“You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.” Legend has it that those words were uttered by Henry Ford in his battle against change.  Actually in many ways Henry Ford championed change.  He didn’t invent the assembly line, but he perfected it’s use.  He didn’t invent the personal automobile, but he made it accessible to the common person.  If people would have actually had garages, you could have said, “Henry Ford was responsible for putting a car in every garage!”

Henry started an automobile movement.

Leaders who follow Jesus need to study movements.  We go through seminary and leadership development seminars and so often the training context is the leadership of institutions, or occasionally teams.  But we need to study the leadership of movements more than we study the leadership of organizations.  Christianity was always meant to be a movement.

Surely we can learn something from the the man who brought the auto to the masses.  What can we learn about movements from Mr. Ford?

1) His primary goal was putting the automobile in the hands of everyone. So he made it…

• a) Inexpensive — anyone could own it.  In fact the reason why he wanted to stick with black was less an aversion to change and more the fact that it was the cheapest color.
• b) Easy to operate — anyone could drive it.  Two speed transmission, very simple controls.
• c) Simple in design — anyone could fix it.  The simplicity in design meant they rarely broke down, but if they did, no computer specialists.  All you needed was wire, a pliers, and a hammer.

2) He brought a number of innovations to the auto industry, innovations that shaped the industry for generations…but the innovations were in service of those three goals. Not innovation for innovation’s sake, but for a purpose. Everything from vanadium steel, to the fly wheel magneto to the left hand steering column to the two speed transmission. Cheap to build, simple to drive, easy to fix.

3) He made the Model T easy to modify. In other words, he made it simple enough that other people could modify according to their context and taste. With a few tools and a little time, the Model T could be transformed into a camper, a portable sawmill, a grain thresher, or a sporty racer. Auto historians credit the Model T with today’s multi-billion dollar aftermarket industry.

So if we want the Church to be a movement, we might consider making it simple enough that anyone can run it, or fix it.  Make it simple for people to get in and drive.  Not simplistic, simplistic dumbs down the mystery and relegates faith to the realm of the archaic.  But simple things can go deep, be woven through with mystery and make room for faith.  We need to innovate towards simplicity, solve complexities, let people drive.

If we want the church to be a movement, we will make wise decisions about what needs to be the same for everyone — maybe it isn’t the color, but we need unity in some core areas.  But we will also allow — not just allow, encourage — contextual modifications.  The church need not, should not look the same in every context.

By the way, Steve Lutz’ great blog post on campus ministry initially got me thinking about Ford’s T.  Click Steve to read it.

A couple of weeks ago in Calvary’s “First Taste” seminar (an intro to Calvary seminar) someone asked me this question, “You keep referring to Calvary as a movement, what do you mean by that?”  Great question. I do often refer to the Calvary movement.  What do I mean by that?  

I mean that the church is not a place, it is a people.  When we give the church an address, we cannot help but slow the movement.  For the vast majority of the people in America, a church has an address.  Most new church start-ups in America find that they grow substantially after they own an address, because a church without a place is suspect.

I mean that the church is not primarily an organization, it is an organism.  Forgive me Robert, but when your Rules of Order became the hallmark of church business meetings we took a step (perhaps a few steps) away from movement.  The church is an organism.  Organization must always submit to the Spirit of Christ.

I mean that the church has a mission.  In fact let me specify, the church has a mission outside of itself. An institution also has a mission, but (stereo)typically the mission of an institution sooner or later finds alignment with the enhancement of the institution.  Long live the institution.  The mission of a movement is bigger than the movement itself.  In fact the movement is willing to sacrifice the movement for the cause.  This is why consumerism can become so dangerous to the church — consumerism can be a healthy context for the mission of an institution.  It is a poisonous context for the mission of a movement.  The church has a mission — in fact the church has a co-mission.

I mean that we highly value unity and the character-qualities that give a foundation to unity.  Please understand that I’m not talking about uniformity.  I believe that movements that require uniformity have a short shelf-life.  They lose steam and rarely reach their full potential.  Unity does not require uniformity, but it does require alignment on cause and alignment in enough other areas to promote relational connections.

Finally I mean that multitudes of people join the cause.  A movement, by definition, involves a multitude.  A movement can start with a small group of people, but before it becomes a movement, there is a multitude.  Jesus started with 12 core followers — but if that number had not gone past 12, we never would have called it a movement.

