Friday, February 27, 2004

:: last Fuel in February

Fuel began with homemade hamburgers last night. Dinner topics were "the Passion" Mel Gibson's new movie, car wrecks and other assorted stories. After dinner we went around and everyone got to tell what their musical tastes were, what they were currently listening to and what they began listening to years ago when they began following Jesus. We had a pretty eclectic mix.

We followed with some discussion on John 4 and the woman at the well. We talked about how Jesus crossed many cultural boundaries to encounter the woman at the well. We talked of how Jesus in His authenticity unmasked all the various masks of the woman. This unmasking led to a true encounter with herself and Jesus. We talked about how God not only encountered this woman but she became the vessel that would call the whole village to come and see Jesus. God uses unlikely vessels. We sang Psalm 121 and then prayed that the Lord would send us to the Colony to have encounters with the people there. We prayed that He would direct us how to serve people and how not to follow some rote pattern of reaching people. We want to be intertwined in the community there and be open to the God encounters that come. Instead of the woman at the well it may be the man at Wal=Mart, or the woman at Braums, the teen at Whataburger or the single mom at the grocery store.

Lord show us how to serve.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

:: meeting with George W.

Blogger Rex Hammock tells of a recent visit with president Bush: My Warholian 45 minutes

:: church plant central gets hit next

Another blog I was experimenting with was a metablog on church planting. I have joined that back with faith stories. I am simplifying.

:: Simple faith put to sleep

For anyone that was linked to my blog simple faith. I have sent it to the great delete land in the sky today. I began simple faith as a blog to put quotes I like on, but there is not enough time in the day. I am contemplating consolidating other blogs but haven't made up my mind yet. As we get ready to have our first public gathering, I anticipate the pace picking up some.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

:: Deeper and deeper still

As I think of Christianity in our culture and even of my own walk with can't help but wonder if all of us are not incredibly indoctrinated as consumers. I learn about grace one day and I am off to learn about something else the next. We have a four week sermon series on love and expect to have a proper grasp on the concept. How crazy is that. We always want to grow wider but we forget to go deeper. I want to get to know something of God well rather than knowing a whole lot a little bit.

What if . . . What if we are supposed to learn about one subject for years or a lifetime. I heard Mike Bickle talk about studying a book of the bible. He talked of people who had studied one book 20+ years then began to grasp what the book was about. I was talking to a friend from Lubbock Texas today and was reminded that we need to go deeper in what we know not broader in knowing more. Some concepts I could spend a lot of time on in going deeper is God's love, God's grace, what community really is in this walk. What is the kingdom of God really? No, not a one sentence answer that has been programmed in us like a catchy McDonald's commercial. But really what are the heights and the depths of the kingdom of God.

God, take us deeper in Christ and knowing Him that in that depth He is made known.

Monday, February 23, 2004

:: The greatest hermeneutic

Jesus never wrote a book or established a school. Rather, his legacy was a community. The greatest hermeneutic of the gospel is a community that seeks to live by it.

Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Culture

:: Living together as brothers

We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Martin Luther King

Sunday, February 22, 2004

:: Combating the Enlightenment Whirlwind

Here is a great article on Christianity Today's site. It is written as Baylor University tries to adapt their vision to a postmodern culture. Below are two quotes:

The visionary changes occurring at Baylor have been met with consternation because we have dined too long at the Enlightenment table, without setting richer food alongside its meager fare. Our failure to contest Enlightenment individualism, for instance, has landed us in ludicrous heresies. Luther's classic doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is a case in point. It has been corrupted into the heretical and essentially Gnostic idea of the priesthood of the solitary believer. Instead of serving as priests to each other in obedience to our one High Priest (and thus engage in the radically communal life of the church and its institutions), each individual is supposed to become his own priest.

