I feel like there is a Jesus image that we lift up for each generation. It’s rather strange to think that this timeless Gospel must be re-branded every few years to “relate” to our culture. Our culture is going downhill rather fast. Shouldn’t we be lifting up the timeless truth of the Gospel rather than the latest rendition?
I’ve been giving a lot of though to the idea of how we typically do outreach. I think I have often misunderstood that marketing and outreach were the same thing. A talk the other day with one of the pastors at the church I’ve been involved in lately has really opened up my eyes to how marketing can also become a trap that we fall into. We are supposed to “market” God with our lives, not just some catchy slogan on a billboard somewhere. The catchy slogans are good for building awareness that someone indeed wants to reach out (outreach) to them and may serve as a connecting point, but we will never touch a life through a fancy billboard. It’s what happens when people do respond to our marketing efforts that changes lives. But here’s the catch, marketing isn’t required if lives are indeed changed. Marketing will only be to let outside people know of the exciting things already going on.
I saw this video the other day and I thought it was wonderful. You may also recognize the guy who plays in the tv show “Bones”. But what I liked about the video was the message. We have an opportunity to “validate” and encourage others. So often we miss out on the chance to do so.
found via shallowfrozenwater (awesome find by the way)
I know often I am blinded to the spiritual element of life. I go day to day thinking that things could be coincidence or just random events conspiring against me. I forget that we are at war. It”s not that I don’t believe that I am at war for my soul, it’s that the way this war is waged is not by physical weapons. It’s thoughts and feelings and nudges of both demonic influences and my own sinful nature that are working against God in my life.
All we get out of sin is death and destruction.
Sure, sins seem nice when they are happening. We even try to justify them a thousand different ways. But what it ultimately comes down to is that God is God. He is the one who decides if something is sin or not. In fact God even holds Himself up as the standard of Truth and righteousness.
If there is question about it, stay away.
It gets me that some argue that certain things are not sin because it’s part of their genetic makeup. I find it amazing that they have come to that conclusion because scripture tells us we have a problem called “sinful nature”. I won’t deny it.
- I am likely to speed every time I drive, so I use the cruise control to keep myself in check.
- My mother was an alcoholic, therefore I stay away from beer.
It’s really that simple. I realize that I am prone to a certain sin so I take more measures against it. Sin is still part of our nature though. Often, those sins we are most likely to commit are also the ones that we are most aware of actually being sin and are the ones we usually fight most vehemently that they are not.
The opposite of rebellion is repentance.
Once we are aware of our sin, we can accept God’s grace. Repentance means humbling yourself and turning around and going the other way when you realize you were wrong. Rebellion is going the way you know is wrong knowing it is wrong.
Sin and the Church.
Unfortunately, many people who attend church have gotten it backwards. Church is a gathering of sinners who recognize their own depravity and want to be in community with other people seeking out the way of repentance. So the church can be divided in several categories of people.
- Those who recognize their own depravity and are somewhere in the process of turning away from it and seeking God.
- Those who think they have it all figured out and so waste their time by telling those who are seeking God where they think He is.
- Those who are delusional that their particular brand of sin is somehow acceptable to God and are seeking the acceptance of the church to somehow justify themselves.
- Those who really don’t care one way or the other so they go with whatever the majority thinks.
I’m a mess, you’re a mess, we’re all a mess.
Not to sound like an AA meeting, but we are all sinners and we have to come to recognize that fact first. You don’t have to justify it to me because God’s the one who has set the standard.
There’s a lot that has been said about how community is dying in the face of things like social networking in our age. I am one of those people who have become so connected to networks instead of people over the last few years. I check my twitter. I write on my blog. I visit friends on facebook. I skype everyone else (which is so much cheaper than a landline phone). There is an increasing feeling I am immersed in a world that is created as a facade by the real people I never touch. But this is not me…
Read More Post a comment (1)It’s been crazy around here lately. Let me share a few things that have been going on recently. No this isn’t a complaining post… just read to the end (I’m sorry, I know it’s long). ;) My wife has been sick as of late. It started Saturday with a mild cough. Then it became body aches too.
Let me back up a bit though.
Saturday night, my parents had called to say that their car had broken down. They needed someone to come and get them and take them home. Now if you know my family, you also know that my dad has AIDS and with that a weakened immune system. So staying out of cold nasty weather in the middle of flu season is a good idea. Becca was working on Saturday so she wasn’t with me when I picked them up and took them home. I drove back and picked Becca up when she got off and scheduled to meet my parents Sunday afternoon to drive my dad around to fix their car so my mom could get to work on Monday. It was an easy fix and would only take about an hour or two, half of which was going to be going to get parts. That night Becca started feeling terrible just before bed.
She felt better Sunday morning so we thought we’d head to church.
Little side note here is that this is when I am informed that all my sites are down and I have to call my webhost and get them all back up. Stupid little database issue. It gets fixed and we think we are going to be late to church.
There’s a new church that I went to last week and really liked. I wanted her to come yesterday. Since she was feeling better with some rest, she went. Of course, we completely forgot about the time change. We showed up, asked where the children’s workers are and was told that we forgot about the time change. So, we went and got the breakfast that we had skipped because we thought we were going to be late.
