R n R this Summer!

Have you read The Power of Full Engagement?
The byline is “Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.”
The basic premise of the book is that we have the best performance when we have intense periods of energy exertion, followed by a period of intentional rest.

This is a great concept; but the authors did not come up with the idea! Actually, it comes out of the first chapters of the Bible when God showed us his ideal rhythm for life. He created the universe for 6 days, declaring creation good and humanity very good, and then he took a nap!

Seriously, if God needs the rest, why do we ignore the basic rhythms of our body, soul and spirit?

Jesus took it one step further in John 15 when he gave us an invitation to hang out with him, calling it “abiding.” Read this Scripture as you hear Jesus give us one of the great keys to living a life of fulfillment:

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches; those who abide in Me and I in them bear much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Jesus’ invitation to us flies in the face of our culture. We hear and often believe that if we just stay on the treadmill of life we will be more successful.

But, Jesus tells us that if we learn to abide with him, finding ways to connect with the One who Created us, we will make an impact on the world; with our families, our vocations, our neighbors, our missio, all of it. It comes first with abiding and then going out to expend our energies on meaningful work.

One of our Missio Lux’ values is to live lives of purpose, balance and simplicity. We are seeking to model a different way of life to our culture; one that will attract people’s attention and cause them to take notice.

No one is going to notice us if we are constantly stressed; we will just blend in with the rest of the world. However, if we intentionally seek to live the rhythm of resting and working, of abiding and bearing fruit, back and forth, in balance with our natural rhythms, people are going to notice and want what we have because it is so appealing.

So, our summer plans are going to follow Jesus’ priorities to abide and bear fruit. We have been through an intense season of laying a foundation for a new way of living our faith andit’s time for some R n R: Relationship and Rest.

Everything we are doing this summer has R n R in mind:

Celebrations are going to be at Beaver Lake Pavillion and will be simple picnics designed to give us space to connect with God and one another, and tell the stories of what God is doing in our midst.

Concerts in the Park in Sammamish are awesome ways to connect with friends and enjoy a fun concert. We are meeting every Thursday from July 9th to the end of August.

Missio Communities are encouraged to practice a different rhythm, making gatherings simple, fun and filled with much room for relationships. Invite those into your experiences which will benefit from some R and R!

I will be practicing a rhythm of reading, reflecting, resting, writing and praying through the month of July. I am looking forward to what this season will bring as I stop the activity and meetings and abide; restoring the creative side God gave me.

But, best of all, find ways to connect with Jesus that are meaningful to you. If you like to hike, take a hike and spend time connecting with him. If you like to hang out in your hammock in your backyard reading, do it with permission! Jesus wants us to be relaxed and enjoy his company.

Next week I will be passing on some ideas for new ways to connect with Jesus through our Missio Lux summer of abiding. Until then, go have some good R n R with those around you!

What's Pinning You Down?

I broke my hand two months ago. I ended up needing surgery to put pins in to keep my left pinkie knuckle at the hand in place. The healing took place as scheduled; the doctor was always pleased with my progress when he examined it.

But, one day my car door slammed right on the place where the bones broke. Wow, did that ever hurt! I knew I didn't ever want to do that again.

My hand was fine except that one of the pins that was put in place to provide protection for healing was now dislodged and was becoming more and more painful as the days wore on.
I finally had to move the surgery to remove the pins up by weeks because the pain and swelling was intensifying daily and making my hand do double healing.

I started thinking about how the pins are a word picture for our childhood defense mechanisms against dysfunction and pain in our lives. The pins represent coping realities that we adopt so that we are protected against the poor decisions of the adults and other children around us. They keep us safe from breaking apart completely.

But, as we become adults, if the pins are still in place, they can actually cause destruction instead of healing.
The coping mechanisms can keep us stuck and in continued pain, rather than providing relief.

Why?

Because we no longer need them. We have become adults and can become healthy functioning people. We can let go of those things that appeared to keep us safe as children, but are actually hinderances when we "grow up."

Jesus wants to be the surgeon to take the pins out. My surgeon was my hero Friday because within hours after the surgery, I knew I was set free. The pain was gone and the swelling began to recede. It was worth it to me to go through the pain of the surgery to find myself in a better place than before the surgery.

Jesus invites us to enter into the pain of healing so that we can be set free.
He invites us in John 10 to enter the gate and then to go and find green pastures.
The amazing part of his invitation is that he is also the gate.
So, we are invited on a healing journey through him, so that we will be free.

Missio Lux has foundational ministries of healing and recovery. I just returned from our monthly healing service and am always so uplifted when they are finished because I see how pins gets removed through prayer to the surgeon Jesus. Celebrate Recovery meets every Monday night and many pins are also removed in the Christian 12 step lifestyle that CR models and teaches.

Do you have any pins that are dislodged and need to come out? Respond to Jesus' invitation to enter into the gate where you will find him ready to heal.

