:: The Wedding

We were in Lubbock this weekend for my sister Beths wedding. It was a family event with me doing the ceremony, my other sister Sherri as the maid of honor, My wife a bridesmaid, my brother in law a groomsman, and my kids candlelighters. It was a great time at the wedding and seeing family.

Going into the wedding I kept praying that it would not be just a wedding but a time of giving glory to God. For me I can tell when the Lord intervenes strongly in a place and this was just such a time for me. I'm not saying all was perfect, but there was such a peace about the whole ceremony. Thanks Lord for your hand upon all of us this weekend.

I decided to begin a photoblog this week also. You can find it at: http://bear.fotopages.com

:: The ultimate bloggers resource

Look at the Ooze annual blog tools roundup for a brief review of tons of blogging tools. It was written by Jordon Cooper.

:: Vintage wisdom

I found Glorify His Name while perusing Greg Burnetts blog. On it are quotes from many saints of old.

:: Prayer a necessity

As I have wrestled with our little community's process of growth, I have been reading on the subject of prayer recently. I am reading a book right now by Terry Teykl called Making Room to Pray.

Three quotes are significant to me.

"Our work is just that, but prayer releases God's work"

"When we pray He (God) breathes upon us. Prayer is to inhale the breath of God. Evangelism is exhaling what we inhale in prayer."

The last is a story about Paul Cho (pastor of the worlds largest church). He said God spoke to him in prayer and asked "How many quail would Israel have caught if they had gone quail hunting in the wilderness?" Not too many. I then realized that God sent the wind which brought the quail. There is a difference in chasing a strategy and in finding the Holy Spirits strategy.

:: Gotta have a dog

Did you know that Americans eat 2 billion hot dogs in July each year. 150 million of those are eaten on July 4th. Personally I like the all beef dog, cheddar cheese, a bit of chili, mustard and topped with sprinkles of onions.

:: Sunday night

We continued our theme of prayer on Sunday night. We all read Phillipians with an eye for the mentions of prayer in the book and an eye out for a verse that stood out to us. Phillipians seems very pertinent to the situations of our little community. We are learning to count all things loss for the sake of knowing Christ, we are learning to be content in all stages of life whether abundance or lack, we are learning that Christ will continue his work in us.

We broke up into groups. Each group did a skit that illustrated a verse on prayer in Phillipians. The shark hunting protection skit was funny.

We then spent time in worship and ended joined in a circle of prayer. It was a good God night connecting with our community.

:: Working, working, working

I have been putting in some hours on the new job. Actually more than some, actually quite a lot. This is an interesting situation for a church planter. The job that I have allows a bit of flexibility and I can take my kids with me so it fits in one way very well. The hard part is I don't know how much I'll be working until day of or the day before, so it runs into our Thursday night FUEL meetings some.

I trust the Lord is working in all this. I am learning to trust by faith in what God brings with the job. I am working for a company that contracts out to mortgage companies cleaning up and checking on houses that are in delinquency, bankruptcy, or foreclosure. I get paid to check on statuses and then at times clean up the properties so they meet HUD standards for resell.

I miss being more regular on the blog and will try to get back to that discipline.

:: Take a moment to pray

Could you not tarry for one hour? These are the words from the Bible that continue to stir my spirit these days. It is a call to prayer for me. I know in my mind that prayer is key to all things. We are to pray without ceasing and in all things pray. Yet in my daily routines prayer is a secondary item.

As I have been studying prayer I came across this flash site with the Lords prayer on it. Take a few minutes to view it and to pray.
link

:: Classic win

For at least a week the purity of basketball in the nba has been restored. Detroit Pistons are winners of this years nba finals. The team with two superstars, the Lakers, didn't win and the team that played great fundamental basketball did.

The Pistons defined again what it means to play like a team in pro basketball. This was team in the purist sense of the word. The great teams are what make up great basketball. The Pistons played swarming team defense. They covered their men, helped out on the superstars, and outhustled the lakers. You have to give props to Larry Brown the coach of the Pistons for their success. He had definitely done his homework and had his team play hard and together.

It was a joy again to actually watch real basketball being played. I may still watch a few nba games in coming years.

:: A financial story

I love God stories. I was reading Living by Faith and came across how God provided financially in the post Being Faithful really works.

:: Brokeness the lost art

I was reading Back to Christ and was really into his dialogue about brokeness. Brokeness is a given and I would even go so far and say something that is blessed in our lives. Take a look at the post.

:: Leaving a Legacy

I have been moved this week at the honoring of the passing of president Ronald Reagan. Remembering his life at his death has made me proud of being an American and what it stands for. I appreciated president George Bush's speech at the funeral. Reagan was a picture of many character traits that are instilled in me that make up an ideal American.

Reagan was a respecter of all people whether janitor or head of state. It was said that he never spoke down to anyone.

Reagan was a man of graciousness. He rose in a ladies presence. He obviously cared about people and treated them with respect. He reminded me of my own grandfather Herman Franklin who was a man's man yet had a profound kindness toward others.

Ronald Reagan was a man of principle. He spoke passionately upon what he believed in and tried to follow through in action. One example I heard this week was how in the hospital room when he had been shot by an assassin, Reagan prayed for the person who shot him before he prayed for himself.

Reagan was a deeply committed Christian. It was moving to hear his son Michael talk of his dad speaking of his faith to his son in 1988 and passing it along to his son. He said he hoped one day he could pass that faith on to his own son.

Reagan was an optimist, he saw the good in life and in people and especially in our country. His daughter told the story of being a little girl and Reagan taking her to a field that had been badly burned. He showed her the small green shoots of new life breaking through the charred ground and told her that their was always new life that would come forth after bad things.

There is honor in the life of Ronald Reagan. There is something right about all of us getting to be involved in that honor.

I understand that honor comes from Reagan's personal faith in Jesus Christ. It was our Lord that gave gifts to President Reagan and enabled him to be able to share those gifts with us.

No, I'm not idolizing a man. I'm sure Ronald Reagan had his short comings as all of us do. But I hope and pray that my life becomes a gift to others as Ronald Regean's was a gift to ours.

Tonight I salute the memory of Ronald Reagan and how he walked out his life with Christ to give others a hope in that faith.

:: Update on blogging

New bloggers begin all the time. Here is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that talks about how Bloggers find ways to profit.

:: This week

We began a dialogue about the kingdom of God this week. At the very beginning of Jesus ministry the gospel writers tell us He began teaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. We talked about the kingdom of God being the rule and reign of God. Seeking first the kingdom of God is seeking first and foremeost the rule and reign of God.

Interesting to in Matthew where Jesus says "If I caste out demons by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God is among you." This is also why Jesus taught the disciples to pray "Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

I am also in dialogue with others about the definition of the church (ekklasia) and how that is different from the kingdom of God. There is so much to know about the Lord and what He is all about.

:: Who am I ?

I know I'm a blogger, no really I am, I just don't blog very often lately. Is our identity in what we do or who we are?

This past week I had a day that wasn't going well and I kept thinking " How come I can't be perfect? What is wrong with me? I must be a wicked man because I can't be perfect." I began to really get down on myself and I heard in my heart that calming voice of God say "Let me tell you who you are, you are a lover of God and one that is loved by God."

