A REAL PEST
"For we have found this man a real pest
and a fellow who stirs up dissension
among all the Jews throughout the world,
and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes."
-Acts 24:5
LOL what a reputation! Not something you would want to add to your ministry history resume. Oh to hang out with such people...know any?
They are wild people...they eat strange stuff that others wouldn't find a meal within...grasshopper poppers.
They can extract a message out of life not the other way around.
Their voice is often found in desolate places not palaces and temples.
They wear odd things...skins and such. You can easily mistake them for a madman if you are not attune to the voice within the voice that is crying. They often are mistaken for drunkards, blasphemers, sinners and compromisers.
They are hairy people...they haven't had the wildness shaved off.
They are earthy people, friends of dirt, rock, water and wind.
They find a way to bring people back to the water...to feel it, taste it and be submerged in it again. They are at home in deserts and have to be sought out...they don't advertise.
They are not safe.
They have away of messing up the status quo and leaving you scratching your head.
They are often on the move or being moved on.
They don't fit in to well...they stand out and that often means they are easy targets for the tongue waggers.
They often lose their heads.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Pixs are online
I dig this new Blogger re-format.
Cool new features...like picture upload and posting from email...
like this post if it worked :)
Natural evangelism
"We give people who we are much more than what we do. The Latin saying had a clever ring to it: 'Nemo dat quod nor hat.' No one can give away what they do not have. And transformed people tend to transform other people -- just by being who they are."
-Richard Rohr, the founder of The Center for Action and Contemplation.
I like this quote because it captures the reality of sharing the Christ life as it is supposed to be shared...natural and honest, not contrived and forced.
"We give people who we are much more than what we do. The Latin saying had a clever ring to it: 'Nemo dat quod nor hat.' No one can give away what they do not have. And transformed people tend to transform other people -- just by being who they are."
-Richard Rohr, the founder of The Center for Action and Contemplation.
I like this quote because it captures the reality of sharing the Christ life as it is supposed to be shared...natural and honest, not contrived and forced.
I quit too...
"I quit," said Charlie. "I walked out. I don't want to teach anymore. Every time I walked into that classroom, I died a little bit."
Tony Campolo says: I could understand him. I'm a teacher, and I know what it's like to go into a class and pour out your heart to students, to let every nerve inside you tingle with the excitement of your most profound insights. I know what it's like to passionately share the struggles of your existence, to lay your soul bare in an attempt to communicate your deepest feelings.
Then, when it's all over, some student in the back of the room raises his hand and says, "Do we have to know this stuff for the final?"
(from a Tony Compolo story)
Oh how this conversation captures my irrepressible apprehension about the way we try to capture God through church services. The more I wrestle with it, the more I find myself coming to the same conclusions...it's so much vanity.
Almost sacrilegious ... this attempt to re-share truth, it's like trying to regurgitate a meal into some recognizable form that someone would want to eat.
It's like trying to explain sex to a virgin...vs the mystery of two lifelong lovers making love...a sacred bloom of passion, with a depth of knowledge that makes your knees weak.
It's like a picture of the grand canyon vs standing on the edge of it and feeling it's ancient winds lift your small spirit off the ground and into the clouds.
A strawberry flavored candy vs one plucked fresh from grandma's garden that when tasted, sends a bolt of flavor right into your socks!
I've concluded that all I can really do is take off my shoes in front of this small burning bush and hope that it will continue to burn...and hope that I can remember the way here and pray that my face will still burn when I get back...
Oh the tragedy and mystery of it all.
"I quit," said Charlie. "I walked out. I don't want to teach anymore. Every time I walked into that classroom, I died a little bit."
Tony Campolo says: I could understand him. I'm a teacher, and I know what it's like to go into a class and pour out your heart to students, to let every nerve inside you tingle with the excitement of your most profound insights. I know what it's like to passionately share the struggles of your existence, to lay your soul bare in an attempt to communicate your deepest feelings.
Then, when it's all over, some student in the back of the room raises his hand and says, "Do we have to know this stuff for the final?"