The Enlightenment idea of the independent, all-sovereign self therefore contravenes the fundamental Christian conviction that we are covenantal rather than contractual creatures. The triune God has revealed himself to be a community of persons who has pledged to bring us into his own life through the communal life of his people. There is thus no such thing as a solitary Christian having a purely private relation to Jesus Christ, but then joining with other Christians only for the sake of worship, missions, and other common purposes. To be "in Christ," as Paul endlessly emphasizes, is to be permanently transformed by our life in the Body of Christ called the church.

This article is a great example of a forming postmodern theology.

Found via Jason Clark

:: Tips for writing on the web

Here is an article all bloggers should take a look at. It is 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web found on A List Apart site. The living web according to the article is that part of the web that is constantly changing which a blog fits in.

found via Jordon Cooper

Friday, February 20, 2004

:: Under the weather

What a night and day. I've been under the weather. It's that stomach virus that feels like you've got food poisoning. We had FUEL last night and I was feeling so sick I stayed in bed the whole time. We had another couple that was out last night too.

I spent some time reading "The Wounded Healer" by Henry Nouwen today.

In speaking about this the younger generation in his book he says "the problem is not that the future holds a new danger, such as a nuclear war, but that there might be no future at all." Speaking about a specific young man Peter, Nouwen says "he thinks of himself more as one of the last ones in the experiment of living than as a pioneer working for a new future."

This line of thinking fits I think into the perspective a follower of Christ should have in letting his or her mind focus on the kingdom of God (life that is other than just this world). Just to live for a better future will never allow us to find our reason. But to live for an eternal kingdom gives us hope to carry on in the here and now and look forward to a future that is full. We are to be strangers and aliens here. Our primary task isn't to better the planet although we should respect the planet as we live here. Our primary task is growing toward eternity.

When the kids came home from school we watched "the shakiest gun in the west" with Don Knotts. It was pretty funny. My kids enjoyed it.

It may be the drugs (ibuprofin), I may be rambling, just couldn't lie around anymore today.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

:: I am . . .

I am the Judas who betrays,
He is the Jesus who forgives.

I am the Peter who denies,
He is the Jesus who restores.

I am the Thomas who doubts,
He is the Jesus who gives me cause to believe.

I am the religious who hate, He is the Jesus who loves.

He is my Jesus who loves me.


I read this on Will Phillips blog. There are those times that I am tempted to stand in judgement of others. The truth in this poem describes my humanity apart from Him. Thank you Jesus that you are the one who forgives, restores, gives me faith, and loves.

:: walking on water, can it be done?

I was at a lunch today with a group of foursquare pastors. A bit after lunch they began to tell stories they had heard from others that cracked me up.

Story 1:
Roy Burris Senior was coming out of a couple of day fasting and prayer time where he had really sought the Lord. I guess he was thinking his faith was pretty strong. He looked off in the distance and saw a dock, with his faith being so stirred, he thought "I think I can walk on water". So off he went walking down that dock and off onto the water. Only he went right under, water engulfed all around him. As his head came above the water, he thought "at least I had the faith to try".

I totally cracked up at that.

Story 2:
A group of old time pentecostals had gone up into the mountains to pray. It was a particularly cold season as they were there. In the cabin they were staying in was a wood burning furnace. One of those with the latch door on the front. Somehow one of them said "I have the faith to touch that hot furnace, so he would go by and slap it. So far, so good. One ole boy decided "I have the faith to stick my head in the furnace." He kept looking at that furnace. In a minute one of the slaps popped the door open and this fellow says "I'm gonna do it". So he runs over and sticks his head in the furnace, only to come right back out with his hair on fire.

Man, I really laughed at that one. I have this odd "that was just crazy" and at the same time "a respect for their zeal"

CAUTION: .................Please do not try these tricks at home..................

Saturday, February 14, 2004

:: FUEL 2nd Feb

Our group had a fun time eating and talking together tonight. Even visitors seemed like old friends. As we sang giving our worship to God there was such a sweet presence. It was one of those nights that just felt like God put it together. We seem to be having quite a few of those. I take this as encouragement that we are moving in the right direction.

