sparkplug

jesus love me this i know?

2008-06-11T00:38:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-24T14:36:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

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

2008-02-15T09:07:00.003-06:00

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

2008-02-13T08:24:00.002-06:00

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

2008-02-08T08:07:00.004-06:00

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

2008-02-06T08:56:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-04T19:48:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-23T21:54:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-21T14:42:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-18T19:06:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-16T08:16:00.000-06:00

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?

Grace Released, Truth Revealed (Continued)

2007-11-17T11:05:00.000-06:00

I’ve tried to put a definition on the dynamic of full grace and full truth that John weaves through his Gospel. Nothing satisfies. Trying to define this kind of thing is like standing underneath a water fall, trying to catch the falling current with your hands. Grab and snatch all you want, you will never be able to confine the flow in your grasp. You don’t define it, nor can you confine it. You can only relinquish yourself to the gush and attempt to describe what it’s like.

What if our communication of truth wasn’t limited to well-placed words, neat formulas, or rational argument? What if our words of truth were clothed with flesh and blood grace? Sometimes I wonder if what we need in our search for and communication of truth is not more teaching, more thinking, more doctrine, more programs, or more rules, but more grace. I wonder what our lives would be like if we let the dynamic combination of full grace and full truth capture our hearts. I wonder what our witness would be if, more than concentrating on great church experiences and programming, we released full grace into the lives of the people we live with, study with, and work with. I wonder what kind of truth would be revealed, what kind of forgiveness would be experienced, what kind of salvation would come, and what kind of Kingdom stories would be told.

Grace Released, Truth Revealed (Continued)

2007-11-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

...continued from October 26 and October 30....

The gap between what’s true and what’s not true about God is not bridged by good feelings of church friendships, a system of rational thought, a carefully outlined God-doctrine, or even a well-articulated belief system. God bridged the gap by binding truth to a person—the person of Jesus Christ—who comes full of grace and full of truth. The world of words and concepts becomes a life of flesh and blood. By embodying the fullness of God’s grace and truth, Jesus’ life of grace becomes the catalyst for God’s truth. Releasing the grace of Jesus reveals the truth of Jesus. I’m not suggesting the truth of Jesus is always received, only that until and unless the grace of Jesus is released, the truth of Jesus will not be received.

I’ve seen research that declares a truth crisis spreading like a plague through the value system of American teens. By looking at these polls, you would think all young people are morally adrift in a sea of moral swill, not the least bit interested in anchoring their lives to bedrock, absolute truth. And, I have to say, that anyone who works with young people can easily find some merit in the statistics. But maybe there’s a crisis of truth in our culture because there’s a crisis of grace. I’d like to see a poll on that.

Grace reaches out and grabs truth out of the ethereal world of the propositionally abstract and deeply plants it into the messy world of human living, providing a relational context in which the truth of God becomes visible, touchable, tangible, and even vulnerable. Wherever, whenever, and with whomever God’s grace—his generosity, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, faithfulness—intersects our lives, defying our conventional expectations of what’s true and not true of God, God’s truth is revealed, and the potential exists for his truth to be received.

More to come...

Our Shared Stories

2007-11-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

This past Friday we held our annual Fellowship Dinner... which is a fancy way of saying our annual fund-raiser. Four of our student-interns shared their stories via a video we produced for event. And along with their stories, we introduced our supporters to one of the big reasons we need to raise funds: Big Blue.

I had a lot of fun putting this video together because it offered me the chance to get to know some of our interns a little bit more. We have a great team here. They love God, and they love each other. In the end, that is all we can hope for and all we are called to do.

The music in this video is performed by our friend Matt Maher. The song is called You Know Who I Am from the album The End and the Beginning. You can find Matt here on or on iTunes.

Grace Released, Truth Revealed (Continued)

2007-10-30T21:15:00.000-05:00

Between the bookends of John’s prologue (John 1) and Peter’s restoration (John 21), encounters with Jesus weave a tapestry of grace released and truth revealed, bridging the gap between what’s true and not true about God.

When you have some time, read through John to peer into the lives of all the people whom Jesus encountered—four men who discover that Jesus is the one they’ve been waiting for all their lives, the partying guests who enjoyed the choice wine Jesus miraculously provided at a Canaanite wedding, a seeking Nicodemus, a humble John the Baptist, a respected government official who is also a desperate dad, an outcast Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, a helpless invalid of 38 years, the 5,000 poor who filled their stomachs with five loaves and two fish, the desperate disciples who saw Jesus walk on water, a shamed woman caught in the act of adultery, a man blind since birth with the spit of Jesus on his eyes, a dead Lazarus and his broken hearted sisters, Mary and Martha, the worried disciples in the upper room with clean feet and comforted hearts, a surprised and overjoyed Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, and a doubtful Thomas with his finger in Jesus’ wounds.

