Friday, March 23, 2012
I love Rihanna's song "We Found Love" - not just the great groove but especially the sentiment "We found love in a hopeless place." I have been playing that song on my ipod a lot this week.
I just finished reading Douglas Coupland's book "Hey Nostradamus!" - I've been a fan since "Gen X" and I think "Nostradamus" is amazing. The main character Jason has difficulty connecting with anyone after he is part of a highschool shooting spree. He can't find love with his family and his world is hopeless. Then, in the most hopeless of all situations, he finds Heather. Although he is a doomed character, they share a connection, and a love, that forms the central section of this book. The final revelation of his father is astonishing.
So, all week I've been surrounded by this idea of finding love in hopeless situations and places. What place is more hopeless than the sinful world we live in - disconnected from God and each other - struggling valiantly to re-connect?
Jeremiah 31:3 keeps flashing through my head as I listen to Rihanna, read Coupland, and think about this world we live in. "I have loved you with an everlasting love." In the midst of this world's hopelessness, in the midst of dispair, when we could do nothing for ourselves - that is when Jesus died for us - when he displayed how much he loved, and still loves, us.
posted by Timothy Dunfield at 12:10 PM
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
small things done well
I am still learning how to be a patient person. It doesn't come naturally to me. Not until I began my post graduate work at the University of Alberta did I finally realize the benefits, and necessity, of patience.
The goal of an MA is the production of a thesis, an academic paper usually between 80-120 pages. The first year, a student spends the year taking courses and going to lectures, writing smaller papers, and doing research. The second year, a student begins to write his or her thesis. I didn't want to wait until the second year. I was impatient to get started on the thesis in year one. I knew what I wanted to write about, and I felt like the first year was sort of a waste of time.
What I learned in that first year was that I needed to focus on each class, on each assignment, because every final paper for each class, if I did them well and planned them out well, could become the basis for a chapter in my thesis. This meant that I had to choose each class carefully and think strategically about each assignment. The more classes I took the more I began to realize that there was no way I could write a fully coherent thesis without the knowledge I gained in each class. Over that first year, I began to see the value in patience; the value gained by not always rushing to achieve the overall goal without acknowledging and using the value of the small steps that actually led to the achievement of that goal.
In my second year, when I actually began to write my thesis, I found that I had laid a solid groundwork that allowed me to write a thesis that was almost 200 pages long and easily defended, with no significant revisions from my defense committee.
Recently I read a book by Robert Sharma called "Secret Letters from the Monk who Sold His Ferrari." In it Sharma writes
"The wise realize that small daily improvements (small tasks well executed) lead to exceptional results over time."
This reminds me of a parable Jesus told in Matthew 25. A landowner gives 3 of his servants an amount of money to look after while he is away. When he returns, two of the servants have invested wisely and made a profit. The master says to them "well done. You have been faithful in small things so now I will put you in charge of larger things." Being faithful in small things (small tasks well executed) lead to extraordinary results.
This makes me think about how I live my life.
Am I faithful in small things? Do I execute small tasks well in order to achieve extraordinary results?
If I want the world to be a more loving, kinder, and more forgiving place, am I willing to be more loving, more kind, and more forgiving to the person sitting next to me on the bus or in line ahead of me at the checkout? Do I only imagine a day when people treat each other with kindness, or am I kinder to the cashier at the store who has had a bad day? Do I imagine a world where people are more loving, or am I actively being more loving to my kids, my parents, my spouse, the person who cuts my hair? Do I only dream of a world where people are more forgiving, or am I forgiving the person standing right in front of me who actually needs my forgiveness today?
If I can start with little things, only then will I see the world I imagine become a reality.
So often we INTEND to be more loving or forgiving or kind, but we fail to take the first small step of actually DOING it.
Today, take those first small steps into a larger world....into God's world.
The goal of an MA is the production of a thesis, an academic paper usually between 80-120 pages. The first year, a student spends the year taking courses and going to lectures, writing smaller papers, and doing research. The second year, a student begins to write his or her thesis. I didn't want to wait until the second year. I was impatient to get started on the thesis in year one. I knew what I wanted to write about, and I felt like the first year was sort of a waste of time.
