Waiting for Andy Stanley’s message, we stumbled upon comments and conversation about AI by Elon Musk. He convinced me! The future is here in December 2022. Three videos that present this:

You do not have to be high on conspiratorial smoke to see the potential of bad outcomes but based on man’s history how inevitable bad outcomes are. Immediately I wondered how post-humans (having AI linked to their cortex and perhaps their limbic system) will react to the message of salvation, The Savior, and the Cross and Resurrection. The Gospel and Kingdom?

Musk says humans are already cyborgs (combo of human and digital parts). Our phones and computers have become extensions of the self.

A person has a soul by having, Mind, Emotions, Will. Listening to Musk, those three elements will be in an AI creature or the ability to synthesize them. However, AI creatures will not have a spirit as humans do. Will such a robot need redemption? If it is built by man—man/human, then a sin nature would inevitably be passed from creator to created.  

Given this new story of Genesis—creation, I wondered if any preachers in my known world would be preaching this Lord’s Day about AI as a competing life or parallel life? How much of a threat is AI to us? Christ Message?

Pastor Stanley didn’t preach about Artificial Intelligence. He told the Christmas story beginning with God’s promise to Abram (Genesis 12:1-3). “To Bless the World.”

https://northpoint.org/messages/reasons-for-the-season/to-bless-the-world?video=message

How do we present the Gospel to cyborgs? Cyborgs who eat lunch at the next table with their phone lying next to the fries at Arby’s and those who look like robots living among us in 5-10 years?

Our Lord’s Day was saturated with these questions, fears and concerns. Not many answers. When it was my turn to control the remote, I opened to a YouTube site which I can’t find again. The host of the podcast is Lex Friedman. His podcast guest was a former CIA agent, who is married to a former undercover agent.

He talked about the Ukraine-Russian war that helps me understand what it is about and where it is headed. Most of the conversation was enlightening and captivating. After talk about personality, the host asked the question, “What was most surprising to you about human nature?”

“How intensely humans want to be with other humans.”

If humans are taken out of the equation, does the Gospel of Jesus make any sense? It seems to me that isolation from other people=humans during the pandemic is the one factor that was destructive to education, mental health, the world-wide economy, and personal happiness.

I don’t know what to say. I’m caught between, “Live long and prosper,” and “Nanu, Nanu.”

Would you date a cyborg? Would you welcome an AI creature as a house guest or for lunch? Elon Musk says the possibilities are good and bad. There are already medicinal and health benefits from digital implants. Is this digital link a threat? As a Jesus Follower, how do we prepare for the next human era? Can we live compatibly in alternative worlds? Someone will decide. Who do we ask?

©2022 D. Dean Benton

1776 + 1787 ÷ 2019= TBD

Chapter Four

People of Virtue

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” Benjamin Franklin

“No longer virtuous, no longer free.” Benjamin Franklin

“The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue.” John Adams

“Public virtue cannot exist without private and Virtue is the only foundation of Republics.” John Adams

“…free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue.” Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

“The public interest depends on private virtue.” James Q. Wilson  

Definitions:

Verities.   Something real or True with a capital T. Verities are not dependent upon our believing them or using them. They are! We speak of “eternal verities” like what you sow, you reap, and God so loved, He gave.

Virtues.   Bill Bennett says virtues are not a possession as a bead on a bracelet or marbles in a pouch, but a central element of a person’s nature. We are not born with virtues, they must be learned and become a predictable response. They are part of our moral education.

“…the training of heart and mind toward the good….Such training involves rules and precepts—the dos and don’ts of life with others—as well as explicit instruction, exhortation, and training. Moral education must provide training in good habits.” (William J. Bennett, Book of Virtues, ©1993, Simon & Schuster.)

Values.   May or may not be real or true. They are totally subjective. Values do not indicate validity hence the proverb, “Even thieves have values.” Values are personal choices or preferences. They may also be a verity or virtue, but not necessarily.

Virtue has a much narrower usage today than described above. To the post-modern, virtue is linked to Victorian days or a prudish age or lifestyles. The phrase, “Defend her virtue” limits the concept and behavior to sexual morality of an earlier age—smiled at as if that naïve mindset existed prior to our sophisticated cosmopolitan worldliness.

