Sunday, March 26, 2006

Inasmuch as ye have done it...



How about this little cartoon as some food for thought. (FYI: The allusion here is from Matthew 25:34-45)

While it may offend some Christians, I think that is only because it is hitting an exposed nerve we may need to look more closely at. Here are my thoughts in a nutshell:

A great majority of the "Christian Right" needs to take a good look at themselves in the light of this scripture. God did not call us to sit back and merely elect a government that we believe promotes our idea of morality through "social conservatism." Viewing it from the other side, we are neither to merely elect a government that we believes promotes social justice through government programs. He called us to reach out our hands feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoner.

Thank God Jesus isn't a Republican or a Democrat!




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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Interesting Article

I'm in Seattle on business and found this article on the front page of The Seattle Times this morning. I thought it was rather interesting.

The article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal and appears below. I copied it from the website the article mentions: http://www.off-the-map.org/

On eBay, an Atheist
Puts His Own Soul
On the Auction Block

The Winning Bidder Offers An Unusual Deal: Visit Churches and Critique

By SUZANNE SATALINE March 9, 2006; Page A1

A few weeks ago, Hemant Mehta posted an unusual item for sale on eBay: a chance to save his soul.

The DePaul University graduate student promised the winner that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old Mr. Mehta is an atheist, but he says he suspected he had been missing out on something.

Hemant Mehta"Perhaps being around a group of people who will show me 'the way' could do what no one else has done before," Mr. Mehta wrote in his eBay sales pitch. "This is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me."

Evangelists bid, eager to save a sinner. Atheists bid, hoping to keep Mr. Mehta in their fold. When the auction stopped on Feb. 3 after 41 bids, the buyer was Jim Henderson, a former evangelical minister from Seattle, whose $504 bid prevailed.

Mr. Henderson wasn't looking for a convert. He wanted Mr. Mehta to embark with him on an eccentric experiment in spiritual bridge-building.

The 58-year-old Mr. Henderson has written a book for a Random House imprint and is currently a house painter. He runs off-the-map.org1, a Web site whose professed mission is "Helping Christians be normal." Mr. Henderson is part of a small but growing branch of the evangelical world that disagrees with the majority's conservative political agenda, and wants the religion to be more inclusive and help the disadvantaged.

Days after the auction, Mr. Henderson flew to Chicago to see Mr. Mehta, who is studying to be a math teacher. The two met in a bar, where they sealed a deal a little different from the one the student had proffered. Instead of the 50 hours of church attendance that he was entitled to for his $504, Mr. Henderson asked that Mr. Mehta attend 10 to 15 services of Mr. Henderson's choosing and then write about it.

Mr. Mehta also agreed to provide running commentary on the church services on the off-the-map site and take questions — bluntly sharing a nonbeliever's outlook on services that many consider sacred. The deal called for Mr. Henderson to donate the $504 to the Secular Student Alliance, a group headed by Mr. Mehta that has 55 chapters in the U.S. and abroad.

"I'm not trying to convert you," Mr. Henderson said at the bar. "You're going there almost like a critic....If you happen to get converted, that's off the clock."

Jim HendersonFor Mr. Mehta's first service, the two attended noon Mass at Old St. Patrick's, a Catholic church near Mr. Mehta's apartment. In the third pew from the rear, Mr. Mehta silently gazed at the statues and the worshipers' folded hands. He tried to follow along, but was a beat behind the congregation as it stood and knelt on cue.

Mr. Henderson asked Mr. Mehta to score the priest, on a scale of one for boring to 10 for "off the charts." Mr. Mehta gave him a three. "More stories" in the sermon, Mr. Mehta suggested — and less liturgy.

Asked about that advice, the Rev. John Cusick, who said the Mass that day, was unfazed: "There's nothing he could say that I haven't heard 100 times over."

Mr. Mehta's commentaries award sermons kudos for clarity, demerits for redundancy. After a service at Chicago's nondenominational Park Community Church, he criticized the preacher for repeatedly referring to a Bible verse in which the Galatians are called "fools" for doubting the divinity of Jesus — without explaining why the passage was relevant to his congregation. The room, Mr. Mehta noted, was already full of people who didn't share the Galatians' doubts.

Associate Pastor Ron May wrote in to thank Mr. Mehta: "As the guy who spoke yesterday, I really appreciate the honest eval. (Unfortunately, a lot of the time you only get polite smoke...good job...thanks for the message.)"

Mr. Mehta was born in Chicago and raised in Jainism, an ancient Indian faith whose followers vow to harm no living thing, not even microbes in the air.

He praises famous atheists, but has also read parts of the Bible, loves watching televangelists like Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen, and admires their appeal to congregations. "If I could be an atheist pastor?" he says, "Oh God, that would be great!"

