Where You Can Find Me

You really thought I was back after that last post, didn't you? Me too.

But it's looking like I won't be here often at all so I would like to give you an update on where you can REALLY find me. Here's what's going on:

1) I'm getting more opportunities to publish my writing elsewhere and would like to keep it that way. From the looks of it, I'll be a contributing writer at Burnside Writers Collective. They were kind enough to publish my piece on a recent trip to Istanbul and liked me enough to give me a password to publish faster. I also agreed to write a devotional on the book of James for Forward Edge International, a missions organization that sends over 1,000 people on short term missions trips a year. My students and I were fortunate enough to go to Nicaragua with them. Hopefully more stuff to appear beyond the arenas of personal blogging.

2) The DEVOTE Podcast series did a lot better than I expected. We have a great number of subscribers already and actually numbering in the hundreds of downloads for some of the episodes. I am going to commit to finishing out 22 episodes and then begin to post one a week starting January 1st. I really like how God has chosen to use it. You can read more about the podcast here and you can subscribe to it here.

3) I am really dedicating a lot of my time to my church, Willamette Christian Church and the students there. I am teaching much more and focusing on trying to multiply disciples in the South Portland area through this awesome body of believers. It's a ton of work and I would rather do it than blog. At least that's how I feel most days.

4) I tweet @chrisnye and am on Facebook.

5) I'll also be at home with my wife. I love her tons. No, you can't come over.

Five Years of Sound and Five Months of Silence

Author’s note: I have tried to write this post 11 times. I did count and it is sad.

It’s absurd to think that a blog could last forever, that one small spot on the Internet would carry out a life longer than the author. It rarely happens. My silence on the blog has been necessary as well as intentional (although I doubt many of the readers care or even noticed). But now I’m giving my shout from the darkness, a call out to anyone still paying attention and still (unfortunately) subscribed.

I started this blog five years ago yesterday as a place to put my writing. It was November 16^th 2006 and we didn’t know who Katy Perry was. I have loved blogging. A couple of weeks ago, on a day off, I got extremely nostalgic and vainly flipped through a ton of pages (probably too many), re-reading old entires and quietly giggling to myself at the roughness of the blog in many (most) places. 

The blog has been purposefully silent as I finished the work on a number of creative projects, of which I will gladly tell you about.

1) The DEVOTE podcast series. I am teaching through a series called “Distant God” with my students. The goal of the series is to recognize that God is not always close to us, but that the distance is normally our deal. The series works out the process of getting nearer to God. While there are no tricks (illusions, Michael) to get God into your life, there are practices that people have been doing for centuries and I think they worked. Not sure. The DEVOTE podcast is a series of 22 audio-devotionals done by yours truly. They are 5-7 minutes long and include a passage or scripture and some thoughts on it. All of this is done aesthetically with music, pauses, swells, etc. It is my attempt to take the classic print-form devotional, re-work it and bring to students where they already are: in their tiny white head phones. The first 10 are available on iTunes now: Search “Willamette Students” in the iTunes store or simply click here or here.

Also, stream a sample here. 

2) Better writing (hopefully). During my silence at WAMOS, I actually did not stop writing; I think I wrote more. I have been working on submitting pieces to outside blogs, websites, and publications. One problem with blogging is that you’re the editor and you think your writing is awesome right away. There is a short editing process and it involved one set of eyes. I’m re-entering the world of having someone else give the approval of my verbiage, something I remember loving about writing for newspapers and magazines when I did. I’ve entered the world of rejections and I think it’s making me a better writer.

3) I might still write here and over at a newer Tumblr I began called, A Certain Persuasion, which focuses on the ties between language and belief. Sort of. Please visit every once and a while to see the writing that gets rejected.

Thanks for your patience, I’m hoping to stick around here more. But I must say, because of my silence here, I have had much more creative energy and time. My preaching has certainly improved and I’m hoping my writing/podcasting follows.  

Closer

Thank you for your patience as I have been out of the country and getting caught up as I came back. There has not been much time to write.

I wanted to share this video of what happened in Managua, Nicaragua this past week. My wife and I led 32 students and 6 leaders to the Villa Esperanza for 8 days and it was a life changing experience for all of us. I am so happy my wife came with me as I not only got closer to Jesus in this trip, but I've never felt closer to my wife. We were able to witness horrific injustice and unimaginable beauty in just 8 days together. Something a mentor of mine has been known to say is this: "Shared experiences build intimacy." It's true. Intimacy is complex, especially in marriage, and I feel like there was nothing better for my wife and I to do as we approach our first year than to go to a strange place and learn more about Jesus by serving and being served.

It was a transformational week and I am so extremely proud of my students. We had the whole week with no drama, medical emergencies, or major issues - God truly provided. And I know he provided because we had literally hundreds of people praying for the trip. Because it was so saturated in prayer, God ended up doing remarkable things and for that I'm thankful.

Please take some time to watch this video and thank you for all who were praying for us and supporting us. May God bless you. For the best viewing, make sure you're watching in HD and go full screen with it.

Off to Managua, Nicaragua...with 32 High School Students

On Thursday night, I will send our first team of 30 to Managua, Nicaragua to serve and be served by the Village of Hope, who takes care of widows and orphans living in the city. On Friday, my wife and I will take another 8 down to make a total of 38 people ready to follow God to Nicaragua.

This has been an incredible process of faith. I've been able to watch young high school students raise an incredible amount of money and pray incredible prayers for their friends and people they've never met. 

I'll be with my students and leaders until the end of the month, so needless to say this blog will be extremely quiet. However, I'm happy to point you to our minsitry's blog where (hopefully) we'll have daily updates of the goings on in Managua. The series will be called "Field Notes from Managua" and will include photos and blog entries from team members. I'd love for the followers of this blog to get a piece of what I get to do for a living. I can't even believe I'm paid to take kids to experience God with people who are materially poor, but relationally rich. I'm excited for all of what we have to learn.

Here's a link to the students blog.

We also made this video asking you all to join us in prayer:

The Command is for Doing

A man approaches Jesus and says, "What's the most important commandment in all of the Scriptures?" The answer Jesus gives sounds at first a little dodgy: "Hear, O, Israel the Lord your God is One...and you shall love Him with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."

Of all the commands given in the Bible, Jesus reveals that the greatest command is not about doing something, but primarily about knowing somebody.

We want a checklist, we want steps to get to heaven and ways to please God because we want to take care of our own salvation. We want it on our shoulders and in our hands. But, as Jonah reminds us, "Salvation belongs to the Lord" and it is not our condition to save ourselves with good works.

So since we cannot save ourselves, the number one command Jesus gives is to love God. To get to know Him. To begin an understanding of his Personhood and Life. But hold on...

This command dates back to the early days of the Jewish faith and in speaking about this command God says, "The command is very near to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it."

The command to know God, to love Him with everything we have is very close to us and in our ability for what reason? So that we can do it.

Here lies the connection: While the greatest command is not to do but to love, nevertheless, our love drives us to do something. As Bob Goff would say, "When you love, you do." It's that simple. I love my wife, therefore I do things for her. I love my family, therefore I serve them and spend time with them and do things for them.

Why do we have this backwards? We're so busy trying to go on missions trips, camps, and service projects so that God might think we're awesome and love us. But the reality is we must know His love for us and, in return, be given a love that drives us to do something about it all.

If you love God, you pray to Him and read His word and serve those around you. The Bible also tells us that if we do not love people, we are a liar when we say, "I love God."

This simple command to love God is not about saying we love God, but rather the command is there for us so that we can do it. Saying you love God does not mean you're a Christian. Knowing God produces a life filled with the Holy Spirit and driven to action: We pray, we seek God, we read, we serve, we spend our lives giving to others. The command to love God is meant for doing something about it. Because when you love, you do.

