My best friend and cousin, Chad, recently asked me if I would baptize him while our family is together this Christmas season.  Being asked to be a part of such an incredible chapter in his journey with Christ has been one of the greatest honors of my life.  Chad and I are going through some spiritual practices together as we both prepare for this sacred moment.  Perhaps my favorite of these has been to begin each day by saying the Apostle’s Creed.  It has become my pledge of allegiance and starting each day by audibly declaring the one in whom I put my trust and belief has been something I hope to continue for the rest of my life.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

This Christmas I’m joining a movement with Christianity called Advent Conspiracy.  Advent Conspiracy is a new way to engage the season of Advent and Christmas itself.  Rather than getting caught up in a consumer-driven mindset for Christmas that is fueled by captialism Christians all over the world are rethinking Christmas and the way we celebrate it.  We are choosing to honor the birth of Jesus by spending less money on gifts (and asking for less in return) and instead of buying motorized tie-racks that will quickly be forgotten we are putting money into clean water projects throughout the world.

Just under 4,000 people die every single day because they do not have access to clean drinking water.  Experts say that it would take 10 billion dollars to solve this crisis and make sure that everyone had access to clean safe drinking water.  And every year Americans spend 450 billion dollars on Christmas.  We feel like there’s something just not right about that.

So I encourage you to spend less on Christmas this year, give more money to clean water projects (like Living Water International), and give more presence to your loved ones this year.  Celebrate the birth of Jesus by saving someone’s life this year.

A student in youth group sent me this video that I thought I’d pass along I thought it was so beautiful.

Tonight as a nation we elected Barack Obama to the highest office in our country.  I am grateful for the opportunity our country has been given at this time.  An opportunity to practice a new kind of politics that is about finding common ground and working towards a more just society rather than the politics of polarization whose goal is simply to win no matter the cost.  I am grateful for the opportunity we have to become good stewards of God’s creation.  I am grateful for the opportunity our country has to cooperate with and work alongside other nations for peace.  I am grateful for the opportunity we may have to ensure that no citizen is denied health care or is denied coverage.  I am grateful for the opportunity we have to turn the page on trickle-down economics that do not honor the “least of these” among us.  I am grateful for much tonight.

But while I am grateful for the unique opportunities I think Barack Obama presents in this time, I am not breathing a sigh of relief, as if somehow President Obama would steer history towards the Kingdom of God, as if the fate of the world lies in the hands of people as unimportant as Presidents and Senators.

No.  I firmly believe that the fate of the world lies in the hands of a poor Jewish carpenter born to a teenage mother in the Middle East.  A carpenter who followed God - not to a position of power and honor - but to his own unjust execution by people who held power and honor.  I believe in a God whose Kingdom is like a mustard seed, a small annoying virus that works from the grassroots until it takes over.  And this is why I am grateful for tonight, but I am not overjoyed, I am not elated, I do not think “THIS is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”  Nor do I despair, like some of my Christian brothers and sisters who opposed Obama.  I do not despair, as if the fate of the world rests on Barack’s shoulders, as if God’s hands are tied by people as unimportant as Presidents.

I, like many of my Christian brothers and sisters, do not agree with President Obama’s stance on abortion.  But I am praying that despite our opinions on the matter that we will be able to work with him towards a more just society where abortions are fewer and fewer.  That is common ground I believe I share with Barack.  We should not demonize him for the next four years, and waste an opportunity to work with him towards a common goal, just so we can elect a “pro-life” candidate in 2012.  By all means vote for a pro-life candidate in 2012.  But right now Barack is the President, so let’s make our voices heard, not waste time tearing down a fellow believer.  Let’s pray that Barack is a good and decent and wise leader, no matter how you feel about his politics.  I’ve been praying for George W. Bush these past eight years, though most of those years I was very opposed to his policies.  I hope you will join me in praying for Barack Obama no matter how you feel about his politics.

In some ways I am sad for Barack.  I think that he geniunely wants the best for this country and for the world.  But I also believe that few positions in this world corrupt a human being like that of the President of the United States.  I think it’s an office that takes good people and chews them up and that few people have what it takes to escape with their integrity (especially as Christians).  I hope that doesn’t happen to Barack… but I’m afraid that it will.  I’ve often thought in the past that the kind of people who want to become President deserve what it does to them, but I don’t feel that way about Barack.  So while I’m praying that God gives him wisdom and integrity I will also pray that the power he has does not corrupt him as it certianly would me.  And I’ll also be praying that when Barack’s agenda and the agenda of Jesus collide (as it does in all our lives) that Jesus would prevail against Barack and against me… for the good of us both.

