caffeine, please.

Mixed metaphors

I am a big fan of mixed metaphors and I have a friend who produces them at a rate of about one per day.  Yesterday he emailed me with this nugget that had slipped out of his mouth in meeting with a client:

"I'm putting all my marbles on the table."

(A mix of "I'm putting all my cards on the table" and "This one's for all the marbles".)

Gotta love it!

Dinner table banter

We bought Love Talks for Families at the Growing Marriage Conference earlier this month--definitely the best $12 we've ever spent on growing our family.  For the uninitiated, this is a flip book that sits on the dinner table.  Each night you sit down to dinner together, you read one of the questions and everyone at the table answers it.

Our kids literally cut off our conversations with "can we do our question?" every night.  Tonight's question was #43 (we do them in random order):

What animal best illustrates how you deal with conflict?
-lion--attack first
-bird--fly away
-snake--attack if provoked
-peacock--make a scene
-turtle--turn inward and silent
-skunk--fight dirty
-puppy--whimper and cry

The kids jumped on this.  Jaley and Tyce began immediately and accurately going around the table with their assessments. 

Jaley:  "Lena is a Turtle". 
Tyce:  "Yeah-definitely!  And I'm a snake of course." 
Mom:  "so am I, Tyce" 
Jaley:  "Olivia is a peacock". 
Olivia:  "No, I'm a puppy!  I want to be a puppy." 
Dad:  "No, Olivia is definitely a peacock" 
Mom:  "So what are you Jaley?" 
Jaley:  "Mom, a lion of course."  (It really was the "duh" of the year for Gil and I but for her to see it so clearly was really crazy.)
Dad:  "High-five, Jay for being a Lion!  Yeah Lions!"

Afterward we flipped the discussion to "this is how God made you" and then talked about how we always need to learn to bring our natural responses in conflict to the Cross and ask Jesus to help us respond right. 

What's your animal?

Simple Path, pt. 2

So a quick reminder.  Always read with your filters on.  Simple Path, mentioned in an earlier blog entry, has some great stuff in it.  It also has some stuff that goes beyond the Bible.  Things like a leaning toward Universal salvation and praying to saints and Mary.  Like with any book, take the best and leave the rest.  She's still a little fireball hero in my world, with feet of clay.

Reaching the Technostic

Sitting in Barnes & Noble's cafe yesterday, this cover story from Wired Magazine just screamed for me to read it:  "The New Atheism:  No Heaven. No Hell.  Just Science.  Inside the Crusade Against Religion."

And unlike most cover story's, this article delivers on its promise. 

You will walk away with a clearer grasp on two groups of people:  the New Atheist and more interesting to me, the technology-age Agnostic.  The audience of the article is the largest segment of Wired readers:  the technology-age agnostic or my term for them--the Technostic.  The Technostic believes in the mystical, exhilarating and seemingly limitless faith in technological advance and its boundless potential to improve the human experience.  In the world of the Technostic, God seems like a distraction, a waste of valuable time that could be spent dreaming and creating or more likely using new technology.

The Technostic comes to his view honestly.  It is his only conceivable compromise between two "unrealistic" alternatives.  He is Agnostic first because faith seems unreasonable in the era of super-technology and he is Agnostic second because Atheism seems too committal and harsh in an era of free agents and pluralism.

Here's the thing--the New Atheists and the Christian Theists are both competing in the marketplace of ideas for the attention and heart of the Technostic.  As the article explains, the New Atheist is not content to allow Christian Theism to even exist.  It speaks of the damaging power of faith and contends that all faith is based on invention and lies.  The New Atheism is bold in demanding an end to all faith and you and I get to watch the influence of this theology on the life of the writer Gary Wolf as he researches his subject.

Where does he land?  After this clear appeal to renounce all faith and proudly wear the label of Atheist, where does the writer place himself?  Exactly where he started.  Decidedly in the middle, in the land of the Technostic. 

And that is good.  It tells me that there is still room to reach the Technostic with the plausibility of Christian faith in a generation arrogant enough to believe we've outlived God's usefulness.  I want to reach the Technostic.  I want to speak his language and present him with plausible Truth about a real Jesus.

