jesus love me this i know?

We've been undergoing some changes here at Wesley this summer. After 18 years at the helm, Gregg is leaving to pastor a church in Houston, Texas... and I (Omar) have been promoted to replace him. Gregg leaves a huge lasting legacy here, and I hope to be able to carry it on for many more years.

Pray for all of us as we transition this summer and prepare for the fall.

In the meantime, here is a little video clip that sort of gets to the heart of the matter and forces us to think about what we are trying to do and get across here at Welsley... or really the entire Church for that matter.

Consider this our summer reflection...



h.t. to our friend John David for this one. Check out his blog where he writing a great deal of good stuff on the idea of worship.

Unbalanced

From time to time we like to have some of our students write their thoughts, stories or reflections on the blog.  Today we offer the thoughts of junior Jamie Edwards.

My life is unbalanced.  I have been striving my entire life to achieve balance.  Right now I feel pulled in a million directions.  I shouldn't be typing this now - I should be outlining the presentation I'm giving this Friday in comp class, researching for my history paper (before I leave for spring break and won't have access to the library), working on my studio assignment for tomorrow (hopelessly trying to figure out why the plotter never prints the color it shows on the screen and why foam core is impossible to cut), making an appointment to talk to my advisor and preparing for bible study tomorrow – but you know those things aren't really all that important.  Balance isn't important either.  In fact, balance is death.

Well, biologically, equilibrium is death.  Spiritually, equilibrium is death.  When things remain the same, constant, under control, under your control, where is God?  Where is faith?  You should always be striving, searching, moving.  God should always be moving in you, so that you may move for God.

 In my world continuously bombarded with assignments, interrupted by text messages, and centered around obsessively checking email, I worried about having time to lead a life community.  I worried about finding time for God.  In my search for balance I had pushed God out of the picture.  I mean, I still went to church most Sundays and came to bible study every Wednesday night, but I wasn't striving.  I wasn't allowing my spirit to be stirred, or more correctly put, I wasn't allowing the Holy Spirit to be stirred within myself.  I had become a passive Christian.  The reactions had stopped reacting, I had reached an apathetic equilibrium.  You could say, I needed a catalyst.  Some might say I've become a Catalyst, almost.

 Lately bible study with our life community has been great.  We've had a few of those “God things” happen.  The way events fall in order, and how the right person is in the right place at the right time, too much so to be a coincidence.  A lot of it is the stronger interpersonal connections being made within our life community.  The way you make a strong connection, do something completely unbalanced, crazy, make yourself vulnerable.  Tell us about the things you'd rather gloss over.  Crazy, huh?

Well, there is not a more crazy, unbalanced demonstration of extravagant love than that of Christ, the one we strive to emulate.

 

 

Retreat Reflection

We recently took a group of students on the Inter-Wesley retreat.  Students from five different Wesley Foundations were there, and we had a great weekend.  One of our Catalyst Interns, senior Melanie Claassen, shares her story from the retreat.

I was asked by Omar to write my blog entry as a reflection on this past weekend’s retreat.  Now, I will forewarn you, not all I am going to say is good.  Overall, the retreat was very good and I was made aware, once again, of a very important lesson; however, there were a few trials which I did not expect to have to deal with.  It all started with those of us being in 9A finding out there was a boy planning on staying in 9B.  We decided to speak up about it and I called Greg.  It was hard to do.  I did not think I would have to deal with such a situation at a Christian camp.  Then of course the girls never spoke to us thereafter. 

