Never in all of human history have we had access to so much information. So many insights.  So many stories.  So many opinions.  So much good stuff (and some, well…) is there for the taking.

Even those of you reading this post right now are ingesting my perspective, my way of looking at the world.  No editor. No filter. No approval channels.  No publisher needed to grant access to our interaction.  My personal revelations directly delivered to your ears (or eyes…whatever).

Powerful possibilities.  Lots of voices.  In my world (of church leadership), the chatter may sound like this:

Real churches own their own buildings.

Your marketing plan is missing a major component.

The best small group formula is ___________.

You don’t care enough about social issues.

You talk too much about social issues.

Church music is trending edgier/louder/longer/less rock-oriented/introspective/shorter/more R&B/Gregorian chant (I’ve actually heard this one, no joke)

The early church was all about community, man (said in my best emerging church hippie-surfer voice)

What’s your church’s Facebook strategy?

All cool pastors have their own blog (this one, of course, is true)

The future of church growth is multi-site.

Are your services online?

Are you investing in Africa? Europe? Southern Asia? The penguin colonies of eastern Antarctica?

You get the picture.  And these voices can be good, even God-ordained. To grant me short-cuts.  Best practices.  Quicken the learning curve.  To challenge my hard-headedness.  Illuminate a blind spot.

In your world the conversation may be different, but the reality is the same:  we have easy and constant access to all the latest trends, concepts, experiments, opinions, and success stories we can put in our arsenal.

So many voices in fact, that we really don’t even need God’s anymore…

At least that’s where I can find myself.  And this little “people-pleasing” virus embedded deep in my soul drives me to respond.  To appear responsible.  Intelligent.  Cutting edge.  Socially conscious.  Technologically aware.  Whatever it is “they” (who are those people anyway?) think I should be.

And then I remember the Israelites.  You know, God’s chosen people who’s stories fill the pages of Scripture?  I’m reminded of a little detour they took – like 40 years of wilderness wandering (and you think you’re bad with directions) – all because they stopped listening. No, not to each other (there was plenty of that).  To the One Voice that had their real instructions:

“For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren’t they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt? And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn’t it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness? And when he swore that they’d never get where they were going, wasn’t he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear? They never got there because they never listened, never believed.” (Hebrews 3:15-19 MSG)

Am I listening?  Am I really listening?  Not just to “the voices,” but to The Voice?

Are you?

My friend Geoff Wybrow hit me with a challenging statement yesterday:

“Offend people with the truth, not your character flaws.”

Some days we offend people with our brokenness, our insecurities, our selfish motivations, with the baseball bat of our own pain that we willingly or unwillingly take to the heads of others like an angry mafia boss (sorry for that visual, I’m a big fan of the movie Goodfellas).

But at times the truth really does hurt.  At times it should hurt.

Most prophets in the Bible weren’t real good at making friends.  Their words were too piercing, their obedience too radical, the Spirit of God too active in their declarations.  Isaiah walked around naked for three years, Hosea married a prostitute, and the prophet Nathan (no relation to my buddy LaGrange) called King David a liar and a murderer.

Bad social skills or insider’s information on some hard truth?

This past Sunday at City Community Church, we were confronted with some hard truth.  Not condemnation – that outward-in, man-made, guilt-ridden obligation that leads to resentment, not long-term transformation (Jesus never worked that way).  But conviction – an inside-out revelation from the Holy Spirit that shows us our brokenness and calls us to repentance. I want to share some of it with you.

Here is the video created by Rachel Richard that interrupted (yes, literally interrupted) the music towards the opening of the service (don’t adjust your volume, there intentionally isn’t any):

And click the link below to hear the powerful spoken word piece (this is a must listen) from our friend Mike Perez that brought the day to a close:

Just Worship: Mike Perez

And if you’ve got more time, linked here is the complete message from my friend and co-pastor Nathan LaGrange:

[blank]: Dismantled: Nathan LaGrange

Love to hear your thoughts.  Have you ever been offended by some hard truth?

Comment at http://www.beyondtherisk.com

I love to see people dream.  To use their imagination.  To create things that don’t yet exist.  To watch someone rise to their passion and purpose is exhilarating, and to play even a small role in releasing that potential is intoxicating.

But what if I’m drawing that stream out of a polluted well?

One of the dangers I personally face as a spiritual leader is creating and communicating via isogesis. Now there’s a fun theological word.  Isogesis refers to starting with a specific belief, and then searching (typically Scripture) for evidence to support my already pre-determined supposition.

This can be a dangerous way to approach God because it starts with me and then makes a vain attempt to bring Him into the equation.

