Missional Living

[repost] Forgetting and Straining, 3.0

Oct 12th 2010

By: tom cottar

2 comments

In continuing my evolving thoughts in Philippians 3, it’s brought me to this thought: There is something mysterious and other-worldy about conversion, whether you experience it as a moment-in-time experience or a series-of-steps-on-a-journey. I grew up hearing the gospel as a child and heard it for years..over and over and over. Until one day…BAM! Like Paul on the Damascus Road, it lights me up and after all these years, I have yet to recover. But godliness never accidently happens. No one wakes up on a random Tuesday, transformed into somethin "godly." That’s why Paul says ‘I press on…’

Which led me to I Corinthians 9:25, where he writes that every athlete competes for a perishable reward, but our rewared is eternal/imperishible. That becomes more true and evident to me as I train for a local race. For instance, I’m NOT a real athlete. (Winning some dopey college intramural doesn’t count. And though I played soccer in college, I’m not sure that counts either…) At the highest level of athletics, everything is done to reach a goal. Lance Armstrong. Tiger Woods. Michael Jordan. Tony Romo. Well, probably not Romo. But for the rest (and multitudes of others), every aspect of life is carefully calculated: how much i sleep. what i eat. how many ounces of protein/carbs/fat I take in. a particular kind of shoe i wear. my sunglasses. how many ounces of water i drink per hour. what kind of ‘free time’ recreational activities I participate in. Everything is designed for them to peak at an optimal performance. They do it for a reward that is perishible. The implication is that WE do it for something imperishible.

Paul confesses, "I don’t run aimlessly without a goal. I’m not some kind of shadow boxer beating at the air like some kind of weekend warrior. I beat my body and make it my slave. I know where I’m going. I have a goal and a plan and I’m fighting the enemies of my plan. I don’t just show up and hope for the best."

My confession is that when things start going bad for me I don’t want to stick to my plan for godliness.You know what i want instead? Starbucks. Because caffeine will make it better for me for a while. Or I want a double swiss and mushroom burger with curly fries and a bladder-buster Dr. Pepper. Or I want sleep. Or sometimes, I want to strap on my iPod, select some Demon Hunter or some Rage Against The Machine (Kiling In The Name Of will do nicely) and run at full speed for an hour. Or find some one i can pummel.

For the record, there are times that everything in me cries out to medicate and numb the frustration and angst. But that’s the last thing I need to do. What I need is Christ. I need to press on and press in. Pray. Throw my life at feet the feet of Christ and confess that, once again, I’ve screwed it up and am trying to do it my way. What my flesh wants is not what it needs. So I beat my body, make it my slave, and fight the enemies of where i want to go.

Paul tells us to ‘train ourselves for godliness’ (I Timothy 4:7-10), which comes from the Greek gymnopsium (we get ‘gymnasium’). It means ‘to sweat’. So, sweat yourself to godliness…don’t just ‘try to get into better spiritual shape this year. The problem is we set pseudo spiritual goals: I’m gonna pray more. I’m gonna get in the word. Plug into REMIX or Chasing Shalom this semester. Good for you, I guess. but godliness doesn’t happen out of ‘want to’. It happens out of discipline, sweat, straining, striving, commitment. Otherwise our whole spiritual life will turn into ‘“want to’s”.

Marathon….train. run when I don’t want to.

I think some people live life. But most people have life live them.

So, where are you running? What are the enemies of that? Have you defined them? Do you know them? For example, I’ve got friends who love to study. They study all the time and if I ever want to talk theology with them, they tcan alk circles around me. But they can’t seem to pray to save their lives. And then I have other friends who have powerful prayer lives…but I’m not sure they can read. And when I speak (or blog) about spiritual things, they sometimes email me and ask me how much time I’ve spent in prayer, because it seems to be lacking in power…The deal is that I need to both of them in my life. Closely.

