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The Pub Awakens

I have walked away from this blog for almost two years now, but something keeps bringing me back.

There is an itch that needs scratched, a yearning that needs fulfilled that only seems to happen when I write. I have threatened to write a book for years now. I want to, I need to but something always seems to get in the way.

Stepping back into the blogging world is hopefully one step closer to me writing regularly. YEAH! If you enjoy this blog or have over the last 10 years stopped by The Jester's Pub please hold me accountable to keep writing on a regular basis. I need your support.

I would like to think that I have some things of value to add to the daily digital conversation that our world engages in. Maybe not, but at least it will make me feel better. HA.

I have things kicking around inside my head these days about theology, relationships, ministry, divorce, mega churches, friendships, truth, parenting, kids, pop culture, super heroes and of course Jesus. He never leaves my mind. 

I have found that as I get older (46 now!) that I have more questions than answers and that some of the certainty of youth has morphed into the ambiguity and intellectual humility of middle age.

This blog is my attempt to wade into the murky waters of real life and my brain. HA. Yet I know I don't go alone. I travel with many reliable friends and with the One who goes before me, the One who has been to the end already.

I hope you will come along for the journey. So come on in, pull up a seat. The drinks are on the house!

Mark

 

Addiction as Worship

In his book Addiction and Virtue, Kent Dunnington likens addiction to counterfeit worship:

"Several years ago, a friend who had worked his way through graduate school as a paramedic told me about one of his more grisly experiences on the job. He received an anonymous call reporting a heroin addict who was on the verge of death in an abandoned apartment building. When [my friend] got to the apartment, the man was huddled in a corner, shivering and unresponsive, surrounded by piles of rotten trash, used syringes, lighters, spoons—all the paraphernalia of heroin addiction. When I asked what that was like, my friend related that it was terrifying, but that he also thought it was probably the first time he fully understood what worship looks like …. For all sin, as idolatry, is essentially counterfeit worship."

Powerful imagery, and a profound observation. It reminds me of the people who are in Hell in C.S.Lewis' haunting book, The Great Divorce. In the book the people in Hell could leave Hell and go to Heaven if they would only let go of the addiction, habit or whatever put them in Hell in the first place, yet none of them are willing to simply release what has come to define them. Abandon their little gods to gain the Eternal God.

Happens a lot. I'm guilty of it at times and so are you. So we all cry together COME LORD JESUS AND RESCUE US.

Retro Post #3: A Tendency to Glamorize

*This post originally appeared on October 20, 2008

I think we often tend to glamorize the past and think America was a Christian nation, where everyone loved God, was very upright and moral and that our society didn't have the major problems that it does today. We believe that America is worse off, but is that really true? 

When you really look into it you find that is not the case. Take for example this little tidbit from a book I picked up from Garry Wills called Head and Heart: A History of Christianity in America. Check this out.

"In 1909 there was one saloon for every 500 hundred people. There were more saloons in the United States than there were schools, libraries, hospitals, theaters, or parks, and more certainly than churches."

Go Figure! You have any thoughts on this?

*Just to clarify I don't think drinking alcohol is bad but this little stat does say something about the priorities when America was supposedly  "CHRISTIAN". Saloons back then also often had dancing girls and prostitutes. Of course you could also mention racism, womens rights and a host of other things as signs of a culture that was rotten even back then.

When The Office Has Great Theology

I fell in love with The Office years ago when I was speaking on a High School retreat in Oklahoma. I would go back to my cabin after the evening service and watch episodes back to back that I had downloaded from Itunes. It was like finding a brand new best friend. A very funny new friend.

A couple of weeks ago I watched the final episode which I thought was about as good as a finale can get. Instead of making brand new friends it felt as if I was losing some old friends. I had my heart tugged more than a few times and I have to admit I shed some tears.

What I want to draw your attention to though is the last line of the show, which is spoken by Pam as everyone is leaving the office following Dwight's wedding, many leaving the building for the last time.

She said,

" I thought it was weird when you picked us to make a documentary, but all in all I think an ordinary paper company like Dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There is a lot of beauty in ordinary things, isn't that kind of the point."

