A few weeks ago we had a new family attend our church. I sent a thank you for coming email and below is part of the response I received.
Also, my children are still growing from their communion experience! Our
background is Baptist and while my kids have witnessed and heard about
this ceremony they so enjoyed the action. My middle daughter asked if we
were going to go back to 'that church to remember Jesus next Sunday'.
Read a great article byJohn Ortberg in Leadership Journal titled The Sin Tamer (don't think the article is online yet). Here are a few quotes.
Sin is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it-both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a missing of the mark, a spoiling of goods, a staining of garments, a hitch in one's gait, a wandering from the path, a fragmenting of the whole. Sin is what culpably disturbs shalom. Sinful human life is a caricature of proper human life.
Under the heading Does God tire of forgiving the same sins?
"The problem is that, eventually, i become as used to my sin as i am to the watch on my wrist. I habituate. It doesn't other me any more. I stop even wanting to be rid of it."
So the questions isn't 'how much sin am i allowed?" The question is "Am i moving toward the darkness or toward the light? Am i growing toward God, or away from him? Am I becoming ore sensitive and responsive to Jesus?"
Under Awakening Healthy guilt,
As a leader I have to ask myself, "what are the sins in my congregation (and my life) that no one feels guilty over?"
I was watching 60 Minutes on Sunday night and they had a great story about a guy named Bill James, (view video here). Bill James is a former security guard whose love of baseball and statistics helped change the way we view what is important in baseball. One example.
Batting average used to be one of the key stats when looking at the effectiveness of a hitter. James came up the On Base Percentage which gives batters credit for walks as well as hits. This he believes better reflects a batter effectiveness more so than batting average. An example of this, Ichiro Suzuki has a batting average of .320 which means he gets a hit about %32 of the time. This is very good. Adam Dunn has a batting average of .297, which means he gets a hit about %30 percent of the time. Looking at this stat you would assume that Suzuki is the more effetive hitter.
When you look at the OBP you get a different picture. Suzuki has been walked 5 times and has an OBP of .358. Dunn has been walked 27 times and has an OBP of .445, almost 90 point higher than Suzuki. As a result of the walks that Dunn draws, he puts much more stress on the pitcher than Suzuki even though his batting average is 23 points below Suzuki. Would you rather have Suzuki who gets on base about %36 of the time or Dunn who gets on about %45 of the time?
This got me thinking, when it comes to church what are the important statistics that maybe are not that important and what are some other statistics we should be looking at if any?
I just heard that Tenth Avenue North won the best new artist award at the Dove awards. I was fortunate to be part of an event with them and got to spend some time with them, including lots of basketball. Needless to say i tore them apart and gave them some lessons. Congrats to Tenth Avenue North! This is my favorite song of theirs. 
On March 22nd we had one of the best days that we have had at St. Matthew's in the 4 years that I have been here, when we hosted a Stop Hunger Now, Operation Sharehouse packaging event. It rocked! Here is a video that my friend Kirk Andrews put together of the event.
i've been reading instead! These were the books i had to read for my dr. of ministry classes that just ended. I plan to get back to blogging in the next couple of days.
Just kidding. But we are in the equally circulated Goochland Gazette!
Check it out!
In chapter 2 of Scot McKnight's the Blue Parakeet, Scot suggests that there are 3 ways to approach the Bible.
1. Reading to Retrieve. "We return to the times of the Bible in order to retrieve biblical ideas and practices for today". If Moses or Peter tell us something then we do because it says so. Some try to retrieve all and some seek only what can be savaged. A. J. Jacobs humors book The Year of Living Biblically is a great example of this and also a great Christmas gift to give or to ask for! Scot makes the point that God spoke in Moses' day is Moses' way and God spoke in Paul's day in Paul's way and we are called to carry on that pattern in our world today.
2. Reading through tradition. His point here is that "ordinary people need to learn to read the Bible through tradition or they will misread the Bible and create schisms in the church. Scot points out the positive and the negative of reading through tradition with the terms "Great Tradition" and traditionalism.
The Great Tradition is how the church everywhere has always read the Bible. Examples are the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. These point us toward where God has led the church and see the churches most important doctrines.
Traditionalism is the "inflexible, don't-ask-questions, do-it-the-way-it-has-always-been-done approach to Bible reading." Reading through tradition like this means that it is impossible for renewal and adaptation.
Scot gives 6 steps to traditionalism and i think its important that we come to know these so we can recognize them.
1. We read the Bible
2. We confront a current issues and we make a decision about an issue- (like baptizing infants or adults or woman preachers)
3. We fossilize our decision and it becomes a tradition. Somewhere around here we become absolutely convinced our tradition is a perfect interpretation of the Bible.
