We didn’t “Face Our Fears” last night.  The lack of enthusiasm was disguised as sleepiness, but I know better.  I’m told we’ll face our fears tonight, with this being our last available night to do so.

Who knew intentional displacement was so hard?  Sherry would even attach  words like suffering and death as her children and husband plunge their tenderized, baked bodies into a dark ocean where sharks and giant squids have caught wind of our aspirations.  All I can see are high fives as we emerge from the wet blackness having conquered our inner fears.  All Sherry can see are family members being eaten by callused sea monsters.

Is intentional displacement hard?  Is there suffering attached?  Death?

I would say the answer is “yes.”  Anytime you get people to move beyond comfort zones and pursuits of me-ness, there will be some pain.  Mobilizing individuals and small groups to encounter culture with Jesus will be messy, time-consuming, resource exhausting, exhausting, and selfless.  Does this conjure up mental images of sea monsters or high-fiving Jesus followers?

In chapter one of James, I was reminded this morning that trials which test our faith should be seen as occasions of joy.  A lasting maturity develops for such believers.  Intentional, gospel displacement is one such opportunity when testing, joy, and maturity come together for Jesus followers, and a movement begins.

Paul told the Corinthians (I Cor. 2:6-8) that such servant thinking about lasting maturity is counter-cultural, but nonetheless Godly.  Serving may be hard, but it produces maturity and joy.  For many, God’s kind of thinking and wisdom is somewhat hidden on all of this, but for Jesus followers, this kind of thinking destines us for glory.  And God is the Lord of glory!

It’s the dance of glory. When we mobilize beyond our own blessings and serve on macro (corporately) and micro (individually) levels, we enter into the joy and glory of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.  Is it hard?  Yep.  Will there be suffering and sacrifice?  Probably.  Will you and I have to die to ourselves… again, and again?  Absolutely.  Will there be joy?  Oh yeah.  Will this intentional gospel displacement give God glory?  Yes, and we will live in His.

During recent, past study breaks, I have read about the lamented, sad decline of the Western church.  This year, I’m seeing rebirth, renewal, and Kingdom power again.  It’s something we’ve been seeing at Cumberland as well.  The full come back of Jesus’ Church wont’ be without more change, discomfort, messiness, suffering, and death.  Unleashing the power of the gospel through serving the 67% of our community who are done with church will in fact be gloriously challenging.  But what if…

The last third of “On The Verge” (Hirsch & Ferguson) was much more compelling.  Dave Ferguson, a church pastor/planter, wrote these final chapters with great application, story, and ideas.  The book does unfold a great question about normalcy.  Let’s say you were at the beach, and a nice young couple walks up to water’s edge.  They both pull their shirts off to reveal their perfectly normal swim attire.  Nobody on the beach would think twice about such common behavior.  However, take that same couple with the same attire, and place them in a church on Sunday morning.  It just wouldn’t be normal when the t-shirts come off, swimsuits are revealed, and this just minutes before “How Great Thou Art.”  Different cultures… beach, church, and otherwise… make different things normal.

What will become normal at CCC?

We did, in fact, face our fears tonight.  Only four of the clan actually got in the water.  It was scarier than I had imagined.  We got out about knee deep in the dark waters and pitch black sky.  It was then we saw something… uh, black… swim by.  We decided to stop right there, sit down in the water, quickly get out, and call it a night.  Those who stood on the beach watching began to laugh.  Those dripping with ocean began high-fiving even though the fear facing didn’t go as swimmingly well as we had hoped.

Each Jesus follower has the changing power of the gospel inside of them.  Some will mobilize and unleash the full potential of Jesus’ church.  This may go great at times, while other attempts will be slightly better than an official bust.  Those staying safe within the confines of church walls may even laugh at our culture crashing intentional displacement efforts.  But in the serving… in the displacement… in the giving… in the dying… in the mess of salvation… there will be joy.  There will be the dance of glory, and probably several of us high-fiving.

Seth Godin writes, “At first the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was.  But if you need the alternative to be better than the status quo from the very start, you’ll never begin.”

The Church must never be content with status quo.  As God is always in motion, so must we be.  Let’s go… “AS WE GO”…even if the going isn’t as polished, professional, and deemed successful as some would label.  There’s a new thing that God is doing.  Let’s face our fears.  Let’s dance!

