The hidden power of prayer...

This is a short video from a church in Amsterdam called Zolder. It shares an overview of the amazing things God has done for this church since its planting around 4 years or so ago.

I met the first team that came to scout out Amsterdam, in a youth hostel I was staying in during one of my many prayer journeys to Amsterdam. I realize now the work of prayer the Lord was doing in preparing the way for many new gospel initiatives, church plants and emerging ministries in that city. Over the years I have seen the Lord unveiling His redemptive plan in that city. I rejoice when I hear these reports, I truly bear a deep love for the work of God that is prevailing there. This video only alludes to the tragic fall of the lead pastor to immorality that took place in the early days of the church. But through the tragedy they survived because a church isn't about a man or even a team but...Jesus, who is Lord and head of His churches in Amsterdam.

If you are attentive you will even see Christa at the end of the video in a shot of the worship. She was staying with us a for 3 weeks a few months ago. It's amazing the way God weaves lives, stories and ministries together in ways some people never will know. I have worshipped with this church when they were in the attic. I remember my concern and uneasiness when I sat and talked with the lead guys on their first scouting trip. I remember the labor pains of prayer, the travail of tears that God splattered all over the streets of that city as I walked, worshipped, evangelized and prophesied the word of the Lord to men, canals, homeless people, prostitutes, drug addicts, kids, women, statues, churches and whatever else God said to pray over.

I remember serving various churches and ministries and people by myself with a few fellow travelers and a team from one of our previous youth churches. I remember salvation's, prayers for healing under dark bridges in the rain, dinners with missionaries who serenaded us on strange instruments. I remember the presence of God that was like a sweet incense in the room of a ministry to drug addicts, prostitutes and lost people. I remember the heroin addict who was visited by Jesus in mental hospital and was instantly delivered and set free and put back in his right mind.

But most of all I remember God calling me as a youth leader in a youth group at 18 to a city I had never heard of through a Billy Graham film. I remember walking out of Central Station in Amsterdam for the first time...tired, wild and standing on the edge of an adventure that had more ramifications and manifestations than I ever dreamed.

Mysterious are His ways.

I woke this morning with Amsterdam on my heart and again...God wept.

I believe the church has forgotten its identity. The church is not an institution, a meeting, or a building. It is not something we go to. The church is something we are — an organism, not an organization. Instead of living out this alternative vision, the church has been content to be a broker between the rich and the poor. Both those trapped in poverty and those trapped in riches view the church as a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. No radical new community is formed.  In this model, both go away satisfied (the rich feel good, the poor get fed) — but neither goes away transformed. They do not join together to discover a new way of living.

People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them. 

-Selection from the article: Downward Mobility in an Upscale World by Shane Claiborne

Sir Richard the Brave Knight - episode 2

My sons latest episode...my son is the one wearing the vader hat.

The truth do I tell you now I do...

The real reason Yoda was a shriveled up little green dude with stunted growth and a raspy voice...

Holy hugs...

Questions that have bumped around in my brain of late:
Is this what american christianity offers men?
Is the gospel another self help message?
What does real gospel community look and feel like?
Is this our image of Paul and Timothy?
Can christians get addicted to community to the detriment of mission?
Is the internet a sign of the type of community people really want?

Someday soon...

Here is one thing I will do before I die....sea-kayaking with orcas in Johnstone strait.
6 days, four hours of kayaking a day from camp to camp. You will see orcas, bald eagles, deep clearwater with all the sea life it contains, porpoises, humpback and minke whales...sounds like an amazing, fully outfitted and guided trip for only $990 bucks.

Catch the wind

I heard this song on a commercial that I thought was a Bob Dylan tune but it ended up to be a British 60's folk singer named "Donnovan". Love the song.

the fog in our eyes....

The fruit you long for has gone from you and all the things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you and men will no longer find them. -Revelations 18:14

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

cool...

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare."

- C. S. Lewis

“I really struggle with American Christianity. I’m not really sure that people with our cultural disabilities, people who grow up in a culture that worships pleasure, leisure, and affluence, are capable of having souls, or being saved.” -Rich Mullins

They are watching....

What I am watching on tv...

Best show in a long time...I am a 24 fan but this season is dragging for me, so I download 24 and watch Heros.
Good stuff.

What I am reading...

The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding how God changes lives.
By Dallas Willard
Deep, practical and rich.

What I am listening too...

Darell Evans: Uncharted Waters
Praise & Worship music
A good listen...

Children of Men

I watched this last night...what a dark, eerie, at moments, violent film and the language was way to rough for my liking.
Completely engrossing but leaves you shuddering with a overall feeling of wanting to move into the woods.
The vision of the future portrayed is desperate and gloomy...scary.
I am still trying to figure out the whole "faith" elements in the film...and what was the "Human project"?
The total environmental destruction and pollution portrayed in the movie, made me want to go out and buy a hybrid car.

The Illusionist...

I reluctantly watched this movie the other night with LeeElla and ended up really enjoying it.

Taco Bell....

We are insatiable...