The service was good. A passage from the beatitudes about the righteous inheriting the earth. We then drove with Aidan out to my parent’s house. Of course with my dad’s weakened immune system him and my mom decided that it would be best if Becca did not ride in the same car with him and her staying at their place probably wouldn’t be a good option. It was decided that Becca should be taken home with Aidan and they could both take a nap. Becca was starting to feel worse at this point. Not too terrible. Just sick like any other cold.
It gets worse from here.
I drive back to my parents house, pick up my dad and go find his tools at their house here in town. (yeah, they have two places, one they live at and the other they use for storage at the moment) We go back take the part of the car and head to the parts store. At this point Becca calls me.
“My temperature is 103, I called R&T (some friends of ours) they are coming over to get me and take me to the hospital.”
I love my wife. Sometimes, though she does things without a whole lot of warning though. My first thought was “why didn’t she call me? I’m close. I can take her.” Then I realize she thought the whole thing through already. If I take her, what do I do with my dad who is stranded? I could take him with me while I take Becca to the hospital, but it could kill him. I could take him back out to his place and tell him to wait another day on the car, but I would be another hour doing all that running around since my parents live a bit further away. See, I love her partly for this reason. She thinks things through then comes to a conclusion and lets me know the end result of her whole process. Many times I am tempted to get upset because I wasn’t a part of the whole process but when I think about it I usually come to the same conclusion she did, just after the fact.
So, in short without consulting me, she came to the best conclusion. Call friends, finish up with your dad, meet me later.
T takes Becca to the hospital. R comes over and watches their three kids and Aidan in our home. I meet Becca at the hospital to check in on her while she sits in the waiting room, then I drive my dad back to the car where he finishes up there. An hour has gone by. Becca calls me.
“The lady who came in after me who has the same symptoms… they told her it would be four hours. They also told her that they have an urgent care facility about twenty-three miles away that has no wait and are equipped to treat flu-like symptoms. They close at six. It’s five-fifteen now. R&T have offered to drive me up there.”
“My dad and I are finishing up here. I am on my way.”
“I don’t think we have time if we are going to make it before six. R&T said we have to go now.”
“I am on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes or less”
“I don’t think we have time. Meet us at the hospital.”
“I’ll take you. I’ll be there…. or just go, I’ll catch up.”
Racing a Train.
I turn to my dad, ask him if he is good. He is. I jump in the truck and head home. Albeit a little quicker (except for those stupid speed camera traps). Halfway home I have to cross railroad tracks. A train is coming. Oh great! Just what I need. To sit at a signal and wait. I see the train. I see the lights. I also had friends when I was in youth group who died of a car-train collision. The train is far enough away by the time I get to the tracks. Of course I sped up upon seeing the train. (what would you do?)
You know trains look further away when you are both heading for the same intersection. It was a slow train, I will say that. When I got to the tracks it was about 1/10 of a mile away. There were no crossing bars across the road, just lights. Still scared me though as I crossed the tracks a little faster than normal. I think I scared the train driver more cause he laid into the whistle like a banshee. Under normal circumstances I would not have crossed the tracks. The mere prospect scares me. I stop if I see lights a mile away usually. In short, don’t do it even though I did.
That was the fastest I’ve driven in awhile when I pulled into our parking lot at five-twenty-five.
Everyone was piling into R&T’s van when I pulled up. Four kids, two of which were under 10 months old. I get quick directions. Becca jumps in. They tell us that they will take Aidan home with them, while I take Becca to Urgent Care. I try to keep my speed at only a-little faster-than-normal speeds up to the urgent care facility.
We make it at five-forty-five or so. They were still open. No wait, just as promised. Becca feels horrible. (But to me she looks as beautiful as ever.. ‘cept paler)
Influenza A.
Okay, so that little section heading says it. Regular seasonal flu. Still nasty. Still contagious. Still could be really bad for someone with a really weak immune system. Treatable. Prescription prescribed. We leave. I take Becca home. I drop of the prescription. I go get Aidan from R&T’s house. He is sleepy. I stop and get pizza as both Becca and I are hungry. I pick up the prescription. I make it home. Becca is in bed. I put Aidan to bed. I am exhausted. I call my friend in Arizona, M who I don’t really tell the whole story to because I don’t want to unload on him randomly (even though he is more than okay with it and I know it). He proceeds to tell me how something I said the other day really helped him. Of all the times I needed to hear that, it was then.
Other Contagions
I am truly blessed with friends. I may not have a whole bunch of really close friends in life, but I have a select few and they are good ones. R&T who come over take my wife to the hospital, watch Aidan on a whim and we can trust them with him are amazing people. I don’t usually say too much about how good a friend someone is because it sounds hollow just saying it. People always feel like they have to respond with “oh’ it’s no big deal” or “that’s what friends do”. Maybe a card is a better way to go for me or maybe it’s one of the many reasons I am writing this post. This is one of the few places where I feel I can be myself and think through what I have to say before saying it because the rest of the time even though I speak from the heart. But when I do, the words feel rushed and inadequate to what I really want to express. M in Arizona, I’ve never met in person. We actually met on Halo 3 a few months ago. Somehow over the distance and through some silly online game that we both play we have become good friends. Our wives get on and play with us sometimes as well as M’s kids. He’s been a great encouragement to me, sent me jobs he’s found that could fit what I am looking for. R,T & M. Thank you for your help, your encouragement and just being there somehow for us yesterday. It may not have seemed like much, but it helped me get though the day. It is friends like these that make me want to be a better friend myself. This is one contagion I want to spread.
