Archive for January, 2008
Ministry of Presence
I prayed with a family this morning who’s dad will face cancer surgery in a few hours.
I’ll grab his kids for lunch today. We’ll eat tacos and burritos, laugh, get serious for a bit. We’ll talk about stuff both meaningful and trivial. We’ll pray.
I used to call a day like this a ‘wasted day’ because I won’t get a lot done today. At least measurable stuff…like sermon notes, sermon slides, or youth planning.
But I know better now. I guess part of it is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Just walking alongside someone without really bringing anything to the table. I know my awkwardness is nothing to the pain and crisis they are dealing with.
The other part of it is just knowing Jesus better and realizing he’s got the Savior of the World position covered so I don’t have to worry about being that. My senior pastor in Kansas (Al Areheart) taught me that – just show up and pray. Be there. Let Jesus be Jesus, you just be there. That’s enough.
Al called it the ministry of presence. How right he was.
It’s about Jesus…that’s it
This is part of a weekly e-vo series through the New Testament book of Acts. Today is from Acts 3.
The man who was crippled since birth…it’s said that he was a fixture at the Beautiful Gate. How many times did Jesus pass that gate? How many times had this guy seen or heard about Jesus and still was crippled? How many times had Peter and the gang passed him as he was asking for money?
What in the world came over Peter that would make him say something so ridiculous to this man? “What I do have I give you – In the name of Jesus get up and walk.” If I were John I would have been completely wigging out. “Peter…what in the name of everything good and holy are you doing? Hey…remember the crow and walking on water and how those things didn’t work out so well???” But then the dude gets up and walks.
Here we really begin to see the transformation of Peter. In the Gospels Peter’s bold faith had an arrogant edge to it. “I’ll walk on water.” “I’ll never forsake you, Jesus.” He was the first to say to Jesus – “You are the Christ” as well as the first to tell Jesus he was flat wrong about the plans of God…in the same sentence.
We see none of that here. It’s all about Jesus. Peter bluntly tells the lame man – I’m poor as well but what I have I’ll give to you and that’s Jesus. That’s all I’ve got thats worth anything.
When the crowds come around and want a piece of the miracle worker, Peter redirects them again to Jesus. He almost seems put off by the attention and focus.
“Why does this surprise you? The lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can be found in Jesus who did exactly this kind of miracle. That Jesus – yeah, the one that Pilate told you was innocent but you killed him anyway? Do you remember yelling ‘crucify him’ 40 days ago? Then you saw Jesus raised from the dead. That’s what this is all about – Jesus. It’s not about Abraham or Isaac or Moses or the Temple or the prophets or anything else. It’s about Jesus. He’s the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham in Genesis 12. He’s it. It’s Jesus. So turn around from where you are going and start following him.”
Peter echoes what the Spirit did in Acts 2…he points to Jesus. It’s here that forever changes what Christianity will be about. For the Jews it was about the Torah and the Temple. Here at the birth of Christianity it will forever be about the person of Jesus.
Every other religion is based on laws or locations or cultures. Not Christianity. None of that stuff matters. It’s about Jesus.
Copper Mountain Stress Pill
It’s been a crazy weekend. Preached one of the most difficult sermons I’ve preached in a while – on Noah and the Ark. It’s a hard story because it calls into question the goodness of God. To be honest to the story – you gotta deal with it. (If you want to hear it/critique it – go here.)
I was also supposed to go to Costa Rica on a “mission vision” trip. But…can’t find my passport. I had it last when I got my driver’s license. After destroying the house, the office, and the cars…it’s gone. I’ll get to fill out all the paperwork tomorrow…and deal with the plane ticket.
So when the weather report said that Copper was going to get 7 to 10 inches of new snow…and I was already in Breckenridge. I knew what my therapy was going to be.
I can’t describe the feeling of being on the mountain with no ski tracks, standing at the top of a run knowing that yours are going to be the first set down. I guess it’s like an artist with a canvas…a writer with a blank page…with a lot less responsibility. It’s freeing. Especially in 7 inches of powder.
