Working with friends in Mexico.

When we make decisions how do we know what is the right choice? As Christians our decisions should be based in principle rather than emotion. This is what the Scriptures refer to as walking according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh (Rom. 8:4-8). When we are living by the Spirit, in communion with God and oriented around Him and His ways, we are living according to reality. Jesus is the truth, and when we regard Him we regard the truth. From God comes reality and when we’ve been converted we’re converted to live according to reality, according what is real and true.

The flesh is sensory and emotion based. It is impulsive, short-term, feeling oriented. Making decisions based on how we feel or what seems pleasant to us at the moment, without regard to long and short term consequences, is walking according to the flesh. And according to the Bible, making decisions that way is death (Rom. 8:6).

The challenge then is to understand wisdom principles and rightly discern the consequences of our choices. We are free to make any decision we want, however, there are consequences associated with every decision and we are not free to determine them. Consequences are determined by the natural laws that govern the universe, which has been created by God. They are immovable and inevitable, whether we agree with them or not, whether we like them or not. You don’t have to agree with the concept of gravity, but if you step out of a window of a 12 story building, you will learn very quickly that your opinion matters very little. A choice is like picking up a stick, when you pick up the one end you pick up the other. Consequences follow our choices just like the one end of the stick follows the other.

To that end I’ve developed a worksheet that helps link choices with the consequences of those choices. To use the worksheet fill in the one side with the choice you are considering. Then fill in the other side with all the possible short and long term consequences of that choice. Then in the box next to each consequence put the percentage of chance that consequence will likely happen. If you end up giving high percentages to most of the consequences then it shows you are making an informed decision. If, on the other hand, the percentages are low, you may be mistaken about what will result from this choice. To further the accuracy, you can give a copy of the paper without the percentages filled in to someone you trust and have them fill in the percentages and then compare them to yours. The Bible says there is safety in a multitude of counsel (Prov. 24:6). It is often helpful to have someone who is distant from the situation, and more objective, to review our thinking.

You can find the worksheet here.

A few nights ago I was looking at old videos of some of our activities and celebrations together. Seeing Karen in them made me very sad. At times I really miss her. I struggle with being tempted to go into my previous state of crushing grief. I sometimes can’t believe this has happened. But then I think of the lessons I’ve been learning: the preciousness of my friends and family and the privilege of being fully present for them, the reality that God does not spare His children from life in this world (John 17:15), and the hope of the resurrection.

I guess it’s normal to go through these waves of recurring grief and wrestling with the problem of evil. These lyrics from Phil Keaggy’s “Chalice” have given me some light during this time:

The way to find our selves is in the fires of our sorrow
Do we look around, expect to see the wind?
Could we prevent the trials that we face with each tomorrow?
Can’t we see this is the world were living in?

When suffering restores us, burns away the empty shallowness
And softening the heart,
To be broken bread and poured out wine.
When it rains it pours, turns a life into a chalice;
There to nourish every soul one at a time.

And when I wonder if the pain could have been avoided by simply not forming such close relationships, brother Phil tells us this:

To love is to be broken, but to love nothing and no one,
We must close our own selves up, shut all the doors
And let no one in.
Locked within ourselves where it’s safe and dark and motionless
Where love will cease to be
And all the while the air is wearing thin…

Relationships are what life (and the Kingdom of God) is all about. To pursue a life of superficiality is to reject the mission of God and to resign ourselves to a life of breathing our own air.

Some time ago, I blogged about “truth versus pietism.” The dividing of life into the secular and the sacred results in all kinds of problems and seriously undermines our Christian walk. Understandably, therefore, I was excited to read the following passage from Robert Webber’s book, Ancient-Future Worship:

“The [early church] fathers did not see life as a split between the sacred and the secular. For them everything is sacred. In the Greek mind-set, which I reject, prayer and a relationship to God constitute the sacred part of life separate from work, fun, marriage, or relationships, which constitute the secular part of life. This approach sets aside moments to ‘get alone with God.’ However, the ancient, biblical mind-set sees the whole day and indeed all of life-work, fun, marriage, and relationships-as the realm of the sacred. God is everywhere, at all places, in all times. There is no escaping the presence of God, for God’s Spirit is the one who gives life to all of life.”

