I found this and I thought it is a great story for us as we are going through this change in worship. This is written by Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Texas.
"I have a confession to make and I hope it doesn't make you think less of me. Ned Flanders and I have become friends. It hasn't always been this way. For years before I began to pastor a church I knew just what the problem was in American evangelical culture, and it wasn't sin, it was church people, it was Ned and his friends. The "frozen chosen" I think I have heard them called. They were old, tired, non missional, unmoved by the gospel, and thought the Left Behind movies were a great idea. They had driven our precious Lord's bride into the ground and deserved at least to be mocked in our young, hip, missional conversations and sermons and maybe even killed in some sort of Old Testament fashion. I used to think that when my time came to Pastor I didn't want or need any of them. I just wanted to see people saved. I didn't want to "swap sheep" in fact maybe we wouldn't let anyone join the church that was trying to come to us from another church in town. I could see us now, raw, gritty, authentic, and somewhat angry but not enough to be called sin, tattooed and rough around the edges. Ned would hate it, but we would reclaim the gospel he and his cronies had taken and perverted into this withdrawn, judgmental joke. We would see the lost saved and develop them ourselves.
In December 2002 my time had arrived to Pastor and I came to The Village with all the ignorance and arrogance of a 28 year old with all the answers and few questions and immediately began learning that I was an idiot. Over the last four years I have been challenged, refined, chiseled and rebuked. And somehow in the middle of all of that Ned and I became good friends. It started over a cup of coffee (and I'm not speaking in code here. Ned does not and will never have a beer with me). I started learning some things about him over that cup of coffee. First of all, we are very different. He loves Sandy Patty records, has 5 icthus' on his car (one of each member of his family) and only watches the PAX network on television. As I learned all this about him I wondered how we could co-exist or honestly even have a conversation, but then the strangest of things happened we found some common ground. It seems that Ned and I have, as hard as this is to say, some similar passions. I found out that day that Ned loves both the church and Jesus very much. On top of that he wants with all his heart to see his neighbor, Homer, come to know Christ, and prays for him constantly. It was a shocking revelation to me. The problem that I thought plagued us wasn't the problem at all.
It's a strange thing to wake up and find out you are the very thing you hated and rebelled against to begin with. Judging men not by the content of their souls but by how they dress, talk and drink. I was expected when I came to know Jesus to wear a suit on Sunday, part my hair on the side and then hairspray it down, quit drinking completely and learn to speak "Christianese" fluently. If I did those things I was welcomed and loved if not, I was the outcast. I find it heartbreaking that I have tendencies to do the same to others. The expectations have changed, it's not a suit it's an un-tucked shirt, it's not your hair parted down the side it's messy hair that you spent 15 minutes making look messy. But it's the same madness, the same judgments, and the same sin that plagued my fathers before me. We think our methods are the methods instead of a method. So Ned and I are friends. We fight a lot, usually over philosophy of ministry and volume of music, but on weekends like last weekend when we baptize dozens and dozens of grown men and women I can see him back there, last row on the left earplugs in, surrounded by raw, gritty, authentic, and somewhat angry but not enough to be called sin, tattooed and rough around the edges people and he loves the place and I think he might even like me."
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Meditations on Masculinity (Part 1)
Lately I've been searching for what it means to be a man according to Scripture, according to what God says not what the culture is pointing at. So in my search I'm picking through the great wisdom literature of the bible to find advice from the sage to the student who's very much in need of it.
I started off in I Timothy to find many intresting point Paul makes to his son Timothy. Timothy in case you didn't know is a gentile who was saved by his mother and grandmother and rew up under Paul's teaching at Ephesus. Paul and Timothy became like a father and son. They traveled together, they preached and taught together, and prayed in prison together. Paul at the time of this letter was nearing the end of his life and was giving Timothy some of his last thoughts, commands, and teachigns on Jesus.
The passage I found was so enlightning that I thought I might share it.
"But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." - I Timothy 6:12-13 (ESV)
Instead of going on and on about the verse I want to focus on the last part. "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called."
This speaks to me so profoundly that it's hard for me to go into the complexities of it. To me it's like a diamond which I look at from diffrent angles and lights and I see something completley amazing every time I turn it. These facets all are astounding. Each is profound and very practical.
1. As men we must fight the good fight.
What does that mean? Truthfully I know what it means deep down but I don't know how to expand on it. Did you ever see the 300? I think those guys fought the good fight, don't you? That's how as men we're supposed to defend on lives from sin, that's how we should defend our wives, girlfriends, sisters, children, and brothers from sin, and it's how we should defend everything that we've worked so hard to build.
