Often, competence sounds like the master of many elements and the ability to merge them together into one practice (like a doctor’s ability to know many cures). In spiritual theology, the adverse seems true: competence in spirituality is the mastery of one necessary thing (Luke 10) in order to enter into the many elements of life with the single necessity at the front of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Simply put: competence in the spiritual life is the capacity for a free flowing love of God expressed in prayer and work (or interaction with others and creation). Competence comes as being set free from the rule of anxiety, judgement of others, empty speaking, and other expressions of dead-living.

How do you nurture competence in spiritual theology?

Nurturing true life will always start with Jesus. Our first step in nurturing is to know Jesus; to live, we pursue the person of Jesus as the Gospels introduce him.

The slow introduction to Jesus will find us receiving an invitation to, “Come and follow.” Through obedience (the life lived by grace through faith in the person and works of Jesus), we will find ourselves entering the practice of willing (or seeing) only one necessary thing, which is the true reign and presence of our loving Father who intends to make all things new.

This awakening, which is nurtured only when we’re walking with Jesus and in the likeness of Jesus, will reveal to us our degree of “competence,” or rather, the degree that we truly are awake to the presence and reign of God in the present moment.

What is it about David Platt’s writing that allows him to turn, the “Pick up your cross and follow me,” of Jesus’ teachings into a national best seller? (I’m suspicious…) Or, to play the cynic, does he lure people in with an intriguing, difficult message and then deflate the call to follow, or completely toss the message aside?

Kudos to David Platt for sparking a healthy critique of the church; moderate examination is always a sign of health. One thing Follow Me strongly accomplished was encouraging the question, “Is my experience of Christianity the full picture of what Jesus brings?”

Follow Me amplifies this healthy critique from Platt’s earlier nationally resonant book, Radical. In Follow Me, Platt writes to reveal the who and how of “radical” Christian living.

In my reading, I discovered three healthy things and four unhealthy things from Follow Me.

• Follow Me brings the question: “Isn’t there supposed to be more than reading my Bible, going to church, and talking to people about Jesus? Jesus seems to ask more…”

• Platt spells out the reality and origin of God causing new life to take root within us (p. 18); he illustrates that people who come face to face with Jesus do experience change and their lives are called into something different from their surroundings. This is the sanctifying work of grace.

• Follow Me spells out the necessity of repentance and grace in our world (p.20), even though I think he missed the mark that God isn’t out to do something impressive or worthy of glory, but rather that it’s simply God’s nature to dive head-first into the brokenness (theology of Glory vs theology of the cross).

Side Note:

On the point of grace, when writing about the end-goal of grace, I believe Platt misses that grace isn’t about getting us to heaven, but about God bringing his justice into our world to make all things new, including you and me.

“If you and I know and believe that Jesus came to save us from hell for heaven, then we have no choice but to spend our lives on earth making that salvation known.” (p.87)

[There's no doubt that all who rely by grace through faith on the person of Jesus will forever and for always be in the loving presence of God; but there's also no biblical doubt that the goal isn't to "get out" of earth but rather enflesh God's work of justice and mercy as we work and pray, "Your kingdom come…"]

Here are the elements of Follow Me that I felt missed the mark:

• For a book about following Jesus, there was very little Jesus of the Gospels; Platt provided little Gospel narrative clarity on who you were going to follow, and what it looks like from a Gospels-perspective to follow. Readers were inundated with the necessity substitutionary atonement theory and the old evangelical adage: “Because Jesus did that, you should just follow, just follow.”

• Follow Me had no connection of Jesus or discipleship to the present reign of God (which Mark’s Gospel explicitly states is “the Gospel”, Mark 1:15). As I wrote above, Platt’s starting point is a handful of preconceived doctrines (albeit biblical) rather than a biblical, Gospel narrative. He uses doctrinal bullet points rather than the story of Jesus to try to speak about discipleship.

• There was very little direction for ordinary discipleship; Platt’s litter of extraordinary missionary stories was deflating and felt grandiose (almost boastful). Plus, such adventures are markedly different than incarnational moving in with a people to share in the Gospel as a way of life, rather than the Gospel as a package to deliver.

