broken stained glass

I've moved

2005-01-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

My blog has moved to a typepad address.
Click here for my new home And please update your address books.

Cyberspace Influenza and Frankenstein

2005-01-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Warning: The following contains musings filled with angst.

Two days ago my computer crashed. A virus of some sort. Right now it’s in bed recovering from some sort of cyberspace influenza. (I am using a loner computer, if you are wondering). The tech guys at work have spent endless hours rebuilding it – a huge source of frustration for the two of them and for me. They are currently putting it through a technological quarantine.
Because if the virus, I have gotten very little work done, which is also frustrating.

I am amazed at how dependent we are on technology.

I wonder if the amount of dependence we have upon technology is healthy or unhealthy. I am not certain.
Computers are wonderfully helpful and beneficial, but so much of what I do is dependent upon my computer: email, research capabilities, important Pierced files, my sermon study notes and papers, etc. I wonder if we’ve all gone a bit overboard. (Honestly, how many of us function normally for a week without our trusty computers?)

This reminds me: Megan bought me Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein for Christmas. Shelley explores the concept of technology and the ongoing ethical question, “Just because we are capable of doing certain things with technology, does it mean that we should?” (If you’ve never read the book, here is the gist: scientist Dr. Frankenstein technologically creates the now-famous green monster; eventually it turns on him and seeks to end Dr. Frankenstein’s life….hence the phrase “I think I’ve created a monster.”) The scientist ‘plays God’ by creating life, which, at first, seemed like a great idea, but eventually turned on him in the end (sounds similar to cloning, stem-cell research and the plot to I, Robot, doesn’t it?)

If you’ve haven’t read this novel before, you should…

Where is the balance in our technological capabilities?

Liturgy

2005-01-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Megan and I attended another church this morning. We attended Gateway Presbyterian, a small traditional and liturgical Reformed community that meets near Garden of the Gods. We went to hear Bryan Devonshire preach. Bryan attends Pierced and one of the guys I mentor. He works as the part-time youth pastor at Gateway and he was given the opportunity to preach his first sermon. He spoke on the times when God takes us into the desert, not to punish us, but to show us his love. I was so proud of him. He did a fabulous job. I was smiling from ear to ear the entire service!

There was a great deal of liturgy involved in the service, which was a nice welcomed change. Working at a contemporary church there are not many opportunities for partaking in liturgy. Responsive readings, hymns, confession of faith and partaking in the Sacrament of Communion. It was, at first, awkward, but by the middle of the service I realized just how refreshing it was to be involved in liturgical practices. It was a great reminder that this God we serve is not a new fad. Liturgy has a way of reminding me that God has been served by Christ followers all over the world for thousands of years. It reminds me that there is a “great cloud of witnesses” that has gone before us and continues to encourage me in our journey to pursue Him with our entire hearts.

Blogging from a restaurant booth

2004-12-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

We're wireless. It looks us a while, but we did it.
I'm sitting in Einstein's Bagel Shop using our new WiFi card (Einstein's is one of the few places in the Springs that offers free WiFi).

It's not that we're trying to keep up technologically with the Jones -- its just that we get a lot more work done...and its a lot more fun.

I feel like grabbing a microphone and singing "I love technology..." like Kip did at his wedding at the end of Napoleon Dynamite.

Musings from the Movies: the Incredibles

2004-12-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

The holidays are a time for an important Briggs family tradition: going to the movies. The past week we have watched Napoleon Dynamite, The Aviator and The Incredibles.

We bought the ‘Nap Dyn’ DVD and watched it together. (My parents thought it was the biggest waste of two hours, but Alan and Megan and I loved it, of course).
The Aviator was an historically accurate movie about the legendary Howard Hughes of TWA and his problem with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). DiCaprio does a great job playing Hughes.
And, the Incredibles, another Pixar creation, is about a family of Superheroes working underground.

Not to think too philosophically about a Pixar movie, but my family and I had a great conversation about the deeper meaning of the cartoon.

A few thoughts (this will make sense only if you have seen it):

1. How many men in America feel what Bob Parr (aka Mr. Incredible) felt when he was forced out of his superhero job into selling insurance policies). A man ‘trapped’ in cubicle-land bored, under-challenged, under-stimulated and directionless. I think there are some John Eldredge-Wild At Heart undertones in this movie. When Bob went back to being Mr. Incredible he had the glimmer back in his eyes, he had a bounce in his step, he loved his wife and his family deeper, etc. He was unleashed for what he was created for!

2. Think about the family and each one of their superhero powers: Bob’s wife Helen (aka ElastiGirl) was flexible and would manipulate her way out of any situation. Their son Dash could run away from any dangerous situation. Violent had the power to become invisible and to put up a force field of protection (a wall) against people who could potentially harm her. How many of us possession “superhero gifts” like this? How many of us feel under-challenged and unmotivated in life like Bob Parr. How many of us manipulate situations so we aren’t hurt like Helen did? How many us run away from harmful situations as fast as we can like Dash? And how many of us feel invisible, as if nobody notices us or we put up a wall and protect ourselves when someone might hurt us?

3. My dad made a good point. When these superhero “gifts” were used, it was not all bad. When used correctly they were beneficial for the greater good. All of the gifts used correctly were wonderful, but when they were not used or where used incorrectly there were consequences. How often does the church discourage people from using their special “gifts” or abused those gifts in ways that are damaging or harmful?

4. Bob’s famous line to Buddy (aka “Syndrome Man”) was: “Get lost kid. I work best alone.” How many of us embrace the American “rugged individualism” and it hurts us in the end? Community is always the key to depth and richness in life…

From the ski slopes to the movie theatre, God taught me a lot of the holiday break.

Any other thoughts from the blogosphere?

What God Taught Me On the Slopes

2004-12-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Megan and I (along with her parents) went skiing at Copper Mountain. It’s was great to hit the slopes with family. We enjoyed our time cruising down the white stuff for two days (despite the bitter cold yesterday).

As we were riding up the chair lift on Tuesday, I noticed a few runs that were closed. At the beginning of each closed run were a few poles with rope, fluorescent orange flags hanging off the rope signaling that this run is off limits and a sign that reads Run Closed: No Ski Zone. On one particular run I noticed the snow blowers were making tons of snow and blowing it onto the run, making it perfect skiing conditions. I thought to myself, all they are doing is trying to keep us from having fun!

Yesterday, however, I began to notice a few things from the chair lift. I had never noticed the hazardous and dangerous items on the path: tree stumps sticking up, sections of dangerous ice and ski patrol equipment and snowmobiles in the middle of the run. I began to realize something about these closed runs: the ski patrol was not trying to keep us from having fun, but was actually protecting us from harming ourselves and other skiers! It was a blessing.

I realized that this is how I approach God many times. God has set up specific barriers and sometimes I think to myself, God is just doing this to take away all of the fun that I can have! But when I actually think about it, I realize God isn’t intending to take away fun from my life; He is actually protecting me from harm and enabling me to experience life to the fullest. He protects me from things I cannot see, not so much from physical harm like the ski patrol, but from relational and spiritual harm between me and Him and me and others.

I appreciate the fact that God sets up boundaries because ultimately he desires to protect us and give us more purpose, rather than taking all the fun away from his children.
Father knows best.

Postmodernism: a shift in geographical thinking?

2004-12-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

For those of you following, living and ministering in the postmodern mindset, its nothing new to state that we are thinking and processing information differently than our modern friends. However, as I continue to process our time in southeastern Asia I realize the shift of postmodern thinking is actually a geographical shift, not just a religious one. I knew this all along...I just had never made the connection as strongly as I see it now.

While we state that the shift in our American mindset has moved to relativity (i.e. "there are not absolute truths" - which is a contradiction in and of itself, of course) as some onto the scene fairly recently in the past few decades, this type of thinking has been occurring for many, many centuries in Asia.

Buddhism was birthed out of Hinduism. (Siddartha Gotama, the 'original Buddha' was born into a Hindu family, broke off from it and started Buddhism. You find that Buddhism and Hinduism are kissing cousins in faith just like Judaism and Christianity. The New Age movement (the fastest growing religion in America) was birthed out of Buddhism and Hinduism -- a smorgasbord of religious food to consume (i.e. "Whatever works for you is fine, but it doesn't work for everybody...and it does doesn't work for me...")

Talking with monks in Thailand about Absolute Truth was difficult. It was the same discussion I might have with a sophomore at Colorado College. This shift in the American worldview is nothing new -- it's just that it's taken us a while to catch up with the East, in a sense.

What are the symptoms of the East playing a larger part in our everyday lives (besides allowing Wal-Mart to keep their prices low)? Ask any tattoo artist in America what the most popular type of tattoo is and he will tell you: Chinese symbols and characters.

But how about another symptom? The Eastern mindset thinks in terms of images and pictures and understanding truth through their senses. The Western, modern mindset desires propositions and bullet-point lists, but the postmodern mindset thinks in terms of images, attaches to Story and, as one teacher has said, "learns with their eyes...and all the other senses." Postmoderns think Eastern.

We've also shifted our thinking by our willingness to dwell in Mystery.
We have heard of Eastern mysticism...but have you ever heard of Western mysticism?
I haven't.
Postmodern thinkers are returning to, embracing and resting in the mystery of God rather than putting God in a box, a God who can be figured out.

Buddhism is very different from Christianity in its basic tenets. One major one: Buddhism attempts to empty the mind; Christianity attempts to fill the mind with the mind of Christ.
While there are obvious differences between the two, I began to notice that we are beginning to strive for mystery and think in terms of Story and images.

Our paradigm shift is not just religious, its geographical.

If you've read this far, I'm proud of you.
Any thoughts from you all out there in the blogosphere?

Great post

2004-12-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

See a great post about the Christmas season on Chris and Amy Stroup's blog (our friends we visited in Thailand) here.

Thought-inspiring...

A purposeful Christmas experiment

2004-12-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

This Christmas season, we have my family and Megan's family at our place. This year, we are experimenting with a new idea. Giving gifts is not inherently wrong by any means. But instead maxing out credit cards and stretching the budget to give others "stuff" we decided to direct our giving to each other in a more meaningful and purposeful manner.

Each person coming to our house this Christmas has developed a short list of ministries, organizations, missionaries and non-profits that are close to our hearts. The list has been emailed out to each participating family member. (It has been so much fun to develop a list of organizations that are close to our hearts: some of them are large international ministries, others are small, local missionaries in need of some end-of-the-year support). The combination of everyone's lists have spanned from Crisis Pregnancy Centers to international interest-free loan organizations focusing on development and empowerment to Habitat for Humanity to the Thailand girls orphanage to a Christian school.

Each person will take these lists that have been emailed to them and pick out a few ministries/organizations and make a donation(s) to those ministries (the amount is completely up to the giver) on behalf of that person.

So, on Christmas morning, we'll all have wrapped gifts under the tree, but the item inside will be a simple card that reads something like:

"A donation of $50 has been given on your behalf to one of the ministries on your list, Compassion International."

We think that participating in a purposeful and fun Christmas morning gift exchange this year will allow us to enjoy Christmas in a unique way. It will help us think more globally and missionally and allow us to enjoy the simplicity and the joy of the true and oft-forgotten message of the season while at the same time bless other great organizations that are impacting the world with the gospel.

We shall see how the Briggs holiday gift exchange experiment goes...

Napoleon Dynamite

2004-12-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Nap Dyn comes out on DVD on the 21st.
I'm pumped.

Anyone else excited???

The Popularity Blogs

2004-12-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

It's confirmed: blogs continue to rise in popularity.
The blogosphere is getting crowded.

Check out this news report on blogs and its place in the dictionary here.

Join the revolution.
Start a blog. (It's free and easy.)

Subtle messages in our Christmas songs

2004-12-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last night, Megan and I watched Polar Express (IMAX and 3D). On the way home, we were listening to one particular radio station that plays non-stop Christmas music the entire month of December. (It's cool...as long as they don't do the same in April, it's cool).

The famed "Rudolf" song came on.
But have you ever really thought about the lyrics of the song?
Forgive me if I sound like the Grinch, but the lyrics are a bit disturbing (and pretty revealing of our warped values in America these days) if you take a moment to think about them. There are sublte messages in our Christmas songs that teach some pretty poor values if you think about it...

Here's an entire song about a mammal that looks really funny and is "different" from all of the others. There's incredible social pressure to conform to everyone else and become like everyone (sound familiar?) else so he is ostracized and made fun of through name-calling ("sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always send me to counseling") by the others. They ignore him, exclude him and discriminate against him (if this was a real-life situation, the ACLU would have a field-day with this one).

Then, because of the unlikelihood of terrible weather on Mr. Claus' big night he calls on Rudy to use his "different-ness" to help out...and he pulls through in the clutch. His "uckly duckling" status is transformed to the status of a hero of sorts. And because he came through in the clutch, the other reindeer include him into all of their activities.

I don't want to twist a silly little Christmas song into a philosophical argument or theological rant, but think about it...

Worth was taken away from him because he was "different."
His uniqueness was not seen as a blessing, but a terrible scarlet A on his chest.
But worth and value was given back to him because of what he did (not because of who he was).
Without Santa tapping into his unique gift, to this day Rudy would be ostracized and alone with no friends.
Imagine if, when Santa asked for his help on that ever-important night, he choked and was unable to help Santa get the job done? His so-called friends would have made fun of him even more, resulting in many more visits to the therapist for help on his self-esteem.

Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it, but how much of the time do we place value on people based on how they perform, rather on who they are? We judge value and worth on what people do rather than who people are.

-Can we be more like Santa and tap people's unique and diverse gifts to help others?
-How can I value people more for who they are, rather than for what they do (or don't do)?
-How do I bring out those who are ostracized and marginalized and give them value because they are a treasured child of the Most High King?

Okay...now you can post comments and call me Ebenezer Scrooge if you like...

Jet lag

2004-12-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

We're still not sleeping well. Jet lag has beaten us up.
Our body clocks are still very confused.

Two reflections somewhere over the Pacific

2004-12-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

The flight journey home was a beast.

Chiang Mai to Bangkok.
Bangkok to Tokyo.
Tokyo to San Fransisco.
San Fransisco to Denver.

24 hours of flying with hardly any sleep.
Re-entering the atmosphere is never pretty.

Two reflections came to me somewhere over the Pacific Ocean: a good movie and a Pharisee in seat 33F.

A good movie:
Both going and coming home, United showed "I,Robot" with Will Smith. Normally, I am not one for science-fictiony, shoot-em-up-bang-em-up, special effects movies, but I was impressed by the intelligence and thought-provocation of this movie. It's Brave New World and Mary Shelley's class novel Frankenstein meet Hollywood...and Will Smith does a decent job acting in it as well (another huge surprise!)
It touches on the never-ending argument of free will/predestination, the Creator vs. the Created, and standing up for truth. It brought to the surface questions such as "What constitutes a soul? and "What are the ethics involved in technology?"

A great quote from one of the robots:

"I am created by my father and he gave me purpose."

I thought it to be strange that a robot comprehended this and yet so many believers do not.
The irony: a robot understood this truth much deeper than we as humans do.

A Pharisee in 33F:
One of the reasons why I can't sleep on planes is the incredible lack of sufficient leg room. What's more frustrating is when the allotted leg room space of 12 inches is diminished to 6 inches when the person in front of you chooses to be cruel to you and pushes the evil, round button on their arm rest to recline their seat.

