Joe Burnham

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What makes us the people of God is not our vision or even our efforts to be a “true” or “ideal community.” What binds us to one another is Christ and what He has done. This explains why Paul does not exhort us to try to become the Body of Christ; he simply reminds us that we are the Body of Christ. We are members of one another. The trick is to realize it, and then, by God’s grace, begin to live as if we are. – Glenn Packiam

Is the Community at Church?

As I closed my last post by highlighting three results I’ve seen by viewing the Gospel as an invitation, I asserted that it creates community. This is exactly what Glenn Packiam is arguing above. By inviting us into the Kingdom, Jesus makes us part of the Body of Christ. But if that’s the case, why is what we often experience in Christian community so isolating?

For me, it came in the form of pat answers for questions I wasn’t asking. Exclusion also happens based on socio-economic status, ethnicity, appearance, or simply being new. Still others seek genuine connection but conversation goes no deeper than pious platitudes and discussions of the weather.

A couple of months ago, I was talking with a friend who recently resigned from a full-time ministry position. In a 15-minute conversation he dropped two images that sum up what so many experience in local manifestations of the Church:

It feels like we need a homeopathic remedy, not another round of chemo.

We just want to be full, so we eat a meal of crap and wonder why it’s starving us to death.

As I get ready to head back to school this Fall, the question, ”Why do we feel alone at church?” will be ringing in my ears.

Here are some first thoughts on why this happens and how to fix it.

We Forget Who We Are

In earlier posts I’ve explored Christian identity. I’ve argued that one of our greatest challenges as believers is our tendency to forget who we are in Christ. I believe the same thing happens in the Church. As a body, we forget who we are.

When we forget who we are in our personal lives, we allow something else to define us. It might be what others say about us, our power over others, or our good deeds. The same thing happens in a corporate setting. Here are a few possibilities:

• Morality: This is a huge one in Christianity today. We set up boundaries of right and wrong that are then used to either include or exclude others. For those excluded or those struggling to live within the bounds, the result is spiritual isolation.
• Culture: Varying Christian bodies develop traditions and rites. They communicate something. They are integral in spiritual formation. But they also have a tendency to take on a life of their own. They become key to identity and not a means to shape it. When that happens, those who are part of the culture are left standing on the outside.
• Mission: Being unified around mission might sound like a noble and positive endeavor. In the business world and other non-profit endeavors, it is. However, in the world of the Church, all too often mission results is a completely external focus and the hurting among us get lost in the shuffle.

Now, Jesus’s invitation does call us to a moral life. It fuels a culture that prompts outsiders to look in with a perplexed curiosity. It even supplies us with a mission. But none of these things can unify us. Only Jesus and his Gospel invitation can do that.

If you’ve heard the call, it doesn’t matter how long ago it was or how far off you are from the one calling, as soon as you’ve heard his voice, you are part of the Body of Christ and you are interconnected with everyone else in the body. You are not alone.

How to Remember Who We Are

So, how do we do it? How do we remember we are in fact the Body of Christ? Here are three ideas:

• Stop Giving Tips, Start Telling Stories: If people already are something, why offer tips on how to become something? The very nature of how-to defies what Christ has already done. Instead, we need to share stories of people remembering who they are. Stories of action. Stories where the Kingdom is tangible. These stories come from Scripture, history, and the lives of God’s people today. As we share common stories, we foster a common bond.
• Tell the Whole Story: The Gospel story is not one of moving from “not saved” to “saved.” It’s also about the life lived on the other side. And the life that will be lived in eternity. It’s about the struggles and doubts and questions. It’s about everything that comes with being the people of God in a fallen world. Tell the whole story of the what the Christian life looks like. As the breadth and depth of our story increases, there’s room for more and more people to find their place in it.
• Extend Invitations: For those who are new and for those who’ve forgotten, extend a Gospel invitation. It’s always there, reach out with it and invite people to leave behind false stories that leave them alone and find one where they belong.

Does your church embrace these ideas? What does it look like? What would change if your Church did?