(from a Tony Compolo story)
Oh how this conversation captures my irrepressible apprehension about the way we try to capture God through church services. The more I wrestle with it, the more I find myself coming to the same conclusions...it's so much vanity.
Almost sacrilegious ... this attempt to re-share truth, it's like trying to regurgitate a meal into some recognizable form that someone would want to eat.
It's like trying to explain sex to a virgin...vs the mystery of two lifelong lovers making love...a sacred bloom of passion, with a depth of knowledge that makes your knees weak.
It's like a picture of the grand canyon vs standing on the edge of it and feeling it's ancient winds lift your small spirit off the ground and into the clouds.
A strawberry flavored candy vs one plucked fresh from grandma's garden that when tasted, sends a bolt of flavor right into your socks!
I've concluded that all I can really do is take off my shoes in front of this small burning bush and hope that it will continue to burn...and hope that I can remember the way here and pray that my face will still burn when I get back...
Oh the tragedy and mystery of it all.
Am I really?
Someone said that stuff I have been writing is "Iconoclastic"
icon·o·clast
Etymology: Medieval Latin iconoclastes, from Middle Greek eikonoklastEs, literally, image destroyer, from Greek eikono- + klan to break —more at CLAST
Date: 1641
1 : one who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration
2 : one who attacks settled beliefs or institutions
I'm not sure what to think about that...
Someone said that stuff I have been writing is "Iconoclastic"
icon·o·clast
Etymology: Medieval Latin iconoclastes, from Middle Greek eikonoklastEs, literally, image destroyer, from Greek eikono- + klan to break —more at CLAST
Date: 1641
1 : one who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration
2 : one who attacks settled beliefs or institutions
I'm not sure what to think about that...
Here is my response to the question asked to me on "why should we plant churches, when there are so many in most big cities?"
Life gives birth to life. It's God's way in nature and in the spirit. If something is alive it gives birth. Birth is not only God's intend means of keeping the species from going extinct but also the means of perpetuating culture, faith and family.
One church in a region, many congregations so that "church" can be cared for. Most people are not cared for because our churches are too big or structured in such a way that real relationships and Jesus style life together isn't surviving the religious agenda and calendar.
Do your statistics and you will see that most regions are not significantly encompassing many non believers at a very healthy rate. There are thousands not being touched. It's not about who isn't doing it or why they are not but how can we. And if we can than we should in God's timing and way.
What If we narrowed the conversation down to this statement:
How come there are so many Christians gathering together to worship the Lord and love each other and serve their neighbors? And should more gather?
You would say: Go for it! Most likely, right.
Thinking gets all complicated when you start saying: where should they gather...and that has been one of the most sterile producing conversations going on in the church.
Jesus had the same conversation with the woman at the well...she was hung up on all the same religious mumbo jumbo about...who & where. Thank God Jesus said a day was coming and now is...that is different from a "place & who" centered church.
I got all screwed up in my thinking when the church got a hold of me as a young Christian. I lived out the "natural" result of following Jesus as a teen. I got saved, connected with the ones the Lord brought into my life as friends and mentors and began learning and loving on Jesus. I also started sharing Christ...around me and in different places...I simply went. The result...we began to grow. Church life began to happen in small but potent places and times. If maturity could have helped father it and breathe life on it...something amazing could have happened at times.
Simply stated: we make it all too complicated.
Money usually makes it complicated. It's like art and music...if the only reason one seeks to "do art" is because they want to make a living at it...then they are going to be a frustrated artist and probably starve too. Most don't make much money at it. But if you do it because you have to do it, because you would die if you didn't...than you are a true artist.
Take a walk down the street on a typical Sunday morning...you will find your reason for the Lord's call to gather...the harvest is plentiful.
Life gives birth to life. It's God's way in nature and in the spirit. If something is alive it gives birth. Birth is not only God's intend means of keeping the species from going extinct but also the means of perpetuating culture, faith and family.
One church in a region, many congregations so that "church" can be cared for. Most people are not cared for because our churches are too big or structured in such a way that real relationships and Jesus style life together isn't surviving the religious agenda and calendar.
