I had a few people at church ask if the book we’re studying, The Me I Want to Be, was a self-help book. It’s a fair question. The title of the John Ortberg’s book does smack of life as a DIY-project, doesn’t it?

I’ve made a few laps through the book and I can assure you that the content of the book is nothing like self-a help book. Don’t get me wrong. There are many arenas life where a self-help book comes in handy. Spirituality just isn’t one of them.

Here’s a few ways that God’s renovation of our hearts of heart is nothing like   a self-help manual:

Spiritual change is always a response to a great love.

Several years ago, I noticed a friend of mine changing the way she dressed and did her hair. I didn’t think much about it at the time. Within a few months she shared she was engaged. What happened? A guy noticed her and started expressing his love and affection toward her. The changes she made was  a response to that love.

Real Gospel change is like that. God initiates the process by making us the object of his love and there’s something in the heart of a person that responses to it.

Spiritual change is always a reclamation project.

Sean Gladding wisely wrote that the Christian story doesn’t begin at the Fall and end on Judgment Day. It begins and ends in a perfect garden. Every word between Genesis 3 and the end of Revelation is the story of God working to restore Creation and people to their original glory. That’s God’s emphasis.

Somehow our emphasis has become something smaller: Sin management and removal. That’s like a motorcycle mechanic dedicating his life to the study of rust and all it’s colors, and varieties, and shapes. The mechanic becomes a rust-o-logist and forgets the glory of a bike is to be driven fast on the open road.

Yes, Christ died to separate you from your spiritual corruption. Paul said it was a type of dying in Romans 6. But he also talked about being alive to God. Driving fast on the open road.

Spiritual change enhances individuality.

One of the unspoken fears about getting serious about God is that you end up having to give up what makes you unique. I knew a man, now deceased,  who gave up playing the drums in a jazz band shortly after deciding to follow Jesus. Some misguided souls must have gotten to him and told him that the debil was in the back beat. When Roy got to heaven I think he had brief rude shock when Jesus told him, “That was a nice thought, but I never wanted to make you miserable. In fact, the best version of you that I imagined could swing.”

The Apostle Paul said it like this: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

The word we translate as “workmanship” is poemia. It’s the same word the Greeks used to describe a brilliant music composition, a work of art, or a sculpture.

God is not in the cog-making business. He crafts one of a kind individuals. John Ortberg expresses it beautifully when he says, “When God makes you holier he is making you “you-ier” at the same time.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly beautiful, but it’s true .

I’m in the process of editing a manuscript. I’m making  my eleventh or twelfth lap through the 65,000 word mess. I have a bad habit of editing my work when I should be generating it, so I decided that I wouldn’t stop to edit once until the manuscript was finished. The result having to start at a landfill of mangled and sloppy sentences, each one needing polished, nurtured, untangled, or euthanized. It took me the dozen passes at the manuscript to get to the point I’m willing to share it with beta readers. But some bad passages turned into solid passages, and some average passages turned in beautiful passages.

I have some friends who aspire to write, who have some fantastic ideas. Some of these friends make the patronizing comment that I must have more free time than they do. When I read the blogs of my other writer friends, they get the same treatment. As if anyone who aspired to write a book secretly mastered the Theory of Relativity and could bend time suite their purposes. Unless I’m close to that person, I simply nod and point out that pastoring, fathering three sons, and being a husband is remarkably easy work and that life handed me an unfair hand. I say that I’d apologize for my luck  but that would only rub salt in the wound.

I admit that I have friends who make me jealous. My piano chops have gotten weaker over the years. My wife, on the other hand, is becoming a solid guitar player to the point she’s landing solo gigs. I have a friend, Al, who can summon to mind the chapter and verse of just about any narrative in the Bible. Mike is reflexively encouraging. And I’m beside myself with jealousy that they found the time to develop these gifts.

My friend Derek talks about the difference between trying and training. Once, during a sermon, he asked for a random volunteer from the congregation and handed him a guitar and told him to play. The volunteer did his best, but all the trying in the world couldn’t tease a song from that guitar. Only training gets results.

