The Power of "No."

As this Year of Learning continues for me in my ministry, I have recently been contemplating the significance of balance.  Ministry continues to succeed in our core areas, and with that success comes endless opportunities to minister in other areas.  Some of those opportunities need to be pursued; others need to be shelved for somebody else or some other time.

One of the things I learned very early in my ministry experience was how to identify what fit with my/our core values and purposes (alas, to my chagrin, thank you Rick Warren and "Purpose Driven [Everything]").  However, there is a whole lot of things that I'm finding recently that do fit with my/our values and purposes, they do warrant some conversation, and they are convicting situations.

It's drawn my attention to the importance of knowing how and when to say, "No."

We -- and by "we" I mean individuals, teams, and organizations -- all have a certain capacity.  We have a literal point of fracture capacity and we have a healthy, optimum running standard capacity.  No matter which one we are referring to, the undeniable truth is that we have limits.

One of the things that Impact Campus Ministries (and I myself as an individual, hence my love of ICM and my job) holds dear is their commitment to pursuing and modeling a healthy and vibrant life with God.  One very big part of this is having to make sure we stay within our limits and are serving God from a healthy place.  Heroes for ICM will not be people that strive for superhuman feats, but people who have a consistent walk with the Creator that mirrors His desire and intent, modeling that for others.

This doesn't mean that there won't be seasons where God calls us to "suck it up" and work harder than usual or push our thresholds for a short time.  But as a general rule, we all want to find a rhythmic "hum" that puts us in healthy relationship with God and with others.

To stay committed to this value will mean that we become very familiar with the word "No."

When we find ourselves stretched to capacity (whether healthy, literal, or otherwise), we are forced to make decisions when new opportunities arise.

We can say yes to the new opportunity.  However, if we are stretched to capacity, this decision is going to cost you.  We like to ignore this simple fact, but it will kill us over the long run if we do not keep it in view.  The decision to move forward is going to cost you -- something is going to have to give.  You will have to give up something currently on your plate and replace it with the new opportunity.   You will have to reorganize priorities and make space for this new opportunity to breathe.  You can deny that such a cost exists, but the decision to move forward WILL cost you somewhere.

We can say no to the new opportunity.  I wont deal here with all of the secondary options that such a decisions opens up.  Things like: Who else can do this?  What is my responsibility to this need (and do I have one)?  What do I have the capacity to assist with?  I have learned that one of the things that I needed to realize was that saying "no" was not the same as saying that the opportunity wasn't good or worth time.  Every good idea is just that -- a good idea.  But I don't have the time or space to deal with that appropriately.  I am not willing to pay the price to take that on.

We can ignore the opportunity and decision that awaits.  This is often tempting, but incredibly foolish.  First of all, it doesn't respect the opportunity for what it is.  Second, it will usually continue to nag at our inboxes, our psyche, and our calendars if we don't deal with it; we still end up expending energy on the opportunity.  And third, it robs us of the chance (as painstaking as it might be) to remind ourselves of what's important, what our values happen to be, and who we are called to be in the Kingdom.  This is hard work, but well worth the decision.

We can ignore our capacity and just take more in, continuing to pile and pile onto our plate, attempting to deal with it all, crumbling under the pressures of our personal health, callings, expectations, values, and fulfillment.  We can ignore the simple fact that the costs mentioned above exist, but it doesn't remove the cost from being exacted from our experiences.  It will cost you somewhere.  It will destroy your personal health, your walk with God, and the real tragedy is the ones that will feel that cost the most will usually be your family and those closest to you.  It will cost you in overall productivity, so that even what you are doing well begins to suffer.  And/Or it will cost you in the area of the new opportunity, which will damage reputations, crush expectations and rob you of fulfillment in what God has called you to do.


I have been experiencing this reality this year.  There are lots of incredible opportunities at my door; the biggest frustration is that most of these opportunities came because either I created them or they presented themselves because something else that was a part of our ministry succeeded.  These are good opportunities!  I wish I could be more involved in the BEMA House than I am.  I wish I could be more proactive in building new relationships with more students and church staff.

