Faithwalking

We moved our money today!

2011-12-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I posted that Betty and I were at Smart Financial Credit Union where we were transferring all of our money from Wells Fargo Bank to SFCU. My friend, Michele Caldwell, asked me "Why?" and I promised to post the answer.

After a lot of thinking, reading, studying and praying, we have come to the conclusion that the four major banks in the country who control the vast majority of the country's wealth are among the most culpable for our nation's recent financial meltdown. Of course there are many factors, but the four banks - Wells Fargo, Chase, Citibank and Bank of America - played one of the major roles in the melt down. What appears to be their callous disregard for the common good of all the citizens of our nation is disgusting to us. That set of factors was a part of our decision.

As second part of our decision was what we view as the utter brokenness of our nation's political system. The influence of lobbyist (and particularly lobbyist that represent the four big banks) has turned our political system into a sham. There was a time when we would have turned to and trusted that system to pass laws to punish the banks for their behavior and to prevent their behavior from occurring again. There was a time where we trusted the honest dialogue between Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans, who believe (mostly) in a free market system and the Democrats who believe (mostly) that the greed and avarice of the free market system must be regulated, in days gone by, could be trusted to bring a balanced and reasoned solution that included both of those credible and important views. Today, in our view, there is greed and corruption that is so rampant in both parties that there will be no political solution - at least not in the current environment. The problem will simply go on and be made worse by the partisan politics that are driven by money.

In the face of all that I often feel powerless to do anything. The problem is so large and I am just one voice. Several months ago I learned of a growing movement to speak to the banks at the place that it could have impact if we acted collectively. By moving money from the banks to Credit Unions which are not-for-profit and locally owned entities, we could hit the banks at the only place where there is any vulnerability.

So, after thinking, reading praying, and studying, we ultimately decided to act. Today we opened an account at Smart Financial Credit Union. In the next two weeks we will close our account at Wells Fargo and be done with them. I'll be writing a letter to the local Branch Manager telling her of the reasons for our decision. It may seem like a small thing - we don't have a lot of money - but it has integrity with our beliefs and values, and it is something.

I'll be voting in the 2012 Presidential election, but I have the sense that I cast a more important vote today.

If you are interested in knowing more about the role that these four largest banks have had in our current economic mess, I recommend that you see Inside Job. Inside Job is a 2010 documentary film about the late 2000s financial crisis. It is directed by Charles Ferguson and won the Academy Award for the Best Documentary in 2010. The film is described by Ferguson as being about “the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption. The film explores how changes in policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis."

A tradition that is rooted in love

2011-12-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

Long before I understood why it is important, Betty realized the value of traditions that would shape our family’s metanarrative – one that we both wanted focused on loving God and loving people. It was in that metanarrative that we wanted our children to discover themselves and find their place in life.

Nowhere does the importance of our traditions get put on display like it does at Christmas. Though the tradition has evolved over the years, it began four years into our marriage. We informed our parents that we would move heaven and earth to travel to their homes for Thanksgiving but that going forward we would be spending Christmas at our own home. We hoped they would join us there (and almost every year until they died, they did).

With that boundary established, Betty began designing a tradition that helped ground our children in a context of love. I wish I could take some credit, but mostly my part was to cheer her own and to be fully present and participating as the tradition unfolded.

It goes like this.

On Christmas Eve we gather for a family dinner. Almost always some extended family is there plus one or more friends of our children’s or someone from our church who doesn’t have family to be with. After the meal we gather in the family room. We turn on the Christmas tree lights, light the numerous candles in the room (one year we had a small fire – but I digress), and turn all the house lights off.

The oldest family member and the youngest reader share in the reading of the Christmas story. We never make a big deal of “Jesus is the reason for the season” or anything like that. We just rehearse this story as the story from which we learn of God’s love and consequently seek to live lives where we love God and love others.

When that reading is finished, each person in the room takes a turn and is allowed to share his or her favorite Christmas story. We started this because we wanted our kids to hear stories of their grand parents’ lives and because we wanted them to know our stories from our childhood. Over time, favorite stories got repeated. Then new ones were added as our children had their own stories to tell.

I knew something special was happening a few years ago when a few days before Christmas our middle grand daughter said, “Who’s going to tell the story about the Christmas that Pop bought Mom her first clothes dryer.” It’s a fabulous story that captured the extravagant and playful love that my Dad had for my mother. She had heard it several times and it had captured the heart of this little (then) six-year-old girl. The stories remind us of the ways that love has been expressed in our family over the generations.

After a person tells their story, he/she then chooses a Christmas carol and we sing it a cappela. The richness of the music in the room is soothing and heartwarming.

Once every one (including guests) has had an opportunity to share, we light the candles on a birthday cake, and we sign Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Then, we do a gift exchange. Betty, ever vigilant in love, makes sure that even our guests have a gift to open. The evening concludes with conversation, thank you’s, and hugs all around.

As our children have become adults the tradition has evolved some. Gift giving has become less material and more about time spent together gifts created for another. Two components have been added that I think are going to stick.

Our oldest daughter, Emily, came across a terrific letter from St Nick that helps set the gift giving in context – especially for young children. She is the mother of our three grand daughters.

For the past 15 years, there has been an envelope on the tree from St. Nick. After we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, the envelope is opened and one of the girls reads the letter. St Nick tells the girls that they will be receiving three gifts on Christmas day. Reminding the girls of the gifts the wise men brought to Jesus, St Nick tell them that they will have a gift that represents how valuable they are (gold), one that will help them connect to God in the coming year (frankincense) and one that is for their body (myrrh). The girls find these gifts under their tree the next day. That letter has become a part of our tradition.

Two years ago, Betty suggested that we go as a family to the Salvation Army Family Center on December 23 and provide a party for the kids there. Several kids who live there also are in her class at school. So, the night before we gather to make our preparations. Then the next day we decorate the dining room at the Center with festive colors, provide a crafts activity, tell the Christmas story, sing Christmas carols, and give each child a stocking full of small gifts. It’s only been done twice. If we do it again next year, it officially becomes part of the tradition.

Our children are all building their own families now and they are not home for Christmas every year. But the tradition continues and it continues to evolve. This year, for the first Christmas since we started our tradWition, we will do all of this on Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve.

But our family is not fazed. I think that’s because the tradition is not rooted in the tradition itself. The tradition is rooted in a mother’s desire to ground the celebration of Christmas in the love of God and the love of a family that was and is committed to love in the world around us. We gather to remember that – to remember who we are – to remember that we are loved at the core of our beings – to express our love to God and to one another and to the world around us – and to draw strength from the stories that guide and shape our lives so that we can return to a life of love.

Enlarging a Child's Vision

2011-12-01T05:48:00.000-08:00

As Christmas approaches, you may be where I am - endeavoring to celebrate the birth of Christ without being sucked into the rabid consumerism proffered by our culture. I'm writing on this first day of December to give you an opportunity to resist the call to spend money on yourself and your family and instead to do something good for a child.

My friend Holly is a music teacher at the Rice School, a title 1 school in HISD. With budgets tightening all over the educational world, one of the first things schools will often cut is budgets for the arts. While academics are extremely important, music and drama give children a chance to experience themselves and the world through a different and highly important lens. It enlarges that child's vision of him/herself and the world.

The budget cuts mean that Holly has to has to pay accompaniest and sound technicians and anyone else to make the children's production possible.

Anyone who has ever seen the wonder in a child's eyes when he or she participates in creating something that comes from music or drama, you know the importance of this work.

Betty and I know and love Holly. We watch her pour her life out for the children in her school, and so I'm writing today to ask you to consider helping us raise $2,000 as a Christmas present to the children in the arts program at the Rice School where she teaches.

If you'd like to help, you can write your check to Harbor Church and mail it to 308 Bomar, Houston, TX 77006. Write "Rice School Project" in the memo line and we will make sure that the kids get the blessing that your gift represents.

Reading While Living in a Hinge in History

2011-11-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

In my last post I asserted that we are living in a hinge of history. As one of only six or seven generations to ever do so, it can be very challenging to find your way forward. In other hinges in history, the Church resisted the deep changes that came from paradigm shifts. We've actually murdered some of those who attempted to give voice to a new paradigm.

In this current hinge, the resistance is still there from many in the institutionalized church but the nature of the information age has made it possible for us all to learn at a much more rapid pace. Often learning in a new paradigm comes from the business world. In this hinge of history that is still true, but in this one it has also come from the educational community, from other world religions, and much more rapidly than before it has come from the Church itself.

Recently, a friend and pastor in the city asked me to send him a bibliography of the books that had impacted me most profoundly as I sought to live faithfully and effectively in this hinge of history. In answering that question, I want to state, what is for me, the obvious. No book has impacted my life like the Bible. What may not be so obvious is that I'm reading the Bible differently as a result of reading some of the text listed below. In addition to the Bible, the following is an annotated list of the top ten books that have influenced my view of the world and what it means for me to live faithfully and effectively in it today. They are listed here - not in the order of their impact but - in the order that I read them. I read the first one in 1991.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter Senge. He helped me see that in a world of supersonic, ongoing, never ending change, we must create organizations that can identify and retain a core set of values while fostering the disciplined application of five skills sets that empower individuals and organizations to be continuously learning and improving their capacity to get results that they truly desire. These five include - personal mastery, team learning, mental models, generating and sustaining tension, and systems thinking. He asserts that organizations must master these as ongoing practices in order to thrive in the world of rapid change. This was helpful to me in thinking about how to design a disciple making organization in the context of rapid change.

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard

This book altered my "listening" to Scripture and set me on a very different path than the one that would have been predictable, given my past. Willard first put me onto the recognition that our disciple-making efforts had devolved to a place where our focus was on making good church members rather than disciples of Jesus. Though there is some over lap between church members and disciples of Jesus, there are, in my mind, some stark, fundamental differences. And in my view, this is the fundamental issue that we must courageously tell the truth about before anything else will change. Willard framed two questions that have driven my life over the last twenty years. What is a disciple? How do you make one? In my estimation, the church is generally really fuzzy in its thinking about both of these questions.

The Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America by Darrel Guder, George Hunsberger, Alan Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder.

These guys built on the work of missional theologians Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch and applied their work to the North American context. Recently Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile have written a very helpful follow up entitled The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping The Conversation. They examine the impact of The Missional Church since it was first written twelve (12) years ago. All of these writers helped me to rethink my theology. In my seminary training, I was taught that mission is a sub-category in the overall course on systematic theology which results in missions being one part of the local congregational life. From this way of thinking I inherited the view that today we call the attractional model of church. The Missional Church turned that world upside down for me, and I was faced with a life shaping dilemma. Do I try to help local congregations change from the attractional model to a missional model? Mike Bonem, James Furr, and I wrote a book entitledLeading Congregational Change: A Practical Guide for the Transformation Journey that attempts to help congregations with the profound challenges of making this kind of change. I went through a long season where I despaired that local congregations would ever be able to make the deep changes required to embrace missional living. More recently, I have growing hope. For instance, I'm working with Trisha Taylor and 30 congregations from The Reformed Church in American through Western Theological Seminary in an effort called The Ridder Initiative. There is amazing life and vitality in these congregations as they engage the change required to go from an attractional model to a missional model that is making me very, very hopeful. At the heart of the content of their work is the sum total of the learning reflected in this reading list.

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter.

This author writes convincingly that most people believe that if you can get 51% of the people in any system (community, city, country) to hold the right beliefs, then you can change that system. Writing both philosophically and from a historical perspective, he argues that one's world view isimportant. It is just not enough. He asserts that leaders must understand the nature of systems and be willing to partner with the power elites in a city - even if those individuals don't share your world view - if you are going to see positive change come. In some measure this reading helped me see that if we really wanted a city that was filled with the Shalom of God, there were some significant missing pieces to the work we needed to take on collectively.

Extraordinary Relationship: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interaction by Roberta Gilbert.

She helped me learn to think about emotional maturity as the key to human change. You can know everything in the Bible and if you don't have the emotional maturity to "do" what you know, then nothing really changes. Gilbert is a disciple of Murray Bowen and Bowen Theory. His work is the first work that has been done since Freud that fundamentally rethinks how we view human functioning in living systems. Many don't recognize it, but Freud's view of how human relationships work still dominates the world of counseling including Christian counseling. It sees the individual as the focus and insight/empathy as the pathway to deep change. In Bowen Theory, the family is seen as the basic unit of human relationships and for that system to change, one must deal with the strongest member of the family system rather than the one with the presenting problems. This theory focuses on the role of anxiety in families, congregations, and other living organizations (organisms) and it is is foundational to my thinking. In 2002 Trisha Taylor, Robert Creech and I co-authored The Leaders Journey: Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation. This book was an attempt to translate Bowen Theory into the context of evangelical pastors and congregations. Robert Creech has an excellent, scholarly article entitled "Jesus and The Differentiation of Self." The differentiation of self is a key component of Bowen Theory.

Post Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World by Stuart Murray.

Asserting that Christendom is dead and that we are simply presiding over its burial, Murray tracks the changes that took place in the church when Constantine moved it from the margins to the center of the Empire in the Edict of Milan (313 AD). He asserts that in Christendom the Church was in many ways co-opted by the state resulting in many practices and in the development of systems and structures that look more like the Empire than like the Kingdom of God. However, rather than mourning the death of Christendom, Murray celebrates it as an opportunity to renew the Church in an era that looks much more like the first century than any time sense then. His work gives historical context to Willard's assertion that we had quit making disciples and started making church members.

The Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman.

Dr. Friedman takes Bowen Theory and applies it to congregations and synagogues. He suggests that the "social science view of reality" is our fundamental problem. It has led us to what he calls "adaption to weakness." He asserts that as our society evolves, our adaptation as a society is toward weakness rather than strength. He writes brilliantly as he challenges leaders to take a stand in the face of a world that shares the social science view of reality.

To Transform a City: Whole City, Whole Church, Whole Gospel by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams. I believe that the emerging paradigm of the Church is captured here. First articulated by Jack Dennison in City-Reaching: On the Road to Community Transformation, Eric and Sam have captured the learning that has been done by innovators and early adapters in this emerging paradigm over the past fifteen or twenty years. (Mission Houston would be one of those who have and are fostering the emergence of this paradigm.) This new paradigm is gaining momentum as evidenced by Movement Day and by the soon to be released book by Tim Keller of Redeemer Church in New York entitled Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel Centered Ministry in Your Church.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist Notebook - What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing by Bruce Perry and Maia Svalivitz

Based on research with which I am familiar, approximately 75% of the American population has been traumatized at some point in childhood due to divorce, sexual abuse, the pre-mature death of a parent, the impact of incarceration and/or drug abused by a parent. Add to that the research that demonstrates that trauma in childhood alters one's brain functioning and can result in the plethora of illnesses like bipolor disorder that plague our society today. Drs. Perry and Svalivitz paint a poignant picture of the impact of trauma on children and a hopeful picture of the power of a loving community to be used to heal the brain. This information shapes my understanding of how we create learning environments that must be both safe and challenging.

Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress by James Mezirow.

This is my newest reading. It's dense and I'm plowing through it, but it is already impacting my view of learning. Research in the field of education is beginning to distinguish traditional learning from transformational learning. It grows out of the exploding field of brain research and the awareness that first and foremost, human beings are "meaning makers." We have experience and we give that experience meaning, and the meaning we give it impacts what we will and won't learn, what we will and want pay attention to. This has profound impact for educators who live in a world where change is happening at supersonic speeds and where "how to be a learner" becomes as important, if not more so, than what is learned.

Facing the challenges of living in the hinge of history

2011-09-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

It is my belief that we are living in a hinge of history that is ushering us from one era to the next.

For most of Christian history congregations have served as gathering places where geographically approixmate adherents could practice their faith. It was not always this way.

For most of its first three centuries Christianity was mainly a street movement, a marketplace phenomenon that spread through slave populations and social guilds of free laborers. Gatherings of adherents took place primarily in homes and some suitable public places, convening primarily for fellowship, teaching, and worship. However, the gatherings were not the point or focus of Jesus-follower spirituality. Christianity was primarily a practice, a way of life.

The above quote is from Reggie McNeal's newest book Missional Communities: The Rise of the Post-Congregational Church (p.2). McNeal represents a growing number of thinkers who believe that we are living in an age of transformation that is akin to the experience people had during the period we now call The Reformation.

We are not looking at incremental change. The Church is being transformed. The institutional congregation has been the primary center of Christiainity since Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. However, there is a growing since that in the next era, that may not be so. There is no large body of thinking of which I am aware that asserts that the local congregation is going away. But, as in The Reformation, there is growing agreement that it will take on a very different look in the next era.

What if McNeal and others like him are anywhere close to being on point? The implications are enormous, and in the face of their enormity, we have two choices. We can contribute to and participate in an anxious reaction that makes winners and losers, resorts to right or wrong thinking, and accelerates the anxiety that this kind of deep change inherently brings.

Another option is to come together for thoughtful Spirit-led conversations. Houston is filled up with people who have been working on the questions that McNeal's assertions raise. We have some of the countries largest congregations and we have some of the most innovative work being done around missional living. It seems to me that if we could function the way a body is made to function, then these conversations could help make things increasingly clear. Out of that clarity, Spirit driven action is possible.

Ecclesia, Houston Graduate School of Theology, Memorial Drive Presbyterian, Mission Houston, and St John's downtown are attempting to create safe space for this conversation to take place. Reggie is one of two key-note speakers for the upcoming ATCO (at the corner of . . .) Conference. In addition to two key note speakers, you will hear numerous stories from local Houstonians who are living missionally, and there will be opportunities for questions and responses along with space for personal conversations.

It's our hope that the gathering will help advance our thinking and our acting - both individually and collectively as we thoughtfully follow the Spirit's leadership in our attempt to navigate the waters of this hinge in history.

The public is invited to attend. ATCO is scheduled for Friday afternoon, October 14, 2011, from 12:45 - 5:45 pm at St. John's Downtown. There is no cost but registration is required. This link will take you to the web site and registration.

You can help this movement grow

2011-07-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

There is a growing movement in the Greater Houston area that recognizes that the children of this city belong to all of us. If they win, we all win. If they don't win, then we all suffer the consequences of that. Every day I hear stories of individuals, groups of people, congregations, and ministries who are stepping in to serve and meet needs.

The upcoming Week of Prayer and Service For Children and Youth is a tremendous opportunity for every person who cares about the children of our city to contribute to this movement. People from across the city will be uniting in prayer and mobilizing for service on August 14-20, 2011. There is a Summit on August 11 that you will find encouraging, informative, prayerful and inspiring. I'm planning to participate in both the Summit and the Week of Prayer and Service, and I'm writing to encourage you to find a way to do so as well.

For details, you can go to this link. Please take a look and pass this along to those in your circle of influence.

I'm attending The Response

2011-07-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

In my last post I expressed my concerns about The Response, A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis. I was concerned that a legitimate solemn assembly was being co-opted by partisan politics and I was determined not to be pressured into something I didn't believe to have integrity. Since then, I've been pondering and praying and, I've been in been in dialogue with a number of people who I trust to speak into my life.

I've made the decision that I'm going to attend this gathering. There are two primary reasons.

I'm attending because I believe that unified, focused prayer is highly important. From the founding of Mission Houston, we have worked diligently to stimulate the common practice of unified prayer in families, neighborhoods, congregations, and communities. I believe that unified, focused prayer changes things. This gathering holds the possibility for a large, unified and focused prayer gathering. I don't want my fears to stand in the way of something that could alter the spiritual climate of our city and our nation.

