A Garden in My Heart

I have a love–hate relationship with my garden and flowerbeds. ​On one hand, I love when they are clean, planted, and blooming at all the right times each season.

On the other, because of the rains that are present throughout every season in Tacoma, where Tina and I have our family home, I have a non-stop battle to fight with weeds that remain the fastest growing and most robust plants I have. They even grow full speed ahead during the winter, when everything else is either dead or taking a break.

I was working on my garden out in front of my house one sunny afternoon, (yes, we do get sun in the Pacific Northwest too!), and as I pulled weeds and replaced them with bright, colorful flowers, something started to shift in me. My heart softened as my nails became caked with rich, black soil. I started feeling as if I was involved in a much grander project or purpose. It was as if I was connecting to the overarching restoration of all things that God has promised to do in our world.

Is my front garden a part of that?

In that moment, it sure seemed like it. The Spirit reminded me that this is how he works within me too, pulling one weed at a time and replacing it with something beautiful. I started to think of all the people I know with weeds and thorny, spiky parts of their personality and life. Maybe I was to be patient and willing to get my hands a little dirty helping to “beautify the garden” of their lives too?

One by one, people from the neighborhood started to notice what I was up to. “Wow! That is looking really beautiful. I just love petunias!” “I was wondering if you were ever going to get around to this project.”

Not the feedback I hoped for, but I’ll take it.

One of the workers from the Salvation Army next door who loves to give me gardening advice, ambled over and said, “This is looking really good. I think I’ll start taking my breaks over here in front of your house from now on.” My flowerbeds were becoming his own little Garden of Eden in the neighborhood. A simple hour or two of gardening had refreshed and re-created my attitude in some pretty profound ways.

Maybe everything we work at has a Kingdom perspective if we take the time to notice.

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Maybe everything we work at is like this if we have that perspective and take the time to notice. There is possibility for redemption all around us.

So, if you’ve been putting off some actual weeding you need to do outside in your garden, or in the garden of your heart or others, the next best time to get started is now.

Flannelgraph Theology

I grew up going to Sunday school pretty much every week of my young life. Our teachers told us amazing stories from the Bible, nicely illustrated with flannel characters, all of them ending with a nice moral such as, “If you have faith like David had, you can slay any giant in your own life too!” Or, “So, kids, if you’re obedient like Noah, God will protect you from all the bad stuff in your life.”

Not only did those teachers miss the point of the stories (God is always the hero!), but they never taught us that the Bible is one big story.

In fact, it is the Story of God. It’s not a collection of unrelated moralistic tales, nor is it a history lesson. The Bible tells a living and active story that is still unfolding—and we are characters in this story!

Imagine you are trying to put together a large, 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

A lot of time and work would go into getting to the point where you could actually see the picture that the artist intended. But think about how difficult your task would be if you did not have the lid to the box that the puzzle came in. You would have no way to tell what exactly you were trying to piece together.

“Is this a part of the sky or a reflection of the lake? Is this animal fur or a piece of a tree?”

For many of us, this is how we have learned the Bible. It mirrors the process we’ve engaged in to grow in our faith and understanding of who God is and what he is doing. We have heard sermon after sermon, and done one book study after another without really knowing what the big picture of this whole “Christianity thing” really is. Every once in a while, we’ll fit a couple of pieces together and rejoice. And some of us have been around church and the Bible long enough to sort of have all of the “edge pieces” put together, the basic framework of the Bible, but we still do not really know the Bible as one big story. We are not super clear on who exactly God is, what he has done, who we are in light of this, and how we should live.

We do not know the Story of God.

I want to encourage you to move beyond a chapter and verse, flannel graph theology and grab some friends and start going through the Story of God as a community…remember, our goal is not biblical literacy, its gospel fluency, and the next best time to dive deeper is now.

Surprise! You Are the Missionary In Your Neighborhood

There are all kinds of people with varying beliefs living around us. Some of them we notice and some of them we never see. But I can guarantee you one thing for sure. There is a missionary living in your neighborhood.

Growing up as part of the church, there was huge map in the lobby where we worshipped on Sundays–a map of the world with pins all over it. Each pin corresponding to an 8×10 picture next to the map. (more…)

Why Missional Community Will Never Work in Your Context

In this installment of “Ask Caesar” I answer the question of why a missional community will fail in your context. It’s a question I get asked A LOT, one that is most often put to me, though, as an objection. It usually sounds something like this…

“I think that missional community life probably works great where you live, but you don’t understand my context. People are different here… they’ll never have you into their homes, or come over to your place. Folks are just too busy or not open to relationship like this in our city.”  (more…)

Birthright: Living Out of Our Transformed Identity

The way of the world is: We do things (perform, serve, work etc.) to have value in the eyes of our family, friends, parents, spouse, siblings, boss, pastor etc.

If we do a good enough job and are perceived as valuable, then people will want us around. We will be wanted. Out of this activity we often form our identity. What we DO has led to who we ARE. Or at least we think it has. But there is a huge problem with this, it is terribly dangerous, it eventually crushes us, and it goes against how God now sees us.

Don’t believe the DO=BE lies anymore.

If we are in Christ, then the Bible teaches we have been transformed and given a new identity.

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If we are in Christ, then the Bible teaches we have been transformed and given a new identity. We have become part of a family of missionary servants, sent to serve the world and make disciples of Jesus.

This is who we are. This is our new identity. This is the secret.

And this is true of us as Christians EVEN IF WE NEVER KNEW IT. This is our birthright!

The more we understand and believe this to be true, the more our lives will be transformed.

We’ve all seen and heard this before if we’ve ever been baptized or witnessed a baptism ceremony. But maybe we missed it. In Matthew 28:19 Jesus laid out the entire picture and command for us, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” There it is. The mission of the Church and the means to accomplish it.

Our baptism is not some salvational magic spell or just a culturally ancient ritual; we are baptized, soaked, established into a new identity. Into the NAME OF the Father, and the NAME OF the Son, and the NAME OF the Holy Spirit…all a huge identity statement. This is who we now are. Looking briefly at each of these…

We are baptized into the name of the Father.

Our name has everything to do with whose family we are a part of. God is now our Father. We are his dearly loved children. In Christ we are brothers and sisters; That makes the Church a family. It is part of our transformed identity.

We are also baptized into the name of the Son.

We have entered into an identity relationship with Jesus. He is our King, who came and lived as a servant to all, and we now are his servants, serving his glorious mission, as we serve others as a way of life. Being a servant is now a part of our renewed identity.

Finally, we are baptized into the name of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the New Testament the Holy Spirit is the sending agent of the Church. He empowered Jesus while on Earth, he guided and comforted the early Church and his indwelling presence transforms our identity into “sent ones”: literally missionaries.

As Christians we are all missionaries.

Because of who God is, and Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we truly have become a family of missionary servants sent as disciples who make disciples.

This is our birthright. You may not have always known this to be true about yourself…but the next best time start believing it is now!

Are You Measuring What God Measures in Your Life and Ministry?

Last week in my post: How Leaders Keep from Tapping Out, Burning Out or Being Disqualified, I shared with you some of the things that Hugh Halter and I have been learning about being leaders who stay in the game for the long haul.

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We looked at the first part of our Journeymen Oath #2: “I Commit to Move at God’s Pace and Measure what God Measures.”

And we saw how important it was to move at a sustainable pace, following Jesus’ teachings on the pattern and the promises from his parables that lead to explosive and sustainable kingdom growth. Small is big, slow is fast and multiplication wins. Now let’s finish up this “oath” and look at metrics and measurements. (more…)

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