Leaf Blower

One of my friends recently wrote a great blog post called “Magnet” about how God draws people to himself through the work of a praying and engaged church, “…others are drawn to Jesus because of the fervent prayer of someone who will not give up on them.”  

His word picture of the magnet picking up metal shavings out of a sawdust-covered workbench got me thinking. I began wondering about how the Western (too often non-praying & disengaged) Church has often tried [think Tim "the Toolman" Taylor here] to speed up the evangelistic process, embedding new “efficiencies” into the harvest and winnowing process. Sketchy thinking, I know. Can we use a fire hose to speed up growth and can a leaf blower gather the grain while separating the chaff at the same time. I know the “fire hose” metaphor is cliché so I will lay it down in favor of the leaf blower.

 We all know that leaf blowers…

• Are great at quickly clearing off lawns and driveways, and gathering leaves and grass into piles for removal, but are not recommended as a tool for changing hearts or gathering people into a community.
• Are noisy and very irritating if used by the neighbors too early in the morning. I don’t want to be that guy.
• Are terribly smelly if you go for the maximum strength, gas-powered, backpack blower instead of the odorless electric variety.
• Are indiscriminate in what they uproot, often removing helpful mulch along with unsightly leaves and clippings.

If we, as enthusiastic workers for the Kingdom of God, attempt to change the world from a position of power and control we are very like those annoying leaf blowers. Some think that by the volume of the air, sucked in and forced into the delivery tube of cultural consensus and political power we might be able to control outward manifestations of morality and herd negative behavioral “leaves and clippings into a pile to be recycled”, but we will not produce internal spiritual transformation. Instead of embracing the (super)natural process of seasonal planting, watering, growth, and harvest, we often try to hurry things along.

We can say too much too soon and too stridently. Sometimes we can’t hear what others are saying over the roar of our own activity, even if we wanted to listen.

Job’s “Comforters” in their constant accusations were also like leaf blowers, prompting Job—in ironically relevant exasperation—to exclaim, “Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?” (Job 16:3; see also 21:17-19).  

Can we stop trying to manipulate and groom everything to look like us? This proposed abandonment of the leaf-blower mentality is not a compromise of our values, but a recognition that God works differently than we do. Psalm 1 makes it clear that the person who is blessed is not compromised, but committed to the right cause. His delight is in the Word of the Lord not in the condemnation of others. The godly man produces fruit and unwithering leaves and lets the wind of the Spirit take care of the wicked at the right time...

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

 He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:1-6)

Repeatedly the Bible tells us that the truly wicked men and women will be like chaff blown away by the righteous judgment of God. It is the Spirit of God that convicts of sin and righteousness (John 16:8), so why are we so quick to take his job? The psalmist regularly commits this act of cleansing judgment into the hands of the Lord where it belongs. My favorite imprecatory prayer in the Bible is Psalm 35:5-6,

“Let them be like chaff before the wind,
    with the angel of the Lord driving them away!
 Let their way be dark and slippery,
    with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!”

We should be bothered by violence and injustice like the psalmist was, but like him, we should also process our emotions through the character of God; for we are not called to be so many leaf-blowers preaching conformity or condemnation. We are called to serve as husbandmen, encouraging life by planting and watering, shepherding flocks relationally, patiently teaching by example empowered words.

One other thing I have learned about leaf blowers, it is a waste of time to try to blow leaves into a pile against the wind. If you try it anyway, all that you will accomplish will be to make a bigger mess and make the neighbors angry. Trust me on this one. I sense that the time for leaf-blower Christianity has passed.

 “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:7-8)

I want to spend more time listening for the sound of God growing souls all around. I want to speak when the Spirit says speak, but only if what I say sounds like him.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

I also want to serve when the Spirit says serve, but only if what I do works the way he does.

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18)

How do we approach ministry and cultural engagement? More power or less? 

I am wisely hanging up my leaf blower in order to let the wind of the Spirit blow where it will, to obtain a peaceful harvest of righteousness. Will you join me?

An Agent of God II

In the last post, we considered the comment, "It’s a scary thing that you think you are God’s agent…thus everything you do is right and God’s will."  To which my response was "No it isn’t…not for you to whom I come, though it might bode ill for me since I am working without a net." 

Some of what follows might be review, but here are five things that I have learned and some quotes from what I have read…

1)    Agents of God are ministers of reconciliation, not power.

