What I’ve Learned in Organic Church Part 3: Desperation for the Lord

*** This article is part of a blog series by some of us meeting together in an organic expression of the church.  The introduction to the series is here.  Other contributors are listed at the bottom of this article.  This series is not based in theory or rhetoric and is not an attempt to “teach”.  Our hope is simply to point to Christ as All in All and to share real life experiences of those who are living together in this way. ***

“Lord Jesus, I need you.”

I have learned this simple and profound prayer is essential to living.  It has become/is becoming that which I pray continually throughout every day.

At first, it seems elementary and almost too basic to bother with. The first several times I was encouraged to make this prayer my breath, my immediate response was, “I know I need the Lord. This is all I have ever heard in the church.”  So I ignored it. If you are having/have had this same reaction, it is completely understandable.

The need for Jesus is always taught about. We need His salvation. We need Him to forgive our sins. We need His grace to make it through the day. We need His power to conquer something. We need Him to give us patience.  We need His teachings to live a life of love. The list goes on from there. . .

We know we need Christ.  

However, once we accept Him as Lord, we are often taught that we “need” to do other things as well to grow and remain in Christ: attend services, read the Bible every day, feed the homeless, find our spiritual gifts, pursue a holy life, etc.  Even in doing these good things, the pursuit of living a moral, Christian life subverts seeking the Lord only and He eventually becomes the Magnificent Assumption by which we live our daily lives.

When this happens, He no longer is the full source of our life but only an under-lying idea to us practicing a moral life according to the Bible and what we are told we “need” to do. We turn to Him only during our morning devotions or when we are really struggling or when someone/thing is really frustrating us or if we give thanks for something good which happens to us. In short, He becomes the Backbone of the Church, in whom we find support for ourselves to live the Christian life.

However, there is a huge issue with this. The Lord is not simply the Backbone but the Head and the whole Body, which is the ekklesia. He is the Head from whom the whole life of the ekklesia comes, not just the Head in the sense of authority. In Colossians 2:19, Paul, speaking against a person seeking to corrupt the Colossian ekklesia, wrote that that person was “not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” (ESV) The life of the whole body come from Christ and holding fast to Him alone.

So the prayer “Lord Jesus, I need You” reflects our recognition of our desperation for the Lord and clinging fast to the Him alone.

Not for a practice or one aspect of Him so that we may be strengthened in trying to live the Christian life, but for the Lord Himself.  He is the reality of all that we are now.  We are in Christ and Christ is in us.  We do not have to do anything to gain more of Him.  We possess Him fully and this will fully be realized at the Great Wedding of the Bridegroom and Bride.  Paul describes to the Colossians their reality in 3:3-4,

“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (NASB)

This is what I have really learned in organic church life.

Since we are in Christ, the only thing we must do is desperately seek Him: not because we are lacking Him (since we are in Him and possess all that He is) but clinging fast to Him so that we learn to depend on His life alone and not our own. For, in Him, we lack nothing. Christ is our rest (Matthew 11:28), when we may be tired. Christ is our peace (John 14:27), when all is in turmoil about and in us. Christ is the true vine (John 15:1-8) and we find all life and sustenance as we abide in Him. Christ is the living water (John 4:14) and we no longer thirst for anything else. Christ is the bread of life (John 6:48) and we need no other food.  Christ is our light (John 8:12), by whom we see all in an eternal light.  Christ is before all, in all, and through all and, by Him, all things were made and are held together (Colossians 1:15-20).  Christ is all in all and all we will ever need.

As I have shared in the indwelling life of Christ with my brothers and sisters in organic church, I have learned the reality that is at the beating heart of the ekklesia: “Lord Jesus, I/we need You.”

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Further Resources:

A good definition of organic church.

Living by the indwelling life of Christ.  Also here.  And here.

Other Bloggers in this Series (And Post Dates):

R.C. Babione (2/29/12)

Brigette Babione (2/8/12)

Nathan Burgman

Jackie Dukes (2/1/12)

Marc Hardy (1/25/12)

Mark Lake (1/18/12)

Seth Roach (2/15/12)

Tobias Valdez

Carrie Walters (2/22/12)

Michael Young (1/11/12)

A New Year in Organic Church Life

It seems appropriate to post a short blog about a few things going on with me.