• Platt concludes Follow Me by inviting the reader into a very personal, though personally shared with others who are also on their personal faith journey, “following” program of: reading your Bible more, going to church more, and evangelizing more, with an ending caveat to encourage others to be disciples (of which Platt focuses little attention in his book).

Platt’s conclusion, by my deduction, is that when people ask the above, “Isn’t there more…” he says, “No, not really.”

But can you blame him? He’s excelled at drawing people into a large megachurch in Alabama; what Platt does well is getting people to do the normal church thing. Why would he want to critique that legacy and impressive success (by some standards) and say, “I think we’ve missed something…” There’s a lot of risk for him in that.

My final thoughts:

Platt does provide the gift of a great question in Follow Me as he invites people to entertain the thought that discipleship is missing in a lot of the church today. But, I don’t feel Platt’s answers take us in the best direction; while his examples are helpful and sentimental at times, I don’t think we can provide a healthy path of Christian discipleship if our noses aren’t buried in the Gospel stories and from that experience asking with people in our community, “How do we live this life that Jesus came to bring?” …all this of course starts with the gracious embrace of God, which is what Platt tried hard to underscore.

My feel is that this book only makes sense for a comfortable audience who knows little of brokenness on the systemic level and who is numb to identity behind the national capital system and this is sent searching for a greater brand for fulfillment. You don’t read this book in an inner city church for a church study, you’d be ashamed to bring it up, mostly because Platt all but ignores the “good news” of God’s gracious justice which intends to restore all things.

Finally, discipleship and dying to self from Platt felt like a self makeover and augmentation as Platt writes not about the loss of self but the enlargement of self as self discovers through Platt’s book how to become part of the greatness and find fulfillment in the completion of self.

So, where would I point you if I wouldn’t recommend Follow Me?

• Read the Four Gospels
• Read Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship (I’m baffled at how Platt wrote a modern book on discipleship with only one mention to Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship)
• Read Dallas Willard’s The Great Omission or The Divine Conspiracy.
• Read this hidden treasure with the same title as Platt’s book: Follow Me by Luke Kammrath.

The black and white film
projected
on the portable building’s
white tin wall
as we swam in
the delightful sea of diversity.
Languages waved;
my soul heard
that silence is best
with a stranger’s smile.

Carmella, Arturo’s mom, was at the school when Jude and I arrived; she was holding Selena and later asked me to keep an eye on Arturo during the trip. I say I will. She walks over to Arturo and he gives his mother and baby sister a kiss.

The bus ride:
Jude was nervous and teared up when I didn’t get on the bus with him right away; he had his heart set on us riding together. His emotion is free flowing, and that’s a gift, though I hope it doesn’t cause him pain later.

Jude and I eventually sit together and smile at one another as I hold his hand.

The zoo is packed with preschool students and families. Our group, led by Jude’s teachers Karen, Julie, and Debbie, sticks close together as we adventure toward “Africa.” We had our hearts set on the lions who were sleeping on rocks when we got there. As they say, the journey is made by walking.

Arturo enjoyed climbing on top of things and saying, “Uude, come here! A picture,” as I got my phone ready to snap. The peace sign is a favorite of Arturo’s.

I ended up as the pack leader, occasionally talking with Essence’s mother who pushed Essence in a stroller and Leo’s mother who pushed him in a stroller too. Essence and Leo (pronounced “Ley-Oh”) are the ones slated to inherit the earth in Jude’s class.

Essence is a beautiful, smiley African American girl who loves it when her class friends come make her smile (a favorite activity of Jude). Essence can walk, sort of, but her little walk, though confident, is unstable; she nonchalantly misses chairs and plops on the ground with the quick, recoiled determination to make that chair work for her.

Leo is a young Latino boy whom Jude has befriended since the start of the school year. Leo smiles a beautiful smile and warms our hearts when he talks with two sticks he holds in his hands; he sings that way too. He moves his sticks around and waves them and the people who know him know exactly what he means. I just marvel and smile.

We traveled a fast pace to and from Africa; the little legs of our troop were too excited with each new animal to notice how tired they were until they relaxed on the bus later.

