I’ve been trying to encourage a friend of mine to start investing intentionally in the lives of others. Over the last few years, I’ve walked with him through an intense season of humbling and new growth. He’s one of the most aggressive learners I know. He’s an intense, messy, ruthlessly honest person and I think he has a lot to offer other people on the journey with Jesus.
But when I try to encourage him to disciple others, he says something like, “yeah right. Look at me! I’m worse than most people...” To which I commonly reply, “I think that’s your best qualification!”
Okay, hang on. I’m about to get a little preachy... a bit “thou”-ish. Please excuse. ☺
I know precious few who so authentically pursue God’s love while being so honest about the mess that is their lives. In other words, here’s someone who gets grace. He just doesn’t know yet what a rare gem that makes him.
I know FAR more people who excel in righteousness and stink at love. When those people run off to “serve the Lord”, I get seriously worried. In my own journey, it’s become far less about conforming my behavior or cultivating more zeal... I did that for way too long. Instead, my journey has become far more about knowing my neediness and cultivating compassion for the neediness of others.
If you’re a Christian who has “gotten clean” and grown in righteousness, but hasn’t been recently humbled and deeply shaken by God’s love in the midst of your mess... PLEASE don’t run off to the mission field or church work, even if you’re really smart and talented and all the Christians beg you to. Let’s leave that work to those beautiful rotten sinners who need God. In the mean time, we should pray that God makes us one of them. (If you need practical suggestions in how to become more aware of your sorry state, try getting married and having kids.)
But if you’re one of those honest messy people that knows God’s love and thinks you have nothing to offer, then hold on to your hat, “cause it’s about to get real.” You'll probably find you have more to offer than you ever dreamed. That’s the upside kingdom for ya. As Jesus says, “I have not come to call those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”
PS- If your thinking of slapping me in stocks and informing me of the biblical mandate to pursue righteousness, I'll save you the time. I'm perfectly familiar with the various views on sanctification, the sermon on the mount, Paul's lists of spiritual ills, etc, etc. My point isn't that we should be more fleshy, but that we should more readily acknowledge self-righteouness as the most insidiously fleshy thing we can do according to Jesus. It's not a nasty little habit. It's the deadliest of those deadly sins. And we should be a little quicker to encourage and empower those who struggle daily to live up to the "standard" and know it. They're make the best teachers of grace and we'd all do well to sit at their feet.
10.29.2013
10.14.2013
He Loves You and it has Nothing to Do with You
It seems like there's this tension in the bible between the holiness and love of God and Christians have always tended to camp out on one end of the continuum or the other. Either God is glorious and distant, or he’s a big teddy bear who hopes we’ll do our best and follow our hearts.
I’ve traversed the spectrum for 10 years from John Piper’s reformed passion to Jack Frost’s bathe-in-the-love-of-God sentimentality. These days, I know I err on the love side (seems harder to go wrong there). But then I’ve found myself recently in Isaiah and Ezekiel:
“It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations.”
“Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
I think the miracle of the Christian faith is that God’s presence with us is both Holy and Intimate and that makes us ridiculously uncomfortable. We either want an unknowable God we can passively acknowledge and go on with our lives, or we want a super nice God that grades on a curve and just wants us to be happy. The problem in the bible is that He’s neither of those things.
Let me bring it out of the stratosphere: when I’m sitting here in the morning, God’s presence often shows up. Or at least I become aware of it. It’s hard to explain but it feels both warm and chilling. The first feeling is electric. Then comes a flood of guilt. I’m a failure, a worm, a love miser. I think of my impatience with my family, my resource-clinging, my failure to care. Suddenly, there’s warmth. Wave after wave of undeserved acceptance come with words like “son, beloved, accepted, My Own.” As my heart sheds the crust of self-interest and self-righteousness and settles into the warmth of the God we insanely call “Father”, He begins to say things that nobody else could get away with: strong, honest words of correction, rebuke, and direction. Exquisite, tough love.
I know that His passion is for me, but ultimately, His passion is for himself, the Source, the triune Lover, the Unmoved Mover. It’s not because I’m just so good or have so much potential. I know He loves me for His own sake, because that’s just who He is.
Ultimately in my faith tradition (I say tradition, but to me it’s a breathing daily reality), Jesus plays the role of ultimate mediator, making the exquisite tension of God’s Holy Intimacy possible on a personal level.
