One of the realities of being a semi-regular correspondent with an audience returning day after day looking for something new from your pen is the fact that you will be writing during all the various states of the human experience. Christian writing on the internet has the tendency to sound as if it is always coming from the warm glow of the study, with drippings of devotional gold appearing on the page after hours of prayer and meditation. I’d judge that to be, almost universally, a myth, and I’m not much on mythologies in my Christianity.

There are times that one may be writing out of boredom, other times out of emptiness or despair, and even holding onto the crumbling edge between faith and unbelief. There will be times I will write from a season of joyful usefulness and other times I am writing in the slop of my own sinful pigpen.

That would be today. Reporting live and in person from a week that contained some of my biggest sinful binges this year, I’m Michael Spencer. Your Internet Monk. (Two hours from any priest to confess me and the Baptists will just tell me to take two church services and I’ll feel better next week.)

When I tell anyone that I have shocking sins, they are generally shocked. I am the one who is supposed to speak about shocking sins, but whose sins shouldn’t be shock-worthy. The implication is, of course, that the audience actually has a list of “shocking” sins- running a drug cartel, frequenting prostitutes, rooting for the Yankess- that come to mind when I say my sins are shocking. If I said, “I was a rotten husband,” they would sigh with relief. Thank God. Nothing serious.

I was a rotten human being for most of last week. I was also sick. Probably with H1N1. I just dealt with it, but the day I was most miserable was also the day my wife needed me to be the most attuned to her needs and helpful to her.

Calvinists love to preach that we are dead in trespasses and sins, and that’s a true and important component of the Gospel. What is unfortunate is that rather than letting the metaphor be, well….metaphorical, i.e. the life of God is not in us, well meaning enthusiasts try to make being dead the only significant fact in human experience. As is so often the case these days among the theological class, the failure to let all the Biblical images and metaphors live together without having a “there can be only one” party has serious pragmatic results.

The Bible uses disease and sickness as metaphors for sin from cover to cover. (In fact, given its prescientific interpretation of illness, sin is often seen as the cause of illness.) Sinners are sick. Fallen humans are diseased.

What’s interesting about this is that when we say someone is “sick,” we are often eliciting compassion and understanding. Rarely are we saying that a person is responsible for themselves and what they do in the same way they would be if they are healthy. Sickness is….an excuse.

Of course, metaphors have a focus and that is true with saying we are diseased and Christ is the great Physician who “comes to heal the sick, not the healthy.” Sin as sickness is one of the ways we understand what is happening in Jesus’ healings and miracles. Isaiah said that we are healed by his sufferings. All our diseases were placed on him says the prophet and the Gospel.

I’m glad about what I come to know about Jesus’ attitude toward me as a sick person. In a 1983 column, Dr. John Piper explored the sickness metaphor as an image of the community of Jesus. About Jesus as the great Doctor and ourselves as patients he said

Christ is walking among us. Not because we are so much fun to be with but because he loves to make house calls on patients who glory in his medical expertise. He is not partial to the healthy. But he has a special fondness for the homeliest, weakest, sickliest patients whose eyes sparkle when he enters the room….What a motley sanatorium we are! Paralyzed, clubfooted, humpbacked, pockfaced, nearsighted, cancer-eaten! But there is life at Bethlehem! The Doctor’s here! He’ll touch any sore without a flinch. And O, how it soothes. He spends time. He talks. He looks you in the eye. He takes your elbow when you rise. He asks how Jake is doing. He promises he’ll be back. And he comes!

Actual, physical illness amplifies the greatness of God’s compassion, and it also illuminates my wretched sinful condition. In illness, my sinfulness takes on cartoonishly monstrous dimensions. I become the Godzilla of sin.

By mid-week, I was miserable, feverish and feeling as if I’d been hit by a bus. These are the flu symptoms I recognize from the few times I’ve had the flu.

My first- sinful- thought is that I cannot miss work. I’ve never missed a class for being sick in 18 years. I’ve never missed a day of work for being sick, including being in my room to meet families on Family Day….when I had Chicken Pox. (I covered them in make up.) I’m feeding my idol of being essential, irreplaceable and absolutely necessary.

See. Shocking. It’s Halloween.

Mid week my wife needs me to be in charge of matters on an important day. I’m willing, but now that I’m sick, I’m doing everything with the attitude of a captured and tortured prisoner of war. Nothing is too small for me to immediately think of myself as the only person of worth on the planet. When she needs me to be attentive and sensitive, I am…..to me and the flu. Of course, I season this with some classic verbal idiocy, whining and pouting so that my sin isn’t just ordinary, but especially cruel.

I’m almost worse than useless for the situation we have to deal with that day and I make the whole matter far more stressful for her. Of course, all I can think about is the flu that seems to be settling into my chest.

And then, as my final performance, I come home and go to bed…..in order to get up the next morning and act as if the whole focus can now be off her and on me and the flu.

The next day, I’m supposed to help get the house ready for visitors if I feel better. I can barely make it to work, and when I come home, I crash again, offering no help. My flu eventually causes a change of venues for the visitors- my daughter’s home- and I am left alone to recover. I’m dimly aware that it must be hard to like me when I’m sick and as I start to feel better my suspicions increase that my wife, who has treated me as any sick husband should be treated and with more kindness, probably should have smothered me and blamed the swine flu. No jury in my county would convict her.

Sin and sickness. Sinners and sick persons. Jesus loves us as both. That’s more than I can comprehend. Because in my illness I am short-sighted, self-consumed, uncaring toward others, hyper-sensitive, dictatorial and immaturely manipulative. Once I’m over it, I want to put all my rotten behavior in the “Well, I was sick” file, but even I can’t entirely buy it.

I’m just a sick, rotten, selfish jerk. With a lot of repenting to do and a lot of sin to confess.

