welcome to the story.

Gone skiing. Be back in a couple of days.

What I'm Reading This Week: The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber, class books, and Exodus What I'm Listening to This Week: Norah Jones, Dave Crowder, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Moby, Dispatch, Ben Harper

And my heretical dialogue continues . . . Melissa Swearengin writes: Josh, After reading all the debate back and forth I'm afraid I've lost track of who said what and when! If I may, I'd like to address your comment, "Only God is bigger than the gospel." In John chapter 1 we learn God is the gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Also, in reference to your saying that the gospel is neither rational or irrational, to me the gospel is not only completely rational, but everything! I've been doing papers all week for another class concerning the inerrancy, divine inspiration, and infallibility of His word. God's grace is not grounded in any one persons thought or any particular period of time, God's grace is grounded in the word- remember He is the word! So even though I may appreciate Godly views of authors or examples from history, my focus is on His word. When I'm trying to find any truth, for me it must be held up to the light of the gospel and examined. If anything is contrary to the bibles teaching- I'm not buying it. Regardless of what generation you come from, or historical time frame we refer to - the word of God never changes! Also somewhere I read one of your questions about whether we teach people about grace or connect them to grace--as much as I'd like to connect people to God's grace I know I'm not the Holy Spirit, only the Holy Spirit can do that! My job is to tell them the truth from His word and pray. Jesus tells us when we lift Him up He draws them to Him. Well anyway, I'm hoping our conversations could focus more on the word and less on personal opinions. It's great to have questions, but I want to find my answers from the bible because I completely trust it's authority. Me: I really enjoyed your comments Ms. Melissa. I especially agree with "Regardless of what generation you come from, or historical time frame we refer to - the word of God never changes!" Right on target there. But I would like to discuss a couple of your comments. Only because I'm bored at work, and would love nothing more than to continue this beneficial dialogue. When you were referring to John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God" that was not referring to Christ as being the gospel. Although I wholeheartedly believe that He IS the gospel in its very essence. When John 1 refers to the "Word", it is not referring to the written, textual Scripture (or lower case "word"). The "Word" in John 1 is referring to the preincarnate and incarnate Christ. A person. Flesh and blood. Moving, breathing. An engaging man made up of dual natures. John 1 was not referring to the written, text-based (lowercase) word, but to the "God Among Us" Word. And what's more, only up until the last 600 years of history have the mass populations had a written "word". The 1000 or so years before that, only a few people had the "word". They then in turn communicated the WORD through narratives, stories, experiences, and an embodiment of the WORD. You also wrote: "God's grace is not grounded in any one persons thought or any particular period of time, God's grace is grounded in the word-remember He is the word!" Exactly! I do not believe that God's grace is grounded in the lower case word but in the upper case WORD. Christ Himself. I think sometimes we bordered on idolatry. And you're going to think I'm a heretic when I say this, but I think its based on a worship of the Bible. When we set the word up and over against the WORD, then we have idolatry. I don't care which way you shake it out. I do not believe that God's grace is grounded in any thought or particular period of time, but it would be very hard to ignore the different ways God engages people in different times, places, and contexts. God came to a specific place, at a specific time, to a specific people, with a specific agenda. I believe that agenda never changes. But I think we would all agree that God came to us in a different way than He did a 1st century Jewish tax-collector, or a Levitical priest, or Abraham in Ur, or to St. Augustine, or to you in 1960, or to me in 1996. God engages us in our context. He never changes. Thats not up for debate. But I do believe He interacts with us in our specifics. I think we have forgotten that, especially when it comes to anyone who doesn't do church the same way we do. This is especially true of our Western missionaries who do nothing more than go and start First Baptist Nigeria or First Baptist Chile, complete with the same style choir, music, teaching style, and architecture. We do nothing to present the gospel in an indigenous or contextualized way, forgetting that we