Every religion I’ve met seeks to navigate our relationship with the transcendent through some kind of mediator (whether it’s sacrafices, good deeds, lesser gods, ancestors, a book, or a priest). Agnosticism is an exception, but as a former agnostic, I can say it’s more of a spiritual in-between (a purgatory of sorts) than an actual position and there’s very little hope there unless your “ultimate” is temporal. In the Christian tradition, Jesus plays the role of mediator and priest. And because He himself is Transcendent, you don’t have to go to a church, make a sacrifice, or commune with the ancestors to relate to God. You can go directly to Him. Heck He invites you to call him “Papa”! So in the end, this is how it works out in the Jesus Kingdom:
“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Because of that, we find Presence and Transcendence, Love and Holiness occupying the same space. It’s not a continuum. It’s a tension: living, breathing, electric.
I’ve traversed the spectrum for 10 years from John Piper’s reformed passion to Jack Frost’s bathe-in-the-love-of-God sentimentality. These days, I know I err on the love side (seems harder to go wrong there). But then I’ve found myself recently in Isaiah and Ezekiel:
“It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations.”
“Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
I think the miracle of the Christian faith is that God’s presence with us is both Holy and Intimate and that makes us ridiculously uncomfortable. We either want an unknowable God we can passively acknowledge and go on with our lives, or we want a super nice God that grades on a curve and just wants us to be happy. The problem in the bible is that He’s neither of those things.
Let me bring it out of the stratosphere: when I’m sitting here in the morning, God’s presence often shows up. Or at least I become aware of it. It’s hard to explain but it feels both warm and chilling. The first feeling is electric. Then comes a flood of guilt. I’m a failure, a worm, a love miser. I think of my impatience with my family, my resource-clinging, my failure to care. Suddenly, there’s warmth. Wave after wave of undeserved acceptance come with words like “son, beloved, accepted, My Own.” As my heart sheds the crust of self-interest and self-righteousness and settles into the warmth of the God we insanely call “Father”, He begins to say things that nobody else could get away with: strong, honest words of correction, rebuke, and direction. Exquisite, tough love.
I know that His passion is for me, but ultimately, His passion is for himself, the Source, the triune Lover, the Unmoved Mover. It’s not because I’m just so good or have so much potential. I know He loves me for His own sake, because that’s just who He is.
Ultimately in my faith tradition (I say tradition, but to me it’s a breathing daily reality), Jesus plays the role of ultimate mediator, making the exquisite tension of God’s Holy Intimacy possible on a personal level.
Every religion I’ve met seeks to navigate our relationship with the transcendent through some kind of mediator (whether it’s sacrafices, good deeds, lesser gods, ancestors, a book, or a priest). Agnosticism is an exception, but as a former agnostic, I can say it’s more of a spiritual in-between (a purgatory of sorts) than an actual position and there’s very little hope there unless your “ultimate” is temporal. In the Christian tradition, Jesus plays the role of mediator and priest. And because He himself is Transcendent, you don’t have to go to a church, make a sacrifice, or commune with the ancestors to relate to God. You can go directly to Him. Heck He invites you to call him “Papa”! So in the end, this is how it works out in the Jesus Kingdom:
“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Because of that, we find Presence and Transcendence, Love and Holiness occupying the same space. It’s not a continuum. It’s a tension: living, breathing, electric.
10.04.2013
Conversion and Progress in Ghanaian Villages
I think I’ve earned my stripes as a cynical Christian. I’m the first to criticize hypocrisy, apathy, and pretense in the church. I cringe at churchy language and religious manipulation. Yet I remain a firm believer that God loves all people equally and that Jesus is the best redeemer of cultures and religions—Christianity included. When Jesus is present in the church, something beautiful happens.
I spent my first week in southern Ghana where every business, every preacher, every crooked cop seems to tout some exaggerated form of Christianity. The culture is so anemically religious you could call it, “Ghana’s bible belt.” I hated it.
But in northern Ghana, where we’ve been spending the last week, the church is leaner and stronger. In a Muslim and Traditionalist context, Christians believe that the gospel is always pushing outward. They believe that the most natural environment for Christian faith isn’t in the Christian capitals of the world, but in the animistic villages and nomadic tribes. They spend less time building church empires and more time sharing the “good news”. And in a real sense that “good news” isn’t JUST a hope in heaven. It’s clean water. It’s education. It’s love-based development.
I know that sometimes, development can be used as a switcheroo for proselytizing, and these Ghanaians DO preach Christianity. But I sense that most of them actually believe that God loves all people—Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists—the same. So they work tirelessly in the villages, though it’s often a thankless job. And just being around them preaches to me.
After meeting with our Fulani friends the other day, we went to a village where a small hole in the ground serves as their water supply.