It seems to me The Founders used both words—morality and virtue—to describe two separate, but intertwined personal characteristics. They understood virtue in context of their “engagement with the great conversation that runs down the centuries from the Bible and the classical writers of Greece and Rome.” (Guinness)  The Church adds Classic Virtues, Cardinal Virtues, Classical Virtues and Mortal Virtues.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines virtue as “a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.” Traditionally, the seven Christian virtues or heavenly virtues combine the four classical cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and courage with the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. These were adopted by the Church Fathers as the seven virtues.”

Aristotle had a set of virtues as did some of the French thinkers. Ben Franklin, at age 20, set down thirteen “virtues” that he would use as templates to build his character and guide his life. When the Founding Fathers spoke of virtue all of these fit into the mix, but one personal characteristic rose as the word to describe them all: Self-management or self-governing. What made Thomas Jefferson think that the Colonials could fulfill the Constitution and govern without iron-fisted overlords, kings or masters? Answer: He had seen self-government in individuals who knew how to govern themselves, therefore were equipped to govern a nation.

Virtues were not about petticoats, chastity belts and Twelve-step meetings. The Colonies had jails, switches and prisons. Those who met in Philadelphia were conscious of and took seriously that humans were fallen—capable of sin toward God, humans and themselves. The early Americans believed in redemption in response to repentance and a changed life.

A heavy underlined theme in the Founder’s thinking was the inadequacy of laws. For whole people and nation, encoded virtues are the mental referees and drivers of behavior. Tocqueville called the soulful element of virtues, “habits of the heart.” (We will later talk about Os Guinness’ “Golden Triangle of Freedom.”) More laws, tighter laws, harder punishment do not empower. A changed heart and learned Kingdom humanity does motivate and empower. The need, therefore, for religion.

I suggest that Dr. Daniel Goleman captures for our era the heart habits in Emotional Intelligence. (Bantam, ©1995) Self-Awareness, Self-Control, Self-Motivation, Empathy, Self-Restraint, Self-Management among others. These are street-level virtues that I think translate the Founder’s idea of virtues. Empathy is huge in that list and cannot be diminished.

“We humans act politically, inspired not only by faith, virtue, courage, honor, excellence, justice, prudence, generosity and compassion, but also by self-interest, self-preservation, power, greed, vanity, revenge and convenience—and wise governance  must take both sides into account.” (Guinness A Free People’s Suicide, p102)

Virtues are fundamental traits of character. It seems to me the basic virtues assumed in that sweaty Philadelphia meeting room were and remain:

Integrity,

Honesty,

Compassion,

Courage,

Perseverance

Dependability

In George Washington’s Farewell Address he said…

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Sometimes, when on the road I go to a coffee shop or sit in the car to read and take notes for a couple of hours. I “mutter” to God about the hard stuff and question Him. If I then travel while listening to talk radio, my stomach hurts and I get surly. Ben Franklin’s words envelop me throughout the reading, questioning and listening: “If You Can Keep It.” Despair takes over—“Not a snowball’s chance….” It feels like it is too late. We’ve already lost it.

The other morning, I was sitting in a parking lot when I read…

“The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families.” John Adams

It’s hard to describe what I experienced—as if my soul fell to the ground. More accurately, it was as if the core of the Republic—virtues—drained into the ground beneath my feet with the dread that that energy cannot be recovered. I discerned. I experienced a physical feeling of that energy flowing from the environment and atmosphere produced by what has been “laid in private families.” That energy inevitably flows either into oblivion or into the culture and individuals. And it is TBD. To be determined.

Goleman (Chapter 12 of Emotional Intelligence called The Crucible of Family) defines the emotions and elements of the teaching environment of families. Moral education is about the content.

The chaos, riots, violence, disregard for elementary sexual propriety and things like justice, respect, lawfulness are absent. All those things that keep a culture from turning to bat-shit crazy and demonstrations of insanity on the public stage have been set loose from hell. Fatherlessness and fractured families dominate Western culture. Absent from the scene is a time and place to teach. Virtues that build a United States of America and sustain it depend upon being taught and caught. They are the moorings and anchor.

