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Becoming More Virtuous

Becoming More Virtuous

by | May 1, 2025 | Featured | 1 comment

HOW DO I BECOME A GOOD PERSON?

I have met a lot of good people in my life. How do I know? Because they often tell me they are. If I may explain. Every so often I happen to be in a conversation with someone I’ve never met before. If we are not meeting in a religious institution, the conversation periodically plays out this way.

Acquaintance: You from KC?
Me: No, I moved here because of my job.
Oh really, what do you do for a living?
I’m a pastor.
Oh [insert pause] I think I’m a pretty good person, and isn’t that the best any of us can do?

This knee-jerk reaction reveals a universal longing. We all want to be “good.” Part of the challenge, though, is that we all have our own frameworks of “good,” and some of that framework may be loosely connected to the Bible whether we call ourselves Christians or not. For example, many people define themselves as “good” as long as they haven’t broken the “big commandments” like: do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not create a graven image to worship in your living room. “Nobody is perfect,” the thinking goes, “and we’ve all got our vices.” In this framework, surely God is an understanding fella who gets it. If there is a “hell,” he won’t send normal people there. That’s for the really “bad” people, and if you push too hard, you’re probably just judging, which Jesus said is a sign of being a “bad” person.

In other words, a good person means learning to follow the big rules well enough. It may be only a few rules, but rules are rules, nonetheless. The great irony is that this challenge rings relevant even for those who refuse any shared definition of what a good person is.

During an art exhibit, I struck up an intriguing conversation with an older woman. I used the word “should” for what reason I cannot remember now, but she replied, “Don’t should on me. There shouldn’t be shoulds anymore. I think the most loving thing is to let everyone define what is good for themselves.” Now, in some ways she is right. Wasn’t this what Jesus was undoing with the overly “should-ing” of the Pharisees?

And yet, here we are again. The stated premise of her argument was we should have a rule that we aren’t allowed to have rules. To throw off all “shoulds” is a “should” in itself (your head spinning yet?), which not only reveals an internal breakdown of logic, but it is also unlivable, as her statement reveals. We all have “shoulds” to some degree that we live by, and behind all of those “shoulds,” is a soul pining after living the good life.

Few questions have remained central to humanity quite like “What is a good person?” and “How do I become one?” and in a world longing to discover our truest selves, God longs for us to truly become our best selves. What is often remarkably overlooked in the claims of Christianity, even by some Christians, is the reality that Jesus has actually made a way for us to become better than “better.” Because of Jesus, we can become good.

Throughout history this journey of becoming has been described as the way of virtue. Aristotle and Plato were asking this very question about humanity long before the virgin Mary scandalously gave birth to Jesus in a cave. They were reaching but unable to grasp. They saw the shadow but couldn’t see the true form. This is because they didn’t know who we now know. They didn’t have Jesus, the riches of the gospel, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus is who Jesus is and because Jesus has done what only he could do in his life, death and resurrection, then Jesus not only invites us to become people of virtue, he does so in a way only he can.

There has been a resurgence of thoughtful biblical scholars who see the promise within Scripture for the regenerate believer in Jesus to grow progressively in goodness through the framework of virtue. If this were true, we’d expect change and growth in some of the people of the New Testament. We would expect Christians to become like Jesus, the ultimate good person. If we look, this is exactly what we find.

While there are examples of this across the New Testament, Peter, the historic chief apostle, stands out. Peter is the one who said he would never deny Jesus, but when the hour of trial comes, he fails. Peter hid and abandoned Jesus like everyone else. But then, this same Peter, as tradition has it, would become a man of untold courage and humility even unto a martyr’s death. When faced with his own crucifixion for being unwilling to renounce Jesus and his resurrection, he asked to be crucified upside down.

What happened?

In Peter’s second letter within Scripture, what many believe was written soon before his martyrdom, we see Peter’s framing of not merely how to follow the rules, but how to become a person like Jesus who more naturally keeps the rules. Peter never dismisses the rules, but he goes beyond them. Peter lays out the way of virtue. Specifically Peter writes, “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness…” (2 Peter 1:5). The Greek word translated “goodness” could also be translated “virtue.” Like an upward and inward spiral staircase of practice and formation, we can, by the power of the Spirit, follow Jesus into the way of virtue.

But before we can step forward, we must remember. Correction: we must practice the discipline of remembering. This is more than recalling facts about the past, but this remembering is reconnecting our focus on a person who is indeed with us. We must remember the gospel, the Triune God at the center of the gospel, and that the good news really does mean we can become good people like Jesus.

Let’s make every effort to do just that together.

