Give up being a saint.  It'll be a lot better for everyone.  

We have all known that person who is always right on moral matters and leaves no room in their mind for the possibility of error.  If we buy into their charade we too might begin to believe that true life is a matter of wearing the right things, saying the right things, making sure we do all the do's and don't all the don'ts.  This is the person who sucks all the joy out of a party because there was a curse word in a song playing in the background.  I know this person well because I use to be a person like this and still find myself creeping backwards into thinking that I can pull myself up by my moral bootstraps and make myself acceptible to God... until my bootstraps snap and the clothes i've worked so hard to get the stains out of get soiled with my own filth (there's an image for you).  

The beautiful thing is that the right way, the way that Jesus called us to has nothing to do with our adherence to rules, or our capacity to keep a clean track record.  It has everything to do with humility, something which many a Christian have long forgotten.  But we find humility's high calling throughout all of scripture.  David said it in Psalm 51, 'God you will not turn a broken and contrite spirit away'.  Micah said it when he wrote, "What does God require?  To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk... humbly with your God".  Peter said, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble".   We look at Mary Magdalene, the thief on the cross, the syro-phoenecian woman, and see that Jesus could not resist the humble.  So, it's time to count all our super-spiritual, ego-inflating, moralistic, ecclesial jerking around for what it is... poo.  Yep, i would probably use another word for it if there wasn't a permanent record on this blog.  In Philippians 3 Paul says all the junk he thought made a good person should be counted as, in the KJV, rubbish... that's greek for poo - exegete that Bible scholar.  

It's time we realize the depth of the cross in our own lives... it's not that we made Christ die on the cross - we didn't even care.  We were oblivious, and yet he loves us still.  And so when we begin trying to pretty ourselves up we are pretty much saying, "wow, a cross, that's great Jesus... but i got it covered - thanks, but no thanks."  And so we take the greatest gift of grace and freedom and ask God if he saved the receipt because we want to take it back and get what we think we need... some decorations for our poo.  

So to really become humble is a gift directly tied to accepting the magnitude of grace given freely by God.  It is that grace that lets us see those we once despised and avoided through the eyes of Jesus and offer them grace, love, and acceptance as well.  It is that grace that lets us willingly without compulsion take last place.  And the benefit?  Well when we get in last place like Jesus asked us to, we won't be surprised when others put us there.   

 

-This post was inspired by Brennan Manning's 'The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus' 

Posted In: spirituality life

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I see Yes.

I see a light on the horizon.

I see what could be -

What should be -

An explosion of life

in the blackhole of death,

A Kingdom amidst the nations.

When death pulls me down

By its weight in my heart and in my hands

When darkness surrounds me

When all around me is "No!"

I see Yes.

Shaking the foundations of this world

Tearing a curtain to the bottom from the top

Screaming, Yes.

Bleeding, Yes.

Dying, Yes.

Rising -

Yes.  This is He who battles for His bride

so that she might be adorned with desperation for him

and the deeds of righteousness.

Posted In: life poetry

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For the last 3 years I have only been in Wal-Mart to help a friend get something, redeem a gift card, or try and take something back there.  You can read previous posts to find out why I have an aversion to the store for its business practices.  However, over the holidays I heard that a lawsuit was won by the common folk and Wal-Mart was going to pay employees back-pay which it had been keeping back by doing things like making people work through lunch breaks and not paying them for it.  So, I decided I would not withold my dollar any longer since the store was doing justly (even if it was forced) and we proceeded to go to the mega-mall of stuff today to get Morgan a surprise and pick up our groceries.  Now, if you haven't been to Wal-Mart extensively in 3 years and you jump right back into it you need to be warned that there is a certain amount of sensory overload.  Sarah described it best by saying it was like we were in a fog surrounded by all this stuff.  I found myself wandering around simply looking for things to buy and dodging other customers who were, like ourselves, hurridely scrounging around to find the next thing they didn't know they needed.  As we were in the check out lane Sarah gave me the go ahead to get the car... relief.  As I rushed out of the store to get a breath of fresh air from the drowning waves of consumerism I passed someone I knew and he too was walking around in a daze.  As we left the parking lot Sarah and I vowed to return to Kroger and Food City as our primary grocers.  Don't believe the ads, 'save money, live better'.  Our grocery bill at Wal-mart was more expensive than what we usually pay at Kroger.  True, there are some things that they have better deals on, but overall it is as expensive if not more so than chain grocery stores... Anyways, that is my rant for the year... what a great way to start off blogging in 2009!  Happy New Years!

