The Big Picture

I read an article recently in Christianity Today about evangelism called From Four Laws to Four Circles. It's about a guy - James Choung - who has written on evangelism and has recently developed a little visual aid to assist in sharing the gospel with his college buddies at MIT. He's now a divisional director of InterVarsity. The "napkin diagram" (he was an engineering major) is interesting, but for my purposes here is secondary to a statement he made in the article that I liked. Here's the video so you can see for yourself:


What I really appreciated, however, was his answer to this question:

How do you hope this tool will change the way Christians themselves think of evangelism?
I hope we will move from decision-oriented presentations to ones that have more to say about transformation. As we were developing the Big Story, we wanted a diagram that wouldn't just be binary—in or out—but would represent the journey that all of us are on.
We also wanted to move from an exclusive focus on the afterlife to the mission-life. Immediately after Jesus' invitation, "Follow me," he added, "I will make you fishers of men." From the outset, he gave his disciples a mission. Without the mission in our gospel presentations, we do people a grave disservice. We imply that they can be Christians without being on a God-given mission to love others in his name. And that's just not true. In Jesus' summation, we are all called to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In Micah's version, we are called to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. We need to allow the reign of God to continue to grow in us and around us. That's not to say that life after death isn't important. But it's not the whole story. It's the final chapter, but there are still many chapters to be lived out.

Au revoir, Le Tour. 你好Olympics.

The Tour de France ended yesterday morning. A Spaniard won for the second year in a row. Carlos Sastre put on a great performance in the Alps to take the yellow jersey and then really performed above himself in the final time trial stage to hold onto it. I really enjoyed the tour this year. There were several players who had a great chance to win it all. There were also 3 outstanding teams that have advertized themselves as being devoted to clean athletes. It was great to see that these 3 teams dominated the tour and that the only 2 American teams were 2 of these three teams.

The Olympics are now 2 weeks away. I really enjoy them. (Since my boss reads my blog, I won't say that now I have to wait 2 weeks for the Olympics to begin so I can have something else to watch during the day!) I know I'm a strange breed but I like the long multi-week international sporting events. Of course this year's Olympics comes with its share of controversy. When I did a Google image search for the Olympics to get an image of their emblem, I came across this one.

From the moment it was announced, I was disappointed to hear that the games will be played in Beijing. As the games have gotten closer, the reasons for this disappointment are even more apparent. First and foremost are the political and social issues that come with the Chinese governmental oppression. Second has been the environmental issues. It's crazy to hear that athletes are worried about breathing conditions. I would imagine we won't see many records broken in the outdoor events this year.

The flip side of this issue is that maybe with all the world gazing at China for 16 days, international pressure will force changes - changes that remove the human oppression going on in many areas of the nation and changes that improve our global environment when the most populous nation is forced to clean up. One can only hope. I believe these changes have already begun in some ways. Time will tell how far they will go. Another benefit is the relaxation of travel into China which is allowing more Christians in to spread the gospel if only for a window of time. I've heard many things of the church in China thriving in the midst of oppression. Historically, that seems to have always been the case for Christianity. I hope this window of time helps - if only in bringing encouragement to our existing Chinese brothers and sisters.

Healing conversation

For those of you who haven't been watching, there has been a great conversation on healing and western society hidden down in the comments of my Books blog entry.

Thanks Pedro for the discussion. I've enjoyed it!

Books

So, here are the books I'm "reading" right now. I use that term loosely because I've been "reading" them for a while now. Maybe if I list them here, I'll be motivated by embarrassment to finish them and not let them hang out on my blog for too long.

The first one:


I heard Doris Kearns Goodwin speak at a conference last October. She was really interesting in a "biographer" sort of way, so I added this book to my bookmooch.com list and was able to mooch it a few months ago. After a couple of months I finally got around to starting it. I'm now on chapter 3, but they're long chapters! Anyway, the biography is an interesting view on the Roosevelts. It looks at them through the lens of the guests they kept in the white house during that time or their times spent at their country estate. For example, Winston Churchill came and stayed at the White House on multiple occasions for a few at a time during the war. It's been interesting so far. I've learned quite a bit about Eleanor that I didn't know. She and he had a very unique married relationship.

The second one:


Jack Deere spoke at a discipleship conference in our church a little while back. I bought this book and then forgot about it until just the other day. So, I think I'm on chapter 2 of this one, even though they are quite shorter chapters.

In a nutshell, this is Jack's story of how he moved from a belief that many of the Gifts of the Spirit as listed in 1 Corinthians 12 but also displayed in action throughout the New Testament in (healing, words of knowledge, tongues, etc) no longer function today to a belief from experience to the contrary. Growing up in the pentecostal faith, this has always been an assumed belief in my faith. However, I'm interested to read how he came to this conclusion and the experiences God led him through.

I've also had a strong interest in healing for a while now but have not acted on it. While I've heard stories of people seeing miracles of healing all my life, I've never seen any of the really dramatic stuff personally. I think I'm feeling led to explore this more. Maybe God will allow me to see this work of His in action.

