Sycamore

Change of Address

2008-08-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

So you know how I was saying like five months ago that we were working on a Shoreline Blog Network to debut soon, and I was taking a blogging hiatus until then? It finally happened. So if any of you are still out there, I'm now blogging inside the Shoreline network at http://blogs.shorelinewest.org/sycamore/. Hope to see you there.

Update: The link is fixed. Thanks to the anonymous commenter for the tip.

Simple, Hard Gospel

2008-03-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a bit of a break lately, but this is too good not to post.
(HT: Justin Taylor)

The Will of God for Your Life: Answers Here

2008-02-23T17:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, not really, but kind of. Mark Dever, of T4G fame, has written a great post that I think everyone should read on how looking for the "will of God" can actually enslave you. It's so good I've reprinted it in its entirety below, but check it out at his blog if you'd like to read more from Mark and others.

The Bondage of Guidance by Mark Dever
This will be brief. The way many Christians practice seeking God's will before they make a decision amounts to spiritual and emotional bondage. Christ has died to give us liberty and freedom (Rom. 6; Gal. 5; I Peter 2). We can only know the truth about God's will by what His Spirit reveals to us. He has revealed God's mind authoritatively in His Word. We should give ourselves to study what He has revealed. Personal reading, meditation, sermons, friends and books are all available to us to help us to better understand God's revealed will.

I do believe that God's Spirit will sometimes lead us subjectively. So, for instance, I am choosing to spend my life here on Capitol Hill because my wife & I sensed in 1993 that that is what God wanted us to do. However, I realized then (and now) that I could be wrong about that supposition. Scripture is NEVER wrong. I was free in 1993 to stay in England, or teach at a seminary, either of which would have been delightful opportunities. I understand that I was free to make those choices. But I chose, consulting Scripture, friends, wisdom, and my own subjective sense of the Lord's will, to come to DC. And even if I were wrong about that, I had (and have) that freedom in Christ to act in a way that is not sin. And I understand my pastoring here not to be sin. So I am free. Regardless of the sense of leading I had.

Most decisions I've made in my Christian life, I've made with no such sense of subjective leading. Maybe some would say that this is a mark of my spiritual immaturity. I understand this to be the way a redeemed child of God normally lives in this fallen world before the fullness of the Kingdom comes, Christ returns, and immediate, constant, unbroken fellowship with God is re-established.

A subjective sense of leading--when we've asked for it (as in James 1:5 we ask for wisdom) and when God freely gives it--is wonderful. The desire for such a subjective sense of leading, however, is too often, in contemporary evangelical piety, binding our brothers and sisters in Christ, paralyzing them from enjoying the good choices that God may provide, and causing them to wait wrongly before acting.

Beware of the bondage of "guidance."

Two Good Quotes

2008-02-21T09:54:00.000-08:00

This faith that we have embraced, this Life that we have taken into our hearts, will be our undoing. And it means to be that. It is designed to be the end of us. The Jesus I've come to see and know at work in my life is the One who comes to undermine my own small-minded and wrong-headed plans. He is the Trojan Horse of blessing that we readily welcome into our hearts without knowing His mission to destroy us.

- Glenn Packlam, Subversive Jesus and His Trojan Horse

American spirituality has glorified ’searching’ for spiritual meaning but de-emphasized ‘finding.’ In other words, it is good to be looking for spirituality, but it is intolerant to actually believe you have found a right faith.

- Ed Stetzer, quoted in Kane County Chronicle (HT: Joe Thorne)

How to Get Absolute Perfection

2008-02-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Week:

"“Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.” - John Calvin, Commentary on John

(From Joe Carter)

Everyone is seeking after something to be satisfied, and if you're reading this, it's a guarantee that you have an unwritten list of your own. What's on your list? What, to you, is something better than the absolute perfection of Christ?

The issue for most of us is two-sided: on the one hand, we fantasize that certain things like sex, money, power, and acceptance really are better than perfection. We've dreamt them into treasures that don't actually exist in the real world, but we pursue them as if, one day, if we serve them well enough, they will magically appear and give us everything we dreamed. The problem is that idols aren't real, no matter how much we wish they were. And the dreary reality is that not only do these idols fail to deliver on their promises, but they chain you up and beat you for your entire life — the whole time giving you the mirage that you're actually making progress.

On the other hand, we don't really believe that Christ is absolute perfection. We ascent to it intellectually, we say it as though we believe it, but if we were really honest we'd cop to the fact that in our heart we don't think he can fully satisfy. Think about it — when you've had a hard day, what do you want when you come home? When you're suffering, tired, stressed and burnt out, where do you go for rest? Television? Sex? Or Christ?

The hard truth is that where you turn when things get tough is the real god of your heart.

But now's your chance. Christ is not only absolute perfection, but at His cross is found absolute forgiveness and absolute freedom. If you're a believer, the Bible says that Christ has set you free, and Paul writes that there's no reason to go back and be a slave to idols that beat you instead of giving you what they promise. If you're a believer, the Bible says that there are times you'll still sin, but John writes that if you do sin, Christ's sacrifice is enough to give you full, complete forgiveness when you repent. Take your list today and plead with God that He would re-orient your life. Real, absolute perfection that fully satisfied is yours for the taking because God delivered his Son to death in your place. Live in the light.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

2008-02-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

When I was an elementary school kid, two things were true about me: I was bigger than everyone (I didn't change in weight from the fourth to the sixth grade, I just got taller), and I was way too cool to join in singing the "rain, rain, go away" song. For those of you unfamiliar with this childhood classic, it's a song consisting of two lines: "rain, rain, go away/come again another day." At best it made no sense, and at worst it was a patent lie because I knew those kids would be singing that same song the next time the rain came. There was no other day they wanted the rain to come. They were being irrational and embarrassing themselves, and I would have no part in it. (Welcome to the brain of Brian at age 9. Scary place to be.)

Right now, it's raining in Los Angeles. Not hard, but enough to make you walk a bit more briskly to your car and use your windshield wipers once you're there. For most people, myself included, rain is an inconvenience, but as I studied the providence of God for last Sunday's sermon, I ran across the simple, biblical fact that rain is a miracle. Even today, when we've come up with scientific names for all the processes involved, it hasn't stopped being a miracle.

I used a very little known pastor named John Piper as a resource for my study of rain, and I thought I'd quote from some of his writing since most people haven't heard of the guy. The extended quote below is well worth a read (here's the original).

Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where?

Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water.

That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.

What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm?

Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks.

How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it.

I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done. I think I should be thankful - lots more thankful than I am.

Grateful to God for the wonder of rain,

Pastor John

Some Writer Out There Understands

2008-02-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

This clip has been running around the blogosphere today, and I think it's one of the more powerful clips out there. Who knew it would come from the writers of ER?

We'll talk more about it this week sometime, but two things strike me most: first, apparently some writer out there understands. Second, it's oddly disturbing how, at certain moments, I find myself feeling bad for the new age chaplain, as though the guy's being too hard on her. I'd love to see the next section of the show if anyone knows where to find it.

Cancel Worship Music?

2008-02-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

Found a great article over at Church Matters on worship music and how many of us, without knowing it, have gotten a little mixed up over what it's really supposed to be about. Here are a few quotes, but you should really go read the whole thing:

When I was a sophomore and junior in college, I went to a few of the Passion conferences when they were held in Texas. Those were formative and amazing experiences for me. John Piper “Reformed” me in one earth-shaking sermon from Romans 3, and that has—in one way or another—shaped the trajectory of my life ever since. And the music was excellent—truly wonderful in every way. We sang loud, hands in the air, eyes closed and full of tears sometimes, and I believe I worshipped God through it all.

But then I went back to New Haven, Connecticut. The praise bands were gone, I didn’t have a group of people who’d gone with me and shared that experience, and the churches had a piano and thirty people singing Isaac Watts hymns. That forced me to learn how to stoke the fires of worship with truths and words, and not just with excellent music. I’ve learned how to be emotionally affected by the excellent words of hymns whether they’re played and sung “excellently” or not.

I am really afraid that we’ve managed to create a generation of anemic Christians who are spiritually dependent on excellent music. Their sense of spiritual well-being is based on feeling “close to God,” their feeling close to God is based on their “ability to worship,” and being able to worship depends on big crowds singing great music.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that it would do every Christian well to do some honest heart-searching about what makes them feel “close to God.” Can you feel close to God just by reading or saying the words, “In Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”? Would you be able to function in a church that’s great in every way except the music? If not, you probably need to give some thought to whether your spiritual life is dependent on something it should not be dependent on.

Linkfest

2008-02-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

All sorts of fun stuff:

If you've ever wanted to actually be honest, here's a great post on 1 John and How to Talk.

Wayne Grudem has a message called "Why Poor Nations Remain Poor." Haven't gotten to it yet, but it promises to be interesting.

Quote of the Week: "If you take a look at the average Evangelical Christian family in this country, they may talk about choosing to follow Jesus, but they didn’t. They chose money. That explains everything." (HT: Milton Stanley)

Most Popular Post of the Week: Against Music. Must read.

1 Great Way to Love Your Neighbors & Build Community in Your Neighborhood (Even if You Live in a Cocoon)

Speaking of loving your neighbor...here are some statistics that should change the way you live.

Getting Out More

2008-02-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as I was preaching on Revelation 4-5, I got to verse 11, where all of these crazy living creature and the twenty four elders fall down to worship God on His throne. I was so taken with that picture that it would have been easy to neglect the reason why they're worshiping. When they fall down and lay their crowns at the foot of God's throne, they say this:

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

I heard a pastor say last week that he believed Satan's plan was to keep everyone staring at drywall. It was his contention that one of the best things we could do for our spiritual life is to get out more. And he tied it to this passage, where the heavenly host worships God because of His creation. God owns the entire universe because He made it, every piece of it, seen and unseen. And it's really hard to remember that when all we see, all day every day, is pavement, traffic, and television.

It seems like the closest I get to nature these days is through the near pixel-less beauty of the HDTV in my living room. And the things I marvel at are the expensive cars my friend reviews for a magazine, the buildings my architect roommate designs, and the technology that makes my mac tiny but powerful. It's been a while since I've marveled at nature and God's creation. Heck, it's been a while since I've looked up. I tend to keep my eyes on the road, the sidewalk, the computer, my coffee...it's rare to get a good glimpse of the sky. Even MSNBC is starting to notice how no one is getting out anymore.

I remember when I was young, my mom used to drag me to the window on an almost nightly basis, saying, "Brian, come look at the moon!" The sunset also got some regular recognition from her. I remember thinking to myself that the moon was always there, and so was the sunset. Kind of a "you've seen it once, you've seen it a thousand time" sort of thought. But I'm starting to think my Mom was on to something.

What are you going to do this week? Is any of it going to be outside, in God's creation? Because I don't think you can stare at the beauty of the stars, the sky, or a sunset and not have a piece of your heart think of the glory of God. And that piece can be fanned into a whole hearted worship just like the elders in Revelation 4:11. We'll talk more about enjoying God's creation, and recognizing His glory through His creation later this week.

Charlie Bit My Finger

2008-02-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

Just finished sermon work for the night, and saw this video (from Andrew Osenga's blog). Maybe I'm delirious from the late night sermon work, but I think it's freaking hilarious.

Don't Call It a Comeback

2008-02-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine how easy it would be to apply some bible passages if this happened?

Update: Apparently the link above was removed by the news organization due to some controversy. Here's a YouTube video of the story, and a response from the Arkansas Department of Health denying the whole thing. Kind of crazy.

How Malachi Applies to Your Life

2008-02-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, not the whole book. Malachi is a minor prophet, the last book in the Old Testament, and a great follow up to Monday's post on remembering that God is real. Malachi, a prophet, says to the lukewarm nation of Israel this:

1:6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord's table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts.

I remember when I was younger, and I transferred to a new elementary school after my family moved. For some reason in 1990 there was a yo-yo craze making waves throughout the third grade, and on my first day I met a guy and subsequently broke his super sweet glow in the dark yo-yo. He, of course, demanded payment and I, of course, went home despondent and worried that my entire life was doomed to be a social failure. Plus, I was pretty certain that I hadn't actually broken the thing, but that it was really just a difficult knot near the base. So for an entire afternoon, when I wasn't staring at the $15 that I was supposed to give my new "friend," I was verbally chastising him.

Of course, he wasn't actually in the room. And as long as he wasn't there, I decimated him and all of his petty arguments, oftentimes in front of crowds of popular students who would all embrace me afterwards and make me their king. Yet, the next morning, I handed him $15, stammered something while staring at the ground, and was so out of sorts that I barely noticed the lack of popular students giving me hugs.

I wonder sometimes if we don't treat God the way I treated my new friend — as someone who we know is real but who we interact with as though He's imaginary. Malachi says as much in the passage above. When the Jews had to bring an offering to God, they'd pick out some sick, pathetic lamb that wasn't worth much and throw it on the altar. They're going through the motions, and the discussion they're having in their room with their imaginary God is going quite well for them. But, God says, imagine bringing that same sickly lamb to the governor's house as a gift for a dinner party. What would that be like?

The lesson isn't hard to find. When the real governor sees the real crappy lamb and then sees you really holding it, he'd be insulted and all of a sudden, reality would hit you — there would be real consequences in a real world. The moral of the story is that God isn't imaginary, and that our interactions with Him can't be lame excuses that we imagine into success stories. Just like everything went well in my head until I actually had to deal with my new friend and his broken yo-yo, everything can go quite well in our heads until we actually have to stand face to face with the Ancient of Days. And, crazier still, there's more joy to be found by encountering God as a reality than by imagining up your own happy ending — as long as you have the blood of Christ to make you a part of His family.

Eph. 3:20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Cyril of Jerusalem

2008-02-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

...said some great stuff. He's a saint from the early church who lived from around 315 to 386 A.D. He gave some great advice to new converts at that time concerning the need to stay close to the Word. Here's a quote:

In regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, not the least part may be handed on without the Holy Scriptures. Do not be led away by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me, who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless you receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce. The salvation in which we believe is not proved from clever reasoning, but from the Holy Scriptures. (Catechetical Lectures 4:17)

If you've been away from your Bible for a while — and trust me, I know how that can happen to anyone — grab it and find some time today to read. These days it's very easy to get all of your knowledge of God from an engaging speaker, but those winning words can't take the place of the Scriptures in your life. I remember back in college I had a friend that I lived with for three plus years, and over the course of that time we had a lot of late night conversations. This guy was one of the craziest, hyperactive guys I've met, but he had a really cool spiritual side that could have good conversations. And when someone once told me and a group of people that my roommate wasn't a very deep guy, I had to speak up — because I knew better.