The operating biblical metaphor regarding worship is sacrifice. We bring ourselves to the altar and let God do to us what God will. We bring ourselves to the eucharistic table, entering into that grand fourfold shape of the liturgy that shapes us: taking, blessing, breaking, giving—the life of Jesus taken and blessed, broken and distributed; and that eucharistic life now shapes our lives as we give ourselves, Christ in us, to be taken, blessed, broken and distributed in lives of witness and service, justice and healing.

But this is not the American way. The major American innovation in the congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise. Americans have developed a culture of acquisition, an economy that is dependent on wanting and requiring more. We have a huge advertising industry designed to stir up appetites we didn't even know we had. We are insatiable. It didn't take long for some of our colleagues to develop consumer congregations. If we have a nation of consumers, obviously the quickest and most effective way to get them into our churches is to identify what they want and offer it to them. Satisfy their fantasies, promise them the moon, recast the gospel into consumer terms—entertainment, satisfaction, excitement and adventure, problem-solving, whatever. We are the world's champion consumers, so why shouldn't we have state-of-the-art consumer churches? -Eugene Peterson

Liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons...

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said:
"Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."
-Titus 1:12

I left the church after cleaning up at our monthly family movie night Friday night and right in the street in front of my house was a street brawl. A bunch of teens got in a fight, a girl got punched in the head and a some guys got after each other, fist flying, heads getting pounded on the cement...all while my kids watched from inside the house.

8 police cars, two fire trucks and an ambulence...lights flashing, sirens blaring and cops all on edge. You never know around here if something is going to go deadly real quick...it's often a powder keg waiting for a match and the cops know it.

Our neighborhood is full of Cretans....evil beasts.

The countless Rottwielers and Pitt Bulls chained in numerous back yards, testify of the spirit roaming in this area. Some of these creatures sound like the mythic blood hungry Grendle as they strain at the edge of thier chains in a fit of rabid horror, practically jumping out of thier skin to taste your liver! Think of the people who have these flesh-eaters as pets and you get my point.

Savegry is a part of life here...many people are cruel, rude, cocky, loud, obnoxious, vile, foul mouthed and dirty. They are always lying, stealing and live lazy lives of drug dealing, jocky box'n and welfare draining schemes. They pump out kids for money, they rip off the state with endless tall tales and pretend to have every ailment under the sun in order to spend another day loafing around.

Yet...God loves them and calls me to love them because He desires that they get saved, cleansed and taught how to live lives that glorify Him and add life not death to the community. Like Titus must have felt, I feel overwhelmed at times by the wild west like reality of doing church here...on the edge of civility

I often lay on my bed at night wondering...can a pastor carry a gun?

Jesus, for more than the church...

Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing need, so they will not be unfruitful.
-Titus 3:14

Some of the values I have sought to instill from the beginning as a church in this neighborhood are expressed in this phrase I read somewhere:

-New more than the old
-Edge more than the center
-Lost more than the found
-Going more than the staying

Living that out has been a challenge but one of the areas that it has been fruitful has been during our First Friday events and now with our Family Movie nights once a month. Both of these events have drawn many people that are not Christians. Last night the cafe was filled with over 50 people and the majority were kids from the neighborhood that do not attend a church service yet. Bill and Sue who head up this event, provide popcorn, pop and candy and a movie. Sue is out on the streets inviting, passing out flyers and after the movie the team makes sure each person that comes is invited to the children's program or a service.

I met with a couple for pre-pre-martial counseling last night that came to First Friday last week. He had stopped in when he saw the First Friday sign and ended up coming that night with his fiance and son. That provided me with a chance to share truth and wisdom for them and hopefully help start laying a foundation for a christian family.

These are fairly easy first contact type activities but they help formulate ethos of the growing body. We are planning a neighborhood block party for mid June to celebrate our 1 year anniversary as a church. We want to look for more and more ways to throw parties, engage the families of our community and teach believers that church life is about sharing Christ naturally, reaching out in service and love and being active in walking out our faith not just talking about it all the time.

Sell everything you have....

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Paul to Timothy.

Make every effort to come to me soon, for Demas having loved this present world, has deserted me. -Paul to Timothy.

Planting a church is full of moments that you will forever treasure and many that you will want to expunge from your memory if you could. So much of all of it centers around people. Much of that is reduced to expectations and coming to realize that you are not the person other people thought you were and they are not the people you thought they were. That can be a tremendous stumbling stone in the work God calls you too. People will come and many will go. You have to accept it, let it go and embrace the knowledge that it is not only good but best for you.

I have recently been walking my dog every morning around my neighborhood. the beauty of spring has lured me away from the gym and outside. I have spent time admiring the colorful flowers that are springing up all along the trail. Gazing at the trees that have come to life after a long, cold winter. Stopping to breathe in the fragrant perfume that is being released in the woods. Such life, such beauty, all fresh and new for the season.

We appreciate it, not because we have never seen it before but because it comes and goes. It's a grace from God.

New flowers, new trees, new grace...but the subtle difference is: He makes all things new...not all new things.
You can find cycles of rejuvenation al around you. At the end and beginning of each season we have to allow death and embrace life. As we learn to let go, we learn to receive. God has put a rhythm into creation that teaches us how to walk more free. How to empty our mind and heart, how to clean the slate, start over, dream again.

