Exciting News!! I changed my blog name

Taking a Walk...meh. Sounded kind of cheesy to me. So I changed it. Stuff Kyle Says. Also dumb, but more descriptive and less euphemistic. Maybe I'll get really popular and people will refer to my blog as SKS, like "Hey, did you see that sweet article on SKS?" That's awesome. And highly unlikely.

Response to "Then All H–ck Broke Loose"

Below is my reply to an article (Then All H–ck Broke Loose) that the founder of my organization Orphan Justice Mission Tim Stoner wrote recently. It's a great piece and adds to the discussion regarding Rob Bell's new book Love Wins.

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Tim, well done. I always appreciate your sense of historical context and it's a reminder (which Rob mentions also in his piece on Good Morning America's website) that we are just another link in the long chain of sinners and saints who have for ages been wrestling with God over these big questions. Is there an older one than "Can a good God allow suffering?" (isn't Job the oldest book in the Bible?).

I respect Rob. I spent time at Mars when I was in G.R. and I learned a lot from him. My main take away was the repetitive teaching that Christianity is not about tickets to heaven, but about God's transformative work in our lives now, that He's Lord now, not just someday but here, in this moment. This was a powerful motivation in my effort to get involved with Orphan Justice Mission (as we discussed at that first meeting in the M-6 Panera) and still informs my Christian worldview. I've also known he's been theologically controversial in the past, and I have given him grace, knowing that all of us, like it or not, get something wrong, possibly even our strongest convictions. Yet what I witnessed during my time at Mars was a sincere love of Christ, an appreciation for the scriptures and call for faith-based action (and some of the best worship I've ever been a part of).

That being said, this one has me worried. I think it's extremely difficult to argue that Hell is not Hell (even if you rely on the faulty assumption that God some how changed between the Old and New Testaments). God is not clear on everything, much to the surprise of my more fundamental friends. I have always appreciated Rob's emphasis on the discussion, or the "white space" surrounding the black characters on the pages of scripture, as he calls it. This is not saying there isn't truth or that somethings can't be known for sure, but the very fact that God has decided to entrust his record to stories, poetry and letters says that he's okay with us having questions, with having to dig and debate and wrestle to find truth. Hell is certainly one of those topics in which we are given only small snippets of and we ought to be careful not to claim we know all there is to know about it. What the scriptures do make clear, however, outside of hyperbole or metaphor, is that it exists, it will suck and is for those who have rejected Jesus Christ. Hard, yes, but that's the Bible, so I appreciate your point that God defines God, not man, and He has decided to show us all of his qualities, Love and all the other traits that help us understand what holy love is. I will read Rob's book and hold onto my hope that he's not going where everyone says he's going. I remain indebted to much of his teaching, but if he has become a universalist, well, that's lame and shows a blatant disregard for core teachings of scripture.

Just a few left over thoughts:

I think your position that Rob can't conceive of a God who causes, engages in, is present during suffering is faulty. I have not read his book Drops Like Stars, but I think that's the whole idea, that God actually uses suffering in our lives to create beauty. Mars Hill has also used Lent in a very orthodox sense as a time of reflection on human suffering and the Passion narrative.

Also, for those railing Rob and triumphantly, boldly, cockily celebrating the existence of Hell out of a sense of pious scriptural orthodoxy, I would say be careful (not talking about you here :) ). One of my greatest frustrations with Rob's opposition is their arrogance. For example, I once heard John MacAurther on the radio essentially insulting Rob, not just his theology or his teachings, but him personally. And the now famous tweet from John Piper "Farewell, Rob Bell." Rob's teaching may be dangerous, but the posture and behavior of some of our best evangelical theologians fits easily into the definition of hypocrite. The write well about the Spirit of Christ in our lives, but don't present it well in public. The one thing the universalists may have going for them is that they have a more complete understanding of the terribleness of Hell, and more love for those who would be/are doomed to such a fate than those of us who so boldly talk of the judgment of God because we believe we are protected from it. They simply can't hold the tension between love and holiness and so remove it rather than allowing God to remain above a perceived paradox. Evangelicals may have it right by acknowledging God's judgement, but I would love to see those who fight so vehemently for Hell's existence work just as hard keeping people out of it. And that takes way more than just clean cut doctrine.

