I had a really enjoyable interview the other day with Eric Bryant of The Origins Project (click here to listen).  If you aren’t already familiar with Origins you’ve got to check them out.  It’s a great group of innovative pastors and leaders who have a deep love for the church and desire to see her thrive in our emerging culture.  I’m really enjoying my developing relationships there, and look forward to contributing whatever I’m able to that community.

Theologian Paul Tillich rightly observed that doubt is not the opposite of faith, it is part of faith.  I wonder if something similar could be said about calling.  Who at times, even when relatively certain that they are pursuing what God has for them, does not doubt that they may have gotten it horribly wrong?  That they must be in the wrong place, spending their lives in the wrong ways?  Or perhaps after a particularly stinging defeat thinking that if they were in fact living in their calling that God certainly would have made them better at doing it?

Think of Moses in Exodus 4.  He has just had a dramatic encounter with God in which his calling has been laid out in front of him.  What he hears from God lines up with the desires God has already placed in his heart, and with his earlier attempts to be The Rescuer.  A calling can’t get any clearer than this. 

Fuller Seminary’s Center for Lifelong Learning is sponsoring a discussion and book signing for Embodying Our Faith and Viral Hope (by my friend JR Woodward).  If you’re in Los Angeles we’d love to have you come out.  Click here for more info.

At various points along our journey, God speaks.  Dallas Willard, in his marvelous book Hearing God, sums up what he sees the Scriptures saying about guidance: “People are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to by him.”  This is the testimony of Scripture and of the church through the ages.  God does not leave us to figure it out on our own.

Check out part 2 of Skye Jethani’s article on the dechurched.  Some great insights on two reasons so many end up in the dechurched camp (or lack thereof).  First, the strong presence of a consumer mindset in the church:

“It’s not that we are failing to preach the gospel, but that we are failing to deconstruct the consumer filter through which people twist and receive it. The result is a hybrid consumer gospel in which God exists to serve me and accomplish my desires in exchange for my obedience . . .”

And second, the effect of structural preservation overshadowing love for and formation of the people:

Living into our calling requires that we take risks.  Big, bold, scary risks.  I think we sometimes carry with us a notion that God’s will is usually clear and usually safe, but typically it is neither. 

Consider the story of Jonathan in 1 Sam 14.  He has seen an opportunity he believes is from God and has decided that he will storm the enemy position despite numerical (2 vs. 20) and strategic disadvantages (they hold the high ground).  My favorite line is when Jonathan says to his armor bearer, “Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf.”  Perhaps!  No guarantee of success.  Quite the opposite – unless God intervenes in a dramatic way they are toast, and he knows it.

This Wednesday at 1pm PST I’m looking forward to doing a teleseminar with Eric Bryant of The Origins Project.  What, you ask, is a teleseminar?  It’s kind of like a cross between a radio interview and a conference call.  People call in and participate while Eric interviews me about the book.  Click here if you’d like to sign up to be part of the call.