The Moss Pit

Why We Do What We Do

I got to take part in the baptism of a friend this last weekend at our church, and it had to be one of my favorite stories ever! (not that you can have "favorites", since they are all amazing)  He just moved to the area less than 6 months ago, and in that time has begun coming to our church, my small group, etc. I love the story of his spiritual journey. It is the most real life "prodigal son" story I have ever known.  A lot of those details aren't in his testimony (which I got to read), but it's still a very powerful testimony. Check it out below.

And by the way, this is always a reminder to me of why we do what we do at Community Christian Church. This is why our mission has always been and always will be "helping people find their way back to God." And this is why I DO what I DO with my life:

"I grew up in a loving Christian family, a "preacher's kid", so God was an integral part of my life since the very beginning.  As an adult, though, my faith has been tested to its deepest roots, and I spent many years as an agnostic.  I have experienced many things that caused me to doubt God's existence, and often my trust in reason has suggested that I reject a belief in the reality of a loving, personal God.  Over the past decade or so, I have fully deconstructed the faith of my upbringing, and it was torn away until nothing was left to take for granted.

When I moved here from San Francisco early this year, my brother Joe introduced me to some videos online produced by his church (CCC).  Initially I groaned because I thought this was another lame church where no one could possibly understand the depth of what I'd been through.  I enjoyed the humor and truth of the videos he showed me, and began attending services with the family.

My first visit was out of duty, I think, more than anything.  But it turns out that experience has been more powerful than what my rational thinking had led me to expect.  My experiences at the weekend services, in our neighborhood small group, getting involved in a Discipleship group, and perhaps most of all the friendships I have formed with individuals have begun a transformation within me.  I have felt God's work in my life since the first day I darkened the door here, and even felt God speak to me on a couple of occasions.  (If you'd told me that would happen six months ago, I would've thought you were crazy.)

I am excited to participate in the sacrament of baptism, and to have the opportunity to declare my renewed faith in the presence of my new CCC friends and my family as well.  I have taken apart my faith and am now rebuilding it, finally from my own motivation and no longer out of a sense of guilt or requirement.  It is a welcome surprise to me, perhaps most of all, that this transformation is taking place at this time and in this place.  I am amazed that CCC has been successful in leading this particular lost lamb, as y'all say, "back to God.""

Wimps & The Moral Minority

This week I had 2 different ideas for good blog entries, then it hit me that they are both related. Just something I've been thinking about, so forgive my soapbox moment....:)

I was listening to one of my great "best of 90's rock" CD's that I made myself, and Green Day's "Minority" came on. The chorus goes like this:

"I wanna be the minority. I don't need your authority.
Down with the moral majority. Cause I wanna be the minority!"

Now obviously this was meant to be yet another political Green Day song (I love their music but not their politics usually :) ) It is obviously meant to rebel against "the moral majority." And I can appreciate that. But here's my question--here in 2009, does the moral majority even exist anymore?  I say NO!  I think what exists is the "immoral majority" and anyone who professes any type of strong morals is by far in the minority, and even gets ridiculed for it.

Take Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow for instance. He has been a strongly-professing Christian, but of course plenty of pro athletes "thank God" and claim their faith, but how are we supposed to know who is sincere? Well Tebow got asked last week in an interview whether he is still a virgin, and he said "yes" and he plans to wait until he gets married. And this made national news!  Seriously. Why? Obviously because virgins are by far the minority in high school, and barely existent in college, and maybe completely non-existent (except for Tebow) in the star-college-football-player arena.

So yes, I feel like I'm in the minority and even ridiculed and biased against for my morals. And I'm OK with that, I'm not complaining about that. I can take it. My only beef is the other side still crying about being ridiculed and pushing that we all need to rebel against some oppressive moral majority that exists somewhere. Sure those oppressive people exist, and many (unfortunately) try to identify themselves with Christians, but again, this is the minority.  So congrats Green Day, you won! The moralistic ones have been pushed to the minority, and "immoralism" now rules. 