CONCLUDING NOTE:  This study break has been great.  It’s been great for me, my soul, my family, and hopefully for the Lord’s church.  I have read four very good books (Church Planter; The Reason For God; AND – The Gathered And Scattered Church; and “On The Verge”).  I read one chapter from George W. Bush’s “Decision Points,” and will finish this when I get back home.  I studied through James, again… and will begin a series on James called “Faith Works” this September.  I took long walks with and without my friend Lucy, with and without Sherry, with and without kids, and always with God.  I listened to 4 Timothy Keller sermons, two John Ortberg messages, one message each from Darrin Patrick, David Platt, and John MacArthur.  I’ve also played, swam, snorkeled, ate, relaxed, and had great fun with my family.  As always, I’m so appreciative for the leaders, staff, and people of Cumberland for giving me this annual time of soul feasting.  These times keep me fresh, enliven my family, build into my marriage, and enable me to continue doing what God has called me to do.  Thanks.

I think they call it intentional displacement.  Seems like I read about this somewhere recently.  Getting out of your comfortable life rut, and displacing yourself into a circumstance where something is bound to happen is the goal.  We did it last night, and we’ll do it again tonight.

Our annual midnight breakfast was last night.  At 12:20 a.m. the Scott family was ordering from a Denny’s menu.  We’ve always had so much fun with these.  Last night was no exception as we laughed, ate, took a photo of our waiter whom we swore was Ralph Macchio, and made lasting memories.  We intentionally displaced our dragging bodies from our beds to Denny’s, and there was life to grasp.  There’s a latent story waiting to happen in us all.  A little movement, a little displacement, a little intentional discomfort and voila, you find yourself smack dab in the middle of some audacious new chapter.

Tonight we’re swimming in the ocean at night… in the dark… at around 11 p.m.  I’m calling it, “Face Your Fears.”  For some reason few stick their toes in the ocean when it’s dark, but those same waters and sharks are up to our necks when the sun is out.  Go figure.  My BRAVE family members will be intentionally displacing themselves again, and I’m betting something is gonna happen.

Blaise Pascal wrote: “Our nature lies in movement, complete calm is death.”

Today I blew through the second third of  Hirsch & Ferguson’s “On The Verge.”  The authors write: “A church of a thousand disciples has a thousand potential churches contained in itself.   There is dormant potential in all of God’s people.”

In order for CCC to move missions from a departmental level to a personal level, more and more people will need to be intentionally displaced into our culture with personal, integrated spirituality “as they go.”  We’ve done this corporately as a church, but now we must do this more and more individually and within groups as a church.  Community groups need to become on mission groups, or groups of missionaries that hold each other accountable for being on mission the rest of the week.  A silent witness hoping someone will see Jesus is not what this is about.  Serving, loving, meeting needs, and giving verbal reasons for the hope we have IS the idea.  It is a full out mobilization of God’s people into everyday ministry.

Two thirds of my way through, I’m a bit frustrated how Hirsch and Ferguson really make all of this very complicated with charts, lists, and elaborate systems marked by a plethora of acronyms.  I’m sure it’s all good stuff, but Biblically sensible and simple makes more sense in my head, and keeps ministry creative, free, and wonderfully organic.

As I was setting up my daily work station on the beach, an older gentleman approached me and said, “Try this.”  He handed me a dog corkscrew tether, and then proceeded to show me how to dig a deeper hole for my umbrella.  I’ve seen people bring cordless drills and a long drill bit for the same sandy job.  There are beach store tools to set umbrellas deep, or you can just dig by hand like I do.  However, the corkscrew tether thingy was great.  It was simple, it worked, and the guy had two so he gave me one!  Awesome.

Hirsch & Ferguson lay out systems, practices, paradigms, flow diagrams, and long lists of values to create a gospel movement in our churches.  There are things here that spark my thinking, but I’m wondering if simpler is better.  With Jesus being Lord, disciples making disciples, and individuals and smaller groups intentionally displacing themselves beyond their living rooms and our church walls… something is gonna happen.  Our gathering will be even more powerful and necessary, and our scattering will finally begin to change culture instead of culture changing us.

I’ll finish off “On The Verge Tomorrow.”  I’ll wrap up study break for this year.  There are God threads through this two week ordeal that I want to try and pull together tomorrow.  For now, I gotta go face my fears in a dark ocean.  More intentional displacement.  I just know something is gonna happen!

