Why I (blank)

Why is a powerful and obnoxious word. Powerful, because it forces us to see behind results and façades, to their origin and meaning. Obnoxious, because sometime ignorance is bliss.

I've been asking why more lately. Why do I write? Why do I preach? Why do I tweet? Why do I get angry? Why am I sometimes afraid? Without boring you with lots of navel-gazing, here's what I'm discovering:

1. Asking why is like hitting the reset button. If I start out preaching because I love God, but somewhere along the line I'm doing it because I love compliments, the rush of the moment, or whatever, why lets me see that, and reset.
2. Asking why makes me see sideways energy. "I want to get a Ph.D.," I say to myself. But why? Would that help me achieve the goals God wants from me? Maybe, but maybe not. Why allows me to see the good that might kill the right.
3. Asking why of my situations reminds me that I'm not in control of much. If something good happens, why makes me see it was, in the final sense, because everything good comes from God. If something bad happens, why reminds me that, in the final sense, it's all for my good.

So here's my encouragement: let why interrupt your what. It may annoy you, but it'll definitely help you.

Highways in the Heart

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose hearts are the highways to Zion..." Psalm 84:5

Yesterday I preached a completely different message at church than I had planned. As I prayed on Saturday night, I knew very clearly wanted that he wanted me to change my plans. I preached from Psalm 84.

Since yesterday, however, verse 5 has been lodged in my mind like song I can't stop singing. There the psalmist speaks about the blessing and strength that come when we've got highways to God paved in our hearts. According to the writer, all kinds of benefits follow: strength, endurance in suffering, flourishing, etc. What the psalmist assumes, however, I think needs some explaining. How in the world do you lay a road in your soul from your heart to God's house? What does that even mean? Here are my highly un-edited thoughts:

Survey Before a road is built, a crew of trained surveyors and planners must work hard to plan the route. Similarly, if we're going to build a highway in our hearts to Heaven's gates, we've got to know how. It is surely a trail through the foothills of prayer and repentance, across the mountains of Bible study. It's path curves through the deserts of fasting and the forests of worship. All of this road's ways must first be known before they can be travelled.

Clear the Road Next, the ground must be prepared and the land must be cleared. Rocks must be moved, trees cut down, and even mountains blown out of the way. Similarly, we've probably got some things that need to be cleared out of the way so we can construct this highway in our hearts. Schedules will need to change, priorities shifted. Time must be given to prayer. Money must be spent on a great Bible. Effort must be invested in study.

Pave Paving a road is a slow process. We've all seen it — driving along, we see dozens of workers and huge pieces of equipment devoted for months at a time to preparing just small portions of a highway. Similarly, paving the highway of the heart may take some time. Prayer is a discipline that takes time to learn. Reading the Bible is a process that requires effort. Learning to hear God — to listen to his Spirit speak — means doing some listening. Staring may seem daunting, but as you do you're building the road you'll travel to connect to God almighty.

Travel Once you've paved this road, you can now travel! This highway in the heart — the path for the Christian to connect with God — is a road meant to be travelled on. Rise early in the morning and commute toward communion with God.

Maintain One more thing ... roads must be maintained. Just as overgrowth must be trimmed and potholes must be filled on any road, so too must the highways of the heart be maintained. Distraction can grow like weeds and hurts of the heart threaten to break the pavement. This road must be traveled and inspected in order to be maintained.

I don't know about you, but I've got work to do on the highway of my heart.

Church Planting and Me: A Love Affair

I've got a slobbering love affair with church planting. Not the conferences, books, and accouterments of American evangelical church planting culture, but church planting — the actual doing of it. I'm a bit of a purist. I love the start up riskiness, the way it forces the planter to trust God, and the way it creates new platforms from which to do it all again. Like most purists, I don't care much for trends. Every season (here please read that Christian word we all use for an unknown period of time) there's a "new" idea that's really going to revolutionize everything about planting. It's incarnational missional attractional monastic youth-oriented family-oriented purpose-driven seeker-sensitive ... well, you get the idea. Church planting isn't new, and it isn't easy. But if you're called by God to do it, it's still great. And I still love it for at least these 4 reasons:

Church Planting is still the best way to make disciples. Disciples are followers of Jesus and fishers of men, and nothing forces someone to live that rhythm like the planting of a new church. Like weight on the bar, you can't lift it and not get bigger. All the stresses of a start-up are the same pressures that make a great business leader. Church planting works very similarly, and it can produce some amazing disciples.

Church Planting is still hard work. I love the work of planting — the actual tasks involved. Heck, I even love teaching others how to do it. Any method that makes planting look easy, less costly, or overly simple is therefore wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. It takes a ton of work, and I love the work it takes.

Church Planting still takes great faith. Both in quantity and quality, church planting has increased my faith in God. The work is up to me, but the results are very much up to God. I love that.

