Sounds Like a Squirrel

You've heard the old Sunday School joke. The teacher comes in to a class of 4th graders and asks,"What is gray and furry, climbs in trees, has a bushy tail and likes to eat nuts?' The class was silent for a few moments when one brave little girl said, "Well, teacher, it sounds to me like a squirrel, but since this is Sunday School, I'm going to be safe and say the answer is Jesus!"

Why is it that the Church thinks that the answer to everything has to be reduced to the simplistic answer of "Jesus"? The evangelical community seems to believe that unless any book, movie, song and conversation mentions the actual Name Jesus, it's not really Christ-centered. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I'll never forget that when sweet, little Amy Grant, just coming out of Vanderbilt University and have already released albums that were focused on praise, worship and love songs mentioning the Name of Jesus, decided to become a little more "subtle" and write songs about redemptive love or other redemptive themes that unbelievers could relate to or songs with a positive message without mentioning the Name jesus, received a very cool response from the evangelical community. It's like she was turning her back on her Christian faith and compromising in the minds of many.

I have a friend that I've known since college, a fraternity brother, who leads an organization that seeks to build bridges between thoughtful Christianity and culture. The name of the organization is The Clapham Group. On his web site, http://claphamgroup.com/, we read that the Clapham Group "is committed to promoting the good, true and beautiful in the public arenas of politics, policy and pop culture."

In a recent post, my friend Mark quoted CS Lewis when he said, "What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects - with their Christianity latent." We have reduced conversations about squirrels to artificial conversations about Jesus. Believers are to seek to speak thoughtfully and in a relevant fashion about all areas of life and we're to bring a Biblical world and life view perspective into the conversation...or song, or film, or book, or essay...and we might not ever mention the name Jesus. Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life...to speak true truth is to speak Jesus.

Now, are there times when we need to bring the truths of the Gospel to peoples' hearts so that they can see their need for the cross? Of course...but so much of what needs to happen in our day is really "pre-evangelism." In addition, Christ is in fact exalted when we speak about beauty, goodness and truth and never mention the name Jesus.

I was listening to XM radio 32, The Message, yesterday. There were two songs in a row...one by the popular singer and ex-American Idol star Daughtry...it didn't mention the name Jesus, but it was truth and it was redemtive in focus...I thought it was great. It was followed up by a song by JJ Heller entitled Who Will Love Me for Me...again, no mention of Jesus, but it was filled with the gospel. It seems that some people are starting to "get it."

I hope my friend Mark doesn't mind me quoting him some more, but he shares about a conversation he had some time back with Bono from U2 and his frustration with the expectations of the super-spirituality of Jesus songs by Christian artists instead of just allowing them to "preach truth."

Mark writes: "In preparation of a meeting with contemporary Christian music (CCM) artists to talk about global AIDS, he wrote me a note: "If the truth sets us free and it does ... Why aren't Christian singers allowed to ring true?" What Bono meant, of course, is that the Church often stifles the creativity and voice of an artist to conform to its own sense of propriety and (in our American context) "family friendly" fare.

The questions is a good one. Do we let the truth shape us and our culture, or do we let our culture shape us and the truth?

Later at the meeting, Bono remarked to the group that they probably couldn't put Song of Solomon (one of only two books of the Bible which does not reference God) to song and sell it in a Christian bookstore. Why? Not enough Jesus' per minute. Too sensual. Not "on message."

So, next time someone asks you, "What is gray and furry, climbs in trees, has a bushy tail and likes to eat nuts?' Tell the truth! It's a squirrel! After all, Jesus would look funny with a tail!

Christian Meets Oscar

The Academy Awards show is Sunday night, February 27. The Oscars will be given out to actors, actresses, directors, producers, photographers, fashion designers, etc. The biggest night in Hollywood. What should a Christian's response to the Oscars be? I'm a firm believer that the Gospel calls us to find ways to BUILD bridges with our culture rather than constantly looking for excuses to BURN them! That's why I'm really excited about one of the small groups in our church. One of our small groups has come up with a beautiful plan for their meeting that week.

Their discussion that night is going to be about why movies matter for those in our culture who are seeking, sharing and showing grace (our church Mission Statement). What would your brief response be if someone asked you, as a Christian, "Why do movies matter?" Here's my very brief response...

First, it connects us with what is going on in culture. Usually art and film are WAAAAY ahead of the curve of the general population...the film industry tends to SET philosophy, not react to it. The "person on the street" can think they are coming up with their own opinions all they want...the fact is that the educators, the philosophers, the "intelligentsia" are constantly influencing the world-views of others. The next group to process the world-views of the intellectuals, also the group that begins to "popularize" such world-views...are the artists...those leading the way in music, film and literature. The people on Hollywood Boulevard are constantly influencing the people on Main Street.