You know that really is my heart. I love God and enjoy loving God and I am realizing more than ever the truth that I am someone that is loved by God. This latter truth has just began to sink in some over the last three years. I am about ankle deep in the truth that God so loved me, that He sent His son to die on the cross that I might be reconciled to Him. He really loves me and enjoys spending time with me. I look forward to the deepening of that truth.

Yea in my heart I'm a blogger but more importantly for me "I am a lover of God and am someone who is loved by God." Man, that truth sure brings me peace.

:: Sunday night

Sunday night we talked about Mary and Martha. In John 11 John tells us that Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. I think sometimes Martha gets bad press for her role in Luke 10. We look down on Martha for not "getting it". People have portrayed Jesus as almost scolding Martha: Martha, Martha will you ever learn. Like an arrogant adult scolds a young child.

I think there was a totally different picture going on there. Martha wasn't being scolded, she was being encouraged by the Lord. Jesus was giving her some training in a loving manner. His statement was more like "Martha this is a really important lesson, No I'm serious it is one of the most important lessons, Mary has chosen the wisest thing to sit at my feet and hear my word."

We talked about how Jesus doesn't deal harshly with our immaturities. Can you imagine a mother that did not enjoy her three year old, even though that three year old has many immaturities and needs training and correction? No that mother enjoys that child even though the immaturities are there. This is Jesus stance towards us and this was His stance with Martha. "Martha I love you, that is why I am trying to get you to see the importance of beholding Me."

We also talked about how beholding is the key to becoming. As we behold Jesus in the truth of who He is we become like Him.

The Lord loves us even in our weaknesses. This is a truth I am only about ankle deep in. I desire to get waist deep in it. I pray that our community will embrace that He is the lover of us even in our weaknesses.

:: 40 year anniversary

I attended Trinity churches 40th anniversary in Lubbock, Texas this past weekend. It was a long short trip but worth it. We traveled for six hours on Friday, arrived in Lubbock just in time to get ready and went over to a banquet at Trinity. It was good to see many faces of people who we had known.

I still am honored to have been a part of Trinity's heritage and history. Even though I don't consider myself extremely talented in any area, the Lord allowed me to pastor at Trinity. I can remember being 28 years old and being awed at Trinity church, the size, the spirituality. Yet the Lord spoke to my heart and told me one day I would be on staff there, impossible I thought, but if God wills it let it be.

I am not lifting up a church or an institution. What strikes me most is that I have been at Trinity in times of extreme favor when it was blowing and growing and I have been at Trinity in some very rough waters, ie. Church split, layoffs of friends, etc. and in all those times both good and bad the Lord continued to grow me and teach me and encourage me with His presence. My heritage there is clear, it is about God working in me to will and to do what He delights in.

I was reminded that the kingdom of God is alive and well where peoples hearts are directed towards Him. There are so many people who have left Trinity and are in all manner of ministries across the world. Regardless of style, regardless of human immaturities, God works in those whose hearts are turned toward Him.

On a final note as I reflect on the emerging church my heart turns more and more to loving those things that are near and dear to the Lords heart. I think Gods children both old school and new school, both meeting in buildings and meeting at homes, both with solid structures, immature structures, or little to no structures are loved by Him and He looks to bless those whose hearts are turned towards Him. I pray I continue to love those things and people that are near and dear to His heart.

:: New look

Two Sunday ago we talked on Sunday nights about taking off the old man and putting on the new man. We want our style of dress to be kingdom. Keeping with the theme I thought I would change my blog dress and try one of the new blogger templates. I'll probably make some tweaks soon.

This Sunday night Chris changed all the worship song sets to include us and we where normally there would be me and I. I think this is an appropriate biblical shift. Community is key.

Justin and Kelly, from Mars Hill, came over and shared about their excursion to Russia recently and the passion of their hearts for kids in ophanages there. It was a good time of food, fellowship, and the presence of God. Can I say presence of God on an emerging blog? The emerging movement (already passe) need a book like Roberts Rules of Order. We could call it the Pomo Flow of Chaos.

:: Sunday night

Sunday night had a couple of themes. Chris and Mark taught a new song focusing on Jesus being our refuge. We talked a minute about what a refuge was to us. It was a touching song. We mixed teaching time with some reflection and prayer. We continued to talk about making no agreements with sin. We walked through Ephesians 4 asking God to show us any sin and spent time repenting of it in quiet. This is a great explanation by Paul of taking off the old man (worldy desires and yearnings) and putting on the new man (Christlike desires and yearnings).

One interesting verse tells the man who stole to steal no more. Not only that, but he was to go to the opposite end of the spectrum, work, and give away. We talked a bit about pursuing the other side of our weaknesses. If lust is weakness then pursue purity. If rage and wrath are a weakness pursue passionately quietness and peace. In our weakness He will be strong.

:: Last week in April: Fuel

At Fuel we talked a little bit about 1 Peter chapter 2. For most of our time though we took some time to encourage one another. That afternoon my kids were fighting in the car and I made them stop and think about specific items to they appreciated about one another. It turned into a real encouragement for them and it seemed appropriate to do the same in our small gathering time. It is like the plants in a garden spraying water on each other, amazing what a little encouragement can do.

:: Stop the world I want to get off

Yea, the worlds is spinning a little faster for me these past few weeks and I have neglected one of my loves, bloggin. This week is a prep week for what looks like a new job I'll be taking on. I am actually looking forward to getting out of the house some this summer.

:: We wrestle

Paul in his letter to the Ephesian followers of Christ gives us insight on the reality of the spiritual matrix that is happening all around us:

6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

A spiritual battle going on in the earth for the souls and spirits of men is the metanarrative. As in the matrix, where Neo has to make a choice to make, we have to choose what reality he will live in. We can ignore the reality of the matrix and pretend there are really no angels and demons. We can ignore that the loving God is on the throne of the universe and pursuing us or we can continue to live an untruth. if you believe Paul's words are inspired words of the Holy Spirit, then the reality of a spiritual fight going on around us is true.

This past weeks has been evidence of that in the lives of people from Resonance. There is a dual spiritual dynamic happening. On the one side we have had two people get raises at their jobs in two weeks. That is an important answer to prayer for people who have left comfortable places, transplanted to a new city and struggle to make all the ends meet. Chris has landed a job at Java House, the only coffee shop in the Colony. We believe this is a strategic answer to prayer to help us connect more with the community of the Colony. We have sensed God's encouraging presence in our times together. So on the one hand God is blessing our community of called out ones.

The other side of the coin is spiritual attack that has been happening. Last Sunday night it seemed there was no area left untouched by difficulty. The set-up took too much time, the video on the computer wouldn't run, and when it finally did it wasn't smooth, the air-conditioner wasn't working well and it was hot, one of the musicians who had joined us had his car breakdown, our sign was messed up by the wind, etc. And then there is Gracelyns fall one night against a cabinet that left a blood clot in her cheek. She has been to the doctor twice and going again Friday. Now you could say that was just coincidence, but I don't think so. And that makes me mad. When I get in a fight I'm cool in backing down, but when you start messing with the kids I love, yea that makes me mad.

