Gabe Coyle, Author at Christ Community Church

How to Pray More with Less

by Gabe Coyle | Jul 24, 2024 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

The Power of the Tongue

Have you ever looked at your tongue? We may take note of our nose when trying on a pair of glasses, gloss our lips when chapped, and brush our teeth habitually, but none of these has quite the same power as this extraordinary interconnection of muscles kept in the cage of our mouths.

Without any bones, the tongue’s agility and power reaches as far as life and as dark as death (Proverbs 18:21). This little member of our body can set someone’s life ablaze with a whisper, and as hard as we try to control it, it acts like a stray hound dog, skittish to the very thought of a collar (James 3). With it we bless God, curse our fellow human beings, overshare secrets, declare direction, promise undying love, and—lest we forget—pray.

There is nothing quite as paradoxically familiar and foreign as talking with God. Interestingly, what I find more often than not is that the tongue tries to prove its power more in prayer to the all-powerful God than almost anywhere else.

Especially for those of us who regularly exercise the tongue’s power in prayer, we can unconsciously assume—or blatantly believe—that more words in prayer means more power. If prayer was measured by the number of words used in intercession like miles are used to measure the strength of a runner, we can all too easily see the ultra marathon runner as superior to the sprinter.

A clear sign of this is when someone has prayed for something for an extended period of time and God does not act in accordance with our request, we question whether prayer “works” or whether God heard our prayers at all. We downplay “foxhole” prayers, and the more one is religiously fluent, the more we are tempted to use longer prayers for alternative purposes (Matthew 6:5-6).

Now this is not meant to discourage periods of long intercession. Martin Luther is known for saying that he prayed an hour a day, and on busy days, he would make it a point to pray for two! Jesus was known to disappear all night to spend time in prayer and intimacy with his Father (Luke 6:12).

The Power of Prayer

The question that needs to be answered is how much does God employ the power of the tongue to realize the power of prayer? How much do our clarifying thoughts and persistent speech have to do with prayer activating the Spirit’s effect on us, in us and through us?

Jesus’ teaching on prayer which includes his example that we call the Lord’s Prayer says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matthew 6:7)

Right here Jesus makes it clear that it is not the number of words that makes a prayer effective. Then he continues, “Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Why don’t we need a ton of words? Because like a Father who knows life better than you and knows you better than you and loves you better than you, he already knows what’s best before we ask.

The Power of God

It is from this deep understanding of God’s inexhaustible love that Jesus lays out the Lord’s Prayer. Simple. Short. Sweet.

And yet, no matter how many times that passage is taught, it seems the temptation to convince God to show up in our needs shapes the length of our prayers. Like a child hungry for dinner, we keep asking our father in as many ways as we can fathom if the food is ready as if that will hurry it along. Then over time, we can begin to believe more in the power of the tongue in our praying than the power of God no matter the length of the prayer.

This is where the thoughtful reader of Scripture should pause and ask: what would it look like to surrender to God in prayer rather than trying to control or over direct or micromanage him in prayer? While the answer is not necessarily less prayer, it could mean more prayer with less.

Surrendering to God’s Presence in Centering Prayer

A practice in prayer that has served followers of Jesus throughout history is centering prayer. Centering prayer invites simplicity of speech to be the red carpet to the magnificence of God. Centering prayer is less about looking for a result as it is an openness to the freedom of God. While there is intention with God, the means—the words we use—are sparse for the purpose of surrender. It’s not about “getting” a particular feeling, although you will feel. It is not about “receiving” a particular vision or realization, although at times there may be an encounter. It’s about letting God be God, and you being you before him.

While this may feel squishy to some “experts” in the Christian faith, it is a good reminder that we are all rookies when it comes to the fullness of God in his glorious triune wonder. It’s a checkmate to the “heresy of Eunomius, a fourth-century Arian theologian who audaciously claimed the divine nature to be entirely knowable by the human mind.”* Centering prayer acknowledges the limitation of words to exhaustedly represent our own needs and God’s mysterious glory. It is not the only kind of prayer one is to engage, but it is a beautiful addition to one’s walk with God, which invites us “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 4:19).