Your relationship with God through His Word should leave you primed and ready to know when someone speaking about Him is off, even by a little bit.

Tuesday is for Links

2008-02-05T12:54:00.001-08:00

Found some good stuff, thought I'd pass it on:

Dan over at the Pyromaniacs has a good piece on a bible story from Matthew that reads like a horror movie. And the ending is honestly chilling.

Joe Carter over at Evangelical Outpost has a longer article on the real story behind Galileo and the church. It's really interesting how the whole story is different if you just do a little bit of homework.

I also found a really cool website called the Theology Network, which has some great links to audio resources as well as a lot of articles ranging in topic matter from a "theology of everything," talking about how to apply the gospel to all areas of your life, and also "merrie theologiane," which this month details one of Martin Luther's very original ways of keeping temptation away. It's sponsored by UCCF, a very innovative campus ministry organization that has deep reverence for the local church.

Monday is for Musings

2008-02-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

Forgive the alliteration, it just felt right, and, as you know, one is rarely in the mood for an alliteration, so I thought I'd take advantage. Apparently I'm also in the mood for awkwardly long sentences.

Alright, time for some honesty: yesterday, I doubled the length of my sermon introduction because I felt like I needed to pause for a moment and reflect on how real God is. I've occasionally struggled with doubt in my life, especially for a few intense months in college, but I've pretty much always believed that God exists. And so if someone ever asked me if I thought God was real, I would say yes.

But lately, I've started to question whether that's true. I got an email last week from someone at Shoreline who said that she'd been a Christian most of her life, but "if I really believed everything I know about God and the Bible, then my life would be radically different." All of a sudden I wondered whether I really believed that God was real — the kind of real that matters, the kind of real that changes your life.

My life as a pastor is one that has a fair share of sacrifice, and I haven't met many people who would say that my life needs a lot more devotion to God. But I know myself, and I know my life — and I know that for the majority of my day, it's difficult to act as thought God is real.

Some people call it an "eternal perspective," but I think it's a result of actually believing that God is real. For example: if you really believed that God was real, the most important thing on your mind, all day, would be what He thinks of your life. If you really believed that He's as holy as the Bible says, you'd wouldn't be able to go for five minutes without thanking Him for sending Christ to die so you could be saved. If you really believed that 99.99999% of your existence is going to be spent in Heaven with Him, then you wouldn't go a day without finding some way to store more treasures there.

I'm going to be writing more about this throughout the week as I figure out how to get my life aligned to what I say I believe, but in the meantime, I encourage you to ask the question: if God was real, how would your life be different? And since God is real, what are you going to do about it?

Last Sunday's Sermon

2008-02-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

...is finally up on the website and podcast (iTunes). Sorry it took so long, and thanks to those of you who kept prodding me to get it up. Without you it might not have happened for quite a while.

On a different note, I'm really excited to get moving on our new series, Adoration. I finally solidified all the messages through Easter and I can't wait to study and preach each one of them. It's not that I normally don't look forward to preaching, but I can't remember when I've been this excited just to prepare them.

I promise that soon there will actually be substantive posts on this blog...right now a lot of my time is going to some admin stuff and helping design the new Shoreline blog network that's going to appear sometime in the near to distant future. (By helping, I mean throwing out a bunch of random ideas to our freaking incredible website guy and hoping that ten percent of them are (a) coherent and (b) helpful in some way. I think I'm around 7% right now, so if I put a bit more work in over the weekend I might actually make that number.)

How To Be More Satisfied in God

2008-01-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

Justin Buzzard pointed me to these a while back, and I thought this would be a good time to share them. Here are John Piper's thoughts on how a pastor like myself can help people be more satisfied in God. I think they work for anyone who would like to see both themselves and those they are around find more delight in the God who loves them.

Love God will all your heart and soul and mind and strength in the presence of other people. It is contagious.
Love other people from the power of God's grace. That is, show them the beauty of Christ through his love for them in the way you love them.
Tell stories about those who were ravished by the beauty and glory of God. It seems that true narratives of peoples' experience with the worth of God are very awakening.
Describe God's value—his treasure—in lavish terms.
Teach the people how to pray for the transformation of their own hearts, that is, teach them how to pray with the psalmists, "Incline my heart to Thy testimonies and not to getting gain."
Model for the people extended meditation and reflection on the word of God. Most people do not know how to take a word or phrase or sentence of scripture, commit it to memory and roll it over again and again in their mind and look at it from different sides and ask many questions about it and apply it to different aspects of their life and think of analogies of it in their mind. But it's precisely in this cogitating that the juices in the fruit begin to flow down and awaken the taste buds of the soul.
Show the people how to find specific, particular promises in the Bible to savor. When Paul says in Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing . . .", he is pointing out that joy and peace rise up as we trust in God's precious and very great promises. So people need to do more specific searching for promises and then hold them in their minds and dwell on them as they go through the day.
Pray for your people that their hearts would be softened and made tender and more susceptible to the beauty of Christ.
Help your people to turn off the television. Few things in our culture are more spiritually numbing than the television. Even the so-called "good" shows are by and large banal and low-minded and anything but cultivating of a rich, deep capacity to enjoy God. And when you add to that the barrage of suggestive advertisements that accompany virtually every program, I do not wonder why so many of our professing Christians are spiritually incapable of experiencing high thoughts and deep emotions.
Point the people to God-centered biography. The struggles and the triumphs of Christians who have known the glory and greatness of God are very engaging and awakening.
Show the people how to transpose their joys in natural things into joy in God. Here's what I mean. Even the most joyless person seems to have one or two things in their lives that make them happy. It might be their family. It might be the night sky in the north woods. It might be fishing. Help them to make a transposition, that is, to take the line of music called "joy" in their soul and transpose it up from the natural to the supernatural by an act of faith in God as the one who created the family or the night sky or the fishing. Help them see that all the things that are truly delightful in this world, which awaken pleasures in their hearts, are gifts of God and are reflections of his character and his goodness. If they are capable of delighting in natural things, then by the grace of the Holy Spirit they may be capable of transposing those very joys into a higher key and thus discovering joy in God.
Call the people for confession and renunciation of plaguing sins that make them feel inauthentic and block true affection for God.
Teach them about the necessity and value of suffering in the Christian life and how it is not worth comparing to the glory to be revealed.

Those are some of the things that might help your people.

What I find is that the most helpful things are simply to attend to your own soul and what it is that kindles delight for God in you and then share that with others.

Blessings on you as you perform the high task of mid-wifery in bringing joy in God to birth in your congregation.

The End of a Monday

2008-01-28T20:57:00.000-08:00

It would be great if I could write up a smart, convincing, and emotionally compelling post that would remind you of the need for passionate worship. But, to be honest, it's not worth your time to read my writing to get pumped up for God. It's worth your time to stare at the Savior, the Lord who dwells in unapproachable light and who's glory is above the heavens, and to lose yourself in your own personal worship of the God who has died and brought you near to Him. I can't explain how great it is to set down whatever it is your eyes are on right now and just stare at Him, meditate on His glory and grandeur and love, remind yourself that you are in the holy presence of God and worship the King. No more excuses or sinful desires or apathy — just you, your knees, and the Creator of the Universe.

Feel free to use the 20 Minute Blog if you need some scripture to meditate on, so that you can hear your Father speak to you.

Babies, Ministry, and Free Wifi

2008-01-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

Sounds like a great post title, but really it's just me checking in to let everyone know that I'm sitting in downtown LA, preparing to speak to a bunch of college students, and it's the first time I've had a chance to post. I was privileged enough to witness the second ever poop of Scott's new child, Addison, which was a great experience. Scott is now attempting the da vinci sleep schedule so that he can feed the (not so) little one while Lara rests, and when you couple that with my newfound desire to lead an even slightly organized church, you get a Brian without much time to post.

So...bring on the links:

Prodigal Jon has a really cool piece on how Monks can help us understand Christ and our work/studies.

If you haven't seen this yet, you've been missing out. It's incredible.

Tim Challies gives some tips on how to listen to a sermon. Since Christians spend a lot of time listening to sermons, it's well worth a quick read to make the most of it.

Have a great day!

New Baby

2008-01-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

My close friend and fellow pastor Scott and his wife Lara have just had their second baby, Addison. I've only gotten two pieces of information so far: she's healthy, and she's, like, huge. I'm excited to meet the little one later today.

Pause in Message Prep

2008-01-19T13:04:00.001-08:00

So Saturdays are like the big sermon prep day for me. I'm not so much a procrastinator, it's just that I can't manage to get something done Friday and then just stop. Always seems premature.

Anyways, I was listening to my "study mix," while I was writing, and I came across Andrew Osenga's Swing Wide the Glimmering Gates. Just him and a guitar (overdubbed a ton), and it's a free download with his Letters to the Editor EP. You must get it and listen to it.

Friday is for Videos

2008-01-18T15:47:00.000-08:00

You gotta commend the guy for his dedication (see the last ten seconds), but here's a case of biblical interpretation gone wrong:

(Oh, and This guy loves football. A lot.)

A Great Story

2008-01-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

I ran across this story recently, and thought it was worth sharing, especially after last week's posts about making sure we're not all talk:

While D. L. Moody was attending a convention in Indianapolis on mass evangelism, he asked his song leader Ira Sankey to meet him at 6 o’clock one evening at a certain street corner. When Sankey arrived, Mr. Moody asked him to stand on a box and sing. Once a crowd had gathered, Moody spoke briefly and then invited the people to follow him to the nearby convention hall. Soon the auditorium was filled with spiritually hungry people, and the great evangelist preached the gospel to them.

Then the convention delegates began to arrive. Moody stopped preaching and said, “Now we must close, as the brethren of the convention wish to come and discuss the topic, ‘How to reach the masses.’”

Going to the Big Show

2008-01-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

Here's an incredibly convicting post from Justin Taylor from last Christmas. I've reproduced the entire thing because I think it's important for every Christian to understand and examine how we hold a church service and why. If you'd like to see some responses to this article, click here and here:

There was an article in last week's Chicago Tribune on Megachurches, megashows: Some organzations spend $1 million on performances to spread message.

This paragraph summarizes the article:

In an age of megachurches that thrive on congregations that sometimes number 20,000 or more, elaborate Christmas productions that can cost $1million have become a valuable marketing tool. Gone are the days of angel costumes made of white sheets and tin-foil halos. With the proliferation of megachurches, holiday pageants have gone Hollywood.

The article contains some interesting quotes from James Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida:

"It has nothing to do with the Christmas message. . . . It's selling a sensation, an experience. . . . What competitive churches understand is that you are not going to sell your service on the basis of doctrine because it's all the same. When people go to church they . . . want to know if there's a good show. And often that's not coming out of doctrine, it comes from music, theatrics and the sound system.

I'm Fallen, and I Can't Get Up

2008-01-15T10:38:00.000-08:00

The guys over at Pyromaniacs - well known for their conservative theology and awesome graphics - are starting a series on original sin, and how important of a doctrine it is. After hearing the last two messages at Shoreline on Psalm 139 and Psalm 51, it seems like these could be a great encouragement to pursue sin in our own hearts and let it lead us to Christ for forgiveness and grace every day. Plus, the title's sweet. I encourage you to read up.

I've also found in my own life that the easiest thing to do after messages on pursuing sin in my life is to look at a few obvious sins, make a few "New Year's resolution" type vows, and then just go on living. But the Bible is really clear that our relationship with sin isn't one of gentleness and good intentions. It's a fight to the death. And for those of you like me, who have a hard time remembering that on a daily basis, here are some books and other resources to help you:

Josh mentioned this book by John Owen in his message last Sunday. It's one of the best around, and it's well worth the price. Click to buy it at Amazon, or you can read it online here (Google print) or here.

John MacArthur has written a journal article on the topic of killing sin that's worth a read. It's a free pdf file that you can either read on your computer or print out.

John Piper has written a book called Battling Unbelief: Defeating Sin With Superior Pleasure that emphasizes how we always sin because we think it will bring us joy, but that God has so much more joy for us in obedience. Piper's got a great track record of keeping God central, so this book comes highly recommended. Buy it at Amazon.

Later on in the week I'll post some sermons on the topic. Happy reading, and I hope you guys have a great week of confession, repentance, and the joy that comes with the grace of your Father.

Prodigal Sons in College...and After

2008-01-09T16:42:00.000-08:00

Justin Buzzard, a pastor in the Bay Area, recently mentioned an article by Abraham Piper, the son of big time pastor John Piper. There's a stereotype that surrounds being a pastor's kid — namely, that the pressure gets to you and you either turn into a robot Christian or become hopelessly screwed up and turned off by the faith. That's why Abraham Piper's story is unique: he renounced his faith, then got saved.

He writes about his experience with an eye to helping Christian parents deal with their kids and their religion. At Shoreline, we don't have a lot of little sinners running around (our sinners are all grown up now), but we do have a lot of friends, siblings, co-workers, and classmates who are just like Abraham — if you've ever heard the phrase, "yeah, I went to church when I was young, but..." then you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever wanted to know how to react, or you could just use some encouragement yourself, read the whole thing. Some excerpts are below:

At first I pretended that my reasoning was high-minded and philosophical. But really I just wanted to drink gallons of cheap sangria and sleep around. Four years of this and I was strung out, stupefied and generally pretty low. Especially when I was sober or alone.

My parents, who are strong believers and who raised their kids as well as any parents I’ve ever seen, were brokenhearted and baffled. I’m sure they were wondering why the child they tried to raise right was such a ridiculous screw-up now. But God was in control.

One Tuesday morning, before 8 o’clock, I went to the library to check my e-mail. I had a message from a girl I’d met a few weeks before, and her e-mail mentioned a verse in Romans. I went down to the Circle K and bought a 40-ounce can of Miller High Life for $1.29. Then I went back to where I was staying, rolled a few cigarettes, cracked open my drink, and started reading Romans. I wanted to read the verse from the e-mail, but I couldn’t remember what it was, so I started at the beginning of the book. By the time I got to chapter 10, the beer was gone, the ashtray needed emptying and I was a Christian.

