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By the Pool

I recently returned from a trip to Israel. It was my first. I have been a pastor for over 25 years now but I had never been to the Holy Land. Everything I had preached and taught in my career lived somewhat in the abstract because I was teaching about events that happened in a time and a galaxy far far away.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago. A few weeks ago my feet walked where the Lord of everything walked, my eyes gazed at the same hills as Him and I laid my head down at night in the same land as my Savior.

It was overwhelming. I will never forget it. It changed me.

When I was preparing for the trip I was very excited to see the places where Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, to see the places that held the moments that are the foundation of my faith, my life.

Christ died HERE, and He rose again HERE. In these spots! How can it not be amazing?

Yet it wasn't. Why? Because those places have been covered over by gaudy, ornate, dark churches which don't feel like Jesus at all. In fact it was in those places that He felt far away, covered over by tradition and architecture. Those places where beautiful (in a way), just disappointing. Just so not Jesus. Do you understand?

Where I saw Him, felt Him and was moved by Him were in the small places, the intimate places, the humble places and sites we visited. One of those was the Pool of Siloam.

 The Gospel of John says in chapter nine:

As he(Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

The Pool of Siloam was found in 2004. It had been buried by time and a sewage pipe (Not kidding). Only about a third of it has been excavated to this day. It is not fancy, it is visited by a few not millions. Nobody makes pilgrimages to this site.

It was in small places like this where I saw Him. I saw the person I know. The person I love.

So I sat on the steps where 2000 years ago a man who had an encounter with Jesus had his life changed forever. We share that in common. A man from Nazareth opened both our eyes, one with mud and love the other with grace and truth. Blind but now we see!

So I sat by the pool and gave thanks for the One who brings sight to the blind in forgotten places like this for people like me.

A Man Named Chris

I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, and someone you should get to know. His name is Chris Brown. No not that Chris Brown! Chris and I met in Ensenada, Mexico when I was there with my high school students on a mission trip with Azusa Pacific University and Mexico Outreach around 1999 or 2000. Chris was our speaker for the week. My kids loved him, I loved him. I will never forget the one night he preached with a huge sombrero on his head, funny stuff. Chris has a way of telling stories that captivates an audience.

I got to know Chris as a friend and he came out to Pittsburgh to speak for a concert event I did with Sonicflood, I also lined him up to speak to my youth group and at another event in Pittsburgh. I got to show him around the Burgh and just hang out and of course eat at Primantis. He and I kept in touch over the years and I went out to visit him in LA a couple of times, once when I was an extra in the original Spider-Man movie. Good times. At the time he was a youth pastor in Pomona, California.

Chris now works at North Coast Church (9000+ people) near San Diego where he is one of the Senior Pastors. He is one of the most dynamic communicators I have ever heard and one of the most genuine, down to earth pastors I know. He for the most part has flown underneath the national radar, and I always wondered how that was possible because he was so talented. Well that is all about to change.

Chris is a featured speaker for the Global Leadership Summit which is the largest gathering of church and business leaders in the world. The summit is broadcast all over the USA and overseas. I am so excited for Chris. He is on the list with Colin Powell, Bill Hybels, Patrick Lenceoni and many more. I hope you get to hear him, if you don't go HERE to listen to his sermons, you wont be disappointed.

Or follow him on twitter @_chris_brown 

Congrats Chris, I'm pumped for you! Come back to the Burgh sometime.

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.

Car Wash Suffering

The other day myself and the three kids were out driving and as we approached a car wash the kids erupted in the back "Wash Car Dad! Wash Car!" Just so you know the kids have always called it "Wash Car" and we just never really corrected them, so it is still "Wash Car". So I pulled in and they were very excited. Windows up, doors shut for the Supreme $9 wash. All was well, except with Jacob my nearly 2 year old. He was tentative as we entered the wash car...I mean car wash, and as soon as the soap covered all the windows, the cautious look on his face, was replaced by a sad face, which then went to a crying face filled with sheer terror. We are only 20 seconds into the car wash!