Sometimes, really, the Gospel seems too good.

But then, when I’m not sick, I’m still a sinner. I live in ways contrived to excuse my sin, avoid the truth and keep up a religiously acceptable front.

It takes the swine flu to show me, and remind me, that with just a small push, I’m very comfortable living in the mud.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen.

There was a time, in the last decade, that I constantly and painfully struggled with regrets about various choices I’d made in my life.

I regretted not finishing doctoral studies. (I made it 37 hours in and never finished the paper.)

I regretted staying in youth ministry so long. (13 years full time, then back for 18 years where I am after 4 years as a pastor.)

I regretted staying in Kentucky. (I had opportunities to go to Oxford, Mississippi and to Texas, but followed my hillbilly instincts.)

I regretted that so many of my friends were pastors of First Baptist Churches and I never got close. (The cost of not getting that Dr. degree.)

I regretted a bunch of stuff I can’t talk about. (You don’t want to know.)

Sometimes, I’ve honestly regretted staying at one ministry in the mountains of Appalachia for most of two decades. There was a time I was constantly called to do speaking and seminars, but almost from the day I came here those opportunities stopped. Say what you want, when you’re in the mountains of southeast Kentucky, you’re off the radar. It can be very disorienting.

I’ve spent a lot of time- too much- regretting all kinds of aspects of life in ministry. You’d have to be there to understand that struggle, but it’s a hard calling and I’m not ashamed that it was hard for me.

I made a lot of mistakes as a husband and a dad. I’ve spent a lot of time regretting them. (In God’s grace, my marriage and kids are wonderful.)

Recently, I’ve regretted the time I spent as a Calvinist (still struggle with that) and even the entire fact that I wound up in full-time ministry at all. (It wasn’t my fault, but full-time public school teaching combined with ministry as I had opportunity was a better fit. But in the church where I grew up, the only thing they knew to tell us 16 year olds was “be preachers.”)

I regretted the lack of friendships we’ve found wherever we’ve been, seemingly no matter how hard we tried. (Still one of life’s big mysteries and a sad aspect of ministry.)

There have been a lot of regrets involving the church home we never quite found as a family. (Denise and my kids have all found churches. My home is with the homeless.)

I was a tortured soul for many of those years and those regrets poisoned my experience of the goodness of God. If I could have seen it at the time, I would have confessed that I’d made ministry my entire life and set expectations in ministry that would always leave me disappointed.

A good counselor could have shown me the footprints of all this regret, stalking me for many years. I brought childish, self-centered attitudes into adult life, ministry and marriage that constantly tried to prop up my own insecurities and deficiencies with various aspects of success in ministry. I tried to fill up empty places with “success” as a minister. That’s a real wall to hit, and I’ve hit it repeatedly.

Where am I now? I’m at a much different place. I would never claim that I’ve moved beyond the swamp of regret, but I’ve learned some things that are bearing much helpful fruit.

I have never found it satisfying to simply do the Calvinistic thing and talk about God ordaining everything. I need to understand how this has all worked and not worked for me. I can see clearer now, and what I see is that God is helping us to be persons, not success stories. His goal is that we be loved, not well liked- a la Willie Lohman- or well known.

A healthy Christian person must find a place where they can be themselves, and that place won’t be identical to our definition of “success.” Even if we succeed, the experiences that bring make us who we really are won’t be found in the spotlight of success. They will be found in God’s version of our wilderness.

That place may be a nursing home, or a tiny college, or a farm or a forgotten mission to the poor. It may be in another universe from the latest conference or well known ministry. It may have no potential for anything but small acts done with great love. If that is so, you should embrace it as your place. Yours, and a gift to you.

God has placed me in a life where the soil for growing a good and useful spirituality is plentiful. There is the rich soil of community and relationships, and there is the occasional fertilizer of human failures and disappointment. In this soil, I will grow. I will not be an object to be seen and heard. I will be a person, growing into a human image of the God we know in Jesus.

As an older man considering my place, I can see the value in my life of having predictability, schedule, structure and place. I can see why I need some of the simple things that guide and nurture my life that many “successful” pastors never find. These things can’t be found anywhere, but they can be found where I am.

There is a place and time to read the Psalms. There is a place and time to pray. There are people to love and to tell about Jesus. There is good work and comraderie, even if all is not perfect. There is labor and a mutual acceptance of pain. There is help, rejoicing and the grace of seeing the old and leading the young. There is family, time and room to breath. I know see these gifts in ways I did not before. I see them in such a way that many of my previous regrets are unappealing to me.

I do not understand why God has left me in youth and student work so long, but it’s apparent that my passion for and emphasis on Jesus and the Gospel isn’t found very many places in the evangelicalism my students know and experience. I am a communicator, and though I feel some weariness in my bones after preaching and teaching for hours, I am still certain this is why I am in this world and at this place: to communicate Jesus and his Gospel in a time of chaos and static.

It appears that this has been my assignment and the point has not been to have my name on a conference program, but to preach regularly to hundreds of students who don’t know Christ, and to do so in the mountains and to do so for years. My place isn’t telling someone how to do ministry, but to stand in front of kids and actually teach the scriptures. I still feel guilty that I am so old, but I know that I have gifts and opportunities that are rarely found together. So this is my place.

I don’t have to always be happy. I need the love of God not the happiness of men. I can grow to see the two coming together, but not if I dictate how they will both come to me. I have the privilege of embracing a calling and the road that is before me. I am not going to talk about the Kingdom or missional living. I am going to live in the Kingdom and practice missional living.

In all of the time I was having the indigestion of regret, I was also becoming something else: a writer. That was a calling that resonated within me for many years, but it was only here, in this life, that it could happen. I don’t have researchers knocking out books for me. Whatever I manage to write here or in a book will be 100% a result of what God has done in my life.