Many people can't seem to see Spring, they only see fall or winter. They cant let go of what was or who they were or were not. They are trapped. I am choosing this season to be open to new flowers, new plantings, new fragrances. Making room to grow something new in the neighborhood. God has some fresh seed. Some of it will grow fast and some of it will not.

I am praying for more soldiers to come. More people who have a desire to suffer hardship, labor, work, plant and reap. People that can embrace the new, sow in hope, reap in sweat. There is so much opportunity around here...the harvest is ripe but in the end, the laborers are few. Uncultivated fields lay all around me. Souls that could be lovingly shaped and grown are being ravaged by neglect. It's a war but few are really engaged in the actual hand to hand combat. They are more comfortable writing checks, throwing up prayers, slapping you on the back and saying well done...better you than me. Choosing comfort over commitment. When did God ever call us to safety?

I hugged a young single mother yesterday, who was crying because her father had told her he thought she was a low life mooch. She is on welfare. She wants to be someone more for her daughter and for the Lord. She wept how she felt that she had no one to encourage her. She has dreams and is writing out a business plan to fight to get somewhere else than where she is in life. It's a battle...she is fighting alone. There are enemies to that fight all around her down here. Druggies, old friends who want to drag her down, boyfriends that want to knock her up and knock her out of the race. She needs reinforcements.

I send out a call to anyone who is reading this, wherever you live.

Come.

"Find a need that breaks your heart, and break your back to meet that need."
-Koster

Sell everything you have.

Give it away and come.

Embrace a fall and winter to experience a spring in your life.

Poverty will release you to enter a season of fruitfulness you have never known. A man's life doesn't consist in what he owns. that is a lie. Reject it. Be a Timothy not a Demas. Soldiers dont choose where they are going to live or fight...the Commander does. Where is Jesus telling you to fight? let's bust open some gates, take the fight to the edge. Remember gound is only taken when solidiers are willing to lose it all and even die.

Come...open handed and making a fist...and pick a flower and pick fight!

There is ground to take.

A gift...

I asked the Lord a week ago for help...I needed a break, a chance to catch my breath...a sabbath.
Two days later someone handed us a set of keys to their cabin on Diamond Lake. They said we could use it anytime.
I knew the Lord was listening to the cry of my heart.

This is the view from the cabin...it was so refreshing to sit and breathe in the cool lake air. To open my bible at sunrise and awaken the day with fresh words to my soul. I slept and napped, which I hardly ever do during the day...it was a simple but needed grace. I walked early in the morning and saw 3 deer, how do they hide with those flipping white tails that look like someone waving a flag that screams "here I am?". I was startled by a huge great blue heron I spooked out of his marshy breakfast area. I almost caught glimpse of a humming bird. I saw 8 turtles sunbathing on logs, geese & ducks and a strange water bug that plays dead when he thinks you are watching. I watched a falcon dive into the water for fish. I was serenaded by a symphony of feathered singers. I was mesmerized by seeing the stars, clear and bright in the reflection of the night sky on the lake...two celestial heavens, one above and one on the water. I watched lots of fish leap from the water, I am brining a pole next time. I was visited by a cat in the early morning, he just wanted to say hello and asked for a few strokes.


We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature--trees, flowers, grass---grow in the silence; see the stars, the moon and sun, how they move in silence. is not our mission to give God to the poor in the slums? Not a dead God, but a living, loving God. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within---words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness. -Mother Teresa

Thank you friends for the gift of quiet, you dont know how priceless it is to me.

Death by ministry

http://theresurgence.com/mdblog_2006-05-24_death_by_ministry

300

300 was a dark, bloody, raw and sensual film that has mesmerized
thousands of young men and many preachers.
Here is one pastors take on it:
http://uploads.acts29network.org/media/Articles/ThisIsLikeSparta.pdf

Suspended reality...or just real ministry in the real world?

Here's a snap shot of an evening at Jacob's Well...

A jedi with a hand made light saber, a cloak and a Darth Vader tattoo across his back, ears with plugs and enough metal to drown with if you fell into a pond...but this Jedi can weave a story, entertain a child and has a flicker of light in his coming to life eyes.

A man who calls himself a "drunk, bum"...he's dating a married woman. I encouraged him to find a woman that would just be interested in him, he replied" Why do that, then she would always be calling ME!

Skulls, tats, smokers, drinkers and a dog visiting an art gallery.

Toothless cussers, ex-abusers, piles of excuses and slightly drug tainted illusions...tales of rape, abortion, murder and redemption...down here you find that Jesus has called a few Hell's Angels to be disciples.

Sitting with death...a man breathing his last few days of life. Emphysema and cancer, hard living catching up...prayers for the dying, hugs for the wife watching her lover slip into eternity, granddaughter's tears sliding down her soft cheeks like hope running away scared.

Wandering people off the street end up being guests...find a preacher and set a time to talk about getting married.

Welcome to our world...I feel like I am floating...is this neverland?