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To describe the last 17-months of my life as transformative is a dramatic understatement. But what’s behind it? It all stems from experiencing the Gospel and Gospel based-community in radically new ways. As I get ready to head back to school this fall, my dream is to take what I’ve experienced, figure out what was behind it, and recreate it for the benefit of others. This week, I’m offering some initial thoughts, starting with the nature of the Gospel itself. So, what is the Gospel?

Is it the Forgiveness of Sins?

This is the answer I grew up with and the one I’ve run with for most of my life.

It’s simple.

It’s clean.

It’s clear.

It’s also unsatisfactory.

It’s certainly an aspect of the Gospel. It’s a Gospel-response to those who are struggling with guilt. But it’s not the entirety of the Gospel. It’s left me hanging. Yes, it told me that the things I’ve done wrong are forgiven, but that wasn’t my primary struggle.

I didn’t need the Gospel for the adult who feels bad about being a bully as a kid. I needed the Gospel for the adult who thinks he’s worthless after being bullied as a kid.

I didn’t need the Gospel for someone who went to see a prostitute. I needed the Gospel for someone who was so desperate to feel loved that paying someone to fake it seemed reasonable.

I didn’t need the Gospel for someone who did something wrong. I needed the Gospel for someone convinced there was something wrong with him.

Certainly there was guilt, but that was secondary, and a Gospel that only responds to secondary matters isn’t good news.

There has to be something more to the Gospel than just forgiveness of sins.

Is it Love?

A more common move these days is to say the Gospel is love. I’ll admit, I find this quite appealing. As someone who’s spent decades struggling with shame, I long to be loved, and more importantly, I long to feel loved.

At the same time, limiting the Gospel to love doesn’t work either. Certainly unconditional love is part of the Gospel. After all, the Gospel doesn’t require that you get your life together first. It doesn’t demand that you make yourself lovable. Rather, it comes to you in the midst of failure and says, “You are loved.”

But it doesn’t leave you there. It doesn’t encourage you to wallow in sin and shame. If the Gospel is limited to loving you as is, then it will make you comfortable where you are and it won’t prompt transformation.

Just as the Gospel has to be something more than forgiveness, it has to be something more than love.

Is it an Invitation?

While the idea has been churning in my head for some time, over the past year, I’ve thought of the Gospel as an invitation into the Kindgom of God.

Now, when the Bible talks about the Kingdom of God, it isn’t talking about a place, rather, it’s talking about anywhere things operate under the rule and reign of God. To make up a word, it’s anywhere and anytime God is kinging. Or, to use the language of Restorying Life, it’s were God has, at least for a moment, restoried creation.

Here are a few results I’ve noticed:

• It Bestows Identity: In their Label’s Lie campaign, the People of the Second Chance talked about all of the identity bestowing labels that are placed on us and calls out these labels as lies. In the book, Your Secret Name, Kary Oberbrunner calls out the false names that are placed on us and define us. He then identifies the new names, the often “secret to us” names, that Christ gives. The Gospel as an invitation invites us to believe who we are in Christ, which changes how we think about ourselves and our place in the world.
• It Creates Community: Life isn’t meant to be lived alone. We need people around us who care about us, encourage us, and remind us who we are. We need healthy community. The Gospel as an invitation isn’t just an invitation to think about yourself differently, but it’s an invitation to be a part of a community that is gathered around Christ.
• It Gives Purpose: Over the past two weeks, I’ve been talking about work. I’ve talked about how the world views work and how the Gospel as an invitation invites us to embrace a work to love mentality. The Gospel as an invitation to the Kingdom of God, is an invitation to be part of a community with a specific purpose in the world.

As you think about the Gospel, what comes to mind?

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1. How Do You Work to Love?
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Overview

Last Friday I wrapped up a series on work by breaking the news that I’m going back to school this Fall to being a Doctor of Ministry degree in Leadership and Spiritual Formation. Ultimately, this is part of my plan to make sure that my dream for work becomes a reality … that I have a job that allows me to love, has an addiction factor, and enables me to fulfill my responsibilities. Watch the vodcast for more.

What do you need to do so your work is loving, addictive, and enables you to fulfill your responsibilities?

