What Does the LORD Want Explored?

So, after taking such a long break from blogging, the question was: So, what do I start with? It's not that I have nothing on my mind. For any of you who know me, it should be clear that the problem is exactly the opposite. I have TOO MUCH on my mind. A much bigger problem for me is focusing in on a single topic and sticking with it - rather than chasing down rabbit trails.

So, as I was praying about what I should blog, a discipleship partner made a suggestion. The irony in the circumstances is that what he suggested wasn't even on my radar. For the past 5 years, since leaving SoCal and moving to Lanco, I have been obsessed with Ecclesiology, the theology of the Church, what and how she is to be and do. There was and is so much brokenness in this area (I'm sure not just this area), that it consumed me. Why can't the Church be all the Lord wants her to be?

But this brother in the Lord, another abused and wounded saint, pointed me in a new direction. It was during a mini-rant on Discipleship that he politely interrupted me saying, "That may be the third time you have said that same thing to me about Discipleship and I have never heard it before from anyone else. I think you should blog about that!" Honestly, I thought, "But I'm interested in sharing what is wrong with the Church!" Then it began to dawn on me, like a wave washing over me: The reason the Church is so messed up is because it's full of people, including its leaders, who have never been discipled.

I confess that I had been so focused on what is wrong in the Church that I missed all of the clues around me as to the REASON. And when I say "clues" I don't mean items which must be deciphered and which will lead you to the answer. It was the actual answer being plainly repeated to me over and over again. From the church member who said no one was interested in teaching her about Christianity, to the brand new pastor who was bitter because no one in his church had ever discipled him. From the seeker fumbling through her brand-new Bible desperately trying to find John while the teacher droned on unwaveringly about the church's position on Eternal Security to the three-decade Christian who said that he learned more from me in 32 months of Discipleship than in all his previous years combined. The REASON was right there before my eyes and ears all along. Discipleship isn't happening in most churches in the US.

Before you accuse me of being this wounded, jaded man who makes up things to complain about, you need to know that this is the same conclusion that most contemporary surveys of the US Church have come to. The most well-known is the Willow Creek Reveal study. The sad fact is out there from many sources - We are not discipling the folks who call themselves "Christian."

I will endeavor to unpack this problem over the next MANY blog posts. In taking on this challenge, I will start by saying that I don't have all the "right answers." What you will get is my perspective, the perspective of an APE (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist), informed by Scripture and my observations of and experience with many churches over a decade and a half of ministry. I also have as my guide the Living Spirit of God, Someone with Whom I am in intimate fellowship. And I submit all that I write and say to the communion of the faith, to the True Church, those who have genuine relationship with the Lord, who seek to walk in His ways and to glorify Him in all that they do as they "keep in step with the Spirit" (Gal. 5:25). As a reminder to myself and as an example to you, I insert a section of Anselm's Proslogion in his attempt to prove the existence of God. May it encourage all of us as to what can be if we earnestly seek faithfulness.

I have come to you as a poor man to a rich one, as a poor wretch to a merciful giver. May I not return empty and rejected! And if "I sigh before I eat" (Job 3:4), once I have sighed give me something to eat. Lord, turned in (incurvatus) as I am I can only look down, so raise me up so that I can look up. "My iniquities heaped on my head" cover me over and weigh me down "like a heavy load" (Ps. 37:5). Dig me out and set me free before "the pit" created by them "shuts its jaws over me" (Ps. 67:16). Let me see your light, even if I see it from afar or from the depths. Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to this seeker. For I cannot seek you unless you teach me how, nor can I find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in desiring you, and desire you in seeking you. Let me find you in loving you and love you in finding you.
I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that you have created in me this your image, so that I can remember you, think about you and love you. But it is so worn away by sins, so smudged over by the smoke of sins, that it cannot do what it was created to do unless you renew and reform it. I do not even try, Lord, to rise up to your heights, because my intellect does not measure up to that task; but I do want to understand in some small measure your truth, which my heart believes in and loved. Nor do I seek to understand so that I can believe, but rather I believe so that I can understand. For I believe this too, that "unless I believe I shall not understand" (Isa. 7:9).

Amen & amen...