Then, the other trial leads to an eventual good and a lesson.  I am part of Alpha Delta Pi and so my LC consists of sorority sisters of mine; therefore the girls I brought were all ADPis along with me.  Well, as sorority girls the only t-shirts we own are ADPi t-shirts (we accumulate quite the collection over a four year period hehe) so all weekend long we wore adpi shirts.  Well, we felt like we were mistreated based on this fact.  Some Christians think of sororities as a non-Christian environment and I suppose those are who we ran in to this weekend, surprisingly!  A group of boys came up to one of my girls and asked her if he could borrow her UGG shoes so he could put it on to dress up and make fun of girls, specifically, sorority girls.  I don’t know if he knew she is a sorority girl, but those were his words… Well, the other situation involves me.  At dinner one day, the group next to us enquired as to why I was wearing both Nebraska and Colorado.  My sweatshirt was from a sorority sister at Nebraska.  Well, when I say “a-dee-pi” it sounds a lot like “ate a pie.”  My sorority gets made fun of at times because we’re not the “cool” sorority and do have some overweight girls and so people make comments like “adpi ate a pie.”  I find this to be very offensive.  Well, one of the girls at the table picked up on that statement so she starts laughing and then yells it over to the table next to us.  I was shocked!  How at a place like a Wesley Retreat would someone make fun of another?  Wasn’t the whole lesson Andy taught about being out of the usual box.  I went to the Hypnotic seminar so I am well aware that there were even hard-core drug users.  How could she and that group laugh about my sorority!  I was… uh… we’ll say very angry.  I glared at the table signaling that I did not appreciate what they were saying and although I noticed them noticing me, they did not stop.  I went in to worship that night with a very bad attitude.  I was definitely not in a worship mindset.  Well, I sat there thinking back to the lesson of forgiveness we heard at Catalyst one night.  I sat there, not able to pay attention to Andy and I started praying to God to help me let go of this.  I had also gone to Spiritual Warfare seminar that day so I took it as the devil trying to distract me that night.  I just willed myself with the help of God to let this go.  Well, slowly it started leaving me and I began being able to pay attention to Andy.  At one point I finally felt an overwhelming peace and calmness and the comments did not bother me.  I knew it was God’s power.

Well, so I started listening to Andy and I knew why God wanted me to pay attention.  Andy spoke about putting worth on ourselves and how our worth is not of this Earth, but because God created us and loves us.  It even relates to the situation.  I need not worry what others think of me; if they assume I’m un-Christian-like just because I’m in a sorority.  All that matters is that God knows my heart and He knows I live for him.  Also, I am personally a big over achiever and have set high goals for myself.  To be raw and honest, I gage my worth many times based on how I fail or succeed in the things I do.  Right now I feel a lot of worth based on what law schools do and do not accept me.  I also believe others are judging me based on where I get in or not and what my score was.  As I was sitting there listening to Andy I just became so fragile and raw for God.  I began to get emotional, begging God to help me realize this and more importantly to believe it and live it.  When I went to the altar Gregg came to pray for me and although I did not tell him that was why I was up there, he prayed for me for exactly that; specifically tailored to me.  God works through others like that. 

 

Remember, God created you and you are awesome, and that makes you worth the world… and His son’s death – what greater worth can there be?!?!?

Fasting and Feasting

Growing up in the church I never really understood what the big deal was with Lent.  The only thing I knew was that it was the season when one was supposed to give something up for 40 days before east.  Usually it was some personal indulgence like coffee or candy, or maybe some habit one was trying to change like watching too much TV or sleeping in late.  There would always be those people at lunch who would order water because they were struggling through the fact that they had given up Diet Coke for Lent.

 I still believe that there is a “deny ourselves” aspect to Lent.  When we get really honest we might be able to see just how much we are a medicated and distracted people.  Beyond the classic “alcohol and drugs,” in our culture today we use everything from food, iPods, X-Box, sports, shopping – the list is endless – to escape our stresses and calm our fears. 

Pope John Paul II once said, “It is Jesus you are seeking when you pray for happiness.”  If true, then maybe some form of self-denial during Lent helps us to answer Jesus’ question of, “Do you love me more than these.”

 But I am also learning that Lent is not just about fasting, but also about feasting.  The 40 days of Lent places us with Christ during his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness as he prepared for the Cross.  So let’s look at the story a little closer (Matthew 3:13 – 4:11).

 Right before He leaves for the wilderness, John baptizes Jesus in the Jordan River.  Before everyone present God the Father declares out loud, “This is my beloved Son, and I am well pleased with him.” God called Christ his beloved before He had even done anything publicly, which shows us that our identity in the Father is not based on what we do, but who we are and who God is. At the end of His wilderness wandering, Satan enters a battle of Scripture interpretation with Jesus.  At one point Jesus declares, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

 Do you see the connection?  Before he began his fast, he heard the word of the Lord calling him the Beloved.  And so maybe during his 40 days of fasting these were the words of the Lord that Christ feasted on.

 The goal of lent goes beyond self-improvement.  Lent places us in the story of Christ, where we deny ourselves for the sake of our love for Christ, all the while feasting on the words of the Father calling us the Beloved. 

If you are fasting during this season of Lent, pray for the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your heart to see more of what is going on with this story of Jesus in the wilderness.  It looks like fighting Satan, but it is really about dealing with God.  It looks like temptation, but is really deliverance.  It looks like fasting, but is really feasting.