Church Planting still shrinks me. I'm on my third plant (fourth if you count the new site of our current church, but I digress...). Every time something good happens — salvation, reconciliation, healing — I am struck with just how great God is. I decrease in those moments, because God gets bigger. That's a good thing.

So here's to church planting, and my deep love for it. If you feel inspired, maybe come on up and do some church planting with me.

Disagree ≠ Hate

In her biography on Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." For many years now her words have been the mantra for freedom of speech in Western society. And for many years, most of us have simply presumed that the right to say what’s on our mind (even if others think it to be wrong) was, indeed, right. In recent years, however, this basic foundation of American (thus, Western) society has come under pressure. As the internet has connected us more than ever, it's also divided us more than ever. Instead of connecting all of us to each other, we have preferred connections to others most like us. Instead of one shared set of values, we now hold the values of whatever subculture to which we're most inclined. This means that today there is not one American spirit, for example. Now there are a myriad of cultural nation-states which hold our allegiances far above our country. So what do we do when those values come into conflict?

Formerly, we would argue vigorously. Our shared set of values meant that, ideally, we would listen, presume the best intentions of our opponents, and seek to find some kind of working consensus. But today such work is rare. Why? Because we have come to believe that to disagree with someone is equivalent to hating them.

That is a lie.

Here are the basic ideas I'd like to make clear:

1. To disagree with someone is not to hate them.
2. Love disagrees, often very passionately, with the beloved.
3. Freedom of speech exists in direct proportion to love.
4. Therefore, the action of disagreement should be an action of love.

First, we must rid ourselves of this idea that disagreement is hatred. That's just obviously silly and false. I disagree with my wife quite a lot and I love her more than anyone else on this planet. Is she to take my disagreement as a sign of hatred? Certainly not. Further, I pastor a church filled with people with whom I disagree about a ton of things: politics, ethics, the superiority of mac to pc ... the list goes on. Do I hate them? Good grief, no. I'm their pastor for goodness sake. If I hate someone (and I shouldn't, but if I did) I would probably disagree with them, but the reverse is not true. If I disagree with someone, I do not therefore hate them. Thus, (1).

In fact, the opposite is quite true. If I am passionate in my disagreement with you, it is more likely to be a sign of my love for you. Again, take my wife, for example. I love her. I've made a life-long covenant with her. So if I disagree with her about, say, how to parent one of our children, or where we should live, or how we should spend our money, I don't hate her. I love her, and am so committed to her welfare that I want her to get it right. And she wants me to get it right, so she pushes back. In fact, I want to get it right, right along with her. I want agreement on the good, and that may involve the passionate exchange of ideas (a euphemism for arguing). Therefore, premise (2).

Let's expand the analogy to society. We're supposed to live in a culture where the marketplace of ideas weeds out the good ideas from the bad ones through debate, honest disagreement, and passionate dialogue. But what makes such a marketplace possible? Love. Without a deep love for the image of God in you, I won't care to passionately debate you. I'll just want to silence you. But far from being a sign of hatred, vigorous, careful disagreement is a great sign of love and respect. Hatred silences, love discusses (even at painstaking length). Hatred freaks out when challenged. Love sees a challenge as an opportunity to refine one's position and win the other to it. Without love there is no real freedom — to speak, or to do anything else for that matter. Thus, (3).

These basic (and sadly no longer obvious) premises bring us to (4) — disagreement should be an action of love. As a Christian who holds to more or less really old beliefs about God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, money, sex, humanity, etc., there is a lot to disagree with these days. So when I write, speak, and argue for the veracity of these ideas I'm often called a hater. Have I been hateful before? Probably, but my point here is that I shouldn't be. We shouldn't be.

Think of it this way: If I find a truth that others don't believe, the most hateful thing I can do isn't to argue with them, but to leave them in their error. If they really are in error then their error will probably not bring about their ultimate good. But in withholding that fact I haven't loved them, affirmed them, or tolerated them. I've hated them. I've preferred myself, my comfort, my good name, and my ease of life to their good, their joy, and their prosperity. The opposite of love turns out to be selfish apathy toward others.

Furthermore, if disagreement is hate, then Jesus Christ is the most hateful being to have ever lived. Why? Because he came in complete disagreement with every human, of every culture, at the core of their belief structures. His hate speech included calling everyone wrong (Mark 12:27), telling them that they are following the father of lies (John 8), and correcting the wrong moral behavior of all of us (John 3, 4, Matt 5, et. al.) He was such a hater that the progressive, tolerant, and culturally savvy Romans decided to execute him. And what did he say as he bled? "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." Even with his dying breaths, he begged our forgiveness on the basis of our error and ignorance.

That's because he loves us. This man who disagreed with the whole world did so not from hate but from love. In fact, so great was his love for humanity that he willingly embraced death both to show us the error of our ways and open the way for us to live in accordance with the truth.