17 minutes into our marathon flight the evil enemy (the passenger sitting in front of me in 32F) chose to recline his seat and cramp my legs.
I always have a problem with this.
It's amazing how, in my mind, I blame this person for keeping me from sleeping. I believe it is selfish of him to encroach on my precious real estate.
And then I rationalize: If he can do it to me, then I can press my button and recline my seat, dangit.
So I put my seat back and manage to feel no guilt about it.
Why Because I am entitled to do this. If the airlines didn't want me to do this, they wouldn't have built the airplane seat with that evil round button on the arm rest.

And I realize just how hypocritical I can be, even over stupid stuff like reclining plane seats.
I become agitated and I am quick to point my finger at the person in front of me and yet I have no problem justifying it in my mind when I want to recline my seat.

Now I realize that utlimately it is me who is the selfish one.
I am the Pharisee who sits in 33F.

Home: Safe and Sound (and Tired)

2004-12-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

Returned home from the Thailand adventure yesterday evening. The question is always an unavoidable and extremely difficult to hear and even more difficult to answer: "So, how was your trip?" People mean well, but they have no idea the complexity of that question...where do you start?

The short of it is that it was a wonderful trip. We had a great time with Chris and Amy, but it is great to be home again, too. (Read more on Chris and Amy's blog, called "the Thai Experiment" here. Also, here's a blog from my friend John P's blog who overlapped for a few days in Thailand with us. A great Chiang Mai update from his experience...

Some thoughts and reflections since the last pos:

1. Last Sunday at the Chiang Mai New Testament Church I preached for just a few brief moments. It was Father's Day in Thailand (which cooresponds with the King's birthday) so I taught on the role of Joseph in the life of Jesus and Mary. His faithfulness and obedience to situations he didn't understand proved to be influential in the life of Jesus. God used his obedience to positively impact Yeshua. I hoped that the girls at the orphanage (who, almost all of them do not know who their earthly father is) would begin to get a glimpse and grasp that they, too, could celebrate Father's Day because they had a Heavenly Father who would never leave them or forsake them and who cares deeply about them.

Here's a picture with me playing with these awesome girls...

After the service, we were able to witness nine girls from the orphanage participate in the symbolic act of baptism. There is something about baptism that always brings tears to my eyes and seeing nine Thai girls make a public statement of their spiritual conversation through physical wetness provided tears streaming down my cheeks. After they dried off and changed, they came upstairs to the church and partook in communion together - their first communion ever. Experiencing this was one of the highlights of the entire trip.

2. Another experience that sticks out to me on the trip happened when we visited the most famous Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai called Doi Suket. The interior of the temple is filled with shrines and idols. Many Buddhists make a pilgrimmage to Doi Suket and offer lotus flowers, gold leaves and burn incense sticks as their form of worship to the Buddha (sad to see, but an interesting experience). I observed one woman in probably her early thirties bowing reverently in front of a golden idol of the Buddha in the lotus position. She slowly and carefully poured more incense into the candle bowl.
Then, an interuption: the cell phone began ringing...
Certain that she was embarrassed and that she would quickly reach to turn it off as not to distract other worshippers, she did something that shocked me.

"Hello."

In the midst of this reverent time, her cell not only rang, but she picked it up and had a conversation with her friend...and did not feel an ounce of guilt about it.
I was shocked.

As I reflected upon this incident on the ride home, I realized that I shouldn't be so shocked.
I do this all the time with God.
I allow the smallest of interruptions to become major distractions in my walk and my worship of God. Maybe not a cell phone, but a busy schedule or television or a good book or...whatever.

Sometimes I can be a very distracted worshipper of God.

Christmas with the Kranks...sort of

2004-12-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

I must tell you that we are fully enjoying the fact that we are avoiding the Christmas rush, the long lines in the mall and the endless Christ-less holiday commercialism. No Santas or holly or "Super Holiday Specials" here in southeast Asia.

We feel like Tim Allen in the new movie "Christmas with the Kranks" (based off of the fun John Grisham novel Skipping Christmas). But we're not skipping Christmas...just all of the commercialism.

It's refreshing.

Extra Stamps in the Passport Never Hurt Anybody

2004-12-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

Never before has someone asked me the question, "Hey, you wanna go to Burma and Laos?"

But Chris and Amy asked us.
"We need to go to Burma to renew our visa. You want to come?"

Um, sure.
Ah, what the heck.

So two days ago we went to the Golden Triangle, the place where Thailand, Laos and Burma (now called Myanmar) come together. (Most people have never even heard about Myanmar or Laos or find them on a world map, let alone know anything about the cultures of these two countries... I sure didn't). The three countries are divided by a river. We got a water taxi and went over to Laos (for thirty minutes). Then, the next morning we walked across the border to Myanmar for a little while so Chris and Amy could get their visa renewed.
Extra stamps in the passport never hurt anybody.

Never before have I visited three countries in less than 24 hours. This is a new experience for us.

The Golden Triangle wasn't in the plans for the trip, but it sure was fun.

Thailand Update: Monk Chat

2004-11-29T20:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a wonderful opportunity to sit down and talk with Buddhist monks. The Buddhist temples in Thailand are beautiful, intricate and ornate. We visited the Buddhist temple called Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Mai where they encourage conversation with the monks who attend the university next door. There are picnic tables in a large courtyard and they encourage visitors to sit down and engage in conversation. If you sit down, a monk will join you, making himself available to chat with you.

We had three monks sit down and converse with us. Our questions (obviously) revolved around Buddhism and the Buddhist beliefs. Our goal was not to convert them as much as it was to learn and to practice the spiritual disciplines of active listening and critical thinking. It was fascinating.

We dialogued for about two hours.
Chris and I could have stayed all day.
I'm certain we will go back to Monk Chat again before we leave.

Greetings from Thailand

2004-11-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Today is the Buddhist holiday called The Fire Festival (lots of fireworks and burning candles). In a little while we will light a candle and float it down the Ping River symbolizing our sins which will "float away." (Interesting implications to the Christian faith, though the roots of the holiday rest in Buddhism). The streets are busy, the smog is suffocating, the smiles of the people are warm and welcoming and Thailand is fascinating.

A few highlights...

-we had a Thanksgiving meal of rice, baked chicken, salad and stuffing in shorts in humid 80 degree weather.

-we shopped at the famous Night Market downtown

-we visited the orphanage and met the girls last night. They greeted us with traditional Thai dancing and singing Christian songs for us. (There were tears welling up in my eyes as I marveled at the global God that we serve).

-Today, we wanted a snake handler successfully handle the most poisonous snakes in all of Thailand.

-We rode elephants through the mountain jungle outside of the city. (What a surreal experience).

-We realize that God is good in the midst of the immense oppression of Buddhism in this culture.

Enough for now...I'll try to update again later. It's cool to blog half-way around the world.

Thailand

2004-11-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

Megan and I will be in Thailand serving and working alongside of our friends, Chris and Amy Stroup. Chris and Amy are a part of our Pierced community who decided to defer grad school for a year to run an orphanage for Thai girls to teach them skills to keep them out of prostitution. We're excited to spend time with them, see how God is using them in mighty ways and to experience a new culture. We're eager to hear more about Buddhism and to interact and dialogue often with the monks.

We'll be gone until December 7th.

It will probably be the most unique Thanksgiving we'll ever have (no turkey this year, if you were wondering. Probably a bunch of rice instead...)

Blogging will be sporadic and thin for the next two weeks. I'm going to see if I can find an internet connection and put up a few posts on the blog from Thailand.

If I don't get a chance to say it, have a happy Thanksgiving to everyone out in the blogosphere.

Freedom is Never Free

2004-11-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I found out that a friend of our family was killed in Fallujah, Iraq on Friday fighting in battle. When I was a youth intern at my youth group at my home church, Brad one of my guys. He also graduated from my high school. After high school he enlisted in the Marines. He was a Marine reserve only over in Iraq for a few months. His unit was ambushed and he was the only American soldier killed.

My emotions are swirling.

I'm in shock.
I'm saddened.
I'm angry.
I'm grateful.
I'm crying.
I'm numb.

It seems that when American soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq it has been merely a sad statistic. With the news of Brad, it no longer is a statistic.
It's a face.
A mourning family.
A funeral.
Lots of memories.
Sadness.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful that we live in a free country.

But freedom is never free.

A worshiping community

2004-11-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

On Thursday afternoon, the internationally known Christian apologist Razi Zacharias and his team from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry (RZIM) came to our church to speak. Their premise for their ministry is: "What I believe in the heart must make sense in the mind."

Stuart McAllister (International Director of RZIM and owner of a great Scottish accent) spoke for one session, Dale Fincher (RZIM Staff Writer and Apologist) spoke during the second session, Ravi during the third. The fourth session was a Q and A time with the audience. All three presenters were extremely articulate, funny, in touch with culture, well-versed in apologetics and Scripture and were passionate about the topic (a rare combination these days!)

The entire afternoon was enlightening (my brain was smoking and my hand was about to fall off from taking notes) but there were three thoughts that have clung to my mind that I can't shake:

1. McAllister said that as we defend our faith, the most important aspect is that we listen and we listen carefully and lovingly (how often we forget this when we share our faith!) We listen for the words, but more importantly we must listen for the heart behind the words (i.e. "What is it that this person is really trying to say?")

2. McAllister also said that in our culture, the way one engages in conversations that count is by engaging in dot-to-dot evangelism. He said this: "If we have a blueprint fo the Truth and we are familiar with the coordinates of God, we can confidently seek to connect the dots through magazine articles from over here, movie clips from over there and song lyrics from our culture from over here." I must be someone that engages with people through the fragments of culture in order to portray the whole Truth of Christ.

3. The last point was from Ravi and it was the something he said during his last point very quickly as he was closing the afternoon (and I bet very few people actually understood it). He said, "This postmodern culture heavily values community. Don't ever forget that the greatest apologetic for the Christian faith is a worshiping community. I hope that you become a worshiping community of faith for the world to see." It is for this very reason that we minister in and through the community of Pierced with our lives.

My prayer is that Pierced would be a worshiping community so that Colorado Springs sees Christ fleshed out in our lives.

I think we can do better...

2004-11-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

If you know me, you know that I hate the spiritually-shallow, often theologically-poor, materialistic junk that is mass-produced and targeted towards God’s faithful in this country.

Yesterday, in a Christian trade magazine, I came across an advertisement for some of this junk:

You can buy buttons that read:
-JESUS U (He died to save you for your sins)
-Brain Washed Romans 12:2
-The Savior is Tougher Than Nails
-Someday My Prince Will Come
-Jesus Beat the Devil With a Big Ugly Stick
-(imitating the logo for Independent) “Dependent upon Christ”
-(Imitating the Mountain Dew logo) “Meant to Die”
-(imitating the 7-eleven logo) “Thirsty for Heaven: Jesus is always open”

You can buy a T-shirt for Christmas that reads:
“Jesus: the gift that keeps on forgiving”

Or a Bible cover that looks like a real NFL football (including real brown pigskin leather and white laces on the binding).
-instead of saying “Wilson” it says “Witness”
-instead of National Football League, the NFL stands for New Found Life.

Do we really need to imitate what the world produces in order to make the gospel attractive?

I think we can do better…

I am a mermaid

2004-11-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Last night after taking a seminary test, I went over to see my friend Jeff, while both of ur wives were at Bible study. At the kitchen table our conversation revolved around how often we, as human beings, feel like we just don’t fit in. We feel left out. The ugly duckling. The red-headed step-child. We are tempted to conform to a mold, to a grouping of people and when we don’t we feel alone and insecure. I certainly feel this way on occasion. I think most humans feel this way from time to time…

I told him about a story that I had shared at Pierced on Sunday night. Robert Fulgham, in his book All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, wrote that one day he was left with 80 screaming kindergartners and was responsible for entertaining them for an hour (a seemingly impossible task). In desperation, he decided to play the game “Giants, Wizards and Dwarfs.” (If you’ve never played this game, it’s basically full-body rock, paper, scissors. You know, the giant defeats wizard, wizard defeats dwarf, dwarf defeats giant…)

Anyway…as the game began, the place was in chaos, the noise level was at an extremely high level and he was beginning to get a headache. He felt a tug on his pants. Looking down, he saw a five year-old girl saying, “Um, excuse me mister. Where do the mermaids go?”
This girl refused to be put into a box and told who to be. She was proud to be a mermaid.

It made me grateful that we serve a God who doesn’t force us to fit into little constricting boxes and categories. He loves us for who we are.

Today, I am thankful that we have a God who loves mermaids.
Mermaids like me and Jeff.

Unbelievable

2004-11-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

I went to pick up a movie today at Blockbuster.
It was surreal.
Here' s how the conversation went.

Me: "When will the movie Napoleon Dynamite be available for purchase?"
Blockbuster employee: "What's that? I've never heard of that movie before..."
Me: "You've never heard of that movie?"
Blockbuster employee: "No. How do you spell that again? I can check in the computer..."
Me: "Nevermind."

Unbelievable. I am appalled.
And she calls herself a Blockbuster employee...
What is the world coming to?

Tearing Pages Out of Our Bibles

2004-11-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I received an invitation to attend a day of lectures presented by Ray Vander Laan. If you are a follower of Jesus and have never heard of him, you need to. RVL (as he is referred to) is a passionate and articulate scholar and teacher who (re)explores the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. (Check out his extensive website of resources at www.followtherabbi.com) These lectures ran from eight this morning to four o’clock this afternoon. (This may seem like a long time, but he’s so compelling and knowledgeable that when he was finished, I wanted him to teach more).

RVL is so passionate about the idea of understanding Scripture is an Eastern book. He reminded us that Scripture is an Eastern book written almost entirely by Easterners. We, too, must see it from an Eastern mindset.

Then we did something to our Bibles I thought I would never do. He had us turn to the title page of the first portion of our Bibles (the one that says, “Old Testament”). He startled me when he said, “Rip this page out!”
Then, he had us turn to the title page that separates the two testaments (the one that simply reads “New Testament”) and rip that out, too! It was odd to hear the sound of Bible pages being torn! Then he said, “We must learn to see our Bibles not as two testaments, but as the unifying Word of God.”

I typed out eleven pages of notes on my laptop during the lectures. If this stuff interests you and you’d like to receive a copy of the lecture notes, shoot me an email at jrbriggs@woodmenvalley.org and I’ll send them to you in a Word attachment.

Book recommendation

2004-11-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

I'm about half-way through Phil Jackson's new book The Last Season about last year's soap opera season as coach of the Lakers.

I highly recommend it.

Exciting news

2004-11-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Exciting news:
On Friday, I was offered a contract from NavPress to write a book! The book will explore the specific risks we are called to take in our pursuit of following Jesus (based on a series we did at Pierced last spring called RISK FACTOR). Listen to a few of the teachings from the series here in our Pierced teaching archives. The manuscript completion due date is next July and it looks like the release date will be Summer 2006.

The interesting thing is one of my very good friends (and Pierced's worship pastor) Christian Hill, has been contracted to write a book for NavPress as well. We'll be journeying through the rugged country of First-Time-Author-Land together.

On the "Things to Do Before I Die" list is writing a book...I just didn't think it would happen this quickly.

I'll keep you posted with more details when they become available.

Agree or disagree?

2004-11-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Mike has a blog that links to an interesting interview with Bill Maher about his faith . Check it out here.