Centering prayer requires extended time but limited words. It was common practice for those ancient desert mothers and fathers of the Christian faith. It’s more like experiencing a slow sunset than it is taking a long walk. One word is usually the preference. One word that captures your intention as you merely “be” before God. For me, it is usually one word out of Scripture that I’ve been meditating on that fits the occasion. Usually thirty to sixty minutes is a helpful starting point. Whatever thoughts come before you, you surrender them to God for another time. You whisper your one word of intention (examples: God, rest, cross, holy, life, Jesus) and you wait in his divine care trusting he sees you and knows you and is ready to meet you in ways you didn’t know you needed.

Usually when I engage in centering prayer, I set an alarm on my phone. I release myself from paying attention to anything other than God, and when the alarm goes off like a tap on the shoulder, I find myself more often than not surprised at how an hour has passed.

On one such occasion when I came with the intention of “life” as my exhaled prayer, here is one journal entry of where I found myself at the end:

As my phone alarm went off in an hour, not only did I feel at peace, but gratitude again was a dominant feeling. Grateful for how God has designed life. Grateful for the Author of life. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to feel grateful. A feeling/way of being that I don’t take for granted.

Now, to be clear, I don’t always walk away grateful, but I do always feel it in my body, soul, and spirit. Sometimes I am frustrated. Sometimes I feel nothing. But even in the frustration and the nothing, God is working. If only we saw God present even in our frustrations and those “nothing” moments, we might sense more deeply in our bones we are his, and wouldn’t that be something.

So try it. Pray more with less. Let the power of the tongue give way to the power of God. Who knows, God may even surprise you.

* Lane, Belden C. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. Oxford University Press, 2007.

We Were Meant to Live for so Much More

by Gabe Coyle | Feb 21, 2024 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he’s bent for more than arguments
And failed attempts to fly, fly

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

I was a high school junior when Switchfoot’s iconic song Meant to Live came out. I remember driving to work and school with this song on repeat. As someone who has always dreamed big dreams fueled by a wild imagination, I never really wanted a “quiet life.” While I didn’t know what living a quiet life actually meant in high school, I made myself a promise to never be stuck in a Secret Life of Walter Mitty existence. I had seen friends, family, and leaders waste away in the acceptance of just going with the flow, and it looked more like death than life.

It had been years since I’d heard that song, and then in 2023, I heard not Jon Foreman but Jon Bellion singing Meant to Live as if it was a new hit single. Switchfoot, no doubt following in the footsteps of Taylor Swift, had re-released their “own versions” of their hits and even went one step further, inviting well-known artists to remake their hits. Instantly it was as if I was in high school again. Now, to be clear, I wasn’t hit with midlife regret. I’ve persistently said “yes” to what many said was crazy, and I have had an expanded imagination around the goodness of quiet living. But the song’s re-release did raise a question that will be raised until Jesus returns: What more is God rescuing me for today?

Throughout history, Christians have spoken at length concerning the dangers of discontentment. The Apostle Paul reminds us that with Jesus, we truly have enough no matter our circumstances (Philippians 4:11). What a gift of the Christian life! But for as long as we are on this side of eternity, I also hold fast to how Paul modeled a holy discontent.

Why? Deep within the infrastructure of salvation are dual, dynamically concurrent movements. God has magnificently rescued you and me through his Son Jesus through his life, death, burial, and resurrection “from” sin. Hallelujah! But that’s not the only movement. God is not just a “from” God. God is also a “for” God. God came not just to rescue us “from” sin and its consequence: death. God came to rescue us “for” life, although looking at some sectors of Christianity, you’d have no idea. Sometimes Christians can get so focused on the “from” that we no longer embody the “for.”

This is why the Apostle Paul astounds me. He seemingly had everything this world had to offer before Jesus saved him. He was the best in his class. He had good pedigree, past experiences of God, and top-level leadership as a Pharisee in Jerusalem, the holy city! Then he gets a glimpse of the resurrected Jesus on a work trip, and he is confronted with life.

The atrocity of Paul’s own sin was revealed to himself, along with the beauty of salvation from sin through Jesus’ sufficient death. Simultaneously, Paul saw life in the resurrected Jesus, and nothing compares to that resurrection life. Paul saw Jesus bringing a whole new way to live.

Not a kind of life where self-destructive habits continue to dominate and shame us while we tell ourselves our hope is just a promise on a piece of paper that when we die, it will be different. Not a kind of life that leaves us lonely without purpose. Not a kind of life that is contained to a few quiet times in Scripture and Sunday mornings.

