Ennio Morricone

I didn't get a chance to watch much of the Academy Awards this year (and as a matter of fact, they are still on), but one segment of the show I made sure to watch. The Lifetime Achievement Oscar was given this year to a film composer, that in my opinion, ranks among the best. His name is Ennio Morricone. He has composed film scores to hundreds of movies - 506, to be exact (according to imdb.com)! Holy cow, that is a lot of movies.

He has composed some very familiar scores - who can forget the score from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, with the whistle? And who can forget the score for The Untouchables, especially the scene with the baby carriage falling down the stairs? However, the movie that is my favorite of his is the movie called The Mission. This movie is in my top ten of all time movies, and I absolutely love the sweeping score that he composed for this movie. Complete with tribal sounds and choirs, this is a soundtrack that everyone in my opinion must have. And if you haven't seen the movie, rent it. It stars Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons (with early acting roles by Aidan Quinn and Liam Neeson), and is about Jesuit missionaries who convert a South American tribe to Christ. It's extemely powerful and will leave you speechless at the end.

So, cheers to Ennio Morricone - you deserve the Oscar.

Significant Sacrifice

This is the second year of me participating in Lent. Even though I grew up Catholic, we were non-church going Catholics, so we never participated in Lent. In fact, the first time I remember seeing someone with ashes on their forehead was when I was a youth minister at my home church in Colorado, and one of the parents had it on their forehead. I had no idea what it was.

Last year I gave up caffeine, and this year I'm attempting to do the same. I love Boston Stoker (last year, I think it was Starbucks), so this is going to be a difficult time for me. This year, I also have a cause that I'm going to give the money I save on coffee to: LifeWater International, which is an organization that "demonstrates Jesus' love by working with people in developing countries to improve their quality of life through accessing, using and maintaining safe water." They have a program called Significant Sacrifice, where you donate the money that you saved by giving up something for Lent to help save lives through clean water. I found this organization through working on last week's Element, which was canceled due to weather and me being sick. At the time, I was disappointed, but it looks like there was at least one reason for me getting ready for an Element that didn't happen.

By the way, if you want a 40 day Lent devotional, leave a comment and I'll send it to you, courtesy of an online friend of mine.

Bob Roberts On 9 Things He's Learning And Unlearning

I thought that this article was really good from the latest Leadership Magazine. The theme of the entire magazine is on Missional Christianity, which obviously seemed interesting to me. Anyway, a missional leader named Bob Roberts (wasn't that the name of that movie where Tim Robbins plays a politician? Anyway...) talks in the magazine about 9 things he's learning and unlearning. They resonated deep within me, so I thought I would share them:

---------

I'm learning...that mission begins with Christolaogy not ecclesiology. Following Jesus leads us to mission, which leads to churches gathering.

I'm unlearning...my assumption that starting churches naturally leads to mission. It doesn't. Churches default to self-focus unless a commitment to be like Jesus in the world comes first.

I'm learning...that being glocal means decentralizing power, decision making, information, al of it. The kingdom of God means ministry opportunities are available to almost everyone.

I'm unlearning...the American church's traditional focus on a super-star speaker, worship leader, educator, and shepherd, which serves mainly to attract spectators rather than igniting the power of everyone else.

I'm learning...that we serve not to convert but because we have been converted. We serve because Christ has changed us and made us servants to people who are hurting and lost.

I'm unlearning...the assumption that "Christian" is defined primarily as acknowledging a moment of conversion. Becoming a follower of Jesus depends on what happens after that.

I'm learning...to love people, which means to see them healed, educated, and given the same opportunities that we have.

I'm unlearning...that the Christian faith is all about heaven. I believe the church has denied the future by just waiting for the Second Coming. We need a story that includes the future.

I'm learning...the kingdom will be established not by human power or entertainment, but by realizing God's concern for humanity and the whole of society.

-----

On Using Your Own Fork

I thought this was a great article on the Relevant Magazine website. Could be a good goal for Southwest Church in the coming years - to help people use their own fork in order to feed themselves and not rely solely on the Sunday morning service to get their fill of God's Word!

----

Recently, I dialogued with someone who shared with me of their plan to find a new church. This person felt that he could no longer attend our church because he was not “being fed.” Due to the fact that I have heard these words countless times before, it got me wondering, “What does that actually mean? Why are there so many Christians out there leaving their churches because they are spiritually starving?” Am I missing something?

The writer of Hebrews boldly confronts the church by saying, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11-14, TNIV).

My son is two years old and is moving into the “I want to be a big boy” phase very rapidly. We’re working on potty training right now. What fun! But as we were teaching my son how to eat—how to chew his food, how to use a fork, why we don’t throw the green beans, we eat them—without question, the most difficult task my wife and I faced was getting him to the point where he fed himself. He would devour a mouthful of mac & cheese, but we had to put it on the fork and put it in his mouth. This wasn’t really going to help him in the long run. After all, if you can’t feed yourself, you starve.

Considering this, it makes me wonder: Could it be that so many get to this place of feeling they’re not “being fed” be due to the fact that we haven’t taught them well enough how to feed themselves? Should we have new classes in church like Feeding: 101 and Using Your Own Fork? Seriously. Should it be reduced to this? Or could it also be that there are many who never get beyond the contentment and complacency of having someone else feeding them? Doing the work for them? Surviving on milk?

