i can’t fix me.

Friday night I was sitting at a dinner. The speaker was talking about revival. More specifically, Tim Keller from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan was talking about the Fulton Street Revival, a(n) (…um…event? movement? process?) thing that started with a guy deciding that he needed to spend lunchtime once a week praying and invited other people to come and pray, too.

As he was talking, Keller said, “The default mode of the human heart is to revert to self-salvation.”

I would love to argue with this. Except I can’t.

This morning I was looking for my shoes. Nancy innocently asked what I was looking for. I was polite, but inside I thought “don’t ask me. I don’t need help. I’ll look myself.”

A month ago, a four-year-old was in my office. There were balloons on the walls because a friend had decided (correctly) that I needed encouragement.  The little one’s dad wanted her to ask me for a balloon. She resisted, was told “no” to taking one without asking, went through a period of tears, calmed down, got down from her dad’s lap, and was told again to ask me for a balloon.

“I don’t need to. I can reach myself.”

We looked at each other, the dad and I, and laughed the kind of laugh that doesn’t show up on the face. We laughed because we recognized the independence of spirit which characterizes humans, showing up clearly in this four-year-old.

Every face I look at, every mirror I see, shows this same fierce commitment to fixing things myself, to fixing myself. Even as I put myself into this picture with my close friend Manhattan, there is a strong sense of me.

So?

Practically, such independence is silly. I cannot save myself, not even from myself. Now, I do have to take care of myself. I am responsible for my actions, for my reactions, for my attitudes, for my attempts to live life in a meaningful way. But I cannot function apart from other people. If I tried, I would die. I can’t grow enough, work enough, whatever enough, to sustain myself.

And if I try, I prove that I’m an ornery cuss. To function as a person, as a social being, I need other people.

Now Keller’s comment wasn’t talking merely about the practical level. His point was that unless we stop trying to save ourselves and acknowledge that God has to do that, we will fail at revival and we will ultimately, eternally, fail.

What is important to understand is that he is talking first to that collective entity of people who call themselves The Church. Keller was saying that The Church, or the little clusters of people who call themselves churches are stuck in this self-salvation too.

We end up saying that if we believe exactly right or if we care for the poor exactly right or if we have the precise kind of worship service services that make me God happy or if we go to church the requisite number of times a day/week/month/year or if we consume the right kinds of music/movies/books or if we do ______ exactly right, then God will be happy with us and love us.

And that is exactly wrong because it puts all the burden for our salvation on us. It makes us responsible for fixing ourselves.

It’s no wonder that people get annoyed with “church”. It’s because we often are helping people get LIKE US rather than helping people get TO God.

I was reading about Jesus a bit ago. He was talking to and healing and touching people who never would have made it into a church. In fact, he was even doing all those things with people who didn’t even, well, didn’t even know whether they believed in him or not. I mean, they saw him, and knew that he was cool, and knew that he healed them, but they didn’t understand any of the theological stuff about him.

All they knew was that what they were doing wasn’t working. So when Jesus talked about good news, they were all (deaf) ears and (blind) eyes and (broken) hearts.

What if the church stopped being so churchy? Maybe there might be evidence that God actually is necessary rather than just our rules.

Or at least that’s what I think.

(oops)

trying to understand

I’m trying to figure out answers to the following questions.

• What counts as a relationship?
• What counts as relationship?
• What counts as friendship?
• What counts as disciplemaking?
• What counts as enough?
• What counts as church?
• What counts as work?
• What counts as significant?
• What counts as consistent?
• What counts as planning?
• What counts as prayer?
• What counts as communication?
• What counts as an office?
• What counts as touching?
• What counts as meaningful?
• What counts as effective?
• What counts as caring?
• What counts as love?
• What counts as community?
• What counts as adequate?
• What counts as….counting?

Most often, these are questions that come up as I talk with other people who are trying to understand what to do with their time, their lives, their careers, their trials, their blogs, their energy. Sometimes these questions come up when I am sitting quietly in my office. Sometimes these questions never come up.

