comin down the home stretch

i am comin' down the home stretch - about to leave my 20's once and for all. this decade was filled with tons of experiences and growth. married, kids, houses and jobs - i have even made some strides in my character. couple of things i would like to guide my next 10 years:

1. less focus on what i don't want to be. want to focus more on what i know i am called to in christ.

2. continue to search for a vocation better suited for me.

3. continue to love and serve my wonderful wife and kids.

i have been joking with people lately about the impending depression i am going to slip into after i hit 30, but in actuality i am quite content in many aspects of my life. i understand, it isn't about what i have accomplished in this world that makes me any more worthy of the love i have in christ. he loves me! that is enough! i am known by the creator of the heavens and the earth! that is enough! there is nothing that can separate me from his love! and that is enough!

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on a side note, i just finished ted dekker's black, red and white series. fantastic books that are soaked in the gospel story. i would recommend picking them up, if you enjoy christian fiction.

some more brian reagan

not sure you have a sense of humor if you don't laugh at this.
"he happened upon an essentials kit, and it was filled with food, shelter and love!"
priceless!

christian author has problem with conservatives

for the complete cnn article click here

whatever your opinion of donald miller - i find he makes some good sense (at least to me). one of the hardest things to get my head around, in the life and ministry of jesus, is the fact that sinners were attracted to him. they even sought him out. i once attended a renovare conference in dc, and dallas willard said one word he would use to describe jesus is - "comfortable." i remember thinking - really? of all the words the words to describe jesus - comfortable??

but he is right, jesus was comfortable amongst all kinds of people with all kinds of views of the world.

the below quote from miller is from the cnn article:

"I felt, once again, that there was this underlying hostility for homosexuals and Democrats and, well, hippie types. I cannot tell you how much I did not want liberal or gay people to be my enemies. I liked them," he wrote. "The real issue in the Christian community was that (love) was conditional ... You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up."

i happen to agree with him - and i think we have trouble with this because we are living in a "christian nation." we have grown "comfortable" fighting fire with fire, at the expense of the gospel even. gays want to run our schools - well we will show them, by writing hate mail, and picketing with "god hates gays" signs. but that is just more of the same. the/our war is NOT flesh and blood, and we don't fight with the weapons of the world. we find ways to lovingly call people to the way of christ - the way of his kingdom.

now, don't misunderstand me, i don't believe the world is going to end in a "big group hug." judgement will come, and in some ways, has already come to our world. our call is to be faithful - and plead and pursuade people to surrender their wills to the creator of the universe who has lovingly and sacrificially made a way for us to find eternal life. but is that what we are doing? or are we "mad" b/c we aren't getting our way?

way with words

kylie has always had a way with words - must be a gift she picked up from her daddy. recently she has been substituting a "b" for the first letter in every word. let me give you an example - she ate a blue popsicle and it turned her whole mouth blue. she went to the mirror to check it out and came back saying her "tongue, bung was blue."

well the other day she was in the kitchen - and you can probably guess when i asked her where she was, what her response was - "daddy i was in the kitchen, bitchen."

we are so proud of her!

need a laugh?

my all time funniest comedian. he has all kinds of videos on youtube, but i thought this one was as good as any. funny stuff!

the subversion of christianity

picked this up off of greg boyd's blog. interesting to think about, and pretty much in line with how i think about this stuff.

the following is greg boyd's synopsis of Jacques Ellul's the subversion of christianity.

Ellul's basic thesis is that the Kingdom Jesus inaugurated with his life, death and resurrection has been subverted, how you ask? please read the below:

