In the book of Revelation, John is given a vision of what God is doing in the world. It begins with warnings and affirmations for seven churches. How do our churches in North America measure up today? Here are the 19 characteristics of the churches of Jesus Christ

1. Deeds, hard work, perseverance, endurance of hardship
2. An intolerance for wicked people, testing leaders and not being afraid to name them as false teachers.
3. An openness to poverty and suffering.
4. Faithfulness in the face of blasphemy.
5. Loyalty in a satanic, occultic place
6. Not tolerating leaders who teach that sexual sin is okay and participate in idolatry
7. Constant improvement.
8. Trusting God to judge and to work at identifying the intentions of the heart in those in leadership.
9. Keeping the simple teachings and rejecting those who try to teach "deeper truths" (which are really of satanic origin)
10. Difficult obedience which results in great authority.
11. Holding on to what was given.
12. Maintaining its first love for God.
13. Hating the leaders who lord over others, and loving those who serve.
14. Strengthening the inner life.
15. Repenting of wrong, strengthening what is good.
16. Being useful
17. Not counting on acquired wealth.
18. Opening the door for the living presence of Christ
19. Listening to the voice of the Spirit

These 19 things are a powerful reminder of how self-serving we have become in North America. May God help us repent and receive new life.
-John M Troyer

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When I talk about the division of a denominational institution, it's easy to jump immediately to the assumption that I am dividing the church. No denomination is the church. The big C Church is the people that are gathered around a real relationship with the Holy Spirit. When the institution becomes primary, that's when things begin to break down.

Institutions can be helpful. They're like buses, cars, ships and planes. When people hear God asking them to move together in some effort, it makes sense to get organized. But the church is never the mode of transport, it is the people inside. When our allegiance shifts, we shame each other into doing what we want. We lie and hedge the truth for our ends. We shame into silence with an attack others' character if they speak up. We work as silent allies so that we can rescue those within who we believe are victims of bad theology or ethical understanding.  We want the bus to be full even if the people on board don't like the destination.  So we make it hard for them to exit or we leave them stranded alone, isolated from others they might join.

Some are saying that the answer for Mennonite Church USA is to shift to a congregational polity. This sentiment is supposedly rooted in the idea of giving each other the freedom to follow Christ in whatever way it makes sense for each congregation. If that were truly the motive, then this sentiment would not be coupled with a fierce emphasis on loyalty and unity as a denomination. A true polity of congregationalism would do its best to help those with differing points of view join together and go their separate way. It would help them exit gracefully at the next bus stop and help them find a new ride. Congregations will bless same-sex marriages and ordain pastors in same-sex relationships. But when they do, and when they begin to determine the direction of our institutional bus, it's time for many of us to get off that bus. The attempts by those with the unity perspective to shame leaders for leaving is a sinful and diabolical attempt at manipulation and control. It is inconsistent with the congregational polity they claim to hold. It needs to stop and should be named and exposed for the abusive and ungodly use of power that it is. It is the spirit of Constantine, not the Holy Spirit.

I love Mennonite Church USA. But I love the people in it even more. It's time to help us separate well.
-John M Troyer

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I've spoken before of my growing up years in the Beachy Amish church. When I thought about leaving and going to a place that was less restrictive and conservative, there were a lot of fears.  I never was baptized there, but the messages seemed to come that I would experience losses if I left. Some were directly named for me by my father, but others were more subtly communicated through stories. The strongest stories were the stories that communicated how messed up life became for people who did leave, how far away they fell from God, and how their lives were filled with all kinds of sin. It shaped for my young mind an understanding of reality that somehow all these things would also happen to me. As I got older, my fear was less that those things would happen to me, but that I would become one of those stories that were told. I was surprised to eventually discover that there were many who had left and built lives that were God-centered and full.

Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, gave a TED talk in which she "tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding." This single story idea, is powerful because it misses no one. It is the very beginning of the scapegoating process, a process that flattens and loses the nuances of those who disagree with us.  This metaphor is an excellent example of what I saw in my growing up years. I learned a particular view, not because it was in some curriculum, but because all the stories together shaped a perspective. 