A lot of us dream that way, too.  And as you can see from this passage of Scripture, I can be a dangerous origin.

“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.  And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.” (James 4:1-3 NLT)

I’m messed up. And while the things that naturally reside inside of me are undoubtedly part of my God-design, they’re also polluted with misguided motivation and selfish agendas.  With sin.  My dreams need redemption right along with the rest of me.

Jesus calls us to repentance, to realignment with Him. And not just as a one-time event, but a daily surrender.  Then my imagination begins to emerge from a healthy well.  My dreams naturally become sourced by God and I stop desperately seeking a “blessing” for things that originated with me.

So what about you?  Do you dreams emerge from The Source, or are you “isogeting?” Starting with you and desperately hoping God will come along for the ride?

Tough one for me.  But that’s the problem with dreaming.

“Jesus told them, ‘you’re all going to feel that your world is falling apart and that it’s my fault.’” (Mark 14:27 MSG)

Ever feel that way?  Like the closer you get to God, the more chaos it brings? Not exactly a great church-marketing strategy.  But the reality is our western, capitalistic church mindset wrongly equates God’s peace with ease, and His blessing with comfort, wealth, and the fulfillment of our personal, self-promoting dreams and desires.

The closer Jesus got to fulfilling his ultimate purpose, the less circumstances made sense to those around Him. And we see this reality unfold with uncomfortable clarity through Jesus’ disciples.

These men invested three years following this fascinating, controversial figure.  He added purpose to their normal, everyday lives, set them up with a new life trajectory, with meaning.  And then just as it seemed all their visions and desires were about to be fulfilled, He’s arrested, tried, and crucified. He died.

Chaos. And it almost seemed as if that’s what He wanted, like He willfully allowed it to happen (um, because He did).

Jesus rocks our worldview. He shakes our assumptions and perspectives to the core.  We like power, control, comfort, predictability. Yet we find following Jesus (really following Him, not just making Him part of your culture or weekly schedule or to-do list check-off) requires us to give all that away.  He replaces it with indescribable peace, joy, and purpose, but the cost is everything.  Everything.

And most days I’m just not willing to pay it. Just being honest.

Have I just brought Jesus into the dialog to make my love of self more palatable, justifiable, culturally acceptable, easier to swallow? Or am I really willing to give up control, power, perspectives, my way of seeing the world?

Following Jesus is the most peacefully destabilizing decision you will ever make. He will undoubtedly make you feel like your world is falling apart, and that it’s all His fault.  And although something in you is begging to run away, to keep control, to stay in power, there’s another part of you that longs for the adventure, that wants desperately to surrender to His game plan, that knows stepping into the uncontrollable chaos is actually the way to real life.

My friend Davy has really impressed me over the years. When I first met him, I knew him as a stellar, young guitarist who joined the music team I was leading.  A few months later, I found out he was an absolutely fabulous singer (think Adam Lambert’s range without all the, well…disturbing stuff).

About a year into our friendship, I learned he was into graphic design.  I thought, “awe that’s nice, this kid likes to draw.“  Then a few months later he took up photography (like, from scratch…never done it before).  I was impressed.

But the world was going the way of the internet (not sure if you heard that or not), and he didn’t really know how to do web programming or development.  Until he did.  Taught himself. Did this kid ever stop?

Watching Davy helped me realize something important.  He isn’t pencil sketcher.  A painter.  A computer designer.  He doesn’t just take pictures or write web code.  He is an artist.  And he’s willing to use whatever medium presents itself to bring to life what was is really inside of him.

I want to be the same way.  But how many of us get caught up in the expression of who we are instead of, well, who we actually, really are?

A lot of people have asked me if I miss doing music full-time.  In some ways I definitely do.  Music has been a life-long passion, and the piano a technical pursuit since I was just four years old.  I was just beginning to see my dreams of songwriting and record production come to life when we stepped away to start City Community Church.  Sounds crazy.  But I’ve tried hard to define myself by what’s inside of me, not by the way it comes out.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and my purpose is to bring God’s Kingdom alive in the world. Today that expresses itself, not through music, but in co-leading a brand new community of believers.  Through speaking and teaching.  By writing and blogging.  Through sitting across a table from real people as they process life, what it means to genuinely encounter Jesus, and if they really buy into all that or not.

I’m not a musician or songwriter, a teacher, a writer, a pastor. That’s just what I do.  And hopefully I can effectively use those expressions to accurately bring the redemption of Christ to life in this broken world.  I want to constantly work on who I am, and who God is becoming in me. The outflow always starts from there.

What’s driving your expression? Is there any substance behind what others see?  Are you nurturing what lies under the surface?  What’s at the source?  Are you an “artist” or just a “painter?”  What defines you?

