Should a church feel like a night club opening?

The Regent University Mission team was in New York City this week to serve on the streets and in the hospitals to give care and compassion in the name of Christ. To be fair, there is great debate as to what if anything a short term team can accomplish that adds to the work going on long term in a location. For that reason, I work to always come alongside existing ministries like NYSUM  or The Bowery.

But once the students get out on those streets, they discover the truth that ministry is draining. Jesus knew it... when the woman with a 12 year medical problem touched him, the Bible records Jesus' words "Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me." That's why our groups always visit not one but several great, bible-believing churches to recharge spiritually. This trip, it just so happened that Hillsong NYC  was launching as a new church. We joined nearly 4000 other young people in making this first service a can't-miss event.  In fact, for the first time I can remember, we stood in line for church for over an hour and a half!

Going to a church service that felt like the opening of a new club was a novel experience. People walking down the street would stop and ask, "What's happening here?"  The answer would come, "It's the launch of a new church," to which there was an inevitable quizzical rejoinder, "What kind of church?" Answer: One unlike I've ever seen!

Couple of observations about this new church from a former church planter: 

1. Almost no money was spent on advertising/marketing. The push was through Twitter @HillsongNYC btw. (yes I follow) as well as Facebook. The result? A huge crowd of young, hip church goers.

2. The pastor/spiritual rock star @CarlLentz was on the scene giving a very distinctive flavor for the evening. Virginia Beach residents will know him as the hip Pied Piper of Soul Central at Wave Church. Others of us know him as the once-errant son of Steve and Kathy Lentz (also in attendance) and the result of much prayer over the years. God got hold of this guy in a unique way that connects with young adults like very few people I've ever seen. High energy for sure.

3.   Big guns @BrianHouston and @BobbiHouston, the dynamic duo co-pastors of the Hillsong Sydney "mother ship" were on hand, as well as their son @JoelHouston, the creative mind behind Hillsong United. Added into the mix was @JudahSmith from City Church in Seattle to give the service the feel of an All-star game of young, hip evangelical leaders in the US and Australia.

4. The young people who were there made it clear, however, that the unifying factor was not the pastor, nor the preaching, nor the "namebrand" church Hillsong, but the music. From the first chord, the crowd hopped, reached, sang and shouted in a familiar sway, demonstrating that it was the experience that mattered, not so much the personalities. Over three thousand people waited in a queue for hours to experience the chance to feel freedom and liberty.

So hop and sway and shout we did, drawing on the spiritual hunger and energy in the Salvation Army theater near Union Square. It replenished us, encouraged us, and sent us out to do more work for others. Do you think a church should feel like the opening of a night club? Let me know.

Pastor Judah Smith meeting Crystal from our team. 

Who Are the Homeless?

Her bag could have been from Fendi, a chic accessory joining the crisp, cool air to give notice that fall had come to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th St. The crumpled papers in her hand might have been a playbill from the latest show that the most fashionable boots in the City had tromped by droves to see. The swirl of her conversation could just as well have been recounting her latest visit to Harry Winston’s or De Beers there on fashionable 5th Avenue.

But it wasn’t.

Instead, her conversation over coffee sitting on her bag in the shadow of 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church was an orientation of sorts. This, her first night on the streets of New York City revolved around overzealous policemen who kicked, fined or screamed profanity at her. Prior to tonight she had tried to resolve her “circumstances” by sleeping on the subway. With her bag and knit sweater primly tucked around her, she survived for months in this manner, by day the fiancé of a Chinese pastor, by night a hounded denizen of the public transportation system.

I didn’t understand.

Why would this spirited, Asian woman be sleeping on the street? I began to ask questions, to discover the reasons behind her circumstances. Had she spoken to her fiancé the pastor? Did the church know she was here? How long had they been paying the fines levied on her for her nomadic public slumber? I needed a peg to hang this on, an entry point into her world.

She rebuked me.

“I could tell you more about my circumstances, but you couldn’t begin to understand. You would think you did, but you don’t. You would misunderstand and tell someone. And you’d be wrong. You don’t have the perspective of God. Would you like to know why I am here tonight?” Mutely, I shook my head. “I’m here in complete surrender to the will of God.”

She was right.

I needed a tidy explanation. I wanted her to fit into a category that explained her presence there across from the Fendi store, sleeping on the steps. As her rebuke sunk in, I knew I asked questions to discover how she was different from me. How she had fallen. Where she had chosen unwisely; who had failed her, harmed her, victimized her. So that she would be a “homeless” and I her encourager, rescuer, reaching down across the gulf to show my goodness.