were presented the gospel in this manner. Now in reference to the gospel being rational. Once again I'm going to come off sounding like a heretic, but I do not believe the gospel is rational. It makes no sense to me. If you think its rational, then all power to you. But to me it does not make sense. But the funny thing is . . . I'm ok with that. How do you explain that a God who has existed for all of time, who threw the heavens, stars, and planets out into the expanse at the perfect distance and perfect tilt? How do you explain an eternal God who created man out of the dust of the ground and the woman out of his rib? How do you explain a God who floods the whole Earth and wipes it out only to start over again? How do you explain God picking a man named Abraham and out of Him creating an entire nation that the rest of the world will revolve around for centuries? How do you explain a God who takes this little nation Israel and gives them the ever so smallest piece of land in comparison with the rest of Earth and the rest of the universe, and let that nation serve as the hinge for which all of history swings on? How do you explain that God would purposefully lead them into Egypt only to lead them back out? How do you explain that God would be so patient with a people who were so rebellious? How do you explain that out of that little nation, a King would come that would one day rule all of humanity? How do you explain that God would send Himself (in dual natures mind you, which also isn't very rational) as a Jewish carpenter, born from a virgin, into this world? How do you explain why He had to let Jesus be crucified when (since He was God) could have chosen a thousand other ways to redeem man? How do you explain that after Jesus was crucified by God's beloved Israel, that He would raise from the dead, and ascend into Heaven? How do you explain how He would use people like Paul, Peter, you, and me, to be extensions of Himself in this world in order to redeem it? How do you explain that one day, He's going to come back with a host of angels to fight Satan and demons? How do you explain that after that a brand spanking new Earth is going to descend out of the heavens? You see . . . that's not very rational. I can't really explain all that. I'm sure you could come up with some very good doctrine that would give some meaning to all that, but ultimately, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense rationally. And on top of that, the fact that God would choose me, someone so fickle, unholy, rebellious, lustful, bitter, and sinful. That He would give me grace. And then call me into ministry. To use me in big ways. That's also not very rational. In fact, that's very irrational. But you know what, to God that makes perfect sense. What other way would you expect the most creative being ever to redeem people? Only with something that seemed totally irrational to man. That's why the gospel is "foolishness to the Greeks". Because its wholly irrational to them, to me. But to God it makes perfect sense. That's why I think its trans-rational. It supercedes our plane of reasoning. Neither rational nor irrational. But perfect for a creative God. In seminary, we are challenged to prove faith through reason and rationality. We are taught rational arguments for the existence of God, archeological proof for the accuracy of Scripture. We are given exegetical tools to dig into Scripture and the authorial intent. To me, this approach has a negative effect on me. It makes faith an object to be proven. My head becomes filled with arguments, proof texts, distinctions, and a kind of intellectual arrogance. All the while, God becomes more and more of an object; faith becomes a system; and my heart grows cold. If we're not careful, with this approach, we will take faith out the equation, and replace it with rational, logical arguments. And to me, I just don't see the gospel as rational or logical. I see it as being to big for me or my puny words. I didn't come to God through reason, rationality, or logic. I came to God through faith in grace and an experience of grace. The early church father from the late 2nd century, Tertullian, wrote, "The pagans don't cry 'Look at the power of their rational arguments' but 'See how they love one another!" Granted Tertullian didn't write a great literary piece like the Left Behind novels or any other great book by one of our white, upper-middle-class, suburban, Southern Baptist, Caucasian, democratic, Americans, who lived in this day and age - the modern age. Instead, he lived in the 2nd century, the ancient age. So depending on your view or appreciation of history, his quote may or may not have any bearing on our conversation. But I think it does. And I thank God that there were people in the past, people who are in the present, and the people who will be in the future, that contend that the gospel can not be explained rationally. More to come I'm sure . . .

