Egg-stremes

Every once in a while I get an opportunity to truly shine… or at least, it seems that way at the time. In my mind’s eye, I see the plan unfolding flawlessly. I anticipate a need, meet it perfectly, and in the process, I earn the respect and admiration of all who are involved.

It’s a good feeling.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually happen that way!

No matter how simple or fool-proof it might seem, these things have a funny way of backfiring on me.

Last year around this time I had just joined Church At The Bay. I was still getting to know people and looking for opportunities to get “plugged in.” So when I heard that a group would be getting together to stuff eggs for the Easter Egg hunt, I signed up & even volunteered to bring some of the supplies!

I love Easter Egg hunts! I love stuffing the eggs – I even love picking out the candy and toys and other special touches. I love hiding the eggs. Most of all, I love watching the kids find the eggs.

So I went shopping. I picked out some cute little toys, and my cart was overflowing with candy. I even managed to squeeze in a couple of small boxes with 250 eggs inside. Unlike the large bags of plastic eggs that you normally see, these eggs were taken apart and neatly stacked. What an ingenious idea! What a space-saver! I imagined myself cracking jokes about bringing “egg-stra.”

That night about a half a dozen of us showed up to stuff the eggs. All of the other eggs were in those large bags of 48, and we went through them all in no time. In less than 40 minutes, we had stuffed over 1200 of them! Everyone was in a great mood.

Then we broke out one of my boxes. The first egg that I grabbed just didn’t want to snap together. Well, that was odd… but it must have been a dud. But one after the other, NONE of the eggs would close easily. It seems that having the halves stacked on top of eachother like that made the inside lip “stretch” just enough so that it wouldn’t fit easily into the other half anymore.

After 5 minutes I had managed to wrestle ONE egg closed. No one else on our egg-stuffing team was having any better luck. All of a sudden, my brilliant space-saving idea didn’t seem quite so brilliant. In the next half an hour, we managed to get maybe half of those eggs stuffed. It was discouraging! Instead of feeling like an egg-celent church member, I began to wonder if this incident would lead to my egg-scommunication instead. How embarrassing!

My ego (or should I say, my “egg-o”) was bruised.

Someone took a few of the really bad ones into the church office the next day and let the rest of the staff try to put them together. That weekend, those pastors showed me the results of their efforts – shattered egg halves, some deformed, some duct-taped together…

It wasn’t the outcome that I had desired, but now… my “bad eggs” are almost part of the church “folklore.” None of the folks who were involved will ever forget that night… and they probably won’t forget me either. It was embarrassing, but if everything had gone according to plan and there had been no "bad eggs", it wouldn't have been such a memorable evening. So even though it didn’t work out as planned, in the end… it did work out OK. And that’s no yolk!

For such a time as THIS?

I finished the Mark Batterson book In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day today. It's a really good book, and it has given me a lot to think about. As it "sinks in" I'm sure I'll be posting more here. I already have a number of quotes marked for this very purpose :)

If you haven't read the book, here's the basic premise: Benaiah gets mentioned in 2 Sam 23:20-21. It's one of those obscure passages that usually gets skipped over, but Batterson focuses on one little part: the part where it says he killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day. It was not a "normal" thing to do. It was a situation where most folks would have run the other way. But Benaiah saw it as an opportunity rather than a problem. Batterson suggests that we miss out on our greatest divine appointments when we try to "play it safe."

He ends the book by re-asserting something that he said at the beginning... but of all the things he says, this is probably the one that makes me the most uncomfortable. Here's the quote:

"God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ. God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here's the catch: The right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time."

I think I gave up on having a "destiny" when I was in my mid twenties. The dream was very much alive when I was younger, but the dream I was chasing wound up being an empty one. In many ways, I made it further and faster than I had ever dreamed possible... but I was running in the wrong direction.

Batterson believes that God will get us where He wants us to go... but I don't really feel any sense of "destiny" about being in Florida. I don't believe that God called me here. I called myself here. I made a judgment call based on the openings that were available to me. I could have just as easily wound up somewhere else. I can't even say that I came here chasing a dream. I came here because I was running from a nightmare.

But even more, I can't say that I really believe in that sort of "destiny" anymore. In Pentecostal churches, we often talked about being "in the center of God's will" or His "perfect will" for our lives. That's a very romantic notion when you're young and have your life ahead of you... but as time goes on, you can't help but feel as though there are no more golden opportunities waiting in the wings for you. Once you're out of that "perfect will," everything else is somewhat less than perfect. So if you don't do everything perfect, you blew it... God had to find someone else.

