John Fischer The Catch

Slamming the gospel

Posted on April 2, 2014 by jwfisch

I received a book recently from John, one of our regular Catch readers and supporters, who happened upon a unique ministry reaching out to street people in an urban setting in downtown Chicago through the vehicle of a poetry slam. (Wikipedia says “A poetry slam is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience.”)

Poetry slams have become popular in cities all over the world, and a community of regulars always forms around them. Realizing the incredible opportunity for sharing the gospel this afforded, John ended up building a ministry to these people by writing his own poetry and joining them.

Even though I haven’t had a chance to read his book yet, I’m pretty sure I know what it’s about, because he’s told me pieces of the story along the way. It’s going to primarily be a book about how he went to bring Christ to these people and ended up receiving Christ from these people.

John will be the first to tell you, he’s not the next Robert Frost. His poetry isn’t multi-layered and deep. It’s a little clumsy, but it’s real, and he puts himself out there out of love for them, and they love him for it. He won them over through his own vulnerability. In bringing Christ to them, he became one of them, and Christ came to them all. This is always the way the Gospel of Welcome works. You think you’re bringing someone something for dinner, and you sit down to a banquet.

It’s a theme that is central to being a Christian in the marketplace. We need to be more aware of what we can learn from non-Christians, unbelievers, not-yet Christians — whatever you want to call them. They are individuals whom God loves, and each one is on a path to discovery and God may well use us on that path, but it will always be a two-way street.

Still, there is a requirement in order for this to happen. You have to become vulnerable in the process. It turns out for John that a poetry slam ended up being an ideal venue for that to happen. You cannot write poetry and stand up and read it to someone without opening up your insides. In the same way, you and I need to find ways to put our own lives and selves out on the line. Without being vulnerable to the people we want to reach, we will never reach them — we will only reach our idea of what we think bringing Christ to them is. You can’t change anyone without being changed.

In changing, we will be changed.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged the gospel of welcome, witnessing | 3 Comments

Fool’s wisdom

Posted on April 1, 2014 by jwfisch

On April Fool’s day it’s only appropriate to think about the foolishness of knowing Christ.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

There’s no getting around it: you and I are fools for believing and following Christ. How does it feel to be a fool? It feels great.

What if it took extra special smarts to be a Christian? Who would want that? Then those who were Christians could lord it over those who weren’t. As it is, we’re the fools for believing that a dead man on a cross could save us. We’re the losers. We’re the sinners in need of salvation. Frankly, it feels good to be bottom rung. We are not the elite. We don’t have anything to claim or anything to prove. All we have, we have received. We haven’t earned anything. We accepted a free gift, and suddenly we are in the family of God.

We are fools because human nature is to succeed. To be great. To be strong. Human nature separates the men from the boys.

The gospel is for the weak, the lowly, the broken down, the hungry, the thirsty, the addicted — those who think they got a bad shake in life. Those who can’t help themselves. This is true of all ages, all cultures, all people. This is the best news ever. The gospel is for fools and we all qualify.

April fools? No, April wisdom.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged poverty and wealth | 7 Comments

Appraising ‘Noah’

Posted on March 31, 2014 by jwfisch

With Noah coming out and setting all sorts of records this weekend, Christians have entered into a strange era in the history of popular culture in America. We are in a season when the entertainment world is trying to tell (and sell) us our own story.

The huge success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ set a new precedent in Hollywood. The industry found a mother lode in faith-based entertainment. $600 million is not going to go unnoticed in Hollywood. Whenever a big success like this happens, moviemakers study what happened and turn it into a formula for a rash of other movies that try to hone in on the success. The Passion created a new market. It brought people into the theaters who had hardly ever been there before. Churches went nuts. One church in Georgia has gotten into the act making its own widely successful movies. Facing the Giants and Fireproof have paved the way for Blindside, God’s Not Dead and Heaven is For Real, just to name a few.

Something about the world telling our story seems backwards. They’re finding parts of our story they’d like to tell; they are consulting with us on how to tell it; we debate about their chances of getting it right; we all go to the theater and judge their efforts. I remember when we were going to save the world with our guitars. Now the world is singing our song and I’m not sure anyone’s getting saved.

I think we need to look for a silver lining here. What can we get out of this?