Bill Bennett quotes a paragraph from Plato’s Republic:

“…Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up!

That may be the cause of my stomach’s and soul’s reaction to John Adam’s words. Given the morning news and the current habits of education and entertainment, I question whether Plato or Jefferson or Adams could change our nation’s downward spiral. Generations (it seems) have been neglected. They have no data base that lessons and reminders can refer to.

“It is not the enemy at door, it’s the termites in the floor.”

In my hopelessness, Malachi 4:5-6 speaks to me.

“I will send you the prophet Elijah…. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers….”

Let it be so! Lord, send a company of Elijah to be builders of data base.

©2019 D. Dean Benton     Wonderer, Writer

One of a Series

The American and French revolutions occurred in the approximate same era. The French revolution was a bloodbath that kept the guillotine working overtime. The American Revolution led to freedom and an idea that birthed a nation. Why the difference? What was the fork in the road?

Gouverneur Morris was the United States’ Ambassador to France following Jefferson. He said the French wanted a nation and constitution like America, but did not have a citizenry like Americans. What kind of people were the Americans? What made an American?

Words that shaped the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights are pertinent today. Exceptionalism is one. Equality is another. There are several others like, “Self-governing” No word or concept is more important than “self-governing.” I want to talk about those words in the days ahead. Ben Franklin is the source of the words, “If You Can Keep It.”

Not just words and ideas, but people. I thought I knew about George Whitefield, but I do not ever remember reading this: He came to America in 1730’s. He was 25. He became America and England’s first celebrity, a rock star. I wondered a few weeks ago why the negative interest in Whitefield with articles and books. It is now clear. Since the 1960s there has been an on-going destruction of heroes and venerated leaders. A person doesn’t have to be a raving paranoid to see this happening. Stephen Mansfield calls Whitefield—a friend and colleague of the Wesleys—The Forgotten Founding Father.”

“His preaching signaled the first rays of the dawning of a new order in the world.”

He preached 18,000 sermons in 33 years in addition to 12,000 talks and exhortations. He preached in all of the 13 Colonies. Eighty-percent of all residents of the colonies had heard him preach in person at least once. Without amplification, he preached to crowds of 20,000 to 30,000. Ben Franklin was a friend, and a newspaper man who printed the sermons on his newspaper’s front pages The University of Pennsylvania was founded by Whitefield and Franklin. They built an orphanage in Georgia and an academy in Pennsylvania for the education of Negroes.

“…George Whitefield, without whom the United States simply could not have come into being.”

He preached that “all are created equal.” His message was about the Kingdom of God and the necessity of being born again to enter. He preached to the miners as they walked home from the mines. The men were so moved by message of God’s love for them that tears cut white gutters through the black coal dust on their faces.

“It was the man preaching at the top of the courthouse steps who more than anyone would change that. It would take three decades of his tireless preaching….”

“To truly understand the story of how the United States came into existence, we must acquaint ourselves with the human weather pattern known as the Reverend George Whitefield.” (He was called a sanctified tornado.)

Upon the preaching of the Gospel and born again citizens whose behavior was modified and restructure, The Founding Fathers Declared Independence and wrote the Constitution which the Americans ratified.

I usually bristle a bit when someone says the answer to the craziness in present USA is revival or “Jesus”. After reading the history predating 1776 I’m changing my mind. There were no unifying persons, ideas, beliefs until Whitefield. All the ideas that built the American character came from the Gospel of Jesus through Whitefield. Faith in Jesus Christ was crucial as was religion as many sects and denominations agreed on certain critical principles that were bedrock for the experiment. Whitefield dug fallow ground in which the Great Awakening sprung forth.

Questions that have grown out of my study:

1. What were Whitefield’s audiences looking for? Expecting from him?
2. What made an American an American?
3. What in his sermons were foundational to the new nation?
4. Why is this important today?
5. What response does God want from me?