4. We are bound to our tradition forever. It is now traditionalism.
5. We are bound to read the Bible through our tradition.
6.Those who question our tradition are suspect or, worse yet, kicked out of our church.
Scot makes the point that the Bible points us away from traditionalism. "They went back to the Bible so they could come forward into the present."
3. Reading with tradition. "We need to go back to the Bible so we can move forward through the church and speak God's Word in our days in our ways." We are to remember, "honor" the past without giving the past the final authority. This brings us back to the process of renewal.
You know you are a lame blogger when you blog a record amount of times in October and follow that up with a single blog post in November. The good news is that it is now December! The December book of the month is the same as the November!
Here we go.
Scot McKnight's, The Blue Parakeet starts off with his journey of reading the Bible and I think its a journey that many of us can relate to, i know i can. One thing Scot encountered was the claim, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it for me!" What this is saying is that
1. We believe everything the Bible says, therefore....
2. We practice whatever the Bible says...
and then Scot adds his own response..
3. Hogwash!
This leads to his question and the premise of the book, "how, then, are we to live out the Bible today?"
To back up this point he gives examples of how "all" Christians "pick and choose."
SABBATH- The Bible says no work from Friday night to Saturday night (Exodus 20:9-10) but few to no Christians follow this.
TITHING- Same thing, Bible says we are to do this yet only 3 percent of Christians tithe.
FOOT WASHING- After Jesus washes the disciples' feet, he tells them to do the same.
CHARISMATIC GIFTS, SURRENDERING POSSESSIONS.
We do all pick and choose.
Look at some of the issues the church deals with today.
War, homosexuality, abortion and etc. I know good Godly people who i deeply respect and love who differ on what the Bible says about this issues.
Do you agree that when it comes to reading the Bible we all "pick and choose?"
How would you answer the question, "how, then, are we to live out the Bible today?"
My good friend Brian Greene has had a little too much free time lately but the results are very cool!
Chapter 6 and the Epilogue of Jesus Wants to Save Christians closes out the book as any Christian book should, with hope. The title of this chapter is Blood on the Doorposts of the Universe, an obvious reference to the Passover. Rob and Don connect the Passover Meal, to the last supper, to Jesus on the cross, to the mission of the Church. The solution to Exile, because of God’s grace is Eucharist. Eucharist (sounds like a body part that can be removed) is best translated and described as good gift. “Jesus is God’s good gift to the world.” The Eucharist is the meal that Jesus shared with his disciples before he was betrayed. Passover becomes Eucharist, it is the blood on the door. Jesus’ death is what brings all the world together. Just as Jesus is God’s good gift to the world, so are we to be God’s good gift to the world by dying with Christ. It is this death that unites us, which leads to resurrection and Pentecost.
Our November book discussion will be Scot McKnight's new book, The Blue Parakeet. Scot is one of my favorite theologians and also the author of my favorite blog. We will do a few chapters a week starting next week. This is form the back cover.
Why Can't I Just Be a Christian?"
Parakeets make delightful pets. We cage them or clip their wings to keep them where we want them. Scot McKnight contends that many, conservatives and liberals alike, attempt the same thing with the Bible. We all try to tame it.
McKnight’s The Blue Parakeet has emerged at the perfect time to cool the flames of a world on fire with contention and controversy. It calls Christians to a way to read the Bible that leads beyond old debates and denominational battles. It calls Christians to stop taming the Bible and to let it speak anew for a new generation.
In The Blue Parakeet, McKnight again touches the hearts and minds of today’s Christians, this time challenging them to rethink how to read the Bible, not just to puzzle it together into some systematic theology but to see it as a Story that we’re summoned to enter and to carry forward in our day.
In his own inimitable style, McKnight sets traditional and liberal Christianity on its ear, leaving readers equipped, encouraged, and emboldened to be the people of faith they long to be.
Chapter 5 of Jesus Wants to Save Christians is not the feel good chapter of the book. Rob and Don start off reminding us of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus who were with Jesus everyday but still did not recognize him. They make the connection that Christianity in the West, particularly in America have fallen into this mindset. We think we are following Jesus, and in many ways we are, but are we missing the central message of Jesus? I believe Rob and Don think we are missing the central message of Jesus and they spend most of this chapter making their case and its convincing. We (America) are an Empire (like the Egyptian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Persian Empire, Assyrian, and the Roman Empire before) and most of us are not even aware of this.
“Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It’s a book written from the underside of power. It’s and oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by a minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires…”Rob and Don go on to teach about the Revelation of John and at least to me a new way of interpreting it (that was very thought provoking) which furthers the case for what we as Christians need to do to break from the pattern of Empire.
