I don’t want to talk about it!

Just finished I don’t want to talk about it by Terrence Real today. (Scribner, 1997) The sub-title is: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression. Not written from a Christian perspective but a good read and useful for all men at every age–in other words, it’s never too late nor too early to read this book! He has an insightful discussion about the active and passive abuse that occurs to many men in the socialization process, a process that teaches us to hold emotions at a distance. What I take away from the book is that many men suffer from covert or overt depression. They have learned to cover up the pain of their depression with addictive behavior which may lead to abuse or irresponsibility toward others and by keeping relationships at a distance emotionally. When things collapse or their self-medication attempts fail, the depression breaks out.

I like these quotes from his concluding chapter:

The essential shift in question that marks a depressed man’s transformation is the shift from: What shall I get? to: What can I offer? . . . Recovery demands a move into generativity. 321

But service is the appropriate central organizing force of mature manhood. When the critical questions concern what one is going to get, a man is living a boy’s world. Beyond a certain point in a man’s life, if he is to remain truly vital, he needs to be actively engaged in devotion to something other than his own success and happiness. . . . A grown man with nothing to devote himself to is a man who is sick at heart. What a great many men in this culture choose to serve is their own reflected value, which they often believe serves the needs of their family, even while their families may be crying out for something different from them. 322
Yet it is the placing of oneself at the service of a larger context that derives a man into his own growth and fullest potential. 323

What Havel describes is hubris, the delusion of control that lies at the heart of traditional masculinity. And it is this hubris that is transformed in the recovery process of depressed men. 325

Seems like this fits well with the longing and need for the transcendent that van Kaam writes about!

Wesley’s Accountability Questions

I have been studying John Wesley’s method of discipleship lately. It was built upon a high degree of accountability to one another within the group. The society meeting was a large group used for teaching the doctrinal beliefs but the class meetings and band meetings were smaller groups that were focused on the heart and accountability. Before joining these smaller groups, each member stated their willingness for the following questions to be asked of them at any time. Even though the England at the time was experiencing huge moral and societal upheavals, the questions still are quite startling. Note especially questions 5 to 10!

1. Have you the forgiveness of your sins?
2. Have you peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ?
3. Have you the witness of God’s Spirit with your spirit that you are a child of God?
4. Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart?
5. Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion over you?
6. Do you desire to be told of your faults?
7. Do you desire to be told of all your faults, and that plain and home?
8. Do you desire that every one of us should tell you from time to time whatsoever is in his heart concerning you?
9. Consider! Do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you?
10. Do you desire that in doing this we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom?
11. Is it your desire and design to be on this and all other occasions entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart, without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?

Taken from The Works Of John Wesley, Volume 9 (The Methodist Societies History, Nature, and Design), Edited by Rupert E. Davies, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, pp.77-78.

The following questions were asked of every member at every meeting.

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
2. What temptations have you met with?
3. How were you delivered?
4. What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?
5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

Taken from Steven W. Manskar’s book Accountable Discipleship: Living in God’s Household, Nashville, Discipleship Resources, 2000, pp. 90-97.

Receiving and giving anointing

Very interesting message from Pastor Dave this morning on anointing out of 1 Samuel 16:1-13. Two main points: we receive anointing and dive into ministry or we give anointing and launch others into ministry. If I get our pastor’s definition of anointing, i will re-post this. It seems he was using “anointing” in the sense of mentoring leading to ministry. Another highlight was his list given with a twinkle in his eye, “Do not go into ministry until . . .” If I don’t get that from him, I will make up my own list this week!

Other highlights:

• “Getting started is tough. If no one will give us a chance . . .”
• “The people doing ministry now will not be doing it forever.” (disobedience, retirement, God’s leading, etc.)
• “Disobedience brings disqualification for ministry.”
• “A lot of ministry is doing that which you think you can’t do”
• Speaking about one who anointed him for ministry, “He believed in me before there was any evidence.”
• Anointing someone is a small investment with a huge return.
• Two take-aways he mentioned: We need to thank the people who anointed us. We need to anoint the people God brings to us.

