Archives for category: faith

What A Grand Canyon!

February 25, 2008 //

Our family just returned from the first real vacation we’ve had in years and we had a wonderful time.

One of the highlights of our trip was visiting the Grand Canyon. Our daughter enjoyed the snow there (yes, apparently it snows in Arizona and the fresh snowfall was beautiful). She even got to make a snowman, as evidenced below:

This was my first trip to the Grand Canyon, and it was completely breathtaking. Before visiting, I’m not sure what I imagined (maybe a big hole in the ground?) but when we finally arrived and got our first glimpse I gasped out loud. My wife told me a story about a family she knew growing up who drove out from Southern California to the Grand Canyon, saw it, said, “What a grand canyon” and hopped right back into the car and returned home. However, we were in no hurry to leave — there was so much to take in.

My wife and I spoke during our trip home about how sometimes we need to experience really huge and beautiful things that remind us of how small we really are and how this sense of awe and wonder help us to reconnect with God in deeper ways (well, mostly my wife spoke and I listened and learned — she’s profound like that, and I’m a lucky man!).

When everything is human-sized and manageable, it is so easy for me to lose sight of the vastness of God. And, at times when I feel on the verge of being crushed by circumstances, I am so glad that my life is in His hands. There is a world of difference between feeling dumb or belittled because I just can’t get it right and being re-sized in the presence of Almighty God.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! – Psalm 8:1

Categories faith, family, health, worship

Life, But How To Live It?

February 13, 2008 //

I lifted the title of this post from the Norwegian mid-90s punk band of the same name. While not necessarily the biggest fan of their music, I have always loved their name. Six words can convey so much.

Smith magazine is releasing a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous And Obscure. This book was inspired by the tale of Ernest Hemingway writing a compelling narrative in only six words: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The excerpts from Not Quite that I saw at NPR offer humor (Well, I thought it was funny – Stephen Colbert) and heartache (I still make coffee for two – newly single 27-year old) in unexpectedly powerful ways. In my mind, “Watching quietly from every door frame” paints an entire history.

If Linda Williamson had not already written it, Painful nerd kid, happy nerd adult would have been mine! Add your six-word memoir at the Bryant Park project (or just sort through gems like Miss you dad. You’d be proud and Job stinks. Art doesn’t pay. Dang amidst the assorted Yoda-sounding phrases).

Categories books, communication, faith

1-2-3 Meme

February 11, 2008 //

I’ve been tagged by J. Evans for this 1-2-3 Meme. Here’s how it works: “The game is to grab the book nearest to you and turn to page 123. Find the 5th sentence and share the next 3 sentences with everyone. Then you tag five people.” So, from my desk to your screen…

Preaching Re-Imagined, by Doug Pagitt

“Is it possible that this kind of phrase (ball hog) could also apply to pastors who do all the studying, all the talking, and even have the gall to think they can apply the messages they create to the lives of other people? In this setting there is little for the hearers to do besides decide if they agree or not. Is it possible that we have, through the practice of speaching, created a culture in churches where agreeability is the necessary posture of our people?”

As a preacher-type, this hits really close to home. I’ve struggled for awhile with tying together the notion of the priesthood of all believers with the role of preaching. Certainly, a vocational pastor will have time to devote to exegesis, study and meditation on Scripture that others do not. Hopefully, prayerfully, this hard work will translate God’s voice to, in and for a particular community. However, I would love to see a more active, participatory engagement of Scripture from our entire community. I don’t know if we’d approach this in quite the way Solomon’s Porch does, but Doug’s thoughts here are a great jumping off point.

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I haven’t really participated in a meme before, but I am really interested in discovering what is on the bookshelf of Sam, Rich, David, Wayne and Dan.

Categories books, church, communication, community, faith, meme, missional, preaching

They’re All Our Daughters

January 28, 2008 //

I still haven’t gotten my mind wrapped around all of things God was doing at the Passion::Los Angeles regional event from this past weekend. Perhaps I will be able to unpack some of these things soon but the thought of how closely worship and justice are knit together absolutely gripped my heart.

Although I am doing one thing he specifically requested we not do after hearing him speak in saying this, Francis Chan is everything you’d want a speaker to be — dynamic, funny, engaging. I mentioned to our youth group students this morning at church that if God zaps certain people with lightning bolts of communication ability, Francis Chan is definitely one of them. While I certainly appreciate his giftedness, it is the heart of God that comes through so passionately when I have heard him speak.

