Last week I attended Q, a thought provoking faith-and-culture conference. One session dealt with how much the church can learn from statistical data about attitudes and trends in the church and society in America, and the interpretation of those statistics into strategic initiatives for the church.

I am an active, appreciative consumer of information, and I find statistics as interesting as the next person does. But I sometimes wonder when our American obsession with statistics and strategies might be excessive, or even border on idolatry.

Idolatry of what? Well, of information, and of human strategizing, if it replaces our dependence on the leading of God's spirit.

What's idolatry? It's letting anything apart from God interfere with our allegiance to, obedience of, or dependence on God. It's letting anything take God's place.

So I found myself wondering some things.

If the disciples and early followers of Jesus only had better data about the demographics and social landscape of their time, would the book of Acts have recorded anything different about the growth of the early church?

In the 21st Century, does our prowess with an abundance of information put God at an advantage???

Is God relieved by the sheer brilliance of the strategies that we cook up these days, to help bring about God's purposes, all based of course on good data?

What's the proper place of information and strategy in God's global church?

What does the church in other cultures have to teach us about this?

I'm not saying we throw up our hands or throw out the tools at our disposal, I'm just thinking perhaps we need equal doses of humility and dependence on God's power, as we pursue the mandates God has given.

Today's "better data" might give us some prophetic insights, as an expert rightly suggested to me the other day; but then, so can God, 100% of the time.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- James 4:13-14 

I realize that the season of "What did you give up for Lent" is over, but hear me out.

Fasting is usually associated with renouncing food and water, but it can be the intentional deprivation of almost anything.

Here are 12 things to try living without, for a day or so. Not all at the same time necessarily.

What's the motivation? The point of these exercises is not punishment nor penance, but A) to empathize with those who regularly experience scarcity or deprivation, B) to process what we can learn from this association, and C) to choose ways we could live differently or make a difference to others in our world in these areas.

This is an encouragement for us to mimick Jesus, who although he was God, did not not regard equality with God as something to be held onto, but emptied himself... (Philippians 2)

Food. Fast for 24 hours now and then, both as a spiritual exercise and as an act of solidarity with the world's poor, many of whom go without any food some days, not by choice. Do you share your food? How? Can you channel the sensation of hunger into an act of prayer and worship?

Water. Try going 8 or 16 hours without drinking any liquids. (Do check with your doctor first.) Talk to a friend about what it was like. What difference is there between having enough to drink, and the "living water" Jesus claimed to be? What would it be like to no longer thirst? What would it be like to "thirst for righteousness?"

Comfort. Sleep on the floor for a night. Turn the heat way down or the air conditioning off. Give up the recliner for a day, or furniture in general. What would it be like to live without comfort?

Cleanliness. Skip your shower. Wear yesterday's clothes (yes the underwear too). Sprinkle some dirt on the floor where you live. Don't wash your face. What would it be like to have only godliness, no cleanliness?

Electricity. If you can't turn off the main circuit breaker (because your frozen food would spoil) at least try turning off all your lights and skip active use of electricity for a day and a night. Candles instead of lightbulbs. Only analog, no digital. Is electricity a luxury, or an essential?

Literacy. Try reading nothing for a day. No web, no newspaper, no books. You may need to try this on a Saturday, because most of our student obligations and jobs these days require a person to read. What if you couldn't read the Bible for yourself? While you fast from literacy for a spell, think about the world's illiterate, who are cut off from so much because they simply haven't had a chance to learn to read. What if all written materials were outside your reach?

Television. Going without something that arguably brings more negative than positive content into the lives of 6 billion people, this one is a prime candidate to sacrifice as an experiment. If you do, talk to 5 friends about what you learned. Maybe even make some choices and changes about your use of time as it relates to television. Some people observe "Turn It Off" week once a year, and some realize that life without any TV at all is as much gain as loss.

Information. This one is related to giving up things like television, literacy, electricity, and the like. Information is a currency. What if we had almost no access to current information by digital or broadcast means - news, weather, schedules, warnings, or worst of all, movie times? What if we had to depend on human word-of-mouth for all our information? Information seems like a good thing, but Western society can be rather addicted to it.

Choices. This is a hard one, to self-deprive the luxury of choice. One of the most basic definitions of poverty is a lack of choices. So try living without them for a day or two. Take note of the hundreds of choices that we, among the world's wealthy, are privileged to make every day. (Sure, choices can be a burden too, but that's for another day.) One way to do this one is A) implement some reminder to remain aware of your constant choosing, and B) when you find yourself choosing, give up the right to choose and ask someone to choose for you. It might even lead to some enlightening conversations.

