Anyone knows how this one ends?

Luke 10:27: …all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.In Luke, an expert of the Jewish law answers his own question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He actually wanted Jesus to answer him, but Jesus allows him to show his expertise in the law to set up an important lesson. He states that there are two commandments:

1.) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.

2.) Love your neighbor as yourself.

Both come from the Deuteronomic law (the law Moses laid down WAAAAAYYY back). He actually is quoting the scripture in Deuteronomy 6:5 to answer this question. Jesus gives him the recognition he wanted by telling him he was correct but the guy just has to press the issue. In the next verse (29), the “expert” wants to justify himself further,  so he asks, “who’s my neighbor?”

Seriously?

The expert in the law, the guy who’s studied everything that has to do with the Jewish faith, doesn’t know who his neighbor is? This intelligent man can recite from memory the exact statutes and sections of the law on command but doesn’t know how to look at the people around him? He needs Jesus to tell him a story in order for him to understand that anyone and everyone is your neighbor?

I’m not trying to re-teach the lesson Jesus taught (The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37) but rather the underlying issue that faced the “lawyer.” And I think that if he had spent applying what he learned from the law rather than just what it said, he might not have asked such a simple question. It goes back to the first commandment: Love your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Now, I can’t deny he was using his mind. He had the law down cold and could apply it to the question Jesus put back on him. But, I think the complete lack of connection between the law and what it meant showed he used very little else. If I had been in Jesus place (thankfully I wasn’t), I would have said, “go back to step 1 and see if you can figure it out from there.”

I think the lack of using all four of these aspects, when applied to our faith, causes us to make statements, perform actions, and lay judgment that is intended to be from a faithful place but horribly misguided.

A controversial moral subject came on the radio this week and everyone with an ounce of Biblical knowledge had their opinion based on the Bible.

“This is right because Romans blah blah blah…”

“The Bible says this so blah blah blah…”

Both sides could easily rattle off the verse and chapter but couldn’t see the bigger picture: how does this affect your neighbor? They all could draw the battle lines but couldn’t see the people who it affected, on either side. In the end, neither side budged, the DJ’s were exhausted, and more embittered Christians entrenched themselves in their belief. Does this sound like the faith Jesus agreed with in Luke? Does this sound like loving God with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind?

When we use our mind to  justify our position without taking into account the heart of the matter, when we passionately put hours of our strength into something without resting and recuperating our soul, when we neglect the whole in favor of just part, we do not faithfully love God.

It is only when in harmony of these four aspects do we fully experience the faith of Jesus in our lives. When we balance what we feel, do, internalize, and think do we live the life God created us to live.

I beg that the next time a matter of faith comes up that you take the time to consider what the heart, the soul, the body, and the mind are telling you. Don’t simply take the verse from the Bible, don’t simply jump into the debate, don’t simply act, and don’t ignore that voice that tells you otherwise.

Love God with your whole self and show that same love to all that surround you.

OTHER CAMPS I’VE ATTENDED:

While the fun activities are pretty typical (pool, outdoor sports, arts and crafts, etc.) the underlying Christian message would be, “get saved or else.” It usually involved overly charasmatic speakers and high production value that was incessantly repeated throughout the week and ended with emotionally worn down children and teens dedicating and rededicating their lives to Christ.

While I appreciate and even encourage teen dedication to their faith, the camp’s execution of that goal was wholly un-Christ-like. It created guilt and fear driven decisions rather than life-changing, loving relationships with their God. There was a sense that the teens weren’t good enough for the gift God had given them. The staff implicitly suggested that a decision was necessary that week or their eternal destination was in question. Teens would line the pool at the end of camp ready to be baptized and re-baptized, their motivation unclear but their acceptance assured by the praise and excitement that the staff would create.

As a teen, it created a lot of anxiety and confusion in my own faith journey. As a youth leader, it created a hurricane of emotion, leaving a wake of damage that the other youth leaders and I would have to clean up. In the end, it tended to do more harm than good.