First Friday...on the other side of the tracks

Last night was our 4th First Friday...on the otherside of the tracks.
Avery Willman and Daniel Ryan were our visual artists for the evening.
These two pieces are my favorites from them.
It was a more edgy First Friday, a very cool night.

Re: the republican debate last night....

John McCain's performance last night summarized in 17 words:

"I'll follow you damn kids to the gates of hell if you don't get off my lawn!"

From: http://hughhewitt.townhall.com

That made me laugh out loud. I think Mitt Romney stood out above the rest. 

Where Van Gogh went...

I found where God let Van Gogh live after he died...on Jupiter!

Here is a secret worth hearning...

Spirituality is not a formula; it's not a test.
It's a relationship.
Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy.
Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection.
The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of
our lives.
Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of
spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but
because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the
one who is present in the tangledness of of our lives. Spirituality
is not about being fixed; it is about God being present in the mess
of our unfixedness. -Mike Yaconelli (Messy Spirituality)

The secret...

I have a friend in Spokane that has been struggling in his walk with Jesus.
He hasn't been going to church regularly for years etc and recently found this video and now the book.
He said it changed his life. I read some of the book and realized its "New Thought" dogma...old stuff repackaged into something for our generation.
I was grieved.
I have been trying to think about how to approach him without throwing water all over his new found change; and driving him away. I am hoping to find a way to help him respond more fully to the real light; not this vague reflection, partial truth, shadow light. There is something more than "selfish desires" that resonate with him in this teaching.
He comes from a big church that is now no longer in Spokane. He was brutally disillusioned by legalism that found its way into a lot of the teaching and upbringing of the families and young people there. They were sincere but sincerely wrong with parts of their gospel.

I think the message in this book has freed him from the looming judge that always has his thumb and check list.
A change that I do think God is at work in bringing about but the work isn't ended. God is leading him out of the shadows, sin, false gospels and into greater and greater light and life. The light in this book is a perversion of grace instead of the gospel of grace. It's like he is falling off one side of the boat while trying to lean away from the other side of the boat.
I pray that he would be able to find a "balance of freedom" that enables him to ride in the boat and journey in joy and peace.
Your prayers and wisdom and action are required as we confront in love this false gospel. All the while understanding that what many of these people long for is not a kingdom but ultimately they are longing for the King.

The new age/new thought gospel focuses on a creating your own kingdom with you as king.
The true gospel presents a King who gives you a kingdom that He creates, designs and controls.
One kingdom has a garden with a snake and lie in it; and fruit that does seem good for food but in the end drives you farther away from paradise. The other Kingdom has a garden in it with a tree of life and fruit that grows every month and fruit and leaves that bring eternal life and healing for the nations.

Our nation needs to hear the true secret: Christ Jesus is the way to true, liberating, joyous life.

Pray for my brother in Christ and me as I look for the oppurtunity to share the gospel more fully with him.
I love him and desire for him to come to a fuller knowledge fo the truth he already has in Christ.

Our gospel is in a book as well...God help us to read it, live it, share it and help people move away from these false gospels and embrace the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

It is the real good news...a secret worth sharing

"Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you." - Fran Lebowitz

an act of his own...

It is tragic how few people ever 'possess their souls' before they die. 'Nothing is more rare in any man,' says Emerson, 'than an act of his own.' It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Christ was not merely the supreme individualist, but he was the first individualist in history. People have tried to make him out an ordinary philanthropist, or ranked him as an altruist with the scientific and sentimental. But he was really neither one nor the other. Pity he has, of course, for the poor, for those who are shut up in prisons, for the lowly, for the wretched; but he has far more pity for the rich, for the hard hedonists, for those who waste their freedom in becoming slaves to things, for those who wear soft raiment and live in kings' houses. Riches and pleasure seemed to him to be really greater tragedies than poverty or sorrow. And as for altruism, who knew better than he that it is vocation not volition that determines us, and that one cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs from thistles? -Oscar Wilde

like leaves falling....

"A servant of God must stand so very much alone that he never realizes he is alone. In the early stages of the Christian life, disappointments will come - people who used to be lights will flicker out, and those who used to stand with us will turn away. We have to get so used to it that we will not even realize we are standing alone. Paul said, "...no one stood with me, but all forsook me....But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me..." (2 Timothy 4:16-17). We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails. When "important" individuals go away we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, so that only one thing is left for us to do - to look into the face of God for ourselves."

- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Man, Mission, Message...

What do you think?

Best day ever....

There are a thousand times as a parent that you know you missed it, flubbed it or flunked it and a few times you know you did it right.

The other day was one of those good days. My son Micah has been struggling at school and we get regular "reports" from his teacher that cover his issues. So we have been trying different things to reward and punish to try to help encourage him to follow the rules etc. We were downtown last weekend and he saw the ducks and wanted to feed them but we didn't have any bread. So I said, if he got a good report after school I would take him to the pond and we would feed the ducks.

