The impact of Luther’s commentary on on church continues to reverberate, even today, across religious and secular lines. Social media around world is abuzz about the 500th anniversary of the event that ultimately split the Western Church and was the catalyst to the Protestant Reformation. The perspective of 500 years gives us the ability, if only in a limited way, to comment on the effects of the reform.

In retrospect, the Reformation has turned out to be a mixed bag.
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Consider this comment from a major Christian publisher on this quincentenary: “Martin Luther’s legacy was simple: protest everything that keeps people from God.”

If that be true, then it may well be that were Luther alive today he would find himself protesting against the very churches that he created.

One of Luther’s primary complaints was that the church at the turn of the 16th century had set itself up as judge, jury, and mediator between God and man. Luther’s contention was that salvation was a free gift and that rightness with God was to be found through Christ and his work alone.

But the century that followed the Reformation found Protestant followers of Christ being anything but Christ-like.

Catholics killed Protestants. Protestants killed Catholics. Protestants and Catholics killed Anabaptists (it seems that they were at least in agreement over that one thing). Doctrinal arguments continued within Protestantism and led to schism after schism as wave after wave of religious leaders staked their lives (and the lives of their followers) on issues of secondary importance.

While relationships between Christians of today are far less violent then they were 500 years ago, they are no less tense.

The denominational wasteland in which we find ourselves is as much a result of the Reformation as the existence of the Protestant Church itself.

We are a body without unity, on issue both large and small.

This must unfathomably frustrate the Christ who choose to spend the final hours before his death in fervent prayer for followers’ unity.

Today, Protestants are increasingly splintered from one another and—much like the Catholic Church of 500 years ago—the Protestant Church often allows itself, and its doctrine, to stand in-between the unity of its followers and stand in the way of the salvation of those who are not.

500 years on, many Protestants find themselves more concerned with the nuances of right belief than extravagant and convicting love.

Dogmatic theology that worships at the altar of rightness stands in the way of righteousness.
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A church that claims the legacy of the Reformation but stands in the way of others wishing to come to the table, becomes the very church that received a nailing 500 years ago today.

The rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation, Sola Scripture (Scripture Alone), has led to all kinds of abuse and persecution directed toward fellow followers of The Way.

Jesus said, you shall know my followers by their love.

+ + +

Looking through the lens of 500 years, many scholars are noticing a recurring 500-year pattern of breakdown and reconstruction within the structures of the institutionalized church.

Is it possible that the Protestant Church of today is the Catholic Church of 500 years ago?

Every 500 years since Christ, there has been a breakdown and rebirth within the church. Take for example: Gregory the Great (500), the Great Schism (1,000), and the Great Reformation (1,500).

Even many of the most die-hard Protestants among us have grown wary of a faith that requires the elevation of Creed over Christ, and belief above love.

Phyllis Tickle suggests that 500 years post-reformation, Luther’s ‘sola scriptura, scriptura sola’ has done little more than create a paper pope in place of a flesh-and-blood one.

If the lasting legacy of the Reformation was the Bible, then 500 years is withering away in our hands as the authority of the paper pope (the Bible) goes the way of the flesh-and-blood pope of the Reformation.

Where now is our authority, if it be not solely in the Basilica or the Bible?

500 years later, many Protestants are now locating that authority BACK IN THE CHURCH! Choosing instead to locate it within an ecclesial system “that waits upon the Spirit and rests in the interlacing lives of Bible-listening, Bible-honoring believers [that] undoubtedly has its impetus in the sensibilities of the secular Great Emergence around it.” ¹

The Protestant Church is only now awaking to a reality which has long been upon it:

The Protestant Reformation is over.

And what do we have to show for it?

Wisdom will press the pastors and priests among us to soon replace our 500-year-old iconoclastic idols that were created with the Reformation and return anew to a faith that places all authority in Christ.

It is time to return with fervor to the Eucharist, the Ekklesia, and the Eminent Christ… not to the exclusion of Scripture, but alongside it.

Solus Christus, Christus solus!

