Sounded Forth

This morning I read through the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, and I wanted to share what Paul says to these church at Thessalonica:

We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thess. 1:2-10)

Those are pretty nice words. Paul heaps a lot of praise on the Thessalonian believers. He comments on how their faith has become well-known, not just in the surrounding areas, but all over the world. And it made me ask, "How do people hear about our churches?"

That's a question that many ministers find need to address. How do people hear about our church? Church leaders spend a lot of time and energy on "getting our name out there." We'll erect slick and stylish church signs. We'll offer coffee and donuts, and not the cheap stuff, either. We'll be sure that our worship is on a podcast and that our website has social media features. We'll buy our youth minister the tightest v-neck and thick-rimmed glasses. We'll send mailings to every household within 10 miles.

The Thessalonians were well-known, but it wasn't because of their marketing strategies. It was because of their "work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope." It was because they imitated Christ. It was because they turned away from idols to the only true God.

I'm not at all against podcasts or cool buildings or any of that stuff. But we run into problems when we make those things our primary strategy for church growth as opposed to living lives of faith. The church gains attention when it acts like the church. Thessalonica's faith rang out in the world like sound from a giant megaphone, not because they were the biggest show in town, but because they followed Jesus faithfully.

I can't just apply this to our churches, though. When I read this passage, I'm forced to ask the same types of questions about my own life. How do people know I'm a Christian? Is it because I go to a seminary? Is it because I wear Christ In Youth t-shirts? Is it because I carry around books by N.T. Wright or have Phil Wickham on my iPod?

Or, is it because of my faith, hope, and love? Is it because I'm leaving behind the cheap gods of the world in order to pursue my Creator? Is it because when people see me, they see Jesus somehow? That's the type of Christian I want to be.

Especially since I look so bad in a v-neck.

The Loudest Wins

Several weeks ago, I saw a video online taken from Piers Morgan's show on CNN. I've debated with myself about whether or not to put up a link to this video, because I try not to intentionally inflict headaches on other people, but if you're really interested, you can see it here. The clip includes a conversation (using the term loosely) between Morgan and another man on the topic of gun control. Most of the video is just this guest screaming out half-facts and a few conspiracy theories in order to support his position that Americans should retain the right to possess any and every kind of weapon.

Even if I was a hardcore Second Amendment advocate, I think I would cease to be so after hearing this man's argument. But whatever.

My purpose in this post isn't to talk about gun rights. But what this video clip brought into very clear focus for me is that we are a country that has forgotten how to disagree well.

It's obvious that we live in a very divided society--one that is divided on a large number of issues. Every topic involves a debate: economic policies, gun control, abortion, homosexual marriage, energy, foreign policy. And those are just some of the major national issues. We argue about a host of other things as well: sports teams, Oscar predictions, and whether In-N-Out or Five Guys has better burgers.

Disagreements themselves aren't that bad. Of course we're not always going to see eye-to-eye. But our ability to express those disagreements and have a constructive conversation about some of these issues is lacking. If you've ever flipped on a cable news channel, been to a meeting of any sort, or scrolled through a YouTube comment section, you know what I'm talking about. People use issues of disagreement as boundary markers between themselves and anyone who thinks differently, and they lob verbal grenades into the "enemy territory" and hope to injure as many as possible.

We've created a world in which, if you don't agree with me on something, I have the right to make you an enemy. We villainize each other over our stances, putting each other in boxes according to how we see things. We fight wars instead of holding discussions. We try to tear each other down and bulldoze each other with our arguments instead of trying to come to the truth together.

For this reason, I don't often write about the "hot button" issues on my blog. To do so is so easy, and in that process, it's also easy to take a militaristic stance in which I'm more concerned with protecting my own pride and destroying my opposition than I am about having an intelligent conversation on an issue. That is not to say that I think these issues are not important. I think they are. But I also think that those sorts of conversations are usually better had in a different medium than here. Besides, how well would you be able to focus on the issue when you keep getting distracted by how attractive I am in my picture to the right?

