Tag: Promise Keepers

REBUILDING SHALOM ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME

REBUILDING SHALOM ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME

The ground was thick with men as far as the eye could see, men so jam-packed the mall from the Capitol steps to the Washington Monument that it was hard to move. The year was 1997 and we were there for one purpose: to reaffirm our commitment to the seven promises of a Promise Keeper.

Promise six, reads: A Promise Keeper is committed to reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity. Fast-forward twenty-one years and our results are mixed. Despite our best intentions, we still self-segregate in schools, in churches, and social settings. On the national scale, Mr. Obama came to power with great promise for racial reconciliation but left a legacy of nursed grudges. Mr. Trump came to power with the support of white nationalists. As Chuck Colson said, the Kingdom of God will not arrive on Air Force One.

Race relations isn’t the only area where our society is fraying, cultural coherence is also unraveling. Once-strong voluntary associations like the Elks, the Masons, the Lion’s Club, Veterans’ associations, and Rotary find it more difficult every year to recruit and retain members.  Even Promise Keepers, which packed one million men into the mall that day in 1997, has waned. Robert D. Putnam’s best-selling 2000 book, BOWLING ALONE: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, explained that even though more people than ever were bowling, fewer were participating in leagues. This meant they were not nurturing the social networks and civic discourse necessary for a healthy society.

Some argue that social media and soccer moms have filled the gap, but Facebook is not equal to face-time (no, not that Facetime) when it comes to creating healthy community. In fact, I would argue the reverse.

If shalom, the God-blessed flourishing of all people in all communities, is what we want, we must stop bowling alone. And the church should lead the way. Community that builds bridges of understanding, dredges grudged-up swamps, and nurtures the common good (look it up under “love your neighbor as yourself”) is only built by people from different backgrounds and social networks talking face-to-face and working on projects together. You can’t do that on Facebook or gaming with some guy on the other side of the planet.

But you can participate in community building events and associations in your town. And no doubt your church has planned community building events for 2019. I urge you to engage in as many as possible and bring friends. Small groups focus on strengthening the bonds in the body of Christ as well. Commit to one, whether it’s Sunday morning or mid-week.

Rod Dreher, in his sobering work, THE BENEDICT OPTION: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, wrote: “The first Christians gained converts not because their arguments were better than those of the pagans but because people saw in them and their communities something good and beautiful—and they wanted it. This led them to the Truth.”[1]

May God use the beauty of our community to do the same.

[1] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option, New York: Sentinel, 2017. P. 118.

WHOM GOD SEEKS: The Missing Key to Meeting God

I will never forget Promise Keepers (PK) ’96. I was in the Georgia Dome with ten or twelve men from my church, fifty yard line, on the mezzanine level. The Saturday evening worship session was in full swing; sixty-thousand men in full-throated song. In those days, PK would end with founder, Coach McCartney, calling all the pastors down front to be affirmed and prayed over by the whole stadium.  I had participated in this before, in Colorado in ’94 and it was electric.  We felt like soldiers on parade being consecrated for battle; deeply moving.

But we were an hour or two away from that; just worshiping with full abandon for twenty or thirty minutes, pausing for prayer, and singing again. All of my attention was focused on Jesus, giving him praise and glory, as if I could see him, riding high, seated on his throne up high in the middle of the Dome.

Suddenly, I could see him, not with physical eyes, but spiritual sight. As surely as I saw the men in the stadium I knew Jesus was standing before me, speaking to me.

I cannot tell you what this was about, but in that moment my Master Jesus spoke five simple words that comforted, healed, and touched me in such a deep and powerful way that my knees buckled and I sat down utterly stunned, weeping with gratitude. It was as if I had been walking around with a sword deep in my soul and in one motion he removed the sword and healed the wound. What I did not understand at the time, but would later on, was that those words were also preparation for a battle on the horizon.

I share that story because many who seek a deeper experience of God ask, “How can I have an encounter with God? I hear about, and read about, people experiencing his presence and hearing his voice, but that has never happened to me, and I want to know God that way.”

By sharing my story I am not intending to portray God as a spiritual vending machine. We do not put in a certain coin and push a certain button and get God in a bottle. Further, following God’s guidance in our day-to-day, learning to discern his will and the nudges of the Holy Spirit, is as much a matter of using our heads as we engage with him through Scripture as it is anything overtly mystical. Many sermons and books are available on the subject.

Still, one thing stands out that is often missing in such sermons and books: the place of pure, uncomplicated, intensive worship; complete abandon of one’s inhibitions to the adoration of God. Moses’ most powerful encounter with God came when, in the middle of his regular prayer time he said, “Show me your glory.” Jesus explained that the kind of person God seeks is the kind that “worships in spirit and in truth,” nothing held back, no agenda other than complete adoration of and abandon to God for whom and what he is.

Looking back on PK ’96 nothing else the rest of the night mattered. When it came time for pastors to go forward and be affirmed my friends would not let up.  They insisted I go.  I did not have the heart to tell them that they could have torn the building down around me and it would not have mattered. I had been in the presence of God.

Two cautions for those who’ve read this far: Worship with abandon is always the right thing to do, but these moments, these encounters, are the exception, not the rule. That pattern is clear enough in Scripture as is the second warning: often, as it was with me, they are precursors to difficult times, moments of gracious preparation by a loving Lord before the battle begins.

Still, if meeting with God is your highest aim learn to praise, honor, and adore him, in the quiet of your room or with a congregation, with no other agenda than his glory. That is the kind of worshiper God seeks, and what he seeks, he finds.