Digging up old roots

“The greatest obstacle, indeed, the only obstacle, is that we are not free from passions and lusts, that we do not try to follow the perfect way of the saints. Thus when we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected, and turn to human consolations. If we tried, however to stand as brave men in battle, the help of the Lord from heaven would surely sustain us. For He Who gives us the opportunity of fighting for victory, is ready to help those who carry on and trust in His grace.
If we let our progress in religious life depend on the observance of it’s externals alone, our devotion will quickly come to an end. Let us, then, lay the ax to the root, that we might be free from our passions and thus have peace of mind.
If we uproot only one vice each year, we should soon be perfect. The contrary, however, is often the case-we feel that we were better and purer in the first fervor of our conversion that we are after many years in the practice of our faith. Our fervor and progress ought to increase day by day; yet it is now considered note worthy if a man can retain even a part of his first fervor.”

- Thomas a Kempis

My alarm clocks rings for the 3rd time this morning. I sit up and stare sleepily at the clock. 7am. This is not so early for getting up and spending time with the Lord before Yaks. I've have to get up at 4 am before if I wanted any time with the Father in my day. I blankly continue stare at the clock as I plan how much time I would actually spend with the Lord. "Okay, if I spend time with him from 7:30 - 8:00 then I can sleep from 8 - 8:30." I thought to myself. When I am half asleep I can talk myself out of all sorts of things. I continue to think till 7:30 and then I open my Bible and lay on my bed and begin to read. I dazed in and out and kept thinking that I couldn't wait till 8 so I could hit the hay for a half hour more. Then a thought hit me. "If you know what you are supposed to do and you don't do it then you are in sin." I knew that I was supposed to spend an hour with the Lord this morning and I wanted to go to sleep. But apparently that wasn't an option this morning. So I ended up staying up the whole time and spending it with him. It was funny though because satan tries to get in there and do the whole forbidden fruit thing. "Did God really say that you are in sin if you don't do what he says?"

This quote is the devotional I have been reading over this week. It's from "Imitation of Christ." I have been reading one small chapter a week for the last 3 weeks. They can be pretty pretty chewy. This one has stuck out to me the most. What an amazing thing it is. Everything he says is so true. We so often set these crazy goals for ourselves, and we don't ever meet up to them. (I set goals too high.) Then we totally quit and just go to our comfort thing, whether it would be food or other people or hunting, whatever it is. I hate that. If, like Thomas a Kempis said, we stand up and fight, like this morning's quiet time, God will surely stand up for our cause. He will surely defend us. I love how he talks about putting the axe to the root as far as our passions go, and think these are different then the passions that God puts in our hearts, he will give us peace of mind if we let them go. There is just something in this quote that speaks to me. It is possible for me to uproot the vices that have been rooted in me for the past 20 years. All hope is not lost, 20 years of forming habits and such is a long time to try and kick them in just one day, one week, or even one year. But if we can uproot one each year how different everyone would look. I totally think that the fervor he is talking about is awesome too. It is so possible to be just as zealous for the Lord as when we first got saved. A lot of people who are fresh saved will do just about anything for the Lord. They almost immediately love him. That was the feeling I had anyway. "You died for me of course I will love you! You gave your son for me, of course I will call you daddy and of course I love you!" That was my instant reaction. I've had to really recently walk the whole love for the Father out, and allow some healing, I'm in process because that uncondional first reaction love has left and I see God through weird lenses. But that first fervor I had no doubt will return and I will see him through clear lenses. I don't know if any of all of this makes any sense, but this is everything that came out of me reading this section of "The Imitation of Christ"

Encountering Homosexuality

"I'm Bisexual because men have always hurt me. They have always used me, AND something bad happened to me when I was little." A young girl stated. She was about 17 years old.
"Do you mind me asking what happen?" I asked.
"My brother molested me when we were younger and threatened to kill me if I told our parents. I've been date raped before too. I've never been any guys number one. I've just had a lot of guys treat me bad, so I've decided to become bisexual."
"Well girls are just as capable as boys are to do those things to you. With exception of rape, I think." I said in reply to this young girl.
"I just want a guy to worship me, I want to be it." She said.
"If you wait long enough he will come." I said. How do you encourage a girl that will spill all her junk in the first hour of meeting you. I didn't get it. Choosing to swing both ways was just as easy as choosing to change her underware, it seemed. I don't want to discount the things that have happened to her and maybe if they had happened to me I would be bisexual right now too. So I decided to ask her if she has had any girlfriends since deciding to be bisexual. She said that she was looking into a potential girlfriend. But most of the night she was talking about how hot this one guy is or how hot this other guy is, and she seemed so confused. I was sad for her.
In the time I got to talk to this girl I also got to meet this guy who was 19 and was gay. He was and odd guy and he had really long hair, and really long fingernails, but everything else was pretty masculine. The subject of first loves came up and he had one at one time, his first loves name was Rusty. I had asked him if his first love had been a man or a woman, to which he replied that it was a man and that he never remembers being attracted to girls. Execpt one and this was back in 6th grade. This guy would just talk and talk, and it didn't matter what he would talk about, he could talk about anything. I just listen and I asked lots of questions and I tried not to zone out. I wanted to be attentive. I was just trying to do the God thing in my first encounter with a gay person since I have seen the movie "Rent". The thing was I thought that these guys were neat and weird. I didn't know what else to do besides listen. Which in some cases is the best thing to do. I was not trying to be the religious judgmental person. I wanted them to leave knowing the love of Christ. I hope that they did, I hope that I was a good influence on them, and especially on that girl. In spending time with these people at this party I went to I also saw the importance of staying close to God. There are a lot of things you can be exposed to when you hang out with people that don't know the Lord. And this was a safe party not drugs or boose involved. I just prayed the best that I knew how and listened as much as i could and hoped that there would be clarity to the confusion they were living in. We are called to be lights in this dark world.

Spiritual Authority

What do we mean when we refer to authority? To what specifically do we refer? Where does the locus of authority reside in?

The obvious answer is God, Christ, the Spirit; yet what are the practical ramifications of the authority of God in the life of the Christian? (We must recognize that the acephalic Quaker communities, as well as the authoritarian Pentacostal/Charismatic communities, would all claim that authority resides in Christ alone; the question is to the manner in which Christ’s authority is manifested in our communities and lives.) Does the authority of the Spirit reside in the community (the Body of Christ, the Temple of God’s Spirit), does the authority of Christ reside in the descendant of St. Peter and his appointed representatives, in the individual charismatic personality, in the delegated title-holder, in the individual with leadership gifts?

What is the manner in which an authority figure is granted authority? Does the authority of the elder come from the Spirit-filled community? Or rather from the calling of God on the individual in question? From other authority figures?

What is the nature of authority in God’s kingdom? Is it inherently about making decisions and determining vision? Is it about pursuing the accomplishing or achieving of specific goals related to vision? Or is it the equipping and releasing of others into destinies and purposes that have nothing to do with our own values?

Definition

Leadership is responsibility.

Leadership is influence.

Leadership is confrontation.

Origin

Having said this, however, leadership is not something given to individuals who are somehow separate from the communities they lead. “The ministry is for the Church, not the Church for the ministry.” Leadership is recognized by the community and authority is granted to individuals by the Spirit as he is manifested in the local Church. This is irrespective of forms of Church governance; this is not an argument for a congregational system, but an ecclesiology. As individuals take responsibility for the community upon themselves, influence those around them, and step into loving and humble confrontation, they are exercising a gift of leadership. The community, by way of the Spirit of Christ, will recognize this and will set apart these individuals for leadership.

Nature

Leadership in the Kingdom of the beloved Son is not to be characterized by grasping, overbearing, or demanding. It is to be modeled upon the Master who said “do not lord over one another, but rather love each other, wash each other’s feet.”

There is a lesson to be learned in the lives of such saints as the great theological father, Augustine of Hippo, who was ordained a priest against his will; or Pope Gregory who was given authority over his loud protests against it (he even referred to it as God’s chastisement); and countless others who were granted authority in spite of their fervent pleas to forego the responsibility and influence of leadership.

Leadership in the Spirit of Jesus is for the benefit of those led, rather than the leader. A friend referred to his mentor in a trade, who constantly said, “the goal is for you to be better than me.” It is with this attitude that Christian leaders are to exercise their authority.

Purpose

The purpose of leadership in the family of God is not to direct the course of the communal life in a suitable manner, but rather to grant members of the family the maturity and power to live fully for Christ, to evoke the ambiguity of the Spirit-filled, wind-swept life within the community of saints. Leadership is for the equipping of Christians to fulfill with obedience the call of the Spirit. It is not to determine the nature or scope of that call. The true Christ-like leader will not micro-manage, but quite the opposite, will leave those around her begging for stronger leadership, ultimately wrestling with God about the answers that the leader refuses to give.