Shall we be a people who really love one another enough to painstakingly, passionately, and carefully argue for truth? Or, shall our hatred for one another run over the banks of our better natures, silencing, shouting, and insisting that to disagree with you is the same as hating you? Apparently, I love you enough to ask you.

Thankful for Thankfulness

A while back, I found myself in a deep, dark, depressive sadness that I could neither explain nor escape. If you know me, you'll know that I'm not the type given to soul-sadness. I'm generally a pretty energetic, happy, passionate guy. But, there I was, filled with self-pity, fear, and anger.

Probably, I'm not the only one with emotions I can't explain. Probably, you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed before — maybe even for weeks in a row. Probably, you've been jealous of others whilst pitying yourself. How do you escape? How do you run away from these emotions which seem to have such magnetism to the hard irons which bind our hearts?

Thankfulness.

Psalm 50:23 speaks of the one who offers thanksgiving to God. He's the one for whom God prepares the way. I've developed a few habits that have really helped me, and I'd like to share them with you:

Let the First Words I Speak be "Thank You." Each morning (though I don't do this perfectly) I want the first thing I say to be, "God, thank you." Nothing has happened yet, but already I'm blessed. I'm alive again. I'm healthy again. I'm in my home with my family. I'm still loved by God. Food remains in the fridge, gas remains in the car, and I remain grateful. This keeps back that seizing sense of anxiety that attacks achievers like me for all the things that we have to do that day. It's also a great moment to grab onto some promises in Scripture with both hands and hold them tightly as I thank God for them.

Let the Last Words I Speak be "Thank You."  Before I go to sleep, I'm working hard to thank God for what happened that day — good and bad. He's sovereign over all, after all. He's brought about the affairs of my day for my good. I'm learning that the difference between escaping life through sleep and enjoying life through rest depends on the bridge of gratitude I build throughout the day. This turns the mere unconsciousness of sleeping into true resting.

Instead of Cursing Hardship, Thank God for It.  This one is tough. But, when I find myself dealing with something hard — which is frequently — almost nothing good ever comes when I curse it. I'm not talking about four letter words, here. Most of those have migrated out of my vocabulary. I'm talking about my attitude when the phone rings one more time, and all I want to do is ignore it. When I'm trying to do the right thing and the wrong thing is all I'm seeing. Again, God is sovereign, isn't he? He's always working my situation for my good and his glory, right? Why not say thank you, even through tears?

Instead of Worrying, Laugh.  This one follows from the first three. I've found that if I'm rising to wake and falling to sleep with a thank you on my lips, and if I'm looking at hardship like grace wrapped in trial, then I'm free to laugh. Not to snicker, but to be marked by the kind of joy that enables mirth — that laughter of the soul.

This is what's working for me. Try it, and let me know if it works for you.

The Genius of Relational Leadership

"Do it!" I said to her. Why did I need to say it again? Why couldn't she simply obey? "Why?" She snapped back. Her big, beautiful eyes glistening with frustrated tears.

"Because I said so. I'm your dad." I thundered.

...

This was my conversation with one of my daughters recently. I'm ashamed and embarrassed by it, but I recall it here because it was the starting point of a revelation.

With my wife away that morning, I began the day with a plan for parental awesomeness. I laid out the plan, and the little people cheered. So, I led my brood of four to the playground. Next came an invigorating walk, with nature lesson included (bonus points). There was laughter. There was learning. All that was left was the walk home, where my pre-made lunch was awaiting us. Slow clap for dad of the year.

And then the wheels fell off. Whining, heat, sweat, scrapes — all results of our little journey — began to take their toll on my beloved brood, and by the time we walked up to the house, we looked less Swiss Family Robinson and more Children of the Corn. Oh, and the lunch I made? No one wanted it. Yeah. That.

My flesh began to show through my garments of grace as I commanded these little creatures to eat. Eat! Then the push back came. Then, the conversation above happened. Finally, I pulled out my big ol' trump card and slammed it on the table. I'm the dad, I'm the boss, eat your food, or it's gonna get unpleasant around here.

But this blog isn't about parenting, it's about leadership. See, I made the mistake I've made a thousand times before, and you've probably made the same mistake too — the error of leading from position instead of relationship.

Positional leadership says, "Follow me because I'm the boss." And, while most of us want to be the boss, leading from the position of "boss" is actually the worst way to lead. The real genius of leadership happens when you don't do what I did with my kids. The real genius is in relational leadership.

Relational Leadership is Strong The strongest leaders are looked up to by those who follow them. How does that happen? Among other things, it happens when leaders are related to their followers. When they can say, "That guy is one of us and I trust him," they will not only achieve their short-term goals, but establish the strength of their long-term leadership.

