Category Archives: Scott Savage

becoming like Jesus is doing the next right thing you know to do

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Tomorrow, I will be excited to share with you my reflections on our Ash Wednesday service last night. But, first, I want to wrap up the theme we’ve been developing all week.

The past two days I have shared about what it means to rest from our efforts to earn God’s love and what it means to rest from our efforts to follow Jesus in our own power and strength. Today, I want to share several ways that we can take steps that enable us to live like Jesus described when he spoke to a crowd in Matthew 11:28-30. He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If the two areas I mentioned above are places where you struggle or if the last two posts on this blog have resonated with you, here’s where I would encourage you to get started:

1. Identify places where you have been living in your own power and strength. This may take other people in your life – a close friend or a spiritual leader who knows you well. It is essential for us to cease living in our own power and strength, as we discover what it means to rest in God’s unconditional love for us and His power that is at work in us.

2. Find ways to stay aware of God’s presence in you throughout the day. As I shared yesterday, Jesus’ last message before his arrest and journey to the cross centered around the power of the Holy Spirit and our source of life in Him. We must stay aware of that presence and power throughout our days, not one day a week or even one period in the early morning. Consider exploring prayer as a on-going conversation with God throughout your day. Reading and meditating on Scripture using a tool like Lectio Divina. Journaling your prayers and reflections on Scripture. Even practicing silence or meditation to quiet the world and hear God’s word through prayer and Scripture memory.

3. Trusting God while you are in the middle of the process is a huge challenge. In Philippians 1:3-6, Paul reminds us of Jesus’ promise to not leave us unfinished, midway through the process of transformation. In Philippians 1:6, Paul wrote these words: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” As you begin to take the steps, difficulty and discouragement will come, but don’t lose heart. God finishes what He starts, including His work in your heart.

4. Take the next step that God reveals. ”This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look: ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’ -Jeremiah 6:16 While I was eating breakfast one morning at the retreat, where I first shared the ideas that became this blog series, I was asked by one of the students what it looks like to rest. I believe his exact words were, “So what do I do? Nothing?” That’s a great question. I painted a picture for him that was first painted for me in this Dallas Willard video.

The difference is the gap between effort and earning. There are places where we must make a very real effort to follow Jesus, to live in grace. As Willard says above, grace is not opposed to effort. However, grace is opposed to earning. These steps we are exploring here are not about earning God’s favor or love. They are a response to the grace God gave us freely. Some who refused to come to Ash Wednesday last evening or some who came with closed minds full of bias saw effort and mistook it for earning. We rest in what God did for us through the Cross. However, we must respond to that in faith and then in obedience as follow Jesus and take our next steps of faith.

Willard also shares in the video above that discipleship is “doing the next right thing you know to do.” As someone who has the Spirit of God living with me, God speaks to my heart regularly, directing me to small and large actions. As He reveals, my responsibility is to take the next step, to do that right thing I know to do. That’s why the Confession we used in Ash Wednesday last evening said, “Forgive us for the things we left undone that we should have done.” Conversely, God is now called those he has forgiven to leave that path and begin obeying when we know what must be done.

I challenge you to consider what your next step is. I challenge you to rest from your efforts to earn God’s love, to follow Him in your own strength, to dictate to Him what your next step should be. I pray that as God speaks to you during this Lenten season, in anticipation of Easter, that you respond and step forward when you know what your next step is. 

(Thanks to the middle school and high school students at North Phoenix. I shared the message of this blog with them this past weekend as a part of their Mid-Winter Retreat. I posted another message from that retreat here and here. If it hadn’t been for that experience, I wouldn’t have been able to formulate my thoughts on such an important topic. Encounter Student Ministry, you are awesome!)

Ever feel like “being like Jesus” becomes a burden?

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Hi, my name is Scott and I am a stress junkie.

There was a season where I LIVED on the stuff. I’m in recovery now, but just a few years ago, any large event or project would overwhelm me and I would go NUTS! My stress spread like a yawn at a dinner party or the common cold in a preschool. During the buildup for one weekend event, a friend stopped me and said, “Scott, you’ve got to calm down. You’re so stressed out that I am getting stressed out just from being near you.”

