Don’t Live for a Legacy

Live and enjoy the Now, knowing it is a prophetic expression of a future not your own.

My oldest brother died on July 1^st 2024.  Yesterday our family was helping my brother’s widow clean out their Quonset on the acreage.  Signs of my brother’s existence are fading away.  It’s sad and inevitable.  Memories and some mementos remain, but they fade too.  We are all but dust in the wind on the historic march of humanity.  We each occupy our space in time, and then move on.  Reflecting on how quickly our time comes and goes, at first pass it sounds like life is therefore meaningless. 

Au contraire…I think this gives us meaning.

Given the realities of the brief appearance we make in humanity's historical drama, how we focus on the Now and in the space we occupy in the webs of relationships we possess, gives great purpose to our lives.  How can you make this space beautiful and enjoyable Now?  Yes, the way you live will have generational impact.  Yes, it will echo forward into the lives, habits, perspectives and values that you leave as your ‘legacy’.  And to live only for a ‘legacy’ is a miss.  It can cause you to overshoot into the future and miss the meaning and joy of the Now.

Live your life in the Now.  Live it with joy.  Live it conscientiously (which for me means to live according to the Way of Christ) so that the benefit and blessing is experienced not only Now, but in the future lives and memories of the people who inhabit your world on this journey.

Live and enjoy the Now, knowing it is a prophetic expression of a future not your own.

Harv

 

Hey God, Do Something

We all want God to intervene to get things done to free people and the world of injustice, unfairness, bad leadership, evil influences.  The list is long.

We regularly read promises in the Bible that God gives or provides all kinds of good things such as justice and freedom and joy.  Then we pray and hope to that end – that God would intervene and actively do those things, often assuming God will make it happen independent of us. There's expectations for a divine intervention, a gift, a miracle, an answer to prayer. Sometimes it happens.  God can and does intervene outside of our involvement and even despite our inactivity.   

However, there’s another way to read these statements about God’s provision.

Our Creator God has set out a way of living and being.  When we follow those ways and means, is that not then “God” doing those things?  This doesn’t ‘disempower’ God.  It embodies and incarnates God’s presence and power in us who live and act out those ways in the world.  This perspective releases the ‘gospel’ from a disembodied and purely spiritual ‘message’ and incarnates it into every single aspect of how we live and move and exist.  Nothing is out of reach or left untouched by the ways and means of God.

So, when the scripture describes God as giving freedom to the prisoner, or relieving those who are weighed down, or giving justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry, etc., put your name in there. 

Jesus Christ said that we, His followers, would “do the same works I have done, and even greater works…”.  

 

We all want God to intervene.  So then, get up and intervene.

On Becoming Mundane

Resurrecting a reflection on an experience from 31 years ago that’s as relevant today as ever…

It’s 1993 and I am 34 years old. I have planted a church in Canada and in Indonesia. Along the way I've gained experience in preaching, teaching, and administration. I'm gaining insights into leadership and organizational development. Now I am in Phnom Penh Cambodia, establishing the leadership structure for the international church I lead.

Life is good. Got to thinking about my future, and the thought crossed my mind that I could probably make it through the rest of my vocational ministry career without much more effort. I could ride that resume into the sunset of my career with no further effort. That was a very presumptuous thought. But more dangerous is the crippling attitude it reveals in me.

While I'm entertaining this perspective, I listen to a cassette tape by John Maxwell, a well know leadership author, pastor and coach. I don’t remember the topic, but I do remember the bomb he dropped into my world that day. He cautioned that the leader who is not on the growing edge is in danger of becoming “a mundane man or woman”. That word blows apart my presumptions and my comfortable world. My life is in danger of becoming commonplace, inert, mundane.

I had some choices to make.

Significant and developmental growth in our lives is determined or denied by the winner of the battle between choosing Courage or Fear. The challenge with Fear is its double edge. We fear launching into the new and unknown, but we also fear the consequences of inaction. At some point Courage must be exercised or we will remain immobilized between the two sharp edges of Fear.