I don't believe that sort of thing anymore. We make choices--some of them good, some of them bad--but God doesn't give up on us. There are consequences, but there is also grace!

If I look at my circumstances, there are certianly many things that I can say were God-ordained. For example, everything that fell into place at just the right time for me to grasp the concept of God's grace for the first time... a lot of things had to line up just right for that to happen. It started with a short memory verse that was actually a little discouraging... that set me up to read a short book that challenged what I believed about grace... and that set me up to have a life-changing conversation.

I'm extremely grateful that things worked out the way that they did... but I can't say that it absolutely had to happen in here Florida. If I had chosen to run to another city, I believe that God would have set up an alternate set of circumstances to bring me to the same realization about grace... I just probably wouldn't have gotten baptized outside in December if I was living in Colorado :P

So am I in the right place at the right time? I don't know. If the right place seems like the wrong place... how would you ever know for sure anyhow?

Key Differentiators

In my "work life," I've been looking into a number of software packages (CRM/ERP for those who are curious). There are many to choose from, but these vendors are in a rather peculiar position. In order to succeed, their software must be easy to use. To accomplish this, most have chosen to mimic the universally familiar layout of Microsoft Outlook. At the same time, they must distinguish themselves from their competitors... who are also mimicking MS Outlook. So how do you stand out in a crowd of look-alikes?

These software demos nearly always start and end with "Key Differentiators:" the software vendor's answer to the question, "What sets this product apart?" They don't waste time laying the foundation of why CRM/ERP is important... they assume that by the time you're looking at a demo, you're already convinced of its value. Each vendor is convinced that his/her product serves one particular market better than any other. Their job is not to show you that you need software, but to convince you that their version of the software is better.

I've been thinking about this in relation to evangelism and church marketing. It's probably safe to say that most churches promote their key differentiators (the nonessential things that make them unique) rather than their core functionality (the message of the Gospel). And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the Gospel message isn't hidden under all that nonessential stuff & there is a clear presentation of it during the services. We can't assume that everyone who comes to check out a church understands the Gospel message.

But things start to get weird when a group sees some of its key differentiators as absolute essentials. A new Oneness Pentecostal association formed recently. One of their "key differentiators" is a very strict set of holiness standards. The founders left the UPC because they felt the UPC was too liberal in that area. Issues of outward appearance and behavior are extremely important to them--important enough to form a splinter group--and probably important enough to be a life-or-death salvation issue in their eyes.

Then there's "caste" Christianity, where the key differentiators aren't absolute essentials... but embracing them makes you a higher class of Christian. For example, most Word of Faith folks don't believe that speaking in tongues is essential for salvation, but if you don't speak in tongues, you don't have the "full Gospel." You're a second-class Christian. Because you don't embrace what they teach, you can't possibly understand the deep things of God...

Thankfully, all churches aren't that way... and I really appreciate that about my church. It isn't a "traditional church" the way most people would imagine it -- no stained glass, no smells-n-bells, no pews -- so our promotional stuff (mailers, touch cards, etc) isn't "churchy." It isn't a Gospel tract either. But if someone sees one of our mailers and comes to a service (or even listens to one on our website), they will hear about Jesus and have an opportunity to begin a relationship with Him.

Unlearning

This month, I started reading In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson. There are a lot of good quotes in there that have stuck with me. If I ever have time to stop and write, I'm sure this book could generate quite a few posts!

Here's one where he talks about unlearning:

"Half of learning is learning. The other half of learning is unlearning. Unfortunately, unlearning is twice as hard as learning. It's like missing your exit on the freeway. You have to drive to the next exit and then double back. Every mile you go in the wrong direction is really a two-mile error. Unlearning is twice as hard, and it often takes twice as long. It is harder to get old thoughts out of your mind than it is to get new thoughts into your mind."

I get frustrated sometimes because I'm not "unlearning" as quickly as I'd hoped. I feel like I'm playing a game of mental whack-a-mole: just when I think I've banished an old thought pattern from my mind, it pops up again...

Batterson also says: "Faith is unlearning the senseless worries and misguided beliefs that keep us captive. It is far more complex than simply modifying behavior... Faith is rewiring the human brain."

Rewiring the brain... that's what I need. And I guess the idea isn't too far fetched: the Bible does talk about "renewing our minds..."

