Culturally Irrelevant

A couple mornings ago I was up early praying for the nation and the realization hit me that, like individuals, cities and nations have root to fruit connections. What I mean by root to fruit connection is that there is an undeniable link between the symptoms we display and the deeper roots that nourish those symptoms. Jesus said “you’ll know them (the root falseness of self-proclaimed prophets) by their fruit (outward symptoms of speech and behavior). I began to learn about the personal significance of the root to fruit connection from Bethesda, Dominic Herbst’s relational healing model that I blogged about a while back.

It really clicked as I started praying about some of the policies and bills being considered right now in Washington D.C. I suddenly realized that these issues are just the fruit of so many roots we have as a nation: epidemic fatherlessness, rejection and hatred against minority races, and millions of mothers of aborted babies who are filled with guilt, fear, and the pain of abandonment. Millions of our neighbors and friends and countrymen have nurtured deep rejection and bitterness in their hearts. As people hold on to these wounds, they fester and lead to rage, abuse, suicide, rebellion and even mental and physical diseases.

I’m sure there are more root issues, but these are the major ones I thought about as I prayed for the people in our country. Could it be that this is why the socialistic philosophy gaining ground in our government doesn’t alarm many of the public in our nation? It makes me wonder. I mean, what abandoned child doesn’t want someone big and strong to take care of them and fill that void? But where does the healing come from? What is our responsibility as the church to the lost and hurting people in our nation?

As I began to think about all of this, I remembered being told one time that this is exactly why Hitler’s regime was so overwhelmingly accepted. He rose to influence at a time when so many of Germany’s young men (and women) were fatherless due to WWI. His charisma, power and strong vision met a deep need, in a way, that everyone had. I can see the same thing happening in our nation, but in a much more subtle way. Not because so many Dads are dying in war, but because they’re gone, checked out, distracted. I bet at this point fatherlessness is one of the deepest, if not the deepest, root issue in our nation. (Go to http://fatherandson.org for one ministry that is addressing this problem head on). Afterall, how can we as a nation come to the Father if our idea of a father has been so beat up and twisted?

Needless to say, my prayers are changing from surface issues to deeper issues. It seems like this is valuable information for intercessors. What do you think? What are you sensing and hearing from the Holy Spirit as you pray for America? What needs to change in the way we’re doing ministry in order to address these deeper issues? One thing I’m thinking a lot about is Malachi 4:5-6. Reconciliation to the father’s heart seems key to ministry in the Last Days, and I believe it’s happening.

I can’t think of a better healing story than the one I’m about to share…and on Easter! It’s longer than a blog post should be, but it’s worth it. Here’s a story written by my Dad about healing in a family (my family), restoration in the closest of relationships (between a Dad and his children, between a husband and his wife) and a fulfillment of Malachi 4:5-6:

“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

I can’t even begin to say how proud I am of my own Father. Dads are the door to their family. They let in either blessing or cursing, peace or confusion, life or death. I am so thankful that God has given me a natural Father who has sought after life and allowed blessing and healing in our family’s front door.

Clay - “My pastor, Jim Hennesy of Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, announced that his theme for 2009 is ‘Wholeness.’ This confirmed a word I had received over Christmas for our family that this would be a year of healing in all areas. It continues and expands a personal journey of relational healing that began for me in last fall’s Bethesda class at the church.

I had the Bethesda training several years ago when my wife, superintendent of Trinity Christian School, brought in Dominic Herbst, the founder of the program, to train TCS staff and others. I shared at a table discussion an early wounding I received as a toddler that my mother had mentioned to me. But I didn’t really know any details and just talking about it didn’t seem to have any effect on me. It was the only thing I could think of at the time, since I couldn’t remember any other significant traumatic incidents in my otherwise normal childhood.

Since then, I have learned even more about the Bethesda relational healing process through helping my wife with her dissertation on the impact of the Bethesda program in the school, and benefiting from the videos and discussion in the Bethesda class at church last fall. However, it all became very real in October when I received a letter from my mother. I think a discussion she had earlier with my wife about Bethesda might have prompted it. The letter detailed how, at the age of 15 months, I was put in the care of three other families over a six month period because of my mother’s health issues that were related to my brother’s birth. My father moved to another town to begin a new business, and I only saw my mother once during this time.

As I learned from the Bethesda class, this was a classic case of abandonment during the critical time that a child is supposed to be bonding with his mother. Even though I have no memory of this period, it had a dramatic impact on my personality, i.e., my soul. I changed from being cheerful and outgoing to being quiet and resentful, as evidenced by a serious habit of biting others while a toddler and having a difficult relationship with my mother even through the teen years. This continued into my adult life with the “fruit” of a critical spirit, outbursts of anger, lack of open communication with my wife and children, and a reluctance to reach out to friends and co-workers.

