On death and disappearing

Tucked into this list in Hebrews 11 is a name that is not nearly as familiar as the others.  Enoch is not necessarily a character that you'd hear about on your average Sunday morning from your average preacher.  I don't know that I've ever really heard an entire message based around him.  Like the rest of those contained in this list we can look back and find reference to him in the Old Testament, this time again in Genesis.  Before you get too excited, when you wander back in to Genesis 5 to read about him, you find him hidden in another list.  It's a genealogy actually ... One of those "this guy lived, and his son was, and his son was, and his son was" kind of lists that we tend to gloss over.  This time he is tucked into a list of nine defendants of Adam.  Each lived a number of years, had sons of their own and "then he died"... All except for one.  Seven times the story goes this way, then for Enoch it records that he disappeared " for God took him".  Then for the last name it goes back to the expected "then he died" ending.  You might overlook it as just an oddity with the recording method of the author of Genesis except for one other interesting difference.  Each of these others are recorded simply as having lived x number of years and then dying.  Enoch is recorded as having "walked with God" before disappearing.  Sunday we are going to dig into what the authors of Hebrews and Genesis might be telling us about Enoch's uniqueness and what does it mean that someone could "walk with God" in such a way as to have it recorded and commended.

first

One of the earliest referred to as being commended for their faith in Hebrews 11 is Abel.  I love that Abel is in here because his story represents a very relevant faith practice that I find is fundamental to the discipleship process.  The story of Cain and Abel forces me to self examine in the space of where I place God in my priorities.  In the earlier years of Saturday Night Live, Billy Crystal played a character named Fernando.  One of the most notable lines from Fernando is "Looking good is better than being good".  On the surface this may seem like a throwaway line, but its actually quite profound.  It applies here in the story of Cain and Abel.  It actually identifies the sometimes murky but actually quite profound difference between their gifts offered before God.  It also identifies a constant struggle in  my own spiritual journey pursuing Jesus.  What is the difference between the two ... looking good and being good I mean ... glad you asked.  "Looking good", in my opinion,  is the shortcut that we attempt in our original desire to follow Jesus.  "Being good" is a point of spiritual maturity where you just have God as preeminent in all things.  Cain and Abel both made offerings to God and yet one was accepted and one not so much.  Look closely and you see that the difference was that one gave "some" and the other gave first and from the first.  Cain gave some in a desire to "look good" while Able gave first as a reflection of "being good".  The gifts revealed where each was at.  The thing that is often tragically overlooked though, but must not be, is that Cain was not condemned for his gift.  The indication is that it was an opportunity for teaching, that Cain would have had another shot.  It was grace in its earliest form.  The bar was set at a certain height and he had another shot at getting over it.  Instead he chose to eliminate the bar.  
Too many times I have chosen to eliminate the bar.  Too often I'm attempting to take the shortcut of "looking good" rather than investing in the journey of "being good".  And so the question continues ... "Am I giving Him my first or am I giving what's left over?"  When it comes to resources, it's really not that difficult to determine ... all I need to do is look at my bank statements.  When it comes to my time, all I really need to do is look at my calendar.  Fortunately ... Each day I get to do it over again, and prayerfully I'll choose to clear the bar rather than eliminate it.

Summer travels

Each and every time, without fail, that I travel the highways in this part of the country, I think about those who traveled these parts long before asphalt and motorized vehicles.  Specifically I wonder about those who moved across these vast spaces of rock, scrub brush, and canyons with every piece of themselves and their lives stored in a wagon. I wonder what drove them forward when each peak conquered revealed another treacherous and seemingly unending path.   Even in the comfort of an temperature controlled chariot moving at speed on smooth roads and over safe bridges, I can get impatient as the destiny seems always out of reach and always over one more pass.  Each and every time I wonder what it was that enabled them to get up each and every day and put one more days worth of life and trial and labor behind them.  Over these next several weeks that Common Table gathers in community we will be immersed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, visiting and revisiting those "ancients" who were commended for the faith that kept them moving but ultimately didn't get them to "the promise".  My prayer is that is will encourage us to look intently at our own journeys and consider how we might develop a faith that continues to move us forward. 

devotion and the bride

Wrestling with our text in Acts 2 where the earliest form of the church emerges, I keep running into the word "devoted".  As a practitioner of the pastoral arts for more than two decades ... Yes that makes me old ... I have long been in pursuit of what I would term the "keys of engagement" which would unlock the door of meaningful participation in the life of the local church.  I have lived through terms like "relevant" and "seeker", "missional", "attractional", "emergent" and many others that have been spoken into the dilemma of steady declines in church participation and attendance.  The recent report from the Pew Research Group clearly demonstrates that none of these discussions really offers silver bullet solutions.  The "rise of the nones" rings as clearly or perhaps more so in the great city of Seattle.  Could it be that this word "devoted" need be reinserted into the discussion?  Could it be something so radical as to put some biblical perspective back into our quest to find the missing link that would ... Although not solve it ... at least explain what has really occurred?
Could we put it in these terms ... that the Church in our culture struggles with the concept of being devoted to the biblical community often referred to as "the bride" of Christ.
The Acts 2 usage of the term "devoted" is used 5 other places in New Testament teaching, all referring to the idea of sacrificial, persevering and continual steadfastness.  As one who has lead many couples through their marriage ceremonies, all speaking in various terms that would be descriptive of this concept, I know only too well of the disconnect between belief and practice.
In contemporary language, rather than the "till death do us part" verbiage that we profess, perhaps it could more accurately read the "till something less difficult and more appealing comes along" that tends to be practiced.
It's widely recognized that continual exposure to failed marriage relationships (lack of devotion) tends to contribute to an increased reluctance to pursue marriage as reasonable option.  Could it be that the same is going on with faith identification, particularly as it pertains to participation in a church community?  My personal observation is that we are modeling, in practice, a "till something less difficult and more appealing" comes along.  The concept of devotion is less appealing than sin, repentance, and what you do with your money.  
Sunday we asked, "how can you tell what someone is devoted to?".  It wasn't a deep question at all.  Within seconds people offered the markers of finances, time, resources.  What would it look like in the context of our own lives to overlay that outline?  Would people recognize in us, not by words but by practice, a devotion to the "bride" or would they see "until something less difficult and more appealing" comes along?