And along that road I found something else. I will have to, at some point, do interviews and publicity for the book. There’s an aspect to all of that self-presentation and talking like an expert which terrifies me, but in the last few months I’ve begun to realize that I know more about who I am and who I am not than ever before in my life. I have come to understand that a person with a spiritual influence isn’t a face on a screen or ten books on a shelf. I have begun to realize what is going on with men like Brennan Manning and Dallas Willard. They aren’t everywhere because they choose to be where they are and who they are. They have embraced place, personhood and influence without falling into the traps of success.

I can relax and accept that God has been at work in all of this for his glory and my usefulness and joy. I have no regrets unless I want to be God.

In the end, this out of the way corner of the world is the place where I want to be found. When God wants me to go elsewhere, I’ll gladly go, especially if it’s near a ball park, but in the meantime I’m not ashamed or regretful of the path the loving hand of God has given to me.

I am wasting far less of my mind and heart on regret. I’m finding that the wisdom of the spiritual life is not found in evangelical success and notoriety, but in coming to know who I am in the place and calling God has for me. My influence will be no less and no greater, in God’s Kingdom, here in the mountains than it would be anyplace on earth. In the end, it’s my privilege to belong to Christ and to use my gifts as he gives opportunity.

We’re also going to use another word some of you don’t like: formation. Now that we’re good and grumpy, let’s go for a ride.

I’ve been reflecting on the spiritual formation I’ve received as a result of my participation in the blogosphere. The Christian blogosphere.

What kind of Christian influences are coming into my life through the models of Christian faith I am exposed to in this medium? What is the shape of the spiritual formation I encounter here? Can I distance myself from it enough to make any kind of helpful observations?

I have to admit that the blogosphere is a unique experience to everyone. No one of us, no matter how many similar social networking or communication tools we use, encounters the exact same influences. I’m experiencing this medium from one place and through a unique combination of elements that I choose to read, view and participate in. Your mileage will vary.

But my experience isn’t radically different from most of you who will read this post. You, my readers here at IM and those I am connected to via other mediums, are the ones who will look at these reflections and judge their accuracy from where you are. I offer them not as flawless analysis or an indictment, but as my reflections and inventory of the world where I’ve invested a great deal of my mental and spiritual energies.

Two items before we move through my inventory of what I see in the spirituality of the Christian blogosphere.

First, there is much good to take note of. I experience a great of reflection on the Gospel in this medium. Much of that is good and valuable, though it has certain disconnections and abuses that concern me. I sense a wonderful commitment to the formative aspects of marriage and family life. I see a real appreciation of a variety of Christian causes, especially mercy ministries and missions. This, and more, are real positive spiritual influences for me.

Second, I spend much of my time in the real world, with students, co-workers and family. It is my hope that the blogosphere’s influence is outweighed by the influences I experience in the real world. But I have to be honest. Two years ago my wife pointed out to me the role that listening to Catholic apologetics was having in our marriage. She was right, and that wasn’t the end of it.

In short, there is much in the spirituality of the Christian blogosphere that concerns me. When I reflect on my own developing spirituality, on my relationship to God and others, these elements are an undeniable part of the person I have become.

As I said, your mileage may vary.

1. The Christian blogosphere is overwhelmingly male. It is not only male; it thrives on “maleness” in perspective and voice. For various reasons, some confessional, some not, many of us have a seriously limited exposure to the feminine mind, voice and experience of the Christian journey. In fact, our “maleness” is affirmed in the blogosphere in ways that are useful, and neutral and harmful.

At the BHT, our experience of incorporating and keeping female members could be used by anyone to demonstrate that there’s something seriously male-dominant about the Christian blogosphere. (Probably that women are too involved with actual human beings to spend this much time with computers.)

2. I see little evidence of personal evangelism, either on the medium or reported through the medium. Lots of talk of everything surrounding evangelism, but evidence that those who populate the blogosphere are involved with evangelism is sparse, to say the least.

3. The relationship of Christianity to the various vocations represented in the blogosphere is also rarely discussed. (There are very notable exceptions to this at certain blogs.) I can’t recall more than a handful of discussions that were specific to vocations, business ethics, evangelism in the workplace, vocational missions and so on. The world of work is frequently referenced, but not often related to the faith. Trivial reporting of work activities are common, but how are Christians doing vocation as a Kingdom work.

4. The evidence of ongoing personal spiritual practices in the life of blogosphere participants is also quite sporadic. It’s clear that for many in the blogosphere, the purchasing of consumer goods and the pilgrimage to conferences are a search for a kind of devotional life, but the practice of individual/group prayer, spiritual reading, lectionary reading of scripture and so on is occasional at best. This may be because devotional practices don’t translate to the blogosphere very easily or they are not an easy topic of conversation.

5. Much of the spirituality of the blogosphere amounts to identification with teachers, “teams,” ministries, churches and authors. This is a phenomenon that is easily observed and it takes up a remarkable amount of time and energy in the blogosphere. I believe it is one of the great “false” forms of discipleship, much like consumerism. By identifying with Driscoll or Piper, a person may feel they are the kind of disciple exemplified by that person. But this is clearly not true. How many of Piper’s followers share his approach to personal sanctification? How many of Driscoll’s followers are 100% with him on gender issues?

6. The spirituality of the blogosphere is primarily expressed in the church’s ministry of preaching. Other aspects of the life of specific faith communities are in the background. To an extent, this is correct by the evangelical model, but it has to be of concern that such a minority of voices in the blogosphere ever report anything from church life other than the theology of a sermon. But the blogsphere promotes a preacher-shaped spirituality, no doubt about it.