I am truly blessed with my family. I love my wife. I love my son. I love my dogs. Becca does her best to provide for our family while I’ve been hunting for a position, working from home on websites, and being a daddy to Aidan. With a wonderful family like this, one can’t help but feel that there is something more they can do. Right now, I’ve been hunting all over the country for ministry jobs and nothing has opened up. Becca has a really decent paying job and she is good at it and it’s close to home. We don’t want to relinquish this time with Aidan to a daycare, so I stay home. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, more often than not, because I want Becca to be able to stay at home with Aidan and come home to her. I know that is something she wants as well. I think that makes it hard. If there is one thing I would wish on anyone, if I could do one thing for someone it is this, to give them a family that loves them. This is another contagion that I would infect people with.
I am truly blessed with my faith. I think it sounds haughty if I say it that way, but there are days I couldn’t get though without God. After all, he’s the one who gave me this beautiful family and these good friends. I struggle a lot with my faith though. Not in the sense that I wonder if I have faith, but in the sense of learning to trust God. I think it became more real yesterday than it has in awhile. I don’t think I would have raced that train if I really had a perfect trust in God. I would have just said “thy will be done” to God and waited for the train to pass…. maybe. See there’s an issue with that scenario too. We have an extraordinary God who sometimes calls us to extraordinary measures. No, maybe I didn’t feel like God told me to come within a tenth of a mile of being hit by a train. Then again, maybe he wanted me to see something about myself.
If I would jump in front of a moving train to merely get my wife to a doctor sooner with a sickness that isn’t too terribly life-threatening, go out of my way to help my dad and out of my way to prevent him from getting sick from the same sickness, then there are a lot of people out there who still need to have someone love them enough to simply tell them the good news that Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross 2000 years ago as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have life that no one could take away. Without, the wages of sin is death. As followers of Christ, this is our calling. Save those who would die from death, and present them with not only life, but introduce them to the author of life. What is a person worth? Maybe this contagion is love. I hope you catch it.
I heard an interesting quote today from my dad. He said “Christians need community. You put them all in a community together and they rub the hard edges off each other. It’s a refining process.” I took a few moments to digest that statement and realized how true it is. If we are honest with ourselves we are pretty screwed up. All of us without exception need work and need a little refining if not a complete heart rebuild. If you look at the disciples, they were a rough bunch of characters. It took Jesus Christ three years of ministry with them and they still needed refinement and community to make them the men of God who were all eventually martyred for their faith in Christ (even John, though he survived it and died of old age eventually).
So is the church a huge rock tumbler for Christians? We polish off the hard edges and reveal the gems underneath.
Oh how we resist that rubbing against each other though. Learning to live with each other is hard work. I can understand why many churches resist any kind of outreach. They have approached that perfect synergy of not enough people to make it crowded enough that they have to touch anyone else. They sit scattered throughout the sanctuary on a Sunday morning. Reserved seats to avoid any kind of traffic jam upon leaving and far enough back that they don’t feel like the pastor is speaking to them too personally.
Then there is the other side. The perfect oiled machine with jewel movements to prevent any undue friction. It will be a politically correct sermon without really any kind of reference to sin but will focus on how God loves us just as we are. We can scale this they say. We can grow, make satellite churches, and take the message global. Make easily digested meals and serve it up to the masses. We will have our five year goals (regardless of the verse that says tomorrow has enough worries of it’s own), a perfect game plan for ministry that is a clean room dissection of the messy coagulation we find ourselves in every week when we meet together and real flesh and blood people have to touch other flesh and blood people.
I think I have figured out that this church thing isn’t about being nice. It’s not about getting in and out unscathed. We are humans after all. We hurt. We cry. We ooze emotion and puss and blood when things don’t go right. We get diseases of mind, spirit and body. It’s about being close enough to feed the hungry. It’s about being near enough to dry a tear and be a shoulder to cry on. A community that comes into the sanctuary and huddles together to keep each other warm and safe while they devise a plan to bring in more hungry, naked and diseased children out of the wind, rain and dangers that circle to devour the unsuspecting. A city of refuge. A training center for those who would risk everything for those who without knowing that there is a hope for life would choose death.
When you get close to people and you learn to love them, you hold them accountable for their actions. Not because it’s right, but because you do love them. This accountability is hard sometimes. Hard edges don’t get rubbed off overnight. It’s a process of being together and going through the pain of having those edges rubbed off gradually. Every jagged edged rock in this tumbler is valuable though. You are valuable. The marks we make on each other in love are a part of the process. Who have you made a mark on this week? Who have you held accountable? Who have you allowed in your life to hold you accountable?
