Are we doing the wrong work out?

Recently I learned from a physical trainer that many people work out hard and feel like they are getting closer to their goals of physical fitness but in reality are not.  He shared this autobiographical story of when he was younger he would participate in professional fighting (karate and the like, not like Fight Club or MMA).

In the short rounds he would fight he would grow tired.  So after the fights he would train by running long distances in order to build endurance.  After several of these long runs, he would discover that the next fight he would be just as winded.  So more running.  What he later discovered after he studied and science exposed, is that in order to build stamina for the fights, he should not have been running long distances but rather many sprints.  His distance runs would build his aerobic system but not his anaerobic system.  

Bottom line, all that long distance runs were hard workout and he felt like he was getting closer to his goal (lasting the fights without becoming winded) but in reality he was not.  

So too in the world of spiritual formation, we are working hard and feel like we are moving toward our goal however we really are not.  

Ironically to the metaphor above, many people run spiritual sprints and think they are moving toward a strong spiritual life, when in reality we need to be running long distances.  

We attend worship one time a week.  Maybe we pray at dinner.  Perhaps we fast from eating food on Ash Wednesday.  We read the Bible one time a week.  We pass out soup at Thanksgiving and adopt a child at Christmas.  They are hard work and they make us feel like we are growing toward our goal of faithfulness.  The thing is, while good, these things are sprints. Taken alone they contribute to a faith that is a mile wide and an inch deep.   

This is why for many people the practice of giving up something for the season of Lent is such a difficult task.  Lent really is more of a marathon than a sprint.  For 40 days Christians engage in some combination of spiritual disciplines.  Doing something everyday for more than a week is something that is contrary to the instant culture we live in.  We live in a culture where 140 characters is the limit of our willingness to engage an issue.  When you hear of someone doing P90X, we tend to think those people are 'intense'.  Only the really hardcore people can go three months working out!  

The tricky thing is that running spiritual sprints feels like we are working out and growing spiritually.  It is difficult to realize that by only working on sprints we are not going to make it through the marathon of life.  

If you find you are regularly stressed out, worried, anxious, nervous about the future, seeking to control all things, fearful, angry about things you later realize were silly, or think that everyone else is an idiot then all while trying to fit in ways to better yourself - then perhaps you are sprinting when you ought to be considering distance running.  

Ministers are Metaphors

Ministers are metaphors.

This is why when someone steals from a business it is tragic, but when a minister steal from the church it is tragic and horrendous.  

This is why when someone is hospitalized the minister is given access to the patient even when others are restricted.

This is why people will leave their home church and follow ministers who move to another church.

Ministers are metaphors in our culture for something else.  Ministers are metaphors for God.  

This is not saying that ministers are God or even God like.  Not at all.  However, ministers and the world gets into trouble forgetting that ministers are metaphors.

Ministers who forget that we are metaphors will fall into the trap of believing that we are god.  And when we feel like we have "god-like" power and authority we have the potential to do things that are very un-Godly.  

When we forget that ministers are metaphors, we have a potential to allow the minister to act in ways that are not becoming of the office of minister.  

The next time you see a minister, remember that ministers are metaphors of God.  It is not the minister who should be followed but the God they point to.  

Is your minister helping you to follow the metaphor they embody?  Have you ever forgotten that a minister is a metaphor for God?  Do you know of a minister who has forgotten that as well?  

Why would you come to my family reunion?

In November of 2010 I attended a conference in which Brian McLaren noted the differences in movements and institutions

Movements are organizations which call institutions to new social gains.
Institutions are organizations which conserve the gains made by past movements.

Both are important and both are needed.

Lately there seems to be a trend in the UMC circles I move that the UMC needs to reclaim being a movement and move away from being an institution.  And that language is very populist and raises a lot of "amens" from a usually silent UMC congregation.

With all the rhetoric of getting back to a movement as a denomination, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect going on with the implementation of that "movement talk."

What I mean is that is all the talk of reclaiming "movement status" we still put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the institution.  That is to say we still place a ton of emphasis on the importance of worship.

While I think worship is important I am not sure it is helpful that only one aspect of the church is elevated to most important.  This elevation of worship sets up a potential to actually worship worship.  So you end up getting things like the worship wars.

Let me share an example I have been pondering.

You do not want to come to my family reunion.  It is nothing personal about you or me, it is just when you come to my family reunion you will be subject to hear from people you do not know, about things that happened in the past to people you never knew.

Family reunions are the institutional aspect of the family movement.

Family reunions capture the stories of the past.  People break break together.  People recall celebrations and advances the family made over the years.  (Sounds a lot like worship...)

Why would you come to my family reunion?  You were not a part of the movement of my family.  You were not a part of the movement when my dad followed his dream and hit many obstacles.  You were not there when my grandmother and grandfather moved in with us.  You were not there at graduations or birthdays.

You are not interested in the institution of my family unless you have been a part of the movement of my family.  Which is why my wife, who has been apart of our family for 10 years is more comfortable at our family gathering than you might be.  She has been a part of the movement of our family.  She appreciates the institution and works to keep it moving.

Because we have elevated worship as the "most important thing we do" as a church, we have made the most important thing an institutional aspect of our Church.  And why would anyone who has not been apart of the movement sides of the Church want to be apart of the institutional sides of Church?

So my beloved Church, let us consider that while the institution is important, people will only be interested in preserving it if they were apart of the movements of the Church.