Encounter Retreat 2010 - The Young Marriage Question

So...welcome back, myself. Haven't posted since 2009. Shame, shame. Got a good reason to get the gears turning again, however. I just spoke at Miracle Camp's 2010 Encounter Retreat for college folk. It was a good time studying Colossians (4 sessions, 4 chapters, right, ya'll?). During the third session, where we got into some of Paul's more practical day-to-day living suggestions, I opened things up for a question and answer free-for-all. We only got about half way through, but I promised to answer the rest somehow. Thus, my return to the Blogosphere. I won't do them all at once but will answer one to three questions per blog; not two, nor four shall I compose but two, yet sometimes three and at times one shall be my...I'm sorry–couldn't help the descent into a Monty Python reference.

So, to kick it off, an obviously hot topic:

Question 1: How the heck did you get married at 19? And how did you know?
Question 2: You were 19 when you got married, at such a young age how did you know she was the woman for you, a sign from God?

Thanks, person, for the almost-swear for emphasis! Yes, there were times I thought it was crazy, too.

So, how I got married at 19: Step 1 - found a woman, Step 2 - made her like me, Step 4 - refused to be reasonable and asked her to marry me, Step 5 - smiled and nodded as she planned the wedding. Easy as that. Maybe, however that leaves a few important things out, like asking her dad for permission (which I did).

Cuteness aside, I got married at 19 because I felt I found a woman that I could commit to for the rest of my life. No, I didn't get a message from God about Nikki and standing in Zales looking at rings and deciding if I was really going to go through with it was a totally freaky decision, but a decision made on good evidence. We shared the same values, we loved being in each other's company, we were both athletes, enjoyed each other's families, lived in the same area, etc. Nikki actually had a list of 40 some qualities in a husband and I met them all except two: good singer and handles money well. I'm happy to say I'm growing in both, but the idea is that a lot of things lined up. I still had to make a leap, though. It's like sky-diving. You check and double-check your 'chute, but at some point you just have to jump.

When I talked about the idea of marrying Nikki with people I respected, they all thought it was a little soon but didn't think it was necessarily a bad idea. We didn't have much money, but we both "worked" (Nikki had school paid for through a scholarship at Western) and I was a part-time youth director. We also had very supportive family, which made it a lot easier early on and took some of the pressure off of us financially. And personality-wise, we were both mature enough to take the marriage step. Not that we were totally prepared for all that marriage entailed, but the foundation was there. I can't say that's true for everybody (and that's not a slam - it's just reality). So for us, it worked.

That's not to say that part of it wasn't youthful zeal and impatience. I'm not good at waiting, and in this case that's mildly Biblical. It's not Biblical to be stupid, but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:9 that even though it's better to remain unmarried (for unhindered service to God), if they don't have self-control (which I didn't have much of at 19), let the couple be married so they don't burn with passion. Thank you, Jesus.

A few thoughts for those thinking about young marriage:

• Marriage doesn't make a relationship better - it puts it through the fire to see if it can last.
• Marriage makes life easier in some respects (you don't have to drive home every night at 1 A.M.)
• You will both have a lot of growing up to do (you will change as people and will have to deal with the "you're not the same person I married" scenario, which everyone deals with but more so when you marry young).
• Money will make life hard (not having it or having it).
• Not being established in careers will mean big compromises. Be ready to potentially give up some big dreams to stay together.

Overall, I'll say that marrying Nikki was absolutely the right choice. Marriage is one of God's greatest tools for shaping someone's life and character, and if you're going to jump in, just be ready for the chiseling process. The result, if you're up to it, is a thing of matchless beauty.

Praying in McDonalds

I got done with my Tuesday morning Bible study with my two little brothers this morning and decided to set up camp and work for awhile. It had all the fixin's for moderate productivity: a big table, annoying pay-as-you-go AT&T wifi (e.g. no internet distraction), and the cooling half of a medium mocha.