I wanted to do the backcountry stuff on the South side of the mountain. That was before the chairlift cleared the trees. The wind was screaming straight out of the south slamming into my face. It was snowing fairly hard but most of the white out was from trees and the ground. I pansied out. Decided to stay front side. Snow was good and no one was around…good rationalization…right?
Said my prayer at the top of the first run – “Thanks for the day, the time, the snow and the mountain. Can’t wait to spend the day with You.”
I took off.
It didn’t take long for my legs to remind me that I was on skinny carvers (Bandits, 75 under the foot). They are great on moguls and can handle any speed I can throw at ‘em…but the powder makes them lurch…and I sorta have to nurse them along, pushing them through the snow. Not that it matters. I could already feel my head clearing.
Not really clearing like getting empty but getting focused on just enjoying the day…the run…the moment…the company of One.
Meeting Wayne Sheldrake
After church yesterday, Rowland and I took off for Breckenridge to meet Wayne Sheldrake, author of Instant Karma. Wayne was doing a book signing.
Great to meet him and actually had a chance to sit down and talk with him for 45 minutes. He loves the NFL and skiing and his family. He invited me to the Sand Dunes this summer to ski down them with him. He said to find the fattest, most beat up skis I can find (about $25) and we’ll tackle the dunes.
Great night. Going off to take pictures of the snow sculpture championships.
Remembering Mike Y.
I met Mke Yaconelli at a Youthworkers Convention all the way back in 1999…or was it 2000? I can’t really remember. I remember I was wrestling with the frustrations of being a clueless youth pastor. I bumped into him in the Expo hall. Either I really looked depressed or the discernment meter went off inside him but whatever the case, for the next 15 to 20 minutes we talked.
Not talked like a celebrity to a peasant, but talked liked a little brother to a big brother. He’d ask a question, I’d try to impress him with an answer…he looked at me and I really can’t print what he said in return. “Now tell me the truth.” His big fat heart for students and youthworkers was contagious. He was the source of encouragement for thousands of youthworkers across the globe but for 20 minutes – he was my personal sage.
I use to think my experience was unique. It wasn’t. I think Mike would purposely walk around conventions looking for people to run into and encourage. And his encouragement was not all that different than his talks.
Here’s a smash-up of some of his later talks.
Spirit and Truth
This is part of a weekly e-vo series through the New Testament book of Acts. Today is from Acts 2.
Much is made of speaking in tongues. Some call it a special language, others call it blabbering. Clearly the phenomenon here is neither of these things. In fact, Luke is very clear that the languages heard on this day were real languages that people could understand. People heard the story of God in their mother tongue. That seemed to be the point of the exercise.
Another pattern starts in this chapter that we’ll see throughout Acts – whenever the Spirit moves it is always accompanied by truth…not emotion. When the Spirit causes tongues to be spoken, the result isn’t an emotional outburst or a mystical worship experience. What results is the communication of truth for the point of action. In this chapter it’s the truth of the story of Jesus – he was alive, he performed miracles, ‘you’ killed him, and he rose from the dead. The Spirit brings these facts to the forefront of everyone hearing. It’s these facts that He wants them to deal with not the miracle of hearing the story in their own tongue.
Peter stands up and re-focuses the crowd to this. He doesn’t focus on them being able to hear the story of Jesus in their own tongue other than to say – “Hey, God told us this would happen in Joel…no biggie. The real biggie is dealing with the claims and the reality of Jesus that all of us have seen and experienced.” The ‘miracle’ of speaking in tongues is secondary to the facts of Jesus.
And so we will see this pattern again and again in Acts concerning the work of the Spirit. He seems to move us into the intersection of dealing with reality, not away from it. He moves to point us toward the REAL Jesus. When the Spirit moves, He never points to himself or to the experience itself. He points to Jesus. Always.