I’m reading the history of Whitefield in American from:

   If You Can Keep It, Eric Metaxis, 2018 Viking

   The Forgotten Founding Father, 2001, Stephan Mansfield,

   The Printer and the Preacher, Jerry Peterson, 2015 Thomas Nelson

A Free People’s Suicide, Os Guinness, 2012, InterVarsity Press

Guinness says freedom and liberty depends upon the “Golden Triangle of Freedom.” Religion depends on virtue to be valid and grow freedom. Freedom builds individual and community virtue which is inseparable from religion “of some sort” as Guinness says.

1. Virtue (Character)
2. Religion (Faith of some sort.) Not specific doctrines or beliefs. But the revealed principles built in Hebrew-Christian faith. Freedom
3. Freedom

America is built upon people and communities functioning with those three expressions of infrastructure. That was true in the late 1700s and absolutely in 2019. Where will this be taught?

Church growth principles begin with—“This is who we are, what we believe, what we are working to accomplish. If you agree with our vision, please join us. If you do not, we’ll help you find a place where you will feel comfortable. The leaders must continue to declare the vision continually and protect the vision.

Immigration that benefits the immigrant and the USA is exactly the same. “This is who we are and our vision. You are welcome if can fit it and live toward our vision.”

My concern is that illegal immigrants know few, if any, of our vision or purpose. They come because it is a great route to “the dream.” And why not? I’m also concerned that some politicians, immigrants, news people and citizens not only do not agree with the Founding Documents and what it means to be an American, but seek to change our country “fundamentally” to quote a president and current members of Congress.

Where will our core values be taught?  Who will teach? How to handle the dissidents?

I plan to answer some of those questions and cast a vision.

©2019 D. Dean Benton

We’ve been spending a lot of time in West Texas. First in the TV series “Friday Night Lights,” then reading the book upon which it was based and sorting through the memories of the time we spent on the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. I would like to use the TV episodes as conversation provokers for families and kids in middle-school, junior high and high school. No series has stimulated my thinking about marriage, family and what high school—especially the sports environment—as “Lights.”

The reasons I haven’t up to now: I’m reluctant to fail. I do not know what facility I could use. It would cost too much to “rent” the episodes. I do not know of one church that would partner with me that would not have a negative draw impact on those I was trying to reach. I’m reluctant to fail.

The book Friday Night Lights by H. G. Bissinger (De Capo Press, 1990) created in me an emotional crisis bordering on depression and dread. Sports Illustrated calls it the best football book ever written. I was totally unprepared. The writer sets the background for Texas football as few sports fans can imagine. High school stadiums that seat 20,000 and a devotion that conservative theologians would say exceeds commitment to Jesus. Texas football is god! What I’m deciding is that the stories are not about football at all.

I am learning much about national politics, small town (not villages) customs and churches. I have often been embarrassed by memories of our attempted ministry in communities outside our “nation.” We must have looked like carpet baggers and stupid outsiders. I was very aware of the Nine Nations of Americas, but I didn’t even begin to grasp how places like Garden City, Kansas, Spearman, Texas, Odessa and Midland were like settlements on a different planet. Had I viewed the TV series, read the book or talked to people who would have been bluntly honest rather than hospitable, I would never have booked a date outside of Iowa.

The above statement is inadequate. After a conversation with a black pastor in Louisiana, he invited us to his church anytime we were in the area. As different as our culture and color, he connected to The Kingdom. His people, he assumed, would hear past the regional accent to hear the Kingdom. That was true in many places where we were out of our place.

I loved the people we met in Texas and Oklahoma. But I knew they came from a different tribe than I had met before. That was also true of places in the Deep South and Minnesota. I just didn’t grasp their uniqueness and how localism impacts institutions and individuals. One crass South Carolina pastor invited us to spend the night. He said during the after-concert conversation, “I never dreamed I would ever have a Yankee sleeping in my house.” Without a hint of humor or jest, he suggested we might want to make sure our bedroom doors were locked. For him, the war was still on and there was only one war—the one that began at Ft. Sumter. We checked the locks. We were never sure what he was suggesting, but we knew there was unsettled business in him.

Most people are more (…?) than that preacher. But I came to appreciate what—a Canadian border guard said it best: “You cannot ever forget that you are a guest of her majesty The Queen.” We were outsiders and our opinions were not worth much and our behavior could easily be misinterpreted. I love those places and many of the people. I just understand a lot more.

