Missional Living

The first-ever tomcottar(dot)org online contest was a great success! Great creativity! After much consideration in a difficult situation I realized a few things.

1. I should have been more congnizant of Buffy (Spike Is My Personal Example) and Fight Club (Soap Inspires Mindless Pummeling of Enemies). Dang.

2. Personal emails sent to me asking "Is this right?….." followed by a ton of guesses, don’t count as official contest entries.

3. It’s gonna cost me a hefty sum to send this stuff to our winner.

4. Living is easier after rendering fat.

So…are you ready? Waiting with baited breath? Can you feel the anticipation? The winner is……..a great guy. He got closer than anyone and missed it by a hair. For that reason, I need to tell you that S.I.M.P.E. stands for Spiritual, Intellectual, Mental, Physical and Emotional. Congratulations, Jimmie! Your box of goodies will be packed up and mailed to you on Monday! 

UPDATE: Here is an updated pic of my process, though not yet complete, with sticky notes and reminders of goals and priorities for a fat-free life. Some of the stickys are scribbled with things such as the following:

• date night
• 1-on-1 time with the boys
• finish your book
• books to read
• leaders to mentor/develop (By Design and Student Ministry)
• get the ‘I’ out of worship (this one applies to SIMPE, BY DESIGN, and STUDENT MINISTRY…)
• Houston or Austin Marathon
• be faithful to accountability partners
• schedule a Sabbath
• UPALO (Unplug and Log Off)

At the risk of sounding more metro than necessary, I began reading The Allure of Hope this morning. Written by a chick, for a chick. (I have to use the word ‘chick’  or I’ll lose my ManCard for reading this thing…) It’s part of my Fat Rendering process.

So far, it’s really great. Jan Meyers talks in the first chapter about ‘the ache’ within women, though IMO it’s within us all. There’s an ache to be known intimately, known fully, perfectly vulnerable, yet hopeful of a relentless love despite our wanderings. As God pursues places we’ve locked away…yet we hope and wait for his call to us.

Although her metaphors are mostly of a little girl and her Daddy, I think it holds true universally for us as children and our Abba-given need for a perfect Daddy. (After all, I’m a dude…who wants to be a perfect Dad…but realizes I need to learn how from my Abba Daddy.) And as part of the Fat Rendering process, a quote from Gerald May leapt off the page at me:

"In our society, we have come to believe that discomfort always means something is wrong. We are conditioned to believe that feelings of distress, pain, depriveation, yearning, and longing mean something is wrong with the way we are living our lives.

    Conversely, we ar convinced that a rightly lived life must give us serenity, completion, and fulfillment. Comfort means ‘right’ and distress means ‘wrong’. The influence of such convictions is stifling to the human spirit. Individually and collectively, we must somehow recover the truth. The truth is , we were never meant to be completely satisfied."

We were created with an ache. Disequilibrium is the only thing that ever brings about change. We want our hearts stirred. We want to want. We want to be wanted. We intrinsically know that ‘hope is a painful process’…but we want it anyway.

If you’re a female, I’d suggest you pick it up and read it. I’m only halfway into it and I’m blown away with the insight Meyers has about our heart and our hope.

If you’re a dude, pick it up and read it as well. Just be sure to have Fight Club going in the background.

*Thanks to Stef for nagging me to read this! Love you, man!

Over at The Refinery, there’s, hopefully, a great discussion brewing on the video below. It’s Unkle’s Rabbit in Your Headlights vid (sung by Thom York of Radiohead). It’s a little disturbing to watch, but the payoff at the end is fantastic.

If you’re familiar at all with Thom Yorke, or Radiohead in general, you know that he is an immaculate artist you must acclimate to. You don’t jump off the bridge and immediately find yourself scuba diving in the ocean depths without a careful, deliberate descent. And not without acquiring a taste and appreciation for the depths in which he swims.

Watch the video.

Then go HERE to get in on the discussion. You’ll be surprised, I think, to find yourself shedding the things that harm us most….

Granted, you’re probably reading this because the name piqued your interest…

This great little (free) program can easily take your favorite pics and blow them up to 2-story-house size and make your printer kick out hundreds of 8.5 x 11sheets to make it happen. Basically, it takes a raster-based image (like a JPG ….lots of tiny pixels..) and blows them up to just about any size you dictate. Slap it up on your wall, ceiling, or private school building and you’re good to go–instant mosaic of your new baby, your girlfriend, or a cat’s butt.

Graduations.

    Bar Mitzvahs.

         Birthdays.

Any time you need a 30′ x 30′ picture of someone you really love. Or HATE. (I can think of a hundred uses immediately…)

In case you missed it yesterday, here’ s the teaser for our new worship building. The full-length presentation will be this Sunday!