That is what happens on this day. The spirit moves so that people from all over the world will hear and wrestle with the facts of Jesus – facts that no one stands up and denies. Where are the Pharisees? Where is the Roman government? Where are the protectors of truth proving that what Peter is saying is false? Where is the body of Jesus that the Romans and Jews tried so hard to protect so that they could prove that resurrection never happened? Here’s Peter in the middle of the public square during Pentecost – a major holiday – claiming Jesus was God and he rose again. Why isn’t there a revolt? An upheaval? Where is the dramatic moment where the Romans and Jews drag the dead body of Jesus into the middle of the square to prove Peter wrong?
We’ll come back to this over and over again in Acts but it bears saying clearly now. Anytime the Spirit moves, He will point to Jesus and cause the audience to deal with TRUTH…not emotion. It’s my one huge critique of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. It’s not that the gifts of tongues or healing or other ‘dramatic’ gifts exists or even that they make me uncomfortable. It’s that in scripture we see those gifts pointing to Jesus and TRUTH, not emotional experiences for the sake of emotional experiences. Were they hard to explain and made the witness uncomfortable? More than likely but in scripture they always pointed beyond themselves to Jesus and Truth.
700 Sundays
A memoir by Billy “You Look Mahhvelous” Crystal. Crystal’s dad died when he was 15 years old and he figured out he only had 700 Sundays with him. Sundays were the family day – the day at the beach, to play baseball, to see the Yankees, to eat Chinese food.
Crystal will have you laughing at his description of his family – aunts and uncles that seem larger than life and you will immediately recognize as part of your own family. He’ll have you crying the night his dad died and the funeral that follows.
A fun read and a great reminder that kids pick up more than we think and have a great capacity for humor.
Travelling With An Acts
This is part of a weekly e-vo series I’m doing through the New Testament book of Acts. Today is from Acts 1.
Jesus ascends into heaven and everyone is probably standing there mouths open looking straight up in the air. I wonder what freaked them out more – Jesus zipping off in the air or the appearance of the angels a few moments later telling them to get on with what Jesus had just told them to do.
The beginning of the church has a relatively shaking beginning. They’re meeting in hiding places, praying, not really knowing what the heck they are supposed to do next. Peter gets the grand idea to replace Judas as one of the disciples. And lest we think to highly of our early church fathers and how they made decisions, they drew straws to figure out who would replace Judas.
I’ve heard smarter people than I comment that Peter should not have done this. Jesus had already picked his replacement – Saul soon to be Paul – and this is just another example of Peter’s impatience. They may be right but it didn’t seem to upset God all that much.
But to me the thing that sticks out in this chapter are the words of Jesus. The people ask him – “Is this the time? Is this the time the Kingdom is restored to Israel?” Meaning, “Hey, you just conquered death, let’s go beat the snot out of the Romans.”
Jesus said:
You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.
Timing is the Father’s business. Why did he have to go and say that? Do you know how much of my life is about timing? How much stress and worry is centered around time? Do you know that we spend most of our lives concerned about time and timing?
And Jesus just says – hey, it’s the Father’s business. Just be what I’m making you to be…leave the timing to God. Oswald Chambers said it this way: “Trust God and do the next thing.”
So as we scream out of 2007 and into 2008…just know that timing is the Father’s business…and He’s seldom early.
Into Thin Air
Ever notice how one bad decision can snowball into about 15 more? Now put that theory to test on Everest at over 29,000 feet in the middle of a blizzard. That’s this book.
Jon Krakauer tries to make sense of the tragedy on Everest in 1996 with this book. That task alone is complicated by the fact he was in the middle of it at 29,000 feet above sea level where the mind and body are not just taxed to limit but beyond it. Every minute above 25,000 feet is a minute closer to death. The body begins to destroy itself, the brain is deprived of precious oxygen and decision making is confounded by both cold and confusion.
Krakauer wrestles with his responsibility on the mountain. He writes the story from his perspective then revisits this perspective later once he’s off the mountain and begins to talk to other climbers who were there. He acknowledges the mistakes that were made but the book isn’t written to blame anyone.
