Have you turned water into wine lately?

I’ve been desperately desiring the Truth lately, but I haven’t been feeling like a sponge. More like a wall in which everything I learn bounces off. All these hours in a car for work has spurred me to continue digging in and I’ve been listening to sermons again. The past two days, I’ve listened to Rob Bell and his sermon, Wine and Heaven.

Rob has been my wild card in the midst of all the podcasts I listen to — primarily Matt Chandler from Highland Village’s The Village Church and Mark Driscoll from Seattle’s Mars Hill Church (not to be confused with Bell’s Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan). There’s quite a few criticisms about him and how he tends to emphasize experience over Scriptures, but when I listen to him and read his books, his love for the Jewish culture and the Hebrew language makes it hard for me to believe all he says is junk. His teachings encourage me to learn more about culture during the times Scripture was written, to fully understand why the writers wrote the words they did.

Anyway, Wine and Heaven was a fairly long sermon for Bell and it was fairly scattered (although I was scattered making sure I didn’t get lost in Dallas during work). Towards the end, Bell hit a home run when it pointed out something in the Gospel of John… Read more »

What makes a church?

I used to have these wild ideas about what the word “church” entails, but am starting to find out a lot of my ideas were unbiblical. One pastor who has modeled a church that I would love to visit one day is Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. (Yes, this is the “Mark the Cussing Pastor” Don Miller writes about.) I listen to his sermon podcasts every week as he unapologetically describes who Jesus is - both the loving, grace-dishin’ Jesus as well as the less popular King Jesus, tattooed, sword-tongued, and ready to tell each one of us, “Well done, good and faithful servant” or “I never knew you.” Oddly enough, Mark has proved you don’t need to sugar coat Jesus for a church to grow. Maybe just a little humor and an occasional cuss word, but Jesus is enough.

I started reading Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church, Mark’s book about Mars Hill. It’s definitely aimed at church planters and pastors, but thought I’d read it anyway. Since I’ve listened to his sermons as well as his 2-hr lecture on church planting from a Resurgence meeting, I’ve heard a lot of what he’s written already. I did want to share this since I have been guilty of this view before:

Over the years, I have become increasingly troubled by the frequency with which young pastors simply dismiss the New Testament teaching on church leadership and discipline, so that if four guys are drinking beer in a pub, they can call it a church. One well-known expert promoting this new undefined, undisciplined, and unbiblical ecclesiology was once asked how we can possibly define what a church is if his advice of not having elders, deacons, members, discipline, or doctrine was heeded. His reponse was simply, “If it smells like a church, it is a church.” My response was that sometimes a whore wears the same perfume as a wife, and it’s no different with the bride of Christ.

So, if you want to hit up some no frills teaching, suscribe to the Mars Hill podcast or vodcast (video sermons). Not for the faint of heart, but shoo, Jesus isn’t really either.

Second place is just the first what?

With all the Mavs-Spurs ruckus this past week, I started to wonder, “What’s this all about?” Since when did people decide to stop, drop, and roll to watch ten tall guys bounce a ball around and see how many times they can get it into a hoop? Seriously, how much is it to score some playoff tickets? Or how much money do people spend to deck out in their favorite team’s gear, round up a lot of drinks and foods, and cheer for guys they’ve never even met for a trophy they’ll never touch and for a title that will belong to somebody else next year anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I definitely watched that last 4th quarter biting my nails and holding my breath, but what is it about sports that gets people all riled up?

Maybe we can strip it down. Maybe it’s just plain ol’ competition that gets people riled up. Who can sing and entertain better? American Idol. Who is smarter and has a better personality? The Apprentice. Who can outwit, outplay, and outmatch? Survivor.

What is this need to win? What is this need to be first place (nevermind second, because they are just the first loser). What exactly are we competing for? These things we win don’t seem to last. I’m sure someone will throw away my dust gathering trophies one day. The bragging rights and sense of pride I achieved when I won those trophies sure haven’t carried up ’til now. And if I scored some money, I’m sure I spent it all within a month anyway. Even if I could bottle all this up and lug it with me at all times, what happens to it all when I die? “Hey, Peter, look at all this dough and shiny medals and plastic trophies I’ve got! Cool, huh! So when are you going to let me in those fine pearly gates?”

Something tells me all the money in the world and winning all the championships there are to win will never get me through the gates of Heaven. Not without a heart devoted to Christ. Not without confessing that without God’s grace, I shouldn’t even be at gates to begin with. Not without acknowledging the fact that the only competition that ever mattered was between God and Satan and that Jesus Christ won that battle over 2000 years ago.

