discipleship

40 Days in the Land of No Coffee

Posted on by Matt Wright

In case you hadn’t heard yet, today is Fat Tuesday…or Paczki Day (pronounced pownch-key), if you are a Michigander like me. It’s one last day of indulgence before the 40-days long season of Lent begins, which is a centuries-old Church tradition centered on reflection, confession, and repentance leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday.

I grew up in the Lutheran church, so Lent has always been part of the fabric of my life. Even as I have wandered away from intentionally observing it in my adulthood, it lingers like a distant relative in the back of my mind. Many people decided to give up something during these 40 days (really 46, since Sundays don’t count because #churchmath), and usually it’s something they count as a “guilty pleasure”: chocolate, candy, Netflix…that sort of thing. The 40 days is in honor of the biblical story of Jesus being tested for 40 days in the wilderness right before he started his 3-year ministry around Israel nearly 2,000 years ago. The basic premise is that you decide to “give up” something that would be tempting for you to do, and so you “suffer” like Jesus did. (Because clearly going without chocolate or Black Mirror for 6 weeks is exactly like a hardcore desert-fast/duel with the Devil. Humans are weird.)

In case you didn’t notice, the whole “give something up for Lent” thing never really sat well with me; it always rang a little hollow when I compared it to what Jesus actually experienced. I mean I get it, but at the same time I don’t. Yes, self-denial is a crucial part of what it means to follow Jesus, but not simply for self-denial’s sake. In my understanding, whenever Jesus asks us to give something up in life it is always because he wants to lead us into a newer and better way of being alive.

It’s not just a removal, it’s a replacement. An upgrade. It’s finding more with less.

A few years ago, I came across the idea that instead of simply removing something you enjoy from your life, you could replace something that is part of your daily routine with time intentionally connecting with God. So if you are a Netflix junkie like me, during that time you’d be binging on Parks & Rec for the 7th time, instead you could:

  • read the Bible (especially sections from the life of Jesus, found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament)
  • talk to God and then make space to listen for what God might put in your head and heart, or
  • simply create a quiet and peaceful space to go and be still.

Now that feels like a practice with value. And it’s one that been on my mind more often as we’ve been getting closer and closer to Lent this year, so I was thinking, “What is it that I do just about every day that isn’t necessary, but it takes some time and is something I really enjoy?”

Almost immediately I felt the word “COFFEE” resonate somewhere deep in my soul. And I shuddered, because I knew I had been boomtowned yet again.

My first reaction was, “but I don’t wanna”…and 99% of the time, whenever I ask myself a question like that and feel like I get a random answer that I don’t like, it’s something God wants me to do. And there is no way that came from me. So now I have a choice: am I going to ignore it and keep doing whatever I want, or am I going to trust that God is leading me somewhere I need to go and follow along wherever that is?

I have a real love/hate relationship with that choice. I love it because I’m always glad when I say “yes”, but I hate it because it always costs me something.

So this year, I’m going to say “yes” to the Lenten Challenge, and I want to invite you along with me if you feel so moved. Here’s what I felt like God was leading me to do, and I’m putting it out there to you so that you can hold my feet to the fire and keep me accountable:

  1. No coffee until Easter Sunday (April 21). That hurt just typing it.
  2. Every time I would normally grab a coffee at work or I feel the urge to make one at home, I am going to spend my coffee-time intentionally connecting with God by reading the Bible, talking with God and listening, or just being still and reflecting. I’ve got a plan in place to make it through the whole Bible in 40 days, and as much as I drink coffee it might not even take that long!
  3. I am going to write about the experience right here in Boomtown every day (except Sundays), using these great one-word prompts to guide my quiet times with God (h/t April Fiet).

That’s the plan! Of course, you are invited to join with me however you see fit. If you’ve never tried anything like this, there is no time like the present! Let me know what your plan looks like in the comments, and we’ll hold each other accountable. Let’s do this together and see where God leads us…I can promise you won’t regret it!

