caffeine, please.

Is it a sign?

So my comment count is currently sitting right at 666.  I'm pretty sure this is some sort of message to me.  I wonder what it is?  Hmmm.  If it troubles you, feel free to comment me off of 666.  If you think I deserve it, feel free abstain and leave me dangling there.  Either way, I'm kind of amused.  (Good thing its not the 13th.  Pheww.)

I dare you to find a more awesomer commercial anywhere...

Thanks to Drew S. for the link on this one...

Salvation and reconciliation through buying crappy furniture. Now that's a gospel I can get behind.

People with nothing to lose

People who have nothing to lose are in the right position to see God move. 

If you believe you have something to lose you will always play it somewhat safe and end up missing out on God's open door.  You'll settle for less.  But if you realize that you can't lose, you relax and go for broke.  When you think you have something to lose you work to protect what you have and you play defense.  Any risks you take are highly calculated in order to limit losses (which usually also limits your gains.)

But when you finally (re)discover that you have nothing to lose, you do whatever God says without fear--you play offense.  Now maybe this feels obvious and old hat to you but for me, this has been a big re-discovery this week.  Lately, I feel like I've been living too much on defense, too worried about what I could lose rather than living realizing that I have nothing to lose. 

But I'm praying through a renewed approach--the kind I had when I first entered into ministry.  (Going back the way we came always seems to yield good things--thanks Jon Bishop for that phrase.)  I want to live discarding foolish fear over things I can't protect or control anyway and then ask God for open doors to do wherever He's leading.

This whole concept was brought home to me again this morning as I was reading 1 Kings 7.  I saw it right there in front of me.  The lepers who were the first to witness a deliverance miracle of God, stumbled onto that miracle as soon as they realized that they had nothing to lose.  And the thing is, you can be in a place where you have nothing to lose for a while before you realize it.  That was the case for the lepers.  They had nothing to lose for a while but they didn't see it till they came to the realization that they had nothing to lose.

Are you holding on too tight, worried about what you might lose if you follow God on some nudge of His Spirit?  Stop it.  You've got nothing to lose. 

"Son/daughter, none of this depends on you... and so take courage!"

Opportunity is a brewin'

We're working on some pretty exciting opportunities for our Lincoln Park location right now.  Mike Hansen has been pounding the pavement with praying feet and God seems to be showing us some potential open doors.  I'd like to say more but for now, be praying that we'd be responsive to the leading of Jesus as we investigate opportunity that seems to be a brewin'. 

Serve Our City coming soon...

I'm excited that coming up on June 6, 2009 we'll be mobilizing people in neighborhoods across Chicago to Serve Our City.  That's the simple agenda.  One day.  4 mobilizing sites.  Go and serve people.  We're expecting 600-800 people serving in tangible ways.

Some of you may read that and think, "what difference will one day of serving make?"  Honestly, by itself, not much. 

But our plan is not to have one day of serving where we pat ourselves on the back and say, "isn't that great--we served today!"  Instead our prayer is that hundreds of people will be set in motion, joining the ranks of serving Christians who are doing kingdom works across our city as a part of their lifestyle.  We're praying for people who will build serving into the rhythm of their lives. 

As soon as our registration opens I'll pass along the link.  Pray with me that from this one day God would add many enthusiastic servants who love God with all their heart and love their neighbors for real.

What's the Church's problem? pt. 3

The comments on this topic so far have been thoughtful, heartfelt and from an interesting array of people.  Thank you for providing respectful and clear dialogue.  It has been both helpful and refreshing to me.

Now let me re-frame things a bit.  Originally the email I shared from my friend was not commenting on church services per se.  It was commenting more specifically on his impressions of Christians in their interactions with non-Christians.  His frustration was with in his experience that, "too many active Christians feel that it is of the utmost importance to have this ‘bright shiny face’ and this ‘I drank the Kool-Aid’ demeanor."

In other words, the problem is not that people are turned off by church services they don't like--they're turned off by Christians they don't like.

In my friends terminology, the marketing that is expressed via the lives of Christians is not very attractive.  Now certainly that is a church problem.  But not one primarily focused on whether a non-Christian likes the church's worship services.  The bulk of the problem is a pastoral one--what are people being taught and led to value in the church community and then subsequently exhibit through their lives. 

Also, as my friend suggests, it is partly a "programming" issue.  In other words, when the church does make an invitation to the community to attend something, is that 'something' a something that speaks humbly, authentically and addresses a real need with a compassionate voice.