Here is a continuance of the idiot thinking prevalent in our churches. Edward Deese writes: Brother, I would caution you to be careful about trying to find an experience to validate your knowledge. The truth of the Word of God validates itself without any need of an experience. 27 years in the ministry has taught me that too many people are led astray with "experiences" that they somehow find contrary to the Word, but overlook that because no one can invalidate their "expereince". I do think that God's Word is alive and living and should be experienced on a daily basis, but to the degree that it conforms us to the image of Christ. (Rom. 8.29)God's grace is there to bring us to that point of Christlikeness and then truth can validate our experiences. Me: first . . . i'm not trying to find an experience to validate my truth. unlike 50% of the good southern baptist church members, I've had an experience with grace. when i had this experience, it illuminated all the truth that I heard about grace for the 16 years that i lived in darkness. it wasn't until i experienced grace, that the truth made sense. biblical experience validates truth as well. the problem is that to many people know the truth, but don't flesh it out. therefore their precious truth is invalidated. the word of God is incarnational, just as He was. its not just about truth, but about experience as well. as long as that experience is grounded in the truth about grace and as long as the truth is grounded in an experience of grace, then i have no problem. its both/and. its both experience and truth. its not either/or. thats the way the modern world encountered God. they either had truth or experience. so the two extremes were fundamentalists who had such good, perfect, solid doctrine (in their minds) but had no experience. the other extreme was a liberal version of Christianity where experience was the only important thing. truth meant nothing. thats why you had people who only cared about social reform, political reform, or a social gospel. and you had the charismatic movements in the late 80s and early 90s. thats the problem with our churches today. we have to many pastors who are either stale, dull fundamentalists or they're say anything, do anything liberals. theres nobody walking the middle. so instead of the fundamentalists being incarnational in their truth or the liberals being grounded in their actions, they'd rather sit around all day and point fingers at each other and say the other party is the reason why the church is going to "paradise outside of sheol" in a handbasket. they're to busy doing "church" their way and blaming the other, that they can't walk the middle together. but then again it would be way to easy for people to pull the plank out of their own eye. what i'm trying to do in my faith, is find the happy middle where i'm not a staunch fundamentalist or some whacko liberal. i'm trying to let the truth be incarnational in my life. but the fundamentalists don't like that and neither do the liberals. but thats fine with me. i'll walk the middle road. and i'll do it by myself if i have too. its both/and for me. its both experience and truth. its a beautiful double ring (to quote leonard sweet in his book soul tsunami).

