Waking the Dead
I’ve read this book before. A few years ago my husband was introduced to Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul
Here’s the summary from the Ransomed Heart Ministries website:
Waking the Dead explores the power of God’s New Covenant with us – the power to restore our hearts and set them free. For the heart of the believer no longer wicked – it is good. Your heart is good. How God restores us is usually experienced through Four Streams: Counseling, Healing, Walking with God, and Spiritual Warfare. This is how we discover that “the glory of God is man fully alive” (St. Irenaeus).
I struggled off and on in this reading with feeling like Eldredge’s insistence that “your heart is good” was gimmicky. But he is coming against what he feels is an established and virulent confusion of the “desperate wickedness” of the fallen heart with the condition of the new heart God gives to the restored believer. When we believe our hearts are “bad” even after we’re saved, he reasons, we give up, and settle for a dull and semi-anesthetized life of church attendance, sin management, and blindness to much that the Bible promises about the vividness and joy and power of the Christian life here and now.
Not everyone will relate to this, but I do. I felt this book gave me some conceptual tools I needed to distinguish between the reality of my place before God, and the things I tend to believe (lies of the deceiver, according to Eldredge) about it. I go to church, read my Bible, take care of my family, feel lonely and “nicheless” a lot, and shrug off the idea of life being glorious as “metaphorical.”
What Eldredge has to say about “fellowships of the heart” stirs a longing in me for a circle of friends like he describes. It did last time I read it, too, and at the time I was in a circle that seemed to offer some promise. But it didn’t work out that way, and it was poignant to remember as I re-read. “Listen carefully,” Eldredge writes, “any movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed. Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest — the thief wants it all.” I guess I would agree.
I hunger for the kind of community he describes here, one that isn’t formed through a program. When I was a child growing up in the church, my parents were always involved in one Bible study or another. My mother helped with Sunday school. My father sang in the choir after he was saved when I was around 5. But in addition to this kind of programmed social life, they were included in a circle of folks from church who just enjoyed doing things together: canoe trips, camping and hiking, making apple butter in the fall. It was a large, flexible, open pool of people, not a clique. They were at different stages of life. When someone needed help with a project, the others were there. I observed faith that was not done in isolation, not done only inside church walls, and that felt connected to others and to much of the beauty of God’s world.
I’ve never found that since. “Your life is at the narrow part of the hourglass,” my dad has reminded me, and he’s right. We have young children who need care. Family life takes a lot of energy. We don’t have a babysitter.
But my parents were at the narrow part of their hourglass too in those days. I’ve always figured it’s because I’m more internal, or not as likable, or for some mysterious reason unworthy of that kind of fellowship. But first, that’s not true. I’m no more or less worthy than the next person. Second, I think in general, that kind of fellowship is dying out everywhere as we surrender to technology as a substitute for human interaction, suburbia instead of the kind of community Wendell Berry describes where neighbors actually need each other to help out with practical tasks, and a church life that often either reflects culture or is insulated from it, but doesn’t truly engage it or know how to retain the life of the gospel within it. As Bill McKibben says in The Comforting Whirlwind, “Convenience and comfort and ease are secondary goals at best, and sometimes very much in the way of actual experience of the world’s glory.”
Listen to me ramble. That’s what this book does to me. I’ve given up on and pushed down and not talked about some of these things for too long. But ranting, or wallowing, doesn’t solve the particular equation my life presents. Prayer (Eldredge includes a daily “prayer for freedom” in this book) and reorientation are the places to begin.
I think I mentioned before that I tried to read one of Eldredge’s books before (Captivating, I think). Reading your thoughts on this one, though, makes me think I should try him again.
So much of what you write here resonates with me, Janet. Thanks for sharing–it makes me feel like I’ve found another “nobody” (reference Dickinson’s poem).
I have serious reservations about Eldredge and the weird impact he seems to be having on a lot of evangelical men (Jesus was a tough guy, so lets get macho), but I appreciate his recognition of some major problems in the modern church.
As you write: “It was a large, flexible, open pool of people, not a clique…..”
Oh boy, this is huge! Our large church’s over dependence on small-group ministry is a great example. Something about it is too forced, and results in a dysfunctional dynamic that is just the opposite of the organic way the church of your childhood functioned.
