welcome to the story.

What I'm Reading: Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope by Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah Chapters 40-55 (historically known as Second Isaiah) What I'm Listening To: Nick Drake, The Streets, Coldplay, Mark Driscoll sermons, and Good To Great audio book Holiday Viewing: Office Space, The Outsiders, A Day Without A Mexican, Trainspotting, & What's Eating Gilbert Grape Current Words Reverberating In My Mind: historicity, subversive, polyphonic

My Weekend Preview brought to you by your friends at Red Cowboy Designs * Cocky the Gamecock kicking the ship out of The Mountaineer * Contra 8 Bit NES and Contra PS2 * The Killers show * Fajitas & Croquet - possibly together, but I haven't made a formal proposal yet * Outside the Box XXVII * Two reindeer of opposite sex displaying their sexual tension to students in the Greater Atlanta area * Sucking through 3 color print cartridges for the sake of sending out the two reindeer of opposite sex displaying their sexual tension to students in the Greater Atlanta area * Possibly sleeping in for the first time in over a year * Listening to my sidekick try to match Influence Week Two with his Influence Week Three * Begging God to forgive me for making the last projection * And other assorted random tidings of tight sheetness and jubilation

Reading: Alternative Worship by Jonny Baker & Doug Gay, Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll, and Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope by Walter Brueggemann Listening: Brian Eno, Pete Yorn, Mason Jennings, Radiohead, Coldplay Viewing: The Incredibles and either Simon Birch, Royal Tenebaums, or Whats Eating Gilbert Grape Soon to View: The Life Aquatic, Spanglish, Finding Neverland, & A Series of Unfortunate Events

