If you’re a fan, grab it here.

Jon makes a great followup to something Rob and MF already commented on for unplugging, and being there when you’re with real people, not your virtual friends.

He also makes some resolutions about going “natural”, and finding a way to completely disconnect using nature. I wish him well in this endeavor, must past my estimated endurance of 3 days.

He apparently didn’t like the past comments, so they’re gone now, but I don’t really think anyone can read his stuff without some reaction (ergo, this post).

It really is sad that we Christians (the big we) get so jacked up about telling others they’re wrong instead of focusing on loving others and perfecting ourselves through the example of Christ. Simple really, but so hard on the daily grind.

I remember thinking how beautiful of a movie it was while we watched; characters, imagery, themes, and the story was fantastic. The climax however, left a terrible taste in my mouth and I couldn’t place it until just now.

This movie’s main focus was on the main character’s (Frankie’s) struggle to define herself through boxing. You didn’t catch just how deep this point was until the accident, hospitalization and its remedy. The message then rang out loud and clear: “She has no value other than boxing”. So, if she cannot box, throw her away. Now the director (Clint Eastwood) could have done this to provide support for euthanasia, or a host of other reasons, but the net effect is Frankie was de-valued in the end, by her only friend.

For me, my takeaway is how would I continue to love, care, and value someone in such a state. Scary thought as it is…

Thank you Lord for protecting my friends and family, help me grow to value all the people you have placed in my life.

The modern church today is totally broken. Not, just a little, not just “not perfect”.. BROKEN.

The church should provide the following basic things:

• Edification: It is a meeting place for worshipers of The Almighty God – Father, Son & Holy Spirit. It is where those who believe can come to be refreshed, challenged, and forgiven.
• Salvation: It is a hospital for broken lives. Messed up lives should feel welcomed to come and be loved and introduced to our Savior.
• Celebration: It is a mile marker for those on their walk with Christ. People don’t have to start their walk “in the church”, or end their walk there, but their local church should serve as the touchstone of their spiritual lives and the community of the church itself.

American churches (albeit I’ve attended only 15 in my lifetime) have got things wrong. Some are exclusively focused on Edification. Some are so concerned with Salvation that they miss how their congregation isn’t really “growing” spiritually, or de-emphasize those “crazy Christian events” so that we don’t confuse people.

We attended an amazing church today. Not a perfect one by any stretch, but it was remarkable about how much they were focused on caring for the body of Christ (including us guests). They were also confused and concerned about how their church seemed to be “dying out” in a neighborhood that needed Christ. They are currently trying to invite the neighborhood into “normal” social events, just to get to know their neighbors and spend time with them. I pray that the Holy Spirit gives them wisdom in this regard, their love and warmth for us this morning was overwhelming.

So what’s the big deal? The Sunday morning church tries to jam everything in on a single service. Let’s try to encourage believers, but not too much, because then visitors might feel uncomfortable with all the terminology. Let’s keep it things simple when special events like baptism, confirmation, or new members join, I mean, we don’t want to cut into “regular church time”.

Doing something well, means doing something, not everything. So here’s a proposal:

• Churches would have a simple, short service focused on the salvation message. This would be in the “slot” of the current worship service or services. The format would be plain, the messages would be “baby’s milk” and the congregation who attended would be focused on praying and caring for those attending, and those they invited to attend. Churches should also have frequent events throughout the week that bring the Gospel message directly to visitors and non-believers.
• Churches have a focused service for the attending believer, one in which the edification of the faithful is the exclusive priority of the service. Topics would include such things as money, Bible study, service, sin, grace, God’s faithfulness, etc. This would best take place during a Bible study slot, again on Sunday if there’s room on the schedule.
• Churches would literally throw parties. I mean what do we do for the Super Bowl? If the angels in heaven truly rejoice over one soul receiving Christ, why don’t we party for a baptism? I think these are opportunities to celebrate God’s word on this earth – something we truly neglect as a church.

This is from the mind of Steve Turner (http://www.rejesus.co.uk/expressions/steve_turner):

CREED We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin. We believe everything is OK as long as you don’t hurt anyone, to the best definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy’s OK. We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything’s getting better, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe that there’s something in horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons; Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed and ourselves. He was a good moral teacher although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same – at least the one that we read was. They all believe in love and goodness. They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing. If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it’s compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson. What’s selected is average. What’s average is normal. What’s normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. Americans should beat their guns into tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good. It’s only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust. History will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds, and the flowering of individual thought.

The problem with satire of course is that it is rather self-incriminating (and if you don’t find it so, re-read it again aloud). God Help Us!

• Science and religion (more specifically Christianity) often are portrayed at being at war with each other
• Dan Brown I think makes a huge argument FOR faith, and specifically Christianity many times throughout the book – and I thought he was the enemy!

Fun read, check it out.

