jonathan stegall

From RobbyMac:

Brother Maynard has suggested that September should be a month of post-charismatics giving voice to what apostolic leadership could/should look like. I’d like to propose a synchro-blog to get the ball rolling – namely, as I’ve just shared my earliest “charismatic” experience (after becoming a Christian, that is), let’s remind ourselves and tell each other our stories of how we first became acquainted with, and eager for, the felt presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Should you be unaware of what a post-charismatic is, give the above blogs, as well as Mike Morrell’s, parts of this blog, and several others, a perusal. In any case, I had actually been planning to give an account of my first encounter with the Spirit. In the near future, I believe I will be telling my story, in a very broad way, for the people of Revolution.

I spent a good part of 1997 and 1998 diving into various occult beliefs and practices, especially Wicca. I found good and bad there, and in addition to that it brought out good and bad that was already in me. One of the things that has always been a part of me for better and for worse is a desire for things to be supernatural, but authentic and life-changing at the same time. I grew up in the church, and did not find it to be any of those things.

In light of this, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular when I visited my first Pentecostal church, which was, and is, an Assemblies of God church in Salisbury, North Carolina. I visited because I had been bribed by a friend, and found myself sitting in a chair watching teenagers clap and sing to God, standing in front of an empty stage while a sound system played CDs. This in itself was radical to me, considering my particular upbringing, but certainly not enough to interest me.

My friend, in what I now understand to have been an incredibly perceptive moment of contextualization and maybe some syncretism, explained to me that I could try to invoke God and see what might happen. Being very familiar with invocations and the interesting experiences that they could bring about, and having never thought about the word in connection with this kind of God, I thought it was worth a try.

When I did this, it was as though I was entirely engulfed and surrounded by tangible power. I had no idea what to do about it, and decided not to do anything but sit there and experience it. I have no idea how long I sat there, and I remember getting up at some point to listen to a youth pastor preach, but I honestly don’t remember anything he said.

As an aside, that is not to devalue people who preach and teach well, but it is to say that for myself as a teacher, a preacher, a theologian, or whatever; my task is to chase after the heart of God and help others to do so as well. If that involves discussing the demise of Christendom and why that is a good thing, or discussing the relevance of Leviticus to postmodern minds, that’s wonderful. If it involves shutting up and getting out of the way, that’s also wonderful.

Anyway. That night, I learned that I wanted to go after God with my life, and be wherever God was and do whatever God was doing. It is this that has placed a drive in me to be at the cutting edge of things I’m involved with (be it design, theology, ministry, or social action), because that’s where change happens. A couple of years later, when I was in college seeking to learn more about all these issues, I was introduced to the writings of Brian McLaren and others like him, some who are known and some who are unknown. I mention him because this introduction occurred through the book More Ready Than You Realize, a book about sharing Jesus with postmodern people. In it, he writes this:

Then he [a friend of Brian's] became serious and said, “Really, Brian, I want you to remember that you’ll never stop growing in Christ. I don’t ever want you to get comfortable. I want you to always find the curl of the wave, the place out in front where things are happening. Go to the cutting edge of things, and throw your energies in there. That’s where you belong.” Now, nearly thirty years later, I remember that moment vividly, and I realize that God was speaking to me through Dave that day.

I believe that at that moment, in a medium-sized church in a small town, I was given a drive for this. A drive to be at the cutting edge, always moving, always changing. I have not always lived up to this, any more than I have always lived up to the desire to be where God is, but these two desires have combined to be the shaping forces in my life.

For 48 hours starting today (Monday) at noon, there is a premiere of a new video from Nooma, called “She.” I would encourage you to give this a look. Be prepared to watch for around 10 minutes.

It is described like this:

We didn’t have anything to do with our birth. We are all here because some woman somewhere gave us life. Her pain, her effort, for our life. And when a mother gives like that to a child, she is showing us what God is like. But sometimes this part of God’s nature is overlooked. A lot of us are comfortable with male imagery for God. But what about female imagery for God? Is God limited to a gender? Or does God transcend and yet include what we know as male and female? Maybe if we were more aware of the feminine imagery for God we would have a better understanding of who God is and what God is like.

Depending on what circles your theology fits in, this statement could be either very tame or very radical. Either way, I think it is worth watching and thinking about.

There is great beauty and wisdom in some of the writings of the feminist theologians, and it is often a beauty and wisdom that has been forged in spite of deep oppression. However, there is also often great anger, and sometimes this anger leads these theologians to turn the oppressions on the heads of those who oppress them.