One way to feast on Scripture as a community this Lent can be found on the Asbury Seminary Reader website.  Every day during the 40 days of Lent and the 50 days of Easter you will find a prayer, a reading from the Gospel of John, and some writings from the saints who have gone before us.  Check it out and enjoy the feast...

A First Fast

Every Wednesday this semester we feature reflections and stories written by some of our Catalyst interns. Today's post is written by senior Sarah Gipson:

I’ll admit, when Gregg and Omar suggested that we fast as a Community, I was not thrilled. In fact, I had a horrible attitude about it. Having never fasted before, I felt as though it should be a decision that I chose to do – not something that was asked of me.

After griping a bunch to my friends, I read a chapter about fasting in the book “Soul Feast” and met with Omar during our weekly mentoring time, and he explained some of the aspects of fasting to me. We talked about how I could still be a part of fasting with the community based on the physical need for food my job as a swimming instructor requires of me. He suggested that I simply fast lunch, and eat a small meal before I had to go teach at the pool that evening.

My attitude had improved much by this point, but still not probably where it needed to be. It’s interesting how God works. I’d made all these excused why I couldn’t even try it, and lo and behold, those things slowly started melting away. My last swimming lesson of the evening got moved ahead and hour and my lifeguard training for that evening got cancelled. I was starting to get the hint. Maybe this could be a way for me to branch out a little in my faith. I was going to give it a try.

Thursday morning came. I ate breakfast just as Omar had suggested. Then came lunch time. This semester I’m supposed to have a standing lunch date with my best friend Kelsie on Thursdays, and when she asked if I was free, I had to decline. Then I got a second lunch invitation. I definitely felt like I was being tested. But I stuck it out – and made it through lunch! Alright… I was doing okay. But then… my stomach started to growl… lots. I had some fruit juice in my bag, and so I decided to drink it… and boy did I. I chugged it. Big time. Enter defeat here.

After I got home from class that afternoon, I ate my small meal as Omar had suggested. I felt as though I had missed the whole point of the fast. When I got to the Wesley Chapel that night and shared in a meal with my fellow interns, I felt as though I was the biggest Fasting Faker of them all! None of them had eaten ALL DAY, and here I had eaten twice!

So what have I learned? Honestly, like a lot of things, I’m just not sure yet. Maybe the whole point was for me to be stretched out of my spiritual comfort zone a little. To try something other than reading a few verses in my Bible and writing in my prayer journal… Maybe my time was supposed to be spent thinking of those who go without meals daily, and are thankful when they are blessed with an opportunity to eat. I’m really not sure… but I do know that God will reveal it to me in such a personal way that only I can understand – He’s pretty good at that.

Bread for the Journey

As we begin the 40 days of Lent, many of us will try to keep a fast. But what kind of a fast does the Lord ask of us? Believing that Scripture is part of our daily bread, let us being our journey into the wilderness with the words from the prophet Isaiah:

"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'

"Well, here's why:

"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?

"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'

"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.

Isaiah 58:1-12

The Message

Ashes to Ashes

Every Wednesday this semester we feature reflections and stories written by some of our Catalyst interns. Today's post is written by sophmore Sam Meadors: 

Let’s play a little game of word association. Super Tuesday… what day comes after Tuesday? Wednesday… Ash Wednesday in fact. Ashes… rising from the ashes… phoenix… Harry Potter. I am fairly certain any word association could eventually end up with Harry Potter, but I thought I would share my process.

Anyway, unless you have been living under a rock for the last decade, you are familiar with the story of the Boy who Lived, Harry Potter. Over a quarter of a billion books have been sold in 200 countries and 60 languages. I admit I am among Muggle readers of the magical series. One of my favorite magical characters is Dumbledore’s pet phoenix, Fawkes.

Fawkes is a beautiful bird. As a part of his abilities, Fawkes can be reborn. In the first book, Fawkes battles the Basilisk with Harry blinding it with his beak. His tears (also magical) heal Harry’s puncture wound. In the fifth book, he swallows a Killing curse in order to save his owner Dumbledore. He bursts into flames and returns as a chick out of the ashes. Later in the series at his beloved owner’s death, Fawkes sings a song of lament before disappearing forever.

