Eye opening exercise

I've gotten through the actual reading of Max Lucado's Cure for the Common Life and am now working through the "Sweet Spot Discovery Guide" at the back of the book. It's an interesting exercise designed to make you think back through your life to the things that you did well and enjoyed doing. First, you just write a brief summary of a few of those things from your childhood, youth, and adulthood. Then, you expand on them with more detail, including what was the most satisfying aspect of the experience. I've not gotten any further than that, but just this has made some things more clear than they were before I started.

Do you know what I recalled as I thought back through my life's sweet spot experiences? When I was in grade school, I would write books, complete with illustrations, for a friend of mine. (She did the same for me.) This love of putting something together and sharing it has not been something that only goes as far back as junior high school. (I started down the road to true yearbook geekdom in junior high and went on to become editor of my high school and college yearbooks.) This is a thread that has been there throughout my life. Homemade books. Yearbooks. Family websites. Scrapbooks. Keepsake books. Calendars. Sermons. Blogs.

So, now to finish these exercises, pray and figure out how God wants me to deploy the gifts He gave me for His glory. (It sounds easier than it is, but at least I'm thinking.)

A disclaimer

I started a new lunchtime book today. The book is Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado. I have to admit, it's not my usual sort of read.

Here's the thing I don't like about this type of book: scripture fishing. These sorts of self-help books will dive into scripture, choosing from many, many different translations, to find a snippet that will fit the particular point the author is making. I'm not crazy about this because scripture is contextual and pulling a verse or half a verse out of context and smashing it into a pretty three step list of how to be a better Christian isn't really the point, is it? I am not saying that the author was trying to manipulate his readers with scripture, by the way. I'm just saying I'm not fond of this particular genre of Christian writing.

However, I have read a few such books before (The Purpose Driven Life anyone?). And, I do think this one will make me think about what my gifts are and how I should be deploying them in the world as God intended.

In fact, today after reading a few chapters, I was asking myself a few questions:

Why did God make me so good at what I do for a career if that career occupies so much of my time that I have had to turn down the opportunities to assist my local church with the same sort of work? (Trust me here, reader. I am not working alot because I'm trying to have a high-powered career. I'm working alot because I can't seem to do otherwise and keep my job.)

Why do I feel that, despite being gifted in these areas, these gifts aren't what God gave me to serve His kingdom with? How can that be right? Am I just not grateful for what He has given? Am I trying to run from the gift by trying to serve my church in other ways, such as teaching?

Get out there

In the concluding chapter of The Jesus of Suburbia, Mike Erre writes:

The most common (and powerful) objections to faith are no longer intellectual, per se, but rather are moral in nature. In other words, the predominant questions culture was asking fifty years ago were intellectual questions: Has evolution disproved creation? Does God exist? Can miracles happen? What are the proofs for the resurrection of Christ?

Erre points out that, in response, the Christian community responded by focusing on answering these questions through apologetics. Today, however, the main consumers of apologetic books and studies are those within the church who are seeking to strengthen their faith. It's not the outsiders and the outsiders aren't even asking these questions anymore. I know that I have read (and am reading) lots of apologetics. These are all great for enhancing my understanding of Jesus but, in thinking about my earlier post about how we tend to box Jesus into the little bit that we udnerstand, I think that my focus in this area has led to me doing just that: boxing Him in because of all I THINK I understand.

Erre continues:

Today's challenges to followers of Jesus come in an increasingly moral form. Why can't two gay men who love each other marry? What is wrong with experimenting on stem cells harvested through aborted fetuses? How can Christians claim that their religion is the only correct one and that everyone else is damned to hell? In all of these debates, the Christian position is typically portrayed as the least moral position!

I have to step out here and admit that I have fallen victim to this exact thought process. Isn't it more loving and just to be tolerant of these things? All of those thorny issues aside, Erre points out that what is missing today is a good, solid demonstration by Christians of the way Jesus ministered to people: by serving and loving people.

This past Sunday, the district superintendent preached a particularly biting sermon on issues such as these. He pointed out that there are churches that spend a lot of time and energy on a one week mission trip to a third world country while each and every week those same church members drive past people in need on their way to church. I think this is the point being made. Someone once said (I believe it was Phillip Yancey) that the people that the church will travel halfway around the world to help wouldn't be welcome through the front door of the church if they showed up there.

In short, churches have become very inward focused. Jesus told us to go out into the world and preach the good news.

The world is out there...not already in the church building.