Community

Romans 12:5, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

Community is one of three key terms the Holy Spirit is illuminating to me in Him revealing Christ’s perspective on prosperity. Where prosperity is defined by me using scripture as sufficiency in all things and an abundance for good deeds. The other key terms that I am presented with being materialism and redemption.

There are a lot of things that can be considered a community. The neighborhood I live in is a community bonded together by a love of acreage, woods, and wildlife. In fact it’s also a community of people who really don’t like to participate in community, but want enough space between one another that there is no need to be part of someone else’s life.

The Church I attend is a community. Literally it is called Community of Faith, and it is a place that we gather together and celebrate our common bond of faith in Christ, and are common taste in worship and ministry. Oddly enough one of the primary reasons I love it is because it is big enough to get lost in. In other words if you just want to be come and be left alone there are enough people there to hide behind. At the same time you can participate in the community as deeply as you choose as there are limitless opportunities. 

Jim Spivey’s groups Iwo Jim and Love Machine are communities, that like all communities cause people to congregate behind a common idea or desire.

The examples are endless, like the dog club I belong to, or the macro-community of the township I live in. But what is it that God is trying to show me about community? Why is community coming into my heart simultaneously with materialism and redemption as they relate to prosperity?

Rabbi Lapin says prosperous people share a common trait of connective-ness. He further says to increase prosperity you have to increase the number of people you know. I cannot say that I buy into that argument because it sounds an awful lot like some sales training I have received. Lapin says prosperity in part comes from people “knowing you, liking you, and trusting you.” In sales class I was taught to be successful people have to “know you, like you, and you make them money.” But mainly this idea of increased connective-ness irritates my soul because I am generally speaking a loner of sorts.

Lapin says God created a world of binding and connection. Like salt, when there is no connection between the Sodium and Chlorine the individual components are toxic. But connected to gather they form sodium chloride and bring taste to a bland meal, and keeps us from sweating to death.

The apostle Paul talks about the connection of us being one body, “individually members of one another.” I am very comfortable as an individual, but I am very uncomfortable as a “member of one another.” Can’t I just be a toenail in the body of Christ? Someone way out on the extreme with minimal contact or relationship with the rest?

Apparently for me the status quo is no longer quo, and I am a status in transition.

On the surface my disdain for “community” is pretty obvious to me. First and foremost I am not a well-liked person. For sure the people that know me like me, but in general I for some reason offend people. It’s been said my brain does not have a pause button, and that I speak too freely what is on my mind… good, bad, or indifferent. Growing up I was smaller and younger than my classmates. Until I caught up in stature my senior year of High school I was bullied… only to become one myself. For most of my career I was the boss, so no real need to be liked there. Now that I am an Indian and not the Chief I don’t see many lining up to enjoy my loveableness. And in reality I am ok with that. I really don’t need to be liked. And I do not believe God needs me to be liked either. He likes me. My family likes me. And that is probably enough.

So once again I ask myself, why community?

I know that isolation can spiritually kill us when trying to face severe spiritual crisis alone. To have self-imposed seclusion can lead to endless loops of thinking or in extreme cases suicide. From this perspective I see clearly the need for community to experience the murmuration of God and the refreshing of our souls as we see Him work in and through others... even in and through oursleves.

Jim Spivey as a minister can make a plea to a community when he is in need. As well as most of us can do the same whether it be a plea for prayers or help. But other than the beggar and the minister how many can reach out beyond their family into their community to make a plea for financial help? And if you do reach out, how many will run their community off simply by asking or even letting them know your problems? After all… if you are not prosperous then there is a financial and spiritual problem… or is there?

What about a proper perspective on community might cause God’s prosperity to come to the individual? And again I reiterate that this “prosperity” is sufficiency in all things and an abundance for good deeds.

All of which is simply mind games and my attempt to understand “community” for the purpose of achieving prosperity while God is saying this:

In order to realize God’s prosperity materialism must be address, and it is best addressed with giving gifts. However, in order to give gifts one has to also be a member of a “community.” And not just a member, but pay attention to the other members to see what they may need or like in terms of those gifts. If you want the benefit of living in the kingdom of God there is some mysterious need to participate in the kingdom of God, to recognize and be a member of the body of Christ that the Father and His Son love so much collectively and not just the individual parts. 

The short version is as Christians we are all part of the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is saying to me that I am not an individual, but rather “individually a member of one another.”

As much as I would like to isolate myself from the world for all manner of reasons, God’s prosperity (for that matter God’s will) is found in the selfless membership to one another. Oh dear... I feel more surrender coming on. 