See if, in fact, the truth revealed to them about what’s true and not true about God was released by an act of Jesus-grace. If we could ask them, my bet is that they would say it was. They might even say that not only is Jesus the Truth, Jesus is the Grace.

More to come...

Grace Released, Truth Revealed

2007-10-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

Henri Nouwen expressed that the only way to know the truth of Jesus Christ is to be transformed by an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. “Truth does not mean an idea, concept, or doctrine, but the true relationship. To be led into the same relationship that Jesus has with the Father; it is to enter into divine betrothal” (Making All Things New, 54).

John sets the tone to the true relationship Jesus offers by beginning with a prologue of grace and truth, characterized by God taking the first step to bridge the gap between what’s true and what’s not true about God (John 1:1-18).

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known (John 1:14-18, emphasis mine).

John ends his gospel with an event of full grace released and full truth revealed—the restoration of Peter. Peter finds himself in the gap of truth, a gap many of us know. We don’t question the facts of Jesus’ resurrection; we only question whether the forgiveness it brings is really for us. Even witnessing the undeniable reality of the resurrection of Jesus did not break through the deep shame Peter felt for disowning Jesus. Only an after-breakfast, face-to-face conversation with Jesus on a beach, in which Jesus graciously allows Peter to own his love for him, provides the catalyst for the truth Peter seeks. The truth of God is revealed to him because the grace of God is released to him.

More to come...

Is this a love thing?

2007-10-15T17:35:00.000-05:00

Bottom line: Love God with all of who you are. Love all others as you love yourself (Matthew 22:34-40).

Sometimes I think I tend to make it too complicated, trying to wrap my head around theological shades and nuances. What if this? What if that? But it’s really pretty simple. Love God, love others. Jesus embodies this whole-hearted devotion and invites us to live in it with him. When we follow him, we follow this relationship of simplicity.

Loving is not about having all my questions answered or having my life all figured out. I can love without all the information and without knowing how the future unfolds. In fact, love requires that I do so. The last thing produced by information and knowledge is love.

Loving is not about feeling like loving. It’s really more of a choice, an act of the will, whether I feel like it or not.

Loving is not selective. I don’t get to choose when I love God. I don’t get to choose whom I love. I don’t get to make judgment on who deserves love. That’s already been decided.

Loving is total. The equation of love: Heart + Mind + Soul + Strength. That’s pretty much all of who I am.

To love God is to love others. I can’t conveniently turn the love switch on and off, depending on the people I’m around. If I don’t love others, I’ve pretty much told you by my behavior that I don’t love God.

Loving others is not always easy. Jesus quotes part of Leviticus 19:18 as the flip-side of the same coin of the love commandment. The entire Leviticus verse says this: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” To love is to forgive because God forgives—not always easy.

I wonder what life would like if we laid aside our conjured complexities and simply followed Jesus and followed him simply.

KingdomTide: Mercy & Justice

2007-10-01T12:25:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday night our Catalyst speaker, Bill Mefford, challenged us to consider what is mercy and what is justice. His basic breakdown went something like this:

If we are eating at the table, and we know there are starving children in another country, what is mercy and what is justice? Mercy is sending them money or food. Justice is inviting them to our table and working to bring an end to the systems that cause them to starve.

Mercy and justice was at the heart of God’s judgment of his people in the book of Isaiah. They worshiped idols that were all about their own security and prosperity, while all the while forgetting their mandate to be light of mercy and justice to the nations.

Mercy and justice is at the heart of Christ’s incarnation, as we have seen from our readings this past week when Matthew quotes Isaiah 42:

“Look at my Servant, whom I have chosen. He is my Beloved, who pleases me. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not fight or shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. Finally he will cause justice to be victorious. And his name will be the hope of all the world.”
Matthew 12:18-21 (NLT)

Mercy and justice is at the heart of the Cross: The death of Christ to fulfill the broken covenant of the sin of humanity was an act of justice. That Christ died in place of and to rescue humanity was an act of mercy.

And now we, like the Israelites in the Old Testament, are called to be the light of Christ’s mercy and justice in the world. The pressing question for us right now is what does that look like where we live and work?

There is a long forgotten season in the Church calendar called Kingdomtide. It arose in the early 20th century as an effort to focus on the mercy and justice aspects of the Gospel, and to embrace the poor and marginalized with mercy and justice in Jesus’ name.

