Faith

Listening to Psalm 85 recently, the title phrase to this post jumped out at me as a beautiful metaphor for a time when God and his people are in a state of harmony:

8 I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying,
      for he speaks peace to his faithful people.
      But let them not return to their foolish ways.
9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
      so our land will be filled with his glory.

10 Unfailing love and truth have met together.
      Righteousness and peace have kissed!
11 Truth springs up from the earth,
      and righteousness smiles down from heaven.
12 Yes, the Lord pours down his blessings.
      Our land will yield its bountiful harvest.
13 Righteousness goes as a herald before him,
      preparing the way for his steps.

(New Living Translation)

A difficult question is how should a Christian engage her culture.  From opposite sides, Jim Wallis and James Dobson are two guys who are out there wielding power and influence to try to shape the course of political debate.  My distaste for Dobson is well documented.

Politics aside, for me personally it's a question I wonder about.  What's the best way for me to engage those around me...and the news about what Christianity means to most young people these days is also on my mind:

Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label.

A new book based on research by the California-based research firm The Barna Group found that church attitudes about people in general and gays in particular are driving a negative image of the Christian faith among people ages 16-29.

When I listened to the following passage recently, it jumped out at me.  Paul's advice to the Thessalonians about engaging non-Christians is interesting and may be the same advice that we need today:

“11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

- 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

God has created a masterpiece.  What do you think it is?  This passage jumped out at me the other day in the One Year Bible-on-Radio podcast:

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Eph. 2:8-10 New Living Translation

I'm no fan of labels like liberal and conservative...not in politics, religion, wherever. Still, they're often kind of hard to avoid...because it does feel feel like theres something about people such that, on the surface at least, do tend to fall in one of two camps, whatever you choose to call them. Denise Gellene describes what that something is in the LA Times article titled "Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain":

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information. Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

It's kind of funny what the actual study was...a fairly simple game involving either typing or not typing a letter on a keyboard when it appeared on a monitor.

Based on the results...liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results. "Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."

On Sunday mornings this summer our church had a series of surprise testimonials during class time on Sunday mornings. It was partially modeled after something Lisa's church used to do on Wednesday nights when she was growing up. This is how I explained it when I asked people to participate:

Each Sunday a different member will give a surprise testimonial. The person will basically tell his/her life story...his background, how he grew up, what she does for a living, how he came to follow Christ, etc. Though not essential, the speaker is encouraged to highlight any spiritual insights/decision points/transitions that she has arrived at during her journey. If you're comfortable doing so, please also spend some time discussing any struggles that you consider to have been your toughest moments; for example, addictions, marriage difficulties, financial struggles, challenges in raising children, loss of loved ones, etc.. Since you're the world's leading expert on the subject of your talk (you and your life), it shouldn't require too much planning or preparation...maybe just a little thinking about what the main events and thoughts will be. If the audience is curious about anything, they can ask. You can answer or not. You'll have about 30 to 40 minutes. If you don't use all the available time, that's OK...the remainder will be spent as social time. This is intended to accomplish a couple things: 1) The more we know about each other and our backgrounds and struggles, the tighter our bond to each other will be. The more we'll be comfortable leaning on each other and depending on each other as together we follow Christ. The less likely we'll be to succumb to divisions when difficulties arise. A few of us may know everything about everybody, but most of us don't. Some of us are relatively new. Some of us have been here a while but still may not know some people as well as we'd like to know them. 2) To the extent that we can be more open and sharing about our struggles in the past, we make ourselves available to minister to someone else who is going through something similar now. Maybe someone is struggling in their relationship with God right now because she has a spouse that pulls her in a very different direction. Maybe you've been through the same thing in the past and could really minister to her effectively...but you don't know that she has that struggle and she doesn't know that you've been through a similar situation...so she doesn't know that you're the person she needs to talk to. Perhaps we can use this summer of surprise testimonials to make some of those connections.

It turned out pretty great. Folks seemed to really like it. I definitely did. I had I little trouble getting people to agree to do it. I'd say maybe a half to a third of the people I asked agreed to speak. I missed a couple of weeks on vacation, but all of the speakers I saw did a great job.

• Someone told the church for the first time that he was/is suffering from prostate cancer.
• Someone described his continuing struggle with OCD.
• Someone described being in a mentally and physically abusive marriage
• Someone described how she responded with hope when her son was shot and killed
• Someone described how he felt on the day he participated in failed effort to rescue people on the Edmund Fitzgerald
• Someone described how he felt awkward and out of place growing up until he finally found his niche in college.
• Someone confessed to excessive drinking and to using drugs in college
• Someone else confessed to using and selling drugs as a teenager
• Someone described how she dealt with having a husband who suddenly began refusing to go to church and refusing to talk about it
• More than one person mentioned his discomfort when he's having a beer at a restaurant and sees someone from church (since he doesn't know for sure what the "rules" are related to that).

It was exactly what I had in mind. I think I'll try to make it a recurring summertime series...if enough people will agree to speak.