I’m repenting of much of what I’ve long believed about worship (or the lack thereof).

One night last week, after a closing shift at the cafe, I sat down in my study and started to read.  It was nearly midnight and I had hopes of making myself sleepy by reading.  Then I remembered that I could also pray.  Specifically, I could pray the “Prayer at The Close of Day” liturgy from the Book of Common Worship – a short liturgy which I’ve become fond of using as a way to close out my day.  But this night something was different: I had no desire to pray.  I wanted to read, get sleepy, and go to bed.  Then a thought occurred to me which surprised me in its conviction: I should pray now because God is worthy of worship.

Not long ago, such a thought would not have had such a powerful effect on me.  I “knew” God was worthy of worship.  I “knew” we gathered at church to “praise” God.  But, for all practical purposes, I had a much more humanistic perspective on churchy-worship.  The feeling I got from a service, the message that I hoped was communicated to the congregation, the service we were sent out to do - all these were priorities for me.  Worshipping God because of God’s beauty and worthiness in Godself was something I did, but not during church on Sunday. 

That’s not to say I never had moments of genuinely worshipping for the love of God. Tasting a delicious piece of fruit or a good cup of coffee makes me thank God for the beauty of creation.  Hallelujah for taste buds.   And moments of grace – times when I feel spoken to by a song or something I’ve read – inspire genuine praise in my heart.  But these spontaneous expressions of worship have always felt different from Sunday morning church “worship” to me.  The gatherings we call worship frankly seem so much more human.

Alexander Schmemann wrote in For the Life of the World that secularism is the negation of worship.  “It is the negation of man as a worshipping being, as homo adorans: the one for whom worship is the essential act which both ‘posists’ his humanity and fulfills it” (p. 118).  For Schmemann, the human creature exists in order to worship.  It is the highest act of who we are.  Is this true? Are we really made to worship? Is it the fullest expression of our humanity to give glory back to the God whose image we bear? 

Since I “became a Christian” in high school, I’ve pushed against this prioritization of worship precisely because I saw it leading to the negation of mission.  In my mind, churches that poured all their energy into maintaining elaborate Sunday services often did so to the exclusion of mission and evangelism, failing to put into practice the Word members supposedly heard in the service.  Better, I thought, to privilege mission – even make worship subservient to mission.  Whatever happened on Sunday morning only mattered as far as it led to the proclamation of the Gospel and prompted action bearing witness to God’s concern for justice in the world.  In other words, whatever happened on Sunday morning only mattered in terms of human response. Schmemann would say I was a secularist even within the church: In reaction against worship to the exclusion of mission, I promoted mission without a genuine attitude of worship.  I reacted to one extreme by pushing to the other. 

I repent.  I still have questions about the relationship of worship and mission: Certainly a worship service should communicate Gospel, even to the unchurched. So how much should evangelism and mission dictate the shape of a worship service?  What actually is “missional worship”?   Good questions.  But the more important question presently is why should we worship?  And the answer to that question lies not in my feelings in about or response to a worship service, but in who God is as the only One worthy of worship and who we are in relation to that One.

Romans 12:2 says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  A book I read recently revealed how physically this renewing of the mind needs to take place.  And I think wisdom from a different, more ancient book can teach us a lot about that physical renewal. 

InterVarsity Press recently released a new book by William Struthers called Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. It describes in scientific detail the neurological processes involved in at least one pattern of sin: lust.  And the most surprising – and for some, terrifying – insight of the book is that theses processes are dynamic.  Viewing pornography actually shapes men’s brains, creating neural pathways designed to speed the brian’s processing of sexual images.  Male brains are already programmed to respond to erotic imagery, but this is about nurture on top of nature:  ”Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths set the course for the next time an erotic image is viewed. Over time these neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. . . . Repeated exposure to pornography creates a one-way neurological superhighway where a man’s mental life is over-sexualized and narrowed” (p. 85). 

Obviously porn is a tremendous issue:  it’s a growing multi-billion dollar business in the US, thanks in part to its addictive character. Internet access only increases the likelihood of people viewing porn “privately” where there’s little fear of getting caught.  (I’m curious how many more hits than usual this post will get, simply because it contains words like porn.)  Regardless of the lies the entertainment industry produces about it, the truth is that porn is demeaning and violent toward both women and men, it’s destructive to relationships, and – as this book shows –  it even rots the brain.  Struthers chronicles in scientific detail the process described above with the hiking metaphor, especially in the male brain. (Struthers does helpfully distinguish between physiological sex and gender-identity; the scientific portion of the book addresses the physiological male brain, but Struthers does also discuss what constitutes masculinity.)  Succinctly put, for men, indulgence in porn and masturbation is “playing with neurochemical fire.”   

