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.

When I first started studying theology for ministry I had no idea what I would learn. A mentor of mine at the time said that going through college dried him out and nearly burnt him out and told me to be very weary of it all. His fear was that my fresh conversion zeal would be sapped away by constant study as was his.

My experience of study has been quite the opposite, although it's tiring getting all the assessment work completed and trying to balance work, study, ministry and life, I find that I am energized by the company of great minds who have thought deeply and inspire my own deep thoughts.

Study has made parts of Scripture come alive, have new meaning and deliver a depth of meaning that I would have never encountered simply sitting in a pew.

One of those times occurred while reading "Theology for the community of God" which introduced me to the theology of the Trinity, how it works, why it is important and the consequences of having a God who lives in community with Himself.

The textbook brought me back to the fundamental nature of God, God is love.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John 4:7-21

When we say that God is love we sometimes seem like we are reading a bumper sticker, it's the right next to the "In case of rapture this car will be unmanned" sticker. But what we are conferring is the fundamental cause of the universe, God is love, and out of that love we came.

God is love.

God = love.

John in the passage above says it 6 ways from Sunday that when we love we are showing God to the world. When we speak of love we are speaking of God and the things of God.

In mathematics such as algebra you can substitute certain symbols to mean something else.

For example:

x = a + b

y = 5 * x

Therefore

y = 5 * (a + b)

Think this one through with me.

I'm seeking love = I'm seeking God.

I want to experience love = I want to experience God.

I want to know love = I want to know God.

When we seek love, we seek God.

For some of us this may re-invigorate our relationship with God because we know something about love and so we can start applying this to God. We can look at the hearts of our parents, or the love we have for our children and we get something of a glimpse of what this means with a relationship with our Heavenly Father.

For me it grows in me the desire to grow in holiness in my relationships. To love someone deeply means to impart something of the things of God into their lives. When I seek to serve the lost, the hopeless and the unloved in my community, the people who don't have a job, live on welfare, smell, when I minister to them to show them the things of God what I am really trying to do is show them love.

If I have not loved them then I have not shown them God.

I was looking at my posting stats yesterday and I was surprised at how many posts I've been averaging lately, mostly once a week where I used to be 3 times that amount.

It's not like there isn't anything to talk about, my endorsement is progressing great, friends are having (or had babies) HELLO SABRINA!!! My church just hired a new pastor, and I've been doing a heap of research for assignments which is usually great posting fodder.

To make up for it, my next post is going to continue on the theme of love, stick around, it should be worth reading.

God bless you!

When I found the following test it was billed as the world's easiest having a pass mark of just 4 out of 10. What I have since discovered is that 4 was setting my sights a little too high :)

There are some things in life that we just take for granted. For some of us it's our faith in God, faith in being able to keep our job, that are parents will always be there for us and one especially for those emerging pastors, that God works the way we think he does.

Nothing is more confronting than challenging our expectations especially about the fundamentals of life, those questions we thought we had put to bed years ago. What I continue to learn is that I have to unlearn and discover freshly what it means to be in a relationship with the God of the universe. I have to continually unlearn and discover again what my doctrine is, that's not simply throwing away everything I've learned but rather allowing new knowledge, new understanding and discoveries to be synthesized into my greater understanding of things.

So I encourage you to take this test (don't cheat, the answers are just below) and after you grade yourself take a few moments and pray to our Heavenly Father to reveal to you an area of your life or thinking (or both) where you have become stubborn or refuse to accept change and allow the Holy Spirit to challenge your expectations and grow you even more like Christ.

Let us live in the wisdom of John Maynard Keynes "When the facts change, I change my mind".


Here are the questions, be sure to write down your answers:

1. How long did the Hundred Years War last?
2. Which country makes Panama hats?
3. From which animal do we get catgut?
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5. What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7. What was King George VI's first name?
8. What color is a purple finch?
9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10. What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

 

Now that was easy wasn't it? Check your answers below AND GOOD LUCK!

 

1. 116 years
2. Ecuador
3. Sheep and Horses
4. November
5. Squirrel fur
6. Dogs
7. Albert
8. Crimson
9. New Zealand
10. Orange, of course.

The Worst Kind of Fire
When the U.S. began the Persian Gulf War in 1990, troops took on the Iraqi forces out in the desert of Kuwait. In those two months, January and February, the USA won an outstanding victory and had relatively few casualties. One of the interesting things about that war was that the majority of our troops weren't injured or killed by the enemy. They were the victims of what is called "friendly fire," from artillery. Friendly fire is where you are hit by ammunition by your own troops. In other words, it's where your own soldiers become your worst enemy. You can't prepare for it, and you never see it coming.

