Getting out of the bog... back on the highway

Growing up in the South, there are lots of words and phrases that have special meaning.  They give immediate "word pictures."  Say the phrase and you have a vivid picture in your mind.

One of these is the phrase "BOGGED DOWN."

The immediate picture in my head is of a 50's model car on a muddy unpaved road stuck up to it's axle in red Georgia mud. 

"Bogged down" means stuck.  A great car, meant for cruising the highway, but stuck where it is.  A vehicle for movement not going anywhere, kinda pitiful and pathetic.  Un-useful, unmoving, there in the mud.  Stuck.

I keep running into people who feel that they are "bogged down" in ministry, or "bogged down" in career, or "bogged down" in family and marriage.  Stuck.

And I have this amazing sense of empathy and concern that they are not living up to their God-given potential and are spending all their energy and all their time racing their engine, spinning their wheels, slinging the mud, but getting nowhere.  Except maybe deeper in the "bog."

They need help!

People who feel "bogged down" can't get out by themselves.  Somebody needs to be behind the wheel, foot on the gas giving energy from the front seat.  But somebody needs to get in the back and push!

As I've been moving toward certification as a Christian leadership coach, learning new things, developing new skills and beginning to coach "bogged down" people I see amazing things happen.

Seems like such a "God-thing" when you sense people drilling down into their hearts and situations to get out of the "bog" and back on the road.  Maybe a little dirtier from the experience, but moving down the highway!

I love being used by God!

Preparing for MICHIGAN

Just gimme some Gospel...

Just thinking this morning and I remembered a church back in the seventies that had as it's motto:

Anchored to The Book and Geared for the Times.

A wee bit corny, but at least expressing a sentiment that stuck in my mind for almost 40 years.  (40 years!)

And I keep thinking, are we really "anchored to The Book?"  And by that I'm concerned that we say we are, but even in saying that do we know what we mean? 

It's a hermeneutical problem.

We hold the Book as an authority - as a church and as a society. (After all President Obama swore to uphold the Constitution with his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible.  And apparently saying you will do something while actually touching a Bible means something...  Causes me to shrug.)

Perhaps our hermeneutical problem is all wrapped up in the term "Gospel."  It seems to me that running around between pulpit and pew, home and workplace, TV and Laz-e-boy, there are both "the Gospel of Jesus" and the "Gospel about Jesus."  Subtle distinction, but nonetheless, real. 

The "Gospel about Jesus" talks about who He was, what He did and said, and what that meant and means for us.  It has been compacted and formularized so that it can be told in an elevator, between floors.  It has incorporated short-hand phrases and idioms (like "born-again" and "rapture") so that it can be reproduced easily and quickly.  It seems to use caricatures of people, places and events. It is concerned about salvation and escape from hell, punishment and judgement. It's pretty much about another world; not this one.  It's pretty easy (sorta).  It's about what Jesus did.  Bang!  And that's basically The Book.  Anchor me here.

But then there's this pesky "Gospel of Jesus." It's hard to put into any A+B=C kinda formula.  It's illusive and complicated.  The "Gospel of Jesus" is more about who He is and the good news of how He ushered in a new world order in which we  - as Jesus-followers - participate.  Seems to be more about us entering into something, perpetuating something and being in this world to change this world.

The Gospel of Jesus (that Paul says he preached) is more about integrating who He is and what He practiced and taught into our lives.  And the taking His Gospel (after all it is the "Gospel of Jesus") in word and deed into the world.  Make sense?

The "Gospel of Jesus" is about proclaiming the extension of grace by feeding the poor, clothing the naked, loving the love-less, accepting the disenfranchised and fixing the broken.  The "Gospel of Jesus" is good news to anyone who listens.  This "Gospel of Jesus" is a pain in the ego; a hindrance to social advancement. 

Complicated.

But it seems to me that it's the kind of Book to which I can be anchored.

