Thoughts by Lance

As I start typing up this blog post. I receive another phone notification that Ukraine is under missile threat.  For the next 3 minutes of my typing, my friends and coworkers will be hearing air raid sirens. Some are checking their phones to see where the missiles have been fired from, gathering what they can about the kind of missile or drone it might be as well as projected trajectories.  They have done this so many times, they can calculate how many minutes it will likely take to reach where they are if it is coming their direction. This is now normal life in Ukraine. And the normalcy of this reality often makes me cringe. But another shift that I have been noticing is my language surrounding Ukraine and travel… And I don’t like it.

The last couple trips into Ukraine,… wow, I just did it… let me explain what I just did and restart this paragraph.

The last couple times I went to Ukraine, I started to realize that I have inadvertently adopted a language that I have never before used in context of travel to and from Ukraine. It was not an intentional shift nor have I seen it as a welcome one.  And sadly, it was not just me using this language.  Anyone going to Ukraine started unconsciously using it as well. We no longer say, we are going “to” Ukraine, we say we were going “into” Ukraine. What makes it even worse, now saying “I’m going to Ukraine” feels abnormal and insufficient. This may seem silly, but this frustrates me so much. So much so, I have been making a conscious effort to reinstate the proper preposition of “to” back into its rightful place.

Sure, we use into and to interchangeably very often to describe our going to some place. For instance, “Megan, I’m going into Irondale.”  It is natural and it works. But there is a difference, and that is context.  Irondale is not at war. There is not a distinct “being in” and “being out” of Irondale. Men in Irondale are not being stopped at the city limit and told they can go no farther.  Irondale is under no threat of missile attack that will come indiscriminately at any time in any apart of the city. If it was a place of combat and danger, “into Irondale” would be a very different meaning. You would probably stop saying “to” and exclusively start saying “into.”

I very rarely before used “into” to describe my going to Ukraine.  As I think about it now, when I would talk about travel, I would say I will arrive “in” or “to” Ukraine at such and such date, but rarely “into”.  So, what has changed?  The context Ukraine is in has changed. My relationship with the nation of Ukraine has had to shift. How I approach my going there and my staying in country has changed. It is so incredibly inconvenient to get there now.  The freedom of my movement and my friend’s movements have been hampered inside and outside. Before the war and after war started is strikingly different.  

But what has not changed?  My relationships there. My love for Ternopil. My love for the Ukrainian people that have changed me so much for the better. When I am here or there, relationally I am still in. We have never been out even when we have been here in the states. For me, to say “to” is relational openness. In the context of nations, it rings of freedom. Just like when my kids say, “we want to go to Grammie and Grandpa’s” or “I am going to Europe.”

“Into” compartmentalizes Ukraine into a mere conflict zone. A scary place that we must go “into” and “out of.”  It shortcuts our brain to make Ukraine an unsafe place that should be avoided. I know it is a small shift in language that may not mean very much to most people. But it means a lot to me.  Ukraine is not just a nation for me.  It is where I learned how to be a friend. It is where some of my deepest sense of purpose and community was fashioned. It is where Megan and I met and grew up as a couple.  It is worth changing my language for.

So, I am choosing to combat this language of separateness, of distance and of isolation. I will again, for my friend’s sake, do a small honor and say, “I will be coming to Ukraine as soon as I can.” My language will reflect my heart’s stance to this wonderful country. And here in the states, I will unashamedly say, again and again, I still love going to Ukraine. Missiles, drones and hatred may be coming into Ukraine, but I will always be coming to Ukraine.

Formational Book Review by Lance

5/5 stars

“To follow Jesus is to become his apprentice. It’s to organize your entire life around three driving goals:

1. Be with Jesus.
2. Become like him.
3. Do as he did.

Apprenticeship to Jesus—that is, following Jesus—is a whole-life process of being with Jesus for the purpose of becoming like him and carrying on his work in the world. It’s a lifelong journey in which we gradually learn to say and do the kinds of things Jesus said and did as we apprentice under him in every facet of our lives.”

“Practicing The Way” is less of a book and more of an introduction to John Mark Comer’s new program called, you guessed it, “Practicing The Way”. Though, I do have to say, it is also a really good book.  In general, I am a pretty big fan of Comer’s books and framework around the Christian life. I am drawn to the contemplative nature of the way he encourages us to practice our apprenticeship to Jesus.  In the world today, we have so many people, things and causes drawing our affection and dedication. There are so many distractions it is hard to know how to move forward with a sincere Christlike lifestyle. In this book John Mark introduces us to a way or “rule of life” for this day and age to be a disciple of Christ by being with Jesus, becoming like him and doing as He did.

Reading as a Disciple:

“The question is not, Am I becoming a person? It’s, Who or what am I becoming?”