The same issue exists in liberation theology. In both cases, it is entirely justified. It is just for the oppressed and ignored to want retribution and to attempt to get it.

But in these issues, as well as issues of violence and war and annoying bosses, justification is not enough for something to line up with the heart of God. Certainly, it was just for Peter, seeing the arrest of Jesus, to cut off an ear or two. Countless other examples, before and after Jesus put the ear back, have occurred and in general we as humans have responded in ways that seek the kind of justice that Jesus didn’t allow.

In light of all this, if I could encourage feminist and liberation theologians, I would encourage them to draw closer to the heart of God as they cry out for the world to remember the things that truly are on his heart. But they must remember the masculine qualities of God as well as the neglected feminine attributes. They must remember the peaceful subversion that is the kingdom of God as well as magnify the neglected cries of the poor and oppressed. It is hard to live like this. But it is essential.

In light of all this, watch the new Nooma video.

From time to time, I recognize that God is attempting to speak to me about something. Typically, that something will appear in a lot of seemingly unrelated places, and from seemingly unrelated voices. He appears to be interested in telling me about community, as of late, and intensely so at Cornerstone.

Miroslav Volf is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School, and is also the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He has written a number of books, including Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation and Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. I would highly recommend any of his books. He is a native of Croatia, and is in a unique position to speak on subjects of identity, otherness, reconciliation, and so on through his various experiences in his native country.

At Cornerstone, he did a seminar on Identity & Otherness. Otherness is an important philosophical concept, by which we, and by we I mean all of us, separate others who are different from ourselves. This happens on very high levels, from the idiocy of Freedom Fries to the constant fear of attack that is cultivated in our country, and it also happens on very low levels, in my relationship with my wife and your relationship with your dog (cat, fish, sibling, etc.). Otherness is very different from honest recognition of difference, in the way that I might recognize that my wife looks very different than I do (which is wonderful), or the way that you might recognize that certain Indian foods are very spicy (which is also wonderful).

In the seminar, we looked at many of these things, from a cultural perspective (including nationalism, racisim, sexism, and so on), all the way to a spiritual, theological perspective (essentially, the ways in which Christians tend to Other those who have different beliefs and lifestyles than our own). Otherness begins with our language: we refer to the Other as “them.”

One of the most damaging ways that we as Christians do this is in the terms “lost”, or “unsaved”, or “outsiders.” We are trying to express various theological views through these terms, but in our own minds and the minds of others we make ourselves look superior. We are found, we are saved, we are insiders, and so we must be better than those who are not. In light of the grace which we have been shown, there is no room for Otherness. Everyone is on a journey, and we are all moving toward God, or away from God. Our task is to move toward God, and help others to do so (raise a glass to our friend Brad Culver for this concept).

I cannot overestimate the significance of this kind of shift in our thinking and our language, and how important this shift is in creating authentic community. When we get this, we will treat and view everyone differently: from the spouse living in our house to those our country declares to be our enemies.

As we looked at these issues with Miroslav Volf, we continued to discuss New Monasticism and creating authentic, holistic communities of faith with Brad and Peter, and it became clear to me that a theme is developing for this season of my life. I believe it will manifest itself in my marriage, in my home, in our faith community, and in my interactions with journeyers of all kinds.

My wife and I have been married for just over four and a half years. We got engaged in May of 2003, and married on December 6, 2003. We were 20 years old.

I haven’t written a lot of marriage-related posts on this blog, but I have beginning thoughts of some things that I feel are worth saying. The first thing is something that I’ve observed since we were dating: very close relationships affect Christian spirituality.

When we first started dating, one of the things we immediately liked about each other was that we both wanted to honestly see what Jesus might have to say about, and contribute to, our relationship. We were careful to pray together, worship together, and include spirituality in our conversations.

During those times, we learned that it was much easier for us to get into stupid arguments if we let this dimension of our relationship slip. Since we’ve been married, the spiritual connections between us have only deepened, and this has proven to be both a good thing and a bad thing.

Prior to getting married, I was very much a solitary person. I was (and still am) perfectly content to eat alone, sit alone in class or church, go to concerts alone, and spend lots of time alone in thought, work, prayer, worship, etc. Since I’ve been married, though, I don’t have as much time alone. I share my meals, my thoughts, my events, and so on with my wife.