Any new and brilliant idea is met with resistance.  Innovators make up a piddly 2.5% of the population, while strong resistors make up about 50%.  Such was my burden in attempting a new and different kind of family photograph to grace our Christmas card this year.  I like to capture our annual photo during study break.  This year I wanted an underwater portrait.  When’s the last time you’ve seen one of those come through your holiday mail?   An underwater photo would definitely stand out among all those other boring cards and faces that stare at you in December.   Tell that to some some ornery members of my family.

I had some convincing to do,  and so I created the obvious problem.  We haven’t sent out a family Christmas card in two years, and so this year’s has really got to be good!  I had minimal buy in.  I cast vision for being trail blazers in visual rendering of familial sub cultures.  Nothin’ doing.  I convinced a few early adopters to join my cause.  Statistically they make up 13.5% of our population.  Practically, that’s not quite one whole Scott.

Take a look at the picture posted.  Who do you think embraced this wonderful idea immediately? Who is absolutely having a blast?  Who went through the ordeal just to get it over with?  Which one do think had to die to themselves so that I could fully live my dream?  Who is struggling but hanging in there, and who is still upset with my attempt at creative leadership… and I have to take her out for breakfast tomorrow morning just so I can make it all up to her?  Hmmm.

This morning I got stuck on James 1:1.  James, the brother of Jesus, has turned from sibling skeptic to Kingdom servant.  The Apostle Paul said he was a servant, and set apart for the gospel (Romans 1:1).  James, a part of the gathered Jerusalem church, also served the scattered church with practical application of the good news of Jesus.  He was, however, a late adopter to all of this.  James would have hated having his picture taken underwater.

I started reading my third study break book,  “On The Verge” by Alan Hirsch & Dave Ferguson.  The authors write, “… one of it’s (20th century church) sad legacies was the growing schism between missiology and ecclesiology.  This has led to a missionless church and a churchless mission.”

At Cumberland, we’ve taken the past several years to shift our paradigm and coded thinking from only attractional (they come to us) to more missional (let’s go to them).  We’ve done a great job at becoming a church for our community and not just in our community.  We’re serving great at a macro, larger level.  Four to five times a year we close down Sunday morning shop, and serve with our highly motivated army.   This has been such a great and healthy thing for CCC.

Now, and this is very confirmed by “On The Verge,” God’s next push and challenge for His Bride at Cumberland is to own things on a micro, smaller level.  As much as CCC has placed her roots in the community of Smyrna, individuals must do the same with the gospel of Jesus in a regular, “as we go,” integrated way.  The challenge for community groups will be to become missional communities that live out the gospel through serving the needs in a hands-on way, independent of what Cumberland does corporately.  This is where our gathering and scattering will unite and grow us even further.

Key to this imaginative thinking is becoming gathered and scattered servants of the gospel.  Hirsch & Ferguson strongly suggest, “Everyone in a movement, and not just the so-called religious professionals, must be activated and thus play a vital role in extending Jesus’ mission on earth.”  With more disciples making disciples and becoming Christ-centered, scattered servants, we will synergistically move CCC from attractional, to missional, to movemental.  I prefer movement over institution any day of the week.  The organism of the Church demands it.

I can see it, but maybe I need to convince more that the current problem with church is there’s just got to be more to church.  I know there’s still more change coming.  I liken it to underwater fun.  There’s such opportunity for innovation and Jesus’ church to return to a place of great influence in our culture and desperate communities.   However, I know few will adopt such excited thinking early.  Many will endure, but all will have to die to themselves, again.  It’s in the dying that we’ll find even greater life, growth, purpose, and mission at a place many of us call Cumberland.

In my ipod this morning was “I Will Die For You” by Mercy Me.  It rang true with where God has my heart…

And I know that I can find You here
‘Cause You promised me You’ll always be there
Times like these, it’s hard to see
But somehow I have a peace, You’re near
And I pray that You will use my life
In whatever way Your name is glorified
Even if surrendering
Means leaving everything behind

My life has never been this clear
Now I know the reason why I’m here
You never know why You’re alive
Until you know what you would die for
I would die for You

And I know I don’t have much to give
But I promise You I will give You all there is
Can I possibly do less
When through Your own death I live?

No greater love is found
Than of those who lay their own lives down
As sure as I live and breathe
Now I know what it means to be free