What I learned in that first year was that I needed to focus on each class, on each assignment, because every final paper for each class, if I did them well and planned them out well, could become the basis for a chapter in my thesis. This meant that I had to choose each class carefully and think strategically about each assignment. The more classes I took the more I began to realize that there was no way I could write a fully coherent thesis without the knowledge I gained in each class. Over that first year, I began to see the value in patience; the value gained by not always rushing to achieve the overall goal without acknowledging and using the value of the small steps that actually led to the achievement of that goal.
In my second year, when I actually began to write my thesis, I found that I had laid a solid groundwork that allowed me to write a thesis that was almost 200 pages long and easily defended, with no significant revisions from my defense committee.
Recently I read a book by Robert Sharma called "Secret Letters from the Monk who Sold His Ferrari." In it Sharma writes
"The wise realize that small daily improvements (small tasks well executed) lead to exceptional results over time."
This reminds me of a parable Jesus told in Matthew 25. A landowner gives 3 of his servants an amount of money to look after while he is away. When he returns, two of the servants have invested wisely and made a profit. The master says to them "well done. You have been faithful in small things so now I will put you in charge of larger things." Being faithful in small things (small tasks well executed) lead to extraordinary results.
This makes me think about how I live my life.
Am I faithful in small things? Do I execute small tasks well in order to achieve extraordinary results?
If I want the world to be a more loving, kinder, and more forgiving place, am I willing to be more loving, more kind, and more forgiving to the person sitting next to me on the bus or in line ahead of me at the checkout? Do I only imagine a day when people treat each other with kindness, or am I kinder to the cashier at the store who has had a bad day? Do I imagine a world where people are more loving, or am I actively being more loving to my kids, my parents, my spouse, the person who cuts my hair? Do I only dream of a world where people are more forgiving, or am I forgiving the person standing right in front of me who actually needs my forgiveness today?
If I can start with little things, only then will I see the world I imagine become a reality.
So often we INTEND to be more loving or forgiving or kind, but we fail to take the first small step of actually DOING it.
Today, take those first small steps into a larger world....into God's world.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Rob Bell "Love Wins" Chapter 4
If God wants everyone to be saved, does God get what God wants? If not everyone gets saved, does this imply that God has failed? These are the questions that set the stage for a chapter in which Rob Bell does bring up the idea of universalism. Now, before I go any further, let me be very clear. Rob Bell does not promote universalism in this chapter. Despite what you might have heard from the likes of Piper and Graham and others, Rob does not, in this chapter, say that everyone goes to heaven no matter what and everyone, in the end, gets saved. Rob does not make a definitive statement. Instead, Rob does what Rob does best, he asks questions and provides the reader with different possibilities that could happen in the future. I suppose if you are the kind of evangelical who really doesn't have a purpose or an identity apart from conflict, then you might want to start a fight with Rob Bell where no fight exists. I suppose if it makes you feel better about yourself, about your evangelical opinions, then pick a fight with Rob Bell, lots of other people have. The only problem with that strategy is the fact that Rob Bell is not advocating a position that you can fight against. He is merely asserting that there may be different possible solutions and outcomes to the age old problem of how Christians who believe in a loving and merciful God can also believe that this same God tortures people for all eternity in hell. All Rob does is stretch your mind a little bit. I guess for some people that is too painful and they would rather condemn him has a heretic. What does that say about their own narrow-mindedness? If Rob Bell wants to free God from some small man-made box, these evangelicals want to keep God firmly encased within this little box that they have constructed.
All of this doesn't mean I agree or disagree with Rob. This chapter did stretch my mind more than the others have.
Rob argues on pages 110 and 111 that as Christians we are all about telling good stories. He says a story where God punishes most people in hell for all eternity is a bad story. A story where God saves everyone, where everyone enjoys God’s world without shame is a better story. He also admits that there are lots of objections to this story, but that as Christians, shouldn’t we at least long for it to be the true story? I have no problem with this line of reasoning, other than to ask Rob if the good or the bad stories that he suggests include "truth" - whatever truth is in this case. Where in this analogy does the “true” story fit in? Is the story just about good and bad from our human perspective? I wonder if "telling good stories" is really an argument at all? I don't know - I like to tell good stories. But more importantly, I like to tell true stories. I just want the true stories to be good stories, and I think Rob does too. Telling stories about God ordering the Israelites to kill every living person, including women and children, in Jericho is not a good story, but it is a true story.
