They Think We're a Hate Group, & They Might Be Right

Except from Michael Cheshire on "Out of Ur"

Maybe the church should trade its picket signs in front of the abortion clinic for a blanket and a ride home at the back door. Maybe the church could walk away from politics for a while and start working at reaching hearts. Maybe we could all try to find a gay man or woman and apologize for how some Christians have treated them. We should tell them we may not agree with that part of their life, but we could still learn about each other and maybe even become friends! We should show love instead of blame and judgment. We have laws against killing, stealing and all sorts of things; why do we think a law against gay marriage, abortion or any other moral issue is going to change the human heart? After we make things illegal here, are we going to work to make them illegal in the other 196 countries of the world?

It could be that the Mayans are right and the world will end today. It’s likely, however, that we will be around for a little longer. So, maybe some of us should try a new approach to understanding the world around us. It doesn’t make us worldly; it makes us involved. Christians should be involved at a gut level because the world is full of blame and apathy. We have to get back to being involved with our communities and in the conversations. We need proximity to those we keep throwing rocks at. I’m not on CNN, Fox, or TBN. I don’t have a big platform to speak from. Maybe that makes my Jesus different than theirs, but I love the Jesus I know and he doesn’t speak in blame and hate. He stands up and says he loves us all. My Jesus says, “Let’s keep talking. Keep the channels open.” My Jesus is okay with people coming to him slowly like. My Jesus knows how to cry at the horrible shooting when there are really no words for the pain it has caused, just as he wept at Lazarus’s tomb. And my Jesus stands back up in his community to try and bring hope and healing where he can. My Jesus would be friends with gays, prostitutes, drug addicts, and anyone else who would welcome a conversation.

As much as I would like to turn in my “American Christian” membership card because it seems tainted with a lot of hate and politics, I cannot. Unfortunately, we are all going to be tied together no matter what, so I’m going to get louder about my Jesus. I’m also going to start standing behind my well-intentioned older uncles and aunts and mouth to a lost and dying world, “They mean well, but you really should talk to the real Jesus.”

Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!

What if the Gospel was Everything to Us

I was watching a video today about the children of missionaries who went back with their dad to a remote village in Papua, Indonesia where they lived while their parents were taking the gospel there.  They were going back after 50 years to see what had become of the people and what God had done with the seeds planted by their parents.  One statement that stuck out to me was a man saying that they were so thankful for what these missionaries had done and the seeds they are planted, because now, for him, "the Gospel was everything".

What if we lived our lives that way?  What if the Gospel was everything in our lives?  What if we valued the Gospel and what it teaches above everything else.?  What if our our decisions were impacted by the Gospel?  What if nothing else mattered to us but the Gospel and sharing it with others?  What if our lives were portrayals of the Gospel?

This may be a simplistic, naive thought.  But what if it is not?  What if that is truly what we are created to do?  What if we are supposed to live like the Gospel is Everything to Us and nothing else matters?

Perspective

I really like this perspective from Donald Miller's "Through Painted Deserts".  We are worried about the wrong things and really they do not matter enough to be be panicked by these things.

"I tend to think life is about security, that when you have a full year's rent, you can rest.  I worry about things too much, I worry about whether or not people like me, I worry about whether or not I am going to get married, and then I worry about whether or not my girl will leave me if if I do get married.  Lately I found myself worrying about whether or not my car was fashionable, whether I sounded like an idiot when I spoke in public, whether or not my hair was going to fall out, and all of it, perhaps, because I bought into Houston, one thousand square miles of concrete and strip malls and megachurches and cineplexes, none of it real.  I mean it is there, it is made of matter, but it is all hype.  None of the messages are true or have anything to do with the fact we are spinning around on a planet in a galaxy set somewhere in a cosmos that doesn't have any edges to it.  There doesn't seem to be any science saying any of this stuff matters at all.  But it feels like it matters, whatever it is; it feels like we are supposed to be panicking about things."

Story and Relationship

The concept of story and the importance of relationship have been coming up a lot lately.  I mean a lot.  I do not know if it is just a buzz word right now or what, but "story", "living a better story", "God's story", "your story and its place in God's story", it is everywhere.  The need for relationship has also been prevalent.  Starting with my trip to Haiti and how it put in me the desire to not just throw money at the problems and needs I saw there, but to build relationships and invest in helping.  Then leading to my dissatisfaction with how we support missions at WTCC in what appears to be a system based on who had friends they wanted to support and not on any kind of relationship as a church body or congregation with the missionaries we support nor the people they serve.  Then my dissatisfaction with myself for not building relationship with my neighbors, with people in the body of believers I am a part of, with my greater community.

