What do we deserve?

The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Now everyone's read this parable a couple times before, but what struck me this week, and pretty much a continued theme for me and my walk with God these last couple of months, is their attitude towards the Father.

And he said, "There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.' And he divided his property between them.

Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

"But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father,I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants."' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.'

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!'

And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"

As a church kid who finally met Jesus I realized I've been both sons. I've spent my pre-transformation days being the elder son, and spent the recent years realizing how much I am like the returning prodigal. Pre-tranformation days I've always known myself as a son of God, as if I was born that way. I was arrogant about my tiny knowledge of Him, pompous about my identity, and never realizing really how much I looked nothing like what I self-proclaimed to be. And weirdly enough I ended up with the same frustration as the elder son. "I've been working and working for your Kingdom and yet I don't ever see anything come of it!" I give myself to toil in what I deemed best for God, and when I didn't see the glory and breakthrough that I thought was due my fervour, I complained and grumbled, just like the elder son.

The prodigal one was just happy to be home. He didn't come demanding that he be treated a certain way. He came actually begging to be a servant. He knew he deserved nothing; he knew was the one who left to begin with. He came knowing that whatever the Father gives would be good enough; it'd be better than feeding himself like a pig (pun intended). He came expecting to be a reward-less servant, and would've been thankful just to be that. He came humble and grateful well before he saw a single blessing. And he ended up with everything.

Not so with the elder son. I'm going to guess that it isn't the first time he's complained about his lack of young goats; I really believe he hasn't gotten much for his work. And then I realized why: that the beginning of Father's blessing is humility; and the source of humility, is gratitude.

Only in these last 3 years have I realize that I'm actually the prodigal, a beggar, groveling back to God's feet. The thing I'm convicted of more and more nowadays is that I deserve nothing, God deserves everything; that is the premise of my existence. I am a beggar that God has chosen to call friend, a prodigal He's chosen to call son, but that doesn't make Him any less of a king, any less of my Lord. And to be honest, it doesn't make me any less of a prodigal. I still look like one, I still act like one all the time, because ultimately, until the day of Christ Jesus, I'm in dire need of God. Whatever I get from Him in the mean time is not a matter of my identity, as if being Christian meant that we deserved something from God. My identity itself is a matter of God's grace. The great promises of His word are not due us, they are gifted to us. I know He will be faithful to those promises, and I will learn to expect them, but I don't dare demand them.

Are you just happy to be home? Or have you let your son-ship, your daughter-ship get to your head? You are a beggar. We all are. Is Jesus, though He calls us friends, still Lord to you?

Gift of Rebuke

I want to look at a pretty familiar story today. John 8:3-11 says:

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. 

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Now everyone loves the first part of the passage, that this women is saved from condemnation. Yet people rarely looks at the very last line.

We always say we're trying to be more loving, but I wonder what our love is really made of? C.S. Lewis writes in The problem of Pain:

"Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal."

And that's exactly the sort of love Jesus has always displayed; yes, He didn't come to condemn, but he always asked for repentance, for transformation. That is the love of God. Can you imagine if he gave us salvation but left us just as we are? (I don't even want to imagine how miserable I'd be.) He does not intend to leave us be; that we are to become noble vessels, prepared to do any good work.

Did you know, that as leaders of God's Kingdom, we have a responsibility to help people transform; to make disciples of all nations, to see to it that people are becoming more and more like Christ? But how often do we miss the chance to help someone be more like Jesus? All for the sake of being "nice"; that we get trampled on, and put up with all sorts of ungratefulness and obnoxious behavior, because we're supposed to be "loving". We stand idly by, while these people continue untransformed, as if we're satisfied with them keeping their iniquities, and since they don't care, neither do we.

The world is already full of nice people, our testimony isn't just more "nice"; the Holy Spirit within us is the counselor of truth. What the world needs is truth, told in love. Ephesians 4:15 says:

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

When was the last time you really spoke truth boldly into someone's life? Or was it watered-down, sugar coated, chock full of dodgy sentiments but barely getting to the point, rarely getting to the Word of God? We pride ourselves in being a community that is open and authentic. Well, are we authentic with the truth?

When I see my guys, I see their weaknesses just as much as their strengths, and I speak into that; boldly, sometimes harshly, but they know that of me. They know my intent and my love. Ultimately when I meet brothers and sisters, I see their need for more of Jesus, and I speak; that I'm committed to loving them just as they are, but I speak because I know who God intended them to be, and I am not satisfied to leave them just as they are. Are you?

Rooting in the Word

• What are people learning?
  
• As I begin to refine my set of notes that I teach 101 from, I begin to see (along with my co-teacher) that there are many points that are not well supported by the Word of God.
  
• Not that they were unbiblical points mind you, but rather than sharing the relevant passages (which weren't that hard to find), they are more backed by stories of people's personal experiences instead.
  
• I also began to notice that when people share encouraging words to each other, they rarely use the Word. Rather they say "well that person has been set free from that" or "this person experienced exactly what you're going through"
  
• So even at the 101 level people are already learning to rely on other people's experiences as the stuff of their faith.
  