The best way I know to describe what happened to me that morning is that God made it possible for me to love Jesus. When He makes this possible and at the same time gives you a glimpse of the true wonder of Jesus, it is impossible to resist His call.

Looking back on my years of rejecting Christ, I offer these suggestions to help you reach out to your wayward child so that they, too, would wake up to Christ’s amazing power to save even the worst of us.

"You're too legalistic!"

2008-01-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was in high school and thought that I had the corner market on life. Being a Christian didn't have to be bible belt rules and hypocrisy, and I was happy to adjust Jesus and the Christian faith to make them sound better to whoever would listen (Don't worry, I was far from overeager in my evangelistic zeal. Shocking as it may be, my attitude was more about me than God or other people, so I was more worried about being a cool Christian than I was about my friends souls.)

Since then, I've realized that the battle cry over legalism and hypocrisy in the church is a little too easy. It doesn't take much thought to call someone a legalist, and it's often played like a trump care — the Bible frowns on legalism, so the minute that stigma is attached you're obviously wrong. It's a clean and easy way to tell someone who's making you uncomfortable with their piety that they can't push their morals on you, and that somehow their radical lifestyle is more sinful than your lukewarm one.

But being a pastor has given me some new insight on the "you're too legalistic" argument. Mainly, it's taught me that most people — and a lot of pastors — don't actually know what legalism is.

A professor once told me as much. I was in a biblical ethics class in seminary, and someone wrote a paper on gambling, or alcohol, or something like that, and the term legalism was thrown around a lot in the discussion, and the professor stopped us and said something like the following: "Be very careful using the word 'legalistic.' Legalism is using works to purchase more favor from God. Legalism is a false gospel. Legalism is not me having more rules than you." Stopped me right in my tracks.

Rules don't equal legalism. Most Christians cry legalism the same way the Mel Gibson cried freedom in Braveheart. "You can't tell me how to live. That's legalism. There's freedom in Christ!" And like any good rebellious teenager, they go get their ears pierced — or move in with their girlfriend — to prove that you can still be a Christian and not live by the rules. Often times it's more. It's to prove that living under the "rules" quashes freedom, but living free avoids the sin of legalism and allows us to fulfill our real potential. After all, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. And if our relationship with Christ is like most of the ones in today's pubescent version of adulthood, it doesn't actually require any constraints on what we want to do.

Really, when we say that all we've done is take a lack of submission and a lack of commitment to the way God desires us to live and clothed in in Christian lingo. It sounds great to avoid legalism, but what we're really avoiding is discipleship. Paul called himself a slave to Christ. He never once said being a slave to the desires of God is legalistic.

In fact, it seems that the boundaries God places around us — the 'rules' we're so quick to dismiss as counter to the gospel — are what actually free us to enjoy our life. Justin Taylor pointed me to this quote from Chesterton:

"We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased."

I'd prefer to live with the wall and enjoy my life rather than live without it in fear, or ignore that it's gone until I fall. All of this begs the question: what in my life am I rebelling against and pretending like it's holy? What parts of God's will, clearly spelled out in His word, am I avoiding, or neglecting, because I think it's impinging on my freedom? And, most importantly, what kind of joyful life am I missing out on because of it?

Reclaiming the Mission

2008-01-07T16:00:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's post, I found a great list of things a church planter wished he had done over the last few years. While they pertain mainly to pastors, the priorities they show are important for every believer. I've talked to a lot of people who've asked me what it's like to be a pastor, and I know that there have been plenty of times I wish I could concisely communicate the heart and tension of pastoring. This is one of the better I've found: read it here.

The Fog...

2008-01-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

has mostly lifted from my brain today. It's funny how I used to look at people who "called in sick" as wusses who couldn't just walk it off. Apparently that was because I hadn't been really sick in like four years. (Which, oddly enough, coincides almost directly with the day I moved out of the fraternity house at UCLA...interesting...). Anyways, after being summarily wrecked by this little virus/infection/ebola strain I ran across, I'm back to about 70% and happy to say that I can think straight again, or at least think as straight as I could pre-bird flu.

While I have a newfound appreciation for illness of all kinds now, that doesn't mean I lost my OCD addiction to productivity while I was sick. For the past few days, I've used the 20% access to my brain to try to reorganize my life so I can get more things done with less stress. This involved changing up my email folders, trying out a few new computer programs, and generally geeking out to the GTD phenomenon (see here, here, and here) that's been running around the past two years.

Now, I'm still a big proponent of getting organized so that you can actually do the things you should be doing — and doing them well, by not always playing catch-up (anyone else channeling Lumberg?) and feeling like you're losing. However, it struck me that the only reason I was reorganizing my projects and goals was because I was in no position to actually accomplish any of them. I felt like I was making progress, but at the end of the day all I had was a better organized list of actions — the same actions I had when I started.

Made me wonder how much we as people — and we as Christians — talk, think, and plan about certain things simply because we don't want to/feel like we can't actually do them.

Before I got sick, I was planning on taking an intensive course on the book of James this week. Since it's still a 50-50 shot that I won't get dizzy when I stand up, I dropped the course in favor of actually getting well again instead of my standard "get back to 80% and then drive your body into the ground so you never really heal." One of the pre-course assignments was to read through the book of James several times, and there's one passage that always stands out:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
-James 1:22

How easy is it to deceive ourselves? Jeremiah says it's not just easy, it's our natural state. And I wonder how many times we as Christians have held conferences, services, bible studies, and late night discussions over stale pizza only to hone our methods for actions that — if we're really honest — we have no intention of actually doing.

The thing about productivity enhancement is that it never has to end. You can keep reading blogs and books and going to seminars continually honing in on making your job, your desk, your email inbox one incredibly smooth system. You can get addicted to the feel of being cutting edge with that stuff. But it's like souping up your car and never driving it — you can almost feel the wind in your hair, and the purr of the motor, but in reality it's only cool to people who love looking at pretty things that are otherwise useless.

Our faith, our lives are the same way. We can get addicted to learning more, to thinking more biblically, to re-re-learning how to do church (or "be church" or whatever it is these days) and honing our missiology so that we are the foremost authority on how to be missional in our community, without ever actually driving the car. And we end up like some old cathedral in Europe — pretty, but empty.

At Shoreline, we've been talking a lot about having a real relationship with God. About how to do it, about why to do it, about what it means and what it looks like — we've stopped just short of talking about how it smells. But have we actually done it? Or are we on track to become the foremost experts on a relationship with God without actually knowing Him? Don't worry, He's not angry. He just wants His kids to be for real, and He's more than happy to shower some love on you to get you there. Drive the car. Take time to enjoy Him today. And you'll be surprised to find that, all of a sudden, you're doing all sorts of things in His Name.

(If you need it, the Twenty Minute Blog is still there).

Sick part 2

2008-01-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

Just for your edification: this morning, I walked around with like 2% lucidity, and if anyone had been home, they would have seen me do a dead on impression of Rain Man. I think I had a fever — I don't really know how to tell about those sorts of things — and I was walking around the apartment looking for something to eat. I settled on cottage cheese and something...maybe some fruit...and I found myself walking around the apartment, slightly off kilter, repeating, "fruit...fruit would be good...fruit, good fruit...find some fruit..."

If I find some time when my brain is functioning at more than 5-6%, I might write something up. Until then, here are some more links:

Want some great questions for living in the New Year? Check out Church Matters. It's worth your time.

Drew Goodmanson has a short but good quote on the difficulty of transparency in church.

Finally, Prodigal Jon writes about how being a Christian in the workplace is more than just evangelism.

Links and Sickness

2008-01-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

So apparently the germs that come out of an infant's repetitive sneezing can take down a full grown man. My New Year's Eve consisted of hanging out with some close friends and playing around with Scott's son Harper, who seemed to be allergic to me. Not because he didn't want to hang out and play, but because every time he managed to get close enough, he'd sneeze directly on my face.

Somehow they were hard to dodge.

All that to say, I'm couch-ridden right now, blanketed up, Law & Order in the background, sending emails and working on some stuff that doesn't take my entire brain (at least half of it is devoted to my immune system and/or enveloped in a fog). So I've got some links for you guys until I've got some thinking power back:

Need a quick jolt of inspiration and conviction? Read Tim Challies response to Noel Piper's book, Faithful Women & Their Extraordinary God. It's incredible.

Want some perspective? Read Michael Spencer's post on churches called "No Big Thing." It'll surprise you.

Want to be a man (or know what it's like)? Check out Ray Van Neste's address to some college guys on manhood. If you think you don't need to read it, that means you do.

Hope these get you through!

Craigslist Rules

2007-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

So I was taking a blogging hiatus for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, but this is too crazy, so I'm calling it off a day early.

As some of you know, I recently made the large maturity jump from a twin bed, which has (almost entirely) housed my 6'3" frame for the last eight plus years, to a queen size affectionately known as "the big boy bed." This has been a fun change, since now my feet actually have a place to rest throughout the night — and I don't even have to try to work the diagonal angle to which I've grown accustomed.

The problem was that, once I moved in the big boy bed, I had no place to house the old twin, the old twin's box spring, and the metal thing with the wheels that the box spring sits on. So, like any normal person, I stuck them outside, on the patio outside my room. For two weeks.

Today, I decided I needed to do something with them — namely, put them in the alley and see what happens. As I threw them over the balcony and onto the pavement below, one of my roommates suggested that I put an add on Craigslist. I told him that no one wants an outdoor-housed two year old twin mattress in an alley on New Year's Eve. Even if it is free. But I gave it a shot. Put it in the 'free' section, and fully disclosed the entire, storied history of the bed and its accoutrements.

Ad went up at 3:05pm. Someone in a van drove off with them at 4:10pm. It's a brave new world.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T17:50:00.000-08:00

It's nice to be with my family, but I'm not lying when I say that I miss my Shoreline family. One day, when we're all raising kids and living as missionary families in West Los Angeles, we'll get to combine the two, and I can't wait.

If you haven't read the post from yesterday, I encourage you to check it out, and don't miss the sweet picture of Snoopy. And, before you go to sleep on what may be the busiest day of your year, make sure you carve out some time to spend with God. Today is the day we celebrate that He didn't leave us behind in our sin, didn't forsake us even though we deserved it, but emptied Himself and became a little baby in a barn somewhere — all so that He could die to give us a relationship with God. Most of us have celebrated today with gifts for our loved ones. Let's not forget to enjoy the gift God gave us: adoption into His family, eternal life, a place to always feel safe, and the assurance that no matter how crazy things get in this life, there's a family feast waiting for us on the other side with our new Father and sinless, glorified family.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

The Spirit of Christmas

2007-12-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Scott preached a great sermon on the true Spirit of Christmas. He spoke out of Philippians 2:1-11, and I highly recommend listening to it as your Christmas devotional time. For me, I've been touched by the humility of Christ and His desire that I actually think of other people as better than myself. As Scott said, if God emptied Himself to become a man all out of love for a sinner like me, how can I complain that God asks me to put myself at the bottom of the social ladder out of service to others? This week, as you spend time with your family and celebrate the birth of Christ, remember that celebrating properly involves you humbling yourself before everyone in your family, considering them better than yourself, and serving them out of love for your Savior. Only when we forget our own rights and needs and place ourselves beneath those around us are we truly following Christ and shining His light into the world (and into our families). Have a great Christmas and I'm praying that all of you see God do amazing things through the way you humble yourself the radical way that Christ did.

Best Christmas Carol Ever

2007-12-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

HT: Michael Foster

I'm the first one to think that Christmas carols are done to the point that they lose all meaning, but these guys made me love them all over again. Well, well worth a watch:

Awesome

2007-12-21T17:28:00.001-08:00

If you haven't been following the story of Eric Volz, check this out and then google his name. It's an incredible testament to the power of prayer, and I'm excited to be among those who prayed for his release.

Keeping Your Eyes on Things Above

2007-12-20T17:56:00.000-08:00

Every day this week I've been coming back to the same passage of scripture:

3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. -Colossians 3:1-4

For some reason, I've been drawn to this idea of keeping my mind dwelling on things that are eternal, and not spending the majority of my time focused on things that aren't going to last that long.

I've been amazed at how difficult it is to do that.

It's like there's this entire army out there waging a campaign against my heart breaking through to a devotion to eternity. Everything around me, from my personal history to the television I've watched to the people I've known to the billboards around my apartment have pushed me for twenty-seven years to focus on my life, my time, the things I want and desire and can have if I apply myself and maybe buy the right stuff. The hardest part about it is that there is a significant part of me that really wants all the billboards to be right. Maybe I can have a nice house, and a lot of admiration from my peers, and a wife I can show off to everyone, and I could be the envy of the rest of the world — even while being a pastor — if I just focused on the here and now. Set some goals. Think positive thoughts, exert control over my circumstances, be whatever I want to be.

I hate it, mostly because of how much I want it.

I don't have any easy answers, and this won't end with a bright, shiny lesson on principles of Christian living or something like that. I'm sure there are some good things out there to help with the fight — daily prayer, accountability, reminders, stuff like that. Those are all good things, but they aren't where my heads at right now. Right now I'm just glad that I have a God who's promised to rescue me from all of this sin in my heart. Colossians 3 isn't about life principles — well, maybe it is sort of, but I don't think that's the heart of it. It's about truth. Verses 9-11 say,

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

The truth is that I'm different now, not because I do different things, nor because I tried really hard, or even because I have some inward desire to keep my eyes where they should be. Those should all be true, but they're effects, not the cause. I'm glad because I believe that despite my struggles with where my eyes go, God has told me that Christ's sacrifice is enough to get someone like me all the way back to a relationship with Him. When I die, I'm not going to point at a lot of fruit in my life. I hope there will be some, but I hope that I'm not fixated on it. I really hope that when I see the Lord, I'll be pointing right at Him, saying that I have no right to be here except that He vouched for me, paid my way, and cleaned me up so I can belong somewhere. And I'm pretty sure I'll find a lot of friends there who feel the same way. Christ is all, and in all. Nothing in this world has any worth, or even any existence, except in how it relates to Christ. There's coming a time when the struggle stops, and everything's made clear, and that's why I want my eyes on eternal things. But I know amidst the struggle and the strain to keep them there, He's got me taken care of.