Do your statistics and you will see that most regions are not significantly encompassing many non believers at a very healthy rate. There are thousands not being touched. It's not about who isn't doing it or why they are not but how can we. And if we can than we should in God's timing and way.
What If we narrowed the conversation down to this statement:
How come there are so many Christians gathering together to worship the Lord and love each other and serve their neighbors? And should more gather?
You would say: Go for it! Most likely, right.
Thinking gets all complicated when you start saying: where should they gather...and that has been one of the most sterile producing conversations going on in the church.
Jesus had the same conversation with the woman at the well...she was hung up on all the same religious mumbo jumbo about...who & where. Thank God Jesus said a day was coming and now is...that is different from a "place & who" centered church.
I got all screwed up in my thinking when the church got a hold of me as a young Christian. I lived out the "natural" result of following Jesus as a teen. I got saved, connected with the ones the Lord brought into my life as friends and mentors and began learning and loving on Jesus. I also started sharing Christ...around me and in different places...I simply went. The result...we began to grow. Church life began to happen in small but potent places and times. If maturity could have helped father it and breathe life on it...something amazing could have happened at times.
Simply stated: we make it all too complicated.
Money usually makes it complicated. It's like art and music...if the only reason one seeks to "do art" is because they want to make a living at it...then they are going to be a frustrated artist and probably starve too. Most don't make much money at it. But if you do it because you have to do it, because you would die if you didn't...than you are a true artist.
Take a walk down the street on a typical Sunday morning...you will find your reason for the Lord's call to gather...the harvest is plentiful.
Great little thoughts on big stuff:
"Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purpose for your life."
-Rick Warren
"I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes."
- C.S. Lewis
"To risk is to lose one's foothold for a while; not to risk is to lose one's self forever."
-Soren Kierkegaard
"When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by those who are not afraid to be vulnerable."
-Graham Cooke
"Being controlled by the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purpose for your life."
-Rick Warren
"I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes."
- C.S. Lewis
"To risk is to lose one's foothold for a while; not to risk is to lose one's self forever."
-Soren Kierkegaard
"When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by those who are not afraid to be vulnerable."
-Graham Cooke
Saturday, May 08, 2004
"When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by those who are not afraid to be vulnerable." -Graham Cooke
You’re just seeing a fresh soul vein opened up of late.
It's flowing pretty freely, a bloody mess maybe, but it had to happen.
I love one of the parts of an article I sent out the other day where the pastor said: "Every few years he has to reinvent himself a bit or he will die a little."
That's defiantly taking place right now. I'm owning my thoughts, daring to share them more and truly seeking to walk out a more authentic walk...or at least daring to try to find it.
The old dress shoes just don't fit anymore and walking in them has cramped my toes and furrowed my brow...I'm taking them off.
Yes, it may stink a bit, i've been smashing my feet into these things for way too long...I wish I had listened to the pain sooner.
I'm a bit sensitive (a better word might be raw) right now too; at least until I get some callousness on these feet.
I'm not sure what or if, I will wear any shoes in the future...but right now, free toes are marvelous!
Yep...it's quite difficult trying to do this as a "leader" but in the end I think that's a better quality of leadership than not doing it. But the fact is...life demanded it. I had gone as far as I could go in those shoes...they served me well for the time they were intended to protect me.
But everyone comes to their own burning bush sometime and hears the command to..."remove your shoes...the ground you are on is holy ground."
Moses heard it and so did Joshua.
I'm hearing it right now and like Joshua it comes right as I'm being commissioned to lead a "new generation" into the Promised Land. It's a strange time to hear a call to get naked feet. No call to strap on some trusty army boots. No seemingly wise command to clamp on some steel toes butt kickers...no, simply let your feet touch the cool grass of the earth.
A leader with bare feet...strange indeed.
Does it scare some people? Yes it does.
Does it scare me? Yep!...but that’s ok…at least I am coming alive again.
"To risk is to lose one's foothold for a while; not to risk is to lose one's self forever." - S. Kierkegaard
You’re just seeing a fresh soul vein opened up of late.