Some years it sees them through the springtime droughts. Usually, they spend a couple months struggling to find water. A small brick reservoir built to catch the rain falling off the tin roof would see them through the dry season with clean, accessible water. It wouldn’t be expensive... a couple grand maybe. In 3 other villages, we noticed that the arrival of water projects ALSO brought small village schools—sometimes just a chalkboard under a mango tree... Suddenly I’m thinking... I could buy a new macbook. Or I could kick start a future for 40 kids.
I’m looking into the faces of these beautiful children and I’m seeing my own children—Annabel and Levi—and it ruins me. I’m thinking, “We had no right to be born in America. It was just dumb luck. These people aren’t CNN headlines, poverty statistics, or global problems. These are people. They are part of me and I’m part of them. How can I not care for them?”
The exciting thing is, the church is loving them. For all of its issues, the church... Christians are responding in love. All over Northern Ghana, we saw the church (not government) at the forefront of development. Sometimes, projects are funded by NGO’s, but it’s Ghanaian Christians providing the manpower. It’s not benefitting them or their churches. They’re doing it just because.
In church-saturated cultures, I often feel embarrassed and alarmed by the church. But in the northern Ghana, I feel proud to be a Christian, because the church is presently the most effective change agent in that region. And where the gospel is pushing out to the margins, good things are happening. We were told that the general perception among traditional villages is that Christianity brings development and that’s true for a number of reasons. One is a greater connectedness to the outside world, the Christian community, and to NGO’s. Another is that Christians spend less on alcohol and witch doctors. A sense of generosity, community, and universal human brotherhood is developed. (For instance the new Christians in one village report that their faith challenges them to live at peace with their Muslim neighbors and share resources with them.) Christianity shows up as a liberating force for women. And Christians are choosing healthier lifestyles overall.
So even the flagrant proselytizing doesn’t bother me (I say this not as an evangelist, but as a Christian cynic). In fact, it excites me, because I know that 1.) It comes from a loving heart and is not manipulative, underhanded, or neo-colonial. And 2.) Conversion has brought more hope and authentic transformation than I’ve ever seen in a community. It hasn’t culturally disenfranchised them. It’s culturally invigorated, redeemed, and united them. In one village, a group of children broke out in spontaneous song and dance with big grins on their faces. Our Ghanaian friend leaned over and said, "This song is popular in the villages. It means, 'when I die, don't ask the soothsayer what killed me because Jesus took me away.'"
In another village, an elder told us, “everybody in the world longs for progress. We see this as progress.” THAT'S something I can get behind.
I spent my first week in southern Ghana where every business, every preacher, every crooked cop seems to tout some exaggerated form of Christianity. The culture is so anemically religious you could call it, “Ghana’s bible belt.” I hated it.
But in northern Ghana, where we’ve been spending the last week, the church is leaner and stronger. In a Muslim and Traditionalist context, Christians believe that the gospel is always pushing outward. They believe that the most natural environment for Christian faith isn’t in the Christian capitals of the world, but in the animistic villages and nomadic tribes. They spend less time building church empires and more time sharing the “good news”. And in a real sense that “good news” isn’t JUST a hope in heaven. It’s clean water. It’s education. It’s love-based development.
I know that sometimes, development can be used as a switcheroo for proselytizing, and these Ghanaians DO preach Christianity. But I sense that most of them actually believe that God loves all people—Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists—the same. So they work tirelessly in the villages, though it’s often a thankless job. And just being around them preaches to me.
After meeting with our Fulani friends the other day, we went to a village where a small hole in the ground serves as their water supply.
Some years it sees them through the springtime droughts. Usually, they spend a couple months struggling to find water. A small brick reservoir built to catch the rain falling off the tin roof would see them through the dry season with clean, accessible water. It wouldn’t be expensive... a couple grand maybe. In 3 other villages, we noticed that the arrival of water projects ALSO brought small village schools—sometimes just a chalkboard under a mango tree... Suddenly I’m thinking... I could buy a new macbook. Or I could kick start a future for 40 kids.
I’m looking into the faces of these beautiful children and I’m seeing my own children—Annabel and Levi—and it ruins me. I’m thinking, “We had no right to be born in America. It was just dumb luck. These people aren’t CNN headlines, poverty statistics, or global problems. These are people. They are part of me and I’m part of them. How can I not care for them?”
The exciting thing is, the church is loving them. For all of its issues, the church... Christians are responding in love. All over Northern Ghana, we saw the church (not government) at the forefront of development. Sometimes, projects are funded by NGO’s, but it’s Ghanaian Christians providing the manpower. It’s not benefitting them or their churches. They’re doing it just because.
