the collision of God, Church and Culture

Worship Devotional-Balance

2010-08-24T12:01:00.002-04:00

The following devotional titled "Balance" is an excerpt from an upcoming devotional series on worship from the Active Word. I was blessed to write some of the devotionals in this series.

Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

A while ago I was discussing songs with a friend, who asked how a hymn got the label of being a “hymn.” That conversation led us to this passage in Colossians that teaches us how we worship God corporately through music.

You and I know that part of the worship that we offer God is through song. Paul reminds the church that the Word of Christ should dwell in us, through both teaching and singing. He clearly shows us the balanced model of worship through song should include psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Each of these terms has a depth of meaning for us. Psalms are songs of scripture, most notably passages from the book of Psalms. Hymns are songs of celebration-this isn't simply “Amazing Grace,” -the songs we call hymns had yet to be written! And the term songs of the spirit suggests more powerful and intimate songs of reverence and awe.

These categories may overlap but each area contains a unique quality of worship. This threefold approach is designed to reveal His Word dwelling in us through both the truth of the Word and the work of the Spirit. Singing songs of scripture, celebration and the spirit is a healthy and balanced way to honor God in our worship.

Sometimes we can find ourselves having a preference for one of the three over the others, but view that preference as an opportunity to submit our desires and will to the authority of scripture. Consider today how this area of your worship can grow to reflect the truth of His Word, and the leading of the Spirit.

Vision-Part Deux

2010-07-16T11:51:00.000-04:00

One of the most important things a worship leader should grasp is this truth:

Your vision must fit together with your pastor's vision.

I share this because I've seen this scenario too many times:

1. Worship leader attends conference/seminar/event.

2. Worship leader is creatively inspired by the passion and excellence of what they see.

3. Worship leader returns to own church and tries to replicate what they saw.

4. Pastor isn't on board with direction the worship goes.

5. Pastor and worship leader disagree on vision-the relationship is strained.

6. Often this scenario ends with arguments, and sometimes with the worship leader leaving the church, usually grumbling about the pastor's lack of vision, or that the church is "stuck" and isn't willing to move forward.

This can play out in almost any church, in any denomination. But, there's hope! Worship leaders can add a few steps into this process, and the whole thing turns out in a way that strengthens and edifies the local church. Here are the keys.

Make sure your vision for worship aligns with the overall vision your Pastor has for the church. Like a puzzle, each piece must fit perfectly with the pieces around it, or chaos ensues. We as worship leaders are prideful if we think we can do whatever we want and not have to submit to the vision of our overseers. For more on that, read Hebrews 13:17.

Pray that your vision is birthed from God, and not simply copied from someone else's vision. What God is doing in Australia, England, India or California may not be what He's doing in your community. He may not be interested in having you do what someone in Atlanta or Charlotte is doing. God is creative and unique, and He reflects that in the fact that He makes us unique. Pray and chase after God for the vision He wants to birth in you for your church.

What vision does God want to birth in and through you? It's up to you to find out.

Vision-Part One

2010-07-14T11:55:00.002-04:00

1. eyesight: the ability to see
2. mental picture: an image or concept in the imagination

When I was in high school, I had to spend a lot of time running. Whether it was on the soccer field or in conditioning drills for basketball, it seemed like I was always running. My dad was a state champion track athlete in high school, and he told me something that I’ll always remember-keep your head up and your eyes forward when you run. Seems simple, doesn’t it? When you keep your head up and your eyes forward, you see your destination. You can picture the end, and you can make adjustments as you chase the goal.

My nephew learned to run with his head down when he was young, and when I saw him run, I realized the wisdom of my dad’s advice. My nephew thought that he could just put his head down and plow through anything-hoping that as long as he kept running he would eventually get to his destination (usually first base). After a couple of collisions and missing the base a time or two, he started to learn to run with his head up and his eyes on the prize.

Often we can do worship ministry without vision, sort of like my nephew running hard. The problem is that when we do that, a lot of energy is expended but we don’t hit our goal. Consider these questions:

What is your vision right now?
Has God given you that vision, or are you copying someone else’s vision?
Do you have smaller steps in place to run towards that final vision?
What are your 1 year, 3 year and 5 year goals for yourself and your ministry?
Have you talked to your pastor about your vision?

My hope is that God has or will birth in your heart a vision for your community-a picture that is so vivid in your imagination that you can’t help but chase after God’s plan for you!

Taking the Long View

2010-06-01T23:52:00.004-04:00

I read a powerful quote last week, and it's still resonating with me. The exact quote was this.

"Preachers think Sunday is coming and focus their efforts to prepare the message. Leader's think Jesus is coming and invest their efforts to prepare the people."

I can't get it out of my head, and the truth of the quote requires me to wrestle with the way I approach ministry. Instead of Preachers, you could easily substitute "Music Ministers," and for message, put in "music."

It forces me to step back and take the long view, not the short view. The short-term view is that we need to make sure everything is ready for this coming weekend, and that we all know what's going on, what our tasks are and what our role is supposed to be. And of course, that still remains true! But if we keep getting ready for Sunday, but never think where we are headed or where we want to be headed, like a hamster on it's wheel we can look really busy but never actually get anywhere.

So ask yourself this-am I more focused on preparing for this Sunday's service, or on preparing people? It's not an either/or, but instead a challenge to us to make sure we are taking the long view.

For your consideration.

-Andrew

Remember

2010-05-29T23:57:00.002-04:00

This weekend, we pause to give thanks for those who so bravely chose to give their own lives for our freedom. I remember as a kid that on Memorial Day weekend (and also July 4 and Veterans Day) our pastor would ask anyone who had served in the armed forces to stand.

From a very young age, I would always look around the room and gaze in awe at the men who stood. Even though it was a small church, there were men there who served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam. I would always end up staring at my grandpa, because I was most proud of him. There he would stand as we would all clap and honor the men who put their lives on the line for us.

Sometimes I'd ask him what it was like to serve, and he'd tell me stories of his time in the army. Those are the times I love to remember. I'm proud of men like him, men like my uncle David, who spent 20+ years in the army.

Thank a vet today, and pause long enough to say a prayer for the families of our fallen soldiers. For in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places today, they are still serving and some are still paying the ultimate price.

Books I'm Reading

2010-05-18T14:17:00.005-04:00

Someone famous once said that leaders are readers. I don't know if that's true, but it rhymes-which makes it catchy!

When I read a lot of books in my youth, it made me a nerd. I'm not sure how later in life it qualifies me to be a leader, but it definitely helps me think and approach theology, worship and leadership from different perspectives. I read (finish) one book a week, but at any given time I could be in the middle of a few different ones. These are the texts I'm wrestling through right now.

We Have Seen His Glory-Ben Witherington III

I'm trying to tackle this one in order to use it as a textbook for my classes at
Ocean's Edge School of Worship this fall. Great premise for worship perspective-I'm about halfway through and I'm loving it!

One Minute Manager-Ken Blanchard

I'm always looking for help becoming a better leader of people and manager/steward of their talents, gifts and resources. This is a classic but I've never read it before, so I started it this week. Recommended to me by my boss, Pastor Clay Hecocks.

Orthodoxy- G.K. Chesterton

This guy is brilliant, and most of his philosophical arguments are filled with humor and sarcasm. I'd put him right up there with C.S. Lewis when it comes to brilliant theologians and philosophers, although I can read Lewis in bigger chunks it seems. I've been working on this one for a while now, and the content is solid.

Prayer (to God) is becoming illegal

2010-05-11T08:13:00.003-04:00

It's interesting when 2 things that are protected by the Constitution (Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion) collide with a statement that isn't found anywhere in our country's documents (separation of church and state).

We're headed down a slippery slope when senior citizens at a senior center aren't allowed to pray out loud for their meals because part of the meal is subsidized by federal funds.

Read the story here. And keep praying!

Leadership Lessons in Worship

2010-05-10T01:11:00.005-04:00

When you are leading teams of people, there are a few things that you should purpose to do-these apply to worship teams too!

1. Celebrate together-share the successes. The worship wasn't amazing because you were the leader. It was effective because the Spirit used a group of people together in unity to bring God much glory. When you hear affirmation, think team.

2. If you want to bring in new people, surround them with team veterans. This builds relationships, accountability and community. Each time I lead worship, regardless of the setting, I try my best to find an opportunity to bring someone along with me in order to let them grow. It could be a younger musician, or someone new to your team. Purpose to practice an open community-allow your team to grow through new people coming on alongside veterans.

3. You will fail. How often and how badly is up to you. Preparation, prayer, integrity, attitude-all these play a part in your leadership, but you will still mess up. Maybe it's a wrong chord, a pitchy note, or a forgotten lyric. Or maybe it's worse.
Make sure you are prepared and prayed up as a leader. It took me a while to realize that mistakes are always going to happen-it's how you handle the mistakes that reveals your leadership. The greatest NFL players still turn the ball over-maybe not as often as the benchwarmers, but they still make mistakes. The greatest hitter in the history of baseball only got on base safely 4 out of 10 times. If these world class athletes make mistakes with millions of people watching, what makes us think we'd be any different? The question is: How will you handle the mistakes and the failures?

It takes purpose, planning and prayer to lead your team. Continue to chase after these leadership principles, and watch God move among you!

-Andrew

Modern Day Persecution

2010-05-03T22:09:00.003-04:00

I'll paraphrase this one.

A street preacher in the UK was arrested after answering a passerby's question. The question? "Is homosexuality a sin?"

His answer?- "Yes."

The passerby went to a nearby officer, who approached the preacher to ask him if he said it.

The preacher basically said, "Yes, homosexuality is a crime against the Creator."

The officer- "I'm homosexual."

The preacher- "It's still a sin."

Link

Developing Leaders

2010-04-26T14:39:00.008-04:00

Some wise sage once said that it's better to lead leaders than to simply just lead. Obviously the reason is rooted in influence-if you are leading leaders, then your influence can affect multiple generations of followers, and you are coaching more than simply leading.

After trying to do that over the past 4+ years at my church, God has honored that effort. Lately I've been privileged to be surrounded by other leaders as I lead worship, which means that as I allow them to lead more and more, I'm able to step back and work on other areas of my ministry.

This past weekend I was the oldest person (31) on the worship team. The average age of the other 7 people was about 22. This has happened because of a number of reasons, but more importantly, it happened intentionally. God provided these talented leaders, and He simply asked me to be a good steward of their gifts and talents.

Out of these other 7, 5 are gifted and called as worship leaders. So I had (including me), 6 worship leaders on stage at the same time. No it wasn't a Hillsong re-enactment! But leading leaders presents a unique set of challenges. Here are a few things I ask myself, and maybe you might consider asking yourself as well, as we try to be a good steward of the gifts of the leaders around us:

1. Who is a leader around me? Identifying the person is the first step in intentional development.

2. At what or with whom are they currently showing leadership qualities? Find the sphere where their influence is growing and encourage it!

3. How can I help them own this part of their ministry and develop it? Creatively brainstorm how that person can grow and use those gifts to strengthen the body of Christ and allow them to own it.

One example of this at our ministry would be Danny's blog. Danny is a talented leader and musician, and we've developed a great friendship. My challenge is to keep Danny creative and growing, and we came up with this blog idea as a way to use his gift of teaching and also his talents in music and technology to build the body of Christ.

Some wouldn't like the idea of a guy creating music on his laptop and playing that as a part of a worship team, but Danny is bearing fruit with it, and inspiring others to do the same. It's amazing to be a part of a team that is creative and innovative for the glory of God!

So ask yourself today-am I leading leaders? If so, how can you develop them-remember that the end result is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12), and to give all the glory to God.

-Andrew

New Songs 2010-So Far

2010-04-20T14:38:00.003-04:00

Congregational Worship songs are hard to come by-sometimes I'll listen to 10 CD's and have only 5 potential songs, out of 50-60. Then I'll listen to them for a month or so, and see which ones stand up to the test of time. These are the ones we've introduced at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale (Plantation campus) in 2010.

Your Love Never Fails-written by Chris McClarney, arr. by Jesus Culture
Because of Your Love-Phil Wickham
Holding Nothing Back-written by Tim Hughes, arr. by Jesus Culture
A Mighty Fortress- Christy Nockels
To Know Your Name-Hillsong
Yahweh-Hillsong
The Stand (bridge only)-Hillsong
You are Here (the same power)- Hillsong

The psalmist encourages us to sing a new song to the Lord-what new songs are you introducing this year?

-Andrew

Worship Set Lists-Whaddya think?

2010-04-19T22:12:00.003-04:00

If you are a worship leader and you read this blog, I want to know your thoughts on something.

There are different schools of thought on worship for local churches. Simply from a song selection standpoint, here are the models I know of:

1-The worship leader has total freedom to pick whatever songs he feels led to do.

2-The pastor picks all the songs, and the worship leader simply does them.

3-The pastor and the worship leader sit together each week and choose the songs.

Which one is the model you do right now, and what do you think about it? For example, our church is a #1, within reason.

Whaddya think?

The Author of New

2010-04-14T01:15:00.001-04:00

i like new.

i'm always looking for new.

new clothes, new gear, new electronics, new technology.

new places, new people, new opportunities.

this is why we (window) shop. this is why we research and ask around.

it's no surprise that we love new, but why?

well, for starters, it's better than old. but perhaps there's something more. perhaps we were created for new, and old just isn't our original design.

think about it-we don't like old because it represents beat up. washed up. torn up.

we don't like old because we know what we're getting, and sometimes it's a let-down.

but if you remember the story of Eden, you'll remember a time and place before beat up, washed up and torn up.

a place where each day was full of something new-a new place, a new animal to be named, a new experience.

this is why there's something in us that loves new. we were designed for it. we weren't made to grow old, love old or be old.

but sin happened. and now old happens.

before sin, there was no old. there was only new. and that was the original design-the Designer made us for new, and new for us.

and He still does, if you look for it.

His mercies are new every morning. Lam 3:22-23
He gives us a new covenant. Matt 26:28
a new commandment. John 13:34
a new heart and new spirit. Ez. 36:26
we take off the old and put on the new. 2 Cor. 5:17
He will make a new heaven and a new earth. Rev. 21:1
The Bible ends when He says that He makes all things new. Rev 21:5

new is good-we love new because He who created us is the author of new.

today is a new day. put off the old and embrace the new.

What I Think About During Worship...

2010-04-06T00:07:00.005-04:00

For those who might be interested, I thought I'd share what my (wacked) brain thinks about during worship. I realize that I'm supposed to think 100% about God during that time, but the truth for worship leaders is that we must spend most of our quality time worshiping God when we aren't on stage. So what am I thinking about? Here are a few questions I'm always asking myself...

1. Are people connecting with God? This is huge for me as a leader. If the answer is no, then I feel like I've failed that day. I know that some people aren't serious about worship, and I can't be responsible for their choice to or not to worship. But I also know that it's my responsibility to create an opportunity for them that they can relate to, and participate in, so this is always on my mind.

2. Are we (the worship team) together right now? Our heart is to do what we do with excellence, but sometimes that can lead to either being more focused on perfection/performance instead of God, or to not paying attention to our responsibility of preparation. Usually a glance or a nod goes a long way to getting everyone back together.

3. Where am I looking? Since I'm not always leading songs vocally, I try to be aware of where I'm looking. It's sometimes awkward to make eye contact with a single person during worship, since our attention should be fixed on Christ. I usually try to look up as I think about God, or look down at my guitar if I'm not singing (during instrumentals or other people's solos), although I try to sing along (far away from the mic) as I worship.

4. How are we getting from this song to the next? This is one of the major issues I see with younger or less experienced worship leaders. Smooth transitions are almost as important as the songs themselves. I try to avoid "dead air" (i.e. awkward unintended silence) or confusion as to who is responsible to get us into the next song. Bad transitions take the focus off of God and, like a good episode of The Office, create really awkward moments.

5. What is the Spirit prompting me to do right now? In my earlier ministry days I talked a lot more during worship. Then for a season I said very little or nothing at all during that time in the service. Lately I've been trying to discern the Spirit's moving during worship and what I'm prompted to do. Sometimes it's a few words said during an instrumental. Other times it's a stop and stay-where we end the song but I don't feel like God is done with the moment, which could mean a prayer or a reprise of a chorus or bridge.
It's tricky because my flesh wants to talk sometimes, and I try really hard to make my words count during worship. I even open my mouth sometimes and then stop myself (try not to watch me-take my word for it!). :D I'm always reminded of Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, which tells us specifically to speak less, if at all in the presence of God. Great wisdom-hard to do sometimes!

I'm not making this list exhaustive, because no one cares most of the time what I'm thinking. But I hope this gives you a little insight, and maybe helps another worship leader out there!

-Andrew

The Apocalypse is Upon Us

2010-03-21T20:48:00.003-04:00

A church in San Francisco (not a good start, I know) has chosen to make Saturday night an art show/disco with DJ in their sanctuary. I think the thing that bothers me the most is the large psuedo-gold chain with the holy name of God as a medallion. Read about it and see the pic here.

What Happens in Church, Stays There

2010-03-13T09:33:00.003-05:00

Another article by an "expert" tells us that those who claim faith (Islam, Judaism, Christian) rarely live out the practical tenets of their faith in their lives.

At the end of his article, he quotes from a speech by a Duke University sociologist- "What happens in church, mainly stays in church."

This breaks my heart because this means that once again the world believes:

1) The church is a building/place, not a group of people.

2) The people who claim to follow, mostly don't.

3) The things they say they believe they don't live out.

Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." Matt. 5:13.

Encourage one another to live it out-many don't. One day we CAN show Christ's light to the world.

20 minutes away, 2 martyrs

2010-02-07T15:35:00.002-05:00

If this story is what it seems to be, then 2 young men gave their lives to evangelize another guy on the streets of Boynton Beach. It's shocking to me because we're in America and because it's only 20 minutes from my house.

But I realize that we have an enemy who is seeking to steal, kill and destroy. Our faith is real, and it costs us something. For these two men, it cost them everything. I know we'll pray for the families of the two gentlemen who were killed. But also, please pray for the man they were evangelizing-his salvation could still hang in the balance.

God uses murderers (and other sinners). He forgives their sins and transforms their lives. (see Moses, David, Paul, etc) Please be praying church.

Churches Seeking Worship Leaders

2010-02-01T17:47:00.007-05:00

Lately I've been speaking to a few worship leaders I know who have been looking for a church opportunity. I decided to look online at what "classified ads" were out there advertising positions for worship leaders, and what I found made my heart hurt.

Most of what I saw from these churches had to do with the desire of the search committee or pastor to have a particular style of worship. Something along the lines of "We are looking for a dynamic worship leader to lead our music ministry in the style of Tomlin, Crowder, Hillsong, etc."

Unfortunately for worship leaders, we are graded too often on how "dynamic" we are on stage, the style of worship we lead, or how we 'look.' There are actual churches I know of that are looking for a worship leader that dresses a certain way, or does their hair to look like the latest indie rocker.

Is this what we've become? Is it now style over substance for these who lead churches? I would warn any worship leader I know to run the other way if a church approached them with those requirements, but too often this has become the norm. What if the shoe was on the other foot? Maybe the ad might read:

Worship leader looking to work for a pastor who teaches like Andy Stanley and Erwin McManus. Must dress in ripped jeans and Affliction T-shirts. Must have cool hair and really good stage presence. Should consistently engage their staff and church body, doing all 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell.

