Monday Morning Memo-Random

Well it’s Monday, my weekend was very busy, and today so far has been nice and not stressful.

Let’s re-cap, our beyond::afterhours event went well. It was spring break for some of our students so they didn’t have the same level of contact with their friends, so we didn’t have as many students come out, but we still had loads of fun. We had a bunch of group contests, and a sweet relay race. A couple of first time students were there also so that was really cool.

We finished our organized games and then we had a half hour of free time for students to hang out, play some X-BOX, board games, eat food, whatever. What I didn’t think would be such a huge hit was FourSquare, we had a line of people rockin’ the foursquare until after nine o’clock so that was really fun.

Then on Saturday I lead a break-out session at Evoke 08. I talked about Belonging and how everyone is looking for belonging. I was really surprised by how full the seesion was. I printed 40 handouts and only got a few back, and I know some people didn’t get a handout because they came in late. So that was really neat. Here is my outline.

Sunday was busy as usual, we had the most people at my house yet since we’ve moved back to my house.  And it was a good time.  So super busy weekend, but it was a lot of fun.

And by the way, WordPress, if you are reading this, I love the new dashboard.  It’s very nice.  IF you don’t use wordpress you should, it’s awesome.  I know you blogger people like your analytics, and adwords, and whatever, but wordpress is just so fun to use.

Have a great day, I might post something later about what else made yesterday so phenomenal.   Let’s just say my geek-o-meter was through the roof.

This is post 600

Wow, we did it.  We set a goal and we acheived it.  Not really, but I’ve posted a ton.  i started back in like 2004, and now here in 2008 we have broken the 600 barrier.  Neat -o

Busy weekend ahead for me.

Today is beyond::afterhours which is going to rock.  I have a good feeling about this one.  Actually I’m always nervous before these things, but that’s just me.  I’m never nervous before speaking or teaching, that’s where I feel at home.  But putting on events like this really make me nervous.

Tomorrow I am facilitating a break-out session at Evoke 08.  Talking about the search to belong and what students can do to help people feel like they belong.  I’ll post my notes later.

Sunday is church and youth group so I will pretty much be working all day.

Wednesday is looking like heaven right now because that is when I have scheduled my comp day for all the insanity of this weekend.  Super-Duper.

If you are reading this and you are a beyond-er then I hope to see you at seven call your peeps and bring them to ::afterhours.

Dude, It’s a Metaphor!

So I was listening to Mark Driscoll talking about the Trinity today, and he was talking about the Shack. which our church has recommended people read. I don’t usually post my disagreements with other church leaders on here, but I just had to. And normally I think Driscoll is encouraging and challenging in a good way, I totally dig on his teaching. But I couldn’t let this one go, because he’s painting everyone who reads this book as a Heretic, and that’s just wrong and it’s not his job.

I think that the biggest struggle that Driscoll is having with the book is Metaphor. William Young is not saying that God is a woman, or that the Holy Spirit is an asian chick. The whole thing is a metaphor trying to get across one of the most complex issues in our doctrine in an accessible way.

Driscoll argues that the book proposes modalism, which is a weak arguement because throughout the story you see that the Trinity is independent and yet unified. They are all working together, in Community and Love.

Pilgrim’s Progress, Hind’s Feet on High Places, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the Shack are all efforts to teach people the love and grace and mercy of God in a way that is accessible. Are they going to get it 100% accurate to the nth degree? Are they going to throw footnotes in all over the place? No. It’s a story, it’s a metaphor. If it helps people get a grasp on the love of God, and if it sets them in the right direction to ask more questions and to continue to pursue Jesus then it has worked.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a woman who lost a coin and went looking for it. In all this kingdom of God, are we really just under the bed of this woman who is doing her spring cleaning? No, it’s a metaphor. So is the Shack.

The struggle that I am having with these hip, cool, new reformed Pastors is that they are uncomfortable with metaphor, and questions. And the danger is that they are going to get into a place where they are looked at like just the Reincarnate Jerry Falwell (but they vote democrat instead of republican).

Dude, It’s a Metaphor! You can’t read it like a treatise. Relax, breathe, take you meds and lay off the red bull.

Story First

Read this post from Seth Godin.

Too often I think churches get in the habit of doing the work and lose sight of the story. Our overarching story is that Jesus died to save sinners, and he rose again to give us new life. That’s the story, so what’s the work that we are called to do?

