Community of the Risen

2005-12-16T22:47:00.000-08:00

This is the end...

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Chapter 5

2005-12-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Part Two:

This second part of chapter five deals with two things I would like to talk about here:

The first is a mystic understanding of the gospel.   McKnight comments that the “ecstatic experience of union with God is not unusual for Christian mystics.  I believe that eternity will be an uninterrupted flow of such ecstatic union with God.  We will be, in our very natures, blended into the presence of God with maintaining our identity…we will enter into perichoresis.”[1]  Perichoresis says that the trinity “exists as an interpenetrating and mutual indwelling…In other words, God’s eternal reality is the love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”[2]

If this is how God is, this also is how Heaven should be.   McKnight uses an analogy that I like very much: Heaven may be a little bit like family camp.  We all know the feeling.  Families in constant community for a week or weekend.  Families cook together, sleep in close quarters and play games together.  The kids running around playing with the sticks (hopefully not the stones), hiding behind trees, finding an “alternate reality” as they escape into games of Narnia or Middle Earth.   C.S. Lewis, in his book The Great Divorce, describes hell as a place where diminished humans are constantly in search of distance between themselves and others.  This would say that Hell is anti-perichoresis.

Understanding this McKnight goes on to explain that “there will be no law courts, because humans will transcend justice with love; there will be no locks because humans will own what they need and rejoice in what others own…and on and on in the perichoretic circle of eternal life.” [3]

It is a beautiful to think of heaven as a place of “eternal life.”

[1] Scot McKnight, Embracing Grace: A Gospel for all of Us (Brewster: Paraclete Press), 58
[2] Scot McKnight, Embracing Grace, 34
[3] Ibid., 59

Core Issue #1

2005-12-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

I was at the blog of Alan Creech and I noticed his Core Issue #1.  He really dealt with three sections and I would have a number of questions about them.  In his first section, if you read, he deals with this switch in relativist thinking in the world around us.  The question that I’ve been asking for a long time (and have still received no good answer to) is this: Is the switch to relativist thinking a good thing?  If not, why do we believe that we need to “change” in order to make the world accept us?

The second section of his paper dealt with teaching as the central issue of the  church.  That is, that doctrines come about above everything else.  My main question (and I have still received no good answer to this) is: How would we change the church in such a way that activity is valued over teaching?  When would this be going to far to the point where teaching takes a back seat to service?

The last section dealt with professional clergy.  This section was obviously left unfinished.  I think it was more of a, as you’ve seen the first to sections how should we reform the clergy?  And this is a good question, is the position of pastorship in need of reform?

Chapter 5

2005-12-14T15:12:00.000-08:00

Part One:

I will have to separate chapter five into two parts. This section will deal with McKnight’s section of “What does Revelation tell us about Eternity?” McKnight begins saying that “Revelation, the most political book in the entire Bible, is the story of right finally being right and wrong finally being wrong.” In a world of moral relativism I sense a hope in McKnight’s tone that the world can and will be a better place. In this hope that I heartily agree with McKnight who says that we must understand the end of a story in order to understand its beginning. In reading books by an author who really writes well, a person finds clues in the beginning that tell us about the end. The end often explains much about the beginning of the story. It is not until we get to that end that we understand what the beginning was all about.

The ending first comes with a battle. At the end of the world we find this dualistic battle split between good and evil. McKnight here deals with good and evil to the point where I feel I most quote Kyle Potter in his thoughts on eternity. Kyle argues that denying “the goodness of creation…holds that the goodness of God is expressed in the Creation.” For Potter:

“Salvation is not about heaven as some kind of ‘final destination.’ Heaven is the place where the reign of God is complete, and in John’s apocalyptic vision at the end of the New Testament we see a city that exists in a renewed heaven and earth. Life is physical, life is real, and life is spiritual. Those ideas are not mutually exclusive, but are rather inseparable where God reigns.”

McKnight supplements and augments Potters argument saying that “the Ending flows from life now.” This ending will be comprised of a “complete society where the cycle of grace runs perfectly and where humans carry on their normal but enhanced gifts and abilities.” McKnight and Potter both argue for a type of “community of the risen.” Heaven is a place for the community of God to come together. Rob Bell, when talking about the direction of his church, argued that “the flames of heaven might be hotter than the flames of Hell.” In other words, if a person is embittered in this life, what’s to say they are going to be full of joy in the life to come? A community of God begins in the here and now.

Along with the end flowing from this life, McKnight argues for the centrality of Jesus at the end. If Jesus is central, as Revelation makes clear that he is, and if the life we are living now is flowing into eternity, it would be wise for us to begin the transformation process today. This world is not a place where we should be waiting for the next to come, we should be living in the here and now to help bring about change that will lead to our transformation and others into the way of Jesus.

The end, according to McKnight, will also be centrally focused on worship. McKnight notes that it means more than to “fold our hands, bow our heads, and endlessly sing uplifting hymns in an assembly of Christians plopped down on pews while heavenly harpists orchestrate yet one more rendition of ‘My Jesus I love Thee.’” Instead, “Worship, according to chapter twelve of Romans, is offering our bodies—that is, all we are—as a living and holy and acceptable sacrifice.” If this is true than “Worship, then, is a life lived as it is meant to be lived: for the good of others and the world.”

Rethinking Theology

2005-12-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

Rethinking Theology

In the last post from McKnight’s book I spoke on this idea of “reforming theology.” It is the idea that theology that has spoken throughout the ages must be understood and rethought out for this present generation. There are a number of reasons for this:

Beliefs that sit for long periods of time without being questioned often become empty rituals. God does not call us to empty ritual (he has enough of that) but to follow the living God (Isaiah 1:11)

In a changing culture words do not stay the same, new words are sometimes needed to better describe and relate the message of the Kingdom of God to a new generation.

Theology needs to be contextualized to one’s particular situation. A community of God in America will be different than the way a community in Africa will do theology. Some of this is cultural and some of it is simply the fact that there are different needs in different places.

That’s enough to think about for right now.

Embracing Grace - Chapter 4

2005-12-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

Embracing Grace – Chapter 4

McKnight argues that authenticity is what people want.  The immaturity inherent in Adam and Eve led to the fall, not living as they were meant to live.  As a result, the flow of God is interrupted.  This interruption is primarily relational and not legal.  Sin needs to be redefined in light of this. Jesus should be seen as the incarnation of the kingdom living in God’s flow uninterrupted.

McKnight speaking of “authenticity” saying that his “students don’t care for sappy, sentimental love stories” (McKnight 40).  Instead, “they know there are lots of agendas at work in this…Instead of respectability or sociability, this generation values authenticity (McKnight 40).”  In a culture that deals heavily with Disney endings and easy “fast food” answers, this provides fresh air to an often theologically shallow western church.

McKnight takes an interesting view here saying Adam and Eve were “immature” in their walk with God before the fall.  So often we hear “In the beginning things were perfect.”  Adam and Eve before the fall were not “perfect” they were simply living as they were supposed to be living in connection and communion with God.  McKnight concurs here saying Adam and Eve were “created to journey into union with God and communion with others, and they took care of God’s good world” (McKnight 43).

McKnight takes an interesting view on the fall itself.  He argues that their “mind became disordered” with a “weak connection” between themselves and God (McKnight 45).  McKnight does not seem to view “original sin” as something that people are born into powerless to stop.  McKnight quotes Auxentios saying the fall “was not a departure from an originally static and perfect nature; it was the interruption.”  The fall should be recognized as “interruption.”  McKnight attempts to revamp the definition of sin as well.  Some consider the definition of sin to be breaking a “moral law” while McKnight consider it “relational.”

McKnight uses the example of the lawyer coming to Jesus asking how he can inherit eternal life.  When Jesus answers “Follow the law” he also tacks on, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  If the law is only seen as moral it “depersonalizes and de-relationalizes sin.”  McKnight uses the example of “infidelity” saying it is not primarily a legal issue; it is a relational issue breaking a commitment made by two people.  It is only then that we can see sin in its proper context.

McKnight here cites Cornelius Plantinga saying that “sin is disruption of created harmony and then resistance to divine restoration of that harmony.”  If  “God is for shalom and therefore again sin…Sin is culpable shalom-breaking.”
Plantinga continues, “In sum, shalom is God’s design for creation and redemption; sin is blamable human vandalism of these great realities and therefore an affront to their architect and builder.”  McKnight logically brings forth the next point saying that if Sin is comparable to shalom then “sin is anything that impedes the kingdom of God.”

McKnight is taking us somewhere very important.  If we are to be kingdom people, we will have to redefine a lot of doctrines that have stagnated the church.  This redefining done by McKnight is necessary for any serious Christian and theologian who wants Christianity to continue into the next century (otherwise I believe it will die out within two more generations of shallow theology in the west).  If we see sin as a legal matter then we come up with God as analogous to the common protestant theme of “judge” or “banker.”

God needs to be seen as the one in which we need communion with to sustain life.  If Hell is the only message that we give people, they see God only as a fire escape.  Once they are free of fire, they can continue to live whatever way they please because that is how churches define Jesus.  If we wee God as one in which we need absolute communion, we will find a very different Christian in a very different world.

Embracing Grace - Chapter 3

2005-12-08T18:14:00.000-08:00

Embracing Grace: Chapter 3

McKnight places here four chapters in the story of the Eikon. The First is the Edenic chapter dealing with the world as it was always supposed to be. The second chapter deals with the cracking of the Eikons. The third chapter dealt at length with the story of Jesus. The fourth and final chapter deals with eternity as God’s long awaited return to the world for the glorification and reuniting of man to God.

Here McKnight, whether intentionally or unintentionally, leaves out a large chunk of the story of the Eikons. There is “chapter 2 ½” that dealt with the world of the cracked Eikons in the context of Israel. Israel plays an important and central role in understanding God’s divine chase of humankind. It is the chase that began when he grabbed a hold of Abraham’s life and sent him in a new direction. It is the story of God pulling Moses out of his context to help bring redemption to a people long oppressed by the Egyptians. It is a chapter of the story that we cannot leave out.

McKnight argues that the most important aspect of the Eikons is the third chapter. I disagree. I would argue that it is in this “chapter 2 1/2” that we find God moving to create the basis for a world in which the “kingdom of God” could come through Israel. There a five books dedicated to this idea called “Torah.” It is these books that deal with the very foundation of what it means to live as people of God in a world that is “God-bathed.”

Jesus didn’t all of a sudden invent this “kingdom” idea. Jesus only interpreted it a certain way. He was the incarnate who brought this kingdom to its consummation, restoring it to the status of what it was always supposed to be. But Jesus primarily taught Torah and to say that “chapter 3” somehow stands above the others is a subtle fallacy.

McKnight moves on from there attempting to understand what it means to be an Eikon in the here and now. The question that is of importance to McKnight here is, “What makes humans like God?” This may seem like blasphemy until one considers that we are “Eikons” or “images” of God. That is, that we are called to be people transformed to be more and more like God.

To answer this question more concretely McKnight asks a sub-question: What does God do? He answers this with three main attributes of God: God creates order out of chaos, God relates, and God rests. Each of these should be central to how Christians worship, serve, instruct, reach out and fellowship. If we are to be Christians who make order out of chaos we need to understand contextual theology. If there is a problem in our city, whether it has to do with God or not, if we are to be Eikons of God we will help to fix the problem.

For example: there is a huge problem of education in America today. Should we create more Christian schools (often inaccessible to lower income families) or should we help to fix the ones that are decaying? Communities of Christians should be the first in line at schools for volunteer work, to help rebuild decaying buildings and to give of their bodies. So often white upper-class Christians are interested in writing a check to somewhere in Africa where the gospel is desperately “needed.” There are places in America that need this same “gospel” and money is not always going to be the answer.

Secondly, God relates. If we are to relate to the world around us as God relates in Trinitarian love then we must be able to see people, not programs. I just finished a class with a highly respected professor at Azusa Pacific University named Bruce Baloian. The class was a 1 and 11 Samuel Class. In it he dealt with this idea of people. At the very end of this semester he mentioned that Saul’s model of kingship will make a person much more successful, but, David’s model is the model of God. It is the model that cares about people. It relates to people and hopes to understand where they are coming from.

Finally, God rests. In watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” it is always funny to here Lucy’s response to Charlie Brown’s problem of Christmas: “You need involvement.” This is the often quoted answer of many churches in the West: you need to fit more crap in your already busy schedule and that will give you happiness in the Lord. What if we really took a Sabbath on Sundays? What if we stopped working so hard and said, “God we give this day to you for a day of rest and reflection?” We would live in a different world.

Rudolph Otto - Part 2

2005-12-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

I’ve just finished my report on “The Idea of the Holy” by Rudolph Otto. Right now I’m a bit upset at my teacher because he wants me to write a five page report including a summary, interaction, analysis, etc. of the book. I might be able to write a five page report on the first chapter, but definitely not on the entire book (that would take at least 50 pages to do somewhat of a justifiable analysis of his work). But whatever, it’s okay (I shouldn’t complain too much).

The book itself I couldn’t really read that closely. I’m going to go back and reread it much more slowly and for content over the break. Maybe I’ll be able to go back and blog on each chapter individually. We’ll see. What I’ve really taken from the chunks that I have skimmed is that God is not bound by our theological “concepts.” God is a God much bigger than those who think they can describe him down to his essence. God again and again defies definition and cannot be condensed to the reality of this world. Jesus described the kingdom of God, but could not tell us what it was concretely. This is no accident.

The kingdom of God is one that calls for us to be able to swept up into the story putting God first. The one thing that Otto said most powerfully in his book was that we cannot begin with ourselves in a feeling of dependence, we must first begin with idea of God realizing we are but “dust and ashes.” If we do not start with God there will be little that we can do for ourselves.

Embracing Grace - Part 2

2005-12-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Embracing Grace: Chapter 2:

Mcknight argues that the gospel begins at the beginning of the Bible. There have been a number of Christian churches that I’ve been to that have read the Bible in two ways that would contradict McKnight’s view of gospel. The first paradigm is one that starts the gospel in the New Testament. It is in these churches that we find people who want to give Christ centrality in their lives. They might often speak of the love of Christ but will rarely deal with the wrath of Christ in any tangible way (as if to say, we functionally don’t believe the Old Testament as a source of truth in the here and now).

The second group attempts to understand the gospel as beginning in chapter three and not in chapter one. It is this group that attempts to make sin the central issue of salvation. Here grace is only seen as a way to get rid of sin, not really as a help to live our lives. McKnight would probably disagree with both of these models (see his prologue in Embracing Grace for the different types of gospels that he sees. If one really wants to go in depth on the “Gospel on the Right” and the “Gospel on the left” one should see “The Divine Conspiracy” by Dallas Willard. Willard has done much to open my eyes to the different “types” of American gospels that he’s found in America).

McKnight, instead, argues that it is the fact that we are the “eikon” of God that matters. It is a “new term to think with” that McKnight uses to challenge the conceptual model of Christianity today that is often overused and diluted among all the other Christian noise in the world today. The two aspects that are inherent to understanding what at “eikon of God” is to look at the two implications of what it means. The first is freedom and the second is relationship.

“Here then we have the context of being an Eikon of God: we are individuals who are inherently like God and like one another so we can love God and love others, and we are to do all this in the place where God puts us—right here on earth, and for its good…The gospel is about every one of these dimensions of human life—the human’s relationship to herself and himself, to God, to others, and to the world and to the society in which we live.” (McKnight 19)

McKnight goes on to show that since the time of the enlightenment this message has been diluted into an individualistic message. We find people who want “entitlements” who have no “obligation” to civic duties. Individualism puts the person themselves at the center of the story, rather than God.

Instead we must learn to embrace God and embrace others. The question for me comes like this, “How should this look in the church today?” Especially in this Christmas season, how can we embrace God and embrace others? I’ve dealt a lot with criticisms of the worship service before on this blog. If you want more information on this you can find it at http://communityoftherisen.blogspot.com/2005/10/following-revision-of-two-posts.html.

2005-12-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

A young probably early teenage boy is questioning the very value of Christmas. The story starts. Wearing that probably too large yellow T-shirt with the black zig-zags we find a boy who don’t understand the meaning of Christmas. He doesn’t receive the Christmas Cards, his kid sister only seems to care about getting presents, and in this life he seems like he can’t do anything right. Feelings that we’ve probably all felt either before or after Christmas. The high of waiting for the presents only to find that they were gone. He has people everywhere telling him that something is wrong with him. But no matter what people say, for him it always seems like there is something wrong with the world.

He gets a job as a director of a Christmas play, believing that will somehow get him “in the spirit.” But he fails miserably at this, no one listening to him and he yet again finds himself dejected during the “happiest season of all.” He and his friend finally leave to go to the Wal-Mart to find tree for the Christmas play. He finds aluminum trees, trees that sparkle and ding with the commercialism of this Western culture. He finds trees of every color, but he’s pulled to one side by a tree that is smaller than the rest.

Pushed aside to one corner, the manager simply says he can have this one. And in some weird way, a way that was never meant for children’s stories, the boy feels sorry for the tree. He picks it up and, somehow, sees his own self pushed to the corner where no one can see him. Pushed out of the light and he finds communion and hope in a tree. Taking it back for the play he is again ridiculed for his inability to complete even the most minutest of tasks.

Angry in a set of fury he finally screams, “Can’t anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?”

His friend comes center stage telling the gospel story. The story of power that has been so told many times and never loses its appeal. And finally the boy simply walks out and all of his friends follow. He dumps the tree and tells himself that he just can’t do anything right. But this is where the story really starts. His friends, behind him, pick up the tree and begin decorating it into a beautiful Chrimas Tree.

Charlie Brown found Christmas in the most unexpected place.

Clarity to see the unclear

2005-12-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

For the next two days I will be posting on my blog from Rudolph Otto’s book, The Idea of the Holy, for a book report I have to do for a comparative religions course. I will also be interspersing more on McKnight’s book when I have the time.

Otto is attempting in his book to come to terms with the “non-rational” or “supra-rational.” Otto begins his book by noting that much of religion can be “grasped by the intellect; they can be analyzed by thought; they even admit of definition” known as “concepts” (Otto 1). Any “concept” in this sense is what he will refer to as “rational.” This book has spoken to me on a number of levels as an American Christian. As an American Christian I am so quick to form “concepts” of God, attempting to define God, attempting to put God in a box that I can understand. Otto is correct in arguing that Christians have done a poor job in showing thee non-rational side of religion.

Before getting into Otto’s ideas it is important to note that this is mostly for those who have had significant spiritual and religious experiences. Otto himself notes that “whoever cannot do this …is requested to read no further” (Otto 8). This is because the ideas in here have deeply to do with experience beyond which there is no real words to describe. Otto is attempting to guide us to the answers he himself knows but cannot express. This is the nature of the mystical understanding of God.

The second chapter is much a chapter of semantics. He deals with this idea of the Holy. Here he argues that the idea of holy is much more than a matter of ethics, holy would have evoked and awakened many thoughts to a Jew or an ancient Babylonian. It is an idea that is hard to translate. It is something that must be “awakened” within us (Otto 7). In attempting to understand this idea of Holy Otto uses a word “numinous” from the root “numen” which comes from the Latin meaning “divine power.” This “numinous” stems from “a creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures” (Otto 10)

Here the author disagrees with Schleiermacher’s “feeling of absolute dependence.” His own definition varies subtly from Schleiermacher’s when Otto notes that Abraham’s plea for Sodom in Genesis 18:27 is more than “merely a feeling of dependence.” Here Abraham admits that he is nothing more than “ashes and dust.” When we begin to understand the “numen” we begin to understand why Abraham acted the way in which he did. Otto is going to go on and explain, as much as he can say in words, about this Numene through the “mysterium tremendum” (mysterious tremor)

The mysterium tremendum is not a concept as much as it is a feeling. It may come “sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship.” (Otto 12) It is hard to describe concretely because it is part of this non-rational aspect of the “numinous.” Let us begin by talking of the five elements that he describes as coming along with this “mysterium tremendum.”