Last year at Asbury Seminary we created this video as a visual prayer for our Kingdomtide Communion service. I invite you to watch it while praying Open the eyes of our hearts…

You can read more about KingdomTide by going here and then clicking the link on the left.

The written text in the beginning is from Isaiah 43, and at the end is from Isaiah 1. The music is Isaiah 61, performed by our friend Matt Maher (which you can find on iTunes). The painting of Jesus is by Kevin Sparks. It's a little trickier with the news footage. We’re claiming educational usage exception to the copyright laws. We're not selling this resource - simply using it to feature the news in a the more hopeful frame of the Kingdom of God

Matthew 11: Great Question

2007-09-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

Are you the One we’ve been expecting to come, or should we keep our options open (11:3)?

Asked by John the Baptist’s disciples, who had been actively waiting and preparing themselves to be ready for God’s Messiah, it’s a question pondered by all of us at the depths of our human experience.

We ask it in different ways, but the depth of our longing is the same. God, when are you going to show yourself to me? How long do I have to wait? How do I know that you’re for real? Some of the things I’ve seen in my life look like you, but how can I be sure? Are you really the one who gives us hope? If not, please tell me because I’m getting weary of waiting.

I find it interesting that Jesus didn’t respond to them by giving them some sort of intellectual argument, trying to prove that he in fact was the One. He didn’t placate their expectations by telling them, “I know you’ve been waiting a long time, and I know things aren’t exactly what you expected, and things are hard, but just hold on a little longer and you’ll see.”

Jesus simply said, What do you hear, what do you see? “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of me” (11:4-6).

In other words, you see the evidence of God’s kingdom at work. You tell me.

Take a look at Isaiah 35, especially verses 5-6, and you’ll understand that Jesus answered them by referring them to Jewish expectations of the Messiah that they knew, but perhaps had forgotten. Maybe that’s why Jesus says, “Blessed is the one who doesn’t not fall away on account of me.” Some turn away from Jesus because he doesn't meet their expectations.

It’s not just the question we ask— “Are you the One?” It’s having “ears to hear” the answer that God is giving. “Wisdom is proved right by her actions” (11:15, 19).

Matthew 9:35-10:42: Your Turn

2007-09-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

I ended my post on Matthew 7 with this question: If we lived in the reality of Jesus with us and his authority (s'mikhah) in us, how would that change the way we live and how we relate to the world around us?

Does 10:1 give us the answer? “He called his twelve disciples and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”

Matthew 9:35-37 is like a hinge in the story. These three verses swing back to summarize what has happened since 4:17, while opening the story forward, pointing us to the next phase of the story: The Rabbi’s students doing what the Rabbi does. “Your turn,” Jesus says. “Here are the keys to the kingdom. Take it for a test drive.”

Jesus gives the twelve a boatload of instruction in chapter 10, more than I want to detail here. But let me just point out one main idea that sticks out to me. Don’t you find it compelling that there exists such close communion between Jesus and his disciples that their words and actions (their very lives) are seen as if they are Jesus’ words and actions? Jesus instructs them, “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me” (10:40; see also 10:17-20, 24). That’s authority of Jesus transferred to the lives of his disciples.

What does it mean that those who follow Jesus represent Jesus to the world? This is not just some lofty ideal. This is how the kingdom works.

I wonder if there’s a correlation between seeing the power of God and living under the authority of God. Is it possible that we deny the power of God in our world today because we choose to live under an alternative authority?

Would people see more of Jesus in us if we saw ourselves more in Jesus?

Matthew 9:9-13: Was Matthew Listed in the Christian Business Yellow Pages?

2007-09-24T16:42:00.000-05:00

What’s up with the Christian Business Yellow Pages? If that thing had been around in Jesus’ day and Jesus only entered the businesses of his followers, do you think he would have ever entered Matthew’s tax office?

If Jesus only hung out with the righteous, we wouldn’t be reading the gospel of Matthew.

If we only engage in conversation with Christians, shop at Christian stores, eat Christian food, listen to Christian music, watch Christian TV, go to Christian schools, read Christian books, work Christian jobs, how in the world does God’s kingdom come, his will done on earth as it is in heaven? Somebody break up this holy huddle!

Bread for the Journey: Our Shared Faith

2007-09-23T23:43:00.001-05:00

Often times the words someone else has written say better what you want to say than you could yourself. This past Thursday night I shared with our Catalyst interns a quote from one of my heroes of the faith, Henri Nouwen. This is as close to a "mission statement" as I can think of for who we are at what we are aiming for here at Wesley.

Being a Christian is not a solitary affair. Nevertheless, we often think about the spiritual life in highly individualistic terms. We are trained to have our own ideas, speak our own minds and follow our own ways. European and American education places so much emphasis on the development of an independent personality that we have come to view other people more as potential advisors, guides and friends on the road to self-fulfillment than as fellow members of a community of faith.

