Did Rest Get Trendy Or Did We Just Get Crazy-Busy?

There’s obviously something amiss in our Christian culture when books on burn-out or rest seem to be about as common as, I dunno, church-plants using those pull-up banner-stand things. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a complaint in either case. For one, don’t knock the stands – they do the job – and in terms of rest, the sad reality is that by all accounts we’re in great need of some fine-tuned resources to help us out in this area.

When you think about it, it’s unsurprising that writing on rest often comes from a personal angle. We learn – and write – from experience. And sadly, what’s going to convince you of the importance of rest more than crashing and burning? That comes out in Christopher Ash and David Murray’s recent books, and it’s also the case with The Art of Rest, a new, punchy paperback from Massachusetts-based pastor, Adam Mabry. Hopefully these ‘pre-emptive’ resources can do the rest of us the world of good, before we find out the hard way.

Doing Do Is Easier Than Doing Rest

Mabry’s opening chapter is titled, “I Don’t Do Rest”; he shares that his wife’s reaction to him announcing he was writing a book on rest was to laugh in his face. The problem he highlights is that many of us aren’t so good at doing rest, but we’re pretty hot at doing ‘do’. In fact we’re suckers for do. We see busyness and think it means we’re achieving something, getting somewhere. It makes us feel important. We idolise being productive and being ‘high-capacity leaders’, but we forget that, ultimately, “God has wired us to require rest.”

The ‘art of rest’ refers to Mabry’s conviction that rest is less about rule and more about rhythm. We might be diligent at taking a day-off or marking the Sabbath, but we still need to consider whether we’re truly resting – and the reason. As he says, the why of rest is just as important as the how. To skip the ‘why’ is to attempt to grow a tree on top of some pavement; you need to bust-up the concrete and get under the surface before you can grow anything of significance. It’s a powerful image, and throughout the book Mabry seeks to get under the surface of why we’re so prone not to rest, and therefore why we need it so much.

Reasons To Rest

So why rest? In four easy-to-read chapters, Mabry serves up a range of different motivations:

• Rest is for remembering. It’s for remembering God, ourselves, and true story of the world: “regularly stopping to rest in God allows us to remember that the meaning of our lives isn’t to wander around inside ourselves and choose what aspects of our desires we’ll wear as an identity badge.”
• Rest is resistance; building on the work of Walter Brueggemann, Mabry suggests rest is resistance against a world that defines itself by work and career: “[rest] is open rebellion against the systems of this world that demand we do in order to be.” Here Mabry is brilliant at exposing the default mode of our culture – and even our church culture: “in order for you to be the most you-ey you you can be, you just need to look within.” Yes, that’s a lot of ‘you’s but that’s exactly the point. Part of the problem here is that we become complicit in the tendency towards self-justification, self-actualisation, because, after all, “the most powerful god of the West [is] the one in the mirror.” In contrast:

“[T]he truth is that you only come into contact with your truest self when you come closer to Christ. You won’t find you by clambering about in your own subconscious, but by bringing your whole self to him.”

• Rest restores relationships. Our restlessness often leaves a trail of damage: “dead marriages, distant children, and fair-weather friendships all lie in the wake of the Western wanderer and their quest to quiet the inner voice and find the end-point of the pursuit of happiness.” Instead, rest brings with it “relational room,” the oxygen to allow relationships to live and grow.
• Rest brings reward. Mabry shows that rest is a God-given means for our Father in heaven to bless us – through reflection, through memory, through security, through endurance, and through anticipation.

Keeping Sabbath Special

Obviously you can’t write a book on rest without engaging with the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath. Mabry acknowledges that how we apply this command as Christians is a topic that can easily divide churches and lead to endless discussion and debate, e.g. how does Jesus fulfil the Old Testament law? Is every command still binding, as it reads? These are important questions, but Mabry’s own take is that this command doesn’t apply directly to us today, having been fulfilled in Christ (Hebrews 3-4; Colossians 2:16-17). Yet he makes the valid point – which is backed-up in some of the endorsements – that even if you disagree with him on this, you’d still be in agreement with 96% of the rest of the book. The wisdom and importance and significance of resting remains, even if that doesn’t involve a prescribed Sabbath day. In fact Mabry also challenges those who argue that keeping a Sabbath is legalistic: “simply ask how not observing Sabbath rest is going for you. It’s not rest that threatens to oppress you, but your refusal to rest.”

