First of all, happy Mothers’ Day to all you moms, grandmas, aunts, and other maternally instinctive souls.

Secondly, I am dead-smack in the middle of editing my very dear Scottish friend James’ 90-100 page dissertation for his Ph.D in ministry at Asbury. I say that for two reasons:

1) So you will know how smart he is

2) So I can feel smart for editing a Ph.D’s paper (*note: FEEL smart)

I spent a good 2 hours before church at Starbucks diving in. At times, I would forget I was supposed to be looking for passive tense verbs or misplaced commas and I would get wrapped up in what he was writing about.

At church today, Pastor Steve talked about some of the Sacred Pathways of worship (based on the Gary Thomas book.) The service was structured very differently than normal. A meaningful moment happened about a quarter through the service. Probably close to 800 or so candles were set up around the auditorium and we had a response time for anyone who wanted to go light a candle for a recent commitment they have made. Some of the larger candles were already lit, signifying the light God is to us, and has passed on to us…and we were to light our candles using the flame already burning….

After reading half of James’ dissertation about the spiritual condition of the UK, specifically Scotland, and talking to Chris before the service about how much we feel our hearts breaking for those in Scotland, we went up and lit a candle to physically represent our commitment to pointing the people of Edinburgh to Christ during the 16 or so days we are there. It was a very moving moment for us…also seeing hundreds of people make the walk and light their own candles as a response to their personal commitments.

Well, I need to get back to the remaining 48 or so pages I’ve yet to read and edit….

Question: Out of the following, what environment(s) do you personally express your worship in?

*Nature
*Senses
*Ritual
*Solitude
*Obidience
*Celebration
*Knowledge

So, who is going to Origins in May?

(Origins is an amazing conference at Mosaic in LA)

I am not sure if I am going yet. I have asked the powers that be. And hopefully will find out soon.

Chris and I leave early tomorrow morning for the thrills only the thriving city of Great Bend, Kansas can provide. Great Bend is about 4 hours from here. Sadly, I’ve been there once or twice, when Chris’ band played out there. Our friends Todd & Taasha are getting married and Chris is doing the music for the wedding.

On another note, I read a comment made by Dean Sharp on James Petticrew’s site today. It’s a little R-rated, but in a Song of Songs kind of way. I found it to be beautiful and one of the clearest pictures of love I’ve ever read. So, I thought I’d post it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have a lovely weekend.

It’s all about sex.

Sex is an obsession, a friction, a movement in which lovers both lose and find themselves in one another. The groom initiates, the bride responds and opens herself to him. Sex is complete focus, exposure, and intimacy.

Sex is a metaphor (perhaps the most powerful one in existence) for worship, which is why most love songs are only worship hymns in disguise. And what comes of it? What is the result of the friction and intensity of this symphony? Crescendo. The end result of sexual intimacy is the outflow, the overflow, of the seeds of new life. Sex makes babies. Do we think this is just a coincidence?

Mission is the outflow, the overflow, of becoming infatuated with Him again. I tire of the discussion missing the mark … modern, postmodern, futurist, traditional, emergent … whatever. The ONLY reason the church stops making babies is because we’ve stopped making love to the Bridegroom. That’s the birds and the bees of spiritual reality.

In the ongoing cloning debate, my real question is a completely metaphysical one. I have no doubt that soon we’ll be able to reproduce a human body without sexual biology. I’m just wondering if we’ll discover that we cannot produce a human soul without sexual intimacy. The metaphor is such a primal one, I could be wrong but, I seriously doubt God will be willing to give it up.

Churches also play around with cloning. Despite our new methodologies (spiritual technology, which I love) the church has yet to successfully reproduce the spirit of Christ in bodies that are not born of that intimacy.

And I don’t think we ever will, or should ever want to.

I’ve added my flickr photo account as a link to the right for your viewing enjoyment…a mixture of my photography, pictures of me and Chris, of friends and places…so, enjoy!

Coming eventually - “Is anything sacred?”

And with that, I leave you with this question…

Are people seeking the sacred?

