A Parable

Rick is new to the coffee house. He has begun to spend a lot of time using the coffee house and free Internet as his office (which is why I'm here). Today he brought in his guitars. Although not very compatible to the music playing in the background he is very good with the strings. I have had a couple of short conversations with him but nothing deep and nothing tapping into the obvious life journey he has had, which he wears on his face and demeanor. So while playing one guitar I went picked up the other one and we had a little jam session. It was good times but the conversation that followed was better.

I did get to hear some of his story and as I thought it included a period of time he called himself a "Christian" or "Jesus dude" as he said it. He has walked away from "Christianity" because he was disappointed by it while part of a church, living in San Diego. It was also obvious that Rick had little clue about what the Bible actually taught or any kind of biblical-centered theology. To him God is in everything and we can do miracles everyday because a piece of God is in us.

He didn't grow up Christian he said "Jesus just made sense". On the first Sunday living in his new apartment he was woken up by drumming. Being a musician he followed the sound and found himself living right across from a church. The building didn't look like a church and the people seemed cool so he stayed.

Each week the church hosted a dinner. While all this was happening a friendship had developed between an ex-sunglass model who had become homeless. Rick described him as "drinky and stinky". One week Rick invited his new friend to the weekly church dinner. He thought it would help this guy out. He could get fed and he might even get some help for his situation. Rick brought him to dinner and the leaders asked Rick's friend to leave because he was a bother to the others. They sent him to the dumpster where they "compassionately" brought food out to him.

Rick couldn't believe it. He was confused. Angry. Embarrassed. He left the dinner and went out to the dumpster and ate with his friend. He never returned to any church. He has chosen to figure out what following Jesus looks like alone alone. He justifies his position because of the hypocrisy of the people in that church.

I just said, "I'm sorry for what that church did." I also told him the hypocrisy of the followers doesn't mean the leader is a fake. Responding like this will allow future conversations.

I walked away in thought as a "theologian". Jesus condemned the religious around him for their puffed up knowledge and their lack of humility. This was a parable being told to me. Which one understood following Jesus? The church with the right knowledge or Rick and his immature theology?

[Before you send me a bunch of e-mails on the importance of solid theology know you are speaking to the choir. I am a hammer when it comes to solid theology. This is meant to shake our solid theology into solid humble action and grace.]

Why Piper loves the doctrine of grace

He says things so simply and yet so profoundly helpful. At the expense of losing people who read this blog...you should all be reading his.

"Why I love the doctrine of grace"

Everything is amazing, no one is happy

I had a professor once that explained that we only laugh at what is true. This is prime example. You'll laugh because it's you just admit it.

Via scotteriology.

Easy to laugh at...harder to see in myself.

This picture is a metaphor for so many things. In how many ways do people want others to think they are a mansion but if one would only walk through the front door they would see the shack of their heart and soul.

Jesus nailed it,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence...Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Matthew 23:25-27

see more Epic Fails

Even The Writers of Scripture Were Not Immune

"To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me..." Psalms 28:1

Every person in every generation has hoped to be heard by God, especially when everything is on the line. Every person has wondered (except for Jesus) if God is hearing, if God cares. U2 sings like this, "Jesus can you take the time, to throw a drowning man a line." It easy to ask this question when we read the Bible and we see God having full on conversations with people. We may develop the perspective God talked to everyone this way. We may think, "It must have been easy for the those in the Bible, they heard God speak!"

It seems like God spoke audibly to everyone back in the day and something is different now but this is not the case. We have the record of a few people over a 1000 years God communicated with directly in special ways. After Adam and Eve in the garden, we have no record God every said anything to them for the rest of their life. Hundreds of years past until Noah was called by God to build an Ark, and for the 100 years he built it God was silent. Generations sped along until out of the blue Abraham was called out by God. Remember there were long gaps in God communicating with people. What about all the people in between? What were they wondering? They may have been wondering what we are tempted to wonder, "If God there?" For one more illustration. Between the last time God spoke in the Old Testament and when Jesus was born, 400 years went by and God was silent.

This is why David before being King of Israel, on the run from enemies, could write what he did in Psalms 28:1, "Do not be deaf..." He's talking to God. He is calling out and he wants to know God is going to hear him and rescue him. He felt like I have felt and like you have felt, wanting God to show up so badly but tempted to be disappointed when he doesn't.

The key here is he doesn't show up like we want him too, but he has showed up in a thousand ways already today. How did the sun rise today? How do we have his words in the Bible to us? How is your heart beating? How many thousands of miracles will happen in surgery today? How many people will come running to God as their father for the first time today because God heard their cry for forgiveness and life?

I like how David ends this song. He says in verse 6 and 7, "for he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped" Notice he doesn't say God made it all alright. His heart trusts the ears of God hear him and that the heart of God is for him, even when God seems far. Do you see what he is doing? He is dying to the way he thinks God should work and trusting in the way God IS working.

We have all prayed hoping God hears us, even the writers of the Bible are not immune but David's faith was built on who God IS, and will for him and not on what God would do FOR him. Are you trusting in what God can do for you or trusting if who God is apart from you? Be encouraged. I hope you can answer the question David asks in verse 1 with the answer David gives in verse 6 and 7.

Enter the mind of Dan Brown

Want to beat Dan Brown to the next big conspiracy? Check out this conspiracy generator that will transport you into the mind of Dan Brown and view the world through his spectacles of irrationality. In fact, I bet William Young (The Shack) is really Dan Brown in disguise.

Enjoy, this is a lot of fun...

See it HERE

(photo from www.brianrayfiction.com)

Liturgy Gone Wild

From the very beginning of our church with those who met in my living room, we asked the question, "What does Jesus command of the church?" Nearly everything else is flexible. So at Origin we hold tightly to what Jesus asks of his people and we hold everything else (form, style, preference, clothes, time) with an open hand.

I'm guessing this church didn't ask this question because if they did they would have realized the early church didn't commit themselves to breaking bread, fellowship, the apostle's teaching, prayer, worship and PUPPETS.