The post The Protestant Reformation is Over appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

Tertullian’s classic question asks us to consider the relationship between Greek thought and philosophy and its counterpart, Christianity and biblical heritage. Or, in simpler terms, the relationship between the secular and the sacred.

There are many secular rites of passage. Consider, for example:

• A Birth Certificate with footprints and handprints
• First day of school pictures
• A Driver’s License
• Purchasing a first drink at 21
• The exchange of rings and vows
• The first colonoscopy
• Readers
• An AARP Card in the mail
• etc.

Today in the U.S. is another: Tax Day.

Bleh.

But for all of its downsides, one’s first 1040 Statement is an important right of passage that marks the beginning of a journey from dependent to independent. It indicates a move toward self-sufficiency and should be celebrated by the Republic. Another citizen has accepted their responsibility for giving back in exchange for what they have received.

The government should celebrate and positively reinforce every adolescents first Tax Return.
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We shouldn’t be too tough on the U.S. Government though, the Church by-and-large fails to adequately celebrate adolescent rites of passage as well. Some churches celebrate Confirmation, many churches celebrate graduation, but few offer anything in between.

I often wonder if our modern faith crisis is mostly due to our lack of challenging, encouraging, and celebrating movement across spiritual milestones.

Is our faith weak because we have lost our rites of passage?

I think so.

When the Early Church was faced with a highly secularized culture and weak faith within Christ-followers, they implemented broadly creative (and hugely effective) rites of passage to help move people toward deeper faith and celebrate that same movement. Many of our modern church seasons, programs, and events have their genesis in these ancient rites of passage. Sadly, they are but a shadow of their former selves.

Much has changed over the centuries. Many churches focus heavily on the proclamation of the Word, conversions, or other metrics. Even a heavy focus on discipleship and depth can sometimes become an idol that gets in the way of ensuring that those who are far from God are moved toward full and abundant life in Christ.

It’s easy to see why the government fails to take time to celebrate newly minted tax payers, there are just too many other things to worry about.

It’s easy to see why churches don’t spend more time emphasizing and celebrating spiritual rites of passage, there are just too many other things to worry about.

It is also easy to see why people stop working and paying taxes, especially when the government provides little incentive or celebration for so doing.

In that respect, it is also easy to see why so few adolescents (or others, for that matter) maintain a vibrant and growing faith… the church has provided little incentive or celebration for doing so.

PRACTICE:  Imagine one Rite of Passage which could be implemented in your home or church to celebrate and encourage spiritual growth.

The post Jerusalem, Athens, Taxes, and Adolescents appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

It makes sense, too.

It is doubtful that the Early Church had a once-and-done annual Easter celebration. We know, in fact, that they did not. The celebration of Easter soon extended for 50-days until Pentecost Sunday, the day of the coming of the Spirit.

The 50-day period between Easter and Pentecost Sundays was known as Eastertide, an ongoing celebration of Easter.

It is difficult to imagine the Eleven Apostles, women, and other first-century followers going back to their homes and Normal lives after first hearing of Jesus’ resurrection.

Perhaps the Eastern Orthodox Church is onto something as they continue the Easter Sunday celebration into the following week with Easter Monday and Bright Week.

It may be time to recapture the power, mystery, and majesty of the resurrection by celebrating Easter Monday.

Around the world, the day is celebrated in various ways:

• Easter-egg rolling competitions
• Eating meals outdoors, picnicking
• Kite-flying
• Remembrances of those who have passed

For many, Easter weekend has become a crowded concoction of distracted days.
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Easter Monday allows us extra time to continue the contemplation of the cross and the celebration of its effect on our lives, families, and faith.

Easter Monday gives us the chance to continue to impress upon our children, our families, and ourselves, the power, mystery, and majesty of Easter. And in so doing, we join alongside the Early Church in a continuation of the celebration of the most important event in the history of the world.

PRACTICE:  Make a list of possible Easter Monday (Bright Week) activities.

The post The Very Real Reason We Need Easter Monday appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

How could a giraffe be such a source of frustration?

The answer to that is easy: We live in a time where technology has removed most of the mystery from birth. Humans can know almost immediately that conception has occurred, pinpoint with incredible accuracy the date of delivery, and know the gender of a child months before arrival. For most of us, giving birth is more an administrative act than a miraculous one.

