Shared Goals

My pastor is fond of saying, "We all want to get to the same place; we just disagree about how to get there." Usually he's talking about denominational divides when he says that, but I think it applies to the election too. It used to go without saying, but I've seen lots of venom in the public square lately, so I'm going to say it: We all want the same things. A better life for our kids — to be safe and free — to ensure that the under-represented, underprivileged, and under-resourced among us enjoy justice, protection and care. The same bright future is envisioned on both sides of the aisle. But this morning half of us woke up feeling that future is more possible than ever before and half of us woke up feeling that our hopes for such a future have been dashed. Let's be good winners and losers. But more importantly, let's realize we'll all lose if we can't find a way to talk about "how to get there" without name-calling and mistrust.

Fighting Election

Every so often, we get everyone together for a big fight. It's so strange. I don't really think we care so much about what we're fighting over (with one or two obvious exceptions). We just seem to like the fight. I'm talking about presidential elections, of course.

This dynamic is so bizarre to me. I know people who are perfectly well-adjusted, level-headed, rational beings who suddenly turn to ogres come election time. I know these people on both sides of the aisle.

It's like Thanksgiving. Every so often, we get all our parties together and try to figure things out and someone gets drunk and we all leave mad and we add to our family lore about the one time Uncle Larry tried to carve the turkey and ruined everything.

I wonder why we do this. There are probably dozens of reasons I don't understand but a few come to mind.

Control
Voting — or more accurately, winning the vote — gives us a sense of control. It feels like we're making a better future if our ideas are the ones that win. We have more confidence in our countrymen if we feel that the majority of them agree with us. If, on the other hand, most of them don't share our views, we complain about "what America is coming to" or wish that someone would "get those other people out of the dark ages." No one ever watches their candidate lose and then says, "Hmm. Most of my compatriots disagree with my position. I wonder if their ideas are actually better. I wonder what I can learn from them." I think there's a level of humility missing from our national discourse. And there's a longing for control. Every man-made religion on earth peddles control. It's a powerful motivator.

Winning
We've also all got a little bit of Charlie Sheen in us. We like winning. Our culture is obsessed with it. We've turned sport into a multi-billion dollar alternative reality where the ultimate virtue is winning. And we turn our non-competitive endeavors — academia, ministry, the arts — into competitions with awards and scorecards.

Politics gives us clear winners and losers. If you get more votes, you win. It's simple and easy to measure. It takes less work and less discernment than fighting our ideological battles where they matter — in our relationships.

False Enemies
That relates to my final idea. I think we work ourselves into a political fervor every four years because it's easier to battle enemies we can see. Every Christian gives ascent to the idea that our enemy isn't flesh and blood. Our enemy doesn't have a political party. But we tend to think of people on the other side of the aisle as pawns of the enemy. It's easier to fight those enemies. We can see them, vote against them, visit their websites, spread rumors about them, blame them, and demonize them. They're easy to hate.

But ultimately, they are a distraction. Our enemy is unseen as is our Hero.

I'm not saying politics isn't important. I voted in this election, and I treasure that right. It's one of the reasons I believe in our country. And I'm not saying we should abandon our convictions. I have some pretty strongly-held positions on issues of the day, especially justice issues like abortion. But I think we Christians tend to forget that the real battle isn't won or lost in the voting booth. The real battle happens on a grassroots level — deeper than that, it happens in hearts.

After all, that's the beauty of representative government. Our politicians aren't leaders; they are followers. That's true not just because of their character (I don't see a lot of conviction in most politicians) but because of their profession. Following is how politicians get elected. Trust me: if 90 percent of Americans deeply believed that abortion should be illegal, President Obama would be a staunch pro-lifer. He's a follower. They are all followers. It's up to us to lead them.

If you want to win an election, win hearts. Love people well. Pray against your enemy. Start with your neighbors and coworkers — not to bring their votes to your party, but bring their souls to restoration. And maybe in the trenches of the real battle, the allure of an election night victory party will become secondary.

Beer Money

Part of what makes church work and government not work is sheer size. One key to a successful community of any kind is interdependence. Let me explain.

Imagine you've dropped in on guy's night with the men from my small group. There are five of us — six counting you. We're at Buffalo Wild Wings (yes, you can talk about Jesus at a sports bar), and we all decide to chip in to buy a pitcher of beer (yes, you can talk about Jesus while drinking beer). Now imagine one of the guys can't contribute. He forgot his wallet or his budget is tight this month. What would we do? We would cover him, of course. We would buy his beer. And what would he do? He would thank us. He likely wouldn't forget his wallet again soon. And if he continued to do so, the rest of us might just tell him that we're getting tired of paying his way. Or if he was genuinely disadvantaged, we would happily continue to pay for him or possibly stop having guys night at some place where he's expected to buy stuff.

Around that table at Buffalo Wild Wings, there would be generosity, gratitude and accountability.

You can be interdependent with six guys, but the larger the group gets, the harder it becomes. If our group turns into 30 guys, some of the group won't even know who didn't pay. If our group is 300, we'll have to start a spreadsheet. At 3,000, we're not really even part of the same party; we're dividing up into lots of little groups within the big group. In a group of 3,000, you have to be very intentional about accountability, generosity and gratitude. It's easy to lose sight of who you should be grateful to, and who your generosity is helping.

Now imagine if our little guys group swells to 300 million people. Now when everyone pitches in, it's not generosity; it's taxation. And when someone gets a free ride, there isn't gratitude; there is shame and entitlement. And when someone misappropriates the beer money to spend it on favors for a friend, it goes unnoticed.

Now before you get mad and start waving election banners, let me point out that this is not a political stance. The same dynamic happens regardless of how conservative or liberal are the guys around the table. It's just human nature. There is a universal inverse relationship between the level of interdependence in a group and the number of its members.

Interdependence, and therefore authentic community, is only possible in small groups.

Pass the beer nuts.

Book Birthing

For some time now I've had this vision of writing my book in a cottage retreat with no distractions, open windows, a creaky wooden table, and a pipe.

That's stupid.

The idea just confronted me — just sneered and splashed water in my face to wake me from that years-long dream. Of course that's not how this is going to go. Of course I can't write like that — not the first book, at least. Maybe the 40th. No, this birth is going to be bloody and frustrating and unpleasant. It's going to be scary and it's going to stop and start so often that I'll be convinced several times that it will never come. That's how this will come, or it won't come at all. It will be gritty or it will be stillborn.

Lord, I pray for a healthy child.

Righteous Reffing

I've always loved sports. It's not because I'm good at them or because I'm trying to relive the glory days of the past or earn my dad's approval (you know guys who love sports for all those reasons). I just like to play. It's fun to compete, to get out there, to meet a challenge.