INFLUENCE syncretism versus sectarianism For those of you who don�t know, Matt Piland and I are roommates. We are also what you might call cheap in some areas. We are both in the process of trying to save money so that we can get out of debt, pay off our cars, pay off our student loans. Our girlfriends will tell you the same thing . . . we�re both cheap. That�s why our dates usually turn into watching Diagnosis Murder on Friday nights and eating off the Wendy�s $0.99 menu. Guys trust me . . . girls like nothing better than a bowl of a Wendy�s $0.99 chili. Well one of the ways that we have decided to try and save money is by cutting back on electricity. During the summer, we did not use the air conditioner hardly at all. You would come in after a long day at work and open the door and would be hit by about 120 degree temperatures. Instead of using the air conditioner, you would just go put your bathing suit on and lay on the tile floor in the kitchen. Now that winter is coming up and the nights are getting cooler. Naturally one of the ways that we would save is by not using the heat. So the last couple of days especially, its been a chilly 61 degrees when we wake up in the morning. That�s pretty cold. To counter act this coldness, I go in the bathroom and turn the shower all the way to hot for a few minutes before I get in. This effect happens naturally, but its even more evident when the cold temperature of the house reacts with the hot air in the bathroom. This creates the effect that we�re all familiar with. Fog on the mirrors. This makes it extremely difficult for me to do my morning mirror exercises where I do my poses and flex my muscles, check out the hair on my back, trim the hair on my back, etc. So whether I look really good, which is usually not the case, or whether I look really bad. It doesn�t really matter because I can�t see myself in the mirror because of all the fog. In the same way, many people that aren�t connected with God in an intimate relationship, have trouble seeing God clearly because of all the fog that is created by the church and Christians at times. The goal of Christians and of the church is to reflect God. The name Christians was actually given to the early believers because it meant, �little Christ�. Our mission as God-followers, as Christians, as a church is to reflect God outward towards the world. Wherever we go, in whatever we do, in everything we say, our mission is to reflect God. However, for most people looking in at the church and looking at the lives of Christians, all they see is fog. They see bits and pieces of God in the mirror, but then a fresh breath of fog gets blown their way and their clarity fades into haze. Our job as Christians is to help remove the fog so that the world can see God reflected by us. I have to use a hair dryer in the morning if I want to get rid of the fog on my mirror. If I point it towards a spot and leave it their long enough, eventually the fog fades and clarity returns. It�s the same way with our influence with our friends. If we live what we say and we say what we live, long enough � not loud enough � but long enough, the fog will begin to lift. To be gut level honest with you, I don�t blame some people for not being able to find God in our reflections. I agree with them sometimes that it�s awfully hard to find God when all you see is judgmental, angry, gossiping, prideful, hypocritical Christians. Its like I�ve been sharing with you guys on Sunday mornings, its not that people necessarily have a problem with God, it�s just that they sometimes can�t find him in the lives of Christians or the church. They�ve marginalized him, reduced him, tamed him, made him boring, made him disconnected from everyday life. I think when your friends look into the church, they see three types of people. This week I�m going to talk about the first two types of people that they see. And next week Matt is going to talk about the third type of person in-depth. One, they see a �Christian�, who in an effort to be good, clean, and holy, has removed themselves from all things not good, dirty, and worldly. Consequently, this person lives in a world that I like to call Christianville. All they do is listen to Christian music, read their Bibles, hang out with their Christian friends, talk the Christian language, etc. In essence, they are the people who have isolated themselves from anybody and anything that is not �Christian�. The world and your friends look in at these people and the word they use to describe them is �self-righteous�. Its not that these people are altogether bad or wrong. They are simply missing the point of what it means to be a Christian. They have the relationship with God, but they forget about those around them (which is why we were saved to begin with; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20). The second type of person that the world sees is a Christian, who in their effort to fit in and not offend anyone, ends up looking and acting just like everybody else. These type of �Christians� look the same, act the same, talk the same, as everybody else does. Your friends and the world look at these types of people and say, �If that�s all that there is to be a Christian, then I don�t want that. Because they are no different than me.� Its not that these people are altogether bad or wrong either. They are simply missing the point of what it means to be a Christian in a different way. They have the relationship with their friends, but they often neglect their relationship with God as they begin to be influenced by those they are attempting to influence. This is where it gets foggy for most people who aren�t Christians. They look at the Christians around them and see one of two extremes. Neither of which is the missional Christian that God has called us to be. He has called us to walk the middle. To walk down a missionary tight rope between church and culture, and in the middle of those two worlds . . . to reflect Him. The two extremes reflect two different mindsets about how you should influence your friends. The first one says you stand outside of your culture, outside of your group of your friends, and you preach to them from the outside looking in. This position, from the perspective of those you are �preaching� at, ends up turning into a posture where you are standing above your friends, speaking down to them or at them. The second perspective says I�ll just immerse myself fully into my surrounding culture without regard for discernment, truth, or wisdom. This posture usually turns into the �Christian� standing in a room full of �non-Christians� either saying nothing of substance, or having what they say negated by their lifestyle that looks the same as the �non-Christians�. The alternative position says you speak with your words and your lifestyle from within your culture outwards toward it. Jesus puts some substance behind this in one of his prayers. He prays this right before He is getting ready to be turned over to His death. And He is praying for His followers. �I�m not asking that you take them out of the world but that you guard them from the Evil One. They are no more defined by the world, than I am defined by the world.� - John 17 He has called us to be in the world but not of the world. What does that mean? It means that we are to be in the world, in culture, in the daily life of those around us. But we are not defined or controlled by what is around us. Meaning that our mission is to stand as a subversive asterisk in the middle of the ordinary. A counter-cultural oddity moving against the current of what everybody else thinks, says, and does. He calls us to exist on a higher plane, above the two extremes, while at the same time, standing in the middle of both extremes, walking the missionary tight rope between church and culture. You see for some of us, we are like the first group of people that I talked about who live in Christianville. We have taken the gospel and left our culture. In the place of our old culture, we have created a new one with our own language, thoughts, music, attitudes. So it becomes this huge reversal. A huge exodus of Christians from culture. A massive export of all things positive that have the potential to influence the world. To flavor it with salt and to shed any light. 2 Corinthians 5:20 though says that we were saved to be an ambassador, an agent of redemption, a reflection of God, a bridge. All in order to be imported back into culture. To go back and infiltrate culture in order to redeem it. We waste so much time yelling at our friends to be moral, but we should be conversating with them about how to be redeemed. Moral behavior will flow out of that. But in many ways we have turned our backs to those who God has called us to influence. Or sadly, we have turned the gospel into something that its not in our attempts to influence. SNOWBALL ILLUSTRATION In Alabama, when you make a snowman or a snowball, its usually full of leaves and pine straw, grass, and dirt by the time you get finished with it. Same way with the gospel we share. By the time it reaches those we are trying to influence, so much �junk� has been added to our version of the �gospel� that by the time it reaches the people that we are trying to reach its full of �junk� that wasn�t intended to be there. BURNING SECULAR STUFF ILLUSTRATION I was told that in order to be a good Christian that I had to get rid of all my �secular� cds. So I threw them away. Consequently, I added to the gospel in a way that said God hated �secular� music. And if you listened to it, God wasn�t happy with you or you weren�t spiritual. So inadvertently I continued to drift and isolate myself farther from the culture that surrounded me. It was all �evil� and I had to stay away from �evil� lest I become �evil�. Has anybody ever heard of the �garbage in, garbage out� principle? Well that�s what I was told. So I was told I needed to get rid of all my friends, all my music, and all my attachments for anything other than �Christian� stuff. But there was a group of young men in the Bible who rejected this idea of �garbage in, garbage out�. Daniel 1:3-5, 18-20 3Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, who was in charge of the palace officials, to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families, who had been brought to Babylon as captives. 4"Select only strong, healthy, and good-looking young men," he said. "Make sure they are well versed in every branch of learning, are gifted with knowledge and good sense, and have the poise needed to serve in the royal palace. Teach these young men the language and literature of the Babylonians." 5The king assigned them a daily ration of the best food and wine from his own kitchens. They were to be trained for a three-year period, and then some of them would be made his advisers in the royal court. 18When the three-year training period ordered by the king was completed, the chief official brought all the young men to King Nebuchadnezzar. 19The king talked with each of them, and none of them impressed him as much as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they were appointed to his regular staff of advisers. 20In all matters requiring wisdom and balanced judgment, the king found the advice of these young men to be ten times better than that of all the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom. Daniel and his friends were educated in garbage. The Babylonian education of their day was garbage. But it says that they emerged from their �garbage in� training and instead of putting �garbage out�, actually gave out wisdom and truth. They in no way endorsed or participated in the worldly elements of his culture. Next week Matt is going to take a look at how Daniel stood up in the middle of his pagan (which means anti-God) context and ended up influencing the king. But I�m not going to lie to you. There is a huge danger as well to this idea. Although Daniel and his friends didn�t allow their surroundings to influence them, there were many other of his friends who did get influenced by their surroundings. They did allow their �garbage intake� to effect their outward lives. They fell into the extreme that we talked about earlier. They fell into the extreme where they accepted everything. Where they so assimilated into their culture that they accepted and were defined by that culture. That�s some of you. You are a Christian, but you have grown so close to the culture around you that you are no longer defined by God and His agenda. But you are defined by your surroundings, by the popular culture around you. You believe that all religions are valid. You believe that its ok to have sex before marriage if you really love your girlfriend. You believe that its ok to cheat on a test every now and then. And the list goes on and on and on. But it goes back to the mirror. What is it that you�re reflecting? The only thing your friends see, the only thing your boss sees, the only thing your family sees . . . is the same thing that they see everywhere else. The same. The ordinary. The trivial. The boring. The reflection of a pop culture that is dominated by mass produced entertainment, products, services, and experiences that look the same. MTV is the champion of this culture. That�s why so much of what they spit out looks the same. Half the music sounds the same. That�s probably cause �Lil John has produced half of it. But its all the same. Reality tv. Its all the same. Just different characters in a different place. Pop culture has become boring. It all looks the same. Sadly, when we assimilate that same cultural identity, we look just like that. A cookie-cutter generation where everybody looks the same, talks the same, listens to the same music, acts the same. I�m not saying that its bad to be involved or a participant with and in your culture. What I am saying is that you are not to be defined by it, controlled by it, dictated by it, influenced by it. You are called to move in a different direction. Dance to a different rhythm. Echo a different voice. A subversive asterisk is what I like to call it. Standing out as different while standing in the middle of the sameness that surrounds you. That�s when influence is created. Because people recognize there is something different worth following. Something different worth imitating. Something different worth realigning their lives with. That�s influence. ME & CODY (MY BROTHER) ILLUSTRATION A contrast between the two. Me and my brother. I was the one who isolated myself from my old friends. Parties. Cody was the one who didn�t change anything. There is a balance between the two. [ILLUSTRATION] Two stacks of stuff. One representing Christian culture and one representing popular culture. With a mirror in between the two. Brad and I have set up the framework. Next week Matt is going to come behind us and set up some practical ways you can be in the world, but not of it. Where do you draw the line? What does this third type of person look like who walks a missionary tight rope?