Below is a dialogue from a class on Spiritual Formation that I'm taking online for school. At the heart of the discussion is the important of grace on our spiritual lives. At the root of this dialogue is whether its more important to know about grace or experience grace. I'm going to post the dialogue below just so you guys can see the frustrations that I experience at school on a regular basis. What is quoted in this section is the dialogue between my classmates and I. It is a response (and essentially a critique) of my original writing in the class. Its kind of long, but I have to share it. Alot of my discussion, I robbed from Robert Webber's book, The Younger Evangelicals. Jerry Coleman writes: If experincing grace was the key, there would be no "great Commision" Can I exept Christ before I know of Him? If grace is revealed without knowledge, why have missionaries? Does not the bible teach, how shall they know unless, unless what? A preacher tells them!Then they can make a choice to recieve God's grace......I do not say you have to understand every jot and title, but if you do not know its there how in the world can you accept it? The going to an ocean and jumping in, is not a very good example here, as I see the ocean before I jump in, Gods grace is not visable, I therefore must know its there to experence it.....now if what you are saying is that the experiencing of His grace is better than the knowledge of it. I would agree with you. It is sweeter. But I tell you this,WITH OUT KNOWLEDGE, YOU WOULD NOT EXPEREINCE IT. That is this side of a 5 point Calvinst. Me: Up until the Reformation, spiritual formation was based on experience. Experience with life, experience with our communities, experience with our world. In this interaction (I'll use the word interaction interchangeably with experience) the emphasis in learning was not placed solely on knowledge of grace, but on experience and interaction with grace. With the Reformation and the invention of the Gutenberg Press spiritual formation shifted from participating in the community - to learning doctrine from printed material that could be examined and affirmed intellectually. With Luther's 95 Theses faith moved from experiencing grace through works of art, conversations, friendships, communities, architecture, and images and instead it moved toward confessions, hymns, and sermons - words to be studied, analyzed, believed, and confessed. Our spiritual formation became more about the knowledge of grace than the experience of grace. Now obviously at the eve of the Reformation there was a great abuse of certain powers. However, from Moses until circa 1400 AD, spiritual formation was based highly on this interaction with grace. THE CONTENT (THE KNOWLEDGE) OF GRACE IS MUCH MORE THAN AN INTELLECTUAL APPREHENSION. IT IS AN EXPERIENCE OF GRACE THAT HAS TAKEN UP RESIDENCE WITHIN A PERSON AND TRANSFORMED THAT PERSON INTO THE IMAGE OF THE CONTENT (THE KNOWLEDGE). In this way, it is much more than a person understanding and accepting the knowledge of grace. It is about an interaction with grace that is grounded in knowledge. For me my experience illuminates my knowledge. The more I experience God's grace, the more I understand it. I'm 22 years old though. The younger generation thinks more like people did before the Enlightenment. We care less about rational, defendable knowledge and more about our interaction with God and His grace. For some of you on here, I'm sure your knowledge illuminates your experience. The more you know about God, the more you experience Him. That's not wrong. It's just the lens with which you see God. The problem with us is that we have a cultural lens that is so engrained in modern (by modern, I mean the way of seeing the world since the Enlightenment period until present) thinking. We grew up after the Enlightenment. We see rational knowledge as the chief end. If God doesn't make sense, we come up with some theology that will make it all make sense. If we don't understand something, we make up something that makes it understandable. We're really, really uncomfortable with not knowing everything and not understanding all the "ins and outs" of how God works. We have such perfect, closed doctrine that elevates us out of our fallible, ignorant state to the platform of all-knowing humans (or at least we think). We rob God of all mystery. Of all experience. We see the world through this lens. Because of this, any type of thinking that goes back to a premodern or postmodern way of thinking is seen as heresy, when in reality it may be a little closer to the truth that we seek after. I do not reject the Word. I do not reject the knowledge of it. I do however reject the knowledge of it without an interaction with it. Just as experience is void without knowledge, so knowledge is void without an experience. If I don't keep this in mind, I'll have a full mind and an empty heart. Plato once wrote, and granted he's not a great Southern Baptist evangelist, preacher, or expositor, but he wrote something that I think fits in perfectly with what we're discussing. He said . . . "Experience makes truth splendid." And to me, that makes perfect sense. Chris Fleming wrote: ...you're on to something many of our "Southern Baptist evangelists and preachers" overlook. I think it's absolutely tragic that so many of our Church leaders today try so hard to "make God make sense." Consequently they create all kinds of non-Scriptural doctrine to support their "opinions" (the way thay think things should be done; i.e. Worship, Order of Service, etc.). They almost totally deny the Holy Spirit room to operate. Well said. Chris Me {quote} "Consequently they create all kinds of non-Scriptural doctrine to support their "opinions" (the way thay think things should be done; i.e. Worship, Order of Service, etc.). They almost totally deny the Holy Spirit room to operate." Exactly! And in doing so they set up their doctrine in an almost idolatrous way. If you took some of the core doctrines that we believed and took them away from us, our whole faith would fall into shambles. I'm scared to death to see what some pastors are going to do in heaven when the God that they created in their minds with their doctrine and explanations doesn't turn out to be the same way that they defined Him. What if God really does operate the way a Calvinist thinks He does? Would an Armenian still have faith in God? Or vice versa. What if God is really a Pentecostal Protestant who speaks in tongues? Would a good Southern Baptist preacher sitll have faith in God? This could be said of any denomination. We have God so "pegged" as to who He is and how He acts that we leave no room for error. And if there is an error in our theology, then the chairs our kicked out from under our faith. Because