Tag: Renewal

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Renewal in an Organization with a Long History of Hurt and Failure

The temple, the glory of the people of Israel, was in complete ruins. The Babylonians had destroyed everything and taken many of the people into captivity. Now, thousands had returned but returned to devastation.

In spite of the disappointment, those who returned from exile did not give up. They saw the place where the altars had been, and they rebuilt them. There, with no walls or temple, they held a feast to the LORD, the feast of tabernacles, where they remembered how God was with them in the wilderness when they came out of Egypt.

Then, they got to work. In the 2nd year of their return, they began building the foundation of the temple.

When the foundation was complete, the people began to praise the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever” (Ezra 3:11). They all gave a great shout to the Lord.

But shouts of praise were not the only sounds. “Many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid” (Ezra 3:12). The result was that “no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise” (Ezra 3:13).

This reminds me of many churches, families, and organizations I have observed. When renewal begins to take place, good things are happening, but it is hard for those who have experienced disappointment or hurts in the past to see the good. This makes it hard for the work of renewal to move forward.

So, what should we do? For those rejoicing in the present, it is important to remember:

  1. Understand that the organization has a history.
  2. Understand that good things have been lost.
  3. Understand that there have been hurts.
  4. When people express pain or longing for the past, don’t get defensive. Ask for stories.

For those who are grieved at the losses of the past, it is important to remember:

  1. Remember that new didn’t experience those earlier times.
  2. Remember that people are there because they see good things.
  3. Remember that there are challenges in the present to even carrying out the work, and people need encouragement.
  4. When you hear the good things, ask them to share them without bringing up your bad experience. Just let them give thanks and rejoice with those who rejoice.

So, who goes first? Who reaches out? The person who is more emotionally mature. Someone has to step up and say, “I understand my own emotions and sympathize with the emotions of others. I will step outside myself to consider what others need.” Whoever has the strength to do this should do it.

In all of this, we should remember that this is God’s work. He is the one who is at work in the church and in creation to bring about good things. That should encourage us, and that’s why the prophet Zechariah encouraged the people of that day: “What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel (the Israelite’s civic leader) you will become level ground. . . . The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you” (Zechariah 4:7-8).

Zechariah reminded them that whatever their personal feelings, the temple needed to be built. He encouraged them that it would be built, and he promised a glorious future. These same considerations can help us to move forward with the work of renewal in ourselves, our families, our churches, and our governments.

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5 Things You Can Do to Help You Start Again

In life, you will have times where you have to start again. You have to leave college and start a job, you go to a new school, you lose a friend, or you move to a new place.

Some new starts are harder than others. Three of the hardest are a loved one’s death, the empty nest, and retirement. When someone close to you dies, especially a spouse, almost everything in your life is different. They were a part of everything you did. This is similar to the empty nest. For women especially, you may have built your life around nurturing your children. That shaped each day. Now, every single day is radically different than it was before. For men, the biggest change is often retirement. You found status and meaning in your work. It structured your whole life. Now, you have to fill large chunks of time that work previously occupied. These are all huge changes!

How do we start again when our life changes so dramatically? How do we move forward when we didn’t want things to change?

There are no easy answers to this question. Adjusting mentally to new places and situations takes time, and it is not easy. Each person has to follow their own path. It’s very hard to know the exact pattern that things will follow when you move forward.

That said, I think there are some things that we can do that will help us start again. Here are five.

1. Take time to say good-bye. Our lives are so busy that sometimes we forget the need to mentally say good-bye to a past way of life. Funerals are one way we do this, but often we rush through funerals. Ancient people would take extended time to mourn a loss or mark a transition. When it comes to the human soul, fast is not necessarily efficient.

2. Be patient waiting for the new start. Even after we’ve said good-bye to the old way of life, we don’t immediately embrace the new or even see the new pattern of life. We may have to wait a long time before we get a vision for a new stage of life.

For me, I saw this happen when I turned 40. I realized that the vision for life I had had from my youth was now complete. I had accomplished everything I had envisioned: wife, stable job and finances, education, kids, etc. I started to ask, what now? A year and a half later, I’m just now beginning to get a vision for something bigger for the next stage of my life.