I am always surprised to discover that most people really don't understand that few artists aren't absolutely intentional about what they are doing. Almost all art, film and literature is presented precisely to make a point...to influence world-view. Christians who thoughtfully watch and process films can learn a lot...and then think through a Christian response.

Second, most POPULAR films are record-breakers precisely because they touch a nerve of the human soul...popular films are usually popular because they are simply an echo of the Larger Story of God's plan of redemption. So, movies matter to thoughtful Christians because we are reminded of the Plan of Redemption...not just our redemption in Christ but our role in being agents of redemption in all of life and culture. Heroes in the great films usually bring redemption to those in need. Villains in the stories remind us of the great battles we face in life and that evil is real, not imaginary. Those who go about doing great good call out that which is in us by God's grace.

Third, knowledge and awareness of popular films enable us to engage our neighbors, friends, work associates in conversation. There are many themes of "Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation" that can lead to Christ-centered discussions.

Few things get me processing the gospel like a good movie. I love Oscar time. My bets are on The King's Speech. A GREAT story with many echoes of the Larger Story. I'm excited about the great time that small group in our church is going to have that Sunday night...may their tribe increase!

The Gospel Pipeline Creativity Challenge!

The Gospel Pipeline is a tool we've developed that helps us flow, as CS Lewis wrote in the Chronicles of Narnia, "Further Up and Further In" to Christ and His amazing grace! It's sort of a spiritual GPS that helps us discern our location in the Gospel by presenting the typical flow to Growth in Grace. What I want to present you with is the Gospel Pipeline Creativity Challenge. Before I issue the challenge, however, we need to understand more of the Pipeline itself...

Here is an Executive Summary of the Gospel Pipeline using verses from our key passage: Titus 2:11-3:8 (one of the most balanced, integrated passages on grace in all of Scripture!):


1. Gospel Conversion
Titus 2:11; Titus 3:5--Supernatural Grace regenerates the heart
Grace for the entire Christian life is defined by grace at the start!

2. Gospel Diversion
Titus 2:12, 14—The “Basics” often divert the emphasis from Christ to behaviors
There is a tendency to “leave” the Gospel of Christ and focus on efforts of man

3. Gospel Perversion
Titus 3:1-2—focus on behaviors often lead to a performance paradigm
We look to Christ for heaven but look to self for daily status/standing

4. Gospel Reversion
Titus 3:7—grace leads us to revert back to focus on Union with Christ
We revert to the TRUE Basics of the Christian life--Identity in Christ

5. Gospel Aversion
Titus 3:8—our flesh resists grace on many levels
We’ve a built-in aversion to looking to Christ alone for spiritual growth

6. Gospel Insertion
Titus 3:8—insistence upon grace leads to an internalization of grace
Grace overcomes our resistance and we eventually adopt a grace paradigm

7. Gospel Immersion
Titus 3:4—soaking in the truth of God’s love leads to the “Hot Tub”
“Getting used” to grace becomes comfortable…sometimes TOO comfortable

8. Gospel Incursion
Titus 2:11-12—grace leads to a hostile invasion against sin by “Waltzing”
We discover grace is not merely unconditional love but transforming power

9. Gospel Emersion
Titus 2:14—A Gospel lifestyle begins to truly emerge from right motives
Grace leads us to make full use of the Gospel Pipelines/Disciplines

10. Gospel Dispersion
Titus 2:14--The Gospel begins to flow outside ourselves toward others
Grace leads us to mission: we share grace with the Least and the Lost

11. Gospel Assertion
Titus 2:13; 14—grace leads us to assert that the ultimate aim is God’s glory
Grace, ultimately, is not about me or even mission, but the honor of Christ

12. Gospel Recursion
Titus 2:12-13—grace teaches us we never “arrive” in this life
Grace is how broken people with broken lives live in a broken world

OK, here's the Gospel Pipeline Creativity Challenge: I have a dear friend who took each of the phases of the Pipeline (God's 12 Step Program to recovery!!) and picked a song that reminded her of what each phase represents. I would like to enlist the universal creativity of The Church to help us all understand and remember the Gospel Pipeline better.

What I would like us to do is find our OWN songs that come to mind when we think upon each phase of the Pipeline, and share the results with one another. IN ADDITION, why not consider movie clips that would fit each phase, or paintings, or literary works or Broadway plays, etc...anything in the creative arts that would further give us a picture of what each phase of the Pipeline is and help us better remember it.