Relational Leadership is Safe Leaders make mistakes. Only one leader never did, and you're not him. So how can we trust and follow someone who is not perfectly trustworthy and always worth following? When we know them, not just their position. Had I been more concerned about relating to my kids rather than commanding them, I might have cared a little bit more that it was 91 degrees outside, and they'd already walked 3 miles, and that's quite a bit for a little squirt. They would have been safer if I'd leaned into my relationship with them, rather than my rulership over them.

Relational Leadership is Loving Simply put, if you don't care to know the people you lead, you don't care about them. While the CEO can't know everyone in the company, he can certainly know his direct reports. He can be a hero to his VP's wife and kids, rather than a villain. I didn't act in love in my conversation with my daughter that day, I acted in pure authority — something God doesn't do, so why should I?

Relational Leadership is Christ-like Speaking of God, let's talk about how he leads. God doesn't lead us like some despot on a power trip. God leads us — his people — like a great dad. Jesus said, "I only do what I see my Father doing." The Son of God taught us to follow God as our Father, not just our ruler. God cared enough for us to relate to us personally, not just command us with mere authority. We're safe in that kind of leadership because we're known. We're known because we're loved. And because we're known and loved, of course we can follow God's leadership. Who wouldn't want to follow a leader like that?

The good news is, aside from moments like the one I mentioned, I've got a pretty good relationship growing with my kids. I came to them later and repented for my bad leadership. They forgave. And we all talked about the good leadership of Jesus, and how we both — leaders and followers — better be led by him. Only when we're led by Jesus, can we ever be any good at leading like Jesus.

That You May Believe, part 2 (John 1:19-28)

"That You May Believe," part 1 - John 1:1-18 Download the Audio Here

Sermon: "That You May Believe," Part 1 - John 1:1-18

"That You May Believe," part 1 - John 1:1-18 Download the Audio Here

How (Not) to be Creative

I'm fairly creative. I've got a degree in music, like to draw, appreciate great design, and am otherwise an aesthetically oriented guy. As a music student, I came across a distinction that I didn't know existed — that of absolute music and program music. If you'll endure the definitions, absolute music is music for music's sake — it isn't about anything. It's just there as itself, for itself. Program music, on the other hand, is music about something else — a story, poem, picture, etc.

Reflecting on that distinction for a minute, I find that much that passes for creativity these days is absolute. And I find that tragic.

Creativity for its own sake is, well, uncreative. Think about the word creative. That is, creational. Creation has intention. When God got creative, it wasn't for the fun of it. It was for a reason — namely, His glory and our good. When creativity ceases to be about God, it turns in on itself. Looking to art for the meaning of art is like looking to your body for food — you eat yourself. Art about art dissolves into meaninglessness. Art about the great Artist — well, that is abundant with meaning.

(Note: The above video was put together by a team of awesome creatives at Aletheia, for our recent sermon series. I think it's a great example of program art.)

The Sense of Silence

Those who know me well know that silence isn't a thing I "do." I'm a chatty guy. I mean, I talk for a living. You probably can do the math. But, for the last two weeks, I have been (on social media, blogs, and email) silent. Why?

Silence is not about not talking. Silence is about not talking so you can do something else. Listening, looking, reflecting. In my case, my silence meant three things.

Silence Meant Productivity

While I was away, I had the opportunity to do a  few work projects in a more focused way. I was writing, reading, and helping the church planting movement I'm apart of assess new planters. My silence online meant I could think clearly about those important, brief bursts of productivity.

Silence Meant Family

It's really hard to enjoy a vacation with a phone in my hand. For you, your phone might mean fun. Maybe you read on it. Maybe you get life from social media. But for me, my iPhone is more of a task master. When it beeps, I work. Like Pavlov's dogs who salivated when the bell rang, I shutter a little when my phone vibrates. In order to enjoy a few days of fun with my wife and kids I completely ignored everyone who called, emailed, tweeted, or otherwise obfuscated a few electrons to get my attention. It was hard for me to do, I'll admit. And it was great.

Silence Meant Rest

I am not good at rest. Part of the reason is because I really love what I do. The other part is because I'm an achiever who finds it rather difficult to do nothing. But neither talking nor listening to the world meant I could listen to God, myself, my wife, and rest. I slept. I read. I played with my kids.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because sometimes you need to close the laptop, put the phone down, and ignore everyone else who really "needs" you to get back them right away so you can actually get something important done. Give it a shot. You might be surprised.

If you're interested, here are some pictures taken by my lovely wife of our restful trip.

Crisis Fatigue, Cowardice, and Christian Genocide

I'm weary of war. And poverty. And disease. And large-scale crises of any kind, really.