Sadly, it's often the same story in the church when it comes to our inability to disagree well. And in the church, there are a lot of things to disagree about. There are biblical disagreements ("Does Genesis 1 mean that the world was created in six 24-hour days, or might it have been longer?"). There are theological disagreements ("Does God choose who will be saved, or is it up to us?"). There are ecclesiastical disagreements ("Can women be elders in the church or not?"). There are ethical disagreements ("How exactly should the church respond to the prospect of gay marriage?"). There are practical disagreements ("Should we give more money in the budget to the youth ministry or to missions?").

The church can seem like a minefield of potentially explosive issues, and navigating it can be a daunting task. It's even more threatening when you're a visible leader int he church and congregants constantly check your viewpoints against what they perceive as "scriptural fidelity." If you have an opinion that differs from another, you can be labeled as a false teacher or wolf in sheep's clothing.

So what's the point of all of this? Simply this: I urge you to please practice disagreeing well. Each topic of debate doesn't have to be an occasion for yelling over and belittling one another. I'm not saying that all viewpoints are equal or that we can't make absolute statements. But if our conversations aren't filled with love and respect, nothing is gained. So let's try to recapture civilized discourse, because nothing is being helped by all our yelling. Or, in our online society, by TYPING IN ALL CAPS LIKE THIS TO SHOW HOW ANGRY AND/OR PASSIONATE WE REALLY ARE!

The Fear of What Ifs

Whenever you make a decision, you say, "No."

Maybe you've never thought of it on those terms before. It might be more common to think that whenever you make a decision, you say "Yes" to whatever it is you're choosing. But the flip-side of that is that you also say "No" to whatever it is you're not choosing. Every yes is balanced with a no, or with many of them.

A few examples might help illustrate what I mean. Imagine that you choose to marry a certain woman, say a your local, friendly bank teller. By saying "Yes" to marrying her, you're saying "No" to all the other pretty bank tellers, as well as to all the other women out there. Or, if you accept a new job, you say "Yes" to that position and "No" to others. If you have Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, you say "Yes" to that cereal and "No" to the Wheaties, toast, omelette, and leftover pizza.

I'm not always a great decision-maker, and reflection on that fact has led me to think through all of this. Whenever I'm faced with a difficult decision, my strategy is usually to put it off for as long as possible. If I push it off for long enough, maybe the whole issue will just disappear. And if I do this, I'm sure that others do as well.

This can be a major problem, because every moment of decision becomes associated with the "What If?" game. I can go to Wendy's for dinner, but what if I would have like Arby's better? I can wear this blue shirt, but what if that bank teller likes red shirts? I can take the interstate downtown, but what if there's traffic and another route would be quicker?

Those example are pretty immaterial, of course. And so all of us make those sorts of decisions without much thought. If you choose wrong about what you should have for breakfast, the consequences aren't very large or lasting.

But what about when it comes to larger decisions? This is where the problem arises. I can decide to live in one place, but what if I would have liked another location better? I could take this job, but what if a better job comes up next week? I could date this girl, but what if there's someone else out there that I would mesh with better? I could choose this college, but what if I would have received a better education elsewhere?

This is decision-making based on fear. A person can hesitate to take a step in any direction for fear of going in the wrong direction. And while fear can be a powerful motivation in life, it's not a very helpful one--especially when that fear is debilitating. We shouldn't let fear of the "What ifs" be something that keeps us from taking leaps and moving forward.

People like me want so badly to choose the absolute best, but sadly, this can lead to not really choosing anything at all. And then once a decision is made, it leads to a lot of self-doubt and second-guessing. And I don't think that's the way life was meant to be. Fear choosing wrongly shouldn't keep one from choosing at all.

And besides, the Arby's/Wendy's debate is a moot point. Everyone knows you should just go to Chick-fil-A.

That's Just the Way Things Are. Or Maybe Not.

I feel a need here at the beginning to apologize for being absent from the blogging world for quite some time. I've been fairly busy over the past few weeks, what with beginning a new semester of classes, starting a new job, and making my Valentine's Day plans (which, so far, solely consists of me eating some chicken). But now I'm back and better than ever. And by "better than ever," I mean about the same as I was before.