Now I am not one to see a dark angel under every bush and as an excuse for any mishap and immaturity of people, but I do recognize that the enemy does not want added prayer, added worship, added missionaries, or added servant-hearted people in any of the territories he has a grip on and therefore will fight those things. Much like an invading army force, the occupying force doesn't want to lose ground.

So my conclusion of this post is that prayer is vital. Prayer changes the direction of angels in this spritual matrix. Prayer draws us to God's heart on these matters. And prayer releases power from the very throne of God. There is a battle going on. If we are serious about this walk of the spirit, then we have to be aware that there is battle to do and one of the weapons for us in this battle is prayer. So get your programmer (the Holy Spirit) to download a prayer program.

:: Fuel - Dreaming dreams

The Bible is full of people who God gave God sized dreams. Moses dreamed of seeing his people delivered from Israel, Joseph dreamed of being over all his brothers, Abraham had a dream of a land God was calling him to, the children of Israel dreamed of this promised land they would live in, there are so many dreams in the hearts of God's people throughout the Bible. Some dreams we see directly placed in heart by the Lord. Jesus told Peter he would not be a reed but be a rock.

God whispers dreams into the hearts of his people. Last night at Fuel we talked about dreams that had been fulfilled in our lives and some dreams God has whispered into our hearts for the future. Dreams such as marriage or having a stable family life were spoken off. One dream was just being stable enough to be able to choose clothes to buy some day.

One story told was of being in a dysfunctional family where the father one day in a altered state threw away everything in the bathroom: hair dryers, make-up, everything that was there. This stuff was later dug out of a grimey nasty dumpster. The humiliation of the event could still be felt. As this person went to church that day, a lady who was a visiting minister called this person aside and said something to the effect of "The Lord wants you to know that your children will not live as you have lived, you are the last generation that will be in this chaos. Your children will have no clue what you had to experience as a child, they will not understand because their environment is so different." A fulfillment of a dream.

For me, I always dreamed of going to Ireland because the man who was preaching when I committed my life to Christ was an evangelist visiting America from Ireland. In 2002 I was invited to join a team of people who went to work for a week with a local church in Eniscorthy Ireland. I also was able to preach in the church on a Sunday morning and thank the Irish people for their sending someone to reach me.

I was reminded this week to continue to listen to the dreams of God that are in my heart.

:: The Celtic Way

I've been reading the Celtic Way of Evangelism by George G. Hunter III. It is a excellent book telling the story of Patrick and his impact on the country of Ireland for Christ. The communities Patrick formed were very intentional in reaching people with the gospel of Christ but very different than Americans in their approach.

Hunter says that churches in America have a Roman model of communicating the gospel. They basically present the message, ask for a decision, and then bring people into community. The Celtic model is creating community with people, then using the community time to find opportunities for ministry and conversation, with this drawing people toward a point of belief and commitment. It is a much more relational model of the Christians calling. Hunter says this reflects the adage that Christianity is more caught than taught where as our models of church today focus more on the taught.

How do we become the light on the hill where people can connect before they commit?

:: Reality of angels and demons

My daughter recently asked me about angels? It perked my interest. I gave Callie a book written by Billy Graham I had at the house to read. After she read it I glanced through also. Sometimes I forget we are in a spiritual battle here. Peter reminds us that we are strangers and aliens on this planet. There our existence and identity is now in the kingdom of God. We are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people to set forth the praises of God. I forget it is the spiritual realm that is a greater reality than the physical realm I see and feel everyday. The matrix is a great metaphor for the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God and the spiritual realm is the greater reality but our senses are more aware of what we can taste, touch, feel, hear, and see.

I was thinking of Jesus conversation with Nathaniel in John gospel. Nathaniel is amazed that Jesus knew things about him that were not physically possible. Jesus reply to Nathaniel was that he would see even greater things than this. He would see the angels ascending and descending upon Jesus. Jesus had that deeper sense of reality. He knew all around us their are real angles that are sent here to the earth to be about God's business, to help prayers get fulfilled, to help in the work of the church being the extenders of God's kingdom here. There is also the reality of evil beings the bible refers to as demons. Paul tells us we wrestle with these evil beings.

Another encounter I had this week makes this conversation more pertinent to me. I woke up from a dream Tuesday night and had a powerful sense of fear upon me. It wouldn't leave. I am not someone who encounters fear often in my own life in that way. I am convinced this was an attack from within this spiritual matrix we live in.

I am reminded this week. Prayer is not just a duty like taking out the trash that has to be done. It is a real spiritual communication with our Father that influences spiritual forces around us. I encourage all of us to press in to prayer like lives depend on it. They do.

:: Spiritual Travel

Remember your first car? You couldn't wait to partner with a piece of metal and become free. In your own vehicle you can go places on your own, you can put "your" music in the CD player. I attribute my hair loss to the music I had to listen to in my parents car.

It is a bit ironic to me that I couldn't wait to get a car and get my freedom to go and do and then I chose to drive round and round in circles on Friday and Saturday nights at the local drag. Okay, you got me, I am a small town guy. We played six man football in high school. We were so small that we had football players take off their shoulder pads at half time and march in the band (I'm serious).

Having a car released you into a new world of adventure. The journey of life took on new meaning. The adventure quotient multiplied as did learning boundaries. In a way the early church was like that. They were waiting for something new to happen in Jerusalem. Jesus had told them to stay there and pray until they had a supernatural splash from heaven. In Acts 2 we see the creation of a vehicle called the church. Jesus was no longer there to partner with them in bringing the kingdom of God forth on the earth. Now God sends another helper, the Holy Spirit, to partner with them.

Some of the characteristics of this new instrument of the Christian journey called the church were: It was a community fueled by the Holy Spirit, It was a community centered in learning the Word, It was a community encouraged by fellowship, It was a community that communicated with God, and it was a community that was living evidence of the kingdom to the rest of the world.

We travel this Christian journey in this life riding in the vehicle of the church. Just as with a new car we better understand the equipment this new car has so that the journey can be a good one.

:: History of the weblog

If your interested in the evolution of the weblog, take a look at "weblogs: a history and perspective" by Rebecca Blood. Blogger sprang up in August of 1999.

:: The chief cornerstone

1 Peter 2
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, "Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame."

Last night a FUEL we continued studying 1 Peter. We began the night with a meal together. We then broke up in gender groups. The ladies went in one room and we stayed in another. The chief cornerstone is the anchor point of a foundation. It is dependable. It is trustworrthy. It is stable. This is the Lord Jesus. He does not waver at all and can be depended on to keep the structure dependable. We as living stones are built around the cornerstone. It was a good reminder tonight that Christ is our solid foundation. We don't have to carry the universe on our backs or even our own church. Jesus will build His church. . .

The simile for us in this passage is that we are like living stones. As living stones we can not be a building alone, we need the other stones working in conjunction with us to make up the spiritual house.

We talked also of our value to God.
We are:
a chosen generation
a spiritual house
a royal priesthood
a holy nation
a holy priesthood
His own special people
the people of God


We closed in prayer for one another and for God to give us favor in the Colony. Some scriptures that came up during prayer were Psalms 20, Psalm 37, Ephesians 2.

