I have just completed reading Soul Cravings, by Erwin Raphael McManus, who is the lead pastor of the Mosaic church in Los Angeles. It is the third book I have read by him, and I must say that while the other two had me enraptured, this one took far too long to get going. This is partly because it was intended to forge a lot of connection with postmodern seekers (which begs the question why it was marketed so heavily in Christian bookstores, but we'll save that for another day). Once it did get going, however, there was some fascinating apologetic work. But for our sakes, I wanted to consider the following little element McManus referred to almost in passing.
He noted that when he was taking a seminar in neuroscience, the presenter "explained that when the human brain absorbs information, that information is one part data and six parts emotion."
Whoa!
Now I ask you, how do you think we are most meant to experience God?
I mean, if God designed those brains of ours and He placed so much weight on emotion, maybe emotion does win over intellect, maybe experience does win over study. Come to think of it, Jesus knew the books, all of them, but as far as we know, He didn't make a habit of sitting His disciples down for a lecture or even a Socratic bull session. Rather, He did His work among them and with them, allowed them to see Him in action, then said, "You can do this stuff too. Go on."
There are church fellowships who cancel their "Sunday services" every so often and "go on"--that is, they spend the day together doing Jesus stuff: ministering in the hospitals and neighborhoods and schools. Some carpentry, a banquet line, a yard cleaned up and out, a song sung to a parched soul: dare I say these are the activities of the church as much as camping in our church chairs, facing the front for an hour or two, gorging on another meal of the Word when we have not digested the last one? I now that I dare it, I would be the first as well to daresay that I have been found wanting in leading down this path.
Anyone ready for a change? Anyone ready to cry with the hurt and hungry? That's an emotion, you know.
At TFH, we have never really feared emotion. We have laughed and cried and cried out. We sing boldly and pray deeply. But now I think we've never taken that emotion far enough--geographically speaking. Anyone agree it's time to push open the doors and "go on"?
God Keeps Leading
11 years ago
16 comments:
This has been a desire of mine for a long time, for three reasons:
1) We are called to go and do, but as a group, we rarely put legs to our lessons.
2) Working side-by-side with others builds relationships like no other activity. Lifelong bonds of love and unity grow between those who literally struggle and labor together.
3) Embracing a community vocational call builds group identity and purpose. It takes the focus off of "my" worship and directs it to "our" worship through service to the lost and hurting world. This is the antidote to the "I'm just not being fed here" poison.
I'd say it's time to quit stewing in our own juices. There are times to get our of the river before we turn into prunes. There's an image for you: The Church of the Stewed Prunes.
I read a great book last Summer called Treasure in Clay Jars: Patterns in Missional Faithfulness by Lois Y. Barrett. The book profiles 8 different churches. It describes their particular vocational calling and how it works out in their group. It's not a prescription but an exhortation to go and do likewise. I have been motivated to expand our group's shared ministry, outside our walls. That takes a developmental process and I'm excited to see movement in that direction.
I can't afford it.
Just kidding. I've been involved in the past with taking music out there. It's not always easy, and in many ways I don't enjoy it, but in the end it does what it is supposed to do. Music is mostly emotion too. I guess that's why I like it-- I'm emotional.
As for stewing in our own juices, that can't smell good. Right now I'm thinking about the car ride home after a weekend spent backpacking.
Talk about "administering the gift"! This makes me think about what Tom Doss said at that meeting - that he saw us as standing back to back and reaching out to those around us, rather than administering inwardly in our body. I'm all for it.
You may hear this again soon from me, but "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." (Romans 12:15 NIV) We need to be doing both. We need to be emotional about worship and about those outside the body. And we are told to rejoice and mourn as a group, not as individuals. Let's not be afraid to be emotional worshipers.
I wouldn't mind going out to do some "barn raising"!
When we Worship God I believe we should approach Him with not only our intellect but with all of the emotions that He made into us. I have personally experienced overwhelming laughter and crying at the same time all the while knowing in my mind that the peace and serenity was from God. When God spoke to me, the adrenaline was coursing through me as if I had 10 cups of starbucks. That was amazing. I believe God made us in His image and that includes being with emotions. We should use what he has given us, but use our intellect to govern those emotions.
In "going on" Should we not already be doing that in our daily Christian life as individuals? If you mean "going on" as a group, I would like to know more about how we would do this as a group. My dad used to go with his church group to certain neighborhoods and go door to door in the evening asking Christian based questions. I think they called it EE Evangilism Explosion. I have participated in clean up and repair of the Dakota House and that was fun. Coming together like that can really build up the family.
Something really interesting happened to me a year ago. I bought a scrub top that has stuff on it that says thank you God.....
with different little sayings. Now I had learned in nursing school how to pray with my patients, something I rarely if ever did. As I began wearing this scrub top something very interesting started happening. The patients started talking to me about God, and I began talking to them. I started praying to God while I did my work with amazing results. Then it started happening without the top. Now it is totally a part of my work. I can't tell you how much more fun and rewarding my work has become while I do God's work. I love to go out and do things outside of church on my own, and would love to do things outside with other members. I have heard some great stories recently on other churches "going on" and getting outside their doors. So I'm wondering if we are to go outside our doors what are some things you can imagine doing?
