Be forewarned...
...if you are even remotely 'churchy' you will be offended by this site.
5.28.2007
The practical step...
I have been reflecting lately...
Our church has been focusing quite a bit lately on what it means to follow Jesus. We have been dialoguing about the central message of Jesus, what He desires for us from the bigger perspective of the whole person; laying down your life and picking His up, pursuing spiritual disciplines as a way of allowing God access to our hearts, recognizing that Jesus' way of life is more concerned with helping us to become a certain kind of person rather than getting us to a certain destination, recognizing that becoming that person is largely a matter of internal "spiritual" realities that manifest themselves in our daily actions (as opposed to the external 'daily actions' themselves), understanding that the central act on our parts that allows us access to God's way of being is to confidently trust that what He says is the truest possible thing to say and what He does is the best possible thing to do; all of this has served as the 'bigger picture' of what it means to follow Jesus, which, is the place that most Christians lack proper understanding the most.
I believe that we approach Jesus from a very disjointed perspective, separating His various statements from each other, treating them as self-sufficient platitudes instead of peices in the larger whole of Jesus' way of understanding, doing, and being; and separating His teaching, His actions, His relationships, His death, and His identity into completely isolated aspects of what He was trying to accomlish. This then prevents us from understanding much of what He really desires; much like a man staring at a collection of puzzle peices may tell you what the whole looks like from what He has put together, yet if he only has a small portion of the peices in place, He cannot truly know what the whole is. We in the protestant lineage have argued for too long that the whole picture is two or three of the peices that we have put together! We need to begin putting the puzzle peices back together (as many have been doing) before we make claims about what the 'point' is; to drop the metaphor, we need to understand Jesus as He understood Himself before we try to decide what His fundamental purpose for our lives might be.
...enough of the rabbit trail...
I have felt that now is the time to begin to look again at the 'nuts and bolts' of following Jesus. With our understanding of the blueprints as a whole, it is now time to start looking at where to put the building materials, and how to start building...
We are going to approach some very common aspects of human existence and ask the question, "How does our understanding of who Jesus is, and what it means to be His student, apply to this area of our lives?" In light of our belief that Jesus lived the best possible kind of life, and that He wants to share that life with us, how should we think and act in the areas of human sexuality, personal finance, conflict and confrontation, entertainment, employment, political involvment, family relationships, etc.
We need to stress constantly the larger issue of learning, in submission to Jesus, how to live; but, it is time to focus on the practicalities and actualities of 'how to _________.' I believe that this will also give us, ultimately, a deeper insight into the bigger picture of life in God's Reality; understanding in very specific terms what it means for us to 'sell everything we own,' in order to attain the 'treasure in the field.'
Our church has been focusing quite a bit lately on what it means to follow Jesus. We have been dialoguing about the central message of Jesus, what He desires for us from the bigger perspective of the whole person; laying down your life and picking His up, pursuing spiritual disciplines as a way of allowing God access to our hearts, recognizing that Jesus' way of life is more concerned with helping us to become a certain kind of person rather than getting us to a certain destination, recognizing that becoming that person is largely a matter of internal "spiritual" realities that manifest themselves in our daily actions (as opposed to the external 'daily actions' themselves), understanding that the central act on our parts that allows us access to God's way of being is to confidently trust that what He says is the truest possible thing to say and what He does is the best possible thing to do; all of this has served as the 'bigger picture' of what it means to follow Jesus, which, is the place that most Christians lack proper understanding the most.
I believe that we approach Jesus from a very disjointed perspective, separating His various statements from each other, treating them as self-sufficient platitudes instead of peices in the larger whole of Jesus' way of understanding, doing, and being; and separating His teaching, His actions, His relationships, His death, and His identity into completely isolated aspects of what He was trying to accomlish. This then prevents us from understanding much of what He really desires; much like a man staring at a collection of puzzle peices may tell you what the whole looks like from what He has put together, yet if he only has a small portion of the peices in place, He cannot truly know what the whole is. We in the protestant lineage have argued for too long that the whole picture is two or three of the peices that we have put together! We need to begin putting the puzzle peices back together (as many have been doing) before we make claims about what the 'point' is; to drop the metaphor, we need to understand Jesus as He understood Himself before we try to decide what His fundamental purpose for our lives might be.
...enough of the rabbit trail...
I have felt that now is the time to begin to look again at the 'nuts and bolts' of following Jesus. With our understanding of the blueprints as a whole, it is now time to start looking at where to put the building materials, and how to start building...
We are going to approach some very common aspects of human existence and ask the question, "How does our understanding of who Jesus is, and what it means to be His student, apply to this area of our lives?" In light of our belief that Jesus lived the best possible kind of life, and that He wants to share that life with us, how should we think and act in the areas of human sexuality, personal finance, conflict and confrontation, entertainment, employment, political involvment, family relationships, etc.
We need to stress constantly the larger issue of learning, in submission to Jesus, how to live; but, it is time to focus on the practicalities and actualities of 'how to _________.' I believe that this will also give us, ultimately, a deeper insight into the bigger picture of life in God's Reality; understanding in very specific terms what it means for us to 'sell everything we own,' in order to attain the 'treasure in the field.'
5.21.2007
"Success is..."