Outreach at Christ Community Part 4 – Multiplication

Outreach at Christ Community Part 4 – Multiplication

by | Mar 19, 2025 | Featured, Headlines, Outreach, Outreach HOME | 0 comments

I heard about a free lunch, that’s how it always starts, right? I was a seminary student scraping by and trying to grow in my understanding of Jesus but also hoping for some fresh loaves and fishes. Christ Community sent some of their staff to share during the luncheon and invite us to apply for what they called a Pastoral Residency. 

In their description of the pastoral residency, I heard three innovations converging. First, they talked about a two-year pathway of intensive pastoral mentoring and training with real pastoral work aimed at establishing healthy pastoral rhythms. Second, they highlighted how the church ought to be a place that equips every follower of Jesus to be on mission in all of life, and lastly, they spoke of their partnership strategy in outreach as an extension of the ministry of the church for the good of the city.  It’s rare to find one of these frameworks, but to find a church that was attempting all three nearly had me forget about the food completely. A deeper hunger was being stirred, and Christ Community was offering a feast. 

At Christ Community, we believe the local church as God designed it is the hope of the world and God’s “Plan A.” The pastoral residency is crucial for any missional church longing to have sustained generational and multiplying effect for the flourishing of neighborhoods, our city, and the world. 

Residency as Outreach Multiplication

The rise and fall of any organization comes down to the quality and quantity of its leaders. When we look at the outcome of church leadership failures, we see that vulnerable individuals are worse off, development strategies are halted, fewer people are curious about the gospel message, and those who are actively involved in serving in and through their church family find themselves sidelined by wounds rather than catalyzed for further missional community development work. 

The pastoral residency at Christ Community is anchored firmly within our outreach strategy because this is how we continue to multiply missional churches and healthy pastors who carry out God’s holistic mission both locally and globally.  While the pastoral resident is a gift to the congregation, the primary goal of the pastoral residency is to train up and send out pastors to influence our neighborhoods, city, and world for Jesus. This initiative contributes to a collective outreach strategy that has a lifetime of benefit for God’s mission. 

Below are three ways the pastoral residency specifically develops pastors for missional impact generation after generation.

  1. Missional model modeled. No matter how many books we read, there’s no substitute for participating in a missional ministry being modeled in real time. Tacit knowledge—knowledge that comes through experience—is the rarest and most valuable of knowledge available. Pastoral residents who learn the ins and outs of not only the obvious aspects of missional ministry (e.g., preaching, counseling, care) but also the paradigm shifts of missional ministry (e.g., workplace visits, organizational partnership assessments, cultural analysis, volunteer coordination) are exposed to modeled missional leadership. We shouldn’t expect pastoral leaders to simply launch missional churches and do it well. Pastoral leaders need to see missional models demonstrated before them.  
  2. Making mistakes safer. The burnout or pushout of pastoral leaders within their first five years is alarmingly high. These first years of pastoral ministry are a time of continued self-discovery and organizational learning. Mistakes are often made, or the culture of a church is such that those who once felt called to engage in pastoral ministry leave disillusioned, frustrated, or even wounded. The church suffers when this happens and so does the broader community and city. A pastoral residency empowers younger pastors to have real responsibilities and make mistakes in an environment that can both absorb those mistakes and create space for reflective growth. The theological axiom is crucial here: action without reflection voids transformation. A stable missional church can be an institution for growth, especially when everything feels new. 
  3. Cultivating lasting pastoral health. Every leader knows that starting well does not necessarily lead to ending well, and the stories that litter church history and our contemporary context are painful reminders of this reality. A residency not only creates a space where new pastoral leaders can lead in a missional church but where they can also cultivate healthy rhythms that empower leaders to lead over a lifetime. This is the deep, often unseen, work of the pastoral residency that strengthens the legs of young pastoral leaders for a long walk of obedience in the same direction. If it is true that we often overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what God can do in a decade, then we need healthy pastoral leaders to last decades instead of just years. We need pastoral residencies to dig deep and thoroughly train pastoral wholeness. 
  4. Multiplication experienced and engrained. The primary goal of the residency is to develop healthy pastoral leaders with this robust missional paradigm shift and send them out to serve in other churches. Having experienced the growth and opportunities of the residency, Christ Community, with the help of our national partner, Made to Flourish, encourages new churches across the nation to start residency programs. Healthy missional leaders develop healthy missional leaders with a missional mind for the sake of the flourishing of all. This is the deep work of reaching out to the world with the gospel. 

Multiplying More

If all someone wants to do is save souls now, this won’t make sense. If someone just wants to relieve one instance of poverty now, this won’t make sense. If someone thinks the church is irrelevant to God’s mission in both global and local faithfulness and fruitfulness, this won’t make sense. 