I’m sad to say that my life as a Jesus-follower and a pastor was very similar. I come from a family of high-achievers. We set high expectations for ourselves. I think it was in my DNA and nature as a first-born to hold myself to ridiculously high standards. Somehow this infected my relationship with God. I knew I needed to give my best for God, but somehow, I felt like the source for that endeavor rested all on my shoulders. Needless to say, that became quite a heavy load.

During the height of my “stress junkie” era, I was watching a leadership talk from Craig Groeschel, author and pastor of LifeChurch.tv. He shared about his experiences and his story was similar to mine. He unpacked the concept he was living and he called it Christian Atheism. He defined Christian Atheism as “believing that God exists, but living as if he does not.” He talked about how he professed faith as a Jesus-follower and pastor, yet he lived as if it all depended on him. As if God was not involved. I’ve written previously on this concept here – link to previous blog.

His words struck a chord in me. I realize that was how I lived, as well. During that season, I wrote a term paper for my New Testament class in seminary on the Holy Spirit. I read Jesus’ last words to his disciples on the night before he was crucified in John 14-17. During that message, I found these words in John 15, where Jesus described his connection to us using the imagery of a grapevine. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

I’ve learned a lot about grapevines since then. I’ve visited vineyards and talked with wine experts. I’ve discovered that certain kinds of soil, climate, and rainfall lead to great grapes (and vice versa – to horrible grapes). I’ve discovered the attention that is required from a vineyard owner and his or her workers. Yet few of us know that world and so sometimes, we don’t get the metaphor as deeply as we could.

However, most of us have a cell phone and almost all of us have used one. I have one with a horrible battery. If I leave it on the charger, it works perfectly. But as soon I unplug my phone, it is just a matter of time before I have to find a wall plug or my car charger. My wife, with a newer phone and a much lighter user than me, has the same experience. No matter what, as soon as hers is off her charger, the phone is destined for that “low battery” alert in the future.

The same thing that is true for the phone is true for me and my relationship with God. Apart from God, I cannot follow Jesus in the way He designed me to. You cannot follow Jesus without His power within you. Without remaining connected to Him, we are destined for that Christian Atheist experience. We will feel burdened to do it all on our own, depressed at our failure to live the life we see Jesus describing in the Gospels.

The truth is God designed and intended us for so much more . Paul talks about that in Ephesians 3:18-21 when he says,

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

God is capable of more than you can possibly imagine and His power – the same power that raised Jesus from the grave – lives in ordinary Jesus-followers, like you and me. So often, we allow our imaginations to die when we move from childhood to adulthood, but our imaginations are the only chance we have to come close to what God is capable of.

Tomorrow, I will be sharing how we cultivate that connection with God. Like a branch with the grapevine. Like the cell phone with the charger. I think these ideas might shape how you prepare for Easter through Lent, how you experience God’s presence and power every day.

(Thanks to the middle school and high school students at North Phoenix. I shared the message of this blog with them this past weekend as a part of their Mid-Winter Retreat. I posted another message from that retreat here. If it hadn’t been for that experience, I wouldn’t have been able to formulate my thoughts on such an important topic. Encounter Student Ministry, you are awesome!)

The burden of being good enough for God

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In 2005, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton released a major research study in the form of a book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. In this book, they outlined what they considered to be the dominant religious beliefs of American teens. The five tenets of this belief system are listed below:

  1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
  2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
  3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
  4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
  5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Cumulatively, Smith and Denton summed up this system of beliefs as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. You can read more about the study here and get the book on Amazon here.

While the whole study intrigued me, I was especially intrigued that the fifth point of belief (Good people go to heaven when they die). I have found that view to be shared by not only Christian teens, but non-Christians as well. I find this idea to be representative of American religion, as a whole: “I’m a good person and good people go to heaven when they die.” I believe this is the dominant belief in theater seats and pews every Sunday.

However, the words of Paul in Romans 6:23 are crystal clear. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I asked my friend Mike to recreate a traditional image that has been used in tracts and evangelism tools for decades.