First, a quick announcement.  I am going to be participating in a multi-part, multi-blog project with several of the saints here in Gainesville.  My post is going to be going live on January 25 but all of the posts in this series are going to be absolutely incredible.  Every person who is participating is a beautiful portion of the Lord and I consider myself fortunate to share in the Lord with them each week.

Here is the introduction for the whole series, which includes links to all of the blogs involved, and here is the first post, both of which are by a dear brother who is always passionate about the Lord.

As for the general stuff going on in life, I have a quite a bit going on.  I am still working for Starbucks which, as always, the Lord has used to bring incredible revelations of Himself into my life.  The most significant of these has been simply Himself and small encouragements to turn to Him throughout the day to continually learn to depend on His life and not my own.

On a somewhat work related note, I am seriously pursuing going back to school this next summer.  I am going to begin taking classes to fulfill the requirements to eventually enter medical school in a few years. This seems really strange considering that I just got out of school, and seminary at that, but I’ve always had a good head for science and want to be involved in a career where I can be fully available to the Lord to move anywhere, if necessary, and so I will be able to provide for the body as much as possible.

The most significant reason for writing this post is: I have officially been sharing in organic church life for one year now.

Even though I spent six-and-a-half years in college and seminary, continually learning more about God, which should supposedly have been an incredible time.  However, this past year has been the richest and most incredible year of my life.  I have experienced the Lord in amazing ways: what He has done in and through the body but also in my life.  I have come to understand my life,  including my past, in a whole new light: the reality of being in Christ and Christ in me.  It has released me from a guilt I never knew I was even carrying and the Lord teaching me to embrace the reality of the cross in order to continually learn to live by His life and not my own.

I know this is just a short update, in lieu of how long my blogging absence has been, but I thought it would good to post a little something for those interested as well as the people who may be reading my blog for the first time.

I would encourage you to check back on the 25th for my next blog, which has been one of the biggest things I have learned in organic church life.

A Time of Beholding

It has been some time since I have felt that I should write another blog post.  It is not because I have not had anything to say about what I am experiencing in organic church life.  On the contrary, I had had an abundance of things to write on, if I had felt so inclined.  I had a series of potential posts concerning how I have seen and experienced “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing” by Soren Kierkegaard lived out in organic church life as I have been reading through it.

The church has gone through significant periods that certainly would be good for others to hear about.  The most incredible of these periods was when a sister in the church was incredibly sick and we witnessed Christ acting not only through her complete healing over a period of a couple of month, but Christ working in all of the church, bringing us into a deeper love for Him and for each other as we all served the sick sister and her family.

Even though there was so much I could have blogged about, I never felt a release to by the Lord.  I have recently come to understand that He has desired for me to be entirely focused on Him, beholding Him, and learning, growing, and living in His indwelling life in the midst of organic church life.  He has drawn my focus to His life here in the present, in the midst of organic church life, and nothing really outside of all that is happening here.

This time of focusing on Him alone has led to many things not being as important as they used to be, although in time I’m sure they will become important again.  The first of which may shock you but I have actually stopped reading my Bible every night.  Before you label me as a heretic, I wish to show why this was so important.  Every person is generally told that you are not a Christian if you don’t ready your Bible.  I have read it cover to cover at least four times but, ever since college and seminary, my reading of Scripture has been nearly lifeless and almost strictly intellectual.  I was not seeking to grow in Christ’s life or have Him continually life more in me through what I read.

In the same way, I have not been able to read anything theological or philosophical in content, not even the books and articles related to organic church.  I have been trying to finish Kierkegaard’s “Purity of Heart”, which I started in November, but have been unable to.  With all I have said so far, I do not at all intend to be anti-intellectual or against reason.  Both are very important but all that many of us in seminaries, colleges, and even churches are taught to use.  Both are important but only if they originate from the life of Christ indwelling within.  Reason and intellect has been the primary lens that I have viewed life for the last six-and-a-half years, while, even though I was a part of a church each Sunday, I never actually learned to grow and live in the vastness of the life  in, of, and through Christ.  I have lived with reason as my defining way of thinking that it seems the Lord has brought in me into a time where I am learning to live and think through His life, and not my own wisdom.