However, if we want leaders to be sent out to build missional institutions that birth missional institutions (ones that cultivate flourishing for their cities by sharing the gospel in word and deed) that both proclaim and demonstrate the uncommon news of the gospel for generations to come, then we’d be crazy not to see this as crucial to our long-term outreach strategy. 

Pastoral residencies may not look “the coolest” or get the most likes on a social media post, but it will last longer and go deeper into actually cultivating God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven than almost anything the church can be doing right now. Maybe this is why Jesus himself chose 12 apostles to follow him and watch him.  And he invested more time in them than any others. 

I know for me, what started as a free lunch became a feast that I love to invite others to enjoy. I am so grateful for my time as a pastoral resident, and I can’t wait to see how much God expands the table over the years, not only for the leaders he empowers us to develop but also for the people these healthy pastoral leaders will guide to Christ and his abundant life in all dimensions of life.

Outreach at Christ Community – PART 3 Collective Efforts

Outreach at Christ Community – PART 3 Collective Efforts

by | Feb 12, 2025 | Featured, Headlines, Outreach, Outreach HOME | 0 comments

A Collective Cleanup

It was a warm Saturday morning and a group from Christ Community came together to give their time and energy for a neighborhood cleanup initiative. They began by praying for the city’s flourishing and our witness, and then they went about in teams picking up trash and pulling weeds that had tainted the sidewalks and surrounding businesses. Equipped with neighborhood trash bags, the teams worked in collaboration with the neighborhood association to identify what streets needed the most attention. 

While cleaning, one of the residents noticed what was happening and asked, “Who are you with? Why are you doing this?” A member of the group responded, “We’re from Christ Community. We love our neighborhood and wanted to serve in some way.” The look on the person’s face who asked the question was one of surprising delight. No more words were exchanged, but a lot was said in so little. In this collective clean-up initiative one person had the chance to see a church with Christ in the name that cares enough to serve together above and beyond their walls. 

Why Outreach Ministry

In this series, we’ve discussed our belief that the church needs a more biblical paradigm shift from merely seeing a few called to “missions” to an all inclusive “missional” model. Additionally we’ve outlined some key principles of the church as a missional institution. Now we will explore how outreach, as a ministry within a missional church, uniquely contributes to the overall mission.  

As shown in the true story above, Christ Community seeks to missionally leverage the collective resources, gifts, and vocational skills of the congregation for the salvation of the lost and common good of all. We do this through strategic partnerships and initiatives. This mobilization of gospel proclamation and demonstration is integral to every ministry focus, while also uniquely catalyzed in our collective efforts by our outreach ministries. 

Where Outreach Ministries Works

The backbone of Christ Community’s outreach is a shared philosophy and collaborative budgeting approach, which engages strategic areas across the city and the world, but the bulk of the outreach ministry work happens with the hands and hearts of specific campus leaders. 

Each campus has an Outreach Team made up of staff and volunteers who determine a strategic focus at their campus based upon the demographics and contextual needs surrounding that campus. While that strategic focus is locally owned, six values give unifying boundaries for collaboration across our neighborhoods, our city, and the world. These flow and affirm our overall outreach philosophy shared in parts 1 and 2 of this blog series. They are as follows: 

  1. We value the local church and desire to see her flourish. 
  2. We value gospel proclamation that addresses individual and systemic brokenness.
  3. We value long-term mutual relationships with partnering organizations and leaders.
  4. We value asset-based community development that leverages the resources of marginalized voices and the vulnerable.
  5. We value collaborative efforts that do not compete with but enhance other gospel-driven initiatives.  
  6. We value campus ownership of partnerships in determining their own strategic areas of focus. 

These values are a starting point in discerning which institutions to partner with as well as which initiatives to engage. To ensure shared language, partnerships are long-term mutual relationships with organizations who align with our values where we work together in one of our strategic areas of focus, while initiatives are short-term or long-term projects we engage in for strategic purposes, and can be done with or without outside organizations. For example, the neighborhood cleanup above is an initiative that a campus owned and yet simultaneously sought a collaborative planning process with the neighborhood association. 

Outreach Partners as Institutions

While initiatives can take on urgent or unique relief needs, we believe the most effective, fruitful, developmental partnerships that cultivate deep renewal are with institutions. This decision [see Outreach at Christ Community Part 2 blog] comes from a series of convictions, listed here, which are the fruit of much conversation, deliberation, and prayer over our shared history.  

Institutions partner better with institutions. Christ Community is an institution and as such, we are best equipped to build partnerships with other institutions. When these are truly partnerships, we see mutual and shared benefits; which happens best from institution to institution. We learn from each other and care for one another in reciprocal ways on mission together. 