Who is my neighbor?

A question asked of Jesus, that ancient sage, designed not to enable further outreach or care for a new friend, but to categorize. To place someone in a group different from oneself, and so to insulate from up close, personal love and care. And so Jesus told a story, about a man in need. A man treated roughly by life, robbed of his dignity and left alongside the road to rot. A man much like the lady I met. But wise Jesus told the story not to focus on a victim who needed help, but on the startling responses from those walking alongside the street. The fashionable, acceptable residents of that city walked right by the man. They knew he belonged to a different category, a man who had made poor choices. Given time, they might help, but circumstances dictated otherwise. But the hated Samaritan walked up and entered the world of the man by the road. Without judging his circumstances, he brought care, and according to Jesus, demonstrated that he was that man’s neighbor. And then I realized, it didn’t matter how she got there…

Eiku is my neighbor.

Prayer of the Heart

St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894), Russian asectic, bishop, and prolific author

I don't know about you, but prayer intimidates me a bit. I'm not by nature a contemplative, and the thought of being alone in a room with just my thoughts (just as likely to be about baseball or some banal subject) is a bit scary. I've discovered that I need coaches or guides in prayer.

One I've discovered is a guy named Theophan the Recluse. I know, I know--any guy with "Recluse" in his name, who's not a spider, has got to be a little creepy. Don't let that intimidate you; he was just a Russian monk of the 19th century. Monks are the ones through history who've made a point of retreating from society in order to think more deeply about God, and cultivate a life of contemplation and prayer.  Theophan's main contribution to Christian spirituality was his translation of a group of writings on prayer called the "Philokalia" into Russian.

He says something that helps me, and addresses some of my prayer insecurities.


Recall how you prayed and always strive to pray this way, so that prayer comes from the heart and is not just thought by the mind and chattered by the tongue.

When he says, "prayer...chattered by the tongue" I know just what he means. In my tradition, prayer is considered "good" if it is long, eloquent, and (usually) loud. My tradition values free-form prayer laced with spiritual-sounding phrases like "washed in the blood of the Lamb" and "sanctified and set-apart by the sinless substitutionary atonement of Jesus..." I know all about prayers "chattered by the tongue" and they do much to intimidate me in my own prayer life.

My new friend the recluse, perhaps because he has spent more time praying alone than to try to impress others, speaks of a different kind of prayer-- the prayer that comes from the heart. The thought in this more Eastern method of prayer was to memorize a simple prayer, sometimes called a "breath prayer" and repeat it often enough that the words weren't central. It was a "known-by-heart" prayer.

This kind of heart prayer takes me out of the competition mode. It puts me into more of a contemplative moment, allowing me to reflect on what God might have to say to me. This I think, is what Theophan must have intended. Perhaps that is why the saint once known as "George" took the name Theophan which means "God appears." When we pray from the heart, God often appears.

How do you feel about prayer?

Are You Trapped by the Monster Regret?

I went on a date with my wife to see the movie Inception this week.  Have you seen it yet? 

Check out this trailer to see if you'd be interested:

The film focuses on Dom Cobb, whom Peter Travers in his review in Rolling Stone calls".. a professional invader of the subconscious played with action-star ferocity and emotional heft by Leonardo DiCaprio. Corporations, like the one run by Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), hire Dom and his crew to get inside people's heads." 


Get inside my head is exactly what this film did, and if you haven't seen it--make plans to go, but be prepared to be confused. Or befuddled. Or enlightened, as the case may be. I know that I was all three before the film finished it's plunge through three layers of dream space,  subconscious "limbo" and sudden shifts from past to present to future time. 


In case you'd like to see the movie, I won't go in to every twist and turn of the labyrinthian plot. I would like to focus in on one aspect of the film that struck me as fascinating. It did, at least, after my wife noticed it. "Did you notice there were only two main female characters?" she asked. (I nod my head semi-intelligently)  And did you notice that the younger woman (Ariadne) leads Cobb out of his regret over his wife (Mal)?" (again the semi-intelligent head nod).


That's when all the classic Greek and Roman mythology I had studied once upon a sophomore year came bubbling to the surface. (Thanks Joe Elias and Lou Ledbetter!) Ariadne was the daughter of King Minos of Crete.  Crete had a lovely tradition of accepting sacrifices from Athens to feed their nasty monster the Minotaur, held at bay in a bewildering labyrinth. (see the connection coming?) Theseus was among the third group of unwitting sacrifices, but Ariadne comes to his rescue by LEADING HIM OUT OF THE MAZE. Just like Ariadne does for Mr. Cobb in the amazing movie Inception. 