Praying for Nothing

At some point early in our teenage years, every boy and girl has to face the reality that prayer is not a simple discipline. No where is it more honestly and simply recorded than in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain:

“Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn’t make it out no way."

I never blame Huck for his views on religion. Huck is a boy. Miss Watson is a woman who has somehow ignored the fact that she doesn't get what she asks for all of the time. That's a little screwy.

These two characters are in our church. I'm mostly trying to persuade the Huck's to consider different definitions of the fundamentals they grew up with, but I also get to meet Miss Watson, who tends to speak for Huck and even answer the questions I direct at him. Both, however, have the misunderstanding that prayer serves one purpose: to get what you can't get yourself.

This is certainly a purpose of prayer: petition. The Scriptures tell us that we don't have some things simply because we don't ask God for them. But it's not solely what prayer is for. Prayer is for meditation, for reflection, for connecting with God, and so many more things.

That's why when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray (after they asked him), he gives us an extremely comprehensive and somewhat broad prayer, which includes worshipful, relational, petitionary, and reflective/repentant language. It's complex.

Overall, when Jesus asked things of his Father, he always put the relationship with God above the request with the line, "your will be done" and a repeating use of the word, "Father." Jesus always kept prayer multifaceted. We don't always get what we want, but God always gives us what we need: access to Him and His throne.

If your prayer is not being "answered," consider perhaps that what you need above your request being fulfilled is a relationship and knowledge of the Almighty. That might not change your circumstance, but it will certainly change you.

Why the Bereans Were Noble in Character

There's this strange passage in Luke's account of the early church where he accounts one group of early believers as more noble than another. The passage is short and reads like this in one translation:

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
-Acts 17:11

I have read that passage before and thought, Ah yes, these Bereans were solid because they received the word with eagerness. That is true. But it is only half of the whole truth.

The Bereans not only received Paul's message with eagerness, but they examined the Scriptures every day to see if Paul was right about Jesus.

First century Jews were not ones to easily give up their faith. Berean Jews would not just shrug their shoulders and follow whatever was popular (which was not Christianity at that time, anyways). In fact, Bereans were some of the most educated of 1st century Jews and Luke says they were more noble because of their eagerness to examine the Scriptures.

One thing that drives me a little crazy is how many of us hear something a good speaker says and automatically believe it. We'll hear one side of something or hear something said strongly with enough authority and we're willing to take it as our own. It's not necessarily a great argument, but the person said it with enough gusto that we assume it to be right. That's what most of cable news is today and I'm afraid some of our churches are leaning this way.

My friend Branden often says in his sermons, "Don't take my word for it, look at the Scriptures and examine it for yourself." The Bereans were not noble in character for just accepting and agreeing with Paul, they did their homework.

Strange thing is, this is the next verse:

"As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." 

The product of their eager examination was to believe. Not the other way around. Many people blame the movement of Christianity on ignorance. And perhaps, yes, it started with fishermen, but it didn't stop when it reached the scholars.

There is Nothing Safe About Childhood

 "It's a hard world for little things" 

- Rachel Cooper, The Night of the Hunter

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were brothers who spent their lives researching culture and studying linguistics. They also had a knack for folk tales and spent another portion of their life editing, writing and compiling tales for children in their native German language. The result would be Grimm's Fairy Tales, where we get classics like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Snow White.

When the tales were first published in 1812, they were met with fierce criticism because they were too violent, sexual, and "adult themed" to be marketed to children. Many reviewers rejected the first printing and the brothers set out to make several updated editions over the next number of years that toned down some of the graphic content. They removed overtly sexual jokes and turned the "wicked mother" into a "wicked stepmother." But one thing they didn't erase but in fact escalated was the violence in the stories.

That's why we have these old stories about wolves chasing little girls, step-mothers planning the death of young innocent ones, and little boys being run down by malicious candy shop owners. They are "fairy tales" for children however they are extremely unsafe stories filled with terror.

I spend my life with families who have kids exiting childhood. And far too often I meet students who have been told a lie their whole life. They have had parents who were wealthy and supportive and loving, but not honest. These students have been protected from the one reality they need to know: life is dangerous.

In the attempt to keep their children "innocent" and "free," parents tell their children a different type of fairy tale, a modern American story: everyone loves you because you're special, you are good at everything you try, and if you work hard enough and be a good little boy or girl, you'll be successful. Also, you'll never die.

Of course the language is not as blunt, but this is what we tell kids with our actions. We tell them all of this under the banner of "protecting them." They can't see certain things because it will damage their innocence, ruin their good heart, and give them a bad name.

But doesn't Scripture tell us such a different story? It's a lot more similar to Grimm's Fairy Tales. The horrific truth of life is that nothing about childhood is safe and everything about everyone is dangerous. The Bible says that there is no one who lives correctly, that the world is filled with people who will try to tear you apart, and you and I are contributors to the madness. You don't teach your son to disobey. He's already pretty good at that.

One time I was speaking at a conference and I mentioned that I am slow to trust people. Afterward, a woman came up to me and said, "You're a pastor and you don't quickly trust people - that seems kind of backwards. Wouldn't the Christian thing to do be to assume the best about people?" But the problem is that the Bible actually assumes the worst about everybody. I am slow to trust people because most people are looking out for their own benefit and not the common good.  

What I've realized over time is that I am also slow to trust others because I have no trust in myself. If no one is "good," then neither am I. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and all of the characters in those old stories made mistakes of their own that nearly cost them their life.

This is why the Bible tells us to "Trust the Lord" with all of our hearts and "lean not on your own understanding." Because of our crooked hearts, we see the world around us as either "not so bad" or too terrible to ever expose to our children. The trick of parenting becomes shepherding kids through their own brokenness, letting them in on the tragedy of the world at the same time as you let them in on the goodness of God.

We are right in desiring for our children to never be corrupted, but we must remember that we cannot save them from this world. That's why God, the best Father, sent His perfect Son Jesus to be corrupted for us so that we might be delivered from evil. This phrase "delivered from evil," should emphasize the word "deliver," for it infers that we are to spend some time amongst wicked things, namely ourselves. It's useless pretending there's no big bad wolf. God rescues us from it all.

Until then, we train our children in the understanding that enemies abound, and our greatest adversary is closer than you think, closer than under your bed or in your closet: it's right under your rib cage.

Tweet It and You've Got It

Some friends and I were recently talking about broadcasting ideas onto the Internet; the limited editing, the quickness at which we fall in love with an idea, and how we publish something with such ease that remains in one "space" forever.

The conversation turned to how we communicate things we're learning about God and how the "publish" or "share" or "tweet" button gives the idea a type of permanence and championing. It's there. Forever-ish. And people recognize you as thoughtful and sort of sharp. They "like" it, comment on it, or retweet it. Instantly, you feel good about it all and never have to revisit that thought.

I realize how easy this is: you feel convicted by an eternal truth, you write it down, and share it publicly and then make the dangerous but easy step of convincing yourself that by tweeting or sharing it online, you've mastered it.

Think it. Tweet/Blog/Status Update it. Boom. Mastered. Never have to think about that one again. Strangely dangerous.

Also, I've got to mention to irony that I'm sharing this in a blog post right? No matter the incongruity, I find myself struggling deeply with this idea: Just because we share a truth does not mean that it has changed our life, that it has sunk in at all.

Right now, I am sharing with you about how we too quickly share truths that they never sink deep enough to change us. Now that I've shared it, can I just continue on blogging and tweeting everything I think?

I don't think I need to have "mastered" everything I share, but I do need to be sure that it's done something in my life. Because you can't take people to a place you've never been. Right?