The reason this is important is because, as my friend has quietly pointed out in his several emails (some that I haven't shared), the biggest issue at stake here is not the Church--it's Jesus.  And Jesus encounters people not primarily through corporate church gatherings but through the lives of Christians who embody Jesus' grace and truth in their daily lives by expressing care and friendship to their neighbors be they Christian or not.

What's the Church's problem? pt. 2

Last post was mainly an email from a friend who does not attend New Life.  He thought it was cool to see what several of you had to say in the comments.  He emailed me back and here's a portion of his reply:

Thank you for posting up my note, and I read the comments with great interest.
 
It’s not known enough, I believe that wonderful new Christian leaders (like you) are helping to lead us into this ‘new and very helpful’ realm (one that really gets back to what Jesus was doing -- He did not belong to  social club), and that’s outstanding.  I hope that this will continue big-time.  On the marketing side, I believe it would be most effective for a church to openly promote the ‘come to us as the burdened person that you are, and let’s all help each other lift our burdens, through Jesus’ type of approach to the populace.  I absolutely do not see churches expressing this message.
 
Furthermore, I am seeing a new wave of understanding/expressing amongst the 20-something-year-olds, and it’s refreshing.

Here's my reply back to him:

Hey ___, you definitely struck a chord.  (Have you ever thought about marketing as a career move?;-) 

Honestly, I think there are a lot of on track, authentic, humble, biblical, irked-by-religiosity Christian leaders who are making a splash in the U.S. among people who are unchurched and dechurched.  Time mag just put "the new Calvinism" as #3 on its  list of 10 things shaping the world today. 

Here's a theory I have... Most people's musical taste gets stuck in the era of what they loved from when they were 13 to 25.  Then for the rest of their lives, they measure all music by that genre and those bands.  Radio stations, as you know, capitalize on this by building station playlists around certain musical genres and periods and then attracting listeners who were in high school and college when those songs first came out.  In other words, musically, people stop learning.  They know what they like and don't like and that's that.

My theory is that people's conception about church follows a very similar tack.  The church experiences someone has from the ages of 13 to 25 are what they know about church and that has become reality.  From that era they determined what was good or what was bad about church, why they like the church or why they hate it or why they're indifferent to it.  Relearning about church as its done now when they're 28 or 35 or 46 feels unnecessary.  "They can't be doing anything much different today.  I know what I think about church already.  I'll just stick with my currently held view--I'm sure church hasn't changed much."

But maybe, like music, church has changed.  Maybe churches that were getting things wrong in the 70's or 80's or 90's (pick your era) are now getting those things right.  Maybe every church is not well-represented by the bad experiences one person had with a few churches.  Maybe giving a church a real shot--I mean like by showing up and getting to know some people and making a fresh evaluation--would unearth new thoughts and responses to "the Church". 

And so as I think about messaging and interfacing with people who don't attend a church and haven't for a long time, I think about the concept of helping people hear new "music"--to revisit a church to gain a fresh view of "the Church".  To realize there may be "music" being made today that they like.  "Music" that gets them excited again.

Anywho, really enjoying the dialogue with you.  I look forward to continuing the conversation on email and the blog.

Peace,
Kevin

What's the Church's problem?

I have a friend who, in email dialogue with me, gave a very frank and intriguing commentary on Christianity and the Church.  Here are his unedited words:

The average Joe feels very disconnected to everything that most active Christians are doing.  Too many active Christians feel that it is of the utmost importance to have this ‘bright shiny face’ and this ‘I drank the Kool-Aid’ demeanor.  This makes the Christian feel good but it is very poor marketing (and it’s not very accurate, because we are all sinners).  I believe it would really surprise the average Joe to learn that there are one-on-one counseling sessions inside the church where a ‘bright shiny faced’ church member is admitting to a rampant alcohol addiction…or secret aberrant behavior…or back-stabbing at work.  Why, these could be problems that the average Joe is having, but Joe doesn’t see the church as a place where he can find an answer to those problems.  Why?  All he hears from the church ambassadors is, “We had a car wash on Sunday and we raised $450!”  I see campaign after campaign for Christian churches/faiths/and so forth, and all of them show glassy-eyed people with nicely groomed hair and sweater-shirt combinations who are walking hand-in-hand into the chapel.  This is not connecting with the average Joe!  Joe feels completely lost and helpless with his problems, and he has no clue that the answer is inside that church – and the answer is to put Jesus into his heart.
 