The first is the element of awefulness. Is this “tremendum” or “tremor” which can only be shown as the “emotion of fear.” Here we are of course not referring to fear in the normal sense but a “hallowing” or “fear of the Lord.” There is a “religious dread” or “awe” in the “uncanny” or “weird.” Here Otto uses the example of ghost stories. Our reactions to these is the basest sense of this tremor that we feel from God. The “shuddering” implies that the mysterious is already starting to loom before the mind. There is something baffling about the way “the wrath of Yahweh” is kindled. It seems sometimes “Incalculable” and “arbitrary.”

In an American church we have lost many aspects of this “tremor.” We have lost this idea that wrath may actually be an expression of God’s holiness. In fact, the way we interpret God’s wrath as some sort of “punishment” or when we try to justify God’s wrath to a skeptic we may be guilty of this “rationalization” as well. This rationalization is attempting to place reasoning on the wrath of God, as if his wrath were some sort of spiritual math problem that must be solved by the theological mathematician. Perhaps the American church and I myself can learn something from this and stop with the justification or argumentation or attempting to find reasons for everything God does. Could it be that the tremendum cannot talk place without the mysterium?

The second element that Otto deals with is the element of “overpoweringness” (‘majestas’). This might be seen as the “absolute unapproachability” or the “aweful majesty.” It is the specific realization that we are “dust and ashes.” It is the “feeling of one’s own submergence.” Here Otto finds more criticism of Schliermacher saying that we cannot start with the reality of self. Instead, we must start with the reality of God. It is again this idea of “creature-consciousness” in realizing how little that we are. It is only in the identification of the ultimate reality that we have any real understanding of the numinous.

The third element is the element of “Energy” (urgency). Is might be shown as “vitality, passion, emotional temper, will, force, movement, excitement, activity and impetus.” It might be described as the “consuming fire of ‘love’ in mysticism. It is “urgent, active, compelling, and alive.” Here again we find a critique on the American church’s theology that often constrains God to a narrow view of religion that pushes so many people away. This type of energy calls us to be people who are fully engulfed in the numinous and letting ourselves be lost in him only to be found.

The fourth element deals with the “mysterium.” As the first three attempt to understand the “tremor” or “fear of the Lord” this attempts to understand that which is “wholly other. It is “that which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible, and the familiar, which therefore falls quite outside the limits of the ‘canny’, and is contrasted with it, filling the mind with blank wonder and astonishment” (Otto 26). The only way that Otto can attempt to understand it to describe it as a “stupor.” It is “blank wonder; astonishment that strikes us dumb, amazement absolute.”

It is here that Otto makes an important point. Otto argues that animism isn’t some primordial religion for the primitive man. He argues that the spirits themselves are in many ways the same “rationalization” of the world that intellectual scholasticism tries to do today. In fact, this “rationalization” that took place among these people that attempted to do away with the mystery to simply replace it with a massive structure of symbols and rationalizations.

In the American church it appears that many of these things have begun to happen as well. Many pastors going through texts that are tough or hard to understand impose their own theology on the text. They attempt to “explain away” things like the wrath of God and the texts that deal heavily with free will and divine omnipotence with simple bite-sized theological “answers.”

Otto would argue that this not where the divine is found. The divine is found within the very mystery that theologians attempt to answer. It is in the “stupor” that we find God. Ghost stories are so popular for this reason. They give us the chills and they are truly mysterious. We have no idea where the ghost came from. They appear from a reality entirely different from our own. We can feel them without giving them a conception or a name.

The Element of Fascination is the final element within this idea of “mysterium tremendum.” It is “entrancing” because it combines that which is “daunting” with that which is fascinating. Otto refers to it as a “dizzy intoxication” that has to do more than just averting the wrath of God. There is this fascination to find God here and now. It becomes the primary motive for Nirvana and Heaven alike. They are searching for them “moment of solemnity.”

Perhaps what the American church can begin doing is embracing the mystery of God. Perhaps they should not be so quick to give answers. Instead maybe they can step into the mystery and simply be swung around by God as young children swung around by their older brothers into a “dizzy intoxication.” We are searching for the moment in which everything will come so clear that nothing at all is clear in the least.

Embracing Grace - Chapter One

2005-12-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

Over the next few weeks as time permits I will deal at length with Scot McKnight’s newest book: Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of us.

Chapter One: Performing the Gospel

In his first chapter McKnight argues that “the Gospel is more like a piece of music to be performed than a list of ideas to endorse” (McKnight 3). Going to church today pastors use the “sermon outline” as they are preaching through a topic. Last week I took a visit to my grandmother’s church in Pomona. Glenn Gunderson, pastor of Pomona First Baptist, spoke out of Luke 1:26-56, the story of the angel visiting Mary and Joseph. The sermon itself was a list of points. For instance, he went through the “three causes of stress and worry,” etc.

But during his sermon there was a short Musical/play entitled: “Word on the Street: A Modern Day Urban Christmas Story.” The story talked of what Mary and Joseph may have went through if they had lived in today’s world. The presentation, while somewhat corny, was theologically rich (it was one of the better Christmas plays I’ve seen in my day) and full of experience and life. It was the gospel being performed in the here and now and provided a powerful example of what Glenn spoke about in his sermon. McKnight continues saying that “embracing grace invites us to listen to each line of the gospel creed, digest each line, and then transform the lines into a life lived in the here and now. Thus, it is a gospel that is both proclaimed and performed.”

McKnight begins by talking about what the gospel is not. It is not a “glitzy or tame” gospel. It is not a gospel that comes to solve all our problems. Certainly the church must be about more than “being nice” to one another. He believes that a new generation is “asking the Church for a gospel that not only forgives my sin but also works for justice and peace and does so in a meaningful community where we both hear about and experience the love Jesus called his followers to have.” He goes throughout the rest of the chapter attempting to show how this generation have lived out this gospel through examples and commentary on it.

From this dive into McKnight’s thoughts we come up with a ministerial philosophy of “come as you are.” McKnight here borrows heavily from John Burke and his book No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come as You Are Culture in the Church (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005). Burke suggests that we live in a church with “permeable walls.” This is a church that doesn’t “separate between believers and unbelievers.” Instead they invite everyone to the table of Jesus. It is this that leads McKnight to his critique of denominations. If there is only one savior and one Lord, why so many denominations?

Here we come to the first major point of my own critique in attempting to understand denominations. Here at school many people want to simply get rid of all denominations. McKnight does not say this in his book, but there are quite a few areas where he believes the role of the denomination should take a backseat to the “gospel of Jesus Christ.” There is a place, however, for those of us who do want to argue for the continuation of denominations. The argument stems contextual theology that says people must address the issues of their particular context in order to truly bring Christ to the world.

In seeing this there might be a new way to understand denominations. Let us take for an example Martin Luther. Most scholars agree that Luther was not attempting to create an entirely new church. His end goal was the re-formation of the Catholic Church. Notice the breakdown here when we say that there is reformatting that Luther wanted to undertake. He saw the problems of the church and critiqued them powerfully. This understanding of denomination is revolutionary. It is one that says denominations are not separate tribes of Christianity, but a constant struggle to attain Christianity to the way it is always supposed to be. Baptists and Lutherans should not argue with one another over the doctrine of transubstantiation. They should both look at the ritual of communion and enter into dialogue with one another discussing how the ritual of communion fits into the life of Christian. In other words, how does this ritual (the symbols, the ritual, and the elements) lead directly towards transformation of the world around us to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. If they cannot answer this question, they need to reevaluate what it is they are called to do and who it is they are called to serve.

McKnight deals with this saying that this generation wants to “get to the bottom of things.” That is, that they care less about denominations and more about how to do good in the world. McKnight gives a number of wonderful examples for both historic and contemporary models of ministry. All of these people are interested in doing good in the here and now. He stresses the need of finding the needs in a particular community (and not just spiritual needs or Christian needs) and how to help bring about help for those needs. It is here that we can begin the talks on contextual theology. Hopefully there will be much more to come in the weeks ahead.

Does Taoism have something to teach Christianity?

2005-11-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

Taoism holds some of the most powerful ideas in religious history. The Taoists do a very good job of taking their worship and religion into their everyday lives. It applies to everything from how they view nature to how they view sex. All of the concepts were so deep and so simple.

At a first read the text seemed to contradict. It is only after one realizes this that Tao can make sense. This can be related to a Christian perspective in the idea of prayer. Prayer is often a time to come and be still before God. This is the ultimate non-action or emptying that the Tao calls for. There is also this intensity of the Spirit with it comes “truth, joy and power” (Smith 203). We come to God crying out, but we have no words for it. This is where, perhaps, the Tao and the Holy Spirit meet and are similar.

There is a strongly anti-western feel to this religion that very much entices. Rather than participating in a loud, on the edge, flashy worship service we find that it is only by biding “in silence” that “the radiance of the sprit shall come in and make its home” (Smith 203). If we want the Holy Spirit to come we must not rush it. Smith compares it to studying “the stars after being in a brightly lit room.” Before we can see them we “must wait twenty minutes for [our] eyes to dilate for their new assignment. There must be similar periods of waiting if the focal length of the mind is to readjust, withdrawing from the world’s glare to the internal recesses of the soul” (Smith 210-211).

There is a rushing in the American church to “keep the spirit on a schedule.” Perhaps we can learn something from the Tao if we would allow it to work on us. Rather than make the spirit come in our time, we should sit in silence and let the spirit work in its own time. To understand this perhaps we should understand how the Taoists understand art. The Taoist “before assuming brush and silk…go out to nature and lose themselves in it…They would sit for half a day or fourteen years before making a stroke” (Smith 213).

There is power in simply observing and watching the world around us. If we forget this then we forget what it means to be alive. “To be alive is good, to be more alive is better; to be always alive is best” (Smith 201). During worship in a Christian service some of the most powerful times is when the congregation simply affirms the fact that they are alive. Not that we can sustain ourselves or look at ourselves. It is that we begin to understand, as does the Taoist, in order for God to work most powerfully the conscious mind must “let go.” We must “yield to a power not our own” (Smith 208).

The analogy of water is probably one of the most powerful analogies of the Tao. The water will often clear if we can simply sit and let it be. In our American culture, we are constantly “searching” for the answers as though we can find them within our own intellect. The Tao lets us know that sometimes it is okay to just and let life come at us. It is in this simplicity that some of the most profound things will happen.

2005-11-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

A huge spinning wheel.

The man goes out in the morning each day. He goes to work, he drives in traffic, he comes home. He watches TV, eats dinner, takes a shower, goes to bed.

It is a huge spinning wheel.

So many thing spin on it. The creatures of the earth spin around and around, the dizziness of the divine is what they sing. It is on tips of all of their tongues. In the wisdom of the divine, they sing to him. All the creatures of the earth sing. In the immeasurable depths of the sea there is the divine swimming among the countless number of creatures. In the ebb and flow we find God. On top of the seas ships fly past going to an fro with the tides and currents of life, not thinking of the monsters that lie on the ocean floor.

Here lies a huge spinning wheel.

We sit spinning so quickly from the dizziness that the Spirit brings. As we stand holding the hand of the divine God, we look up only in wonder. He gives us all we need. He is more than enough. He overflows. Always too much in the spirit. His hands open up to see nail pierced hands, broken and holy, satisfying me all at once.

I know that at any moment I could die. I could fall away. I am scared of falling away from this spinning, this dizziness. But I know that life will continue, life will keep on pushing, life will hold me up, until it is time for me to go. Until that time do not hid your face from me. I am terrified when I lose sight of you. But for now the wheel keeps spinning.

Send your spirit to renew me. Send your spirit to give me the wind that I once had flowing in the spirit. Polish me and make me sharper than the sharpest sword, that I may deeply pierce those who need to die. Bring me to the center of the wheel, that I may spin no more and the spirit has complete control of me.

“Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number—living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”
-Psalm 104:23-30

Preparing for Alpha

2005-10-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

This week my spiritual journey has really been preparing for my alpha students in talking about addiction. The question that comes to mind here is, "What is addiction?" The most basic and rudimentary questions here provide me with the most trouble. What really is addiction? People talk about being addicted to drugs and alcohol. One person gave me the answer that for these people, "They cannot live without their addiction."

DIctionary.com give the definition: "The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something."

So here we find two words that stand out: Habits and Compulsiveness.

Let's give definitions to these two words:

Habits: A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.
Compulsive: Caused or conditioned by obsession.

From here we can make a more precise definition that says: "Being involved with something as a result of recurring, often unconscious patterns of behavior that is caused by our obsession with something.

So heres my question: Can pride and sexual struggle be an addiction?

2005-10-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

The following a revision of the two posts previous.

Here is a place to address the place of prayer in fellowship. Fellowship is a place of love and support where two people are gathered in order to do theology together in their particular context. Now we move to this area of how to pray in fellowship with one another.
Let me first begin by saying that this is not an attempt to create a certain “way” to pray. Instead, this is an attempt to tap into some of the ways that the Holy Spirit may be moving among us. The Bible ultimately lets us know that our attempts to pray are good but insufficient. Sometimes we simply groan inwardly and we don’t even know the words to say. Sometimes that’s okay.

We must also remember that this particular model and the interpretation of this model is for a fellowship oriented approach. This model has been interpreted in different ways based on the context where we are praying. This exercise has been used for journaling purposes and individual and small group prayer time. This model can also be used in different ways that won’t be spoken of here.
The model is an acronym that takes the word “PRAY” and applies a specific spiritual discipline to each letter. It is as follows:

Praise
Repent
Ask
Yield

A Prayerful Worship Service

This model is vastly different from the way that most churches have or ever will do “Worship Services.” This model attempts to do a couple of things. First, it attempts to keep God at the center of the worship service. Second, it attempts to teach us how to see God in a variety of ways. Finally, it allows us to become transformed into disciples of God’s word more effectively in the world.

There are so many services in the world today that are “man-centered.” There is the super-pastor who is an incredibly funny and gifted speaker. He is outgoing, fashionable and all the people at the church love him. It is no surprise, then, when half the church leaves when he resigns after a serious disagreement with some of the elders in the church. It was a church full of people who loved to be entertained, not people who wanted to follow Jesus Christ and be moved by the Holy Spirit.

The first and most important thing that this paradigm wants to accomplish is putting God at the center of everything. As we go through each area of the service we find that in contemporary America there is an egocentric and prideful air in a lot of the church. They believe that they have God all figured out theologically and, therefore, have hearts of stone and it is now impossible for the Holy Spirit to use them in any fashion.

This idea of the God-centered worship service is one that simply asks for the Holy Spirit to permeate the places where worship is. This means that we are calling for the anointing of the Spirit. Uh-oh. This is where terminology, theology, denominational squabbling and so much more goes haywire. Know here that it’s not about just speaking in tongues, it is about the electricity of the Holy Spirit moving throughout the congregation. This moving will always lead to God-centered mission that begins in the service and carries on throughout the rest of the day.

Secondly, we are looking for God in a variety of ways. We are looking to affirm God through music, but so much more. Music is one avenue of worshipping God. (quote Rob Belle here about being the best in the arts, etc). We want to lift up those who are movie makers, those who are artists, those who are writers and those who love to use their artistic mediums for the glory of God.

This also means finding God in the business, political and social worlds that the fellowship is connected to. Testimonies should be shared of how businessmen have found God in the business world. In politics where is God and how should we respond? In the social world, where do we see God? All of these questions should be asked and people within the congregation should be willing and able to share their own testimony from experience.
Thus we find that experience is the most powerful way that the Word of God speaks. Through experience the Words of God on the page come alive. We have all read the stories of Jacob wrestling with God, but until we ourselves wrestle with God the word will not become flesh. We have all heard the stories of the prophets, but until we have been persecuted their stories will not become flesh.

With God at the center and finding God in all these different ways we should finally be transformed. We should be transformed from people of the kingdom of the earth to people of the kingdom of God. This means that we cross a line of faith and we take the word and make it incarnate in our lives. This transformation can only begin happening as the first two areas of keeping God central and finding God diversely are happening concurrently.
Now we begin our journey through these four “phases” of a worship service.

Coming to God in Praise

A time of praise begins this time of fellowship. Within this I would suggest first a time of quietude before the Lord. There should be a time of contemplation of what has gone on during the week. To help with this there could be words on the screen that asks questions of the believer. Where has God been in the last week? How has he been seen? Perhaps images can be used to help people move into a state of worship of the almighty.

This should be a time where people of all ages simply either get in their seats and bow their heads in their thoughts or get on their knees simply being quiet before the Lord. Simply being quiet is such an important part of the Christian life. Perhaps a time of centering ourselves on God can take place in this time. The time allotted for this will be different for different people depending on the context. But I would suggest that this be more lengthy than a minute.

Perhaps five or ten minutes time is a powerful way to begin a service. Following this quietude of worship, we begin the worship itself. This should be done not only in song, but in art, in writing, in poetry, in reading of scripture and in the many ways both visual, contemplative, musical and cognitive in which the Spirit moves in the particular family of God.

The idea of “stations” comes to mind. Different places can be set up where people can go to these different places to worship. Perhaps some will be drawing what is on their heart because it is how they best express things to God. Stations can be made in order to write what is on people’s hearts and a place can be made for reading of scripture. Whatever it is that helps a person best worship God. This time of worship should be extended out longer than the usual time of “worship” in a service. Worship is one of the most profound ways to experience God.

When we come to the static idea that every person in the church building has to be simultaneously doing the same thing, we miss the point of the moving of the spirit. It should be okay for some people to praise God in one way, while others do it in a way that they can totally and fully embrace as Christ. This is not to do away with the idea of “program” but simply to restructure in such a way that people are using their strengths in ways that worship God.
Before we can move from this point a critique on Christian worship must come under close scrutiny. If we are truly talking about “praise” in the sense that we mean, then we must be talking about uplifting God. If it IS God we are talking about, then it should not be ourselves that we are talking about. Thus, at this phase of worship I would not suggest songs that are centered on the Christian but on God.

This means that we must be more careful and selective in choosing what songs we choose to play during worship. Songs like “Jesus loves me” aren’t going to fly if we are truly worshipping God. Songs should be chosen that force us to go beyond ourselves. This is a time for important spiritual disciplines such as developing the prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude. Try praying during this time only thanking God for the world and the beings within the world, not asking for anything or praying for anyone specifically.

The Act of Repentence

The next phase that we should prayerfully consider during a worship service is “repentance.” The word simply means to change our minds about something. In the Greek it had a strong tie to political and social issues. Thus we see the important theological significance here during fellowship that has to do with transformation of the soul. To talk about this transformation would be an entirely different post. But here let us say that confession and repentance is another integral part of the prayerful worship service.

This means having a time after worship that people have an opportunity to confess the sin that is eating up their lives, their relationships and their troubles. It is a time of loving on the people within the community of God no matter where they are at. To suggest how this might look in a worship service, we may have songs like “Come Home Running” by Chris Tomlin and other such songs that speak of the prodigal nature of the church. We allow people to return even after throwing away the Father’s resources.