I'm attending because I love and trust Doug Stringer. Doug is one of the leaders of the Church in Houston. He has a 25+ year track record of integrity in our city and in ministry around the world. In some ways, he and I see the world differently, but we have forged a friendship over two decades, and we share a heart for the transformation of the city. Doug has been instrumental in shaping The Response, and after writing my last post, I had a face-to-face conversation with Doug. He assured me that this is not going to be a partisan political event, and he told me what he plans to do - as the point person on the stage at the event - if someone tries to take the event in that direction. I don't trust that there won't be people who will attempt to use the day for partisan politics. I do believe that Doug will keep his word about how the stage will be manage in order to achieve the purposes of the day.

So, at the end of the day, I've decided that I'm attending - and I'm inviting you to attend. I'm prayerfully hopeful about the possibilities the day holds.

Governor Perry’s Call To Prayer and Fasting

2011-06-17T08:21:00.001-07:00

There is a lot of press these days about Governor Rick Perry’s role in organizing a national day of prayer and fasting – what the Bible calls a solemn assembly - on Aug. 6 in Houston at Reliant Arena. Some of my friends are energized and hopeful regarding the possibilities of a national solemn assembly led by the political leader of the state of Texas. Others are skeptical that it is more a political move designed to position Perry with the evangelical wing of the Republican Party in a possible bid for the Presidency of the United States.

I have had a number of emails and phone calls asking me what I think about this . . . thus this post.

The Scripture is clear that there is a relationship between the condition of the land and the faithfulness of God’s people (for instance in II Chronicles 7:14). The clear direction for addressing the condition of the land is for God’s people to repent of their sin. To that end, the Prophet Joel called for a solemn assembly. "Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD... 'Even now," declares the LORD, 'Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." Joel 1:14, 2:12-13

In Joel’s call to the Solemn Assembly he makes it clear that it is the condition of our hearts that must be addressed. In humility we come to repent of our part in creating the conditions in the land.

As I read that it would mean that Governor Perry would model what is required of each of us as he comes to confess his sin that has contributed to the condition of the land. It is also clear that God has a clear distaste for religious activities like prayer and fasting that don’t lead to people with power using that power to loose the chains of injustice, free the oppressed, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome the immigrant (for instance in Isaiah 58:6-7)

As I have thought, prayed, and talked with friends, I find myself in the wishful but skeptical camp. I truly wish our leaders would come together in humility, each confessing his or her sins, repenting in a way that does an about face, and going a different direction. I believe that kind of prayer and fasting would change the spiritual climate of our land. If this happened it would be unprecedented at this level in my lifetime. Perhaps that is why I am skeptical.

So, what would make it possible for me to actively, with an attitude of hope, support this effort? Here are some thoughts. It will be possible if . . .

1. Governor Perry makes a public pledge that, for his part, he would be there to confess his sins and his alone. He would give his word not to confess what he perceives to be the sins of others – especially his political opponents.

2. Governor Perry invites a co-host from the Democratic Party to join him in giving leadership to this effort and that person would also give his/her word to item #1 above.

3. Governor Perry and his Democratic Party Co-Host commits to modeling a genuine sense of humility for all those who share in leadership of the event. That means they come to the event crying out to God for answers, not using the event to promote - through spoken prayer speeches - answers either political party is already embracing.

If the leaders of this event would commit to these three things, that would be a gathering that would get my heartfelt support. I believe there is a deep need for prayerful, humble repentance on the part of many of us. I put myself at the top of that list.

I feel like the man who met Jesus and cried out “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.” I want to believe that such a gathering is possible. I need help for my unbelief.

Add you voice

2011-06-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

Two forces are simultaneously at work in our city on a daily basis. On the one hand, nearly half (47%) of our children live at or below the poverty level. Texas is ranked 46th in percentage of children living in poverty. Their future is bleak. They are likely to repeat the cycle of poverty - and that impacts them and all of us in increasingly tangible ways.

On the other hand there is a movement that I believe is from God where people of good faith and people of good will see the impact of our not doing enough to stem the tide of this blight on our children. From the congregations in the city to the business sector - all across the city,

there is a growing sense that these children belong to all of us and there is a growing sense that, with God's help, together we can solve these problems.

I'm writing today to ask anyone who reads this blog to add your voice to this movement by taking three specific actions.

First, I'm asking you to go to this link and get yourself very well informed about the Faith Summit and the Week of Prayer and Service for Children and Youth that's coming up in August. I believe that if a lot of us would take the purposes of this week on, we could be used by God to advance the movement that is underway to change the probable future for hundreds of thousands of Houston area children. This will take about 5-7 minutes.

Second, I'm requesting that you sign up to receive the prayer guide for the week of prayer and service in August. It will be emailed to you in late June or early July. Just click on the link within the article that the previous request takes you to, and you can ask that the prayer guide be emailed to you. This will take about 1 minute.

Third, talk to any group that you are a part of - a book club, a meet-up group, a church small group, a Sunday School class, a civic club, a neighborhood association, your local congregation - and invite them to consider working together on a joint project of service during the Week of Prayer and Service. And invite them to be a part of the prayer movement that week as well. This will require you to get some "skin in the game."

Things are really bad for a large number of children in this city. But a movement is emerging and slowly the tide is shifting. I'm writing today to ask you to add your voice.

Standing with feet in two Kingdoms

2011-05-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

Betty and I were relaxing last night when the news of Osama Bin Laden's death flashed on the news. I was both shocked - the American government has been after him for 10 years with no success and I had become cynical about them ever catching him - and relieved - it seems to me that justice has been served.

As I watched the TV coverage, I had another response. I watched celebrations erupt, and then I read a wide variety of posts on Facebook. I was struck how uncritically we embrace the celebration. As a follower of Jesus, I can never escape the reality that I live in two Kingdoms.

One of those Kingdoms is the United States. I'm grateful to be an American - very grateful - although I am critical of many things about the way our country and culture are evolving. The fact that I can be critical of my government is one reason I'm grateful to be an America.

But I am first a citizen of the Kingdom of God. On my Facebook page I state my political views by quoting from a Derek Webb song - My first allegiance is not to a man or a country or a flag. It is to a King and a Kingdom.

For me today, there is a tension. I want to say again, in my limited human understanding of justice, it seems to me that justice has been served. But I don't celebrate Bin Laden's death. I mourn the destructive life of a child of God who wrecked so much havoc in the world. I mourn the violence that has taken the lives of so many American, Afghani, and Iraqi soldiers. I mourn a world where violence begets more violence. And I mourn the absence of enough peace-makers in the conversations between Christians and Muslims at the grassroots and at the highest levels of government.

I'm sure I'll be criticized roundly for this stance. I simply believe that the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God frequently clash, and I believe it is important to hold the tension that comes from living in both in a space of prayerful, thoughtful, dialogue. I'm pondering all of that and praying through that today.

People are staying away in unprecedented numbers

2011-04-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

People are staying away from the buildings we call "Church" in unprecedented numbers.

Some who have been present for a long time are walking away because they want to live more meaningful and missional lives - and they don't think they are getting the help needed from their local congregation to do so.

Some have never come in the first place. Raised by a generation of parents and grandparents who saw the church as irrelevant or dishonest or incompetent, they just never attended. And, the data shows that when they encounter people who do go to the buildings we call "Church" they are not mostly not drawn to become a part.

Across the country and around the world, people who follow Jesus are talking about these realities. As leaders increasingly came to grips with the changing face of things, a growing number of scholars and practitioners begin to document the challenges and to explore root causes and possible solutions. Leslie Newbigin, a long time missionary to India and in his later years a key leader in the Church in the United Kingdom is one of the primary missionary/ scholars who framed the conversation. In the U.S others joined in. George Hunsberger, Craig Van Gelder, and Alan Roxburgh are among those who have and are writing.

The conversation is now popularly framed in terms of attractional and missional congregations. I want to be quick to say that congregations are not one or the other. However, virtually every congregation that is more than 10 years old was likely started from an attractional mind set.

A congregation that tends toward the attractional framing will use its buildings, its relational capital, and its money to attract people to their building so that the teachings of Jesus can be shared by professional ministers. It will be characterized by age-based programs that are designed to meet the spiritual needs of religious consumers. Outreach is framed by the world of marketing, and missions is one compartment of the congregation's life.

A congregation that tends toward the missional framing will use its buildings, its relational capital, and its money to equip those who come to their building to embody the teaching of Jesus in their daily lives. It will be characterized by professional ministers helping individuals and families see mission in their daily life and equipping them to be on mission daily in the world. Outreach is framed by the world of service and love, and all of life is about mission.

Here is the challenge that most pastors face. Everything I've written to this point - we get. I rarely find anyone who argues that the attractional model works any more or that it is what Jesus intended. The Senior Pastor of one of Houston's largest churches recently lamented - "How did I get to be 60+ years old at the pinnacle of what I believed to be success and am now realizing that we've got to go another direction entirely? And worse, how do I tell my congregation that I'm not equipped to help them go in another direction?"

For nearly a decade Mission Houston has been experimenting with a spiritual formation process that actually results in missional living by those who participate. The work I was doing as Pastor of Harbor Church was one of the seed beds of this experimentation and the work that Ken Shuman and I did with a host of other leaders was another of the seed beds of this work.

Today we call the work Faithwalking. What we are doing is not new. In fact it is a recovery of what is very, very ancient and referred to as "the care of souls"combined with a blending of spiritual formation practices that come from divergent streams of the Church around the world.

Faithwalking started with 18 people from the private sector in September 2007. From the beginning, the end game was missional communities with our homes as the base from which we live missionally in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and other places where we had continuously sustained relationships. We took a "try a lot of things and keep what works" approach and made modifications to the process a number of times. The result is that today, we can virtually promise that if a person will engage deeply in the 18-month process that we offer, he/she will be on a missional journey of unparalleled proportions.

In 2010 our Board and staff went through a long (nearly nine month) discernment process. We came to believe that while we will continue offering Faithwalking to individuals in the private sector, we are being led by God to also begin offering Faithwalking to and through local congregations who are committed to making the transition from the attractional model to the missional model of doing congregational life. The pastors of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Fellowship of Cinco Ranch, First Christian Church, Sterlingwood Baptist Church, and Calvary Community Church are a part of this pilot project, and the feedback from these pastors has been overwhelmingly positive.

So, as we look to 2012 we hope to have 4-6 additional congregations who will engage the Faithwalking journey. It includes an intensive three-day weekend, followed by a 26 week small group process that focuses on getting breakthroughs in your personal relationships. This is then followed by a two-day weekend retreat that helps participants answer the questions, "What is the mission of God and how do we join Him in that mission?" This retreat is also followed by a small group process that is aimed at forming missional communities.

We are praying daily for God to match our heart and passion with the heart and passion of a growing group of congregations who want to pioneer the development of missional congregations in the greater Houston area.

Love Wins . . . my take on the new Rob Bell book

2011-04-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

I’m only writing about this because almost every day since the controversy erupted, someone asks me what I think about it. For those who don’t know, Rob Bell, mega church pastor in Grand Rapids, MI, and from the conservative Reformed tradition has written a new book entitled “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and The Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” Rather than characterize the message of the book, let me simply say that the message falls outside of the boundaries of faithful, conservative, orthodox theology – as I understand all of that.

So there are three things that I want to say.

First, at some level, I don’t get what the big deal is. Rob Bell’s view on heaven and hell are not new. As he says in his book and as Christianity Today writes in an article they’ve written in response to the response to his book – his view is not new. People who love Jesus and who are faithfully following him have held the view that Bell holds from the earliest days of the church. It's not the orthodox view, but it is not new.

Second, the controversy that his book has caused is, to me, a reflection of a serious problem in the church. Jesus – the Scripture in general – gives very clear, unequivocal instructions to his followers about how we are to deal with offenses. The explosion of blogs, emails, and editorials roundly condemning Rob Bell publicly for the view that he holds on one very important doctrine puts the church’s habitual and embarrassing disobedience on clear display to the world. In yet another display of anger, judgement, and condemnation, we (self-identified Christ followers) have put on full display that there are some fundamental teachings of Jesus that we simply are not committed to obeying. That makes me really sad and causes me to want to redouble my own efforts to be obedient in this arena.

I’m not saying that we can’t disagree with each other. I don’t know Rob Bell but based on his writings, he has a view of the world that is pretty different from mine in some ways. I’m pretty sure that he and I have some significant differences in beliefs. But, if I wanted to take that up with him, my understanding of the teaching of Jesus is that I need to go to Rob personally and see if I could work it out there. There is no place where I’m allowed to castigate him publicly.

Third, the controversy has clarified again for me a place that I’m trying to define myself. When I look at the life of Jesus, I mostly don’t see him being so concerned about unity of belief as I find him focusing on unity of purpose and a radical commitment to our loving one another. Nowhere does he say, “The world will know you by your unity of belief.” He says “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34-35).

I can’t speak for any other person – I'm just saying that for me, I’m committed to loving, loving well, loving in the teaching and spirit of Jesus, even when it challenges the deepest stuff in me. And I'm committed to loving those with whom I agree and those with whom I disagree. In saying this, I don’t have some mushy, willy-nilly view of love. I recognize that love has hard conversations. I recognize that love defines itself. I recognize that love confronts as well as accepts. And I recognize that it is 1000 times harder to love than it is to judge, criticize, and reject.

I recognize that this is the harder way - and I am giving my word again to this harder way.

Three "ism's that keep us barking up the wrong tree

2011-03-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

In the third chapter of To Change the World, Davidson asserts that there are three things at the root of our commitment to a view of cultural change that doesn't work. All three are deeply embedded in our view of the world- a view that guides our daily decision making but that we are not aware is driving us.

According to Davidson those views are (1) the philosophy of idealism, (2) individualism and (3) pietism. At the risk of getting pedantic, I'm going to briefly define these.

Idealism - The idea that something ideal and non-physical is the primary reality in the world. Nancy Pearey author of Total Truth says, "It has become common place to say that America's is embroiled in a culture war over conflicting moral standards. But we must remember that morality is always derivative- it stems from an underlying worldview." To engage that war she contends that, "we have to be willing to engage the underlying cognitive war." pg. 247

Individualism- This is the view that the autonomous and rational individual is the key actor in social change. Davidson notes: "In America today 86 to 88 percent of the people adhere to some faith commitment. And yet our culture - business culture, law and government, the academic world, popular entertainment - is intensely materialistic and secular.

Another illustration- in a recent gallop poll 45% of respondents agreed with this statement: "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years; and 38% opted for a form of evolutionary creationism. Yet, 0nly 13% said God had no part in the process.

So, if educational policy is a matter of hearts and minds, if individual world matters most-why has secular evolutionary theory become the official creed of public schools.

Pietism - The view that the most important goal in life is to be right with God. A theologically correct idea, Davidson says, it becomes complicated because it becomes inextricably and unconsciously interwoven with idealism and individualism.

Because in Faithwalking we encourage calm, discerning, patient reflection, today I'm just put Davidson's thinking in the space. Can you see ways that what he is saying rings true? What if it was so- that the very efforts we are making to create good cities are in fact creating exactly the opposite of our best intentions? Try that on and walk around in it for a few days.

Worldview Training Won't Change the Culture

2011-03-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

According to James Davidson Hunter in To Change the World, the recent rash of classes and camps designed to teach people a Christian worldview won't change the culture. He says it never has and it never will. And, he goes to great lengths philosophically and historically to make his point. I think he's saying that world view is important - it's just not enough.

What is culture? When I say that I want to create a good city, I mean I want the city to have the kind of culture that is good, and in my view of things good, for all of its citizens. I recognize that the city has many subcultures that impact and influence one another. And I would contend that these various parts (subcultures) interact in a way that produces an overall city culture. That overall city culture is what gives Houston (and every city) is unique personality.

So, to get clear about how one would go about creating a good culture, Davidson starts by holding up what he calls the dominant view of culture. He says it can be summarized in this way. The essence of culture is found in the hearts and minds of individuals - in what are typically called - values. Values are, simply, moral preferences or conscious attachment toward what is good and right. Some call it a worldview.

So, the way you make a good city is to teach enough individuals to believe the right things, have the right values. This is how you change a culture. Chuck Colson on the Christian right asserts that this is so in How Then Shall We Live. James Dobson makes the same assertion in The Truth Project. Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, echoes this sentiment in his book A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can do to Transform Culture. He says, "The responsibility of Christians in our own time remains as it was in Paul's time - to radically transform culture, not by imposing values from above, but through a subtler yet more powerful process - living a vocation of love in the day-to-day reality of our lives." (pg 5)

Davidson points out that this is not a new view. Thomas Jefferson gave voice to this . . . "Enlighten the people generally and tryanny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the day of day (from Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim). (pg 266)

So, the view that Davidson says is common is this: "Change the values of the common person for the better and good society will follow in turn." (pg 9) I confess that this is in part the view that I have held and to some degree still hold. It seems like common sense that if a majority of the citizens do justice and walk humbly with God that the result would be a just and humble society.

So, if world view doesn't get the job done, what does? Well, you'll have to wait for another blog to get that. My last thoughts today on this subject are to reflect on my own journey in light of Davidson's view.

I was given a view that to make a better culture you have to do the work that molds and shapes people's worldview - the view that Davidson says does not work. For a long time - maybe because I live in a democracy - I believed it needed to be a 51% majority. I don't believe that any more.

My view has been that the church was best positioned to teach world view - at least to teach the world view that Jesus seemed to have. But, that has been a very disappointing journey for me. As I've written in other places, the church today looks more like the western, consumer driven, power hungry culture than it does a collection of followers of Jesus - living out of a mental model of self-help, consumerism, moralism, and accumulating power to use as a self-interest group intent on demanding it's own rights. I just thought that if we could get the church to change, then the work of changing world view would change the culture. So with Mike Bonem and James Furr, I wrote a book entitled Leading Congregational Change and I worked for a more than decade attempting to change the local congregation so that together we could make the city a better place for all of its citizens to live.

Davidson says I've been barking up the wrong tree. That even if the local congregation is changed in a transformational way and begins to make the kinds of disciples that really look and act like Jesus, we won't make the city a better place. So that seems so counter-intuitive.

How we think about culture changing does not and can not work.

2011-03-13T17:59:00.001-07:00

The title of this blog is the opening assertion that James Davidson Hunter makes in his book, To Change the World. It's an assertion that actually gives me some comfort. Since about 1995 I have been explicitly thinking about whether it is possible to change the trajectory of the life of a city.

It was in 1995 that I was first challenged to think and act at the city level, and frankly I stepped into a way of approaching the task that was handed to me. Two people in particular who led these movements at a national level were deeply influential in shaping how I go about the work that I do as a part of Mission Houston. The longer and harder I've worked at what was given to me, the more I've wondered if our lack of results in cities across the country is actually tied to the fundamental assumptions we bring to the work. Hunter challenges some of those fundamental assumptions in his writings.

He believes, as I do, that human beings by divine intent are world makers. They are charged with the stewardship of the earth. What we do, and how we engage our relationships and our environment, matter. There is a sense in which we work together with God to create the future. And, Hunters says that our legacy in this endeavor leaves much to celebrate and much of which to repent. I agree.

