Month: April 2013

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I Have a Little Problem

My problem is that I really think Jesus meant what He said. This isn't usually a problem on things that I like or view as easy (though often the easy things aren't that easy afterall). The problem comes with things that I don't like or are really dificult to do. Then it would be so much easier if Jesus just didn't really mean what He said. Today is an example of such a situation. You see Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:43-45a

Sounds really nice and sweet and it usually is such. This command is usually something that I can easily follow. I tend to be a forgiving guy.

Then there are days like today and I remember this means people like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who planned and set off the bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I have a really difficult time wrapping my mind around acting in loving manners to Dzhokar, who appears to be finally in custody, and his brother who is now dead. How do I respond in love to someone who killed and hurt innocent people in a terrible act of terror? How do I love these guys who have struck fear in the heart of an entire city? Selfishly, as a runner how do I respond in love to someone who has done this to an event I love? Jesus's love was and is specific and sacrificial. He practiced what He preached. He loved those who were literally hurting Him and He still does. So how do I love these guys who have done things that are incrediblly evil?

It would be so much easier if Jesus simply didn't mean some of the things He said. But He did mean them. So how do I, as followers of Jesus Christ, seek justice (which I believe we should) while still responding in love? What does this love look like? I am sure it doesn't look like hate.

 

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False Flag

This tweet made me laugh.

Thankfully I haven't felt the need to de-friend anyone over them going all false-flagish concerning the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Nice to know that most of my friends aren't wackos … well at least in this manner.

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The Church & Aspergers

Because of being married to one of the most impressive human beings in all of creation I have recently become very interested in how people with Aspergers relate to the church. Pam does some fascinating things with people who have Aspergers as a part of her work. Since the Trinity is the central theology for all of my thought and faith I find the reality of people who long for social interaction but have to deal with various amounts of inability of dealing with social interaction compelling. There are tons of resources and people on the web who can give great definitions of Aspergers Syndrome. I am not one of those people. What I know I have learned from Pam and from limited engagement with a few people who have told me they have Aspergers. What I understand from my limited experience is that people with Aspergers usually struggle with social engagement because of an inability to get many of the rules of social engagement that the rest of us naturally pick up on. This is a very limited definition that I know some of you could expand on better than I can. Anyhow, this inability doesn’t mean that people with Aspergers do not want social interaction, in fact Pam has told me that they often long for it. Something can be fearful and longed for at the same time. Since I believe that we were created in the image of a God who is social in His very nature I find this whole situation compelling. How does the church help someone who fears and has trouble with social situations and yet desires and needs social interaction?

I don’t have the answer. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think through possible options. The one I want to try right now comes from a podcast I was listening to. In it the speaker talked about giving a lecture at Microsoft and he was upset by the fact that all the software engineers who were supposed to be listening to his lecture had their heads down in their laptops instead. He mentioned this to someone and was told they were watching a webcast of his lecture. Turns out it was more comfortable for these engineers to watch a webcast of him than to look him in the eyes all the time. A couple of “thread” programmers and I are thinking about the possibility of an app that would display a webcast of our Sunday night gatherings along with the scripture, lyrics, and PowerPoint slides. Would this make the social aspect of church easier for someone with social anxiety issues. Not sure but I am intrigued by it.

I believe the God who is community in and of Himself wants us to do whatever we can to help others connect to His community. Even if this means participating with the community through a screen instead of eye contact.

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Too Fundy for My Progressive Friends

I've said for a few years a line that I am sure I stole from someone which goes like this:

My conservative friends think I am a bleeding heart socialist and my liberal friends I am a raging fundamentalist.

In the past I have probably been around more of my conservative friends and used to being on the more liberal edge of the friendships ideological spectrum. Recently, however, I have been spending a good bit more time with some of my more liberal friends and it has reminded me just how conservative I am. I was told by one of those friends last week that I was a fundamentalist. This person didn't say this trying to be mean and I didn't take it as an insult. It was just a statement in the conversation concerning each of our beliefs. I don't know if I have ever been referred to as a fundamentalist. It just took me off guard. I guess Pam will have to start dressing different since she is apparently married to a fundamentalist pastor.

 

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Inexpensive Lewis

I was pretty pumped when Adny Leininger sent me a link to some very inexpensive C.S. Lewis ebooks. I don’t usually buy ebooks for books that I want to keep and have in my library BUT this is C.S. Lewis and I have all of his non-medieval literary criticism works already. The ebooks are just for ease of reading and at $2.50ish I am pretty okay with buying a couple. Several of these are on my constant re-read list. Especially “Till We Have Faces,” I’ve lost count concerning how many times I have re-read it.

So here they are:

Inexpensive Lewis. You have to love it.

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Boston Marathon Bombing

I don’t really have anything substantial to add to all that has been said and continues to be said about the bombing that took place during the Boston Marathon today. I’ve read some amazing thoughts concerning it. I’ll just add a few tweets.

https://twitter.com/ConnerHabib/status/323931860050771968

I posted the following to Tapestry’s facebook page asking for the members of Tapestry to start praying for the church in the Boston area:

Threads, I am sure so many of you are already praying for Boston – for those who have been hurt, for those who are taking care of loved ones and friends, and for those who feel that their entire world has been shaken and no longer feel that there is any hope. Please add the churches of Boston to your list. Pray that the “bride of Christ” (a.k.a the church) will respond in such a manner that all around see proof of a loving God who cares for Boston and the entire world. Pray that our sisters and brothers in Boston risk more than any one thinks is prudent, care more than anyone thinks is possible, and love more than most have ever experienced. Let us support our brothers and sisters in Boston as they respond to crisis in the name and love of the crucified One. They bear His image in the midst of pain and anguish. It is our job to lift them up.