:: What was I thinking?

Do you ever have an impulse you want to act on that probably you should put some more thought into? I had one today. Somewhere deep inside my being is this image of working out that thinks it is cool and even a little macho to run stadium bleachers as exercise. Macho guys in movies do it all the time. So I get an impulse to do this. I take the kids (they are out of school for a holiday) to a local 5A high school with a really tall football stadium. I challenge them to make it a whole lap around the track while I begin the road to fitness through running stadium bleachers.

My calves got a good workout. My legs had that great burnnig screaming at you sensation. I am at home now trying to find the energy to get out of this chair. You know the weird thing. I may do it again this week.

:: Adventures in real life: The Mountain Lion

Last Friday the kids and I went to a nature preserve in Plano to get out of the house and give mom some quiet time. The kids love getting out and seeing your everyday average nature preserve stuff such as butterflies, ducks, various trees and flowers etc. Friday was an unexpected discovery. We had decided to take one of the smaller rabbit trails into the woods.

We walked half a mile and hit a fence row. This was a natural point to go back. I was explaining something to the kids, I turned to head back the way we had come and there is a mountain lion about 10 yards behind us. And he was looking right at us. Now, I don't know about you, but having a mountain lion in your path looking right at you 10 yards away doesn't give you the most secure feeling in the world. I kept telling my brain to be cool and think and of course lifted up one of those great theological prayers I've learned in all my years as a Christian. It went something like "Help, God!".

I told the kids just to be still and I reached over to break a branch I could use as a big stick. When the branch broke the Mountain Lion jumped and took off about 20 yards off the beaten trial. With my trusty stick in hand I had the kids take off down the trail as I kept myself between them and the Moutain Lion. The cool part of this story is I had my 35 mm carmera with me and got two shots of this cat. I can't wait to develop them.

Needless to say the kids will remember this adventure as will I. I think living for Christ is like this. You encounter situations in life that are new and you are not sure how to navigate them. I think "Help me, God" may be a wise prayer to pray in many of those.

:: pomo translations

I like tall skinny kiwi's postmodern translation of "My hope is built on nothing less"

"My hope [acknowledging mystery/rejecting secular rationalism]
is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. . .[historically narrational over propositional]
I dare not trust the sweetest frame [suspicion of construct/text/logic systems]
but wholly [holistically interconnected, rejection of gnostic dualism, systemic thinking] lean [experientially] on Jesus name. [authority source transcending visible human institutions]
On Christ the solid rock I stand [post-foundationalist]
All other ground is sinking sand [deconstructionalist]
All other ground is sinking sand." [value judgment based on communal experience of screwing up our lives when we place our trust in secondary sources and not primary]

:: Respect for consistant bloggers

Trying to be a consistent blogger amongst all the hecticness of real life has given me a true respect for people like Jordon Cooper who blog very consistantly. Jordon has relevant stuff pretty much daily. That takes a deep commitment to the blogging lifestyle. I seem to fade in and out. One week it goes well, another week and so many other events direct my energies.

Blogging is an amazing phenomena. It grows daily with new people entering the blogosphere. With each new entry comes a bit more inovation. I am going to try to get back to being a blog resident not a blog alien.

:: True blooded bloggers will appreciate this

Ex Nihilo says Starbucks and Bloggin are ruining his life. Here is a bit from his March 8th post, LOL. Have a look.

My new Typepad site, though more expensive, looked nice and I could post a picture of my ugly mug in the upper left-hand corner. I had tons of new features and posting was easier, but still, I have not achieved Volokh or Crescat fame, and it hurts!! Oh the pain!! Like a scorned lover I long for trackbacks, comments, and online debates, but I cannot beg. I now obsess over blogging etiquette and actually perk up when someone mentions a personal website in conversation over dinner. I use words like "Technorati" and "blog roll" (which is actually two words). The problem has only worsened, and now, like Walker Percy's Schuyler (before his marriage to Jane Smith--a note for all you Percy fans) I am outwardly confident but inwardly homeless, wandering sadly the confines of the blogosphere. My record of an active lifestyle has been crushed by the lure of e-fame.

And then, to add insult to injury, my school finally put in a Starbucks. This was the death blow! I now spend more on delectable vanilla cremes than I do on textbooks, and my car insurance premium is dwarfed by my caramel machiato tab. I have become addicted to the rich aroma of my breakfast blend and am no longer Stoicly satisified with the stale taste of Waffle House coffee that was my staple for three years. Though Starbucks satisfies me, it leaves me hungry for its heavenly satisfaction and like a junkie strapped for cash I now linger about the Starbucks stand fantasizing about my next post and the energy I might glean from another cup of rich espresso.

:: A postmodern seder

Last night at our gathering we did a seder dinner with a little different twist. We began with two worship songs and then for the kids asked about Moses life and how the Passover came about. We then let them look for a piece of unleavened bread hidden in the sanctuary of where we are meeting. The youngest, Gracelyn was the finder. We let kids go and have their own projects as we moved into a time of remembrance.

I spent some time talking about the various symbols of the seder dinner and some background of it from Exodus 12. We then moved into a time of remembrance at our worship spaces.

The creative space was where the unleavened bread was and the apples mixture. We wrote a letter to God there as we remembered the bondage of the Israelites and the bondage of our own sin before we came to Christ. We also remembered the hope we have in God coming as a deliverer in our lives. The offering station encouraged us to remember all the blessings God has given us. We remembered how God has freed us, delivered us, released us, and redeemed us as He did the children of Israel. The divine reading station was a reflection from Exodus 12 and from 1 Corinthians talking of Christ our sacrifice. The contemplative space had the bitter herbs and salt water, the parsley, and the juice to remember the tears of the children of Israel and then our own tears as we were in bondage to sin. At our prayer space we had time to pray for the deliverance of our own community, the Colony.

Then we came back to the community space and continued in worship. It was a night of God's visitation. I have not sensed the presence of the Spirit as strongly in a time. As I got back home God's presence was still lingering and when I woke this morning, again, the sense of His presence. It is good to remember, but not only to remember but to connect with Christ, our Passover.

:: Sacred and quiet space

Though a friends blog I ran across Sacred Space today and went through the daily prayer. Have you ever had a day when your soul is at a hectic pace. As I prayed through the meditation I found the peace of the Lord calming my soul. I recommend you try it.

:: Sunday night: the first official Encounter service

We had a total of sixteen people at our first Sunday night service. The presence of God was strongly among us. We began with two songs, released kids to go to their classes. We then went to a more intimate worship set. People did go to our various worship spaces during worship. We have a contemplative space set up. This night we had a pitcher of water, towels, and a basin set up with scriptures on washing ourselves and how the Lord cleanses our sins. Justin Blake hung out at the creative station during worship doing some drawing. We had a kneeling rail at the prayer station and a few stopped there for a moment.

