Love them... then everyone will know

I was reading Blue Like Jazz last night as I waited till I was tired enough to go to sleep. I came across a great thought by Don. He talks about how he used to hate all the super conservative Christians who he thought was giving Christ a bad name. I can totally relate to this! I've had my fair share of experiences when I've disagreed with another Christian and I've let that build enmity between us. I've been guilty of hate towards my brothers and sisters because I didn't think they were doing what Christ wanted. I was convicted of it last night. I don't want to become the bitter Christian guy who no one likes because I've let my way get in the way of Christ's Way. The message of the Gospel is that God loves us even though he hates what we've become. Why should I do anything less?

WHOA!

It's been a couple of busy weeks with the winter retreat and Youth Sunday back to back, but it was fun while it lasted. Now that it's over, I have a little time to focus on cleaning my desk and computer a bit. I've got some old download files that I don't remember...

Both the winter retreat and Youth Sunday went superbly. Thanks for all the prayers!

I attended the IGNITE leader's conference at Blackhawk Saturday (3/7). It was very informative. I took the Discovering Your Leadership Style workshop. It was great to know that I have very little leadership when it comes to detail. I'm more of a visionary/entrepreneurial leader with team-building, shepherding, and bridge-building elements in that. Good to know for future use. Now to brainstorm how I can use that to enact discipline in youth group. It could be interesting.

Thoughts from 1 Peter

Mars Hill (WA) is on my podcast list right now. They're doing a series through 1&2 Peter. Here's something Mark said in the first sermon:

"If your gaze is only to how the world responds to you, you will live with no joy, or you'll sin and compromise in an effort to pursue joy where there is none to be had in the approval of those who don't love God. If you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, understand His great love for you, the fact that He's chosen you, that He won't leave you, that He won't forsake you, that He loved you before time began, that He loved you before He created the earth for you to walk on, that He loved you knowing you're a sinner, that He pursued you before you pursued Him, that He chose you before you chose Him, you'll have joy and you'll be able to live a life patterned after Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Great stuff.

A Fine Line...

I feel like I am walking a fine line with my future. On the one hand, I want to see the church grow and expand like Jesus wanted. On the other hand, I have a deep love for youth ministry. I want to stay in youth ministry, but for some reason sense a small call to more than "youth ministry" (i.e. college ministry, church planting, etc.) The Church is my third love (after God and my wife, of course) and tied with (but not exclusive from) missions. I think I should journal more about this...

Thomas

simplistic procrastination

I know I should be working on other things right now (see previous post). However, I decided to clean up the blog a bit. I had removed my "labels" gadget in the toolbar because I simply could look no longer. There was a long list of one-post wonders that I decided to narrow down. I'm not here to get a bunch of fame and glory. This is my "journal." I didn't need the 25 different labels, so I brought it down to about 10 categories that I hope to regularly blog about.

Back to work...
How Great Thou Art by Becoming the Archetype just came onto iTunes!

Thomas

Eureka!

I had my eureka moment! It was in the Becoming a Man seminar that was taught by a 26 year old guy. It was geared toward 20 somethings, but there were a lot of teens in the room, too. There were a lot of really good ideas in the session that were taken from Daniel's life. Josh, the speaker, was engaging and had the quirky nose-wipe going on. I'll have to post my notes from it separately.

Thomas
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

No Regrets

I took a leap of faith and traveled to fabulous Milwaukee for the annual No Regrets men's conference. So far, it's a pretty typical conference with breakout sessions on familiar topics. The church (Elmbrook) is gigantico but still homey. I do appreciate the attention to providing natural light vs. artificial.

The teaching and breakouts have been pretty traditional; regular man stuff. I can't say I've had an "a ha!" moment, yet. Still, it's only the middle of the day. Part of me wishes I could attend the discussion later about what we can do to keep this going at home. (I've always been a fan of secret pacts/covenants. Too bad they've lost their allure to men.) All in all, this is shaping up to be a good day of refreshing.

Thomas
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Free At Last...

I've been overwhelmed recently by many articles addressing the oversexualization of our culture, media, world, etc. It seems very interesting to me that even many secular authors have been writing on this issue and the effects it is having and will continue to have on kids.

One thing that has always struck me as funny, though, is that there has never been many free Christian resources to help the church deal with and think through these issues. Sure, there's xxxchurch.com, a great ministry started by a couple of guys who now go to porn shows to witness to people (without overt condemnation). Still, there's by a lack of literature to spark discussion among Christians who struggle with pornographic lust.

