City

I like cities. I grew up in a big city (Chicago), and even though I lived in Santa Fe for over a decade I tried to get to the city (Albuquerque) whenever I could. So I guess it’s only natural that I’m trying to plant a church in the city. Cities are important to God. Take a look at the Bible, what starts in a garden ends in a city. If people matter to God (they do), then we should take His message of salvation to them where they are (over 1/2 of the world’s population lives in cities).

Cities are upstream and the suburbs/rural areas are downstream; whatever happens in the city affects the suburbs/rural areas, but not vice versa. So if we want to be effective in impacting the world with the Gospel, it stands to reason that we’d be focusing on cities. God’s directive though Jeremiah was that Israelites take to the city and invest in it, knowing that their welfare was inevitably tied to the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

This means that as we move forward to love people with God’s love, it will happen in the city. And that love may come in the form of food for the hungry, justice for the oppressed, or love for the rejected. This type of idea, that a church can be most effective by meeting the needs of citizens, was best exemplified by the words of a Jesuit priest who was serving Jesus in India, “I bring God to people in the form in which He is absent. Here, it is water.” What kinds of opportunities are we missing by ignoring the needs of the city?

Sacrifice

God keeps waking me up early to pray; it’s quite annoying. I have a regular prayer time daily (that keeps getting longer and longer) and I enjoy that, it’s cool to talk to Him about stuff every day. So I figure that He should be pretty satisfied with that, but nope. Every morning, between 5:30 and 6:00, I get roused from sleep. This has been happening for a couple of months now. I used to try to go back to sleep, but I never could so I stopped and now I just get to praying right away. Anyway, the whole thing bugs because I’m getting up so early that I don’t get enough sleep and I’m usually kind of grumpy through the day. I suppose that I could start going to bed earlier, but then I’d miss out on some TV shows (I have to DVR everything because I have three small children that control the TV)…wait a minute, you mean this God trying to get me to give something up? Aaaarrgh!

Be so much easier if He’d just zap me and make me good instead of this whole “dying to self” thing.

Thinking

Nancy and I were just talking, and we discovered something pretty interesting; we’re excited and hopeful about our lives. Nothing has changed in our lives; we have no more money, the church isn’t any larger, there’s not a single thing that we can point to and say, “That’s why we’re psyched about our lives now!” So I don’t know why, we just feel like God is about is change some things and bring some huge stuff into our lives. Actually, there is something I can point to. A few days ago Nancy and I were looking at Proverbs 23:7 and Romans 12:2, and we decided to allow Jesus to change our thoughts and attitudes. And it’s working! So, once again, God is allowing us to live the truth of His wisdom…it’s pretty awesome.

Life

I had lunch with a dear brother today who I’m doing accountability with. He has grown and changed so much, and I’m really seeing God work powerfully in his life. The key to his transformation has been that he embraced a simple truth: life change begins with the renewing of your mind. He started thinking different thoughts and focusing on the Spirit leading him into the mind of Christ, and his life became very different. He’s hopeful, has more joy, and is excited about what God will do in his life in the days to come. I believe that’s the abundant life that Jesus was always talking about.

Church

I got a new phone today, it’s a Droid. My Blackberry was a good phone, but as different things are changing in the life of SoulSearch, and as we’re getting clearer ideas of what God is calling us to be, the Blackberry was insufficient to meet the demands that were coming. I think it’s funny the way technology works, how something can be cutting edge one day and creeping up on obsolete the next. But as our needs change, our tools must evolve to meet that change.

I think that idea is applicable to ecclesiology (the way we think about church) as well. I believe the Church is one of the coolest blessings God has given us and we should submit to our elders and pastors as they strive to accomplish God’s vision for her. However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hold on to certain aspects of how we are the Church loosely and constantly be willing to review, and reflect on, not only our core beliefs about Church but also why they are our core beliefs.

This idea of reviewing and refining the way we seek to express the life of the Church is significant for a guy like me who’s laboring (with faithful friends) to reinvent what it means to be the Church. We are doing this not to destroy the Church, but in an attempt to reach the people that have rejected her (at least in her current incarnation). I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, but I’m grateful for the chance to try and be something a little different. Pray for us as we move forward; eternity is too important for us to mess up.

