Category Archives: government

come together

Posted on by September 16, 2021

I was in the Old Testament, on the couch, and almost in a coma. Or, pretend we’re playing Clue: It was Mrs. Guerra, in the library, with the book of Leviticus. Out cold.

I had read this paragraph four times and still had no idea what it was about. One of those big, vague sounding words was repeated throughout it, and my eyes just glazed right over.

come together: how the church leads the culture

It was this one: Convocation.

So I finally looked it up, and the first entry was one of those super helpful ones that said “the act of convoking.”

Huh. Thanks a lot. If I knew what convoking was, I wouldn’t need you, Google.

Scrolling a little further, I found something better: “An assembly of persons called together for a meeting.” That made more sense. And for bonus points, it said it’s from the Latin word “convocare” which means to call or come together.

Like so:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.

– Leviticus 23:1-2, ESV

I ran this all by Vin, who was next to me on the couch reading about the Free Burma Rangers in Mosul. He, too, was doing research.

“So, it’s an Entmoot,” he summarized.

Exactly. They could’ve just said that in the first place. (Take note, Google.)

Formally, a convocation is a special thing – a ceremony, or some event of special recognition. In my church (and maybe yours) we don’t hear this word hardly ever. But informally, in practice, we do it every week. Sometimes several times a week.

We come together.

Unless, suddenly, we’re told not to.

And at first, okay, that seemed like a good idea – let’s step back and see what this pandemic is really about, while the Powers That Be get things figured out.

But we’re past that. This is months later, when the Powers That Be have manipulated data and shown that this is no longer about a pandemic – pandemics, of course, not generally having a 99.99 survival rate and being less of a threat than the seasonal flu.

No, this is not about a pandemic. This is about a test. Some places are passing it, and others are failing.

I said this before on social media, but for the record I’ll put it here on my own site.

With my mom voice, and all my love:

The Church needs to stop letting the government and media lead the culture in fear, and step up to take its place to lead the culture in victory.

We don’t follow the culture, we follow Jesus. He’s the one calling the shots.

We lead the culture, not the other way around. If we do not take responsibility for our calling, others will be (and have been) happy to step in and take it for us.

History belongs to those who pray. Victory belongs to the bold who obey.

We do not take our cues from the culture — we are meant to take a stand. We are the light on a hill. We need to act like it.

I’ve heard Christians condemn other Christians for calling this “persecution” – because if you compare this to what they call “real” persecution experienced all over the world, like what the Free Burma Rangers see, it doesn’t even come close.

And, okay. That’s true.

But what is also true is that in many places, this is how that started.

What do you think comes after prohibitive restrictions on gatherings, worship, and other church activity? If we don’t know history, we are condemned to repeat it.

Pretty early on, a church in California was threatened with jail time for holding services. Read it here. These threats have nothing to do with health, they are completely about intimidation – and they are absolutely illegal and unconstitutional.

And if that reminds you of someone else who likes to use powerless intimidation to see what he can get away with, that’s no coincidence.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

– Revelation 12:7-9

[Jesus] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

– Colossians 2:15

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

– 1 Peter 5:8-9

The churches who are leading will prioritize their mission over government mandates. We do not ask permission to meet. A quick read through the US Constitution – and it’s less than 20 pages, so there’s no excuse to not know it – will show you that we have every right to come together.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

– The First Amendment in the US Constitution

The Church leads by meeting. Not by going with the flow, waiting for the next mandate, and then creating alternative ways to congregate without rocking the boat. The Church leads by following Jesus, not by following the government.

 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

– John 12:9-11

That’s the kind of an impact we should have. Our life and vitality should be a threat to those who want to suppress the Kingdom, and an attraction to those who want to be a part of it. That’s how we lead a culture toward healing and redemption.

But others are still waiting for permission, instead of following their commission.

Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

– John 12:42-43

And this is the real test: We can lead by following Jesus and coming together, or we can pretend to lead by following dictates and waiting for the next shoe to drop.

We can lead by doing our research and standing firm, or we can keep thinking Oh, this isn’t real persecution, while forgetting that the difference between this and what the Free Burma Rangers are seeing is only a matter of a few more steps.

Don’t believe me? Look at Portland. Look at other big cities. Look at Kenosha, Wisconsin.

This isn’t about a pandemic, but most of you already know that. This is about a culture at war – greatly because it’s also about a Church who has, in many places, capitulated.

But this is still the time for holy convocation. For an Entmoot. For gathering, and connecting, and praying, and teaching. For learning and growing and sharing.

And when the Church does that, it impacts the government, and the nation, and culture at large. And that is how it should go – not the other way around.

praying shelter: how we bring safety to our streets

Posted on by June 24, 2022

News is everywhere. Facebook is alight with grief and opinions, the talk shows are full of hype and outrage, and the celebrity news anchors are still speechless but that hasn’t stopped them from sharing clichés and propaganda.

praying shelter: how we bring safety to our streets

And none of this is about health or safety. It’s about a lot of problems, but none of those are the root issue: What we have is a culture of fear and pride, people insecure in their identities and their mission. And as a result they are unsafe.

