Tilt!#!%!

Time.
Activity.
Stress.
Disstress.

Why don't we say "no?"  Our fear of loosing an edge is ravaging relationships, creating monster expectations, ruining our health and creating distance between us and God.

The fact is we really do live in a "less is more" world.  "White space" is what makes good Art so fetching, great landscape design so dramatic and relationships work.  It gives us permission to breath, to be creative, to recharge and recreate.  

Who "moved the cheese" and convinced Americans that the contemplative life is empty and worth-less?  We did.  

Stop.
Breath.
Listen.
Smile.

"When I grow up..."

"When I Grow Up (to be a man)."  Link to song

This is of course one of the "sounds of summer" delivered to us by, who else, The Beach Boys. It's one of my favorites. When the DJ's at KRLA or KHJ in Southern California spun this selection I'd turn the radio up (even louder) in my 1960 Ford Falcon--and be transported into thoughts of...the future; "how will my life play out?

Today, when I select this tune on my iPod, or hear it on my Pandora "Beach Boys Radio" selection, I'm transported into thoughts of...the past; we all grew up.  I settled down early, married my High School sweetheart 40 years ago and "dig" her more today than ever! Life is rarely fair, but it's always good.

I've grown up, and now, I'm growing old(er) and I think about, legacy.  What will I leave behind that will mark my place in the passage of time?  What will my grandkids carry through their lives that has my fingerprints on it?  Have the lives of people been enriched because they spent a season in close proximity with me?  Have I been an agent of positive change?

I'm grateful I'm not done. 
I'm grateful I'm not alone. 
I'm grateful He's not finished: 

"Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling and 
will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.²⁵

All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and 

in the present, and beyond all time! Amen."  Jude 24, 25

Unplugged.

The Church in America is unplugged, it's powerless.  By power I mean spiritual gravitas--authority which is the result of a clear anointing from God.  Most of the country perceives the confessing church to be the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.  I grew up hearing my mom say, "if the shoe fits wear it!"  Unfortunately, we've been tagged with this perception the old fashioned way, we've earned it.  We've chosen to contend for the soul of America using the political process--a grave error.  The shoe fits. 

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2  For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4  treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power.""  2 Timothy 3.1-4 

Last December we came to a "waypointe" called Sandy Hook; a "waypointe--a place on a journey where the traveler can stop and change course."  It's time for the confessing church to change our trajectory and become THE church. The fact is we've settled for sloppy seconds.  Too many of us worship in places that are driven by forms rather than power.  We've allowed popular culture to shape our vision of what Christ's church should be, what it should look like; we have embraced the wrong set of outcomes.

Today we measure the quality and effectiveness of our ministries based on the Big 3: People, Buildings, Revenue.  In fact, it's not difficult to erect buildings and fill them with people that generate million-dollar budgets.  False religions, cults and sects do it all around the world.  Jim Jones did in San Francisco and finally in Guyana.  Jimmy Swaggart did it, then did it AGAIN in Louisiana.  

People, buildings and money won't produce transformational-redemptive power, nor are they the indicators of the anointing of God.  Powerless religion, form-driven religion has a micro focus: it sees "the church" as the end.  Forms--the way we "do church," the things we do or don't do that identify us as "christians," are paramount.  This is the kind of context Jesus came into in Judea; the context the Religious power brokers endorsed and protected.

Form-driven religion becomes a template that blinds us to the brokenness which surrounds us.  Form-driven religion makes us think in "wrong headed ways" about what the world deserves v. what God desires--Us v. Them.  Form-driven religion becomes a tyranny which chokes our vibrancy and shrivels our generosity.

Power-driven godliness sees loving, reaching and changing the world as the end.  It acts without conditions.  It seeks to make hard lives easier.  It understands that wealth, leadership, talent and spiritual gifts are resources graciously given by God for this endeavor.  Power-driven godliness doesn't seek relavance; it is relevant.

Outcomes are critical.  Matthew 9..."35  Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.  36  Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  37  Then He said to His disciples, 'the harvest in plentiful, but workers are few.'" 

We've come to a waypointe.