Rest in Practice

The final chapter gives some practical suggestions for rest: namely, sleeping, reading, praying, reflecting, avocating (new one for me!), recreating, eating and singing, as well as considering the categories of daily, weekly and yearly rest. I felt Ash’s Zeal Without Burnout and Murray’s ReSet probably were more expansive in this area.

My critique of The Art of Rest would be that occasionally the book’s structure and flow seemed a bit muddled. The first chapter is set-up as a bit of a Bible overview of rest, but we quickly got into ‘lies that Satan uses to convince us not to rest’. These were helpful in themselves, and maybe it’s just me, but it felt like we were racing to application before I’d really got going.

Despite that the four central chapters were excellent and really thought-provoking and compelling. In particular, the strength of Mabry’s contribution to the ‘rest canon’ is his ability to expose some of the ways in which we buy into a culture of ‘do’. He writes in such a way that you really want to grab a handle on your life and live restfully, in line with how God made us. If you’re ever tempted to think of yourself as ‘busy’, ‘too busy’, or you actually find yourself enjoying being busy, then The Art of Rest would be well worth picking up.

You can pick up a copy of The Art of Rest from the publisher here.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review.

The Age of Unbelief

If you hadn’t clocked it yet, those of us in the West are living in an ‘age of unbelief’ – a season when Christian beliefs and ethics are being publicly pushed to the sidelines of life, with the claim they are out of date, out of touch, and even – made with increasing frequency – that they are hateful and dangerous. Like it or not, that’s our situation as the Western Church. And so it’s essential that we decide how we’re going to respond to this situation. Take Heart is Matt Chandler’s contribution to that debate.

Matt, 43, has been pastoring at the Village Church in Texas since 2002 – a good innings, by any standard. He now holds the role of Lead Pastor of Teaching at the Village Church in Texas and President of the increasingly influential and international Acts 29 church-planting network. I first came across Matt when he spoke at Oak Hill during my time there. Reading Take Heart is like hearing Matt speak: he is engaging, witty, and has an unassuming authority that flows from his passion for Jesus Christ.

We All Respond

By the way, I described Take Heart as Matt’s contribution to the ‘debate’ about how Christians should respond to these changing times, because it doesn’t take much to realise there’s a few different responses being advocated. In a real sense, we all respond – the question is whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, and whether its with theological conviction driving our response – or by way of knee-jerk pragmatism. Chandler summarises the three most common responses as:

• Converting culture, i.e. putting our efforts into ensuring our countries reflect our Christian values, especially politically and legally, and so re-establish Christendom.
• Condemning culture, i.e. removing ourselves from the culture and setting up a sub-culture where we are protected from the influence of the world around us.
• Consuming culture, i.e. accommodating ourselves – in beliefs and ethics – to the culture around us. In other words, we change to fit in, because we belief that’s how we will stay relevant.

As you mull these over, you start to see how these approaches play out in different ways. So take something like the changes in laws regarding so-called ‘equal marriage’. Some Christians will argue it’s critical we don’t change our nations’ laws, even if the majority of the population wants us to. Some will flee the public square and just batten down the hatches: the world is moving in and we just need to stay faithful. Some will say we need to change the Church’s position on sexuality and marriage, in order to stay relevant.

Chandler is concerned that all three of these responses have something in common: they are all “born of fear”. And so he puts forward a fourth option, which he describes as a “posture” of courage:

“I’m convinced that if we have a God-sized, God-given courage, then we will be freed up to be the people of God, living out the mission of God, marked by the joy of God. With courage, this season of history can be viewed not with fear or trepidation, but instead with hope and a sense of opportunity.”