We continued talking about grace. We read from the message where grace is gift after gift after gift. Our God often pours out from His fullness into our lives with gift after gift after gift. I was reminded of my own story and how many times there came gift after gift after gift. Gifts of peace, gifts of hanging out with Him and knowing His nearness, gifts of joy, gifts of answered prayer, gifts of serving others, and on and on and on.

With grace involved it is really hard to have a dull story. Now the story of our journey with Christ has hard chapters, painful chapters, chapters that have failure in them, but it is never a dull story.

:: Opportunities

This week I had the opportunity to go over to Christ for the Nations and speak to the third year missions students about the process of hearing God and stepping out toward that. This all came about because T.L. Garrett who is over missions at Trinity Church was invited to teach for a week. Since we are a part of the missions at Trinity, T.L. invited me to come over and share a bit with the students. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the classroom there.

I shared some and let those guys ask me questions. At one particular point one of the girls in the class asked "I hear you say, you heard God, How do you know?" I replied that it is much easier after the fact to say I heard God. When God is speaking it is a little more tricky. I read the bible, I pray, I consult with my wife, I listen to Godly counselors and then on top of all that I hope God helps me figure it out. I have such a passion to pass on life lessons I have learned in this journey with the Lord. I am thankful for opportunities such as these to do just that.

Monday, February 09, 2004

:: Mozilla

I downloaded Mozilla about a week ago after seeing some reviews of it. This browser rocks. It has a multiple tabbing tool that makes it much easier to blog, especially for my metablog faith stories. You can just click back and forth between tabs instead of messing with multiple windows. A control click opens a page in another window.

I have been using Mozilla firebird. Firefox is the latest version of Mozilla. It was just released and I am going to try it out.

:: an emerging church

As a community of faith, we are emerging in many ways. The main one is we are about to emerge from a small community praying for God's leading into a community that God has spoken direction to on where and how. We are preparing for a gathering time in which we reach out into the community more, make ourselves known, and begin to do ministry God has called us to more specifically. We know that from recent days we are to pour our ministry into the city of the Colony. We are winding up negotiations to have a Sunday night gathering in an established building in the city. We have planned a time to just get into the community and serve them this month. We are beginning to spend time there to pray and meet people.

So Resonance is emerging on the scene in the Colony. This is a next step season for us. We believe we have established a true community of people who have heard from God to be involved, now we get to open our doors wider to a specific community. These are exciting times. My prayer is that we would have the spirit of Philip as he went and brought Nathanael to Jesus saying "Come and see". That is our desire that people would come and see the man who is the son of God, Jesus. Our prayer also is that we could serve the Colony and the other churches there and not be in any competition whatsoever.

Sunday, February 08, 2004

:: Jesus makes the cover of Newsweek magazine

Mark and I went to see a live interview with Mel Gibson on satellite feed yesterday. I can not wait to go see the Passion, the new film Mel Gibson has done.

Here is an interview by James Caviezel on being picked for the part of Jesus in Newsweek.

Friday, February 06, 2004

:: First FUEL February

Dinner was a bring your own and hang out. The Texas Barbecue Potatoe from Jason's Deli was incredible. We did a short worship set. Gods presence was very real. Our conversation tonight was about grace. We talked about the definitions of grace we had known, the most common being "the unmerited favor of God". We walked through the epistles of Paul and saw that how in each of them he speaks grace in the opening and the closing. Grace is central in Paul's teaching to the church.

We talked how we are containers and vessels of God's grace. God uses us in the workplace to be distributers of His grace. We looked at John 1:16 where Jesus came to give us grace upon grace. We talked of how all of God's resource, all He is, is a part of grace. How God's grace is an ocean where waves splash on us. We continue to receive God's grace. It is so vast wave upon wave come to us. It is an endless sea.

