Truth – SeqHim

April 7, 2009

Do you allow people to surprise you?

I recently did some study on critical thinking. One of the core principles is what I would call the art of the question. That is, spend more time asking questions and less time trying to explain yourself. While I agreed that understanding one another is good, I was bothered because the ephasis on questioning felt very pluralistic…like to be a critical thinker, you had to accept others views as being equal to your own. I now understand that rejecting intense questioning simply because others use it in a pluralistic manner would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. What I have discovered is that questioning is the only way we can learn about people…surprise! The culture today needs us to learn about them in order to relate to them. It’s amazing how hostile people become conversant if you just start asking questions rather than preaching dogma and defending yourself.

Those of you following this blog know that I believe the power to change a person’s heart resides in the gospel alone. But, with some people, you simply have to earn the right to be heard. We do that primarily by asking questions and genuinely trying to understand where they are coming from. Once you know where they are coming from, then you can share the gospel in a way that they can understand and relate to. This applies to all people…no matter where they are in their walk…no matter if they are world, fringe, or core. If you want to help them move toward the middle, you have to be prepared to ask questions and be opportunistic with your teaching rather than dogmatic.

You also have to ask questions to know whether your time is better invested in this person or if it would be better to move on, which brings me to my final point. When you change your attitude away from dogma (here is the truth, take it or leave it) and move toward questioning (once I understand where you are coming from, I’ll communicate the true and full gospel in a way that you can understand), people will surprise you. Hostile people will calm down. Intellectuals will become emotional. Facades melt away. Issues are uncovered; hearts are softened. Defensive people will begin to listen to what you have to say. You will have earned the right to be heard.

I’ll add one more thing here…as an aside, but very important. To be successful in this, you must have thick skin. You must have already placed your reputation on the alter as a living sacrifice. If you take on a challenging relationship, you may be called out to your face or in public. Are you strong enough to control your response? Are you strong enough to resist the tempation to defend yourself, to strike back, to control your emotions and allow God to deal with how others perceive you, to focus on your objective which is to a) determine whether or not this person is being prepared by the Spirit to receive the gospel; b) share it in a way that they can understand it; c) be obedient to all of God’s commands, for the right reasons, throughout the process.

So, here is my encouragement, in three parts:

First, you simply must know your Bible and be working on your own transformation. Anyone can be dogmatic; it requires a different kind of Christian to engage people where they are.

Second, ask questions before making assertions. Know where people are coming from before assuming you know what they need to hear. This is how you get past the natural defensiveness of a lost person in today’s culture.

Third, don’t become distracted from your ultimate purpose of sharing God’s gospel and His Truth. As you question, the conversation may tend toward distracting topics…it’s ok to weave, but don’t forget where you are trying to head. Look for opportunities to share God’s truth related to areas of confusion, difficulty, struggle that people have.

March 27, 2009

What does it mean to believe God?

A couple of posts ago, we went a little deeper on what it means to hear God. If you remember, this was the first of three activities that we perform to help ourselves grow spiritually. Today, we will talk a little more about the second activity, believing God.

As with hearing God, numerous well-written books on “belief” have been written and many more could be written. Here, we will focus not so much on defining belief and faith, but on the things we can be doing to strengthen our belief in what God has said. But to do that, we will scope the term belief to “believing what God has said”. In the post of “hearing God”, we discussed some aspects of understand what God has to say; in this one, we’ll discuss some things we can be doing to strengthen our belief in what we understand Him to have said.

I’ve mentioned before that the activities associated with believing God are similar to training activities in the world of athletics. Baseball players become better players by playing the game, yes, but the best players excel at training between games. Every athlete at the top of his game is obsessive about training. They learn from experience, but they are compelled to train to the point of suffering out of devotion for being the best at what they do. How much more so should a Christian be compelled to train to the point of suffering out of devotion for being the most like their Savior they can be?

What are these training activities? I believe they are most widely known as the spiritual disciplines. Pick up anything by Dallas Willard and you will be blessed in his encouraging view of how God changes us through these disciplines. The disciplines are used by God to prepare us for our future circumstances. He knows what is about to happen to us, and he provides opportunities for us to discipline ourselves in more controlled circumstances before the trouble hits.