If you are feeling confident about who to vote for then get out there and vote today!

But, if your conscience is bothering you… if you feel like you can’t give either candidate your “YES,” then feel free to abstain.  There’s nothing in scripture that says it’s your duty to vote.

Derek Webb put it this way, “Voting is a legal right, like carrying a gun or having an abortion. And I can abstain from doing anything that I have a legal right to if it violates my conscience.”  For more check out his essay titled, How Then Shall We Vote?

For years I’ve wanted to travel to Africa.  It probably began towards the end of high school and beginning of college.  That was right around the time that I began to open up to God’s call for me to the ministry.  It was also about the time that my cousin Tiffani graduated from college and promptly moved from Chicago to Nairobi, Kenya to work as a librarian.  Her stories over the years of life in Africa, the adventures she had and the closeness to God she experienced there all deepened my desire to go to Africa.

In college I began to read books like Richard J. Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity and a number of Henri Nouwen’s books that were challenging the culture of busyness and consumption that I was (and remain) immersed in.  For some reason Africa became the place in my mind where a Christian could finally be free of the over-scheduled life of busyness and by necessity would have to live simply rather than by greed and consumerism.  Both then and now I longed for more stillness in my life, for a life of sustainability rather than one full of cool stuff.  Africa was a beacon, it was there I thought, that I would finally learn these lessons and following Jesus in these radical ways would just become easier.

In my later years in college I began to discover Jesus’ heart for the poor, and God’s call for his people to stand for justice in this world.  This compounded the mythical power of Africa in my imagination.  Africa was a place where God would be more present simply because of the poverty and injustice there.  And so I longed to visit Africa so that I might meet God in a new and more powerful way than is possible for a privileged kid with a Masters degree in America.

But when I went to Africa God was the same.

And that made me think.  It made me think that instead of internalizing God’s heart for the poor, I might have used it as justification for feeling distant from God.  And if that was the case then feeling distant from God probably had a lot more to do with me not paying attention and not spending enough time in prayer than it did with my surroundings.  I still wish I could embrace a life with more simplicity, I still long for more silence and prayer in my life and less scheduling and busyness.  But right now I’m thankful that God helped me to deconstruct yet another mythical place where being a Christian is somehow easier and reminded me that it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you’re becoming, whose voice you’re listening to.  Because even in Africa, God still speaks in the still small whisper and even in Africa following Jesus still takes a lot of faith.

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you know, I will be joining a team from our church on a two-week mission trip to Malawi, Africa to provide assistance to poor and needy people in that country. Our goal is to develop a long-term partnership between the Allentown community (where I am a youth pastor) and a village/community in Malawi, where we would focus on comprehensive, sustainable development in an effort to raise the village out of poverty. I’m reaching out to my friends, family and blog readers to see if you would be willing to help support our efforts.

The Need: Malawi is located in the southeast quadrant of Africa, and is a country of breath-taking beauty, and back-breaking poverty. Malawi is considered to be one of the four poorest countries in the world, with unemployment estimated at 60% or more, nearly half the population surviving on less than $1/day, and more than 65% of the population living below the poverty line. The statistics about medical conditions are hard to fathom: the average life expectancy in Malawi is less than 40 years old, more than 13% of the children do not make it to the age of 5, and with HIV/AIDS rampant, there are a staggering number of orphans and child-led households. Throughout Africa, 3,000 people die from malaria every day (one every 30 seconds). These severe medical issues combined with the malnutrition and food insecurity caused by the severe economic conditions make it extremely difficult for Malawians to pull themselves out of poverty on their own.

Our Vision: As I mentioned, our vision is to partner with and adopt a village in Malawi and provide broad-based assistance designed to enable the village to lift itself out of poverty. We will be partnering with the Development Office of the Presbyterian Church in Malawi, and with them have identified a rural village an hour outside of the city of Blantyre, near the town of Zomba, which is currently not receiving outside assistance. Our intentions are to provide a variety of forms of aid, including (1) constructing a simple building as a mission center that will serve a preschool/feeding center for the youngest and most vulnerable orphans in the community and a training center for agricultural and other programs to enhance the food supply for the village; (2) purchasing and distributing mosquito nets to help prevent the spread of malaria, which is especially prevalent in the region; (3) providing funding for fertilizer and seed to enhance next year’s harvest, (4) purchasing needed materials and supplies for orphanages and the preschool; and (5) establishing programs for providing sustainable sources of food, such as the construction of fish ponds and providing livestock that will reproduce.

