CROWBAR MASSAGE

2010-09-16T16:54:00.001-07:00

I am blogging at http://fcb4.tumblr.com/

Experiment....

2010-03-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm trying out a new blog format....not sure if I will switch, but for awhile I will be blogging at: http://fcb4.tumblr.com/

Religion's 3 Problems with Jesus....

2010-03-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

Problem #3: The Partying

"And they said to Him, "The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink." -Luke 5:33

Religion has little place for feasting...it's more interested in fasting.

Often it's because someone with a religion based relationship with God thinks that "what they do or don't do" is what makes them acceptable to God. They live in a perpetual sense of displeasure and are motivated to earn God's approval instead of living from a place of peace and pleasure based on what Christ has already accomplished for them.

They have a hard time with this "new wine" and try to pour it into the old wineskins of performance based righteousness. They are imprisoned in a mindset of corruption, sin and forbiddeness. They see all of life through a curse not a cleansing. They are ruined not restored, sick not healed, slaves not sons and daughters. They are defiled not delivered...and that bleeds over into a posture towards life in God and the world that they live within. They see only One Forbidden Tree in the garden of pleasure...instead of the hundreds of hundreds of other trees to eat freely from. To these types of religionists it's not what you know that frees you to live but all of life is determined by what you do. To them the Kingdom of God is all about what we do or do not put into our bellies or do with our bodies. They see humanity, our bodies, our appetites, or sexuality as dirty, evil, fallen and leprous. They can preach against anything...but have little light on how to live. They proclaim purity but can't articulate it's purpose.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit -Rom 14:17

Religious minded people are rarely at parties....because most people know that they are the worst folks to invite to parties. They don't know how to laugh, how to enjoy life, how to celebrate and feast. Their God is a dark and pessimistic scrooge that would never provide alcohol to a wedding but instead would be checking if the bride was a virgin or if the man had been married before.

"Jesus did not begin a reform movement within Judaism, working with the rabbinical schools and such. Jesus says, "I haven’t come to patch up your old practices. I come with a whole new set of clothes."

The change Jesus brought about had been prophesied by the prophets (Jeremiah 31:31)...and it was good news, much like the wine symbolism used in this passage...but it's not often popular among the crusty and cranky...but to the thirsty...its good news.

I think the Kingdom of God is a good place to live within...not just visit or anticipate...and its doors have been thrown wide open and the warmth from inside is spilling out into the cold, dark night. The laughter and festivities are luring the lonely and heavy laden inside. The music makes you want to dance not be buried.

And the wine isn't watered down...He has saved the best for last.

Religion's 3 Problems with Jesus....

2010-03-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Problem #2: The People

"The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?" -Luke 5:30

Grumbling...that about sums it up. Religiously minded people have a problem with the type of people Jesus attracts, hangs around and chooses as His disciples. The church is the only group in the world where you have to be unqualified before you can join.

"After that Jesus went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi (Matthew) and Jesus said to him, "Follow Me". -Luke 5:27

Jesus chooses people that others do not "notice"...we overlook, pass by, step over, determine as unqualified; the very ones that God has determined to pick.

We look for the rich...not the poor.
We want the positive, cheerful and extroverts...not those who mourn.
We choose the strong, the quick, the powerful...not the gentle.
We gather those who appear to have it all together...not those who admit that they are empty, hungry and in need.
We love the line drawers, clarifiers, the excluders...not the ones who draw big inclusive circles and often let others in.
We love the Pugilists...not the reconcilers.
We love our stars, our succeeders, the triumphant ones...not the ones who get a lot of flack, criticism or got a bad reputation.
We look for the ones that will make us feel better about ourselves...not the ones that will lower our public image.

Jesus chooses Matthews.

People with a present and a past. These kind are the ones who get surprised by the choice...people are usually not surprised by our choices. We need more "scandal" in our wake as followers of Jesus. We have lost the amazement and perplexity of grace and love. We don't have enough stories that move our cold, religiously ridged hearts. We need to see more sinners coming to repentance...so that we can hear more heavenly songs of joy...our Angels haven't sung in quite a long time (Luke 15:7 & Rev 1:20)

I think we can recognize the signs of a Jesus community emerging; when the ones being chosen for the "inner circle" provoke "grumbling" from the Religionists.

Religion's 3 Problems with Jesus....

2010-03-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Problem #1: The Preaching
"One day Jesus was preaching...and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing..."-Luke 5:17 (Read all of Luke: 17-26)

Religion is only concerned about Text & Time...generally, a future time. The Pharisees, the teachers of the Law, the Scribes were gathered to "catch" Jesus in some scripture based conundrum, some law breaking snare, a possible cataclysmic religious faux pas. Hopefully finding enough evidence to convict him in their own private traditional and theological courts. These fundamentalist "bibliodolaters" were not concerned about the suffering people around them...particularly the paralyzed man that had just been lowered through poor old Caleb's, recently renovated tile roof! They were concerned not about people...but words.
These kind of people are known as the Bible book worms...the "Scribes"...everything to them is about "translating, copying, interpreting, splicing and dicing greek verbs, Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew tenses and nuances. They also gather enormous libraries of "commentaries"...they love to talk about what the famous rabbi, teacher, preacher or professor has said about this or that verse. Soon they find themselves seeing all scripture through the lens or interpretation of the commentaries of the last person they learned from and that person learned his commentary from his "scribe" and on and on it goes...until soon, you're not sure if you are preaching or teaching "commentary about the Scripture or the scriptures themselves...but to these folks...they are ultimately, one and the same.

These Pharisees are as their name means, the "separated ones". They live with their noses both up and down. They live with a nose up at the unwashed, unreached,undereducated, pagan or unclean neighbors. They would rather go in their closets and talk to God about men...then go outside and talk to men about God. They live with their noses down in the spine of their books. They think of themselves as the cutting edge or the latest and the greatest, restorers, reformers, the faithful, pure, the undefiled, the truth bearers, the defenders of the faith, the fundies and conservatives. These folks get mad not at injustice or suffering of lives...but at mishandling words.

They are sure that "how you live" isn't and issue of eternity...but what you Know and it was these kind of people that had Jesus nailed to a chunk of bloody wood, on a garbage dump...far enough outside their beloved...'Holy City'.

Yes, the Lord of the Word...was rejected in favor of the Word of the Lord. They would rather have a God they could put in their rucksack...then a Word made flesh.

As in this story...they are especially enraged at anyone who lives a life of scandalous forgiveness and grace. Jesus was passing out forgiveness, like it was a key to the kingdom that he possessed. He was a sin forgiver...and they had an extreme problem with that. He had no papers, no degree from their seminary, He wasn't a priest, a scribe, a Pharisee or even one of those liberal "Sadduceess". He could draw crowds that they never were able to gather. He was outside their establish order. He was a rebel that wasn't conforming to the natural religious order of protocol and tradition. He wasn't qualified in their minds...and yet, He felt perfectly comfortable doing God's job!!! To them...it was Blasphemy.

Grace ticks people off...and too much grace will get you crucified. Religious people want judgment...not forgiveness. Justice...not mercy. They revel in suffering...especially if it is among "those" people. They can step over a broken person...in order to argue a theological point about the possible navel of Adam. Crippled people are of no consequence...the human condition doesn't matter...what matters is eternity. Your'e body doesn't matter to them..unless you are doing something sexual with it...then they get real religious about it. But in general...it's all going to burn in God's final judgment anyway...so let the people starve...they don't need a good physician...just a Soul doctor...and only one from their universities.

In the end...they don't really have room for the word "Friend" (Luke 5:20)

Because they are some of the most "unfriendly" people around...the world knows it and most people who have stumbled along this Jesus path have come to know it. Until we as followers of Jesus reject this unbalanced head congested faith and begin to "see" the very least of these people, in front of us as "Christ disguised"...we will continue the long religious tradition of being only known as a people of a book...instead of the Followers of Jesus.

Micah WWE pose

2010-03-14T16:47:00.001-07:00

Kona...poses

2010-03-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Kona...smile

Kona...so serious

I've got a burden of love...for a people who became my enemy

2010-03-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

"If our convictions lead us to believe there is no hope for those outside our own faith or with no faith..." there is a danger of "treating others as if they know nothing, and we have nothing to learn". "Belief in the uniqueness and finality of Christ allows us a generous desire to share and a humble desire to learn".-Archbishop Rowan Williams , in his address at the Guildford Cathedral titled The Finality of Christ in a Pluralist World

About 12 years ago, I had a burden laid on my heart by the Spirit of God for Muslim people. It manifested itself in a ethos of prayer and study and was leading to thoughts of mission. I genuinely found love growing in my heart for a people I didn't even really know. I knew character both Christians and Culture...but not personhood. God breathed in a tenderness and a vision to see a people not simply a project.

Then 9-11 happened.

That event has messed up this little love affair. Now my internal Christian reality has become at odds with my civil religion.
I have been wrestling with this tension for awhile...and honestly a lot of my war talk, has emerged out of this sifting between love and mission and war and patriotism.

When I read this story below...I resonated deeply with the example of Christ shown by this little Friar.

In 1219 St. Francis and Brother Illuminato accompanied the armies of western Europe to Damietta, Egypt, during the Fifth Crusade. His desire was to speak peacefully with Muslim people about Christianity, even if it mean dying as a martyr. He tried to stop the Crusaders from attacking the Muslims at the Battle of Damietta, but failed. After the defeat of the western armies, he crossed the battle line with Brother Illuminato, was arrested and beaten by Arab soldiers, and eventually was taken to the sultan, Malek al-Kamil.

Al-Kamil was known as a kind, generous, fair ruler. He was nephew to the great Salah al-Din. At Damietta alone he offered peace to the Crusaders five times, and, according to western accounts, treated defeated Crusaders humanely. His goal was to establish a peaceful coexistence with Christians.

After an initial attempt by Francis and the sultan to convert the other, both quickly realized that the other already knew and loved God. Francis and Illuminato remained with al-Kamil and his Sufi teacher Fakhr ad-din al-Farisi for as many as twenty days, discussing prayer and the mystical life. When Francis left, al-Kamil gave him an ivory trumpet, which is still preserved in the crypt of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.

"This encounter, which occurred between September 1 and 26, is a paradigm for interfaith dialog in our time. Despite differences in religion, people of prayer can find common ground in their experiences of God. Dialog demands that we truly listen to the other; but, before we can listen, we must see the other as a precious human being, loved by God. There is no other path to peace in this bloody 21st century.

Francis and his brothers did not make this trip as part of the battle to regain the Holy Land. Rather, they went in opposition to the mainstream theological and political orthodoxies of the time, to meet the Muslim people, and to live among them as “lesser brothers.”

