Signs of Life: Resurrecting Hope Out of Ordinary Losses - Brossura

Lobdell, Stephanie

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1513805614 ISBN 13: 9781513805610

Casa editrice: Herald Pr, 2019

Riassunto

Every day we lose a little bit of something.
Career plans wither. Friendships crumble. Our zeal for Jesus wanes. Whether it’s the demise of ideals and expectations, belief in the church, a previously healthy relationship, or our image of ourselves: we all experiences losses. 
So does the God of the resurrection have anything to say to our hurts? Was Christ’s resurrection a once-and-done thing, or is there hope for healing and restoration now? 
In Signs of Life, pastor and writer Stephanie Lobdell leads readers into the grand story of God’s saving action and resurrection power. Punctuated with stories of biblical figures such as Sarah, Naaman, Saul, and Anna—who faced ordinary deaths and also God’s reviving power —Signs of Life claims Jesus’ resurrection matters now. In candid and artful prose, Lobdell shares stories of her own depression, loss of confidence, and disillusionment with the church.
Hope isn’t cheap, and you can’t muscle your way through to joy. There’s no sense in pretending everything is fine. Yet through it all, Lobdell claims, God breathes life into what seems beyond redemption. Through it all, the resurrection matters.
 

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Informazioni sull?autore

Stephanie Lobdell is a pastor and writer whose work has been published in Christianity Today, Women Leaders, Mutuality, Holiness Today, Ruminate blog, and Missio Alliance. She graduated from MidAmerica Nazarene University with degrees in Christian Education and Spanish and holds an M.Div. from Nazarene Theological Seminary. She served a co-lead pastor with her husband for ten years in the Church of the Nazarene and is now the campus pastor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Lobdell lives in Ohio with her husband, Tommy, and two children, Josephine and Jack. Connect with her at www.stephanielobdell.com.

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Career plans wither. Friendships crumble. Our zeal for Jesus wanes. Whether it’s the demise of ideals and expectations, belief in the church, a previously healthy relationship, or our image of ourselves: we all experiences losses.
 
So does the God of the resurrection have anything to say to our hurts? Was Christ’s resurrection a once-and-done thing, or is there hope for healing and restoration now?
 
In Signs of Life, pastor and writer Stephanie Lobdell leads readers into the grand story of God’s saving action and resurrection power. Punctuated with stories of biblical figures such as Sarah, Naaman, Saul, and Anna—who faced ordinary deaths and also God’s reviving power—Signs of Life claims Jesus’ resurrection matters now. In candid and artful prose, Lobdell shares stories of her own depression, loss of confidence, and disillusionment with the church.
 
Hope isn’t cheap, and you can’t muscle your way through to joy. There’s no sense in pretending everything is fine. Yet through it all, Lobdell claims, God breathes life into what seems beyond redemption. Through it all, the resurrection matters.
 

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Signs Of Life

Resurrecting Hope Out of Ordinary Losses

By Stephanie Lobdell

Herald Press

Copyright © 2019 Herald Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5138-0561-0

Contents

Introduction, 11, 
1. Death of Zeal, 19, 
2. Death of Future, 39, 
3. Death of Plans, 57, 
4. Death of Expectations, 77, 
5. Death of Hope, 95, 
6. Death of Revival, 109, 
7. Death of Beauty, 131, 
8. Death of Invincibility, 151, 
9. Death of Image, 165, 
Epilogue: Signs of Life, 185, 
Acknowledgments, 191, 
Notes, 194, 
The Author, 199, 

CHAPTER 1

Death of Zeal

The brown vinyl bus seats were hot and stuck to our legs. The vinyl on my seat was also cracked, and it rubbed my legs raw. I could not have cared less, for I was on my way to teen camp.

It was finally my time. Having been a youth pastor's kid for many years — always lingering on the edges of wild youth group games, playing the part of everyone's cool little sister but never actually being a part of things — I was more than ready. I sat toward the front of the bus with the other newly christened seventh graders, some more nervous than others. My dad was now the lead pastor, but he had a CDL license and thus was driving us to camp. I looked up into the long, rectangular rearview mirror and caught his smiling eyes — celebrating the important milestone but discreetly allowing me to shine.

The next nine hours were bliss: stopping at Stuckey's rest stop to buy snacks and that Somewhere over the Rainbow magnet I had needed all my life, singing absurd songs until annoyed adults pleaded for a break, playing MASH over and over again on sweaty, crinkled notebook paper, working up the courage to casually throw in names of boys in the youth group, hoping no one would take notice and call out my crush. The thrill of being a part of the group was intoxicating. I drank deeply.