Some might want more caveat in Chandler’s analysis of the flaws of Christendom, but it’s hard to argue with his desire to challenge nominalism. And without a doubt, it’s encouraging to read a book that is so positive. Chandler believes the Church can thrive.

How do we get to courage?

Chandler is not trying to whip us into some paper-thin triumphalism. He quotes the author James Neil Hollingworth, who observed that, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.” And so courage comes from re-discovering a big God:

“We’ve spent years telling each other, You can do it. You’re so great. Be yourself. Find yourself, Believe in yourself. Our teaching and advice has been based more on the false wisdom of our world than the true wisdom of the word. And that means we’ve ended up trying to run a marathon on cotton candy. We’ve tried to be bold in the day of war while eating Twinkies.”

In particular, Chandler argues we need to rediscover the biblical portrayal of God as a warrior, citing Exodus 15:3.

The Fight of Your Life

I have to admit, at first Chandler’s choice here surprised me. If I was going to write a book about how Christians are to live amidst a culture that – at the best of times – is confused about the Christian faith, and – at worst – is hostile to the Christian faith, then my instinct would be to avoid describing God as a warrior! Isn’t this just the Religious Right on steroids, a return to the crusades and Christian jihad?!

But here Chandler is careful to say that the way God ‘wars’ is by fighting for the good of his people. Building on the work of theologians Tremper Longman III and Daniel Reid, Chandler gives us a Bible overview of God as warrior, showing that God is fighting a cosmic war, not against people but against his great enemy, Satan, and winning the victory – through the cross – to give his people a relationship with him in a perfect world of shalom.

In other words, as we live amidst increasing marginalisation, the Church can trust we’re on the right side of of history, because God is the History-Maker. He’s in control of where things are going. This isn’t a call to violence, but to compassion and proclaiming the cross. Thriving doesn’t mean having unrivalled popularity or holding great cultural power, but rather having a sense of confidence in the face of opposition and side-lining, because we know that life is playing itself out on God’s backdrop.

How Courage Plays Out

In the last few chapters Chandler seeks to ground courage in the practical. He covers holiness, devotion and evangelism, and spends the most time making the case that the latter needs to be done in the context of hospitality. Rather than the fear-driven responses that Christians are sometimes known by (“marching, debating, writing”), the extent of our courage will be shown “by who sits round your table”.

It’s a compelling picture of Christians committed to loving people and opening up their lives and homes. He acknowledges that though the marginalisation of Christians may be happening at the level of public policy and media narratives, the reality is that individuals are still spiritually intrigued by the Christian faith. Showcasing the gospel through generous and winsome lives is always going to be powerful.

How do you like your eggs, Benedict?

Despite Chandler’s denial that he’s trying to present some “fresh strategy”, it’s hard not to read Take Courage without thinking it’s in part a response to the likes of Rod Dreher’s much-discussed Benedict Option. Dreher’s approach, inspired by the founding of the Benedictine Order, can come across as one of fearful retreat from the culture, rather than the positive, outward-facing approach of Take Heart. I suspect there’d be much that Dreher and Chandler would agree on: the cultural analysis of where we stand for starters, as well as the need to guard the gospel and the importance of creating Christian communities (church!) and families where we ‘learn the gospel’ and grow in gospel confidence. But as David Robertson commented in his review of Dreher’s book:

“I need to be in the world, but not of it. I need to live with people who are dead in sins and trespasses. I need to live, eat, work and share with those who are the enemies of God. The only thing I must not do is worship with them, ignore them or hate them.”

Courage, Dear Heart

Admittedly in the UK we don’t have the same political ‘Religious Right’ – complete with its increasingly depressing loyal association to Trump. In that sense, the pressures are different. But in the Church of England, we do have an established Church, which brings its own pressures. For example, after the C of E’s General Synod voted against the motion to have female bishops back in 2012, there was outrage in the House of Commons and the then PM David Cameron infamously urged the Church to ‘get with the programme’. Whatever you think about the roles of men and women in ministry, should it really be the government’s opinion that drives our decision-making as a Church? Whose ‘programme’ is the Church signed up to? But of course it’s hard to resist that if you’re the official church of the land, with Bishops seated in the House of Lords.