Friday Night Lights—the book—was written about the 1988 football season. The 80s oil business was something I’m still having a hard time getting my head around.

“By the time you added it up, Aaron Giebel’s losses from boom to bust totaled somewhere around $55 million.” (page 235)

During the boom, people bought multiple Lear jets and private landing strips. They built 13,000 square foot houses. There is a paragraph that captures a part of the madness. (Giebel, a cautious and wise businessman, claimed to have been caught in the madness)

“From 1973 through 1981, when the price of oil went up more than 800 percent, he and thousands of others made the fatal error of forgetting that every ounce of their success was due to the geopolitics of the Arab oil embargo and the Carter energy policy and the Iranian Revolution. They had actually thought that they themselves had something to do with what was happening and were somehow in control of their own destinies. … Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe they were the creators of it.” (Page 237)

As H. G. Bissinger describes the culture and some of the people, I liked some of those people. I liked almost everyone in the TV series. The money and toys are beyond my capacity to even imagine, but I think I would be comfortable drinking coffee with Mr. Giebel. The people in Odessa and Midland were the neighbors of George W. and the senior Bush families. The Gatlin Brothers grew up in Odessa. There is a picture of Rudy Gatlin in the book. The culture built war heroes and entertainment stars and people of God. But this experience has caused my stomach to sour and my emotions turn dark. Not everyone was welcomed to the big house and not everyone starred on the football teams.

James Robison tells a story about a meeting with oil men who had the kind of wealth just described. The men were invited to a meal to help finance a mission project. Robison is a Texas evangelist whose primary focus now is providing fresh water wells and food in third world countries. When the pledge cards were passed out not one oil man gave a nickel. The only one in that room to make a financial pledge was a waitress. Within a year, the oil men had lost everything and the only one in that gathering to have gained was the waitress.

My stomach hurts when I pick up the book. I come away from these stories wondering if I would have filled out a pledge card. I wonder how I would have measured the risk and responsibility. I have a burden for the debris—the people left behind when the stadium lights go out and those who didn’t even bother. Sitting around seminar table may be a start, but only the released power of God will heal and transform. I’m wondering how that happens.

©2016 D. Dean Benton     Writer, Wonderer

“Living in the glare of divine rejection.”

We’ve never been on a first-name basis. My reaction was, “Abraham, dear Abraham, God accepts you. Rejection of you has never been a consideration.”

Abraham Lincoln grew into young adulthood as an aggressive agnostic. He wrote at least one book vilifying the Bible and repudiating the Gospel and God. Amazon does not sell that book because one of Lincoln’s friends grabbed the manuscript out of his hands and threw it into the blazing fire.

Stephen Mansfield describes Lincoln’s journey to faith, Lincoln’s Battle With God. ( Thomas Nelson, 2012). Mansfield lays out reasons for his crooked pilgrimage that affects some of us—the way we perceive ourselves. The only explanation for Lincoln’s survival, let alone his emotional and mental ability to run for political office and to become a phenomenal leader is the providence of God.

Lincoln lived most of his childhood and youth into young adulthood feeling he was cursed with no possibility of ever gaining God’s favor or acceptance. Some historians and psychologists say that Lincoln rejected God and everything connected to God because He lived with the fallacy that God had first rejected him. Why? How did he come to that conclusion?

1. His mother was the “illegitimate” child of Virginia nobleman who either raped or took advantage of Lincoln’s grandmother. We know this because Abraham told his friend Herndon. This thinking about “illegitimacy” was pretty much common during that era. He was “tortured” by the circumstances of his mother’s birth.

“…convinced Lincoln ‘that God had cursed and crushed him especially.’”

2. Unworthy of God’s acceptance. This came from the extreme Calvinism he had been taught. Joshua Speed said, “Lincoln tried to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught.”
3. His relationship with his father. Thomas Lincoln was critical, vicious, and ridiculed Abraham constantly. The boy was neglected, beaten and using Lincoln’s words, worked like a slave. In recent weeks I have read several stories of fathers of that design. Our image of the Heavenly Father is influenced and often is determined by our relationship with our earthly father. The “god” A. Lincoln rejected was not Yahweh, but the merciless Thomas Lincoln.