We are just beginning this dialogue about grace. I look forward to exploring it much more in fullness.

We divided into groups and prayed for one another, for others we were aware of a need for, and for grace to be extended to us and through us in coming days.

:: Stories better than Hollywood

As a young man I can remember a particular night that in my heart I made a commitment to follow Christ. It was in a little Baptist church in small town Texas. There was an Irish evangelist that was telling Gods story that night. I remember praying God let me return the favor someday. Two summers ago our outreach pastor invited me to help him lead a trip to Ireland to encourage a church planting team. He asked me to speak on our Sunday there. I thanked the Irish people for sending someone to tell me Jesus story.

I share this because it is my story. The story that God tells through us in Christ is beyond what any Hollywood movie can come up with. There is adventure, drama, beauty, pain, trial, tears, laughter, mystery, surprise endings, this list is endless. I have been thinking of the community of faith lately and wonder if it doesn't boil down to a gathering of people who are bringing the story of Christ to light. We are testifying with our mouths, with our actions, with our lives about our great God and the good news of him loving us so much He stepped down into our existence so we could understand the story of Him better.

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

:: First favorite book I've never read

I have been reading some blogs this morning and keep coming across Misrov Volf quotes. They are from his book After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. You can see a couple more of his quotes in my other blog faith stories.

Here is another:

"Every genuinely Christian speech act is, at least formally and implicitly, an act of confession. Thus, for example, a preacher can proclaim Christ as Lord only if the activity of proclamation is accompanied at least formally by the activity of confessing faith in him. Without this confession accompanying and supporting the proclamation, there is no proclamation. By confessing faith in Christ through celebration of the sacraments, sermons, prayer, hymns, witnessing, and daily life, those gathered in the name of Christ speak the word of God both to each other and to the world. this public confession of faith in Christ through the pluriform speaking of the word is the central constitutive mark of the church. It is through this that the church lives as church and manifests itself externally as church. Although such confession is admittedly always a result or effect of the 'word', just as faith, too, is a result of effect of the 'word' (see Rom 10:8-10), the 'word' is proclaimed in no other way than in this pluriform confessing. The confession of faith of one person leads to that of others, thereby constituting the church."

If this is true then there are dramatic implications for church leadership. The implication is the key factor in being a church is the proclamation of our faith not those giving the proclamation. Read on:

"If one takes the communal confession of faith as the basis of ecclesiality, what, then, is the significance of office and of the sacraments for the being of the church? Since the only necessary intraecclesial condition of the constitutive presence of Christ for the church consists in people gathering in the name of Christ to profess faith in Christ before one another and before the world, the presence of Christ does not enter the church through the 'narrow portals' of ordained office, but rather through the dynamic life of the entire church. The presence of Christ in not attested merely by the institution of office, but rather through the multidimensional confession of the entire assembly. In whatever way 'office' may indeed be desirable for church life, either in apostolic succession or not, it is not necessary for ecclesiality."

In other words church leaders are not a necessary element to be a church, but rather the dynamic life of a community is what makes them a church. True food for thought.

Monday, February 02, 2004

:: The dream

I was answering some questions on the Allenon website tonight and the question of what you dream about asked. Here is my answer:

I dream of communities of people who recognize that this walk with God is a journey. It is a journey that is best traveled in community. It is a journey that is not polished, one that can't be marketed and sold. It is a community that suffers. It is a community that has the primary task of extending the kingdom of God on this earth.

It is a community that finds Gods grace given freely, that freely given grace then flows out of people as they become containers of Gods grace, these same people meet together as distributors of grace to the community of faith, and are able to model and serve others in their journey to become grace receivers and grace givers.

My dream is to serve giftings of other people (a Barnabus heart) to serve other churches in fulfilling their journey. Most of all my dream is being a man who sits at the feet of my Savior Jesus Christ often bringing others to sit with me and soak in His goodness and love.