In church-saturated cultures, I often feel embarrassed and alarmed by the church. But in the northern Ghana, I feel proud to be a Christian, because the church is presently the most effective change agent in that region. And where the gospel is pushing out to the margins, good things are happening. We were told that the general perception among traditional villages is that Christianity brings development and that’s true for a number of reasons. One is a greater connectedness to the outside world, the Christian community, and to NGO’s. Another is that Christians spend less on alcohol and witch doctors. A sense of generosity, community, and universal human brotherhood is developed. (For instance the new Christians in one village report that their faith challenges them to live at peace with their Muslim neighbors and share resources with them.) Christianity shows up as a liberating force for women. And Christians are choosing healthier lifestyles overall.
So even the flagrant proselytizing doesn’t bother me (I say this not as an evangelist, but as a Christian cynic). In fact, it excites me, because I know that 1.) It comes from a loving heart and is not manipulative, underhanded, or neo-colonial. And 2.) Conversion has brought more hope and authentic transformation than I’ve ever seen in a community. It hasn’t culturally disenfranchised them. It’s culturally invigorated, redeemed, and united them. In one village, a group of children broke out in spontaneous song and dance with big grins on their faces. Our Ghanaian friend leaned over and said, "This song is popular in the villages. It means, 'when I die, don't ask the soothsayer what killed me because Jesus took me away.'"
In another village, an elder told us, “everybody in the world longs for progress. We see this as progress.” THAT'S something I can get behind.
10.02.2013
The Harkness is PlentiFulani
“This is my advice to you,” said the old Fulani pastor to the Muslim chief and his entourage of 30 unsmiling tribesmen gathered on the porch. “First, I have been telling you for years that you must accept Jesus as your Lord and savior. Or at least, if one of you becomes a Christian, you should not persecute him. Two, you must send your children to school. Three, we must meet regularly to talk about community matters. But most importantly, you should all become Christians.
The stoic intensity of the group’s narrow features cracked open and everybody laughed together at the old pastor’s audacious attempt to convert the whole tribe on the spot.
“I am not offended by this advice,” replied the chief with a glint of humor in his eyes. “But you must know it is difficult! If you have 100 cows, you can lead them with just 1 stick, but if you are responsible for leading 100 cows and just one person, you will need 2 sticks!” Again, the group, Christian and Muslim, erupted together in laughter. There was good will.
Believe it or not (I’m not sure I do), these Fulani came because they heard a man with a heart for their tribe was coming to greet them. That would be me. The chief himself (who oversees the entire region) traveled two hours to meet us. So after being welcomed I was given the chance to speak my mind using two translators to get my message from English to Konkonba to Fulfulde. I told them how I God had put the Fulani on my heart and I had prayed for 8 years that God would bless their tribe, how I was led through a dream to spend a summer with the Fulani in Guinea, and how I believed God loved them and wanted to bless them. I asked about how they were doing and some of the challenges they are facing. They talked a lot about economic and health challenges. The main issue was educating their children since they are needed to help herd the cattle. They allowed me to pray a blessing for them. I promised to continue praying for them and that God willing, I would return. They asked me to come again soon and to spend a few days with them.
Jonah (a YLI coach here) has decided to start working more among the Fulani since almost no Christians are loving on them in that region (The Fulani are known for waylaying lone travelers and trampling crops. They are hated, feared, and marginalized.) He and Pastor Peter (the old Fulani pastor) plan to hold quarterly meetings with the Fulani and keep me up to date on their progress. Jonah particularly has a passion to speak against female circumcision (which is thought to eliminate sexual desire and thereby ensure a woman’s fidelity to her husband). Though it’s illegal in Ghana, the Fulani still practice it. Jonah says he loses sleep at night thinking about it.
After the meeting, we stopped by a small encampment where a few traditional Fulani women were weaving grass mats. We asked if we could take there picture and they quickly ran to change into their Sunday... er... Friday best. Here are a couple shots I got. They asked us to send them copies of the photos and my Pulaar comprehension clicked in when they indicated didi (two) copies. I was inordinately excited that the Ghana dialect was so similar to the Guinea one!
So apparently, something new started today. None of us can quite figure it out. But we suspect God is doing something cool with the Fulani. And I got to be there to see it happen. Love my job.
(By way of explanation... I started a prayer group for the Fulani in college after I read about them and started crying. I just felt God’s love for this people group and was compelled to pray. After college, my path always seemed to cross with the Fulani. From meeting Fulanis in restaurants and trains in Chicago, to spending a summer in Guinea, to my surprise Fulani meeting yesterday! Yesterday was a very significant for me in that it put me in a position to be a direct blessing to the Fulani in tangible, relational ways.)