As powerful as the specter of illegitimacy that impacted Henry Clay, Lincoln, John Fremont, the presence of a neglecting, abusive or cruel father could have destroyed Winston Churchill and certainly A. Lincoln.

On Sunday, his father and mother (step-mother) would go to church. The children would stay home. Before playing, Abraham would read from the Bible, teach a lesson and sing a hymn. Apparently, Lincoln was unwilling to reveal himself or his faith in the presence of his father.

“Lincoln’s hesitation to commit himself unreservedly to the Christian gospel…because of nagging certainties about his repugnance to God.” (p 95—Mansfield.)

4. Depression. His genetic depression came through the families of both father and mother. Add to this the role of death in Lincoln’s early life. In Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals, she makes the point the men Lincoln surrounded himself with in his cabinet all shared either orphanhood or abandonment and frequent encounter with death. With all their dissimilarities, they shared common pain.
5. Culture of conflict and puniness in the local church and his rejection of the worst of revivalist preachers. All of this dislike or disregard for preachers changed when he visited his father-in-law’s library and was guided to a book written by a preacher in Springfield, Illinois. After reading in the book, he later met Preacher Smith and began a friendship and conversation.

Lincoln’s identity includes a sense of being called to something great. He could not view himself or God or faith without looking through these filters that shaped his life.

“Oh, Abraham! He loves you.”  I wanted to reassure the man who became our most beloved President.

What makes me think that God accepts me? Does redemption work in my world—in my soul?

Building an effective prayer strategy includes being self-aware and fully aware of satan’s plan to destroy or neutralize our identity as a unique person and an empowered Child of God.

“Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:5, 6).

Priscilla Shirer teaches us to build a prayer strategy that acknowledges and protects our identity.  That is where we will be attacked first and where we are vulnerable.

I dreamed that I was speaking to a large group of people. I was not pacing the platform, I was sitting on a ledge and suddenly left my message to tell a canned story. I got to the end and forgot the punch line. Forgot the punch line!  I was wide awake instantly. Getting off message to tell a story that has no point. Horrified!

A few weeks ago, I had vision. In response to an motivational sermon, I heard an instruction as an image came instantly into my soul with emotion. I was directed to scope out  a specific spot and build there. I drove to that designated spot and found nothing but swamp, and a flood plain. I was disgusted with myself and ticked at God.

“You sent me to a swamp?” I was devastated. It seemed as if God was toying with me. There is no way anyone would allow me to build there. It is a flood plain and restricted because the area regularly floods. I drove home super upset and defeated. My words to the visioning spot of my soul were, “Just leave me alone. I don’t need this.” I put a muzzle on the beast and put it in a cage.

“Go back out there.” I resisted the persistent voice. I hurt. A couple of days later while muttering words you don’t use in worship time, I parked close to the swamp. It was unique to my experience–God gently said, “I would never send you to do such a thing. I would never trivialize you in that way.”

I don’t remember when I heard Jesus’ words whether while sitting near that flood plain or on my way back to my office or as I sat at my desk.

“Everyone who hears…and puts into practice is like a wise person who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish person who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash (Matthew.7:14-27).

The instruction is to build ministry to those whose lives are on the sand with no foundation, and vulnerable to their turmoil. I saw faceless people of several ages who end up on the sand through their own choices, being tossed there and abandoned or because they concluded it was where they belonged.

I didn’t have to think very hard when one of my preachers asked what breaks my heart. It is that group of people living in the swamp and stranded on the sand. The abandoned, assaulted, rejected and unequipped to make the right decisions and gain the skills to live in those places built on the rock.

I think about people who are gifted and can be world changers, community leaders and agents of accomplishment with healing, encouragement, mentoring and skill building, but lack one or two components in the mix. What if their story is missed?

When I thought about what breaks my heart, I spiritually felt–not saw–I felt a distance, an unfilled space. I could hold my hands a few inches apart. They are just that far from the fast track to take them to God’s plan.  I saw a structure built on concrete pilasters with a dock and treated wood stairs. I saw a carved sign on a piece of drift wood attached to the building with an engraved word. The building was secondary to those knocked down on the sand. It was a place where healing, teaching and experiencing God will happen that will extract them from sand and establish them on a trajectory to God’s idea. The person will emerge with the word—thriving .