Am I becoming a cessationist?

I had an interesting conversation over the weekend. Someone asked me if I had become a cessationist. That's an interesting question... the more I think about it, I guess it depends on how you define "cessationist."

I suppose a "true cessationist" believes that the miraculous gifts which were in operation in the early church are no longer given today. They have ceased. If that is the case, I don't qualify...

Healing is deal-breaker for me on that one. I still believe that God can heal people. I don't believe that He absolutely must heal them if we meticulously follow a faith formula (that's a Word of Faith thing), but I do believe that miraculous healing can still take place. A true cessationist would probably deny that.

But the issue that prompted this conversation was tongues. I was talking to some people who, as far as I know, have never spoken in tongues themselves... but they are open to the possibility of it being "real" because they know & respect a few people who do.

I've been thinking about that. I know & respect some people who have had powerful experiences in Hinduism, the new-age, and even Islam. I've listened to their stories. I don't think they're making it up... they are sincere. But even though I believe that they experienced something, I do not believe that it is what they THINK they experienced. And honestly, I feel the same way now about some of my charismatic and Pentecostal friends who speak in tongues. I believe that they are sincere... but I don't believe that tongues (at least not the way it is practiced in the churches I used to attend) are real.

So does that make me a cessationist, at least on the issue of tongues? Well... not really. I don't believe that the "tongues" I witnessed in my charismatic/Pentecostal churches were even remotely close to the tongues that are described in the Bible... so in that sense, I cannot say that those "tongues" have ceased because I don't think they ever began in the first place.

So what about the genuine article, the way it happened in the book of Acts? Could that still happen today?

I suppose it could.

I also suppose God could part Tampa Bay so I didn't have to wait in traffic on the Howard Frankland Bridge...

Seed time?

I've been wondering about this today.

We have one minister who has admitted to "seeding" his meetings -- putting stuff in place naturally so that it would appear supernatural. The idea behind it really just a variation on a 'classic' Word of Faith teaching: if it happens, people will believe it... and if people will believe it, it will happen. So... the rationale for "seeding" the meetings is that when people saw the gems, they'd think God put them there. Their faith would be built up... and then gems would actually appear.

That's the rationale.

In other circles, they call it "priming the pump." It's the same reason why ministers have someone share a testimony or call out a few "lightning rod" people and pray for them in front of the whole congregation... they want to demonstrate that something is happening, because if people will expect something to happen, it is more likely that it will.

But something specific about "seeding" still bothers me...

Consider this: if the idea of "seeding" could enter the mind of a minister who knows that he will be under scrutiny, couldn't it also occur to someone in the congregation? I know that there were faked healings in many of the churches where healing crusades took place. The same thing that motivates a person to fake a healing could motivate a person to fake any of these other things. So... someone brings a handful of little 'gem chips' with them to the service. Maybe they just "seed" them for themselves to find... or maybe they spread it around...

I vaguely remember an episode of The Brady Bunch that does a good job of illustrating this idea. One of the boys--I'm pretty sure it was the youngest one--wanted to "stretch" himself out so he could get taller. He measures his height against a wall and marks it there. Then he goes and literally "hangs out" on the swingset all day. During the course of the day, three well-meaning family members secretly move the mark down by about half an inch each. So at the end of the day, when he measures himself again, it looks like he has grown a staggering 1.5 inches! Then, one by one, the family members admit to what they have done. There's been no growth afterall.

The moral of the story: if you want to measure your growth, don't measure yourself by something that is so easily moved :)

But back to the "seeding" issue.

So... the minister throws out a few "seed" gemstones. Then another person spreads a few around. Then another... Each of these individuals notice that there are stones present in the meeting which they themselves could not have planted... therefore, it's a miracle after all! Their seed multiplied! Not only is the whole thing validated, but they can feel justified in that they obeyed God and He multiplied the seed sown.

If EVERYONE who "seeded" stuff in these meetings came clean--if they were all 100% honest--would we be forced to conclude, as the Brady's did, that nothing had really happened after all?

I don't have anything personally against the Smiths. And if people really want to comb through carpets for crystal chips, that's their business. Personally, I do not believe that we should be looking for this sort of stuff... but is God capable of doing it? Of course He is. I just tend to think that He does things for a reason, and I've yet to hear of any good reason for this. It certainly isn't a good idea to use this as a measure of your spirituality.... that's a mark that is far too easily moved.