The purpose of parental authority is not to protect or punish, nor is it to determine the course of life or to define behavioral limits (although all of these do fall within the realm of parental activity). The purpose of parental authority is to produce healthy and mature adults, capable of navigating their own course through life in Christ.

So too, spiritual leadership is for the purpose of cultivating maturity in those given care by the leader. This demands a level of freedom that frightens any leader who cannot see through to trust the Spirit who dwells within the lives of all Christians.





“By spontaneous expansion I mean something which we cannot control. And if we cannot control it, we ought, as I think, to rejoice that we cannot control it. For if we cannot control it, it is because it is too great not because it is too small for us. The great things of God are beyond our control. Therein lies a vast hope. Spontaneous expansion could fill the continents with the knowledge of Christ: our control cannot reach as far as that. We constantly bewail our limitations: open doors unentered; doors closed to us as foreign missionaries; fields white to the harvest which we cannot reap. Spontaneous expansion could enter open doors, force closed ones, and reap those white fields. Our control cannot: it can only appeal pitifully for more men to maintain control.”



This is book length, but worth the read


This is a shorter article

missional potato salad?

Here are some pictures from our neighborhood BBQ. A little over half of these folks are in our small group. The others are folks from the apartment complex, or co-workers, and a few others from another small group in our church. We had a lot of fun, fed lots of people, and had some great conversations.

This is all ultimately born out of the realization that it is awfully hard to “love your neighbor as yourself” if you don’t hang out together, no agenda, just together.

My wife took one of the younger ladies with her and took some plates of food to the gas stations attendants at the two corner stores. She was minus a plate so I took Sam with me and went back over with another. We got to have a brief conversation with a couple of guys named "Mike." We invited them to the coffee shop, we will see if they show up.



This is a friend and her co-worker.



These are some of my neighbors.



These are the children playing together.



These are the other children playing together!

'To become a beginner again for Jesus'

Italicized text taken from www.robbymac.org

Again, it is not merely the hands-on nature of ministry that qualifies as "faith expressed in deeds"; if nothing that we are involved in requires risk-taking, but instead can be done all by ourselves with or without the Spirit's empowering, we have not yet found that all-important balance. As John Wimber once wrote:

"A disciple is always ready to take the next step. If there is anything that characterizes Christian maturity, it is the willingness to become a beginner again for Jesus Christ. It is the willingness to put your hand in His hand and say 'I'm scared to death, but I'll go with You. You're the pearl of great price.'"

Wow!

Roland Allen

Allen's Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: and the Causes that Hinder It is an essential companion volume to his Missionary Methods. The primary argument in Allen's work is that the Spirit would quite naturally lead men to work for the advancement of the gospel in such a way that the subsequent result would be new local churches. It is this 'spontaneous expansion' that we see as characteristic of the early Church, as well as Churches in countries antagonistic towards the gospel. Allen goes on to diagnose the current reality (which is anything but 'spontaneous expansion') as a result of fear. Our fear of the uncontrolled move of the Spirit of Jesus is what causes us to rely upon organizational priciples to do what can only be done by the saint who is surrendered over to the Power of God.

Allen points out the fallacious nature of evangelistic work that has as its goal groups of Christians who must now rely upon the 'evangelist' for their continued faith. The goal of evangelism is not the existence of a large body of christians who have no way of living out their faith, or advancing the cause of the Kingdom. The goal of evangelism is women and men who's trust in Christ is of such a quality that they naturally cause those around them to desire Christ; women and men who are capable of leading others into a life with Christ; women and men who are willing to take responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their families, co-workers, and neighbors; women and men who would take up the cause of advancing the gospel of Christ.

Allen points to the evangelism of a group of people that does not empower those people to live in a christ-centered, missional, community (a Church) backwards. Our goal should be individuals who are of a particular quality in their faith; and this leading inevitably to new local churches. Not the gathering of people who are not missional, have no leadership, are not bound together by the sacraments of the Church (are not a Church!) and then seek to train up individuals of the aforementioned quality of faith out of that group.

I find in this a good deal of support for my contention that the New Testament knows nothing of Christians who were not also Church Planters. To be a Christian in the New Testament sense of the word is to have committed oneself to the spread of the missionary community of Christ.

The ABC's of Church?

(Check the title link)

I do not think that counting is an evil, or even unnecessary, thing; yet, as members of Christ, partakers of the divine nature, we should be wary of emphasizing the number of people in a building on a Sunday over the holiness of those people (for example). We must be wary of the emphasis on those things that we count (for whatever we count is what we are declaring to be valuable), however, there is a place for administration in the Kingdom of God.

I would ask, however, what exactly it is that we should be counting...

...bodies in attendance at a gathering, or people who are plugged in to a small group?

...square footage of our facility, or number of Churches planted that have themselves planted a Church?

...dollar amounts given, or hours volunteered?

How about...

...the number of hours each member spends in prayer, or in the word daily?

...the number of leaders in the Church who have raised and released other leaders?

...the number of small groups that have multiplied?

...the number of volunteer organizations Church members are involved with?

...the average percentage Church members tip the wait staff for Sunday lunch?

This list could go on!

The simple point is that we can help people to understand what is important, if we are wise in what we do. If we will decide that which is truly valuable, and then find ways to emphasize those things by counting them, we will be less woried about whether counting the ABC's is devaluing that which is truly important.

"The iPod Efffect"

"The most disconcerting part of it all is not that changes are happening—that is inevitable. It is that we stand oblivious to the magician’s sleight-of-hand as a trick is played on our mind. And so we repeatedly seek to use our new methods only to be used by them."

Check the link, and the title link.

I would also suggest reading the chapter in Tony Campolo's Following Jesus without Embarrassing God "how to protect yourself from technology without becoming Amish," he has a great spin on the "tv is from the deeevil"
mentality.

It is not that using technology is wrong, immoral, sinful, inherently un-spiritual, etc. Rather, it is that often times we employ technology into our lives without regard for the effects of that technology; technology "uses" us.

Do we find ourselves interrupting guests in our home to answer the telephone? Interrupting conversations to enter notes in our PDA? Does the lack of sophisticated technology, or muscial instruments, impede our ability to worship? What is the purpose behind the TV on the altar in our living room, or the computer in our bedroom, the cell phone on our hip, the daily newspaper that we read, the car that we own, the microwave, the dishwasher, etc. Are these things actually fulfilling the purpose for which we brought them into our lives? If so, wonderful, if not...

"if your eye causes you to sin..."

