Month: June 2012

Who Are Your Twelve?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

Our preparation to move to North Carolina is progressing well — we sold our house here in Little Rock Tuesday to a buyer who requested a closing date that is the same day that we had requested on our new house.

We went to see it on a little vacation trip, and enjoyed a day-and-a-half in Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains.

I applied and interviewed for a part-time position at the university.

We got acquainted with our new hometowns (Dillsboro, Sylva and Cullowhee) a little bit.

We met people new to us, and made friends over dinner and in prayer afterward last Sunday evening with  another family whom I feel sure will continue to grow closer and more treasured in our hearts.

Now the hard parts: Packing. Leaving. Realizing that it was probably our last family-of-four vacation for at least a long, long time. Helping our son move out of the house and into his apartment today. Saying goodbye to eight treasured friends in our LIFE Group at dinner last night.

As we dined together, I remembered a movie called Joshua where a farewell dinner was given by his friends for a person who has been called to an audience with the pope in Rome … a person who might be a lot more than just a visitor to their small town. Extraordinary things have happened among this group of friends and in their community as a result of the powerful love of this stranger. One of his friends, after the dinner, realizes aloud: “There were twelve of us.”

Last night I was made aware again of how our lives connect with so many others, changing them and being changed by them — but also of how profound those changes can be within a circle of close friends, no matter how different from each other we might be.

It made me wonder again what might happen if — like Christ — believers prayed fervently all night and then formed familial relationships with as few as twelve people … dedicated themselves to exploring His nature and personality together … lived it among themselves and others … prayed for one another from the heart … gave of self, sacrificially … loved deeply.

The movie I remembered starts thoughtfully and well, but I think it ends on a weak note. If I’d written its script, I would have had the character Joshua tell the pope:

“With all due respect, I didn’t come to see you or to satisfy your curiosity. I came to make a difference in the failing faith of twelve people I came to love … to help them experience what it means to believe even when confronted by things you can’t understand.”

My family will have that opportunity to help and be helped in that way when we move in three weeks.

We don’t know whom our twelve might be.

There might be more, or less, than twelve. Some might draw us closer with them to God through His Son than we could have imagined. Some might disappoint or wound us. They might choose us, initially. We might choose them.

But we will choose each other, and we will choose.

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. ~ Luke 6:12-16

Who are your twelve?

Inconsistency?

/ W. Keith Brenton / 9 Comments

I find it curious that folks who are willing to assume the existence of Noah’s tools (never mentioned in scripture) – in order to illustrate their defense of a doctrine of expediency (also never mentioned in scripture) … that those same folks blanch at the idea that God might have indeed told Nadab and Abihu and Moses and all of Aaron’s sons that only the fire He had authorized could be used in worship to Him.

True, that instruction never appears as such in scripture. (Just like Noah’s tools.)

Yet it is quite possible that the two oldest sons were bringing their own fire was because they had disobeyed by letting the fire go out (Leviticus 6:9-13) which had come from the presence of the Lord a few verses before (Leviticus 9:24). So fire came out from the Lord again and consumed them (Leviticus 10:2). You have to wonder why else would they be bringing fire in their incense censers, if it had not gone out on the altar …?

I guess that assuming such a command missing from scripture would not be expedient to the argument about God’s silence being prohibitive. Because if God was not silent, but in fact did express a command forbidding fire that was not His … well, the whole argument of God’s silence being prohibitive would hit a major iceberg; that’s the main rationale for it.

That would also put a big, leaky crease in the hull of the theology which goes which that argument.

Which is that God is on the edge of His throne looking down on us for the slightest excuse to utterly destroy anyone who disobeys Him by doing something that He has not specifically authorized (especially in worship).

And that, sadly, reminds me of the way that the steward entrusted with one talent envisioned his master: solely wrathful, greedy and vengeful. He was afraid to do anything with the talent that he hadn’t been specifically authorized to do. So he did the no-risk, nothing-ventured-nothing-gained thing to do: he buried it (Matthew 25:14-30).

(Of course, if you think about it, he hadn’t been specifically authorized to bury it, either.)

Is that really the way that we should assume God operates?

Because the other servants took some risk, transacted some business, put themselves out their to honor their master’s house and to increase the esteem of others at its assets – and his wisdom in choosing and investing in stewards for it.

They were generously rewarded.

Shouldn’t we put ourselves out there when we’re transacting gospel business for the chance at gaining the maximum return on investment? Shouldn’t it be that way every day of the week we’re in business, instead of just one day (which is all it takes to bury something)?

Let’s face it, we’re not specifically authorized to stand motionless singing in four-part harmony with books in our hands following only one song leader, either. So if we decide to start forbidding how hearts gifted by God want to worship Him, where do we draw the lines that scripture doesn’t?

At one day a week? At one day a week, plus maybe a Wednesday night? At one person speaking, rather than two or three? At one cup? At projected lyrics and/or music? At clapping? At a praise team leading? At accompanying instruments? Which instruments? At whatever I think is decent and orderly? At what my brother or sister thinks is decent and orderly? Do we draw the line at what does or doesn’t praise God, because we think we know Him so well through His silence?