Francis and his brothers went to be present among this people who were being portrayed as evil enemies of Christ, and, in his evangelism of presence, Francis found the spirit of God to be alive and at work within the Muslim people, then called “the Saracens”. Francis admired their public, repeated acknowledgment of God and call to prayer, and he appreciated the deep reverence they showed to their holy book, the Qur’an.

While the main trend of the time was for Christian preachers to deliver strident, inflammatory sermons against Islam, Francis forbade his brothers to take part in these exercises. He demanded that his brothers be present first and foremost, living with and among the Saracens. They were to preach only if they felt that it would “please the Lord.” Francis worked to prevent the brotherhood from becoming embroiled in the grasp for civil and ecclesiastical offices and power, and kept the community’s focus on serving their neighbors for the glory of God only."

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
-John 1:14

INFUSE Event Cancelled...

2010-03-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

INFUSE Missional Training Event is Cancelled.

Due to situations outside my control or knowledge, the event was cancelled. I found out about this change, this morning. I apologize for the last minute notice. INFUSE is here-by postponed until a new administrative team can put together that can execute the event.

Theo-ology or Theo-poetics?

2010-03-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

Seattle Trip Highlights: WWE Smack Down

2010-03-10T19:14:00.000-08:00

For Micah's birthday present this year, we bought him and a friend and I, tickets to WWE Smack Down Wrestling Event that took place yesterday in Seattle. We only bought him this for his birthday, so we could go all out and make it a trip to remember....WWE did not disappoint! It's great having kids that have different interests, and Micah is all alone in his Wrestling Mania...so this trip was perfect for just him....and boy was he was in heaven.
This is the line....yes, the Key Arena is that little red sign way in the distance...and we were not even the end of the line...
Inside we discovered we had nailed perfect seats...just above the floor, so the boys could see over heads when people stood and situated between the main Show entrance and the ring...so you got all the action, drama, lights and exploding pyrotechnics!
Micah and Chevy saw a ton of their favorite Superstars....this was "Big Show" and needless to say...He's Big...and he kinda looks like me...at least that's what Micah kept quipping.
The Explosions...were deafening...I kept cowering like a little girl...Im not sure Micah was to cool with that....but he kept warning me when he thought there was something that was going to make Dad pee himself.
We had a great view...but the screen captured everything you couldn't see. Over all...an amazing event and trip...one that Micah, Chevy and I, will always remember.

Seattle Trip Highlights: Candy at Pike's St. Market

2010-03-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

What's a Pike's St Market trip without going into the bowels of the building...down through corridors of mumbling odd people, dens of middle eastern fortunetellers, exotic wafts of incense and of course...candy stores. (Geek Side Note: Pike's feels like the Mos Eisley Cantina in Starwars...minus the droids.)

Seattle Trip Highlights: Ye' Old Curiosity Shop

2010-03-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

If you have never been to the "Ye' Old Curiosity Shop" in Seattle...you must go...especially if you got some young kids. It's an amazing shop with all kinds of old artifacts, oddities and oooooh's & ahhhh's and even a few shrieks...Micah let out a gasp and knee jerk at a clownish figure he bumped into...not to mention this Mummy.

Viking Helmet

Shrunken Heads

Two Headed Lamb

Seattle Trip Highlights: Wall of Gum

2010-03-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

Yes...a whole wall of people's gum...kinda like an Elementary School kid's desk turned inside out.
If you take the stairs down to the alley, right by the pig and the throwing fish market in Pike's Place and hang an immediate right when you come to the bottom of the stairs, you will walk right by it.
Of, course I had to check it out...what else am I going to do with two 10 year old boys?

SmackDown in Seattle Tomorrow....

2010-03-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

Getting ready to head to Seattle tomorrow with Micah, for WWE SmackDown...now where did I pack my red and gold, spandex singlet?

Ya...this is pretty much our house...minus mom in the lap of Cena

Ought too....

2010-03-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. -1 John 2:6

I used this verse Sunday in my message on Jesus, healing the man who had leprosy...I thought Mr. Chan, handled it in a particularly poignant way.

Right Belief...or....Believing in the right way?

2010-03-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
-Letters to a Young Poet...Rainer Maria Rilke

I think questions birth the kind of mind that can sustain and live in Faith. An unquestioning mind is an unhealthy mind in my opinion. It prevents learning. Light is needed and light travels fast and rarely sits still. Capturing light is an art that requires asking questions in all spheres of life. Light is also fire..and many people are have a lot of trepidation about the destructive nature or possibilities of fire. But they who learn to rightly fear fire...can learn to be illuminated...or illuminate. Fear is often at the root of control, tradition and religion. Fear can breathe wonder or cripple the soul. So whenever I see fear...I try to examine it if is the fear of God, which is a holy mystery...or the ignorance of the intelligence that breeds subservience, privilege and dominance. Humility isn’t afraid. Love can be killed but not conquered. So, in our journey together...let's let go of the fear of questions...they are allowed and wanted.

I’ve been mulling over some recent conversations I've had with some good people and have been trying to articulate a sticking point to me that is problematic in some of what were wrestling through. After re-reading a section from Peter Rollin’s book “How (Not) to Speak of God”...I was able to name what I was concerned about.

It has to do with the issue of “Right belief vs Believing in the right way”

It reminds me of a conversation the early American pilgrims heard from their pastor before they boarded the Mayflower to head off into the great unknown, which I read in Brian McLaren's new book:

“I charge you before God and His blessed angels that you follow me no further than you have seen me follow Christ. If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as you were to receive any truth from my ministry for I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from His holy word. The Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw. Whatever part of His will our God has revealed to Calvin, they (Lutherans) will rather die than embrace it; and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things. This is a mystery much to be lamented. For thought they were precious shinning lights in their time, yet, God has not revealed his whole will to them. And were they now living, they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light, as they had received.”
-Pastor, John Robinson

As I reflect on that, I couldn’t help but think that is so true of this spiritual journey we are on together. Below is the main chunk of Rollins statement about “Right belief vs Believing in a right way”. I am not sure if everyone is going to be able to understand the nuance he is getting at...but Im still going to put this stuff out there. Part of me that is concerned with moving people too fast in reorienting theological conversation. I think the quote above by Rainer Maria Rilke best expresses the manner in which I think is most healthy to move through this season. It's good to be hungry...but don't gorge yourself so much that you end up hemorrhaging your soul.

In contrast to this, I argue here that those involved in the emerging conversation exhibit the conceptual tools that are necessary to move beyond these modernistic and problematic positions. Here I picture the emerging community as a significant part of a wider religious movement which rejects both absolutism and relativism as idolatrous positions which hide their human origins in the modern myth of pure reason. Instead of following the Greek-influenced idea of orthodoxy as right belief, these chapters show that the emerging community is helping us to rediscover the more Hebraic and mystical notion of the orthodox Christian as one who believes in the right way--that is believing in a loving, sacrificial and Christlike manner. The reversal from 'right belief' to 'believing in the right way' is in no way a move to some binary opposite of the first (for the opposite of right belief is simply wrong belief); rather, it is a way transcending the binary altogether. Thus orthodoxy is no longer (mis)understood as the opposite of heresy but rather is understood as a term that signals a way of being in the world rather than a means of believing thing about the world.
-Peter Rollins "How (Not) To Speak of God"

I am committed to finding solid ground to stand on or walk upon, scripturally...but, sometimes answers don't satisfy such minds...and questions are all we are left with. Emerging involves gaining new wings to lift the transformed life...there is that which is the same and that which is new. Some is simply a reforming of the old or a reconfiguring it to enable life at a new stage. How to live this stuff out in this emerging new season of our life is going to be where the rubber meets the road. I think love is the only “way” through this transition season...but that doesn’t mean it won’t be rough in spots. But if the manner in which we all travel gets us crucified...so be it...because God didnt tell us to understand all things....He has commanded us to love. It’s both the liberator...and the clarifier...in this emerging life.

Below are some chucks of writing that I think many of you will resonate with...drink deeply, savor and be ok with the moment.

Paradigms and dogma can be defended and enforced with guns and prisons, bullets and bonfires, threats and humiliation, fatwas and excommunications. But paradigms and dogma remain profoundly vulnerable when anomalies are present. They can be undone by something as simple as a question.
-Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity

For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
-Albert Einstein, from an address presented at The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in 1940

O LORD, … It’s hard to admit, even to myself, that there are no easy answers to life’s hard questions. Help me to see things as you see them. In wrestling with you, my imperfect faith is made stronger. In wrestling with you, I discover a deeper truth: that my questions usher me right back to you.
-Missy Buchanan “Talking with God in Old Age: Meditations and Psalms”

Instead, Jesus asks questions, good questions, unnerving questions, re-aligning questions, transforming questions. He leads us into liminal, and therefore transformative space, much more than taking us into any moral high ground of immediate certitude or ego superiority. He subverts up front the cultural or theological assumptions that we are eventually going to have to face anyway. He leaves us betwixt and between, where God and grace can get at us, and where we are not at all in control. It probably does not work for a large majority of people, at least in my experience. They merely ignore you or fight you. Maybe this is why we have paid so little attention to Jesus questions and emphasized instead his seeming answers. They give us more a feeling of success and closure. We made of Jesus a systematic theologian, who walked around teaching dogmas, instead of a peripatetic and engaging transformer of the soul. Easy answers instead of hard questions allow us to try to change others instead of allowing God to change us. At least, I know that is true in my life.
-Richard Rohr

There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you know what to listen for. And questions are the breath of life for a conversation.
-James Nathan Miller

“There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.”
-Don Juan deMarco

“Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.”

A shout out to "The Weary Pilgrim" where I lifted some of these quotes.

2010-03-07T14:34:00.001-08:00

Hanging in the Karen church service with 75 refugees. I remember when there was just on family in Spokane. http://ping.fm/41wZh

Just go...

2010-03-07T07:50:00.000-08:00

This young woman's story of obeying the call to go serve the least of these in Uganda; is both inspirational and a realistic wake up call to the Joy & Cost of following Jesus. It's worth a read...and it might mess up your life. Read her blog here: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/

Theological implications...?

2010-03-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

Holy Spirit or....complete deception...

2010-03-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, the...Jesters of Jesus Juice...are hitting the streets of the 3rd world...see thier Leper kissing action here

My favorite under the influence of "holy ghost" Quotes:

"Shoobie Doobie Boobie Juice" -John Crowder

"Shangy Bangy...Shing Ding Ding...Shucka"
-Ben Dunn

Dew & Oil...