Of course, if you're looking for a job at a church, placing an ad like this isn't a good strategy. :) As it's also not a good strategy for a church or a pastor to pigeonhole a "good worship leader" based on style.

The world is consistently judging people based on style and appearance. Meanwhile, what the church truly needs are worship leaders with a passion for bringing Glory to the Character and Acts of the triune God. We need worship leaders who will teach and train others, discipling the local body in a lifestyle of worship. We need worship leaders who understand how to love on, manage, and encourage creative people (which at times is similar to herding cats).

God doesn't need cool hair or the latest trend to declare His glory. And neither is He looking for us to return to the style of yesteryear. I Samuel 16:7 reminds us that man looks upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.

Young worship leaders, seek out the church that God is calling you to, but don't forget to look for the church and the leadership that shares that kind of heart. The heart of biblical worship, not simply culturally relevant appearance.

Electronics and Stolen Memories

2009-12-17T00:35:00.000-05:00

I wonder about this a lot. No matter how much we push back, it still feels like more and more of our time is consumed with electronics. How much time each week do I devote between the television, cell phone, video game system and computer? Unfortunately, I'd rather not know because I'm scared of that number.

Chrissy and I promised each other that when we got married we would stay off Facebook, Myspace and instant messaging. Not because those things are intrinsically evil, but because it's incredible how much time can be sucked by those things. I personally can't own a video game system, because I can't stop after one level-there's a part of me that just wants to continue to conquer and discover.....one more level. And the next thing I know, hours go by.

Lately I've found myself completely engrossed by my phone and all that entails. Cell phone apps, games, texting, etc. It took my wife mentioning it to me for me to realize that these things made of silicon, wires and screens are taking me away from socially connecting with people in a real way.

In the last 10 years, I can't think of any good memories I've had while surfing the net, reading news sites, or IMing. Instead, my favorite memories are shared experiences, trips taken with family or friends, and new places that were explored! I don't think I've ever fondly looked back on that one episode of that one show I liked as a great memory....

But minutes and hours go by, often spent with electronics, and now I'm 31. All those moments are gone, never to be lived again. And now, as I stand here looking ahead into the future, I'm wondering not how many memories I've missed already, but if I'll miss out on meaningful memories in the future because I'm too busy in my own world. Blogging, twittering, gaming, surfing, watching a screen.

I want to look back in the end and never regret. I want to always play ball with my son, or take that walk around the neighborhood with my wife. I want my memories.

Jadon is here

2009-11-17T15:20:00.002-05:00

My son was born at 6:28 am on 11/12/2009. Jadon Kenneth Wooddell- Jadon means "thankful; grateful," Kenneth is after my grandfather, who went home to be with the Lord this past March, and Wooddell because he's mine!

Zephaniah 3:17 -The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

I now understand a little more about how amazing it is when a Father sings over His children with joy. Every day I write Jadon a new song or two and sing it over him while he is in my arms. Thanks for all your love and prayers!

Andrew and Chrissy

*special thanks to Curtis Copeland Photography for the picture.

New Song....with Video Goodness!

2009-11-04T16:18:00.002-05:00

One of my best friends is a worship leader about 45 minutes north of my church, and every once in a while we get to do something together in worship. I absolutely love working with this guy-he's an amazing leader and worshiper!

A few weeks ago we got together on a day off and wrote a song for his church. Last weekend they introduced it at a night of worship and a good friend posted it on YouTube. I hope you like it...it's still getting tweaked a bit, but I love the way it's turning out! (Lyrics are below the vid).

You Will Reign
written by Jay Boykin and Andrew Wooddell

Creator, You hold the stars in Your hand
the wonder of all that I can't understand
Father, how great is Your mystery

a rugged cross that gave me hope
hands that bled so the world would know
a perfect love that sets us free

on the cross He took my place
by His blood all my sins are washed away
He bore the nails and conquered the grave
death could not contain our God
forever He will reign

You died and You rose
forever You will reign
my chains are now gone
forever You will reign
forever You will reign

Worship Leader, or Leading Worship?

2009-11-03T09:23:00.004-05:00

Ahhhh, semantics. Does it really matter if you flip the terms 'lead' and 'worship?' I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I've realized that it does matter.

You see, leading worship is a task inside the body of Christ. I've seen many people lead worship in many different venues. I can break down what it takes to lead worship into a simple checklist that almost anyone could follow. And perhaps you, the reader, have led worship before! Just as it's always a privilege to preach a sermon or teach a lesson, it's always a great honor to lead God's people in worship.

But not everyone who preaches is a pastor, not everyone who teaches is a teacher, and not everyone who leads worship is a worship leader. Let me explain...

Being a worship leader is not simply a task, but a shepherding role inside the body of Christ. It is a responsibility much greater than the musical portion of the service. Let me use an illustration.

You see, I've had some amazing experiences in my life. I've gotten to conduct a 80 piece orchestra before. I've directed a 300 voice choir. Those are tasks I've done. But if someone asked me if I could be a middle school band director, I would absolutely say "No way!"

Could I direct the middle school band at a concert? Sure! But being the director is much more than just that moment of concert. It's weeks of teaching proper technique, rehearsing that group of people, loving on them and challenging them to grow. It's encouraging them after the concert and then working on the areas that were revealed as weaknesses. And then you do that again and again, sorta like 'shampoo, rinse, and repeat!"

Because it's a shepherding role and not a task, it would be cocky of me to say that I'm qualified to be a middle school band director just because I can direct a band. And similarly, I must ask myself each week if I'm leading worship or if I'm a worship leader. Is this a task I'm completing or a role I'm embracing?

Because at the end of my season here on earth, I don't want to be someone who only completed tasks. I want to be found faithful in shepherding and discipling God's people!

This week's sign that the Apocalypse is almost here...

2009-10-22T12:35:00.003-04:00

If you're in the mood for a good bonfire this Halloween season, this church is hosting an event you might want to attend. :D

My favorite quote from the article-

"The book-burning is being promoted as a social event with a barbecue dinner."

Bonus: Other versions of the Bible might help barbecue that meat.

A sobering reminder

2009-10-20T00:15:00.002-04:00

Sometimes it's good to stop and remember what's happening around the world. This story makes me want to simply say, "Thank you to all those who serve in our armed forces and a special thanks to those who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for our country."
Grab some kleenex and remember.

Ever feel this way?

2009-10-18T19:07:00.000-04:00

New Album, Old Friend

2009-10-17T22:37:00.005-04:00

Please don't be scared of the picture. :)

Every once in a while, I get the honor to write or co-write a song for someone's record. A few years back a few of my songs appeared on this guy's first album, and this week, my friend Chad Lister released his second album on iTunes, and one of my songs made it on the CD. Check out his record and support a young indie artist/worship leader from Raleigh.

-andrew

Waiting and Watching

2009-10-15T14:28:00.003-04:00

Blogging.....wow. It's been hard to do this year-not for a lack of ideas or material, but because everything on my heart centralizes around what's been happening in my life these past few months.

Whether it's been saying goodbye to my grandpa or getting ready to meet my son Jadon and becoming a daddy, everything seems to go back to those two things. These are the defining moments and events in my life.

Lately, I've been wondering a lot about Jadon and what he'll look like. He has no idea what's in store, and I can't even begin to describe what life will be like for him. How do you tell a baby in the womb what it's like to fall in love, how his first kiss will feel, or even the excitement of winning a basketball game or graduating from high school?

I don't think I can tell him in terms he'll understand. I think he'll just have to experience it for himself. And as much as I can try to describe these events to him, and prepare him for those moments, he still won't understand until he walks that path and discovers them on his own.

This week I was getting his room ready-painting, hanging stuff on the walls, arranging the furniture. And it made me think a lot of my grandpa, who's in heaven right now. It may sound odd that a nursery made me think about heaven, but here's where my mind went...

Jesus promised us that He was going to go prepare a place for us. In the same way that I'm preparing Jadon's nursery, He's getting our room ready, so that one day we can be where He is. And like a baby in the womb doesn't understand what's waiting for them after they are born, we have no idea what God has in store for us in heaven. There really aren't even words in our vocabulary to describe what my grandpa is experiencing and doing right now! It's something we know we'll have discover and experience to understand.

All I know is that I can't wait to be with my son, and that I already love him like crazy, even if he doesn't know that I love him yet. And I know that God's love for His kids is infinitely greater than what I'm experiencing in my heart these 9 months. This journey is going to teach me so much about my Heavenly Father-I can't wait!

Back in the South

2009-09-16T16:30:00.004-04:00

I've been up in Raleigh this week-heading back to South Florida tonight. It weird now that I'm married. Traveling is still fun, but it's not cool to be away from my wife for long periods of time. I can't imagine being one of those couples where the husband has to travel for business regularly. I just love being home too much!

Been playing electric guitar with the guys this week (jake holman, brian kohout and nolan verner). It's so great to play with other good musicians-a little ridiculous at times! This morning we didn't rehearse or soundcheck. We literally walked on stage, jake told us the set list and we started. no practice, no talking, no charts, no arrangements. He said, "Sing, sing, sing; Oh Happy Day; Everlasting God; From the inside out." I asked what keys. He says, "D, C, C, C."

And we begin. Hilarious!

This week has been about tons of sweet tea, story telling, and remembering all the things about the traveling baptist circuit that I loved and hated.

Can't wait to be home tonight! Back to the sweaty swamp I now call home. :D

His Name Shall Be Called.....

2009-08-31T12:41:00.002-04:00

His name is Jadon Kenneth Wooddell. 11 more weeks until he's here!

-AW

A Healthy Dilemma, part one.

2009-08-18T12:46:00.006-04:00

For the past few years, some friends and I have been building relationships with some of the homeless and poor in our county. Because of this, I've seen and learned things that have opened my eyes up to different perspectives-and some of these perspectives are stories of health care. I'd like to post a few of these stories this week, especially since most of the nation is talking about medical insurance for those who are uninsured.

One of these friends, I'll call her "G", got off the streets with some help from some of these people. She and a couple others found an apartment in a Section 8 housing area close to downtown. For those who don't know how Section 8 housing works, it has rent that varies based on your income level (with government subsidies making up the difference). So if you make very little each month, the rent you pay out of your pocket isn't much, and the gov't picks up the rest. Conversely, the more you make, the more your rent is, with the gov't subsidizing less.

Anyways, we were so happy to see G and her friends get off the streets! No more sleeping behind a parking garage on the grass or on a cardboard box. For us and for her, this was an amazing step in the right direction. After a week or two of being off the streets, my wife asked G if we could help her find a job now (she had been using her disability income to pay the rent). She shocked us when she told us that she wasn't interested in working.

What?

We didn't understand what she meant. Didn't she want to better herself, move out of that neighborhood one day and so forth? This clearly didn't make sense to my wife or those who were there with us, so we asked her why she wouldn't want to get a job and make some money. Her answer was surprising. She told us that if she started working, she would lose her government help (housing subsidies, food stamps and healthcare that was free for her). So by working a job, she would actually make less and lose her healthcare benefits.

And for the last year or two, she hasn't had to work. Each month, G has lived on a government check and food stamps. She has a cell phone she pays for with her check, and spends most of her time around the neighborhood, getting involved in the local gossip and hanging out. True to her word, she doesn't want to ever work because she would lose all her freedom and benefits.

It's a weird dilemma for those who are in "G's" situation-those who are unemployed and collect disability money and benefits, because she could easily work in a variety of jobs. But many lose any interest in bettering their situation, because in the short term their life gets harder before it gets better.

We've heard a lot lately about the millions of uninsured in our country. But we aren't often reminded that those who are extremely poor and those who are listed as disabled already get health insurance in our country today. I didn't say free health care, because those who pay taxes are covering the costs for those who are without jobs. But some of these unemployed adults aren't part of the millions of people who are without health insurance.

Um, the Emperor has no clothes. And he's dancing.

2009-08-15T00:18:00.005-04:00

**Video note-sometimes when you are in front of a crowd and you are passionately celebrating, people laugh at you.**

The Bible is full of some great stories-some inspire, some reveal sin, and some are just awkward when you stop and think about it.

One of the stories that is a bit awkward always comes up when you talk about passionate worship. It's from 2 Samuel 6-what's happening is the Ark of the Covenant is being brought up to Jerusalem after being in the enemy's hands and David is so passionate about the Ark coming back that he can't stop sacrificing, singing, praising and dancing before God. It's a huge celebration, with many of the Israelites taking part in the festivities!

We know that something happened with David's clothes because of the exchange between him and his wife Michal at the end of the chapter. She was angry with him because he had "exposed himself" to the maidens that were there while he was dancing and singing. Scholars believe that although David probably wasn't completely naked (wearing a linen ephod, at least), he probably wasn't wearing very much and because of the spinning and dancing he either took some of his clothes off in the process or because of the intensity of his sweet moves, his robes exposed too much of his legs (a no-no for the king). And honestly, who wants to see that? :) (I wish I could post a picture of my JV basketball uniform here).

What's even more interesting is that in the exchange between Michal and David, God takes David's side! We don't usually question this story because it's biblical, but many evangelicals would probably do what Michal did if it happened today. Imagine if (insert dignified person here) was dancing and leaping so much during a national celebration or church service that clothes came off. How many of us would do what Michal did and say that it was inappropriate?

And in our modern church settings we usually stay far away from this example of worshiping God. But what if in a church service a time was set aside for dancing and celebrating what God had done? Not couples dancing, but joyful spontaneous jumping around for our salvation! Would we be able to dance like David danced?

I think God was most pleased in David's embrace of vulnerability over dignity. David was so passionate about God that he wasn't afraid to publicly lay aside his dignity (e.g. pride) in celebrating and worshiping God. Something spiritual happens when we embrace vulnerability and lay aside our pride before the Lord. Over and over, there are biblical examples of God intervening on behalf of His children, but almost without fail it wasn't until someone stepped out in faith and became vulnerable that God moved.

Sometimes vulnerability means leaving your safe zone. Sometimes it puts you in the cross hairs of gossip and finger pointing. And I'm pretty sure the point of the story here isn't for us to wear less clothes during worship. :) But maybe, just maybe, God is asking us to become vulnerable, lay aside our pride, and to step out in faith.

Watch and see-He'll move.

Ocean's Edge School of Worship Blog

2009-07-22T12:36:00.004-04:00

I had the great opportunity to post over at oceansegdeschool.wordpress.com today-check it out if you get the chance!
link

Music!

2009-07-16T20:33:00.005-04:00

I don't know how this happened, but somehow by God's grace music is something I get to be a part of a lot. In the past 15 years, I've met some really talented people who are incredibly gifted in music, and sometimes I get to play music with them, which always makes me happy!

Here's some updates on some of them:

Anthony Evans- most of you know that Ant and I were good friends in college. He's one of the greatest guys I know, and a super talented singer. He'll be in South Florida at Boca Community Church for a concert Sunday night, August 2 if you wanna check him out. He's finishing up with 2 records right now, a solo studio project and a new Christmas album that I can't wait to hear.

Ryan Alexander (Alexander) - I've known Ryan for 7 or 8 years now, and it's incredible how much talent this guy has. I've gotten to work with him, lead worship with him, and I played in his band called "Alexander" for a year or two. He released a record that I got to play on and write some parts for called "White Flags and Silver Spoons Have To Sleep In Separate Rooms" a year or so ago, but recently it just got on iTunes and a couple of the songs have been used as a part of a soundtrack on MTV. Just last night I got a text from him telling me that the song "Sing All You People" was playing on the show Real World:Cancun. Which means that my guitar playing has now been on MTV (sorry mom!). But seriously, Ryan's music declares God's greatness and salvation, and calls us to live lives of justice and mercy. It's incredible that a few of the songs from that record have now played on MTV. He's getting the opportunity to be salt and light in a dark place. Check his music-you won't regret supporting a young artist like him!

Jake Holman- This guy is ridiculously talented. He's leading worship in Cincinnati right now, and late in 2008 released an EP, which you can get on iTunes. I've gotten to play with him and lead worship with him over the last 8 years a number of times, and I can say that he just keeps getting better. Little known fact about Jake-He led worship for a camp in California and the band's name was Campaign. They've done some different CD's with different band members, but the album called "Another Hallelujah" is the one that Jake worked and sang on. It's worth picking up-we do a couple of his arrangements off that record at our church. Great worship leader, great song writer, great friend.

Ocean's Edge Music- this is part of the worship ministry at our church. We started writing a new record last August and we were almost done with the tracks in May when we stopped and began working on a live worship CD. It's coming out on July 24th and it's all songs that we do at Calvary Fort Lauderdale. There are Hillsong tunes, Passion songs, incredible gospel and Latin-influenced cuts and more on it. It's tough to play all those styles well, but our worship team is ridiculously talented and we love to play for God's glory. We hope to get back to the new record soon, but in the meantime, I hope you like the live record. It's gonna be called "Those Who Wait."

Rambling Thoughts

2009-07-15T20:42:00.002-04:00

So I haven't been blogging much....mostly because I don't know what to write. I have a ton of stuff in my mind and in my heart, but I'm not sure what to write. God has given me some amazing verses and He's really been challenging me with certain topics, but sometimes it feels like it cheapens the life lesson to then blog about what God is teaching me.
And even though this blog is titled "Worshipdevotional.blogspot.com" sometimes the stuff I wanna write about isn't worshipy, which makes me feel like this isn't always the place to talk about my son or my grandpa, or politics or whatever. But that's my life, so I suppose I'll have to figure out what is appropriate for now.
I'll write some stuff soon-a lot is on my heart. God is teaching me about having a spirit of thankfulness and gratitude now, and I'm excited that He's stretching me. Thanks for listening to me ramble, and I'll try to write something meaningful soon.

Andrew

A Time for Change

2009-05-14T13:30:00.002-04:00

So it's been a couple months since my last blog post....and so much has happened. It seems that a tornado has hit my life, throwing all sorts of random stuff in the air, and when it all fell to the ground again, my life is completely different.

Before the tornado, my grandpa was here. Now afterwards, I'm learning what it means to lose someone you love to cancer and I'm learning that goodbye is something that never feels right. God never intended us to deal with death and separation. God's choice wasn't ever to take those we love away from us-He is a God of restoration and reconciliation. I have to remember that more often now, reminding myself that God still has so many amazing things waiting on us, things we can't imagine. One change from this tornado is that for the first time I can honestly say that I am looking forward to heaven.

And I know that sounds weird, but on some level I honestly don't grasp being with Jesus forever in a place where there is joy and hope. There's nothing to compare it to, which sort of leaves me guessing. But the fact that I have someone I love already there waiting on me makes me excited! Excited because I know what it's like to be with him, and spend time together hanging out. And when I remember those things and compare it to the fact that heaven will be that but a billion times over, I get excited about going there!

Before the tornado, my sister wasn't married. Eight days after my grandfather's funeral, she married her best friend, which was amazing!

Before the tornado, I was a blissful newlywed. On the same day as my sister's wedding, my wife mentioned to me that we were going to be parents-a baby was on the way! (Um, note to my wife, I'm still a blissful newlywed. Now I'm dealing with the dad-to-be stuff!)