And interesting quote by Maher in the article:

"I mean, the teachings of Jesus are a great moral guide. Jesus is one of the greatest role models I can think of. It's a shame that Christianity has gone so far from the teachings of Jesus. I don't know anyone less Jesus-like than most Christians."

agree or disagree?

U2 soon

2004-11-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

U2's newest album "Vertigo" is releasing very soon.
This makes me very, very happy.

Living what you teach

2004-11-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

Last night at Pierced, I taught on the important concept of the sabbath. This past week was an incredible time of preparation on this topic, as God brought insight and clarity to this important, yet often-neglected command. We looked at the idea of the sabbath being a day of four things: (1) resting (2) remembering (3) rejuvenating (4) tangibly trusting that God is still in control and we are not.

Two interesting God-encounters occurred in the midst of exploring this idea last night: First, as I was doing teaching preparation yesterday afternoon, my watch broke. (This is a good thing because I possess an unhealthy time orientation which keeps me from resting and relaxing much of the time).

Secondly, we had a snow storm last night. The icy conditions on the road provided Woodmen to close the offices for the day, thus giving us a "day off." It was the gift of an unexpected opportunity to rest and listen and pay attention to God.

It was as if God was reminding me, I don't want you to just teach on the idea of the Sabbath. I want you to live it out.

A great reminder for teachers of the Word of God: we must be people who live out what we teach.

God-given liberty

2004-10-29T15:14:00.000-06:00

Today, Megan and I excercised our God-given liberty here in America.

We voted early.

The Encouragement File

2004-10-28T15:21:00.000-06:00

I have two important files in my desk: the Encouragement File and the Discouragement File. The times when I get a big head and think I am God’s gift to the world, I pull out a file I call the “The Discouragement File.” In the file folder are cards, letters and emails that I’ve received over the years from people who complained or told me bluntly that they did not like me, Pierced or how I have handled certain situations (there have been some new additions to this file this week). At the time I first receive these letters, they were hard to read. But I always file them away and the times when I am arrogant, I pull the file out and read these comments to be reminded that I am not as great as I thought I was. It’s what I call a “healthy dose of discouragement.”

When things get down, when I get discouraged, when I need a reminder of my calling and I need to regain perspective, I pull out the Encouragement File. It has all the cards, letters and emails that I’ve received over the years of people offering their encouragement, support, gratitude and reminders of their prayers and love for Megan and myself and our efforts in ministry. When I need encouragement, the file gives me a “healthy dose of encouragement.”

For some reason, the last few days I have received a large amount of criticism, harsh words, misunderstanding of my motives and betrayal from others. Yesterday alone, there were four difficult phone calls I received and made. The weigh has been oppressive. Yesterday was difficult enough that Megan encouraged me to take off a bit early. She encouraged me to grab my Encouragement File and head to Starbucks.

I’m glad I’ve kept these two files and I’m glad that yesterday gave me perspective, reminded me of my calling and called me back to the Christ-honoring perspective of faithfulness above success. It was a much-needed recalibration of Kingdom Perspective for me.

Promises

2004-10-26T21:18:00.000-06:00

Today, the three college pastors in Colorado Springs met together to share coffee, catch up on our lives and pray for one another, our ministries and college students and young professionals in our city. In our time together, Mark said something that struck me and I can't stop thinking about it. He said this:

"When God gives promises, His promises usually land in two main categories: (1) His presence and (2) His peace (which emcompass much more than what seems evident on the surface)."

Then he said,

"Buddha never promised his presence to anybody."
Good point.

His promises of presence and peace allow me to celebrate his enoughness in my life today...

Computer Theology

2004-10-25T15:36:00.000-06:00

There are three little keys on the keypad that I hit every morning as I log onto my computer.

Control-Alt-Delete.

Until this morning, I'd never really thought much about these keys and how I hit them simultaneously. In fact, I have to do this in order to gain access to my computer each morning.

But these three keys summarize much of how I desire to live my life.
So much of my time I try to hit the control key, where I want to be in control of my life and the direction it takes into the future. At times, I can be a control freak.

I also want to hit the alternative key to my life. When I make poor choices (good or bad, big or small) I wish I could take an alternative route to the one I have just chosen.

And the delete button: ah, yes. The delete button. There are times where I wish I could delete the poor attitudes, behaviors and thoughts I have been a part of.

From now on, I'll look at these keys in a slightly different manner than I have before this morning. I'll be reminded that Christ wants control of me. Not just my life, but my day. He gives me an alternative life, a life of purpose and meaning and hope. And he allows me to hit the delete button. When I confess my shortcomings, he is caring enough to take my sin and delete them altogether. What a thought, what truth!

Little did I know that ctrl-alt-delete could be a spiritual reminder of daily grace and salvation before I start my day. It's the little objects and mundane activities of my day that act as the greatest reminders of our loving Creator...

Computer Theology.

Perseverance

2004-10-20T22:21:00.000-06:00

I'm not a Boston fan, but I must tip my cap to the Red Sox for advancing to the World Series after being down three games to none to the hated Yankees. No team in the history of baseball has ever come back from being down 3-0 in a best-of-seven playoff series until tonight. Everyone wrote off the BoSox and nobody gave them a chance, but they listened to none of it. This team is as good an example as any that we should never give up. A heart-warming feel-good true story of perserverance and determination.
It made me think of about the areas of my life where I sometimes feel like I am down three games to none. A good reminder to continue to live out the Colossians 3:23 principle...

..I put a new bumper sticker on my waterbottle today. It's from the good people at Sojourners. It says:

"God is not a Republican...or a Democrat."

I wish I had a bumper sticker right now that said, "Go Red Sox!" (If you have one and you want to be nice, send it to me and I'll add it to the collection...)

David's Dance Party

2004-10-19T20:08:00.000-06:00

The conference I attended the last two days was on communicating in today's reality. I'm really glad I went and I believe it will help me better communicate the unending message of the gospel to a world in near of a clear and compelling message. In one of the sessions today, Jarrett Stevens, an acquaintance of mine who is the teaching pastor at Axis (Willow Creek's twentysomething ministry) wrote -- and read --this poem.
It rocked.

David’s Dance Party
Jarrett Stevens

How long have we been living under the reign of King Saul
Under the slow tightening grip of this seemingly endless fall
Where God’s presence seems to have all but faded
Where his beauty seems so antiquated compared to world of the now
The world that somehow packed God away in the corner
And I know it seems absurd,
but he’s piled there under too many words
and the echo that we thought that we heard exists only in our limited imagination
So, imagine a nation
Formed by his hand, yet ruled by one man,
who could never seem to understand
where his power actually came from.
But there’s a threat to this king
A vision unseen
A new kid on the scene
Who has gone down to rescue the all but forgotten Beauty
He says it’s his duty
An obligation of sorts
To bring back the source of all that is life and meaning.
Meaning - he’s on the road
Not quite sure where it goes
But hoping he knows
What his heart has been trying to tell him
That it’s in this journey we find
That on the road we’re defined
That it’s not just all in our minds
But in our hearts like we’d secretly expected
This is where David was corrected
And connected the dots
That God can’t be kept in a box
Or confined to clever talks
But that in fact God walks
And moves
And grooves
And he’s inviting you
and I to Try
To Capture and Create
To Act and not to Wait
In Poem on Page or Paint
Don’t hesitate
It’s not open for debate
In David’s case it’s too late
He’s already dancing right on through the gates
And it looks like he’s only wearing his boxers
Now we see a true king returning
The fire of God brightly burning
The crowds hearts deeply yearning
To undo all their systems of learning
That through the years have caused great advance
But have never caused anyone to dance
Or join the great romance of a God alive in his people
So let’s burn down the steeples
And build us a dance floor
Right here where we used to keep the doors
That for so many years kept the cognitive in and creativity out
So Shout
And Sing
This is the thing you were created for
Nothing more
Than to worship your God with utter abandon
To put your hand in
And stand in the gap
Created by religion
And every other “ism”
That keeps you from truly being alive
From ever feeling the vibe
Not just to survive but to thrive
In the body in which you’re living
To use the gifts the Creator has given
Brothers and Sisters,
The invitation is on the table
To dance like David if you’re able
In the first ever ad campaign for Hanes
Or maybe it was Fruit of the Loom
Doesn’t matter, Just give me some room
so I can get up and do my thing
Maybe I’ll sing or maybe you’ll write
until the wee hours of night
taking sheer delight
in the overwhelming audience of one.
You see, this is where it gets fun
When it’s just you and Him
And you worship on a whim
Unconcerned with how it fits in
Or how it will set up the sermon,
For this one thing is for certain:
Love has come to town
Never again to be bound
By things that seem so sound
No, he’s dancing all around
And this simple truth resounds:
If you want to follow God,
You’ve got to get down!

Serving a global God

2004-10-17T13:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, five churches in Iraq were bombed. It has been recorded that there are only 750,000 Christians in all of Iraq (I'll bet our city has a third of that within a few square miles). Many Christians are nervous that more bombings will occur in the near future because of the start of the Islamic religious month of Ramadan.

Todya, I've been challenged and reminded to pray for our Iraqi brothers and sisters who are being persecuted for their faith in a country where they remain as the extreme minority.

Read more here and pray for our brothers and sisters. We must be more globally minded in our understanding of God and His children.

resting, unplugging and smelling roses

2004-10-15T16:22:00.000-06:00

Friday is our Sabbath day. Because we work in ministry together, Sunday is our busiest day of the week. We like our Fridays. It is our day to reflect, remember, rest and unplug. It is our "different" day of the week. Our normal Fridays start with sleeping in and slowly reading the morning paper. Then, we listen to a teaching tape and sit under the teaching of some other pastor that we've never met. We listen to it together, take notes and when it is finished we discuss what was said and what we are to apply to our lives. And after our discussion, we spend significant time in prayer. The rest of the day is spend running erands, reading, going for a hike or watching a matinee movie. (This afternoon we watched Spiderman 2 at the dollar theatre). Then, we have "date night" together in the evenings. We don't answer the phone or spend too much time on email (if we check it at all) and we make sure the priority is slowing down, paying attention, resting, reading and smelling the roses.

We guard it carefully and make very few exceptions to spend the day apart. Guarding our Sabbath is extremely important. We desire to help others keep their Sabbaths -- and we desire to have others help us keep ours. The Orthodox Jews of today may be very legalistic about it, but they're on to something special about paying attention. (For a great book on the Sabbath from a cool, authentic Jewish perspective read "Mudhouse Sabbath" by Lauren Winner).

Last night I had a conversation with a friend who is a part of our Pierced community. He owns his own business and has been working himself into the ground the last several weeks. He told me the last several weeks have been 70 plus hours of work each week. He said, "Sometimes, the only time I have a chance to be alone and rest is for about an hour or two on Sunday afternoon." I had a poignant opportunity to speak some bold truth into his life concerning resting and not overworking himself. We talked about the Sabbath and its importance, both theologically and practically.

Television has commerical breaks, NASCAR has pit stops for refueling, basketball games have timeouts and halftime, but so much of our lives are lived without any room for rest. So much of our week involves running around town, jumping from meeting to meeting and pushing the gas pedal to the floor. Heck, we're the only country in the world that has a national monument called "Rushmore." We just won't make it if we sprint the marathon.

Practically and theologically, it is important to slow down and rest by keeping the Sabbath separate from the rest of the days of the week. It's all about rhythm. Six beats, one pause. Six beats, one pause. Six beats, one pause...

But I'm also learning that keeping the Sabbath is a practical and tangible opportunity for us to trust God with our lives. We spend so much of our week planning, leading, calling, movin' and shakin' and changing the world. Friday is a day to pause and rest and to remember that we are not in control of the world. We need frequent reminders that God is still on the throne, not us. We must trust him when we 'do nothing' by grasping that He will take care of our little worlds and the entire universe on our rest day. If you're really honest, this is hard to do! But it is a practical opportunity to tangibly put our trust in God. God is big enough to take care of today if I don't work.

Maybe, for some people, resting and paying attention by keeping the Sabbath may mean skipping church (and Pierced, for that matter) some weeks. But as long as we are paying attention to God, I'm okay with that...

** I'm off to Chicago tomorrow for a teaching conference. I'll be blogging from the Windy City for the next several days. I'm really looking forward to it.

Christian Sub-Culture

2004-10-14T11:37:00.000-06:00

This morning I am sitting in a coffee shop working on many different things. I decided to take a break right now because something is bothering me. This is the second time I have been to this coffee shop and I already have a love-hate relationship with it. I love it because I have been here over three hours and I am on the only person to sit down at a table (two people came in and got their coffee to go). It’s empty and quiet and I’m getting a lot done, which is why I came. I’m actually wondering how they’re staying in business.

The reason why I hate it is this entire time I have felt uncomfortable. It’s a full-blown Christian coffee shop. I don’t doubt that the owners had great intentions and love Jesus with all their hearts, but I am getting the same cringing feeling I get when I walk into a full-blown Christian bookstore. (Should I feel bad as a pastor for saying that?) Their catchy motto is painted on a large wall right in front of me just above the counter. It says: “Lift your Spirit with our Heavenly brews!” All the books in the Left Behind series and Bibles of every translation are on the shelf in order with Christian magazines carefully laid out on the coffee table to my right. Michael W Smith belts out some worship music over the loud speakers with fliers taped to the windows of local Christian performers advertising their open mic night. (“Come hear Gloryland Tuesdays in October from 7-9 PM!” No joke). Christian art (which isn’t very good at all) hangs from the wall, as well as Christian relics and framed verses for sale. Now, please understand me: Megan and I own some things like this. We have a framed verse hanging in our guest bedroom and we love it. I don’t mean to be overly critical or cynical, but this place just makes me cringe for some reason. I wonder what seekers think when they walk in and see this place.

Friday night Megan and I rented the movie “Saved!” with Mandy Moore and McCauley Culkin (yes, from Home Alone fame). It’s a movie I would recommend any follower of Christ see. The movie made me mad (and may make you mad, too) but the reason it got under my skin is because almost all of it is true. We’ve created such a Christian sub-culture in our comfort zones that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to get messy in loving others.

If you’ve seen the movie, tell me your thoughts. I’m eager to hear other people’s thoughts and dialogue about it...

A Generous Orthodoxy

2004-10-12T15:34:00.000-06:00

Recently, I finished Brian McLaren's new book "A Generous Orthodoxy." It is fabulously written in a thought-provoking, intriguing and authentic voice. I would expect nothing less from Brian. He is a great thinker and leader in the emergent conversation.

McLaren has a great chapter title called "Would Jesus Be a Christian?" What an important and interesting question. In the first few paragraphs, Brian says something controversial, but I believe he is correct. He wrote:

1. The more I study the Bible and reflect on the life and teachings of Jesus, the more I think most of Christianity as practiced today has very little to do with the real Jesus found there.
2. Often, I don't think Jesus would be caught dead as a Christian, were he physically here today.
3. Generally, I don't think Christians would like Jesus if he showed up today as he did 2,000 years ago. In fact, I think we'd call him a heretic and plot to kill him, too. (79-80).

One (small) point of difference would be more of a grammatical and logical point, than a theological one that McLaren makes. To be a Christian means to to "Christ-like" or "like Jesus." It is impossible for Jesus to be "like Jesus." He already is. I am J.R., I am not like J.R. Therefore, from a 'splitting hairs' perspective, I don't think Jesus is like himself. Jesus is Christ, Jesus is not like Christ.

At any rate, I just can't get these three points from McLaren out of my head. What are we to do with these statements? How do we live differently in such a way that if Jesus showed up today, we would embrace him and not "call him a heretic and plot to kill him, too"?

