GREATNESS

In The Seeking of Personal Greatness...

There Are Compromises To Be Made...

In Allowing Greatness To Find You

There Are Personal Sacrifices To Be Embraced

r.s.g. 02/05/2009

Somethings to Consider

The Thought Has Occurred To Me That...
Often, When We Pray,

Perhaps The Terrifying Truth Is:...

That Our Prayer Can Be More For WHAT We Believe To Be TRUE In Our Mind...

Rather Than WHO Exists In Our HEART...

Have We Mistakenly Prayed To Our Ideology?

Consider Carefully In Sober Fashion Who Our God, At This Juncture, Could Really Be...

A Dogmatic, Brittle and Dead Orthodoxy...

Or Unwitting Passionate Form of Self-Idolization...



Maybe This Is Why Our Prayers Are Always Answered... Just Not Like We Thought They Should Be...

r.s.g 02/03/2009

..................................................

Any Time An Ideology Moves Towards Some Form of Human INSTITUTIONALIZATION

It Necessarily Means A Decisive Move Towards CORRUPTION

Because At That Point, The Ideological Issue Almost Always Morphs Over Into The Use of "POWER" - Who Gets It And The Manner By Which They Wield It

Committed Relationships, Collectively Committed To A Common Idea, Need Not Always Be Formally Organized. If They Do, The Issue Inevitably Morphs From One Of Potentially Redemptive Ideals For The Whole, To One Of Self-Serving Power For The Individual.

r.s.g. 1/20/2009

Part II – Spiritual Formation In Youth Ministry and Higher Education

Contributions from the Discipline of Spiritual Formation

I am convinced that if we are to produce the kind of students who have the capacity to implement a faith and vocational approach to their life, then we must begin with the foundational issue of their Spiritual Formation. It's the challenge of enabling them becoming whole and complete in Christ. Therefore, what is meant by Spiritual Formation is more than (what in principle is practiced in many evangelical contexts) as "verse-a-day" to keep the devil away". And/Or what Dallas Willard brilliantly describes in his seminal work: The Divine Conspiracy, as "Sin Management."

Can we validly interpret it's (the Bible) portrayal of faith in Christ as one concerned only with the management of sin, whether in the form of our personal debt or in the form of societal evil? …History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally. That is where we find ourselves today… When we examine the broad spectrum of Christian proclamation and practice, we see that the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual's sins… The current gospel then becomes the gospel of "sin management." Transformation of life and character is not part of the redemptive message."

To put it another way, one's ability to manage their sin, to keep it from influencing negatively and overtly one's life, is often seen as the primary goal of Christian maturity and discipleship. Willard's critique, directed mostly towards evangelicalism, goes on to argue in his book that transformation of life and character necessarily means that one must engage the world… In short, according to Willard, our faith is to be all about the Kingdom of God, as it was for Christ. There can be no decompartmentalization, for the Christian, between faith and the rest of one's life. We cannot continue to practice, as many Christians do: Live in the world, despite the world; and not for Christ, to change the world.

Evangelists as Modern Day Gnostics:

In like manner, there needs to be an overhaul for many of us in how we present the Gospel to young adults. Numerous students hear the Gospel presented to them in what is nothing more than a form of modern day Gnosticism. The-would-be evangelist presents it in the following manner:

"I have some important information that you need to know about and if you listen to me and choose to respond, you can go to heaven and not to hell."

In other words, it's all about collecting vital life-saving information that in turn becomes an almost magical incantation. Once the words are spoken, then heaven is all but assured. The new believer then enters into a life of doing those things that will mostly "maintain" their faith; so that they are confident enough that if they died they would go to heaven and not to hell. This is the lowest common denominator of what can be offered still be considered the Gospel. Very little is said about counting the cost and the Lordship of Christ. Instead of enhancing their restored relationship with Christ, they craft into their life only those things that give them comfort of their eternal standing. There is a very felt need to grow into the image of Christ, because the emphasis is all about doing the right things… The unfortunate repercussions of this kind of Christian life style are disastrous and feed directly into a maintenance only mentality.