He says that as he writes this book, he will explore the implicit theories (assumptions and mental models) and explicit practices that operate within the complex and often conflicted religious and cultural movements that are present in the U.S. His explorations are broad ranging. His work includes reviewing the ways that conservatives and progressives, Catholics and Protestants, mainline, charismatics, and evangelicals go about trying to change the world. Though we have seemingly different theologies, Hunter asserts that we all have a view about changing our world that is more alike than different. And the view that we hold is precisely the reason that we don't see more impact.

In the open chapter he writes: " I contend that the dominant ways of thinking about culture and cultural change are flawed. The model on which our world changing efforts are based not only do not work, they can not work."

Hmmm . . . he's sure got me thinking. More to come.

This could be a game changer for me

2011-02-27T06:16:00.000-08:00

I have a passionate desire to live my life in a way that makes the world a better place. In particular, I want the city that I have called home for 27 years to be a living, vibrant life-giving city. I want it to be safe. I want every person to be valued and respected. I want it to be a place where every person has the opportunity to create something of value with their life. I want every person to be free to choose who and how they worship. I want it to be richly diverse.

And I want these things for all people . . . for democrats and republicans, for Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheist, for gays and straights, for conservatives and liberals. I want these things for everyone who lives here. And I want them most for the oppressed and the marginalized.

I am a self-identified CHristian. I have chosen to make the life and teachings of Jesus the rule of my life, and I am on a journey of attempting to live what He taught - the things that are easy and the things that are very hard. As a part of that teaching, I passionately seek to make disciples of Jesus as he teaches in Matthew 28:18-20.

For those who are not followers of Jesus there must be some tension between my desire to make disciples of Jesus and my commitment to help build a city where people are truly free to choose not to follow Him. For those who do follow Him, I frequently take heat for truly wanting people of all kinds to experience the blessings of living in a great city, even if they are not Christians.

How do you create that kind of city? I confess that I don't know how to create that kind of city. I have a set of evolving beliefs that come from the Bible and have been tested in a series of on-going experiences. A lot of what helps my thinking evolve is reading and practice.

Several books have contributed most dramatically to my evolving thinking about creating a good city. Recently, I've read perhaps the most provocative book I've read in a decade. James Hunter Davidson's new book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

If Davidson's assertions are correct, it's a game changer. I've read his book and am now doing what I do to really learn. I'm re-reading slowly. . . one chapter at a time. And I'm going to do a series of posts to summarize what Davidson says and what I'm getting from his writing.

So, if you want to share this learning process, please read and comment.

Distinguishing Church Members from Followers of Jesus

2011-01-21T09:49:00.001-08:00

What would it look like if we really distinguished church members from disciples and then rigorously evaluated congregational success by the kinds of followers of Jesus that we produced? The Faithwalking community of which I’m a part has been asking this question and rigorously pursuing the answer for several years. We begin all of our Faithwalking retreats with these words.

We live in a day where there are two views of what it means to be fully human, fully alive. These two views have become blurred to the point that they are virtually collapsed into one in the Church in our culture. In fact, we believe that they are so collapsed into one that nothing short of personal transformation will be able to get them distinguished. It is our belief that getting these two views clearly distinguished is the first step into the journey of personal transformation.

The first view is the one offered by western culture. In the western culture view, being fully human is about getting the goods - about being good, obeying the laws, and as a consumer, pursuing the American dream. In this view a growing life of ease and convenience is the goal; suffering and sacrifice are to be avoided when possible. This view leads to a self-centered life where I take care of me and mine but ignore the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. Somebody ought to take on the challenges in the common good, but not me.

This consumer view has bled over into the Church. Increasingly we pursue and consume religious goods and services. We have language that reflects this consumer view. We frequently talk about “church shopping.” How often have you heard someone say, “We are shopping for another church? The one we are currently attending isn’t meeting our needs. The pastor’s sermons aren’t adequately feeding us. The youth ministry isn’t engaging my kids.” Increasingly the call to sacrificial service, denying oneself, and taking up the cross daily as a way of life are absent from our conversations and from our intentions.

So, this consumer view declares that you get the abundant life – the eternal kind of life that Jesus promises – by pursuing a life of growing ease and convenience – defining oneself by what is possessed and consumed. It’s deceptive because in this view, people are called to serve and do mission trips – as one compartment of their lives. After all, that makes me feel good.

The second view is Jesus’ view of being fully human and fully alive. Jesus stands in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets who assert that we are designed to have stewardship over the earth. Ours is a call to a life of service on behalf of the common good. It is a life where I am responsible for myself and for my family. I am also responsible for loving my neighbor – for being my brother’s keeper. The Faithwalking community often says, in the language of contemporary society, that Jesus calls us to live a life where we take responsibility for the systems and structures of the community or city that we live in. The common good is our assignment, and it is when we take on that assignment that we experience the fully human, fully alive reality that Jesus says is possible.

One mega church pastor who is a good friend said to me recently. “I wish that you weren’t so convinced that we aren’t making followers of Jesus. If you’d come with me I could show you a number of people who are living exactly the kind of life you are calling us to.”

My response: “I absolutely believe that. The problem is that these people emerge from your congregation as the exception, not the rule.”

Sadly, he agreed.

So, I keep wondering, what would happen if we really distinguished church members from disciples and then rigorously measured congregational success by the kinds of followers of Jesus that we produced?

More about that next time.

Playing Inside the Box

2011-01-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

It seems to me in the early days of 2011, there is ample reason to be resigned and cynical about the local congregation. There is growing empirical evidence that I’m not alone in that. That may seem like a sour way to begin a new year, but actually for me, it is a very hopeful thing when people can tell the truth about about current reality. Only then can we have the courageous conversations that will lead to deep change.

For 27 years, I’ve served the Greater Houston area as a pastor, a pastor to pastors, a discipleship coach, and as an agitator seeking to challenge the status quo. The message has been singular. The Church, as Jesus envisioned it, is the hope of the world, and the institutional expression of the church that we call “local congregation” in our western culture is growing farther and farther from my understanding of Jesus’ vision. Over 27 years in the city and a little progress has been made, but we are still seriously in trouble – enough so that if you believe that the local congregation matters, you should be concerned.

With a mega church on every corner, it’s challenging for some to believe what I’m saying. In my view, the presence of so many mega churches in Houston is deceiving. For six decades now, the number of people attending a local congregation has declined – incrementally at first but with growing speed these days. During that season of decline the Church has increasingly demonstrated an inability to solve any of the systemic problems that face our society.

During this same period, a smaller and smaller number of congregations have figured out how to reach the growing market of religious consumers that populate our city. According to analysis done during CityFest Houston with Luis Palau (2006), we have about 4,500 congregations in the city and approximately 70% of those who attend church in Houston attend one of our 59 mega churches (mega church here is defined as a church with an average worship attendance of 2,500 or more).

It seems to me that the fundamental reason that we are still trending downward after five decades is that we are mostly still playing inside the box. "The box" I'm referring to here is the local congregation that gathers to itself church members who attend worship services and activities at the church. These church members generally live a very compartmentalized life – work is in one box, ministry in another. In this compartmentalized way of living there is no real demonstrated commitment to missional living. Instead, we have our real life of work and then we have this compartment that is ministry. We give a very small percentage of our time to ministry - after all we pay a pastor to do that work. So in this ministry box, we go to church, volunteer a little of our time, take an occasional mission trip – but we give the vast majority of our lives to the work place that is not viewed as a place of ministry.

Dallas Willard said it so clearly in The Divine Conspiracy: “Somewhere along the way we stopped asking, ‘How do we make followers of Jesus,’ and we started asking, ‘How do we make good church members?’” That shift, in my view of the world, has had disastrous consequences.

I recognize that the lines between a church member and a follower of Jesus are not mutually exclusive. I’m also quite certain that until we can distinguish our measure of success – are we making church member or are we making followers of Jesus – and then rigorously measure the success of the local congregation by its output – we will not see these 60+ year trends reversed. I want to write more about this next time.

Something Amazing is Happening at the University of Texas

2010-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Almost a decade ago, Justin Christopher invited me to come to UT to meet with a group of campus ministers who had been praying for students and faculty at UT for a number of years. For three years in a row, God gave me the incredible privilege of helping these young leaders discern what God was saying to them about working together in a collaborative fashion.

This week, I got the following note from Justin as he is release his new book - Campus Renewal - A Practical Plan for Uniting Campus Ministries in Prayer and Mission. Here is what he says.

God is doing something amazing at the University of Texas!! The Body of Christ, composed of more than 60 campus ministries and churches, is working together as one united Body to reach all 50,000 students with the Gospel of Jesus. Over the last 10 years the Christian community at UT has DOUBLED in size, from 5% of UT students involved in campus ministry to 10% involved in campus ministry.

And that is just a part of the story of what God. You can learn a lot more in Justin's new book Campus Renewal. I believe you would be very encouraged to read about all that God is doing at UT. It’s great to have this twenty-year story in readable form now. I encourage you to purchase a copy for yourself... and forward this news on to others in your networks whom you think would be interested in reading about how ministries are partnering together to transform a college campus with the Gospel.

You can read more about the book and purchase it at http://campusrenewal.org/campusrenewalbook

Brilliant, talented and poor

2010-11-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

His name is Brian. He is talented, brilliant, and so poor that he will not be able to attend high school. That means that he will spend his life living on an income of $3- $5 a day.

I first met him when we came to Guatemala this past summer. He plays the keyboard for the church service. He is a student - an eight grader - in the local school. We were drawn to him, in part, because he is learning English and he was willing to practice with us. Throughout the week that we were here, he would come to us and initiate a conversation in English. It was endearing.

Then we learned another part of his story. We met his 82 year old grandmother. She is raising Brian and his two younger siblings. His parents came to the U.S. about five years ago with the intent of making money and then sending for their kids. But, they got a divorce while in the U.S. and neither of them were willing to have the kids. So the grandmother is raising them.

When we returned to Guatemala this week, we met Brian again. He's still playing the keyboard and he's still in school. He's not heard from his parents since we were here last. He's a very bright young man who is excelling in school - literally #1 in his class academically. This school year he participated in an annual city wide competition in which a student is chosen to be the President of the Supreme Court of Guatemala - Corte Suprema de Justicia - for one day. Brian placed second in that competition.

Today we learned that Brian will not be able to go to high school. Once you complete the eight grade, it cost approximately 500 American dollars, to attend high school, and the school system does not provide scholarships. Que triste (Spanish for 'how sad.")

I never hear stories like this that I'm not pushed to realize how much I have and what a little sacrifice it would take to alter the trajectory of another human being's life. And then I realize how large a network of family and friends God has given me and it makes me wonder why any child in this community of Linda Vista in Guatemala City would ever not have the opportunity to go to high school.

Three ways you can make an immediate difference!

2010-10-07T11:55:00.001-07:00

The missional community we call Harbor has four teachers who serve high risk kids in the city's public schools. This post contains three requests - three ways that you could make an immediate difference for these teachers and the kids they serve.

Mentor Coordinator - at Gregory Lincoln, God has used Betty Herrington to recruit and deploy 18 mentors. To keep this going and to draw more folks in (they could use 20 more mentors) she needs a mentor coordinator. This person would connect teachers to mentors; encourage mentors who get stuck; and help solve problems so the effort succeeds.

Prayer Coordinator - also at Gregory Lincoln, Betty would like to have one adult praying for each of child, that child's mentor, and that child's teacher. She needs a prayer coordinator. This person would gather prayer concerns regarding the school and the efforts to educate the kids and share those concerns regularly with people who are willing to pray.

At The Rice School, Holly Holt Cabrera is the music teacher. Here's a portion of an email she sent me recently. Each year I do a grade level musical with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. I have a small group of professional - all of whom are believers - to help stage or costume or run sound. Because of lack of funds, I can't do that this year. The impact these professionals have on the students is huge. They enlarge the student's vision for what is possible for their lives and give the kids an experience of excellence that transforms them.

It would cost about $3000 to do this for all three grades, and I currently have about $1,000. Do you think there is someone in Harbor's network of relationships who loves kids and sees the value of the arts who might help us do this.

If you'd like to participate in raising that money, email me at jthhou@gmail.com and I'll tell you how to get that money to Holly and her kids. And if you'd like to volunteer to serve at Gregory Lincoln, same drill. Email me and I'll connect you to Betty.

Whatever you do, please join us in giving thanks for these teachers who are being used by God - not just to teach a class but to impact a school and a generation.

These are not just "some" kids

2010-08-20T09:45:00.001-07:00

This is not just some school with some kids who have some problems. They are our neighbors. We can pass them by like the priest or the Levite in the Good Samaritan story or we can treat them like what they are - our neighbors."

These are words that Betty Herrington spoke to a group of small group leaders at Ecclesia Christian Community tonight. She was referring to children at Gregory Lincoln Elementary School where she has been an elementary school teacher for 10 years. Gregory Lincoln is about 12 blocks from the building Ecclesia meets in each weekend.

Betty goes on to say: "As a teacher at Gregory-Lincoln for the past 10 years, I have seen how hopeless life seems for many of the students and their families. The children have little support from home to dream dreams and set goals for a life that is different than what they see currently all around them. They get discouraged about being able to even make it through school due to the lack of support and encouragement from home where paying bills and putting food on the table is more of the pressing need than seeing that the children get homework or even have needed school supplies. When this happens over time, apathy sets in with the students, the teachers get discouraged as well and experience pressure to achieve when the students could care less. All of a sudden, you begin to realize that there is an air of discouragement and apathy all around the school."

In addition to the stellar work Betty does as a teacher at Gregory Lincoln, she is working with a team of people to recruit 20 mentors for kindergarten through third grade for the upcoming school year. Would you join Betty, me and the Harbor Church community in praying for God to raise up these mentors. If you know people who live or work in Montrose, 4th Ward, Downtown, Mid-town, Medical Center, West University, or the Upper Kirby District who is willing to be trained to mentor, please have them contact Betty at Bettybh@gmail.com or call her at 832-545-3060.

In the Real World: How A Young Married Couple Is Taking A Chance at Living Missionally

2010-07-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Stephen and Kayla Briseño have just moved into a 16-unit apartment complex in Montrose as an expression of their commitment to live missionally for the sake of God's Kingdom. Stephen participated in our most recent Faithwalking retreat, and this is a part of their story.

We begin at Sam Houston State University where they met. Both were involved in Chi Alpha, the campus ministry that represents the Assemblies of God Churches in the United States. When asked about their experience there, Stephen said, "Our spiritual formation took place there. We were seriously discipled - not in a class room but in life. Our leaders did life with us. They were in the good stuff, and they were in our brokeness and the messes in our lives too."

In Stephen's Junior year, a group of Chi Alpha students, including he and Kayla, responded to God's leadership to move back into the dorms on campus to live missionally among their fellowship students. It was their first taste of missional living. They found it difficult yet deeply satisfying.

After graduation, Kayla did a year of missional living in Egypt and then she and Stephen were married. When they came to Houston, they both got teaching jobs in Fort Bend County - but they were drawn to the Montrose Community. They wanted to live missionally here. Kayla said, "Missional living was in our hearts from our college experience and from my year in Egypt." But they struggled to find a church that wasn't inwardly focused on bringing people to the church building.

One day driving down Montrose Blvd, they saw the sign for Canvas Church. Canvas meets in the Inner-Faith Ministries building on Montrose just south of Westheimer. They visited the church and met Chris and Allison Parrot, the pastors who are planting Canvas.

Stephen said, "When I met Chris it was like everything clicked. He was planting a church that equips people to live missionally, and pretty quickly we knew that we were destined to partner up with them."

So, the Brisenos have planted their lives in Montrose and in Canvas. As they prayed about how they could form a missional community in some part of Montrose, they were out riding their bikes around the community one day and found "Georgian Square Apartments." It seemed perfect – 16 units built around an open court yard with large shade trees, and it could not have come at a more perfect time. Stephen said, "We had been searching for a place and waiting for God's timing and location. This place, which was just a few blocks away from our old place, was revealed." They signed a lease and moved in.

They've been there about a month. They are slowly building relationships with the folks who live there and even their land lady - attempting to be salt and light in the lives of their neighbors. Just this past week, another Canvas member and her fiancee came to visit the the Briseno's and are considering renting an apartment there and becoming a part of this budding missional community.

Stephen recently completed the Faithwalking retreat and is currently involved in the 201 course. Stephen said, "In college through Chi Alpha, we had a leadership structure and a community that supported and encouraged us as we lived missionally. We were not sure where we would find that in the real world. The Faithwalking leadership challenged me to open those areas of my life that I had not yet opened to God. And, they refused to provide a "step-by-step" model that is so popular and impersonal.

Instead, they emphasized personal transformation in community in real practical ways.

When asked how they would know that the Kingdom of God was coming in Georgian Square apartments as it is in heaven, Stephen said, “when the lives’ of my neighbors are transformed by the power of the Gospel, when they know they are loved, cared for in such a way that is not normal, and are compelled to come into contact with Jesus Himself.”

Anatomy of a breakthrough - part 2

2010-07-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

My last post was a real time, and for me pretty raw, journaling of some things that I am learning about how I "am" in relationships. I believe that change comes in relationships, in part, as I focus on my part of the relational dance. The relational dance is a patterned way of interacting with another person. I do this, and he says that. When he says that, I feel this, and based on that feeling, I do that. Then when I do that, he has a patterned way of responding. Like the steps in a dance, we repeat the process over and over - always with the same outcome.

It is my belief that all of my meaningful relationships have a relational dance. In the past when I was left feeling disempowered or unsatisfied with how the relationship was going, I was trained to focus on controlling the other person's behavior - trying to get them to change. More recently, I'm learning to focus on my part of the dance - the part that I actually have some control over. What am I doing or not doing? What am I saying or not saying that contributes to the dance? Just slowing down enough to answer these questions is empowering.

In my last post I described some of what I was seeing about myself and then described some of the spiritual practices that helped me keep my part of the dance on the radar screen where I could see it - give the Holy Spirit and some family and friends access to it - and ponder how I might be different (more in line with my espoused values and beliefs.)

Following my last post I've taken three actions that I believe is producing deep change in me. The best evidence of that is that I'm seeing some change in the dance in several key relationships.

First, I went back to the people who called me out in the first place. My intent was to own my behavior, declare my intention to be different, and ask for patience and accountability as I worked on making changes in some deeply engrained behavior patterns.

It took a while before I could do that. I felt deeply hurt in being called out. At least one person called me out in a very public way. For that person, three times I started to have the follow up conversation and each time, I discovered anger arising within me that was still strong enough that I didn't trust myself not to lash out and hurt him. I knew that as long as the anger was present with that intensity, I could not have the conversation. Each time, I actually reported to this person that I was angry and hurt - that I was intent on forgiving and owning my part - but that God was still working in me to get me to that place. Fortunately, he was gracious enough to allow me plenty of time and space, and when we finally had the conversation - nearly two weeks later - it was a powerful, redemptive conversation for me - and I think for him as well.

Second, after this initial round of confessional conversations, I went back to my coaches. I have several people who have permission to speak into my life as a coach, but in this particular case, Todd and Steve were the primary people I turned to (thanks guys). They prayed with me and for me. They encouraged me to look for additional openings for getting in action. Beyond just owning my part of the dance and declaring a desire to be different, they reminded me that intention and desire does not transform - action does.

