I Am The Day Of Current Taste

Books that shaped my 2011.

2011-12-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

Ok, It's that time of year. The time when lists of every kind and sort show up on anonymous blogs everywhere. So as I seem to be in the spirit today, I'll share with you some books that churned my heart, invigorated my mind, and fed my soul in 2011. So here they are, in no particular order. I hope you enjoy.

The Call by Os Guinness

I was assigned this book to read for a spiritual formation class, and from the look of it, was not excited. But I was really floored from the introduction on by Os Guinness' ability to weave art, literature, history and the humanities into gripping illustrations of spiritual longing and transformation. The book is written from a Biblical worldview, but is quite accessible to anyone yearning for a deeper meaning in life without having to default to fluffy New-Age Oprahism. What was particularly helpful were the chapters on calling as a way of life, not just a vocation. He successfully crushes the idea of "ministry" that is only available in the full-time vocational places like the pastorate or missionary work. I would highly recommend this to any person who wants to target what the call of their life is in respond to the calling of Jesus Christ.

A Meal With Jesus by Tim Chester

Tim Chester lays out here a biblical theology of meals and hospitality here with wisdom and insight, showing that a seemingly mundane event can reveal to us God's grace, draw us into God's community, and send us out on God's mission. I was deeply moved multiple times while reading of how "The Son of Man came eating and drinking..." and how Jesus used meal to bring healing and to point the a bigger reality in which we will all someday eat a meal with God in His kingdom. He brings you from Genesis to Revelation, pulling the thread of meals through the entirety of Scripture, and showing us how to eat to God's glory.

Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl by N.D. Wilson

An intellectually and spiritually rousing collection of prose, opening us up to the wonder of the world we live in, all spoken by an infinitely powerful but intrinsically available God. If you feel like so much of the literature on apologetics is dry, wooden and unengaging, I would suggest you pick up a copy of this book. He opens up the blinds and shows you a beautiful, but badly broken world. A world that never stops moving, a world that is more alive than we ever imagined, and behind this beautiful world is a beautiful Poet, a magnificent Artist who is just waiting for his masterpiece to see Him and rejoice with Him in all that he has done.

King's Cross by Tim Keller

You can never go wrong with a book by Tim Keller. He is my favorite author, and I never get sick of reading him tell a story and weave the Gospel beautifully through it. King's Cross is no different, and I would argue might be Keller at his best. He goes through the Gospel of Mark, showing that the story of the whole world --- all of our goals, our stories, our desires are seen most clearly in the life of Jesus. In every story Keller pulls through the storyline of the Bible, centers it on Jesus, and invites us to take part in the story that shapes all of history. Please don't pass this book up. I promise you won't be disappointed.

The Hidden Life of Prayer by David M'Intyre

An old classic, reprinted for a new generation to glean from; few things in the world of publishing are better. That is what we find in David M'Intyre's little treatise on prayer. the good minister focuses in on one verse, where Jesus tells his disciples that "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you", and spends 120 pages bringing that into the ordinary Christians life. I personally was captured up by M'Intyre's vision of communion with the Lord, and it has profoundly shaped my private prayer life.

The Same Kind Of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

This may have been the most powerful book of the year for me. The story is told from two different angles: one man, a powerful and successful art dealer, and the other man, a sharecropper's son, in all accounts, a modern-day slave. Each chapter is told by one of these men, recalling the sometimes unbelievable details of their lives, and showing the power of the Gospel to change men of every sort. I rarely cry while reading, but this book had me broken in several place, and rejoicing over grace in others. I had a tough time putting it down at many times, and would gladly pass it on to you.

When People Are Big And God is Small by Edward Welch

Some books are for the mind, like "Notes...", some are for the hear like "Same Kind..." and some are for you soul. Ed Welch's book on the fear of man is definitely one of those books. Dr. Welch, speaking from his own experiences, scholarly expertise and years of counseling brings us before God's gracious presence to show us what fear does to a soul, what we do to enable others to control us, and what God has done in Jesus to free us from that. He builds a stunning case from Scripture about how to understand the fear of man, and how to graciously come under the fear of God. I would commend this book to anyone who feels that they cower under the demands of others and how the Gospel can address a heart broken by fear and co-dependancy.

So, those are the books that have shaped my life, heart and thinking this year, and I hope they can be helpful to you as well.

The Last Words of a King.

2011-12-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

Near the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's magnum opus series "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", Aragorn, the wandering ranger and true king of Gondor gives a rousing last call to fight hard and die well. He is preparing his army, which is being surrounded by an army of 10,000 orcs, to fight with everything they have until the very end, and he is willing to die on the battlefield with his men, like a true king. He yells, triumphantly,

"Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

We, who likewise belong to a kingdom, have all heard the same call from our King: The last words that have driven His people forward for almost 2000 years.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

This time of year we remember how our King stepped of His throne, out of His castle and entered our pitiful village. He called men to follow him, and then led the charge against our enemies of Satan, sin, death and hell, dying on the battlefield of Golgotha, winning the fight we could not win, by giving up the life we should've given. Like a true king, he dies on the battlefield. But death couldn't hold our King. He rose to take His throne, and rule his people righteously. And as this Kingdom rule is revealed, the King declares that it must be heralded. Good news must be told of this victorious King and his Kingdom of Grace.

But I was thinking as I watched Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas and others tear through a wall of orcs, what would have happened if Aragorn's speech had fallen on deaf ears? As they were surrounded by swarms of enemies, would they just collapse under pressure? Aragorn knew that the only way out of hell, was through it. So, what would've happened if Jesus' disciples left the mission of the Gospel behind? The most important and life-altering event in history would've passed unnoticed. We would sit, two millennia removed, knowing nothing of the salvation and kingship of Jesus Christ, and we would remain lost, wandering in a foreign and oppressive kingdom with no knowledge of the rescuing King and his Kingdom of Grace.

Don't go AWOL, move forward with the command of our good King. Tell of His great battle with death, his victory over sin, and His gracious reign and rule over all of life. Herald Him as the Great King he is, and bring His kingdom into view in all of life.

The longest Sabbath ever.

