Just in Time
Ever since I heard the term with regard to business inventory, the phrase ‘just-in-time’ has intrigued me. In business, ‘just-in-time’ inventory means scheduling materials to arrive exactly when they are needed in the production process. It places a greater dependency on suppliers to deliver on-time and requires much greater flexibility and adaptability because you do not have the inventory lying around. The benefits are the elimination of stockpiling of inventories, and the ability to adjust quickly to changing needs.
While ‘just-in-time’ is not a perfect system for all businesses, it seems to me that it is often precisely the way that God provides for us. Remember when Jesus sent out his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God? What did he tell them before they went? He said, “Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic” (Mark 6:8). They were to trust that God would provide for their needs just in time as they carried out his mission.
So many of us work to make sure we’ll have enough—“planning ahead,” we call it. Jesus sends us on our journey and we want to pack our bags full of food and clothes, cash and credit cards, just in case, but Jesus says, “Take nothing for the journey except a staff….”
So the disciples went out with nothing but their staff in hand. What happened? Mark says that “They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (Mark 6:12). They saw God provide precisely what was needed ‘just-in-time.’
I wonder what would happen if we started thinking and acting according to ‘just-in-time’ rather than ‘just-in-case’.
Trusting that God will accomplish his agenda in his time requires, not sitting back and letting God do everything (the way of passivity), but working out (the way of cooperative activity) our vocation with the confidence that the necessary resources will be made available as they become necessary—just-in-time.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Found this NT Wright quote here (via Bill Bean):
"Easter is about the beginning of God's new world. John's Gospel stresses that Easter Day is the first day of the new week: not so much the end of the old story as the launch of the new one. The gospel resurrection stories end, not with "well, that's all right then", nor with "Jesus is risen, therefore we will rise too", but with "God's new world has begun, therefore we've got a job to do, and God's Spirit to help us do it". That job is to plant the flags of resurrection - new life, new communities, new churches, new faith, new hope, new practical love - in amongst the tired slogans of idolatrous modernity and destructive postmodernity."
"Easter is about the beginning of God's new world. John's Gospel stresses that Easter Day is the first day of the new week: not so much the end of the old story as the launch of the new one. The gospel resurrection stories end, not with "well, that's all right then", nor with "Jesus is risen, therefore we will rise too", but with "God's new world has begun, therefore we've got a job to do, and God's Spirit to help us do it". That job is to plant the flags of resurrection - new life, new communities, new churches, new faith, new hope, new practical love - in amongst the tired slogans of idolatrous modernity and destructive postmodernity."
Plant the flags of resurrection today.
One more quote... This is what I brought to read at our potluck worship last night. Again, from Tom Wright:
”Who are we? We are a new group, a new movement, and yet not new, because we claim to be the true people of the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the creator of the world. We are the people for whom the creator god was preparing the way through is dealings with Israel. To that extent, we are like Israel; we are emphatically monotheists, not pagan polytheists, marked out from the pagan world by our adherence to the traditions of Israel, and yet distinguished from the Jewish world in virtue of the crucified Jesus and the divine spirit, and by our fellowship in which the traditional Jewish and pagan boundary-markers are transcended.
“Where are we? We are living in a world that was made by the god we worship, the world that does not yet acknowledge this true and only god, We are thus surrounded by neighbours who worship idols that are, at best, parodies of the truth, and who thus catch glimpses of reality but continually distort it. Humans in general remain in bondage to their own gods, who drag them into a variety of degrading and dehumanizing behaviour-patters. As a result, we are persecuted, because we remind the present power-structures of what they dimly know, that there is a different way to be human, and that in the message of the true god concerning his son, Jesus, notice has been served on them that their own claim to absolute power is called into question.
“What is wrong? The powers of paganism still rule the world, and from time to time even find their way into the church. Persecutions arise from outside, heresies and schisms from within. These evils can sometimes be attributed to supernatural agency, whether ‘Satan’ or various demons. Even within the individual Christian there remain forces at work that need to be subdued, lusts which need to be put to death, party-spirit which needs to learn humility.
“What is the solution? Israel’s hope has been realized; the true god has acted decisively to defeat the pagan gods, and to create a new people, through whom he is to rescue the world from evil. This he has done through the true King, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, in particular through his death and resurrection. The process of implementing this victory, by means of the same god continuing to act through his own spirit in his people, is not yet complete. One day the King will return to judge the world, and to set up a kingdom which is on a different level to the kingdoms of the present world order. When this happens those who have died as Christians will be raised to a new physical life. The present powers will be forced to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and justice and peace will triumph at last.”
(NT Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, pp. 369-370)
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Rich Mullins is playing over the stereo downstairs in the family room. One of the beautiful things about this old farmhouse is that sounds travel. Rich is singing; Kathy is cleaning in the kitchen, and Anna is playing. All can be heard. I love hearing those sounds.
I don't know if you ever had the opportunity to experience Rich Mullins in concert, but he was incredible. He was odd. He was imaginative. He pushed his audience. He mocked the church; he made a Christ follower feel eerily uncomfortable; he made people think... he often asked if the people of God were becoming the kind of people that Christ and the Scriptures require of us.