I don’t know why but as a marathoner this whole thing is affecting me different from than the other violent and stupid things that seem to regularly happen in our world. Not worse. Just different. I keep finding myself thinking that Pam and the boys would have been trying to stand near the finish line so they could see me finish and how would I live with myself and something happened to them while they were trying to support me. I find myself thinking about If I had been there and finished I would have been dealing with strange feelings or, on the other hand, dealing with the feelings of having been there and not finished and feeling guilty about thinking like that when people have lost their lives. The running community is such a wonderful fraternity of people. I have no doubt that some amazing examples of support and perseverance will come from what some nut meant to be horrific.

For now I guess I will pray for Boston.

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Harbor Frieght & Evangelism

harbor freight

I am fairly sure I just changed a friend’s life. How, you ask? Well I simply told him what I liked about Harbor Freight. If you aren’t familiar with Harbor Freight let me take a moment and change your life too. Harbor Freight is the home of cheap tools. I mean really cheap. These aren’t tools that I would want to stake my livelihood on but they are more than adequate for the vast majority of hobbyist type projects that I work on and as I said they are CHEAP. Most of the projects I work on don’t require tools that can support Sherman tanks or handle fighting alligators or withstand the fiery gaze of Donald Trump’s arrogance. If I needed tools for such endeavors I would buy better quality tools elsewhere. The majority of the projects I work on require tools that can manage the task 7 or 8 times. I don’t want to pay premium prices for a tool that I will only need a few times in my life. So that is where Harbor Freight comes in, when I need a tool more often than renting it would justify but not often enough to put up with the cost of a premium product.

I believe my dad was the one who introduced me to Harbor Freight but it could have been any number of other friends who told me about the benefits of these cheap tools. Since someone else introduced me to Harbor Freight I like to return the favor and introduce others. I don’t have to convince people or prove to them that Harbor Freight is great. I haven’t experienced a debate yet during any of these conversations. Instead I merely tell them of the benefits I have experienced from Harbor Freight and show them the website or a flyer. People see pretty quickly what they could do for cheaper with Harbor Freight tools.

In the Christian culture this is called evangelism and in my opinion it is far too often focused on trying to convince someone else why they should believe as you do. I don’t really think Jesus needs His followers to convince others to believe in Him. He doesn’t need us to have brilliant arguments for faith or wonderful arguments to convince the unconvinced. Instead I think He wants His followers to simply share the amazing things He has done and is doing in their lives. If we share the good that the “good news” of the kingdom of God has done and is doing in our lives I am pretty convinced that many more people will see the benefit of knowing Christ and want that relationship with Him.  This requires that we actually tell people about what God has done in our lives rather than just assuming they will eventually ask.

We evangelize for (i.e. share the good news of) so many other things in our lives. From our favorite coffee house (Emy J’s), to our favorite chili dog place (my home), to our favorite author (C.S. Lewis), to the breed of dog we like best (basset hounds of course) we share their benefits and goodness so easily. In fact we usually enjoy sharing these benefits. Why would we treat our faith, what I believe to be most important, any differently. If you are a believer then be an evangelist. You were made for this purpose. Tell someone else about the good you have experienced because of Jesus in your life. I believe it should be just as easy as telling someone about Harbor Freight and Jesus will make a much bigger difference in their life. I think you will probably find yourself enjoying doing this.

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I'll Get This Elmo Eventually

better stick men.jpg

A year and a half ago I bought a used Elmo document projector. I actually got a really good deal on it – $49. I was really excited about it because I thought I could use it effectively during sermons. I’ve only used it a few times for preaching and unfortunately I feel like I have used it only once in an effective manner. The other times haven’t been a waste, they were just examples of imperfect use. Tonight I used the Elmo again at Tapestry in another NON-exemplary use but I think I have finally figured out how to consistently use it in an effective manner. What I figured out tonight was that I need to practice my drawings before I use the Elmo and my drawings need to be large and simple.

sermon.jpg

The image to the right is what I drew during the message. The only parts that I feel like really helped the message are the two pages on the bottom of the image. These drawings were big and simple and that’s exactly what seemed to work well in communicating what I was talking about. The top part of the image on the right is filled with smaller images and stick people that I used during the message. Those smaller and more complicated images didn’t really help the message much. Way to small. Next time I am going to draw much bigger images and use many more pages to do so.

I am also going to practice all of my drawings before the message. I had the entire message figured out but I didn’t really practice the drawings before delivering it. This meant I was trying to figure out how to draw something while I was actually talking about it. Not a very good idea. One of the “threads” decided to help me draw better stick figures and gave me some examples (the image on the top of this post). Her stick people look much better than my stick people do. My stick people were so pathetic that I believe they were actually a distraction. So next time I use the Elmo I am going to draw out the entire message on a practice run first and use big, simple images. I think that will make it more effective.

We’ll see if I am correct.

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Stories of {un}Faithfulness

judges title copy

So the threads have spoken and the next messages series at will be on the book of Judges. It will also be much shorter than the series on the Gospel According to Mark. Right now I have outlined about 8 weeks. I imagine I’ll end up adding a week or two at most.

I love the book of Judges because it is full of amazing stories of faith and unfaithfulness. In includes some amazing stories of God using unlikely people, including two of my personal favorite such stories: 1) the story of Ehud, and 2) the story of Jael. This is going to be fun. Ehud brings out the middle school boy in me and if Pam and I had bee blessed to have a daughter I would have pushed for her name to have been Jael just because I think she is an example of a strong woman.

Anyhow it starts this Sunday night.