I’m a practical idealist.  A pragmatic dreamer.  It’s a blessing and a plague.  I’m full of passionate dreams, world-changing imagination, big vision – all combined with a sobering (and sometimes paralyzing) inoculation of reality.  Some days it feels like schizophrenia.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday.  I was a 2nd year music major at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, laying in the upper bunk of my dorm room in Herron Hall, staring at the textured ceiling early one morning.  I was chasing my dream, to be in the Nashville music scene, and had the educational trajectory to prove it.  Only problem: my realism gene was kicking in.

So many of my older friends were graduating (with $50k+ in debt mind you) from this prestigious school that had successfully populated so much of the Nashville music industry.  And their highly respected diplomas were leading them to wait tables at the local Chili’s.  Big dreams (and big debt) wrapped in a soaking wet blanket of real life.

Heck, I didn’t need to spend $50k to wait tables.  I could do that for free.  So I left Nashville and my dreams of music biz stardom and got a degree in the absolutely most practical thing I could think of: accounting (yeah…I know).  Reality swallowed and digested my ambition.

So what’s the right answer?  Live as a pragmatic realist, squashing every dose of passion with the hammer of responsibility? My grandfather did that.  Forty years in a Chicago steel mill, consistent schedule, regular paycheck, good pension.  Hard work, but safe.  Consistent.  Responsible.  I often wonder what untapped vision he surrendered to the compelling call of responsible realism. What dreams were buried with him?

What I see in my generation is quite the opposite, but maybe even more disturbing.  Lots of dreams.  Lots of visions (usually of grandeur).  Lots of imagination.  Countless choices.  Zero realism.  And so influence goes unused and imagination stays stored in a little locked cupboard full of immobilized idealism.

The expressions of these two generational perspectives may look completely different, but the symptom is the same: control.

Pragmatists choose predictability over possibility.  Idealists choose imagination over action.  Practicality eliminates the possibility of failure.  But so does just dreaming.  In both cases, we keep control of our lives, our efforts, our destinies. We call the shots.  We make the rules.  We eliminate the risk.

We write our story.

And while we continue to furiously scribble with our ink-less pen, the Creator of the Universe patiently waits for us to simply surrender ourselves to His beautiful, dream-filled, action-packed narrative.

Risky.  Unpredictable.  Costly.  But very real.

“If people can’t see what God is doing they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what He reveals they are most blessed.” -Prov. 29:18

If I’m totally honest (and I try to be most of the time…really, I do), I spend a big chunk of my time pursuing what I naturally see inside this head of mine. I can’t help it.  The vision I have for my future has been shaped by my parents, my socio-economic upbringing, my sub-culture, the friends I grew up with, my experiences, the voices I’ve listened to.  My expectations and assumptions for life are there, under the surface, triggering my impulses and shaping my decisions, even when I’m completely oblivious to their power. That’s not wrong.  It’s human.

But if I continue down that road of complete honesty (because apparently all my other posts are full of deception?), I spend a lot of time doing my own thing. I allow my instincts and culture to shape my life’s direction, and then invite God along for the ride.  I’m really good at it.  I can even spiritually spin it, use grandiose God-terminology, Scripture even, to make myself (and those around me) think I’m after God’s vision and not my own.  (Sometimes I even believe my own stories).

And that makes me tired. I get worn out trying to manufacture energy, create growth, draw attention, maintain what I have.  My life.  My vision.  My game plan.  Mine.

I think there are a lot of tired people in this world. Tired from chasing the American dream, hiding consumerism in words like “responsibility,” living under our culture’s expectations and obligations, religious duty, cloaking self-absorption in God-language and spiritual vernacular.

What would happen if we learned to stop and listen? To absorb?  To allow ourselves to truly be transformed by the values and desires of God’s Kingdom?  To “attend to what He reveals?” What if we learned to align ourselves with what God was already doing?

What if we learned to ask, and then really listened and responded to what God revealed about:

• Our families?
• Our marriages?
• The way we spend our money?
• Where we live?
• Our most important relationships?
• His heart for justice?
• His plan for our city?

Something is already formulating these visions. Getting a glimpse of what God is already doing will not happen naturally.  We have to be proactive in pursuing, uncovering, listening, surrendering…and then we flat out have to find the guts to respond. Most of the big decisions we make in life aren’t complicated, they’re just very costly.  A lot of times, I’m just not willing to pay the price (yeah, I admit it).

What would happen if we all learned to “attend to what He reveals?“  What if we got in line with what He is already doing?  Are you willing to pay the price?  Yeah, I’m not always sure I am either.

