be if we just got on with what we were meant to do or were assigned to do! Far too many of us are worried about the job the officer or officer’s wife or the youth worker or the DC isn’t doing or the bandmaster or quartermaster or women’s ministry co-ordinator isn’t doing, rather than showing by example how effectively things can work when we just “get on with it”!

The intrinsic thought in “do YOUR job” is that if indeed everyone concerned subscribed to that same simple philosophy, then mountains could be moved, people saved, families enriched and supported, churches and corps built and the army move forward (’Quick march’) as an efficient, relevant, united force.

Bruce Springsteen has a new single called “Do your job” about his perception of the complacency and laziness of his fellow Americans:

They don’t wanna do their job,

They just want their checks.

They wanna show up,

Stand around and collect.

Well baby it just don’t work that way!

You gotta do your job to earn your pay.

“The Boss” gets it!

But, I hear you say, “I’ve been put in the wrong job! They don’t recognize my talent set or appreciate my unique gifting”. Well to that I say just like the old song “If you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with” , i.e. just get on with whatever it is that is at hand at this point in time and see what develops.  You might just be on a learning curve that seems irrelevant to you right at the moment, but maybe you are being prepared for something greater.

Am I suggesting that one should never question authority but sit back and passively take everything that is dished up to us in ministry? Absolutely lot, but if we are given a job to do then let’s get on with it.

Do YOUR job!

Legalist or Liberalist? - The Right Prologue!

Joe Noland continues his musings on “liberalism”.

I n reflecting back autobiographically, I find myself constantly feeling tingling sensations of déjà vu all over again. The look is a bit different, but the same bottom-line issues continue to plague us ongoing. Past truly is prologue isn’t it?

Mainly, the offending culprit is institutionalism and its bedfellow legalism, clothing itself in new, emerging generational garb. In fact, this is the sub-theme of my book, Out of the Rubble…Revolution!

I was tagged with the label, “liberal,” early on. Not sure what the Greek or Hebrew equivalent is, but surely Jesus and Paul were tagged likewise. In a miraculous instant, Paul went from legalist to liberalist. He writes about this liberation, prolifically, in his letters. “Christ! No more, no less” (Col 1:28 Message Paraphrase). This is Paul’s focus, can’t get more liberal than that.

He goes on to write, “Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws…so don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ…So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that pretentiousness and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourself be bullied by it? ‘Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!’ Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention?” (Col 2:9-11; 16-18; 20-22). Jesus liberated us from an infantile religion, didn’t He? Depends upon your prologue POV, I guess.

Institutions will come and go, labels abound, rules and regulations proliferate, but Jesus Christ alone remains constant - “yesterday, today and forever!” Can’t get more liberal (thus liberated) than that! Past is truly prologue, but we must focus on the right Prologue, mustn’t we?

Incidentally, speaking of labels, “Salvationist” had the following review on the inside of its front cover recently:

“Baptist Label has become a liability in US.” INCREASING NUMBERS OF BAPTIST CHURCHES in the United States are choosing new names to increase attendance.National surveys indicate a growing number of churches are ditching the word Baptist from their names and opting for something less traditional to keep up with the times.

The Washington Post reported…

Some church officials say names need to be updated to keep up with a ‘non-denominational’ religious trend sweeping the nation. ‘We’re entering into a non-denominational era,’ said Roger Oldham, vice-president of convention relations for the country’s Southern Baptist Convention. ’Now, people are looking for genuineness and transparency, not a particular label.’” (The Baptist Times)  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/06/08/Baptist_churches_consider_new_names/UPI-56981212937652/

So they are “…looking for genuineness and transparency, not a particular label.”  Hmmm. That puts the focus on Jesus, doesn’t it? Try this on for size, but don’t get into a tizzy over it: “…a growing number of churches are ditching the words The Salvation Army from their names and opting for something less traditional to keep up with the times.”

“The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (Acts 11:26 NIV). Now there’s a liberal (liberating) label for you. Past is truly prologue, be it legalism or liberalism. You make the call.

Writer: Commissioner Joe Noland’s ministry can be summed up in three words: chaos, creativity and controversy - three elements implicit in any successful innovative endeavor. Cecil B. DeMille, renowned producer of Biblical epics, once wrote, “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” Joe’s mantra reads, “Creativity is my drug of choice.”  Access Joe Noland’s complete bio, among other things, by clicking into his website.

