Bewitched

OK, so I went to the Christian book store (the white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, evangelical, upper-middle class, republican, family values propaganda store) in the area, and I was hit immediately by the overwhelming amount of Narnia crap that absolutely filled the place. Disney has marketed this film to Christians in a way that only the Disney advertising juggernaut can, and I find it all hard to take in. It may be that I just barely missed being attacked by the live lion they had prowling around the store as a way of drawing attention to the Narnia display (thank God he found that cute little blond-haired 5 year old boy instead of me) (I think the lion was attracted to the smell of stolen "Testamints" candy on the kid's breath). It may be that I love the books and even read them to my unborn daughter while she was in the womb, and I am very afraid that Disney will destroy my favorite books. I think I have figured out the three main reasons for my disturbed feelings:

1) Disney and Evangelicals Make Strange Bedfellows

Evangelical Christianity has a long, happy history of protesting everything Disney. The very existence of Disney has been a thorn in the side of Evangelicals for years. Christians love to portray Disney as the Magic Kingdom of Satan (mostly because of Disney's acceptance of "The Gays") Disney, for its part, is quintessential US consummerist culture. Disney is the Evil Galactic Empire. It is all about buying and consumption. Looking back at the astronomical success of Mel Gibson's The Passion, Disney wants to grab some of those Christian bucks. Disney and Evangelicals working together is as disturbing to me as the union of Flava Flav and Brigitte Nielsen.

2) White American Evangelicals Will Co-opt the World, If They Can

The Passion, Left Behind, multi-colored leather bibles, X-treme faith stuff, Christian hip-hop, and other such stuff are all examples of boomer generation Christianity trying to look cool to my generation and younger. I am an "Xer", and it started with marketing youth groups to my generation and grew from there. We had "X-treme Ski Trips", "X-treme Pizza Blasts", and X-treme Contemplative Retreats" pitched at us ad nauseum. The difficulty with this is twofold. First, it is a self-deception on the part of Christians. We have fooled ourselves into believing we are the controllers in this consummerist marketing Christian explosion. Sorry. Mega-conglomerates like Disney laugh at these naive simpletons who were protesting them yesterday and are now PAYING CHURCH FUNDS TO MARKET FOR DISNEY!!! Disney no longer has to even spend for its own advertising. I have no problem with Disney. In fact, I already have my tickets to see the movie with my kids. However, you will never see a shred of Narnia advertising in my church. I am not saying I am above anyone else. I am just sick of seeing the Church that I love act like a whore, spreading her legs for whatever company or product comes with a smile and a nice ad pitch. John Cusak, an actor who has become a pseudo-voice for my generation, summed up our feelings best in "Say Anything" as Lloyd:

"A career? I've thought about this quite a bit sir and I would have to say
considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy
anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or
processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or
processed as a career. I don't want to do that. My father's in the army. He wants
me to join, but I can't work for that corporation, so what I've been doing
lately is kick-boxing, which is a new sport...As far as career longevity, I don't
really know. I cant figure it all out tonight, sir, so I'm just gonna hang with
your daughter."

FROM ROD'S QUOTES FROM SAY ANYTHING

3) Pretty Picky With Our Witches, Aren't We?

I love C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, as I said earlier, but please. Why is this British witch acceptable and Harry Potter is the devil? I love the Harry Potter books as well. There are a number of lessons in those books about growing up, facing fears, and handling the worst of life. Yet, Christians have avidly protested the books and the movies. They have been very self-righteous as they have driven to bookstores and theaters in their GM SUVs (burning a ton of gas, while GM has been liked to Apartheid in South Africa) to march in their Nikes (made in Indonesian sweat shops) while drinking Coca-Cola (linked to murders of Columbian peasants) bought from Wal-mart (guilty of almost completely destroying the US small market economy and keeping minimum wage at an unjust level), while they burn books in front of the children who love them (causing these kids to have a horrible first experience of Christianity). The Lewis books are full of magic and fantasy, but they are acceptable, because they have been marketed to Christians. The fact is, Lewis did not write them for Christians or even as an evangelistic tool. He simply wrote them to share with his niece, Lucy. The Holy Observer whote an excellent sarcastic article after the 5th Harry Potter novel offering new children's books to protest for Christians. The hypocrisy and the picking and choosing of our little "stands" makes us look like fools.

My point is this: I believe this worshipping at the feet of American culture is destructive of the Gospel message. I am not an isolationist. I believe we need to enter the culture and engage and connect with as many people as possible. I also believe we are to be set apart. We can love people without marrying the culture. I am looking forward to the movie, but I will keep it in perspective. I will not sell my soul to Disney.

Where Has All the Spirit Gone?