We are much more like the Pharisees than we'd like to admit...

Full Weekend

2004-10-10T14:25:00.000-06:00

This weekend was full of adventures. Thursday night my friend Stu and I headed out to prepare to hike four Colorado fourteeners on Friday: Lincoln, Bross, Democrat and (unofficially) Cameron. We camped at the trailhead of our climb at Kite Lake, which was above tree line (12,000 feet). The temperature was approximately 30 degrees, but with the wind chill it was probably right around zero. The just-above-freezing temperatures, the snowy ground and the constant wind flapping our tent fly all night provided for little sleep.

At 6:30 Friday morning, we met two other friends, Kent and Craig, at the trailhead and prepared for a full day. The weather was perfect – hardly a cloud in the sky and little wind (we could have used no wind the night before in the tent!) as we were shedding layers all day long – and we enjoyed great conversations the entire climb. On much of the ascent, the snow was deep and dry and oftentimes we were taking steps knee-deep (even a few steps as high as thigh- and waist-deep). Despite leg cramps, headaches and Stu losing his breakfast and lunch at the summit of Lincoln, it managed to be a great day. What made the day most enjoyable was that Craig, who runs a men’s ministry in Colorado Springs, told us on the ascent that on his list of things to do before he dies is hiking a fourteener. Friday, Craig reached that goal, four times over.

On our decent back to the trailhead we noticed a crevasse which had collected a large amount of snow, so we decided to glacade. Glacading is where you sit on top of the snow (either on your butt or on your pack) and ride down the mountain like you are sledding. Not only does it take time off your descent and saves strength and energy from hiking through knee-deep snow, it’s such a thrill. You could ride down a couple hundred feet in less than thirty seconds. Awesome.

The weekend continued… Yesterday, I knocked off another item from my “Things To Do Before I Die” list: I went skydiving with two other friends. Jumping out of an airplane (tandem jump) at 120 miles an hour and having a free fall for 60 seconds is an indescribable rush of adrenaline. Looking over at Pikes Peak and the Front Range and gazing down on the changing colors of the leaves as I was falling towards the earth was absolutely amazing. In some ways, it felt like forever that we were falling and in other ways it felt like it was just a split second before the chute opened up. What a thrill. Unbelievable. (I highly suggest it to anyone who has never done it).

the stories of our lives: volume 3

2004-10-07T07:31:00.000-06:00

Last night, Megan and I went to a suprise birthday party for friend of ours who just turned 31. The birthday boy was surprised, but I was even more surprised by the amazing people at the party and their unreal and almost unbelievable stories. Here is just a sampling of who I mingled with in the crowd last night:

1. A Brazilian couple. The husband was an Olympic trainer who trained 3 Olympic athletes for Athens this summer in the Pentathalon. Sil told me amazing stories from Athens, stories which included the opening and closing ceremonies, how he caught thieves who got through security in the athletes village dorms and how he came to be a trainer. His wife Samantha competed in Athens for Brazil in the Pentathalon.

2. We met another couple who had fascinating stories. Adam is a federal prosecutor in Denver who works in the same courtroom chambers where the Kobe Bryant trial was conducted, as well the Oklahoma City bombing trial.

3. We ran into our friend Corb. Corb and his wife Jane are the reasons why we originally began attending Woodmen and helped us get plugged in.

4. The nephew of Paul Bremer was there. (Bremer has the undaunting task from President Bush to oversee Iraq's transfer of power and for the country to be self-governing. Eli told me the amazing security that his uncle is under and how he has a difficult time even being able to contact his uncle Paul.

5. We met a guy who worked for NBC announcing the marathon, triathalon and pentathalon in the the summer Olympics.

6. We hung out with the first couple I married. Their wedding was taped and shown on the show "A Wedding Story" on The Learning Channel (viewing audience 5 million). They leave to be missionaries in China for twelve months starting the first of the year.

Stories, stories...we all have a story to tell.

Story of my own: tonight I leave with a friend to go camping in the mountains. Tomorrow we will climb three fourteeners (maybe four if we have time). Then, on Saturday, I will jump from an airplane with a parachute on my back and hopefully live to tell about it. We shall see...I'll tell you how it went later this weekend.

pierced chapel's blog

2004-10-05T19:57:00.000-06:00

Check out the blog on the right hand side of the Pierced Chapel website. It's an ongoing conversation about what was taught on Sunday evenings.
Post a comment or two...

www.piercedchapel.com

the story of water

2004-10-05T08:33:00.000-06:00

A college student from our Pierced community is taking a class called "The Story of Water." The class explores the different imagery, symbolism and significance of water. (Sounds like a pretty unique and intriguing class, doesn't it?) One of her assignments is to interview someone about a unique perspective on the symbolism of water and write a paper based on the interview. So, she asked me if I was interested and we arranged a time to dialogue about the symbolism of living water. I am sure we will both get somthing out of our time together.

Leonard Sweet says we must think "EPIC" if we are to minister effectively to this postmodern generation. EPIC is an acronym which stands for:

Experiential
Participatory
Image-Based
Connectivity

Recently I have been exploring the "I" in EPIC. I have been chewing on the metaphors and imagery that Jesus uses in the gospels. The Eastern culture in which Jesus lived was marked by thinking in a non-linear fashion of images and pictures. The Western (modern) culture of our parents is marked by thinking in a very linear fashion of bullet points, structured lists and careful form -- i.e 1., 2., 3., A., B., C. (If you were wondering, Len Sweet says his EPIC mindset is about as modern in his thinking as he gets...) But post-modernism is returning to the roots of Eastern culture -- of Story, images, pictures...

I believe that we have lost the art of good storytelling and using imagery to its maximum impact. We teach on the parables by saying, "Let me give you five principles that you can take away from the parable of the Sower." Certainly, there are lessons to be learned, but we take a beautiful story of imagery that Jesus uses and break it down into five bullet points of application. Are we missing the point or is this just the residual effects of modernity?

As followers of Christ, we must relearn speaking, living and interacting with images for the kingdom of God. We must reclaim the images of Christ and use them with impact and effect. I have a long way to go: I still preach in bullet points, don't understand how to preach in Story format and often find that the stick-shift vehicle of my mind stalls out from time to time at a busy intersection of life when I try to shift from modernism to postmodernism. At the moment, I believe I am a student of kingdom images. Maybe this interview just might help me grasp the images of Jesus a bit more.

YESSSS!

2004-10-03T11:08:00.000-06:00

For those of you who know me well, you know that I bleed blue (translation: I am HUGE Los Angeles Dodgers baseball fan). Yesterday, in dramatic fashion, the Dodgers advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 1996. I have suffered through too many years of pain, disappointment and agony (although when I think of my friends who cheer for the Cubs, I regain perspective and don't feel so bad anymore...). Just to tell you how long the drought has been, the Dodgers haven't won a playoff game since I was nine years old. Yes, you read that right: since I was nine...years...old.
That's a long period of suffering.

Today, I'm basking in the glory of seeing the Dodgers clinch a much-deserved playoff spot in the National League. And since we don't own a TV, I might be spending quite a bit of time the next few weeks in a sports bar watching 'em on the big screen. Unless someone out there graciously invites me to come over and watch the playoffs at your place. (hint, hint).

the stories of our lives: Volume 2

2004-10-01T17:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I was waiting to meet someone for lunch at Schlotzsky's Deli. During my wait time I noticed a large poster taking up almost the entire wall just to the right of the cash register. It wasn't a poster that listed the company's core values or their snappy mission or their vision statement. It wasn't a picture of their logo with their slogan ("Funny Name. Serious Sandwich") emblazoned across it. It was a large poster simply entitled, "Our Story." It stuck out to me(considering our ongoing discussion of the importance of Story on this blog) and a renewed calling in our culture to be good storytellers.

It reminds me of the most passionate and thought-provoking poem I've ever read on the importance of Story in our relationship with the Creator. (It is a bit long, but worth reading in its entirety...so please read it all).

"Give Me a Story"
by Andrew Jones

you want a statement to sum up the mission of God
go ahead
find your statementmake one up to help you
feel secure inside your safety cage of words
belted in by cords of cliches
locked up by logos lifted from sunday school memories

but give me a story
give my friends a story
so that they are not sentenced to meaningless lives

dont give me a story that I can easily believe in
give me a script that I struggle to understand
that stretches my faith,that demands life insurance
give me a story that will rip me from my career
and pummel me into a quest beyond my capabilities
i need something worth dying for
i have most of my life left to give
but I need a story worthy of my investment

give me a story that I can touch
and smell
a story with real people
a story with a face.
a story with my face
my role
my place
my script
because I am
preselected to be a player
in this story that rolls its plot out in front of me
likearunawaycarpetunravellingfasterthanicanrunin
more directions than I can predict
in more colors than I can comprehend
a story that woos out my potential
and calls me out of myself to be who I really am

give me A story
give me THE story
give me MY story

tell me that God is bigger than you
BIGGER than your statements of ink
BIGGER than your powerpoint animations
than your projections of numbers
that make you impressed
but that make God stoop

give me a story that
makes me gloriously
a l i v e
to the purpose of God
makes me run without breath to keep up with His spirit
and at the same time
inviting me to
dance slowly
erotically
with
God in an
end
les
s
m
o
m
e
n
t

of warm passion
nesting me in peace
and safety

tell me the story in new words
so that I dont trip over lame phrases of impotence
so that my mind does not vanillarize
over trivial expressions
used mindlessly by millions
who use words to steal mystery
from a transcendent God
who speaks freshly
with new mercies every morning!
surprises!
that awaken me from sleep mode
that spark in me new thoughts
dreams of impossible feats
daring adventures miracles of the Almighty
performed by the hands
and prayers
of backstreet
backstage
people
in goodwill rags

you want a statement?

go ahead
i dare ya
double-dare ya
to box up The Omnipotent
to catch the Spirit of God
to nail the Son on a cross-word puzzle

go ahead and try
but I wont hold my breath
and you wont hold the mission of God on a bumper sticker.

the illusion of missing teeth and a profound quote...

2004-09-30T08:54:00.000-06:00

Two thoughts this morning:

1. A funny thought: several of you have brought to my attention (some more kindly than others) that the picture of me to the right looks like I am missing some teeth. I can assure you that I am not missing teeth; the picture is just so small the pixels block out my beautiful dental work. I have thought about changing the picture, but part of me just likes to laugh at myself every time I see it. (Don't take life to seriously, right?) Maybe others get a laugh out of it when you log on as well...I just thought I would get that off of my chest if any of you reading this out in the Blogosphere thought I was from West Virginia or something...

2. I found this quote recently. These words were spoken to Henri Nouwen by his spiritual mentor:

"May all your expectations be frustrated,
May all your plans be thwarted,
May all your desires be withered into nothingness,
That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God."

Profound.
Now if I could just actually believe those words...

the stories of our lives...

2004-09-28T17:00:00.000-06:00

Life is a collection of stories we live out. As you have heard me write before, I believe the Emerging Church will not reach its full potential if we do not throw our energy into being an intentional inter-generational body. Today I was reminded of that even more as I shared a meal with a seventy-seven year old new found friend, Bud Schaeffer. Bud's life is filled with amazing stories, specifically in sports, that he shared with incredible humility and God-centeredness. He and his wife Alice have been married 53 years.

Some of the stories that Bud told me over lunch today included the following:

-He helped start the concept of sports evangelism ministry in the late 40's with legendary Taylor basketball coach Don Odle. Athletes in Action, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Sports Ambassadors all sprung out of Ventures for Victory with the first trip to the Philippines that Bud helped lead and coach.

-Bud was on the traveling basketball team that played against the Harlmen Globetrotters. He played against the Globetrotters in 44 states and many countries, including a trip to Havana, Cuba where the traveling team beat the Globetrotters. (The Globetrotters have lost just a handfull of games in their entire existence).

-He coached the Chinese Olympic Basketball team that competed in the 1954 Melbourne, Australia Olympics.

-Bud was asked to sign with the Minnesota Lakers (now the LA Lakers) but told them that he would only sign if he could keep the Sabbath and not play on Sundays. The Lakers did not like that agreement and decided not to sign him to a contract.

As I was listening, I felt as though I was in the movie Big Fish by Tim Burton. We all have amazing stories. I am learning to appreciate the stories of older generations more and more. I am grateful for the recent experiences that I have had to hear of great stories of giants of the faith. The idea of Story is becoming more and more significant to me.

What Happened to Grace?

2004-09-26T14:53:00.000-06:00

I found this on the blog of my friend Mike Todd. The article is entitled, "Jimmy Swaggart tells congregation he'd kill gays" written by David Batstone.

Here is an exerpt...

"Last Sunday Christian evangelist Jimmy Swaggart shared a shocking confession to his congregation during a worship service that is broadcast to a global audience. In the middle of his sermon, Swaggart proclaimed that he would "kill" a man that looked at him with romantic intent.
Swaggart's sermon is so outrageous that I want to give you his exact words:
"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry."
(shouts, applause)
"And I'm gonna be blunt and plain, if one ever looks at me like that I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."
(laughter, applause)
...It brings me to tears that a preacher can evoke a Christian congregation to applause and laughter with such a message. I am even more appalled that millions of people around the globe over television hear this "word of the Christian gospel."

No wonder the world thinks Christ followers are close-minded. Jesus had such a balance between showing love and grace to the woman caught in adultery and he also said: "Go and leave your life of sin."

More than ever before, people are looking for us to be dispensers of grace to a world in need.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see...

Amazed by Beauty

2004-09-25T16:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Megan and I went to Mueller State Park on the back side of Pikes Peak. We heard that the aspens were turning this week, so we decided to see for ourselves. On our hike, we were amazed by the beauty we saw. The yellow was so beautifully alive and electrifying, it was as if the aspens had an electrical cord and someone took that cord and plugged it into an outlet in a wall somewhere. Green evergreens, yellow aspens, fresh, white snow off on the peaks towards Breckenridge, baby blue sky...and stillness. Beauty at its best.

On one overlook, Megan and I paused and spent time praying together (our daily ritual) and decided to pray with our eyes open, looking at creation. I was so awed by the beauty of Goid's creation. I am amazed at what our Creator allows us to experience through his beauty...

Owning Socks Older Than Me

2004-09-23T16:19:00.000-06:00

This morning I taught a group of wonderful people in a ministry in our church called "55plus." These 50-, 60-, 70- and 80-somethings are a wonderful collection of smiling faces, loving hugs, fresh baked goodies, oxygen tanks, hearing aids, thinning white hair and noisy walkers.

While they are not intimidating, I get nervous and self-conscious each time I accept an invitation to come speak to them. Let me tell you: teaching to this audience is far from my teaching style to twentysomethings! As I stepped up to teach I thought, What do I have to offer these people? Some of these people are three times my age! They probably own socks older than me! I felt that maybe I should sit down and let them teach so that I can learn from them! Yet, they were gracious. Afterwards they overwhelmed me with hugs, kisses, encouragement, handshakes, smiles and cheek pinches.

As I was teaching I was thinking how sad it is that our culture undervalues and underappreciates older people. Yet, what an encouragement this "great cloud of witnesses" is to me and my faith journey. I am grateful for the Christian heritage and legacy they are handing down and passing to the next generation through their faithfulness. It is a physical and spiritual reminder that following Jesus is not a fad or something you grow out of. It returned me to a healthy kingdom perspective of the significance (and physical evidence) of being a life-long follower of Jesus.