This morning’s message fits well with the message I picked up at my class last week–a discipleship investment in people will reap huge rewards. Two other things I would add to today’s message flowing out of last week–the critical importance of watching and waiting upon God to see those He would want us to anoint lest we lay hands upon those who look good on the outside yet whose heart is far from God. If we wait and watch, we can have confidence that He will lead us to those who need anointing (and it will likely include people already around us).  Second, if we focus on discipling and mentoring people, we will not need to recruit people for ministry–creative ministry will be unleashed in the power of God.

A challenge to “high bar” discipleship

If this post sounds familiar, that should be no surprise since it is an edited re-post from July 26.  My class, “The Pastor as Spiritual Guide”, with Dr. Steve Martyn is now over.  It has been a great week, a week in which the Lord gave all of us much needed rest and reflection on how Christ’s life is formed in us all and what our role should be in helping others move towards a transformation into Christ’s likeness (2 Cor 3:18). We have been challenged to set the bar high in our discipleship. Steve shared his many experiences of discipleship within the local church. He challenged us saying that the greatest barrier to accountable discipleship comes from those of us who are pastors or leaders.  We ourselves don’t want to be accountable for the vitality of our Christian life and/or we don’t believe that people are willing to make the commitment to “high bar” discipleship. We were encouraged to spend time in prayer and fasting, that the Lord would lead us to the men and women within our churches who are waiting to move to another level in their Christian life but who need a model, discipleship within the context of community and a spiritual guide.  May the Lord be honored in all of us as we pray and seek to put these principles into practice.  Feel free to ask questions on this topic.  This week, I will be going through my notes and giving some more interesting quotes from class and our readings.

Pictures of our 2007 summer Epiphany class

 Our summer class

Dr. Susan Muto and Father Adrian van Kaam

“If the atheists are right, what would be the effect on human morality?”

So asks Michael Gerson in an article in the Washington Post in which he discusses the logical conclusion of a world without God. He is responding to recent books written by some high profile athiests. He suggests that our world would not be a very nice place. A favorite quote from the article:

C.S. Lewis put the argument this way: “When all that says ‘it is good’ has been debunked, what says ‘I want’ remains.”

Sounds like this could be a description of hell!

Pastor as Spiritual Guide

I am in Kentucky this week, taking a class at Asbury Seminary on the above topic.  We are meeting in a retreat center, it is cool outside and our schedule is fairly relaxed.  I arrived very tired, having travelled up here on Sunday and needing until midnight on Sunday to finish up my course papers due.  But, we have a 3 hour block of time from 3 to 6 pm for rest and reading each day and I used that time well yesterday.  I am in a small group with two other men and it is amazing how similar are our stories–there already has been ministry one to another.  We are focusing on discipleship using the Wesleyan model (read a couple of books on this) and spiritual formation using the van Kaam and Muto model (I studied under Muto two weeks in Pittsburgh as well as in a January class here at Asbury).  So, I have some familiarity with the terms and direction of the spiritual formation model but the Wesleyan discipleship model is totally unfamiliar to me.  I will post my paper on that later this week I hope.  We are about to begin our day with prayer and worship and will celebrate communion each morning so many opportunities to meet with the Lord this week.

Willingness, willfulness and willessness

Muto and van Kaam make a distinction between the three terms above in their science of human formation.  Without looking over my notes or their books, let me share some thoughts as I understand this.  I want to have a willingness to see all of life as part of God’s shaping of my life and appreciatively abandon myself to the “more than” in this life even if I don’t understand how things fit.  My understanding of God as sovereign and in control makes this easier and yet my free will must remain engaged in that moment by moment turning over of each life event as it comes my way.  Willfulness is when I refuse, it is when I fight against the flow of events, when I try to take control, try to fix things–the self is in the middle rather than God and various emotions are often present–anxiety, stress, fear just to name a few.  Willessness (if I have spelled it correctly) is a giving up but not a healthy one.  It is when I conclude that the negative events and circumstances that are hitting me are just too much and I just check out–use some form of addiction or self-medication to deal with the pain or just live with a constant low level anger.