In response to:
Now I ask you, how do you think we are most meant to experience God?
I don't think that the emotion wins over intellect. I think that for most, all we need is 1 part of it to help give equilibrium the our abundance of emotion.
Unfortunatly, I think that most favor one over the other and sometimes fearing the opposite, not realizing that we have both for a reason.
Either one alone is dangerous. Too much intellect leaves us full of head knowledge and no heart...
the other leaves us with unchecked emotion that can leave us at the mercy of how we feel.
I believe God made us with much emotion so that we can truly feel Him, but a dash of intellect to know Him....with both we can experience Him.
Well said Jackie. Peace be with you and yours today and always.
Sorry, I didn't mean to post the last one. I was thinking while I wrote and instead of preview I or blogger decided to post.
Why should we serve together, not just in our "personal" lives? The church is not meant to be a collection of individuals. Though it is made up of individual followers, together we are more than the sum of our parts. Serving others as a group is a good way for us to practice being salt and light as the people of God, not just persons of God. The Christian life is a group reality, by definition.
Seeking to serve together does not imply that we do not serve when we are not together. And serving together doesn't necessarily mean overt, 20th century style evangelism. It could mean easing human suffering in the name of Jesus. Like dlb said, cleaning up Dakota House. Great idea!
One major barrier to doing this together is that our lives are so full of commitments (don't read a negative assessment into this) that we don't have many opportunities to meet together. It's almost impossible to get a group of us together outside of Saturday nights (even that is scanty).
If we plan to "go out" on a Saturday night, I don't see how that activity would be any less valuable than meeting in our usual way. Is the worship of Godward-focused other-helping manual labor any less valid than singing songs and listening to a spoken message together?
We don't have to look far for opportunities.
I also want to comment about the idea of emotions vs. intellect. They are often thought of as separated, even opposed, in the same way as spirit vs. body.
I don't think they are separate. We think of them that way because Western Christianity is permeated with the philosophy of Plato and even hints at gnosticism.
I don't see emotion and intellect as two different modes of experiencing God. Emotions and thought are both generated by brain activity. Thoughts and emotions cannot be ranked, one more important or meaningful than the other. Just like Jackie said (Hi Jackie!), we need both. But I disagree that we need more of one than the other. They are too closely linked.
In fact, there is a lot of evidence (both theological and scientific) that thoughts actually precede emotions, not the other way around (as seems intuitive). Therefore, what we think about God literally creates the way we feel about God. They are so intertwined as to be inseparable, and are expressed differently by individuals because of differences in personality, maturity, and gifting.
If we could rank emotions versus intellect, I think intellect would win out (even though I clearly do not believe that such a comparison is valid). Human beings are the most intellectually developed creatures on the earth. We are also the only creatures made in the image of God.
Higher order brain functions (what we would call rational thought, or intellect) is found in the cerebral cortex of the brain, mainly in the frontal lobe. Humans have more of this cortex and lobe than any other creature. We are uniquely able to experience rational thought.
We also have an area called the prefrontal cortex which is the most incredible difference in biology between the human brain and all others. It provides "executive functions." That is, self-control, planning ahead, predicting consequences, knowing and choosing right from wrong, and paying attention. We are uniquely able to both choose and behave morally because of the most intellectual part of our brains.
The midbrain, on the other hand, is an area that all mammals have (called the "mammalian" brain and the limbic system). Even rats have this part. Granted, we have no first-person reports on the emotional life of rats, only Stuart Little's. He was a mouse. But I digress.
When human brains are very emotional (very active in the limbic system) people literally become less intelligent. This has been measured with IQ tests. We get mad and say "stupid" things because we are literally dumber than usual. Other emotions can make us dumb too. I don't have to elaborate on that.
I'm not making this stuff up.
So while I would not ever argue that emotions are less significant to being human and being in relationship with God, I would say that it is very clear that our rational mind (intellect) is one part of our humanness that reflects being made in the image of God, unique from other creatures of the earth. If we could rank emotion and intellect, intellect would probably win.
If one argues that this rational and intellectual part of the brain somehow prevents us from fully experiencing God, we are back to the question of gnosticism.
Again, I do not believe this either/or is a valid construct for understanding our relationship with God. We simply can't say that one is not more important or valid than the other.
note: The articles I linked to are good, much more readable than most stuff out there and still accurate. I do not claim to know anything about the other articles on those sites. I did not review any others. And, I did not choose the one about Platonic Christianity because it was also about Anabaptists. That was a coincidence.
Excuse the double negative at the end there. You know what I meant :)
If I had to give one of them up, I think Id have to let my intellect go.
Unfortunately, we don't have much choice about it. They say the mind goes first whether we like it or not.
Dare I be the one to say the reason why some of us (okay, only speaking of myself) do not go out and do "Jesus stuff" is because of fear. I can't even seem to do "Jesus stuff" in my own life sometimes, let alone be part of a group doing it. Or, maybe, in a group (a community where I feel supported), I may be able to serve better? (Just thinking outloud.)
So, if we continue to grow inside the walls of our own church, but don't do anything with it, are we really growing? Hmmm....This gives me something to think about in my own life.
Post a Comment