Here's my friends list to get you started in your thinking:

Gospel Conversion--Beautiful Things by Gungor (emphasizing the power of regeneration)
Gospel Diversion--Eye of the Tiger by Survivor (emphasizing how we turn to determination to grow instead of to Christ)
Gospel Perversion--Get On Your Boots by U2 (emphasizing how we develop a performance paradigm and try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps!)
Gospel Reversion--In Christ Alone by the Oak Mountain Worship Team (emphasizing Christ from first to last)
Gospel Aversion--It's My Life by Bon Jovi (emphasizing our lust for independence and doing things My Way--another option for a song!)
Gospel Insertion--Grace upon Grace by Sandra McCracken (emphasizing internalizing our need for continual grace)
Gospel Immersion--Be Okay by Ingrid Michaelson (emphasizing we often just want to feel ok and sit and soak in the Hot Tub of Grace)
Gospel Incursion--Hip-Hop Waltz in G Flat Minor by Young Mozart (emphasizing attacking sin by the 3-step Dance with Christ consisting of Repent! Believe! Fight!)
Gospel Emersion--The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News (emphasizing that the power of grace transforms us, enabling us to live in godliness)
Gospel Dispersion--Arise by Third Day (emphasizing that Grace leads us to die to self, get out and serve in mission)
Gospel Assertion--Glorious by Paul Baloche (emphasizing that grace is ultimately about the glory of God, not about my own personal growth or even mission, but the honor of Christ)
Gospel Recursion--Dancing in the Minefields by Andrew Peterson (emphasizing we never arrive but will always be battling the world, the flesh and the devil until we go home or Christ returns)

Maybe the best way to go about this is by creating a Note and posting it on Facebook, tagging me...then we'll all have access to your "creation!"

Be creative! Have fun! Serve the Body!

Advent and World AIDS Day

Advent, from the Latin meaning “coming,” is the season of the church year leading up to Christmas. Throughout church history Advent has given the people of God an opportunity to engage in prayer, meditation and sometimes even fasting in order to seek God for a spirit of repentance in preparation for the celebration of the Incarnation.

Advent isn’t entirely somber, however, and also calls the church to joyfully celebrate the most world-changing event in history: The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, God Himself, being born as a Man. Advent, historically has also involved anticipating and preparing for the Second Advent, the Return of Christ to set up the New Heavens and the New Earth when all of salvation will be revealed in the consummation.

The Incarnation inaugurated the Coming of the Kingdom of God as the God-Man, Jesus Christ, was inserted into our fallen world to accomplish the work, as C.S. Lewis put it, of causing death to work backwards. This turning back of death not only involves spiritual death which is turned back by the obedient life of Christ through which He succeeded where the First Adam failed. Nor does this turning back of death only involve the death of the Incarnate God hanging on the cross as a substitute for His people, offering propitiation for their sins.

The Incarnation also inaugurated a Kingdom where the rule and reign of Christ and His grace and love is unleashed upon planet earth in every conceivable arena of life. There are many passages that speak to this redemptive power released upon the earth through the Incarnation.

One of the more well-known and most encouraging passages along these lines are found in Luke 4:18, which quotes Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the LORD God is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”

Isaiah 61:2 goes on to read: “to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the Day of Vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.”

Advent is a time for God’s people to not only meditate upon the realities and ramifications of the Incarnation…it is also a time for us as the Church to recommit to live incarnational lives wherever we find opportunity.

Along these lines, it is significant the World AIDS Day falls during the first week of Advent. World AIDS Day is all about “increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education” related to AIDS. Statistics reveal that there are close to 33 million people living with HIV, “incuding 2.1 million children.”

Part of approaching the AIDS problem with a redemptive mindset involves recognizing that Jesus calls us to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves.” Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus makes it clear that our neighbor is anyone in need, friend or foe. Whether or not the people in trouble love Jesus or mock Him, living redemptively requires us to pursue the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, those in prison (of any kind) and all who mourn.

There are many reasons AIDS spreads among the population: some reasons are in fact due to what Scripture would call a sinful lifestyle; but there are many other AIDS cases where no personal moral lapse was involved at all. However, even where sin is involved, Christians are called to live incarnationally and bring hope and healing to the world. After all, Jesus came to offer redemption to all of His people who are prisoners to sin because of personal choice. The Christian, more than anyone else, knows the reality of being an undeserving object of Divine Grace. As a matter of fact, grace has no real substance or definition unless it is love shown toward the undeserving!