Right Being vs. Just Right Knowing or Right Doing

Nor should we, on the other hand, mistake Christian maturity as just having the ability to master intellectually and articulate correct theology… They are not the same. Soren Kierkegaard notes the following in his essay entitled: The Weight of Inwardness

… Certitude and inwardness determine whether or not the individual is in the truth. It is not a lack of content that gives rise to arbitrariness, unbelief, mockery or religion, but a lack of certitude. Whenever, inwardness and appropriation are lacking, the individual is unfree in relation to the truth, even though he otherwise "possesses" the whole truth[…]"

[…]our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good."

"Truth exists for the particular individual only as he himself produces it in action. If the individual prevents the truth from being for him in that way, we have a phenomena of the demonic. Truth has always had many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to permeate his whole being…
…Without inwardness, an adherent of the most rigid orthodoxy may be demonic…"
Kierkegaard passionately believed that right knowing did not always mean right being. He believed that while right doing didn't always mean right being… right being did always mean right doing… I am reminded of J.I. Packer's comment on the world "theologia" from which we get our world theology. Prior to the Reformation, according to Packer, the word "theologia" meant: "To study God in such a way, that what you learned became a part of you." After the Reformation, "theologia," in many Christian circles, came to mean simply the intellectual and scholastic study of God. Mystery and emotion in the Christian experience were disabused and deemed irrelevant.
Many Christian traditions eventually gave themselves permission to see one's Spiritual Formation as that of knowing only about God rather than the experience of knowing God personally. Again, I quote Kierkegaard: "Nobody knows more of the truth than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be in the truth; it is to have the truth for one's life. This always costs a struggle." Theology then must be internalized inwardly, in order that it be authentically manifested and represented outwardly.
What is Spiritual Formation? It is the commitment to the process of inwardly becoming like Jesus Christ, so that you can outwardly do the things that Jesus would do, if He were you, in the here and now.

Spiritual Formation in Christian Higher Education

The connection to Higher Education to me is obvious. Those of us in Christian Higher Education must challenge our students to advance further from the weak praxis of what it is popularly believed it means to be "Christian." They must move beyond practicing the Christian faith as a form of cheap fire insurance (i.e. "cheap grace" according to Bonhoeffer), the belief that Jesus came only to save them from their sins. They must understand that the decision they make for Christ necessarily means a life transforming encounter with the person of Christ… …that they have been saved "to" (Christ) and not just saved "from" (hell). That it's a decision having mostly to do far more with restoration (of relationships) rather than a region (heaven over hell).

Transformed, Transcend Transformational

O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first know you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread, and I found that I was far distant from you, in a region of total unlikeness, as I were hearing your voice from on high saying: "I am the food of grown men, Grow and you shall feed upon me. And you will not, as with the food of the body, change me into yourself, but you will be changed into me." Augustine Book VII pg. 149-50
It's crucial for them to understand that their Spiritual Transformation must lead them to the hard belief and practice that the more they are inwardly transformed, the more capable they are of transcending those compartmentalizing personal and cultural inhibitors that keep them from being transformational agents within the world of their private and professional lives.
Johann Arndt, German Lutheran pastor who heavily influenced German Pietism in the later 15^th and early 16^th centuries, noted in his essay on True Christianity the following:

Everyone wishes very much to be a servant of Christ, but no one wishes to be His follower… And although we cannot, in our present weakness, perfectly imitate the holy and noble life of Christ… nevertheless, we ought to live it, and yearn to imitate it, for thus we live in Christ, and Christ lives in us, as John in the first Epistle 2:6 says: 'He who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.' …No one can love Christ who does not follow the example of His holy life… True Christianity consists, not in words or external show, but in living faith, from which arise righteous fruits, and all manner of Christian virtues, as from Christ Himself."

And so we have this challenge before us… The challenge of helping our students transforming their inward nature into the nature of Christ Himself, so that no matter where they go and what they do, they would do it has if Christ Himself where doing it. I believe that it's only with this kind of heart and mind, that our students will have the motivating passion (because it's Christ's) and the moral and spiritual resolve (because it's the character of Christ, redeeming and energizing their own) that will enable them to be toxic to the very worldliness in which they find themselves. They will truly be able to believe: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) It will be then, and only then that we will be able to penetrate and transform those major institutions in our world e.g. the worlds of Business, Government, Education etc., that heretofore have been impenetrable and any substantive manner.