What I got out of the book is how you train is how you will perform. The guides on Everest trained their climbers to trust their judgment only, no arguing, just follow orders. They trained their clients to be passive on the mountain, only listening to their guide. They didn’t train their clients to read the ‘signs of the mountain’ for themselves. The clients were not trained HOW to climb Everest, they were trained to follow their leaders.
While some of this mentality is understandable, what happens when the leaders are in trouble? What happens when the leaders are suffering from hypoxia and can’t think straight? There were no alternate plans if things went wrong or markers for the climbers to know when their leaders were in trouble.
For those of us in ministry – that lesson is directly applicable. Train your leaders in HOW to minister to youth – not just follow the leader. Sure, there is a place for ‘follow the leader’ but training them all to be able to read the signs of trouble and doing ministry in community with mutual accountability is a much better way to tackle the mountain of student ministry.
Quite honestly, it’s a miracle that more of them didn’t die on that mountain. Due to the quick thinking and courage of a few men, more walked off that mountain than probably should have.
I missed this book when it first came out. I’m sorta glad I did because in the years that followed it, there were corrections and additions made by the author as well as a book that came out disagreeing with it and finally the author answered those critics. All of this was included in this version of the book I read.
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Everybody loves grilled cheese sandwiches but we never order them out, do we? Why is that?
Money? I mean does it really cost 4.95 to make a grilled cheese sandwich?
Rep? What if someone sees me eating this in public?
Standard of Excellence? Some places don’t put enough butter on the bread or they toast it too light or too dark. It’s not hard to make but it’s easy to screw it up.
My new favorite variation of this sandwich – the turkey and cheese grilled sandwich. With a Coke.
This is why I love eating lunch at home.
The Bowl Unis Fiasco
I love watching college football games, especially during the Bowl season. Well most years I do. This year was a struggle. There was honestly only a couple of games worth watching…most of them ended up as blowouts.
But there is something that is going on in increasing measure that needs to stop…the special “bowl uni.”
There were some teams that had perfectly great looking uniforms all year long only to bust out a hideous version for the bowl game. It should be noted that none of these teams contacted the Uniform Czar for approval.
Exhibit 1: Arkansas Razorbacks 
They went all red. Red pants – granted with a little cool hog on the hip – but they jettisoned their traditional (and sharp looking) white pants with red striping and red jersey. Very disappointing look and was probably the reason they got blown out. Or it could have been that Missouri was that much better.
Exhibit 2: Oregon Ducks 
We should be gentle with the Ducks. They don’t really have a ‘good’ uni. The colors are there – yellow…green…black. I mean, the Green Bay Packers make it work…why can’t Oregon?
But this one was…it made the game painful to watch. What’s with the diamond plates on the shoulders and knees? Why three different shades of green? I get the yellow shoes – ducks, webbed feet…I get it. It’s just not working with the rest of the get up. Every version they come out inevitably ends up being worse than the one before it. It’s just terrible looking.
Special Exemption: Georgia Bulldogs 
This is the only special uni that they should think about wearing all the time. Love the black jerseys with red helmets. Just looks freakin’ awesome. I think I actually like this better than their red jerseys.
What I’m not a huge fan of are the patches. The SEC wore their 75th Anniversary patch all year. It looked…well…ridiculous. It was huge. Someone sitting on the upper deck could read those patches. Add to this the special BOWL patch…it starts looking like a Girl Scout Merit Vest.
Why do teams have to put the patch on their jersey anyway? In case we forget what bowl is playing? I mean – give the patch to the team, let them put it on whatever they want – but does the rest of the country have to look at this?
Alas another College Football season is over…only a few more weeks of football.
First Book of the Year
I’ve got to get better about reading. Up until last year, I read on average around 24 books a year. For every ‘contemporary’ book, I forced myself to read a ‘classic.’ Reading the Brothers Karamazov about did that in. Yes, I finished it but it was painful. Russians write like their weather…I leave the punchline to your imagination.
