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Brothers, we are all broken

1 Feb

My heart is hurting for people who have been deeply hurt by a church in my area.  As a leader in a church I know that it is not hard to offend someone.  As someone who goes to a church I know that it is not hard to be offended.

But the stories that I am hearing lately are too much.  Church discipline is intended to ultimately be redemptive, to help people get closer to Jesus.  It’s not intended to show your power or authority over your followers.

Pastors can you please take a moment to pray for the people in your area who are hurting because of church leadership.  It’s not fair to those people that their image of Jesus is tarnished because of human agents.

The truth is that we are all incredibly broken people.  The grace of Jesus is the only thing that helps us get our lives back together.  Can we talk more about that?  Can we humbly recognize our need for Jesus?

Leaders, let’s get out of the way of people who are trying to find Jesus.  We are not meant to be gatekeepers of faith.  We are guides.  The only reason that we can guide anyone in their faith journey is because some one guided us.  That person was a broken human too.

Let’s be honest.

Let’s be humble.

Let’s celebrate Jesus’ transforming love and grace.

Let’s help people walk away from sin and towards the grace that we find in the Cross of Christ.

I think that’s what people are looking for when they come to church for the first time.

Love.

Hope.

Healing.

Forgiveness.

Compassion.

Community.

We should be the best at creating environments like this because we have received all of this from Jesus in the first place.

Stewardship Series

26 Jan

This month we have been working through a stewardship series.  We have talked about how we need to be stewards of ourselves, our relationship, our time and (this coming Sunday) our money.

All of these thing are in all of our lives.

All of these things come from God.

How we steward all of these things show us how well we understand the Gospel.

That’s really what stewardship as a follower of Jesus is all about: the Gospel.

Jesus has rescued us, and he wants us to tell that good news to others.  If we look at all the things in our lives as just our things, and not opportunities to move the Gospel forward then we are missing the point.

It’s all about the Gospel.

God Particle

15 Dec

Has your kid ever asked why is there stuff?

If not then you are pretty lucky because that’s a pretty difficult question to answer.

As a Christian I believe that everything had it’s origin in God.  But why is there matter and stuff and why does that stuff matter, that’s where things get complicated.

Scientists have been trying to find this thing called the Higgs-Boson particle that theoretically could give some understanding to why things have matter.  It is completely theoretical because no one has ever seen it.  It’s been called the God particle and as Alister McGrath explains in this article it’s actually a great place to begin the search for God.

I am going to paste the last half of the article in this blog becuase I think Mcgrath gives some helpful understanding for the importance of science and how it relates to Christian faith.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

Some tell us that science is about what can be proved. The wise tell us it is really about offering the best explanations of what we see, realising that these explanations often cannot be proved, and may sometimes lie beyond proof. Science often proposes the existence of invisible (and often undetectable) entities – such as dark matter – to explain what can be seen. The reason why the Higgs boson is taken so seriously in science is not because its existence has been proved, but because it makes so much sense of observations that its existence seems assured. In other words, its power to explain is seen as an indicator of its truth.

There’s an obvious and important parallel with the way religious believers think about God. While some demand proof that God exists, most see this as unrealistic. Believers argue that the existence of God gives the best framework for making sense of the world. God is like a lens, which brings things into clearer focus. As the Harvard psychologist William James pointed out years ago, religious faith is about inferring “the existence of an unseen order” in which the “riddles of the natural order” can be explained.

There’s more to God than making sense of things. But for religious believers, it’s a great start.

 

Stewardship [or] All About (all) the Benjamins

12 Dec

I am currently working on a series of sermons about Stewardship.  As a pastor, when I use the word stewardship the common assumption is that I’m going to talk about money.  If I say, I’m doing a series on stewardship, people hear, “Here come four week talking about money, give more, give more, give more.”

Can I be completely honest and vulnerable about something here on my blog.  (I’m going to anyway so deal with it.)  I hate this common understanding of stewardship.  I hate it because it is just too narrow.

Am I going to talk about money?  Yes.  1 week.  Am I going to talk about tithing and giving offerings?  Yes.

I have said before and I will say again, I will never apologize for talking about money at Creekside because no one is getting rich at Creekside.  If all of a sudden all the pastors pull up in Bentleys then we will start apologizing for talking about money so much.  (Just between you and me, we are so far from that becoming a possibility.)