But to say yes to any of those things would mean to pay the price in some other area.  I refuse to make a sacrifice that compromises my personal and organizational boundaries.  This has required some "No's" in a few areas that crushed me initially, but has been very liberating and empowering in helping me know who exactly I am and what I am called to do.

I am at my healthy capacity.  I am about God, the Text, my family, and discipleship (in no particular order).  And if I'm at capacity, then to say yes is to simultaneously say no to some part of the above list.

To say no is to say yes to the path God has designed for me.

The Election Challenge

So, if you were like me, you are tired of hearing about the election.  No more talk about politics.  No more opinions.  And, if you see one more stupid inhumane post on Facebook that tears down another human being while propping up your own inflated and fallacious view of reality -- especially from people who claim to follow a rabbi that called all men to lay down their arms and come to the table -- you may just lose your mind.

But alas, after waiting until all of the initial hub-bub has worn off, I hope to at least make one point that will be productive for the larger conversation.

To quote one of my favorite websites for this election season (www.electiondaycommunion.org):  Some of us voted for the candidate that won; some of us voted for the candidate that lost.  Some of us voted for another candidate; and some of us chose not to vote.  Many of us had very passionate convictions about those decisions, whatever option we chose.

To those who claim to follow Rabbi Jesus, I wanted to make some specific observations.  It appears from what we are willing to put on the interwebs that many of us think that the future is either doomed or guaranteed by what happened last Tuesday.  It is not.  There is One that continues to reign on His throne.  The song that was begun in Exodus 15, thousands of years ago, continues to ring throughout all eternity: "The LORD is reigning forever and ever..."

My understanding is that the book at the end of the Bible continues to insist that at the end of the story, God can still be found on His throne.  To quote my good friend Aaron Couch, "It's as if the writers of the Bible are saying, 'I've been to the throne room, and your troubles aren't on it!'"

Sadly, it is obvious that there are some followers of Rabbi Jesus that have mistakenly put there hope in the empires of our world.  One candidate's victory either led our spirits to be overwhelmed with despair or assured of global progress. 

To put one's trust in such things as a follower of Jesus is idolatry.  Period.
An invitation to repent would be appropriate.

We trust Jesus.  We trust the story that God is telling.  We get involved and we engage politics in many different ways.  We believe in our responsibilities to this world and to our culture and we vote or we don't.  But we don't put our hope in kings or in presidents or in congressmen or in legislation.  We do our best to impact the world for the Kingdom with every choice that we make, but nobody gets our allegiance except the "One like a lamb who was slain".

This means that our statements and our actions and the way that we treat other people matter.  On Wednesday, November 7th, the Kingdom lost in too many places.  This is a tragedy.  There is no election, no court decision, no empirical move that trumps our call to love God and love our neighbor.  Which leads me to the idea that I find most challenging today...

There are some of us that agreed with the above statements long before Tuesday the 6th.  Some of our took to the same cyberspaces as the heated debates to share our perspective.  Others of us stood in the front of classrooms and told our disciples that there is a King on a throne and His Kingdom reigns and it's not on a ballot.  Others of us kept quiet, trusting in the truth of the Good Shepherd to emerge victorious yet again.

But now, the challenge for those of us who believed in such a claim:
Prove it.

Prove that His Kingdom reigns.  If God is King, then His reign should be expanding throughout our world.  Prove that love and grace and mercy and compassion get the last word.  Many, many Christians on November 7th posted Facebook wall photos that read: "No matter who is president, Jesus is King."

Now is the time to prove it.  That's a hefty claim, to assert that the story we are a part of is more powerful then those who are in office.  A claim that insists that goodness will triumph over budgets and legislations and government programs.  It's the kind of thing that the early church claimed.   The early church's claim ended up turning the most powerful empire of the world on its head.  It's a powerful message.

But they proved it.  And it changed the world.
I am challenged by the call to prove what I said in the weeks leading up to the election.  Tomorrow, I will struggle to see the marginalized, to hear the cry of the oppressed and not be so self-involved that I miss what God is doing all around me.  I will find it close to impossible to not be defined by my consumer mentality and listen to the endless barrage of messages from the culture all around me.