Advent is a time when we recall the Gospel teaches: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him (1 John 4:9).”

Advent is a time when we remember that love has been made manifest among us. It is also a time when God calls us to continue to manifest His love in the world by serving the Least and the Lost.

In one sense, World AIDS Day couldn’t occur during a more appropriate time. May we as those who have been shown grace, both celebrate grace and show grace this Advent Season. Let’s find ways to manifest the love of God by leading our churches and all of God’s people to show kindness and compassion to the distressed, downcast, rejected and reviled. For we, too, were once, and often still are, such people ourselves.

As We Consider Stewardship

I came across this quote by Thomas Manton, an English Pastor of the 1600's...seems the more things change, the more they stay the same! "There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man's affections centre in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong. It takes evil for good and it calls darkness light and light, darkness. Beware, then, of the beginnings of covetousness, for you know not where it will end."

2010 Favorite Reads...so far

My three favorite reads so far this year: Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson; The Prayer of Jehoshaphat by Stanley Gale; A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

Run with the Horses is a running, devotional commentary on the Book of Jeremiah. It's a book that calls us, by grace, to "go for broke" in every arena of life...to take risks, to take Christ at His word that He came that we might have life and might have it ABUNDANTLY! Peterson challenges us to consider why many of us live dull, boring lives without adventure and with so little fulfillment. He calls us to fresh surrender, fresh faith and to leave our comfort zones and live a dangerous life.

The Prayer of Jehoshaphat is finally a book on prayer that truly SPOKE to me. I'm not saying there aren't other good books on prayer...but this one reached deep down into my soul. I feel better prepared on why to pray, how to pray, what to pray. I was so encouraged TO pray because of how the author presents God's heart of grace toward us in Christ. I was encouraged to not be distracted by what seems to be an "experience" that contradicts the promises of God and to keep focusing on those promises and God's character. I was encouraged to pray expectantly and to pray big prayers again.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is all about the reality that God is writing our stories. He is at work in us, through us and around us. God is calling us to look for where He is at work...and He is at work around us all the time. God is calling us to participate in the Great Story...our part has been written, yet at the same time we participate truly and really in the story...the Great Story is no place for fatalists! We have a responsible part to play in the working out of God's narrative for our lives. And Miller reminds us that no matter how many times we fail...each day is a new opportunity to make a fresh start...to begin a new chapter.

Above ALL else, GUARD your heart!

Proverbs 4:23--"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

I've been meditating on Proverbs 4:23 lately because of a discipleship process I've become involved with.

Meditation...ruminating on a verse...letting your soul marinade in the words of a verse...making observations on each and every word and upon their connections with each other...thinking through relevant applications to your daily life...Meditation...a lost art in our day.

As I meditate on Proverbs 4:23, here are some things that come to mind:

"above all else"--there is NOTHING more important than this: that I guard my heart. It is my number one priority as I get out of bed each and every morning. It is my number one task as I live through each and every minute of each and every day!

"guard your heart"--I have to ask: what is my heart? My heart is the totality of my being, the very core of who I am. My heart is my intellect, my emotions, my will, my motivations, my joys, my priorities, the openness of my life to God and His truth and much, much more! I have a lot to guard...

"guard your heart"--hmmm, that must mean my heart is under attack! Constantly! I need to guard my heart from the lies of the enemy. I need to guard my heart from the mentality of the world. I need to guard my heart from the fallen pull of my own flesh. I need to guard my heart from living out of the pain of past woundedness. I need to guard my heart against living out of self-protection, self-preservation or self-indulgence.

"above all else, guard your heart"--sounds like a command, to me. It is a Gospel Responsibility given to ME! It is my highest responsibility to guard my heart; to watch over it; to protect it; to keep it from harm. I must think through ways I am to guard my heart (that's a BLOG for another day!).

"guard your heart for IT is the wellspring of life"--everything in my life, all my words, actions, attitudes...they all flow from my heart. My mission, my love for others, my roles and responsibilities in life...they all flow from what it going on in my heart. My heart is a fountain...if my heart is attacked, unprotected and assaulted, then what flows forth from my life will likely be polluted...and others will be impacted.

"it is the wellspring of life"--I have been created by God and re-created in Christ to be a source, a wellspring, a fountain of life, to all those I come into contact with throughout the day. The life I am able to offer is directly proportional to the life in my own heart...life received from Christ, and His Word and His community. My heart is to be a wellspring of life for others and I need others to refresh my own heart as well.

Meditation...it's hard work...like mining for gold...but well worth the time and effort.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.