Just some thoughts for the day.

How Does an American Share in Christ's Sufferings?

2007-12-19T09:53:00.001-08:00

I read a post by Tim Challies this morning titled "The Fellowship of His Sufferings." In it he recounts a few stories of missionaries and the way that they have experienced suffering as a result of their faith.

I've always made it a policy at this blog to never link just as filler material. I skim/read a lot of posts every day, and the only ones that make it over here are ones that I think are important for everyone, especially Shoreliners, to read. This one is no exception, and I highly encourage you to take a few minutes and read the whole post.

Tim asks what it looks like to be entirely devoted to God, and, after stories like the ones he tells, I'm asking the same thing. I read in 1 Peter today:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. -1 Peter 4:12-14

What does it look like for your average, middle class American to share in the sufferings of Christ? And if we don't feel that we are able to in our current situation, are we called to change our circumstances so that we can encounter suffering?

But even if we take a step back from that last question, something very practical arises from the idea that suffering should not only be expected by the Christian, but should be embraced. As Christians in the West, we have a knack for embracing worldly security. Alarm systems, gated communities, insurance policies...all good things, that can be enjoyed by godly people. But with worldly protection comes the temptation to rely on things of the world to keep us safe. More than that — it becomes acceptable to pursue protection from any kind of discomfort. Slowly but surely, our affluence breeds not just the outward expression of worldly security, but the inward disposition to avoid any discomfort at all costs. While I'm not ready to call everyone to relocate to a place that persecutes Christians, I am asking that we all take a good hard look at ourselves and wonder: how am I insulating myself from the suffering that God desires me to experience, and rejoice in, today?

20 Minutes

2007-12-18T18:33:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posting the last two days...my free time has been spent setting up the 20 Minute Blog for Shoreline. It's geared to help members of the church make sure they spend at least twenty minutes with God every day. Feel free to check it out and participate — the more the merrier.

Facebook Just Dumped on My Christmas

2007-12-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Facebook junkie by any stretch — in fact, I signed up for the thing because I kept getting emails from people "inviting" me to be their friend (though I'm not sure what an internet "friend" is, exactly — do we have online coffee and IM each other every couple of weeks to catch up?). I figured if I just got an account, then the emails would stop.

I was wrong.

In the beginning I warmed up to Facebook, since everyone and their mother has an account — which means that I can catch up with high school friends as well as get bombarded with "friend requests" from like every person who's met me and whose self esteem directly correlates with their friend count. But since then it's been slightly frustrating, mainly because on the one day a month that I check the thing, I'm inundated with the most random stuff. For example, I've been "body slammed" by like eight people. This means that someone used some weird program to send me a note letting me know that I've been "body slammed," and that I have the opportunity to "body slam" them right back if I so choose. Of course, this does not entail actually going to their house and having a Rick-Flair-style good time. This means I press another button, and now they get a note. And — if I act quickly — I can body slam an entire host of "friends" of mine via note. Also on the list of things that have been electronically "done" to me: I've been made a zombie, I've been bitten by a werewolf, I've been "super poked" (which does NOT sound fun) and my movie knowledge has been challenged by some dude who scored a 91% on the "Name That Disney Princess" quiz and who now wants me to participate.

I thought that I had made peace with the whole process some time ago, because, honestly, it's not like I have to look at any of this stuff. In fact, I can check in once a month, confirm that I am indeed "friends" with a bunch of people, and ignore the rest unless it seems particularly compelling.

Until today, when Facebook summarily told me that I have 0% — yes, you read that right, 0% — of Christmas Spirit. The proof is below, and I'm waiting for a personal apology from the Facebook staff. I mean, I'm a pastor. I love Christmas.

Gangs Next Door

2007-12-14T17:32:00.000-08:00

I just read a compelling and tragic piece on gangs and violence in Southern California, which is now spreading to outlying suburbs. Here's a snippet, but I highly encourage you to read the whole thing:

A few weeks before his cousin’s funeral, I had met up with De’Andre Perry, known as Little D among his fellow Bounty Hunters. We stood in the entrance to the recreation center in front of the infamous memorial listing those killed in gang violence over the past few years. I asked Perry for the same thing I’d asked other gangbangers caught up in this deadly vendetta — an explanation.

Eventually, like all gangbangers I spoke with, he circled back to gang lore, which defines the gang as a family defending neighborhood pride. “I was born into it,” Perry said. “Doing drug dealing or gangbanging, I was always that in my eyes. The Bounty Hunters are a powerful community wherever we go. Wherever we move you see our prints. Everywhere you go if you ask anybody about Bounty Hunters they have something strong to say.”

I said that’s not the case outside Watts, in, say, wealthy white Santa Monica, where most people have never heard of the Bounty Hunters and would think of them not with respect but disgust.

Perry paused. His eyes moist, he leaned forward and gesticulated with his hands. “If I walk down the street and I see a white dude and he sees the way I look, tattoos and all that, he thinks I am automatic trouble. In a way, that makes me feel good...” He trailed off. Even he wasn’t buying what he was saying. Suddenly, his Bounty Hunter identity dissolved: “I am this way, but not just because I am this way. I am this way because something happened.”

“People walking through are experiencing this violence over and over again,” says Aquila Sherills, a former Grape Street Crip. “So how do we deal with it? We don’t. Alcohol, sex, marijuana. People are totally numb.”

How does the church deal with this issue? It seems all to easy to forget that it exists because we can't see it in "wealthy white Santa Monica," but this problem is only miles away from our doors. And while most people would be happy to stay as far away as possible, as Christians we're different. What does it look like to be the body of Christ with this kind of hurt going on in the lives of people living next door?

SF Chronicle Slams Churches

2007-12-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

...and I totally understand why.

Justin Buzzard, who pastors at Central Penninsula Church in NorCal, is a great blogger and is one of those guys that you've never met, but they just seem like people who you'd get along with really well. Plus, he scores bonus points for pastoring in the Bay Area, which is where I'm from (even though I'm from the East Bay, and he's on the peninsula). It's good to know there's a guy like him preaching up there.

All that to say, Justin posted a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle (reprinted below) that absolutely decimates the mega-church culture. He asks for prayer that CPC would be a different kind of church, and just reading his prayer request got me excited. I'd ask that you pray for Justin and CPC, and that you'd also pray for me and Shoreline, and that you'd also pray for pastors and churches all over the world, that we'd be the kind of leaders and believers that are willing to sacrifice everything to know Christ and to obey Him. If only a few of us commit to regular prayer for this kind of devotion to God in our pastors and churches, I can't imagine the kind of power He'll unleash. Especially you Shoreliners — it's prayers like these that make God's church the kind of powerful, tight-knit, sacrificial, exciting, demanding, and life-altering family that the Bible talks about. I don't beg often — my pride tends to get in the way — but I'll beg you guys to pray that God would make us that kind of church. With a God as powerful as ours, it's scary to think of how radically He'll change our lives as we draw near to Him.

Here's the quote from the Chronicle:

...the bizzarre parallel universe of conservative Christian megachurches, those giant ultra-bland heavily shellacked stadium-size fluorescent nightmare warehouses that are still flourishing, more or les, simply because many of them are now dramatically diluting the fire-and-brimstone religion stuff, muting all that thorny theology and eschatology and even the right-wing intolerance (or, rather, carefully burying it, to be fed to you slowly, bit by bit, especially around election time) and replacing it with something resembling, well, a giant, chessy self-help seminar.

With skits. And dance numbers. And a food court. And day care. And an iPod lounge. Self-esteem building exercises...

From what I read, this seems to be the modern megachurchly direction: minimize the dogma and melodrama and speaking in tongues, maximum perkiness and nonddenominationalism and piles of happy sanitized self-help schmaltz. In Jesus' name, naturally.

And best of all, your kids won't have to avoid these pastors [reference to a discussion of Catholic priests earlier in the column], because, by and large, they're not really pastors at all. They're CEOs, businessmen, and salesmen and lifelong hucksters, and you can rest assured most have never really studied deep theology or been to any sort of seminary in the first place. Great.

It's true. Most megachurch leaders these days are, apparently, merely serious business pros, have had no real religoius education at all, no intellectual experience studying the world's various belief systems or the deeper issues of soul and faith and meaning, save for that "Selling Jesus to the Masses on DVD" weekend seminar at Harvard Business School Extension.

...as old churchly structures break down and any new "churches" are forced to dilute and open wider and try to at least pretend to be more inclusive and less intolerant in order to draw a wary crowd, could this be some of the cosmic groundwork for a much more potent, long awaited spiritual upheaval the mystics have hinted at for millenia?

On Being "All There"

2007-12-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

Not much to say today...my mind keeps wandering back to the idea of pursuing a relationship with God and how difficult it can be to make it a daily practice. It seems like getting through a Bible reading plan and a prayer list wouldn't be that hard; but now that I know it's supposed to be so much more than that it gets rough.

Maybe that's because I rarely bring all of myself to anything, and so I'm out of practice. Getting through a day is one thing, but baring myself to the One who knows me completely and who desires every piece of me is something else entirely. It's funny, it feels like I've been taught since I was young that intimacy, closeness, all those words associated with love, are things that are supposed to be easy. They're supposed to well up inside you until they just burst out; you can't contain them, let alone control them, and I suppose the idea is that they control you. But I'm finding that intimacy with God is just like every kind of intimacy that's not on a movie screen — it takes a lot to be all there with someone else.

It's funny how letting go is both an active and a passive thing — on the one hand, you're releasing something, which indicates a cessation of effort; but on the other hand, it feels like that release involves a pretty significant emotional toll. And letting go of my control over my daily schedule, of my control over my life — of my control over my ability to ration out how much of me is present in my relationships — certainly lets me rest in the Lord, but only after the struggle of prying my fingers off what was never really mine in the first place.

It's incredible, really, how much stuff for God we can do without bringing all of ourselves to the table. It's incredible how much stuff we can "do for God" without any real interaction with Him at all. And maybe that's the best analogy for something like this, that idea of "being there." When I talk to my parents on the phone, I always end up listening while I'm checking email or something. And despite my best efforts to be a good multi-tasker, they can always tell. Even in person, I've been known to just dissapear for a while from a one-on-one conversation. I'm right there — I might even be talking — but most of me is somewhere else. That's not because I don't care, at least not entirely. I'm realizing that the reason I'm often not all there is because it's hard to be all there. It's hard to be entirely with someone, entirely interested in being with them, entirely committed to investing all of yourself in them, entirely devoted to letting them invest in you.

But that's what God calls us to in our relationship with Him. He didn't ask us to put Him above all earthly goods so that we could give Him half of ourselves, whether that's half of our attention spans, half of our devotion, or just a half-hearted relationship. My time in the Word and in prayer doesn't just involve reading/listening and talking. It involves all of me being at the table with Him. And as difficult as it can be, He's offered His own strength to get me there.

But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, so that I may tell of all your works. -Psalm 73:28

How to Question Tragedy

2007-12-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I came home from an exhausting day of preaching, which capped off a crazy weekend that didn't hold much sleep. I sat down on my couch, grabbed my laptop, and read that a shooter in two locations, a church and a YWAM center, had opened fire and killed Christians.

It definitely stopped me in my tracks. Tragedies like these, focused around Christians or not, have a way of refocusing people; they force a step back, and that makes you view your life from a larger perspective than you usually do. And I knew that today, the commentary would start. Some ask questions, but most proffer answers to the questions that always come up in situations like these: Why did this happen? And what could we have done to stop it?

It's the second question that betrays what we're really after. We don't want a rationale for what happened; theodicy is not our main concern. It's not so much that we want to know why bad things happen to good people — it's that we want to know how we can make sure it doesn't happen to us. We want to know the logic behind events like these so that we can assert some control over them. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprising), we're not that concerned with the tragedy itself. We're concerned that it was out of our control. And so, if history is any guide, today will be filled with articles, blogs, and radio shows suggesting things we could have done — better parenting would have solved it, or better schools, or better youth groups, or something. Anything that can help us sleep tonight knowing that we're doing our part to never let this happen again.

But the truth of the matter is that tragedies like these show us one very important truth — we don't have control. We never have. The Bible tells us this all the time, but amidst all the sermons about "life principles" it gets lost a lot. One of these passages is in Psalm 127:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

God is pretty clear — He's the only one in charge. He's the only one with any control. And no matter how good our schools are, or how many parenting classes we offer, or how good the outreach is at our local youth group, or how many prozac pills we can pass out in the high school cafeteria, if the Lord isn't watching over the city, we labor in vain. The truth is that the only safety we have in this life is found in the Lord. He's our only security. And that's why the psalmist says that it's vain to wake up early, to go to sleep late, to anxiously strive for security from our own efforts. To those He loves, He gives sleep, because even though we can't control the situation, we know that He can, and He does.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't reflect on what tragedies like these show us about our society. Nor does it mean that we shouldn't be constantly trying to apply God's truths to the society we're in. But it does mean that there are other questions that are much more important. Questions like: how shaken is your security by tragedies like these? How much do you trust in your money, your government, your equity, to keep you safe? And how well do you sleep, knowing that the Lord is the only one in control?

More on God in Hollywood

2007-12-06T15:29:00.001-08:00

The folks over at Boundless Line have continued their series on God in Hollywood, started by a review of Reader's Digest's interview with Denzel Washington. If you've ever wanted to think deeper than the latest Christian boycott of a movie, these articles are a great place to start.

Godless Hollywood? II: How Should Christians in Hollywood behave?
Godless Hollywood? III: What makes a "Christian" movie?

Last summer I wrote a paper on the Christian ethics of dealing with the entertainment industry, and it taught me that these questions are not as easy to answer as most Christians think. They take serious thought and deep scriptural study—things that we aren't very good at today. But if we truly want to honor God with our own lives—and to reflect Him properly in the world—we have to take time to analyze how media functions as a part of our culture and then take time to seriously think about how God desires us to interact with it. Especially for you Shoreliners, I highly encourage you to think biblically and thoroughly about Hollywood. We live in the entertainment capital of the world. Are you working from knee-jerk answers, or have you done your homework to make sure God is honored by your choices?

Denzel Talk about God in Hollywood

2007-12-03T23:22:00.000-08:00

The crew over at the Boundless Line (which is consistently worth a read) quote a reader's digest article at length in which Denzel Washington says some remarkable things about God, religion, and Hollywood. The blog also has some interesting reports of Christians in the industry and how they're trying to make an impact.