I hope to work on both of these things.  Hence why I am putting these thoughts into words here.  Maybe this will give me away of looking back at this and holding myself accountable for what I am sure God is trying to show me of late, but I am too stubborn and proud to see.  I can see where he is giving me opportunity to work on both of these things.  I see where he has and is laying the foundation for relationship both here and abroad.  I am excited about the class on "story" that I am getting ready to lead and about the fact that we are digging into "God's Story" on Sunday mornings.  Now I just have to take God up on the opportunities he is presenting me with....

Born to Privilege

One of the themes that has been running through my mind of late, before and especially since my trip to Haiti, is why was I lucky enough to be born where I was.  Why was I born in America, to Christian parents, while others in the world were born into suffering in places like Port-au-Prince and levels of poverty that make my life look like opulence.  This same theme seems to be on mind a lot of Ann Voskamp of the "A Holy Experinece" blog as well.  Below are some excerpts from one of her recent posts (Because If Us- Christians Really Care-and We Really Do Right).

I look around the table. All six of these kids looking like their Dad. Ocean blues eyes. Freckles flecked across summer bronzed skin. Sun streaked hair.

And I think of Haiti. I think of Haiti and India and the farmhouse I grew up in.
How you live before you die can depend on where you took your first breath and what if I wasn’t born here?

“What if none of you were born here?” The kids stare at me blankly. It’s amazing how we can be complacent to amazing grace. “What if you didn’t have your last name? What if you weren’t born in this country — but somewhere else?”

Sometimes the startling grace of your life can drop you right to your knees and is there any other way to rightly see your life?
What did Christine Caine say that that girl had said? That beautiful girl who’d been sold into bondage and trafficked for pleasure, that girl, a survivor of rape and neglect and manslaughter, who looked right into Christine and said it with her heart running liquid right down her cheeks, "If you really cared about us — then why didn’t you come sooner?"

Then why in the world didn’t you come sooner?

I’m thinking of India and Haiti and the girl born on the wrong side of the tracks right across town and if you really care about us, then why in Christ’s name didn’t you come sooner?

Why in the world am I sitting here eating chocolate and thumbing through glossy pages and fluffing up my comfortable little North American life?

There’s a whole aching, drowning world out there and they’re asking: If what you say is true and if you really care about us, what in the world have you been doing and why in the world didn’t you come sooner?

Who is just playing at all this and who really believes any of this?

I look around the table at our six kids.  Kids talking about the best university programs and the cheapest cars for the best insurance and going to the beach on Sunday and who is getting the canoe down for river jaunt and how do you balance enjoying the blessings with enduring the Cross?

How can we who are saved, who are resting on the wood and righteousness of that Cross, look at a whole world out there drowning in a veritable storm of darkness and just breathe this happy relief that we’ve been plucked out to safety? How have I been doing it for so long?

When was the last time all the evangelicals were actual evangelists and shared the message of salvation with those who are dying without any hope of rescue unless they know? What have we all been doing and why didn’t we all go sooner?

And I want to grab that heart pounding this stuff loud in my chest and too loud in my head and I want to just — gag it.

Because I like the safety of the Wood and the fluffed up life and isn’t it enough to take care of my small little life and these half dozen kids and not do anything that hurts too much?

I like quiet and comfortable and not real pain and just some good hymns belted out on Sunday morning. Normal. I like Christian normal.

But there’s no gagging a heart that’s been possessed by grace.

And after Haiti? When I was scared to open my mouth for the howl? Three weeks later, I’m sitting here at the dinner table with a prayer book and this howl that I just. can’t. stop.

If grace really slays you — then you’ve been crucified by Christ and you are bought and you are no longer yours but you are His.

And my mouth, tail of the heart, it can’t lie still and the words give the heart away:
“Can you be a Christian and not carry a cross?”

Why am I sitting in an air conditioned office, contemplating returning to my family who really wants for nothing and enjoys a relative life of ease with running water that you can drink out of the tap, reliable electricity, climate control, and a safe home more space to exist in the combination of the houses I visited while in Haiti?  Why are we here and there are so many others in so many other theres?  Why does my new friend Manasse have to scrape by to provide for his wife and two beautiful daughters, while I sit here and write this making probably more money today than he will make in months or even this year?

Why????

As Much God As You Want

Angela showed me a blog post one morning last week (http://www.aholyexperience.com/).  It just happened that the same morning I was finishing reading James 5.  Verses 1-12 were on my mind as I read the blog post.

And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment.




All the workers you've exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You've looted the earth and lived it up. But all you'll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you've done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.


Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master's Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.


Friends, don't complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.



Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You've heard, of course, of Job's staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That's because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.


And since you know that he cares, let your language show it. Don't add words like "I swear to God" to your own words. Don't show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can't be used against you.