2011-08-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

"On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment."
Luke 23:56

This does not seem like the proper response after your rabbi, master and lord has just been executed for a crime he did not commit. If I was one of the disciples I would most certainly freaking out right now, despite Jesus' multiple proclamations that this is exactly what was going to happen (see Luke 9:18-22). In my mind, Jesus was going to be established as king, overthrow Rome, and usher a new Golden Age of Israel. He was definitely NOT going to die by the hands of these very same Romans. But isn't it interesting that the one full day Jesus lay dead in a tomb just happened to be the Sabbath? Now, the Sabbath is all about rest. In Genesis, God makes everything in six days, and on the seventh He rests. God does not need to rest. God is not tired after a full work week. God is doing something here. He is intentionally wiring the world to work in a certain way, a certain rhythm. God wants creation to enter a rhythm of work and rest, work and rest. The Sabbath teaches us not to rely on ourselves but to trust in God by resting in His work for us.

So then why is Jesus in the ground on the Sabbath? Because he has finished his work and now it is time to rest in that work. That is what God does. Jesus as the eternal God already has a track record of resting after a magnificent work; first in creation, and secondly in salvation. But Jesus does not need to rest after the work of the cross. The rest is for us. We are the ones that need to rest in God's work. If the disciples actually listened to Jesus and understood what was taking place, then they would be resting in the fact that God has finished His redemptive work and wait for Jesus to rise from death. But instead they had lost all hope that Jesus was who he said he was. Luke 24:21 accounts two disciples reaction to the whole scenario, "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel." I can just hear the despair in their voices; "we had hoped..." I'm quite sure that although God had planned to have the death of Jesus land on a Sabbath, the disciples did not grasp the full reality of this move. for them the Sabbath was a routine part of life, and so the deep truth of this Sabbath must have been lost on them. Maybe it's just me, but I think that the reason God puts so much weight and emphasis on the Sabbath was for this specific day. Every command of God is not just a command in itself, but always points to a bigger reality. The entirety of existence in a sense is packed into 3 days. On Good Friday God works in a magnificent display of glory, He rests on the Sabbath, and then He ushers in a new creation. God's intent in the Sabbath falling between the cross and resurrection is to teach us to rest in God's work for us, trusting in his atoning work and looking forward to his resurrecting power. And notice that he is not "suggesting" we rest, he is commanding it. "On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment (emphasis mine). Our command is not to impress God in our work, but to be impressed by His work and rest in that.

So if we take this passage and zoom out to see all of redemptive history, it would seem that we are living in the longest Sabbath ever. we live between Good Friday (God's magnificent work) and Easter Sunday (His new creation). The whole life of a Christian is one long Sabbath; we behold the work of God on our behalf, live our lives in light of that work, not adding to it, and we wait for Him to resurrect everything. So behold the marvelous atoning work of Jesus, rest in it, and wait in hope for the New Creation.

A Brother Lawrence moment

2011-05-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

I think I had a Brother Lawrence moment tonight...

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection was a monk living in Paris in the 17th century who, although keeping a lowly position as a kitchen worker in a monestary, has had a profound influence on believers for centuries, mainly for his book "The Practice of the Presence of God" which accounts how Brother Lawrence communed with God in mundane, everyday tasks. It was said that people would come from miles around just to watch him do the dishes, because he did them with such joy, and that joy was infectious to others.

At the end of a long and exhausting (but incredible) day, I spill a whole bucket of mop water all over the floor at Origin Coffee right before I was ready to leave. But before I had the chance to get frustrated and angry, God stilled my heart and asked me to enjoy this moment. Everything seemed to slow down, and I just started praying for a friend whom I saw tonight and it turned out to be the best part of my day (which is no small remark considering I saw two of my best friends get married, danced and partied with some crazy awesome people AND played Mumford covers at open mic night). There, mopping up the huge mess I just made, I was at peace, and felt the joy of the presence of God. Anything could've happened in that moment, and I would have been ok, because my joy was rooted in such a way that nothing could be taken from me, even if EVERYTHING was. It's funny, because we chase after that moment, that experience, that feeling, and forget the object that is behind our catharsis. People travel to distant countries, uproot their whole lives, join massive movements, all to find some sense of satisfaction, joy or excitement, and I stumbled upon it in a puddle of dirty mop water. God wants to be with you in the ordinary, often more than in the extraordinary because we live most of our lives in that; the everyday not-specialness. God wants your laundry time and your rush hour commute and your smoke break and your cleaning accidents.

Leave the mountaintops to the religious; let's live with Jesus here in the valley.

Behind the shadow.

2010-12-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

As a child, I was fascinated by shadows. I vividly remember Independence Day when I was four, and my parents took me to the park in our small mountain town where a 4th of July carnival was going on. As we walked down the street in the late afternoon, our shadows seemed to dance on the pavement, and my parents seemed tall as giants, their massive limbs swaying like the branches of an autumn tree, seemingly weightless with the absence of its leaves. But oddly, as my shadow grew along with me, my fascination with it did not. The mystical quality of them dwindled, and as shadows seem to blend into the night, irrecognizable from the surrounding darkness, so did my fascination with them. This was until my sophomore year of high school, when an encounter with Jesus in the Scriptures re-ignited a curiosity once lost with these dancers of the dark. As I read the Bible, and other theological works, I began to see what both Paul in Colossians and the author of Hebrews describe as “…a shadow of things to come” (Col.2:17, Heb. 10:1). I've been reading Exodus a lot lately, and this theme has literally been jumping out at me, so I thought I share a bit. The Book of Exodus is a story of redemption, and of the making of a redeemed people, by and for a personal God, who reveals himself simply as “It is I who will be with you”

This personal God makes Himself known and declares He will redeem those whom He has promised blessing and will secure them against all their enemies. He then works against these enemies with mighty acts of power to save them from endless slavery. But redemption is never free, and the cost is severe. Blood must be spilt to snatch people from the clutches of bondage and death. This sacrifice institutes a feast, where they celebrate the fact that God has looked over their sin because of the blood that was spilled. Then God makes them a people by sending help and offering Himself if they will have faith in Him. He makes order out of chaos, appointing people to carry out the charges He gives them, and gives them authority to lead and guide this Redeemed into the fullness of joy and blessing. As they live out this blessed life, in touch with their Creator and Rescuer, others, who are trapped in their own slavery, look to this Redeemer for transformation in their lives, and the pattern continues. The Redeemed become instruments of hope, bringing the story of redemption to everyone near them, in hops that they will “taste and see that the LORD is good’ and be saved from their bondage to false lords and false gods. So, I come back to my point at the beginning; we can see a shadow and have an idea what is casting it, but with out seeing the full form, we will always be in the dark. That is why we have to remember; behind the shadow, there’s a person.