No. We were meant to live for so much more, but we’ve lost ourselves, partly because we’ve lost sight of salvation.

God wants us to live with him and thus find ourselves. A life that says “yes” to his healing. A life that grows our capacity to love him, others, and ourselves. A life that knows no end and knows higher bounds. A life that exists on more than the weekends. A life no one can take away. The life we were meant “for.”

But resurrection life is not always the life we recognize. Paul himself didn’t recognize it at first. This is what Paul is writing about in Romans 6-8. He’s laying out how God has rescued us for real life, a life that looks and dwells with Jesus now.

One way Christians have sought to open themselves up to this life they read about in Scripture is through contemplation. Contemplation is rich with spiritual practices and postures that Christians throughout history have engaged with to more fully experience and rest in their union with the Author of Life. Contemplation is sometimes still and sometimes not. It’s as rich as resurrection life when we lean in.

Take time to walk through a passage like Romans 6-8. Spend time in contemplation, considering what God might be saying to you. Join your church family in theFormed.life, which continues our daily journey through Scripture and building habits, such as the discipline of contemplation, as we grow into the life God has for us.

We were meant for more, and he’s waiting.

Why a Real Church Is Better Than Any Ideal

by Gabe Coyle | Dec 20, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

There are some books you should not just read twice. Some books need to become like good friends. Good friends get together not to “have” something new, but rather, you find their familiarity and wisdom a means of holy “being.” Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is that kind of friend.

In a world where it’s more in vogue to dislike the church because of her failures to measure up to who she ought to be, Bonhoeffer keeps our eyes set firmly on the only place we can belong: a real church. As someone who died for his confession of faith and saw the community of Jesus to be vibrantly different from the powers of the day, we have a lot to learn from this theological giant. Nowhere has Bonhoeffer been more precise and timeless on genuine church community than in Life Together.

Bonhoeffer’s Real Church

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes what a robust Christian community looks like as they grow together in Christlikeness. These insights were refined in 1935 when Bonhoeffer chose to live a “common life in emergency-built houses,” with twenty-five vicars. Out of this experience, Bonhoeffer invites us to “consider a number of directions and precepts that the Scriptures provide us for our life together under the Word.” In my own pastoral vocation, I needed to see afresh through Bonhoeffer’s unapologetic, poetic framing why the church is indeed different from any other institution, and how she is made different through the presence of the Word.

Not Ideal, But Real

In his opening chapter entitled Community, Bonhoeffer first penetrates our expectations of what life together as Christians is like and what keeps us tethered together. While the Christian lot is to live in a world antagonistic to our faith, it’s one of God’s great graces that we get to live alongside other Christians. While this is indeed a grace, it has never been easy, and Bonhoeffer will not tolerate idealism of any sort. Idealistic visions of the real church community ultimately lead to accusations that the whole community, including God at the center of that community, is a failure.

Bonhoeffer brilliantly notices the distinction between intent and impact when idealism guides a community. We can be so in love with a dream of a certain kind of community that even though we have all the best intentions in the world, the impact is that we can become “a destroyer” of the real church community in front of us.

I frequently wrestle with idealism in my pastoral vocation. When I read the biblical vision of what the church will be one day in the book of Revelation, I hunger and thirst for the full arrival of that kind of diverse and unified communion now. I know the problem is not in desire but in timing. The real people in front of me have not arrived, and neither have I. The real church today, due to the continuing presence of sin and brokenness which God himself will finally drive out, is less diverse, less healthy, less loving, and less mature than the completed versions of ourselves. This is how it appropriately is in the journey of salvation. To miss this is to misunderstand pastoral ministry, and yet, I confess I frequently fail to love the real in my pining for the ideal.

Not Merely Human, But Divine

Bonhoeffer then moves to explain how a true Christian community lives and has its being by the power of the Holy Spirit and not by the mere natural desires of humans for community. While all humans desire to have community, when the Spirit creates community it is not merely for others’ sake. If it is merely to meet a need of having others in your life, then this is an idolatry, which will stifle the quality of life and resilience of that community. Whereas when the Spirit creates a community it is for Christ’s sake; this end, and only this end, is where integral, radically inclusive life resides.

