Discipleship

Prayer of the People, 29 May 2020

June 1, 2020 0 Comments

Heavenly Father,

By your costly grace we have been drawn into your communion — the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our faith has found a resting place. We rest in you. In you we are restored and refreshed.

In you we have received a new vision for life and godliness.

Yet, we must not close our eyes like Jonah on the boat to Tarshish. You keep inviting us to see with you, and join you in the realities of life. Though we may run from You, You can locate us. Though we close our eyes you can wake us. Though we speak with guile in our hearts you can accomplish your Word.

Oh, gladly in Christ, we surrender ourselves to your sovereignty. Your Spirit keeps pouring His love and so in the fierceness of your love and justice we would move. We set our faces with Jesus towards the cities of your calling and our cross.

Fortify our hearts with your love. Establish the work of our hands Oh Lord.

We lift up to you our friends at the Athens Ministry Centre in Greece. Encourage them and create lighthouses of love across the world along their networks of friendship and family.

We lift up to you our friends in the Association of Christian Clubs at UBC. Deepen the conviction of students for the brilliance of Jesus and grant them courage for trusting you in every good work. 

We lift up to you our friends in 24-7 Prayer in Vancouver and across Canada. Thank you for those who keep watch in the night and in places overlooked in order to minister in your name.

Oh Lord we love you and ask you to give us wisdom. The days are evil; we would understand your will. Even as our buildings and halls may be empty we plead that our fellowship would not be empty of your Spirit, truth and grace. Fill us with your Spirit. Fill us with your Word. Fill us with your songs!

We need you in every arena of life, so we pray as Jesus taught us: (Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for yours is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.   
Amen.

Discipleship, Prayer

Wait and Listen

May 14, 2020 0 Comments

What is your smaller world of interaction teaching you?

Some of you may have discovered a neglected discipline as your world has become smaller during the pandemic. Maybe you have cooked more, baked more, practiced an instrument more, gardened more, or perhaps you have rested. But my guess is that the discipline of waiting and listening for Jesus’ voice has not become “easier.” I pray that we would all be given grace to increase our capacity to listen to Jesus. If we don’t, we will miss out on so much joy.

John the Baptist’s life is full of so many discipleship lessons for the followers of Jesus. When his disciples are all stirred up by comparison and jealousy John responds with contentment, jubilation and joy.

His contentment had been nurtured through surrender and faithfulness.

He says, “A person can only receive what is given them from heaven.” Without this surrender and perseverance in relationship to God John would not have had joy.

John’s joy has been nurtured through clarity and conviction.

He is clear about who He is and what is about. His identity flows from His relationship with God and the unique time in which He has been situated in God’s plan. John richly describes his relationship with Jesus, with himself, and his relationships with people and the stuff of earth through the metaphor of the wedding party. John says,

“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:29-30)

The Friend of the Groom

When you are part of the wedding part, the groom’s men or the bride’s maids you have certain responsibilities and roles to play. At the wedding the point of focus is not you; it’s the groom and bride. As the friend of the groom you are not trying to upstage him; you want to attend to his needs and to his purposes in loving, celebrating, and building up his bride.

John says he has been attending to Jesus, the Messiah. John has been waiting for Jesus. John has been listening for Jesus. And when Jesus speaks, John has joy. When the bride moves toward Jesus John celebrates and feels a sense of completion in his life.

Are you learning to wait on and listen for Jesus? Our joy is in hearing his voice and responding to Him in obedience.

Waiting and listening are not passive; they require attentive effort.

At at wedding celebration the friend of the groom may be seen sitting, walking, and standing. Sometimes he appears to be alone — but he may actually be on task for the groom. Sometimes he appears to be with the groom: sitting, walking, standing. Sometimes the friend of the groom may be attending to a need of the groom’s bride on the groom’s behalf. There is joy in all of it.

But all the activity has as its point of reference that the friend of the groom has been able to wait and to listen.

Even while active in mundane or once-in-a-lifetime tasks, the friend of the groom is mindful to listen for the groom’s voice.

This is John’s internal posture: attending to the voice of Jesus.

Is it yours?

You can nurture this kind of attention through:

daily surrender to Jesus.

daily openness to His Spirit filling you.

daily feeding on His Words and the stories of Jesus’ life.

daily mindfulness to His nudge drawing your attention to people so you can participate in what He is doing in their lives and yours.

celebrating the union of the Church with Jesus the Lamb of God!

Discipleship, Jesus, Leadership, Work

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Dandelion Discipleship Lessons

April 25, 2020 0 Comments

When it comes to church planting and student ministry I have always appreciated the dandelion, even if I don’t love it my yard. At least once a year I would pay my kids to clear these from the yard. 10 cents a plant if it included the roots. Some years I was shocked to see the pile of plants they created!

