welcome to the story.

Read this in none other than Leonard Sweet's Soul Tsunami this afternoon. Thought it was cool. By the way I'm not a slow reader, its just a 400 page book. He quotes Erma Bombeck in a column she wrote entitled "What's Saved Is Often Lost." I don't save anything. My pockets are empty at the end of a week. So is my gas tank. So is my file of ideas. I trot out the best I've got, and come the next week. I bargain, whimper, make promises, cower and throw myself on the mercy of the Almighty for just three more columns in exchange for cleaning my oven . . . . Throughout the years I've seen a fair number of my family who have died leaving candles that have never been lit, appliances that never got out of the box . . . . I have learned that silver tarnishes when it isn't used, perfume turns to alcohol, candles melt in the attic over summer, and ideas that are saved for a dry week often become dated. I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will be like this: "So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that were unfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left? Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven't spread around?" And I will answer, "I've nothing to return. I spent everything you gave me. I'm as naked as the day I was born." The question is not "How much do I give to God of what is mine?" but "How much of God's do I give away? How much do I use?" This applies to finances, time, thoughts, resources. Its a theology of receiving versus a theology of giving. We are not called to give. We are called to invest what we have received from God, in the work of His kingdom. "The flowing out of God always demands a flowing back." - Jan Van Ruysbroeck

God of Grace You are the God of grace Why can't I see that You love to love me You are happy when you love me What kind of God are you I don't understand this I don't even understand any of it It makes no sense to a man like me It makes no sense to anyone What is grace, what is love, what is mercy Who are You I only know that my heart is connected Connected and in communion with You Like a hungry beggar I receive Not knowing, not understanding Definitely not deserving But blindly receiving I am sharing with You I am eating with You I am enjoying You This God of grace

Confident foolishness. Supreme satisfaction. An overarching smile. These are just random thoughts. I need to expound on them one day. Right now I'm dead smack in the middle of an incredible book by Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami. Every "church" leader who wants to particpate in effective ministry from this point in time and in the future, should be forced to read this book or anything else by Sweet for that matter. This guy is way ahead of his time. Way ahead. Right now I'm reading through Romans. Good stuff. That must sound like the hugest understatement to God. But its a great book. Extremely deep. You could honestly read in Romans for the rest of your life and still not get as deep as you could go. Lets see . . . I've been listening to Coldplay, The Hives, Dashboard Confessional, The Rentals, David Crowder Band, The Strokes, and a worship cd from Mars Hill Fellowship. For my future reference. Ok, heres something that may sound wierd to me later on in the future. But I just thought it was an incredible moment of realization for me tonight. I know this sounds dumb, but the little light in my head clicked on for a brief second in an other wise ordinary situation. So here it is. I'm housesitting for this couple. They have two dogs. I don't know what kind cause I'm not that smart. They have this little one, named Shelby. So I'm sitting on the ground, have a nice cd compilation thrown on in the background, and I'm just playing with Shelby on the ground. Very peaceful. She keeps chasing me. Jumping on me. I blow in her face and then cover my face so she can't get to me. I hold her up in the air. She keeps licking my toes. She's all over the place. So we're just sitting there playing for about 15 minutes or so. Then I find her bag of toys. So I get out some chew toy ball or something like that. I get it out for her, so she can play with it, right? Well then she starts playing with it and quits playing with me. To be honest, it kinda chapped me. Here I am giving this toy to Shelby so she can play with it, and then I get mad when she starts to play with it. And for some reason and I have no idea why, a little light clicked on in my brain and I immediately thought about God giving me a gift to enjoy and then when He gives it to me, I quit playing with Him directly and play instead with the gift. Then I thought about how God must get chapped when he sees me doing this. But then the second light clicked on in my little brain. You see my motives aren't pure. I gave the toy to Shelby, so I could have her enjoy it with me, not so she could enjoy it by herself. Which shows that I didn't care about Shelby enjoying the gift. I cared more about myself and my satisfaction than I cared about Shelby and her satisfaction. Tainted motives. John Piper says God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him. So you see, God has a pure heart and pure motives. Therefore, the gift that he gives, He gives out of a pure heart. The gift is also an extension of himself. I don't think that God gets chapped when he sees me playing with his gift instead of directly playing with Him. I believe He sees it as me directly playing with Him since the gift is an extension of Him. He gave it to me out of a pure heart for my enjoyment. So why would he get mad if I enjoy His gifts, His pleasures as long as I recgonize who the gift came from? God sees it as me enjoying His pleasure. He is most satisfied with me, when I am most satisfied in Him. This will probably sound real spacey when I read it a year from now. But right now, tonight, it clicked with me. I thought I'd share it. I know I'm dumb. Just please don't say it to my face cause then it'll hurt my feelings and I'll get a really low self esteem and that won't be good for anybody. =)

Relationship vs. Religion written in 1999 Which is the better? Relationship causes us to be dependent. While religion drowns us in our own strength. Relationship produces fire and passion in our lives. Religion produces complacency. Relationship drives us to serve. Religion drives us to apathy. Relationship draws us to dangerous. Religion draws us to something safe. Relationship drives us to our knees. Religion drives us to our platforms. Relationship births love for the lost. Religion births love of our rules. Relationship causes change. Religion causes conformity. Relationship brings forth life and fruit. Religion brings death and decay. When I look at this, I see that the relationship is far better than the religion. But when I look at my life, I see my religious offerings of money, time, materials, songs, and words. I see them and I think, "wow". But it's a matrix. I think am something. I think am making a difference. I think I am in God's will. But then I look at my life. I look at how much time I spend in the relationship. That's when I realize that I am bound in religion.

