You don’t need it.

This has become my new mantra when I enter any kind of store—from Home Depot to the convenience store where I buy our milk. I used to make frequent impulse buys and unnecessary purchases. With a small apartment and a smaller bank account, thanks to my freelance writing income, that has ended.

When I think of what to say to graduates who are just starting out, or perhaps to a friend in a time of transition, I’d offer my simple little mantra: “You don’t need it.”

Treasure in Heaven

Jesus told us to store up treasure in heaven, but most days I have a hard time applying that. Where do we draw the line with this? I trust that we all draw our lines in different places, though God is most likely challenging most of us move away from treasure on earth and toward accumulating treasure in heaven.

I hit on this last week in my post about discipleship as downward mobility. As we decrease in this world, we free ourselves to increase in God’s Kingdom.

In fact, our possessions can become liabilities that occupy us, soak up our time and resources, and distract us from the work of God’s Kingdom. Perhaps the best thing we can do during times of transition is to cut things out rather than adding to what we have.

No Regrets

We used to own a home with a large garage and a few spare bedrooms. Our yard was just shy of 2 acres. I’d spend hours landscaping it, mowing it, fixing up the house, and working to fill the rooms of our house with stuff.

Since we downsized to an apartment in Connecticut, I still miss the flowers I planted, but overall I don’t have many regrets. While I trust that home ownership is the right move for many folks, it had become a burden for us at that season in our lives—one that we didn’t recognize until we were free from it.

I once listened to a talk by Mark Scandrette (of Reimagine) about downsizing his possessions by half, and the freedom that came from that. I’m not sure about percentages, but we certainly got rid of many things in our move. I can’t think of one thing that I wish we’d kept.

The best advice I can give is to prevent accumulating from starting in the first place. I’d suggest beginning with some essential items for your new apartment, but try going without cable or end tables or matching furniture or whatever it is that you think you need but can live without. You may find after six months that certain things are worth having and others are not.

If you’re like me, and you’re well on your way to becoming a pack rat, it’s never too late to learn the “You don’t need it” mantra. Living in the Kingdom demands a certain detachment from our possessions, and teaching myself to say, “You don’t need it!” is one way to challenge the tyranny of money and things in our lives. Whether giving some things away that you don’t use often or giving yourself a 30-day ban from impulse purchases, removing the grip of possessions and spending frees us to be used by God for Kingdom “transactions”.

If You Need to Buy It…

Tomorrow I’ll touch on the kind of purchases that I’d suggest making when it is time to buy something.

Earth–In a surprising development for Christians devoted to social justice and loving one another, the Kingdom of God appeared because enough Christians have taken a bold stand for the truth. Michael the Archangel appeared in the heavens and proclaimed the victory of truth over error and relativism.

People who love truth everywhere are rejoicing that they were right. “We knew that if we exposed enough error and took a bold enough stand for truth, sound doctrine, and watered down Christianity emphasizing service that God’s Kingdom would show up,” said one self-proclaimed truth activist. “I’m not surprised that we were right,” he added.

“Here I thought my worship was meaningless because of the injustices Christians have been ignoring,” shared one pastor who works among the homeless. “As it turns out, the only thing God has cared about all along is if we get our doctrines correct.” 

Christian social justice ministries have since shuttered their operations, opting to commit to further study in order to sort out their doctrines in light of the Messiah’s second coming.

“What a shocker,” shared one member of Christians for Social Action. “The next thing they’ll say is that sarcasm can be redemptive.”

I’d like to offer these thoughts as four goals for every church, not as judgments of what we are or are not doing. These are things that are worth pursuing. I’d like to know what you think of this and whether it may help us sharpen our focus as we gather together.

I think if a church can do these four things, then it’s on track with the Kingdom of God and the general trajectory of scripture:

Worship

Worship is the one thing that we know churches should do. Sometimes our worship veers a little too much toward our own experiences of God, but it is important for Christians gathered together to worship God first and foremost. Jesus is the head of the church, and therefore we enter his presence with the praise and thanks that he is due. Worship can take place in music, spoken word, prayer, or other acts in community.

Fellowship

Whether fellowship with God and fellowship with one another, churches should be drawing near to God and in the process of meeting God they will find their unity with one another. Not every church that worships God authentically moves into fellowship with God, but it is often the aim of most churches to both worship and to meet with God when they gather.

Transformation

While it’s wonderful to have fellowship with God and one another, meeting God should push us toward the next step of allowing God to transform our lives, to free us from sin, and to empower us to live holy lives. Fellow believers have the important role of building one another up and making sure that we leave our gatherings with greater freedom and in deeper commitment to God.