HIGHER GROUND:

From the first chapel, I knew this was going to be different. The message was clear and carried throughout the whole week, “God loves you…NO MATTER WHAT!” Between our worship leader (an Aussie who volunteered her time and flew here JUST for the camp, check Vanessa Kersting out here) and Paul David “PD” Kurts’s messages, they created an environment where the Holy Spirit could be present, not pressured. With the theme of “Oasis”, our chapel services centered on how Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit are an oasis from the deserts of our lives. It wasn’t high production or overly emotional, it was honest, loving and (for me especially) REFRESHING! Each chapel ended with a chance to debrief and allow the counselors to take the conversation deeper and more applicable to each age and gender group.

The staff (myself included) sought to weave that same message throughout all of the activities and talks we had with the campers all week long. The girls learned what it meant to be a Christian woman. The guys learned what it meant to be a “real man” (PROKOPTO!).

I can’t say much about it from the girl’s perspective (Elizabeth wouldn’t let me in the tent! ) but the guy’s experienced God’s love in the shaping of metal. On Thursday, after a war-like game of capture the flag (seriously people, these campers were a little scary), the older dorms of boys were led to the forge where Bill Winn worked a red-hot metal into the shape of a sword. As the flames died down and the steel cooled, he told the men about a Greek word in the Bible, PROKOPTO, which means to be shaped, blow by blow. This word was used to describe Jesus as he grew up before his ministry. That word became the focus of how God works in our boys and young men to shape us into the men we were created to be. At the end, we were each given a medallion with the word, PROKOPTO, stamped into it. It became a battle cry for the men for the rest of camp and you may even hear it in the halls of CNX.

And in the end, walls came crashing down, relationships were healed and made, and true beginnings to faith and adult maturity emerged. As PD put it, “we saw miracles happen.” And they weren’t the “we saved all the campers this year” kind of miracles. They weren’t the “did you see how many people we baptized,” kind of miracles. It wasn’t about numbers or statistics. It wasn’t about meeting some cosmic salvation goal. It was about finding the thirsty and leading them to the Oasis. It was about finding the broken and offering them help. It was about honest discussion and genuine conversation. It was about creating authentic relationship between campers, staff, and God. And for that, my attitude for summer camp, specifically Higher Ground, has been forever changed.

PROKOPTO!!!

Well, its been almost a week since we’ve been back and I’m STILL recovering (really, I got used to the hiatus from technology in black hole…I mean Gary, WV and didn’t want to boot up the laptop). But I thought it would be good to reflect on the week and give the rest of ESM and CNX a little peak into what we did. Now, I could have wrote a “play-by-play” or summary, but I thought I’d write some of my favorite quotes and give a little explanation behind them:

NINJA!!!

Our biggest contribution to group time and getting to know the other youth groups was the game Ninja. For those of you who don’t know the game, its like watching a Kung Fu movie with it pausing every 3 seconds (if you want more details, you’ll have to be a volunteer and play with us some time ). Whenever we had some free time, someone would throw do

wn the gauntlet (mainly cry out NINJA!) and we’d immediately assume our positions and start playing. The first night was more like the Kung Fu movie than ever. No one wanted to give up when the rain came down so there we were, soaked to the bone, brandishing the oddest positions, and playing on till it was over (no worries parents, everyone changed out of their wet clothes after the game and stayed healthy). The other groups soon were intrigued and got in on the action. It created a bond that spanned the mission trip and into ICHTHUS where we were able to secure them a camp site right next to ours. So, if you see teens randomly frozen in place with their hands in karate poses, stand back and watch the Ninja fly!

They need our help, why am I going to complain?

Our trip took us to one of the most remote locations in West Virginia (Gary, WV to be specific) to help a dying community pick itself up. Gary used to be one

of the wealthiest towns in West Virginia before the coal industry dried up. Families who used to run this town were now forced to watch their life and livelihood slowly decay.