• That people, rather than knowing the Word that speaks on their life situations, know the experiences of others on that situation instead.
  
• There are a lot of topics in 101, that if we rely purely on the word, would need to be dropped, because to explain them properly with the Word would be way beyond the scope of 101.
  
• I think its OK if they were dropped, I'd much rather people know that they have no understanding of something, than to think they know it, based loosely on what someone else felt about it.
  
• What should we be teaching?
  
• Word of God AND the word of us
  
• Personal experiences are great encouragements, and we should continue to share them as we teach and disciple.
  
• But they should never replace the Word of God as the center of our teaching.
  
• When we are in a teaching environment, we must center everything on the Word.
  
• If the Word doesn't say so, we can't teach it, period.
  
• We can share it, but we can't teach it as if it comes from the Bible.
  
• Even if that experience if commonplace, we must still share it as someone else's experience.
  
• Our experiences should support the teachings from the Word, rather than us finding passages that support our interpretation of our experiences.
  
• Ultimately transformation comes from the Word. If we are to get people to help grow themselves (as mentioned in "Personal Visioning"), we must, at every opportunity, point people towards the Word rather than ourselves as discipleship leaders.
  
• That's the only way people can empower themselves. Satan will always twist a marvelous testimony into "That can never happen to YOU."
  
• It removes the reliance on the leaders as the source of growth. The source is Christ, represented in the Word, and interactive through prayer. The leaders are just there to cheer you on.
  
• It places less burdens on leaders, and therefore, more leaders will be inclined to step up.
  
• Leaders don't need to be superstars anymore, because the learning is not centered around the leader's life, but rather the life of Christ.
  
• Community-based teaching environments
  
• At the rate our church is growing, we have to move away from having "classes", to having small groups.
  
• So each campus would have a few 101 small groups, a few Impact small groups, a few P1 small groups, etc.
  
• The only way that can happen is for the various curriculum to be self contained; that they do not rely purely on illustrations from the leader's life (or worse, what the leader has heard from other people's lives)
  
• Thus EVERY point made must be solidly backed by the Word, with the leader's lives as support.
• That even if the leader has not experienced this particular point, they can still teach it, because it is well represented in the Word.
  
• Again, away from superstar teachers that have experienced every point.
  
• That the target is more like Christ, not more like Ken, or more like Tae, or more like Pastor Paul.
  
• That the entire small group, including the "leader", are in it together; to be more like Christ as represented by the Word shared in the curriculum.
  
• Thus the teaching is surrounded by community; where people can put what they learned about God's love to use, where they will be held intimately accountable and be encouraged and supported.
  
• I feel this is a much better model to the typical lecture style class, where half the time the teacher is trying somehow to tie the teaching into each student's life, and making broad generalizations in the process.
  
• Community-based teaching environments ensure that the Word remains deeply personal.
  

Personal Visioning

• Our serving teams inherit a ton of overarching vision from the top leaders
• But how many teams vision on their own? Do we even encourage them to do so? Or are they simply treated as tools that we micromanage?
• Going down to the personal level, do we encourage our leaders to vision on their own, about their personal growth and the growth of their ministries?
• "Where there is no prophetic vision, the people are discouraged," Proverbs 29:18 (ESV)
• How many of our teams, how many of our leaders, seek and receive their vision from God? How many receive them from us?
• Worse yet, how many simply receive instructions/strategies from us and never own their ministries, never own their personal growth?
• Looking into their personal lives, do we encourage people to connect with God personally? To cast their own visions of their walk with God; where they need to go with Him in the next little while.
• Or do we always tell them where they need to grow next, what they should do to get there?
• Not dissing our maturity ministries, heck I oversee them, but there is no formula. We must vision WITH them how they are to grow.
• "Transforming non-Christians into disciple-makers for Christ"
  
• Do people even know this?
• I had to look it up, and seeing the amount of disciple-maker making that is actually happening (e.g. not just people being transformed, but people leading others to transform), I'd say people don't really know this.
• Also, when we say that's our vision, what does that mean for the ushering team? What does that mean for the worship team? What does that mean for our harvest team? How does each of those teams' visions (hopefully they have one), fit in with the overall vision?
• We are constantly trying to raise organizational leaders to head up ministries, but how intentional are we in raising spiritual leaders?
• The great commission says that all of us are to disciple others, we should focus on that first, rather than getting people to lead ministries, and expecting that they get their spiritual leadership to catch up somehow. 
• We should seek to invest in the spiritual lives of emerging leaders first; which ultimately means seeing a disciple maker raised up first, rather than a head usher, or worship leader, or bible study teacher first.
• "Out of your intimacy comes your ministry." Do we stick to this when we raise emerging leaders?
• What is point A? What is point B?
• Ultimately all our ministries (this applies to personal growth too), at any point in time, are moving from point A to point B.
• Visioning is understanding point B (where we are going), and strategizing is understanding point A (where we are right now).
• So many teams start making/improving their strategies, all the while doing very little visioning (or having little understanding of their catch-phrase vision).
• Without vision, without point B, how would you know what "better" is?
• How do you set goals and milestones, how do you gauge progress, if you don't know what the end goal is?
• Going back to personal growth, do people understand that being a disciple-maker is the end goal?
• Maybe that's why we have such a hard time finding discipleship leaders, because people think that being discipled forever is point B.
• It all starts with us (top leaders)
• We always complain that people aren't stepping up to own ministries, that people rely on us to grow
  
• We must cast, recast, recast, recast (see the pattern here?) our visions as ministry overseers, our visions for them as their discipler, otherwise our guys would have nothing to work off of, nothing to look forward to in expectation.
  