I also think there are important lessons to learn from sport: integrity, hard work, fair play, discipline, teamwork, confidence, the ability to contend with someone else and still respect them.

I like to watch sports as well as play them. I'm loyal to a few teams and I cheer for them regularly. It's not an obsession or a source of my self-worth (again, you know guys) but it's a healthy diversion. Like Downton Abbey with a scoreboard.

But I can no longer deny that our sports are changing. This weekend, we witnessed further evidence that sports armageddon is nigh. If you haven't read, watched or heard the voices screaming about poor officiating that cost the Green Bay Packers a game on Monday Night Football, then you can catch up here. What bothered me was not the botched call. I've seen officiating even worse than that. If pressed, I could even defend the call to an extent. What bothered me was the lack of perspective and integrity this episode revealed.

Let's start with integrity. I stayed up after the game to watch some of the coverage and it was amazing to me that none of the journalists who commented on this story blamed the receiver in question, Golden Tate, for cheating. Their outrage was aimed at the refs for not catching Tate cheating. There's an assumption here that players will use any means necessary, including cheating, to win. It's up to the referees to ensure fair play, not the consciences of the players.

After the game, there were interviews with both Tate and his coach Pete Carroll. Both were giddy. Neither seemed concerned about winning with an unfair advantage. The reporter asked about the play call, about the referees, but almost nothing asked about cheating. At one point, she did ask Tate, "Did you push off?" meaning, "Did you illegally interfere with your opponent's play?" But everyone watching knew Tate pushed off. We saw it replayed 48 times. Asking him if he cheated was like asking him if he was wearing a uniform. We could all see his uniform. We could all see him cheat. But as remarkable as the questioning was, Tate's answer was even more disturbing. Early in the interview, Tate said, "I play for God first and then for my teammates." I appreciate my brother giving glory to God for his gifts and blessings, but just seconds later when the reporter asked him if he cheated, he said, "I don't know what you're talking about." The message was apparently, "I'm a Christian, and I'm a cheat. I cheat for Jesus!"

Since the game, every SportsCenter, every newspaper article, every commentator with a microphone has decried the poor officiating and demanded improvement. No one has decried the lack of integrity on the part of the players and coach. No one has dared suggest that Golden Tate should have raised his hand in confession of the foul, or that Pete Carroll should have forfeited the win. What we need, they say, is better policing of the cheaters, not fewer cheaters.

The reason that cheating is expected, of course, is that so much is at stake. It's one thing to cheat in your neighborhood sandlot game. It's another when million-dollar contracts and billion-dollar tax-subsidized stadium deals are on the line. Or at least that's how the argument goes. But that argument reveals a lack of perspective on two levels.

First, we have let our recreational pursuits grow into behemoth business engines that affect whole state and national economies. This says so much about us — our addictive national personality, our celebrity culture, our ignorance of deeper truths and simple pleasures. Maybe the passing of Steve Sabol last week should send us a reminder about days when football players had second jobs. I know it's fantasy. I know it's "Good Old Days Syndrome", but let's consider it.

Secondly, so what if it's costly? Isn't that the point of integrity? If I understand the argument correctly, the idea is that people can't be expected to play fair when the stakes are high. Is that the lesson we want sports to teach?

What if Golden Tate had admitted to cheating in that post-game interview and said, "I don't think this win should count. I didn't really have possession of that ball. Just because the refs didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

You know what would happen to Tate? He would be ridiculed. He might lose his job. He would certainly be reprimanded by his coach and front office personnel. After all, money is at stake!

But he would also be a leader. Maybe that's exactly what the NFL, NBA and MLB need: someone who is willing to be foolish and honest rather than crooked and rich.

And that's the crux of this problem: values. In the world of professional sports, there are two values: winning and money. Everything else is subjected to those values. Among the barrage of interview, commentaries, columns, rants and reports related to Monday night's game, no one, not a single person associated with the NFL or any news organization, has said or written the four words that my parents taught me about keeping sports in perspective:

It's just a game.

Of God, Freedom and Community

I spoke to a group of people this week about freedom. Freedom is an inevitable ingredient in healthy community. When we are free to be who we really are, we are open to be loved deeply. The opposite is true too. If we are not free to be authentic, our relationships are restricted; as is our growth.

This morning I read this about freedom from one of my favorite authors, Thomas Merton:

As long as you pretend to live in pure autonomy, as your own master, without even a god to rule you, you will inevitably live as the servant of another man or as the alienated member of an organization. Paradoxically, it is the acceptance of God that makes you free and delivers you from human tyranny, for when you serve him you are no longer permitted to alienate your spirit in human servitude. God did not invite the children of Israel to leave the slavery of Egypt. He commanded them to do so. 

Merton is affirming that when we seek autonomy, we seek separation from our kind. To seek autonomy is to seek to be God for only God is entirely self-sufficient. And because that is true, he is holy, set-apart, different not only in degree but in kind. Jesus was not the best of our human kind; he was an entirely different kind. There can only be one God. When we seek to be him, we leave no room for others of our kind.

Autonomy leads assuredly to isolation. Isolation leads in turn to idolatry, pride, and slavery. The end of all these is destruction as our enemy designs. All of these work in opposition to mutual submission, community, obedience, humility and freedom.

If we wish to be free, we must submit to one another. If we wish to be God, we should seek isolation and independence.

Better Relationships Through Note Taking

My wife Christine is the pastor of our cul-de-sac. Yesterday, one of our neighbors brought her a potted plant as a thank-you for kind things Christine has done for their family. The last time we had a block party, another of our neighbors told me, "Christine is the only one on the block who knows everyone's name." If there is a party to organize, if someone is looking for their kids, or if anyone has a question about the next National Night Out, Christine is the go-to resource.

She has earned that position by taking notes.

Christine takes note of people — literally. Any time she visits with a neighbor in the front yard, or attends a birthday party for a neighbor kid, she comes home and scribbles notes about what she learned.

• Neighbor A has a sister in the hospital. 
• Neighbor B is from Bangladesh. 
• Neighbor C is worried about another round of layoffs. 

I think if you gathered up all the scrap paper in our house, you could piece together the family trees of everyone on our block.

Is that creepy? Maybe a little. Maybe instead of the pastor of our street, I should say she's the stalker on our street. But it's also terribly effective. Our neighbors can't believe how thoughtful she is when she asks about an ailing family member they mentioned to her three months ago. It shows a level of caring and selflessness they aren't used to.

I'm not as good a stalker / pastor as Christine, but I've started trying. Years ago when we joined our small group, I sat down to write everything I knew about the guys in the group — favorite sports, musical tastes, how many siblings they have, age, career, hobbies, whatever. I was able to fill about one page per guy.