Materialism

Genesis 11:4, “They said, ‘Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

On Sunday May 19, 2013 Jim Spivey in his blog quoted Glenn Beck on the Tower of Babel. Here four days later I am still convicted by the quote.

“GLENN: So here it is. The Tower of Babel as most people know it is these people got together and the king said let’s build a tower and it will reach the sky and it will reach heaven and then God got pissed off and came down and destroyed them, confused their language and they all scattered. That’s really not the way the story goes, and it’s important that you understand the story. It has affected us do you know that Bugs Bunny actually used to call Elmer Fudd Nimrod? And do you know why? He used to call Bugs Bunny was the one that really made Nimrod really popular because Bugs Bunny was the one that called Elmer Fudd Nimrod, Nimrod, Elmer Fudd was the hunter. He wasn’t a king at first. He’s first described in the in Genesis as a hunter, but not a hunter of animals. A hunter of men. A hunter of people. And the people, after Noah, they all, they get off the boat and they do what two and two do and they make four and six and et cetera, et cetera. And so then they repopulated the Earth. And they’re all focused on God. And that’s when the first time an oppressive government, the idea of a totalitarian leader comes to the forefront, and it’s done by a hunter of men, Nimrod. And what he says is he gets together and he says to everybody, "Hey, let’s build bricks." Why would you say let’s build bricks? Does that sound like anything anybody would want to do? Let’s build bricks? Oh, and then we’re going to build a big tower and it will reach heaven.

If you were really somebody who was an electric speaker, you would say let’s build a tower to heaven. Let’s build this giant tower, and we’re all going to work together on it. Now, what does the tower represent? The tower represents what we were talking about with, like, Elton John. His intentions are good. The average person wants to do the right thing. The average person wants to help the poor. They want to live in harmony. So if you give them a grand idea, people will do it and they’ll do it for the right reasons. It’s why I’ve said be careful on social justice. Social justice has been perverted. It is a perversion of the gospel. The gospel is go help. Not, "Let’s get everybody together and build bricks. Oh, and we’ll build a tower to the sky."

So what is the brick? Bricks especially I live in Connecticut. Stones, those great stone calls, they’re all different and they are all made by God and they are all made differently. And when you build these stone walls or a foundation, all of our churches back in colonial days, they weren’t bricks. They were all stones. Stones are all different and they are all made by God. The stones represent people. So do the bricks. Nimrod says let’s make bricks. He’s talking about people, let’s make them all equal, let’s make them all exactly the same. Because then everybody is equal, everybody will have the same and they will be interchangeable. And what did they use as mortar? In the ancient Hebrew, mortar, the word "Mortar" actually means "Materialism." So materialism. It’s what holds the bricks together.

Let me ask you this question: What is holding us together as a nation? What’s holding us together as a nation quite honestly for a long time has been our materialism. It has been, as Rabbi Lapin said last night on TV, "Hey, let’s all just get together and watch the Super Bowl," but we watch for the commercials. That is what holds us together. What used to hold us together was our common history, our common love of God, our common understanding of freedom. We don’t even understand freedom. We don’t celebrate freedom anymore. It’s all about materialism. If you take away our mortar of materialism, do the bricks stay together? What binds us? Our materialism is about to disappear. That’s why we must replace and put real mortar between us. We must break ourselves out of what they’re trying to build now and that is everyone is exactly the same. We’re all the same. We’re all bricks. No, we are not. We’re all stones. And we can put ourselves together. And it is our common understanding of freedom and the Constitution and values and principles that bind us together and hold us together. That is the mortar.

Nimrod also is a guy who builds this up and he’s building on a grand scale. Well, God comes down and he sees it, and according to Genesis he sees it. But there are two names for God. In the English Bible it’s just God. But in the ancient Hebrew there’s two names for God. One is the happy go lucky God. The other one is the, "you don’t want to see me; I’m in a bad mood" God. The bad mood God is not the one that comes down to confuse people’s language. The benevolent God does, the happy name for God. He’s not punishing the people. He is setting the people free by destroying the Tower of Babel, by confusing their language. Now, what does it mean that I language? Not the same, again in the ancient Hebrew. There’s language and tongue. The tongue is the language, is what we would say is language. The language is the things that make them all the same. The languages are their tribal customs, their you know, it’s like everybody being from New York City. It’s different here. The language New Yorkers speak is different than the language that they speak in Iowa. And so what did he do? He came down and he confused their language to where they couldn’t understand each other anymore. And they were scattered. And they became stones again and not bricks. At the same time one of the big enemies of Nimrod was Abraham. And Abraham brought back the idea that God exists, God is your master, not a king. And if you have that personal relationship with him, if you trust him and have a personal relationship with him, you will be fine.” http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/48240/

In this Glenn Beck is making an argument against government. Jim celebrated his recognition of being stone rather than a brick. And I was convicted of materialism… or was I?

