A Virus put us in "Time out"...

A Virus put us in “Time out.” What are we going to learn in there?

When my kids were little we had a “time out’ system. If they had done the wrong thing, or things really got out of control l would send them to “time out”. I am pretty sure it is standard practice in most households. It is a time when you must be isolated, on your own and have time to think, re-think and calm down. There was always accountability connected to it, with an expectation that your behaviour would change, and of course be better than when you were first sent to this space. I found it a very powerful tool for all involved, including me, the parent. Sometimes you really need to be able to have some space to stop and think about how you should proceed, so it brings us closer together and not further apart.

To be honest, at any age of life, this is a good practice to live by. It is just when children are young and they don't have the self-control or self-discipline to manage this process, that the ‘supposed’ more mature ones help create this boundary for them. As the parent I had been known to put myself into ‘time out’ and leave the kids to their own devices, which often had some interesting outcomes.

Deuteronomy 6 speaks of how we are to live our lives in abundance and in reverence to God. The famous promise is outlined to “Love God, your God, with your whole heart: Love Him with all that’s in you. Love Him with all you’ve got” (Deut 6:5 MSG).

Then because He knew we would forget it, He gave four keys to get it inside your hearts. He commanded that we: Talk about it wherever you are, sitting at home, walking in the street, talk about it in the morning, when you rise and the in the evening when you fall into bed. Place reminders wherever you can to make sure it happens. (v 6-9)

In this pandemic all we really have is our sitting at home, walking (two by two), our sleeping and waking. It is like the Virus has given us a BIG TIME OUT. I am not saying that we personally have done something wrong to deserve our TIME OUT. But the world has definitely got some serious things going wrong in order for everyone to be sent to their rooms.

And yet I am encouraged that even in this TIME OUT, we can carry on with God’s commands in order to have an abundant and full life. I know it is hard for some people to comprehend this, but to Love God with our whole heart and all we have, is actually one of the only things we can do right now.  Isn't it cool that just when we think, “how are we going to go to ‘Church’ and be the light to the World?” that maybe He is reminding us that the four simple things he asked us to do, we can still do.  And all He is asking us to do is to be obedient to that. 

I wonder if in this time to re-think, calm down and pause that we might miss the greatest chance to change our behaviour.  I wonder if during this TIME OUT, God might be wanting to teach us more about HIM. During this TIME OUT, wouldn't it be great, if we learned that in a world that is out of control, God is never out of control. In a world that is ever changing, God has never changed, and his commandments in Deuteronomy 6 are now more relevant and doable that ever before. 

When my kids did not change their behaviour when they left their rooms, they went straight back in. Even if they didn't like it or agree, they knew they had to make changes for the better if they wanted the chance to get out and do what they wanted to do. I hope we learn from this what God is wanting to teach us. That we bring the ‘best of us’ out of our rooms and live in a way that shows that we do love the Lord our God with our whole heart and with all we have got. And that is all He is asking of us, because I believe He can really use that to make a difference in this broken world.

I HOPE that when we are able to finally come out of our rooms that we don't go back to the old behaviours and what we thought was important. I HOPE that we rise to be better people, a better generation, a stronger world; a world where we value all people, we treat all people equally and we care for the least of these, whenever we get the chance.

Deuteronomy 6:1-5 MSG

“This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.

Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.

God, our God! God the one and only!

Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!”

            

What will we do with this TIME?

As I walked outside my door the other day, I was greeted with a little package and letter. What a surprise, what a blessing, the message I needed to hear, coming from one who took the time to simply write her thoughts on paper, for me to be able to read over and over again.

 

Isolation for many has been a difficult thing, a loss of many things which we have no control over. Barbara Brown Taylor said about this TIME 

“We are not losing control, we are losing the illusion that we ever had any control.”

So, as the Illusion has hit home, for many of us of being under the tyranny of so many things that are out of our control, what do we do? Or maybe the question remains, what do we really actually have? What can we be assured of that will never change?

Much of the New Testament letters were written while in Isolation or under persecution. In Jail, Paul had so much TIME to be with himself and his God. There was no internet, TV, Netflix, messenger, iPhone in those days, and wouldn't have been allowed in jail anyway. He had a lot of alone time, to ponder the things that he really had and that which would never change? I wonder if he hadn’t had that TIME to sit and wonder and ponder, if we would have the promises and hope we have today as we read things such as: 

Phil 1:9-11

“I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.” (NLT)

Phil 1:21

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”

Phil 2:1-3

“Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Phil 2:14-16

“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life”. 

Phil 3:8-11

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith inChrist—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead”.

It goes on and on, I simply encourage you to take the TIME to read the letter to the “Philippians” during this Isolation space, over and over again. 

Even in our current isolation, the internet allows instantaneous places to escape the nothingness. In fact, the overload of social media has felt like it has tripled since COVID-19 struck. And while I am very thankful for the internet in so many ways, nothing has been encouraging more than a number of personal hand-made letters that have been dropped at my door, hand-written in love. It didn't cost them anything but TIME.

The slow intentional place we find ourselves in when we choose to take the TIME to write a letter.  Putting paper to pen and taking the TIME to record our thoughts. We are in a time like never before where the depth of this space allows for it. A space where you may never know the gift you bring by taking the time to encourage others to deeply consider who God is and how deeply He loves us. 