Confession should consist of sharing (see more about sharing in my first two posts about fellowship), loving those who share, and not judging those who share. Loving those who share is a key part of this fellowship. Sometimes what people want is simply a hug or a smile from you after they’ve told you all the crap they’ve gone through. They simply want to know that you’re there. And they don’t want quick judgments that put them in a box. There will be 15-20 leaders at the front who will pray with those who want to confess their sins.

Asking God to Move in our Midst

This time of confession should naturally lead into the next part of the PRAY acronym that is “ask.” This consists of three things. The first is asking those who have just confessed their sin to how best confront their sin. This may work better than having a pastor stand up in front of a church for a half hour and preaching at these people who really want a time for confession. After they’ve confessed there is this time to know, teach and disciple those in sin how to get out of it.

The second thing this asking time should consist of is a time of communal prayer for those in church and those connected to the church. Time should be taken to take prayer requests either in small groups or in the church as a whole. A time of intense prayer should then take place for the healing of those who are sick within the community, for those who are hurting socially/psychologically, for those who have problems within the home and for any other major world problems or social problems or miscellaneous stuff that people need prayer for.

The third thing that should be asked is how the word of God is moving in the lives of those present in the congregation. This can involve testimony where a person shares how God has been transforming their hearts. This can also be a time to talk about certain visions that people have for ministry in the church at large. At this point scripture should be brought up in a way that is relevant to the church. As people begin talking about their visions for how God is working in their city, they should find ways that it has happened in the past. God has worked before in the past and is continuously spreading his word in new ways to a new generation.
The church should be able to make the word of God dance in front of the fellowship. This does not mean simply preaching or teaching unchanging truths. But speaking to the people directly where they are at and attempting to help move the people as a church into the direction that God wants them to move.

As scary as this may sound, this means that laymen will be the primary movers of God’s word throughout the world. The ministers and pastors are only shepherds; they should not be the ones doing the most work in church. Discipleship in the church should be about making God so well known to the disciples that they themselves go out and do greater things and more wonderful things than the pastor himself who shepherded them. The ultimate goal of the shepherd is to be able to step out of the picture sometimes and let the church itself do the ministry.

This means that during this ASK time laymen might get up and share what is on their hearts and what ministries God has laid on their hearts to begin. This means something that might be even more scary for the modern Christian church: unscheduled speakers in Church. Because church is not ultimately about the building, it is not ultimately about the pastor, it is not ultimately about the schedule of worship, it IS about the moving of the Holy Spirit. If we do not allow room for it, then we will be ineffective ministers of God’s word. Would it be so horrible not to put an end time on the tail end of the service. What if we really took the ten commandments seriously and really took a day of rest all day and just hung out in the place of worship with the Lord?

What if after a service was over the church simply served lunch and then prayed together, sang together, played games together, and laughed together telling stories of new and old until dinner? What if the church served dinner and then had desert and worshipping into the night until the people were so tired that they simply went home and slept? What if we really took God seriously and took that day of rest? What if we really made it all about him?

Yielding To God

The final and most important step of this prayerful worship service is yielding to the sovereignty of God. At this time and at this place people must realize that God is God and we are not. We do not control the universe, we cannot defeat Satan on our own and we are vastly inferior beings to this God that we serve. If we forget this then we will be ineffective ministers of God’s word.

This yielding time should be a time of worship to God for the believer. This is the time where we might sing songs about going out among the world, about being a light and about the wars that go on in the unseen world. Here a time of benediction might take place where a pastor blesses his people to go in the way of the Lord.

How does the Bible Fit in?

In trying to pick up the loose ends let me first talk about how the Bible might fit into a service such as this. A wise teacher once taught us that giving a message in front of a church is like aiming a shotgun at 50 chickens and hoping that you hit five. Every person in the church is at a different place with different wants and desires. If a pastor or youth pastor attempts to try to hit every kid with a “really good message” he will probably hit, at the most, half the students. He won’t hit the ones that have no hope, he won’t hit the ones that don’t understand his analogies, he won’t hit the ones that need a personal touch from one of God’s people.

The word of God needs to be used in such a way that the body is benefiting the most from it. Let us first say that this does not attempt to put the person at the center of the service. During the confessional part of the ASK people need to confess what is going on in their lives, whether good or bad. It is at this point that we hear praises and downfalls in people’s lives. If we are to be a church that follows in keeping this fruit that come with repentance we will then follow up on each of those people individually.

Notice in the gospel of Luke when each different group of people come up to John the Baptist and ask him how they should respond to this Kingdom of God he changes his answer based on who they are (Luke 3:10-18). When reading through this we find that the same advice will not work for a football player and a business man. There is no way to “categorize” universal truths that will apply to everyone in the building. Jesus is given away in different contexts based on what that person does and who God has made that particular person to be.

In keeping that fruit that comes with repentance we will approach each person that confesses their sins and we will attempt to bring the transformation that we talked about in the last post. The transformation of the heart is somewhat like a process of refinement. Jesus is attempting to speak through the leaders in a particular church into the lives of the fellowship to refine their hearts. He wants to clear away the crap. The process of transformation is difficult, but by no means impossible.

Let us be clear here then that the ultimate goal is transformation. Sinning or not sinning should never be the center of confession. The center of confession should be a means towards restoration into the kingdom of God. When the prodigals return there is a great feasting. He has been restored into his father’s house. There is a balance here that needs to be met. Sin has to be confronted in any body of believers, but the sin itself should never become the central issue of faith.

Applying it Concretely

To apply this concretely there should be a training course in a church for positions of those who will pray with those who confess. If the leaders in a church are not involved in the life changing transformation of the heart as a result of Jesus Christ, they will be ineffective ministers of God’s word. When I say “God’s word” I do not mean the Bible. What I mean here is the moving of God’s spirit that enables them to speak Jesus into the lives of the fellowship and to teach non-believers what it means to enter into a dynamic relationship wit Jesus Christ.

The process by which they go through should be designed by individual churches. But a few things are so necessary that they need to be mentioned here. The first is that a church leader should have an extensive knowledge of God’s word. This means that a church leader has to get beyond the protestant stereotype of quoting only inspirational lines from Paul’s epistles. This means getting down and dirty with the Jesus of the Bible. Understanding who Jesus is and was and understanding the culture he came from. This also means that church leaders should have an extensive knowledge of the Old Testament. Most of what Jesus says is in some way quoted or interpreted from the Old Testament. The return to Torah should be central those who want to create effective disciples of Jesus Christ.

The second thing these leaders need is language that allows them to express the truths of the Bible to people in ways that are relevant to where they are at in the here and now. Attempting to go over their heads or to sound super spiritual will push people farther and farther away from God. Jesus spoke in the language of the people. People in leadership should learn to do the same.

The third and final thing these people need is genuineness. They shouldn’t act like they have it all together. There is no reason for this. Leaders should also be held accountable and should be confessing their sins on a regular basis. They shouldn’t act like they are above the “average Christian” or act like they are somehow more spiritual. If anything they should be more humble, because God has suggested that he is going to judge them more strictly as teachers.

The Big Idea

These concepts are an attempt to travel beyond the “normal” everyday events that we so often find in our churches. It is an attempt first of all to reform the church worship styles. When we come to God it should first of all be in total worship of who he is. A critique must be made on the worship songs, styles and lyrics that we sing.

There is also a critique here on normal road of “repentance” talked about so often in many churches. It is about more than turning from one’s sins. It is about turning and looking upon the ultimate reality. It is about transformation. It is about coming to Jesus and being changed because he is the most powerful entity ever to grace the face of the earth. It is about turning and entering into a new reality through the door of Jesus Christ.

There is a critique here on the normal asking in churches. Many churches in America as simply asking for more money, more Jesus and more entitlement. They are asking for people who can meet those needs. The great revolution talked about here is one that says a layman can be more powerful in many ways than a pastor. What if we freed the layman to speak and ask what God can do in his own community?

But more than a critique there is an affirmation here that God is working. God is working the lives of those whom he has called. We join a long tradition of Christ followers who are called to follow and be Christ to the world. This is my humble attempt to keep walking.

2005-10-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

I really miss all my friends. I was listening to "Phantom of the Opera" tonight and it made me think of singing in High School and made me remember how much I miss all my old friends. I want to have choir again (without the Mrs. Paulus part).

2005-10-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

If people read the last couple of my blogs they will find that I've been working my way from the theoretical, theological and abstract to what I believe a church service might look like. Right now I'm working a revision of my last two posts by combining, adding on and sectioning them. Any comments on the last two blogs I've written would be greatly appreciated. I'm only one man and can't always see all the sides to every issue. Thanks a lot my friends!

The Church as fellowship continued

2005-10-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

In the last post I dealt with what a church service might look like if it was following of model of prayer as a lifestyle and not just ritual. It was a time of confession and a time of loving one another in Christ. Here though I would like to deal with some of the theology behind it. Behind all of this theology is a powerful idea that God is at the center of fellowship. In this post I will attempt to do two things: (1) Pick up the loose ends from the last post. (2) Deal with why it is important to keep God at the center of fellowship.

In trying to pick up the loose ends let me first talk about how the Bible might fit into a service such as this. A wise teacher once taught us that giving a message in front of a church is like aiming a shotgun at 50 chickens and hoping that you hit five. Every person in the church is at a different place with different wants and desires. If a pastor or youth pastor attempts to try to hit every kid with a “really good message” he will probably hit, at the most, half the students. He won’t hit the ones that believe have no hope, he won’t hit the ones that don’t understand his analogies, he won’t hit the ones that need a personal touch from one of God’s people.

Instead the word of God needs to be used in such a way that the body is benefiting the most from it. Let us first say that this does not attempt to put the person at the center of the service. During the confessional part of the ASK portion that I spoke of in my last post people need to confess what is going on in their lives, whether good or bad. It is at this point that we hear praises and downfalls in people’s lives. If we are to be a church that follows in keeping this fruit that come with repentance we will then follow up on each of those people individually.

Notice in the gospel of Luke when each different group of people come up to John the Baptist and ask him how they should respond to this Kingdom of God he changes his answer based on who they are (Luke 3:10-18). When reading through this we find that the same advice will not work for a football player and a business man. There is no way to “categorize” universal truths that will apply to everyone in the building. Jesus is given away in different contexts based on the what that person does and who God has made that particular person to be.

In keeping that fruit that comes with repentance we will approach each person that confesses their sins and we will attempt to bring the transformation that we talked about in the last post. The transformation of the heart is somewhat like a process of refinement. Jesus is attempting to speak through the leaders in a particular church into the lives of the fellowship to refine their hearts. He wants to clear away the crap. The process of transformation is difficult, but by no means impossible.

To apply this concretely there should be a training course in a church for positions of those who will pray with those who confess. If the leaders in a church are not involved in the life changing transformation of the heart as a result of Jesus Christ, they will be ineffective ministers of God’s word. When I say “God’s word” I do not mean the Bible. When I say God’s word, I mean the moving of God’s spirit that enables them to speak Jesus into the lives of the fellowship and to teach non-believers what it means to enter into a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ.

The process by which they go through should be designed by individual churches. But a few things are so necessary that they need to be mentioned here. The first is that a church leader should have an extensive knowledge of God’s word. This means that a church leader has to get beyond the protestant stereotype of quoting only inspirational lines from Paul’s epistles. This means getting down and dirty with the Jesus of the Bible. Understanding who Jesus is and was and understanding the culture he came from. This also means that church leaders should have an extensive knowledge of the Old Testament. Most of what Jesus says is in some way quoted or interpreted from the Old Testament. The return to Torah should be central those who want to create effective disciples of Jesus Christ.

The second thing these leaders need is language that allows them to express the truths of the Bible to people in ways that are relevant to where they are at in the here and now. Attempting to go over their heads or to sound super spiritual will push people farther and farther away from God. Jesus spoke in the language of the people. People in leadership should learn to do the same.

The third and final thing these people need is a genuineness. They shouldn’t act like they have it all together. There is no reason for this. Leaders should also be held accountable and should be confessing their sins on a regular basis. They shouldn’t act like they are above the “average Christian” or act like they are somehow more spiritual. If anything they should be more humble, because God has suggested that he is going to judge them more strictly as teachers.

In all of these things we come now to the second point of keeping God at the center. One of the ways that my former post might be critiqued is that the focus becomes too much on the individual and their sins. We have to be careful that we do not make the “ASK” portion of this theoretical service a place for only sins to be talked about. This ask portion should also be a time to ask God and the others around what his plan is for the church, for the community of God and how they can work that plan in their everyday lives.

At this point scripture should be brought up in a way that is relevant to the church. As people begin talking about their visions for how God is working in their city, they should find ways that it has happened in the past. God has worked before in the past and is continuously spreading his word in new ways to a new generation. Again, when I say “spreading his word” I’m not talking about the Bible. The Bible was never meant to be the “word of God.” The chapters and verses themselves have very little power outside of real life.

The point of church should be able to make the word of God dance in front of the fellowship. This does not mean simply preaching or teaching aimless truths. But speaking to the people directly where they are at and attempting to help move the people as a church into the direction that God wants them to move.

As scary as this may sound, this means that laymen will be the primary movers of God’s word throughout the world. The ministers and pastors are only shepherds, they should not be the ones doing the most work in church. Discipleship in the church should be about making God so well known to the disciples that they themselves go out and do greater things and more wonderful things than the pastor himself who shepherded them. The ultimate goal of the shepherd is to be able to step out of the picture sometimes and let the church itself do the ministry.

This means that during this ASK time laymen might get up and share what is on their hearts and what ministries God has laid on their hearts to begin. This means something that might be even more scary for the modern Christian church: unscheduled speakers in Church. Because church is not ultimately about the building, it is not ultimately about the pastor, it is not ultimately about the schedule of worship, it IS about the moving of the Holy Spirit. If we do not allow room for it, then we will be ineffective ministers of God’s word. Would it be so horrible not to put an end time on the tail end of the service. What if we really took the ten commandments seriously and really took a day of rest all day and just hung out in the place of worship with the Lord.

What if after a service was over the church simply served lunch and then prayed together, sang together, played games together, and laughed together telling stories of new and old until dinner? What if the church served dinner and then had desert and worshipping into the night until the people were so tired that they simply went home and slept? What if we really took God seriously and took that day of rest? What if we really made it all about him?

To come back from the digression, how then would the church respond to these people? What if they took seriously the passages that talk about helping the poor and blind? Can a layman have such a vision and undertake a serious ministry that attempts to end poverty in their particular context and in their particular city. Not just physical poverty, but emotional poverty and psychological poverty.

This I believe would be the church as God intended for it to be.

Community Fellowship Based on Prayer (Fellowship Part Three)

2005-09-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

In this continuing chronicle I would like to address the place of prayer in fellowship. Fellowship, to review, is a place of love and support where two people are gathered in order to do theology together in their particular context. Now we move to this area of how to pray in fellowship with one another.

Let me first begin by saying that this is not an attempt to create a certain “way” to pray. Instead, this is an attempt to tap into some of the ways that the Holy Spirit may be moving among us. The Bible ultimately lets us know that our attempts to pray are good but insufficient. Sometimes we simply groan inwardly and we don’t even know the words to say. Sometimes that’s okay.

There are so many different ways to pray that I will address three of them here.

The first is an acronym PRAY. Let’s look at how it plays out:

Praise
Repent
Ask
Yield

This is a powerful form of prayer as a lifestyle. Let me show you how this type of prayer might be used in a contemporary “worship” service. A time of praise begins this time of fellowship. There is a powerful critique here of worship songs and worship styles. Within this I would suggest first a time of quietude before the Lord. A time of contemplation of what has gone on during the week.

This should be a time where people of all ages simply either get in their seats and bow their heads in their thoughts or get on their knees simply being quiet before the Lord. I will attempt to expand on how to be quiet before the Lord at another time. But simply being quiet is such an important part of the Christian life. Perhaps a time of centering ourselves on God can take place in this time. The time allotted for this will be different for different people depending on the context.

Following this quietude of worship, we begin the worship itself. This should be done not only in song, but in art, in writing, in poetry, in reading of scripture and in the many ways both visual, contemplative, musical and cognitive in which the Spirit moves in the particular family of God. The idea of “stations” comes to mind. Perhaps some will be drawing what is on their heart because it is what they are expressing. Perhaps stations to write praises to God if writing is your forte. Perhaps places in which scripture is being read. Whatever it is that helps a person best worship God.

When we come to the static idea that every person in the church building has to be simultaneously doing the same thing, we miss the point of the moving of the spirit. It should be okay for some people to praise God in one way, while others do it in a way that they can totally and fully embrace as Christ. This is not to do away with the idea of “program,” but simply to restructure in such a way that people are using their strengths in ways that worship God.

Here is where the powerful critique on Christian worship must come under close scrutiny. If we are truly talking about “praise” in the sense that we mean, then we must be talking about uplifting God. If it IS God we are talking about, then it should not be ourselves that we are talking about. Thus, at this phase of worship I would not suggest songs that are centered on the Christian but on God.

The next thing that we should prayerfully consider during a worship service is “repentance.” The word simply means to change our minds about something. In the Greek it had a strong tie to political and social issues. Thus we see the important theological significance here during fellowship that has to do with transformation of the soul. To talk about this transformation would be an entirely different post. But here let us say that confession and repentance is another integral part of the prayerful worship service.

This means having a time after worship that people have an opportunity to confess the sin that is eating up their lives, their relationships and their troubles. It is a time of loving on the people within the community of God no matter where they are at. To suggest how this might look in a worship service, we may have songs like “Come Home Running” by Chris Tomlin and other such songs that speak of the prodigal nature of the church. We allow people to return even after throwing away the Father’s resources.

Confession should consist of sharing (see more about sharing in my first two posts about fellowship), loving those who share, and not judging those who share. Loving those who share is a key part of this fellowship. Sometimes what people want is simply a hug or a smile from you after they’ve told you all the crap they’ve gone through. They simply want to know that you’re there. And they don’t want quick judgments that put them in a box.

This time of confession should naturally lead into the next part of the PRAY acronym that is “ask.” This consists of two things. The first is asking those who have just confessed their sin to how best confront their sin. This may work better than having a pastor stand up in front of a church for a half hour and preaching at these people who really want a time for confession. After they’ve confessed there is this time to know teach and disciple those in sin how to get out of it.

The second thing this asking time should consist of is a time of communal prayer for those in church and those connected to the church. Time should be taken to take prayer requests either in small groups or in the church as a whole. A time of intense prayer should then take place for the healing of those who are sick within the community, for those who are hurting socially/psychologically, for those who have problems within the home and for any other major world problems or social problems or miscellaneous stuff that people need prayer for.

The final and most important step of this prayerful worship service is yielding to the sovereignty of God. At this time and at this place people must realize that God is God and we are not. We do not control the universe, we cannot defeat Satan on our own and we are vastly inferior beings to this God that we serve. If we forget this then we will be ineffective ministers of God’s word.

2005-09-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

Lost in the hugeness.

I don’t remember the exact day. I remember that my entire family was there. Not just mom and dad, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We were all standing in line. The line itself was huge. The iron gates looked huge to a kid my age. I couldn’t have been much more than seven years old. Standing in line holding the hand of my mother. When we got to the front of the line, I took my ticket and I gave it to the nice looking man with gray hair.

Inside was a huge garden and a train station with a huge mouse embroidered on the hill with colorful flowers. The cousins and I were running around. Our parents told us to slow down. We walked down some street called “Main Street USA.” The street was full of cool stuff. I saw candy shops, clothes shops and shops full of souvenirs. But it was when I saw the castle that I knew that this was someplace special. To the eyes of seven year old the castle was like the ones they talked about in the stories.