If I’m ever going to become Philippians 3, it won’t be while on cruise control. It will be fought for. Labored over. Sweated for. Ever thought how strange it is that Paul says to ‘labor with me in prayer’?…

theology
[repost] Forgetting and Straining 2.0

Oct 7th 2010

By: tom cottar

2 comments

f you know me well, you know I get really passionate about a few things. At the height of those things is a ‘moral gospel’. You know, a certain, arbitrary set of rules that determine your degree of holiness. The problem with that kind of gospel is that you always have someone who attains it…and leaves in their wake nothing but self righteousness and pride. Yet there is Paul, who says “I’m still not there yet…”

In Philippians 3 (from Part One) he says in verse 13, "I don’t consider myself to have attained it yet. But forgetting what is behind, I press on…" He says there is ‘one thing’ to do (of course, he then lists 3 things!) : forget, strain, and press. But as I read (and try to hang my life on it) it’s become apparent that there can always be things in our past that can make it difficult for us to pursue Jesus now. Things we’ve done. Periods of time in our life. Things we’ve been a part of. etc. But the good news is the life of Paul. If you rewind to Acts 7, you see Stephen preaching to the Sanhedrin when things get stirred. The crowd turns into an angry mob and decides to stone him (bludgeon him to death with big freakin’ rocks). Saul, who will become Paul in a few chapters, is there with teh jackets of the men at his feet. It’s almost as if tells the crowd, "Look, you can throw harder and faster if you let me hold your jacket…"

In Acts 9, it’s not just jackets anymore. While he is ‘still breathing out murderous threats’ against the disciples, he goes to the high priest and offers to travel to Damascus and find anyone who is a follower of The Way, bring them back, strip them naked and have them paraded through town, beaten, humiliated, imprisoned and/or killed…’if you would just give me the word’. Saul is not taking orders from the high priest, but begging him for permission to round up and exterminate believers.

So it occurs to me: do you think there’s a possibility that years later when Paul writes ‘forgetting what is behind’…he’s writing about his own demons? His own shame and failure? (Shame is an pretty weighty thing we don’t easily forget…) for most of of us, we’ve got that ‘thing’ that we just can’t believe we did. Or were a part of. Or participated in. And we feel dirty. Guilty. Shameful. So we stuff it way down inside, and every time we draw near to Jesus, we remember that time. Or that thing. And it begins to define us. And Paul stands, saying ‘forget what is behind.’

In 1 Timothy 1, Paul says mercy, grace, and love was shown to him, an insolent, murdering blasphemer, so we could see the limitless patience of Christ. So when I feel guilty, shameful, my sin doesn’t seem to trump Paul…

Paul says to me, “So…what did you do? Did you kill anybody? Were they church people? Did you ever tie them up, strip them naked, beat, humiliate and parade them thru town and then kill ‘em? No…? So the cross can apply to me but not to you? Did I ever tell you about the time I held the jackets of men as they pelted God’s servant to death with rocks?”

Forgetting what is behind.

Forgetting what is behind.

Forgetting what is behind.

The problem is I can’t seem to remember to forget. Because I remember the things I did in rebellion to God. I remember how I persecuted believers. I remember when I was violent against those I had prejudice against. And it breaks my heart to remember what I did. How I acted. What I approved of.

There’s a beautiful moment in The Bourne Ultimatum. TreadStone black ops member Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) has suffered amnesia and is being chased by all kinds of interpol agents. He offers a girl $20,000 for a ride to Paris. She accepts and they spend hours in the car together on beautiful backroads. When they finally arrive at his flat, she comments, “I hope you don’t forget me.” Bewildered, he replies, “How could I forget you?You’re the only person I know.”

What if we forgot what was behind? What if Grace was the only person I knew? What if Mercy was the only person I could remember? What a wonderful time to forget. If only we could be free to forget.

theology
Fantastical Meet Up, Tweet Up and Eat Up

Oct 6th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

Whether you attended David Crowder's Fantastical Church Music Conference or not last week, come join us Thursday, Oct 14 at Chuy's in Austin!