After spending a couple of days praying and fasting, I determined to have conversations with two important people in my life - both members of the Board of Directors for Mission Houston - the ministry for whom I work and to whom I am accountable. It was my intent to tell them what I saw and how I wanted to be different - particularly as it related to my interactions with the Mission Houston Board and Staff. But, I couldn't find my way forward to have the conversations. Each time I set out to have them, the fear that arose within was an obstacle to action. What would they think? Could I deliver on my promise to be different? Would I be judged or punished for putting my brokenness in the light. And then I got discouraged.

I am generally a happy, engaged, and energetic person. During this season I found myself listless, lethargic and almost unable to focus on tasks that needed to be done. I can not ever - in all my life - remember being like this. It scared me and pushed me to the third action that I took.

Third, I had a very authentic conversation with God. I told Him (cringing in a corner with some unrealistic fear that He might turn me to toast), that in moments like these I was not so sure that he was a personal deity who was concerned about and involved in my life. If he was, why didn't He give me the courage I was asking for. I felt weak and emasculated. Why wouldn't He help? I wish I could tell you that being this authentic changed things, but they didn't - at least not like magic fairy dust. For a while - for what seemed like a long while to me - God was silent.

I'm going to stop there for this post. There is a part-three coming. This is the anatomy of a God-given breakthrough, not the miserable whining of victim. But, breakthroughs take time. So be patient with me.

Anatomy of a breakthrough - part 1

2010-05-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've had three very authentic, and very painful conversations this past week that are resulting in a breakthrough in my life. In each conversation someone "called me out" as I was anxiously trying to "control" a situation. I want to record the experience in real time - in part to sharpen my own focus on the experience - and in part because in the Faithwalking community we are not satisified with incremental progress. Transformation requires breakthroughs. Maybe my learning will help someone else.

From previous practice and with good coaching (thank you Steve and Todd), I was able to process the three painful experiences like this. "What am I doing to contribute to this set of circumstances coming to pass? How am I "being" that I keep getting this result? How am I "being" that lacks integrity with my declared values? This kind of focus reminds me that I am the problem - that my choices are the only things I have any real control over.

As I focused there - as I prayed, sat in solitude, journaled, read the Scripture, reminded myself of my professed values, and got some coaching - I began to see some ways in which my way of being was/is the problem. I sat with that a while. It hurt. I felt tender and vulnerable. I was more than a little embarrassed. How had I not seen this before? What else do others see that I don't see? I had to resist the temptation to make the problem someone else's responsibility. All of that required courage - staying in that place of vulnerabilty and openness in spite of my negative feelings.

From my previous training and the good coaching I got, I remembered that I stay stuck because the way that I do relationships is comfortable for me - even when it doesn't work - it's a not working that I know. Remembering that helped me stay in this reflective space. I had to choose to engage what felt like suffering while fighting off pity, guilt, shame, and fear. It was/is a battle.

Eventually, in God's mercy, I was able to see an action I could take that would change my behavior - and it scared me pretty badly. And then it hit me . . . I was afraid to take this action because I didn't trust the outcome and I didn't trust the people who I would have to engage in the action. That opened up a new way of seeing, and so I sat with that for a while. And then it hit me again . . .below not trusting the actions or the people who would have to be engaged, I didn't trust that I would be "ok" if the result of changing my behavior didn't "work." Translate that last sentence, "if changing my behavior didn't get the people around me to do what I wanted them to do." (Sigh - I am a control freak beyond the pale.)

But with good coaching and from previous practice, I just sat with that in silence and solitude. And then God empowered me to see that I really didn't trust that if I would just "be" radically committed to what I could see was right and trust God to take care of me, I would be ok. At the core of the core of the resistance was a fear that God could not be trusted to take care of me. Hmmmm . . .so I sat with that for a while.

Are you beginning to get the sense that breakthroughs require slowing the pace down and staying with negative feelings for a while?

So, I see a way to move forward. I'm really afraid. So I'm engaging spiritual practices that help me have courage. Today I had my first conversation about this with someone who is not my coach and not involved in the relationships I'm writing about. To this friend who is outsider to these conversations, I described what was so. I described where I was being inauthentic. I described what I saw possible if I could get in action, being different - more authentic, more aligned with my professed values - in these troubled relationships. Describing the possibilities was empowering. Declaring my commitment to get into action was empowering. Asking this friend to pray for me and to hold me accountable was empowering. At the end of this conversation, I committed to having one more conversation like the this one - and then I promised to get into action.

That's where I am. I know this is somewhat theoretical. I want to write about this without exposing the folks I'm engaged with. I'll write later about the actions I'm taking, describe how I'm attempting to "be" different, and write about what happens as I practice being different.

I'm committed to a breakthrough.

Life on the balance beam

2010-05-22T05:07:00.001-07:00

Jesus says clearly that we live the abundant kind of life when we live missionally. Many Christians that I know have substituted Jesus' call to abundant life for a safe, dummied down version of life that is defined by being consumers who play it safe. My friend Bill Byrd just put me on to a very simple, graphic illustration that challenges me to the adventure of missional living. The illustration comes from Pastor Francis Chan - one of the most missional leaders around. It's a brief video (about three minutes). Click here to see it.

The Faithwalking community is calling people and equipping people to live missionally. If you'd like to learn to live missionally - or if you are living missionally and want to be a part of a community of people who are doing so I invite you to register for an upcoming Faithwalking retreat.

Deadline Approaching

2010-05-19T11:04:00.001-07:00

Jesus designed us for missional living. When we live missionally, we find the abundance, the rest, the joy that Jesus promises. Mission Houston's Faithwalking ministry is successfully equipping people for missional living, and we invite you to become a part of this work.

Our next retreat is set for June 4-6, 2010. The deadline for registration is Friday, May 28th, and we have two places available. To register, go to this link. We'd love to have you join us.

Did Jesus come to create a new religion?

2010-04-28T12:28:00.001-07:00

I was sitting in a booth with a young leader who is making a huge impact with his life. He is planting missional communities among Arab immigrants in the greater Houston area. I asked , "Are you a church planter?"

He looked at me cautiously. We had only met once a couple of weeks earlier. There was a personal, relational connect but we had not built a lot of trust. Then something seemed to pass from his eyes like he decided to risk being authentic with me. He said, "Probably not like you think about planting churches."

"What does that mean?" I asked?

He said, "Well, I guess the starting point is to tell you that I don't think Jesus came to start a new religion."

We sat there in silence. It was as if he was gauging my response, trying to determine whether I could handle the truth that he was about to tell me. Then he pressed in.

"It doesn't make sense to me," he said, "that Jesus would die on a cross to forgive sin and, as Paul says in Ephesians, to remove the wall that divided Jews and Gentiles, in order to create another religion that would make insiders and outsiders."

Again, he was silent.

Then, he said, "So no, I don't plant churches in the sense of creating groups of people who call themselves Christians and then go to Muslims and say, 'We are right and you are wrong. We are the insiders who know the truth and you are the outsider who is doomed to hell because you don't know the truth. Please convert to Christianity. Instead I honor and respect who they are as Muslims and out of an authentic friendship of mutual respect, I say to them, "Your Holy Scriptures and mine speak of Jesus. I promise never to try to convert you to Christianity. What I'd like to do is, through our friendship, explore the life of Jesus and look at how his life impacts my life as a Christian and your life as a Muslim. I believe we can both follow him from the religions we were born into, and I believe that if we do, we have more chance of God's Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven."

This young friend told me several stories of impact. I was deeply encouraged. When he left, I had a few minutes before my next appointment . . . so, I sat and drank another glass of tea. And I pondered this young man's beliefs . . .and his practices . . . and I pondered deeply about the life and mission of Jesus.

Fostering a conversation about repentance

2010-04-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

We are trying to foster a conversation that grows out of a deep sense of urgency. As Ed Young says in recent billboard campaign around the city, America is broken. The systems and structures that once created a culture of responsible freedom simply are not working, and in my view, at the heart of that is the failure of the Church to be the Church.

Biblically, II Chronicles 7:14 is one of a variety of places that we could go to remind ourselves that the condition of the land is our responsibility. When famine comes, we could blame the politicians (on one end of a spectrum) or the drug dealers (on the other). Blaming others is easy and may get short-term headlines. It does not however, get long-term change.

This passage calls us to repent. In today’s context it might read, “Repent of the consumer version of Christianity you’ve embraced.” Or it might read, “Repent of your pursuit of materialism.” Or perhaps, “Repent of your judgmental and fearful spirit that is directed toward the land you were called to steward.” Or it might read, “Repent of your abandonment of the mission I gave to you to be salt and light in the dark and broken places” (Matthew 5:13-16; 25:31-46).

In the At the Corner of . . . conference we are attempting to foster a conversation within the Body of Christ in the greater Houston area about repentance that leads to missional living. This is a repentance that changes our minds about false divisions between sacred and secular. It is a repentance that faces squarely places of habitual disobedience in our lives – personally and corporately. It is a repentance that moves us from the church building to being the church in the world.

It’s not too late to join us. You can register here (no charge). And if you can’t join us, please be one of many who will be holding this time of coming together in prayer.

Doing missions or living missionally?

2010-04-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

The problem with telling missional stories is that we take them to mean, this is the way to live a missional life. Please don't do that as you read some of Ginger Smith's thoughts. I've posted them here because every time I'm around her, I'm encouraged, inspired, and more determined than before I was in her presence to love and serve Jesus. So hear her story as her expression of obedience to Jesus. And then wonder with Jesus what your expression might look like. Then join us on April 23 for the At the Corner of . . . Conference to hear more stories of people who are risking a lot in order to live a missional life. Here's some of Ginger's story.

I’ve seen both approaches. I’ve gone on many 1-2 mission trips been involved in tons of service projects. And I’ve lived a missional life for 17 years.

I love the excitement that’s generated by people on a mission trip. They spend months planning for the one-week opportunity. During their week, they have ultra-sensitive radar to God’s Spirit moving. They see a random person walking by and they reach out to share His love with her. They spot a homeless man on the corner and stop to minister to him. They see children playing and they stop and connect. They are constantly focused on serving others. Usually they return with heightened sensitivity to living missionally in their daily life, but slowly the press of real life sucks the commitment out of them.

Missional living should be in the everyday, 24/7 life of followers of Jesus. I don’t know yet if it’s feasible or reasonable to stop at every single person you see in need. When I study Jesus’ interaction with people, I see where He stepped away from crowds because He needed rest and He needed to regain His sense of purpose. In my own life, there is a constant battle to try to meet in the middle with those two.

That’s the challenge the conversation about missional living raises for me. I get tired. I need rest. Some days I wake up and I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to serve people. I fight this inner call. Yet, I can’t let go of it. It’s not something I walk away from. It is who I am. I can’t look at a holy God and receive and not give. I can’t look at a holy God and appreciate the things He has done for me, the grace He has given me, and keep that to myself. For me, it’s not possible. So some days when I wake up and I don’t want to be this, I know that I have to be this. It’s not a burden; it’s who I am.

The truth is that God has chosen sinful people to serve Him. The battle I face is my need for perfection in conflict with my reality of imperfection. Yet when I relate to people on the street and to people who have not heard and do not know, the best compliment and the best encouragement I receive from them is that they can relate because I’m “real” and I’m like them. I can’t be something I’m not. I have to serve God with honesty and integrity.

Recently, a friend I’ve known for over 10 years who has a history of drug use and homelessness told me that she no longer calls her pastor, “Pastor.” She calls him “Friend.” She discovered that he wasn’t perfect and that he had problems in his family and his life. She was amazed to know that he wasn’t perfect. Because of his imperfections, she could put a new identity on him, “friend.”

The missional life is being real. It’s being who God has called you to be – not just on an occasional mission trip but daily where you live and work. It‘s showing people who you are, flaws and all. Then trusting that through that honest approach you can communicate your devotion, love and service to Him. Letting people see, letting people touch, even smell the stench of your sin; all the while communicating the seemingly unfathomable grace of a loving God. This is living a life missional life.

Do you have a job or a calling?

2010-03-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

In my childhood experience, there were two groups of people who were "called." They were ministers and missionaries. Everyone else had a job. I've been thinking about that a lot recently because it is the contention of the "At the Corner of . . . " conference that Mission Houston is offering that everyone has a calling, and that living into that calling is the essence of what Jesus meant when he talked about the abundant life.

Today in my reading Ruth Haley Barton's words called out to me. I hope her words trigger a conversation for you about your calling.

In our day it may seem almost archaic to talk about the idea of calling. Tilden Edwards wisely observes, "Calling is a much abused word today. In the church it can be little more than a pious euphemism for doing what we feel like doing. Such abuse is brought to celebration in the secular culture, when doing what we feel like doing, attained by any way we feel like doing it, seems often to be what lies behind career development."

However, the biblical idea of calling is not easily dismissed. Its meaning is richly layered. In its simplest and most straightforward meaning, the verb to call refers to the capacity living creatures have to call out to one another, to stay connected, to communicate something of importance. Even at this most basic level the dynamic of calling is profound, because it reminds us that calling is first of all highly relational: it has to do with one being (God) reaching out and establishing connection with another (us). It is an interpersonal connection and communication that is initiated by God and thus demands our attention and our response even as a basic courtesy.

In the Old Testament, the idea of calling goes beyond this most basic meaning to include the idea of naming and calling something into being. In His book The Call, Os Guinness writes, "Such decisive, creative naming is a form of making . . . . Calling is not only a matter of being and doing what we are but also of becoming what we are not yet but are called by God to be."

In the New Testament, the idea of calling is almost synonymous with salvation and the life of faith itself. We are saved from being who we are not and called to be who we are. God calls us first and foremost to belong to him, but our secondary calling is to answer God's personal address to us. It is to say yes to his summons to serve him in a particular way at a particular point in history. To say yes to our calling is one more step in the journey of faith which involves a glad, joyful self-surrender. It is living in the awareness that the most wonderful thing in the world is to be completely given over to a loving God.

from Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership

What if followers of Jesus were living a called life rather than having a job and then "going to church?" How might our world be different? On April 23 we invite you to join us in advancing this conversation - perhaps sharing the story of your own calling to the corner of . . . . or exploring what corner it is that you've been called to.

We don't know what we don't know

2010-03-25T11:50:00.001-07:00

Here's what we think we know. There is a massive population in the greater Houston area that no longer comes to the local congregation. They no longer see the local congregation as a primary source of spiritual education, guidance or nurture. In fact, this massive population has negative impressions of us (Christians) as judgmental and self-righteous people. So, we know that the attractional model of life (defined as build a building and they will come) is having less and less impact.

We also think we know that training people to live missional lives - lives where they collaborate with others to make the presence of God known in the homes, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces of our city - is central to reversing the trends of the past six decades. We believe this so deeply that we have moved Faithwalking to the center of everything we do at Mission Houston. Faithwalking is the training process that we have developed for equipping people to live missionally. The process is born, in part, of 10 years of work - the successes and the failures - that the Harbor Community has experienced in the Montrose area. Two years ago after capturing the learning from our work in Montrose, we piloted the Faithwalking process and had such success in seeing God produce missional communities that it has become the central thing that we do.

We also know that we only know what we know and that there is a tone of stuff that we don't know - and we don't know that we don't know it. That's where the idea of "At the Corner of . . . " came from. It seemed to us that the best way to accelerate learning about what it means to live a missional life is to bring together people who are in that conversation - the missional living conversation - and let them talk to and hear from one another.

So, I'm becoming increasingly direct about asking every person that I know who is committed to living missionally to join us on April 23 from 12:30 till 5:30. We want you to participate in this conversation. You'll hear from two keynote, nationally known inspirational leaders who are on the front edge of the missional living conversation. You'll also interact with about 10 Houstonians who are out there experimenting with obedience as they risk the adventure of living missionally in places like The Kirby Corporation, 5th Street in Stafford, Spring Branch, and a trailer park in Tomball. And it won't be all just listening. You'll hear these stories and have the opportunity to interact. To ask questions. To share what you are learning about missional living.

And the good news is that there is no charge. So, would you join us? Though there is no charge, we do need you to register. You can do that now by going to this link and giving us some basic information. And if you are living missionally and want to jump start the conversation now, comment on this blog and share what you are learning or ask the questions that missional living is raising for you.

Where is this in my life?

2010-03-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

It was so hard to keep the tears from showing…

I was in a lunch meeting with Rachel and Michael, planning the Mission Houston "At the Corner..." event coming in late April, when the conversation changed from the “nuts & bolts” of the event to it’s very heart: transformation in Christ. Yes, transformation can be an overly used word, but I actually believe in it and have been meditating on it lately. Transformation can refer first to a personal, internal transformation as Paul described in Romans 12:2, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." and second, to Kingdom transformation as described in Matthew 13:33, "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." It seems to me that as followers of Christ we have been called to be active players in both.

Rachel was sharing a great example of giving one’s life away for others and God, and then she asked the question, “Where is that in my life?” Yes, we are Christians and many of us are involved in some kind of ministry or church activity… maybe too many activities. But giving our lives away? Yes, where is that in my life? That question can produce a sense of fear in us because it may mean a change we don’t like, we don’t expect or we can’t control. But the question can also reveal a sense of longing deep in our hearts - like, what if there is something missing, something we are supposed to have… or supposed to give?

I have been trying to do this in my own life. Recently I made some decisions out of a desire to obey what I believed was an invitation to give myself away; not out of need (there are always too many needs) but out of love for the One who was giving the invitation. It has been so hard… giving your life away is extremely hard! It was my reflections on those decisions that prompted the tears during our meeting.

Jackie Pullinger, author and missionary to Hong Kong, says that the mixture of our message, the Gospel message, is life and death, it “always brings life to the receiver, and death to the giver.” This is true with the seed that first has to die in order to produce life, it was true with our Savior Jesus Christ, and it is true with us when we want to give our lives away for the sake of the Kingdom of God. This is the only way to give our lives away, so why do we so often forget this and expect something different?

Jackie Pullinger also talks about choice; Jesus chose to give His own life away: The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again (John 10:17-18). We also have a choice, and the only way to give our lives away starts by exercising our free will, knowing that it’s going to be hard and knowing that there is some sort of death we are going to experience. And in the midst of our dying, the longing still calls to us. It seems to me that transformation lies somewhere there - between that uncertain death and inexpressible longing. But there is no way to know unless we go there, even if we go in tears.

The funny thing is that the "At the Corner of..." event we are planning is about this exact idea of transformation. I pray, I really do, that it will help me and others realize the transforming power that lies in the life, the death, and the choice of the Gospel.

a post from Marcos Leon from the Mission Houston staff

Taking risks for the Kingdom

2010-03-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

Randy Schroeder is Mission Houston's Board Chair. More than that he is one of the most courageous men in my life, and he is one of a growing chorus of people who are digging deeply into what it means to live missionally. The following is from Randy . . .

In college, I was challenged by some men further down the path of following Christ, to be the hands and feet of Christ right where I was living. That just happened to be in a fraternity house. I was intimidated by the idea but knew that Christ would not be too impressed if I spent all my time inside the fortified walls of the church and walked past the fraternity brothers who were lying in the road hurting. It started me down a path of taking some risks for the Kingdom of God. Emphasis is “some” risks.

Several years later my Risk-taking Daughter said she wanted to go to Zambia to love and care for orphans. Feeling the need to protect my daughter, and realizing that Jesus seemed to care a lot for the broken places and people of society, I went with her. Now six trips later, Zambia has become a lifelong commitment, and I have a greater understanding of God’s heart for the widow and orphan.