Somewhere in my reading, there was a helpful distinction made between surrender and submission.  If I find it, I will provide a quote in another post.  Submission is a willful and temporary choice to follow another way but surrender is a willing release of my own will to another.  This morning, I recognized surrender was my only option if there was going to be any lasting change in my circumstances.  Not sure how this will look in the coming weeks but right now, there is considerable relief.

The joy of giving

Tonight I had the privilege of listening to some stories from a missionary couple working in Thailand.  We were able to celebrate with them the good things God has done.  However, one thing they made clear–anything good was accomplished because of God’s strength, not their own.  Jesus made that pretty clear didn’t He?  “Apart from me you can do nothing.”  I heard a story about the answer Mother Teresa gave to reporters when they asked her how she expected to succeed with the millions of poor in Calcutta.  Her answer was simple, “God has not called me to be a success but faithful.”

Another thing that struck me tonight was the joy that we receive when we are given the opportunity and have the means to give towards something in which God is active. I  thanked someone tonight for giving me the opportunity to give towards their ministry and I really meant it.  They wanted to thank me but I was even more grateful that they had shared their need with me.  This helps me when I think about Paul’s words concerning the Macedonians when he said, “they wanted to give but lacked the opportunity.”  I need to make sure that I do not withhold communicating about a need because of pride.  It is a blessing to be able to give of our resources when God presents us with an opportunity.

ipods, laptops and burnout?

Colleen Carroll Campbell suggested last week that due to our need to always be connected, we have lost the art of leisure.  After two weeks of reflecting on the problem of being too functionally focused–we really are more than our work; her article is worth looking at.   Technology does not seem to aid me in finding time for the contemplative life.  Here is a selection from her article in the STLtoday – News – Columnist

Our strong work ethic and our demanding schedules fuel our prosperity, but they can breed burnout. We live in an age in which corporations dispatch “vacation police” to shoo employees from the office, Workaholics Anonymous meetings attract nurses and construction workers as well as CEOs and summer vacations for schoolchildren are shrinking from three months to two. Leisure is becoming a lost art.

Our success is partly to blame. Technological advances that streamline our housework and allow us to telecommute also keep us tethered to work. We are accessible anytime, anywhere, and we cannot escape work’s demands.

Genuine leisure reminds us that we are more than our jobs. As Pieper said, “. . . the ability to be ‘at leisure’ is one of the basic powers of the human soul. . . . [It] is the power to step beyond the working world and win contact with those superhuman, life-giving forces that can send us, renewed and alive again, into the busy world of work.”

– Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.

An appreciated link

Thanks to Lyndon at Words Less Spoken for the link and referrals to Ruach.  I have had little time to blog lately and hope to do some catching up over the weekend.

Home–at least for a few days

It sure is nice to be home although we are in the middle of packing to return overseas and things are a bit chaotic.  When I landed, I turned on the cell phone I had a message from my wife saying that she had fallen, had hurt her knee and that someone else was picking me up.  With some ice on it, it looks a little better but we will be looking for an orthopedic tomorrow.  As soon as I think I have things figured out . . . I am reminded that I am not in control, God knows exactly what He is doing and freedom comes when I abandon myself freely to His will.  Life seems to be the real practicum for my spiritual formation classes!!  After two days at home, I head out on Sunday to Lexington, Kentucky for a class that is part of my DMin studies at Asbury Seminary–it is a required spirit formation retreat class.  My prof studied under Dr. Muto and so my exposure will to formative spirituality at Epiphany should make the class go smoothly.   Two papers to write before I start class on Monday morning!