In Nehimiah, they not only had a trowel to build the great wall around Jerusalem but they carried a sword, a spear, and other weapons in their other hand to kill anyone that attempted to deystroy what's been built. This offers more lessons. We never use our strength to opress, attack, or deystroy the innocent. Strength is used to fight evil not fuel it.
2. We must as men take hold of the eternal life we have in Christ.
I don't know what that means but it sounds frankly preety badass in a Christian way.
I don't have much more to say but I will continue tis through my studies.
BOOKS
I Timothy
II Timothy
Titus
Ecclesiastes
Proverbs
Song of Songs
Job
James
I started off in I Timothy to find many intresting point Paul makes to his son Timothy. Timothy in case you didn't know is a gentile who was saved by his mother and grandmother and rew up under Paul's teaching at Ephesus. Paul and Timothy became like a father and son. They traveled together, they preached and taught together, and prayed in prison together. Paul at the time of this letter was nearing the end of his life and was giving Timothy some of his last thoughts, commands, and teachigns on Jesus.
The passage I found was so enlightning that I thought I might share it.
"But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." - I Timothy 6:12-13 (ESV)
Instead of going on and on about the verse I want to focus on the last part. "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called."
This speaks to me so profoundly that it's hard for me to go into the complexities of it. To me it's like a diamond which I look at from diffrent angles and lights and I see something completley amazing every time I turn it. These facets all are astounding. Each is profound and very practical.
1. As men we must fight the good fight.
What does that mean? Truthfully I know what it means deep down but I don't know how to expand on it. Did you ever see the 300? I think those guys fought the good fight, don't you? That's how as men we're supposed to defend on lives from sin, that's how we should defend our wives, girlfriends, sisters, children, and brothers from sin, and it's how we should defend everything that we've worked so hard to build.
In Nehimiah, they not only had a trowel to build the great wall around Jerusalem but they carried a sword, a spear, and other weapons in their other hand to kill anyone that attempted to deystroy what's been built. This offers more lessons. We never use our strength to opress, attack, or deystroy the innocent. Strength is used to fight evil not fuel it.
2. We must as men take hold of the eternal life we have in Christ.
I don't know what that means but it sounds frankly preety badass in a Christian way.
I don't have much more to say but I will continue tis through my studies.
BOOKS
I Timothy
II Timothy
Titus
Ecclesiastes
Proverbs
Song of Songs
Job
James
Thursday, July 12, 2007
We Need Some Love Up In Here
Fell away, I chose to say the most awful things. You my king: your patience your love, all of the above. My sin I cast, the grotesque, the past. Help me to see, my sight is dimming, the light of lights, in the distance, shimmering. By way of heart, fill up the dark. Make love and joy, instead of stark.
This pain we bare, we fall away. We chose to pay, the worst we say. Our friends they turn. Forgiving? We yearn for faith and trust, but when we disgust-we turn away, as friends we say, I can't take this one more day, get out of my way!
In a bowl, as it fills up. We are sinking in this cup. We fill it up, and up each day. Forgiving one would cause dismay. But forgiving one would empty the prison, the cup, the water, the coughing and sinking. But one has come and one has stayed. And one has paid the price to be paid.
Is this a song for the righteous? The Wrong? Or is this a song? We all have songs. To share them in person, or throw them away, or a page, in a word, in a desk, in a way - this bottle we cap, only takes a tap, to blast off the cap, and ruin your lap. Patience, for one this isn't a gun, or a word that is aimed and stings hotter than the sun.
This is a break, because we all make mistakes and God doesn't forsake, those who make mistakes and those who neglect, the need to correct, the sin that they've run, can all be undone. Just follow the one, the savior, the son. The life, the love, all of the above.
This pain we bare, we fall away. We chose to pay, the worst we say. Our friends they turn. Forgiving? We yearn for faith and trust, but when we disgust-we turn away, as friends we say, I can't take this one more day, get out of my way!
In a bowl, as it fills up. We are sinking in this cup. We fill it up, and up each day. Forgiving one would cause dismay. But forgiving one would empty the prison, the cup, the water, the coughing and sinking. But one has come and one has stayed. And one has paid the price to be paid.
Is this a song for the righteous? The Wrong? Or is this a song? We all have songs. To share them in person, or throw them away, or a page, in a word, in a desk, in a way - this bottle we cap, only takes a tap, to blast off the cap, and ruin your lap. Patience, for one this isn't a gun, or a word that is aimed and stings hotter than the sun.
This is a break, because we all make mistakes and God doesn't forsake, those who make mistakes and those who neglect, the need to correct, the sin that they've run, can all be undone. Just follow the one, the savior, the son. The life, the love, all of the above.
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