In order for the true story to be a good story then, God, in Rob's reasoning, would need to not condemn anyone to hell, but instead, allow them all, at some point, to enter heaven. So, what about people who die without ever knowing God, or even worse, deliberately rejecting God? Rob wonders (as did Martin Luther) if God gives people the chance to turn to him after they die. This would mean that regardless of the life we live while we are alive, when we die, if we end up in hell (which Rob does affirm is a real state) do we still have the opportunity to realize our mistake, accept the mercy of God, and "get out of hell free" so to speak?
This argument, while it might also flirt with universalism, makes me think about the Catholic idea of purgatory. We get punished until we are purified and ready for heaven.
Rob continues this thought by stating that people choose to walk away (from God’s plan and design for them) all the time. That impulse lurks in all of us. So, he asks, will those who have said “no” to God’s love in this life continue to say “no” in the next (114)? This asks a fundamental question about what we believe happens after we die.
My question for Rob, at this point, is this: If we are free to choose to accept God and “get out of hell” are we also free to reject God in heaven and voluntarily (or involuntarily) end up in hell, even after we have been “saved” and have spent a million years in heaven?
Rob would say "yes" since he argues that the picture of heaven in Revelation says that the "gates of the New Jerusalem" are never shut, meaning that people are always free to come and go. My evangelical background wants to reject this idea. My Christian background says "God is bigger than me and I like a picture of God who allows us free will, even in the next life." I'm just not sure that I can handle another life of free will given how poorly I have handled it in this life.
For all of you who have read this blog, or perhaps read Rob's book, and have determined that he is indeed a heretic, that he should be kicked out of the evangelical circle (whatever that means), and that he is somehow eroding the Christian faith, PLEASE READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH.
As he concludes this chapter, with all of its questions and suggestions and arguments, Rob says something so traditional and so conservative that it makes me wonder if the haters closed the book before they got to this point and refused to read any more. If they had, they would have missed this:
"Will everyone be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? Those are questions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t" (115). On the next page he writes
"the question isn’t if God gets what he wants, but rather if we get what we want. The answer is “yes” (116). If we want hell, we can have it. If we want a lifetime of separation from God, we can have it. Its just that God doesn't want that.
Rob is saying that God wants everyone to be with Him in heaven. He'll do anything He can to ensure that outcome. Even if some of His strategies mystify us and confuse us. But I am o.k. with that God. I'm O.K with a God who is a bit of a rebel and goes against what conventional human wisdom thinks is best. I absolutely need a God like that to save me.
All of this doesn't mean I agree or disagree with Rob. This chapter did stretch my mind more than the others have.
Rob argues on pages 110 and 111 that as Christians we are all about telling good stories. He says a story where God punishes most people in hell for all eternity is a bad story. A story where God saves everyone, where everyone enjoys God’s world without shame is a better story. He also admits that there are lots of objections to this story, but that as Christians, shouldn’t we at least long for it to be the true story? I have no problem with this line of reasoning, other than to ask Rob if the good or the bad stories that he suggests include "truth" - whatever truth is in this case. Where in this analogy does the “true” story fit in? Is the story just about good and bad from our human perspective? I wonder if "telling good stories" is really an argument at all? I don't know - I like to tell good stories. But more importantly, I like to tell true stories. I just want the true stories to be good stories, and I think Rob does too. Telling stories about God ordering the Israelites to kill every living person, including women and children, in Jericho is not a good story, but it is a true story.
In order for the true story to be a good story then, God, in Rob's reasoning, would need to not condemn anyone to hell, but instead, allow them all, at some point, to enter heaven. So, what about people who die without ever knowing God, or even worse, deliberately rejecting God? Rob wonders (as did Martin Luther) if God gives people the chance to turn to him after they die. This would mean that regardless of the life we live while we are alive, when we die, if we end up in hell (which Rob does affirm is a real state) do we still have the opportunity to realize our mistake, accept the mercy of God, and "get out of hell free" so to speak?
This argument, while it might also flirt with universalism, makes me think about the Catholic idea of purgatory. We get punished until we are purified and ready for heaven.
Rob continues this thought by stating that people choose to walk away (from God’s plan and design for them) all the time. That impulse lurks in all of us. So, he asks, will those who have said “no” to God’s love in this life continue to say “no” in the next (114)? This asks a fundamental question about what we believe happens after we die.