I was immobilized. 

Not long after the challenge to my mundane-ness, I was presented with an opportunity to move outside my comfort zone, and build on my emerging interests and passions. I came across a master’s program in Organizational Leadership. Funny how the LAST THING I ever wanted in life was to go back to school. Certainly, there had to be other ways of developing myself. There were, and there are. But at that point in my life, I knew that I had to do something that would create a structure of accountability for my development. That program was it. I overcame Fear, borrowed Courage from my wife, and launched. The end result was not a degree on my wall, but the lifelong learning ethos it developed.

Why strive to grow? Growth inherently brings change, and change is hard. Why not remain content with where and who we are? There’s enough change in the world. We’re all tired of it. Is it not more virtuous and advantageous to be anchored? Is existence on the ‘growing edge’ worth it? You must answer this for yourself, but here are a few of my learnings and contributions to the thinking around this. Please add your own in the comments of this blog.

1.  'Mundane' in some contexts means the ordinary, the everyday.  Learning to be content with that kind of 'mundaneness' is an antidote to the hurry-up, never satisfied life. 
   
2. “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.” (Daniel Boorstin). Reflect on that as you think about discovering more about yourself, your abilities, your potential.
3. “Fan the flame” of what has been entrusted to you. (2 Timothy 1). You’re a steward of the Creators’ design in you, and of the input of the community that has nurtured you. They all believe you have something to offer. 
4. The answer to the prayer “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth…” is fulfilled through inquisitive, growing, courageous and engaged people. We are not meant to sit back and wait for some divine rescue event. We are meant to engage, so engage well. Hone your life so it is a net contributor.
5. A commitment to growth leads down the path of discovery. That inherently opens new horizons, new reasons and new opportunities to influence and effect change for human flourishing. Be prepared to course correct. 
6. Personal development costs. So does a lack of development. Which cost are you willing to bear? What lost opportunities and unrealized dreams are you willing to exchange for your need of security and comfort?
   

I am now 65. The ‘mundane’ challenge is still (and again) before me. This is a time of life where most people would not begrudge me pulling back and ‘coasting’. I don’t have the energy of that 34 year old in Cambodia, and I still face the battle between Courage & Fear. But the only way to face it is to face it. So, I am launching into endeavours and engagements that will press me to learn. I will need to calibrate my energy and expectations at this stage of life. But I am throwing off the bowlines and setting sail.

Let’s see where this goes.

Harv

The Unsettled Grief of Job Loss

I was let go/released from my organization last December.  Budget cuts. At my age, people assume I have retired.  I have not. Trying to counter that narrative is getting tiring.

But something else is more tiring.

The grief process.

A few days ago in my journal I wrote how I felt settled that I don’t yet know the future.  This morning’s entry was different.  I feel purposeless.  At times I’m distant and indifferent to people, to ideas and to the future.  Executing on the things I love and have planned for are getting to me.  My wife & I have been planning a trip to Europe for 4+ years and are in the throes of finalizing the details now, but it feels like an obstacle instead of a joy.  Anyone who knows me knows I love renovating things, but the renovation I am doing in my basement, though 95% done, now feels like a drag.  Adding to the darkness is the thought that after the trip and after the reno, then what??  I want to interpret all this as part of the emotional journey after a ‘release’.  I hope that’s all it is because I feel like I am losing something of my self.

I only see shadows of a future.  Clarity is clouded by grief.  We all face loss and grief from multiple sources. Grief is a loss of a locus for our love and attention.  Whether it’s a dream, a person, an expectation or a hope, the grief we carry is love/purpose which now has no place to go.  It’s not so easy to find a new destination for that love.  In some cases, it can be redirected to find some satisfaction in a new dream, job, circumstance or relationship.  As the scripture says, we may cry for a night, but joy can come in the morning when the sun rises on a new day for us.