So when I say that Calvary is a movement (by the way, I only see Calvary as a part of the larger movement of the church, the more correct statement would be “Calvary is part of a movement.”) what I’m saying is that we desire to focus on people more than place.  We desire to focus on the organism more than the organization.  We have a mission (a cause) greater than consumerism.  We put a high value on unity and we unashamedly believe all people should join the movement.

I’ve been thinking lately about generosity, specifically the heart of generosity.  Heart as in passion, motivation, what drives generosity.  Here are a few of the hearts of generosity.

1) Faithfulness: This is heart behind the generosity that we often call stewardship.  The masterpiece portrait of the faithful giver is the tither.  Regularly, consistently, loyally, faithfully, a percentage is given.  Duty is required.  The church with faithful generosity is a healthy church that is able to move forward in ministry.  The key to this heart of generosity is mature Christians.

2) Compassion: This is the heart behind the generosity that gives to countries ravaged by tsunami’s and earthquakes.  It’s the passion that leads a person to sponsor an orphan in Myanmar.  The greater then need, the greater the compassion, the greater the generosity, but when needs are invisible or less heart-grabbing, the generosity fire dies.  The church with compassionate generosity is a merciful church that gives sacrificially when people are hurting.  The key to this heart of generosity is a great need.

3) Vision: This is the heart behind entrepreneurial generosity.  It’s the intrigue of a new thing.  In fact a bit of risk is preferred to new risk.  You often hear the phrase, “People give to vision.”  I don’t think it’s true of everyone, but it is true of some.  When vision is the passion that drives generosity, you find churches that expand the Kingdom in leaps rather than incremental steps.  The greater the vision, the greater the generosity.  The key to this heart of generosity is a good vision-casting leader.

4) Desire for Reward: I hesitate to lift one generosity motivator above another.  Each of these four hearts of generosity are of value.  Probably to some extent each of these motivations should have some bearing on our generosity.  But…  whether the “desire for reward” is a higher level of generosity or not, it is certainly a less prevalent motivator.  In fact in some cases, some church cultures, we would go so far as to say that it is the less mature heart that desires reward in return for generosity.  If we give, in hopes of getting something back, then our giving is less worthy — or at least that’s what we have been taught.

This isn’t Biblical.  God wants us to give, because we desire His reward.  God wants us to be motivated in our generosity by his generosity.  In fact I can show you time and time and time again, that God promises reward for our generosity.  I offer you the possibility that faith in God’s promise to reward us for our generosity is the missing element in churches that long to break-through to astonishing generosity.

Before a company called Enron went bankrupt — morally and financially — two people named Dan and Lynn took out a second mortgage in order to invest all we could in Enron stock.  For a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here — I thought Enron was a sure thing.  A no brainer.  A return on investment that I couldn’t afford to pass up.  So we traded our equity for stock…and we lost our equity.

The Bible says that generosity is a sure thing, an investment that we can’t afford to pass up.  But how many of us are doing everything we can to free up more money for an “investment” in generosity?

So which is your main generosity motivator?  Faithfulness? Compassion? Vision? Desire for Reward?

More on this one later…

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m a father of two daughters. Or maybe it’s because I’m a father of two sons… but I really appreciate what my friend and co-pastor has written on his blog about the difference between a calling and a command. See I’m a huge fan of grace and I’m passionate about the fact that God has a purpose, a calling for each of our lives. But sometimes we miss the full impact of grace because we think that grace only concerns itself with sin-forgiveness, when it also excels at life-transformation. Sometimes we miss our calling because we forget that Jesus equates loving him with following his ways. Anyway read what Stac has written… good stuff.

Click Stac’s Place.

For the last three years — at Calvary — we have done a year-end 1% offering.  We encourage everyone to give 1% of their annual income to help people in need around the world.  This year, to be honest, the people of Calvary blew me away with their response to the generosity of God.  More given than in any other year — by far.  This video is just a small reminder of the opportunities that God has given us to partner with others around the world.  Enjoy!

I have to tell you, I love being a part of the Calvary family. I can’t imagine leading another group…and the steps of generosity that we have taken together over the years, that’s part of the reason I love being here!

I ran across this story in the life of the early church. It’s in the book of Corinthians. Paul is challenging the church. Actually it’s more of a rebuke. Apparently there was a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife…and for some reason the church was embracing this situation. Almost celebrating it.

Paul writes,
How terrible that you should boast about your spirituality and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? When I wrote to you before I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin…but I wasn’t talking about unbelievers, you would have to leave the world to do that. What I meant was that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a Christian yet indulges in sexual sin… or is greedy.