The idea of waiting 2-3 months in a delivery room is a foreign concept.

As a culture, we are drunk on the idea of “immediate gratification,” but the Bible has a lot to teach about “delayed gratification.”

April may be smarter than we give her credit. It almost seems as though she intentionally waited months in order to give birth, with the whole world watching, on Holy Saturday.

Holy Saturday: the day that Jesus lay dead in a tomb while a world (who had once watched) now gave up all hope.

On that fateful Saturday, after the violent murder of Hope on a cross, no one was expecting new birth to come.

All hope had been lost.

So I wonder if April had planned this all along? … a Holy Saturday birth, when the spiritual world rests and waits in the suffering darkness of delayed gratification.

At the most unlikely of times: birth.

New birth.

The advent of April's calf is a reminder of a far more important Advent of unlikely hope.
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Just like April’s baby, Jesus himself arrived in the most unlikely of moments after a season of great anticipation and expectation. His coming had been foretold too, and there was a time when many had watched and waited for it, but by the end there were few that were still looking.

Jesus surprised the world by arriving when few were still watching for him.

Jesus surprised the world again by returning when none expected his rebirth.

This is the miracle of Advent and Easter, and April reminded us as much on an otherwise dark Saturday morning during Holy Week.

The post How an Amazing Advent Changed April appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

To make matters worse, adults are not always on the same page about how and when to deal with death. While one parent may treat death in a very cavalier manner, another may wish to entirely shield their child from any interaction with the topic. Some hope to delay the discussion till the children are “just a bit older” or be “waiting for the right time.”

For parents who wrestle with the topic of death, Holy Week poses a particularly tough problem.

Passion plays portray a bloody and beaten Christ, dying before our very eyes. Sermons surrounding the Easter events tend to heavily focus on the death of the divine One. Even coloring sheets in Sunday School often show images of the cross and crucifixion.

All of this can work together to make even the most protective parent wonder how to manage it all.

How much death is too much for a child?

The reality is that death is an inevitable, yet painful, part of life. Whether that death be a grandparent, loved one, or pet, death will come to all families and often in the most undesirable of times. By the time they drive, 78% of children will have experienced the death of someone close to them. 1 out of 20 children who are of driving age have already lost one or both parents.²

Even without experience the loss of someone or something close to them, children regularly experience death. “Think about what children see on television. A news anchor calmly comments on the number of people killed on the other side of the world. A reporter at the scene emotionally describes gruesome details of a fiery airline crash or a terrorist attack. A cartoon character gets flattened by a steamroller and, after a brief pause and a frown, gets up to continue a chase. A character in a weekly mystery series gets killed, only to show up the next week on a comedy show on another network.”³

Conservative estimates indicate that a child will experience over a thousand deaths each year. Your children are fully aware of death’s existence and power.

What they are not fully aware of is how to cope with and process death. This is the responsibility of the parent.

Parents are responsible for teaching children about the nuances of death and life.
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Opportunities abound to do so. For example, the annual cycle of fall and spring brings an opportunity to explain death and life. The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly is another. Nature is full of perfect God-given opportunities to teach spiritual lessons.

Parents should make use of every opportunity to teach their children about the power and powerlessness of death.

One of the greatest concerns of child psychologists and family therapists is shared obliviousness, those topics within a family unit that are left unsaid. The things that we avoid often become the greatest chains that hold us back.

Use every opportunity to teach your children about grief, death, and loss. Do so in ways that are age-appropriate but which do not avoid the topic altogether. Allow them to see your emotion and experience their own.

Don’t forget, Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus through He knew he would soon be raised.

And on Good Friday, we do well to weep at His.

PRACTICE:  Look for opportunities to reflect, connect, and discuss death this Holy Week.

The post Teaching the Odd Goodness of a Death-filled Friday appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

Tradition states that King Cake must only be eaten between Epiphany and Mardi Gras. Eating King Cake outside of these dates will bring bad luck. The bad luck in this case, superstition states, will come in the form of rain on the day of Mardi Gras.