Wow.

Did I mention a tornado hit my world?? :D

Kenneth Kennedy, 1930-2009

2009-03-02T00:47:00.004-05:00

So today was the day. Today my grampa said goodbye to us and hello to Jesus forever. Today was the day he heard, "Well done, good and faithful servant-enter in to the joys of the Lord."

He was a great man-but you've probably never heard of him. He didn't seek fame, power or wealth. He tried with all of his might to live like Jesus would have him live, and if you ask anyone in his family if he did it, we would all shout "YES!" without hesitation.

He finished his race. He ran his course, he kept the faith.

And he ran well. If I could give him a standing ovation today, I would. If I could ask God for anything, it would be for a double portion of his spirit in me. He was a man of discipline, conviction, and prayer. He did justly, loved mercy, and walked humbly with God.

I can't imagine the things he's seeing and doing right now, but I know that he's filled with joy and peace because he's with the God that he loved for the past 67+ years of his life. I can't blame God or really get mad at him, even though He and I have wrestled a lot these past few weeks. God wanted to hang out with Grampa Himself, so He took him home today, to the place Jesus had prepared for him. And now they get to experience face to face what Grampa and God had been doing for the past 67 years!

Grampa is my hero. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and be just like him. And now I'm 30, and I still want to grow up and be just like him. He left the most amazing legacy through all the lives he touched for Christ, and his prayers will resound on this earth for many more years.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done.

I love you, Grampa. Miss you already.

Crazy Pills?

2009-02-26T00:49:00.004-05:00

Am I taking crazy pills, or does everything seem out of control lately?

Our country doesn't make much sense to me.

The politicians spend more than they make (in tax revenue), but now want to run businesses and banks. Businesses that spend more than they make go bankrupt. Politicians that do this want to tell businesses how to conduct themselves to make a profit.

The housing market falls, so we loan money to bail out the banks who just proved that they are more interested in greed than smart lending.

We spend over 1.5 trillion dollars in addition to the cost of 2 wars that we are fighting and in addition to our normal national budget (which is still running a deficit). And then we have a fiscal responsibility summit.

We don't have enough money to do all of this, so we simply print more.

Everyone says we are dependent on fossil fuels, but prices are down and demand is down, so much so that oil refineries are now producing less in hopes of keeping prices higher for us.

The government can't run the DMV well, but we are supposed to believe that they will do a better job with our own health care.

Since our government is broke and bankrupt, they think that now we should overhaul the health care system with taxpayer money, and nationalize the health care system. Although they spent all the taxpayer money and more just a couple sentences ago. This doesn't even seem to be related to an economic crisis, but we are told that it is, and therefore we need to spend more money on it.

The government throws around money like it's nothing, when in fact it is something that you and I give them. So we give the government our tax dollars, they loan them to banks, who then loan that money back to us again with interest?

We don't make enough to pay for what we already owe, and the answer is to spend more?

Crazy pills. I must be taking crazy pills.

Permission to Engage

2009-02-03T12:12:00.004-05:00

You and I are allowed to fight with God.

What's that?

You and I are allowed to fight with God. Or perhaps a more accurate term would be “wrestle.” The reason I phrased it like that is because I believe that Christian culture suggests we are not to question or wrestle with God-we are simply to trust and walk by faith. The problem is that eventually, when events happen that we don't understand, we question God and then feel guilty for doing so.

Disease. Loss of a job. Loss of a loved one.

Why does God allow these things to happen?

We have all heard this question and have struggled to answer it. The true answer is that none of us know why He allows them, even though we know that death and sin are the result of the fall of man. And although the quick answer to those who ask this question is that we should still trust Him, the deeper truth is that we have to wrestle with Him sometimes during this process.

The reason I mention this is that I wrestle with Him too. And I'm not giving you permission to wrestle with God in some twisted logical way to justify my own doubt. I say this because Romans and Genesis seem to allow us the opportunity to wrestle with Him. That permission is found in a name.

If you and I are followers of Christ, Paul tells us in Romans 11 that we as Gentiles have been grafted in as branches in the tree of Israel. We are a part of that promise-we are part of spiritual Israel.

What is Israel? The origins of the term Israel originate in Genesis 32-here we find Abraham's grandson Jacob about to meet again with his brother Esau, and without going into the entire back story, know that Jacob had tricked Esau several years ago, and Jacob wasn't sure how Esau would receive him. Would he be angry? Or had he forgiven Jacob?

The night before they met, the Bible tells us that an Angel of the Lord came and Jacob wrestled with the angel all night. Hosea 12:4 tells us that during the fight Jacob wept and prayed (made supplication). Jacob desired a blessing from God, he wanted God to show him grace-probably to know that everything was going to be OK with his interaction with his brother. Jacob wouldn't quit, give up, or let go until he received a blessing.

As morning approached, the Angel grants him the favor he sought, and changes his name from Jacob (“he supplanteth”) to Israel (“he fights/wrestles with God”). Jacob's response to this is the most telling part of this encounter. Usually when you prevail against someone in a fight the victory shows that you are their superior. And usually when you ask someone for a blessing you are acknowledging that they are your superior. He prevailed in the fight, only to ask for the blessing-not to show his own superiority in strength, but to humble himself and seek the blessing of God.

When daybreak came, the angel left and Jacob was left limping with his hip/thigh out of socket. And then he named the place where they had wrestled Peni-el, which means “the face of God.” He does not name it "the place where I prevailed against God." In the name he says that he saw the face of God and in God's grace he was preserved/allowed to live.

Israel-a name that means he wrestles with God. And according to Romans, we have been grafted into his descendants. We are a part of Israel-they who wrestle with God. And we don't wrestle with Him in order to win. We wrestle only to understand and seek His blessing.

The longer I live, the more I wrestle with God. Not to try to prove myself as righteous or right. But I find myself wrestling to understand. As Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 13:12, right now we see through a glass darkly. Kind of like Jacob did, as he wrestled all night with the Angel of the Lord.

But there is always the promise of the daybreak. The hope that at the end of the fight we would see the face of God and begin to understand. In the New Testament, Paul reminds us of this, in a eerie similarity to Genesis 32.

“For now we see through as glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I Cor. 13:12

You are a part of Israel. And in your name, the name you were given BY GOD, you are allowed to wrestle with Him. Wrestle with Him in such a way so that when you are done, you humbly and continually note His authority and reign. But right now in your trials and wrestling it may feel like the middle of the night with no end in sight. But daybreak's coming.

Daybreak is coming.

reality check

2009-01-31T19:06:00.002-05:00

so i posted on greed yesterday. some of you are wondering what happened, cause to be honest, that one wasn't the post that finishes with the warm fuzzies.

i had my wife read it before i posted it, because i was scared. mostly of being a hypocrite, since i drive an SUV (7 years old) and have a Macbook (actually church-owned).

Speaking about sin is kinda like sticking your head up out of your safe foxhole. When you do it, people start taking shots at you. This may mean I need to get some thicker skin, since I think about this so much. :)

All that being said, I really can't apologize. When I shared this blog, I put "we" in there for a reason. You wouldn't have to look very hard to find greed in me, in all honesty. I didn't write it because of any righteousness in me. I wrote it because it's something I wrestle with. My wife and I want to live within our means. Live debt free. Have some left over to bless others with, even above our tithe.

But our culture, everything around us, tells us something else. And I think we as believers should say so when the kingdom of this world comes against the Kingdom of God.

That's why I wrote about greed. I hope you were challenged, cause I was.

Andrew

Turning green, are we?

2009-01-30T18:44:00.003-05:00

So often we see the effect and spend most of our time combating the symptom rather than the cause. If we have pain, we say we need asprin. If we are broke, we think we simply need to make more money. If we are overweight, we need a pill to be invented to block the fat on the food we eat.

What if instead of fixing the byproduct, we instead addressed the root of the symptom? What should actually happen when we have pain? We need to fix the broken ankle that's causing it instead of covering it up with asprin temporarily. If we are broke, we need to stop spending money on video games, cell phone bills and coffee shops instead of simply getting more work. If we are overweight, most of us should begin to eat differently or exercise more often instead of hoping for a pill to fix the symptom.

You see, no matter what you do in response to the problem, if the action or attitude that caused the symptom never changes, the symptom will always return.

Today?

Bailouts, money, stuff. These are the topics of politicians in Washington, anchors on the 6 pm news, employees at water coolers, and moms at soccer games.

Our problems are mostly symptoms. We have been living in sin for far too long and because of that sin, our present lifestyles are impossible to maintain.

This sin is not isolated to a movement or religion. For believers in the way of Christ, it's a problem of the emergent church and the mainline denominations, the megachurch and the little chapel down the road. It's time we were honest with ourselves and each other and confronted this sin that hounds us at every turn.

Sin? You're saying that this can't be the result of sin, right?

I would submit that it is. There is a sin that has put us in the economic crisis we find ourselves in today. This is the sin that makes us always want that next thing, that nicer outfit, the newer car. It's the sin that made us buy the house we really couldn't afford, and the car that we shouldn't be driving. It's the one that makes us justify the $400 cell phone with the $100+ bill every month.

And until we address the sin issue, we will continue to build an economy that only works if we keep consuming stuff. One that only works if we constantly want new clothes, new computers, new......

You get the point.

And now what happens when we all get nervous and cut back on our spending? Well, people that manufacture the stuff we buy now don't have anyone to consume it. People lose their jobs-unable to pay their bills, they foreclose on the homes. And instead of having savings for the rough times, we find ourselves with closets full of stuff. With storage units, garages and attics full of stuff. It's hard to get rid of your old stuff. Mostly because everyone likes new stuff. It has that smell, you know.

And when it comes to having a bunch of stuff, this time around, everyone got in on the game-Christians and non-Christians alike.

We all wanted to buy more stuff. Not just iPhones and new clothes. Some tried to make a quick buck on a preconstruction investment property that now they can't unload. Some took out equity lines on their home to pay off credit cards that had balances from buying stuff. Others? You can probably list a few examples that I haven't mentioned.

This sin has a simple name. Greed. And what happens when the church struggles with greed? What happens when believers think it's ok to do what the good ol' King James Version calls coveting? What happens when we forget to be salt and light to a bland and dark world?

This.

The Challenge to Change

2009-01-20T11:16:00.004-05:00

Today, I'm sitting at home watching the festivities in Washington, DC wondering what the new administration will bring to the table. Change is something that we all know takes discipline and commitment, and as we all know, those are two characteristics usually not found in politics.

There are many parts of our country that I hope will change. I agree that we all must pitch in to be a part of the solution, rather than the problem. How that happens? Well, I suppose that's the part up for debate.

Let me tell you about one of our friends. Chrissy and I met Gina almost two years ago. Gina was living on the streets and during our friendship she found an apartment and got off the streets. This, of course, was a fantastic step and we were so happy for her!

The interesting part came later as we were talking to her about getting a job (thinking that would be the next step to getting on her feet). As we spoke, she surprisingly didn't want to get a job because she said that she would then make less money. As crazy as that sounds, I found out through questioning her that it was true.

Gina gets a housing allowance, health care and food stamps courtesy of the good taxpayers of our country. She can live without ever getting a job for a long time. For her to get a job and pay taxes to help someone else doesn't cross her mind, because if she gets a job then she must work and she will actually show income, making her lose all her benefits.

For the new administration to ask us all to pitch in sounds fantastic. But Gina probably won't ever pitch in because once she does, she will have a harder time with life. And there are tens of thousands more just like Gina, caught in this weird spot where they aren't going to get a job because they will make less money than if they just don't work at all.

Change we can all believe in? Let's find a way to get everyone to pitch in. Let's find a way to create jobs. Let's find a way to push people to continue to grow and take personal responsibility, rather than rely on the government for their income and benefits. Let's find a way to fix the situation that Gina and so many more find themselves in, helping them to find work so that their taxes help the next guy or girl get back on their feet.

Change take discipline and commitment. Let's hope we all can become greater in our discipline and commitment, first and foremost to Christ and His teachings. At that point, He creates change in us, by the power of His Spirit. And that is change that we can truly believe in. That is where our hope must lie-in the power and person of Christ.

Take Care of Yo' Money

2009-01-12T14:59:00.003-05:00

One of the things I truly believe is that no one else will take care of my money better than myself. Most people just want some of it. I can't really think of very many people who want to help me keep it/keep track of it/reduce debt/etc. And I can't think of anyone who would want to do all of that for free.

The last couple years I've been using Mvelopes, which is budgeting software originally put out by Crown Financial Ministries. The problem is that this software costs somewhere around 8-12 bucks a month. Then I discovered Mint.

Voila!

An incredible web-based software program that will keep all your accounts together and help you see all of them in one place. I have all my accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, and retirement accounts in one place. I can now categorize my expenditures easily to see how much I'm actually spending and where I can save the most money. I can see my retirement account grow (or shrink!) easily, and I can watch my debt go down.

And it's free.

And no, I'm not getting paid to write this, but it's so helpful at watching your money that I had to tell my friends. During these economic times a free program that helps you do this is a treasure.

Maybe Mint.com won't change your life. But like a mirror, it will reveal your (financial) countenance to you in one place, allowing you to respond and get your house in order.

Check it out-let me know what you think!

Good Music

2009-01-11T20:57:00.002-05:00

It's always so cool to see one of my friends who does music come out with a new project, especially when the new record is super good. That's why I have to recommend an EP to you by my friend Jake Holman.

You may not have heard of him, but over the past 6 years he's been leading worship at Liberty University and Hume Lake Camps in California. He also is a worship leader as well as at his home church in Cincinnati, OH. I love his musical creativity so much that we doing a couple of his arrangements of well-known worship songs at Calvary Fort Lauderdale, where I lead worship.

Please check out his new EP on iTunes. It's called "I'm"-you'll love it!

An Atheist on why Africa needs Jesus

2009-01-08T13:49:00.004-05:00

Here's an amazing article you have to read. (Apologies for questionable ads on the page)

Written by an athiest in a London paper, it's his mindset as to why Africa needs Christian missionaries to keep coming and share the way to God with the people.

Just a sample quote:

"Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates."

Jesus has a way of crashing in, bringing salvation and hope even in the darkest of places, doesn't He?

quit or die trying...

2009-01-08T13:37:00.002-05:00

as a musician, sometimes you discover people with such pure natural talent that it makes you want to quit playing music altogether. OR practice your brains out until you annoy your wife, neighbors, family, friends, and perhaps your dog.

this guy blew my mind today. i don't even understand it, but it's amazing.

And yes, I realize that 8.6 million people discovered this before me......

:)

Joining the Masses

2008-11-24T22:52:00.004-05:00

Jesus taught us that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I've decided to listen to that teaching, and instead of watching Youtube videos that others put up, I posted my first two videos. :)

Why? Well, sometimes when I need to learn a difficult song, I'll see if someone else has posted a "how to play it" video on Youtube. I heard this amazingly ridiculous song on Saturday, and couldn't find any instruction on how to play it. It took me about 3 hours total to learn the first 12 seconds of the song, and that's no exaggeration.

So I'm joining the masses who have already posted videos, with my two part instructional video on how to play this song. Hopefully it saves someone else the hours, and they can do something else with that time!

It's called "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," from Martha Munizzi's Christmas album called "When He Came."

Enjoy!

Part One...

Part Two...

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

2008-11-21T08:11:00.004-05:00

Ministry is a humbling experience when you keep your eyes open, and it can be a prideful one when you are blinded. Some days I can feel like I'm all alone and I'm the only one that feels or sees something, and other days I realize that I have done nothing on my own and am only standing where I am because of so many others who walked faithfully before me.

The other night my wife and I were out doing Lovebags, which essentially is a ministry that builds relationships with the homeless through providing for basic needs and sharing Christ in the process. I got out of my car to park it downtown, and as I walked to the parking meter (about 50 ft away), a homeless gentleman I had never seen before came up to me asking for money for food.

As always, I declined to give him cash, but I did offer to give him some food. Chrissy was back in the car getting everything together, and we walked back towards her. The man, who was stumbling drunk, had enough of his wits about him to say to us, "You guys are from that Calvary church, aren't you?"

At that very moment, I realized something. The faithfulness of others had been there long before we had! I hadn't said anything more to him than the fact that we had food in our car to give him. No talk about Jesus, jobs, or anything else. But those who walked before us and had been faithful in representing Jesus to him? The testimony of their faithfulness and the seeds they planted were in this man, bearing witness to Jesus and the church that was ministering in His name.

Chrissy and I weren't the first to share hope and love to this man. We were standing on the shoulders of others.

In the same way, you and I aren't the first to struggle and wrestle with how to live our lives for God. We aren't the first to be tempted to be selfish, the first to go through an economic depression, or the first to walk through a trial. Others have gone before, and some have carried the torch well.

Scripture reminds us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as we run this race. I truly believe some of those witnesses are watching because they still have seeds that they planted and are hoping that we will continue to water them with our obedience to Christ. As they watch, I hope we are found faithful to obey and follow all of Christ's commands.

We are not alone. We are standing on the shoulders of giants.

The Gospel

2008-11-13T23:05:00.002-05:00

If I asked you to give me your description of the Gospel, what would you say it is?

Post your answer in a comment, and let's discuss!

Food for Thought

2008-10-21T15:10:00.003-04:00

To all my friends who find themselves deep into politics this year, some things to consider....

Do we believe that change should happen from the bottom up, not the top down?

Do we believe that morality shouldn't be legislated? Consider that in an election you cannot divorce the candidate's morality from his policies.

Do we believe that we are personally responsible for our lives and our choices, and that government shouldn't make them for us?

I came across some disturbing campaign promises today.

Here Obama promises to a Planned Parenthood audience that his very first act as President will be signing into law the Freedom of Choice Act. This act would abolish bans on partial-birth abortion and parental notification laws nationwide while implementing tax-payer funded abortions.

Instead of taking my word for it, you can hear his comments here.

Whether or not you vote for him is one of the beautiful freedoms of our country. But if you vote for him without knowing what concrete campaign promises he has made to supporters, then in this age of information you have shown yourself to be willfully ignorant.

Further Reading

Article on Freedom of Choice act
FAQ from Planned Parenthood on the FOCA

Pro-life

2008-09-29T13:31:00.003-04:00

Strangely enough, the two most divisive issues, religion and politics, have been colliding recently in our churches and in our newspapers. Here are a few thoughts regarding one of the issues that Christian voters have rallied around in recent years-the term "pro-life."

What does it mean to be for life? Where does it begin, and where does it end? Where is that principle of morality rooted, and how does it shape not only our worldview, philosophy and politics, but also our actions?

Many limit the issue of pro-life to abortion rights or the removal of those rights. As a Christian, it’s simple to look at scripture and see the commandment of not killing-and applying that to an unborn baby. What’s not simple, however, is to take a more comprehensive attitude towards being pro-life: from the womb to the tomb.

Being pro-life affects not only the beginning of life and abortion, but also end of life issues like euthanasia. But what about the many decades of life from birth until the grave? We shouldn’t only be concerned about issues of life when it comes to the beginning and end, but also during the proverbial “dash” in between those two dates.