If we are going to get anything meaningful for faith out of a movie like Noah, we need to get way beyond the “Did they get it right?” debate. Of course they didn’t. Christians wouldn’t be able to get it right either. Creating a two-hour dramatization of a story that takes up a few paragraphs in the Bible is going to be full of creative interpretation, whoever tells it. The value of dramatizing a biblical story is to help the story become more real and the characters more human.

Numerous times in my own work I have attempted to capture a biblical story in writing as a novelist would. In doing so, I place myself in the story – let’s use the Last Supper as an example – and I imagine myself at the table thinking and feeling with the disciples. What does it look like, what does it smell like, what does it taste like, what are the sounds I hear, and what must have been going on in the mind of a disciple? Will I be right? Of course not, but I’ll be close, and in the process, the story comes alive. The point is to identify with the characters and allow a one dimensional story made up of words on a page to become real in my imagination. The end result of this exercise is always to have my faith enriched as the reality of what had to have happened comes home to me. If it wasn’t exactly what I imagined, it was certainly something like that.

The other value of having a biblical movie like Noah get the media attention it’s getting is that the subject came up. The story of Noah is now a cultural event. You can talk to just about anybody about it, and when you do, the main themes of judgment and salvation are the ones that are most prominent. Imagine that: Hollywood giving us the opportunity for a cultural conversation about judgment and salvation. If God judged the earth once, He can do it again, but, just as in Noah’s day, the important thing is that He always provides a way out. Yes, He is a God of judgment (who would want a God who wasn’t?), but He is also a God of mercy, and He always provides a way to Himself through faith.

Like all Bible stories, this one, too, ends up with Jesus, and that’s where we all want to be.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art and culture | 12 Comments

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Posted on March 28, 2014 by jwfisch

What you want
Baby, I got
What you need
Do you know I’ve got it
All I’m askin’
Is for a little respect

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
– Otis Redding and Anquette Corte Allen
If we could put into one word that thing that is missing the most in the marketplace today, it would be found, in the words of Aretha Franklin, in that magical word spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

We live today in the most polarized society in memory, and it seems to be getting worse, not better. It’s almost impossible to hold to a nuanced point of view. When the truth is in a gray area, and the only options are black or white, it makes it hard to even engage in conversation with someone.

What will set us apart as Christians and hopefully open a way for the gospel, is to be a people who respect everyone’s right to be who they are and believe what they believe. If we want anyone to pay attention to what we believe, we must first seek to understand and respect what they believe. Children, respect your parents. Parents, respect your children. Husbands, respect your wives, and wives, respect your husbands.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this where you live, but the kids in our neighborhood show an appalling lack of respect for adults, private property, and in some cases each other. We’re not teaching our kids respect, or if we are, they aren’t getting it.

The most popular shows on television seem to be the reality shows that tear people down. This is simply the climate that we are in today. In politics, we tear down the opposing point of view; we demonize the other party.

Of course we will always be in conflict; conflict is inevitable in life, but conflict need not encroach upon the respect of others, and the solutions we are seeking to our conflicts must come by way of respect for the other person and point of view. If you are unsure of how to treat someone who disagrees with you, start with respect. If you are unsure how to treat even someone in your own family, start with respect. Someone at work you don’t get along with? A little respect goes a long way toward building and strengthening any relationship.

“Just a little bit…” sings Aretha, “Just a little bit…” A little bit is better than none at all.

May we be known in the marketplace as those who hold a high level of esteem for others.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3:15,16)

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Almost persuaded

Posted on March 27, 2014 by jwfisch

You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t argue for freedom of religion in public life and then apply that freedom to only the religion you want. Nor can you have freedom of religion in public life to the exclusion of one particular religion. Nor can you have freedom of religion in public life to the exclusion of all religions, thus promoting non-faith as the only religion. If you are going to have freedom of religion in public life, then that must mean freedom for all faiths and none.

This is the premise of Os Guinness’s new book The Global Public Square. If we are going to have freedom of religion in America – part of the brilliance of what this country was founded on – then we must argue for everybody’s freedom. It can’t be freedom of Christianity in America. Nor can it be freedom of atheism in America. It has to be freedom of all religions and none.

I think the fact that it is a Christian making this argument is splendid. It is remarkable. It is something that is somewhat of a surprise, and something that makes me proud to be a Christian. It means that the Christian is arguing for more freedom than the secularist. The conservative is arguing for more freedom than the liberal.