But I long to grab a tambourine and join Miriam in her dance.  I long for God to bring me through the Red Sea, to rescue me from my Egypts and invite me to sing and dance and tell a different story. 

Go love somebody today.
Make a difference.
Bring healing.
Restore relationships.
Sacrifice comfort and security and luxury in order to bring shalom to chaos.
Continue to insist that each and every person is welcome at the table.
The "Good Gift" of bread and wine is for every situation, every social class, every political persuasion, and every gender.

"The LORD is reigning, forever and ever!"
        Prove it.

A Treasured Possession

Last week, Bill Buckingham delightfully interrupted our BEMA study in order to propose to his girlfriend, University of Idaho and BEMA student, Abigail Smith.  It was a wonderful surprise and a neat thing to be a part of.  Watch the event HERE.

Part of what seems so pleasing to me is how hard we work to make sure that BEMA is a place of romance and spontaneity.  Just kidding, but in all seriousness, it was neat to be able to be a part of that.

It made me think of conversations we've had in BEMA about relationships, love, marriage, and sex.  We did a lot of talking about these things when we studied Song of Songs in our study of the ketuvim (the "Writings") last year.  Our discussion settled around three Hebrew words for love: raya, ahava, and dod.

The first biblical idea of love is raya.  Raya is the friendship expression of love.  Sometimes we would talk about this love as being 'brotherly love'.  It's the same kind of idea that is connected to our neighbor.  We have raya for those around us.  In a romantic sense, raya is the infatuation that one has for the other person; that sense of not being able to get them off your mind.  It's full of the emotion and the romance of a newly budding relationship.

The second idea of love in the Hebrew bible is that of ahava.  Ahava is the commitment of a loving relationship.  In an ironic twist, the  Bible asks us not to just raya our neighbor -- don't just raya your reyacha -- but to ahava them.  The biblical call to love our neighbor is to be committed to them.  We are to love our neighbors unconditionally through the ups and downs of life.  Obviously, the ahava moment is when the couple commits to being together forever, no matter what life throws their way.  The proposal is the desire to enter into ahava.  Marriage is about ahava.


Then we have the third idea of love -- dod.  Dod is the erotic, sexual expression of love.  It's the love being referenced and described in the Song of Songs.  Pretty straight forward; not much need for explanation here.

In a romantic relationship, the three loves are meant to be experienced together.  Rob Bell once described these ideas of love as three flames; the flames are meant to be experienced as a raging fire.  Many, many of the problems we experience in our culture come as a result of not pursuing the full expression of love as God intended.  We have relationships (especially in the college culture) that are full of raya and dod without the ahava.  This is a problem.  Equally problematic is a marriage based solely on ahava without any raya or dod.  It's not meant to be that way.

In the biblical culture, people may or may not have had raya early in the relationship.  Marriages were often arranged more than chosen.  They often did not know their spouse well at all.  They came to ahava, consummated the marriage with dod, and took the next year of their life (off of work, no service in the military, very little community responsibility) and they got to know their spouse.  They discovered raya.  

While this system may be less than appealing to many and have its own challenges, the tragedy of much of our culture is that we seem to get our formula backwards and never own up to our own challenges.  We romanticize the dating/courting experience.  We cover ourselves in raya.  We struggle to find the dod experience in its appropriate context*.  When the wedding finally arrives, we highten up the romance and the songs -- the raya -- and we celebrate dod, but we have somehow missed ahava.  We then wonder why marriages are so doomed in our culture.  We must do a better job equipping our young adults to find ahava in the midst of our relationships**.

I want to congratulate Bill and Abby on their recent engagement.  I celebrate with them their relationship, their love, their romance and their future.  But I also want to hope that in the months to come, they prepare themselves to accept the wild adventure that is AHAVA. 

May they stand before each other, in the presence of family, friends and God Himself, and make a promise that no matter what life throws their way, they choose each other.  