Maybe I should write a punk song like Green Day did to express it....but I doubt mine would be as catchy. And it would have to be rap.

Anyway, today I just got an email from a good friend who is finding her way back to God through some tough life stuff, and she said this (my favorite quote of the week): "I guess being a Christian is not for wimps. It takes a lot more guts to tough it out than it does to run away."  Amen, sister!

Anyone who thinks being a Christian is the easy way out, doesn't understand what it really means. It is by far the harder road. And sadly, I do run across many Christians who often take the easy way and run away from issues or relationships, rather than face them head on. And sometimes I am one of those Christians, so I don't speak in any sort of judgementalism, but in regret at the times it happens.

Anyway, maybe I should post a sign outside church--"No wimps allowed."  :)
I just hope I'd be allowed in!

Who or What is the Church?

I am currently reading the book “Missional Renaissance” and loving it. Here's the latest highlights from what I've read, stuff that's got me thinking:

 

 

“The missional church is not a what but a who.  When we think of church in what mode, we focus on something that exists apart from people, some “out there” that people join and attend and support.  We try then to build great churches, believing that this is God’s primary strategy to engage the world. Inevitably, this pre-occupation leads to discussions of how we can “do church” better.

 

Thinking about church in who mode focuses on what it means to be the people of God. The central task is developing great followers of Jesus.

……

The missional church is the people of God partnering with God in His redemptive mission in the world.

 

Our job is not to “do church” well but to be the people of God in an unmistakable way in the world.

 

There is no need to hear this as a licensing of privatized and individual spiritual life. The biblical designation of what it means to be the people of God is always plural. It implies and insists on community.”

 

So what do you think?

Long Time, No Blog

Hey I just realized this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started!  Sorry about that!  I won't offer you lame excuses about how busy I've been (but I really have been)....

But I will offer you an update on my life over the past month, the good, the bad, and the...slightly interesting. Here you go, in no particular order, just what comes to mind as I can remember them:

*Last week I returned from the annual week-long family vacation to my parents' lake house in Okoboji, IA, to hang with my entire family (including 2 brothers from LA). Overall, it was one of our best vacations there ever!  Why?  Probably because my parents have a new much bigger and nicer home for all of us to stay on, and my younger brother had his girlfriend there for the first time, and my kids are older and get more out of it, and we just had a lot of fun. And back by popular demand, Jenn and I once again rocked karaoke night at the local outdoor bar with our version of C & C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat"!

*I took Jenn to see No Doubt in concert last Sat. night. Yep, they are re-united and touring. It was pretty cool.  Check out my review here.

*I've been watching "So You Think You Can Dance" with Jenn. The girls are much better than the guys are this year. Now that Philip is gone, I'm less motivated to watch.  Too bad there's no other good summer TV.

*Saw the movies Public Enemies and Gran Turino, both of which were pretty good.

*Spent a week at CPAC as an assessor--sort of an "American Idol for church planters."  Had my 2 apprentice campus pastors there that i got to evaluate, and they did awesome!  It was an interesing experience for me too, and I took quite a bit away from it.

*Finally golfed this summer--once on vacation, where my youngest brother and I beat my middle brother and Dad (not much due to me), and on Monday in a Stuco-fundraiser tourney where my team barely avoided last place.

*I've been playing lots of sand volleyball, on Sunday nights at church and filling in on 2 different bar league teams with friends. Love it!  Wanna play more (if my body can handle it).

Ok, that's all i can remember for now, but you're probably bored anyway.  So you see how life has been busy. Why do i think every year that life actually slows down in the summer? :)  Anyway, i look forward to being back on the blog now!  Later....

My Latest Concert Review

Sunday night I finally got back to a live show, and got to cover it for IL Entertainer. It made the front page!  You can read the review here.