Right now in the church today, our biggest enemies aren't from outside, they're from within. The weapons that are used aren't rifles and missiles. It's our own words and attitudes. A lot of fellow church members are seriously wounded because the results of friendly fire. Nonbelievers avoid some of our churches because they know they'll be landing in the middle of a war zone. How many of our church folk become victims of friendly fire? How many times have you been a victim of friendly fire? More important, how many times have you attacked a fellow brother or sister with friendly fire?

 
All in Tune
Source: A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God
"Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all turned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship."

 
Spotlight vs. Laser Beam
Have you ever wondered what makes the difference between a spotlight and a laser beam? How can a medium-powered laser burn through steel in a matter of seconds, while the most powerful spotlight can only make it warm? Both may have the same electrical power requirements. The difference is unity. A laser can be simply described as a medium of excited molecules with mirrors at each end. Some of the excited molecules naturally decay into a less excited state. In the decay process they release a photon, a particle of light. It is here that the unique process of the laser begins. The photon moves along and "tickles" another molecule, inviting another photon to join him on his journey. Then these two photons "tickle" two more molecules and invite two more photons to join the parade. Soon there is a huge army of photons marching in step with each other. It is this unity that gives the laser its power. A spotlight may have just as many photons, but each is going its own independent way, occasionally interfering with other photons. As a result, much of its power is wasted and cannot be focused to do any useful work. However, the laser, because of its unity, is like an army marching in tight formation and is able to focus all its power on its objective.

 
Conflict in Community
Source: Larry Crabb, The Safest Place on Earth, p. 40.
"The difference between spiritual and unspiritual community is not whether conflict exists, but is rather in our attitude toward it and our approach to handling it. When conflict is seen as an opportunity to draw more fully on spiritual resources, we have the makings of spiritual community."

 
Get Organized
In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn't. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus. "These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold." "What channel do you want?" asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

Well well well, today I have reached a milestone in my ministry, study and Christian walk.

Today I put in the mail my application for endorsement as a Pastor in Churches of Christ NSW. Endorsement is basically the equivalent to ordination in most other denominations and it affords me no restrictions on the tasks I may perform in the church.

I was told by the coordinating body that I was basically pre-aproved and just needed to get the documentation in but it's still an exciting time and I'm a little nervous waiting for it to come back!

Please pray for me, I know that during times like this the enemy likes to get in my ear and tell me I am not deserving of such things even though I know that it's not true.

Last night we called a special meeting of the church to discuss the re-appointment of a pastor. What made this different to previous meetings of this kind is that this pastor's appointment comes with a list of duty restrictions because of a breach of our denominations code of conduct.

He was in fact our pastor previously and was stood down for the last two years because of this breach and has now been allowed to reapply for a ministry position.

Obviously this was a meeting that required great care in how we approached it and there were questions going back and forth along the lines of "should we mention this", "should we mention that", and in the end we decided that the best way we could approach this was with complete transparency. Transparency to the process, transparency to the sanctions and transparency to the person.

Why is this important and why wouldn't you be transparent? From my observations there is a tendency of an organizations leadership (be it a church or secular) to gloss over the more messy details of failure. About 8 years ago my church asked the then current pastor to resign due to performance reasons. That time it was handled terribly. There was little transparency to the reasons, the pastor resigned mid Sunday service without notice, the leadership closed ranks and were reluctant to talk about it at all.

In that instance around half the congregation left the church.

The effect of transparency in these very difficult dealing with the current pastor have been a most satisfying and healthy contrast.

In the meeting last night we laid it all out there: why we were offering re-appointment, what the restrictions were and why they were there. At every point we allowed time for the hard questions to be asked and did not shy away from the answers no matter how difficult they were.

I know it sounds like I'm just giving us a big pat on the back but I'm trying to highlight a critical issue in church governance. Be as open as possible as much as possible to as many people as possible. Do your dealings in the light and you will be resilient to gossip and false testimony about your dealings.

I ran across this lovely little ditty recently, it's a utilitarian approach to a love poem.

You are aesthetically pleasing,
the reason for which I first noticed in you.
And later I found your personality equally pleasing.
I also noted your chest to waist ratio is suitable for birthing.
Therefore, I think you should live in my house.

I'm not pointing any fingers here but there seems to be a lot of that kind of love going around at the moment. You look nice, lets live together. It's a challenge for the emerging pastor to gently confront our culture (or when necessary tread lightly and carry a big stick).

I can never think of a better way to inspire people towards godliness than giving them the higher aspirations of God. Listen to what Paul says love is:

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Love is so much more than "Hey I like the look of you" and when we model it to others, it can become a higher ideal that we can all aspire too. It is the only way we can combat the photoshopped, vanilla, lust fueled and disposable version of love offered up to us.

That's the kind of love I want to have!