In to save the day, my hero, Mark Driscoll. Yeah, I probably give the guy a little too much "hero worship" (by no means idolization). Everything I've heard about and from him has led me to believe he's theologically well-grounded, a committed father/husband, and a great teacher, but I digress.

He has recently released a free book in PDF format addressing the issues of pornography and "that M word." I find this a huge step in the world of Christian literature. I know for a fact that there are lots of Christian guys who struggle with this problem and everywhere you turn is another sexual image, so it's with a huge breath of relief that there's finally a free resource to help in the opposite direction. I'm glad he's willing to put his material out there for people to use. Check it out here. If you like it, you can still buy the book and have a copy that you can print to share with guys you may know who struggle with this stuff.

My Heart Is Pierced

I just finished the two most monumental chapters in The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. All I can say is that my brain and my heart are overloaded with love, awe, wonder, and just "holy camoly"-ness. Grace is a beautiful thing. I'm glad I don't have to save myself from being a slave to myself, especially since that is totally paradoxical. I'm humbled by what God did for me and think about how many times I try to look like I'm saving myself by doing all the right things. Don't get me wrong. I'm still gonna do the right things, but because I love God, not to get His love. How many times do we do spiritual things to "get God's approval?" Guess what. We're flawed, and Jesus HAD to die for us. You can't do it on your own. Guess what else. You're loved and valued, and Jesus WANTED to die for us. Personally, I'm thankful.

Racing for Perfection... or is it 'against'?

How many times do we get discouraged and give up? Probably more than we would like to answer. It's especially true when it comes to living virtuously. Why is it the case that when it comes to living a virtuous life that we get so easily discouraged?

I was reading an excerpt from The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa. It was a good read. He puts Paul's words about running a race into a more philosophical perspective. Here's a smaller portion:

"Coming to a stop in the race was not safe for [Paul]. Why? Because no Good has a limit in its own nature but is limited by the presence of its opposite, as life is limited by death and light by darkness. And every good thing generally ends with all those things which are perceived to be contrary to the good. Just as the end of life is the beginning of death, so also stopping in the race of virtue marks the beginning of the race of evil."

He goes on to say that we strive for perfection, which we cannot attain. Perfection is limitless just as God is limitless because God is Perfection. This is why it can be a struggle to continue the race of virtue. How can one be expected to run a race when an end is never in sight? It sounds pretty depressing. However, Ol' Greg give us some hope: "For in the case of those things which are good by nature, even if men of understanding were not able to attain everything, by attaining even a part they could gain a great deal." There you have it. Our goal is not to make it to the finish (which is unattainable as corporeal meatsacks) but simply to run. As Greg says, "For the perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness."

May you run with great zeal, knowing that your perfection in virtue comes with each step and not by crossing the finish line.

Hit the Road

Jess and I picked up our bikes last night. Hopefully this will begin a fitness regimen I can stick to. We bought some decent bikes from Wal-Mart... I know, not the best bikes in the world, but they work. I got a GMC Denali 700c road bike and Jess got a Schwinn Skyliner comfort bike. With all the bike trails in Madison, we had to do this. We simply wouldn't be Sconi's without them.

We love Wisconsin. Even though they charge a lot for license plates and don't have the best paved roads, we are finally close to a place where we call this home.

Christmas: The Great Adventure!

What a whirlwind of a break! It seems just like yesterday that I was leaving my family at New Covenant. It's been quite an adventurous break, though. I accomplished many of the things that I had set out to do at the beginning of this break.

Christmas was amazing and relaxing. We borrowed a van from some friends so we had more room to drive out there. Our '99 Ford Windstar just seemed to be a little small now that Jacob (the youngest brother) is 13 and probably about 5'5" now. So, we borrowed a big Chevy van we affectionately called the Party Van. The trip was rather uneventful. I was able to read a lot and we watched part of Transformers on my Macbook. The actual time we spent in Missouri was very well spent. It was very nice to be home for this last holiday I have as an unmarried man. We enjoyed a lot of good food on Christmas. It was also awesome to have 18 people gathered in one house for a meal. I know, I had said in the earlier post that there were 17 people, but my uncle's mother Emma joined us. This was the second year her husband has been gone (he died of a heart attack), and it was harder for her than last year. I really enjoyed having so many people at the house ranging in age from 4 years to upper 60's.

I got a nice sweater from my grandparents this year for Christmas. More importantly, I had a nice vacation with my family. God is faithful. He has brought my family through many testing periods, and this Christmas was a testament to his faithfulness in my family.

