Mike’s Sea2sea Blog

Being a suburban kid, I really have no personal connection to all the agricultural references in the Bible. Being in Saskatchewan, having family who still farmed, and spending one summer tree planting all helped me a bit, but I’ve never really had to “work the land”.

Until now.

I am officially a homeowner, with 10 x 10 plot of grass in the front, and about a 40 x 60 foot in the back. The ground is grey, hard and stony. Some grass is surviving, but competing with dandelions and clover. Other people have come by and visited, and they all had ideas for me. It all seemed so easy to them, such a minor thing. But I looked at this patchy stuff, especially this spring, and wondered “How on earth do people do this?”.

Then you go to the local big box stores to buy some dirt and seed. Beautiful pictures of lush green turf abound – you just buy this product, plant it, spread it, spray it, and look at what your lawn will do! Literally hundreds of different products and all kinds of tools for the work. So into my car goes the seed and dirt bags tattooed with golf-course images, shiny new rakes and garden tools.

All I can say is, it’s been slow. And while I’ve been working, I can’t help but see the parallels with my relationship with God. It just seems to me my soul is just like that lawn – it really doesn’t look like there’s much of a future for it. It just makes me want to quit – or have something develop quickly (like sod! Alas, it requires just as much prep work and is expensive, too!). I put in a little work on the lawn, and after seeding, watering and letting the sun do it’s work, I wake up the next day and it’s…..pretty much the same.

Now 6 or 8 weeks have passed and I’ve seen growth, and it’s starting to look better. So here’s what I’ve learned: that I want things right away. I am terribly impatient, and when my own labor does not produce anything the next day, I think it a failure! And that having all the resources in the world (selections of the best advice, seed, soil, and fertilizer money can buy) still does not change anything. The same goes for my expectations of the Christian life, or of any ministry I get involved in. I see so many in the younger generation experiencing the same thing: they want everything to be perfect right away, without much effort, without much anxiety – yet Jesus has given us a different model. He says the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, starts very small. He says it’s like a farmer sowing seed, hitting all kinds of different soil. He says it’s like workers who work in a vineyard for their reward later, and it’s also like servants who are entrusted with resources, only to see what they will do with them while the master is away. Psalm 126 might be best little summary of the emotions of “working in hope”.

Growth at 1174 Tall Pine came from: unglamourous weeding, lifting and carrying soil around, and watering. It also came from outside help – thank you Mr. Weed company that arrated, fertilized and helped weed. And finally, it came from things I cannot control – the sun, the rain and the mysterious work of germination and roots. And for my own change as a human in relationship to God there’s the daily work of confession, service to others, and devoting time to prayer and scripture. There’s the outside help of my church, worshiping and learning together, as well as podcasts, sermons and articles from the internet. And finally, there’s the mysterious stuff that God promises to do in me, an actual process of regenerating growth – the presence of the Holy Spirit, and after a while – I’m changing.

As I’ve been working outside my house, I’ve found myself praying for grass to grow! Then I add a prayer, asking God to do the same with my life.

“…there’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.”

I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s “Tribes”, and immediately applying it to my dream for Alliance churches:

 ”churches becoming like greenhouses for the next wave of leaders ready to serve and suffer for Christ, where God’s unfolding plan to reconcile the world to himself affects everything we do, and where churches are saying “Yes” to the fresh promptings of the Spirit. Young adults financially outgiving what their grandparents generation gave at their age….corporate prayer that’s strategic, passionate and persevering….new workers sent by churches that love them and their work and share the burden of seeing it accomplished.”

Godin says “The movement happens when people talk to one another, when ideas spread within the community, and most of all, when peer support leads people to do what they always knew was the right thing”.

He suggests that we are all leaders, or at least that we can lead from the grassroots, and that great leaders “create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate.”. He uses the Skype founder to illustrate: ” [he] understood that overthrowing the tyranny of the phone companies was too big a project for a small company, but if he could empower the tribe to do it themselves, to connect to one another and to spread the word, he would be able to incite a movement…..” He borrows from Gladwell, who notes that “… the fall of the Berlin Wall…involved much the same dynamic…..wasn’t the work of one hardworking activist. Instead it was the gradual but inexorable growth of the tribe, a loosely coordinated movement of activists…”

Kind of sounds a bit like God’s unfolding plan with the early church; small groups of people (a real mix) in living rooms spread across the Roman Empire! Honestly, Godin’s remarks don’t seem new, just a bit closer to New Testament history, not to mention an approach that seems more realistic in my world.