“We should all stand for the rights of those with whom we disagree who wish to persuade us – liberals should fight for the rights of fundamentalists, Christians for the rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists, and Muslims for the rights of atheists. All lovers of freedom should stand together against every insidious attempt to use the law to outlaw whatever is considered blasphemy, defamation or apostasy. It is time to rise up and challenge the politically correct. Who are the free thinkers now? Truly free people know what it means to persuade and to be open to persuasion.” (Guinness, pg. 111)

To put this another way: if I want to be free to argue that I am right, I need to do that in such a way as to be willing to be proven wrong. If you want to persuade me to become a Mormon, go right ahead, as long as you respect my freedom to not be one, and, in similar light, that you are open to being talked out of your Mormonism. Then, and only then, can we have a relationship. Otherwise, we will just bloody each other.

This is the brilliance of Os’s book: It puts this freedom of religion (or what he calls: “soul freedom”) on a global level where in some ways it is easier to understand, but it has incredibly practical implications in our daily life as Christians in an increasingly pluralistic society. Standing for and respecting soul freedom for all is what will allow us to have relationships in the marketplace.

But if you want to persuade, you must be open to being persuaded. To bash everyone as wrong who does not agree with you is no way for Christians to behave. The more we believe the truth, the less we have to defend it. It can stand quite well on its own, thank you.

At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”

“I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.”

Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

Paul replied, “Short time or long-I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” (Acts 26:24-29)

Note: Os Guinness will be our guest on BlogTalkRadio Tuesday, April 8.

Mark your calendar!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged friends in the marketplace, tolerance | 8 Comments

Us and Him

Posted on March 26, 2014 by jwfisch

We had an incredible session on BlogTalkRadio last night with our guest, Rebecca Bender. You will definitely want to hear it on demand if you missed it live. Rebecca’s story of how she was rescued from human sex trafficking literally by Jesus is truly amazing.

Meeting Jesus gave her a new perspective on herself. She realized she was known and loved by God; she was important to Him, and the way she was being treated was wrong. She told us how step by step God counseled her out of slavery and into freedom.

It is unbelievable the difference Christ can make in a life. For Rebecca, it was truly a God thing. She even related a part of her story where one of the women who was also trapped in this sinister business brought her a specific message from God that was critical to protecting her, and this woman didn’t even know God!

There is nothing more powerful than the power of love, and it was that power that set her free.

I was reminded of the woman caught in the act of adultery who was thrown before Jesus by a group of self-righteous men who treated her as a perpetrator, and how Jesus saw her as a victim, forgave her, and restored her, setting her free from any condemnation. I’ve often thought of that intimate moment when all the accusers were gone and it was just Jesus and the woman, and realize that we all have that moment with Jesus when we come to Him and confess our sins. Suddenly it’s just us and Him.

Do you know that moment? You can.

Where Did They Go?
by John Fischer

Where did they go
Where did they go
All of those men who had so much to say
Just a few minutes ago
Where did they go
Where did they go
I looked up and saw no one but you
Standing in a street strewn with stones

You are no loser
And where are your accusers
There’s just you and me
Just you and me

What was that sound
What was that sound
What was that pounding in my ear
As their stones hit the ground
Why are you here
Woman why are you still here
Are you waiting for something from me
Well you have nothing to fear

You are no loser
You’ve got no accusers
There’s just you and me
Just you and me

Where will you go
Tell me where will you go
Will you go back to living your life
The only way that you know
I see no sin
You don’t have to give in
There’s no reason to go back to living
The way that you’ve been

You are no loser
You’ve got no accusers
There’s just you and me
Just you and me

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged forgiveness | Leave a comment

Return of the Jesus Freaks

Posted on March 25, 2014 by jwfisch

What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus freak
What will people do when they find that it’s true
I don’t really care if they label me a Jesus freak
There ain’t no disguising the truth

The “Jesus Freak” song, originally written and recorded by DC Talk in 1995 has revealed its genius by continuing to show up in the regular playlists of Christian rock stations around the country, but it may be more than that. Whenever I hear it in Chandler’s presence, I remind him that his dad was the original Jesus freak. That’s really what they used to call us, or probably more likely, what we called ourselves, for we were proud of it in 1970.

We were proud to be freaks for Jesus, but that’s just the irony, it wasn’t so freaky to be a follower of Jesus in 1970; it was pretty cool, in fact. Of all the characteristics that the Jesus movement championed – many of them gladly fallen by the wayside years ago – this one thing is worth repeating and worth holding onto: the Jesus movement was all about Jesus.