The Carrier of the Covenant

According to Abraham Cohen, in his book Everyman’s Talmud, the Jews of Jesus day believed that there were seven heavens or expanses between earth and where YHWH dwelt. They also believed that a holy beast or seraph lived on top of each of the levels of expanse, pulling a fiery chariot and singing praises to God. The Jews believed that it would take five hundred years to travel through each one of the heavens. 3500 years of travel meant that God existed at an impossible distance to reach.

However, they also taught that God was only a prayer away. The sages would contrast the difference between idols and YHWH by explaining that though God may appear to be far away, one must only enter a synagogue or go behind a column and pray in a whisper and God will hear the one praying. “Can there be a god nearer than this, who is as close to His creatures as the mouth is to the ear?” The sages would say that an idol appears close because it is born on the shoulder and placed in the house of the owner, but the owner can cry to it until he dies and the idol will never hear him. The idol appears to be near, but it is an eternity away from the one who prays to it.

When God gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai, he gave him two tablets. This is very important, because when two nations made a pact, there would be a weaker nation called a vassal and a stronger nation called a suzerain. The pact between the two nations would begin with a reminder of who the stronger nation is and what they have done for the weaker, followed by rules that must be followed which include blessings for obedience and punishments for breaking the covenant. Ultimately the suzerain would provide protection for the vassal in return for some kind of payment, such as taxes.

There would be two copies of the covenant made on tablets; one would be kept by the suzerain and one by the vassal. And each would take their copy and keep it in their most sacred place.

When God made His covenant with Israel, he told Moses to keep both copies and place them in a box called the “ark of the covenant.” The important message here was that God’s most sacred place and Israel’s most sacred place would be the same place. God would not dwell 3500 years of travel away from his people, but would dwell among his people.

The Ark of the Covenant was to be taken everywhere that the people of Israel went, which signified God’s constant presence with His people. Along with God’s presence, His teachings were to be kept in the box, and were to be taught to every child of every generation. By teaching every generation to live in the will of God through his commandments, and by carrying God’s presence with them, God would be with them forever.

Jesus said, “…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Jesus told his Jewish disciples that they were to carry the teachings of their Rabbi, Jesus, to every person, Jew and non-Jew. They were to make disciples, which meant that they were to teach people how to live and be like Jesus. And he said baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptizing means to immerse someone in something. In this case, the disciples were to immerse their new disciples in God. In order to immerse them in God, they would have to cover them in the Body of Christ, which is where God now dwells, as the Church represents the new Ark of the Covenant where the instructions of Jesus are to be kept and his presence is to be carried.

In His dust,
Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

I was a teenage fundamentalist - part two

Who’s in charge here? asks Barry Gittins

What do you do if you are told something is sacred? You place it above other things.

For me, as a young Queenslander (who occasionally conceded he was also an Australian) that meant honouring rugby league as the football code of all football codes.

My support of a) the Brisbane players-populated Canberra Raiders rugby league football team, b) the Brisbane comp’s Souths club and, later, c) the Logan City Scorpions, all subsequently devolved into my devotion to (ta da!) the Brisbane Broncos and, latterly, a sneaking, partly-held fondness for NRL premiers the Melbourne Storm.

As a sport, rugby league may have a few obvious flaws or obstacles for the uninitiated. What may be occasionally lacking in grace and gaining in brutality, however, is always equal to the sum of my memories: it is the code of football that I grew up playing and loving.

I put it, unequivocally, on a pedestal as the ultimate example of football. That statement is revealing and, perhaps surprisingly for some, highly relevant to any discussion of faith, religion and spirituality.

Coming from French and Italian terms to describe the ‘foot of a stall’, the term ‘pedestal’ originated as the support that was given to a statue or a vase. In some instances a lamp or a lit candle would be placed on a pedestal as an act of worship.

In that context, my love of rugby league is either worship of a thing of grace and terrible beauty (?!) or merely a blatant form of idolatry.

More importantly, we are quick to do exactly the same with forms of knowledge or belief. When we venerate something and place it on a pedestal, such as our conception of ‘who God is’, we are either worshipping God in truth and beauty or making our own little idol - our own conception of who God has to be in order to please us.

As a teenager I readily signed on to be a senior soldier of The Salvation Army. As such I accepted the Salvos’ second doctrine: ‘We believe that there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.’

