Following Jesus

So the other day I “attended” an online conference called theNINES.  This year’s version of the conference was entitled “Culture Crash: When Church and Culture Collide”.  They dealt with a number of issues, some of which would, have and will continue to divide churches. 

For those of you unfamiliar with theNINES - just over 200 presenters are invited to contribute a short video on one of the conferences themes.  These videos are then strung together over two days broken up by sporadic panel discussions.

As the conversation unfolded this year there were, as always, buzzwords that emerged, advice repeated, ideas presented and questions asked.  I couldn’t help but notice that in some of the conversations people seemed to argue on the basis of what they felt…  what they wanted… what they valued… what was important to them…

I don’t know if this was done intentionally or not – I’m guessing not.  Presenters don’t know which videos will play before theirs.  I think it was partway through the second day (it all starts to blur together after a bit) one of the presenters made the following statement.  I’m afraid I don’t remember who – maybe if you read this and you know who you can let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.  He said:

If following Jesus hasn’t cost you everything…

              …you might be following the wrong jesus…

He said it so casually and then moved off of it so quickly but it hit me with the force of the Spirit.  I don’t think it needs explaining…

Let me add one more thing.  I won’t comment on it here – maybe in a later post.

Luke 17:5-10 (PNWiV)

The twelve said to Jesus, “Jesus give us more faith!”

Jesus replied, “You don’t need more faith!  You could uproot an oak tree and fling it about with faith no bigger than a grain of sand. 

Have you ever heard of a slave-master inviting his slave to supper in the big-house after a day’s work?  Isn’t the master more likely to say, ‘Hey you!  I’m hungry!  Bring me my supper, now!’ 

Does the master complement the slave on his field work? Of course not!  The slave was only being obedient – as well he should. 

So too, when you have been obedient, you should say, ‘We are such unworthy slaves; all we have done is that which is our duty.”

…just sayin’

Failure

I have found that often when I ask people what they want to do with the next five years of their life, they shrug, laugh nervously and mumble something that often sounds  like, "I don't know..."

Often (not always) when I change the question and ask...

If you could do anything...
   ...and you knew it would not fail...
               ...What would you do?

The response is different.   Even if the person does not have a ready answer, often there is a smile of relief, a tilted head and the dreaming begins...

We find it easy to dream when the possibility of failure disappears.

What's tragic about this is the fact that we cannot grow without failure...   we cannot learn without failure...

I think I've only ever failed one test/exam in my entire life...   (I know, I know... get over it...)

The thing is a test/exam is not life!  

What I mean is this.   Before I ever sat to write the test or exam I spent hours learning how to get the right answer.   Hours erasing and trying again.   Hours squinting my eyes and trying to remember elusive facts, dates, formulas and the like...   In other words... for every right exam question I logged hours of failures.

If you could do anything and you knew you would not fail... whatever it is would be the failure.  

Success cannot exist apart from the possibility of failure.   In other words, if the thing cannot fail... it cannot succeed either.   If the only time an athlete competes is when success is guaranteed they aren't competing.   If the only time a business tries a new product is when its success is guaranteed it's not a new product...

Success and failure are the two inseparable sides of the same coin...

Want some advice?   If you do anything and it "fails" (whatever that means) get up and go at it again until you figure out how to get that coin to land success-side up!

…just sayin…