2010-03-04T05:30:00.000-08:00

How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting. -Psalms 133

Dew and Oil....refreshment and empowerment...newness and anointing...something coming down and settling upon. All these images come together in my mind when I reflect upon my fellow friends and partners in the gospel in Ecclesia Spokane. There are many different groups and initiatives in Spokane for ministry leaders, more than I can fit into my calendar. Every pastor or person, has to find places and people that they can do life with...finding colleagues is one thing...finding friends is another.

ES for me, is the first gathering of pastors that I have had the privilege to shoulder up with that works faithfully at building authenticity into the mix. Among ES, professionalism has a hard time taking root or squeezing out the grace of becoming real...here we are people, instead of mere project supporters. So often in the past, most of my involvement in the pastoral networking world has left me feeling like I was continually being hit up for some Amway meeting. It was about product instead of people....what can you do for me instead of how can I serve you.

I often got lost in the rush to do something important for the city or the Kingdom or the network. Soul-care was low on the list of priorities...friendship was streamlined into partnership related to possibilities. Events instead of unfolding, projects instead of pondering, doing instead of being, output instead of input....goals instead of gratitude....gifts instead of grace....consumptions instead of contemplation.

It was often painfully lonely...I would participate but hardly ever felt personal. A relational ache would often backwash on me, like a bad hangover. I grew weary at my many attempts at doing the pastoral life with others. I became disillusioned at always being forced to nibble on Divine community instead of being able to gorge my relationally starved soul....it was often a painfully anemic endeavor.

I have been graced to participate in an unfolding "Mission Shaped Network" that for me....chimes in soft harmonies, that help undergird a sense of pastoral belonging and becoming. ES is a space where I can do the work of theological reflection in the mindset of greater hearts and minds. Where I can hear truth from multiple journeys and generations. It's been a space to laugh, hurt, share and despair....as well as dream, reengage, think, pray and co-taste and nurture the life and ministry of some amazing leaders.

It's a table and meals are planned but everyone's able to bring a dish. It's a place where answers are allowed but questions are required and welcome, holy tension is expected both theologically and philosophically. Doubt and struggle is not anathema. At the end of the day, I don't feel like I have to be the best pastor...just a better one...in time.

Among us...sin is expected and holiness is found...it's a refreshingly unashamed embodiment of "Simul Justus Et Peccator". Persnickety piousness...will be quickly driven out, like a pastel wearing Yanni fan...at an Iron Maiden concert.

I guess what I am trying to say...is thank you.

Thanks to all the folks that have thrown in together, work hard at forming and flowing and keep at it...despite the many reasons life and personalities often derail such endeavors.

My soul is more large because of the feast found among us.

Her morning elegance....

2010-03-03T10:18:00.001-08:00

Prophetic imagination....

2010-03-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

I'm wrestling with the issues of Prophetic imagination, calling and faithfulness.

God plants talents in us at birth. Those have to be discovered, mined and fashioned to become all that they should be. That takes time , hard work and patience. Then God adds gifts through his Spirit. Those must also be uncovered and nurtured for the body to grow into maturity of life, ministry and mission.

All this work requires prayerful faith. We have gifts and talents and add to those desires and dreams and then by faith we launch out to bring what was inside...outside.

It's a work of prophetic imagination.

It often required us to dailey uphold that work of vision to visibility. We never get there alone...we need many parts to make up the whole...even when it comes to our personal journey.

Together, we watch, listen and prayerfully carry these unfolding elements of our lives and ministries day by day, year by year.

As we work at providing for our families, tending our passions and outworking the purposes of God in our lives...there is often a tension between the present and the not yet...a place of metamorphosis that is full of unfinished longings. Our inner lives and outer works are not fully developed, not what they could be, should be or will be. Much of that fruition, lies in the potency of our prophetic imagination, faith and willingness to work those dreams into fullness. We are tempted to stumbling in our faith, because the work is going to demand that we grow, be stretched, improve and remain faithful.

None of these seeds, small plants or medium plants will grow into the provision and satisfaction we long for, unless we rise to the challenge in greater and greater ways. Who we are...must grow into who we need to be...to see the reality that we see within, emerge. It's not going to be given to us...we must create it through the work and means that God has given us.

The harvest comes to the worker. We have got to plant and wait, and reimagine what can be with what we have. Real faith sees stones and then begins to see ladders that connect heaven and earth. This is the mystery of Jacobs ladder. Many people are asleep on stones and can't see ladders. They never discover that the very place they are at...is the gate to heaven.

The hard truth is....life and possibilities are not about people, place or position...it's about prophetic perspective and patience. Sometimes we move...externally...but most of the time we need to be moved...internally. If we are awake and aware...we probably have all the possibilites around us needed, to create the realities we long for...in time...but it won't come easy.

It will cost us everything...but that will be true, here, there or anywhere. We must choose where we have the most spiritual continuity, capital, support, opportunity, connection and partners. Are there times to start over, yes. But, lives take a long time to build a meaningful base of synergy. I'm where I'm, at because I served lives, a church and a city for almost a decade. That relational capital was in the bank when I launched out. I couldn't have done this without it. It's one of the reasons we have had the history we have had at Jacob's Well. Many folks don't get to walk into such spiritual capital, they start from relational scratch and that's why there is so much ministry turnover, burnout and failure.

Our future hold church plants, expanded services, added staff and many more surprises. I'm creating an inheritance to pass on, it will open doors for some, launch others, meet the needs of some and ignite new realities for dreamers and doers. It is here in this fashioning crux of pressure that we must not let worry or work prevent us from tasting that future.

This is where those who are talkers....are separated from those who are "walkers".

"I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." -Jesus (Matt 18:18-20)

The Practice of play....

2010-03-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

“Reclaiming an appropriate practice of play is one of the challenges of adulthood . . . playfulness is the fruit of the Spirit, since as a quality of being and a habit of mind and speech, it is inseparable from so many other virtues—receptivity, openness of heart, trust, confidence, grace, even love.”
—Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies)

Because....

2010-03-02T16:37:00.001-08:00

Good words for new Pastors....

2010-03-02T06:41:00.001-08:00

Pastors aren’t Prophets...advice for those about to assume the pastoral life

2009 Thailand Missions Trip

2010-03-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned his back on them,
but has listened to their cries for help.
-Psalm 22:24

In December 2009, our church sent a team of folks to the refugee camps on the Thailand/Burma border. As an expression of our continuing journey with the Karen people of Burma. Our relationship with these wonderful people began 5 months after we started our church in June 2006. Little did we know the plans and purposes of God for some Karen people and us; when we moved into East Central to pursue mission and ministry in a working poor neighborhood. Over the years we have witnessed a beautiful work of compassion, mutuality and service unfold. This missions trip is part of our vision to build a relational bridge that extends from our lives here...to their lives there. We anticipate many more "crossings" as we seek to be faithful to a call and a people.

This short video shows the team visiting various refugee camps, people and missions works in Thailand. Our team took video of families here to relatives in the camps....helping soothe the pain of separation and to help families reconnect. Hopefully you can catch a glimpse of the people we have grown to love.

The Burmese military considers the Karen people...their enemies.
Thailand considers the refugees...a problem.
NGO's consider them...a project.
But, God calls them...His people.
We consider them...our brothers and sisters...and friends.

2009 Thailand Mission Trip

Prayer as mission....

2010-03-01T15:38:00.002-08:00

Everyday as prayer....

2010-03-01T15:38:00.001-08:00

Beauty is the creator of the universe...

2010-03-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

"For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe." -Ralph W. Emerson

With the teasings of Spring being felt around here, I thought I would spark some fresh imaginings of gardening. We have a wonderful church community garden that is going to burst with life this year. Here are a few resources to get the enthusiasm flowing.

To Garden with God Manual

Spirituality of Gardening Seminar

And here is one of my favorite little books on how a garden can help nurture community in urban life.

Three cups of tea...please

2010-02-24T16:58:00.001-08:00

What an amazing man and mission....one of the best and most hopeful things I have heard about Afghanistan. May his tribe increase. My favorite moment: The Taliban playing on the school playground swing set....violence is truly the fruit of a failed imagination.

http://castroller.com/podcasts/BillMoyersJournal/1415219

The Conscientious Objector review

2010-02-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. -Psalm 91:14-16

I'm not a big fan of quoting scripture in war...but, if ever it seemed appropriate, this verse fits the story retold above. I watched this documentary last night and have to say, it was one of the most moving stories of faith and war, I've seen. The story of a courageous Seventh Day Adventist man who chooses to serve his country in WW2 without a gun.

It's an inspiring story that shows the cost and the witness of one man's attempt to reconcile his faith and duty to country. It's full of miracles and moving testimony from WW2 veterans who served together with Desmond Doss. This is a must see film, if the issues of faith, violence, patriotism and duty matter to you.

Your Kingdom....come

2010-02-22T17:17:00.001-08:00

Hallelujah....

2010-02-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

"What is a saint?

A saint is someone who has achieved a very remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is because it is beyond our imagination. I think it has something to do with the energy of boundless love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise and experience of a strange kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago.

I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man even attempting to set the universe in order by himself. It is a kind of tortured balance that is his glory. He rides the snow drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world (because he was instructed to do so) that he gives himself completely to the laws of gravity and chance.

Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is totally at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of their hearts. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

- Leonard Cohen, in the intro to the novel, Beautiful Losers (1966)

"Christian" music...?

2010-02-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

Can a tree be a "Christian" tree?

Listen and ponder...here

...Till we are made the joyful partakers

2010-02-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God.

The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones. The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior's presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers.

By the enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart of a believer, we mean an experience of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us (Rom. 5:5) because the Lord has made himself accessible to us in the means of grace, it is our duty and privilege to seek this experience from Him in these means till we are made the joyful partakers of it.

John Flavel (1630-1691)

Some straight talk from a man who drank too much...

2010-02-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

Alone...in the desert

2010-02-20T09:54:00.001-08:00

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert..." -Luke 4:1

Being in the desert alone.

We as people need to experience the fasting of relationships. We need seasons, moments or days to just be alone. People can become familiar and often can be taken for granted. In our daily lives, we are constantly immersed in a public life and if we are not conscious, a private life, a truly contemplative and prayerful life; can be squeezed to the margins if we don't fight to maintain healthy rhythms of togetherness and separateness.

Sin constantly works at eroding healthy boundaries...we allow people too much place in our souls (mind, will or emotions) or we barricade them out as we nourish bitterness, anger or unforgiving resentment. We can choose to examine our relationships in the desert because we have a pause to think, to pray and to breathe. The absence of them...can enlighten us to our true feelings and sins...and we can choose to respond appropriately to that revelation.