Posted In: life

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What a week... Even though we had a lot of people out for Thanksgiving this last Sunday we still had an awesome week with one person surrendering to Christ!  We also had an awesome time at our last 2540 last night.  It was extremely cold... or so I was told - I got to spend most of the night next to the grill!  We almost got ran off by the police because they were having Christmas festival across the street from where we usually set up, but they told us we could cross the bridge and set up closer to Knox Area Rescue Mission.  It amazes me how we try to sweep all of our brokenness under the rug as individuals and even as a city - I know they were 'just doing their job', but the fact is that they didn't want homeless people ruining the X-mas wonder land.  I use 'X' because I am not sure if Christ was in it, we found him on the other side of the bridge.  Despite that road block we had a great time fellowshipping with each other and people who would have otherwise went to bed hungry.  

I wanted to pass this along to everyone to remind you that God is still King and never ceases to amaze me.  He is working through His people... all the time!  He doesn't need us, but he chooses us.  It's not like he couldn't redeem the whole world in the blink of an eye if he so chose, but for some reason he has placed so much value on us that he chose us to be his co-laborers in redemption.  That freakin blows my mind!  Whether or not your neighbor hears about Christ is ultimately dependant upon your willingness to be used.  Are you ready?  The worst thing that we can do in this world is not fail, but succeed at things that don't really matter.  So don't be comfortable with Bible studies, having good grades, or securing a good job - live passionately towards the goal that God has placed before you - to look more like Christ.  And Christ did two things primarily - loved the Father and shared His love extravagantly.   

 

 

PS - one more cool thing - check out the new song by The Remedy band... Revolution

Posted In: missions outreach

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A good friends of mine, Todd Adams, called me a while back to see if I could co-host a workshop with him at our conference's upcoming young adult retreat, Divine Rhythm.  We decided to focus on the topic of the missional church.  We quickly began to realize that many of our UMC's might not exactly be missional.  Now, just like 'postmodernism' has been defined in a million and one different ways, so has the 'missional church'.  So we are starting with a operating definition of the missional church as outwards focused (that's the nutshell version).  So we started asking, how can we motivate the young adults in our conference to start reviving their churches?  The first step in this experiment is a website that we hope will be a hub for young adults seeking to turn the UMC on its head with a revolutionary outward focused love that seeks the least the last and the lost.  So check it out:  www.missionalumc.com  And visit back there often as we will be blogging, posting resources and videos, and attempting to light a fire under the young adults of our conference.

Posted In: church outreach

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Just wanted to pass on some new sites that I have made or found that I wanted to advertise:

Call and Response is a modern abolitionist appeal by some leading people in the arts and entertainment industry set in rockumentary format.  Right now there are more slaves than at any other point in human history!  Call and Response is an attempt to make people aware of that.   Cornell West has this awesome quote in it:  "Justice is what love looks like in public".  

The website is www.callandresponse.com

Right now it is only showing in select cities and all the proceeds are going to a specific abolition movement of your choice.  Right now there are no cities near us playing the movie, but I think it would be awesome to raise awareness right here in Maryville and play the movie at the Capitol Theater.  I have sent a few emails to them to try to get them to do it.  If you would like to help click here to email Call and Response.  Tell them how much you would like to see this movie in your community.

 

Here is a music video of 'Redemption Song' performed by Matisyahu.  This song is part of the Call and Response project:

http://www.spinner.com/2008/11/05/matisyahu-redemption-song-video-exclusive/

 

The Remedy YouTube page is up!  We are starting to upload all of our original videos to YouTube:

www.youtube.com/theremedymaryville

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If you and I fall into the same blogging category then you will know how I feel when I say I have a chronic case of blogging constipation.  I have great blog ideas sometimes but I never have enough time to type them out or I am never around a computer when I have them.  And when I finally get enough time around a computer I feel very uninspired except occasionally I will have somthing burning on my heart, or I will write a 'debbie-downer'  or an 'i am sucha a horrible blogger' post like this one is turning out to be.  However, this post still has room for redemption.  The real reason I am writing is to have some self-disclosure.  There has been alot of meaningful things happen in my life recently that I wish I could summarize and publish on here, but there was one in particular that I hope to publish something on soon, namely, Catalyst Conference.  But one of the things that happens when you go to a conference like that with tons of great speakers and leaders is that you get some great wisdom for leading churches.  However, what I seem to do with all that good info is twist it around and make myself puffed up with it.  I believe it is something about being human that makes people want to set themselves above others.  It is something I have to constantly have to keep myself in check about.  I can so easily see it in other Christians when they poopoo churches for doing new and innovative things, but which new and innovative churches can fall into doing as well if their cynicism about traditional churches isn't transformed to brokeness.  