And so we need books like Take Heart that give us a big view of God and call us to be bold and to be strong – even amidst our weakness – for the LORD, our God, is with us. A minor quibble was that each chapter seems to take its launching point from a different Bible passage, whilst still trying to build up a fairly chapter-by-chapter connected argument: Romans takes us to God’s bigness; Exodus – and a Bible overview – shows us God as warrior; 1 Peter becomes lesson about standing on grace, etc. Occasionally this felt slightly disorientating; sometimes I felt I was only just settling down before we were moving on.

Writing with his colleague David Roark, Chandler has given us a handy and compelling tonic to revitalise drooping heads and sapped hearts. And because Take Heart is an easy read, a fairly slim paperback with seven punchy chapters, I’d be happy to commend it to folk who aren’t big readers. And of course I’d be delighted if Chandler’s positivity and courage rubbed off. As he says, “marginalization is the space where we find out where our lives and our allegiances really lie … we’re now back in the place where we have always flourished best.”

If you want to get more of a flavour of the book, then here’s 25 quotes from Take Heart.

You can also watch Matt talking about the vision behind the book below:

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review. You can pick up a copy of Take Heart from the publisher using my affiliate link here.

Blindly Hoping for a Punchline?

“What is life: a tragedy or a comedy?”

So begins this excellent little evangelistic book from writer/speaker/poet/creative genius Glen Scrivener, well suited to Easter outreach events. He takes the Shakespearean definition of a tragedy/comedy, i.e. a smile-shaped comedy always has a happy ending, whereas although a frown-shaped tragedy may have plenty of mirth, it ultimately ends. Using this lens he persuades us that Christianity is unique in offering us the comedy we all long for; “this isn’t a question of whether life is hilarious (mostly it’s not), but whether life is hopeful”.

I thought one of the real strengths of this hook is the way it exposes a god-less worldview as simply “distracting ourselves from the end of our life’s story”:

“We are the flotsam of a cosmic explosion and biological survival machines… clinging to an insignificant rock, hurtling through a meaningless universe towards eternal extinction. Still, all that being said, the new flavoured latte from Starbucks is incredible. And have you tried hot yoga. We’re renovating the kitchen too. So, you know, that’s nice…”

Ouch.

So having convinced us that we’re living out a tragedy, Glen argues that Christianity is unique in “having the audacity to be a comedy”. Going back to Shakespeare’s definitions, he means that the Christian faith alone has the plot twist that “holds out dazzling and eternal hope”. And of course this all hangs on the events of that first Easter, a story that is “uniquely hopeful,” as well as “uniquely credible”.

The Cross Is What It Looks Like When God Shows Up

The bulk of the book then riffs on the poetic description of Christ Jesus’ descent to earth/humanity found in Philippians 2:5-11. First off, there’s the surprise that the one who is ‘in very nature God’ takes the ‘very nature of a servant’, walking all the way to the brutal cross; “from heavenly heights God’s Son has descended to the depths”. Glen’s burning passion here is to wake us up to the truth that:

“…when Jesus died on the cross, he was not taking a holiday from being God. He didn’t leave all that ‘God stuff’ in heaven while he died the ‘cross stuff’ on earth. The ‘cross stuff’ was the purest expression of the ‘God stuff’. The cross is what it looks like when God shows up.”

If you’ve heard Scrivener before, you’ll know this is favoured territory of his, being convinced it’s so essential for us to understand. It’s a powerful and crystal-clear explanation of divine humility, and Scrivener’s gifting as a word-smith really comes through: “The Fountain is revealed in the outpouring. When we see his death, really we are seeing God’s life.” The evangelistic consequences of grasping this are hugely significant, for one is forced to ask: “why hasn’t anyone else shown up in our pit?” When you think about it, how can anything claim to be a rival god and yet not show such staggering, stooping splendour?