This brings us the final thing that the Lord has removed for this time of focusing: blogging.  What I have meant to with my blog since I moved to Florida is to give people a tiny insight into my life here within organic church life.  However, every once in a while, my blogging has drifted towards sharing this life with you so that I might be noticed.  The only purpose of my blogging should only be conveying Christ to all that should read what I write.  So I’m not sure how much I’ll write after this post but, when I come to a point where

This period of focusing that the Lord has brought me to a place where only the Lord, as well as He through His bride, has been teaching me to live, and so that nothing, not even my own “life” or wisdom could be relied upon. This has led me into a continually deeper revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ that will only continue to grow, which has brought me to a deeper knowledge about myself and my faults.  These have ranged from simply personal habits as far as relationships with others and ultimately the Lord.  Many of these that I have consciously and unconsciously been affected by, the Lord has already begun to heal me of since I have been here.  Through this healing process, every day the Lord becomes dearer than before as He grows in me and I grow in Him and I continue to learn to love my brothers and sisters, as well as others, in new ways.  Every day I continually am learning to say anew, “I no longer live but Christ lives in me.”

So, I do not know when my next post will be.  I hope this post has been edifying and informative about my blogging silence. Until this period of complete focus on the life with the Lord that I am in and in the midst of begins to look different from the present time, I wish grace to you all and peace, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lent and Organic Church

This year has be a significant change in my life.  Instead of being in school, as I have been for the past twenty-three-and-a-half years of my life, or potentially fulfilling a pastoral role of some sort in a church, I am a simple barista at a local Starbucks in Gainesville, FL, and a participant in an organic church, which is the reason I moved to Gainesville in the first place.  This is where the Lord has led me and called me to be.

One thing that is really different, on top of that other stuff, is the lack of a celebration of the Lenten season.  Lent has been a part of my experience since I was at least in junior or senior high, when we had our foreheads marked with a cross of ash.  Ever since than, every year since whenever that was, this time of year has come around when people would begin considering what they felt God was calling them to give up for Lent.  I have to confess, most years, I could not think of something to give up so I simply would not participate.  Still, it often felt like there was a continual pressure to participate in Lent, even if one did not feel that something in particular needed to be surrendered for forty days.

However, my only connection to Lent this year is with the status updates of my friends on Facebook related to Lent, as well Ash Wednesday when I was surprised by customers coming in with ash crosses which made me realize what day it was.  This reason for lack of a celebration of Lent is my being a part of and participating in organic church life.  The season of Lent simply does not have a significant place in organic church life.  However, I can say confidently that the significance of Lent is continuously embodied in organic church life.  I have discovered that I can say in the same breath that Lent is both not important and incredibly important in organic church life.

Let me explain how I can say this.  The active participation in the Lenten season just simply does not really fall into the seasons of organic church life.  This is not to say that if one person in the church felt the need to celebrate the Lenten season in its proper time in the Christian calendar, that he or she would be ostracized or excluded in any way for doing so.  On the contrary, his or her practice of Lent would be gladly welcomed and others might feel the need to participate as well.  So the practice of Lent is very welcome but is not really practiced within the usual Christian calendar.

However, while Lent does not visibly manifest itself between Ash Wednesday and Easter in organic church life, it fills the very life and practices of organic church.  Nothing other than the Father, Son, and Spirit fill our very beings as we seek that that nothing other than Jesus Christ, the visible manifestation and fullness of the Godhead, be embodied by His bride, His Church, His people.  Since our pursuit is Christ alone, Christ in all and through all, the very practice of Lent, giving up whatever feel the Lord calls us to so that we make seek Him more fully, is our very life.  If the Lord brings something to our attention that is hindering our fellowship with Him, we are called to lay it down.  Sometimes He even simply makes things in our life less important as we go about living without us even realizing it, in order that we might see Him more clearly and seek Him more fully.