I don’t feel like a great leader, yet do feel like I’m made for great things – “on a quest for glory” says the poet/rapper Shad. Here’s where God’s grace meets his original creation! You and I, knowing we were meant for more, redeemed from the dictatorship of sin, filled with new power (that’s the Holy Spirit’s work in us), and grafted into a plan to change the world.

And what happens when people with this experience connect with one another, sharing ideas and specific goals? Una revolucion de Jesus!

Ok, I’m smitten.

There’s a movement of praying and community-serving activists that are tied together by the vision and values of what they call the 24-7 Prayer movement. My reaction initially is “Thank you, God!”  While I am still trying to acquire the book “Red Moon Rising” for more details on their origins, I recommend you check out the following things as part of your own devotional journey. (Spend a week with revolutionaries in prayer!)

Their website: http://www.24-7prayer.com, where you can see some of the creative videos they’ve used to tell their story. (Video art – good for passing on their themes; doesn’t answer many questions about what they are doing!) Basically, the short form is that a group of Christians in England, mostly young, decided to try and pray 24-7 for one month, and 10 years later, it’s branched out to prayer and mission groups all over the world (especially Europe). The strategy is simply to have rooms where someone is always praying, and taking shifts. It seems it has not become all about mystical experience, but leads to mission in neighborhoods around them, as well as cross cultural leaps of faith.

Did you know about the “Order of the Mustard Seed”? How about Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians?

Their (the 24-7 community) admiration of the Moravians is described in an interview (that starts slow, but gets better and better) Greig gave while visiting and preaching at Asbury Seminary (Sept. 13, 2007): http://www.asburyseminary.edu/chapel/bonus-features/?&order=year:DESC. A.B. Simpson was a fan of the Moravians as well.

More on what this is doing to my heart and mind later. Right now, I’m just grateful. It’s like those missionary biographies, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, except it’s in the post-Christian West — and that gives me hope!

Just had a great conversation this week with a couple from one of our Chinese Alliance churches. We talked about our stories; how we met Christ, what’s been happening to form us, and what our dreams are for the future. The reason we met is because it seems that God is calling them into full time ministry among Muslim people.

What I noticed about this couple: that God had really granted to them confirmation of at least these two things:  1)that He could use anyone, if they are just willing, and 2)that he would care for what was most precious to them — their children. This peace didn’t come over night, but over the past few years, and the big Joint Missions Conferences were an important part of that. (This makes me look forward to the JMC for Chinese Alliance churches in Canada happening at Brock University, July 1 to 5!).

One of them shared about how when they were younger, the great need for witness was in the Communist countries, but now it seems clear that the big challenge is in reaching out to Muslims. While they felt it was good that there were many Chinese workers among the diaspora of Chinese people all over the world, with real confidence they said that they felt called to crossing a different boundary.

I also “got educated”! They mentioned that Chinese people have a different relationship with Arab people, compared to typical Western-Arab relationships. I found that quite interesting. Naturally, God can use any historical/cultural realities like this for his glory. 

I think of that great line of William Carey: “Expect great things; attempt great things.”  In the same way that we used to think of the people behind the ”Iron Curtain” -where it was often against the law to preach the gospel or gather as believers- it’s easy to assume that there is no way  a movement of Christ followers can flourish among people for whom Islam is at the center of culture.  But the places which may be very improbable (some would say impossible) are precisely the places where God often is moving to reveal his unfolding plan of reconciling the broken world to himself. Just as the Berlin wall is a museum piece now, so the church will continue to be God’s ” strategy to reach the whole world with redemption” breaching all barriers that might be in the way.

I admire the resolve of this couple. Great things for God:  Why not?

(This brings up the critical place for prayer in our community! Next time….)