Our particular job was to scrape paint off of a home that would be a fresh start for a single mother (Tiana) and her four sons. She is six months from finishing her nursing degree, coaches her son’s ba

seball teams (that’s right, plural…TEAMS), and living in a house with ten other people. Our job was really to scrape the paint one day, paint the house the second day, and finish up anything on the last day.

Within an hour, all of us knew that scraping wouldn’t be done within three months let alone three days. The paint was four to five layers thick with an adhesive layer that made it near impossible to scrape. Trying to keep thirteen youth inspired to work within a square foot of outdoor plank for hours soon became a futile effort. Some were redirected to a VBS with some of the local children, others were happy to continue scraping with the distraction of music, working on a roof, and Canaan’s witty riddles, and others had a few hours of reprieve by hauling garbage out of the house (fallen ceilings, insulation, trash, dirt, grime, stuff left by squatters). After the second day, I approached one of the youth who chose to stick it out and scrape until we left and said, “I’m really impressed with your work ethic. You haven’t complained, haven’t taken excessive breaks, and just worked hard,” to which he replied, “they need our help, why am  I going to complain?” It motivated me to stay positive and keep everyone on track through our last day on the job.

Now THIS is what I signed up for!

Have you ever heard a youth say this? Yeah?

How about cleaning up their room? Maybe?

How about cleaning up a room with snake skins, fallen insulation, mud, bullets, plaster, moldy furniture, clothes, and other items of relative disgust? No?

This was what made me smile on the second day when Nick and I discovered another room that needed to be cleaned out. While looking through the house for depressions in the floor (there was a floor that needed to be replaced and we wanted to make sure it wasn’t prevalent throughout the house), we stumbled on this room that looked like something out of a bad earthquake movie. The floor was swollen with the water that had leaked through the roof, the insulation, and the ceiling. Finding another way to divert the redundancy and tediousness of scraping, I quickly assembled four of the youth to start cleaning and rearranging the room so that it could at least be used for temporary storage. As the dust rose and the garbage bags filled, one of the teens said, “now THIS is what I signed up for!” I never thought that anyone could get excited about cleaning up a room…especially a teenager.

Christian music doesn’t suck!

Okay, I’ll admit it. This was my sentiment that I text back to my wife. See, I am particular about the kind of music I listen to; I want great lyrics and great instrumentals. So when I was in college, in Atlanta, I had my fill of great music. I got to hear groups and singers in dive bars before they were playing in front of arenas and amphitheaters. So, I hope you won’t judge me too harshly when I turned away from Christian music. The lyrics became generic love songs that could have replaced God with a girl or boy and the music sounded like something out of Orlando (see, that’s where most of the boy bands got their start…no offense Fred!). This was one of the big sticking points I had with this entire trip. I didn’t want to spend four days listening to diabetic coma inducing sappiness wrapped up in a Christian nougat flavor.

Nick, Stephanie, Canaan, Learyn, and Aaron had other plans for me. After a few hours of listening to bands like Superchick, Anberlin, and Red, my expectations were immediately blown out of the water. Their lyrics were relevant (suicide, hard time with life, don’t let the world tell you who to be) and their beats were infectious. I even got to reconnect emotionally with God as I headbanged (yes, I headbanged, jumped, threw my fist, and swayed) to Skillet and Disciple.

After that first full day, I knew that I was going to have a new playlist on my music player.

Be genuine, be real, be authentic, and most of all be full of Christ. Because if you’re not full of Christ…you’re full of …something else.

I feel like I am part of a group of adventurers in life because of youth ministry. It is one of the last and greatest unknowns because this generation is VASTLY different from any that preceded it. To do anything involving the latest generation is to be exploring alongside them rather than saying, “follow me, I know the way!”