At Shoreline, we've got plenty of people who are trying to live out the gospel in the industry, and God has put us in a prime location to participate however we can. What does God want us to do as a gospel-driven community?

Theo-Nerd Funny

2007-11-30T12:25:00.000-08:00

Seminary jokes abound...

here.

What is Religion, anyway?

2007-11-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Joe Carter wrote a great piece on what a religious belief actually is. For those of you who enjoy apologetics, philosophy, or just want to understand why everyone is religious, no matter what they say, it's a good (and quick) read.

Are You Doing Anything Worthwhile Today?

2007-11-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

[For you Shoreliners, if you were out of town for Thanksgiving make sure you check out the podcast - we're still reflecting on what we learned in the Gospel of John, and yesterday we went for a second round on Intimacy with God. It's one of the most important topics for Shoreline we've hit in a while.]

I spent most of my morning strenuously fighting the urge to start working. It's weird how some of the biggest struggles in my life come from what seem like the smallest issues - I mean, seriously, how is it that the choice between paying my bills online and spending time with God can be so taxing? You'd think it would be the crazy stuff, like the lust or greed or fear of man that would be where the big battles would take place, but it seems like the hardest thing in life for me is to tear myself away from my to-do list (which, by the way, ranges from the slightly boring to the "put a skill saw through my temple" boring) so I can spend time with my Creator, who happens to have killed His own Son so we could have that kind of relationship.

It took me a while, but I finally managed to grab my coffee, tear myself away from the computer screen, and sit down with God and His Word. I opened to Luke 10 and read about Mary and Martha (it seemed appropriate), and then had a great time being with the One who loves me more than anyone else, and who has promised to forgive my sins and answer my prayers. It's crazy to think that without that time I could have had a very productive day but not have done a single thing that was really worthwhile.

I copied the passage from Luke below, and I hope you read it and spend good, intimate time with your Father today. It seems like most Christians talk about having a relationship with God but 95% of the time they don't feel all that close to Him. But the thing is, life doesn't have to be that way. I really believe that every believer on earth has the capacity to know God in a way that is refreshing, life changing, joy fostering, fear quenching, sin shattering and world changing. Seriously. And I hope that tomorrow it will be easier to tear myself away from the to-do list in favor of spending some good, quality time with the King of Kings, who loves me.

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

Global Warming Takes a Backseat

2007-11-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Apparently humans just ruined the whole universe. By looking at it. Seriously.

(As an aside - and this is just a ballpark estimate - I think God is seriously laughing at us. What would you think if an ant looked at you and said, "Man, I just popped my head out of the anthill and caught a glance of this building, and all of a sudden it got demolished by this huge wrecking ball! I must be pretty big time to cause something like that...")

Life Problems and Boring Bibles

2007-11-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

Justin Taylor just essentially re-posted some quotes from David Powlinson (who writes excellent books). He makes some great, practical points concerning the way we view the Bible and how it either helps or hinders the real problems in our lives. Definitely worth a full read, but here's a taste:

[For some people, the] Bible is seen as a child’s eight‑key, tin toy piano. Those eight white keys may be of central importance in music theory: the key of C‑major, beginning with middle‑C, sounds the basic do‑re‑mi after all. They’ll do for the Sunday School songs. But you can’t play much of depth and interest. No sonatas. No fugues. No concertos. You can’t sound the nuances, the variations, the minor keys of life. And no mature pianist would bother plunking around on an eight‑key tin piano. There are more interesting and flexible instruments around.

But for the other sort of Bible‑believer the Bible is a grand piano. In fact it’s a grand piano, plus the rest of the orchestra, plus the great composers, plus the great pianists, plus the great conductors. It sounds all the notes, all the tones, all the rhythms, all the keys, all the special effects, all the nuances. That’s the vision biblical counselors have of the Bible. It’s crammed. The Composer, Conductor and Musician is active.

I'm Back With a Sesame Street Vengeance

2007-11-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

The upcoming Shoreline Blog Network (being designed and developed by the guy that is bar none the best church web developer in California, but that's another post) now has a launch date: February 1, 2008. In the meantime, I'll be blogging here to warm up and get some momentum before the big church-wide launch.

So, as my inaugural first post, I want to briefly discuss my upbringing: namely, the old school Sesame Street. As I was recently reminded, I discussed Sesame Street during a sermon a few weeks ago. (For all my Master's friends, don't worry, it was just an illustration for the express purposes of strictly expositional preaching. I promise.) Anyways, after a spot-on imitation of Grover's "near...far" bit (I tried to find a video, but this was as close as I could get), I mentioned that I felt as though my daily viewing of Sesame Street from years 1 through 5 of my life ruined my attention span for life.

I also felt a little odd that 85% of the congregation didn't know who Grover was. Apparently it's all Elmo these days.

All that to say, the New York Times says I'm right - early Sesame Street episodes are not suitable for toddlers in 2007. While they have different reasons, they make some interesting points about the way society has changed in the last few decades, and its worth a read.

Where I've Been, and Why I'm Back (for a bit)

2007-07-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

So Sycamore is in the process of being transferred over to the new blog section of the Shoreline main site. While waiting for this transfer to happen, it's been tough to update this site because my mind is already racing as to how the church will change the focus of the posting (somewhat). Plus, I've been extraordinarily busy with the whole "pastor" thing.

But...I had to let any remaining readers know about something I stumbled over. Check out Andrew Osenga's site, read a bit of his blog stuff, and then go here. Download the free album, donate some money to the guy, and listen away.

Now, be forewarned: Osenga is the kind of guy that tends to do really simple stuff, and for most music snobs out there some of it might come off as cheesy (he's got a Dylan flavor to him without the ridiculously crazy metaphors. But enough good writing to avoid the comparison to Springsteen). This, however, is mainly because most "music appreciators" only know if music is good if every song incessantly congratulates itself. The beauty of this album is that it was written with very little self-awareness at all. And that makes for some great times, especially since it's free. The concept of a "community album" is unique, and it's just indie enough for the producing to be understated, but not so indie that it's weird for the sake of being weird.

(As an aside, it's weird that being weird sells albums to all the teenage self-styled music critics out there. When being weird and "indie" becomes mainstream, where exactly do you go? Do we have to have another phase of recovering good pop music to, like, reset? I'm not really into that.)

All that to say, it's a relaxing EP that is a nice reprieve from all the "heady" music that everyone is so into these days. Enjoy. Oh, and there's some good Christian stuff on there.

Music Tuesday - Leeland

2007-06-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

Playing music in the background at church is harder than it looks. I'm always on the lookout for someone to play who isn't Tomlin, Redman, or the "go crazy and push the envelope at church" Switchfoot. On recommendation from a really, really good friend, I checked out Leeland (myspace) this week. Leeland is a bunch of teenagers, and they've put out a solid album. Makes me wish I was a teenager again with all the stuff I know now so I could write half as well as these guys do.

It's young. It's got this weird mix of innocence that in someone older would strike you as naive and overly simplistic, but with these guys has the energy and joy that comes from youth. Reminds you a bit of Jesus' statement that you've got to be like a little child to get into the kingdom of Heaven. These guys aren't naive. They're just full of the good kind of youth. And it's mixed in with the good kind of wisdom in their songwriting.

They're a Christian band, with no apologies, and while most of the reviews I read compare them to Delirious, I hear a lot of Keane in their songs. Maybe it's the lead vocalist. But they tend to vacillate back and forth between those two sounds and, at times, combine the two rather nicely. They've done a commendable job staying away from the cookie cutter Christian production house sound which has plagued so many other Christian artists (does anyone actually have their own guitar tone, or do they all share?) and it makes me hope that their success—all but guaranteed to anyone with a new sound that stays poppy in that niche market—doesn't preclude them from further exploration.

Bottom line: they've made a solid album that, if they don't get waylaid by the industry, will turn into several good albums and some very good Christian musicians down the road. If you're looking for some fresh Christian music that is poppy enough to sell but doesn't sound exactly like everything else, these guys are for you.

Bottom line 2: Dizmas is still high in my rotation. Not sure what it is with those guys, but I'm still digging it.

Half Born

2007-06-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Dan Edelen, a guy whom I've always had a serious amount of respect for and who has always been very gentle to me even when I've shown off how young (read: less than wise) I am, has written a great post that has echoed a lot of the things I've been thinking about lately. Which might be my lame way of trying to cop to some of the wisdom he's showing—I'm not sure, I'm too young to tell. I highly, highly, encourage you to read it:

The Half Born

James Final Post from Ugandan IDP

2007-06-09T01:16:00.001-07:00

My friend James has posted reflections from his third and final day in a Ugandan displacement camp. I highly encourage you to read his story, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that there are still people out there like him.

Drop Box 6.5.07

2007-06-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting web 2.0 style gospel presentation. At least in terms of design.

Steve Nichols at Reformation21 puts music and the gospel together. Think Blue Like Jazz with actual/intentional theology. (HT: Justin Taylor)

Justin Buzzard put up a great Spurgeon quote worth sharing:

"I believe in the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards; and he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love."

Is this seriously how far we've fallen?

This guy isn't just ridiculously skilled, he wrote a great piece of music:

Stupid Resurgence!

2007-06-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

I feel like the broke entrepreneur watching some massive company like Google implement all the ideas in his head because they've got the capital and, well, they're Google. Well, maybe that's a little much. But seriously, those guys over at Resurgence are freaking incredible.

I swear (okay, I'm a pastor, I don't really swear...audibly, at least...), it's like they have a map of my brain and are doing everything I want to do, but like ten times better than me. First, Mars Hill Church does this magazine/online thing where they write articles about Christianity applied in Seattle. And they give it this sweet name, Vox Pop ("voiced of the people"). I totally wanted to do that, but when the church is only a year and a half old, most of your resources get exhausted by, you know, printer paper. It's in the works for down the road...but it turns out that Mars Hill's been doing it since I was in college.

Then, my idea to start a secondary podcast that's loosely affiliated with Shoreline dealing with theology, cultural application, and just generally fun stuff gets one-upped by the Resurgence podcast. Of course, I would have ended up with a couple of 26 year old punks running the show. Driscoll and co. made a few calls and got John Frame, Carson, Keller (to name a few) to write some articles and give up some free audio.

On top of all that, I'm a regular with the whole "stand up, be a man" thing, especially living in West LA where guys perpetuate adolescence well into their forties (They try to make it into their fifties, but most of the time the hair plugs don't take). Given, I don't reference firearms nearly as much, but everytime I even mention the idea of manhood I'm inundated with "have you ever heard of Mark Driscoll? You sound like him" comments. Sometimes they're compliments, other times...

Finally...they just grabbed my favorite online Greek App, zhubert.com. It is now officially Re:Greek (Resurgence: Greek) and I'm sure will be undergoing an overhaul. It will also be put to incredible use by these guys.

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic. Sort of. I am somewhat envious (don't worry, I know it's a sin), but 98% of me is actually really stoked by these guys, and this is my backwards way of letting you all know about it. Everything they touch turns into something that trains, equips, and builds in a great way, and I'm excited that it's getting done, even if it means I'm going to have to come up with a bunch of new ideas...and some quick capital, cause Resurgence is on the prowl...

Music Saturday 6.2.07

2007-06-02T10:15:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me understands that I have a very tentative relationship with Christian music. I find the term is far too often an oxymoron—it either isn't Christian, or it isn't music. At least not in the good sense of the word.

However, as of late I've been pleasantly surprised. I rediscovered Caedmon's Call, especially their later stuff (In the Company of Angels, Back Home). I've also consistently enjoyed Andrew Osenga, from his days as frontman with the Normals to his solo career (Photographs is an excellent folk album).

Thing is, I've always tended towards the "folkier" side of Christian music. It was a little more indie, generally cooler, and just better written on the whole.

But now I've discovered Dizmas. Take Jimmy Eat World, make them younger, and add a bit more rock, and you've got this young Christian band from Lancaster. Apparently they're named after the good thief that hung on the cross next to Jesus. I didn't know the guy had a name, but still pretty cool. Favorite tracks include, "Jealousy Hurts" and "See Daylight," but the whole album has gotten more than a few listens from me. Have a listen at purevolume.

Next on the block: Leland. I've heard really good stuff...

James in Uganda IDP

2007-05-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

My friend James has written more about his stay in a Ugandan displacement camp. I highly encourage you to read it if for no other reason than to remind you that there are people out there who actually live out the stuff they're passionate about.

Drop Box 5.24.07

2007-05-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

I realize it's been a while. I started school again (a class on Biblical Ethics which was fascinating and frustrating all at the same time), didn't quite account for the time that would take out of my schedule, and ended up backed up against the Sunday sermon deadline. So, life was crazy.

Anyways, this is the Drop Box. I'm instituting a new thing here at Sycamore where I drop off some of the different things I've found on the internet once a week or so. Some of it will most likely be copied over at the Hill, and eventually some will meander to the three or four different blogs that are going to start popping up over at the new Shoreline website (launching June 1, as far as we know). Today's drop box theme: google based productivity.

1. Google Reader

This is my new favorite Google app (and I'm just shy of addicted to Google Calendar). It's essentially like GMail for blog entries. You just subscribe to all the different blogs you'd like to read and everytime they're updated they show up in list form at Google Reader. Then you just filter through what you want to read, forget the rest, and save all that time you spent clicking through your bookmarks/blogroll to visit all those pages. This is a good guide to GReader.

2. Google Notebook

I told you, I'm on a Google kick. Lifehacker showed me how to trick out this cool little app GTD style, and now I use it as my to-do list, to gather sermon-prep materials, and even to gather cool quotes I want to remember. GNotebook allows you to "clip" web material (just like copying and pasting, but with all the context information built in too so you can find it on the web again). It's great. Here's Lifehacker's guide.

3. Random Extras:

Joe Carter wrote a good piece on abortion. Since the ethics class, I've learned more about how ridiculous it is that our society allows something like that.

I kind of avoided Michael Spencer for a while because he caught this label of "crazy pomo heretic." I think that's from the days when Phil Johnson spent hours a day creating graphics for his book-length posts. But (due to Google Reader) I've had the opportunity to check in on him, and I've really enjoyed what I've found.