Those words, like all of the Salvos’ doctrines, were based on ancient church teachings and first ratified in the 1800s. They provoke a cattle call of caveats for postmodern pundits because they imply God is squarely in the driver’s seat when we are supposed to be behind the wheel ourselves as the symbolic Body of Christ.

Let’s talk creation. I have no problem with creation, if we accept that a creator can create anyway he wants to, i.e. by using or mandating a full or partial process of evolution if it seems the best way to go (some creationists accept this possibility by advocating ‘adaptation’ in their views).

 If I buy into this belief of God as creator, however, does that mean I’m linked cheek and jowl with those earnest literalists (disparaging term removed reluctantly) who insist on a 6,000 year-old planet and a word-by-word reading of the Genesis creation account?

Do I have to ‘own’ folks who advocate (loudly) that the mythos (story) of Adam and Eve, with its inherent acceptance of incest as race-spawning origin story, is to be taken as a factual rendering of humanity’s arrival at the top of the food chain?

Then there’s this preserving business. Preserving a social strata/order or economic scale/structure that may include a) slavery and b) landed gentry (part of the anti-meritocracy of privilege) is horrendous to anyone who advocates social justice or human rights.

The concept of social rigidity that the ‘preserver’ role advocates is more at home with the medieval church than with the church of the 21st century.

If my faith in God means the Almighty is neither a fantasy nor an unsubstantiated entity who is currently on leave (the atheist and agnostic positions respectively), then does that mean I have to believe that God is actively preserving a planet that is a) falling to pieces climate-wise through human agency, b) depending on your scriptural interpretation either on divine autopilot, under the power of Satan (literally ‘adversary) or under human stewardship, and c) constantly hosting human (as opposed to spiritual) conflicts between individuals, families, communities, creeds, nations and cultures?

What happened to the concepts of the divine image, free will and original sin that the Genesis accounts enshrine and human actions embody?

And if we say God governs us in this day and age, are we in effect passing the buck for our own hubris and failings onto our ‘fall God’ of choice? Moreover, does that mean we remain, as with the superstitions of the Greeks and Romans and other fallen empires, convinced that every normal and abnormal weather pattern is the result of a cheesed-off God punishing humanity for the abundance of our crimes, or for the lack of our piety?     

When you read about Christ’s encounter with a sick child and his dad (Mark 9: 14-32) you get one of the most revealing and helpful cries of all the gospel-recorded encounters. I’m with you, says the father, but I’m not with you all the way.

We can’t claim an interventionist, all-powerful God and then insist on notions of free will. That does not compute. We can’t, with any measure of credibility, believe God is in control (and ask God to do the legwork for us through prayer) when we are patently called to be his hands and feet - to be his agents, in the footsteps of Jesus.

Paradox is a beautiful thing, but logic would suggest it has its limits. As Jesus noted, a house divided against itself will fall (I tend to think he was borrowing from the Roman doctrine of divide et imperium).

We have to take responsibility for human action, especially concerning the state of a planet suffering the effects of global warming. That is, we have to take responsibility for how you and I live; for the size of our homes; the petrol we pump into cars, the burgers we guzzle down, the extent to which we consume the world we live in without replenishing it or fulfilling our biblical mandate to care for the Earth. 

We are conditioned to take God stuff on faith, and rightly so; without faith, we are reminded, it is impossible to please God. But a blind faith is just not up to it.

Blind faith will not bear the fruits that we need to grow. It will not accept the biblical invitation to test our God; to taste and see that God is good.

Thousands of years of faithful worship and service, thought and deed, underpin our pursuit of God through Christ. Much of it, however, flies in the face of the knowledge and understandings we have reaped from God-given intellects and curiosity in numerous fields of enquiry, such as medicine and biomechanics, psychology and psychiatry, physics and astrophysics, chemistry and bio-chemistry, archeology and history, and philosophy and theology.

As that father cried out to Jesus, when caught in a tight spot between his desires and his dilemmas: ‘I believe; help me with my unbelief.’

May my doubts add to my faith. May empirical and intuitive knowledge deepen that faith. And may my faith, alongside the word of God, guide my steps.

‘A lamp unto my feet’ is not much use if I don’t I walk down the path with my eyes open.