 Institutions last longer. Institutions are designed to outlast us. We want to invest in that which outlasts us. We want to make wise, long term, and far-reaching investments in order to do the most good.

 Institutions change less frequently. Individual missionaries get reassigned, change locations, change mission organizations, change calling and focus, and eventually retire. If we want to partner well, we want to build relationships long term with communities of people in a particular area, doing a particular task. Otherwise we are at risk of our relationships with communities being one-sided at best or paternalistic at worst. 

 Institutions can provide greater support, training and oversight. Missional institutions are able to zero in on best practices, navigate cultural nuance, support indigenous leadership, and specialize in crucial training that will lead to greater health and robust impact over the long haul. Accountability is a natural outcome of an institution with a healthy organizational culture. Institutional excellence adds one more layer of financial oversight and missional alignment.

Finding the Right Outreach Partners

Each campus works within our outreach framework to select partners and develop initiatives evaluating categories like the value both campus and partner bring to the partnership, whether congregants are able to utilize their gifts in a meaningful way or not, philosophical alignment, and assessing specific care for the vulnerable. In addition to assessing if a healthy partnership is possible, we also assess organizational health for sustainable ministry within that institution. 

It’s important to note two additional points. First, most nonprofits and institutions that are healthy really want these kinds of partnerships. Too often churches want organizations that are under-resourced and overextended to create an experience for their church whether it be at best, a meaningful serving experience or, at worst, voyeurism around poverty. To have a mutual partnership for sustained work is a gift to ministries in our city. Secondly, while campus specific partnerships make up the majority of our outreach, we also have some broader national partnerships that provide accountability, catalyze our mission on a national scale, and engage in relief during catastrophes (2 Corinthians 9). 

Throughout the history of Christ Community, we have partnered with various institutions for the common good of human flourishing and the uncommon good of the gospel. By way of example, we have sought to partner with institutions and engage in initiatives concerning:

  •  community development
  • education
  •  job creation
  • supporting efforts to end human trafficking
  • care for the unborn and their mothers
  • attending to widows and orphans
  • Bible distribution
  • welcoming immigrants and refugees
  • church planting
  • evangelism in unreached or de-churched areas of the world
  • developing pastors and leaders to lead 

For a full list of our current partners, please go HERE. 

If you see a strategic area of focus missing from our church, please reach out to your campus pastor. Every campus is seeking to be a faithful presence both locally and globally in thoughtful and sustainable ways. While Christ Community cannot collectively partner with every institution around every important area of justice, mercy, and evangelism, we always value exploring ways we can be praying and encouraging God’s people in their callings. 

It is the responsibility of missional churches to partner with mobile missional agencies (e.g. partners) who are strategically located for the sake of a flourishing gospel ecosystem across the city and world, but to do so in a way that stewards God’s resources wisely over the long-haul. Designed-based giving  (Giving God our Best: God’s Design for Generosity) where the local church is still God’s plan A for the conduit of generosity thereby allows us to extend the trust God’s people have for their church into excellent missional institutions that may be overlooked. This means giving to this missional church is also giving through a missional church to vetted, strategic, and healthy partner ministries across our neighborhoods, city and world. 

Reaching Further

Recently I talked with a leader of one of our outreach partners that we’ve partnered with for over 15 years. The trust and joy was palpable. We told stories of what God has done over the years, how our collaboration has been a gift for both communities, how both institutions have grown in effectiveness, and joy over the future of serving God’s purposes together in Kansas City. We need to continue to expand our horizon line for what counts as God’s mission and see the whole of the church and everything the church does as “on mission”. We need to not only think about the present and engage initiatives that are urgent, but imagine what God could do for the flourishing of neighborhoods, our city, and the world 50, 60, or 75 years from now if the Lord should wait to return. While we are all called to be missional in our vocations, outreach has a role in cultivating our collective presence through strategic partnerships in deep and lasting work for the gospel. 

And crucial as all this is, there’s one more vital way this works out that we often don’t consider. We’ll dedicate the final blog to this important pathway; multiplication. 

Additional Resources

Outreach at Christ Community – Part 1

Outreach at Christ Community – Part 2

[1] While both need-based and asset-based strategies have their place in certain church contexts, asset-based community development (ABCD) requires relationship, time, and seeing the possibilities that are already available within a community. ABCD focuses on encouraging the potential latent in a community rather than assuming a community has nothing to offer to the needs within their community. ABCD requires humility to support the dignity and good work of others who are already in the situation or community rather than centering attention on oneself and one’s assumptions toward a solution. For more see Robert D. Lupton, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse It, 1st edition (HarperOne, 2012), 177.

How to Pray More with Less

How to Pray More with Less

by | 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

We Were Meant to Live for so Much More

by | 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.

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