Disciplines like prayer, study, worship, solitude, fasting, scripture memory, scripture meditation, and others train us internalize God’s Word. They train us to make His Word part of us. They train us to allow His Word to change us…to change who we are and therefore how we react natually. In my life, I’ve tried to develop this habit of calling upon some specific verse of scripture when I excounter a challenging or tempting circumstance. How could I do this if I only read the scriptures in a cursory manner? How could I do this if I only engage extra-biblical resources? How could I do this if I only attend bible studies for social reasons or to check it off of my “what I need to be doing to be a good Christian” list? I can’t. Earnest prayer, thoughtful study, focused meditation, sacrifical fasting, and (most important this day and age) regular time alone are what is required.

I’m sorry to say that this is hard work, and unfortunately that is not what many Christians these days sign-up for when they walk down the aisle. But, God’s way is always the best and “safest” way. And, in most cases, I would say that this little bit of pain helps us to avoid the great amount of pain that comes by trying to deal with life without having been trained on God’s ways.

I’ll leave you with this. I’ve been a Christian since the age of eight, and clearly God has been providing for and protecting me since then…no question. But, I did not experience consistency in life or steady change until I got serious about spending daily time alone with the Lord. If you do not already, I encourage you to spend a few minutes every day reading a passage from scripture, really thinking about what God is saying to you through it, and praying about it with God. If you do not know where to start, start with the book of John.

I promise that there is nothing you can do that will have a greater impact on your life than this very simple yet difficult to stick with activity. For me, what started as a form of sacrifice (giving up some of “my” time) has turned into a joy that I cannot imagine living without. If it were not for this simple discipline, I would be full of knowledge, but I can’t say I would genuinely believe what God has said nor have experienced the charater change that I have.

March 20, 2009

What Does it Mean to Hear God?

Excellent question…thank you for asking! 😉

In a previous post, I introduced my view of spiritual growth, which I believe is a biblical view…please tell me if you disgaree!

Remember there are two fundamental principles:

spiritual growth occurs along three dimensions: knowledge, character and behavior.
growth on these three dimensions occurs by iterations of hearing, believing and obeying God.

And, remember the graphic we use to discuss this subject…hopefully it is an image that helps you get your arms around this subject at a high level as we dive deeper into different elements of this complex subject.

What we want to dive a little deeper on today is the activity of hearing God.

As we’ve discussed, the purpose of the iterative growth model is to help people understand what it means to grow in Christ and how we cooperate with the Spirit during the transformation process. Knowledge, character and behavior are the what…that is, these are attributes of our person that change. Only the Spirit can affect this change. Hearing, believing and obeying are activities that we are responsible for and are used by the Spirit as a tool, so to speak, in our transformation. They are the how. Therefore, when I talk about “hearing God” in this context, I’m talking primarily about the activities we are responsible for that the Spirit uses to increase our knowledge of Him.

My intention is not to start a debate on non-essentials such as whether or not God speaks audibly now as he did in the past; however, one essential is necessary to move forward, and that is the sole authority of Scripture. Everything you read on this site assumes that while God may reveal Himself in many ways, there is only one source of divine authority for faith and practice: Scripture.

There are two major categories for activities related to “Hearing God”: Scripture and Non-Scripture. Ok, I guess that was a little patronizing…but, here’s the point. Scripture is the only authority, and everything else is subject to it; but, that is not to say that extra-biblical sources are not helpful, of course. Otherwise, I’m wasting my time writing this and you are wasting your time reading it. When I am discipling someone, my first goal is to get them in the Word regularly to a) establish private bible study as a discipline, joy and priviledge, and b) develop a foundational understanding of the essential doctrines of the faith tied to Scripture directly. My second goal is to feed them extra-biblical resources that strengthen weak areas of their understanding. In this way, I can be an effective disciple-maker without being the best teacher. I need only be concerned with helping the disciple develop skills of discernment…measuring everything they read against what they know to be true from Scripture. My prayer is that you are doing that very thing with everything you read from SeqHim!

What are these extra-biblical resources? I think of them as being any media that God uses to speak to his people, outside of the Bible itself. Yes, I do believe that God speaks to us through our conscience, and He does not need media to speak to us. I just don’t call that a “resource”. So, examples would include books, classes, sermons, podcasts, videos, dramas, bogs, twitter feeds, seminars, conferences, etc.