My question for Rob, at this point, is this: If we are free to choose to accept God and “get out of hell” are we also free to reject God in heaven and voluntarily (or involuntarily) end up in hell, even after we have been “saved” and have spent a million years in heaven?
Rob would say "yes" since he argues that the picture of heaven in Revelation says that the "gates of the New Jerusalem" are never shut, meaning that people are always free to come and go. My evangelical background wants to reject this idea. My Christian background says "God is bigger than me and I like a picture of God who allows us free will, even in the next life." I'm just not sure that I can handle another life of free will given how poorly I have handled it in this life.
For all of you who have read this blog, or perhaps read Rob's book, and have determined that he is indeed a heretic, that he should be kicked out of the evangelical circle (whatever that means), and that he is somehow eroding the Christian faith, PLEASE READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH.
As he concludes this chapter, with all of its questions and suggestions and arguments, Rob says something so traditional and so conservative that it makes me wonder if the haters closed the book before they got to this point and refused to read any more. If they had, they would have missed this:
"Will everyone be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? Those are questions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t" (115). On the next page he writes
"the question isn’t if God gets what he wants, but rather if we get what we want. The answer is “yes” (116). If we want hell, we can have it. If we want a lifetime of separation from God, we can have it. Its just that God doesn't want that.
Rob is saying that God wants everyone to be with Him in heaven. He'll do anything He can to ensure that outcome. Even if some of His strategies mystify us and confuse us. But I am o.k. with that God. I'm O.K with a God who is a bit of a rebel and goes against what conventional human wisdom thinks is best. I absolutely need a God like that to save me.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Where I am from is a mystery
Where are you from? This question leaves me confused. I've been a gypsy most of my life and have absolutely no "roots" or "ties" or whatever it is people who have lived in one place their whole life, or perhaps two, talk about. I don't have a connection to any one place like someone who says "I was born and raised in one place", or, "my parents still live in the house I was born in."
I was born in Boston, lived there for one whole month, then my parents moved to British Columbia, Canada, where I lived in McBridge, Sydney, and Abbotsford before I was 8. At 9 we moved to Moncton, NB. At 10 we moved to Hong Kong. At 14 to Singapore. At 17 to Edmonton, Alberta. At 20 I moved to San Francisco. At 22 I was in Red Deer, Alberta and met my wife Jo (from Kelowna B.C. via Vancouver, San Diego, and London England). After we were married we moved to Toronto, then Michigan, than Las Vegas (where I spent almost 9 years - the longest I've ever lived in any one place). When I was 37 I moved my family back to Edmonton so that I could complete my MA and begin work on my PhD at the U of A. Now, I am a worship and arts pastor in Kamloops B.C.
Where I am from is a mystery. Where I am going is not. I have my eye on the prize. I am in constant pursuit of the goal. I am on a life-long journey to heaven. Some day I will be "home". In the mean time, I will continue to enjoy the journey.
I was born in Boston, lived there for one whole month, then my parents moved to British Columbia, Canada, where I lived in McBridge, Sydney, and Abbotsford before I was 8. At 9 we moved to Moncton, NB. At 10 we moved to Hong Kong. At 14 to Singapore. At 17 to Edmonton, Alberta. At 20 I moved to San Francisco. At 22 I was in Red Deer, Alberta and met my wife Jo (from Kelowna B.C. via Vancouver, San Diego, and London England). After we were married we moved to Toronto, then Michigan, than Las Vegas (where I spent almost 9 years - the longest I've ever lived in any one place). When I was 37 I moved my family back to Edmonton so that I could complete my MA and begin work on my PhD at the U of A. Now, I am a worship and arts pastor in Kamloops B.C.
Where I am from is a mystery. Where I am going is not. I have my eye on the prize. I am in constant pursuit of the goal. I am on a life-long journey to heaven. Some day I will be "home". In the mean time, I will continue to enjoy the journey.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Rob Bell's "Love Wins" Chapter 3 - Hell
I keep waiting for crazy controversial stuff. If this book is as controversial as some evangelicals claim it is, if pastors get fired because they endorse this book, then I guess I just don't see it. Maybe I'm too simple or maybe I'm too naive. Maybe I'm just not a good evangelical. Honestly, I'm wondering when we get to the part that makes me go "oh, that's why Rob Bell has incited so much vitriol from the religious right" but if so, then it must be somewhere else in this book.