God isn't the way I want Him to be. Idolatrous. Thats all it is. Setting up God in our image. William Herndon writes: It is true that we should not put God into our own little boxes to fit what we believe. God is greater than our finite minds can comprehend. However, the illustration of what we will do when we get to heaven is not a good one. When we get to heaven none of the arguments we get into here on earth will matter. There will not be teachers of the Word, because we will be with God who knows all, and he will reveal the mysteries to us. I understand that was just an illustration to help make your point and I am not trying to jump in the middle of all this back and forth, in fact I have purposely avoided it. God is far greater beyond our imagination and understanding. God Bless. William Jerry Coleman writes: I did not mean to be offensive in my last reply to you Josh. I was trying to make a point, that the difference between us, is that if you put expereince before knowledge, you bring in outside revelation. I have never heard of anyone being saved that had never heard the gospel....If you have please tell me about it. Before the full cannon of the bible, Yes God did work that way, but after He does not. We have all the knowledge and revelation we need in the bible..So in reformation times you are correct, but we are not in that same time, nor can we be, we have the Bible. Now if you want to believe that God is still in the revelation business, that your perogitive, it just that I dont believe that He is. So if I experience God's grace with out knowledge of it, I got it without choice, because I did not know it was there. Then Yes you are leaving my doctrines, but yes that still is your perogitive to believe so. But this is true if it is today, yesterday or tomorrow. It's not going to change, if I did not have knowledge of it, then I did not choose to recieve it. Can the experience of God's grace make me want to know Him in a deeper relationship? Yes it can. All I am trying to show you is that knowledge comes first. Or should I say the knowledge either comes first....or my experience is not by my choice. I believe that man has a free will to choose. Me: I wasn't offended by your comment Mr. Coleman. I was just saying that the comment could have come off offensive to those who are more Reformed in thinking. And I agree with Eli that this conversation is monotonous considering all the progress we've made in one direction or the other the last few days (sarcastic). :) We can say its about God choosing us or us choosing Him. You can boil it down to alot of different things. But I believe, that at the core of our different beliefs on this subject is an issue of age. We think differently because of our different generations. I don't think your approach is wrong. You think about and view God from a modern lens. I don't think my approach is wrong. I think about and view God from a postmodern lens. Augustine and Thomas Aquanis thought about and viewed God from a medieval lens. The early apostles and the early church fathers viewed God from an ancient/premodern lens. We've all grown up in different cultures, different time periods that shape our way of thinking. The point is to connect with God on a plain that supercedes are ways of thinking, whether ancient, medieval, modern, or postmodern. The problem with us is that we think like Western, white, middle-class, suburban, democratic, modern, individualistic, and consumeristic people. Well amazingly this way of thinking has only been around for about 300 years. And in only a couple of countries on the Earth. Everybody else throughout time and even in the present in countries that aren't permeated by Western thought, don't think like this and approach God like this. And I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but there are alot of us "younger evangelicals" out here, attempting to deconstruct that mode of thinking. Only up until the last 300 years or so have we tried to reduce God to rational, explainable, propositional truth. The gospel of grace is the story of God told from His perspective, to His glory. Only God is bigger than the Gospel. At first it sounds like a foolish paradoxical mystery. And so we try to make it sound more believeable and sane. It is not. The Gospel is neither rational or irrational, but it supercedes those generic categories. I say all of that to say that God is interested in extending grace and peace to our lives. For you, God is going to extend His grace and peace to your life which is grounded in modern thought, that has been around since the Enlightenment. For me, God is going to extend His grace and peace to my life which is grounded in postmodern thought, that has only been around for the past 30 years. For Augustine and the church fathers, God extended his grace and peace to their life which was grounded in premodern or ancient thought, that was around for 1500 years. For me, God chose me. I didn't choose Him. He initiated it all and offered me free will in the process. But He initiated it. For 16 years of my life, I grew up in church and had knowledge about grace. Not once during this period did I ever experience grace. Then at the age of 16, God initiated contact with me and opened my eyes. For the first time I experienced grace. That illuminated all of my knowledge. Thats a part of my journey. Its not outside revelation. I'm not Mormon or in some type of cult. I just encountered God in a different way than You. Jerry Coleman writes: I think what we need to do here is just agree to disagree, and go on. It's not that important how we see this issue, salvation is the important matter. But I would just like to say to you that God is God, I cant agree with your view of History, Grace is extended to all men, and yes He came to me first, but I had to come to the knowledge of it before I could except it. But I am going to give you some verses to think about, and this will be my last post on the subject. Remember its not important what I think, and its not important what you think, what is important is what the Word of God "Says" Romans 10:14,15 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach except the be sent? Me: thank you for the verses but i will respectively agree to disagree with you. and just for laughs sake, it is extremely funny to me that you used the text from Romans 10 which is dead smack in the middle of romans 9 and 11 where Paul is discussing some very Reformed theology. but i do agree with you. this is a trivial issue that is no longer worth discussing in this forum. thank you very much for the dialogue that we have shared though over the past few days. it has been very beneficial to me and i hope to you all as well. grace and peace from your brother in Christ. THE END