School came and went and he came home with a bad report. I was in the office preparing for the message on sunday and heard him outside slamming his scooter on the ground and making a racket with attitude and anger. At first I wanted to go out there and tell him to knock it off and be quiet but then the Lord impressed on my mind to go take him to feed the ducks. Suddenly I sensed the Lord really leading me to do that. So I stopped what I was doing and went outside. I told him that we were going to go to the pond and feed the ducks and to get his stuff. He just looked at the ground with a look of frustration and anger and said that he didn't get a good report. I could see the disappointment in his countenance.

I knew then that this was an important moment and felt the burden on my heart.

I came up to him and touched his hair and told him that "Sometimes we get good things even when we dont get a good report." I knew in that instance that he needed a Father to show him grace because he had tried to "be good" and just didn't measure up. That kind of feeling can seep into your soul and leave a life long stain. I knew he needed to experience grace.

His face lit up and he bounded off to get his stuff. We went and fed the ducks, the geese and even a squirrel. We climbed some rocks, hiked in the woods, visited a pond that had huge Koi fish in it and I let him play on the kids toys in the park. It was a good time together.

As we were driving home, he was sitting in the back and singing a Spongebob Square pants song that has the lyrics:

"It's the best day ever...it's the best day ever...."

Yes...it was.

wow, I just dont know what to say....

Love the sanyo keyboard!

This made me laugh out loud...

"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; 

wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; 

science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice." 

--Mahatma Gandhi

Bono getting his preach on...

If you watch the video and get to the end of the clip you can hear Bono getting a good preach on!

God and the poor...

"To those in the church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Whatever thoughts we have about God, who He is or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered. God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives. God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us if we are with them."

-Bono at the 2007 NAACP Image Awards

May First Friday artists

may First Friday
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it."
- Henry Emerson Fosdick; American clergyman (1878-1969)

Come out and join us for an evening of food, music and art.
Free to the community.

Struggling to follow the way of Jesus...

Go to the people

Live among them

Learn from them

Love them

Start with what they know

Build on what they have.

-Ancient Chinese poem

John Perkin's Three R's of Development

The philosophy of the "Three R's"—reconciliation, relocation, and redistribution—is Christian Community Development Association's backbone. 

Reconciliation shows itself as multiracial ministry. Perkins has never flirted with black power rhetoric or Afrocentric philosophies. He firmly believes that the kingdom of God is seen when all ethnicities work and worship together. "I want to preach a gospel that is stronger than my race and stronger than my economic interest," he says. At the CCDA conference, his close friendship with Wayne Gordon, a white inner-city pastor from Chicago's tough Lawndale neighborhood, sets the example.

The second R, relocation, emphasizes that to work with the poor you have to live with them. "I believe that the people with the problems can solve their own problems," Perkins says. Only those who share daily life in the ghetto can move past charity to genuine community development. This challenges up-and-out inner-city residents just as much as suburbanites. CCDA members don't consider it a success when local young people go off to college and graduate to suburban life. "What they have got is a better education in consumption," Perkins says. CCDA champions educated young people who come back to serve in their communities. Living in the community, Wayne Gordon stresses, is the only cure for the prejudice that middle-class whites typically bring to their relations with the poor. He tells of moving into the high-crime area of Lawndale as a young teacher and coming home to find his van broken into. Residents of his building saw the theft and organized an around-the-clock vigil to make sure no one looted the van further. They took care of him even though he was the only white man in the neighborhood. "I found that, unexpectedly, I was living out the words of Martin Luther King Jr., being judged not by the color of my skin but by my character," Gordon says.

The third R, redistribution, sounds like socialism, but what Perkins describes is far closer to capitalism. He seeks economic vitality, not handouts. He recognizes that external forces—unjust laws, lack of access to bank loans, poor schools—often prevent economic progress among poor people. But so does a lack of self-confidence and initiative. He wants poor African Americans to learn from immigrants who look at their blighted communities and see business opportunities. One way or another, economic resources must change hands so that the poor can gain economic power and dignity. From: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/march/35.48.html

Philippians 2:5-8

Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. 

Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. 

He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. 

And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.

Giving kiosk

kiosk
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Some churches are installing these type of giving kiosks in their buildings where the church gathers. The idea being, that many people dont cary cash or write checks that often, so a debit card system of giving would be easier for giving. Step up, swipe the card and enter an amount you want to go to your church. I dont see any reason why it would be a negative, there are many times I have wished I could give but I only carry a debit card and at various conferences or events its cash or check only. Just some thoughts, curious what other people are thinking about it.

small gifts

real gifts
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

"Do not despise the day of small things.
-Zechariah 4:10

Small gifts mean so much more in a small church in an economically challenged neighborhood. This is a small piece of candy I received after church from a young single mom that lives in my neighborhood. Given with love, received with love. Building a church with candy. Small things....with great love as Mother Teresa used to say.
Sometimes I wonder if trying to grow a church in a area of town that just doesn't have money was such a wise choice...but then, I remember that there is a wisdom that is from above and a wisdom that is from below. So the world would say it can't be done but God would say:

You can build a church on a little piece of candy.

earth day

earth day
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Jesus-followers should renounce unbiblical distortions and see the created order as Scripture presents it. We must inhabit it as it truly is, viewed from the standpoint of God’s creation of, continuing involvement with, and ultimate plans for the universe. We will not romanticize nature, but recognize its beauty and its violence. We will not simply commodify the material world, exploiting it with disregard to God’s ownership and the common good. We will not worship nature, obscuring the line between Creator and creature. And we will not spiritualize the material world, forgetting that the earth in its materiality and physicality is good and integral to God’s whole plan of salvation—the healing of creation. -Howard Snyder

Today, is Earth Day! I love the earth but I am not a hippie. Do I have to be a tofu chomping, patchouli smelling, birks wearing, hemp weaving, neo-pagan, angry vegan in order to believe in creation care?