Last month, as part of small group leader training for our church's Men's Ministry, I encouraged table leaders to do the same: after the first week, write everything they know about each guy at their table, and then make it a goal to double that knowledge by the end of the semester. If they could fill one page the first week, surely they could listen to their brothers enough to fill two pages 10 weeks later.

One of my pastor friends likes to talk about "pastoring a personal parish." Your church's "parish" is defined by geography — neighborhoods and cities around its building. But your personal parish is defined by relationships — a family member out of state, a parent on your kid's soccer team, a coworker in the Beijing office. As our world continues to grow beyond physical boundaries, our personal ministries do too.

On Saturday, I was sitting next to Christine in some bleachers watching our six-year-old play in his second baseball game with a new team, when I noticed she was typing something into her phone. She was taking notes again. As each boy approached the plate for his at-bat, Christine was listening to his parents' cheers and taking note of his name and number. Our team has two coaches and I guarantee they don't know all the boys' names. But Christine does. She's pastoring from the bleachers — adopting these boys and their parents into her personal parish.

Will those relationships ever lead to spiritual conversations? Knowing Christine, probably so. But even if they don't, she has loved them well. She has been a thoughtful ambassador for Jesus. She has cultivated deeper relationships. Maybe the rest of us should take note.

Ultimate Evil

I believe that human suffering is not the ultimate evil. It is not the thing we should  most ardently avoid or prevent.

What is? Human comfort.

This position was clarified for me by an episode of The West Wing. I was a huge West Wing fan. That show may have been the best-written television program of all time. In Episode 127, "A Good Day", Congressman Matt Santos leads a clandestine scheme to vote down Republican legislation that would cancel funding for stem cell research. To defeat the bill, he has to convince a freshman Democrat of the value of stem cell research. He does so by appealing to "the greater good". He tells the freshman that millions of lives might be spared suffering if we use a few lives to prevent it. The trade-off is worth the cost.

I remember sitting in silence for a long time after that episode, trying to decide if Matt Santos was right. If human suffering is the ultimate evil, then we should do all we can to prevent or reverse it. The meaning of life becomes a numbers game in which we measure suffering (Willing to trade one million more ulcers in exchange for 100 fewer cancers?) and work the solution that ensures the least.

But I think that's a fearful and myopic approach to life. And though I loved the West Wing scripts, I often disagreed with the worldview from which they were written.

So what is the ultimate evil? Meaninglessness.

In his book Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper equates ultimate evil with ultimate waste. He recalls reading a story in Reader's Digest that told of a couple who seemed to embody the American Dream. They "took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect seashells."

Piper cajoles:

Come to the end of your life — your one and only precious, God-given life — and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgement: "Look, Lord. See my shells." That is a tragedy. 

Ultimate evil is not human degradation but human exaltation — not when we are forced against our will, but when our will succumbs to force.

When the Holocaust hero Father Maximilian Kolbe redeemed his suffering by trading his life for that of another prisoner, he ensured that his life was not wasted and his suffering not victorious. He turned evil to good. In fact, the setting for greatest evil was transformed to good by his chosen suffering.

But of course there were others in those prison camps — and in every kind of prison since then — who did not suffer well, who considered their own comfort or deliverance the highest cause.

We are most noble and most good and most God-like when we, in fact, choose suffering for another's sake — when we run toward the burning building, when we don't love our lives so much as our humanity. We are most evil when we love ourselves highest and look out for number one until it kills us.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not looking for any opportunities to suffer, and I believe God is grieved by human injustice. Humans are icons of God, and when they suffer injustice, God is mocked. But a belief system in which human suffering is the ultimate evil is one in which human comfort is the ultimate good. That's humanism or consumerism. It's not Christianity.

Book Review: A Faith Of Our Own

Christians are bad at politics. We always have been. And Jonathan Merritt says we should just give up. In his new book, A Faith Of Our Own, Merritt tackles the tricky relationship between Christianity and politics in America. Merritt's conclusions dovetail with his personal story. A graduate of Liberty University, he was poised to inherit all the perks, traditions, and cultural assumptions of evangelical royalty. His father was president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His book opens with a story about having breakfast with Jerry Falwell.

But for all his conservative Christian heritage, Merritt is something of a political prodigal. He proposes a different way, a new approach to Christian engagement with politics and culture which, it turns out, isn't new at all.

Merritt's thesis is that it's time to abandon the culture wars. Intertwined with stories from his own journey through the subculture of the Moral Majority, Merritt gives several reasons for this:

1. We've Lost
The culture wars are over and Christians have lost. We have failed to persuade both Capitol Hill and Hollywood to embrace Biblical values. We can keep beating the same dead horses or we can see the handwriting on the wall. Culture wars haven't worked. God hasn't moved our nation through them. So it remains for us to ask Him whether this is a test of perseverance or an opportunity to follow Him into something new. Like DC Talk of old, Merritt says God is doing a new thang.

2. Jesus Didn't
This is perhaps the most compelling argument in the book and one that could have used more emphasis, I think. When we examine Jesus' own relationship with his culture and government, we see a different pattern than the one we're used to. Jesus lived under an oppressive government that was intolerant of Judaism (and later Christianity), that refused to embrace any religious faith save for its own secular humanism (worshipping Caesar as god may be the very definition of humanism), and that taxed religious people to fund immoral government programs. Like conservative Christians of the 20th century, Jews of the first century were ready to "take back their nation for God." That's why they were eager for Jesus to seize political power, to assume his place as a political savior. But Jesus refused every opportunity to do so. He consistently chose obscurity and humility over power-grabs. This was, in fact, one of the areas in which Satan tempted him directly.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the wold and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said.

Merritt's assertion is that Christians have mistakenly bowed to the prince of this world by making the kingdom of God nothing more than a political faction in his worldly system of me-first politics.

3. Disunity
Merritt presents some interesting statistics about Christians on both sides of the political aisle. Thanks to the well-funded and radio-broadcasted voices in evangelical politics, we often think of Christians as exclusively conservative. But Merritt cites sources that show that our brothers on the left can be just as polarizing and just as blindly attached to party. When believers are divided by politics, it elevates matters of governance above matters of the heart. It undermines Jesus command for us to love one another so well that it becomes our touchstone. Merritt argues that when we engage in culture wars we create civil war in the kingdom of God. And a house divided against itself cannot stand.

4. Bad PR
Finally, Merritt argues that Christians have created a negative stereotype for ourselves in the culture, and we only reinforce that stereotype when we fight culture wars. Of course, that's not fair. Not all Christians are gun-toting, war-making, greedy, gay-bashing hate-mongers. No stereotype is fair. But in all our politicking, we have failed to learn the ancient political truism that perception is reality. Just because the vast majority of Christians are kind, generous and compassionate, doesn't mean we don't have to deal with the perception that we are otherwise. To refuse to deal with the stereotype because it's false is to reinforce the stereotype. The wise choice, instead, is to prove it wrong. And we do that best outside the sphere of politics.