I probably shouldn't have even began writing about this, because I've only half-expressed my heart.  And answered none of my questions.  I'm sure I've kinda just muddied the waters and never explained what I mean. 

But I'm concerned that this Gospel, from this Book be real, relevant and reliable.  That the Story of the Book be told with compassion and power in it's complicated entirety.  And that seems to best be done in actions as the Gospel of Jesus.

And, hey!  Gimme a break.  It's in process.  I'm just trying to gear for the times...

Amen

Lord, I need a dream worth giving my life to.

I need a life worth waking up to each morning.

I need a mission bigger than me.

I want to believe for not only me, but also for this world.

Amen.

(A Prayer by Erwin McManus)

Are you finishing strong?

Sometimes we forget that falling is not the problem, cause we all fall.  In something; sometimes.  And failure is part of the human experience.  Just is.

But the important thing is that we get up!  We GET UP! 

Dadbobit!  We just get up.  We don't lay there and cry.  We don't pull an irrational I-didn't-make-it-onto-American Idol-but-my mama-said-I-could-sing (!) rant!

We get up.  And start all over again.  We just do!

Fearfully and wonderfully made! That would be us!

I'm doing a wee teaching seminar this weekend on BUILDING ON YOUR STRENGTHS - GOD MADE YOU AWESOME!

So here are some of my thoughts, sort of a pre-seminar taster...

• I've come to conclude that the Imago Dei is perhaps "bigger" in us as humans than we evangelicals have thought...
• God has created humanity - men and women - in his image and that image, though tarnished and cracked by sin and our ungodly environment (the world) is strong...
• (one author says we're "cracked eikons")
• We are often more conscious of our "fallen-ness" than our our innate strengths...
• We are mostly more concerned about weaknesses than we are strengths...
• We are afraid to recognize our strengths and therefore cannot actually build on them...
• We should use our strengths to manage our weaknesses... (I talked a little about this on Sunday at Harvest@5...)
• There are patterns in our life that display our strengths...

Anyway, it's two sessions - Friday night at 7PM and Saturday morning at 9.  We'll do this in the classroom at Globe International.

And I'm totally pumped!  God has truly made us awesome!

What would I do with the money?

Just so you know, today is my lucky day!

By email I have been informed that:

• I won the British lottery of GBP 3 million...
• I have been chosen to administrate $6,400,000.00 for charities and 30% of this is my fee for such administration... (humm, let me calculate that...)
• I won a $1000 IKEA gift card... (although I;m not sure where the nearest IKEA actually is...)
• And a $1000 Wal-Mart gift card...
• I can get 250 free business cards...
• I have won 5 Iphones from 5 different generous emailers...
• I can order 8 - yes I said 8 - Shamwows for just $19.95...
• I can shed pounds quick with Acai (Oprah swears by it, so I guess I should)...
• Someone in Holland, who is a Kenyan wants me to administrate the $9.5 million estate of the Saudi husband for 10%...
• I can grow other parts of my anatomy safely and inexpensively...
• I can  order printer ink from Nevada and save lots of money...
• Mrs. Marina Litvinenko, wife of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer who died in a London hospital after apparently being poisoned with the highly-toxic metal thallium by Mr Lugovoi,a Russian Government paid agent wants me to administrate $3.5 million, of which 65% will come to our ministry...

So, today is my lucky day! 

My biggest problem (besides finding a use for 8 Shamwows!) is finding time to do all this administrative work.  And how in the world did these people hear of my fantastic (and yet untapped!) administrative abilities?  Have they seen my desk?  Probably not.

It's not a problem of how I'd spend all that money!  Nope.  Remember, I'm a missionary and all that money is just a drop in the bucket for the vision and ideas I have for ministry!

Kinda like when somebody asked my Grandfather, "What would you do with a million dollars?" He scratched his head and said, "Well, I'd just keep farming til it was all used up!"

That's missionary thinking!  What would I do with all that money?  Just keep doing the same thing I'm doing... but I might buy a new pair of shoes and sit closer to the front in the airplane...