Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice – and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
In mission, do we only listen to one side of the story? As in, “those people” who are “over there” and never take time to here the whole story?
The lastest video installment from The Upstream Collective’s Jet Set London
Jetset London // Debrief #1 from The Upstream Collective on Vimeo.
We need to learn to accept God’s plan even when we don’t understand it. Why? Because the truth is most of the things that happen in your life God doesn’t explain why they happen.
Most of the things in your life God’s not going to give you an explanation. He’s going to remain silent when you’re going through that problem, through that trial, through that difficulty, through that circumstance.
God wants you to pray when you’re in those situations: “God, I don’t know what’s going on in my life. I don’t know where You’re taking me. I don’t know where I’m going to end up. But I’m going to say Your kingdom come, Your will be done.”
That kind of surrender is a key to peace – accepting God’s plan even when we don’t understand it.
Why does this bring peace? Because the greatest barrier to experiencing peace is our demand for an explanation.
The truth is we’re probably not going to get an explanation from God. Why? Three reasons:
A. God doesn’t owe you an explanation.
Remember, God is God and I’m not. So God doesn’t have to explain to me why He does everything. He doesn’t have to report to me, “By the way, would this be ok with you if I do this?” He doesn’t report to you. You report to Him. God is God and you’re not.
B. You probably wouldn’t understand the explanation even if He gave it to you.
God exists in eternity. He sees everything that’s happened in the past and He sees everything that’s going to happen in the future and He knows what’s going on in your life right now.
We tend to think what’s happening in my life. And not even our whole life but what’s happening at this very moment.
If God tried to explain to you that you’re a cog in the wheel of the huge panorama of history, you would not be able to understand why this happens before this before this and how that thing that happened a hundred years ago is influencing this today and what you’re doing right now is going to influence a hundred years from today. And on and on. You wouldn’t understand it.
C. Explanations never comfort us.
Have you had pain in your past and through reading or therapy or counsel or talking with friends, you’ve figured out why certain things happened in your life? Did that comfort you? No. It gave an explanation. It gave wisdom. But it didn’t relieve the pain. Explanations rarely comfort us. That’s why when God lets you go through a situation, He doesn’t always explain it. Instead of offering an explanation, He offers Himself. His presence. Because what you need when you’re in pain is God’s presence not an explanation. And God has said I will be with you always. You will never go through anything on your own.
Surrender: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.
Many people pray the serenity prayer. Millions of people pray the serenity prayer on a daily basis. But did you know that the serenity prayer has been edited? Most people only know the first three lines. The actual prayer has eight more lines and that’s where the power is.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time. Enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace. Taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is. Not as I would have it. Trusting that You will make all things right If I surrender to Your will so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.
The rest of the passage explains a whole lot about the first.
Accepting, trusting, and surrender – that’s how we find peace.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done.
Think of the biggest problem that you have. The one you’re facing in your life right now.
Whenever you or I, whenever your life, your problems, your successes become the greatest thing in your life, you live under a tremendous burden because it’s all on your shoulders. We’re not meant to live that way.
Jesus teaches us how to pray and He essentially says, “When you pray here’s how to do it. First of all start out and call God your Father. Realize that that’s the relationship that you have with Him.” Then right after that you say, “God, I want Your name, who You are to be honored in my life and in this world.”
That’s not how I usually pray. Oftentimes when I go in I’ve got my list. “Here it is God. I need this, this, this and this… See You later, God.” And I’m out of there.
Do you ever pray like that?
But something happens in my life when I take the time to recognize the greatness of His name and realize he is my Father. For me, the focus shifts.
All of a sudden I’m not the center of the universe any more.
All of a sudden it’s not all on my shoulders any more.
I realize God’s greatness.
It’s not up to me to hold everything together.
Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we are holding the universe together with our plans or our strategy or even our worry.
The truth is God was running the universe just fine before I got here and He’s going to run it just fine after I leave. That’s the greatness of God.
Sometimes I need to put life in perspective.
We have made the decision to move our Sunday gathering from 5pm to 11am. Not much else will change. We will still eat together, learn together, listen together, and live sent together. But there are several reasons we have decided to make this move:
1. Many attend another church on Sunday mornings.
Nothing wrong with visiting other churches. However, we think this leads people to not being committed to either. Plus our covenant states that members of Matthew’s Table will not function as members of another church. Some push back on this, but it seems that God takes covenant very seriously or it wouldn’t of consisted of men cutting a piece of flesh off. Simply stated, one way our relationship with Jesus is reflected is through our commitment to a local church. This includes the giving of our time, talents, and treasure to the mission of God in the world.
2. A cultural expectation in the South.
I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with people that have never darkened the door of any church in their lifetime and even despise the church, yet still expect the church to gather on Sunday mornings. This cultural norm seems to be deeply ingrained into the Bible belt.
3. People get lazy.
I do not mean that in a negative way . . . well maybe a little bit. What I do mean is that by the time 4:00 rolls around, families are usually settled into whatever they happen to be doing and then must change course in order to attend a church gathering at 5:00 and they get lazy. In other words, it becomes a hassle.