Tim Challies is doing a series on "The Boxing of God." Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

New Series

2007-05-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

Despite the guarantee of embarrassment, I feel it's important that I fess up—I recently Googled my own name. Now, this wasn't some kind of passive-aggressive act of pride...it was actually a result of an article from LifeHacker. Apparently people are using Google as a resume of sorts to do background checks on potential employees, etc., and often times the information is either woefully out of date or less than desirable for the eyes of a potential employer. I realized that if someone Googled my name I'd like them to find the church I pastor, but wondered where that would be on the list.

Turns out it's not even there (at least it's not on the first two pages of results). However, Google's spiders have successfully unearthed almost every time I've been mentioned by name on a blog. As nostalgia ran its course I thumbed through the various friends in the blogosphere that have come and gone, and as I read their different takes on things I'd written I realized something—I'm much more lucid when I'm writing on a topic.

While I've never successfully finished a series on this blog, and my sporadic posting over the course of a few years has successfully driven most readers away, I think it's time to try, try again. So I've decided to begin a new, three part series. An introduction should be coming up... believe it at your own risk.

On Being Simple

2007-05-06T15:01:00.000-07:00

Justin Buzzard posted this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it was too good not to pass on.

"The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus...In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner."

Displacement in Uganda

2007-05-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

A very good friend who is now one of the only people I know that I can never, ever call a hypocrite, has spent the last few days of his life in a Uganda displacement camp. His story is worth reading.

Quote of the Day

2007-05-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

"God's decrees display...his authority, for they are meaningful thoughts—wise plans or counsels for the world. As such, they interpret the world; they determine the meaning and significance of everything God makes. God's interpretations, of course, are always supremely authoritative. When he declares the significance of something for his purpose, that is the significance it has. So the doctrine of the decrees implies that God has authoritatively preinterpreted everything and every event. As Van Til emphasized, the interpretation of the facts precedes the facts. Our world is a world that is exhaustively meaningful, because it is the expression of God's wisdom. Among human beings, interpretation is not the work of trying to assess for the first time the significance of uninterpreted facts. Rather, ours is a work of secondary interpretation, interpreting God's interpretation."

-John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 316-317

Music Tuesday

2007-05-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

Once again, Steve McCoy has inspired me. First, it was poetry. Not writing, but reading. Now, it's music. Steve has the most incredible ability to find new, good music on a consistent weekly basis. He also has no idea who I am. But that's cool, I can still listen to his music.

In deciding to broaden my horizons—I feel like I've been getting older and settling into my ways, which scares me to no end—I discovered two things: music is expensive, and I have no idea how to identify the new stuff that's actually good. My entire social network of people who knew people who knew good music has unraveled, and I'm surrounded by people who love Rascal Flatts and Nickelback. (Rascal Flatts is disqualified due to the "coolification" of the lead singer, who despite his nasally perfect pitch, does not wear hip shirts and spiky hair well).

Enter Last.fm, a "social network" streaming music player. Enter a band you like, they start playing band like it, you tell them if you like it or hate it, and they learn on the fly. There's a lot more to it than that, but essentially that's it. You can even search for a "tag" — it's like a keyword—and play music that corresponds to it. I'm a big fan so far.

Progress?

2007-04-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

It's funny...for all the talk I do about the gospel, I still tend to think that progress involves me having to rely less on the Lord. For example: the other day, I'm speaking, and I feel like I finally hit my stride. It seemed effective in the lives of the congregation, and I felt like I had actually grown closer to God through my preparation and delivery. So I step into Monday, and what do I think? I think, Maybe I'm getting closer to finally making it. To finally being able to do it well and not have to feel like I'm weak the whole time.

But in reality, growth isn't defined as steps towards having to rely on the Lord less. Growth is understanding that you have to rely on the Lord more. There will never be a time in my life when I won't feel incapable of preparing even a halfway decent sermon, and every step I take towards being able to do it well on my own will actually be a step backwards, not a step forwards.

It's kind of a sad realization in a way, because I was looking forward to not having to trouble God so much with my weakness. I was kind of excited about finally being able to make it on my own, like the kid who gets out of college, gets a real job, and can finally stop taking money from their parents. But, really, it's a beautiful realization. Because God only uses the weak to show off His glory. So, in reality, every time I struggle and strain to find something—anything—worthwhile to say to God's people on a Sunday morning, I know that I'm in the perfect position to rely on the Lord and show the world how he can use even a weakling like me. Every time that I sit before a text of scripture and think, Man, how am I ever going to do this?, I know that I've taken a step in the right direction. As far as I can tell, the real goal is to get more and more in touch with my weakness as a preacher, as a Christian, as a human—because it's then that I come more in touch with the Lord's strength. And that is the best kind of progress there is.

National Poetry Month

2007-04-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Steve McKoy, aka the Reformissionary, has a regularly updated blog that I frequent here and there. He's got some interesting stuff on the SBC, is heartily in love (in a manly sort of way) with Tim Keller, and all in all seems like a cool guy doing a good job spreading the gospel in Woodstock, Ill.

All that to say, Steve loves poetry. Again—in a manly sort of way. And he's had several posts on that topic lately, because apparently April is National Poetry Month.

Since I've enjoyed them, I thought I'd share some of his posts:

It's National Poetry Month
Can Poetry Matter? (My personal favorite)
Men and Poetry
National Poetry Map

Evangelism and Being Friendly

2007-04-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

Last night I went out to USC to speak about evangelism to a bunch of college kids, most of them in the fraternity system. It was a great time - there's something about speaking to college kids on a weeknight that's really relaxing, I think because it feels more like a family chat than anything.

We went through the end of the first chapter of John's gospel, where Jesus borrows two of John the Baptist's disciples, has dinner with them, and then those disciples go and tell their friends who they'd met. It was so interesting to me that when John (the disciple) and Andrew first follow Jesus, he doesn't immediately give them a four point gospel presentation - he simply has them over to his place for dinner. This concept—that relationships are the context in which information is meant to be shared—continues as Andrew finds Peter, his brother and John's fisherman work buddy, and tells him about the Messiah. Then Philip does the same thing with his theologian buddy Nathanael. All of a sudden, all these existing social networks become the way that people are invited to come and see Jesus.

The upshot of all this is that our evangelistic methodology should be heavily weighted towards relationships. This isn't going the route of "lifestyle evangelism" that is more excuse to hide than pursuit of holiness. This is recognizing and implementing the fact that information and life change are best shared inside of relationships. We should be honestly friendly with people in our lives, Christian and non-Christian, and we should be constantly inviting people to come and see Jesus both through the way we live and the way we talk. The idea of downshifting into "evangelism mode" when you see a non-believer start to ask questions becomes anathema. Instead, the entire idea of "modes" goes out the window, because having different "modes" is not something you do with friends. It's something you do with consumers. Bottom line, the way Christ worked was to spread Himself to people through a relationship, not through an information dump. And so our evangelism ought to look the same way, not exclusively, but predominantly.

And so to really follow Jesus and impact the world, our job is not to explain the four spiritual laws to everyone we meet on the street (though it's not like doing that is wrong as long as you mean it). Our job is to begin to see non-believers and believers alike as people we can be friends with. Christians should be the most friendly people in the world, because we are the only ones that have the love of Christ in our hearts. And the love of Christ is the only kind of love that doesn't use people, but enjoys people. So the question for all of us is: how well are we enjoying other people around us? How good of a friend are we to people in our lives? And do we realize that the way the God Himself began the Christian religion was over dinner with some borrowed disciples who talked to their friends about it?

Quote of the Day

2007-04-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Careful, this one will burn.

You heave a sigh [for the poor], perhaps, at a distance, but you do not visit them. Ah! my dear friend! I am concerned for the poor but more for you. I know not what Christ will say to you in that great day...I fear there are many hearing me who may know [now] well that they are not Christians, because they do not love to give...Oh my friends! enjoy your money; make the most of it; give none away; enjoy it quickly for I can tell you, you will be beggars throughout eternity.
-Robert Murray McCheyne

For more on why social justice (or as I like to call it, "loving the poor") isn't a secondary issue for Christians, read this post by Darryl Dash (HT: Milton, who is consistently on his game with these kind of links).

Social Experiment

2007-04-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

I found (via Joe Carter) a really fascinating article from the Washington Post. Apparently they took Joshua Bell, the world's premiere violinist, and stuck him in a Washington metro station playing a Stradivarius with an open case for donations. Just to see if anyone would notice. It's really long article, but I enjoyed it and thought I'd pass it on.

Coolest bit of info in the article: of all the people that passed by, only one demographic was perfectly consistent. Every time a child got within earshot, they tried to stop and listen.

Easter Reflections

2007-04-09T17:39:00.000-07:00

A lot has been going on as I've emerged from my second Easter week as a teaching pastor. Amidst many, many, many thoughts, one particular theological theme has been captured rather well by Mark Lauterbach, who writes a very thoughtful blog called Gospel Driven Life. I recommend his post Cross Centered? or Resurrection Centered? to you as you reflect on the meaning of Easter Sunday on Monday morning.

Preaching Tool

2007-04-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

Check out Jott. It's a free online service that lets you call a number and record a 30-second sound bite (or a bunch of them in a row), which then gets transcribed and sent right to your email account.

I thought I'd use it for to-do lists, or other things you need to remember when you're out and about. But in the last two days, I've sent myself like ten of these things to remember random thoughts that flew in and out of my mind for the Easter sermon. I've tried to carry a pen around, but that never worked. This is by far the best method I've had to capture thoughts I'd like to keep. Check it out.

Convicting Thought of the Day

2007-04-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

"One strategy [to avoid fearing the Lord] is that we downgrade obedience—the concrete expression of the fear of the Lord—into concern about appearances. We concentrate on actions and overlook attitudes. By doing this, our sinful nature can give us a sense that we're okay. We have not killed today. We have not been adulterous...Therefore, we had a good day. Better yet, we are good. Of course, we occasionally do bad things...But, on the whole, we tend to be fairly good. And if we are usually good, then God is usually irrelevant.

Such thinking is not advertised as good theology, but isn't it the practical theology of most Christians? I know that it can be my own. I am a good guy—a nice guy—who occasionally does bad things. Such thinking ignores the depths of sin in my own heart, and, in essence, it elevates me so that I am just a mildly flawed imitation of God rather than someone completely dependent on him. Fear of the Lord is then impossible."

(Edward T. Welch, When People are Big and God is Small, p. 100)

Church Marketing Sucks

2007-03-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

...is a funny blog/website that talks about the perennially crappy PR job that the church does for Jesus. While I'm not totally down with all the stuff the writers say, every once in a while they has a jewel or two that spark some good thoughts. In that vein is a recent post on what it means to be "remarkable":

I was watching a talk delivered by Seth Godin at Google, and he said something that was profoundly self evident.
"[Remarkable] doesn't mean beautiful or ideal or perfect. It only means one thing: Worth making a remark about."

The guy goes on to comment that, "Fundamentally, Christianity is viral. Aside from some extraordinary conversion experiences, it's Jesus Christ doing something that was worth talking about." He ends by asking if churches around are doing anything remarkable in this way, or if they are simply not worth talking about.

While I don' t think we need to repackage Jesus so that He'll be more worthy as a conversation piece, I do think that any legitimate response to Christ cannot stop short of remarkable. Instead of asking what we can do to give our church more buzz, I take a bit of a different slant: since Christ is inherently remarkable, any response as a church or an individual that is not remarkable is not a legitimate response to Christ.

A lot of people think being remarkable is something above and beyond "normal church life." I think that it is a barometer of how in love you are with Christ. If you aren't doing anything in the world worth talking about, then the God you worship must not be very worthy. But if Christ is the only truly worthy thing in this universe, then His people who are captivated by the beatific vision and who are being conformed more and more into His likeness shouldn't have to form a think-tank to figure out how to impact the world. They'll be too busy living remarkable lives to plan out the next evangelism conference.

Distractions in Church

2007-03-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

Back when I was in college, we had a running joke that we’d play on our Christian friends. Anytime you heard someone coming up the steps towards a room you were in, you’d get all the guys in the room to bow their heads and the minute the guy came in the room, one of us would pretend to be in the midst of serious prayer. The point of the prank was to make the guy coming in feel really awkward, and it usually worked. (It also worked because we’d often have our pretend prayers centered around the guy walking in the room; “Lord, please open Mark’s eyes to his incredible body odor…oh, hey Mark, ummm, yeah…”).

But I started thinking recently about the way we Christians are so set in our ways when it comes to the “mood” of church. Ambiance is extraordinarily important to us, and it’s created a lot of social mores that most of us just accept without ever thinking about them. Case in point: why do we pray with our eyes closed? I’m sure a lot of us can come up with some good theological reasons, but maybe a better question is: why do youpray with your eyes closed? Why is it when someone enters a prayer meeting they have to tiptoe around the room? Why is it that you turn the lights down a bit for musical worship, and, seriously, why do we close our eyes for that?

I think a lot of the motivation is that we want to make sure that time spent focused on God is sacred, spent in reverence. At least that’s why I think some of these practices are valid. But as I analyze my own heart, and as I look around at others, I really start to wonder if most of us aren’t doing all these things because we’re trying really hard to stay in “the mood” for interaction with God.

Bottom line, it seems as though we’ve found some ways to let dishonesty creep in to our churches. And we’ve been able to mask that dishonesty through practices (like insisting on absolute silence during group prayer; no sneezing allowed) that no one will question. I can’t see David, or Paul, or Peter, getting upset at someone next to them for ruining their prayer time by coughing, or their cell phone going off. Why? Because they weren’t there trying to beat themselves into emotional worship—their worship was legitimate response to a God they’d been worshiping all day. Yet, today, I think a lot of people show up to church after having spent no worshipful time with God in the last week and try their hardest to get themselves to a spiritual high in twenty minutes or less. No wonder we need to limit distractions. If we’re going to squeeze God into an hour a week, we need to get really focused.

At the end of the day, I’d like to see more reverence, not less, in the church. But I’d like to see that reverence motivated by a love of God that sits deep in our hearts, not an attempt to get ourselves close to God through a few songs and a sermon since that’s all the time we have for Him. I don’t want to see people who can’t be distracted because they’re in the middle of a serious project they’re trying to get done. I want to see people who desire wholehearted focus on God because they know He deserves nothing less. True response to the God of the Universe is very, very difficult to interrupt. And I'm pretty sure that intimacy with the Creator doesn't come from "getting in the zone" once a week.