It's all about Relationships; part 1

Missio Lux is learning a new way to live.
We have been impacted by Jesus' words in John 15 where he speaks about the rhythm between abiding and bearing fruit.
Some more regular words say the same thing: rest and work, relationship and adventure, downtime and pushtime!

I am anxious to discover how living this rhythm intentionally will affect us.
At the core of it is a call to relationship.
Jesus wants us to spend time with him in relationship.
He knows that as we do that we will be built up, loved well and given new energy to love the people around us.

One of the most important relationships we have is our marriage.
Last night the girls and I gathered around the television to hear "John and Kate's announcement." I felt so sad when they said that they were separating, and on a path towards divorce. The words "I need to do what's best for me" still echo through my ears.

I loved the show in the early days. Watching John and Kate's delight in parenting their 8 children was so much fun. But, eventually I saw the pattern begin to take shape that so many of our marriages fall into: control/passivity/control/passivity.

This is the challenge of marriage; it comes out of the fall.

Adam was passive when he stood by and watched Eve eat the apple. He didn't do anything to stop her; which was an abdication of his rule over the garden. Eve, on the other hand, was quick to bite when the serpent challenged her thinking on "who was really in control." He lied to her, making her believe that God was holding out on her--that he held all the control and it wasn't for her good.

So, the curses were given. Men will struggle to succeed in their work and in relationship through their lives. Women will struggle to trust God and their husbands--so we do what seems right: seek to control our situations. The only thing about it is when we seek to control, we push our husbands into passivity, which only makes things feel more out of control.

Or, maybe it is the passivity of the men which causes the women to step up and try to control. It doesn't matter which comes first, the outcome is always the same: misery.

This is what I increasingly saw happening in John and Kate last year. Passivity from John, control from Kate. As the pressure built, their patterns became more and more entrenched, until their marriage blew apart all together.

The Bible has great wisdom in it. Jesus knew this pattern of marriage relationship and he showed us how to counter it and live into the new life of grace. It involves two key concepts: one for men and one for women.

Ephesians 5 tells men to love their wives and tells women to respect their husbands.

Why is this? Because men have a hard time loving their wives, staying present spiritually, emotionally and physcially--it's much easier to focus on the challenge of making a living.

Women have a hard time respecting their husbands; trusting that both God and men have their best interests at heart.

The Gospel is both simple and hard. The concept of love and respect is simple. But, it is oh, so very so hard to live it out.

It takes support.
It takes us caring about the people in our midst and asking the hard questions: "Did you treat your husband with respect this week?" "Did you treat your wife with love, caring for her and nurturing her heart this week?"

As we continue to live into our Missio Communities, we are structured to be able to ask those questions and offer our support. We are able to hold one another accountable for living it out. We can even confess when we are far from love and respect.

I have to believe that things could be different for John and Kate if they had that level of support. They could have stopped the trainwreck long ago, before it got to this point.

It's all about relationship, and as we take time to be with Jesus and rest, we get clarity on how we live into grace, rather than the curse from which he died to set us free. We can learn to walk in the new way of love and respect and in the process, model a lifestyle that others want to live out too.

Importance of Fathers

Today is Father's Day.

It's a day where we get to appreciate and affirm our fathers for their importance in our lives.

Our family is in San Francisco where my husband goes every week to work, so he can most fully financially support our family. My Dad is in Denver and has just walked through a very trying time of taking care of my Mother after heart surgery; he's been called into a place of care that he has never been challenged to live into until now.

The lives of my husband and my father have gotten me thinking about the importance of fathers in our lives.

Both men in my life have modeled sacrificial living for the sake of their families; putting aside their own comfort for the good of those around them. This is what the Bible calls men to do; model their lives after their heavenly father and the sacrifices he made on our behalf.

Our Heavenly Father gave us everything he had.

He gave us his son. His most important relationship given sacrifically so we could know how much he loves us. He didn't withhold anything from us; contrary to the lie that the Serpant told Adam and Eve in the Garden--instead he gave us everything.

Our Heavenly Father teaches earthly fathers how they are to live to model love and commitment to their family. I can't underestimate the deep importance that fathers carry for how they model God to their children.

I listen to a lot of people. Almost to the person, I hear how their view of God is formed by how their father lived and treated them. I wish that fathers understood the deep privilege and responsibility they carry because of this reality: it is their most important role in life.

Missio Lux has some amazing fathers in it. I see the love they carry for their children as the families walk through our door together. I see the investment they are making in their children spiritually as they take seriously the role of growing them up as people of faith and good character. I see their desire to grow spiritually themselves so they can model that for their wives and children.

But, we have a long way to go to influence all the people around us. Every generation that continues the broken father influencing their broken children continues to the cycle of brokenness, instead of wholeness and healing.

My dream for the next year is to significantly multiply the awareness and response of how important fathers are in our lives to bring us to a life of freedom and wholeness that Jesus offers everyone.

Thoughts about the American Church in 10 years

I've been reflecting on the changes that have taken place in our Culture in this decade.

