NewChurch Messages

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PM

“The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached” Jonah 3

/ , , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-Art2
Click for Podcast

This is the third week of our Jonah teaching series. If you have missed any of the other weeks then I encourage you to listen to the podcast and get caught up. They include both Kemper’s part and my part. In fact, there have been about a thousand downloads of the NewChurch messages so far. You can catch up on any of the weeks that you might have missed. It’s a great way to put your smartphone to work redeeming the time you’re stuck in traffic.

Here’s a quick recap: Jonah was an Old Testament prophet, God told him to go to Nineveh and tell them to repent. He didn’t want to, so he got on a ship and headed in the other direction. God sent a storm. Jonah was swallowed by a sea monster, which gave him a change of perspective. He is vomited onto the beach and that’s where we find him this week. He’s going to have a second chance to do what God told him to do in the first place.

Jonah Chapter 3 verse one:
Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you. This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh.”

Jonah repented. What does repentance look like?

To “repent” means to “turn around.” It’s like when you are using a GPS and take a wrong turn. Recalculating route. For a while it usually just tells you to turn around, make a U-Turn. If you don’t turn around, eventually you will get so far off track that it will take a different route altogether. I think that’s kinda how it is with God, too. We start following Jesus and we’re like a little kid, “Where’re we going? When are we going to get there? Are we there yet?”

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PMI always told my kids the same thing when they asked that. I said, “We’ll never be there. We’ll always be here.” Of course that didn’t help at all. They just figured out different ways to ask the same question.

We always want God to tell us exactly what the plan is but He is stubbornly vague. I think God leads us more like a GPS than a Rand McNally folded map. He only tells us the next turn and He won’t even do that unless we keep moving.

So Jonah got his solar powered Garmen Tom Tom hooked up to his camel and set a course for Nineveh, 500 miles in the exact direction he did not want to go. His internal monologue was probably something like, “Oh goody. Let’s bake in the sun for a month or so, just so we can stand in the public square of the Nazi terrorist capital city and tell them all about how God is going to destroy them if they don’t stop being mean to everybody. Sounds like fun, I’m sure it will go over really well. I wonder if they will impale me on a spike right away or just knock me in the head and let their dogs lick up my blood? It doesn’t say he whined and moaned the whole way there but there’s a pretty good chance he did. They were probably out of air conditioned camels by the time he got to Budget Rentals in Joppa. It was a suckfest no matter how you look at it. The trip probably didn’t put him in a better mood.

Grumpy or not, the mission hadn’t changed. He still didn’t want to go but he was going to surrender to what God wanted. He had been shown grace, and obedience looked different now. He was a little less selfish. Going to Nineveh wasn’t on Jonah’s bucket list but life isn’t about a bucket list, it’s not about our big self indulgent plans.

Look at it this way, before we were following Jesus, when we were dead in our sin, selfish as hell, wandering around wherever our hunger drove us—like extras on the Walking Dead—we thought it was all about us. Our plans, our dreams, our desires, whatever we thought we wanted, whatever we thought was good for us. The things we want are seldom good for us. The irony is that being self focused is actually self destructive.

In the second chapter of Ephesians it says,

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our sin—it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by our works. For we are God’s handiwork (His masterpiece), created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

God gives us faith, He opens our eyes, opens our ears, makes us alive, and invites us to walk with Him. As we go, we find there are things He has prepared for us to do. This is where we will actually find freedom. It’s when we focus on God’s plans, and the work He’s called us to do that we will find a purpose that will resonate with us. When we repent of our selfish ambitions and embrace His plans, His dreams and His desires, surrendering whatever we thought we wanted for the much more satisfying and meaningful bucket list He has in mind for us. That’s where the abundant life begins.

We think we want to do things our way but our way destroys our relationships, squanders our money, wrecks our family, and wastes our career. We either surrender all these things to God or He will work through circumstances to discipline us toward HIS way—getting us back on track. Recalculating route. The mission is always the same, we’re supposed to worship God, and love people. Life makes more sense when we don’t make it all about ourselves.

So after a month in the desert, Jonah pulled into town, got off his camel and gave the most effective evangelistic message the world has ever known. At the end of his sermon somewhere around 200 thousand Ninevites repented and believed. If you look at numbers alone, it was more effective than any tent revival, more than the apostles in the Book of Acts, even more than Jesus Himself preaching the Good News.

But no one studies Jonah for preaching tips. Here was his epic message, all eight words, ““Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” That was it. No funny stories, no sermon illustrations, no three points of alliteration to make it memorable. Just, ““Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” He was kind of like a cartoon homeless guy holding a sign saying “The End is Near!”

And it worked. In spite of the most “phoned in” message the world has ever known. In spite of him not wanting it to work. In the face of every possible reason why it shouldn’t have worked, “The people of Nineveh believed God’s message.”

They didn’t impale him. They didn’t threaten him. They just believed him. They “turned from their evil ways and stopped all their violence.” They even made their animals fast from eating and drinking and put sackcloth on them. They didn’t want to take any chances, they were hoping God would show them mercy if they repented. God heard them and gave them grace, just like He gave grace to Jonah. Next week we’ll find out how Jonah feels about how effective his preaching ministry had been. Spoiler alert: He is not pleased with the results.

Here’s a couple things I want us to think about:
First, our motives don’t have to be pure to do God’s mission. Obedience is enough. You might not feel like having that awkward conversation about Jesus, or inviting someone to join our NewChurch launch team, or calling out a close friend to repentance when they are in sin. You might not think they’ll listen to you, or that it will do any good at all but the results are not our job, our part is just to surrender and do it anyway. It’s not our responsibility to make it effective.

If God gives you a mission He will also provide the power to make the mission work. We dig up the ground, plant the seeds, and pull the weeds, but we can’t do anything about making it rain or bringing the seeds to life and causing them to grow. That’s God’s part. Our job is to go and to say the words, it’s His job to make faith in the heart of the hearer. He is the One who gives life.

Jonah’s message was lame but God used it to call hundreds of thousands of people to faith and repentance. When we speak God’s Word to people, even when we are reluctant and poorly paraphrase what it really says, even if we’re not feeling it in the moment—He will also use us to call people to faith and repentance.

The next time you are afraid to speak up and tell someone something—maybe you feel the Holy Spirit gently nudging you, or maybe not so gently—remember Jonah. He didn’t want to, he did a poor job, and God made it work anyway. He became the world’s greatest evangelist.

This is good news because it means it’s not up to us. Whether NewChurch grows into something beautiful and amazing or not is up to God. Our job is to show up and be faithful, speak to people and invite them to join us following Jesus. It’s not our job to convince anyone, we can trust God to bring the mission alive in their hearts just like He has done in ours.

May God give us boldness. May He use us to call people to faith and repentance. May we be faithful in what He has called us to do, and may we take it to heart with great comfort that none of this is about us or up to us. AMEN

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PM

When We are Going Through a Hard Situation. (Jonah 2)

/ , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
Click for Podcast

Gaining Perspective through dark times.

We started this story last week so if you didn’t hear it, I’d recommend that you go back and listen to the podcast. To recap quickly though, Jonah was a prophet who didn’t want to do his job. He knew what God was telling him to do, and he said “nah.” It was a punk response, but we all do the same thing every day, maybe not on quite as big a scale. Scale. Get it? Jonah was supposed to go to Nineveh and tell them to repent so God could save them but he ran the other way, got in a boat to get as far away from Nineveh as possible and God caused a storm to turn him around. He wasn’t willing to turn around so Jonah is thrown into the sea hoping to die rather than obey but God saved him in a rather unexpected way instead. Big scaled submarine ride.

God saved Jonah in a really strange unbelievable way. He saves us in a strange unbelievable way, too. A giant sea monster might be scary and weird but so is death and atonement by the crucifixion of the Son of God. Point is, when we run from God He will pursue us with deadly force. He will release the Kraken.

Jonah 1:17 “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

Is it hard to believe this kind of thing? Are you so distracted by the implausibility of what happens in the story that you almost can’t hear what God is saying? You might be thinking, “Those kind of things just don’t happen—I’ve never seen it.” You know, God kinda knows this is a remarkable story, it’s probably why He make sure to put it in His book. It’s not supposed to be understood as an everyday event. “If I had a nickel for every time someone got swallowed by a leviathan I’d…well, I still wouldn’t have a nickel.” The question with miracles is not whether they are possible as part of a normal scientific occurrence, but whether we actually believe in the God who created the natural order and can bend the rules once in a while if He wants to. That’s why they are called “miracles.”

Did any of you see the video that was going around where that baby was pulled out of the rockpile? Seven or eight men are digging with their hands, lifting massive stones out of a collapsed pit, they are yelling and frantically working to rescue a baby that was buried several feet beneath rocks, gravel and dust. It seemed impossible that a child could survive under all that jagged weight but after who knows how long—the video is seven minutes long but they had started before the camera was rolling—in an unbelievable moment they pull a perfectly alive and seemingly unharmed baby from out of the pit. It did not look possible. Sometimes strange things happen.

What happened to Jonah was strange but it happened.Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PM

Did Jonah deserve to be saved? What was it about his rebellious attitude and suicidal tendencies that earned him the steadfast love of the Creator of the Universe? He disobeyed God and made it clear that he would rather die than be used to possibly save the lives of six-hundred-thousand Ninevites. There was nothing noble or good about his actions or his intentions.

When God saved Jonah it was completely by grace. We actually hate grace. Grace is when people are rewarded when they don’t deserve it. Grace is unfair. Grace is offensive to our merit-based, karma obsessed culture. Grace is giving the sore loser with the bad attitude a first place trophy when he didn’t even finish the race. Grace is letting the bad guy go free when he is guilty and everyone knows it. Grace is what allows wretched hypocritical sinners like you and me to sit in the presence of God thanking Him for His love and mercy. Grace is only possible because of Jesus.

We are offended by grace when other people receive it but we are always thankful when it’s given to us. That’s when we think it’s amazing.

Grace doesn’t always look like grace at first. In Jonah’s case, grace was the stinky dark stomach of a sea monster. It was in that putrid suffocating disgust that he got a little perspective about the dark consequences of his dumb decisions. Ever had to deal with the consequences of a dumb decision? Have you ever had to walk through a season of darkness smelling the stink caused by the choices you made? Like breaking a relationship because of cruel words or selfish actions? You knew what the right thing to say or do was but you weren’t willing to do it. You wake up to the misery and darkness of what you’ve done and you have another choice to make. You can justify your actions, make yourself a victim and a martyr—rehearse the speech inside your head about how it’s all someone else’s fault—or you can use your time in the stench and darkness to think about how you got there and get some perspective. Maybe get a little humility. What is God saying to you? Listen to Him this time. Talk to Him. What does He want you to do about it? Does He have your attention now, or does the pit need to get deeper and darker?

Suddenly Jonah realized it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He realized in spite of what he had done that God still loved him and saved him. The difference between a happy ending and a tragedy is where you stop telling the story.

Jonah was a beloved child of God but he was being a disobedient child and God was disciplining him. Discipline is always painful in the moment but the point of discipline is to lead us someplace—to better understanding and wisdom, God is never punishing us for what we’ve done, He is always redirecting us toward being more like Jesus—who was punished, and punished for us.

Parents, it is never our job to punish our kids when they do something wrong. It may seem like semantics but our job is to love our children and discipline them, not punish them. Discipline has a goal, a redirection toward the good, at its root is “disciple” which is someone who is learning. Punishment doesn’t have the goal of making anyone better, it simply wants vengeance and make someone pay for their crime—a completely different motive than discipline. Punishment is not for the good of the person being punished.

In our lives, everything that happened yesterday helped prepare us for today, which is preparing us for tomorrow. God is always using our current situation to teach us the Kung Fu we’re going to need for our next battle. Every day God shows us His love by disciplining us toward the person He is shaping us to be. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. He loves us more than we love ourselves, too.

