outside is better

What I learned about spiritual formation from Harley Davidson motorcycles and Guns N' Roses

Many of you know I bought a motorcycle earlier this spring. For the last few years I have been dreaming about buying my first Harley. In many ways, this was the fulfillment of about 10 years.

I love my bike. One of the best things about motorcycles is the ability to really customize them and tweak things to your liking. On my short list has been a new saddle seat, custom exhaust and a few other additions. After a few weeks of all the parts sitting in my garage I decided to get started. On Monday night I broke down and took off the old exhaust, air cleaner and a few other necessary things. I was set up to get the new stuff on.

The only problem was I didn't have all the right tools. I had planned on buying a few of them, but I couldn't find them in my price range anywhere around town. I was able to secure a few and last night decided to just go ahead and do it. One of the crucial pieces was a torque wrench and the necessary bits. I didn't have them. Some advice from a friend said I could probably get by without it. I decided to go in that direction. After I had a few bolts in, secure with lock-tite and brute force I was making great headway.

But I realized I wasn't being patient. Like so many other things in life I was rushing and making do. I was making semi-permanent decisions hastily (like how well a bolt will sit in a shaking motorcycle!!!) because I wanted a quick reward. Soon one of my favorite Guns N' Roses songs, Patience, was playing through my head. While I realize what Axl was thinking about wasn't the most holy moment, the realization I had sitting cross legged on my garage was!

When we value things, we do them right. A life lived quickly and without intention is a life barely lived. The ultimate vision for things that exists for a time in our head can only be actualized by taking the necessary time to do them the way they should. Our decision making process gives investment in how we are willing to sometimes be patient about process. If we want to the best results in anything we must be willing to take the best steps. Last night it meant putting things aside and waiting a few days.

As I started undoing bolts and re-stripping down the bike I thought about how many times spiritually we want tremendous things and don't see them. How can we try to power through what we believe are the proper steps and don't see results. In frustration we begin to think God doesn't want to be an actual presence in our life because our own impatience failed to provide the proper spiritual environment for what we wanted. Looking backward in those moments I can see how I failed to properly prepare myself to be with God, and not the other way around.

At the time it might feel trite, but Psalm 46:10 tells us to simply be still and willing to wait on God.

Eugene Peterson calls it a long obedience in the same direction.

Baby steps are at times the path to the Kingdom of God. We will have those moments of mighty transition when we feel catapulted forward. But in the long run, patience with the journey will be much more fruitful.

We need a little patience. Just some more patience.

Retreating

Over the next few days I am going to be at the Abbey of St. Joseph with other Methodist clergy for a time of spiritual retreat. Everyone does their own thing at these events and I choose to read. Here are a few of the books I am bringing with me.Without planning I realized all three of these are keeping with my unspoken (not anymore...) focus on prayer for 2013.

1. The Complete Works of E. M. Bounds:
You might remember this from my 2013 reading list. I really would like to finish it this week.

2. Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton:
I read this years ago. I find it is a great small book to casually flip through and read a few pages. Lately it has been in my saddlebag of my Harley.

3.The Intercessory Life by Maxie Dunham:
Several classes at my church are going through this book. I am doing it personally and enjoy the conversations I have with others. It is a really good 28 day guide to prayer.

Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray. Mark 1:35

What do you like to do/read when you get away from it all?

Sermon Preview: The Power of One Hour

I was a nerdy kid. When cool kids ask for presents, they ask for soccer goals, fancy bikes, really cool blue jeans and trips to football camp. They get cool stuff for stocking stuffers at Christmas...I got model rockets and science experiment kits. When I was 8 I asked for a set of Encyclopedias. Like I said, I was a nerdy kid.

Here is the funny thing. Encyclopedias used to be big business. They were expensive. They were also heavy. But you had to have them. When you had to write a report or show any type of knowledge, that was the first place you went. In 1993, Microsoft decided to fix part of the problem. They released Encarta, a CD-ROM based Encyclopedia. It quickly destroyed the competition, but at great cost. Microsoft hired an ARMY of folks with specialized degrees to write and maintain it’s content.

But when was the last time you used a traditional encyclopedia? When wikipedia burst on the scene the whole encyclopedia business changed. Why pay 1100 dollars or even 2000 dollars on a paper encyclopedia? Wikipedia is even more accurate than the Britannica. It does so because it leverages the skills of tens of thousands. Everybody can accomplish more than somebody. Any organization who success and mission revolves around volunteer knows this.

