Jim and Casper Go To Church

I bought this little book the other day, and I'm really excited about reading it. It's called (as the title above suggests) "Jim and Casper Go To Church". It's about a believer and an atheist who decide to visit churches around North America and write about their experiences and perspectives on what they witnessed. I've read the first three chapters, and it's been very intriguing reading, especially considering that two of the three are really big names in churches these days: Saddleback Church and Mosaic.

I would like to talk about a certain aspect of each chapter, but before I start down that road, let me give you a few excerpts from the introduction that I thought were interesting:

- "In spite of my desire for people to encounter Jesus, I spent most of my time functioning as a moral policeman."

- "I was so busy chasing the elusive Three B's of pastoral success (buildings, budgets, and butts in the seats) that I hardly had time to focus on anything else. In fact, I outright ignored the people that Jesus himself primarily came to connect with - the people Jesus misses the most."

- "Too often, conversations we have about our beliefs are too much like debates, and we spend our time looking for chinks in the conversational armor, spaces where we can insert an argument or launch a rejoinder."

- "Generally speaking, ordinary Christians don't like arguing their friends into becoming Christians. It just doesn't feel right. To be sure, we buy the books and really do want someone doing this kind of work. But the idea that we should demand a verdict from non-Christians seems like an approach a lawyer would take - and you know how people feel like lawyers. Ordinary Christians like me know that when you start defending the faith, you also start losing your friends."

Why Oh Why?

If you have never heard of Fred Phelps and his hate-mongering, be very very happy. For the rest of us who cringe every time there is a major tragedy in this country, knowing that Phelps and his band of idiots will be picketing funerals and spreading their unholy view of a God who hates anyone who does not agree with them, it's a sad day indeed.

If you want a visual example of the hate that Phelps spreads, watch the video off of Zach's blog. It will make you appreciate the original song so much more.

I have never listened...

to a Drew Marshall radio show, but after he appeared on some religious T.V. show and kind of ripped them and then talked about how he didn't really like "churchianity" and religious t.v. shows, I might start listening to his show.

Saying #7: Everything

Saying Seven: Everything

After Jesus drank the wine, he said, "Everything is done!" He bowed his head and died.
John 19:30

That's all folks! Show's over! Let's clear the area, please, nothing left to see. Jesus has left the building.

(Who'd have thought it would come to this? History colliding with mystery.)

In the beginning was the Word and the Word is now sentenced. Full stop. Close quotes. New paragraph.

Whatever "everything" is, "everything" is now complete. Things seen, things unseen. Everything that was started has finished. Every beginning has found its loose end, all thoughts have been taken to their logical conclusion. And any others.

At this moment, on this day, we have seen it all.

God bows his head respectfully and dies.

Everything dies.

Life dies.

Death dies.

Everything is done...

... except love.

Only love is not done.

Only love will not die.


To see the flash animation, go here.

Saying #6: Anger

Saying Six: Anger

Jesus shouted, "Father, I put myself in your hands!" Then he died.
Luke 23:46

He's not beaten, even when he's defeated.

Abandoned, desperate, parched, dying... but still, with his final breath, angry at the gulf between the way things are and the way things might be. Shouting at the invisible.

Forget gentle Jesus, if you ever remembered him. What can you do but shout when you see the distance between the way things are and the way things might be - and find yourself being strung from one side to the other?

Howling your prayers. Yelling your psalms. Life screaming at death, hope screaming at cynicism. If you can't shout at God, who can you shout at?

And if you think that your decibels can climb across the unknown, can be heard by Love and that Love will answer, then you jump. And fall into darkness. Trusting only the hands of the unseen, the hands of mercy, the hands that always made everything from nothing. Always do, always will.

What other hands dare you fall into?

Perhaps we are not abandoned. Perhaps we are not beaten, even when we are defeated.

Go here to see the flash animation.

Saying #5: Thirst

Saying Five: Thirst

Jesus knew that he had now finished his work. And in order to make the Scriptures come true, he said, "I am thirsty!"
John 19:28

Everybody is dying for a drink. None of us can survive without it.

We live on a blue planet holding 326 million cubic miles of water, each of those a gigantic overflowing cup holding more than a trillion gallons.

Our bodies are mainly made of water and without it we shrivel up and cease to be. Our life runs dry.

But water is not the only thing that brings us life. Each of us is thirsty for something more, something else, refreshment to transcend our physical needs, to sustain us way down deep inside..

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, he had said. But now even this spring of life is drying up.

Sweating, struggling to breathe, bent over and bleeding.

Thirstier than he has ever been.

Because we are all dying of thirst.


To see the flash animation of this saying, go here.

Saying #4: Godforsaken

Saying Four: Godforsaken

Then about that time Jesus shouted, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?"
Mark 15:34

Not a word we use very often: Godforsaken. Is there a time and place when even God has had enough of us, when even the immortal invisible needs to take some personal time.

Was God now hiding from Jesus... or was it just that Jesus lost sight of God? When it feels like that, what’s the difference?

And if you believe that Jesus, somehow, was also God, this is a kind of self-abandonment - God taking leave of himself, forgetting himself. A kind of madness.

As darkness falls, confusion rises. Voices nearby drop away, disappear. Spectators lose interest. Now just the silent sound of hearts breaking, hope evaporating.

"Hello?" No reply.

"Anyone there?" Nothing answers.

Just you and nothing. Forsaken.

Jesus Christ abandoned to his fate in the middle of history. Foolishness. The mad epicentre of all things. Losing it. Always losing it. You have to lose your life in order to find it. He had said.


Go here to see the flash animation.