I attended Earth Day celebration downtown in Spokane yesterday and took my daughter and youngest son. It was painfully surreal and uncomfortable. I must confess, I found myself quite out of place. I really try to live life without much judgment on people outer appearance but when it comes to a cause...your message is affected by the messenger. Yesterday I had a real hard time hearing the message because the messengers were overpowering the message.

They are shutting the door to further conversation and it is unfortunate because there are many very critical environmental issues that need to be addressed by the majority but a select group of cultural oddities are imprisoning the issues in a minority of the populace. Earth day isn't about politics and it shouldn't be holy ground for the hippies alone.

Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying."
-Hosea 4:1‑3

little things...

little things
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

A thousand daily little things make thier offering of pleasure to those who know how to be pleased. -Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers

Bathtub horror...

I heard someone call Spokane: Methlehem the other day...tragic but true. We have a serious meth problem and the church has to come up with more answers than pray and send away. I know meth's destructive power, I have a realtive who has had her whole live affected by this drug. Part of the answer is education and these videos are gripping! I will post more, they need to be seen. The living dead will increase in our culture if we don't face this terror in our town.

meth...

Pri_bathroom
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

This is a power that is at work in our church neighborhood. You can see it in scabed faces, homes, people staggering down the street, the hookers on the corners...

Junkies need Jesus.
The church needs a Jesus that is strong enough to deal with meth.

How to destroy a culture...

book
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

You dont have to burn books to destroy a culture.
Just get people to stop reading them.
-Ray Bradbury

This is a picture of a recent book my father gave me when he came up to Spokane last week. It's bound in leather, falling a part, everytime you leave it on something and pick it up, theres book dust left behind...simply delicious! The contents are even better, it's packed full of quotes and short teachings, like:

Remember that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of oblivion. They are out of sight; but without then no superstructure can stand secure. -Longfellow.

After reading in this old tomb, and trying to figure out how to preserve it better, I realized how tragic it is that people just don't like to read much anymore. I set up a library of my books in our church and in almost one year, I've only loaned out about 6 I think. :(

6!!!! Oh the magnitude of a sin this is, you just don't understand. So many of the books in my library are pure gold. To read them is to become endued with wealth from the minds of some of the greatest souls to walk this earth. But they are weekly ignored, passed over, shunned...Oh I feel like repenting to the dead for such sacrilage!

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.
-Benjamin Franklin

Alas! There are far too many empty heads and fat purses today. We spend our money on what doesn't satisfy. We are becoming "numb & dumb" as a people...it's tragic.

But I know I am barking up a tree with no one in it...so I will mutter to myself in some lamp lit corner, with book on my lap, my pipe in my hand and a mind that is lost in days gone by...

I have sought for rest everywhere, but I have found it nowhere,
except in a little corner with a little book.
-Thomas a' Kempis

Wild but not too Wilde...

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility. A selection from "De Profundis" by Oscar Wilde

I know that Oscar Wilde led a sinful lifestyle and that his sexuality was deviant to say the least. But his mind though often darkened by his own lusts, did shine like a penetrating sun through the tempest that was going on in his soul. I am often amazed at his lucidity. Sometime Christians have trouble seeing the truth because they have grown dull and too acquainted with it. It reminds me of something G.K. Chesterton said about the good of getting a religious person drunk once a year, because the experience or the repentance afterward would do them some good. We Christians have forgot what we know.

"We live in an Age of Intimidation, in which we are not exhorted to love life but to fear death" Learning to do this in ways that dont undermine the true nature and purpose of living is the tricky part. Learning to eat fully but not be a glutton, to drink deeply but not become a drunkard, to love, to taste, to smell, to work, to laugh, to create, to think, to dance, to weep, to mourn, to suffer and to conquer. This to, glorifies God. 

Wilde's writing reminds me that I am not dead yet...

Where have the Bards gone?

the deep
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

...if you hate poetry or don't have the time or are just indifferent, consider that this might be symptomatic of some deep failure in you instead of in the poetry. And then, don't just admit to the failure and go on hanging your head. Hunt for beauty. Track it down. A passion for beauty certainly is characteristic of those great men in the past whose lives were characterized as after God's own heart. Remember David's psalms and Beowulf's celebrations, full of life and faithfulness.-from Douglas Jones article "Men hate poetry" at www.credenda.com

When did poetry become the haven of shemales? In days of old the Bard was an intricate part of community life. Not the odd thespian of medieval life but the teller of tales, the singer of songs, the weaver of truth. The heart of the party, the culmination of victory, the balm in sorrow. Poetry has been emasculated and shunned to the basement unless it is hidden in music like some unwanted vitamin being chased with kool-aid.