A few hours into the trip, the damp Kansas summer air turned brisk as the bus began the trek up the mountain to our denominational campground in Colorado. I felt a shiver of excitement as the campground came into view: Golden Bell.

The week would be full of firsts: first time rappelling off a cliff, first late-night game of capture the flag, first youth group crush (the boy I'd marry nine years later ... but that is a different story). I experienced my first emotionally charged teen worship service and took my first tentative sermon notes, carefully penned in the fresh journal that was a gift from my mother. It was my first mountaintop spiritual high, dizzying in its power. So many firsts! It was a rich taste test of what was to come over the next six years in that youth group.

Two summers later, in July 1999, I found myself on yet another bus, this time in Toronto, Canada. No more hot, sticky vinyl. We drove from our hotel to the convention center in style, in charter buses with lush cloth seats and air conditioning blasting us with an icy breeze. For the past year, I had plunged my hands into countless soapy buckets at car washes, babysat kids I did not like, participated in dinner theaters, even cleaned toilets — all to raise enough money to attend an international gathering of Nazarene teenagers that takes place every four years.

Every night, dynamic speakers took to the stage, preaching fiery messages of salvation and full consecration to God. And every night, hundreds of teenagers poured into the aisles and knelt at altars, responding to the movement of the Spirit and the highly charged emotional atmosphere. I had not yet made my way forward. I had long since decided to follow Jesus and had even experienced what we in our tradition call a moment of "entire sanctification," that second work of grace in which the Spirit empowers you to give your entire self to Jesus — at least as thoroughly and sincerely as you can when you are eleven. Now I was waiting to see if the Lord had a new word for me.

On the fourth night it came. Overcome by the Spirit and the passion of the moment, I sat down heavily during a worship song sung by the nine thousand voices. I was brought low by the weighty presence of God. The voice was not audible, or even terribly specific, but it was clear nonetheless: I am calling you to ministry.

The fires of zeal were ignited.

Several weeks later, on a muggy Sunday night in August, I stood nervously behind a pulpit for the first time, testifying to my local congregation about God's call in my life. No going back now. I basked in the celebration, the affirmation, the approval. The flames of zeal were fully ablaze, fanned by the encouragement and pride of my church family.

In the first century, the Roman Empire was at peak strength and influence. The power and influence of Rome's culture, religion, and philosophy dominated the Western world. In each place it conquered, the empire established colonies, insisting that citizens participate not only in the political practices of Rome but in the religious practices as well. These included emperor veneration, which quickly evolved into worship. Local religious practices in the colonies began blending into Roman ones, blurring the lines between them.

Unlike their pagan neighbors, who seemed unruffled by the syncretism between their traditional religious practices and those instituted by Rome, the Jewish community resisted. They insisted on the unique lordship of the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In this cultural and religious melting pot, a boy was born to a devout Jewish family in Tarsus, and they named him Saul. Saul's family was not just any Jewish family, but a family of Pharisees. For anyone who has stepped foot in a church and heard at least a sermon or two, the word Pharisee conjures up a host of connotations: hypocrites, legalists, violent accusers of Jesus. And as the Gospels make clear, many Pharisees were all these things. But at the heart of Pharisaism was a deep love for God and a longing for purity of the people of God through enfleshed faithfulness. By keeping the Torah and guiding the people of Israel to do the same, often through zealous and occasionally violent means, Pharisees hoped to hasten the coming of the kingdom of God.

I imagine young Saul sitting at the feet of his father as he debated the Torah and its interpretations with other Jews. He would have participated in the sacred celebrations and feasts like Passover, asking the traditional questions assigned to children: Why on this night do we only eat unleavened bread? Why on this night do we eat only bitter herbs? Over and over, Saul would hear the story of God's great rescue, the deliverance of God's people, Israel, from slavery in Egypt.

As he grew, Saul joined his peers at the local synagogue, repeating the Torah until it was not just tucked into his mind but rooted deeply in his heart. By the time he was ten, Saul would have had the Torah memorized verbatim. This seems like a remarkable feat to us, although at the time, that much was quite ordinary. But Saul's own testimony in the New Testament makes clear that he was in no way ordinary, but rather went beyond his peers in his studies of the Torah and "advanced in Judaism beyond many ... people of the same age" (Galatians 1:14). When other young men left formal schooling, Saul continued by studying under a famous rabbi, Gamaliel, in Jerusalem.