Rent

I watched this movie last night called Rent, it is a modern day version of the opera called La Boehm. God broke my heart with this movie. It’s about these people, there is Rodger who is this young guy who loves to play guitar, his roommate Mark, who is making a documentary of the goings on in New York. A girl named Mimi, who is a 19 year old stripper who is heavy into drugs, she lives in the apartment downstairs from Mark and Rodger. Then there is Maureen who used to be Mark’s girlfriend, but she left Mark for a lawyer named Joanne. Then there is a guy named Tom , who gets beat up right off the bat, and also has AIDS, then there is a guy named Angel, who is a gay cross-dresser, that has AIDS and he meets Tom and they hang out a lot and go to AIDS support groups, and end up becoming more than just friends. All these people are all trying to scrape up money to pay this huge rent bill that they have and they are also trying to protest this building that is going to go up in their neighborhood. Pretty much they are just trying to make it in life and they are doing it apart from God. This movie was just so sad to me. The girl Mimi, is a stripper at 19 and she is doing all sorts of drugs and she is on them and off them again depending on whether or not she has a boyfriend. There is one scene where she is going through hard withdrawals and she is violently shaking and sweating all at the same time. There is a part where she is trying to fight herself from taking more drugs and she has the needle there right in her hand waiting and she is shaking. Then there is this sequence of the movie where they play a song and time passes and you get to see things happen, and there is part where they would show clips of the AIDS support groups and each time they showed a new clip one person would fade away, symbolizing that this horrible virus claimed another victim. I cried my eyes out for the whole last half hour to 45 minutes of the movie. Then it goes to this scene of the male gay couple, Angel and Tim, and they are on a subway train and Tim is holding tight to Angel who is shaking with a fever that he couldn't fight off because of how AIDS weakens your immune system. Then it shows Angel in the hospital sick with an oxygen mask and smiling with all his friends around him having a good time. Then it shows him in the arms of his lover and at this point he is dead, and Tim is rocking him back and forth in his arms in the hospital bed. I wept over this sight. I couldn't hold back the sobs. I was so shocked at how horrible life can be when left to fend for ourselves. The movie only got worse it seemed and I could not stop crying. I wept for quite a while after the film had ended. Then after I had stopped crying my roommates came home and said they had heard me crying about the movie and I started crying again.
What do I do about this? What part can I play? I will pray, but that isn't enough. I want to be right there with people like Tim and Angel, I want to rock that dead gay man. That is were Jesus would be. I want to rock him before he is dead and pray over him as he dies in my arms. I want to hold that hurting young girl who is shaking so violently and sweating so bad because her body is trying come down from a high. I want to befriend the gay men and women I want to love them and be there for them when life craps in their faces. I want to go to AIDS support groups to really offer support. I was so stirred by this movie last night. I was angry, it was this righteous anger at the people that the enemy gets a hold of. I don't want to see another gay person die alone from AIDS. I want to be there to hold their hand. And the thing was this gay man had more joy that all the rest of the people, where did he get it? He didn't know Jesus. I want to do something about this. What does God have for me in all of this? I want to be sent out into the AIDS community and into the gay community which in some cases go hand in hand. I want to educate myself about this virus so that I might be able to help some one, or even be able to know something about it for relatabilities sake. I would love to give my life to helping out people with AIDS. I am not going to sit around idle and not do anything about this. God created me to reach out to people. God created me with a story about him, not just to be kept to myself. God created me to love, he gave me a heart, that with his help has the capacity to love the unlovable. The things that happened to these people doesn't have to happen anymore. That girl on drugs doesn't have to do them anymore. She can come to know Jesus and be rocked in such an indescribable way." Jesus loves the outcasts, he loves the ones the world just loves to hate." That's a quote from a song by Relient K. I want to love the outcasts. What would it look like if a gay man or woman came to a church and got saved? What if we got to disciple them? Lord send us those people so that we can learn how to disciple them and forgive us for not letting them in or bringing them in when they cried out for help. I want those people in my life and Lord you show me how to love them in a way that best represents you and if you Lord are calling me to give my life to the Gay and AIDS community then lets do this thing!

Oh no! NoMo PoMo...

CARSON, D. A.



Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church


A necessary read for those interested in the "emergent conversation." Carson presents a relevant and thoughtful look at the musings of the emerging church with a heavy emphasis on the literary corpus of Brian McLaren. Unfortunately much of the critique of emergents (at least that has found its way to my perusal) has lacked both the relevance and the forethought of Carson's work. Carson attempts to provide his own critical analysis of "post-modernity" in terms of culture and (primarily) epistemology, and then turns to a critical analysis of the emergent church's relationship to post-modernity. Carson essentially paints the emerging church (read McLaren) as quite rightly exegeting the culture, yet failing to do so in light of the consistent Christian witness to the content of Scripture throughout the history of the Church. Carson alleges that emergents play loose with the truth, and consistently look to extra-biblical sources for the normative Christian life.

I quite appreciate Carson's views, however, in spite of some very accurate assessment to the place of truth and the Bible in emerging conversations, I see Carson failing to completely comprehend some of what McLaren's aims are. The most appropriately representative example being his use of the character "Neo" to illustrate McLaren's beliefs and attitudes. (Neo being the primary espouser of some fairly radical ideas throughout the course of McLarens's trilogy of so-called "creative non-fiction") McLaren states at the outset of his trilogy that none of the views of his fictional characters are to be confused with his own. This continues throughout Carson's book. I was dissapointed that the place of spiritual authority was again left out of the conversation, as this is the issue I see as the issue with emergent Christians; however, one can quite easily see the correllation between the issue of spiritual authority, and the issues of truth and biblical authority that Carson addresses.

I would recommend this book to anyone approaching the emergent conversation from any angle. Carson gives the discerning reader plenty of food for thought, and attemtps to give appropriate praise and criticism to the emergent church, wherever either is due. His consistent pattern is to hold true to his best understanding of scripture, in spite of his own culturally inculcated desires that would speak in contradiction to that understanding. For this, certainly, he is to be commended.

Jesus is Smart

I am prone to spontaneous fits of arrogance and self-righteousness...

This can even take place (I know that this will shock you) in the most spiritual language:

I am a firm believer that all christians are called to plant churches. I believe that Jesus laid down a model for us; he planted the first church (the 12) and we are to participate in that same mission. I believe in this reality so strongly that I am often critical of those who do not see this clearly presented aspect of Christ's life.

However, I was reminded (yet again) this morning, that the primary distinctive of a disciple of Jesus is not planting churches, nor is it participation in a church, nor is it prayer, nor is it knowledge, nor miracles, nor great faith, nor raising many disciples, nor reaching the lost with the gospel, nor raising godly children, nor living a moral life, nor helping the poor, nor fighting oppression:

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

As students of the Master, we are to learn from him, taking his very life upon us as a model (yoke) for the best way to live. We are to learn to pray as Jesus prayed, to live in community as Jesus did, to serve the poor and oppressed as He did, to raise disciples as He did, however, all of the aforementioned aspects of the life of Christ are meaningless without, and in fact flow out of, a heart of love for the people around us.

If we focus on the results of love we will not neccessarily have love; if we focus on love, its results will naturally flow out of us.

If we focus on praying, planting churches, serving the poor, preaching the gospel, raising disciples, living morally; we will fail in love. If we focus on loving first our Father, and second our fellows; we will succeed in praying, planting churches, serving the poor, preaching the gospel, raising disciples, living morally; these are the natural and direct result of a deep love for God that informs our deep love of people.

Isn't Jesus smart?

Check this out!

What did you say?

The one who knows much says little

A man of knowledge uses words with restraint

He that hath knowledge spareth his words

A truly wise person uses few words

Whoever restrains his words has knowledge

- Proverbs 17:27a

Adorned Clay Pots

The apostle Paul, patron saint of type-A personalities, stumped me this morning.

Perplexed!

The man who lived a life that brought the gospel to western asia, eastern europe, and beyond; prolific church planter; author of scripture; overseer of the Church; apostle; perplexed! (v 8 NIV)

The Message translates that single word into, "we're not sure what to do." (Check the title link)

How can this be?

This is the man we look to as the model for how to lead the church. As someone who will soon be on the mission field, I am constantly exhorted to look at the life of Paul as an example; Paul had it all figured out, Paul lived an intensely purposeful life, Paul knew what he was doing. Follow Paul!

Perhaps this is the problem?

Paul himself only asked people to follow him in so far that he "followed Christ." (1 Corinthian 11:1)

I must confess. I would not describe myself as perplexed. I have come to believe (in large part) that I have figured it out. I am quite confident in my own understanding of the implications of the gospel. I am quite confident in my perspective on the church. I belive that I know what the Church in America should be doing and isn't, shouldn't be doing and is, as well as what I will be doing when we hit the ground in September.

I am not so arrogant as to think of myself other than a "clay pot," yet perhaps I fancy myself a clay pot with "adornments?" This is a far cry from the place that I once was in my walk.

I wonder what to make of this...

There was a time when I walked with much humility, however, I also carried with me a strong sense of guilt. Would that make my humility a false humilty? I don't know. I do know that when God removed that sense of guilt, speaking words of love and grace to me, my humilty seemed to go with it. Perhaps I do not fully understand myself or God? (That is surely the truth!) I would think that an experience of God's grace would lead to greater humility...


How are we to juxtapose the truths that we have learned, with the truth that we are simply whisps of fog (James 4:14), certainly precious in God's eyes, and yet lacking in even the beginning's of wisdom and knowledge.

I must truly state that I have gained some knowledge and wisdom. Yet I must also recognize that I am childish at best, and evil at worst. Wisdom and knowledge in my head is like a tool in the hand of a child, or diamonds adorning a clay pot...

The Homeless

I was at an all night prayer meeting just recently and I remember that we were praying for the city or something and I remember this picture that God gave me of the homeless people of our city.
There is a spot on Cypress where there is the I-5 off ramp and it comes to a stop right there at cypress. Well typically there is a homeless person or two there and they usually carry a sign that says, "Anything will do, even a smile." Or something along those lines. Well in my vision I saw that person and they were holding a sign like normal and only this time it said, "I don't want your money I just want you to come to know Jesus." I also so saw a sign that says, "I don't want your money I just want your time." The the thing that I felt that God was saying was that the homeless that have "fallen through the cracks of society" are going to rise up. I almost felt this urgency because the guy didn't even seem to care about money or his lack of it, he didn't seem to care about food. It was like the verse that says, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all the rest will be given to you." All this man cared about was the lost souls that drove past him every day. Maybe we should go out there to that street corner and hold a sign like that. I think it might have a lot of fruit. I don't know if this vision means anything to anyone else but I thought that I might share it.