“Christlikeness is possible, but it’s not natural. In fact, the gravity and inertia of life will likely take you in the opposite direction. “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” as Jesus said.  Put another way, there are no accidental saints.”

I know I am a child of God.  But sometimes I do not look or act like a Christian. I often think that just reading the Bible, going to church or being a missionary somehow forms me into a person that exudes Jesus in any situation… Sadly, this just not the case. I love that Comer frames this all with a question. Am I a Christian, or an apprentice of Christ?  To be a Christian is to do what Christians do. To be an apprentice, however, is to abide with the Master, emulate what I observe Him do and obey what the He asks me to do. 

Comer argues that we all “make our home (abide) somewhere, the question is ‘where?’” I have seen myself “rooted in the infinite scroll of social media” and from it have been “angry, anxious, arrogant, simplistic, and distracted.” My willpower seems to have no power to actually do much against this very real force of “abiding” in things other than Christ. So, if I cannot, from my own willpower, combat this current barrage of other things that ask for my undivided loyalty and sacrifice, how do I live a life of a disciple in this current age? How do I stay an apprentice while getting woken up in the middle of the night by a crying baby, or reading another devastating article about more people dying in Ukraine or navigate yet another difficult relationship in the body of Christ?

I think Comer may be on to something… Just do the things Jesus did, while being content in a relationship with God where “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.” I so want that kind of acceptance and response to God. Most of my Christian life has been doing the right things for God because I have to.  But I am hoping my perspective is shifting to wanting to be like Jesus simply because it is the most loving and fulfilling way to live. Right now though, I am taking tiny steps toward this. Discipleship is a whole lot slower than we all want.

Reading Pastorally:

“For those of us who desire to follow Jesus, here is the reality we must turn and face: If we’re not being intentionally formed by Jesus himself, then it’s highly likely we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something else.”

“If “they” (whether multinational corporations, politicians, anti-democratic government agents, marketing departments, influencers who just want more followers, etc., etc.) can make us believe that each person is a blank slate, just following the inner compass of our “authentic self” in an upward march to happiness, then they can keep us blind to all the ways we’ve been “discipled”—formed and manipulated—by their desires.”

It is hard to keep a pure heart.  It is harder to shift ourselves away from things that we “like” and “want” that are actually doing us harm. It is actually even harder to identify what is even causing us harm. I have found, just telling someone who is constantly on their phone (which I have been known to do sometimes) to put their phone down does very little to bring an “aha” moment of their dependance. However, when I have seen people take a fast from social media, or actually rest one whole 24 hour period, tensions in their mind, emotions and body emerge. This tension emphasizes our living outside of God’s design for our human life and work. That is something way more than just knowledge will accomplish. That is a practice (or discipline), in apprenticeship to Jesus, working against our unhealthy coping strategies that “deform” us.

“The life of the Christian faith is the practice of many practices.”

I think there is something to, in the light of being loved by God and learning to love him back, a framework of consistent practices. The difficulty is that it is not easy (it may be impossible) to do on our own. So the challenge, I think, is to actually do this in community. And I love Comer says that, “love is the metric of spiritual maturity, not discipline.”  This is an important part of having a “rule of life.” It is not for perfection, but for love.

Other thoughts:

Why do I love Christian formation?  This style and emphasis in Christian living has been a solid rock for me these past 6 years. I remember the first time I was challenged to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” (another book by Comer) from my life. It was then I started a very simple practice, driving the speed limit.  I was shocked to see my anxiety start to lift, my attitude to other drivers become more gracious and in general I became more peaceful… until I came back to the states and drove in the Seattle area… I increased my speed by 4 above the speed limit for my family’s safety… It was also the same time I started to have to initiate “The practice of being misunderstood.”  It is amazing how many people assumed I was just was trying to be a jerk by controlling the speed of others. I promise, I was not…  But I found that as I initiated a regular practice into my life, I was exposed to my inner life like I was not aware of before. And, in turn, I was able to love others better.

More about Practicing the Way at:

 www.practicingtheway.org

Other John Mark Comer Books:

• Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies that Sabotage Your Peace
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Other Spiritual Formation Books:

• Dwell: Life with God for the World- Barry D. Jones
• The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People- John Ortberg
• Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christhian Faith- Patrick Foster
• The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation- Wilder and Hendricks

A Call for Christians to Create

Formational book review by Megan

4/5 stars

“… art matters because people matter. Art gives a voice to people who can’t be heard. Art shapes the way we see the world and one another. Art matters because a beautiful painting or sculpture can transform us in a way nothing else can. It’s not just that art can brighten our spirits (which it can.) A good work of art can excite or incite, provoke or soothe, inspire or settle.”