As I'm crunching away on a policy document, my iPhone gently turns down the music to inform me of an incoming call. My sister Kelli is on the phone. Slightly panicked and near tears, she tells me that a friend of hers, who I also happen to know through church, has been in a motorcycle accident. She just received the news from a second hand source who had little information but told her, "it doesn't look good."

A sinking feeling came over me. This acquaintance of ours lost his sixteen year old son in a terrible car accident not two years ago and he has surviving twin sons. I got the tingly sensation in my jaw and finger tips that accompanies the possibility of crushing tragedy. Not another member of that family, not so soon, not in such a similar way. Kelli, who is currently re-exploring the Faith right now, asked me pointedly, "Will you pray, Kyle?" I said I would and hung up the phone.

Two booths down from me sat another acquaintance of mine, talking with his wife. He had said hello to me on his way to his seat. He used to serve in a local church; they are Christians. I needed to pray, but for some reason, I didn't want to pray alone. Though I was mildly embarrassed to interrupt their conversation to ask them to pray for a situation that was unconfirmed but potentially devastating, I took off my head phones and walked over to their booth. They looked up politely and I told them the story, closing with, "Would you guys mind praying with me?" My friend said, "sure," slid over and let me sit down. We each prayed, not long, but enough. Part of my prayer, besides surrendering to the will of God, was that this information would be incorrect, that Kelli would have gotten an exaggerated version or a false report. In my heart, I was asking God to roll back time, to undo the deed–the same prayer I had prayed as a little boy after the reality of my mom's death sank in. Not knowing our friend's actual situation gave me ridiculous hope that maybe it wasn't too late yet, the nonsensical faith that wondered if things that may have already been done could be changed. We got to the amens, I thanked them and returned to my seat.

I then called Dave, our friend's pastor. I told him I didn't know much of the story or the actual severity of the accident, but that he should probably check it out. Though we didn't speak it, I could tell from his voice that we both understood what the worst case could mean for this family. He thanked me and hung up. I tried to go back to typing, wondering whether there was more I should do.

About ten minutes later, Dave called. What would be the news? He sounded happy. "He's alright," he reported. "He was in an accident, but besides a few stitches and possible surgery on his thumb, he's fine. He's headed home right now." Thank God.

Did God answer MY prayer? Did He answer ours? Did He really roll back time, undo the deed, bring our friend back from the dead? To say yes would be pretty self-centric of me; God is not rearranging fate on my behalf. The trouble with expecting God to answer a prayer is that there are many more vantage points than that of single petitioner; giving one person what he or she wants may mess up what God wants for everybody else. And yet, as I just read the other day, Jesus tells us that if we believe, we can cast mountains into the sea (heal bodies, steer motorcycles, ripple time?). I don't know what God was doing this morning in McDonald's, if anything. I could not disagree with someone who would say, "Your prayer just happened to line up with what had already happened." But, whatever the case, we prayed for something and it came true. Again, thank God.

Key to the Cuboard

I found this sermon excerpt by F. B. Meyer profoundly impacting. I came across it in Dave Browning's book Deliberate Simplicity. He pulled it from www.sermonindex.net on August 8, 2008, from Meyer's sermon entitled "What Is It?". I have nearly nothing to add to it; it speaks for itself. My only question to you is the question I had to ask myself: have you let Christ take your last key?