Pittsburgh and Epiphany Day 8

As a follow-up from my blog yesterday—we do not withdraw from the world or cease to have responsibilities.  We still have to pay our bills, make lists and set goals.  However, the goal is for the functional life to be subservient to transcendent.

Yesterday, we talked about detachment as the needed tool to move from functional transcendence to transcendent functionalism. Detachment being defined as Dr. Muto said, as “letting go, not staying where the mystery does not want us to go, to risk a movement into the unknown.”  It is a repudiation of the claim that our identity comes from what we are.  We are more than what we do.  Functional transcendence claims that we are “only as valuable as what you can achieve, money—the more I make, the better I am.”  As we discussed in class, this explains how easily people want to move to euthanasia or abortion . . .if a person can’t perform something worthwhile, then we can (and ought?) to get rid of them. There is an erosion of respect for life.  The only way out is by, “Dis-identifying that power, pleasure and possession are ultimate!  That, who we are is all wrapped up in what you do. 

How do we get to this point?  An insight from the Spirit and a leading to repentance by the same One seems to be the beginning point.  We also discussed how the importance of the contemplative life cannot be stressed enough in this movement.  I think I have this quote correctly, “Detachment” says Merton “is an “inherent counter-culture commitment of Xity”.

Pittsburgh and Epiphany Day 6

Today begins the last full day of class for me although we will have a half-day tomorrow which I expect will be a wrapping up of things. Yesterday, was a tough day for me and I will be glad to get home tomorrow night. Perhaps my mind is saturated and was refusing to absorb anymore. Certainly, more time is needed to process. One statement that Dr. Muto made yesterday stood out to me.

Functional-transcendence wants to succeed but transcendent-functionalim wants to obey regardless of the results.

I am grateful (and yet sad) to better understand how often we (read I) try to use the transcendent (read–God, the “more than”, spirituality) in order to further our pride-driven functional ambitions and projects (read–a focus on numbers and other measurable results etc.). How easily the “I” moves into the center. Praise God for an awareness of the dissonance that is created by such a move and His grace to move us back to where He is in the center.

We had a practicum yesterday and our group led a discussion on “what is the best way to teach children self-control versus instant gratification.”

Why are there so few good men?

My wife forwarded an article which attempted to explain why there is a shortage of men in the big brother/sister programs of New York.  For the full article, check out the following: OpinionJournal   Bari Weiss writes:

One reason that men volunteer less is that they are less in “contexts where they’re more likely to be asked.” 

But, Weiss quotes Rhoads, author of “Taking Sex Differences Seriously,” who “focuses more on what he views as innate differences between the sexes.”

Men, he argues, are “fundamentally more selfish.” Unlike women, “they’re simply less interested in people. And they’re less empathetic.” According to Mr. Rhoads, the trick to getting them to volunteer lies in appealing to men’s egos, even their sense of duty and heroism. “Men need to be needed,” he tells me. “Make it clear: We need you and this is really important.”

Hmmmm, reactions here?  I would say men may feel trapped if the “you are needed” is pressed too far.  But, then again, that may just be my own issue.

Pittsburgh and Epiphany, day 6

When something is bothering me, when there is dissonance within, I need to pay particular attention to God’s divine directives to me.  Why am I having such a strong reaction to a conflict?  That is one thing I am processing this morning. 

The formation processes for all of us are the same although the individual details may differ. If the self (or materialism etc.) is in the middle or at the core of our life, there will be a breakdown eventually and that will bring an opportunity for us to share how having the Divine Trinitarian Mystery at the center makes a difference when the challenges of life come.  This provides us with dialogue points to engage people without the initial use of “religious language”.  This can become a pre-evangelism tool. 