Historically, these simplistic (and somewhat cheesy) pictures have embodied this concept. Our brokenness and sin estrange and separate us from God. However, God makes the first move towards us in Jesus’ death on the cross, reconciling us to Him through a sacrificial death on our behalf. We respond in faith to this act and offer of grace, and are reconciled to God and redeemed out of our depravity and sin.

Tim Keller, a pastor and author living in Manhattan, put it this way. “[In of myself,] I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but [in Christ,] I am even more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope.”

Some of this may be incredibly familiar to you. However, some of you may have seen this idea represented for the very first time. If so, I would love to talk with you offline if you were interested. You can email me at scott.savage@nphx.org.

But for many people with backgrounds in the church, this image is very familiar. Familiarity though is the soil for contempt. The great tragedy I have experienced is that many Christians live as if their sin and struggles as a Jesus-follower send them back to square one. And they find themselves on the other side of the canyon again. The truth is that this is not Monopoly. When you fall short, you don’t head back to Go, you don’t miss out on $200. It was Jesus’ disciples who heard him utter his last words on earth when he said, “I am with you always” in Matthew 28:20. The Apostle Paul hammered home the truth that “Nothing can separate us from the love of God”, in chapter 8, verses 35-39 of his letter to the Romans. Yet, many of us live as if our sin continues to separate us from God, even after we are reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus. If we illustrated it visually, it would look like this.

We may believe in God’s grace, but functionally we live as if it is all on our shoulders. We may profess faith in the sufficiency of Jesus, but our lives reveal that we are far too similar to that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism I mentioned in the beginning.

The burden of following Jesus in that moment becomes a very heavy load. I believe it was to people struggling like this that Jesus spoke to in Matthew 11:28-30. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Tomorrow begins a season of preparation for our experience on Good Friday and Easter, days in which we remember what Jesus did for us – that we could not do for ourselves. I pray that during this season, you will come to see that in Jesus, you can be free from the burden of trying to be good enough and experience the life God created you to live. Today, my grateful prayer to God comes in the form of those words I quoted from Keller above. “[In of myself,] I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but [in Christ,] I am even more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope.”

(Thanks to the middle school and high school students at North Phoenix. I shared the message of this blog with them this past Friday night as a part of their Mid-Winter Retreat. If it hadn’t been for that experience, I wouldn’t have been able to formulate my thoughts on such an important topic. Encounter Student Ministry, you are awesome!)

Need some help with Fasting for Lent?

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Tonight at Crash, I am sharing about Fasting, as a part of our series, Restless People. We are preparing for our Ash Wednesday service this Wednesday, February 22nd. At the recommendation of someone on our leadership team, I created a list of resources that can help you think through your fasting questions.

Traditionally, many Christians intentionally fast from Ash Wednesday (February 22 in 2012) to Easter (April 8 in 2012). Sundays are feast days on the Christian calendar, so you may elect to break your fast on these days.

If you miss the service tonight, check out my Crash talk on our new podcast feed later this week and enjoy the resources below.

Bill Bright on Fasting – Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote a classic piece that explores his experience with a 40 day food fast, along with 7 lessons he learned in the process. Click here to download the PDF file.

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster & The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard – These two books are classics in the spiritual formation vein. They outline the list of classic disciplines (including chapters in each on fasting). Both books are available via Amazon. Also, John Ortberg’s The Life You Always Wanted is a more accessible work for a spiritual discipline newbie.

Past Crash talks on Fasting – Check out series like Lent: A Four-Letter Word (2011) , Six Weeks (2009) and Ancient Future Man (2006) .

Fasting Ideas slideshow from BeliefNet – While I don’t agree with all of the perspective on that post or that site, the 15 ideas mentioned in that slideshow will get your creativity flowing.

Resources in The Joshua Collective archives:

-I posted here about my Lenten fast from staying up late and the decision to start getting up early.

-I posted here about my fast from my smartphone (which lasted nearly a year).

-I posted here prior to Lent 2011 about the disciplines I was planning to engage in related to fasting, almsgiving and prayer.