But then what? If porn has a brain-rotting, chemical-fire singing effect, how can this be reversed?  The final chapter, with the promising title “Rewiring and Sanctification” has great ideas, but doesn’t seem to me to go as far as it could in suggesting how one’s mind can be rewired and renewed.  Struthers recommends confession, practices like “chaining” to help identify triggers which cause men to stumble, and the establishment of healthy relationships as ways to rewire the brain. All good things. But I have a question:  if the distorted neural pathways of a porn-addicts mind were created through a dynamic process that  the physical neurology of the brain, won’t even more embodied physical practices be helpful in positively rewiring the brain?  Example: Fasting.  Earlier in the book, on page 92, Struthers notes that the hypothalamus is the part of the brain that directs the body’s three drives: eating, drinking, and sex.  He writes there that “It is important to note that the sexual drive is located in the same region as the centers for eating and drinking.  Thus the sexual/reproductive drive is experienced as a survival need similar to the drive for eating and drinking.”  Obviously one can die from not eating or drinking properly, but a human will never die from lack of sex.  Might physical disciplines like fasting train the brain that it can survive abstaining from a physical drive?

Here’s where I think modern science dovetails beautifully with centuries-old monastic wisdom.  In the fourth century, St. John Cassian wrote about how to fight lustful temptations through fasting: “This harsh struggle has to be fought in both the soul and the body, and not simply in the soul, as is the case with other faults.”  Thus fasting is one of the prescriptions he gives for fighting against lust.  Interestingly, St. Mark the Ascetic - another monk whose work is included after St. John Cassian’s in the Philokalia - systematically describes the psychological processes of sin in ways that parallel the scientific discussion in Struthers’ book.  These stages of temptation for Mark are provocation (a tempting thought popped into my head, but I ignored it), disturbance (I barely thought about the tempting thought), communion (seriously thought about the tempting thought, toyed with it), assent (gave in and indulged in tempting thought, at least mentally), prepossession (have given in so many times that I’m reminded of it even when I don’t want to be), and passion (powerless over the temptation, subject to it, within its control).  These stages are recognizable in Struthers’ discussion of compulsion and addiction to porn. The early monks of the Church were aware mentally of the processes shaping their minds in sin, even without the scientific language to depict it. And, they recommended physical asceticism as a way to assist in retraining the mind.  Perhaps it’s time to do some research on the neural pathways created by spiritual disciplines.

All that said, I think Wired For Intimacy and the resources it recommends will be helpful for anyone wrestling with porn (or counseling, pastoring, or caring for those wrestling with it). Those interested should check out the author’s blog.  May God bless the transformation and renewal of all our minds.

How would you define success? A friend asked me this question the other day, and after pausing for a moment, I gave an answer with which I’m now only half-satisfied. 

I started by think of the way the world normally measures “success”.  Worldly measures of success are generally related to finances or security. For a follower of Jesus, those can’t be the ultimate measures of success, but we shouldn’t avoid them all together – even in the church, worldly measures may still be necessary factors to consider. For example, Upper Room will have to become financially self-sustainable by 2014 to be “successful” in our goal of establishing a new congregation in Squirrel Hill.  But that example begs the question of why plant a new church? And why in Squirrel Hill?  In order to call new people to participation in the mission of Jesus, joining Christ in the work of reconciling, healing, and transforming the world.  The ultimate goal is not the establishment of a church, but the transformation of lives according to the mission of God.

So, I think I’d define success as life-transformation.  The reason I’m only half-satisfied with the answer I gave my friend is that it described inward-focused transformation.  I’ve been reading a lot of eastern Christian monks recently for whom success would be articulated in terms like ”dispassion”, “theosis” or “divinization”.  So, I articulated success as “becoming more like Jesus.”  The problem is, I didn’t articulate the whole of what that means.  It’s more than just “becoming the best me I can be” – despite the popularity of that teaching.  It’s also more than just cultivating personal disciplines of prayer and breaking sinful habits.  If success for a Christian is being conformed to the image of Christ, then success means going to the cross. Success is death to self.  It’s not measured by upward-mobility, but by downward-mobility, service, and giving.  True success isn’t just self-transformation, it’s inward transformation that leads to world-transformation. 

And yet, transformation of the self is still necessary to effect world-transformation: I can’t join Jesus in opposing systems of injustice and strongholds of evil if I refuse to repent of my complicity with such systems. Personal transformation is necessary for world-transformation to take place.  That requires confession, repentance, and the help of a community of other Jesus-followers.  But those practices are not ends in themselves.  They shape us through our own reconciliation with God to become ministers of reconciliation in the whole world: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

So, measures of success are both inward and outward – reconciliation in one’s own life and participating in the ministry of reconciliation in others lives.  Applied to the situation of a church, successful participation in the mission of God results in transformation of lives both within and outside the church.  And because transformation can’t always be quantified, we can measure success by stories of transformation, both inward and outward.  The narrative of a person’s life reveals the trajectory of transformation and includes the failures, mistakes and wounds, as well as the times of healing and restoration.  