We then went to the topic of the night which was stories. We invited people to share stories that involved their journey with Jesus. Daniel shared a story of going to a drug deal and meeting an old friend who he hadn't seen in years and years and a few months later she invited him to Hope Chapel where God encountered him. What are the chances of going to a drug deal and meeting an old friend who is going to invite you to church soon. We looked at the scripture in John 21 where John says is all the miracles of what Jesus had said and one were written they would fill all the books of the world. We talked about how this community is about telling His (Jesus Christ) story and telling how our lives are connected with His story.

We ended in praying for people. Abigail Branch came over to support us. We prayed for her and the Greenhouse, a church plant in Ft. Worth. Justin and Brandi Blake came over and we praying for God's encouragement on their new marriage. We had prayed that God would use us to encourage others and minister to them. This first time of large community gathering did that. Our prayer is that there will be a continued flow of people we can serve that God will direct us to.

:: Sunday day

As we have begun to get to know the Colony we have found a park where people hang out fairly frequently. At this park are two basketball areas, and one of these areas is a eight and a half foot goal. For those of you who are not a basketball players, an eight and a half foot goal means that short white men who can't jump can now dunk the ball.

Since our service is on Sunday night we decide that we will play basketball Sunday morning. Shane, Mark, myself, Chris, and a new friend of Chris' from the apartment complex, Jason go at it on this eight foot goal. We were a site. Shane dunks about the second play and rips the skin off three of his fingers. We looked like the walking wounded after about 12 games of 21. We did get to meet Tony who was out playing on another court. We continue to pray God connects us with people in the Colony.

:: Saturday

Saturday at lunch I wanted to connect Shane and Justin and Kelly a little better so I invite them to lunch. Shane recaps some dramatic financial blessings the Lord has brought to he and his wife in the past year. I love to hear stories of God's provision for people and how it promotes the kingdom of God. It was a good lunch, good mexican food, good fellowship.

:: Last week: Friday (joint habitat)

Friday Night
As part of our EXCHANGE weekend we had a combined meeting with Mars Hill at their Friday night Habitat. Habitat is a time when Mars Hill usually is discussing a book or topic. This night, Chris, Mark, Shane, Kelly, and Justin did some music and worship then Shane shared out of the gospel of John. Our conversation was about the glory of God and more specifically about How God gave it to Jesus and Jesus said he would give it to us. My friend Justin Nygren and his wife Kelly shepherd this group.

Afterwards a few of us went out and watched some of the NCAA tourney. We go to a local sports bar that has been recommended to us.
As we are sitting watching the game two very inebriated ladies sit down at our table across from Chris and I and begin a conversation. They find out that we are polite, but not acting like we are interested at all and not drinking anything buy tea and water and excuse themselves. I had really strong mixed feelings about this exchange. As the ladies were leaving one lady puts her hand on my head and says something in parting and it makes me really angry. That anger just built as I left. I was really offended that this lady, who must have seen my ring and known I am married is flirting with me. I had to really pursue this with the Lord because it didn't feel very Christlike to me to be that angry. I was wishing I would have had a woman at the well type of dialogue with this woman. As I prayed through it I understood more that these ladies were in great pain and were looking for love in all the wrong places. I pray that the Lord will speak encouragement to them and draw them to Him.

This story I think will bring some very interesting discussion in our small group.

:: Last week: Thursday

I enjoy blogging, so it has to be a busy week to keep me from being here. Last week was such a week. Thursday night we began a quarterly event for our community we are calling the EXCHANGE. This is a weekend where we are exchanging ideas with one another, we bring in someone outside of our community and have them exchange ideas with us, we try to join with another faith community and exchange with them, and most importantly seek God in a way that brings exchange between Himself and our community.

Thursday night my friend Shane Kuhn from Lubbock Texas joined us and facilitated a dialogue about faith from Hebrews 11. The main thread of the conversation was that God establishes markers in our lives and the lives of others that help encourage our faith. We need to remember these faith events in our lives to strengthen us to have faith in our current situations. We had our usual meal and worship also.

Chris came up with a funny analogy at our meal about the three guys that are in his head. He said there was a fast guy that retrieves information. So let's say when a person named George walks up, fast guy runs to the files and brings back the info. that this is George. Then there is the smart guy who knows how to be cool and make good conversation. Finally there is the dumb guy. Sometimes when fast guy and smart guy are on break, he gets to take over. In this case let's say George is walking up and fast guy in not there to retrieve information and smart guy isn't there to act cool. You end up saying something that may be a cross of information like Hi-Ow your doing? This is a cross between Hi and How are you doing which the dumb guy couldn't decide on. This analogy seemed to be used all weekend.

:: New tags

These new buttons are compliments of Kalsay Consulting Group. Make you own here.

:: God is not respecter of culture

Sunday morning I was invited to speak at Church on the Hill. Church on the Hill is a growing Foursquare church in Hillsboro Texas. It was an amazing morning. These people were so warm and friendly to my family and a few of the Resonance team who came in support of us.

I am amazed at how you can find the presence of the living God among so many diverse cultures of people. This morning I remembered being in Victoria, Mexico, worshiping with the saints there, and experiencing the presence of the almighty God, I remembered being in Ireland amidst Irish folk and Nigerian immigrants and knowing that same presence of God, and this morning here we are in Hillsboro in east Texas and the presence of God is here. In my life I've worshiped with the most country people you can think of, those that make chicken fried steak that melts in your mouth. I've worshiped with the most postmodern group you can think of where it was pitch dark except for candles all about the floor. I have found an amazing thing, God is no respecter of cultures, no respecter of status. Where there are people who open their hearts toward him, even in all their immaturities He shows up to fellowship with them.

These folks in Hillsboro reminded me of the small towns in Texas where I grew up. They were polite, friendly, and warm. Best of all though they loved to worship. The room that held about 100 was full. It was not only full of people, it was full of people who came to meet with God. And that was the worship song that began our time with the Lord, "I'm here to meet with you" written by By the Tree. You got the feeling that these people were not at an event but were at a family gathering. One of the most noticeable aspects of this is that 20 minutes after the service there were still people hanging out and talking with one another.

I spoke on the path of our calling. The gist of what I was saying is that our calling is not a discovery event but a journey of obedience. It is an adventurous journey. There are enemies along the way (Satan and his minions) that try to thwart our true journey. I tried to encourage people that on both Moses and Peters journey their were lessons that led them to grow in humility. Numbers 12:3 says that Moses was the most humble man. And in 1 Peter 5 Peter challenges us to be "clothed in humility". Those that God uses are those that are willing to walk humbly with their God, that means learning to lay down self effort. It is interesting that in his self effort Moses couldn't even handle one Egyptian without making a mess of things, but God in the right timing was able to wipe out the whole Egyptian army without any glitches.

One final note of God's faithfulness, we have been praying for a video projector. We believe it is important for creating an environment where people, especially this generation, can experience God. We didn't have funds for that. The folks at Hillsboro took up an offering at the end of their service and gave us $1000 to buy a projector. This was a generous gift.

:: 2nd March Fuel

Last night we were treated to homemade enchiladas from Kimberly with help from Daniel. Nothing like a good meal to encourage lively discussion. Dinner conversations ranged from high school football stories and homecomings to new cars to outlet malls to who has the most clothes in their closets, all those good interesting conversations.