What a beautiful line. What great theology. A theology of place, a theology of the ordinary, a theology of work and how God has made ordinary places, ordinary people, ordinary work and ordinary life to be filled with beauty, holiness and sacredness.

So often people have a sacred and secular division of everything in their life. Church on Sunday equals sacred, work Monday to Friday secular. Devotions equal sacred, changing diapers or cleaning the garage equals secular. Working full-time in ministry sacred, having any other job secular. It is an unholy dichotomy. One I held for a long time. This is not the view of The Bible and it is not Jesus's view. All things are spiritual and filled with God's glory and for God's glory. That view changes everything.

The Office nailed it. It captured the sacred in the ordinary. I know it was unintentional but they stumbled across God's common grace and His purposes. The Office could teach the church and Christians a thing or too. To see the sacred all around us, to experience God not just in the sanctuary but also at the copier. I know I'm not saying anything new but the line from the show was poignant. It was powerful. What if you went to work each day and realized how holy that time really is? Would it change things for you? Would you see the people that you work with and the time you have been given there differently?

Tim Keller in his book Every Good Endeavor which is about work writes,

“Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. All work has dignity because it reflects God’s image in us, and also because the material creation we are called to care for is good." 

So thanks Dwight, Michael, Pam, Andy, Jim and the rest of the gang for a great reminder! Goodbye, you will be missed.

Retro Post #2: A Youth Pastor Goes to Comic-Con

This Post originally appeared July 29, 2008

Over the last couple of days I have been getting my thoughts together about my day at San Diego Comic-Con. Comic-Con is the largest pop-culture,super-hero, fantasy, gaming, comics, freak-show extravaganza in the USA. This year I believe it attracted over 175,000 people. All of the major movie studios, video game companies, comic companies and basically anyone who creates media in America use this as a platform to push their product. It is unbelievable.

If you have never been to this event, you should go at least once in your life if just to people watch. As I walked around on the last day of the convention I continued to ask myself, "Who is going to reach these people for Jesus, and more importantly how?" Now, I'm not talking about people like me who are just fans of a lot of this stuff, but about the people who LIVE for this stuff. The people deeply immersed in this world of make believe and fantasy. How do you get to them with the gospel? I don't think the traditional church is going to quite do it. Do you think wolverine guy at the top of this post would relate to that? I don't know the answer to this question maybe you do and I would love to hear it.

I can comment on some of the things I saw there, things that the church needs to plug into to reach teens, kids and adults who are living in this world.

Passion- People at Comic-Con are passionate about what they are into. Passionate enough to spend hours and hundreds of dollars making their own costumes. Many even dress up their little babies! They drop some major bank on merchandise and collectors items and will wait in line forever to catch the latest buzz about a new movie or a game. It is a yearly "religious" pilgrimage and their level of commitment is amazing. They prepare all year for this, and this event is just an extension of who they are the rest of the year. Are we this passionate about our faith, Jesus and the church?

Community- You can write some of these people off as socially awkward (you might be right) but I can tell you that I felt a genuine sense of community and friendliness amongst most of these people. They spoke a common language, they shared heroes, there were smiles everywhere and people seemed very genuine. If you asked a question about a particular movie or comic someone always jumped in and answered you and tried to help. It was refreshing. Maybe these people aren't afraid to be themselves with each other? Do we share these things as a church?

Imagination- The creativity was amazing and not just from the media makers but from the crowd. From art, to film, graphics, design, costumes, figures, and fantastical worlds it is a tribute to the creative spirit. Do we make our teaching creative? Do we give students chances to be creative?

Hunger for Story & Heroes- People are dying for good stories. For new worlds full of risk, adventure, courage, redemption, struggle and victory. They look for heroes they can connect with, heroes who inspire them to be better than they are. People want compelling narratives, and larger than life heroes. This is where we have failed so miserably as a church but where we have so much potential. We follow the ultimate hero and have such a great story to tell, one that can be told in so many creative ways.

Emptiness and Loneliness- As I walked around I couldn't help hearing and seeing people that had in many ways failed relationally or socially in this world and so were drawn to fantasy worlds where they could be someone else or live vicariously through a character. This is not unique to the "nerds", for there are plenty of popular people at a bar somewhere doing the same thing through alcohol instead of star wars, or another "hook-up" instead of another comic book. It is all the same song, just a different tune. There is a deep pit of loneliness in our culture, of emptiness brought on by losing ourselves in things that will never truly quench our thirst. Does the church offer significance? Significance for the here and now not just salvation for someday? I wonder.

