Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God after Christendom

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You Should Read Jason’s Stuff

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I’ll get to the point: my friend Jason Coker writes great, helpful stuff on his blog. Lately I’ve especially appreciated The Tale of Two Gardeners (An Easter Parable), his reading blog on Untamed, and his reading blog on Knowing Christ Today.

He’s also doing great work in planting a missional community near San Diego, among other things. He is also going to seminary nearly full-time, he and his wife both work, and they have two children at home. As a creative way to make ends meet, Jason announced a membership drive for his blog that will help them continue to support their missional projects.

It’s kind of like public radio: you become a “member” by donating $25 per year, and you get some cool stuff, too. I think Jason is doing some great work, and I benefit greatly from his writing, so I became a member. You can, too!

The answer is… NO!

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From the preaching of Seth Godin:

If you've got talent, people want more of you. They ask you for this
or that or the other thing. They ask nicely. They will benefit from the
insight you can give them.

The choice: You can dissipate your
gift by making the people with the loudest requests temporarily happy,
or you can change the world by saying 'no' often.

You can say
no with respect, you can say no promptly and you can say no with a lead
to someone who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can't
bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the
work.

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

This is hard for me. I'm wired up in such a way that I want everyone to be happy. I don't like disappointing people. I want things to go smoothly. I don't enjoy conflict. But unless a well-placed "No" is said often, good work doesn't get done.

Many people have given me this advice over the years, and I've given the same advice to others. It's not a new idea, but I need to be reminded of it often.

Good news for Fort Wayne

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Goodnews What is the good news of Jesus Christ? I am participating in JR Woodward's epic Easter-spanning blog series called Good News For Your City, where bloggers from all over the place are writing articles on their understanding of the gospel, as if their local newspaper had asked them to write 300-500 words describing just what the good news of Jesus Christ is.

I found the exercise to be very clarifying for myself, because my understanding of the gospel fundamentally affects my practice of evangelism. Just what is the good news we are proclaiming? Better be clear on that, at least, I should think!

Go to JR's blog to read my post and feel free to interact in the comments over there.

Against balance

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Wow. John Frye has a post up that rails against the "blandness" of most American evangelicalism. It is simultaneously frustrating and inspiring. Here's a snippet:

“Balance” is the mantra of the bored masses. We must live a “balanced”
life. As if. Balance is just a code word for bland. Bland is beautiful.
Bland doesn’t rock the boat. Bland can sing about “the blood,” but
can’t or won’t shed a drop for another person. Bland likes to baaaaa
like sheep…

The backwoods nobody from Nazareth is a man on fire, a dynamo of love
and truth, a grenade with its pin pulled. The last thing Jesus was, was
balanced. God is Jesus, walking and talking, teaching and healing,
provoking and troubling. They didn’t have Ritalin* to deal with Jesus.
They did, however, have a cross.

The whole post is worth your time.

Practicing “one-to-anotherness”

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It's very fashionable nowadays to talk about "community." As I've noted before, we'd often prefer community as a commodity, something we can choose to "have" when we like and put on the shelf when it's inconvenient.

I came across a blog post today that listed most of the commands and statements regarding "one another" in the New Testament (expanding a list from Gerhard Lohfink). It provides a picture of the church that is overwhelmingly communal. I would urge you to read through the list and see what kind of a community in conjures up in your mind. If this list represents the church priorities of the New Testament, how close are they do the priorities of our churches? How concerned are we with loving one another, caring for one another, bearing one another's burdens, forgiving one another?

The questions at the end are from the original post and are a great place to start in terms of thinking through how these can move from nice ideas to concrete realities. Enjoy the list!

  • “be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50)
  • “you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14)
  • “love one another… Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34)
  • “love for one another” (John 13:35)
  • “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12)
  • “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another” (John 15:17)
  • “outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom 12:10)
  • “live in harmony with one another” (Rom 12:16)
  • “love one another” (Rom 13:8)
  • “no longer pass judgment on one another” (Rom 14:13)
  • “welcome one another” ((Rom 15:7)
  • “admonish one another” (Rom 15:14)
  • “greet one another with a holy kiss” (Rom 16:16)
  • “wait for one another” (1 Cor 11:33)
  • “have the same care for one another” (1 Cor 12:25)
  • “agree with one another” (2 Cor 13:11)
  • “through love become slaves to one another” (Gal 5:13)
  • “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2)
  • “bear with one another lovingly” (Eph 4:2)
  • “be kind and compassionate to one another” (Eph 4:32)
  • “be subject to one another” (Eph 5:21)
  • “bear with one another…forgive one another” (Col 3:13)
  • “abound in love for one another” (1 Thess 3:12)
  • “you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess 4:9)
  • “encourage one another” (1 Thess 4:18)
  • “comfort one another…build one another up” (1 Thess 5:11)
  • “be at peace with one another…do good to one another” (1 Thess 5:13)
  • “do good to one another” (1 Thess 5:15)
  • “exhort one another every day” (Heb 3:13)
  • “provoke one another to love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24)
  • “not neglecting to meet together…but encouraging one another” (Heb 10:25)
  • “confess your sins to one another…pray for one another” (Jas 5:16)
  • “love one another from the heart” (1 Pet 1:22)
  • “have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another” (1 Pet 3:8)
  • “be hospitable to one another without complaining” (1 Pet 4:9)
  • “serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received” (1 Pet 4:10)
  • “meet one another with humility” (1 Pet 5:5)
  • “greet one another with a kiss of love” (1 Pet 5:14)
  • “have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7)
  • “this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11)
  • “we know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another” (1 John 3:14)
  • “we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16)
  • “love one another, just as he has commanded us” (1 John 3:23)
  • “let us love one another, because love is from God” (1 John 4:7)
  • “we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11)
  • “if we love one another, God lives in us” (1 John 4:12)
  • “let us love one another” (2 John 5)

To my mind, these admonitions makes some very specific assumptions
about the depth, intimacy, and centrality of mutuality in the life of
the church. The question for us seems to be, what kind of church life
must we have for these commands to possibly be followed? How do we live
this together? What kind of rearrangment of our lives must be made for
us to even be able to intelligibly hear, let alone respond
appropriately to these biblical admonitions? What does a life truly
shaped by the praxis of togetherness look like in our own context?