It has been interesting seeing Lent from this perspective, instead of the focus on it that I have usually seen during this part of the year.  Even though I am not actually participating in the Lenten season, as many of you, my friends, are, I pray that your Lenten season will be richly blessed and that what is at the heart of Lent will resonate in all your hearts throughout the year, continually unveiling the vastness, riches, and beauty of Christ.

God is Our Shepherd

Hello friends.  I apologize for the lack of updates on life.  It is difficult to find time to blog in the midst of all that is going on.  I have had numerous ideas bouncing around in my head that I have considered writing on, including one almost finished blog that I should have up soon.  However, the church meeting that took place on Saturday has eclipsed all other blog possibilities at the moment.

The organic church meetings that I have been to up to this point have all been amazing, revealing the ways that God is moving in His bride.  So, as I highlight this meeting, do not think I have not enjoyed the meetings but that this one was even more incredible than the others that I have been a part of.

First, I must explain how a typical Saturday functions, if I haven’t already.  The only direction of the meetings that we participate in are through the direction of the Holy Spirit.  This includes the songs that are sung and what is shared, although what is shared is usually the outgrowth of how the Lord has been working in us all throughout the week.  Sometimes there  are defined singing and sharing sections, though they often intermingle in other meetings.  Although the meetings flow this way, we still meet on the first Saturday of each month to decide, through the guidance of the Spirit, what each meeting will focus on.  This week’s meeting was a “Bring a Treasure” meeting, which basically means we can bring anything that we have seen Christ in recently.

As soon as we started singing, it was beyond amazing to see how Christ directed the whole evening.  The songs that people asked to sing all flowed together, each conveying the overwhelming vastness of Christ, Who is continually revealing Himself to us more and more in each moment of each day, yet we will never reach the end of His vastness.  The joy among the saints as we were singing was simply electric.  Even the Scripture passages that people shared, flowed perfectly with what we were expressing with our singing.

Not only was the singing directed by the Lord, but as we began sharing, it was evident that He was directing what would be shared and when.  As people began sharing, it was evident that the Lord had been reminding us that He is Comfort, Peace, our sustenance, and our Shepherd, not dependent on what life is like, but always.  This was continually brought up in different ways, even poetry, by numerous people, including myself.

I had prepared to play a song on my guitar to the community this week.  There has been a song continually on my mind for the past months, which has continually been reminding me of the Peace  that can only be found in God alone, even in the midst of the craziness of work.  It is the song “House of God Forever” by Jon Foreman.

When I felt it was time to get up and get my guitar ready, I moved to the back corner to get ready.  In the mean time, a sister began sharing how she had been thinking of the nature of God’s rod and staff, which directs us and pulls us out of danger, as well as comforts us.  So, completely independent of each other, we both had brought something on the same Scripture passage.  I played my song  and even after that, others brought even more on Psalm 23 that they had discovered this week.  The evening continued to flow around this topic, from many different angles, and it was simply beautiful and it will be a meeting I will not forget.

It is difficult to fully describe how this evening played out but it was fully the movement of Christ through His people in an undeniable way.  I hope this has given you a glimpse of what one evening looks like and I would encourage anyone who may be curious about organic church to not hesitate to ask me.

One Monthish Later…

So I thought I would be update my blog more often but it has not quite been able to work out that easily yet.  Between simply getting settled here, getting used to working at a new Starbucks store, and getting used to life in organic church, I have yet to really find a rhythm to life.  Hopefully, that will change in the coming weeks and/or months but we will have to see, I guess.

I am still working for Starbucks here in Gainesville, which is going incredibly well.  I enjoy my co-workers a lot and, after only being here a month, my manager has made me one of two barista trainers at our store.  So I’ll be one of the ones responsible for training any new hires who will be working morning or afternoon shifts.  I’m looking forward to this a lot and I”m just amazed that I am being given this possibility.