Where this begins to relate to “married spirituality” is in my struggles, sins, victories, and in the seasons of my life in the Spirit. I’ve often spoken about the seasons that we have in seeking to live a spiritual life. There are dry seasons, rainy seasons, mountain experiences, and valley experiences. All of these are valid, and they all exist whether one is married or single.

As a married person, though, I have learned that many, if not most, of my seasons coincide with those of my wife. If she is struggling with something, or finds it difficult to connect with God, it is very likely that I do also. If she is being obviously transformed, or is enraptured by his presence, it is very likely that I am also.

I don’t want to assume that all married couples are like this, but I also do not want to understate the importance of this concept. Only recently have I begun to honestly accept that this is the case and think about its implications: not that my spirituality depends on that of my wife or that we can blame our weaknesses on each other, but that our spiritualities are inextricably and, to an extent inexplicably, linked.

Before you do anything with this post, visit www.zoecarnate.com and bookmark it. For several years, it has been an amazing resource for anything outside mainstream Christendom, and it continues to improve.

Now. Mike Morrell is one of the founders, and blogs at zoecarnate.wordpress.com. Currently, as part of a wide-ranging conversation that is occurring among emergent bloggers related to Pentecostals and charismatics, he is hosting a dialogue with John Crowder, a prophetic evangelist who wants to be “wasted on Jesus.” The dialogue is respectful, insightful, and is really a blessing to read.

An aside on the “wasted on Jesus” part of John’s message. I have often described experiences with the Spirit with that term, depending on who I was speaking with. I think it really is a valid, powerful metaphor for intense, life-changing encounters with the Spirit, and I never want to discount, forget, or stop desiring those encounters. Being a Post-charismatic should never negate the desire for these encounters, and I hope we who look at that term as a valid term will always make that clear.

On another note, though, I believe that one should not expect one who follows the Spirit to always exist in a “wasted” state. There are times of wilderness and darkness and suffering, and those times do not negate the presence of God even though we may be gripping with our fingernails for evidence of it. I have spent time in the wilderness, both because of the leading of the Spirit (Hosea 2:14) and because of my own laziness and stubbornness, and I have learned wisdom and patience and peace from those times (not that I am always wise, patient, or peaceful, but more so than I would be otherwise).

Pentecostals and charismatics have often struggled in leading a balanced life in the Spirit. They have often sought to live in the clouds, wasted, above the messiness and pain of real life. Non-Pentecostals and non-charismatics have often resisted intoxicating experiences with the Spirit because of this (and other, less noble reasons). Both sides have lost, and both sides have much to learn.

Like some others, I do see a link between the worldwide pentecostal movement (counting Pentecostal denominations, and charismatic churches and movements, it now numbers more than 500 million people) and the emerging church. I believe that the emerging movement, as it develops around the world alongside postmodernism in the West and postcolonialism everywhere else, has the potential to be one of the steps that the Holy Spirit takes to resolve this tension and lack of balance that exists in the church.

From Emerging Pentecostals:

…a conversation about emergence within a pentecostal framework would be helped greatly if we took some time to share our stories of emergence.

This is a wonderful idea, and I want to be a part of it. Thus, consider this my story of emergence, or of how I came to be involved with both the pentecostal church and what is commonly called the emerging church.

I met Jesus when I was just shy of fifteen years old, and met him through what you could call a dramatic encounter that took place in an Assembly of God church in Salisbury, North Carolina. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a part of the supernatural actions of God in the world. I wanted to be close to him in tangible ways, and I wanted to bring others to be close to him as well.

As my faith developed, I began to grow in some very specific ways that together have shaped the person I am now, almost ten years later. First, I began to seek out how I, specifically, should serve Jesus with my life. I looked into being a pastor, a missionary to an obscure country, and a number of other things, because I felt strongly that I was called to reach out to people that were far from God.

Finally, I found confirmation in the idea that I was called to reach the outcasts of our own society. The people who did not fit in with the traditional church, whether because the church rejected them, because they rejected the church, or both. This manifests itself in more ways today than it did ten years ago. At the time, most of this kind of ministry was happening in the various underground subcultures, and it still is. But now, it has moved significantly further into the mainstream with organizations like Emergent Village. In any case, my heart was inextricably linked to the underground, and it remains so now.

