Uncharted Waters

Brokenness

2011-06-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

After a recent conversation, I have been thinking about the concept of "brokenness" as it relates to our lives and specifically for those of us who attempt to follow Christ. The dictionary defines brokenness as something, "Forcibly separated into two or more pieces; fractured." Now none of us wants to think of ourselves as broken, that's not a good image. When we think of things that are broken we think of things that are no longer sparkling, usable, and are often discarded. We think of pain! For good reason we avoid these types of images because this is not the picture of things we think are strong, valuable, or attractive. However, things that still have all their paint or are still flashy are things that have never been used, tested, and tried. My wife and I recently went on a hiking trip with shoes that had not been broken-in. You can imagine what our feet looked like after a couple of days of that type of treatment. Our feet and ankles were "sore" to state it mildly. But after several days of use those shoes started to feel better on our feet, although they weren't as pretty as when we stared. They had lost some of their out of the box shine. They had dirt and mud on them and in places some of the fabric had been damaged. Can we relate? I know that I can.
When we start out in life we too have the fresh out of the box shimmer and smell, but ever so quickly life's experiences change all of that. We get bumps and bruises that sometimes are hard to bounce back from. But we are told that to be successful, popular, and attractive we cannot have any of these so called "blemishes" (None of our fabric can be damaged). However, I have seen time and time again how God has used these blemishes or "yes" even brokenness to help me and others that I know relate to those who are currently facing similar circumstances in their lives. Don't get me wrong, I don't like pain anymore than the next person and I certainly don't believe "God sends difficult circumstances our way." But the scars we carry on our selves can sometimes help us relate and even encourage those around us. This reminds me of one of my favorite passages of scripture, "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us" (2 Corinthians 4:7ff). It is through cracks in our lives that Christ's love, hope, and even joy can be made visible and shared with others. We are not perfect as we would like to be, but through the amazing presence of God at work in and through us...we can often be more useful to others.

Reverence for Personality

2009-01-07T11:40:00.000-08:00

I have recently been reading through a book entitled, The Christ of the Mount, written by an early 20th century missionary by the name of E. Stanley Jones. This book has an entire section dedicated to the "Reverence for Personality," something Jones claims Jesus was all about. In fact, he makes the claim that for Jesus, "There was nothing sacred save personality--neither vessels, nor rites, nor ceremonies, nor places." To me, this sounds like a message worth listening to! Jones goes on to speak of seven saying of Jesus that are the most formative utterances ever spoken in religion in "reference to the emancipation of man [humanity]." I would like to mention only one of them here, if you would like to know what the other six are you will have to read the book for yourself, sorry! The one that I would like to mention is this, "The Sabbath was made for man [humanity] not man [humanity] for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). Jones goes on to say that "all rites, ceremonies, religious institutions, etc. will be judged by one question: What do they do to, and for, the personality of man [humanity]?" Do these previously mentioned things build up and enrich individuals and corporate humanity or do they break down and destroy us? I have personally witnessed the religious institution of the church do some devastating things to persons. However, I have also witnessed the church, the physical gathering of Jesus' followers, miraculously become very hands and loving embrace of their creator to others. I believe this was Jesus' goal for all of creation. He was raising a message of hope and promise out from the ashes of a dead religious system of his day. The message, which fulfilled what that earlier system was attempted to bring about, "A living relationship with God and humanity, humanity with humanity, and humanity with the rest of creation." The Christian church today needs to revisit this message of Christ and allow it to clean away the barnacles, which have desensitized us to the very needs of one another. I believe there is hope for the church today! I believe the church is capable returning to its roots and breaking away from the dehumanizing practices and prejudices it has accumulated. However, this will take lots of work by all of us and a willingness to love people and see the good in them once again! Are we up for the challenge?

The Rebel Jesus

2008-03-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

So I have been reading one of Brian McLaren's latest books: Everything Must Change, in preparation for the "Deep Shift" conference, which is coming to the D.C. area this week. I have almost finished the book and my mind is swimming with an over-flow of the information presented there.

Within this book Brian presents two probing questions:

One, "What are the biggest problems in the world today?"
Two, "What does Jesus have to say about these problems?"