Whenever my life and ministry come to an end, I pray that whatever success (if any) is attributed to me would be reflected in stories of transformation, both in my own life and in the lives of others.  And I pray that those stories would ultimately reflect a life lived as Christ’s ambassador, letting transformation in my own life lead to greater participation the ministry of reconciliation.

I recently came across this article about human trafficking after massive disasters.  As perverse and evil as it may sound, people actually prey upon young children and vulnerable women in the days and weeks following major natural disasters.  Rather than led to shelter and provision, they are lured into domestic, agricultural, and sexual slavery.  Pray that children would be protected, law-enforcement and security personnel (to the extent that they’re present) would be vigilant, and that traffickers would not prey upon the victims of this disaster.

Human trafficking may seem undefeatable, but there is reason to have hope.  This Friday, January 29th, at 7:30pm Upper Room will be hosting a screening of the documentary At The End of Slavery.  The film, produced by IJM (where the author of the article linked-above previously worked), exposes the reality of human trafficking, but also the hope of shutting down the trafficking business.  If you’re in Pittsburgh, especially around Squirrel Hill, come join us.

January is Human Trafficking Prevention Month.  In response, Upper Room will be showing a documentary on human trafficking called At The End of Slavery on Friday January 29th.  It’s at 7:30  pm at 5828 Forward Ave. in Squirrel Hill. Check out the trailer:  At The End Of Slavery – Extended Trailer from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.

I sent an email to a friend saying “I’m elated about this,” after reading this story.  Jin Kim, the pastor of Church of All Nations in Minneapolis is running for moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly this summer.  I remember hearing Kim preach at the 2004 General Assembly in Richmond, VA, when I was there as a youth delegate.  As in his work at Church of All Nations, his sermon at GA addressed America’s “original sin” of racism and critiqued the church’s complicity with it.   Having heard Kim speak at other conferences since then, I have a deep respect for him and am confident in his ability to lead the PC(USA) in the coming years.  I don’t know who else will show up in the running for Moderator, but I don’t hesitate in saying that I think Jin Kim is a great candidate.

I also can’t help but think that it’s perfect timing for Kim to run: Like Bruce Reyes-Chow who was the home-town favorite in San Jose two years ago, Kim will be running for moderator at the GA in Minneapolis, where he currently ministers.  More importantly, this is the year the Assembly will consider adding the Belhar Confession to our Book of Confessions.  Belhar was written by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa – the church that was founded by the Dutch Reformed Church for the purpose of segregation.   The DRMC was created for “coloureds”, or people of mixed-race who wouldn’t fit into the legal categories of Black and White in South Africa.  Similarly, the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA) was founded for Black South Africans.  Belhar, with its explicit call for reconciliation across race and class lines, was useful in uniting the DRMC and the DRCA, but the white Dutch Reformed Church refuses to adopt it.  For the PC(USA) to adopt it as one of our confessions this year would (1) be a powerful sign addressing the racial division still present in America, and (2) potentially shame the Dutch Reformed Church into taking the call to reconciliation more seriously.  A pastor who’s dedicated his life in ministry to racial reconciliation and multicultural ministry would be ideal to lead the PC(USA) through adoption of Belhar.

Tomorrow night Mike and I are going to lead an evangelism seminar for Upper Room folks down at 5828.  Yes, I just used the “E-word”.  Evangelism seems to have scary connotations for a lot of people.  It inspires fear in those who are afraid of being the targets of evangelism – wary of manipulation and distrustful of Christians who don’t look anything like the Jesus they claim to follow.  And it inspires fear in Christians themselves, who for a plethora of reasons have trouble speaking honestly about Jesus and what it means to follow him. 

At the evangelism seminar tomorrow, we’re going to include a video which I think demonstrates a way of honestly sharing what it means to follow Jesus, without manipulation of the person to whom the story is told, and without unfair pressure to “prove” anything on the part of the person telling the story.  The video is called ”The Big Story” and it was made by James Choung.  Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCVcSiUUMhY

I like this video for a few reasons: (1) It sets Christianity in the context of the story of the world.  It’s not about proving a system of doctrine; it’s about the ongoing story of the world, and our place in it.   (2) The portrait of “salvation” that’s given is communal, not an individualistic reduction of the Gospel:  “Jesus is starting a revolution and he’s asking us to be healed ourselves in Jesus’ name, to be in each other, and to go out and heal the planet.  And our mission is to be sent together to heal.” (3)  It speaks to a generation that’s eager to participate in healing work in the world.  I know a lot of people who want to work for justice, peace, equality, and care for the environment, but who aren’t Christian.  Often, they outdo Christians at the very works we’re called to.  This presentation of mission bridges that gap. (4) It’s concise.  I truly believe that genuine sharing about Jesus happens best organically through natural relationships, over time.  (To use a phrase from Adam McHugh again, “exploring mystery together” is how I work.)  But, a Christian should be able to share concisely what they believe and why they believe it.  Choung does that here in a way that’s inviting and without coercion.  (5)  The visual-aids which are drawn in the video don’t rely on individualistic reductions of the Gospel, unlike so many other examples that I’ve seen.  (Think canyon with “you” on one side, “God” on the other, and a cross forming the bridge.)

