One of the highlights of my summer was the week we spent serving at Bible Camp. Our youngest daughter was a camper for the first time. Since she was nervous about a week away from home, we volunteered to serve at the camp for the week so that at least we’d be “on site” and have enough contact to help ease the home-sickness.
So my wife and I cleaned bathrooms, taught Bible lessons for 9-year-olds, and ran a tight ship in the dish-pit for a week. I don’t like to brag (until I know if it’ll still be standing by the end of the season) but there’s also a re-built flight of steps on Cabin 3 with my name on it.
Anyways, I love Bible Camp—it’s where I cut my teeth in ministry, long before God told me I was going to be a pastor—and to be honest, a week at Bible camp for me is as relaxing as any old cruise.
It was this year, anyways. But home now and reflecting, I’m looking over the whole Evangelical Bible Camp phenomenon with my theological glasses on, and here’s what I’m seeing.
The Good:
Service: Christian service is not optional for the life of a Christ follower and Bible Camp is the kind of place where every gift and talent has a place, from cooking to speaking, to building to playing.
Hard Work: Working hard alongside brothers and sisters in Christ for the sake of Jesus builds a kind of spiritual camaraderie that is deeply formative and irreplaceable.
The Outdoors: One day I’m going to write a theology of the outdoors; until then I’ll simply mention the radiance that people get when they are spending swaths of time outside and together.
Role-models: There is something profoundly moving seeing young men and women build into the lives of children by modelling Christian love and life for them over a week together.
Fun: I forget the theologian anymore, but I remember reading a book that developed a theology of “play” around the “cosmic reversal” themes in the gospel and the idea that humans discover their identity as made in the image of the creative God especially when they find the grace to be homo-ludens; “man at play.” I’ll have to dig that out again, but in the meantime I’ll just recall the joy of seeing kids playing in the presence of Jesus.
The Bad:
Gospel-Lite: By its nature, Bible Camp is not the place to develop an understanding of salvation that goes much further beyond an ask-Jesus-into-you-heart kind of proclamation, so this is maybe to be expected, but it still merits scrutiny. There’s just no permanent community that can consistently disciple these kids long term, and even the best efforts at follow-up are hit and miss.
Easy-Believe-ism: In the olden days (say 4th century and onward) if you wanted to become a Christian you underwent a 40-day Lenten Journey with daily catechism, fasting and exorcisms that culminated in a public baptism (and then there were follow-up classes, too). Of course, this was fraught with its own theological problems and open to its own spiritual abuses, but I mention it here only to point out the stark contrast between the historic Church’s “10-course meal” approach to discipleship, and Bible Camp’s “TV-dinner approach”—just pop them into the microwave oven of the sinner’s prayer and they pop out Christians.
Churchless Christianity: Ecclesiology is the fancy word we use to describe one’s “theology of the church.” In as much as it reflects the ethos of Evangelicalism at large, Bible Camp ministry has profoundly weak ecclesiology. The Church (holy, apostolic and universal), if it gets mentioned at all, is simply a means to an end: a place where individuals can follow Jesus on their own, together. Alan Hirsch once made the controversial claim that Ecclesiology follows Mission; at Bible Camp, I think, we see the sad corollary of this idea: mission that has eschewed ecclesiology altogether.
The Beautiful:
Seeing Jesus introduce himself to young people through the loving witness of his followers. Having given the theological fuddy-duddy above his time on the soap-box, I have to say that seeing Jesus work in kids lives the way he does at Bible Camp is beautiful and humbling. Kids who didn’t even know that God existed a week ago find out that not only does he exist, he actually loves them dearly. If it doesn’t move you to be part (even a small part) of this work, you may want to avail yourself of the advice posted at this link here.
Bible Camp: The Good, the Bad, the Beautiful
Musical Mondays (II)
As the Tree
As the rain in the springtime
As the summer sun
As the winds in the autumn bring change
As the mists in the winter turn to spring again
Let this land feel your mercy, let this land feel your mercy
Let this land feel your mercy once again
As the tree in the springtime puts forth her green
As the tree bears in summer her fruit
As the tree in the autumn bears crimson gold
Let this land bear salvation, let this land bear salvation
Let this land bear salvation once again
Let salvation spring up from the ground
Let the new grain of your love abound
Let the valleys and the hills resound
With echoes of rejoicing
Let the autumn rains of righteousness
Come and soothe us like a summer mist
Send the morning dew of holiness
To bring this land to life.