In the intimacy of my relationship with God I still find myself thinking more about my faith, my hope and my love than about our faith, our hope and our love. I worry about my individual prayer life, I speculate about my future as an educated man, and I reflect on how much good I have done or will do for others. In all of this, it is my individual spiritual life that receives the most attention.

That God reveals the fullness of divine love first of all in community, and that the proclamation of the good news finds its main source there has radical consequences for our lives. Because now the question is no longer: “How can I best develop my spiritual life and share it with others?” but “Where do we find the community of faith to which the Sprit of God descends and from which God’s message of hope and love can be brought as a light into the world?” Once this question becomes our main concern we can no longer separate the spiritual life from the community, belonging to God from belonging to each other, and seeing Christ from seeing one another in Him.

Henri Nouwen
"Behold the Beauty of the Lord"

Considering what is written above, it is also interesting to note that the Lord's prayer in our readings this past week begins with "Our Father" and not "My father." Let us meditate on the prayer Jesus taught us, and what it means for the communion of saints of which we are a part.

Reading Scripture: Great Expectations (Part One)

2007-09-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

As we continue through the Gospel of Matthew, we come across a very interesting statement by Jesus in 10:5: “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep.”

God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus, but now here is Jesus telling his disciples to ignore the rest of the world and focus only on their own people. What are we missing?

Looking back at the last 10 chapters we have read in Matthew, we can see a major theme developing: This book was first written for Jews who were expecting a messiah. That is why there is so much imagery and attention paid to Jewish customs and laws. And if we look closer still, we can see that the gospel is filled with echoes of the Israelite Old Testament story… all with the purpose of showing that Christ is the Messiah and that God keeps his promises to his people.

In the Creation story Adam fails and gives in to temptation, leading to sin and death entering the world. But in Matthew 3 we see Christ resisting the temptation of Satan. In the Exodus story we see God leading his people out of Egypt and across the Jordan River. In the Gospel of Matthew we see Christ coming out of Egypt and being baptized in the Jordan River. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. Christ spends 40 days in the wilderness.

So what we see here is that where Adam failed, Christ (the “new Adam”) would not. Just as Israel was called and led, so was Christ. But where Israel failed, Christ would not. Before God could show how much he loved the world, he first had to show Israel that he keeps his promise. How can God be trusted in anything he says if he cannot first keep his promise to his people?

But what is that promise? Maybe it runs deeper than just dieing for our sins.

More to come…

Matthew 8: Bigger, Wider, Deeper

2007-09-18T22:11:00.000-05:00

It’s interesting who hears Jesus and how they respond to him. Coming down from the mountain of kindgom teaching (Matt. 5-7), Jesus immediately enters into the heart of human response to the demonstration of his kingdom.

The unclean, isolated, rejected, pagan, godless, sick, possessed, and outcast respond in courage, humility, and trust.

Some Jewish religious elite respond with excuses.

Winds and waves, non-human elements, obey his authority. His disciples worry about their own well-being.

Jesus enters the region of the Gadarenes, a predominantly Gentile-Roman region about 6 miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee where the people religiously practice the worship of Greco-Roman gods and goddesses. Demons flee their well-established residence in two men in obedience to Jesus’ command, and yet the whole town of people begs him to get out of town. Do the demons fear his power more than the people trust his authority?

Jesus busts through any religious boundary constructed to include and exclude. The kingdom of heaven has broken through the paradigms of the stuff of earth (4:17). God’s mission to renew and restore his creation is bigger, wider, and deeper than anyone thinks or imagines.

When I look at the responses to Jesus in chapter 8, I feel compelled to ask some questions. Where do I put limits on God’s work in my life and in the lives of others? Am I open to God breaking in on my world? Where am I missing God’s kingdom mission because my view of him is too narrow or too self-absorbed? What is my response to him?

Reading Scripture: Chapter & Verse

2007-09-18T09:20:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had many conversations with many of you over how we should look at Scripture, particularly the first half of the book of Matthew. Today we start reading chapter nine, but I want to look at the texts we have read so far and use them to lay the groundwork for some larger themes and ideas that I hope will help us as we read the Scriptures together.

This past weekend I was watching a preacher on TV say that God had told him to tell me that because God had promised a blessing in Isaiah 58, I was supposed to give $58 a month for a year in order to receive the same blessing. I’ve seen this preacher do this before, with certain chapters being the number of people who are supposed to give, and the verse being the amount they are supposed to give.