I had forgotten the punch line.  The link to an article in the Washington Post reinforced what I’m writing in “Tail Lights”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-doesnt-kill-you-doesnt-necessarily-make-you-stronger/2015/01/02/939f250e-8f7e-11e4-ba53-a477d66580ed_story.html

©D. Dean Benton

I’ve come to a conclusion about churches. I’ve been studying biographies of churches—all kinds of churches, healthy and unhealthy, for a long time. I think marketing brain trust Seth Godin has the final word on church renewal and change. From his blog entitled, “People who like this stuff”: “It’s a little like the futility of the ‘Under New Management’ sign on a restaurant. People who like the place don’t want to hear you’re changing everything, and people who don’t like the old place aren’t in such a hurry for a new place that they’ll form a line….” Established churches are pretty much what they want to be. Insiders envision the attenders as Owners, Renters and Squatters. “Owners” will fight to protect their property—the way things are done and what is legitimate. They are not waiting around for a clerical immigrant to come and fix it. All of this takes on a sharp edge as churches look to minister to the Millennials—the largest generation ever to occupy the earth. Without exception, churches want to reach them, but most are unwilling to change the way things are done to speak their language. Churches tend to want the Millennials to do the adapting. So my conclusion: Churches probably are one or two generation organizations. Any sociologist will give you details. Today’s church attempts to reach across five generations and be inviting to all seldom works. Rather than frustrating everyone and establishing fire fights and battle zones, established churches should birth new churches with a one generation focus. The new church’s leadership, if wise and desirous of longevity, will reach out to their older generation friends to bring balance and wisdom. We visit a church regularly which effectively reaches across the generations. They give an altar call each week with a team of 8-12 altar workers who pray with a broad range of seekers. I have seen a five year old leading his dad wearing baggy jeans and tattoos to the altar to be prayed for by an older business man in a 3-piece suit. The basic core of the people (“Owners”)…

• Crave to be in God’s presence
• Crave to hear and ingest God’s word
• Crave interaction with God’s family
• Crave to see the lost found

I have visited a few thousand churches to find a few like this one. I’ve been studying The Power of Habit—a book by Charles Duhigg. (Random House, 2012). A habit always depends on a habit loop: Cue (trigger) which leads to a routine to gain a desired reward. Research proves that the Cue > Routine > Reward loop needs one more ingredient to hold it together or to explain it: Craving. To change a habit means to find a craving that is more powerful than the old one. Church renewal happens when people begin to crave being in God’s house, crave ministering to each other and acquire a craving to find the lost. One of the older books mentioned above says, “God wants His lost children found!” How do we establish a craving?

• Show evidence that the product is working—called testimonies.
• Understand the consumer’s desired reward—demographics and psychographics
• Stimulate and feed the new craving based on the reward the specific group desires
• Establish the workable alternative routine.

I hope the vagueness will provoke you to read and then talk to me about the contents of the “Habit” book. Talk to me ©2014 D. Dean Benton. http://www.bentonministries.com/ Facebook: Benton Quest House

“…your ‘seed’ is more than the ability to produce children; it is your innate potential, which is meant to lead to the destiny for which God created you. Everyone possesses some kind of a seed. That is a seed of potential, purpose and passion. That seed contains your future.”

“…find it, plant it, and nurture it to maturity.”

Myles Munroe, Overcoming Crisis, Destiny Image, 2009

“That seed inside you is your ideas.”

“Once it lands in the right soil, here comes a tree.”

I’ve been reading the work of Myles Munroe for twenty plus years beginning with his work on purpose, potential and passion. I am convinced he is right. I’m also convinced, (Seams to Me), that a natural process is:

Seed, Soil, Sowing, Environment, Nurturing, Reaping.

Munroe and Mike Murdock say that God has placed each of us on the earth to provide solutions and strategies. Every one of us! If Munroe is right that your seed is an idea, then it is important to set aside time to learn how to have an idea. (Dean, are you listening?)