It's healthy for me to be around older generations and learn from them. This morning's experience reminded me of a passage of Scripture I read recently in The Message:

"Appreciate your pastoral leaders who gave you the Word of God. Take a good look at the way they live, and let their faithfulness instruct you, as well as their truthfulness. There should be a consistency that runs through us all." (Hebrews 13:7).

I need to be more intentional about putting my life in a position that allows me to interact with older generations more often. Even though I taught up front, I believe that I learned more from them this morning than they did from me...

Doing my homework...in a different kind of way

2004-09-21T16:53:00.000-06:00

Today, I went back to college.
In spite of my college degree, I sat through a lecture today from 9 to 11 am at Colorado College.

Why would I do such a thing?
To do my homework.

Colorado College is a small, private college known for three things: the high cost of tuition, their hockey program and their reputation for deep-rooted liberalism and free thinking (Many put CC right up there with UC Berkeley). There are several CC students who attend Pierced regularly. Last Sunday night, I was conversing with Emilie (a current CC student) and she told me that she is taking the class "The Life and Ministry of Jesus" taught by the college's professor of New Testament who does not believe that Scripture is inerrant, inspired or all that important. Emilie invited me to attend class with her this week (with the blessing of her professor). So I decided to attend. The professor, a man probably in his early sixties, was very welcoming and friendly to me. He was grateful that I was interested enough to visit his class. I assured him I wasn't there to pick a fight, but merely to listen and observe respectfully.

The class is basically a Historical Jesus seminar based more on what contemporary scholarship believes than on what Scripture says. He takes Albert Schweitzer more seriously than the gospel writer Matthew.

A few quotes from the professor's lecture this morning:
-"Now remember, the Bible is a history textbook of the life of Jesus, not a guidebook for contemporary living..."
-"Yes, but that's just the narrator's opinion..." (the professor commenting on a student's insight on what Mark says in his gospel about Jesus).
-"You cannot take these radical claims of the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus literally. You cannot live by them..."
-"Scripture isn't the central authority on the life of Jesus so make sure you have other academically credible sources..." (instructions to the class on how to write the final paper).

These comments did not surprise me (I know there is a large amount of work in the liberal, historical Jesus movement in contemporary scholarship). I knew this type of teaching of Scripture was prevalant in the college classroom, but I had never experienced it first-hand in a lecture setting myself. The way the material was presented was purely academic with no possibility of relevance or potential for a life-changing interaction with a loving Creator. Scripture was treated as a textbook of facts about a man who lived thousands of years ago, not as a significant message and life-altering, earth-shattering story of hope and redemption for the world.

Opportunities and experiences like the one this morning do a few things for me:
1. It sharpens my heart and my mind to think critically.
2. It enhances my ability to listen and relate to the culture that we live in.
3. It helps me pray more intelligently for college students on campus.

As a pastor to twentysomethings, it is important to put myself in the path of what is being taught on college campuses right here in Colorado Springs. It is important to be reminded of the relativity taught in the classroom. This is my homework: to be a student of the culture around us, in the world in which we live. Today was a day to do my homework...and I am glad I went. It was an important element for me to keep perspective of the lives of twentysomethings whom I serve.

More on Origen

2004-09-19T09:45:00.000-06:00

Have you ever realized something that seems so obvious, but you wonder why it took you so long to see it right under your nose?

Reading more of Origen, I learned some important connections I had never noticed before. Origen, in a letter to Gregory, wrote that the Israelites "plundered" the Egyptians before the Exodus (Ex 12:35). Before they crossed the Red Sea, they asked their enemies for objects of silver and gold, "in order that, by spoiling the Egyptians, they might have material for the preparation fo the things which pertained to the service of God." It was this gold and silver that was used to make the articles in the Holy of Holies -- the ark, the cherubim and the mercy seat. I had never wondered where the gold came from in the Holy of Holies -- but Origen reminds me that it was from the hands of the people of Egypt.

Origen writes, "These (objects in the Temple) were probably made from the best Egyptian gold...how useful to the children of Israel were the things brought from Egypt, which the Egyptians had not put to proper use, but which the Hebrews, guided by the wisdom of God, used for God's service."

Isn't it interesting that God used materials from the enemies of the Israelites to be used in the construction of the most holy place of his presence in the Temple? It's as if God was saying, I am using this gold from the Egyptians as a reminder to you that it was me who brought you out of bondage and slavery, exactly how I had promised. I am a powerful God who keeps my promises. I wonder if the Israelites could forget the amazing irony in the gold that once belonged to the enemies who threatened the existence of the Chosen People and now was used to worship the God of the Israelites who kept his promise to Abraham. God used a terrible situation as an opportunity to show his power. The gold was a reminder of the amazing chapter in the Story of God and Man.

What items of 'gold' has God used in my life as a reminder of His goodness in the Story of God and Man?

The Origen of Risk-taking

2004-09-17T13:59:00.000-06:00

I have been chewing more on the idea of taking risks while I have been reading the documents of the early church fathers. Yesterday, I began reading Origen's On First Principles. Origen (probably from Alexandria, Egypt) was a very gifted teacher, leader of the early church in the third century A.D. in addition to being a bold risk-taker.

Origen's father was martyred for his faith because he publicly claimed to be a Christian, which at the time was punishable by death. Yet, Origen took a risk and announced that he intended to make his faith known publicly as well, ultimately facing death. However, his mother did not want him to do such a thing so she hid all of his clothing in an attempt to keep him for leaving the house! (I am not sure what he chose to do at that point after failing to find his T-shirt and jeans...)

He did make one regrettable mistake: He was overly zealous about his desire to be obedient to the teachings of Scripture. Taking Matthew 19:12 literally, Origen castrated himself! Ironically, several years later he taught that we must move beyond a literal interpetation of Scripture to a moral and spiritual level of understanding in interpretation.

Oops.

Despite his aweful mistake, Origen is remembered as a man who chose to take risks to follow Jesus.

It forces me to ponder the question, what risks am I taking (that don't involve a knife) in my pursuit of Jesus?

Bumper Stickers and the Theology Behind Them

2004-09-16T16:32:00.000-06:00

For those of you who know me, I carry a Nalgene bottle around with me wherever I go. But this is no ordinary Nalgene bottle. When I lose it, people are quick to identify that it belongs to me. There is no other bottle like it on the planet. It has a unique red top in place of the all-too-common blue top. It also has a ecclectic two-year's worth collection of bumper stickers plastered all over the outside of the bottle. I would venture to say it has six layers of stickers stuck to it.

As I added a new bumper sticker to the bottle yesterday, it reminded me of unique and thought-provoking bumper stickers I have seen on cars (and elsewhere):

-"I pee in pools." (a little too much information)
-"God, save me from your followers!" (sad, but all too true).
-"Camping Mocks the Homeless" (also a famous T-shirt first brought to my attention by Doug Pagitt).
-"When the rapture happens can I have your car?" (intelligently witty).
-"Your kid may be an honor roll student but you're still an idiot." (My favorite).
-"Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus." (I haven't seen this one, but my friend Tom told me about this one...it's my favorite sticker poking fun at the 'important causes of this world.')

In college I remember a conversation I had with my friend Martha. I explained to her that I hoped one day I would know what I believed so well that I could fit the summation of my beliefs on a bumper sticker.
Boy, was I wrong.
I've grown to believe that the more I have learned about God and the mystery that surrounds him it became impossible to fit what I believe on a bumper sticker, let alone in several volumes. (I guess this blog is an attempt to dialogue what I believe...)

I'm fed up with bumper sticker theology that attempts to "share the good news of Jesus" at a traffic light on the back of a car driven by a devoted church-goer.

"My boss is a Jewish carpenter."
"In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned."
"I believe in the Big Bang Theory: God said it and BANG, it happened!"

(If you have one of these stickers on your bumper, forgive me, seeing that I probably have made fun of you driving around town without even knowing it...) I personally believe this 'bumper sticker evangelism' does more harm than good, implying that following Jesus is about following pithy, cheesy, cutesy propositions about Jesus. (Recently, I saw a car with a bumper sticker on it belonging to someone who has a poor concept of Christians and a sick sense of humor that said: "Why can't we still throw Christians to the lions?")

How about we spend our energy, instead, being missional, dangerous, radical followers of Jesus in every crack and crevass of our lives for all the world to see in the way we behave, live, laugh, love, cry and interact with others?

Next time you see a cheesy Christian bumper sticker at a traffic light, pray for me...

A Life Without Questions?

2004-09-14T17:17:00.000-06:00

Last night we had dinner with our friends Chris and Amy Stroup, who leave next week to be missionaries in Thailand for 10 months at a girls' orphanage. (Chris and Amy just joined the universe of blogging. You can keep up with them on their new blog at here. Chris told me that in the Eastern part of Thailand there is a tribe with an interesting cultural distinction. In this tribe's culture, it is offensive to ask a question. You must wait to be told information; you can never ask for it. Can you believe that? (If you and I lived in that culture, I would have just offended you right then with that last sentence...) Missionaries who have worked in this region for over 25 years feel they have made little progress in sharing the gospel message...I can hardly imagine why...

Can you imagine a world where asking questions, learning, being inquisitive and desiring to know more about matters of life is offensive to others? How bland life would become. How stifling and oppressive conversation would be. What would you talk about? All you would do would be sharing propositional truths with one another.

But the more I thought, the more I realized that somewhere along the line we fell into a similar pattern in our culture, where asking questions when you get older and you're "grown up" isn't offensive, but it may be embarrassing. (What does it mean to be "grown up" anyway?) I pondered little children who walk around annoying their parents with their seemingly endless questions: Why is the sky blue, why do bees sting people? What's wrong with that person in a wheelchair? Can I go outside and play? How old is Uncle Ron? Children do not care what you think of them, how it might sound. Their inquisitive little minds just want to know the answer.

Isn't it interesting that when we get older we are afraid to ask questions because we might look unintelligent and naive or it might sound cheesy or reveal some raw side to us? If we're honest with ourselves, at some point or another we've thought, I can't ask that question...everybody already knows the answer to that question and they might think I'm dumb. The older we get, the less we ask, the more we lose in the long run.

It was Jesus who was the master question-asker. Oftentimes, he answered someone's question with another question (a very rabbinic form of teaching). It was he who asked questions like, what do you want me to do for you? who do people say that I am? who do you say that I am? What did Moses command you? What do you want me to do for you? Whose portrait is this and whose inscription? Shouldn't we be people who follow in the footsteps of our rabbi by being good question-askers?

What would it look like if we took the risk and we just asked the questions anyway...?

God Lives in the "We" Paradigm

2004-09-12T09:41:00.000-06:00

**For those of you all posting comments, I want to commend you for your insighfulness and your thought-provoking and soul-sharpening thoughts, questions and discussion. Keep up the great dialogue and post away. (If you have never added a comment, you're welcome to join the conversation!)**
___________________________________

I am pondering the inception of community and how it is expressed in Kingdom living. I shared with others at our Pierced Community Group Leaders Brunch yesterday this concept of God's design for community and Satan's desire to wreck it:

It has been said that life is best lived face-to-face. (i.e. going on vacation by yourself is not as much fun as going with someone else and having shared experiences). It is God Himself who models life-on-life, face-to-face living. God lives in community with Himself in the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). In the creation account, we are aware that God says, "Let us make man in our image." God lives in the "we" paradigm with Himself.

He desired for man to live face-to-face ("It is not good for man to be alone.") Even God walked with humankind in the cool of the day in the Garden. He lived face-to-face with his creation, not because he had to, but because he desires to do so.

And yet, the Father of Lies desires for us to live in isolation. What is the greatest lie we believe from Satan in the midst of our sin, our struggles and our discouragement? We believe the whisper: "You are the only one to feel this way/to struggle with this sin/to be discouraged. You are the only one." It is Satan who tries to draw us out of community and into isolation.

Yesterday, I ruminated over the relationship between sin and community. Very rarely do we sin with others. It is mostly done by ourselves in secret, alone, in the darkness. And yet it is sin within our community (see entire OT for many examples) that separtes us from God and from one another. When we are in community, we truly begin to live out what the author of Hebrews challenges us to do: ...spur one another on towards love and good deeds...let us not give us meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing...let us encourage one another, and all the more as we see the Day approaching...

God desires us to be in community (He models it in His being and in his interaction with Creation by desiring a relationship with us).
Satan desires for us to live in isolation (sin evades and pollutes most easily in isolation and away from others in community).

Other thoughts you all might have?

Bothersome Phrases

2004-09-10T13:33:00.000-06:00

There's something I have to get off of my chest, so please bear with me...

There are two phrases in the English language that really get under my skin. We use them in everyday conversations. If it were my choice, I would eliminate them from our vocabularies forever...

Bothersome Phrase #1: "Needless to say..." If there is no need for us to say what we are about to say, then why do we say it anyway? We might as well say, "I know this is needless, pointless and lacks any new information, but I don't care, I'm going to say it anyway..." It seems like the remainder of the sentence is wasted words...

Bothersome Phrase #2: "To be completely honest with you..." Just last week someone said this to me. Everytime I hear this phrase I want to interrupt the individual and say, "Are you implying that you are not speaking honestly with me when you don't preface your sentences like that? Or, are you speaking with only partial honesty the rest of the time you communicate with me?"
Why do we say this? Are we not being completely honest with each other the rest of the time? And if not, why not?

I am realizing more than ever that we must be careful with the words and sentences we choose. Words a powerful tool in communication. When we speak, we communicate much more than mere facts.

I read a compelling question a few months ago: "If you only had a quota of 1,000 words you could speak each day, how different would your conversations (and your lifestyle) become?"
Great question.

Are there other bothersome phrases that we use on a regular basis without even knowing it?
What are they?

New Blog

2004-09-08T08:06:00.000-06:00

There is a new blog that's worth checking out.

If you have been involved within our Pierced community for any period of time, you know that sometimes we participate in "Prayer Postures." These postures (and many others) are listed on this blog. Doug Pagitt got me onto the idea of these postures at the Emergent Conference in March.

I am reminded by Doug that our physicality is very much connected to our spirituality. Prayer postures are a great way to put out bodies in a posture that we desire our hearts to be in.

Check out this new blog here.

SUVs, Starbucks and Documentaries

2004-09-08T08:04:00.000-06:00

I have been ruminating on postmodernism lately. Yesterday, I heard Leonard Sweet and Dallas Willard describe postmodernism as "a mindset defined by what it is not." Willard said that when the first car was invented it was called a "horse-less carriage." Nobody knew what a car was and so it derived its function by what it was not: basically, a carriage without a horse. Therefore, though we have been thinking about postmodernism for quite some time, we are still new in the definitive stages; therefore, postmodernism is defined by what it is not: it is not modernism...it is beyond modernism.

I was thinking of how I might describe postmodernism to someonewho didn't know what the term meant. In theory and by definition, postmodernism cannot be explained. However, I believe the best way to describe its expressions in our ways of thinking is through the lens of SUV's, Starbucks and documentaries.