Activists, both within and outside the church, use this method. We wait for one person to push out ahead and name a direction we don't like, then like the game of Whack-a-Mole, we use the story hammer to polarize, freeze and isolate that person. We cast aspersions, cluck or tongues, and fully engage in the slanderous act of misrepresenting their perspective and kindness.  Ron Sider recently wrote a blog post for Mennonite World Review in which he stakes out a perspective that will "uphold biblical teaching about homosexuality — and be places to love and listen rather than shame or exclude." Almost immediately, the responses came in which activists conveyed their disbelief that their single story about a conservative perspective on marriage might be untrue. As a result, a man who has devoted his life to justice and peace with advocacy for the poor and marginalized has these young activists immediately suspicious of his motives and the reality of his love. They cling tightly to their single story.

When a couple is going through marital difficulty, many times they feel the marriage has ended long before anyone either party takes any formal steps to say it is over.  What I have already seen is that this can turn into a waiting game, waiting for the other person to make a public misstep so they can rally the opinion of their family and friends onto their side.  It is the fight to come out of the divorce with a single story and to end up with the most assets and receive child custody. It is about blame and retribution.

In Mennonite Church USA, we are experiencing the same thing. We are not one church, and we weren't even when two denominations merged together fifteen years ago. What we are seeing now is an attempt to shape a single story, that staying one denomination is the one most holy good that we can agree must be pursued, and that leaving this denomination (or being divisive or causing a split) is the one unpardonable sin that must be condemned.  All this is given in the name of diversity. (The irony in taking this position is quite palpable.)  I have even had people name our institutional connection as a denomination as a commitment that is on par with a couples commitment to stay together until death would part them from each other. Frankly, that is not what an institutional commitment means, and it's disingenuous to try to make it that.  There is no shame in choosing to separate as a denomination, and our testimony is helped when we help each other do that well rather than pretending we need to continue clinging to each other to the bitter end.  Our merger has resulted in a fifteen year War of the Roses and a truce should be declared in that war. It's time to let it end.

As a result, leaders are paralyzed in taking action that really is for the good of the whole. The whole denomination needs leaders who are willing to come together (maybe that will help mitigate the effects of whack-a-mole) and say that we are two bodies and we need to do our best to help each body move forward in as healthy a way as possible.  Let's make our testimony about ending well, not about making an idolatrous creed around institutional unity at all costs.
-John M Troyer

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Moving teens out of the enslavement of schedules is hard work. In yesterday's post, I outlined the problems with where we are at. Today the focus is on defining the center and living in it.

At the heart of any change is inner transformation. It is in knowing God's voice and having communion with Him. It is knowing what it means to be at peace. Reclaiming your life is not about climbing back on another performance treadmill. As I present these ideas, remember that they are there to serve you, not for you to serve them. When Jesus disciples were eating grain from the fields on the Sabbath, the religious leaders challenged Jesus. Jesus' response was, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” (Mark 2:27-28 NLT) 

At the same time, we diminish the power we have as parents to decide what family life looks like. We see ourselves as victims of the whims of a coach, director, or teacher. As a parent, you have been given the task by God to shape your child's influences and schedule. A few years ago at a Mennonite youth convention, Luke Hartman told the story of his mother's limit setting. She had told him he could play baseball as long as he did not miss church on Wednesday evening. One Wednesday afternoon his team was in a tournament and the final game went into extra innings. The team had been through all of their pitchers for the day and Luke was the only one left. It was time to leave for church, but his team would have to forfeit and lose the championship game. He was horrified to look up and see his mother walk up to his coach and let him know in know uncertain terms that Luke was leaving the game and they were going to church. The interesting thing for me as Luke told this story is that the group of several thousand Mennonite youth began to applaud his mother's courage. While young people may be embarrassed and angry when their parents take this kind of stand, they also admire the courage and principle that adults exhibit as they define and craft life around their value system. As a parent, you can choose what defines your lives.