-After Lent 2011, there were three recap posts on The Joshua Collective – one for each of the three areas I mentioned above – Twitter (Scott), walking (Kelly Young), and spending (Danalyn Savage).

And don’t forget to join us this Wednesday for our Ash Wednesday service to start this season together.

What has your experience with fasting been like? Share with us below!

Jesus prayed for this!

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“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”-Jesus (John 17:22-23)

One of the biggest lessons I’ve gleaned during my twenties has been that great opportunities come out of friendships with people who are different from you. I hope you have those kinds of friends in your life; I’m working to gain more and more of them.

Over the last couple of years, a friendship has emerged between Rob Payne, Fernando Hernandez, and myself. We’ve eaten meals together, hung out in each other’s offices and enjoyed some very funny moments. Fernando leads North Phoenix’s Ministerio Hispano. Our offices are next door to one another. Rob Payne is one of our worship leaders at Crash. Rob wears a lot of other hats at NPHX including creative direction and video production.

We have discovered similar passions between Crash and the Hispanic Ministry. We play some of same songs and we are intentionally working to reach young adults. We’ve been able to assist one another from time to time and even used similar set pieces since our services both meet in NPHX’s Chapel on Sundays.

An idea emerged a while back. What if we brought our two communities together for joint worship? The ideal timing for that service landed perfectly at the beginning of WeServe, a seasonal event at NPHX where we mobilize several hundred people within our church to serve the community through partners where NPHX has an ongoing presence.

Earlier this month, we announced this unique opportunity to both Crash and the Hispanic Ministry. On February 26, our smaller communities will come together for united worship at 10:30am (during the Hispanic Ministry’s normal hour) and at 6pm (during Crash’s normal hour). Our musicians will play together at both services, with songs in English and in Spanish at both times. I will be speaking at 10:30am in English (translation for Spanish-speakers) and Fernando will be speaking at 6pm in Spanish (translation for English-speakers).

Then, on Saturday, March 3, we are encouraging the people who take part in our ministries to come together for a united service project as a part of WeServe. We feel this is a first step in exposing each of our communities for one another and building a stronger bond as one church that meets as smaller communities.

We’re excited to come together as an expression of the unity Jesus prayed for in John 17.

I’ve been blessed to be a part of a spirit of unity and togetherness over the last year. Whether it is the encouragement of seeing generations coming together at NPHX, a ministry like PhoenixONE (a partner of NPHX). our upcoming Ash Wednesday Service, or this joint Crash/Hispanic Ministry experience, it is awesome to be a part of what God is doing.

I encourage you to join us on February 22 for Ash Wednesday and on February 26 at 10:30 am or 6pm for these joint Crash/Hispanic Ministry services. And make sure and sign up for a WeServe project, like the one we mentioned above.

We are praying that God does incredible things as we come together as one body!

What do you live on?

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I live on stories. Some might say that’s not true. They think I live on coffee. But what really gets me going and sustains me through difficult seasons are the stories of people whose lives have been transformed.

What makes a great story? Overcoming conflict. Overcoming difficulty. A moment where it is unclear whether things are going to work out.

I believe we connect with one another through the stories we tell. Put a group of people around a table with food and what comes out are great stories. Same thing with a campfire or a road trip. Stories rule the day.

While we connect with one another through the stories we tell, the stories we connect most deeply through are the stories that involve scars, pain, and loss. We connect more through our suffering than our success. The pain two people share in common binds them more deeply than the happiness they’ve known.

As I prepped for our series on forgiveness in January called Toxic (you can find the podcast here), I came across this video from CrossPoint Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Will told his story (via video) during one of their services in January. The story is an example of the way that our stories are worth telling, worth hearing and worth sharing. Even when the pain is deep and the injustice is real.

You have a story. It matters. Every person you meet today has a story. Their’s matters. Take a moment to pause long enough to experience this at least once today.

In the meantime, check out Will’s story below.

the friend you need and the one you need to be

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Today is Valentine’s Day. A day dedicated to the message of love and romance. But at the heart of any lasting romance is a friendship. The friendship keep the relationships moving forward. As married person I can tell you, you spend a lot more time talking in a marriage than you do having sex.