The above song, captures the heart of what it means to live out the gospel. May it's message, though in a style that might not be everyone's cup of tea...it's message, if lived....would bring healing to many.

Devils...in the church?

2010-02-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

"Jesus ministry' to the oppressed is two-fold: truth and power.
Power without truth does not bring lasting deliverance.
And truth without power doesn't reach within the soul,
to bring about change."

This Sunday we will continue our teaching through Luke. Interesting observation about the first two "church services" Jesus preached in:

-First one: religious racists try to throw him off a cliff after He says God loves the whole world, not just them.
-Second: A church attendee manifests a demon, resulting in an exorcisim.

Wow...religious communities are tough places to do kingdom ministry. I can see why Jesus started cleaning house there first...if this is the condition of Gods people, imagine what outside the doors is like? You got to heal the body before it can save the world. Do you want to see God move in His church in Truth & Power?

Then be prepared to face...stones & satan.

This is a subject that many folks don't want to broach...it seems too spooky or voodooish for good old working class people to address. But...as we make our way into the ministry of Jesus in Luke...we've already encountered Satan himself and how demons and those who are possessed by devils by chapter 5. It appears we don't get the choice...you want Jesus...you must deal with devils....and those who are victims of possession and oppression.

It adds new light on the almost 12 different passages in the same chapters that speak of being "full or filled" with the Holy Spirit. In light of the demonic powers and possessions described....I can see why Jesus said His disciples should wait for "Power from on High" before entering a life of mission.

So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." -Jesus (Acts 1:6+)

Soldiers of Conscience

2010-02-18T10:19:00.001-08:00

I watched this last night. I thought it was one of the best, balanced and brutal dialogues about war and killing, pacifism and patriotism that I have seen. I am thinking about showing it as part of our Christ & Culture nights.

Pastoral Shells....

2010-02-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

The contemporary pastor is little more than “a quivering mass of availability" -Stanley Hauerwas

A friend gave these me these two little Turtles to remind me of the challenge to live a healthy life of vulnerability and protection. To balance the danger of being too exposed or too withdrawn. A visual icon of the dance of this dangerous pastoral life....wounded and wounding...healed and healing...Word and wordless...truthful and mystery...loving and hating...death and life.

Finding the rhythms...in the tensions is a spiritual work of nuance...like a guitar string that needs to be taunt to be in tune...but not to tight, as to snap.

Pastoral life, is a call and a choice, to embedded oneself into the lives of many people...and yet, one has to always keep oneself rooted first and foremost...God-ward in-order to be faithful and fruitful...man-ward.

Learning to respond to the Spirit and not always to the need is a tough discipline to learn. I was reminded and relived to see this delicate but profound discipline exhibited in the ministry life of Jesus.
When Lazarus was sick and Jesus after hearing the news...stayed a few days longer, instead of rushing off to "be present"...and poor 'Rus died. The repercussions and relational sting of that action can be heard in the voice of Jesus's friend, who didn't understand Jesus' seeming lack of concern and care. He didn't appear to be performing His pastoral duties.

“Lord, if you had been here...my brother would not have died” ( John 11:21, 32)

I find a measure of reprieve in the fact that Jesus didn't feel the need to react...He chose to respond...when it was time. Jesus was not to interested in being thrust into the role of "fixer dude" like when the wine ran out at the wedding in Cana:

"On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine." "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come." -John 2:1-4

Ministry life is packed full of folks telling you what is wrong with this or that...the multitude of needs is always being presented to you as if you should be doing something about everything.

Rarely do people recognize that the very fact that they "see a need" probably means they are being prompted by the Spirit to "meet" that need...or simply pray. I often find myself in the soul draining crush that comes between the confusion of actual ministry and the messiah complex. I often want to...but can't...I may need to but for whatever reason...I am unable to.

There are many moments when the need has overreached the means....both internally and externally and I am forced to retreat into the shell, either for self protection or regeneration. This process is most facilitated for me by leaving; I just have to get away to disengage and breathe. Restoration of soul is usually renewed by finding a place of solitude or isolation either literally or relationally.

In the morning he went to a place where he could be alone.
The crowds searched for him.
When they came to him, they tried to keep him from leaving.
-Luke 4:42

The tension in life isn't about leaving...it's about reprieving...because "they" will always find you....which isn't a bad thing, what is bad...is how you handle those encounters, day in and day out.

"I never want people to say he/she was always there for me....because if they can say that, it means I wasn't living a balanced life."-T. Levert

Are you tired?
Worn out?
Burned out on religion?
Come to Me.
Get away with Me and you'll recover your life.
I'll show you how to take a real rest.
Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.
I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with Me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
-Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30)

2010-02-17T17:21:00.001-08:00

Join me in a Journey through Lent: http://ping.fm/hFVWw

Celebrity Rehab....

2010-02-15T18:01:00.001-08:00

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

This is a show that caught me by surprise...it's been a deeply moving show to me. Seeing the hell of drugs and the brokenness of those fighting and failing and getting back up in recovery is powerful stuff. In this behind the scenes, you get a bit of critical info on one of the meanest chicks you are going to see on tv. She is a mess but here, you get glimpse at the horror in her soul.

Another drug death....

2010-02-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

"The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. -Psalms 18:4

"Cimmeron is dead...she overdosed." said the slightly red eyed, grieving fiancé.

I was stunned. Good morning, how are you's usually don't get followed with such a thud of a statement. Inwardly, I stumbled emotionally, I was in a bit of limbo and my tongue instantly grew fat and unresponsive. I didn't know what to say or how to process that this woman, who had been to our church a number of times and had recently requested me to marry them...was dead.

She had a history of mental illness and was a mother of five children...and now she was gone.

The irony of the moment was thick...I had just come from the coffee bar where I had been discussing with a friend my latest pondering, related to possibly going back to school and finishing my degree in Alcohol and Drug counseling. I had expressed how this month a growing burden had descended on my mind and arisen in my heart for the prisoner and the addict. I've been a chaplain in the local justice system and have always had a heart for the chemically dependent and those in recovery. That burden was part of the reason I felt led to start our church in this neighborhood.

As I stood there, fumbling with the news...that mission gripped me on a deeper level that it has before.

"And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh." -Jude 1:22-23

Beautiful...

2010-02-12T10:19:00.001-08:00

Cineflex - Norwegian sunrise from Leif Holand on Vimeo.

The History of everything in a few seconds....

2010-02-12T10:08:00.001-08:00

Now...this is what a Moleskin was created for....

Paint your faith...

2010-02-11T15:35:00.001-08:00

The Temptations of Christ....

2010-02-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

I've had a number of really good conversations with people after the message I preached on Sunday about "Temptation" and particularly the issues surrounding "sexual temptation". An issue that is extremely practical...just since Sunday, i've talked to Christians that are wrestling with pornography addiction, temptations to cheat on their spouses and this issue: Just How tempted was Jesus, in the area of sexuality?

The movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ" tried to deal with this theological conundrum..."Just how human was He"....and the cultural melee that ensued reflects the deep issues we have with this mystery.

The early church formulated it's theological understanding of this mystery in the Chalcedonian Creed, A.D. 451...based on its own times wrestling with the issue. It produced one of the most complete statements of this doctrine. It reads:

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

It's an issue that many people have a hard time working through....what do verses like this really mean?

This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.-Heb 4:15

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
-2 Corinthians 5:21

Some honestly ask: "Can someone be tempted in the same way we are if you do not have a sinful nature?" Seems like saying that someone could be tempted to eat who has no appetite or stomach.

The bible seems to describe sin as something that is outside us:

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." -Genesis 4:6-7

James 1:14-15 “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

And from within us:

And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, "thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. "All these evil things come from within and defile a man." -Mark 7:20-23

How does this relate to the experience of the temptations of Jesus...was it within or without or both?

The bible doesn't seem to address the issue of Jesus and sexuality. He was surrounded by women, served with them, empowered them, had women disciples. John 11: 5 says: "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."...but obviously, that love was a type of love that could be expressed to both man and woman. So...in the cannon there isnt much to point us to in understanding our own sexuality and temptations as it relates to Jesus as man.

But in the Gnostic gospels, the alternative papers of the time period; there was a bit of speculation and story telling going on, like in the Gospel of Philip:

"And the companion of [the saviour was Mar]y Ma[gda]lene. [Christ loved] M[ary] more than [all] the disci[ples, and used to] kiss her [often] on her [mouth]. The rest of [the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her?"

And in the Gospel of Mary which is usually dated to about the same period as that of the Gospel of Philip. The Gospel was first discovered in 1896, the Gospel is missing six pages from the beginning and four in the middle.

The identity of "Mary" appearing as the main character in the Gospel is sometimes disputed, but she is generally regarded to be Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel, Mary, presented here as one of the disciples, has seen a private vision from the resurrected Jesus and describes it to other disciples.

Peter said to Mary, "Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them." Mary answered and said, "What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you." And she began to speak to them these words: "I, she said, I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to Him, Lord I saw you today in a vision." Unfortunately, almost all of Mary's vision is within the lost pages.

Mary is then confronted by Andrew and Peter, who do not want to take it for granted what she says, because she is a woman:
"Did he then speak secretly with a woman, in preference to us, and not openly? Are we to turn back and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?" Then Mary grieved and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart or that I am lying concerning the Savior?"

Mary is however defended by Levi:
"But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Savior knew her very well. For this reason he loved her more than us."

The repeated reference in the Gnostic texts of Mary as being loved by Jesus more than the others has been seen supporting the theory that the Beloved Disciple in the canonical Gospel of John was originally Mary Magdalene, before a later redactor made changes in the Gospel." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene)

So you can see, there have been Christians speculating on the issue for centuries. Is it a sin for Jesus to have potentially kissed Mary? Personally, I dont think so...it makes the above verses about Jesus knowing my struggles, seem more substantive, than hollow....but the Bible doesn't actually say much on the subject.

In the end, the Bible does say:

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." -1 Corinthians 10:13

and

"The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation..."-2 Peter 2:9

So, no matter what we are struggling with...God is able and willing to help us...in any temptation we face...which is comforting to me and provides a promise of hope for any struggling with temptations to sin.

Big....Hard Sun....indeed.

2010-02-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

Great song...great book/movie.

Why I left the UFC/MMA....