Been away from the blog...

...the last couple of days for good reason:  Monday was our 13th wedding anniversary!  We got to grab a couple days away together while my mom took care of the kiddies.  Very nice!

We worked on making a top ten list for the last year (thanks for that suggestion, Dani), did some shopping (something we never do), had several nice meals out, and just had a great time being "teamers" (that's Olivia's word for being good teammates.)

Here's to my wife who simply rocks!  And to the joy of being real partners--spirit, soul and body!

Simple Path

Started reading Simple Path last night.  This book was compiled from primarily from Mother Theresa and secondarily from the brothers and sisters of her order by hearing their words and observing their life practices.  I wore out a highlighter on the introduction and chapter one.  If you like your life the way it is and don't want to be deeply convicted, stay away from this book. 

Some questions are rolling around in my head upon reading this book. 

• When I am 85 (Mother Theresa's age at the time of writing of the book) and people follow me around to record my thoughts and the practices of my life, will the book they write have any impact or value on other people? 
• Will the heartbeat of my life and character serve to inspire people to live all out for Jesus or will people yawn and close the book--been there, done that? 
• What am I doing right now to radically search and follow the heart of God? 
• What things am I doing right now that just don't matter and should be dropped?
• What about my life right now is Jesus-oriented to the core?

Here's one nugget from Mother Theresa (I'm paraphrasing):  "Everyone needs holiness.  Holiness is not for a few...  Holiness is the natural need of every soul and no one can live without it."  Wow.  Holiness is not optional for anyone.  Every human soul was made to be full of the presence of God and is woefully broken without it.

More to follow on this godly woman in blogs to come...

I'm reading Mark Sanborn's You Don't Need a Title to be a Leader (actually I have it as an audio book on my iPod--great way to speed read books.)  The chapter I was audio-listening to today pushed my thoughts toward thinking through the power of opportunity.  It made me really think about the relationship between my day-to-day life experiences and the ability to see things in terms of opportunity. 

As my thoughts clarified, they became more of a personal value statement.  Here's the statement:

I choose to see every experience and moment of my life as an opportunity.  The good, the bad and of course the ugly--every moment an opportunity.  My response to the moments of life is the "X factor" that determines whether the moment becomes an obstacle or an opportunity.  I determine to find opportunity in every moment and chase opportunity as a constantly recurring gift from God.

Africa Sunday

Mark your calendars, my friends:  Sunday, November 26 at New Life Lakeview is "Africa Sunday".  We will be organizing our entire Sunday morning around the needs and the God-activity in Africa.  Here are some of the highlights we're planning for this day:

• African worship songs
• African man, Jos Holtzhausen, speaking in both our Sunday morning celebrations (Jos is international director of Christ's Hope International.)
• African food
• Video highlights from recent New Life African trips
• All offering collected on this Sunday will be given to two African ministries working in Uganda
• Books, videos and resources on Africa and the AIDS pandemic there
• Opportunities for you to respond to the needs by getting involved

You don't want to miss this Sunday at New Life Lakeview.  We are excited to host this Sunday when we are celebrating Thanksgiving here in America.  Truly thankful people know how to take from the plenty that God has provided and give it to those who have a thankful heart even when their hands seem empty.  Let's keep the momentum going by continuing to respond to Jesus' call to reach out and follow Him to Africa.

300 Million

Here's to New Life Lakeview's many recent under 10lb contributions to our collective national push across the 300 million person population line!  Way to go you prolific people who had so many babies this summer.  You helped us all get here and you deserve to get some recognition.

Think about this--we are the 3rd largest country in the world.  It goes China-1, India-2, U.S.-3.  That means this--we are the 3rd largest mission field in the world.  In Acts 18:10, Jesus says "I have many in this city who are my people."  These were people who were His but had not yet been discovered--Paul and the church were to go and reach them. 

I am convinced that Jesus has many in the city of Chicago and the United States who are His people.  He presses us to keep going and serving and loving Him so that they can meet, surrender to and follow Jesus.