Saying #3: Others

Saying Three: Others

When Jesus saw his mother and his favourite disciple with her, he said to his mother, "This man is now your son." Then he said to the disciple, "She is now your mother."
John 19:26-27

What was his mother thinking? Watching her son dying, slowly, by degrees.

"I wish it had never come to this"?
"I wish I could wake from this nightmare"?
"I wish I'd never had him"?

And what about the favourite follower? What’s the point of being a disciple when there’s no master? So much for being in the inner circle, when the circle is being bent and broken before you. So much for being special when all your hopes and dreams are being drained of life in front of your very eyes.

And what were the onlookers thinking? The ones whose curiosity had slowed them down to a halt, to check out this first century car-crash? Event-seekers, intrigued by what the small crowd were looking at over there on Skull Hill, what was going through their minds? Interesting piece of action by the looks of it, always good to get the news firsthand. Nothing like fresh gossip to add a bit of kudos.

Which of us knows what any of the rest of us is really thinking? We can barely read our own minds, let alone those of others. None of us can predict the significance of any of our moments. None of us knows the role we are playing in the invisible grand narrative.

Take the squaddies, dicing for a dying man's clothes, salivating at the market resale value. Ringside seats for the cosmic drama... but too busy living to notice.

We only know for sure what Jesus was thinking of. He was thinking of others. As usual.


To see the flash animation of this, go here.

The Lookout

I don't get a chance to see too many movies - at least movies on the big screen, so I have to pick and choose carefully. Unless I'm with the "brotherhood of the four" (Chad, Seth, Jeff when he's in town, Dave, Mike), when we tend to watch really silly movies together.

I'm excited about a movie coming out today, called The Lookout. It stars Joseph Gorden-Leavett, who is probably best known as the kid on Third Rock From The Sun - but he's actually a very talented young actor. The last movie I saw him in was one of my favorites from last year, Brick.

Anyway, this movie is about a former hockey player who has an accident and has trouble remembering things (sounds kind of like another favorite movie of mine, Memento). He gets recruited to be The Lookout (hence the name) of a bank heist. I'm sure things go wrong, they tend to do so in movies. Jeff Daniels (Dumb and Dumber) and Isla Fischer (Wedding Crashers and right now the girlfriend of Borat, also known as Sacha Baron Cohen) also star. It looks really good.

To see more information, and the theatrical trailer, go here.

Just an observation from Sunday, and I don't really...

have a theory about it, and I'm not even sure if I can come up with anything more than a brief paragraph about it, but I thought it was very interesting Sunday morning when the senior minister of the church I work at had all the guys who were firstborn sons stand up, and a huge majority of the guys in the congregation stood up.

Interesting.

Saying #2: Remember

Saying Two: Remember

Then the criminal said to Jesus, "Remember me when you come into power!" Jesus replied, "I promise that today you will be with me in paradise."
Luke 23:43

Talk about a death-bed conversion! What a chancer! Hanging, said Dr Johnson, wonderfully concentrates the mind and this is one concentrated criminal.

Life has come into focus.

Deep inside, something is finally understood.

He doesn't join the soldiers in humiliating the broken God on the cross next door. After a life spent trying to be noticed, to be someone, he knows he is about to be no one, to be forgotten for good. A dying fly, swatted onto the floor of history.

Yet some mysterious instinct tells him that maybe if this one life on the next cross will notice him, will remember him... he will never be forgotten again. How did he know that weakness and vulnerability are invisibly tied to strength, to another kind of power?

You will be with me today, in a place of unimaginable harmony, a place where this strange passage called life will be known for what it is, a place we sometimes called paradise. You will be with me today, says Jesus Christ, as if there was no doubt about it, as if we can take him at his word.

When we remember someone, we give them extra life. When Jesus Christ remembers us, we can never be forgotten again.

Go here to see the flash animation of this saying.

Saying #1: Forgive

Saying One: Forgive

When the soldiers came to the place called "The Skull" they nailed Jesus to a cross. They also nailed the two criminals to crosses, one on each side of Jesus. Jesus said, "Father, forgive these people! They don't know what they're doing."
Luke 23:34

Who decided on the order? Which of the soldiers thought Jesus would look best in the middle? Maybe the two criminals, caught red-handed on their last job, had fallen out with each other. Perhaps the only way to shut them up was to put the quiet guy with the messiah complex in between.

Soldiers, thieves, spectators, those hammering in the nails, those gasping at the visual spectacle: no one in this first Easter scene knows quite what they are doing. Forgive them, says Jesus, as the nails bite, forgive them. They don't get it.

Of all the low-life rogues to find the long arm of the law thumping down on their shoulders, these two nobodies get to hang right in the middle of history. They had never lived with Jesus, like Peter or Mary or Judas. Instead they get to die with him. No chance to give him their lives. Only their deaths.

Which of us aren't as thick as thieves until Jesus Christ enters our field of vision. All of us watching, gasping, averting our eyes, wishing these weren't real nails, that this had not been our shift, hoping we can put this behind us, can move on. Trying to find our words. Not quite sure what we are doing. Not knowing we could ask for forgiveness. Not knowing someone else has.


To see a nifty flash animation of this saying, go here.

The Seven Sayings Of Jesus On The Cross

So, I finally upgraded my blogger account to Google - I've been holding out for a long time, but today I thought "What the heck."

I found this really neat resource while I was looking for Element resources. It's very timely - since it deals with the death of Jesus on the cross. Over the next several posts, I'm going to share with you the text from this resource, as well as link you to a pretty neat flash file for each one.

Or you can go here and check it all out for yourself.

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:

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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.

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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!

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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

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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.