I know. This is a really cheap way to get a post: Make a list of questions and then walk away. But I’m not sure that it is. In fact, this could be a rather expensive way to post, particularly if we were to try to answer these questions.

What I know is that my response to these questions is almost always, “For whom?” And some people will list family, boss, spouse, community, friends. Some people will say, “well, for me.” And some people will say, “for God.”

Here is why the “For whom?” question is significant: What if the person matters? If you, for example really want to know the answer to the question, “what counts as love for my spouse?” won’t you pursue the answer not as an academic exercise but because you really want to understand what your spouse recognizes as love so that you can show love in that way?

If, on the other hand, the person doesn’t matter, or if you say, “I’m not really interested in an audience, I just want to know what counts as love?” then I have to wonder why we are wasting each other’s time and attention.

Or maybe you just need to talk with someone and coming up with questions is a way to stay in contact.

So what counts … for you?

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great question

This morning, Chris twittered the question, “What’s YOUR favorite question to ask?” I didn’t read all the responses, but I loved the diagnostic it provides.

“Why?”
“Why not?”
“What’s the last book you read?”
“How can I help?”
“Where do you want to be in 5 years (or 5 months)?”
“How’s your soul?”
“Why don’t you trust him/her/yourself/Him?”
“Are we there yet?”
“Why me?”
“What if that didn’t matter?”
“Are you happy?”
“What if ____?”

Do the questions you ask people advance ideas or stop them? Do they focus on you or on others? Do they remind people of possibilities or of problems? Do they invite change or controversy or frustration or faith?

As you walk into this weekend. ask yourself, “What question do I want to be known for?” I may end a question with a preposition, but what if that didn’t matter?

How can I help?

[Oh, and for an interesting observation about friendship, go to Kester's blog.]

Technorati Tags: questions, planning, help

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each day

We’re supposed to love God. In fact, it’s commanded. Several times in Deuteronomy, Moses says, “Love the Lord your God.” Then Jesus, when asked what the greatest commandment is, says, yep, you guessed it, “Love the Lord your God.”

Various versions of how, or with what, we are supposed to love are given. The comprehensive list includes with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. In other words, with everything we are we are supposed to love.

It feels funny for that to be a command. I mean, if I were commanded to love my mom (whose birthday is/was June 13) or my wife (with whom I decided to be married on June 24th 25 years ago this year–more on that later) or my children, I would feel odd. I just love them. Except, of course, there are specific commands for me to love these four people as well. And I do, at various times, love them with every amount of effort I can find, working til exhausted at times, comforting broken hearts, thinking…you get the picture. Love is commanded, but I do it anyway.

So back to God. I am commanded to love, but when I think about creation, when I think about the four people I just listed who are part of my life, as well as my dad, as well as my friends (you), as well as every other material thing and the ability to think and the realization that in the middle of junk and cancer and genetic disorders and job reassignments, when I think about all this stuff, which are sometimes called blessings, I do acknowledge love. I do respond with “thank you.”

But you know what I just realized? How often have I said, “I love you God.”

I know. I’m a pastor. I’m a Christ follower. I’m supposed to get church, to get religion, to get God. But maybe I actually do need to be commanded to love God because sometimes I just absorb all the stuff and say thank you but forget that this is a relationship. And people with whom we have a relationship like to know how we feel, not just that we are grateful.

This post started with the intent of talking about having love be part of our everyday experience with God rather than being something we acknowledge on just on Sunday. But now I’m thinking that if I remembered to say  “I love you, God” every Sunday, I’d be doing better than I am now.

So, what do you think? Should we tell God we love Him? Do we need the command? Does love for God come as easily as love for our child or our spouse? Is this whole conversation hopelessly abstract?

Let me know. I’m preaching on Sunday and should probably understand what I’m thinking.

me

Chris Brogan started a wonderful process yesterday, wonderful until it comes to yourself. He realized that many people reading a blog don’t have the writer’s backstory, the stuff of life that came before now. And so he wrote part of his own story and then invited everyone else in the world to do the same thing.  The hard part is writing about one’s self…until you remember that that’s what happens all the time in blogging.