Kathy and I were just conversing about water's edge... we've had the opportunity to become a bit too comfortable in recent months - perhaps even the past year. We are moving friends. I sense we are uncomfortable with not 'gathering' on Sunday nights. I sense the Spirit of God among us. I smell his goodness.
Sometimes we wonder why people are not so inclined to join us... perhaps we shouldn't take this too hard. If we are attempting to be a group of Christ followers who are different, who challenge the current forms of the church, then perhaps we are doing just a bit of what Christ requires of us.
It seems odd to me that Christians in America have allowed themselves to be defined by the size of their church, the quality of their pastor's sermon/speech, the denomination they attend, or the amount of good informative biblical information they were fed at the worship gathering. Hear me out...
Why don't we put more stock in the quality of our relationships, the ability of those relationships to grow for a lifetime, the gays and lesbians (social outcasts) who we are hanging out with in our society, the ability for us to be truly giving people... I am not saying water's edge is doing this stuff so well; I am just asking why these are not the 'true marks' of the church. If we are serious about the gospel, it just seems they are more biblically in line with the heart of Jesus... that's all.
Please read Joel's thoughts below. I believe they fit well with these thoughts...
In Him.
I don't know if you ever had the opportunity to experience Rich Mullins in concert, but he was incredible. He was odd. He was imaginative. He pushed his audience. He mocked the church; he made a Christ follower feel eerily uncomfortable; he made people think... he often asked if the people of God were becoming the kind of people that Christ and the Scriptures require of us.
Kathy and I were just conversing about water's edge... we've had the opportunity to become a bit too comfortable in recent months - perhaps even the past year. We are moving friends. I sense we are uncomfortable with not 'gathering' on Sunday nights. I sense the Spirit of God among us. I smell his goodness.
Sometimes we wonder why people are not so inclined to join us... perhaps we shouldn't take this too hard. If we are attempting to be a group of Christ followers who are different, who challenge the current forms of the church, then perhaps we are doing just a bit of what Christ requires of us.
It seems odd to me that Christians in America have allowed themselves to be defined by the size of their church, the quality of their pastor's sermon/speech, the denomination they attend, or the amount of good informative biblical information they were fed at the worship gathering. Hear me out...
Why don't we put more stock in the quality of our relationships, the ability of those relationships to grow for a lifetime, the gays and lesbians (social outcasts) who we are hanging out with in our society, the ability for us to be truly giving people... I am not saying water's edge is doing this stuff so well; I am just asking why these are not the 'true marks' of the church. If we are serious about the gospel, it just seems they are more biblically in line with the heart of Jesus... that's all.
Please read Joel's thoughts below. I believe they fit well with these thoughts...
In Him.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Structures and Following the Spirit
When Jesus gave his apprentices his direction immediately before his ascension, he said, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses….” The effectiveness of the church in its mission of bearing testimony (in word and deed) about the kingdom of God and about Jesus depends upon the presence and direction of the Holy Spirit.
We must confront the frightening possibility that we might not really trust the Spirit to lead the Church where it must go.
We must ask ourselves whether we, individually and together, have been intentionally seeking to follow the leading of the Spirit or stubbornly plodding along in a direction of our own.
We must discern whether we have been depending on ‘sound’ business strategies, capitalist marketing techniques, and established institutional structures and forms to keep the status quo, or whether we have been depending on the Spirit to provide ‘just-in-time’ direction and resources so that we can both hear and live out our vocation as the people of God.
Certain things many of us do in the way of programs, procedures, etc., are done because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Even in 'emerging' circles, those with 'traditional' backgrounds tend to go into 'default mode' when we get lazy. Of course, change for the sake of change is often disastrous, but so is staying the same for the sake of staying the same.
Some people have advocated that churches need to change to ‘keep up with the times’ or to 'be relevant.' The extent to which this becomes a 'driving force' it is clearly a kind of idolatry--taking our cue from culture (which ironically makes us irrelevant).
We must be a people that is willing to change to keep up with the Spirit—to ‘keep in step with the Spirit’—this includes changing structures, programs, locations, and whatever else God directs.
I have the sinking feeling that our remembering (recollection of past), thinking (perceptions about present), and imagination (assumptions about future) are shaped more and more by the un-stories of consumerism, capitalism, and individualism/tribalism, and less and less by the story of God--and that is just in the church. My hope is that we can turn this around, and that we will start to recapture the waiting imagination (i.e., hope), exhibited by the prophets and the first disciples, in our individuo-communal lives--that we will let our remembering, thinking, and imagination be shaped by the Spirit and the Story--that we will not act from our power and our motive and our agenda without testing it (together) under the direction of the spirit.
Paul wrote to believers in Rome, "Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life" (Romans 8, MSG). What would change if we would let this scripture read us, not just as individual disciples, but as communities of disciples?
When Jesus gave his apprentices his direction immediately before his ascension, he said, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses….” The effectiveness of the church in its mission of bearing testimony (in word and deed) about the kingdom of God and about Jesus depends upon the presence and direction of the Holy Spirit.
We must confront the frightening possibility that we might not really trust the Spirit to lead the Church where it must go.