2010-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

"If you've got a problem with blood then get a tampon." -MMA fan

I used to be a pretty big fan of the UFC...I would host the pay per view events, blog about the matches and revel in the high octane, testosterone mayhem. It was a chance to cheer for your own favorite Braveheart, Maximus or Aragorn in a 21st century way. Being born and raised playing guns & war....I have nursed at the breast of blood for decades. UFC was simply a step up in the food chain from the fat gut, masked men of late night wrestling to...men kicking each other in bath robes in the Martial Arts fights....and then to the puffy gloved days of fall asleep boxing. MMA was the natural evolution of this fighting thirst...just a few weapons short of a gladiator battle...but with chicks.

Being a pastor, and one with an aversion to "Pastels and Piety"...I was in lock step with the "Wild At Heart" message and the recovery of the 70's men's movement. But, even still, I could never get myself to attend a Promise Keepers rally...it just seemed like "imitation men's movement" to me, a bunch of "wannabe's" trying to steal the fire from Sam Keen and Robert Bly's glory days....all that crying, singing and hugging and potty talk gave me the quivers. I know God did some great things through it...but it seemed to wimpy to me.

Now...I wasn't going all buck nutty with the machismo ministry angle that some were; like those trying to insert manly worship tunes, like the brutha's at GodMen:

"We've been beaten down,
Feminized by the culture crowd
No more nice guy, timid and ashamed …
Grab a sword, don't be scared
Be a man, grow a pair!"

I felt there was some real legitimacy of the message..but some extremes were emerging....some were wacky and weepy and others were growing more and more in tune with baser instincts and carnal cravings in my opinion. I was awash in the swords and Spirit lingo, the art of capturing the imagery of the masculine soul...it resonated with me but looking back there was a warping influence that hit me like a pail of cold ice water one evening last year.

I recorded the season opener of UFC reality show "The Ultimate Fighter: Heavy Weights" and gathered my kiddies for a episode. As we got to the fight part...there came a moment when one of the dudes got his noggin clocked and hit the ground and the other dude was unleashing a furious assault of "ground and pound". Suddenly the bro on the mat started bleeding...and bleeding and soon it was gushing. The kids started squirming, the octagon started pooling up with blood and a slow horror gripped my soul and conscience as my daughter and younger son left the room in disgust. A deep shame gripped me like a cold blanket wrapped around my heart. I turned off the TV and sat in the crux of a parental failure for quite awhile. I haven't watched a match since.

After that confrontation with violence, I began to study, observe and prayerfully do some work of reexamining the men's message and the glorification of violence, war and brutality that seemed to be everywhere, now that I had been sensitized to it. It reminded me of some early church father's comments, paticularly Augustine:

In "Confessions" Augustine describes what happened to his friend Alypius when he let his friends drag him to the arena: "He was overcome by curiosity. He opened his eyes, prepared to despise and be superior to it, whatever it was, even while seeing it, and he was stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the gladiator. … At the moment he saw that blood, he drank down savageness and did not turn away from it. He was riveted to it, drinking in frenzy unawares, and was delighted with that wicked fight and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor was he the same man that he was when he had first come; he had become one of the crowd."

I began to see this "intoxication" all around me in my culture and now being baptized by the church.

In a Christianity today article: "A Jesus for Real Men: What the new masculinity movement gets right and wrong" the issue of a biblical view of masculinity is toughened up with some phrases that Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill, a church in Seattle, will forever be repeated in this ongoing discussion of what makes a real Christian man?

"Driscoll, "real men" avoid the church because it projects a "Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ" that "is no one to live for [and] is no one to die for." Driscoll explains, "Jesus was not a long-haired … effeminate-looking dude"; rather, he had "callused hands and big biceps." This is the sort of Christ men are drawn to—what Driscoll calls "Ultimate Fighting Jesus....Driscoll comes closest to imagining Jesus as the model of maleness when he argues that "latte-sipping Cabriolet drivers" do not represent biblical masculinity, because "real men"—like Jesus, Paul, and John the Baptist— are "dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes." In other words, because Jesus is not a "limp-wristed, dress-wearing hippie," the men created in his image are not sissified church boys; they are aggressive, assertive, and nonverbal."

Now MMA has moved from the TV set into the church: "The Jesus who eats red meat, drinks beer and beats on other men" My concern only grows.

Now if you are a regular reader to Crowbar Massage, you know that one of the more significant results of this seismic shift in my inner dispositions...has been my politics and views on violence as it relates to war and non-violence. I regularly blog about those topics at http://thedreamofeden.blogspot.com/ and on my Facebook page and as you know, that has been quite a "battle" of ideas both biblically and culturally. These issues run deep into the American psyche and surprisingly just as deep in the religious soul too. We are a people at war with ourselves, our families, our spouses, our Government, our enemies and even our brothers and sisters in Christ.

God said that the ground was cursed from one man's blood being spilt on it...I cannot imagine the darkness that has enveloped us as a people who worship and immortalize the warrior, who revel in the highest body count and sanctify the sword.

I pray that God will truly awaken us from our blood lust and loose us from the spirit of death and destruction that we have embraced.

"Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"
But Jesus turned and rebuked them, And he said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of,
for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. -Luke 9:51-56

Specialman...not Superman.

2010-02-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

I admit up front that I write in a manner that often appears to be simply pugilist in nature. Sometimes that is there...I provoke in order to draw out the debate. But I see that not as a means to draw someone into the line of fire; as much as it's meant to draw people into conversations, debates about stuff that is serious to me or needs to be talked about.

All mediums of communication dance with the line between confrontation and contemplation...or sensationalism and passion. Everyone chooses which medium of information they are going to engage. Some like a Charlie Rose of PBS and others find the rancor of a Oberman or O'Reily...or the Trojan horse approach of Colbert or Sterwart. And if you are like most of us...you approach it with a buffet plate...a bit of this and that...but regular favorites.

We are more and more a sound bite culture and that lends itself to huge hurdles for ongoing dialogue. Most folks just don't have the time or energy to flay a subject...its too emotionally draining or time just doesn't allow. That means folks often don't read my thoughts in entirety or are simply at the mercy of the nature of the internet and its limited circumspect nature....we are all far more complex and nuanced than a 140 lettered TWEET.

I start fires...because I want the light...not to just burn down the house.

Do I have issues...yes, I do.

In fact, my issues are both my strengths and my weakness. My wounds make up my sensitivities that both draw me to those who need someone who "sees" but they also blind me many times as well. How does one avoid that reality? I don't let that stop me from doing what I do...I trust the process to do the work. In time light, experiences, people, conversations, knowledge, pain, suffering and enough u-turns...bring one into greater wisdom. Is there a wake of brokeness behind me? Yes...and by the grace of God, I've sought to learn from it, restore where able and over all pray to avoid as much damage as possible in the future. But in the end...I must be content to go forward in the direction of my future. I cannot drive looking in the rear-veiw mirror.

I've always been a thorn more than a feather.

I dont say that as an excuse..but as a confession. I've accepted the fact that there is a expression of the nature of the God found in my volatile image. I used to carry that knowledge as a burden...but more and more I have come to hold it as a gift. What I thought was my shame...has gradually become my strength. I have to embrace the fact that I will not be liked by many. I will be a lamb among wolves. People will hate me...for the Jesus in me and simply because I am an ass most of the time if the Spirit isn't the dominating bridle in my day to day life.

I've accepted the truth that I am "Being Resurrected"...I'm not "Superman" but I am a "Specialman"...I ok with that.

I am in process...I am being born...I am coming to life...what God has done within me...is slowly emerging and taking over me and will someday burst out in all its transforming power and glory.

But for now...it's from glory to glory...a slowly dawning light.

2010-02-06T07:18:00.001-08:00

My son's band: "Nothing To Gain", tore it up at "The Knitting Factory" last night. Tonight they play at "The Porch" @ 9pm

Grizzly Adams...the Genesis warrior

2010-02-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

"God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Genesis 1:28

I was asked:
"What is your stance on the idea that men are warriors, that they have an innate need to fight and wrestle?

My response would be that I believe that man is genetically equipped to fulfill the mandate given in the above verse in Genesis. The challenges of mankind rising, creating, producing, taming, fashioning and harnessing the wilds of the world is wrapped up in that word "subduing".

I see "fighting and wrestling" to be a natural God given drive to fulfill the role He has given man to do. If that 'impulse' is held and expressed within the God determined boundaries, it is a powerful force for provision, civilizing and the common good. But, like sexuality, if it is expressed outside the boundaries God determines, it can become a source of pain, suffering and destruction and ultimately even, death.

Human nature isn't pure...it must wrestle with sin...and sin seeks to pervert the creation and express it's nature to kill, steal and destroy.

For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. -Jesus (John 8:44)

But, I don't see the act of killing animals in the same light as killing human beings. Mankind is created in God's image, animals are creation of God but do not bear the image of God...just the breath of life from God. So, even the Lord killed animals and showed the proper use of them, and even directed mankind in the issues of consumption of animals in the OT, especially Leviticus.

And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. Genesis 3:21

That said...the bible also speaks a lot about the care of animals too. I don't espouse an unbridled, unrestrained devouring of the earth in a consumeristic manner. We are called to rule with compassion and justice and to be good stewards of the earth...both in manner of ethics and economy as it relates to consumption.

When violence is turned towards those who are image bearers...the Bible starts getting very serious, even in the OT. Once we get to the NT...the ultimate vision of God's kingdom begins to dawn and dominate in the person and teaching of Christ...who by the way, caught and ate fish too. So a kingdom vision of the lion laying down with the lamb is a unfolding one that starts in the changed human heart and is outworked in wisdom and God given boundaries in this age.

The spilling of blood is very serious to God.

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper? "The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. -Genesis 4:8-11

Ultimately, though I recognize and support the bearing of weapons in relationship to subduing nature and protecting humans from the wild...I find the killing of image bearers to be an act that Jesus forbids. So warriors are needed but the expression of the warring nature can be turned to evil or good. I know many would say that "self-defense" is an expression of that good...each will have to figure out how to outwork that as a principle for life. But for someone to point to the warrior 'impulse' as evidence of God's blessing of war....I would say that's a misuse of that power and responsibility.

For me....the best image I have in my mind...is Grizzly Adams...man in relationship to the wild, living off the land but doing so in a realistic but relational way...both with man and animals.
That's a vision of the my Father's world that was represented in His greatest Image bearer...Jesus Christ; and It's a vision of life, that I pray and work towards.

(Painting by Frank Frazetta)

Yuppie jesus....

2010-02-05T10:05:00.001-08:00

1."Whatever you do for the least of these you do it for me... but you don't have to let them touch you. They're kinda dirty."

2. "Pray for those that persecute you... pray that God kills them."

3. "Those that live by the sword die by the sword but nobody said anything about the gun."

4. "Take up your cross and follow me... you can just wear it around your neck, we're going to Disney Land."