Real change happens when we make space in our lives to practice the new skill we want to add to our lives. People who goes through the clumsiness of learning how to pray become prayers. Those who chip away at the Bible and ask questions and find answers– they are the ones who eventually feel comfortable in their Bibles.

Here’s some thoughts for those who are ready to take a “next step” in their spiritual walk:

Be patient with yourself: God uses the metaphor of a parent to describe his relationship with you. As a parent, God is committed to your development. A dad doesn’t berate his child when he stumbles.  God won’t either.

The Calendar is your friend: Block time on your calendar to do practice the change you want to make. Change is the culmination of 100′s of private appointments that you keep with yourself or God.

Use the Buddy System: Find someone who will help you keep your goals. Be selective. You don’t want a drill sergeant, but you don’t want some who is going to turn a blind eye to laziness or a lack of discipline.

Be in it for the long haul: If your goal is worth pursuing, you aren’t going to accomplish it in a weekend. Tell yourself the truth, this is something that you are going to be chipping away at for a long time. And that’s okay. Whoever told us that we could have quick spiritual change was trying to sell us some stupid book or workshop anyhow. Change is slow. Change is not sexy. It’s going to be that way until one of us figures out how to bend time.

I thought I’d repost this. It’s one of my favorite post of last year. And unfortunately, I’ve been given the occasion to think about attack bloggers again. Here we go… 

Dear Potential Investor:

I have business proposal for your consideration that I believe would be of mutual benefit. As you know the publishing world is up in arms over the digital revolution and e-books. This, coupled with the global recession evaporating trillions of dollars, has placed the burden book promotion squarely on the shoulders of authors. From personal experience I can attest to this. The publisher of my last book budgeted the amount roughly the amount of the price of a high-end accordion toward the promotion of my last book.  I spent the bulk of that budget with a single trip to Indiana for a single television appearance. I’m not complaining. Book publishing is a business and not a charity.

It’s become a truism that the author is responsible to build his or her own platform. Most authors have become savvy at leveraging social media and blogging. The downside to this progress is that the blogosphere has become clogged with hamsters, like myself,  spinning the self-promotional wheel. It’s becoming harder and harder to stand out. Last month, for example, I poured kerosene and lit myself on fire in front of a web-cam to raise money for some important cause– the name will come to me. Regrettably, I had to spend the $14.35 raised on gauze and aloe vera gel.  Live and learn.

The recent success of Love Wins had me thinking there’s a better way for an author to get his or her name out there: Attack blogging. Who can forget the way that Harper Collins played the Gospel Coalition like a fiddle and help propel a well written but intellectually disjointed book to the top of the New York Times Best Seller’s list? It was almost if Harper One knew that religious watchdogs act on the bidding of some unseen reflex.

I propose that if Harper One can monetize knee-jerk behavior then so can we. At AttackBloggersforHire.com we’ll offer an array of services including:

1) Having the author’s likeness Photo-shopped into pictures of Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Jim Wallis, the Pope, or Barak Obama. These enhanced photos will naturally find themselves copied at dozens of theological watchdog sites and will lead to countless negative book reviews. This of course will cause readers who detest the attack bloggers to buy copies of the author’s books and to write positive reviews.

You can almost see the book’s rank scale the heights of Amazon.com.

2) The “Why Does __________ Hate America” package buys the author as series of negative posts strategically places on professionally designed faux attack blogs. This posts will demonstrate how the ideas in the author’s book corrode the moral fiber of our nation and fly in the face of the intent of our country’s founders, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jiminy Cricket. For an substantially higher  fee, we can negotiate the placement of the author on FoxNews as a re-occurring character. FoxNews recently lost Glenn Beck and Bin Ladin and are in need of new talent. We can help.

3) When the author purchases the “Emerging Church” package, we’ll place the “Friend of Emergent” badge and and perfectly detailed Pentragram button on the author website. Our new Olfactory-enhanced web servers will release the scent of incense whenever the author’s website is visited. We’ll provide the author personalized coaching to avoid making propositional assertions in their blog postings. Many authors will struggle with this change in their writing voice, but the increased publicity will be worth any pain experienced.

I’m sure by now the financial opportunities behind this model are evident. Let’s set up a time to meet, at your earliest convenience, to discuss a possible business partnership.

Best!