My Goals For The Year 1. Get A BetterControl of My Thought Life 2. Be More Reflective In My Speech 3. Read 2 Books A Month 4. Read Through The Bible 5. Work On A Framework For A Future Church Plant 6. Build Deep Friendships With At Least Two Unconnected People 7. Memorize More Scripture 8. Save Between $500 and $1000 9. Work More Efficiently At The Print Shop 10. Involve Myself In The Life Of Others 11. Mentor Some Guys 12. Give Myself And Possessions Away 13. Watch Less Than An Hour Of TV A Week 14. Be More Reflective And Prayerful In My Spending 15. Invest In My Family 16. Pray For My Small Group Guys Everyday 17. Enjoy The Small Things More 18. Make Another CD 19. Go Camping More 20. Spend At Least An Hour A Day In Prayer And Study 21. Find The Positives Instead Of The Negatives 22. Be More Encouraging 23. Listen More And Talk Less 24. Come Up With A List Of Potential Staff 25. Drink 32 oz. OF Water A Day

What I'm Reading This Week: The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber, Colossians, and Genesis What I'm Listening To This Week: Jimmy Eat World (an acoustic mix), Ella Fitzgerald, Coldplay, David Crowder

I've been inspired lately to write down what I'd like to be my "core values" in life. These aren't New Year's resolutions, but I'm going to attempt to gear my life around these 5 concepts this year. Transparent � I want to live my life in such a way that it is an open book to everyone around me. By realizing that everything that I achieve that is good is because of the grace of God and by realizing that everything that I achieve that is bad is because I�ve walked away on my own, I�ll be able to give the proper credit to God for the good, and be a learning tool for myself and others for the bad. In order to be transparent, I will have to be brutally honest with myself and God (who already knows). And once I�ve moved onward toward repentance, I will have to be brutally honest with those around me, in order that God will get glory both in the good (for Him achieving things through me) and in the bad (for restoring me and using the circumstances to teach myself and others a lesson). I can be proud of my clear conscience. I have always lived honestly and sincerely, especially when I was with you. And I was guided by God's wonderful kindness. (2 Corinthians 1:12) Authentic � I want to live my life in such a way that I am authentic with those who I engage with. I want to be genuine in my actions, pure in my motives, and sincere in my words. I do not want to do anything because of anything that I can get out of it, but because I honestly want to help. Being careful not to do anything out of impure intentions, I will do everything that I do because of God�s grace in my life leading me to share that same grace with others through actions and words. When others are happy, I will be happy with them, and when they are sad, I will be sad. I will be friendly with everyone. Not being proud and feeling that I am smarter than others. Making friends with ordinary people. (Romans 12:15-16) Conversational� I want to live my life in such a way that I enter into meaningful conversations with those around me as Paul did in Acts 17. I want to be careful that I�m not out to �win� people to my side, but am purposeful in joining them on their journey as they join me on my mine. Whether it be a conversation that lasts only a few minutes or a conversation that lasts a life time, I want to be in tune with their needs, fears, struggles, hopes, and dreams. I never want to be known as someone who cares only about the surface in order to get a �convert�. I want to talk less and listen more. And when I talk, I want it to be because I�m in tune with the Spirit and it is Him who is talking. And when listen, I want to do more than just listen with my ears, but I want to hear with my heart. Connection � I want to live my life in such a way that I serve as a connection point between God and people and between people and people. I want to function as a catalyst that bridges any gaps that people might have that are keeping them from being in friendship with God and fellowship with others. Realizing that I�m nothing more than a body that God has chosen to live through and use as a temporary bridge to introduce people to the real bridge of humanity, the cross of Jesus Christ. Knowing that this wonderful message �that Christ is no longer counting people�s sins against them� (2 Corinthians 5:19) was brought to me by someone else, I will consider it an honor that I get the privilege to now share that same wonderful message with others. Reflection � I want to live my life in such a way that in everything that I do, say, and think, that I will bring honor to God in some shape, form, or fashion. Defining worship as anything that makes God smile, I want to gear my whole life around that one end of making God smile. I do this by realizing that I was created to reflect God�s glory by living out my life for His pleasure. As Colossians 1:16 says, �Everything was created by Him, everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen, including all forces, and powers, and all rulers, and authorities. All things were created by God�s Son, and everything was made for Him.� At the very core of who I am, at my very essence, I want to live as a reflection of what I was created for. �Lord help me do great things as though they were little, since I do them in Your power; and little things as though they were great, since I do them in Your name.� � Blaise Pascal

What I'm Listening To This Week: Delirious, Counting Crows, Andy Hunter, David Crowder, Louis Armstrong, Allison Krauss What I'm Reading This Week: The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber, 2 Corinthians

She's dead. The Pink Princess is no longer. I'll be taking some time off to reevaluate some stuff. There will be a service Friday night at 5:30 at the Statewide Towing Service lot.

What I'm Reading: Every Man's Battle - Stephen Arterburn

I'm blind, I want to see. I'm calloused, I want to feel. I'm deaf, I want to hear.

A Jesuit Prayer In the silence of my innermost being, In the fragments of my yearned-for wholeness, Can I hear the whispers of God's presence? Can I remember when I felt God's nearness? When we walked together and I let myself be embraced by God's love. God is not foreign to my freedom. Instead the Spirit breathes life into my most intimate desires, Gently nudging me towards all that is good. I ask for the grace to let myself be enfolded by the Spirit.