Here is the excerpt from the blog post that stuck in my head:


Because there is no true happiness apart from holiness, and there is no true holiness apart from knowing what it means to suffer unhappiness. And there is no knowing how to suffer unhappiness apart from God.

You saw that today, saw it in the woman’s eyes on a front porch in Haiti, rain splattering off edge of that rusting tin roof. I simply pray you will not be apart from God. I don’t say this cheaply: It’s through suffering unhappiness that God may beckon you into deeper happiness in Him. Don’t be afraid.

Because the thing is: I don’t want you to get all A’s in life. I want you to get life. I want you to get God. A.W. Tozer said that you can have as much of God as you want.

It’s wild to think about that: How much of God do you really want? How happy do you really want to be? Why would you avoid Him and all your joy — when you could hunger for Him and have as much happiness as you want?

What I am trying to tell you is that no matter where you end up, where the road leads: You can have as much God as you want. As much joy in Him as you want. The real believers relentlessly believe that. The world or circumstances will try to dupe you differently– but it’s a law as irrefutable as gravity itself: no matter what — as much God as you want.

Is there anything else worth wanting or having?
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God is Good and His Timing Is Perfect

Relying on God

 

God has been trying to show me my need to rely on him.  I am pretty stubborn I guess because looking back I think He has been trying to show me this for several weeks now.  It has taken teaching lessons related to this twice now and being led back to reading "Radical" again for me to fully realize what a big deal this is.  I can fight all I want and try to rely on my own abilities, but it is evident that I can not get by in this way.  Why is it so difficult to turn things over to God and rely on his strength instead of mine?

Disobedience

From "Kisses from Katie"

   I would like to be to say that I always do exactly what the Lord asks of me.  I would like to say that I always seek Him first when a difficult situation presents itself.  While I am getting better at it, sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I still think what I do with my life should be my decision.  God asks, and reasons, and encourages.  He gently explains that I do not know what is best for me and that I do not always get what I want.  And I just look at Him, not understanding at all what He's trying to say.  Sometimes, I even whine and sob and shriek, just like a tired, angry three-year-old.
   So God picks me up, exhausted from struggling, and plops me in the center of His will for my life.  And then a funny thing happens.  As I kick and scream and struggle, I remember:  I like being in the center of God's will for my life.  God's plan is usually pretty great.  It is a whole lot better than mine anyway.  I am so glad that He does not allow me to win.

Vision Beyond Your Resources

Angela forwarded this devotion from Zondervan to me today.  Thought it was worth re-posting.
Seek and You Shall Be Surprised I almost said no to a miracle. A couple who had just started attending National Community Church requested a meeting, and I almost denied the request because they said they wanted to talk about church government. I  love talking about the mission and vision of the church. Church government? Not as much! Plus, I was fighting a book deadline, so I didn't have much margin in my schedule. So I almost said no, and if I had, I would have missed out on a miracle... After answering nearly ninety minutes worth of questions, they ended by asking me about our vision. I had so much pent-up passion after talking about policies and protocols that I just let it rip. I shared our vision of ... turning our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill into a chain of coffeehouses, with all the net profits reinvested in missions. I talked about launching our first international campus ... and our vision of launching multi-site campuses in movie theaters at metro stops throughout the greater Washington area. Then the meeting came to a rather abrupt and awkward ending. They said they wanted to invest in National Community Church, but they didn't say how or how much. They left, and I was left scratching my head. I wasn't sure anything would come of that meeting, but a few weeks later ... I received one of the most unforgettable phone calls of my life. "Pastor Mark, we wanted to follow up on our meeting and let you know that we want to give a gift to National Community Church." My mind immediately started racing... "We want to give a gift, and there are no strings attached. But before I tell you how much we're going to give, I want you to know why we're giving it. We're giving this gift because you have vision beyond your resources." ... Those four words, vision beyond your resources, have become a mantra for the ministry of National Community Church. We refuse to let our budget determine our vision. That left-brained approach is a wrong-brained approach because it's based on our limited resources rather than on God's unlimited provision. Faith is allowing your God-given vision to determine your budget. That certainly does not mean you practice poor financial stewardship, spend beyond your means, and accumulate a huge debt load. It does mean that you take a step of faith when God gives you a vision because you trust that the One who gave you the vision is going to make provision. And for the record, if the vision is from God, it will most definitely be beyond your means. Having vision beyond your resources is synonymous with dreaming big. And it may feel like you're setting yourself up for failure, but you're actually setting God up for a miracle. How God performs the miracle is His job... "We want to give the church $3 million dollars." I was speechless... It was one of those holy moments when time stands still. I heard it, but I could hardly believe it. I was blindsided by the blessing... God's provision came out of nowhere... It's not our man-made plans that move the Almighty; the Almighty is moved by big dreams and bold prayers. In the awkward silence of my speechlessness, I heard the still small voice of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit hit the rewind button and reminded me of a prayer circle that I had drawn four years before...