Larry Shallenberger

The past two mornings I’ve had the opportunity to watch an amazing leader when I drop my son off at school. The leader is a child, probably a fifth grader. I don’t know his name. He’s a crossing guard. His “beat” a block of cement underneath the overhang where the kids hang out while they wait for the bell to ring. His job is to keep the that 10 square feet of humanity from devolving into a daily production of The Lord of the Flies: A New Kids Musical before the first bell rang.

You’d expect a fifth-grader to appeal to the shiny badge on his orange nylon belt. Most fifth-graders are capable of taking names and reporting the law-breakers to the office. If I were the principal I’d be content with that response. What quality of security do you expect to purchase with a box of cheap badges and nylon belts?

This crossing guard had a different approach.

On Thursday, I pulled up to the drop off spot to see the crossing guard lead a half-dozen snow-suit-wearing children in a game of “Simon Says.” Mittens and hats flung and bobbed in unison as they tried to keep pace with Simon. I smiled, then drove off and forgot about it.

The next day, I drove up to a gaggle of bundled kids doing the “Macarena” in the cold. The crossing guard led the pint-sized line dancers with gusto.

Perhaps a musical is in the works, after all.

I drove off to work with smile on my face. The children, my son included, started their school day having experienced joy. When my son took on the first task of the day, he did it with a smile on his face.

This crossing guard got me thinking. When I walk into a room, do people tend to become more or less joyful? What would happen if I was more intentional about brightening others day with encourage, a smile, or doing something unexpected like this boy did?

I’m determined to find out.

Several years back, I had a friend who was pretty open about his spiritual struggles. He claimed to wrestle with knowing if he was really a Christian or not. He’d call people over to his house on a weekly basis and have friends pray over him. They’d study scripture together. This went on for months. I knew about these meetings, and, for selfish reasons I really didn’t want to have anything to do with them. It felt like too much drama. I did eventually get roped into going to one of those meetings and afterward my friend asked me what I thought. How could he end his battle for the “assurance of salvation”?

I’m not sure how I had this insight, but I told him that I didn’t think “the assurance of salvation” had anything to do with his problems.

Our relationship cooled for several months.  He was mad and I don’t totally blame him. My directness stemmed more from grouchiness than it did from a wise place.

About a year later, he called and told me that I had been right. He started seeing a counselor. The real issue is that he committed a particularly selfish and immoral act that severely damaged the lives of a few people. It was too much pain for him to look in the eye. So he made up a pain that was chronic, life consuming, and important.

Here’s the thing. I wonder if we all don’t approach the Bible like that. We tend to get hung up on the messier and debatable parts of the Bible: Free will versus determinism, the proper way to baptize someone, or those never-ending flow charts that attempt to explain the Book of Revelation (Ok, those might be architectural drawing for a church’s H-VAC system. I can’t tell the difference).

I’m not saying that truth isn’t important and that these matters shouldn’t be studied. But perhaps we need to be suspicious about why we give these topics so much attention. What if our reading and Bible study of these murky topics is a defense mechanism, a type of addictive pain that keeps us from focusing on a deeper and more bedrock pain?

For every thorny theological issue, there’s ten unavoidably plain commandments in the Bible that are costly:

Love your neighbor,

Cast your anxiety on God,

Pray for those who mistreat you,

Love your enemies,

Encourage one another,

Care for the poor, 

Take up your cross, 

Forgive as I have forgiven you,

Don’t do good works to be noticed by others,

Don’t covet…

I could go on.

What if you and I lose ourselves in labyrinths of theology to avoid obey Jesus. What if we secretly want to hold onto that grudge, stuff, or don’t want to spend the time getting to truly care those the people around us? What if we know that deep down following Jesus means that life isn’t about us and we don’t like it?

A sure fire way to avoid that kind of pain would be to turn the Bible into an unsolvable Rubic’s cube and pass the years turning the pieces, over and over.

*Disclaimer: Please know that I’m not saying that every or even most psychological issues stem from this. I’m not a psychologist. And psychoanalytical theory seems dated in the light of what we now know about how the brain works and chemical imbalances and such.  But I think this model’s “hermeneutics of suspicion” is valid when it comes to looking at how we read the Bible.