Experience

I got an amazing glimpse of a biblical truth firsthand today. You know the story of the widow giving her two copper coins in Mark 12? I was preaching today at Heartland Church in Blue Springs, and after one of the services I was talking with a lovely couple who handed me a check as a gift. They were well dressed and very pleasant, and the gift was awesome so I was grateful. I also spoke with another gentleman after one of the services; he was slightly disheveled with dingy clothes that didn’t fit him well. He told me how much he got out of the message, and he reached into his pockets and pulled out all of the money he had…$4. He handed it to me and asked me to please use it to help people that needed Jesus. I took the money, I could barely see through my tears, and promised that I would. I don’t know how $4 can be a greater blessing than a large check, but it was. Thank God, that I got to see and experience how the Kingdom works.

Giving

Like I said a couple of days ago, God showed me a lot over the Christmas break. One thing He gave me was a good picture of His perspective on giving. We went to our sons and told them that since they were getting new toys for Christmas, they needed to give up some of the toys they already had. The reasoning behind that was partly to clear out toys and clear out some clutter, but the other part of it was for our sons to understand that they had a lot and needed to be concerned about people who didn’t have so much.

Well, they freaked out. Lots of crying and wailing and anguish because they didn’t want to give up anything that they had, their broken busted toys that didn’t even work anymore. I’m trying to explain to them about all of the cool new toys and how cool it will be to get them, and I know how many new toys there are and how much they’ll love them, and I’m not asking them to get rid of all of their toys, just 5 or 10 of them. Still they complained and grumbled and threw fits. And I was struck by how much we act like them when God asks us to give, a tithe or $5 or whatever. And we cry and complain, never thinking about what God has given us or wants to give us.

We behave so much like children, it’s no wonder He calls Himself the Father. Oh yeah, eventually they came around and gave up some toys. And not for what they were going to receive, but because they realized they had so much and wanted to give. That was pretty cool.

Court

I had to go to traffic court today for a ticket I got for parking in a no parking zone (I didn’t know that it was a no parking zone, although I probably should have figured that out considering it was a great spot and no one else was parked there, I thought I just had good timing). My initial plan was to argue my case; I’ve seen every episode of Matlock and the original Law & Order, so I was feeling pretty good about my chances. Then I overheard some of the other people there and my attitude changed. None of them would accept responsibility for what they did.

Not the guy who crashed his uninsured car into someone else when he ran a red light (he said that everyone should know to look both ways before entering the intersection when the light turns green). Not the lady who got a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt (she doesn’t believe in them and the police should be sensitive to her preferences). Not the guy who was driving 20 miles over the speed limit with a suspended license (the police were targeting him because he was an ex-con, I don’t know how they knew he was an ex-con but he claims that they all recognize him and are conspiring to keep him down). And on and on.

I was pretty depressed by it all. When we did we become a culture of irresponsible finger-pointers, refusing to admit when we mess up? I decided to be different. So when my turn came, I stood up, said what I had done, and accepted responsibility. The fine was $30, plus $25 in court costs. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t happy about paying it. But I did, because integrity demanded that I do so. So I’m $55 poorer, but I think I made Jesus happy. And that’s what life is about.

Break

The Christmas break was great for us. We spent the day alone, just us and no one else. This was the first time we didn’t have anyone around for the holiday, so it was kind of weird at first. Then, as the day went on, I kind of settled into the idea that we didn’t have to be anywhere or get ready for anyone to come over; we could just do what we wanted. Great time, lots of memories, God did some really cool stuff that I’ll be sharing with you over the next few days. Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed your break as well. It’s good to be back.

Gift

Tis the season for gift giving and receiving, so I figured that I’d share the story of a gift I received earlier tonight. There’s a guy who participates in our Thursday night group named Kevin; he hasn’t accepted Christ as far as we know, but he’s been coming pretty consistently for the past month or so. Anyhow, tonight, right before the group started, he went walking around the apartment complex, knocking on people’s doors and shouting, “Come on! The pastor’s here! Time to start the Bible group!” So that was a blessing, to see him identifying with our group. The greater blessing? New people came. God is doing something awesome there, and I’m humbled to be a part of it.

Merry Christmas, friends and readers. I’m devoting some time to my family so there won’t be any new posts until Monday. Enjoy the season.