So many things are converging right now in my spirit. For weeks community has been a word I am hearing but if fills me with confusion as it appears to be a direct assault of my “loner” mentality and comfort zone. Overlaid on community is materialism, and the “guilt” I feel as I struggle financially. And a third layer or topic very much alive and calling in my spirit is “redemption.” All three topics are murmurating around me. All my thoughts and questions of God fall on one of these topics. I know what God is doing. He is in the middle of changing my perception and preconceived notions about community, materialism, money, and redemption. What I don’t know is what He is trying to change them too.

Day’s before Jim sent out this piece from Glenn Beck we met with a group of men in a bi-weekly meeting we have. One of the members is wealthy, and at the end he shared with us a recent trip to a Mecum Auto action and that how he kind of was caught up in the frenzy and the stroking after buying one car, and ended up buying four. From my perspective I heard a man that at the drop of a hat spent $50,000 on a whim, and all I thought is what I could do with $50K, and frankly became jealous. Particularly in light of needing $8500 for an a/c unit and no practical way of getting it, and insufficient savings to pay for it out right. Then as always on Saturday I was jealous again that someone won the $590 million dollar powerball other than me. It makes me wonder if I will ever get past the place of just enough, or worse almost enough.

Is it God’s intent to leave me in a perpetual storm, though the waves have calmed substantially in the past couple years?

Am I a faithless Israelite doomed to live out my days in the wilderness because a giant or two frightened me?

And so I went searching for the origins of this interpretation of the Tower of Babel and found that it originated from Rabbi Lapin the author of “Thou Shalt Prosper.” A book that I bought many many years ago when it first came out, but never ready. (murmuration). Which led me to youtube where I watch a four part series of Rabbi Lapin discussing the principles of the book.

Now I write all of this not for you to glean some new theology, or truth but for you to see the journey I walk with Christ. The confusion I feel is Him having pulled away. Not because of sin, but because He is growing me once again. As I cry out, “where have you gone.” I hear at different times, materialism, redemption, community. All things standing in the way of our closeness.

And it is not materialism that stands in the way, but my preconceptions on materialism. It is not community standing in the way, but my dislike for community and lack of understanding about its importance. Redemption draws us to God, so that cannot be in the way, but my notions of redemption that are wrong prevent this next evolution of my soul and character.

And so I write a little of this process of God drawing, teaching and conforming me.

Continuing... several things popped out of the videos of Rabbi Lapin. Some of which I believe, and some of which I can immediately prove false. Still other things drew me in having never heard them before. For example… “ Money is spiritual.” Oh boy do I see that as its lack keeps me in the constant state of stress relief through prayer. But primarily that money is made not taken. That in transactions money grows. All of which I understand on a GDP level, but something I never really considered from a blessing from God standpoint.

Rabbi Lapin did say prosperity comes when we are obsessed with other’s needs, wants, and desires. And this certainly is true with a product that is successfully marketed, but also compatible with what Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these (material necessities) will be added to you.”

Rabbi Lapin says a lot of things that all are mulling in my head. For example, “Money is a measure of what one human being does for another.” And “Money is a mechanism for God to do kindness from one human to another.” And “Work is making things better for other people.”

Something he said that I don’t agree with is that “money turns problems into expenses” and we all know that there are a host of diseases, injuries, and aliments for which no amount of money can solve. There also is nary a relationship that is more than patched up by money. No… money turns money problems into expenses. Yet expenses are why we have problems with money… so now I’m confused.

Rabbi Lapin said that giving is a common trait among the prosperous. And I know that not to be true either. In my profession I look at thousands of tax returns for individuals. Very few of the rich give to charity anything at all. As far as tithers go, I barely remember a few. But of those that I know personally, if I think about it, they are “givers.” If fact, I might even say that their love language is giving gifts as I have seen many buy their employees expensive gifts. I have seen them donate to causes that are not the church, or necessarily tax deductible. So perhaps there is something to this giving aspect that I have lost.

He made another comment in passing. He said, “An essential act of redemption is financial.” (murmuration) There's that word "redemption" again, but without explanation. It also happens to be a key buzz word of the rich car buyer above.

Lapin said God created a world of binding and connection. (Community) (Murmuration). His example was salt. NaCl… individually Sodium (Na) and Chlorine (Cl) kill a human. But together as sodium cholirde they have wonderful results. Using this he said that “connectiveness” is important to prosperity. In an expanding community of people that “know you, like you, and trust you” there is no lack of prosperity.

