BEWARE The Golden Compass

I'm not saying it is bad to question what we choose to watch, read, etc. It just seems to me that sometimes we really make ourselves look like fools when we put up such a fight. On the subject of atheism, author Philip Pullman had this to say on the Today Show...

As for the atheism, it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I’m not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they’re kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression. Good things have been done in the name of religion, and so have bad things; and both good things and bad things have been done with no religion at all. What I care about is the good, wherever it comes from.

It's a good thing that we Christians are here on earth or there would be nothing good here at all! Sounds ridiculous, no? As I have stated before, the God I love is big enough to use anyone(Christian or athiest)or anything for his purpose. I believe my God is so amazing that he can redeem all good things...even the good things that are done by people who we don't agree with. My God is so amazing that he is in all that is good. All that is good.

Here are some links to a few online articles discussing The Golden Compass in a fair, and level-headed way:
Christianity Today
Novus Lumen
Transformatum

Thoughts of the Season

Sean wanted me to post a few paragraphs from an article he recently read. I feel like this article is so appropriate, not only for the holiday season, but for all throughout the year. . .

It’s important that we recognize God as the ultimate Owner of all things and break out of the myopic mindset that allows us to focus solely on our own needs, wants or obsessions. Sounds pretty simple to me. But not according to some. For those who subscribe to the prosperity gospel, the Bible gives clear evidence of God’s plan to make those He loves truly rich. Like all lies, there’s a hint of truth in it, and precedent has paved the way with the likes of biblical heroes such as Abraham, Joseph and David—great men of God who also found themselves on the receiving end of a swollen bank balance. But if we think their story ends there, we deceive ourselves. If we roll over and give in to the theory that God will reward our faith with financial bounty, we become just another set of narrow-minded, self-obsessed believers. We see relationship with God as the path along which we must travel toward the prize of material reward—not the reward itself.

In Hebrew, the Old Testament uses a few words for the poor: anaw, ani, dal, ebyon, and ras. Between them, they define some fairly specific circumstances, like someone who is wrongfully impoverished or dispossessed; a beggar imploring charity; or a thin, weak, deprived peasant. By the time we get to the New Testament, the main word used for the poor is ptochos, meaning someone who is completely destitute and must take help from others. Ptochos is the Greek equivalent of ani or dal, which allows us to say that the main definition of the poor throughout Scripture relates to being of low economic status, usually due to some form of disaster or oppression. So if not having money is a concern to God, doesn’t logic dictate that those under His care should have it in abundance? Unfortunately, His plans are a tad more radical than this idea of rich Christians and poor heathens.

For more of this article visit this link: The Consequences of Prosperity

A Completely Different Place

Isn't it interesting how we often have plans and interests, only to end up in a completely different place? This very thing has happened to me since moving to Texas. . .

I am currently organizing art shows to be held the last Saturday of the month at our church. I have always loved art, but never thought I would become so involved in it. I'm having to get out and make contacts in order to recruit artists, which has lead me down even another path. . .

The first show I'm organizing (Aug 26) is a college-aged guy who does photography. He is also helping an ever-shrinking Methodist church with their youth program. Sean (if he has time) and I are soon to begin volunteering at his new Wednesday night youth art program, where community youth can come develop their artistic talents in a positive and encouraging environment. This is something I never would have guessed I'd be doing, but am so excited now that I am! I'm also excited that Sean is enthusiastic to be involved as well, and that it's something we can hopefully do together. . .

A completely different place than I ever could have imagined.

Regarding Formulas

A few excerpts to think about from Chapter 10 of "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller. . .

Perhaps the reason Scripture includes so much poetry in and outside the narrative, so many parables and stories, so many visions and emotional letters, is because it is attempting to describe a relational break man tragically experienced with God and a disturbed relational history man has had since then and, furthermore a relational dymanic man must embrace in order to have relational intimacy with God once again. . .perhaps our formulas and bullet points and steps steal the sincerity with which we might engage God.

When the church began to doubt its own integrity after the Darwinian attack on Genesis 1 and 2, we began to answer science, not by appealing to something greater - the realm of beauty and art and spirituality - but by attempting to traslate spiritual realities through scientific equations. . .terms such as "abolute truth" and "inherency" became a battle cry, even though the laws of absolute truth must, by their nature, exclude ideas such as "Jesus is the Word, He is both God and Man, the Trinity is both three and One, we are united with Him in His death," because these are mystrious ideas, not scientfic ideas. . .The poetry of Scripture, especially in the case of Moses, began to be interpreted literally and mathematically, and whole books such as the Song of Songs were completely and totally ingnored because they weren't scientific. You coudln't break them down into bulletpoints.