Now of course this is an extreme example, but it got me thinking about the concept of chapters and verses in the Bible. In reality, the chapters and verses as we have them today were not there when the original authors wrote the Scriptures. They just wrote long letters or gospels. It wasn’t until centuries later that they were divided up and organized into the chapters and verses that we have today. Of course, the intent was to make the Scriptures easier to reference, but there have been unintended consequences.

Today when we read a passage of Scripture, the editors of the different Bible translations have broken them up by story or topic based on these chapters, and on what they think is a “logical” break. But what if the original author did not mean for the story or thought flow to break there? What if we have missed something all together by boxing in the Scripture so it makes sense?

Here is an example: In Matthew 3:13-17 we have the story of the Baptism of Jesus. The story climaxes with Jesus rising out of the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit descending upon Him, and God declaring out loud for all to hear, “This is my beloved Son, and I am well pleased with Him.” Then the chapter ends, and then Matthew 4 opens with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. So we tie off one story and open the next… and this story usually ends for us with the lesson that Jesus was able to fight of temptation and so can we.

But look at the first thing that happens when Satan tempts Jesus. He asks Him “are you really the Son of God?” Jesus rebukes him, and tells him that “Humans do not live off of bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” What does that mean?

But if we look back in the story just a bit, we see that from the mouth of God came the words that Jesus was the Son of God. So what did Jesus “live off of” while he fasted in the desert for 40 days? What was the bread that had come from the mouth of God? The words of the Father at His baptism… "This is my beloved Son, and I am well pleased with him." And so after 40 days with only that as his bread in the wilderness, Christ is able to face the temptation of the Enemy, knowing that his identity is in the Father. And what is even more telling, is that God declares he is well pleased with the Son before he has even done anything publically, rather than waiting until the end and saying, "Well done good and faitful servant." It was not Christ beating back Satan with Scripture that won God's favor... rather it was knowing and feasting on the fact that He had God's favor and was God's beloved Son before he entred the wilderness that enabled Christ to resist temptation.

I don’t know about you, but that helps me look at the story in a different light, and it helps me apply the story to my own life in a somewhat different way. This is no longer just a Bible lesson that simply says, “You can fight off the Enemy with Scripture.” Rather our Baptism, in all reality, becomes the core of who we are and how we are sustained in the wilderness… the beloved sons and daughters of God, regardless of what we have or have not done.

When reading a passage of Scripture, it is of vital importance to not read a verse or set of verses in a vacuum and try to determine what they mean for you life now. Take the time to read what has come before it, and even what comes after. Try to not let the chapters and verses break up the story where it was not intended to be broken. You’ll be able to find where the author intended for a change or a break, but often times it will not be where centuries of editors decided it should be.

So how does this concept change some of the other ways we should read Scripture? More to come…

Matthew 7: S'mikhah

2007-09-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

A word pops up at the end of Matthew 7, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7), which gives some insight into who Jesus is and how people responded to him. This is the first place the word occurs in Matthew but not the last place. It pops up again in chapters 8, 9, 10, 21, and 28, where Jesus gives to his disciples what has come to be known as the Great Commission.

Matthew concludes this section of Jesus’ teachings (chapters 5-7) by letting us know that Jesus “taught as one who had s’mikhah (authority), and not as their teachers of the law.” A s’mikhah Rabbi was recognized as one who had the authority to make new interpretations of the Torah. In contrast, the teachers of the law could not offer new interpretations of the law. They could only teach what the rabbinic community had already commonly accepted.

You see Jesus exercising his s’mikhah in several places in the Sermon on the Mount. For example,

When Jesus wraps up all his teaching by sharing the parable of the wise and foolish builder, he communicates that everything he has just said are “words of mine” (7:24, 26).
When Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said…but I tell you…” (5:21-22; 27-28; 31-32; 33-34; 38-39; 43-44).

The people were amazed at Jesus’ words because he communicated new insight, fresh understandings to what they had been taught all their lives. And not only that. The people were astonished because Jesus’ s’mikhah seemed to come from within his very nature, not necessarily from external learning achieved at the feet of other rabbis. Remember, Jesus communicated that the entire fulfillment of the law and the prophets was to be found in him. “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or Prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17).

The amazing thing is that no one fulfills all of God's people's hopes and dreams except God. Hmmm…what is Jesus saying?

Spoiler alert: When Jesus commissions his disciples after his resurrection, he says, "All authority [all s’mikhah] in heaven and on earth has been given to me…. Therefore go…. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). Check it out. If Jesus’ presence constantly and always accompanies his people, wouldn’t that mean that his s’mikhah also comes along with him and with his people?