[Insert Apocalyptic Pun Blog Title Here]

With all of the verses that were thrown out on the Internet over the past couple of weeks, the ones that stick in my head are ones like this: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."

That's from 2 Timothy 4. It is, in my opinion, Paul's best advice to his protege, Timothy.

Why? Because there's something very off about the human heart, that is, about my heart: we hear what we want to hear.

But I've lived just long enough to realize that what I desperately want to be true is certainly not true. Well, not all of the time at least. With physical realities and science, this is easy. When something is able to be proven over and over, no matter how you "feel" about gravity we know that it's true. Your dreams of flight will stay in your slumber.

Our metaphysical realities are much more difficult to harness. And if we begin with the basis that humans are generally good people and that you and I have hearts that are "in the right place," then we quickly build up a solid trust of our own heads.

Religious, secular, or spiritual people have this issue. And it's ultimately what ended up blowing this whole Harold Camping/Family Radio Apocalypse thing way out of proportion. Camping was able to communicate this and garner enough publicity to reach those who genuinely and desperately wanted this to be true. And in America, all you have to do is strike a heart-string and you've won people's lives.

The Los Angeles Times reported on some Family Radio Followers' reactions to the Non-Rapture and told the story of Keith Bauer, a 38 year-old truck driver who took the week off of work to travel the US before the Rapture with his family. He pulled his kids out of school and took off for 10 days.

"If it was his last week on Earth, he wanted to see parts of it he'd always heard about but missed, such as the Grand Canyon. With maxed-out credit cards and a growing mountain of bills, he said, the rapture would have been a relief."

Keith didn't need God, Keith needed a rapture, a way out of his life - he wanted to hit the restart button because he was losing lives fast. As Christians, we've gotten very good at getting out from under the Bible and truth by listening to our Pastor when he says, "What God really means here is..." or "This isn't what it looks like..." when most often it really is.

We look for ways out of what God says because normally what he says is really difficult to understand and ever more difficult to practice.

I don't blame Keith because he's a lot like me. He wanted his circumstances to change and wanted God's help with that, instead of recognizing that the common denominator to his circumstances was the one thing he is unwilling to give up: himself.

What's Wrong With Everything

Sometimes, you hear something or say something so often that the meaning is stripped.

Earlier this week, Senator Rand Paul was commenting on the rising fuel prices and the Senate's dispute over taxing big oil companies when he said, "We're going to raise the cost of the oil companies by raising their taxes, which means you'll pay more at the pump. It is economic illiteracy and it is what's wrong up here in Washington."

"What's wrong here in Washington" is a favorite rhetorical phrase uttered by most of our politicians on both sides of the isle. Along with "the American people want..." and "Our Founding Fathers didn't mean…”, claiming that something is wrong with Washington is just something you start saying when you work in national politics.

The irony of Paul's comment (and many others) is that he's a Senator working in Washington and the son of a long-time senator. He is a part of the broken system. He is a cog in the messed up wheel. And by the way, I only single out Senator Paul because he was the most recent guy to say it.

When you look at our language in the church, not much is different. Many pastors (myself included) have uttered the phrase, "we live in a broken world," or "the problem with the world is..." And with one breath and half of a sentence what the politicians in Washington and we have just done is distance ourselves from the very problem we have created.

Paul is a piece of the broken Washington machine and we are a part of the broken world. To say that “the world” is destroying all we know that is good, excellent, and beautiful is to excuse our hearts from their own brokenness and sit atop our own prideful spirit.

Just because you prayed a prayer for Jesus to “come into your heart” (another empty rhetorical phrase) does not mean you are done with brokenness. Repentance is not a one-time show; it is a process, perhaps even a lifestyle of turning our hearts back to God. When you surrender to God, you don’t end your brokenness instantly, you begin the process of being made into the image of Jesus. And that’ll take your whole life.

Until then, you and I are not the solution to what is broken, we are what is broken. And Jesus is the solution. We place our hope in the fact that he’ll go on making all things new - us included.

N.T. Wright Settles It...Again.

A number of months ago I wrote about my problems with Stephen Hawking's atheism and found that many people had the same issues. His latest philosophies and writings have been met with much debate and not a whole lot of praise.

Most recently, my hero and international man of legitimacy, the scholar N.T. Wright posted a great piece in the Washington Post's "On Faith" section. He, along with many, are disappointed in Hawking and others's weak Biblical intellect and simple Christian worldview:

"It’s depressing to see Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds in his field, trying to speak as an expert on things he sadly seems to know rather less about than many averagely intelligent Christians...


...Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven’...Of course, the old set-up of the ‘science and religion’ debate was itself deeply influenced by this same worldview, and needs realigning. In fact, the ancient Christians would have been shocked to see their worldview labelled as a ‘religion.’ It was a philosophy, a politics, a culture, a vocation... the category of ‘religion’ is part of the problem, not part of the solution."

You can read the whole thing here. N.T. Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England and is the author of several scholarly works, most notably his take on the resurrection entitled, The Resurrection of the Son of God, which is freaking huge.  His best, most accessible work is called, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense and I think most of you should look into reading it. Maybe. Ok. Do it.

The Right Match

A fish is a sweet animal because it can breath underwater. Fresh green grass is beautiful and on a sunny day it doesn't get much better than taking a nap in it under a tree. Put that awesome fish with that fine grass and you'll get a dead fish in the grass. Also, an embarrassing clean-up process.

We know this rule: the combination of two things need complimentary characteristics that makes them work well together. Opposites attract. She's outgoing and he's shy. That fish has gills and fins that work perfectly when underwater and not that well on the grass (believe me, I tried it once when I was little and my dad got really mad at me and I spent that night in my room, grounded because he just paid for that fish and that's his money that he works so da -- just don't do it).

When my brother and I were little, my dad would make Mac 'n' Cheese. My brother loves Mac and loves cheese, but would never touch Mac 'n' Cheese. Why? He didn't think they went together well (I know, and he's in therapy so we're happy).

Nature tells us that often times we are most free when we are set up under certain restrictions of a complimentary match - when we have found a mate or a habitat we can best exist with. But what we end up doing with our lives is parceling ourselves out to everything we find awesome. We put a little bit of ourselves with a girl, a little bit of ourselves to our family, and most of ourselves to school or a job. We even split our time living in one place and buying another house that we can relax in.

Instead of finding our whole self in one place, we take pieces of ourselves and dish it out to a ton of different things we think are good. And they are good, but is it the right match?

Christians are really good at messing with this. How often do you hear someone list out their priorities as "God first, family second, and ministry/work third"? I hear it all the time. We have our "God time" in the morning so we can have "work time" during the day and then "family time" at night (except when a good game is on, then you have "me time").

Did Jesus do this? Did he have neatly blocked time frames to "be with God" and then "do ministry" and then "hang with his homies." Not at all. In fact, there are multiple times where Jesus is trying to get to a secluded place to rest and people bother him. He doesn't say, "excuse me, but you're interrupting my quiet time." No, he serves them.

And why?

Because you live one life and you are one person. God is not a device that you turn on and off and neither is your family. Every decision you make is a spiritual decision and every word you say is a spiritual word.

God is our perfect match, but only when our whole life is given to Him and defined by Him. Giving one day a week to God is not what the Scriptures have told us, giving our very lives to God is exactly what the Scriptures have told us. Placing all of who you are under the freeing restriction of God changes not necessarily what you do, but how you go about doing everything.

Us with God. That is how life is supposed to work. The difficult thing is realizing that the "us" part is more complex than you might think and the "with" part is more dangerous than we would like.

A Safer World?

Something that has changed in our globalized world is that we're able to hear "America" react to major events instantly. We're able to hear how everyone is handling everything all of the time.