So these are my books right now. I'm adding a sidebar with these on it to the blog. Let's see how long it takes me to get them off the list and replaced with whatever comes next.

blood:water mission

Tonight my city hosted a free concert by Christian artist Sara Groves. She was joined by Christian author Donald Miller and a team of cyclists that are on a fund raising coast-to-coast journey from the Pacific Ocean (L.A.) to the Atlantic (D.C.). The cycling tour is called Ride: Well Tour. It is a sister non-profit to Blood:Water Mission founded by the members of another Christian group Jars of Clay and to which the funds they raise on their ride are going. Confused yet? The bottom line is that all of these people and many others are coming together to bring a cold cup of water in Jesus' name to those in need. Here's an excerpt from the blood:water mission website:

Blood:Water Mission exists to promote clean blood and clean water efforts in Africa, tangibly reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic while addressing the underlying issues of poverty, injustice and oppression. Blood:Water Mission is building clean water wells, supporting medical facilities, and focusing on community and worldview transformation, both here in America and in Africa.

Sara Groves was interviewed on the local radio today and had an interesting comment. She said that many of us as Christians spend a whole lot of time grooming our faith, but to what end? It's like the person who buys a sports car and then only washes and waxes it but never drives it. God has called us to make a difference in this world while we are on it. Spending every moment in church that the doors are open, listening to Christian music, going to small group Bible studies are all nice, but if we're just grooming our faith without going out and getting dirty once in a while for God, what's the point? When she made this realization, she starting looking for what to do. She found this mission and has given to it. It's a good cause. Take a look. If it's something that moves you, I'd encourage you to give as well. And then go out and find a way to give from yourself above just giving from your wallet.

By the way, I'm excited to say that the little rally here in Tyler had set a goal to raise $40,000 tonight. At the end of the evening, they were up to $72,800 and still counting.

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!




Technorati Tags: religious+right, political+cartoon

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

Technorati Tags: life church, emerging church, church plant

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.

Technorati Tags: saved+movie

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

Technorati Tags: anne+rice

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.

Technorati Tags: missions, missional+life

Technorati Tags: missions, missional+life

"A Happy Agnostic?" update

I emailed Dr. Ehrman regarding my last post about his npr interview and received the following response, which answers my question but opens another issue to discuss: the age old problem of a world with pain and suffering if there is a good and omnipotent God.

Dr. Ehrman's response:

Nathan,

Thanks for your note. Yes, you're right -- I didn't want to say (did I say?) that it was my changed view of the Bible that turned me into an agnostic; that *would* be a very strange leap! More problematic for me, in the long run, was the problem of the pain and suffering in the world. I have trouble believing in a good God who is in control: every time I look around, I'm sorry to say (and notice) it looks like it just ain't so....

Best wishes,

-- Bart Ehrman

Technorati Tags : christianity, agnoticism, NPR

"A Happy Agnostic?"

I was listening to Fresh Air on npr yesterday . . .

side note: how many times do you hear that from a Bible-belt Evangelical Christian? Yes, I like npr - that liberal snore of a radio station, which I think is often enlightening and almost always very interesting, even when I don't agree with the running commentary at the moment.

Anyway, I was listening to Terry Gross interview Bart Ehrman - chairman of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and most recently the author of Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. This little book of his "explores how scribes -- through both omission and intention -- changed the Bible (see npr synopsis of the Fresh Air interview and book description here)."

His little discussion was interesting, but what really made me go "huh?" was when he started talking about how he lived most all of his life as an Evangelical Christian but in the last few years had decided he no longer chooses to believe the lies and has become a "happy agnostic." However, he never really said why he no longer believes there is a god (or perhaps the more correct definition would be that he believes it is impossible to know whether there is a god). Instead, he backed up this statement by talking about no longer believing that the Bible as we have it today is the infallible Word of God. To me, that's quite a difference, especially as he continued saying that he believes the teachings in the Bible to be truths that we are right to follow. I really wanted to call him up and ask how he made the jump, but it wasn't a live show.

I recognize that people can claim discrepancies in Bible and even make cases for mistranslations and misinterpretations. I can even stretch on out there and say that if someone doesn't believe that the Bible we have today is the infallible word of God he can still be a Christian. The Bible was written by men. Men are not infallible. Unless the Holy Spirit placed all the original writers and then all the succeeding scribes in trances so that they were just puppets holding quills moved by the hand of God himself, there could possibly be the slightest bit of room for the slim chance of an error or modification. In my mind, there's nothing wrong with that line of questioning, or questioning in general. I've questioned quite a bit, especially in the past years, and it has helped to solidify my faith. However, I feel bad for the man who seemingly was let down when he decided that our current scriptures may not be as they were originally and may disagree with each other in different places and from this had to leap to the conclusion that it must therefore be impossible to know if God exists or not.