This is Absolutely Fascinating

2007-03-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

At least to me. Check out Steve Harvey below, speaking on - believe it or not - how he would introduce the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And you'll find a great comment war on the legitimacy of OT prophecy concerning Christ in the comments section of the original YouTube page -- the only place for serious scholastic dialogue.

Piper Actually Hears God

2007-03-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

First he let's someone rap in his church, now he's hearing God. I was doing some research for this Sunday's sermon and I ran across this article over at Desiring God. I liked it. This one was also pretty interesting, and much shorter. Thought I'd pass them on.

On Getting a Bad Rap

2007-03-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Forgive the title...it couldn't be helped. Everywhere I've checked in today I've seen a link to an article written by the first man to ever rap at John Piper's church. I'm tempted to start a rumor that Piper "got jiggy with it" during the service, but the guy is just too white for it to take. Apparently there were some people pretty upset by the experience (the rapping, not Piper doing the robot) and they weren't afraid to vent all over this guy. His response, published in Boundless, is incredible. It's full of all the big things you'd want someone to say when responding to criticism, but it's also got all of the little things that prove that this guy isn't just trying to stay in character. This stuff is reality, and he gets it. It's definitely worth a read.

Yoda Part 2

2007-03-13T18:51:00.000-07:00

Since I’ve never actually finished a series on this blog, I figured I could at least make good on a promise for a sequel. A few weeks ago I mentioned in passion my affinity for Yoda, and especially his pastorally appropriate advice to young Skywalker, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Thing is, most people in ministry (and people in general) have this lifelong fixation on trying to be someone other than themselves. It’s a desire for success and a stopgap against our insecurity—plus, it’s an easy formula. Just find someone who is a “success,” mimic their every action, and, ideally, you’ll end up with the same success they have. Teaching pastors are especially prone to this, which is why you tend to hear so many clones of the same eight preachers.

I don’t feel particularly astute for bringing this whole thing up. In fact, the biblical legitimacy of the whole “be yourself” thing is almost cliché at this point, at least in the circles I run in. But in figuring this whole thing out in my own life, I’ve realized that it’s not as simple as most people make it. There’s no nice dichotomy between “being yourself” and “trying to be someone else.” In fact, I’ve stumbled on a stage that falls in between those two: “trying to be yourself.”

Scott (the other pastor at Shoreline) articulated something over a bowl of chili a few months ago that I thought was rather intelligent: he said that most people prepare sermons by sitting down and thinking about what wrestling with the passage at hand would look like, and then speaking about what they conclude. But the good teachers, they actually do the wrestling themselves, and then walk away with more than conjecture—they can teach lessons learned by experience.

Once I got rid of my need to copy whatever preaching rock star was my flavor for the month, I entered a new phase: focusing really hard on being myself. I started running every action and reaction through a grid—is this what I would look like if I as being myself? I’ve heard a lot of people say that a preacher ought to “set himself on fire, and people will come to watch him burn.” So I would sit there and think: “what would it look like to be on fire right now? How can I act more like that?”

But Yoda’s advice doesn’t stop with trying to be other people. It’s the idea of “trying” at all that’s the problem. The minute you start “trying,” even if it’s trying to be yourself, you’ve already removed yourself from authenticity. Because at the end of the day, trying is the opposite of being. “Trying to be” always involves externals, whereas “being” always involves the expression of internals. And the Bible says that we’re to avoid a focus on the former and zero in on the latter. Trying to be yourself can be as detrimental as trying to be someone else, because in both cases you’re using the way you act as a means to control how “successful” you’ll be. And it’s only when you actually are on fire that things get real. No one comes to see someone talk about what being on fire is like, even if they’re incredibly good at describing it. But someone who is actually burning, well, those people don’t have the time to think about whether they’re being themselves or not. They’re too busy being on fire to worry about how they look, or how successful they are. And, as far as I can tell, that was God’s desire in the first place.

So it might sound like a semantic game, but it’s not. And you’ll know when you get there because you’ll stop having to think so hard about it, and you’ll stop being so interested in authenticity in the first place. Introspection like that rarely occurs to people who are out there living. So the question is, who are you trying to be? If you’re trying to be someone else, you’re too afraid to be yourself. And if you’re trying to be yourself, you’re thinking too hard to actually get it done. But if you’re out there responding to God, worshiping God, serving and loving those around you, then you’re dangerously close to actually being. Do or do not; there is no try. I wonder what that says about a blog post like this?

Daily Diversion

2007-03-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Beatbox Fame Game

I'm not normally a video guy, but this is pretty incredible.

Justin Taylor on Multi-tasking

2007-03-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

Justin Taylor, co-editor of a lot of John Piper books, has a pretty sweet blog. And he wrote a very interesting post on multitasking and what it does to our brains. As someone who was raised by Sesame Street—learning the letter D eight different ways in ten seconds—I was…wait, hold on, I just got an email…very interested.

Google and Imputation

2007-03-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

Ever wanted to read up on the imputation of Christ's righteousness, but just didn't have the energy to turn the pages of a real book? Google has given us a way out...check out the results from a Google Book Search for "imputation." John Piper, John Owen, it's all there. (And despite the "limited preview" warning under Piper's book, the whole thing is there.)

Gauging Spiritual Growth

2007-03-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

I just stopped by Milton’s blog and he referred me to a short questionnaire to help determine one’s spiritual growth. I agree with Milton in his general wariness of stuff like that. At the same time, I’m very interested in the topic: shepherding well involves a lot of judgment calls as to how people are growing spiritually, because if you care for them and want to help them grow you have to see if they’re growing in the first place.

When I think about quantifying spiritual growth in the Bible, I vacillate towards 1 John. While it talks predominantly about assurance, this assurance tends to be grounded in the overarching pattern of spiritual growth in the believer (1 John 2:28; also 2:4-6, 24-27, 3:10, 18-19; 5:13). We preached through this book a year and a half ago when we first planted Shoreline, and I remember constantly telling people that to have confidence in their salvation they need to look back and see how God has molded them more into the image of Christ over the long haul. Most people would get bogged down in a bad week, or even a bad day they had, and would start to lose confidence. But John kept pointing us to the larger pattern of our lives to show that God was indeed at work within us, even though the journey had hills and valleys.

This was good for everyone—me especially—but as we went I realized that this approach is very general and works with a lot of externals. And after we wrapped up the book, I started to wonder what spiritual growth looked like from an autobiographical point of view. While the pattern of my life did give me assurance that the Spirit was at work, how was I to view that? How would I know I was maturing spiritually from the inside, on a more daily and internal basis?

I found my answer in the experiences of Paul. It’s kind of funny how intensely personal he gets in his epistles, especially given that they ended up as scripture. The guy wore his heart on his sleeve, and God put that in scripture for us to follow. That’s a whole other post. But as you watch Paul grow you see a distinct pattern emerge: In 1 Corinthians 15:9, he refers to himself as the “least of the apostles.” Later, in Ephesians 3:8, he calls himself the “least of all the saints.” Finally, as an older man, Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

It seems as though, from the inside, the way you quantify your spiritual growth is by how aware you are of your sin.

This tends to run counter to the way evangelicals like to run things: everything is always great, everyone is always growing, everyone is sinning less and less every day, or so we tell ourselves and each other. But if Paul is any indicator, your growth in Christ is measured not by how you feel less and less sinful, but how you feel more and more sinful. A growing awareness and despair over your sin marks true growth in the believer. And I don’t think it’s too far to say that using any other standard to judge our internal growth is a step towards legalism. That isn’t to say that the questionnaire above is unbiblical, or that taking stock of the way you live out your faith isn’t important - the Bible is clear that it is (James 2:14-17). But it is to say that, from inside our own heads, we shouldn’t be proud that we feel more holy every day. We should repent of our pride and lack of growth. We know we’re on the right track if, every day, we wake up and find more sin when we thought we’d already exhausted our capacity for it—which will force us to our knees in humble repentance and to our feet in joyful reception of the grace to be found in the blood of Christ. As we grow in awareness of sin, so too we will grow in joy for the gospel: he who is forgiven little loves little (Luke 7:47). And so, at the end of the day, God gets more glory as our only hope for salvation and joy in a sin-stained world, created by sin-stained hearts like our own.

Commitment to a bit

2007-03-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

I know that I promised part two of the whole Yoda thing, but I figured I’d interject something else this week since it’s on my mind. It’s kind of a comedy thing…my roommate is one of those guys that “appreciates” humor, like someone “appreciates” wine and can say things like, "Mmmm...it's rather oaky," after a taste. When he was a kid, he used to stand in front of the mirror and practice not laughing, because he knew that a big part of humor was being able to stay in character.

From him, I learned the meaning of a comedy phrase: “commitment to a bit.” Essentially, it’s when a comic takes a character or a joke and sticks with it for an extended length of time and with serious effort. Most people crack, either laughing or just not giving it their all, and all of a sudden it’s not nearly as funny as it could have been. (Shaving your beard and leaving a handlebar mustache is funny--keeping the 'stache for your high school reunion, now that's commitment). Apparently commitment to a bit is second only to timing in the comedy world (at least the comedy world of my roommate, but he’s pretty funny so you can take his word for it).

It got me thinking this week about how similar most Christians are to performers, especially comics (because comics are the ones who are the most dedicated to getting an audience response). They’re doing fine, everything’s going well, and then bad circumstances hit and it’s like they fall out of character. One too many drivers cut off the guy who’s doing his best Ned Flanders, and all of a sudden the character melts away and he’s full of some pretty serious rage. It’s like our faith is a bit, and we’re trying hard to commit but we can never make it all the way through.

On top of that, it seems like a lot of churches and pastors are preaching to help people commit to the bit that is Christianity. They’re giving them techniques to stay committed, ways to coach themselves to stay in character. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like a lot of my church experience growing up was one gigantic method acting class. It’s as though we’re trying to produce a bunch of people who never break character.

I guess at the end of the day I’m realizing that I walk around a lot of the time and treat my faith like something that, when committed to properly (in the acting sense), won’t show any cracks to the world around me. And, if I really work it right, I won’t see any cracks either.

But it seems to me like God is a reality, and we’re not supposed to be practicing in a mirror to make sure we really look like someone who’s in awe of His holiness. Committing to the bit only gets you so far, and I’ve seen too many Christians break character when the going gets tough. Worst part is, they’re worried more about breaking character than offending God, and they try to rectify the situation by studying the method more.

So I’ve decided that I need to start praying that I’d stop living like God is real and start living because God is real. The beautiful part of this is how easy responding to life becomes—I don’t need to worry about how I look, because I won’t need to stay in character anymore. No more reminding myself that Christians read their bible and pray, no more reminding myself that Christians don’t get frustrated with people out of selfishness, no more reminding myself that Christians draw on their love for God when they worship. Instead, I’ll actually be someone in love with God. And that, as far as I can tell, is the whole point.

Yoda and Being Yourself

2007-02-22T12:16:00.000-08:00

My vote for coolest person under 4 feet tall goes without reservation to Yoda. Small, green, wrinkly as all get out, and yet still finds himself throwing down and taking names with the best of them.

Yoda is best known for his odd switching of the nominative and predicate of every sentence (“be sorry you will, young Skywalker”). But past that, he’s got this quote that I’ve always thought was pretty cool: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Now, given, I’ve never made much of an attempt to live my life based on Star Wars. But the more I’ve lived life, especially as a musician and a pastor, the more that advice has made sense. Case in point: I went to a concert a few weeks ago, and the band was great. Real high-level cats, you could tell by the way they played they were mainly session guys, which means they have a lot of skill and tend to make really good choices. But then you had the front man, who was really trying to be a front man, you know? Rocking his head back and forth, “getting into the music,” every once in a while incorporating these odd arm gyrations while he was strumming his guitar. Thing was, this guy was not that guy. He’s the dude that sits back, closes his eyes, and lets the music do its thing. Not the dude that wears the Technicolor dream-scarf and rocks out with his mic stand. And no matter how perceptive you are, every human being has this lowest common denominator thing going on that can just tell that something wasn’t quite right. I think inauthenticity, no matter how subtle, is plain as day to like 99.9% of people on earth, regardless of IQ score. And so the show was pretty good, but nowhere near as great as it would have been if this dude would have just followed Yoda’s advice. He didn’t do. He tried.

Pastors are pretty much the same way. I went to The Master’s Seminary, and I can’t tell you how many dudes are running around there doing their best John MacArthur impersonation, as if by squeezing their eyes shut really tight and trying really hard, they’ll become Johnny Mac the Third and everyone will love them. Other pastors-in-training have the same tendencies – listen to Joshua Harris. Does anyone else hear C.J. Mahaney but me? Now I like Harris, this is no dig against him. It’s natural for people to look to those above them and learn from them, even to emulate them. But for too many people, these success stories move beyond examples to idols. And those who idolize them spend their training, their ministries, and their lives, on trying as hard as they can to become just like them.

It’s rooted in fear, which is why Yoda brought it up in the first place. To be like someone else who has succeeded has the siren call of assured success – it worked for them, so if you can pull it off just like them it goes to reason that it will work for you too. But, as one of my professors said, “There’s only one John MacArthur. And there’s only one you.” Substitute in whoever your personal Christian rock star is, and you’ll get the idea. If we can be like someone else, we’ve got something to lean on that seems secure. But if we have to be ourselves, we’ve got no promises of success.

Yet, funny enough, the truth is the exact opposite. The only thing trying to be someone else guarantees you is failure. Because you just aren’t them, and no matter how well you can impersonate them, everyone will be able to tell that you’re faking it.

A little bit ago, someone asked me what I felt was the most important thing planting a church has taught me. I told him that I’d learned the necessity of being myself, though I hadn’t come close to mastering that lesson yet. It sounds like a cliché from some Tony Robbins book, but nevertheless, it’s true. Yoda was right. Do it or don’t do it. The minute you start trying, you’ve already lost it.

Part 2 to come…

1 John and How to Fall in Love with God

2007-02-15T15:08:00.000-08:00

Funny thing about ministry is that you have to deal with a lot of people. What I didn't expect, though, is that the people who need the most time are the leaders in the church. Don't get me wrong, I knew that spending time with leaders would be a huge priority. But I always thought that time would be spent equipping, sipping coffee and waxing eloquent about ministry, the input of massive amounts of wisdom into ready and energetic vessels -- you know, realistic stuff like that.