Mr. Henderson, who was a member of the Association of Vineyard Churches, a nondenominational ministry, says he preached for 25 years, but says he grew disenchanted because many of his peers were obsessed with gathering more believers and increasing their budgets. Off-the-map started as a hobby, an outgrowth of a long talk with a friend and co-founder Dave Richards, who had been a member of one of Mr. Henderson's congregations, about why they disliked evangelizing.

Mr. Henderson began interviewing nonbelievers — in front of audiences and video cameras — about the ways Christians had offended them. That material became part of his book, "a.k.a. 'Lost,' '' espousing his softer approach, published last year by WaterBrook Press.

Hiring Mr. Mehta has been his wisest investment, Mr. Henderson says. The Web site received 5,000 hits in the first 10 days after the auction — typically the number of visits in an average month.

Some visitors to the site castigate Mr. Henderson for giving an atheist a forum. One said he was "rather misguidedly (throwing) money at someone to simply get him 'churched' for a time so he might possibly get 'saved?' "

Mr. Mehta has also been reading and critiquing church bulletins. In one, Park Community asked the congregation to pray, in advance of a coming meeting on the construction of a church building "that God would.. .open the doors to the right parking solution, allowing us to build a worship space for 1,200 people, rather than the 850 currently permitted."

"Really?" Mr. Mehta observed on the Web site. "That's what you're praying for? Do they think a god will change parking restrictions? Will a god change the price of nearby property? Will a god add another level to a parking structure?"

Mr. May, the pastor, admitted such talk sounds weird to an outsider. "It's good to be reminded it's unusual," he said

Mr. Henderson says he is thrilled that Mr. Mehta is prompting such reactions. "We're getting to a place where we're talking and not converting," he says.

With about half his obligation to Mr. Henderson fulfilled, Mr. Mehta says he's no closer to believing in God, although he does admire churches for the communities they create. Church, he has decided, is "not such a bad place to be."

OTM Atheist Blog

Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

A recent conversation on prayer

I had a conversation recently with a friend about prayer. The issue was when do we pray specific prayers and when do we pray for God's will to be done? He said that he often finds himself praying for God's will in his life when he is searching for an answer or is in need rather than praying specifically for what he desires. He has issue with those that say because God didn't answer according to our wish, we must not have had enough faith or made our petition correctly or some other excuse like that.

So, he finds himself praying in need, but ending with saying "your will be done." Looking at that, he sees where that is a rationalization on our part to give ourselves an out. We discussed this. If I pray, "Lord, I really want this, but your will be done", then when we don't get what we want we have that out. My father-in-law calls this a coward's prayer. He says Jesus only prayed "nevertheless your will be done" when he knew that God's will was something he didn't want. That is, when he was about to face the cross - his true purpose on earth - he as a man didn't want it to happen, but knew it was God's will to occur. So, when we pray for something we do want, but then say "but your will be done", we are wimping our with our petition.

Back to the conversation with my friend, who has seen "more fervent prayer" but has never prayed that way himself, I told him my take on things. Basically, I said that I pray according to "you have not because you ask not" (James 4:2), which I have rudimentarily translated to "the answer may be no, but it doesn't hurt to ask." Of course, James goes on to say "you ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives." So, we must be sure our motives are pure. If they are, though, I believe we can ask what we will of our Father. Of course, he may say no, which may not seem fine at the time, but must be permissible.

My friend is about to spend at least the next 3 years in as a "tent maker" missionary in a middle eastern country. He has already visited for a few weeks, and said that the Christians he met there prayed more fervently that he is used to. With that in mind, I also said that I believe when we are walking with God and being led by the Holy Spirit, there will be times when we desire something that we know to be God's will, but that has not yet come to pass. In those cases, we most definitely must fervently for that specific answer. We are in spiritual war and there are supernatural powers that are working against us, which we may not understand. God wants to answer our prayer and so we must continue to seek that answer. I think of the example in the Bible where the apostles (I believe) were fervently praying for an answer for a long time. Finally, an angel arrives and tells them that God sent him with the answer the day they started praying, but he was delayed in the heavens by demons that he had to overcome. (I wish I knew where that scripture was. If anyone does, please let me know).

Anyway, prayer is always an interesting topic. I believe we are to pray the desires of our hearts, but only when our motives are right should we expect affirmative answers, and even then we may not get them. God does know best, after all. The key is our motives with our hearts' desires. This cancels out the "name it, claim it" or "prosperity" philosophies that say all Christians should be driving Benzes and wearing rolexes if only we have faith and ask.

Thoughts?

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Tuesday, February 21, 2006

life unusual

My good friends Jason and Renee Exley are planting a new church in Midlothian, TX, and I'm excited for them.

They are now building through "pre-launch small groups" and preparing for their launch on Easter Sunday, April 16th. Did I say I'm excited for them? This is really a neat time for them. Jason is a missionary kid that grew up planting churches in Argentina and Renee is the daughter of a pastor who God used in growing a church from 70 to 800, so I'd say they have a great practical background for this. They've also been great youth pastors for 6 years.