Lunch time was a big favorite for the kids. I helped open bags of carrots and milk cartons. When the kids started letting plastic bags float in the wind, I ran to catch them. They discovered this could make a fun game; I could tell that in their giggles, yet I was spared the game by God’s grace; the kids just stopped letting their bags float away.

One mother and father noticed I didn’t bring a lunch. Knowing little English, she motioned to me when I wandered close their way. She pointed at a bread sack and said, “You?”

“Me?” I asked.

She pointed the bag’s opening my way and I reached in, not really sure what I was going to pull out, but soon discovering there were a bunch of sandwiches in there wrapped in napkins. They were stacked back in the bag like bread you buy from the store.

“Thanks!” I said with a smile as she opened a cooler with Orange Crush. I nodded at her husband to say thanks to him too.

This was my first sandwich with ham, jalapeño, avocado, and tomato, plus a white substance that I couldn’t tell what it was; it was round like a piece of provolone cheese but crumbly like feta. I had never had it before. The jalapeños were a hidden surprise in the sandwich that helped me appreciate the gift of the Orange Crush.

We wandered to the busses after a little more exploring after lunch. The kids were getting tired and the teachers were feeling the kid’s lowered energy. I was glad my only charge was to watch after Jude and Arturo (a request I made of Karen on Carmella’s hinted request that morning).

The kids talked about wishing they’d seen an armadillo at the zoo as we drove home. Giraffes and the hippo were nice though too.

Why wouldn’t I want my family to be in a school where you can see resurrection happen every day? Resurrection life truly comes as a constant surprise, an unexpected gift, like springtime leaves that come from nowhere.

…

*Catching Fire, Becoming Flame* is a helpful, accessible book that addresses the question of how to intentionally lay down your life for spiritual renovation. His chapters are short, the end of chapter questions go right to the heart.

The “problem” Haase address is the lack of awareness of how to engage life with God. Often we hear about forgiveness and the possibility of life with God, but we’re often left wondering how to step into it. Haase’s book is a collection of steps that one could take to practice paying attention to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit does renovation work on our souls (in the Spirit’s own good time).

The book progresses in an increasing path of attentiveness and intentionality. It starts with a basic invitation into life with God – the kind of life you work to pay attention to in order to pour into the relationship. Toward the end, the practices and questions Haase writes are along the level of a very deep relationship. I compare this to how a couple who has been married for 30 years might talk and share life as compared to kids on their third date.

The most impactful phrase I felt Haase offered was, “Without a sense of mission, godly enthusiasm fizzles into bogus piety.” (p.7) The goal, I appreciated, is to get caught up in life with God through the imitation of Christ. Instead of a “make me feel excited about my personal relationship with Jesus,” Haase directs the soul toward mission, toward being “little Christ’s” for the world around us – always assured of God’s presence and love.

*Catching Fire, Becoming Flame,* is an excellent book for small groups, spiritual friendships, and even personal prayer and journaling. Haase provides a lot to think about and appreciate. It’s also the kind of book you don’t pick up and anticipate putting fully into practice all at once; it’s more of a handbook of available ideas to enter into when needed and desired.

The sensation I began to feel was the loss of a mentor, even though he and I never had a conversation. I do remember walking beside him and saying, “Hello,” two years ago at the first “Aprentis” event in Wichita; we were waiting in the Hyatt lobby to travel to Friends University. We said a cordial, warm hello in passing with a smile. Later I held the door for him at the top of the Friends University chapel and main building staircase. We said hello again. …that was the closest I got to the man.

[That Renovare, Aprentis event in Wichita was deeply formative for me. I still carry the Benedictine short breviary I discovered there on occasion and think of Friends University and smile.]

It was Dallas’ books that have left the most riveting impact. I remember the stark emotion and revelation that swept over me when I read The Great Omission in Holdrege, NE. I remember the late afternoon light when I would often finish the last minutes of the day with a chapter. I was swept into the meaning, the implications. “Good grief,” I would pause, “We don’t know Jesus or ‘the gospel.’”

