Missional Living

Over at TheResurgence, the audio and video is up from Seattle’s Text and Context conference. So far, I’ve only been able to watch Matt Chandler’s session titled "Preaching The Gospel From The Center of the Evangelical World". WELL worth the time.

As Chandler talks about the effects of pluralism in ministry as we deal with Evangelicals (the ‘big brother’), the de-churched (children of fundamentalism), and emergents. Several gems there.

One of the things that jumped out at me, especially in light of this recent post, was this:

"As a result we have [fundamentalists/theologians who've studied the details of scripture] with big heads and no hearts."

We put Scripture, often out of the context in which it is written, under a microscope, dissect it, display it, and propogate it. It seems we exist to give a prescription of  a neverending "to do"  list in order to follow Christ, but no "why".

And the ‘why’ is important to even my 4-year-old.

Watch and/or listen here.

iMonk has a great post titled "The Jesus-shaped Question: Are Christians Like Jesus?".  After reading and reflecting on Philippians 3:7-8, he has some great thoughts which may be offensive to some. Something that leaped out at me this morning is this:

Christians are conservatives and liberals.

Christians are culture warriors and advocates of family values.

Christians are excited about the megachurches and busy consuming Christian products, from t-shirts to music to cruises.

Christians are defenders of denominations and watchdogs for doctrinal orthodoxy.

Christians are having their best life now and becoming a better you.

Christians are purpose driven and super spiritual.

Christians are taking back what the devil stole and taking a stand in a godless culture.

Christians have dozens of labels and participate in hundreds of activities.

Christians have their own celebrities, their own cable channels, their own entertainment and their own comfortable subcultures.

But few Christians are like Jesus, especially here in the prosperous Christian west.

It’s not much of a news flash to us to realize that most Christians, if they are anything like me, are not much like Jesus most of the time. The sad part is that I’m not sure we’re really trying to move in his direction either. We are too comfortable for that.  We’d have to give up too much (our own cable channel, our purpose-driven addictions, our music and t-shirts and cruises) to pick up the cross and follow Him. And the last thing we need is another rote, formulaic, 5-point evangelism strategy. I don’t ever recall a time in Scripture when Jesus asked his fishing buddies, "Did you know God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?…" (Again…that’s for another blog.)

Spencer comments on something a Muslim student related to him about Christians: Most Christians weren’t like Jesus, and the Christian insistence that God was working in and through them was largely undercut by the failure of individual Christians to show character that surpassed what was seen in Muslims or Buddhists.

Yes, Christians aren’t perfect. Just forgiven.

blah. blah. blah.

But when will we get on with the business of being reformed? Redeemed in our character? Recreated in our work ethics and speech and compassion for people? When will we get busy in genuine, loving relationships with non-believers…and do so without an agenda to trump the F.A.I.T.H. card on them in an unsuspecting moment?

Jesus-following people should be Jesus-shaped people. We will never reflect him until we imitate Him… which does not mean we study Him in some discipleship class and let that be it.

I guess what really bugs me is the fact that, as Christians, we are not much like Jesus. And we think that’s normal.

Read iMonk’s post here.  If you’ve got thoughts, I’d love to hear ‘em.

If you’ve followed me on Twitter lately, you know I’m just about sick of hospitals. As things are getting back to normal, I’m finally able to get back to some reading and blogging.

To start things off, check out this blog on Why I Don’t Do Gas Buy-Downs. How does this shape what we do to reach people for Christ in our suburban life? Jonathan has some very thought through ideas on why it’s really just cheap advertisement for the church (his words) and downright silly (mine). Events like these, IMO, don’t do anything to develop relationships or redeem the culture…

Thoughts?

Thanks, Steve!

I’m beginning to understand why God is not bound by time– there’s just not enough of it lying around to get everything done. As a result, there are lots of interesting things bouncing around my head this morning.

The beginnings of an interesting discussion on Finally Feminist.

John Bishop (video) on staying focused on Jesus and recovering from burnout.