So there’s a marriage book that’s been released by a controversial pastor. I so want to post a review of the book. Last year “Love Wins” earned the title of the most controversial Christian book of the year. I explored the theology of the book in a series of posts and was surprised at how my web traffic ballooned. I’m confident that if I reviewed this book, I’d see similar results.

I just can’t. I made this commitment to not write negative reviews anymore. I’m not saying that I won’t explore and interact with people’s ideas. I wrote posts about Rob Bell’s theology out of genuine concern and curiosity about the book. But in this case, my motives for reviewing the marriage book are more mercenary. I wanted web hits. I’ve also prejudged the book based on my low opinion of the author. I don’t have a puncher’s chance of being fair with the book.

Furthermore, the world doesn’t need my review of the book. I’ve already seen a few calm minds dissect the good and bad in the book. And I’ve seen the feeding frenzy of bloggers trying to get noticed in the fray. My post would simply add to the noise.

Here’s a clip from an older post that explains my rationale for not writing negative reviews as a rule:

Several years ago I was a contributor for a small Internet magazine that wrote book and movie reviews. There were many parts of that experience I enjoyed. I met multiple authors and some of whom I still have relationships with today. I enjoyed receiving free books and DVDs. And it didn’t hurt to get paid to go see movies on opening weekend.

Occasionally I’d review a book or a movie and would feel the obligation to write a negative review. Sometimes the experience was awkward, especially in situations when I liked the author. I’m embarrassed to admit that at times the experience was cathartic and empowering. I’ve come to point that I simply won’t write a bad review anymore. Here’s why:

All publicity is good publicity: When I released Divine Intention I discovered how difficult it was to get your book reviewed on websites that mattered. I learned to appreciate the lukewarm reviews because at least people were talking about and noticing the book. If I truly don’t think a book or movie has merit the most effective way to make it go away is to ignore it and praise better art.

Time is precious. I can usually tell within a chapter or two if I’m going to like a book. I don’t have time to drive through 200 pages of bad writing to produce a fair review.  I just don’t enjoy the process enough.

I identify too much with the creators of the work. I write books. I know the sacrifice and energy someone pulls in to the process. I know that I’ve bruised and angered fellow creative folk along the way with those old reviews. I know first hand that this is part of the game. I’d just rather be a cheerleader for the up- and- coming writers I enjoy.

Sure there are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes I put on my pastor hat and challenge what I believe is a toxic set of beliefs. But the rule is I’ll keep silent about what I don’t like. So in the future when a publisher or authors asks me to review a book I tell them, “It depends.”

Last night I watched the Chris Nolan film Memento. This, I’m sure, leads you to two thoughts. First, what took you so long? The film is eleven years old and is considered to be a masterpiece. Second, did you forget there were college bowl games on?

In my defense, eleven-years-ago I was raising an eight-year-old and a two-year-old. I missed a lot of things.  Raising young children is a like being in a coma, culture-wise. As far as the bowl games go, I’m an NFL man. I thought about broadening my palette to college football, but I ultimately ended up raising three children. How could I fit two days of football in?

Memento.

For the uninitiated, its the story of a man, Leonard, who vows to find and kill his wife’s murderer. Problem is, Lenny suffers from short-term memory loss. He’s unable to remember anything that occurred after experiencing a head trauma while trying to save his wife. To compensate, he gets a series of tattoos to remind him of what happened to his wife and that he has vowed retribution. Whenever he finds a clue– a “fact” as he calls it– he tattoos it on his body so he be reminded of it after inevitably slipping back into forgetfulness. Leonard’s skin does what his hippocamus can no longer do, record memory. Whenever he looks in the mirror he remembers what’s important, the facts that drive his life.

I need a good tattoo artist.

Earlier yesterday, I sat in my therapist’s office and talked about my recovery from depression. Over all, it was an encouraging conversation. I am recovering, although not completely out of the woods. She helped me see that very soon I would be returning to my high achievement, high capacity ways, something I could not have imagined six months ago. The scary thing is that my drive helped get me in trouble in the first place. I was Icarus and ignored all limits and flew too close to the sun. Too big of a job description, too many writing contracts, too much life. In non-mythological circles, flying too close to the sun looks like the brain using up all of the chemicals that prove you with a state of well being, the stuff that makes you feel happy instead of depressed or anxious. I’m taking some medication to help restock  my brain’s pantry of dopamine.