However, there are some losses you simply will carry. Always.  Over time you figure out how to deal with that extra weight in your backpack.  How you carry that load of grief will define you and make you.  In terms of my job loss, I realize I have several options for how I carry it:

• Be angry (that way my grief has someplace to go!).
• Be depressed and despondent at my situation.
• Believe I am to blame, that somehow, I failed or didn’t measure up.
• Question my identity.
• Jump into something just to fill the void.  
• Suck it up.
• Stay in it.

Stay in it?  Yes.  I need to bear the load and feel the feelings.  It’s unlikely I will emerge into what’s next without taking that journey.  There is something about the journey itself that is as redemptive as the eventual outcome. We love redemption stories.  Most however have a plot line of grief and suffering, of bearing a burden.  The Biblical story of Ruth is a wonderful redemption story, but it is laced with, and she is defined by, her endurance of the significant loss of a husband, of children, of status and protection.

I am realizing how the journey is the thing.  That’s not the answer I necessarily want.  Yet the answers for my ‘what’s next’ are in the journey itself.  To find ways to bypass the process is to cheat my future self.  So, I need to keep going, and keep doing what I can to cope, to clarify, and to survive.  Be in the moment and let the moment carry me where it will.  Today is my ‘moment’.  Gotta just pick up that backpack and walk.

“My vision is blurred by grief.

My eyes are worn out because of what opposes me.

To all the things seemingly opposing my future and fulfillment, I wish you’d just go away!

Yet I remind myself there is a Creator who sees my grief.

That Creator pays attention and hears my pleas.

There will be a path that emerges from this.

Creator, help me take notice.”

(My translation of Psalm 6:7-9)

 

Harv

Let God Go

 I don’t mean let go of belief, but” let God go” from how you have contained Him.   

This is another reflection inspired by my reading of Lectio.  Currently it’s focused on helping us re-wild our imagination of God.

 

 

There’s a divine paradox in that God became human in Christ so that we could be free to see and know how to follow God’s Kingdom way of living, and yet God also exists completely ‘other’ to us.  Recorded biblical encounters with the Creator are fantastical descriptions.  Writers were not fully able to describe nor comprehend what they saw. However, what occurs with us humans here on earth is a containment of the Divine into religion and into a set of beliefs and systematic doctrines.  Then, in our sincere attempts to promote and advance our belief in the Divine, we settle in on fixed ways to explain Him.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.  We are human after all, and we need ‘handles’ to comprehend something that is beyond us.  

However, when we do not acknowledge and admit that there is a mystery to the majesty of the Creator, we have bound ourselves and others to a set of beliefs.  A bounded set. A religion. An explainable Creator.  How utterly inconsistent.

Look at the news.  Listen to the conversations.  How does the world perceive God when they look through the lens of Christians?  Perhaps you can’t influence the negative perception of Christianity that is in the broader cultural narrative, but you can in your personal and local circles. 

Re-wild your imagination of the Creator.  Live as a follower who has eyes wide open to wonder and mystery. 

You don’t have to have an answer to everything.

My Lovers' Quarrel

2024.  A new year.  We aim for change, but the reality is it’s hard to accomplish.

40 years ago, I started working in the institutional church.  I began as an eager and naive participant. Then experience and reflection caused me to question my assumptions.  I sought new insights and perspectives, which in turn led me to advocate for change.  It’s a relationship in which I have remained engaged for 40 years, working in various positions as an ‘intrapreneur’ attempting to inspire and lead change.  However, it’s not been an easy relationship. In fact I have had an ongoing “lover’s quarrel” with the institutional church.

I write this on January 1, 2024.  A day for contemplating change.  As I started with some reflection time, I read from a meditation I frequently use. The Lectio 365 reflection for this New Years Day ended up reigniting my lover’s quarrel.  Lectio's choice of words to characterize what mission advance means, elevated the ‘full time’ Christian worker, and by default undermined the majority of those who comprise the church.  It was inadvertent, I am sure.  But that’s a symptom of institutionalization, and the reason for my quarrel with it.  The institutional structure depends on the elevation and prioritization of certain roles & gifts because without them it could not sustain its purpose as an institution, nor it’s funding.  Its recruitment, training, and polity by default advance the class of people that are required to sustain the system.  This perpetuates a cycle of self preservation.  I have discovered as an internal change-agent that although this institutional system has the ability to change itself, its very existence is threatened by the change it seeks/needs.  A paralyzing irony.