Writer: Barry Gittins is a Melbourne-based writer, lifelong Salvationist, husband (to Trudy) and father(to Emily and Benjamin) who seeks God in everyday encounters. A frustrated poet and playwright, he has worked for the Salvos’ Australia Southern Territory in various roles since 1991: as a journalist (for Warcry, The Young Soldier/Kidzone, The Musician),technical writer and CD-ROM author in corps program (mission development), senior review editor (Warcry) and editor (On Fire). He currently works as a social program and policy consultant (writer/researcher) for the social program department. 

Thoughts about Heaven

Are we too sophisticated to talk about Heaven? by Lieut-Colonel Maxwell Ryan

T

he fair city lures and beckons me with glimpses, no, intimations of unspeakable joy which is beyond all human understanding.  My soul is ravished with a swelling bittersweet fullness as I realize the desire of my heart.

At unexpected moments I am waylaid by the nearness of this other world, of the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us.

I remember, as a child, being excited and entranced at the prospect of Heaven while, at the same time, being warned of the dire possibility of hell. Many a visiting preacher and earnest corps officer echoed the words, “There’s a hell to shun and a heaven to gain.” I must say that while through the years, the terrors of hell have faded somewhat; I am still gripped with exultation at the thought of that fair, bright and glorious land.

But I feel somewhat of an anachronism in our present day Salvation Army. What, I wonder, has happened to our hopes of Heaven? Our forebears in the Army sang, “We’re bound for the land of the pure and the holy”, “There’s a land that is fairer than day…”. These haunting words spoke of a place where wrongs will be righted, where justice will meet injustice, where true values of goodness, meekness and life will be rewarded.

Perhaps it is that affluent Christians who have never felt the pinch of want, the cloying fear that there is nothing left - no food, no water, no hope - have it all. They don’t need Heaven, or so they think. It’s only the poor, the starving in developing countries and the dispossessed who sing about Heaven.

What is Heaven? - A place (Revelation 21, 22) that is not only the absence of wrong - tears, death, etc. - but a place of healing, light, glory, worship and everlasting life.  All that we need - and more.

I think we have a generation of officers and Salvationists who say nothing about Heaven because they are afraid of ridicule, or because of a damaging reaction against Victorian mawkishness. In so doing they deny themselves and other Christian pilgrims the sweet and nourishing reality of one of God’s great provisions for His children.

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement he is a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of two series on theRubicon - Resurrected Writers and Thinkaloud

the Rubicon - BY REQUEST - Rooted in Mission not Maintenance Part#3

 Rob Perry says The world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves and re-enter abandoned communities - Part #3

3) Religious Phase – Towards Mission

Kierkegaard’s third sphere is the religious sphere. This existential realm goes beyond the ethical. This stage is only discovered by faith. Kierkegaard examines the religious phase in his book Fear and Trembling. In this study, Kierkegaard looks at Abraham’s (near) sacrifice of Isaac. He examines the motivation and the horror behind this humbling and confusing story. It is here that we enter the realm of faith. Kierkegaard said:

“But what did Abraham do?… He mounted the ass, he rode slowly down the path. All along he had faith, he believed that God would not demand Isaac of him, while still he was willing to offer him if that was indeed what was demanded. He believed on the strength of the absurd, for there could be no question of human calculation, and it was indeed absurd that God who demanded this of him should in the next instant withdraw the demand. He climbed the mountain, even in that moment when the knife gleamed he believed – that God would not demand Isaac. Certainly he was surprised by the outcome, but by means of a double movement he had come back to his original position and therefore received Isaac more joyfully than the first time.”

Nothing but faith could have sustained Abraham through this trial. The trial itself seemed ludicrous and paradoxical. Abraham was required to suspend the ethical and proceed on belief in God only. He did not believe that God would violate the ethical, but he carried on in faith that God would rectify the paradoxical command with morality. Faith sustained him, and God delivered Isaac. Abraham lived in the strength of the absurd.

The third sphere of our lives as Christians is when we surrender fully, and in faith allow ourselves to be led by God wherever and however he wills

For our purposes in examining mission, I would say that the third sphere of our lives as Christians is when we surrender fully, and in faith allow ourselves to be led by God wherever and however he wills. We are no long confined to our own wisdom. Instead we are called and commissioned to go wherever, and do whatever God commands.