If we lived in the reality of Jesus with us and his s'mikhah in us, how would that change the way we live and how we relate to the world around us?

Matthew 6: No Word for Worry?

2007-09-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

Three words commonly used in our everyday discourse are absent from the language of the Moken people.* For hundreds of years, the Moken have lived on the Andaman Sea around the islands off the Southeast Asian coasts of Thailand and Burma (That’s right, on. They live mostly in their boats, on the sea). Not only does the Moken language exclude these three words from its lexicon, the Moken people have no concept of their meanings.

What are the words? Worry. When. Want. The Mokan don’t ask when. They don’t want. They don’t worry.

It makes sense, I guess, that they don’t worry. Like a never-ending merry-go-round, WHEN and WANT cycle through our lives, producing endless, meaningless WORRY. The things that make us WORRY have to do with WHEN and WANT. If you’re not concerned with WHEN, you don’t WORRY. If you don’t WANT, you don’t WORRY. If you don’t wonder WHEN you’re going to get what you WANT, you don’t WORRY.

In our culture, we are consumed with anxiety. It’s perhaps the number one health concern, leading to depression, ulcers, and even more serious health problems. If we were to take a cue from the Moken, deleting WHEN and WANT from our consciousness, perhaps WORRY would disappear. To delete WHEN would mean to live in the now, unconsumed by fear of the future. To delete WANT would mean to live content, not coveting what we don’t have.

Is it possible not to worry? Well, just look at the Moken.

Look to Jesus. God is good enough to take care of you. What’s Jesus’ answer to the worry that preoccupies us? Make it your number one priority to keep seeking God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness in all that you do (Matt. 6:33). Eugene Peterson, in The Message, puts Jesus’ words like this:

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

*I first heard about the Moken in a 60 Minutes story reported by Bob Simon on June 10, 2007 (originally aired on March 20, 2005). Here’s the link to the full story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681558.shtml)

Matthew 5: Can you give me something to work with here?

2007-09-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

What if Jesus took just about everything you’d been taught about God your whole life, everything you thought you knew about him, and every rule you’d ever followed in attempts to make yourself right with him and smashed it into a million pieces? After Jesus obliterates your God-view, he then begins to build for you a new framework of fresh understanding of who God really is and what God really expects.

Tap into those feelings and you’ll tap into the experience of those who heard for the first time Jesus’ words of Matthew 5. Everything is turned upside down.

What you perceive as a life cursed is a life blessed (5:2-12).
As God’s people, you don’t hide in a corner, but you penetrate the earth and illuminate God’s kingdom goodness for everyone ((5:13-16).
The “righteous” example of your religious leaders, people who you think are definitely a part of God’s in-crowd, is insufficient (5:17-20).
Everything you’ve heard from your religious tradition about what not to do on the outside flips to include even the stuff you think on the inside (5:21-33).
Your sense of justice is upended and replaced by a practice of grace (5:38-42).
Your love has to extend even to those who don’t love you (5:43-47).
God loves even those who don’t love him; people you don't even like (5:43-47)!
And, to top it all off, with your imperfections fully exposed, you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (5:48).

Good grief, Jesus! Can anyone do this? I'm more of screw up than I thought! Can you give me something to work with here?

Sounds like Jesus is setting us up for failure. Or is he?

Let me ask a rhetorical question. Could it be that instead of setting us up for failure, Jesus is lifting himself up as our fulfillment (5:17)?

And the call to perfection (probably not the best translation for our perfectionistic, performance-based society) is more accurately a call to be fully alive by loving God with all of who we are and expressing God's love to others without prejudice.

In Jesus, God’s kingdom comes. He is the Father's fulfillment…and ours.

Matthew 4: What are we waiting for?

2007-09-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

Immediately. At once. I’m struck by the level of urgent non-resistance Peter and Andrew, John and James had to Jesus' invitation to “Come, follow me.” I like how The Message translates it: “They didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed” (4:20). Not everyone who experienced Jesus had that response. Matthew makes that clear later.

This “come and follow” call was not just a “let’s hang out a little” invitation. It was Rabbi Jesus asking a few guys to become his students, his disciples. He was asking them to see what he saw, hear what he said, listen to what he heard, eat what he ate, do what he did, pray as he prayed, love as he loved, to become like him. Follow after him.

Rob Bell, in Velvet Elvis, gets at the kind of followship-devotion disciples had for their rabbis. “One of the earliest sages of the Mishnah, Yose ben Yoezer, said to his disciples, ‘Cover yourself with the dust of [your rabbi’s] feet.’”

What did they see in Jesus that caused them to drop everything and follow?

What did Jesus see in them?

What does Jesus see in us?