7. The deep influence of the culture war model of discipleship is everywhere. In fact, the pervasive presence of political rhetoric and opinion is a constant intrusion into the Christian blogosphere, at times obscuring all other discussions. As in several other things, the meaning seemes to be found mostly in identification, not in participation or practice. This shapes us toward the belief that politcal conviction is the fruit of spiritual growth. I would disagree.

8. There is a deep involvement by those in the blogosphere with media, and this is integrated into their spirituality. This is especially true regarding movies and television, which are the preferred narrative modes as opposed to reading fiction. Issues regarding the secondary and spiritual influences of media are rarely heard. Being “up to date” with the latest media events is mandatory. How does this fit into my spirituality? Are we underestimating its formative effects?

9. One sees very little that is of a really radical nature in the discipleship or community exemplified in the Christian blogosphere. Despite a lot of adjectives suggesting radicalism, the Christian spirituality of the blogosphere appears to be quite conventional, especially in regard to issues of comfort, finances, lifestyle, children, community, mission, etc.

10. I see little evidence that the spirituality of the blogosphere has made Christians more informed about and congenial toward those with whom they disagree or differ. Instead, stereotypes and extreme examples are more easily created and brought into what are often “cut and paste” conversations. There is much to learn from those with whom we differ, but I rarely see any evidence that opposing sides are using the net to learn from one another. It is overwhelmingly about being reinforced in our own positions.

I am more convinced than ever that while any one of us can make the formative experience of the blogosphere far more positive than it is, most of us won’t ever do that. The possibilities for positive formation, mentoring, even devotional practice are amazing. But most of us are trivial people, and the blogosphere presents us with the opportunity to have a universe where we are powerful; where we can shape reality, fight battles, be the hero and the expert. It is an illusion creating medium, and many of us are quite enamored with that aspect of the technology.

I would hope there would be more helpful reflection of “blogosphere spirituality” in the comments. Let me suggest that if you haven’t read the comment moderation section of the F.A.Q., you do so, lest you be surprised at my moderation of a thread that is sure to be controversial.

Thirty-one years ago today Denise and I were married by the Rev. W.O. Spencer at Walnut Street Baptist Church in Owensboro, Ky. Rev. Spencer is gone to be with the Lord and the church building has burned, but our marriage has lasted and is a wonderful blessing to me.

This is my one and only girl. I love her so much and treasure all that she’s poured into our marriage when others would have given up. We have two amazing children and we are enjoying these empty nest years with God’s joy. I couldn’t imagine life without her.

(Before I say this, I know there are a bunch of books on this subject and I’ve read some of them. I could just recommend a good book, but I need to get this off my chest.)

My new hot button is “You need to pray until you find God’s will.”

First of all, I believe in God, and I believe he has a will. I believe God sovereignly runs the universe pretty much like the Westminister/Second London Confessions say, though I have absolutely no idea what that means other than God is in control in a way I can’t understand and am not capable of understanding. (My brain is too small.) It’s an assertion, and as much as I know God only in Jesus, it’s a comfort.

Frankly, when Capon says that God runs the world through “Holy Luck,” like a guy with a card trick that’s amazing to you but no big deal to him, that works for me. Capon believes that things don’t look like there’s a plan, but that’s the beauty of the way God has chosen to run the universe. He’s there in plain sight where you can’t see him.

Secondly, I believe God’s will encompasses my life. In the same way, I don’t believe I am going to get much specific insight into that. It’s an assertion, and as much as it comes to me packaged as Jesus, it’s as I said, a comfort.

I know that when tragedy or sudden blessing strike, my belief in God’s sovereign control is a comfort. When my mom had a stroke and died in 14 hours, I was resting in God’s hands and praying the same for her. When I got a book deal, I believe it was God’s time. I’ll give him thanks.

But here’s the thing- I am really, really, really tired of being told to “find” God’s will.

I have no idea what most people mean when they say “find” and I don’t believe they do either.

Let’s run the perspective list:

1. What God declares and commands in scripture is, when rightly understood, his will. I’m fine with that. That’s why I preach the Bible and live my life by it. But I also know there is a lot of life that is a mystery to me, I don’t care how much Bible I stuff in my head.

I’m not impressed by people who demonstrate that they have a verse to turn any tragedy into an opportunity to say “God is doing this.” I prefer to see a tragedy as a tragedy. I’m not saying God is less in control. I’m not going atheist or blaming God, but he’s running the show and he allows tragedy. He doesn’t say, “Now show me you’ve trained yourself to say otherwise.” That’s sad. Maybe even sick.

My human instinct is to see terrible things as terrible. I don’t have any theological response to not trust those feelings and say “Oh, but God is really using this.” He is. He does. But my part is to start with, “This is terrible and people are hurting/suffering.”

2. What God communicates and allows through providence. I’m alive in Ky in 2009. I’m at a school. I have a family. I’m an American. I have an income. I have certain gifts and certain opportunities. God sent them. God allows them. Again, I’m not making a show of believing this. It’s how God unfolds life in time. His story. I’m a character. I don’t try to understand the author. (See Stranger Than Fiction to get that picture.)

3. What God communicates through those with authority over me and/or by means of trusted people in my world. Same as above.

4. What God communicates by his Spirit to me in mystical ways. Now we’re getting close to the issue. I know God does this, but I am really through playing the game of seeking for God to do it or expecting God to do it because some Christians think it’s obviously the way to go. I’ll pray. I’ll ask. I’ll ask others to pray. I’ll be still and listen. I’ll evaluate impressions. I’ll try to discern God’s voices.

But this is not a game I am going to play with God. I’m not cooperating with what amounts to saying “God is toying with us to see what we’ll do.” If God wants to say something to me, no game is necessary. And I am not required to demonstrate my desperation to know God’s will to know it. There may be places in my journey I need to be before God’s will unfolds, but God isn’t being gamey. He’s not playing hide and seek. He isn’t constantly dangling guidance in front of me like bait.