And so when times get hard, when reality knocks us on our butts, mathematical propositions (formulas) are unable to comfort our failing hearts. How many people have walked away from faith because their systematic theology proved unable to answer the deep longings and questions of the soul?

This is a book that Sean and I have both read individually, and are now reading together. It is a book that has been both affirming and challenging at the same time. . .

Lately I've been pondering the fact that so much of what we believed when we were younger has changed so dramatically. It's hard to know where we're headed from here and, I think that's OK. The ways in which we have come to deal with and live in life may even seem contradictory to some. And, I think that's OK too. More important than any of that, at least from my standpoint, is that I think I'm finally learning to love more and hate less. That, at least, can't be a bad thing.

Churchin' Tunes

I thought I would post a link of a recording from last week's worship service at Common Ground. This was my first opportunity to play for worship. Thanks, Andrew and William. It was a pleasure.

Take a LISTEN

The Problem With Christian Music

I ran accross this story in the "Slices" section of Relevant. The author of the article is a Christian and a music editor for the Chicago Tribune. The point of the article is essentially that Christian music will continue to be of inferior quality as long as it stresses Agenda over Art. Short but poignant.

Article 1
Article 2

One Percent

One percent. What is it. Milk. Nope. One percent is a concept mentioned in a talk/sermon given by BONO at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast.

If you haven't read the transcript of this talk or heard the actual talk, I highly suggest that you visit the link below and read it.
BONO's Talk At The National Prayer Breakfast

This is definitely one of the most powerful talks I have heard from BONO. He really shows the passion of his faith in this talk. Read it.

Call to Action

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth."

- Martin Luther King Jr., in his speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence"

This is a great quote, but hard to act on. We are such selfish people. Lately, however, I've begun to realize that I'm not the most important person in the world - it doesn't always have to be "me first". And although I realize that, I know I have a long way to go to break this life-long mindset. Hopefully this shift of values will be quick to take hold.

Blue Like Me

I always think I understand Grace. When it gets right down to it though, I don't. I still don't get it. There may be moments of clarity but I still don't get it. This quote from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller pretty much sums up where I am at.

Rick tells me, looking back, that he was too proud to recieve free grace from God. He didn't know how to live within a system where nobody owes anybody else anything.

Though he understood that God wanted nothing in return, his mind could not communicate this fact to his heart, so his life was something like torture.

More than that, grace did not seem like the thing I was looking for. It was too easy. I wanted to feel as though I had earned my forgiveness, as though God and I were buddies doing favors for eachother.

This is where I have been stuck that last 3 or so years. My mind can't communicate the nature of grace to my heart. I find myself feeling quite tortured at times. It's painfull. So much so, that I find myself avoiding the subject all together lately. So, I find myself laying incredibly self-depricating guilt trips on MYSELF because I can't measure up to my own warped standards. I go through cycles of this. Discipline. Guilt. Discipline. Guilt.

If you haven't read this book yet, do.

Here's a good quote

I ran accross this quote from Pascal while perusing some other blogs. I just love to rip off material from other blogs. This is also quite convenient as I seldom have original thoughts.

"there are two kinds of people:
sinners who think they are saints
and saints who know they are sinners" ~Pascal, pensees

More On Culture

This is an interesting and relevant quote I came across in an article that Dani sent me. I think this quote sums up a lot of our thoughts about and disappointments with the modern Church's inability to understand the importance of the culture around it. The article comes from www.emergingchurch.info.

I long for a culturally relevant church. I don't understand why cross-cultural missionaries attempt to understand culture to present the gospel within it, while churches in the developed world tend to simply withdraw from their own culture, often condemning its evils. Unfortunately for them, our culture is filled with people who need to see real Christianity in action: they have seen enough caricatures of Christianity already. Being culturally relevant in the early 21st century means understanding -gasp!- postmodernism.

Multisensory Prayer

This is a link to a very interesting article from the Emerging Church UK website. I think it presents some ideas that are definitely worth considering if you struggle or are unsatisfied with your prayer life.

Below is a snippet from the article. . .

Sometimes I feel a terrible fraud for writing a prayerbook. Isnt it people that are good at prayer that write prayerbooks? In my imagination I always used to picture people who write prayerbooks as being super-pray-ers who have sussed the art of living life totally-connected to God. Yet my prayerbook came out of our struggles within the Visions group and our realisation that we were actually pretty bad at prayer really.