Winning hearts to faith in the White House seems like a bigger coup for the kingdom of God than winning hearts to faith under a bridge in South Dallas. But the latter requires more faith. His ways are not our ways.


It's hard to disagree with Merritt's theses, but it's also easy to finish his book without clarity about how to go forward. Should Christians abandon political involvement altogether? Should we even vote? Our primary citizenship is in heaven, but shouldn't we also take seriously our American citizenship? Shouldn't we work for mishpat and shalom in the land of our sojourn?

Merritt's most explicit answer to those questions comes in the form of a quote from one of his mentors:

"As faithful Christians, we may be compelled to enter the political arena from time to time. But we should always be uncomfortable there."

But that's hardly robust enough advice to govern all the ways Christians are to interact with government and culture.


Besides these reasons for abandoning culture wars, Merritt makes several other strong points and addresses a few hot-button issues.

Civility
Merritt argues that Americans are, and have long been, unable to engage in constructive, civil discourse about controversial topics. He asserts that the current state of journalism only feeds this incivility which has become a major obstruction to good governance and a peaceful union, not to mention evangelism.

One of the encouraging things about Merritt's approach is how he handles "Crazy Uncle Harry". Referring to conservative Christian political activists, Merritt quotes Pastor Joel Hunter: "It's like our crazy Uncle Harry got out of the home and ran into city hall wearing a shirt with the family name. We love him, but he misrepresents us."

I've heard this accusation before and it's accurate. But what we have to realize is that it's always accurate for everyone. None of us is comfortable being represented by anyone else, whether in our faith family, our natural family, our political party, or our sports team affiliations. But that's what family is about. We have to learn how to embrace our family members, even when they embarrass us. I may not wear a sandwich board and shout like the street preacher, but I have to be willing to count him a brother and a servant of God on equal footing with me. I have to believe in a family of God big enough for both of us. Merritt seems to be willing to do that with culture warriors.

Constantine
Last year, I read Greg Boyd's book, The Myth Of a Christian Nation. Boyd was even more forceful than Merritt in his warnings not to mix faith and politics. Both authors refer to deep changes that happened in the church when Christianity became intwined with Roman government in the fourth century. What Merritt argues in A Faith Of Our Own is that the culture wars in America may represent our own Constantinian watershed. If the 1950s marked the high point of American civil religion, they may also mark the beginning of the end of true kingdom building.

Gay Marriage and Abortion
Each of these topics gets its own chapter in the book, and Merritt's political positions are easy to decipher. He's a social conservative: Baptist habits die hard. But the point of these chapters is to think about new ways to hold up the virtues of God's moral law. Merritt argues that Christians are awfully good at hating sin; unconvincing when it comes to loving sinners.

We Are America
There's one other principle that Merritt only touches lightly, but that has become my rallying cry in the culture wars: repentance. I believe that every time a Christian decries the evil of our culture, the next sentence out of his mouth should be a prayer of repentance. Because the truth is that if we were doing our job as salt and light, our culture wouldn't be as immoral as it is. Merritt says, "Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it."

The way to "win America back to God" is not to shout at Americans that they need to repent, or pass laws requiring moral decisions. The way is for the church to lead in repentance. This land is our land; this sorrow must be ours too.

Bad Writing Is No Different

Don't tell me what's not different about your subject.

How many times have you read a lead like this:

"Everyone needs a challenge, and Sally was no different."
"Everyone needs love, and Harry was no different."
"Every Cowboys fan is familiar with disappointment; Jerry was no different."

Today I read the following paragraph in, ironically, a blog for writers:

"We all long for community. For family and friends. We were made to experience life in the context of groups to which we belong. We all need a loyal "band of brothers [or sisters]" to embrue us for who we are. Writers are no different."

Here's the problem: your readers aren't interested in reading about the mundane or common place. In fact, a story is only worth telling if it is NOT common. News is only news if it is unusual. "Dog Bites Man" isn't news; "Man Bites Dog" is. When was the last time you saw a news headline declaring:

Sun Rises, Warms Earth

You haven't. No one has ever written that story because it's not worth reading. Stop telling your readers to tune out by telling them how unremarkable your article will be.

Rethinking the Long Tail

I'm a Seth Godin fan. I worked in marketing. So I get the long tail. But I'm starting to wonder what it's doing to our relationships.

The long tail is a statistical pattern popularized by Wired Editor Chris Anderson in 2004. Anderson's thesis was that the wave of the future is for businesses to sell more individualized products to a wider spectrum of customers, instead of the traditional mass-market pattern of selling the same "big hit" product to everyone. It means selling deep cuts, not just the hits. And in the digital age, when it doesn't cost any more to customize the customer's experience, it completely makes sense.

The long tail is revolutionizing our media and our culture. Why would I pay thousands for an ad in the Yellow Pages, when I can put my ad in front of only the very people who are looking for my service, and only pay a fee if they respond to the ad? Facebook is the holy grail for marketers.

And we're quickly growing accustomed to it. I'm miffed when I get Living Social emails for specials in Atlanta. (This continues to happen; what the heck, Living Social!?) We "customize our user experience" with what we watch, read, listen to and "like". It's individualism and consumerism mashed up and gone to seed. I can find an app, a publication, and a group of people for any interest I can dream up.

• Fiddle players in Stockholm? There's a meet-up.
• Cubs fans in Anaheim? Like our Facebook page.
• Left-handed log stretchers with one eye and a dog named Bonfire? Check out our Etsy store.

Last month, I was sitting around a table with eight other people involved in small groups ministry and one of them pointed to where this is all going. Dr. Mark Heinemann said, "It's narcissistic: everyone wants to be in a small group with himself."

He was right. Our culture is becoming increasingly ruled by the long tail and it's removing us from one another. We spend so much time "liking" that we are loosing contact with people unlike us. Evangelicals are terrible about this. We insulate under the banner of protecting our virtue. We "other" (I know that's not a verb) under the banner of "standing up for" Jesus. We should be haunted by the line from Blue Like Jazz: "You only believe that stuff because you're afraid to hang out with people who don't."

But we're not alone. Americans are all retreating, hanging out with people who like the same music, the same TV shows, the same clothes, the same games, the same mobile devices.

Our separation has been centuries in the making. The industrial revolution took Dad out of the home. Then the rise of two-income families took Mom away. Global business and air travel took Grandma and Grandpa out of state too. And the growing size of our communities meant we had to divide by age at school, church, and day care.

 Now, we grow up almost exclusively among people of matching age, race, intellect, and affluence.