I'm soul-tired of decade-long conflicts — of men from my generation dying in deserts across the globe. I'm exhausted of the internet and cable news which delivers evidence of the fall before my very eyes all the time. In short, I've got an acute case of crisis fatigue. This is a condition that's epidemic, I'm afraid. Its symptoms include increased distraction with trivial matters (Facebook, TV, everything BuzzFeed), terminal shallowness (because thinking and knowing deeply hurts, and we're tired of hurting), Selfies, and worst of all, cowardice.

Crisis Fatigue is making me a coward.

Cowards are those who lack the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things. I'm so tired of seeing, reading about, and watching really unpleasant things that I simply don't want to endure them anymore.

Actually, I think Crisis Fatigue is making all of us cowards.

Politically, our cowardice shows as the impulse to create "fortress America," and withdraw from the world. Socially, this manifests in the instinct to live virtual lives where we're liked in lieu of real lives where we're loved. Morally, our cowardice rears its ugly head in our flat refusal to call wrong wrong. Spiritually, we're afraid to open our mouths and declare the good news of God's grace either because we're terrified it won't really work or mortified at the prospect of being frowned upon by someone else.

And, then there's Christian genocide. In my increasing and unnoticed cowardice, I was distracting myself with social media. Normally a safe haven for the meaningless mind vomit of other crisis-fatigued cowards, my social streams were overrun with report after report of the genocide of Christians in Iraq, carried out at the hand of ISIS. As I sat next to my own children, I scrolled past pictures of Iraqi children dying in the desert, or worse. As I sat reclining on my couch in my home I read reports of whole families fleeing theirs. Something shook on the inside of me.

That shaking was a grace.

At that point, my reaction was to quickly think about something else. Anything else. I scrambled for another show, another story, another anything ... Like a coward, I tried to run. But graciously, there are some stories — some images — from which one cannot run. That, I think, is the point.

Since that moment I have not refused to watch, to learn, and to hurt deeply at what I see in the world. I'm staring ISIS down in my soul. I'm heaping prayers up for them toward Heaven. I'm coordinating ways to help through our church. No longer running, I've found the courage to fight again.

Am I still Crisis Fatigued? You bet. Do I still hate what I read and watch? Absolutely. But God has given me a grace. He let me see my inner coward — fat on the luxuries purchased by the blood and sweat of men greater and earlier than me. And, horrified by what I saw in myself, He called me to return, readied again to engage.

May it be with us. This will not be the final struggle we see. May God give us the grace to rise up under it, strengthened by love, hardened by trial, and head first to the fight. The battle to pray, to be bold, to give generously, love recklessly, and give ourselves away for God's glory and the good of all.

"...the righteous falls seven times, but gets up again..." (Proverbs 24:16)

Kill the Christian Criticism Culture

The crazy culture of Christian criticism has to stop. Alan Noble recently wrote a piece on the Evangelical Persecution Complex — essentially offering insight into our odd, self-identification as people under persecution. It seems to me, however, that given the regular number of hit pieces from Christian leaders on other Christian leaders, we like to dish out the hate about as much as we take it.

That is a problem. And, it's probably sin.

"But Adam," you say, "some Christian leader that I vaguely dislike is being scorched online. I need to let all my friends (most of whom aren't Christians) know that I have a disagreement with this fellow." Well, that's a pretty compelling reason to cheer on his or her public demise, isn't it? Oh wait, no. No it's not.

Not surprisingly, we're not the first generation to vent our intramural disagreements outside the walls of fellowship. The Corinthians did it too. And when Paul found out, he was so thrilled about it that he wrote this encouraging little "ataboy" to them:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteousinstead of the saints? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Cor 6:1, 5-7)

To answer Paul's rhetorical question, we would rather not suffer wrong because we don't believe him. We don't believe that it might be better to be quiet publicly about our offense with someone else. We do what the Corinthians did — we air our grievances against our brothers and sisters outside the family. This is, according to the Spirit who I believe inspired this text, to our shame.

"But Adam," you might protest, "someone needs to let the world know these people are wrong!" I get that. I get that from the inception of the church, Christian leaders have had to fend off heretics, rebuke the wolves in sheeps' clothing, and all the rest. I'm not suggesting we stop defending against bad doctrine. But the social media feeding frenzy that occurs when a leader screws up is nothing like Iraneaus' Against Heresies, for example. You aren't Augustine battling Pelagius. You have a Facebook page. Settle down.

Not one to simply complain, let me suggest five ways we can kill the Christian criticism culture, and just act like Christians:

1. When You Have a Problem with Someone you Know, Have the Guts to Tell Them, Not the Internet. Crazy idea, right? But go with me for a minute.

I pastor a growing church in Boston and Cambridge, MA. I preach a lot, which means I offend people. One of my favorite things in the world, however, is when someone in our church loves me enough to tell me about it. I feel so loved! So cared for! Why? Because someone in my very own church had the guts to have an uncomfortable conversation with me for my good, and the good of the church. They didn't blog about it, tweet it, snapchat it, or make it a "prayer request" (which often is a Christian euphemism for gossip). They just put on their big kid britches and acted like a Christian.