Now look at how Choung continues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4V60n6KiB8

Attributing all the good things in the world to followers of Jesus is obviously an exaggeration; we’ve screwed up lots and lots and lots of times.  But, there is much hope in following Jesus, legitimate hope for the transformation of the world.  And we can only truly love through Jesus: “Through Jesus we can become the greatest lovers on the planet.”  His description of response to Jesus includes repentance and forgiveness, but not in an individualistic way.  This avoids the consumer-evangelical mindset and presents committment to following Jesus as a committment to his mission of redeeming the world.  Great.  

What are the other strengths or weaknesses of this telling of the Christian story?

In 2010 I’m setting a goal of reading books outside my cultural comfort zone, so I’ve compiled this reading list to help me accomplish this.  Because I’m a pastor, some of the books are theology books (Cone, Villafañe).  Others are fiction or narrative which relate immigrant or international life experience.  Some of the recommendations listed below were gleaned from the recommended reading list at the end of Soong-Chan Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism.  Other selections are books that have been sitting on my shelves unread or uncompleted for too long.  I’ve whittled the list down to 14 because I’ll still be reading other books during this time, and I think that finishing at least one of these books per month and blogging about it is an ambitious enough goal.  That said, I’m open to more suggestions, so please pass along any recommendations for similar books.

Fiction/Narrative:

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

Native Speaker – Chang Rae Lee

Church/Theology Related:

Divided By Faith - Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith

United by Faith  – Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Michael O Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim

The Liberating Spirit – Eldin Villafañe

Living in Color - Randy Woodley

The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective - Pinchas Lapide 

The New Global Mission–  Samuel Escobar

The Spirituals and The Blues – James Cone

The Heavenly Man - Brother Yun with Paul Hattaway

Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity - Edward Gilbreath

Sociology:

The Color of Wealth by Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, and Betsy Leondar-Wright

Race Matters – Cornel West

One of my New Years Resolutions is to read outside my cultural comfort zone.  I was convicted of the need for this last month when I read Soong-Chan Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism and realized that 90% of the books I read in 2009 were by white men.  So, in 2010 I’m going to deliberately seek out books that expand my horizons.

The first such book was Miriam Adeney’s Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity.  Story is the key word, too.  Adeney presents true stories collected from both research and first-hand experience of Christians from all around the globe: the Philippines, Iran, China, Peru, Rwanda are just a small sample of the countries from which the stories come.  Kingdom Without Borders does through ground-level stories what Philip Jenkins’ The Next Christendom does through statistical overviews: present the lively face of the growing Church in the global South and East.   Adeney is a storyteller at heart – I remember her speaking on the subject of storytelling at my seminary a couple years ago and can still hear her voice in some of the stories in the book – but the value of the book lies in more than the medium.  The sources of the stories themselves are the real-life experiences of people whose voices are too rarely heard in America. 

From the stories I learned of people like Narayan Aman Tilak – an Indian Christian from the Brahmin caste whose worked to contextualize the Gospel to Indian culture – and of dalit Christians who’ve experienced terrible persecution.  A chapter on China contained stories of martyrs, imprisoned pastors, and leaders in the underground church there.  The second-to-last chapter – “Way of the Cross” - is a powerful reminder of the place of martyrdom and suffering in global Christian experience.  For pastors reading the book, the stories provide excellent sermon illustrations.  (I already used the story of Simin, a young woman from Iran who comes to faith in Jesus through a series of visions as one this Sunday.)  More importantly, though, the book helps develop a greater sense of what God’s doing in the world: sending missionaries Brazil to Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, from China to the Congo, from Guatemala to Kurdistan.  Filipino Christians working in the Middle East as maids and construction workers building developments like the Burj Kalifa – and carrying their faith with them.

As Rah says in The Next Evangelicalism, “the real emerging church is the church in Africa, Asia and Latin America that continues to grow by leaps and bounds . . .” (p. 124).  I’m grateful to Adeney for providing a glimpse into that church.  Now to keep my attention focused there this year . . .

Merry Christmas! For all of our friends who read this, here’s our 2009 Christmas Letter, which Eileen expertly created using her photography and computer talents.  May Christ’s peace reign in your lives and our world now and forever!

Isaiah 9:2-7:  ”The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as soldiers rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign of David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.”