So the journey to reclaiming life begins with communion with Jesus to define your priorities. What are the things that you will insist must be a part of your family routine?  If you decide to make occasional exceptions, how often will you allow it? Begin by choosing what forms the fundamental blocks of time in your family calendar. God created us for six days of work and one day of rest. If we ignore that too long, we will destroy ourselves. Define what that rest looks like through the week and when it will happen. Sabbath, family dinners or breakfast, devotions, church activities, social connections, and vacation and holiday plans might all be a part of this. Our work and leisure lives as adults should also be on the table as we decide what matters. As we make sacrifices in our own lives, our children will be more willing to do that also.

If you live in a North America, you have more freedom to choose your life than at any other time in history. However, we are shaping these lives into frantic busyness which destroys us. God has shaped a life that is for you and your family. Let him define that for you as you pursue His championship trophy. 

Tomorrow we will look at some of the practical aspects of saying no in all the arenas that demand our time.
-John M Troyer

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For many years it seems we've been moving in the wrong direction with our approach to our children. I struggle with writing this because I personally know this challenge. We'll soon enter the middle school years with our daughter, and the balance of studies, sports, arts, and church are already difficult.  

What kind of adult do we produce when we raise our children the way we do it today? What happens to creativity, initiative, boundaries, etc? As I interact with young adults that are the first products of the crazy busy teenage years, I am seeing a pattern in the struggles that are there.

I am seeing the challenges of knowing how to navigate life when something is not already structured. The unstructured play that is now mostly missing from many children's lives means they are not developing the capacity to create their own structure. Playground ball without referees provided an opportunity to argue about rules and fouls without the presence of an adult to settle things. These arguments are important developmentally to help children learn how to socially interact, figure out structure, lead, and follow. The organized activities of today, whether they are sports and arts programs, planned recess, or video games, all have the structure already in place. As a result, young adults are leaving college with a diminished capacity for holistically shaping their lives.  Life continues to be about participating in things rather than figuring out how to make your own thing happen.

An even bigger issue is the question of boundaries. I am seeing youth participate in programs that consist of daily 3-4 hour practices and being gone for more than 24 hours on a Saturday. Many of the youth programs today ask things of our children that we would never put up with in the workplace as adults. What would you do if your boss said you no longer have off for longer than one day on Christmas and Thanksgiving, that you needed to put in 24+ hours of work for six Saturdays in a row, that you have 3-4 hours of work each night from your full-time job, and will need to do an additional side job for another 3-4 hours a day. Would you continue working at a job that is pushing your bodies so hard that injuries are common, injuries that may plague you for the rest of your life? This has gone beyond keeping our children busy and has set them up for a life in which we are teaching them to be workaholics as adults. Are you teaching your son or daughter to navigate healthy family, social, church, and work balance? What will be the effect on their ability to parent and make wise choices for their own children? We live in a world with too many options and one of the greatest skills adult will need is how to say no even when the pressure to participate is intense. 

When we cannot say no when the coach, director, teacher or club asks too much from our young people, we are not teaching our children to say no in many other arenas. We are shaping them for a life of binging and enslavement, whether it is with food, sex, debt, Netflix, alcohol, work, porn, relationships, and even oppressive religious structures. And if the trophies and rewards aren't significant enough, they will move on to next thing that seems more promising. Living so intensely for so many hours is not discipline, it's abandoning our children's lives to values and systems that are not God-shaped.

This system is also not preparing our children and youth for new economic realities. The industrial worker who dutifully shows up for work for forty years is no longer a feasible path to success in the future. Economic success will be led by those with great abilities to set boundaries, to think creatively, to shape new directions, and to have a strong ethical core that guides them. Our educational and extracurricular systems are still largely set up to make our children great workers who simply do what they're told. Businesses are experiencing an increasing struggle to find people that make great managers, that think in an entrepreneurial way, that move beyond being a victim of their circumstances to finding solutions.