"It pains me to see the beautiful truths of Scripture being plastered about like beer advertisements. Many think it is wise to "get the word out" in this way but, believe that we are really just inoculating the world with bits and pieces of truth – giving them their "gospel shots." (And we’re making it hard for them to "catch" the real thing!) People become numb to the truth when we splash our gaudy sayings in their eyes at every opportunity. Do you really think this is "opening them up to the Gospel"? Or is it really just another way for us to get smiles, waves, and approval from others in the "born-again club" out in the supermarket parking lot, who blow their horns with glee when they see your "Honk if you love Jesus!" bumper sticker?"

-the legendary Keith Green, in a rant…

You probably shouldn’t read the whole rant here if you like a nice, neat, comfortable version of consumer Christianity (like many of us have)…all the talk against a ‘personal savior’, a ’sinner’s prayer’, and an easy as 1-2-3 salvation presentations just might be upsetting…

This could be fun!  Since Scott M brought it up, I’ll offer a box full of goodies to whomever comes up with the closest guess to what S.I.M.P.E. stands for in my Model for Rendering Fat.

Take a guess…serious or silly…if no one comes close, the most creative answer will take the prize of assorted books, music, and gifts! I’m feeling particularly generous today…so jump in! Roll the dice and see what you can come up with. I’ll announce the winner next weekend!

Let the games begin!

If you’ve read my post on Rendering Fat, you’ll be happy to know that the process has been long this week…Everything in my life MUST fit into four categories, or I’m chunking it. My 24-hour plate is the only one I have and, since this is not a buffet, I only have so much room. More details next week, but here’s what I’ve got thus far:

I am blessed to have a handful of intimately close friendships that keep me alive.

            They keep me sane.

                        They keep me accountable.

Last week, I got an email from one of my Fight Club-loving friends asking "How can I pray for you?" Before I had time to breathe, my mind began to race through the events of my life–doctor visits, financial limitations, ministering to students addicted to porn, being personally stretched thin, wanting to blog more (as therapy?)…but my reply was simply "I need more Jesus….I’d like to grab a book and hide out at a coffee shop for a while….I’d like to slip off with my laptop and answer the 136 new emails I got in the past 2 days…I’d even like to go home, go for a run, and then sit and watch Fight Club for the umpteenth time." (I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise….)

She quickly emailed me back with one of the greatest quips ever (Yes, from FC).

"To make soap, you must first render fat."

-Tyler Durden

I knew what I needed to do. Render fat. (In the soap-making process, what we think of as a liquid pre-soap mixture of fat is heated and refined, causing the unnecessary and leftover ’stuff’ to rise to the top in the form of glycerin, leaving the ’soap’ behind. The glycerin is then skimmed off the top and thrown away….unless you’re in a Chuck Palahnuik novel.)

So this week, I’m in the process of rendering fat. Removing the unnecessary crap in my life. I’m making soap. And if the first soap was made from the ashes of heroes, then this week, I’m burning some old heroes and breathing easier. I’m re-learning to say the 14th and 15th letters of the alphabet.

I may, in fact, get to hide out at a coffee shop and read, study, laugh, and get my hands on a litte more Jesus-time because of it.

Worship is where I’m at today, kiddies. Although volumes have been written about it, I have yet to find a better description than the words of Louie Giglio: "Worship is turning our hearts affection and our minds attention to God". Worship is proclaiming the worth-ship of God. And, of course, that doesn’t just happen when you sing songs. It happens when you teach. It happens in your conversations at Starbucks. It happens when you mow your neighbor’s yard. When you hold the door for someone. When you’re kind to the guy with the cardboard sign at the intersection.

For those of us in leadership/ministry positions, we sometimes spend so much time trying to ‘feed’ others that our own hunger sneaks up on us and we don’t realize how loudly our stomach is growling until the crowd is gone. But, alas, the words of Paul Baloche ring true…(thus our quote of the day):

"It’s important to realize that when we are leading worship, we are more like a waiter.

It’s not our turn to sit down and eat our dinner."

Granted, many times happen when I’m tending to the needs of the guests at my table and God invites me to have a taste of what’s being served. But for a great deal of the time, that’s just what I get….a taste. So when guys like David Crowder come to La Zona Rosa , I’m going to be there (join me?). And I’m bringing my appetite. Because I will die if I don’t eat.

And if I sit around and wait for Crowder (or someone else) to come and feed me…I’ll probably die anyway.

So why the quote? To remind myself that ‘taste and see’ must always come before ‘feed my sheep’. I can only lead out of the abundance of what’s been given to me.

*extra: Read a little more from Paul about Avoiding a Circus in Worship.