They are naturally inquisitive, bold and confident, hard to earn their trust, and easily hurt when you break that trust. They are quirky and free with their expressions of pain, love, humor, melancholy, and indifference. They pick and choose what to believe yet aren’t swayed by the flashy and popular if it rubs against their experience.

So how is a youth minister, born of a different time and experience, supposed to relate and care for teens so diverse and challenging?

No matter what speaker I listened to, they all said the same thing:

1.) Listen (SHHHH!!! Don’t talk)

2.) Be real (it’s okay not to know the answer)

3.) Care (really care, don’t patronize)

4.) Be filled with Christ (you may be the only way they see Jesus)

This is why I love what I do. Nowhere else can I scrape paint, play Ninja, and listen to great music and call that work. Nowhere else can I ride an exercise bike like a bucking bronco and have those I work for love every minute of it. Nowhere else can I be completely real and honest and not be punished by the cultural norm but rather celebrated and trusted.

I said from the beginning that if I bankrupted the youth budget for this trip that I was okay with it and I still mean it today. This trip meant more to me (and I hope to a few of our youth) than anything else I could have planned throughout the year.

And it wasn’t because of the music…

It wasn’t because of the missions…

It wasn’t because of Ninja…

It was because I felt Christ surrounding us, filling us, and participating with us every step of the way. As we became filled with purpose, direction, faith, and love, we overflowed to those around us on the mission site, the campgrounds, the festival, and on the ride home. It is a lesson I could fail to teach in 100 lessons on Sunday. It is the lesson of Christ’s authentic, real, and overflowing love that can change everything in a matter of minutes, hours, or one week in June in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Psalm 4 (NRSV): Answer me when I call, O God of my right!

You gave me room when I was in distress.

Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.

How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame?

How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies?

But know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself;

The Lord hears when I call to him.

When you are disturbed, do not sin;

ponder it on your beds, and be silent.

offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord.

There are many who say, “O that we might see some good!

Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!”

You have put gladness in my heart more than when their grain and wine abound.

I will both lie down and sleep in peace;

for you alone, O Lord, make me life down in safety.

It didn’t take me long to find a Psalm that exemplified the notion that God can seem different at different moments in our lives. This Psalm is more meant as a bit of drama, a series of short scenes acting out a particularly rough time in the psalmist’s life.

The psalmist is being persecuted, so God becomes very distant when being wrongly accused.

But then, the writer realizes that the faithful have been set aside and that each will receive their reward in time…a critical view of God’s withheld judgment.

And how does the psalmist know who’s faithful? By following the rules that our authoritative God has set out for us.

Because in the end, no one brings as much benevolence and good as God does to the psalmist’s life.

You may think, “Al, you’re stretching a bit,” but this type of waffling back and forth in Psalms is very common. In one Psalm the psalmist is praising God for all the good in their life while in the next they’re wondering where God is. And this is why I chose Psalms as an example, because it deals less with the stories of the Bible and more with the individual emotion of  the believer. When we deal with the emotion and experiences of our relationship with God, we get a clearer picture of what we believe about who God is and what God does.

Two Gods or Four?

There is a common conspiracy (not the FBI, super spy kind of conspiracy – just a plain old second explanation) that God is different between the Old Testament and the New Testament. A wrathful, easily angered, and quick to dispense justice God in the Old Testament and a loving, forgiving, and tempered  God in the New Testament (namely, Jesus).

And no wonder: In the Old Testament, God burns cities to the ground, floods the world, sends armies down on the “chosen people”, and boots his first two kids out of the house for eating one of his prized apples.

While in the New Testament, Jesus performs miracles, sits with the lowest of lows, breaks down all the barriers to God, then gives himself up to save even those who imprisoned and beat him.

So how can we say, “God is unchanging,” when we have this obvious and blatant disparity

between the two divisions in the Bible?

Is the difference in God, or in ourselves?

Now, conventional Christian thought says, “God is unchanging, so it must be our interpretation.” But, is it necessarily our interpretation or that of the authors of the Bible, or both?