Since it rained on Mardi Gras this year, I can only assume that someone broke the rules and ate King Cake during Lent last year.

Savages.

My kids, wife, and I had an incredible time on Mardi Gras this year as we talked about all of the images and symbolism within the King Cake. It is a rich tradition that creates an incredible opportunity to teach about Jesus, Epiphany, and Lent. I even shared with them the superstition about eating King Cake after Lent.

What I had not expected was this: The only thing my kids remembered about the whole King Cake discussion was that they couldn’t eat it the next day or it would rain on Mardi Gras next year.

They were so concerned about it that they refused to take the leftover King Cake to school as their snack the next day.

I was perplexed… and a bit annoyed!

I had put so much time into teaching the metaphors, and THE SUPERSTITION was all that they remembered!?

It was a learning experience for me.

Superstition is powerful, but a great story is even more powerful.
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The kids remembered the superstition because it was the most powerful part of the story. i guess that is a lesson for me on the need to make the other parts of the story just as compelling!

As for me, I ate the rest of the King Cake over the next few days myself. So, when it rains on Mardi Gras next year, you will know who to blame…

The post The Very unBoring Thing About Bad Luck appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

The good news is that the calendar for upcoming posts is quite full; the bad news is that April looks to be just as busy… if not worse.

One of those commitments is actually quite exciting! Near the end of the month, I travel to Portland to attending my doctoral hooding ceremony. Though I have official received my doctorate already—having passed the Oral Defense—it will be a great opportunity to celebrate with the family. This site is based, in part, upon the research that formed that foundation of the dissertation.

There are also a few other exciting developments coming up in April, but more on that later.

The post Daily-ish appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

The care and spiritual feeding of teenagers can be a difficult and unnerving task.

One day every parent wakes up and wonders, “Who is this kid?” The young person that sleeps down the hall seems to have been overtaken by some evil spirit. Once wonderful adolescents often disconnect with positive influences in order to explore less-healthy influences. They push boundaries, wrestle with identity, and are tossed about by a flood of hormones.

Parents of teenagers have it tough.

I am proud of my friend, though. He is doing the dad-thing right. He is looking fear in the eye and pressing forward into tough and terrible teenage territory when so many other parents cower or run in fear.

He is doing exactly what his son needs him to do: be present.

Successful parenting of adolescents is often about simply being present.
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Finding time to spend with one’s teenager is not always easy. Family meals are often sacrificed on the altar of meetings and sport commitments. A drivers license gives teenagers the freedom to spend more time away from home. Friends voices take precedent over that of the parent. But,

Parents must remember that their support, affirmation, and presence are just as important now (if not more important) than at any other developmental stage.

For this reason, it is disappointing that our culture has lost so many markers of adolescent growth. If the primary questions of adolescence deal with questions of identity—such as Who am I? and Why am I here?—then it is the primary job of the parent to look into the teenage tornado and continually point the teenager toward the right answers. Parents do this best by way of Christlike love, words, actions, and presence.

Recent research into human development has shown the value of rites of passage in healthy life stage development. In their book, Looking Beyond Adolescence, Schulz and Kerig note how important it is for adolescents to receive parental affirmation and to perceive that they have successfully completed the adolescent stage. Schulz and Kerig further note the importance for adolescents to feel as though they have achieved something, gaining mastery, and that a resulting transformation in the parent-child relationship has occurred.

Rites of passage are a perfect opportunity for families to encourage young children to strive for mastery of belief and practice and then celebrate and reward older children who have achieved mastery.

Retreats with our children may be one of the best ways to accomplish this!

PRACTICE:  Consider 1 or 2 opportunities that you might have to design a Rite of Passage for your young person. If your home is without children, consider the presence or absence of Rites of Passage within your family of origin.

The post The Importance of Retreat as a Rite of Passage appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

It’s not difficult to understand why.

Many of us reach mid-Lent in desperate need of a reset

An essay shared by Len Sweet—The Rising Tide of Educated Aliteracy: In the age of information overload, discussing books you haven’t read has become a badge of honor—got me to thinking about the pressure we church-folk often feel to seem as though we are benefiting from participation in a spiritual practice, when we really aren’t.