When Moses and the Israelites were called by God to build the tabernacle, the place of His holy dwelling, they were faced with a specific task. And God provided. The hearts of the people were stirred in order to fulfill the mission God gave them.

All whose hearts were stirred and whose spirits were moved came and brought their sacred offerings to the Lord. They brought all the materials needed for the Tabernacle, for the performance of its rituals, and for the sacred garments. Exodus 35:21

As our church grows, we are called to fulfill a specific mission. Tomorrow we will be thinking about one part of that and how each of us giving an hour a month can provide TREMENDOUS power towards what God calls us to do.

See you in church!

Keep Calm and Avoid the Undead

My buddy Marcus Green shared these with me through twitter. They are amazing. Only the BBC can produce this type of content. Taking advantage of the current love of the WWII era "Keep Calm" these short vignettes show how much the idea of zombies have immersed in the common cultural narrative of our world. If you want to read more of my thoughts on why zombies matter you can cruise over to my old site postmoderneschatology.com.

 

Making Manifest: An experiment in creative writing

Yesterday I recieved my preview copy of Making Manifest. The workbook is a 28 day journey through the process of creative writing. My friend Dave Harrity developed and wrote it. I am really excited to be part of a small group of creatives working through it before the book launches at Easter.

Dave is a poet and teacher who runs Antler, a multiple offering experiment in developing creation as a spiritual discipline. I have gone to several workshops by Dave and they were always wonderful.

Seedbed, the publishing arm of Asbury Seminary, put out this workbook. Making Manifest is the perfect example of the types of resources Seedbed best shares. I am looking forward to what the rest of my beta comrades come up with.

So keep your eyes peeled on my various networks as I talk about and go through this 28 day season of reflecting and writing.

@revchadbrooks (twitter and instagram)
Facebook.com/revchadbrooks

I once was lost, but now I'm found...

Today has been a day of lost things. This morning I realized my "church keys", a separate key ring with only church keys, had gone missing. I knew I had them in the building when I began the day. Before lunch they had gone M.I.A and I was tearing up my office and pacing down the halls trying to find them. I gave up and just hoped they would turn up.

I spent the afternoon doing some reading and preparing for Sunday. At St. Paul's we are in the middle of a pre-Easter sermon series on Grace. This weeks passage is Luke 15:11-32, the famous story of the Prodigal Son. The very last verse in the passage is this;

We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

I never saw the irony in my quest for my keys in all this. As I was getting out of my truck and heading into Starbucks I saw a metallic glint on the floorboards of the back seat. I don't know how my keys got there, but I found them.

I still didn't get it.

After an hour of studying I received a phone call from the cleaners. I had just dropped off a few suits to be cleaned. The attendant informed me she found a small yellow book in the inside pocket of one of the jackets. My eyes immediately gleamed!

You see I carry a small Field Notes notebook in my back pocket. I use it to record prayer requests and prayers. I lost a yellow notebook in December. I tore the house and closet apart trying to find it.

At that moment I got it.

I realized throughout my day of study that lostness matters. It doesn't matter because of the practical side of it. I had replacement keys and quite the stash of notebooks. But those were MY keys and MY notebook. I was attached to them. I had used them in the everyday beauty of life and I had lost them. It didn't make sense when they disappeared. I searched and searched because it drove me crazy I lost something I valued.

They both appeared in random places...within an hour of each other. In the midst of praying and preparing in a story about being lost and found. My keys and torn up notebook became a means of grace.

Friends-We matter because we belong to God. Yes, He has others, but they aren't US. You and I are uniquely important to the creator of this world. When we are reconciled back to him, through the life and work of Jesus Christ, great rejoicing happens.

Sermon Preview-Grace: It's On Our Side

Think back. Dig into the memories in your own mind. I want you to think of a situation where you received great grace. It might have been given to you by someone else, it might have been in how an event unfolded or it might be a divine encounter in which you know Jesus was deeply acting in your life.