See it’s easy for us to identify sex as a sin issue.  Shun the people who are sexually messed up.  Did you ever notice that we more frequently shun those who are messed up with the sins that are not a struggle for us.  But then Paul has to go and meddle.  Paul says don’t associate with greedy Christians. Don’t have lunch with greedy Christians.

Definition of greed: The word Paul uses is the Greek word pleonexia means an unquenchable desire for more. Sometimes in the Bible it’s translated as covetousness, because it involves a willingness to get more even at the expense of others.

Here’s a definition. Greed is wanting more for myself, even to the detriment of others.

Two boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. She said, ‘If Jesus were sitting here he would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.’ Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, ‘Okay, Ryan, you be Jesus.'” THAT’S GREED.

Are we greedy?

• – In a culture where the average credit card debt is around $9000 (and I can guarantee you that that average holds true within our church.)
• – Where the average giving in church is around 3% of our income.
• – In a world where 1.3 billion people – 20% of humanity live in absolute poverty. They survive on about a $1 a day and are too poor to afford adequate food.
• – In a world where the average Westerner lives better than 99.4% of all human beings who have ever lived.
• – In a world where more than 1 billion people lack access to clean water and preventable water-related diseases kill an estimated 10-20,000 children every day.
• – In a world where Christians compose 33% of the world population, recieve 53% of the worlds annual income and spend about 98% of it on ourselves…

Do you think we might be willing to admit that greed might perhaps, possibly, be a sin that muddies up our hearts?  Listen.  I’m not here to tell you, that you’re greedy. That’s between you and God.  All I know is that Lynn and I have never in any year given less than 10% to charity. Usually it’s closer to 15%. We do not live extravagantly, nor do we live like misers. We enjoy going out to eat, but we also support four orphans. I loved going to Hawaii as a family but also loved going to Myanmar with my family to work in an orphanage. All in all, maybe kind of typical Christians, but more than once, my heart has been pierced by God saying…

Dan you have a problem with greed.

How about you?   Wanna have lunch?

I’m not much of a hugger.  I’ll hug when asked, usually.  If it’s a guy, it won’t be more than a one-arm hug.  Let me just say, “Tim Duncan I feel your pain.”   It’s not that I never hug.  I love hugging my family.  I’ll hug my kids anytime it embarrasses them or encourages them.  I’ll hug my wife anytime she wants me too.  But with all my hug-ishiness, this story grabs me, it’s a good reminder that we are all hugging something for all it’s worth — and what we hug determines the quality and direction of our hearts.

In His book, “The Man in the Mirror” Patrick Morley tells the story of three men and a boy who were going fishing in Alaska. They were headed into a wilderness section of the state that could only be reached by a sea plane, but when they landed something went wrong. One of the floats broke. Before long, the plane was sinking and all four of them had to jump from the plane into the sea.

Two men, a father and his son, began to swim for shore, but two things made this difficult. The first difficulty was the temperature of the water. The second difficulty was the rip-tide. A powerful rip-tide was pulling everything out to sea. The three men were strong enuf to swim against the tide, but in time, they realized the boy didn’t have the strength to make it.

The father of course swam back to help his son; pull him along and bring him to shore. Can you imagine the shape of his heart when it became obvious to the father that his son wasn’t going to make it to shore. Nothing he could do was going to save his son. His son was going to die. The other two men watched with fascination as the father turned to them and waved them into shore. He turned back around and wrapped his arms around his son as the rip-tide carried them both out to sea.

So ask yourself the question — What are you hugging? What do you have your arms wrapped around? When Paul said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He was saying that he had his arms wrapped around Christ no matter what. He was hugging Christ, even if it meant his death. More importantly, when John writes, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son…” He’s saying that God is hugging you.

I think far too many of us find ourselves wrapping our arms around stuff that doesn’t matter. How about you? What are you hugging?

Elizabeth Taylor died this week.  In part her obituary read,

Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty…

Of course it would be difficult to sum up any life in three words.

• – She was an actress, a humanitarian and a loyal friend.
• – Her son remarked that “My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love.”
• – The beginning of obituary recounted her sultry screen persona, stormy personal life and enduring fame.

So which was it — grace, wealth and beauty — actress, humanitarian, and loyal friend — passion, humor and love — or sultry, stormy and famous?  Perhaps all of them, from different perspectives.

It’s hard to sum up a life in three words, but if you could choose any three words that you hope would sum up your life, what would they be?  By the way, I love the story of the three men who were asking each other that very question.  The last man to speak had listened patiently while the other two had extolled the virtues they hoped people would remember about them.  When it was his turn to speak, he said, “Three words, I hope everyone at my funeral says three words. LOOK. HE’S. ALIVE!