Johnny Cash Hurt [a nine inch nails cover] I hurt myself today To see if I still feel I focus on the pain The only thing that's real The needle tears a hold The old familiar sting Try to kill it all away But I remember everything What have I become My sweetest friend Everyone I know goes away In the end And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt I wear this crown of thorns Upon my liar's chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else I am still right here What have I become My ssweetest friend Everyone I know goes away In the end And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt If I could start again A million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way Hurt Video Without a doubt, the best piece of art that I have ever seen. Beautiful. Sad. Deep. Heretical. Iconic. Failing. Progressing. Advancing. Me. Cash.

Current Reading: Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard Current Listening: Radiohead, Coldplay, Ben Harper, David Crowder Band, Johnny Cash Current Viewing: Saved!

All my life I�ve been searching for somethin� Somethin� never comes, never leads to nuthin� Nothin� satisfies, but I�m gettin� close Closer to the prize at the end of the rope All night long I dream of the day When it comes around, and it�s takin�away Leaves me with the feelin� that I fear the most Feel it come to life when I see your ghost Calm down, don�t you resist Your such a delicate rist And if I give it a twist Somethin� to hold when I lose my grip Will I find something in there, To give it just what it needs Another reason to bleed One by one, hidden up my sleeve One by one, hidden up my sleeve Hey, don�t let it go to waste I love it but, I hate that taste Weight keeping me down Will I find the believer Another one who believes Another one to decieve Over and over, down on my knees If I get any closer, i And if you open up wide And if you let me inside On and on, I�ve got nuthin� to hide On and on I�ve got nuthin� to hide Hey, don�t let it go to waste I love it but, I hate that taste Weight keeping me down All my life I�ve been searching for somethin� Somethin� never comes, never leads to nuthin� Nothin� satisfies, but I�m gettin� close Closer to the prize at the end of the rope All night long I dream of the day When it comes around, and it�s takin�away Leaves me with the feelin� that I feel the most Feel it come to life when I see your ghost Done, done and I'm on to the next one

Nashville for 2 and a half days, locked in an edit suite for 18-20 hour days does not sound like fun. No it does not. But . . . I shall chase it with 2 days next to the Chattooga River in the mountains writing and reading and fishing.