T3

Revolutionary Love

I will never be a true revolutionary until I consistently experience and express a revolutionary love. Before I will be a radical and reckless revolutionary for Christ, I must be able to say with the Psalmist, "Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever." (Psalm 73:25-26) Until I can honestly echo this affirmation I will be conservative and hold back on being a radical follower of Christ because I will fear losing some of the things I presently desire. But when God is all I desire and seek; when there is no longer anything on this earth that I desire or am striving for, then I will be able to lay it ALL on the line to see God's kingdom advance on this earth. Father, this day empower me to love you with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and all of my strength and to love my neighbor as myself. In Jesus Name!

One Dimensional Revolutionaries?

One of the essential characteristics for being a true revolutionary, it seems to me, is the ability to truly think outside of the box. Though we talk much about "transformational" leadership and institutional transformation, I am afraid that we often end-up merely rearranging the deck chairs on the proverbial Titanic! The reality seems that we often struggle to think outside of our present paradigms. We are so embedded or enmeshed in the current paradigm that we have become, according to Herbert Marcuse, one dimensional in our thinking. Rather than discussing and debating new paradigms, we spend our time debating changes to the existing paradigms. For example, rather than discussing the biblical underpinnings and theological assumptions inherent in the local church as we know it, we debate different "styles" within the current paradigm. I think this reflects our one-dimensional nature. To be truly transformational revolutionaries we must think more multidimensionally -- outside of the box!  Marcuse says that existing paradigms, by their very existence, perpetuate their own existence and, as a result, there "emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior in which (new) ideas, aspirations, and objectives that, by their content, transcend the established universe of discourse and action (read that established paradigm) are either repelled or reduced to terms of this universe (paradigm). There is a certain centrifugal force that keeps pulling would-be revolutionaries back from the outer limits of new ideas, to the center of existing realities, so that in the end we simply find ourselves tweaking the status quo rather than transforming it. It's not easy to be a revolutionary ...