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I won't be posting at this address anymore and will take it off the web in due time. Go to the new blog for info about what's going on with the Adventure College and Young Adult Ministry!

Swimming Upstream

Today I saw something that really bothered me and it opened my eyes to a bigger question. How can God use social networking to reach the lost?

Today as I was surfing on facebook I saw a friend had posted a video with some comment about the wisdom contained therein. Now the content of the video was bothersome enough to me (at least certain aspects) but what followed was a stream of comments in support of the video and, as soon as one person offered her point of view, another stream of comments blasting this critic and her Christian beliefs to pieces.

The fact that this person used to have such an extreme faith and this is now the focus of their heart shook me. The comments about God such as "IF God is ______ then count me out," bothered me because of a lack of investigation as to who God really is and what he is like. But that wasn't what really gave me pause. What struck me is how the internet has become such a divisive arena, a playground where teams are being chosen for kickball and everyone wants to be on the winning team. I am noticing that facebook, twitter, etc. are becoming places where everyone is in agreement with everyone else. The courage that being behind a keyboard gives people is our first weapon against anyone that disagrees and now, several years into the social media movement, I find that comment streams are almost always unanimously self-agreeable. Those that choose to offer up an opinion will quickly be chastised for doing so.

I could go into the way this flies in the face of the "tolerance" that our world claims to have. But I won't go there today, either.

I saw this and I was strongly tempted, even though someone had already blazed this trail, to offer my two cents, to share how my heart breaks when I see people fuel the fire of public opinion, while fewer and fewer know anything about Scripture's actual content. I could have taken any number of approaches in debunking the myths that I saw out there. Only to fall on deaf ears. I feel a bit like Solomon even as I write this. "Meaningless. All is meaningless." If this post only falls on the ears of those that agree with me and we seclude ourselves in our Christian bubble, then this post has been a failure. We've missed the point of what God has called us to do.

The real question is this: in what ways can the Christians in this world still be effective in using facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. to reach out and create disciples? How can we show the world (if not through comments in already-hostile threads) that the message Christ preached is one of freedom (Gal 5:1), love (1 cor 13), purpose (Matt 22:37-40) and relationship with our creator (Gen 2)? How can we allow ourselves to be used as Christ's body to impact his Kingdom? The answers to these questions continue to elude me everytime I boot up my computer.

In the end, I didn't post anything. But that person has been on my mind ever since. The thought that they have known Christ and left, pushing some non-Biblical theology that has a distant resemblance to God's character (much like the folks John wrote about in his letters) makes me shutter. The idea that this person has gone so far from what is true and is now rallying troops to go with her breaks my heart. This friend has been on my heart the entire day and I have been in prayer for a heart-change since seeing this. I pray for discernment in what to say if the opportunity arises. I pray that I know what a real opportunity looks like. I pray that God will give me the guts to say it when and if I do recognize that moment. I don't know what else to do but pray. I feel as if we are swimming upstream.

Don't Forget!

"When the centurion, who stood in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "surely this man was the son of God." -Mark 15:39

Today is Good Friday, and the start to the Easter weekend. A couple reminders for all you out there.

1. We don't have class this Sunday morning. INSTEAD, we have a special service schedule (services at 9 and 11) and a breakfast in between. 
2. Next Saturday, we'll be hiking at Bernheim Forest in Bullitt County. We'll meet at the front of the park and have a picnic lunch (*Pack your own*) and then go for a hiking trek in the forest. 

Have a great Easter weekend!

In a fit of rage

There's a story in the gospels that has always made me scratch my head. It's always seemed a bit of an inconsistency and out of character for Jesus. Because of scriptural reports that Jesus never sinned (i.e. Heb 4:15), the story of Jesus overturning tables in the temple has led pastors to try all kinds of theological kung-fu. Most often, the solution that is settled upon is that Jesus overturned the tables out of righteous anger, a justified fit of rage caused by the defilement of God's temple in Jerusalem. That has never really sat right with me.

This is one of those posts where I share a little somthing I've learned in my classes, namely, that it is important to look closely at what scripture says. Look - actually look - at Mark 11:11:

¹¹ Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve

The beginning of the chapter is Jesus' famous, "Palm Sunday" entrance into Jerusalem and the passage immediately after verse 11 is his demonstration in the temple. But what is interesting in verse 11 is that it shows Jesus assessed the situation the night before his demonstration. He looked at everything. It wasn't like he walked into the temple and his jaw dropped at the horrible acts going on. Jesus may not have been acting in a fit of rage so much as making a statement that the end of the temple sacrificial system was ending.

I am not claiming I am an authority on this, but it does seem likely to me that there is truth in this one small, easy-to-miss verse. What it tells us is that we can have confidence that he is sinless, that his ministry was intentional and purposeful. This particular story tells us that the temple is done. Trying to be "holy enough" had clearly not worked, ringing in a new promise that we can have direct access to God absolutely all the time.