As the tree in the springtime puts forth her green
As the tree bears in summer her fruit
As the tree in the autumn bears crimson gold
Let this land bear salvation, let this land bear salvation
Let this land bear salvation once again
Saturday Morning Sermon (II)
Another excerpt from our work in Acts this summer (August 5). The text was Acts 9:32-43, the post resurrection miracles of Peter.
You may not have heard of John Wimber before, but if you’ve attended a contemporary worship service sometime in the last 20 years, you’ve encountered his influence.You can hear the whole sermon here: Acts 9:32-43 "Doin' the Stuff"
He was actually the keyboardist for a band called the Paramours, back in the day. The Paramours would go on to form a group called The Righteous Brothers, but not with John Wimber; John met Jesus back in 1962 and his path had a major course correction.
After becoming a Christian, he read his Bible voraciously. The story goes that he would read about the life-transforming miracles in the Bible, and then attend church services where the only miracle, it seemed, was that everyone was still awake at the end. So one Sunday he approached one of the pastors.
He said: “Pastor, when do we the stuff?” “What stuff,” asked the pastor.
“You know: the stuff. In the Bible. Like healing the sick and raising the dead—the stuff Jesus did.”
“Well,” said the pastor, “We don’t do that anymore.” John looked confused: “So what do you do?” “What we did this morning.” And John said: “Pastor: you gotta understand, I gave up drugs for this.”
Wimber would go on to become an influential leader in the charismatic movement of the 80s and 90s, a revival that challenged the church to start taking the Holy Spirit more seriously—and—as Wimber would maybe put it—to start “doin’ the stuff.”
He wrote books with titles like “Power Healing.” He taught courses called “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth.” He was also the leader of the Association of Vineyard Churches, from 1977-1994.
But I’m telling you about him today, because Acts 9 here is kind of asking us the same sort of question John Wimber asked his pastor back in 1963. When are we going to do the stuff?
And just to be clear, the stuff I’m talking about are the signs and wonders that the Holy Spirit does through us and among us, to show the world that Jesus really is alive, and to give the world a glimpse of what his kingdom actually looks like when it draws near. Just to be clear. We’re talking about the ministry of the Resurrection.
And I think I’d side with Wimber on this one, in principle anyways: a church that isn’t doing the “stuff of the Resurrection,” probably has some explaining to do. So I guess we should listen closely to what this passage has to say here about “the ministry of the Resurrection”; and let me start by pointing out that—according to Acts 9, at least—every good resurrection ministry needs an Aeneas, a Tabitha and a tanner.
The Feast of Purim and the Redemption of Saul
A few months ago I posted these thoughts on King Saul's infamous battle against the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15. I argued then that, in seizing on the prophetic word and capitalizing on the Amalekite plunder, Saul shows us the ignoble failure of all our efforts at self-Messiahship; but also that YHWH's rejection of Saul (and us in Saul) as Messiah is really a redemptive act, inasmuch as it paves the way for the true Messiah--our reyah--to take up the mantle on our behalf. In light of these thoughts (and also of these much earlier thoughts on the tragic end of Saul's dynasty) I thought I might share these insights into Saul's story I recently got from the Book of Esther.
Yes, Esther. The connection between these two stories are not immediately obvious, but profoundly significant.
Five times the Book of Esther points out that Haman is an Agagite (3:1, 3:10, 8:3: 8:10, 9:24), that is, a descendant of King Agag,the very Amalekite whose house Saul failed to destroy as per his prophetic mission back in 1 Samuel 15. His failure to destroy Agag's line was why YHWH rejected Saul in the first place, and now we see the ominous result of his disobedience: centuries after Saul, the People of God face utter annihilation at the hands of Agag's descendant.
This might seem like a minor detail, that the "enemy of the Jews" in Esther is a descendant of Agag the Amalakite. But then in Esther 2:5, we discover that Mordecai (Haman's arch nemesis) is a Benjaminite from the line of Kish.
Anyone remember whose son King Saul was?
Kish, the Benjamite. It turns out that an ancestor of Saul, the failed Messiah, has risen up to oppose the ancestor of Agag, the source of Saul's failure.
