The 500-year Pattern of Reformation and Why it Matters to Us

Last week I mentioned an event in church history called the Great Schism. I’ll tell you more about it in a second, but first I want to show you how it’s part of an important historical pattern that has great relevance to us today.

Every 500 years, something very interesting happens: the church goes through a reformation. By reformation, I mean it literally "re-forms" into something new. The gospel itself is left untouched, but everything else that is called “church” is turned upside down. The church experiences such a major shift that it redefines the way it relates to the world.

Let me give you a quick tour…

1517: The Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther
(photo credit: pbs.org)

Picture a man standing in front of the big wooden door of a university building, red-faced with holy indignation, nailing up a list of complaints against the Catholic Church. You guessed it – he’s Martin Luther. His 95 Theses was the catalyst for the most recent 500-year shift, the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s conviction that mankind is saved not by works but by grace through faith sent shockwaves throughout the Christian world. Today we call ourselves Methodist, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, all because of the Protestant Reformation.

(photo credit: glogster.com)

1054: The Great Schism
Go back five hundred years and we find another reformation. This is the one that happened at the Hagia Sophia church in Istanbul (back then the city was called Constantinople). Up to that point, there had been one unified church. But in 1054, due to cultural differences, theological disagreements, and some big egos, the church split, forming Roman Catholicism in the West and Eastern Orthodox in the East. As a result, Christianity started spreading East into Russia, evangelizing that part of the world for the first time.

500 (ish) A.D.: The Monastic Movement

Ruin of Early Irish Monastery
(Photo credit: irelandhistory.org)

Go back 500 years more and you will find yet another reformation. This was the establishment of monasteries. Faithful monks like St. Patrick took the gospel all over Europe and established monasteries wherever they went. These monasteries soon became hubs of the Christian faith. In the first century, at the time of Christ and the early church, Christianity had been Roman – but after 500 years, it was reborn as European.

Ok, so here’s the interesting thing: if reformation happens every 500 years, then we are due for the next shift. The Protestant Reformation was almost EXACTLY 500 years ago!

So was Newsweek correct when in 2009 they proclaimed on their cover, “The End of Christian America?” Or could it be that God is up to something behind the scenes, preparing His people to turn the page of history and usher in the church of the next five hundred years?

If this is true, then it is cause for great hope and excitement. We may be on the cusp of a major move of God.

Will you join me in praying for the next reformation?

Postcard from Athens

I am writing this while lounging beside the beautiful turquoise water of the Aegean Sea in Greece, where Rob and I are wrapping up a week-long vacation to Istanbul and Athens. What a week! It has been full of breathtaking views, exotic cultures, and rich history.

Istanbul is a city of contrasts. Straddling the Bosphorus River with Europe on one side and Asia on the other, it is truly the crossroads of the world. In this land of East-meets-West, tourists from cruise ships walk the streets alongside women wearing burkas. Menus offer both fine French wine and strong Turkish coffee. The haunting sound of the Muslim call to prayer wafts down from a thousand minarets and mingles with "Call Me Maybe" playing on the taxi's radio.

Amazing Istanbul

I was especially excited to visit the Hagia Sofia church while in Istanbul. One of the most important churches in Christendom, the Hagia Sofia was the site of the reformation of 1054 (known as the Great Schism), which I write about in my book. It was so cool to see it in person after just reading about it  for so long!

Interior of the Hagia Sofia: over the centuries it has served as
both a church and mosque - here you can see a mural of the
Madonna and Christ child next to Arabic words of praise to Allah

But, the highlight of the trip - at least spiritually speaking - was definitely when we got to Athens and visited Mars Hill. Also known as the Areopagus, Mars Hill was the site of Acts 17, where Paul preached to the Athenians:

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. (Acts 17:22, 23 NIV)

Paul stood on this very site and proclaimed the gospel to the leading philosophers of the day. Acts 17 says that many "sneered" at him, but others believed and understood that the "Unknown God" they had been searching for was Jesus Christ. In fact, one of those who believed that day was Dionysos, who would go on to become the patron saint of Greece!

I'm standing on Mars Hill with the Acropolis behind me

Being here on Mars Hill made Scripture come alive, and know I will never read about Paul the same way. I can picture him, standing here on Mars Hill, preaching to the people of Athens. Acts 17 just went from black and white to technicolor.