Now, relatively speaking, there is a little good stuff out there, and alot of bad stuff. The challenge for any disciple-maker is to discern the good from the bad. And not only that, but discern the best from the good, where the distinction between the good and the best has to do with knowing where your disciple is in his walk and the kinds of resources that would be most beneficial for him/her right now.

The vision of SeqHim includes tools and support for helping disciples and disciple-makers discrern the good from the bad and the best from the good. Presently, this blog (and more effectively, R2 coming in a few weeks) can be used to share opinions on the best resources. In the future, we’ll add structure, meta-languages and enhanced search capabilities to make a personalized community ranked list of resources one click away.

I’m sure there are other good sources of info on the best resources out there…I just have not seen any that live up to the standards I have in mind. If you know of some good ones, please let me know.

I would love to hear your feedback on the passages of Scripture and extra-biblical resources that have had the greatest impact on your walk!

February 24, 2009

Deeper Dive on Growth Themes

In my last post, I introduced the concept of a growth theme. Think of themes (joy, compassion, humility, perseverance) as the more concrete sub-components of the growth dimensions (knowledge, character, and behavior). And remember, growth on these dimensions within the themes is a result of hearing, believing and obeying God. Later, I’ll go a little deeper on hearing, believing and obeying God…the things we do. But first, lets look a little closer at what we are trying to become (increasingly joyous, compassionate, humble, and persevering).

Joyfully forget yourself and focus on others forever.

The above statement is something I made up as a kind of personal mission statement. Notice how it includes each of the four growth themes…joy, humility (forget yourself), compassion (focus on others), and perseverance (forever). We are followers of Christ if we do this increasingly, genuinely and in the context of God’s truth. Note that I did not say we are “saved” because of it. We’re “saved” because we professed faith in Christ and He gave us life by His grace alone. What I’m taking about here is actually following Christ after we have been regenerated.

Now, let’s look under the hood. Are four themes really enough? What about love, wisdom, righteousness, contentment, faith, dependenance, generosity, etc? As I said before, we created a mind map to organize these characteristics so that we could get our arms around the different facets and begin to eat the elephant one bite at a time, so to speak.

Here is a link to that mind map: Themes v0.3

Remember, this is one of an incalculable number of possible arrangements. This is just one that works for our purposes. I’m happy to take feedback on it, because I do want to improve it…but, let’s not miss the forest for the trees either.

And so you will see that we’re framing contentment as a joy issue. If you do not have God’s joy, it is possible that the underlying cause is a contentment issue. With this kind of vocabulary, we can use it in a number of different ways to help people. Here are a few:

Assessment: Helping Disciples Know Where They Are

We can develop a means of helping people understand where they are in their walk with regard to joy, humility, compassion, and perseverance. This then drives where/how they spend their time addressing areas of weakness (rather than simply ammassing knowledge by an endless stream of “bible studies”). The intent of “assessment”, would be to help someone understand that contentment is a bigger issue in their life than say generosity.

Guidance: Helping Disciples Know Where to Go and How to Get There

Guidance can be attached to the same vocabulary. Guidance (e.g. passages of scripture, teaching, books, podcasts, disciplines, ad-hoc experiences and advice, etc) can be provided on how to become more generous, for example, and loaded into a shared repository.

Search: Helping Disciples Find The Best Stuff Fast

Now that guidance has been loaded against a specific vocabulary, and a person understands their need using the same vocabulary, an extremely efficient search capability can be put into place that helps a disciple find exactly what they need almost immediately.

There is alot more to be said, but alas…it will have to wait until next time. Until then, I will continue to pray for all of you as you strive to become more like our Savior.

February 20, 2009

Themes of Spiritual Growth

Let’s pick up on a thread that I started several days ago re: spiritual growth. Remember that we discussed two basic principles:

spiritual growth occurs along three dimensions: knowledge, character and behavior.
growth on these three dimensions occurs by iterations of hearing, believing and obeying God.

And, we used the following as a picture to illustrate the basic concept.

Now let’s break down the components of knowledge, character, and behavior so we can get to something that each of us can use in our daily lives and help others to do the same.