Friends Purge and Being Important

I realize I write long entries on this blog. Perhaps that's why no one leaves many comments. Or they just don't like me enough. Oh well!

I just got done with chapters 7 & 8 in Searching for God Know What. They were incredible chapters. To make it short, Miller says that the problem with humanity is that our focus is out of whack. We are looking to each other for our validity instead of to God. Before the Fall, God was our source of importance and validity. Now, we try to get it from each other. It goes right along with wanting to be our own god.

Basically, he likens the human state to the lifeboat analogy. Apart from God, we're all on a lifeboat deciding who should be thrown from our vessel. Our worth comes from a jury of our peers, and the sentence for not measuring up is drowning in the ocean of life. This is something I see on Facebook all the time (unlike Tye, my name is Facebook appropriate). Even in my own life, I try to validate my existence by accruing more friends on the social networking site. Recently, I had had enough. I went through my list of friends and got rid of about 300 people. They were people from my past with whom I have no communication. I was awakened to the fact that the only reason I have them as a friend was to say that I had 500+ friends, or in the hopes that they would see my profile and see what a remarkable individual I was.

The point of the matter is that we should be seeking to have our validity come from God. The two most important people in my life, God and Jessica, both validate me. I can stand being important to only two people. Can you?

TreeBeard and God

What does God look like to you? Is he some old man up in the sky? Is he ready to zap you with a lightning bolt if you screw up? Is he just some supremely benevolent being that wants nothing more than for you to be happy?

What if God was more like TreeBeard (the ent from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)? This is what Donald Miller describes God as in chapter 3. To Miller, God has oak trees for feet and a quiet voice that sounds like the whisper of the wind through a forest. What he's really trying to say is that God is so totally other that we cannot even begin to imagine what God is like. This otherness deserves our fear. Yes, terror would be the correct form of fear in this case.

If we look at Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, we see a lion who is described as terrible and untame, yet good. There is a sense of fear (but not dread) that one should have when thinking about God. Because of God's otherness, we have a certain amount of fear for the One who created the universe. However, because of His goodness, we do not dread Him. When we misrepresent God, we are doing Him a huge disservice. We show the world a bad picture of who God really is. He is more than a system of beliefs to make you feel better. He's a living and active Being. When we truly find God, we will find the value we have; the value for which we look to other people. Miller says it like this, "It seems like, if you really knew the God who understands the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe." When you find God's love, you will find the value of yourself and truly love others enough to die for them.

In chapter 4, Miller makes some a huge assertion. Basically, he says that systematic theology is totally null outside the relationship context with God. You may present the ideas of God, but they make no sense outside of the emotional connection with God. He says that if figures like Paul, John, and Moses were to look at our systematic theology books, they would probably say, "Well, it's technically true; it just isn't meaningful." Truth is living and complex. You can't break it down into a simple format. It must be discovered instead of presented, sought out instead of handed on a silver platter. One might provide opportunity for truth to be found, but should never just give it up. It is too precious a commodity for that. Am I saying that we shouldn't tell people the Good News? To quote Paul, by no means! We should present the truth with no expectation of response. It is totally up to a person to seek it out. Only then will the truth become meaningful to the person. We should approach the Bible in a less narcissistic way, looking for Christ in every verse rather than ourselves as Kathleen Norris describes of the study habits of Benedictine Monks in The Cloister Walk.

Terrible yet Beautiful

So, I'm absolutely terrible at updating my blog. Perhaps this is why people do not frequently leave comments. Erin said it best, "I don't post frequently enough. I don't post about enough current topics. I seem to be more of a drive-by blogger." Well, now I have a reason to post more.

I'm currently reading Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller with some of the senior guys in youth group. He's an author I respect a lot. He makes Christianity refreshing in a way. So many times, we get caught up in our own spirituality that we forget Christianity is a communal thing. We can grown by the thoughts, ideas, and experiences of other people. Miller brings his own experiences to the table, making you laugh and think at the same time.

His first chapter is great! He talks about how formulas don't work for Christianity. You can't put your relationship with God in a formulaic pattern anymore than your relationship with your best friend, wife, parents, siblings, etc. How many times do we do that, though? How often do we try to "self-help" our way into spirituality and Christianity? A relationship with God takes more time than just three, four, six, or twelve steps. It's takes all our time. I think that's why Brother Lawrence was so right in practicing the presence of God. When you're always aware of God's presence, then you get to know Him better. Duh!