If you haven't read it yet, click on the title link to read a previous post, and read also the comments to it.
Much of what passes for the definition of "ministry success" (no offense to those who find value in it) stands in opposition to the methods Jesus Himself engaged in to "build" His ministry. Success is defined in terms of how many people have attended a particular event, the size of our budget, or the square footage of our building. By these terms Jesus was an utter failure. He had no operating budget, or a building; and as for body count, the man kept sending everyone away!!!!
Those who answered the previous post by pointing to obedience to Jesus, and love for God and neighbor, are certainly correct...
...however, I had better rephrase the question:
Granting that success is defined by our obedience to Jesus, and that 'obedience to Jesus' is defined by our love for God and our love for people, what is an accurate measure of that success?
What is the fruit that will show that the tree is healthy?
Matthew 7:15-20
The answer Jesus gives is that we would leave something behind us (John 15:16); if we look to Jesus we can see in His life a model for us to follow. If we would judge our lives a success by the standard Jesus set then we must first begin by stating that 'success' is to be measured by the people who follow after us...
...it has been said:
"Success is defined by our successors!"
Jesus made many baffling decisions if His ministry is to be evaluated by much of what passes for 'church growth' today. He sent people away without even a basic understanding of the gospel, He refused to let people follow Him, ran away and hid from them when they wanted to give Him a place of prominence and authority in their community, was constantly avoiding the influential people in society in favor of people who had nothing to offer, would consistently tell people things that were phrased in such a way that they either plotted to kill Him or simply left His ministry altogether; in fact, Jesus seems to have been more interested in 'Church Growth Governors' than in conventional and contemporary 'Church Growth' wisdom.
Why did Jesus do things the way He did them? Because He measured success by the lives of the disciples He left behind Him. He knew that no matter how large His Church became, there was not the possibility of 'success' if He was the only one to take responsibility for what God wants to do upon the earth. In fact, the whole goal of Jesus ministry was not to 'reach people with the gospel' (as we often think of this term) but rather to help a small group of people to learn how to live in God's presence so fully that they would be able to teach others how to do the same thing. (Which is what Jesus meant when He used the term gospel...)
God is not concerned with externals...
...He is truly concerned that each person would become the woman or man that they were intended to be (a unique reflection of the Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus), and so would rather spend three years teaching twelve men how to 'be' then lead 10,000 people in a 'sinner's prayer,' or gather 20,000 into a group, or oversee the construction of a giant community center/meeting hall, or raise 1,000,000 dollars.
Much of what passes for the definition of "ministry success" (no offense to those who find value in it) stands in opposition to the methods Jesus Himself engaged in to "build" His ministry. Success is defined in terms of how many people have attended a particular event, the size of our budget, or the square footage of our building. By these terms Jesus was an utter failure. He had no operating budget, or a building; and as for body count, the man kept sending everyone away!!!!
Those who answered the previous post by pointing to obedience to Jesus, and love for God and neighbor, are certainly correct...
...however, I had better rephrase the question:
Granting that success is defined by our obedience to Jesus, and that 'obedience to Jesus' is defined by our love for God and our love for people, what is an accurate measure of that success?
What is the fruit that will show that the tree is healthy?
Matthew 7:15-20
The answer Jesus gives is that we would leave something behind us (John 15:16); if we look to Jesus we can see in His life a model for us to follow. If we would judge our lives a success by the standard Jesus set then we must first begin by stating that 'success' is to be measured by the people who follow after us...
...it has been said:
"Success is defined by our successors!"
Jesus made many baffling decisions if His ministry is to be evaluated by much of what passes for 'church growth' today. He sent people away without even a basic understanding of the gospel, He refused to let people follow Him, ran away and hid from them when they wanted to give Him a place of prominence and authority in their community, was constantly avoiding the influential people in society in favor of people who had nothing to offer, would consistently tell people things that were phrased in such a way that they either plotted to kill Him or simply left His ministry altogether; in fact, Jesus seems to have been more interested in 'Church Growth Governors' than in conventional and contemporary 'Church Growth' wisdom.
Why did Jesus do things the way He did them? Because He measured success by the lives of the disciples He left behind Him. He knew that no matter how large His Church became, there was not the possibility of 'success' if He was the only one to take responsibility for what God wants to do upon the earth. In fact, the whole goal of Jesus ministry was not to 'reach people with the gospel' (as we often think of this term) but rather to help a small group of people to learn how to live in God's presence so fully that they would be able to teach others how to do the same thing. (Which is what Jesus meant when He used the term gospel...)
God is not concerned with externals...
...He is truly concerned that each person would become the woman or man that they were intended to be (a unique reflection of the Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus), and so would rather spend three years teaching twelve men how to 'be' then lead 10,000 people in a 'sinner's prayer,' or gather 20,000 into a group, or oversee the construction of a giant community center/meeting hall, or raise 1,000,000 dollars.
5.09.2007
The "Special" People
I have some friends in Santa Cruz, they have a real burden to reach out with the love of God to a very "special" group of people.
Scroll down for a picture of some of those people that they are working with
My "special" friends, El Jeffe, and Laben...
Scroll down for a picture of some of those people that they are working with
My "special" friends, El Jeffe, and Laben...
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