During the dash, our concern for life should encompass how we see poverty, not only at home but also internationally. It should shape our view of medical care, not only in America, but throughout the world. It should affect our concern for those still enslaved-some by the sex trade, and some by economic policy and unfair trade laws.

For if we say that we are pro-life, we are then bound to carry that principle out to the nth degree. The truth is that we are called to obey more than just one of the 613 commandments found in the Old Testament. Life encompasses more than the taking of it. Life is about what you do and say as you live it. And this is the challenge we are facing as those who bear the name of Christ. For the greatest commandments were to love God with all we have and all we are, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Our philosophy must not be limited to our views on abortion and the sanctity of marriage. Yes, those must be included, for the breakdown of the family leads to the breakdown of society. But we must not be deceived into thinking that a vote for a candidate equals a political change. Nor should we think that if we elect “our” candidate into office, any office, that then we are absolved of personal responsibility to affect change.

No politician can truly love the mother of an unwanted child during her pregnacy. No politician will sit and care for the poor and diseased. No politician will visit those in the hospital or nursing homes to pray with and listen to those who are dying. But Christ will. And He does-but he also expects us to do the same. He expects us not only vote on His Word, but live it out in action during the 2 or 4 or 6 years between elections.

I believe there is a reason that Jesus didn’t call for change in Rome. He expected change to start with us. He didn’t run to the seat of the government and call for legislation to shift morality, he called for us to follow Him. No amount of law from government can return a nation to God-it must begin in our hearts with humility, not with speeches and committees in the halls of power.

Regardless of your vote this year, remember that these principles you are willing to argue and fight over should not only dictate your vote in the booth, but your life throughout the next year or two. Don’t find yourself in the position of arguing for a philosophy that you aren’t willing to live out.

If you want to see the end of abortion, please volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. If you want to see restoration of broken homes, become a foster parent or a marriage counselor at your church. If you want to battle the pains of poverty, help feed or clothe someone. If you want to see better healthcare happen, volunteer at a local free clinic.

Simply put, let’s become doers of the word, and not voters only. For James says if we only listen but don’t do, we are lying to ourselves. If we stand for truth, let us live it out in love, and let the world see what Jesus looks like in action.

Politics and Impressions

2008-08-26T00:17:00.004-04:00

I normally stay away from politics on my blog, but I watched most of the opening of the Democratic National Convention, as well as the forum at Saddleback a couple weeks ago. From what I've studied and read about the candidates, here are my impressions.

1. Politics are more about painting the candidates (and their wives/husbands and children) in a certain light than it is about substance.

The reason I say that is because so often the politicians are polling people so they know what to think. I understand that they are to represent their constituents, but we all hope to nominate someone with backbone and a strong character that we can trust. Most of the time it seems that when they do speak their own mind, then they have to clarify, follow-up, or salvage something from the inevitable media backlash (see McCain's comment on how many homes he owns, or Michelle Obama's comment on her finally being proud of her country).

And sometimes it just seems like it's a big production designed to evoke a response. At times tonight I felt so awkward watching the DNC, not because I don't like them, but because it was such a forced show. Almost everything seemed to be staged-it was like watching a play put on by middle schoolers where they were trying to say their lines, but it wasn't believable. *Sigh*

2. People on both sides of the partisan split are hypocrites.

The Moral Majority/Religious Right spent countless thousands of dollars making sure everyone knew of Bill Clinton's womanizing. But you don't hear hardly a peep from them when it comes to John McCain cheating on his first wife with his present-wife. One month after their divorce, he married Cindy.

And the Democrats for years have stayed away from religion, preferring not to mix faith and politics. Now they are recruiting every young and popular evangelical to take part in their party-and for what purpose? From Shane Claiborne to Cameron Strang, Donald Miller and more, what used to be labeled by the media as extremism (standing up for your religious faith and beliefs) in the Republican party is now acceptable in the Democratic party. As for me, I'm glad that there are Christians in the Democratic party in prominent positions-I just wish they were invited for reasons other than political purposes (they need more votes).

3. I think most people who don't look into the backgrounds of each candidate will end up voting for the person that they would like to be their friend.

I truly believe the general public will tend to pull for the one who they would like to have coffee or play a round of golf with. For them, the election will be based on how winsome the candidate's personality is, instead of the substance of their character. This is just a sad truth of the world we live in. People will spend more time on their email, Myspace, Facebook or Youtube entertaining themselves instead of using this massive wealth of information available to better themselves and their country. Or maybe posting blogs like me....

In all honesty, every government is less than ideal. This is another reason why we long for change, and we long for a leader we can place hope in. Ours is a system where we have to choose between flawed sinful candidates to lead all of us sinful citizens. This is why we all secretly long for another kingdom on this earth. A kingdom where our leader will be trustworthy, loving, just, fair, and true. (Note: this won't happen at the Republican Convention either). It's the Kingdom of God, and all creation groans in anticipation, eagerly awaiting the day it arrives. And the leader will be our King, Jesus Christ.

Summer 2008

2008-08-22T08:17:00.005-04:00

Hey friends,

So a lot has been going on in my life. Good stuff too! I got engaged on June 7, I’m turning 30 in a couple weeks, and getting married 2 weeks after that. I moved out of my townhouse-found a renter for my place, which is amazing. Chrissy and I went to West Virginia for a week to spend time with my family, especially my grandparents who might not be able to make it to our wedding.

Last week I snuck away for 5 days with Pastor Clay and Joey to West Palm Beach-we took a songwriting retreat, and in 5 days we wrote 10 songs together for the next album for the church, which is pretty exciting! The majority of my songwriting has been for artists away from Calvary, so to write worship songs for my church is a great blessing to me. It’s hard to describe the emotions in my spirit when I see and hear our church singing a song that God birthed in my heart, but I know it’s not because of me-it’s something that only He can do. If you only knew some of the terrible junk that I’ve tried to make into a song, you’d understand! :)

I’ve tried to stay up on the writing, but the last month or so has been tough. For the readers out there, I read an incredible book recommended to me by the esteemed New Testament scholar Ben Witherington called “Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes” by Kenneth Bailey. I liked it so much that I’m using it as one of the textbooks for the class I’m teaching this fall at Ocean’s Edge School of Worship .

The school starts orientation next Saturday, and the first semester I’m teaching Biblical Foundations of Worship, which is a narrative overview of the story of scripture. We walk through the Bible chronologically, studying the historical and cultural context and how worship plays a major role throughout. Second semester after Christmas I teach Culture and Worship, which takes a specific approach to music, audience and context. I use “Whatever Happened to Worship” by A.W. Tozer in that class for discussion.

We also launched our worship website at church and I’ve done a few guitar instructional videos as a resource to people who want to develop that part of their gifting. I’m not sure how many are posted, but I recorded 3 this summer which should appear via Youtube and Ocean’s Edge Music soon.

And in the middle of all that mess, I did a kitchen remodel with the help of my parents, Chrissy’s uncle and David Dalholt. New cabinets, counters, sink, (kinda new) appliances, new tile floor…and then I moved out. :( That place looks good!

It’s been a crazy few months, but some great stuff has been happening. And I usually don’t post this stuff in a blog, but I feel bad-I haven’t posted in a couple months. I’m gonna try to post a couple more before I shut down my Myspace and move over to Blogger completely. Please please please keep Chrissy and I in your prayers over the next few weeks. It probably won’t get any less crazy until a month after the wedding, so we need strength and patience!

Also, please remember to lift up my grandpa if you can. He started chemo this week for his cancer-please pray for strength and healing for him. If you ever get to meet my grandparents, they would easily make the list of your favorite people in the world. They are so awesome! Also, please pray that my grandma would be encouraged and that she would have strength to help him during this time. I really appreciate all of you and the prayers that you have said for them already.

Andrew

Safety Drill

2008-05-28T13:59:00.004-04:00

There’s something in our culture that has been ingrained in every American, and it’s the belief that we have a God-given right to security and safety. This is the right that leads us to fight wars on terror and imprison people that want to hurt us.

This is a mentality of a nation, but not of Christ and His teachings. Somehow the two have become mixed in a way that makes Christians think that safety and security is a core fundamental of our faith. What is it in us that declares that Jesus wants us to be safe? Why do we try to mix safety with the gospel?

Something is missing when we claim to believe in a man who was crucified for His teachings but we don’t want to feel unsafe. Something is missing when we claim to believe to be one of His disciples, but we don’t want to live the same life or die the same death that they did. Something is missing when Jesus declared the lack of safety and lack of comforts of His gospel, but yet we still try to have both.

We think of safety when we think of placing our trust in situations and goods that we feel we can believe in. Air bags, front doors, alarm systems, guns……all ways to make us feel safe. Safety is marketed to us in car insurance commercials as they prey upon our fears of car accidents. Safety is marketed to us in alarm commercials as they take advantage of our fears of having someone break into our homes.

Ultimately, no matter how many possessions we have, no matter how much wealth, no matter how much safety we feel, we must acknowledge that as believers in Christ we can only rely on God to protect us. And if He chooses for us the path of suffering, we must trust in Him.

It worries me when believers embrace material goods and comforts and claim that Jesus is ok with it. It worries me when believers brush off clear teachings in scripture because it’s not safe to follow them in today’s world, which suggests that God didn’t know that it wouldn’t be safe to follow His teachings in the 21st century.

How can we follow a Savior who loved so recklessly and lived so differently that He was killed for it, and think that safety is our right as Christians? How can we justify not living our Savior’s teachings in scripture because they are unsafe? Jesus told us that people would know that we were His disciples by our obedience to His teachings, not by our safety. When safety and security are more important than obedience, we have missed the heart of our God.

But no one is talking about this cultural ideal that has mixed with our faith. And Christians spend their time being limited and bound by their fears and their desire for safety that they believe is a God-given right. All the while, they attend church, study the Bible and follow a Savior who declares how unsafe it is to follow God.

Job, Moses, Noah, Jeremiah, Paul, Peter, James, John…..pick a name. Pick a prophet. Pick a saint. Ask them how safe it is.

30,000 Kids a Day, times 2 = ?

2008-05-21T13:30:00.002-04:00

Christians for a long time have defined themselves by what they do not do. For many evangelicals this means that they have come out of a church background that reminds them that they aren’t to drink, smoke, gamble, sleep around, etc. But more often than not, the church has been so busy telling them what they shouldn’t be doing that they haven’t also emphasized those things that they should be acting out.

It comes down to the biblical teaching on sin. There traditionally have been considered two types of sin by theologians throughout church history-sins of commission (acts that go against God’s character) and sins of omission (not acting in a situation where God’s Word would have us act).

For many believers, it’s easy to make sure that we aren’t doing (committing) those things that are sinful. But it makes people uncomfortable to talk to them about the parts of the gospel that they aren’t doing (omitting). No one wants to hear about the things that they aren’t doing well-we all want to hear about the stuff that we have already mastered.

When a church has traditionally been strong on points of righteousness and truth, they have been emphasizing the biblical commandments against commission of sin. Most think of fundamentals and evangelicals in this category, who choose to enter the public and political arena to debate morality in areas of abortion and homosexuality. Like William Wilberforce, who chose to use his life fighting to outlaw slavery, these believers are doing battle to stop the commission of sin in our country.

When a church has traditionally been strong on points of justice and mercy, they have been emphasizing the biblical ideals of acting in a positive way as Christ would in a situation-not omitting the act of love, mercy or justice (yes, this should also include confrontation of sin). Most think of liberals and progressives in this category, main-line churches and denominations that try to do good deeds in the name of Jesus. Like Mother Teresa, who chose to give her life in loving the poor and oppressed in Calcutta, these believers are passionate about the acts that believers should be living out.

This is the testing ground for churches as we move deeper into the 21st century. The question isn’t if your church is cool enough, trendy enough, or if it has great music and media. The question has now become, can you balance the two? Can you be just as concerned about the poor and oppressed as you are about the unborn and the gays? Can you be just as concerned about living a holy life as you are about the AIDS victims in Africa? Because in the end, it isn’t an either/or issue. It’s a both/and issue.

30,000 kids are dying each day from starvation-a completely preventable problem. And 30,000 kids are being aborted on average every day worldwide-a completely preventable problem. And because we are believers who value life-both of these statistics should hurt our heart because of the sanctity of life. Unfortunately, most churches have chosen only one of these problems to care about while ignoring the other. I hope that you will see the injustice in both-the results of the sins of commission and omission.

A teaching on Colossians-from Andrew

2008-04-11T13:02:00.006-04:00

A really cool thing happened this week-I was asked to substitute teach a class on Colossians for one of our pastors who had to go out of town. If you want, you can link to that teaching. The class was about 1:15, so not a short teaching. :>)
Please let me know your thoughts...I know I need to improve.

Text: Colossians 1:24-2:10

The Information Age

2008-04-10T21:32:00.003-04:00

If we would take a moment to look around, we would see that we are in the middle of a period in history where information is being gathered, traded, and esteemed above almost everything else. We consume information at an incredible pace, almost at the point where our comprehension is at an all-time low.

Newspapers, radio, television, Google, Myspace, internet news sites. All places that are dealers of the new drug called ‘information.’ And my fear is that the church has also joined their ranks.

We laud the person who has memorized the longest chapter in the Bible, and ignore the one who is daily carrying their cross and following their Savior. We award those who can recite the 66 books of the Bible in order yet forget the ones who have embraced humility and crucified their pride.

An information overload in the church? It’s the newest sermon series or the newest book from our favorite author. And may I say, it’s the new blog post. These things aren’t bad at all. It’s simply more information about the same message. It would be easy (and hypocritical) to claim that we don’t need more books, blogs or sermons. But the truth is, we need more people to follow the Scriptures that have been taught and revealed for centuries. G.K. Chesterson was right when he wrote “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

I’m concerned that we have simply substituted knowing about something or someone with actual relationship. You can take someone who knows all your favorite things, what you think, what you like, and where you hang out. Inside of a great relationship where there are conversations and time spent together we call that person a best friend. But if that knowledge is gained outside of a relationship we call that person a stalker.

And I’m afraid that many of us are turning into God-stalkers. Doing, serving, attending, learning and knowing. These aren’t bad, but without a relationship they are meaningless. Relationships are two way streets that involve both people getting to know each other and that includes shared memories and inside jokes.

This is the crossroads we discover in Luke 13. Jesus is teaching about the narrow way and He teaches us that when the Master closes the door so that no one else may enter, those who are knocking are claiming that they have eaten in His presence and listened to His teachings. And His answer is one of the more sober phrases in the Gospels-

“I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity. (Luke 13:27)”

Did you notice that the question isn’t how well we know Him? His gauge is how well He knows us, which can only be measured by time spent together. And in the information age, time is a precious commodity because we spend most of our time consuming information. And we follow a Savior that in His omniscience knows all the information that ever has existed, yet values a relationship with us above all else.

Will we do the same and value our relationship with Him above all else? Can He say that He knows us?

Jesus Ain't Yo' Boyfriend!

2008-03-18T09:26:00.003-04:00

A culture of faith that is weighted primarily towards the emphasis of the individual usually leads to a higher view of the individual and a lower view of God. The individual is actually misled because he or she is removed from the context in which they were intended to function.

Many of the terms that the New Testament uses to describe Christ’s relationship to us are plural, rather than singular. The idea of an individual relationship with God was non-existent in Jewish culture prior to Christ. And even to this day, this is one of the central problems that many faithful Jews have with Christians. Before orthodox Jews can read the scriptures or pray publicly, they must have a group of ten gathered (a minyan). In their relationship with God, there is still an overwhelming sense of the individual’s context in community.

We who follow Jesus are described by scripture in corporate terms such as the ‘Body’ or the ‘Bride’ of Christ (Romans 12, I Cor. 12, Revelation 19), and there are many promises from Christ to the corporate Body. But what is true for the whole may not be accurate to describe the part. When you hear of a couple who are in love and are planning on getting married, you don’t hear the man describe how captivated he is with the cell that is found in the lower tibia of his bride-to-be. Instead you hear of his love for all of her-for the whole. The cell of the tibia gets to be a part of the love of the bridegroom because it is a part of the whole body.

You and I are merely individual cells in the worldwide body of Christ. We have a part to play and a function inside the body, but I am not the body, I am merely a part of the body. A cell is nothing but useless if it is cut off from its supply of oxygen, waste removal, blood and food. But inside an organ, each cell performs a valuable part of a function that keeps the body healthy. This is our context; this is where we find ourselves described in New Testament terms.

Somehow we have lost our context. Somehow we have been led to believe that Jesus can be described as a “boyfriend” by a single Christian sister. Somehow we have romanticized the Love of Christ into filling a void and taking a role that Jesus never promised to fulfill. He declared that He loved the Body. The Body of Christ, which is a plurality of all, is who He is returning to rescue. The Marriage Supper isn’t for me, it is for the Bride, and I am merely a cell in the Body of His Bride. I am loved by Him, and I am saved by Him, but I need to remember my context.

I say this because our Christian sub-culture has been packaging Jesus in ways that Scripture never describes. There is reason to be concerned when Jesus, who was poor and homeless as he ministered here on the earth, becomes a Savior who promises us financial gain. There is reason to be concerned when we ignore our greed and covetousness while we judge others for shortcomings that fall in other areas. Something inside us should be shaken to the core when we as a corporate church declare the sanctity of life for the unborn but forget to care for that same life once the person is born.

Jesus doesn’t merely have a personal relationship with us. He also has a corporate relationship with His people. Everything is corporate with God; the individual is always part of the greater group. God didn’t create a planet, he created solar systems. God didn’t create a species, He fashioned entire ecosystems. Even God is triune, in community with Himself. Sometimes we forget and focus on only one aspect of the Trinity, just as we forget and focus only on “Jesus and me.” By focusing too heavily on the individual, we miss the value in the holiness of corporate relationship with our God.

When we think it’s “just me and God,” we must remember the prophet that tried to pull that line on his God (I Kings 19, Romans 11:2-5). As Elijah lamented that he was the only one who was left to truly follow, God rebuked him and put him in his place. God declared that there were seven thousand others in Israel that hadn’t worshiped another god, in order to teach Elisha that he was part of the corporate. God dealt with Elisha as an individual, but Elisha had forgotten his part in the Body.

If you have forgotten your part in the community relationship that God has with His people, I implore you to repent of your pride and embrace all those who are serving, worshiping and following Christ. These are your brothers and sisters, and by forgetting God’s relationship with them as well, you have lifted yourself up above them. Rather, consider others higher than yourself, and serve one another. And then you will rejoice in your relationship with God through the Body, knowing that in some way you will be part of the promise. When Christ is seen as Savior, it’s hard for any individual to claim Him as boyfriend. The corporate is the context.

Stop the "Me" Monster

2008-03-10T10:13:00.001-04:00

The world revolves around “me.” Not us, not we, but me. The idea of individualism has so invaded our society and cultures that we all do our best to have our own unique stamp that describes us. We all have our own internet pages (Facebook, Myspace, blogs, Xanga, whatever). And sites like Myspace will let you list your own “Favs” for bands, movies, books and more! Your individualism is boosted by the originality and obscurity of your choices.

I know people who will scour the internet for hours, listening to all kinds of music to find the next indie band before they hit the radar. But as soon as that band hits it big, then they are off looking for the next obscure band to discover before everyone else does. They want to be creative as individuals because there’s a cultural tendency to vilify the corporate and conglomerate (often for good reasons) as bad, and the small, artsy and individual as better.