Service

When we meet our God who transforms and empowers us, the next logical step is to join him in his work among others. This could include serving fellow believers, but should not be limited to that. The church that meets God and experiences his healing power needs to be willing to share it with others. If that’s not happening, then we need to ask why.

Final Thoughts

I think most churches try to do at least two or three of these things well, but all four are necessary for our communities to become outposts for God’s Kingdom. When we talk about why we gather together as Christian communities, I think these are the four categories that should drive our prayers, thoughts, and plans.

Each piece flows from the other. If we’re missing one piece of this, we aren’t fully embodying the Kingdom of God in our churches.

This will also explain why we now live in Connecticut.

About two years ago a friend of ours encouraged us to pursue graduate school for my wife Julie. We’d been talking about it for years, but we kept assuming that we should put it off. After a lot of thinking, planning, and testing, we decided to give it a shot. Last April Julie was accepted at the University of Connecticut to begin working her way toward a PhD in English Lit.

Consequently, we had to sell our house in Vermont, she had a lot of preparation to do, we had to find a place near Storrs, CT, and I needed to figure out a job. Over the following months we sensed that I should try writing and speaking full time, which meant we really needed an affordable place to live in Connecticut and to live on a tight budget. We also needed to downsize significantly by giving away or selling a lot of stuff.

When we decided to give grad school a try back in 2007, I began watching the real estate market very closely, planning to sell our house myself. How hard could it be in a small, fairly stable market such as Vermont? That was lesson one. There are times to save money and to be a do-it-yourself person, but not when your family’s financial future is hanging in the balance.

Over the three months I tried to sell our house myself I was not only humbled, but felt that I’d been foolish in putting us into a tight financial spot. I also put my own prospects of launching a freelance writing and speaking ministry in jeopardy. All of this was humbling for me beyond words.

The next blow came on the first day or our family vacation in late July just after leaving my day job. My next book deal fell to pieces in a matter of days. The publisher had changed directions significantly and we could no longer agree on the direction or details of the book after I had completed the first draft. So as I was launching my “freelance writing career,” one of the major sources of my pride, income, and security disappeared.

By the end of July, Julie and I wrapped up our jobs in Vermont, meaning our income suddenly stopped. We also signed on with a realtor. In early August we had to move to our apartment in Connecticut, meaning that we would soon have a rent and a mortgage to pay. The house needed to sell, and soon.

During the month of August we learned that a lot of people were looking at our house, but no offers were made despite the work of our incredible real estate agent. By early September I began to panic. We really needed an offer on the house. I knew we had priced it right, and the sheer number of viewings was evidence enough of that. Over Labor Day weekend I began to crack.

On the trip home from meeting family I prayed intensely over the sale of our house. “God, we need you to sell this house.”  While driving on a dark country road in Connecticut (yes, we have them here), God spoke in an almost audible voice, “Do you want me, or do you want me to solve your problems?”

I had to be honest. I wanted God to sell the house. I didn’t want God or to seek his Kingdom first. On the following day I struggled to write and ended up fretting about the house and our finances. Reminded of God’s word the previous evening, I left my desk and kneeled in the other room resolving just to worship God. After a few minutes of this, I remembered we had not one, but two reserves of money that I’d completely forgotten.

That gave us some breathing room. I’d never felt so cared for by God over the following month. Two weeks later we received an offer on the house and negotiated a price that I think was fair for both parties. The same buyers closed on the house yesterday. We are now free from that hefty mortgage payment.

We could have stuck it out longer, but back in June I picked the latest date I’d want to wait to sell the house: early November.

The process of selling our house has been trying, with lots of uncertainty. It hasn’t been easy. However, the lesson I learned that evening in September has stuck with me. Do I want God or for God to solve my problems? This has felt like boot camp in seeking first God’s Kingdom.

It has also helped me to see God’s provision in every detail of our lives here in Connecticut. Every accepted article, every friendship we make, and every wonderful place to hike is a blessing from God. We wouldn’t have ended up here without God’s provision at key moments.

I wish I had a pithy way to sum this crazy experience up. I feel like we were trying to figure out where God wanted us to go and to obey that leading. Following God’s lead has not be comfortable or easy, but it has been rewarding. I have experienced intimacy with God on a new level, have seen sin in my own heart challenged, and have learned to hold loosely to home, money, and status.

Everything really is on the table, but if we lose any or all of it, it is far more precious to have intimacy with God. I’m still digging deeper into the mystery of seeking first God’s Kingdom. It’s not an easy thing to do. However, as we pass through these trials and terrifying times we will find abundant life and joy in God and his provision.