5. "Sell all you have and give it to the poor... as long as they are white, they've earned it, and they give you a warm fuzzy feeling afterward. And by 'everything' I don't mean the stuff you really like."

6. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. But they can go to heaven when they die, discipleship is overrated anyway.

7. "Love your neighbor as yourself... and make sure they're of the same social status so you might be able to borrow their time-share."

8. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick... as long as they have insurance."

9."You are the salt of the earth... because you're Americans... so go live in the suburbs, you deserve it."

10. "Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you and stick it to them with high interest rates because beggars can't be choosers."

Lifted from :http://whateverisgood.blogspot.com/

2010-02-05T09:45:00.001-08:00

Thanks Global Neighborhood for the good word about Jacob's Well: http://ping.fm/6ft1W

2010-02-05T08:52:00.001-08:00

"My life moves in only one direction… forward”

Two different views on Hell....

2010-02-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

John Piper on Hell

NT Wright on Hell

You're response?

2010-02-04T09:48:00.001-08:00

Americans are the falsely religious citizens of a falsely secular nation.-Philippe Roger

Thoughts on being Missional but not "Emergent"...

2010-02-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

After a rousing meeting with some of my pastor friends that come together in the missional network called "Ecclesia Spokane" (whom I love very dearly); I find it necessary to expand my comments and my concerns that arose in the conversation relating to the need to throw out "Doctrine" in order to truly see the church become healthy and whole. I know I stepped on some toes and added some more folks to my "do not call list" but I simply couldn't let my presence validate the assumptions and conclusions being espoused by some.

The liberalization take over of the missional movement is a problematic aspect of the "emerging church" movement to me. Some have attempted to designate this "version" as "Emergent" instead of "Emerging"; to try to quarantine the progressive, liberal and predominately mainline characteristics or agendas that are part of the movement. I understand that vocabulary tool and can lean into that for clarity sake but I think the issue is simply that people bring to the table who they are theologically, philosophically and culturally and that shows in the emphasis and values that arise. So whatever term one uses to try to articulate the actual positions one is espousing is important...we must recognizes that we all are colored by our own faith tribe or tradition.

As someone who is very "missionally" motivated...I am often rubbing shoulders with mainline church folks, anti-institutional voices and/or the organics, ie. the simple church people etc...etc. All kinds of labels and terms and lingo that have values and logic underneath, within and behind those terms. Sorting out all the "conversations" can be exhausting. One often finds themselves in conversations where you discover that people are pouring new meaning into old concepts. So someone can say a familiar term and yet, be meaning something very different. It's a challenging environment...much like talking to Mormons, who will use the same language but ultimately are coming to completely different conclusions about those ideas or terms.

"In essence "emergentism" is muddle-headed theological liberalism dressed up in newer, postmodern garb. It is an old heresy that wraps itself in postmodern lingo to appear "profound." But it is neither new nor profound. "There is nothing new under the sun." It is a fad that I suspect will soon pass away into utter irrelevancy. (And may it rest in peace.) The antidote to emergentism is a robust Christianity that is biblical, confessional, and creedal - a Christianity founded on the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ." -GEOFF WILLOUR

I think a lot of the temptations, errors and dangerous directions taking place in these "conversations" be they in books, videos or meet ups...stem from lack of experience, age and education. The movement is awash with young blood that has high value on "newness" and is often the cultural prisoners or worshippers of the newest and hippest be it toys or theology, methods or message. Recycling in this era is close to sacred and one of the areas you see it most clearly if you are aware, is in the "movement mania". Old lies are recycled into new products to purchase, consume or promote. This is in my estimation extremely serious when it comes to peoples understanding of God and His gospel and the church He commissioned to preach, teach and live out the good news of the Kingdom of God.

"The emerging church has become another form of social gospel. And the problem with every social gospel is that it becomes all social and no gospel. All social justice and no social gospel. It is embarrassing that evangelicals have discovered and embraced liberation theology after it destroyed the main line, old line, side line, off line, flat line church." -Leonard Sweet

In our conversations yesterday, I experienced and confronted this seemingly benign meandering away from "roots" in an attempts to go after "fruits"....when the discussion turns to "uprooting" ourselves from the historic truths and doctrines of the Christian church. When pastors are re-imagining, redefining, removing and rebuffing the churches doctrinal foundations...you can raise the "terror threat" colors...because the "infidels" are in the house. I know that is harsh language but it's true.

If pastors or leaders or "main talkers" or the "team" or whatever current hip term is being used to camouflage the voices that shape and guide...are throwing out the charts, compass and visions of Apostolic Christianity...a ship wreck is coming soon.

Tim Keller on the importance of Doctrine and Theology:

Tim Keller on "The Missional Church

What is the Gospel...?

2010-02-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a simple answer.

C.S. Lewis prayer....

2010-02-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
-CS Lewis

Broken hearts....

2010-02-03T15:34:00.001-08:00

"Broken hearts are inevitable to anyone with a heart. The question is how will our hearts break? Will they break into pieces which are projected out like shrapnel to wound those who wounded us – a kind of emotional suicide bombing, if you will? Or will they break open – increasing our humility, our compassion, our empathy, our Christ-likeness?" -Parker Palmer

Don't talk...if you don't have anything to say.

2010-02-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

“Consciously or subconsciously, intellectually or emotionally, most people today know that the world is in a terrible state and that it cannot continue on its present course much longer. The existence of the problems is acknowledged, yet we hear nothing but meaningless generalities and shameful evasions from our so-called intellectual leaders.

Wherever you look, whether in philosophical publications or intellectual magazines, or newspapers editorials or political speeches of either party, you find the same mental attitude, made of two characteristics: staleness and superficiality.

People seem to insist on talking---and on carefully saying nothing. The evasiveness, the dullness, the gray conformity of today’s intellectual expressions sound like the voices of men under censorship---where no censorship exists. Never before has there been an age characterized by such a grotesque combination of qualities as: despair and boredom.
-Ayn Rand (from her article: ‘Faith & Force”)

2010-02-03T07:40:00.001-08:00

"I want to balance the Senate, the less they do the better." -voter in Chicago

2010-02-02T09:26:00.001-08:00

"My worst day in Teen Challenge was better than my best day as an addict." -David Soto, new friend and brother.

2010-02-02T09:11:00.001-08:00

4am doorbell wake up, lady waiting for bus with 2 dudes, probably wanted a ride. Car drove up and she took off before I could open the door

2010-02-01T09:06:00.001-08:00

USA Today: Afghan Pres Karzai says US troops needed for another decade & Army hits record suicide rate, 160 soldiers in 09

2010-02-01T08:25:00.001-08:00

George Whitefield and Ayn Rand....http://ping.fm/gEV5a

George Whitefield and Ayn Rand....

2010-02-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

"Before you can (know you are right with God) you must not only be troubled for your sins of your life, but also for the sins of your best duties and performances...before you can be at peace with God, there must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of your heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your own or if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ."
-George Whitefield

When I read this quote, I thought of many of my responses to an article I read by Ayn Rand called Faith & Force. Now, I know she isn't a christian theologian, she is a philosopher, so separate the wheat from the chaff in reading her works. But, her thoughts relating to mankind needing to get free from what she calls "altruism"; really made me think about some stuff, especially in my own life. She basically attacked the common idea that man is only valuable in relationship to what he or she does for others. That there is no self worth apart from what we produce or provide for others. Now as a missionally motivated person...this challenged the core of my conceptions of missional living.

George kind of hits the same issue though, after thinking about it from a different angle...if our life is based on "works"...righteous or unrighteous...we are drawing our sense of value from an unhealthy motivation.

Looking deep into ones motivation and examining "why" we "do" stuff....is part of the serious work of contemplation.

"The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart (Proverbs 20:27)."

God's Word is quick (alive) and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intent of the heart. -Hebrews 4:12.

Would you be valuable to God and this world...if you couldn't "do" anything? Some of my relationships with the mentally handicapped have forced me to rethink my conceptions of "worth" and "work" and even "mission". So much of our individualistic culture, places such a value on productivity and value. Economics reduces us to evaluate life by its terms. Everything is "marked" in our thinking and in our works with this kind of attitude and action.

At the end of the day...I find myself pondering deeply about these things and wondering what my Father will be most proud of, when I finally see Him and hear His heart.

Dorothy Day....gusty grannie and christian anarchist

2010-01-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

"And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. -James 3:18

Part One:

Dorothy Day...a New York writer and Catholic anarchist who at the height of the Depression unwittingly created what would become a worldwide peace and social justice movement. The Catholic Worker persists to this day in over 180 houses of hospitality and soup kitchens across the United States, in Europe, Australia, Canada and Mexico. Their tenet is based on doing works of mercy and living in voluntary poverty with no attachments to Church or State.Dorothy Day....she is no ordinary saint. Caught up in the Bohemian whirl of 1917 Greenwich Village, Dorothy wrote for radical papers, associated with known Communists, attempted suicide and had an illegal abortion, a doomed common-law marriage and a child out of wedlock. The birth of her only child led to her religious conversion.
Part Two:
"Peace...begins in thought, word and deed." -Dorothy Day

2010-01-30T12:42:00.001-08:00

"There was a time when Christians took faith as seriously as Mid-Eastern Muslims currently do: the Medieval Era." - Wayne Dunn

2010-01-30T11:32:00.001-08:00

"There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns." -Ayn Rand

Show us the Father....

2010-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

"The biblical story, is a story with direction...whose central story is the story of Jesus."

"In the Old Testament God twice reigned down fire from heaven in judgment on various individuals and groups. Yet, when John and James wanted to do this same thing in the New Testament, Jesus rebuked them (Lk 9:52-55). It violated the spirit of the Kingdom Jesus came to establish to want God to act the way he did in the Old Testament! In some ancient manuscripts of Luke, Jesus rebuked John and James by saying, “you don’t know what sort of spirit you are of” (vs. 55).

The reason is that the New Testament presents Jesus as the final, definitive, perfect revelation of God. This is what is meant when John calls Jesus the “Word” (logos) of God. When God speaks or thinks, John is saying, it looks like Jesus (Jn 1:1). So too, Paul calls Jesus the “form” of God and the “image” of God, which means that the infinite God has made himself finite and visible in Jesus (Phil. 2:6; Col.1:15). While no one has seen God as he is in himself, the Gospel of John says, the “one and only Son, who is himself God…has made him known” (Jn 1:18). This is why Jesus responded to Philip's request to see the Father by saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9, emphasis added). We behold the glory of God himself in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 3:18-4:6; I Jn 1:1-3) which is why we are always to fix our spiritual eyes on him, and on him alone (Heb 12:2; Col.3:5).