From here Glen seeks to persuade us that the death of Jesus doesn’t just show us something about God, but also something about ourselves: we’re being saved from danger. Why else would Jesus take on the cross?

“As we see what he endured – godforsaken death – we need to understand that this must be the plight that we should expect. The hell he takes on the cross is the hell that we would otherwise face.”

In other words, although “we live in God’s world,” our actions and thoughts testify to “a life lived in estrangement from God. And if we’re “alienated from God, the life-source, what else can we expect but godforsaken death?” Glen wants to show us this is self-inflicted: our sin comes out of us (rather than being circumstantial behaviour that ‘comes over us’), evidence of a “spiritual sickness” within that will ultimately “degenerate continually”. Again, “that’s hell in its fullness”. The imagery that Glen’s analysis of our plight brought to my mind was that of suicidal astronauts on a space-walk, determined to sever our own life-cord and thus cut ourselves off from our spaceship, flailing helplessly as we fall deeper into the abyss of space. In the following chapter Glen speaks of Jesus “entering the storms of judgment and death” and “experiencing the judgment of God more than anyone ever could,” but part of me wondered if introducing clearer punitive language earlier, as part of the chapter introducing sin, would have made more sense of Jesus “facing what we ought to face” (and perhaps would fill-out repentance later too).

Happily Ever After

Using the glorious illustration of Vasco Da Gama’s pioneering journey past the southern tip of Africa, Glen then gives us a resplendent vision of Jesus’ victorious resurrection as the ‘turning point’: “the cross-scarred Victor returns from the fight and declares his love… we are given a hope that we have not earned and a joy that we cannot repay.” More glorious still, Glen shows us that, as Philippians 2 says, there will also be a day when every knee bows and every tongue acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord:

“You’re not the bowing type, you think. But on this day you won’t be able to stop yourself falling on your face in awe … You won’t be able to do anything else, nor will the atheist next to you, nor the Buddhist next to her, nor the Muslim next to him. ‘Every knee’ will bow…”

Throughout, Glen is empathetic. He helps us feel the tragedy of the Tragedy: “everything that hurts so horrifically in this world hurts because it is not the way it’s supposed to be.” Thus, Jesus’ opening gambit is truly good news: ‘repent and believe’ in the one who can turn it all around. We may think God is an obstacle to us getting the happy endings we long for, but in actual fact this ‘good life’ is but a temporary high that will soon dissipate. Rather, we are the problem and God is the solution, the only one who can bring about cosmic hope. And so the challenge is clear:

“The plotline of history is a comedy. The only question is will we embrace reality the way that Jesus has defined it? He is Lord. His world will follow the divine comedy. There will be a happily ever after. But will we, personally, fall in line with ultimate reality? Or will we resist the comedy and persist in living in tragedy?”

Evangelistic Energy

This simple ‘comedy vs tragedy’ hook makes the book feel punchy and lucid. Illustrations and quotations are used delightfully, and potential questions over the historicity of the gospel accounts are dealt with concisely and in such a way as to help us see we have every reason to both want this story to be true and to find it to be true. I also appreciated how in the last few pages Glen ensures this isn’t some prosperity gospel of ‘health and wealth’ now. Following the apostle Paul’s flow in Philippians 2, he points out that following Jesus as Lord means following his way of self-giving love, pouring ourselves out for others, which is actually the way of real life.

Divine Comedy, Human Tragedy is a real gift for Easter outreach opportunities. Clocking-in at just 55 pocket-size pages, each of the seven chapters feels like you’re reading a punchy blog-post. Glen’s turn-of-phrase is second-to-none and for those enquirers that are prepared to give a book a go, I’d put good money on them finishing it. The writing feels fresh, and, God-willing it will excite believers and compel unbelievers.

You can read two excerpts from Divine Comedy, Human Tragedy here and here. The book is available to purchase in the UK from its publisher here for just £2.99.

And here’s the video version!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, but I hope this is still a fair review.