If this makes sense, I reject the idea that God requires some superior effort on my part to be mystical in order to communicate his will to me.

5. What God communicates by signs, miracles and answered prayers. You don’t want me decoding these things. Years ago, our house caught on fire, and a noise outside- totally unrelated- woke me up and got me in the hallway where I saw the fire. That noise saved our lives and our house. It’s a miraculous providence. I have no idea what it “means,” however, beyond what it is. If you hear me saying it meant we were supposed to leave or stay or paint the house pink, I’m just rattling on. No one has that information and I don’t want to go to a church that believes they have it.

I do not want anyone trying to get me on board with anything using miracles as a method. If God is that gamey, I don’t want to play. My dog can talk to me if necessary. I’ll listen.

Now the real deal comes down to this, and I’ll use a real life example. Let’s say I make enough money writing over the next 2-4 years that I could work part time, my wife could work part time, and we wouldn’t have to be where we are doing what we’re doing. So it could be stay or go.

God’s will? Stand by.

I don’t think he cares. And if he does, he can let me know without me acting like he’s an alien sending coded messages.

I can serve him either here or elsewhere. I can serve him anyplace. I can be faithful wherever. I’m free, within the boundaries of following Jesus, loving God, loving neighbor and using my gifts and talents, to serve God wherever I believe is the best place for me. There is a process, but I can trust myself as a reliable means of knowing God’s will. Not perfect, but not to be ignored in favor of “signs.”

I don’t need a sign, or a vision or a voice. I may or may not get a nudge. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think God is hiding his will. I don’t think I am supposed to ignore “normal” factors in determining where God wants me. I believe that if God has a place for me I don’t know about- like being Andrew Marin’s bodyguard- then Andrew will call and talk to me about it.

I can go to school. I can sell programs at the ball park. I can write. I can teach. I can preach or be an associate. I can counsel. I can do a lot of things. And I don’t believe I have to torment myself or anyone else about that.

When it seems right to me and my family, when I’m in a place to be responsible, obedient, submissive and faithful, I can love God and do as I please.

That’s the button. Thanks for listening.

The Gospel and Appalachia
The Gospel and Appalachia: Can The Culture Change?
The Gospel and Appalachia: Four Christian Responses

Most IM readers know that I live in southeastern Kentucky, in a particularly poverty and crime affected area of Appalachia. In economic and social studies of crime and poverty, our county and congressional district are among the ten worst affected areas of the United States.

You don’t have to be a detective to see sin, poverty and their terrible effects where I live. The last three years have featured the arrest and conviction of large numbers of public officials for involvement in the vote-buying and the distribution of drugs in our county. Jaw dropping visible poverty is common (though we are far from the worst I’ve seen in Eastern Kentucky.) Social problems of every kind are plentiful. Ignorance, unemployment, exploitation, oppression: these aren’t concepts, but realities here.

Of course, Appalachia has a lot of good Christian people. The Christians who live and work here in southeastern Kentucky are dedicated believers. They see and experience a lot of pain, suffering and loss in this culture. It is a tough place to raise your children. Schools are often not good. The dropout rate is astronomical. Medical care often requires lots of travel. Economic and educational opportunities are few. Churches are usually small, clergy are almost always untrained and church splits are very, very common.

When I go to my hometown, a large and financially prosperous urban/suburban tri-city area in western Kentucky, the Christian culture is very different than what I experience in southeast Kentucky. Large churches. Multiple staffs. Large and active programs for youth and senior adults. Sports leagues. Concerts. “Mission” trips to the beach and special events at the amusement park. Large (and expensive) private Christian schools.

In our corner of Appalachia, these things are much less common (though not totally absent.) There are some great churches and prosperous ministries. Churches sometimes will work together for a Vacation Bible school, but we’re always conscious that mission trips come to our corner of the world.

But Christians are visible and audible in our culture. They have community revivals. They lead in anti-drug efforts. They are funding a Teen Challenge drug rehab program in our county that is very impressive. They coordinate community prayer. Christian Appalachian Project has a large and diverse presence in Appalachia. The ministry where I serve has been here for over 110 years, educating any local student free. There are a small number of healthy, ministering churches, though they are usually in the cities, not the rural areas.

And the Christians here are preaching. Preaching hard, preaching loud, preaching all the time. Many Holiness and Pentecostal churches have 4 services a week. Local Christian radio and television is big here, though aside from K-Love, most of it is heavily influenced by Appalachian cultural forms and preferences. (In other words, if you don’t like twangy Bluegrass and “barking” preachers, it won’t be for you.”

Just as a small measurement of how Appalachian Christian culture is different, I’ll tell a few stories.

I’ve been here more than 17 years. I preach several times a week at my school. Not bragging, but I’m an above average public speaker…in my context. Out in the community, even if I go in totally unprepared and turn up the local color in my delivery to the max, I am still too much of a “schooled” preacher. I rarely do pulpit supply. Now, if I came in and prophesied that the devil was going to be bound and cast out of the county, the elderly would be healed and everyone’s son or daughter would be saved because God showed it to me in a dream, I’d be too busy to do much of anything else around here.

One of the few pulpit supplies that I did last year- actually about 5 Sundays- was in a church that seated at least 600. The building had been extensively renovated and expanded, actually keeping an old sanctuary intact, but building a new sanctuary on the front of it. (Experienced pastors can figure that one out.)

There were about 30 people present. The music was led by a very gifted worship leader who was able to sit down at the piano and lead contemporary worship…..and it was also led by an older member who led the same 3-4 old time gospel songs each time. Again, experienced pastors can decode this rather easily.