Throughout Life Together, Bonhoeffer expands our categories for the mediatorial role of Christ in how we are shaped as a community. In the pietistic circles in which I grew up and am grateful for, I often heard preaching on the astounding importance of Christ’s vertical mediatorial role between God and humanity, but the mystical avenue in which Christ mediates relationships now with other followers of Jesus challenged me to “speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.” Until recently, I had not recognized the gift—yes, the gift—of how God limits immediate access to another human being. Bonhoeffer paints a picture of Jesus standing between us, shaping how we see, talk, relate, and love one another through him, and so Christ’s grace and patience holds us together.

Where this appears to be especially potent is in the prominent conversation around spiritual abuse in pastoral circles. So many spiritual leaders are seeking immediate access to others and longing to control, coerce, and manipulate others through force. When I sense this urge in my own life, this has given me a better imaginative frame for submitting my desires for that person to Christ. When Christ stands between us, and we go to him more than to our sister or brother, we relinquish control. We trust the Spirit that called us together in Christ to work with each of us through Christ.

Not Just Confessional, But Representative

Bonhoeffer does not merely highlight the mediatorial role of Christ between the members of a Christian community, he also highlights how the church community has an important representational role of Christ toward each other. This representational role is exemplified when Bonhoeffer points to the central role of confession in the church.

Loneliness is a human problem that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Psychologists are continuing to notice alarming trends of depression due to the exclusion of the human community, but the loneliness experienced because of hidden sin is a kind of loneliness rarely mentioned in these studies. When the Spirit creates a community for Christ’s sake, we are called into lifegiving discomfort by confessing our sin to a sister or brother, and here the church represents Christ in a powerful way.

Bonhoeffer provides ways to make confession concrete with steps for going to a particular person, with a particular sin, and so, we can experience clarity around our assurance and victory, but when we confess to a brother or sister, what I often overlook is how it combats our loneliness. If we confess when we’d rather not due to any number of reasons, we find that we are “never alone again, anywhere.” This is the power of the gospel.

God Is Here

To be clear, Bonhoeffer is not promoting a mere human community. Rather it is Christ’s presence demonstrated by other followers of Jesus. Bonhoeffer says, “When I go to my brother to confess, I am going to God.” Nothing can make us feel so “utterly alone” like hidden sin, which naturally causes us to hide our full selves from others or our motivations from ourselves, but it is our sisters and brothers who bear with us through Christ, listening to our confessions as Christ, who also declare forgiveness to us in the words of Christ. This is the real church founded and formed by Christ: a church fumbling along in the real world, bearing with one another and confessing to one another in Christ. This is the church we need. This is the church I need, because this is where Christ is.

Being with Bonhoeffer and the Real Church

And so, if you need a book to better understand a lost perspective of the church, if you yourself, have lost interest in the church, if you have been enticed by the ideal church such that you can no longer attend/stand/stomach/imagine a real church, Bonhoeffer’s theological vision and biblical wisdom may be a helpful mentor. Add him as a conversation partner as you enter the new year. You may find a love for the church, and so Christ, afresh.

A Prayer for Runners

by Gabe Coyle | Aug 23, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

If you like to run, what are your routines for run prep? Stretching? Coffee? Mapping out your run? What if running could strengthen your soul as much as your body? How do you prep for that?

Okay, so maybe this isn’t the blog you were expecting from your pastor. I know this topic may feel niche, but even if you aren’t the “running type,” I invite you into an exercise to expand your perspective of the ordinary aspects of your life. Life with God is an adventure that predominantly dwells in the riches of the mundane, and there are few things that remind us of our ordinary, earthy existence like a morning run. The body is cranking sweat out of every pore. Muscles, joints, lungs, and heart are burning. The spirit seems to grow silent at the screaming of the body.

And yet, what if this is one of the ways God meets us? What if the joy at the end of a run doesn’t merely have to be a dopamine hit, but a moment of embodied encounter with God? Would we be ready? Do we even have to be ready for it to be true?

I wonder if some of the greatest acts of cultivating our attention toward God’s always-and-forever presence is not merely by rehearsing good ideas but rather by entering recurring prayers. What if the same way we put on the same shoes for a daily run, we prayed the same prayer, slowly allowing our souls to mold into its repetition? What would we notice about God? What would we notice in ourselves? Who would we become mile by mile?

For those who run or walk, for those who have been meaning to run or walk, for those who want to care for their bodies and souls, I wrote a prayer that opens our eyes when we open our strides. May this prayer be a resource for the Holy Spirit, leveraging your senses to better feel your run with God.