We seem to think, “If God loved me He would give me what I want and He wouldn’t ask me to do anything hard.” Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so let’s think about this from the perspective of a parent. Kids want to eat ice cream and candy instead of food. They want to stay up late watching TV or playing video games. They don’t want to go to school, do their housework, homework or anything else that doesn’t look like fun. They’re just not into deferred gratification as a concept or philosophy. As parents, are we better and more loving if we let them do what they want, have what they want and let them avoid doing anything hard?

The truth is, the moment we stop disciplining our kids is the moment we give up on them, and stop loving them. Here is the Gospel: God will never give up on you, He will never stop loving you, so He will never stop disciplining you. God is not a bad parent.

We hear that, we hear the Gospel—that God shows us grace, which as I said earlier, almost disgusts us with its lack of fairness—and then when we mess up by doing something bad, what is our our first reaction? It’s never to run to our forgiving Heavenly Father of mercy, but instead we run to the law to crush us further. We stew in our failure. Wallow in our guilt and shame. Kick ourselves while we are down. We hide in the dark and feel sorry for ourselves.

Jonah’s prayer in chapter two:

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying,

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.

Another word for Sheol is Hell, or place of the dead. I think this counts as a near-death experience.

For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
yet I shall again look
upon your holy temple.’

God’s people prayed facing the Temple because that was the dwelling place of God’s Presence. Jonah has a new hope.

The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.
When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

Jonah reflects on what has happened to him while he’s still inside the monster. It’s interesting to note that he doesn’t whine and complain about his accommodations but admits that it sure beats drowning at the bottom of the ocean with seaweed wrapped around his face. He’s thankful simply to not be dead. God heard his cry and saved him.

What about you? Are you in a dark place? Maybe you don’t really want to talk about it. Not even to God. I can understand that.

I was pretty lost when my band was dropped by Warner Brother in ‘95. I was so angry. I had a hard time trusting God and stayed in that pit for way too long but eventually God pulled me out of it. Last year was pretty dark for me, too—pretty much from January 2014 to January 2015. I didn’t really see the light again until I was laid off and my mom died—both in the same week actually. It wasn’t until God began to reveal this NewChurch vision to us that I started to feel joy again. But it was crying out to God from the darkness and soul searching of the past year that gave me perspective to accept what God had for me next.

What can I say today to persuade you to use your current situation to cry out to God, to let go of the selfish things you might be grasping for. To repent of the ways that you might be running from God, refusing to surrender to what He is wanting you to do. To confess your sins—really confess them—call them what they are without trying to justify them. Then talk with God, listening to Him, hearing His word.

God will give you another chance. and another. and another.

And you’ll need all of them because wherever you go, there you are. You’ll be waiting for yourself when you step out of this current hardship. In whatever way you blew your marriage, left your church, failed at your job, lost a friendship—you’ll probably do it again. Maybe not as bad next time. Maybe worse. The point isn’t to get everything right, scoring an A+ of your “doing everything holy” Jesus test. The point is to be thankful that God forgives us by grace and we get to keep trying. It probably won’t get easier, but perspective helps us to have thankfulness and humility makes it possible to keep walking and have joy.

The last verse of chapter one was Jonah being swallowed, the last verse of chapter two is this:

“And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.”

Jonah is puked up and left on the beach. I doubt if he landed on his feet. Pastor Matt reminded me that as gross as it sounds to be vomited out of a fish, the other potential exit would have been worse. We can always be thankful for the little things.

So, we’ll leave Jonah on the beach this week. He’s laying in the fetal position covered in goo like a newborn, smelling like three days of fish guts. He’s lost his luggage, and he still has a 500 mile trip to his friends in Nineveh in front of him.

There is a sense in which Jonah was born again. He rebelled against God, he was lost and dying, he was baptized, buried, shown grace and forgiveness, his tomb becomes a womb and he is reborn from the darkness into the light of a new day. It’s a wonderful picture of salvation and redemption and a great reminder that following Jesus has never been a promise of a life without trouble, pain or difficult situations.

God will call us all to do hard things. Challenging things. But He will also give us the strength and direction to see us through them. He’ll pursue us and love us, disciplining us as His dear children. His promise is a new life filled with hope and meaning.

May we cry out to the LORD in our distress, when we are surrounded by darkness. May we see our trouble as discipline, as childbirth, as being born again and again into new opportunities to do what God has called us to do. Saved us to do. Saved us to be. May we be thankful and lift our voice to praise God from whom all new beginnings flow. And may we find ourselves expectant and hopeful as we open our eyes to find we are on a sunny beach walking toward Nineveh.

AMEN

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PM

How Does God Speak to Us? (Jonah 1)

/ , , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-ArtJonah Chapter One. You might want to read the text before you continue, also Kemper Crabb taught a 15-minute Bible study before this message. They kinda go together and you can find it HERE.

Jonah was a prophet. His job was to hear the Word of the Lord and say it to the people, but when God told him to say something he didn’t want to say to someone he didn’t want to say it to, he was conflicted. In Jonah’s mind the Ninevites were terrorists and enemies. He didn’t want to tell them about God’s love and forgiveness. He wanted them to remain enemies and for God to punish them. Destroy them.

God asked Jonah to do something hard. Something he didn’t want to do. It was emotionally hard because he hated them but it was also physically hard. Nineveh was 500 miles away. He was going to have to travel by camel. I looked up how long it would take to travel 500 miles by camel and, no kidding, the first result I clicked on at ask.com said, “Too long.” That seemed about right to me so I didn’t look into it any further. I think Jonah probably felt the same way.

Jonah says “nah” and hires a ship to sail in the opposite direction to Tarshish, a wealthy port city where people lived in relative comfort and leisure.

Jonah didn’t write any of the Psalms. If he had it might have sounded something like this: “O God. You are great and wonderful, all powerful and mighty. I am your humble servant but I’m gonna take a pass on this one. No. Thanks for asking though. I really do think You’re super cool. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m gonna head on over to Rio. See you on the beach. Selah.”

“No Lord” is not an appropriate response but we say it all the time. We know what’s right but we don’t do it. We always have. Mom and dad told us to clean up our room and we kicked a few toys under the bed and piled them into the closet. When we get caught with our hand in the cookie jar we find someone else to blame. We compare ourselves to other people to make us feel better. To make us feel justified. We all become Charlie Brown and rationalize that our room is a monument of tidiness and perfection compared to Pigpen’s room. At least we’re not as bad as him. Besides, it’s not our fault that it’s such a mess. Our parents gave us too many toys, too many socks, how do they expect us to find a place for all this stuff? It’s only a mess because our brother or sister came in here and got everything out. Plus we have too much homework and we’re tired from being at school all day. It’s always someone else’s fault and we are never responsible. We can find reasons and excuses all day long to keep from doing what we know is the right thing to do. Plus, the right thing is usually harder than grabbing a bag of Doritos and watching TV.

But we know what the right thing is. We always know. God might not speak to us like He did to Jonah—most of us are not Old Testament prophets—and if you are an Old Testament Prophet then I’d like to talk with you after the service. It’s always interesting to talk to delusional schizophrenics plus I want to keep you away from the children.

For the rest of us God still speaks to us but He speaks to us in different ways.

He gave us all a conscience, an internal compass pointing us in the right direction. The problem is we can bend or break it by repeatedly ignoring what it tells us. Someone close to me once told me they believed whatever direction they were facing was South. No kidding. They retired to Florida and were last seen in Quebec Canada. It’s a lot like when we tell ourselves things like “I just follow my heart.” I have a verse for you: “The heart of man is deceitfully wicked above all things.” Don’t follow it. God may have given us a conscience but that’s only a starting place for knowing what He actually wants us to do because we have been actively warping our internal compass since we were in diapers trying to control the universe with our tears.

He also gave us His Word, the Bible. Heroes of the faith. The ten commandments. Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourself. Or in other words, “Worship God. Love People.”

But we don’t worship God or love people with all our heart, soul, mind or strength. We don’t even really try do we? If we did, what would our prayers look like? What would our singing sound like? What would our passion for knowing God’s Word be like? What things would we be doing to help people? When we say we are tired, is it really from doing the work God has called us to do with all our strength? Are we just too tired to do the right thing because we are so worn out from worshiping God and loving people?

God also speaks to us by His Spirit. This is more mysterious but anyone who follows Jesus for any amount of time will eventually hear a still small voice. Like any conversation, part of prayer, talking with God, is listening. When I get quiet and listen for God to speak He always does, but it’s never something I actually hear. It always seems like remembering that He just told me something. Like I’m praying and suddenly I have the sense that God has spoken to me, or guided me and I remember what He said. I never hear the actual words spoken—which is good because otherwise you’d probably think I was nuts. We don’t like to talk about the mysterious aspects of our faith, it makes us uncomfortable. I don’t know how it happens for other people but I believe God speaks to us when we seek Him in prayer. He will never contradict His word and usually He is simply reminding us of what He has already told us.

Of course one of the main ways He speaks to us is through people. Which is exactly what God was trying to get Jonah to do for Him.

The point is, He makes it clear to us in a number of ways what He wants us to do but we very often say “no.” The right thing is often hard and would mean we would have to leave our comfort. We have our plans and our desires and we don’t want to listen to anything that gets in our way. Most of us believe we’re entitled to follow our dreams and the desires of our heart, anything else is unAmerican.

To worship God is to bow before Him. To submit our will to His. To surrender.

Worship is surrendering our plans to God’s plans.

Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 4.10.32 PMJonah was a prophet! A freakin’ Old Testament Prophet who heard the voice of God. He was very clear about what
God said. God told him to do something he didn’t want to do and he said “no.” Before we stand in judgement over Jonah and say he was acting like a little punk maybe we need to examine our own heart.

What is God telling you to do in your life? What are you resisting? What hard thing are you ignoring?

You might be thinking, “dang, Frank, lighten up. I thought this was just a fun story about a guy who got swallowed by a fish. Why you gotta be so heavy and uncool.”

I think most people believe God is their personal Lord and genie. We think Jesus is our Life Coach. We look through the Bible for Life Hacks. Jonah’s seven secrets to personal fulfillment through submission. Our selfish motives for worshiping God are usually some form of “How can God help me fulfill my destiny. How can He help me get what I want.” Like it would be unfair and beyond reason that Jesus might ask us to abandon our plans and surrender them to His plan and His purpose.

When I was being interviewed by MTV in 1994 I didn’t think God was planning on me being a worship leader of a church in the suburbs for ten years, then starting a new ministry that will begin with lawn chairs on astro turf. I would have never anticipated or believed how glorious and fulfilling those things were going to be. I might have asked Riki Rachtman to throw me into the sea.

What if instead of looking at church and following Jesus as “what’s in it for me?” We asked a very different question, “What does it mean to be obedient to God?”

Does God want to bless you and does He want you to be happy? Sure, but His ultimate plan is not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus redeeming and saving everything. It’s not about us but the cool thing is we get to be part of it.

Just like Jonah, God has given us a mission. We might not like it but we are supposed to make Jesus known to the people all around us. They might be hostile to us, it might be hard, but we are supposed to tell them about His love and His grace, we are supposed to look for opportunities to have super awkward conversations about Jesus. We’re to invite them to church and to be part of our family—our true family. We are to pursue them for Him. As impossible as it sounds, we are supposed to love people. We need to be serving our community, finding out what’s needed and giving it. How are we supposed to love the people of Katy? What does it look like to surrender what God has given to us and be obedient in giving to God’s mission? Time? Money? Comforts?

That’s probably going to be hard for us to surrender to. But it can be even harder to pursue our own families and love them.

We are to teach our children about faith by praying with them, reading the Bible with them, talking with them about His Word. We can’t pretend like we aren’t qualified to talk about faith with our family.