Sixteen years ago I was a minister in a Midland town in England, not at all happy, doing my work for the pay I got, but holding a good position amongst my fellows. Hudson Taylor and two young students came into my life. I watched them. They had something I had not. Those young men stood there in all their strength and joy. I said to Charles Studd:
"What is the difference between you and me? You seem so happy, and I somehow am in the trough of the wave."
He replied: "There is nothing that I have got which you may not have, Mr. Meyer."
But I asked: "How am I to get it?"
"Well," he said, "have you given yourself right up to God?"
I winced. I knew that if it came to that, there was a point where I had been fighting my deepest convictions for months. I had lived away from it, but when I came to the Lord's table and handed out the bread and wine, then it met me; or when I came to a convention or meeting of holy people, something stopped me as I remembered this. It was the one point where my will was entrenched. I thought I would do something with Christ that night which would settle it one way or the other, and I met Christ. You will forgive a man who owes everything to one night in his life if to help other men he opens his heart for a moment. I knelt in my room and gave Christ the ring of my will with the keys on it, but kept one little key back, the key of a closet in my heart, in one back story in my heart. He said to me, "Are they all here?" And I said: "All but one." "What is that?" said He.
"It is the key of a little cupboard," said I, "in which I have got something which Thou needest not interfere with, but it is mine."
Then, as He put the keys back into my hand, and seemed to be gliding away to the door, He said:
"My child, if you cannot trust Me with all, you do not trust Me at all."
I cried: " Stop," and He seemed to come back; and holding the little key in my hand, in thought I said:
"I cannot give it, but if Thou wilt take it Thou shalt have it."
He took it, and within a month from that time He had cleared out that little cupboard of things which had been there for months. I knew He would.
May I add one word more? Three years ago I met the thing I gave up that night, and as I met it I could not imagine myself being such a fool as nearly to have sold my birthright for that mess of pottage.
I looked up into the face of Christ and said: "Now I am thine." It seemed as if that was the beginning of a new ministry. The Lord got me on His wheel again, and He made me again, and He has been making me again ever since.

Too Dumb to Pray

I just had the privilege of being treated to lunch by Kurt Dillinger, President of Life International, a global ministry fighting for the unborn around the world. He invited me to contact him after finding out that I was a young Executive Director who may appreciate a little mentoring. I took him up on that offer, meeting at One Trick Pony in G.R. to chat about ministry and life.

It didn't take long for the discussion to turn to my unique situation of having three jobs (plus grad school plus a family). I shared with Kurt my situation, and the impending decision of choosing among the three careers, something I have yet to be convinced is a necessity. His first comment to me was "to be effective, you need to be focused." He's not the first person I've heard that from. I agree, but what is it that we are focusing on? Just the organization? The programs? It's true that these structures and ministries will grow more slowly without full-time focus. But what if we lift the transparency stenciled with our man-made ministry demarcations and just take a look at the raw terrain, the Kingdom of God? What if my focus is on people, growing them in the name of Jesus into everything they can be, wherever I find them? Could the focus be on that, something more nebulous and oozy than a single 501(c)3? Or by being split, am I not really serving anyone that well?

I didn't articulate this to Kurt and though he encouraged me to move towards focus, he refrained from telling which I should choose. Rather, he asked if I'd been praying about it. "How much time have you and your wife spent on your knees about this?" Um... Okay, how can I make it sound as spiritual as possible? "Several times a week," I said, hoping "several" sounded like more than "a couple" or "none". Nikki and I are growing in our prayer life. I can say that honestly, but I had to admit to him that for as big of a decision as this is, we haven't been praying like we should. What ensued was a very convicting and uplifting discussion about the need for prayer, especially for leaders, and a personal realization that I'm sometimes too dumb to pray.

"The greatest contribution a leader can make to an organization is to be disciplined in prayer, " Kurt said. His own life and ministry reflects this as the basement of his synagogue turned church turned abortion clinic turned office is set up as a place for people to gather and pray. "Prayer is totally underutilized in leadership today. It should be your first priority with anyone. It brings unity, peace, and clarity of vision," he said. He went on to share with me something his mentor had passed on to him, that all human problems can be traced to a lack of understanding God, which leads to a failure to understand self ending in a failure to understand each other. And the only remedy is to abide in Christ through the Word and prayer. The leader must devote consistent, intentional time to communicating with God.

As we chatted, thoughts of every significant follower of God in scripture (e.g. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, David, the prophets, the disciples, Paul) and especially Jesus Himself ran through my mind. All prayers. The recent greats like Luther, Calvin, Moody, Wesley, et. al. prayed, prayed, prayed. I know intellectually this needs to happen in my life. I need to learn to pray and pray hard. If I'm wise, I'll start; if I'm dumb, I won't. Being dumb means that I fail to recognize the reality of the spiritual nature of existence; that I'm lazy; that I allow the feeling that praying is talking to the air dissuade me; that I think there's no need to pray since God will do what He wants anyway; that I mistake my own efforts as the key to success–all of this in direct disobedience to God's commands that we petition Him.

