J.R. Briggs
Attempting to behold the miracle long enough without falling asleep
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Archive of "Media" Category
Reflections from doubt :: night
“Be merciful to those who doubt.” -Jude 22
“God, I don’t love you. I don’t want to love you. But God, I want to want to love you. Amen.” -Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila
Last night we hosted our second doubt :: night - a laid-back, but intentional space for conversation, a place to courageously and honestly air out our doubts that we may have about God, faith, life, Jesus, the Bible and church. The concept is simple: we rent out a local bar, buy hot wings, fries & onion rings, invite our friends and allow a space to interact authentically with others about our doubts about life’s biggest questions.
We had about 35 people there last night, similar in size to our first event, but about half of those in attendance were not there the first time. (Not bad, considering that we scheduled this during the NCCA Men’s National Championship Game).
I don’t teach or lecture during doubt :: night. I facilitate/moderate the discussion and interject my thoughts/convictions from my Christian worldview in addition to allow others to answer from their perspective. I loved it. These types of environments pump me up!
The questions were raw and honest, the dialogue was participatory and fruitful and the environment was safe. While I loved our first doubt :: night, I enjoyed this one even more. We spent a significant amount of time discussing a few central questions that people raised throughout the evening: (1) Why do bad things happen to good people? and (2) What is the meaning of suffering – and why would a good and loving God allow such incredible suffering to occur?
Several times throughout the evening I was struck by the diversity of the room: New Agers, skeptics, college students, homosexuals, agnostics, pastors, Buddhists, Christ-followers, atheists, the mentally handicapped, those in recovery from severe drug and alcohol addictions. Even the bar owner asked me afterward what questions were discussed – and then proceeded to tell me some of his doubts and questions about religion. I found it odd, yet refreshing – a “Christian event” led by a pastor with a room full of courageous and curious people wrestling through some of life’s most significant questions and hearing about the hope of Jesus.
As we finished last night, I asked if/when we should host another doubt :: night and the overwhelming response (mostly coming from the skeptics in the room) was to do it against next month. I’m looking forward to it already.
Thelma’s Smile: A Lesson in spiritual formation
A few weeks ago I rolled out of bed early to head to the gym to run on the treadmill and lift. I normally love doing this, but that morning I was exhausted and bleary-eyed, complaining on the way over that I should have enjoyed an extra hour of sleep.I finished my time on the treadmill and was in the middle of my reps in the weight room when I saw an older woman walk in. She caught me eye because she stuck out. Really stuck out. She didn’t belong in the weight room. She was in her mid-sixties. She was dressed in normal street clothes. Rather than wearing a t-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes she was wearing dress pants and a turtleneck. But it wasn’t just her age and dress that made her stick out: she was crippled, walking ever so slowly with the assistance of a cane. And she had a huge smile on her face.
She plodded along around the weight room, slowing moving from machine to machine, placing the pin in the hole of the weight she desired, which was usually the first notch – ten pounds.
I sat there resting between my reps and watching her, utterly aware of the contrast: here I am, with a healthy body in my twenties, complaining that I had to get up and work out… and watching this woman in her sixties, crippled and moving only with the assistance of a cane – with a smile on her face.
I sat there with my iPod earbuds in with tears in my eyes, confronted with my own ungratefulness and the awareness of my lack of perspective. Talk about a humbling experience. My complaining thoughts left me embarrassed.
Between reps I went over and introduced myself to this woman and told her that I had been watching her and that she was inspiring. Her age and physical condition didn’t keep her from coming and working out – and she did it with a genuine smile on her face. I told her that she had made my day and had challenged me to be grateful for the many gifts that God has given to me and that I had so profanely taken for granted.
She told me her name was Thelma and that she comes in with her husband Harold every other day to work out. She and Harold were in a motorcycle accident in 1977, which left her leg practically ripped off. The only thing keeping her leg attached to her body was her calf muscle. The doctors reattached her leg, but told her that she would never walk again. Now she walks…and works out. Three times a week.
She told me that I had made her day by coming and talking to her.
Her husband came over and Thelma introduced me to Harold. After we said goodbye, I put my ear buds back in and went back to lifting and watched Thelma finish her workout. As she finished, Harold offered her his arm as a groomsman does with a bridesmaid walking down the aisle at a wedding ceremony.
And the two of them slowly walked out of the gym, arm in arm with smiles on their faces.
Thelma didn’t just teach me the importance of thankfulness. She also taught me about spiritual formation; that despite our brokenness, we come in with others in great thankfulness to discipline ourselves to work hard. And we leave leaning on the arms of others who choose to walk with us in life.
While most people come to the gym with a mindset of narcissistic comparison and evident individualism, Thelma came unafraid of her condition and full of gratitude to use her broken self and leave with the help of another. She wasn’t embarrassed about her crippled state. She didn’t compare herself to the other fit and strong people in the room. Instead she offered all that she could and relied on the assistance of another to finish out her time.
Thelma gave me a clear picture of spiritual formation. And that is beautiful picture of the body of Christ actively at work.
Imagine the power of the gospel actively at work if we came in, aware of our brokenness but free of comparing ourselves to others’ progress and growth.
Imagine if we could work together (not out legalism, but out of joy) with the Spirit towards formation.
And imagine if we received the help from others who would walk with us into the week ahead.