Several months ago, some faithful buddies and I brainstormed “christian attributes”. We asked, “what are the characteristics you would expect to see in a follower of Christ?” Obviously, many attributes came to mind, including wisdom, righteousness, humility, generosity, love, contentment, etc. We then organized them into four major themes: joy, humility, compassion, and perseverance.

Therefore, when we talk about growing in knowledge, we’re really talking about growing in knowledge of what it means to be joyous, humble, compassionate and persevering. When we talk about growing our character (internal attitudes and unseen behaviors), we’re talking about developing a joyous, humble, compassionate, and persevering character. When we talk about growing in behavior (externally observable behaviors), we’re talking about acting joyous, humble, compassionate, and persevering.

Clearly, there are many, many ways to organize these attributes. This is just the way we did it, and I think it works pretty well. In future posts, I can share the detailed “mind map” that describes how we organized the attributes and dealt with “super-themes” like righteousness and wisdom.

Now, remember the second principle that describes how we grow in the three dimensions and their four components. Generally speaking, we grow in knowledge by hearing God; we grow in behavior by believing Him; and we grow in behavior by obeying Him. Therefore, we grow in our knowledge of what it means to be joyous by hearing what God has to say on joy; we grow in chracter with respect to joy by genuinely believing these truths from God; and, we grow in joyous behavior when we obey these new truths that we genuinely believe.

I have lots of examples from Scripture and from my own experience to share, and will do so over time, but for now let’s start with one from Acts. Do you remember Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16)? They behaved in an extraordinary way. First, rather than grumbling (which I’m sure I would have been), they are singing and praying. Then, when the earthquake hits and the prison doors are busted open, they did not flee.

Now look, I’m excited by the growth God has caused in me over the past several years, but I am nowhere near this level of mature behavior. Paul and Silas were so focused on the welfare of their guard, they essentially sacrificed themselves for him…a non-Jew and a non-Christian. Why on earth would they a) be singing in prison; and b) not leave when God “obviously” was trying to set them free by way of the earthquake? In the first case, they had learned to be “content in all circumstances” (we bucketed contentment within the joy theme). In the second, they had serious compassion for the jailor and knew what “the right thing to do was” (see my previous post). Why were they so joyous and compassionate? Because they knew the promises of God and they genuinely believed them. They had already invested years into knowing God’s word and practicing the disciplines required for training themselves for just such a moment. Of course, Paul (at least) had the additional experiences of supernatural encounters with God, but these are not necessary to grow to the point Paul was. We can all get there by studying God’s word, proactively training ourselves to believe it, and them acting upon it in any circumstance.

And so my encouragement is simply this: know God’s word, believe what you know, and obey what you believe. Over time, learn a little more, believe a little more and obey a little more. Just keep moving forward and never stop.

If you need help, please raise you hand. I, and many others joining this community, are here to help you!

February 4, 2009

Is Spiritual Growth really Growth of a Spirit?

Let’s now turn our attention away from why and toward how.

Willohroot made the comment of the year, “I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off”. Of course, I agree, and if you are still reading this, I’m sure you do as well. I’m sure all of you understand that we cannot do it…that if it is going to happen, then God is going to have to do it through us. Our job is simply to be obedient, and I can tell you unequivocally that I’m personally compelled to push forward…to do otherwise would be a violation of my conscience and probably a form of sin (Rom 14).

What I’m going to try to do now, over the next series of posts, is walk you through what I hope is a simple progression of some rather complicated thoughts that have been simmering for close to a year now between myself and a small number of like-minded buddies.

Shifting gears from the macro-issues of the church today, let’s talk about spiritual growth. What exactly is it? How does it happen? How can Christians help other Christians to grow?

What is “Spiritual” Growth?

First of all, I believe spiritual growth is a bit of a misnomer because the reality is that a believer’s spirit does not need to grow – it is already perfect. At conversion, all of us who believe in Christ, received a new spirit…a regenerated spirit…a reborn spirit. This spirit is perfect and is one with the Holy Spirit. The problem is not with our spirit but with our flesh. All of the tools God gave us to interact with one another on earth are still corrupt; i.e. our minds and all they control. Therefore, Paul can face the dilemmna that all of us face: what I want to do, I do not do; and, what I do not want to do, I do. The desires of our perfect spirit conflict with the desires of the flesh. Therefore, the goal os “spiritual” growth is to tranform the flesh (or, “renew the mind”). It is to make our flesh obedient to our spirit as a slave. It is to understand that the flesh has no power over the spirit (it is dead), and behave accordingly. This happens over time, as we intentionally surrender our flesh to the spirit (which is one with God’s Spirit indwelling us).