Prayer invites God into what I'm doing and if I'm trying to do God-size things, that's the only way they'll get done. It also takes the glory away from me and puts it on God. How can I take credit for something I asked God to do and He did? Do we write thank you notes to ourselves for our birthday presents? Prayer is a willing subjugation of one's ability and power to that of God's, and that humble state is where God moves.

I need to seek God in prayer for more than just this decision in my life right now. This is about more than figuring out which job I should take. It's about letting God focus my life, in whatever form that takes and then supplying the power needed to live it out. Pray that I will listen to Kurt and that I'm not too dumb to pray.

Ugly Treasure

I was reading Acts 17 today where Paul gets separated from his buddies and decides to take a stroll around town while he waits for them in Athens. It says "his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols." (vs. 16) He just can't help himself (in spite of flying solo without anyone to tell him if a rock is about to be thrown at the back of his head) and he starts preaching about Jesus, which is all cool until he gets to the crazy part—the resurrection. "Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, 'We shall hear you again concerning this.'" (vs. 32) Believing that someone came back to life after being dead is nuts. Believing that those who believe in a guy who came back to life will also come back to life is nuts. The Christian faith rests on a pretty outrageous claim and Paul just lets it fly.

Some people today are disenchanted with the Christian Faith, often describing their condition as a distaste for "organized religion." It's true, in many churches (in many people, rather) the Faith has become an ugly conglomeration of man-made rules and practices, which at best conceal and at worst assist the very evil the Gospel is meant to eradicate. Christianity is merely a screen these people use to dull the definition of their empty, average, unholy lives. It's all very unresurrection-esque. Have we forgotten that a Dude died and came back to life? It seems to have somehow lost its pop. We talk about it now two-thousand some years away but it's become all cloudy and cute and super nonfantastical by tradition and repetition and familiarity.

I have a picture in my head of me preaching in a church somewhere. I'm up front and I say something about Jesus rising from the dead. I stop. The good church folk are sitting, listening, some slightly smiling, legs crossed, heads tilted to the side warmly. As I wait, a few eye-brows raise good-naturedly in anticipation, as if to say "yes, continue with your pleasant talk." No reaction. "People," I think, "I just said someone came back from the dead! Sneer, laugh, believe, get mad, something!" Something as ludicrous as rising from the dead deserves a reaction, and yet for many of us in the church, it simply slips right on by as harmless religious jargon.

I wonder if we've become too comfortable with the resurrection. As I read, I had to stop at the part where Paul tells the Athenians, "He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." (vs. 31). The eternal outcomes of the souls of men will hang on their reaction to Jesus' resurrection, in which He defeated death and made God's justice and His mercy one. Without the resurrection, we have a weak, stupid, unspectacular religion.

It reminds me of the parable Jesus tells about the Kingdom of God as a treasure buried in a field, so valuable that the man who finds it sells everything he has to buy the field and own the treasure. If I might modify this a bit, imagine that the treasure is the resurrection, an actual factual real-time event that makes righteousness and union with God possible, the place where true, sold out faith begins (if this is possible, what isn't?). Has the church lost the treasure among the weeds of programs, buildings, committee meetings and lame outreach events? Have we even dug it up yet or are we content to have the field and to know where the treasure is if we need it? Do we consider it an ugly treasure, the scary claim of our religion that will repulse as many as it attracts? If we did go through the dirty, messy process of digging it up, would we hold it high in joyous celebration for all to see or be ashamed and try to sneak away with it under our shirt?

I think part of the success of the early church was its focus on and embracing of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It may be that the intellectual and emotional turmoil that arises in one's soul after considering the actuality of the resurrection gives the Holy Spirit something to sink His teeth into. It is a rubber-meets-the-road proposition, one that if understood fully demands a response. Paul obviously knows this because he never hides it. To him it is a glorious, life-changing truth. He holds the treasure up high for all to see, knowing that if someone is to have true faith and if the church is to be all that it can be, they must know, share and participate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul pays for all this resurrection talk, and we will, too, maybe even with our lives (some sneerers can get pretty nasty), but do what they may, they can't take away our treasure.