As for life in organic church, it is difficult to even begin to describe what it is like living in it.  It is nothing like anything I have ever been a part of or experienced before.  Life is no longer about what must be done but learning what it means to be and live in Christ as a community.  Each day is about continuing to discover the vastness of Christ, both individually and with others.  The meeting on Saturday night of each week is the culmination of our experiences with Christ during the week, which are shared with others so that they may experience the ways others have experienced the Lord.  We are the blind people in the Indian parable who are seeing the elephant from different perspectives, perceiving it is something else.  We are perceiving Christ from different perspectives, none of them the same, but with one difference: we all know Who we are experiencing but that other perspectives are needed.  He is beyond what any one of us might experience so we must rely on others to bear witness to what they have seen so that we come to even slightly know Jesus Christ more.

As to what the average month looks like in our community, we begin each month planning what the next month will look like, as well as any issue that the church needs to come to a consensus on how to deal with it.  We plan what each month will look like in terms of  activities and what we will prepare for each week.  We also always try and look at some long term plans such as retreats and sharing the Lord’s Supper as a whole community.  What we do each week  can be very different.  We could look at a them within Scripture or do some fun activity in which we demonstrate Christ to each other.  Each week also includes getting together with others often to support them or to just watch a movie.

All I can say above all is that, even though I love my biological family, I am truly a part of a a family here, where every person is deeply loved.  This is a really exciting time for me and I’m so happy to be here for it.  It is amazing to see God at work in my family here and to see Christ in them.  I look forward to continue to seek God alone with these people, as we share in this journey together.

A New Life in Organic Church

It’s been far too long since I posted anything on here but I guess that’s can be expected when I had about 300 pages of reading each week, along with tons of papers, the majority of them being between ten-fifteen pages, over the past semester.  Anyways, I have completely finished school and, as far as I know, I have gotten my Master of Arts in Theological Studies after two and a half years.  Before I had even finished, everyone had been asking me what I was going to do next.

Well, here it is.  I have moved to Gainesville, FL, to be a part of an organic church community.  It’s a community whose whole existence and life is defined solely by the Triune God at work within it.  There is no organized structure like you might expect in a church community but any structure that emerges is as the Spirit is at work among the people of the community.

Before I continue, I’ll preemptively answer some questions that I’m sure are emerging in your minds.  No, it’s not a cult.  And, no, we don’t live in a commune.

What it is, though, is a community that understands it’s nature and purpose as a church grounded solely in Christ.  The life that exists within the community flows as Christ continues to work in the lives of all involved and as they participate together in Christ.  This even included the times when the whole community gathers together.  The entire evening is an outpouring of praise for how members of the community have witnessed Christ at work in themselves and in others throughout the week.  It’s a time for the community to collectively affirm how Christ has been shaping and is continuing to shape the community.

The life of Christ seen throughout the week is demonstrated by the ways that community members intentionally interact with each other throughout the week.  If any community has a chance of arguing for embodying the phrase, “All the believers were together and had everything in common”, it would be this kind of community.  The love that everyone has for each other is continually poured out though small things, like inviting several people over for a meal or offering to babysit for a couple, or bigger things like helping out someone in the community who is in need.

So that’s what my life after grad school consists of now.  I transfered to a Starbucks down here in Gainesville and will continue to work for the Bux for the foreseen future.

I know many of you might be curious about this, so feel free to ask me any questions you like.  For those of you who might somehow be concerned about my being a part of this, let just say I have not taken move down here lightly.  I am only continuing in seeking God above all things, that He might be the only ground on which I have to stand (as I have no ground of my own to stand upon or anything good that I can claim as my own).  Only in God can we find anything that is good.  Our love, faithfulness, and hope are not inherently ours but only find their existence in God.  It is only because of His faithfulness that we can live faithfully to the gospel of Christ we have been called.  It is only because of His self-sacrificing overwhelming love that He has exhibited that we can self-sacrificially love God and others.  It is only in the certain hope that He has given us in and through Christ, that we have a certain hope beyond our own existence.

In light of this, I moved to Gainesville because this is where God has led me to be and I cannot rightly do anything else.  The only thing that one can seek is the purity of heart of will one thing, in the words of Kierkegaard.  That “one thing” is God alone, no matter what or whatever place of life.  So the whole of our existence can, and must only be, seeking God above all things  and continually praying that we might echo Paul in Philippians 3:

“⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through [the faithfulness of] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith[fulness]. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”

This is what my life consists of as I am starting life after seminary in Gainesville.  Since I do not have homework or classes to focus on now, I am planning on setting up scheduled days to blog so that those of you who care to know, can follow what I will be experiencing while I participate in this organic church community and as I continue to seek Christ above all things.