What are we waiting for?

Matthew 3: Repentance

2007-09-05T15:01:00.001-05:00

To be honest, whenever I read John the Baptist’s message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” I get the image in my head of the people who travel to college campuses to preach a gospel of condemnation, screaming judgment and denunciation, accusing students of all kinds of things. Some students are mesmerized, some antagonized, few (if any) drawn to Jesus.

The movement of Matthew 3 is interesting. It begins with John’s call to repentance and ends with Jesus’ baptism and blessing from the Father. “At that moment, heaven was opened, and [Jesus] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and landing on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”

In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has invaded the stuff of earth. God’s kingdom done on earth as it is in heaven. We don't get there without repentance.

Repentance, technically a change of mind and purpose, is more than turning away from someTHING. It is turning toward someONE. The momentum of life changes direction.

In spite of the initial images in my head, repentance is not negative. True, it is a call to turn from a life direction inconsistent with God’s good intention for us (call that sin), but it’s not an imperative to beat ourselves up. It’s a realization that God is drawing us to himself, and by lowering our resistance to his movement in our lives, we move toward his life for us, in us, and through us.

Repentance is our response to the gracious, magnetic draw of Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s dream for all of us.

Matthew 2: Awe and Awfulness

2007-08-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

“He will be called a Nazarene” (Matt. 2:23).

Probably not the most complimentary description, since, in Jesus’ day, to be called a Nazarene was like calling someone despicable or despised (I can think of a lot of other words I won’t write here).

In John 1, when Phillip told Nathanael that they had found the Messiah and that he was from the little town of Nazareth, Nathanael responded with befuddlement that God would send the Messiah from such a place of questionable reputation. “Nazareth!” said Nathanael, trying to wrap his head around the idea. “Can anything good come from there!?” (see John 1:44-46).

Contrast the perceptions that “Nazarene” provoke with the name God told Joseph to give his son—Jesus (Joshua or Yeshua), meaning the LORD saves (1:21).

Or how about the description, Immanuel, meaning “God with us” (1:23)?

How is it that Jesus, the Messiah, stirs up both feelings of blessing and curse, awe and awfulness? I guess it depends on where you’re coming from in your response to him.

King Herod was not thrilled with the news. I wonder if Herod felt his power threatened. At the news of this baby, he was disturbed, conniving, and paranoid. His ultimate response was to search for him to kill him (2:13).

On the other hand, the Magi from the east couldn’t wait to get to Jesus. They were seeking, responsive, humble, overjoyed, and sacrificial. Their ultimate response was to worship him.

Throughout his life, Jesus worked up all sorts of contrasting feelings in people and conflicting responses to him. I guess he still does.

Matthew 1: Gene Pool

2007-08-24T11:27:00.001-05:00

The thought of reading someone’s family tree excites me about as much as spending an afternoon watching CSpan. So when Matthew starts off with a genealogy, my natural tendency is to skip it and get to the good parts.

In spite of that, I figured Matthew must have had a good reason for launching his gospel with Jesus’ ancestral line. I might as well pay attention. Here are some things that jumped out at me.

Five women, including a prostitute and adulteress (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Uriah’s wife—Bathsheba, Mary). I don’t know much about ancient Jewish genealogies, but I’m pretty sure including women in the list was a major no-no.

What does that say about the mission of Jesus?

A murderer. Yes, David was the beloved king who united the nation of Israel, making it an international superpower, but he was also a murderer and adulterer. Yet in spite of his egregious flaws and sin and because of his repentant heart (see Psalms 32 and 51), God considered him a man after God’s own heart.

A belligerent people so disobedient to God that they were broken apart and deported to Babylon. Three times in this genealogy, Matthew reminds his readers (and us) of the disassembling of God’s people because of their unfaithfulness (1:11, 12, 17). What’s he trying to communicate?

The flow of the genealogy breaks form when it gets to Joseph. Notice it doesn’t say, “Joseph, father of Christ.” It says “Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (1:16). This break in form would have stuck out to any Jew. Matthew sends a message that God, not Joseph, is Jesus’ Father.

In addition to all that, I’m struck by the mood of the genealogy. The entire movement and every detail of Jesus’ genealogy have this vibe of fulfillment—God’s promises and purposes for his people culminate in the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. I find the whole thing extremely hope-filled.

On a personal level, I think if God’s Son entered the world through a family line as messed up as this, and if God chose to enflesh himself within a family system with these kinds of problems, there’s plenty of grace and hope for me in spite of my own lineage and, for that matter, for anyone, regardless of the family you come from. God’s grace thrives in brokenness. God’s redemptive goodness is uninhibited by human badness. How’s that for hope?