It actually turned out to be a better show than I even anticipated. I got my friend Jim to go with me, and we had a great time. It helped the weather was PERFECT, so it was a beautiful night for an outdoor show. This was actually my first time to this venue, and it might be my new favorite outdoor venue in Chicago. It's tucked right between Soldier Field and Lake Michigan, so you have the lake behind you and a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline in front of you. Plus it's smaller, so there are no bad seats.

Anyway, if you like reggae-infused and rap-infused rock, check out 311's latest disc--it's really good!

Well I'm off to find the next show to request that I can go review.....

Name Your Topic

Ok, so enough about me on this blog--let's talk about you, and more specifically, what you want to hear from me about. :)

Seriously, what topic would you love for me to blog on? Or what burning question can I try to answer for you?  It can be about anything (well, almost anything).

Post a comment and let me know....

And no, this isn't some sort of cheap, lame way to come up with blogging material. I got plenty of blog entries going on in my head, just haven't head time to blog them yet. (Ok, maybe it's a little cheap and kinda lame, but play along anyway).

There's No Business Like......The Music Business?

What a crazy world this music business is. As a music lover/reviewer, i've always spent (too much) time and money buying new music. This used to consist of taking risks on buying CD's at the record store, which had some big disadvantages:
1) I couldn't listen to the CD before-hand, so how would I know if it's worth getting? Sometimes the Christian book store or used-CD store would have "listening stations", but that's about it.
2) The prices sucked. The only way to get a new CD for $9.99 was to go to Best Buy the week it was released (only time it's that cheap) and hope they had some left.

But then came the invention of iTunes--truly a gift from God. Now I could listen to ANY music I wanted, and then buy what i liked for $9.99, all from the comfort of my own home. And of course it never feels like you're actually spending money when you're on iTunes--all of which contributes to the danger of it. But it's been beautiful nonetheless. :)  Of course iTunes had some disadvantages too:
1) If I wanted to listen to it in my car, I needed to burn it to a CD
2) No more CD covers, liner notes, etc. (not a big deal, but still)

So now iTunes got the bright idea (since you never feel like you're spending money on there), to charge MORE for their new albums, like $12.99. What!?!  I can't go back to paying those prices, and I don't even get a hard-copy of everything for that price. So now I feel like I have to go back to buying new stuff during release-week at Best Buy. I guess I could at least listen to it first on iTunes.

So what's the solution?

Living in the Tension

I loved our message at church this last weekend. The Big Idea was technically "Joy in Opposition," but we ended up talking about the idea of what we called "living in the tension." The simplest way I can think of to describe it is through a book title, a title I'm not a huge fan of, but it does make sense: "Too Christian, Too Pagan." We talked about how for many Christ-followers, it's too easy to either be "too Christian", where you live in this "Christian bubble" and never interact with the real world. Or they end up being "too worldly" (nicer word than "pagan" :) ), where you can't really tell any difference about their life. Either of these causes you to never receive "opposition" for your faith, because either you never interact with anyone who would oppose you, or nobody notices anything in you to oppose.

Anyway, we challenged people to figure out how to "live in the tension" of having a foot in both worlds. I like how Jesus put it best: "be IN the world but not OF the world."  That's what I strive hard to do--never become removed from "the real world," but hopefully live in such a way that people take notice.

I got an opportunity to do this on Monday night--a couple in my small group, who are both teachers, invited me to their end-of-the-year-teacher-bash. (Who knew when we were kids, that our teachers like to party up after the school year is over? :) )  I felt honored that they invited me, as their only "non-teacher friend" who was there. This means they wouldn't be embarrassed of how I would act around their friends, and were totally comfortable with me being there.  And honestly, I had a great time, and wish I had more opportunities like that.

How are you "living in the tension"?

I'll close with a quote we started the message with--this isn't word-for-word, just my paraphrase:
"If you NEVER receive opposition for your faith, then you are a COWARD.  If you receive nothing but opposition for your faith, you are simply OBNOXIOUS."

Chew on that for awhile.....