The context of this passage is Webber explaining how to read, understand, and preach the Bible. Webber says, “God is not an absent, ethereal essence who sits in the sky and demands worship. God is the God who acts, who lives and moves and has his being in the world and among the people. Affirm that all of life, not just part of life, is sacred. Affirm that God is disclosed in every detail of human existence. Then, stand inside the Bible and God’s story and let it teach you to look out into the creation where God is signified everywhere yet particularized in Jesus, the ultimate icon of God.”

It’s amazing how pietism has even affected our approach to the Scriptures. Since thinking about these things, we’ve been trying to read the Bible differently and consciously order our worship and life around the narrative of God. A large part of this has been to incorporate liturgy into our services and orient our schedule around the Christian calendar. Rather than just reading the Bible devotionally, we now follow the lectionary, which helps us enter into the divine narrative. It also has led us to celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly.

Reading Robert Webber’s, Ancient-Future Worship, is a inspiration and pleasure. I’m particularly enjoying how he is shaping my approach to the Scriptures. We have a strong emphasis on relationships here (being a community after all) and our theology and practices reflect this. Webber doesn’t disappoint in this regard either:

“To stand within the Bible and under it, we must also read the Bible relationally. The Hebrew mind does not describe God intellectually in the abstract as though God is an object to be studied. Instead he is always pictured as the God who enters into a relationship with his creatures. Whether we are standing alongside Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, David and the kings, or Isaiah and the prophets, God is always visualized in relationship.”

I’m constantly seeing that dramatic changes will take place in our lives when we move from a legal understanding of the gospel to a relational one. Not the least will be how we read and understand the Bible.

The following is the answer to an email I received asking about us and how to take steps to form a mission community. I get this question on occasion and so I thought it would be good to post my answer here.

Our community began as a number of us were involved in missions. About half of us were involved in missionary work oversees and in urban settings, but based out of here in NJ. In the late 80s there was a renewal movement of God in our ranks that awakened us to our need for a deeper experience of Christ. We had always been big on commitment to Him and to His work, but through this time of revival He started to convict us about our commitment to His people. We were very involved in evangelism and ministry to the poor and needy, but we felt a lack when it came to living out the truths of the gospel among ourselves. That’s when we felt God was leading us to “throw our hats in the ring” together and begin to share finances and truly take liability for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We now see the Christian life as a total commitment to Christ, His people, and His work.

Community is basically about being in love with God and each other. It can’t be for something, just like a marriage can’t be for something. Your marriage is its own justification. It’s part of God’s will and a good in and of itself. You’re not committed to “marriage” you’re committed to your wife. You love her. She is important in her own right. Your love together has meaning. So with community, the church is God’s will and is a good in and of itself. We don’t commit to “community” we commit to real, tangible, wonderful, and flawed people in the community. They are important enough for me to commit my entire life to them. And just like marriage, out of that love children are produced, namely, ministering to the lost and needy. The love for each other overflows to the world around you. It would be unhealthy to marry for the express purpose of having children. Children are a part of marriage, but not the reason for it. They are a natural consequence of a couple’s love. So, reaching out to the world around us should be a natural consequence of the love of the brethren. Some think that ecclesiolgy is a subcategory of missiology. I think that is incorrect. Missiology is a natural consequence of ecclesiology.

I keep coming back to this thought: whenever I think of our work or the community in general I remember that it’s really about the specific people in our community, not about some ideal. I must have a zeal for them, for their welfare, for their uniqueness, for them as my friends. If I don’t have this, I truly believe I don’t have a whole lot to offer in the way of spirituality. My experience has been as I’ve traveled quite extensively in the church is that the one thing that seems to be the hardest to do is radical commitment to other brothers and sisters. People will go to the end of the earth and live in crushing poverty, they’ll give lots of money, they’ll do almost anything than fully pour out their life for another brother or sister. Commitment in the church just doesn’t seem that important. But the truth is, it is the key thing God is trying to do in the world and that’s why it is so aggressively opposed by Satan.

Once that issue is clearly settled (and that’s not an easy thing) then consideration of how to touch the world around us can be done with clarity. As we incarnate in the world we have something to point to, “Hey, this kingdom of love and healing…look this way (pointing to the community), it’s kind of like this. See how we love one another, see the lack of competition, see the acceptance, see the care for one another…that’s what we’re talking about.” The mustard seed of the gospel becomes a large tree that the birds of air (the poor and needy around you) take refuge in. Can this be done in the suburbs? Absolutely. Can it be done in an urban setting? Very much so. It can be done anywhere. It’s all a matter of God’s particular guidance for you as a group. But the focus isn’t the field, it’s the harvesters.