But it’s even bigger than that. Jesus’ lineage goes all the way through David to Abraham: “Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

Even though Matthew begins with Abraham, if you take a quick look at Abe’s lineage, beginning with his father, Terah (Genesis 11), his family tree goes all the way back to Adam, all the way back to Genesis 1. Every Jew hearing Matthew’s account would have immediately made that connection. Jesus, as Paul says, is the ultimate Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), God’s dream come true for what it means to be fully human. God’s creation intent for humanity in Adam becomes God’s creation design fulfilled in his Son, Jesus.

By diving into Jesus’ gene pool, Matthew shows us that the life of Jesus is birthed from within this grand story of God. In spite of numerous set backs, sinful behavior, and questionable characters, God’s trajectory of renewal and restoration for all creation and for every person climaxes in the birth of Jesus, the God-man. In him, Eden returns.

What do you think?

Life Communities: Missional Messiness

2007-08-22T10:11:00.000-05:00

My friend, Steve Hambrick at University of Central Florida Wesley, told me the other day that he has been encouraging his students away from a "programmatic" model, toward a more missional mode of campus ministry. If you know me, you that's stuff I'm really passionate about. He used the phrase “missional messiness” with his student leadership to help them understand the rawness of entering into the student culture as God’s people.

I really like that phrase. It’s highly descriptive of an organic approach to “church” for which we have little control, trusting the Holy Spirit to control; an approach we're trying to embrace with our Life Communities.

Missional messiness describes those situations in which we hear stories and encounter people for which there is no playbook to program our response. Missional messiness lets us be okay with dynamic tensions, like Jesus’ redemption in the midst of human rawness.

I think we have to be comfortable with the inherent messiness of missional mode. We have to be comfortable letting go of control, embracing an attitude and lifestyle of response to the never ceasing activity of God.

We have to be comfortable with letting people tell their stories, no matter what the content. We have to be comfortable with the reality that every person’s journey, hopeful or tragic, is intersected by the grace of God.

We have to be comfortable with listening rather than telling—listening to God and to each other.

We have to be comfortable with sharing rather than taking.

With entering the struggle rather than trying to fix the problem.

With serving as the essence of leadership.

With standing under each other in hopes to understand each other.

With eyes to see God showing up in unexpected places—and within unexpected people.

With a God who does not seek our blessing before blessing the lives of others.

With a grace so generous and so untamed.

With moving one another toward Jesus rather than ourselves.

What do you think?

Life Communities: Centers of Light

2007-08-22T09:56:00.000-05:00

During Paul’s second missionary journey, his strategy was to establish Christian communities in strategic locations and to nurture them to become beacons of God’s kingdom within the surrounding culture. Roland Allen says Paul’s method was “to establish centres of Christian life in two or three important places from which the knowledge might spread into the country around. This is important…because he intended his congregation to become a centre of light.” He continues by saying that “all the cities, or towns, in which he planted churches were centres of Roman administration, of Greek civilization, of Jewish influence, or of some commercial importance.” (Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, 12-13).

I wonder what that looks like today, especially here in America and on this campus? Instead of spending boat loads of dollars on brick and mortar, what if we were to strategically establish and nurture “centers of light” in cities and towns, colleges and universities? For example within the university, to establish and nurture kingdom communities in dorms, Greek houses, apartment complexes, duplexes and triplexes--centers of civilization and influence for thousands of students--would produce an incredible multiplying effect on the movement of the gospel from within the culture. Instead of trying to get students out of their culture to come to our place of meeting, these communities would have a foothold within the culture itself, permeating it with the influence of God’s kingdom.

What incredible influence our network of Life Communities can have on this University of Arkansas culture!

What do you think?

We Have Liftoff

2007-08-19T21:27:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the all new Spark Plug blog. Our intention with this humble blog is to initiate thought, conversation and prayer - to provide a spark - for our Life Communities. The majority of content you will find here will be written by Gregg and Omar... the campus ministers at Wesley at the University of Arkansas. But we will also have some "guest blogs" written by some of our friends and heroes.

As this semester unfolds, we will be journeying through the texts of the New Testament that were written by those who had a eye-witness account to the life of Jesus Christ. We'll be reflecting on the history and culture of those times, but also on how these texts form who we are and who we are called to be today.

We'll also be exploring issues of spiritual formation, Christian leadership, and mercy & justice... as well as anything else that comes up in our life and time together. We invite you to trek with us, as well as to engage and respond. We believe that in this day and age community is also being formed online. And to this end we offer this blog to the glory of God, that it may be a means of grace which helps form us into a community where His presence can dwell.

Stay tunned. More to come...