But I’ve been preoccupied this evening…

For starters, I’m discussing co-authoring a book with a good friend of mine. It’s a project that I’m really excited about and once I hammer out this post, I’ll be returning to the sample chapter that I’m working on. In addition there are some speaking engagements coming up and some great ministry opportunities that may be opening up in my neck of the woods.

We made the move to Connecticut because all roads seemed to lead this way for us. It’s been a leap of faith all the same. We don’t have all of the pieces in place yet, but there are enough to assure us that we’re on the right track. To simply see the possibilities for ministry is incredibly encouraging because it’s just the kind of thing that God has been placing on my heart lately.

While I ponder all of the good things going on and the opportunities opening up, I find myself forgetting, regularly forgetting this huge financial thing that’s been going on—now in the background. I somehow managed to take a shaky step toward seeking first God’s Kingdom, and I didn’t even realize it.

I wish I could be more specific, but for now I’ll have to keep it vague and just pass along the lessons God is teaching me.

I can’t recall how the conversation went down exactly, but I mentioned things like protecting the environment, visiting prisoners, and supporting ministries that serve others as well as sharing the Gospel. I talked about the ways that God wants to restore and heal our world.

When sin becomes a problem infecting all of us, rather than just this thing that separates YOU personally from God, there’s a lot of room for conversation. We all feel the effects of sin in this world, both personally and corporately, and so speaking of a God who wants to reconcile us and the rest of the world makes good biblical and common sense.

After chatting for a while about these things, the person I spoke with said, “Well, if that’s what it really means to be an evangelical, then I suppose you could call me an evangelical too.” 

In that moment I realized something:  Living out the Gospel makes Jesus more accessible for others. When they realize they too share something in common with God, they no longer view themselves as alien to these evangelicals trying to “save” them.

Don’t get me wrong here, I certainly made it very clear in the course of the conversation that Jesus must be Lord of our lives and that we must make a commitment to follow. I’m not sure where this person ended up with all of that. However, I was encouraged to see the light go on, to find that God isn’t so distant and foreign, and that the people representing this God may not be so strange after all.

I’m far more interested in entering conversation by fostering commonalities, showing people where they are close to God’s Kingdom. In the process of discussing commonalities differences will no doubt be unearthed and discussed. We can’t afford to gloss over sin and the evils of this world, however we can still engage in discussions about common ground, and then move from there to the places where we are different.

We all know this world is screwed up.

We all have felt the effects of sin.

We all want to do try and do something about it, whether for ourselves alone or possibly for others as well.

We need to talk about solutions and the ways forward.

As an evangelical, I believe the way forward is through the loving rule of God in our lives.

In a moment of sanity, I realized that, to a certain extent, it doesn’t matter who becomes president. With Obama, we have a brilliant man with an unmatched sense of humor and what appears to be the best of intentions paired up with terrible tools, limited options, and a culture of corruption.

It’s nearly impossible to change a culture shaped by lobbying and bribery. I think Obama will do some good things, but at the end of the day, the priorities of America do not match the agenda driving the Kingdom of God.

The church needs to get our Resident Aliens A-Game on, taking on the challenge of Hauerwas and Willimon to live as if everything begins and ends with Jesus. Our political parties are not the answer. We shouldn’t be surprised when politicians let us down. What should surprise us is when the Spirit-filled people of God surrender God’s Kingdom vision for the shabby visions shaped by political parties.

Faith matters.

And that leads us to what we have faith in. If NT Wright’s assessment of the Gospel (see What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?) message is correct, then the Gospel hinges on the Lordship of Jesus Christ. James reminds us that no one can proclaim Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit of God. Wrapped up in this idea of believing in the Lordship of Christ is the Gospel story of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and eventual return.

So we believe we are just because we live by faith.

We have faith in the Lordship of Jesus.

And then we face the challenge of putting our money where our mouth is. In short, I’m referring to the letter by James that proclaims faith is ineffective and useless, incapable of saving us if we don’t back it up by living out what we believe.

This leads us to the question, “What are the implications of the Lordship of Jesus to our everyday lives?” Surely we want our faith to be effective, alive, and genuine, and so this Lordship issue is quite pressing for us. If I truly believe that Jesus is Lord over everything—that every area of my life must be surrendered to him and the new life of his Kingdom—then I am called to a new way of living, of assigning worth, of working toward justice beyond my own needs, and of connecting with the life in God’s Spirit.

I’m processing this, and to be frank it’s a tad uncomfortable. How I spend my time, money, and influence are some departments in my life where Jesus wants to bring his Kingdom. The question that remains, “Will I partner with him?”