One last thought on this: In order for a community to thrive, the leadership must be the best of friends. They must really like each other, love each other, respect each other, and “throw away the key” commit to each other. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Unlocking the door while juggling my laptop and thermos, I wrestled the keys out of the lock and entered our dimly lit office. The morning sun crept through the blinds giving the room a warm, tranquil feeling. Spring was in full bloom which normally would fill the day’s labor with an energy that could mitigate any stress from our work. Soon my co-workers would arrive, but today I knew that one chair would be empty. Karen, my friend and assistant of twenty years, passed away at the end of the previous week. Even the beauty of spring could not wield its magic against my aching grief.

So began the torturous process of dealing with her absence. Besides being the best man at Tim and Karen’s wedding, Karen and I worked so closely together over these last twenty years that she truly felt like the sister I never had. The challenges we faced together created a deep camaraderie. Now I had to face the loss of a key staff member without the help of the very person who normally I would rely on in a situation like this. Tackling it would be made worse by having to sort though the notes and work of my friend, each page and file reminding me of her absence. After a while, it seemed like the grief would never end.

It’s very hard, however, to resist the beauty of spring. Each blossom, bird, and fragrance subverts the gloom that seeks to rule over me. Its magic has power after all. And more magic yet seduces me; the laughter of my friends, the innocent joys of my children, and the love of my wife. Each compels me to conclude that there is too much good to wallow in sorrow.

Raking over Karen’s emails, notebooks, and files I’m reminded of my loss. But, unexpectedly, I also remember a myriad of wonderful things about her: that incredible smile, her tenacious faith, the attention to detail, and her warm spirit. I realize that the loss of the good should never overshadow the good that was. Life moves on and things change. Each season gives way to another. We shouldn’t curse this inevitability and stubbornly cry about what is lost. Children grow up, leaves change colors, and people die. The wonder of what was should never be crushed by the change that will and must come.

So goodbye my dear friend. You made a difference.

Since Karen’s passing we have been surrounded by an outpouring of love and support from friends and family. Tim and the boys are being held up by this love and the blessing of community. From homework to doctor’s visits to hugs, the members are filling the gaps left from Karen’s absence. She is irreplaceable, but God’s supply is abundant. She was a remarkable and capable women. We miss her so much. My long-time friend, Brian, called her, “The friendly voice of Life Mission to the world.” She was that indeed!

So many have helped us during this difficult time. Our friends from the National Christian Conference Center came to the memorial service and arranged the food. Marilyn Kobus, donated several sandwich trays and friends from Shepherdsfield sent an overnight box of their incredible home-made baked goods. Megan made the memorial service program and Heidi put much love into the picture boards of Karen’s life. Sarah made the video that was shown at the service and Brittany made the slide show above.

Mike and Ginger Papantonakis were comforting parents to us all during our grief, and, with Mary Jo and Aunt Bee, made several meals for us right after Karen’s death. Three of Tim’s brothers and their wives came for overnight stays to comfort Tim and the boys. Also, Tim’s brother from Germany has posted on his blog his condolences and thoughts. Alec Brooks, our friend and mentor, flew in and helped in so many ways. Karen’s childhood pastor, Pastor Bowen, wonderfully shared about her at the service, also.

Quite a few people attended the memorial service. That itself was a testament of how many people Karen’s life touched. Numerous calls and cards have come in as well as donations towards the memorial garden we’ll be making in Karen’s memory.

I want to share some of the comments of love and support we’ve received.

“Karen was so welcoming and caring, truly Christ-like. We will miss her.”

“We are richer for having known Karen and the intimate place that she will always hold in all of your hearts. Your life together whispers of a better one yet to come.”

“Our hearts go out to you and we pray that God will meet all your needs. What a beautiful soul Karen was! Thank you, Lord for her life.”

“We have been blessed by Karen’s joy, excitement and faith that has encouraged us over the years here in [mission field omitted]! She has been a faithful saint in the community there, a real champion for the Lord’s work!”

“No words can express the sorrow that has pierced our hearts. Karen will be sorely missed.”

“We grieve with you at the loss of such a dear, sweet spirit. There are no words sufficient to comfort; but praise God that you are all connected to the God of all comfort!”