Another part of my problem with the common understanding of stewardship is that all that matters is Tithes and Offerings.  These stewardship campaigns often feel like, the goal is simply to increase tithes and offerings.  To give a shot in the arm for the year to make sure that we keep making budget.  Ministry has expenses, there is no way around that, and at Creekside we try to run a pretty tight ship to make sure that we are getting the most of the resources that people have given in tithes and offerings.  So it’s important to talk about the importance of giving, and we do that every week.

But stewardship, and specifically talking about financial stewardship is more than just tithes and offerings.  God cares about every penny that you spend.  And he cares because he gave it to you, and he wants you to use it towards his purposes in the world and his purposes for your life.

Pay your bills, enjoy your life, there is nothing wrong with doing these things.  But stewardship is so much bigger than just making sure people tithe.  Tithes and offerings are a key indicator in spiritual growth and if people are truly trusting God, but so is whether or not you are spending wrecklessly on credit, or if you are neglecting your financial responsibilites.

All of that is also stewardship.

I think we would all benefit, church attenders and church leaders, to take into account that God has called us all to be disciples, not just on Sunday but every day where ever we go.  And not just with 10% of our gross income, but with every dollar.  God cares about all of our life, and how we are using all that he has given to us to advance his mission of grace to the world.  And he cares about the Benjamins, all of them, as well as the little copper Lincolns.

Erasing Hate

2 Nov

Erasing Hate

This is Bryon.  Bryon is a reformed neo-nazi.  He used his tattoos to show his beliefs to the world.  When he had a change of heart and realized the destructive path he was on, he didn’t want to project that hate to the world anymore and so he went through the painful process of having his tattoos removed.

You can see the AP story here:

and you can see the trailer for the documentary Erasing Hate here:

Bryon considered this process a form of pennance for all the pain that he inflicted on others.

Wow.

Here’s the really amazing thing.  While no one can see my sins, Jesus bore all the pain of my sin on the Cross.  When God looks at me, he doesn’t see my sin anymore, he see’s Jesus.  What Bryon went through to change his physical appearance, Jesus endured something even worse to change Bryon’s and yours and my spiritual appearance.  That’s incredible grace and Jesus did that.

When God looks at us he sees Jesus grace.  When we look at others do we have that same kind of Grace perspective?  Do we see how Jesus wants to change people?  Or do we simply see the sin?

I’m amazed by Bryon’s story.  And I’m glad that he was able to transform his face, and I hope that his story will help many people to see the error and destruction of racism.  And I hope that this story will help us to see that even the people that we don’t think can ever be changed, can in fact be transformed.

Jesus please help me to walk in grace!

 

 

 

Habits

18 Oct

I’ve been trying to wake up early for the past few weeks.  Life gets so busy around my house that I’ve found it’s impossible to do the things that refresh my heart and my mind if I don’t do them early.  So I’ve gotten in the habit of waking up at 5am Sunday through Thursday.  I’m not saying this to brag.  :o)

Waking up early to do my reading and occasional writing is good for me, for several reasons.  First, I can’t really making any noise, so I’m practicing the discipline of silence.  I love to have music playing when I’m working.  My house is too small to play music in the morning without waking everyone else up.  So I do my morning routines in silence.

Second, I’m alone, so i’m practicing (in micro form) the discipline of solitude.  I have a lot of meetings day to day, especially as my responsibilities at the church grow.  I’m an introvert, and meetings are one of the most mentally draining parts of my day.  They are necessary, and I put as much as I can into the meetings that I am in, but I know that I need to spend some time alone if I’m going to remain spiritually, emotionally and mentally healthy.

This one habit of setting my alarm and waking up early, while I’m not perfect at it, helps me to start my day with things that energize me.  Rather than waking up at the last possibile minute and rushing out the door, I am able to warm up to the day.  I get to see the sunrise, which as I write this post is just about break over the tree line in my living room window.  I get to drink coffee.  I can get to the reading that I need to get through.  And I get to plan my day.

Habits shape who we are and who we will become.  If you feel like your life is not going the way that you want it to go, what is one thing that you can change to start building a healthy habit?

Opinions

17 Oct

I’ve heard it said that opinions are like ____________ everyone has one and they all stink. (I’ll let you guess what it is I’m talking about there.

It’s very easy to be swayed by other people’s opinions.  But whose opinions actually matter?  If you don’t know whose opinions actually matter then you will be very easily swayed one way or another.

Knowing whose opinions matter helps you to better understand who you are.

Knowing whose opinions actually matter helps you to ignore the critics and cynics, who just want to spew venom into the world.

Do you have a list of whose opinions matter?