After dinner we jumped into 1 Peter, we began by sharing about various times of trial we had gone through. There was so much shared, I felt like we could have gone on for hours, yet in respect of time and people getting up the next day to go to work we wound down by 10:00.

Trials we talked about were hard church situations, relationships with people, death to those close to us, times of transition that were hard, etc.
In times like these we are reminded by Peter to set our minds on the living hope we have in Christ. We truly are strangers on this planet, awaiting fulfillment of a greater hope. We have tasted of grace here, we have tasted our inheritance as children of God, but the future holds a glorious fulfillment of our salvation and all it contains.

We began dialoging about our small gathering that could quickly be too big to be a small gathering. We value small groups of people gathering for the fellowship, the availability to get to know one another, the opportunity for spiritual gifts to be expressed. It is the fiber true community is built out of. We talked about not having rigid guidelines such as: when a group hits 12 people they have to split. On the other side of things we talked about how we needed structure to function. In the end we committed to keeping a listening ear to the Lord on these matters and ask what seems best to Him for the situation.

For our own core group the discussion went two ways. There was concern that the core team would lose continuity if we opened our small gathering to others. The concern the other way was that if we didn't open this group that new people wouldn't be as easily intertwined within the community. There was some consensus that as the small gathering grows we may need to have the core team to branch out and be facilitators at other small gatherings and that our core team would maybe meet together on a monthly basis rather than weekly.

This might seem trivial to someone reading this. You might think "Hey have you looked at the local Christian bookstore, there are hundreds of books on small groups, find a method and go with it." For us this is not trivial though. This is the journey we are on, not the journey others are on. That doesn't mean we are foolish enough not to consider the wisdom or lessons others have learned, but it does mean we want to allow our journey to unfold. We want to be on the journey together and these matters are important. They are important not just for the particular method we find to have small gatherings (small groups) but the process is important for the community of faith we are in. The process is about us being community and sharing our lives with one another. It is about the gifts of creativity coming out of people and allowing people to have input and value in the conversation. As I think about it more, this is a community conversation. Certainly we are seeking God's will as our ultimate end, but the case I would make is that God's will is found in the community of faith more than individuals seeking God on an individual level. I believe the voice of God speaks to us not for our individual gain. The voice of God has inherent in it a building up of the saints. So when the Lord speaks to you, it is for the benefit of the kingdom of God and the community of God. I can see this could quickly become a paper rather than a post so I'll stop here for now.

:: Trading spaces

As we plan on our large group gatherings, we have been talking in terms of space for the place we are meeting. The space we have found to gather fits what we wanted. It is a Lutheran church with all the icons of the Christian faith within. Within that space we plan on dedicating spaces in the sanctuary there to a variety of expressions of worshiping God. We plan on having a space that is focused on prayer, a space that is a contemplative space, a creative space, and a community space. These spaces are identified so that people can worship and experience God is various ways as we gather. Our ultimate goal is creating environments where people can experience Christ.

I am excited to see how this methodology develops. We understand that the ancient truths of Scripture found in relationship with Christ are the same yesterday, today, and for all times but the containers that communicate those truths change. We want to experiment with those containers.

:: Passion bloopers on script

Here are a couple of bloopers from the Passion of Christ.

Christ, shackled to a stone, is being scourged by Roman soldiers. Blood runs down his gory back. His pain is palpable.

Jesus: [writhes in pain, hands shaking]

[Cell phone rings.]

Jesus: [hands shake furiously]

[Cell phone rings. Caviezel looks up, sheepish.]

Roman soldier: Jim? That you?

Jesus: Yeah.

[Cell phone rings.]

Soldier: Want me to get it?

Jesus: Yeah.

[Roman soldier gingerly reaches into Caviezel’s blood-soaked loincloth, pulls out phone and opens it, then holds the phone to Caviezel’s ear.]

Off Camera: [laughter]

Jesus: Hey, Mom.


via: tallskinnykiwi

:: The Art of Not Getting Embarrased at a Baptist Church

Andrew Jones had me laughing hard as I read his post on The Art of Not Getting Embarrased at a Baptist Church. Coming from a Southern Baptist upbringing I really could picture what he was saying. Here is a teaser:

- Don't drink the coffee, it comes from a large steel device from the early 20th Century called an "Urn" Go for the tea instead.

I'm thinking I could probably come up with an as equally funny set of ideas for not getting embarresed at a Charismatic church or an emerging church or . . .

:: The Passion of The Christ: an Christian artist vs an Agnostic writer

Take a look at the debate of Christian artist Peter Howson and agnostic writer Muriel Gray as they lock horns over Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ in an article from the Sunday Herald a Scottish paper.

:: Research on blogging Sociology

Read Wired Magazines article: Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious.

:: Blogging to Utopia

Read Blogging to Utopia from the Austin Chronicle.

Here is the lead. very interesting
When the people at Pyra Labs developed a Web tool in 1999 that allowed the user to create, from any Net connection, a page that could include links, graphics, and text, the news was overshadowed by seemingly bigger Web stories: notably, Napster and the monstrously hyped idea of WebTV. Napster is history. And when was the last time someone enthused about WebTV? But blogs have entered the mainstream big time.

:: A Chernobyl Ride

A young Russian rides through the area of Chernobyl and documents her journey with pics at My Chernobyl Ride. This was really interesting link via Jordon Cooper.

:: First Fuel in March

We have shifted our paradigm of Fuel for March. We understand that we are going to be having a more open and public gathering on Sunday nights so our time at Fuel is being geared more like our vision for a small gathering. We have adopted the life - change bible study series and are walking through first Peter. Our format will be eating dinner, having few anouncements, a short time of worship, then going into a group discussion of 1 Peter. Each person has an assignment to work through 1 Peter that week. Every other week we break up in gender groups to discuss and pray together.

Tonight, we discussed our value of having the word of God as a foundation of our community. It is the centering piece in our community. Humanity is frail and we can't lean on it. But God's word is not frail, throughout history God's word has given strength and focus to followers of Christ. We recognize that strength is beyond an intellectual understanding of the Word's contents. There is something of the grace of God being given as we humbly read his word. And as someone mentioned last night, it's not so much we read and interact with the word as it is the word read's and interacts with us. We don't want to wander away from who God is calling us to be. We want to be the story that God is telling to our city. We believe the word's centrality will lend to that.

The other side of this coin to us is being open to the directing of God through the Holy Spirit. Without the Word's foundation we could drift into a fanatical emotionalism as we are open to direction through the Holy Spirit and we don't want emotionalism. We do want though to be hearers of God's voice. We realize we are strangers and aliens here on the planet. We are people of the kingdom and want to march to the beat of the kingdoms drums.

This was altogether a good night, a setting of foundations night. The journey is unfolding.

:: Emerging Church Insight

Todd Hunter and Andrew Jones have some great insight into the journey of postmoderns at Answers from the other side.

