hullabaloo

mmm, mmm good

This coming sunday we'll be concluding a short sunday morning conversation called Mmm, Mmm Good, where we've been looking at the book of 1 Peter, specifically how God calls us to live good lives.  Interestingly, the context of 1 Peter was christ-followers suffering persecution from a government and society, based on a misrepresentation on behalf of the Emperor Nero, of people who followed Christ.  Today, Christ followers are also often misrepresented, but consistently by our own actions.  We don't experientially understand persecution in the states (religiously/spiritually).  And just about any misrepresentation we deal with is from "our own" that say stupid stuff on national TV, or in their statements of faith, which cause the rest of us to have to apologize to our not-yet-believing friends and continue to try and redefine what it means to be a Christ-follower (case in point; my use of the term Christ-follower rather than Christian as to disassociate from that sub-culture).

Also interesting is our typical thought pattern when someone mentions the "good life".  I think of a couple things.  People in the cigar culture use the term "the good life" often to demonstrate the enjoyment of the fine things in life.  Good cigars, good drinks, good times, etc.  I also think of that tee shirt company called "Life is Good".  These tees are usually found in a store like REI, or Galyan's where you go to outfit yourself for fun in the outdoors.  Life is good, so they say, because of our leisure time.  In other words, our thoughts on living good lives tend to drift towards our time away from the hustle and bustle, or to relaxation, enjoyment, simple pleasures, and extravagancies.  

Now, I'm not going to say that there's anything wrong with any of these.  I too enjoy a fine cigar from time to time, and I love being outdoors, fishing, kayaking, laying on the beach or climbing a mountain.  Those are all great things.  But those aren't the essence of what Peter was talking about in his letter.  Peter wrote for one primary purpose; that people would see and savor Jesus.  He wanted people to live such good lives in the viewpoint of those who did not recognize Jesus for who he was that they would be captured by the way these followers of Jesus lived and be brought closer in their journey to God.  How did they demonstrate these good lives?  By leisure?  Not necessarily.  They demonstrated..and lived...the good life based on relationships.  How they related to their culture.  How they related to their spouses.  How they related to each other.  The key to the good life..the life lived for the sake of others...is our interest and investment in the people around us.  When our relationships are good, life is good.

Good company

Went for a ride today with some new friends, got a little wet but had a good time on first group ride. We stopped at a place, somewhere, called the sleepy hollow. Imagine a biker bar in the middle of nowhere and this is it. What a trip.

iPhone and a hat

So I finally got the new software upgrade today for my iphone and I bought a hat, which Bristoe wanted to model for you, to wear while I'm out kayaking and wanted to try out the new typepad app from the iphone store so here is a post about nothing.

the best picture ever

I can brag on this one because I didn't take it...

Ten bucks says this one gets more comments that any of my super-insightful-spiritual musings.

a shift in perspective

One Day 2003 was a one-day conference established by Passion Conferences, led by Louie Giglio and all the trendy worship leaders that all the other worship leaders try to be like.  Leading up to the event I had been on an interesting journey that was actually instigated a couple years earlier at another concert—this one by the band Third Day, which was held at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX.  At this concert, Mac Powel (the front man of Third Day) mentioned a book he was reading called Desiring God by John Piper.  I had never heard of the book or author, but something Mac said—though I couldn’t tell you what that was—left me intrigued.  I went the next day to get the book and had a hard time finding it because, at the time, it was out of print.  But I eventually found it and consumed it like great Thai food.  After that I ended up reading several other books by Piper, the person whom first introduced to me the concept of enjoying God.  John Piper was speaking at this One Day conference and I was primarily there to see him.  Once he was on stage, I was glued.  Piper said something that day that I’ll never forget, and will forever change my approach to ministry—and my own faith journey.  He said, “Christian leaders of my generation owe the people of your generation an apology.  We have led you to believe that the Bible is about you.  We’ve called it things like a ‘love-letter’, or ‘road map’ or an ‘owner’s manual’.  The Bible is not about you.  It is the story of God and is ultimately about God.”  That statement rocked my world, and started me towards a God-centered notion of faith, rather than a me-centered one.  From that time on, I have seen my story in the context of the grand narrative that God is writing through humanity.

This experience was one of several that eventually established my strategic value; to live, love and lead. To live means that I will enjoy life; to live in an abundant and fulfilled way.  To love means that I consistently put the interests of others before my own.  To lead means that I am living with a kingdom posture.  It recognizes that everything I do has the potential to have a ripple effect in eternity.  This was a moment where it finally sunk in that it’s not about me.  Rather it’s about what God is doing.  I knew from there that I must consistently seek out what God is doing and try and get in on it; not ask him to bless my endeavors.  

I consider myself to be a part of what's called the emerging church movement.  This is very different form the term Emergent.  Please don't confuse the two.  The term Emergent is often associated with the need to change the story, so people will follow.  This isn't my belief.  The emerging church is associated with a mindset that the gospel is the same as it was at the beginning, but that the modern church (mostly the western church) made it about something different.  The emerging church is seeking a more authentic, more organic (or pure) view of faith in Jesus Christ.  It's a rejection (or perhaps better stated, a correction) to what has been made important in the church for the last 20-30 years or more; often referred to as Buildings, Budgets and Bottoms.

But it has consistently burdened me that as we, the emerging, seek to make certain changes to our approach to faith and the communication of that faith, we can tend to make the same mistakes of some of our predecessors; we put more emphasis on auxiliary items when more attention should be paid to what is primary.

So here (in good modern list-form) are a few things that I think should be guarded against.

1.  We must not make it all about the method.  The method must always point back to the meaning of everything.

2.  We must not worship the Bible.  The Bible is God's word, given to us to reveal his character and to tell his story of salvation, hope and redemption.  But the Bible does not save us.  Jesus Christ saves lives.  The Bible is God's method of telling his story; the meaning to everything.

3.  We must remember that dreams, goals, desires, passions, giftedness and personal potential will always point to the journey of another if they are God-inspired.

normalcy

Yesterday, immediately following our sunday gathering, we were fortunate to experience baptism with 3 people in our community.  We don't have a baptistry in our building, so we headed out to the beach, which I'm confident is much more holy.  We baptised three adults, all of whom have had an extraordinary journey to the heart of God.  I met with them all last week, and then as I stood there waste-deep in the gulf of Mexico, listening to their story, I was struck with a sad reality.  A reality about myself.  

It's so easy to forget the vibrant change in a person's life that Jesus can cause.  I almost wonder if being a youth pastor for so many years has done more to construct this short-coming in my life than growing up in church has...which, of course was my immediate blame.  I figured, "wow, following Jesus has become so routine to me, that I forget about what happens in a life that had one trajectory, then suddenly (or perhaps gradually) took on a whole new trajectory".  But maybe that's not it at all.  Working with teenagers, you'd be wrong to assume that you wouldn't work with kids that have already been through an enormous amount of pain and turmoil.  It's rather amazing what shoddy parents can do to a kid.  But take that potential for pain and turmoil and add 30 years to it.  Or 50.  Or even just 10.  Watching an adult turn the first pages to a new chapter of life, well it's just so much more potent than watching a child do it.  And I mean that in the most loving and respectful way.  Because I love teenagers.  God put in me a desire to see them reach their potential 8 years ago, and that hasn't changed.  Because watching a child first embark on the journey is such a beautiful picture of hope.  Watching an adult do it is a reminder that God doesn't give up.  

It hurts me to think of so many who have heard the message of the church, yet haven't heard the message of Jesus.  But God can heal those broken, even those broken by me.  

May we look into the journey of another often enough to remember the dramatic change, and the potent reality of hope that Jesus produces.