“Mommy,” I exclaimed, “That’s SO big.”

In my amazement I stand here again in my heart of hearts. It’s not quite the same place as main street USA. But perhaps there is something of that magic in the heart of every person in some way. Perhaps Mr. Disney got it right in thinking that there is a mystical magical power in the hugeness and illusion of happiness. When is the last time we came to the Holy Spirit as children? There is a reason that Jesus wrote this way, he wrote this way to remind us of the complete holiness that lies within him.

“Daddy,” I exclaim today, “You’re so big.”

Relational Fellowship (fellowship, part two)

2005-09-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

So now that we’ve decided the problem of fellowship we must turn our eyes to the idea of fellowship. Is fellowship just an ice cream social? Or is an ice cream social too “unspiritual?” Is it a discipleship group? It’s funny that after 18 years of being a Christians I sit here only now pondering these questions. The church seems to do so little of this hard theology of definitions that we end up all having to find it for ourselves later on in life.

So here is my best stab at it: Fellowship begins with more than one person. The number that the Bible gives is three. Three is a wholly symbolic number in every sense of the word. It is the number of people in the trinity and the number of days in the tomb, it is not for any unknown reason that this number is chosen in the Bible. The three symbolizes a sense of unity in the spirit.

So here we begin with an idea of this three person model. If we begin here then we must ask the question: How do we although the Holy Spirit to be among the two or more that gather in his name? We then come to find that we there is a very important aspect of prayer that must enter into our time of fellowship. This may seem obvious, but there are so few people (including myself and most the people I know) who do not know how to pray well.

The idea of prayer to me in a setting like this is being able to invite the Holy Spirit to come and be among us as we fellowship. There are lots of different ways to pray. I will probably deal with this in a later post, for now let us suffice it to say that it is probably the most important part of fellowship. It is the part that turns us away from each other and turns our eyes upon Jesus.

After the Holy Spirit surrounds us we must come to a place where we share with what is on our hearts. After a long thought process it seems that there might be levels of fellowship. The first level is wrestling with who we are. In other words, it is at this stage of fellowship that we begin to share and learn about one another. A lot of this is skipped over to the detriment of many “fellowships.” People want to go straight to what they consider “spiritual.”

Again this deals partly with the problem of fellowship that I talked about in my last post. For instance, last night we did something that most people would not consider spiritual; we had a bonfire at the beach with our court. It may just seem like we had s’mores and played circle volleyball, but it was much more than that. It is the first level of fellowship. During this time people were smiling and I learned people’s names. Even if the first level of fellowship is just learning people’s names it is still fellowship.

During this time I also got to see how people interact socially and how they want to be interacted with. I began to see which people I could talk to in which ways. This is the beginning of the first level of fellowship based on relationships. It is this time of sharing. But it doesn’t stop here. Now that we know the names of these people the next step is to learn about them as an individual. This is the sharing and learning that must take place that makes deep and relational fellowship possible.

Have lunch with someone and ask them about their life, their major, their concerns and everything. Ask them about their life and what you can pray about for them. But don’t make the mistake of sounding spiritual without the actual act. The goal is to really pray for these people. The goal is to really show them that you care. The goal is to follow up on those prayer requests and ask them how they turned out. It is only at this point of knowing that we can take fellowship to what I will refer to as the “second level.”

The second level of fellowship deals with the idea of wrestling. Wrestling in this context means wrestling with how to live this life according to a Biblical worldview. This means people not just talking about who they are, but about who they want to be. This means wrestling with whether or not they are in the right major, whether or not they following God in their everyday lives and whether or not they are going beyond the call to follow Jesus radically, passionately and wholly.

To take a specific example let’s look at little Johnny. Johnny is good friend with Damien. Johnny is struggling with the issue of pride because he feels like he is an A+ Christian. Johnny doesn’t actually realize he is struggling with it, but Damien does. Damien comes alongside and talks about it with him. It is only in this honesty of coming alongside someone that true and deep fellowship can begin to happen. We’re not sure how Johnny will respond to Damien, but we do know that it appears now that they are at least in dialogue about it.

Notice here that I didn’t use the example of pornography, masturbation or sexual purity. These things are all important, but they are over emphasized in the church today. Fellowship in D-groups attempts to take place a lot on this level where these three things mentioned (at least for boys) are NOT happening in their lives. This is not the model of relational fellowship. Relational fellowship wrestles with how we SHOULD act, not with what we should not do. This is incredibly important in these cases.

The last step in this process is action. After talking about it with one another, there comes a point where people must simply decide that they are going to do it. They are going to make a certain decision about a major or about a lifestyle decision and they are going to stick with it. After this has happened a time must again come to talk about this decision that they made. If it was changing majors people will again come alongside and ask how the new major is going.

They will again go through the sharing, wrestling and action.

As you can see this process is never ending. In my next posts I will deal with the idea of prayer and also the idea of Holy Spirit and how those two things play into fellowship.

The Problem of Fellowship (Fellowship, Part One)

2005-09-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Fellowship. My entire last post led up to this word. What does it truly mean to fellowship with other believers. Here’s a more important question for Christians. Why is it that we don’t know our neighbors? Is it because in our culture we are always going somewhere. The place I’m at right now is college. Before college I was in high school getting ready for college. Before high school I was getting ready for high school in junior high and grade school. Before grade school I was looking forward to actually going to school. In our culture, we seem to be moving towards for something.

Perhaps it is our geography and our lifestyle. As Americans our tradition is a westward one. It is one that is constantly on the move and constantly looking for something new and innovative. Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison are seen as inventive people given high regard in every history book. Our culture worships those who have propelled us into this modern age. We always speak of the industrial “revolution.” It is the revolution that allows us to go faster from point A to point B.

Parents today are looking for ways to make their children smarter faster. My brother is taking geometry in eight grade whereas I took it in 9th grade. He will have outdone the system by the time it is finished taking Calculus his junior year of high school. Our lives are constantly on the move to try to get to “somewhere.”

That somewhere we are going is always ahead and we never ever seem to reach it. Our attitudes about life seem to be that we must reach our next intended “milestone” in life as fast as possible. Our society pushes on its young that they have to excel and keep on the move. A child that is sitting at home is seen as one with “no life.” Little is done to foster relationships with parents and children except to push children to “make something of their life.”

This is the basis of what I will not refer to as the “problem of fellowship” in America. The idea that sitting and talking with people is somehow worthless. The problem of fellowship has hit even the churches. Pastors are hired based on the amount of PhD’s they have and how good of a speaker they are. Very little is done to see what kind of a relator he is. If we want to begin a dialogue about fellowship the first step is getting to know our neighbors. Perhaps the thing we need most is to slow down.

On Following Jesus

2005-09-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about “following Jesus.” In hopes of starting a dialogue about this I’m curious as to what this term really means. Lately the terminology has become so religiously correct that I don’t know what to do with it. People just throw it out as though it were some sort of spiritual follower the leader game. It is enough just to imitate the acts of Jesus? Are we just playing a game of copycat?

Here’s where I’ve seen a lot of those in the blogging community, at my campus and in talking to Christian friends: They’ve come to understand what following is not. They know that it is not just a prayer. They know that it is about more than just beliefs. They know that it is not just about going to church or singing songs in church.

The question then becomes, what is this all about? This is the place where a lot of people don’t seem to know where to go. And to be honest Jesus seems irrelevant. Most of us don’t fish as a career, we don’t see men with long flowing hair walking down the beach calling us to “follow him.” In fact, the following that we see in the gospels is in many ways irrelevant to our lives as well. We don’t have a Jesus to see tangibly as the disciples did.

So how is it possible to follow a God that we can’t see and can’t touch?

An influential man in my life once told me that, “The way Jesus treated people then is the way that Jesus treats people now.” So how did Jesus treat his disciples? Jesus asked his disciples to drop their nets and follow him. If that is the way that Jesus treated his disciples then, we must be able to translate that calling into our lives today. The first step then in discipleship is dropping our nets and following Jesus.

Nets can be a couple of things. The first and most obvious answer is our livelihood. Our nets are the routines and the daily things that we claim as our own. As a student my livelihood is being able to go to school, do my homework and act as a student would act. My nets include the daily activities such as my job at In-n-Out Burger and my apartment that I live in. Jesus is asking us to drop our livelihood. He is asking us to give up ourselves and be fully devoted to him.

The second thing that these nets imply is what we feel we are good at. The disciples probably thought they were pretty good fishermen. Peter provides the best example of this when he tells Jesus how to fish saying that he’s already tried what Jesus suggested. What is something that you’re good at? When we become Christians we are not only given eternal life in some futuristic sense of the word, we are given the Holy Spirit in the here and now. Jesus wants to take what we’re good at and transfer it to the kingdom.

This idea of transference is key to this second idea that we are speaking of. Jesus said that previous to their encounter with Jesus they had caught fish, now they were going to catch men. They transferred their energy to doing temporal work that would supply them with temporal things to kingdom work that would impact people in bringing in the reign of God. If we want to follow Chris we must take part in this transference of our will to God’s will.

The question then becomes practical. How can we allow these first two things that we’ve gleaned from scripture to enter into our everyday lives? The first thing we talked about was livelihood. How can we give our livelihood over to Christ? For me as a student I have to contextualize it to my own setting. I’m living around 30 other sophomores who are also going to school. How can I give up my own livelihood here in this place?

Let’s use this simple example as our attempt to apply theology concretely to my present situation. Being surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses here in this place it would only make sense that fellowship be the primary goal of this aspect of my life. Here we come to our next theological question. What is fellowship?

I will deal with the idea of fellowship in my next post (Lord willing). But for now I believe I’ve found one concrete way to follow Christ in the specific location that I’m at.

The first two questions of theology...

2005-09-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

Because I just had a post on theology now I think it’s time to start doing theology. I believe that theology begins with questions that seek answers. So here I begin with questions:

What does it mean to be a Christian?
What does being a Christian mean for my life now?

Before I post I was wondering if any readers would like to answer my questions.

Theology

2005-09-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Recently I was reading a blog on theology at “Living in the Kingdom.” Because the author is such a good friend of mine I know that he will not take it personally when I critique his post. You may want to read his thoughts http://whateverisgood.blogspot.com/.

Wes begins by talking about the idea that theology is not simply “black and white truth that floats somehow detached from our reality.” Wes goes on to talk about different discussions he has taken part in with doctrinal issue such as “predestination, the Trinity, seven day creation, etc.” He talks about how many of these discussions that have taken place have led to nothing. He also speaks about studying Mormonism and trying to understand how the Christian should stand theologically when studying other religions.

I applaud Wes’ effort to attempt to get to the essence of theology. There is more than “black and white truth” and the picture that we find painted that is theology is incredibly vivid and colorful. Theology also does go beyond theological and doctrinal discussions. It is also not just about finding what is wrong with other religions and to find “how right we are.” But I must caution readers that there also is an essential part of theology that does have to do with “black and white truth” and doctrinal issues.

Wes states at point that “studying or theologizing goes much farther beyond right and wrong.” Theology at it’s essence deals with the study of God. In studying God we attempt to understand what is right with the world and what is wrong with the world. This is not to say there is no gray but to mention the fact that gray is made up of both black and white pastels. Without the black and the white there could be no gray scale. One of the major points of theology is to understand how the right is right and why the wrong is wrong. Another major point of theology is to understand why we believe certain instances to be right and others to be wrong.

Doctrinal issues also play a huge role in essential parts of theology. Let’s take for our example the notion of the Trinity. What theological issues did this idea stem from? It stemmed from a deep want and desire to more fully understand God in each aspect of his essence. If we do not understand whether we agree or disagree with this notion of Trinity we will be ineffective in teachings others about the nature of God. If we ourselves are not clear on how we view the nature of God we will be just as unclear to those we are discipling.

Understanding other religions is also imperative to understanding our own story. I don’t think that Wes disagrees with me on this point. What I am saying here is more like an addition or postulate to what Wes has already laid down. If we are looking to Mormonism to see what is wrong with it then we will never understand Mormonism. If a Muslim came looking to find holes and contradictions in the Bible it will do him very little good in understanding why Jesus came and the theological significance of his coming. In the same way if we do not understand the Mormon religion for what it is (i.e., we are only looking for contradictions) then we will never understand those who practice Mormonism.

Kicking people out of church

2005-09-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

Recently a door of discussion has opened up for me. One of my main passions is youth ministry and how to most effectively give students Jesus. The question that came up recently for me was this: When a student reaches the end of their high school years should the youth pastor “kick them out?” There is no doubt that this is a difficult question. The fact that we even have to ask this question makes us me wonder if we have seriously thought through this issue.

The thought that first comes to mind is this idea of a 20 year old two years out of high school who still comes to youth group. What are we doing for such a student who isn’t growing out of his “golden years” of high school? The more serious questions arise when that 20 year old boy starts hitting on the freshmen girls in the group. It is then that we have a serious problem within the context of youth group.

Another student that comes to mind is the small church that has a small college group because it is not a college town. What about the students that have nowhere to go? Are they just supposed to integrate with the adults within the service that don’t take them seriously anyway? It is with this second student that my heart bleeds. We can’t really let them back into the hallowed halls of the youth room and the adults don’t seem to fully accept them either. So where do these emerging adults find themselves? They find themselves increasingly on the fringes of society.

Here is where most churches have not seriously considered the problem of “youth group.” Youth group, to most youth pastors, is a fun time where kids are entertained. It is not a time of upbringing teaching children the practical aspects of Christians (i.e., learning how to live the Christian life in everyday existence). If Bible study is a part of the service it is usually topical having to do with issues that students may or may not face all that often.

The first type of topical study is that of a large and vague overgeneralization of youth culture that usually isn’t an accurate picture anyway. This is the type that develops very general sense of character like “honesty” and “integrity.” Honesty and integrity in what? Very little is taught in how to act in school. Very little is taught about how to fellowship. It is a word that Christians use often and very few know. Very little is taught about worship. We are very good at saying what worship isn’t (i.e., “Worship isn’t just about words.”). We are not so good at saying what worship is. Perhaps it is this generalization that finds our youth groups so ineffective.

What needs to be addressed here is ultimately about discipleship. If we make youth ministry about how “good” our sermons are and about how “good” the worship is, then we have already failed. If we make it about the “goodness” of a youth event then we’ve missed the point. Instead, we must understand that it is about the Holy Spirit working through us in the individual lives of every student that we come into contact with. In a youth group talk we will be pulling out the shotgun at best trying to hit every student. We must make the effort to disciple every student in the youth group. Whether it is us ourselves or someone other adult leader, there has to be discipleship.

The idea that we have to “kick someone out” is irrelevant in the context of discipleship. When discipleship is going on there is no end in sight. There is no canned “four year approach” to youth ministry with discipleship as the foundation. If discipleship is at the foundation then it can go on for years afterwards. It is this continuity that many students need at the deepest level.

2005-09-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Walking up and down the grocery aisles scanning the rows. The thing that pops out the most is new October issue of Teen People. On the front in big letters it says “get great hair.” Out of three words the first word is the most important and the thing that we should spend our time understanding. The word is “get.” We live in a microwave culture. It is a culture that wants all the answers right away. It’s the way the magazines sell. The magazines pretend to have the answers for susceptible and impressionable young people (in this case, women).

Another title on the front asks a question. The question is, “Nervous around guys?” After this question the magazine suggests that it has an answer to this problem. Many of the problems with our culture today are built on the myth that there are “secret formulas.” On page 90 of the magazine there is a way to find out how to have “perfect skin.” Life is not this way. This is why a lot of Christian theology is so bad. There isn’t a “secret formula” or “seven steps to a good Christian life.”

The reality is, Christian life is hard and many don’t finish because of it. There are so many advertisements all around us all the time. Some of them are totally silent. One ad interesting to me was of Carrie Underwood being waited on by six men because she was wearing Skecher’s shoes. Another shoe advertisement shows a girl on a guys lap wearing “Red Hot” shoes. All of these sex based advertisements show a side to what we are teaching our adolescents.

First we decided that what we are giving our students is a theology that says we can have it right now and we don’t have to work for it. We teach them there is some kind of “secret formula” that will work for them. The second thing we have taught hem is that wearing the right type of clothes will get us lots of attention, whether sexual or not, and attention is what we want. Attention is ultimately what this is about. Adolescents long to be loved and feel appreciated. Many will go to any lengths to get it.

As Christian leaders we must be willing to debunk these two myths. The first we must debunk is the idea that Christianity is some sort of secret formula to a happy life. Christianity, insofar as the way Christ preached it, was a life that would be totally devoted to goodness and righteousness. The Christian life is all about restoration of the soul to be what we were originally meant to be. We were originally meant to be in communion with God.

The second myth we must debunk is this idea that kids receive attention based on what they do or what they wear. We must show students their value based on who they are and where they sit in the kingdom of heaven. Anything else is ineffective in the kingdom of God.

Ivan the Terrible

2005-09-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

The story is of Ivan the Terrible. It is an interesting story. Mr. Terrible in this story is look for someone who will oblige him in becoming the next member of the Terrible Family. He finally meets a girl name Sophia. Here’s where the twist comes in. Ivan is a soldier and Sophia wants him to be baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church. The problem with this is that one cannot be both a soldier and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. So he did what any man would do. He went out to the river with his hundred men where a hundred Greek priests were waiting. They all pulled out their swords and held them up. Ivan told the priests that they could baptize him up to his arms, but not the arm that held the sword.

It is an interesting story if not simply for the purpose of making us ask the question, “What are we holding back from totally surrendering to the cross?” Is there something that we cling to so tightly that God cannot use us. The story of Hannah comes to mind where she prays to God and promises to totally and fully give her son up to the Lord if she can only have him. We will be ineffective ministers of God’s word until we totally and fully surrender to the cross.

Sexual Purity

2005-09-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

In the last article I wrote I spoke about the Lord helping us in our times of struggle. I’ve seen so many books out right now on sexual purity. And what are these books saying? These books are interesting and sometimes enlightening, but where are we to go from here? I dialogue I would like to start here is whether or not it is okay for Christians to “date.” Many of the books that I’ve read talk about only “courtship” in Christianity. No kissing before marriage because it might “lead us” in a bad direction.

Do you guys think this type of stuff is legitimate authority or do you think it is different for different people?