And I think it might be affecting our ability to get along. According to a Public Agenda Research poll, almost 80 percent of Americans believe that lack of civility is a "serious national problem."

We don't know how to discuss or disagree. We've forgotten how to walk in one another's shoes. We just can't relate.

There is great hope for the church in this. Jesus has called us from every "tribe and language and people and nation." (Rev. 5:9) Paul has taught us that at church there should be no divisions or hierarchies based on nationality, race, ritual or social class. (Col. 3:11) Church could be the one place where we are forced to love and live with people of different generations, races, social strata, and political persuasions. We've effectively jettisoned our natural family members who aren't like us. What if we refused to do the same with our church family? What if we left the long tail to the advertisers and embraced a more diverse and holistic family? What would that look like? What would it do for our witness in the world?

The Gay Chicken Debate

Today, thousands of amateur activists for traditional marriage will buy lunch from Chick-Fil-A. Maybe millions. Thousands of activists for gay marriage will also visit CFA locations to picket, argue or order water. This could go very badly. I cringe at the thought of media reports tomorrow about shouting, violence or arrests at Chick-Fil-A locations across the country. I pray that doesn't happen.

The question I keep asking is, "Why are we doing this?" What do we Christians think we're going to accomplish with National-Straight-People-Eat-Chicken-Day? Here are a few of the most common lines of thought.

Be not ashamed
There's a legitimate sense among evangelicals that the good old days are gone and our country is moving away from a Christian worldview toward a humanist one. I think it's hard to argue otherwise. For more than two centuries, Christians (especially Protestants) enjoyed a cushy life in America. With laws and cultural norms deeply influenced by our religion, we didn't have to deal with opposing viewpoints very often. That is clearly changing and Christians are right to worry that immorality is both accepted and legalized, that ultimate truth is undermined, and that peer pressure is turning to persecution.

The unconsidered response to those developments goes something like this: "That's not right. That shouldn't be! Someone has to do something. I'm going to stand up for truth! Let's eat chicken!"

But I think a more measured response might be more Christlike. Is huddling at CFA with other christians really the best way to stem America's moral decline? Remember, the early church refused to be silent about Jesus, not politics, and they did so at the risk of losing their lives, not their chicken biscuits. Refusing to renounce one's faith in a Roman coliseum is a far cry from denouncing gay marriage in a fast food joint.

Serving as the conscience of others
To be sure, many in our culture have calloused or perverted hearts that could use pricking. As do many in our pews. But the New Testament never admonishes us to rebuke immoral behavior in unbelievers, only in our brothers and sisters. Unbelievers are supposed to behave like unbelievers. We should stop expecting people who believe there is no ultimate truth to adjust their lifestyles to ultimate good. Instead, the pattern the Bible promotes is for us to rebuke one another inside the church — sharpen, love and encourage one another to the point that we're so Christlike that unbelievers want to be like us.

Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
— Matt. 5:16

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
— 1 Pet. 2:12

Here's a tip: if you're picketing, boycotting, condemning or otherwise demonstrating against the behaviors or beliefs of others, no one wants to be like you. Activism is not the way to win friends and influence people.

Standing up for free speech
This is probably the most logical reason for the demonstration but also the most insincere. Yes, Dan Cathy has every right to speak his political and religious views, and run his company any way he likes. And yes, customers have every right to visit or avoid his stores because of those views. But for Christians to suddenly take up the mantle of free speech seems a bit disingenuous. The same constitution that protects Dan Cathy's speech also protects war protestors, gay pride parades, and porn publishers. Christians quickly lose their First Amendment fervor when the topics change.

Whatever the reasons for the CFA demonstration, no one is pretending that it will actually lead to a better place. No one thinks thousands of Christians are going to show up at CFA and win the argument — as if every gay American will wake up tomorrow and think, "Hmm. Those people all ate chicken on the same day. They must be right. I'm straight."

Instead, the lesson gays are more likely to take away is simply that Christians are spoiling for a fight.

So if the CFA demonstration isn't going to accomplish anything healthy, what will it do? I think what we're actually accomplishing is marginalizing our own message. We seem to have forgotten in the public sphere a truth that we all embrace in our churches — that heart change happens in the context of relationships.

Which brings me to the most troublesome facet of this issue: we are increasingly removing ourselves from the culture. More and more, evangelicals are neither in the world nor of it. A friend of mine recently quoted one author (I'm sorry I haven't been able to track down which author) who wrote that the problem with social justice in the American church is not that Christians don't love the poor; it's just that they don't know them. The same is true for gays. I would venture to guess that less than half of American evangelicals have a gay friend. We seem more than happy to go out of our way to protest gay issues, but not to meet gay people.

Recently, I went to lunch with two gay friends to talk about the gay marriage issue. We didn't solve any great public policy debates, but we did express care for one another. We treated one another like real people, not like political opponents.

That may be the best thing to come out of today's CFA debate. Maybe instead of escalating to shouts and violence, people from both sides of this debate might meet one another at the fast food counter, learn one another's names, and get out of their comfort zones. If you're planning to show up at CFA today, I encourage you to love your political opponents the way Jesus loved you when he called you out of darkness into light. If you see someone ordering water, consider buying a meal for them. Learn their name. Express your concern that this whole thing has come across as judgmental. Maybe even pray for them. Better yet, skip the chicken and visit them on their turf, not yours. Show up on Friday for the "kiss-in" and make some new friends. Forget about protecting your righteous image long enough to reach out to your fellow man.

Chick-Fil-A didn't invent the chicken sandwich, but if we do this right, they might be inventing a new, more civil forum for political and religious discourse. That's what I'm praying for.

Jesus: Feminist or Liberator?

Maybe Jesus wasn't as much a feminist as we like to think. Much has been made about how egalitarian Jesus was, how he elevated women in a culture that demeaned them. But this morning, my pastor unpacked a fascinating angle on Jesus' interaction with the Syro-Phoenician woman from Mark 7 and Matthew 15 that gave me a new perspective.

Maybe Jesus wasn't as much a feminist as a liberator.

In the second half of Mark 7, Jesus goes on something of a tour throughout Gentile territories, spreading his message and good deeds. He does this on the heels of an altercation he had with Jewish religious leaders about rituals and righteousness. The Pharisees can't see past certain taboo behaviors, but Jesus is trying to show them that the kingdom of God is not about behavior or rules, but about heart change. Then in Mark 7:24, Jesus lands in Tyre and performs a miracle for someone who is certainly not in the religious in-crowd. In fact, the religious leaders with whom Jesus was feuding would have likely considered her inferior to themselves in at least two ways: she was Gentile, and she was female.

And that's when it hit me that Jesus may not have promoted the cause of this woman, or other women, so much because of her gender, but because of her oppression.