We must ask ourselves whether we, individually and together, have been intentionally seeking to follow the leading of the Spirit or stubbornly plodding along in a direction of our own.
We must discern whether we have been depending on ‘sound’ business strategies, capitalist marketing techniques, and established institutional structures and forms to keep the status quo, or whether we have been depending on the Spirit to provide ‘just-in-time’ direction and resources so that we can both hear and live out our vocation as the people of God.
Certain things many of us do in the way of programs, procedures, etc., are done because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Even in 'emerging' circles, those with 'traditional' backgrounds tend to go into 'default mode' when we get lazy. Of course, change for the sake of change is often disastrous, but so is staying the same for the sake of staying the same.
Some people have advocated that churches need to change to ‘keep up with the times’ or to 'be relevant.' The extent to which this becomes a 'driving force' it is clearly a kind of idolatry--taking our cue from culture (which ironically makes us irrelevant).
We must be a people that is willing to change to keep up with the Spirit—to ‘keep in step with the Spirit’—this includes changing structures, programs, locations, and whatever else God directs.
I have the sinking feeling that our remembering (recollection of past), thinking (perceptions about present), and imagination (assumptions about future) are shaped more and more by the un-stories of consumerism, capitalism, and individualism/tribalism, and less and less by the story of God--and that is just in the church. My hope is that we can turn this around, and that we will start to recapture the waiting imagination (i.e., hope), exhibited by the prophets and the first disciples, in our individuo-communal lives--that we will let our remembering, thinking, and imagination be shaped by the Spirit and the Story--that we will not act from our power and our motive and our agenda without testing it (together) under the direction of the spirit.
Paul wrote to believers in Rome, "Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life" (Romans 8, MSG). What would change if we would let this scripture read us, not just as individual disciples, but as communities of disciples?
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Monday, April 12, 2004
Resurrection
Resurrection is at the core of our faith and hope in Jesus. It is strange that it is also one of the least talked about topics in the church today. Sure, we talk about Jesus' resurrection, especially around Easter, but I believe that it is no longer held consistently in our thoughts and in our imagination. Our neglect of the resurrection has left us in pretty poor shape when it comes to understanding where we and this world in which we live are headed.
The resurrection that Jesus experienced was the beginning of what God is going to do with the whole world--that is, to bring life where there was death, healing where there was brokenness, and vindication to those this world has condemned. As Paul says it, "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:20). The resurrection means that God is going to do for us, and indeed for creation itself, what he has done for Jesus.
The resurrection means that the creation is not evil (as the Gnostic heretics of the second century suggested), but that it has great value to God, and because it has great value, God is going to renew it and bring life and light to all those places where death and darkness now seem to reign.
The resurrection means that we too will be renewed in such a way that the pain and death and decay that we experience in this present age will be done away with as the age to come enfolds our very lives. This will not be some kind of disembodied, floating-spirit kind of existence. No, the resurrection means that God will bring us to life again as beautifully recreated embodied-spirits--fully animated by the Spirit of God himself.
The resurrection means that what we do here and now matters. In one very real sense, the resurrection has already begun within us. This is what Paul was getting at when he said that "if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him" (Rom 6:8). The resurrection life begins in the here and now as we share in the death and resurrection of Jesus by our very life together in him. So get busy living the resurrected life!
Resurrection is at the core of our faith and hope in Jesus. It is strange that it is also one of the least talked about topics in the church today. Sure, we talk about Jesus' resurrection, especially around Easter, but I believe that it is no longer held consistently in our thoughts and in our imagination. Our neglect of the resurrection has left us in pretty poor shape when it comes to understanding where we and this world in which we live are headed.
The resurrection that Jesus experienced was the beginning of what God is going to do with the whole world--that is, to bring life where there was death, healing where there was brokenness, and vindication to those this world has condemned. As Paul says it, "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:20). The resurrection means that God is going to do for us, and indeed for creation itself, what he has done for Jesus.
The resurrection means that the creation is not evil (as the Gnostic heretics of the second century suggested), but that it has great value to God, and because it has great value, God is going to renew it and bring life and light to all those places where death and darkness now seem to reign.
The resurrection means that we too will be renewed in such a way that the pain and death and decay that we experience in this present age will be done away with as the age to come enfolds our very lives. This will not be some kind of disembodied, floating-spirit kind of existence. No, the resurrection means that God will bring us to life again as beautifully recreated embodied-spirits--fully animated by the Spirit of God himself.
The resurrection means that what we do here and now matters. In one very real sense, the resurrection has already begun within us. This is what Paul was getting at when he said that "if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him" (Rom 6:8). The resurrection life begins in the here and now as we share in the death and resurrection of Jesus by our very life together in him. So get busy living the resurrected life!
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
A friend of ours...
Jim Best and his family, friends from the east side of the state (Michigan), experienced a house fire this week. He and his wife have started a missional community; they are incredible people with huge hearts and a huge passion for God; click on the link here... for Jim's blog.
Jim Best and his family, friends from the east side of the state (Michigan), experienced a house fire this week. He and his wife have started a missional community; they are incredible people with huge hearts and a huge passion for God; click on the link here... for Jim's blog.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)