So let's do the job of a Christian--follow Jesus and show others how to follow Him.  And let's reach the city and the nation.  Happy 300 million people, America.

Prayer miracles

About 7 months ago, one of our friends in the church had a sister who was on the edge of having an abortion.  Devastated the couple appealed for people to pray.  Updates were sent out with a tone of great concern.  Nothing seemed to be going right.  This couple would reach out but seemed to hit a brick wall each time.

One email excerpt read, "...we've been praying and talking and crying for a few weeks now and hoped she would have the courage to at least put the child up for adoption (quite possibly to us). Now we just don't know.  Heavy of heart..."  The church prayed in agreement with them. 

A week after the email was sent, she decided to keep the baby!

Yesterday, a 7 lb, 11 oz, 21 inch long baby girl entered the world, into her mama's loving arms.  Is anything too hard for God?

And so you "ought always to pray and not lose heart." (Luke 18:1)

Training day

Today was our second monthly Launch Training for 2006/07.  Launch is a program geared to help us raise the next wave of leaders at New Life.  Each pastor works with a handful of men on a local level and then all the men and their wives gather for monthly training. 

We had a lot of fun this morning in Pastor John and Joshua's sessions on starting a new worship venue.  In my session I talked about the 10 Commandments of Leadership at New Life.  The point of that session was to give our emerging leaders some 'handles' on how to function and grow as a leader at New Life.  Here are the "commandments":

1)    Thou shalt wait on Jesus daily
2)    Thou shalt lead thyself
3)    Thou shalt lead in teams
4)    Thou shalt pursue fruitfulness above all else
5)    Thou shalt lead without a title
6)    Thou shalt run with the runners
7)    Thou shalt happily do the whatevers and work toward the what-only’s
8)    Thou shalt invite people to follow (not demand, manipulate or bully)
9)    Thou shalt hold the Ball (even when thy ball is heavy, hot or slippery)
10)    Thou shalt “get ‘er done”. [my thanks to Larry the Cable Guy for this one]

Maybe I'll develop some of these as separate blog entries down the line.

The power of a Jesus story

Last night I had the privilege of hearing the Jesus testimonies of those in our Living Beyond Myself--Spiritual Life focus group.  What a great time!  One woman got choked up as she shared the transformation she had experienced when she invited Jesus to be her Lord and Savior. 

Each story was unique and compelling.  I never tire of hearing how Jesus changes someone's life.  If you haven't lately, ask someone you're acquainted with to share their testimony of how they met Jesus.  It will refresh your heart and help you stay focused on what matters.

Our fair city

There is nothing quite like snow in early October.  Sweet home, Chicago.  (Thanks to NBC5 for their traffic webcam shot.)

Jason Upton

Kelly, thank you for the recommendation (What's on Your iPod).  I picked up Jason Upton's Dying Star album and I love the breath of fresh air that it has been to my personal worship time. 

Here is the chorus to the best song on the album, Burning in the Sky:

Some men only believe in as much as their eyes can see
Some men only believe as much as their minds can see
But believing's like conceiving
This child that we're receiving
A gift beyond our reason
More of what we need, less of what we know
It calls not to our minds, it cries out to our souls

That mountain's burning in the sky
To the heart of heaven
Without the fire we'll never fly
to the heart of heaven
Can you hear God's holy cry
From the heart of heaven
"Lay it all down, lay it all down, lay it all down
For the heart of heaven."

For those of you who went to public school like me, those are some profound lyrics that I believe we need to hear in this generation.  Drop over to iTunes and splurge the $.99 for this song.  It will minister to your soul.

Blogosphere buddies

Check out the blogs of two of my friends, one who just launched his blog yesterday and the other who is actually ambi-blogstrious (only in the internet age could we have a word like that...)

John:
http://johnpalmieri.blogspot.com/

Nate:
http://howshouldwethenlive.blogspot.com/
http://onemoreinkling.blogspot.com/

Telescopes and microscopes

This Sunday I shared an illustration about telescopes and star-gazing, comparing it to the pursuit of making Jesus more visible in our lives.  I shared how when we increase the power on our telescope, we have to work harder and have more expertise to keep things in focus and on scope, but that the reward is a clearer, more glorious picture of Jesus.