The Song Remains the Same

Posted on by Matt Wright

painting

A couple weeks ago, my wife (Erin) and I just finished remodeling the sun-porch that is connected to our garage.  When we bought our house, the entire room was painted in the same, dull barn-red color as the outside of the garage, and the wall of screen-windows was boarded over with giant sheets of plywood. (I assume the plywood was hung to keep out the Michigan winter cold…but I am still struggling to come up with a good explanation for the choice of color.  Maybe it was all they had to work with?  Who knows.)

We planned a little celebration BBQ cookout to thank some of the people who had supported us financially during my 10-month ministry internship at Kensington Church, and so this was the motivating force for us to finally get this project done.  We stripped down the plywood, replaced the damaged old screens, and picked out a nice, bright, neutral off-white color to lighten up the dark, dreary barnhouse effect created by the old red.  After changing into some “good” (read: grubby) painting clothes, we cranked up the radio and set to work “transforming the space,” as they might say on one of those house-flipping shows on HGTV.  Not that I ever watch that channel… (Busted.)

Painting a wall is great way to end up spending some solid time in reflective thought. And about halfway into the first coat of new paint, I got boomtowned pretty good.  A big focus on staff here at Kensington recently has been on discipleship, which is a really fancy church word for the growing process in our relationship with Jesus and how much he is changing us into a replica of himself.

Discipleship with Jesus hinges on 2 really important questions:  What is God saying to me, and what am I going to do about it?  There is a cool little tool/discipleship philosophy called “3DM” that we’ve been using in groups to guide our conversations about this and help us learn to be more intentional makers of disciples like Jesus tells us at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.  There are lots of great visuals that 3DM uses to help us navigate the intimidating waters of disciple-ing ourselves and others in the way of Christ, but it occurred to me that even though the visuals themselves are new, the principles and ideas that they serve to illustrate are timeless truths as old as creation itself.  And really, when it comes down to it, no matter how flashy and current the packaging is on discipleship, the process itself is the same as it ever was.

As I painted that sun-porch wall with my wife one sunny summer afternoon, these thoughts invaded my brainspace.  My mind began making a connection between the tried-and-true Principles of Painting and the timeless truths of Divine Discipleship.  You see, people have been painting for thousands of years…and disciples of Jesus have been made for thousands of years.  (About 2,000 years and counting.)  And even though the tools used for painting have changed and grown and developed over that time, the essence of how you go about actually DOING it hasn’t really changed at all.  I don’t care if you’re using a brush, a power sprayer, or your FINGERS for cryin’ out loud, you are still going to end up changing into some grubby work clothes to get started and getting on your hands and knees to make sure every crack and corner has been properly plastered with a plentiful portion of paint.  (If you’re reading this out loud for some reason, feel free to wipe the spit off of your screen now.)

The tools and the colors and even the walls might change, but as the great philosophers Led Zeppelin so wonderfully sang, “the song remains the same.”  So it goes in discipleship with Jesus.  No matter what book or small group guide or weekend seminar you use to help you grow to be more like Christ, how well you do at it is still going to boil down to the same things it always has:

Am I spending consistent time reading the words of God and the actions of Jesus in the Bible?

Am I carving out regular time in my day to pray?  And not only spill my guts to my God, but also take the time to listen to what He might say back to me?

Am I following The Greatest Commandment to love God passionately and love others personally?  Where am I intentionally serving the needs of others?

Do I worship God, and thank Him for who He is and what He has done for me?  I don’t just mean sing along to some Chris Tomlin songs with the worship band during Sunday service…I mean, REALLY worship God in a way that means something to me?  (But don’t get me wrong…singing Chris Tomlin songs is DEFINITELY a top-notch way to worship when the words we sing are meaningful.)

These are the questions I need to ask myself over and over again if I want to live like Jesus, the way I’ve claimed to want to.  The packaging we put on these things might change, but in the end the process is the same as it ever was.

We got done painting our sun-porch, and we stepped back to see what we had done.  And we saw that it was good.  I realized that what makes that room beautiful to me is what makes truth a beautiful thing: a new way of looking at it can make all the difference.  And I am thankful for this 3DM process for putting a fresh coat of paint on my relationship with Jesus and helping me see how I can go about the tried-and-true process of discipleship in brand new way.