  • The program driven mind set gets in the rut of doing what we’ve always done.
  • The building driven mind set gets in the rut of thinking the church is a location, bring them in.
  • The church that adopts someone else’s model without making it unique to their context is denying that Jesus has a story for their community that is unique and powerful.
  • we could go on, but I won’t

These mindsets are not where churches want to end up, but they devolve over time as people lose sight of the story. These are the natural result of doing the work without paying attention to the story.

So what’s your churches story?  What’s your story?  What has Jesus done in your life?  What is he doing in your life?  That’s your story.  Live it out, and work it out

Brain Not Work Good

I’m having a really hard time sparking some creativity.  I need it in a couple of areas.

1.  Games and Activites for this friday’s AfterHours, which is going to be awesome, I just need to put all together.

2.   Talk for Evoke — The Search to Belong is my topic

3.  Upcoming series about David

4.  My Blog – low posting means low creativity.  When I’m feeling really creative I start posting more.

That’s where my brain is at.

Interesting Dialogue

I read Brian McLaren’s Everything Mush Change some time ago.  And today I came across this diagloge between McLaren and Andrew Jone (Tall Skinny Kiwi).

If you are interested to know where McLaren is coming from this might help.  I am not advocating his views wholeheartedly but I like that he forces me to think about what I think about things.  :o)

Read the discussion here.

Simple Church — Review

Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger is a quick and clear read.  The title is pretty good at explaining what the book is all about.  The Authors posit that that church’s natural inclination is to become more and more complicated.  Through years of growth, new models, new programs, most churches have found themselves with too much to do, too much to maintain, and too many wheels to keep spinning.  And the sad thing is, this isn’t working.

The Authors examine what sets thriving churches apart from non-thriving churches and the conclusion that they put forward in this book is Simplicity.  Churches that are growing, have a clear and simple process to help people become disciples of Jesus.  Whereas  churches that are not thriving do not have this simple mentality.

The idea is so counter intuitive to much of the church world that really wants to see that we have a bunch of programs to keep our people busy.  But that isn’t effective, it eats time and resources. But when a church is simple then all the time and resources are devoted to just a few things, that they do great.

I don’t want to say too much about the meat of this book because I believe  every church leader should read it.  And as a church that is in the middle of a huge transformation process I thing our church can use these principles.  It’s a pretty powerful idea, less is more.  So yeah, read Simple Church.

Logos for Mac beta = very happy Jason

In College I scored a sweet deal on the Logos Scholars Library.  It’s a ninja bible software, I loved it, I used it all the time, and then I got a mac and I had to say goodbye to my dear friend Logos.

Yesterday I found out that they started the beta testing for the Mac Version.   Some of the features are limited but I just was so filled with Joy to see my bibles and commentaries back on my mac. So great.  This was the only piece of software that I’ve missed since switching to a Mac.

If you are like me go to Logos.com and check it out.

The Jesus Way – Review

Just a few moments ago I finished the third book in Eugene Peterson’s Current series of writings.  The Jesus Way is a challenging and thought provoking book that goes into great detail Exploring first of all what Jesus meant by “I am the Way . . .”

Peterson describes the power behind metaphor and particularly the way metaphor in a way that my english teachers wish they could communicate.  He looks at how Jesus’ way is an invitation to participate in the movement of God, and to participate with Jesus in the redemption and restoration of the world.

from there Peterson looks at the ways that lead up to Jesus.  Using the Examples of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and Isaiah peterson shows how each one of these leaders and prophets embraced their role in pointing to Jesus.  Each chapter really has a theme that is explored in great detail (Abraham – Sacrifce, Moses – Bringer of the Words of God, etc.)  These chapters are particulary profound.

After looking at Jesus ancient predecessors, he turns to three of the major figures that surrounded Jesus’ life and contrasted them to Jesus and the Jesus Way of life.  Herdod in his desire to be great.  Ciaphas and his desire to create a God System that benefited him, And Josephus and his desire to use the Zealotry of his fellow Jews to advance himself politically, at the cost of his fellow Jews’ freedoms.

This book is worth the read.  I’ve had it for a while and finally got it done.   This reading one book at a time resolution has been quite helpful for me personally.  It is a little wordy and heady but I could tell that Peterson was doing his very best to put as much power into every word that he could muster. I underlined a ton of passages, and this is a book that I will have to digest over time.

It’s also a great resource if you are looking to do a Character Study on any of the OT characters mentioned.  The David chapter will be very helpful to me as I prepare for an upcoming study on David for our youth group.

So read the Jesus Way and I think you will be pleased, challenged, and encouraged.