On Sunday, we relived the the last half of Nehemiah, Chapter 2 and all of Nehemiah Chapter 3. We looked on as Nehemiah quietly checked out the devastation of the Jerusalem Wall, and then went to the leaders of the area to inspire them to start rebuilding.  Then we saw how the job was divided up into sections of the wall and gates.  Whole families and groups saw the overall vision of the rebuilding job, and then took their part seriously enough to get to work.  We even saw that the High Priest was hauling rocks and slinging mortar.  The vision of Nehemiah became a rallying point that everyone embraced and dived into with passion.

A few thoughts come to mind.  A couple are phrases about vision that have been rolling around in my head since my former life as a bush league church and business consultant:

Without vision the people perish. - the Bible

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. - Some Wise Dude

It seems true that if there is no clear vision or specific picture of what God is calling us to, we humans just kind of get mired down in the drama of existing.  We have nothing to pull us forward and together so we get stagnant and aimless.  I don’t think that God has EVER called us to stagnation and aimlessness!

So, we too, here in Ashland, Ohio, need a vision for all of us and a vision for each of us. A vision for the whole wall and a vision for our individual gates.

Some of us have been reading Andy Stanley’s book, Visioneering and in it he says that a real vision will require the communication of four important things : The Problem, The Solution, Why Something Must Be Done, and Why Something Must Be Done Now.

Here are my thoughts on how this plays out in the here and now:

The Problem:
We have convinced ourselves that the way it is is the way it’s gonna be. And we wait for others to lead. People say that “it is what it is” but the problem is that we should all be saying…”it is not as it should be.”

• People around us in this community are dying a slow, numbing death because they aren’t aware of the freedom and hope that Jesus and His people bring. Even we here have allowed this lack of passion for Christ and this indifference toward our purpose to put us to sleep. We are settling for much less than god wants to share with us, and we are not fulfilling our role to show this life to other people.
• We are okay with just kind of looking out for ourselves and our own sense of satisfaction when we don’t realize that the most satisfying thing we will ever do is take part in looking out for other people and taking care of them.

The Solution
God is calling us to take responsibility for the spiritual, social and cultural well-being of our community. He has equipped us with everything we need to do the job except for the desire and confidence to do it.

• We can bring words and acts of love that heal people’s spirits and set them free.
• We can put our hands to work in becoming an answer to our own prayers and to those who are needy and hopeless. We can feed the hungry, visit the lonely, bring care and prayer to the sick, help the unemployed find jobs, and bring light to the depressed.
• We can use our creativity and imagination and sensitivity to create art, music, food, entertainment and business to our community that bears the mark of life and that restores joy and beauty and interest to our surroundings. We can not only bring the life of Christ to people but also our culture.
• We can lend leadership and support to this effort. Our community sits and looks to others to lead into new expressions of hope and thriving…We are the people this community has been waiting for!

Why Something Must be Done?
People in our neighborhood are becoming too familiar with indifference and resignation to a bland existence without the adrenaline rush of hope and energy and passion and purpose that comes from knowing Christ and living out His dreams for our lives. This indifference is not how it has to be and is actually a huge weapon of the Enemy to take away our identity and to disarm us. He is sucking life away and we can’t stand for it. People are choosing spiritual sleep instead of life. We have to make a choice ourselves to snap out of it and then begin to breath the life of Christ into everything around us.

Why Something Must be Done Now
Our neighborhood has never been more ripe and the time has never been more perfect for the Children of God to be revealed in this city than right now. All of the things that we have depended on for life are wearing thing and giving out:

• National security, economy, weather, politics, environment, poverty, health, depression are all concerns that have us feeling worried and hopeless.
• People are looking for real and lasting meaning and purpose, and we have the message and ideas that they are looking for. People inside and outside out faith need a breath of fresh air that comes from people who know Christ and are motivated by the power that comes from His hope and freedom.
• We need people to find their roles in this, their section of the wall or gate. It takes everyone and it takes each of us working together.

