Charlie Wear’s Notes

I’ll admit it, I have a thirst for the exotic, at least when it comes to spiritual things. I’ve always had an inquisitive mind. Now, I have a very thirsty spirit. I was greatly intrigued when friends and acquaintances began to talk about the "Lakeland Outpouring." I’ve lived through a couple of these outpourings in the past, although I avoided being chewed up and spit out by them.

One of my friends experienced an almost complete remission of MS symptoms as a result of "Lakeland-inspired" prayer. While I found Todd Bentley’s shouts of "Bam" to be excessively theatric, her remission of symptoms is a good thing.

As a student of all things church for nearly twenty years now, I am most interested in how Christianity transfers from generation to generation. It seems there is a grasping, and a releasing that occurs with each generation.

Baby boomers are getting to the place where they should at least be thinking about releasing. However, it seems that they are hanging on to the leadership reins with as much vigor as their predecessors. In fact, a recent example is the Hour of Power ministry and Robert Schuller I and II (although this is more like a builder v. boomer struggle). Apparently, in this instance the 82 yr. old elder Schuller was not happy with the direction Robert II was taking the Hour of Power. He had a different idea. When they couldn’t reconcile their visions, the younger got displaced.

These inter-generational and transitional leadship situations sure can get messy. Here is one of the primary rules that should be followed in every instance: If you are the founding pastor and you are "turning over the ministry" to another leader, graciously and kindly MOVE AWAY. Don’t entertain the complaints of those who don’t like your successor. Don’t be tempted to come back in and save the ministry. Let the next generation of leadership make it on their own two feet, at least their failure will be their own.

Uh, what does this have to do with the exotic? Well I have been talking with a friend who is starting a church for some months now. We were both involved in a recent church plant that imploded after three months, or so, of public church services. When most people think about starting a church all of the conversation centers around starting a "church service." The second area of discussion is usually about target audience. Somewhere fifth or sixth on the list we might start talking about "discipleship."

My friend has been very careful to focus on the first step for any leader, calling. Then he has listened carefully to the Holy Spirit about how and when and where to get started. We have both wished in our heart of hearts to be part of something where egos were set aside, people were fully-devoted followers of Jesus, and a community is formed to impact a city with an emphasis of calling Christians to what I have heard called "deep discipleship."

Over the months as we have talked and listened to the Spirit and theorized, I fear my thirst for the exotic may have taken our conversations  in a direction that leads more directly to some kind of missionary-monastery than a church. Most people are not going to join or be part of a monastery. They mostly want their mission field to be their own family. It is too big a step to call people to "run a mission, a yard from the gates of hell."

Lately my friend has been thinking he should start a church service. When he mentioned it to me the other day, I only paused a little bit (the exotic ministry thoughts whirling through my brain), and then agreed, this is probably a Holy Spirit inspiration. I look forward to seeing how God will work these thoughts out in the weeks and months to come.

Jesus said: "Do not make any vows…" Let your yes, be a simple yes, and your no a simple no. I don’t know about you, but with an election just a couple of weeks a way I am up to my neck in political promises. Having lived through a few of these seasons I have learned that while political promises are not technically lies, they certainly should carry a big disclaimer. I will cut taxes! [if all of the economic conditions at the time that I begin to call for tax cuts are good and the Congress goes along with me...] I will keep America safe from terrorist attack! [unless some terrorists attack us...] "Read my lips, no new taxes…" You get the idea.

Followers of Jesus should do what they say, and say what they do. If you don’t know for sure, then don’t commit. I think Jesus calls for us to be the ultimate "straight talkers." Whether we are Charlie, the lawyer, or Lance, the pastor, or Joe, the plumber. No need to add some extra juice to our speech. No, I pinky swear, I will pay you back on Friday. You can count on me to be there to help you move on Saturday, I’ll be there in the morning.

Wouldn’t it be great if Christians were known for the integrity of their word? We have two Christian candidates running for President, each of whom have called the other a liar! Can that possibly be the truth?

I don’t know if the following quote is from Tim Stevens or from Tim Stevens quoting Andy Stanley at the latest Catalyst conference, but it rang a bell for me:

"When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near. You look back with smiles and lots to celebrate, but you don’t have a lot to work forward to."

I remember the good old days pretty well. When I am willing to be honest with myself I realize they weren’t that "good." However, there was a period when I was in the learning and discovering phase of an entire new area of thinking and doing. I was devouring material on church planting, church growth and evangelism. I was learning how to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. For me these good old days ran from about 1990 to 1995. It was in the late fall of 1995 that my voyage of discovery led me to become a pastor. It was really an accident. I often look back to that Spirit-orchestrated event and wonder what it was all about.