Faux Faith

A little more than a week ago, I started hearing rumblings that Glenn Smith from Shem Ministries (aka Gemstones Ministries) had been caught "planting" stones in a recent meeting. I checked their website, only to discover that they had taken it down for "personal and technical reasons." Although there is still no official public statement from the Smiths at the time of this writing (or at least none that I am aware of), other information has been circulating... including an email from one of the pastors who was co-hosting the meetings where the questionable behavior was discovered.

My first response was definitely not shock -- I was around during the gold dust mess back in the 90s... (remember my souvenirs from the fringe?) I wanted to believe it back then--I had friends and leaders telling me all sorts of things about how God had worked in their lives through this and stranger things. But still... it never quite felt right... and even though I defended it at times, I wasn't truly surprised then either when its main proponent was exposed as a fraud. In that case, both the natural origin of the "gold dust" (being planted in her hair before services started) and the actual authenticity of the "gold dust" (which was craft store glitter) was exposed.

This case is a little different. The people who have called Glenn Smith to account over this apparently still believe that the gemstones are actually from God... but also believe that he was "seeding" them into the meetings and leading people to believe that God had put them there, not Glenn. In other words, what is being admitted is not outright fraud... but exaggeration. Some might even call it evangelistic license.

From where I stand today, the whole gold dust / gemstones / "orbs" of light / and anything else even remotely similar just don't appeal to me. I'm not even tempted to wonder if God is really doing that stuff. Even if He is involved... I'm not worried that I'm "missing something" there.

But this does bring up an uncomfortable issue for me: how do I tell the genuine from the false?

Some things are easy to explain naturally -- craftstore glitter, cheap cut stones that jewelers can purchase in bulk, lens flare and dust in a picture... but what about the testimonies of those who claim to have been touched by these things? Can it all be attributed to hypnosis / suggestion / or the placebo effect? I tend to think now that it can...

But then what about the less extreme stuff?

I've seen some very convincing faux finishes--paint jobs that make a cheap material appear to be a higher quality, much more expensive material. It's hard to tell the difference if you're just looking at it. But once you touch it you can feel the difference in the weight and the texture. It might have wood grain... but when you knock on it, it doesn't sound like wood. It might have a marble finish, but when you touch it, it isn't cold like marble.

So what's the test for separating faux faith from the real thing?


To be continued, I'm sure...

No Laughing Matter

So far on this site, I've dealt with what happened once I was in an unhealthy church, and how I ultimately got out of it... but in the last few days, I've been thinking back to how it all started for me. This link was posted in a forum, and that's what instigated this trip down memory lane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SgByE0pX1M

It's a couple of clips from a meeting with Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, two icons of the Word of Faith movement. That's the sort of thing that we used to consider "a really good meeting."

Of course, the video doesn't really do it justice. It is another thing entirely to be in a meeting where all this is happening. What looks ridiculous on tape can seem very plausible in person. My first taste of anything even remotely charismatic was back in the early 90s -- a "holy laughter" experience at a church not far from my college.

The charismatic stuff was new to me, but laughing was easy. I didn't have to be taught how to laugh. It wasn't something out of the ordinary in and of itself -- like speaking in tongues. Laughter is naturally contagious. It releases tension and makes you more comfortable. It's a generally positive thing.

Did you ever dare a friend to make you smile or laugh, and then try desperately to keep a straight face? It's hard. The harder you try, it seems, the harder you laugh when you finally let go...

In that first meeting, I tried very hard not to laugh... but I couldn't help it. I sat there as long as I could with everyone around me laughing. Many people were rolling on the floor and doing other ridiculous looking things that would have made me laugh even under normal circumstances. I was trying desperately to "stifle" my own laughter, hold it in, but I was doomed to fail!

By the time I finally let go and started laughing, it was truly overwhelming. When one of the leaders asked if they could pray for me, I could hardly even answer because I was laughing uncontrollably and trying to keep from falling out of my folding chair. To say that things were "emotionally charged" would be a tremendous understatement. When that leader laid hands on me, it felt like electricity... and I wound up on the floor. I must have looked nervous, because the leader told me, "It's OK, that's just the Holy Spirit. Soak it in." That leader stayed with me "soaking" me for a while, mostly repeating things like "More" and "Fill." So I learned to equate that sort of experience with "feeling God's presence."