Dr. Ehrman claims that unlike most agnostics, he is a "happy agnostic" - content in his belief that it's impossible for him to ever know if there's a god, much less take the opportunity given to him to actually get to know God. He may think he's happy, but that saddens me.

Technorati Tags : christianity, agnoticism, NPR

Stigma, Pt II

Since posting Stigma of Christianity, I have been thinking about the general idea of relevance. As the church, we believe we need to be relevant in our culture influence souls for Christ, and we see that in practice in the scriptures. Paul made a great effort at relevance with sharing the good news with the Greeks by working his explanation through their Tomb to the Unknown God in Athens. All of the Gospels are written so as to be relevant to their audiences. (The Epistles were as well, but I see the Gospels as more missionary in purpose while the Epistles were instructional to the churches.)

Today, one of our relevance attempts en mass have been through politics: by-in-large aligning ourselves with one party for religious reasons and defining every political action through the lens of Christianity. Has this been successful? Politically, we're a force to be reckoned with, but we're also the enemy and/or laughing stock of so many that do not align with our stances. Personally, I believe this "religious right" political force has peaked and will wain at least some in the near future.

Has this made the church any more relevant? It has definitely given us more media headlines, but do headlines and relevance align. I'd say no. On a national scale, these headlines and activity have created the very stigma I'm talking about. Relevance comes, in my opinion, when the church is quietly meeting the needs in each of its individual communities, when we are touching lives around us rather than debating issues.

But now I'm brought back to John 15:18-25 where Christ tells us the world will hate us. If we're working to be relevant in our world, then aren't we working to not be hated? My natural tendency is definitely to try not to be hated as best I can within my own moral guidelines.

This seems to be an enigma to me, but I am coming to this conclusion:

I believe our charge is to spread the good news. We are given examples of doing this in many ways: through open-minded discussions, through preaching, with miracles, through our living testimonies, etc. All of these are methods that find relevancy in the situation at hand to better share that gospel. Christ concludes his discussion in John 15:25 with the statement that we are fulfilling the prophecy that "they hated me without reason." So, I'm not to work to be hated. I don't have to worry about that. It's coming in some form no matter what. I'm not to condemn or shout or display banners and protest signs, or push my morality (even though correct according to biblical teachings) upon those who are lost and thus by definition don't follow that same code. I'm to love them, tell them the good news in a way relevant to their situation, and then disciple those that accept that news.

(note: This doesn't mean that I become apolitical or a wet blanket when it comes to morality. I stll intend to vote and to even express my views. But I don't think my religion is best proclaimed through taking political or moral stances on issues.)

Technorati Tags : christianity, stigma, relevance, gospel

Stigma of Christianity

preface:

I have this slightly addictive little add on to my browser (I use Firefox, but I don't think it's required) called "StumbleUpon." Once you install the bar and choose your topics of interest, just click a button and randomly stumble around the internet to new sites in your topic list. Sites are included by other "StumbleUpon" members who recommend it. It's a neat little tool that can easily consume a lot of my time. Check it out.

Anyway, I was "stumbling" through the internet the other day and fell on this site:

It of course is a parody site used to make fun of us wholesome Christians and includes a satirical list of museum exhibits of those people groups that are obviously destined for eternal darkness. People like Homosexuals, Mary Worshipers, Kennedys, Democrats, and Abortionists (rooms one thru five in the museum). I'll admit, I did chuckle a bit. However, it got me thinking.

The museum here, as it turns out, is merely one of several sub-sites that jeer at Christians from this single web address alone. There are also many other outlets of media out there doing the same thing. This of course is disappointing to me as Christian, but it's even more disappointing that their attacks are based on a belief that we are a people full of hate and fear. The most disturbing part, however, is the realization that I believe they may have at least partial cause for making these claims.

My good friend Mike has a nice blog entry on Islam where he witnessed at least a little fear and a touch of reproach from congregants when discussing Muslims. I grew up being taught as an evangelical Christian that Catholics were idolators. Our current political climate, especially here in the bible belt, leads us to believe that Democrats are baby-killing communists and true Christians vote Republican.

Have we really taught ourselves to act in these malign discriminations while hiding behind the phrase hate the sin, love the sinner? Or, are we being misrepresented by the world who has skewed our efforts at righteous separation from worldly sin into "hate speech"?

Or...and this is what I dread....are we a house divided? Are there those in the name of Christianity who are spreading the very hate we are being accused of and thus smearing the name of Christ and all of his followers?

So, back to the little museum: maybe all Feminists and other Lesbians(room seven) are going straight to hell. Maybe I should take that stand and prophetically proclaim this to the masses. Maybe sites like these of Ms. Betty Bowers America's Best Christian (whose true creator/organization I have yet to identify) are part of what we should expect when we're told that there will come persecution.

I know Christ told us in John 15:19:

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

I ask myself, however, are we wasting our energy getting hated for the wrong reasons?

Technorati Tags : christians, stigma, church, hell