Thursday, October 19, 2006

Klingon Christianity

by Mike Chong Perkinson

Life in Christ is full of twists and turns. Complicating this life of twists and turns is ministry – leading God’s people to the promised land of life and hope. One would think the journey would follow a straight line to the land of abundant life, peace, and joy. Oddly enough, our life in Christ, much like the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites, is filled with odd turns, twists, and character adjusting moments that result in agonizing flesh moments of anxiety, confusion, and fear – the pathway to trust and faith. You know, the questions that float to the surface: Why is the happening? Why isn’t my ministry going as well as Pastor Perfect? Why do I have to struggle so much while other leaders seem to coast into the Promised Land? Stop with the depressing honest questions – that’s enough reality for one day.

Maybe the problem many face in this day of self preservation and self-promotion is that we are way too much alive where we need not be and dead where we need to be alive. The leaders of God’s people tend to be just as busy, hurried, stress filled, anxious, mean, and angry as those without Christ rather than enjoying and living the abundant life of joy and peace Jesus promised. Is it possible the reason we are living so far below what God has promised is that we are dying poorly. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24, ESV) Is it possible that we remain alone and do not bear much fruit because we are way too much alive to our own agendas?

To help us here we turn to the world of Star Trek where we find some wonderful words of wisdom from the race of warriors called, the Klingons (If you are not a Trekkie our heart goes out to you and we will be praying for you). For the Klingon honor was held above life itself – honor – a word that is gradually disappearing from our vocabulary and practice. The greatest honor for the Klingon was to die in battle. In the Star Trek world it was not uncommon to hear a Klingon warrior say “Today is a good day to die.” Philosophically, the Klingon warrior lived his life in anticipation of victory in battle, willing to give his life. “A Klingon is always prepared to die.”

Like the Klingons, we are in a war, a spiritual war that involves a rather focused, angry, conniving, and evil opponent who has so powerfully been defeated by the all powerful Son of God. Strangely enough, he was beaten by the all powerful Son of God that was rejected, despised and killed. Jesus fought in a way that is foreign to our current mindset, but maybe is precisely the way the battle is won on our front. Jesus came to serve and not to be served (Mark 10:45), not counting equality with God something to be grasped (Philippians 2:6), serving the Father’s agenda and not his (John 5:19), using weapons of love, vulnerability and sacrifice that brought release and life to the captives (Luke 4:18-19).

Dear Pastor and leader maybe “today is a good day to die.” Maybe we need to rethink how we live and consider how we die. Maybe we need to redefine what success means and base it on the values of the Kingdom of God. Maybe we need to change our scorecards and assess our effectiveness differently. You know, not basing our success on the ABC’s of ministry (Attendance, Buildings, and Cash). Nothing wrong with being wise stewards of such but maybe we need new scorecards that assess our effectiveness based on how we are loving God, loving others as we love ourselves, and making disciples as we live life. Maybe we should score the transformations of people’s hearts in our ministries not just professions of faith.

Maybe we should regularly ask ourselves the question: “who are we becoming?” Ralph Waldo Emerson warns us, “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that…That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” Do our lives reflect more today than yesterday the heart and character (fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23) of our Father?

Jesus wept over Jerusalem and was broken for her because she would not allow Him access into her heart. As leaders we tend to weep on Mondays because our attendance and tithes are low. Rather than weeping for our cities and neighborhoods because they are broken, poor, hungry, and lost without the greatest love in the universe. Again, “who am I becoming?”

It’s time that God’s servants die to human agendas and to live for honor. The honor of loving our God and doing what He asks (no matter what it is all a privilege); the honor of loving our neighbors with acts of kindness, mercy, patience, goodness, and faithfulness (loyalty). And finally, the tremendous honor we have to give away what has been given to us as we live life making disciples for our King.

Let’s honor our Master by becoming more like Him each and every day. May you discover what the Father is doing and then do it (true success). Fellow warrior, “today is a good day to die.”