We are also supposed to love each other. To love the people in this room and the people who walk through those doors. To offer forgiveness to the person who offends you. To remain in friendship with the person who hurts your feelings. It’s hard.

But it doesn’t stop there. I want to address something important that concerns us as we start NewChurch. God has called many of us to leave the comfort of our old churches and do this new ministry. Listen to me, He is not calling us to say bad things about where we came from or hold bitterness in our hearts against the people there. He is not calling us to rejoice in their suffering. Our mission is not to persuade people to leave their churches and join us here. Our mission is to find lost sheep and love them, not to steal sheep who are already under the care of a shepherd. We’re not poachers. In Illinois they used to hang sheep thieves just like horse thieves. To this day it’s still an automatic third degree felony.

Surrender to God’s will is important. Jonah found out about this the hard way, and so do most of us. When they asked Jonah what they should do he should have told them to turn the boat around and head toward Nineveh, but he chose to be thrown overboard rather than obey God. He thought God was trying to kill him and he was hoping to die.

When Angel was not quite two years old he needed dental surgery. Some of his baby teeth didn’t develope enamel and they rotted into little black nubs, this was going to cause problems for his permanent teeth. The dentist gave us the choice of strapping him to a board, head, hands legs, and body—or holding him. So, I laid in the dentist chair holding his head and arms while Kim held his legs. He screamed and cried, his face was bright red with tears pouring out of his eyes. He thought we were killing him. He did not surrender and he didn’t think what was happening was for his good.

This is the actual point of the book and it is easy to miss. God loved Jonah. Even when Jonah refused to surrender and thought God was going to kill him, God saved him instead.

Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish and as weird as that sounds, it saved him. This is a wonderful reminder of Jesus who surrendered to the Father in perfect obedience, spent three days in the darkness of death and as weird as it sounds, saved all of us.

God doesn’t give up on disobedient people. God loved Jonah no matter how much of a jerk he was, no matter how hard he fought against what God wanted him to do. Should we surrender to what God wants us to do? Yes. Will it make him love us more? No. Did I love Angel less because he fought against me?

May we listen to God’s small voice that He put inside our conscience, our spirit, in our dreams. May we hear His Word and seek to understand it, hiding it in our hearts so we might not sin against Him. Even more importantly, may we rest in the comfort that He will pursue us. When we are running from Him, like a child into traffic, He will run after us and rescue us. May we recognize His mercy and kindness even when they come to us in the form of something we don’t understand—like a great fish.  AMEN

Does Everyone Know God?

/ , , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
Click to listen

Everyone knows God. Even smartie-pants teenage boys who walk around pretending to be atheists when they are fourteen-years-old. Growing up in the 70s, I had only seen the church from the outside of the stained glass windows. I thought all the people inside were victims of group hypnosis, an elaborate prank they had played on themselves. People had inherited a God from their culture and shaped it into their own image. They got together with other people who believed roughly the same thing and when the preacher counted to three and snapped his fingers they would all say AMEN and go home.

I thought it was like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes except in this version no one could even see the Emperor. All the religious people were victims of the hoax and I was gonna be the brave, honest young boy who dared to tell the truth, pointing out what everyone else already knew in their heart—there is no God.

I probably believed in God when I was very young, I don’t really remember, but I started calling myself an atheist at about fourteen years old. I talked about it a lot and kinda liked how flustered adults would get when they heard a young boy saying he thought God was a made-up fantasy creature. I enjoyed watching the vein pop out of their foreheads as they tried to hold on to their delusion—at least that’s how it looked to me.

Some of you have heard my story before but since tonight is the official Feast of St FrankMas, I thought it would be good to read a few excerpts from the Book of Frank that explain how I went from being a rank pagan living in the faithless darkness of Central Illinois, destined to join the Children of Corn to the marvelous light of following Jesus and realizing that it is actually the unbelievers who are hypnotized and asleep. The Book of Frank is actually titled Joyride, which I’m currently finishing a final read-through and will be published soon. The only thing that has taken me longer than writing this dang book is living the life I’m writing about.

This is from a chapter called “The Beginning of Faith and Meaning.”

Joyride-Book-Cover-strat-space2-rcI felt quite superior to all the poor hypnotized masses until I saw God. I don’t mean I saw a vision or that God appeared to me in the flesh, I simply looked up at the stars one night and suddenly could no longer sustain the belief God wasn’t there. I was fourteen years old and felt so small standing in my backyard. I could feel the grass, soft as velvet, under my feet, the dirt under the grass and the air between myself and the expanse of space. I could sense the microscopic universes making up each atom which in turn make up everything that is. It all seemed too interconnected to be random. I couldn’t convince myself, given enough time and space, a godless universe could end up generating me staring at the stars trying to not believe in a God who wasn’t there. How would we ever suspect that the universe was without meaning if it was actually without meaning? My drummer friend, Jerry, said the argument for God based on the complexity of reality is not a convincing argument. He once told me he often contemplates infinity when doing something simple like reaching for a glass of water. “But I don’t believe infinity ever contemplates me,” he said. I met Jerry when I was in college and this is the type of conversation we had. I often left those conversations wondering if some part of me had just come alive or if something inside me had just died because sometimes those two things feel the same.

After I saw God, or felt Him see me, I went back inside the house. My family was sitting around the TV watching HBO, a new and amazing thing in our world. Watching movies without commercials on our television set in the privacy of our living room was our new favorite thing to do. VCRs wouldn’t be around for several more years and the idea of R-rated movies, complete with swearing and nudity on our very own television set, was irresistible. I sat down and joined them for a few minutes.

I was still thinking about God so I got up and walked over to our bookcase. There was a set of Encyclopedias, a dictionary, a copy of “I’m Ok, You’re Ok,” and the Bible. None of these books had been read except possibly the dictionary for homework. I picked up the big, white Bible with a padded cover and gold trim, carried it back to the couch and sat down. I don’t know why my family had this Bible or where it had come from but we’d had it as long as I could remember. I cracked it open. If you open a big Bible to the center you could end up in a number of places but I landed in Psalms. What I found was amazing in light of what had just happened in the backyard:

Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech, and night-to-night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

I said, “Hey, listen to this…” and read the first part out loud to them: “Have you ever read the Bible?”

“Of course!” My mom said this as though the question was an insult. “Of course I’ve read the Bible.”

But she hadn’t read the Bible, not much of it anyway. No one in our house had. I took the big book upstairs to my bedroom and started in the beginning. I was going to get to know this God who wouldn’t allow me to not believe in Him. I started in the beginning: Genesis, the creation, Adam, Eve, one fascinating story after another about God and man. I got lost somewhere in Numbers or Leviticus and skipped ahead to the New Testament and its stories about Jesus.

The affection I had for superheroes made the Gospels instantly thrilling to me. Jesus was an awe inspiring character, from his amazing birth to the way he spoke. He healed the blind and deaf, the crippled and those tormented by demons. He sent demons into a bunch of pigs and the pigs ran off a cliff. He fed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two small fish. He told stories that opened people’s imaginations and eyes to apprehend the very kingdom of Heaven. He read people’s minds, walked on water and passed through walls. I saw Jesus as the ultimate superhero, a true superhero.

So that’s how I came to faith. The universe met me in the backyard, told me there was a God and called me by name. Then I found out His name was Jesus. I know it sounds a little crazy—why would the God of the universe pay attention to some stupid kid in central Illinois? I figure if the universe is infinite and ever expanding then any point within it is as much the center as any other. Which means I am as much the center of the universe as anyone else. And so are you.

Everyone knows God. Everyone, no matter who they are, where they are, or what language they speak knows that there is a God and He is the Creator. Turn to Psalm 19 if you have a Bible to look at, and let’s walk through it line by line. Verse one…

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

What is the “Glory of God?” It’s one of those phrases that sounds like it means something but when you think about it, it kinda loses its meaning. Like when you say a word too many times and suddenly it seems like you’ve never heard the word before and gets strange. “Glory of God.” “Glory.” “Glory” sounds a lot like “gory.” “Glory days.” “Old Glory.” “Glory, glory, hallelujah!”

When I hear “Glory of God” it sounds sparkly to me. Shiny. In Hebrew the word “Glory” is “Ka-vode” (kabowd) which is sometimes translated as “honor.” Ka-vode is actually a lot like the way we use the word “heavy” — like when we are super impressed with something and say, “Whoa! That was heavy!” It means “heaviness” but is always used figuratively.

So, the “Glory of God” is His “heaviness” His abundance, riches, splendor, His dignity and reputation. Like precious gold and jewels He is beautiful, substantial, heavy, worth more than anything else. The heavens make it clear to us that God is awesome. Make sense? Heavy man! Next line…

Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.

The translation we heard earlier said it like this, “They speak without a sound or word; There is no language where their voice is not heard.” I love that, and seems to be much closer to what the Psalm is actually trying to communicate. By the way, as a side note, I like to use as many translations as possible when I’m trying to figure out what a text is actually saying. The Psalms were originally written in Hebrew which is a very concise language, it uses very few words to say things—probably easier to carve books on tablets of stone that way— in fact there are only four Hebrew words making up that entire paragraph. Four. The translation I read, the ESV, used twenty-five words to say the same thing in English. Pretty heavy, huh?

So creation tells mankind about the Glory of God without any words at all, and there is no language where it is not heard. Everyone hears it.

Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

This must have been written on a hot day. The kind of day that can only be enjoyed if you can find some shade. I totally get this. My pasty-white skin starts to burn in about thirteen seconds of direct exposure. This is a really important concept that is easy to miss in the poetry of the Psalm. The heavens tell us about the Glory of God, but they tell us in a way that we can understand without being undone. Without being burned by the direct glory. We need a tent for the Sun in order to enjoy its splendor. And every day of our life God has given us this marvelous light-show, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the sunset. Nothing can hide from its heat—not even in the shade of the tent. Everyone knows there is a God.

Now the Psalm turns from the general revelation of God by creation to the specific revelation of His Word. His law. Law. Law sounds like such a harsh and cruel word but as we read through this next section, let’s keep in mind two important things. First the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the Logos, The Word. Second, He taught us that the Law is perfectly summarized and understood as “love.” Love for God and love for people. When you hear “law” put it in the context of “how to love.”

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true,
and righteous altogether.

Law, testimony, precepts, commandments, fear and rules are perfect, clarifying, joyful, pure, gives our life meaning and purpose, endures forever and is altogether righteous. Life has no meaning or direction outside of His Word and His Law—specifically as we find these thing in Jesus. Remember, every time we see the word “LORD” in all capitals it is talking about Jesus. Jesus is LORD.

Living our lives as though there is no God is like driving our cars as though there are no roads, or signs, other cars, or speed limits. Blindfolded. It might be fun for a short time.

Now the Psalmist gets back to the concept of “Glory” and weightiness, comparing earthly riches to God’s Word and Law.

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

More than wealth and good food—More to be desired than millions of dollars in the bank or an endless supply of Yardhouse Mac and Cheese—God’s Law is perfect and sweet, showing us how to love Him and love others. When we live our lives according to this true standard things go well for us. Keeping the law becomes its own reward. Which sounds nice and all, but the problem is we fail, don’t we? The next part deals with what happens when we fall short of God’s perfect standard and we sin against Him and fail the people we are supposed to love.

Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.

I love that. “Hidden faults,” the sinful, shameful things we do that we’re not even aware of. In Jesus we are forgiven even from the things we didn’t know we did. That’s good news because we keep pretty busy dealing with the ones that are not hidden.

Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!

The “presumptuous sins” are the sins we are more than aware of. We did them on purpose with full knowledge, we’ll probably do them again, and if we keep doing them, this verse says they will have control over us. This is powerful language. If we insist on continuing in unrepentant sin we give very dark powers command over us. This is because if we repeat a sin it’s no longer a mistake, it’s a decision. Thankfully, if we repent and turn away from these presumptuous sins, then we have this promise:

Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Glory to God indeed! Thanks to the Word of God who became flesh and died in our place we are forgiven of all our sin. The sins we are unaware of and all the terrible things we do on purpose.