I am experiencing some angst. Of course, as a quintessential Gen X’er, it is quite expected that I would carry angst. However, what I am experiencing is not quite a “Pearl-Jam-raging-against-Ticketmaster-because-Eddie-Vedder-could- only-be-angry-at-his-parents-for-so-long-before-losing-momentum- and-needing-a-new-object-of-wrath” kind of angst. Rather it is a frustration and disappointment with the older generation in the Body of Christ. My mom was a hard core Charismatic Renewal person in the 70s and early 80s. If you don’t know what that term means, it refers to a real movement or time of renewed activity of the Holy Spirit. I saw some really crazy stuff during that time. I was only 5 years old when my mom started hanging out with this Spirit-filled prayer group. They were rockin’ and rollin’, speakin’ in tongues, castin’ out demons, healin’ the sick prayer warriors, and I got to see and experience some really awesome stuff. My God was a big God who could do anything at all, whenever he wanted. When He showed up, He showed up in power and authority. His very presence demanded respect and awe. Every moment was full of the supernatural and was charged with infinite possibility.

Now, as a young pastor in the Vineyard, a community of churches founded in renewal and the power of the Holy Spirit, I am frustrated that we are not experiencing these things much anymore. I am being offered condolences and pity from the “old timers” in the Vineyard. They say things like, “Yeah, this was a good conference, Bill, but you should have seen what they were like when Wimber was around!” or “You should have seen the Spirit move in the old days!” I am told that we are just in a trough between waves of the Spirit. Perhaps it is just me, but I find that to be dissatisfying, inconsistent, and more than a little sad. I love the Vineyard. It is my family; my tribe. Also, this is not just a factor in the Vineyard. Many churches that were formally on fire with the power of the Spirit are hardly even a dying ember anymore. People shrug, say “oh, well”, and hunker down to wait for the next great revival. I can’t even fathom the absurd notion that I may have peaked spiritually as a 6 year old Catholic!

I see no evidence in Scripture of God teasing us by giving, withdrawing, and re-giving the Spirit, like some kind of divine yo-yo diet. In fact, in John 14, in referring to the sending of the Spirit, He says that He does not give as the world gives. In Scripture, He has pulled back from individuals, usually to speak to the person by His absence, as in the case of Job. Sometimes He would withdraw from a person to punish or judge, as in the case of King Saul. The only time He withdrew from His people as a whole was in the inter-testamental period, when the prophets were silent. I think when the Spirit came at Pentecost, it came to stay. I think the waves are not with the Spirit, but with us. We stop paying attention. We lose the awe and wonder. We get sick of holding revival services every day for 2 straight years. We start to handle the Sacred with the flippancy of Uzzah with the Ark. I am not a Dispensationalist, so I do not believe the Spirit comes and goes. So why are we continuing to miss it? The miracles and manifest power of God has not ceased to be displayed in places like China or Africa. In fact, there are still accounts of people being raised from the dead in those places! Personally, I am sick of the fatalism that comes from thinking that we have to wait for the next great revival. I think God is poised and ready to move right now. Actually, He is already moving. We have to reawaken our hunger for Him! As the Church in America, we need to stop pretending to be filled and satisfied with powerless services and small groups that are more like therapy than ministry. Lately, it seems like almost daily I get an email to pray for a pastor in the Vineyard who has cancer, or I hear of some other illness or fall from grace of a person in ministry. I am not saying those pastors do not have enough faith. I would never say that, because it is simply not true. It seems, however, that ever since our founder died of cancer, that demon has all but defeated our church. I think it is time we said “Enough!” and we start fasting and praying to conquer this satanic disease and every other one known to humanity. I want to see demons cast out, the sick healed, and the captives set free! I even want to see the dead raised! I simply think it is foolishness to wait another 50 years, and our nostalgia is not going to save anybody. We will see a new and fresh outpouring of the Spirit that goes beyond anything in the past, if we merely see our need and desperation for God to move in our lives. We must acknowledge our spiritual poverty and seek his face. We need to crest again with the power of the Spirit, because the Devil rejoices in our disempowerment. Let’s wake up and see God move! Maybe I am foolish, or maybe I have never really lost that sense that God can do anything He wants whenever He wants. I Think He is right here waiting. My breath is caught in my lungs, because the Kingdom is going to break in right now or at any moment. Let’s not miss it!

Not So Hasty Departure

A dear friend responded to my last post with a fairly direct criticism. I have absolutely no problem with friends challenging me. I love having people speak into my life. However, what hurt about this comment is the fact that it is completely untrue. It did point out a glaring problem in my life that needs addressing, however. Those I love obviously don't know why I left the Catholic Church to become a Vineyard pastor. This is not to attack my friend, but to clear up misunderstanding.