It's flowing pretty freely, a bloody mess maybe, but it had to happen.
I love one of the parts of an article I sent out the other day where the pastor said: "Every few years he has to reinvent himself a bit or he will die a little."
That's defiantly taking place right now. I'm owning my thoughts, daring to share them more and truly seeking to walk out a more authentic walk...or at least daring to try to find it.
The old dress shoes just don't fit anymore and walking in them has cramped my toes and furrowed my brow...I'm taking them off.
Yes, it may stink a bit, i've been smashing my feet into these things for way too long...I wish I had listened to the pain sooner.
I'm a bit sensitive (a better word might be raw) right now too; at least until I get some callousness on these feet.
I'm not sure what or if, I will wear any shoes in the future...but right now, free toes are marvelous!
Yep...it's quite difficult trying to do this as a "leader" but in the end I think that's a better quality of leadership than not doing it. But the fact is...life demanded it. I had gone as far as I could go in those shoes...they served me well for the time they were intended to protect me.
But everyone comes to their own burning bush sometime and hears the command to..."remove your shoes...the ground you are on is holy ground."
Moses heard it and so did Joshua.
I'm hearing it right now and like Joshua it comes right as I'm being commissioned to lead a "new generation" into the Promised Land. It's a strange time to hear a call to get naked feet. No call to strap on some trusty army boots. No seemingly wise command to clamp on some steel toes butt kickers...no, simply let your feet touch the cool grass of the earth.
A leader with bare feet...strange indeed.
Does it scare some people? Yes it does.
Does it scare me? Yep!...but that’s ok…at least I am coming alive again.
"To risk is to lose one's foothold for a while; not to risk is to lose one's self forever." - S. Kierkegaard
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Remedies for Radio Rash
Here are a few more thoughts on the stuff that is causing me Radio Rash:
* Don't try so hard, just make music that you like and that is honest about who or where you are.
* Don't feel like it has to be a complete novel in one song...sometimes the beauty in life is when you are "caught a moment," The first breath after a first kiss...the taste of something not the whole meal...
* Let me wrestle with the words...you don't have to make everything so clear. Ambiguity allows me to interact with the music and allows magic to happen. Each song can mean something different for everyone.
* Don't produce music that always smells like it just came out of the wash...the story of the jeans is how they got dirty too. Scars make for great storytelling.
* Quit acting like a choir boy...if I wanted to listen to a girl I would...be a man.
* Remember Jesus chose a wild man to baptize him into public life not a priest...beginnings are important...where you start can define where you end up sometimes.
* People live in the world, a world which God made and owns, tell me about how you live in this place without losing your center. I've not been to heaven but I live on earth. Talk to me about the stuff that I see, hear and feel everyday but need to hear about it through other eyes, so I can see my world anew.
* Be influenced but be you...crossdressers make lame musicians and poets.
* I need to hear the war cry again...much of the music out there seems created for the nursery. Give me something that changes the temperature of my blood, makes me want to yell like a man not whisper like a woman.
* Be creative...God isn't monochrome. With a world full of instruments and cultures you would think Christians would discover that music is far more than a keyboard, bass, guitar and drums. Discover sounds, explore more, dare to trust sound more than lyrics. The typical moment of instrumental pause is about as long as the typical spontaneous praise in churches...short, awkward and hurried. We need to linger more, allow music to marinate on us. There is power in sound, the ocean heals not by words but sound.
* Uncork the passion please. If God is love and passion is the very flame of the Lord, than why do Christians seem like the prudish icicles around? Can't we write about anything that most of us think about most of all anyway...sex. Sure, you don't have to get all graphic but why can't someone write a song like Dave Matthew's does; that makes you want to find your wife and show her why you married her! Come On!
Here are a few more thoughts on the stuff that is causing me Radio Rash:
* Don't try so hard, just make music that you like and that is honest about who or where you are.
* Don't feel like it has to be a complete novel in one song...sometimes the beauty in life is when you are "caught a moment," The first breath after a first kiss...the taste of something not the whole meal...
* Let me wrestle with the words...you don't have to make everything so clear. Ambiguity allows me to interact with the music and allows magic to happen. Each song can mean something different for everyone.