I made this point in my last post but wanted to re-visit it with this quote,

Our witness is not made from a posture of authority or arrogance but from a posture of humility and weakness. Paul said in [2 Cor. 2:3], "I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling." If we try to come to folks simply from a posture of being authoritative or arrogant—if we try to beat people over the head with the Bible—all we do is drive them away. God has given us the rare privilege of handling holy things. We do that with fear, trembling, and much humility.[1]

2)    Agents of God are coming to serve rather than be served.

While we have come to serve, we need to take time to listen or our help may end up being a curse instead of a blessing as Niebuhr observes,

The breakdown of our society due to human sinfulness has robbed people of safe places (e.g., marriage, family, and church). Even our sincere efforts at fixing what is broken often just make things worse if we haven’t taken time to listen to the Lord and to those in need. Yet, we need safe places where we can heal together—places where we mutually pity the stranger, enter into their story and find new family in the process.[2]

3)    Agents of God are invitational, not coercive.

Soong-Chan Rah, in his book, Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church, repeatedly advocates for us to listen to each other’s story, and to “discover the hidden or untold story.”[3] But listening takes time so we Americans simply press forward with the plans we feel are the most effective. We think we know better than “others” and feel justified in not listening. This tyranny of action that historically has permeated our culture has also been mixed with a heavy dose of the end justifying the means. The church is not immune to such cultural pulls.

Worldliness can also infect a church's methods. In a day of shifting paradigms with many innovative ways of thinking and doing, many church leaders assume any method that is new or produces visible results is acceptable to God. A not-so-holy pragmatism sometimes makes us believe any means justifies the end when the means and the end often need to be reevaluated in light of the New Testament. Although worldliness may not be in the method, it can be in the attitude of those who use the method.^[4]

4)    Agents of God desire to follow Jesus’ example of incarnational care not merely to offer aid from a safe distance via drones, remote control, or robotic arms.

"The calling of the church is to embody, but not compel, this vision."[5] As we desire to embody, to model a different way of living, to help those in the most poverty-stricken areas Perkins says that we need to be willing to relocate or “move into a needy community so that its needs become our own needs.”[6] And as

Another way of restoring the stabilizing glue to our urban areas is for committed Christians to live in these communities. The importance of our physical presence in these communities can’t be overstated, whether it means moving to them for the first time, coming back, or just staying put. This principle that we have come to call relocation is what has given Christian community development success as well as undeniable credibility.[7]

5)    Agents of God see the church as an intentional community of peace, not a voluntary social club established to maintain the status quo.

I frequently hear people, from many backgrounds and in diverse contexts, complain about personal betrayals, physical and emotional abuses, terrible crimes in the community, and even corporate injustice and government heavy-handedness. We need our homes, our towns, counties, states, and countries to be not only safe but just. The problem we face is that in wanting to help make things better our government programs simply make things worse. Why? Because even our highest ideals apart from the redeeming love of Christ are tainted by pride and ego endemic since that first selfish act in a garden long ago.

“A second consequence of the root sin is the social sinfulness of mankind… Friendship is corrupted by treachery; the home, ‘natural refuge from the ills of life,’ is itself not safe; the political order in city and empire is not only confused by wars and oppressions, but the very administration of justice becomes a perverse business in which ignorance seeking to check vice commits new injustice.”[8] [emphasis mine]

From housing projects to health care reform, we can see how efforts to help can easily turn bad. Efforts to legislate morality to protect social justice have failed just as badly. What is needed is not a new deal but a new heart, not a program but a personal relationship with the Savior. When we have that, when we follow Jesus’ incarnational example, we continue to die to our own sense of entitlement and need for control and live life in a way that is helpful and liberating—truly humanizing—to those around us. Our Triune God cares about the sick, and the poor, and justice for the oppressed. If we are agents of God we will be a profound blessing to our communities because we will stand for mercy, truth, and sacrificial serving love. I have a ways to go, yet I remain hopeful.

I will conclude with the words of John Perkins, “I believe that the church has the opportunity to pioneer and model a way of life whereby our nation itself can experience a new birth.”^[9]

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[1] John E. Mathison, "A First Century Witness for a 21st Century World." Preaching, (March 2013): 34-37.

[2] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ & Culture. [New York: HarperOne, 1951], 212.

[3] Soong-Chan Rah, Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010), 132-156.

[4] Niebuhr, 211.

[5] Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (New York: T & T Clark, 1997), 177.

[6] John Perkins. Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development, Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 36.

[7] Perkins, 75.

[8] Niebuhr, 212.

[9] Perkins, 18.