As I began to learn about this calling, I also began to learn that I had a passion for being at the cutting edge of whatever I could. I can still remember a message I heard that described the church of today as the kind of organization that would build a church at the site where Jesus performed some great feat, rather than following him to see what he would do next. I passionately want to be involved in the current mission of God in the world. I don’t want to be where God was five years ago. I want to know where his heart is today.

In addition to, and as part of, these previous things, I began to have a deep desire to communicate with love, grace, and power to people who did not yet know Jesus, that they might see him as he really is and give consideration to the kind of influence he would like to have on their lives.

These areas have been molded and shaped through education, experience, prayer, thought, and conversation over the last several years, but at their core they remain the same, and they are derived from a desire to live in intimacy with Jesus, thus my involvement with the pentecostal and charismatic church. I am well aware of the shortcomings of the movement, and at this point I identify far more closely with the term Post-Charismatic than with pentecostal or charismatic, but I am also aware that there is much good in the movement.

As for my involvement with the emerging church, it began through my desire to be a voice to the underground. For most of my life, I have fit with the underground, and I’m comfortable with this. I feel at home there. It’s natural that I would want to share what I believe is commonly hidden about Jesus from these unique people.

As I’ve said before, I have been blessed to be involved with the Underground Railroad and learn from and be in community with the wonderful ministries that are part of it. Many of these ministries have been around for decades, and have been doing the kind of ministry that is now known as “emergent” for longer than I have been alive.

Thus, I have come into the emerging church, and thus into Emergent itself, from what you might call a back door. I have learned ministry by grace, unconditional acceptance, and the power of authenticity from the underground, and have sought to learn how it fits with my personal theology, my personal experiences, and my personal areas of calling. Many other leaders of the emerging church, including Andrew Jones, also came to be involved in similar ways.

I feel that this is one of the most valuable facets of the emerging church and the Emergent conversation: that people who spend their lives reaching out to the darkest corners of western society can come together with people who study postmodernism in universities or painting in art schools, with people who understand that colonialism is dead and its obituary is the power of the non-Western world, with those who do research on the effectiveness of modern Christianity in the Western world, and with those who simply feel like something is missing from their normal church experience.

More interesting still, than these examples, is that no one fits into only one of these areas. For example, I have a passion for walking into dark places as a shadow of Jesus, but I also have a ministerial education from a pentecostal university, an art degree from a secular art school, and a weird job history of discussing theology and politics and philosophy for hours at a time while cleaning toilets and mopping floors. Emergence indeed.

Occasionally, things occur to me that are fairly obvious, but have never really hit me before. Today, one of those hit me.

As humans, we are much harder to please than God is. People are finicky, inconsistent, utterly strange creatures, and pleasing all of us with anything at all is entirely impossible. Pleasing even one of us on a consistent basis is incredibly difficult.

The horror of our lives is that we spend them running around in agony, desperately trying to find people who will be pleased with us, desperately trying to appease those who are not pleased with us, and then on top of it all we who believe that God’s opinions of us matter feel like we are an utter disappointment to him.

Imagine that. I spend days, from time to time, in the belief that no one is happy with me. During those days or moments, my emotional well-being is depending on a person, or people, who will probably have a different opinion of me in the next few minutes. And typically, I am one of those people who are blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with relative indifference toward the opinions and whims of people around me.

Contrast this with the ways that I can be, and already am, pleasing to God. Several months ago, I read TrueFaced, a book that contrasts our constant attempts to force ourselves to please God (which do not please him) with simple, but ruthless, trust in God (which does please him). Part of it says this:

We will never please God through our efforts to become godly. Rather, we will only please God - and become godly - when we trust God.

Really let that sink in for a minute. We will only please God when we trust him. That’s it. It’s that easy. Everything else comes from that.

There doesn’t have to be any more running around in circles between people who are angry with or disappointed in me for all kinds of different reasons. There doesn’t need to be any more constant shame at my failures to live up to the standards I place on myself. There doesn’t need to be any more legalistic bondage under which I place myself in an attempt to appease my creator.

I please him. Right now, I make Jesus happy. I trust in his acceptance and love for me, and that makes me righteous. That puts my character, right now, squarely in the process of being formed into his.

I’ve been a bit lazy with posting, as of late. So, I want to provide a bit of an update of what’s going on. As these things continue to develop, they may possibly provide some material for more posts. Exciting.

Projects

I have several projects that will be happening over the next few months. Currently, a new site is being created for Revolution Atlanta. Hopefully, it will continue to go well. A few other projects are also in the works, and more details will be coming about some of them.