1. SUVs: Why are SUV's so popular? Because people want to take their vehicles off the road. People don't want to be told where to go, what path to stay on, or confined by pavement. They want to "blaze their own trails." It's much more fun to go your own direction than to be told which way you have to go. (I speak from experience in my Jeep Cherokee!)
2. Starbucks: Starbucks is the big craze, not just because the coffee is so good, but because Starbucks has been able to brand an experience. People don't go to drink coffee, they go to experience coffee and everything that comes with it (sitting in couches, hanging with friends, listening to music, surfing the net on their laptops through WiFi, etc). We live in an era that craves experiences. People don't want to know the truth, they want to experience it.
3. Documentaries: They say that this is the "Year of the Documentary." Everything from Bowling for Columbine and Winged Migration a few years ago, to Super Size Me and Farenheit 911 this year, documentaries are becoming the new thing. Why? I would suggest that people are growing tired of scripted lines and predictable plots. They want to be exposed to something real, authentic, absent of feeling fake (hence the rage of reality TV shows as well). No more scripts, just life the way it really is.

SUV's ("I want to go my own way"), Starbucks ("I want to experience life and truth rather than it be told to me...") and documentaries ("I want authenticity and real-ness, not something fake or scripted..."). That's how I would define the expressions of post in our everyday lives.

What do you all think...? Agree or disagree?

Chewing on the Cud

2004-09-06T10:33:00.000-06:00

Happy Labor Day...I hope everyone is enjoying the end-of-the-summer holiday today.

Last night at Pierced, I shared my new favorite word in the English language: ruminate.
Websters Dictionary gives the following definitions:

ruminate (ROO-ma-nayt) verb 1. to meditate 2. to ponder 3. to turn over in the mind 4. to chew on the cud.

I love defintion number four: to chew on the cud. If you've ever seen a cow with his cud, you know that a cow can chew on it for several hours at a time.

I have been learning this week to 'chew on the cud' with those tasks, relationships, thoughts and concepts that I swallow quickly in my life. It has been a difficult but worthwhile discipline to meditate on, to ponder, to consider those things which seem obvious. When I have ruminated on Scripture, my wife, God, my friends and the ladybug I saw yesterday I realized that I am beginning to truly see things as they were meant to be seen. (Author Annie Dillard is very good at doing this).

How would my life be different if I chose to ruminate on the things around me rather than rush onto the next thing to be accomplished? I want to live more like a cow in my life journey.

Sad News

2004-09-04T15:07:00.000-06:00

On a recent post, I wrote that Sara McMann from our Pierced community had won a silver medal in Athens in women's wrestling. Sara has come to Pierced off-and-on, but was faithfully involved in our Pierced Bible Study at the Olympic Training Center on Tuesday nights.

I received news this morning that Sara was traveling with her boyfriend on the interstate in NE Colorado when the Jeep she was driving flipped and rolled. Sara was treated and released from the hospital, but her boyfriend died in the accident. See story here.

It seems that Pierced has had a difficult summer. Five weeks ago a young couple from our community lost their infant son to SIDS. Last week, Mark Heinmetz died in a climbing accident. And now word about Sara and her boyfriend.

Please pray for Sara and the friends and family involved as they grieve during this time, as well as for those from our Pierced community who know Sara.

As hard as it has been, I continue to take comfort in the words of 1 Corinthians 15:55-58...

Napoleon and a Light Saber

2004-09-03T21:37:00.000-06:00

Two very interesting occurences happened this afternoon: one planned, one was not.

1. Megan and I went to see the new movie "Napoloeon Dynamite." If you are in a good mood to laugh and not use any intellectual brain power for an hour and a half, I recommend this movie. We laughed our butts off, but it certainly was unique. In fact, I told Megan on the way out that to me, this is the definition of a postmodern movie: there was no plot, no logical flow of ideas. It was random clips and information with no substantive meaning to take away from the film. (If you've seen it, we've been quoting Pedro and Kip non-stop!

2. We were in the mall and Megan was shopping while I was sitting on one of those "husband benches." (You know, the benches outside of stores where older men sit, fight boredom and eventually fall sleep while their wives finish shopping). I was sitting there and this normal looking middle-aged man walks up to me and without saying a word, hands me a life-size plastic light saber from Star Wars.
I was startled at this surprise, but I decided to play along, so I asked: "What is it?"
"It's a light saber," and he then turned it on so that when I held it, it made the unique saber sound and began flashing red.
"Can I tell you why I think there is a connecting between Jesus and this light saber?" he asked.
"Sure." Now I was really intrigued.
"I believe that Jesus is Obe Won Kanobi."
Trying not to laugh, I quickly realized that this gentleman in his late 40's was serious. Now I really wanted to ask questions and get into a discussion.
"Why?" I asked
"You should see it?" He then took the saber out of my hands, and walked away.
(See what? I thought. The Star Wars movies? Jesus? what?)

It was one of the most unique interactions I have ever had in a mall before. I am not sure if that was his anemic attempt at evangelism or what, but it sure was freaky.
It reminded me that there are a lot of people out there that have a very skewed idea of who God is. It also reminded me that the most important thing we can possess as apprentices of Jesus is a healthy and correct world view. Without it, we walk around believing interesting ideas like the Son of God starred in a trilogy produced by George Lucas.

It was quite an interesting afternoon.

NPR and the Gospel

2004-09-01T07:51:00.000-06:00

Megan loves to listen to National Public Radio in the car most days. I poke fun at her, saying that's the station that only 'old people' listen to. Occasionally, I have listened to the station. The content is very, very good. It's well researched, informative and just plain good stuff. However, the way the radio commentators present the information is dry, stale, monotone, passion-less and lacking any sort of enthusiasm at all. I sometimes wonder if the commentators even have a pulse or, at best, if they just pulled an all-nighter or something. It sounds like they hate their jobs or are boring themselves to death. Why would I want to listen to them when they sound like this? It is for this reason that I just can't listen to the station.

I made a painful connection: we present the gospel very much like the NPR commentators present the news. While the content is compelling, wonderful and full of truth we present it in a passionless, dry, stale, out of touch, irrelevant manner. In the process, we lose our audience.

I am struck at the two essential components to sharing/living/communicating the gospel:
(1) what is said and (2) how it is said. We miss the importance of how we present much of the time... and bore our audience. But we can't fake it. It must be real, genuine, head-and-heart-working-together passion for this amazing gospel message.

I wonder: how many people have heard the turth of the gospel presented but were turned off because it was boring as all get-out? The message and the method must work together.

What are your thoughts or comments on message and method?

Back To the Books

2004-08-31T08:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I started another semester at Denver Seminary. While I am excited about learning (I always have been a nerd who loved to read and learn) the best word to explain how I feel is “overwhelmed.” I am experiencing syllabus shock right now, wondering how in the world I can get all of the assignments done in the midst of all that is already going on. I don’t want to rush through the work “just to get it done.” I am not in this to get a good grade; I am in this to invest in the work because it will give me a deeper, greater appreciation for God’s word and how it infects and affects my life and others.

I promised myself that the moment my head disconnects from my heart while studying in seminary (i.e. it just becomes “busy work” to be finished) will be the moment that I stop doing it. I want this information to be an important vehicle in personal spiritual transformation in my soul. I don’t want this information just to fill my brain, but to flood my soul, invading the cracks and crevasses in my own life so that I may be even more passionate about Jesus and more equipped to serve others around me. I’ve seen too many people graduate from seminary with a head full of knowledge and a heart than has turned cold and hard. I would rather be ignorant and possess a passionate, life-altering, category-busting relationship with Jesus than to have knowledge with no passion.

I hope this semester drives me deeper into the Word and directly to my knees.

Remembering Mark, Honoring Christ

2004-08-28T23:35:00.000-06:00

Over 1,200 people showed up this morning for the memorial service to honor and celebrate the life of Mark Heinmets. What a powerful time of celebration of the fullness of Mark's life because of Christ's presence in it!

Here are some things I shared concerning Christ's centrality in Mark's life:

"The last four days certainly have been difficult since learning that Mark, while climbing, fell off of a ledge and landed in the arms of Jesus. But in the midst of our grieving, today is a day of celebration. It is a day to celebrate Mark’s life, to be reminded of how our lives have been impacted because of his and to be reminded that we are not people who have no hope, but we have incredible hope in the midst of our grieving..."

"To say that this time is difficult is a gross understatement. But how much more difficult today would have been if we did not have the utmost assurance that Mark is standing with Christ right now because of his personal and vibrant relationship with Jesus..."

"While the rocks in Garden of the Gods were loose on Mark’s climb, right now he is experiencing first-hand that the Rock of Christ in the Gardens of God is unshakable. While the anchors of his climbing equipment came free, the anchor of hope keeps us firmly bolted to Christ this morning..."

Megan and I are wiped out and in need of some physical, emotional and mental strength right now after a surreal four days since Mark's accident. Please lift up the Pierced community in the hard hours, day, weeks and months that lie ahead.

Life is Fragile

2004-08-27T13:03:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday afternoon we learned that Mark Heinmetz, 20, an active participant in the Pierced community, died in a rock climbing accident in Garden of the Gods. He was climbing a route just west of Montezuma's Tower. (Click here for image).

Mark loved rock climbing and he died doing the thing he loved most. There was no faulty equipment or technical mistakes; the constant rains have weakened the red sandstone in Garden of the Gods and one of the cams (a strong anchor) slipped out from the loose rock. He fell off of a ledge and fell into the arms of Jesus. His brother Matt is also an active member in our community and his parents are heavily involved at Woodmen. (Mark's dad Jaan is one of the elders at Woodmen).

The community is in shock. We've given thousands of hugs, shed litres of tears, made many visits, listened to numerous people and said many prayers over the last three days. It is the ultimate feeling of bitter-sweetness: we miss him deeply and grieve and mourn, but we celebrate the fact that Mark had a vibrant, personal and active relationship with Jesus and is with his Savior now. We celebrate this assurance!

It has been hard for all of us. It has been hard for me. This will be the second funeral in five weeks for our Pierced community. But I was so encouraged by the response of the community of believers working together. Within an hour of the news, there were thirty people from Pierced at the emergency room. Wednesday evening, we had an impromptu gathering for friends of Mark and participants from Pierced to pray, reflect, cry, hug, laugh and sit in silence. Within four hours of the news of his death, over 100 people gathered in the Stone Chapel. The Heinmetz family has been bombarded with cards, flowers, more food than they can fit in their refridgerator, hugs, people running erands, people spending the day with them and much more. The main auditorium at the church is expected to be full for the Memorial Service tomorrow(capacity is 1,200) with live video feed for overflow in the Stone Chapel. People loved Mark; he has impacted so many lives. How encouraging to see the Body of Christ operate like God intended. This is the Body of Christ that Jesus came to die for!

Early Wednesday morning I was reading Hebrews 6 and verse 19 jumped out at me: "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." I journaled about this verse, thanking God that he is our hope, our firm and secure anchor in the storms of life that keep us from drifting, floating away and giving up. Little did I know that as I read this promise Wednesday morning, that a few hours later this truth would become such a reality. Though the anchor of Mark's cam came out because of loose rock, the hope of our soul will not, because we are bolted firmly to Christ, our Rock and Redeemer (Psalm 62:1-2). What a promise.

For those interested, Mark's Memorial Service will be held tomorrow (Saturday) at 11 am in the main auditorium at Woodmen Valley Chapel. All are invited. Certainly, it will be a day of mourning, but assuredly it will be a day to celebrate Mark's place before Jesus and to celebrate Christ. (Pray for me and my preparation for the memorial that I will be helping lead in the first portion of the service).

Reflections on Renovating

2004-08-25T07:53:00.000-06:00

My friend Tom and I have been ruminating over Dallas Willard's book Renovation of the Heart in an ongoing email conversation. Here are some brilliant quotations from the author (Dallas) and some not-so-brilliant reflections from the reader (me) from chapter three that stuck out to me:

“One of the greatest obstacles to effective spiritual formation in Christ today is simple failure to understand and acknowledge the reality of the human condition as it affects Christians and nonChristians alike. We must start from where we really are.” (45)

This is similar to grace. Until we realize our need for intervention and help, grace will never mean much. If we don’t know we are sinners at our very core, our need for a savior is insignificant. Counselors are taught that their clients must see a need for change in order for change to ever happen.

“Choice is where sin dwells” (46).

If this is so, then what implications can be understood in the Calvinian/Arminian underpinnings of this statement? How does that affect the way I live today with the choices that are in front of me?

“God is not mean, but he is dangerous” (51)

This reminds me of a quote from Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Waredrobe when she says: “Aslan? Oh, he is not safe, but he is good….” Why do we in the American church treat God has though he is nice and safe? I believe it is because it scares people because it takes us out of control. It is no longer safe and safety is what we crave and desire in America.

“As Augustine saw clearly, God being God offends human pride. If God is running the universe and has first claim on our lives, guess who isn’t running the unverse and does not get to have things as they please” (52)

What a great point! It flies in the face of American culture which says, “It is my right to…”
It also reminds me of C.S. Lewis who said that all sin is pride.

“Is it insulting to suggest that someone is or may be lost?” (58)

I have been chewing on this idea a lot with Pierced. Calling people “lost people” makes me feel uncomfortable...and I would venture to say it makes them uncomfortable too. (I remember useing this term around someone who was not a Christ-follower and his response was, "How dare you think that I am lost and in need of direction and you can provide it for me!") There is a bumper sticker that is big now that quotes JRR Tolkein that says, “Some who wander are not lost.”

Thoughts on hell: “Hell is not an ‘oops!’ or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God” (59)

Brokenness: “It is common today to hear Christians talk of their brokenness. But when you listen closely, you may discover that they are talking about their wounds, the things they have suffered, not about the evil that is in them” (61)

I think it is important to define what brokenness involves…not our wounds of our past, but of our nature. It makes me wonder when I use the word brokenness what I have been referring to…hmmm.

One of Pierced's Own Wins Silver!

2004-08-23T18:35:00.000-06:00

I just found out that Pierced's Sara McMann claimed the silver medal in women's wrestling today, the first medal ever by an American in women's wrestling! Sara was dominant for mostof the match, but lost in the last minute to a Japanese wrestler 3-2. Though she got the silver, Sara was upset, feeling as though she could/should have won! Read more here.

Women's Volleyball escaped elimination by beating Cuba.
Keep cheering for Danielle Scott and teammates!

Men's Volleyball advances to the Quarterfinals with a record of 3-2. Read comments and quotes by Pierced's Reid Priddy here.

Up and Running...

2004-08-23T16:24:00.000-06:00

The new Pierced website is up and running! It's still got some bugs to work out, but it's alive and kicking! (Lots of thanks go out to Devin Boyle and Brandon Noffsinger for their hard work to hit the deadline and "go live" at Pierced last night. Thanks, guys!)

Check it out at www.piercedchapel.com

"We all need Gandalfs in our lives..."

2004-08-21T14:49:00.000-06:00

Last night I couldn't sleep (not an uncommon thing for me) so I finished re-reading Dan Kimball's The Emerging Church. After what I wrote yesterday about the need for older individuals in our community, I read about a conversation Dan had with Dallas Theological Seminary professor Howard Hendricks.

Hendricks said, 'Our churches are full of older people looking for meaning. they have walked with god, they have learned great lessons in life...often lacking a sense of purpose and meaning. And then we have younger generations who are craving someone to mentor them, someone who will invest in their lives and show them the ways of the Lord. Our churches, meanwhile, are doing everything possible to keep these generations apart. The future of the church hingers on the passing of faith from one generation to another through mentoring and intergenerational relationships.'

Dan then wrote: "In The Lord of the Rings, we see Frodo's reliance on his wise and elderly mentor, Gandalf. We all need Gandalfs in our lives. I believe that the emerging generations are searching for Gandalf's today."

I couldn't agree with you more, Dan...