In an event like yesterday's, my Christian brothers and sisters become increasingly confused: do I agree with people who are happy or do I agree with people who are calm about it all? Do I "love my enemy" right now or do I rejoice in the death of a wicked man?

With the spread of communication much authority has been lost, so we hear everything and decide quickly. That's why you get high school students saying they agree with a certain position because "it just makes sense." What they mean by that is, "the person who said that made me feel better." The loudest voice wins.

On the flip side, the beauty of the interconnected age is that it gives a critical thinker tons of resources. If you can tune out the noise to enjoy the music of healthy discourse, you'll have a sound opinion and a better view of the world. And in our critical thinking, we realize that everything is not so simple.

Jon Furman works down the hall from me and saves me from a lot of mistakes. I suggest, amidst the noise, you listen to Jon's summation of the noise and his call to us to remember that it pains God to pronounce judgement on his creation.

“Say to them; 'As I live,’ says the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?”- Ezekiel 33:11

Even at the death of an evil man, we can make some evil remarks about it all. True followers of Jesus do not react wickedly to evil. Just because a dangerous man falls doesn't mean we get out from under God's call on our lives. We don't get out of jail free, remember.

Certainly, as our President said, the world is safer without a guy like Bin Laden around. But let's remember that we also are extremely dangerous individuals. Evil does not just exist in a suburb of Pakistan, it's trying to make its way out of our own hearts. This much is clear: we need Jesus just as much as the next guy.

Is There Anything Right About the USA Today Website?

I have to admit, I never went to USAToday.com until today and I made that decision for multiple reasons. One, if your newspaper design is terrible, it's close to guaranteed that your website will make me want to blow chunks. Secondly, I'm pretty sure Yahoo! News just buys USAToday stories anyways.

But I was sent there for the first time and decided to get a look at their home page and OHMYWORDWHATTHEHECK

 (Please click on the image to barf)

This is what happens when you stop caring. So many things to pick apart, but can we just start with a simple question: Why do you have an ad for the 2010 Census in your upper right hand ad-space? And why is it so pixilated? It is nearly May of 2011 so I'm pretty sure the guy who forgot to fill out his census will see this ad and still think it to be too much of an effort. If the Census paid top dollar for this, then good on you, USAToday.

Secondly, your front page story is on the fifth Fast & Furious movie with a promise that it delivers "high octane entertainment." But not to be missed is the assorted list of top headlines to the right of Vin Diesel as if he were curious in the top stories, which include: Mariah Carey's twins, warning for homebuyers, and the third most popular article (second list of sentences as you move right from Mr. Diesel) "Casey Abrams says he growled too much."

America!!!

What's the worst website design you've ever seen? I'm talking like this bad.

The American Gods

One of my favorite quotes is from A.W. Tozer and it goes like this: "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

Baylor University sociologists Paul Froese and Christopher Bader have contributed what seems to be an excellent study of what American people think about when they say, "God." 

95% of Americans believe in "God," so the issue obviously becomes one of definition. Who is this God? I find it increasingly helpful to have a name to the God we worship as Christians, saying the name of Jesus is a quick way to separate and tear down misconceptions people hold in their mind when they think about "God." Nonetheless, there still lies many divisions in our definition of "God" and the role he has in the universe.

Froese and Bader have released, America's Four Gods: What We Say About God - and What That Says About Us and I've been holding out for the paperback. Thankfully, the wonderful people at Duke's Faith & Leadership posted a great article summarizing a lot of the scholarly ground work included in the book. In the results of the study, Froese and Bader find these common adjectives amongst most Americans:

• The Authoritative God: God is like a literal father, both engaged as a positive force in the world and a judge of the behaviors of humankind. Suffering can be the result of social and individual sins.
• The Benevolent God: God is mainly a force for good in the world, a being who answers the prayers of individuals and comforts the suffering.
• The Critical God: God is less likely to be concerned with moments in the lives of individuals, but will mete out judgments in the next life. This is a popular image among the poor and oppressed, the authors state.
• The Distant God: God is a cosmic force that sets the laws of nature in motion, but does not get involved in day-to-day events or movements.

Read the whole thing here. 

Taking Jesus For All That He Is

It is difficult to find somebody who disagrees with Jesus' teachings. No matter what someone thinks about Christianity, when they are shown the raw teachings of Jesus they are impressed and inspired. Mostly. But Jesus being Lord over all and the Son of God? That seems like a stretch, they say.

On face value, I totally agree. I mean, the guy said some good things, but can't people who say good things also have messianic delusions? In fact, Mark Oppenhiemer of The New York Times said this exact thing (quite out of the blue) a month ago in his article about the new C.S. Lewis Bible. And I've thought about that when I was first getting into this whole Christian thing.

Jesus said great things, sure, but when it came to it, after he said these great things and got a following he just started thinking a little too highly of himself and said some things that weren't true.

But hold on...

In an examination of Christ's teachings, it becomes pretty clear that every one of his commands is actually rooted in his Messianic identity (the fact that he is God). Observe, just my top three favorite teachings:

Do you like his teachings on love? They are based in the fact that He is love. He is the source and creator and sustainer of all love.

Do you like his teaching on peace? They are based on the fact that he is peace. He is the source of the Sabbath and the creator of the seventh day.

Do you like his teachings on forgiveness and loving your enemies? It is based on the fact that he was killed by his enemies and yet he died forgiving them.

You can't separate Jesus' teachings from who he is because one informs the other. An examination of Christ's words show us that His teaching is founded upon a claim of who he really is. Biblically speaking: commands are always rooted in promises.

I stole that last line from Jeff Patterson. DEAL WITH IT.

Seeing Through

A guy who works with me at the church once said, "Think less about cool and more about Jesus." I like that. When I heard that I took it to mean that whatever we do should be see-through.

Many people love the worship music at churches and say they go "for the music." Some people obsess over the Bible teaching and say they go "for the teaching." They say things like, "it's just so solid" or "the music leader is so wonderful." Or what about the building? "The facility is really nice."

These are kind compliments, but they miss the point.

We see all over the Bible that Jesus is the point. If you look closely at the Greek, Jesus wasn't building his church on the rock of Peter, he was building his church on himself, the Rock of Ages. And if you listen to his words about the Holy Spirit, you'll see that the whole idea of the Spirit is to point back to Jesus. And if you listen to the Risen Christ's words to the men on the road to Emmaus, you'll understand that the entire Old Testament was a testimony of the Messiah to come, who would be named Jesus.

He's the point.

And so we like the music. And we love the teaching. We like the buildings and we enjoy the classes. I end up meeting a lot of people who are Christians because they found a nice little niche in the Evangelical sub-culture. They can act like a Christian, like Christian things, and enjoy Christian friends. But can they see through all of that?

Jesus, for all of us, gives the tangible form of the intangible. As the Scriptures tell us, he is the image of the invisible. He is the point because he is very clear and specific.

So churches like ours sings songs, opens the Bible, and gathers together in order that we might see Jesus. The problem becomes when we forget that all of this stuff is see-through.

In an age where everyone is "spiritual" and many people "go to church," let's remember that we go to church to meet Jesus, sing songs to Jesus, and we open the Word so that we might know Jesus.

The Bible is not the point. The Church is not the point. The music is not the point. The Community Group is not the point. Jesus is the point. And we make these practices so that we might be reminded of Him and the riches that are included within. All of our rituals are but windows.

But they are important because windows show us where to look. Nobody puts a window in place to view the garbage dump, it's a crummy view. No, if you're building your house you put windows by the beautiful view of the river or the mountains. Likewise, we point our teaching, music, and services toward the wonderful view of an accurate picture of a good God.

When you go to Easter service tomorrow, don't just look at the music, teaching, or people; try and see through it all - for there you may find God himself.