Acts 2 is a description of the early Church. Luke tells us that the people “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42, TNIV). Somewhere very early in the journey these people went from “being fed” to doing the feeding. They may have continued to be taught, led, fed, discipled and cultivated, but they also began to teach, lead, feed, cultivate and make disciples. And I believe they also figured something else out: if I’m not serving—putting my gifts to use—then I’ll eventually wind up starving. The cup gets full and has to be poured out. Otherwise, it cannot be filled again.

Most often, it seems that those who feel they are not “being fed” are the ones who have failed to feed anyone else. After all, Jesus wrapped a towel around His waist, washed His disciples feet and told them, “This is what it looks like to follow me.”

It seems to me that if someone has “counted the costs” as Jesus tells us to in Luke 14, and we understand that we must “take up our cross”—something no one else can do for us—then there has to be a point when we begin taking responsibility for our walk. There must come a day when we pick up our own fork and begin to feed ourselves.

I am not saying that we have no need for listening to sermons, hearing God’s word taught and proclaimed or attending Bible study. These are tools that we have as the Church—His Body—that assist us in our walk. In fact, these tools actually further the point. If you’re attending a church where the Word of God is being accurately proclaimed, where the Bible is being taught, where the fellowship of the believers is present, where the Body of Christ is being the Church and still, somehow, you’re not being fed … could it be you just haven’t learned to use your own fork?

Paul prayed for the Ephesians, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:17-18, TNIV). “Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise” (Colossians 3:16, NLT). He says that the Church should “equip God’s people to do His work and build up the Church … until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord” (Ephesians 4:12-13, NLT). Paul makes references in Colossians, Philippians and elsewhere about being “mature” in our faith. Are you striving for this? Are you straining to receive the prize? Or are you still wanting someone else to feed you?

It’s like I tell my son, “If you want to be a big boy, you’ve got to pick up your fork.” If you feel like you’re not “being fed,” I encourage you to wrap a towel around your waist, wash someone else’s feet and pour your life out into someone else. I bet you’ll start feeling full real soon!

by Brian Mayfield

-------

Amazing Grace Sunday

This Sunday has been designated as Amazing Grace Sunday - next week there's a movie that's going to be released, so I thought when I first heard about this that it was just to promote the movie. It's so much more.

The movie Amazing Grace follows the story of William Wilberforce, and English parliamentary member who sought throughout his political career to abolish the slave trade policies of England. He was mentored by an old preacher named John Newton - who not so coincidentally penned the hymn "Amazing Grace". Newton's story is amazing in itself, I would encourage you to go to this site to see more about his life.

Amazing Grace Sunday has a twofold purpose - to inform people about the incredible story of Wilberforce and Newton, but to also remind us all that slavery is alive and well in the world. There are two basic forms of slavery that exist today: forced labor and prostitution. There are things that we can do, things I would encourage you to do. Go to the Amazing Change Website and read more about what happens in the world today, and what you can do to help abolish slavery in the world.

As a reminder, here's Micah 6:8 -

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Favorite Quotes #1

I have two full journals of quotes I've collected over the years. Here are a few of my favorites:

- God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. His goal is not to pamper us physically but perfect us spiritually. {Paul W. Powell}

- In America, Christians pray for the burden of suffering to be lifted from their backs. In the rest of the world, Christians pray for stronger backs so they can bear their suffering. It's why we look away from the bag lady on the street and to the displays in store windows. Why we prefer going to the movies instead of to hospitals and nursing homes. {Dave Dravecky}

- The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people. {Richard Foster}

- Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself. {Leo Tolstoy}

- A man prayed and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized tht prayer is listening. {Soren Kierkegaard}

- We don't need fasten your seat belt signs in our pews because we no longer fly. We're like a group of geese attending meetings every Sunday where we talk passionately about flying and then get up and walk home. {Tim Hansel}

- Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. {A.W. Tozer}

- Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one's own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how. {Henri Nouwen}

- A faith that moves mountains is a faith that expands horizons. It does not bring us into a smaller world full of easy answers, but into a larger one where there is room for wonder. {Rich Mullins}

- The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him." {Henry Varley}

- The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and continuity. {Martin Luther King, Jr.}

- Saints become saints by somehow clinging to the stubborn conviction that God deserves our trust, even when it looks like the world is caving in. {Philip Yancey}

- Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God himself. {Unamuno y Jugo}

- I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, abut because by it I see everything else. {C.S. Lewis}

- Life without Jesus is like a dry garden baking in the sun. It is foolish to want anything that conflicts with Jesus. What can the world give you without Jesus? His absence is hell, his presence, paradise. {Thomas a Kempis}

- He is no fool who agives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. {Jim Elliot}

- My dear Jesus, my Savior, is so deeply written in my heart, that I feel confident, that if my heart were to be cut open and chopped to pieces, the name of Jesus would be found on every piece. {Ignatius}

- Some Christians haven't even attempted to think about whether or not they would die for Jesus because they haven't really been living for Him. {D.C. Talk}

- It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. {Annie Dillard}

- The Christian leadership of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self...It is not a leadership of power and control, baut a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest. {Henri Nouwen}

- Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes - the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. {Elizabeth Barrett Browning}

- The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. {Brennan Manning}

More to come later.

Re:Focus

Element
Sunday, February 18th
7:00 p.m.
The Garage 1919

As of right now I have no idea what's in store for next Sunday night - but I'm excited to see how God moves as we re:focus and worship Him.