There aren't easy answers. I'm not advocating dropping out of everything or rejecting seasonal bursts of activity. But when those seasonal bursts become too intrusive or take up the entire year, that goes too far.  Tomorrow I'll make some suggestions about some of the ways we can define the center, then put boundaries in place and return childhood and adolescence to its rightful place. I also invite you to give your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
-John M Troyer

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Today is the day we fly home after spending most of the week at Myrtle Beach on vacation. Yesterday I spent some time thinking about what makes a great vacation and what ruins a vacation. By definition, vacation means a change of pace and moving away from obligations. For me, here are the things that matter about vacations.

1. Relationships. Ultimately, I want to deepen my relationship with God and with my family. So we create space for those relationships to happen. Most of the time this happens with playing games and playing at the pool or the beach together. The biggest gift I can give is that all other obligations can wait. I can engage without having interruptions.
2. Resourcing. Reading, catching up on movies, praying, and times of solitude are also important to me. Sometimes this resourcing is educational, visiting and learning about historic places. Those things are actually more rare on our family vacations. For solitude, I'll steal some moments in the morning or at night. I'll read a book while the kids play in the pool. I'll take the car and go get something for the family. We'll go watch a show together and see the wonder in our children's eyes.
3. Rest. I sleep longer at night and take more naps during the day. We are a low impact family on vacation, so our schedules are usually fairly open and flexible. We eat at restaurants more so there's less cooking and cleanup to do. We limit sightseeing and excursions to a few hours a day. We intentionally do less.

I also tend to go off track with my time on vacation. As I finish out this week, some of these mistakes are very fresh on my mind.

1. Expectations. When I have a list of things, they generally clash with someone else's list. This leads to the illogical parenting statements like, "We're going to have fun whether you like it or not." What-I-thought-would-happen becomes the greatest enemy of renewal and refreshment. Others want me to play more and read less. I'm disappointed in myself for not being more available to others. I look back and realized I spent less time with God this week. I wish I were more open to just embracing what is and being content with what was. And I wish I knew better ho w to cultivate that openness in my family.
2. Jealousy. I did a little better this week, but sometimes Facebook is the great enemy of vacations. Our enjoyment can come from posting pictures that make people back home jealous. So we document every minute to share with others the awesomeness of our condo, the beach, the weather, and the pork sandwich. Sometimes this even happens in the planning stages as we choose exotic places just because we know people will be jealous of the destination. I'm a bargain hunter, so my bragging this time was about the deal I got on airline tickets. On the other side, the envy motivation can lead to inflating our vacation needs so we can impress others rather than just doing what makes sense for our families. Then we come home broke with experiences that could have been done for twice the fun and half the money. So we figure we can salvage the experience by at least making it look good online.
3. Selfishness. What better way to bring out the worst in each other then to plan a week where it's only about doing whatever we want. With no external obligations, our spiritual shape can become very tightly wound around our own needs and desires. I become more easily frustrated about the way I wasn't taken care of by everyone else. Or I use the space to try to address things I think need to change in a relationship or in my children's behavior. I know many families that alleviate this by taking a family service trip together. This week in the hotel lobby, a father proudly told me of his adult son's week in Central America digging wells. Service opportunities are a way to see the world in new ways and move the focus off of ourselves.
4. Doing too much or too little. Sometimes we come home more exhausted than when we left. We use vacations to push our bodies too hard, eat too much, and need a recovery period after the vacation ends. Less is more. Vacation is about space. We can also do the opposite. We don't do enough and we develop cabin fever and the nerves get frayed. 

In the end it's about finding our way. It's about discovering God's presence in new ways, and cultivate the life with God in each other. It's not about the perfect experience, it's about a change of pace that allows us to see life in a new way. If we know what is needed, maybe this year you can spend less and live more when you take that time to get away.
-John M Troyer

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Part of Einstein's theory of relativity is something called an inertial frame of reference. I'm not skilled enough to fully understand physics, but I want to borrow the phrase to talk about a philosophical understanding of reality. Something that is inert is something that is not moving. Frame of reference is the basic means by which we evaluate reality. I want to talk about our inertial frame of reference, our basic framework for how we make sense of our world. What is the one thing that we start with as our basic understanding of self, that which cannot be violated?