In the Garden for the Win

Just got back from the Rose Garden where I watched our Blazers come back from being down 23 in the third quarter, to win by 2 and even the series 2-2. At the height of our deficit, I looked at my buddy Alex who generously took me to the game and said, "This is not the playoff experience I was hoping for." I was so wrong. This WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. And while I mostly blog about following Jesus, I thought I would take one post for a shout out to those Blazers.

I actually have enjoyed reading the local Dallas writers after this win. It's hilarious to read an article titled, "Mavs blow by Blazers in the 3rd, silence crowd" to Tim MacMahon's lead, "The Mavericks managed to blow a 23-point second-half lead, an unbelievable collapsed even by the standards of Dallas’ disturbing recent playoff history."

It's a great day to be a Blazer, that's for sure.

The Greatest Speech of All Time

I had to...I. Had. To.

HT: John Finnerty Design

Can't Decide If 60 Minutes is Brilliant or a Piece of Trash

It's too bad that the same people responsible for Andy Rooney are the same people who bring fantastic profiles of the world's best and worst. 60 Minutes is one of those shows I find myself getting super excited about and then hating. I can't decide where I land.

Over the past two weeks, the television news magazine has compiled two very opposing, brilliant stories. The first is about the winningest coach in high school basketball, Bob Hurley, and his rejection of college jobs, money, and play at the next level. He is content with coaching St. Anthony's, a small Catholic school in New Jersey. He is involved because he loves the city and loves the kids - even if it makes him $9,000 a year.

This past week, 60 Minutes single-handedly took down Greg Mortenson, best-selling author and acclaimed "humanitarian." The crew of journalists traveled all of the world, getting comment after comment and story after story that proved Mortenson's heart-wrenching stories of helping Middle Eastern countries build schools to be fabricated and false. Turns out for all the good he has done, many of his memoirs are untrue and many of his school buildings are either wildly underfunded or empty. Furthermore, his non-profit has been bankrolling a lot of Mortenson's speaking gigs: spending 1.7 million on book-related expenses and 1.3 million on building schools. Sounds a bit uneven. The publishers are now reviewing his books.

Yikes. Two very different profiles, huh? And both reported by Steve Kroft! Nice!

But what's going on here? These are both fascinating stories for different reasons: in the first, we have a noble dude doing something small, but great, something he is recognized for but makes little money or notoriety for. In the second, we have a world famous humanitarian who's doing it all wrong.

The difference is in the details. Both guys are on 60 minutes, both guys are seen in the public eye in one way or another, but they both got to that program's airwaves in very different ways.

Americans desire to accomplish something amazing: a new wakeboarding record, a better company, a bigger church. We all value great things and huge successes, but is this what God honors?

I like that the God of the Bible doesn't really care if you're famous and successful by other people's standards or not, he just cares if you're faithful. The wisdom books of the Scriptures tell us to seek "righteousness," which we sometimes view translated as "unattainably perfect behavior." But "righteousness" could be translated as "right living." This is a word that is about the process of our accomplishments and how we go about attaining what we attain. We do not value the process, do we? We value the ends, not the means.

The Christian life is about embracing all that Christ is in order to achieve this righteousness because he is righteousness. He didn't just live rightly, he lived perfectly - and in our place. He is not just the means and not just the end, but he is both, described by a Greek-culture as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

These stories show us that while what you accomplish is quite important, how you go about accomplishing it matters more than you know.

Too Legit To Quit

I didn't come up with that title - this guy did.

Due to an increase in traffic and my desire to take this blog to the outermost spaces of the cosmos, I decided to purchase a little spot for myself on the interwebs. If you've dropped in anytime after Sunday afternoon, you were redirected to the much cleaner www.wearemadeofsound.com

Yeah! So this shouldn't mess up anyone's RSS, but if it does let me know. And hey, now that the annoying ".blogspot" is out of our way, I think we can get a lot more done together. So pass that URL around as much as you like. Finally, thanks to you all who pass this around to one another, it's cool to hear the random people who read/enjoy and the growing number of visitors I see on my little statistical report. Friends of WAMOS, this one's for you (wait for the guitar solo around 2:48)...SING IT LEANN!!!

Bringing Out the Best

When I was growing up in the church, I was told to have someone in my life who would be able to check in on me daily and “keep me accountable” to God’s Word. Sweet idea. But in my high school years and even my early college years, it became a little difficult to have a good relationship with someone whose partial purpose was to make sure you were lined up with the rules correctly.

The role of many of my “accountability partners” became a tired checklist of specific sins. Are you doing this? Are you thinking this? Did you say anything like this? And if I did, it was time to pray it all away.

But I didn’t fully realize the weakness of this system until I met John. He had always been a friend of mine, but it wasn’t until we moved into a tiny apartment in Northwest Portland that I really began to admire the guy. He was honorable without trying to be honorable, he was godly without talking much about it, and he was naturally and effortlessly generous even though he had very little money.

What I came to find out over those years was that Biblical community is more about aspiring to be like Jesus together rather than aspiring to not be like yourself. Do you see the difference?

John was the best guy to live with not only because he was a better dude than me, but because he actually brought out great things in me that I didn’t know existed: abilities, talents, and character traits that were buried in my difficult heart would begin to surface and bear fruit.

I started to recognize that I had the same type of relationship with my girlfriend. She brought the best out in me. After realizing that, I married her as soon as I could because along with being such a good woman, she was also super hot, a trait John never really had in my eyes.

So often, people want to be in small groups and community groups and even romantic relationships to check up and make sure they’re doing everything right and squashing everything that's wrong. But is that the gospel? Why are we focused on looking at one another through the lens of doing the right thing?

We surround ourselves with people who suppress the worst things in us when instead we should surround ourselves with people who actually bring out the best in us, namely the Christ that is within us. Because once the greatness of God begins to be brought out in us, the worst of us will disappear.

This is what prompted C.S. Lewis to write his famous passage on true friendship:

“We possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases. In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious ‘nearness by resemblance’ to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have.”
         -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Starting Your Day Out Right

This guy:

Tim Keller on Stories

Well. This just blew my mind.

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to J.R.R. Tolkien's brilliantly difficult-to-read essay, "On Fairy Stories" when I was a Senior in high school. I remember getting one thing out of it: While fairy stories show little resemblance to real life both on the factual and experiential level, we need them more than ever because they tell us how things ought to be. Just because life is a certain, does not mean that life should be that way: fairy tales give us a glimpse into deep, rich truths that tell us the way life ought to be - that death should lead to life, that sacrifice should bring joy, and that the fight is actually worth it.

I mention this because I found this absolute gem of a video, which is really an audio clip placed over horrific slides of rainbows and mountains. Don't watch the video, but listen to it. The audio clip is of my modern intellectual hero, Dr. Timothy Keller, explaining the purpose of stories. Don't try to listen to this if you're not ready to give 13 full minutes of your attention. Don't do your taxes while listening to this. Don't watch TV while listening to this. Just listen to this:

HT: Justin Taylor

"But he was in the stern"

When the disciples were caught in one of the worst storms they had seen on the sea, they believed they were going to die. Remember, these men were 1st century fishermen and a storm was nothing new. Yet this one was bad. They are quoted yelling for their lives as Jesus lay asleep in the stern of the boat.

What did the fishermen do?

"And they woke him and said to him, 'Rabbi...'"

They woke up the Rabbi. Sounds like the start to a bad joke. Often times we go on from this point in the story, but I'd like to stop us all here: in the midst of the storm, they woke up the teacher.

They not only woke up the teacher, they woke up the Messiah, God himself in flesh. So, let's make this simple and short: when a storm comes your way, what do you do?

Often times, we try to battle out the storm and fight it, all the while waiting for God. We wait. And we wait. And we wait. "Where is God now?" we ask. We blame him and believe him away from our lives.