Business as usual.

2010-09-07T14:33:00.001-07:00

I saw this as I drove around, trying to acclimate myself somewhat to the City of Reno, and it immediately brought up some questions like, "What kind of church was this?", "What happened?", "Where did the people go?", and "How long did it take for the Gospel to lose it's power and for religious duty to set in?". As I pondered these things today, I came to realize that for many of the churches peppering the American landscape, the stark reality is that they don't look much different than this bank does. Many churches treat Christian faith like an exchange of goods and services. You come in, deposit something of value, get sound advice from a professional and hope that you earn a return on your investment. So the question is "Are you surprised by this church-bank conversion?" I'm saddened for sure, but surprised, I am not. Now obviously I didn't know this church personally, but I do know the Gospel, and I understand the cultural landscape of Reno pretty well. What inevitably happens in every church that stops proclaiming the Gospel is that first the mission goes, then the giving goes, then the community goes, and on and on until there is no longer a gospel people doing gospel things for gospel reasons, but a people who revert to "business as usual" by just coming, consuming and refusing to serve or give themselves to any task that is not about them. See, the Gospel is the opposite of "business as usual", and the church stands and falls on the Gospel. No person, idea, funding or persistence can keep it alive, and eventually everyone will just give up, because they no longer have anything to fight for. So pastors, do you live, lead and preach like your building a business, or are you receiving a kingdom and building into that? Christians, why do you come to church? do you come for an exchange of goods and services, hoping to increase your spiritual pay-off, or do you come to sacrificially love, serve and give for the sake of the Gospel?

May our churches never look like banks, but like hospitals for the sick, families for the orphans and refuge for the vagrants.

The Sins Of Our Fathers.

2009-12-14T11:51:00.001-08:00

I have been in a funk lately. For the last couple weeks it seems like nothing I do has had any meaning or validity to it. It has felt like I left my life at the bus stop or the mall around Thanksgiving and never made the effort to go back and find it but instead have just tried to get by without; like my livelihood has been that favorite pair of jeans that are dirty but I've just been too lazy to wash them so I just stick with wearing the ones that are a size too small. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I hadn't stolen anything, looked at porn or betrayed anyone lately, so why did I feel like crap? I was reading my Bible, but the words seemed distant, I was spending time in prayer, but my praises and requests seemed too ephemeral, like they were getting lost somewhere between me and God. I felt lonely, even though I was constantly surrounded by people; good people. What was this thing, this feeling that was keeping me down, keeping me stuck in second gear? I asked God to show me, but all I could think about was my Dad.

His birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and although I have made a couple of efforts to see him, I just couldn't track him down. He can be a hard man to find at times. He doesn't own a cell phone, has never been on a computer, and I would be surprised if he knew what the Internet was. He is 54 and lives with some friends in a mobile home in the small mountain town I grew up in. He works as a roofer, has worn the same ratty Giant's hat for the last 20 years and I can't picture him without a beer in his hand. He is a good, kind-hearted man who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He is also the definition of the word pagan. Now, most of us when we hear the word "pagan" conjure up images of men in black robes with goats and pentagrams tattooed on their arms dancing around a fire in the woods. While that maybe one description of the term, it's certainly not what the people of Jesus' time thought of. The word pagan in its greek roots refers to people who live in rural areas and work with the land for survival and tend to worship things like trees, animals and other objects in the natural order. A professor I once had defined a pagan as "the guy who lives on the farm." Now my father would never be described as a religious man, but my mother once told me that the one conversation she had with him on the subject had my father telling her that he believed in the Sun, that we were grown in the ground and the Sun grows us and we should worship the Sun because that is were life comes from(I could make a really cheesy christian joke right now about worshipping "the Son" and totally over-spiritualize this, but I'll save that for my friend Andy). That my friends is paganism. I never really thought he was serious about this until I started thinking about his life and the way it plays out. You see, my father is a man completely devoid of any purpose, goals or aspirations, and has been since as far back as I can remember. Now he is not lazy or irresponsible in the traditional sense; he works hard at a blue-collar construction job and has since before I was born, but he is extremely lazy and irresponsible in the sense of having his life go somewhere. Nothing drives him. Nothing stirs him. Nothing tugs at his inner being and pulls him to achieve or excel. If I could link these two things together, his paganistic beliefs and his complete lack of purpose, I would have to say that because he sees life as just part of the natural order, no different than a tree or a waterfall or a badger, then that is what leads him to be totally bankrupt of drive and desire. I wondered what it must be like for my dad, floating through life aimlessly, moving from job to job, bar to bar, never quite having a destination but driving anyway. Then it hit me, this is how I have felt for the last 3 weeks.

You see, we all inherit things from our parents; things like eye color, metabolism and heart disease. But we also inherit spiritual qualities. we carry around a generational sin, an iniquity that can be traced down the very roots of our family tree. for some of us it's anger, for some it's alcoholism, for me it's laziness and futility. My father passed down to me and my brothers(although both of them have taken two wildly different paths with it) a sense that nothing we do matters, and it's too hard to do anyway, so why bother? It has permeated nearly every area of my life and has been something I have fought for 10 years, with mixed results. To be completely honest, It is a daily battle for me to get up early, shower, brush my teeth, eat right, exercise, do my homework, and take care of myself, and these last couple weeks have been a massive failure on most of those fronts. It has been a sin I have needed to repent of, and this is my confession. God has been showing me that I am not my father, I do not have to live his life and It would be sin of the highest order to deny the new life He has given me for my dad's life that I was sure to repeat without God's mercy and intervention. It will be 10 years that I have been walking(or stumbling) with Jesus this week and I have been dwelling on the state of my life had it had not been for the irresistible call of of the Gospel on that cold Thursday night a decade ago. The problem is that I have been living like that never happened. I have been living like God hasn't call me out of darkness and into light, beckoning me toward the godward life of making much of Jesus. It is so easy for us to revert to some old version of ourselves because we know where that self will go and what they will do, but to live in the moment, as one chasing after Jesus is the most dangerous thing one can experience. That is what we were made for, not some meaningless cycle of eat, sleep, work, repeat, die. It is so hard for me to live purposefully, proclaiming the name of Jesus, but it is the only reason I am alive. It is the only reason you are alive. For those that know me, I invite you into my life. Help keep me accountable to the life God has called me to. I only seeing it getting harder, but God has not given me my fathers life. He has given me my own and does not expect to live his mistakes, follies or regrets. I hope this has been a blessing to you, and that God will show you that you have been given no one else's life but your own, and even though we carry around the burden of our parents sin, "The Spirit has set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death"(Romans 8:2), and we no longer need to follow their mistakes, but learn by the grace of God that he is true when he says "Look, I am making all things new!"