Transitioning to the often-cited models espousing less structure and reduced dependence on a clergy class, so as to become a more scattered, organic and neighbourhood/marketplace model of existence, is often endorsed in the rhetoric and even strategic initiatives of church institutions.  However, this frequently falls flat during any attempt at execution.  Change is hard.  Execution is harder.  In the past 10 years I’ve led 3 change initiatives, all endorsed and funded by my denomination, that have either been closed or reduced to token, status-quo existence because of the relentless pressures of institutional thinking and demands.

I am not anti-institution, but I have a quarrel with it.  I stayed in it for 40 years advocating for and leading change until recently when I was released due to institutional budget pressures.  I still have hope that the church-as-institution might be courageous enough to change itself.  Where that isn’t feasible, at least be a sponsor/incubator of initiatives that eventually live and grow external to it.  In other words, be magnanimous and empower/cheer on what it can’t accomplish.  However, I no longer think that is possible for my denomination, nor for others. Whatever is now being birthed that is truly new and able to engage culture as effective Kingdom ambassadors, is for the most part coming from outside the institution of the church.  They are often small and scattered initiatives.  Most likely they will never gain the size, status or collective energy typical of the institution.  There is a part of me that wishes they could.  But then I suspect they would suffer the fate of the very institutions they were trying to influence and reform.

This is an historic tug of war.  A pattern that I believe is a divine check and balance to save the church from itself.  

The 5 core APEST gifts (see endnote) that are meant to simultaneously energize the church and keep it in dynamic tension, too often fall prey to their own competing values.  Rarely are they able to perform together in their natural state of tension.  Our humanity ensures that stalemate. Human nature leads us to prefer stability, captured in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  It’s how our brains work – which is why it is hard to change in the first place.  Logically then it’s how we work in collective community, such as in politics, clubs, associations and of course, the church.  Once we have established a measure of personal or collective stability, our preference is to remain there – whether it works for us or not! But change and growth comes from tension.  That tension in the institutional church’s context is the push-pull, the in-out breathing rhythm of the APEST gifts.  Their interplay is necessary to ensure a Christian community retains and displays the dynamic necessary to ensure true impact.  This isn’t happening.  Safety, security, and tolerance for incremental change dominates the institutional church psyche and strategy.

Here is where I part ways with many of my peers.  The church as we know it is not the hope of the world. Christ, the dynamic of that community, is the Hope of the world.  Let’s not confuse the institution of the church with the Community of Christ as some do.  They are not intrinsically identical.

I repeat - The church as institution is not the hope of the world.  Christ is.  Christ living and working through His people is the basis for how we are to organize and act.  The challenge has been, and is, that the institutional needs of the church really drive their agendas for change.  Choices around strategy, personnel or budgets are made in reference to its long-term survival or viability.  Let’s just be real here: rarely is a decision made that fundamentally re-shapes the posture and structure of the church, because its hard for insiders to be change-makers due to the existential threat to their own role, status and employment.  The usual outcome of a ‘what’s next’ vision discussion is a tweak that is trumpeted as innovation.  Tweaks can be communicated with bold rhetoric.  If a bold strategy is launched, I have seen how the cost is often experienced as too heavy to sustain.  The attempt withers.  The system is sustained.

My conclusion is that the church as institution won’t change to the extent needed for significant, relevant impact on this current world because it is incapable.  To reorganize away from institution to be a collective community of ambassadors of Christ, each empowered to build the Kingdom of God, is too threatening to existing livelihoods, missiology and ecclesiology.  As has been the case through history, change happens predominantly outside the institutional form. Some change agents may remain connected as though in orbit – still within the gravitational pull of the institution.  I’ve taken that route so far.  Others leave the pull of institutional gravity entirely.

