Confident Fools.

Confident foolishness. Supreme satisfaction. An overarching smile. These are just random thoughts. I need to expound on them one day. Right now I’m dead smack in the middle of an incredible book by Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami. Every “church” leader who wants to particpate in effective ministry from this point in time and in the future, should be forced to read this book or anything else by Sweet for that matter. This guy is way ahead of his time. Way ahead. Right now I’m reading through Romans. Good stuff. That must sound like the hugest understatement to God. But its a great book. Extremely deep. You could honestly read in Romans for the rest of your life and still not get as deep as you could go. Lets see . . . I’ve been listening to Coldplay, The Hives, Dashboard Confessional, The Rentals, David Crowder Band, The Strokes, and a worship cd from Mars Hill Fellowship. For my future reference.

Ok, heres something that may sound wierd to me later on in the future. But I just thought it was an incredible moment of realization for me tonight. I know this sounds dumb, but the little light in my head clicked on for a brief second in an other wise ordinary situation. So here it is. I’m housesitting for this couple. They have two dogs. I don’t know what kind cause I’m not that smart. They have this little one, named Shelby. So I’m sitting on the ground, have a nice cd compilation thrown on in the background, and I’m just playing with Shelby on the ground. Very peaceful. She keeps chasing me. Jumping on me. I blow in her face and then cover my face so she can’t get to me. I hold her up in the air. She keeps licking my toes. She’s all over the place. So we’re just sitting there playing for about 15 minutes or so. Then I find her bag of toys. So I get out some chew toy ball or something like that. I get it out for her, so she can play with it, right? Well then she starts playing with it and quits playing with me. To be honest, it kinda chapped me. Here I am giving this toy to Shelby so she can play with it, and then I get mad when she starts to play with it. And for some reason and I have no idea why, a little light clicked on in my brain and I immediately thought about God giving me a gift to enjoy and then when He gives it to me, I quit playing with Him directly and play instead with the gift. Then I thought about how God must get chapped when he sees me doing this. But then the second light clicked on in my little brain. You see my motives aren’t pure. I gave the toy to Shelby, so I could have her enjoy it with me, not so she could enjoy it by herself. Which shows that I didn’t care about Shelby enjoying the gift. I cared more about myself and my satisfaction than I cared about Shelby and her satisfaction. Tainted motives. John Piper says God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. So you see, God has a pure heart and pure motives. Therefore, the gift that he gives, He gives out of a pure heart. The gift is also an extension of himself. I don’t think that God gets chapped when he sees me playing with his gift instead of directly playing with Him. I believe He sees it as me directly playing with Him since the gift is an extension of Him. He gave it to me out of a pure heart for my enjoyment. So why would he get mad if I enjoy His gifts, His pleasures as long as I recgonize who the gift came from? God sees it as me enjoying His pleasure. He is most satisfied with me, when I am most satisfied in Him.

This will probably sound real spacey when I read it a year from now. But right now, tonight, it clicked with me. I thought I’d share it. I know I’m dumb. Just please don’t say it to my face cause then it’ll hurt my feelings and I’ll get a really low self esteem and that won’t be good for anybody. =)

Relationship vs Religion.

Relationship vs. Religion
written in 1999

Which is the better? Relationship causes us to be dependent. While religion drowns us in our own strength. Relationship produces fire and passion in our lives. Religion produces complacency. Relationship drives us to serve. Religion drives us to apathy. Relationship draws us to dangerous. Religion draws us to something safe. Relationship drives us to our knees. Religion drives us to our platforms. Relationship births love for the lost. Religion births love of our rules. Relationship causes change. Religion causes conformity. Relationship brings forth life and fruit. Religion brings death and decay.

When I look at this, I see that the relationship is far better than the religion. But when I look at my life, I see my religious offerings of money, time, materials, songs, and words. I see them and I think, “wow”. But it’s a matrix. I think am something. I think am making a difference. I think I am in God’s will. But then I look at my life. I look at how much time I spend in the relationship. That’s when I realize that I am bound in religion.

School.