In Chapter 3, Rob's chapter on hell, Bell writes "there is a hell now and a hell later. Jesus teaches us to take both seriously" (79). Then he goes on to talk about what hell here on earth looks like (Rwanda genocide, rape, environmental disasters). Basically Rob suggests that the consequences of sin and of wrong choices can land us in our own 'hell on earth' so to speak. He even suggests that God allows this to happen for our own good. Rob writes "sometimes God lets people “go” so that they can experience the full misery of the consequences of their actions and realize they need God" (90). Totally agree. If my life is any indication of this, then God does let us go our own way sometimes until we end up in a place where we realize we are living in hellish conditions and we need something better.
When Rob turns to the concept of a future-hell at the end of the age, he is cautious. He suggests that the Old Testament writers had no clearly defined concept of hell or what happens after death. He also suggests that when Jesus talked about hell in parables, the point of the story wasn't hell as a literal place, but rather the consequences of a sinful heart. Rob suggests that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus isn’t about hell; it’s about a social revolution, about a change of heart (75).
Rob writes "the rich man is alive in death, but in profound torment, because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living" (77). I want to like this sentence, I want to like this sentiment, but somehow it promises more than it delivers and I don’t know why. Maybe I just need to re-read it a few more times.
Finally, Rob makes what might be his most difficult point for an evangelical to swallow when he writes "we are handed over to punishment in order for God, through the punishment or the punisher, to do something redemptive and renewing in our lives" (89). This makes me ask if Rob is suggesting that hell is some sort of neo-purgatory where we go until we are sufficently renewed or redeemed and ready to enter the age to come. I don't know if this is the point of Rob's comment, but I do know that Jesus often talks about "refining fire" and gold "purified in the fire" and Paul talks about trials and suffering making us stronger. I understand that as it relates to my life here and now. I'm not sure if I understand how a future "hell" might accomplish the same purpose, but then again, I'm still reading and still processing.
I'm waiting for controversy and all I get are questions. Questions that make me think. While I'm waiting, in the mean time, I'll keep on reading.
In Chapter 3, Rob's chapter on hell, Bell writes "there is a hell now and a hell later. Jesus teaches us to take both seriously" (79). Then he goes on to talk about what hell here on earth looks like (Rwanda genocide, rape, environmental disasters). Basically Rob suggests that the consequences of sin and of wrong choices can land us in our own 'hell on earth' so to speak. He even suggests that God allows this to happen for our own good. Rob writes "sometimes God lets people “go” so that they can experience the full misery of the consequences of their actions and realize they need God" (90). Totally agree. If my life is any indication of this, then God does let us go our own way sometimes until we end up in a place where we realize we are living in hellish conditions and we need something better.
When Rob turns to the concept of a future-hell at the end of the age, he is cautious. He suggests that the Old Testament writers had no clearly defined concept of hell or what happens after death. He also suggests that when Jesus talked about hell in parables, the point of the story wasn't hell as a literal place, but rather the consequences of a sinful heart. Rob suggests that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus isn’t about hell; it’s about a social revolution, about a change of heart (75).
Rob writes "the rich man is alive in death, but in profound torment, because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living" (77). I want to like this sentence, I want to like this sentiment, but somehow it promises more than it delivers and I don’t know why. Maybe I just need to re-read it a few more times.
Finally, Rob makes what might be his most difficult point for an evangelical to swallow when he writes "we are handed over to punishment in order for God, through the punishment or the punisher, to do something redemptive and renewing in our lives" (89). This makes me ask if Rob is suggesting that hell is some sort of neo-purgatory where we go until we are sufficently renewed or redeemed and ready to enter the age to come. I don't know if this is the point of Rob's comment, but I do know that Jesus often talks about "refining fire" and gold "purified in the fire" and Paul talks about trials and suffering making us stronger. I understand that as it relates to my life here and now. I'm not sure if I understand how a future "hell" might accomplish the same purpose, but then again, I'm still reading and still processing.
I'm waiting for controversy and all I get are questions. Questions that make me think. While I'm waiting, in the mean time, I'll keep on reading.
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