* SUCCESS. The Kingdom only works when it's lived out in small numbers. Once it becomes a mass movement, it becomes an ideology and loses its soul.
* MONEY. A movement that was founded on people renouncing all possessions got seduced into sanctifying the "right" to possessions.
* MORALITY. This is a huge point. Ellul totally gets that eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is judgment and is at the root of all sin (see chapter IV). The Kingdom revolution is a revolution of the Spirit -- which is the antithesis of living on the basis of ethics. He continually stresses that the New Testament and the early Jesus-movement "has no morality." Once Christianity became a ruling power and a successful mass movement, however, it had to control people with rules.
* RELIGION. The Jesus movement is anti-religious. But people crave religion. They have "religious needs" that the Jesus movement undermines. When the movement became a mass movement, it became a Christianized version of pagan religion.
* PRAGMATISM. The Kingdom was founded on the singular concern to be faithful to God, not a concern to fix the world. Once Christianity became successful, however, it wrongly assumed responsibility to rule the world and got practical. Since most of Jesus' teachings are impractical, they had to be set aside.
* VIOLENCE. Non-violence never seems practical, so it was among the things that needed to go. (Here Ellul curiously argues that the example of Islam was the main influence in making Christianity a violent religion, see Chapter V).
* POLITICS. Here Ellul is at his best, showing how Jesus' apolitical/anti-political movement was transformed into the handmaiden of politics. He shows that Christianity has almost always pathetically given divine sanction to whatever political regime it found itself in. Using ingenious theological arguments right out of the Bible, the Church defended the monarchy when it found itself under a monarchy and the Republic form of government when under this type of government. So too, it defended Socialism under Socialism, Communism under Communism and of course Democracy under a Democracy. The movement whose heart is to revolt against all government to manifest the reign of God is reduced to a silly defender of whatever government happens to be in charge.
* POWER. The heart of the problem, Ellul argues, is that we fear the freedom the Kingdom offers us. It's the radical freedom of possessing nothing -- including power. We rather crave the security of things, of power, of rules, and of pretending we are free (e.g. by having a vote) when in fact we are in bondage. The Spirit was to set us free, but this requires relinquishing all these things.

small group

great small group last night. we are memorizing a scripture each week and talking about it. as you could have guessed we contemplated philippians 2:3-4. two things strike me about this verse:

1. it is a command like any other found in the new testament. don't think there is anything cultural about this bad boy. our attitude and mind should mirror that of christ jesus.

2. it is impossible to be obedient to this command without christ in me. our sinful fallen nature cries out in our selfishness everyday. it screams "look at me!" "i am worthy!" "i am good!" "i am better than so and so!" in so many different ways. christ offers us life - the only true source of life - but we want what we want.

may christ indwell us to such a degree we no longer thirst for the meaningless things of this world, but turn and drink from the living water.

liz school of exercising

today i subjected myself to the "liz school of exercising." now there is exercising, and then there is silliness. i would put this in the category of silliness. and if i am honest i only did most of the exercises at half throttle, b/c my body was slowly telling me to STOP or DIE! everyone was very nice and kept there ridicule to a minimum, which i appreciated. so in summary, my butt cheeks are killing me, my back has some weirdness going on, my stomach is a bit tight and my hammies feel like they are going to give me trouble for the next few days.

so - thank you liz. thank you for taking philippians 2:3-4 and making it work in my life - "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in HUMILITY consider other better than yourselves. each of you should look not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

i have been humbled and i am grateful!

baptism

if you are from the coc tribe then it is likely you have a view on baptism. some would say it is at the center of our teaching, and all else hinges on the belief and practice (both have to be right) of this ancient ritual. i too have thought long and hard about this - it never seemed to be enough to say "the bible says it, and i believe it." i kept bumping up against people that held a different understanding and yet their life was evidence to the gospel of jesus. it also wasn't enough to say "then it must not matter, to each his own."

so, fast forward to today. i have been having an ongoing, daily, conversation with a fellow christian - southern baptist persuasion. he also holds some very hard beliefs on this very topic. we have a lot of fun poking at each others traditions, but at the same time challenging each other. finally he laid it out "what is your view of baptism?" below was my response:

baptism is an outward expression and acknowledgement of our belief and commitment to live out the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is a point along our journey where faith and action have intersected, trusting Christ has accomplished all that he has promised regarding our salvation (forgiveness of sins, heaven, holy spirit, new creation).

now I went on to say a little more, but i think this is actually where i am with it today. it begs about 100 other questions, at least for the cocer. but i will leave it at the above for now.

i am thankful for my baptism and all it continues to call me to.

breakthrough

since there are about 4 people that read this blog with any consistency, this can't be considered bragging - i sure hope it isn't taken like that.

often times in my work life i can feel a little overwhelmed. things tend to pile up, deadlines eventually come due and expectations can be pretty high. today i was having one of those moments and i turned to god in prayer....then this happened.

instead of just praying for "insight" into this little problem i was experiencing so i would "succeed" through it (this is what i usually do) - i felt a nudging, actually it was almost like a thump on the head - to pray about what god wanted me to see in this moment. the most important thing to talk to god about was not succeeding in this - but trusting, listening and growing in the experience.

might not seem much to most, but to me it was a breakthrough!

christmas photo

 
this was one of the pictures taken before we got the "perfect" one we mailed out this year. couldn't resist posting it. how cool are these kids?