Several weeks ago I had a conversation with an old friend from high school, and I have been reflecting on part of the discussion since then. We were at a mutual friend's wedding, and we spent some time catching up on each other's lives, since we hadn't seen each other in several years. After a while, my friend asked me, "Well David, what's your five-year plan?" I thought the question was an interesting one, and even though I hear the term "five year plan" thrown around quite a bit, no one had ever asked me what mine might be.

Of course, a five-year plan is the result of a person examining their goals and wants and visualizing what he or she would like life to be like five years in the future. Unfortunately for the conversation, I didn't have much of an answer to offer to the question. I haven't developed a five-year plan, and I never have. I normally operate under the principle of a five-minute plan, and I don't think ahead much farther than that. When I was unable to eloquently answer the question, my friend asked what I see for my future, and I said something about how I hope to finish school next year, and then I'll go somewhere and do something...and that's about all I know for now.

I felt that I was unfairly put on the spot by having to have mapped out my next five years while snacking on the candy bar at this wedding, so I asked my friend what her five-year plan. And, to my chagrin, she had it mapped out. She talked about how she plans to be married in five years, and how she wants to have a certain type of job and live in a certain type of place, and how she has all sorts of other goals that she hopes to achieve.

As my friend was talking about all these plans, the thought that passed through my head was: "It would be silly for me to plan out things like that. Those are all things I have no control over."

You probably think that such a thought is absurd. But it's truly the first thing that came to my mind. Why would I make plans to get married within five years? I have no control over that. Why would I have goals about my professional life? That's out of my hands. Why decide that I want to have achieved certain things when it's not up to me?

I'm a fatalist. A recovering fatalist, I hope. Or at the very least, I'm a fatalist who recognizes that he is a fatalist and identifies himself as such on the Internet for all to see, which is perhaps the first stage of recovery. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that my initial reaction in that conversation at the wedding, no matter how genuine, is flawed.

And this is why, quite frankly, some elements of my life are not where I would like them to be. I've abdicated my responsibility for living my own life and handed it all over to fate or luck or pure chance.

I moved to Ohio about a year and a half ago, and recently I was thinking about how I would characterize each six month period since then. To be honest, much of it hasn't been good. This isn't to mean that good things haven't happened. I've made some great friends, and I've had a lot of good times, and I've been to some Reds games. But I would say that in my first six months, I struggled mightily with loneliness, as I adjusted to living on my own in a city where I knew very few people. My second sixth months were characterized by high levels of busyness and stress as I juggled school, work, and ministry, and spent what seemed to be every night fighting off sleep while working at my desk in the middle of the night. And, after all of that, I see the last six months as the period in which I just stopped caring. I procrastinated more, allowed my apartment to become even more cluttered than usual, ate even more unhealthily than usual (which is saying something!), and spent more time laying on my couch than anything else.

A fatalist can get away with such behavior. If there is nothing you can do to improve your situation in life, why care at all? Chances are, the next six months won't be any better than the previous eighteen.

But why does that have to be the case? It doesn't, of course. And as a new year rolled around, I said to myself (probably out loud...I'm still adjusting to living alone, or maybe I'm just losing my mind), "You know David, this year doesn't have to be defined by something negative. It can be the year you move forward. It could be the year that you grow and develop more than any other year of your life. After all, you're probably the best-looking, most sharply dressed man living in this entire apartment. The story of this year hasn't been told yet, so there's no need to hang your head and act like the end credits are already rolling. So get out there and start making something happen. Oh, and don't forget to pick up a loaf of bread at Kroger today."

So why would I share all of this somewhat personal material here, as well as share how I talk to myself (and I didn't even mention how I sing to myself, wink at myself in the mirror, or write myself letters that I then pay 46 cents to take to the post office and send to mail to myself)? I write all of this because if I struggle with fatalism and general apathy toward life, my guess is that others do as well, and maybe you're in the same boat. If so, my encouragement to you is that you don't be like me, but be more like I hope I'm becoming. Each year, in fact, each day, is an opportunity to move your story forward--not by chance or fate, but by purposeful action on the part of the protagonist, which is you. You're not locked in to a prefabricated script.

Now, I should probably go get that bread. I'll really hear it from myself later on if I don't. And I can be a real jerk to me when I'm angry and without sandwiches.