In our understanding of self, ethics, sexuality, and emotional health, our inertial frame of reference is often not examined. Yet it often determines the conclusion.  Another way to understand this is to ask what should be inviolable, secure from infringement. If my internal feelings or thoughts are inviolable (I think, therefore I am), then my understanding of the world will be very different from a worldview that starts with embodiment.

The current descriptions of gender identity and orientation are a great example of this. I am not minimizing the depth of the feelings that constitute ones orientation and gender identity, but simply locating them within the spiritual, emotional, thinking side. Even if they are a part of the embodiment side (something you are born with), that is somehow carried or translated into our mind's understanding of self. The use of the word gender to describe our male/femaleness is an example of this change from body to mind. Gender refers to our internal feeling of being male or female while our sex refers to the physical indications (genes and genitals). In orientation, feelings are at the heart of identity.

The irony for me is this: Feelings are so important, so inviolable, it is now illegal in many states for a therapist to try to help a client change what they are attracted to if it is a same-sex attraction. But our sense of embodiment is so malleable, it is legal to have a surgeon cut oneself up to give oneself what looks like the genitals of the opposite sex. Children are even being given this choice. According to most LGBTQ activists, our spiritual, internal self must not be adjusted in any way, but our bodies can be cut and re-formed as we please.

This is Gnostic thought. It is heresy in the Christian church. Gnosticism elevates the spiritual and denigrates the body. Scripture teaches us to value embodiment. Our bodies are the pinnacle of God's creation, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Body and spirit are integrated. We can know know the inner spiritual sense of who we are by looking at our body. We can know our created orientation and gender identity by looking at our body, not by focusing on what we feel.

Part of what causes the confusion is that our culture and churches are too rigid in defining masculinity and femininity. There is nothing inherently Biblical about defining masculinity as lots of grunting, extreme sports, and shooting stuff. There are many masculinities, and some are expressed as attentiveness to the arts, intellectual pursuits, and being emotionally connected. Femininity is not just looking beautiful and demure. It can also be expressed in aggressive action and challenging physicality. But being a man and being a woman are most fully defined by the genitals we have when we are born, not by the cultural meaning we add to that definition.

Even those who are genetically born intersex, with an extra X chromosome, can be understood in a new way if we took embodiment seriously. We can recognize this as a real variant and develop an ethical response that takes our embodiment seriously. But that is a very different ethical response than the 56 different gender identity options now offered by Facebook that are mostly about the elevation of our mental and emotional identity.

If what I feel is the true me, than 56 gender identities is only the beginning. If we begin with God's transcendence, in which He created my body, and His immanence, in which I am a temple of His presence, we will live a very different story.
-John M Troyer

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It seems we lose a lot of nuance in news reports. When Hillsong's pastor, Brian Houston, declined to give a clear answer to the question of the church's stance on marriage. people jumped to the conclusion that they are not keeping their traditional stance on marriage. On Saturday, Houston clarified that they have not changed their stance and believe in traditional marriage.  I resonated with a lot of what he said in both answers. 

Answering questions at a news conference is not an obligatory place to give your opinion. When the Pharisees asked Jesus about his thoughts on paying taxes to the Roman government, he gave an evasive answer. I'm sure the bloggers of his day were ready to jump to all kinds of conclusions. 

What I did like about the original answer was Houston's concern for three things.  "There's the world we live in, there’s the weight we live with, and there’s the word we live by." Christianity is incarnational, it does not exist in a vacuum. As Christians, we are tasked with sharing the good news with the world around us. We need to be aware of how the world understands us, and the way our words may deepen the pain and suffering of others. This is true even when the scripture is clear.