Praise Music and Worship

Lawrence Henry writes about Praise music in The American Spectator  and does not have a lot of positive things to say about it.  I am not saying that I agree with him (since I like the praise song he critiques) but he does have some valuable points. I will provide you with his concluding two paragraphs:

IT IS AN INTERESTING PARADOX. Churches devoted to rigorous, difficult theology — real Christianity, in short — have largely adopted praise music, mainly to get people in the doors. In doing so, they have denied their parishioners an intimate connection with the art, the music, the poetry, and the history of the faith of our fathers, embodied in hymns.

Mainstream churches, which have left Christianity behind for liberation theology, “peace and justice” theory, deconstruction, and modernism, still cling to the hymnbook, to the hard work of teaching choirs to sing in harmony, and to the expense of maintaining pipe organs.

It is very interesting to read this tonight since this morning I went to a historic, traditional, mainstream church here in Pittsburgh.  Perhaps as a result of my class last week, I was prepared to receive what the Lord had for me regardless of the quality of preaching, the traditional music and whether or not folks were friendly.  I refused to go down the path of critical and evaluative or negative thinking (as I am want to do when I visit around).  I believe the Lord met with me this morning and I was able to offer to Him my humble worship with clean hands and a pure heart.  Thank you Lord

Hiding Place

Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place was used by my Prof as an example of a modern day spiritual master.  Scattered throughout the week we read selections from her book during our prayer times.  Just finished her book, which is her story about hiding Jews during WW II and the ordeals of her own captivity by the Germans. A couple of passages that stand out to me:

 ”Childhood scenes rushed back at me out of the night, strangely close and urgent.  Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.  I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.” 15

“Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this?  By dying.  the answer stood out for me sharper and chiller than it ever had that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.” 92

“‘Show us. Show us how.” It was said so matter of factly that it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.’ 197

Pittsburgh and Epiphany Day 4

After a half-day today (Sat), our first week of class is over–I must admit that I am glad to have a break tomorrow before we start up with four intensive days on Monday as we head to course 2.  Our days begin at 8:30 a.m. with breakfast together and then we open up our days with morning prayer in the lovely chapel.  These morning prayer times (and corresponding evening times) have been soul feeding for me. Each of us was given a notebook for these prayer times that includes the songs we sing, Psalms we read (antiphonally), and spiritual readings for each day.  For each prayer time, various ones in our group sign up to be the leader or the reader.  There is a lovely and leisurely pace to our prayer times as we read prepared prayers followed by the reading of a Psalm.  Following the Psalm, there is a time of silence followed by time for reflection on the Psalm just read and various ones offering prayers that flow out of the Psalm.  I like it because our prayers are grounded in the Word and although not all of us pray, we participate in each one’s prayer as we agree at the end of each prayer, “Lord, hear our prayer.”  I have also been introduced to a number of new songs.  We opened the week singing the  “Be Attitudes” and closed this morning singing the prayer of St. Francis.  Even though the material is not easy to understand, each day gets a little easier and I am beginning to see the Lord at work in me and in my classmates.  It has been a worthwhile week.  More reading to do for next week!

Communion on Sunday

We had a great time celebrating communion last week–well, at least I did!  Instead of the five minute pass the plate, drink the juice and move on, we slowed things down.  Started with responsive readings, had Scriptures on the screen for meditation during the passing of the elements (with some of the artwork I discovered), lots of silence.  Two of us did it together and I think that when we share in ministry together, there seems to be less about “me” and more about Him.  Someone emailed the following encouraging words:

I would describe it as both refreshing and reflective. Refreshing in the sense that it was a new approach for us and a welcomed one at that.  It is so easy to get in a rut with an observance such as this, and that is not good.  It was reflective in the sense that it was unhurried, and the Scripture reading added real depth. I find it very hard to “remember” the Lord’s death in any meaningful way when the whole observance is being moved along rather quickly.  You slowed things down and allowed us to take more opportunity to simply and quietly remember.

My friend also asked why evangelicals tend to neglect antiphonal (responsive) readings. Any thoughts?