Lord, Help Me

2005-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Read Ephesians 4:17-19

At the beginning of the passage I sense urgency. Paul says that he “insists” that the people listen to him. He doesn’t give them options. He says that they “must not” live as the gentiles any longer. Paul is totally and fully convinced that there is a new reality in Christ Jesus. This isn’t new theology but perhaps misunderstood in the Christian church today. One of my favorite books of the Bible is Luke. One of my favorite chapters is Luke 13 where Jesus says that we must enter through the “narrow door.”
My biggest problem with the Christian church today is there lack of reality. A lot of churches that I know worship the door and sing about the door, but there are too many churches simply sitting in the door. They thank Jesus for the door, they praise him fro the door, they talk about the door to as many people as they can (even if they are total strangers) and all they really care about is if people understand the theology of this door.
The door that I’m speaking of is infinitely important if you interpret the story in the same way as I do. When I read the story I interpret the door of Luke 13:22 as the entrance into a new reality. Jesus’ death on the cross was the cataclysmic event that opened the doorway and tore down the veil to the Father’s palace. The problem with Christian theology today is that this is where it ends. People think the door looks really cool and people want to decorate the door with interesting phrases. They want to wear the door around their neck. They want to preach it, teach it, but very few ever want to live it.
And this is where I sense Paul’s sense of urgency in Ephesians. Paul is telling them that it’s not enough to just “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.” Paul would not have understood the word “personal.” To him the entirely of the Christian faith was founded on community. The Christian life was not meant to be lived alone. So Paul here commands something of the Ephesians.
He commands the Ephesian church to no longer walk in the “futility of their thinking.” Futility in this sense means “the utter absence of purpose” (Key Word Study Bible). In other words, Christ has given these Ephesians a new sense of purpose in their lives. This is no longer a meaningless sense of lostness and aloneness. This life is a place full of light and love streaming from every high tower. No longer are we dead but we are alive with Christ.
In our aliveness we are no longer surrounded by death and “darkened” understanding that is typical of the “gentile.” Here Paul gives a good description and a warning about gentiles. First his description is that they are “ignorant” and “darkened in their understanding.” In other words they either don’t understand or their understanding is totally skewed. He then inserts a tag that I take as a personal warning. He talks about the deep seated reason why the gentiles are the way they are. It is because they have “hardened hearts.”
Due to the sense of urgency in the beginning of this passage I’m assuming that Paul is dead serious about all of these things and is calling us to be serious about them as well. So this idea of a “hardened heart” is not only for gentiles. If it was only for gentiles, Paul would not have given it to them. Instead, Paul is actually warning them not to go back to a heart of stone. Unfortunately many Christians have more of a heart of stone than those outside the faith.
Let me ask a couple of questions to Christians reading this blog: Do you have a heart of stone or a heart full of love? These questions challenged me. Paul goes on in verse 19 to describe what he means by hard hearted. The first characteristic is the lack of “sensitivity.” Are you sensitive to the spirit? When you see a need like a homeless person or an unloved person do you make an intentional effort to help that person? When someone is sad are you there to comfort them or are you too wrapped up in your own problems?
Instead of love Paul describes those with this heart of stone as people with a “continual lust for more.” Here Paul hits one of the roots of “gentile living.” This root is sexual immorality. Again Paul urges us to stay “sexually pure.” One quote that I heard from a wise mentor recently came in the form of question. He asked, “What the heck is sexual purity?” Then he gave me an interesting answer. To him it was, “Lord, help me.” With anything in the Christian life it always will come down to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It comes back to the idea that we cannot live a life of holiness without grace from the father above. That’s just a few things to think about until next time…

Letting God be God

2005-09-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

These last three weeks have been amazing. I’ve learned so much about life and love that I feel like I might explode. I’m still processing so much that I don’t even really know what to write about. I suppose that I will start by saying that I’ve learned that expectations can sometimes be a hindrance to God’s working. If we are expecting a certain something from a certain situation then we are limiting God only to what we want. We are limiting God only to be worshipped in the way that we feel comfortable. If this is the case then we have gravely mistaken and mistook what God has for us.

God is a God that is not contained by simple logic. He can’t be controlled no matter how much we try. We have to let God be God. I will try to post something more well thought out later.

I'm Not Dead

2005-08-03T00:22:00.000-07:00

This is to let those who know me know I'm not dead. I bought a new laptop yesterday so that is where I'm typing from today. I leave you with only questions:

What is the meaning of life?

Pride?

2005-06-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our second lesson for the Junior Highers at church. My co-teacher taught this week. The big thing that I’m struggling with right now is this issue of pride. I feel like I am a better teacher than my co-teacher, Jeremy. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just feeling this way out of pride and so I talked to Mia and my parents (who both heard him teach) and they thought they talked over his head as well. What am I supposed to do in this case?

Ray Comfort - Part 2

2005-06-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

This post was the “more” that was promised to come on evangelists such as Ray Comfort. This will largely be addressing a comment that I got from the last blog on this subject. First of all, Comfort’s theology is very interested in where a person is “going.” The biggest problem with this type of theology is the lack of interest that it takes in where we “are.” Jesus’ message to Comfort is only fire insurance for his life with little or no emphasis on what happens in the here and now.

A theology that is so concerned with Hell makes good the point that the majority of the Christian faith today is not about living but about dying. The main concern for most people in the Christian faith does not concern how we live but how we die. Thus, to many Christians it seems like many atheists are over concerned with this life. In reality, it is more likely that Christians have no concern for this life and thus any amount of concern for the world would seem overdone.

Thus we come to quite a fork in the road here. How concerned should the Christian be with this life? Surely there is a problem with a lot of protestant theology that says this is just a “passing phase.” When Jesus often spoke of the kingdom of heaven he spoke of it as if it were here and as if it could somehow come into existence, not in some otherworldly abstract sense, but now and in this realm of existence.

Thus this idea that there is some cosmic struggle over whether we say a sinners prayer so that we can make it into some other reality when we die seems somewhat absurd. Instead, God is calling us into this world that we are living in today to redeem it. He is calling us to love those around us spreading the love of Jesus Christ. For Jesus it was always about showing, never about mere words. For him it was about breaking social barriers and showing Israel the way to truly “be” Israel.

The struggle that I talk with typical protestant theology is the black and white issue that it takes to the gospel. It’s all about some abstract knowledge that we must come to understand about Jesus. It’s not about action, it’s not about bringing the kingdom of God into this world, it is simply about pulling people off a “sinking ship.” This world is much more than a sinking ship, it is a place of God’s beautiful redemption that he wants to use to redeem even the world itself.

Ray Comfort

2005-06-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

This post is a direct response to another post that I saw on the web about a week ago. The blog is located here:

http://religiousissues.blogspot.com/2005/06/in-light-part-2.html

This person has followed in the steps of many what I will refer to as “formula evangelists” in attempting to reach the world for “Jesus Christ.” This one in particular uses Ray Comfort heavily. While I can understand some of Ray Comfort’s points and I will concede where his theology is good, his theology can also be very dangerous.

The basic premise is that you begin by asking someone where they are going to go when they die. Let us begin our critique here. In the movie examples where Ray Comfort is shown doing this, he just walks up to random people on the street and begins asking them questions like this. What kind of an approach is this? First of all, there is no interaction here. There is only someone who comes up and starts asking you all these questions that a person doesn’t really want to deal with.

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s bad theology. Did Jesus come and say in his famous Sermon on the Mount, “Do you know where you’re going when you die. Well you’re all going to hell unless you believe in me as your personal Lord and Savior?” No! That’s not what Jesus said. Jesus said that we are called to be the light of the world and the SALT. We care called to love and pray for those who hate us, to give to the poor with no hope of getting any of it back. Comfort, as are many protestant evangelists, are steeped in Pauline theology that leaves no room for the Jesus they presume to serve.

Comfort then goes on to ask them if they’ve ever looked at a women/man with lust, if they’ve ever lied or if they’ve ever stolen anything (irregardless of value). He then suggests that because of these things we are separated from God forever. The only way to get into heaven from here is to trust Jesus as the thing that saves us from this sin.

There is some good theology here. We are separated from God as a result of sin. But the way that Comfort puts it makes God seem like the ultimate Pharisee. Comfort puts all the emphasis on the same places a Pharisee might have placed them. He places our faults on the fact that we have not followed everything to the letter of law. Isn’t this exactly what Jesus spoke against? Jesus was sick of empty rituals and empty people who simply tried to follow every rule. Jesus was not interested in the blood of bulls and goats. He was interested in justice and mercy.

Comfort’s theology is very interested in things that we shouldn’t be doing that we need forgiveness for. But the things that we need forgiveness from the most is the fact that we have turned our backs on God. We have not shown mercy to others and we have sometimes been unjust. God demands that we show mercy to the fatherless and the widows, that we love those who are unloveable. This really is the gospel. To boil down the gospel to a couple of verses in Romans and Ephesians is to narrow it down to the point where it really isn’t good news at all, it is just some simply principles for how to get into heaven when you die.

More to come…

2005-06-26T00:08:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong to use your book in an online class for online test???

Junior High Event...

2005-06-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

Today was our first event for the Junior Highers. We spent sometime out in the church lot cleaning the weeds. That was a lot of fun for the sake of the fact that I got to spend about an hour with two of the kids in the group just talking to them while we weeded the lot. I’ve come to find that the service we did was tied very much into a time of fellowship with them. We then played a couple of rounds of good ol’ sardines (the game where one person hides and everyone has to hide with that person) and pictionary. We also had a time of worship (led by me) and a time of teaching (done by Jeremy).

Only about six kids showed up, but that was a good number for the amount of kids in the junior high group. I pulled weeds with a kid name Wes and Michael. Wes, I come to find, is really into musicals, so we had some common ground. I told him about my parts in Les Miserables and Fiddler on the Roof. Michael was a bit more reserved but he said that he enjoyed playing sports but didn’t always make the school teams. He seemed a bit shy (but that may have just been because he was Wes’ friend).

There was also Joshua, he was an interesting kid. He seemed very smart but also socially retarded. He had the worst B.O. I felt really bad for him, but at the same time felt bad for him. Of course my brother Tommy is also in the group and he was his usual goofy self.

Then there was the three girls. Loud and outgoing homeschooler, Grace and then best friends Elizabeth and Nicole. They were all chatting it up and talking loudly while picking up weeds. It was a good first experience.

I don’t think the kids were much into the worship though. I’m not sure what to do about that. Any ideas?

Other than that, life is going really well right now.

Jumping through Hoops...

2005-06-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling once again like I have to jump through hoops with my summer classes. My health class is a class just like any other health class with the same terms and the same busy work. My art class is…well…it’s an art class and thus has little or no value to me because of it’s lack of really any value at all. My human growth and development class is pretty much the same thing as a biology or general psychology class. I feel like I’m running in circles. I hate this feeling.

I wish that teachers would be more dynamic. That they wouldn’t so much about definitions and that they would care more about the students themselves.

What is the gospel?

2005-06-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

I just got home from Mia’s house and I just starting reading the book of Galatians. The book in it’s entirety is interesting to read. Paul exclaims that they are falling away from “the gospel.” The first thought that came to mind was a bit of an obscure question: What is the gospel? I know this sounds mundane and a stupid question for any good Protestant, but it is an important question. For those who are interested in this question in a Western context I would suggest reading Scot Mcknight’s posts at the Jesus Creed Blog (where he writes about the four spiritual laws). It makes for some very interesting reading.

But the story isn’t just about falling away from the gospel, it is about the Galatians taking on another gospel. It is the story that is weave throughout this book. Paul first throws down his credentials in Galatians 1:11-2:10. He lets them know that he has been accepted by the apostles and that he then goes on to tell how he opposed Peter. He opposed Peter because Peter was acting like a hypocrite. In one setting he would act a certain way and in another setting he would act a different way.

In other words, Peter was putting on a show. Paul is letting us know, to put it in a modern context, that Christianity is more than a good movie. It is about more than simply saying, “Wow, that’s a really cool idea.” We can’t just go back living one way after we go home from church and then become “holier than thou” on Sunday mornings. Paul opposed Peter for putting on a show and trying to be everything to everybody. Paul lets us know that the gospel is not a ritual.

Paul goes on to say that Christ “redeemed us.” That is, the redeeming of Christ has allowed for the “gentile sinners” to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. The very reason he has redeemed us is to give us the “promise of the spirit.” This is the gospel itself, when the spirit of God indwells upon us through faith. If we were once “prisoners to sin” Christ has freed us when we were “baptized” into him. We are now “clothed with Christ.” God redeemed us so that we might becomes “sons” to God.

It is in this most tender moment where he is telling them about family that he lets them know how concerned he is. To put it in modern terms he’s asking, “Do you know where the path you’re headed is going?” He actually goes so far as to “plead” with them so that they will make good decisions. He actually lets them know that he is going through pain until he sees Christ “formed” in them.

And it is at this point of deepest sorrow and longing that I want to point out the genuineness of Paul. He wanted to plead with people, he wanted to be there at the moments of greatest emotions, he wants to be perplexed by them and he wants to show his love for them. He lets them know his fears (that he may have just been “wasting time” with them).

He then provides a reminder. He reminds them that it is about more than “Petering out” and putting on a show. He reminds him that there are two types of people in the world: sons and slaves. He reminds them that they are children of a promise, that they are not slaves to sin any longer. He reminds them that Christ set them free for the very sake of freedom. He longs for them to live a life by the spirit. And here is the gospel at it’s finest. To live in freedom and in the fruits of the spirit. He finishes the letter in an interesting way letting the people know that God does not judge by outward appearances, but by what counts and what counts is a “new creation.”

And this is where it gets good. This is where we find the beginning of the spiritual. We should live our lives in the freedom of the spirit. We are not bounded by special days of the years, we are not bound by sacred rituals. Everyday is a special day for it is a day in the new creation begun by Christ (that we are living everyday). Every day is sacred in the sense that we should be reverent towards God. Everyday we must let the spirit move and let the fruits of that spirit permeate our entire beings. This truly is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The First Week

2005-06-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the first teaching time that I had with the Junior Highers. The first lesson asked the basic question, “Why do we do Sunday School?” I felt like it went okay. I can’t really tell if anything sank in with them. All I do know is that these kids didn’t really seem to talk much. They said some things but most of their answers were two or three word answers. It was very difficult to start a dialogue. I’m hoping that as I get to know them better they will start opening up more. It was a good first week.

The Shield

2005-06-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

Note: This review contains some words and situations that may not be appropriate for children.

The hit series “The Shield” is one of the most controversial shows on TV as of right now. It is also one of my favorites. Between the action packed sequences and hard hitting violence it is unlike any other cop show on TV. The reason it is being written about here is for the ability it has to go beyond the realm of the physical and right into the realm of the spiritual. I’m sure those who have seen the show before are scratching their heads in wonder of how a show where God’s name is only used in vain could be spiritual.

One of the biggest points of the show is to get the audience to see the power struggle that takes place as a result of higher and higher powers vilifying for more power. The main detective, Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), does a very good job of making us ask questions. The show does not moralize but does a very good job of bringing up morally ambiguous situations. Some of these situations include stealing money in order to help his autistic child. It lets us into the bitter vengeance of Captain Aceveda (Benito Martinez) of ultimately killing prison inmate Juan because the inmate made Aceveda suck his dick.

Vic Mackey plays a character that gets things done. He is a highly successful cop with a shady record of abuse. The captain and him eventually make a deal because Mackey is of use to the captain. The seasons that follow show the Captain making his way up the food chain and Mackey using increasingly more unconventional tactics including stealing from the Armenian Mob (eventually ending with the killing of the Armenian mob leader to cover it up).

Finding God in the midst of this is important. The show’s director Shawn Ryan and star Chicklis both admit that they do not want to moralize. That’s not what this show is about and rightly so. But in many ways there is a certain amount of moralization. The question is large. Is it okay for Mackey to beat people up if it is more effective? Should the Captain turn the other cheek? The fourth season with the new Captain (Glenn Close) being shafted because she is seizing the houses of drug dealers. She is “too” effective and politically unpopular.

The nice thing about The Shield is the break that it has from ordinary cop shows. Past shows are taken into account. All four seasons are linked. If you haven’t seen the first season then you won’t understand the second, third or fourth season. It reminds us that all choices we make, even ones made long ago, will effect us in the future.

The question that the seasons leave with us is posed by Glenn Close very nicely at the end of season four, “Do you ever wonder how it’s all going to turn out?” After being fired her and Chicklis share an intense moment of TV making where the audience is sent to grapple with their own thoughts. Do we know how it is all going to turn out? Do we know what lies ahead? Do we know where our choices are going to take us?

It the end it becomes a very spiritual question. Do we know how it is all going to turn out? Do the choices that we make reflect our own power struggles? It often reminds us of what people will do when they are young at recess to be “popular.” It doesn’t stop there. Are we going to continue moving forward just letting our lives pass us by? Chicklis is fighting for something in the best way that he knows how. He wants to keep the streets clean at whatever cost that may come. He takes on the powers that to bring out a series that makes us root for him even in his more angry moments.

The question can also become personal. What is it that we are fighting for? Are we willing to go out at all costs to fight for it? Are we willing to keep our streets clean? If so, how do we go about it? The Shield provides some answers to those questions in the best way that they know. But it does not provide all the answers. It only shows how the power struggles begin and end. But as Christians we fight for something larger than power and we are faced with more situations daily that count for something eternal. Are we ready?

Letting Jesus Run

2005-06-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

It’s funny how often we just move along like a herd of cattle, like nothing ever really matters. As if we are just living and nothing really matters. It’s at this time and in this place that most of life takes place, at a level of minimal consciousness with minimal thoughts outgoing. After working fast food at the infamous In-N-Out Burger for over two years I’ve come find that there is a certain excitement to moving very quickly and trying to stay ahead when there are a lot of orders coming through the drive through. But with that excitement and ecstasy there comes a point where we ask, “Is this all there is?”

Sometimes life can be like working at a fast food restaurant. The questions are all the same: Is there more to life than just coming to work everyday? It there more to life than simply doing a routine? It’s the question of many of the great philosophers. Why are we all here? What is the point of all this? We’re trying to find the most bang for our back and while the buck comes out the bang seems less as we spend more. There has to be more to life than money. There has to be more to life than something that we see in the here and now.

This “something” that we speak of cannot be uttered. It can’t be shown on the plasma screen or found in some expensive car or anything that we can see or hear or touch or taste. This “something” is beyond the conventional terms of quantity or substance. It goes to a simple “idea.” This idea is more than just words or a slogan that has little to do with reality. It has to do with purity in its purest forms.

This “idea” is that we really can be good. We really are created in the image of God. We really are a “community of the risen.” The two biggest problems and hindrances to these ideals are competing philosophies and talk. There are many other philosophies that combat with the philosophy of goodness. There is the typical Christianity that says, “We are simply fallen creatures with no hope of ever being anything good.” All that we can do is take something that somebody else did and apply it to our account. But it has nothing to do with us because we are “just forgiven.”

The second hindrance is just talk. There are many people are who are quick to criticize. They are always talking about what’s wrong with the world or how they would do things differently if they held the “power.” But very little action to I ever see. For instance, there is an estimated $20 billion that goes into the porn industry every year. Apparently more people are talking than actually trying to do something about it. People have just accepted that it is going to be a part of our culture and the numbers suggest that a lot more people are looking at it than we think.

Could the very people who are reading this now be looking at pornography on a regular basis? I know that it has been something that I personally have struggled with off and on ever since puberty. But the reality that I’ve come head to head with is that we should face problems like these head on, challenging the status quo working towards this idea of restoration of purity in an impure world.

Life is about more than routine and rituals. It is about bringing the restoration that Jesus began. I hope that we can be people that live lives large enough to let the Jesus that we serve run unhindered in our lives.

Why do we do Sunday School?

2005-06-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

It’s a question that we often ask and is very rarely answered effectively within the realm of conventional church. If we wanted to answer such a question effectively we have to start by what we do nowadays. We have a pre-packaged lesson, mostly bought from outside sources that we read or talk to about kids. Kids are able to give “Sunday School answers” and then leave and live the rest of their lives. Is this what we are trying to get across to kids as to what Jesus would have wanted for them?

Lets take a look today at what Jesus thought about children. It starts as an argument. A simple argument among the disciples. They were arguing about who would be the greatest (Luke 9:46). This is often how things such as this begin. It begins with some kind of contest among the human race to see who can make the biggest explosion or who can get the most home runs in a season. People are constantly trying to break barriers, constantly trying to see if they can be the next big thing or break the world record in the Olympics. People want to be seen as the greatest.