A portion from Todd

The Church and the Spirit:
I see a deconstructive reaction in the alternative church landscape to the work of the Holy Spirit. Having spent a great deal of time around classical Pentecostals, Charismatics and Third-Wavers, I can see why. But again, we are forced to ask if we are throwing out too much baby with the water. I have to come to see that the contemporary church must come to grip with issues of power and authority: who has it, how it is shared, how it is exercised with integrity, ethics and holiness. “Jesus is the head of the church” could be marked “True” on any theological pop-quiz. The same is true for “The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of Christ in the church”. We move from theological lip service to action by actually repenting for grieving the Holy Spirit. Remember, he can be grieved as easily by being ignored as by bizarre behaviors. Then we invite Him into our communities of faith, we prayerfully listen with the intent of developing a conversational relationship with God—like the ones people had in the Bible. Last we take appropriate risks, in faith, that like a child learning to walk or speak, God will be with us to train and encourage us. Experiential religion is the Biblical norm and the only kind of religion that will fly in post-modernity.

A portion from Andrew

Check Out New Media.
This is the area where the values of emerging culture are most accurately depicted. It does not do much good to read Christian apologists from the 90's summarizing French philosophers from the 70's who were trying to explain the surrealist painters from the 20's. That is not the most direct route to understand us, and can actually be quite misleading. Check out the new media instead. In the 1990's, I suggested churches look at the postmodern subcultures and the rave scene to find emerging values and dynamics. But now i say new media. Take a look at the renaissance of writing that is happening in our current world of post-post-literacy. Christian bloggers (theoblogians) are a part of this movement. Charlie Wear's blog is a good place to start.

:: The Passion of Christ: a view from the arts

Russell Hittinger and Elizabeth Lev review the Passion from the standpoint of the arts here.

:: the Passion

1 Cor 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

A group of us went to see the passion of Christ last night. I had a variety of expectations from reading internet articles, seeing Mel Gibsons interview with Diane Sawyer and hearing personal experiences of the movie. I'll have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the result.
For me the movie met my expectations and went beyond. I was moved by the artistry of the script and filming. I thought characters fit their roles well. Mary the mother, Mary Magdalene, John, Peter, Judas, Pilate, Simon the Cyrenian, Satan, and Jesus all fit the part well.

For me this movie wasn't an experience of evaluation it was an experience of expanding my own heart in knowing about my Lord. Stories from the bible came to life for me. Color was added to what seemed like black and white words. I have a much better understanding of how all the events of that last day transpired and were woven together.

I was moved to tears as Mary flashes back to a scene of her running to help the boy Yeshua who has fallen and from that gets the courage to run to Jesus and tell him she was there by him. My heart was stirred by Simon the Cyrenian who unwillingly gets nominated to help Jesus carry the cross and on the short journey is impacted. I wondered if I am willing to help Jesus carry his cross in the world today?

I was touched deeply by the Passion of Christ. I pray God will continue to draw my own mind from the many distractions of living in this world and to the world where the mystery of God has been shown in the Son of God being willing to suffer incredible humiliation, pain and worst of all separation from his own Father for me and all those around me.

Looking back on the film I relate with the second thief on the cross who said: " . . . for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong. Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." I recognize that justice says I die for my sins, yet a man who has done nothing wrong died in my place so that I could come into the kingdom of He and His father.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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

:: 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

:: 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.

:: 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..................

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: 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.

:: FUEL end of Jan

We decided to do guys cook and clean night at FUEL. So we made spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. All which was pretty stinking good. Chris was a natural in the kitchen. We invited some other friends over and played cranium. The highlight of the night was Marks imitation of the energizer bunny in a charades portion of the game.
I was thinking he looked a lot like that little monkey in toys that plays the tamborines. Everyone had a good laugh.

Times of just hanging out, eating together, and laughing help us keep balanced.

:: Comments in never never land

I found that the commenting system I had been using went down hard this week and all my prior comments have escaped to parts unknown. I am going to take that as a cue to switch commenting systems on this blog. I am going to haloscan. We'll see if they can keep those little bugger comments under lock and key and safe from harm.

:: Spiritual Formation

In my Christian existence I have found real spiritual meat in seasons where I have pursued spiritual formation through spiritual disciplines. Most of those seasons has been as I have crossed paths with someone who was into that or when reading on my own on the subject. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster was one of the primary places that I learned more about spiritual disciplines.

Lately I have been going through Tony Jones new book: Soul Shaper. Soul Shaper is a primer on exploring spirituality and contemplative practices in youth ministry. I believe there is a deeper life of relationship with God that can be found through spiritual disciplines.

Today I ran across an article on the ooze by Richard Foster. Here is a quote:

You can probably detect that I am not overwhelmingly encouraged by the popular expressions of Spiritual Formation today. I'm not; too much is too faddish and too formulaic for me to be optimistic. And yet, we stand at a moment of great opportunity. Human need today is so obvious and so great that no honest person can deny it. People stagger under the burden of human wickedness. Evil is an open, oozing sore. Therefore superficial, half-answers will not do. Not anymore. Today, there is a great new fact in the contemporary interest in Spiritual Formation. And I view it as a source for enormous hope. This great new fact is the widespread belief that we can no longer bypass authentic, pervasive, thorough transformation of the inner life of the human being.

Read more

:: The foot of the cross

Sunday night a group of the res crew went over to the Colony to pray over the city we believe God is leading us to.
We prayed in the parking lot of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Good Shepherd is a place we are negotiating with on using their facility on Sunday nights.

In prayer we heard and prayed:
Let songs of worship be raised to heaven. This will impact what happens on a spiritual level in the Colony.
We are to be good shepherds to this community. Show us how to serve.
God is asking that we pursue pure hearts, not that we are perfect, but in pursuit of pure hearts.
God would encourage the wives in our community.
We are to serve other communities of faith. It's not about us. It's about the kingdom of God.
It is time to get going. The time of seeing other communities is done.

At the end of our time in prayer we noticed we had been right in front of a large cross in the yard. It seemed significant to us that our first prayer time in the Colony was at the foot of the cross.

:: A trip to Mars Hill

After Brennan Manning on Sunday we dropped by Mars Hill to lend some support to our friend Justin Nygren and the folks in their community.

I was so tired from the road trip from the weekend, staying up all hours in Lubbock and talking, then getting up early Sunday morning to get everyone to Argyle. I still enjoyed being there.

Mars Hill has an inviting environment. The room is filled with couches and loveseats making for a very intimate setting. The lighting is down low. Around the perimeter is art that was birthed in the community there. The seating all directs toward one corner of the room that is set up like a mini stage.

Kelly led some songs of worship and then Justin talked about Acts 2 which was pertinent for where their community is on the journey. They are looking at the basics and where to go next.

We all went out and ate at a Vietnamese place afterwards.

:: Thoughts from Brennan Manning

A group of us went to Argyle to hear Brennan Manning Sunday morning at Crosstimbers church. Here are some thoughts from his talk.

God loves stories. That's why he made each of us, so He could have so many stories.

Our perspective about the kingdom of God
We think people who go to church, who read the bible every once in a while, and pray every once in a while, and take a strong stand on abortion are real kingdom people. But really they are people who keep their distance from God. We want to get close enough to be warmed by the fire of God but not too close that we become consumed by the fire.

Did Jesus die so that we could attend a service on Sunday?

No Jesus died that we would be prophets, and lovers, and human torches on this world. We should be in awe of the cross. Let's marvel at the cross.