Acts 17, Paul's sermon, in Greek!

We return home tomorrow, and I will be bringing experiences home with me in my heart that I know  will forever affect the way I read the Bible and see the world.

God's Ways Are Good to the Last Drop

 My morning coffee & everything
that goes into making it

Raise your hand…any big coffee drinkers out there? I am. One reason is that my husband makes really good coffee. Another reason is that I am not, repeat NOT, a morning person and I need my coffee to wake up. I can't help it - it's genetic. I come from a long line of non-morning, coffee drinking people. To give you an idea, legend has it that my dad wouldn’t eat Rice Krispies for breakfast when he was a young man because they made too much noise. Sadly, I can relate.

Suffice it to say, coffee is a very important part of my day. When I take that first sip, I usually make that “Ahhhhh” sound and think to myself, now this is GOOD.  

Interestingly, Author Max Lucado made an analogy likening that good cup of coffee to God’s work in our lives:

 “When you sip on a cup of coffee and say, ‘This is good,’ what are you saying? The plastic bag that contains the beans is good? The beans themselves are good? Hot water is good? A coffee filter is good? No, none of these. Good happens when the ingredients work together: the bag opened, the beans ground into powder, the water heated to the right temperature. It is the collective cooperation of the elements that creates good.”  (Read his whole article here.)

In the same way, Lucado says, God takes all the circumstances of life - the mundane and humdrum, even the negative and the bitter - and uses them as raw materials to create something good. In fact, God promises this very thing to us in the Bible:

“All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

We would never call sickness “good.” Or joblessness. Or loneliness. But we can trust that in the midst of pain and difficulty, God is busy working behind the scenes, turning it all around for our benefit and His glory. It may not happen tomorrow, or next week, or even next year, but God PROMISES that when the process is complete, the result will be worth it. Maybe getting passed over for one job now is keeping the door open for the perfect job later on. Maybe a bad breakup today will result in finding Mr. Right tomorrow. Or maybe His work is more internal – maybe He’s developing inner strength, greater faith, or a powerful testimony. The possibilities are endless as to how God intends to forge our present difficulties into something wonderful.

How is God working in your life today to create something good?

Out of Gas

Out of gas. That’s how I’ve felt this past week - spiritually out of gas. I tried reading my Bible, but it was just words on a page. Then I thought maybe I needed to confess all my sins - which I did - but my prayers seemed to just bounce off the ceiling, never piercing through the fog. I tried listening to Christian music, but it felt like the voices were singing about someone I didn’t know, or, more accurately, someone I used to know but who was now on vacation.

"God, where are you? Don’t you care?" I said the words out loud to Him, and received no answer.

Then I recalled something C.S. Lewis said: that there is a natural ebb and flow to our faith. Sometimes we feel close to God, and sometimes we don’t. Lewis called it “the law of Undulation:”

“[Man’s] nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation – the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks…this undulation [is] in every department of his life – his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness…are merely a natural phenomenon.” (From The Screwtape Letters)

Wait a minute, so this is normal? Knowing that changes everything. I don’t have to fret or worry that my faith is in jeopardy. I don’t have to beg and plead with God to stop hiding from me. I don’t have to navel gaze in order to find that one stubborn sin that is ruining everything. Knowing that this is all part of the natural rhythm of life, I can simply hold on in the trough and wait for the next peak.

I think about times in the Bible when God seemed distant or absent from His people. When Lazarus got sick, Jesus was nowhere to be found. In fact, he purposely stayed away until Lazarus was good and dead. When he finally arrived, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But, of course Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. The trough of his absence was merely a preparation for the peak that followed, one that he had planned for all along: Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead! (John 11)

In the same way, I am reminded (thanks to Lewis) that I can simply wait for God to show up in my trough. When He arrives, He will bring His resurrection power with Him, reviving me in such a way that I will reach a new peak in my faith.

That’s totally worth waiting for!