But when it comes to a metaphor, the dandelion is the ultimate for discipleship thinking.

Dandelion Discipleship Lessons

The dandelion will come up anywhere!
This clump is located in a yard full of gravel. 
So it is with disciples of Jesus!

The dandelion is bright and doesn’t mind being seen.
The yellow flower is unmistakeable.
So it is with disciples of Jesus!

The dandelion drives its root down deep.
The longer the plant is given liberty to reside in place, the deeper its roots will go to seek out sustenance.
So it is with disciples of Jesus!

The dandelion is highly committed to multiplication.
One plant can produce thousands of seeds.
So it is with disciples of Jesus!

The dandelion releases its seeds to the wind.
The seeds carry with them everything for doing it all again.
So it is with the Church of Jesus!

Hey — would you like to become a House Church Host? I’d love to connect with you. Email me: craig@craigobrien.ca

Church, Discipleship

Earth Day with Jesus

April 22, 2020 0 Comments

I remember learning to read blueprints. They were spread out on our the kitchen table and the four of us stood above them. I studied them meticulously. I was enthralled. Envisioning a house set into the mountain was fun and a family adventure. But then, it all came to a halt. 

A drunk contractor on an excavator toppled trees and tore an angry red strip across the land. My mother and father banned him from the scene. The contractor’s violence uncovered my parents’ values for the land.

The house was never built.

But a finer experience emerged from the pain. A wee camper redeemed from my uncle’s back yard was set back into the woods above the hole. The hole in the side of the mountain became a play-space preserved for years, even as the forest sought to reclaim it. My sister and I spent hours traipsing around this patch of earth. Camping, gardening, and working with my family in this space without the confines of a house was an unexpected gift. Besides learning the joy of smores, I learned to anticipate the fingerprints of God in everything.

The stuff of earth came alive for me.

I have grown up in North America where Christians have not appeared to be on the front lines of “earth” initiatives. The stereotype of Christian capitalistic consumption is built on a narrative of dispensational nihilism: The stuff of earth will burn; it will all dissolve like snow; so, let’s be powerful and eat drink as much as we can and be merry while we can; Jesus is Lord. Really? I don’t really know anyone who believes all this so neatly but it’s attributed to us.

Some Christians may be raving industrialists pressing for the consumption of as much as possible in a most expedient manner. Many have been baptized into Jesus and hope to do good with what they make. Making money is turned into a “holy” pursuit and it’s draped in a perverted form of puritan work ethic. Other Christians who also reside in “Babylon,” have been quietly and steadily pressing for the conservation of the land, air, and water because they see  stewardship as a moral imperative flowing out of a life of loving God and loving people with Jesus.

American Christian discipleship built on the Roman Road, the Bridge Illustration, or even Three Circles has had to labour hard to recover all four dimensions of relational Christianity. The way one comes to Jesus in the Gospel preached seems to create a trajectory of blindspots. Some of us don’t see the earth and the connections between Jesus and what we build, drive, and eat. If Jesus is just good for life-after-death insurance, then we can live as best we see fit on earth secure in the hopes of mansions here and mansions there.

I believe Jesus saves us in all our relationships. A four dimensional and relational discipleship presents salvation as participation in the life of Jesus the King in all our relationships. His kingdom includes the “heavens” and the earth. We live with anticipation for the new heaven and new earth. People, lovingly created by God, have for four relationships — with God, with self, with people, and with the stuff of earth (or the cosmos) as we participate in the communion of God — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A thorough reading of the Old and New Testaments presents a cosmic conflict into which Creation is cast; it is finished in Christ at the Cross but is not yet finished in Creation as the agents of the conflict still seek to diminish the glory of God in all creation while God is patient.


Theologies of discontinuity disconcert me. Justification by faith is not meant to be a theology of discontinuity. Yet, if we unhitch any consequential implications for life “here” with Jesus with life “there” with Jesus then what we do and what anyone does in their lifetime doesn’t really matter and a whole slew of passages and parables are trivialized. This disconnection leaves our relationship with the stuff of earth behind. Grace is not a theology of disconnection. Grace in the Gospel is a theology of connection. The Gospel presses us to respond to God by wisely stewarding our common ground. Jesus is good news for all our relationships — our relationship with God, with self, with people, and with the stuff of earth.

It’s the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. It’s been part of my life for almost all of my life. I regularly read some followers of Jesus being critical of and fearful of association with the day. Of course Earth Day matters to folks for a whole lot of reasons and with a whole lot of spiritual frameworks undergirding their affections. That’s how it is when anything belongs in the “commons.” It is not somehow disloyal to Jesus if we care about the earth. Nor is it particularly becoming as a follower of Jesus to treat scientists, farmers, poets, and other concerned residents who care about the Earth as if they are a threat to the knowledge of God because they care.