(Interestingly, churches in Appalachia that create musical worship that appeals to young people and young adults typically draw crowds. Here, where preaching is often completely undependable and literacy is low, music can be a lot more significant than you might think.)

Another church invited our school’s choir to visit. I was filling in as the speaker in the absence of our President. The church was in a large town nearby, and the building was beautiful. It seated almost 800 and was first class in every way. I counted 110, minus our group. A brand new building….empty. A massive investment in a lavish building in one of the poorest areas of America; an area where thousands of people would never enter such a building simply because they are dressed in the clothing of the poor.

As I said earlier, Christian Appalachian Project- interdenominational, but Catholic in origin- does it work here of practical servanthood and mercy ministry. They build and rebuild homes. They hold camps and take supplies to those burned and blooded out of their homes. They distribute food to the hungry and malnourished. They teach job skills and adult education. CAP is invested here.

The ministry where I serve is rooted in a desire for peacemaking in what was one of the most violent areas of America. From the turn of the century through the mid-30’s, “wars” between families and alliances continued generation after generation. Our founder, a converted feudist, brought a vision of Christian education to the mountains. He believed that if children would learn to love one another, the violence would stop. Over a century and many challenges later, his vision still burns in us as we minister to students from all around the world and all around America, always keeping the doors open to the young people of Clay County to come and receive a private Christian education as a gift. We preach, worship, teach, work, serve, share resources and bear witness to the Gospel as a community rooted in this place.

I recently got word that this Saturday buses from “prophetic churches” all over the area will come to our little village to hold a weekend “revival” in the park down the block from me. They will worship, preach, proclaim a prophetic vision, bind the devil, do spiritual warfare against the powers they see oppressing our community through drugs, violence and darkness. I am not of this particular brand of evangelical Pentecostalism, but I call them brothers and sisters, and I have no doubt that God loves this corner of the world and wants his Kingdom to be seen here.

Seventh Day Adventists have been here for years, operating a hospital with an explicit Christian witness. Christians are taking in orphans in homes throughout the mountains. God’s people are here; scattered, but here and serving him.

I could go on and on.

I look out at all of this, and one thing touches me: All of us are following the same Jesus.

But who is this Jesus we follow? What is his Kingdom?

Those who sing?

Those who build buildings?

Those who educate and live in community?

Those who preach and prophesy?

Those who give food and put on roofs?

Those who run the radio and television stations?

Those who want to evangelize the lost?

Those who want to help the addict?

Those who visit in the jails?

Those who cast out evil spirits?

Those who care for the orphans, the old and the sick?

Those who preach to students from Appalachia and all over the world?

Do they all follow, love, worship, bow down before the same Jesus?

If you stand still for a moment in the shadow of an Appalachian twilight, he is the one who walks these roads, lifts up the hills and paints the skies. It is his rainbow after the storm, and his mist rising from the valleys. He paints the colors of the fall and he comes in the power of the flood.

He is the one who hears the cry of the child in hunger, the abused woman, the man in the throes of drug addiction, the sexually abused girl, the boy trapped in ignorance, the old and sick, the despairing and confused, the poor and vulnerable.

He is the one who seeks the lost. He is the great shepherd of the hills.

Somehow, after all these years of living in Appalachia, I am beginning to understand the gift that it is giving me: I am seeing Jesus. Not the standard issue Jesus of the religious establishment, but Jesus as he is resurrected and living in this broken world. He is not hard to find here, once you have begun to lose your attraction to the propaganda of those who sell Jesus as a symbol of the anti-Kingdom of God. He is not hard to find once you begin to recognize the acts of love, sacrifice, giving, perseverance and risk that are his sure and certain fingerprints.

He is everywhere, this Jesus who seeks us and reconciles us, but among the poor and the desperate he is not obscured. His voice is recognizable here, even in the midst of brokenness and deep darkness.

His churches may not be strong, but God’s Kingdom does not equal his churches. His Kingdom is here and the great gift of an Appalachian ministry is to begin to understand that Kingdom in the most unlikely of places.

Pray for us here. Come over and help us. If you stay, do not be surprised if you discover that the treasure truly was in a field that everyone else thought was worthless.

As we were preparing for communion, I was praying. The Spirit brought to mind a series of dark incidents from my own life where God was miraculously gracious to me. I’m not talking about small matters. I am talking about incidents and character failures- most of which I’ve exiled from my mind and memories- where God alone is responsible for the fact that I was not fired, humiliated, divorced, dead or immersed in grief and suffering. Incidents that, if God had allowed them to be, would have been life defining in consequence.

These are moments and situations I know about. Only God knows the very many I don’t know about. These are crossroads moments where my life could have easily gone the route of people whose names we all know for their failures and mistakes, but God graciously intervened or overruled.

These incidents processed through my mind while I prayed, some of them embarrassing and humiliating to recall even momentarily. Others were astonishing in the new mercies revealed as I review them. How often my own failures and stupid choices should have brought about another outcome, but God’s grace had the last word.

Let me be honest: I am amazed at the grace of God in sending Jesus to the cross as my substitute and sin offering, but I am somewhat professionally jaded at the emotional impact of the Christian story. I am not ashamed to say that, because most of us struggle with how unmoved we are in comparison to all of God’s mercies and kindnesses. Every sin I commit is in full view of the cross. My heart needs the awakening power of the Holy Spirit to be freshly humbled by Jesus and his cross.

Remembering and re-experiencing these instances of God’s grace to me, particularly the fresh revelations of those experiences in the light of time and reflection, was arresting. My heart beats faster and my blood pressure surely goes up. Why has God been so gracious? So kind? So willing to see me through? It is nothing in me or about me. In fact, is there a person who is more deserving of loss, derision, failure and painful consequences than me?