Here’s the picture I have of God, and I get it straight out of scripture: someOne who wants us to express His praise, His wonder, His love and His power fully and with all our hearts (and encourage each other and be blessed by doing so!), whether we are gathered in worship, or worshiping by serving, or serving by sharing, or sharing by teaching. SomeOne who wants us to put ourselves out there – way out there! Take some risk. Transact some gospel. Not sell it. Live it. Share it. Give it away. Give it all. Don’t hold back.

Because that’s what He has done and does for us.

That’s what I find Jesus doing, and later, those who followed Him.

And if we picture our God before others as being miserly and stingy and secretive and vindictive, He will become the God we fear … but do not love and trust.

That’s not the provident God described by Peter:

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” ~2 Peter 1:3

A loving God. A giving God. A God who is just, but merciful; righteous but forgiving.

A consistent God.

The Year I Didn’t Go To Church

/ W. Keith Brenton / 29 Comments

Well, that’s a little misleading. The year after my divorce was final, I visited several churches.

And had a little difficulty finding a home.

Churches of Christ (and probably other faith fellowships) weren’t sure what to do with divorced people in 1984, and while I would be greeted enthusiastically as a guest, the warmth of the smiles would visibly cool when I said I was divorced.

I did find a home at Pleasant Valley, where no one seemed to mind very much what my marital status was. There was an singles group, and for the most part, folks did not regard the divorced as people with a scarlet “D” embroidered to their blouses or seared into their chests. But in the meantime I’d found another home among people who readily accepted others and took them in and shared commonalities of interest:

Trekkies. Well, Trekkers, actually: the United Trekkers of Arkansas, so named because there was some kind of nomenclature debate going, in which “Trekkies” was perceived as an insult. Hey, it was just a word then and it’s just a word now. (There’s a chance that “Christian” may have originally been intended as an insult. It certainly is used that way now in some circles.)

You could be a Trek-fan and go to meetings and (in those days before widespread Internet) share rumors of movies being made and news of new books and comic books and collectibles; debate motivations of characters and planetary cultures and 23rd-century technology. And nobody cared if you were married, divorced or single (there were members of all those categories); or whether you were painfully thin or dangerously obese; whether you were old or young or somewhere in-between; or whether you wore Trek t-shirts or uniforms or street clothes or dressed like a Klingon from time to time.

The findings of many a research project in religion point to what people seek most in a church: community. That’s what the Trekkers excelled in. They were a community in which deep friendships formed and grew, based on a shared peculiar interest. They worked together. They had garage sales that raised money for local charities like Big Brothers/Big Sisters. They even put together three or four local science fiction conventions — again benefiting local charities — that attracted some of the writers and actors from the television series and movies to participate.

Not unlike followers of Christ.

Now, the club was no paradise to be sure, and it had a rival. Sort of. There were for a while a few members of the UTA who were also members of a larger local chapter of a national organization known as Starfleet. The national organization — and particularly the local chapter — took their charter very seriously. Members had a rank in Starfleet and could advance, and they wore Starfleet uniforms (whatever era one chose), and they participated in community service projects while wearing them. (The local chapter adopted a mile of highway for cleanup.) One member famously wore her uniform as a candidate for the jury in the impeachment trial of President Clinton.

But the Starfleet folks developed kind of a disdain for the undisciplined ways and unlimited acceptance of the UTA folks, and a rift developed, and most of the UTA folks who had also joined Starfleet let their Starfleet memberships lapse. And Starfleet soon went the way of all interstellar hierarchies.

As far as I know, neither organization persists all these years down the road. I let my membership in UTA lapse in 1987, the year I moved to Shreveport.

And that, really, was the year I didn’t go to church.

There was no Pleasant Valley there. There was a church across the river with a single again group of six morbidly depressed people. There was a church on the north side that was all folding chairs in a circle and worship renewal and total unawareness of visitors. There were others, and I was quick to pick up on the dress code and bylaws and expectations and requirements of them. But there was no home.

Every other month or so, I’d roll three-and-a-half hours back up the road to Little Rock to go to church and reconnect with my Pleasant Valley brothers and sisters. Fortunately, my sojourn in Shreveport was just for that one year, parts of 1987-1988.

Now, the point to all this is (if there is one): Jesus was in Shreveport as surely as He was in Little Rock. It may have been shallow — and may be shallow — for someone to look for a church home based on a craving for community rather than Christ. It may be self-seeking, selfish, self-interested.

Yet it can grow into something more.

When people visit our churches, we have a very narrow window of opportunity to offer them the comforts of home — especially those who are hurting and hungry and desperately in need of comfort. I was one of them, and I am not proud of the judgment I showed or the speed with which I exercised it in some cases.

If we greet people with our charter and our uniform requirements and our expectations for performing service and cleaning up highways and leave a general impression of disdain for folks who aren’t going to advance in the ranks, well ….

On the other hand, if we show acceptance as Christ accepts us … if we do not judge others as He eschewed judgment while in this world; what they wear or what their background is or what their potential level of commitment might be … if we work together to help others and honor children and obviously have a great time doing so … then I think we’ve got a better chance at reaching the folks who are starved for community and may have only the vaguest idea about the One who puts the lonely in families.