It is impossible to know all that swirled in young Saul's heart, but it's not hard to guess. Saul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a devoted Jew, a Pharisee, committed in mind, body, and soul to following the Torah. His imagination was shaped by the stories not only of God's deliverance but also of the heroes of his people who kept Israel pure. He knew stories of people like Phinehas, who, being so full of zeal for God, acted violently against those who defied God's command. He knew of Elijah, who zealously fought against the prophets of Baal, killing hundreds (see Numbers 25 and 1 Kings 18).

Saul longed for God's kingdom to come in its fullness and for Israel to be restored. Perhaps he could join the ranks of his zealous ancestors, fighting for purity and righteousness in the name of God, with violence if necessary. The zeal of Saul smoldered like hot coals, hungry for fuel.

* * *

The heat of my own youthful, zealous fire intensified, burning hot white. I immersed myself in church life and Christian disciplines. Almost every night of the week was filled by church-related activities: Bible quizzing, accountability groups, a Bible study, youth group, door-to-door visitation of teenage guests to the church the Sunday prior, parties after high school football games. And in a way, it was wonderful. As on that first bus ride to church camp, I felt a deep connection to my youth group friends, a bond built on our common faith in Jesus and, for several of us, a call to vocational Christian service. I felt seen and loved by the congregation who affirmed my call. My heart was aglow with the fires of zeal as I sought to grow in faith and participate in ministry.

But something was slowly and almost imperceptibly shifting. The fire of zeal, which had been a source of heat, comfort, and camaraderie, was increasing in heat. My zeal was sending sparks outside the boundary of its kindled purpose.

My environment provided ideal conditions for just such a toxic blaze. The posture of American evangelicalism toward culture in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a strange contradiction. We who were evangelical Christians approached the world with a blend of separation and evangelism, specifically through mimicry. As a teenager, I got the clear impression that I was not to be in close relationship with "the world" — that's church-speak for anyone outside the faith. At the same time, I was supposed to be reaching out to that very world. Keep your distance and reach out? That's a complex message for teenagers to follow.

One youth lesson in particular drove the point home. I sat on a cold metal folding chair in the church gym, where portable partitions created a temporary room in which the teens could worship together midweek. I don't remember the specifics of the lesson being taught, only the object lesson used to make it clear. Our youth pastor called Max, a strong, athletic sophomore, up to the front.

"All right, Max, climb up onto this folding chair. Okay, now you be the Christian in this scenario, okay? Mandy, now you come on up."

Mandy, a small, timid freshman, approached the makeshift stage. She was all of ninety pounds soaking wet, and not the least bit aggressive — unlike me, who was known for throwing elbows and accidentally giving some black eyes during youth group icebreakers.

"Okay, Mandy. You're the world, okay? Max, you try to pull Mandy up to you, to the Christian life. Mandy, don't make it easy."

The rest of us leaned forward, ready to watch the spectacle. Mandy went limp, allowing her body to flop around as Max tried to strong-arm her up to his level. He was clearly struggling. But Max had something to prove to his watching peers. With one final umph, he yanked Mandy up to the chair.

Now they both stood, uncomfortably close, on the metal folding chair.

"All right!" our youth pastor said. "Hop down now, Mandy. Now it's your turn. Your goal, as the world, is to pull Max the Christian down."

Passive, quiet Mandy grinned unexpectedly. She grabbed Max's hand and swung, Tarzan-style, from the chair to the floor. Max was caught off guard and crashed to the ground. We cheered at her unanticipated victory.

While Mandy had surprised us with her vigor, there was little surprise in this object lesson. This was a message we knew: Avoid the world. It will pull you down.

The holes in this metaphor are glaring to me now: the implied hierarchy between the saved and unsaved, the complete reliance on one's own strength to live faithfully in the face of temptation, the apparently impenetrable boundary between "the saved" and "the lost." But as a teenager whose heart was ablaze with zeal and whose brain was still stretching beyond the concrete into abstract and critical thinking, I thought it made total sense. Avoid the world. Have nothing to do with it. It will only corrupt you, dragging you down to rebellion and sin.

Paradoxically, this was also the world that we, the zealous youth, were supposed to evangelize. Avoid that broken, sinful, evil world so intent on bringing you down — but make sure you invite them to our next youth event.