We all have been recipients of such events. We might not initially acknowledge them as acts of grace, but they are. In our own human interactions we call things gracious...we describe them as undeserved. As amazing as those acts can be they don’t even scratch the surface of how God has given Himself to us graciously in numerous ways. The depths of human language and emotion can’t truly grasp it. John Newton chose to use the adjective “amazing” to describe how he understood how God had acted graciously to him. His words probably form the best human understanding of how God interacts with us.

Grace is amazing. Grace is much larger than we can offer it. Grace is subversive. It confounds the world in how it is given to us. Todays scripture lesson causes us to at first jump back at how it tells us God doesn’t work and how grace is on our side.

About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple. “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. And what about the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.”
Then Jesus told this story: “A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. Finally, he said to his gardener, ‘I’ve waited three years, and there hasn’t been a single fig! Cut it down. It’s just taking up space in the garden.’
“The gardener answered, ‘Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:1-9

Many times we descend into the idea that God isn't gracious. We begin asking questions about the state of the world. Some who call themselves Christians even say God is behind the events that seem to plague our world (I describe these as a theology of crazy Facebook status updates). Christ mentions a few fresh on the mind of his friends. In our own lives we can string together a list which some have called the activity of God.

This goes against the grain of what we see identified as the gracious activity of God. God's grace describes the most fundamental parts of His character. In the midst of a world torn apart and ravaged by sin, grace offers to us a radical surgery of our hearts.

Grace is bigger than the world WE have created. Grace is the present evidence of a future and eternal world with the presence of Christ at the very physical center of it all. Jesus is our advocate, the one tilling the soul of our hearts and preparing us to truly understand what it means to give ourselves over to the Father. He is the one watching over us and leading us to true salvation. Grace is the true cruciform heart of Jesus.

Grace is on our side. Grace is the witness of Christ in the hearts of all men before they come to Him. Grace is what justifies us as we let Christ be Lord over our lives. Grace is what sustains us in a perfecting journey in the Holy Spirit.

Yes friends, grace is on our side.

Related Posts: How Hollywood Teaches Wesleyan Grace

 

Revelation Reading List

 

Several times a month I get requests from people asking what would be the best books to read on Revelation. I kept a quick little list in a pages file, but on the recommendadtion of my friend Andy I decided to create an Amazon Listmania list.

Here are the books that made the first round. I want to spend some more time thinking of a few other books. With the exception of Beale's commentary all of these are appropriate for the average person wanting to start studying Revelation.

 

Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb Into the New Creation by Michael J. Gorman

Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination by Eugene H. Peterson

Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig R. Koester

The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Com (Eerdmans)) by G. K. Beale

Revelation: Holy Living in an Unholy World by M. Robert Mulholland

Beginning Prayer: St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Whenever I sense the need to deepen my prayer life I often turn to the prayers of those before me. I usually have a few of them in a small piece of paper in my prayer notebook. I was writing a few letters today and sending a few of these cards out and remembered St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit. It is so powerful. I love how it really asks for one thing...holiness. As a Methodist we understand any holiness we have comes from God and is brought by our deepening and sanctifying relationship with Jesus.

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

Sermon Preview: When Family Gets Awkward

We all have those moments when our family gets awkward. Sometimes it might be when your child escapes the bathtub and runs through the living room during a dinner party. At other times it might be a very awkward and frustrating situatation in the family which will serve as a waypoint for life from now on. It could be the changing relationship with children during adolescence.

Family gets frustrating. Awkwardness is navigated with  great tact, ingenuity, skill and at times discretion.

Early in scripture we are told we are made in the very image of God.

So God created human beings in his own image.
    In the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. Gen 1:28

This image is directly related to how we are internally wired to function best when we are in proper relationships. Salvation can quickly be summed at as a right relationship to God. God calls us to watch over those we are in relationships with, whether they are good or bad.

The family is God's favorite metaphor for relating this intentional design. In family we learn basic discipleship, holy living and what the outward Christian life looks like.  The language of Jesus himself shows his dependance in ministry. Jesus doesn't say Boss, Pastor, Friend or Leader. He says Father.

God doesn't call us to perfection in our families. We are called to priority. We realize we all have crap in our situations. No family has a closet without skeletons. The elephants are in all of our family rooms. In the beginning was a family. In the end we find the marriage between the bridegroom and His bride. In the middle of the grand story of salvation sits each of our families, in process, giving glory to Jesus and witness to being made in the image of God.

But we are adopted by God. This Sunday we will talk about the comfort it brings to us.