*  By the way, parents, when you encourage children to enjoy raya, but postpone dod until ahava -- and then tell your children not to grab ahava until later in life, you are setting them up for failure; God has designed the three flames to burn together.  I suppose the ideal situation would be to begin pursuing raya when you are ready to find that special someone, when you've found that someone and decided to pursue ahava together, then do it and pursue relationships as God intended.  If you aren't willing to pursue the three flames, don't mess with any of them; to do so would be disastrous 

**  I realize that there are a thousand different scenarios that I'm simply not going to attempt to deal with (i.e. the struggle of being single and finding a mate, the long and justified pre-marital relationship trying to stay away from dod, and every other exception that one could think of).  My goal is to communicate a general principle: in my opinion, to try and pursue a relationship that is void of certain aspects of Godly design is potentially (I did not say impossible) disastrous.  If, for whatever reason, one cannot pull the trigger on a full, martial relationship, they need to be ready to experience problems that could lead to the dissolution of said relationship.  We should be people that help cultivate this understanding.  Instead, I have repeatedly found that we do the exact opposite.

The Year of Learning

I have been thinking about how my experience this year has been varying from my experience last year.  If I were to give last school year a designation, I would have called 2011-2012 the "Year of Surprises and Blessings".  God surprised me around every corner by overcoming my cynicism and pessimism about what is possible around me, through me, and through those I work with.

This year has been a great one so far.  It too has been a blessing, but in a completely different way.  It has been a year of being humbled and challenged.  And while the entire experience has been very tiring over the last few months, I wouldn't trade it for a moment; I'm going to be much better on the other side of this experience.  God is at work molding me, pruning me, and teaching me to continue to grow in my leadership abilities.

If I could be so bold as to make a presumptuous prediction:
2012-2013 is the Year of Learning

It's been a year of learning about my personal capacity.  I pushed the limits of what I was trying to do this summer.  I set goals that were a little too high and expectations that were probably even higher.  From fundraising to personal growth to what I hoped to accomplish in my ministry, I kept trying to feed the "expansion monster".  I wanted my knowledge to expand, my ministry to expand, our funding to expand, our impact to expand...   I forgot to listen to what God was doing; I ran past Him.  I bless Him for His gentle call back to where He was on the path.

It's been a year of learning how my plans are not always (or even most of the time) God's plans.  To hold my dreams loosely and wait on what God wants to do in the lives of other people was incredibly important to my sanity this first quarter.  This is not to say that it wasn't a personal struggle -- it most certainly was.  But to constantly be reminded that just because our interns don't respond the way I envisioned them responding, or just because my disciples don't see life the way that I see it, or just because I'm not able to be the rabbinic Superman at the BEMA House that I wanted to be, this doesn't mean that God is not directing our steps, impacting lives, speaking to our hearts and setting captives free.

It's been a year of learning about the things I still struggle with personally.  Pride.  It rears its ugly head from time to time.  And it hurts.  When I don't hold it in check, it can hurt other people.  This leads to confession and the need to seek forgiveness from other people.  People are most often ready to grant that forgiveness and that actually leads to another challenge -- accepting grace!  When you know that you've dropped the ball and blown it and the offended party tells you that they know and that it is OK, can you accept the grace?  Do you continue to try and "right the wrong"?  Prove your genuineness?  To accept love is harder than we might think.  But it makes us better, doesn't it?  To be a part of that story is compelling and I long to put that on display to others.

It's been a year of learning.  The Spirit is such a tricky thing to discern.  As Jesus said, like the wind, She blows this way and that, and it's impossible to tell where She's coming from or where She's going.  But you know that the Spirit is working.  (see John 3:8)

To stay faithful to the call.  To be ready to jump out of the way and let God move.
This is a tricky thing to learn.

But it's good.
And it's going to be a good year.

DOC 2012!

September was the time for our second annual Dutch Oven Cookout and the efforts did not disappoint.