John Maxwell is not the first one to talk about the necessity of thinking and how few people do. Unless we follow a regimen, we will repeat the same thoughts. The same thinking will not produce a different result than the thinking that got you into the place you are. New thoughts depend upon a definite criteria. Not just any thought, but a seed-like thought. Unless it is a hybrid seed, a seed will reproduce itself—that is its job.

Cross-pollination. I am not an agronomist. I do know about ideas and long to have productive ideas. I am committed to finding and talking about solutions and strategies. If you want new and productive ideas, it will require new information. That will require that you read, listen, research, pay attention and interact with idea people. Nothing will unearth an idea like something you do not know spoken by someone you respect.

Mark Virkler built, or discovered, a process that he called, 4 Keys to Hearing God’s Voice. (©2010 Mark and Patti Virkler, Destiny-Image Publishers.) He prays with these tools every day and hears God speaking affection for him, instruction and revelation. “My sheep know my voice,” Jesus said. He explains how that works using four concepts and practices. I have adapted his practice—I’ve changed a couple of words.

When we ask to hear God’s voice, He speaks to us as spontaneous words or visions in our imaginations. The imagination is not just about silly ideas or out of control thoughts. I’ve been derisively told most of my life that “You sure have a wild imagination.” A story teller must have a vivid imagination. Where else would you put together non-directly connected ideas? The imagination can run away with us, but the sanctified imagination is a powerful tool.

Virkler’s basic premise is that we hear God’s voice through spontaneous words or visions. He uses Ephesians 1—“…eyes of my heart” as the means by which this happens. Not only is that legitimate from Virkler’s point of view, I’ve read researchers talk about the heart’s ability to see beyond the cognitive activity of the mind.

So, here is how I’m working with having an idea or finding clarity about a question or issue.

QUIET—STILLNESS

Jesus said go to your “closet”. Interesting. How many closets as we know them, would there have been in a Nazareth home? Probably no plastic hangers or clothes poles. Nail? He was describing a private place—a location without noise or sounds. A place and habit of shutting down the stimuli—noise and music makers and the voices in our heads.

Turn off the voices and list making and images of planners. Somewhere in this, we will learn how to “center” as the Quakers (not New Agers) describe it.

FOCUS

This may lead to worship. Sometimes it is helpful for me to read Scripture and let that take me to where Jesus is at work or with people. Focusing on a word from a passage or concept. The objective is to be specific and intentional—“I’m open only to Jesus—no other voice. Not mine or any stray spirit.” After quieting self, you invite Jesus into the silence. He is welcome.  

I usually state the question at hand or what I need clarified. Does it help to visualize Jesus sitting with you at a small coffee table at Starbucks? Or sitting on a dock with fishing pole in hand? After telling Him how good it is to see Him and appreciate His taking time for this meeting, explain what you need from Him. In the last couple of days, I’ve talked to Him at that “table” about the pathway of healing for a friend and what a fresh logo for our ministry would look like from His plan and perspective. Focusing means to keep the image of Jesus across the table—it is Jesus with whom I am talking.

LISTEN

State the question. Present the problem. What do you need to hear? Sometimes, it is totally preferable to ask, “Jesus, what do you want to say to me, today? What do I need to hear from you?”

It is imperative that you take seriously what you hear. The first words, thoughts, images that come to you. You will assume they are your own thoughts—sometimes they are—but based upon our belief that God desires to talk to us in terms we both hear and understand, how else would he be able to speak to you?

First words, first image, first thoughts. Write them down before you think them through. God will use your cognitive ability to speak the Logos to you, but may by-pass your mind to speak a rhema word directly to your heart before you will have time to rationalize or minimize or excuse the thoughts, word, image as nothing beyond your own crazy thinking.

WRITE

Virkler calls this “two-way journaling.” You ask the question, state the issue and write down what you hear. This is a conversation and you are the court reporter writing it down.

If you are not a Jesus Follower or you think it is bizarre to think God would have a conversation like this, I still consider this process valid to clarify or birth a new idea. If this makes you nervous or have questions, let’s talk. There are precautions, but this is worth the effort.

©2014 D. Dean Benton

Benton Quest House

The Place to build the I’m Possible Life