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Over the past two weeks I’ve been talking about work. I started with common approaches to work and then laid out the biblical alternative of working to love. After exploring various ways that can happen and how it’s happened in my work over the past year, I brought up the need for an addictive element to work that keeps us going on the work to love path. But there’s one more thing to consider.

The Life I Would Live

Personally, I’m cool with the simple but experience rich life. I don’t need a nice home. I’d rather live car free. Fabricated entertainment is unnecessary.

If I was living in a 250 square foot studio apartment, had a bus pass, could feed myself, had access to the internet, and owned some good gear for occasional backpacking trips in various parts of the world, I’d love it.

But I have other responsibilities.

Work and Responsibility

I’m responsible for debt accumulated in the past.

I’m responsible for a mortgage on a condo that won’t sell.

And it’s not just responsibilities I’d rather not have to deal with. I also have an amazing son who relies on me for half his basic needs, half his school expenses, and his medical coverage.

We all have our own list of people or things we’re responsible for. As a result, we can’t just work any job that is both addictive and allows us to love … we also need to fulfill our financial responsibilities.

What’s In My Working Future?

So, how does this last piece play out in my life today? Honestly, not well. At the moment, I’m living month-to-month. Without a doubt, something needs to happen. Here are a few possibilities:

• REI: My managers at REI brought up a career there and, at least at some level, I’m on the track for management endorsement. If I really wanted to push it, I’m sure I could be a store manager in the next few years. However, that would require relocation, and since I won’t leave Robbie, that isn’t an option. There are still possibilities of advancing in the Denver area, but it will take time and some luck.
• Promark: While I’m not cut out as an agent, there are still possibilities for me with Promark. Facilitating ProKids Fundraisers is addictive for me, so if I could connect with a team of agents to run appointments for people who want follow-up …
• George Fox: In 2010 I started a Doctor of Ministry degree with George Fox. While I dropped out in December, I stayed in touch with both the director and assistant director with hopes of finishing what I started. I’m proud to say that, after a re-entry interview and some reference checks, I‘ve been granted readmission, starting this fall, in the Leadership and Spiritual Formation track. Where exactly this will lead I don’t know, but I’m excited about the career options it will create.

How I’ll fulfill the dream of work that is addicting, allows me to love, and allows me to fulfill my responsibilities I’m not sure, but the dream is in place, there’s a plan to pursue various options, and I’m acting on the plan. I’m sure edits are to come.

How about you? How does working to love, addiction, and fulfilling responsibility play out in your work life?

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On Monday I mentioned that one of the jobs I worked last year was with Promark Financial. One day during my training the lead trainer told me, “You’re going to love this job. Making a sale, its like crack. You make a sale and you find yourself craving another.”

I remember listening and hoping it was true, after all, I still wasn’t sold on myself as a salesman, and my perception of insurance salesmen placed them somewhere in the realm of guys on the used car lot and lawyers. If making the sale was like crack, I could learn to love this job and find myself motivated to do it well.

Insurance Isn’t Addictive

That was thirteen months ago, and while I have a higher perception of those who sell insurance (at least some of them), I’ve made a number of sales and can say, without a doubt, it is not crack. At least not for me.

I’ve tried to imagine that it is, but when I make a sale, my mind immediately thinks about the two months it will take to finish the process. I find myself hoping the person didn’t lie to me and they don’t have some secret disease or medical history they’re trying to cover up. I dread having to deal with the insurer and their inane questions. I hope and pray there isn’t some detail about the policy that I missed that will void the application. And then I think about the fact that I need to get another one going tomorrow. That’s not crack, it’s demoralizing.

It’s fun to tell others and let them be excited, but if I never sold another insurance policy, I’d be ok with that.

Insurance, REI, and Pastoral Ministry

While selling insurance isn’t addictive, I’m hooked on selling at REI. I love working the floor. I love hearing where people are at and what they’re wanting to do. I love identifying the right products for them. As soon as one customer walks away happy, I’m looking for the next challenge.

This prompts the question, “How can doing the same thing in two different environments produce such different results?” The answer pulls me back into my pastor days.