Although she claims not to have written a Christian novel, J.K. Rowling certainly created a character with extreme Christian symbolism. Namely the phoenix is an ancient representation of Christ’s resurrection. Think about it. Fawkes shows up at the time when Harry Potter needs him most. Likewise, we see Christ metaphorically flying into our lives in times of disarray and despair. Both have healing powers. Just as Fawkes gave of his life for Dumbledore, Christ gave himself up for all of us. Christ alone has truly risen from the ashes to eternal life. As you go about your Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, “Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Mostly though remember the good news and the real phoenix, Jesus, who overcame death and promises the same for all who believe in him. 

God Among

One of the things that pulls me to Jesus is the magnetic draw he had on people who had been otherwise repelled by religion. In him they were quick to recognize a power greater than their suffering, sorrow, emptiness, addiction or sin. By him they were touched, embraced, and restored. Through him they knew that God was not beyond them; God was among them.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus chose to be among those repelled by normal religion. Could he have chosen to do the Father’s kingdom work without ever rubbing shoulders with the neglected and rejected? I guess so, but, as one theologian has said, the true nature of love is seen its response to the unattractive. It was the compassionate love of Jesus, full of grace and mercy, which compelled him to enter the personal spaces and the suffering places where normal religion dared not go. Jesus does not decontaminate the environment before going into it. He just walks in. I wonder if God’s rescue and restoration operation works best in non-sterilized situations (look at the leper in Luke 5 as an example).

Following Jesus’ example, we shouldn’t think of ourselves as part of normal religion. Following Jesus is about outward movement toward people who wonder if they’ve broken their lives beyond repair, who lay in bed at night asking if God really cares, who go through each day hoping someone will notice their existence, or who feel they can’t get through another day without popping some pills or taking another drink.

Our Life Communities have the potential to be this kind of mission outposts for God’s restoration, authentic Christian communities sprouting up in dorms, Greek houses, apartment complexes, and cafes—communities in which people know that God is among them.

Life In Public

Every Wednesday this semester we feature reflections and stories written by some of our Catalyst interns. Today's post is written by senior Allison Frase: 

I promise I use to not know that much about pop culture and the world of celebrities. I didn’t know that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lache had gotten a divorce until after I returned from Thanksgiving break, and someone casually mentioned it in my night class. Everyone around me made it pretty clear that I was probably the last person in the world to find out, that even their grandmother knew

All of this changed with when I set up my igoogle page. If you are unfortunate enough to not have an igoogle page, let me explain. On this website, you can choose different features to show on your homepage, such as the weather, wikipedia links, daily photographs, and headlines to various news websites.

At the top of my igoogle page, I have People’s headlines. These inform me of the important events in celebrity world, such as the death of Heath Ledger, or the birth of Christina Aguilera’s baby. And unlike Time’s headlines, that say things like “The Clinton’s Double-team Obama,” which require you to click on the link to find out what that really means, People’s headlines are clear: Britney Spears steps out in wedding dress. I don’t need to click on the link to figure that one out.

So, basically what this means is, now I know everything about Britney Spears. The girl can’t do anything without the whole world knowing. She says something in a British accent, and the whole world knows (which makes me glad I don’t have paparazzi following me around.)

And this is what surprises me even more: everyone has to put her two cents in about her life. Britney needs to do this, or that, or just come to me Britney, I can help, she’s so crazy, etc. People just want to comment.

But then it hit me when the song Jesus Christ Superstar came on my ipod. Jesus went through much of the same thing. I mean, people followed him everywhere. The poor guy had to sail across the lake to have a moment’s peace. Instead of hiding in the bushes to get to him, people cut out roofs and lowered mats down (motivations are slightly different, but still, the fact is, people want to touch their life).

And if people think Britney Spears is crazy, what would they say about a man who hung out with prostitutes and broke social rules? The Bible gives a glimpse of some of the things people did say, and many of them were not kind.

I can’t imagine carrying out Jesus’ life in such a context. It had to be exhausting, maybe overwhelming. But we all know that He did it anyway, and his popularity or unpopularity never failed to stop his ministry.

I wonder what I would do if so much of the public turned against me. I kind of think I would hide in my room, and wait for it all to blow over. I’m sure glad Jesus didn’t. He carried on despite a lot of sharks out to do him wrong. Thank goodness. 

Real

The real God became a real man in the real Jesus, the real Son of God. He talked a real talk, walked a real walk, loved a real love, and lived a real life with real joy and real pain. He died a real death on a real cross with real nails. He cried real tears and shed real blood for my real sin to give me real life. His real dead body was really raised, and he really lives to extend his real life through a real community of people who really follow him.