* Don't produce music that always smells like it just came out of the wash...the story of the jeans is how they got dirty too. Scars make for great storytelling.
* Quit acting like a choir boy...if I wanted to listen to a girl I would...be a man.
* Remember Jesus chose a wild man to baptize him into public life not a priest...beginnings are important...where you start can define where you end up sometimes.
* People live in the world, a world which God made and owns, tell me about how you live in this place without losing your center. I've not been to heaven but I live on earth. Talk to me about the stuff that I see, hear and feel everyday but need to hear about it through other eyes, so I can see my world anew.
* Be influenced but be you...crossdressers make lame musicians and poets.
* I need to hear the war cry again...much of the music out there seems created for the nursery. Give me something that changes the temperature of my blood, makes me want to yell like a man not whisper like a woman.
* Be creative...God isn't monochrome. With a world full of instruments and cultures you would think Christians would discover that music is far more than a keyboard, bass, guitar and drums. Discover sounds, explore more, dare to trust sound more than lyrics. The typical moment of instrumental pause is about as long as the typical spontaneous praise in churches...short, awkward and hurried. We need to linger more, allow music to marinate on us. There is power in sound, the ocean heals not by words but sound.
* Uncork the passion please. If God is love and passion is the very flame of the Lord, than why do Christians seem like the prudish icicles around? Can't we write about anything that most of us think about most of all anyway...sex. Sure, you don't have to get all graphic but why can't someone write a song like Dave Matthew's does; that makes you want to find your wife and show her why you married her! Come On!
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
I've got Radio Rash
I've got a bad rash and I picked it up from listening to Christian radio.
I know as a "pastor" some would squawk that I shouldn't be slamming "Christian" radio but I must confess...it really sucks. I am sorry if that offends you but my head goes numb listening to that stuff. Sure there is an occasional; bright spot like a shaft of sun that breaks through on a maddening long run of cloudy days but that's rare.
I love music but I have not been able to hear that much good stuff in my day to day life.
I am musically anemic I think.
It is the result of a poor music diet that I picked up from some bad influences in the church.
I need help.
Could anyone please recommend some good tunes that won't make me sleepy or leave me feeling like I just was serenaded by my grandparents?
I don't want some plastic Christian copy culture stuff either.
No over the top, syrupy sacred, gospel bloated, message heavy stuff.
I like my doctrine to come primarily from the pulpit or books not the CD.
I listen to enough worship to sprout angel wings, so I am not worried about...balance.
I need something that engages me, catches me by surprise, moves other parts of me that have rusted from lack of cultural oil.
I feel like the church has turned me into the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. I've been plated over in armor to protect me from the culture but in the end I lost my heart.
I know that just because I gave my heart to Jesus that it doesn't mean it gets turned to stone. So much of my life came alive in Christ but not so for poor old music.
It got circumcised and I think they took to much off the top...it looks more like a castration.
Why is that?
Why did music's legs get amputated in the church?
We've had to exchange audio razor blades for religious butter knives.
What used to electrify...now petrifies.
Oh! The horror of it all...
We need help...any suggestions?
I've got a bad rash and I picked it up from listening to Christian radio.
I know as a "pastor" some would squawk that I shouldn't be slamming "Christian" radio but I must confess...it really sucks. I am sorry if that offends you but my head goes numb listening to that stuff. Sure there is an occasional; bright spot like a shaft of sun that breaks through on a maddening long run of cloudy days but that's rare.
I love music but I have not been able to hear that much good stuff in my day to day life.
I am musically anemic I think.
It is the result of a poor music diet that I picked up from some bad influences in the church.
I need help.
Could anyone please recommend some good tunes that won't make me sleepy or leave me feeling like I just was serenaded by my grandparents?
I don't want some plastic Christian copy culture stuff either.
No over the top, syrupy sacred, gospel bloated, message heavy stuff.
I like my doctrine to come primarily from the pulpit or books not the CD.
I listen to enough worship to sprout angel wings, so I am not worried about...balance.