We are not as strong as we think we are

We begin this week with a journey through the mission and madness of the community commonly known as the church.  I've spent the last 23 years loving and learning from what is biblically known as "the hope of the world".  I will admit that, on too many occasions, I am straining to discover any wisdom in Gods plan to use the church for something as monumental as this task.  More conversations than I care to admit have centered around my attempts to explain the "why" of being part of a church.  I have difficulty defending some of the absurdity and disconnect from what I feel must have been the original wisdom of the plan.  The question of "why" church has become even more personal in recent years as we have been laboring to establish this unique expression known as Common Table.  After more than 20 years in traditional ministry, no one knows the flaws and failures more intimately than I do ... And let's just say it out loud, unlike others, I don't have the convenient choice of just staying home on a whim.  I'm expected to be there.  Some would say that I'm paid to be there.  I can see the logic in that ... However, in my case, to stop there and assume that you know why a pastor type would be in church week after week, would fall short of the real truth.  It's very simple really.  The truth is that, when all of the obvious is stripped away, I need to be here.  The reality is, in the words of Rich Mullins, "we are not as strong as we think we are". We meaning the collective "we"... The "we"who want to wear the individual label of follower of Jesus, but not be tied down to the corporate gathering of a community.  It is the "we" who'd rather be the "I" ...as in the individual.
It's the spiritual equivalent of a 3 year old declaring that "I can do it myself".  Biblically and practically speaking, my experience is that we are indeed not as strong as we think we are.  Allow me to point out a few of these areas.  The first sign of trouble in someone's spiritual life is that they begin to disappear from community.  They isolate themselves.  Satan is described as one who prowls around, waiting to devour victims in the same way that other predators will go after those who are outside the safety of community.  The book of Hebrews encourages us to not give up gathering together because in community is where encouragement and life is found.  The book of Acts reveals the incredible power that manifests itself in community.  It is all about "we", for safety, for encouragement, for impact, for hope.
There is wisdom in Gods plan, ancient wisdom, from which we have much to learn.  I'm intending to lead us down that path over the next few weeks to discover how God intended us to be and the role that we have, collectively, in representing "the hope of the world".

Interesting

The last few months in the life of Common Table have been interesting.  I would have never written the script this way in any of my preconceived notions of what a new church might look like.  The people are not the same as I had imagined they would be.  The location is not what I thought it would be.  The look and feel is even different.  For a planner, like me, in all honesty, this has taken some adjustment.  I like it though.  I like it so much more than I thought that I would and the changes are so much more welcome than I would have imagined that I'd be comfortable with.  I like it so much that a new frustration has surfaced for me.  The reasons that I like it so much more than I would have imagined are reasons that I believe that so many other people would like it also.  People who have lost faith in the traditional church, people who don't want to spectate, people who like adventure, uncertainty and mission would all very much appreciate this place.  People who can't gather on a Sunday morning, people who want to learn actively instead of passively, and people who want to come as they are while discovering who Jesus calls them to be would all love this place.  The frustration is that I'm not so clear on how to let them know that such a place exists.  As I write this I am also in the midst of trying to develop a mail centered communication.  I want people to know, up front and honestly, what we value, what we are about, what they might encounter when they walk into our warehouse space in the heart of Seattle.  This is probably not the place for those who are church shopping.  It's not the place for those who want a programmed faith experience.  We are pretty organic and experiential.  Sometimes we are like the proverbial box of chocolates where you're not always sure "what you're gonna get".  We are hands on and as often as possible, face to face, being the church together.  We are a gathering of people who have some and those who don't have at all.  We don't sit in rows.  We learn with each other and from each other.  We pray together, we sometimes eat together, we often serve together.  The door to our warehouse ministry center is open and you are most welcome to join us on the adventure ... and if you are a little apprehensive, bring a friend.

Only Jesus

At the beginning of this journey all that I really knew was that it seemed to me that it would take us until the Fall of 2014 before we would be able to actually, publically, be meeting regularly as a gathering and worshipping group in a dedicated space to call home.  I had no idea what that meant or what it would look like.  The only strategy that I felt confident in was to, in the model of Jesus recorded in John chapter 1, "move into the neighborhood" (see The Message version). So move we did and began, along with a dozen others, to meet and pray and meet and eat and meet and serve in this Seattle neighborhood known as South Lake Union. 
Its been a long and winding road.  Friends have come and friends have gone.  Leads have appeared and disappeared.  Promising space to gather seemed always to be just out of reach.  For those who have just begun to follow or those who have lost track over the months, good news came to us just as Summer was ending.  A home materialized through a relationship born from a years worth of "in the neighborhood" and we have a place to gather in a space that belongs to a wonderful non-profit known as Redeeming Soles.  I don't know about you, but it seems like a bit of Jesus playfulness on words that a church, ultimately concerned about redeemed people (souls), would be welcomed by an organization dedicated to serving people through redeemed shoes (soles). 
So here we stand now, at the dawning of another November, and only 3 Sundays until we hold our first truly public gathering.  There is so much left to do in the 21 days left, and to be sure we may not be the 100% ready that our human nature causes us to think that we need to be ... but ready or not, we will be there.  Between now and then we will be heads up and following the only one who could have led us to this point and the only one who matters in all of this.