Wake. Him. Up.

God will not leave you, but he might have his face turned away, he might be asleep or in other words: he might be waiting on you. If you are in the storm and waiting for God, it's time that you go to the depths of your vessel and wake him up. Speak to him, yell at him, shake him in the cages of your soul - for it might be time for a miracle.

A Reality Check

When I was studying the rhetorical characteristics of Evangelical churches in Portland, I came across a scholar from Columbia University named Randall Balmer, who quickly became an inspiration to my work. I read pockets of his book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, to help guide my limited studies and was fascinated with his quasi-journalistic but still scholastic approach to the faith culture.

Balmer goes from state to state cataloging interviews with evangelical leaders and lay-people within certain states. Since I was studying the churches in suburban Portland, I combed through his section on Oregon. Now, I'm re-reading the entire book in hopes to get a new perspective on this movement many of us find ourselves sitting in and wrestling with.

One of the best things we can do as humans is to read or listen to those outside of our own little stories. This book, if you so choose to tackle it, will certainly humble you as an evangelical Christian.

Balmer grew up in a fundamentalist Evangelical household and he does not claim to have an "objective" view on the culture as no good historian can, he says. Objectivity is an impossibility. But somehow while he gives up his objectivity, he does not surrender his scholarship. The book is such a brilliant twist of journalism and scholarship; I love it and recommend it, especially if you work within the evangelical subculture. So much of the gospel can get lost in normalized language and practices that only help us identify with one another instead of God.

I just write this post to recommend this unique work, but also to share this quote, which compares evangelicalism to adolescence (like I said, humbling) in an interview with the scholar Douglas W. Frank:

"No stage of life is more prone to hero worship than adolescence. An adolescent is strongly influenced by group conformity and the expectations of other people; it's a stage in which self-consciousness is at its height. 'I see [evangelicals]...constantly comparing themselves to the standards of spiritual behavior they've established and asking "How am I doing?" and "Am I good enough?" and "How do I appear to others?"' Spiritual appearances are very important to evangelicals, just as an adolescent spends a lot of time in front of the mirror."
            -Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, p. 269

As Liz Lemon would say, "Ya burnt!" This hurts only because I see a lot of my own journey in this passage.

I celebrate a lot of what Evangelicalism has brought to Jesus followers everywhere, heck I've worked in Evangelical churches since I graduated from high school. This is not a picture of 100% of the Evangelical movement, but you have to admit it's pretty spot on for a lot of our experience, huh?

We must lead ourselves and our people away from self-obsessed spiritual adolescence.

First Crack at Self-Publishing

In our growing youth ministry, there's a lot to celebrate. I have loved watching more and more kids show up on Wednesday Nights, to see the numbers rise because each of those numbers represents a real kid who has started plugging in, making relationships, and learning about Jesus. Some pastors say, "Well, I don't care about numbers, I just love people." The truth is, as Pastor Joel reminded me this weekend, if you really love people you would want more and more people coming to church where they can meet other individuals who know Christ. It's that simple. In the church, attendance "numbers" is just a way of representing people.

So as we've been growing, it was amazing to see 33 of our students answer the call to come to Managua, Nicaragua this summer. We've been raising money and training our students for the last month, watching God provide over and over again. As we slow down the financial emphasis, we're turning our eyes toward preparing spiritually. One of our leaders came up with the idea to do a devotional book before we left for the trip, something we could all do together. It was difficult for me to find one that would work well for us, so I decided to write one.

I focused the 18-day devotional on the Christian virtue of servanthood, calling the book, Not Your Gut Instinct. I had some help and input from our staff, but the finished product looked pretty good despite my lack of design skills. It took tons of work but reminded me how much I love putting together and assembling a long-form piece.

Writing blog posts is somewhat easy; they act as stand-alone little messages that only go into so much depth. For some reason over the course of putting together the devotional, I was reminded of the one man show I wrote in high school that ended up in our annual playwriting festival. I think long-form writing is becoming increasingly rare our blogs and twitter accounts are being turned into books, it is difficult to think about the large scope of a long story.

This is why I still have a lot of appreciation for books, newspapers and certain magazines, especially what Dave Eggers and McSweeny's is doing. In our age of awesome web-based information and well designed and maintained blogs (which I love, obviously), there are still some things that long-form, large and well-designed pieces can do that computer and web-based work cannot do. I love when people explore these limits, publishing boldly. It was fun experimenting a little with it and got me thinking about other things we can do to stretch the limits of the press in order to keep it as a relevant medium.

We definitely need to explore all of the Internet, but in doing so also recognize its limitations. I really do not see the irrelevancy of print, I just see a some laziness. It's easier to build a website than a well-designed printed publication. I'd love to see the universities stretch the limits of the printed word as well as publishing companies and the Church.

The Jimmy Fallon Crew is Killing It

When you're in youth ministry, "dude check out this video" is a common phrase uttered toward you. I was sent this video through multiple streams and it has solidified my opinion that Jimmy Fallon's crew is killing it. Yet another performance of a lifetime.

Specific Love

St. Paul writing to his apprentice Timothy says this about their ministry:

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

Plain as day, we are meant to love people as Christ has loved us. But love is a specific thing in the Bible, it is not some ambiguous notion that has to do with good feelings. We say this word “love” all the time and yet have trouble understanding it. Paul specifies: our love comes from a heart and a conscience that are both pure and good along with a faith that is honest. We are commanded to love, but love out of something, out of an abundance of love, out of a changed heart, out of a clear mind, out of a hope in God.

Love is not ambiguous, it is specific: “By this we know what love is,” St. John writes, “that Jesus Christ laid his life down for us and we ought to do the same for our brothers and sisters.” Love is not contrived or thought up and checked off the religious to-do list, love is an outpouring - so what is filling you up?   

The Christian life operates so well this way because our well, our resource, our center is not an argument or doctrine, but a person. It is founded on a man who lived perfectly and died forgiving people who hated him. Our well is deep and our love is specifically self-sacrificing and generous.

Paul continues writing to his protege saying, “Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussions…” 

When we fix our eyes on “being right” instead of God making us right, we miss the gospel and get trapped into religious fundamentalism. But fundamentalism is not bad if our fundamental becomes the man Jesus. When our fundamental becomes the manifested love of Jesus who died for his enemies, our lives change and we love out of a clean heart, clear mind, and an honest hope in something much greater than ourselves.

The Future-Church Website and The Collected Puns of Mr. Freeze

Some things are sent to you and you need to share them with the world before you get back to work. The world needs to know immediately. Two things were sent my way that you need to know about.

First, please witness Evangel Cathedral's website, which could be the website to take us into the era of TRON...or something worse, like TRON LEGACY. Either way, you need to click on that link and make sure your computer speakers are at full blast.

Secondly, observe "The Tragedy of Mr. Freeze," which is a perfect compilation for the Govenator's retirement party...

The Best Three Questions I've Ever Heard

It was during a time when my faith was rolling along "fine" (which actually means it's dead) when someone gave me these three questions.

I tend to get skeptical when people tell me their relationship with God is fine and their "heart is in the right place" mainly because my faith experience is rarely "fine" and my heart is never in the right place.

"My faith is fine." Really? What god do you know? Mine is holy, intense, overly-compassionate and complex and yet totally simple, loving, and just. And everything is fine with him? Please tell me how you do it.

Friends, the scriptures are clear: there is a godly contentment and a godly discontentment.

In fact, sentences after St. Paul tells his protege Timothy that "there is great gain in godliness with contentment," he tells him to "fight the good fight of faith?" When was the last time you were content during a fight? If you've ever been in a fight, you'll remember that you were scared out of your mind, adrenaline rushing, and making split second decisions to save your life.

