The Relational Mission

I have been spending a lot of time with the beatitudes over the past few months, words that I heard so many times in my many years in the church have finally come to life. (See Part 1 of this series here .) One of the things that has stood out to me is just how much these blessings of Jesus stand in stark contrast to how we commonly talk about blessings today. As a part of my research, I've done some reading on how church leaders talk about the "blessings of God" on our lives. I've looked at themes like "the goodness of God," "the best life that we can have now," and even those who explicitly write about "the blessed life." (I'll refrain from actually naming books because I'm not here to critique any specific author. Instead, I'm looking at a trend.) In almost every case the focus of the teaching relates to how we can have financial success, how we can have a positive attitude and how we can be winners in this life, which is u...

Jesus led the disciples out of the crowd up on a hill and from there spoke what we now call “The Sermon on the Mount.” Of course there are many different ways that this sermon has been interpreted in the history of the church. I’m trying to read this sermon according to the narrative laid out by Matthew. This Gospel is known for its emphasis on discipleship. It is broken up into five sections of Jesus’ in action followed by five sections of Jesus teaching. This great sermon, maybe the best ever, is part of the first teaching section. Because the primary audience is the disciples, and this Gospel as a whole emphasizes discipleship, we must take seriously that the sermon and it’s opening words, historically called the “beatitudes” are directly related to discipleship. The beatitudes in other words do not describe a universal ethic of what it means to have a good life. These are not rules to follow that replace the Ten Commandments that Moses got up on Mount Sinia. This is not a how to ...

I grew up on a farm. Recently, I was doing some work that reminded me of life on the farm. Even though I have not lived on the farm in over 20 years, the feelings of familiarity flooded over me. I realized that I know farming. It is part of who I am. I could walk on a farm and perform tasks like hauling hay, feeding cows, and driving a tractor. I would be a bit rusty, but I know how to do the work. Today, my life is about as different from that of a farmer as you could imagine. Most people don't know that I can build a fence, plow a field or stack hay in a barn. To be quite honest, I'm glad because farming is very hard work. My reflections on the familiarity of farming have caused me to think about how we change, both personally and in organizations. Let's take life in the church for example. If you have participated in church life for very long at all, then there are patterns or ways of doing church that have been woven into you, some good, some neutral, and some neg...

As I was praying through the last few steps of the labyrinth, I found that I did not want it to end. (Click here to read earlier entries in this series.) I slowed my pace. I felt myself wanting to sit down and stay there for a bit. I had responsibilities that needed addressing. Staying put was not an option. Even still, I wanted to escape, to avoid those responsibilities. I wanted to enter into some kind of romantic experience with Jesus and just let him continue his work of inner formation of my life. I realized that it is easier to remain in the tomb with Jesus than to walk with him in the real world. It's easier to escape into our private encounters with Jesus than it is to actually live resurrection at work, with our families, as we talk with neighbors or as we do the mundane stuff that pulls on us everyday. I think this is one of the reasons why we so easily separate the sacred from the secular. A labyrinth experience is a sacred thing. Worship on Sunday is a sacred experie...

After walking away from the cross at the center of the labyrinth, I began to reflect on the death I had experienced. (For previous entries in this labyrinth series, click here .) In some ways, this is like a tomb experience, one that comes after death but before the resurrection. It is a time of silence, of waiting, of isolation. You see, there is a lot of noise at the foot of the cross, and even more on the journey toward the cross. But once we have set that which weighs us down at the cross, the next part is not usually the experience of joyous victory and exaltation. I've found that after I die to something and give it over to Jesus that what follows is a haunting loneliness of waiting for the resurrection. I'd rather go immediately to the resurrection part. I've found that most preachers jump to that part also. Resurrection victory is the stuff that will preach. However the time of the haunting loneliness that follows the death forms for resurrection life. When we try...