When I served as a missionary in downtown Denver, I had a rule that I would never start a faith conversation. I was happy to have one, and I regularly engaged in them, I just never started one. Instead, I would live life, serve my neighbors, work for the good of my community, and allow my not fitting the pastor stereotype to prompt questions.

While I have faith-based reasons for taking this approach, it’s also an environment where I thrive:

• I don’t have to push for a conversation.
• I don’t feel compelled to make someone believe something, even if it’s for their own good.
• I don’t walk away wondering how long what I said will last.

I simply engage with them, hear them out, and offer responses that guide them to the next step.

As a pastor, I spent my life inspiring, educating, and equipping people for a life of faith. At REI, my mission is to inspire, educate, and equip people for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship.

Addiction and Working to Love

On Monday, I argued that both Promark and REI enable working to love. I hold to that claim.

At the same time, I’ve come to realize that only one of these jobs taps into my personality. Only REI is addictive.

As a result, when I sell insurance, while working to love is an opportunity, it’s not one I embrace. Rather, the love gets lost in the job’s frustration.

When dreaming about work, we can’t just ask if there’s an opportunity to love, we also need to dream of work that’s addictive.

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I opened a week ago arguing that Christians need a new way of thinking about work. Last Wednesday, I laid out a vision for working to love. On Friday, I identified various fields and ways we can work to love. But what does this all look like in everyday life?

In 2011, I worked three different jobs. In each of them, I was able to work to love. Let’s explore.

Improving 30% of Your Life

2011 opened with my friend Paul Roggow needed someone to work in his mattress store for a couple of days. He brought me in, trained me on the product, and handed me the key.

Over the next two days, I had eight customers and no sales.

However, throughout 2011, there were many occasions where Paul either needed someone to cover the store for him, or add sales staff on busy days.

As it turns out, I’m not a bad mattress salesman. Moreover, by working with Paul, I worked to love in two ways.

The first concerns sleep. Sleep is essential. Good sleep even more so. In fact, to be healthy, most people need to spend about 30% of their life sleeping. One of the key factors to good sleep, is having a good bed.

By linking people with a good bed, I was enabling good sleep. By enabling good sleep, I was enhancing health. By enhancing health, I was preserving life.

The second way is less obvious and involves economic theory. Basic free-market capitalist theory talks about the law of supply and demand with prices going down when there is more supply than demand and prices going up when there is more demand than supply.

Paul defied this by dropping prices even when there was demand. Why?

He viewed the store as a way to serve a struggling community. He didn’t aim to make as much as he could, his goal was to care for his family while giving his neighbors the best products at low prices. By selling high-quality at a low price, Paul was guarding his neighbor’s property both by providing product that would last, and by leaving them with more income to support their family.

Maybe Paul did this because he’s an incredible guy. Or perhaps, as a Lutheran pastor, he’d read Martin Luther’s comments on, “Thou shall not steal.” and Luther’s assertion that the worst kind of theft in his day was selling products for the highest price possible.
Either way, by selling mattresses, both Paul and I worked to love.

Helping People Imagine Life

Because the mattress gig was only occasional work, I needed other options. In April, my friend Craig introduced me to Eric Morgenthaler, the manager of Promark Financial‘s Denver office.

While life insurance and annuities easily fall in the class of guarding property, all too often, those in the financial business don’t work to love. Some will only work with the wealthy. Others only dedicate themselves to high commission clients. Still others will sell inferior product if it gives them an opportunity to make money.

Promark is different. Promark works with clients from every socio-economic segment. Promark puts the needs of the client first, not the agent’s commission. Promark is a for-profit company that gives away all of its profits to causes that benefit women and children, with the owner Kim Aoyama aiming to give away 20 Million Dollars.

Promark helps people imagine life, and given agents an opportunity to work to love.

Note: If you’re interested in a career with Promark, please send me an email and I’ll connect you with the right people.

I’m Not A Shoe Monkey

About the time I signed on with Promark, I received a call from REI about coming in for an interview. Because of Promark, I turned them down. However, in September, they called again. I noticed that even working part-time I could get health benefits for Robbie and I, so I decided to interview and see what happened. I got the job.