Biblically, there are so many reasons to see ourselves loved by God as individuals. He has created each of us with our own unique stamp-not of movies, music and books, but a stamp of DNA where our own code is written on the nucleus of each cell. He reveals His majesty and His creativity in the variety of His creation. Millions upon millions of different species walk, crawl, swim and roam this earth and declare His glory.

But the Bible also reveals another way that God deals with us, and that is corporately, or as a group. Jesus spoke to groups of people in a way that seemingly painted all those who qualified with a broad brush. It seems that Christ knew that all those who were of that particular group in a society tended to have the same patterns and weaknesses. He spoke of the difficulty of the rich to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25). He spoke to all the Pharisees and warned them as a group (Matthew 23).

We also see that in the final book of the Bible, there are seven letters written to seven churches, not seven individuals. Jesus has John write down these letters to warn the churches of their corporate attitudes, successes and weaknesses. He was treating them as a corporate group, not only as individuals.

God also makes His covenants with groups of people. The covenants He made with Noah (Gen 9) and Abraham (Gen 15, 17) are still extended to us today. These were covenants God made with His children corporately, and this pattern is continued the Sinai desert when God makes His covenant with Israel as a nation. And when Jesus declares the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He preaches it to all the apostles gathered there. It’s important to note that individually we choose to surrender to Christ, but it’s corporately that we are united in Him.

For too long we have talked, preached and discussed our individual relationships with Christ and ignored our bond together as the Body and Bride of Christ. Alone, by myself, I am not His Body and Bride. It is only as part of the corporate Body of Christ that I am part of the promise-according to Romans I have been grafted into the tree of Israel as a branch-which only works if the branch is a part of the entire tree (Romans 11).

To continue to focus on how much God loves me as an individual is important. But to ignore the ideas in scripture that I am to be a part of the corporate Body leads to many of the problems that the church is currently dealing with. This is an incomplete and unhealthy view of scripture. And if we understand that in Revelation Jesus was writing a letter to a church, if He wrote our church a letter we would be included as a part of the problem. We cannot do what we often want to do, which is distance ourselves from the weaknesses of the church while embracing the strengths.

Through my next few blogs, we’ll discuss some of the repercussions of an individualistic culture of Christianity (which is itself an oxymoron). I’ve been working on a book, so lately all my writing as gone towards that direction. Thanks for coming back.

andrew

A Christian's Prayer for the New Year

2008-01-20T09:43:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers, Dr. Ben Witherington (a professor at Asbury Seminary), posted a prayer for the New Year. Not only is it incredibly humbling and challenging in and of itself, it also forces us to look at how we are living out our faith in the 21st century. A little food for thought.....

Christians and Materialism

2007-12-26T17:39:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I post a link, just so people believe me. There's so much to say about this news article, but all I will say is this:

11 million children die each year of hunger and preventable/treatable causes while Christians buy Jesus action figures of our Savior wearing a crown of thorns and doing things like surfing or bull riding.

Makes you think, doesn't it? Are we, as the worldwide body of Christ, heading in the right direction?

The Best Christmas Lyrics

2007-12-19T12:20:00.001-05:00

As a worship leader, the Christmas season is incredibly difficult to choose music for. It's tough for me to connect with God when I lead traditional carols, where we sing lines such as "Sleep in Heavenly Peace" or "the cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes."

I realize it's part of the telling of the story-I really do. It's just hard to worship to it. And that's probably just my view, but I find it tough. Do I sing about how clear it was at midnight, do I sing a song about the wise men, do I focus on how quiet the night was?

It's hard to connect the dots sometimes from a newborn baby to His perfect life and ultimate destiny. It's hard to find a song that reminds us of the importance of the incarnation of God.

But I'd love to hear from you about your favorite Christmas lyics (about Jesus please!). Bob, this probably isn't the time to post "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"' lyrics, no matter how awesomely deep that guy's voice is (Thurle Ravenscroft is his name-FYI).

Here's my favorite lyric. This is the only verse from a Christmas song that I've heard sung and actually been moved in my heart of the greatness of the incarnation of Christ. It's the third verse of "O Holy Night."

"Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love, and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name
Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim."

Just a good reminder during this crazy season. He came for this and so much more.

Please Discuss!

2007-12-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

I sometimes run across really really good quotes. Not all of them do I agree with, but I love the ones that make me think. Unfortunately, when I post them it doesn't lead to any discussion.

Let's try this.

In the comments, post your thoughts on this quote. Do you think its true/false? I might play devil's advocate on this one, but I love having these kinds of discussions with my friends. Check this quote out:

"An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body, and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse…"

This quote was attributed online to E. Stanley Jones, a great missionary to India. Let's assume that the individual gospel has to do with you loving God, and a social gospel is you loving your neighbor (the two greatest commandments).

Can these two commandments be divorced from one another? I think that's what the author is saying. If we divorce the two, then neither one leads to salvation/eternal life. What do you think?

Discuss!

Even Professional Models Get Airbrushed

2007-12-06T16:21:00.000-05:00

We love perfection, don't we? We are always looking for it wherever we go. And one of the facts about church we have difficulty with is that there isn't a perfect church. Every church is made up of imperfect people, which leads (obviously) to a church that is imperfect.

If we understand that scripture sees the church as a body of people who are trying to learn more about Jesus and become like Him in their love and actions, words and character, then we logically realize that they aren't there yet. On the inside they are dirty, ugly and imperfect. Which means the church is dirty, ugly and imperfect.

Do you think you are frustrated? Well have you gotten to the point where you call your church a whore?

Some of you just said yes. Some probably have said worse.

According to Augustine (354-430 AD), he was so frustrated with the church that he called her a whore. "The church is a whore, but she is my mother." The body that birthed his faith and taught him the ways of God was so imperfect that he compared her to a prostitute-an unfaithful woman who follows every whim and fancy.

But the unfortunate fact is that you are the church. I am the church. It's not some organization or institution. It's a bunch of imperfect people trying to learn to be more like Jesus. And that means that you and I "might" be part of the problem.

Do you remember when Jesus talked about sin, and compared it to a speck of sawdust in someone else's eye while in our own eye is a 2 x 4? The story still applies to us. Ask yourself, before you complain about the flaws of the church-do you have ways that you personally could grow? Is this a situation where Jesus would say to you, "He who is without sin can cast the first stone?"

Let's be honest. Some churches need to be better and more thorough in preaching holiness of character and integrity in order to be like Christ. Some churches need to be better at teaching justice, others need to preach more mercy. And the list goes on and on…..

But some of us get caught up in chasing the wind, looking for the perfect church. We'll throw stones and declare the many shortcomings of this or that church, and how this other church is better, but that's only a temporary illusion.

It's like chasing the perfect mate. They don't exist.

Even professional models get airbrushed.

But we continue to search for the perfection that doesn't exist. Instead of "church," let's substitute our romantic relationships. When push comes to shove, you will usually find yourself frustrated with a shortcoming or weakness in someone, so if you are dating, you might begin to look elsewhere for someone who is strong in that area. But what we forget to tell ourselves is that the new person/church who has strength in that area also has weaknesses in other areas.

Perfection is a temporary illusion.

This is why scripture continually tells us to get our eyes off our circumstances and other people to keep them fixed on Christ. His perfection isn't an illusion, it's a reality. And in light of His holiness and purity, we should be more convicted of our own shortcomings. And with our eyes fixed on Christ, it is difficult to get caught up in the way others aren't like Him, when we see our own sin.

Of course, we are forgiven and made righteous. But we still need to grow, would you agree? Is that true for that brother or sister in the faith that you are annoyed and frustrated with? Is that true for that pastor you don't like? Aren't they also forgiven and made righteous?

So let us strive to become more like Christ, and lead by example. If you wish your church would minister to the poor more, then you go out and do it. And then invite others. Don't wait on your church. Be the church. Be the body of Christ. You are the minister of the gospel, the priest of God according to the scriptures (I Peter 2:9). If you know the right thing to do, even if no one else joins you, will you still obey?

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is John 21. At the end of that chapter, Peter is given his marching orders from Jesus, and he knows what he is supposed to do. At that point, Peter suddenly gets really interested in what John is going to do. He asks Jesus, "What about him?"

Jesus has a classic reply. He says to Peter, "What is that to you? You follow me." In other words, stop being so concerned about what someone else is doing and be obedient to what you know you are called by God to do.

It may be that when we get our eyes fixed on imperfections and shortcomings in others, whether it's an individual or a ministry, in our pride we forget about our own imperfections. And when we concern ourselves with what other people are or aren't doing, Jesus still asks us the same question.

What is that to you? You follow me.

Mark Driscoll-Listen to this!

2007-11-29T18:53:00.000-05:00

If you like Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA), he's got a fantastic teaching from October that you gotta hear. Download an mp3 of it here.

Some of his books include

"Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church"

and "The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out without Selling Out"

You can check out his blog online at http://www.theresurgence.com/md_blog

Blessings!

-drew

Rob Bell- “The Gods Aren’t Angry Tour”

2007-11-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

Last night I attended the Orlando stop of Rob Bell’s latest speaking tour. I have enjoyed his first 2 books, and I regularly listen to his podcast, so I was anticipating hearing him speak in person for the first time. I was, however, determined to listen carefully and do my best to discern what he was saying and compare that message to what I know scripture to teach.

I do that for a couple reasons. First, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to someone speak about God and agreed with 100% of everything the speaker or preacher said, so I enjoy listening in a way that makes me think. And Rob Bell does make me think about my faith, so I was looking forward to that. Secondly, enough people that I trust and respect have expressed caution about some of the doctrinal beliefs that Rob puts forth, so I wanted to think and hear for myself and see what God revealed to me. I’ll share what he spoke about, and then I’ll end each section with my problems (biblically) with what he said. My thoughts are in bold.

He spoke from a stage that wasn’t decorated or lit, save for the large pseudo-stone altar in the center. This was the lone prop, and it was probably 7 or 8 feet long per side, and around 3 feet tall with stairs leading up both sides. This prop was obviously going to be central to what was spoken about.

He began with a story about a cavewoman who discovers the life cycle of a plant in relation to the ‘ball of fire’ (sun) and the water that falls from the sky. And then the ball of light at night (moon) and it’s correlation to her female cycle in length. He was basically speaking of the ‘forces’ that seem to be so high above us and how early humans interpreted those forces. He continued the story with a caveman and his hunting adventures, and the idea that the success of the hunt was somehow linked to a spirit.

The logic he presented was that man somehow, through primeval feelings of guilt, shame, worry, and stress, began on their own this belief system of the forces being representations of gods that were either pleased or angry, depending on the success of man. This logic progressed through the forces being labeled as gods, who then needed offerings of the crops or the livestock to be appeased, and then places for the sacrifices for those gods began becoming centralized (altars and high places), leading to the ritual of regular sacrifices to keep the gods from getting angry.

Depending on the god or goddess you were trying to keep happy, you could be offering anything from crops to herds, or even cutting yourself or sacrificing your children. The problem with this whole system, he stated, was that it was never ending. You never knew where you stood with the gods-they were aloof and not interactive with humans.

It’s at this point that he brings in the first biblical text of Genesis 12, where God (Yahweh) speaks to Abraham, who was in the midst of the Sumerian culture of all these gods and goddesses. He claimed that this was a turning point in human history, and his claim was based on his ‘fact’ that for the first time a god spoke in an intimate way with a human and wanted to have a relationship with them.

I found myself having 2 main problems with the premises he was putting forth in this part of the talk. First was his premise that man discovered religion and created it on his own, and somehow came up with these ideas of sacrifices and offerings on his own, instead of it being something that was originally set up by God, revealed by Him.

My second problem was that he absolutely ignores God’s involvement in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. He claims that Genesis 12 was the first time that God has an intimate relationship with a human and actually steps into the space and time that man inhabits. This seems to fly directly in the face of a God who creates the world purposefully and places man in the midst of this creation (Gen. 1-3). This also ignores God’s intimate relationship with man any earlier than Abraham, such as Adam, Cain, Enoch, and Noah. Instead of suggesting that these religions were perversions of what God originally intended, he concludes that religion was started by man, and after the system got messed up, then God steps in. I suppose that he has forgotten the blood sacrifice that God makes on Adam and Eve’s behalf (Gen. 3:21), or the offerings (grain and blood) that Cain and Abel made to God (Gen. 4:4-5). I suppose he also has forgotten about God having intimate relationship with men before Abraham. He spoke with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8-22), Cain and Abel (4:6-15), and had a close relationship with Enoch (Gen. 5:24), and Noah (Gen. 6:9-13). But, back to the story……

Bell states that in Genesis 12, God calls Abraham out of the Sumerian culture (out of his father’s household) and to a new land. Then in Gen. 14, God uses the stars as an analogy of how numerous Abraham’s descendants will be. He states that this is divine sarcasm, since stars in ancient cultures usually represented the gods, and this God uses them as a comparison to children.

Then he continues to Gen. 22, where Abraham is asked by God to offer his only son, which Bell declared to be absolutely normal for someone who grew up in a culture where the gods were so demanding that often they would ask you to sacrifice what is most important to you, which often was a child. He did fail to mention what he had just used to make a point 5 minutes earlier, which was the fact that this God had called Abraham out of that culture and asked him to leave it all behind.

Of course, Bell continued on and spoke of the drama of Abraham offering Isaac, and then just at the last minute, God stops his hand and provides a ram for the offering. One thing that I did enjoy was that Bell did draw more attention to God at this point in the story than most do. As he stated, most people praise Abraham and his faith and devotion to offer even his only son, but what was really incredible was that the deity (God) provided a sacrifice Himself. I love when we do everything we can to bring more attention to God instead of man, so I’m glad he took this angle.

But at this point, he said a phrase, which I found troubling as well. At the end of this drama, which God allows to carry out to the last minute before He steps in, he said that this God had an attitude that no deity had ever seemed to have before. Instead of the deity always wanting the humans to bless them, for the first time a deity wanted to bless humans.

I do understand that God was interested in a relationship with Abraham, and that through a covenant (of a blood sacrifice-Gen. 15, which God demanded) and another covenant (of circumcision and blood-Gen. 17), God was interested in blessing Abraham. But it wasn’t only the deity wanting to bless man. It was a two way street-this was the covenant-humans did have to keep their part to keep the deity happy (see Gen. 17:9 ff). But God had been interested in blessing men before this, which seemed to be why He showed grace and mercy on Noah and his family, saving them from destruction (Gen. 6-7).

At this point, Rob begins the journey through the Hebrew Scriptures and their altars and sacrifices. He spoke of the 5 types of sacrifices in Leviticus, and then ties that into the sacrificial system in the Temple.

This system became corrupted, and the Sadducees (who he stated were temple workers, priests and Levites, who got to keep a portion of the sacrifices, thereby making them wealthy) created a military-industrial complex where their wealth was linked to the sacrificial system continuing as it always had. And it was into this scenario that Jesus was born.

Jesus came into the Temple and declared, with all this as the backdrop, that there is one greater than the Temple. He also declared that if you destroyed this temple, in three days it would be raised up again. This, of course, threatened the entire system and the wealth of the Sadducees, so they killed him.

And because Jesus had spoken of this new way of life, this new way of having a relationship with God, one that according to Bell was peaceful and actually was contrary to the violence and bloodshed that the previous system was based upon, Jesus had to be a pacifist throughout the end of his life. This was why He never fought back, and which is why Jesus told Peter to put away His sword, because according to Bell, if at any time Jesus resorted to fighting back or violence, then how was His way different from the old violent way?

I would like to interrupt to remind the reader of Jesus speaking out and fighting back in a very open way of the corruption of the Temple. He was angry and pushed over tables, but of course never sinned in that anger. I don’t know if Bell would say that this was non-violent since there was no blood in the destruction of personal property, but I would love to ask him that question.

This is the point in the talk where Bell finally stood on the altar prop on stage (the only time during the night that he stood on top of it-all other times he only walked around it or up the stairs). He declared the moment that Jesus died on the cross as the “culmination of the ages” and it was at this point that God stopped all the bloodshed. All the animals that were being sacrificed in the religious systems, all the rituals, those were all done.

He began stating the primeval feelings that humans had battled since the ancient times, these feelings of guilt and shame, worry and stress. Today these same problems have new names. He shared a story about a girl who cut herself because she said her dad hated here, and that was how she dealt with the pain. He shared a story about a young man who tried to commit suicide by throwing a toaster into a hot tub after he slashed his wrists-all this despair was because of gambling debts. He also told a story about the Masi tribe in Africa, and how their community had expelled someone for doing something wrong, and that person had to live on the fringes of the village because the Masi didn’t have anything in their culture that would allow that person to be redeemed, to make peace with the tribe.

At this point, Rob jumped to Hebrews and began sharing how Jesus’ death was the final sacrifice. That God provided a sacrifice once again (an allusion to Gen. 22) to make peace. He began speaking of the blood that had been shed by all these animal sacrifices as unnecessary-that these weren’t for God, but for men, to appease their conscience. He used Psalm 50:7-15, Micah 6:6-8 to show us that even in the Old Testament, the blood was for us more than it was for God.

I would like to interrupt just to state that humans didn’t come up with the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, God had set it up (as Bell had said in Leviticus). And although there are places in the Old Testament (such as Micah 6 and Psalm 50) where God tells us that He doesn’t need a bunch of dead animals, we are leaving out the part where God set up this system Himself as a covenant. The sacrifices were a sign that man was interested in keeping his part of the covenant and blessing God. It’s not only about the deity blessing the humans, as Bell had previously stated. He unfortunately didn’t speak of Heb. 9:18-22, where the blood was necessary to keep the covenant and that sins aren’t forgiven without the shedding of blood.

But what he said, although incomplete, is true. Heb. 10:11 reminds us that these animal sacrifices can’t take away sins. They were only to keep the covenant with God, and those blood sacrifices were to be a shadow of the perfect sacrifice to come (Heb. 10:1).

Then he began his own personal definition of repentance. Although I couldn’t copy it down verbatim, it was along this principle: repentance is realizing the truth of the once for all perfect sacrifice of Jesus, and realigning your life to reveal that truth. And then he spoke of these rituals we now do, of which he suggested church attendance also was. And he surmised that the main point of the ritual should be to remind you of the reconciliation that happened at the culmination of the ages, which is a fancy way of saying that when believers gather, it should be to celebrate and remember the peace that Christ made on our behalf through the cross.

He began the closing with the need for us to reappropriate the imagery of the altar and the sacrifices. He suggested that no longer do we offer blood sacrifices, but now we do good works for others, living out this truth for the world to see. This is the evidence of Jesus’ new way of life in us. And as he closed, he gave several examples of what that looks like. The music began to swell in volume, he repeated some key lines of the stories of good works and the forgiveness of Jesus, and the night was over.