I have written about those three years at other times, but if they were dreams, they were of the nightmare quality. Ultimately all of these things crashed and since about 1998 I have been rebuilding, my psyche, and my vocation. Around that time, in the fall of 1998, I got clear instructions about my ministry activities for the next season and those have borne the predicted fruit.

Another quote from the Tim Stevens post:

"The best idea for reaching the next generation isn’t going to come from the existing generation, it’s going to come from the next generation.

• If you are over 45 years old, you aren’t going to have any good ideas. It’s your job to recognize the good ideas.
• Don’t do to the next generation what the previous generation did to you.
• Be a student, not a critic."

I think it is fair to say that I learned this lesson early. Next-Wave is an outgrowth of that learning. For the next few years I will be joining the readers of Next-Wave in learning from Scott Bane, Next-Wave’s new editor. Scott is one of the new generation of practitioners who are trying to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in our day and age.

A father of four, Scott, and his wife Sheryl, give me a lot of hope for the future of Christianity. I met Scott a couple of years ago when I was working with Steve Sjogren and his publishing and web activities. Scott embodies all of the leadership qualities I wish I had at his age. He is generous and willing to serve and he is smart. He is listening hard for the voice of the Holy Spirit in his life. He is a good friend. I can’t wait to see what happens with Next-Wave under his leadership.

I must take time to thank Bob Hyatt for serving Next-Wave as editor over the last two years. For those of you who don’t check in at bob’s blog, he is lead pastor of a faith community in Portland, Oregon. From all I read he is an attentive father and husband and has an "apostolic" heart to see new expressions of faith started throughout his city and the US. His insights into the life of a practicing church planter and pastor have been helpful to many readers of Next-Wave over the last couple of years. Editing Next-Wave is a labor of love. It is a "pay-free" position. I think the true thanks for Bob will come someday when he can see clearly the influence his words and efforts have had for the kingdom.

Jesus taught a radical view of adultery. It sparked then presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, to confess in his famous Playboy interview: "I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times…" I am assuming that Carter himself was not a "reader" of Playboy, or he might have been tempted to follow Jesus’ admonition and pluck out his eye, or cut off his hand!

One wonders what Jesus’ teaching would say about the fact that the internet opens a pornography shop in the home of every family who owns a computer with an internet connection? Clearly we need to go beyond paying lip service to a desire for purity and take concrete physical steps to maintain sexual purity, perhaps falling short from plucking out eyes and severing extremities.

Conventional wisdom says that "adultery in the heart" is more of a man-male problem than a woman-female problem. However, I think it is fair to say that while its expression may differ by gender, that there is plenty of lust to go around, especially in a society where adultery is the norm in popular culture. Just tune your television to any of the CBS situation comedy offerings and you will be able to confirm what I am saying. A CBS’s offering on Friday nights has a young single woman pursuing her soulmate at the urging of a psychic by engaging in serial sexual encounters with her ex-boyfriends. If she doesn’t find her one and marry within a year, says the psychic, she will be alone her entire life.
As I write this I kind of feel guilty about watching the first two episodes of this series all the while wondering if people really live this way, talk this way and think this way in real life.

It seems clear that Jesus’ followers will pursue the ideal of sexual purity. As one who, along with former President Carter and every man I know, has miserably failed the adultery-free lifestyle test, I find it a radical standard to aim for, but one worth striving for just the same.

Every politician knows when they have arrived. All they have to do is watch Saturday Night Live and see how big a SNL regular has the job of mocking them. Most of the time I go right along with the mocking of politicians from both sides of the aisle. I even find Tina Fey’s mocking interpretation of Sarah Palin almost a tribute in a strange left-handed kind of way.

On the other hand, the mocking done by op-ed columnists of the New York Times and other publications of their ilk, is irritating, to say the least. It would be okay with me if Maureen Dowd would occasionally take the opportunity to mock a democratic figure. Surely Barney Frank was mockable after his performance over the last few weeks. But no, Ms. Dowd seems to be a one-note partisan mocker. Her topic recently was Sarah Palin’s speech accents and linguistic patterns.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but every once in a while when Senator Obama is not reading from a teleprompter speech, and is uh, you know, uh, answering a press question, he tends to start to verbally flatulate. It is pretty normal, in fact. It is probably his authentic manner of speech. If this was also the way he delivered speeches I think it would be sort of out of line to mock him.

However, because Palin speaks in tones and phrases that are unusual to our ears, it is cool and even required, that we make fun of her manner of speaking. It isn’t sexism. It isn’t racism. It is some kind of wierd way we make fun of people we don’t understand. The way we mock asian or hispanic speakers, right?

Disagreeing with a person’s policies and politics is one thing, but making fun of the way they speak or, for that matter, wink, just doesn’t seem right, doggone it!