So we went on a sort of pilgrimage and scavenger hunt. We looked at all the different Christian traditions and how they prayed, collecting things that worked for us.

The Shield of St. Patrick

This is an amazing and powerful poem. I happened to find it on someone else's blog, and as I read it, I discovered that I already knew the words. It was made into a song by the band, Iona, which I happen to love. This particular version is paraphrased by Cecil Frances Alexander.

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three.
I bind this day to me forever by power of faith Christ's incarnation,
his baptism in the Jordan river, his death on the cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spiced tomb, his riding up the heavenly way,
his coming at the day of doom I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself today the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay, his ear to harken to my need,
the wisdom of my God to teach, his hand to guide, his shield to ward,
the Word of God to give me speech, his heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me;
Christ to comfort and restore me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the name, the strong name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three,
of whom all nature hath creation, eternal Father, Spirit, Word;
praise to the God of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord!

Further Comment On The Church

These are just a few thoughts about the Church.

I think God would be awfully disappointed at how inaccessable the Church is. As a whole we have managed to seclude ourselves from our own culture and alienate the lost.

I don't drink alcohol (I'm too holy for that)
I don't listen to "secular" music (I'm too holy for that)
I don't watch MTV (I'm too holy for that)
I don't watch R-rated movies (I'm too holy for that)
I burn books with stories about witches (I'm too holy for that)
I make a point to praise the Lord publically (so everyone knows I am full of God's love)

I realize this may come accross a bit antagonistic. While we may not do this intentionally, we really do do it. Are we getting better? Yes. Are our morals slipping? No. Am I suggesting we abandon all moral foundation just to save souls? No. I am not suggesting we start having sex to be able to relate to sexually immoral... or start getting drunk to relate to alcoholics. What I am saying is we can embrace our morals and our culture at the same time. When we pretend we are holy and perfect we make ourselves completely inaccessable to others.

We have to be real people to real people in need of God's love. If we avoid our own cultural common ground and seclude ourselves...or to use a Christian phrase...make ourselves "set apart" how does that help us minister to the lost?

We must meet non-Christians in the common grounds of life...through culture. This is the pattern Christ showed us. I will come love you where you are just how you are. And when my love becomes apparent to you, you will be changed...because my love is perfect.

I hope this made sense. A bit of a ramble. I may have to tidy this post up a bit later.

Christians In The Blogosphere

I am starting to get into this blogging thing more and more. I am probably more into reading other blogs than I am in contributing content to my own. Anyway, it has occurred to me that there has to be a load of Christian blogs out there. I mean we are just ordinary people (save for kooks like Rev. Phelps - maybe he will come picket me - God loves gays!). There has got to be a virtual ton of blogs out there that explore Christianity in a relevant and meaningful way. By relevant and meaningful I mean in a way that embraces that same type of progressive thinking Jesus was famous for. Yes I said it. PROGRESSIVE. What a loaded word. I digress. I am starting to become excited about Christianity for the first time in my life. Not because the American Church is heading in an exciting direction (it isn't - yet) but because for the first time I am starting to see what God really wanted the church (us) to be.

So, I am going to begin to seek out such blogs from such intrepid and adventursome souls who share in the struggle. I am bound, no doubt, to disagree with a lot of what I come accross, but the adventure of challenging new ideas is still an exciting prospect.

My goal is to begin posting snippets, links, and such from the blogs I discover. This ought to be good.

The Rythm of Waiting

Have you ever been at a place in your life when you felt suspended in slower than slow motion? Like you're waiting for something to happen before you can resume living life with enthusiasm and joy. You just feel kind of blah, worn out.
There is no shame in feeling this way. An article by Brian Orme in Relevant Magazine called "Waiting for Passion" reveals that Jesus went through the same thing. We can find a model for the rythm of waiting in the garden with Jesus just hours before his crucifiction. The key is seeking God while we wait instead of trying to soothe ourselves with distractions & temporary solutions. Even if we end up waiting for a number of years, its better to let God work than to try and do the work ourselves. Here are a few quotes from the article to ponder. . .

Waiting isn't glamorous; it makes us vulnerable, dependent and anxious.

True spiritual renewal arrives when we become boldly aware of our own weakness. The exposure is painful, but in these moments we are closer to God than we could know.

Finding the rythm and grace in this sacred effort of waiting teaches us to renew our hearts through devine resources instead of conjuring up some pseudo-strength of our own.

Waiting goes against our natural instincts. But when we stop and wait for God to renew us, we receive what only God can give.