Jesus seems to be painting a picture for His followers that this life is short, and He wants us to live it to the fullest for His Kingdom. It is a life where we take risks, love the people closest to us first, constantly ask God to break the materialism in us, and mobilize the Body of Christ in some place to advance the Kingdom of God. That could include some ministry inside the walls of the church, but the real broken places of society are mostly outside the walls of the church. It is a life where we break down the masks of looking good and not looking bad, so that we are more real and authentic.

This has not been an easy journey for me, because I realize how deeply committed I am to looking good, and living a life that is safe, and easy and comfortable. The materialism runs deep. And, I don’t really want to sacrifice for the common good, or the hurting. I would rather write them check. I saw it in Zambia, when a young man showed me his new car- a 15 year old Toyota with 350,000 miles on it. And he was jumping for joy, having received it as a good gift from God. He would have been thrilled if I had mailed him all the trash that I put by the roadside. However, I realize God doesn’t want me to feel guilty - He wants me to be transformed. He wants me to become more like Christ. He wants me to love this world less, and Him more. He wants me to really live the Great Commandment of loving God and loving people - not loving me and my comfort and my money. If I can’t even love my mother-in-law well, how much like Christ am I?

I am so excited that there is a growing community of believers in Houston that are on this same journey and really want to live all out for Christ. In a blink this life will be over, and I want it to count. Join me at the most unique conference of 2010 , “At the Corner of…” We will advance this dialogue and the Kingdom of God. It is really getting exciting. Click HERE to learn more about it. Or click HERE to register. There is no charge for the conference.

Love Demands Incarnation

2010-02-25T07:36:00.001-08:00

My friend, Rachel Quan of Mowalla Productions wrote this recently and it resonated deeply with me. I wanted to share it. . .

One of the things I enjoy most about Facebook and Twitter are the great quotes that my friends and colleagues post from time to time. Some are clever, some are ones that cause me to stop and think – some even spur me to go buy the book the quote came from, and some are quotes that folks post when they’re listening to a speaker who really hits home with something in their speech. One such quote came from a colleague I’ve worked with in the past, Steve Hayner. Steve posted something his friend Ruth Padilla Deborst had said. It was this:

LOVE DOES NOT REACH FROM AFAR. IT DEMANDS INCARNATION.

Let me just say, that quote got re-tweeted and re-posted all day long from a bunch of us who happen to be friends with Steve on FB. It really, really resonated with so many of us.

For most of my life, as a wayward Pastor’s Kid, then as someone in full-time ministry for many years, and finally as someone working in the secular workplace (who still works with ministries from time to time), I’ve been taught to LOVE FROM AFAR. I was encouraged to give money to missionaries in foreign lands and sometimes, I’d travel down to Mexico to do some mission work. As a kid in the youth group I was warned not to spend too much time with non-Christians because I’d end up falling away from the faith. But, I was told that I could love them, not by hanging out with them, but by inviting them to church. It sort of felt like there were TWO lives I had. The one I lived on Sundays (and Wednesday nights) at church and the one I lived at school or work the rest of the week. You did all you could to get through school or work and then jumped into being with your “real” friends at church.

It felt like we were all on this lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, and we never, never ventured out of the boat to go for a swim or help anyone out there who might be struggling to stay afloat. We might get pulled under if we did that! We took the verse – “Be in the world but not OF it” to the extreme. We figured it was just better to keep as separate as possible. Doctrine was more important than relationships, and anyone who was not on board with our doctrine - well – they couldn’t be on our boat. Yes, we loved our neighbors, I was told. We got into relationship with people outside of the boat, only with the purpose of convincing them of getting on our boat. Not REALLY loving them. But sort of feeling like we’d earned some extra brownie points by getting them on our boat.

In essence, we LOVED FROM AFAR. It wasn’t until much later in my life, and after a very rough youth, that I realized – INCARNATION… and I mean REAL, TRUE INCARNATION is living life in the nitty gritty, tough, hard and sometimes dark places of life with people. It isn’t love when I am willing to serve them a meal at a soup kitchen but not sit with them and talk. It isn’t even love if I’m willing to do both of those things, but only once a year. If love demands incarnation it is about REALLY being in relationship with someone. Walking life’s peaks and valleys with them – even when it’s hard and messy.

And REAL INCARNATION doesn’t mean I have to go sign up with a missionary society tomorrow to go work with the poor in a tropical rainforest half way around the world (although, in some cases – like my niece – this could be the incarnation we’re called to). And, after many years in ministry myself – sometimes incarnational living is the hardest thing to do when you work for a ministry or church specifically (take my word on this). However, by separating the sacred and the secular, we’ve left the real incarnational living to the experts or “professionals” – the people who get on planes and fly to far-away lands, or the folks who leave their professions and open up a 501C3. These are laudable things – beautiful pictures of incarnational living. But, it isn’t something all of us can do, nor SHOULD do. Because, we are called to incarnational living RIGHT WHERE WE’RE AT, or not too far from it.

Sometimes that call crosses our paths and we don’t even recognize it – because we’re so busy with our “right doctrine” that we miss the relationship entirely.

For me, it was stepping OUT OF FULL-TIME MINISTRY that became my call to not loving from afar, but being the incarnation. It’s been working alongside friends who might not have “right doctrine” but have been gifts to my soul as we just live life together, tackle projects and find ourselves in conversations about life purpose and goals. I have been blessed by these relationships – evidence of God’s grace towards me – and it isn’t because I have all the right answers, or because I have an agenda. It’s because I am called to define my life by my relationships – not by whether I’ve accomplished some “10 Steps to…” program or spent a specific amount of time in prayer before I went to work. My corner has become a place that had been with me for quite some time – I had already been working in this sector and with the same people for awhile. And it hasn’t been about an alternative agenda… but it’s been about the daily working out of God’s grace in my own life and hoping that on most days it is an a living, breathing example of the incarnation. And on the days it isn’t, I have to own up to that as well. The beauty of it has been all the ways that the people on my corner have blessed ME. They might not define it as God’s grace, but I define it that way. They’ve been open, kind and shown me the incarnation in return. And even if that’s not how they know to define it yet – it’s there. It’s real. It’s been a gift.

There have been times when my fellow believers have judged me for leaving full-time ministry to follow this path – to stand on this corner. They don’t share my view that our call is to a relationship with Jesus, not to the church. In my view The Church is wherever we are gathered together in Jesus name…at whatever corner that happens to be. And in that, we find ourselves living more of the life Jesus lived. My prayer is that more folks would come to the CORNER Jesus has called them to instead of the lifeboat they’ve been clinging to.

…And that’s why Mission Houston’s AT THE CORNER OF… CONFERENCE is so significant for our city. The more people understand that their faith walk is about a relationship and not a checklist of “DOs” and “DON’Ts”, the more likely it is they’ll find that the CORNER they’re called to could just change their entire life. The conference theme verse from John 1:14 (The Message) says that Jesus became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. That sounds to me like someone who wasn’t called to live in the walls of a church, but sent to live in real life relationship with people – A God who didn’t love us from afar, but WAS THE INCARNATION.

For more information about AT THE CORNER OF… click HERE.

I believe God is up to something extraordinary in Houston

2010-02-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

I believe that God is up to something extraordinary in Houston. He is speaking into existence a conversation - a call to action - about missional living. On Friday afternoon, April 23, Mission Houston is hosting a free conference that we are calling At the Corner of . . .

This is our effort to share what we sense God is speaking to us about missional living and to invite others to share what they are seeing and hearing. It's our hope that the conference will result in a collective discernment of how we keep joining Him in what He is doing - moving His agenda for the Greater Houston area ahead.

Today I'm writing to ask you to consider joining us. We'll begin at 12:30 p.m. at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church. I promise that you will be inspired and challenged by Mark Labberton, Professor of Preaching at Fuller Seminary and Chris Webb, President of Renovare. But we want to provide more than inspiration and challenge. We want you to connect to local leaders who are living missional lives. They will tell of the raw, real, guts and glory stories of being in the Refiner's Fire that is missional living. I know their stories and I promise you'll be moved to a new level of thinking about the real possibilities for your life.

We are hoping to fan the flames of this conversation about missional living. It's probably a conversation that is already stirring in you. It's not the same old faith, full of programs and 5 easy steps to . . . I believe that you are called to the Corner of somewhere and something . . . and I promise you, this conversation won't be the same old religious 'hood you've often found yourself in.

The conference is free - and we need you to register. To do that go to this link. I'll see you at the Corner of . . .

A gift for you

2010-02-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

We want to give a gift to you, and I hope you'll accept.

I personally and the Mission Houston team with whom I work are collectively deeply committed to our individual and ongoing personal transformation. We are also increasingly centering Mission Houston's work on assisting others with their ongoing personal transformation. We've discovered that transformation has a half-life and if it is not nurtured through prayer, dialogue, and practice, then it slowly but surely dies.

On Friday, April 23, 2010 we are providing a free conference called "At the Corner of . . ." The fine folks at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church are hosting us. There's no charge - it is a free gift to the city and is designed to foster conversation and stories and to offer encouragement and challenge for those who are on the journey of personal transformation.

You'll hear two speakers who are on the cutting edge of the personal transformation journey. Mark Labberton, author of The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice and Professor of Preaching at Fuller Seminary will speak. He will be joined by Chris Webb, the new President of Renovare. Between these two key note speakers, you'll have time for conversation, hear stories of people who are living missionally in their work and neighborhood, and find encouragement in a growing community of people who are passionate and committed to being increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

Would you join us in the conversation? We would love to see you there.

My two best "reads" for 2009

2010-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

I'm an avid reader, and I am frequently asked what I'm reading (in addition to the Bible) that's really had an impact on me. So, I thought I'd share the answer today. I've probably read 25 books this year - maybe more. But two stand out head and shoulders above the rest - one from the theological world and one from the business world. Both have had significant impact on the way I see myself and the world in which I live - and how I'm changing the way I take action.

Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World by Stuart Murray

was recommended to me by my young friend Coby Cagle. Murray is a UK theologian and scholar who explores the impact of the continued marginalization of the church. We once lived in a world where the Christian story was known and the church was central. That is changing rapidly for all of us. Murray thoughtfully explores both the history of Christendom and the challenges and opportunities the Church will face as it increasingly becomes marginalized in the culture. I read this one slowly over the last four months of last year. It's tremendously thought-provoking - filled with historical insight and a call to action this takes the emerging realities seriously.

The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan was recommended to me by my youngest son, Nathan. I believe we all long to be a part of a work place

that really impacts the world in which we live. Yet, often the work space is filled with resignation and cynicism. Zaffron and Logan recognize that the world has changed fundamentally and that challenges the way we run our organizations. They offer three laws of performance and three corollary leadership principles that have been used to by leaders to get breakthrough results in huge multinational corporations and in local businesses, organizations, and 501(c)3s. I read this one rapidly. I was inspired by the real life stories - by how raw and real they were - and by the breakthrough results that were gotten in highly complex settings. I'm reading this one for a second time now.

I commend both books to you.

What are you reading that's really impacting you?

More than ever before - I'm determined to fly

2009-10-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

This parable from Søren Kierkegaard expresses my deepest commitment. By the grace of God I am committed to being fully awake, living out of God's design for my life. I want to fly.

A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it. Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese would never take a risk.

One day a philosopher goose came among them. He was a very good philosopher and every week they listened quietly and attentively to his learned discourses. “My fellow travelers on the way of life,” he would say, “can you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to existence? “I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. For did they not stretch their wings and fly across the trackless wastes of desert and ocean, of green valley and wooded hill? But alas, here we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to puddle in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.”

The geese thought this was very fine lecturing. “How poetical,” they thought. “How profoundly existential. What a flawless summary of the mystery of existence.” Often the philosopher spoke of the advantage of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. “What were wings for, but to fly with?” Often he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.

And every week the geese were uplifted, inspired, moved by the philosopher’s message. They hung on his every word. They devoted hours, weeks, months to a thoroughgoing analysis and critical evaluation of his doctrines. They produced learned treatises on the ethical and spiritual implications of flight.

All this they did. But one thing they never did. They did not fly. For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure.

(an English translation of Søren Kierkegaard's parable quoted by Athol Gill, The Fringes of Freedom).

Doing it together where we spend most of our time

2009-09-13T07:19:00.001-07:00

This is the fourth in a series of posts under the heading "Why I don't believe in discipleship."

In an attempt to be provocative and get your attention, I chose the title. What is actually more accurate is that I don't believe that discipleship as it is commonly practiced in most of the congregations that I know in the city actually regularly produces people who are capable of living the life that Jesus lived. There are notable exceptions in virtually every congregation, but by and large, my sense is that these people are the exception and not the rule.

Today I address the third reason why I believe what I believe. Most of our current discipleship efforts teach people to be a "solo" Christian. What is your purpose in life? What is your mission?

Jesus only knows "me" in relationship to "us." In the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, the story is about learning to live and minister in a community of people as a part of an interdependent set of giftings in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

In the most common practice, Christians are expected to be the church at the place where they gather for worship (the congregation) but there is virtually no expectation for the Body of Chris to be functioning in the workplace or the neighborhood.

A primary way to describe the current practice and then to say what I believe the Lord is calling us to is to say this. For years we have given our church members information about the Bible and told them to take their faith to the workplace. I'm suggesting that we need to equip folks who attend our congregations to take the Church to the workplace.

Congregations have a central and vital role in the advance of the Kingdom in our city. But as long as the Church only gathers and functions in the congregational building and on an occasional mission trip, how can we expect transformation of the city? It will be as the local congregation equips its members to go to the workplace (or the neighborhood or wherever that person spends the most of his/her time each day) and participate in mobilizing the Body of Christ for service and ministry that God will bring transformation.

In our Faithwalking journey that is exactly what we call people to do and to be. We are partnering with congregations and Christian leaders from the private sector to equip men and women to identify other believers in their work place or neighborhood, to call them together for relationship building, for prayer and for discerning God's purposes for their workplace or neighborhood. As he gives that discernment, then collectively and in concert with one another, they act.

Jerry Gallion, Bob Livingston, Juli Piling and a group of people at Kirby Corporation are leaders of a group that are taking this Faithwalk. You can read their story by clicking on this link. Todd and Denise McCombs and Brandon and Sara Beth Baca are doing the same thing in a neighborhood in southwest Houston. You can hear Todd tell a part of that story by clicking on this link. Terry and Kimberly Richter and their family are taking this Faithwalk by mobilizing believers to form soccer league for a school with high percentages of low income kids. Here Terry tell that story by clicking here.

The one thing that the stories have in common is that these followers of Jesus have taken a place where they spend a substantive amount of their time - home, work, neighborhood - mobilized the Body of Christ - and are serving as salt and light - as the hands and feet of Jesus - together.

The Bible doesn't know solo Christians. Doing mission together - where we spend the most of our time - that's where the seeds of transformation are planted.

By means of his one Spirit, we all said goodbye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (The Apostle Paul, I Corinthians 12 The Message)

Confronting the compartmentalization

2009-09-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is the third in a series of post under the title, "Why I don't believe in discipleship."

I believe that most of our discipleship efforts don't actually end up producing people who become the kind of human being that Jesus was. In Romans 8:29 you find these words: "God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him." (The Message)

Why don't our current efforts produce more people who are the kind of human being Jesus was? There is no magic bullet answer to that question. My intent is not to provide comprehensive responses in these posts so much as it is to say what I believe and hopefully generate dialogue among those who are interested in fostering a conversation about "what a disciple is and how one is made?"

Here's a second possible answer to the question (see my last post for a first possible answer). I believe that most of our current discipleship efforts accept a compartmentalization between the sacred and the secular that is devastating to the disciple making process - and consequently to the impact that disciples could have on the culture. Those we are "discipling" spend 50 or 60 hours a week in the "secular world" that mostly promotes values of competition, greed, and winning at all costs. Frequently these pursuits are set in the context of using lust and fear to "sell" what ever is being sold.

Then, with left over time these same followers of Jesus do the things they consider sacred - like going to church and getting more information from the bible, and engaging in an occasional service project or mission trip. Somewhere in all that, if they are married, they have to find time for meaningful relationships with a spouse and some children. It's a formula that is doomed to fail - and fail it has.

The rub is that no one really expects that they would be like Jesus in the work place where the business degree often trumps the Bible. The fact that we have not challenged this compartmentalization has resulted in massive resignation and cynicism among "church folks" about the power of the Gospel and the integrity of Church leaders.

In Faithwalking, we engage this compartmentalization head on. We believe that our disciple making efforts must take place in the setting where we spend most of our time (which for most of us is our home and/or our workplace). And we encourage folks to focus their disciple making not just on the teaching the content of the life of Jesus but to actually coach those they are discipling to be salt and light for their work place. "How do I do my work as unto the Lord?" "How do I influence company decisions so that they make a profit for our stakeholders while also serving the common good?" "How do I use my influence to over come unethical or immoral business practices?" "Where is our company engaging in unjust practices and how do I influences those practices?"

We hold up the difference in having intentions about addressing these questions and in actually getting into action around them. We recognize that getting in to action could cause persecution and perhaps the loss of a job in some hostile settings. That's a part of the consequence of taking up your cross daily and following Him. In short, we are discipling people to live the life Jesus lived and to act in the ways that he acted. Discipling is not - as I said in the last post - just having information about all of this.

If you'd like to know more about Faithwalking, click here. If you'd like to register for the next Faithwalking retreat set for October 2-4, click here.

Embracing failure is essential in the disciples journey

2009-08-26T12:11:00.001-07:00

This is the second post under the general heading, "Why I don't believe in discipleship."

It's my contention that our current practice of discipleship doesn't actually produce people who look and act like Jesus. I'm not saying that our existing congregations don't produce some who look and act like Jesus. But, they tend to be the exception, not the rule. And in business terms, if making disciples is our business, then the return on investment is pretty dismal by virtually every study done. Instead we produce an American version of a socially appropriate, moral person who occasionally does a mission trip and a little service along the way. What a far cry from the life of the early disciples (all of whom were business people in, what we would call, the private sector) who were called to follow Him.

Why does our current practice of discipleship not regularly produce people who live the life that Jesus lived?

One answer is that we've dummied down what it means to follow Jesus. There is virtually no expectation in today's congregations that:

Christians live simply and generously;
Mission be a way of life rather than something that we do when we are not working (which is where I real life is);
We engage our enemies with authentic acts of kindness and love;
We go resolve any conflict that exists between us and another human being

just to name a few. And there is certainly no real expectation that we be in personal ongoing relationship to the poor, the prisoner, the orphan or the widow.

When we redefine following Jesus to include all of his teachings and not just those that make us functional American citizens, we come to a rude awakening. The only way to learn to obey all of what Jesus intended is to practice. I can read "Love you enemy" or "forgive 70 Xs 7" or "if your brother offend you go to him" or "go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor" one hundred times - or one thousand times. I can memorize it. I can write it on my door posts and plaster it on my mirror. I can teach it in my small group or preach it with eloquence from the pulpit.

But in the moment when it comes to act in obedience, I will be overcome with anxiety and inexperience. Even if I can muster the courage to act, I'll likely make a huge mess of things.

That's why practice is necessary. When I go and attempt to do what Jesus teaches, the gap between what I profess and my actual mastery gets put on full display. I know what you are thinking. "I don't want my incompetence to be put on display."