“I have such wonderful memories of Karen. She was always a true and loving friend. What a pleasure to have these memories and to have Karen as a friend! I appreciate her passion for Christ and others. What a beautiful example of Christ she was to everyone. She was a beautiful person inside and out.”

“What a lovely expression of Christ’s love and nature your Karen was. She was so full of fun and love.”

“It is comforting to know that Karen’s excitement for, support of, and gladsome exuberance in community life has more than prepared her for the ‘community life’ which is Heaven – there she is as one of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ urging you and all of us to perfect on earth the Image of what she is now experiencing in the Presence of her Blessed Lord and Redeemer.”

If you would like to post a memory or thought about Karen you can leave a comment at her memorial blog.

We’re longing for the day when our Lord reunites us with our beloved sister. Maranatha!

The following is the meditation I was privileged to share at Karen’s memorial service. Sarah Harding made the video which also was shown at the service. Karen was precious to us. We will miss her dearly.

Today was a brilliantly sunny day and I couldn’t help but think of Karen. She was sunshine personified. How do you comprehend someone as wonderful as Karen? To really understand Karen’s life, you have to understand the gospel, because that’s what she lived for.

But the gospel is understood differently by people. Some see the gospel as a way to get one’s sins forgiven. Another sees the gospel as a way to get to heaven. Still others see the gospel as a philosophy of life or ideology or a message to spread. While it may be some of those things, none of those truly capture the full meaning of the gospel. The gospel is good news. But what kind of good news? Is it simply good news about not going to hell?

The gospel is good news that God is fixing what is broken about mankind. It’s good news that God loves people and wants to heal us and make us whole. He wants to see mankind again find happiness, love, and warmth in our relationships with Him and each other. And the good news is that He is making a way for this to become a reality – the New Creation. The gospel is first and foremost about the restoration of community.

I keep coming back to this thought: whenever I think of our work here I remember that it’s really about the specific people in our community, not about some ideal. I must have a zeal for them, for their welfare, for their uniqueness, for them as my friends. If I don’t have this, I truly believe I don’t have a whole lot to offer in the way of spirituality.

My experience has been as I’ve traveled quite extensively in the church is that the one thing that seems to be the hardest to do and the most neglected is radical commitment to other brothers and sisters. People will go to the end of the earth and live in crushing poverty, they’ll give lots of money, they’ll do almost anything other than fully pour out their life for another brother or sister. Commitment in the church just doesn’t seem that important. But the truth is, it is the key thing God is trying to do in the world and that’s why it is so aggressively opposed by Satan.

The church is a foretaste of the New Creation. As a church we are to model now the kind of relationships that will characterize the New Creation. That’s the key to understanding Karen’s life.

Butch told us about Karen’s life and said, “Karen loved God and people. Her smile brought joy to everyone she met. She tirelessly served people. She enjoyed birding, music, and reading, but her greatest joy was knowing, loving and serving people.” Karen’s life reflected the gospel message. She bet her life on the gospel. It was worth it to her. She lived that future reality in the now. The New Creation was dawning in Karen’s every action. Karen answered the prayer we pray every morning: Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as in heaven. She had caught a vision of this kingdom of love, believed in it, lived it, worked to bring it about. Karen lived this way and fully expected to keep living this way for all of eternity, and that thrilled her.

Karen’s life spoke. It pointed to a future hope. Her life gently urges us to rethink our priorities. What’s worth living for? What matters? Ambitions do not matter. Material possessions do not matter. Reputation does not matter. People matter. Real people. Specific people. In the end only relationships matter.

What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? This isn’t about going to heaven and avoiding hell. This is about missing the thing that matters most in this universe, the thing that makes us human, the thing that gives meaning to human existence. Our soul is the center of who we are. We were made for relationships, for love, for friendship. If we center on things, center on career, center on achievements, we lose our soul.

God is all about love, about community, about people – knowing them, loving them, and serving them. The gospel is about the restoration of a community of mankind in love with the Trinity and with each other. It’s good news that God is creating a place where His family can be happy, healthy, and whole; a place where we can know, love, and serve each other – for therein is true joy.

Karen awaits us for the dawning of that New Creation. If she could be here now she would smile that incredible smile, and let us know that with Jesus she is making a place for us in that new New Creation.

Karen, my close friend, went to be with the Lord on May 1st. Her memorial service was one of the hardest and most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. Tim, her husband, movingly shared about her life and his love for her. He also read letters from their sons. He wanted me to share what they said.