I preached a message recently on anger and in preparing for it I realized something new.  I have, like many others, realized that some anger can be leveraged for good.  Jesus became angry multiple times in the Bible in the presence of injustice.  And while there is that anger that more naturally directs us toward sinning, I believe that this 'righteous' anger directs us toward sin, yet in subtle, more acceptable ways.   While Jesus became angry, he never held onto his anger.  His anger changed from merely loathing the situation to grieving over it.  His heart changed from that initial neutral state of anger to a spiritual grieving over the brokeness of his people (Mark 3).  If we simply get angry at the ineffectiveness or irrelevance of traditional churches we will soon end up as cynical, grumpy, progressive Christians.   We must constantly be praying for a broken heart over the people who don't know Christ as well as His church that so often collectively takes his name in vain.

Posted In: church life

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There are times when I feel so overwhelmed that by the time I sit down to pray I don't know where to start.  And I have this feeling that to God I must sound like a spiritual toilet being flushed - I don't have to explain the imagery on that one.  But really - sometimes I start thinking of all the things that I need God's help in and realize there really isn't enough hours in the day to pray for all of them.  So I end up mentioning as many of them to God as I can and crying, "Lord Help Me!"  I kinda feel unspiritual when I do that - I mean, we are supposed to have really intelligent and meaningful prayers with God right?  Well, maybe sometimes, but when did we get the idea that God gives a crap about the wittiness or craftiness of our prayers?  I know my God is big enough to handle all the stuff in my life without me having to have good English in my prayers.  At the end of the day he is looking for trust, not overblown prose - thank God.  

 

When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  

-Matt 6:7-8

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Alot has happened since my last blog.  The biggest thing and the one thing that has been on my heart and mind 24/7 for the last 3 months is The Remedy.  About half a year ago we started asking this question - what would it look like if we combined our college and young adult ministries and went after a generation that the church is ignoring with no holds barred?  What would it look like if we did something that would not succeed without the God's movement?  Through much prayer, fasting, and research - we went out on a limb and The Remedy was born.  

The vision for The Remedy is to make a creative environment where unchurched people love to come and love God.  We hope that everyone at The Remedy will love God, love each other, and rock this world with the love of Christ.  Making a creative environment that would attract unchurched young adults is not a trade that is common in the church in America today.  We did not have a lot of precedence, so we went to those churches that are doing it best:  Granger Community Church, Newspring, Northpoint, etc.  We understand that our culture is driven by music and other forms of media, so we knew that to effectively communicate with our culture we have to connect on some level through music.  In foreign fields missionaries go to the culture and do two things before preaching the Gospel:  1) They learn the language, 2) They learn the culture.  Then they began to see how the Gospel can be best communicate.  Unfortunately instead of approaching our own culture as missionaries, the church dominated culture at one point in the history of America and planted its feet in the 1950's while the world around grew and changed and modernized.   Our situation now is one where many church people love our Christian sub-culture, rather than loving the God of all cultures - Jesus.  We have become inward foucsed and we don't mind if the rest of the world goes to hell as long as we have worship that is pleasing to us and preaching that helps us grow.    How far from the heart of the one who ate with sinners we have come!

So - The Remedy is an attempt to reconnect the gospel with culture by going to culture and leveraging it for the sake of the Kingdom.   

How will we know if The Remedy is a success?  i don't believe numbers will be the judge - because there is always the chance that we get alot of people - alot of church people.  Our success will be measured by how faithful we are to the vision God has given us - to connect the Gospel with a culture that is unchurched and dechurched.  If we have no fruit - then we are not connecting it, we are not bringing people who are far from God and making a space where they can meet God in their context.  And if that is the case then we will change the things that hold us back from bridging the gap.  

We have started with a vision, then some conversations, then the support of our church, then the support of our larger church network, then trust in God's dream, then preparation, then action.  Now we are meeting in the Capitol Theater on Sunday nights from 8-9 and rocking it out.  We are coming up on our third Sunday of The Remedy.  We have had a great start, I am continually amazed by how God is moving.  He is on the move!  Pray, then pray pray pray.  

Posted In: culture church

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I can't believe Pax is almost 5 months old now.  It is incredible to watch him interact with people and see his whole body squirm when he smiles.  It won't be long until he is walking.  He hasn't really got the crawling thing yet - he scoots around a lot with his head on the ground, but he can pull himself up and stand.  It seems like he was born yesterday and time has flown by.  I am sitting here watching the Democratic National Convention (note: I am not a democrat or republican) and listening to Joe Biden's acceptance speech.  I don't know much about Biden, but his son introduced him and testified of his father's selfless love for his family - how he turned down the senate because his sons were in the hospital, how he made the 4 hour round trip to Washington and back to Delaware every day so he could be a father to his children.  

I want to be the type of father that doesn't pursue the position of influence to do good, but rather pursues to be present and use the influence inherent in fatherhood to show my love for Morgan and Pax.  So far the pursuit of that has had many detours, but every mile makes the destination clearer and more urgent.

Posted In: life baby

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