I've been thinking a lot about church plants and models where large churches give birth to smaller ones. I feel like I'm involved in a church body that is currently inward facing, and I don't know that this is bad at this time in the church's life based on recent events, but I want to start facing outwards. However, I do feel like I'm in the church where God wants me to be right now, so perhaps during our involvement things will begin shifting outwards.

In a letter Jason sent me describing this new venture he stated an interesting comment that church plants have historically be highly effective evangelical tools and that 80% of people who come to Christ do so in a church that is 2 years old or less. I don't know where he got that statistic, but it's an interesting idea to consider.

Anyway, I'm excited for them. If anyone is interested, here is their website:

www.lifeunusual.com

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Monday, January 23, 2006

Confession

The movie Saved! was on TV the other day, and I feel I must confess that I watched it. Since then I've felt just a twinge of guilt but mostly regret that I wasted my time. The movie is a satire that makes fun of evangelical christians, particularly teens in a christian school, but also their parents and principle/minister. The die hards are shown to be hypocritical and shallow while the renegades are shown to be those that in the end are genuinely good. All the stereotypes are thrown out there regarding christians as well as those regarding the "normal" people in this world - that christians are wrong for being so close minded and strictly interpreting the Bible while it only makes sense that God would not be that square and loves us all however we are as long as we're genuine.

When the movie began, I got caught up in the laughter. There are seriously some truly outrageous things that evangelicals have been stereotyped as doing. The way we try too hard to make God look cool in order to coax in the lost, or how we hide from sexual education because we're afraid if we mention it, all teenagers will suddenly throw down and get busy.

As the movie progressed, though, I got tired of the cliches and the same old story people try to convince us of that christians are hypocrits and God can't possibly be as close minded as he's portrayed in the story. Even so, I couldn't turn my head away from the train wreck and wasted a good hour and a half of my life. That is why I feel I must confess, to cleanse my own conscience and to warn everyone out there that may be the least bit interested in this movie to not waste their time if for no other reason than it goes down hill fast after a briefly funny beginning to fall into an awefully lame ending.

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Thursday, January 19, 2006

What's up?

It's been a busy week.

What's up with you?

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Anne Rice


A friend of mine gave me a subscription to Christianity Today for Christmas. The first issue I received had several stories about the new Narnia movie, C.S. Lewis, and an interview with Doug Gresham which were all interesting. However, hidden between these was a little article about Anne Rice that I thought very interesting.

Apparently the famous vampire novelist has undergone a renewed faith in Christ and has departed from her old ways. In fact, she has a new historical novel out called Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt that tells about Christ's childhood and the time spent in Egypt.

Anne Rice has made quite an impact on the literary world in the past and thus has a substantial following. I'm curious to hear more about this. I'm a bit surprised (should I be?) that I haven't heard more about this before. I imagine her stance on homosexuality has restricted the Christian media from promoting her much and her abandonment of vampires (she says "I'll never go back") for Jesus has restricted the secular media. Take a look at the article from Christianity Today(linked below). If anyone has read this new book or heard anything else, please pass it on to me.

Article Link

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Tuesday, January 03, 2006

A Missional Life

One of the blogs I like to keep track of is by my friend, John, who is a "home missionary" to the campus of Texas A and leads Chi Alpha, the college christian group that I was part of. In his latest posts on his blog, thunk, he has been giving account of a retreat he took his students on over part of the Christmas break. This conference has completely been transformed from when I attended as a college student. It's a phenominal concept, really. Chi Alpha is affiliated with the Assembly of God denomination. Their new winter conference - called the World Mission Summit - is a cooperative effort between Chi Alpha and the World Missions department. The conference drew together over 3500 students and 400 missionaries. Missionaries taught sessions and mingled with the students as they were presented the world right there in Louisville, KY, resulting in eyes being open and commitments being made to give a year to missions. It sounds like it was a great conference. I'm a bit envious both of the conference experience and the great emphasis on missions that this denomination (in which I grew up) places. Now, as I have moved to a new town and began communing with a Church of God body, I find myself missing this piece now and then.

That aside, however, my hearing about this conference came at an appropriate time. It has helped me refocus for the new year on what I believe to be God's directive for my life as a whole - to live a missional life. That's the most important thing. In my current world, one in which we've now lived in a new town for a year and a half, have become very involved in our church, and now have a 6 month old son, I feel like I need to reevaluate how I'm doing here and how I can improve. All of these changes have been life comsuming, but it's time to refocus so that I can, through God's direction and strength, better engage my community and the world with the gospel.

I'm sure there'll be more posts about this in the future, but if anyone out there is thinking on the same lines (or different ones) and wants to comment, I'm all ears.

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Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
May everyone have a blessed 2006 - one in which you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).