We don’t have to create a dichotomy between caring for Creation and walking with Jesus as a way of protecting the Gospel. Caring about the earth is not somehow going to ruin our lives with Jesus. A full-bodied discipleship can include theological reflection on our bodies, our work, our food, and the ground we walk upon, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. We do not have to romanticize and place some kind of utopian vision upon the indigenous people’s or their histories in order to care for the earth and each other. I believe we can be realistic about people as people since we are all infected with sinful capacities AND we can celebrate or critique the values within people groups (including my own) that affect creation-care negatively or positively.

If our discipleship and our presentation of the Gospel does not include the stuff of earth I believe we are doing people a dis-service. The Gospel majestically ushers us into the love of God. Now we know God loves. Now we know I am loved. Now we know there is power available to love people. Now we know we can love creation. All these loves matter forever.

Wonder, beauty and mystery are very much connected to the grace of God.
And the grace of God is very much connected to the earth.
Yet, this Earth Day we groan.

The stuff of earth was never meant to bear the weight of our souls. It so easily betrays our misplaced affections and reveals our need to surrender to God. But our surrender need not be made in despair. Rather our surrender may be informed by the resurrection of Jesus. Until He sets all things right, we shall continue to labour for the benefit of all. We do not surrender to death. We do not surrender to thorns and thistles. We do not surrender to greed. Rather we steward our lives and our work under Jesus the Lord so generosity and abundance may abound. Our labour is not in vain. Even our labour to live rightly on the earth in the grace of the Gospel is a exercise in faith. (Suggestion: Read the Gospels again and explore Jesus’ relationship with and stewardship of the stuff of earth.)

So Earth Day — it’s a day of faith for me. It’s a day of yearning with faith for justice — the justice contained in loving our neighbour, the justice proclaimed in the Cross of Christ, the justice of properly stewarding the stuff of earth, the justice anticipated in the restoration of all things in Jesus’ return.

“The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” 1 Corinthians 15:47-49

Creation, Discipleship, Work

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Passion Week Lessons — All at once

April 8, 2020 0 Comments

Passion Week Lessons

Every attempt at writing or creating video about the “lessons” in each day of this Passion Week has so far fallen flat. Neither I nor my products could escape the inner critic. I couldn’t push publish. So I’ll just summarize the “lessons” of Monday – Wednesday and give your Thursday’s as well.

To call these days between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, Passion Week is to emphasize the passion of Jesus — His suffering emerging from who He is and the love permeating all His relationships: with His Heavenly Father, with Himself, with people, and with the stuff of earth. Suffering extends to the depths of soul beyond the flesh and the nerve endings. Jesus was not detached; he was deliberately engaged. So, Jesus loves and His love is what He taught.

The lessons I have been drawn to in His teaching in this week show us the way of Jesus’ love.

May these lessons bear the fruit Jesus intends.

Monday — Impressed with the image of God.
Reading: Matthew 22:15-22

Our obligations to the crown and its coin do not exceed the greater obligation to the image before us in humanity — the image of God. “Give back to Ceasar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” What is God’s? What must be given to God? The body and the person meant to flourish there. The bodies of humanity and the communities taking root here. I’m sure the rest of our relationships will follow when our value for giving God what is God’s is moved to the top. The secret of giving and I suspect the secret of loving is to give ourselves first to God.

Tuesday — The greatest commandment
Reading: Matthew 22:34-40

 An expert in the law tests Jesus with a question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” I’m not sure which options for great commands the expert thought might compete for the top spot. But Jesus chooses the first and second commands and then says “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Here you go — let’s organize our lives around these beginning with our closest relationships (starting at “home”).

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

Love God with your all.
Love people as yourself.

So much growth required!
So much grace necessary!

Wednesday — Humble service flowing from the inside out
Reading: Matthew 23:1-12

Jesus finds no fault with the Law and the Prophets nor with the teaching that might emerge from their teachers on how to live in relationship to God, to self, to people and to the stuff of earth. But Jesus does find fault with the teachers who do not practice what they preach. He says, “be careful to do everything they tell. But do not do what they do.” Jesus does find fault with teachers who do everything for people to see so as to garner honour and adoration.

Humility among the communities of Jesus is founded on allegiance to Him.

So in the communities of Jesus no one needs to be called “Rabbi;” we are all brothers and sisters and we have one Teacher.

No one needs to be called “Father” because we all have one Father and He is in heaven.