What do you do when you get to the middle of Lent and realize you’ve veered off course? Perhaps you gave up the wrong thing. Or maybe you started strong but fell off the wagon and never got back on again. Or perhaps you never made a commitment for Lent but feel a bit of guilt over it now.

The middle of Lent is a perfect time to assess and course correct.

If Lent is more about the habit than the holy, then you're doing it wrong!
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All too often, our participation in Lent becomes superficial over the stretch of 40 days. If we have reached the midway point of Lent and are feeling that we’ve made a mistake, then NOW is the time to make a change.

Maybe God is leading you to give something else up for Lent, something of far greater sacrifice. Perhaps gave up something and then lost your resolve after a week; pick yourself up and start again. Or maybe God is leading you to take something on for the rest of Lent rather than giving something up, such as deeper prayer. For some of us, the issue is that we never made a change in our spiritual practices and now it is time to make a Lenten commitment to Christ.

I hereby give you permission to make a mid-Lent change in your 40-day spiritual practice.

Don’t spend the remainder of your journey to Holy Week in a less-than-spiritual situation. Make small Spirit-directed changes now and see what happens between now and Resurrection.

PRACTICE:  Assess your current spiritual practices; course-correct as necessary. If helpful, discuss with a trusted spiritual advisor.

The post Why You May Be in Need of a Mid-Lent Reset appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.

We often keep a supply of Benadryl or Ambien close by in order to surmount the sleepless nights, or worse, our fear of it. But what if we have the wrong idea altogether about a period of sleeplessness during the night?

What if our sleepless times were cause for joy rather than fear?

What if a full-night’s sleep is entirely overrated?!

My first awareness that a straight-8 of sleep may not be all that we’ve made it out to be came after I stumbled over a short story about the Apostle Paul and his sidekick Silas in Acts 16. There, our dynamic duo find themselves spending some time in incarceration. For many of us, a night in jail would indeed be cause for a sleepless night, but for Paul and Silas it seems to be more than that: “About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God…” (v.25).

For many years I assumed that Paul and Silas’s midnight motivation for prayer and praise was mostly circumstantial in nature. They are in jail, of course they are praying! But I now know that there was so much more going on than an impromptu worship service! For Paul and Silas, midnight prayer would have been a common event.

Paul and Silas would have regularly interrupted the night's slumber for prayer.
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Would you be surprised to know that the Early Church regularly spent time during the middle of the night in prayer?

For example, the Psalmist had a nightly prayer routine that required interrupting his sleep. It is recorded chapter 119: “At midnight I rise to praise you, because of your righteous rules” (v.62). Many early pastors and bishops of the church strongly encouraged middle-of-the-night prayers, too.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – 254 A.D.) suggested that prayer “ought not to be performed less than three times each day… and not even the time of night shall pass without such prayer.” Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – 215 A.D.) told his congregation that prayer in the night is important because, “We must sleep in such a way that we might be easily awakened.” A mid-slumber waking for prayer was seen to help accomplish this.

Early Christians interrupted their night's sleep for a period prayer.
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You may be even more surprised to learn that a single-sleep night is a relatively recent occurrence in human history, Christian or otherwise. Our ancestors intentionally spent several hours awake in the middle of the night. For a deeper discussion, check out this article.

Our ancestors slept twice, in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. It began with a short sleep of three to four hours, a period of wakefulness of up to three hours, then more sleep until morning. A surprisingly large body of support from literature, court documents, and personal papers confirms that two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep.

What would they do during these nighttime hours? During the Middle Ages, we know that many people used the time to read, chat, smoke, and have sex. Many Christians, taking the example of the ancient church to heart, often used this time for prayer. Religious manuals from those times even include special prayers to be said during these mid-sleep hours.

It may be worth resurrecting a mid-night period of prayer as an act of devotion, worship, and prayer without ceasing.

Could this have been on Job’s mind when he himself cried out: “Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,” (35:10).

PRACTICE:  The next time that you awake in the night, rise and pray.

The post How to Pray Songs in the Night appeared first on Ancient Future Faith.