An exercise in futility.

2009-09-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you live in the suburbs, or if you have a grasp of what life is like here in the bedroom communities of America; but let me give you one little insight into the culture I happen to live in. This morning I volunteered with some guys from church for a festival of sorts called "Woofstock." Last year, all the volunteers bailed out at the last minute and so my church stepped in a provided some hands in order to pull the event off. They asked us back this year, which we considered a privilege to help out in any way we can. We want to be good for the city, and sometimes that means setting up booths for doggy day care spas.

Woofstock, in short it was a gathering of dog lovers to make much of their dogs by treating them like people and buying them a bunch of crap they don't need. Apart from all the commentary I could make on the ridiculousness of this experience(which could very well go on forever), I want to focus shortly on one thing. In the suburbs, people will go to great lengths, and spend exuberant amounts of money to please their dogs and impress their neighbors, but would never even think of doing half the work it took to pull of an event like Woofstock for displaced people groups in Africa or sex trade victims in Asia. This is one more reason why we need Jesus so much, and why apart from the good news of the Cross, we are just selfish idolators who rob God of his glory by giving it to other things. This event had professional dog etiquette trainers, custom made oak dog kennels, and gourmet dog biscuit companies. Anything and everything you could think of to get for your canine friend was advertised and demonstrated for your consumer pleasure. Here's the problem: While I happen to love dogs and have owned and treasured many of my own, a dog is not a worthy thing to devote this kind of time, talent and treasure on. In the global and eternal scale of things, Woofstock was(apart from a chance to point our community to Jesus) an exercise in futility. It did not ease suffering in the world, it did not change things on a eternal level, and most people are going to forget about it tomorrow. I don't want to devote my life to such useless commodities and activities. I want to say at the end of my life that it wasn't about music, writing, people, relationships, money, style or experience. I weep for those who stand before Jesus and try to explain why they spent $500 on a custom dog kennel when somewhere in the world, a child dies every 5 seconds from starvation. Even in the suburban facade of mellow, pleasant perfection, things are more dire than we think, people are more broken than we can possibly imagine and devotion ends up in the most impotent of places. That is why I'm so thankful for Jesus, because He loved the rich, religious and resilient Pharisees with a deep and unrelenting passion. And although they for the most part did not repent, there IS hope for us in Suburbia, who have the same problems. Maybe we can repent of our apathy, consumerism and counterfeit righteousness and turn to trust in the Savior who died for our fake piety, so we could take on his genuine holiness. Maybe we can focus our lives away from worthless things and on to a hurting, dying world that is bleeding out and doesn't even know it. Maybe Woofstock will turn into Save-an-orphans-lifestock(not as catchy, i know). Maybe suburban life can be known for generosity and love and mercy. Maybe.

Authenticity is not cool.

2009-07-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Amid our culture of pluralism and ambiguity there always needs to be a constant and deliberate defining of terms. Some so-called "buzz words" are thrown aimlessly around like drunken punches in a bar fight, hoping to strike a gut reaction from some poor innocent bystander. We all know these words. For some they sting deep in our literary senses, knowing the cheapening and overuse of beautiful words like "organic,' "communal," "authentic," and "missional" will somehow lead to the unfortunate and early death of these because all the meaning will have been stripped away.

But what if these words weren't cool anymore? What if we took them at face value, and instead of dressing them up in equivocation and placing them in our smooth, confident sentences for all to admire without ever asking what in the world we are really talking about, we would begin to flesh out what these verbally aesthetic appellations actually mean?

This became clear for me a couple nights ago while I was at my local free trade hipster coffee shop. Prior to this, I had dinner with some friends who have been trying to live life together intentionally, being open and honest and loving one another, not matter how its makes them look, and was super encouraged by the example set forth in this group's lives. So, after dinner I headed over to grab a cup of coffee and read. Now, I am consistently not cool enough to hang out at this particular establishment. I even wore my V-neck and skinny jeans, and still felt a bit out of place. If this was five years ago I might be able to hang, but now that I am in my mid-twenties, with responsibilities and a few extra pounds it just won't work. As I sit reading, enjoying my two and half dollar cup of french press, my ears perk and I tune into a conversation being had by two 18 year old scenesters with hebrew tattoos, wearing "To Write Love On Her Arms" shirts and brand new TOMS. One girl started talking about a local college ministry she attends(which most people at this coffee shop, including the owners also attend), trying to convince the other to come check it out, saying that is real and authentic, and maybe they might fit in there. Now, I have been to this event a few times, and while it a great place to meet people, hear a great worship band, and be moved by an attention-grabbing, entertaining speaker; I don't know if "authentic" is the best word to describe it. So, I pondered this girls choice of words for some time, wondering why authentic and real was the phrase she landed on. Then I came to a realization. Authenticity is a really cool word, but actually being authentic is not.

Now, we live in a day where the prototypical example of this new generation of Christian community includes nothing more than proximity and affinity. Community for us simply means that you are in close proximity to other Christians and/or share common interests and perspectives. The only problem with that is the Bible. We see in the Book of Acts that those who believed in and followed Jesus "had all things in common" and "suffered together for the sake of the Gospel." We do not create community. Jesus is the only one that can create community; because Jesus' idea of community is "all nations, tribes, languages and peoples" coming together to worship the King and bring hope to the world around them. Only then will we truly begin to understand words like authenticity. You see, being authentic is not cool, because it's messy. Being authentic means you have to be vulnerable, imperfect, laid bare for all to see and hopeless with out a Savior. I experienced this at dinner before my little epiphany. these people were not "cool" in the way the people at the coffee shop were. There were young married couples with kids and regular old God-glorifying jobs, overworked singles sacrificing dreams for the sake of the Gospel, and starving college students with emotional baggage and souls heavy with life. These people cannot afford to be cool. All they can do is enter into community, receive mercy, and in turn go out into the world to give mercy to as many as God would allow them to. So, my admonition to you is to stop trying to be cool, because you are missing out on so much life; ugly, messy, fumblingly beautiful life, to drop the persona and pick up reality, because cool has a momentary shelf-life, but authenticity will never grow old.

The Pursuit Of And Escape From Community.