This is my favorite Psalm. Not only because it’s the one God used to call me to faith, although that would be reason enough. It’s also a powerful and complete picture of the Gospel. God exists, we all know this, He is awesome and full of glory, He gives us His word so that we can know how to live a meaningful life, we fail Him in ways that we are not even aware of as well as on purpose, and He forgives us completely.

It ends with this beautiful well known verse:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

I asked the question a couple of weeks ago, “if we were to start a new church from scratch, and we started over by looking at God’s Word and following Jesus, what would that church look like?” That’s exactly what we’re doing and we’ve been having a great time trying to figure that out here at NewChurch.

I started working on a website for us the other day. I’ve seen a lot of bad church websites, I’ve even been responsible for a couple of them over the years. There’s so many ways to get it wrong. They can be so churchy and full of insider language that it looks like gibberish to the uninitiated. It can be so sincere and filled with fluff that grown men are rendered nauseous. Some websites are too hipster, most are too boring, too many are ugly and in some way an embarrassment to the entire Kingdom of God by their mere existence.  And yet I bravely venture into world wide weirdness. Even with my eyes wide open. Confident that God will forgive me for the sins that I am unaware of.

Anyway, I was working on the homepage for the New NewChurch website and I wanted to have a cool tagline. Something strong, unique to us, not cheesy, and true. You know, the same thing all the other millions of churches have already tried to do in those websites I was just talking about. I also wanted it to be something that could be understood by people who are not already well versed in Churchianity and Christianese.

I prayed about it and I came up with a simple phrase that I think actually works.

Worship God. Love People.

Pretty simple but that’s what I think we’re here to do. Worship God and love people. The heavens declare the Glory the God and we want to join in and sing along, we also want to invite as many people to join us singing as we are able. “Glory be to God on high and on earth, peace, good will toward men.” When anyone asks what NewChurch is all about tell them this, “Worship GOD. Love People.”

To wrap this up I’m going to read another section from my book. This is from the last few paragraphs of the final chapter called “A Beginning in Every End”:

I’ve been following Jesus since I was fourteen, since He found me in the backyard looking up at the stars. It hasn’t always been the prettiest route though some of it was beautiful, and it probably wasn’t the shortest way, either. He’s led me through difficult things and I’m sure there is plenty of hard road ahead. There is one final struggle before us all but we don’t have to be afraid.

Jesus didn’t say following Him would be a path around pain and suffering—He was famously tortured and murdered. He doesn’t lead us around difficult things but He will lead us through them. He said, “In this world, you are going to face trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” Jesus is the only way through the pain that offers hope and meaning.

It can be hard to follow Jesus when the other followers do such terrible things. Christians can seem to be more about what they’re against than what they’re for, more about what they hate than what they love. The church is known for its disdain of people who are different than them. This seems backwards because we are supposed to be known by our love.

I’ve never heard anyone complain about Christians being too loving, have you? “They are so kind and gentle, I just can’t stand to be around them,” said no one ever.

I don’t like being identified with people who make following Jesus seem ridiculous, which is why for a long time I wouldn’t call myself a Christian. Who wants to be associated with a bunch of obnoxious, judgmental, narrow-minded people? Who wants to be identified with angry pastors, mean-spirited so called conservatives who spit platitudes about abortion at hurting people, with close-minded windbags who rant about homosexuals and gay marriage, with theological purists who throw their opinions and Bible verses at each other like smooth stones. I don’t want to be associated with these kind of Christians any more than I want to hang around my embarrassing uncle when he is drunk and picking fights at a party.

I want to follow Jesus but remain separate from His unpleasant followers. This is foolish because I can’t follow someone with millions of followers and pretend I’m not one of them. I refused to be identified with Christians because I thought they made Jesus look bad. They didn’t treat people with love and grace so I wasn’t going to treat them with love and grace.

I said, “I like Jesus, I just don’t care for His followers.” It was a long time before I realized I was talking about myself. I’m a Jesus follower and I’ve done a lot of ugly things. I’ve told you some of them in this book. We all need grace and forgiveness but we have to be willing to offer it to others once it has been given to us.

May we be a new church that gathers here on Saturday evenings to worship the God who created the heavens and the earth. May we hear from His Word so that we can know what He wants from us, so we can know how to love Him and how to love each other. So we can hear how He loves us and promises us forgiveness. May we rest in His forgiveness when we are unloving and fail Him, may we forgive ourselves as completely as He forgives us. And may we offer that same grace and mercy to the people of this community and anyone who trespasses against us.

AMEN

 

Water is Thicker Than Blood | NewChurch 4-18-15

/ , , , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
CLICK for Podcast

There are a  lot of things Christians say that make me roll my eyes, a lot of painful plastic phrases that just sound phoney. We’re so quick to say things like, “I’ll pray for you, brother!” “Bless you sis!” Lord, if you’ll just put a “Hedge of protection” around us! “Invite Jesus into your heart” “God doesn’t respond to Email but He does respond to KneeMail” When people use amen as a question it drives me nuts—Amen?

This whole concept of the “family of God” is something we say but I wonder what we mean. Are we saying that our true family is made up of the people we share a common faith with? Or are we just saying some nice words to make church feel more special—instead of “these are some people I know from church” we say they are “my brothers and sisters.”

Some people like to say their workplace is a family, too. Funny though, because no matter how tight things get we don’t usually consider firing Aunt Mabel. Family, my foot.

Is blood thicker than water? Or, does Jesus want us to understand that if we are following Him then water is actually thicker than blood?

Last weekend I was able to go to a fantastic event at Oikos Church thanks to Pastor Aaron and his great team. It was a workshop seminar taught by Mike and Sally Breen. They have written some really great books on discipleship and being a family on mission. He said a few things that blew my mind, and I couldn’t wait to get back and share those things with you guys. Last week we were talking about how there are a million ways to do this church thing wrong, and this week I’m continuing on that theme—I want to talk about how Jesus teaches us that the church is our true family. It’s where we need to find our core identity, who we are and where we are going.

This might seem to be at odds with how our culture looks at the world. By now, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when the teaching of Jesus turns what we think we know about the world on its head.

Quick recap of the life of Jesus: Christmas in Bethlehem with angels, farm animals, sheep and wise men. Fast forward: twelve-year-old Jesus amazes teachers at the Temple in Jerusalem, then stays behind when Mary and Joseph leave—they find Him and ask where He’s been, He says “I was at my Father’s House, Duh!” The next time we see Him He is thirty-years-old, He is with his mom at a wedding turning water into wine. It seems like He had a pretty good life with His family and friends in Nazareth.

He is baptized by His strange cousin, the sky opens up and God Almighty says in a voice of thunder “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Then the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove and blows everyone’s minds. It’s a cool moment. Jesus goes into the desert filled with the Spirit and is tempted by the Devil for forty days. Do you know what the temptation actually was? We think the temptation was to turn stones into bread, jump from the Temple or bow down to the Devil—but the real temptation is found in the Devil’s opening line each time he spoke. Each time he said, “If you are the Son of God…If.” He was attacking His identity as the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased. Jesus did not fall for the lie, and He left the desert in the Power of the Spirit, completely confident in who He is. In Luke 4 it says “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.”

That sounds really nice. Good for Jesus! Hold that thought and Let’s keep reading in Luke 4 starting at verse 16:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

It’s all going really well at this point. I can just imagine His mom back in the ladies corner beaming with pride as her son is being admired. His brothers are sitting there nodding their heads and smiling. Everyone is having a great time. Then Jesus says a little more and ruins everything.

Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”

In Matthew it says that “he didn’t do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Which is funny, because it seems like one miracle would be plenty of miracles.

Then He looks into their hearts and says what they really needed to hear, but what they were not at all prepared to receive. He told them that just like in Elijah’s time, the great things that He came to do were not just for them. The oppressed who were going to be set free and the sight that would be given to the blind was not just for them, but was also for all the people they didn’t like. All those dirty Sirians, Samaritans, Greeks, Romans and Gentiles.

Look what happens after He tells them this:

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Well, that escalated quickly. We went from smiles and beaming with pride to a mob filled with murderous rage. We know that Jesus’ mom and brothers and sisters were there and yet it says “all the people in the synagogue were furious, got up and tried to kill Him.” You know what it doesn’t say? It doesn’t say “But Jesus’ brothers gathered around Him in a circle and tried to protect Him from the angry crowd” it doesn’t say “But Jesus’ mother cried out ‘this is my son, BACK OFF freaks!” You know why it doesn’t say that? Because it didn’t happen, His family were part of the mob.

This is rejection you’re gonna feel when your mom and brothers go along with your enemies and try to smash your head with rocks. That’s not a good day. But it wasn’t time for Him to be betrayed and murdered, so He walked through the crowd and went on His way.

Alone.

He walks all the way to the coast where He calls the disciples, teaches about the Kingdom of Heaven, and does all the cool Jesus stuff we are all familiar with. I think this gives us a little more insight into some of the more difficult things Jesus said about family. For example, one day He’s teaching in a crowded house, there isn’t room for anyone to come inside and it says in Matthew 12:46:

“While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

It was like:

“Hey Jesus, your mom and brothers are outside.”
“Did they bring the police? Do they have guns?”
“No I think they just wanna talk.”
“I don’t really have anything to say to them right now.”

Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I can hear the hurt and rejection in that passage. I used to just think Jesus was being cold. Like His poor mom can’t even get a backstage pass to visit her rockstar son—but that’s not what’s going on. They were not followers, they thought He was misguided and probably wanted to talk Him out of all this foolishness before someone tried to kill Him again. They did not believe his true identity and I think they were being used by the Devil to tempt Him all over again.

It makes sense out of some other hard things He said, too. Like in Matthew 10:34 where Jesus says:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

Water is thicker than blood.

If you’re close with your blood family, you know that relationships with your natural family can be precious and beautiful. God invented the family and set it up as the foundational building block of human culture. I’m certainly not trying to say anything to discourage anyone from loving and enjoying their family. I wish everyone could experience the warmth and tenderness of a good family. Unfortunately, family is usually a mixed bag and we are stuck with the bad along with the good.

My biological father was a cruel abusive man. He abused my mother, sometimes right in front of me. I carry scars with me to this day—physical and emotional—from things he did to me. One night he showed up with a shotgun, blasted his way through a locked door and had every intention of murdering his family. He was stopped by my grandma and the police, he was taken away to a mental institution and I never saw him again.

God wants us to think of Him as Father. But If God wanted me to think of Him as my Heavenly Father, then the picture I had was of someone who was angry, mean and didn’t like me. If God wanted me to think of Him as a loving father who cared about me, then maybe He should have given me a better example.

And then He did. My parents were divorced, a couple months later my mom met a coal miner named Bob Hart who married her and became my step-dad. He was as kind and good natured as evil-bio-father had been bad natured and dangerous. God used him to save us from a destiny of violence, darkness and poverty that we were previously locked on like a laser guided missile.

But along with my new step-dad came three step-brothers. Over the last three years I have been writing a book and parts of the book deal with my childhood, so I’ve had to relive and remember a lot of things I hadn’t thought about in a long time. I started to realize that I have a lot of bitterness and anger tucked away concerning one of my step-brothers. We fought a lot and he is probably the most difficult relationship that I’ve had in my life. I’ve only seen him a handful of times since high school. Over a year ago his daughter was killed in a tragic head-on collision—my heart was broken for her baby son, and I can’t imagine how hard it had to be for my step-brother, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. That’s not only jacked up, that’s not like me at all. My mom, his step-mom, died in January and just a few weeks ago his wife died—but I still haven’t talked with him.

I’m very close to my biological brother, Jeff. He’s not only a ninja, as some of you know, but he is also a brother in Christ. We were talking about all this one day and he admitted to me that he was not only surprised by my refusal to talk to our step-brother, but was also disappointed in me. Ouch. It was hard to hear that but that’s what a real brother can say to you.

There is nothing better than when our blood-family is part of our spiritual family.

As a side note, we parents are not raising our kids to become adult children, or good citizens, we should be raising them to be our spiritual brothers and sisters. All of our discipline should be aimed at making them disciples of Jesus so that we can one day stand beside them and pray to Our Heavenly Father.

So, lets continue fast-forwarding through the life of Jesus because I have one more punchline that is the best one yet.

He continues building His new spiritual family. The early church fathers and tradition says that eventually His mother Mary joins the followers and becomes part of the new spiritual family. We know that she is at the cross when He dies. Three days later is the first Easter and Jesus appears to a long list of people. This is where is gets really cool because St Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that one of the last people Jesus appeared to was His brother James.

What an amazing show of forgiveness and mercy. Can you imagine? You tried to kill your brother, you publicly spoke against him, you sided with the religious leaders who finally took him down. You probably stood around the Temple and synagogue with all the cool intellectuals talking about how foolish it was to follow the misguided idiot. You served as the best proof of their doubt—THIS is Jesus’ brother, and even he doesn’t believe in Him.

And Jesus appears to His faithless brother, shows him tenderness and brings him into His true family.

After the resurrection James becomes a leader in the church. He is the head of the church in Jerusalem. He presides over the council of Jerusalem in Acts when they are trying to figure out what to do with all the new Gentile believers. Remember, this was the very thing Jesus was talking about all those years before in the synagogue in Nazareth—the very thing they tried to kill Him for. The blessings of what Jesus came to do were not just for the home team. And then James is the head of the council deciding what to do with the Gentile Christians.

I think this is amazing. And as Mike Breen was talking about it last Saturday I couldn’t help but think of my step-brother. Jesus reconciled with His half-brother James, maybe I need to have a little conversation with mine.

Who’s God putting on your heart right now? I’ll bet there’s someone.

When people follow Jesus together we call that the church. We have a greater, deeper more important relationship with each other than any of the previous relationships in our life. Jesus even teaches that we shouldn’t hesitate for a moment to give up blood family ties if it becomes necessary in order to put God first.

But, you know what’s infinitely better than cutting ties with family members who try to stand between you and God? It is far better to reconcile with them and make them a true brother or sister.

This is what Christ has done for all of us. He’s gathered us here to follow Him together. To be His mother and sister and brother, His true family. To remember our baptism when He clearly says that we are His beloved child in whom He is well pleased. The water that binds us together as the people of God is stronger than the blood that ties us to our family of origin.

May we rest in knowing that we are dearly loved children.

May we stand together as brothers and sisters, may we stand on this side of the resurrection with our Lord and brother who was once dead but is now alive, and will never die again.

May we walk in the power of the Spirit knowing that we are sons and daughters of the Living God. AMEN

RSS Feed for Podcast

A Million Ways to do Church Wrong

/ , , , , , /

A Million Ways to Do Church Wrong | MSG 4-12-15

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
CLICK TO LISTEN

If we were to start a new church, if we could clear the slate and start fresh, if we could open God’s Word and let it speak to us, what would that church be like? In our imaginations, what do we picture when we think of a “church?” In our preconceptions and presuppositions, what do we think a church is supposed to be? Is it a grand cathedral with stained glass windows, a pipe organ, gold ornamentation and heavy wooden pews? Is it a group of people meeting in someone’s living room with an acoustic guitar? Is it a little country church on the edge of town with old people, young people, an upright piano and whatever musicians just happen to show up? Is it a multipurpose facility with stage, lights, video projectors and a rock band? Maybe it’s a small group of people sitting in lawn chairs on astro turf—at least for a while.

What would be the reason for them getting together? Would it be to plod through a ritualistic, historical, liturgical form, making sure to cross themselves while they also cross all the “t’s” and dot the “i’s”—trying to do everything right, with the right words and in the proper order? Would it be to sing along with emotionally charged music, drumming-up the passion to feel a previous spiritual high—kind of like getting your Holy Spirit fix for the week. Maybe it would be more about hearing a deep, challenging, seminary level Biblical message. Or is it to hang out with your Christian friends? Is the point just to get church out of the way, check it off the list of weekly obligations. We go to church because we are supposed to. Maybe church should be fun, entertaining and good for the whole family.

Maybe it’s more noble and pure than any of that shallow nonsense.

Like, going to church should be a selfless act of worship, something we render to God expecting nothing in return? No wait, that sounds wrong, like we are doing God a favor. Maybe since God is the one who has everything we need, church should be a time of us simply receiving His gifts. Or is it both? Does He give us what we need and we respond with thankful praise.

Should church be more about edifying the people of God, deepening their faith, calling them to action and feeding them with Word and sacrament? Or should it be more about reaching those who do not yet know about God’s love and Jesus?

(John 14:3-6)    says this: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There’s a lot to think about in this well known verse of scripture. It’s a very rich picture of who Jesus is and what He means for His people. I want to spend a few minutes thinking about how if we focus on one of these attributes to the exclusion of others we end up with a skewed vision of what the church should be.

Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life. He is all three, but too many churches focus on only one of these primary aspects of His being. For example, some churches are all about “the way.” In “The Way” churches the focus is on Jesus being the way to the Father, heaven and eternal life, and focus their entire attention on getting people saved. Every sermon is an evangelistic call to faith. The members end up getting “saved” every couple of years—just for good measure—because the only thing that matters is how many converts they make. How many people come forward, dedicate their life to Jesus, or get baptized. I’ve been to that church and you probably have, too. The old school “Way” churches were like tent revivals with “fire and brimstone you’re going to hell” sermons followed by an emotionally charged altar call. With every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around—I see that hand, and that one, and another, now just take that next step and come forward to the altar. The modern version of these churches probably have a rock band, multimedia presentations, and some kind of bigger than life preacher. They are gimmicky, trying to get new people to show up, and as big as the front door is—because they are highly attractive, I mean attractional—the back door is just as big. People tend to leave in droves, either when they figure out that there is very little beyond the big flashy evangelistic outreach event (so they go looking for a church where they can grow deeper in their faith) or when they are attracted by a newer, shinier “shock n awe” campaign. These are “the way” churches, and they hardly have time for silly things like Bible study, discipleship or helping the poor and vulnerable.

Other churches are more obsessed with “the truth.” They are all about deep Biblical teaching, Sunday school and study groups. They all but ignore the Great Commission but they can recite it to you in Greek. They are serious. Serious about their music, their form of worship, and every detail of their doctrine and practice. These churches tend to be small, but they can be quite large if the preacher/teacher has some charisma or is a published author. The main growth for these kind of churches is when people outgrow “The Way” baby churches and long for the deeper things of God. Many of their numbers come from burned out “Life” church members, too.

When I was fourteen, I started going to church for the first time in my life. It was a church that could be characterized as a “Life” church. My mom had warned me about it, she said, “Don’t go to that crazy church, those people are nuts.” Her objection was part of the attraction, part of the reason I went. God can even use teenage rebellion to get His children’s attention.

I started doing ministry in a “Life” church. I went to one of their Bible Colleges and was on my way to becoming a pastor when I “burned out” and took a fork in the road that led to me doing music for the next twenty years or so.

“Life” churches are the most volatile. If “Truth” churches are a cold, beautiful stone fireplace without any sign of fire, then “Life” churches might be said to light fires without bothering to build fireplaces—they just set everything on fire. Everything is done with passion and emotion, there is a desire to be filled with the Spirit, signs and wonders, laughing, weeping, dancing, naming and claiming everything for your best life every week.

In my experience, people in “way” churches tend to remain infants in their faith. People in “truth” churches tend to get cold and grumpy—quick to argue about everything—and people in “life” churches tend to burn out. Not always of course, and most people think their church is perfectly balanced—fine—your church is the exception and I’m not talking about you.

We’re talking about the ideal church, and I believe that Jesus wants His church to represent Him in fullness. I think we are to represent Him as the way, the truth and the life, all three. Making disciples, growing in knowledge and wisdom, while also enjoying a Spirit-filled, abundant life—while making sure others have plenty, too.

I have noticed that churches tend to either have faith or works but not usually both. Churches tend to either preach the hard truth of God’s Word and actually believe in Jesus—or they have a soup kitchen. They either say with their mouth that they believe what the Bible says is true, or they actually do with their hands the work of helping the oppressed, the orphans and the widows—what James calls “true religion.” He also says faith without works is dead. Churches tend to either profess belief in what the Bible says or do the work it tells us to do. Few churches seem to have both faith and works.

As a worship leader, I have led the music in all kinds of churches and noticed some patterns in how the congregations sing. In “the Way” churches, where they are mission focused primarily—you know, missional—most of the congregation hardly sings or not at all. They don’t seem to understand the concept of “praising God with raised voices,” participation is half hearted and they seem to treat the service more like a smooth jazz concert. In liturgical churches the people fill the sanctuary singing hymns and speaking the readings and responses with full voices and in charismatic churches they pour themselves into the songs like their life depends on it—hands raised, eyes filled with tears, teenage boys lining up to pray with the hottest girl at the altar.

It seems like there are a million ways to get the church thing wrong. So, back to my original question: if we could start a new church from scratch, looking at God’s Word and following Jesus, what kind of church would we make?

When I was first thinking about starting this new ministry I wrote a simple outline of the vision I believed God was showing me.

  1. To become a community of people following Jesus, giving glory to God and blessing to each other.
  2. To worship in a way that is Biblically faithful and culturally engaging, and
  3. To be a ministry focused on reaching out to those who do not yet know about God’s love, while continuing to love and care for the people who are already here—investing in them and discipling them toward Jesus.

I think this vision has the potential to be a balance of the way, the truth and the life Jesus wants for us.

We are starting with these informal worship gatherings. We meet here on Saturday nights, praise God with music, hear His Word and pray together. Then we hang out for a couple of hours getting to know each other over good food and drink while our kids have a blast and make friends. That’s the part you see.

The part you don’t see is just as important. We have assembled a group of eleven leaders who meet weekly in a discipleship huddle. We want this church to be led from a spiritually mature, safe group of people who know each other and hold each other accountable. After several months, the leaders of this group will start their own discipleship huddles and invite others into them. This is how we are starting our new church from the inside out. We are focusing on Jesus and how He invested in His leaders before He went public with the church that changed the world.

When we go public, we will go for it. When we have established a core group who will roll up their sleeves and do this ministry with us—all of you, plus a few others— we will have a grand opening. When we have a stage for the band, lights to make it beautiful in here, speakers to make it sound good and clear, some kind of screen so we can look up and read the lyrics and maybe show a video now and then, rows of chairs that you don’t have to carry in from your trunk. once we get the party ready, then we will release the Kracken. We will let the community know we are here. We will make signs, run ads, and tell all our friends. We will have events, concerts, sports celebrities as guest speakers, provocative message campaigns, and anything else we can think of to get people’s interest in walking through those doors and joining us.

I like to call this the “air war.”

We’ve all seen the shock and awe campaigns on CNN. Flashes of light in the distance as Baghdad is pummeled with bombs. It’s a spectacle. it gets everyone’s attention. It’s on the 6 O’clock news. It’s impressive but it doesn’t win the war. The war is won on the ground with troops going street to street, block to block, house to house, securing an area. It’s messy. The big worship show, with a rock band, multimedia, lights and a strange, yet  somehow likeable preacher will only get us so far. There has to be a ground campaign with community, Bible study, and prayer—there has to be house by house, person by person discipleship.

Another big idea for our new church is the concept of “third place.” Your home is your first place, your work is your second, then the third place is where you meet your friends. It’s also part of what defines you. It’s the diner on Seinfeld, Central Perk on Friends, it’s Cheers—a place where everyone knows your name. Churches want to be people’s “third place” but they can’t be, not really, because they are never open—other than for worship events or Bible studies, sitting side by side with their friends listening to a speaker or singing along with a worship leader. People don’t get to know their friends in lecture halls or concert venues, they go to places where they can talk, meet for coffee, share a meal or have a beer.

This is why our worship is followed by a Hang out time.

Some of you have told me how much you look forward to our Saturday night gatherings, and how this is becoming your ‘third place” and that’s great, but our vision for NewChurch is bigger than that. We want to open a gastropub. One that is open every day. It will have great coffee, great food, craft beer and good wine. A place where we can meet our friends for fun, for business, for lunch or dinner or just to hang out. My hope is that it we be a place where people want to meet and sometimes God will open up opportunities for conversations and ministry to the people who show up. No pressure. No sales. Not a “Christian pub,” just a place where God’s people hang out with the community and worship on the weekend.

My hope is that we will be a church that introduces people to God’s love, His grace, and the salvation that is only available through Jesus. May we be people who are ready to give an answer to the anyone who asks about our hope in Him.

May we be a church that longs to know the deeper truths of God. Not satisfied with baby milk and candy, but hungry for meat—wisdom and knowledge—and are prepared to share what we have learned with the people puts in our lives.

May we be a church that is filled with the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and led by the Spirit. May we not only have faith and believe, but may we do what God asks us to do. Enjoying the abundant life that Jesus offers us and sharing our blessings with the people God puts in front of us.

I think we are off to a great start.

Even if God blesses us with the ability to add some production value to our Saturday night worship event, and even if He brings a bunch of people in here, I don’t want to lose what we have now.

I want NewChurch to still have this comfortable, accessible atmosphere. I want us to continue to be organic, warm, inviting and friendly. I want us to hang out and enjoy each other’s company, share food and favorite beverages. I want us to grow closer and more like true family. I want our kids to grow up knowing each other, making life-long friends.

Most importantly, I want NewChurch to follow Jesus. To know Him fully. He is the only way to the Father, He is the absolute Truth by which anything can be known or understood, and He is the resurrection and the everlasting abundant life. AMEN

The NewChurch Podcast

/ , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-ArtWorry, doubt, anger, and what God wants from us–according to the teachings of Jesus. It’s my first podcast. Redeem your drive.

Due to the “lo-fi” nature of NewChurch’s current technology, these are recorded in my home studio.

Thanks to John Foster for making it happen.
Music is “Christ Before Me” from the Living Creatures Project.

For more information on NewChurch.

For non-iTunes users:
RSS Feed – http://newchurch.libsyn.com/rss
Podcast Webpage: http://newchurch.libsyn.com/

How God Answers Prayers | NewChurch 3-28-15

/ , , , /

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
Click for Podcast version

An experiment was conducted on a busy New York City street. A ten-year old boy sat shivering on the sidewalk, it was barely 5 degrees outside, he was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt and covering himself with a plastic garbage bag. His brothers stood out of sight with a video camera and watched as hundreds and hundreds of people passed him by. Some would hold their hands up to block themselves from seeing him, some would turn their head or pretend to talk on the phone. For over two hours the boy sat and shivered in the cold and not a single person stopped to help him. No one spoke to him. Most refused to even look at him.

Eventually, a man stopped, took off his coat and offered it to the boy. He sat down on the pavement beside him and asked where his parents were, what had happened to leave him stranded on the street freezing. The man explained that he was homeless and had made a lot of bad decisions in his life and he didn’t want to see the boy end up like him. The boy’s brother’s came out, explained to the man that it had been a social experiment, hugged him, thanked him, and gave him over $500 in cash. It was quite moving.

 

What would you have done? Most days, I probably would have kept walking. Do you know anyone who would have stopped and helped the boy? We all have our philosophies on why we will or won’t help people, don’t we?

I can tell you where my philosophy got its start.

When I was in college, I was driving on a dark street one night and noticed a man laying on the side of the road. It was winter and there was light snow on the ground. he was actually in the road enough that I would have had to steer around him, I thought the guy was either dead or in terrible danger. I stopped my 1969 Volkswagen Microbus in the middle of the street, and got out to see if I could help. As I approached him he jumped up with a knife, yelling at me and chased me back to my van. I jumped in and drove away, shaken up and quite a bit more cynical than before I had stopped.

I have to admit, that experience has stayed with me, I remember it every time I see a stranger in need. It keeps me from helping people sometimes. I assume people are trying to scam me, or rob me.

We’re surrounded by people in need. I see the homeless sleeping under the overpasses every day, there’s someone on every corner holding a cardboard sign. How does Jesus expect us to respond? He doesn’t want empty prayers of “be warm and fed,” He wants us to actually do something sometimes.

What’s your strategy? Your philosophy? Never give? Always give? Only give if _______? “I only give if they are female, or if they are a child, or it they have a child with them, or an animal, only if I make eye contact, only if they are really old, or handicapped? Maybe you only give if you happen to have some small change on you—maybe you make sure you never have small change on you so you ‘re off the hook.

One day I rolled down my window and offered an old man with an “I’m hungry” sign an apple. He looked at me and showed me his big toothless grin, said “Thanks brother, but I ain’t got no need for an apple.”

The question is “why do you do what you do?” Or “Why do you never do anything?”

I think we all know that we should do good in general, and that we should help people. Everyone knows greed is wrong and generosity for our neighbor who is in need is right.

There are Good Samaritan laws based on this idea.

A couple of weeks ago a Church in San Francisco installed a sprinkler system so the homeless wouldn’t sleep in front of their building. That’s what you call a really bad PR move.

Astonishingly, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 33 American cities passed new restrictions on feeding the homeless between January 2013 and April 2014—including Houston. In the Bible, a society that punishes those that feed the poor and vulnerable is as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah. Not good cultural role models for a city.

It seems to me that we have lost our compassion.

We’re continuing to look at the Sermon on the Mount. This week we are looking at charity. Our text is the beginning of Matthew chapter 6.

It’s interesting that Jesus spends no time at all telling us that we should give to the needy, it’s as if He assumes any person with half a conscience already knows that part. He starts right away with what our attitude and motivation toward giving should be. Matthew six, starting at verse one:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

He is asking us to check our motives for why we help people.

Sometimes we help other people but it’s really for ourselves. Jesus says we should sound no trumpet when we give or we will have received our reward. But what if the reason we are giving is because we want people to think we’re a good person—or it looks good for our organization—let’s use one of those big checks! Or maybe we give a little bit because we don’t want to feel like a bad person, we want to live up to our internal legend of “the kind of person who helps people.”

Like if you are looking through a magazine and come across a full-page ad to help starving children in a third world country. The photo shows a sad kid with a bloated belly and flies in their eyes. The caption might as well be, “Turn the page if you are a heartless jerk.” Do you ever wonder about the photographer who took the picture. Like they’re walking around looking for the saddest, most heart wrenching pathetic looking child so they can capture it in a photo? “Okay, that one is pretty bad, but let’s see if we can find one that is closer to death—with more flies.” And, do you think they help the kids after they take their picture? Hurry up and turn the page, so we can stop thinking about it.

The fear of being labeled a “bad person” is an incredibly powerful motivator. Would you be more likely to help the freezing boy if you knew there was a camera rolling? Or if you were walking down the street with someone like Jesus, or Batman.

And as long as I really help someone, why does the motivation matter? Because it’s bad for us if we only help people so that we can look good. It makes us a slave. We can’t live as a slave to the applause and approval of others and also live for God. Our wholeness has to come from God alone.

Once we start down the road of filling our emptiness with the approval of others, we’ll never be able to do enough to keep ourselves full. The applause will only make us hungry for more applause—Jesus says it like this, “You will have your reward.”

Another trap we can fall into is pretending like we aren’t doing it for ourselves, but we’re doing it for God. This sounds good but it really isn’t any better. The problem with thinking our charity is for God is that God doesn’t need our charity.

We seem to think our “good deeds” give us extra points with Him, like He’ll be impressed with how good we are. Don’t take this the wrong way, but we can’t be good enough for God. That can’t be the point of anything we do. This isn’t meant to be discouraging, but we’re all a bunch of miserable turkeys. The gap between who we are and “being good enough” to impress God is too wide. We’re like an amoeba trying to play the violin. We’re like a newborn baby in an ironman competition. We a toddler challenging a professional MMA fighter to a fight in the cage. We are Hitler giving Anne Frank a pulled pork sandwich. And even though our attempts are just as absurd, it doesn’t stop us from the self-delusion of thinking our good works actually score us points with God. Like He owes us big time if we play the role of Good Samaritan once in a while.

And when we do something we think is really good, don’t we feel a little spiritual pride? Maybe a little relief from all the times we looked away? Doesn’t it give us a little extra confidence between us and God? Like He loves us a little bit more when we are good? This is dysfunctional.

Look at it this way, a kid comes home from kindergarten. You’re the Mom, and you ask how their day went and the kid says, “Well, it was a good day. I was nice to my friends, listened to the teacher, and I made this for you.” Then they hand you a paper plate with nine pieces of macaroni glued to the front with some glitter. You say “Wow, this is wonderful, sweetie. It sounds like you sure were good today!” Then they say, “Well, I did it because I want you to love me.”

Doesn’t that sound like something is wrong? Wouldn’t that make your heart sink? Don’t you want your child to know you love them already? Wouldn’t you want to hug them and assure them you love them just because they’re your child, not because they try to be good to impress you? Wouldn’t it be sad if they thought you didn’t love them unless they make offerings of macaroni art and glitter?

So, If we’re not supposed to help people to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others or to make us feel better about ourselves—and if we can’t do anything to impress God—then what’s the point? Why should we do good at all?

Well, here comes Dr MOTO: Master of the painfully obvious. Jesus invites us to help our neighbor because they need help. God doesn’t need your charity but your neighbor does. Our motivation should just be “because they need something and we have it.” They’re cold and we have an extra coat. They’re hungry and we have some extra food. They are thirsty and we can give them a cup of water.

We spend so much time looking in our neighbor’s bowl to see if they have more than we do, and what we should be more concerned with is checking to see if they have enough.

If they don’t have enough, we should share. And when we give to them, Jesus says “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

What the heck does that mean? Is it some kind of trick? Sleight of hand to make the quarter magically appear from behind someone’s ear? No, He’s not trying to make generosity extra hard. He’s not saying that all our giving has to seem to come from out of thin air, perfectly anonymous. Some people use this as another excuse not to give. Or a way to feel better than other people.

I think it’s an internal test: would I still be generous if no one knew?

It’s a warning against the Humblebrag. It’s like a Facebook post that says, “No coffee for me today, gave my $5 to a homeless friend. Made his day. Made my day more. #blessed” It’s self glorification in the disguise of humility.

The other day my daughter said, “I’ve been doing a lot better on paying a tithe when I get my allowance,” She went on to explain how much money she had given in the offering. Then she said, “I’m not doing so good at the “being humble and not bragging about it” part, though.

When we wrestle with our motivation for why we give, we reveal a lot about ourselves. Does our motivation come from guilt or shame? Trying to make ourselves feel better, or hoping to impress someone else—even God? If so, Stop. Those motivations will lead us to terrible places.

Of course we are not supposed to stop giving or being generous to people, but do this instead: Look around and ask God to show you the needs of the people you see—then listen to Him for the answer.

This is really a message on how God answers prayers. He answers them through people. People are His “plan A.”

We don’t seem to realize this. You might have heard about the guy who prayed that God would save him from a rising flood, He clearly heard God say, “Do not fear, I will rescue you.” Then and when three people in boats came by he one by one told them he didn’t need their help because God was going to rescue him—and the water climbed higher and higher. Finally he is on top of his house with the water rushing all around and a helicopter came by to offer him a ride to safety, but he refused to climb on board because he said “God was going to rescue him.” Well, an hour later the water swept him away and he drowned. When he got to heaven he complained to God, “You said you would save me, and you didn’t.” God shook His head and said, “I sent three boats and a helicopter, what more did you want? “What did you expect?”

When we pray for help we have a tendency to imagine some kind of supernatural, invisible, magic solution to answer our prayer, but God almost always sends a person with what we need instead. Sure, sometimes He’ll resort to speaking to us through burning bushes or donkeys or angels, but He usually just sends people to give us a message. Sometimes He’ll part the Red Sea or knock down the walls of Jericho with a miraculous display of power, but He is more likely to send a friend, a doctor, or an armed peace keeper to help us when we’re in trouble.

Imagine if that young boy who was freezing in New York City would have been praying for a coat, God could have made a “fur lined Carhartt jacket” appear magically out of thin air. But, He is more likely to send one of His people, one of us, to give our extra jacket to the boy.

God is always sending just the right person into my life when I need them. When I’m discouraged, He sends a friend to encourage me. When I’m broke, someone miraculously sends me unexpected money, or an opportunity to play a show or do some project comes up. A lot of you in this room were sent to me at just the right moment—you might not have even known it at the time—that God was sending you.

I wish I was a better listener, to the Holy Spirit, I mean. I want to be a person He can send on assignment more often. We have to learn to listen so He can point out the needs of the people all around us. People are hurting and praying — we need to tune in and be willing to answer the call.

We have the best example of this in Jesus. He did the greatest act of kindness the world has ever seen or will ever know. His death on the Cross covers all of this—Our failure to help people with no strings attached. Not only so we can be forgiven for our lame attempts at generosity and selfishness, but so the justice of God can be done without crushing us.

And He gave His life for us without saying a word, He just laid it down. No press release. No trumpets. No cameras. He showed us how it’s done. He saw our need and gave.

We’re free to sacrifice for others because Christ sacrificed for us.

When we hear the Spirit whisper to us, when we answer the call and give away our coat, or hand someone money, or food, when we speak an encouraging word, or quietly listen to someone pour their heart out—Remember that He loved us. Long before we get on the bus, whether we are nice to our friends or not, whether we listen to our teacher or get sent to the principal’s office because we ate the macaroni along with half a bottle of glue. We’re His child and he loves us. There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more. Or less. He doesn’t need our charity. He doesn’t need our money. He doesn’t—but some of His other children do.

Do you help the kid who is freezing on a busy sidewalk? Or do you turn your head and quickly pass him? What do you do when you’re confronted with the needs of others? We all know we should do more—but what are we going to do with this message?

Why do we give or not give? What’s our philosophy? Our plan?

It’s not complicated, God wants us to give because our neighbor needs something that we can can spare.

In that social experiment video, the text that came up at the end said: “If you wait until you can do everything for everybody instead of something for somebody you’ll end up doing nothing for nobody.”

May we be a people who see the needs of others and try to find what they need in our pockets, so we can give to them. May we be a people who give without drawing attention to ourselves. May we rest in the knowledge that God has given His Son for us because He loves us. AMEN

You might be interested to know that I’m starting a NewChurch.

IMG_7400

WORRY | NewChurch 3-21-15

/ , , , , , , /

WORRY | NewChurch 3-21-15

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
Click for Podcast version

We’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus addresses His followers and gives them a complete overhaul of the way we are to look at the world going forward. He turns conventional wisdom, and the things that everybody thinks they know, upside down. This is Jesus giving us His updated version of what it means to be a person who desires to live their life following God. Over the last four weeks we have talked about anger, judging people, making promises we can’t keep, an eye for an eye, let your yes be yes, walking on water — and this week we are going to talk about a subject that affects all of us. Tonight we are going to talk about worrying. Anxiety, fear, obsession and what we can do about it.

I want you to think about something, what is your “go to” worry? Is there something that pops in your head when you wake up in the middle of the night? Is there something you are worried about right now? What are you afraid of? What makes you nervous? Anxious?

Worry can be overwhelming. It can suck the joy out of life. What if this happens? What if that happens? We worry that something bad is going to happen, or might happen. We think if we worry about something, maybe we can prevent the bad thing from happening. Or at least keep it from getting out of hand. Worriers think it is their duty to worry about the anything they can imagine might happen—like it’s the responsible thing to do. The truth is, worrying doesn’t do anything good. It’s actually really bad for us.

Dr Robert Leahy wrote a book called “The Worry Cure: 7 Steps to Stop Worry From Stopping You” and he says “Worriers are more likely to have irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, fatigue, aches and pains, In addition, it is a present symptom of anxiety disorders and overlapping psychiatric disorders such as depression.” He calls it “what if” disease, and says it robs people of their potential and well being.

So, from a psychological standpoint, worry is not a good thing. It is not a pleasant thing. Tonight we are going to look at what Jesus has to say about it. I’m not pretending to be an expert on worry, I’m not Dr Phil, and this message is not a LifeHack. My hope is that we can look at God’s word together with an open mind, hear what God is saying to us, let it stir things up, and start a conversation about what we should do about it. A conversation with each other—which we will have time to discuss in our HangTime afterward, and a conversation with God. Listen to what the Spirit is saying to you through the Word.

Let’s turn to Matthew chapter six, starting at verse 25.

Jesus is talking to His followers about how they should look at their life and He just explained to them that they can not serve both God and money. If we are going to follow Jesus, then we can not be obsessed with material possessions. Then He gets on the subject of worry. It’s funny to me how very little has changed in two thousand years concerning what people tend to worry about.

Matthew 6:25

…So, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, or what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Well, there you go. Simple. Just don’t worry about your life. Don’t worry about food—whether you like it or don’t like it, whether you eat too much of it, or don’t have enough, whether it’s covered in cheese or vinegar—don’t worry about drink (whether your water is bottled from a natural spring and filtered, or out of the tap, if the Coke is diet or if the Coke is Dr Pepper—which only makes sense in the South, if the beer is from a microbrewery or has a multimillion dollar ad campaign rather than flavor), and don’t worry about your body. I mean, what kind of self-obsessed monster ever worries about their body? Or clothes, I can’t think of anyone who gives a second thought to their clothes, or shoes. Maybe this passage doesn’t apply to us any more, maybe modern man just doesn’t worry about such mundane things. Or maybe it’s amazing how the petty things we tend to worry about haven’t changed at all. Although, It’s true that we tend to worry about these things in a more “first world” way. They might have been more concerned with starving to death or being forced into the streets naked. Continuing in Matthew…

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

A cubit is the measurement from your elbow to the tip of your fingers, about a foot and a half. It would also be a pretty big increase in height. If I was a cubit taller, I would be seven and a half feet tall. I think this is Jesus being funny. Which of you, by worrying can make yourself Yao Ming?

The average height of a Jewish man in Jesus’ day is thought to be around 5’1”, and the minimum height for a Roman soldier is believed to have been 5’10”. If this is the case, then it might have been a common inferiority complex for the Hebrews that they were so much shorter than their oppressors, the Romans, and they probably fantasized about being taller. Kind of like how some of us obsess over wishing we were thinner or had more hair—not that I personally know anyone who thinks about such shallow things. Weight and baldness. Not constantly. Like maybe every five minutes or so.

Try not to picture Jesus as five foot tall now. He continues:

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin

This is a very well known passage of scripture and it’s one that I have hilariously misunderstood for years. I pictured the lilies of the field literally spinning. Like they were trying to get the other flower’s attention with their wild spinning, dance moves. Which makes no sense because He clearly said they DO NOT spin. Plus, that’s not what this is talking about. Remember how Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel? A spinning tool was used to make thread and clothing. Thus, flowers don’t spin. Jesus goes on…

29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Jesus is saying the grass is clothed with flowers, more beautiful than the most glamorous, wealthy, blinged-out person they could imagine. And it’s only grass, which is here today and used as kindling for a fire in an oven tomorrow. Grass was burned in clay ovens to bake bread with an open flame—kind of like the tandoori ovens you can still find in Indian restaurants for making naan. Naan is delicious, and now I’m hungry, which brings us back to verse 31…

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

The Gentiles. Those filthy dirty Gentiles. “Gentiles” is a word that simply means “not Jewish” but the word used for “gentiles” in this passage is the Greek word “ethnos” which actually has a slightly different connotation. “Ethnos” is the same word Jesus used in The Great Commission when He said to go into every nation (ethnos) making disciples. He’s comparing the people who follow Him to the “ethnos”—the people who are not yet following Him. He is teaching on the Kingdom of God—He is King and we are the royal subjects—and comparing us, the citizens of Heaven, to the barbarians (the “ethnos”) we are sent to conquer. We are the people He has called to follow Him, and He wants us to understand that we no longer have to worry about petty, childish, silly things like the pagans who don’t know any better. Verse 32…

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

We don’t have to worry about those things because we know that God will worry about them for us. He knows what we need and will make sure we have enough. And He ends with this..

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

There you have it. Just stop worrying, it’s that simple. The end. Amen. Let’s all go home and live our new worry-free lives. Hakuna Matata.

Except we can’t. It doesn’t even sound like good advice, except we know we are supposed to think it is good advice because Jesus said it—but doesn’t it sound a little irresponsible–like a stoner teen trying to get out of a difficult conversation with dad? “Man! Stop worrying about whether I get a job or finish school, there’s plenty of time for all that, it’ll all work out.”

It sounds like bad advice. Is Jesus really telling us to be irresponsible and not plan for the future? No. He is saying to stop worrying about whether God will take care of us or not. That’s why He says “O ye of little faith.”

Think about it, a lot of our worry is functional atheism. We’re worried about something we think might happen and we don’t believe God will take care of us. Maybe He won’t take care of us because He is not there, maybe there is no God—we doubt that He exists at all—or at least in our worrying we act like it. Or maybe we think He’s there but just isn’t going to help us—we doubt His character—that He is good, or we think He’s not paying attention. O we of little faith.

Over the last twelve months I’ve had my share of worry and doubt. It had been a long time since I had been so consumed with anxiety. I don’t want to go into much detail, or fan any remaining flames of bitterness, but the last year was riddled with personal crisis leading up to my being laid off from a job I loved while at the same time my mother was slipping into dementia and dying. Heavy stuff. I fought giving in to worry and doubt, I prayed constantly, I searched God’s Word for comfort and direction and I woke up many, many nights not knowing what to do—trying to simply trust Him but struggling to find peace. I reminded myself that God is good, that He’s in control, that He loves me—and loves my mom. That He is not finished with me, and there is hope for her. I tried to stop worrying but I couldn’t. I tried to rely on my faith but all these doubts kept jabbing at me.

By the way, do you know the difference between a question and a doubt? I think this is a helpful clarification. A question is looking for an answer, but a doubt is just looking for a fight. Questions have answers. “What does Jesus mean when He says we shouldn’t worry?” That’s a question, we can think about it, talk about it, study God’s word until we find an answer. But, “What if the Bible isn’t true?” or “What if God isn’t really there?” Those are doubts, and these kind of demonic statements need to be punched in the nose. “What if the Bible isn’t true?” “What if it is?” Bam! What if God isn’t there?” “What if He is?” Bam!

So, we are going to assume that God is real and His word is trustworthy. And we are going to look for an answer to the question, “What does Jesus mean when He says we shouldn’t worry?” What can we actually do about it?

Here’s the first thing: We aren’t supposed to start with “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow.” An old preacher friend of mine used to say, “When we see a ‘therefore’ we have to find out what it’s there for.” In the Bible, “therefore” is always pointing to a previous point, it’s the conclusion of an argument. So, what is the argument Jesus is concluding?