Becky warned me however, that I could easily slip back into the same place if I ignored self care– exercise, rest, time with God, and fun. She also pointed out that people tend to forget these truths and crash again and again until they finally learn.

I can’t crash again. I can’t.

We ran out of hour before we discussed why we’re unable to remember true things– facts- easily. I think we’re all like a baby bird who bonds to the first thing it sees when it breaks free from the egg, only there are snakes in the nest. Lies, then,  smell like cookies baking and truth reeks of egg salad.

Becky told me that I need to make a list of truths that I can’t afford to forget:

Fact: I need exercise.

Fact:I need to eat well. 

Fact: I need to remember that God doesn’t have me on a behavioral modification program. I’m his child. 

Fact: Grace. Remember Grace. 

I could go on.

Fact: The fact I need a list angers me.

Having to remind myself of the truth makes me feel like I’m trapped in a Stuart Smalley sketch from Saturday Night Live and I’m just two short affirmations away from a cardigan and a lisp of my own.

Then I remember Moses.

Moses was more of a Charles Heston guy. There are no old Dutch oil paintings or flannelgraphs of Moses wearing a cardigan. Even so, Moses was a list guy. He told God people to write God’s commandments over their doorsteps, and to wrap them around their wrists, and on their foreheads.

Why?

Because after forty years of circling the desert, Moses realized he was leading a nation of Leonards. They get forgetting the same basic truths–facts– about God’s nature. They complained about God’s unfairness even though he showed up fifteen short minutes ago and saved their bacon. Spiritually speaking, their hippocamuses were shot. Perhaps Adam and Eve banged their heads on the Tree of Knowledge and sustained brain trauma on their way out of the garden and ever since we’ve all needed visual aids.

Fact: We are all Leonards.

Fact: We were hatched into a nest full of snakes. 

Fact: I’m a Leonard too. Deal with it, Larry. 

How about you? What facts do you need to tattoo on your chest? 

Read the acknowledgments in your favorite book and chances are you’ll find the author offering deep thank to his or her editor. Throughout the process of writing editors find themselves acting as shepherd, bartender, therapist, or coach. Sometimes all in the same day. Expressing this gratitude  is proper, since so often authors find themselves balking at the advice offered them by the same editors. It’s like debating with a GPS system and deciding, upon arrival, that the unflappable voice was correct after all.

Early on during the writing of Divine Intention I found myself without an editor. The editor who acquired my book left the publishing house about the time I was turning in the earliest chapters. I felt lost. This book was unlike anything I ever written and I simply wasn’t sure how to proceed. At the time the publishing company was in a lot of flux. I called the switchboard operator looking for someone to offer guidance. After being transferred a handful of times I was finally given an email at which I could submit the manuscript by the date prescribed on my contract.

I was on my own.

I realized my anxiety stemmed from the fact that I hadn’t yet developed a clear writing voice. I was still experimenting with syntax, diction, and all the other tools at a writer’s disposal. Experimentation is a wonderful phase of any writer’s life. However, the first book manuscript being turned into a new publisher wasn’t the appropriate canvas. Driving an editor to attend AA meetings is not a virtue.

I ended up picking up one of my favorite memoirs at the time, Blue Like Jazz: Irreligious Thoughts on Spirituality, by Donald Miller and read it over and over. I read it once to get a feel for Don’s cadence, a second time to study how he structured sentences, and a third time so understand how he structured his essays. The early mornings were for writing and evenings were spent re-reading Blue Like Jazz. I might have read the book seven or eight times during the course of writing the first draft. The book served as a set of training wheels while I learned how to ride on my own (That said, I can’t blame where my book fell short on BLJ.)

I’ve been thinking about my New Year’s resolutions about the type of relationship I want to have with God this year. I’ve been thinking about why I’d want to spend time reading the Bible again. I’ve grown up with the Bible. I’ve had years of strong interest in reading the book, years of finding it dry, and quite frankly years where I find scriptures to be a troublesome book.