Another Semester of School Today is the first day of school. Let me tell you how excited I am. Can you hear it in my type? It seems like with every semester that goes by, I grow in a huge way. Every semester that I come to school it seems like I already have a nice chunk of my mind made up already as to what I believe about God and life. I always come in with these preconceived notions about God and all these answers that I've already decided upon. But by the end of the semester, after another 4 months of people cramming more information down my throat, more lectures compacted into my brain, and seeing all of this stuff that is supposedly going to change a world and change the church, I find myself sitting not with a whole lot of answers, but with a whole lot of questions. And I don't see myself as sitting empty handed. That even after another semester I still don't know more, but I am not empty handed. I've learned more about myself. Even though I don't have the right answers, I usually come out with a whole lot of questions that I need to address in order that my life counts for something. I find that the more I know about God, the less I know about Him. The more I think I know, the less I really know. In order for me to learn more about Him and grow closer to Him, oftentimes I have to "de" myself. Before I can be reformed and renewed and recharged. I have to "de" me. I have to unpackage everything I think I know to be true about God, church, and life. I have to de myself out of all my preconceived notions, all my pictures of God, all my head knowledge. Being careful not to leave my mind so open, that anything can take root. But essentially, to dump everything out. All my answers. All my knowledge. All of me. And honestly this is a daily process. Running everything I know to be true through God's filter. Sticking everything under his lens. Not mine. So here I am again. Standing at the edge of another four months of learning. Preparing myself to "learn about God." When in the end, I'll know less than I know today and know more than I know today at the same time. The ultimate paradox. To some this is a sad moment of realization. But to me, I'm excited. Even eager, to deprogram me and my ideas and beliefs and learned way of doing things. And to reprogram myself with God and his ideas and his beliefs and his way of doing things and his heart. So here I am at the door to another semester of learning with a full head of answers and a heart full of questions. And I look forward to losing my answers and having God answer my questions. I look forward to where I'll be a semester from now. Knowing less answers and having more questions. Knowing less about God but knowing Him more intimately. A beautiful paradox all wrapped up in a semester of school.

Church This would be a pretty cool ad for some church or mission statement or core beliefs or values or something like that. We are committed to exploring Christian Spirituality in a whole new way. We recognize that the world we live in is an entirely different place than it has ever been. Our world has undergone a massive shift. Globalization and post modernity have changed the way we live our lives on every level; socially, politically, economically and spiritually. We feel that too often Christianity has lost touch with where people are really at with their spiritual lives. The language,practice and focus of most contemporary Christianity leaves us cold, so we have decided to do something about it. We are not a typical church, we believe that many of the problems people have with Organized Religion and Christianity in particular is related to a general inflexibility both organizationally and theologically. Instead we call ourselves a spiritual workshop, a 'liquid church' if you will. We are asking lots of questions, toying with ideas, thinking critically, examining religion, faith and spirituality and attempting to reclaim the mystery long left in the dust by black and white theology. The modern world compartmentalized everything. Spiritual life was privatized and separated from the rest of life but we believe that all of life is sacred and that spirituality and faith is something which should permeate all aspects of our lives. With that in mind, we explore many things together, not just religion but the arts, economics, politics, whatever seems appropriate and deserving of our attention and focus. Oscar Wilde once wrote that "nothing is so dangerous as being too modern. One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly." The Christian Church has married itself to the modern age and become hopelessly out of touch. Our aim is to re-imagine Christian faith and spirituality in our new world. The questions raised by living in a global, pluralistic society are not the same questions which molded and shaped the modern Church. Rather than addressing those issues we choose to find the new questions and wrestle with those. Many of the people who come are committed to a spiritual life rooted in Christianity, but not everybody, and we welcome anyone who wished to come and journey and dialog with us.

I have no prayer No offerings No words Only a whisper of You You're so deep Profound I can't understand or explain Your knowledge is unlimited Widsom infinite You created and know all things Paled in comparison I stand Able to give so little Presenting nothing that You don't have Except for a whisper A life to echo You A life to give to You A life to live for You