Concern about our context is not an automatic sign of capitulation. It can also be the first sign of capitulation.  We should have the maturity to look for the difference without jumping to conclusions.
-John M Troyer

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Today at church, we experienced the joy of baptism and taking in new members. In the Anabaptist tradition, membership and baptism are tied together. We believe that our life with God is not lived out in isolation, but in communion with a local body. In North America, the Christian life is often seen as a "me and God" kind of thing, but it's so much more than that. We are called the body of Christ for a reason, because we belong together.

I discovered the meaning of this in a new way when our children came into our lives. Both of them were adopted when they were ten months old and the transition was not always easy for them and for us. As one sleepless night followed another, we were stretched to the limits of what our nerves and bodies could handle. Here was a helpless little bundle who had been transported from another country to another with whole new sights, sounds and smells. While compassion and love carried us a long way, this experience pushed us deeper into exploring the dark and hidden places that tested the limits of our character. 

Being kind is a lot easier when you have opportunities to retreat and renew, but the relentless need of a child helps us learn the new depths of our kindness. This is also true of marriage, friendship and life together in a local church. Sometimes the source of our frustration is not an innocent child, but someone we are quite sure should know better than to treat us the way they do. Our depth and character are revealed in those times. 

A tree is only strong when the wind tries to blow it over. A tree with plenty of shallow water and little wind will never survive the testing of draught and high wind when they finally come. We are made holy when we draw deeper into our unity in Christ during those times of challenge and difficulty.

If you're going through a tough relationship, I invite you use that opportunity to deepen the roots. We often look for the easy road, but true joy and beauty come through the challenging things.
-John M Troyer

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I grew up in a family that enjoyed a good story, but was committed to truth-telling. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were fun things to role-play but were never understood as being real. I remember as I got older I heard the story of Menno Simons and struggling to understand how that fit with an ethic of honesty. Menno Simons was considered an outlaw and the authorities stopped a carriage he was in. He jumped out and asked what they needed. He stuck his head in the carriage and asked, "Is Menno Simons in there?" The response was no, so he turned to the authorities and said, "Menno Simons is not in there." Satisfied, the authorities turned and went on their way.

As I grew older and entered my middle school years, I began to get really good at lying and staying true to the lies that were needed to cover the lies. I was not committed to following Jesus, and my life was about getting away with whatever I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. When I said yes to following Jesus at the age of sixteen, this habit had rooted itself deeply within me. I continued to dance at the edge of truth and falsehood for a few more years until I was forced to face my capacity for selfishness and lies. I knew the end result of this pattern was that I would become a person that was alone and afraid. I chose radical honesty. It was not because I was especially virtuous, but because I realized my capacity for evil.

Over the years, I've learned to make some distinctions. One important one was the difference between transparency and honesty. I am not committed to transparency with everyone I know. But I am committed to being truthful, to the best of my ability, in the impressions I give others about who I am. Not everyone deserves to know every detail of my life. I also am learning to be more gentle in the way that I speak, to also convey the love I feel in the truth I tell.

My wife and I have chosen to follow a similar path to what I had as I child with the holiday myths. They can be fun stories for our children, but in the end they are a delight of the imagination, not a reality to be believed. We have done the same with the daily adjustments of life, choosing to tell them the truth even if it means more tears from them today. 

What areas of your life can change to be more truth-filled? Are there relationships that are characterized by fear and pretending? What if you took off the mask and simply let them see what you really are about?

I'm still a little uncomfortable with Menno's choice. I wonder if trust in God and a fuller honesty would have served him well. I wonder what it did for him. The commitment to truth has changed me. Sometimes I've had to answer in a way that cost me greatly. But in the end, I've been formed into a person who sleeps well at night with nothing to hide. And I believe that seeking truth, living in truth is what will set us free. It is living in the light.
-John M Troyer

This blog is updated each day except on Sunday. Liking the Facebook page will not automatically update your news feed with new posts. If you would like receive regular notifications of new posts, join the Facebook group at this link. If you would like to subscribe by email, you can do so at the top of this page.