Maybe the geeks have something to teach! Listen up church.

With great power comes great responsibility.

The Death of the Ragamuffin

 

Many writers have affected my walk with Jesus over the last twenty three years, not many more profoundly then Brennan Manning. I picked up the book The Ragamuffin Gospel as a young pastor and Christian and it helped me in so many ways move away from the legalism and self-righteousness that still lived in corners of my heart. Those pesky things had been a part of the Christianity that I grew up with (not from my family) and I saw them practiced by some in my church community. Brennan's words helped dry up those dirty pools.

 Manning died on April 12 and an amazing voice both in preaching and print went silent. His death was mostly ignored even in Christian culture, which was surprising. If you haven't exposed your heart to Brennan Manning I hope that you will pick up one of his numerous books or listen to some of his teachings online. I think you will find that God speaks to you through Brennan reminding you that you are God's child, deeply loved even in the midst of being deeply flawed. You will discover a Jesus, maybe for the first time, who has pursued you for your entire life. You will find in Brennan's writings over and over again the God of the broken, the wounded, the seeekers, and the lost.

Some Brennan Manning Quotes:

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” 

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” 

“I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery. ” 

“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.” 

The following video was made to promote Brennan's last book All Is Grace. It shows Brennan in his last days and a look back on his life.

 

 

Sam To Your Frodo

Do you want to give up? Tired of trying to do anything good in this world? Feeling like it all doesn't really matter, or even if it does what can little old you do? I have felt this way a lot in the last eight months, and I have doubted my place in the big story God is telling. Maybe you feel the same.

There is a moment towards the end of The Two Towers where Sam speaks truth into the life of a dejected, beaten Frodo.

He transports him and us to a new place when He reminds Frodo of the old, old stories the ones worth remembering.

He strongly reminds Frodo why people in those stories never gave up, why they kept going.

 Sam says:

“Because there is something good in this world worth fighting for!”

The Apostle Paul said:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge, will award unto me on that day " 2 Timothy 4:7-8 (NIV)

There is still good in this world worth fighting for, never forget that!

Guinness & The Gospel

So in the category of I bet you didn't know this! Check out this little excerpt from the book The Search for God and Guinness

"Arthur Guinness was a great man of faith. Born on the estate of an Archbishop and raised a loyal son of the Irish church, Arthur lived by the words that were his personal motto: Spes Mea in Deo -- "My Hope is in God." He was deeply inspired by the revivalist John Wesley to use his wealth and talents to make the world better. Taking scripture as his guide, Arthur served the needy of his time and worked to use his gifts in honor of his God. One favorite project of his that seems confirmation of both the purity of his faith and his concern for social good: Guinness was the founder of the first Sunday Schools in Ireland.

Much of the great 250-year history of Guinness beer is a story in which wealth is gained through faith-inspired excellence and then used to serve others for the glory of God. This is what Arthur Guinness founded and this is the legacy that Guinness beer still symbolizes to this day."

As they say in Lord of the Rings. "They come in Pints!"

The Beautiful Paradox

"It is this paradox--that He is both God and human-that gives Jesus an overwhelming beauty. He is the Lion and the Lamb. Despite his high claims, he is never pompous; you never see him standing on his own dignity. Despite being absolutely approachable to the weakest and broken, he is completely fearless before the corrupt and powerful. He has tenderness without weakness. Stength without harshness. Humility without the slightest lack of confidence. Unhesitating authority with a complete lack of self-absorption. Holiness and unending convictions without the lack of approachability. Power without insensitivity. I once heard a preacher say, "No one has yet discovered the word Jesus ought to have said. He is full of surprises, but they are all the surprises of perfection."  -Tim Keller from The Grieving Sisters

Learning Who We Are

  

 “At the core of my faith belongs the conviction that we are the beloved sons and daughters of God. And one of the enormous spiritual tasks we have is to claim that and to live a life based on that knowledge. And that’s not very easy. In fact most of us fail constantly to claim the truth of who we are.” – Henri Nouwen