And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mark 8:34-35, ESV)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21, ESV)

Mutant Incarnation

by Tom Johnston

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:17, ESV

The Eternal Word – God Himself, put on flesh and dwelt or “tabernacled” – literally “pitched His tent” – among us. This very same God continues His incarnational work in this world through the Church, which is His “body,” the fullness of Him that fills everything in everyway (Ephesians 1:22). This “body,” His people, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, becomes His hands which serve and heal, His arms which embrace in love and acceptance, His feet which carry the euangĂ©lion – the good news of the Kingdom.

Every living thing – everything with a body – has DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which defines it. The DNA is the substance that informs the development of the living creature as it grows and reaches maturity. This “genetic code” determines what we will look like, how tall we could be; the color of our hair, our eyes, our skin. The Body of Christ, too, has a genetic code, but being spiritual in nature, this code is of the Spirit, and not of the flesh. At the core of the Christian live and experience is this spiritual DNA – what we at Praxis refer to as the “Irreducible Core” of the Christian faith – namely Jesus’ commands to love God, love others and make disciples (Matthew 22:34-40, 28:18-20). This “code” is like spiritual strands of DNA which inform what we should look like as we grow and mature as the Church – becoming like Christ (Ephesians 4:13-15). Wrap around this core, this spiritual DNA, the cultural elements in any land, of any people, and you can get a glimpse of what Jesus would look like in that environment – and what His Church should look like as well. That’s all good.

In biological life forms something unhealthy happens when elements not found in the DNA are added into the initial life-forming mix – or the DNA itself is tampered with or damaged. We get what is known as mutation – changes in an organism that results from chromosomal alteration. A mutant organism is one that has gone through such changes. Some such mutations produce birth defects, some of which are so severe as to cause major mental and physical dysfunction, and even death. I have one of these genetic defects, a condition know as Cystic Fibrosis, which kills most with the condition by age 30, and affects many aspects of my physiology. I guess that makes me a mutant (a fact that friends and close associates have known for years!)

It seems in the biological realm that all mutation is derived from the Fall – death entered the world, and organic life, broken by that alteration of our universal reality, in essence continues to replicate that brokenness by reproducing after its kind. All health care is focused on combating and rectifying the ongoing mutation in the human form. These mutations by and large are negative – not the kind we find in fantasy tales that enhance superheros like the X-Men with unique powers and special attributes. Quite the contrary – mutation is disempowering.

You can see where I am going with this, I’m sure. When applied to the Church in the Western world, the spiritual DNA within what we call “church” has been so radically altered – through both addition to and subtraction from – and mixed with other substances – like incompatible worldviews – that the “church” looks little like Jesus. Certainly, we would have to admit that we function in the West with a fraction of the effectiveness and fruit of the Church that Jesus founded. We’re mutants, plane and simple, a mutant incarnation that has the form of faith, but not the power of the living Christ. Our genes have been altered to such an extent that we are losing the power to give life – that life of Jesus Christ. We bear His name, but look little like Him. How can I say this? The ugly mutant statistics prove it – we spend more than $280 Billion on ministry in the USA every year, and our witness continues to rapidly decline as a percentage of the current population.

So, is all hope lost? Is the Church in the West locked into a death spiral, a flat spin from which there is no recovery? Not at all. The Church in the Western world is in serious trouble, but the Church of Jesus Christ is not. The Church in the West can become once again the Church of Jesus Christ through one simple process – spiritual gene therapy. We must have a fresh infusion of the Irreducible Core of the Christian faith, aligning our lives and organizations with this original DNA from the Maker. Church life and ministry practice must be once again driven by loving God, loving others and making disciples everywhere we go, all the time. Gene therapy is a difficult process in the natural, our technology for it is immature. However, spiritual gene therapy by the Maker and Builder of the Church is not as difficult, with the Holy Spirit of God reshaping and realign us with His original spiritual genetic code.

All we must do is admit our defects and embrace His spiritual realignment of who we are – individually and organizationally – and let Him make us whole. We must look in the mirror, admit we are mutant Christians, a mutant incarnation and embrace the re-implantation of His DNA with meekness. Being remade in His image, we can then truly reproduce disciples that look like the Master.