Body Parts Scattered On the Floor?

2004-08-20T16:56:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking at length how the Church in America is no longer a multi-generational body of believers. We divide the Body up so much we lose the opportunity to learn from and interact with those older and younger than us. One of the greatest downfalls of the Church in America could be our overly structured age-oriented segmentation: nursery, Sunday school, middle school, high school, college groups-- even senior citizen groups. The one time we are grouped together is during the main weekend worship services and multi-generational interaction is slim to none.

Sure, there is usefulness is dividing people up by chapters and seasons of life, no doubt. There is a commonality and kinship in interaction with others like us. But have we over-segmented the people of god so much that we are just a bunch of body parts scattered all over the floor rather than working together at the same time as the one Body of Christ?

While Pierced is bent towards twentysomethings, I hope we are never a group of people only between the ages of 18-30. (It's funny, I probably get one email or phone call a week where someone asks me: "Hey, I'm 32. Am I allowed to come to your gathering on Sunday night?" To which I reply: "Unfortunately no. We have bouncers at the door checking I.D....just kidding...of course you can come!") My dream is that Pierced becomes a multi-generational community of people who are being attentive to God. And we are getting there, albeit too slowly. We have about 5-6 couples that have been attending and are a core part of who we are. But we need more.

When I ask people involved in our community what is the one thing you wish we could change about Pierced an overwhelming amount of people say they wished there were older people involved in Pierced whom they could get to know and hang out with.

My prayer is that we become a community of people, though still bent towards reaching twentysomethings, filled with people of all ages and walks of life.

Anybody else feel this way? Agree or disagree?

A Day of Celebration

2004-08-18T20:06:00.000-06:00

Today is a very special day for two reasons:

First, my wife turned a quarter of a century today. I am so grateful for Megan and the blessing that she is to me and to so many others. What a great day to celebrate someone that I love so much!

Secondly, while August 18 is special for my wife, it also has great significance for me. Today I have a 'birthday' of sorts that I celebrate as well. It was on this day in 1985 that I stepped across the line of faith and made a whole-hearted decision to follow Jesus with my life. August 18 carries incredible significance for both of us as we reflect upon what God has done and is doing and celebrate of what God will continue to do in and through us in the years to come.

A Famous Seat on An Old City Bus

2004-08-17T07:06:00.000-06:00

At Pierced, we're in the middle of a series called "Risk Factor" looking at what it means as followers of Christ to be risk takers.

Last week, Megan and I were in the Detroit area visiting her family and attending a conference. Last Wednesday, we went to the Henry Ford Museum in Greenfield Village. Ford was a compulsive collector of history during his lifetime. He obtained important pieces of American history (one of the most impressive pieces is the rocking chair that Lincoln was assassinated in. Ironically, he was shot watching a play in Ford's Theatre...no relation to Henry). After Ford died, the museum continued to collect important artifacts, big and small. We saw the motorcade car in which JFK was assassinated. We saw the first car that Henry Ford ever built.

But the most amazing piece of history for me that day was an old city bus. This bus was made famous in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. The story of what hapepened on this bus changed the face of American history:

An old black seamstress boarded the city bus on route 2875 to ride home after a long day at work. She sat down in the second row of benches on the left hand side of the city bus in an area where she was banned from sitting. The bus driver turned around and said, "Lady, give up your seat." The woman responded softly, "I will not." The driver was furious and said, "If you don't give up your seat, I will stop this bus and get a police officer and have you arrested!"
"Feel free to do so," she said politely.
The bus driver did just that. He got off the bus, found a policeman and had her arrested.

It was because of this courageous risk by an ordinary lady that Rosa Parks became known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. (Ms. Parks was asked why she took such a risk. Her response: 'I was just tired and wanted to sit.') Our tour guide told us that Rosa Parks is still living at the age of 91 just a few miles away from the museum.

As I sat in that famous seat on the bus on Wednesday it made me wonder: if Rosa Parks risked refusing to give up her seat and changed the face of American history birthing the Civil Rights Movement, what sort of seats can I refuse to give up and what impact might that have?

Quote

2004-08-16T16:55:00.000-06:00

"If I had the power of God to change my circumstances, I would. If I had the wisdom of God, I wouldn't." -Unknown

Pierced and the Olympic Rings

2004-08-16T08:30:00.000-06:00

Colorado Springs is home to the US Olympic Training Center. This past year, I helped co-lead a Bible study for about 15 of Olympic athletes on Tuesday nights. Several of the athletes who attended the Bible study began to attend Pierced. Exciting news: there are five people that are involved or have been involved in our Pierced community that are competing in Athens right now. (I speculate that our church community may have the most Olympic athletes represented than any other church in the country!)

Here is a list of Pierced's own. Be watching, cheering and praying for them!

1. Reid Priddy: men's volleyball. (Reid emailed me from Athens a few days ago and asked me to pray specifically for him that he would be a living, walking example of Christ to his teammates, to the referees, the other teams and for those watching on television around the world).
2. Danielle Scott: women's volleyball. (Danielle also asked for prayer that she would be a light to her teammates as she attempts to be an example for Christ).
3. Sarah McMann: women's wrestling. (This woman is strong. You do not want to make her mad...she could take you down).
4. Tara Nott-Cunningham: women's weightlifting (and the defending gold medalist from 2000 in Sydney.
5. Shane Hamman: men's weightlifting. (Shane has been featured in an All-State Insurance and Gateway commerical, which have been running through the Olympic coverage. You may recognize him by his braided goatee).

(And this is random: an old girlfriend from college, Stephanie White-Arnold, is competing in Athens in archery).

Read more about them and their progress here.

There are five other Olympic athletes from our Pierced community that did not make the Olympic team. For many of them, the last several days have been painful and difficult to think about the Olympics. I think often (and with great pride) about the athletes from our community who are there. However, I have been thinking and praying often for those from our community that gave up the last four years of their lives to train for Athens and failed to qualify.

Nonetheless, these are exciting times for our Pierced community during the Olympic games!

Last Night I Had a Dream...and I Hope It's Not True

2004-08-12T20:13:00.000-06:00

Last night I had a dream. A vivid dream. You know, one of those dreams that you wake up and you're not only glad it's just a dream, but you hope you never have that dream again. Ever.

Here's what I dreamed...
I dreamed Megan and I were on vacation visiting a small amusement park. Though we were definitely at an amusement park on a sunny morning, I didn't have a clue what amusement park it was. I was clueless. I saw no signs anywhere. We drove in and had difficulty finding parking spot, but finally secured one in one of the last rows. We then walked to the front entrance to the sound of cheery and blissful music piped in through the sidewalks (in surround sound). As we walked into the first pristine building to check things out, there were employees wearing bright colored shirts, name badges and plastic smiles handing us a program and a map of the location. As they handed me a map they said, "Welcome. We hope you enjoy your day today." In my dream I remember nodding in appreciation.

The main building we walked into was massive and beautiful. We entered a large auditorium and watched an entertaining hour and a half production show. It had dazzling light changes, transitions that were on cue and canned jokes throughout the show. As we left the amusement park, I was still pondering what amusement park this was.

As we were talking back to the car to leave, I learned where we were.
It haunted me.
I read the top line of the program the smiling employee had handed to me earlier: Welcome to Fellowship Community Church, Tampa, Florida. This was no amusement park; I was at church! We just sat through a church service without knowing it and mistook it for a theme park! The map was of the church facilities and programs offered to all ages. The employees were church employees and volunteers with name tags handing us bulletins. Then, I recognized the cheery and blissful music was worship songs. And (no joke) there was a large sign by our car that read, "You are parked in lot ABRAHAM 2."

This was freaky. I hope my dream was just a dream.
I hope it's not true.
I hope.

The Masai Creed

2004-08-10T11:02:00.000-06:00

Since my last post, I have been thinking much about the close marriage between the unchanging message of the gospel and the changing methods of how it is communicated. Last night, my father-in-law showed me something very intriguing. The Masai tribe of central Africa took the Nicene Creed and 'translated' it into their own cultural context.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.
We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

Two intriguing phrases in the Masai Creed: "who left his home and was always on safari doing good..." and "He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him..."

I wonder what aspects of the gospel need to be translated into a different cultural context to communicate in the language of those we interact with on a daily basis.

Sitting in Aisle Seat 33A

2004-08-09T15:18:00.000-06:00

Megan and I are spending the week in Michigan visiting her family. I am spending the latter half of the week attending a leadership conference near Detroit. On the plane ride, I began re-reading Dan Kimball's book The Emerging Church. I am grateful for Dan's fresh perspective, his willingness to ask tough questions, his desire to think and live close to what Scripture says and his encouragement that emerging churches and ministries are not meant to be trendy, but to convey a message to a post-Christian, postmodern generation.

As I read and attend conferences in the realm of emerging ministry, I am fearful that this idea has somehow become a trendy and hip way of looking at church these days. We must be careful: the message always remains the same, while the methods (and even the mindset) must always be changing. The bottom line: if people's journeys with Jesus aren't going deeper and we aren't being transformed more into the likeness of our Maker, then we're just creating a slick (and unhealthy) religious service. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir here, but I was struck by this sitting in aisle seat 33A.

Joel

2004-08-08T12:13:00.000-06:00

I went to college with a guy named Joel Sonnenberg. Joel has an amazing life story. When Joel was two years old his family was travelling on vacation. When his father stopped at a toll booth to pay the toll, an 80-ton tractor trailer did not. The truck slammed into the back of the family car, which engulfed with flames, burning over 85% of Joel's little body. When Joel was pulled from the car, eyewitnesses said that he looked like a "a lump of coal" and a "charred marshmallow." Nobody thought he would live through the night.

After spending two years of his life in a hospital undergoing over 50 surgeries, Joel has lived an amazing life for a man in his mid twenties. I know Joel and have heard his story many times, but I had moist eyes as I read the graphic detail of his surgeries, his struggles to be accepted because of his deformed figure and his willingness to offer forgiveness in the courtroom to the truck driver who changed his life forever.

Zondervan just published his story in book form called Joel. I finished reading the book late last night and highly recommend it. You should pick it up. Check out the book here.

Isn't Customer Service About Serving the Customer?

2004-08-07T13:45:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I went looking for a specific item to purchase at a large popular store known for its wonderful selection. I went to the section of the store where this specific item is usually sold, only to find out that this store chain does not carry the brand anymore. Bummer. It took me ten minutes to flag down an employee to ask if they could order this item for me. The employee wasn't too happy to see me; I seemed like just a giant interruption to his busy work shift. I almost wanted to apologize for asking him a simple question.

I then proceeded to the Customer Service Desk to see if they could help. The line was 10 deep with 1 employee working the counter. (The Check-Out line was empty and there were three other employees standing around bored...why couldn't they come over and help the customers waiting in the Customer Service line??) When I finally got to the front of the line the lady was not too happy to help me either...I was an interruption to her day as well. I was in her way, taking up her precious time. A nuisance. A hassle. (Well excuse me for wanting shop at your store, I thought. I'll make sure I don't bother you or your employees ever again...). Maybe I have it all wrong: maybe Customer Service means that the customer is supposed to serve the employee while they are working...

On the car ride home, I pondered what the implications of this situation are in ministry. It made me wonder how often I make people at Pierced feel like the employees at the store made me feel this afternoon. I must be careful to treat others as people to be cared for, listened to and served and not as frustrating interruptions to my schedule...

An Eventful 48 Hours

2004-08-06T14:03:00.000-06:00

The last 48 hours has been filled with exciting events, big and small...

It's official: Megan and I booked flights to Thailand to visit during the Thanksgiving holiday. We will be working alongside of and visiting our friends, Chris and Amy Stroup. Chris and Amy are newlyweds involved in the Pierced community and are leaving in October as missionaries to spend 10 months working at a girls' orphanage. We're excited to spend time with them, serving alongside of them in their ministry and encouraging them during our two weeks. We are extremely excited. We go from South Africa and Mozambique in June to Thailand in November!
We just saw The Bourne Supremacy this morning. What a great movie. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to see it. The Bourne Identity was awesome, but I believe that the sequel is even better. (Also, we saw the trailer for Meet The Fockers with Ben Stiller. (The sequel of Meet the Parents-- due out at Christmastime...I can't wait).
Last night was our monthly Pierced Leadership Team meeting. God has really molded our team of about a dozen people into an authentic and intentional community. We hug, laugh, cry, share and pray together. We always end with getting down on our knees and praying, remembering that God is the one in control of Pierced Chapel, not us. I thought of Proverbs 19:21 -- "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's will that prevails." As all of us were going around the room praying for the direction of Pierced, for one another, for our involvement with the poor and for our need for older friendships and mentors at Pierced, I just began to cry. I am so humbled and overcome with joy by the commitment, dedication and loyalty of the lives of those kneeling around the circle. In a generation scarred by its phobia to be involved and committed, this group of friends and co-laborers encourages us and spurs us on to remain faithful.
I get to see one of my closest friends since college, Stu. Stu is one of the Student Ministries Pastors at Woodmen (our desks are not more than twenty feet from each other) but it's been almost a month since we have seen each other. Because of all of our Pierced mission trip, vacations and weeks away this summer and because of all of his high school mission trips and vacations that he has gone on, we've missed each other. But Stu is coming over in a few minutes to hang. I've really missed him so it's going to be great to spend the afternoon with him. I am grateful for this friendship and loyalty, as well as the privilege to work on staff together. He's the bomb.

Okay, that's enough for the past 48 hours.

Totally, Like Whatever...You Know?

2004-08-04T20:07:00.000-06:00

We are a generation that has lost our ability to speak with confidence and conviction.

Here's a humorous and painfully truthful poem by Taylor Mali
called Totally Like, Whaterver...You Know?:

In case you hadn't noticed, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true as opposed to other things which were, like, not -have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . . I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . . whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness is just a clever
sort of . . . thing to disguise the fact that we've become the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since . . . you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you, I challenge you:
To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

What is Holiness in the American Church?

2004-08-03T15:13:00.000-06:00

I got this off of Dan Kimball's website. It's similar to a quote I posted where I quoted Kirkegaard (see "God as CEO?" under July archives).

“Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager.”
-Japanese businessman

The Essentials

2004-08-03T06:38:00.000-06:00

Two nights ago, I had a conversation with my friend Omar from Pierced about Catholicism. He asked me the question that was full of spiritual gunpowder and other explosives: Are Catholics Christians? It was a good, thought-provoking conversation.

In our conversation I asked, "Are Baptists, Greek Orthodox or Episcopalians Christians?" He said that it depends on their understanding of the gospel and the responsiveness of their heart to the heart of the gospel message. I responded by saying that I believe the same answer can be given for the question of Catholics.

It led to a much deeper question: What are the essentials of being a follower of Jesus Christ? As the former president of Taylor University Jay Kesler used to say, "We must major in the majors and minor in the minors." So, it begs the question, what are the majors of the Christian faith?

This was an important exercise for all of us to think through:
What is essential for salvation and what are 'the minors,' the healthy differences and diverse expressions of being a follower of Jesus Christ? Once we've figured that out, we must consider what sort of priority are we placing on the essentials in our relationship with our Loving Creator.

It certainly doesn't provide a resolute answer to the question, but it generated enough fodder for a thought-provoking and soul-energizing conversation. I am grateful for this conversation wtih Omar.