Explanation for Blogging Style

I just felt like posting something really quickly explaining why I blog like I do. I don’t really feel like posting about everything that is happening day to day in my life. In my opinion, I don’t have the most exciting life. When it’s Fall or Spring, I have school, although I am finishing my degree this Fall which is crazy to think about. Otherwise, I participate in the life of a local congregation, work at a Starbucks, and, if I’m lucky, play a game or two of Ultimate Frisbee each week.

So where my blogs come from are not necessarily day-to-day thoughts but ideas that are shaped and examined in my head as I ponder and mull over them.

I am very much and introverted person normally. I do have my moments where I just have to hang out with people to recharge myself. But usually, I prefer spending time alone instead of with large groups of people all the time. Part of my personality as an introvert is not expressing every thought that pops into my head but thinking about it for a while before saying anything. This is who I am and I would say that this is how I function when I blog. I don’t feel like simply jotting something down just for the sake of writing something but I want to express something significant and meaningful with each post so I take my time between posts to formulate something that will hopefully get you to start thinking more about who you are as a Christian and what it means to follow Jesus within the community of the Church.

So check back every once and a while. I’ll most likely have something new posted.

I am (becoming) a Jewish-Christian

I have decided to update my blog more often, which means more than once a year.

And, as I have said, I have become a somewhat strange mixture of theological thought.  I have already talked about how I have begun engaging in practices from other traditions within Christianity and that I think we all should be doing so in order that we may begin to mend the rifts between the different traditions within Christianity.  Now I want to talk about something that is probably not on many people’s radar but something which has been shaping me for sometime: I am becoming, or trying to become, a Jewish Christian and I believe that all followers of Christ should seek to do the same.

A couple quick side notes.  If anyone who is actually Jewish is reading this, please do not be offended by.  In fact I humbly am using this discussion to express the need that I recognize that Christianity and myself has for your perspective in order for us to understand who we are.  I also want to beg of your forgiveness for the many misplaced things that people claiming to be Christians have done to Judaism over the centuries.

Also, no this is not a blog about the restoration of Israel so that the end times may occur.  That is a different topic all together which I don’t really feel like getting into now.

What I mean when I say that I am becoming a Jewish Christian is that I am seeking to foster the Jewish perspective within my own thought in order that my understanding and living out of the Christian life may have a greater depth.  The main source of this shaping within me is the book Our Father Abraham by Marvin R. Wilson.  This book is excellent and I would encourage everyone to read it.

This is a perspective we have lost as Christians.  As the early church was emerging, it faced significant persecution from the Jewish communities of that time period and as more Gentiles began converting to follow Christ, the church slowly began drifting away from our Jewish roots.  Then it was in AD 70 when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans that Christianity separated itself almost fully from Judaism so as not to be persecuted even more by the Romans  for being seen as connected to the rebellion that had occurred in Israel.

There are several significant points, which have especially emerged out of this book, that have been transforming me into, as I’m going to call myself, a Jewish Christian.

The first area where I am being transformed is in the Jewish understandings of community.  For a fantastic understanding of Jewish community life, watch the 1970s version of The Fiddler on the Roof (Wilson refers to this movie often if that tells you something).  If you watch closely you’ll see the beauty of the Jewish community life that is portrayed.  Everyone has a place within this community, even the beggar, who others aid with what they can spare.  When it comes time for the Shabbat meal, there are several uninvited guests who appear at Tevye’s home and,even though there is hardly enough for his family, Tevye’s wife, Golde, says to them, “There is always room for one more.”  All members of the community are welcomed into each other’s homes for the celebration of the day of rest that God commanded the people of Israel to observe, which is frequently one of the Ten Commandments we like to forget.  Now, I ask you, how would it look if we became more Jewish in our understanding of community life? What would it look like if everyone had a place in our community, no matter how we felt about them, and if everyone gave to and cared for one another so that no one was in need?  What if were willing to open our homes to all members of the community at any time?  Imagine this tightly knit community that participated and lived in each others lives that we could anticipate each others needs before they asked for help.  What if we actually lived out Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21, when he prayed that all believers would be one just as he and the Father (and the Spirit) are one (a passionate trinitarian relationship).  I cannot be arrogant enough to say that I am living this out but I am being strongly influenced by this Jewish perspective and hope to be a part of and help encourage others to participate as well.