It gets even worse:  Joe tells a Christian ambassador that he has a drinking problem.  What does the ambassador say in reply?  “Oh.  That’s too bad.”  Where is the bridge to Jesus here?  Why didn’t that ambassador form the bridge?  Furthermore, the church needs to have programs that are far more obvious in their intention.  If the church has a program called, “Adult Issues” that meets every Tuesday night, then maybe the ambassador would say to Joe, “We have a great program – it’s called ‘Adult Issues.’  You don’t need to be a member of the church, and you don’t even need to say anything.  Nobody will introduce you – nothing.  Just show up and listen.  I think you’ll find that people are going to talk about subjects that hit home with what you’re feeling.  And, by the way, these are all people who are struggling.  Nobody is ‘cured’ here, believe me.  In fact, if you want, I’ll come with you to the Adult Issues night.  Let’s take one car together.”

So now I ask you, which is the bigger problem raised by my friend: 

1. Does the Church (in reality, the people attending the church and its leaders) lack the humility to express its real life and problems to non-attenders?
2. Is the Church humble and authentic but communicates itself poorly, confusing its non-members?

Go to a conference, take home some axioms

Conference = Overload.  Consequently, I've learned to distill my takeaways to just a few so that I still have them a week later.  At the last Leadership Summit, Bill Hybels talked about axioms (proverbs) as powerful tools to condense and distribute values.

So with that in mind, I've condensed my takeaways from the Gospel Coalition National Conference '09 to a few axioms.  My hope is to retain the axioms even if I never look back at my notes.  What follows are my axioms and the speaker who's message I derived them from.  (For direct quotes I have, oddly enough, employed quote marks.)

People who see idols everywhere preach the Gospel well.
(Keller; this quote was the most valuable to me for ministry.)

"Son, none of this depends on you... and so take courage."
(Piper; this quote was the most personally meaningful to me)

The faithful servant leader does not fight to win. He fights for the Gospel to win.
(Driscoll)

He who always raises his voice is ignored in a real crisis.
(Driscoll)

"Misdirected love expresses itself in misdirected energies and pursuits."
(Copeland)

"You can arrange the wood but only God can send the fire."
(Copeland)

"The neurotic rooster believes the sun is comin' up because he's crowin'".
(Copeland)

"Don't let the pulpit drive you to the Word. Let the Word drive you to the pulpit."
(By way of Keller--a Dutch proverb.)

"Even an apostle must read." (2 Tim 4:13)
(Spurgeon, by way of Duncan)

A faithful Gospel-centered life will not guarantee that you don't end up all alone.
(Duncan)

The only flex in the Gospel is found in the sacrifices of the messenger's life.
(Carson)

Reflections on the Gospel Coalition National Conference 2009

I'm on the home stretch of the GCNC09. Its been a really good experience for the crew I've been here with and the 3394 others here also. In this post I'll share general reflections on the conference and coalition.

Next post I'll share the handful of proverbial statements ikm taking with me from this conference.

• The term "gospel-centered", a key phrase for the conference and the coalition, is one I really, really like. Its a phrase that can enter every conversation and serve as a guide and a check.
• The Coalition, as represented at the conference, is very white, very male, quite Reformed, and oriented heavily toward what is preached. If the Coalition is going to have broader impact, it needs to navigate a bigger river in my estimation.
• I love the emphasis on church-planting and the number of young men here--it excites me.
• Effective preachers have a very wide range of approaches to how they communicate. Being yourself and preaching the text in ways that people can hear is the key. Contra the ad-world: image is nothing, text and authenticity is everything.
• The great value of a conference for me is the personal, extended time spent with my cohort and the cohorts of friends new and old. Dinner with Mike and Kyle, train rides with Tony and Luke, hallway chats with Jackson, Jon, Steve, Jonathan and a bunch of others. Conferences are especially good relationship times.
• The Gospel is the best conference focal point I've experienced. Deeply refreshing and practical. Would love to do it again.

Interrupting Ehrman

I've been kind of quiet this week.  Playing a lot of catch up.  But there is still room for some Friday Fun that is also theological.

