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

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Scott Savage

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

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Scott Savage

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:

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

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Scott Savage

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!

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Scott Savage

“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?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Scott Savage

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.

Afshin Ziafat at NPHX

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Scott Savage

I shared last week about our excitement regarding a special guest speaker.

We had a great Sunday at NPHX this past weekend with our guest, Afshin Ziafat. He shared in our 10:30am service and Crash (our 6pm service). We experienced a great response in both services and had an overflow crowd on Sunday evening. Below, you will find links to the audio and video of his Sunday morning and Sunday evening messages. If you missed either, I encourage you to check them out. Watch or listen to them again, if you were there, and share them with others.

Click here for video from Sunday morning and Sunday evening respectively.

One caveat regarding Sunday evening. We had technical difficulties that night, so the video starts 10 minutes into his message. The audio link below has the full message.

Click here for audio from Sunday morning and Sunday evening.

For photos from the service Sunday evening, click here.

For more information on Afshin Ziafat, check out his website.

I thought you hated rules!

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Scott Savage

I follow Tim Schrader, a church communication guru. I read his blog and enjoy his tweets. Tim’s posts are full of insight and I like his spirit. Recently, he shared a picture that he found on Jeremy Cowart‘s Google Plus feed. (Cowart is an incredible photographer, the brains behind Help Portrait). The picture (which I have posted below) includes 9 rules for creatives.

Now, my first thought was “Creatives don’t like rules. So that title is ironic.” As I waited, I realized that rules are like boundaries, and creativity thrives within boundaries. Even sometimes in proportion to the amount of boundaries.

As I have reflected on these rules several times over the last week or so, the one that resonates the most with me is teach others about what you know. I am a verbal processor and so the longer I talk, the more I comprehend what I believe and the more I clarity I get. God bless my wife who is often the victim (or listener, however you want to look at it) in this process. My creativity grows and expands and I connect ideas as I share them with others. As I teach what I already know, and as others repeat back to me and reflect on what I’ve said, my ideas get better, clearer and more portable. Twice this week, I have pitched ideas to coworkers, airing the concepts outloud for the first time and by the time we were done, my ideas were more developed and my next steps were obvious. When I teach others what I already know, my energy increases and my creativity expands.

I know creatives and artists are supposed to hate rules, but we are also supposed to not shower, be poor, miss meetings and be unreasonable. Rules can guide us into greater art if we submit to them like the boundaries of a medium, a subject or a timeframe.

Question: Whether you are a creative, an artist or you miss drawing with crayons, which of these 9 rules resonates most with you?

A powerful story of forgiveness

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Scott Savage

My pastor, Dan Yeary, came to me this fall and asked if I had heard of Afshin Ziafat. I had not, so I did what any 27 year old pastor does. I typed in his name into Google and YouTube. Within a day, I was blown away by the powerful story of transformation that God had done in the life of a boy who was born in the USA, lived in Iran, fled a political revolution, and experienced persecution in America. Afshin now has a platform to share the Gospel with thousands of college students every week. When we got a chance to invite Afshin to join us at NPHX in January 2012, we jumped at it.

As we decided to begin 2012 at Crash with a series on forgiveness, I knew that Afshin’s story would be a powerful way to end this conversation about how we can break away from the toxic power of un-forgiveness. And I am incredibly excited for him to be at NPHX this upcoming weekend. You can learn more about Afshin’s story and his sharing this weekend at our church here.

Invite a friend to come with you. Someone who has questions about God, someone who struggles with doubts and frustrating past experiences with religious people. Ask them to join you on Sunday morning at 10:30AM or Sunday evening at 6PM.

If you want to check out a little taste of Afshin’s story, check out the video below. And then join me in praying passionately for God to do great things when we come together.

the more you gain, the more you have to lose

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Scott Savage

Every time I succeed, I have more to lose. The greater success I discover, the more tempted I am to avoid risk and play it safe. This thought process plagues many of us, whether we are exploring relationships or doing business.

I thought about this reality this past weekend when I was making final preparations to share in both Sunday servies at North Phoenix Baptist Church. I highly value transparency in the messages I bring and I look for opportunities to share moments where I have been “the hero or the villian”. I think we connect with one another far more deeply through our failures than our success and so I look to offer that to others. But I wondered if others would think less of me if they knew of a broken place in my life.

I have been surprised though as God grants me more and more platforms from which to share. It is scarier and riskier to be “that honest”. To go THAT real. Every time, vulnerability and transparency can terrify us. However, these are the paths to great relationships and I believe God honors our willingness to go out on a limb to meet someone else in their place of need.

Courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/photo/836878

I read a small bit of Henri Nouwen every day. The late Catholic priest and Ivy League professor is full of incredible wisdom and spiritual insight. A few days ago, I read these words and they resonated in me.

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control over its development, and to make it available in large quantities. Success brings many rewards and often fame. Fruits, however, come from weakness and vulnerability. And fruits are unique. A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another’s wounds. Let’s remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness.

-Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

“Intimacy is the fruit that grows from touching one another’s wounds.” Now that may be a far too emotional thought than you feel comfortable with engaging. You may feel that you have to surrender a man card to go down that road. But I believe intimacy is the greatest fear of many of us. We are terrified of truly being known.

Today, I challenge you to consider Nouwen’s words and your own fears. If you put all your eggs in the basket of success, you will have more to lose with each additional gain. However, the path to the fruit God intends for us to bear comes through acknowledging and owning our dependency on the Holy Spirit for all we need. In John 15, Jesus said, “I am the vine and 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.” We need that community that Nouwen described, that is born through “shared brokenness”.

Ever been there? Care to share? Share your story in the comments below.

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