Friendship is an essential piece of life, for all of us. Without it, the highs are lower and the lows are even lower. Not only do we want friends to celebrate success with, but we want friends to walk through the hellish seasons of life with too.

And it is often to those hellish seasons that reveal the true or false nature of our friendships. I found this picture on the Facebook wall of one of my friends this past weekend.

I am not sure when Will Smith said that, but his sentiment resonates. Shared success means much more when we have also shared struggles.

I wish I could tell you that I have perfectly shared struggles with my friends. But I haven’t. Maybe you can identify. I know grief is a process and that people heal over months and years not hours or even days. And there are too many times that I can count when I have forgotten someone I cared about during that season. This past weekend, I remembered two people that I had forgotten who are in that season. I couldn’t believe that I had overlooked staying connected with them. I did my best to reconnect – a phone call, a text message, an email.

When I’ve been in that struggle myself, I’ve been on the receiving end of great acts of friendship and frustrating acts too. The friend I need in those horrible seasons and the friends I need to be to others in those moments utters few words and even fewer answers. Henri Nouwen put it well when he said, “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender heart.”

Those people who share our pain instead of giving advice – they are the same people we actually want to listen to advice or solution-ideas from when we are making decisions in the future, when we are trying to decide what to do with our success. We can trust others, and others can trust us in return, when we respect pain and sorrow enough to sit in it without solving it. If you want a Biblical example of this, check out the story of Job. His friends sit with him in silence for 7 days and offer great encouragement. But when they open their mouths and try to “fix” Job, the wheels fall off and Job goes crazy on them!

In Galatians 6, the Apostle Paul wrote that community of Jesus-followers and said, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Friendship and the experience of true community are gifts that transform us. And because of what we have received from others, we are able to freely give ourselves. The friend you need and the one you need to be, the friend I need and the one I need to be…are mirror images of one another. And if we caught this picture, we might discover that selfless service is the path to having our needs met and hopes realized.

You wouldn’t know this, but this blog is my 500th post on The Joshua Collective, a site that began in last part of 2008. The posts you’ve read and continue to read here represent the friendship I have received from others who believed in me when I was a bad communicator and inexperienced pastor. The first 500 represent the friend I long to be to others, sharing wisdom, insight, challenges and encouragement. There’s a lot of really horrible posts on here, but as one friend told me, “You only get better by making lots of mistakes. Just keep failing in the right direction.”

Thanks for whatever part of this journey you’ve been on with me. And don’t worry…I promise that I’ve got a lot more posts in me!

How on earth did Scott Savage become a runner?

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I know. I am just as shocked as you to put “Scott Savage” and “a runner” in the same sentence. But it’s true.

I realized I was a runner a couple weeks ago. I was driving up Central Avenue to pick up a guest speaker for the service I lead at NPHX. My windows were down due to the amazing “winter” weather we were having in Phoenix and I saw runners moving up and down the path I use two or three times a week. In that moment, a random thought came into my mind, “Man, I wish I was running right now.” In that moment, I knew that I had gone off the deep end – that I was now a runner.

I didn’t get here overnight. There was a long season where I ran but did not enjoy it. There are some days where I go so slow and wonder why I am spending 60 minutes doing this to myself. But two days later, I am back on the path again.

Since we are six weeks into the year, and many of us have abandoned our New Years’ fitness resolutions already, I thought I would share seven things I did on my journey to becoming a runner.

1. Set a goal. In the fall of 2010, I ran a 5K that my wife, Dani, had registered for and couldn’t make because of a last minute trip. That race convinced me I could be a runner. When I started running again in October 2011, my goal was to get back to that 5K. When I reached that, my new goal was a 10K. When I achieved that about 6 weeks ago, I started thinking about a half-marathon. My new goal is to tackle that before the end of 2012.

2. Pick a regular time. I am a structure person. I have to decide in advance that I am going to run. So, I checked with Dani’s schedule and I decided early morning was best. I typically get started between 630 and 7am, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I would encourage you to pick two or three times a week that you know you can regularly make for your runs.