The next area that I have been strongly influenced is by the general attitude of thankfulness and blessing within Judaism.  To put it simply, Jewish prayer life expresses utter thankfulness for all of creation.  Consider the creation story in Genesis in which, throughout the entire first chapter, God calls every single thing he has created as good.  Even with the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the Jewish understanding of all of creation is sacred since God created it.  In light of this perspective, a Jewish person is unlikely is offer a blessing before a meal as we would (which reflects our view that creation is somehow unholy and God must make it holy before we eat it) but a Jewish person will offer a blessing for all things in life.  Consider The Fiddler on the Roof.  There are several scenes where people are asking the rabbi for the proper blessing for the Tsar or a sowing machine.  The full Jewish blessing, which is mainly for ceremonies, begins with “Barukh atta Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha‑olam…” which means “Blessed are you, O LORD, our God, Ruler of the universe…” but in everyday life, Jews simply begin a blessing with “Blessed are you, O LORD”.  And for everything in life, a Jewish person will offer this blessing up to God for it, and I don’t mean to say this to be gross, but there is even a blessing for urination. Don’t believe me? Wilson writes out the blessing on page 157.

So I have begun to pray this prayer as often as I think of it.  It has begun to change my perspective on so many things and influence the way I look at the world.  Normally, we as Christians only offer blessings at meals or call something a blessing that God has worked in our lives.  What if we were to adopt this perspective of viewing all of life as created good by God and offering praise and blessing for all of it?  Now I don’t mean that we should bless God for something bad that happens in life or something evil.  Not even the Jewish people would do that but instead, offer a blessing to God who is over all and is working to restore all.  For all good things in life, though, I have been learning to bless God for all of it and it has opened my eyes to seeing the scope of all that God has created and the ways in which God is working.  I believe that we must all try to gain this Jewish perspective on life, instead of only thanking God at a meal or only crediting Him with momentary blessings.  What if we were to view all aspects of life as blessing?

Finally, one of the most significant ways in which I have been influenced by Jewish thought is their general thought process.  It is called “block logic” and it is incredibly different than any way we try to think in Western culture.  Block logic is a way of looking at two things that seem to conflict and, instead of trying to reconcile them or figure out how they work together, one simply lives in the reality of both.  This is seen throughout the entire Bible.  There are passages that talks about God’s mercy and others that talk about God’s wrath or justice.  Still other passages seem to claim free will for humans but others talk about God’s predestining all things.  In the Jewish mind it is possible to view both of these “conflicting” ideas and claim both as true and that a person should live in a way that affirms that.  In Western thought I would say we simply HATE thinking like this.  Most often, we feel we must try to nail something down.  This is why we have so many differing theological perspectives and denominations in western Christianity.  There is some block logic that we do affirm in Christianity still, the most glaring example is the Incarnation, where Jesus is fully divine and fully human.  This form of block logic we have maintained, despite numerous attempts by Western Greek thought to explain the Incarnation in a way that somehow lessened Christ’s divinity or humanity, and heresy was the result.

This thought process is something that I have been seeking to have my own way of thinking transformed into.  Now, I ask, what would it look like for Christianity if we sought transform our own typical way of thinking into this Jewish way of thinking?  What I can imagine is the unity amongst the body of Christ like Jesus prayed for in John 17.  Imagine, people who were from different theological perspectives all agreeing to recognize that other perspectives can help us all live life together as the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church instead of bickering over who can fully understand God better.  It would mean Calvinists and Arminians learning together, Baptists and Methodists, Roman Catholic and Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity, and so many other “opposing groups”.  I know this is very idealistic but if we all allowed the Jewish perspective to transform our way of thinking, then, maybe, we would actually be the body of Christ, united.