Today I finished Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of Ski Bum by Wayne Sheldrake.
It’s a memoir…of sorts. It’s a story of a man and skiing and wrecks. Lots of wrecks. Both on and off the slopes and he dealt and is dealing with them.
I found the book by complete accident. The kids were scavenging the public library for their books and I wandered over to the ski section. I read the forward and the intro. Laughed out loud, then teared up. I read it all in 4 days…I could have read it one but wanted to savor it a bit more. Wayne’s story of how to deal with life centers around skiing. Skiing is both his balm and his bane. His mother’s multiple attempts at happiness, his own struggles of identity often find him wrestling it out going downhill at 70 mph, often out of bounds, never wearing a helmet.
Wayne says early on how he likes to deal with the junk of life – “No goggles. No helmet…All I needed was a pair of skis. I didn’t stop for food. I didn’t stop for water. I didn’t use sunscreen. (Only [expletive] wore sunscreen.) I never worried about getting hurt.”
He talks about breaking his legs…twice. On the mountain where it took them 4 hours to get him to the hospital. The only thing keeping his foot on his body was his skin. He allows us inside the healing process. It’s messy, funny, real. He meets Jesus sometime during his open heart surgery phase…he was 32 years old then. But the book isn’t about Jesus…at least overtly. It’s about healing and hope and living in the moment with people who are just jacked up as you are but somehow together with the skiing…there is hope…and laughter…and healing.
At the end of the book, I felt like I knew Wayne. I’d like hanging out with him. I want to ski with him. Not because I could keep up with him…but because I’d want to hear more of his story.
My Perspective for 2008
Mike and I had this email exchange a few weeks ago. It’s an email I keep reading and re-reading. I wasn’t all that sure why until this morning as I’m wrestling with “New Year” themes/perspectives and the like for the youth ministry.
Mike’s last response will be the perspective I try to live 2008 through.
Mike:
I’m teaching one of our ABFs this Sunday and as I was praying about what God wanted me to share with them he led me to Romans 1:16-17:
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
I began meditating on this passage and what it has to do with the celebration of the birth of the Christ-child. As I worked through this connection I came to the conclusion that the gospel, which is God’s power for salvation, began with the birth of the Christ-child.
Now, here’s where I need your help. I want to be theologically correct in my connection and teaching. I know traditionally the gospel has included the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, but it was God who decided to bring the Messiah to earth through his immaculate conception and birth, which in some form was the beginning. So…can we expand the definition of the gospel to include Christ’s birth? Or is the gospel strictly defined by his death, burial, and resurrection?
I hope this makes sense.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Grant:
I think we could argue that The Good News (gospel, literally) actually started back in Genesis 3. God loves, God redeems, God covers, God will move and search out because it is His very essence (love) to do so. The whole story of scripture is God saving us – first by one lamb for one person (Adam and Eve each got ‘covered’) to one lamb for one household (passover) to one lamb for one nation (day of atonement) to one Lamb for all people for all time – (John’s phrase – Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…)
For a Jew – the Gospel would HAVE to include all of that (creation/fall/Abraham/judges/prophets) in order to be true to the One God they knew and worshiped. It’s a vital part of the story – we don’t have this power in and of ourselves, no matter how creative we have tried to be.
The idea of righteousness by faith is as old as Enoch and Noah and Abraham…
Christ is the fulfillment/pinnacle of the story.
Enough of my rambling – let the expert theologians now speak… 
Mike:
Dude, that’s good. So you’re saying we could expand further than Jesus’ birth all the way back to Gen 3 up to the resurrection, even the ascension of Christ? WOW! Haven’t thought it out that far back. I just know what I’ve read and been taught – even in seminary – go figure.
Grant:
From a historical perspective – Paul would have had to included the OT because it was the only text recognized as canon at the time.