With this in mind, I doubt it's a coincidence that, even though King Xerxes clearly gave the Jews permission to pounce on the plunder of their enemies (8:11), the story stresses three times that under Mordecai's leadership they did not (9:10, 9:15, 9:16). Mordecai and Esther have succeeded where Saul failed, and what we're witnessing in their success is actually the redemption of Saul's story through their faithfulness.
This is more than an interesting intertextual connection, it is a profound word of hope to any whose story--in ministry or life or Christian discipleship--has brought them seemingly to the point Saul's story was at in 2 Samuel 21:1-14, with lament echoing in the air and carrion birds picking at the remains.
There is no failure so final that God cannot redeem.
Jesus said that we'd discover eternal life in the Scriptures if and when we look for him there, so as the Jews of Susa celebrate the Feast of Purim at the end of the Book of Esther, I've got my eyes peeled. And I can't help but notice that when God finally does redeem our failed efforts at self-Messiahship, this is what it looks like: a faithful community of God's people, delivered from death and celebrating life together around a sacred meal.
Salvation belongs to our God.
A Pastor's Soundtrack
Mix-CDs are a dying art, I think. Time was the care and patience that went into making a Mix-Tape (only later a Mix-CD) made it necessarily a labor of love. Achieving the right progression from hard-to-soft or vice versa, the perfect blend of eclecticism in genres, a tasteful degree of self-expression in the song list, what Davis from Corner Gas calls “the aural journey of the Mix CD”—it doesn’t happen just for wanting it.
I’ve been thinking about this all today because this August marked the start as my fourth official year as pastor of the FreeWay. If we had space enough and time, I might hash out the many lessons and diverse challenges these last three years have given me; but in lieu of a more detailed memoir, I was thinking about what the “Mix CD” of my first three years might look like. These are the songs that got me through: some coming like god-sends at just the right moment of spiritual exasperation; others drowning out the chaos in my head when the inner-talk got too frenetic; others still articulating the ache in my gut for hope when words alone couldn’t do it.
If I were to make a soundtrack of my first three years pastoring, these are the songs that would make the list. It says more, perhaps, than a detailed memoir ever could.
1. “Chicago,” Sufjan Stevens
I made a lot of mistakes in my life
2. “I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight ,” U2
It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain when you start out the climb
3. “Let Down,” Radiohead
One day I am going to grow wings / A chemical reaction/
Hysterical and useless / Hysterical and let down
4. “Bigot Sunrise,” Tonic
I’m not alone, but I’m far from home
5. “The Medicine,” John Mark McMillan
... with a hole inside your chest the size of a city block...
6. “Exit,” Radiohead
Breathe, keep breathing, don’t lose your nerve
7. “Nadir” (Me)
When you reach the nadir of the heart I’ll be there
8. “Between the Cracks,” John Mark McMillan
He’s raising the dead in the graveyard, we’re we’ve laid down our dreams and his name is hope
9. “Welcome,” Hey! Rosetta
Sorry, this is it: it’s cold and hard and badly lit
10. “Winter Winds,” Mumford & Sons
And my head told my heart let love grow, but my heart told my head, this time no
11. “Breathe,” U2
Every day I die again and again and reborn /
every day I need to find the courage to walk out into the streets
12. “Chester Munday,” Brock Tyler
Just like Chester Munday I’m a prairie boy forever
Teachers who touched my life: a list
After the dust settled this morning I got to thinking about my own school experience over the years (both as a student and a teacher), and it struck me how spiritually-formative the impact of a good teacher can be. From this point of reflection it was only a hop skip and a jump to remembering some of the teachers who have left a spiritually profound mark on my life. They are listed below, in no particular order.
How about you? Who are some of the teachers who touched your life over the years?
Here's my list:
1. Ms. Peretti (Grade 6) Part way through my Grade 6 year our beloved homeroom teacher took a mat-leave and Ms. Peretti replaced her. I had no idea, the day she introduced herself to the class and explained that we would be doing a lot of writing with her, that this would be the start of a life-long passion for writing. Thank you Ms. Peretti for teaching me to care deeply about the written word.
