Stuff Jesus Digs

CNN.com - Sweet Mary, mother of God?

I think it is awesome how a dripped pile of chocolate can encourage people's faith. How many things do we pass by every day that God wants to be using to tell us He loves us?

Link: CNN.com - Sweet Mary, mother of God? - Aug 17, 2006.

Learn or Listen

I've been trying to figure out ways to articulate (put into words) the changes I'm feeling and what we're seeing in our church. We can talk for days about the details, but I think I've come up with a interesting way to look at it.

I think in the past we've focused on "Learning and Obedience". Obviously this isn't a bad thing. I think the challenge is that in me, it promotes a view that the essential part of a relationship with God is knowing all the facts. Once we have enough information we'll be able to obey perfectly.

While understanding the Word of God and study is certainly a key to being able to live a life in the God pleasing way, I don't think that obedience is all about knowing all the rules. A perspective on obedience as mostly the "Don'ts" goes along with the learning based obedience model. These are the things my kids come up with when talking about what having Jesus in your life looks like. They say, "Well, we shouldn't kill people, or be mean, or lie."

I beleive obedience should be considered in the context of a relationship with a loving God that wants to be involved in your life. The way that I think about it now is "Listen and Obey". Sure, God speaks through His Word and there are many areas that God wants to know what is right that are usually communicated in "Don'ts". But for me, the more important is the daily interaction that God wants to have with us. The things that come to mind that may be easily discounted. Depending on your experience we can call these "the prompting of the Holy Spirit", or things "God lead you to do" or "God spoke to me", or "I felt like I should" or "I felt in my heart". Regardless of words you use to describe these situations, I beleive that anyone with a heart that is open to hearing from God, will hear from him. I'm confidnent that God speaks to everyone and the question is simply if we will obey. This is how God draws us to himself both in the process of finding God for the first time, and I beleive regularly in the context of our Christian life.

At this point in my life, it could be easy to look at obedience and largely a non-issue. Sure, there are things that I struggle with, but it seems that the "Do's and Don'ts" that were big issues of obedience and failure in the past are much less. Today, the big questions of obedience are if I am really willing to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and obey. Right now, for me, these prompting sound like "go talk to that person", "go pray for that person", "go to church early for prayer" and "raise your hands in worship". I get the feeling that God is wanting a kind of relationship with us where he can interact with us on a regular basis and our responsibility is get into the place where we are aligned with Him enough that we can hear with us when he speaks.

So for me, "Listen and Obey" seems like a much better goal.

We thought the rapture came

We thought the rapture came and the cushions believed in Jesus. -Clay (Trying to explain the mysterious disapearance of all the couch cushions.)

Who God Notices

Some interesting thoughts by Pastor Justin. I love finding things in the Bible that expand our view of God and especially ones that break down the idea that everything before we know Christ is worthless. The whole concept of "story" is a beautiful one. Not only did God choose you before the foundations of the world to be his, he has been working through every aspect of our lives to draw ourselves to him.

Link: A Good Conversation by the Fire: Who God Notices.

Rees on Prayer, The trilogy is complete.

Here is the final week of Rees' talk on Prayer. It has been really exciting to see what God has been doing in our community AD Venture in the area of prayer.

Rees on Prayer 3

More Rees on Prayer

OK, sorry for the delay. Here is week two of Rees' talks on prayer. I've also figured out how to cut the file size down quite a bit.

Rees on Prayer 2

Rees on Prayer

The following is a recording of the first week of our good friend Rees Bettinger talking about prayer. This is part of AD Venture's Community Learning Ventures. If you were there, or listen to this, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Rees on Prayer

"Good job worshiping tonight"

It is really interesting the dynamics of worship in a group. At AD Venture we have a really interesting mix of "styles". All in the same room we'll have everything from a number of people sitting quietly with their eyes closed, to people standing with their hands in the air, and even at times a person or two in the back being very entouastic in their worship.

It is really interesting that God has taught me quite a bit about how to worship in recent months and it seems a big part of the deal is getting over myself and simple obedience.

There was one evening at church recently when I really felt the prompting of the spirit to throw up my hands and worship without any concern for what others would think. At that very moment while I was wrestling with God about what I thought he wanted me to do, I saw a good friend across the room do exactly what God was prompting me to do. It was a life changing moment for me on a few levels.

God seeks worshipers. God invited me to worship, and while I was being too self-centered to simply obey, God was speaking to others. How many times has God passed me over because I don't simply obey when he asks? Does it work on the same way in Churches? Is the reason we don't see God work in the way we know he can because we corporately don't listen and obey his promptings to worship?

God communicates with us. I'm convinced that evening was much more that just a cooincidence. I'm comfortable with the idea that God can speak (prompt, "put something on our heart", nudge, encourage, or however you are comfortable with saying that God communicates etc.) to individuals. Seeing Him so clearly saying the exact same thing to more than one person in the room motivated me more than ever to figure out how to listen more and obey.

I'm learning more than ever how so many of these complex issues of faith come down to simple obedience. Perhaps it is similar to spiritual gifts where they only grow if we use them. It would make complete sense that the amount that we experience God's presence in worship is directly related to our ability to get over ourselves and simply obey his promptings to cast all aside and worship Him.

Link: ysmarko.

SHLOG: ON THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE

I've joked with a few friends lately that I've come the the realization that I'm not going to be Bono (of the band U2) when I grow up. Reading through his reponses to some very pointed questions about Jesus, the Bible and Christianity makes me even more impressed with the guy. In talking about the Bible Bono says, "I want to be around immovable objects. I want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me." It is really great how he is real and honest about his faith and there is absolutely nothing packaged and clean about it. Still at the same time, it is very clear that he loves and has a relationship with Jesus. Bono, you rock! Link: SHLOG: ON THE COVER OF THE ROLLING STONE.

PBS on The Emerging Church

Interesting how the media seems to be able to do a better job articulating Emergent that those of us who would claim it as our own. This PBS story seems to do a great job of expressing the heart behind emergent while also including the thoughts of a concerned professor. I'm sure it would have been easy to find someone who was very critical of emergent. I'm pleased they settled on "concerned". Link: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER STORY . The Emerging Church, Part One . July 8, 2005 | PBS.