2009-05-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

So, in the last six months I have transitioned from working for and being a member at a very large church(of which I had been a part of since I got saved) to being a part of a new church plant with is about 1/100th of the size of my former church home. And I have learned a great amount of things about my self and about gospel community in the process, But thing that totally stuck out to me today was this; in my experience, Christians and not-yet-Christians seem to be drawn to different churches for different reasons. Now this is a VERY general statement, and i'm going to be painting this thought for you in very broad strokes, so just realize, this doesn't apply to everybody.

Since the transition to my new church home, It has been much easier for me to invite not-yet-Christians to our corporate gatherings and much harder to invite already-Christians to come. Now, coming from a big church with lots of programs and do-hickeys and laser beams and guitar solos I found it quite simple to get my Christians friends to come but arduously difficult to get my non-Jesus loving friends to check it out, and now I seem to have the opposite happening now.

A couple of days ago I had an eye-opening conversation with a friend who has a passing knowledge of Christianity but would never consider themselves a church-goer. She explained to me in great angst and detail how she felt like going to a large church gathering felt like going to an event or concert instead of engaging in a community of believing peoples. I was struck by her candor and precision in nailing what exactly what she (and I imagine many others) felt was lacking in Churchianity. Now, this in no means is a blast on megachurches. I thank God for the many large congregations in my area because bigger churches generally mean more people meeting Jesus which is always a good thing. The problem is see is this: It seems to me that many christians go to bigger churches so they can escape from being known and not-yet-christians seem to like smaller churches so that they can known. You see, it is much easier to go to a program or event than it is to part of a family. Families are messy, but events are smooth and enjoyable. If we were completely honest (and I know that church is not the place for that), we would admit that even though we try to look good and perform well at church (cuz' thats what you do at church, right?), we are just a broken as the people on "the outside." But if good, church-goin' folk found out who we REALLY ARE, well, what would we do then?? I think the answer comes in "heathen" form. Not-yet-believers want to be known, they deeply desire for the community that we as Jesus' church are supposed to have! They have been so beat up bedraggled and bushwhacked that they just want a place that will met them where they are and love them, not try and fix their life, not try and make them more presentable in church, but just love them with the love of the Father. Can we all agree that its hard to step into unfamiliarity, especially when it comes to church? Then shouldn't we make it as easy as possible to invite people into community?

Now back to the Christians for a moment. Why are we so afraid of Community? Why do we hide away in our massive church buildings and play as if church were an interview to get into heaven? Can't we really believe in a big God and a big Cross and grace enough for everybody's shortcomings? even the most religious and most heathen of us? It seems to me that those outside of church would gladly enter into our fellowship, and honesty, and accountable relationships. Are we just taking up room in church so we look good and check off being "holy" for the week? If so, than I have met plenty of non-believers that would love to take their place, to have what they have. Let's thank Jesus for making community and ask Him how to best use it for his glory and our joy.

Hard Lesson From The Christian Front.

2009-01-08T15:35:00.000-08:00

I got away this week. No phone, no facebook, no iPod, no people. Just Me, a Bible and the silence. I wont go into details because if I did I wouldn't ever finish this note, but i will let you in on one conversation I had with the Lord Jesus.

I see in my self a need to be justified by others and to receive recognition for what I do, and It is really nothing more than a sense of needing to be loved.. It is a blot on my soul that I was most afraid people would find out about. In one sense, it is entirely human, because we are made to feel a need for Justification, and Jesus has accomplished this for us on the Cross. But what I could not seem to get away from is the fact that all that I do, from words, actions and even thoughts seems to get put through this process of "are they going to realize what I have done for them?" or " If I do this, will they love me?" There is an angst that penetrates every fiber of my being that comes from this and I wrestled very deeply with this part of my life in my time away. I cried out to the Lord as David did "My eyes long for your promise;I ask, "When will you comfort me?" I asked him to show me what to do in order that I might understand why I sow and do not reap, why I pour out onto others and do not receive back. Other than being totally selfish and in deep, deep sin because of it, the Lord remained silent for a bit, until he showed me a reel of His earthly life, and how He endlessly poured into to others, healed others, taught others, and cried with others, but had no comforter except the Father, no companion except the Holy Spirit. I saw this and I wept. I wept, because I was trying to be like Jesus, but did not have the framework to understand the cost of what it means to emulate him. The hard lesson I learned is that sometimes you get nothing for your effort, you will reap nothing from your sowing. It does not matter how much you love someone, serve them, pray for them or seek to help them; the plain fact is is that Christian is someone who does not seek any gain. Whether emotional, spiritual, physical or financial; it it not in the heart of Jesus to seek after those things. It hurt deeply to see this and to realize the fact sometimes God ordains people in your life that your job is to pour into them and they will not give as much as a thank you, but that doe not mean that your work was in vain, but that it was not for you to see.

So, I am ok with this now. And I realize the good that God is accomplishing, but still have this inkling to want a return on my investment, and then I realize it is not my investment but His. I am just a steward of His, and should expect nothing but a "well done good and faithful servant" at the end.

hurt.

2008-11-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

I hurt....

Because of sin done by me and sin done against me, my soul aches for healing. I feel a very real and physical pain at my core because sin separates me from God; the giver of life. When I sin, I die a little inside. A small part of me that shone for the glory of God is now blackened by the inky stain of disobedience against a holy and righteous God. This stain, this blot on my soul is right before me. I cannot escape it, and it is seen by all. For Jesus said, "the things whispered in the ears shall be shouted from the rooftops." But my hope is that this God is not removed from my pain, but has experienced it in real human physical form by taking it, all of it upon himself and suffering in my place for the very pain I should have endured. By death, this God has brought life to the very people who have hurt him so that we might not suffer this hurt forever but be healed from the pain we deal and the pain we feel. I know this sin and the pain caused by it will lead to my death as well, but I am confident that because of the death of my God in my place for my sin, that the victory and sting of death will not stand against me but that a better death and a better blood covers my inky black soul and makes me white as snow. In Jesus is the only place where black and red equal white. So, If you're hurting, know that He hurt as well. When you are aching, know He is ready to heal. And when you are dying know that He has been there and back and if you trust in His life. death and resurrection that it will not hold you back either. SIn equals death, but death has been taken care of for those who believe. Life is pain, but pain is only a mile-marker in the journey of faith. Hurt is there, but healing is not far off.

I hurt.... but He hurt for me.