Finally, this message addresses Empire. Here Rob plays the politics card, and I don’t think he does this as carefully as needs to be done. But, let’s begin with America as Empire: war, money, power, and the empire whose power creates poverty elsewhere. OK, I can live with critique of America. But there’s more to Empire than America: Is not Iraq empire? Is not Saudi Arabia empire? Is not Sudan empire? Is not South Africa empire? In other words, we take the blame that is ours but ours is not the blame of the world. I read this week that Sudan has enough supplies to care for its own, but it is shipping food supplies to other countries … and we need not get into all of where the money is going. The point is this: yes, oppression deserves to be denounced, but let’s be fair — if we want to use “empire” as an ideology to be denounced, let’s denounce wherever empire oppresses.
Comparing Empire then and Empire now must be done with care. We are dealing with a pagan powerful nation — Rome — and a post-Christian nation whose constitution embodies ideals hammered out through a Christian history. Is the problem for Paul or Jesus Rome? All secular kingdoms and governments are Empire to me; now what? Some who critique the USA as Empire are expecting a Constantinian reality from the State. I don’t. I expect all governments to be Empire-ish; my hope is in the God of the gospel and in the God of the church, local and global. My hope is that the Church will embody that countercultural and counter imperial gospel.
One of the things I love about Rob Bell’s preaching is how he connects dots where you did not even know there were dots to be connect to, particularly dots from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The 4th chapter of Jesus Wants to Save Christians connects many dots and brings clarity, and deeper understanding to Biblical passages that I have read many times before but had often skipped important details about these stories.
The central passage for this chapter was Acts 8:26-40 commonly called Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. This Ethiopian and his story is central to what the New Exodus is all about. First the Ethiopian was not Jewish, second he was a eunuch which means practicing Jewish people would see him as damaged goods and according to the law would not have been allowed into the assembly. Third after Philip explained the Isaiah passage the Ethiopian desired to be and was baptized. These are important because under the old system the man would not have been allowed simply because of who he was, but because of what Jesus did, the bringing of the New Exodus everyone now has the opportunity to become a new creation. Lastly the Ethiopian is leaving Jerusalem and is headed back to Ethiopia and is taking with him the Gospel. Some of Jesus last words were to take the gospel to the “ends of the earth” and that is what this man is doing. My favorite chapter so far.
Eight days ago we hit double digits for our food pantry as we servered 10 families. Last night we served 23 families! Say Amen if you can!
Last night St. Matthew's had a table at the Goochland County Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. I went to this event last year and i thought what a cool thing it would be for us to be represented. There were over 60 businesses there and we were the only church. For me the main objective was to get our name out and let people in our community know what St. Matthew's is doing and i believe we did this. Though our church has been around since the 1850's most people in this small county (17,000) have no idea where we are, (we don't have a visible church or highly trafficked street). We handed out several fliers about the Neighbors Food Pantry and I must have told 20 people where we are located.
We also met a few people who for whatever reason have dropped out of church but were looking to get back to going. We gave them information about the church and also some sermons i had downloaded to cds which i said were good if you were having trouble sleeping.
We are continuing our discussion of the new book Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Chapter 3 starts with the Israelites back in Jerusalem, but things are not well. The current superpower, the Rome Empire is the occupying force. The Israelites are in Jerusalem but are captive like they were in Egypt and Babylon. After 400 years or so like this, Jesus is born and he fulfills all the prophecies of the prophets, he is a Son of David, he knows what he is doing, he is a servant, he heals, and he debates the religious leaders. The scripture that Rob and Don use is the Walk to Emmaus story found in Luke 24:13-35. The key verses for them is v25-27, "Jesus said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." Everything that Israel has been looking and waiting for is found in Jesus. This quote sticks out to me,
"In Jesus' day, people could read, study, and discuss the Scriptures their entire lives and still miss its central message. In Jesus' day, people could follow him, learn from him, drop everything to be his disciples, and yet find themselves returning home, thinking Jesus had failed."Our world has changed a lot in 2000 years, but in many ways it is still the same.
Chapter 2 of Jesus wants to Save Christians begins with the Israelites in exile in Babylon. They cry out and God as God always does hears their cry. They write "because it's when we're fully present in our pain, when we're willing to sit in our tears, that we're ready to imagine a different kind of tomorrow." This is what happens in exile. They start to reimagine a new exile, like the ones they had from Egypt, a new exodus. Only this new exodus would be different, it would be a new way, a new marriage with a new covenant, a new city, with a new temple that would be big enough for everyone, not just the Israelites. Moses was the leader of the first exodus, who or what would the leader of the new exodus look like? This person would be a prophet like Moses, a servant, a prince of peace, and a son of David.