Instead I've found that the leaders -- and in large part myself -- need the most time talking about the simple things. Like the Gospel, our motivation as Christians, and cultivating a relationship with God.

I think the big reason for this is that people who vacillate towards leadership are those who have always been hard workers, and hard workers have a serious tendency towards legalism. Eventually, usually after several years of service, we wake up and realize that we've forgotten why we're doing what we're doing. Usually this coincides with the realization that we're so far gone, we're not sure if we really want to do the things that have been such a huge part of us.

That's kind of the attitude I've been dealing with in the church lately. It's a lot of the leaders, but it's also a lot of the lifelong Christians who have started to wonder what's at the root of their religion -- love for God or habit.

It's at that point that a lot of people come to their pastor and say: "I'm not sure if I love God. In fact, I'm starting to think that I don't really desire Him all that much. But I want to. So how do I do it?" The answer that's so easy to say is: read your Bible more. Have more faith. You should try prayer. And this answer usually takes, because these are self-starter kind of people who like applicable answers, and, most likely, have lapsed in all of those areas. Sometimes it even works.

But as I was driving the other day, 1 John 4:19 popped into my head: "We love because God first loved us." In the past, this verse has been very much a descriptive statement to me - a cross reference to hang some systematic theology onto. It smacks of sovereignty, of the initiation of God's love that results in my love. But in the car, I began to see in this verse also a prescription: if love is needed, then God's love is required. Essentially, we don't just love God (and therefore others, cf 1 John 4:20ff) because He first loved us. We also love God more by focusing on His love for us.

If we want to love God more, we need to bring it into reality more than we do. If a husband says he wants to love his wife more, should he go and buy her flowers? Kind of, but that doesn’t seem like it really solves the problem. And many times we want to love God more, so we go and do more things. But if obedience is truly supposed to be response, than our desire to love God more should result first in a contemplative focus on His love for us, and then obedience should flow out of that.

Since then I've been grabbing those pockets in my day where I'm not feeling very excited about God and trying to refocus not on how to recapture that feeling through some psychological or religious gymnastics, but rather on the Gospel and what it says about God's love for me. And it's funny how even the most dry times get vibrant in a place like that.

Coming Back

2007-02-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

My counterpart at Shoreline, Scott, has been encouraging me to go back to seminary and get a Th.M. He tells me that my brain needs the challenge, and I’m starting to realize that he’s right – I vacillate towards laziness unless I purposely immerse myself in a topic. Once I’m in I get really interested, and from there it kind of propels itself, but that first step can be challenging.

It’s in that vein that I’m going to return to Sycamore. I’m hoping to post at least once a week, with the goal that it will serve as a motivation to keep myself immersed in the larger picture of the gospel as it plays out in theology and life.

Plus, I like hearing myself talk.

So if anyone out there reads this thing, I’m thinking that this could be a great opportunity for discussion through the comments section. Let ‘em fly. And yes, I know, you'll believe a comeback when you see it.

Me too.

Mourning

2007-02-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

It would be easy - and maybe because it's true - to blame Rex Grossman for yesterday's superbowl debacle. Or the fact that the Bears defense decided to play four yards off their men and let Payton Manning throw underneath them (for five to fifteen yard gains) all day long. All. Day. Long.

Either way, it was a rough Sunday. I've been a general fan of the bears since I grew up watching Chris Farley and Norm from Cheers have debates over battles between the actual Mike Ditka and the hurricane named "Hurricane Ditka." All the while having multiple coronaries and finding pieces of sausage lodged in the lining of their hearts. And then I moved from the Bay Area in California down to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, and without a football team in LA I decided to pick the team which needed fans the most. In 1999, the Bears were absolutely horrific. And so I decided to commit myself to years and years of bad quarterbacks, "great defense" that managed to lose games but still make them extremely boring.

Then one day I was watching a game and the bears actually scored a touchdown. After years of field goal attempt after field goal attempt, someone actually ran it into the endzone. Needless to say I was excited, and before I knew it Kordell Stewart was out of there, Thomas Jones was running all over people, and Rex Grossman was Dr. Jekyll just long enough to get us into the Superbowl.

Of course, Mr. Hyde showed up yesterday.

My consolation is that my misery has a lot of excellent pastoral company .

Some Quick Thoughts on Musical Worship

2006-12-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

If there’s one thing that most people will agree with, it’s that the Bible pictures true worship, especially musical worship, as an authentic response. It’s a response to God’s character, His person, and His redeeming work in the world and in our personal lives. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to be.

The implication is that when worship isn’t like that, it’s not good worship. And while many people agree with this in theory, their cynicism takes over when the rubber meets the road. If you’ve ever preached on worship, or been a worship leader talking to a congregation before a Sunday service, you’ve probably been in the following position: talking to people about how worship is supposed to be a response and seeing half the congregation say in their heads: “yeah, that sounds great and I agree, but is that realistic? I mean, how do you get to that place every Sunday?”

The answer that no one says: you get that by not just showing up on a Sunday and expecting it to be there when you haven’t spent more than five minutes with God all week.

If worship is a response, then it means you need to be responding TO something. And to respond TO something, you need to encounter it in some way shape or form. It’s hard to respond to someone you don’t interact with. Harder still to respond to something you ignore.

If we want musical worship during a Sunday morning service to be anything near the biblical standard, it means that we have to be interacting with God during the week. If we don’t, there is absolutely no reason to think that worship on a Sunday will be a response to anything but the worship leader, the music, and the emotion we might experience. And isn’t that the problem with most musical worship today?

The answer to solving our celebrity-worship, self-centered, experience-only oriented musical worship has very little to do with Sunday mornings. It has everything to do with Monday’s devotions before work, Wednesday night bible study, and prayer after breakfast on Saturday.

Why We Don't Pray As We Should

2006-11-16T13:53:00.000-08:00

Ask any pastor about the church’s weekly prayer meetings and you’ll get one of the following answers:

1. “Oh, I remember those. Good times, good times.”
2. “I hear that they’re going well.”
3. “They’re not great. We pretty much pray for old ladies bunions and stuff.”

It’s rare that you find a church today that has a prayer meeting that could be described as “vibrant” with a straight face. And when, like I’m doing now, the pastor tries to ascertain why prayer meetings, though well and good, aren’t what they could be, answers are hard to come by.

There’s a cycle of thoughts you go through, as a pastor in that situation, when you try to figure out what needs to be done. First, you think about the prayers in the bible, and the prayers in history, and all those crazy stories you hear in seminary about answered prayer and how Spurgeon had roughly 1.2 million people in the church basement praying for every service. Then you think about your own prayer life, how it needs work, and struggle for a while between the ease of thinking “well, I pray more than most people I know” and the difficulty of recognizing that God didn’t make “everyone you know” the standard. After hacking your way through that one, you start thinking about how you’re probably going to eat a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. And how maybe the whole “online dating” thing isn’t such a bad idea if it might eventually lead to dinners that involve more than a bag of bread, two jars, and a knife. Or that might be just me.

Then you shake that off and start to think of how, while the prayer meetings aren’t up to the legendary standard of Mueller or the like, it’s not like they’re bad. I mean, people are getting prayed for, and that’s good. Right? A mini debate takes place somewhere in your head, and then you think: well, maybe we just need improvement. A little tweaking. And so, like the good seminary graduate, you think: I’ll just teach it. Pre-prayer meeting devotionals, pushing the effectiveness of prayer. A few extreme stories about God’s faithfulness.

Then you remember the last six times you tried that, and the blank stares you received. And so you resign yourself to having “okay” prayer meetings for a while, consoling yourself with a hastily made (but liberally slathered with jelly) sandwich. A few months later, you start the process all over again.

This time around, though, it’s not dinner time and I’m not near my kitchen, so my “distract-via-sandwich” option isn’t on the table. No pun intended. And what’s donned on my is this little doozy:

We don’t pray the way we should because we don’t really want our prayers to be answered.

You look around a prayer meeting, and it’s not so much that people don’t cognitively believe that prayer works. Or at least that it should, in theory, with all the qualifying, apologizing, and caveats we’ve made to get God off the hook for all that “you ask, you get” talk in the Bible. Everyone’s pretty much on board with that (again, in theory). The problem is that, if we actually start to access this belief and stand on it in any legitimate way (not as supplementary to our own efforts or concerning things peripheral to our real concerns), then God might just actually make good on those promises that He gave. And if God actually makes good on those promises that He made, we’re actually going to have to change the way we live.

It’s the reason why Jesus asked the paralytic in John 5 if he wanted to be healed. It seems like a dumb question, on the face of it – who wouldn’t want to walk around? But after 38 years of living without legs, being healed meant more than just a change in circumstances. It meant he’d have to change too—getting a job instead of accepting people’s charity, not just laying around all day, becoming a productive member of society. Healing (both physical and spiritual) brings with it responsibility and expectation. And what we really want, deep down, is for our circumstances to change without us having to change along with them.

We don’t pray as we should because, deep down, we know that if God answers our prayers we’re going to have to change the way we live. If God really answers my prayer to bring a lot of new converts into the church, I’m going to have to deal with a lot of baby Christians in need of discipleship. If God really answers a prayer for a new job, then I have to show up on time to work. If God really answers my prayer for more mature Christian friends, then I’m going to have to deal with them challenging some of the things I do or say. If God really answers my prayer for humility, I’m going to have to go through some very challenging circumstances. If God really answers prayer, I’m going to be accountable for the things that I neglect to pray for, I’m going to find that the reason I don’t have what I want is that I don’t ask, and I’m going to find that I’d really rather watch television than deal with God showering down blessings if having those blessings mean I have increased responsibility.

So, instead of facing that reality, we fill our heads and our prayers with thoughts of mild physical discomfort, healing for people we hardly know (and thus don’t have to invest in), and things that, when it all comes down, don’t really matter that much to us. And when we do pray for what really matters, we do it so half-heartedly that any other person in the room would be impressed with our theology but not convinced that we actually care one way or the other. Because, deep down, we know that we might not really want God to work that way. Because, if we pray with conviction and fervency, God might actually answer our prayers.

There are plenty of other reasons we don't pray as we should, but I believe that this one is near the top. And so the question we have to ask ourselves is this: we’re not anti-God, nor anti-spiritual growth. But are we actually willing to be close to God if being close to God means our lives will change? Or are we so concerned with not crossing our lines of comfort that our prayer life has been neutered, all the while wondering why our prayers go unanswered by a God who knows our hearts?

New Design

2006-11-11T12:36:00.000-08:00

Nothing aids procrastination like web design, where every little flaw can take hours to analyze, diagnose, and (potentially) solve. So, as promised, here's the new Sycamore site design. There are still plenty of bugs to work out, especially on the individual post pages, where the footer keeps moving around on me and I have no idea why. (Any CSS specialists out there feel free to scope out the page source and explain it all to me).

Hope you enjoy. Some added aesthetic flourishes (and a whole new blogroll) will start showing up sometime next week. And any time I would have spent writing has been poured into redesign work, so something fresh will have to wait until next week too.

Let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Redesign Update

2006-11-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

So I've got something put together, I'm just having some trouble getting the time/energy/know-how to make it a reality in css/html. It involves new colors, a lot more simplicity, and much less busy in general. Like my wardrobe, which lately has consisted of clothing purchased from either Goodwill or Target. So keep on the lookout. For the site design, not my wardrobe.

Well Worth a Read

2006-11-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

Check out this article about the whole Haggard controversy. It's an interesting, sobering, encouraging, and intriguing read.

Man am I Over This Site Design

2006-11-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just running Firefox on a Mac, but I show back up to Sycamore and I'm really liking the backgound color. It's got a charcoal sort of thing going, which is so much better than the purple-ish thing I thought I had going. But besides that, I'm pretty much over the design.

Which leads into a funny part of my life lately: the church has a couple of serious web/print/whatever designers. I, if you didn't know, am currently moonlighting as an extraordinarily cheap web designer. I designed the church website, a few others, and I'm now working on a second church website - this time all in Flash. Which, like every other web project I've worked on, I'm learning as I go.

Now, I'm downshifting into a music analogry (sorry, it's late and I'm not at my most linear). I started playing music at this church where everyone but me was a pro musician. And the rhythym section (anchored by my bff Big Dave) taught me a metric ton about music. What improved the most was my ear - I could hear things I never heard before. My understanding of rhythym quadrupled, I learned what the term "pocket" meant, I found out that not all electric guitars sound the same...etc.

The upshot of all this is that I found out that while my ear could hear what was wrong with my sound/playing, my technical proficiency was not at the level where I could do anything to fix it. My life in web design, especially in terms of Sycamore, has followed a similar path. While I can see all the things wrong with it, and much that I'd like to change, I have no ability to actually make those changes a reality.

Shut up, it's my first post back and I'm rusty.

2 Month Hiatus

2006-10-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

So it's been just over two months since I left Hof in charge of Sycamore. While he's done an admirable job (when I read "flies with seagulls" on the resume, I was sold), I figure it's about time to take care of business or close up shop.

And since blogging is something that I feel is good for me, because it forces me to think a bit and helps me practice writing and therefore communicating, I'm going to resume. I'm shooting for one solid post a week, with the possibility of some random stories showing up here and there. And, of course, a few guest hosting gigs for Hof.

Thanks, of course, to Dave for the well-placed kick that got me going again.

I'm Hooked

2006-08-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

I promise this won't turn into another UTube/Google Video blog, but this one's too hard to resist... When I start actually thinking about real things again, I'll let you know. Until then, this should tide you over.

Unearthed

2006-08-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

My BFF Dave Ross, who recently had an interesting encounter with a fortune cookie, has unearthed a video I haven't seen for three or four years. I think this guy was the first to try to be Relevant Christian Guy - and he just screams youth pastor. But, whether you like it or not, you have to admire the crafting of the verses, the in depth knowledge of Christian subculture, and the sheer effort that goes into an endeavor of this caliber. And if you don't at least smirk a couple of times, you've turned into one of those Christian adults you didn't like when you were a kid.

I've embedded the video here, but make sure you visit Dave's blog, because he's awesome.