Far too often, the attitude that big church staffs have is, if you’re not in a small group, then don’t complain about not being “pastored” to. Well, is a small group supposed to replace a pastor? I see alot of amateur theologians and wannabe biblical counselors doing harm in the small group setting, which of course is now a staple program of most churches.
We don’t have many fellowships of the heart when a ministry becomes a program (”prayer warriors”, etc).
I guess I neeed to read this one. I just hope I don’t want to go out and buy a Harley, as I did after I read “Wild At Heart.”
Well, I can assure you I didn’t feel an urge to buy a Harley…. but it did make me want to go camping out west.
We attended a large church for years that had some of the mentality you describe. That’s hard to deal with. I understand the desire to help people initiate “connection” through a small group program of some sort, but it’s not a replacement for “Feed my sheep.”
It’s also not a substitute for interpersonal curiosity, or simple need. The small groups in the early church came together on their own based on personal, not institutional, initiative.
This sounds like an intriguing book, especially after reading Jim’s comments. After coming out of the Calvinistic tradition it has been a great comfort for me to hear the words from the liturgy each week that “God is a good God and loves mankind” and “Gave Himself up for the Life of the World”…and the like.
You said: >>>>Second, I think in general, that kind of fellowship is dying out everywhere as we surrender to technology as a substitute for human interaction,<<<<<<
While I don’t know why it has happened, I do agree that it is happening. However, it has been my experience that it is much easier to form community in small churches.
This is turning into an interesting discussion.
Thinklings.org has a good post called “For I was hungry and you told me to self-feed” in their sidebar. It relates to the attitude Jim was talking about.
I’m of the opinion that size is one of many factors that bears on whether community happens in a given church. Small churches can be complacent and clannish. Big churches can be impersonal and lose people. Leadership can be exhausted, or fearful of the people in their congregations, and see small group programming as a way of insulating themselves from having to deal with people.
Or — somehow it can happen. Even in mega churches.
Ours is a medium-sized church that’s growing, and our pastor makes himself very accessible. Even as visitors, we felt he was interested in us and available to us. His caring attitude is very genuine and colors the church’s “personality” in ways it would be hard to analyze or quantify. I think it would be the case whether the church were large or small.
But I do see texting-emailing-blogging-facebooking as a risk-free simulation of relationship. It’s too convenient and controlled to be a worthy substitute for the real thing. But it’s also too convenient and controlled to resist in some ways.
I don’t text or facebook. But I do blog and email. Too much.
I think you bring up a good point about pastors. They can be the glue that holds it together. My own previous experience was a bit different though….I was thinking how in my previous little church we had weekly small groups too… but our pastor was very hands-off. He taught that it was *our* job to support our friends, etc. We lost several people because they were offended that pastor never visited them in the hospital. I couldn’t really blame them. Then, I got to thinking how the emphasis in modern non-liturgical America is on pastors being good preachers. I wonder if they have forgotten that there is more to feeding the sheep than just delivering a good sermon on Sunday morning. While I seriously doubt that liturgical style churches have a corner on community and relationships, I do wonder if the strong emphasis on preaching is a contributing factor. Just some ruminations.
I also blog and email (and forum visit) too much. I can’t say it has replaced my paltry real-life friendships – but it certainly doesn’t help.
Deb, it’s so interesting to hear about the experience of others. I agree with your ruminations.
I’ve been wanting to try and write about my own experience with small groups. I have so many emotions and thoughts, and it’s hard to sort them out without writing about them. We’ll see if they end up in a blog post, or just in my journal.
” I wonder if they have forgotten that there is more to feeding the sheep than just delivering a good sermon on Sunday morning.”
I think we’ve become so desacramentalized in the modern evangelical church that this is actually what most folks expect out of their pastor – to be a PREACHER first. Congregation-centered worship is the norm, where the quality of “worship” depends on the quality of the preaching.
Wherever you are “being fed” is the best place to go. It’s all about me and my “personal relationship,” so it’s no surprise that big church pastors don’t feel the need to actually pastor. If you’ve got your NIV, small group, and quiet time, who needs a spiritual father?
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