All posts in Faith

An Imaginative Faith

by Adam Lehman on August 24, 2011 in Faith with 5 Comments

 

In a world where Christians have spent lots of time and money explaining the reality of God using science, facts & research, it makes sense that Christians today would have an underdeveloped imagination. This is deadly to our faith.

Throughout Scripture, God spoke to people in dreams, visions & crazy circumstances. He used a variety of means to guide His children.

Dreams and visions require a bit of imagination and – it pains me to report – we’re not very good at it.

A newly acquired practice of mine is to use my imagination in order to experience God. Nothing has proven so vital to my faith. Repeat: nothing. Not music, not songs, not preaching, not mission trips, not small groups.

Historically, my prayer time has looked like me with my eyes closed shooting some thoughts up to God either verbally or in my head.

Now, however, I imagine myself somewhere with Jesus. I ask him to show me something. I wait for his guidance. Several times he’s taken me back to a childhood memory to reveal truth I’d missed. Other times I’ve found myself in a car riding with him as we talk.

Its a remarkable experience. The first time I was lead through this sort of imaginative prayer, I had the most profound Jesus-experience of my life, it was physically overwhelming. It was ultra-personal and deeply intimate.

I’m sure to be writing more about my experience with imaginative prayer over time. If you’d like to learn more, I’ve got several resources I could point you to. Leave a comment below and I’ll shoot you an email.

 

 

 

 

Note-Uh-Bulls

by Adam Lehman on May 23, 2011 in Art, Blogs, Books, Faith with No comments

  • Speaking of that talk, subscribe to Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast in iTunes. Pure Gold!
  • 2 nights ago, my graphic artist of a wife listened to a presentation by The Heads of State. In light of that knowledge learned there, we’re going to dramatically change the way she’s engaging her art & her prospective market. If you want her to design an album cover, book cover, wedding invitation, concert poster or illustration for your publication, don’t wait.
  • Have you caught the 102B virus? I have.

A Belief I Have About God

by Adam Lehman on April 26, 2011 in Faith with No comments

God does whatever God wants to do.

I find myself boxing God in every now & again. I must remind myself that I can attempt to describe God, but that doesn’t mean that God must fit into my box.

Sure, I may know certain things about God’s character, but does that mean I must know everything? If I did, could I accurately articulate it?

I wife is very loyal. But just because I wrote the previous sentence doesn’t mean that it is truth. It is my observation. My wife is loyal, but she isn’t only loyal. She’s also been deceptive before. Once she was so loyal that she was required to deceive.

The point is that my wife chooses when to be loyal and when to deceive & honestly, she doesn’t usually even think of herself in those terms. Those were just terms that I used to describe her relationship to me.

Ultimately, she does what she wants and I can either enjoy the beauty of knowing her more deeply each day or I can relegate my interactions with her to my preconceptions of her.

God does what God wants. Enjoy it.

People Love to Believe

by Adam Lehman on March 28, 2011 in Church, Culture, Faith, Ramblings with No comments

In a post-modern world, we’re told that everything is relative. That words only derive their meaning relative to their context and society as a whole is much more fluid than it was years ago. We’re told that today’s world is no longer persuaded by definitive statements and meaningful verbiage is drowned out in a flood of “like,” “ya know,”  & “I feel.”

People of faith have been told that their choke-hold on society is loosening & that soon they’ll be the minority. It’s been presumed that churches have less & less relevance in society.

Yet I can see that people still love to believe. People love to believe so much they’ll will for Butler to continue to win. People love to believe that that new car will make them happy. People love to believe that purchasing those new workout DVD’s will finally make them want to be healthy. And most importantly of all – :) – people love to believe that Steve Jobs is either a saint or satan.

People love to believe, they just HATE to be coerced into it.

They hate making a decision between turning their brain off and being accepted in a faith community. If I am to be accepted at your church, can I still ask questions? Can I ask deep questions ? Can I voice them openly?

I’m not saying I don’t believe in the atonement, I just want to be able to talk about the atonement without assuming it’s meaning or position in our faith. I’m not saying I think hell isn’t real, I just want to be able to talk about the idea that hell might not last forever (or exist at all).

Many years ago, Christians thought it a good idea to hold swords to the necks of “non-believers” and ask them to believe in Jesus. Today, there is a brand of Christian who thinks it a good idea to hold ask “What do you believe?” while waiting for a reason to judge & label as “heretic,” “

Holding Onto Life

by Adam Lehman on February 25, 2011 in Faith with 3 Comments

Maybe there’s a way to hold all of life in one’s palm,

But you mustn’t cling too tightly, for you’ll crush it.

Nor should you grasp flippantly, for life will slip through your fingers.

I Hope Someone Believes in the Gospel

by Adam Lehman on February 10, 2011 in Faith with No comments

After meeting a guy and chatting for a while, he asked me

Do you believe in the Gospel?

After jumping my brain back and forth between what he meant and what I meant, I simply answered “Yes.”

This started a long, long conversation about what the Gospel is and what the Gospel’s implications are for our life. All good stuff.

As the conversation drew on, he explained to me what he thought the Gospel was and then said, “I hope someone believes in the Gospel.”