Freedom of Faith. Live for a day, or a few days, as if you had NO freedom to practice the faith of your choosing. What if even to quietly acknowledge your faith in Jesus would put you in danger of rejection, incarceration, or even threaten your life.

Also, this can be a strange one... what if a typical day involves no observable proclamation in my life that I follow Jesus? If freedom of religion was taken away, would I need to live differently? Would anyone notice my exercise of faith on a typical day? For some of us, perhaps visible allegiance is the lesson here, more than the issue of freedom.

Clocks. Much of the world lives without dependence on clocks, punctuality, the precision of starting and stopping on a predetermined schedule. Try taking off your watch and turning all your clocks face down on the nearest table, and go through a day. You'll have just as much time as anyone else in the world. How are relationships with people affected by unclocking yourself?

Holy Deprivation, Batman. If none of the above engages you, then create your own #12: name something that's important to you, and fast from that for a day or more. iPod? Dessert? Sleep? Gossip? Music? Discretionary time? XBox? Shopping?

Try throwing it off for a while. See what you learn.

If you try any of these things, be sure to also do this: choose one action that you will carry out, with God's help, as a result of what you learned.

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

- Isaiah 58:6-7

Thank God it's Friday. (Or whatever other acronym definitions come to mind in the weeks to come. This is the first weekly installment of a possibly weekly feature on the Whirled View Blog.)

For today, it's the "usual" TGIF, straight up. It's Friday. Thank God.

In much of the world, this day marks the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend. The closure of a week of employment, commuting, office politics, drudgery, and for some, the opportunity to actually do what they love and get paid for it.

For many, work is a necessity. For many, it's a love-hate thing. For some it's a horrible drudgery, an evil necessity for existence, providing nothing more than income, via some kicking and screaming, or maybe quiet submission. Do you struggle through life to make it to the weekends? Is there any alternative, with God's help?

Friday is the night many people go out for dinner, to usher in the weekend. If you've ever tried to go to a restaurant on Friday night, you know this by the 45 minute wait.

In the Muslim world, which today spans beyond the Middle East association to almost every country, Friday is the Holy Day of the week, it's their Sunday; their day of prayer. Many Muslims who don't go to the mosque on other days of the week to pray will at least go on Friday.

Because of this switch with Sunday, where I lived as a kid in the Middle East, our "weekend" was Thursday and Friday, instead of Saturday and Sunday. Just like in the "west" we had a day off, then the holy day, then the new week would begin on Saturday.

In several Islamic countries today, even though Friday is the holy day, the weekend is still Saturday and Sunday because global businesses operate on Monday through Friday, and too much business interaction would be lost if the overlap was constricted to 3 days. So in these places, the Muslim holy day is squeezed into the afternoon of the last (Fri)day of their workweek.

Today, do thank God it's Friday. Whether it's the start or the end of your weekend, it's another day you've lived as someone created by God, and sustained through another day.

This Friday I'm wondering, why did God institute this cycle of seven, including one day of rest every seven days? Do you observe a day of rest each week? If so, how does it affect the rest of your week?

If you don't, why not?

In Madison, this Earth Day was gorgeous, as if we were granted a special reminder of what beauty was created in this circle we inhabit, entrusted by God to the care of human creatures.

We had sun, wind, warmth, flowers trumpeting their quiet beauty, worms at work, and trees beginning to green again. We even had some thunder and lightning this evening. God is the ultimate artist, with an insanely diverse palette.

After recent snow here, today's warmth was wonderful, but we're reminded often these days that there is an approaching danger of too much warmth -- the vast majority of scientists agree that human consumption and activity is shifting the global climate in potentially disastrous ways.

Here are three thoughts.

First... we can expect that the world's poor will disproportionately experience the most devastating effects of climate change, whatever its causes. Rich people can move or buy stuff to deal with most of these harmful changes. Poor people don't have such options.

As Christians, we are called now and in the future to serve the needs of the poor, in the name of Jesus whom we claim to follow.

Right now, in part this means personal lifestyle changes and advocating for broader changes that can be made in the near term, to mitigate and reverse these impacts on global climate in ways that are tangible, achievable, and primarily require willpower and action.