So You Think Can Blog

Apparently I don't think I can blog, since I've slacked off and not posted anything lately. Sorry about that! It has been on my "to-do list", so does that count for something?  I didn't think so.  I won't offer lame excused about being busy (aren't we all), but I will try to update you on at least a few of the things I've been up to lately. (in case you cared, which maybe you do since you're reading this blog :) )

*I was at 2 different all-day retreats (more like meetings than retreats really), first one with our "leadership team" at church, and the second with all of our staff. Both were pretty fun, hearing about all the new things we're going to try to tackle as a church. There was vision coming out of my ears!  It's not gonna be boring around here, that's for sure.

*I started watching "So You Think You Can Dance", mostly because my wife loves it, and because Idol is over. I really only enjoy the hip-hop stuff for now, but I'm tryin to learn to appreciate the rest. Maybe Adam will make an appearance? 

*I had a great weekend with the in-laws visiting.

*Last weekend I somehow survived a small group camping trip, teaching the message at 3 services, emceeing a concert, and being at 3 other events, all with a cold and losing my voice the entire time. Let's hope this weekend is a little calmer.

*I still haven't seen Terminator yet, and I'm regretting it. And then Transformers is next. Too hard to keep up!  I did see Star Trek and loved it, and I saw Night at the Museum 2 and didn't love it as much as my kids did.

*I've had 3 campuses on the brain, as I try to help send off my 2 apprentice campus pastors to start new ones, while also continuing to grow my own. Fun!

Ok, that's enough, you're sick of reading about me now. But I will be back blogging so stay tuned! 

The Under-dog Wins

Another season of American Idol came to an end last night, which means this sadly is my last blog entry about Idol until next January.  Or maybe not, if I think of something else important to say about it. :)

So "dark-horse/under-dog" Kris Allen emerged as the winner. I don't know if I was surprised, since I didn't know what to expect anyway, and I figured he'd get most of Danny's votes. I was a bit disappointed, as I really wanted Adam to win. My wife was of course elated, but to her credit, she kept her celebration dance to a minimum out of respect for me. :)

I'm not TOO disappointed though, since at least I like Kris (unlike how I felt about the 2nd place guy last year), and I do think he'll be a good musician. I think Adam would have been more memorable and made a bigger splash, but I do realize he also has the potential to go "the other way" with his career too, so it'll be interesting to see where both of these guys are at a year from now.  It could even be one of those where it works better for Adam to get 2nd place, so he can get more freedom to do what he wants, have a non-lame first single, etc.

Here are my thoughts on the finale show, which was very entertaining overall:
*Why must we continue to have the most cheesy, generic, fake-inspiring ballads possible as the final song every single year?  Does that formula really work?  Will Idol ever change? Perhaps not. Again it was an advantage for one, as Kris's voice fit it better than Adam's (reminds me of Jordin Sparks vs. Blake Lewis a few years ago)
*They got some big name celebrities, pretty impressive. I can always do without Rod Stewart, but I enjoyed Black Eyed Peas and Cyndi Lauper, and Lionel Richie is just funny because he hasn't aged.
*Putting Kris with Keith Urban was interesting, since it explores the "country" possibility he has. I really wish Adam wasn't with Kiss--they could've done much better.
*I knew they'd find some cheap way to bring out bikini girl, psycho-laughter drama queen, and "comedian" Norman Gentle--oddly, those moments were actually fairly satisfying.

Well, as I've said the last few weeks, my final conclusion on this season is this:  Overall, I feel like it's my favorite season in terms of contestants. Very few that I disliked, and the final 4 were my favorite ever. Yet oddly i don't feel like there were as many memorable performances this year, and I can't figure out why. I just know that last year I bought almost 10 different performances off iTunes, and this year only 1 (Adam doing "Mad World"). So I guess better contestants, but not as good of song choices?  Regardless, a very well-done season overall!

Good luck to Kris and Adam. And Danny. And Allison. But probably not bikini-girl.

(And now onto "So You Think You Can Dance", but don't tell anyone, my wife makes me watch it...)