Lyrics are often tossed aside for a rush and a beat. " Who cares what the singer is saying...I just like the beat" is what I always heard as a youth pastor trying to teach teens to listen again. The music a person listens too is a reflection of who they are. It says so much about their soul.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. --George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

There is a longing in me to recapture the masculine voice. To see the Bard return to his glory again. To move away from the breathy musings that accompany so much of christian music and rediscover the bones of our fathers again. Strip away the light and fluffy cotton candy songs that dominate the airwaves of most christians radio; and carve out songs that resonate in the marrow of men.

I find echoes of this in some music I listen too, usually hard stuff that borderlines on the edge of healthy. It frightens me when unsaved men can seem to speak to my heart more than saved..

Somethings wrong, shut the light,
Heavy thoughts tonight,
And they arent of snow white;
Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragons fire,
And of things that will bite;
Sleep with one eye open,
Gripping your pillow tight
-Enter Sandman by Metallica

When you turn on the tv and see mass murder, evil and tragedy. Today's religious cinnamon and spice...just doesn't cut it. Are all the poets wearing corsets?

There is a...yearning...yes, I yearn...have you ever yearned? ;)

"Pure 'Northernness' engulfed me; a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity. . . ." This northernness is not necessarily Christian, but when turned to Christ it is redeemed like all sinful things and stands upright. But we have little interest in such redemptions or their results because the church in our era is slack and effeminate. We do not look at an unbounded northern sky and see the eternity of God; rather, we look mystically inward to the swamps and standing puddles of our own hearts and see just what one might expect in such places - but not very much and not very far. -C.S. Lewis

J.R.R Tolkien was a bard and you find songs and poetry all throughout the Lord of the Rings. Deep words, rich lyrics that taste of earth, stone and the hides of men.

Lewis said of Tolkien's writing, "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart."

Here is a piece that has deep dirt all over it. It's rich, like an old leather couch in a dusty library.

Selection from LOTR: Song of Durin's Awakening:

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was bladed and bound was hilt;
The delver mined the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale
And metel wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in horde.

Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

get off the couch....

Health is, indeed so necessary to all the duties as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly; and he that for a short gratification brings weakness and diseases upon himself, and for the pleasure of a few years passed in the tumults of diversion and clamors of merriment, condemns the maturer and more experienced part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached, not only as a spendthrift of his happiness, but as a robber of the public; as a wretch that has voluntarily disqualified himself for the business of his station, and refused that part which providence assigns him in the general task of human nature.

I'll travel piggyback, thank you...

all the way yu walked
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

The Lord your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place. But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God, who goes before you on your way... -Deuteronomy 1:30-32

Just as a man carries his son...

That phrase embodies all my hope as a pastor. The core of my security and epicenter of my peace in the chaos; is the simple trust that there is a bigger back, stronger arms, more firm legs and One with clearer vision that offers me a piggyback ride.

A Father, who doesn't just send us out there alone but offers to carry us, fight for us and most importantly knows the way ahead, through the wilderness.

Piggyback doesn't have a fortune 500 ring to it, I know. I'm not sure if you can rally to many people to follow a leader who doesn't put his confidence in his own legs, his own arms or his own sense of direction.

Piggyback riding sounds sissy but trust me, when the snakes and the scorpions are swarming the path, it makes perfect sense to me.

When the road ahead looks steep, unpassable, treacherous and more of a climb than I feel capable of ascending...piggyback, sounds good to me.

When the pain of the journey weighs down on your broken heart and the path underneath you is slippery from all the mud of your tears...burying your face in stronger shoulders and clinging to the neck of a father soothes your weary soul.

How did I get here? I don't know? I just clung on for dear life and by God's grace alone, emerged through soul stinging battles, menacing cliffs, deep and dark valleys, poisonous pits and lonely Jericho roads...piggyback.

something which will remain...

children
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day,
and shown there as an index of your own thoughts and feelings, what care, what caution would you exercise in the selection!
Now this is what God has done. He has placed before you the immortal minds of your children, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are are to inscribe every day and every hour, by your instructions, by your spirit or by your example, something which will remain and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment.
-Payson

fallen angel...

fallen-angel
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Your eyes are vacant...empty from watching the skies.
No santa landed on your roof.

Your clothes hang open...you dont care anymore.
Dignity fled on the floor of your overdose.

Your words are a flood of reasons your life makes no sense.
They stumble and falter, stuck on a note like a skipping record.
Reality is floating away in this gravityless room.

Your smile belies your pain,
Fiddling with food for nothing,
hiding in a ritual that only living people do.
Starved on the inside,
the bones of your dying,
slosh around in your awkward movements.

Loud voices bark out of you,
I hear you way to clear.
Silence is suffocating here....chatter is a narcotic.

I hold you as a father clings to the past that might not hold a future.