When Jesus announced his ministry in the synagogue at Capernaum, he quoted the prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

If Jesus had come in some parallel universe whose history was scarred with female oppression of men, he might have trumpeted the cause of men. But he didn't. He came in our universe where perhaps no other group of people has experienced so much oppression throughout history as women. If Jesus came to liberate and empower victims, he came for women.

I think it's abundantly clear that Jesus was radically progressive when it came to women, but until today, I never thought clearly about the reason for that.

But then, this really isn't a very big revelation, I suppose. Women have never lobbied for special treatment because of their gender, only because of discrimination associated with their gender. The next question, then, is "Where does that come from?" Why do we have this innate sense of justice that tells us that people — male, female, black, white, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight, educated, uneducated, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Hutu, Tutsi, Arab — should not be oppressed?

Genesis tells us that people are icons of God, created in His image. Ecclesiastes tells us that eternity is written in our hearts. There is an innate, moral law that commends fairness and must be silenced for oppression to thrive. When Jesus reached out to women, he may have been saying something about the motherhood of God, but he sent a more resounding message about the justice of God.

Maybe Jesus' feminism was less about gender and more about justice.

Jesus Loves Me

This morning, I read from John's Revelation and one little verse stuck out to me. Revelation 3:9 says, "I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars — I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you."

What a curious and wonderful thing to be acknowledged for! God doesn't promise that in the last days our enemies will fall at our feet and acknowledge that we were right. Or that we were better. Or even that our God was the true god. They will fall at our feet and acknowledge that God loved us. 

There is dignity and security in that. 

At one of the hardest times in our marriage, I remember that a similar message comforted my wife. She read and memorized verses like Jeremiah 31:3

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."

and Jeremiah 31:4,

"I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and dance with the joyful." 

It was comforting and healing for her to be reminded that she is dearly loved. In fact, what else could bring more peace, confidence or joy than to be loved and pursued by your King? 

That reminds me of Jesus' warning in Luke 10 when he told his disciples not to get too worked up about ministry success, but to rejoice only in being beloved. 

"However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

— Luke 10:20

It doesn't matter how many people read your blog, or how few. It doesn't matter whether life is marked by success or failure. It doesn't matter whether you have all the right answers, or jump through all the right religious hoops. What matters is that you are loved beyond words. As usual, we can learn from the beauty and simplicity of our children. 

Jesus loves me, this I know,For the Bible tells me so.Little ones to him belong.They are weak, but he is strong.Yes, Jesus loves me.The Bible tells me so.

Lessons from Dostoevky and the Apostle John

I read 1 John today and was struck by its discussion of love. John's letter mentions love a lot, of course. It's where we get the famous axiom, "God is love." What struck me today was the essential way John sees love in the church. John doesn't seem to be saying that without love, it's hard to be a good Christian. He's saying without tangibly-expressed, risky love for the people in your church, it's impossible to be a Christian at all. 

Let me say that another way: if we're not going out of our way to sacrificially love the people we go to church with, we aren't followers of Jesus. 

Too strong? Consider how John said it:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother or sister. This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

— 1 John 3:10-11

Anyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

— 1 John 3:15

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother or sister.

— 1 John 4:20-21

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother or sister is still in the darkness.

— 1 John 2: 9

And John doesn't abide conveniently vague definitions of "brother," either. 

Thanks to the influence of a church friend, I'm also reading The Brothers Karamazov right now which brings me the torturous combination of shame (at not having read it before) and boredom (at the prose). But there's a clever monologue in that book in which one of the characters explains, better than I can, the difficulty in loving a brother rather than loving our brethren. 

"I love humanity, but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it has been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity."

John isn't talking about loving humanity in general. He's writing in the specific. He mentions specific heresies to guard against, and he instructs the believers to pray for a brother (singular) who commits certain sins. He's talking about loving people with names who live in our neighborhoods and worship three rows in front of us on Sunday. 

In fact, John only commands us to love those we worship with. There's no command in 1 John to love the lost. John is only concerned with love inside the church. 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

— 1 John 3:16

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

— 1 John 4:16-17

These are the words of the Beloved Disciple, who leaned against Jesus at the Last Supper and heard him say, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So if there's no wiggle-room in the object of our Christian love, then maybe we can find a loophole regarding the its depth. I mean, some of those people at church are downright un-lovable! Surely we're only supposed to love them in principal, and not practice, right? In general, not in particular, as Dostoevky wrote.

Again, John doesn't let us off the hook:

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother or sister in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

— 1 John 3:17

Apparently, this love commanded of us is to be proved out in tangible ways. 

So John defines a Christian as someone who loves their fellow church members tangibly, in a way that costs them. According to the disciple whom Jesus loved, if we're not going out of our way to love the people we go to church with, we aren't followers of Jesus.

So how are we doing with the command of John and Jesus? Who do you love, and how?

We Are All Terrorists

Texas Monthly's most recent issue has a special report on water. Coming off the driest year in Texas' recorded history, and already getting tired of 100-degree summer days, I was interested. But what I read there got me thinking less about water and more about God and terrorists. And by terrorists, I mean all of us.

Roger D. Hodge's article retells Texas' long and familiar history with drought. For centuries, Texans before us have recorded dry times, some in newspapers, some in scratchings on cave walls. Standing in front of a cave mural on the Pecos River, one of Hodge's sources muses:

"Perhaps the paint chips were used in rituals to summon the rain, or to start new batches of paint for rituals to ensure the sunrise."

And that's where I stopped thinking about drought and started thinking about terrorism.

Rituals to ensure the sunrise? What's that about? Why would anyone ever waste time on that? Wasn't it clear, even to the most primitive mind, that the sunrise is beyond human control?

Imagine that you're a primitive person living thousands of years ago in what may have then been the swamps or forests of the Trans-Pecos. And one morning, because of an eclipse or some other weather phenomenon you don't understand, the sun doesn't come up. This frightens you not only because it reminds you of your powerlessness in the world you inhabit, but because it presents a very real threat: whether you're a hunter, gatherer or farmer, without sun, your food source is threatened.

There are already hundreds of threats to your existence beyond your control. You seem to live at the pleasure of the weather, the crops, the rival tribes, the saber-toothed cats, and the angry gods that surround you.

So how do you respond to this frightening development? Think about that for a moment. It might help you to answer that question if you think about how you respond to threats beyond your control in modern day: accidents, crime, disease, layoffs. How do you respond to those threats?

Apparently, at least some early Texans responded by trying to control the uncontrollable. They looked at the darkened sky and thought of the 1980 comedy "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and so they decided to take action.

Great god of the sun, we noticed you didn't come through this morning. It seems plainly obvious to us that sunrises are good things. We have considered the idea that an occasional break from sunrises might be part of some larger scheme you have going related to the delicate balance of nature, yadda, yadda, but then we thought, "Nah. Let's just keep the sunrises coming." We've got bills to pay.