“Don’t let your passion become annoying”
Ramblings through belief, immaturity, grace & wisdom.

I received one of the most memorable bits of advice about two months ago from speaker Rob Bell. I was in Michigan at a smaller conference and he had some time between two sessions where he invited anyone to suggest topics for the next session or just bounce questions off of him. I was completely surprised that only a handful of people jumped on the opportunity. At the same time, I was selfishly happy because we had a short moment to connect.

My question stemmed from a new and burning desire for complete, unadulterated and Spirit-filled authenticity in my leadership area at Westside. We have come a long way in the short time we have grown but at the same time, I see the trend in our church of copy-catting methods and practices from other churches. And on the other hand, I see churches smaller than Westside looking to us for the same things.

That part is really scary to me. I see the need to help other churches, but at the same time, before we put any of our resources out there, we need to have a plan for how to responsibly share these things with them - instead of just giving them the fish…showing them how to fish. How to gut the fish. Cook it up…or not…Sushi’s pretty good from what I hear. And run with them along the journey. Whatever. Maybe they want to put the fish on a piece of wood and mount it in their Family Life Center. Or maybe they want to use it to feed stray cats. Whatever God is leading them to do with their fish - I hope we can help them listen to that leading and don’t muffle it out instead.

There is purpose and wisdom in learning from the mistakes and successes of others; in fact, if I remember correctly a very wise man once said, “As iron sharpens iron….” But I believe in the unique and beautiful calling and inspiration the Father has given each of us to fulfill His kingdom purpose. Not just pastors or church staff or leaders - but all of us followers who are branches extending from the tree of life. I passionately believe that if we stop and listen closely…if we quiet the voices and the buzz of growth and progression and technology and postmodernism and relativity….maybe we can find that true authenticity that is birthed in us all by grace on a cross and a command to “Go..”

And that was the extent of my discussion with Rob. It actually was a lot shorter than everything I just wrote, but was comprised of the same idea.

How can we challenge those around us to be more authentic in this McDonalds-ized church culture?

He said it was something he’d definetely address and I walked off smugly, thinking how his response would affirm everything my little heart was crying out.

When it came time for my question - his very first sentence was, “First - don’t let your passion become annoying.”

I about lost my lunch. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. Talk about a discerning guy! He knew exactly where my heart was. When I get passionate about something, it consumes me. Which then I pass on to those around me. And it isn’t always with grace or openmindedness.

As I travel through the blogging world, every single day I read something somewhere that I disagree with. I see how more and more people are buying into this new way of doing church. Not that these influential churches aren’t reaching people or that lives aren’t changing. That is not in any sense what I am leading into. I just see how easily our minds are limited when we see successful churches and think that’s the only way of doing something.

I could write on for another three hours about this - but if you haven’t checked out now, you probably will soon. Sorry this is such a scattered post. I have a lot running through my mind and I’m really tired. But hopefully in this mess you’ll maybe get a glimpse of something I care about. And hopefully I can learn to graciously express my thoughts…and hopefully they’ll be graciously received.

Do you think that by modeling a church after a “successful” church, leaders may be quieting their unique callings and creativity? Should influential churches share in responsibility knowing some churches are copying their every move and recording their every word?

wow.

i have so much to learn.

so many habits to let go of…

ways of thinking to change.

a new lens to look through.

being the same is making me sick.

i feel like i am watching our culture…our time in civilization depreciate.

culture (in all aspects) is like biology. a living, breathing cycle….but filled with the fingerprints of humanity’s interpretation of life.

it seems as if we are going in the direction of cloning everything, music. art. religion. methodology. ourselves.

why can’t we be different? why can’t we be authentic - to ourselves. to others. to our world. our world deserves nothing less from us.

personally speaking, my Father deserves nothing less from me. how can i glorify Him with what he has given me…set me apart to do…if i am just like everyone else? He is singing to me. a unique melody. just like he is singing to you.

but if we continue in this cycle of reproducing each other’s “songs,” it will eventually lead to the destruction of all things sacred. glory in it’s fullness will not exist. how can it?