The second chapter goes along very well with number one. When you have a formula god, you have a simple god. You have a simple god, he only exists to validate you,. In other words, your god moves according to your agenda instead of you moving according to God's. However, when questions come (like the questions in the WHY> series here at NCBC), your simple, self-justifying god falls apart. This god is an imposter of the real God just like (as Miller puts it) all the department store Santas were, to him, imposters of the "real" one when he was a child. No wonder so many people who say they believed in God but turned away. They were worshiping an idol, a sham, a simple god. Maybe this god is related to our God, but limited by the characteristics of the Living God that you like. We don't serve a Buffet God from whom you can pick and choose what characteristics you like or make you feel good. You simply create an imposter that is easily "debunked" when you start to really seek.

That's what makes the Living God so beautiful. He's kind of like a Hobbit. You can spend years with Him, but He'll always still surprise you.

"The god who cares so much about getting rich must not have treasures stored up in heaven, and the god so concerned with getting even must not have very much patience, and the god who cares so much about the West must really hate the rest of the world, and that doesn't sound like a very good god to me." Searching For God Knows What, pp. 28-29

The Tank is out...

What it REALLY means to be!

So, I am infatuated with one Clive Staples Lewis. What a great author! The 9 books of his that I have read (All 7 Narnia books, Mere Christianity, and The Problem of Pain) have been phenomenal. Lewis has a way to make you critically think then blows your mind out of the water!

I just recently finished The Problem of Pain. It was an eye-opening book, and I'll admit, I had my problems with it. Lewis brings into play his old-earth creation theories and talks some about his evolutionary creationist thoughts. However, it doesn't take away from the book at all. As I text messaged a friend last night, "I love how Lewis writes final chapters that make up for any craziness or confusion from the rest of the book." The last chapters of The Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, and The Problem of Pain all deal with a single truth: What it REALLY means to be. Simply put, what are we really supposed to be? And he does a remarkable job at sharing his theories on it.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, the children are exposed to a new Narnia that looks the same old one. However, the world is more vibrant, more alive than the old world was. They find that they can do things there that they could never have done before. They find themselves to be truer selves.

In Mere Christianity, Lewis talks about The New Man. This idea is based on what Jesus said about losing your life to find it. When we submit ourselves to Christ, we find who we truly are. We find our very essence, our very being. Though we cannot experience that totally on this side of life, we can get a taste of it. But when we make it to Heaven, we will taste it for real and forever.

In The Problem of Pain, he says that each are created differently the same way keys are created differently. We have uniqueness to ourselves because who we are fits Heaven in a particular way. "Heaven was not made for us, we were made for it." God loves each of us differently because of our differences. He loves us with the same intensity, but in tremendously different ways. And when we find ourselves face-to-face with the Creator, we will experience Paradise once again. We will forever be in this cycle (or dance, as Lewis says) of us submitting ourselves to God and God showing us who we are more clearly. We will be humanity in Heaven. It sounds confusing, but it is a beautiful picture he paints. It's much better than his description of Hell, in which a person becomes what was left of a soul: a self-centered will and uncontrollable passions eternally excluded from humanity.

How encouraging it is to think that when I get to Heaven I will know who I really am. I may find clues as to who I really am on earth as I submit myself to Christ more and more, and pain may even exist because of this, but someday I will know me and you will know you in a way we could never know ourselves before. We will be given tablets of stone with our new secret names, which only the individual and the Father will know. We are each keys, as Lewis puts it, that unlock a different door in the mansion with many rooms. When those rooms are unlocked, we will know humanity and we will know God!

Hallelujah!

Forgive Us Our Sins

Forgiveness hurts. It hurts when you find out someone you trust and love dearly does something wrong against you. Whether it's a close friend, a family member, a boyfriend/girlfriend, or a spouse, forgiving someone so precious to you hurts. Our human nature doesn't want to forgive. It would much rather take revenge, make them pay for what they've done. After all, how could they have done that to you/me?

Then I remember the forgiveness I've received from the Father. When I didn't deserve it, it was there for me. When I should be eternally dead and separated from God, Christ brought us to righteousness. "Forgive as the LORD forgave you" (Colossians 3:13). But it hurts when we keep asking for forgiveness. It breaks the heart of God when we've made our commitment but renege on that commitment. He loves us that much. Having just a little glimpse on His sorrow and disappointment makes me appreciate my forgiveness even more.

"The beauty about grace is that it makes life unfair." -Relient K