How You Can Help: I’ve agreed to the crazy idea of joining a couple of other members of the team in spending up to 72 hours on a raft in the middle of the Allentown Lake, as a way to raise awareness of and interest in the plight of those we seek to help. We are asking people to support our efforts by making a pledge to sponsor our time on the raft. Each of us has agreed to spend an hour on the raft for every $10 we individually raise, up to 72 hours. So, if I’m able to raise $720 or more, I will have to spend the full 72 hours on the raft. 100% of the funds raised will go directly to providing assistance to the people of Malawi. We have a competition amongst ourselves to see who can raise the most pledges (and thus be stuck on the raft for the longest!). The following gives you an idea of what your pledge would buy:

Item/Cost

Buy mosquito net/$10
Stock pond with fish to support 1 family/$10
Stock pond with fish to support 5 families/$50
Construct 20m x 10m fish pond/$200
Materials needed to build mission center/$4,000

If you feel moved to sponsor some of my time on the raft and make a pledge, or otherwise support our efforts, please let me know — we will be launching the raft on the evening of Thursday, June 26. You can either give me the funds or a check (made out to “Allentown Presbyterian Church” with the notation “Africa mission” in the memo section) directly to me, or you can send it to me at home (101 Farber Rd 7B, Princeton, NJ 08540). I’ve never used the blog as a format to raise money before, but doing whatever I can to help our brothers and sisters in Malawi is something that I feel very passionate about. Any support you can provide — even if it’s only your thoughts and prayers for a safe and fruitful trip — will be greatly appreciated. If you have any questions or want to learn more about our vision, please don’t hesitate to ask.

For a peek into life in Malawi, be sure to check out the blog where our pastor and his family have been writing about their experiences during their year in Malawi at apcmalawi.blogspot.com.

Sincerely yours,

Charlie Lyons-Pardue

Brian McLaren was in town last night speaking about his new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. It was an excellent presentation, one of those “big idea” kinds of presentations that just build and build. I thought he did a great job of packing all of these concepts into a 1 1/2 hour presentation. While I felt like I was keeping up with him, tracking with where he was going, I still left with my head spinning. There was just so much that he covered and the implications are innumerable.

Later in the evening Brian joined us at the Princeton Emergent Cohort and we were also joined by the North Jersey Emergent Cohort. We packed 20+ people into a small corner of the Yankee Doodle Tap Room. It was a great time of informal conversation and we picked Brian’s brain about Narrative Theology, Stanley Hauerwas, Radical Orthodoxy, global economies and local economic practices, Wendell Barry, Plato, eschatology, N.T. Wright, Andrew Perriman, terrorism, the presidential election, pastoral care, dealing with conflict in the local church and the writing process. It was a great conversation with a great thinker.

I’ve loved all of Brian’s books that I’ve read so far but I had Everything Must Change on the backburner. No more. After last night I want to dig deeper into what Brian’s getting at in this book because I think it’s going to be incredibly important for the church as we quit playing “intramural games” as he put it, and start addressing how the Gospel frames and narrates our lives in such a way that we are sent into the world in a posture of serving, reconciling, compassion and healing.

If this stuff excites you like it does me, be sure to check out the Deep Shift tour. Brian will be in the Bronx May 2-3rd. If you can’t make it to the tour be sure to check out everythingmustchange.org where people are contributing and dreaming of ways to change the world one act at a time.

As I’ve been preparing for an upcoming series on sexuality in our High School ministry I’ve been trying to read some fresh stuff that engages sexuality from a theological point of view with special attention towards discipleship. I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by so much of the church’s teaching on sexuality for so long. I’ve used curriculum that I felt went straight for the “what’s over the line” question and felt schizophrenic in it’s mixture of guilt and affirmation of sex. As I teach on sex I wanted to really do an excellent job of engaging sexuality, theology and discipleship this time around. So two books immediately hit the top of my “must read” list. 1. Rob Bell’s Sex God and 2. Lauren F. Winner’s Real Sex. I’ve heard Winner speak on the topic of chastity in a break out session at Youth Specialties this past year and she was great.