Now I'd like to reflect on the changes that I believe will take place in the Church in the next decade.

Here are some of the trends we already see in people:

People are coming to church less often
Many "consume" going to the church that has the latest and greatest....preaching, worship, youth group, you name it.
Loyalty to denominations are very low
Kids coming out of youth group who go to college often leave the church altogether
A significant number of people are biblically illiterate
Giving patterns are trending more towards "causes" than church budgets
People listen to several voices through podcasts, radio, etc.

Here are some of the trends we see in churches:

a movement towards multi site congregations
a desire to become missional
laying off of staff from economic downturn
naming churches without identifying denominational affiliation
fewer leaders are seminary trained

So, with these trends, what will change?

I see a church in 10 years that will look very different than we know now.

It will be very dispersed, with communities meeting all over the cities in various locations, but rather invisible to the regular eye.
People will have significantly more ownership over their faith; taking responsibility for their own practices, rather than looking to a church to form them for them.
Money will be used to support missio projects, but won't go through the pipeline of a church budget because the church will be much looser in organization but stronger in mission and commitment.
I believe the church will almost be "underground" because the culture will have become so hostile to those who stand for God's truth and practices.
I see a sorting out of those who are willing to pay a cost for their faith, standing on principles and fighting the wave of tolerance, but doing it in love to the individual; with those that move with the mainstream culture and end up not having a stance for anything.
Many faithful pastors will leave the profession because of the challenge but also the financial restraints.
Many leaders will do "tent ministry" because the days of the professional pastor are coming to a close.
I see a church that is being refined by "fire" that gets smaller in number but infinitely stronger in faith than today.
I see a grassroots connection between the different "outposts" established through relationship.
I see many people with no church experience or religious background coming to Jesus because of the purity of the faith that they see in everyday people living a lifestyle like Jesus.

Jesus came to a world that was very polarized, where spiritual freedoms were limited by the government, and a church that was very religious and legalistic.

He taught his disciples how to operate within that culture, and if we study what they did, we can learn to live that way too.

The world is shifting but the opportunities for the church, if we are willing to bend and move with flexibility, are wide open.

I personally am looking forward to a day when those who commit to follow Christ recognize the cost, as well as the challenge, but decide that following Jesus is worth giving our whole life to live.

Decade of 2000

The study yesterday started a pathway of reflection for me about how the past decade has gone for our culture as a whole.

We just have 6 months left in the decade of 2000.

Wow, didn't it go fast?
What did you do to prepare for Y2K?
I had a delightful time standing in line with lots of patient people filling our propane tanks. I don't think a decade has ever entered with such fanfare only to go "plop into nothingness."

But, in just a short amount of time, we experienced 9/11 and the world as we knew it began to shift dramatically. The center of the world shifted to the Middle East. We started a war. We became patriotic, only just a few years later to become very silent about our patriotism as we alienated much of the world through our tactics against terrorism.

But, on a smaller, more personal scale, let's consider: how much technology did you engage in year 2,000?

How many computers did your household own? We had one.
How many cell phones did you own? We had one.
How many had wifi? We had dial up--oh remember that one, the sound of the connection: "You've got mail!:
How many had an IPOD? No one, they weren't invented yet.
How much internet ordering did you do? None.
How much internet searching did you do? Very little.
How many televisions did your household own? 2, we just purchased a second one in 1999.
How many texts did you write? None, texts weren't even a thought in anyone's head yet!

Life has changed.
We are changed because of the advance of techology.

I find myself wishing that we had kept more of the old technology to show our grandchildren someday....they become antiques so quickly now, we pass onto the new without really giving it a second thought.

What changes do you think that we will see in the next decade?
What do you think our culture will look like in 2020?
What changes in practice do you think the American Church will adopt?

I have some thoughts on that, but more on it another day.
Would love to hear your technology quiz results from year 2000! ]
What did I forget to ask?

New Technology Study

Yesterday an interesting study was published in the Seattle Times about technology.

Some of the findings included:

Families are spending less time together; down 30 percent since 2006 from 26 hours a month to 18 hours in 2009.

Facebook usage has gone from 100 million users in August of 2008 to 200 million users in 2009.

Televisions have gotten cheaper so families have more of them in several rooms of their home. This means that families don't have to congregate in one room to watch them anymore.

Higher income families are more deeply affected by technology than lower income families because they have a much greater range of technological toys!

These results are staggering.

In just three short years, we have seen a massive shift in behavior patterns that are changing the way that we communicate and relate to one another.

This shift in behavior/communication is also calling the Church to think carefully and strategically about how we will communicate.

Will we forsake technology all together, deciding it is detrimental and so avoid it?

Or will we discover some creative uses for all the new ways of relating to build bridges to those who won't be reached any other way?

I think about Paul who says that "I must become all things to all people in order to reach them."

Let's decide to wrestle through this challenge and seek to understand where the best pathway exists for people to meet and follow Jesus.