Now and a few decades from now, if devastating changes have not been averted, this may mean that we need to help alleviate new levels of human suffering and meet the needs of millions who suffer from drought (e.g. in Africa) and unforeseen flooding (e.g. in Bangladesh).

If we humans don't act differently on a massive scale, and the scenarios that most scientists predict do play out, major wars will likely be fought over drinking water, and over huge migrations of people away from uninhabitable places.

God's church is and will be in the midst of this, and our mandate will be the same as it always has been.

Christians are called to provide a cup of water, shelter, food, and community, as if we were providing them for Christ himself; to proclaim the "whole good news" of new life in the Kingdom of God.

Second... I find my patience is tested by a few Evangelicals who are pretending that the care of creation (and the devastating effects on God's creation if we don't) is a second- or third-rate moral issue, or not a moral issue at all. A few prominent Evangelicals who have taken this position make me angry, make me grieve, and make me feel ashamed and embarrassed.

I'm tempted to name a few names, but I'll refrain.

In spite of some wonderful ways some of these folks have been used by God, this seems to be a reminder that even people powerfully used by God are also fallible and weak and can travel down the wrong paths. (Just like Moses, David, Jonah, Peter, and many other big names all had their fallen moments.)

We need to love (even) detractors from the truth as the brothers and sisters they are; but we don't need to waffle or be apologetic for what all of scripture seems to cry out: that it is indeed a MAJOR moral issue that we followers of Jesus DO care for all of God's creation, and that we DO particularly care for the poor in whatever ways they suffer, especially when their suffering is due to poor human stewardship of creation for the past few centuries.

Third... we must act in community, not as individual silos of knee-jerk quick-fix impulsiveness. Me changing my lightbulbs or thermostat or gas guzzling vehicle is well and good (really, it's crucial), but if we make these changes in the context of community and healthy accountability, we will have much more impact together than if we privately try to make small changes.

The shared motivation, communal responsibility and cumulative influence of acting in concert with others will not only have a broader impact, but will carry political clout. Political leadership and change has a valid and necessary part in this, even though government is not the whole answer or necessarily the biggest piece of the answer.

There is a place for political action, for Christians to demand of our government that we must cooperate with other leading nations in global agreements that urgently address global climate change. To whine, "but we don't want to do things that would cost our national economy" has the ring of foolishness.

Our political leaders who have their blinders on need to hear from their constituents, especially Christians, demanding responsible leadership in the face of global climate change that is knocking on our global door. Of course it will cost.

For example, the way this current administration in the U.S. has repeatedly sidestepped the consensus of the Kyoto treaties for several years is appalling and shameful, and Christians should be screaming for proactive diplomatic leadership in such multinational efforts, instead of the ostrich-mimicking that our nation -- the superpower and biggest producer of greenhouse gases -- has been guilty of. We should be providing leadership, not repeatedly leaving the table without explanation. To many other countries, our lack of participation is not only surprising, it is morally appalling.

We can't solve this problem with status quo. Consumption has to give. Wallets are not immune. Sure, clean energy may cost more than dirty energy. (Maybe not.) And yes, this is a moral issue for Christians.

Regardless from what party it would come, I long for some political leadership that represents even a FEW of the core values that Jesus taught and demonstrated and ultimately for which he gave his life.

Happy Earth Day, really -- as a matter of worship and God-given, somewhat scary responsibility. This earth is somewhat scarred but it's still beautiful, isn't it?

It's never too late to thank God for all of creation and to do whatever we can here and now to care for what has been entrusted to us.

Everything we are, breathe, taste, see, and appreciate was made by God for our shared enjoyment and for our good stewardship. It was also made as a platform for worshipful obedience, that God might be glorified.

Each generation is responsible for its own obedience to all of God's Word.

"The earth is the LORD's,
and everything in it,
the world,
and all who live in it;

for he founded it
upon the seas
and established it
upon the waters.

Who may ascend the
hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand
in his holy place?

He who has clean hands
and a pure heart,
who does not lift up
his soul to an idol
or swear by
what is false."

Psalm 24:1-4

will you be found
behind some stone
where we feared
you would be
at the sudden
downright early
end of story?

should we watch
impossible places
where you said
you would be
after three
dark days of
resignation?

is that you
standing with a
gardener's patience
for your voice
to register
as you speak
our given names?

one day might
we step out of
our good grief
to just believe
you not only say
as you do but
do as you say?

would we suffer
so much loss
to choose a
simple faith in
the first fruits
of your red
stained stead?