Sound like your Christianity?

The nation God chose to move through in the Old Testament is named "Israel," which literally translates as, "Those Who Wrestle With God." He named his nation whom he would work through a word filled with discontentment and tension. There is godly contentment and there is godly discontentment. It's just about being content in the right things. Being content in your knowledge of this God is missing a lot of who God is - on the other hand, being discontent in what God has provided for you is to be prideful.

So at the point in my life where these things were going screwy, someone gave me these questions, which are written all over my possessions and notebooks:

1) Do you have any real affection for God?

2) How do you spend your time and your money?

3) How do you view the world around you? (i.e. Do you see the world as everyone existing to serve you and your delight or do you see it as you existing to serve everyone and their delight?)

These questions changed my life because there's no escape from them. When we are honest with ourselves, we know if the word "affection" resonates when we think about God, or when our money and time are being spent without any consideration of others, and when we see that barista and that server and that employee and that spouse as existing to serve us rather than the other way around. We know. And it haunts us.

The beauty is that these are also the things Jesus talked about the most and therefore they are the very things that he is saving us to: affection for God, rearrangement or priorities and treasures, and an upside-down view of the world.

Not only that, but even better: he accomplished all of these perfectly, not just to show us, but to justify us before the one we answer to. And that brings me great contentment.

This Post's Sole Purpose is to Get You To Read Donald Miller

I don't think there could have been a better time for a book to be released. I was a senior in high school when everybody started giving everybody a book called Blue Like Jazz. I can't really remember any of them telling me what exactly was so good about the book, but they just told me it was by a guy from Portland who had fresh language to add to the Christian experience.

It only took about twenty pages for me to be hooked.

Donald Miller wrote that book and it gave a Portland high school student everything he needed: a reason to keep the faith. What I love about Donald Miller is that he is able to put language to the loneliness of following Jesus and the tension that lies at the center of the faith. When I was a senior is high school, I began the process of cynicism many 18 year-olds go through. I had been dedicated to a large church for about four years and was ready to pick it apart. What I learned through reading Don's books was that 1) I am not the center of all existence 2) In all things, be honest and 3) Keeping with this Jesus thing is the way to true abundant life.

I learned a lot more, but those were the things that changed me at 18. Even moreso, the entire setting of Blue Like Jazz was my backyard. Huge sections of the book are placed blocks away from the home I grew up in - this was big because it increased the book's tangibility.

I bring all of this up to share with you a solid quote from one of his most recent blog posts:

"...it’s...tempting to hang a carrot in front of people telling them they have to 'become' in order to be used by God rather than admitting they actually 'become' while they are in the process of being used by God."

Read Don Miller books and his blog. 

New Material

My brother used to have a sign in his room. It wasn't anything fancy, just a piece of printer paper pinned to his wall with scotch tape. In black, bold Sharpie it read, "WRITE EVERY DAY."

I'm not sure if he stayed true to that self-command, but it was a good thing to have hanging around your room as a writer. My brother is a gifted writer, he has the unique ability of turning intangible experiences into words. When you cannot express yourself or your feelings in response to something, he can - and that's why he writes about movies. But what always impressed me about Scott is that he is a disciplined writer. He writes consistently, rarely wavering in his pace. When I started the blog four and a half years ago, he told me one thing: "Just don't give up on it. Keep posting, no matter what."

Being a disciplined writer came quickly for me because my work has always demanded that I produce new original written content. From sermons to the constant barrage of emails, writing well became a necessity very quickly.

What has become increasingly difficult, however, is getting my life to keep up with my writing.

This is what I mean:

When you write a sermon, you're often writing to an audience that hears you or someone like you quite a bit. They know you. So, the problem becomes generating fresh material with new wisdom. There's quite a bit a pressure, even if much of it is unwarranted.

Nevertheless, I find myself sometimes thinking: I'm just not reading enough books, or, I need to watch more TV to get better ideas or, I really need to go to more movies and subscribe to more magazines. And while all of these things contribute to my knowledge, they don't necessarily stir content for sermons. Why, you ask?

You see, the best sermons have two qualities: 1) they give the audience an accurate picture of God 2) The picture of God they get is supported by tangible examples from a shared reality between the speaker and his/her audience.

The worst sermons, then, show you nothing about God and have very little to do with real life.

Many times I find myself thinking I need to change things about my life to come up with fresh concepts to write or say when the reality is that I need a fresh vision of God to change my heart.

That, in the end, is why I pray, read the Bible, and read books; I do these things so that I might catch a renewed vision of the God of the universe. This doesn't mean that I have profound spiritual experiences on a weekly or even monthly basis. Actually, it means I have less existential experiences.

We do not necessarily see new things, read new things, or experience crazy new things when we enter life with God. Instead, the lens in which we see all things has been forever changed. We don't need the things that we say to be changed, we need our hearts to be changed. Because then, out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths speak.

I love sermons and I love the challenge of writing every day because they both keep me desiring fresh pictures of God. The "new material" I need is not a thought or belief, but a heart. And that won't change my circumstances, it'll change me.

Franklin Comes Alive

Great record store find yesterday. You'll only get this if you laughed at the title or when I say: It ain't easy bein' white...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Writing Music

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am sure the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important.So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.
-Roy Clark, Writing Tools

HT: Take Your Vitamin Z

This Makes March Madness Look Calm

My love for the game of basketball just transcended national and international borders:

Of

Prepositions are extremely important. How 8th grade English teacher was that first sentence? Doesn't make it less true, though.

Being over the table is very different from being under the table. Just like being with your dog is very different than being against your dog. Or placing your drink over the piece of paper is very different from placing your drink in the piece of paper. Those little prepositions change quite a bit of meaning.

Subtle difference. Super important.

Why are prepositions so important? Because they give us a location, they tell us where one thing is in relationship to the other thing.

And so, one of the better things I have done regarding studying the Bible is to notice prepositions in the text.

You'll notice after a simple word study and search, that God talks a ton about being the "Lord of______" but very rarely talks about being the "Lord over_______."

In fact, the difference is staggering. In our best translations we see God using "Lord of_____" about 35 times depending on translation and only using "Lord over_____" only one time ("over Israel").

Well, what's the difference of being "Lord of" something and the "Lord over" something?

Everything.

To be over something is to dominate. Something God certainly could do. But the preposition "of" is how he describes himself. "Of" is a preposition that expresses the relationship between a part and a whole; the word "of" indicates an association of belonging between two separate entities. It tells us that one is a part of the other.

The days of the week.

The sleeve of his coat.

The back of her neck.

This small, seemingly insignificant word, is all about belonging.

To be Lord over the nations tells us that he is domineering and above us. To be Lord of the nations says that he is with, a part, in relationship alongside of us, but still very much doing his part: which is to be "Lord." He is not out of place when on earth, but he's still in charge.

This is why the Christian God is so different. He came to the nations, to the earth as man and lived among us. He, for a while, belonged. He breathed our air and made the bold statement: I am with you.

God became a part of the story of the earth and yet still kept his identity as Lord. Jesus' teachings were all rooted in this fact that he was Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of Hosts, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and the Light of the World.

He is the Lord that sits alongside people and yet remains the true Lord, the King. He is the Lord of all. And yet, is he the Lord of you?

A Church For The World

"The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity...She must take her part in the social life of the world, not lording it over men, but helping and serving them. She must tell men, whatever their calling, what it means to live in Christ: to exist for others."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The effort to separate the Church from the world is a delicate balance. Biblically, we are "called out" and "separate" from the normal flow of human life. And yet, as Tim Keller would put it, "The citizens of heaven are the greatest citizens of earth." We are separate, yet essentially a part of our cities.