Take, for instance, the book of Amos. Its nine chapters and repeats itself, JUST READ IT!:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Amos+1&version=MSG)

For a little back story, the two kingdoms of Israel (it was split into two after King Solomon) at this point enjoyed peace and prosperity because the neighboring countries, Assyria and Damascus, were at war. This left Israel to grow its borders to almost the largest it had been in the days of David.

With this prosperity came greed and lack of adherence to their values. This took the form of wealthy Israelites exploiting the poor subsistent farmers that rented their land to increase their own wealth.

So, Amos comes along during a “bull market” for Israel to tell them they’re doing wrong against the order God set up for them.

While we have Amos’s preaching in text which clearly shows an authoritative God, who is ready to judge and punish Israel for their disobedience, what kind of God did the rest of Israel see?

How about the peasant farmers who were being exploited? What would their response to Amos be?

What about the wealthy and the king’s priest, Amaziah (Amos 7:10-13)? What would their response be to all the doom and gloom Amos was bringing in the midst of one of the most profitable times in Israel’s history?

In the same instance of time, three groups could have completely different views of God and all be right! God did provide prosperity to Israel, God is angry with where Israel is going, God will avenge the wrongs brought about on the down-and-out.

Again, I come back to the question: Did God change? Did the writers of the Bible have one view of God? Did other people of the time have other views of God? Do our interpretations of the Bible affect what God looks like?

And we can ask these questions about any and every piece of scripture we find:

• Moses and the Exodus
• Noah and the Ark
• Jonah and the…REALLY BIG FISH
• Jesus and the Storm
• Saul (Paul) and the Blindness
• John and the Revelation

If we can honestly say that God is unchanging, then we have to look at how the authors of the Bible (and we) interpreted God’s engagement and judgment.

If we believe that God does change, then we need to evaluate how that changing nature is revealed to us today as it changed for the people of Israel back then.

Two Gods? Four Gods? How About ONE!

As Christians, a core belief is that God is one (in three). In most cases, (although some do believe otherwise) God is also unchanging. So, if this God does not change, than our ideas, conceptions, beliefs, and faith have changed based on the circumstances and events that shaped who we are today.

However, those ideas should be viewed through a fraction of who God is rather than multiple versions of the same God. God was the same God who burned Sodom and raised Israel from the ashes, the same God who flooded the Earth for all of humanity’s issues only to deal graciously with the same problems centuries later, the same God who banished his first creations to eventually send his only son to restore creation’s relationship.

This is the same God that is worshiped at Connections and churches around the Triangle, North Carolina, and the world. When we stop looking for God to be easily summed up and revealed in one teaching, one piece of scripture, one moment in our lives and start to look for the many fractions of who God is through the relationships we have and create, the diverse and sometimes troublesome images from others with different views, and the ways the events and moments of our lives interact with our understanding, we start to create bigger visions, ideas, concepts, and faith about who God is.

In August of 2005, a Category 1 hurricane formed over the Bahamas and crossed southern Florida. When it reached the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Katrina strengthened to a Category 3 storm and made landfall over southeast Louisiana on August 29th.

Due mostly to the storm surge, Katrina produced the most damages ($81.2 billion in 2005, $90.9 billion in 2011) and worst loss of life (1,836 confirmed fatalities). To this day, the state of Louisiana still feels the effect of Katrina.

We all have heard about the government’s response, the delays, the anger and frustration about how it was handled. But, what was the faith community’s response in the wake of such devastation?

Most churches sent aide in the form of either bodily help (relief teams) or financial support. Of course, many churches prayed and offered their condolences to the people affected. There were even many churches in the surrounding area that offered shelter to refugees of the storm.

All and all, a very measured and predictable response to a national catastrophe. However, there is one response I’d like to focus on:

Pat Robertson, of the television show, “The 700 Club”, suggested that the storm was God’s punishment in response to America’s abortion policy.

