You're so Judgmental!

Have you ever wondered why God seems so judgmental?  Throughout the Old Testament, God continually goes back and forth between telling His chosen people, Israel, that He is with them and that He is going to turn against them.  From wandering in the desert to being driven into exile, God's punishments against Israel seem to overshadow his promises of care.  And yet, over and over again, we see them side-by-side!  Many have looked at the Old Testament and cringed at this "judgmental" God that seems to constantly be destroying His own people.  But perhaps we are looking at this in the wrong way.

When we complain that God is judgmental, we are using a term that, in English at least, conveys a sense of finality.  A judgment is made by the judge, and you are going to prison or you are going free.  It's done.  However, the writer of Hebrews speaks of God disciplining His children.  The difference is in the relationship.  We usually think of discipline in terms of a parent and child relationship.  In this relationship, it's not final.  Discipline requires a commitment of fidelity that ensures the relationship will go on despite the firm stand for what is right.  Seeing this committed relationship between God and Israel changes everything.

I believe that perhaps we are mixing up terms.  God was not "judging" Israel in the sense that there was a finality.  He was disciplining them, because He had a covenant to remain with them.  Although they were faithless, God was faithful.  Even though He disciplined them severely, He never abandoned them.  My prayer is that we can adopt the same stance with people around us.  It's almost every day that Christians are accused of being judgmental for taking a stand on something.  If Christians are able to build a relationship with people, perhaps we can get to a place where "judgment" begins to be viewed within the context of a committed relationship.  When a good friend tells you that you are making a mistake, it isn't judgment, it's wisdom.

Enemies, or Victims?

What do you believe about punishment?  I had the chance to learn from a friend in my seminary class who is from Uganda.  As he described the situation going on in northern Uganda in which the Acholi people are caught in the middle of violence between the government and the rebels, I realized that we have something to learn from them.  The Acholi people do not believe in punishment.  They believe in restoration.  They have cultural rituals in place to restore people, because in their view, if somebody does something to hurt you, it's not their fault, it's everyone's fault.  The society is a community.  Therefore, when you are hurt, you have to stand strong to avoid losing your humanity so that you can pick the other person back up.

So now there is a situation where the children of the Acholi tribe are being kidnapped at a young age and brainwashed into soldiers.  What are the Acholi to do?  You cannot punish the rebel soldiers - not only are they your brothers and children, but it is not really their fault.  They were themselves the victims!  Therefore the rebels need to be restored and rehabilitated, not punished.

I believe that we have a similar situation as Christians.  While Christians often have an instinct to treat those who are not Christian like enemies, that is very far from what Jesus taught.  The Jews wanted Jesus to stand up and punish the Romans, but Jesus knew that the Romans were not the enemy, they were in fact victims of the same enemy that we all have.  Therefore, the Romans do not need to be fought against, they need to be liberated and restored just the same as the Jews did.

Are there any people in our lives whom we are treating as enemies when they are actually victims?

Exponential

First published on "Stories of LINC North Texas"

What would it look like to achieve exponential growth in an organization?

I would like to take a moment to consider what the word exponential means.  It's a term that we talk about a lot, but I'm not sure that we're looking at the whole picture.  This graph (source: Wikipedia, "Exponential Growth"), shows such a line.  Let's consider each of the three lines as if they were a church congregation.  The red line is "linear" growth.  Every year, 50 new members are added.  That's great growth!  The blue line is "cubic" growth.  Each year, the church grows at a faster and faster rate.  That's even better - this would be a great goal for any church.  But the green line represents what is truly exponential growth.  Each year, the number of members doubles.  This represents incredible growth, staggering to nearly any organization!

But what does this term, exponential, mean to us, really?  It seems that most of us, when we think about exponential growth, think about that overwhelming point of growth....later on down the line.  We are looking at the growth that the graph shows around year 9 and 10.  But if we look back toward the beginning, the line looks stagnant!  Even further down the graph, it takes 9 years to surpass the linear growth, and 10 to surpass the cubic growth!  Many of us would look at the growth happening on the green line for the first five years and conclude that the project was a failure.  In reality, that project is preparing to reach a tipping point where it will far surpass all of its peers.

Let's think seriously about how to start out if we want to achieve exponential growth.  I believe that this graph reminds us that we need to be prepared to start slowly and be okay with staying small for quite a while.  At LINC North Texas, we are blessed to be well down the line.  I would place LINC NT at about the 7 point on the graph - after years of investing in the foundation, we are starting to see incredible things happen, and we as a staff are getting more and more excited about what God has in store for us on down the line!