by Stephen W. Smith
This morning, I met with a small group of men, all in their early 30's who had attended one of our Transformation of a Man's Heart retreats two years ago. These dear brothers made a covenant at the retreat to meet together once a week on Friday morning at 7am until 8:30am. So, for the past two years, this small band of brothers has met faithfully, sharing their hearts, trying to speak words of courage into one another about life, work, raising small children, marriage and praying together.I was called by one of the men in the group and heard the shocking story that one of the brothers had died from complications from what was supposed to be an ordinary, surgical procedure. He did not survive the surgery. His untimely death brought shock and disbelief to this courageous but shaken band of brothers. As I sat in their midst this morning and saw their tears and felt their grief, I was struck at how sacred it is when small groups of men and women come together. Lives get interwoven; stories are shared and companionship is built. What began as men as separate islands, now converged as a strong continent of sacred fellowship, a holy huddle who pledged to do life together over cinamon crisp bagels and dark roast coffee at a near by coffee shop which became "church" for them each time that gathered.They belonged to each other. They did life together. They played, camped, joked and touched the Holy of Holies together. It is such a remarkable bond to witness. Every time I am priviledged to witness the church of two or three that JEsus spoke about and described, I am humbled to witness the power of His presence; the sacredness of how space between wooden chairs gets smaller and smaller and the hearts of men are bonded forever.I'm pausing today, giving thanks for all the small groups that I have ever been a apart of in my life journey. I've had the opportunity to bury--to take to the grave some of my small group friends. It's no easy task.It reminds me of the story in Mark 2 where we see four strong men lowering their dearly loved friend into the waiting arms of Jesus. These fellows would not let roof tiles stand in their way. They busied themselves by removing the tiles from the roof, then quickly made a roped blanket where they could lower their friend into the presence of Jesus.Tonight, these four men will perform that task all over again at their dear brother's Memorial Service here in Colorado Springs. With tear-stained ropes of prayer, they will stand together in solidarity yet with hearts broken to find the words to speak to honor this small group member--this brother of the heart.The widow, and their three "surviving" small children will simply try to survive; try to endure; try to understand such unfathomable loss. She and the children will need these men for many years to come.Life is fragile. Give thanks to the few, the very few that stand with us in life to make it all worth it.My prayers are with you four strong men. I am for you.I am for every small group who seeks to live the Gospel out in our ordinary, every day lives. I think Jesus is for us too in doing this.
Being Mad as Hell About the Value of My Life
by Stephen W. SmithSeems like a rather bold headline from a former preacher doesn't it? But today, I've been working on another chapter for a forthcoming book titled, "The Jesus Life". I've been sitting here wondering how the message of Jesus--about all the life he promised to give us has gotten to terribly screwed up and furthermore, who is really responsible for messing up the message of Jesus.I wrote some paragraphs in the manuscript about how Jesus saved his furious wrath for the most religious right of his day--the Pharisees who took control of the truth, withheld it from thirsty men and women and morphed it into long lists of rules and regulations. As I just sat for a while thinking about this, I got mad...angry. I said to myself, "I"m mad as hell can can't take this anymore." I was feeling a surge of passion, adrenalin and in my old Baptist world, what is known as "Holy Ghost power."So, as I sat here, I remembered where those lines, for me, became indelibly imprinted on my soul. It was through the words of a frustrated news anchor in a movie called, NETWORK.I googled the entire lines and they are worthy of posting here. But what I'm thinking about is encouraging people across America standing up in their Sunday morning worship services and shouting these lines out as the call to worship--of course--, "I'm mad as hell and can't take it anymore!"Now, before you actually do that, do you think you're preacher would listen to you; to us? Read these words and I'll edit out one blasphemy for you. ]But what I think is this...until we get mad as hell, about how we've been duped and perhaps doped into a life that is not possibly the LIFE that JEsus promised we may never really find or experience the life he came to let us live... I'm sure my editor will not let this go in the book, but as I've said, you'll read my book first here then the real thing has to wait until 2012 to come out. Yes, that long!Now, here's the quote from Network when Howard Beal, the network reporter who gets fired up:I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, GodXXXXit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"My questions (and this is Steve) is how would the pastors/preachers in America react if we all did this--THIS coming Sunday? I'm not saying get mad about what Howard Beale got fired up about. I'm talking about getting mad--feeling the anger over why so many of us are not living the abundant life and has this message been hijacked by the men in robes who want to promote church rather than tell us how to really live?[I'd love your comments and feedback. Maybe I'm off here. Or feeling uneasy about the Chinese lunch I thought I enjoyed a bit ago.]
Do-it-Yourself Transformation
I've noticed that one of the aspects of American spirituality is our rugged independence. This sense of independence must have been in-bred in Americans since the revolutionary days in our stubborn 
resistance to be a colony and to belong to anything other than ourselves. That kind of attitude seems to have crept in, down through the centuries to so many people today. We want to do everything--ourselves. Even Jesus.This do-it- yourself attitude means that even though so many of us are well versed in the idea and notion of community, we will simply not engage in the values of community when it comes to Jesus. We will drop out of our a small group--ourselves--without asking. We will try to grow spiritually--ourselves without asking for the help of others who are wise, more mature.We will even try to change--transform ourselves. We will not ask for help. We don't think we need it. We can do it ourselves or else, well--forget about changing. Do-it-yourself spirituality also creeps into our thinking about church. Perhaps this is way more people are leaving the church than going to church. 80% of all American churches are declining. We can "do" Jesus alone. Many of think that we can heal--alone. Grow--alone. Do most anything alone.The problem is, we can't "do" Jesus alone. It takes the "two or three" that Jesus spoke about. He's present most assuredly in community. Yes, he's present when we're alone but his abiding promise of "togetherness" is when we meet, face to face in community. I need you. You need me. And when we meet Jesus shows up.If we are going to change, we need each other. That's the bottom line.Up at our retreat, we have a bench called, "Companionship." This particular bench rests in a native grove of Aspen Trees. No Aspen stands alone. They always grow in community. That's the place our souls need to be--in a grove of other Aspen like people to grow, thrive and transform.Steve