Alert listener, JM, emailed this quote from a recent John Piper sermon that adds some color to this illustration:

"We were created for God’s glory.  Pretty ambiguous.  I’ve come up with this analogy to clarify how not to glorify God and how to glorify God.  How you should magnify and not magnify God.  It’s the telescope / microscope analogy.   Magnify and glorify are similar.  But oh how ambiguous is the word magnify.  Like a telescope magnifies?  Or like a microscope magnifies?  A microscope makes little teeny things look bigger than they are.  A telescope makes gigantic things that to the naked eye look really little look more like what they really are.  Which way are we called to magnify God.  TELESCOPE!  It is blasphemy to magnify God in a microscope way.  “O poor God.  He’s so small and I must make him look bigger.”  Your calling is that you are on planet earth to put a telescope to the eye of the world by your behavior, your parenting, the way you do your job, the way you worship, the way you manage your finances, etc..  They should read off your page – “GOD IS GREAT”  that’s why we exist and why we are forgiven. "

I love this idea that when we see Jesus more clearly, we actually become the telescope that people look through to see Jesus.  Thanks, JM for that great quote.

Its the team

Here's the deal--doing ministry in team is the only way to go.  I believe that the core strength of New Life's ministry, the part that is different from other places I've experienced and observed, is the power of "us" responding to God.  "Us" responding to God beats "me" responding to God every time.  "Us" means giving up some things for sure.  Everything doesn't get done my way, every idea that I may think is great doesn't necessarily get implemented, everything doesn't happen at the pace I may like.  But I think that is a good thing. 

I look forward to every Monday morning that we gather as a pastoral team to pray and celebrate God-victories over the weekend and wrestle with the Bible text together and then discuss and make decisions on direction and leadership, together. 

Here are just a few of the things we do as a team:
    -We absorb and learn from failure as a team
    -We share the same challenges and problems as a team and can consequently encourage each other better as a team
    -We celebrate victory as a team
    -We laugh as a team (lately, some laughter about Pastor Libre, Luchador)
    -We refine ideas and opinions as a team
    -We dream of what God is calling us to do as a team
    -We grow in faith as a team

Whatever you are doing as you serve and follow Jesus, its worth doing it as a team.

A Growing Marriage Seminar

Just spent the day with 1600+ others participating in Gary Chapman's Growing Marriage Conference.  (150 or so other New Lifers were there also--great to see a good turnout.)  What a great day!  First rate practical teaching from one of the most effective, clear, actionable communicators I've ever heard.  And Gary is a total crack up--people were laughing from start to finish.  He's honed the use of humor in teaching to help make things stick.

If you find a Growing Marriage Conference that you can make work for you, jump on it.  Totally worth the investment into your marriage.

My spice rack

I was in the post office this morning, joking around with the clerks.  I mentioned to them that we are coming up on our 13th wedding anniversary soon.  One of the clerks said, "oh, so your looking for a little spice in your life, huh?"  I guess she figured I should be bored with my wife and looking for a little "somtin, somtin" on the side by now. 

I answered her real loud--when you get a batting practice pitch like that, you have to put the bat on the ball hard.  "Spice?  I'm not looking for any more spice in my life.  I've got a whoooole spice rack at home!"  (They were still quoting it to each other as I walked out the door.) 

I believe we need to shout our stories loud of faithful, lasting marriage AND hot lovin' to a world that thinks these two ideas can't live in the same house together for more than a little while.  Faithful husbands and wives who are hot only for each other is good Gospel.

Here's to spicy, and long-lasting marriage!

Prefixes

Driving by a RedEye newspaper honor box I noticed the bold headline today reading something beginning with "My-..."   I couldn't look long enough to read the rest of the word, but seeing that prefix was enough. 

It just struck me at that moment that the two most common new prefixes for just about anything seem to be "my-" (from "myspace" fame/infamy )and "i-" (from iPod and iBook and iMac fame).  Is it just me or is there something profoundly wrong with that?