This fella was in a dry spell in his life. He grew up uber-passionate about Christ and did lots and lots to share Jesus’ message with others. But as he grew into an “adult,” this guy shared that he’d gotten pretty caught up in paying the bills and dominating his career. His target moved from Gospel to financial success and he elaborated on how that’s changed his life.

He articulated that he understood what the Gospel meant, but his life didn’t reflect that. Thus, he disqualified himself as someone who truly believed in the Gospel.

It was a sobering conversation with a pretty excellent fella; one who is honest enough to call out his own shortcomings.

Luckily for him (and you and me), we have a God who doesn’t ignore those who are looking for Him.

The Church’s Only Problem

by Adam Lehman on February 2, 2011 in Church, Faith with 3 Comments

There once lived a counselor who had a lot of clients.

The counselor stayed long, long hours in his office to meet the needs of so many clients. At times, she even made house visits.

Her clients were the sickest types of people. So sick in their mind that if they allowed the sickness to mature, they’d perform horrible, horrible deeds resulting in death. The counselor specialized in this sickness and knew exactly what her clients needed to do to reverse its effects.

During each counseling session, the counselor would reinforce the facts that she cared very much about her clients. She would remind them that she was an expert in their sickness. She would make sure they understood that she could definitely take care of their illness. Her clients loved her for this.

But at the end of each session, the counselor would ask her clients to change something about their lives. This was the only way for them to reverse the effects of the sickness. Sometimes the changes were so small and miniscule that the clients didn’t understand the grave importance of obeying the counselor with small things.

These clients would well up with bitterness towards the small, routine pieces of their lives the counselor was working on. They longed for some bigger, more fantastic advice from the counselor. They were sure they’d obey the counselors words carefully, if only she asked for a bit more.

Other times, the counselor would ask a client to make large, extravagant  changes to their lives: moving, changing jobs, giving away money, speaking a hard truth to a close friend.  Clients often found this guidance to be much too difficult to follow, their sickness made them cling so tightly to temporary things that they ended up losing sight of their health.

These clients grew very bitter of those whom they saw actually making the big changes the counselor suggested. They insisted that the counselor really meant for them to make small, gradual changes despite the fact that the counselor asked them for just the opposite.

So it is with the church.

We are a people who specialize in neglecting the words of the Counselor. We are so quick to point towards God’s love, the sending of Jesus or the miraculous stories of the Bible. We are much less quick to actually listen to & seek to obey the words given to us by the Counselor.

The Church’s only problem is that she neglects the Counselor’s guidance.

Faith When You’re Bored

by Adam Lehman on February 1, 2011 in Faith with 7 Comments
bored


Maybe the hardest part about being a Christ follower isn’t the trials or the joys, but it’s the mundane. The mundane routines of life are the places where faith seems to be least relevant. When we’re in crisis, it’s hard NOT to turn to prayer. When we’re blessed beyond the normal, we get uber-gracious.

But when it’s a Tuesday afternoon and life is pretty average, I think we drop out guard.

Those who are remarkable with their faith pick up their cross during times when it seems like no one is looking. Saints of the past are those who perservere through the mundane.

Jesus was still Jesus even when the spotlight wasn’t on.

So we’ll never be Christ to our world if we’re not Christ in the mundane.

A Family of 1 Generation

by Adam Lehman on January 12, 2011 in Church, Faith with No comments

Your family isn’t just 1 generation. It can’t be.

For Christmas, you go see some ancient aunt who forgets your name or you visit your newest nephew who can’t control when he poops or pees.

Great grandpa, mother, uncle, cousin, daughter, niece & in-law.

Family cover many, many generations.

So how is it that Jesus’ family has become so segmented? How have the teenagers relocated to a room to themselves full of funny jokes, games & lock-ins while the “adults” are sitting placidly in pews listening to the “important stuff?”

We’ve got to break the barriers between “adults” & “teens” & “elderly.” We’re neutering the church family’s greatest strength. We’ve separated each generation from one another and now there is being no shared story, no transfer of wisdom, no encouragement and no unity.

Oranges from the Apple Tree

by Adam Lehman on January 4, 2011 in Church, Faith with 4 Comments

A man owned an orchard and from that orchard he provided for his family. The orchard’s fruit – alongside his business wisdom – made the owner a wealthy man.

But as the world changed – it always does – people grew less and less interested in apples. The demand for apples dropped and this decline was well documented amongst both orchard owners and non-orchard owners alike.

But the demand and draw for oranges grew. People wanted oranges. Lots of oranges. Oranges seemed to quench a craving that apples no longer could.

So the orchard owner was determined to start producing oranges in order to meet the needs of a changing market.

He read books on growing oranges, books on why apples weren’t popular anymore & books on what the greatest orange growers were doing. He started to fertilize his orchard with nutrients specifically crafted to nurture oranges. He taught the orchard’s workers to treat the trees in the way that oranges needed to be treated. He even began to advertise that his orchard was centered around oranges.

The orchard never, ever produced a single orange The owner was too tied to the security & familiarity of the the apple trees; he never uprooted them.

So it is with churches.

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