…

Now, this is where I struggle as a minister and a Christian. I struggle because, for me (AND ONLY ME), that statement seems to be out of character with who I believe God is. Based on my experience and understanding of God’s nature, I cannot believe that God had any hand in purposefully creating such a disaster as Katrina. I choose to see God’s hand in the millions of people who descended on Louisiana to help and contribute. I saw God’s hand in the miracle sightings of people who had been left for dead. I saw God in the wake of the storm rather than in the eye.

And that is why Pat Robertson and I will probably never see eye to eye about our beliefs in God but yet both of us claim to worship the same God.

So where did you see God in the Hurricane Katrina crisis?

What role did God play throughout that ordeal?

I Told You It Was a Setup!

So, last week we came up with a list of names and images we use for God or how God interacts with our world. However, the interesting thing is that most of us use those same words to create completely different images and ideas about who God is and how God works. This week, we take a look at America’s Four Gods to refine how what we say about God may sound similar to others but may look vastly different in action and application.

Start here:

http://www.thearda.com/whoisyourgod/thegodtest/

This survey was created by sociologists at Baylor University to examine the diversity of views of God in the United States. While not an extensive survey, it does give a good starting point to how our views of God’s judgment and God’s engagement in the world shape our own moral and philosophical worldview.

So, when Pat Robertson views a God who hands out punishment to those who don’t follow “the rules”, he believes in what the survey labels an Authoritative God. And he’s not alone. Over 28% of the US believe in a God who is strict and highly engaged in the activities that happen on this earth.

However, when I view God as being the moving force for all the aide and help after a tragedy, I’m believing in the Benevolent God: still highly engaged but offering to love and support the world. And I’m not alone either.  Over 22% of the nation believe God wants only good for creation and actively participates in bringing about that good.

Those are only two of the four views that these researchers came up with after thousands of telephone surveys and hundreds of in-depth interviews. The other two views, Critical and Distant God, have a view of less involvement in the activities of earth but still either high (Critical) or low (Distant) on judgment. To get a better sense of the four views, click here for the full explanations.

After you’ve completed the survey, please post your thoughts about what the results were and whether they are consistent with how you view God.

Does the survey mirror your ideas about God?

How do the other three views of God help/hinder your understanding of who God is?

What would look different in your faith/life/experience if you looked at God in one of these other worldviews?

Is there room in your understanding of God for these other views of God?

How do these views of God affect how you look at the Bible? (more on this next week)

Setup Schmetup…Your Point?

My point, thus far, has been that God is MUCH bigger than we can possibly imagine. So big, in fact, that God’s most prized creation (again, a limited view…are we really the most prized creation? What about aliens? God could like aliens more than us) has many diverse and sometimes conflicting views and ideas of who God is and what God does.

Even with limited examples like authoritative, benevolent, critical, and distant, we still can’t narrow God down to just one (although many try). As some of the youth said, “I don’t fall under just one category. God is a bit of all of those.” Yet, when we hit those moments of conflict (i.e. Pat Robertson and yours truly), some will fight tooth and nail to defend their view as the truth.

The truth is that our view of God says more about ourselves and our relationship with God than it does about the actual nature of God. God is authoritative (no matter how much I hate that), benevolent (no matter how much I love that), critical (no matter how much I don’t get it), distant (no matter how much this scares me), and so much more.

If we can approach others and God with the idea that:

a.  we have a view that is personal to us,

b. other’s views are personal to them and their relationship with God, and

c. those views can coexist and still represent God’s interest and ideal then

we become part of a community that worships, serves, and meets with a fuller and more complete notion of who God is and what God does

“What’s your point, Al?”

“What does ‘I am who I am’ even mean?”

“I’m confused.”

If this sounds familiar, great! You’re in good company. Even after studying, creating, and giving this resource, I’m confused…and that’s not a bad thing.

