July 12, 2007

For several years now, I’ve been given the great privilege of doing summer study breaks at the beach. My daily routine starts at about 6:30 a.m. with running, worship, reading, and thinking. I’ll stick at this til about 4 p.m. each day with eyes, ears, and heart open to ideas God may want to implant into my soul. I can’t think of one year when God didn’t show me challenging, convicting, and applicable principles that need attention in my life and leadership. This year has been no exception.
It takes a bit of planning for all this to unfurl the way I’ve come to expect. I usually try to find our rental in the early Spring, and then I begin gathering books, ideas, CD’s, and other aids to make my time away as productive as possible.
I’m always amazed how God weaves things together to paint a very clear picture each year I have done this. Again, God’s Word belts out truth because we are promised that when we draw close to God, He draws close to us. God gets intense when we get intentional.
I don’t believe I had a premeditated scheme on how this year’s study break books would mesh, but they have. I saw “Simple Church” on Amazon.com, and thought it would be another great read from Rainer. “Blue Like Jazz” had been on my shelf for sometime, and for an equal amount of time, guys back at the office like Joe & Jeremy have talked positively about this culturally edgy work from Donald Miller. Barna’s “Revolution” had been mentioned by some former staff members back in Indiana. I had already read “Confessions of a Reformission Rev” by revolutionist Mark Driscoll, but threw it somewhat mindlessly in my black bag just before leaving for break. I didn’t think I would ever get to it… but now only have one last chapter to re-read tomorrow. God has used all of these randomly picked books to speak, clarify, and give voice to much I have been feeling and wrestling with.
Additionally, Oswald Chamber’s (My Utmost For His Highest) daily readings have had a unique way of blending in nicely and divinely to the other books as well.
During this study break, my time in Psalms has helped me stay real, raw, and expressive to God with my prayer, worship, and journaling times. I don’t think I’ve read through the Psalms like this before. It has been extremely beneficial to read the Psalms and know that I’m not the only spiritual yo-yo out there. I have personally and painfully related to the many songs. I have been able to pray better. I trust God has understood me and that I have understood God.
I also love how God points me to and teaches me through ordinary things like water bottles, sunrises, my kids, seaweed, sand sculptures, boogie boards, life guards, people fishing, and people parading around on the beach in basically their underwear. I think it’s incredibly cool when the lines between sacred and secular get fuzzy, and yet you see God more clearly.
Today was Morgan’s … my new nine-year-old … birthday. She wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie as part of her big celebration. As a pastor who has been confronted on subjecting my kids to previous J.K. Rowling flicks, I had absolutely no problem seeing this new one. With each of the other Potter books and films, I have been able to have great conversations with my kids about real, spiritual, God things. “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix” had even more talking points to engage my kids with. Immediately after this exhilarating 2-hour cinematic ride, we talked about really cool things like the absolute importance of community, the choices we make with light and darkness, and love. During this study break, my kids have been working on memorizing I Corinthians 13, and Harry Potter displayed much of what they had committed to memory. Truth in Harry Potter? Yep. Outside the church walls? Yep. God’s there too. Finding God and truth outside the walls of a local church, and having dialogue that represents BEING the church in an oblivious culture is exactly what and how I want to teach my kids. Sounds simple. Revolutionary like.
As a part of Morgan’s study break birthday bash, she also wanted to go down to the local arcade after dinner. She loves this place. All games are just 25 cents. I use to go to this same arcade when I was Morgan’s age. The games were 25 cents back in 1969 when I had turned nine. At this particular arcade, there’s not a lot of frill, or bells and whistles, or flash, or even air-conditioning … but this beach arcade sure is fun. We blew our way through fifteen dollars worth of quarters, but got 640 tickets to buy amazing-but-completely-useless junk and trinkets. After we ran out of quarters, Lauren and I began subversively checking coin slots for Tim LaHaye quarters… those left-behind. This is something every cheap pastor teaches their second born. Man we had fun… and I think the kids enjoyed it too! Isn’t that the point? Fun.
I also noticed how the other fancier, more-expensive arcades across the street had a lot more going on, but a whole lot less people going in.
All of this sounds strangely familiar to me. Related to the church, isn’t this what I’ve been reading about? So many churches have lost their purpose and focus by being so complex, busy, and “successful.” There is a spiritual hunger for intentional simplicity. Getting back to the basics of the mission of Jesus. Isn’t that the point, after all? Jesus.
Oswald writes in today’s reading: “The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of it’s own organization.
See what I mean about study break? God weaves and threads and cements and meshes… in very cool, clear ways.
Oh… and one more thing from today. As I was running this morning, I went back to some old-school Tommy Walker worship --- “Live At Home.” The next to last song on this album is a tune called “Amen.” I love this song. We use to sing it back in IN with a full band and mass praise choir. We rocked on this song.
As I ran, I turned up my Ipod a bit more when “Amen” began to play. I have listened to this song hundreds of times before, but something new rang in between my ears. I had never heard this before. Tommy Walker was playing and then said, “I’m gonna let someone else sing…” I was surprised to soak in some unbelievable vocals by a guy I have been recently getting to know and who has been attending Cumberland for the past eight months. How cool was this! Just a little something for me and my silly jogging goose bumps. It felt like God was putting his own “Amen” on my heart, my thoughts, and my ideas as this study break comes to a close. Amen. I agree. So be it.
Tomorrow will bring one more final day. I’ll write one more blog... and I’m anticipating how God will allow me to summarize and pull the past two weeks into one, God-created direction.