Will we dare to trust that God loves us as we are and not what we should be. The popular myth is: If I change God will love me. No, we come just as we are. The truth is: God will love us and because of His love we will change.

If Jesus walked up to the front of this building this morning, looked over the crowd, and then walked straight to you and looked you in the eye, What would his face reflect, his voice reflect. Would it reflect "Your not working hard enough, your not meeting the standard, I am so disappointed in you." No, it would more than likely reflect "thanks for coming here this morning in search of me, thanks for helping that lady out this week, thanks for a heart that wants to know me." Jesus wants to know us.

Is your Christianity a moral code or ethic or a love affair?

I was ambushed by Jesus . . .
told some testimony about his six months living in a cave in the desert. He was encountered by the love of God one night while in prayer in the cave.

Most Christians God is way too small - the God of the word is way larger

True words from Christ are those that are burned on your heart. Words from Him burn on your heart.

On the day you experience the love of Jesus Christ, nothing in this world will ever be as beautiful, no man or woman can touch that love.

Nothing in this world can compare with one true touch from God. It was a good morning and a time to refocus on the incredible love of our incredible God.

:: Ambassadors

This weekend Chris, Mark, Justin, and I made a roadtrip to Lubbock to pick up some furniture. We hung out at Shane Kuhns Friday night and Saturday. For lunch we went over to Rosas and had a colossal amount of chicken and beef fajitas. As always good food seemed to ignite some really good fellowship. I have a suspicion good food is linked to Holy Spirit inspiration, but its just a theory.

Our conversation turned to being ambassadors of Christ. Shane was sharing how we are not at home here on the earth but are ambassadors. This seemed to spark much conversation. We talked of how ambassadors are not at home where they are at (they are strangers and aliens there). They are emissaries for another country. As followers of Christ we are not to be at home here on this earth. Our allegiance is to our home country (the kingdom of God). We are to represent our home country where we are at. The laws we are under are not the laws of where we are stationed but the laws of our home country.

We talked about how this relates to the Lords prayer. In our a united states vernacular if we were talking about being an ambassador to Ireland we might read.

My President, who resides in Washington, we honor your name. Your kingdom (the u.s.) come, your will be done in Ireland as it is in the States. Give me today what I need for my task. We are committed to keeping our hearts upright to serve our country. Help me to keep my countries interests at the forefront of my energies, help me not get distracted by the matters of Ireland. Deliver me from my enemies. For the states is the honorable place, with all power and glory forever and ever.

We realized afresh that we are stationed on the earth to represent the kingdom of God. Jesus said "seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you". Our allegiance is to our home not to this earth.

:: Grace

Mike, Chris, and I met today to do some planning with what God is showing us in mind. For all of us grace seemed to be at the forefront of our thinking. For Chris it was extending small graces to people in our everyday lives. For me it was preparing to bring the ministry of grace to those who visited our community. And for Mike it was thinking about how we could equip others to be instruments of grace wherever they are at.

We have decided to dedicate February to talking about, studying, writing about, praying about, just focusing on grace. What is it? how can we be instruments of it? What is Gods grace like?

We want to be containers of grace sloshing out everywhere we are. We realized we are a community of grace.

:: Fuel 3 Feb

Tonight we had our meal together. It was baked potatoes with all the fixins (thats a true Texas word for all the extra stuff you can have). We had communion at the end of our meal. I asked people some things about Jesus suffering on the cross that they appreciated. We truly remembered the enourmous sacrifice he made.

Some comments were:
"Its good to know His motivation was love for us, not I have to go save these dang humans out of a big mess, be back soon"
"He didn't talk back at those who were cruel to Him. I hope to attain that someday."
"The story about Him is so authentic, it talks about how ugly it was and all He had to endure."
There were others that I'm not remembering. We then tore a piece of the bread and ate in remembering and then drank juice remembering His brokeness and pain and love and compassion. It was a sacred moment.

Our conversation after dinner was one of how does God speak? how do we hear him? what are some misconceptions about His voice? and what are obstacles to hearing God?

We spent time praying and then ended our evening.

:: I like my kids

You know before your a parent you think: What if I don't like my kids? Wouldn't that be odd. I was thinking today how I really like my kids. Of course I love them, but beyond that I like them. There personalities are unique and I like that.

Ethan is an amazingly creative thinker. The questions and observations he has make me think. Whether its his seeing glimpses of heaven in the clouds or his Dad did you know? Those did you knows have wonder in them.

Callie is incredibly sharp academically but also thinks about real life issues at 9 years old. She also articulates what she thinks well verbally and on paper. I think she writes as well now as I did beginning high school.

Yea, I know some of you are thinking "Don't they irritate you sometimes?" yea sometimes they try my patience. That is probably more my struggle than theirs though. And yea they do immature things that need some correction and training, but I still do also.

But most of the time it is a wonderous thing to me that I really like my kids. I have this suspicion that God is like that. Sure, we do immature things sometimes, but I think mostly He likes us and looks forward to spending time with us.

Thanks father God for reminding me that you mostly look forward to spending time with me and that you like me.

:: Approaching a large gathering place and time

We understand that church is not an event or place, it is a community of Jesus disciples going forward in extending the kingdom of God. Our goal in starting Resonance is not to only have times in peoples homes but to have a large gathering where we create an environment for people to come and experience the presence of God.

We are actively pursuing a place to create that environment in the Colony. Sunday nights is the time we have chosen to begin. I am hopeful we will find a place to meet at the front end of February. Our prayer is to use a church building that is not in use on Sunday nights and that we can bless the congregation of people who we connect with.

:: What theologian are you?

"Sin is incurable by the strength of man, nor does free will have any validity here, so that even the saints say: 'The evil which I do not wish, this I do.' 'You are not doing the things which you wish.' 'Since my loins are filled with illusions,' etc."

You are Martin Luther! Yeah, you have a way of letting everyone know how you feel, usually with Bible quotes attached, and will think your way through the issues, although sometimes you make no sense! You aren't always sure of yourself, and you can change your mind about things, something you actually consider a strength. You can take solitude, especially with some music.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson

:: Fuel 2 January

Tonight we discussed some biblical postures of worship. Even that the most important posture of worshiping God is the posture of your heart. Authenticity is when our heart is saying "yes" to God and our outward actions are mirroring our heart.

We also talked about how coming to God to worship Him with our hearts is about community, not about a bunch of individuals worshipping. There is a different perspective for each of us as we realize we are coming to Him as community and our worship is about the whole community coming before His presence, ala Psalm 95.

Chris took us through a movement in Isaiah as we focused on coming into Gods presence. We sang with interludes of Isaiah 6 being read between songs. During that time we wrote out those obstacles that kept us from seeing God on a piece of paper and then put them in the fireplace. The fire was about us giving these items to God and then allowing Him to work in them. It wasn't about them being instantly gone. We recognize this is a journey we are on and along that journey there is wrestling that happens.

Mike also had a dream he felt was from God and shared it to our community. I ask him to send me a copy and will post it at some time.

I am privileged to have some people around me that are committed to this journey and most of all a God who is king of every king and over every other god. (psalm 95)