Thanks to @mrcrum for the graphic!

community, creativity, culture, fun, ministry, music, theology, Twitter, worship
[repost] Forgetting and Straining

Oct 5th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

One of the greatest movies of the last few years has to be Memento.It’s one of those stop-what-you’re-doing-and-rent-it-tonite flicks that don’t come around very often. Guy Pierce plays Leonard, a man on a search to find his wife’s rapist/killer. The glitch is that while trying to rescue his wife during the ‘incident’, he suffered a head wound and now has this ‘condition’, as he calls it: he can’t seem to make new memories. Every 15 minutes or so, his current, real-time memory fades and he has to start over. Imagine being in the middle of a conversation and asking, “How long have we been talking?” or “Do I know you?”. His memory, up to the point of the ‘incident’, is perfectly fine. So, in order to keep on the trail of the killer, he musk keep a constant log of sticky notes, polariods, and freaky tattoos, because his current memory keeps fading…

See, there are scriptures that I absolutely love. And I’m not alone. If I asked my circle of buddies to name their top 10 favorite scriptures, they’d probably name many of mine as well. We probably love the same 10-12 verses. And that probably holds true for nonbelievers as well, IMO. For instance, I love reading things like Philippians 4:13.Psalm 23. Joshua 1:9. Romans 8:37-38. Isaiah 40:31. Love ‘em.

But , like Memento, sometimes I read things and it bothers me. it doesn’t encourage me, it discourages me. sometimes, if i’m not careful, it will paralyze me. Case in point: I was reading through Philippians this week and was chewing on the words of Paul in chapter 3.

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as dung (gk, skubulon), in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…"

I’ve loved this for a long time. it’s romantic and powerful and idealistic and beautiful. Until i try to lay my life on it. Because what Paul says is, “I’ll pay any price to know Christ more.” Take my health. My family. My wife. My kids. My friends. My job. My ________. And after 20 years of this journey, I’m not anywhere close. Because what Paul doesn’t say is "I count these things as secondary to knowing Christ". He says they are rubbish. Dung. Excrement. Caca. (Do you need another word here?) And that those of us who are mature will go on to think this way as well…

There seems to be this sense of discontenment in Paul’s life. He goes on to say (v.12) ‘not that I’ve already attained this…but i press on.’ He’s passionate about the ‘I want to know him!’ part of this letter.

Yet, as I read it, my response to Paul is, “Dude? Didn’t you get to hear his audible voice? Didn’t you get to go to the ‘third heaven’? I don’t even know what that is… You’re the greatest missionary of Christendom. You wrote 75% of the New Testament. Your worship caused earthquakes in prison. Your handkerchief healed people (Acts 19:12). What do you mean “I want to know him”? I think you know him…”

But when people around here get sick, we ask the church to pray so they will ‘get better’. When Paul ran across the sick, he pointed at them or touched them and said, “Stop that. Get up and walk.” You do understand the difference in power here, yeah? And yet Paul seems to have this holy discontentment that it was all crap (skubulon). That he still wasn’t ‘that guy’ yet who knew Christ and the power therein. He just wasn’t there yet.

How does that make you feel? Do you feel like I do? Maybe you’re farther along in this than I am. I genuinely hope so. Regardless, what has helped you move more towards ‘counting it all as dung’? I’d love your thoughts.

theology
For Tomorrow’s Generations, #4

Oct 4th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

In case you missed it, here is the last video in our For Tomorrow's Generations series. Featured here is Heather Thornton. Check it out!
<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/15508351">http://www.vimeo.com/15508351</a>

theology
For Tomorrow’s Generations, #3

Sep 26th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

Our video this week spotlights Chris and Kristin Cox, proud parents of the famous Baby Emma and infamous big brother, Colton.

Check it out!
<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/15225419">http://www.vimeo.com/15225419</a>

community, ministry, video
‘Awesome’ Officially Retired From English Language

Sep 25th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

It’s official. On Tuesday, September 21, 2010, the word ‘awesome’ officially retired from colloquial English. Although we are (not really) sad to see her go, everyone here at tomcottar(dot)org would like to thank her for her 20 years of faithful service to our culture. It seems that everything has a shelf life, and the cold, hard fact is that milk expires sooner than frozen peas. Sometimes you just have to throw out the milk that's gone bad.