Dallas’ words have contained for me a balance of wisdom, spiritual renovation, and awareness of the ordinary. It was from him (and Eugene Peterson) that I learned the grace of “normal life,” that folks are meant to imitate Jesus in the here and now situations they find themselves in.

I also remember from him the role of the Gospels – that you can’t know freedom if you don’t know Jesus and you can’t know Jesus if you don’t know the Gospels.

And of course, the role of the Spiritual Disciplines in the formative work of the soul – not as earning formation, but elements for placing oneself in the arms of God’s Holy Spirit for renovation.

I brought my highlighted copy of The Great Omission home tonight. I hope to read my old highlights and revisit the grace Dallas has been for me. I also hope to pause in a vigil of sorts, thanking God for Dallas’ work for me and for the Church and world. I have been blessed to see many people resonate with Dallas’ works like I have; meeting or hearing about such folks always brings the kind of smile that comes when you meet someone with a common affinity.

The last thought that sweeps over me tonight is remembering a thought that came over me not too long ago, a thought that asked, “What will it be like to lose a guy like Eugene Peterson or Dallas Willard to age or illness?” I was bracing myself then for wondering who I would trust theologically next. Both of these guys have left their mark on my soul, by God’s grace, and I will miss Dallas – and the anticipation of a new work or word from him.

I believe much of our culture (especially the western religion which cannot be labeled as “Christianity” due to lack of association) believes that the more impressive an item must be, the more life it must contain. I believe wisdom is the opposite of this: the more life something contains ought to reshape and redefine what we find impressive.

The big, numinous, powerful, and attractional are impressive in our culture; we often associate these things with vitality. We pursue these abstractions in our religious salesmanship.

Wisdom, however, is more frequently discovered in their antonyms. Wisdom is found like a pearl in a large field, happened upon like a mustard seed, and seen within the face of the vulnerable.

In light of this, I also believe that there are fewer than we imagined among us who have met Christians who pursue Jesus and wisdom. Some among us are blessed to have met such folks; when asked to describe these individuals, the Beatitudes feel to be about the only helpful descriptors. …either that these folks are living icons of the Beatitudes and the Great Sermon or that they are visibly seen as practicing the way of life (wisdom) found within.

It is the likeness of these kinds of folks that we ought to pursue. Doing so will usher in an era of Christian growth, rather than numerical expansion of the western religion. Doing so will find us walking in wisdom and life rather than constantly discovering our feet mired in the political clout and fight of attracting and selling a project of western religion imperialism (a religion that carries the name “Jesus” but not the biblical person found in the four Gospels).

Book by Burns, Chapman, & Guthrie

Ministry life is often idealized as a warm, simple way of life that helps others get caught up in the same as we walk in Christ together. That’s at least one ideal. I bet you can imagine others.

What’s been discovered is that the ideals held in ministry often clash with expectations others hold. This obviously causes friction which at times leads ministers to look for other things to do instead of traditional, church ministry.

We’ve been hearing alarms signaling this friction for a while now and we’ve been looking for ways to bring healing to it.

The book Resilient Ministry by Burns, Chapman, and Guthrie, (IVP), is going to be a helpful tool for individuals, staffs, and professional church worker groups. The book is designed to start dialog on the clash between ideals and expectations and through dialog (or personal meditation), health and restoration can take place.

Resilient Ministry begins with the great ideal-uncovering question, “What is ‘excellence?’” The authors say that excellence isn’t success by the standards (spoken or not) held around you, and it isn’t bare faithfulness – a stick it out-ness that hopes for smoother waters. Success, they say, is fruitfulness, which they define as, “[leaders] sharing their faith and nurturing the fruit of God’s grace in their own lives and in the lives of others.” (p.13)

The natural, next question comes: “How do we do that and do it with vitality and resilience?”

Here, the authors target five areas they label as necessary for leadership resilience in fruitful ministry. They say ministers and leaders need to work on these items first for themselves and then for the people around them:

1.) Spiritual Formation

2.) Self-Care

3.) Emotional and Cultural Intelligence

4.) Marriage and Family

5.) Leadership and Management

The remainder of the book is a well-balanced writing of research, personable examples, and conversation provoking questions that I believe will help individuals and groups process the question of resilience and health in their ministries. This will then, as the book’s thesis goes, help ministers be fruitful in the process of growing in grace.