Timing is Everything

Today's post is a little different because I'm not sure I've found the answer to the question, and so your thoughts are totally welcome. This goes in the "food for thought" category.

I've been studying the Gospels for school and there is a question that's been relatively unaddressed. We know a lot about Jesus' birth from Matthew and Luke, and all four gospels' focus is on his adult ministry, but we know very little about his childhood and adolescent years. Luke does include a story of a visit to the temple at the age of 12 (odd because he was still considered a boy at that point). In this visit, he showed himself to be wise and gifted at teaching, even at such a young age. Luke says that "everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers" (Luke 2:47).

I guess my question is this. Without making too many assumptions about a history we simply don't have record of, what can we take and learn from those 17 years or so between this experience and Jesus' baptism in the Jordan? He clearly had some understanding of his identity early on, and in Jewish culture, boys are considered men at 13 without an adolescent period as we know it. The only thing I can come up with is that having faith in God's timing is important. There were prophecies about the start of the Messiah's ministry, and for those to take place, John would have had to start his ministry. But I don't know if that is all there is to it. Maybe I'm trying to read into it and have already stepped too far. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Wrigley Field - a place for purists!

This past week, Mal and I went to Chicago for her spring break. During this trip I got the awesome privilege of visiting Wrigley Field. This was no small event for me, as it's one of those things that has always been on my "bucket list." There's such a history there, and I almost immediately I found out why.

Wrigley Field is about baseball!

I've been to a lot of stadiums and a lot of sporting events over the years. Over the last decade or two, stadiums have gotten more commercialized, more busy and less and less about the team on the field. There are huge video boards, races between animated Dunkin Donuts mascots (a personal favorite for all Detroit Lions fans, mostly because it may be the best action you see when you go to one of their games), special give-aways, sponsorship signs plastering the outfield wall and every visible surface.

Wrigley Field is still about baseball. There is no giant mega-TV flashing video profiles of the players at bat, nor does each player get to choose the most current hip-hop song to play as they walk to the plate. It's about the game on the field. This atmosphere is embraced by the Cubbie faithful, who cheer and moan, almost as one, with absolutely every swing that puts a ball in play. I'm not a Cubs fan, but I was that day. I couldn't help it! It was such a pure environment that any baseball purist would love watching a game there.

This all got me thinking, though. Have we become this way in the modern church? When we go, do we expect to be catered to with all kinds of kitschy gimmicks, flashy media and fancy hand-outs? Do we go because it's a good show, or because we love what it's all about? The freedom we have in America has given us the opportunity to cater to literally every single social preference you could ask for, many times with eye-catching advertising, bigger-and-better video screens and facilities, etc. Have we gotten too far from the truth? Would someone from another country, persecuted daily for the illegal faith that they live out with pride, recognize our churches as a place where the gospel is still the main attraction? Are the people there hanging on the edge of every word read from scripture and preached from the stage? Or are we simply passive consumers, itching for the next thing to surge our senses with stimuli?

Just food for thought.

God's message: consistent from the start!

1 Samuel has long been one of my favorite books in the Bible. Some of the stories are well known, like Samuel's call and David v. Goliath, while others are less renowned. One of my favorite chapters in the book is chapter 15, because it brings a New Testament kind of lesson into the Old Testament context.

Samuel is the spiritual leader of Israel at this point, and Saul the political king. The chapter begins with God giving a command to Saul, "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1Sam 15:3, italics mine). The campaign continues but we see that Saul captures the Amalekite king, Agag, sparing his life and his men plundered the livestock, keeping the goats, sheep, fattened calves and "everything that was good" (v. 9). OOPS! That doesn't sound like the total annihilation that God asked for.

Samuel's next move was to confront Saul. God told him what had happened and, when he went to talk to Saul about it, Saul replied, "but I did obey the Lord" (v. 20). Bringing back the king was a common sign of dominance over another nation and, as for the animals, he argued that the men chose the best of the livestock for sacrificial purposes. That's holy enough, right?

Samuel's response is one Saul probably didn't expect. He said, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offereings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams" (v. 22). The principle here is simple, bold and timeless. The very idea of sacrificial systems came about as a way to purify sinful people in the sight of the Lord. If we were to surrender ourselves to his will, there would be no need for sacrifice! Even in the Old Testament, God was setting a standard of total obedience. He is God; we are not. He gets to call the shots. It's when we get to a place of thinking that we know better that we get in trouble.

God's original plan did not involve him sacrificing his Son on the cross for our sins but rather a relationship with his creation that glorified his kingdom. The only proper response for such a "once and for all" sacrifice being made is for us to daily recognize our need for that sacrifice, bask in the cleansing that it brings and strive to grow in obedience to his will.