God commanded Jeremiah: “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” This encapsulates the essence of mission. Although we feel inadequate, we go wherever God commands and do whatever he commands. Faith replaces fear, for God will protect and deliver us. If God calls us to a personal Jubilee, instructing us to give up our possessions, we need not be afraid, he will rescue us. If God calls us to leave our homes and move into the poorest area of our city, we need not be afraid, he will rescue us.

To go into the unknown involves an intense trust in God. It truly does require a “leap of faith.” The rich irony is in the fact that on the other side of the leap of faith, we find a fulfillment and joy that is indescribable to those who have not yet leapt. Frederick Buechner said that a person’s place “is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I, and countless others, can only testify that this is true.

Some years ago I led a team that took a group of community children from Toronto to a camp during the spring break. For seven days, 60 loud and hyperactive six- to 12-year-old residents of the urban jungle descended upon the wilderness campground. Due to some miscalculation and a lack of volunteers, the staff was drastically outnumbered and the children smelled blood. I lost my voice on the first day, and by the third, we were all exhausted and beginning to be afraid of total collapse. Kids were fighting and threatening each other, some were continually trying to run away, while others would barricade themselves in the cabin to avoid going to programs. Between replacing broken property and cleaning lice out of hair and clothes, I found a new depth to my prayer life, as I pleaded God not to allow any kids (or staff) to get damaged by the end of the week.

In the midst of the turmoil, God’s Spirit descended upon camp. As day seven approached, we had a night in which we gave the kids an opportunity to accept Jesus as Saviour. Slowly one by one, kids came forward to the Mercy Seat – girls mostly. The boys were still feeling out the situation, sitting at the back, acting cool. That is until Jamal made his move. Now Jamal was never the most popular kid. He was a bit chubby and he was awkward in basketball. He always tried just that little bit too hard. He was too influenced by other kids, and would follow whoever happened to be around. But here he was, the first boy standing. Jamal stood up at the back and made the trembling journey to the front of the room where he knelt and prayed with a leader. Who should follow but his whole crew. The five or six other boys with whom Jamal had spent the week filed in line behind him and almost inexplicably found themselves kneeling at the front of the room as well. It was a beautiful moment.

But that’s not even the best part. Later that night in our cabin I recounted the day’s events with the boys. “I am really proud of you guys,” I said. “Today you made some very important decisions.” Just then another leader came in, and I told the guys to share with her the good news from the day. All at once they started to share the story of decision day. Andrew, an especially enthusiastic young man, spoke up and said, “Yeah it was great! I got up first and went to the front, and then all the others followed…” It was at that point Jamal sat up stiffly in his bunk, and indignantly interjected, “F___ off! I accepted Jesus first!”

As long as I live I will never forget those six words!

When I was in the southern part of Russia, I visited some refugee camps that tented hundreds of families who had fled from the Chechen war. In a couple short weeks I had become attached to a wonderful group of children who lived there.

I happened to be visiting during their annual festival, a competition in which children from different refugee camps presented songs, artwork and dance. In the days preceding the festival, I sat in on the kids’ rehearsals as they tried their best to put together what would be the best possible presentation for the day. For hour upon hour I sat and listened as they practised. To this day, these are only the Russian phrases I have memorized: “Hello” “How are you?” and “It’s cool that you got on TV” – the repetitious line from the chorus of the pop song the kids sang in their presentation.

When the day finally came for the competition, I sat beaming with paternal pride (as if I had anything whatsoever to do with their presentation). The kids sang, danced, displayed their artwork and generally had a great time. A group from another camp got up and put on a stunning display of their national dance. It was a close race, but when all was said and done, there was something far more important going on than song and dance. For those few days, in that refuge far away from demolished homes, bombs and gunfire, hundreds of children displaced by war came together. And for a short time they were centre-stage; the kids were the singers, the dancers, the artists and the musicians. They were the stars and they shined!

In two weeks that seemed like two years, I got to know a small group of kids who had lived through horrors I cannot imagine. I got to see them at their very best. And, in case you are wondering, yes, they won! But truly, that’s not important. What matters is that in those moments those children felt like the most important people on earth, not forgotten victims of an often-ignored war.