This isn’t so much an anti-sports and -competition rant as a call to stop and think things out. Like how much money we lavish upon entertainment and how, in a roundabout way, the world seems to determine everyone’s self-worth. When I think about these things my mind just simply freezes because it wants to stop everything and start over, but it can’t. But what I know I can do is change my lifestyle to reflect what I do believe in and don’t believe in. No, this doesn’t mean I will ban reality shows or not enroll my kiddos in rec sports. But I probably could manage to spend less money on concerts and start tithing as the Lord has instructed. Maybe I don’t need a new digital camera to take pictures of new memories that will soon become old foreign memories; I could probably make new memories at a homeless shelter and feed a few new friends.

Well. Time for bed. One day this dog will have more bite than bark.

Crazy like a fox!

The other day, a friend said to me, “Am I really crazy?” in response to her recent behavior. I said, “Yes, you are really crazy.” But now, I want to take that back.

I suppose crazy is a relative term like all terms are, but what is truly crazy? What makes a crazy person? Now, I guess I should help funnel your thoughts in my direction — I’m not talking about mentally, chemically disturbed people that talk to themselves and have the jitters and whatnot. I’m referring to the younger generation, the teenagers, the college students, maybe even some middle-aged people that go and live that “crazy life.” The party life.

The kind of cats that go out every night they can, even during the school/work week. The ones that pride themselves on taking that extra shot and keep that flask on them at all times, as if they cannot wait ’til the next bar. With mornings of confusion, laughing at what happened and wondering what did happen sometimes. What’s this bruise? Where’s my car? Who is this guy that keeps calling me? Oh, the party life.

The funny thing about these creatures is that most of them think they are crazy. They are so proud of themselves for getting away with some of the crazy things they have done. But really. What’s so crazy about doing something anyone can do? It really isn’t hard to go to a bar or party (even if you’re under 21), hammer down a few shots, and wake up the next morning trying to fill in all the blanks. It isn’t hard to go against your better judgement. You’re nothing new. You’re nothing radical. You’re not crazy. You’re living out the selfish desires. You’re living the easy life, fool.

Okay, okay, so what is crazy? Think about something that everyone has trouble doing. Mmm, how about being selfless. That’s kind of tough. So would I be out of line to say that taking the amputee, that beggar, that possible panhandler, and inviting him to lunch… would that be crazy? What if I spent my Fridays and Saturdays hanging out in the streets, deep in the heart of Dallas, preaching the Gospel by making and maintaining deep relationships? What if I took out a certain percentage of my earnings and instead of spending it on leisure activities, I found a single-mother family to help out?

What if I left everything in my apartment behind and moved to another country, simply to love others as Christ has loved me?

Would you call me crazy then?

Borrowed.

There are a million thoughts in my mind, but I thought this guy’s words were definitely worth sharing. No, seriously, read this.

right now, is your life a wartime or peacetime? i’m not talking about that bullshit on tv and in the newspaper. don’t get me wrong, i pray about the state of the nations, i really do care about all those people and how things play out. but i also care about the state of the neighborhood and the people around me right now. God is in control anyway, doesn’t matter what we choose to worry about(foolishness). piper explains one of the marks of this peacetime mind-set is what he calls an avoidance ethic. “in wartime we ask different questions about what to do with our lives than we do in peacetime. we ask: what can i do to advance the cause? what can i do to bring the victory? what sacrifice can i make or what risk can i take to insure the joy of triumph?” this idea of risk-taking is key in piper’s theology, we must risk ourselves and our comfortable whatever we think is comfortable for something better. Truth. so these ideas of ‘wartime questions’ or decisions or searching are the more obvious of dangerous warfare. any of these decisions or consciousnesses are battles between good and evil for your heart. here’s what i don’t really consider to be dangerous, but he’s right: “in peacetime we ask, what can i do to be more comfortable? to have more fun? to avoid trouble and, possibly, avoid sin?
if we are going to pay the price and take the risks it will cost to make people glad in God, we move beyond the avoidance ethic. this way of life is utterly inadequate to waken people to the beauty of Christ. avoiding fearful trouble and forbidden behaviors impresses almost no one. the avoidance ethic by itself is not Christ-commending or God-glorifying. there are many disciplined unbelievers who avoid the same behaviors Christians do. Jesus calls us to something far more radical than that.”