We need people to step forward and stop waiting for leaders of the church or of the government to get things started. It’s time for ownership and leadership to do things like:

• Organize community gatherings, build new relationships, bring ideas alive that revitalize our neighborhood and the people in it,
• Find the cracks in that wall and do something about it.
• Make all of life wrapped around this!

So, here are some questions for each of us:

• Where do you fit in?
• Where do you see yourself fitting into this overall picture of renewing our neighborhood and community?
• What will it take for you to step out sleepy existence into passionate purpose?

Stay tuned…this Sunday we’ll talk about the importance of spiritual development and we pursue our vision.  We’ll emphasize the importance of having each other’s backs and keeping each other sharp spiritually.

On Sunday we gathered around the idea of “positive presence” which is a short way of saying “making and being in relationships with people who are not part of the church.” We continued to use the story of Nehemiah (Ch 2:1-10) to show how a person who is trusted, close, and respectful to those who are in places of influence can actually work with that influence to make things more like God wants them.

Positive presence and relationships go a couple different ways. First, they are individual. It should be a totally natural thing for each of us to connect with people who don’t believe or even act the same as we do. I mentioned on Sunday that people who don’t live or believe the way we do will never care about our beliefs or lifestyle unless they know that we care for them and like them as friends. We need to be a positive presence within their lives and hearts if we are to have any chance at loving them as completely as we should.

Relationships are also cultural. I mentioned on Sunday that we cannot change something that we’re not involved with.  People outside of Christianity don’t seek guidance or direction from Christians or from the Bible. They are influenced, for the most part, by things like the media, entertainment, education, arts, government, science, etc.  If Christians are to have a chance at changing the world for good, we have to influence culture. To do that, we have to be part of the things that drive the culture.  We need to be a positive presence within the world culture.  We need to be positively present in news rooms, locker rooms, studios, court rooms, executive suites, classrooms and laboratories.

I want to punctuate this week’s conversation and look to next week’s discussion with words that have had a big impact on me. A few weeks back we shared a 2nd Century description of early Christians who were making their presence know in Greece, Rome and Jerusalem in very positive ways. These writings not only express the positive reputation of early Christians, but they also sketch a vision of the Church as it is still meant to be today. These words are from The Epistle to Diognetus:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

To see our video on this topic, click here:  Our Wall

Sunday we gave the back-story of The Wall that plays such a big role in the story of Nehemiah. We barely touched on Nehemiah, the man. He’ll show up in the conversation next week…

(One thing to get out of the way right off the top: this whole study will make SO much more sense if you actually read the book of Nehemiah. If you haven’t already done so and you want to get caught up, please go here and read chapter one.  I talked to some people who sort of didn’t pick up on everything we were trying to communicate yesterday and I found out they hadn’t read the chapter in advance. I think if you read it, some lights will come on.)

For God’s people in Nehemiah’s time (400’s BC), the wall of Jerusalem was more of a “who” than a “what.”  The Wall surrounded the entire city and it created a sense of identity, community and security for God’s people. Don’t get me wrong…it wasn’t like the wall was an idol or that it took the place of God. It was more a symbol of God’s promises and love for the people. It really defined God’s people and their culture.

The people of that day didn’t view walls as we do today. In this day of individuality and personal liberty, we see walls as negative symbols of division or as barriers. This wasn’t the case for Nehemiah’s people. The wall was them. When Nehemiah heard from a distant city that Jerusalem was attacked by the enemy of God’s people and that the wall was destroyed, he mourned and wept, much as we did when we watched the World Trade Center’s towers come down at the hands of terrorists. A part of us died, and so it was with Nehemiah’s people. It shook them to the roots and left them exiled, devastated, or enslaved.  Nehemiah could have just shot a few sincere prayers in the direction of Jerusalem for healing, or he could have said “Our strength is in God, not the wall. Good riddance!” But after a time of contemplation and mourning over all that the wall meant, he was moved by compassion to lead a rebuilding project that would restore the identity of God’s people. And God honored Nehemiah’s plan!