Isn’t that the point of this concept called church?
USAToday: Most religious groups in USA have lost ground
This morning’s USAToday published a groundbreaking article on religion in America. The study is incredibly comprehensive (check out the charts, graphs, videos and interviews).
These are interesting religious times in America. As I officiated a funeral yesterday, communicating hope and comfort to a roomful of people unacquainted with God, I was reminded of the peculiar era we find ourselves in as a country. If there ever was a time where we needed churches thinking differently, courageously and contextually it is now.
What are your thoughts?
Are you concerned?
It is old news?
How should we respond appropriately?
Worship video model: another thing to add to my resume…
The strangest thing happened to me.
Unbeknownst to me, I ended up in a Michael W. Smith worship video.
A friend of mine contacted me on facebook telling me he saw a MWS video that has a picture of me in it. He sent me the link. I had heard rumors of this a few years ago from friends and thought, “Yeah, right. It’s just somebody that looks like me…” but I saw the video and yup, sure enough, there I am.
I’m not mad about it but I find it rather bizarre…
What’s even more bizarre is that I didn’t give permission to anyone to have my image used in the video – or any video. And I can’t, for the life of me, remember when anybody would have taken my picture to use this stock photo! I know its me, that’s for sure (and I still have that brown T-shirt I’m wearing in the video, too).
I have mixed feelings about it.
I’m not upset that I’m in a public video. (I was once on the reality TV show: TLC’s “A Wedding Story” with a viewership of five million people women per episode. It was the first wedding I ever officiated. Now that’s a lot of pressure for your first one).
And I’m not upset that I’m in a video with the CCM king of music, Michael W. Smith, himself (Megan and I met and mingled with Smitty at a friends’ house in the area a few years ago) although friends have already cracked on me for it. I just have mixed feelings that I’m in one and I didn’t know I would be in it and that nobody asked my permission.
At least my face didn’t pop up when Michael was singing about “unfaithful” or “uncaring.” That would have been awkward…
For the record, no, I am not going to sue that company and yes, several have already (hopefully jokingly) told me I should.
Well, we all have fifteen minutes of fame. It just looks like mine is inextricably linked to Michael W. Smith.
You can watch it here. I show up at the 03:15 mark.
Adaptive Challenges and the Church: Alan Hirsch
Alan Hirsch wrote this thoughtful post on adaptive behaviors of churches.
It’s worth a read:I am about to look at the issue of living systems and how we can reconceive the way we organize and lead churches and Christian organizations in a more movemental way. The first thing we need to recognize is that we are now in a situation that requires a more flexible way of organizing.
In the somewhat strange but evocative language of living systems, the church in the West is facing what is called an adaptive challenge. According to the theory, adaptive challenges are situations where the organism (or organization) is challenged to change and adapt in order to improve its chance of survival. Adaptive challenges come from two possible sources: (1) a situation of significant threat or (2) a situation of compelling opportunity, or both. The threat scenario poses an ‘adapt or die’ situation to the organism or organization. The compelling opportunity scenario might simply present itself in the promise that the food source is far better in the next valley, an opportunity that galvanizes the organism or organization into movement and action. For the church both forms of adaptive challenge present very real issues for us in our day. A major threat to the existence of the more institutional form of church comes in the form of rapid discontinuous change, and compelling opportunity comes in the form of a massive almost unprecedented openness to issues of God, spirituality, community, and meaning. Both are good reasons to change and the signs are that we are only just beginning to respond.
When I am teaching TFW material, one of the constant questions that is raised is “do we need persecution to become a fully fledged Jesus movement?” And my answer is “No, I don’t believe that it is necessary”. The reason for this is that persecution only represents one of the forms of adaptive challenge–the adapt or die variety. But this is not the only form of adaptive challenge. As as I have said above, we are confronted with both forms in our day. Adapt of die AND compelling opportunity. I have to believe that God’s people don’t always have to have our collective asses kicked to get our act together. We have all the latent potential for movement in us already. Surely we can access it by other means. In fact this is the case in many non-persecuted movements! The Jesus People of the 60-70’s prove the point amply. They had all the elements of a Jesus movement (in other words, Apostolic Genius was fully present in the movement) and they were not a persecuted group like the Chinese. Yes, they were marginalized, but that only provided the liminal experience that catalyzed communitas, a necessary element of apostolic genius present in exponential movements. Certainly we need liminality, but this can be achieved by focusing on a grand mission or by going on an adventure that need not be death-defying.
We can, and must, respond to the challenge we face and in so doing rediscover ourselves in a more elemental way.
doubt :: night
The Renew Community is hosting an evening of conversation we’re calling doubt :: night and I’m pretty pumped about it.
What is doubt :: night?
It’s a laid-back evening of conversation and dialog about questions and doubts.
We firmly believe that we don’t have to be afraid of the deep, significant questions of life, but instead we can discuss them openly and courageously.This event is for anybody- regardless of your faith background or journey – who is willing to share their doubts or questions about life, faith, God, church, Jesus – with others.
We’d love to have you come and air it out with us.
Long exposure photography
Check out these beautiful photographs if you have a moment.
The year in photographs
Check out the 2008 Year in Review in photographs here, here and here.
It'll take you 10-15 minutes, but well worth your time.
Amazing photography.
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