I grew up in the American Catholic Church, which calls itself the Roman Catholic Church. I was a bit schizophrenic, because I was also raised in the Assemblies of God. Now, for those of us unfamiliar with Catholicism, one does not "attend" the Catholic Church. One says, "I am a Catholic". As an American Catholic, I was always "fed". I have never felt that I was not being fed in the Catholic Church, nor did I ever utter the words, "I am not being fed." My wife, who is always willing to point out my hypocrisy and inconsistencies (God bless her), agrees that I have never said that in our 11+ years of marriage. No, that is not why I left. When my first daughter, Grace, was born, my life was rocked. I was forced to face all of my fears and to look carefully at my life and my faith. I realized that the church where I ministered and worshipped was not Roman Catholic, but was very American. If I was going to call myself a Roman Catholic, I had to find out what that really meant.

I left not because of not being fed, but because of the following reasons. First, I felt a strong calling to be a pastor. As a married man, I could not do that in the Roman Catholic Church. As a professional Youth Minister in a large parish, I could go no further. Second, when I found the Vineyard, I found my Tribe. My Home. There was no reason to look any further. I simply was among my people in the Vineyard. Lastly, and most importantly, after studying the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, I realized I knew in my heart of hearts that much of the theology was simply wrong. Issues of trans-substantiation, birth control, Marian devotion, Papal adoration, the male-only & celibate priesthood, teachings from formal Cardinal Ratzinger and others centered around Mary as co-redemptrix, and putting tradition on the same authoritative level with Scripture are just a few of the glaring problems I encountered. I simply cannot be a part of a Church that is so wrong, and still declares that it is the only one with the Truth. There is so much that is right, true, and good about the Catholic faith, but is does not come close to having the corner on Truth. The Vineyard, where I am now, does not alone contain the entirety of Truth either. However, my church home does not claim to have the whole Truth. We understand that it takes all of the Body of Christ in all of its beauty, diversity, and expression to worship such an amazing, powerful, and all-encompassing God.

I simply needed to be free to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

I'm Not Being Fed!

My wife made a comment today that I found to be pretty profound. She said, "We in the United States are as obese spiritually as we are physically." The comment brought me up short. I was blown away by the truth and the implications of the statement.

I have heard Christians in churches say so many times that they did not want to be in a church anymore, because they simply were not being fed. NOT BEING FED?!?! A statement like that speaks volumes on the kind of Christianity that person lives. The fact that so many Christians in the US have made that statement or have heard it spoken says quite a bit about our consumer, Western faith (or lack thereof) as well. You or me personally being fed in a church body is simply not the point. I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but as the pastor of a church, if you are a believer in my congregation, I don't care if you are not "feeling fed". The responsibility for your imagined malnourishment is with you, not me. Besides, a person who makes a comment like that is the person who is sitting in a pew every week feeding, receiving, and growing fat from consumption and inactivity.

In Matthew's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand The disciples come to Jesus and tell him that the people are hungry. Jesus tells them, with a bit of a tone, it seems, "You give them something to eat." In John's account of the same story, Jesus tests the disciples by telling them to go buy food for the people. I find it interesting that they were unable to feed the people at all, and Jesus knew that. He is the Bread of Life. Only He was able to feed them, and only He is able to feed us now. It is also interesting that the Apostles did every kind of miracle that Jesus did on earth. One of them, Peter, even walked on water. The only miracle they did not do like Jesus was the feeding of a multitude. I believe that Jesus was asking them to do something outside of their capabilities, precisely to have them realize their limitations. Yet, in a way, they did feed the multitudes. They fed them in their celebrations of the Lord's Supper. They fed the multitudes with the Body of Christ. The point is that the people were not fed by the efforts of some pastor. The people are fed by Christ, himself.

I believe one of the main lessons of this story is often missed because of a misreading of the passages. Jesus constantly calls us to take up our crosses and follow Him. When we read this story, unfortunately many of us identify with the multitude. We see ourselves as part of the faceless mass of humanity, hungry and worn down. However, the Gospels make it quite clear throughout that Jesus calls us out of that. He wants us to be like Him. We are to be the disciples. As believers and disciples, how are we fed? We get our fill by doing the work of distributing the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ. There is always abundance! When we are finished there is enough left for each of us to have a basket! When we do the work of the Kingdom, it comes back to us.

Anyone who complains of not being fed in a church is useless in the work of the Kingdom. This is not to say that all churches are plugged in to the movement of the Spirit. Many are missing the boat. But, it is when we are actively participating in the advancement of the Kingdom through the sharing of the person of Jesus that we are filled to overflowing. Let's all stop sitting in our spiritual recliners and run the race that God has set before us! Anything else is gluttony.