For those who doubt, John makes it clear that this Jesus thing is flesh and blood real. He (along with many others) experienced first-hand Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. They saw Jesus with their own eyes, heard him with their own ears, and touched him with their own hands (1 John 1:1-4). This is not some new philosophy to be pondered. This is a life to be lived; a life we have been invited into, a life in which we participate.

John’s letters keep me from getting off in the head. It’s convenient to live in a conceptual world. Nice ideas and lofty platitudes keep me from getting my hands dirty, my heart broken, and my life challenged. But forgiveness and forgiving, abiding in Jesus and obedience to him, and sacrificial love for others pulls me out of my world of comfortable concepts and into the messy world of human community.

Walk On

At the beginning of creation, humanity walked with God in the Garden of Eden. The Scripture says that when humanity sinned and tried to hide, God walked through the garden calling their names.

Now God no longer walked with humanity. Instead, he commanded Abraham to, “walk before me and be perfect.” Later, when his people were lost to slavery, he delivered them by walking them out of Egypt. Now God went before them, as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, walking them through the waters, across the desert and into the Promised Land.

When the time had come, God chose to once again walk with humanity by becoming human. In the land of Palestine Jesus Christ walked among us, bringing good news to the poor, comforting the brokenhearted, and announcing that captives would be released and prisoners would be set free.

He walked out of the garden of agony and to the cross, where he gave up His life so that humanity no longer needed to hide from sin, but instead could walk with God into eternity.

And now we are called to walk on. This may be a new year, a new semester, and for some a new chapter in life. But our call remains the same: Walk on as Jesus walked.

Our text for this semester comes to us from John, a beloved disciple who physically walked with Jesus. Throughout his three short letters in the back of our bibles he consistently uses one word: Walk.

He calls us to not walk in darkness but rather walk in light and have fellowship with one another.

To walk in obedience. To walk in truth. To walk in love.

This is our call, and this is our standard: "This is how we know we are in him,"John writes. "Whoever claims to live in Christ must walk as Jesus walked."

Unforgiven

This semester we will be featuring reflections and stories written by some of our Catalyst interns. Today our inaugural post is by senior Eric Page:

One of the movie lines that has been repeating in my head lately is Clint Eastwood's most famous line from the movie Unforgiven. At the end of the movie, he has a rifle pointed at Gene Hackman's character and Gene says "I don't deserve this." Clint snaps back "Deserve's got nothing to do with it". For some reason, this line has become the de facto answer in my head as to why bad things happen in this world. People like to ask the devout and even God himself "Why do bad things happen to good people?" but they miss the point: deserve's got nothing to do with it. No one man is better than another, and because of that no man deserves terrible things to happen to him than another. People do not find it easy to see the good in a murderer or the bad in themselves. People can be more concerned with justice than caring and this hard-nosed way of viewing others creates a vicious cycle of neglect in our world. In Unforgiven, this is Gene Hackman's downfall. Without spoiling the movie, his lack of caring for Morgan Freeman's character, even while strictly upholding the law, causes Clint Eastwood to fall back into his old outlaw ways. This, of course, can be translated to the pious upholding God's law while damning the sinners instead of caring for them.

There is another side to the line that saves humanity from its faults. When we are all sinners and all deserve bad things to happen to us, why do we deserve the love of God? Why do we deserve to inherit the kingdom of heaven? Well, deserve's got nothing to do with it; love does. It is because of God's love and caring that He forgives us and shows us how to love others. He set the example, now we are charged with showing it to the world. If we screw up, that's ok, keep trying because God will forgive you of your mistakes. Even the justice system may never forgive you, but God will. We may not deserve it, but deserve's got nothing to do with it.

I was very curious to see if anyone else had analyzed that line to the depth I had, so I typed it straight into Google and searched on it. I was surprised when the first result listed was "Christian Cinema" and had an anaylsis similar to mine. It concluded with the following:

"From a Christian perspective, Unforgiven is powerful because it views its characters from God's perspective; it sees things from His vantage point. For all rational purposes, [Gene Hackman] should be the hero of the film. That our sympathies go with the sinner gives us a glimpse of the things God sees."
I didn't feel so bad about taking part of my Christian perspective from a character that was a "known thief and murderer".

I am writing this as a reflection because I would like to really like to know how well this line of thinking fits in with God's teaching and has seriously been the most prevalent God-related thing on my mind recently. Also, would it apply to why the Cowboys lost?