I enjoyed reading and thinking through the questions myself. I also think that this book would fit very well in ministry peer gatherings or for church staffs. The questions alone provide excellent material to clarify ideals, expectations, and the necessities for nurturing fruitfulness.

Initial question:
Will the notes and guided prayer in this book help me pause and dwell with the Lord through the text? Through my day?

—

Answer: a resounding Yes.

The NRSV Daily Bible is a read-the-Bible-in-a-year devotional Bible that helps the reader pause and dwell on what they’ve just read – which helps bridge the gap between reading out of a sense of devotion and reading to engage the life of prayer. The goal of the Bible is to train the reader in the wonderful, simple practice of lectio divina (reading the Bible in conversation with God in prayer).

Each day’s reading of Scripture is very manageable though longer than a typical devotional book (generally only a few short verses). The excellence of this Bible is the collection of quotes from various Christian devotional classics (ancient and modern) that are paired with each day’s Scripture reading. The devotional classics are connected with well-phrased questions that have been very helpful for propelling me into prayer and journaling.

Finally, the “win” of this Bible is that it helps the reader stretch beyond collecting more and more information about God. The “win” is that the reader is aided in praying, wrestling with, and dwelling with God.

#Books

[Enter your thought here.]

Here’s why I ask:

The essence of grace has been something I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. I’m working through the jumble I’ve inherited from all over: dear friends, theologians I admire, and cliche that’s magnetized to my conscience (as I view it in hindsight).

I believe my concoction is confused, but what’s most perplexing is how I feel I have so many answers for such a simple (and essential) question.

I wonder, “Why the diversity?”

The most vibrant answer from hindsight is this: God looks at us with “rose colored glasses” and no longer sees our sin, but instead, only sees Jesus’ righteousness.

I’ll cut to the chase and share where I’m at:

“Rose colored glasses” is not grace.

Grace does not cover up sin but transforms both sin and the sinner.

Grace is not God looking the other way but rather looking right at you and me right in our depravity and saying, “I love you and I will not overlook or pretend to do a magic trick in front of you that distracts you from the reality that you are stuck in sin, in dead-end living. I love you – and though you will pour your most fierce contempt and rejection toward me (as you continue to participate in crucifying me) I will say, ‘I love you even when you don’t know what you’re doing.’ I will not leave you and will not let you stay here; I have found you and I intend to bring you into the life of a new era.”

The transformation happens as God’s Spirit begins to cultivate new life within us and we begin walking in the way of Jesus. Life isn’t a display of perfection but the container of vitality.

…and it’s grace (a gift) because we’re found in the muck of our habits and secrets not by a happen-stance God who just sort of sees us there, but by a deliberate, incarnational God who has come searching for someone who has already rejected God’s ways and God’s reign.

Why not the rose glasses?

I am connected with my decisions, both good and bad – they are extensions of who I am (for good and bad). And to say that God puts on blinders is to say that God doesn’t see you or me but sees some fairy-tale imagining, some projection of what he would prefer to see but can’t really if he looks at the real us.

We know that’s not like Jesus and we know that Jesus is the vitality of God.

More that me being seen or not seen, though, is that if God is wandering around with baptism-infused, rose-colored glasses, then can he see the pain my unjust actions cause so he can undo them (and bring justice for both me and my neighbor – a setting back to right, if you will)? What about mercy (since mercy always comes with justice – you can’t have one without the other)?

So then: the great gift of Grace is God’s ability to fully see us as we are and for God to still have the impulse and desire to pull us from the mire we’re in toward the imitation of his Son, Jesus.

And that, the imitation of Jesus without prohibition, is the vitality of “salvation.” To be caught up in the free imitation of Jesus is to contain new life, life of a new era, and to “know God.” This only happens on God’s initiative. God in Trinity fashion is our savior – our king, our savior, our renovative artist.

[I wonder how our answers relate.]