The problem came when we started using ‘awesome’ in ways that were far less than the speechless, jaw-dropping moniker deserved. Certain things are definitely awe-inspiring, awe-worthy, and awe-giving. Like the birth of a child. A U2 or Rolling Stones concert. Like killing a yak from 1000 yards in high winds…using only mind-bullets.

But when the Chick-Fil-A guy says he won’t charge you for your large fries, it’s not life-changing. It’s not jaw-dropping. And it’s not ‘awesome’. It’s…well…it’s just….nice.

And when someone asks you ‘how are you doing?’, you need to be actively doing something that is awe-inspiring to others before you answer, “I’m doing awesome”, like painting the Sistine Chapel. Creating your own sunset as you rotate the Earth on it’s axial tilt of 23.5 degrees. Or immaculately conceiving your first-born child. Otherwise, you’re doing fine, great, or even wonderful…but you’re not really awesome. Sorry.

So, let’s come up with an alternative.

Personally, I’m lobbying for legit or righteous. But feel free to use the equally-expressive gnarly, excellent, frigtastic, or bodacious.

If you absolutely have to use ‘awesome’, please follow the following guideline: ‘awesome’ now implies ‘some awe’ (in the same way ‘burdensome’ is something that implies ‘some burden’ and ‘worrisome’ implies ‘some worry’). So, in a literal way, ‘awesome’ can be used to describe something mediocre and something with only ‘some’ awe. If something is truly amazing, and truly ‘full of awe’, you can say it is ‘awe-ful’ (just as someone who is ‘careful’ is ‘full of care’ and something ‘fearful’ is ‘full of fear’). So, perhaps now your life is ‘awful’.

But, please, no more ‘awesome’ unless you are carving out the Grand Canyon or walking on water. After all, it may have been Jesus who said, ‘Without Me, it’s just aweso’.

culture, rant, sarcasm, satire
For Tomorrow’s Generations #2

Sep 19th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

In case you missed it this morning, here is the second video in our series spotlighting Bob and Beverly Parker. Check it out!
<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/15028390">http://www.vimeo.com/15028390</a>

theology
Tweet of the Week!

Sep 17th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

Twitter
How To Run Well

Sep 14th 2010

By: tom cottar

No comments

After letting the back-to-school dust settle, I started running again this week. I love/hate how it exposes my weaknesses and helps keep me durable. (I like being durable…) And it’s a great vehicle which reminds me of the benefits to spiritual discipline.

Stretch. No one likes to. Everyone needs to.

Run hard. If you only do what you’ve always done, you’ll only get what you’ve always gotten. You have to push yourself to experience something new.

Run everyday. If you only run on Sundays, you’re not going to see much, if any, progress. So, if you want to be a runner and only run one day a week, ….then good luck with that.

Rest. Everyone needs time to recover. Restore. Refuel. Re-create. And recreation is re-creation.

Don’t run alone. Most of us enjoy the zen-like solitude of running. But the fact is that it’s dangerous. Dogs. Cars. Construction. Even a sprained ankle is dangerous when you’re alone. Hurt and alone is a prescription for a dangerous fall.

It reminds me of I Corinthians 9:24-27:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (ESV)

Hebrews 12:1 says to 'lay aside every weight…and run the race before us.'

I dare you to run this week. Are you up for what it can teach you?

personal, running

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Missional Living

[repost] Forgetting and Straining, 3.0

[repost] Forgetting and Straining 2.0

Fantastical Meet Up, Tweet Up and Eat Up

[repost] Forgetting and Straining

For Tomorrow’s Generations, #4

For Tomorrow’s Generations, #3

‘Awesome’ Officially Retired From English Language

For Tomorrow’s Generations #2

Tweet of the Week!

How To Run Well

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