Where do you find Beauty?

So I was pondering beauty the other day....

Is it just a 20 year old in a string bikini on a beach with a great tan and a hard body? If so then what is to become of her at 40 after 3 kids and a fortune in botox treatments, hair dye and cellulite creams? Is she no longer the picture of beauty that comes to our minds? Well most of us would say 'no that's not true beauty, what matters most is what is on the inside, what type of person you are? But that is not what we are saying as a society, look around "Beautiful" now means "Barbie" and women all over america are doing whatever it takes to be "beautiful."

So this is the legacy we give to our daughters.... be thin, be pretty, and do whatever it takes to be these because then all will see your beauty. What a hoax!!!!!!!!!!!

This is not the type of beauty that the creator of the universe placed in all of us, we are all beautiful!!!!!!!!!! because we are God's.

Beautiful According to Me...

A life restored.... there is nothing more beautiful that watching as God restores a person to that which they were created to be. A man at the end of his rope, wishing for the end, finding joy and laughter, but most of all hope.
A womans who has tried it all in the name of love, and for all that she has found bitterness and pain, this same woman finding love in a God who doesn't discriminate by what you look like or what you have done.

A group of people who take seriously the call to "love your God with all your heart and love your neighbor", because they were that man or that woman in need of restoration.

This is the legacy I long to leave my daughter, beauty is seen as we embrace the heart of the father.

How do you communicate gestalt?

I have been having a conversation with an individual that has brought me to this place…

I believe that much of what we are communicating to each other could fall in the category of, “I would agree, but I don’t know that I would choose to use those words…”

Having said that I do believe that there are some differences in what we are stating to each other, exceeding a divergence at the simple, semantic level. I believe those differences are, and are derived from, differences at a level that encompass an entire perspective; gestalt. I have found myself at the point in the conversation where I believe it necessary to define the terms we are using to say what we say, which leads to more definitions, ad nauseum…

If these differences truly result from the simple fact that my friend and I are the proverbial blind men examining different parts of the elephant (as opposed to a legitimate incoherence that could be solved by a discussion of the facts at hand), then how are we to come to a meeting of the minds?

Ephesians

Ephesians 3
The Secret Plan of God
1This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. 2I take it that you're familiar with the part I was given in God's plan for including everybody. 3I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.
4As you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. 5None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. 6The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
7This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. 8When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. 9My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. 10Through Christians like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
11All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. 12When we trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. 13So don't let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud! 14My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, 15this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. 16I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit--not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength-- 17that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, 18you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! 19Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20God can do anything, you know--far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

21Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!


This is what I think about this chapter, If any Christian is wanting to know what God’s will is for their life, this is it! Read in Verse , “ 7This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.” God takes all the details of telling people about him! If you are faithful to make Jesus your life’s work then he, God, will give you everything that you need to do it. It says the same thing in 2 Peter.
2 Peter 1: ? “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the one who invited us to God.” I believe that this is the will of God in our lives, to grow his church! I believe that Jesus and bringing people into his church and loving his people is all God’s will for our lives. You want to know God’s will read the great commission, you want to know the things that God has for you, then submit yourself him and make Him your life’s work. If you want to know God’s will for your life then read the book of Ephesians, read specifically chapter 3. Don’t have any details, then just chase after this and God will bring you the details you need in the opportune time! Make Jesus your life’s work in your workplace, in your home at the grocery store! JESUS is God’s will for our lives!


I don't know what copy right laws are or anything but I got this section of scripture from the Message by Eugene Petersen

Dave's life...

"I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity. Hope in the human race has gone, skepticism remains. I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity...I have lost my belief in better times ahead. Is this wrong? Should I keep quite? Should I embrace a political correctness that says better times await us? I cannot do it. I cannot pretend that all is ok. I can no longer pretend that we are not a perverted and misguided bunch mostly because of our lack of insight into our own perversion.

I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity. Sometimes I see glimpses of reality, in those moments history unfolds and speaks. She slowly gets up from a dusty chair and talks about the way things were. She states that nothing is new, nothing has changed. The young always embrace ideals, from communism to social gospels; if only the world would listen to their fresh ideas. But soon they get older, they read more, they experience more. They realize that nothing is original; nothing escapes the hands of darkness. As they age they quickly embrace the system of trade-offs. Ideals are thrown out because what good are ideals if they lead mankind no where? They trade and barter within the human condition, then they die and leave room for new idealists who keep the pendulum swinging back and forth, from liberal to conservative, from communist to capitalist, from atheist to theist.

I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity. I can no longer watch the young attribute quick fixes to ancient problems; I can no longer watch the old give in to hedonism because their generational quick fixes did not provide answers to the ancient problems. But, however, in contention, in reality, in conclusion: I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity because I am human and I am the problem. I am sick...dying you could say. I am dying from the weight of my own conscience; a conscience that knows I cannot do the good I preach; a conscience that knows I live a lie like the rest. I am the personification of a misrepresentation. I constantly pretend to be that which I'm not in order to grasp the world and make it mine. I live in an ethnocentric spiral that leads not into understanding and clarity but to dream like states where reality eludes me. My problem is no different than the rest; I want the power, I want the control; I! I! I! I want to be God. I want the world to revolve around me. But what a sad reality that is. What a cosmic joke. What perpetual nonsense. But is there an answer to our despair? Is their a revelation waiting in our midst? Saint Paul also asked the same question, "Who will save us from this body of death?" And his answer came to him, as it may to us; but not in the form of beauty or in the shape of a philosophy, but through a bloody and vile cross where God answered Paul...where God met Paul...where God answers us...where God meets us. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 7:25)" because I am 26 years old and I have lost my faith in humanity."

This was taken from my brother's website...

The American Church

The Church is the hope of the world, the Church in China is the hope of the world, the Church in Africa is the hope of the world, the Church in Brazil is the hope of the world. I have a hard time saying that the Church in America is the hope of the world. Or I guess you can say believing that we can fulfill our duty as the hope of the world. One time I was at my discipleship group and a lady described her place in her walk as, "Fat, Dumb, and Happy". That is a great way to describe the American Church. But here's the thing, I want to love the American Church. Jesus loves the American Church. I don't think that he looks condescendingly at us and thinks that there is no hope for the American Church. He loves us! He knows that there are American Christians out there that have exposed the dysfunction of the American Church, he knows it because he revealed it to us! He revealed it to us that we might be his messengers and do something about it, not so we could judge our brothers and sisters! I confess that I have done my fair share of judging. (Don't even ask me about how I feel about some of the Christians that come into our coffee shop.) I want to love the American Church! Me, Mary Perkins, through the grace and blood of Jesus, can be the hope of the American Church! (Since I belong to the Church I am also the hope of the world!) God can use me and the people around me to live this life in such a way that the American Church would actually thirst for Jesus instead of look at us as though we have taken this "God-thing" too far. Or maybe God would use us to help them see that he can use ordinary people to do extraordinary things for his name! I pray that I could love the American Church, because the world will know that we are Christians by our love.

Dominion?

I had someone throw the "earth is our God" idea my way the other day, admittedly they had been encouraged in this train of thought by the effects of inebriation...

This concept was one that I had encountered in my college days, and it reminded me of a paper I had written exploring the philosophical axioms required for one to take the stands that the “deep ecology” wing of the environmentalist camp posits.

In order for one to believe that we have a duty to earth itself to protect it and to value it, irrespective of our use for it* one has to assume a few basic axiomatic principles.

Those principles are:

A belief that there is a distinction between humanity and the rest of the universe
A belief in the inherent value of the non-human universe

Without these two truths, the belief in humanity’s responsibility to the rest of creation simply makes no sense. Admittedly, not all people who believe that we bear a duty to creation would cite these two claims as a basis for their belief, but they do so implicitly.

The interesting observations come when we begin to look at the cosmology of those who hold this position; a belief that the entire universe is a result of random processes, which demands that:

There is no distinction between humanity and the rest of the universe as both are results of evolutionary forces, and continue to act according to the pressures those forces apply.
There is no value, in anything!

When we look to the cosmology found in the Bible we find that the assertion that God created the universe without humankind and pronounced it “good,” and then we find that the Creator of this valuable universe then created mankind and mandated humanity to care for the earth and to be responsible for it. The Bible teaches that man was created from the earth, and yet filled with the breathe of God, a part of the created order, and yet a representative of God to that created order. (Check out the title link)

The unfortunate thing is that the non-Christian individual who is caring for the earth lacks the philosophical basis to do so, while the Christian individual who possesses this basis, often simply fails to care for the earth.