Alastair Gordon is a Christian artist based in the UK. He teaches at the Leith School of Art and has been the artist in residence for the City and Guilds of London Art School.  Why Art Matters starts out with a simple, yet profound declaration that art matters because people matter and people are made in God’s image.

Reading as a Disciple

“Times have changed and most people today think differently from our ancestors, who regarded beauty as inseparable from its parallel qualities of goodness, justice and truth.”

Gordon makes the distinction that only God is able to make something from nothing; we create from what He has already created. The first thing we read in the Bible is God being creative. It’s easy to sort of bypass the creation story without realizing how it shows that God was creative. There was a process to His creating.

“When we read about how God created the universe there is a sense of rhythm, order and intuition, with God making the sky and seas on the second day and then returning to them on day five to enhance them with birds and fish. The same could be said of the night and day he makes on day one, as he returns on day four to make the sun and moon to enrich his earlier creation.”

Gordon references the creation of Middle-earth in the Silmarillion to talk about how art can be redeemed. Tolkien writes that Iluvatar, the creator, sings His world into being and invites his creation to join in the song and create with him. Instead of joining in the harmony, Melkor sings a discordant song and brings disharmony into creation. “We might expect Iluvatar to cancel out Melkor’s disruptive music, to press rewind and start again. Yet he allows the discordant melody to play out and into creation. Even more, he interweaves the discordant melody with the music of creation to allow a tension between harmony and corruption.” The same can be said of art today as it is made by broken-image bearers. As believers we might be tempted to wonder why God allows evil to continue but we miss God’s big picture and the redemption of His image. Art helps us see His beauty and the redemption of that beauty with its parallel qualities.

Reading Communally

“To me, this is one of the greatest mysteries of creation: how God continues to create all things and how he might use us to do so.”

It is such a beautiful thought that we continue to work with God as part of His creation. The creation story is important to show the partnership of God with His creation, Adam. Adam was part of the creation process as he was tasked with naming. Think of an artist creating a beautiful sculpture and then asks you to come up with the title, it’s quite the honor.  The creative partnership with God in the Bible continued in the making of the temple as well. “Simply to make something well is to reflect the character of God.” Since we are each created in the image of God, we reflect some aspect of His character in what we do or say, or in the context, create. It is important to be in community to better catch glimpses of God’s character in His creation. “We are an accumulation of the stories we read and the stories we tell…” and our story, or testimony, matters to the community of believers.

Final Thoughts

Why Art Matters was a simple and well laid out book for all readers. As a linear thinker, I found it incredibly easy to follow and comprehend. Gordon gave great examples and stories that enhanced his points. While he is a painter, he did a good job of not ignoring the other arts, he did reference many painters or his experience painting but it did not downplay other arts. I would recommend this book to anyone but especially to those that are in the arts already.

Other good books on art and faith:

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey (highly recommend)

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henry Nouwen (Love this book)

Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura (on my To Be Read pile)

Discovering God Through the Arts: How We Can Grow Closer to God by Appreciating Beauty and Creativity by Terry Glaspey (on my TBR pile)

Thoughts By Lance

Early on this trip, while on the Port Townsend to Sea-Tac airport bus, I took this photo. I sent it to a friend in Australia whom it reminded me of. We did photo club together. We lived and worked together in Ternopil. 

Then while on the Kingston-Edmonds ferry I remembered a conversation I had with a friend who lives in Gig Harbor, WA. We had a conversation on that same ferry a few months ago, and I looked at where we sat then. So I sent him a voice message.  We met in Europe and worked together in various places in YWAM. On that trip, we were on our way to see two other friends who were in Edmonds. One now lives in Edmonds, the other… globally. We all used to work together in Europe.

While at the Frankfurt airport, I sent a message to Megan about a “photo memory” that popped up on my phone from six years ago. It was Benaiah in our old apartment in Ternopil. I met Megan in Ukraine, and we worked together in Ternopil, now in Discovery Bay. I also sent a voice message to a friend who lives in Arizona.  We met and worked together in Kyiv.

At my hotel in Krakow, I sent a funny engineering fail video from my room to a friend of mine. I thought he would like that the vent fan for the stove went directly into the cupboard above. Just into the cupboard… He liked it like I thought he would. We work together at YWAM DB… Though he is moving soon. 

I’m currently on a train from Krakow to Przemesl (pronounced Pshemesh) texting an old friend who lives in Rzeszów (pronounced Zheshov), which is a stop along the way. We met and worked together in Ternopil. We are excited about maybe seeing each other at a friend’s wedding later in the year in Sweden. Our mutual dear friend lives in Sweden now. We both (literally) lived and worked with her in Ternopil.

I’m about to go across the border and jump in a car with friends whom I met and worked with in Ternopil. More than friends really. I’m really looking forward to our chat. 