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Pre-existing conditions

Sometimes I get theological questions from New Lifers via email.  Anytime I get a question from someone I figure there are at least another fifty people in the church with a similar question.  Because of that, periodically I'll post the Q&A for general consumption.  Here's one from the last few days:

Q:
I had a question for you, no rush. Since I am going to be a dad soon I got to wondering when our spirits are created. Is there a Bible based answer as to whether our spirits are created at conception or do we "exist" before that time?

And here's my answer:

A:
Hi T,

You're asking a good question.  I'm curious, what motivated the question? 

Here's my meandering answer to your question...

Thanks to Plato's teaching on the preexistence of the soul, we have a confusion regarding when a soul begins to exist.  Plato taught that souls exist in some sort of metaphysical warehouse and then is sent to be united with a body in order to be born and dwell on earth.  So the idea of a "soul-mate" is to be reunited with a pre-existent soul friend while living in an earthly body.  It is also where we get the term "platonic relationship"--a relationship that is only soul to soul and not physical/sexual.  Plato worked hard to separate the physical from the spiritual.  Philosophers call it dualism.  Soul and body separate but coexisting together.  This teaching and idea has created a lot of theological messes over the years.

In the Jewish mind, humans exist as a whole thing--the immaterial and the material part exist in an interwoven unity.  The pain of death was that a person's soul/immaterial life became painfully separated from the material and that represented a distortion of God's design for humanity.  So the hope of the Jewish person was not blissful freedom from the body in a soulish realm of afterlife.  Instead, the Jewish hope was resurrection--the immaterial/soul being reunited properly with the body.

So in the Scriptural/Jewish way of understanding life and birth, the life of a person--body and soul--begins at conception.  Both physical and spiritual are a unique creative act of God each time.   Psalm 139 refers to this creative crafting of humanity when the psalmist says, "you have knit me together in my mother's womb... I am fearfully and wonderfully made..." 

Going back further, Adam's creation described in Genesis 2 forms a powerful example.  When God finishes shaping Adam's body it is clear that something is fundamentally missing.  Then God breathes (that's a creative act) onto the dirt he's shaped and at that moment, Adam becomes a living being.  There's no sense in the account that God is harvesting the breath of life from some pre-existent soul.  Instead he is in that moment amazingly pouring out life in the unique shape of a particular person (body and soul) who we come to know then as Adam. 

Now there is one very big exception to this pattern of human creation.  It is Jesus.  Jesus is without question pre-existent as a living Spirit but at the moment of the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary for conception is forever fused as a human person with a body.  This is very important because Jesus' preexistence is fundamental to His being God and not merely a finite person.  Without pre-existence, Jesus cannot be God. 

So the bottom-line is that God brings a man and a women powerfully into the creative process of the making of a human life.  Each contributes something and in that moment of time when sperm and egg fuse, God joins the physical uniting with His breathing of life to bring about a person with soul and body.  The way He accomplishes this is a profound mystery.

The dynamics and perplexity of this has challenged and intrigued theologians from the very beginning and because of that so, so much more could be and has been said.  I am merely scratching the surface.  But it is enough to begin with the knowledge that God creatively converges with human conception breathing life (soul) into every human body at the moment of their conception.

T, I'm excited for you as you become a father.  Keep seeking understanding as a follower of Jesus so that your kids can follow the godly example of their godly father.

And with that, let me ask--what Scripture and explanation would you add to this answer?

Our Easter weekend family traditions

We've developed several Easter family traditions over the years.  Some are more about fun, some are more about Christ, all help give rhythm to our Easter weekend.

• We watch the Miracle Maker on Easter Weekend.  Miracle Maker is my favorite video on the life of Christ.  Watched it on Saturday night and as usual was moved and impressed by the picture of Jesus that can arise from clay-mation.
• On Sunday afternoon, we go through the Resurrection Eggs to retell the Passion of Jesus.  The Resurrection Eggs are a great hands-on way to talk about Jesus while letting kids handle and touch little objects related to the Passion of Jesus--a donkey, praying hands, rock, etc.  Its always fun to go through the eggs and each time it's a little different.  Favorite quote after I finished going through the eggs this past Sunday?  Olivia looks at me and says under her breath, "wow... that was long."
• We do Easter baskets.  We fill them with candy, we hide them (I mean the Easter Bunny hides them) and the kids excitedly look for them on Sunday morning.  Gil helped me accept and enjoy this tradition this because I didn't grow up with Easter baskets.  Now I love this tradition.  Especially the eating-my-kids-candy part.
• Saturday, we paint hard boiled eggs.  Loads of fun and always a bit of a friendly competition to see who can make the best egg.  (Gil always wins that one--she's a master egg-colorer.)
• The girls always get Easter dresses from one or the other of their grandmas.  Tyce and I do not receive new dresses.  (However, I do wear a tie and Tyce usually gets a new shirt.) 