Yes in this TIME, we are still all connected, but our “connectivity" does not mean “intimacy”. My prayer is that during this TIME we place a higher value on personal intimate interactions as this crisis lifts. But in the meantime, we can begin the intimacy process by writing and sharing our deeper feelings, rather than a quick one minute text or a two second emoji or a funny share on Facebook or twitter. Let that not be how we spend our TIME, just trawling the internet and sharing funny and thoughtful posts, but to take the TIME to consider those real relationships and how we can invest into them, truth and love that is lasting and will only change in a deeper and more real way. The choice we have control over, the question is “how will we love those we do life with better in spite of this crisis, in the midst of the crisis and after the crisis is gone?” 

The Church is calibrated for a world that doesn't exist.

On March 7^th, 2020 Jake Mulder said, “The church is calibrated for a world that doesn’t exist”.  On that day I sat in an auditorium of 900+ people. I knew at the time it was a profound statement for the church, as it must be willing to consider how broken it has been to speak to the world it finds itself in. But none of us at the time knew how prophetic it would be, that within days of him speaking we would no longer be able to meet in groups of more than 100 inside and then a week later, no-one is able to meet face to face at all. 

The world is in shutdown and it is not just the church that is calibrated for the world that no longer exists. 

The church is now scrambling along with everyone else in the world to know how to function, and rightly so. 

These are profound times. “Unprecedented” is the word I continue to hear. Everyone has a voice, a special announcement, an opinion, a way forward. Almost every sector of the world must re-think how we must do life as we now live in a world we are not calibrated for! The church must also do the same. 

The mandate has never changed. It seems to me that the call is still to “love God and love our neighbor as ourselves”. And maybe because we have created lots of NEW ways to 'do' Church with all the right intentions, we NOW find ourselves scrambling to 'undo' all our structures to simply abide by new rules while still trying to maintain a “calibration” that maybe should have never existed in the first place. 

I want to say in the words of our Australian prime minster “stop it”.

Now is the time to go back to the original design, the simplicity of meeting together … ‘where two or three are gathered I am there in the midst’. It is clear for a while that will have to start with Households. To love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Never in a long time in history have we truly had the opportunity to simply live this out in a way that I believe may truly fulfill the great commission, help save lives, help people not feel so alone, and help bring peace and hope to a panicked world. 

Don’t miss this opportunity to change and re-think and recalibrate in a time when we HAVE to change. Let’s get it right this time. Let’s ask the right questions and not just think short term, but long term. Let’s not panic and react but deeply seek Him and what He is teaching us about how we are to respond. 

In these times of re-thinking everything, Jake Mulder said something else that day that struck me. So often when we have to make changes, we approach it by the quick fix rather than considering the long-term gains. It seems this is the biggest discord among all Australians about how to flatten the curve of the corona virus. There are short term and long-term decisions that are constantly being weighed up against each other as World Leaders do their best to lead in this difficult time. I am not making any judgement about how and what they should be doing. I respect the difficult position they are in. But when it comes to being a leader in the Church, that’s the space I am called to consider how to move forward. 

Jake described this as needing to decide between “lollies and chips” vs “Vegetables”. How many might choose “lollies and chips” over eating vegetables if we had to decide what we wanted to eat at a Saturday night party night. It’s the quick fix, the sugar rush, the thing that gets us through a tough spot, the thing that in the short term fills the gap and feels good at the same time. Although as leaders we have been thrown into needing to “think quick” in the past weeks, when we catch our breath, we need to think more long term and we know that the better thing to eat long term is vegetables. For many they are not as palatable and as easy to prepare and need more thought, but in the long term they are better for us and set us up for health long term. 

The Quick fix has been to do everything online. The world has been set up for years with every online resource you can imagine. Teaching is accessible on any topic by the best communicators in the kingdom. The quick fix is there and yet pastors of all ages have spent these last weeks trying to get studios set up and record services for this Sunday. I have heard people say for years that the ‘Online” world is so dangerous, and now it may just be our savior.

BUT I believe it could also STILL be our greatest hindrance. It is not about the resource but how we use it. In the immediate, where physical isolation is important to flatten the curve, of course access what the church already has. But let’s not forget the Body of Christ and how each part has an important part to play. Why do we think unless your community hears the PASTORS voice it is not “Ok”. There is so much wisdom in the Kingdom; Prophets and Pastors all vying for their voice to be heard in this space. Let’s share the best voices of this time with the Kingdom all over the world and then pastors, let’s spend our time thinking through the “vegetables” - the long term. In 6-12 months from now where do we want to be?  If it is still online and waiting for the next podcast we are in more trouble than ever. 

As we ponder what the church should look like, let’s not JUST answer this question for the short term, to get us out of this hotspot, and do the quick fix with the view to return to how we have done things in the past as quickly as possible. Let’s consider the long term and how God might want to re-shape the future for the long term, to be much healthier faith communities, to fulfill the great commission in 6-8 months from here, and beyond, with what He wants us to start now. 

There has never been a better time to be a good neighbor. 

There has never been a better time to take the time to get to know our God more deeply and find peace, love and grace in the midst of confusion. 

There has never been a better time to simplify what it means to truly do life together. 

There has never been a better time to be with those you love and care for each other well, to listen, to provide basic things like milk and bread. 

There has never been a better time to choose wisely what you will spend your time doing, now that many things are no longer possible. 

There has never been a better time to recalibrate what is really important in your life, what you need and don’t need. 

There has never been a better time to be a good citizen. 

There has never been a better time to lead by example.

 There has never been a better time to bring peace to a hurting world. 

There has never been a better time to be empathetic and other-centered.

It is time for the church of God to become re-calibrated for the world that exists now, and to rediscover that God has given us the tools and models all along. Its simply time to put them into practice.