I’m really glad I took the time to read Bell’s book before engaging this subject with the youth at our church. Bell’s style of writing is so conversational that it belies the deep theological work he’s doing in this book. Bell’s catch phrase quickly becomes “this is really about that.” And over and over again he makes connections between sexuality and spirituality and about how “this” is really all about “that.” Bell’s definition of sexuality alone was extremely helpful.

“For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that’s only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God (42).”

Hmm, sexuality is all the ways we try to reconnect? That means that even the celibate can practice and express their sexuality. And on the very next page Bell makes this point saying,

“Some of the most sexual people I know are celibate.

They sleep alone.

They have chosen to give themselves to lots of people, to serve and give and connect their lives with beautiful and worthy causes (43).”

Bell takes this understanding of sexuality to deconstruct our culture’s definition of sexuality. Some of the most overt expressions of “sexuality” in our world are the exact opposite of real sexuality. To illustrate this Bell describes the infamous “Red Light District” in Amsterdam where women sit in store front windows advertising themselves for prostitution. The transaction that happens between a man who goes to one of these prostitutes and the woman herself is just that, a transaction. Physical sex happens, but there is no reconnection. Indeed this kind of sex only serves to further divide and isolate the two parties. The man uses the woman for his own physical gratification and the woman falls deeper into the darkness of her situation. This is the exact opposite of two human beings reconnecting, and we still call it sex.

Bell’s treatment of pre-marital sex is good. As far as I remember he never even used the term “pre-marital sex.” Instead Bell contrasts “taking your clothes off” and “getting naked.” Anyone can take their clothes off and have sex, but in the end this is not true reconnection. Real reconnection happens in physical sex when both parties can be naked with one another. Being naked is about way more than taking off clothes, it’s about trust, it’s about security, it’s about accepting the other person with all their faults and still loving them. It’s about being willing to die for the other person and the promise to remain faithful. Getting naked requires the commitment of marriage, the commitment to serve one another as Christ did the church. As always, “this” is really about “that.”

I could go on and on… needless to say, I thought it was a great book.

For Lent this year I gave up television with the exception of LOST. I got a lot of flak for including this caveat when I was asked about lent. I understand why people would think this was only going half-way or just a lazy attempt at spiritual discipline. The truth is I was really fasting from useless background noise.

Tv and film for all their similarities have very different effects on the viewer as well as the intended outcomes their producers have in mind. On a very basic level their relationship to selling products is very different. Insightful critiques about the constant product-placement in film not withstanding, the film is the product. The film is selling itself, we pay to see the film and then for 2 hours we watch the film uninterrupted. Television is set up to draw us to the tv for long enough that we will sit through commercials trying to sell us products. The show itself is not the product but the means by which we are exposed to the product. And so it is in the interests of television creators to create content that always leaves us unsatisfied, always wanting something better to watch. An excellent film will likely attract more attention and then more ticket buyers, but a television show that can be entertaining enough to keep our attention while always leaving us wanting something better helps to perpetuate the genre and expose us to more advertising. Bad tv is good for tv.

If you’re like me, you’ve fallen into this trap. I’ll turn on the tv hoping to find something good to watch (knowing full well that I can count the number of quality programs on one hand) and just end up having the tv on as background noise. After years of doing this I’ve become so comfortable with having the tv on in the background I felt awkward alone in a room with out it’s constant stream of sound. This is bad.

I never have a film on “in the background” simply to fill the air with sound. When I watch a film I do just that, sit down and watch it. So for lent I decided to give up all tv. I put the LOST exception in there because I interact with LOST like film, I sit down and engage the narrative and then turn off the tv and talk about it. LOST is never “background noise” I use to eradicate silence in my life. Tv in had become just that for me… a way to eradicate silence.

So for the entire season of lent I watched 8 episodes of LOST and the Oscars. That was it. In forty days I had watched 11 hours of television. It was so good. I wasn’t staying up as late, I was way more productive in my work and I began to read so much more. So I’m trying to keep up the habit. I haven’t been as strict as I was during Lent, but I’m trying to only watch tv if I’m going to engage it and turn it off if I find myself using it to drown out the silence. Because silence is good for the soul.