I need something that engages me, catches me by surprise, moves other parts of me that have rusted from lack of cultural oil.
I feel like the church has turned me into the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. I've been plated over in armor to protect me from the culture but in the end I lost my heart.
I know that just because I gave my heart to Jesus that it doesn't mean it gets turned to stone. So much of my life came alive in Christ but not so for poor old music.
It got circumcised and I think they took to much off the top...it looks more like a castration.
Why is that?
Why did music's legs get amputated in the church?
We've had to exchange audio razor blades for religious butter knives.
What used to electrify...now petrifies.
Oh! The horror of it all...
We need help...any suggestions?
How long have you been alive?
Tony Campolo tells a story about how he challenged his students by asking them, ‘how long have you been alive?’ They responded by reciting their birthdays, almost without thinking. Then he turned to them and asked again, ‘how long have you really been alive?’ and went on to tell of a time that as a child, he stood on the empire state building and for a few brief moments, as the wind whipped his hair and the panorama overwhelmed him, felt fully alive. Then he turned to his students again and said, “now, how long have you been alive?”
Some years ago I went skydiving with my friends Fergus and Wendy in Fort McMurray, Canada during an impending rain storm. It was one of those days when you could see the vistas of the horizon and watch the heavy grey clouds roll in like a blanket. It was undoubtedly not a pristine skydiving opportunity but we were anxious to get in a jump, despite our best interests. As we rose to meet the sky the clouds extended over us like
A cotton canopy. We levelled out at approximately 6500 feet and flew just under the chouds. I was able to stand outside the door, hold on and wipe my hands through the fluffy billows, splaying them behind me. For that moment, I was truly alive.
I remember vividly the day I sat with Marianne in the pre-op ward awaiting her first cancer surgery. As I sat on her bed, our hands clasped together, we began to share in an intimate few minutes of mutual love and joy. We reflected on our lives, the fun and happy times, the pain and the sorrows of what we were experiencing. I confessed to her my fear, and she to me. We laughed and cried, kissed and hugged, wishing this moment would go on for eternity. For that moment, I was truly alive.
I once heard it said that if I had my life to live over again I’d live more moments. Just time after time of nothing but moments. Too much of my time has been spend in dismal boredom, fleeting days of just living but not being truly alive.
lifted from a great blog at:
http://scott.newheights.bc.ca/
Tony Campolo tells a story about how he challenged his students by asking them, ‘how long have you been alive?’ They responded by reciting their birthdays, almost without thinking. Then he turned to them and asked again, ‘how long have you really been alive?’ and went on to tell of a time that as a child, he stood on the empire state building and for a few brief moments, as the wind whipped his hair and the panorama overwhelmed him, felt fully alive. Then he turned to his students again and said, “now, how long have you been alive?”
Some years ago I went skydiving with my friends Fergus and Wendy in Fort McMurray, Canada during an impending rain storm. It was one of those days when you could see the vistas of the horizon and watch the heavy grey clouds roll in like a blanket. It was undoubtedly not a pristine skydiving opportunity but we were anxious to get in a jump, despite our best interests. As we rose to meet the sky the clouds extended over us like
A cotton canopy. We levelled out at approximately 6500 feet and flew just under the chouds. I was able to stand outside the door, hold on and wipe my hands through the fluffy billows, splaying them behind me. For that moment, I was truly alive.
I remember vividly the day I sat with Marianne in the pre-op ward awaiting her first cancer surgery. As I sat on her bed, our hands clasped together, we began to share in an intimate few minutes of mutual love and joy. We reflected on our lives, the fun and happy times, the pain and the sorrows of what we were experiencing. I confessed to her my fear, and she to me. We laughed and cried, kissed and hugged, wishing this moment would go on for eternity. For that moment, I was truly alive.
I once heard it said that if I had my life to live over again I’d live more moments. Just time after time of nothing but moments. Too much of my time has been spend in dismal boredom, fleeting days of just living but not being truly alive.
lifted from a great blog at:
http://scott.newheights.bc.ca/
So much of evangelism to me is so plastic, insincere, agenda driven, statistical and icky.