Christ in and Through Us, In the World

What the world desperately needs to see is not a Christianized us, but rather us, in Christ, in the world. In essence, it's the practice rejecting the corrosive values of the "world" and instead, choosing to connect lovingly and meaningfully with Christ's omnipresence within the world. It is not our job to take Christ into our professional work and world… He is already there! It's a matter of deliberate choice to have our life resonating with and accommodating His presence so that what He is reflected in and through us in a powerful, authentic, compelling and restorative manner to all of those people that He had determined to restore to Himself.

The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God. This is the colossal point of contention, either love or hate. This is the place where the most terrible fight must be fought. And where is this place? In a person's innermost being. Whether the struggle is over millions or over a penny, [in the world of business for example…] it is a matter of loving and preferring God – the most terrible fight is the struggle for the highest. What immeasurable happiness is promised to the one who rightly chooses. If anyone is unable to understand this, the reason is that he is unwilling to accept that God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch but in order to be chosen…"

What does the world need more than Christ? In Acts chapter one Christ ascended. In Acts chapter two the Holy Spirit descended... to live in us... that we might become the image of Christ once again in the world.

Spiritual Formation

And The Integration of Faith and Vocation

Part I
In the early 1990's, as a Student Minister, I would often take my Student's to a Young Life camp up in the state of New York. In order to save a day's traveling, we would all board a charter bus at 11:00 p.m. and drive the entire night (the thought being that everyone would be sleeping!) and arrive about 10:00 a.m. in the morning good-to-go for our next eight-day camping experience.
One particular event I recall vividly, during one of these adventures, was waking up in the deep dark hours of the morning and needing desperately to use the "facility." Sitting in the very front seat, I stood up and groggily noted through the semi-darkness a veritable wasteland of sleeping human bodies, grotesquely arranged across the aisle, seats and even the overhead luggage racks. Swaying precariously while I picked my way carefully to the restroom in the back, I noted four or five students who were still awake and playing cards right across the aisle from the bathroom. We all took a brief moment to stare at each other for a moment without saying any words, and then I opened the door and disappeared inside.
Upon completing my essential task, I made my way to the door only to discover that I could not open it! Immediately it came to mind that the students just outside the door must have barricaded themselves against it. Confident in my physical size and strength, I determined to push them away from the door by placing right foot against the toilet and my left foot against the opposite wall. Bracing my shoulders against the door and turning the knob at the same time, pushed against the door with all of my might. Sweat beaded itself on my forehead and my legs shook violently, but try as I might I could not budge the door. I stopped suddenly when it occurred to me that the loud punctuating grunts and groans emanating from the restroom, from all of my exertions would have made great laughing fodder for my adversaries outside the door. Nonplussed, I devised another plan of escape. Crossing to the other side of the room (I use this phrase very generously), ran at the door full-force like an enraged bull hoping to jar them loose and hopefully get a foothold and force my way out. Again, my efforts netted me only a loud fruitless thump; a nanosecond of brilliant stars and a sore shoulder that bounced me back to where I started. Becoming concerned, I craftily resorted to one final cannot-fail-plan: I placed my face near the door crack and begged to be let out – promising everything but my first-born son. Regrettably, like all my other preceding efforts no results!
Backing up from the door, I began to pace around attempting to devise some other plan that would render my escape from the gross confines in which I had been trapped for over twenty minutes. "Wait!" I said to myself. "Ohhhh…" Trembling with hope and anticipation, I turned the knob of the door hopefully. Pulling it INWARD the door opened up silently… The students that I thought had trapped me in the restroom were across the aisle were sleeping. Twenty minutes in that place when I only needed to be there for two – just because I lost perspective on which way the door moved!!! Flushed with humiliation, I made my way back to the front of the bus resolute that I would NEVER let anyone know what had happened!