Playing Church

2004-08-02T16:25:00.000-06:00

Late last night I read thought-provoking words from Soren Kirkegaard:

"The established Church is far more dangerous to Christianity than any heresy or schism. We play at Christianity. We all use the orthodox Christian terminology -- but everything, everything without character. Yes, we are simply not fit to shape a heresy or a schism. There is something frightful in the fact that the most dangerous thing of all, playing at Christianity, is never included in the list of heresies and schisms."

When we plan our weekly Pierced services it can be very easy to unconsciously slip into what Kirkegaard calls " the most dangerous thing of all," playing at our Christianity. We don't have our Sunday evening service "just for kicks" -- it's to experience a dangerous God at work in our world, at world in our brothers and sisters, at work in our sols.

But the last several weeks, our Pierced leadership has approached the service with a Spirit-dependent attitude: we'll be faithful to do what has been entrusted to us and we'll let God handle the rest -- whatever direction that might take us. I realized last night when the Pierced community was gathering that because our Pierced leadership has maintained this attitude, they have taught me to relax much more, to notice God at work before, during and after our service, to be much more in the moment in people's lives.

I hope this absence of desiring to control and not wanting to 'play church' continues...

The Cabin

2004-07-30T13:33:00.000-06:00

This week in Florida has been a wonderful week, a delicate balance between events, people and no agenda at all. After a difficult week last week, we thoroughly enjoyed 'doing nothing.' We've seen grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, many of whome we have not seen since our wedding almost three years ago. We spent most of the week at my grandparents' cabin on Lake Owen in central Florida. "The Cabin" has been in the family for over thirty years and continues as a Briggs vacation tradition. We rode the jet ski, went canoeing and did enough water skiing to make our arms and backs sore. We threw the football in the water, grilled out on the porch and spent a good amount of time reading on the beach.

We even invented a new game called "Shore Diving." The concept: stand on shore with the water ski tow rope in your hand. Then, the jet ski takes off (making sure there is no slack in the rope so your arms aren't pulled out of socket!) As the jet ski takes off, we would dive into into the water and hold on as tight as we could. We would be pulled underwater by the rope as long as we could hold our breath and then let go. It sounds both simple and scary, I know, but it was a blast. (Needless to say, my mom couldn't watch this new sport claiming that it looked too dangerous, but my dad, my brother Alan and I had a blast. I'm putting in a recommendation for Summer X-Games XI for next year...)

Spending time at The Cabin reminds you of the simple things that are important: family, simple activities, relaxing...

Gator Watch

2004-07-28T10:16:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday, Megan and Alan and I loaded up the canoe and drove six miles into the Ocala National Forest for a hard-core outdoor adventure. We went to a place called Juniper Springs and enjoyed a seven-mile canoe ride down a very skinny canal of cold natural springs. The tropical climate included a canopy of plants out of a rain forest, crystal-clear water, exotic birds on the shore and even a small alligator just feet away from us!

This three-person canoe allowed for two people to paddle (one in front, one in the back) with the middle seat on "Gator Watch." We just had a wonderful time of relaxing, paddling and talking. I am grateful that I have such a good relationship with my brother and that he has such a good relationship with Megan. We are blessed...

Drive-in Church

2004-07-27T14:03:00.000-06:00

On Monday we managed to spend one day at Daytona Beach, Florida, enjoying the Atlantic Ocean and a beach-side pool for the day. While we were driving back to the cabin, I noticed an area that looked like an old drive-in movie area back in the 1950's. A large sign in front read, "Drive-in Christian Church." A drive-in church? Intriguing.

This area was a church which allowed you to pull up your car, tune your radio to a specific station and instead of watching a movie, listen to a pastor preach up on stage near the front. When the sermon is finished, the offering baskets are passed around among the cars and then people drive away.

While the idea sounds novel and convenient, it made me cringe. This original idea of church (the ecclesia, or 'the called out') that God created involved people being intentional with other people who were attentive to Him. People are able to stay isolated in their cars, making it almost impossible to interact with others, no matter how outgoing they may be. At first glance, it looks like a good idea to make 'going to church' as convenient as possible, but at a longer look, it seems we are defeating the purpose of it all. And yet, though we may not sit in cars, we often sit in pews and interact just as scarcely as those who might pull into Drive-in Christian Church.

Vacation

2004-07-23T12:19:00.000-06:00

We leave tomorrow morning for sunny Florida for the next week visiting immediate and extended family.
We'll be spending time at my grandparents' house near the Space Center on the eastern shore, some time in Daytona Beach and a few days at my grandparents' cabin on Lake Owen in the central part of the state. Other than that, no agenda.

Blogging will be sporadic, but relaxing will be plentiful. If we can get connected, we'll give an update.

Stay tuned...

Funeral

2004-07-22T16:06:00.000-06:00

This morning I officiated the funeral for the 11 month old son who died of SIDS. It was a child of a young couple from our Pierced community. It was full of tears, raw emotion and hugs. God was honored, but the shock and the pain was heavy.

Here are some words I shared during the homily:

"Funerals are difficult, but no funeral is more difficult than when the loss of life comes so suddently and at such a young age...I want you to know that there are no quick fixes or perfect words that I can give today that will take away all of the shock, grief and pain. It would be worthless for me to stand here and give five dollar answers to your million dollar questions, but there is hope and comfort in the midst of our pain...

...C.S. Lewis said, 'God whispers to us in our joy and shouts to us in our pain.' This is true for all of us this morning. But let me assure you that while God is shouting to us in our pain, he is not shouting words of hatred and anger, but with love, comfort and compassion in his voice. I can give no answer today why this happened. But I can tell you truths about our loving God: I can assure you that above all else, he is on the throne and walking beside us in our grief. I can assure you that he loves you passionately and deeply in the midst of your pain. And I can assure you that He desires to know you personally and intimidately and can provide you comfort, purpose and hope today..."

The most ironic aspect of the funeral is that it was held in a fifty year old Catholic church in a little Colorado town on the eastern high plains. I officiated the funeral, but the priest stood and read Psalm 62 for a brief portion of the service. The rest was up to me. The funeral home director told me after the service that in his twenty years in his job, he had never seen a protestant pastor preach in a Catholic church.

During the homily I clearly presented the gospel, saying that God experienced the loss of His own son on the cross for our sins, not to create a religion, but to pursue a relationship with each one of us, which is available to us today. On the drive home, it made me wonder if that might have been the first time the gospel message was clearly presented inside the walls of this fifty year old church building. How sad...

We are physically exhausted and emotionally drained beyond belief, but are excited about our restful vacation to Florida starting Saturday.

God as CEO?

2004-07-21T16:45:00.000-06:00

Quote to ponder...

"I need a Creator; I was given a big businessman."
-John Paul Sartre

Globally Minded

2004-07-21T06:25:00.000-06:00

Over the past several weeks, God has been teaching us that He is not just the God of America, but the God of every nation around the world. (Of course, we know that he is a global God, but it is easy to forget this very important truth). These teaching lessons have come in the form of relationships and conversations with many great people.

Our time in Africa afforded us two weeks with our dear South African friends Tom and Lollie Smith and our new-found friend Schalk van Heerden in Mozambique. They continue to encourage us and remind us in our interactions that God is a global God working and moving around the world. Several pictures at a church building in Manica, Mozambique depicted Jesus as a black man. This startled me at first, but Tom reminded me that Jesus was probably closer to that depiction than to our blonde hair-blue eyes-caucasion depiction of Jesus in American church culture.

While in Johannesburg, we befriended a wonderful couple, Bob and Linda Kirkeeide, who have been missionaries to Zimbabwe, Haiti, England, South Africa and now Colorado Springs. Ironically, though we met them in South Africa, they live within two miles of our house! They continue to provide encouragement, perspective and joy to our ministry. They have been such a blessing to us in the fact that though they are Americans by blood, they certainly are not Americans by culture. They perspective on our global God has helped repair our oftentimes skewed perspective of our American-only God.

Chris and Amy Stroup (newlyweds and friends of ours from Pierced) are moving in the fall to Chiang Mai, Thailand for a year of mission work at an orphanage for young girls. Last week, they invited us over to their apartment for dinner and showed us pictures of where they will be going and what they will be doing. Megan and I are actually pricing airline flights and checking our schedules to visit with them and serve alongside of them in Thailand for a week or two in November!

In addition, my uncle, aunt and their four children just accepted an assignment to work with Operation Mobilization in Haifa, Israel. We are excited for them and this new journey (even more so because of our deep love of the land of Israel!) They will be visiting the Colorado Springs area next week as they attend a mission training conference before they leave in a few months.

And finally, last night we were invited to have dinner with Mark and Carrie Tedder at their home in the mountains. Mark is our part-time worship director at Woodmen, in addition to leading worship events and worship training conferences all over the world. There are very few countries that the Tedders have not visited and served. Last night we heard story after story of how God is moving around the world.

It makes me wonder if God is just waking me up to the fact that He is a global God working all over the world or if he might be preparing our hearts for overseas missions sometime down the road...

What great lessons we have learned this summer about how global our God is.

Oh, pray for me. I officiate the funeral tomorrow morning at 10 am.

Humble

2004-07-20T15:20:00.000-06:00

I bumped into my friend Jon Stine in Starbucks today. Jon is a brilliant thinker and used to be an editor in Christian publishing for years. Though he deflects has much credit away from him as possible, Jon is the brainchild of Eugene Peterson's translation of the Bible The Message. Over a decade ago, Jon read Eugene's translation of the book of Galatians in a book called Traveling Light and envisioned the entire Bible translated in a similar vein. Eugene translated it and The Message has sold over 10 million copies ministering to the lives of many people.

I joked with Jon about how significant he is in the world of Christian publishing, knowing how much he hates getting credit. He looked away and said that struggles a lot with staying humble. It surprised me. Here is a man who desires to stay as anonymous as possible and takes no credit for the idea and yet he is telling me that he struggles with humility often. When he has the opportunity to bask in the popularity of the Message, he does all that he can to stay away from that spotlight. What an example.

It reminded me of a quote by C.S. Lewis: "When you think you are humble, it is at that very moment that you certainly are not."

A Hard Four Days

2004-07-19T19:18:00.000-06:00

The last four days have been difficult to say the least...

Within the last few days we've experienced:

Finding out that someone who has been attending our community is in prison.
A marriage which is on the brink of falling apart.
Our city grieving over three separate traffic accidents killing five people over the weekend between the ages of 19 and 25. (Though our community did not know these individuals, it hurts because of the heart that I have for the twentysomethings of Colorado Springs).
A young couple in the Pierced community who is in shock after losing their 11-month old son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome two nights ago. (I am officiating the funeral on Thursday).

The last few days have been a reminder that we live in a broken, sin-marred, pain-filled world and, most importantly, that our world is desperately in need of a savior. It has also been a reminder that there are no five dollar answers to million dollar questions.

One of the sayings that I use a lot at Pierced is "God is still on the throne." The last several days I have found myself uttering these words, not as a cliche, but as a heart-felt reality of the present. This season of ministry is hard, but I am reminded that it is worth the effort. Despite all the pain and hardship, the truth remains this week: God is still on the throne.

Bring it On

2004-07-18T01:12:00.000-06:00

Tonight we start a new series called Risk Factor. As we explore what it means to be involved in costly discipleship, we'll look at the risks that men and women in Scripture made and what our response should be. This evening, we will look at three young men who stood tall in a moment of Truth.

As I was thinking about this series, my friend John reminded me of one of the final scenes from Braveheart, where Mel Gibson refuses to bow his knee to the king and he stands for freedom. Just yesterday afternoon, Megan and I were in Barnes and Noble. I was reading from a compilation of writings from early apostolic church fathers (yes, I am officially a nerd). Eusebius (dubbed the "father of church history") wrote the account of a hero of the faith named Polycarp (funny name, serious faith lesson here). Polycarp was an older gentleman who was told to bow to Caesar rather than to Jesus. He refused to bow and was threatened to have wild beasts released on him. He was told he would be burned alive if he did not bow. You know what he said? "Bring it on..."

He was laid on a pile of firewood, the wood was lit and a miracle ocurred: the fire formed an arch around him and he was not burned up. When the leaders saw that he was not being burned up on the pile, soldiers were ordered to take spears and stab him to death. He bled so much in his death, his blood put out the fire. His famous words when threatened: "Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?"

I want to be a risktaker who stands for truth like Polycarp. Oftentimes, it seems easier to stand for truth in the big areas. But I also desire to stand for truth in the small, subtle, seemingly insignificant opportunities that cross my path on a daily basis. These stories speak to us deeply, yet we fail to live like these characters when we are placed in similar circumstances.

I want to be like Polycarp when I grow up...
Bring it on.

Psalm 23 (American Amplified Version)

2004-07-15T16:40:00.000-06:00

I got this rendition from a friend not too long ago. The first time I read this, I laughed. The next time, I sat in silence...
An African phrase: "Americans are people who wear gods strapped to their wrists."
Too true.

Psalm 23 (American Amplified Version)
The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when I am exhausted.
It leads me to deep depression.
It hounds my soul.
It leads me in circles of frenzy for activity's sake.
Even though I run frantically from task to task,
I will never get it all done,
For my "ideal" is with me.
Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.
They annoint my head with migraines.
My in-basket overflows.
Sure fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever.

Anyone relate?

So That We May Be Whole...

2004-07-14T11:47:00.000-06:00

This morning as a church staff, we took communion together. This morning I realized an important aspect of reconciliation found at the Lord's Table. As I read the words of Jesus to myself, "This is my body which was broken for you. Take and eat..." I was reminded that Jesus' body was broken for us, the broken, sin-scarred people belonging to Him. A broken body for a broken people. What a powerful image. The true miracle was that he did desired to be one of us, including possessing a broken body.

I was filled with thankfulness as I realized this broken body for a broken people was intended for the purpose of restoring a broken relationship so that we may be whole.
What a God we serve.

Desiring to live for Jesus like Frank

2004-07-13T07:30:00.000-06:00

Sunday night at Pierced provided an opportunity for our South Africa/Mozambique mission team members to share about our trip and our experiences. St. Francis of Assisi used to tell his younger pupils the famous line with which he is created, "Always preach the gospel. If necessary, use words." This was the purpose and goal of our trip to Africa. We dressed up in our African clothes: the girls wore their colorful skirts from the Manica market, the guys wore our South Africa rugby jerseys and we all wore our sandals made for us out of tires. Everyone was able to share pictures, stories, journal entries, verses and diverse experiences sharing how God showed up, how big He is and how He used our team. (If you would like me to send you an email of my in-depth thoughts and musings about the trip, let me know and I would be glad send it along).

One of the important goals for us as we planned the evening is to make sure it wasn't just a book-report update style presentation for the entire evening; we truly desired to tie the loose ends together to challenge those who did not go to Africa and remind us that we are all on a mission trip. I shared what Tom told our team the first night we were in Jo'burg: "Technically, if you are a Christian, you are on a mission."

As I was teaching on how easy it is for our American mindset to tempt to us think that we are not missionaries here, I said this during the evening: "You may think the most radical thing you could do for God in the whole world would be to go to Africa...but you would be dead wrong. The most radical thing you can do for God is to live obediently, passionately and faithfully with your life wherever he has placed you, whether it is Manica, Mozambique in Africa or the office cubicle downstairs." We desire to live as little St. Francises in the places God has called us to live.

Living the Romans 12:1 rhythm can be very difficult in our compartmentalized mindset. How can I more fully embrace the fact that we are missionaries on a mission trip right now, whether or not we realize or acknowledge it?