My overriding thought of the night was that Rob didn’t talk about a couple of the key plot points of the human story. He didn’t talk about the sinfulness of man, and therefore the wrath of God. He did talk about the death of Christ, but not in the way that we know is spoken of in the New Testament. The truth is, God was angry. God is a God of justice, and justice demands payment for wrongdoing. God, as He did in Genesis 22, provides the sacrifice in His only Son, and pours out His wrath upon Jesus. This is what Romans speaks of when it talks about Christ being the propitiation for our sins. Rob loves to say the phrase “Love Wins,” but fails to speak of the great love of Christ for us. I John 4:7-11 tells us that Love did win, and that His love was so great because He died for our sins. Rob only mentioned the word ‘sin’ once the whole night, and it was in a story he was repeating that Brennan Manning put in a book. However, Bell repeatedly stated that the problems that humans struggle with were primeval feelings of guilt, shame, worry and stress. Unfortunately he did not correctly point out that these feelings are the effects of a root cause-our own sinfulness. He stated that sacrifices were our own way of trying to make those feelings go away, which is like the doctor numbing the pain without stopping the blood gushing from an amputated arm.

Did Bell preach Jesus, and His death as the only way to heaven? Absolutely. Did he correctly state the reason Jesus died was because of our sinfulness and because God’s wrath had to be satisfied? I would say probably not. Heb. 9:15 reminds us that Christ died to set (us) free from the penalty of sins (we) had committed. And later in verse 26, Hebrews states that He came once for all time, to remove the power of sin forever by his sacrificial death for us.

For now I will hope the best in Rob, and I will try to give him the benefit of the doubt in much of this. I know that in 90 minutes, no one can truly be completely thorough in biblical doctrine, so I will hope the best in my brother, and believe that he didn’t have enough time to delve into the problem of sin. No matter what, the cross was preached, and Christ crucified as the way to reconciliation with God. And I have no choice but to echo Paul’s words in Phillipians 1:15-18, that as long as the message about Christ is being preached, I will rejoice!

Clear as Mud

2007-11-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

For those who are hearing much about terms in Christianity such as "Emerging" or "Emergent," I would encourage you to do some research and find out what is being discussed.

A great starting point if you have iTunes would be Mark Driscoll's vodcast from the Desiring God 2006 Conference entitled "Emerging vs. Emergent."

The labels are confusing, and as believers, we must walk wisely. Before we starting throwing names and labels and things we aren't sure of or things we fear, as believers we should represent Christ wisely and seek understanding and wisdom so that we can discern.

Quote of the Day

2007-11-09T16:04:00.000-05:00

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

Soren Kierkegaard

A Rest Stop

2007-11-08T11:45:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. The Sabbath. The 7th day. The day of rest. What a great idea God. And thank you, Jewish friends, for teaching us how to keep the Sabbath. We really enjoy our day of rest.

What’s that?

I’m sorry, it seemed like I heard you say something about not taking a Sabbath. Of course, because we are believers, we follow the 10 commandments. We don’t kill or steal, or break the Sabbath. And since Jesus also observed a day of rest each week, we follow in His footsteps, right?

No? Well honestly, I have a hard time too.

When I was growing up, my parents took Sunday and that was the Lord’s Day. We weren’t to work (except for cooking the lunch meal after church and cleaning up after). Can’t clean the house; dust the shelves under my bed, no mowing or raking leaves. Don’t work on the car or sweep the front porch-it’s the Lord’s Day.

Well, what did we do? We went to church and worshiped as a family. We ate lunch as a family. And we spent all afternoon as a family. I remember with great fondness our Sunday afternoons, reading the comics in the living room while my dad and mom read the paper. I remember taking a Sunday afternoon nap. I remember my dad wrestling with my sisters and me when we were young, or shooting basketball out back with me when I was older. And then we went to church again on Sunday night, because that’s what we did. It was a day where my mom’s family would all gather at my grandparents’ house, either in the afternoon or after the Sunday night service, Grandma would put out some serious snacks and the adults would talk and the kids would play.

What was the result of all that time spent hanging and talking on the Sabbath? What was with all that resting and napping?

The idea and the deeper principle behind the Sabbath was that God designed us for relationship. That’s the underlying idea of the day of rest. Let me explain.

If you lived before 2 of the greatest technological moments of all time (the printing press and the harnessing of electricity), what did the Sabbath mean? You couldn’t really read a book or watch TV. Couldn’t play video games or drive your car somewhere to get away. What did you do?

You took a day to work on relationship.

What am I talking about? Well, we as humans are wired from early in the story of Genesis for 2 things. Tasks and relationships. Some of us are wired more for tasks. Those are the logical, “we love lists,” task-oriented types of people. These are the people that seem to hold it all together. These are the really amazing office managers and personal assistants. They can’t wait to make a list and then cross each item and task off after it is completed. It’s like scoring a winning touchdown each time we take a pen and cross out something we accomplished! Those people live for that stuff.

But if they were honest with themselves, they would admit that they wish they had more time to build better relationships. They don’t talk to those they care about enough. They have a clean house and a detailed car, but they wish they had more time to spend hanging with those they love. Maybe just making some new friends.

Others of us are wired more for relationship. We can’t live without being around other people. We hate being alone. Well, that or we just can’t seem to find alone time because everyone wants a piece of our time. We just wish that there could be some chill time somewhere in there! Some time to just relax, quiet our lives and hearts, maybe catch up on a book we want to read or just to spend some time with God.

Thus the Sabbath.

God chose to set aside a day on a regular basis and He asked His people to remove these other things that tend to occupy their time. He asked for no work on that day-so those of us who are task-oriented would have to chill out. And He wants us to keep that day “holy,” which means ‘set aside’ for resting. Set aside for that thing we aren’t doing really well. Set aside to spend with Him.

Imagine 800 years ago, if you observed a day of rest. What would you do all day? We are talking pre-electricity, before the printing press. In our eyes, there’s really nothing to do, except hang out with your family and friends. What kind of community did this develop? What kind of conversations did this bring about? No one had any meetings or appointments to run off to. No one had something better to do. They didn’t have to make a call, or send a text message. They rested from all of that, and they got to just hang out all day.

With each other.

Israel as a nation had the Sabbath throughout the Old Testament; although at times they walked away from observing it. But while they kept it, I wonder, what wisdom did the older and wiser family members impart that day? What stories were passed on to the next generation? Did they laugh together as they remembered what had happened that week? What did they talk about?

The flip side of that....we know that part of the Sabbath had to do with spending time in worship and prayer with God. Resting in Him, in His goodness. It wasn’t just a time to develop relationships with each other. It was a time to spend in corporate relationship with God, for they were His chosen people and He was their God.

Those of us who are task-oriented? We need a chance to rest from our checklists and work on our friendships and relationships. We need to get a break from busyness and realize that our worth isn’t found in how much we get done and accomplish, but in the love we have for one another and God. We need a Sabbath.

Those of us who are built to be magnetized to people? We crave a chance to stop the pattern of needing people around us or having people need us. We have to get a break from busyness and realize that our worth isn’t found in how many friends we have or how many people know our names. We have to get a break to be quiet and take a chunk of time to be with the God we love, and who loves us very much.

The day of rest-the Sabbath. Set up by God for all His people to do together, in community. Not to isolate themselves and be loners, but to build relationships with each other and with Him.

Paul is pretty clear in the New Testament about the fact that a certain day isn’t more holy than others. And it’s also clear that as the Gospel spread outside of the Jewish culture and into other nations and tribes, the day of rest that was a commandment under the Law was no longer required. But the underlying principle of rest is still valid and beneficial-we aren’t to keep the letter of the Law, but instead the Spirit of the Law.

In our busy Western society, where we are so overcommitted and busy that we can’t seem to slow down, this may be just what we need. Let’s return to the pattern God set up for us-let us return to community and to conversation, consecrating a day to spend time with Him and each other. It doesn’t have to be every week, or always be the same day. But take a Sabbath. Take it with some people you love. Don’t email, IM, text, Facebook or Myspace.

Call your parents.
Talk to your friends.
Play with your kids.
Start that book.
Kiss your spouse.
Read the paper.
Spend time with God.

And when you get to hang with Him, tell Him how awesome His idea of a Sabbath really is. And praise Him for it.

Love

2007-09-26T19:58:00.001-04:00

The thing we are called to do, if we say we want to follow what Jesus says to do, is to build and have healthy and holy relationships.

Sometimes that's the last thing we find ourselves pouring our lives into. What do I mean?
I'm a news junkie. I visit probably 6 or 7 sites a day to read headlines and stories from around the world. Recently there has been a number of news articles that show that many people would rather be isolated, doing things by themselves, rather than be with others.

One was that married people would rather give up intimate times with their spouse rather than give up the internet.

Another was that most spend more time watching TV/surfing the net/playing video games by themselves instead of spending time with others.

So I titled this "love"-because what is happening is we are walking away from love. Walking away from relationship. We are running full speed towards isolating ourselves from others and spending time being incredibly selfish doing things we want to do, by ourselves.

Maybe I'm talking mostly to other single people. Maybe. But I think love is shown by relationships. Friendships, parents, kids, loved ones. Are you spending huge amounts of time online? Playing video games? What are you sacrificing in order to find time to do all that?
Sleep? Food? Or is it your relationships with others............

It's not that any of those things are evil. It's that when stuff is out of balance, we miss out on love. We miss out on opportunities to learn from each other and grow in love and community.
At this point do I say "Love others?" Love your neighbor? Love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Maybe it's time to say, make sure you around in community and around people and enviroments that build love. Hebrews says that we are to encourage one another daily, as long as it is still called today, lest we become hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Some of us have become hardened in a way, where we would rather give up a friendship than our myspace. We would rather miss out on family time than give up Facebook. We'd rather be by ourselves playing Halo than face to face with a peer over some coffee or a good meal. Have we missed out on community so much that we have lost out on our chances to encourage each other? Maybe our hearts and our minds have become hardened. Just remember this:
Jesus loves you very much, and you belong in loving friendships and relationships with others. So you can love them, and so they can love you. For that is what we have been created for.

Go ahead.

Log off.

Close your laptop.

Call someone, or spend time with someone you love. It will be so much more beneficial than more time online.

Love,

Andrew

How Christians are now proclaiming Good News to the World!

2007-08-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

So far this week, the news from American Christianity......

Salt and light.

*sigh*

Read this Article

2007-08-23T10:59:00.001-04:00

If you've ever felt like God was far away from you while you were walking through the "valley of the shadow of death," you aren't alone. The book of Job teaches us that what He allows to happen in our lives doesn't have any bearing on His closeness to us, although our hearts and feelings would tell us differently.
Even those we admire for their sacrifice and faithfulness have to walk this path.

An Exercise in Contradictions

2007-08-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

Men love systems. We love logic and order. A system where everything fits nicely and it all works perfectly-we men love that sort of thing.
But in reality? Well, occasionally we build stuff and there are parts left over....Christmas toys, furniture that you have to assemble, etc. And then we think...hmmmm-whoops! I wonder where that was supposed to go.....?

Sometimes when we look at scripture, we try to discover systems in order for us to understand God. Sometimes we create systems (hence "Systematic Theology") from bible verses that we think make sense. Do you think we really can build systems to make sense of an almighty infinite God?

But we try.

And we try.

And we ignore things that don't fit our systems.

What do you do with the Old Testment commandment to stone those who commit adultery, but then Jesus comes and says "He who is without sin can throw the first stone." It doesn't fit the system.

What about God telling the Israelites not to marry foreigners who serve other Gods, but yet the book of Esther deals with a Jewish woman who marries a King who doesn't serve her God.

And thats not including the whole "unequally yoked" idea in the New Testament.

Scripture also says that Esther hid her Jewish identity and beliefs from her husband the King. We love the idea that God saved His people through Esther, but we don't like the fact that the King exiles his old queen because she wouldn't come in and dance in front of his friends at a drunken party. And then he has a beauty pageant to find a new queen (Esther). Aren't beauty pageants based on the wrong things?

So God takes a beauty pageant and a man's visual stimulation, a man who had asked his former wife to come dance at a party for his friends (you can guess what kind of dancing, I'm sure), and then divorces her just because. So this guy looks for a new queen and Esther, a woman of God, marries this guy?

How many girls can't wait to marry a guy like that?

Probably very few.

How many girls honestly believe that its God's will for them to go through that?

How many girls should hide their faith from their husbands who are unsaved?

The New Testament principles speak completely against what Esther did in this story to become queen.....but God uses Esther anyways. It doesn't fit the system, but then we begin to realize that God isn't limited by our systems. God functions outside of every system we come up with. Calendars, clocks, theology-doesn't matter.

Maybe it's time to start thinking that we don't have a clue what God's system is, only that we should be faithful with the parts that we clearly understand. There's some verses that we don't hear much at church, but are clear and simple to understand.

Luke 12 has a few that have challenged me this week. Here's one:

15 Then (Jesus) said, "Beware! Don't be greedy for what you don't have. Real life is not measured by how much we own."

I didn't need a system to figure that out. There's not figurative language involved. But does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

Read Matthew 5 and 6-the sermon on the Mount. Many of the ideas there aren't hidden or veiled. Love your enemies. Go the extra mile with someone in need. Stop taking revenge.

Does our life and our church reflect that kind of living?

These are tough teachings that we like to ignore because they don't fit into our system of Sunday and Wednesday church services, small groups, Christian Radio and books. They contradict what we naturally want to do-which is normally all about us.

But I think God is really, really interested in getting us outside our systems of what we think He's about and what we think church is for. It's not about us or our systems or what we think.

It's about what He thinks. And for us, that sometimes doesn't seem to fit.

When we discover an apparent contradiction, maybe there's an opportunity to look at how God is moving and what He is saying before we try to fit Him into our systems.

He wants us to discover Him and fall in love with Him. He never asked us to figure Him out.

Caller, are you there?

2007-08-16T11:26:00.000-04:00

BREAKING NEWS (beep ba beep beep beep doot da doot da doot)

Once again, Friday morning (Friday, August 17) from 7 am until 8:30 am. I'll be the guest on the Reach FM morning show with Lysa. The topic is "Opposite Day." (<:

For those in the Broward area, you can check us out on 94.5 . ReachFM is also in Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm, and many more places now....it's an amazing opportunity! If you are elsewhere in Florida, you can find out your local station by going to: http://www.reachfm.org/where-to-listen/

Or you can stream live online by going to www.reachfm.org and clicking on the "Listen Live!" at the top of the page.

Call in if you get a chance-it always makes me feel really really popular. (Mom, this doesn't necessarily mean you).....

Thanks!
drew

Labels-the first part.

2007-08-12T00:11:00.000-04:00

Have you ever reached the point in your life where you are tired of being labeled by something? Where you felt like you were more than that one thing that everyone else saw?

I heard an interesting piece of trivia a few months ago that really stuck with me. I have no idea if it's true, but think with me on this one.....In Britain, it is considered extremely rude to ask someone in conversation what they do for a living. And the reason is this: if someone is sitting at a pub next to someone else, their opinion should be equal to the other, no matter what the pay scale or job title. They should be able to talk politics, religion, or whatever without any labels-while simply just being people. Unfortunately, in America that's one of the first questions we ask each other in conversation. And then we label each other based on that one attribute.

Labels-why do we concern ourselves so much with them? On clothes, cars, zip codes, neighborhoods, watches, jewelry-they dominate our thinking when it comes to spending our money. But what about the labels that we place on each other?

I was at Animal Kingdom a couple weeks ago, and I was taking a walking tour of some exotic animals, and I was standing in front of the Okapi area. I had never seen an Okapi before, and I have to say that it did look pretty wacky. For a picture, check here.

While I was amazed at the creativity of a God who made this animal, and made its DNA unique from anything else, a lady walked up behind me with her husband and after about 5 seconds said this. "Oh, this is just a half-horse, half-giraffe." And then they kept on WALKING!

I couldn't believe it! Here was an animal that has been transplanted from the other side of the world, and this woman labeled it and was immediately disinterested after 5 seconds. She didn't care to know any more about it-she had already put it in a group she thought she already grasped.

And guess what? We do the same thing, but with each other.

We tend to label people in order to categorize them into groups that we think we can easily understand. It keeps us feeling proud that we "know" someone without any depth of relationship. If we can label them with minimal effort, then we can tell ourselves that we already know what and how they think. And therefore, we don't have to spend any time getting to know them. It's horribly unhealthy and is part of the reason we don't have real relationships and community with each other often.

Labels are usually based on traits that we can't change like gender or race or nationality OR they have to do with skill sets (like job, hobby, and talent) and the result of the skill, which is job title and pay scale.

Labels tend to separate and divide. Think of your church-how do they separate groups? Marital status? Age? What happens is that we put people in groups with others who we think are just like them, and that somehow this creates good community. That somehow we can take this one attribute and figure out something about them. Think I'm wrong or weird yet? Try this....

Think of who you respect more: a plumber or a doctor? A nurse or a housewife? A minister or a construction worker? No matter what your answer is, it's based on a preconceived notion of what the label entails. Maybe you don't trust ministers. Maybe you think doctors are better because they went to school longer. Whatever the reason, it immediately separates and stereotypes people unfairly.

The label takes away the uniqueness of the individual. Like every snowflake, we are all different, and even though we are all under the label "human," we have forgotten how each one of us is completely unique from the others. We label each other. But the truth is we all hate to be labeled ourselves. We are very passionate about our own labels-we insist that we are more than just that label, right?

I would argue that Jesus purposed to act in such a way labels were clearly emphasized as wrong. He ate with labeled people, and in doing so, treated them as forgiven and equal. He freed a harlot from demonic oppression, and she became one of his closest followers. His 12 right hand men included tax collectors, fishermen, and construction workers. Blue collar, white collar, it didn't matter.

Jesus absolutely loved to use the people's preconceived ideas and stereotypes based on labels, and flip them around. (A few examples? The Good Samaritan, Lazarus and the rich man, the woman at the well). He took labels and showed people that they couldn't generalize based on any of them. He showed that our own stereotypes only point out our own hypocrisy.

The ideas Jesus proposed were so opposite to the world and the culture He was living in. He never joined the popular revolution and rebelled against Rome. Instead, He took the labels that got the most glory and respect and pointed out the obvious hypocrisies and weaknesses. He actually never spoke against the wickedness of Rome. He spoke against the religious establishment and told parables about their lack of heart. He spoke of their pride and their religiosity regularly, which ultimately led to his execution.

As people who carry the name of Christ, what can we learn from this? As we walk this journey with God to become more like Him, what should happen?

The beauty of the kingdom of God is that labels don't matter anymore. They don't help you or hinder you with God. For example, God truly loves the poor, but he loves the rich just as much. Being one or the other doesn't help or hinder you when it comes to His love. It's the idea that God doesn't look upon our labels. He doesn't need to subgroup us into categories in order to understand us.

Just remember that He loves you very much, and He thinks you are more than your label. Whatever people have thought about you, whatever term they use to describe you-you are more than that one thing. Whether it is black, white, Hispanic, nerdy, athletic, lonely, weird, rich, or whatever-you are loved by Him, and He knows who you are. Not based on outward categories or attributes-He loves you for you, and knows your heart, the real you, and loves you anyways.

Gal. 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Col. 3:11
In this new life, it doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

This Blog is going on the airwaves!

2007-08-01T11:40:00.000-04:00

BULLETIN BULLETIN BULLETIN

This blog will be live on the radio and internet Friday morning (Friday, August 3) from 7 am until 8:30 am. I'll be the guest on the Reach FM morning show with Lysa. We'll be talking about the labels that God gives us and the labels that man puts on us, and what scripture says about those concepts.