The experience was real... I felt things and did things that were out of the ordinary for me. It actually happened. I did not make it up. I didn't do it because I was flakey or wanted attention. I didn't go to that first meeting with the intention of winding up on the floor. (In fact, I went to the first meeting looking for evidence that it was a cult...)

I've often wondered what really happened to me in that meeting (and subsequent meetings). My initial conclusion was that this HAD to be God. What else could it be?

This is another video, in two parts, that offers a different answer to that question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sq-YUdq1OI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DylNVUN_3I

Could it be that so much of what I used to attribute to the supernatural power of God was really just the power of suggestion?

To be continued...

Joseph

I subscribe to the "Insight for Today" daily emails -- they're excerpts from one of Charles Swindoll's books. These last few weeks they've been talking about lessons from the life of Joseph. One of my New Year's resolutions is to read the NLT cover-to-cover, so I've also recently (re)read Joseph's story in Genesis.

Joseph is a charter member of the original "dream team." (Laugh. It's a joke.) His brothers can't stand him, but his father favors him. He gets special treatment and a special coat. He has strange supernatural dreams, and he is mistreated because he shares them. Later, his God-given ability to supernaturally interpret dreams lands him a "dream job" with high visibility. He winds up in the right place at the right time to save an entire nation (and his family) from a famine.

Back in the 90s, Joseph had a surge of popularity in some circles. It was common to hear folks talk about a Joseph vision, a Joseph project, a Joseph anointing... Everyone saw themselves as God's special servant, treated wrongly, but destined to rule. I'll admit, I pictured myself that way too. When I read Bible stories like this, I think I've always had a tendency to cast myself in the role of the hero--it has only been in more recent years that I've begun to recognize myself much more in the villains.

If I had grown up in Joseph's family, I don't think I would have liked him any more than his brothers did. I would have thrown him in to the cistern too! Serves him right... but then as a slave and later as a prisoner, he shows amazing maturity, restraint, and strength of character... qualities that seemed to be lacking when he was telling his family that they'd bow down to him some day.

The subject of the "Insight for Today" email was "Grace to Endure." It talked about how Joseph correctly interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's baker and cup bearer... but then the cup bearer forgot about Joseph for two years. And the Bible emphasizes that it was two full years! There is no record of Joseph complaining. I'm not convinced (as Swindoll is) that this silence means Joseph was at perfect peace and never questioned God during his time in prison. But it does seem clear that Joseph handled himself well, even while he was imprisoned.

I've always secretly wanted to be like Joseph when he was the second in command over all of Egypt... but I can't say that I've ever wanted to be like Joseph when he was the wrongly convicted and forgotten prisoner. That wasn't part of the dream... but it was essential to the dream's fulfillment.

Doing "great things" for God

There was another interesting purpose-driven life devotional this morning--"Mundane." It talked about how the shepherds were given tremendous news -- in charismatic/pentecostal speak, a 'fresh divine revelation' -- and they glorified God, but afterwards they went back to their fields.

I always thought that was kinda sad. Why would you go back to your boring, everyday life after such a powerful encounter with God and angels? I guess part of me always assumed that the shepherds were just not too bright. After all, some 30 years later, another group of men would leave everything behind to be with Jesus... and they didn't even have the benefit of the angels and heavenly light.

Why didn't the shepherds abandon their animals and camp out around the manger? Why didn't they form an organized group of followers and transform their world with the "The Stable-Driven Life" message? If this had happened in modern times, the manger would have been turned into a shrine or revival "hot spot" overnight... someone would be out there collecting "holy straw" and including it in a direct mail campaign... by the time the wise men showed up, the stable would have had indoor plumbing and seating for 3000. But I digress!

I always thought that the shepherds had missed the point. They were given this awesome divine opportunity, and they blew it! But Jon Walker (the writer the of the Purpose-Driven devotional) looks at it from a completely different angle. He sees the shepherds as a model for us today. He writes: "Yes, [God] takes us to the mountaintop; he shows us great miracles and wonders, but he doesn’t leave us there because he knows the strength of our faith grows in the day-to-day, mundane work required in the fields and among the flocks we tend."

This morning, I realized that I've had a tendency to misunderstand this verse. I think I imagined the shepherds to be a little too much like me. I imagined them coming to this awesome place, worshiping and glorifying God while they were there, and once they were done with their worship service, they went back to their normal lives. But that's not really what it says: it says that they returned to their flocks glorifying God. They went back to their responsibilities, but they were changed.

Those shepherds were smarter than I am sometimes...