While I also work in clothing and kids, my favorite department is footwear, especially technical footwear like hiking shoes and boots. Why? Because I’m not a shoe monkey.

In shoes, you really have two kinds of people on the sales floor. You have shoe monkeys who just run back and forth grabbing whatever shoes a customer might want to try on, and you have people who fit shoes.

You see, shoes are made on lasts. It’s a model of a foot. A shoe made on a last cannot help but take on its shape. So, every shoe models a certain kind of foot. Simply by looking at someone’s foot, I can rule out at least 50% of the shoes on the wall.

This means, instead of running back and forth aimlessly, I can make meaningful recommendations based on the individual’s foot and recreational goals.

How is this working to love? Recreation is good for your health. By providing shoes that fit and therefore don’t cause blisters, I’m enabling recreation.

Taking this a step further in running shoes, by identifying over-pronation and countering it with shoes that enable a neutral running motion, I’m protecting a runner from foot and knee pain.

But my favorite story of working to love is a woman who came in a couple of weeks ago, three months after suffering a heart-attack. She is significantly overweight and her doctor told her that she needed to start taking care of herself or she’d die. She and her husband were going to walk together, but walking hurt. That’s when she found herself at REI.

I sat down with them as a family and listened to their story. I looked at her feet and identified shoes the best shoes and a part of quality insoles that would help with shock absorption and arch support.

The smile on her face as she walked around the store without pain was priceless. That day, I worked to love by giving her all the tools she needed to save her life.

How about you? How do you work to love?

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1. 4 Ways To Work to Love
2. How Do You Work to Love?
3. What’s Your Dream For Work?

Overview

Given the radical circumstances of my restory, it could be assumed that restorying needs dramatic change. But that’s not the case. Rather, it’s about whatever change needs to happen to move you from chaos to shalom … from anything that is in opposition to the Kingdom of God towards what it looks like under the rule and reign of Christ. A number of things this week reminded me of this reality, and talk about it in the vodcast.

Links

• How Do You Work to Love?
• Which You Are You?
• The Great NonConformist Hoax
• 4 Ways to Work to Love

Your Turn

What simple changes could you make that would have a huge impact on your own restory?

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1. Restorying Divorce
2. Restorying Marriage
3. 4 Ways To Work to Love

On Monday, I laid the foundation that said we need to find a new way to talk about work. On Wednesday, I unpacked what a “work to love” approach aims to carry out. Today, I want to offer four tangible fields where you can work to love. Here’s hoping you offer more ways in the comments.

Provide Daily Bread

When you sit down for dinner tonight, think of all the hands that were involved in providing that meal.

There are the ones who purchased and prepared the food. There is the stocker who put the food out in the grocery store. There is a trucker who moved it from the distribution centers to the stores. The folks who prepared it after it came off the ranch or farm. And of course the rancher who raised it and farmer who grew it.

While there are variations of this chain, most of us depend on other people to eat.

The same thing goes for the roof over our head, the clothes on our backs, and the means we use to get to and from work.

Throughout the day, each of us depends on others to do the basic tasks that make life possible. When those who offer these services do it well, they are working to love.

Guard Property

While food is something we consume quickly, many of our possessions need to serve us for a long time. This includes clothing, transportation, and housing.

If these possessions fail to last us an expected amount of time, it can put us in a place of personal or financial hardship. Therefore, we need people who help us protect our property.

This happens in different ways. Sometimes, its people who focus on maintenance. In other cases, it’s those who protect the property itself. There are also those who insure property, for when the unexpected and undesirable happens.

In each case, when people in these roles do their job well, they are working to love.

Protect and Enhance Life

Popular thoughts on death argue that it’s a natural part of life. That death is followed by celebrating life.

Common Christianity says something else. It argues death as an escape from this life and entry into eternity. Here death is followed by a coronation.

The Bible disagrees with both. It argues that death isn’t natural, rather, it’s the greatest consequence of sin. Death separates body and soul, which means death leaves us less than human. Death is ugly. Death is bad. Death is not part of God’s plan.