If we are truly to exist for others, should it be so much so that we seek their (the world's) peace over our peace? Their comfort over ours? Their prosperity over ours? Is this not what Christ has done for us?

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." - 2 Corinthians 8:9

Maybe that's why the Israelites were instructed to seek the peace and prosperity of others in order to find it themselves - maybe it was a preview of what was to come to a barn in Bethlehem:

"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” - Jeremiah 29:7

In giving all that we have, we are promised that we will gain our souls. If we are pouring out, we are promised to be filled. If we give, we are promised to receive. The Christian life is that upside-down.

You Know You're Working With Great People When...

Stuff like this appears on the window to your office.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Martin Bashir Gets All Bashir on Rob Bell

I think I like this because Bashir doesn't like evasive answers. So when people give him evasive answers, he gets a little steamed.

The Heart of Darkness

I used to think I understood the Advent Scripture: "The people in darkness have seen a great light!" But upon re-reading the account of Ernest Shackleton, I am once again humbled.

Shackleton and his crew were a part of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. One of his final expeditions was the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which was an attempt to cross the continent of Antarctica by way of land.

Their ship, the Endurance, was caught in polar ice and eventually crushed after his team was unable to free it. The men made their way across the continent for months and took to make-shift camps until preparing a rescue operation which consisted of Shackleton leading open-boats to the coast to South Georgia to gather rescue resources. It is still held that everyone survived.

Dr. Timothy Keller brings this story to life in his second to last chapter of King's Cross. Keller says that Shackleton's biographers all claim that through every hardship of the Endurance Expedition - which included starvation, arctic temperatures, and blistering wind - the most horrific part of the journey was the polar darkness.

The biographer's claim that there is nothing more desolate and depressing than the arctic night, which can last for months.

It is such deep darkness, so absent from the sun, that men unfamiliar with it have gone insane. Not only can you not move forward, but you cannot see yourself at all. Not a hand in front of your face. For months.

Keller describes it like this:

"You have no direction...You don't know what you look like. You may as well have no identity….Physical darkness brings disorientation."

This is exactly like metaphysical or spiritual darkness, says Keller.

Why were the "people in darkness" so happy to see a great light? It gave them direction. It gave them identity. It gave them orientation, a place in which to orbit their life around.

And the "great light" that the prophet speaks of? Jesus. On the cross, it was Christ who drank the darkness of God's wrathful absence so that we might have direction, identity, and orientation. Now, with eyes fixed on Him, we not only see the light, but by that very light we see all things.

A Quick Word About Those Millionaires

So it seems as though everyone is linking to Fidelity's study of millionaires that concluded 42% of millionaires do not consider themselves wealthy. The survey questioned 1,000 millionaires. The number the millionaires felt would make them wealthy would be $7.5 million. Roughly. Not 7.4. Ok, never mind.

It seems to me as though we're missing an interpretation. Might I add to the noise?

The links and short articles pointing to the study basically cite the sources and statistics and say something like, "poor millionaires" or "somebody call the wambulence" or "maybe we should offer them a Bud Crieser."

But where does that interpretation come from? How free are you from the same desire those millionaires have?

You see, at the root of this survey is lust or greed: it is the desire for more, the just-the-next-thing-and-then-I'll-be-fine mentality. If we're honest with ourselves, are we not suffering from the same thing? I know I am. I am constantly finding my brain wonder from level to level. Once I finish school, once I get into grad-school, once I get noticed by someone, once I get enough money, etc, etc, etc...

This study should not be so shocking. Human nature is to desire more. Money complicates this desire and feeds it.

But Christianity has this great virtue called, "godly contentment." And of course the theologian Sheryl Crow sums it up the best: "It's not having what you want, It's wanting what you've got." I'm not old by any sense, but I have learned that no matter where I get to, what level I rise to financially, I'll always want more and believe that in having more I'll be happier. But sometimes we need to listen to the wisdom of St. Biggie: "Mo' money, mo' problems."

Also, can we realize that 58% of the millionaires did consider themselves wealthy? Maybe Sheryl is one of them...

Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney Get Along

Again, people, this is precisely what the Internet is for. MJ and McCartney doing dishes somewhere.

HT: Twenty-Two Words

A Summary of All Good and Evil

Perhaps the most famous line in Genesis is in chapter 50, verse 20 where Joseph says to his brothers: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

Beautiful. What was meant for evil is actually being used for the best possible good of everyone. We tend to use that verse to make us feel better about crappy things that happen. Like earthquakes. But sometimes that verse isn't enough. You read words of survivors and then you read those and you think, Ugh, I don't know about that. Is it that simple? Ok, maybe you don't, but I certainly do.

But what if it was bigger than that? When I look at that verse, I see that Joseph said it. However, placing that sentence in the greater Biblical narrative, I see the Greater Joseph, Jesus Christ, saying that exact line at the conclusion of all things or....right now.

Place those same words on the lips of Christ: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

Fits pretty well, huh? Evil was done to Jesus. Injustice was done to Jesus. Jesus lived and died surrounded by evil. And yet...He raises and it is very good news indeed. 

So many people ask, "Why did God let this world go to crap?" But what if it wasn't going to crap? What if our definitions of "alive" and "good" and "evil" are elementary and only half-correct? What if God is actually in control?

It doesn't seem like it. It really doesn't, does it? I cannot look at some pictures. My stomach hurts when I read some of the words of people suffering through the world. Evil is everywhere and I seem to have no one to blame but the One in "control." My instinct is that, when I review the history of the world, there is more punishment and crime than any world could handle. My instinct says that there is only evil.

But when we think we know that to be untrue. There is beauty and brokenness, righteousness and wickedness, good and evil. My idea is this: instead of using this verse to explain evil (something we love to try our hand at), could it be used in a greater way - to comfort us amidst evil?

Listen to His words, the Greater Joseph, once again and in context:

"Do not fear...you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones." Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. 

Let your fear subside as you let Him comfort and speak kindly.

C.S. Lewis is More Popular Than Ever

And that could be a bad thing.

Last week, the New York Times ran a story about HarperOne's new C.S. Lewis Bible, which I am a tad wary about.

Mark Oppenheimer, who wrote the story, presents the new Bible with heavy skepticism, taking every opportunity to slight Lewis, including a mis-placed and inconsistent rebuke of Lewis's famous "Liar, Lunatic, Lord" apologetic. All of that aside, I think Oppenheimer brings up a more important idea: Lewis is being sold as a personality cult.

The C.S. Lewis Bible is a simple idea: publish a Bible and throw Lewis quotes from both his published and unpublished works next to verses or sections of Scripture. It's somewhat helpful and I really don't have much against it. Harper is a publishing company that makes most of their money off of the 150,000 Mere Christianity copies they sell every year - they're making another C.S. Lewis buck. I get that.

But there is still a problem.

I get worried about using quotes that are put in places Lewis never intended them to go. It's like putting just "Carry That Weight" on the Best of the Beatles album; It wasn't meant to go there, it was meant to be one piece of the greater work called Abbey Road. And it needs to stay there. In fact, it doesn't really make sense unless it is there.

People will buy this Bible and read more of the Bible and Lewis and that's great. But they won't necissarily get either in its proper context. For example, many people mis-read and mis-interpret Lewis (like many Christian thinkers) by taking a single quote out of an entire work. Lewis is a brilliant writer because his books tell stories, make arguments, and build theologies over an entire piece.

My worry is that people will continue to say, "I love C.S. Lewis," when they really love the idea of C.S. Lewis from the quotes they get from their Twitter feed or C.S. Lewis Bible. This is not the end of the world or the end of Lewis by any means, I just don't think it's very helpful for readers of the Bible or of Lewis.

Lewis wrote great, complete books and we should read them, not cut them up and sell them in different packages.