*The “wise use” camp, which is where most environmental sentiments come from, states that we have a duty to protect the environment for the sake of human enjoyment of it, and betterment by it.

Tim

His name is Tim. He's always laughing, always smiling, always ready to encourage. Tim committed suicide Sunday april 2nd. How is this possible? didn't i just say he didn't have a problem in the world? How was this not forseen? were there any leads to this tragedy. Maybe i should ask, who began the neglect, or the abuse, or who refused to, "consider others before themselves". I have very strong convictions when it comes to listening to people. When somone begins to speak, open your ears and heart, and close your lips and point of view for a season. LISTEN! Allow your Jesus eyes to pierce through the humanity of insecurities and pride of opinion. Even you'll be blessed. The point i am trying to make is that people (priceless and at the same time bought at the highest price) are more important than our own lives. I saw Tim the day he gave up on people. He approached me in the church parking lot, rather disturbed. He said, " hey man I've been trying to get a hold of you why haven't you called me back?" I said," oh Tim i'm sorry i haven't called. I've been really busy lately. How are you?" He said he was OK but something wasn't OK. I didn't consider Tim as more important than myself or my agenda. Rather, i judged him. Asking myself, "why wasn't he in church today, and what is he doing wandering around in the church parking lot, and no I don't have any gas money for your beer breath." All irrational thoughts and opinions based on performance or lets even say, "THE LAW"! My heart is not abiding in and resembling the son of God. God changes hearts and molds people into his image. Not my tactical and so called concern for the itegrity and faithfullness to my selfish people pleasing motives. TO BE CONTINUED.....

Jesus v the Cross

Is Jesus the center of history, or is the Cross?

Community

Steve asked me to talk about community. What spurred this on is the fact that I live in a house with 4 other women, it used to be 5 other women. Let me tell you a little bit about this house. It started last year officially in August my commitment began. The house I live in is called The Girl's House and all 6 of us just desired more of God in our lives. It was the weirdest thing because I felt like I was supposed to live with Jessica, and we prayed about living in this apartment together and we both felt like it was God and the door totally shut. We didn't get it. It was a total yes. At the same time Juniper and I thought it would be fun to start another Girl's House. (We had one at the church a few years back for a summer and all the girls that lived there quit their jobs for the summer and just served Jesus in community) I kinda felt like I was supposed to with Juniper and also with this girl named Rachel. Rachel live in San Luis Obispo at the time as was currently getting ready to move to Redding to be with Sean and Linda for their Santa Cruz church plant. Well long story short: Juniper, Jessica, Rachel, along with 2 other girls Jenn and Lisa, and myself got blessed with this amazing house and great location by the Church and the Coffee Shop, and it was all from God. We had a vision set in place, to be women who changed the world through the love of Christ and the disciplines of the soul. The house was on it's way! It has been an amazing journey so far, we are just three and a half months shy of our commitment being up. We have had our good times for sure and we've had our bad times, but it has been amazing, and our bad times haven't even been all that bad. They are actually quite humorous.
Let me tell you though it is hard being in community all the time, between Yaks and the Girl's House, your home is a community and there is no escape. There is no where to go, where you don't always have to do the God thing. You can choose to do the wrong thing but you better have your repentance quick on your heals. It's been good to see the quality of my character in all of this. It has been good to see that there are things that I want and desire in my life and in my walk with God, then seeing that really I can't achieve those things apart from him. When you are going to move into community you think that certain things are going to take place in you, like the minute you move in you will start to exercise, or you will be able to start waking up at 5 to spend time with God every day. Those things that I thought would immediately happen didn't, and it has taken almost the entire year of living there to get those things in place. It has been good to live there because as weird as it sounds, you get to die to yourself every day. You get to think about others, but it is one of those things that has not been easy, I can say that most of the time I think of myself only, but God has worked something out.
It's wonderful living in a house full of Christians, because you don't have to worry about them bringing in something weird or demonic. You have 5 sisters available to pray you through things, you have 5 sisters to cry on and to share your problems with and they are faithful to listen to you. You have 5 sisters to kick you in the butt when you have a crappy attitude. You have 5 sisters that you get to pray with. You have 5 sisters that share your passion and your fire for God and that is the most exciting thing ever!
If I could do things different in the Girl's House than I have done, I would have been more submissive to the house leader instead of bucking the system, when the things that I was bucking were the things that I had desired. It's weird how sinners work. I would have served my sisters more. I think that I also would have been more transparent with them, I don't know what that really looks like. But the goodnews is I have 3 and a half more months to do the things that I could have done better. This Girl's House and Yaks have been the most amazing things in my life thus far and I can't wait to see what else God has for me when I get to do community in a different setting: Buffalo, New York!

Who is Jesus?

who is Jesus?

I am thinking about Jesus and who is he to me... is he my personal savior to whom I take my shopping list of prayers to be answered? ...after he has answered all of my prayers the way that I would like then I will have a painfree, void of suffering lifetime of happiness. Is he my friend to whom I turn to only when life brings about a desperation in which nothing else seems appropriate to turn to? When the desperate circumstances are gone, so is the need to be with him and consult him? Is he the Lord of my life on Sundays, but monday thru saturday belong to me?

In pondering who Jesus is, I have come to the conclusion that Jesus has been all of the above many times in my life since deciding to follow him and that disgusts me. I know all the right things to say about who Jesus is, but I find myself seeking an answer (in my heart of hearts) who is Jesus to me? Do I really know him at all? Whoah, maybe I just lost my salvation but at least I am honest, I can not claim to know him as intimately as I know others in my life yet I don't claim to serve others, I claim to serve him. Do I serve a God I don't know and if so why? Is it the lucrative promise of heaven or the fear of hell?

These are just the thoughts that are circling around in my melon these days, I long to serve Jesus in a manner worthy of the God that he is and only in intimately seeking his heart will I be able to thrust myself forward into his passions, and someday hope that his passions that have taken up battle with mine will win the war.

I know in my heart of hearts that I do know Jesus and each day I come to know him better however, I know I desire more. I know that many of his passions have won over mine but there are still more to go. I want to make sure that as I follow Christ I am truly following him and not a religion or a set of rules but instead the passionate heart of God. I want to know him and follow him in such a way as to transform the world I live in with his LOVE, that people could not deny Christ because they see him flowing out of me, instead of seeing so much of me flowing out of myself that people are hardpressed to find even a glimmer of God.

The Church Catholic

I have had the conversation with several of you, and have read several authors who point to this truth:

The Church is not me, nor is it my local community, nor is it all of the communities of faith in my city or country; it is all of those who have chosen to participate in Christ in every culture since Jesus walked among us. This means that I do not speak for the Church (in one sense, it is vital that I do speak for the Church*), nor does my local community, etc, etc. We who desire to keep in step with the Spirit, must hear his voice as it echoes forth from all our brothers and sisters throughout the earth and throughout the centuries. We must hear from the African slaves of the 1700’s, the Chinese underground church of today, the early Greek fathers, the Sudanese in conflict with muslims, the American addicts and the European scholars. The whole church must speak to the issues that face it, in both its global and local expressions.

This is most evident for me in the affluent and decadent slumber of the American Christian, who quite ignorantly believes himself or herself to be “middle class.” The young men and women of our churches who honestly believe God desires them to be “comfortable.” Our young prophets and apostles languish away in schools, saddling themselves with decades of debt, selling themselves for the American Dream that keeps them from even knowing that God has dreamt dreams for them. We would give a young woman all of the material wealth and comfort that her mother never had, and in the end she will find herself empty. We will tell our young men to go to a university to get “educated” and to “better themselves,” and yet they will be slaves to a church culture that tells them to pursue comfort at any cost, pursue a 401K, God wants to “bless” you.

All of this falls away the moment an honest heart steps foot in a second world country (we won’t even mention the third world). As women and men indwelt with the Spirit of the Compassion of God, we won’t be able to return to our cars, and jobs, and houses, and schools.

It is this aspect of the whole church speaking to the whole church that I believe holds the way forward for the Church in America, and perhaps in other parts of the world. I am less familiar with the perils of Chinese Church culture, however, familiar enough to know that they need our biblical understanding, our educated people; and yet this again is another indictment of our own lack. I truly believe myself “unqualified” when Chinese Christians plant churches (plural) in the first months and even weeks of their salvation. …and this with none of the Judeo-Christian heritage that is our childhood tutor.

*I would never want to take away from the reality that we are members of Christ and all participate in His mission which is the Church. We are all representatives of Christ, but we must be representatives of the global, historical church, not the 21st century Western Church.