Just as last year, we had a ton of fun.  All of those 'Dutch Oveners' (I counted somewhere between 20-25 ovens) amaze me with their cast iron cooking genius.  The food is delicious and the company is even better.  In fact, I was pretty sure that the food actually got better this year.  Chicken and beef marinaded in pure delicious goodness. Vegetables, mac 'n cheese, casseroles, and potatoes covered the tables, not to mention my favorites -- the cherry and peach cobblers.

This is the greatest fundraiser ever.  It's a win, win, win for everybody.  People get to celebrate a hobby of theirs.  Food is delicious.  The world of campus ministry is supported.  The live music from the Garrett and the Collins' family always entertains.





The raffle was even better than last year.  The ladies added a silent auction portion.  We still had two tables of baskets that were made and donated by some very gifted and creative people.  And, of course, one of Liz Mandelkow's incredible quilts.  We raised well over $3000 at the event -- which was an increase over last year's number.  Praise God!



Again, our family's big thanks goes out to all those who worked so hard to pull this event off.  To the Mandelkow's and the Lookingbill's -- thank you for your love and support and all of your hard work.  To all those numerous people that help out, thank you.  And to all of you who came out to support us, despite the drizzle and the clouds and the 'climatic uncertainty'...  thanks to you, too :)

The BEMA House

The BEMA House is officially open.
Let the crazy experiment begin.

The journey to this place has been a crazy one.  If the reader is unfamiliar with the BEMA program and what we're attempting to accomplish, they should definitely check our BEMA's website first and couch this conversation within a larger context first.

The house wasn't even a part of our plan for this school year.  It was sitting on my long-term goals list somewhere around the 5-10 year mark.  Yet, when God blew the doors open (no pun intended) on the opportunity to rent out the next door house to my family's residence, after much prayer and some waiting, we jumped on the opportunity.

We arrived in Moscow and were set to move into the BEMA House in the second week of August.  On the first week of August, however, the owner decided to do a complete and total remodel on the home.  This was great news and concerning news at the same time.  The great news is that we'd get to enjoy a brand new and clean home with all-new appliances for our great experiment.  The concerning news is that we had three female residents signed up to move in in less than a week.  We all crossed our fingers and proceeded as planned.

The house wasn't ready on time.  The girls were incredibly gracious and were able to change their plans and give the workers another week to work.

The house still wasn't ready.  We were able to get the girls' moving trucks unloaded into the bedrooms and the management company put up the girls in hotel rooms for a few nights.  To make a long story short, we got the girls into the house on the night before the first day of classes.  The last two weeks has been a combination of getting the rest of the house in order and waiting for the work to be finished up.  We finally have gotten settled in the home and there is only a few small items we are waiting for.  We feel like life in the house has finally started and we are anxious about seeing what God is going to do.  We have had our first meeting and have even planned our Grand Opening party.

Here is a short video giving you a tour of the premises:




The house is designed around three guiding principles:
COMMUNITY -- We will seek to share life together.  We want to live in such a way that our paths intentionally cross every day, multiple times a time.  We will share laundry facilities and kitchens.  We will eat together and watch TV together.  We will have common places to study, to relax and to converse.

DISCIPLESHIP -- The study groups we have talked about before really aren't the essence of the discipleship process at all.  They are simply the preparation.  The biblical concept of discipleship started when a rabbi invited the student to follow him.  Acceptance of this call was not only the greatest honor of first-century biblical culture, it was also a complete change of plans and abandon to follow that teacher for the next few years.  You followed in his steps all day, every day, every week, every month, all year; you were in a never-ending atmosphere of "learning by doing; learning by following".  A bible study is not discipleship.  A small group is not discipleship.  Even a daily gathering each day isn't discipleship.  At least not in the biblical sense of the term.  Even the life of the BEMA House isn't discipleship; but it is an experiment in that direction.  Maybe God doesn't require that we make disciples the way He made disciples.  But I'm wondering why more people having asked that question or tried to pursue that call.  This is the discipleship experiment for BEMA.