TIM

Karen and I met here in September 1984 when we were both students. As I got to know her, I was drawn to her by the warmth of her personality, her love and concern for others, but most of all her deep desire to follow Jesus and to know what Jesus meant when he promised to give life and life more abundant to those who followed him.

At the end of our year of training, Karen and I each felt led of God to join the staff. Soon after, we went through a time of renewal and testing that refined our lives, deepened our commitments, and bound us together with others in relationships that grew to become this Fellowship. These experiences strengthened the friendship that Karen and I had, but it was not until 1992 that we were attracted to each other at a deeper level and we began to pray about God’s will for our lives together. Once we were convinced that it was God’s will for us marry, we moved ahead quickly and on January 23, 1993, we were married.

In August of 1995, we were blessed with the arrival of Jordan, and in October 1997, we had the further blessing of welcoming Derek to our family. The boys were a source of joy to Karen and will continue to be so to me. I know they will grow up to be young men she would be proud of.

Marriage to Karen was an adventure, because of the kind of person she was. Through her, I learned more of what it means to love another person and what it means for a couple to love Jesus together. I learned so much from Karen and she gave so much to me, but the most important thing was that she drew me into a deeper love for Jesus so that we not only grew in our love for each other but in our love for him.

But Karen’s love extended beyond our marriage and family. She cared deeply for her mom, her dad, and her sister. When her dad died, she felt the loss keenly and sought to be a source of comfort and support to her mother. She also loved Life Mission Fellowship. She loved this place and its purpose, but most of all she loved the people who are part of it. They were not just her friends, they were her larger family. And in the days since Karen’s death, it is the love of this family for Karen and the boys and me that has surrounded and carried me every step of this painful part of our life together. We are discovering in new deeper ways what it means to love and care for each other. For this, I will always be grateful.

Karen had always enjoyed good health, so when she began to experience some physical problems in the last week or two, we were not unduly concerned. She did, however, consult with her primary care giver and her gynecologist to find out what might be the cause. The tests they administered gave no indication of a life-threatening problem. She was given medication for the headaches she was experiencing. This provided some relief, but at times they were so severe nothing seemed to help. Then on Wednesday, the headaches increased and she became quite ill. I called her doctor who told me to take her to the emergency room at the hospital. Adam, Butch and I took her to the local hospital immediately, where, after examination, she was admitted. At that time, I thought she was going to be all right, but blood tests showed that she had a blood borne disease, and a Cat Scan revealed that she had suffered a series of what the doctor called wet strokes resulting in significant brain damage. Because of the seriousness of her condition, she was medivaced to Cooper hospital in Camden where further tests were done. A second Cat Scan revealed massive bleeding in her brain and the head of the critical care unit told me that there was nothing more that could be done, because of the damage to Karen’s brain and that she was in fact, brain dead. We then learned that the cause of all of this was leukemia.

I was privileged to have shared 15 of the best years of my life with Karen. I had hoped that it would have been 50. That is not to be.

Death has taken her from us, but though our relationship to Karen has changed it has not ended. She is closer to Jesus now than she has ever been. And her love and her life will continue to be with us.

Thank you all for coming. Your being here is a further testimony to the ways in which the beautiful flower that was Karen touched your lives.

JORDAN

What I love about Mom.

Mom was always so loving and helpful. She would always remind us to do the things we needed to do. She was helpful when last year I was having trouble with math. She kept on trying to help me. Now this year I am doing better at math. At night mom was also very loving. She would always have time to say good night to me, and she would try to read to us as many times each week at night as possible. Mom was giving and would do things to please us. She would let us play football, or Starcraft. Mom was also very creative in skits or costumes. She would help make or come up with good skits or costumes. Mom was a very wonderful mother who always loved us and tried to help me.

DEREK

What I remember about Mom

Mom was the best mom in the world. She was caring for me when I was sick, hurt, or sad. Mom was fun joining in skits and playing games. She was loving to people in the community, people she met, and me. Mom was creative in making costumes and planning skits. She was busy but always answered my questions. Mom was always faithful towards other people and towards God. I enjoyed it when she would read books to my family and draw with me. Mom was always self-giving to other people, but most of all she was my loving parent. I am going to miss my mom’s fun, faithfulness, cheerfulness, self-givingness, but most of all love.