4. It will free us up for missional activity the rest of the day.
Meeting at 11am rather than 5pm will give us the opportunity to spend the afternoon and evening together engaging in missional activity. Our worshipping together should compel us to mission, right?
Anyone a member of a local church that gathers at an off time? What advantages/disadvantages did you find?
What are some of the advantages/disadvantages you see with gathering in the morning?
I would like to hear your thoughts . . .
Our friends with The Upstream Collective will be hosting a Jet Set vision trip to both London and Paris May 21-28 with Ed Stetzer and Daniel Montgomery.
Be sure to check out this excellent post on Why Jet Set?
If you would like to follow the collective along this trip on Twitter, they will be using the hashtag #upstreamc
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Our summer intern Casey Turner will be with us until the end of August. Casey is a student at Williams Baptist College and will be receiving course credit for her Missions Practical class.
We use these internships as a first look into our Protégé Program – sort of “getting your feet wet” before committing to serving with us for 2 years.
Casey will spend the summer working at Java Joe’s building redemptive relationships with our regulars and collecting and writing stories for our initiative to Serve Lebanon. She will also be helping host our Power Plant team.
Power Plant is a ministry of the North American Mission Board designed to engage students in church planting and evangelism. The Nashville project dates are July 5-10.
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Last but not least we will continue our 1st Sundays @ Don Fox Park on June 6. We missed May due to the flooding (the park was under water).
First of all I would like to say thank you to all who gave Saturday to make our Nashville Flood Relief benefit show a success. Some names worth mentioning:
Nicholas Ferrell and Zack Ferrell
- these are the two guys for originally came to me with the idea and do music for Matthew’s Table during our Sunday gathering. We are grateful that they are doing life with us.
Thomas Rose and Jameson Elder
- both are friends from Mosaic Nashville. Thank you for coming down and lending your time. We are glad that we have such a great sponsoring church.
Another shout out to my friend Abbi Siler who took the time to write this excellent post: Local Coffee House Gives Back to the Community.
We delivered a van load of collected items yesterday. Thanks to Dwayne Reed for lending the Smile Mommy van and driving downtown.
The items we collected will be used in an underserved, hard-hit Hispanic community.
And last but not least . . . thanks to Rodney Calfee who traveled up from Birmingham with Shawn to help with some of the recovery efforts.
A personal update: On May 4th I posted this tweet:
The response to my call for prayer was immediate. Even prompting a post from The SkyBridge Community. Their prayers from various parts of the world have been comforting and very encouraging.
The transition that we are being forced into is that my adoptive father, Randy Carpenter, is making us move out of the house he has been letting us live in (he has never allowed us to make his house our home). We have never gotten along and I will spare you the details, but Randy purchased what used to be his mother’s home after she passed away with a portion of his inheritance from her estate and gave it to us to live in. We originally were given 60 days to move, but I have since been able to talk Randy into letting us stay until September because our second child is due in July.
So what’s the big deal? A family has to move. That happens everyday.
We, however, have an unique situation. Everything we have is tied up in Java Joe’s/Matthew’s Table. We do not make any money from either other than what is needed for our immediate needs. We intentionally live very simply and our lifestyle is easy to maintain with a free house to live in. But, with being forced to move, this makes operating Java Joe’s difficult. So right now . . .
We need our loyal customers, friends, and relationships that we have formed over the past year and a half more than ever.
We need our church family more than ever.
We need our community of prayer-ers more than ever.
And by God’s grace we will continue to make it because it is only by his grace that we have made it this far. We have been thrust into this liminal space which is where all transformation happens. It is where we are by definition “not in control.” Nothing new happens as long as we are inside our self-constructed comfort zone. Richard Rohr comments that,
“Nothing good or creative emerges from business as usual. This is why much of the work of God is to get people into liminal space, and to keep them there long enough so they can learn something essential. It is the ultimate teachable space.. maybe the only one. Most spiritual giants try to live lives of “chronic liminality” in some sense. They know it is the only position that insures ongoing wisdom, broader perspective and ever-deeper compassion. The Jewish prophets… St. Francis, Gandhi, and John the Baptist come to mind.”
Much of our day to day effort to this point has been directed toward maintaining our personal little world. So my prayer is that something new and beautiful emerges out of this liminal space because nothing new or creative happens from business as usual.
Ed Stetzer’s Exchange was interuppted by a special news bulletin yesterday with Rusty Sumerall, Pete Wilson and Rice Brocks about the Nashville flood and how the church can make a difference. There are ways you can help. Watch and find out how you, or your church might contribute to the relief efforts this week…
The Exchange with Ed Stetzer, 05-04-10 from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.
I am thankful for friends and Matthew’s Table church members who stepped up and helped clean up both our gathering space, Java Joe’s, and my home yesterday after the flood waters receded. Yesterday, I saw Galatians 5:13 in action – “through love serve one another”
Here are a couple of photos of my house.