3. Have hope that a new beginning will come. People do adjust to new situations. It takes time, but it happens. For Christians, we have all sorts of resources from the God of hope (Rom. 15:13). If there is a passage of Scripture that particularly awakens hope within you, cling to it and let it seep down deep in your soul. Here are a few that have particularly helped me:

  • I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you (John 15:16).
  • For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
  • Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).

4. Ask: what do I really want to do and be? Most of us have rarely asked this question. In addition, it may be too hard ask this question in the midst of the pain of saying good-bye. When our head clears a bit, it’s a good time to ask it. I would also suggest that our transition will be easier if we ask these questions envisioning questions before we get to the transition. Here’s a few other ways to ask it:

  • What would I do at home if I had a completely free week without any obligation to take care of others or do a job?
  • If I could retire today, what would I do with my time?
  • What could my life be in 5 years if I worked at it a little bit every day?

5. Ask: what are my current opportunities? Here we can start very small. Who are the people we can reach out to? Who are friends we haven’t talked to in a little while? Does our garage need cleaning? Can we pick up a guitar and start playing it? As we start working on the small things and connecting with those closest to us, a larger vision eventually will emerge.

Starting new is rarely an easy or quick process. However, if we recognize that it is a process, we can smooth the way a bit. If we can even now begin to envision life in different scenarios, we will be better prepared to meet them when we come. If we can fill our hearts with hope from the God of hope, we will be less afraid, more encouraged, and more courageous when the new opportunity comes.

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Man Between God and the Devil

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil.” So wrote the Apostle John.

The drama of the Christian faith takes place on the backdrop of the opposition of the devil.

The modern secularized, corporate world rejects the supernatural. So, in Western society, spiritual warfare often embarrasses Christians. Even those who believe the devil is real have trouble integrating that truth into their lives.

Theologian Richard Lovelace argued that this is problematic. It does not do justice to the content of biblical revelation or to the actual experience of Christians. It seems easier in the short term to ignore the Bible’s mention of the devil, but in the long run it won’t work. He writes:

Such a domesticated view of spiritual reality may be superficially comfortable for a while, but eventually it is simply not credible. We will have less anxiety ourselves and more of a hearing from the world if we will believe in and preach the awesome, dangerous, but solid realities taught in Scripture. (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 144)

You just cannot get around the fact that the Bible is unapologetically supernatural in its approach.

Lovelace’s focus was not merely on defending the truth. His main interest was practical: how can individuals and churches be renewed and revived? One important aspect of renewal is recognizing the reality of spiritual warfare and the good news of the Christian’s spiritual authority in that warfare, he argued.

Lovelace illustrated this by recounting the history of the church’s teaching on Satan. He said that there was certainly superstitious approaches in the history of the church, but there has always been a bedrock of careful biblical teaching on this subject that can be found in the writings of the great teachers of the church. Martin Luther appropriated this teaching because it was biblical, and it is a significant part of the story of the Reformation.

During the Enlightenment, the church retreated from its emphasis on the supernatural in general idea of Satan and demons specifically. The focus was on the Bible as containing merely rules for a good life.

What Lovelace noticed in his studies of revival is that in times of revival such as the Welsh Revival of 1904 to 1905 and in missionary endeavors, an emphasis on spiritual warfare regularly developed. As the kingdom of God expanded into new areas, the conflict became clearer and much greater.

So, Lovelace concluded from Scripture and history that a necessary element of spiritual renewal is an awareness of spiritual warfare and of the authority that Christians have in it through Christ.

Lovelace went on his book to explain the strategies of Satan. These five strategies help flesh out how the devil attacks Christians.

1. Temptation: he seeks to get us to give in to things we shouldn’t do or distract us from what we should do.

2. Deception: he seeks to get us to believe wrong things about ourselves, others, God, and the world.

3. Accusation: he seeks to show us the faults of others and hide their good characteristics in order to increase division among Christians. He tries to show us our own real faults to make us believe God will have nothing to do with us. Note that the name “Satan” means “accuser.”

4. Possession: when a demon takes over the personality of an individual.

5. Physical attack: when he seeks to use physical force to keep Christians from following Christ, as he does with 300 million Christians around the world today.

So, how do we oppose the attacks of Satan?

1. Be aware that these things are attacks of Satan. There is more going on in the opposition to the Christian faith than what meets the eye.

2. Read Scripture. I have experienced times of intense temptation, and I have experienced it go away immediately as I read the Word of God out loud.