After my two weeks were finished, as I was preparing to get in a taxi and leave, Khavazh, one of the boys who I had spent the most time with came to me, and through a translator asked me a question… another phrase I will never forget: he simply said, “When are you coming back?” Of course I had no answer for him. The kids in my community were waiting for me. But at that moment, how I wished I could stay. And in that moment, as it has so many times before and since, the Scripture resonated in my heart, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” If only my fellow Christians knew the riches they were missing. If only the Church could understand the depth of joy and meaning found on the other side of mission. John Ortberg wrote:

“Jesus took a little child in his arms and said, in effect, ‘Here’s your ministry. Give yourselves to those who can bring you no status or clout. Just help people. You need this little child. You need to help this little child, not just for her sake, but more for your sake. For if you don’t, your whole life will be thrown away on an idiotic contest to see who is the greatest. But if you serve her – often and well and cheerfully and out of the limelight – then the day may come when you do it without thinking, ‘What a wonderful thing I’ve done.’ Then you will begin to serve naturally, effortlessly, for the joy of it. Then you will begin to understand how life in the kingdom works.’”

It is through mission that we express perfect love for Jesus Christ. This outpouring of love is costly. It involves a terrifying leap of faith to go wherever God sends you. But the good news is that after that initial leap, the adventure is only beginning. To maintain a mission focus is not easy, but to do so is to be significant. Mission is the key to the meaningful life we have all been called to.

Conclusions
Kierkegaard’s three spheres are mere guidelines. No one person or congregation fits perfectly into any sphere; I am sure that we can identify personal areas of selfish motivation as in the aesthetic sphere, rigid adherence to the rule of the law, as in the ethical sphere, and moments of unselfish obedience and faith, as in the religious sphere. However, if we are Christians, we are called to mission. There is no escaping this reality.

Todd Gitlin, an old time 1960s protestor, posits three complementary motivations for anyone who wants to wade into political activism. Adventure, duty and love. I believe he has hit on something that goes beyond politics, and takes us into the realm of mission. The fact is that God understands people, and when we make ourselves available to him, he meets us where we are.

If our main motivation is fun and adventure, we could become downhearted, wallow in our selfish nature, and do nothing. Or, like Samson, God could use our flamboyant nature and our desire for fun and new experiences as our motivation to go places no one else would ever dream of going. Shock rocker Marilyn Manson once bemoaned the fact that there were no new adventures out there. He said, “What other violence can you show? What other drug can you do? What other thing can you get pierced? It’s all been done.” There are no new adventures out there. We keep attempting to create the fastest roller coasters, the highest bungee jumps and the wildest parties. The one true adventure that is left is simply to fearfully and courageously follow wherever God leads – to the darkest places on earth, or to people in our own apartment building. God, as Redeemer, seeks to redeem our natures, not destroy them.

What about duty? I believe there are two ways to look at the word duty. We can look at it as a strict adherence to a set of rules, which is very limiting. Our other option is to confront our responsibility to the world. Mother Teresa once said that, “If there are poor in the world, it is because you and I don’t give enough.” This is a stinging indictment from a woman who lived her life among the poorest of the poor. However, we must take our duty to love and care for others seriously. This is not legalism, but responsibility. We are comfortable and well fed while elsewhere people are dying of starvation. Yes, we have a duty. We have a God-given duty to care for others.

Adventure, duty and love, but the greatest of these is love.

Love is God’s defining characteristic and our highest aim. At the end of the day, we may live among the poor, give up our possessions, preach the Word and feed the hungry, but if we don’t have love, we are nothing. Eternally, our lives count for nothing. Maintenance takes root when love becomes distorted, and love for self replaces love for God. Mission is the pure expression of our love for Jesus Christ and for others.

Someone wrote: “Pity sighs, and says, ‘how awful.’ Compassion weeps, and says, ‘I’ll help.’” The world needs people who will help. Much more than that, the world needs the Church to roll up its sleeves, re-enter abandoned communities and help. Because, like Jesus, we weep when we gaze upon fallen Jerusalem. We weep when we see empty monuments where life-giving inner-city churches once were. We weep because all around the world mothers are weeping for lost children. We weep because every day people die without a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We must weep. And from that place of brokenness, with our hearts firmly set on God, it is time for us to take that courageous leap of faith and to respond to God’s call to go wherever he tells us to go and do whatever he tells us to do.

Writer: Rob Perry works with children and youth at 614 Regent Park, Toronto, Canada.

Photo: John McAlister