I ache...praying for tears that might release the weight of this unknown.

-words in response to my visit to a psyche ward where one of my little sheep lies wounded, broken and despairing of light. Please pray for her...

phoenix rising...

38
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

It is time to experiment, time to leave the well-ordered but stuffy classroom, time to restore a vulgar vitality to poetry and unleash the energy now trapped in the subculture. There is nothing to lose. Society has already told us that poetry is dead. Let's build a funeral pyre out of the desiccated conventions piled around us and watch the ancient, spangle-feathered, unkillable phoenix rise from the ashes. -Dana Gioia

April is national poetry month...go write something that will start a revolution and prove them wrong. Show that this generation has something in it's mouth worth saying that can bring life to the dead.

what passes for the new...

watching+angel
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news 
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men.
Look at what passes for the new.

You will not find it there but in despised poems.
It is difficult to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack of what is found there.

-William Carlos Williams's "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"

Inviting or frightening?

I read this in a book called "The God of all Comfort" by Hannah Whitall Smith:

"I was once talking on the subject of religion with an intelligent agnostic, whom I very much wished to influence, and after listening to me politely for a little while, he said, "Well, madame, all I have to say is this. If you Christians want to make us agnostics inclined to look into your religion, you must try to be more comfortable in the possession of it yourselves. The Christians I meet seem to me to be the very most uncomfortable people anywhere around. They seem to carry their religion  as a man carries a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but at the same time it is very uncomfortable to have it. And I for one do not care to have that sort of religion."

It's a great thought to ponder...what kind of "religion" are we as a community and as individual Christians spreading around? 

Does it seem inviting or frightening? 

Refreshing or Repulsive? 

Compassionate or constipated? 

Frantic of Freeing? 

Does it produce a countenance of peace or pressure? 

Something someone would want to pass on Or...pass on?

He is risen!

He is risen
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Why do you seek the living One among the dead?
He is not here, but He has risen, just as He said.
-Angel of the Lord

From Him, through Him and to Him be all the glory!

"In his death, Jesus destroyed the powers of the devil; bound the strong man; judged and drove out the prince of this world; ransomed, redeemed & delivered us from the power and penalty of sin; freed us from the curse of the law; demonstrated our sinful depravity in the need for his death for our salvation; demonstrated the love of God for us, in that while we were sinners he died for us; demonstrated ultimately the righteousness of God to punish our sins upon his Son instead of simply ignoring them; absorbed God's wrath upon himself, turning it away from his people; and reconciled us to God. Jesus' flesh was the curtain torn, giving all his people access to the Holy of Holies, the presence of God. Through his death we are forgiven, justified, cleansed, and made right with God. He died that we might live, and as long as we gather for communion we proclaim his death until he comes."

- Eric Costa

Happy Good Friday!

Your journey...

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost. -J.R.R. Tolkien



I am praying and believing that you will find the ocean again and swim deeper, farther and this time swim because you found the path to your sea yourself.
I've tried to assist you in understanding the map, not losing the map, loving the map...and have prayed someday you would journey the map because you chose to.

I know that along the way you have been knocked over by many things.

Sat at tables that pointed you in directions that really were not what you deeply longed for.

Listened to voices that sounded right but ended wrong.

Touched waters edge but found it to be stagnant, not the boundless tides that seem to beckon you from within.

Been lost on clouds of illusion offered by those who have chosen to sit instead of journey.

But in the end it is your journey to take, I can't make it for you.

planet earth

planet earth
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. -Job 12:7‑10

Our family has been watching the Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" 11 part series on Sunday nights. It has been phenomenal. I have seen stuff on the episodes that I have never seen in all my life. There are many creatures and wildlife events captured for the first time on film. The filming is beautiful and many times I found myself stunned at what they have caught on video. Really worth watching.
If you are local and have Comcast digital, the episodes are free if you go to ON DEMAND and click on the Discovery Channel shows.

April 22nd is Earth Day, so takes some time this month to explore your Father's World.

man moments...

man games
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Halo is a video game that is often being played in my home and today I overheard Christian getting schooled by three 8-10 year olds. After the whipping, he said this to the smack talking kids:

You have to much testosterone...
What's testosterone?
It's stuff in your grapes that makes you want to be the best.


Oh the "nuggets" of wisdom you glean in the house full of boys...

New Tolkien...

new Tolkien
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

It is a new Tolkien book! Begun shortly after he returned home from the trenches of World War One and tinkered with for decades afterward, The Children of Hurin, like The Silmarillion, was never completed in his lifetime. But Tolkien's son and literary heir, Christopher, has painstakingly culled, edited, and reconstructed all the scattered variants of the story, much as he did decades ago with The Silmarillion. The laborious task took thirty years. But now, the much-anticipated book will be in stores by the middle of this next month. (info lifted from www.kingsmeadow.com)

I'm all over this....

The road goes ever ever on...

Tree on grassy hill
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

This is version two of this song in the Lord of the Rings.
There are three versions that change through the story.
It is a song about the journey of life and what one learns at each stage along the way.

I think I am walking down this part of the path...