If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em

I came accross this article in Relevant Magazine by one of my favorite contributers, John Fischer. The article discusses a topic of great interest to me. Culture. Here is a brief snippet.

A culture war is simply not an effective model for changing culture. A culture war is a negative potsturing toward the world that only creates further resistance. The people for whom Christ died end up aliented by the carriers of the very gospel that can save them. Christians are in this world to spread the good news of God's grace, not to create a culture that is more to our liking or safer for our children. Christians are here primarily to love God and to love our neighbors and to do that within the context of our place in the world, wherever that might be.

Over the last year, God has been teaching me how to be open to the culture I am in. I have spent so much of my life operating in the school of thought that teaches that we as Christians must separate ourselves from the culture around us. We have no part with secular culture...movies, music, social activities. We speak so much about how God "meets us where we are" and "takes us just as we are" yet we as Christians don't embrace this. I believe God wired us to relate to eachother through the common grounds and circumstances of our culture. How often do we fight culture. What is the point. Would our energy be best spent elsewhere?

A Lesson on Postmodernism. . .

Postmodernism, I have found, seems to be almost a bad word among a lot of Christians. Below is an article from the Youthworker Journal by Matt Kelley that dispells some of the assumptions regarding this new culture. . .

Postmodernism isn't an outright rejection of modernism in the way that modernism rejected what had come before it. People who are postmodern seek to preserve modern attitudes and philosophies that they find helpful, as well as rediscovering older traditions and ways of thinking. In his book, Postmodern Youth Ministry, Tony Jones identifies several attitudes present within our postmodern culture.

Subjectivity
Postmoderns recognize that it's almost impossible to be objective about anything. Our socio-economic backgrounds, our upbringings, our friends, our educational levels, and everything else about us influence the way we perceive every situation. Even when we simply observe a situation, we interact with it and change it to some degree. Human beings simply cannot be totally objective--and that's okay.

Postmoderns seek to understand more fully what it is that affects the way we see things. Only by recognizing this inherent and inescapable subjectivity can we see more clearly. The result: postmodernism is all about self-awareness.

Truth
Postmoderns also have a nuanced view of truth. Some go as far as to say "there is no Truth with a capital 'T'." As with subjectivity, postmodernism recognizes that what we hold to be true is anchored in fundamental assumptions that vary from person to person. This scares many Christians, because it sounds suspiciously like moral relativism: the idea that there's no absolute truth. While many secular postmoderns certainly fall into the camp of moral relativism, that's not the case with all postmoderns. Postmodern Christians don't necessarily believe that there's no absolute truth, but many believe that it's very hard to understand and even harder to articulate.

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber believed that truth is the very essence of God, and that God cannot be contained by human language. To be able to understand and articulate something is to exercise a degree of control over it, and we certainly cannot control God. Postmodern Christians believe that truth, like God, is transcendent and can only be encountered through being, not through intellectual understanding.

Questioning
As a result of these attitudes about subjectivity and truth, postmoderns believe that everything must be questioned. This can be another scary thing for Christians, because questioning basic assumptions and things we've taken for granted all our lives can seem to border on heresy. However, postmoderns believe that people can't truly believe something unless they've honestly considered that the alternative might be true. This is very different from the type of apologetics found in Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, or Josh McDowell's More Evidence that Demands a Verdict, which are based on the modern idea of reason and rationale...convincing ourselves beyond any doubt.

Paul Tillich, one of the most important theologians of the 20th century, maintained that doubt is an essential element of true faith. Superficial faith is that which holds on to supposed truths for the sake of security. Tillich said that "this element of uncertainty in faith cannot be removed, it must be accepted." Tillich articulated a postmodern attitude by recognizing that an element of doubt or uncertainty is an integral part of faith precisely because of the radical transcendence of God and God's truth. Because the mortal mind can never "possess" God, the life of faith always involves anxiety.

Jesus Walks Again

I ran across this when I was browsing Relevant today.

If you haven't heard the remix of Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" featuring Mase, you need to hear it. Check it out here. It's bold. We're shocked and thrilled that mainstream radio is playing this ...

Hungering for Restoration

This puts so many things into perspective. . .

Our desire of order is a remnant of the Garden and a reflection of our hunger to return. The hunger for heaven is entangled in our yearning for order, relief, rest, excitement, pleasure, and passion. Unfortunately, the hunger for heaven is ignored in the daily enterprise of cleaning our desk, taking a break, or watching a good movie. What can be done to increase our perspective? The answer, in part, is to enter deeply into our hunger for more and the disappointment of incompleteness.