7 Reasons Why the Church is Not a Club.

2008-06-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have been seeing a trend, actually its more of a mindset that is bothering me in the church lately. I am going to keep it brief, but here in short are 7 reasons why the church is not, and should not be a club.

1.
-A club exists to serve the needs of the members.
-The Church exists to be the light of the world.(Matt. 5:14)
2.
-A club exists to promote the values of the club.
-The Church exists to point to Jesus, and only Jesus.(1 Cor. 2:1-2)
3.
-A club is focused inwardly
-The Church is focused externally.(Matt. 28:19-20)
4.
-A club pursues people with similar goals and interests.
-The Church pursues every tribe, nation and tongue(Rev. 14:6)
5.
-A club focuses on the good of the club.
-The Church focuses on being the salt of the Earth.(Matt.5:13)
6.
-A club relies on club leadership to plan, execute and promote said club
-The Church is a body where every part works together for the purpose of Christ.(1 Cor.12:27,Rom. 12:5)
7.
-A club meeting only consists of members of the club.
-A Church service consists of people who love Jesus, don't love Jesus and have never heard of the Gospel of Jesus.(The whole book of Acts)

JC, John Stamos and the day I met Keya.

2008-05-27T11:02:00.001-07:00

So, after an unexpectedly refreshing night of talk and funny red and white cards I realized how much I truly love conversation. Some might see it as a quirk or flaw, but I thoroughly enjoy being able to talk to anybody at anytime about almost anything. I know some of my friends find it endearing yet tiresome my ability to talk and ask questions, but I think there is something deeper here than my gift of gab. Why do we love to communicate? what is about our humanity that yearns for community and expression? I wonder about this quite a bit, and then i came across this peculiar passage in the book of Genesis.

" Then God said, Let US make man in OUR own image, in our likeness....."

Genesis 1:26 (emphasis added)

So, I at first was very confused by this, particularly by the words US and OUR. Now I was no theologian, but I could have sworn there was only one God in the Bible. As I continued to study I realized that God is a relational God because He is on community with Himself. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all are God and all have personalities and voices that make them unique while still maintaining unity. I know as Augustine said " If you reject the Trinity you lose your soul and if your try to explain it, you lose your mind" but i am just trying to figure out what the image of God looks like. I am glad that the Doctrine of the Trinity is true, because if God were by Himself not 3 in 1, then I imagine He would get rather lonely. But I know that God is fully fulfilled in part or in whole because of the His Trinitarian nature.

This is why the Bible says that "God is love."(1 John 4:8) He is the fullest example of love because the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and so on and so forth. So, in this we see why we as humans, created in the image of God desire community, expression and love. We are just emulating our Creator. If we could actually get this concept, wouldn't the world be such a better place? thats why living Imago Dei (the image of God) is so important because the way we treat the Created is how we treat the Creator.

An In-ignorable Humility.

2008-04-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

In the last week, I have had an epiphany of sorts. Thanks to my friends JR and Spectacular, I have come to realize that it always seems to be the good(and by good I mean loving, caring and obedient) christians that think they are bad and the bad(and by bad I mean apathetic and anti-altruistic) christians that seem to think they are good. I think that the "bad" ones think that they are bad because they are comparing themselves to others who have a rigid sound theology and memorized doctrine(which by all means is important). But they will go out of their way to help out a friend or stranger in need. The "good" christians on the other hand are planted firm in their theology, with their creeds memorized and their bibles ready to "do battle", but fail to see the hurting dying world that so desperately needs them to be the hands and feet of the Jesus they so diligently study.

As i was saying, last week I had what you would say a "living discrepancy." I was without a place to lay my head for a couple days and my above listed friends came to my rescue; calling people with empty couches and even paying for a hotel room one night. I was blown away because these particular friends are always telling me how they feel like they are bad christians because they don't study the bible enough or don't know exactly what they believe. all the while I have friends who are in bible college or in ministry in some capacity who don't see the opportunities to serve "the least of these" outside of scheduled homeless outreaches' and troubled youth camps. This all comes down to an in-ignorable humility that followers of Christ should ooze out. Instead of being proud of our knowledge and values we should humbly accept the opportunities we get to serve others.

So, Jr and Spectacular, i want to thank you for being Jesus for me when I needed Him. I think He is very proud of you.

Where are you Lord?

2008-01-18T13:55:00.001-08:00

Last night, after a eye-opening experience at RHOP(the Roseville House Of Prayer) I realized why I haven't felt that God is near lately. This may seem way too simple, but as followers of Christ we are supposed to follow him. That means we will want to go where He is going. As Jesus goes to and fro, we should "be covered in the dust of our Rabbi." We should want to be where he is and not where we want to be. Now as a semi-affluent but rebellious American I have been constantly covered in not dust, but in comfort and complacency, and I am fairly certain that Jesus is not hanging out at Starbucks in Suburbia. Now thats not to say that the coffee-shop goers are being neglected, but we have to keep ourselves in check and realize who is leading us. Are pride, comfort and success leading us down their path, or is Jesus leading us down His dusty trail? I hope as you read this your prayer would be "Take me with you, Lord. I want to go where you are going. I want to be where you are."

So continually ask your self, "do you want to go where Jesus is?" Because He is not always where we'd expect Him to be.

Sneaky Jesus...

A Novel Approach.

2007-11-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

Lately it has become exceedingly apparent that most people think that Christians are bland, unoriginal and boring because we follow a God who has rules. He has these because He created everything and therefore understands how things work. So because of that fact He can makes all the rules He wants. Now He does this for our own benefit, and most of the time we don't see this because we are not God, but "clearly" as my friend Marlene would say they are for such a reason. Moving on, the general consensus is that being a christian is lame because you are bound by these regulations and therefore become stuffy, rigid and obstinate to the world that is breaking the very rules you are trying to follow. But Paul paints a very different picture in Galatians Chapter 5. He states to a people that oddly wanted more rules in order to be a christian( i.e. circumcision, food regulations, etc.), that It is for the very fact of freedom that Christ has set us free. This is the freedom to be unique without being sinful(I believe the Christianese word is holy) by not doing the things everybody else is doing. That is what it means to to be uncommon, individualistic and unique. This striving to be different from everybody else is only accomplished when you stop trying to be different from people and start trying to be like Jesus. You see Christ was the original avant-garde. He was so radically different from everybody else, including the religious leaders of the day that eventually they got so sick of trying to one-up him that they just decided to do away with Jesus by crucifying him among two other different(but in a vastly contrasting way)people. So, may this be a warning to all of you, being an individual is dangerous. Although you probably have nothing to worry about if you are just trying to be different from people. You are human and can never get away from that, so in effect you will always be like other people. But in the journey of becoming like Christ, you will always face opposition because that is when you truly stand apart from the crowd because sin is not different, Holiness is.