Unsafe. As in, they might be in danger, but also, they might be a danger to others. People who have forgotten they are the Beloved are afraid, and afraid people do stupid things.

The enemy seeks to kill, steal, and destroy and his primary weapon is fear.

But his other weapon is distraction.

The enemy attacks, distracts, tries to keep us from praying on the offense against his schemes – and sometimes it works. But if we are alert and aware, we can use it to divert our focus to something more powerful, like going from simply praying against an attack to praying for the hearts of the attackers. For repentance.

We stop hacking at the branches and start attacking the root, because two can play that game and God has already won it. We can do more than thwart enemy plans; we can also cause his players to defect to our side.

We can let people know they are safe. We can let them know they are loved. We can remind them they are the Beloved.

I don’t mean this in the vapid, politically-correct kind of way that throws around the word “love” like the latest trendy hashtag and we can’t disagree on anything without calling it hate. We can and should disagree. We can and should hold firm to our deepest beliefs even if it offends people. And we should be safe to do so. We should be loved and loving whether we agree or not.

This is not rocket science. This is maturity.

We can’t make everyone feel safe and loved. But we can pray against fear, pride, and insecurity. We can pray for people to have mature identities instead of just impassioned knee-jerk ignorance.

We can pray safety into our streets like there’s no tomorrow. Because for some tonight, there’s no tomorrow.

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We can pray deep and wide: deeply and often for our neighborhoods and our families, and wide and scattered over the intersections and businesses of our cities. In His authority we can cover these places with safety.

We can pray for government buildings, sidewalks, and bus stops. We can pray security into people as we pray over their homes, their workplaces, their driving routes.

Because all of these lives matter. Yours and mine and theirs.

We can pray shelter over each other, flinging it wide, everywhere we go.

in pieces: why we need to remember we are the Beloved

Posted on by August 22, 2022

It happened when a six-year-old was crawling on the kitchen counter to get a cup out of the cabinet. She slipped and dropped the cup, which landed on several other dishes next to the sink, including Vince’s favorite mug…the handle of which immediately broke into three pieces. Did I mention it was handmade pottery?

in pieces: why we need to remember we are the Beloved

She knew it was her fault – an accident, a sad loss, but not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. But when it came to apologizing, something flipped.

“I didn’t break it!” she insisted. Technically, this was (sort of) true…the cup she dropped is what did the breaking. And yet she was the one who dropped it.

We went round and round with the logic of this, but the real battle wasn’t logic. The real battle was two-fold, part of which was admitting the truth — because if we admit the truth we must also admit responsibility for our part in it. The other part was fear clouding her identity, and she forgot that she is more valuable to us than a broken dish.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we’re the Beloved so we can be secure enough to face the truth.

It’s imperative that we teach this to our kids. If we don’t, we’ll end up raising a generation of middle-aged juveniles who would rather be willfully out of touch with reality than admit their own mistakes. And we really don’t need any more of those.

Avoiding truth and responsibility are both rooted in fear, and given enough time they distill into narcissism. We think of narcissism as something that values self over others to an extreme measure, but the truth is that it’s the essence of insecurity.

And our culture is full of it. We diminish our own value out of insecurity, and then entirely eliminate the value of others in self-defense. Like a bully who picks on the weak to hide his own fear, the nation that justifies slaughter and harvesting of body parts for scientific advancement is a nation steeped in its own self-loathing.

We don’t need to look to ISIS for atrocity. We have evidence of the most barbaric acts on video, in our country, against our most vulnerable, for profit, with the backing of an inflated government and a culture drunk on its own narcissism and insecurity.

It’s not that these videos show how wrong abortion is – abortion is wrong whether it is done for profit or not, whether it happens in the third trimester or not, whether the baby is wanted or not. What these videos reveal is how debased we are as a culture that it takes something this barbaric to wake us up to the evil of it.

If we deny what is so clearly shown here, we are willfully out of touch with reality – because if we admit the truth, we must also admit that we are responsible.

Our culture is responsible. Our silence is responsible. Our turning away, not wanting to be made uncomfortable, is responsible.

And I want to say, I’m sorry. We have dropped it, we have caused breaking, we have allowed a culture to grow up around us that divides the unborn into pieces for profit, and doesn’t even care if the heart is still beating or not.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

While no life is perfect, every life is beautiful and has purpose beyond being relegated to a bunch of line items for Planned Parenthood.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are the Beloved. You, reading this. Me, typing this.

This one, with this face.

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photo source

He was only six months younger than this one, with this face.

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We see a culture rising up out of this that knows what it is to take responsibility. We see generations who are willing to look reality in the face and say No more of this, not on our watch. We see families and churches stepping in to do more than say they are pro-life but are also showing that they are pro-child – adopting, fostering, providing, and praying. We have a culture that is moving from the relative comfort of shaking their heads in disgust over headlines to stepping into the front lines to stand up for children, born and unborn.

When we know we are the Beloved, we’re not afraid of the truth. Insecurity is no match for people who know they are image-bearers. And those who recognize their own value are those who also value the lives of others – not as a commodity for personal gain, but a person with inherent value — because they are also the Beloved.