Below is a small exceprt from an interview with Leonard Sweet. The entire interview can be found at Relevant Magazine. [RM:] Does it freak people out when you start talking like that? [LS:] (laughter) I don't know. (pause) I don't know. I'm very conservative about some things. For example: For me, the Gospel is literally oxygen. There's a world out there that needs the breath of life, the Gospel. My job is to get out there to a world that's choking on pollution. But oxygen has to come in a tank! It has to be brought in a container. So, the most important thing for me is to get oxygen out to these people who are panting, dying for the oxygen. I don't care how you get it to them. I don't care what container you use! We've got a lot of churches fighting over whether or not the oxygen's got to come in an iron lung! That's the mystery for me: Why is the church spending its time fighting over what kind of canisters you put the oxygen in? This is the only breath of life there is! [RM:] I want to know about the "wussification" of the church, as you call it ... [LS:] I'll give you one example of it: Street evangelism. You think about a typical street evangelist on a soapbox, with some kind of megaphone and he's handing out tracts. I mean, Wesley and some early Methodists in the late 18th, early 19th century invented street evangelism and they would attract these huge crowds; people were getting converted and there were these huge revivals! We do it today and it drives people away! It's not turning people to Christ, it's driving them away from Christ. Why? It's the wussification of the church, and the wussification of the church's mind and mission. In the 1790's, a book was equivalent to one month's salary, so people didn't have books. And they didn't have literature in their homes. So pamphlets and tracts were the cutting edge hardware of the 18th century. Literally, a book is one month's salary, and you're on a street evangelism team giving out books and tracts and pamphlets. Well, hello! In the 1990's the computer was equivalent to one month's salary! And here we are still giving out tracts, which our ancestor's did, but if we were doing what they did, we'd be standing on street corners passing out Palm Pilots, PCs. You want to talk about crowds that would wait in line and listen to what we have to say? Now, of course, that hardware would have to come with spiritual software. The early street evangelists just didn't have pamphlets, they had chapters from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, or Fox's Book of Martyrs, or Thomas A Kempis' Imitation of Christ. So you just don't pass out Palm Pilots, you put Bible software on them, if you're passing out PCs, you put the whole Scriptures in there! We're such wusses! We're still passing out tracts. I mean, in the men's room they put tracts on the urinals. And this is evangelism?! Who's gonna pick it up? It's the wussification of the church's mind and mission, and it's embarrassing. Let's do for our day what our ancestors did for their day � is that too much to ask? [RM:] Yeah, there's also the idea in there that Jesus raised people from the dead and we're just barely hanging on. [LS:] Oh, absolutely. We're fighting over the five points of Calvinism or something. But the big Achilles heel of the church is the practice of attractional Christianity, which is how you get people to come to church. It's all "come and see," it's not "go and be." The whole Great Commission is not about "come and see," it's "go and be." We're all trying to figure out how to bring more people into the church and it shouldn't be about coming to church. It should be about coming to Christ. And then when those people come to Christ, the church's job is to send them out.

I've got so much to be thankful. I really struggle alot with discouragement. Sometimes its as if I feel that I mess up to much for God to use me or to work in my life. Sometimes I just don't feel like I'm transforming into the image of Christ. So I feel like because of all my mess-ups that maybe God has kind of given up on me, which is what I deserve. But its so cool to see all the things that God has blessed me with despite my ignorance and hard heart. When I see all the things that God is giving me and using in my life, it gives me an incredible sense of encouragement knowing that He's not done with me yet. He's given me a great place to live. Great new friends. A great family. A great job. I just realized last night driving home after hanging out with some friends, that this realization of all that I have to be thankful for, is God answering my prayers and my heart from the past couple of months when I was really struggling with alot of frustration because of my place in life right now. So I just poured out my heart, tears, and frustrations to God for the past months and now He is answering them. Despite me being so undeserving. Who am I that You should be mindful of me? To know that God is mindful of me, hearing my prayers, then answering them, and giving me so many great things to be thankful for, even in the midst of my hard heart, blows my mind. Because it means that God is not through with me yet. He's still working in me. Transforming me. Molding me into a man of God. Shaping my heart and directing my paths in the right direction. And that is a very encouraging thought indeed.

What I'm Reading This Week: Romans by John Stott, 1st & 2nd Corinthians, Romans

What I'm Listening To Now: The Early November, The All-American Rejects, Ella Fitzgerald, Mars Hill Worship, Sim Redmond Band, & Joseph Arthur