No one needs to be called Instructor because we all have one Instructor, The Messiah.

If anyone needs to be great — become a servant by humbling yourself.

Thursday — The urgency of loving now with integrity
Matthew 23:13-39, Chapters 24 -25

Jesus sees ahead and he sees into the hearts of people who claim the name of God. He knows what has been entrusted to us and he discerns our spiritual complacency and inertia.

Jesus is direct and then he moves to what I call the parables of disturbance. These parables are meant to disrupt our complacency and generate urgency for relationship with God and for responsive living in all our relationships.

Wisdom, stewardship and service flow out of our worship of God as participants in Jesus’ Kingdom.

Wisdom: The urgency of time. The Parable of the Ten Virgins.
“Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know the day or hour.” Matthew 25:3


Stewardship: The urgency of wealth. The Parable of the Bags of God
“For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” Matthew 25:29


Service: The urgency of people. The Parable of the Sheep and The Goats.
“‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25-45-46


Quotes

“A common usage of the word neighbour today locates the neighbor as one who lives “next door” or close by. A “next-door” neighbor is one with a special degree of intimacy, in this understanding, and there is something to that. But in this understanding my most important neighbour is overlooked: the one who lives with me—my family, or others taken in by us. They are the ones I am most intimately engaged with in my life. They are the ones who first and foremost I am to love as I love myself. If only this were done, nearly every problem in families would resolved, and the love would spread to others….

“As we go about these exercises it will become increasingly clear how necessary it is to practice a range of what we think of as standard disciplines for the spiritual life (silence, solitude, fasting, prayer, study, and so forth) in order to receive the compassion, grace, and growth required to live a life of neighborly love. We may never feel adequate to such a life, in view of the depth of need that surrounds us. But it is right and good to understand that we aren’t adequate to love as we should and could! Instead we are to stand with others in the fellowship of disciples of Jesus Christ and under the presence and resources of the kingdom of God.”

Dallas Willard, “How to Love Your Neighbor as Yourself,” Renewing the Christian Mind, p. 132, 133-4.

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“Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that ‘the people’ do not want freedom. They want bread and circuses. They want workman’s compensation and fringe benefits and TV. Give up your free will, give up your freedom to make choices, listen to the expert, and you will have three cars in your garage, steak on the table, and you will no longer have to suffer the agony of choice.

Choice is an essential ingredient of fiction and drama. A protagonist must not simple be acted upon, he must act, by making a choice, a decision to do this rather than that. A series of mistaken choices through the centuries has brought us to a restricted way of life in which we have less freedom than we are meant to have, and so we have a sense of powerlessness and frustration which comes from our inability to change the many terrible things happening on the planet.”

Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. p. 103

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“The walk of Jesus as He lived among people was not an aimless walk. He was more or less constantly touching people, and they were conscious of that touch. Do we need to emphasize again that as Jesus’ followers, our walk, our lives should not be aimless? We who have been brought into union with the resurrected Christ should be so responsive to His touch on our lives that naturally and inevitably we will unconsciously seek to live the kind of life He lived. We will permit Him, more and more, to touch the lives of others through our touch with and on them. Also ‘others’ will be constantly enlarging, including family, friends, neighbors, church members, casual acquaintances, and total strangers.”

T. B. Maston, To Walk As He Walked, p. 129

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“When we decide that the weak are not only objects of our charity but also subjects who teach us needed wisdom, it makes new relationships possible. After all, people sense when the time you spend with them is a chore. They might smile and say thank you ‘onstage,’ but you can be sure that the poor will cuss a patronizing church like a sailor as soon as the members are out of earshot. When we enjoy the time we spend with others and honestly value their wisdom, we don’t gain only new knowledge. We gain something far more valuable: a friendship that wasn’t possible before…

The tactic of eternal investments involves learning to entrust our future to God, believing in an economics of providence. The tactic of economic friendship is similar, but it emphasizes this: God’s economy comes to us as a community of friendship. Though Jesus made it clear that miracles happen, it’s not God’s standard operating procedure to rain bread from heaven or provide money from a fish’s mouth. Instead, God invites us into the abundance of eternal life through economic relationships with other people.

Some of us might be slow to call this friendship. Friends, we think are people we connect with on a deep level—people who understand us and with whom we can share our most initiate thoughts. ‘You can’t have many true friends,’ we sometimes say, thinking about the time investment these special relationships require. I have a few intimate relationships like this, and I’m deeply grateful for them, but I don’t think these are the sort of people Jesus is talking about when he tells us to use money to make friends.

Economic friendship is a lot more like being a good neighbor.”

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, God’s Economy: Redefining the Health and Wealth Gospel, p. 146, 147-8.

Discipleship, Relationships

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