I am somewhat, and hoping more to become, a Jewish-Christian.  I know this ideas are probably strange to most, although there are some hints of each of them in Christianity, but these Jewish practices, among the many more I could have referenced, are some that I have seen at work in myself.  I believe that we as Christians should allow the Jewish perspective to transform who we are instead of shunning the olive tree the we have been grafted into (Romans 11:17-18).  I encourage all of you to become a Jewish-Christian as I am hoping to become further.

Wilson, Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI and Dayton, OH: William B. Eerdmans and Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 1989.

I’m a Protestant who crosses himself

I have to admit off the bat that I’m kind of an odd mixture of different theological thoughts and practices.  I’m most definitely one who is seeking to live in the Way and yet, although I am by no means Jewish, I try to approach as much I can theologically from a Jewish perspective with block logic (see Our Father Abraham by Marvin Wilson for details).  I have been raised in more of Western Christian perspective and still I find myself sharing a great deal of affinity with the Eastern Orthodox perspective on some topics.  And although I have been raised Protestant, I admit that I am somewhat of a Roman Catholic Protestant.

I am not Roman Catholic, nor have I ever really been connected to Roman Catholicism except for going to an Ash Wednesday mass and to a monastery located near where I attended college.  Yet I have found myself in recent days crossing myself.

I remember a speaker who came to my school shared where the practice of crossing oneself originated from.  This may not be accurate but it is true as far as I know.  Feel free to correct me if you know more concerning this topic.  Anyways, he stated that in biblical times if someone offended you in some way, like cutting you off while you were riding your camel or something like that, it was common to express your anger by crossing yourself in their direction.  This basically was saying to that person, “Crucify you!”  It was like telling someone today “You’re number one” with your hand.  It was at this point that the speaker almost flipped the entire group of us off but instead raised his index finger.  However, followers of Christ in response to Christ’s willing sacrificial death took this curse and transformed it into a blessing, just like Christ transformed his death on a cross, which was considered a curse in the Mosaic Law, into a blessing for anyone willing to submit themselves to living his life.

So the act of crossing oneself for a Christian was transformed from a way of expressing one’s anger towards another to a way of saying, “Let me be crucified”, which in fact is considered a blessing for a Christian.  It is an expression which says “Let me participate in Christ’s life and death.  Let me be crucified so that Christ will live in me.”  This is a theme that runs through the heart of the Apostle Paul’s writings.  In Galatians 2:20 he talks about dying with Christ so that Christ will live in him.  In Romans 6 he talks about Christians being united to Christ’s death through baptism and through this participation, Christians also participate in Christ’s resurrection, which is a freedom from enslavement to sin.  Paul’s understanding of life as a follower of Christ is one of participation in Christ life, death, and resurrection.  It means living with the total obedience to God that Christ did.

In light of this, I freely admit that I am a Protestant who crosses himself.  This is one of the Roman Catholic practices that Protestants shied away from during the Protestant Reformation, among many others.  In our reluctance of being seen as remotely Roman Catholic, we sacrificed many practices that should have been maintained.  Instead we have chosen to wear the cross as a form of jewelry, on a cheesy shirt, or a bracelet which are inanimate, stationary objects that we vaguely remember every once and a while.  Crossing oneself is a visual, physical reminder that we force ourselves to participate in.  In the process we remind ourselves of our participation in and imitation of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

I am willing to embrace this practice,  and hope to gain a further understanding of other practices, rituals, and celebrations of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, in order that I might be one of many followers of Christ who realize that our understanding of God and Christianity is very much fractured until we are willing to sacrifice many of our own differences and humbly allow the perspectives of others to inform our own.

Those of us that do not cross ourselves must regain an understanding and appreciation for this practice.  We should be willing to not just wear the cross as jewelery as some misguided act of witnessing to others.  We should be people who are marking ourselves with the cross expressing not only with our words but with a physical action to say, “We are no longer our own but Christ lives within us”.

I am a Protestant who crosses himself.  I hope you will join me in reuniting the body of Christ through our practices and remind yourself daily of your willingness to say, “Let me be crucified!”  All this I pray in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.