2. When You Have a Problem with Someone You Don't Know, Have the Character to Pray for Them, Forgive Them, and Reach out to Them if you Can I disagree with all kinds of Christians leaders all the time. I read their books and hear their sermons with reactions ranging from, "Hmm, I wouldn't have said it that way," to "Heresy!!"  So what's a Pastor like me to do? Whatever I should be doing, I almost certainly shouldn't be echoing the stories of their humiliation in public. I most definitely shouldn't be jabbing them with my most pithy and piercing 140-character line. And, I certainly shouldn't be merrily celebrating their problems in front of a world that watches how Christians treat each other.

I probably should pray for them. And I try to, I really do. I want the current Christian rockstars to look progressively more like Jesus. But when Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, John Piper, N.T. Wright, Pope Benedict, Brian McLaren, Tim Keller, Bill Johnson, T.D. Jakes, or anyone else of the Pro-Preacher class have a problem in public, we should not be among the crowd chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" like adolescents in the school yard. We should weep. We should pray. If we know them, we should call. And, we should hope to God in Heaven that some of them will call each other, too.

3. For Sake of the Gospel, Stop Reposting, Retweeting, and Otherwise Dancing Around the Graves of Fallen Christian Leaders by Echoing the Stories of their Screw Ups I wonder if there is nothing left of the fear of the Lord in us. Does no one remember the story of Noah's kids? Go back and read it. God's not cool with publicly shaming his people — especially when his people shame each other. We don't need to echo the horrible stories of someone else's sin. We should be telling good stories of gospel glory, not salivating over the demise of a popular preacher we don't like very much. That impulse is called hatred.  It is to be avoided.

Just stop doing it. With the measure you use it will be measured back to you. Think about that before you hit the repost button next time.

4. Be Free from the Obligation to Judge I think it wonderful news that I do not need to judge other leaders. Jesus will hold me responsible for my family, my leadership, my words, and my church. Mine. He will not hold me responsible for anyone else's. Therefore, I do not need to be in charge of the social media trial and execution of anyone. I don't even have to show up for it. I can just ignore it. When a whiff of weirdness comes across my nostrils from another leader, I can call them, pray for them, and then trust Jesus to govern his church just fine. It's really quite freeing.

5. For the Love of God, Celebrate the Good Because it's not my job to judge another man or woman's work, I'm actually free to appreciate the grace of God in them, despite them. Do you get how great this is? That means I can appreciate my favorites and my not-so-favorites amongst the Pastoral Illuminati, by God's grace. I can actually look at someone with whom I wildly disagree and honor God's grace in them enough to be private and discreet about my problem with them. How lovely.

Let's all join together and kill the Christian criticism culture. If we could, that would be a great story to retweet, and an entirely appropriate grave around which to dance.

Recent Sermon: Credo, part 5 - "The Holy Catholic Church..."

My recent sermon at Aletheia. You can download the audio here.

In Praise of No

No has fallen on hard times lately.

With more technology and more competition, we're saying yes to more to stay ahead.  FOMO flings us into more yesses than we can take. Where no once stood as a fence between work and life — no calls after 9, no texts at dinner — yes has taken over. Yes to the iPhone everywhere. Yes to one more email when the kids stand longing for father. Yes to the conversation with your forehead when I talk to you, and you talk to the internet as you say yes to other peoples' lives through likes and hearts and favorites and ... Hey, are you even listening to me?

No?

No also once guarded our souls. No was the bulwark keeping us from self destruction. Human flourishing at stake, we said no to immorality, infidelity, and inch-by-inch compromises of our consciences. But the seductive yes has supplanted the stalwart no. Suffering follows.

We used to shout, "Yes!" to those who used no well. They were the heroes — the leaders. They were the ones who said no to so many good things so we could say yes to the right things.

Jesus was great at no. No to demonic temptation. No to law's demands for conformity. No to those who condemned the sinners. No to getting down off the cross as mockers jeered, disciples feared, and angels watched.

Today, one of the few places no is to be found is in the way respond to this man. In a terrible irony, the only no many of us are comfortable saying is to Jesus — the One who died to say yes to us.

So, here's to no. May this powerful word once more find its proper place in our lexicon. Wielded against all that is wrong, so we can say yes to all that is right.

Figure it Out

I have suspicion. I suspect that we've done something in parenting that is robbing our kids of the ability to figure stuff out. I catch myself trying to give my kids a Nerf childhood. I don't mean one with those cool guns that shoot foam darts. I mean one that has them wrapped in the protective foam of my presence, protection, and wisdom. All the time. To keep them from ... well, everything. Problem with that Lego? Allow me. Your brother bothering you? Allow me to interject myself. You want to make a sandwich? Put that down and let me do it. You're just 9, for goodness sake.

And, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

In fact, I know I'm not, because every time I take my kids to the park, the playground, or any place populated with parents who've drank the same over-involved water that I have, I can spot them. Legitimate fear fills their face when Johnny approaches the slides. Terror when Susie puts the same hand she just touched the sand with in her mouth. But what are we teaching the kiddies when we do this?

That we love them? That we're there for them? Maybe.

Or, maybe that they're stupid? They can't do anything on their own? They should expect their lives to be free of experience, pain, and learning through failure? Maybe that, too.

But is this how God treats us? Is this what God has done for us? It seems not. It seems like He has given us at least two kinds of teachers — Himself, and our experiences of obeying him — and pain, along with the experience of disobeying him. No Nerf childhood for us. The world he made for us is filled with bruises, bumps, falls, and failings.

And yet, do any of us doubt that He loves us? I mean, really? Of course not, because only this God has come out from behind the protection of Heaven and gotten dirty. Only the God we meet in the face of Jesus has felt great, hot tears roll down his cheeks. Only the God we feel embraced in Jesus arms has had those same arms stretched wide in pain, so we know he knows when we run into them.

God has, in his sovereignty, ordered the world to force us to figure stuff out. How to build things, ask a girl on a date, try to plant a church, or just build a sandcastle on the beach. By grace, he's catching us up in the adventure of figuring things out. He's there, mysteriously working in us so that we can will to work for him. And, he's there when we don't, and we scrape our knees against the hard realities of sin and pain.

Oh that Jesus would remind me to let my kids figure it out — how to handle relationships, move past frustrations, learn why untied laces and bikes don't mix. The world he made is a great teacher. I'll be there, of course, just like he is for me, even as I'm here, trying to figure this whole parenting thing out.

Biblical Fidelity and Our Times

In every generation there is some challenge to biblical fidelity. Discussing this with a friend and pastor I admire deeply, Nic Gibson, he said this. I want to share it with you.

Arguing that the Bible isn't all that clear isn't actually all that hard or all that clever. This is the major tactic of almost all revisionist biblical interpretation – that the text allows for many interpretive options, and that its message is woefully ambiguous to careful observers with more advanced knowledge. And yet almost none of these people would accept that this is true about virtually anything they themselves have written. They think of their own writing as clear, accurately enunciating a definite meaning. They would see doubts raised against their sentence structure, philological choices, and presumed assumptions as unwarranted and unnecessary speculations marshaled against the otherwise clear meaning of a straightforward and unadorned text. But this is modern biblical interpretation, if not all modern literary interpretation. This is the end of all schools of deconstruction and accommodation – the refusal of the surgeon to submit to his own knife ... [A]t the end of the day there is one incision of logical division that they cannot stomach – that the embracing of logical honesty will not uphold the desires of their compassionate sentiment. It is because it is unthinkable that they should believe that their compassion isn't compassionate because what they believe is loving isn't love. Such a moral accusation coming from the word of God or from our very conscience is too much for the deconstructionist to admit and bear – as it would be unthinkable for any of us. But, what we would refuse to be done to text that we write ourselves, we must refuse to do to the apostles, to Moses, or to Christ himself— and all the more if we believe in the divine authorship of all these texts. It is too often those who try to have it all that have nothing. The one who stands with one foot in two boats ends up terribly sore. It is the one who lashes his wrists to two departing trains who holds fast to the trains, but not to his own torso.

God Doesn't Need Me

Most Sundays when I approach the pulpit, I'm prepared. I believe in hard work, study, and spending hours getting ready for the preaching and teaching that I do at church. But, this Sunday I was not. Emotionally, I was a wreck. Mentally, I was clouded. Physically, I was tired. Spiritually, I was dull. "This is going to go terribly," I thought. The music faded, I took the pulpit, I prayed, and I opened my mouth.

What followed was nothing of Adam Mabry. It's a little difficult to explain. I was involved, obviously. I was present, and I was active. But the power of the words, the effect they were having on the people, and the results which flowed from my preaching, were so obviously not from me that I was quite literally dumbfounded. People came to faith in Jesus. Repentance flowed as tears streamed. Sicknesses were healed. It was as though, for a moment, the veil between Heaven and earth was pulled back, and we experienced a small expression of the glory of God.

This experience of my desperate inadequacy and God's gracious sufficiency afforded me a few insights:

God Doesn't Need Me Theologically, I knew that God didn't need me before yesterday. But the experience I had yesterday of being completely at the end of my rope mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually — and God doing so much anyway — solidified what I knew.

God Loves His People How crazy is the love of God for people that he'll simply meet with his people directly?! My preparation is not the pre-condition for God's manifestation.

God Loves Me Again, a fact I knew, but not an experience I walked in. Yesterday, across our three services, we had the best attendance we've had all summer. We had the most response to God we've ever seen. We had the most dramatic experience of worship that our gatherings have ever achieved. I watched it and all I felt was God saying, "See, I love you. I've got this."