To bring this historical story to life here in this place and time, we need to understand what parts of our culture have the same significance for us that the wall had for Nehemiah’s people.  In the Ashland area, what represents our sense of identity and security and life? What makes us feel connected to God? What reminds us that He is with us and that we are part of His ever-growing, ever-greening Kingdom? Those things make up our wall. The enemy, Satan,  has destroyed so much of this Wall that represents life and growth in our area.  Many of our churches are declining and stagnant. Thousands of jobs have evaporated. Shops and stores have closed down. Young people are moving out of the city. Morals and decency have decayed. We have a pessimistic outlook when it comes to our future and even we Christians seem to have a shriveled, skeptical view of our role here.

If we believe that our mission on earth is to be part of God’s Kingdom and to join Him in making “all things new again” we should be mourning and devastated about the souls and spirits of our people that seem to be dying or losing hope. God invites us into a season of loss. To think of the life that was meant for this city in comparison to the reality we tend to settle for. He wants us to remember His original dreams for His creation and to be aware that the enemy has invaded and has devastated and has lulled us into apathy and has dragged us into captivity.

We need to awaken to the news that our wall has fallen. Weep. Pray. Fast. That moment of somber reflection will make room for compassion and a groaning for God’s dreams to be restored in our city. And I pray that it will move us to lead that restoration.

To see our video on this topic, click here:  Our Wall

It was a freaky weekend… first, on Friday, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, was selected by John McCain to be his running mate (which shocked the world), then hurricane Gustav taunted the Gulf coast with possible devastation, then the rumor that Palin’s four-month-old baby was actually her daughter’s was leaked, then the Republican National Convention’s hoopla was delayed due to the hurricane, then came the revelation that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is engaged and pregnant. Political and meteorologic news swirled together and even interacted all weekend.

Fortunately, Gustav was not as devastating as it was feared to be (unless you were one of the people in the more rural parts of Louisiana who lost everything), and now this swirling hurricane of news and petty revelations about Gov. Palin can continue to taunt the McCain campaign with a lot of wind, but with little damage. It’s probable, as was the case with Gustav, that the gossipy tidbits may only unify and strengthen those on the receiving end of the political storm surges.

The 2008 campaign has been numbing and zombifying up until Friday.  The same old cliche rhetoric has been chanted. Predictable strategies and words have been engaged.  Both candidates try to look radical and moderate at the same time (fooling nor impressing anyone).  Obama made a torturously mundane VP pick in Joe Biden. I was nearly lulled into an apathetic doldrum until this Friday…

Now, I am just so…amused - I think that’s the best way to put it - I’m pleasantly amused by the whole scenario, blowing out of no where, as McCain announced an unknown engima, Sarah Palin, as the potential second-most-powerful-person-in-the-world.  This was like a hurricane that only a very few wonks had on their radar. It blew in stealthfully, with swirling winds of fresh air, knocking over some established political structures and uprooting some assumed entitlements.

I’m totally shocked that McCain chose her, and I’m enjoying that shock! I’m amused at the idea that the Obama people are circling the issue carefully, going “Dang, how are we going to approach this woman?” I’m amused that her husband is registered as an independent. I’m amused that the whole story seems like a Disney movie: housewife, turned PTA President, turned mayor, turned governor, turned VP!  I’m amused that the stodgy Grand Old Party has this irony to deal with: a conservative reformer with a stiff backbone and a pretty face! I’m amused at the feminist reaction that uncovers their obvious hypocritical belief that the only real woman is a liberal one.  This current campaign seemed so laborious and joyless and run-of-the-mill.  Now, like Hurricane Gustav, there’s something demanding our attention. Something to track. Some element of suspense and prayer for hope. I’m really enjoying it.

These thoughts might not surface blaring biblical analogy or God-inspired epiphany, but as one Grand Rapids metro-prophet says, “Everything’s Spiritual.” I’m observing a lot of spiritual winds swirling and churning up exhilaratingly choppy waters.