Jesus the Lamb

It was Passover week, AD 33. The bleating of lambs could be heard all over Jerusalem as literally hundreds of thousands of the adorable, four-footed creatures crowded the temple courts, the city streets, and the campsites of the Jewish pilgrims gathered there for the annual Passover celebration. Unaware of their fate, the lambs would soon become the focal point of the celebration when they were sacrificed for the sins of the people on the altar in the great temple.

Passover was the festival commemorating the incredible miracle God performed for His people centuries before in Egypt, when He had instructed the Hebrew slaves to slaughter a lamb, “a male without defect” (Ex. 12:5) and place its blood on the doorframes of their homes. When the terrifying angel of death went throughout Egypt killing the firstborn of every household, it “passed over” the houses that were marked by the blood of the lamb. The result was the great exodus of the Jewish people, free at last from the slavery of cruel Pharaoh.

From that day forward Jews observed Passover, with thousands upon thousands traveling to Jerusalem every year for a big celebration. This particular year, Jesus and his disciples also went up to Jerusalem, with Jesus riding on a donkey and the crowd - already in a celebratory mood - shouting “Hosanna!” as he arrived.

Jesus, however, entered with a heavy heart, for unlike those unsuspecting lambs he was well aware of his fate. John the Baptist had prophesied it three years earlier when he saw Jesus for the first time on the banks of the Jordan and, with finger pointed and eyes blazing, shouted, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) And now that very hour was upon him. He himself was about to become the sacrificial lamb.

So, on that first Good Friday, the same day of the Passover feast, as the lambs were being taken into the temple courts to be prepared for slaughter, Jesus took up his cross and made his way to Golgotha. The only man in history who was sinless and without defect allowed himself to be nailed to the cross, his blood saturating the wood just as the blood had saturated the doorposts in Egypt.

Jesus hung on the cross for six excruciating hours. At twilight, which is also called the ninth hour, all the Passover lambs all over Jerusalem were slaughtered. At that exact moment, Jesus cried out, “It is finished” and breathed his last breath (John 19:30). The sacrifice was complete. In an incredible act of love, he died for the sins of mankind, so that by believing in him we are "passed over" by death and receive eternal life.

And now, as we look forward to Resurrection Sunday, we can rejoice knowing that death was not the end. Jesus is the risen Lord! “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13)

Happy Easter!

Is That You, God?

Last week I told the story of hearing God in the middle of a Mexican food restaurant. So, what did I mean by “hearing” God? What does God’s voice sound like, anyway?

Some believe that God has stopped speaking altogether, while others argue that hearing God’s voice is reserved for a special few. But, I believe that the Bible teaches that all Christians are able to hear the voice of God:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  John 10:27

Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.  Jeremiah 33:3

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.  Isaiah 30:21

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  John 16:13

I think God is speaking to us all the time. It's just that His voice can be pretty difficult to discern sometimes. For instance, when the Holy Spirit was prompting me to talk to the man in the restaurant I kept thinking it was my own thoughts, and it took me awhile to clue in that it was actually God! 

In fact, even great men of the Bible didn't automatically know when God was speaking: Samuel mistook God’s voice for that of his fellow priest’s, Eli (1 Samuel 3). Elijah expected to hear God through a powerful earthquake, wind, or fire, but instead He spoke in a small whisper (1 Kings 19:11-12). And keep in mind that these guys were OT prophets, the heavyweight champions of hearing the voice of God! If even these men had a hard time, then it stands to reason that the rest of us would too.

So how do we develop the ability to hear God? There is no formula, but here are a few helpful things to keep in mind:

-- God will never tell you to do something that is in violation of the truth of Scripture

-- Although God can communicate however He wants to, He often speaks in a still, small voice that can be mistaken for our own thoughts

--  The best way to know if it’s God is the scariest way: to step out in faith and act on what you are hearing. Oftentimes, we don’t know for sure whether it was the Holy Spirit’s leading until AFTER we have done it! This requires radical obedience!

One thing I’ve learned that has helped me a lot is that it’s better to be obedient than be right. If we step out and get it wrong there is much room for grace, and God is bigger than our blunders. In fact, I think He loves it that we put ourselves out there to try and minister to another person. (I wish I had room to tell you about my experience in the Whataburger drive through when I definitely got it wrong!) Hearing God takes practice…and faith. So when you think God is speaking to you, just go for it! You may just discover that it WAS God speaking to you all along!