A LITURGY FOR

An early morning run

This prayer is best when coupled with the physical act of putting on running shoes, paying attention to the well-designed grip of the shoe on each foot and the tightness of the laces.

Lord, you have crafted these toes reaching out from these feet connected to these ankles,
syncing with calves, knees and hips to run as you move all of me. Today I join the wind, a sacrament of your invisible presence gracing these quiet streets.

As I run, may I remember I was made to run with you.
Not ahead—as if I could leave you behind
Nor behind—as if I must try to catch up.
Only breathing—with.
The syncopated in—hale, ex—hale with each mid-foot strike
a reminder of your Spirit kissing my soul,
The sunrise and her shadows a reminder that you, Lord Christ, hold it all together,
The sound of birds, the reminder that the Father’s eye is on the soaring sparrow.

May my run be an act of devoted attention,
Not an escape from your world
But a seeing service in the world.

And so,
awaken my heart
passing in front of homes exhausted by an erratic world
while aching for homeless trampled by the world
awaken my mind
listening to podcasts, books, music,
and praying prayers with the world.
awaken my hands
surrendering what I must carry to be ok
freed to wave at each day laborer for the world.

God, in this early hour, I run with you,
and I know you are with me
closer than these well crafted shoes
each step of the way.

Amen.

For more prayers in this vein written by others around various ordinary aspects of life, check out the amazing resource, Every Moment Holy.

What if Jesus really isn’t dead? Now what?

by Gabe Coyle | Apr 5, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

Life Changing Moments

We all have moments that change not only how we show up in life but what we are even able to comprehend in life.

Some are truly marvelous. I applied and actually got in! She said, “Yes!” We’re pregnant! I got the promotion! They found the cure!

Others are unimaginably brutal. He left me! I lost everything! I hit rock bottom! I’m getting evicted! She didn’t make it….

Whether good or bad moments, after you go through them you are never the same.

Now imagine those first followers of Jesus. They probably were used to being surprised after three years of following him from town to town, but when they saw him beaten within an inch of his life and then crucified, everything they held dear was taken from them in a moment. After the trauma of Jesus’ death, they were running from the authorities, running from themselves, and questioning God. Why? How can this even be happening? When he said he was going, that he was going to die, I never thought….

Then in the midst of unbearable sadness, grief, and sorrow, Jesus came back to life. Jesus actually came back to them alive after dying. They couldn’t have fathomed a crucified Messiah, but even that pales in comparison to the thought that Jesus would come back to life. And yet, there he was; flesh and blood, warmth and breath, standing with scars.

There was no mistaking it was Jesus, but what could this mean? Why death and then, maybe even more puzzling, why resurrection? How could he come back to life? And then in the midst of those thoughts there is the question of what this means for each of us.

Now What?

Together we want to explore not merely the plausibility of Jesus’ resurrection—although that is a worthwhile journey—but more, the consequences of death not having the final word. We want to explore the “Now what?” of Jesus’ resurrection for a world riddled with death and decay. Jesus’ resurrection is not merely an idea to ponder but a change in reality to embrace.

And if you are hungry for change anywhere in your life, this is a question of supreme importance. Imagine what this could mean for you! Think of those areas that feel defined by death; a relationship, financial status, an addiction, self-mortifying guilt or self-eroding anger. Jesus’ resurrection has a massive impact on history, and Jesus’ resurrection life has life-altering, imagination-expanding, hope-cultivating power for you personally.

What could Jesus’ resurrection mean for you? For me? For us?

Join us!

We hope you join us as our study of the Gospel of John continues to reveal the extraordinary importance of Jesus actually being alive, and what that has to do with how you live today. This isn’t something just for your neighbor, spouse, friend, or child. This is for you, but invite them, too. Why? Because life longs to bring more life. If you’ve tasted this life, you’ll want others to experience Jesus’ life too!

You know what’s amazing? If Jesus couldn’t stay dead after being crucified in the first century, that means the life-giving work recorded in the first century for you and me is only the beginning of what he is continuing to do today.

What if Jesus really didn’t stay dead? Now what?

Invite!

If you already believe in Jesus’ resurrection, below is a video we created to promote the beginning of this new journey of study starting on Easter Sunday. Go ahead and share it. Share it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or wherever God has you. What might our resurrected Lord Jesus do through your invitations this Easter? Let’s find out!

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