Has all that kindness really been good for me? Would I be a better Christian if my missteps and sins had caught up with me and changed my life, my marriage and my ministry? Has the kindness of God led me to the right kind of repentance and the right sort of worship? Or has it “spoiled” me?

I sat there wondering, “How can I understand God’s grace when I have seen so many others fall down these same traps, stumble over these same obstacles and suffer far more from these same mistakes?”

I’m not sure that God’s grace is ever understandable. It’s amazing in all its forms. It doesn’t do interviews or supply answers. Grace is unpredictable and mysterious.

This far along in the journey, I’m wrestling with the meaning of grace almost every day. I’ve spent a year in the grip of resentment toward Christians who were unkind and selfish when I was dealing with an unthinkable rift in the spiritual unity of my marriage. It’s very easy to contemplate the enjoyment of ungracious bitterness and petty paybacks.

Situations come to me where grace is God’s clear word, but give me a few moments to consult with other Christians, and grace isn’t quite so clear after all. With the right kind of counsel, getting my way and forcing others to feel the pain of their mistakes can seem like the obvious way to go.

As a teacher and a preacher, I realize that almost every Christian my students know will give them law, law, law, morality, standards, behavior and the impression that Christian is a word award to nice people living a good life. Will I have the backbone and the honesty to let grace out of the bag? Will I let grace and the Holy Spirit define what it means to follow Christ, or will I hide behind that very convenient message of moral reformation? Will I present Jesus and the explosive good news of grace, or I will I present Jesus as the nodding, pale patron of a law-saturated religion of rule-following and practicing principles?

The big issues that face me as a teacher, writer, husband, father and employee are all about grace. Grace in everyday life. Grace to people who don’t deserve it. Grace as a way for me to live in the power of the Gospel when I’d rather be controlling things and determining outcomes. All day, every day I have to live in an atmosphere where the use of the law, guilt, manipulation and punishment are the standard ways of doing business. But I want my life to be more and more and more about grace, not to lessen the law, but to accomplish what the law cannot accomplish: create followers of Jesus and create lives- individually and communally- shaped by his Spirit.

When I remember the grace of God in my life, particularly at those moments when no one could rescue me from my sin and foolishness but GOD ALONE, it fires my heart with a hunger for grace in my relationships, actions and heart-motivation. (Thank God he didn’t treat me the way he advises that fools be treated in the book of Proverbs. Praise God for his wonderful inconsistency!)

The question for me today and from now on is “Has grace made me gracious?”
___________________

If this is the road you are walking as well, then you probably have resonated with my recommendations of the writings of Fr. Robert Capon and Brennan Manning. I now want to introduce you to someone who is just as exciting to me as these writers: Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl. I am currently reading his book Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life, and it’s explosive, helpful and very accessible reading.

Here’s a fine review of the book. You can find it on Google books.

“Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church” is the most humbling word that God will ever speak to you.

Spiritual leadership is easy to talk about and almost impossible to find. In the end,it amounts to being like Jesus.

Don’t bring into marriage the same idea of marriage you had when you were single. Learn about marriage from those who have lived it and the One who designed it.

At all cost, avoid credit cards. The seduction of living above your means is incredibly easy, and must be fought with an all or nothing attitude.

Find a church community where you are encouraged to follow Jesus and become a vital and active part. God has hundreds of blessings for you among his people that you will never experience if you choose to avoid the church.

Read together. Especially read out loud to one another.

Read about marriage, and do so with a humble attitude. You know very little and most of what you know is wrong.

Marriage is like a third person; like a child that has brought you together. It has its own power, but you have to nurture, care for and protect it, or it will grow weak, sick or even die.

Be careful with friendships that challenge your ability to trust and be open with one another. No one is closer to you than your husband/wife. Friendships are different than marriage, but they can never be more intimate.

Ditto for on-line friendships. Be very conservative with online relationships of any kind.

Spend time with an older couple. Several decades older, if possible. You’ll see things that will make a very important difference right now.

Admit that being in love and learning how to love a real human being all the time are different things.

The atmosphere in a marriage is a matter of small things done consistently in love, not large things done to make up for failures.

Stay together, no matter what God asks you to deal with.

“I assumed” is the culprit of far too many unnecessary arguments. Don’t allow assumptions to direct your words and responses.

You don’t need to have a major problem to benefit from talking to a counselor or pastor about your relationship or your personal journey.

Be careful about having so many single friends that you aren’t seeing constant reminders of what it means to be married.

A person can feel neglected easily, and when they feel neglected, the only answer is to pay attention (and often, to say you are sorry, and mean it.)

Don’t talk about your sexual relationship with anyone but your spouse or counselor/pastor.

Establish some routines that contribute to enjoying married life without a lot of spending. Netflix and dinner at home, for instance.

Pray and read scripture together. Use a resource that will make this easier, like the Book of Common Prayer lectionary.

Laugh at yourselves, but don’t ever belittle one another.

Words really do hurt, and much more so in marriage.

Remember what you promised to be and to do.

Learn to forgive your families for having a hard time believing you are adults. When you have children of your own, you will understand. It will take a long time to really let go.

Don’t compare yourself to other married couples, especially in the area of finances. In our culture, so many people are living far above their means that prosperity is an illusion. Seek happiness, blessing and contentment, not prosperity.

Don’t try to get wealthy overnight. Instead, save a little from every check. (Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey.)

Don’t get in a hurry for a house, kids or anything that needs to come in God’s time.

If you have an addiction, deal with it. Don’t hide it. Get help before the addiction progressively attacks your marriage by destroying your ability to love and be loved.

Married life is full of surprises and disappointments. You can’t anticipate either, but you can be prepared for both.

Forgiveness in marriage is the greatest gift you can give. Be sure that you do not presume the gift will arrive automatically, no matter the offense.