Do you think it is a coincidence that materialism/prosperity/money, redemption, & community have ALL been used in congruence by Lapin?

And yet even as I write this the term “prosperity” seems so dirty, disgusting, and evil. And herein lies one issue I know that I must overcome. Somehow in seeing money for what it is… spiritual. If I can see the truth of it's spiritual nature then I can find the place to celebrate with those who God blesses with it. When I see that He invented it back in Genesis, giving it to Abraham then I can somehow understand and see “money is a mechanism for God to do kindness from one human to another.”

But I am not there yet. I know that we have a responsibility to be responsible. I know that He is trying to teach me to sleep in the storm. I know that He is trying to show me the truth about community, redemption, and materialism. I even know that all of this is secondary to knowing Him. And lest I forget He sends Oswald Chambers to murmurate that as well. “Matthew 6:25, ‘…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on… If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, “Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?” And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.

“. . . do not worry about your life . . . .” Don’t take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us.”

The destination is never the point... it's all about the journey with Him.

Selah

Murmuration & Community

Acts 14:27, “When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all thing that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”

For those few who read this blog along with Jim Spivey’s blog you might think that I have “borrowed” from his inspiration. But the truth is that this is actually an incredible example of murmuration and community as God has designed it.

For those who don’t read Jim’s blog daily at rcdailyjournal.blogspot.com let me say that murmuration is a made up word to describe Starlings as they move in syncopation and the sound they make while doing it. But for those of us who are in community with Jim it is that ever present moving of the Holy Spirit in unison with other individuals that creates this dramatic artwork of the presence of God through our individual surrender that manifests as a collective masterpiece. Said simply, it is the confirmation the Holy Spirit is moving individually by seeing the same beautiful movement in others. Murmuration is what happens in the community that is the living church when the individuals are Kingdom minded.

For me community is a collection of individuals that are gathered based on common ground or passion. Neighbors are community because of where they live. The dog club I belong to is a community based on a passion for a specific breed. Church congregations are usually communities based on worship style, pastoral access, teaching style, and ancillary services. “The Church” is community based on Christ, and even within that grand community there as sub-communities of people with specialized passions.

So this idea of community in concert with murmuration becomes a fulfillment of Christ at work in His church as we see in Acts. Gatherings of people reporting of God working in and through them, or as is often the case of Jim Spivey’s Love Machine & Iwo Jima… reporting what God is doing TO them. As a result the “community” and its murmuration supports the individual, it gives some sanity and empathy to the process of surrender. Community and murmuration encourages the journey deeper into the Kingdom of God. And most importantly to me it adds to the experience of being in relationship to the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

When you commit to walk with Christ there are automatically challenges that are ever present testing and perfecting your faith. Belonging to the real “Church,” which is all those in Christ, and sharing the experience of Him; help us to see what God is doing in this beautiful spiritual concert of different instruments finding the same key and rhythm. When you find this community, and when you experience this murmuration you begin to see the Kingdom clearly. You begin to discover those people Richard Rohr wrote about, and whom I count Jim Spivey a living example.

Richard Rohr wrote, "I hope you've met at least one Kingdom person in your life.  They are fully-surrendered people.  You sense that life is more than OK, at their core, under all their surface-level experiences.  They have given control to Another and are at peace, trusting the work He is doing within them vs. whatever they might be doing or enduring on the outside.  A Kingdom person lives for what truly matters, and lives in a mysterious sense of wonder, as the Kingdom keeps showing up all around them, for they live life in its deepest sense and claim the freedom to simply observe it in a state of awe.  There's a kind of gentle absolutism about their lifestyle, a kind of calm freedom and synchronized playfulness.  Kingdom people feel like grounded yet extravagantly spacious people.  Whatever they are after, they already seem to be in the process of enjoying it - seeing it unfolding constantly in the most unlikely places.  Kingdom people make you want to be like them and to be with them.  Kingdom people are anchored in and animated by their awareness of God's Love deep within them."

So here’s to becoming anchored and animated in the awareness of God and His deep love. Here is to complete surrender so that we too can mumurate.

Community/church

Philippians 2:4, “do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Henri Nouwen had this to say about “community.” He said, “The word community has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It also can call forth images of sectarian exclusivity, in-group language, self-satisfied isolation, and romantic naiveté. However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own”

Take this in context of what we describe as church. Church being the gathering of like believers, under a common banner, adhering to common rules in the form of doctrine, and stirred by a common culture manifest in an edifice and worship style. To the degree that this church, this community, brings positive value, then it is of value to the real Church.

The real Church being the body of Christ, not bound by buildings, style, or doctrine - - but the collection of all of Christianity in the bond of Christ.