But this is where we need your help (read: obedience). We can't make the sunrise, but we'd like to have it do so. Please continue to produce a sunrise every morning. If, at any point, we decide that we're ready for a break in sunrises, we'll let you know.

Thanks,
Ug

I'm certainly not suggesting that we never entreat God for anything beyond our control. In fact, that's exactly what we should be doing. I pray for things beyond my control every day.

But I also know that throughout our history, too much of our worship of God has amounted to attempts to control God and therefore become God.

Last week, after a week of Vacation Bible School, Christine and I were joking about the little terrorists living in our house. Children often use threats, violence, and other outrageous behavior to get attention or get what they want. You know what else we call people who do that? Terrorists.

It occurred to us that all children are tiny terrorists. That's sort-of what it means to be born into sin. It's our job as parents to teach them how to leave terrorism behind and live in peace with others. God is parenting us the same way.

This morning, I happened to read the account of Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane from Matthew 26. He prayed:

"My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

You've read that before but pause for a moment and consider how remarkable it is. This verse reveals conflict between two persons of the Godhead. Apparently, there was at least one time in history when the desires of the Son weren't in sync with the desires of the Father. Jesus knew what was coming, and he really would have preferred to skip it. I would have too! And so he prayed for another way.

God, is there any other, even better, way to accomplish the redemption of mankind that doesn't involve torture? I mean, You are — WE are — the God of the Universe here. Surely we can think of something!

But as much as he wanted to escape it, Jesus may have already known what the Father's answer would be:

There is no more holy, beautiful, powerful, redemptive, life-giving, world-changing, inspiring, truthful, loving story to write. Yes, we could have waved a magic wand back in that other garden and set everything right a couple of thousand years ago, but that's not the story we've decided to write because that doesn't reveal our heart to the world. This is the story we've been writing for all this time, and now we've reached the climax, and has hard as it is, we have to finish the story.

This conversation between the Father and Son strikes a remarkable balance as an example for us; the balance between, "Hey, what's going to happen is going to happen. There's nothing I can do about it. So why pray?" and "I know what I want and I know what's best for me, my family, my church, my country. It's my way or the highway. God, I need you to get on board."

We are all born terrorists; from our ancient forebears to postmodern millennials. From scratching on cave walls to building our enormous national debt, we simply want what we want. We want control and comfort. We'll take extreme measures to get it. And we're really not very concerned about what God might want for us instead.

I wonder what I can do today to leave terrorism behind. I think I'll go have a glass of water and think about it.

Plain As the Nose On Your Face

Stop. Look around. Name a dozen things you can see right now — things that belong to you or that take up your time. Name them out loud.

At least one of them is probably your god.

How do I know? Let me answer by telling you about a conversation I had last week with Kevin Dial. Kevin is very involved at our church as a small group leader, a Stephen Minister, and a participant in short-term mission trips every summer. For the last several years, he has gone to Africa to train pastors and care for hurting people. Last week, we sat down for coffee and he told me about a woman he had met in Africa who is now living temporarily in the U.S. while she pursues an advanced degree. He told me that a mutual friend visited this lady's apartment and noticed that there were idols scattered all about — physical idols, I mean — literal wood and stone carved into images of worship. This lady is a follower of Jesus, but the spiritism of her homeland has mixed with her Christian faith to the extent that idols hang on the walls of her home to protect her, bless her, and guide her.

God is pretty serious about idolatry. The first commandment is, "Don't have any other gods before me." The second commandment is pretty much a reprise of the first, "Don't worship stuff you made." God says he's jealous of idols; he wants all of our worship for himself. Some of the most dramatic and terrifying punishments doled out in the history of God's people have come because of idolatry. So idols hanging on your walls is not something to mess around with. I don't know if my friend's friend said anything to this African sister about her idols, but what he did ask her revealed something about our ours — something that may be hard for us to see from the inside. In the course of the conversation, he asked,

"So do you have any interest in coming to live in America permanently?"

To which she answered,

"Oh no. I could never live here. Americans have too many idols."

Fascinating. What the American saw — literally staring at them from her living room wall — she was blind to. And what she saw — perhaps just as glaringly obvious to her — was invisible to the American. And that's a key element of idolatry. It's much easier to diagnose in someone else. We don't see our idols, because we're used to them. They are part of us. We don't see them in the same way we don't see our own noses or our own faults — not because they aren't real or close to us, but because they are too close to us, too common to stand out. The old saying about knowing something like the back of our hands is ironic, of course, because we never see the back of our hands. We look at them every day but we never see them.

So how do we avoid the trap of the old African lady? How can we see our idols? I think we need two things.

We need a mirror. Like seeing our own faces in a mirror, it's helpful to see ourselves reflected in some other vantage point. The scriptures are a mirror; we see ourselves in the pages, sometimes trailing a parade of idols.

We need a brother or sister. It was easy enough for the American to see that lady's idols. And it was easy enough for her to see his. Sometimes we need to ask our closest friends who we're really worshipping. And we need friends who love us enough to speak truth and not platitudes.

Our idols won't be made of wood or stone. They'll be more subtle than that, but no less dangerous. Matt Maher's song "Every Little Prison" describes a few.

From validating words that only seem to serve a heart that's proud;

And all my self esteem, dressed up in vanity and doubt;

From wondering if I am relevant and liked, O God,

Deliver me. 

One other thing about idols: we keep them close. The African lady lived with them. We seldom let them get too far from us. After all, if we're willing to lose them, they aren't idols. So when I asked you to look around and name the things around you — possessions, business cards with your title on them, photos of your pride and joy, your wallet, your Facebook feed — there was a good chance you named an idol.

We can't kill our idols until we identify them. When was the last time you looked for them? Who could help you see them?

Losing Momentum

Momentum is important. I took three stabs at that first sentence. It only has three words. I find it hard to just sit down and spill out thoughts. Instead, I put them in order, lining them up, categorized and organized, leading toward some conclusion or climax. I suppose in one way that's good writing, but on the other hand it often stifles expression. Rather than spilling what's inside, I'm using what's inside to construct arguments or stories.

I like cycling. Since I was seven years old and learning to jump my banana seat Huffy off the curb in my neighbor's driveway, I've always liked bikes. If there's one thing that cycling teaches you, it's the importance of momentum. In a road race, you loath to touch the brakes because you know that every bit of momentum you spill has to be regained through great effort. Have a hill to climb? Get a run at it.

I've taken that philosophy into other areas of my life as well. A good conversation has to start with warm-up. A productive work day starts by aligning my calendar, inbox, notebook and apps.