And then I imagine Jesus walking over to them and asking them what they are talking about. I imagine the stunned silence that must be taking place around them. It then says that Jesus “knew their thoughts (Luke 9:47). In knowing their thoughts he took a little child from among the crowd. He put a little child as the one on display. I can imagine that he put his hand on his head and simply gave a little Jesus grin. Staring at his disciples he gave the answer to the question that they were asking.

“Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes we welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all – he is the greatest.”

First we see a connection. There is a connection between the little child and Jesus. He lets them know that if they’ve seen the little child then they’ve seen the very eyes of God. There is something very powerful in that innocence of mind and thought. There is something very powerful in the swift and powerfully happy movements of a child. Of a smile and a person who doesn’t care about what people think of them. Of a laugh that doesn’t care if anybody else isn’t laughing. It is in this perfect harmony that Jesus presents the connection. The connection that we have with children is also the connection that we often have with the almighty himself.

We then see the way that God views the world. God views the world in the exact opposite way that we view it. The least among us, the children, are the most important in the eyes of God. It lets us know that we should be careful. We should not be so quick to sign up for the job of Sunday School teacher. Kids are so important in the eyes of God that bringing them up should be our greatest priority.

Work, Work, Work

2005-06-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Work was good today. It is very hard to do the headset. I’m currently working toward getting that raise at work. I worked the headset today. It’s hard because I was trying to pour the drinks and take the orders at the same time and sometimes it just didn’t work out so well. And it was infinitely more difficult because I had a bad hand out person. But I think I am getting better at it. Anyways, I just wanted to post to let everybody know I wasn’t dead.

In-N-Out Burger

2005-05-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ten things that upset me when people come through the drive-through at In-N-Out:

When they ask for a hamburger without cheese.
When they talk on their cell phone while giving me the money at the pay window.
When they talk slow because they think I’m an idiot.
When they expect me to speak Spanish at an English establishment.
When they ask for a plain cheeseburger with just ketchup on it.
When they are in such a hurry that they drive right past the pay window.
When they become impatient.
When they order 20 burgers and hold up the drive lane.
When they tell me that I got the order wrong when it was their fault.

BUT, at In-N-Out, the golden rule is, “The customer is always right.” If in doubt rule number two is, “Refer back to rule number one.”

Peter Pan

2005-05-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

This week has started off well. I had today and yesterday off from work and have had some time to sit back and relax. I watched “Hook” yesterday and “Peter Pan” today. A couple of days ago I watched “Finding Neverland.” In other words, I’m trying to stop the growing up process and stay a kid forever. The movies themselves really are fascinating. When watching them one after the other within the same span of time also proves interesting.

Finding Neverland deals with the aspects of the writer of the original play itself. It shows how he himself had a dream that Neverland existed. That such a place can be found within the imagination of children. Peter Pan actually shows the original play within the lens of Disneyization. It’s not as good as the other two but certainly shows the wear of a movie watched too many times by an overeager child who wanted little to become an adult. The third shows an adult Peter Pan who had long ago forgot his childhood fantasies. He had to be reminded of who he was and what he stood for.

It reminds me of the books of Solomon. In the Song of Solomon he is first discovering the innocence of true love. He is discovering Neverland. Then he lives in it and teaches his children in the book of Proverbs. He then looks back on his life as a Pan of Old and wonders what it was all for in Ecclesiastes. It is a good reminder to all of us that we are only children once.

Star Wars

2005-05-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

I just went and saw Star Wars: Episode III yesterday. Overall, the movie was well made. A good save from the second movie. There were a lot of things I liked and disliked about the movie. Some of the action sequences were confusing and overwhelming. Some of the parts, especially the beginning, were also confusing. The part that I really wanted to comment on was how the Emperor turns Anakin over to the dark side (don’t read the rest if you haven’t seen the movie). He does it by making him think something that isn’t true and he makes him believe that he can cheat death.

One of the points that Lucas was trying to make within the movie is that one cannot be too connected to life or he or she will be unable to be selfless. A selfless person is one that realizes that power and fame in this world are altogether irrelevant from the type of person that we should be. The Sith is a being that desires power above everything else. A Jedi desires to help those around them more than anything else.

Although I would say Star Warsian philosophical thought tends to be more eastern than western there is a lot that applies to us as Westernized Christians as well. There is a certain amount of detachment that we must have from life and we must learn the ways of the “force.” The force to a Christian is not so impersonal as it would be to a Jedi, but our reality much be changed in light of who God is. Our reality is one that looks outward instead of inward. Our goal should be to desire to harness our feelings into those that are patient and having the mind of Christ, who gave it all away.

Tired

2005-05-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

This had been a time in my life where things have become very hectic. Not in the sense that I’m overly busy but that I do not have the time over the summer to relax. I work at least five days a week and on top of that I have friends and family that I hang out with (not to mention a girlfriend :) ). I feel like a shooting star, pouring myself out to everyone as a brilliant light and having nothing left for myself.

I really need to find some time next week where I can sit and be quiet. Read a good book, write some thoughtful blogs, thing about things that I need to think about and just having time to relax and watch a movie or something like that. All of this go, go, go stuff has just tuckered me out and I’m tired of it.

GoodFellas

2005-05-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching the movie GoodFellas with Robert DeNiro, Joe Peschi and Ray Liotta. It was a very good movie that has my wheels spinning on a number of different levels. The movie dealt with the life of the Mob in a way I had never seen it dealt with before. Liotta was the main character in the movie. It dealt with how he had come into it when he was younger and his eventual fall from fame. But throughout the entire movie I learned something new and powerful: most mobsters don’t do it for the money.

And I liked it because too many a person have used the cliché that, “Money is the root of all Evil.” In the movie it was not the money that attracted him but all the people who had respect. These people never had to wait in line at the grocery store or wait to get seated as a restaurant. Everyone knew who they were and stayed out of their way. They could do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. The way that Liotta puts it is, “One day some people at school carried my mothers groceries all the way home from school. You know why they did it? It was out of respect.”

I think it is very true. Mobsters just happened to find a social circle that accepted them outside the normally accepted social boundaries. They aren’t evil men only in it for the money, they were in it because they liked the power and respect that they had as bosses in the big leagues. They had power over whether men lived or died. It’s the same for John Travolta in Swordfish or Denzel Washington in Training Day, they had power over people, power over their lives.

This hits back to the idea that power was at the center of many philosophers such as Michael Foucault. To him there is no such thing as truth, just certain men with a lot of power. The movie would certainly agree with him there. It goes to show that when there are certain people with a lot of power there are a lot of people who will follow. The mob bosses in the movie could have someone killed at the drop of a hat. Now that is what I would consider power.

It begs the question as to what we are to do as Christians. Jesus told us to give everything of ourselves away. To keep no respect for ourselves. To give up everything and follow him. To place all of our respect on him. Are we to stop looking for respect for ourselves? I would argue that our mission is not so different. Our mission is to repent. In modern contemporary language perhaps a better way to put it would be to assimilate. That is, to take our old ways of life and throw them out and to assimilate into a new kingdom and accept a new value system. A value system that places honor not on ourselves and our ability to protect that honor, but on a system that we give over to the Lord himself.

Peeing on the walls

2005-05-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was reading my newspaper the other day to find out that about fifteen kids had broken into my former high school about a month ago. Not only had they stolen a master key and made copies of them, they vandalized rooms, attempted to change grades and things like that. Some of the kids even peed on the walls and things like that. It made me very angry to see things like this going on. But beyond that, only five of the fifteen kids were found (they had security cameras) and they served five days on-campus suspension. They do not have to pay to put the new for the damage and new locks on the doors (it will probably cost the school around $10,000). No police report was filed.

In my opinion, kids run the world nowadays. They run the fashion industry, the makeup industry, the movie industry and apparently now they run the schools as well. These kids should have been suspended, not allowed to participate in graduation activities and been made to pay restitution fees. Expulsion should have been considered if the students did enough damage. Why was no police warrant issued?

As I read into the article it appeared that one of the teachers had actually given a key to some of the students. The kids might run errands for the teachers or come use his big screen TV on weekends. Whatever the case, it appears like one of the teachers made a big mistake. And this angers me more. I can remember other instances while I was in high school where teachers bent the rules. My choir teacher let students drive other students around during school hours to go to concerts, run errands and deliver fundraiser material. Is this not another case where the rules are bent?

Here’s what I would suggest. I would suggest that students in America don’t really know the meaning of hard work in school. I believe there needs to be a reformation in the high school programs. First of all, how many days did God rest? One. I believe that kids should go to school six days a week. They do it in Asia and who is doing better in school? Giving kids only one day a week to rest also controls the amount of weekend “partying” they can do.

I would also suggest that an AP level course load should be the norm for most high school students. This means, first of all, less busy work and more real teaching time and interaction. This means, second, harder tests and more stringent standards on students. Continuation schools should be for those who can’t pass this type of course load. This one I know sounds pretty harsh, but I think it’s necessary in order to reform the high school program from what it is today.

Third I would suggest a movement where there are more diverse courses. I would suggest classes in religious studies, sociology, psychology, business, finance, music, drama, dance, philosophy and all these types of elective courses. With more diverse courses students could choose from a wider variety of courses that suit their interests. This one in particular might cost some money to the school system, but I think it would be worth it. It will also help prepare kids to try out different areas of study to see if they want to pursue it further in college.

Fourth I believe the disciplinary system is screwed up. Students should and must learn the meaning of hard work. If a crime is committed on campus they should be pursued to the fullest extent of the law and made to pay restitution. One particular policy at school that is ineffective is the attendance policy. At our school there is no real program to keep kids coming to school on a regular basis. A cut here or there just means they have to pick up trash or some other type of ineffective punishment. I don’t know how it is across the rest of the world, but I do know that if a kid has more than three unexcused absences he should be dropped from the school. A school should have no place for kids who just want to ditch school. An excused absence is one thing, but unexcused is totally unacceptable. Kids must learn responsibility.

Educational reform is one of my biggest goals in life. I want to one day be a teacher who teaches history and I want to do it effectively. I hope that one day this will all work out. I know that some of these things sound impossible but I believe they would more effectively serve our students in the long run.

Not much going on with Me

2005-05-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

This week has been really tiresome for me. I’ve been working all week for the first time in a long time and it’s always really busy over at good old In-N-Out. It’s worth it, however, for the amount of money that they pay me. I’m not sure that I could find a job that pays this well at a college level anywhere else in Santa Maria. I’m also getting ready to teach Sunday School on II Samuel this coming summer to junior highers. That will be interesting. Other than that not much is going on in my life. I’ve just been hanging out with Mia and reading.

An Anecdote From Church

2005-05-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Just to share a little anecdote: Today we had a discussion on this at church. My pastor has a question and answer period after the worship session. Today we went over the text John 6:41-71 (we are currently in a series through the book of John). It was a passage on Jesus as the “Bread of Life.” I was just curious what you think of his main points:

God must draw the person to himself, no one can come unless God draws him.
Our part of the process is to listen and learn and then believe on Christ.
The results of eating this bread are eternal life that is guaranteed once we “believe on Christ” and we will continue to have eternal life (i.e. Salvation cannot be taken away).

I don’t think any of these points are wrong, per say, but I do think that my pastor missed the essence of the message. The essence of the message lies more towards the end where it states there are two type of people. There are those people who will follow Jesus and those who do not follow Jesus. It is a “hart teaching” (v. 60) to accept. It seems to me that Jesus lays it out on the line and lets people either accept or reject his teaching.

Instead of focusing on this main point we dealt with length at what God’s sovereign will is and how that correlates with Romans. The problem that I found with my pastors methods was that he was approaching John not as a narrative but as a text with truths that should be extrapolated. For further undrestanding on what I mean here one might check out NT Wrights “How can the Bible be Authoritative.”

The focus should stay on the fact that Jesus was presenting a teaching that was difficult. He was saying that he himself was somehow “bread from heaven” and that somehow his disciples had to “eat him.” One of the congregation members during the comment period made the comment that if he had been living during this time he would have left. He would have left because Jesus never clarifies himself. Think about it, if someone came along in this day and age and told us that we had to eat him to enter into heaven we would consider him just a bit weird. Would we not?

Thus we come to understand that the point of the story is not some set of timeless truths that my pastor attempted to explain, but, a story in which his disciples had to decipher a metaphor about Jesus. It is not much unlike a parable where those who understood it understood it and those who did not were left in the dark. Jesus let them stand for what they were. In other words, disciples of Jesus must dig deeper and longer to find the exceeding love of Christ. It is not always just sitting on a page in simple propositions.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t look at the big picture. What I am suggesting is that we understand the Bible as a narrative and not as a book from which to extrapolate “timeless truths.” Although there are many truths they must be understood within the context which they were originally written. McGehee makes the point that a phone book should not be treated the same as a novel (see McGehee “The Bible doesn’t have to hard to read”). Thus, how can we make a narrative into a set of propositional truths. I don’t think this is the point of narratives. Jesus didn’t tell this story to solve the problem of divine omniscience vs. free will, he said it and it was a story about disciples deserting him.

I think we must begin taking the Bible for what it is and not what we want it to be.

Philosophy of Charlie Brown

2005-05-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

The other night I was watching my brother in the musical “Snoopy.” There is a lot of very interesting little vignettes that take place throughout the musical. I thoroughly enjoyed it. In keeping with Paul on Mars Hill I try to find a little bit of the divine in everyday life and from all facets of life. As I was watching the show there were two things that particularly struck me about Schultz’s comic peanut philosophy.

The first was a little scene where the peanut gang was cloud watching. Throughout the song there the peanuts see all these incredibly wonderful and complex scenes played out in the blue and gray above us. The clouds became Napoleonic wars and King Henry’s. They all kept asking Charlie Brown (played by my brother Brian Kam) what he saw in the clouds. Every time he would try to answer they would interrupt him with more things that they were seeing.

It sometimes reminds me that we all try to find things in the clouds. Whether they be signs or wonders, we look to the sky. It is from here that the Son of Man will return. It is from here that there is an inexpressible wonder at what really is beyond it. Like Linus’ blanket we have a sense of security as we are enclosed by it. And while we are looking at these clouds we are always trying to get out our two cents and everyone else keeps interrupting us.

Charlie Brown, in many ways, plays the whole of humanity. We want to get out our simplistic notions of what we see in the sky. The problem is that everyone else is acting as though they see these great visions from the skies. Could it be that as Christians we tend to look out into the sky and see visions that aren’t really there? Should we return to the mind of a child?

In the end Charlie Brown changes his mind and says he doesn’t want to say what he saw. All he saw was a horse and duckey.

The other play that I particularly enjoyed was one that involved “The Great Pumpkin.” Linus’ blind faith in the Great Pumpkin reminds me sometimes of many faiths all throughout the world. There is a hope that no one can and no one can take away from Linus. My question is how to approach it. Are we to see Linus as hopelessly waiting for something that will never come? Or should we see him as a child of great faith? Is this how those who do not believe in Christianity see us?

United States of America

2005-05-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

This message is for Wes-

God Bless America!

This message is for Ryan (since Ryan probably never reads this Wes is going to have to show Ryan)-

I’m still sleeping above you in spirit.

This message is for Tracy-

I’m a homework maniac.

It’s 12:03 AM and everyone in my house is asleep and I’m still wide awake. What should I do?

Jesus wants you to Succeed?

2005-05-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

Recently walking down the path to the School library I was struck by a sign that said simply “Jesus wants you to succeed.” I don’t know why it struck me, but it did. Is that all Jesus is? Is he simply a cheerleader cheering us along to “Your Best Life Now” (another Christian Bestseller). This is nothing against the person that wrote this and perhaps I am misinterpreting what they said, but golly gee wish, I’m sick of the “self-help Christian phrases” like “God Loves you” and “God will never leave you.” The reality of Revelation two says that if we forsake our first love then our first love will also forsake us. There is a constant longing of God to be in close communion with those he created.
In recent times it seems that all Jesus is would be a “homeboy” or a “good buddy.” All of these terms don’t do justice to the idea that Jesus was first and foremost a teacher about the kingdom of God and our place in that kingdom. If we lose sight of this and simply make Jesus the ultimate self-help motivational speaker then we’ve lost the heart of it all.

Giving Ourselves away

2005-04-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

“The good Lord works in mysterious ways.”

That’s what they used to tell me in Sunday School. They also used to say that, “Jesus has a plan for your life.” What they boiled the gospel down to was historical facts, key theological ideas to which we had to “intellectually assent,” and rules that we had to follow. And then I would go home and live the rest of my life.

Recently I was reading the first chapter of first Samuel. It talks about the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that I hear few talk about. The first chapter of first Samuel speaks of Hannah; a woman who had no children. As hard as Elkanah tried, he just couldn’t get Hannah pregnant. It disheartened her. Words used to describe her situation are things such as weep, bitterness and deeply troubled.

Here is precisely the world we live in. We live in a world that is deeply troubled. IT is imbibed by bitterness and weeping. Can only imagine the deep shame Hannah must have felt as a result of her inability to have children. During this first century I can only imagine the type of shame that she must have felt. It would do little just for me to attempt to qualify it here. She has been living life “year after year” in this way.

Here I would like to make us aware of the deep sense that Hannah probably felt unloved. She probably felt like years on end no one cared about her. Read how Penninah had made fun of her and chastised her still she wept. Even her own husband had to ask, “Don’t I mean something to you?” This deep sense of loss sprung from the fact that she could do nothing. She couldn’t make the baby appear out of thin air. I would go so far as to say she probably doubted the goodness of God. After all these year, why hadn’t God “remembered” her?
I think we can get a glimpse of gospel here when we finally here Hannah’s prayer. WE don’t know if it’s the first time she prayed this way ,but this time God answer it. The glimpse of the gospel comes like this:

Hannah had to give it all away.

Hannah had to say about her child that “all his life” would belong to YHWH. It is a message that we may often here but that few of us ever understand. I believe it is part of the narrow road that Christ calls us to. It is a road that realizes everything we touch and do is about something beyond ourselves, something bigger than ourselves. It is about something that goes deeper than just a bunch of intellectual doctrines. It is being able to give it all up to God.

It is not the only place in scripture this happens. Elijah runs from Jezebel and cries out to God. Jonah throws himself into the sea. Here Hannah becomes a part of a long tradition of God’s people who say, “God, I give it all away.” Until ministers do this they will be ineffective ministers in the kingdom of God. Jesus could have stayed on earth gone all the way around the world and done it himself. But for some reason, God wants humans to be a part of the implementation of the kingdom of God. This is not something that we should take lightly.

We need to give ourselves away.

Beyond Numbers

2005-04-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

The kingdom of God is not about popularity. It seems pretty common today that churches need to build up their numbers. If they aren’t building up their numbers, then they aren’t “blessed” by God. It is a dangerous idea to limit God’s blessing to numbers. God works in ways that go so far beyond numbers. He is an amazing being worthy of all our praise and worship. We must move beyond this idea of the church being a collection of people in a building on a certain day of the week. This is never what church was meant to be. Church was meant to be a body of believers getting together to worship and praise God in spirit and in truth.

Here we find ourselves in an interesting text. We find ourselves in Luke 4:38. We don’t exactly know how Jesus came to meet up with Simon. Perhaps it was his electric personality or his somewhat outspoken mannerisms. There are different variations in the different texts that we can piece together to understand his life. What is important is that Jesus has left the synagogue. Jesus had left the place where “religion” was supposed to happen. He went out to where there was need.