Becoming family doesn’t happen in a day, or a month or a year, or even many years. But it’s always happened before you realize it.

Never letting the sun go down on your anger may not always be possible, but it is a goal that will repay all your efforts.

The joys of married life are amazingly simple. Make lots of room for them.

Scripture is right in everything it says about marriage; its descriptions, commands, advice and warnings. But it is never more true than when it tells you to DELIGHT in your spouse.

I’ve been teaching Galatians for over a year, and I happened to cross this verse this week, a week marked by the passing of one of my most significant mentors. She exemplified many things in my life, but one of the most significant was her amazing hunger for the teaching of the Word of God. She had a quick and focused mind that was always taking in a sermon or a book of theology or Biblical teaching. Right up until her last few months, she was accumulating knowledge about God.

It’s interesting to me that Paul interrupts himself in Galatians 4- almost corrects himself- to say that the better way to describe the Christian experience is coming to be known rather than coming to know. People who make this kind of distinction can be a bit irritating.

But there’s a reason to make such a distinction, and it’s very important we make it.

Paul is making a reference to the incredible sea of God’s love and grace in which the believer finds himself. He may be learning about God, but when he looks up, the God that he is learning about has, in fact, dropped a few crumbs of knowledge onto his plate. Surrounding the believer is a vast ocean of God’s immensity, sovereignty, omniscience, omnipresence and goodness. In a lifetime, we see a speck of God in our tiny brains, but the God in whom we live, move and have our being surpasses every measurement and comparison.

This God knew us in eternity. He knew us before birth. His knowledge preceded us and meets us no matter where we find ourselves. His knowledge of us is encyclopedic, utterly honest, complete and compassionate. He will know us a million years from now in the same way, and we will only have begun to know him.

As the universe dwarfs our measly attempts at knowledge, so God overwhelms all the combined knowledge of every knowing being in the universe.

Our knowledge is a grain of sand, and yet we strut proudly. Our knowledge of God is the first crayon’s mark on a page to his million times magnified Shakespearean greatness. And yet we brag.

My friend would have been the first one to agree. What God has graced us to know of him in this life should be our passionate study, but God is not measured by what we know. That is why the most knowledgeable among us may, in the end, be the most humble or the most mystical. What God shows us is true, as true faith is based on truth. But our little books of God-knowledge are documentaries on a few caught reflections from a Sun we cannot bear to see.

If our hope comes to what we know of God, our knowledge has led us astray. What our knowledge has shown us is the wonder of being KNOWN.

The Bible is full of persons who believe they know God and are surprised to discover how little this matters compared to God’s knowledge of them. The lost sheep knew the shepherd, but how little he knew of the shepherd’s love for him. The prodigal knew his father, but never realized his his father knew and loved him.

My uncle was another of my mentors. He was a deep and insightful pastor with a mind that absorbed the scriptures. But the last year of his life, his mind betrayed him. He became someone else. Angry. Profane. It was a terrible time for his wife and friends. We could hardly stand to be near him. What happened to all he knew? What happened to that mind that taught all of us so much?

His brain was dying, as all of us should know. Many of us, sadly, will come to a similar place, often for much longer. What we know will be locked away or gone entirely. We may lose the knowledge of our spouses and children.

What will matter is this: Does God know us?

Many years ago, an aging pastor came to talk to me. He also was a very intelligent man. He taught Latin at our school. He wanted personal counsel. Age was affecting his mind and emotions. He doubted if God loved him. He was afraid of hell and frightened of death. He thought God had abandoned him for his sins. His mind had become a frightful and dark place, filled with paranoid thoughts. I tried to assure him of the love of God; the God he had known, proclaimed and believed in for so many years of faithful ministry.

His mind could not take hold of my words. All that was left were the fears and doubts he had suppressed throughout life. Now he was a caricature of himself, terrified and afraid of God.

A few months later, he was gone.

These were my friends. They read the books. Thought the theological thoughts. They taught, read, preached. They had knowledge of God.

In the end, their minds weakened, rebelled or turned on them. Knowledge disappeared.

But God did not. God knew them and God was with them.

This is the Good News. We are privileged to know God, and he reveals himself to us. But the God we come to know releases us from the trap of holding onto knowledge as our salvation. He comes to us as a Father, lover, mediator, gracious and all-embracing savior.

“I know you.” He said those words to my mentor, my uncle, my co-worker. They were never left to experience what they knew. They were taken hold of by one who loved them before, behind, around and to the uttermost.

An infant does not know anything about his/her parents. Knowledge will come, but life begins in utter vulnerability and trust. It is the love of mother/father for child that dominates our beginning. Recognition will come, but not at first.

So at the end, things are much clearer. Know God in the present and give all of mind and heart to the study of his Word and good thoughts about Him. But, in the end, lay down and rest. Lay down in him and go home.

A few months ago, we adopted a puppy. We had to drive 7 hours in the pouring rain to get home. All the way, she huddled herself in my wife’s lap, and never moved. She did not run, bark or panic. She rested in us and we brought her home.

You do not need to know the way home. Jesus is the way. He knows and loves you. You will be safe.

(Read Psalm 139 to hear a beautiful and prayerful expression of what Paul is saying.)

I never knew a person more ready to go to heaven. I feel guilty missing her. Really, for Betty this was everything she’s lived for and dedicated every waking moment to. She’d done all she could do in this world. Her heart was through and she was more than ready to see Jesus. This morning at 7:30 a.m., she got her wish.

I don’t know if I will be writing about her for a while. She’d not like what I’d have to say, because it would be too much about her.

So Denise, the better writer in the family, has written a beautiful tribute at her blog: Butter and Cream. Please read it and think of our friend. (BTW, the rainbow pics are on my facebook page.)

READ: Butter and Cream.