The author of Hebrews sums up the matter nicely when he writes:
"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Heb 1:1-3).

The author is saying that while God revealed himself in a variety of ways in the past, in these “last days” (meaning simply, in this last epoch of history), God has superseded all these by revealing himself through his own Son. Unlike all previous written and spoken revelations, the Son radiates God’s glory and is “the exact representation of his being.” He is, in fact, the one through whom and for whom everything exists (Col 1:15-17).

In other words, Jesus is the point of everything – including the point of all the previous revelations (see Jn 5:39-40, 46). While others spoke and wrote about God, Jesus is God (I Jn 1:1; Rom. 9:5; Tit. 2:13). Indeed, "in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col. 2:9). Think about this! All (not some) the fullness (not an aspect) of the Deity (God himself-- not a lesser being) lives in bodily form (in the incarnate Son of God).
-Greg Boyd

2010-01-29T16:41:00.001-08:00

Any agency powerful enough to stand up to the strongest evil...is also strong enough to become the strongest evil.

2010-01-29T12:15:00.001-08:00

Some poignant thoughts from the Declaration of Independence: http://ping.fm/Q7l48

2010-01-29T10:50:00.001-08:00

http://ping.fm/Pl5BO Friday Biblestudy with Roger, today we are at Rockwood Bakery.

2010-01-29T10:00:00.001-08:00

Psalm 33:16-17

2010-01-29T09:42:00.001-08:00

iPad frustrations....http://ping.fm/rdwyv

2010-01-29T09:15:00.001-08:00

I've found the Borg...must assimilate.

2010-01-29T09:06:00.001-08:00

Oh, thank the good lords of kobold for allowing me to discover www.ping.fm...now, I can post once for all my social networks & blogs

2010-01-29T09:02:00.001-08:00

We submit to laws not because they have authority over us, but because we submit to God.

Why I don't teach Tithing...

2010-01-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, I do not teach tithing as represented by most churches at Jacob's Well.

As you know, if you attend here regularly or heard yesterday's message. But since I am sure that message shocked some, upset others and probably set a lot of guilt laden believers free...I thought I would take some time to expound here.

I teach principles of giving rooted in the Old Testament texts concerning Israel's system of economics represented in the Manna, Tithe, Gleaning, Debt forgiveness, Jubilee and the Sabbath texts (Ex 16:16- 26, Lev 25, Dt 15); taught and modeled by Jesus and the early church and expounded on by the Apostles in both word and deed.

Israel followed the Old Covenant law and that law contained commands that fell under three general categories:
-Moral
-Ceremonial
-Civil

As New Covenant followers of God, we must discern which of the commands pass through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. I believe the NT teaches that much of the moral law passes through, but the ceremonial and civil law do not in the letter of the law; but do in the spirit of the law. Most of the commands of the law were fulfilled by Jesus and now are embodied in spirit in the believer's life both personal and communally as the church.

I believe the "righteousness" of the Christian church exceeds and goes beyond that of the OT believer. Kingdom economic's surpass Israel's economics. The ending of the civil based kingdom focus of the OT necessitates a Kingdom ethic that embraces OT ethics in relationship to money, giving and the poor but allows for the expansion of the gospel into all the world via a spiritual kingdom.

Laws have become principles for the community of faith to wrestle with and walk out for the good of the community and in honor and worship of God; who has blessed us and made us stewards of His resources.

You can search high and low in the epistles and letters and you will find no clear cut teaching on anything that reflects a literal command to Tithe. But you do find a sacrificial giving community that embodies a corporate ethos that clearly resembles all the commands and practices of the OT community of faith.

The NT focuses on the inner life of the heart and soul; uprooting the love of money and all its abuses and idolatry. This focus goes beyond and below the ideas of blessings, the pursuit of wealth or percentages.

The main NT text's that speak directly to the issue of care for the poor and giving are below.

Remember this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
-2 Corinthians 9:6-8

Now regarding your question about the money being collected for God’s people in Jerusalem. You should follow the same procedure I gave to the churches in Galatia. On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned. Don’t wait until I get there and then try to collect it all at once.
-1 Corinthians 16:1-2

Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. Of course, I don’t mean your giving should make life easy for others and hard for yourselves. I only mean that there should be some equality. Right now you have plenty and can help those who are in need. Later, they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. As the Scriptures say,
“Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough."
-2 Corinthians 8:11-15

...I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving. I am not commanding you to do this. But I am testing how genuine your love is by comparing it with the eagerness of the other churches." -2 Cor 8:7-8

The New Testament's basic giving principles:

1. Give All You Can
Key phrase in 1 Cor 16:2: "as he may prosper" (nas version)

2. Give voluntarily
Key phrases: You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure (2 Cor 9:7

3. Give with Equality in mind
Key phrase: There should be some equality (2 Cor 8:13)

The New Testament's giving ethos examined:
-Acts 2:43-47
-Acts 4:32-35,
-Acts 6:1
-John 12:6

In the OT the land apportioning and giving texts provided basically two realities:
-An opportunity for everyone to work and provide for ones family.
-A safety net for those who couldn't care for themselves.

These two principles pass on to the NT community. NT economics maintain the ethos that if you can work, you should. If you can't we will take care of you. Giving isn't meant to enable sinful lifestyles, immaturity, greediness or laziness. Giving is a gracious example of generosity that cares for the poor and suffering and exhibits a community that is free from the love of money and is motivated by love and not fear or greed.

There is much more on the subject that expands on the beautiful way in which NT communities went above and beyond in the care of the poor, one another and for the mission of God to the world; but for brevity sake...these are the main guiding principles we at Jacob's Well use to express our value of Partnering together for Mission.

Soldiers of Conscience

2010-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

Soldiers of Conscience, PBS Emmy nominated documentary from Luna Productions on Vimeo.

Here is another trailer with different content.

Amazing Dolphins...

2010-01-23T21:53:00.001-08:00

Sunday at Jacob's Well...

2010-01-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

We are in Luke 4, in our journey through this gospel. We begin our wrestlings with the temptations of Jesus.
First up: the issue of Bread (economics)

Here is a short video we will be incorporating in our discussion:

Main texts:
Luke 4:1-1-4
1 Corinthians 16:1-2
2 Corinthians 8:10-15, 6-14
Acts 4:32-35

Interesting fact:
Luke’s ordering of these temptations corresponds, in reverse order, to the first three petitions of his version of the Lord's Prayer: May Your Name be hallowed; May Your Kingdom come; Give us each day enough bread (Lk 11:1-4).

Haiti, Hedonism and Capitilism...

2010-01-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, I hope that the Hope4Haiti telethon raises a ton of money...that would be a great result. I'm not trying to be a scrooge about that...any help is needed at this time.

My issues are that I wish I could cheer louder but I'm not a fan of actors and sports figures who make obscene and in my mind immoral amounts of money off a economic system that breeds the very injustices that perpetuate this kind of inequitable reality. Why are actors who more than not, represent the worst about ourselves...lifted up as our mouthpieces in times like these? Yah, I get the celebrity thing and how they can stimulate more giving etc...but as principle, it frustrates me.

It would be like John Edwards becoming the spokesman for Focus on the Family. I just don't by it.

Yes, I know they give lots of money and that becomes the over arching excuse for each and every institution or individual that seems to be living in contradiction to their actions. This idea that it doesn't matter how I make millions because I might give a lot. The means to the end, do not seem to matter anymore. I have a problem with that.

We say things like...hey, Americans give more than anyone else on the planet. Which is true in dollar amount...but not per ca-pita.

Example, regarding Haiti...taking all money given so far by Americans, it averages out to:
.40 cents per person.

Canadians give $3 dollars per person

So we give more, true...but only from a certain point of view. This kind of accounting justifies so much around these types of events. So, do I sound cranky and finger pointy...yes, I am sure from a certain angle, I do.

But Justice is as important as mercy, in these types of things.

Do what you can, with what you got...I'm all for that....but think and act.
Check out Charity Navigator to make sure the org you are giving to, is acting responsible with the money it is getting. I did that yesterday in researching where our church giving will go to...and I discovered some things that will alter where I am going to give that money. Do your home work.

It's like giving to the homeless...you can give money to a drunk and facilitate the addiction or...give it to the folks that help the drunk get free from their addiction. Which is a better use of that money?

I wouldn't give to some of those orgs represented last night because the work they do or the world view they promote doesn't help the long term issues in my opinion. Why throw money into the hands of some orgs that will rebuild a culture with the very foundations that promote the crumbling of healthy culture?

These issues go into many areas....we could talk about the Catholic churches culpability in all of this, with their stance and teaching on family planning in Haiti. Or the historical realities regarding agriculture and the export and import issues with the USA and Haiti. We could talk about national Debt forgiveness and the reparations possibly needed sense the USA has benefited economically in the past from the slave trade issues, France and the sanctions that went along with all that. Not to mention all the political history between us and Haiti.

In the end, I feel an inner sense of contradiction; like when I saw the big Cruise line ships docking in Haiti this week. All the vacationers pouring off the boats to swim, jet ski, gorge themselves on seafood buffets on Haiti's white sand beaches...oh, and all that's perfectly ok, because these ships bring supplies and relief and hey, they employ locals or other poor folks from around the Caribbean. I could not jump off the boat and play in the ocean there...knowing the realities that are taking place a few miles away.

But in the end...that has always been true, to some degree or another...So in the end, the light falls on me again...and my need to repent of participating in a culture of excess, fantasy and unrestrained hedonism and consumerism.

The fact of all that hits me, as I watch multi-millionaires dressed up in philanthropist garb...asking me to give whatever I can to the poor.

I'm sorry...the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy and its convicting, on a very deep level both, personal and public.

Justice & Mercy need to Kiss....

2010-01-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

"My view: the gospel that has been preached in Haiti has left a vacuum—has left the political landscape untouched. The church doesn’t see its business as being a prophetic witness to those in power. The result has been a political sector left to its own devices; this is why the common people were the first responders to the crisis, not the government. This is the result of the gospel being truncated, emasculated, instead of confronting the powers that be to do what God intends for them to do: protect and enhance life." -Dr Dieumeme Noelliste, president of the Caribbean Evangelical Theological Association, quoted in Christianity Today.

This is a profound exposure of the critical issue of being missional vs traditional in my opinion.

One view sees the gospel for the whole man...body, soul and spirit.
One sees it for the spirit only.

One sees all of life.
One sees only eternal life.

One is holistic.
One is dualistic.

One is concerned about Heaven on Earth.
One is concerned only about getting people of earth to heaven.

One sees a kingdom that has come.
One only sees a kingdom coming.