Truth and Grace

The last couple weeks I have been led to ponder the balance between truth and grace.  This started after attending a service at North Point in Atlanta with our middle school youth following the Believe conference.  Th sermon by Andy Stanly that day was entitled "When Gracie Met Truthy" (http://www.northpoint.org/messages/christian/part-5) and was about the embodiment of both grace and truth in equal measure through Jesus and the tension that ensues when we try to exhibit both grace and truth in the model of Christ.  Overall I liked the sermon, but the trouble arose based on the example Andy used to illustrate how this plays out at North Point ,which dealt with a homosexual couple and their attempt to serve in the church.  It was really a poor example to use to get his point across in my opinion, but the real problem came in what the example appeared to say about North Point's stance on homosexuality.  The story inferred that the gay couple could not serve because in fact one of the men was still married and therefore was now in an adulterous relationship, and failed to address the fact that the men were in a homosexual relationship which is also a sin but apparently did not preclude them from serving in the church.

So this raises the question which sins make you ineligible for positions of service or leadership in the church or for membership for that matter?  How do we confront people and their sin with both grace and truth?  Is this a question or issue of repentance?  What would happen if an openly gay couple came to West Towne?

I have since had discussions which I probably would not have had otherwise.  I have listened to other sermons (some intentionally and some by happen stance).  I have seen some blog discussions about this which are mainly from Southern Baptist sources it appears, so provide a good counter point of view (Andy Stanley, the Megachurch, and Homosexuality, Andy Stanleys Soft Landing on Homosexuality).  So, I believe this is a good thing and God is working.  I am interested to see where this leads.

A Different View of Heaven

Been reading Donald Miller's "A Million Miles In A Thousand Years" this weekend since I have a quite weekend of rest to get over my pneumonia.  It is a good book which I am enjoying very much and a timely read for where I am in life right now trying to figure out "my story".

One paragraph has stuck out to me though.  In a chapter in which Don talks about hiking to Machu Picchu the difficult four day trek across the Andes way as opposed to taking the easy one day hike along the valley or taking the bus and train there he ends the chapter talking about how he believes his view of Machu Picchu is different from those who came the other easier ways.  He describes this difference in this way:

"But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city.  The pain made the city more beautiful.  The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way."

He then goes on to compare this to our view of heaven:

"It made me think about the hard lives so many people have had, the sacrifices they've endured, and how those people will see heaven differently from those of us who have had easier lives."

I have often worried I came to Christ too easily.  I was raised in the church, by Christian parents, had Christian friends and influences all my life, and never really considered not being a part of the church with the exception of a few years in college.  Yet, my faith was not my own and not meaningful to me until I started to truly seek God and his will.  This goes back to the previous post on seeking God's presence I guess.  I have been lucky that God has guided my life and blessed me beyond what I deserve despite the fact that I did not always realize it or acknowledge Him.  Now that I choose to acknowledge Him and seek His face, it seems his blessing and provision is only increased, although on His terms.  It is an exciting, scary, but interesting time.  I can't wait to see what He has planned.

God give me the strength and faith to turn it all over to you.  Let me live like you are truly in control.  Amen.

Searching for God's Presence

It seems that the idea of seeking the presence of God as opposed to just seeking God (his will, his plan, his blessings, etc.) has come up quite a bit of late.  This is the topic of a Catalyst talk by Francis Chan that Ron has been circulating, I have seen it in scripture (Psalm 27, 84), I have seen it in devotional readings (see below), I have seen it in the lesson I taught in Middle School Sunday School.  It keeps coming up.  Obviously there is something to this.

So, God, help me be more mindful of seeking your presence.  If I am in your presence, the other stuff will naturally fall out.  Help me to remember that you are in control and to truly live my life that way.  Help me to put it all on the table, to loose those things holding me back from you, to turn my back on the sin that is separating me from you and your kingdom.  AMEN

Devotional Reading from last week (Psalm 27)
The title of today's reading is A Psalm of Fearless Trust in God. It talks about seeking one thing. During this time of seeking, it's easy to focus on seeking things from God instead of just seeking God--to seek His hand and not His face. Think of the difference between approaching a king to kiss his hand and approaching a loving father to kiss his face. God is both our King and Father. He is capable of meeting your needs and answering your prayers. But He also loves you more deeply than you can ever know. When you seek His face, you end up in a much closer posture to Him. Pray today that you will seek God's face and get closer to Him than you ever have before.