In this vain denominations are communities that though physically isolated are still part of the larger Church.

All of which seems commonsensical, and yet God has given me a disproportionate number of friends who could be described as ex-ministers. Men and women of God who have given up on the “church” altogether. For them I struggle to articulate the value of “church” beyond the schemes and plans of men. A church, as a community, has value to the larger kingdom of God, even in the midst of political infighting, possible mismanagement, and the bureaucratic nightmares.

Why do we judge our churches based on their influence? Why are churches judged as too entertaining, too watered down, too charismatic, or not charismatic enough? Why do we judge churches as being hot or cold or something in between? How many have judged a church as being all about the money? On the contrary we should judge the church as, is this a community I belong to? Is this a community God is calling me to be a part of?

Reality is a church is nothing more than a community, and the personality reflected is a common personality amongst those that call it their community. If what Henri Nouwen says is correct. That “community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.” The what better place to practice not being offended, and putting someone else’s interest ahead of ours than in a church community? Do the degree we do this as individuals, then the community and the body of Christ as a whole benefit.

Church in so much as it is community serves an eternal purpose in the formation of the Real Church/The Body of Christ. Community, and therefore church is a practice grounds for love.

Let this be an encouragement to participate in the community that is your local church. They need you as much as you need them.

Two Lessons on Community

John 6:9, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"

The feeding of the five thousand in John 6 is rich with lessons on community. One of the side lessons in John's version of the story is that the disciples did have about 10 months in wages in their treasury, and that they considered buying the multitudes the food acknowledging that spending all their savings would only give everyone a little. And so at the end of that discourse Andrew points out the young boy with the meager lunch.

It is here that we have a wonderful lesson on community as most Christians know the results. We all know Jesus took that little lunch, blessed it, and fed 5000 men plus women and children to completely full. So full that there were 12 baskets of bread left over. The lesson on community is that we can see God has placed everything we need within reach. There is rarely, if ever, a need to go into a proverbial town to meet a need right here.That is because with His blessing there is already more than enough.

Equal to the lesson that community contains all that we need,  there is also the importance of the individual being willing to be a part of that blessing. Can you image if the boy would have said, "heck no, you're not taking my lunch. That is all I have." Or what if he would have said, "My sack lunch is not going to make a dent in the need, so forget it." On the contrary Jesus says, I need your lunch, and the boy says, here you go.

So community does have within it all that God intends, and all that the community itself needs. At least to the degree that the members of that community yield to what God intends.

One of the many things that has brought me to this lesson is Lilly. Lilly from previous post has been given a home free of charge until Nov 1, but that home is 45 miles from where she was. As a result it has disrupted a hundred other things about her life. And yet my encouragement to her is to look around. Take inventory of where God has planted you. His provision is there, even if it only looks like a boy's lunch, there is more than enough for everyone to eat their fill.

So I preach this too myself as I hear it from the Holy Spirit. The answer to my hunger is not in another town, exhausting my efforts to get a little. The answer is somewhere right here in my community. It may look like a sack lunch, but it really is an all you can eat buffet for 5000. Father open my eyes to see it. Open my eyes to see when You are asking me for my lunch.

God help me to see your provision that is within reach, and with a little blessing will provide an abundance not only for myself, but for those close to me as well. 

Iron Sharpens Iron

Proverbs 27:17, "Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

I am so looking forward to Tomball Love Machine this morning. It is a small group community of people who for the most part share little in common besides a desire to choose life. All of us are learning to truly live in this chaotic and confusing world. It is a time, like the proverb says, of iron sharpening iron. It is a time to look critically at oneself, and to see the truth in Christ reflected back. These thoughts are not only mine.

Henry Nouwen had these thoughts as well. Someone titled them A Choice Calling for Discipline. I think the title could have been different, regardless this is what he had to say on the subject.

"When we look critically at the many thoughts and feelings that fill our minds and hearts, we may come to the horrifying discovery that we often choose death instead of life, curse instead of blessing.  Jealousy, envy, anger, resentment, greed, lust, vindictiveness, revenge, hatred ... they all float in that large reservoir of our inner life.  Often we take them for granted and allow them to be there and do their destructive work. 

But God asks us to choose life and to choose blessing.  This choice requires an immense inner discipline.  It requires a great attentiveness to the death-forces within us and a great commitment to let the forces of life come to dominate our thoughts and feelings.  We cannot always do this alone; often we need a caring guide or a loving community to support us.   But it is important that we both make the inner effort and seek the support we need from others to help us choose life."

Choose life, and find a community, a small group, some friends who will support you in that choice, and walk the same path in their own life.