3. Measure it. Some people run to run and don’t worry about measuring it. However, since I am so goal-oriented, I started experimenting with GPS-enabled apps for my Android smartphone to measure my time, distance and calories burned. Since October, I have used three apps – Endomondo, RunKeeper, and CardioTrainer. My best experience has come with Endomondo, but I have friends who really love Runkeeper. My favorite feature is the library where I can see past runs and track my mileage month by month to see progress.

4. Share it. I am an avid user of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Since I was really unconfident as a runner, I realized it was important for me to get encouragement from others. I automatically set apps like Cardio Trainer and Endomondo to share my run details to my social media profiles. I even blogged about my journey and progress. In the last month or so, I have heard a couple of stories of people who read my blog and followed my runs who were motivated to take similar steps themselves. I am honored to have that privilege!

5. Enjoy it. Okay, so this is a list and it seems a bit serious. But running has actually become fun for me, something I look forward to on those early mornings. I believe it has helped that I listen to things that I enjoy while I run. I listen to my favorite podcast through apps like BeyondPod or Stitcher. I discover new music through Pandora. I fall back on motivating playlists from my iTunes. And I get caught up on my Bible reading through YouVersion‘s audio feature. Look for ways to have fun as you run.

6. Learn from seasoned veterans. I learned along the way that I had some bad habits or ignorance regarding running. I gained a lot of wisdom from articles in Runner’s World magazine. Also, chats with my friend, Kelly Young, and Dani (who have run marathons and ultra-races like the Ragnar Relay) helped me continue to build my knowledge base as I gain experience.

7. Give yourself time to get into it. As I was sharing about running at one point, a friend sent me a message, asking how I got excited about running. This friend had tried to run but just did not enjoy it at all. And amidst a busy schedule, she found it hard to make time for something she did not enjoy. I replied with two words: permission and patience. Give yourself permission to not enjoy it. There are lots of ways to maintain personal fitness. Running is not for everyone. So if this is not for you, the worst thing you could do is force it. Also, be patient. Give yourself time to discover enjoyment. Time in your daily runs and time over weeks of runs. Many times, I do not enjoy the first mile or two, but I find enjoyment in the third, fourth or fifth miles. I ran three times a week for nearly three months, racking up close to 150 miles before I had that moment driving past my running path where I wished I was running. That feeling may not come overnight.

I hope what I have shared helps you discover something you have not considered before. I am a newbie and still learning a great deal. I am simply excited that I am taking care of myself physically, so I can live out my calling and purpose for decades to come.
What lessons you have learned along your personal fitness journey? Share them below.

this is not normal, but it should be!

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A Baptist pastor working with an Anglican priest to plan an Ash Wednesday service for multiple congregations to worship together and begin the journey towards the highpoint of the church year – Easter Sunday. This is not normal but it should be.

In his final moments before his arrest, Jesus prayed for his disciples (which includes me and many of you). In John 17:23, he prayed, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

We live in a culture that creates radical divided and polarized factions over every issue, each with the inability to reasonably and honorably discuss differences and problems with the hope of coming together around solutions. This happens in politics and theology, along with so many other arenas.

Several years ago, I became friends with Shane Copeland, who had just launched a new church in Downtown Phoenix called St. George’s Anglican Community. We met through a mutual friend and after many cups of coffee, an idea emerged to do something together with the two communities we lead. The first event was a joint Ash Wednesday experience. Since then, I have preached in Shane’s church and we have co-led several more Ash Wednesday services, along with an Advent service this past December.

I do not often think of Shane as different from me; I just think of him as a friend and fellow Christ-follower. I was reminded of how “not normal” our relationship is when someone sat down with me recently perplexed at how a Baptist pastor would come together with an Anglican priest to host an Ash Wednesday service. This perplexed friend had explored this kind of relationship in his large suburban mega-church and was forbidden from that kind of thing ever again.

In light of this, I am extra grateful to invite you to join Shane and myself, along with our churches, St. Georges Anglican Community and North Phoenix Baptist Church, for an Ash Wednesday Service on Wednesday, February 22, 2012. This service, which will involve several other local churches including Desert Mission Anglican Church, will take place in the Chapel at North Phoenix beginning at 6:30pm. Children will participate in this service, while we are offering programming for preschoolers between birth and kindergarten by RSVP (details for that at the end of this post).