But God has plans for death and those who’ve died, it’s called resurrection. A reuniting of body and soul. Eternal life. A new heavens and new earth where death is no more. But that doesn’t come until Christ returns.

In the meantime, we can image this eternity by protecting and enhancing life. We see this most clearly with medical professionals who save lives, fix broken bodies, or help us overcome illness.

We also see it with health professionals who promote physical and emotional wellbeing. We see it anywhere people spend their lives fighting off death and promoting life.

When health professionals and others protect and enhance life, they are working to love.

Promote Truth For Good

We live in a world of deception, innuendo, and spin. Caricatures are built out of sound bites. It’s information and misinformation aimed to persuade, but does so deceptively. It conceals. It’s darkness. It’s opposed to the will of a God who sends light and reveals truth.

But simply speaking facts isn’t enough. In addition to twisting information, the world around us seeks, not to affirm, but to destroy. Most politicians and those who support them put more effort into hurting their opponent than laying out and arguing for an agenda.

We also see this in the world of religion. People know what Christians are against, but rarely do people describe what we’re for. Radical Islam aims to destroy.

Blurring these worlds, Israel and the Palestinians are happy to point fingers at each other, but refuse to look in the mirror.

No matter when or where it happens, when we speak truth but not for good, we all loose.

Then, through the noise, come voices that promote truth for good. They are voices that take time to listen and understand. They share both sides of an issue and highlight why they believe what they believe without demonizing or belittling the other side. They welcome debate. They invite others to make informed decisions.

When the truth comes with clarity and a desire to build one another up, those who communicate it are working to love.

There are four fields, how can you view your job as working to love?

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1. How Do You Work to Love?
2. What’s Your Dream For Work?
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If you talk to most people about work, you can break them into one of two categories. They either “work to live” or they “live to work.” On Monday, I looked at both from a biblical perspective and found them lacking. I went on to argue that since the Christian life is one of love, Christians should “work to love.” But what does that mean?

The Bigger Picture

Work to love begins with having a bigger picture of what God is doing in creation. It begins with understanding the Bible as a story about cosmic restorying. This restorying happens through the person of Jesus, who began his public ministry saying:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 4:17, ESV)

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15, ESV)

Even John who breaks from the typical narrative, identifies Jesus as one who brings about a new way of living:

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:9-13, ESV)

But what does all this mean? What is this kingdom that is at hand? What is this new way of life? Luke answers this question in his approach to the start of Jesus ministry:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19, ESV)

In these verses, Jesus is quoting the beginning of Isaiah 61. For the people standing at the synagogue at the time, their minds reflected, not just to the words he quoted, but the surrounding verses. In his commentary on Isaiah, John H. Oswalt describes the context:

Chapters 61 and 62 speak of the character of the people of God when they experience the deliverance that the arm of the Lord procures for them. The section begins with the Servant/Messiah’s announcement of his role, and concludes with a call for the people to enter into the salvation that God has made available to them and to embrace their role as “the Holy People”. (562)

In other words, Jesus is saying, “Through me, the restoried creation that God promises, has broken into the world you know, and I’m now inviting you to become a part of it.”

Undoing the Effects of Sin

From there, Jesus sets out to show what this new world looks like.

He undermines oppressive social and religious structures.

He heals those afflicted with diseases.

He raises the dead.

He forgives sin and invites people to embrace a new identity.

In other words, he undoes the effects of sin. He takes consequences of humanity’s rebellion against God and, in a moment now with a promise for eternity, does away with them. This culminates with the cross and empty tomb, where he pays for sin and rises as a precursor of our future.

Work to Love Continues the Undoing

When we work to love, we embrace our calling as the Holy People.

We place our energy towards overcoming injustice.

We engage in work that supports life.

We do what we can to bring healing.

We forgive and help people see who they are in Christ.

As much as we are able, we aim to undo the effects of sin in the world around us, and, in the process, point people towards Jesus’ new reality … a reality he’s inviting them into.

What specifically can this look like? I’ll offer 4 examples on Friday.

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