Here’s mine:

God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)

Kathy (my wife, end of the day, she is the most important opinion walking on this earth right now)

Joss and Judah (my kids)

Don (My Boss)

Friends who know me

Everyone else.

Each of this opinion categories carries different weight in different contexts, but the ones that trump them all (honestly) are God, Kathy, Joss and Judah.  End of the day, those are the voices that matter the most to me.  If they have a criticism, or advice, or ideas, they have the most weight in my life.

Who holds the weighty opinions in your life?  Do you know?  Or are you giving every opinion maker equal weight?

Adventure

1 Sep

What are you doing today?

For many your first response will be, “nothing.”

That’s usually my first response as well.  And we say we are doing nothing because we don’t think that we are doing anything important or worth talking about.

My kids think that everything they are doing is important and every errand is an adventure.  I don’t know if that’s actually healthy, but I want them to appreciate every moment of their day and to be on the look out for adventure.

Are we looking for adventure?  Are we looking for the good stories?  Or are we just going through the day not really doing anything that we are excited about or that we even find interesting?

What adventure have you lived out lately?

Tuesday Morning

30 Aug

Getting back from vacation is always a challenge.  Yesterday I had a 6am meeting.  Not something I normally look forward too, but I was meeting with my friend Tom and we were talking about missions, so it was a great meeting.  Then I went to my office and tried to plow through my mounds and mounds of email, and administrivia.  I also met briefly with our lead pastor Don and got caught up and back in sync.  Then more email and administrivia.

I also was able to record a new episode of our podcast (supersecretbase.com) with Jeremy and Mike.  Then went out to dinner with the family and some friends, then went to my parents house and hung out there for a bit.  When we came home we put the kids right to bed.  Kathy watched a little TV, I did a little reading, then we went to bed at 9:30 PM.

9:30 PM is really early for me.  As a result I woke up at 4:45 AM, wide awake.  So I’ve got that going for me.  It’s been a while since I’ve woken up super early without a million things to do.

I recently submitted my first edited draft for my thesis and I am waiting to hear back from my advisor.  I don’t have any more classes to study for, and I just finished a stretch of preaching for Sunday morning.  My work load has lifted significantly for a season and I am enjoying that.  My hope is that I am able to take some time and be more consistent in writing on my blog and for supersecretbase.com.  I’ve also got some other writing ideas that have been percolating in my brain for the past several months and I will begin to work on some of those.  These are personal projects, they may never see the light of day but they will (hopefully) help me to become a better writer.

I don’t know why I wrote this post other than that I simply had to write something on here at the start of this new season.

How is your Tuesday morning going?

Freedom of God

4 Aug

“The idealized God is maintained at the expense of his freedom.  The idealized God lacks flexibility; initiative, the capacity to surprise.  The resulting picture of God is a sophisticated idol, but still an idol.” (Judson Mather, “The Comic Art of the Book of Jonah.” Soundings 65, no. 3 [September 1, 1982], 286).

I read this in my research on Jonah and Satire.  The author is essentially arguing that the Author of Jonah is satirizing the idealized God of ancient Israel.  The same God that uses Jonah as a kind of comic foil throughout the text.  But this passage got me thinking about Uber Calvinism.

As I understand it the challenge with theological systems that lean so heavily on pre-destination and the foreknowledge of God is that God can’t really change his mind.  And what Mather is saying is that God changed his mind regarding Nineveh because they repented.  This made Jonah angry, because God didn’t do what Jonah understood God was planning on doing.  (I understand that’s a really bad sentence.  Sorry).  Jonah is frustrated because he knew that God was a God of compassion and that he would relent of destroying Nineveh.  Jonah wanted to follow the formula, and he wanted the result that God had promised, That the city would be overturned.

Now, in the book of Jonah, the City did repent.  Nineveh was not destroyed but could it be argued that their hearts were overturned?  Which is more important, the destruction of a city or the destruction of wickedness and idolatry.

If we try to make God follow our formulas, then we are treating him like an idol.  Idols don’t work and they always disappoint.

I would rather serve a sovereign God who desires repentance rather than destruction, and would much rather dispense Grace than wrath.

It’s not my job to tell God that he has destroy cities or people.  It’s not my job to be angry when what I think is justice on the wicked is not delivered.  My job is to tell the truth about God that he has revealed through the Bible and through the leading of the Holy Spirit, and then let God do the rest.

I want God to be free to forgive, to love, to show mercy and grace.  I know how much grace and mercy I have received from God so for me to not be willing to let God give that to others is selfishness and worse it’s idolatry.

thoughts?

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