My overall goals for this conversation are:

• Realizing the cues (religious, social, traditional, environmental, etc.) that shape our current view of God
• Creating a personal image of God, with God, that we can believe in

Frankly, we SHOULD be fairly confused because EVERYBODY is going to come at this conversation from different places (cues) and are going to go from this conversation in different directions (personal image).

So, I believe the confusion comes when we look at things like God’s name, “I am who I am” and say, “what’s the point?” So, let’s take this time to stop, and back up.

The Name Game

Instead of moving on to another aspect of God, let’s revisit the idea behind, “what’s in a name?”

My name is Al, or Alfred in the “only used when I’m in trouble with my mom” formality. The images that I conjure for myself are of “Big Al’s Diner”. Who’s Big Al? Where’s this diner? Are the flapjacks any good? I have no idea. But this is an image I see of a rather large man with a grease stained and ripped white t-shirt yelling, “ORDER UP!” from a small window in a wood paneled trailer on the side of a busy road. I don’t know if this is how you envision me but I don’t see myself that way at all.

Take the other image I have of my name, Alfred. Thanks to Tim Burton, for a long time I imagined a gentile and fragile old man dressed in tuxedos serving the mortal needs of Batman from his stately manor or the Batcave. Thankfully, Chris Nolan gave me back a sense of quirkiness and spunk with Michael Caine as Alfred in the latest Batman series. However, neither of these images do justice to who I am.

And at least, if you’re looking for a point, is that a name in itself has NO bearing on who the person is. Let’s face it, our names are given to us before we ever get to express anything about who we are. I don’t think my parents had aspirations of me being a short order cook or a superhero lackey but yet these are lasting images of the name Al(fred).

So, I can imagine that when Moses asked God, “who should I say sent me?” God was saying back, “why does my name matter?” When I hear, “I am who I am,” I hear God saying “you can’t wrap me up in a nice little package…I’m bigger than that.”

And whether I’m projecting this from my own image of God or reading meaning into this story, I can say the same thing, “you can’t wrap my story up in a nice little package like Big Al or Alfred the Butler…my story is bigger than just my name.”

Exercises in the Obvious

“Okay, Al. I get it. God is bigger than God’s name. But, so what?”

God’s name isn’t the only language we use to define who God is.

What other images, descriptions, ideas, thoughts make up who God is for us?

Last Sunday, we came up with 9 descriptors that were common to the group:

• All-knowing
• Father
• Creator
• Big Man Upstairs
• Unknown
• Holy Spirit
• Judge
• Perfect
• Unknowable

While not an exhaustive list, it is something that most people, at least in a Christian context, can either relate to or understand as common language about God.

HINT: THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN ADD SOME COMMENTS ABOUT OTHER DESCRIPTIONS OF GOD OR WHAT YOU THINK OF THE LIST WE ALREADY HAVE

Why are these descriptions important to us?

However, how do these descriptions limit or shrink our view of God?

Could some of these be potentially harmful to how others view God?

How can we expand or change what we already have/know?

STOP!

Again, you can’t just blow by these questions or dismiss them because you’re convinced those descriptions are right. We don’t get to know people by holding on to our first impressions. We don’t create a relationship if our ideas don’t change with time, experience, and conversation. We MUST be willing to listen in order to hear God’s story. That begins with not assuming we have the whole picture. Really challenge yourself in this moment to think about how what you know about God could be bigger, different, or possibly wrong.

In the End?

Still confused? If yes, than GREAT! It means you took the time to really think through these questions and they have challenged you. In that challenge, that frustration, and confusion, God meets you to expand, to care, and to continue the conversation. Don’t shy away from the questions, it is where meaning and understanding start.

Not confused but still need a point? God is bigger than our words and our names. We could spend hours writing down adjectives, stories, ideas, drawing pictures, arguing theology and never even scratch the depth of who God is. If you understand this, then hey! You got it! Will you continue to challenge yourself to expand your list about God? Will you take what you know and examine it again? Take it off the shelf, dust it off, and look at why it matters?