From a theological perspective – the Gospel story starts with God saying – I’m keeping you from the tree of life right now because I don’t want you to live in this state of death/sin forever. I’ll (God speaking) provide a way to heal this, to cover this in good time. But for now, you can’t stay here in this state – for your own protection and benefit.
For whatever reason, God has a history of waiting until “the fullness of time.” He’s never early… from Noah, Exodus, the Judges, the prophets – he seems okay with letting sin “have its day.” So here comes Jesus in this story – and his death and resurrection are the final answer – the veil rips in half from top to bottom.
The dark side of the Gospel is the awfulness of sin. How it ruins and destroys everything it touches. So we have thousands of years of examples in front of us – even God gets “touched” by sin in the sense it’s sin that nails Jesus to the cross.
The difference is this – only God has the power greater than sin. Sin is awful and horrible and deadly….God’s grace is more. It can take the worse sin has to offer – throughout history – and redeem it. That’s the power.
Then again…I could be completely full of crap.
Mike:
But as Paul and the Apostles begin preaching salvation to the people they preached the Good News – God has sent salvation in the form of His son who came to earth – as a child to a virgin in Bethlehem – lived as a man just like us, was crucified, buried, and raised on the third day. And wasn’t Paul a missionary to the Gentiles who may or may not have had any exposure to the OT. So all he had to work with was the life of Christ. Yes?
And You could be full of crap anyway
Grant:
Couple of interesting sidenotes…
Paul NEVER deals with the virgin birth of Jesus. NEVER. Never was a part of “believing Jesus” in his economy. Chew on that for minute…can you be a lover and follower of Jesus and not buy the virgin birth?
The longest dialouge we have in scripture giving us a potential glimpse into how exactly Paul engaged a Gentile audience was in Acts 18. (…he’s in Athens and speaking about the statute to the unknown god…). He starts with creation in his gospel story.
So while he may not have quoted OT, he definitely spoke/taught from that reservoir of knowledge. He used philosophy/arts/music whatever to springboard into the discussion – but his talks were heavy in OT theology…
I’m guessing that the discipleship process was all about linking the OT to the story of Jesus. but that’s just a guess.
Mike:
“Paul NEVER deals with the virgin birth of Jesus. NEVER. Never was a part of “believing Jesus” in his economy. Chew on that for minute…can you be a lover and follower of Jesus and not buy the virgin birth?”
Never caught that before. That’s good. Then again, how often do we include the virgin birth when we present the gospel of Christ to students and adults? I don’t, not very often anyway. I don’t think that His birth is necessary in SHARING the gospel, but I also don’t believe not sharing it takes away from its importance as part of the gospel?
Wondering Out Loud:
So what would you say was the Good News that Jesus taught in the Gospels (and told us to share) and Paul preached to the gentiles? Do you think their version of the Good News included creation, God’s redemption of His people (the Israelites) through the lamb, the redemption of mankind through Christ (the last lamb)?
Grant:
I don’t either…I figure if they are going to swallow that he died and rose again – the whole virgin birth thing is easy.
But I also know this – I love Jesus and follow him. I also know that my ‘theology’ of Jesus is incomplete in some areas, incorrect in others. My doctrinal purity/correctness doesn’t save me – my faith in Christ does.
So my doctrine is sound enough to believe but I know all to well that it isn’t complete or perfect. It will be one day – when I see him.
I think it’s possible to have incorrect/incomplete theology of Jesus and yet still love him and follow him. See Woman at the well, etc…
The essence of the good news? Mark 10 – He came to serve, not to be served and ransom those who are lost. Great summary verse of ALL of scripture when you think about it.
Mike:
You spoke the words of my heart today.
I don’t think I have to know all there is to know…but that doesn’t keep me from pursuing and asking, and serving, and loving my God.
Thanks again for the dialogue. I really appreciate it. Wish we were closer. Would love to this kind of discussion on the slopes or over some coffee.
Thank you, Mike. For the insight…the wordsmithing…and a friendship that allows me to fumble my way to God.