You’ve also got the folks that are “plural truth” (hey dude, your truth and my truth can live together), or you get absolute truth thrust at you from different camps of people (including us Christians). Then you’ve got the folks suggestng that there’s an alternative truth (shout outs to D. Brown). This always seems more pronounced during an election year, and I don’t even know why I’m letting politicians get me lit up about this, but whenever the two sides are claiming truth on an issue, obviously they aren’t telling us the truth.

WAY Back (I’m talking early ’90s era), I was at a luncheon where the presenter said that the rate of information was doubling every 15 years. Guess what? It’s now doubling every three years – and that report is three years old! According to that report, we’re churning out as much noise, er, information the size of “all the words ever spoken by human beings” (which is 5 EXAbytes).

Q: Why am I being so technical and non-sensical? A: (1) I am geek, and (2) if you can’t filter through the information, you’re not setting yourself up for success in this new age.

CONCLUSION TO POST (shortcut for the ADHD afflicted) Most importantly, with the amount of information noise that is being generated, it will most likely by noted by the time my Grandkids are in high school that the Sacred Chalice of the Holy Grail is in fact, Mary Magadelene, wife of Jesus of Nazareth. Will our new society have the patience enough to wait for the truth to prove itself, or only go by what is G-dexed?

How ’bout you? Are you spending time in the truth?

[originally cooked up: 3/26/06]

I connected with this book immediately. Particularly challenging and exciting was reading someone who was describing the kind of faith I had during my teen years. Wild, reckless, risk-taking, total Spirit-in-the-Wind, which seems so very scary to consider now. Hmmm…

It’s only about 140 pages, meaning some of you can read it in an afternoon. I think he dictated the last chapter in one sitting because it just flew on by with a lot of motivation and theory. The prior 3 chapters however are full of Biblically-based fundamental ideas and challenges… much like what I was trying to do in this post: Where are the Jonathans? It was so refreshing to read someone who had practical, radical ideas about what’s broken with American Christianity and actually used the Scripture as his foundation and guidance for answers.

Obviously using the barbaric references infers warfare. McManus expands his war, tribe, barbarian themes to poignant examples using himself, his family and others in his congregation.

Here’s some quotes that have got me thinking and praying:

“If you are a follower of Christ and you have allowed yourself to be domesticated, you have lost the power of who you are and who God intends for you to be. You were not created to be normal…You must go to the primal place and enter the presence of the Most High God, for there you will be changed by His presence.”

another boom:

“The suffering of Christ glorifies God because it elevates love. Compelled by love, God would go where He knew suffering was certain. Love always moves to sacrifice, which is exactly where He calls us to go. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that to follow Christ is to abandon the luxury of safety and security. If we are to be like Him, we must always risk for love. We are invited to follow Him with reckless abandon…Even when it seems beyond our abilities, we should not be surprised when God tells us to jump.”

and finally:

“It may seem counterintuitive, but the more civilized we seem to become, the more detached from the pain of others we end up finding ourselves. The most civilized churches have really no practical concern for people outside their congretations. The brokeness of a lost and unbelieving world is not enough to inspire the painful changes necessary to make the church relevent to the world in which we live.”

This was a great read, an inspiration for my walk, er, battle, and a first step to getting back the barbaric passion for my Savior.

I’m not sure I can run a full-blown 3 part series of in-depth thought… wait… maybe… nope…I can’t…Give because God asked you to (gotta love the K-ster’s frankness).

This is particularly easy to:

1. Do, but not as an act of worship
2. Justify away, and not do

1. Doing and no worship. I fall into this one the most. This goes like this… we setup a direct deposit account for all giving. When I get paid, we never even see that money in the first place and just write checks throughout the year against it. The downside is that I can forget to bring my soul to the obedience portion. Right now, I can’t really see a problem with that because a) the worship for me came when the decision was made to give and how much and to fill out my form, b) obedience for me is not defined by emotion per se, but rather TRUST that doing something God’s way is best, even if I don’t want to.

1. It is very easy to come up with reasons why I wouldn’t have enough money, let’s see:

• Need to buy a lunch because it’s too crazy in the morning
• Need to go out to dinner because it’s too crazy in the evening
• Need coffee in the morning to get me up
• Invisible Fencing needed to keep dog’s health up
• ReplayTV needed for when our old one dies
• ReplayTV for the bedroom
• Cable probably has better channels with the higher packages
• Internet (eek) could be faster
• MacBook Pro
• Rackmounted Servers so that I can get them off the floor
• Better all-in-one printer so I can get that off the floor
• A fourth iPod
• A fifth PC
• Another LCD for the bedroom
• Yet another shelving solution for my crap, er, stuff

Just in the making of my “wish list”, is rather annoying… my interests, and passions are totally selfish! Some of the items on here are totally bogus, some are what I’m seriously considering…Have you ever considered what is on your “wish list” compared to what’s on God’s “wish list” for you? If you’re not currently giving a portion of your gross income, I’d highly encourage you to take your “wish list”, even your “need list” to God in prayer.

Feel a struggle comin’ on? I sure do. Obedience baby!