Here's the thing--the work of the church on Easter weekend for pastors can be all-consuming.  Gil helps me work at making sure I don't forget that I'm a father before I'm a pastor and that my kids need my spiritual leadership and special attention on Easter.

On Good Friday

This afternoon, Gil and I came in intertwining shifts with pairs of our kids to the Good Friday prayer open house we're hosting at New Life Lakeview (noon to midnight.)  I had Jaley and Lena for the first shift.  After arriving, I went off to be alone for prayer and left them to go through the prayer stations together.  They quietly went through each station, following the instructions, praying cooperatively. 

Then they approached me asking if they could take communion with me.  What a great question to be asked by your children.  I took them aside and we talked through the basics of Passover/communion and then I led them in communion.

A short while later Gil arrived with Tyce and Olivia.  Similarly, Gil prayed alone while Tyce took Olivia through the prayer stations.  At the end they also approached me and asked to take communion with me.  The cool part of this is that Olivia just prayed to give her life to Christ last week.  So this communion was coming close on the heels of her expression of faith.  I took a similar amount of time to instruct and then led them through communion together.

A couple of things ring out to me from our Good Friday prayer time:

• Bring your children with you any time you can give them an opportunity to engage faith.
• Use the power of kid-pairs.  Kids can learn a lot by leading each other and they feel big doing it.
• Expect more.  And don't let a few wimpy protests, "dad, what are we going to do at the prayer thing?" keep you from bringing them.
• Let your children initiate spiritual steps and then instruct.  Their interest level is way higher than if their simply put through ceremonies and rites.
• Rejoice when God gives glimpses of faith in the lives of your kids.  Pray for them all the time and wait in faith for Jesus to bring them about.

Why Luke 24 is my desert island chapter

I played a mean trick earlier this week.  I mentioned in my twitter/facebook status update that I was excited to preach my favorite book of the bible this coming Sunday.  That if I was stuck on a desert island and could have only one chapter with me, this chapter would be it.  But in the update I failed to mention what chapter I was referring to and that set off a streak of guessing comments.  After 20+ comments, Dave Eden finally guessed correctly:  Luke 24.

Then Bob Wright asked, "so what do you like so much about Luke 24?"  Here's my quick and partial answer:

• Luke 24 starts with the resurrection of Jesus.  Beat that. 
• Luke's description of the disciples' response to the news of the resurrection show them to be very reluctant to believe--to give themselves over to the hope that it might be true.  They are skeptical and slow to believe the women who first encounter the empty tomb.  That rings true for me.
• Jesus shows up in his resurrection ninja costume on a road out of Jerusalem and has a funny and ironic talk with two of his disciples in which they school him on the recent "happenings in Jerusalem".  Namely, that Jesus who they thought was the fo shizzle turned out to get crucified by the people they thought should be his biggest fans.  I love that Jesus just listens to them vent about how dissapointing he turned out to be without saying, "hey, guys, its me--I'm alive."  That kind of conversation with Jesus is the kind I have so I guess I can relate.
• "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."  Amazing.  (Can't believe Cleopas and his buddy did not write that conversation down.)  It tells me this:  that from Jesus and His resurrection, you can go anywhere in Scripture and the Bible rings true, makes sense and points back to Jesus.  Luke 24 is the "you can go anywhere from here" chapter of the bible.
• Jesus is finally revealed to them for who He really is when he breaks the bread.  Powerful.
• "Didn't our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"  That is the definition of encountering God--the burning heart.  And that is what good preaching of the Scripture brings about too--a burning heart.  I just love that imagery.
• Jesus eats something after rising from the dead.  That's cool.  In fact, we learn more about the resurrection body of a follower of Jesus in Luke 24 than any other chapter I can think of in the New Testament.  We learn that we'll be able to appear and disappear with little effort, eat food, fly (ascension) and our physical appearance will resemble our current appearance but be different enough to be sometimes unrecognized--maybe I'll have hair after rising from the dead?

My summary phrase for Luke 24:  you can go anywhere from here.  Hearing how Jesus honors the bible from Genesis to Malachi is the best apologetic for the Bible that I can think of.  And learning that all of Scripture is wrapped up in revealing Jesus gives powerful unity and purpose to the heart of Scripture. 