10.01.2013
How Love Went Viral in Kpenchila
“Before all this,” the elder said, waving his weathered hands to indicate the tin-roofed shelter, the makeshift school, the large brick reservoir, “We did not even consider ourselves human beings. Now, we consider ourselves to be human beings.” The people beneath the shelter seemed bright-eyed, healthy, even joyful. Dozens of kids for whom education was previously impossible are now learning their ABC’s. A little church meets under the shelter. And the whole village has ready access to clean drinking water. The community carries a sense of dignity and communal identity that I perceive did not exist a few years ago. “Not only are you human beings,” replied Ash quietly through the translator. “You are children of God.”
So I was thinking... how does Young Leaders International, a tiny discipleship ministry focusing on a just 5 Ghanaian “coaches” bring clean water, spiritual transformation, and a communal sense of personhood to 3 villages in northern Ghana?
Here’s how I see it from an outsider’s perspective.
A few years ago, an American with a deep sense of God’s love came to Ghana to love young leaders. Not a lot of leaders. Just a few. He came without a lot of strategies and agendas, but a firm belief that love was the strongest stuff in the universe. It was a risky bet and not every leader received love. But a few did. They started visiting villages, praying for strangers in hospitals, showing practical love in their communities, and loving other young leaders.
When one coach visited a village and saw the cesspool that served as their water supply, his love made him cry. So YLI raised $12,000 and bought materials for a new water system designed by Ghanaians and built by the villagers. Then they did the same for 2 more villages. Their activity attracted other aid groups who built schools, clinics, even a playground!
The village elders believe they received God’s love in a very tangible way and they want to share that love with others. So independently, they’ve planted churches and share their water with the Fulani tribesmen in their area: nomadic Muslim cattle-herders known for banditry, murder, and trampling crops with their herds. The village of Kpenchila says the love of Christ has helped them live at peace with their Muslim neighbors. One local Imam has even asked them to plant a church in his area, seeing the good the Christians are doing.
I told one village how I learned about the Fulani in college and began to cry. God spoke to me then about His love for the Fulani and I began praying for them each day. Later I lived in a Fulani town in Guinea for a month. I knew I might see a few Fulani on this trip, but didn’t expect to see so many. Fulani settlements are interspersed between these 3 villages and I got to encourage them to keep loving the Fulani. I believe they will do just that. And if the nomadic Fulani receive God’s love, then... well I have my own ideas on that.
So that’s how love goes viral. Ash says, “I sometimes have my doubts, but one thing I’m always sure about is love.” Right.
So I was thinking... how does Young Leaders International, a tiny discipleship ministry focusing on a just 5 Ghanaian “coaches” bring clean water, spiritual transformation, and a communal sense of personhood to 3 villages in northern Ghana?
Here’s how I see it from an outsider’s perspective.
A few years ago, an American with a deep sense of God’s love came to Ghana to love young leaders. Not a lot of leaders. Just a few. He came without a lot of strategies and agendas, but a firm belief that love was the strongest stuff in the universe. It was a risky bet and not every leader received love. But a few did. They started visiting villages, praying for strangers in hospitals, showing practical love in their communities, and loving other young leaders.
When one coach visited a village and saw the cesspool that served as their water supply, his love made him cry. So YLI raised $12,000 and bought materials for a new water system designed by Ghanaians and built by the villagers. Then they did the same for 2 more villages. Their activity attracted other aid groups who built schools, clinics, even a playground!
The village elders believe they received God’s love in a very tangible way and they want to share that love with others. So independently, they’ve planted churches and share their water with the Fulani tribesmen in their area: nomadic Muslim cattle-herders known for banditry, murder, and trampling crops with their herds. The village of Kpenchila says the love of Christ has helped them live at peace with their Muslim neighbors. One local Imam has even asked them to plant a church in his area, seeing the good the Christians are doing.
I told one village how I learned about the Fulani in college and began to cry. God spoke to me then about His love for the Fulani and I began praying for them each day. Later I lived in a Fulani town in Guinea for a month. I knew I might see a few Fulani on this trip, but didn’t expect to see so many. Fulani settlements are interspersed between these 3 villages and I got to encourage them to keep loving the Fulani. I believe they will do just that. And if the nomadic Fulani receive God’s love, then... well I have my own ideas on that.
So that’s how love goes viral. Ash says, “I sometimes have my doubts, but one thing I’m always sure about is love.” Right.