Hunger and disappointment serve as internal witnesses against all efforts to make any part or our existence into a real piece of heaven. Our tendency is to satisfy our desire for beauty and restoration in some activity as mundane as keeping the car clean, the Day-Timer organized, and the grass green. Nothing is wrong with these activities, as long as each continually frustrates us with a failure that edges us beyond the mundane to something so mysterious and wonderful that all frustration, failure, and struggle is light, momentary affliction in comparison.

Bold Love by Dr.s Dan Allender & Tremper Longman III, Chapter 7 - Hungering for Restoration: A Passionate Hope for Beauty, p. 169

Happiness vs True Joy

I have just started reading Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb. In his book Dr. Crabb talks about why God sometimes has to shatter some of our life's dreams in order to give us what only He knows is best for us. I came across this passage in the chapter called the Rhythm Of Hope.

Happy people do not love well. Joyful people do. That's why
happiness, the pleasant feelings that pleasant circumstances generate, must be
taken away in order to be replaced by joy. Happy people rarely look for joy.
They're quite content with what they have. The foundation of their life consists
of the blessings they enjoy. In His severe mercy, God takes away the good to create an appetite for the better.
God's best is only available to those who sacrifice, or who are
willing to sacrifice, the merely good. If we are satisfied with
good health, responsible children, enjoyable marriages, close friendships,
interesting jobs, and successful ministries, we will never hunger for God's best...we will never worship. I've come to believe that only
broken people truly worship. Unbroken people -- happy folks who enjoy their
blessings more than the Blesser -- say thanks to God the way a shopper thanks a
clerk.

This is me most of the time. I waste so much time seeking my best -- my best plans, my best dreams, my best comfort. The vast majority of my waking hours are spent dwelling on short term comfort instead of eternal joy. Thank God for His patience. I hope I can learn to truly thank Him for loving me so well that He can endure the pain of giving me what I NEED as opposed to what I WANT.

Be Still

In the midst of life's busyness and trials, I think I'm finally learning to just be still and experience each moment as it comes, trusting that God knows what he's doing. . . In the past, my typical reactions to the stresses of life have been to shut down emotionally or to stop interacting and connecting with people for a while. Sometimes I would even withdraw from God. But lately I've just been able to feel and to experience the different emotions that trials bring, but not become overwhelmed by them. Throughout the tough times I've still been able to talk to God and enjoy people and life's simple pleasures. This was all so new to me that for a while I thought something was wrong with me. Then I began to realize that this was how God had wanted me to react to life all along. Once I figured this out, I felt at peace. Here are some verses that have helped me see why it's good to just be still. . .

I Samuel 12:16
Now then, stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes!

Zechariah 2:13
Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

Psalm 37:7
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. . .

Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

Psalm 62:1,5
My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.

ScRaMbLiNg

I keep forgetting something about God. While He is infinitely more concerned with my well-being than I am, He's considerably less worried about it. God is not worried about whether or not I reach my ultimate goals. My sights have been set for far too long on the end of that five step plan, whereas, His have been on how close we'll get during the ride. My seeking Him is way more important than my knowing exactly which path to take and when.

Facing my humanity squarely grants me the freedom to quit pretending I have it all together. I do not have to have the answers. I don't even have to have the right questions at this point. What I do have is closeness with One whose strength doesn't waver, whose sense of direction is never off and whose grace is big enough to cover each and every fumbling step along the way.

I ran across this article on the Relevant website. This article pretty much sums up where I am in my struggle to draw close to God. I get too wrapped up in notions of "getting it right" or "doing His will" and often forget that what he really wants is for me just to come as I am...Screwed up, imperfect, and confused...and desperately seeking His closeness.

God, help me to realize that I desire you more that anything else.

Mark's Big Send Off

I don't know if you can ever say a funeral is a good thing, but Mark's was. Never have I seen God's love more clearly in one person's life as I did in Mark's life. There were a handful of different speakers at the funeral and they ALL hit home. Mark wasn't affraid of life or death. Mark wasn't affraid to love. No fear. His faith in Christ allowed him to "GO BIG". At the Funeral pastor Matt Heard spoke about Three Hand Hold for Climbing On.

1. God loves me.
2. God is enough.
3. I'm free to live. - Because God first loved me and because He is enough, I am: free to live, free to love, free from fear.

Pastor Heard finished his lesson by telling us that these three things were not just three hand holds that allow us to climb through life's challenges but they are in fact...Three Graces.