Think Before you Speak...

I have had a number of people express a level of concern over my last post...

I am sorry, I can get fired up over some of my pet concepts, this being one of them, and I probably did not communicate what I wanted to with the appropriate tone. I do understand that not everyone is at a place yet where they have moved beyond the "American (Nightmare) Dream;" they still believe that the Gospel is primarily for their benefit; and that we must lovingly encourage them beyond this. Others have legitimate needs and concerns, and are in sincere need of ministry; we must lovingly care for them. My concern was with what I see to be a general misconception, however, it appears that I communicated that in such a way as to provoke personal responses. I apologize for any harsh or inflammatory language. I, too, am a work in progress, Jesus help me...

The Purpose of Church Leadership

I just about lost it... twice!

1) I had someone tell me a story about an individual essentially telling their Pastor that the Church simply wasn't taking care of people well enough.

Whenever we ask, "Why doesn't the church... ?" We are in HERESY! I am the Church, therefore if I think the Church should do something, I should do it! (So it's either heresy or just plain apathy, either way it is sin!)

In light of previous conversations (online and offline) I have to conclude that this results directly from the (faulty) gospel that we preach. Jesus died on a cross so that you could be comfortable?!?!

2) I actually had an individual tell me that they had no concern for Jesus, or his desires for their life; they had prayed the prayer and their "salvation" is assured (the individual actually said, "I'm going to heaven.").

Anyone interested in a deeper and scriptural understanding of the place and function of leadership in the church cannot ignore Greg Ogden's Unfinished business, it is a radical rethinking of church leadership in light of the Bible.

Ogden shows the current American model of Church:

The professional "ministers" are responsible for meeting the needs of the Christians who show up to the respective buildings on a given Sunday.

and the Biblical understanding of Church:

The leaders (where they get their food and shelter from is immaterial to their function as leaders) are responsible for equipping Christians* to minister to those in the world who don't know Jesus.

If we would take this understanding and truly work it out, we would see radical reshaping of our churches take place. The root of this issue is, simply, that as Americans we believe Jesus died on a cross so that we could have an air-conditioned ride to our 40 hour a week job with 401k, health insurance, and vacation fund.

*This is, of course, above and beyond their place as disciples of Jesus, called to love God and minister to the world; their role as leaders is above and beyond their role as disciples and does not negate the character of Christ being formed into them in such areas as compassion, service, evangelism, etc.

Da Mish...

Here are some pics from this past wednesday at the Good News Rescue Mission. Some of the Discipleship Groups came and served, led worship, preached, etc.

Check the title link for some words about the evening...


El Jeffe! Bringing the Word!



Cheryl from the college group grabbing a tray to serve one of the guests behind her.



The Smiths, thats Todd with the spaghetti, Allison says, "Don't forget your veggies!"



The crazy Englishman who ran the kitchen... I know him so I can call him names, besides he is crazy!

The Good News

I have tried to point to a problem within the evangelical understanding of salvation; this problem stems from an inadequate understanding of how to read the Bible. We have inherited the lenses of our age* (reducing all knowledge to its smallest parts; dividing disciplines into an ever greater diversity of study; assuming that the whole is the sum of its parts) and we wear these lenses when we read our Bibles. It is, quite simply, inappropriate to think that we can pick and choose which words of Paul to use to define our understanding of certain ideas, or to do the same thing to the words of Jesus, or to do the same thing to the Bible as a whole.

This fragmented approach to the Bible, as well as the person and teaching of Jesus, is what has led us to understand the gospel in such a way as to actually exclude the teaching of Jesus from the message. Our hermeneutic forces us to ignore the many passages that refer to Jesus “preaching the gospel” because we do not believe Jesus preached the gospel. We believe the gospel is that “Jesus died on a cross to get evil people into heaven;” how then could Jesus preach such a message if He had yet to die on the cross? This forces us to ignore many passages of the four Gospels, and to do great violence to other passages as we continue our hermeneutical and exegetical gyrations.

Here comes the fun part…

We have spent a post and a half talking about what isn’t the gospel, now let us begin to describe what is the Gospel of Jesus!

Jesus message was one of the present availability of God’s presence; from his inaugural address (Luke 4) to his description of salvation as “living water welling up from within,” from his life of compassion and power to his death and resurrection, everything about Jesus words and deeds screams out “God is here and present, available in a way that He never was before!” Jesus very words, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” could be seen as the summation of the gospel message; “God is available to you here and now, your black heart is no barrier to his love, turn from yourself and your ways, give yourself to Him and His ways, step into His Presence, His Authority, His Rule, His Realm of Influence!”

The Gospel

God exists!

God is a being so pure and real that He is a unity, and yet so loving and alive that He is a plurality. God is a community of divine love and selfless submission; the Father who is, the Son who reflects His glory, and the Spirit who proceeds forth; and all seeking the glory of the other, a glorious dance.

God is Beautiful! He is unlike anything else in holiness and righteousness, beauty and power, justice and mercy, energy and creativity! His very being screams out life! His words drip with unimagined realities, his breath is the sweetness of life itself, his activity is the world made – unmade – and remade in an instant…

He is the source and fountain of all goodness, He is the source of all existence, He simply IS!

God made man in the very image of Himself. Man was created to be with God, to be loved and known by Him, and to love and know Him. Man was created to be like God and to take care of the creation that God spoke into being. Man was the regent who ruled in the king’s stead; given charge to rule and bear responsibility as God’s representative.

God is heartbroken over man’s desertion of his place in creation. God is sick with grief over the decision to forsake Him. We have chosen to abandon our responsibility to creation, but even more, we have cast aside the imago dei, the very imprint of our creator, His DNA, and have thrust ourselves into the maelstrom of abyss. We exist apart from He who provides existence and so share in the part of that which does not exist; we are the “once-men” who were and no longer are. And God weeps…

…into this world steps Jesus. He lived a life that revealed who God is, He healed the sick, chastised the self-righteous, protected the helpless, raised the dead, proclaimed freedom to those in bondage, declared love and compassion upon those who suffered, brought justice and mercy to all who would receive it; and for this we destroyed Him.

God was willing to risk everything, and pay any cost, to redeem all things. By way of the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus (who was the Christ, the Son of God) all things have been reconciled to God, things spiritual and physical, heavenly and earthly. In the person of Jesus is restoration of God’s image to mankind, and the created order put right as man steps into his rightful role as regent over the earth. In Jesus can be found the restoration of friendship with God, as He once walked in fellowship with mankind, so does He desire to do today.

Jesus offers us this restoration, a renewed fellowship with the God of All Things, a restoration of His image, a re-commissioned responsibility over the created order. By rejecting ourselves and the death we had become, and by accepting His life and choosing to live it, we can regain what had been lost. By simply trusting Jesus enough to receive what He desires to give us, we can once again experience life on God’s terms, free from the chains we have shackled ourselves with. By way of simply accepting what Jesus said as true to the point where we are willing to act upon it, we can share in the very nature of God (which was destined to us); namely hope, righteousness, peace, love, power, faith, eternity, truth, justice, abundance, beauty, infinity, purpose, and mercy.

Daves place

This is a picture of my brother's studio in the San Diego area. He has openned up shop as a personal trainer. If you know my brother you would find it quite fitting that he lives in an apartment that has a full weight set and all of the workout equipment needed, right there in the "living room." The door in the back of the picture leads to his small room with a bed and shower.

Acts 1-4

I read Acts 1-4 out of the message the other day. It was really amazing to me because I hadn't read it out of the message before. It was amazing it made things more real for me. Peter was nuts for the Lord. It was really neat to read about him in the first few chapters of Acts. He wasn't the guy you read about in the book of Matthew. This was Peter, the Rock that Jesus was going to build his church on. And he was doing a great Job. I think he preached like 4-5 times since the book started. He took EVERY opportunity no joke. The book starts and right off the bat the 11 disciples are in a prayer meeting and they are trying to determine who will replace Judas. Then they decide on a guy named Mathias. Then Pentecost happens and people are wonder what is happening because all this crazy stuff is going on and people are speaking in tongues, and some people understand them and they are like what's going on, then Peter steps up and he's like, "Hey this is what's happening, this is what Jesus said would happen, and the prophets of old!" Then he tells them about Jesus, and 3,000 people come to know the Lord that day and Acts 2:42-47 happens.