So what? Well, beyond a cleverly placed classical allusion, Christopher Nolan suggests to us a powerful principle. Ariadne (the maze maker and breaker) helps Cobb overcome his regret over his wife Mal (that means "bad or evil" in Latin) He has trapped himself in a prison of regret. In a very insightful review of the film, we are reminded that a recurring line in the movie addresses that regret. “Do you want to become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?” 


Without spoiling the entire plot, Dom Cobb encases his regrets throughout life in a prison-like structure in his mind, revisiting them in tortured dream sequences. Ariadne discovers this self-torture, confronts him, and ultimately leads him to the only way out of regret--forgiveness. Just as in the classical myth, Ariadne leads him along the thread of past mistakes away from the monster named regret. 

Theseus & Minotaur

Of course the answer to that repeated question for me is "NO" I don't want to be an old man, filled with regret. But like Cobb, I do keep past mistakes locked away where no one can see, like a Minotaur in my mind. I offer up sacrifices periodically to appease my guilt, but those sacrifices are never enough. Cobb was trapped, and the guilt increased, demanding more and more of his life in order to be pleased. With the character Fischer in the film, we face those like a father who their whole life has been "DISAPPOINTED" in us. Regret--living in the past--will consume you like a ghastly Minotaur. 


Do you have an Ariadne that can uncoil the thread of forgiveness for you? I know forgiving others is hard, but forgiving myself is the hardest. Somehow that trap of self-punishment seems appropriate, but its inevitable end is the maze of regret. I loved the movie Inception, and it has planted the idea in me to face what is MAL (evil) in my life, and banish the "shade" of failure through forgiveness. Otherwise, I will be forever trapped. What do you think? 

The Weedeater

The orange and chrome hardware gleamed in the afternoon sun as Matt, the knowledgeable sales clerk cradled my new Stihl FS 70 RC-E trimmer in his muscular arms. With a quick flick of his fingers to adjust the choke, and a terse tug at the starter cord, the machinery roared to life. The whirring buzz of the string whirling at hundreds of revolutions per second sounded like music to me, announcing my triumph over that most annoying of adversaries—a perfectly good apparatus that refuses to work as it was designed.

If you’ve ever used a weedeater or trimmer, you know the basic concept is devastatingly simple. A small motor spins a shaft down the length of the trimmer that in turn rotates at high speeds a head attached to its end. Heavy plastic line cleverly wound in a tight coil around the head is released by a spring-loaded assembly when the operator taps the head on the ground. The result is enormously gratifying; a whirling dervish of devastation that thrashes weeds and undergrowth like a magic scythe of power. Magic, that is, as long as it works.

I say that because the dirty little secret about weedeaters is that they RARELY work as they were intended. For every moment that I’ve enjoyed riding the wave of power as the weeds fell in submission at my feet, I’ve suffered through ten more of untangling snarled string, taking apart clogged-carburetors and expressing in colorful language my feelings for a machine that just won’t start.

My recent purchase of this commercial-grade piece of mechanical beauty reminded me that my feelings about the weedeater almost exactly mirrored my view of another apparatus—the church. The church was designed by God to be an amazingly powerful and awesome tool. Men and women rescued from lives of selfishness and sin bond with one another in gratitude over God’s grace in their lives. They turn their hearts heavenward in thanks to their Savior, and then extend their hands in service to others. The Owner’s manual says it comes down to only those two things (Love of God and neighbor), devastatingly simple right?

Wrong. If you’ve ever ventured into a church you will have discovered their dirty little secret…they don’t work like they’re supposed to. People who’ve been in church for 25 years are just as mean and nasty as when they came. The church’s line of love intended to extend to a hurting community becomes wrapped firmly around itself, snarled in internal conflict. Sinners—for whom the church was designed—are made to feel unwelcome (as if the weedeater were shocked to find a weed in its path). Insecure leadership foul the engine of God’s love for the world with self-aggrandizing plans of kingdom building. More than once I’ve cursed the whole, darn contraption.

And yet…the roar of that orange and chrome magic machine in my hands brought a prayer to my lips. “Lord, this time let the thing work right. Repair it Lord, fix it and start with me…”