3. Pray. Be strong in the Lord’s power. We engage in faith by praying to the Lord and seeking His power and authority in this matter.

4. Call a Christian friend. The Apostle Paul used the metaphor of armor to explain how we fight against the devil. However, the Roman army was an army not just a group of individuals. They would use formations that made them much stronger as a collective than they would be individually. Often our first step when we sense spiritual warfare should be to put our shields together, that is, to get other Christians involved.

It is hard to maintain these truths in our society, which is perhaps itself an evidence of spiritual warfare. However, more awareness and emphasis on this conflict can bring renewal to our lives and churches. It can make us more aware of what is really going on and more appreciative of the power and triumph we have in Christ, who appeared to destroy the works of the devil.

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Is God Telling His People to “Be Better”?

“Put off your old self . . . and put on the new.” That’s one of the central teachings of the Christian faith.

Does this just mean “be better”? You could take it that way.

And, of course, there is one sense in which God commands us to be better. It is always our moral obligation from God to be better: to love more, to hate less, to be more kind, and to forgive.

There is also some advantage to a reminder to “be better.” How often do I think, for example, that I’m supposed to pursue “compassion” or avoid “slander”? It’s good for me to be reminded that this is what I’m supposed to do.

The problem is that I fail. The commandment just isn’t enough to get me where I need to be. It’s more like the New Year’s resolution that I continue for a week and then forget (and usually don’t do perfectly even that one week!).

Further, the Bible teaches that salvation and transformation is a gift of God’s grace from first to last. How do we square this with the call to “be better”?

One way people have understood this is to recognize that the commandment is good but that we need God’s grace to fulfill it. As Augustine said, “Command what you will, and give what you command.”

I do believe that this is taught in Scripture. However, I’m not sure that this is what the Apostle Paul is after in Ephesians 4:22–24 when he tells us to put off the old self and put on the new.

I take his command more like this: accept the work of God’s grace in your life and avail yourselves of everything God provides in order to make you what He calls you to be.

Let me suggest that this involves at least 5 things.

First, confront the issue. Sin is not simple. It is complex. It involves a way of thinking, wrong desires, and even ignorance (see Eph. 4:17–19). We need to do more than look at the outward action. We need to consider where our heart is, what our mindset is, and what our thinking is.

Two ways that I have found particularly helpful for discerning the pattern of sin are to look at my strong emotions and desires. When we feel strong negative emotions like anger or anxiety, it is an opportunity for us to examine what’s going on under the hood. When our desires take over us and lead us in wrong directions, it’s a good idea to ask, what is the source of these desires? Why am I wanting this recreation, relationship, or reaction so much?

This consideration will help us see more clearly how we need God’s grace to work in our lives.

Second, convert our thinking. It’s not just about behavior. It’s what’s in our hearts and minds that is the issue. Paul begins his discussion of the old self in this passage by saying there is “futile thinking.” The new self involves being renewed “in the attitude of our minds” (Eph. 4:23).

For example, if we think our acceptance is based on what other people think of us, we will be continually frustrated (futile thinking!). If we believe our acceptance is based on God’s view of us, we are open to the peace that is available to us in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:7). So, we convert our thinking by keeping in mind all the things that God has said about His grace in Ephesians 1–3, that we have “every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Third, connect to God’s grace. In the first part of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul speaks of God “enlightening our hearts” and “giving us power to see.” Transformation is a gift of God’s grace.

However, there are places where God’s grace is flowing. We call these “the means of grace.” They include the Word of God, the sacraments, prayer, and people. If we want to experience God’s grace, we should humbly make use of the means that God has given to experience His grace.

Fourth, continue in grace-empowered effort. It is important that this not come first, but it plays a part. I believe we should try hard to be compassionate and kind, but this is not always the effort that is needed. Sometimes the effort is working on re-shaping our thinking, making time to spend with Jesus, devoting ourselves to prayer, and taking the risk of connecting with people who can help us.

Fifth, conform to the pattern of Christ. It is important for us to remember that the call to transformation is always directed toward Christ as the power for transformation and as the example to which transformation will conform. “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us” (Eph. 5:2).

If we just look at ourselves, we might not have any hope for transformation. Looking to Christ and the power of His resurrection, we have tremendous hope for change! We don’t have to rest in the same old patterns. By God’s grace, we can experience the grace of out with the old and in with the new. Christ is risen!

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