Excerpts from Soul Tsunami by Leonard Sweet Every generation before now learned about the world directly from authority figures through seat-based learning. Parents, teachers, and priests, among others, were the credentialing gateways to knowledge: social and academic and religious. Now kids learn about the world on their own from people they don't know, never see, and never touch. Authority figures have lost their authority. Authority increasingly is something earned, not learned. All traditional authority figures are toppling. This generation doesn't want to "study under" any authority figure; they want to study the authority figure. They don't need "authorities" to help them gain information. But ironically, they need "authorities" more than ever before to mentor them in how to use, perform, process, and model the information. - pages 186-187 Christianity is the first religion that was not temple based. Jesus decentralized the temple. He made every local expression of the church an expression of the temple (1 Cor. 3:16). To determine what degree your church is temple based, look at your budget and figure out what percentage of your money is spent on maintaining your temple. Nor was Christianity priest based. The decentralization of ministry in the glocal church means a decentralization of leadership and responsibility from one person (priest) to a collective community of "priests". Modern versus postmodern ministry is the difference between creating a church that reaches out to the world and creating mature believers who team together to reach out to the world. The church must begin to wander outside its usual haunts. Can it go "over the wall"? - pages 170-171

In the solitude he spoke In the silence: I can't lead until I learn to be led I can't teach until I am taught I can't be trusted, until I have been proven trustworthy There is still much more to learn A good heart though You'll see before its over You'll see and I'll show you

Man I'm tired. It seems like the days never end and when they do they just blur into the next day. At this point in my life it just all seems the same. So routine. So ordered. I mean its "where I'm supposed to be right now". But it just gets old. I'd like a little adventure every now and then. A little danger. A little of something more than this. Its just all getting redundant. And I'm starting to get dissastisfied with it all. I don't know if thats a good thing. But when I usually start to get restless, some transition usually opens up. So maybe thats whats going on. I don't know whats around the corner and I guess I can wait here until I hear otherwise. But man its getting old. And fast. I just wish I could be so much farther along than I am. Financially, emotionally, spiritually. It just seems like such a rat race sometimes. I just wish God would hurry up and come back and get rid of all this in between stuff. But then again, if He's not ready, then maybe I shouldn't be either. Who knows, I may be in the place where I'm supposed to be and I imagine that would make my perspective all the more better. I don't think that is grammatically correct but I like it.

The Gospel Growing up and living in the south, there is a phenomenon that I get to experience very rarely. It�s the beautiful occurrence of snow. The only problem is that if and when it actually snows, the amount that falls is very minimal. So when you go to build a �southern� snowman, instead of getting a pure white snowman, your snowman gets a nice mix of leaves, sticks, grass, and mud blended together with the snow. The same is true if you try to make a snow ball. You scrape pure white snow off the car in the driveway. You pack it into a tight little ball and then you roll it down a hill and let it gather snow as it rolls. However, once it finishes rolling, what started off as a pure white snow ball has now met the same fate that the snow man met. The snow ball is now covered in leaves, sticks, grass, and mud. While its still a snow ball, its no longer in the pure form that it once was in. Every now and then, we need to stop long enough to pick up our gospel snowball. Examine our version of it with God�s version of it and then begin to pick out our man-made leaves and sticks that have become mixed in and intertwined with it. We need to pick up our version of the gospel, shake it, dust it off and then roll it back down the hill again. We got to be careful though, because there will be a temptation to just throw away the current snow ball and go make another one from the fresh snow laying on the dash of the car. There will also be a temptation to simply put some fresh snow over the leaves and sticks to cover up the ugly form the snow ball has taken. We need to pick up our version of the gospel and lay it aside the gospel of the New Testament. Then pick out the junk that has been added on to our version of the gospel. Often times this same fate falls upon the gospel of the New Testament. What was once a pure gospel, has now been mixed with other things on its roll through time. It has become diluted over two thousand years and is essentially a hybrid form of the gospel. It has become like the snow ball. It has become combined with the surrounding culture of the world and the culture of the church, representing a shadow of the pure truth that it once had. Often times it has been replaced by man�s version of it. Other times it has sadly been exchanged by the church for their version of it. So what is the gospel? It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the beautiful story of a Savior who stepped off his eternal throne and descended to earth to bear my sins on a rugged cross. It is the love story of a God of grace who came to redeem the world from sin. That is the gospel. Nothing more and nothing less. Anything else is a add-on that dillutes the purity of the Truth.

King Of It All Meditations on Romans 2:17-24 Enough of the deception I've created Through with the falsity of it all It makes me feel good to point out To rail against all that I see wrong My accusations come all day My fingers never stop pointing All my charges against them Void of any validity because of my own junk I judge everyone but myself Point out the wrong Only to go along in plastic pride I know I'm wrong But I'd rather ignore my sin, my problem, my lack of Its much more fun to look at someone else Their irrelevancy, their lack of love Well look at me I'm overflowing with love With faith, hope, patience, a pure tongue A holy mind, clean hands Look at me, perfected saint Choked to death on my own vain assumptions Caught in my own net Measured by my own standard of righteousness Not to mention God's Guilty and busted Of everything I saw as wrong

Meditations on Colossians 1:15-27 The beautiful harmony Of two hearts beating together Creator and his creation One together at last Chosen and set aside For now, this moment His love holding my affection up Pulling it close to his A simple and profound connection Attached for communion To fulfill purpose, to stir up pleasure The satisfaction that is in the still air The smile from the two A bridge over seperation And into the depths of me In the very presence of something to large Splendid and glorious Confident and proud Standing with assurance Him in me, and me in Him In the dark shadows and on the bright peaks The secret has been found Or the secret has found me Either way My destiny has been realized