He spends the rest of the book explaining what the problems were in Jesus' day and then shows the similarities to our own day and age, which is absolutely frightening! Lastly, he begins to paint a picture of what he believes Jesus is saying about these problems and what Jesus is calling us to do about them.

Here is a video, which this book makes reference to and might be a possible place to begin discussing how we might begin to approach these questions in our own realms of influence.

Stereotypes

2007-06-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

We all have them don't we? Stereotypes! Whether they are associated with persons of different economic, ethnic, or geographical location we all have our pre-conceived ideas of others don't we?

Those of us who are part of the church often seam to have a gift for steriotyping those who are not part of the church (not like us!).

Have you ever thought of how others view you or I? Well, a certain church did a series on steriotypes associated with Christianty & the church. They edited some older Jesus videos for the purpose of using them as discussion starters around these particular steriotypes. Now many of you have probably already seen some if not all of these clips, but I wanted to post this just for the benifit of those who haven't. The videos are hilarious, check them you!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nl2rf50-mWE

We as the church have also been set in a ridged cast by those who have been burned by good or not so good intentioned members of the church. For this reason, we should be very careful about setting too ridged of ideas of any one or groups of persons we don't know on a relational bases.

This is why the scriptures tell us for good reason, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love, God's not know God, for God is love..." (I Jn. 4:7ff)

Insiders & Outsiders

2007-01-25T08:04:00.001-08:00

I love the Little Rascals! I grew up watching the re-runs of the original episodes as a child. I think what is so funny is their ability to catch snap-shots of real life and behavior and amplify them to the point of ridiculousness. My kind of humor.

However, what might not be so funny is how the church sometimes functions in similar ways of "insider" group behavior.

The passage I am preaching on this week is from Luke 4:21-30, where Jesus has come to his hometown of Nazareth and has visited the local religious center (synagogue). He reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah 61, where Isaiah is referring to the Year of Jubilee (Every 50 yrs. Israelites were supposed to forgive all debts to one another and let all Jewish slaves, etc. go free) In the Isaiah passage the prophet was making illusions to the idea that the true Messianic King, which Israel was waiting for, would bring about something like the Yr. of Jubilee into actuallity at his arrival.

What makes this passage so interesting is that Jesus sits down and says, "This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." One can only assume the Jews were thinking of how this could benifit them. After all, they were God's favored people (insiders). However, Jesus put this type of thinking on its head and began telling how a prophet was never accepted in his/her on town.

What he was really saying is that the good news he had brought (good news to the poor, liberation for captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the yr. of the Lord) was for all people and nations. The Jews didn't really like the sound of this and tried to kill him for saying it.

I wonder how the church could break these behaviors of self-centeredness i.e. "insider vs. outsider" mentality? I wonder how the church of today could help bring about this "new age," which Jesus was really talking about, into actuallity in our world?

The Untold Story

2007-01-24T18:32:00.000-08:00

I found this clip on a friend's blog and thought it was pretty funny! Let me know what you think of it.

2006-09-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

I often have people approach me and ask, "Where do you think the church is headed in the future?" I believe people ask this question for two different reasons. One group sees the direction our culture is going and is filled with fear, the other group also sees where our culture is going and sees the possibilities for the church in the future.

I stand within the second group upon this issue of where the church is today and where I see our culture headed. This is not to say that the church does not have a lot of work ahead of her. I believe we as the church still have many necessary changes ahead of us to continue being a place of openness to God and our neighbor. However through God's help, we will make these changes and continue our journey into the future.

I began this blog with the intension of writing a short thesis of where I see the church of today and where I believe the church of tomorrow should be. However, along the way a stumbled upon this paper and decided to post this instead. I believe the ideas shared here voice the same cry of my heart for the church.

The paper is a little long, but worth the read.

Emerging Ecclesiology: Preliminary Obeservations Of Horizen Churches in a Postmodern World

Let me know what you think of it.

What's on your mind?

2006-09-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to start a blog where anyone could raise an issue, which they would like to speak about and then I or others with this link could respond to the issue being raised.

The table is open, although I would ask that the conversation stay appropriate for posting.