Glorious Mud

When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom. ― Lesslie Newbigin I recently rewatched Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece of pacing and tension, Reservoir Dogs. Notorious for its profanity and violent imagery, it is broadly considered one of the most influential and important independent films ever made. Most of the movie is filmed in the suffocating confines of a former mortuary lined with coffins and a hurst, while the actors, full of sound and fury, are either dying or soon to be dead. The climactic scene of the movie comes when Mr. Blonde, the “bad guy” (in a room where even the good guy is a bad guy), cuts off the ear of a police officer while dancing to “Stuck in the Middle with You.” It was a moment where killers, men who had already bent the moral restraints of the law to suit their desires, were shocked by how far a bad man can spin into that badness. Like a Shakespearean t...

So, a strange thought came to me in the shower the other day.  Being a pastor is like being a Chinese buffet.  Everyone shows up with different and specific expectations and everyone walks away disappointed. This thought didn't come to me because I was feeling sorry for myself, because I'm not.  I love what I do because of who I do it for (Jesus), and I have no internal need to meet everyone's expectations of me.  My job is to please the one who loved me and called me to himself.  (And, awesome thought, he is already pleased with me and will continue to be because I am covered with Christ, the delight of God!) The thought actually came to me as I was thinking about how the church today has lost the experience of being the church.  O ur cultural Christianity has essentially taken all the “one another's” of scripture and robbed them of their community experience. Like Colossians 3:16.  It says Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching a...

Kelly, our wonderful  Trailhead Kids leader, sent me a link to a great blog over at Sojourn Church.  It is titled " 9 Reasons not to Ask Jesus into your Heart ."  You should read it because it is clear, succinct, and right. I am not a fan of asking Jesus into your heart.  I am not a fan of committing your life to Christ or making him Lord of your life or asking Jesus to be your friend, either.  Strange thing for a pastor to say, right?  Wrong. After I became a believer and started working in a Christian high school, I came to see just how short those kinds of sayings fall from leading people to the real gospel.  As a new believer (and a lover of all things English), I loved my job, most of the things about my school, and, of course, my students.  One of the key frustrations I had, though, was that so many of my students claimed to follow Jesus but so few of them seemed to know him or love him. So, about two months into the school year, I de...

If you are already wasting time on twitter and aren't following Paul Tripp (@paultripp), you need to fix that.  He puts out a series of three tweets every morning and they encourage and challenge me daily. This morning, these were his tweets: Grace confronts you with what you don't have while it provides you with everything you need. Grace calls you to submit and obey while it offers you freedom like you've never had before. Grace calls you to fix your eyes on eternity while it lavishes spiritual blessings on you in the here and now. So simple, but so easy to forget.

Gratitude is a catalyst to gospel growth in our lives. Or, as Colin Powell would say, it is a force multiplier. I heard Colin Powell speak at a leadership event years ago and he talked about how military leaders are always looking for force multipliers - elements that are natural to the environment and will increase the effectiveness of your strength.  It might be a hill to come down or a ravine to travel up through or a line of trees to use as cover. In the Christian life, it is gratitude.  We can see this in a number of passages, like this one:     Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7 ESV) The Bible is f...

I recently read an article in the New Yorker called "How David Beats Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell. I found it fascinating and highly recommend it - you can find it here . The Article The article uses the experiences of the shepherd boy David, a middle school girls' basketball coach named Vivek Ranadivé, Laurence of Arabia, Rick Patino, and others to show that the "Davids" of the world - the underdogs - can actually have a distinct advantage in competition of conflict if they focus more on effort than skill - more time looking for unconventional approaches than by playing the game as it is normally played. The premise of the article is that underdogs actually win most of the time when they approach the conflict on their own terms, unconstrained by conventional expectations. Many times, as in the case of the middle school girls' basketball that used a vigorous full court press the entire game, the strategies are not illegal or immoral - they are simply unco...

Each of the Journey campuses has started teaching a gospel class - a class that answers basic questions about following Christ and being a member in our church. This class has attracted a large number of people who are "peaking over the fence" - checking this whole Christianity thing out. That is both exciting and challenging. It gives us the chance to share the Bible with people who don't necessarily come to it with faith - as well as challenge those who do trust the Bible to get on mission with us. Our first lesson was on the story arc of the Bible - what is referred to as the diachronic view of scripture. Simply put, it is a way of looking at scripture as a complete story - with one major primary theme: God in Jesus reconciling the world to himself. Teaching a diachronic view of scripture to postmodern culture, though, presents some unique challenges. In prepping to teach, I wrote out the following thoughts. I would be glad to get any thoughts you have on this to...

In 2007, I taught a parenting forum at The Journey .  I posted the audio for that forum here, but The Journey has since cleaned up their media archives and this forum was taken down.  For some reason, though, this blog entry continues to be one of the most popular on my site. So, in an attempt to offer something of value, I am going to update this blog to reflect some of the best information we explored at that forum years ago.  Many blessings to you in your parenting journey. ..... Too often we as parents discipline out of wrong motives or for wrong goals. We want others to think we have it all together. We don't want to embarrassed in public places. We sure don't want to look like those "other" parents who have no control over their kids. How do we enter into parenting with true humility and raise "good" kids who are no more than legalistic moralists or moral relativists? The gospel tells us that we are both more broken and sinful than we care ...

As most of you know, The Journey made some waves last year. One of the many ways our church connects with our local culture is by hosting discussion oriented events at local gathering spots. One of the events, Theology at the Bottleworks (TATB), takes place at Schlafly Bottle Works, a local micro-brewery and restaurant, caught national attention, and generated more than just a little mis-information about us and our ministries. I haven't blogged on this topic up to this point because there was more than enough being written already and I really didn't want to add O2 to the fire. And I guess if I am being honest, I would probably have said a number of things that I might now regret, not because they shouldn't have been said as much as the fact that I probably would have said those things out of pride and anger (aka sin). OK, no "probably" there. I would have. This topic isn't so hot any more and the previous discussions tended to produce more heat than lig...