Emergent Village Statement of Values and Practices

stuff christians like

professor satchafunkilus and the musterion of rock (wacky title-fabulous music)

PLUS: today is Austin Earth Day. Free, fun, and weird as always. Green art. Solar Jam (live music, por supuesto!) Good times.

“We are a company of Christian men. We are also natural loners, who have recognized the dangers of isolation and are determined to escape them, natural wanderers who are finding spiritual peace and prosperity at home, natural liars who are now finding freedom in the truth, natural judges who are learning how to judge ourselves aright, and natural strongmen who are experiencing God’s strength as we admit our weaknesses.”

-Nate Larkin, Samson and the Pirate Monks

Brotherhood is a beautiful thing.

Our friend (and fellow tomcottar(dot)org lurker) Dana Loran has finally entered the blogoshpere with Looking for Manna in the Modern. I’m sure it’ll run the gamut of everything from following Jesus, to cool interior design ideas to the struggles of a missional young woman…check it out.

My wife and I got a call last night from her sister. It seems that her sister’s friend has a teenage daughter who’s cutting herself. And what’s really freakin’ the mom out is the fact that she herself use to cut when she was in high school, but never told anyone. Now that her daughter is doing it, she’s even more concerned. Unfortunately, she’s not alone. So, without going into the gory details of student ministry, I felt the need to re-post a fantastic story and ministry I ran across a couple of years ago. Here’s the short version:

Jamie had a friend who was working with Joaquin Pheonix on the Walk the Line movie set. Her friend gets her on the set to watch things and she notices that Joaquin doesn’t have an assistant with a notebook to write things down that come to his mind. In fact, Joaquin doesn’t even have a notebook  himself. So he writes things on his arms–to remind him of things to do, things that are important. Jamie loves the idea of being boldly reminded of what’s important and, as things are bad at home for her, writes ‘LOVE’ on her arm to be reminded. Love isn’t such a bad thing to be reminded of…

A few weeks later Jamie sees the movie. And it moves her. She loves watching how ‘patient love can overcome pain’ as Johnny Cash beats his addictions. She also meets another fan, Renee, who is completely inspired by the movie. Only, for Renee, it gave her hope that she could overcome her addiction. Watching the movie, with cocaine-laced tears, she wept in the theater and was moved by hope.

Renee is a cutter. And she cuts deep words of hatred (for herself) into her arm. I won’t tell you the rest of the story, but you can read it here (but beware of the language). The story is beautiful.

These days, Jamie and a host of bands, are now travelling and speaking (and rocking), drawing crowds and attention to the thousands of young people in despair–self-mutilators, suicidal, depressed–bringing a message of hope and love. Bringing the story of the Great Overcomer. Taking the story of the Prince of Shalom everywhere from Florida churches to taverns to Ozzfest.

Check out their resources and website. You may need it.

What to do?

Although lately  I’ve been loaded/bombarded with TONS of cool stuff that seem to demand my attention and devotion, I thought I’d pass along a random list of links that have caught my attention lately:

YS Underground  -cool resources from Marko and company…

Hard Music Magazine (I never knew editor Doug Van Pelt was right here in Hutto!) 

Steel Roots Magazine -skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, and Jesus. 

The Work Of The People- visual literugy for sacred spaces (i.e., cool vids) 

No One Underground- AMAZING nontraditional Christian artwork by Eric Timm. He’s currently in the process of uploading things to the web (as of yet, there is only a small sampling of work online), but this guy’s stuff is incredible.

I stumbled across a great new (to me) blog this morning, Runalong with pastor mark.

"What's so great about it?" you ask.  A few things..

1. Mark is an ultrarunner, which means, while I'm puffing away at my  10k's and 15k's, he's out running 100k's and logging 250+ miles per month. 

2. Mark is Mac user. Nuff said.

3. Mark's got a great grasp on theology, as well as some of our culture's lunacies. For example, check out  his snarky thoughts on the Revenge Of The Cows: Part Two. (Beware: Vegetarians and Al Gore may be easily offended)

4. He's a Dylan fan.

Check out this Flappy Bird from the TTLB ecosystem…