So I did, throwing myself into the contradiction: Stay separate, invite. Keep away, attract. The youth council helped plan elaborate parties with outrageous themes designed to draw crowds. We laid out parodies of popular games, television shows, and songs like weird bait, designed to lure the masses. I persisted, because this was faithfulness. This was how we would win the world, how we would "take the country back" for God. This was what the zealous do: avoid corruption and encourage other people to join the enclave.

Yet such a contradiction comes at a price. I found myself both the enforcer of legalisms and the enforced. At one of our annual fall retreats, our youth group was dismissed from breakfast and instructed to have personal quiet time with Jesus before the morning service. I diligently read my Bible and scribbled away in my journal, confessing my shortcomings. All the while I managed to keep an eye on those around me. My peers were scattered about, sprawled on picnic tables and sitting under trees, backs against rough bark. Who would be the first to get up and go about other business? Who was the most devout and would linger in prayer the longest?

At lunch later that day, an equally zealous friend whispered to me disdainfully, "Did you see how long Mitch spent on his quiet time? Like five minutes. That's pitiful." I nodded in agreement. Pitiful.

The judgment masquerading as accountability — as iron sharpening iron — eventually flipped in my direction. When I was a sophomore, I gave up Bible quizzing to join the cheerleading squad. I had gone as far as I wanted to go with quizzing and was ready to try something new. A friend from my youth group approached me at school. "You've changed," Mark said, shaking his head in condescending disappointment.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"You used to be so serious about God. But cheerleading instead of Bible quizzing? Wow. Just wow."

In the moment, I brushed off his comment as absurd, but the impression lingered. Was he right?

Some of my youth group peers gave up, exhausted by the relentless pressure of zeal and the demand for proof of emotional spiritual encounters. They were worn out by the insistence on very specific behaviors to keep one's good standing with God and the group, as well as by the requirement of near-total separation from any unbelieving friends. Some attended less frequently, avoiding retreats and camps, while others left entirely. They left not only the youth group but also the faith. Disillusioned and disgusted, they lacked tools to think critically or to see a more congruent path to faithfulness.

But I'm no quitter. I pushed harder. I helped plan more elaborate events. I went on every mission trip offered to prepare for my future vocation, sighing in judgey frustration at those who didn't participate to the same degree. I felt the weight of maintaining the image I had created of a teen "on fire" for God. I felt the pressure to stoke the flames, to press down the incongruities. I ignored the casualties, including my own soul, as the fires of zeal grew out of control.

* * *

By the time Saul comes of age, his zeal is a raging inferno. Stephen, a leader in the early church, stands before the Jewish leaders. He is calling them to account for their hard-heartedness and their refusal to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, and the locus of God's saving action in the world over and above the temple or Torah (see Acts 7–8.)

As Stephen's speech goes on, recounting the oft-told story of God's people, he comes not to the promise of a gloriously restored temple filled with God's presence but to a declaration that God's promises had all been fulfilled in the person of Jesus. As he listens, Saul feels his heart throb in his chest, pumping with righteous indignation. What began as annoyance at a foolish man caught up in a foolish movement grows into a boiling rage. Saul realizes what Stephen is implying: temple and Torah are pointing beyond themselves to Jesus. Jesus' followers are claiming that he is the Messiah, the anointed one of God.

So when Saul's companions roar in anger — when they grab Stephen and drag him outside the city, collecting stones along the way and then laying their cloaks at Saul's feet as they prepare to stone Stephen for his blasphemy — Saul does nothing. He does nothing but stand still in silent approval of their righteous, zealous violence.

It is time — Saul's time — to enter the story of his people, to participate in the purification of God's people who had clearly gone astray. Goaded by the flames of zeal and the approval of his fellow Pharisees, Saul sets out to ravage the church. He bursts into homes where Jesus' followers are gathered. He drags men and women to jail.

The flames of Saul's zeal grow, damaging everyone in his path. Motivated as he is by a sense of righteous calling to cleanse Israel from its unfaithfulness in following after this Jesus, Saul makes his way to Damascus with the blessing of the high priest to capture any followers of the Way and bring them to Jerusalem for trial. The heat of his zeal rises up from the pages of Scripture. His passion for his people and for his God almost singes our fingertips.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Signs Of Life by Stephanie Lobdell. Copyright © 2019 Herald Press. Excerpted by permission of Herald Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Herald Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2019
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1513805614
• ISBN 13: 9781513805610
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 199
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile