On my way into work this morning I played one song about 12 times, hearing God speak in the lyrics although what I heard is not what was sung. Ever happen to you? The song was by the Australian band George and the song Bastard Son. It sent my mind into a spin hearing from God over and over about this one that he has sent into the world, despised by it, hated by it.

The word bastard is cruel, heartless, it put's on a child this sin of the parents. Those around him muttered it behind closed doors in an attempt to rob him of his identity but it is not stolen from him. The world calls him a bastard because they can not comprehend his Father.

From the most despised township in his country, from a family the subject of rumors and ridicule. With a mad cousin wondering the countryside ranting about the end of the world and eating bugs.

Loved by few.

Deserted by all.

The one who came humbled and left humbled.

One man, alone in this world and glorified in the next.

He alone sits in power and says to me "Strip!" and in the authority of his voice the stain of my sin falls away. With a sword that cleaves flesh from bone, he cuts away to my heart and soul and gives me his freedom.

This one has done me over, turned me over, I who came from the dust of the earth, he has turned me over to his Father and said "Behold I am making you new! I am giving you a new name, a new identity. You are hidden in my now and now you can come and meet your Father in person."

This bastard son, he sit's enthroned over my life.

Thank God.

Fill Them With Christ
In one of his meetings, D.L. Moody was explaining to his audience the truth that we cannot bring about spiritual changes in our lives by our own strength. He demonstrated the principal like this: "Tell me," he said to his audience, "how can I get the air out of the tumbler I have in my hand?" One man said, "Suck it out with a pump." But Moody replied, "That would create a vacuum and shatter it." Finally after many suggestions, he picked up a pitcher and quietly filled the glass with water. "There," he said, "all the air is now removed." He then explained that victory for the child of God does not come by working hard to eliminate sinful habits, but rather by allowing Christ to take full possession.

All I've Got
Source: Mother Theresa
You'll never realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got.

The Busy Preacher
Source: Jim Cymbala
It was Easter Sunday, and I was so tired at the end of the day that I just went to the edge of the platform, pulled down my tie and sat down and draped my feet over the edge. It was a wonderful service with many people coming forward. The counselors were talking with these people. As I was sitting there, I looked up the middle aisle, and there in about the third row was a man who looked about fifty, disheveled, filthy. He looked up at me rather sheepishly, as if saying, "Could I talk to you?" We have homeless people coming in all the time, asking for money or whatever. So as I sat there, I said to myself, though I am ashamed of it, "What a way to end a Sunday. I've had such a good time, preaching and ministering, and here's a fellow probably wanting some money for more wine."

He walked up. When he got within about five feet of me, I smelled a horrible smell like I'd never smelled in my life. It was so awful that when he got close, I would inhale by looking away, and then I'd talk to him, and then look away to inhale, because I couldn't inhale facing him. I asked him, "What's your name?" "David." "How long have you been on the street?" "Six years." "How old are you?" "Thirty-two." He looked fifty—hair matted, front teeth missing, wino, eyes slightly glazed. "Where did you sleep last night, David?" "Abandoned truck."

I keep in my back pocket a money clip that also holds some credit cards. I fumbled to pick one out, thinking, I'll give him some money. I won't even get a volunteer. They are all busy talking with others. Usually we don't give money to people. We take them to get something to eat. I took the money out. David pushed his finger in front of me. He said, "I don't want your money. I want this Jesus, the One you were talking about, because I'm not going to make it. I'm going to die on the street."

I completely forgot about David, and I started to weep for myself. I was going to give a couple of dollars to someone God had sent to me. See how easy it is? I could make the excuse I was tired. There is no excuse. I was not seeing him the way God sees him. I was not feeling what God feels. But oh, did that change! David just stood there. He didn't know what was happening. I pleaded with God, "God, forgive me! Forgive me! Please forgive me. I am so sorry to represent You this way. I'm so sorry. Here I am with my message and my points, and You send somebody, and I am not ready for it. Oh, God!"

Something came over me. Suddenly I started to weep deeper, and David began to weep. He fell against my chest as I was sitting there. He fell against my white shirt and tie, and I put my arms around him, and there we wept on each other. The smell of his person became a beautiful aroma. Here is what I thought the Lord made real to me: If you don't love this smell, I can't use you, because this is why I called you where you are. This is what you are about. You are about this smell.

Christ changed David's life. He started memorizing portions of Scripture that were incredible. We got him a place to live. We hired him in the church to do maintenance, and we got his teeth fixed. He was a handsome man when he came out of the hospital. They detoxed him in six days. He spent that Thanksgiving at my house. He also spent Christmas at my house. When we were exchanging presents, he pulled out a little thing and he said, "This is for you." It was a little white hankerchief. It was the only thing he could afford.

A year later, David got up and talked about his conversion to Christ. The minute he took the mic and began to speak, I said, "The man is a preacher." This past Easter, we ordained David. He is an associate minister of a church over in New Jersey. And I was so close to saying, "Here, take this; I'm a busy preacher." We can get so full of ourselves.

This isn't part II to Open Source Theology, just a slight diversion :)

I ran into this fantastic article on contemporary worship leading, as many of you know, leading worship in church is one of my most cherished past-times, and this really nails all that is wrong with the how's of worship leading in the current context.

For as long as I've known it, church music seems to be more about form than function, entertainment than drawing people to the heart of God. Of course that is a broad generalization but think of the contempt that some people have for the place of hymns in modern worship, they seem to be kriptonite to the worship service, with a mythical quality of being able to suck people away from God.

Certainly I'm not advocating hymn services every Sunday (or any Sunday for that fact) but these songs have a place in our liturgical history and deserve respect for the depth of their teaching and engagement with God. In most cases these songs can be redeemed to a more modern style (updating the words and music) and bring the conviction of the heart of God that the original author intended.

Enjoy the read.

A few months ago a woman came into our church and made the pronouncement that she would never return to our church, would never again grace us with her presence unless we took all the flags down off the walls. To keep us continually focused on missions we have flags from all the nations that we support missionaries or orphanages or churches (or whatever else) in hanging from the walls.

For me, it was one of the first tests of leadership in the church, what should we do? Did we listen to this woman who spent most of that morning getting in peoples ears about how the flags were evil and signs of Satan or did we stay the course and leave it as a focus?

We decided to leave the flags there because we believed that the opinion of one should not dictate to the majority (that is of course unless they are right, but that wasn't the case here).

Today I was confronted with a similar situation, before our night service tonight I was confronted by an older member of our congregation who proclaimed that I should never lead worship unless I was wearing shoes. Her argument was that as a leader I should do whatever it takes to remove and all barriers for people in our church, so even if one person complains we should do what they say.

Do you think this is reasonable? Let's put aside what you think about the actual issue here, I don't wear shoes because I don't like wearing shoes, I wear thongs (or flip-flops depending of where you live) and slip them off whenever I can. (That and the fact I have nerve damage in my hands and feet and shoes hurt.)

Do you think it is reasonable for the objection of one person to set the policy and standards of the church? The Apostle Paul did say that he endeavored to become all things to all men in order to save a few but there are obvious problems with this when you become a Jew to save some and a Gentile to save others.

Situations such as this need to be measured firstly against Scripture, does God care about this matter and if not, against a reasonableness test. Is it reasonable to hold an entire group of people to the standards of one person in this case? If they are a reflection of a larger opinion in the church and it doesn't hurt to do it then just do it. If however it is the opinion of just one person or a small group of people, why put ourselves in bondage to their whims? This week it's making sure your wearing shoes, next week it's wearing a suit when you preach even in 40 degree heat!

It's easy to laugh at these things but these things no matter how trivial do matter to people so when you are dealing with situations such as this make sure you do it in love. If you treat these situations flippantly or with disdain or the person without respect these imaginary emergencies and worries can turn into real hurt and pain.

I'm a little reluctant to talk about this, not so much for the content but because to do it correctly I need to name someone and in effect give them free advertising.

Recently I've been having a bit of a discussion (read: disagreement) with the owner of xmin.org, this is a website that advocates something I agree with, but goes about it in the wrong way.

xmin is short for Christian Minimalism and bills itself as "The Final Denomination", a very large claim but I'm calling it for what it is, Universalism and that's heresy!

From their website:

    What is Christian Minimalism?
        Christian Minimalism is the thinnest possible Christian denomination.

So what do I agree with?

Like it or not we are moving into a post-denominational world, one where our affiliation with a particular brand of church no longer holds a sway over where we go on a Sunday. My parent's in-law are a good example of this. They were both brought to faith in the Church of Christ and have spent nearly 20 years at the church I now attend. When they took their sea-change and move many hours away, they sought out the local Church of Christ and found that it was a stale and dying place. Instead they ended up at the local Salvation Army church, something completely different to Church of Christ.

This presents a great difficulty for the Emerging Pastor. You now have people entering your church from another Christian tradition who is rebellious against (for instance) your insistence of adult baptism as a means for membership, and will not take it well when you say their baptism as a baby or 50 years of attendance in an Anglican church will not qualify them for full membership within your church.

So I like the idea of getting to the core of the matter, to rooting out the fundamentals (that's not a dirty word) of our faith and coming together in a true spirit of unity. To strip away everything to the barest of bones so that ones political, theological and social opinions are secondary is excellent. From that basis we can add everything else in liberty and grace.

What I don't agree with is opening up our understanding of our faith to be so broad that anyone, even those who would deny Christ crucified could be included in the "tribe".

So where do we start? Where do we draw our line our understanding.

The early church fathers ran into this very problem, they were fighting heresy on every front, from the Gnostics who separated out the flesh and spirit naming the former evil and the latter good, to the universalists of their day. To get through this rough spot, the Emperor Constantine did something useful (instead of nearly killing the faith by popularizing it, but thats another story), he locked all the parties in a room and made them argue it out. The output of their discussions is what we call the Nicene creed.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I'm going to leave this post here, it's already getting pretty long, but I'm going to follow it up soon with what I think is a better idea than xmin, and that is true Christian minimalism, core faith!

Did you know that last year the U.S. spent $450 billion on Christmas presents?!? I live in Australia and while I know that number for us is considerably less (there are only 20 million of us) we certainly punch above the belt as far as Christmas spending in concerned.

My wife showed me this video last night and it really convicted me to think about the consumerism of Christmas. Not that it's a new thought for me, but this was a real challenge to give presence and not give presents this Christmas. My wife and I have covenanted this Christmas to not buy gifts for anyone but rather donate all of what we would have spent to some local charities and the work of our church.

I know I'm going to have some disappointed family, but after-all, what would Jesus do? The Advent Conspiracy group behind this video are soliciting $10 donations to fight for clean water for everyone, while I'm not associated with them, we are going to donate to them as well and I'd encourage you to do likewise.

For $10 billion we can provide clean water for everyone forever.

May this Christmas be one that we Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All.