“Do good and you’ll be rewarded for it.”
-Proverbs 28:10 (MSG)

I love verses like this. I could camp-out here (if I didn’t hate camping).  Stay for awhile.  Maybe put down some roots.  That’s good stuff.  I like rewards.  Rewards are good.  Right?

There I go assuming again…

As I pondered this verse over the past few days, a sobering question arose.  Rewards are good for me, but who says that rewards always feel good? Am I making some bad assumptions:

Reward = comfort
Reward = notoriety
Reward = riches
Reward = happiness
Reward = my desired outcome

Woohoo!  Bring it on God!  I’m ready for my reward!

But what if God’s greatest reward is my crushing? What if it’s the systematic disassembling of everything I ever thought I wanted?  The loss of my dream so that His dreams can come alive in me?  What if that reward is a closeness to God that can only be obtained by the complete dismantling of everything I am?  What if that reward is the putting to death of all my self-driven motivation? What if it comes full of pain, questions, uncertainty, and gut-wrenching, sleepless nights?

“Well, uh…you can keep that reward God.  Not interested.  I’m happy to leave that one on the table.  Save that one for someone else.  Yeah, in fact I know exactly who you can give that one to.  Want a name?  I’ve got it right here in my iPhone...gimme just a second…”

God’s greatest reward is His presence, His love, His deep and ever-pursuing passion to make right everything in me that I can’t make right on my own.  And all it takes to obtain that reward is…

…all of me.

My reward is His life, but the pathway to get there costs me everything.  Some reward?

Yeah, it is.

I like my house, not gonna lie.  Nearly nine years ago, my wife and I (less two of our three little rug rats) moved into the home we were going to spend the rest of our lives in.  Suburbs, picket fence, 3 kids and a dog.  You know, what everyone wants.  What everyone dreams of.  Until you get a glimpse of God’s dream.

When we decided last fall to begin the process of planting City Community Church in downtown Indianapolis, we had absolutely no desire to leave our home.  After all, we can be in the heart of downtown Indy in minutes.  Why move?  It wasn’t necessary.  We know the west side.  We grew up here.  Our families are here.  Everything that makes life “normal” and “predictable” is in our back pocket,  and we sure had plenty of of other things destabilizing our quaint, little reality.  We didn’t need to move, too.  The LaGranges are crazy enough (love you guys), let them do it.  We’ll hold the fort down from out here.

That’s usually when God starts to mess with you.  Not because He doesn’t want you to be happy, but He definitely knows control is not something you’re qualified to possess.  He’s not satisfied with one act of radical obedience, He wants a lifetime commitment to it.  We love control, and even though we never really have it, we desperately hang onto the appearance of it.  It’s like a security blanket that provides us nothing of real value, but for some reason makes us feel better.

So my wife and I slowly and subtly realized that even though we professed “God, we’ll follow you anywhere,” we had set our feet in concrete and chained ourselves to our current reality like some crazy, Oregonian anti-logging fanatics (if you’re from Oregon my apologies, but you get the picture right?).  We said all the right things, but in our minds there were just too many hurdles to jump to actually make something happen.

So we’re changing that.  We’re letting go.  We’re positioning ourselves to lose control.  Honestly, I have no idea what God is going to ask of us.  Maybe he’ll let us stay right here (honestly, that’s probably the answer we’re hoping for).  All I know is that we have to remove all the barriers that keep Him from owning the decision.  We have to stop treating God as if we control Him (an admission we would never openly make but far too often live out).  We’re untying the knots, releasing the locks, chiseling our feet from the concrete.  And then we’ll just see what happens.

What a way to live.

“I have no interest in what you have – only in you.” (2 Cor. 12:15 MSG)

How do we get our lives to this point?  In a world of social networking where all relationships seem to be leveraged for some personal purpose, how do we build lives, how do we build churches, that are led void of self-gain?  We all need each other (it’s part of God’s design), but even in a place of spiritual leadership I notice how easy it is to become engulfed in what I need others to bring to the organization or movement I’m leading.  Musical talent.  Artistry.  Organizational skills.  Money (hey, let’s be honest).  People can easily become commodities, and if we’re not careful, we begin to lead out of what we need from people, rather than what we can do for people.

Leveraging people’s gifts, talents, and resources for God’s purposes is part of the reality and the beauty of the church.  But if we only build into relationships for what we will get in return, it doesn’t take long for that emptiness to show itself.  The apostle Paul (who penned the opening words of this post) wasn’t driven by what he needed from people.  He didn’t coddle them to keep them happy.  He didn’t use their gifts for his personal gain.  He led out of conviction, passion, and obedience, and the results have shown themselves in generation after generation for the last 2,000 years.

Just food for thought…how do you see people?