Plus so much of the push for it is simply unrealistic. It lays a burden upon people that becomes something they can't live up too. It's high pressure sales, it's door to door product pushing, it's dinner time phone calls, it's Amwayish insincerity.
I hate it, I don't do it.
Simply ask people" "How many people have you led to the Lord" and the truth will be out. It simply doesn't happen that way. You can act like it does, preach like it does, demand that it should, impress others with your stats, guilt the shy with your stories but in the end...it doesn't happen that much.
Plus you get a lot of guilty people that become a poor tool of outreach.
Insincere, guilty, pressured people stink as evangelism agents...period.
Plus so much of the push for it is simply unrealistic. It lays a burden upon people that becomes something they can't live up too. It's high pressure sales, it's door to door product pushing, it's dinner time phone calls, it's Amwayish insincerity.
I hate it, I don't do it.
Simply ask people" "How many people have you led to the Lord" and the truth will be out. It simply doesn't happen that way. You can act like it does, preach like it does, demand that it should, impress others with your stats, guilt the shy with your stories but in the end...it doesn't happen that much.
Plus you get a lot of guilty people that become a poor tool of outreach.
Insincere, guilty, pressured people stink as evangelism agents...period.
Friday, April 30, 2004
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. - e. e. cummings
I read that out of a little book called Posers, Fakers & Wannabes, by Brennan manning & Jim Hancock.
In the first little chapter was a story about Brennan as a monk in his earlier years. He described an episode during a catholic ritual where at the outloud reading of Psalms 51 by a superior, they would enter their cells and whip themselves with coiled telephone wire to rid themselves of their lust.
He shares how he scourged himself in religious fervency and zeal leaving blood blisters on his back and buttocks. He recalls hearing a fellow penitent lashing himself rigorously in the cell next to him. The man was so zealous Brennan was sure the man was going to wound himself severely, so he peeked in the man's cell.
To Brennans horror, bewilderment and dismay, there the man was sitting on his bed with a "bemused smile and a cigarette in his left hand. It was the wall he was whacking, not his own body, thwack, thwack, thwack..."
Oh, how I laughed! Oh how I cried...
Strange reaction, I thought to myself about myself, as I sat there on my couch feeling all to guilty for loving such a display of religious defiance.
The apostle Paul said there are those who teach a version of Christianity that creates a mindset that revolves around "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" type of discipleship. It lifts up those who can live out "harsh treatment of the body." They are the "extremely zealous" they make you go "wow they are committed." He says they often have a lot of "regulations...human commands and teachings" and that on the outside and to the ear not attuned to Jesus life, they have "the appearance of wisdom."
But you know what? You can whip your butt until you bleed with the biggest, baddest, ugliest religious cat of nine tails you can find in your current hyper spiritual toolbox and still not "restrain sensual indulgence."
Lust doesn't extinguish that way...it actually grows.
Sorry to throw water on your spiritual superman fever that is burning you up but the heart can't be changed by such ways.
You can chain a wild dog to the porch all you want but soon as that little noose is loose...he's gone!
Paul said such thinking that permeates so much of Christian example, conversation and teaching is really "the basic principles of this world." It's not wisdom from above but from below. It's a way of living that Paul says we have to realize that we died too. That's not our path anymore. In fact Paul goes so far as to say...Why do you submit to it's rules?"
Why do we?
Why do you?
Why do I?
Paul call some of their hyper false spirituality tactics "self imposed worship."
How much of what we call "worship of God" is self imposed stuff versus God imposed? How much of our daily Christ life is merely the fruit of human thinking, man made rules and traditions that have arose out of religious minds of the earth not spiritual minds from Jesus?
How much of this dog like butt sniffing that goes on in religious circles is of God?
People sniffing around making sure everyone is in line, being good and not an impostor. Paul called such people "The dogs" in Philippians 3:2. There is a whole lot of uptight Pharisees checking our shorts to see if we are circumcised or not. It's chronic...spoken or unspoken it's there. I know because I have been one for a long time and I am tired of living that way.