You can find out your local station by going to: http://www.reachfm.org/where-to-listen/

Or you can stream live online by going to www.reachfm.org and clicking on the "Listen Live!" at the top of the page.

Now you can call in to the show and ask questions live on air. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject too. I'll post a blog summarizing the bible study later this weekend. (<:

Thanks again...

andrew

2007-07-20T12:32:00.000-04:00

Have you ever seen someone do or say something, and then realized how that reveals something about that person’s character on the inside? Sometimes it’s surprisingly good, and other times it can be disappointing.

God has given us (His people) the Word, so that we can see his character in writing. It teaches us so much about His love, justice, faithfulness, and patience with us. But the whole idea of God revealing Himself to us is that we would reveal His character by actually DOING what we see in WRITING.

He chooses a very special and unique way for us to do just that. In scripture, it’s called “gifts.” And when we exercise these spiritual “gifts,” it reveals a part of God’s character to the world and brings Him glory. Each one of the gifts say something about the Giver who has shared them with us.

Some things in scripture are universal for all of us. Loving the unloved, taking care of widows and orphans, loving your neighbor, loving God, etc. And we could spend a lifetime doing only that. But how do we specifically accomplish all of those things? By putting into practice some of these gifts of God.

What are some of these gifts?

Romans 12: exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, prophecy, service, teaching

1 Corinthians 12: administration, apostle, discernment, faith, healing, helps, knowledge, miracles, prophecy, teaching, tongues/interpretation, wisdom

Ephesians 4: apostle, evangelism, pastor, prophecy, teaching

Misc. Passages: celibacy, hospitality, martyrdom, missionary (international), voluntary poverty

Without going into the debate of which ones (if any) aren’t in existence anymore, the greater point is that by doing what it is God has gifted you to do, you bring glory to Him by revealing His character to the world.

Whether it’s opening your home to a homeless person, teaching the Word, washing someone’s feet, or mowing a widow’s lawn, it’s our opportunity to show the world who God truly is.

There’s no spiritual gift of arguing or fighting. There’s no special dispensation to some for picketing or protesting. I’m not saying those are bad things, but remember the words of Paul in I Corinthians 13 to us.

1 If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody.

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.

13 There are three things that will endure: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.

Love is the greatest revelation of God’s character. If you can practice and use your gift(s) and build them on the foundation of love, the world can’t help but see the beauty of God’s love for them. And by doing what it is that God has equipped you to do? You make the kingdom of God come crashing down to earth, and people will see Jesus revealed in you.

Now go and reveal His character to your world.

Risk

2007-06-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

If you want to enter the kingdom of God, you must be like a little child. What does that mean? Childlike how? Trust? What does childlike trust look like?

In a healthy family, a child can know of their parents’ love and nuturing, but when it comes to learning new things like walking, riding a bike, or rollerskating, or whatever the experience is, that child is going to have to experience bumps, bruises, scrapes, scabs and cuts. Why? Because they have to learn. The parents, no matter how much they love them and want to protect them, have to let the child learn. They can offer tips, advice, wisdom and insight, but the child has to do it. The child has to risk something personally to gain the experience.

As an adult, how often do you or I ever have a bruise, bump, scrape or scab? Who do you see wearing the casts-adults or kids? I don’t need to answer those questions for you-you know the answer. But what happens to us? Why do we get more conservative and safe as we get older? (p.s. Please don’t answer “wisdom” on this one…..) As we grow older, we tend to take less risks, we want to be safer and we avoid pain at all costs. Where is that in the Bible?

Moses was 80 when he led Israel out of Egypt. Abraham was almost 100 when he had Isaac, and over 100 when he had to sacrifice him on top of Moriah. David probably didn’t become king of all of Israel until he was at least 30, and some scholars suggest closer to 40. And after he became king, he went on to do even more great things!

Why do we play it safe the older we get? And why do we love movies of heroism and greatness (Braveheart and Gladiator, just to name a couple), but at the same time, we are too afraid to pursue anything risky? I think it is rooted in some hidden fear that Satan puts in our hearts. Can you imagine what the Kingdom of God would look like if it was led by an army of grown-ups who have the resources and the wisdom of age, but also the risk-taking trusting heart of a child? The earth would tremble.

The irony is that we want safety and security, but that’s the one thing God never promised. The beautiful promise of God involved His faithfulness and that He wouldn’t leave us or forsake us. The things we do in life that seem adventurous take some risk: Rock climbing, water skiing, surfing, investing….. What about living for God? When did that become safe?

If living for God is supposed to be the greatest “adventure” of all (thank you, Steven Curtis), then what are we risking? And if we can’t think of a good answer to that, then are we truly living the kind of life that Christ taught us in the New Testament?

We study and follow a book full of true accounts of people who lived risky unsafe lives, and yes, they sometimes screwed up. But how can we claim to follow God and not live the same kind of life?

Side Effects Include Watery Eyes and Runny Nose

2007-06-20T19:53:00.000-04:00

The end result is all about US. Of course, this isn't the central idea that we think about in church, and I'm not advocating selfishness. But it's hard to sidestep the idea in scripture that those who help others and love the least, last and lost will find healing and strength for themselves-that they would discover their own salvation. By loving our neighbor, could we actually be getting healed inside our hearts?

We'd all agree that loving God comes first, and loving our neighbor second. But strangely enough, scripture also reverses itself and says that if we don't do the second, then the first can't exist inside of us. That is, if we don't love our neighbor, how can we say we love God? (See 1 John 3)

There's an underground revolution going on in south Florida involving some people that are going out and loving their neighbor. Some are quietly going out and serving in a soup kitchen. Others love on a widow or a foster kid. Even others are becoming friends with the homeless. In the old Western movies, when the Indians would see something powerful like this, they would say, "That is strong medicine!"

Without stereotyping our Native American brothers and sisters, I would submit that loving your neighbor is Strong Medicine. It's powerful, speaks for itself, and has some strange and crazy side effects. For example, through this love and action, people emerge from the labels and social classes. People! Names, faces, stories of brokenness, marriages, kids, and parents….. They aren't "homeless" or "orphans" or "foster kids" or "widows." They are people; they are Bruce and Malin, Etta and Gladys.

The book of James tells us that pure religion is taking care of the widows and the orphans. Jesus tells us that the final judgment will in part be based on how much we showed his love to the unlovable. Jesus says that the hope and love we have in our hearts is the Good News that we can share with the world! The good news isn't a list of spiritual laws or a handful of verses that you have to say in a specific order to be right. The Good News is love for the unloved, hope for the hopeless. It's light in the darkness, and salt for the bland and bored. Its water for the thirsty, bread for the hungry, friends for the lonely, and strength for the weak.

We are sitting on the strongest medicine the world has ever known, and we have to take it to our neighbors.

Acts 1:8 Jesus tells us to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth with this Love.

In other words, go to your development, neighborhood, city, county and then wherever! Most of us think that we have to drive or fly somewhere to do this, or support someone else's trip around the globe to do it. But I would suggest that we have to start small-with Jerusalem. With our development/condo building/street. So let me ask you a couple questions I have been asking myself lately.

1. Do you know your neighbors' names? Let's just start with the ones you see regularly-the ones who's houses/condos/town homes are adjacent to yours. Do you know them?
2. Do you think that you can't go out and do anything significant for God because of your family/kids/husband/wife?
3. What if God didn't ask you to go around the world or get a passport or learn a system in order to love your neighbor. What if it was just as easy as becoming friends with your neighbors and showing them what Jesus looks like?
4. What if by loving your neighbor, you could teach your wife/husband/kids about the love of God by example? You'd never have to leave your family to do ministry. It would happen on your street.
5. What if your entire church could capture this vision? What would your city start to look like?

Let me warn you, this is revolutionary. It's not an officially sanctioned program of any one church. It has to be a lifestyle. People will ask "When will you start telling them about Jesus?" Let me tell you, without speaking a word, you already have been preaching Jesus to them with your actions. So let me ask you this:

What if I asked your neighbors these questions about Jesus based on your actions alone representing Christ? If you were the only Jesus they knew, how would they answer?

1. Based on (your name here) actions, does Jesus know your name?
2. Does Jesus care about your problems?
3. Is Jesus friendly and helpful, or gruff and self-absorbed?
Let me just say, it's convicting to me. But I have slowly been learning to love my neighbor (yes I know their names NOW) and I've discovered a part of the Kingdom of God that isn't often spoken of in church.

What if loving your neighbor wasn't about what they got out of it, but it was actually for you? What if Isaiah 58 was true? What if we did Isaiah 58:6, 7, 9 and 10? Scripture tells us that if we love our neighbor, then the side effects are all about our own healing. It develops the light in us, it heals our hearts, our salvation comes through it, and we won't get dried up because the Lord will keep us watered. The end result isn't that it helps someone else. That's merely a side effect. The end result is that we are saved and healed! The end result is that we look more and more like Jesus every day.

It starts with our neighbors. Which is more difficult-to love someone on the other side of the world for 10 days on a mission trip or to consistently love your neighbor every day? Start at home, and you'll discover there's a Strong Medicine, and It might mess up everything you've ever been told.

Quote of the Day

2007-06-06T14:05:00.001-04:00

“Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 30.

Old School Jams

2007-06-04T23:40:00.000-04:00

Check out the lyrics below to the 1992 hit by Arrested Development titled "Mr. Wendal".....

Here, have a dollar,
in fact no brotherman here, have two
Two dollars means a snack for me,
but it means a big deal to you
Be strong, serve God only,
know that if you do, beautiful heaven awaits
That's the poem I wrote for the first time
I saw a man with no clothes, no money, no plate
Mr.Wendal, that's his name,
no one ever knew his name cause he's a no-one
Never thought twice about spending on a ol' bum,
until I had the chance to really get to know one
Now that I know him, to give him money isn't charity
He gives me some knowledge, I buy him some shoes
And to think blacks spend all that money on big colleges,
still most of y'all come out confused

[CHORUS:]
Go ahead, Mr.Wendal (2x)

Mr.Wendal has freedom,
a free that you and I think is dumb
Free to be without the worries of a quick to diss society
for Mr.Wendal's a bum
His only worries are sickness
and an occasional harassment by the police and their chase
Uncivilized we call him,
but I just saw him eat off the food we waste
Civilization, are we really civilized, yes or no ?
Who are we to judge ?
When thousands of innocent men could be brutally enslaved
and killed over a racist grudge
Mr.Wendal has tried to warn us about our ways
but we don't hear him talk
Is it his fault when we've gone too far,
and we got too far, cause on him we walk
Mr.Wendal, a man, a human in flesh,
but not by law
I feed you dignity to stand with pride,
realize that all in all you stand tall

[CHORUS]

Mr.Wendal, Lord, Mr.Wendal

This Blog will be live!

2007-05-30T19:19:00.000-04:00

BULLETIN BULLETIN BULLETIN

This blog will be live on the radio and internet tomorrow morning (Thursday, May 31) from 7 am until 8:30 am. I'll be the guest on the Reach FM morning show with Lysa. We'll be talking about the transition as a believer from receiver to giver.

You can find out your local station by going to: http://www.reachfm.org/where-to-listen/

Or you can stream live online by going to www.reachfm.org and clicking on the "Listen Live!" at the top of the page.

Thanks again...

Poverty…..

2007-05-25T10:52:00.000-04:00

I heard something said this week that almost couldn’t believe that I heard. Someone was talking about going out and feeding the homeless and the poor, and another person said, “Why would you spend all that money feeding them when they are just going to hell anyways?”

Besides feeling extremely angry and sad, I realized that it’s not uncommon to hear this philosophy in so many people that are in the body of Christ. Most people think that scripture calls us to get people “saved,” not to worry about their situation. Because in their minds, once they’re saved, God will begin to provide all their needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus, right? So therefore we should share the gospel (which ironically means “Good News”) and make sure they get saved first. The verse that tends to come out to justify their inaction to help the person’s current situation is John 12:8. If you wonder what that says, let me set up the context for you.

Jesus is getting prepared for the Passover, it’s 5 days before He is going to die. He’s right outside of Jerusalem at a friend’s house, and Mary takes some expensive perfume, anoints Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Judas gets ticked and claims that it could have been sold and the money given to the poor instead. What Judas actually meant was that he wanted to get his hands on that money, because he had been stealing from the treasury. Jesus, of course, knew this and replies to him:

John 12:8 “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

What’s ironic about this verse are 3 things. First off, those who don’t wanna help the poor use this to justify their inaction. So they quote the first line completely out of context, although interestingly enough, they don’t ever mention the second part of the verse-the idea that we won’t always have Jesus…..that doesn’t fit with the argument, so it’s left out.

Secondly, they ignore what Jesus was quoting, which is Deut. 15:11

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.”

Conveniently, they leave out the second part of this verse too, the commandment, when it doesn’t fit with their arguments.

Finally, they ignore one of the central themes of the early church in Acts, which was to get rid of excess material possessions and land, sell it, and use the money to give to the poor. Not to build a taller steeple or nicer building than others, but to feed those who were hungry and clothe the poor. The early church existed to help those who weren’t in their membership….a group that was truly others-centered.

I have a hard time believing that we are supposed to use the offerings and tithe at church for ourselves. We tend to think in selfish terms with our money-even in our churches. Just like Judas we think about ways that we can use the money to make our own lives easier. If only we could buy new seats so we could be more comfortable. How about repaving the parking lot so we don’t have to hit a bump? What about, what about, what about?

Back to John 12-What the passage in context teaches us was that Jesus was commending Mary for being others-centered while rebuking Judas for only thinking about himself. Yes, Judas claimed to have the others’ interests in mind, but he truly was looking out only for himself.

So let me ask you this, back to the original comment: “Why would you spend all that money feeding them when they are just going to hell anyways?”-what does it look like to others when we say that we care not about someone’s hunger or poverty, but at the same time saying we really DO care about their eternal destination? Is that truly being others’ centered? Is that bringing true hope to those who are hurting?

Check James 2 out:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?
17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

It’s interesting that James, the brother of Jesus, specifically addresses this in his epistle to the early church. It must have come up then, too. He purposefully uses the illustration of helping the poor and hurting to reveal those who have true faith. And of course, our faith accompanied by actions is what leads us to the Kingdom of God.

Of course, I’m sure at this point some are thinking about Martin Luther, or the doctrine of justification and you think that I’m ignoring Romans 1, and forgetting about justification by faith alone, right? Well, what I am suggesting is the same as Christ and James-faith without works is dead faith. Faith that leads to works of love is a faith of life.

Are you thinking about your faith? Are you wondering if you want to be more comfortable at church, or if you tend to have a desire to serve others? We must do as Paul teaches us, and constantly examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith. (2 Cor. 13:5). I hope that today you have felt challenged to go put feet to your faith, and act on Hebrews 10:24

“Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds. “

If you are ever wondering about your OWN personal eternal destination, check out the last illustration Jesus uses in Matthew 25-he talks about how to get to heaven, and strangely enough, looks a lot like being others centered in love, which is the natural overflow of a redeemed heart. Our journey to Heaven is so much more than fire insurance, and more than a prayer that you repeat after someone…explore the Word of God to find out what His kingdom is really all about.

What can you or I do? Something happens when a whole bunch of us commit ourselves to God and we ask Him to connect us with what He is doing in our community. If you want to know more about how you can help reach the poor in your community, go to your local soup kitchen or homeless ministry and be the hands and feet of Jesus. When we stop thinking about how we can be spiritually fed ourselves at church, and instead we begin to think of how we can live the love of Christ to those who can’t give us anything in return, it’s then that we will discover the smile of God upon us.

And it’s then that we will see God’s word become actions and deeds, and it’s then that His kingdom will begin to infiltrate this Earth.

Please, if you have 5 minutes....

2007-04-20T23:26:00.000-04:00

Read the story of our brother Jay. It will leave you challenged and convicted. It's Ben's post for Friday, April 20th.

Also, you can find the original Washington Post story here.

Pirates for Jesus (aka Treasure Hunting)

2007-04-18T01:37:00.000-04:00

Remember the verse that Jesus spoke in the New Testament- “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also?”

I guess what breaks my heart is that the church has construed this verse to mean that you should tithe and give the church your money. And the truth is, we should bring the tithe into the house of the Lord-but this verse doesn’t tell us that. In Luke, it may suggest something much different. It talks about seeking the kingdom of God and selling our possessions and giving them to the poor. So let me ask you this. What if we looked at Jesus’ actions to shed light on His teachings? Jesus was a homeless man without a job during his ministry. If he didn’t have any money, then what was his treasure?

The modern preacher uses the illustration, “Show me your checkbook, and I’ll be able to see your priorities in life.” i.e. where your treasure is. But this is all with the basic premise of a materialistic society that thinks treasure is monetary wealth. In Mozambique, in the dumps outside of the city where children go through trash to find food and shelter, with no jobs or money, where is their treasure? Since they have no money, is that teaching of Christ not applicable to them? They don't have a monthly budget or a checkbook, so if you believe that preacher’s illustration, it wouldn't even apply to the poor. But let me ask you again in another way….

What does God consider His treasures? And what would happen if we treasured what God treasures and lived our life in a way that our priorities reflected that?

Here's what I'm suggesting: I believe that God’s treasure is His people, and since the beginning of Time, God’s heart has been with His people. His entire plan was to redeem and reconcile with His treasure. Where His treasure was, there His heart was also.

People were the crowning jewel of the creation. The world was not yet complete until God placed man and woman in it. God created man to have a relationship with….man is the only piece of His creation with a free will and an eternal spirit. The loss of that relationship through sin is why God sent His own Son to die. Would God send Christ to die for something that didn’t really matter, or someone He didn’t treasure? Probably not.

For God to plan to take the form of a man and live a life in order to die for His people….this act of God declares that people are His treasure. Men and women are incredibly valuable in His eyes. Nothing else matters to God….He even gave man the power of dominion over the rest of creation!

What if the church today treated people as their treasure? What would be the byproduct? I have a few ideas…..I don’t think that for churches, buildings and programs would be a top priority. I don’t think fundraising for those same buildings and programs would be the focus. I don’t think the church could truly allow the “least of these” to remain poor and hurting in their city. It doesn’t seem that it could happen if God’s treasure was also ours.

And if God’s treasure was also ours, would we wait inside our Sunday School classes, or on our church property hoping the lost and hurting would come to us and ask for help? Or would we follow the example of Christ who left heaven to go to the hurting….. even when Christ was here, we see His example of going out-feeding the poor and healing the sick WHILE He was still preaching and teaching and discipling. (See previous blog on “Magnets or Viruses”)

I’m afraid that we have compartmentalized and departmentalized church to the point that we think we are only supposed to follow one aspect of Christ and that someone else is supposed to pick up the rest of the slack. We think if we do the preaching, others should do the discipling, others should be worshiping God, or others should be feeding the poor. I’m not sure where it came from, but this idea of only having to do one thing for God, or just live for one scripture doesn’t seem to be biblical.

All of our lives are to be sacrificed for God for the purpose of redeeming His treasure. If we laid up for ourselves treasures in heaven, and we truly believed that treasures weren’t good works, but lives touched for the kingdom (see Isaiah 58), I believe it would revolutionize the way we do what we do in the body of Christ. Don’t you?