I’ve decided that this year when I read the Bible this year, I’m going to read it to develop my “voice” in life. I want to understand how the imperfect people scripture dealt with having their status quo’s exploded by God showing up. I want to read with an eye for God’s personality and core values. And perhaps, 365 days later, I might change my life’s “voice” a little bit for the better.

I’m reposting this to celebrate the fact that Richard’s book “The Colors of Hope” was chosen as one of Christianity Today’s Books of the Year. Congratulations Richard! Richard is a brilliant thinker and a co-contributor to the Burnside Writers Collective. 

It’s been a while since I’ve added an installment of “I Could Learn From…” This blog column is one of my favorite since it forces me to look around at people in my life, whether local or national, and study their lives for examples to imitate. This week’s “I Could Learn From…” features Richard Dahlstrom, the lead pastor of Bethany Community Church in Seattle. I became aware of Richard through the Burnside Writers Collective, where we both contribute. Richard’s essays often capture my imagination with their intelligence and creativity. Curiosity bit me and I began to subscribe to his sermon podcasts. His second book, The Colors of Hope: Becoming People of Mercy, Justice, and Love, was released and didn’t disappoint.

The Colors of Hope is a manifesto that invites Christ followers to reclaim its mandate to be agents of redemption through our relationships, work, and hobbies. Richard’s pastoral eye provides him with a unique vantage point that sets his book apart from the rest literature on Christian living. Here’s three things I caught my eye in “Colors” that made me pause, think, and reconsider my perspective:

Those who wish to paint with hope must be observant. Dahlstrom writes about his friendship with a master painter and art teacher. One of the first tasks the painter needed to accomplish with her students was teaching them to see the detail of their subjects. It wasn’t enough to notice a shadow, the students needed to see the rich gradient of shades that made up the shadow. In the same way, we need to be sure that we’re actually seeing people as God sees them. Richard offered practical and wise ways to  notice how we label, judge, and categorize others. For me, the book provided me with a fresh challenge to see and enjoy people for who they are.

You cannot be an effective “artisan of hope” without a strong theology of suffering. So much of what passes for books on missional living reads like the transcript of a Tony Robbins seminar. Lot’s of “Rah, Rah” but light on realism. Richard acknowledges that one of the challenges of painting with hope is that life is difficult and challenges our own belief in the hope we aspire to depict. Dahlstrom writes:

“Apparently the deeper colors of pain and deprivation can spill onto the canvas of the faithful as easily as the colors of peace and contentment. Until we wrap our minds and hearts around this, we’re in danger of forever seeking to create and live in a pastel world, when what we really need is to leaven how to be people of hope in the midst of bloody colors of suffering, shortcomings, and the loss that comes with living in a fallen world. Helmut Thielicke, the great German Theologian, said that America’s inadequate theology of suffering is her greatest Achilles heel, that weakness that, if not addressed, is in danger of making her infertile.” (p. 126)

Pastor Dahlstrom goes on to outline this theology of suffering, using surprising examples from the Bible and his own life. This lesson, for me, with the year I’ve have, is worth the price of the book.

A painting is made up of thousands of mundane strokes. Again, Richard’s realism shines though. He openly acknowledges that living this type of life is often mundane. Painting with mercy, justice, and love is occurs one decision– one relational transaction– at a time. Usually, the painting doesn’t take shape until after a life time of these brush strokes have been made.

I recommend The Colors of Hope for the same reason I recommend Lamott’s Bird by Bird. In Bird by Bird, Anne pulls back the curtain and shows us what the life of a writer is really like. Richard Dahlstrom does the same thing in The Colors of Hope. By doing so he gives us, not just the ideals of missional living, but a model of what the life of an “artisan of hope” looks like.

Thanks, Richard.

The Contest is Over…

Win a copy of The Colors of Hope:

For a chance to win “The Colors of Hope” take these two steps:

1) Use one of the sharing buttons, either Facebook or Twitter, to share this post with your friends;

2) Answer this question in the comment section: “What’s one way that you secretly dream of making a difference with your life?”

I’ll randomly pick a winner on May 12.

FCC Disclaimer: I was provided a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher without the expectation of providing a favorable review. Thanks for caring.