Christianity was once all about Jesus. The early church preached nothing but Jesus Christ, dead, buried, risen and coming back in the same manner in which He left, and it spread through the power of the Holy Spirit, whose singular purpose is always to reveal Jesus to people (John 14:25-26).

Whenever the church becomes all about anything other than Jesus, it’s time for the Jesus freaks. In the 1960s, the church and Christianity had become all about institutional religion, liberalism and the death of God. The Jesus movement brought the focus back on Jesus. DC Talk wrote this song in 1995; they must have felt the need to get back to Jesus then (the Christian clutter was mounting). Today, it’s almost impossible to find Jesus in Christianity – like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Today the church and Christianity are all about politics, morality, prosperity, America, conservatism, safety, traditional marriage and family, pro-life agendas, the right to bear arms … and that’s just off the top of my head. Where is Jesus in all this? It’s a very valid question.

I’m getting excited. I’m starting to feel like a Jesus freak again. Not that I ever stopped being one, it’s just that being one stands out again, like John the Baptist in the wilderness, or the fat preacher with the “Jesus Saves” tattoo on his belly (see lyrics below).

The Jesus movement preached nothing but Jesus Christ, dead, buried, risen and coming back in the same manner in which He left, and it spread through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s time. I’m here to announce: We’re back.

Jesus Freak

by Toby McKeehan and Mark Heimermann

Separated, I cut myself clean
From a past that comes back in my darkest of dreams
Been apprehended by a spiritual force
And a grace that replaced all the me I’ve divorced

I saw a man with tattoo on his big fat belly
It wiggled around like marmalade jelly
It took me a while to catch what it said
‘Cause I had to match the rhythm of his belly with my head

Jesus saves
Is what it raved in a typical tattoo green
He stood on a box in the middle of the city
And claimed he had a dream

Kamikaze my death is gain
I’ve been marked by my maker, a peculiar display
The high and lofty they see me as weak
‘Cause I won’t live and die for the power they seek

There was a man from the desert with naps in his head
The sand that he walked was also his bed
The words that he spoke made the people assume
There wasn’t too much left in the upper room

With skins on his back and hair on his face
They thought he was strange by the locusts he ate
The pharisees tripped when they heard him speak
Until the king took the head of this Jesus freak

People say I’m strange, does it make me a stranger
That my best friend was born in a manger
People say I’m strange, does it make me a stranger
That my best friend was born in a manger

What will people think?
What will people do when they find that it’s true
I don’t really care what else can I say?
There ain’t no disguising the truth
Jesus is the way

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged evangelism, Jesus Movement | 12 Comments

Having the right mind

Posted on March 24, 2014 by jwfisch

Marti and I, on date night last night, were out to dinner at a restaurant with tables so close, the two older woman next to us were practically in our laps. I say “older” with caution anymore because most people would say that of me now, though I have not quite yet grasped that this as true.

The lady in my lap was Helen and she turned out to be a well-informed anti-government, doomsaying, Obama-hating right-winger who chastised me for reading the Los Angeles Times. When I found out she was Christian, I was not surprised. I wanted to steer her away from politics so we might connect in some way over our mutual faith in Jesus Christ, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Personal things about her life, family, kids, would have helped, but I never got a foot in the door.

There were a lot of things I think I would have liked about Helen (her spunk, her intelligence, her strongly opinionated character) had I time to get to know her, but I realized it would take more than a dinner conversation to get around her politics, if ever. Marti, in the meantime, was having a wonderful time connecting with Helen’s friend across the table who reminded her of my mother. I would love to have revisited my mother, but I couldn’t extricate myself from my own conversation. Both of these women are locals (we exchanged numbers) so we may have a chance to get beyond these first impressions, but I must admit, I am not relishing more time with Helen.

Helen is one of those people who has pretty much made up her mind about everything, which makes it hard to talk to her about anything. Any new topic will end up with what Helen thinks about this. Not once did Helen ask me what I thought about anything. She already knew what I thought because I read the Los Angeles Times. End of conversation.

Marti is very good at this. She has a lot of strong opinions as well but she keeps them to herself because she doesn’t want anything to get in the way of getting to know another person. She will feign like she never thought about a certain thing (when I know she has), just to get a chance to hear what someone else thinks. What someone else thinks is more important than what you think if you want to build a real relationship.