41That day about three thousand took him at his word, were baptized and were signed up. 42They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. 43Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! 44And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. 45They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.
46They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, 47as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

Hello! This book is dang amazing! Then Peter and the disciples were in their way to the temple and they heal this guy and he gives his life to the Lord! They all go into the temple and the Bible says, " Peter saw that he had a congregation and so he started to preach." 12When Peter saw he had a congregation, he addressed the people:

Then he started to tell people about Jesus, and eventually he and the disciples get arrested. The priests were trying to stop them but the word says that during that night the news of Jesus had spread to about 5,000 people, and they gave their lives to the Lord! Then they go to the trial and Peter tells the lead dudes there about Jesus too and they say, "Well maybe this is a fad that will die off, and if it really is God then who are we to stop him?"

Peter rocked the house he didn't think twice he just took every opportunity to tell people about Jesus! It was amazing! I was praying while I read this and I was like God forgive me for all the opportunities that I didn't take! Forgive me for not being willing to get uncomfortable for the sake of these peoples souls! I want to take every opportunity! People everyday die without knowing Jesus! I can do something about it though! I can take every opportunity and tell people the good news that was told to me! Somebody had to get outside of their comfort zone to tell me about Jesus! I want to get super uncomfortable so people can know Jesus! And I know that the more I do it the less uncomfortable I will be! Maybe telling people about Jesus would become like second nature to me! That would be a glorious day!

"I Never Knew You..."

Many today have taken the following passage (Romans 10:9-10) to mean, “acknowledge Jesus death on a cross, acknowledge that you are a sinner, ask Jesus to make His home in your heart, and you will be forgiven of your sins so that you can enter heaven after your physical death.”

If the gospel is to be understood as such, what are we to make of the following words of Jesus:

“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”

…what else could possibly be meant by these words than what is the plain and stated meaning of the words!

I guess as evangelicals committed to both the gospel of Jesus, and the authority of Scripture we must come to a new and deeper understanding of just what the gospel is. This passage and others simply do not allow for the atomized, formulaic, and self-focused gospel that has been the mainstay of the Church during my lifetime.

Let us begin by saying that I do not want to denigrate anyone who came to faith in Jesus by way of the “American Gospel” (as this is how I came to faith), nor anyone who has led others to faith in this way (I have also led others to faith in this way); simply to clarify the gospel. Sincere men and women have been describing the gospel in terms of “heaven when you die,” with nothing but heartfelt passion for Jesus and a firm commitment to serve him here on earth. I applaud their devotion to Jesus, and point to their very devotion as yet more reason to rethink the common language of the American Gospel. The compulsion that they feel to live for Jesus this side of heaven, is reason to doubt the message they preach that Jesus only concern is what happens after they die.

Circles

I had a great conversation with Nancy the other morning...

(at least I had fun, which is another way of saying I got all fired up and started preaching at her, sorry Nan!)

...so we live in what, one could argue, is the most fragmented society in the history of man. This is certainly a legacy of "me" thinking that has its historical precedent in the Protestant Reformation ("I" can interpret the Bible for "my"self) and bolstered by subsequent events of consequence in Western history; the American Revolution, the push for exploration, the development of consumer capitalism, even the modern charismatic movement with its emphasis on "my" experience of God; this is not to paint any of these factors with a negative brush, simply to emphasize the nature of the society we live in.

Our level of technology and the individualist mindset that we Westerners (and especially Americans) swim* in has led us to a place of social bankruptcy. We now have the material wealth, technical know-how, and inculcated tendency, to manifest a society that alienates and fragments social units and individuals, and ultimately destroys the social cohesion inherent in any community or group.

All of this to set the stage for the observation that individuals do not congregate in the small number of intimate circles that we all desire to belong to, rather we are scattered and diffused throughout a great number of social circles in distinctly different settings. Our spiritual-social DNA (as it were) causes us to hunger for intimacy and identity that can only come out of relationship, yet our society is structured to prevent that very thing.

Our culture is such that we very likely did not go to school with the same individuals for our entire education, and most certainly did not enter into the job force in the same place as the individuals we went to school with. The people we live next to very rarely work in the same arena that we do, our Church is likely to be some distance from the places that we shop, etc., etc..

The result is that we live our lives in compartmentalized circles, one circle only rarely overlapping with another. We have a circle of relationships at work, a circle of relationships at Church, a circle of relationships in the businesses and shops we frequent, a circle for hobbies, a circle for parents of our kids friends; it is the exception for any of the relationships from one circle to carry over to another.

This (major) facet of our way of life has the result of feeding the individualism that spawned it, both a manifestation of and a catalyst for a society of individuals; it has crept into many corners of our life. We no longer find it odd that children would spend forty hours a week watching television, or that we would never actually see our neighbors at a close enough distance to enter into a conversation. Even our architecture has been impacted by this reality; our homes have front yards designed for sterile eye-appeal, fenced back-yards for private retreats, enclosed and attached garages to allow direct access from our living room to the highway; all to insulate us from the people we live next to.

We go to great lengths (perhaps unwittingly) to prevent any meaningful relationship from taking place, even choosing to enter different circles precisely because of the anonymity provided there (how many people attend the mega-church to hide from relationships). All of this has the result of fragmenting our society and even our very selves as we maintain different faces in each of the circles we swim in.

*I love the analogy of fish=man and water=culture; it takes a very self-aware fish to recognize just what water is like...

dre

Yo yo this is dredawg in da hay-ouse!! Buffalo!! It's good to be a disciple of Christ. Following Jesus is what its all about. He is the way the life and the truth. Enough preaching... I'm excited to go to Buffalo soon & I love chicken, beef, biscuits & ofcourse cheddar. I love being married to my crazy husband sam with the emotions of a teenage girl. I'm going to start doing ballroom dancing soon so look out! Salsa salsa cha cha cha! A goal I have is to travel the world before i die. Doesn't that sound fun? Okay, bye bye now.

sam

hey folks and family its Sam Mason.

Nothing like family...

Uncle David!

What are you teaching her...

I get to be apart of the hope of the world

Hey my name is Mary and I am also going on the Buffalo churchplant. I am so excited for what God is doing in this world. I agree with what Steve said in his profile that , "The church is the hope of the world." Since I am part of the Church then I guess that I get to play part in what God is doing all over the world! That is the most exciting thing ever. I have been thinking about it lately that I, me Mary, get to change the world for Christ! I get to do this! What an incredible honor it is for me to get to be a part of this! (And by the way, when I get really fired up I repeat myself sometimes.) (And by the way, when I get fired up I repeat myself sometimes.) Ha, ha how'd you like that. So this is my thing, I went to a conference called World Mandate and it totally rocked me. This conference is all about having God's heart for the world. So that is what God has been doing in me! Did you know that there are 2.1 Billion people on this earth that haven't heard about Jesus! There are 10,000 people groups that have not yet been reached! Even less than that now! This was 3-4 weeks ago so how many people have given their lives to Jesus since then! I get to be apart of this in some way and it's not small either, if you think about it! When one person comes to know Jesus ALL of Heaven throws a party! If I were to lead only one person to the Lord not only would ALL of Heaven party but it would be totally worth it, cause Jesus would have died and did it all for that one person. What a huge roll I have to play in this! I get to spend the rest of my life in earth loving the people that God created. Now I'm not perfect I have those days when I just don't want to love the person on the other side of the counter, but what an oppurtunity to let God change my heart, even if I don't see it as an oppurtunity at the time! Anyway like I said 2.1 Billion people, 10,000 people groups, thats what 1/3 of the world left to go! Let's get a move on people, Jesus is coming soon at the amount of people we have left. There are 2.1 billion people left let's make sure that they ALL have a relationship with Jesus! Dream big! This is an exciting time. I am so lucky to be apart of this! God chose me. I better stop right now and post more later because I am so excited the page might just explode! Let me say one more thing though. None of this can happen if we aren't spending time getting to know Jesus and let me also tell you that you will never stop getting to know him! He is unfathomable! It is all out of being intimate with our savior. It is all out of relationship with Jesus, and that is what I am excited about is bringing people into relationship with Jesus! I want them to know him! It's more than just a prayer, it's more than just a title, it's a relationship, a new life, a chance to start over because you don't have to do the things that you once did! Hello? Why do you think that they call it the good news? So this is me and this is what has been rolling around in my brains for the last month or so and I don't want it to stop, I want to have ten times this passion for Jesus weeks, months, and years from now. Amen!

Awesome financial opportunity...

...I just recently discovered an awesome new investment possibility. If anyone is interested just check out the above link. There is a niche market that has yet to be truly capitalized upon. If you would like to partner with me on this new, sure-to-be-a-success, financial strategy email me at:

steves@onesies_for_adults.org

the wife, round two

It took me awhile, but I finally figured out how to log in as me

Jesus

So here is the other thing that has been rumbling around in my ponder pot...