Safe.

2007-11-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

In the wake of grief and breakdown, something beautiful can happen. I say it can happen, because in my previous downtrodden times I have yet to experience the grace and unequivocal acceptance as I have experienced in what we as Jesus' disciples call "the body of Christ" in these last two days. Its liken to a ship that has so many functions to remain afloat in a storm that they cant possibly be handled by one person, so the whole crew works fluidly together to stay on course. This body that I call my family has literally picked my sinking ship out of the ocean of despair and placed me in the harbor of safety.

When asked about this body, "what can the church offer that the rest of humanity cannot?",I answer only one thing. You think there would be many things, but it seems that after a hard look at this question I only see only one gleaming answer. The church can offer a safe place to fail. When the world demands perfection or at the very least a strong will and strong perseverance, the Body can offer a place for those weak and imperfect souls who long for acceptance and the support they need. For those who consider themselves self-assertive, tenacious and strong towers for others, you will someday find that as I did, your breaking point is much closer than you ever thought. luckily, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."(@ Corinthians 12:9)

Reality is a funny thing. The lengths and ends we go to in order to avoid or create our own always seems to amaze me, and when God decides we are living too arrogantly or too proud of our strength, He is never hesitant to take us down a notch. It is only then that you realize the most humbling situation you can experience is a change in your reality.

A realistic map.

2007-10-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

A few months ago i was in Portland and was staying with some newly acquired friends there and In their living room there was a fairly large map of the world.  The first time i noticed i almost just shrugged it off, but then realized this was a very unique map.
Now, most maps have half of the Pacific Ocean on the left followed by the United States in the center and Europe, Africa and Asia finishing it off on the right.  But this map was different.  It was as if someone took the normal map described above and flipped it around so its was in essence backwards.  This perfectly odd map started with the Atlantic Ocean on the left and proceeded with Asia, Africa and Europe in the middle and the lonely U.S. in the corner.  So, for the first time in my life i saw the world in a whole new light.  We were not the center of the world.  Literally.  Maybe this is the reason that we are such a country of hearers, not doers.  This place reeks of stagnation.  We sit around and think that the rest of the world has their problems and they should have to deal with them on their own.  Little do we know that Christians in the U.S. are still practicing "isolationism" while the rest of the world is engaging in world affairs.  For once we can learn something from the "secular" world. Sometimes they  engage culture better than we do, and we have the answers to the questions they are asking.

What i am getting at is that we as the blessed should focus our blessing onto a world that is hurting, lonely and dying.  One amazing organization striving to do this is the Jubilee movement.  This organization works toward debt relief and poverty reduction in third world countries in many ways but one big way is they have introduced a resolution (HR 2634) into Congress this summer and are trying to introduce it into the Senate in November the will effectively cancel debt for 63 third world countries that are literally starving to pay their debt to the U.S.  Most of these countries are spending more on debt relief than on clean water, education, infrastructure and health care combined.  We have the chance to make a difference for literally millions of people worldwide, all we have to do is rearrange our maps and take a different look at our world.

get involved.

The Jubilee Movement
www.jubileeusa.org

The etymolgy of a title.

2007-10-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

Christian. A term so dear to some and yet almost repulsive to others. Why is that? I have been noticing myself and others who are in tune with the world around us that we tend to shy away from this title more often then not. I was listening to a radio DJ, one who did not follow Christ Interview Donald Miller and the first thing He asked Don was " Hey, so I hear you are a christian and you and some others ore doing some christian stuff up at Reed college." Don repiled quite frankly but eloquently" I don't really like that term christian, but if you want to talk about Jesus, we can talk about Jesus." He sees that the term christian hasnt had a very good run in the last ohh....thousand or so years. But this term didnt always make people cringe, Jesus freak or otherwise. The first time the the title was given it was in the most positive way.

Acts 11:26
"...The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch."

Now the Bible tells us that when the Church at Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch that "he was evidence of the grace of God" and that when they heard of an empending famine they prepared by sharing all they had so no one would be severly affected. Other parts of Acts say that the disciples were respected and well liked in many areas by all kinds of peoples. The ones that were not in the fold of Jesus' teaching saw those who followed Christ as good, loving and compassionate people. Nowadays you say the word christian and people think of pushy judgemental hypocrites. well, i guess we kinda went the other way with that.

Now lets take a look at this term Christian. In the Greek it is the term Χριστιανός , or Christianos. I dont have spend on lenghthy exegesis because we all know what it means. Follower of Christ. But, it is just a word, rhymes with fishin' and mission. Jesus didnt say we will be known by a word, he said we will be known by something else.

John 13:34-35
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Jesus did not say we we would be known by how much we tithe or how verbose our prayers are or how many bible studies we attend, he said we will be known by the way we treat the people around us. Boy, everytime I seem to think I get this whole following Jesus thing down, I come back to the gospels and they just devestate me in the most beautiful way possible.

So, We are obviously not worthy for this title, to put Christ in our name, but God has believed in us by calling us ambassadors for His Son. He believes in this age just as much as he believed in his first disciples. We need to start living up to our name and starting acting like Jesus, not just talking about Him. Lets bring ths term Christian from borderline embarrasing to something that invokes hope in a world that so desperately needs it.

"Just Friends"

2007-09-12T23:44:00.001-07:00

So, if you're a guy, (which i am of of the persuasion) then you probably know all too well the phrase "just friends." There is even a movie bearing that same title. Well, I know that i have heard my share of those bittersweet words flowing so fluently out of an unrequited potential partner, many as it were. The sting of hearing a not so mutually shared feeling can be detrimental to ones self-esteem and absolutely heart-wrenching to ones ummm....welll......HEART. I personally know that feeling and would never want anyone to feel the ache of it all, especially not someone i care about.

But then i come to the realization that I too say this quite often, maybe not in so many words but i do say it. In fact the one I say this to is the one i say i care abot the most.

I tell Jesus that I want to be just friends.