Slate.com on Jesus

Slate.com has an intriguing column today entitled, "Your Own Personal Jesus".  In it the author explores the problem of categorizing and comprehending Jesus, evidenced by the many different "versions" of Him.  I think the article finishes well, bringing things back to the core pursuit of Christianity.  Here are a two key quotes:

Which of these Jesuses—and the countless others that exist—is the real Jesus? In a sense, they all are. The emergence of Jesus as a computer programmer in The Matrix shows how he can be reinvented for any age, even the future. But in another sense, none of them is the real Jesus. He remains a mystery.

The Historical Jesus wasn't the Jesus who inspired Paul, the salesman of the new religion of Christianity, who never met Jesus of Nazareth. On the road to Damascus, Paul encountered the risen Jesus, the so-called Living Jesus, the Christ of faith. That's the Jesus that most Christians seek to know and to understand.

Olivia, theologian

Tonight before dinner we sang our prayer.  The song was "I see the Lord, seated on the throne..."  After the song I'm explaining the meaning to the kids--not their favorite moment of the day.  We're talking and I'm asking them questions and everyone is wanting me to hurry so that they can eat their tatertot casserole.

While I'm talking Olivia interrupts and I almost don't let her talk because I'm expecting one of her typical non-sequitor comments like maybe, "daddy, squirrels are nice" or something like that.  But I quell my inner "Dr. No" and let her speak, "yes, Olivia?"

"Jesus gets our life and we get His life, right?"  Woah!  I flipped, "What did you just say little girl?!"  She said it again.  I marvelled!  "Yes, Olivia, that is exactly right.  That is awesome.  Give me 5 sweetie!"  (I wonder if this is how Jesus felt when Peter made his confession of Jesus as the Christ, the only Son of God?)

Olivia is 3 and she just threw down one of the most profound truths of Christianity out of nowhere.  We weren't remotely talking about that.  Somewhere, somehow, while living life in the Bruursema shack she absorbed a key truth of the Gospel.

If you want to know what a happy moment looks like for a dad--take a picture.  That's it.  When our kids show us that they are catching the Gospel and holding on to it, that's when we're in our happy place.

Editing my Jesus view

I want to follow up a concept I brought up in a previous post, this idea of grappling with the person of Jesus.  Again, I believe that what you believe and think and internalize about who Jesus is will have a disproportionate influence on who you become as a Christian.  Who you know Jesus to be will have a shockwave effect on how you live out your Christianity.

2 Timothy 2:8 tells us to do something simple and powerful:  "Remember Jesus Christ..."  I am convinced this is the central concern of Paul's life and of his second letter to Timothy.  The word "remember" in this verse is stated in the present imperative and has the idea of continual rehearsing or revisiting.  In other words, another paraphrase that may help you to grab hold of this simple phrase would be "constantly keep revisiting Jesus Christ..."

Why?  Why constantly keep revisiting Jesus?  Because you can't possibly ever finish getting ahold of the holy, immeasurable life of Jesus.  The greatest danger to your spiritual life is to arrive at a Jesus that you are comfortable with.  Jesus invites you back to Himself over and over so that through the Bible and through the Spirit and through prayer and through spiritual community you would keep being overturned in your comprehension of Jesus. 

This doesn't mean that you do what some have done and rewrite His actual history.  Every historical detail of Jesus' life before during and after His earthly ministry stands in the Bible without man's editorial control.  But, your understanding and internalizing of these truths does not.  Your view of Jesus needs constant editing; it always has flaws.  This means that you go back to the real history of Jesus' life found in the Bible over and over so that it can keep bringing renewed clarity to who He really is.  This is a lifetime process. 

Do you get bored when a familiar Jesus-story crosses your path?  That's not good.  You may need to reengage your heart, realizing that you have not yet arrived in your grasp of Jesus... not even close.  Arrival will insulate you from the holy, wild, powerful living presence of Jesus.

John put it this way:  "There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can't imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books." John's point--"I've only scratched the surface".  This from a guy who lived with Jesus day and night for 3 years!