...there is nothing but Jesus. We can make it about so many other things but it is quite simply only about Him, all else is distraction; sin. Not to say that all else is evil, or even all else is to be avoided, but that Jesus is what is to be pursued; worshipped. He will lead us into all else good.

Jesus is the "head over everything," he is the Master of all creation. The beauty of this place, from the glorious expanse of the galaxies to the wonderous industry of the insects, life is emmanating from the heart of Jesus. He stands over and above the universe, His arms stretch from the beginning to the end of time. "Through him all things were made," all that is, and was, and will be, flows out of the power and glory that is the Son of the Most High. His light illumines all things, He is our life! His Kingdom pours forth over the earth, a thunder of hope and joy! There is no limit to the "unsearchable riches of Christ," we learn of goodness from him; he breathes Truth into us; beauty is his laughter. He is the Lord over Death, the Lord of Life, the "Lord of the Dance!"

He is the coming King, heralded by a throng of dancing cripples and shouting mutes; accompanied by laughing lepers and addicts-set-free; attended by dead-men-come-alive and prisoners loosed from their chains. He is the joy of widows and the hope of orphans.

Nothing we could imagine in a dream could even hold a candle to what He purposes for our world! This is He who spoke and it was! The one who pours out blessing on the earth, who comforts the greiving heart and silences the evil man; justice is only the beginning of his desires. Jesus is good with an "other-worldly" goodness; a rightness almost painful to behold; his mercy overcomes all evil, his forgiveness knows no boundaries; even the ones who tortured him and then mocked him, spitting on the Lord of Life, only caused Him to love them ever deeper.

We are confronted with this Jesus and we play video games!!!???!?!?!?!

I am appalled at the utter lack of gravity with which we approach GOD!

Nothing compares to who He is. Not money nor power, not sex nor pleasure, not family nor reputation, not companionship nor posterity; even good things, even "christian" things fade in comparison. Our devotion to prayer, or to people, to the church, to the world, to helping the hurting, to ending hunger; all things are less than Jesus. We do ourselves no favor by setting up a new law in the place of the old. We are destined to be daughters and sons of the Father, conformed to the character of Jesus the firstborn over all creation, admonished to "imitate God."

In our pursuit of Jesus we will discover him leading us into his Father's loving presence, into community with our brothers and sisters, and into His mission and purposes in creation; but let us respond to who He is. We do not pursue these things for any other reason than that we have been captivated by the heart of Christ, and this is what pours forth out of that heart.

Our lives are His dream! We do not create our own life, church, community, and invite Him into it; but rather fall in love with Him and join with His People, His Purposes, His Dreams, His Life!

Jesus:

Lord of Life
Lord of the Dance
Hope for the hopeless
Joy for the joyless
Good news to the poor
Freedom to those in bondage
The Firstfruit
Firstborn Over All Creation
The New Man
The Chief Cornerstone
The Accomplishment of the Purposes of God
Boundless in Love
He fills the whole universe
The Fullness of Deity in Bodily Form
The Perfect Execution of the Law
The Second Adam
The Life
Crucified King
Son of God
Perfect Image of the Father
Love
Messiah
Fulfillment of Times
Creator
Alpha and Omega
His arms stretching over all of time
The Truth
The Way
Conquerer ove Sin, Disease, the Accuser, Death, Shame
God in the Flesh
God come Near
Resurection
He takes our burdens upon himself
The Consummation of All Things
The Fulfillment of the Law
The Foundation
The Bridegroom
The Head of the Church
Vulnerbale Divinity
The Curse on Our Behalf
The Action of the Father's Will, the Outworking, the Fruition, the Manifestation
The One who Broke Loose From the Grave
The Centerpeice
Mediator
He Makes All Things New
He is with the Rejects, the Outsider
With the Children
Real Life
Full Life

Jesus

Relationships

Our church just recently had a men's prayer and worship meeting that lasted a good portion of the day; one of the pastors of our church shared some observations with me about the day:

Of the over 30 men who showed up to the prayer time, aproximately 90% were involved in one of our discipleship groups.

Two men stated during the meeting that they would not have come to the prayer meeting were it not for the role the discipleship groups had played in their lives.

Two other men shared with my friend that they were only at the meeting because of their involvement in the discipleship groups.

I find these observations telling...

This is by far the largest turnout we have ever had to a men's event of this nature. We have spent months beating the men of our church over the head with guilt (only a slight exageration) and not had this level of attendance at men's retreats and breakfasts. This time around there was much less emphasis during our Sunday gathering times; men were simply invited by the leaders of the groups they attended (if they attended a discipleship group) or else were invited by one of our pastors.

The telling aspect of this occurance is that the men who chose to show up were predominantly men who were involved in a discipleship group, in other words, men who had RELATIONSHIP with other men in our church. It never ceases to amaze me how complucated we think it is as compared to how simple it really turns out to be.

These are pictures from some of our Discipleship Groups:







As the Church we continue to put together programs for this and programs for that when all that is really needed is groups of people who will get together in the name of Jesus to pursue His purposes for our lives. As we gather in His name we will discover Jesus leading us into the Father's love, into community, into mission and service, and into equipping and training others. It is this group of individuals comitted to loving God, loving people, making and teaching disciples, that is the basic unit of Church; the "cells" of the body of Christ.

It is simply impossible to be a disciple of Jesus outside of one of these communities!

What's in a name

...so, the whole "Chi-Chi" thing. (Sorry sis!)

My brother, Dave, is the reigning champion of nicknames. This is no small feat for anyone who has tried to give, create, recieve, or get rid of, a nickname. It requires the right timing and a certain knack for bizarre associations, free-flow, stream-of-consiousness thinking. He actually gave a teammate of ours in college at least a dozen, perhaps two dozen, nicknames; all of them stuck!

So my sisters name is Christina. My brother started calling her Tina chinina, chinina being my grandmother's italian word for small. This of course evolved to "Chi-Chi." At that point my sister refused to answer to her nickname, but when we continued on Chi-Chi=>Chi-Chi-Rodriguez=>C-Rod=>Crawdad=>Pops she finally caved and started answering to Chi-Chi.


Here is my brother holding my son.

Popstar magazine and an interview with Chi-Chi

Popstar Magazine....

...what in the world!

I have never in my life read so many words together in one place with so little meaning!

I was over at my folks place today and got to peruse my thirteen (she is tapping my arm right now to inform me, emphatically, that she is soon to be fourteen) year old sisters reading collection. What is the attraction to such shallow collections of gossip?




My sister, Chi-Chi (I'll explain that later), says, "It's not shallow, it's interesting!"

"Why," I ask...

"...because... I don't know... let me think about this for a minute..."

-minutes pass-

"It has a lot of interesting facts about different stars."

Two part question:

Why do you find someone elses love life to be interesting?

Why do you care about "stars?"

"It's not just love-life; behind the scenes movie info is interesting."

"It's interesting to see how different their lives are than most people"

Another question:

"Do you particularly desire to live the life you now have, or the life that you read about in this magazine?"

"I kinda like both lives... because if you live their life you usually have alot going on, but in my life there is more of a routine."

And you like routine?"

"Sometimes, and sometimes I just wanna have a lot of fun."

Last question:

"If you could do anything with your life, with no limitations (other than the physical limits of the universe that we live in, i.e. we still have gravity, etc., and I am not talking about your vocation but rather your passion), what would you give yourself to?"

"I would say acting and singing, I like singing in my spare time, and I like drama."

One more question (Sorry):

"If you could make a significant difference in our world, knowing it would cost you a lifetime of effort to acheive that difference, what about this world would you be willing to work to change?"

"Starvation, because we have alot of it, and if there was one thing that I could change, even a small amount of it... no one should have to starve to death just because they can't get food."

Two grandmas and a baby

This is at the birth of our 2nd child Zane, these grandma's are as happy as can be. The little guy in the picture is now almost 3 months old and not so little. He is one of the happiest little fella's I have ever seen, although our first child Zoe was also quite a happy little thing. She is now almost 2 and I can't believe that the time has flown by so fast. We are now a family of 4 and our lives have been so radically changed by children.

These have been some of the best changes ever, I think that when you have kids you life gets more complicated but you get to experience a joy unlike anything you have ever experienced; I have come to understand to a better degree the love of the Lord through my love for my children. Watching them grow into such interesting little people has been more than a blessing, words don't describe it. Our children are blessed with two wonderful sets of grandparents and 3 sets of great-grandparents, Steve and I were lucky to have such great parents and now our children are just as lucky to have such wonderful grandparents. Anyways anyone one else out there feel like kids bring out the true joys in life...

Tamy