When I received my mother’s letter, I knew how important it was because of the Bethesda training, so I traveled to Tulsa the next weekend. We had a wonderful visit and discussed my childhood and hers for several hours. I prayed for her and then she prayed for me. Her prayer was so anointed that I cried for the first time as a man in her presence. I knew from the Bethesda training that this was a part of the supernatural grieving process that would start me on the road to relational healing. The next day in Tulsa, I visited one of my sons to confess my offenses towards him. I asked him to bring up other incidents that I had forgotten so I could repent and ask his forgiveness. We also prayed and cried.

Then the following day, back in Cedar Hill, I had a similar conversation with my daughter, followed in the next few weeks by visits with my other two sons and one of their wives. It was very humbling, or should I say humiliating, to listen to their sensitive but frank memories, some distant, some very recent, of my dysfunctional and offensive behaviors toward them and their families. The Holy Spirit prompted me not to even try to defend myself, which unfortunately was not hard to do since my guilt was so apparent. Of course, I saved the hardest confessional until last, the one with my wife. She had done her homework, and I was devastated to be reminded of just a few examples of the many, many incidents in which I had offended her over our forty years together.

After each of these conversations I wrote a letter reaffirming my confessions, asking again for their forgiveness, and committing to building a healthy relationship with them and their families from now on.

This experience has been the most significant in my Christian walk after my salvation and being filled with the Spirit. While I’m ashamed to admit that I blew it so badly for so long, even as a Spirit-filled believer, I am forever grateful to my Savior who provided the perfect opportunity for not just my healing, but my entire family’s. He has given me a supernatural ability to enjoy and love in a new way my mother, my wife, our four children and their spouses, and our nine grand-children, and to be more open and warm toward others. I know, like salvation, that this is just the beginning of a process, and that there will be tests and occasional stumbles. But I also know now that I was destined for wholeness in this life, and I am determined, by His Grace, to receive every good and perfect gift that He has for me.”

This testimony is also available online at Bethesda Family Services Foundation.

Jesus was both relevant and irrelevant at the same time. Relevant to the sick, the demon possessed, the broken and the lost. But irrelevant, in most cases, to the religious, the politically motivated, the powerful and the wealthy elite. Jesus was relevant because he communicated the only thing that really mattered in life…God’s kingdom, God’s reality. He healed sick people, which was relevant because people don’t like being in pain. He delivered the demon possessed, which was relevant because most people don’t like being possessed or harrassed by evil beings. Jesus was ultimately relevant because he told people that they needed to turn away from their sins so that they wouldn’t suffer the eternal punishment their sins deserved, which was extremely relevant to a few people who didn’t want to be separated from God forever.

Jesus was obviously aware of the customs of his day, the way people lived and what they were going through. This made him relevant to the masses. However, Jesus didn’t think or act the way everyone else in his generation did. The prevailing “culture” of his day was extremely religious, entrenched in generations of traditions that were irrelevant to God’s kingdom. By default, Jesus’ relevance to his father’s kingdom made him irrelevant and even offensive to the leading systems of his day. Jesus was so relevant and irrelevant at the same time that he was both loved and hated, celebrated yet murdered.

So that’s Jesus, but what about us. If we were totally honest, we would have to admit that we’re much better at knowing our culture than knowing God. It’s so much easier to spend money at the mall, play with the latest technological gadget, work late again, get on Facebook, read the paper or just curl up in front of the TV than it is to spend time getting to know God. Why is that? What am I willing to give up for a while so that I can fully know and experience God?”

Dominic Herbst

My wife and I have been spending our Thursday nights watching a DVD series on relational healing by Dominic Herbst, founder of the Bethesda Family Services Foundation (I know, it’s not Heroes or CSI, but it’s changing our lives!). In the first couple videos, he says “The violations of a fallen world are constant and they are endless. It’s all about wounds to the soul. A dead spirit (a spirit that hasn’t been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ) leaves a soul to bounce around and be dictated to by the circumstances of life.” He also notes that for all of its knowledge about psychological problems, the world can’t see the source of inner sickness or the solution to that sickness.

My journey has taught me that the solution starts with knowing God and putting his kingdom first. Everything else in life, my identity, my relationships and my purpose, grows from that life-giving flow of knowing and experiencing God.

By culturally irrelevant I don’t mean shutting out culture, of course. It’s always a balance, but I find that when I’m seeking to know God and serve people, I just don’t have as much time to keep up with the latest and greatest. Sometimes being relevant (which is easily confused with being progressive or popular) doesn’t have anything to do with the latest and greatest. I love what C.S. Lewis says:

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

I want the culture of the kingdom of God to bleed into my own and transform my heart, to change how I interact with my wife, my kids, my neighbors, my friends, my enemies and total strangers. I believe that his kingdom, if I’m truly seeking it first, can’t help but make me more relevant to people, not to what they want but what they truly need. I hope this blog will encourage you as it reflects my journey, as imperfect as it may be, to seek first the kingdom.