There’s an art to this. I’m not that good at it but I’m learning. I just know it starts with listening over waiting to talk, and making someone else more important than me.

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged making friends in the marketplace | 18 Comments

Kicking some 90-pound butt

Posted on March 21, 2014 by jwfisch

Brokenness can’t be just a one time thing.

When Paul says, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” is he implying that the strength makes him no longer weak, or that the weakness is a continual doorway into his strength in Christ? It has to be the latter, especially since the context of this statement is what Paul called a “thorn in the flesh” that God saw fit not to remove. That thorn – that weakness or brokenness – is a continual reminder of where his strength lies.

We’re not talking about a 90-pound weakling who gets tired of getting sand kicked in his face and goes an works out for a couple months so he can build up some muscle and go out there and kick some butt.

We’re talking more about what our friend Mark has to deal with every day as the results of a car accident and stroke that left him with a speech impediment and physical infirmity that causes him to have to get around in a motorized wheelchair. Mark wakes up every morning as a broken man. God so far has chosen not to change anything about that. He is not fixing Mark’s infirmity; He is asking Mark to find His strength each and every day, in and through this weakness.

Now I’m sure Mark could choose to be angry about this, or he could sulk and brood over it, or he could decide to shrug it off and go forward in God’s strength exhibiting hope, thankfulness and courage. It’s a choice he faces all the time.

It’s actually the same for all of us. We all have mental and emotional handicaps that keep us broken every day. We all wake up every morning as broken men and women. Unlike Mark, some of us can hide these pretty well. We might choose to focus on our strengths and ignore our disabilities as long as we can get away with it. But that is not transformation; that is coping.

God wants to transform us. Not that He will turn the 90-pound weakling into a 160-pound muscleman, but He wants to show His strength through every one of those 90 little pounds. He wants to empower us in our brokenness so that we, and every one else who knows us, will know where we get our strength. In other words, He wants us to kick some 90-pound butt.

This is what I meant yesterday by focusing on where you are broken. The question remains, what will we do about that? Sulk, brood, be angry, or be transformed. It’s a choice we all face every day, throughout the day.

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged power | 4 Comments

Being broken

Posted on March 20, 2014 by jwfisch

We had George Barna on Catch radio last Tuesday night. I was so excited. Wow, we’ve got George Barna to ourselves for an hour! Finally we’ll find out what’s wrong with the church. This is the guy with all the research. This is the guy everybody quotes. “Barna says this,” and “Barna says that.” Finally everyone will find out I’ve been right all along.

Instead we heard about brokenness for an hour. We heard that there can be no transformation without brokenness. We heard how George found out through research what the word of God has been saying all along. If God’s going to use you, God’s got to break you. And how will God do that? It will be different for each one of us.

Well whoopee! This is just what we wanted to hear! Not.

In some ways, its the last thing we want to hear.

It’s a question I can ask, but only you can answer. That’s because the answer is not an intellectual one you can memorize and give back at the right time. The answer is not found in knowledge. The answer is known in experience.

Where am I being broken today? God is trying to get my attention. The more we try and fight this, the farther we will have to fall in order to find it out. It’s already happening, the question is: are we letting it happen? Are we allowing it or denying it?

Where am I being broken today? It’s not a concept. It’s not an intellectual truth to be embraced in my mind. It is an experience. It’s something I am already experiencing, it’s just that I am either fighting it or giving into it. I am either letting myself be broken or I am fighting being broken. I am either letting the Lord have His way with my life or I am having my own way with my life. Which is it?

Where am I being broken today?

Why do I keep on asking this? Why is this so important? Because there is no transformation without brokenness. There is no short cut to spiritual growth. There is no way you can get this right and not have to suffer for it. There’s no way we can be like Christ and still insist on being who we want to be.

George found this out through research. He found out that less than 5% of the Christians interviewed knew what it meant to be broken. Less than 5% could tell a story about being broken. Less than 5% knew that being transformed had anything to do with being broken.

Do I know what I’m talking about? Barely. That’s why I’m writing about it. I want to find out. Listen to George’s interview. Read Marti’s review. I’m going to talk a lot about this because I don’t know enough about what it means.

Like a horse whose will has to be broken before it can be one with its rider, God wants us to be one with Him.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged spiritual growth | 14 Comments