Also, I’m finally making progress (very slow progress, albeit) on creating a design concept for this website. Yes, this blog. I know I said I might have it designed by early 2008, and I also know that “early 2008″ is almost over. So, let’s shoot for mid 2008, and see what happens. I feel very happy about the general direction things are proceeding with this design.

Issues of the spirit

Recently, I mentioned on this blog that God has been working with me concerning the issue of prayer. He has faithfully brought it to my attention, over and over again. Recently, I finished reading The Great Omission by Dallas Willard.

It is an amazing book, and through it, especially, I feel like I am beginning to see a bit of the bigger picture of what is being said to me. The book covers the kind of authentic discipleship that is typically missing from the Western church, which is essentially the kind of discipleship that Jesus had in mind for his followers. We in the Western church have entirely skipped a lot of it in favor of things that are easier and less powerful.

As he examines this kind of discipleship, Dallas Willard brings together the teachings of Jesus on how to follow him. He looks at various spiritual disciplines; how they can influence a life to authentically experience and grow in the experience of God.

The hardest, and thus probably the most relevant, issue for me to learn about was the issue of solitude and silence. Learning to practice the presence of God by spending time away from other things.

I’m not any good at this. I see the deep relationship that it has to new monasticism, especially, and other parts of emerging things that God is doing in the world. I see the deep, paradoxical relationship that it has to spiritual community.

Interestingly, as I work on a website that I hope will express who I am to the fullest extent possible, I am also beginning to see the relationship that this kind of authentic spiritual experience, leading through silence and solitude to prayer and awareness of God, has to art and creativity and design. I’m beginning to see that, the more I get of this, the better a designer I will be.

That’s not at all to say that the best designers have to care about spiritual things, or that they would be better designers if they did. But it is to say that I, personally, will be a better designer if I can better integrate my life, and better learn to slow it down and be more aware of spiritual things.

I’ve been reluctant to post these thoughts, as they’re still a bit murky. I’ve had many of these thoughts for years, but I feel as though they are beginning to work together in ways that they may not have in the past, and that leads me to believe that it’s worth posting them.

For the next day or so (48 hours starting on Monday at noon), there is a premiere of a new video from Nooma about prayer. It’s brilliant. Watch it. Then buy it and watch it again.

In my life as of late, God will not shut up about prayer. He is drilling it into me. “Hey Jon, you don’t get it, and you’ve asked me for help. I want to tell you something! Shut up and listen to me!” Messages and thoughts about prayer show up everywhere lately. Church, my wife’s school, books I’m reading, random videos on Facebook, random blogs, and so on.

It’s a beautiful thing to hear the voice of God speaking in different areas of life. There is grace in that. Grace to say, “I know this is difficult for you. It’s ok. I’ll say it again.”

Over the last year or so, I have noticed a lot of interest in new monasticism. Blogs, organizations, churches, and so on have been learning about mysticism, hospitality, living in community, and embracing a simple life. They’ve been learning concepts of monasticism, and applying them to the emerging culture. Thus, they are learning to study, pray, and engage in social action as a real community.

Some of these include Missio Dei, The Simple Way, and to varying extents lots of other places.

I’ve watched these developments, and this week there was an article in the Boston Globe about new monasticism. It’s a great article. Worth a read.

More fundamentally, New Monastics consider themselves “monks in the world.” They are not interested in extreme isolation or asceticism (though there are stories about the occasional Protestant “hermit” living in the Mountain West). Nearly all have regular jobs and social lives. From the traditionalist perspective, many break the most essential monastic rule: they are married…

More importantly, these groups do not aim to separate themselves from society - on the contrary, they see New Monasticism as a means to better integrate core Christian values into their lives as average citizens. This is the fundamental difference between old monks and the new. New Monastics often quote one of their heroes, Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who captured the ambitions - and the ecumenical limits - of the movement when he wrote in 1935, “the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new kind of monasticism which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ.”

In watching and thinking about these kind of things, I find that it speaks to me, but I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. It’s entirely possible that I could end up living in community. I find the thought challenging. I want to learn to engage in solitude, hospitality, and prayer in ways that I don’t know. It, also, is challenging.

Regardless of whether I end up getting a house with a bunch of other people, it is essential that I, and the church, learn from this kind of thing. I believe there are ways to integrate this at my faith community, and ways that we are, and probably ways that we are not, called to this kind of life.