New Years

Happy New Year to everyone!  I hope you had a great time celebrating what God has done and looking forward to what God is going to do.

Last Sunday I had the privilege of speaking to our church.  The Sermon was called, “Called to Exile”.  You can listen to it here.

Over the break I finished up two books that were kind of related to each other.  First I finished up unChristian, by Dave Kinnamon and Gabe Lyons.  This is a very interesting and insightful look at the way 16-29 year-old outsiders view the Church.  This book is really quite eye-opening.  But I wouldn’t say that I found it surprising.  I found myself agreeing with outsiders on a lot of the issues that were addressed.

   

The second book that I finished was Everything Must Change, by Brian McLaren.  McLaren is the Emergent Church leader de facto.  He has an ever evolving liberal view of faith, Jesus, the Church, so he is a little troubling to read.  He makes me angry on a lot of issues, but at the same time he brings issues to light that really should be addressed.  Everything Must Change intends to show that the Gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t just about salvation from sin, but it’s really a salvation that should effect and transform every aspect of human life.  He is very much an idealist, but he writes with great hope that Christians would not wait for heaven to come to try to make this world a better place.  

I found myself agreeing with a lot of what McLaren was saying, he does a good job of showing how revolutionary Jesus really was, and the fact that Jesus didn’t play the same game with the same rules as his counterparts.  Jesus was introducing a new set of rules that went counter to the system (or as McLaren calls it story).  Very intersting stuff.  

If you want to wrestle this is a good book to get you thinking and wrestling.  You don’t have to agree with everything McLaren says to take some good nuggets of wisdom away from it.  

Merry Christmas

I will be taking the next several days off, so I will try not to blog during that time as well.  So I wanted to be sure to send out a Merry Christmas to everyone (in the world).  One of the reasons that I love blogging is that I really do get to send my thoughts out to everyone at once, but not in a forceful agree with me or else manner.  Anyway, Merry Christmas.

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year as Judah is old enough to start to get what we are doing.  I think that will make it so much more fun.

 

And of Course I love Jesus so his birth is a pretty big deal to me.  Something that I always try to remember is that Jesus is birthed in people’s hearts everyday of the year and I need to celebrate that as well.  I’m not going to buy everyone presents or anything, but I can’t lose sight of the fact that Jesus birth is about salvation, and that happens all the time.  So Party!

 

That’s another reason why I think egg nog should be sold all year long.  Come to think of it, I have not had any egg nog yet this month.  I should fix that.  Merry Christmas!

 

INTJ

I don’t like labels and I don’t like personality tests, but this is pretty much me.INTJ:  Crazy, Here are some things about INTJ’s

“…approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devisingcontingency plans in case of error or adversity.”

– The Portrait of the Mastermind Rational (iNTj) (Keirsey)

“…observer, values solitude, perfectionist, detached, private… does not talk about feelings, hard to impress, analytical, likes esoteric things…”

– Jung Type Descriptions (INTJ) (similarminds.com)

“To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of “definiteness”, of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise — and INTJs can have several — they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how.”

– INTJ Profile (TypeLogic)

 “At work, INTJs use their conceptual strengths to analyze situations and then develop models to understand and anticipate through relentlessly to reach their goals. They will continue on with their plans, even in the face of adversity and data that might suggest to other more practical types that their goals are no longer feasible. By nature, INTJs are independentindividualists.”

– INTJ – The Free-Thinker (Lifexplore)

“INTJs are natural leaders, although they usually choose to remain in the background until they see a real need to take over the lead. When they are in leadership roles, they are quite effective, because they are able to objectively see the reality of a situation, and are adaptable enough to change things which aren’t working well. They are the supreme strategists – always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency. “

– Portrait of an INTJ (The Personality Page)

 

No Whopper!?!?!? What

Perhaps you have seen this commercialThis is brilliant marketing showing that these folks really love the whopper.  Maybe too much.  But I’ve got to ask, what if the church just picked up and moved?  What if we said we were going to stop talking about Jesus?  What if we tried to give something other than the gospel?  Would anyone care?  Would you be missed?   I think our church should strive to make at least as much of an impact as the whopper.   

Rob Bell Article

Interesting Article from Time Magazine on Rob Bell and Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI. I really enjoy listening to Rob Bell speak and I have read both of his books.  I think he truly is speaking the language of my generation.  Many have questioned his theology on some points but generally those folks are not nice so I tend to question their theology on that point.  Anyway, it’s an interesting article and I think everyone should read it.  

Writing ahead of time

I have the privilege of speaking on Sunday December 30th.  I have the general idea of what I am going to talk about, but I need to have my outline done super early because we have essential 4 services that we need to be done before next wednesday due to the christmas break that our office and staff have.  And December 3oth falls right in the middle of that.  Crazy busy for the office and they are incredible for getting all this stuff done.  But that means that I need to get all my notes and stuff done way ahead of time, and that is a challenge for me.  I really like to marinade in my topic for a while so that it really comes from my heart.  When I have to get my outline in this early it kind of feels disconnected.  I don’t know if that makes sense.This is a good discipline to develop though, to have things done early is better than pulling things out of thin air the night before.  So I have the majority of my notes done, but I’m having a difficult time saying I’m done.  I just had to get all that off my brain.