Precisely! So, rather than risking the learning process, I either pretend to be obeying or I simply write off the thing that Jesus calls me to that is so very difficult to master.

In the Faithwalking journey, we've learned that there are three things that will lead us to stay in the experience of practicing obedience.

First, a safe environment where failure is seen as growth and opportunity. A safe environment is one in which you are not judged for resisting and where failure is seen as the best possible opportunity for learning. Our culture and the Christian sub-culture does not have an empowering relationship to failure of this nature.

Second, an ever deepening practice of the spiritual disciplines. No person and no program can transform a human heart. Only God can do that. But God won't force that on us. He will come into the space we create for him and welcome him into. The practices of fasting, prayer, worship confession, solitude . . . to name a few of the spiritual practices are the things that create this space for Him. This may mean that I need less church activity and more personal time. It often means that I need to slow things down and cut some things out in order to make space for Him.

Third, a good coach who will hold you accountable and help you stay in action. Information, practice and reflection - that's the process we use. In the information part, we see our habitual disobedience, confess it without condemnation, and tell the truth about what is so with that. In the practice part, we go practice obedience. That is often messy and can be chaotic, but it is necessary. Then we come back to reflect in the presence of God and with a good coach. Where did things go well? Where did I get off track? How could I have done that differently? At what point did I loose focus? The coach then helps you discern your next practice session and holds you accountable for doing the practice. Over time, this results in growing obedience.

In the Faithwalking community we expect practice. We call and equip you to use the spiritual disciplines in a deeper way than perhaps you ever have before, and we provide you with a coach.

If you'd like to know more about Faithwalking, click here. If you'd like to register for the next Faithwalking retreat set for October 2-4, click here.

Why I don't believe in discipleship

2009-08-26T11:18:00.001-07:00

Near the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus said, "Come follow me." At the end of that public ministry, he said to the same folks "Go and make disciples, teaching them to obey." I believe that discipleship as it is practiced by most of the church in western culture has little impact and is certainly not designed to teach people to obey Jesus.

When a group of us began the Faithwalking journey more than a decade ago, there were three underlying practices of discipleship that we were certain must be challenged if our engagement with Jesus was going to actually lead to us becoming increasingly like him.

I'll innumerate those three things now. I'll write about each one of them, one at a time, in the next few days.

First, most of our current discipleship efforts are focused on giving people knowledge. To learn to obey requires information and experience in which practice, failure, reflection and coaching are involved. Virtually none of the discipleship approaches in congregations today include the experience side of the equation. They are virtually all about information. If we are to learn to obey we must practice obedience that is accompanied by a reflective life with God and a good coach or we will quickly become disillusioned and quit.

Second, most of our current discipleship efforts accept a compartmentalization between the sacred and the secular. So, those we are "discipling" spend 50 or 60 hours a week in the "secular world" and they give their left over time to stuff they consider sacred like going to church and getting more information from the bible, and engaging in an occasional service project or mission trip. No one really expects that they would be like Jesus in the work place where the business degree often trumps the Bible. This compartmentalization must be confronted head on or we will quickly grow resigned and cynical about ever making an impact.

Third, most of our current discipleship efforts teach people to be a "solo" Christian. What is your purpose in life? What is your mission? Jesus only knows "me" in relationship to "us." In the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, the story is about learning to live and minister in a community of people. Christians are expected to be the church at the place where they gather for worship (the congregation) but there is virtually no expectation for the Body of Chris to be functioning in the workplace or the neighborhood.

I titled the post today "Why I don't believe in discipleship." It's not that I don't believe deeply in following Jesus and in an intentional effort to learn obedience to his life and teachings. It's that in our language today, when we say "discipleship" we are referring to a set of practices that don't result in the real time capacity to actually follow and obey him. The world has known this for quit some time and is staying away from church in droves. Local congregations are beginning to get this as well but mostly redesign their discipleship programs without ever examining the underlying issues that I'm addressing in this post.

What I do believe is that when we follow Jesus - when we learn to obey - when we learn to live the life that he lived - we are deeply and profoundly invited into a journey of personal transformation that makes us more fully alive than most people believe is possible. That journey replaces consumer Christianity with a powerful and purposeful life that is full of challenge and meaning and growth and real impact.

Faithwalking is a journey that challenges all three of the practices described above. If you are interested, I'll say more in future posts. And if you are interested in signing up for a Faithwalking retreat where you'll actually get some experience that is designed to confront these currently held practices, click here.

Prayer for Parents of At-Risk Children

2009-08-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

Did you know that contrary to popular opinion, most parents of at-risk children are not the problem? Most parents in poverty are actively seeking help to “do the right thing.” In fact, 82% of children in low-income families in Texas have a least one parent who is employed full or part-time. However in Houston, many parents have a low educational attainment; often do not speak English; live below poverty level while both parents work; and do not reach out for government assistance.

Prayer Targets for Day Six:

1. Pray for God’s heart to fill the hearts of the parents of at-risk children, Mark 10:16.

2. Pray for the Church in Houston to find effective ways to reach and strengthen the parents of at-risk children, 1 Peter 4:10.

Prayer:

Lord God, You are a father to the fatherless and a mother to the motherless. We thank You for Your loving care. You alone possess the qualities of a “perfect parent.” We are blessed to be able to draw strength from You as parents. We thank You, God, for parents and for the family system you have created. Thank You for providing parents and parent-figures to help when biological parents are missing.

We ask You today to bless and strengthen the parents of our city, especially the parents of children at-risk. Visit them with Your Presence. For those who are discouraged and despondent, provide fresh courage and vision for their role as parents. Enable them to provide for the material, emotional and spiritual needs of their children and families.

Come to make up the difference in each family and in the lives of each child. We pray today for single parents and for the heavy load they carry. Provide help, special friends and advocates for them through the Church and other organizations. Bless and knit extended families and neighbors together in ways that will further support their children.

Forgive us as parents for neglecting our responsibilities by holding others responsible to train our children – whether that is the Church or the school system. Forgive us when we have not prayed for our children. Help us to instill godly values in each life so they will discover their full value and purpose in You. Protect parents of at-risk children and keep them from all evil. Empower them with great grace, patience and wisdom.

Yours, O Lord, is the Kingdom, the power and the glory. It is Jesus’ Name we pray today. Amen.

Day Five - Week for Prayer for Children and Youth

2009-08-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

Did you know that we have only a 48% freshmen-to-senior same school graduation rate in Houston? Only 15% of Texas students will complete a four year degree. In Houston that means that out of 58,000 students who are 18, only about 8,700 will finish college within 6 years. (44 states scored higher). Our education system is broken. Education is the way out of poverty. If we want to see those we reach out to break the cycle of poverty, we need to insure all children have a quality education.

1. Pray for God’s Spirit to rest upon those responsible for our educational system, Isaiah 11:2-3.

2. Pray for the Church in Houston to become salt and light in the school system, Matthew 5:14-16.

Lord, You are great and greatly to be praised. You simply spoke, and the worlds were created. We give thanks to You for a nation that makes education a priority. We thank You for the public and the private education in America. Father, we thank You that every child born in this great nation has an opportunity to receive an education.

Father, the educational system in our city is in need of Your healing. The problems are overwhelming. We ask You to raise up wise leadership to address the systemic problems so that the children of our city will complete both primary and secondary school. Give school administrators and government official’s Your wisdom and understanding. Give every teacher and administrator Your heart for the children they serve.

Father, forgive Your Church where we have not wanted to invest our time and resources in our educational system. Forgive us for our failure to make education a priority in our homes. Lord, help us to work together so our children will be motivated and achieve more.

Lord, restore our educational system in Houston. May You be glorified as our children’s test scores rise, as our drop-out rate declines, and as our educational system becomes an effective system to develop the full potential of each child.

To You, Father, be all honor, glory and majesty. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

Day Four of the Week of Prayer for Children and Youth

2009-08-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Did you know that the U.S. Department of Justice estimates 14,000 to 17,000 persons are trafficked into the United State each year? Human trafficking involves both international and domestic victims and can include labor and/or sex trafficking. The victims are largely women and children, with runaways being especially vulnerable. Houston is the American hub for human trafficking. The Church in Houston must stand up against this injustice. We cannot continue to worship in peace and safety while our city is being used for such an evil endeavor. That stand starts with prayer.

Prayer Targets for Day Four:

1. Pray for God Himself to come to the aid of those being exploited, Psalm 146:7.

2. Pray for the Church to rise up with one voice against this practice, Ephesians 5:11-13.

Prayer:

Lord, You alone are Holy. Father, You alone are worthy of all glory, honor and praise. We praise Your Holy Name for all that You have done in our city. We thank You for the growing unity in the Body of Christ in Houston. We thank You that You have brought to our attention the plight of those being forced into slavery.

Lord, we declare that this cannot stand. We choose to unite as Your people against the trafficking of human beings throughout our city. Houston is a city of freedom. As the Church in Houston we stand in the gap against this injustice.

Father, we pray that You will expose the trafficking rings, especially those in charge of the trafficking. We pray for the Houston Police Department and all law enforcement agencies in this city. We ask that You give them wisdom in locating and breaking up all the trafficking rings. We the Church of Houston declare freedom for all those forced into this system. In the Name of Jesus Christ, we decree that all the captives must be set free.

Father, forgive us for our ignorance, apathy and complacency. Forgive us for not taking up this cause and standing against it in a greater measure. Father, help us to pray, invest, and stand against this activity in our city. No longer will Houston be known as the hub of human trafficking for North America. We say, “Come, Kingdom of God. Be done, will of God. Let Your Kingdom reign and Your will be done in Houston as it is in heaven.”

Father, let your Name be exalted in this city. May Your Name be glorified as this city rises up to defeat human trafficking. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

A day of hope

2009-08-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today at noon 172 pastors and ministry leaders representing 85 Houston congregations joined public servants from the city, county, and state. We gathered at St Luke's United Methodist Church to learn about the condition of children in our city (primarily from the research done by Children at Risk) and to pray for the needs of those children.

I want to share three impressions with you.

First, I was struck by the genuine compassion of our public servants. It was clear from their presentations of the research that they love this city and they have chosen public service because they want to make a difference. Houston is fortunate to have the kinds of folks we do in public service.

Second, I was struck by how much the church has changed in the 25 years I've lived in Houston. There was a time when the churches to whom I was connected were pretty internally focused. Church growth was the primary topic. That has changed. My friend Eric Swanson wrote a book entitled The Externally Focused Church a few years back. He was offering a prophetic call and reporting a trend. I was impressed with how many of the congregations there were already involved in public schools, human trafficking, reaching out to kids who live in poverty, and the other issues that were addressed today. I was deeply encouraged by this.

Third, the range of diversity in the room made it virtually impossible for us to ever all agree on everything. But, we all do agree on children and the need for them to be fed, housed, clothed, educated - in short very well loved. And what I saw today was a broad range of folks saying, "This is our city. And though we have differences, we can - we will - unite around this thing on which we all agree." That fills me with hope.

Many thanks to Bob Sanborn, Children at Risk, Brian Gowan, Grace Community Church, Charlotte Morris, The Houston Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Dian Kidd, Union Baptist Association, Dave Peterson, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Steve Capper, Mission Houston, and Tom Victor, Houston Prays, for their leadership in praying and working this week into being.

This is the first Week of Prayer for Children and Youth and today it became apparent that it will be the first ANNUAL. Join me in giving thanks for today. Don't forget to pray every day this week for the children. And as you do, pray for a break through in the we seek to be united within the Christian community, across the faith communities, and among the leaders in the private sector - for the sake of the children that God has entrusted to us in this generation.

Day Three of the Week of Prayer for Children and Youth

2009-08-18T06:50:00.001-07:00

Prayer Concerning the Increasing Infant Mortality Rate in our City

Did you know that parts of Houston have Third World Infant Mortality Rates? As a nation, the infant mortality rate declined by 10% between 1995 and 2004: however, since 2000, the trend has reversed for Harris County. The U.S. ranks 29^th in the world on infant mortality – tied with Poland and Slovakia, and behind Cuba.

Prayer Targets for Day Three:

1. Pray that our city would understand God’s heart for each precious infant, Psalm 139:13-18.

2. Pray that God would raise up more leaders to champion the cause of infants, Psalms 82:3.

Prayer:

God and giver of life, we praise and worship You today. We thank You that Your Word says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. You have not only given us life and breath, You created us with a special plan and purpose in mind. Thank You for providing mercy and grace every day - for the gift of eternal life and abundant life through Jesus Christ.

As we are blessed with many resources and equipped with the largest Medical Center in the world, we are deeply troubled by the steep rise in infant mortality among mothers in our city. We turn to You, Lord, for wisdom and discernment as we search for ways to reverse this trend. Come Holy Spirit! Show us what is needed to protect and bless the lives of all children at every stage of development.

We thank You for the people and programs You have provided in our communities and pray that You would encourage, bless and multiply their efforts.

Lord, grant grace and insight to uncover the social issues and injustices that must be addressed to create significant change in infant mortality in our city. As Creator and Sustainer of life, we ask You to address the environmental issues that affect life in the womb. Where human hands leave off and fall short of needed remedies, we ask that Your mighty Hand would intervene.

Forgive us for our slowness to see and understand this urgent need impacting families in our city. Help us to multiply awareness in our city so that new doors will open where mothers can find reliable prenatal care for their children. Continue to create in our lives and in Your Church and across this city a love and value for life at every age and every stage. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Today is Day 2

2009-08-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

Prayer for Children and Families in Poverty

"In the poor, we find Jesus in distressing disguise." Mother Teresa

Did you know that 24% of Harris County children live in poverty and a total of 47% live

in low income families? Texas is ranked 46th in percentage of children living in poverty,

with only Alabama, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi doing worse. Related to

poverty, Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation at 24.6%.

Prayer Targets for Day Two:

1. Pray for God to give us His heart for the poor, Isaiah 58:6-8.

2. Pray that we learn to minister to the poor as unto Christ, Matthew 25:37-40.

Prayer:

Almighty God, source of life and every good gift, we worship You as Savior, Lord and

Provider today. In You the scriptures declare there is no want. Thank You that You love

all people with an everlasting love, and that You are for us! Your heart breaks when

people are in pain. Thank You for the many times You have met us during our times of

physical, emotional, spiritual and material need. Thank You, awesome God! We thank

You for programs and ministries that are effective in providing for the needs of the poor.

Thank You for those who serve faithfully to empower parents so they can become

financially stable and provide for their families.

Lord, we recognize that Your heart is moved by the cries of the poor. We add our voices

to theirs and ask You to come to their rescue. Motivate Your Church across this city to

turn their hearts and attention to the plight of the poor. Forgive us for our sins of apathy

and indifference – when Your heart is filled with compassion. Help us to prioritize our

lives so that we can better reflect Your heart.

Come, Lord, especially during this season of financial challenge. At every level of life

and commerce, renew us with an urgent sense of faithful stewardship of money, time and

talents. Help us make the needed changes in our lives, our work and our financial

stewardship so that we can honor You. Come, Lord, today and deal with systems of

injustice we have either created or allowed to perpetuate through passivity. Renew Your

Church to the spirit and practice of loving our neighbors as You love us.

We praise and worship You as the One who guides and provides. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Filling the city with unified and informed intercession

2009-08-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

Houston has had a prayer movement for a number of years. Mostly it has been expressed in attempting to convene people in large gatherings in public arenas. There is a a lot of power in that, and I hope that there will come a day when we regularly fill places like the Toyota Center and Reliant Arena.

But, there is another way to involve more people in informed unified intercession than any arena in Houston can hold. This week you have the opportunity to be a part of the most massive mobilization of prayer that we've ever known in Houston. The Week of Prayer for Children and Youth has three important aspects to it:

1. It is intercession. When God's people pray, God's heart is moved. II Chronicles says that "If my people will pray, I will hear and heal their land." We are calling the Church to pray.

2. It is informed intercession. Children at Risk is the leading research and advocacy group in Houston related to children's issues. Each day we will be praying for a specific issue that children in Houston face.

3. It is unified intercession. Each day we will focus on a specific issue. Whether you are in your prayer closet, with your small group, at your office, or in your congregation, you will pray with the confidence that you are praying in unity with thousands of others across the city.

I invite you - I urge you - to be a part of this week of prayer for the children and youth of our city. To get your pray guide on a daily basis, you can go to this link.

I'm Losing My Religion for Equality

2009-07-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Carter is, in my estimation, one of the truly wise (from a Biblical perspective) human beings alive on the planet today. His statement on women and religious tradition in the article I'm Losing My Religion for Equality seems right on to me. I wanted to make sure you had seen it. I pray that God would help me be a more courageous man who speaks out against inequality and injustice at every turn, in every place, no matter the consequences. I'm praying for that kind of courage, especially when speaking out might have consequences within my own religious tradition. I'm grateful for wise, courageous men like President Carter.

Unity that only Jesus can create

2009-07-03T08:56:00.001-07:00

Lunch last week with my good friend, Rick, was lively. We had miscommunicated about some stuff and we met for lunch to work things out. We are both very assertive folks so you can imagine the conversation. At the heart of our miscommunication was the topic of unity in the Church. Rick and I are deeply passionate about this topic, and in a conversation a week earlier, the conversation became animated and misunderstanding ensued. We are good friends, so by the time lunch was over we had cleaned things up - emerging more committed than ever before to seeing God unify His body as servants in and to the city.

I walked away realizing how illusive unity is. Many people use unity to mean uniformity - coming together and doing things alike. In this context unity means that we gather others who see things pretty much like we do so that we build a larger, stronger force for seeing and doing things the way that we see and do them.

Some people actually mean conformity when they say unity. In this view of unity, there are some designated leaders who hear from God for the rest of us. They tell us what God has said. They develop plans to achieve what God has said. And, in this view of unity, they expect the rest of us to fall in line (ignoring or suppressing what we hear God saying - especially if it is different than what the leaders hear.)

Some people want unity so that "the Church" can be a more powerful voting block - a group who by the shear size of numbers can get the culture to acquiesce to it's wishes, desires, and even demands.

What do I mean when I talk about unity? Unity is when individuals with a core commitment to follow Jesus and who have truly different perspectives, come together in authentic relationships, loving each other - saying what their is to say - especially when the points-of-view are divergent - staying together long enough for the Holy Spirit to use our difference to give us all a larger view than we started with.

So in my view of unity, widely different perspectives in the church would come together and as a growing sense of unity was achieved the purpose would not be to serve ourselves but to serve the world. Paul says that it is a ministry of reconciliation to which we are called. Personal and community transformation result from the reconciling work that we have been given.

In our unity, we would intentionally gather democrats and republicans in the same room for honest, respectful dialogue about how to most effectively govern. In our unity, we would intentionally gather poor people and rich people in the same room for honest respectful dialogue about how to effectively deal with consequences of sloth and greed, materialism and hedonism. In our unity we would gather teachers, administrators, parents and students in the same room for honest, respectful dialogue about how to make our schools work. In our unity we would intentionally get those on both side of the immigration issue or the issues around the war in Afghanistan - or around any issue that divides people in our neighborhoods or communities- and in all these setting, honest, respectful dialogue would take place. It is, in my view, in this setting that Jesus is most likely to have our permission to be the head of His Church.