I am tired of the pressure to judge, fix, correct, straighten out, spank, corral, frighten, pressure, guilt, condemn, and look down on others. I know nobody says they do that but I have and I see it all the time.
I'm weary of feeling like I have to save the world and that for others to stay saved depends on me and my ability to be good enough. This constant feeling that everyone is teetering on the edge of God rejection and that one slip up from you and their eternal soul's blood is on your hands is too much. My God! That's a massive weight to bear...who can handle such pressure? I don't want to impose such a ball and chain on believers.
I read that out of a little book called Posers, Fakers & Wannabes, by Brennan manning & Jim Hancock.
In the first little chapter was a story about Brennan as a monk in his earlier years. He described an episode during a catholic ritual where at the outloud reading of Psalms 51 by a superior, they would enter their cells and whip themselves with coiled telephone wire to rid themselves of their lust.
He shares how he scourged himself in religious fervency and zeal leaving blood blisters on his back and buttocks. He recalls hearing a fellow penitent lashing himself rigorously in the cell next to him. The man was so zealous Brennan was sure the man was going to wound himself severely, so he peeked in the man's cell.
To Brennans horror, bewilderment and dismay, there the man was sitting on his bed with a "bemused smile and a cigarette in his left hand. It was the wall he was whacking, not his own body, thwack, thwack, thwack..."
Oh, how I laughed! Oh how I cried...
Strange reaction, I thought to myself about myself, as I sat there on my couch feeling all to guilty for loving such a display of religious defiance.
The apostle Paul said there are those who teach a version of Christianity that creates a mindset that revolves around "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" type of discipleship. It lifts up those who can live out "harsh treatment of the body." They are the "extremely zealous" they make you go "wow they are committed." He says they often have a lot of "regulations...human commands and teachings" and that on the outside and to the ear not attuned to Jesus life, they have "the appearance of wisdom."
But you know what? You can whip your butt until you bleed with the biggest, baddest, ugliest religious cat of nine tails you can find in your current hyper spiritual toolbox and still not "restrain sensual indulgence."
Lust doesn't extinguish that way...it actually grows.
Sorry to throw water on your spiritual superman fever that is burning you up but the heart can't be changed by such ways.
You can chain a wild dog to the porch all you want but soon as that little noose is loose...he's gone!
Paul said such thinking that permeates so much of Christian example, conversation and teaching is really "the basic principles of this world." It's not wisdom from above but from below. It's a way of living that Paul says we have to realize that we died too. That's not our path anymore. In fact Paul goes so far as to say...Why do you submit to it's rules?"
Why do we?
Why do you?
Why do I?
Paul call some of their hyper false spirituality tactics "self imposed worship."
How much of what we call "worship of God" is self imposed stuff versus God imposed? How much of our daily Christ life is merely the fruit of human thinking, man made rules and traditions that have arose out of religious minds of the earth not spiritual minds from Jesus?
How much of this dog like butt sniffing that goes on in religious circles is of God?
People sniffing around making sure everyone is in line, being good and not an impostor. Paul called such people "The dogs" in Philippians 3:2. There is a whole lot of uptight Pharisees checking our shorts to see if we are circumcised or not. It's chronic...spoken or unspoken it's there. I know because I have been one for a long time and I am tired of living that way.
I am tired of the pressure to judge, fix, correct, straighten out, spank, corral, frighten, pressure, guilt, condemn, and look down on others. I know nobody says they do that but I have and I see it all the time.
I'm weary of feeling like I have to save the world and that for others to stay saved depends on me and my ability to be good enough. This constant feeling that everyone is teetering on the edge of God rejection and that one slip up from you and their eternal soul's blood is on your hands is too much. My God! That's a massive weight to bear...who can handle such pressure? I don't want to impose such a ball and chain on believers.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Right now, evangelism with big meetings is in a very hard place—not only in trying to keep it going, but because of its results. Three out of four people who make professions at crusades never show up in any church. That’s partly due to the fact that in our notions of evangelism today, being converted has nothing to do with community; it just has to do with your “personal relationship” with God.
-Link via Jason Clark
-Link via Jason Clark
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