The Moral of the Story:

Admittedly, I often get trapped spiritually speaking in the restroom of life. I get stuck because my lack of vision and perspective keeps me there and nothing else. I find this lost perspective leaves me with a bored, complacent and uninspired Christian life. I am convinced in the field of Youth Ministry, or even Spiritual Formation, much of it has to do with my lack of practicing a comprehensive sense of intentionally -- the integrating of a vibrant faith into my vocation. I know also that I am not alone in the struggle to integrate faith and vocation.

My Personal Responsibility

How easy it is to settle into the predictable machinations and responsibilities of my office without ever really insisting on energizing and perfecting my particular vocation as Christ would have it be. I know that I should never be free of the need to model to my students the very same things that I am calling and challenging them with as well. I should want my teaching and praxis of Student Ministry and Spiritual formation to be evident in my life still, even as I, at the same time, demand that it be evident in their life as well. In secret moments of hidden honestly, I ask myself: "What compelling evidence do I have in my own life that gives me the credibility to make the demands that I make on how they should be and act personally and professionally?" Can I say to them with integrity: "You can do this!" Because I have actually seen or done or am doing it myself?
My mind and heart are often needled with the disturbing thought that my constant challenge to students to include their faith in their vocation, (in ways that are substantive and meaningful) must first of all begin with the personal witness and observable evidence in my own life. Again and again, those sanctifying questions from the Holy Spirit: "Have I - am I - taking similar kind's risks, making similar kinds of sacrifices that I am asking them to make?" Have I instead contented myself to fall back on the practice that it's ok to, quote, instruct and present only theoretical material based on what some "expert" wrote, who happened to read what someone else wrote, who in turn read about still someone else – generations removed from real life experience?
I cringe inwardly when I recognize that I have not honored teachable spirits by making sure my anecdotes fresh? I become troubled when my selected personal stories related to the material that I am teaching, might not be authentic and compelling? I feel frustrated when I run short of illustrations, honed by real life experiences that have the ability to motivate and inspire. Is there any good reason why I should give up being committed as a scholar-practitioner (participator)?
At the root of it all, I believe that God calls me to use my gifts and to live life on the edge as a divine, sometimes wild, adventure; yet inwardly haunts the subtle but terrible fear, that I faithfully practice that all-too-true old and unpleasant adage: "Those who can't do teach."
In my more honest and reflective times, I find a literary figure like Gandalf - that enigmatic character from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - fascinating. Like him I want to always be out THERE, - in the world… mixing it up…. I want to always truly be aware of the danger that is before us and ACTING in a manner that demands the full use of my calling (vocation) and gifts, combating whatever evil the Lord has prepared in advance for me to engage. I want vocationally, with godly love, if circumstances demand it, to be able to stand courageously before the demonic Balrogs of this age, and declare with resolute passion "you shall not pass!" because I belong to a higher order. But this will be impossible with my faith and vocation if I am constantly hanging out within the dim, narrow, polluted and unimaginative confines of a restroom. Balrogs don't seem to have established their domicile in restrooms and for obvious reasons – nobody lives there.
Living in the restrooms of life results in my having very little credibility because the nature and quality of my life will speak more loudly than any amount of countervailing words that I have to give them. With muffled voice, from a cramped contaminated room, through the crack of a closed door, I will attempt to give them material, that from every appearance, seems to have a dubious and uninspiring origin. The most powerful thing that I will really communicate is: "live as I live, but not as I say…." The greatest teacher of all time, in a conversation with a young, affluent aristocrat, was noted for saying: "Come, follow me…"

More Thoughts

Socrates Once Said:

The Greatest Way To Live With Honor In This World

Is To Be What We Pretend To Be


The Worst Education That Teaches Self-Denial

Is Better Than The Best

Which Teaches Everything Else And Not That

- Stephen Covey


Spiritual Renewal

Upon Emerging From A Spiritual Season

Of Cold Discontent & Mind Numbing Detachment

[It] DEMANDS That In Order To Truly "Feel" Again

Necessarily Means to Simultaneously Hope For Pleasure And To Risk Pain

For Pain and Pleasure Share The Same Source

Circumstantially, Their Purpose Capable of Both


r.s.g 01/14/09




Life Is Not Fair and Is Rarely Just -

Our Character Is Formed And Our Nature Shaped

In Accordance Of How We Choose To Respond

rsg 10/31/08