Out of this dialogue (that we can trust the Holy Spirit to guide) we would serve as a ministering, reconciling presence - salt and light in the places where there is the most brokenness, the most division, the most inequality, the most injustice. We do this, not to win converts (though some would be converted) but to be agents of God's mercy, love, and justice in a fallen world - providing the world with a foretaste of heaven, a incomplete but distinguishable taste of heaven on earth.

The challenge with this view of unity is that it requires participants who are capable of holding two opposite things in tension. First it requires that each participant has clear, well thought out convictions that can be expressed clearly. Second it requires that each participant has a deep sense of humility that leads to a recognition that they see only a part - not the whole - no matter how deeply convicted they are about their part. So they offer their part with confidence, and they listen to the part that others bring with a kind of openness that allows God to enlarge their view - trusting that He is at work in all this process.

That kind of spiritual and emotional maturity is deeply challenging and often absent. So, we settle for a cheap substitute that is about uniformity or conformity or political power in a fallen world. In fact, in the last book, A Failure of Nerve, author Edwin Friedman called our society a regressive society. A regressive society is one in which the level of chronic anxiety is so high that leaders are increasingly incapable of the kind of engagement with diversity that I'm describing here.

The leaders of the ministry of Mission Houston (of which Rick and I are a part) are committed to this level of engagement with diversity in the Church - not to grow a political power block but - to be servants in the city in the places where the amazing, unconditional love of Jesus brings his reconciling power. That kind of unity is unique and it is virtually missing in our culture today. And like all our colleagues and friends, we are incapable of the very thing we believe God wants for us. So, with humility we stay connected as a branch to The Vine and are intentionally seeking to allow Him to continue growing us up.

The Body of Christ has come a long way day the road in the 25 years that I've been observing it and participating in it in Houston. And, we have a long, long way to go until we become like Paul's description of the Church in Ephesians 4:14-15 . . . then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.

Filling the city with prayer for our children

2009-06-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Imagine what might happen if thousands of people joined their hearts and voices in unified prayer for the children - all the children - and especially the most vulnerable children of our city. What if on an agreed upon time, on the first day of a designated week we all prayed for children who live in poverty. Then on Tuesday we all prayed for children trapped in the human trafficking? Then on Wednesday . . . well you get the picture.

A growing group of congregations, para-church ministries and organizations are committed to participating in a Week of Prayer for Children. It's set for August 17-23 - as public schools are getting back into session. There's a prayer guide that provides a daily topic with clear info about what's happening in Houston around that topic along with prayer points and a written pray around that day's topic. The prayer guide will be posted on the web sites of all the participating ministries and organizations - so no one has to go anywhere. We are praying in unity if we are in our prayer closets, our prayer groups, or our congregations.

Would you like to help increase the number of people who are praying in unity for children in August? Here's how you can help.

1. Mark the dates on your calendar.

2. Talk to the pastors of your church or to the leaders of the ministries you are a part of and ask them to consider becoming one of the growing number of sponsors (see current list below).

3. Share this post with others who believe that praying will make a difference.

I'll keep you posted as this unfolds. The current list of sponsors includes:

Chapelwood United Methodist Church

Children at Risk

First Southwest Baptist Church

Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church

Grace Community Church

Grace Fellowship United Methodist Church

Grace Presbyterian Church

Houston Coalition Against Human Trafficking

Houston Prays

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Mission Houston

Somebody Care

St John's UMC Downtown

Sterlingwood Church

St Lukes UMC

The Fellowship of Memorial

Union Baptist Association

Young Life Houston

Missional communities and the business sector

2009-06-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Mission Houston is creating a community of missional leaders who are committed to the transformation of the greater Houston area. This morning I had breakfast with two guys who own a medical records business and their friend who runs a 501-c-3 that focuses on discipling young men.

The purpose of the breakfast - these guys are interested in relocating their business into a low income part of the city. They want their work life and their faith life to be integrated. They have a growing conviction that their faith life must, in part, be lived in a way that allows them to serve the poor, the marginalized, and those in need.

In the Mission Houston community we hold a deep belief that the transformation of our city is dependent on several factors. One of the key factors is getting the church outside of the walls of the local congregation, getting believers into ongoing relationships with the poor, the marginalized, and those in need.

We are currently involved in an intensive planning process in which we are considering setting a goal of asking God to use this ministry to give birth to 500 missional communities in the next 10 years.

Today I'm giving thanks to God for stirring the hearts of these three men. Today I'm praying that God will stir the desire that is resident in these guys. I'm asking Him to help them find other partners. I'm pray for God to complete what He has begun in them, and ask him to raise up more and more men and women with this kind of desire. Would you pray with me today?

A Week of Prayer for Children

2009-06-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

You Are Invited!!!

If you believe that informed, united, intercessory prayer can alter the course of the lives of children, and if have a passion for making a difference in the lives of at-risk children, then join A Week of Prayer for Children and participate in The Leadership Summit! This is an ideal opportunity for those who lead congregations, children’s ministries, or for those who participate as prayer and outreach leaders. It is also focused on leaders in the private sector with concern for the future of our children.

A Week of Prayer for Children, August 16-23, 2009

A prayer guide will be available by July 1^st via the Internet from any of the sponsoring groups for all who want to pray in unity around specific, identifiable needs of our children. The guide focuses on 7 systemic issues facing children in the greater Houston area. There is no need to go anywhere. Pray wherever you are! Pray in your prayer closet, at family devotion time, in small groups, at work, and in your congregation. Do so with the knowledge that your voice is being joined in informed, unified prayer with thousands of others across the area.

A Leadership Summit, Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Did you know that Houston is ranked among the lowest in the nation among cities regarding several critical aspects of caring for children? The Summit will provide up-to-date information on the issues and current needs of at-risk children; it will highlight practical ways to respond; it will mobilize prayer for the children of our city; and it will draw media attention to the needs of children.

The Summit will be held at the facilities of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, 3471 Westheimer, Houston, TX, 77027 from 11am – 1pm. Hear a presentation of key information regarding at-risk children in the Greater Houston area and join your voice with others in a united season of informed prayer.

Sponsors

The Summit is sponsored by a growing number of congregations and ministries including: Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Grace Community Church, Grace Fellowship United Methodist Church, Houston Coalition Against Human Trafficking, Houston Prays, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Mission Houston, St Luke’s United Methodist Church, and Union Baptist Association. If you would like to join the list of sponsors, contact Jim Herrington at jim@missionhouston.org.

The cost of lunch at the Summit is $10. To register go to this link.

Giving up the politics of division

2009-06-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

At the core of the core of Mission Houston is the belief that demonstrated, practical unity in the Body of Christ is perhaps the key factor in creating a spiritual climate that would invite God's presence and attract others to his Kingdom. And from my perspective, one of the most powerful things that stands in the way of that kind of unity is the way the political discourse in our country takes place among people who are self-identified follows of Jesus.

It may surprise you, but some of my closest friends and followers of Christ loved George Bush and were deeply supportive of his policies. It may surprise you, but some of my closest friends and followers of Christ love Barrack Obama and are deeply supportive of his policies. How we, as brothers and sisters in Christ, disagree with each other sends a powerful message to the world.

There are many ways in which I disagree with what our governments (local, state, national) do, and I believe that being personally informed and involved in the political process is important. But, we must learn to engage in a way that honors Jesus teachings. Jesus is honored neither by fear mongering or hate mongering. I'm afraid that the unchurched world often looks at us and says, "Those Christians - another political action group that uses all the same tactics that other lobbyist do simply to get what they want."

I don't know - have never met- Gil Lain, the Pastor at Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas. I'm pretty sure that we disagree on some important political issues. But he preached a sermon on May 31 entitled Christian Citizenship that a friend shared with me. It's worth listening to (click on the link) - for every person who wants to see unity - authentic, biblical, purposeful unity come to the Church. I urge you to listen to it. I heard it like a word from the Lord.

We've got to give up being afraid. God is on his throne and is at work in and through the person who is President, Governor, and Mayor - when I agree or when I disagree with these people. I believe that He is honored when I disagree with respect and civility. When I act from fear or hate, I not only dishonor the one I call Lord, I contribute to another layer of resentment and cynicism that the unchurched world sees.

Befriended by the poor

2009-06-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Nothing has impacted my life as a follow of Jesus like becoming friends with people who are poor - not reading the Bible, not worship, not prayer - though all of these have had impact. Nothing has changed me like being befriended by the poor people. (I know the pc language to use today is "the under served." I'm not sure what that means. When I say the poor, I mean people who don't have the monetary capacity to get the basic necessities of life - enough food, shelter, and clothing.)

I've always known that Jesus was deeply concerned about the poor. I attempted to obey his teachings about the poor by compartmentalizing the teaching (this is one of the thing I do as a follower of Jesus) rather than seeing that the his teaching about the poor are in everything - absolutely everything - that he was about. When I went to that compartment, I checked it off by doing a "service project."

The journey has been long and hard but over time God allowed me to be befriended by poor people. In the early days, I still saw the relationship as me having something that they needed. Over time God convicted me of my arrogance and called me to live in community with some poor people. As I gave myself to his direction, I discovered that I need the poor at least as much, if not more, than they need me.

These friendships provided me with ears to hear the Gospel in ways that I'd never heard it before. When I live in my affluent, materialistic world, I become blind to what is so about me. My friends who are poor help me see my deep commitment to ease and convenience. They help me see how selfish and materialistic I am; how much in control I want to be of when I serve; how judgmental I can be. These have all been hard things. For me they have been a Refiners Fire that I deeply needed and need on a regular basis. Today I am grateful for these friendships.

Repenting –especially to some pastor friends

2009-05-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

At lunch yesterday a friend reported a conversation he had with another pastor who I consider a friend. The gist of the conversation went like this: “He thinks you think that house churches are the only effective way to reach people, and he thinks you think that the he’s a bad pastor and a bad person because he is plugging away pretty successfully in a local congregation.”

So, let me set the record straight. I am a pastor of a house church, and I think that it is one of the effective ways to reach people in our city today – especially in this context. Not everyone serves in this context, so it is my clear belief that it takes all kinds of congregations to reach a city.

I think what is underneath this conversation (and I’m posting about it because I hear this from time to time) is that I bring two really clear convictions that I share over and over again.

First, I have a clear conviction that congregations – of all types including house churches – are overrun with Christian consumers. I believe this is a long-standing reality that splashed onto the scene as an unintended consequence of the church growth movement in the 1970s. And the impact on local congregations of all types has been devastating. The result is that congregations have become more internally focused and more entertainment driven. They have less impact on our culture and increasingly produce people who look more like the culture than they do like Jesus. These are not just my opinions; they are well-researched facts that are being written about and reported - ubiquitously – by the Christian and secular media in our country.

Second, I have a clear conviction that pastors, including me, are a product of that consumer reality. Consequently, we often fail to stand as well-differentiated leaders who lead congregations to be salt and light in the places where the culture and the Kingdom are clearly at odds. Increasingly the culture doesn’t see us as a force to be reckoned with but a self-interest group that has to be managed. They don’t see us as compassionate leaders who are committed to the common good. They view us as self-interested groups who take from the common good but give little back. Again, these are not just my opinions; they are well-researched facts.

I say all of this, not as one who stands apart, casting self-righteous stones because I’m doing what others are not. I say this – I write about it – I teach out it – to continuously confront myself. I live in the same culture and face the same temptations that every other pastor faces. Sometimes the Lord gives me strength to overcome those temptations. Often, I fail. I confront myself so that there can be space for Jesus to conform me to His image.

The conversation that was reported to me yesterday makes it clear that my convictions are offensive to some. I don’t apologize for the convictions. I do apologize to any pastor – to any person – who has heard me express those convictions in a way that seemed like I had this all worked out while believing that others don’t. I can be an assertive, arrogant man. The Lord has been working on that in me for a lifetime, and one of my daily prayers is that He would let me be a man of courageous conviction who is also a man of compassionate humility.

If you are one I’ve offended, I repent – not for the convictions but for the way in which they are communicated. And if you’d tell me that I’ve offended you, I’d like to come to you personally to make things right.

Greater Things are Yet to Come!

2009-05-08T16:00:00.001-07:00

I rarely do long posts like this. Today we had our annual Gala for Mission Houston where we cast vision for what God is doing through the Mission Houston ministry. If you want to know about 2008/2009 results or to know how we plan to build momentum, take the 10 minutes it will take to read it. The theme for our gathering was “Greater Things Are Yet to Come.”

A year ago on behalf of the Mission Houston team I stood before a similar gathering and for the first time in a public setting gave voice to something that Mission Houston believes God has called us to do. I said, “We give our word to the transformation of the public schools in the Greater Houston area.”

It’s a God sized goal, and we are crystal clear that (1) it is God who transforms, not us and (2) it is a promise that we can’t keep in our own strength nor can we keep it without many partnerships being formed across the Body of Christ over the next decade. But, we believe by faith - that is demonstrated by works - that God is able and that He has called us to this assignment. We are deeply driven by a core belief that when God unifies and mobilizes his Body in this city, anything is possible.

So, we want to say it again today. The most vulnerable children in our city congregate on a daily basis in public schools across the Greater Houston area. Though competent teachers and caring administrator serve them, the load that is carried by those employed by the schools is too great. The Church can and must come along side these children and their leaders to help lift the load. And so, we are renewing today our promise to follow what we believe to be God’s leadership in giving our word that the public schools in our city will be transformed over the next decade.

God’s word says “don’t despise small beginnings.” Following the wise counsel of our Board of Directors, the Mission Houston staff started small in eight schools in five school districts under the title of “Whole and Healthy Children Initiative,” and we launched that initiative in two ways.

First, we launched Whole and Healthy Children as a programmatic challenge to put feet to our faith in eight specific elementary schools. We call it the 4M’s – the first M, a promise to provide up to 100 mentors for kindergartners through third grade. The second M is mobilizing prayer - one intercessor for each child being mentored. The third M is an annual makeover – a work project around landscaping, building, or painting, and the fourth M is up to $10,000 for use in priorities of the faculty and administration in each school.

Bob Chenoweth, one of our Faithwalking graduates leads a team of people in the Bellaire/SW community who are working in Shearn and Gordon Elementary in HISD. This team has developed a collaborative relationship with the administration in both of those schools, and are connecting with individuals, congregations and businesses there to mobilize volunteers to do the 4Ms. Just last weekend this team held a hugely successful workday at Shearn. Today we celebrate the real, measurable progress this team has made over the past year.

Bob Livingston completed our Faithwalking training and from his place of work at Kirby Corporation has helped lead his company to embrace the Whole and Healthy Children initiative and has successfully mobilized seven mentors from Kirby’s Channelview office to serve as mentors at Cloverleaf Elementary in the Galena Park School district.

When the efforts in all eight schools are compiled, here’s where we are.

A year ago we began this process with 18 mentors – one year later we have 117. One year ago we did not have any specifically enlisted intercessors – today we have 38. One year ago we had done one make-over project – one year later we’ve done 7 of them. One year ago we had not raised any money for the schools – today $20,000 has been given to our focus schools for their use and another $15,000 was raised for work projects requested by the principals.

So you can see that in this first full year we have made progress. As Jim Collins says in “Good to Great in the Social Sectors,” the flywheel has begun to move.

Second the Whole and Healthy Children initiative is an umbrella vision under which folks with many different kinds of passions in the Body of Christ can join in this effort. Terry Richter is an example of this. He completed our Faithwalking training and as the co-owner of Unified Resource Inc. came back to his community where he mobilized a Nigerian Soccer Coach, the juniors and seniors on the soccer team at Houston Christian High School, and the young people at Grace Presbyterian Church to put on a soccer league for children in Chambers Elementary in the Alief School District.

Bob Baldwin is another example. Out of his Faithwalking experience, he helped mobilize the Body of Christ in the Tomball area. In a mobile home park for first generation Hispanics he and a team of people are helping the children of these immigrants to have consistent help with homework three afternoons a week while also helping parents learn English as a second language.

These are but two of a growing number of folks who, stirred by a vision of raising a generation of Whole and Healthy Children, are finding a way to engage outside of our programmatic initiative.

So Whole and Healthy Children is both a program that we are offering through the public schools and it is a vision that we are challenging the whole Body of Christ to find a way to connect to. Imagine with us what would happen if a growing number of people in the Body of Christ gave their word – to mentor, to pray, to conduct work projects, to give – imagine the real possibility of a generation of whole and healthy children.

We are celebrating some initial short-term wins today! But short-term wins are not enough. Is it possible for us to sustain this initiative over a decade in a way that really results in transformation? Obviously, we are convinced, but what’s next. How do we move ahead, building momentum toward a growing set of results that will build confidence and hope? We have three answers for you today.

First, it is our deep conviction that to see this transformation occur, we must be personally and individually transformed. God designed us to have shared stewardship over the common good and declares that our highest purpose is realized in life when we give our lives away for those who have no power – the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the poor. You find these words in Jeremiah 9:23-24. This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD.”

Our Faithwalking experience is the entry point that can lead you down the pathway to personal transformation. We will equip you to more faithfully and effective serve the common good out the places of your best gifting and passion. Faithwalking is not another ministry of Mission Houston. It is the heart of the heart of our calling. The public schools will not be transformed until a critical mass of us are personally transformed to a new life of sacrifice and service for the common good. Faithwalking will equip and empower you for that journey. We have a small and growing number of stories of personal transformation, and one of our great hopes today is that many of you will become a part of the Faithwalking movement.

Second, we must be accountable. Mission Houston is 10 years old as a ministry, and until recently we have not done a good job of tracking metrics that measure success. That has changed for us this year. Today we have attempted to model our change of behavior. We’ve given our word that God will transform the public schools in our city. As a result, we have chosen key metrics of progress that we will track and measure at the individual and corporate levels. We are going to regularly report progress. If you give us your contact info today on the response cards, we will regularly be accountable to you – when the news is good and when it is not. We believe God uses this kind of accountability to inspire, to teach, and to guide.

Third, we must be learners. We are crystal clear that we don’t know all that we need to know in order to faithfully achieve God’s purposes. We are developing learning communities at the citywide level and around individual schools in specific communities in the Greater Houston area. In these learning communities we are fostering the kinds of relationships where truth telling, authenticity, shared experience, and mutual support results in transformational learning. We invite you to help us learn by finding a place to contribute your time, your prayers, and your money and then regularly giving us feedback about your experience. Sign up for Faithwalking. Volunteer in one of our focus schools as a mentor or an intercessor.

I stand before you today confident that with your support God is going to transform the schools in our city. Within ten years we will be in 135 schools who have over 13,000 mentors and intercessors who are helping lift the load along side principals and faculty and parents. School buildings will be beautiful places of learning and school leaders will have additional financial resources to fund their goals. It’s in His heart and He is able. I don’t – we don’t - fully see the way forward. But we are confident that what you are seeing and hearing today are the next steps God is calling us to and we are stepping out in faith to do that – to serve, to connect, to report, to share, to learn.

We are trusting that as we do our part, and you do yours, there is coming a day when we will collectively shout for joy as God’s renown will increase in the city because his kindness, justice and righteousness is experienced by the poorest and most vulnerable children in the city. Greater things truly are yet to come.

In recovery from a critical spirit

2009-05-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of my life in recovery from judgmentalism. For a part of my younger adult life I actually believed that being a good follower of Christ meant that when I was with others who were sinning that it was a faithful response to Jesus to judge them. . . to speak words of condemnation . . . to make them wrong.