Then I will arrive as a guest in the town I thought I would always call home. And in some ways it is home. But alone, without my family, it isn’t. I will be going to the sauna with friends tomorrow though, so it still is. 

My bags are full of things and food for friends… And even rocks from my hometown, picked by my parents on “Robert’s Hill”, for a friend’s aquarium. He, his wife and their pets live in Kyiv. We met in Ternopil before either of us were married.

Where is home? No longer is our stuff spread over 2 continents and 6 locations. It’s at least all in one state now… Except my bass guitar. It’s still in Ternopil. Should I get it now, or when the war ends? But now, so many of our friends, that were so close, are spread over states, countries and continents. 

Home is where you are rooted. I think sometimes home for Megan and I will be a longing and an ache. Home is learning contentment while rooting on ferries, in staff meetings, in Bible studies, and in the One who seems to be the central figure in all our rooting.  

How Your Brain’s Secret Circuit Affects Your Relationships- And How You Can Activate It

Formational book review by Megan

3/5 Stars

“My hope with The Joy Switch book is 1. You learn to recognize whether your relational circuit is working, 2. If not, you know how to use the Joy Switch to turn it back on, and 3. You learn relational habits to sustain the relational circuit so it works at its optimal range.” 

Author Chris Coursey lays out at the beginning his goal in writing the book. A very simple and direct goal, easy to lay out a plan and give direction for the reader. The book is directed at such an important part of our lives, relationships. We can’t avoid it. We have some kind of relationship with our family, spouses, co-workers and store clerks. Coursey says “The areas in our brain that govern character, emotions, and identity are all relational.” So that should make understanding and building/maintaining right relationships a priority, and as the book goes on to say, its hard to stay relational when joy levels drop.

Reading as a Disciple

“Once our relational brain shifts to enemy mode with God, we lose all ability to joyfully interact with another relational being. […] Approaching God when we are in enemy mode is an excellent way to ensure God feels distant because our brain is in the worst possible position for a relational interaction.”

The author Chris Coursey, is a believer and talks about faith and how it relates to joy and relationships throughout the book. I found it interesting when he said “Thinking about pain and hurts is a great way to remain in nonrelational mode with people and with God.”  It is so easy to do, we can replay events and words that hurt us in our minds and we struggle to find God in a situation. Coursey goes on to talk about how to stay relational with God and find His peace in these moments. Just as God instructed the Israelites to put up monuments to his faithfulness, we should also have times of looking back on when we enjoyed God’s presence and faithfulness and when we experienced His peace. Though our circumstances may not change, we will be in a better position to hear from God and accept His peace. 

Reading Communally

“Isolation makes unsuspecting victims more vulnerable.”

Again, this book was not just about us and our own ability to turn our Joy Switch on but also how to help others come back to a place of joy. Community and our connection to the body of Christ is critical. Experiencing negative emotions is normal and inevitable, what the book covers is how to help us return to joy quickly and this also applies to our relationship with others. If we are able to return to a place of joy, then we can help others. We can often get stuck though and struggle to return to joy. “This ‘stuckness’ leads to the loss of abilities we often take for granted, such as the ability to stay loving, kind, thoughtful, caring, considerate, compassionate, and generous. It means the unwelcome appearance of personality distortions like narcissism… Narcissism, the inability to shift out of enemy mode and process shame, robs joy and keeps people stuck in enemy mode.” Those are all things we easily experience on a bad day. This is also where addictions come into place because we are looking for joy substitutes, artificial, nonrelational replacements for comfort. 

The majority of the book is devoted to the habits that Coursey believes will help us return to joy quickly: connection, appreciation, rest and Shalom. 

Final Thoughts

The book is packed with great thoughts and insight into staying relational with others and God. What I enjoyed was the questions and practices offered at the end of each chapter. It’s a great way to keep the book practical and helpful. 

What I don’t like is that the book bordered on providing a cure or step-by-step approach to be joyful. While Coursey mentions very briefly that is not what this book is for, by using the imagery of a switch, he oversimplifies something to just being joyful or not. He mentions “there is a progression with different ‘relational shades’ like colors on a color wheel.” And later he says “the relational circuit is like a dimmer switch with shades of relational mode.” But it is too hard to not get the idea of on/off out of your mind when it’s in the title of the book and there is a big picture of a switch on the cover. This is misleading for the reader. There is no “cure” to doing away with negative emotions and remain in some euphoric state of joy. What Coursey does not go into is how negative emotions are not necessarily a bad evil thing, (Jesus experienced them,) but they are a normal part of being human. God can provide a way for us to navigate those seasons in our lives when the negative emotions seem to outweigh the joy. This book should be seen as only a small step or tool to navigating those seasons, not the cure. 

Other Chris Coursey books

The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages- we recommend this book!

The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People

The 4 Habits of Raising Joy-Filled Kids