Ash Wednesday is one of the most meaningful services I get to take part in every year and this joint venture has expanded my vision of the Church and God’s work in Phoenix in an incredible way. If you have any questions about the service, please leave a comment below and we will respond. We look forward to you joining us that evening as we begin the journey towards the Cross and Empty Tomb of Jesus Christ.

To get a taste of the experience, my friend, Dave Warner, took some incredible photos from 2011′s Ash Wednesday service.

***Preschool details: RSVP by sending an email to scott.savage@nphx.org. Include in your email the names and birthdates of the children who will be attending the preschool programming. If your preschoolers normally attend NPHX programming for preschoolers, you do not need to RSVP. With the RSVP plan, we are attempting to provide the best experience for all the extra families who will join us for this service. Also, if you are bringing preschoolers, plan to arrive at 6:15, so you can check your children in and be prepared to begin the service at 6:30. The service will conclude no later than 8pm.

Building a relationship seems like too much effort

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(I try to keep this blog focused and rant-free, yet there are some days when my willpower is defeated. Today is one of those days.)

A friend of mine pinged me on IM yesterday. In the midst of a chaotic week, I was not so inclined to check out the link she sent. However, she baited me. She sent me a quote from the article she linked to. The quote got me hook, line and sinker. So, I clicked away, totally lost focus and the genesis of this post came to life in my head.

This is the article. For the sake of this post, I am not so interested in the feelings of Japanese teenagers regarding sex. I mean, that would make for great dinner conversation (at a loud restaurant of course or in my living room). And I was blown away with the numbers, while still being somewhat cynical about the objectivity of survey data.

But the quote that caught my attention came from one of these “herbivore men” as the teenage Japanese girls call them. When interviewed, Yusaki Yakahashi said, “building a relationship seems like too much effort. To get her to like me and for me to like her… I’d have to give up everything I do at the weekend for her. I don’t want to do that.”

That sentiment – the investment is not worth the pay off – blew me away. The article goes on to explore reasons for this kind of perspective, such as over-indulgence in technology or preference for virtual experiences vs. real ones.

Now, I am not a sociologist nor a psychologist. I leave those to friends who have done the hard work and earned the degrees. But I have witnessed in my own life and in the life of those I know a disturbing tendency to prefer online communication to face-to-face. To prefer texting someone I am not with versus talking with someone I am sitting next to. To having a difficult conversation that could easily turn sour in person blow up in their face over Facebook Chat.

Mr. Yakahashi is right. Building relationships – friendships and romantic ones – require a ton of effort. And yeah, sometimes you have to give up your plans for an entire weekend for those relationships. Helping someone move, showing up at the hospital, cheering on their big performance or standing beside someone at the graveside service. But we do these things because we know that we love these people and we feel we were created to live life like this.

So, when I read about the dominant male in a culture with no intention related to marriage and fatherhood, when I read crazy articles about men who would rather have a virtual girlfriend that pursue a real, living woman, part of me wants to go ranting like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. But, that does me no good and I am not sure a shaming diatribe would change anyone. Plus, I only know one Japanese person living in Japan. And he is not a “herbivore male”. And I don’t think this blog has a huge following in Tokyo.

Once I take some deep breaths and come back to earth, the best thing for me to do is start with me, to recommit myself to valuing the people I am with. The students I am mentoring. The child I am tutoring. The wife I am loving. The volunteers I am serving. The staff I am affirming. The friends I am encouraging. The church I am challenging. And all those who are doing the same for me. While some of that happens via blogs, tweets, wall posts, emails, texts, IMs and phone calls, much more of it happens face-to-face and shoulder-to-shoulder.

Today, instead of emailing that person, go sit in front of them and actually talk. Instead of leaving your phone in your pocket, put in by the door on silent across the room. Yeah, relationships takes effort and intention, but how sad would it be for a single man to walk right past real live women on a beach on his way to discover some picture of a virtual woman via a QR code on his phone? C’mon man, get off your phone and build a relationship!