2. Ms. Olson (Grade 5) Grade 5 was sort of a turning point for me in my scholastic career, where I finally felt like I fit; and this is thanks in no small part to Ms. Olson. We were her first ever class, and she was enthusiastic and perceptive as a new teacher. I don't suppose my opinion of a teacher had ever been higher: I thought the world of her. Thank you Ms. Olson for teaching me to love scholasticism before I even knew what the word met.
3. Ms. Babik (High School English) Ms. Babik's class was the place (on the very first day of High School) where I met the girl who would become my wife. But that's not the only reason I remember her class so fondly. She was the archetypal English teacher: wise, insightful, creative and quirky. The lessons she gave us (formally and informally) in interpretation, literary analysis and clear communication still come into play for me every week when I sit down with a biblical text on Monday and tell others what I found there on Sunday. Thank you Ms. Babik for being so inspiring and illuminating.
4. Grandpa Lloyd (Bible) Grandpa Lloyd loved the Bible and couldn't help but talk about it. I have vivid memories of sitting on his knee and hearing him reflect, expound, narrate and explain the truths of the Word with a conviction and passion that was, even at six or seven, spiritually contagious. Thank you Grandpa Lloyd for pushing a boy who was probably too young for it to think deeper about God.
5. Prof. David Miall (Engl 351-- Romantic Poetry and Prose) David Miall taught Romantic Poetry and Prose at the University of Alberta, and it's unlikely that he remembers me, but his course, and the creative approach he came at it with, left an indelible mark on my mind and heart. Thank you David Miall for bringing the works of so many dead poets to life for me.
6. John Robinson (High School English) When I took my first teaching appointment at St. Paul Regional High, Mr. Robinson was a close colleague and collaborator. As a mentor to a new teacher he was generous and encouraging, and watching him interact with his students taught me things no teacher college could have. The many conversations we shared about life, literature and philosophy after classes still ring in my head once in a while. Thank you John for your mentorship and humour.
7. David Guretzky (Theology) David Guretzky's challenge to think theologically, and his care and wisdom in teaching me what exactly that meant, hit me out of the blue in Seminary. The process of deconstruction was at times painful, but the rebuilding was profoundly formative. Thank you David for showing me I wasn't nearly as Christocentric as I thought, and then showing me how to be more so.
8. Dad (life) Everything I know about tools I learned from my Dad (and for the record, this isn't much, and far less than he knows). He taught me more than this, of course: how to respect women and how to listen to music and how to read for life and how to fish and canoe and start a campfire. Thanks Dad for helping a young impressionable boy become a man.
9. Dale Dirksen (Worship Ministry) Dale Dirksen was a really important mentor during my time at Briercrest. He taught me to define worship and to process difficult ministry questions and to fit things like art and symbol and sacred act into my work as a pastor. Thank you Dale for your commitment to helping a guy who liked to sing and play guitar become a worship leader.
10. Mr. Theisen (High School Physics/Science) Mr. Theisen's left-brain clarity and systematic approach to teaching science made his classes like a long, slow drink of water: not especially zesty, but profoundly refreshing for all that. He was a study in the art of being unperturbable and his careful method for solving equations still comes in handy. Thanks Mr. Theisen for your care and precision as a science teacher.
11. David Miller (Biblical Greek). David taught me to read the Bible in Greek. I don't just mean to use exegetical techniques, but to approach the Greek New Testament as a living book written in a living language. At the end of our Greek Exegesis I course, he closed the class with a little parable that seared itself into my imagination and inspired me to develop a habit of reading the Greek New Testament. "Imagine a fish," he said, "Swimming up stream for months. It finally gets to the top of the stream, figures, 'Finally I can rest!' so it flops out of the water onto the bank, and promptly dies. This (he explained) is what it'll be like for you if you don't find some way to keep up with your reading."
Musical Monday (I)
A song I wrote a while ago as a musical reflection along the same lines of this post.
Dirty Jordan
Dirty Jordan, lying in the sun
with her grave shroud on
Crooked curves on broken banks,
what have we done?
Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?
Old man river crawling through the land
with his soul sucked dry
It's a long way home through stone and sand,
can you afford to cry?
Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?
Dirty Jordan, waiting for the Son
who wqas baptized by you
A drop of blood from his flowing veins
And he will baptize you
Can you wash clean this dirty water
Can you drench down these thirsty lands
Can you wade through this holy river
Till you heal the hands of dirty Jordan?