Another Semester of School

Today is the first day of school. Let me tell you how excited I am. Can you hear it in my type? It seems like with every semester that goes by, I grow in a huge way. Every semester that I come to school it seems like I already have a nice chunk of my mind made up already as to what I believe about God and life. I always come in with these preconceived notions about God and all these answers that I’ve already decided upon. But by the end of the semester, after another 4 months of people cramming more information down my throat, more lectures compacted into my brain, and seeing all of this stuff that is supposedly going to change a world and change the church, I find myself sitting not with a whole lot of answers, but with a whole lot of questions. And I don’t see myself as sitting empty handed. That even after another semester I still don’t know more, but I am not empty handed. I’ve learned more about myself. Even though I don’t have the right answers, I usually come out with a whole lot of questions that I need to address in order that my life counts for something. I find that the more I know about God, the less I know about Him. The more I think I know, the less I really know. In order for me to learn more about Him and grow closer to Him, oftentimes I have to “de” myself. Before I can be reformed and renewed and recharged. I have to “de” me. I have to unpackage everything I think I know to be true about God, church, and life. I have to de myself out of all my preconceived notions, all my pictures of God, all my head knowledge. Being careful not to leave my mind so open, that anything can take root. But essentially, to dump everything out. All my answers. All my knowledge. All of me. And honestly this is a daily process. Running everything I know to be true through God’s filter. Sticking everything under his lens. Not mine.

So here I am again. Standing at the edge of another four months of learning. Preparing myself to “learn about God.” When in the end, I’ll know less than I know today and know more than I know today at the same time. The ultimate paradox. To some this is a sad moment of realization. But to me, I’m excited. Even eager, to deprogram me and my ideas and beliefs and learned way of doing things. And to reprogram myself with God and his ideas and his beliefs and his way of doing things and his heart. So here I am at the door to another semester of learning with a full head of answers and a heart full of questions. And I look forward to losing my answers and having God answer my questions. I look forward to where I’ll be a semester from now. Knowing less answers and having more questions. Knowing less about God but knowing Him more intimately. A beautiful paradox all wrapped up in a semester of school.

Mission.

Church
This would be a pretty cool ad for some church or mission statement or core beliefs or values or something like that.

We are committed to exploring Christian Spirituality in a whole new way. We recognize that the world we live in is an entirely different place than it has ever been. Our world has undergone a massive shift. Globalization and post modernity have changed the way we live our lives on every level; socially, politically, economically and spiritually. We feel that too often Christianity has lost touch with where people are really at with their spiritual lives. The language,practice and focus of most contemporary Christianity leaves us cold, so we have decided to do something about it. We are not a typical church, we believe that many of the problems people have with Organized Religion and Christianity in particular is related to a general inflexibility both organizationally and theologically. Instead we call ourselves a spiritual workshop, a ‘liquid church’ if you will. We are asking lots of questions, toying with ideas, thinking critically, examining religion, faith and spirituality and attempting to reclaim the mystery long left in the dust by black and white theology. The modern world compartmentalized everything. Spiritual life was privatized and separated from the rest of life but we believe that all of life is sacred and that spirituality and faith is something which should permeate all aspects of our lives. With that in mind, we explore many things together, not just religion but the arts, economics, politics, whatever seems appropriate and deserving of our attention and focus. Oscar Wilde once wrote that “nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.” The Christian Church has married itself to the modern age and become hopelessly out of touch. Our aim is to re-imagine Christian faith and spirituality in our new world. The questions raised by living in a global, pluralistic society are not the same questions which molded and shaped the modern Church. Rather than addressing those issues we choose to find the new questions and wrestle with those. Many of the people who come are committed to a spiritual life rooted in Christianity, but not everybody, and we welcome anyone who wished to come and journey and dialog with us.

A Life.

I have no prayer
No offerings
No words
Only a whisper of You
You’re so deep
Profound
I can’t understand or explain
Your knowledge is unlimited
Widsom infinite
You created and know all things
Paled in comparison I stand
Able to give so little
Presenting nothing that You don’t have
Except for a whisper
A life to echo You
A life to give to You
A life to live for You