You see, when i am not serious about my relationship with my saviour I am essentially telling him that I don't want to be completely in love with him. I tell him that i want a casual relationship with him. I want to be "Just friends." I am telling him that what he is offering is just not as appealing as the life that my own self and the world around can offer. I like what he can give me in a friendship but I am not willing to sacrifice anything to be in an intimate relationship with him, because that's what love is. Sacrifice. Jesus told us that love in its most pure form is laying down our lives for one another. My plans, my time, my money, my things, my lives. They are a speck in the lens of eternity. And yet we consistantly tell him, that friendship is all we are looking for when what we really want is love. Dangerous, unrelenting, undeniable love, but it comes at compromise. We must break up with the world that we are so infatuated with and fall in love with a saviour that knows us by name, knows every detail of our misguided lives and still calls us his own.

Jesus is spilling his heart out to you. What will your response be?

Living the Truth+Loving the World=Confusing

2007-08-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 3:3
"Let not mercy and truth forsake you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart"

As followers of Christ we live in very torn world. We exist in this broken society where self is glorified, and yet we are called to deny self and live for a bigger, better reality where Christ is the center. We have to live knowing "the Truth" and live accordingly and yet love "the world.".
You know, I always used to read proverbs and think "they should probably rename this book broken record. Yah yah, do what is right, don't do what is wrong, blah, blah, blah"( yah, its ok, i'm forgiven) But this one proverb has really shaped my life in the past couple months.

Let not mercy and truth NEVER leave you.

these are two critically important and unwavering themes of the Christian life. Mercy and truth. Yet, they are very different and sometimes difficult ideas to grasp together and practice parallelly. Of course they spur on one another once we choose to embrace these radical ideas. Mercy will lead us into truth and the truth will spur us onto mercy. But living in congruence with both has proved quite arduous.

The problem lies in the way we live this out around the people around us. You see, when you are around a group of people who have not been introduced to Jesus, it would be most advantageous for us and Jesus' kingdom to let them experience both, but we need to have more mercy to make our relationship with God seem appealing, because honestly, the truth can be a little hard to swallow sometimes. On the other end of things when we are in our Jesuscentric circles we need to have more truth in order to keep ourselves disciplined. I think the Christianese term is "rebuke." So, I'm guessing that overall its about discernment and keeping in step with the Spirit. We all should be watching our Holy Spirit meter to see where we should dispense mercy and truth and what the concoction of each wil look like.

Counter Culture Vs. Sub-Culture

2007-08-08T14:21:00.000-07:00

So, for the last two years or so, something has been well.....to be perfectly frank, pissing me off about Christians and Christianity. I could not put my finger on it, but i could plainly see instances where said grievances were taking place.

Well, last week after conversing with my friend Greg while he was delivering Pizza I had a small epiphany of sorts.

[Start Transmission from 123.21.453.21.1]

coun·ter·cul·ture [koun-ter-kuhl-cher]
n.
the culture and lifestyle of those people, esp. among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.

[End Transmission]

So, as followers of Jesus we are supposed to be different.(Romans 12:1-2) Jesus outlines practical ways to live this out in His famous Sermon On The Mount. He explains to those unknown onlookers that day that the way we are supoosed to interact with the rest of the world is to do the opposite of what your natural instincts tells you to do and what the world tells us we are entitled to do.

We are called to give up our rights to serve and love those around us.

Problem 1.

It's Hard.

Half-ass solution to Problem 1.

[Start Transmission from 121.54.656.43.2]

sub·cul·ture (sŭb'kŭl'chər)
n.
A cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion, or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member.

[End Transmission]

So, instead of living counter culturally we haved demeaned ourselves by creating our own sub-culture. We now live in this safe and sanitary enviroment where we can live away from the corrupt world and feel good about it. This proverbial bubble that we have created for ourselves is warm and fuzzy and safe, but it is not condusive to Kingdom or missional living. See, we have our own Christian music, clothes, lingo, even theme parks. But would anyone not under this umbrella we have go out and purchase these things? take Christian music for example. A few months ago i was having a conversation with a few friends that were on tour and were staying at my house after a show here and one of them brought up the point that having a whole genre of music dubbed as christian is very confusing. What does christian music sound like? now, obviously there is Praise/Worship music because it has a certain sound and quality that makes it unique. But, as above said friend stated, " the only reason to label yourself as a christian musician or band is to make money, because you are marketing yourself to a certain type of people." anf then he so eloqeuntly staed "If we are to be the light of the world then we should be letting our light shine to everyone, putting ourselves out there so others that have not been introduced to Jesus can see a glimpse of the amazing God we worship."

So, here in lies the problem, we have segregated ourselves from our own culture and created a dangerous Us vs. Them mentality while all the while trying to grab people from the outside and pull them in to our bubble. Eric Bryant writes in his book Peppermint Filled PInatas,

" The world too often sees the invitation to connect to the church as irrelevant or at best a cumbersome process. People have to learn our religious language, sing our songs, and discuss our topics. For those who make the effort to connect with us, we reward them with rules, traditions, and conditional acceptance, yet Jesus offered grace, forgiveness and love. Rather than religion, Jesus offers relationship. As part of the body called the church, we need to strive to eliminate barriers that keep others from connecting with our community and connecting with Jesus."

I think that Jesus' idea of life is good enough to stand on its own, we dont need to give it a spa treatment, dress it up in a pretty outfit and sell it at the lowest price. We just need to live in the way Jesus described and the condition of the heart will begin to change and then people WILL notice. Grace is irresistable, but only if it is lived out. not just talked about.

.....bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent; apposite

2007-08-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking lately about how to relate to the world around me and the term relevance keeps beeing thrown around, especially in Jesus centered circles. its everywhere, you hear at evangelism seminars, marketing meeting, theres even a magazine called RELEVANT. but looking back at what Jesus says about this world and His kingdom is this thought.

"Relevance is a consequence of kingdom living, not a cause"
-Rick Mckinley

I know that many of my friends are interested in Jesus but can't grasp going to a stuffy, judgemental church enviroment. But if we understand what His Kingdom is about and use that as the measuring stick of our lives then we don't have to worry about being relevant. Jesus is smart like that. If we stop building our lives around church culture and start living around Jesus cluture than maybe we can bring the gospel to the culture instead of trying to bring the culture to church.

i don't know maybe dreams can come true.

sorry, how gauche of me.....

2007-08-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

i think he was a universalist... this doesnt make any sense. how can all paths lead to anything? That's like saying that I-5 and I-80 will both take you to Seattle.

how to reach out without selling out.

1) wait... i have no idea what i'm talkng about.

[End]