I have my point of view.  You’ve read it here and in other of my blogs.  Yet the great hope I hold is that Christ works in and through all our imperfect organizational creations.  I truly wish the institutional system could change.  I dedicated the bulk of my career to that end.  I have seen some advances but also many disappointments.  My hope for its’ transmogrification is significantly diminished.  However, my hope lies in the universal Christ who is working through His community all around this world.  Those change agents/ambassadors are inside and outside the institution of the church.  Christ is ensuring that His ways are being advanced to bless and to change individuals and communities around the world.

So, let’s keep living and acting in hope.

Harv

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APEST = Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher.  Based on Ephesians 4 and popularized as a framework by Alan Hirsch in his book The Forgotten Ways.

Advent and Starfish

The in between.

Irrespective of our faith, humans often live in an ‘advent space’, anticipating the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event. For Christians around the world, now is the season of Advent. They remember the first coming (advent) of Christ, and remind themselves that they live in the ‘in between’ of that first event and Christ’s’ promised second coming. 

We all live the in-between:

• In between dreams and reality
• In between expectation and present circumstance 
• In between promises and fulfillment 
• In between hope and despair 
• In between careers (as I am now)
  

Currently global conflict and political rivalries have many of us living in-between our hopes for humanity and the brutal reality of ego, power, selfishness and outright hate. We hope and perhaps even pray, for peace. We protest and pressure politicians. Our desperate wish is that our leaders would lead change; would see fit to reconstitute the systems that support injustice and lead to conflict. Yet it seems so rare that this happens.

So, what are the options? Do we abandon our hope?

The best and most immediate path to change lies in ME. I may not hold political sway, but I hold sway around me. You and I as individuals are the ones who can, in the face of human need, show up with grace, mercy, love. We live in the trenches, in the street and the neighbourhood where needs are seen and experienced. While our individual actions will not necessarily change policy or the political process, they are immediately felt by the receiver. By the one.

But in a world of crushing need, is any effort worth the one?

It's like that old starfish story. A young child is walking on the beach. The tide is out. Hundreds of starfish are stranded on the sand and rocks, exposed to the sun and to predators. She’s concerned for those starfish, so starts picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone sees the futility of this effort and gets her to look up an see all the starfish on the beach and says “Look, there are so many of them. What possible difference can you make?” That child picked up a starfish, threw it into the ocean and said “It made a difference to that one”.


When we are confronted with the vast expanse of global issues, or within our own local communities, it is often overwhelming. The tide is out. It’s way out. People are stranded and exposed to crushing systems, indifference, and lack of courageous and principled political leadership. Many voices, including our own, say there’s no use trying. “What possible difference can you make?” It’s too big a task. Leave it to charities, non-profits or government. The system is too entrenched for your personal efforts to make a difference anyway. So, take care of yourself. Don’t vote. Don’t get involved. Don’t step in. Throw a few bucks to a charity. Then don’t forget to post your anger and indignation on social media.

But what if you could make a difference to one?

What if the one who showed up to address a need became a hundred?

What if those hundreds became millions?

This seems inspiring. Good fodder for a charity’s commercial or a sermon! But frankly there’s simply no guarantee your act of good will be repeated by others. How would you even know? Who is keeping count? You can’t control the math.

But that’s not the point. The point is to show up. Sleeves rolled up.

Yes, you can pray for leaders to lead. Yes, you can pray and/or protest for systems to change. Yes you can vote and hope for the best.  Yes, do those things and more - but don’t wait around for the answer. The small, repeated and real-time demonstrations of love and grace to fellow human beings will do more for a person now, in their time of need, than praying and waiting for miracle to happen.

For Christians, the point of the Advent season is not to be ‘hopeful’ about a second coming as though hope was a feeling. To hope is to act with that future in mind. To build a world that represents the wishes and ways of the One who is coming again.

For all of us in the human family, our hopes for an equitable and peaceful world are worthy. Worthy of action that starts with one small act. 

 

So, pick up a starfish. It’s an advent act.