Besides those three, what three would you choose?  It’s hard for me to narrow mine down.  I hope my three words aren’t limited to sweater-vests, Krispee Kreme Donuts, or Coffee. I like words like; fun, real, inspiring, passionate, husband, father, pastor, and risk-taker.  But my three top hopes?  I hope people say that I was generous, courageous, and wise.  Why those three?  I choose those three because I believe that they are tangible characteristics of someone who is passionately loved by Christ, and is passionately living for Christ.

Generosity is a tangible expression of God’s passion.  Passion is not merely inspired feelings.  Passion is sacrificial love; the passion of Christ is displayed on the cross.  “For God so loved the world that He gave…”  When we are generous we show others the passion of Christ.

Courage is the the ultimate expression of humility.  When I come to the point where I realize that it’s not all about me, when I love someone or something more than I love myself, I begin to live courageously.

Wisdom — according to James is relational ambition that has found the simple power of doing good.  Wisdom changes the world.  James writes in 3:17-18

¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. ¹⁸ And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

I’ll be honest, I don’t measure up to those three words yet.  I hope God gives me a bit more time to grow into them.  What are your words?

Woke up this morning to a television filled with news about earthquakes and tsunamis.  Homes floating across fields.  Ships floating down roads.  Hundreds dead.  Lots of thoughts go through my mind — The day after Christmas 2004, Cyclone Nargis, Walking through Tokyo International Airport a week ago, Some friends in Hawaii, Some friends headed to Hawaii, and even a RV in State College touting the end of the world.

But here is the thought that sticks with me, “Sin is so pervasively devastating.”

Stop right there — no I do NOT believe that God did this because of the sin of the Japanese people.

But from a theological world-view sin has had a creation-breaking effect on the world.  In Romans 8 Paul writes these words,

¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that^[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

All Creation subjected to frustration, in bondage to decay, groaning in anticipation of a liberation and redemption.  Tsunamis and earthquakes were not part of the original plan, but one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth.  Tsunami-free.  Earthquake-less.

Maybe you read this and you think I’m taking stuff a bit too literal?  That’s okay.  I’ll take my hope any day, it walks me through the sufferings of this present day, looking forward to glory.  Meanwhile, I will strive to live out the axiom of the apostle Paul who said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

Myanmar’s hero missionary was Adoniram Judson.   If you have read all my blogs to this point, you have a bare understanding of our mission in Myanmar.  What you may not realize is that Myanmar was the first country to receive a Protestant American Missionary.  In 1812, Adoniram Judson left the comfortable shores of America and began to pour out his life for the people of Burma.  His story is an amazing tale of sacrifice, tenacity, and total abandon to Christ.  If you have never read his story, you should.  It will stir your heart.

Here is just a snapshot of the sacrifices he made to go on mission for Christ to the nation of Burma:

He lost 5 children and two wives to disease and death. 6 children survived.

Even though he already knew Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, it took him three years of studying 12 hours a day to get the language.

He endured a horrible imprisonment for 17 months where his feet were bound to a large bamboo pole, his hands to another, and at night his feet were lifted higher than his head.  What was Judson doing during these days in prison? Translating the Bible.

He waited 6 years for his first convert and it took him 12 years to get just 18 Burmese believers, but when he died, he left 100 churches, 8000 believers, a Burmese Bible that he translated, and a Burmese-English dictionary which is still the standard used today. Tens of thousands call him a father in the faith today.

What was the secret to Adoniram’s heroic passion?  I believe I can answer that with a story.

Near the end of his life, Judson made a visit to America and spoke at a number of large gatherings. He was asked after one occasion why he had preached a regular sermon when people had gathered from everywhere to hear the wonderful stories of his work on the other side of the world in Burma. He replied, “I wish to tell only the most wonderful, thrilling story that anyone could ever conceive.”

The questioner responded, “But the story you told in your preaching is one they’ve all heard before. What they wanted was something new from you regarding your work on the other side of the globe.” Dr. Judson, then sighed and replied revealing the burden of his heart, “Then I am glad they have it to report, that a man coming from the other side of the world had no greater message to share with them than the wonderful story of Jesus and his great love, love shown in the giving of His life.”

Such wonderfully amazing stories that he could tell of God’s work in Myanmar, but instead the only story he wanted to tell, was the story of Jesus and his great love!