This is the first place that we must rest. Pastors should take the time in their congregations to find out where there is need. Are there people hurting in the community physically? Is there oppression in any form that is hindering goodness from flowing out of the church? If there is more going on inside a church building then there is outside a church building then there is something wrong. The majority of community is not built from the center of a pulpit, it is built from the center of loving relationships.

If we want to be an effective church sometimes we will have to leave the pulpit. Sometimes we will have to leave the synagogue and go out into the world. We may get a little bit messy, we may get a little bit uncomfortable, but it is a necessary part of the mission and person of Jesus Christ. It is altogether necessary as followers of Jesus Christ for us to be like Jesus in his absence through the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. Then we come to Jesus.

I don’t know exactly what he looked like. The pictures are all a little cheesy. But this man Jesus came into the house of Simon. It probably wasn’t a huge house, he was a fisherman. Fishermen tend to be hard workers for pay that is not as much as they would have liked. Simon would have known what hard work was. Everyday he would spend hours cleaning out the nets of his boat, just doing nitty-gritty work that was probably unappreciated. And here now comes this infamous Rabbi with whom Simon Peter has no idea is about to turn his world upside down.

He probably called to Jesus asking him to come. He was the loud-mouth, the one who stood out from the crowd; dare I say it…proud? He was probably the first one in line letting Jesus know that he wanted him to come to his home to heal his sick mother-in-law. It’s not clear exactly why Jesus went or what his purpose was in going there, but he went. And it goes on to say, “He bent over and rebuked the fever.”

We come from this understand that Jesus now has the ability to heal. I can only imagine the look on Peter’s face or the look on his mother-in-law’s face. But one thing is apparent. The minute she was healed she got up and began to serve Jesus. This should be the attitude of all healed by the ministry of Jesus Christ. It then goes on to say that his fame was growing and he had all kinds of people coming to him.

But here we come to the crux of the story. First of all there are lots of people. There are all kinds of people standing in awe of who he is. The strange verse comes out when he states that he doesn’t want the demons to say who he is. For some reason he doesn’t want the publicity yet. We have to be careful in the same way of what I’m going to refer to as “throwing names.” Jesus could have allowed the demons to say who he was and it may have even increased their faith in him. Why did Jesus let them do it? He was the Christ right? They wouldn’t be lying. The people need to know who he is. The people need to believe in the right name, right?

It appears that Jesus is not altogether concerned with them knowing who he is. He is more concerned with preaching the “good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” Jesus is the very God whom these Israelites whom they are serving and he is still, in his servant attitude, saying that it’s not about him. It’s not about the miracles that he can do, about the healings that he can provide and about the life that he gives. It is about this “good news.”

Notice what the verse says about the people. It says that the next day they “tried to keep him from leaving.” Why would Jesus leave? He could have stayed another week. In the passage just before he had been rejected. Here he was loved and people wanted him to stay. Could this not be interpreted as an open door for more ministry? The entire town is standing there telling Jesus how much they adore him. Let’s just stop the whole movement thing and settle here. Let’s build the church of God at Capernaum. They are receptive, happy to see Jesus and have all the qualities of what we would consider a good Christian church.

But how does Jesus respond? He says that he has to leave. He has to go because the kingdom of God isn’t just in one place. His job is to take the torch and light the flames of their heart in Capernaum. And he does it. But now he says that he must go on. One of the biggest life problems is that we stay in one place to long because we are comfortable. This is not what Jesus calls us out to do. He calls us out of our comfort zone. If we are comfortable in Capernaum it is probably time for us to move on.

It doesn’t seem at all strategic at the time. Jesus had begun a good ministry and was now all of a sudden leaving? It is because Jesus understood what he was here to do. He understood his connection to the Father and he understood where he needed to go. Jesus was not here to start up a “ministry” in the way that we often think of the word. Jesus was coming to give it all away. He was coming to slowly pour out himself to the entire world as the Christ figure in our lives.

He is not asking for recognition. He could have easily stayed in Capernaum and gotten that. All of the people there loved him and would have probably worshipped him as a great power. The problem begins when we start to think of ministry in this way. We tend to think of the pulpit as the central arena around which the Christian life is based. As I have already stated, this methodology is long overdue. It needs to be changed. If we think it is about how good of a speaker our pastor is or about how many people come every week we have to return to the words of Jesus.

The words of Jesus are simple: I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God. That is why I was sent. I was sent to die slowly to a people who largely would not listen to me. It’s not about how popular I can be or about how many people I can convert. It is about a lifestyle where you take on the kingdom principles of your king. I am your king.

His purpose as our king is also our purpose passed down onto us. He gave authority to the twelve and then to seventy two to do things for this kingdom. We are part of the long history of believers who believe that God is going to do something great among us. He is going to stir among us something that is wonderful beyond description. But before we can realize it we must die. Without death to the want to be popular and the want to be liked, we cannot do ministry (and we are all ministers) to the people around us.

Redemption

2005-04-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

We live in an increasingly negative culture that places emphasis on death in our community. Most of the time people will tell all their problems with ideas like education, globalization and religion. Few will give answers. Few will be the revolutionaries who bring about change in their field of study or their job or work place environment.

As a Christian I find this especially difficult. My philosophy on life has always been towards a philosophy of integration of faith into everyday life. I want to hear about what’s good in the world. I’m sick of the controversial cut and dry America that I live in today. Regardless of our stance on abortion, do not both liberals and conservatives want less illegitimate babies? Regardless of our stance on the death penalty, do not liberals and conservatives both want less crime?

In his we need to engage students in the public school system as to a question of what is right and wrong. From an early age we need to teach kids what it means to be human. Sadly today I hear the phrase “only human.” Only human? Is that all that God created us to be? Just human enough to exist without destroying the entire planet?

Such a philosophy is not only a basic question of worth, but a basic question of purpose. Does God expect us to change this world for his glory? Part of that change must begin in our own context. We must start to see change happen in the world around us. This is part of the redemptive nature of every culture.

NT Wright

2005-04-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

On my way up and back from Santa Maria yesterday I spent the majority of my time listening to a contemporary Biblical Scholar by the name of N.T. Wright. Those who want to hear the lectures I’m about to speak of can find them at

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/

The lectures I listened to were as follows: Jesus and the Kingdom of God, Jesus and the Cross, Jesus and God and finally Jesus and the World’s True Light.

There is much here and I don’t have time to go into all four. To truly understand it you have to listen to all four lectures. What Wright does challenge us on is the “New Way of Being Israel.” He challenges us first of all to see the world as Jesus would have seen him in as a Jewish Messiah and then also challenges us to see him as a Savior of the world today as “the world’s true light.”

He challenges us to life a life today as Jesus did in his time. This is not to say that we should try to reenact Jesus’ life as simply good teaching. But that we should attempt to teach Jesus’ life as something unrepeatable, something that brought about the forgiveness of sins. We should only attempt to implement that which Jesus began over 2,000 years ago: The mystery of redemption.

God wants to make all things new. He wants to start with us, by having us begin the process. This is basically how Wright challenges his hearers. Where is it that you work (or go to school)? Are there political ideologies that persist that try to sway or bring people to be of some political persuasion? Is there disunity or no harmony in the world. Is there oppression in the place that you work or go to school? If there is oppression we should begin by attempting to change and overturn that oppression, just as Jesus did by truly being “the light of the world.”

I want to hear what you guys think.

An Interesting Article

2005-04-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

I found this article linked from another blog. It has a lot to do with what is known as the "Emergent Church" and the challege in poses to orthodoxy. A few theologians from a more conservative backgrounds (Southern Baptist, I believe) argue that leaders of the movement like Brian McLaren do not support a Biblical Worldview. Tell me what you guys think of the article.

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20420

The Culmination of our Beings

2005-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” –Psalm 37:3-4

“Nothing is so much to be
feared as fear.” –Henry David Thoreau

“Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite
It breathes in the air; it shines in the light;
It streams from the hills; it descends to the plain;
And gently distills in the dew and the rain.”
-O Worship the King

I know that I should be studying for biology right now but it all seems so trivial compared to this. If you read “My thoughts on College” on my blog then you’ll understand my frustration to the fullest.

So right now I’m gong to go through an exegetical study of Psalm 37:1-2 so that we can understand it better. Psalm 37 starts like this:

“Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do
wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.”
Notice the beginning of this passage: do not fret. It seems pretty straightforward. John Ortberg has this to say on fretting (Ortberg 117):

“The single command in Scripture that occurs more often than any other—God’s
most frequently repeated instruction—is formulated in two words: Fear Not.”
We then hear the Psalmist qualify it. He states that we should not fret over evil men. We shouldn’t be envious of them. Why? Because they “wither” and “die away.” This will later on become the theology of Peter as he is challenging his new growing church not to worry about the Roman Empire. Not even the greatest empire in the history of the world can crush the radical movement of Jesus Christ.

The question we must then ask is this: Why do we fret in the first place? We fret because our feet are not anchored into something firm. For instance, during the housing process at my school the lobby where it is going on is always filled with students. Constantly students were trying to get a peek at what housing was still left and where they might live (we get chosen by a lottery system). During the time of waiting most of the students were very anxious. It was hard for them to sit still and it made for a very warm room. They couldn’t sit still because they were so anxious to find out about what housing they were going to get.

Why were they so anxious? They were anxious because it was important to them. Anxiousness is a natural reaction from uncertainty. We then come back to understand why fretting and being anchored into something firm relate. If we are not anchored into something firm, that is anchored into something that will stop the worrying, we will fret. This is the natural outcome of worry and anxiousness.

Dallas Willard writes that “Jesus brings us the assurance that our universe is a perfectly safe place to be.” Read his translation from Matthew 6 to understand what he means (Willard 66-67):

“My advice would be not to worry about what is going to happen to you: about what you will have to eat or drink, or about what clothes you will wear. Your life doesn’t consist of eating, and there is much more to your body than clothing. Take a lesson from the birds of heaven. They don’t sow or reap or hoard away in granaries, and your Father—the One in the heavens around you—sees to it that they have food. Aren’t you more important than birds?

“Who can change their physical features by worrying about them? And as
for worrying about clothes, well, look at the little flowers out in the fields.
They just pop right up. They don’t slave away getting or making clothes. But
King Solomon in his best outfit was not as glorious as one of these. How if God
so adorns the wild grasses—which are here for a day, and the next day are burned
for fuel—won’t he do even better by you? You mini-faiths.

“So don’t worry about things, saying, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘Will we have
anything to drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ (People who don’t know God at all do
that!) For your Father—the one in the heavens around you—knows you need these things. Instead, make it your top priority to be part of what God is doing and
to have the kind of goodness he has. Everything else you need will be provided.
Tomorrow? Don’t worry about it. You can do your worrying about tomorrow
tomorrow. And anyway, enough will happen today to keep you in things to worry
about until bedtime.”

It is interesting that most people only quote the second half of the second sentence of this verse. The quote that “The Lord will give you the desires of your heart.” There is a truth here, but most of the time it is a misnomer. First it says “trust” and then it says “do good.” Then it says “dwell in the land” and “enjoy safe pasture.” Then it says “delight yourself in the Lord” and then it says “he will give you the desires of your heart.” Each of these terms deserves a bit of time to be explained in terms of what God wants.

First of all note the contrast between the first and second stanza. The first is telling those who are caught up in the world what not to do. This second stanza is telling us what we should do. This second stanza is how the follower of God should live. We’ve already defined that we should not live in the kingdom of this world, but the kingdom of God. This kingdom will be one where God naturally flows from us and we will not fret. Instead we have a trust in the Lord.

Trust here in the Hebrew is batah. It means to “attach oneself” to God. It’s essence “signifies firmness or solidity.” When reading the LXX (The Greek Old Testament) the word elpizo (“to hope”) is also used. When the Israelites waged war they “cried out to him in battle” and God “answered their prayers because they rusted in him” (1 Chronicles 5:20). In the battles of our lives God calls us to cry out to him. Notice the “song sung in Judah” in Isaiah 26. Here God brings the salvation to the “righteous nation” because they “trusted in him” because they kept in “perfect peace” and had a “steadfast mind.” In this we are called to trust in the Lord forever.

When we trust in God we should have hopeful faith that is totally connected to God. It should be a faith that hopes despite circumstances and despite the things that go around us. Though the mountains shake and the world isn’t stable, God keeps us stable in trust so that we will not “fret.” He keeps us stable by simply bringing us into his arms.

The next thing that YHWH calls us to do is “do good.” (6913, 3202) The word do here is asah. It means “To make, work, create, accomplish, prepare, obey, offer, or sacrifice.” The word good here is tob which means “Good, pleasant, beautiful, excellent, lovely, delightful, joyful, fruitful =, precious, cheerful, kind, correct and righteous.” It can also be referring to “that which is good, right, or pleasant.” Read the paraphrase of the verse with the words above:

“Attach oneself to the Lord and work to create, offer and sacrifice
to bring about that which is good, pleasant, lovely, delightful, joyful,
precious and righteous.”

The question then becomes, how can we do this practically? The verse calls us to do a whole lot and it is very probably that the progression of these two verses is also how the person should progress. We’ve already established we should not fret and fall instead into the kingdom of God, being a full fledged member of God’s family. Now we’ve also decided that part of that turning is attaching ourselves away from our own goodness and placing ourselves in God. Entering into his kingdom means working to create, offer and sacrifice these verbs in the paraphrase above.

The psalmist then answers the question. He says that we should “Dwell in the land” and “enjoy safe pasture.” To “dwell in” comes from the Hebrew sakan which means “to reside.” It means to “inhabit, dwell and abide.” In Genesis 26:2 the Lord said to Isaac simply to “live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you.” All that the Lord says is “live.”

God first of all simply challenges to live where he tells us to live. For most of us, this is simply where we are born. So often I’ve heard people saying, “I just need to get out of here.” The grass always is greener on the other side. The world always seems better in the big city or in the big college dorm. But even here I struggle. Even here there is pain and a sense of loss. Even here I can be haunted. God is calling us to something greater. God is simply calling us to live in the land that he wants us to live in and I believe it is a sin to be downcast in our lives where we are.

The way that we can bring about what is good is by totally and fully dying to ourselves. It sounds odd. Until we “deny ourselves” and “take up our crosses daily” and follow Jesus we cannot be content in the land that we are living. Whoever wants to really “save his life will lose it.” (Luke 9:23-24) Until we totally and fully die to ourselves we cannot enter the kingdom of God and do the good that God calls us to do.

The reason we are so fearful a lot of the time is our inability to let ourselves go to God. The land that we dwell that God spoke of to Isaac was Canaan. The holy land of the Israelites was the temple. Today that temple is our body. We dwell in our bodies. Until we get rid of the corruption and the filth, God cannot enter into it and show us who he really is as the manifest God of the universe. We must truly let God be God in our lives and allow him to work in the situations where we are put.

It is only when we believe that God is good and we let ourselves go to this God of the universe that we can “enjoy safe pasture.” This is the next section in the Psalm. God has made us “very good” (Genesis 1:27) and he wants to continue to “complete a good work” in us. God wants us to celebrate. The root of this verse comes from the very heart of the Torah. In Deuteronomy six is states that God has given us the law so that we can “enjoy him” (Deuteronomy 6:2).

The whole point of the Sabbath was to enjoy the safety of the land in which they lived. They built their lives around a day where they would do nothing but rest and party. For the Israelites feasts were a regular part of their lives. They really did what this Psalmist is suggesting where they would dwell and enjoy the land that they lived in. It would have been a time of stories and food. It was a time where stories could be passed down from generation to generation (Psalm 145). The only way to enjoy these times is to believe that we really are safe, that God really is good and that we really can be safe in this land.

From this and only after we being to understand this life of celebration that the disciple is called to can we “delight ourselves in the Lord.” As we are really enjoying the life that God created for us, we can also delight our entire beings in the Lord. Some might argue that, “You don’t understand. My life really sucks right now and you don’t understand my parents, my town and the place where I have to live.”

But if we are holding on that bitterness. If we are holding on to this world as only a place of evil and back biting we are, in a way, back biting God. God told Moses that the very ground he stood on was holy. Jacob awoke one day after sleeping on dirt that where he was sleeping God had been. The earth that we walk on is sacred. In a world that tells us nothing is sacred we must endeavor to never forget this.

Let us speak of this in the terms of progression that I spoke of earlier: God first of all calls us to believe that he is good. He calls us not to fret and instead attach ourselves to him in reconciliation. He calls us to bring about the good in this world that he so desperately longs to bring about. He wants to do it through each one of us. It is these things that truly will never fade. He wants us to dwell in the land (in the NT our own bodies) and enjoy life in a celebratory spirit. A downcast spirit will be uplifted in the Kingdom of God. This is not to say that we are always happy, it does mean that we always have a perspective. We have the perspective because we truly attached to God no matter what we are going through. As a result we are able to holistically “delight in the Lord.”

It is then when our entire beings culminate in God that he will give us those desires of our heart.

Thoughts on College

2005-04-14T20:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking for some time now about what it means to learn. Being finally in college reminds me that we are holistic beings. We are not only intellectual, we are also emotional, social, physical, and spiritual beings. Especially being at a Christian college we should engage all of these senses. Why don’t we? Why aren’t we engaged holistically as students in every one of our senses?

For instance, I am in fundamentals of biology. Biology could be a great class, but there is a problem. The problem is simple: whatever is written in a book shouldn’t be taught in a class. A teacher should not waste time defining terms. Who cares what each part of a cell does? I can read what a mitochondria or an antibody is in my biology book. Instead, I suggest a teaching method that totally and fully engages students.

A good example would be what a biology teacher should teach. In biolog,y teachers should engage students in real discussion on evolution and what effect that has for our theology. Time might be spent on understanding the biological basis for the worldwide epidemic of AIDS. What can we do to stop it? What can we do to change it? Stem cell research, abortion and our role in the environment should all be discussed in a non-major class. We don’t care about the Krebs cycle or the name of every bone in our body. If this has to be taught for a state requirement then let kids memorize the facts on their own time. If we really must learn how the immune system works, let us read the boring facts out of the book.

Another example might be a church history class. We are taught about the great theologians. But all my professor does is lecture. Let me again suggest: Why does a teacher teach this when we can read it outside of class? Couldn’t a teacher instead ask our own opinions of Luther, Bonhoeffer and the like? Couldn’t we instead engage in lively debates about which theologians we agree and disagree with?

Educational Method should be entirely concerned with changing the student to impact the world with positive life-force. Consider the method of Jesus. He didn’t take years with his students going through every law contained in the Torah. Instead, he tried to convey to his students the heart of the law and how they can be good apprentices to his cause. And what was his cause? The will of the Father to reconcile the world back to himself.

We did not come to college because we are idiots. Therefore, we can read a book and understand basic elementary concepts. We need to take these ideas, concepts and methodologies further. We need to make them jump out of the page and really change or challenge our views of life. Biology could come alive if we speak of it in the right terms. Church History can be engaging if we would look at it in its truest light.

If students have trouble learning, we always have the learning enrichment center. Teachers always have their office hours. True test and learning never happen in learning to pass a test. In real life, the test will always be the quality of their work. Students leave here not with knowledge of the Krebs Cycle, but, with how they feel about the environment. They probably won’t remember the chemical equation to photosynthesis. They will remember if we talk about a worldwide movements to stem the effects of AIDS throughout the world.

To say anything else would just be foolish.

2005-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Me and my two Brothers (I am the tallest although I am not the tallest anymore).