One is a gospel of head and heart.
One includes the hands.

The fact that a nation that is do full of Christians and yet so poor is worth wrestling with.
I think it touches many things but the issues of Mercy and Justice are central to it.

Christians abound in Mercy...
They ask: "How can I help"?

But not enough are concerned about "Justice".
Justice asks: "Why did this happen"?

We need Justice and Mercy too kiss...for real transformation to take place.

Sabbath Economics....

2010-01-20T15:25:00.000-08:00

As we continue to wrestle with the issues of mercy and meeting the needs of those suffering in poverty or devastation (ie. Haiti); we must also look at the issues concerning Justice. This short 10 minute talk by Ched Myers looks at the story of God giving manna as it relates to a concept he calls "Sabbath Economics".

Led into the wilderness....

2010-01-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

I read this paper from Ched Myers this morning. I don't think I have read a more concise article that captures the heart of my own personal journey with the gospel; as it relates to personhood and politics. If I could have everybody that interacts with me, read this...I think they would understand the underlining ministry and mission impulses that burn in my belly. This article helped me frame those Spirit & Word "perceptions" in a clearer way. It was like hearing someone speak my inner turmoil and give it greater light. I know that sounds over the top, but it really resonated and explained myself to myself in some profound ways.

I began this mornings study, compelled by a phrase in the book of Luke, chapter 4:1 about Jesus "Being led into the wilderness by the Spirit." when I watched the above video and reached around the 6 minute mark, the Spirit was doing quite a number on my heart. I just had a conversation yesterday with my friend Jeremy from Kentucky, about feeling this inner impulse towards a wilderness season. I was feeling a compulsion towards wilderness. The message in this paper and this video touched that in a profound way.

As we teach through the book of Luke, I can see that much change is ahead...I both long for and fear, the unfolding of this gospel in fresh and life altering ways.

What to do when tragedy strikes....

2010-01-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus spoke about the spiritual significance of two tragic occurrences that happened during His years walking the earth (they were the "breaking news" stories of the time): “Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

In this passage, two groups of folks were pointed at...the Galilean’s deaths at the hands of the Roman soldiers and the Jews who were working on the Roman aqueduct in Judea.

Two tragedies.

One happened to the Galilean Jews, that were often considered less spiritual and known for thier adversarial relationship with Rome. The other happened to the Jews in Judea that were cooperating with Rome and helping build on the water aqueduct. One group, the Judeans, thought of themselves more righteously than the Galileans.

The Pharisaic scholars of Judaism, centered in Jerusalem and Judea, found the Galileans to be insufficiently concerned about the details of Jewish observance-for example, the rules of Sabbath rest. The Talmud says that Yohanan ben Zakkai, a great Pharisee of the first century, was assigned to a post in Galilee during his training. In eighteen years he was asked only two questions of Jewish law, causing him to lament "O Galilee, O Galilee, in the end you shall be filled with wrongdoers!" (Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 16:7, 15d).

This attitude seems to be the MO when disaster’s strike. We look at the people it happened to and begin to try to connect the “karmic” dots. You will hear people contemplating “why” this happened to “those” people. It was the same in Jesus’s day...and it still takes place today.

Jesus’s words light the way through this philosophical and theological conundrum:
“Unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Simply put...when death, tragedy, pain and destruction comes...and it will....we should use the light of that suffering to expose our own souls and lead us to repentance. We all will die and face God, someday...maybe years from now...or tonight. You do not know when. Today is the day to get right with God, embrace Him and the forgiveness He offers for our sins. Turn from sin and cling to the mercy and restoration found in the work of Jesus on the cross. Don’t put off the issues of your soul for some other day....because that day may never come.

Don’t trust in your own righteousness to save you...all of us are sinners. Our blessings are gifts not merits. Your abundance is given for others who lack. To those who are given much...much is required. God has a day of wrath coming...but today, our own sin, is our punishment.

We can be spared that coming day of wrath...by embracing the mercy and love of God found in Jesus, today.

Religious Conservatives and the future of the church...

2010-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

On 9/14/01, Falwell issued an apology for his comments and said he believed that the terrorists alone were responsible for the attacks. He reiterated, however, that theologically he believed that groups that have worked to secularize America have helped remove the nation from its spiritual foundations.

Pat Robertson, on his website, distanced himself from the comments that he had agreed with at the time they were made. He said that during the interview, Falwell suddenly made a "...political statement of blame directed at certain segments of the population that was severe and harsh in tone, and, frankly, not fully understood by the three hosts of The 700 Club who were watching Rev. Falwell on a monitor." Robertson said he considered the comments "totally inappropriate" and that critics had taken the words out of context.

This infamous video created a firestorm in the press when it was made...much like the situation Pat Robertson is in right now. It shows the power of media and the extreme light that is cast on those who use it. My interest in the comments both the 9-11 stuff and the present statements about Haiti and the devil pact are not really about slamming the man or the ministry. They do good stuff, there is no doubt about that. Many people are blessed by the millions of dollars spent in humanitarian relief by the ministries Pat leads and many people have come to faith through thier prayerful work as well.

The issue I have is that this version of American Christianity is becoming more and more a catalyst for a new exodus among faith searching emerging generations. Like the monastic movements of the past...these forces help create a groundswell of reaction that often leads to an abandonment of present religious structures. The church in America had better wake up to the fruit of it's marriage to the state and politics...or she will turn around and realize her kids have left or ran away from home. The religious rights worldview produces a way of thought and action one that is familiar to those raised in conservative, primarily Republican churches. The stuff Robertson televises on his program is soaked in his charismatic, prophesy bent reporting.

Here is an overview of some major controversial moments. Granted, many good folks believe this way...but the serious issue facing the church now...is that the emerging generations most often...don't.

That doesn't bode well for the churches in the future.

Crucifying anyone in a spirit of ridicule isn't the way of Christ...we all learn form putting our foot in our mouths or overspeaking or saying something we shouldn't. There is forgiveness for failures.

But we are still required to examine the doctrine, ethics and way of life these types of folks who call people to vote and live and think a certain way...especially if they stand as a leading voices of evangelicalism or conservatism.

God and Violence...a perfect match?

2010-01-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

Some would kill to have it...I will kill to protect it. -Eli

The Book of Eli...is out today...and the book ELi will kill to protect is the Bible...if you didn't know.

According to one Review the movie has a:
"Very Strong Christian worldview, including themes of sacrifice, where the protagonist constantly prays, shows others how to pray, quotes Scripture, and, though he is not perfect, constantly tries to live what he believes and consistently walks by faith in God, not by what he can see..."

The reviewer than lists some of the content in the movie:
Extreme, brutal violence depicted including man abuses his wife by pulling her hair,
Man is found after having hanged himself
Multiple scenes of blood spurting after people have been shot and limbs have been cut off with a samurai-like sword
Men fire guns and heavy artillery
Men get sliced with sword
Man is shot in private area with an arrow
Man gets shot in the neck with an arrow
Men get shot in the head and all of it is completely shown
Man gets beheaded by sword
Lots of punching, brawl fighting, lots of explosions with hand grenades and grenade launcher
Man uses a derogatory word to encourage his men to fornicate
Men rape a woman but cameras cut out before anything is shown
Young girl tries to seduce older man but he rejects her because it is wrong
One scene of attempted rape where girl is rescued before it actually happens

Carnegie, the protagonist in the film has something to say about that "book":"It's a weapon"

Indeed, I guess it appears to be.

I am being driven over the edge with this cultural fascination with killing and faith...will it never end?

Haiti, the devil, Freemasons and George Washington...

2010-01-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

Supposedly Haiti made a pact with the devil...which is probably bunk:

http://www.blackandchristian.com/articles/academy/gelin-10-05.shtml

So let me get this straight...God levels shanty towns, out of vengeance against the sons and daughter of slaves; who were trying to free themselves from the ongoing white man's European slave trade oppression.

But we are the most prosperous nation on the face of the planet...even though our founding was awash in Freemason loving activity...and our founding fathers, ummm like George Washington were involved in pagan-like rituals.

Not to mention our slave issue...and our First Nation displacement and slaughter.

iHeart Revolution....

2010-01-14T18:52:00.001-08:00

Abraham Joshua Heschel...on Where is God...?

2010-01-14T18:01:00.001-08:00

"In a free society some are guilty...all are responsible."
-Abraham Heschel

"The response to the catastrophe is not to focus on the catastrophe; but to focus on human possibilities."
-A comment by Heschel's biographer reflecting on how Heschel processed the Holocaust and the loss of his family members.

I post these quotes and this nourishingly rich interview and biographical highlight of Abraham J. Heschel in light of the horror's taking place in Haiti. In a era when we are forced to hear the thoughts of lesser voices....my mind and heart are baptized afresh by such deep wisdom.

Pat....please...close thy mouth....

2010-01-13T16:59:00.001-08:00

Breitbart.tv » ‘They Have Been Cursed’: Pat Robertson Says Haiti ‘Swore a Pact to the Devil’

Avatar...rewind

2010-01-13T15:49:00.001-08:00

Ok, first of all...I think I enjoyed this film more than any film I have scene in this genre in a long time. It was an amazing experience, especially in Imax 3-D with a sound system that made the hairs on my liver quiver. It was a completely immersive journey that thrilled me, moved me, amazed me and frustrated me.

Separating the technological from the ideological is a tough venture to do...one doesn't want to color the viewers journey. So..I guess, I would say...go see it before reading anything around here. Because I think there is a lot to respond to in the film.

These articles go for the issues jugular:
-Heaven and Nature
-"Why do the Conservatives hate the most popular movie in years?"
-Avatar: Depression and Suicide

I've got my own thoughts...which I intend on rolling out in the next few days...but for the moment, here is just one:

-How can this movie be the almost number one money grossing film of all time in this country? Here in a "Pro-Military, Pro-War on Terror, Support the Troops always because they are Hero's Culture...this absolutely mystifies me. The ethos and ideology of this film seems to me to be at odds with most American's....at least almost all Christian American's I know.

On a lighter note....here are two comments about the film that I read, that made me laugh out loud:

"The message is: whitey bad, natives good. And the supplementary message of how we should all "get back to nature", brought to you by directors and movie stars driving $250,000 cars and flying around in private jets....plus, that ritual scene with the stupid movements and dancing was Disney-quality garbage. It made me want to see them all get carpet-bombed by the shuttle."

and

This movie is simply: "Braveheart Smurf"

Christians...what they really care about

2010-01-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

Breaking News: Christians Give Poor People The Shaft....read about it here

Death Metal Rooster....

2010-01-11T16:31:00.000-08:00