Saturday Morning Sermons (I)
Recordings of all our sermons are posted on our website, so rather than simply reduplicating the effort, I thought I'd post some short excerpts from individual sermons over the next few Saturdays-- a little spiritual food for thought to start your weekend off (and if it's only whetted your appetite, a link to the entire sermon is included below).
For starters, here's a snippet from a sermon on Acts 7:54-8:3, the Martyrdom of Stephen (July 29, 2012):
When you read closely, you’ll notice that the author has recorded Stephen's story very carefully, to show that his life is following the pattern of Christ’s life—I mean: Stephen’s story is shaped to look like Jesus’s story; and almost every detail here has been carefully worded so that it sounds hauntingly like the life and death of Jesus.You can hear the whole sermon here: Acts 7:54-8:3 "Witness: Exhibit A"
Let me explain.
I already pointed out how verse 55 says that Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and saw heaven standing open, right? Well: over in Luke 3:21-22, it says that when Jesus was baptized at the start of his ministry, as he was coming up out of the water he saw heaven standing open and the Spirit of God coming down on him in the form of a dove.
Coincidence? Maybe, but then, in verse 58, it says that they dragged Stephen out of the city to kill him. So: in Luke 4, after Jesus’ first ever sermon, it says that the people were so furious that the dragged him out of the city to kill him (they didn’t kill him that day, of course, but both Acts 7:58 and Luke 4 use the exact same phrase to describe the scene).
And that, too, might be a coincidence, but then in verse 59, just before he dies, Stephen looks into heaven and says, “Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.” Anyone remember what Jesus’ final word from the cross was? Wasn’t it: “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” (?)
And if you’re still not convinced, look at Stephen’s last words in verse 60. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Sound familiar? I think it’s supposed to. In Luke 23:34, while they’re nailing Jesus to the cross, he prays this prayer: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.”
So: can you add one and one together with me: Jesus was the Father’s Spirit-filled servant who committed his life, body and soul to God, and prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers right to the cross... and Stephen, his faithful martyr, has followed that pattern to the letter.
The fancy-schmancy word for this is cruciform—which just means living a life that’s conformed to the pattern of the cross. And if Stephen’s story has anything to say about being a Christian martyr, it’s that Christ’s witnesses must live lives that look like his: they must be Spirit-filled servants who trust themselves body and soul to the will of God, and commit themselves, life and death, to the ministry of reconciliation. Like Jesus.
That’s the kind of life this story is calling us to pursue—a life conformed to the pattern of the cross— the cruciform life—a martyr’s life.
Back in the Blogging Saddle
This summer I took a semi-intentional break from blogging. This was partly just a dry-spell in post ideas that turned into an extended hiatus, but it was also time for a gut-check for me. When I started blogging back in '09, I didn't really have a long term plan for the blog, and I was starting to wonder in '012 if I'd said all there was to say about God, life, faith, love, words and spirituality.
Enough people mention terra incognita to me off and on that I know there's somebody out there reading this. But I reached a point this June where the only thing I could think of when I sat down at the dashboard was: why bother? And so I didn't for a while.
Google tells me there's a name for this malaise. At least, enough hits turn up when I type "blogging fatigue" into the search engine that I know I'm not alone. So I decided to take a breather. If you love something, they say, let it go. If it comes back to you it was meant to be.
It did come back to me. Sometime around the end of July, I started to find renewed inspiration and purpose for this site. However, rather than jumping right back in with the usual promises to do better - writing cheques I couldn't cash and all - I thought I'd just start writing without the pressure of posting for a while and see where that got me. A month or so later I've got enough posts on deck that I feel confident to announce the "relaunch" of terra incognita with a guarantee of regular posting through to January. (Given the price of this blog, I'm even prepared to make that a money-back guarantee.)
For those who have been with me on this journey since the out-set, let me thank you here for your patience as we grow to serve you better.
For those of you who are visiting for the first time, a word about this blog. terra incognita is Latin for "unknown country." It's a reference to the way Jesus leads us into unknown territory (literally or spiritually speaking) whenever we follow him in faith. You can think of this blog as a giant spiritual connect the dot, where we try to draw lines between 1) stuff I see going on in the Bible, 2) stuff I see going on in the world, 3) stuff I'm reading about, and 4) stuff I love about art, culture, media and literature.
I hope you'll pick up a crayon and join me.
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