During one of his messages, he shared about an artist he knows from Thailand who had been teaching children. As she spent time with them, she discovered that child after child had been forced into prostitution. So she did what she knew was right. This artist would enter these brothels, find these children — each beloved, made in the image of God — and literally steal them away from this life of degradation and exploitation. Quickly, she was receiving imminent, credible death threats, so she took all of her children to safety. Today, she awakes every morning to a houseful of rescue, 120 children.

Francis went on to say that he loves college students because they will do crazy things. For example, if he told this gathering of over 3000 college students that he had chartered six planes to go to Thailand so that we could run into these dark places and rescue as many kids as we could, he knew that they would be filled. If those hypothetical planes had been waiting on the tarmac at LAX, even though my college days are distant memory, I would have left that night to go.

Even as I sit here and type these words, my heart rages against the sin, decay and brokenness of our world. How do we live in a world in which evil men and women would abuse children in such unspeakable ways? When Francis brought his oldest daughter out on the stage as he was speaking on this, I could not help but hold my own daughter close to my heart. If it were our daughters out there, we wouldn’t be sitting comfortably in our churches, critiquing the songs — Well, David Crowder shouldn’t have used that Guitar Hero Flying V during Neverending. I would have used the Gibson SG, and on and on — we would move heaven and earth and until they were safe.

They’re all our daughters. Each one of these children upon whom the worst depravity of humanity has been unleashed bears the indelible imprint of our Creator and is unimaginably loved by Him. I love my daughter more and more each year. Becoming a dad is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I would do anything for her, and it is overwhelming to imagine what God’s heart must feel like when He sees what is happening to His children around the world.

My heart felt like it was being crushed in a vice grip when Francis spoke of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 — they’re all our daughters, they are all created and loved by God and, in some barely comprehensible way, they are all Jesus. Who else could be more aptly described as the least of these? It is unbearable to imagine Jesus — Jesus — hungry, naked, thirsty, imprisoned, voiceless, oppressed and yet, when we choose to bring light into dark places, to come against such horror with redemption and rescue, to allow our worship to overflow into righteousness and justice, we have done it for Him.

To learn more or to find ways to get involved, here some organizations committed to bringing about justice in our broken world:

Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! – Amos 5:23-24

Categories college, communication, faith, family, hope, justice, prayer

From Monuments To Movements

January 24, 2008 //

Ten years ago, I was looking for some Bible study material at a Christian bookstore on the East Coast when I came across a cassette tape (!) for “Passion ’98: Live Worship from the 268 Generation.” Although I had no idea what a 268 Generation was, I liked the design on the cover so I picked it up that day. Like many others, my first connection with the Passion movement was through their music.

My wife and I, along with two friends, road tripped it over 20 hours from New Jersey out to Tennessee for the first OneDay event in 2000 (if you watch closely, you can spot us on the DVD). Since then, we have been to several Passion events — Thirsty, campus tours, various concerts & conferences, etc. We are bringing a group of college students from our church out to Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday for the Passion ’08 west coast regional event.

I really admire Louie Giglio, the founder and catalyst behind Passion. For being an extremely influential person, Louie is down-to-earth and very approachable. Once, when my wife and I were down in Atlanta as part of the ramp-up to OneDay ’03, Louie asked if we needed a ride back from dinner and we had a nice, albeit brief, conversation together in his car. Almost two years later, towards the end of ’04, we were in Manhattan for the last of the Passion events being held around the city and we saw Louie briefly before the event began. He actually remembered us, and greeted us warmly. I don’t mean to imply that I am “friends” with Louie at all; rather, I think these little stories show the heart and humility behind the Passion movement.

Louie often shares that there is no new theme for the Passion events — it’s always the same: the glory of God. While I love the music of Passion, it is the message that resonates deeply with me: that there is no higher calling, no bigger story, no more worthy cause than to live completely for God’s glory.

I don’t believe that events should be the primary catalyst for growing as followers of Christ. More and more, I am convinced that it is the living out of what we believe in the everyday and in between that causes our love for God and others to deepen. That being said, part of what draws me to Passion is that they’re not just about the events (which, by the way, are always creative and inspiring). In Louie’s own words:

Jesus is a movement. He’s not into monuments, systems or external structures. He is a river of life. “And everywhere the river flows, everything lives.” Movements are fluid. Movements move. Movements are not always predictable.

Join with us in praying that God would raise up a collegiate generation — a movement — who lives for something more than wealth, power or fame, whose life and breath would be spent to proclaim the beauty, wonder and glory of our God everyday.

Categories church, college, community, design, faith, ministry, music, worship