Kids kill momentum. It's hard to enjoy a quiet evening with a book when someone is constantly coming out of their room saying they need to pee, or get a drink, or pray because they're scared. If you've ever tried to work from home with kids, you know it's hard to finish a phone call or an email without being interrupted.

But I'm starting to wonder if I value momentum too highly. So much of Jesus' ministry happened in the context of interruption. Jesus didn't get past interruptions so that he could do ministry. He saw them as the arena in which ministry happens.

This Sunday, while my friend Betsy Nichols was delivering a stellar message on trusting God in the trials of life, I wrote in my notebook, "Learn to pray in the scrum of daily life." It's easier for me to pray when there's time to ramp up - like on a retreat. It's much harder for me to pray, write, or do anything more than tread water when my inbox, my calendar and my kids are all screaming at me. I wonder if I'm missing God in those moments. I know, intellectually, that he's not only in the quiet moments, but in the loud ones too. But I seldom meet him in the midst of a crowded room or a crowded schedule. I wonder if it wouldn't do me good to practice coming out of the blocks, improving my 0-to-60 time, finding the sacred glimmer in the muddy rush of work and life.

I tried to write this post without momentum. I didn't outline it or organize my thoughts beforehand. Maybe I can do the same with prayer.

Book Review: Enemies Of the Heart by Andy Stanley

Jeremiah 17:9 asks, "The heart it deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Answer: Andy Stanley.

The North Point pastor has produced another useful manuscript and shown that he understands the workings of the human heart as well as he understands the book publishing process. He navigates both with aplomb.

I read his latest work, Enemies of the Heart, the week after I happened to hear him speak at two conferences only days apart. Considering his guest speaking schedule, his Sunday teaching at North Point, his podcast, and his books, he's one of the most prolific evangelical teachers on the market. But quantity doesn't necessarily negate quality. At both of the conferences mentioned above, his was the talk that filled the most pages of my notebook.

I've never found Stanley's content especially moving. His latest book is not beautiful or terribly insightful. But wisdom isn't always flashy. Stanley's teaching on the heart is simple, accessible, memorable and just plain good advice. So though Enemies of the Heart won't make you weep or laugh, it might make you better.

Stanley writes in the style he speaks; you can almost hear his voice coming through the page. Enemies of the Heart is conversational and casual. The book is divided into four parts and 20 chapters. The paperback is 206 pages long and an easy read.

Of the four parts, only the middle two really carry the message of the book. Part One is a 45-page introduction wherein Stanley defines the heart: "that mysterious, wonderful, confusing part of you that enables you to love, laugh, fear, and experience life", and lays out the book's purpose: "I'm going to do my best to expose your heart to the penetrating light of God's truth. Like the dye used in an arteriogram, truth can help us pinpoint the blockage in our spiritual conditions."

Stanley uses the metaphor of physical hearts throughout the book. He identifies four emotions that create "blockage" in the arteries of our spiritual hearts: guilt, anger, greed and jealousy. He says that these are the most common and most harmful forms of spiritual heart decease because they create a debtor-to-creditor dynamic in our relationships.

Guilt says, "I owe you."
Anger says, "You owe me."
Greed says, "I owe me."
Jealousy says, "God owes me."

Stanley does give consideration to lust as a fifth source of heart disease, but asserts that it doesn't create the same debtor-to-creditor relationship. In every case, though, Stanley says there are only two paths to deal with the debt: either someone has to pay up (which in relational debts such as these is often impossible) or someone has to cancel the debt.

Stanley spends four chapters describing the four types of relational debt. Then he spends two chapters each on how to deal with them. That makes the book drag a bit. Again, he writes the way he speaks and some of the jokes and transitions that are easy to sit through when listening to him, is harder to fight through when they appear as "filler" in a book that could have been 150 pages.

Each of these "heart issues" is an appetite, which Stanley defines as a craving that can never be fully and finally satisfied. But Stanley says that each of these heart conditions can be conquered by cultivating a new habit. "It takes a habit to break a habit," he writes, and identifies the one habit to negate each vice. "It's much easier to behave your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of behaving."

Here's a summary of his best points from each of the four topics.

Guilt

• "Guilt chips away my self-respect."
• Guilt can be overcome by cultivating a habit of confession. 
• The point of confession is not just to relieve our conscience; it's to lead us toward change. That's why it's important to confess to a person, not just to God. When we go public, especially to the person we've wronged, we're more motivated to change. 
• "I've never heard of a man or woman breaking a debilitating habit without public confession. Ask the folks at Alcoholics Anonymous."
• "The consequences of confession are far less severe than the consequences of concealment."

Anger

• Anger is the result of not getting what we want. 
• It's easy to believe that the only remedy for anger is payback, but that's fool's gold: it can't be done. 
• "Like all four of the internal enemies we'll be looking at in this book, anger gains its strength from secrecy. Exposing it is painful and powerful at the same time."
• Feelings of anger can be justifiable but still poisonous. 
• Anger can be your crutch for behaving badly; if you're angry, remember that your pain may explain your behavior, but it doesn't excuse it.
• Of the four issues, this one can be the most devastating.
• Anger can be diffused by cultivating a habit of forgiveness. 
• "To refuse to forgive is to choose to self-destruct."
• "You don't forgive because the other person deserves it; you forgive because you've been forgiven."
• Forgiveness is best accomplished by following four steps: 1) identify who you're angry with, 2) determine what they owe you, 3) cancel the debt, 4) dismiss the case.

Greed

• Greed is very hard to identify: it hides behind virtues like prudence, forethought and responsibility. It is the most subtle of all four conditions. 
• Greed is fueled by fear: by questions of "what if?" 
• "This is Jesus' definition of a greedy person: A person who stores up things for himself but isn't rich toward God. Being 'rich toward God' is Jesus-talk for being generous toward those in need. A greedy person is the man or woman who saves carefully but gives sparingly." 
• "If you've allowed your lifestyle to keep lockstep with or surpass your income, you'll find it next to impossible to keep greed from taking root in your heart."
• "If you're not willing to give to the point that it impacts your lifestyle, then according to Jesus, you're greedy."
• Greed is a refusal to act.
• Become both a percentage giver and a spontaneous giver.

Jealousy

• The source of every conflict you'll ever experience is the pattern of wanting something and not getting it.
• Blame is the admission that I can't be happy without your cooperation. To blame is to acknowledge dependence. 
• "God wants you to know him as the source of all good things. And when he says no, he wants you to trust him."
• Jealousy can be overcome by cultivating a habit of celebration. 

Stanley includes an appeal to parents to model these four healthy habits for their children.

Enemies of the Heart is a worthwhile read, though not a stirring one. In this book, Andy Stanley shows himself again to be a steady source of wise counsel. He's not a storyteller, but a writer of proverbs; like Solomon, but with more speaking engagements and fewer wives.