So here is what Chris calls “A quick sketch biography of Jon Swanson”

Most people know me for odd ways of saying things

A few years ago, I went through the process of being licensed as a minister in my denomination. That meant that I could perform weddings and funerals. I had to answer about 30 questions about theology and then had to meet with a group of 4 people to talk about my answers. As we talked, they tried to figure out why I said things the way I did because the answers weren’t the stock answers from Bible college or seminary.

We realized that I think inductively. I read and live and talk and listen and from all that form answers to questions. (This is in contrast to having the answer and looking for the question). As a result of this approach to living, I often have people say, “I never thought of that.” Full disclosure compels me to acknowledge that just as often people say, “What?”

The people I associate with the most are people with broken places and great potential

That, of course, includes humanity, but I find that many of the people that walk through my office and walk through my life are people who are trying to figure out something inside that doesn’t quite work and they want to understand why. Throughout my 15 years in higher education (1985-2000) as a teacher and administrator and then 7 years as part of a church staff, I keep having these kinds of conversations. Which is really, really cool.

People who have influenced my life include…

My wife who shapes me daily, our children who have helped me understand how much God must love me given how much I love them, and most anyone who encourages me.

One challenge I took on and overcame was completing my doctoral dissertation

Because no one could finish it for me, no one was making me do it, no one understood why it was so important to examine texts in the way I was, almost no one has read it and yet it was something that I needed to do (If you want to read it, feel free. 1989, The University of Texas at Austin, “The Rhetoric of Evangelization: A Study of Pragmatic Constraints on Organizational Systems of Rhetoric” )

My early years, before you probably got to know me were compliant (the easy-going child), obedient (the good child), chubby (the non-athletic, didn’t make the 6th grade softball team), musical (organ, violin, tuba, guitar), anonymous, midwestern (Born in Minneapolis, grew up near Chicago), underachieving (high test scores, lower grades), and nice.

You might not know this, but I’m a geek. Oh, wait. Everyone knew that but me until a couple years ago. Nevermind that my first job, starting in 1974 when I was a junior in high school, was as a computer operator on an IBM 370/125-a mainframe. Nevermind that I ran sound starting in college. Nevermind that our first computer was a PC clone (Columbia) that we paid 2K for in 1984. Nevermind that my first video class in college used 1/2 B&W reels of tape.

I’m passionate about helping people emotionally understand the truth of God’s work. Lots of people know lots of facts about God. But I want to help people, including myself, have an emotional understanding, finding out if the facts really have traction for real people in real relationship.

In the next year or two, I hope to grow as much as I have in the last two years.

I’ve been stretching in huge ways, pushing into new media and community and understanding how digital and face-to-face connect, particularly in helping people become whole. Somehow I want the learning to continue and to translate from the theoretical. Thanks to Nancy and Chris and to the blogs on my blog roll from FMC and to Michael and Rob and Paul and Becky and Connie, I am understanding relationship in whole new ways.

Family Photo: Hope, Nancy and Jon (not pictured, Andrew)

technorati tags:autobiography, sketch, chrisbrogan, jonswanson, jon+swanson

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165 hours

That’s how long most church people are not in church.

Three hours covers showing up, parking, coming in, chatting, being part of a Sunday school class and a church service, picking up the kids, and heading for home or to McDonalds.

And that feels like a long morning, like a huge amount of time at church, like a pretty big investment for God.

And I refuse to say, “But if you were really committed, you would come some other time.”

And I refuse to say, “We spend much more time than that on a football game/movie and dinner/sleeping in front of the TV/other things that people say to make people feel guilty.”

I don’t refuse to say, however, that for the other 165 hours that church people are not IN church, they still ARE church.

Or could be.

If we wanted to figure out how church can actually mean something in real life. Or, more accurately, if we wanted to figure out how Jesus can actually be.

technorati tags:church, god

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secrets

If our acts of righteousness are to be done in secret, do righteous people have blogs?