Verse 33: …seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow…

We can stop worrying about tomorrow when we seek first the Kingdom of God. He’s not telling us to stop thinking about things—He says “all these things” will be given to us. He doesn’t expect us to just stop obsessing altogether—He made us, He knows we are human— He wants us to change what we are obsessing about. He is telling us to obsess over—seek—the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus is our King, and He wants us to be in good standing with Him. Obsess over that. Take comfort in that.

We don’t have to worry about our standing with God, He took care of that for us. What does it mean to “seek” the kingdom of God, though?

Last week we talked about the Law and what God wants—demands—from all of us. The Ten Commandments can be summed up in the two great Commandments “Love God and Love People.” If we want to please God—if we want to do what God wants us to do—then the message is clear, He wants us to love people. Which sounds simple, except it isn’t. It turns out that people are the worst, and it’s really hard to love them. Especially the ones that we don’t like and who get in the way of our uninterrupted happiness. Murderers, thieves, rapists, liars, pedaphiles, bad drivers—you know what they have in common? They’re all people—of all the creatures under heaven, people might be the most difficult to love.

But, God loved us so much that He sent His only Son. He knew full well what was going to happen too, and He did it anyway. Jesus loved us, and loved perfectly for us. But, since people are the worst, we killed Him. He died the death we deserved, and by doing so made us completely right with God. We are put in good standing by what our King did for us on the cross. Obsess over that. Take comfort in that.

You might be thinking, “Fine. Got it. But, shouldn’t we plan for the future? How can I do that without worrying?”

Worry isn’t the same thing as concern or planning. There is a difference between running into a bear in the woods—definitely something to be concerned about—and worrying that a bear is going to attack you if you go outside in your own backyard at night, because worrying about that in Katy is a waste of time. Being concerned about an actual threat is warranted and wise. Making a plan to deal with the actual threat is prudent and responsible. But, worrying about imaginary scenarios that may or may not happen will only rob us of joy and lead to all kinds of bad things—as mentioned earlier.

Here’s a few simple ways of dealing with worry:

  1. Write it down. Make a list. Identify what you are worried about. Even better, write down a prayer about what you are worried about. Be a prayer worrier. I have an app on my phone and ipad where I write my prayers—not every day—but when I start to feel overwhelmed. It helps in so many ways, it defines what I am worried about, which a lot of times puts the worries into perspective and makes them less oppressive. It also clarifies what I am hoping God will do about it. And I can rest in knowing that I have given the burden of it all to Him.
  2. Analyze the list. Look over what you wrote down. Is there something you can do about any of them? Ask God to help you make a plan for what to do. Is there nothing you can do about it? Then realize it is an unproductive life draining exercise in futility to continue worrying about it. Losing sleep over whether or not you are going to be mauled by a bear is dumb—so is losing sleep over whether or not you will get cancer.
  3. Trust God. Embrace your uncertainty, but cling to faith in His goodness. Whatever the outcome of the thing you are worried about, trust that God is loving and faithful.
  4. Be patient. Wait on the Lord. We are always in a hurry to get an answer, to know the outcome, to get what we want, but God’s timing is not our timing. The Lord will fight for us we need only to be still. They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.
  5. Talk about it. Yes, talk to God, but also talk to the people God has put in your life. Admit what you are worried about with the people who love you. Let them help you find what’s at the root of your anxiety. Don’t be afraid to show emotion and be vulnerable. You might find that you are so afraid of bears because of a traumatic childhood experience with Winnie the Pooh. You wouldn’t be the first.

The most important thing is to remember who we are. God loves us. We are important to Him. We’re more important to God than birds, or flowers, or grass. We are made in His image. We are His beloved children. Jesus is our King, our brother and He called us His friends. It’s true, this life is a vapor, a mist, it’s short and temporary—our lives will fade like flowers, wither like grass and we will all die like birds, but we don’t need to spend our days worrying about it. We will certainly die, but we will only die once. A comedian said, “Every day thousands of people die and it’s never me.” That’s gonna be true every day of our life except for one. And even then, it’s not the end. The difference between a happy ending and a tragedy is where we stop telling the story. We have the promise of resurrection and eternal life because of Jesus. From dust we came and to dust we will return but that is not the end. It’s only the beginning. So, we’re free to not worry about death. Not our death, or anyone else’s. Our loving God has taken care of it.

And while we are still here, He wants us to love people. He wants us to love the people He has put in front of us, the people who are all around us. He wants us to consume our days with loving people—that’s what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God. We are to be faithful to our King by following His orders, even though we will not be able to do it perfectly.

He doesn’t want us to worry about that either.

We are free to fail because Jesus took every worry we could ever face and showed His power over them. We worry about money but He lived in poverty, We worry about people liking us, and He was despised, misunderstood and had many enemies, He was falsely accused and put to a horrible death, humiliated and publicly tortured. The night before His execution He wept in the Garden of Gethsemane and was so disturbed by what laid ahead of Him He sweat great drops of blood.

Over the last year, I had many sleepless nights but on no occasion did I sweat blood.

He drank the cup that the Father set before Him. On the Cross of Good Friday, and in the resurrection of Easter, Jesus proved everything He ever said. We can trust that God will take care of us today because Jesus said He would, and He keeps His word.

Don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Mankind is prone to worry, and it is impossible to not worry in our present state. I believe Jesus is giving us a remedy for our destructive inclinations by telling us to focus on Him. He will provide for us so we are free to “obsess” over His Kingdom instead of our own.

AMEN

You might be interested to know that I’m starting a NewChurch.

New-Church

I’m Starting a New Church

/ , , , , , / , , /

New-Church
Leading worship on the first night of New Church.

 

NewChurch-Podcast-Art
Click for Podcast version

WHAT’S NEXT?
After eleven years of amazing opportunities in ministry at CrossPoint, I found myself trying to figure out what God wanted me to do next. I began seeking Him for a new opportunity. I prayed for direction. I had conversations with numerous people to see what was out there. I talked with friends and family for their advice. Should I seek a position leading a worship department at another church? Maybe take my show on the road offering consulting and coaching for worship ministries that could use a hand. Write more books? Record more records? People had a lot of ideas about what my future could be.

Many of the conversations led to the same surprising idea—at least surprising to me—that I should start a new ministry. A ministry to the people of Katy without being in direct competition with other local churches.

One of the first people to bring up the idea was my daughter. “Dad, why don’t you start a new church?” I tried explaining to Von how hard it is to start something from scratch, how we had tried a couple of times in the past, and how it is a lot easier said than done. She shrugged her shoulders and insisted, “I think it would be awesome.”

My typically wise friend Kemper Crabb was the next one to bring it up. “Have you thought about starting a new church? You’ve been ministering to a lot of people over the years who may want to join you on something new. I don’t think God’s done using you in this area.”

Several other people came forward to say roughly the same thing. I began to take the idea to heart. I started fantasizing about how cool it would be to start a church that was also a “third place.”

THIRD PLACE
People need a place that is not their home or work, they seek a third place, a safe place to gather and hangout with friends. Like home and work, the third place also shapes your identity. Not unlike the bar in Cheers, Central Perk on Friends, the diner on Seinfeld, or even Starbucks, a “third place” would combine the things I love most—great coffee, great beer and comfort food—with worship. A lot of churches desire to provide the “third place” but they’re not equipped for that because they’re only open on Sunday and don’t offer a setting for people to actually get to know each other socially, at least not on a daily basis. What if I opened a place that offered all of these things all week long, in a way that fosters hanging out with friends, belonging, sharing life and becoming community? We would also come together to enjoy great worship on the weekend. It seems like the perfect means to be a vocational blessing to the community while building a bridge to and with the people who live here.

I started seriously considering that God might actually want me to do this crazy new ministry. But I kept talking myself out of it, “Nah. That’s nuts.” There must be a thousand reasons why planting a gastropub church in Katy is a bad idea.

A DREAM
After this, I had a dream about starting a new church and remembered every detail about it. I saw the facility where it was located. I saw the stage, the lights, the sound system hanging from the ceiling—I even recognized a bunch of the people in the room. I saw how we could install stage lights to define the space, how we could hang a giant black curtain to make the room beautiful, and use TVs to display lyrics for singing. I woke up thinking, “Hmmm, that could actually work.”

I couldn’t get it out of my head all day. I started thinking of names for the church. I contacted the owner of the facility through Facebook and asked if I could run an idea by him face-to-face. I didn’t know him very well but we had exchanged hellos many times. The only real conversation between us had taken place four years earlier when my son went to his daughter’s birthday party because they were in the same class. He invited me to meet him at his facility the following day at 6 pm.

THE LAB
The next evening I sat in a conference room with him and his wife and described my dream of starting a new church. He told me that on the way back from a business meeting earlier that very day they had been discussing my layoff and decided to search for a new church home. An hour later, there I was, sitting in front of them, presenting my ideas about starting a new church. The more we talked the more excited they got about the idea.

“Yes. The answer is ‘yes.’ We are in. Mi casa, su casa!”

I said, “Wow, that’s really cool, but you need to hear about the crazy left turn I want to take in phase three of this church idea.” I started telling them about “third place” and how I think having a gastropub would be a great way to be a bridge to the community. Not a “Christian pub,” just a great establishment where we also happen to have worship services on the weekend.

He looked at his wife, who was giggling by this point, and said, “Did you put him up to this?” They explained they had already begun securing the space next door to install a coffee shop/wine bar. In other words, the idea was already underway. Suddenly, it was as if the 150,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of this new church had flown out of the box and landed nearly completely assembled on the floor. I was starting to see it.

MANY CONFIRMATIONS
I set up a meeting with a pastor friend named Aaron who had started a church about a year before called Oikos. Like me, he had been part of the same LCMS church for over ten years and had recently started a new church near his former congregation. I wanted to ask him what he had learned from the experience— maybe there were things we could do differently and avoid problems. I hadn’t explained to him why I was coming over.

We sat in his living room and he said, “I’m dying to know what this meeting is about. I know what I HOPE you want to talk with me about…”

I laughed, “What do you HOPE I am here to talk about?” I assumed he wanted to know what had happened between me and CrossPoint.

“I think it would be awesome if you wanted to talk about starting a new church.” He actually said that. I was floored.

God has confirmed the idea of this new church in many ways through various people and circumstances. Although I have not talked about it publicly, people have come to me asking what I am planning on doing next and in what ways they can be part of it. Whatever it is.

God is assembling the launch group for this new adventure.

THE NEW CHURCH
So, I’m starting a new church and it’s pretty exciting. We meet on Saturday evenings at The Athletic Performance Lab of Katy near Toys R Us on Katy Fort Bend road. Informal worship from 6:00 to 7:15 pm is followed by an amazing BYOB and food hang time until 9 pm or so. Jesus is glorified and we have a blast.

You probably have questions. There is a lot about this new church that we don’t know yet, but we are listening carefully to what God wants us to do and who He wants us to be. Some things are perfectly clear and others are still taking shape.

This is our origin story. Phase One of our journey has just begun. I would love for you to consider joining us but I feel like I need to must warn you beforehand: WARNING! We are not trying to impress anyone. This is not the time to “check us out” by kicking our tires unless you want to help us build the rest of the car. In time, the dream will come alive in full splendor with lights, sound and snazzy production. If those things are important to you, you could wait and kick the tires then.

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” Zechariah 4:10

It has been amazing watching God orchestrate this new church as I follow Him around like a kid on an Easter egg hunt. Right now we are assembling our core team, the people who want to be on mission with us, people who want to be part of an exciting new thing Jesus is doing in Katy bringing glory to God and blessing to others.

JOIN US
Maybe you want to roll up your sleeves and join us. That would be fantastic! We need more people to help us with this new adventure. If you do, bring a lawn-chair, we don’t have many seats. Yet.

For more information just ask. (Click to create FAQs)

(If you plan on coming and need childcare, please RSVP)

New Church
Saturday evenings at 6:00
(The Lab)
481 Katy Fort Bend Rd #210
Katy, TX 77494

Load More