Let me preview my Sunday message and repeat myself by challenging you:  "constantly keep revisiting Jesus..."

Dream

So I had the scariest dream of my life last night.  I'm quite sure I was dreaming prior to the fearful apex dream/nightmare but the apex was so overwhelming that I can't remember the dreaming that led up to it. 

In that fearful dream-moment I was at the center of an explosion that didn't have an earthly origin or parallel, I heard a freakish "pop" sound that felt like the final noise of life and I literally felt thrown across the line of death.  I made two very unnatural inhaling sounds that woke me up and really disturbed me.  (My wife was rudely awakened at this same moment fearfully wondering what was going on.) 

I literally felt that I had died.

Now awake, she and I prayed for while and it must have taken me another hour to fall back asleep.  I wish I could adaquately describe the experience but it stands out in comparison to any other dream I've ever had.  It felt like a literal taste of death apart from Jesus.  I don't believe that death is a fearful experience for the Christian but this experience held great fear.  The finality and sense of regret I experienced was piled heavily all into that one moment when the "pop" sound occurred. 

I pay special attention to my dreams.  They often tell me a lot about waking life and God periodically uses them to help me see areas of change or growth in my waking life.  I believe this one had a demonic spiritual origin intended for some sort of evil purpose.  I believe our loving Father is using it instead to help me to begin to grasp on an experiential level the abject fear, futility and nightmarish hopelessness that people without Jesus will have as they cross the line to death.  I am praying that God uses it in my life to help me minister more deeply to people.

Letters and prayers

Write a love not to your kids today.  Write a love note to your spouse today.  Say things you'll never say in the normal course of life that need to be said.  Discipline your mind and heart to think about the people God has put in your care and give them words from your heart.  I wrote to to of my kids today.  Wrote them notes via email for my wife to read to them.  This is a double win--they get to snuggle mom and hear words of love from dad all at once.

And if you're stuck in prayer or just have things to say to Jesus that you can't get out of your mouth try emailing yourself with an "email to Jesus".  He's reading everything you write--always in your "BCC" field.  Why not address the email to Him to avoid the middleman?  This is a great additional way that you can pray in a form of communication that you are very accustomed to.  (Let's face it, if you are reading this blog you are at least somewhat of an electronic dork and you do a lot of your communicating via technology.  Jesus can handle that as a part of your prayer life with Him.)

Stats on American's views of God

Here's a link to a study commissioned by Baylor University on American Piety.  For you stat hounds (like me) this will provide some good help on understanding our cultures thinking about God and how best to speak to the people of this culture so that they can hear.

Open season

It has been a lot of fun to see people emboldened to take steps during our Fearless Living series.  Knowing that baptism is a key and often-avoided step for new or "returning" believers, we chose to make it a focus for the series.  Each week we have the pool filled and ready to dunk the prepared. 

So far, each week we've had someone take the step of believer's baptism.  Several people are also planning in advance to get baptized in the next couple weeks during "open season".  We're taking time to talk about it each week and in a hopefully life-giving way, invite people to keep moving forward in spiritual basics.  (Though I did get one anonymous note of protest for using the term "turkey" to refer to people waiting to get baptized.  I hope the light-hearted "wounds of a friend can be trusted" as the Proberbs say.)

I think soon we're going to have to declare "open season" on personal outreach and evangelism.  I think God is calling us to increase our boldness as a congregation in reaching people.  I think He also wants us to dream about how to be super creative in our approach to reaching out.  Stay tuned.

How to minister to your spouse

Last night my wife ministered to me.  I was grumbling and frustrated about a situation in our life.  I spouted off for a few minutes, she listened agreeably (what I was saying was true but offered in a wrong spirit) and then when I took a breath she called me to come sit by her.

After I sat down she grabbed my hand and said "let me pray for you."  She prayed right on according t the Spirit's leading.  After she prayed I felt totally different.  I was encouraged, I had God's heart for the situation and I felt close to my wife. 

That is what ministry between spouses can look like.  Can you minister to your spouse today?