PURSUING GOD -- We hope that the BEMA House creates some very intentional and unique spaces to pursue God.  In a world that busies itself with so many "other" things, we want to create spaces where we rest in the things of God.  How do we learn how to pray and listen?  How can we create an atmosphere where the "God conversation" is the right conversation to be on anybody's lips at any time?  These are the questions we want to ask about what we're trying to accomplish at the house.   The students are asked to take part in intentional spiritual discipline during their time at the house.  They will study the Text, they will memorize the Text, they will write out large portions of the Text.  They will try to find rhythms of rest and Sabbath.  They will try to find how to dwell with, converse with, and listen to God.


All in all, I'm incredibly excited to see what's going to happen in this great experiment and I can't wait to see all the things that God's going to do that will be outside of our design and plan.  I can only hope that we will be disciplined and attentive enough to catch it.

BEMA Study Groups Resume

The groups are back in full swing and the students are back with a vengeance.  As somebody who finds himself serving in his wheelhouse when he's teaching, I couldn't me more thrilled at having been given the opportunity to return to these encouraging gatherings every day, every week.

(For anybody who may not know much about the BEMA experiment, I invite you to check out the BEMA website and read more about what we're trying to accomplish.)

There were questions I had about how things would go when the classes resumed:

Would the students come back?  They did!  We lost quite a considerable number of students to graduation last year and another chunk of students who didn't return to school, but of all the students who DID return, we seem to have had a 100% return involvement.  This was very encouraging, as a campus minister holds his breath to see who will make it over the "summer hump".  Not only did they come back, but we also have seen a number of new students jump into the study midstream.  So far, the newbies have said it's a little overwhelming, but they feel like they're getting the hang of it.

If they did come back, would they be excited or would this whole study be 'old news' to many?  It appears to be that the studies maintain all their old energy -- with even the addition of a summer's worth of questions, thoughts and experiences.  One of the greatest joys in the first few weeks of study has been the insurgence of new voices in the conversations.  There are some students who were always somewhat reserved and quiet last year.  This year, they have come out of the woodwork, in the absence of last year's seniors to take charge of the discussion and dive into the tough stuff.  This is a great joy to see the treasure that was buried last year (also a great challenge to try and unearth more of that treasure that still might be hiding).

How much would they remember?  Last year, we did a book-by-book study of the Old Testament and started every class with a 15 minute review of EVERYTHING we had studied previously.  The goal was to make this information stick in long-term memory banks.  That is a lot of material that isn't easy to digest at times.  On the first day of class this year, with minimal assistance, the students recited back thousands of years worth of biblical history.  Awesome.

Of course, having said all of that, I will be the first to admit that such a feat is certainly not discipleship.  Nor is it even transformational in and of itself.  We can learn mountains of information each and every day and still far short of experiencing freedom, renewal or partnering with God to redeem all of creation.  But as cliche as it is to point that out, I do believe that part of the problem with evangelical faith is that we have lost the passion for the story -- for the Text.  We need to recapture the wonder of what God has done through His word that never returns void and always accomplishes its purpose.  Could it be that one of the first steps of recapturing this wonder is making God's story -- correctly told -- a priority in our walks?

This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."  ~Jeremiah 6:16

How will we walk in the good way, if we don't know where it is?  When somebody asks for the ancient path, who will have the answer?  Who will know what the good way looks like if we don't know his story?  We have a lot of experts these days in doctrine.  We need some experts in the good way.

One last challenge I'm sensing as I listen to these students recite back tons of information and spend summers wrestling with the implications of the theology we've deconstructed and reconstructed, I'm sensing the need for them to be able to wrestle with and own their own conclusions about their own faith.  In my passionate pursuit of framing the story correctly, I've noticed how dangerously close I am to just creating people that know how to repeat the catch phrases.  I'm wanting to see the students EXPERIENCE the catch phrases, even if they can't recite them.  This is one of my largest goals this year.  Can we have multiple moments where the lights come on and students experience the Sabbath rest of God?  Will we have anybody lay their life down in service to another because they trust that they have everything they need and don't need to worry about security, love, or acceptance?

These will be the true tests of our studies.  We've proven our ability to teach large quantities of information.  But now the test of whether or not there is LIFE in our words lies in front of us.  May God use the work we've done to do much bigger, much more important things in the hearts of these students.