No matter what I did to try and calm him or distract him, he wasn't buying it. Tears were streaming down his face as his brother and sister tried to consol him. He then started to say with his very limited vocabulary  "All done, All done" over and over again, trying to will this evil from continuing, to end his personal apocalypse. It was heartbreaking but there was nothing I could do. It was also the first time I had ever heard him say those two words together, so I knew he was serious. If I would have captured this with my phone I could have gone viral.

He only stopped when the windshield cleared and he could see outside, then he just said one word, "Go!". He wanted out of there more than Andy Dufrane wanted out of Shawshank!

As we drove away I began to reflect on the last ten months of my life and all of the suffering and pain that has invaded it. I am still not sure what it has taught me except that I knew nothing about real pain and suffering until this time. I had been around it for so many years as a pastor but somehow felt shielded or seperated from it like I had miraculously managed to walk between those raindrops.

Suffering really makes no sense to me, and has at times left my faith as dry as a piece of bread left in the sun. Yet I keep crawling back to that same faith, that same God looking for answers. Many people have done this in history, searching for an answer to what I believe is a question that nobody has really ever truly answered and probably never will. Talk to Job, see if he was satisfied with what he got or many of the people I have walked with thru tradgedies and heartbreak.

C.S Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed:

"Meanwhile, where is God? . . . When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him . . . if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become . . ."

I could throw scripture out at this moment, because I'm a pastor and isn't that what we are supposed to do? End this post with some piece of Biblical wisdom that will wrap a nice bow around the pile of garbage. I could try to turn this season of suffering into something that fits into a nice flowery Hallmark card  or an annoying refrigerator magnet or give you some theology of this broken world that makes it all logical.

But I won't, I will just say "All Done, All Done."

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.

Jesus and Spandex (Christian Stuff of the 80's) Chapter #4

CARMAN

*So yes I have to admit that I was a fan of Carman but wasn't every Christian in the 80's at one time! Don't be a hater! We used to do a skit to Carman's song THE CHAMPION at the summer camp I went to, it was always a camp favorite.

Carman was born in Trenton, New Jersey. As a child he played drums in his mother's band. Then as a teen he formed his own group. Around the age of 20, he moved to California

While attending an Andraé Crouch concert, Carman became a born again Christian, and embraced evangelicalism. In 1980, he made a custom album titled God's Not Finished with Me. The following year, he was invited by Bill Gaither to tour with The Bill Gaither Trio. After relocating to Tulsa, Oklahoma, he released a moderately successful eponymous debut album (later issued as Some-o-Dat) in 1982—which contained mostly novelty songs. Then with the release of the live album Sunday's On The Way in 1983, began a string of CCM chart successes beginning with the title song. As he continued his musical career, Carman established the non-profit organization Carman Ministries. With the 1985 release of The Champion came his first number one song, of the same name. Another live album—Radically Saved—came in 1988. Then 1989 brought Carman his first number one album—Revival in the Land.

Between 1987 and 1989, he was named Charisma magazine's readers' choice for favorite male vocalist. In 1990 and 1992, Billboard Magazine recognized Carman's influence in Christian music by naming him the Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year and in 1995 he recorded his first album in Spanish-Lo Mejor-which includes some of the already recorded songs like Who's in the House and The River. In 2000 the album Heart of a Championcame out with 30 of his best songs including new songs. In 2007 he updated his catalog with Instrument Of Praise, which saw him exploring the new musical styles of the time.

He has received 15 gold and platinum albums and videos and has sold over 10 million records. He holds the world record for the largest solo Christian Concerts in history with 80,000 attendees for a Charlotte, North Carolina show, and 71,132 indoors at Texas Stadium, as well as the largest ticketed CCM solo concert with 50,000 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Pray for Carman who is battling life-threatening cancer.

 

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.

 

 

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