God Wants Me This one is the most mind-bending of all. I "love" a lot of people that I don't want to be around much. That's because I'm still selfish and self-preferring. God's not like that. God actually wants to use me. He wants to be around me. He wants to meet with me, and my people. He doesn't need to, that's obvious. The only other option is that, for some reason, he really likes to. And that's crazy.

I've read God's words to the Apostle Paul a thousand times, "My power is made perfect in weakness." But yesterday — yesterday I saw it.

Yesterday I was weak. And God — God was so strong.

News and Views Roundup

Here are some stories and articles that have garnered my attention this week.

Marriage for the Common Good

James K.A. Smith is a Philosophy Prof at Calvin College, and a generally stupendous fellow who spins a solid stream of social commentary. Over at Cardus he wrote a great article called Marriage for the Common Good. Challenging the concept of Wedding, Inc. to the expense of martial success, he writes:

If we want to raise up a generation passionate about the common good, perhaps we should say "No" to the dress—and all of the spectacular trappings of Wedding, Inc.—and instead plan for a marriage with open doors, honest in its vulnerability, even eagerly dependent.

There's a Christian Holocaust in Iraq

The terrorist army ISIS has systematically been killing thousands of Christians, forcing most of them to convert, die, or be displaced from the home their sect of Chaldean Christianity has called home for thousands of years — 700 of which were before Islam existed. Here's a quote from one of the many articles that no one in our government seems to care about.

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, there were at least 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Over the last ten years, significantly in the last few months with the emergence of ISIS, that figure has dropped to about 400,000.

In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching.

This shouldn't surprise us, but it does. We Western Christians have allowed the relative ease of life for the past few centuries to feel a certain homey warmth about this world which makes us shocked at persecution. But Jesus told us to expect it, and embrace the responsibility of suffering well. Pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq, and across the world who are suffering.

The Prince of Preachers' Lost Sermons

Charles Spurgeon was an amazing preacher, leader, and teacher of the 19th century. His influence still reverberates today. How often I myself wonder through his words, picking up wisdom like gold from the ground. Well now there's good news for people like me, we've found more of his sermons! Most of these sermons are from his early years — years full of struggle, mistakes, and pleas for grace. As a young pastor, you can imagine I can't wait to get my eager hands on this multi-volume set when it arrives.

A Beautiful Bible is Blowing Up on KickStarter

As a font nerd and a dude who really loves the Bible, this is like some sort of cosmic convergence of awesome things. A book designer/graphic artist/GENIUS named Adam (Coincidence? Of course not) has launched an effort called Bibliotheca. He wants to give the world a Bible that's beautiful to hold, read, and feel in your hands. I will be buying one or more of these.

Ethnic Unity v. Wishful Thinking

I pastor a multi-racial, multi-ethnic church. That fact, by the way, is a complete miracle. I don't know how it has happened, except for two factors: (1) I prayed a lot that God would make our church ethnically broad, and (2) by grace I actually try, for real, to care about people who aren't from my neck of the woods (as we say where I'm from). God has been pleased to do what I've asked, and I'm really grateful for that.

But in the broader church world, we're not quite as together as we could be. Oh sure, we'll have the odd unity service. The black pastor and the white pastor who've hardly ever met stand on the front row, awkwardly embrace, pretend they have something to talk about afterwards, and the praise then Lord as they walk away that neither one of them has to endure such an event but once a year.

Maybe that sounds harsh. Some truth is harsh.

Then there was yesterday. Yesterday I spent a few hours with a friend of mine who happens to be the leader of a large, fruitful denomination of African American churches. In Ron Burgundy speak, he's kind of a big deal. Ever since I arrived to plant Aletheia, this man has gone out of his way to make me feel welcome. He's invited me to address gatherings of largely black pastors. He's sent me texts encouraging me. He's bought me lunch, prayed for me, given me advice. He's even sent me and my wife cards on our anniversary. We're totally different. We come from very different Christian traditions, different parts of the world, and different upbringings. But, as I sat in his office yesterday, I was struck with the realization, "This is what unity looks like. It's when I love this man, and he loves me."

Our country is beleaguered with racial brokenness. In the church, it's not much better. Sure, we've tried to make it better. We've tried unity services. We've tried ecumenical counsels. We've sworn to be more diverse. But here's the deal — it's just hard. Real love is always hard. Real love is always costly. It certainly was for God, wasn't it?

But therein lies the difference between ethnic unity and wishful thinking. Wishful thinking looks to events. Real love looks to the cross. Wishful thinking thinks programmatically. Real love thinks sacrificially. Wishful thinking doesn't work. But real love ... well I think it does. It's working really well for this man and me.

Maybe that's a start.