Do we provoke the Ammonites?

I was in Deuteronomy 2 this morning and I began to notice a pattern. Three times in this chapter God tells Israel not to harass or provoke to war the groups of people they encounter on their journey. First it’s the descendants of Esau, then the Moabites, then the Ammonites. The repetition told me there was something here for me to dwell on. I think there is significance in the fact that God didn’t just not tell them to attack on their way through, but specifically told them not to. It wasn’t their mission. God tells them that he will not give even enough of this land for them to set their foot on. This was not their battle.

How often do we provoke the Ammonites on our way through the desert? We're mad at God for making us wait on something. We are mad at ourselves for the mistake we made that caused the wandering to be necessary. Or we're just grumpy for a reason we can't even identify. And here come the Ammonites (insert your favorite scapegoat here) and we just start wailing on them. It feels good for a moment doesn’t it? We even convince ourselves that we are acting out of righteous indignation and not anger, frustration and spite. The sad thing is how often the Ammonites I attack are my family, friends or church.

Anyone else have this issue?

...I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land...

Poverty--how do you guys deal with it? Both Moses and Jesus tell us that we'll always have the poor with us and of course that's true, but isn't it true at least in part because God's people fall short of doing his will? For example:

⁴ However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, ⁵ if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.

Deuteronomy 15:4-5

So in what ways are you guys fully obeying God's call to minister to the poor? Trust me I don't intend for that to sound like a challenge, and we can't claim to be getting this right on our end, I am sincerely curious as to what it looks like for you. I want to know what programs you have in place. Do you lean on other community groups? If so which ones are helpful? Do you point folks to DSHS? What sort of things do you help with? Do you have a compassionate fund? If so is it funded, and how? Have you taken any measures to protect yourselves from abuse? Where do you draw the “enabling” line?

In my experience as a church planter I find this a very difficult issue. Money is tight everywhere. By American standards our staff and nearly our entire congregation are among the poor. But it isn't a simple issue, here are some options I'd like to avoid, mostly 'cuz they don't seem to work for us:

1. Leave it undone

2. Give 'em another number to simply alleviate my guilt/burden/commitment

3. Make excuses like, "we do what we can, our congregation is poor"

Okay I’m nearly done. Just one bad pun left: How do we continually pour into the poor?

Radical Obedience

This week we were studying Jesus words to His disciples in John 14 where He says "if you love me, you will keep my commandments". He continues the theme throughout this section with addition of a promise that He will send, "The Spirit that will guide them into truth". Powerful challenge and promise wrapped up into one.
It seems to me that this a call to "radical obedience" with the provision of One to carry it out.

So, I am wondering how this radical obedience has played itself out in your lives? To what has Christ called you to be obedient and how has the Spirit enlightened you with the truth and power to carry it out?

When the buzz wears off

Marcus Buckingham and his strength/weakness teachings are rolling around in my mind. Some I find fascinating and others I have tossed aside already. I always come home from these things on a bit of an intellectual buzz. I have intellection and ideation in my top five you know. :) But here is my challenge. How do I find a practical way to use this new information before the buzz wears off? How do I use this stuff in more than a "how interesting" kind of way? Have you guys identified this yet? Have a plan of action? Lost your buzz already?

Embarrassing moments: share.

Embarrassing moments: share. Today I replied to an email that I thought was going only back to Scott when in reality I sent it to our entire prayer team. I mentioned that we could "pull in loads of money" by making an adjustment to our current fundraiser. My guess is that "pull in loads of money" is not the sort of terminology that our entire prayer team wanted to hear their pastor say in their minds as they were reading my reply. I don't blame them, it was a poor choice of words and I sure do feel silly. Have any of you done foolish things like this? If so how did you deal with them? Maybe you asked that portly lady when her baby was due? Or you left the mic on when you went to the bathroom? Do tell. It will help me feel better.

Duality of Hebrew

A while back, Dan lead us through a study that focused on the idea that the words for teach and learn in Hebrew are basically the same word. The difference is that teaching is causing learning. It's the two sides of the same coin thing. He mentioned Sunday that blessing has this same duality in Hebrew. This morning I was studying Micah, and learned that the verb translated go/walk also has this duality. There is go/walk and with a slight tweak, it becomes to cause to go/to lead. With my previous public profession of a love of semantics, it's not surprising that this fascinates me. Clearly this connection between an action and the force that causes the action is something we have lost in translation. Here's the question. Is this something we need to reclaim? If so, how is best to go about it?

Belonging and scorecards

Hi all,
Got a question for you this week to chew on.
How are you approaching "belonging" in your faith communities?
We belong to a tradition that extends belonging through "membership" and promotes it overtly and covertly. We celebrate churches whose scorecards include adding "whatever" number of new Nazarenes. The statistics we report talk about new Nazarenes around the world. I wonder if this underlying thing cripples us from "Kingdom" work. Not that connecting people to the Nazarene church is subversive to the advancement of the Kingdom in and of itself, but I feel like when that is my "primary" focus, I miss the point yet this is what I am asked to continuously respond to as a Nazarene pastor.

So, how do you view membership and how do you view its role in the church today? How are you extending a sense of belonging to folks in your tribes? By having Nazarene membership prioritized, does it create a sense of "in" and "out" people? Are there any "scorecard" elements of being a Nazarene pastor that bother you?