Somewhere along the way, Matthew 7:1-6 took root in me. The words penetrated my heart. I was convicted of how deeply judgmental I had become as a way of life, and I was confused because judgmentalism was a way of life for the congregations I had been a part of. That conviction and confusion began a long journey for me.

At some point along the way I learned that the gospels distinguish judgment that alienates and judgement that discerns. The Matthew 7:1-6 passage teaches me to see that until I can get fully present the consequences of my own habitual sin, any attempt to help others with theirs will bring destruction in my relationships. Later in the same chapter (vs 16-20) Jesus says that we will know a tree by its fruit. In this context judgement is about discernment.

Finally I learned that I could be discerning without rejecting other people - though it's a discipline that is developed with lots of practice.

These days, I'm trying to practice the discipline found in both Matthew passages. Here's what that looks like. For me personally I'm deadly serious about following Jesus. So, I'm studying, meditating upon, and memorizing the things that I know about him and am trying to grow my integrity as a person who lives like he lived. And at the same time, I'm learning to relate to every person God brings into my path with unconditional acceptance - especially those who are closest to me.

When I write that down, it seems simple. But for me, it has been very difficult. So I'm practicing, and messing up, cleaning up those messes when I'm aware of them, and practicing some more.

Today my friend Jim M. sent me this modified version of the serenity prayer (that I then modified a little more), and it prompted this post. It captures what I think Jesus lived and what I'm trying to learn to live.

God grant me the serenity to love and accept everyone just the way they are (especially the people closest to me); the courage to sit still when loud vibrations come from within me when they don't do what I want them to do when I want them to do it; and the wisdom to trust Jesus to transform me so that I am a reflection of His unconditional love.

Feedback from an actual participant

2009-05-03T19:29:00.000-07:00

Kent Major is the President of Alpheus Communication located in Houston. He and his wife, Caroline, are recent participants in the Faithwalking ministry. What follows is his testimony about the experience.

The Faithwalking retreat was an amazing experience. I’ve been blessed to attend numerous Christian conferences and be exposed to much good, biblical teaching over the years, but never have I been part of a group that was invited to look so deeply into the condition of our own hearts and to consider -- in an intimate setting -- what might be holding us back from becoming more radically obedient disciples of Jesus. It will be some time before I can evaluate the long-term fruits of the retreat, but I have high hopes. With the concepts, tools, and follow-up that Faithwalking provides, I’m left with no excuse for not engaging in the “heart” work that will result in a greater capacity to love and serve both God and my fellow man. The facilitators are not just good at running retreats but are top-notch folks who are committed to living out what they’re teaching; I was challenged by the radical decisions they’ve made in their own personal lives.

If you are interested in registering for the June Faithwalking retreat, go to this link.

New Opportunity

2009-04-27T15:43:00.001-07:00

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus says "go and make disciples." I've spent 25 years asking and attempting to answer the questions, "What is a disciple and how do you make one?"

The ministry that Mission Houston calls Faithwalking is the result of those years of study, exploration, and practice. Today we announced that registration for the next Faithwalking retreat is now open.

If you are interested in participating in the June 12-14, 2009 retreat, go to this link to register.

Facing challenges

2009-04-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've been tired all week. We experienced the death of 23-year-old Adrian in our community, and during that same time one of my young friends who has struggled so hard to live a life of integrity has taken several steps backwards this week. In both experiences I grieve. Not as those with no hope, but I grieve. Here are some random thoughts.

I live with an illusion that I look to Jesus' life daily to shatter. It is the illusion that I can live my life in such a way that there will be no suffering. If I just learn enough, serve enough, work enough, give enough, then the suffering will go away - for me and for those I love. And when that doesn't happen I make it mean that I am not enough.

Jesus said clearly, in this world you will have tribulation. Jesus is right about that and I make my life harder when hard things happen and I indulge feelings of anger that the world is the way that it is. If I could just embrace the losses I've experienced this past week and embrace the sadness, I know from experience that I move through the sadness more quickly. It doesn't remove the need to grieve. This way just doesn't load the grief experience up with a layer of anger that isn't necessary and that makes the process much more complicated.

I encounter some people - friends who follow Jesus - who don't seem to struggle with what I struggle with. Their lives seems full of all kinds of joy and success and blessing. I'm not complaining about my life. People who live around me hear me say out loud often, "I love my life." But it is a life that has lots of tribulation in it. I have all kinds of conversations with the Lord - those based in guilt (what have I done to deserve this) and those based in judgement (those people just aren't as committed as I am - if they were they'd have a lot more tribulation in their lives). Daily Jesus helps me sort out the difference in joy and contentment and happiness. He also helps me remember that joy and tribulation can exist in the same space, simultaneously. When I can get that, I find rest.

I've been reminded this week that when the challenge comes, it's too late to prepare to face it. Whatever preparation I've done - character built, discipline engaged, lessons learned - will be tested in the challenge. But if I wait to prepare until the challenge comes, then it's too late. My lack of preparation will be revealed. I've been encouraged this week by the results of my preparation. And the challenges have revealed that I have more preparation to do.

So, at the end of this day I'm tired. I'm sad for Adrian, his family, and his community. I'm also sad for the temporary setbacks and resultant suffering of my other young friend, and today I'm choosing to embrace that. There are responsibilities I must face tomorrow, but for today I'm going to get something to drink, put on some music that I love, and be still in the presence of God. There are more challenges to come in their time.

An epic life

2009-04-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Today Betty's cousin, Pat, sent me a link that inspired me. I share it with you in hopes that it will do the same. Take a deep breath, click here, and remember what it takes to live an epic life.

Repenting in the midst of Holy Week

2009-04-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Here it is again! Another news article chronicling the waning influence of the church in our culture. This time it's in last week's Newsweek. The article is clear and compelling.

The Newsweek article reminded me of a talk I gave to a group of business folks earlier this week. The talk began with context.

"I'm speaking to you tonight in the context of the reality that we live in a culture where those who say they follow Jesus have virtually no demonstrated ability to make a substantive difference in the things that seem to be destroying the fabric of our culture. I'm not saying we aren't helping some individuals. But, for sixty years now the trends have reflected and ever accelerating decline - a 50% divorce rate, skyrocketing increases in the use of drugs and alcohol, growing poverty in the richest nation in the world, and prison system that is about to implode on us - just to name a few."

"In the face of these realities, I often find three responses. The first response is seen in those who hear this information and go back to the things we've been doing - internally focused mostly on personal evangelism and church growth with a seasonal project to serve the poor - and work harder at that. The other is seen in those who fearfully and angrily lash out at the world - however you frame that in your thinking - and judge, criticize, castigate and generally blame the world for being exactly what Jesus said the world would be. The third is seen in those who have quit reading by now because they've become resigned and cynical to things ever changing."

"It seems to me that in the most appropriate Biblical text to guide our response in this context is II Chronicles 7:14. The Bible seems to say that when the land deteriorates that followers of God should repent. When we are salt and light - when we are what a follower of Jesus is called to be - then healing, wholeness, functionality - these are the things that come to the land. When we are not, that land experiences famine."

"So today, in the middle of this week the Church calls Holy, I invite you to join me in repenting. Repentance is not about guilt, condemnation or placing blame. Biblically, repentance is about acknowledging that we missed God's mark for us, and then changing our minds by agreeing with Him about what He says is so.

What is transpiring around us breaks my heart. I call for repentance - not from a spirit of judgement (in the Matthew 7:1-5) but from one who is examining the fruit and describing what he sees (Matthew 7:16-20). I particularly think that as a people we should repent of being so judgmental; of being so emotionally immature; of being so disengaged with the poor, the marginalized and the disenfranchised; of wanting our religious institution to dominate the political world rather than giving up our rights as Jesus did and serving them; for being religious consumers who are more interested in being served than we are in serving.

When, in that spirit of repentance, we come to the world around us with a humble servants spirit, things will begin to change for us. Until then, we can expect the number of people who see us as irrelevant and selfish to grow more and more rapidly."

A Gathering of People Committed to Transformation

2009-04-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

Mission Houston is joining with Ecclesia Houston, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, and St. John's United Methodist Church to present Missional Living in the Real World featuring renown author and speaker, Michael Frost, May 5 & 6, 2009.

Michael's book ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for the Missional Church" has had deep impact on me and the Harbor Community where I pastor. I wrote a blog after reading this book about three months ago. And his teachings reflect the core values of Mission Houston's Faithwalking teachings. It may be the most challenging, dynamic read that I have done in two or three years.

Read more about Michael and this event and/or register by going to this article on the Mission Houston web site. Or click here to hear a 1:30 video of Michael.

Evangelism and Church Planting are not enough

2009-03-31T11:30:00.001-07:00

Eric Swanson is a friend and the co-author of The Externally Focused Church and one of the really effective leaders on the planet. He is also a co-founder of Good Cities. Recently I attended a training event that he helped convene and lead. He shared this compelling story with us.

We were meeting with a group of church leaders from all over Latin America. One morning we asked Layo Lieva from San Salvador to lead us in reading The Word. Layo has been in ministry in El Salvador for over 30 years so he has the long view of ministry in one country. He understands the theology of place. He told us that when he was a student, and his country had a mere 3-5% professing Christians, he and his friends would dream of what their country would be life if just 1/3 of his countrymen knew Christ. "What if....?" grew legs as they began strategizing to reach their country.

30 years later Layo had some good news to report to us. 32-38% of El Salvadorians are believers. Moreover, every man, woman, and child, statistically has been evangelized at least three times over in the past 15 years. Conversions have led to church planting so that today there is one evangelical church for every 700 El Salvadorians. (The Saturation Church Planting folks suggest that one church for every thousand people that is culturally relevant and geographically acessible is "saturation.") One of the largest churches in the world is in this tiny country. Elim Church in San Salvador is a cell-based church with an attendance of 147,000 who meet in cell groups all over the city. The name of Jesus is lifted up in public media. El Salvador boasts five Christian newspapers, five Christian television stations and nineteen Christian radio stations abound. There is an association of Christian High School and four Christian universities. There are two evangelical hospitals. Mayors and government officials frequently identify themselves as Christians and people fly in weekly to meet and pray with the country's president. There are "Jesus Marches" replete with banners and bands. Layo notes that there is "a festival of Christian work."

Swanson continues. We sat there smiling at all this great news. It seemed like an answer to his prayers. But Layo wasn't smiling. He concluded by saying these stunning words ....."and the country has never been worse off!"

Worse off? How could this be?

Layo went on to tell us that the mental and moral infrastructure of the country is destroyed. Nine people a day die by violent crimes. Drug use is out of control. 35% of people are unemployed. Gangs are prolific and violent. One study showed that 32% of gang members come from evangelical homes. The most common complaint to the police is "evangelical noise" ... preachers who drive through the streets blaring their message from speakers mounted atop their cars.

So Swanson asked "What went wrong?"

Layo gave us his deliberate thought. " We settled for conversion rather than transformation. We don't need to do better, but we do need to do different. I'm not sure if we need any more church plants that are like the ones we have. We need a different kind of church."

We like to think of El Salvador as a laboratory for ministry methodology . If we got everything we were working towards, what would happen? For evangelists, we might want to know what a country that has been "reached" looks like. For church planters, what is the result of saturation church planting? For those interested in politics, Christian schools, media, etc., we can see the end game.

Change will come, not from doing better but doing different. We need to think, not only about the church, we need to think about and understand the Kingdom. Mission Houston has a ministry called Faithwalking. It's the place that we are training high risk/high impact leaders the practices of transformation. The deadline for registering for our next retreat is Monday, April 6, 2009. Click here for an online registration form. If you are interested in becoming a part of this community, let us know.

A Faithwalker Serves as an Advocate

2009-03-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

Todd is a part of the Faithwalking community. From that training, he felt called by God to serve the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the 5th Street area of Stafford - one of Greater Houston's most economically impoverished communities. He posted the following note on Facebook today.

As many of you know, I recently moved my office to 5th Street in Stafford. God is helping me develop a vision community - a team of people - who are working together to see the spiritual, economic, and personal conditions in this community changed by the power of the Gospel.

Last Thursday morning, Becky Torres, the wife of the pastor of Bethel Ministries located in the heart of the 5th Street Community, asked me if I could talk to a lady (Hilda) in this community who came to them in desperate need. Hilda and her family had gotten an eviction notice declaring that they would be thrown out of their trailer in 3 days. I met with Hilda and Becky translated. Hilda didn't speak English. Here's what I learned.

Hilda and her husband had entered into a lease purchase agreement on this trailer in August '06. Unfortunately, the agreement didn't spell out the payment terms at all. Becky had called me because the owner of the trailer sent a bill saying they owed property taxes on this trailer for three years. Hilda went to the tax office to pay the bill where she learned that the owner had not paid taxes in over 10 years.

Scared and not knowing what to do, she went to an attorney (one she got out of the Hispanic newspaper) and he wrote the owners a letter telling them that what they were doing was not legal. He also said he would need $2000 to represent them.

Obviously, Hilda and her husband did not have that kind of money. So they were considering leaving their home and moving down the street to another trailer. It became very apparent that the owner wrote the eviction notice the day he received the letter from the attorney. The eviction letter simply said that they were being evicted in three days with no cause or reason. The lease purchase agreement clearly stated that the owner had to give 30 days notice - even under default - which they were not in.

This was clearly a case of people taking advantage a poor family who didn't speak English and were not in the country legally. The way the owner worked was that this family was supposed to pay until the he was satisfied, and pay whatever he (the owner) said the tenants owed. Oh, and by the way, they had better not ask any questions or raise any doubts. The pastor at Bethel Ministries thought the owner was simply using the taxes as a way to get the people out of the trailer so they could "sell" it to someone else - again. This is apparently a common practice. It was a clear case of someone with resources abusing and bullying one of the least of these that God tells his people to serve.

I offered to contact the owner and discuss the matter. I called his attention to many things in the lease agreement. He called me back several times. It seems that we became fast friends.

The end of the story is that I met with the owners and the family on Friday evening. The family agreed to exactly how many more payments they would make in order to own the trailer. We left the meeting, went back to my office, and I typed an Addendum to the lease/purchase agreement detailing the resolution of the payment plan. In ten and 1/2 months, the family will own the trailer. If the owner then doesn't deliver a clear title within 30 days after the last payment, he (the owner) will incur a $25/day penalty until the title is delivered. The owner and the family met on Saturday morning to sign the agreement.

I wanted to share this story because it was moving for me to see how much the poor need an advocate before the landowner or wealthy in our society. I felt used by God for some of the "least of these" in my community. I'm convinced that I would not have had this opportunity to minister in this way if I had not moved my office to Bethel in the heart of the 5th Street Community. By moving my office into the community, God is communicating something to the people there about what our vision community is seeking to do.

This work in the 5th Street Community is one example of what Faithwalking is after - equipping people to serve as catalyst for mobilizing the Body of Christ in neighborhoods where poverty exists. Please pray for Todd and the team of folks who are working in this community.

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

2009-03-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

The Christian Science Monitor has published an article entitled The Coming Evangelical Collapse. Click here to read the article. The article opens with these words: We are on the verge - within 10 years - of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the west.

Only time will tell if the author, Michael Spencer is corrected. Here's what is so in Houston.

We are in the sixth decade of declining membership and influence of virtually every group of congregations in the city. And, that decline has been paralleled by declining cultural influence. The declining influence is due to at least two things.

First, as a group, evangelicals have increasingly abandoned the public square. Mission Houston's focus on public schools has given me insight into this. The public school administrators and teachers that we connect to are warm toward us and eager to find ways to partner through the Whole and Healthy Children Initiative. But when we first show up, they are often shocked because for years now, they have experienced the wrath of the Christian community. A quote from a recent article in The Oregonian on church/school partnerships captures the essence of what I'm trying to convey. The Church has said: They (the public schools) are havens for secularism and sexual permissiveness. They indoctrinate our children against traditional American and family values. They're places where Jesus has been run out and moral weakness let in. In the face of that (or is it because of it) rather than being salt and light who are agents of reconciliation, we have in large measure become an embittered and embattled private interest group that has largely abandoned the public schools for private and home schooling.

I believe that the second cause of the sixty years of declining membership and cultural influence is our (the Church's) failure to raise up a critical mass of disciples of Jesus who are willing to give up their rights (Philippians 2:5-12) for the sake of the common good. Instead we've raised up a generation of religious consumers with little or no ability to sacrifice for the sake of the common good. We have virtually lost any sense of service to the common good and have emerged in the eyes of the unchurched world as one of many competing self-interest niche markets who seek to use the political power structure of our country to protect our rights. Rather than being seen as servants (Matthew 20:25-28), we are seen as those who seek to dominate others in order to get our way.

Recently I had an experience that brought all of this together. I attended Children At Risk's annual Summit on Children. One of the speakers was sharing information about the mental health challenges in the juvenile population of our city. She said, "We've had the information that I'm presenting to you for a number of years now, and today I'm here to tell you that things are getting worse. And what makes that so bad is that we know how to solve these problems. We just don't have the will to do so."

The Christian community in Houston has enormous intellectual, relational, and financial resources. As we abide in Christ as a branch to a vine, there should be no problem that, when addressed with a servants heart, speaking with one voice, and acting in concert, could not be solved. The Whole and Healthy Children Initiative is Mission Houston's attempt to mobilize and then speak with that one voice - to mobilize concerted, strategic action - focused one of the most pressing problems faced by the most vulnerable children in the city.

Michael Spencer may very well be correct. In fact, if we simply keep doing what we've been doing, we guarantee that he will be. But there are places of hope. The rest of the story in The Oregonian (referenced above) is that a growing numbers of evangelical congregations, being deeply influence by the Luis Palau Association, are acting as servants to the public schools in Portland, and a renewed hope - both for congregations and for the schools - has emerged. Is it possible that Houston could also be one of the places were the trends of the past 6 decades could be reversed?

I'm betting my life on it.

The challenge of seeing

2009-03-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

I live my life from day to day, consumed by it challenges and opportunities . . . and occasionally, only occasionally, God does something to break into the provincial, comfort focused, life that I live and helps me see the world more clearly. My friend Jessica sent a link - a slide show of less than one minutes - that jarred me again - back to the place of truly seeing. To see the slide show, click here.

Tell me how this impacts you.

Radical Generosity in Portland - a story of hope

2009-02-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

It's so challenging to communicate the idea of city transformation. When properly understood, it's such a massive idea that in this age of resignation and cynicism, it's difficult to get our head around. When properly understood it is not working harder at the things we've all been doing but working differently. In the absence of working real time experience, it seems more like a dream than a vision.

We've had a taste of the vision over the last few years. When Katrina hit, the Church came together and made a massive difference. Then Luis Palau came to our city and offered us an opportunity to which we responded with a massive two day festival that 1/4 million people attended and were blessed by the Church. Neither of these experiences produced transformation, but we got a glimpse of what would happen if the Church would, with one voice, serve the city by helping address our most massive challenges.

Today I got another glimpse of what is possible. Kevin Palau, President of the Luis Palau Association wrote this to me in an email. "Dear Jim, Check out the great article on our Season of Service launch yesterday here in Portland. 350 pastors and our Mayors . . . it continues to be a testament from what we learned in Houston."

Click here to read the story of what Kevin is referring to, let it offer hope, and ask the Lord to continue to unite His Church for selfless, unified service focused on the most pressing issues that our cities face.