2005-04-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

rgtg

Trajectories of the Almighty

2005-04-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

Trajectories of the Almighty

2005-04-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sitting here studying for biology. Staring out the big windows. An Asian man walks by with coffee cup in his hands. A lonely bike sits tied up to a brown lamp post. Two teachers in business suits go by talking about nothing but business. A girl with blonde hair sits in the shade. A red shirt with legs cross sprawled out on the grass. She sits talking to another blonde. This one wears a gray sweatshirt with black Capri sweats. Tussling their hair. Smiling every now and then. Picking up some spare rays of sun.

It’s a wonder to think what they are talking about. Two blondes sitting out in the grassy field. They are probably talking about the little things. Probably some mutual friend or about a boy that one of them likes. It’s nothing life changing, it’s only speculation. The gil in the black sweatshirt kicks here feet in the air. A boy in a blue and white shirt takes a quick look at them as he passes by. He doesn’t really care. His goal is just to keep moving.

But there is a deep and profound reason that I care. They are talking. They are pouring out the cement of their thoughts creating a roadway to heaven. Heaven in the sense that today they are making memories. They are laughing about the little things. The girl in black slightly changes position. Now she is sitting up. Just changing positions slightly. Just the little things. It’s in these moments, in the warmth of sunshine and the transparent blue that we live that is the context of life.

It’s not always found in the classroom. It’s not always found in the great literature of our ages. Maybe it is simply found in the moving photographs of the Almighty. Perhaps the pictures blend and the world gets hazy, but we still live on. We still move in direction that are, unalterably, our directions. And that is profound. The trajectories are set and we must move. We still live on as long as we see the little things.

The time where the girl in the red lifts her crossed legs in the air and puts them down again. Some may see this as a movement of the legs, but the movements of the legs are undoubtedly the movements of the soul. The soul leaps in the little things. It leaps because it takes notice, even if we do not always, in the joys of the extravagant simplicity. Most people stare straight ahead, eyes aimed. God does not.

Because when I look up the last time, they are gone.

2005-04-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

“Hear this, you elders, listen all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers?” –Joel 1:2

These words have been ringing in my head for some time now. The words spoken in Joel speak loud out into the marketplaces and malls of modern America. I often wonder if these words are not also for today? May the Lord do something in our time that we never say in the times of our forefathers? If his people would get together and really pray and study his word. Really get out on the streets and spread his gospel of love and truth and goodness to all people.
This is not some cheap call to start a minor Bible study but to let the word of God consume our lives and take on entirely what Paul calls the “mind of Christ.” The book of Amos speaks strongly of Israel saying that “the virgin” will “never…rise again” And that she has been “deserted in her own land with no one to lift her up” (Amos 5:2). Why was this? Because they did not “return to the Lord” (Amos 4:8).
There is power when a broken people return to the Lord. My goal for the rest of this school year is to return to the Lord with a full heart.

2005-04-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Me playing the guitar.

Knowing yourself.

2005-04-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

“I care very little if I am judged by your or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” -1 Corinthians 4:1-5

My name is Daniel. They changed my name in the story. They changed it to “Belteshazzar.” But I know my real name. It means “God is my judge.”

Sometimes I feel like Daniel. Uprooted from everything I know and taken to a land that is not my home. I’m not sure that I could stand before kings, interpret dreams and be the faithful servant of God that Daniel was. But I could be scared.

I can be a scared boy who feels like Babylon is too big. I can be a fool who is not able to use words as well as he likes and trip over my clumsy feet. Sometimes I feel like Daniel. “God is my judge.”

Should I care that others judge? The human courts. What about judgment of self? Should I so forget the name given to me my family? Forget where I came from and except this new king, this new way and forsake everything I know?

Questions swirl around in my mind and I could scream, I could wail or I could blow up. The inner parts of me wondering what my name really is. If my conscience is clear, am I innocent? What I would do to be made white as snow, to be clean as the brook in the mountains, to be loved so perfectly and tenderly that life itself would bend.

I want to know myself. It’s a cliché and it doesn’t really mean anything. How can we know ourselves? Perhaps we can know others because they only show us the sides they wish and from those sides develop identity. But how can we know ourselves? We know the inconsistencies that we have, trying to be all things to all men. Can we really say we know ourselves? Can we only say that we adapt to the situations around us?

It’s hard to wait with so many questions. It’s hard to release ourselves to the reality of our lives when so many things bog us down in the quicksand. I’m sinking in a plotline already overdone. I’m wondering where and how and why and what this is all about.

My name is Daniel. They changed my name in the story. They changed it to “Belteshazzar.” But I know my real name. It means “God is my judge.”

Revolution of the Bureacracy

2005-04-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

Much of these thoughts are in response to a friend of mine. You might want to read his thoughts before you read my own. You can find his blog at:

http://www.whateverisgood.blogspot.com/

I’ve come to find in my own life that Jesus is calling us to wholly embracing the kingdom of God. It is a holistic endeavor. It simply means “all of us.” It is our “heart, our emotions, our will, our mind, our intellect, our past, our wounds, our failures, our worries, our anxieties, the things that keep us awake at night that we can’t shake it, it’s our addictions, it’s our compulsions, it’s the struggles…God wants to put every last part of us back together.” 1 To say that salvation is just about forgiveness of “sin” is a blasphemy of scripture.

Another obvious thing we must be reconciled from is politics. This will take some justification. This is not to say that we should do away with politics. This does not do justice to the word “reconciled.” Reconciled simply means “to make peace where there wasn’t peace before.” It means “to bring into relationship what wasn’t there before.”2 God wants to renew a political system.

This is, first of all, not a case for social activism for the sake of social activism. This is not an agenda of certain “rules” that a counter-cultural Christian society should put on the secular society as a whole. It is, most simply put, a way of life. The Christian would do well to go back to his roots and realize that we were originally called “followers of Christ” and “the way.”

It is not the usual sort of revolution that Jesus wants us to take up. It is not a civil rights movement or a fight against government. It is a fight against something much darker. It is a fight against the human heart. Against the human will and desire to destroy ourselves. God wants to do a putting back together of politics to the way they were originally supposed to be.

First we must view the way of government as it is today understood. Government is a structure that is in place to keep the balance and homeostasis of the human life. Jesus, sees discipleship as something totally separate from this form of government. Those in power, those who are attempting to keep things as screwed up as they are already, are condemned in the scriptures.

Let us take a look at one instance in scripture:

It is an interesting passage that comes from Matthew 21:23 to the end of chapter 21. It deals with the “authority” of Jesus that extends all the way throughout the rest of the chapter (it is helpful to read the chapter without the inserted titles). It starts off with the Pharisees asking the what and who questions: By what authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority?

Jesus then answers with a clever rhetorical/political question that makes a large statement about the motives of Jesus. He asks them by what authority John the Baptist did these things. Jesus knew the answer before he asked the question. The Pharisees, because of their political bindings, could not answer the question. If they said yes they’re screwed and if they say no they’re screwed. Jesus effectively tied their hands.

Within this we can take generally what Jesus means by belief. Belief in Jesus is about so much more than the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is about radically changing our lifestyles. Before we can enter into his kingdom we must be able to affirm the fact that Jesus is, as John says, “The way, the truth, and the life.” We cannot be tied down to political systems or bureaucracies of this world.

This is not to say that the Christian cannot or should not act in the civil courts and the electoral system, but that they should see everything from the perspective of God. Those Christians (we will not mention names) who attempt to try to make this nation “Christian” is like trying to count the amount of grains of sand on the seashore. Instead Jesus is simply asking us a question, “Do we believe that he is from heaven?” Are there things in the way that hinder us from declaring Jesus as “King of Kings and Lord of Lords?”

Jesus then gives two parables to illustrate his point. The first is the story of the two sons. Jesus makes the point that it is better to just be honest and say how you are feeling (the boy who at first did not want to go out into the field) then to be dishonest and say we’re going but never go. This is important for the contemporary church to understand. Salvation doesn’t simply come because we say “Yes” to God.

God demands repentance and belief. Because of this, those who had originally said “no” like prostitutes and tax collectors are going to enter the kingdom ahead. Why is this? Because God is able to work on their hearts. God is able to transform them from “no” people to “yes” people. Did Jesus ever say that we could say a prayer and then be the people that he wants us to be? No. If we say that we are of him and do not go out into the field then we are the hypocritical Pharisees.

The Pharisees didn’t quite get it yet. So he says, “listen to another parable.” I can imagine Jesus thinking, “Well, they didn’t get it the first time, so this time I’ll be sure to make it clear to them exactly who they are this time.” This time he uses an allegory from Isaiah 5:1-8 about a vineyard. This time it is a landowner who leaves his tenants in charge of a beautiful vineyard. It goes from bad to worse until the tenants actually kill the landowner’s son. There is obvious allegorical material here.

But again as we read the question of John as the context for this parable we begin to understand that Jesus here is using the vineyard as another analogy for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus created humans as the stewards of the kingdom of heaven (you might try comparing it to the Steward of Gondor) who should be waiting for the “Return of the King.” But this very kingdom that they are supposed to be waiting for is going to bring them to their “wretched end.”

In response to the Pharisees Jesus quotes Psalm 118. This is a salvation psalm of praise to the Lord. It is a psalm that says Lord “answered me by setting me free.” It is a psalm of salvation that says we have “refuge,” “strength” and “song” in the Lord. Just when he was “pushed back” the Lord became his “salvation.” The salvation of the Old Testament often speaks of this deliverance from war and evil.

It’s unclear exactly who the “builders” are in this passage, but it appears that Jesus is referring to himself as the “capstone.” He is the one is bringing “salvation” or peace to the land of Israel. But because of this and because the builders (interpreted allegorically here as the Pharisees) have rejected the very thing that is going to bring salvation to the people of Israel. As a result, the kingdom will not come to them. In fact, the kingdom, established first by God as justice, taken over in Noah’s covenant and Abraham’s covenant and finally continued as Israel’s covenant, is now “taken away.” Instead, it will be “given to a people who will produce fruit.”

Now the Pharisees understood who Jesus was talking about and they were very upset. Again, they wanted to arrest him, but they were too involved in the politics. The way that they speak of Jesus in verse 46 is reminiscent of what we spoke about earlier in the way they talked about John. They were too worried about the politics of the day and what the mob would think. They were always calculating and menacing machines. All that they cared of was that there agendas were met.

Jesus is, in essence, asking us to join up with him instead. Salvation is totally abandoning our way of life and being totally caught up in the life of Christ.

The Contemporary Church

2005-04-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

I know there’s something wrong, I just can’t quite put my finger on it. The contemporary church just isn’t life changing anymore. We sing a couple of songs, listen to a pastor give a sermon and, if we are really good Christians, we will stay for Sunday School and listen to more sermonizing. Many believe that we have missed the mark; we aren’t quite hitting on par. For many, it’s quite scary.

There has been a shift that has happened over thousands of years within the church. The history behind it is important but beyond the scope of this book. We must understand that the reformation and other consequent movements have had a large effect on the way we view the Bible. The church today is very much against a “works orientated” salvation. In its purest form, the doctrine of “salvation by grace” is a good doctrine. But the doctrine has become a legalistic ritual.

First John makes this shift clear in a passage that is not often quoted in the modern church. It says in 1 John 3:18, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

This is a difficult passage for the modern church because it is so “works orientated.” We will deal in depth with this subject in a moment. What we need to understand now is the shift. The shift that has happened over the years is one that has gone from “love for others and God in Christ Jesus” to “accepting Jesus as your savior.” One is very action orientated and the other is very belief orientated (or, perhaps, idea orientated). It can be argued from this that the church has become over intellectualized in dogma and less and less about “putting on Christ.”

This is a tragic situation that has come to encompass many churches today. There is no vibrant everyday relationship to Christ. Some churches even talk about this relationship, but they are so steeped in dogma and tradition that it is hard to see it as at all personal. Tolstoy has much to say on this matter. From his book A Confession in the first chapter he says,

“The decline of my faith occurred in the way in which it has always happened, and still happens, among those from our kind of background. It seems to me that in the majority of instances it happens like this: people live as everyone lives, but one the basis of principles that not only have nothing in common with religious doctrines but are, on the whole, contrary to them; religious doctrine plays no part in life, or in relations between people, neither are we confronted with it in our personal lives. Religious doctrine is professed in some other realm, at a distance from life and independent of it. If we encounter it, it is only as an external phenomenon, disconnected from life.”

Tolstoy captures the heart of the matter here. We go to church but do not expect a transformation of lives within it. If Stephen goes into church with a “sin problem” we can expect the church has answers for him. They have ways that Stephen can be forgiven, baptized and get involved at church. In other words, we have words that Stephen can say so that he can one day “make it” into the Heavenly places. What we don’t have is how Stephen should live now and, oftentimes, we totally ignore the very heart of the problem that Stephen brought into the church. Jesus wants to get involved in our lives today. We must come to find that the kingdom of God is here and now and let that concept change our very lives today.

Gomer

2005-04-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I’m Gomer.
Sitting on the side of the road
Naked.
Sometimes, I’m Gomer.
Laying down
Distant.
Sometimes, I just sit and think
Letting it flow.

Sometimes, I’m foolish.
Laying down
Naked.
Sometimes, I’m foolish
Sitting on the side of the Road
Distant.
Sometimes, Letting it follow
I just sit and think.

Naked
Laying down.
Sometimes, I’m foolish.
Distant
Sitting on the side of the road
Sometimes, I’m Gomer.
Letting it flow, Just sitting and thinking.
Sometimes.

Questions on God

2005-04-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

To describe God in terms of letter and numbers or in some kind of dogmatic statement is difficult. It is difficult to put words on what it means to be a full-fledge member of the kingdom of God in all of its totality. It is difficult because of people’s preconceived notions on what it means to be a follower of Christ. It is difficult because people’s minds are so often turned off to anything that is new or innovative. It is difficult because so much of America has intertwined itself with what was once Christianity.

For instance, take how lightly we use the word “God” in our culture today. God damn-it or “oh my God!” I’m not here to give people a lesson on proper Christian grammar. I’m here today to give a lesson on the Biblical version of YHWH. Ecclesiastes say, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2).

YWHW does not just speak of such things on isolated occasions. The Lord is coming and Isaiah suggests we “go into the rocks” or “hide in the ground.” He goes so far as to say that we are to “dread” the Lord (Isaiah 2:10). All of this came to me as I was thinking on my way to Costa Mesa early Sunday Morning. I felt the word of the Lord speak softly on my heart.

“Stop looking out a three by five window on life. I’m going to break your window.”

And then he asked me something quite surprising.

“Are you scared?”

I’m not sure why the question surprised me. I thought about it for a second and then I realized why he asked it. When he asked Moses to follow him he sent him against one of the largest armies in the world…with a staff. He sent Daniel into a kingdom of Babylonians. He gave the land of Jericho into a bunch of rag-tags who had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. God sends his people into dangerous places when he calls them. He calls them to be truly, as Erwin McManus so eloquently puts it, “to the center of his will.” (see The Barbarian Way).

So maybe just maybe today we need to stand in awe of a God who is going to break all our boundaries. To a God that is going to destroy all our set presuppositions. Maybe just maybe today we are going to stop and realize that the God we serve is so much bigger than anything else…he is so big. He cannot be contained in an image, he cannot be contained by a temple. Instead, as Paul put in Acts 17, “In him we live and move and have our being.”

The Path of Waking up Spinning

2005-04-06T00:52:00.000-07:00

I woke up.

The day moved by spinning as I went to my class. Tired on only two hours of sleep. But I woke up. I woke up because that’s what I do everyday. I don’t know anything else except how to get up out of bed and go. It’s not entirely clear where it is that it goes, but the path is narrow.

Class was pretty much the same. The professor lectured just like he does everyday giving us absolutes where there are none. Bringing principles into the chaos of our real lives. Tired on only two hours of sleep. The day moved by spinning as I went to my class. But I woke up. It’s not entirely clear where it is that it goes, but the path is narrow. I woke up because that’s what I do everyday.

Pizza is what I ate. The professor lectured just like he does everyday giving us absolutes where there are none. Class was pretty much the same. Tired on only two hours of sleep. It’s not entire clear where it is that it goes, but the path is narrow. I woke up because that’s what I do everyday. Bringing principles into the chaos of our real lives. But I woke up.

I woke up and that’s all that really matters. I could have stayed in bed. I could have let the world go on spinning. It’s not like it would have stopped for me. I could calm down my conscience, but it does not want to be calmed. Ate I what is pizza. Sleep of two hours only makes me tired. I wake up because that’s what I do everyday. Class was pretty much the same. It’s not entirely clear where it goes. I say again, narrow is the path.

Narrow is the path to life and death, love and hate, gathering and scattering. There is season to go down every hallway and play in very place. But before we reach it we have to wake up. Then class will not be the same. Then I will dance I the halls of my Father. It’s not entirely clear where it goes. I woke up and that’s all that matters. Spinning on goes the world and I just sleep through it all. Sleep of two hours only makes me tired.

I woke up.

A Year of Jubilee

2005-04-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

I don't think we've really done the term "Christian" justice. To the modern day man the word Christian simply means "accepting and believing in Jesus as your savior." This would have been a heresy for anyone who followed Jesus within a hundred feet. Are you really telling me that all I have to do is say a prayer and I get into heaven forever? I can murder four kids, feel a little guilty, say a prayer and then spend eternity in heaven? This is the watered down version of Christianity that brings no life transformation to the lives of its followers. It is this type of Christianity that brings death and complacency in churches today.

In fact, the term "Christian" in our day and age doesn't really mean anything except clever catch phrases invented by Christian clergy. The word on its way out as is the protestant tradition. People will not be satisfied for much longer with such a simple and asinine faith. They want something deeper, something stronger, something wider and longer than anything they get in church. People want a way of life. They want to see and experience the crosses, even with the pain, because they want to experience Christ. That is why I'm throwing out the word Christian. I'm putting it to the side and using a new phrase henceforth "follower of Christ."

By follower of Christ we mean someone who has taken the time to investigate Jesus and learn who he is (not just taken a Sunday School Apologetics Course) and really wrestled with who he is. It is this follower who will drop everything and follow the Rabbi who holds the answers to this life and the next. His yoke really is light. His burden really is easy. He calls us to follow in the ways of those who preceded him, in the ways of those who followed him and the ways of those who are still walking in the ways of Jesus today.

This isn't some abstract concept or far off faith. There is a Jesus who commanded us to follow him. There is a Jesus who commanded him to love him more and more each day. He has commanded us to love our enemies, not to worry and to store up our true treasures in heaven. And I'm not willing to submit to a usual Christian answer. That means that God wants us to go into Iraq. He doesn't want us to go with guns blazing. Amid all the turbulence and the war he is calling us to go and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the gospel of Jesus Christ is this: Give them food if they are hungry, give them water if they are thirsty. Give them love if they are unloved. Show them Christ in every way. This does not include shouting the gospel at them after you give them food. It means living among them for years and years and giving up everything to live out the truth of the gospel of Christ. Teach them also the ways of our God. Show them by example that, in all truth, followers of Christ can be loving, joyful and hopeful. Prove them wrong not by throwing down theological bombshells, but by simply loving them by supplying them with what they need.

Show love to the orphans, give food to the hungry and help the blind. Proclaim a year of jubilee in the land of your enemies. That is what true followers of Christ will do. They will not worry about "retirement security." They will not worry about ten years from now. They will pray the very prayer of the Lord, "Lord, yet your kingdom come." Let the floodgates open wide. Let there truly be a year of jubilee.