Magnets or Viruses?

2007-03-15T13:57:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER: As you know, I've been wrestling with some parts of my faith lately. So if you get offended by something I write, at least I warned you....

What kind of Christianity infected the Roman world 2000 years ago? What kind of Christianity produced martyrs? What kind of Christianity was it that spread like wildfire?

I start with those questions because recently I've realized that the kind of Christianity I've been around for 25+ years hasn't changed a city, much less overtaken an empire. I'm not throwing stones, I'm just trying to figure out how I can be more like the Christians that were seen as radical in their faith and love.

I think I've found something that may point to a problem....As I observe today's church, we seem to think that we are called to be magnets, attracting sinners to us. I heard a pastor a week ago state that if we would just open the doors to the church, people will come to hear the "Word" preached. Another situation: A friend of mine's church isn't growing, but is spending millions on a bigger building-thinking that lots of people will start coming to their church to see a bigger building. Others believe if their music would change styles, or if their dress code were a bit different, then more people would come. The root problem isn't the gimmick or trick, it's the idea that if we do something different and wait, then we will magically attract more people who don't have God, but now are suddenly attracted to Him.

This is a mindset that has infected the western Church in a deadly way. Not with words, but through our actions we show that we believe the world should come to us. And we don't really think that we should be out in the world as salt and light (unless our jobs force us to interact with the unbelievers).

If you disagree with my previous statement, then I may offend you with the next one. We now have modern day Christians pulling their kids out of public schools and putting them in Christian schools. And then we pull Christian teachers out of the public schools to teach them. Why are we so shocked when the public school system goes downhill and is full of problems and violence? The ones who were called to be salt and light in the world have abandoned them to learn behind walls together with those who think just like them. Instead of 20-30 kids in a public school, learning to be salt and light, we take them all out and stick them in a room with other salty lights. Neither salt nor light does anything to preserve or reveal when it's around other salt and light. I'm not vilifying Christian education, I'm just using it as an example of us forgetting the commandment to be IN the world. Not away from the world with a bunch of others who are just like us, but IN it and not of it. INfecting it.

The reason I'm frustrated by some of these things is because I'm finding these things in me. I expect just to attend church weekly, read my bible, pray, and probably vote Republican…..and most of my church will think that I am a model Christian. But I'm discovering that this kind of Christianity isn't what Jesus preached or practiced….and this kind of faith certainly wouldn't change the world.

The faith I read about is dangerous and infecting. Jesus uses words like "go out" and "send forth". IT seems to be more like a virus than a magnet. The world isn't necessarily attracted to our version of Christianity in the west. We aren't really magnetizing very many….that's why many churches aren't growing, but shrinking. And why some of them are doing more sheep trading than anything else.

We have, like the movie "Gladiator", decided that the action and the battle is for the few, and the rest of us are bound to be observers in the faith, destined to come each week to the auditoriums of our churches, sitting and watching that one man in the front fight the good fight.. As long as we come faithfully and give some money, things seem to be fine. But deep down inside you and I both long for so much more than this. Jesus didn't die for this type of faith. This isn't anything radical, and doesn't seem to be the abundant life that He spoke of.

But the life Jesus often spoke of, we gloss over or ignore. Yes it is abundant. But it's also full of sacrifice and suffering. Bringing justice to those who have been wronged, and hope to the hopeless. But we don't have any true aspect of sacrifice or suffering in our faith, and instead of discovering what it means to pick up a cross or die daily, we make our faith as safe as possible. But the irony is that those we look up to, those who we see as icons, usually are the ones who didn't play it safe. The Hudson Taylors, Mother Teresas, Billy Grahams, etc.

What if Mother Teresa was a magnet instead of a virus-what would Calcutta, India look like today? Do you think you would have ever heard of a nun who stayed in her hometown and opened up another church? She was dangerous because she wasn't afraid to infect the world with her love, the love of Christ. She chose to be out in the world, as a virus infects other cells. Once people came in contact with her, they too were infected. And millions of lives were affected by her love for others.

It's time we as a body asked ourselves some difficult questions. Will we play it safe and become magnets? Will we hang out the rest of our life with others just like us, or will we go out and infect the world with the love of Jesus? Will we invade or will we wait?

What A Pastor Said About the New Style of Worship

2007-03-14T15:11:00.000-04:00

Extract from an American Paper objecting to new trends in church music.

“There are several reasons for opposing it. One, it’s too new. Two, it’s often worldly, even blasphemous. The new Christian music is not as pleasant as the more established style. Because there are so many new songs, you can’t learn them all. It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than godly lyrics. This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly. The preceding generation got along without it. It’s a money making scam and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.”

Who said this? A pastor attacking Isaac Watts, writer of ‘When I survey,’ in 1723!

Kudos to Tim Hughes' Blog for this quote......

Sacrifice

2007-03-10T13:10:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: I have been rocked to the core lately after reading "This Beautiful Mess" by Rick McKinley and "Irresistable Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. This has led to some pretty strong stuff coming to the surface. I'm still wrestling with it and working through it. So you'll find some of that "edge" in my next few blogs....don't worry. When I say "we" I really mean me. So here goes.....

I was talking with a good friend a while back about sacrifice. Mostly it was about how I lie to myself and think that by giving a couple bucks to a homeless guy is some sort of sacrifice on my part. But that's a whole different blog…..

His response was poignant-sacrifice only happens when the byproduct of you doing the action is that it prevents you from getting or accomplishing something you wanted to do yourself. For example, it doesn't really cost me anything to give a homeless guy a few dollars-when I go to a restaurant and spend $20 on myself without blinking. But I will rationalize and think more about the 5 I give him than I will about the 20 I spend on me. Why? Because true sacrifice only happens when we are required to be unselfish and set aside our own interests for the good of the many. Let me give you a few comparisons…..

Who sacrifices more: The person who supports the war in Iraq, or the mother whose son is a soldier fighting there right now?
Who sacrifices more: The person who claims global warming is an epidemic while flying private jets and driving SUV's and living in 10,000 square foot houses; or the person who believes that it's a problem, so they sell their truck to buy a smaller car?

It doesn't seem like a sacrifice unless something is on the line-unless something has to change. It costs the war supporter nothing-it could cost the mother her son. It costs the celebrity or savvy politician nothing to claim global warming is a problem; it costs the other person a "standard of living."

I guess one of the reasons I'm bothered is because we live in a society that thinks that we can solve problems by throwing money at them. And we don't ever think that we have to sacrifice to change the world around us. Which is easier? To drop 5 bucks in the salvation army bucket at Christmas time, or to get in our car and go to the Salvation Army downtown and build a relationship with someone in need? One takes sacrifice, the other doesn't.

For too long I have been a Christian that doesn't sacrifice, which to be honest with you, is quite hypocritical. Self-denial and loving others more than myself are the central elements of my faith, but you can't tell sometimes by my actions or by my checkbook. Even tithing isn't sacrificial. Sacrificial is selling my goods and giving it to the poor-the Acts type of sacrifice. Writing a check once a month to support a kid in Africa for most of us isn't a sacrifice. But not eating out for a month and sending that one hundred dollars (or more) to feed his whole family for a month? We might even call that a sacrifice, even though we still wouldn't miss a meal. But we know there are homeless going hungry in the streets, so do we pray for our brothers and sisters in the streets while fasting because of their plight? I think that's more along the lines of what Christ intended….for our hearts to be actively involved in the poor and the hurting.

At some point in our faith, we (read: I) as Christians need to step up and sacrifice. We need to put feet to our faith. I fear that the impotence of Western Christianity lies in the fact that we are practicing a form of godliness but denying the power. We say that we are Christ-followers without doing our part to fulfill that one part of the Lord's Prayer, remember? Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth (just as it's done in heaven). We are called to bring His kingdom and love to the earth-at least to the parts we touch each day.

We probably wouldn't need to ask Christians to hand out tracts on the street corners of our country if the millions of people who claim to follow Christ were constantly living examples of sacrifice. People don't see us living or loving like Christ, so our faith is no longer attractive to them. When the rest of the world sees a Christian nation living in houses that look like mansions and driving cars that cost more than they make in a decade, do you think they admire us? Do they want to follow Christ too? Or do they see a materialistic culture that is caught up in pleasing themselves?

Jesus said that the world would know that we are His disciples by our love for one another. Love demands a sacrifice. Love IS sacrifice. That's how we know Jesus loved us-because He laid down His life for our sins. How are we really doing at "loving one another?" And by one another, let's assume that we aren't talking about loving other Christians. Let's assume that it's "the least of these." Jesus' own words in Matthew 25. Do we love? Do we sacrifice?

I fear that I haven't loved or sacrificed like Christ, and now I need to change.

Just Do It

2007-02-22T09:35:00.001-05:00

Easier said than done...just do it. Especially for the person who follows the teachings of Jesus. Oh yeah-you'll find a bunch who talk it. Big time. But those usually aren't the ones you find doing it. Doing what?
Well, here's a PG-13 excerpt from the Bible. Luke 11. We find Jesus teaching a crowd some pretty deep stuff-demon possession, the Lord's prayer, divided kingdoms, etc. In the middle of all of this, some woman (maybe the first Catholic?) yells out....
"Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!"
Whoa. That's a statement. But she misses the whole point-she wants to bring glory to Jesus' mother. Here's the Man in front of her, and she is busy thinking about how great His mom is. Weird, huh?
And Jesus' response-"More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" He didn't rebuke her, he didn't correct her. He said-yes, she is blessed BUT more than that, if you practice God's word, you will be more blessed than the woman who bore the Son of God. More than Mary. More than Joseph.
Practicing the Word. Doing it. It brings blessings and joy-fulfillment and satisfaction-holiness and godliness. Here's a few excerpts that are challenging me.....I fear that I'm not practicing it very well. How about you?

Matt. 25:35-40 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world

C.S. Lewis

2007-02-10T23:41:00.000-05:00

"I need Christ, not something that resembles Him......Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images-sacrosanct.
My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself......Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah to ruins."

Excerpt from "A Grief Observed", by C.S. Lewis

Just a Quote

2007-02-01T23:16:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis, on why God allows us to go through grief and trials.....
"They say these things are sent to try us.....But of course one must take 'sent to try us' the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't."
Page 52, "A Grief Observed"

It only takes a spark.....

2007-01-30T23:47:00.000-05:00

I attend a great church. I work at this same great church. I get to see what happens behind the scenes, and sometimes I even get a chance to ask questions to the men who make the decisions that guide our body of Christ.
Our church's motto is "Make Disciples." Which is really cool, because discipleship is one of the most incredible parts of our faith.....teaching and passing on the wisdom and truth of God to others...living life together in community.
My concern is that Satan has crept in and turned our eyes back on ourselves again. Here's why: almost everyone I talk to that attend that church want to be discipled by someone older in the faith. And there's nothing wrong with that. EXCEPT that we can't let it stop there. Let me explain.
If we keep our eyes on ourselves and our own wants and needs, it paralyzes us and we become more self-centered. When discpleship becomes all about me and what I'm getting out of it, then I lose the heart of Christ. Jesus taught us to be others-centered, to give rather than receive. So what does that mean for discipleship?
It may mean that instead of us sitting around waiting to be discipled, we should actively live in community and build relationships in order to love on and disciple others. Maybe God won't allow us to find a mentor until we ourselves mentor someone younger and love on them. Jesus left his disciples after 3 years and told them to go disciple others. What if they continued to wait until they were older in the faith? It wasn't like they had all the answers-Thomas had doubts, Peter cursed and denied Christ.....not your normal "mentors". But Jesus sent them out and told them to make other disciples.
Many of us have been walking with Jesus for more than 3 years. But we are still waiting and watching for more. Satan tells us that we are weak, we have nothing to offer, we can't disciple anyone, etc. But I truly believe that discipleship has nothing to do with someone having all the answers or having it all together. It has everything to do with love and community, wisdom and truth.
We find the body of Christ impotent because we have believed the lie that it's all about us. Satan has kept us from discipling others because we haven't found a mentor like we think we should have. Don't believe him! Get in the Word, pray about your walk, and fulfill the Great Commission and live the community life of the Acts 2 church. Reach out to others, and you'll find God teaching and growing you like you'd never imagine!
The great commission? Make disciples-if you are a believer, this isn't an option. It doesn't say "Be discipled." That implies that it's all about me. It says "Make Disciples." Jesus doesn't suggest it. He tells us to go reach others and get our eyes off of ourselves. I suspect that we will discover the very things we are looking for from God when we spend our time loving others instead of hoping that someone will love on us.

"It only takes a spark to get a fire going,And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing;That's how it is with God's Love,Once you've experienced it,You spread the love to everyoneYou want to pass it on."
-"Pass it On" written by Kurt Kaiser

How a man named Arnold changed the World

2007-01-25T23:43:00.001-05:00

In a culture of a-list, b-list, and c-list celebrities, sometimes it's good to discover someone who is a true hero in the kingdom of God. Let me tell you about a man named Arnold.
For the past sixteen years, every Wednesday afternoon at Fort Lauderdale Beach across from the Bahia Mar, Arnold has fed the homeless men and women of Fort Lauderdale. You see, Arnold is a chef. And he wanted to help those that were hurting. Not with government funding, but with private donations and with his own dime, on his own time.
Arnold is a man, probably in his late 60s or early 70s. He might weigh 135 pounds-he's not a man of large stature. Why do you need to know this? Because the mayor has called him a menace to society. The city has threatened to sue him. He's been arrested several times. Because he feeds the homeless, and doesn't get the city's permission or get a permit? Yes. Probably because he feeds them at the beach, where all the tourists and rich folk can see the outcasts of Broward. And Fort Lauderdale doesn't want these men and women to be seen.
What have we come to, when the hurting and the poor are ignored? They have names, stories, mothers, fathers. They weren't always homeless. Some are war veterans who fought to defend the people that ignore them every day. Some were successful businessmen and women who lost everything in a bad deal.
Arnold cares for these people. And they care for him. When he arrived on Wednesday, there were over a hundred people already waiting for him. And as he pulled up in a van with food, the homeless and forgotten men and women stood and became a team. Some carried picnic tables over. Some helped unload the van. But on all their faces was love for a man who loved them just the way they were. As they lined up to get this solid meal, Arnold went around and spoke to them individually. They were his friends. His neighbors. His brothers and sisters.
For the past 4 years, however, Arnold wanted to do something more. Since he's a chef, he knows a lot about the restaurant industry here in South Florida. He says that there are over 45,000 food service jobs in South Fla, plenty for everyone. And he knows that being a chef is one of the few good jobs that doesn't require a college degree. So he began his own quest to get his homeless friends off the streets and find them good jobs.
Arnold began a school to train these men and women, whoever was willing, to be in the food service industry. He teaches them classes just like they would get at any top culinary school. And if they accept his offer to enter the program, they get temporary housing for 9 weeks, free schooling, and certification that almost ensures them a job when they are done. AND they can continue to take the next 3 levels of food preparation so that they can become full chefs.
He's now on his 19th class. And one of the most amazing things about it all is that as these "ex-homeless" men and women in the school are learning their craft, Arnold has them learn by helping him prepare the Wednesday night meal for several hundred of their homeless brothers and sisters each week. The chefs-in-training who arrived in that van with Arnold Wednesday night were probably the ones eating there just a few weeks prior.
Why do I write this? Because Arnold is a hero. He is busy about his Father's business. He wants to further the Kingdom of God. He's not a celebrity in our book. He'll never make the front page, never be in a tabloid, never be honored at any awards ceremony here on earth. But I don't doubt that in heaven, this man will be given treasures beyone our wildest dreams.
The name of his ministry? Love Thy Neighbor. Is he doing it? Absolutely.

All means "all"-part one.

2006-03-09T11:18:00.000-05:00

In seminary I had a professor, Dr. Fink (yes, that's his real name) who used to make us repeat with him this phrase: "All means all, and that's all all means." We'd say it probably once or twice a week, whenver we came across the word "all" in scripture or in homework.
It was interesting how the human mind doesn't like to think in absolutes-we are always looking for a way around it. How else would attorney's have jobs? For example: It's illegal to murder. But all these technicalities and exceptions means that it can't always be illegal to murder.
When scripture says in Romans that "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," there isn't any exceptions. Not one. And then we hit forgiveness....
You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin. Psalm 85:2
Is there any sin he can't forgive or cover? Colossians 2:13-And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses. ALL TRESPASSES.
It's funny how we try to get around that. Some think that their sins aren't so bad; that they are essentially a 'good person'. Trying to get around 'all' again. Some Christians still struggle with whether or not Jesus could really forgive them of that secret sin that they hold on to. That one moment in the past that they can't forget. They rationalize that His blood can forgive all their other sins, but not that one.
All means all, and that's all that all means. All in the original Greek was the word "holos" which means "all, completely, wholly." There's no other way around it. If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. Free of ALL your sins. So accept it and be free.

Announcing the King

2006-02-24T11:59:00.000-05:00

2 Chron. 5:13-indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying: "For He is good, For His mercy endures forever," that the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud,

In history we know that kings were traditionally announced before entering a banquet, feast, or tournament. Often they came with their own heralds who would blow trumpets and announce their arrival.
Here in scripture we see Solomon's temple being dedicated and God's presence is entering it for the first time-God's entrance is prefaced by the musicians and singers worshipping Him.
You see, they weren't only singing His praise-they were announcing the King's entrance. And when He arrived, they couldn't even continue to worship, for the power of the King had entered the temple.
What preceeded the birth of Christ? In Luke 2:13-14 we see angels announcing His coming with songs and praise. And what will announce His second coming to the earth? I Thess. 4:16-a trumpet will sound and the King will return!
As worshipers and worship leaders, each time we gather in His name, Matthew 18:20 promises that He is there with us. The presence of a King is entering our house of worship. And that is another reason why we sing! We are His people and the praises we sing are for Him, but also to announce to the world that the King is coming to meet with us once again.

Remember?

2006-02-22T19:09:00.000-05:00

I'm not that old (only 27), but the past year I have found myself forgetting more and more. Have you ever walked into a room, only to forget what you were doing or what you needed to get? I do that stuff all the time-I even gave up nutrasweet because I thought it might help me remember more things!
Just last week, some friends of mine took me to lunch and treated. We had a great time hanging out and just catching up on life. At the end, we said goodbye and went our seperate ways. A couple hours later, I suddenly remembered that I never said thank you! (Don't worry Mom, keep reading....) I immediately called them and apologized for my rudeness and thanked them profusely. I didn't do it on purpose, I just forgot to remember my manners.
Scripture calls us to remember. Remember how great God is! Remember the things He has done for us (Psalm 126)! Remember the forgiveness we find in Christ when we partake in communion. Remember.
Take time today to remember something that God has done for you-maybe something you never said "thank you" for. Maybe just for protection and safety, for a good job, or just for your home and family. Remember Him and give Him praise, for He has done great things for us!

Here Goes Nothing!

2006-02-21T17:42:00.000-05:00

After much thought and consideration, I'm moving my blogs to http://worshipdevotional.blogspot.com instead of myspace. Hope you join me here in this new phase of our journey together!

-Andrew