So that's why Luke 24 is my desrt island chapter of Scripture.

Nuggets from Remembering the Christian Past

Remembering the Christian Past is a good book to ground the topics and concerns of Jesus followers today in the historic voices of the early church.  Robert Wilken is a master at drawing connections between the two worlds and showing the similarities between some of the arguments of the early apologists and the discussions of today.

Here are some nuggets from the chapter called "No Other Gods":

• "We affirm that human nature is not sufficient in any way to seek for God and to find Him in his pure nature, unless it is helped by the God who is the object of the search."  from church father, Origen.  (56)
• "The key point here is that faith is not a form of intepretation, one perspective among others, but a seeing of what there is to see, and hence a form of knowing." (56-7)
• "Faith is not something that is added to knowing:  it is a constitutive part of the act of knowing God." (58)
• "Faith's certainty comes from participating in the reality that is believed--that is, through fellowship with God... It is not possible to know God form a distance, to be a spectator... "Knowing" means "being joined to" or "united with." The knowledge of God, then is experiential." (58)
• Walter Ulbricht, German Communist Leader, was in conversation with theologian Karl Barth, bragging that Communists would be teaching the Ten Commandments in schools and that the decalogue would be the moral foundation for the new society.  "Barth listened politely and then said: 'I have only one question, Herr Minister.  Will you also be teaching the First Commandment?'" (62)

The ghetto I refuse to live in

There is a ghetto I refuse to live in.  In this ghetto everyone talks the same dialect; everyone stays within the tight circle of what they've always known; ghetto-dwellers fear and suspect outsiders; the ghetto remains blind to the myriad of its own problems because "we''re used to them" and "it could be worse"; and in the ghetto the grandest hope is most often just to survive.

The ghetto I refuse to live in?  The religious ghetto.  The churchiness ghetto.   

In a religious/church ghetto there's a special "insider" language that only participants understand (and its kind of weird), there's a small (and always shrinking) radius of relationships and experiences that are allowed, there's a fear and suspicion about most "outsiders" and their ways, there's a blindness to the problems within the religious ghetto itself and in the religious ghetto, vision gets so small that all we hope for is to just survive this life.

That is living way below the line of authentic faith in Jesus. 

I fight the religious ghetto in me by looking for opportunities to interact outside the ghetto.  Lance H. gave me one of the those opportunities recently.  He invited me to a gathering for actors, directors and theater people who will be doing open readings and the like in a studio space.  Just about everybody there will be theater people and there will most likely be zero "religious ghetto" people.  Invites like this are pure gold. 

I'm going to do my best not to be a pastor-dork at this gathering.  I hope to be just a Jesus-follower who likes to experience new things and hopes to make meaningful contributions to the conversation.  My friend Steve S. has been coaching me for years to be a little more at home in the theater community.  He's a Christian who does his life in the theater world.  He's one of the people who helps me see life from outside the religious ghetto.  People like that are incredibly valuable guides.

So thanks Lance for getting me out of the ghetto by inviting me to "The Game of Contact".  I promise not to leave a Chick tract on my seat when I leave and I will avoid preaching any of my sermons.   I do hope to speak honestly about my observations on human nature, contribute to the conversation of the evening and appreciate the good art and poetry of William Carlos Williams.

Getting porn-free

I talked with a brother recently who had gone from daily porn addiction to 10 days porn-free and on his way to 30 days of freedom from sexual addiction.  That is awesome!  Anyone ever caught in the grip of addiction of any kind knows how important these initial days of victory are as you build sobriety, one day at a time.  This brother had built 10 days of sobriety after years of addiction and was joyful as he thought about 30 days of freedom.  I rejoiced with him.

How did he gain his initial 10 days of sobriety?

1. He got honest about his addiction with a number of people including his significant other.
2. He got rid of his computer to help him get some initial traction.  This isn't a permanent solution but it helped him get started.
3. He attended a small group and got honest there as well.
4. He recruited a squad of men to work with him on his sobriety plan.
5. He made SMART goals--specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound.  His were actually written goals--highly recommended.
6. He engaged his heart with God in prayer and worship.

I think he's going to make it to 30 days and beyond.  I celebrate this brother's aggressive pursuit of repentance.  This is what true repentance looks like.  Its aggressive, its communal, its got teeth in it, and it brings real victory and joy.