• Then we must encourage them to vision on their own, to own a piece of the puzzle, to call that piece their own.
• If all we ever do is make them do what we want, how would they ever own it? How would it ever even FEEL like its theirs?

Sustainable Leadership

• We've had 2 top female leaders roll out of Hamilton and Westside altogether under similar circumstances
• I don't know if it's their personal choice, or whether our model of leadership here, our demands and expectations of their ministry and their leadership, was unrealistic
• Have we made leading here something that only singles would have the time and effort to participate in? Has our church culture discouraged some to never step up just because they don't want to dedicate their entire lives to Westside like everyone else?
• Have we truly honoured our leaders, their time, and their effort? (one example, sticking to meeting times rather than change them as our own schedule changes. In general, not surprising them with changes)
• Did we give them enough "off" time to recharge physically and connect with God personally? (corporate prayer and retreats don't count, they are rarely physically rejuvenating for our leaders who are usually more physically tired than spiritually tired at first)
  
• Did we ensure that they were in supportive, accountable communities? (1 on 1 mentoring is nice, but its mostly for teaching and coaching. Accountability and support is hard to achieve 1 on 1.)
• Along the same lines, do we promote ministry superstardom? This results in leaders being islands; no one feels they are good enough to support them.
  
• From what I found at Willow, what we top leaders do at Westside people get paid to dedicate their full -time to do everywhere else
  
• Again, in light of that, what are realistic expectations of ministry growth? Our own spiritual growth?
• I don't think it lies so much in the what of things, so much as it lies in the pace; how fast we are expected to move things forward.
• At what pace does challenging our leaders become simply a burden to them? Are we setting the bar too high? Are we setting the bar indiscriminately?
• Of course our leaders have a personal responsibility to set their own boundaries, to ensure their own sustained connection with God, to share about their tiredness and to do something about it (see next point)
• But we as overseers must dig and probe, and seek to protect them from damaging themselves, rather than just being ecstatic that they are doing more and more.
• Are we over-spiritualizing growth?
  
• That we always say we can do anything in the Holy Spirit.
  
• But because our expectations are not well discerned, and therefore unrealistic, even in the Kingdom sense, people never get there; a lot of times they physically can't.
  
• This also discourages people from sharing their ministry failures, because now those failures are directly linked with a perceived lack of growth (again back to the need for community for our leaders).
  
• They end up deeply discouraged because now they feel they don't have the Spirit, that they haven't grown because they couldn't achieve these unrealistic goals in the timeframe that we have set for them.

The 3 Greatest Commandments

Lately I've been thinking about what it means to serve, what it means to lead, what it means to come Saturday, what Saturday service is even supposed to look like. And I know each of us here does so many things here at Hamilton campus; that we all come here at 1pm with a mission, and a list of tasks to be done today. And it's so easy to let ourselves think that these tasks; doing this, teaching that, attending this, IS church. That church is this big show we put on every Saturday, that church becomes something we do for God, instead of something that we share with God in, something that He's allowed us to be a part of. Acts 2:42-47 says:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Church is about 3 things: Loving God, loving people, and seeing to it that others do the same. When we let our planning, our scheduling, our organizing take away from our simple devotion to those 3 things, we've missed it. We've missed what Saturday service is about.

I've heard so many people talk about excellence, that for the newcomers we need to be excellent in all that we do, and because of that people no longer just consider every detail, they agonize over every one. I catch myself thinking like that sometimes, talking like that sometimes. But what I think is more important, what I think the newcomers will notice most of all, beyond the polish, beyond the snazziness, is the joy, that real, abundant joy that overflows from us because of Christ; of us meeting the head, and now being part of the body. And if our "excellence" is taking away from that joy, then I think we've missed the point of what church is supposed to be.

The question I want you all to pray over this afternoon, is did you come here with joy? As Pastor Paul always says, this is a time of celebration, Saturday service is a party. I'd go as far as to say that if you're not having fun doing what you do this afternoon, you're doing something wrong. Honestly though, I've never had this much fun at any other place than Westside Hamilton, I love being here serving with you guys every saturday. I hope you feel the same way, don't ever forget it. If you do nothing else at all today, remember, and reflect that joy.

Willow Creek Group Life Conference '08

Here are some pictures from the Group Life Conference, notes and other thoughts to follow soon:

Some random pics of just inside the main entrance.

This is their OLD auditorium, half of it that is......the pic of the new one is in the post from last year.

BIG Christian book store, picked up an ESV compact bible because PAl recommended that translation.

Pretty much the EXACT same hotel room as last year. Thank goodness for earplugs!