Hopefully this is all sounding quite biblical. If not, call me on it and let’s change it.

How does Growth Happen?

After years of careful observation, I’ve concluded that there are three dimensions to genuine spiritual growth: knowledge, character, and behavior. All believers are called to grow in their knowledge and understanding of God’s truth, transform the way we think, and become increasingly compliant to God’s standard of behavior.

I’ve also concluded that the way in which we grow along these three dimensions is by hearing, believing and obeying God. Generally speaking, it is by hearing God that we grow in knowledge; it is by believing God that our internal thoughts and attitudes change; and, it is by obeying God that our external behaviors change.

And, this process is iterative…you don’t go to school or bible study, learn all you can, grow to maturity in knowledge, and then begin working on your character. Rather, we all learn a little, apply the spiritual disciplines to train our belief to some extent, and obey what we have learned and become, then repeat. And we do this forever. Again, I think willohroot made the point that it’s not about the destination…it’s about the journey, and I fully agree. We can’t think of this as winning a race; it’s about running the race well and finishing strong.

How Can Believers Help Other Believers to Grow?

First of all, let me say that it’s not necessary. There is biblical precedent for God capturing and growing His people without much help from other believers; e.g. Abraham and Noah. The core of my own personal testimony is that God used mainly unbelievers and ‘fringe’ to drive my own growth, not by encouragement but by friction. That said, I’ve also concluded that this is the exception and not God’s desire for His Kingdom today. God’s desire is that his people work together to build-up the Kingdom together.

In short, I believe the most effective means of helping other believers is not to call them but to personally lead them. It’s not to talk about it, but it is to provide them an example to follow. And, once that example is provided, then you have the right to talk about what you are doing, why you are doing it, and give advice to another on what you think they could do to grow in the same way. This is the essence and purpose of practical, intentional and effective one-on-one discipleship.

In the next few posts, we’ll keep diving deeper into how we can make this real together. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your feedback on these thoughts!

January 28, 2009

Choosing Sides in the Unseen War

“When surrounded by war, one must eventually choose sides.”

The opening line to a recent Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode (above) struck me as applicable to our discussion. In his comments from a couple of posts ago, Bob ended with “At least we’ll all know where we stand!” One day, we will certainly know where we all stand b/c all will be forced to take up sides at some point.

Over the past few years, I’ve spent considerable time researching and developing small group strategy. I’ve participated in small groups, led small groups, coached small group leaders, and helped churches start and grow small group ministries. Through all of this, I’ve tried to keep the focus on the role a small group plays in the spiritual war we are presently engaged in (Eph 6:12). Unfortunately, the momentum is to think of small groups more as social clubs than army platoons. Small groups ought to be more than friends being friends; they ought to be a means of mobilizing God’s people in our struggle against the “spiritual forces” Paul speaks of.

This trend is another driver toward the need to go back to one-on-one discipleship. If the Church has an effective means to grow people (and the forming consensus is that small groups are not an effective means to grow people spiritually), then small groups can safely be more “communal”. You would train your small group leaders to identify those in their small groups who are willing to be disciples, then take them aside for deeper training or pair them with someone else who can.

To bring this back to where we started, the point is that we in the Church are indeed “surrounded by war”. Not a war with flesh and blood, but with the spiritual forces that are trying (and will ultimately fail) to overcome God’s people. Only the most core of the ‘core’ remember this on a daily basis and live their lives accordingly, yet all of us should.

What does that mean in a practical sense? It simply means taking spiritual growth (i.e. knowing God and his Truth more, developing a Christlike character, and obeying God in all things regardless of the potential sacrifice) more seriously than anything else.

Have you chosen a side? Are you engaging the enemy? If not, will you? If you will, keep coming back and we’ll continue to discuss how we can do that together.