Got it all? AWESOME! Could you call me? I’ve still got a few questions…

God said to Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, ‘I-AM sent me to you.’”

In the story of “Moses and the Burning Bush,” (Exodus 3:1-21) God reveals, FOR THE FIRST TIME, something personal: God’s name. As best translated from Hebrew (The Jews stopped pronouncing the name of God as they felt it was unholy), that name is Yahweh which means “I am who I am”.

Kind of vague huh? But you have to realize the depth of intimacy God was showing with Moses. Although it may seem trivial to us, God didn’t reveal much to anyone before this time. The people of Israel knew God by many names (mostly made up by individual tribes) but this was the first time God gave them a name.

This is the reason for this study. I believe there are signs and events that point to the existence of God everywhere. To truly know God, though, is a task we can (and I may argue we should) take the rest of our lives seeking.

And that is why this story of Moses is so important. God WANTS us to know God. While you can trace a line of God’s desire to be in relationship with creation throughout the Bible and beyond, it all begins with a simple, intimate, and powerful revelation…God’s name.

Take a few minutes to concentrate on that name, Yahweh. Let it sink deep into your thoughts as you invite God to join this conversation. This is not a time to talk about God, it is (and will be) a time to talk with God.

Let it be.

Go Deeper [REVISED]

What’s in a name…

What does your name say about you?

Does it fit your idea of who you are?

Does it fit the ideas others have about you?

For centuries, the tribes of Israel took their ideas and experience to give God an identity. Then, God broke in and revealed a name: “I am who I am”. Mysterious, yet emphatic. Descriptive, yet open.

What are some descriptions (adjectives, ideas, principles, etc.) you have heard about God?

Who has made God real for you? (Parents, Friends, Pastors?)

What is one thing you know about God?

Do your descriptions and thoughts about God fit with God’s name: “I am who I am”?

STOP!

Don’t roll past this question! This is where YOU as creation have the opportunity to engage the creator. Where your ideas, your understanding come next to (or against) what God has revealed is the chance to hear, to glimpse, and to enter into the divine. Don’t let life’s pace rob you of the sacred. Take a few minutes (or longer) to really think about this question.

What it’s All About

Let’s be honest: We need to come at this with as many assumptions on the table as possible because we all know what happens when we assume…or do we?

1.) We are not trying to prove God exists. When all is said and done, there are no human means of proving or disproving the existence of God. Therefore, this journey has to be something personal.

2.) Our ideas of God are filtered through many different traditions. By being at Connections, you’ve already filtered God through Christianity, Protestantism (i.e. not Catholic), and Non-Denominationalism (is that even a word?). As well, you’ve filtered God through your own experiences, your family traditions, and the people who have affected your faith. Therefore, we must be humble when it comes to ideas that don’t match our own. After all, we all only have pieces of a God who can NEVER be fully understood and known.

3.) This is about YOUR relationship with the Holy. God is who God is and God is going to be who God is for you, with you, and through you. Don’t take for granted the relationship you already have with God but seek rather to know more, to see more, to be more.

My hope is that as we move through this conversation, God will reveal the most intimate details of your relationship and grow a faith you can own, believe, and follow.

Let it be.

• the search for purpose
• greater meaning
• essence of existence

I don’t claim to make statements for the youth, or the church, or even the Christian faith. What I can claim is that this story, this search should begin, continue, and end with the God we find in life, scripture, relationship, the quiet and the noise, the highs and the depths. This story MUST have a storyteller and that storyteller should be heard, sought, and engaged constantly.

My hope is that THIS conversation, one between creation and creator, delivered through a yellow legal pad and the warmth of a clear skied day will start, continue, and NEVER end for these youth, this church, and for people everywhere.

Faithfully searching, loving, and being,

Al