Day 324 and a little taste of how I hope to finish the year!

Day 324 and yes ........I have miserably failed at doing this daily as I hoped I would do back in January ...like 324 days ago!

So, here's what I'm thinking. Starting December 5 I preach a Christmas series called It's Not Your Birthday DUH! Great title eh!!!

For the days of advent I will try and blog a daily blog that explores aspects of the incarnation.

Here's a taste:

"When Jesus was born, Mary, Joseph, and a handful of others knew that this child was the hope for Israel and the world. Against common sense and ruthless opposition they trusted God's leading and protection with that hope in mind. Just as Jesus grew in knowledge and wisdom, he must have grown in hope. From the cradle he learned to hope that crying would bring his mother to feed him and that his neediness would cause Joseph to protect and provide for him. For hope is that deep assurance that more is yet to come, in physical growth and sustenance, in knowledge and wisdom, and in love."
Taken from Flesh & Blood Jesus: Learning To Be Fully Human From The Son of Man @ Dan Russ.

See you in a few days.

Day 284 and I found some new inspiration.

Day 284 and sorry for the less than regular blogging going on just now ......something to do with a writers block thing going on.

Seeking inspiration I hunted down some new writers. Ended up with a book called Good News for Anxious Christians @ Phillip Cary.

This book delivered. in fact it delivered so well I had to have one of my orthodox, reformed theological anchors read the book. Naturally I'm drawn to thinking that is outside of the box, on the edge, left of center and tending towards heresy! When you grow up in the faith and for decades have read and heard the teachings of the Scriptures - it needs a new sound to inspire you.
Obviously here the secret is to be inspired without becoming a heretic. Hence my anchors, as well as a solid theological education and constant reading in the field of orthodoxy.

Phillip Cary successfully delivers a new sound and new inspiration. Watch for this book appearing on our church resource shelves in the coming weeks.

Here's an excerpt from his chapter on "Why You Don't Have to 'Let God Take Control'":

Where did we get the idea that the Lord doesn't allow us to make ordinary human mistakes?We are not supposed to sin, of course, but there are many kinds of mistakes that are not sin, such as the mistakes we make when we're just learning how to use our talents well. Being fallible creatures, we have to make some mistakes in order to learn. But it will be difficult for us to learn from our mistakes if we don't admit to ourselves that we're the ones making them. This is one of the most important ways that the new evangelical theology has the effect of preventing people from becoming responsible adults.

And then here's the line, the inspiring line:

It's often put this way: God can't work in your life unless you let him. This is an astonishing piece of fantasy. Where in the Bible or anywhere else in God's creation did people get the idea that God was so helpless? If God can't do anything unless we let him, then God is not really God, and indeed he is less real than any person we know.

WOW!!
Cary writes on 10 topics that so often plague modern Christians causing anxiousness and fear. Teaching from seemingly good pulpits by well intended pastors - but sadly error that hurts and harms Christian health.

Wise Christians are becoming smarter at discerning that the truth is often stranger than it's been made to sound over the past many years.

At Redeemer's Church we're working hard at preaching the Gospel not just to people who've never heard it before, but also to Christians.

Day 275 and what I really think about visiting Africa.

Day 275 .....and I borrow my leadership blog from Week 40.

It's time to be honest.
Not that I'm dishonest at other times. But, sometimes I choose not to share my more personal or vulnerable thoughts. This blog is me going to a more personal level than other times - and hence, more honest.

Here's my honesty - I don't really like going to Kenya, Africa.
I love the guys we partner with; I love our driver/agent Ben; I love all that's happening in the Furaha Community Huruma Centre, part of the Furaha Community Foundation; I love the first thing in the morning and the smells, aroma and sunrise of Kenya. But, i don;t really like going to Africa.

It's a hard journey - two major long flights.
It's a hard place to stay - my guy hurts for the entire time I'm there.
It's a hard place to lead - as team leader you are constantly aware that you are in a desperate city, a city that saw a terrorist attack against Americans; a city filled with desperate people seeing white people as targets; it's a place where the word police does not always equal justice but more often equal corruption.
It's a hard place to relax - travel through 10 time zones, hit the ground running, force yourself to sleep at the wrong times, swallow malaria meds, avoid the bad bacteria you are surrounded by; travel in a matatu with dust pouring into your lungs ...as well as hitting potholes, enduring near misses, sit in pollution clogged air, constantly watch over your shoulder.
Entering Kenya, Africa is hard and I don't really like doing it.

But during the past three years I've lead a team into a large slum in Nairobi twice a year.

This visit one of our team asked me why I keep going on the trips?

My answer - I have to, for my sake!

Not that I want to appear selfish, but, I have to find a way to keep myself exposed to some of the worst poverty on the face of the globe.
I have to find a way to keep myself aware of the reality of 60% of the world's population.
I have to find a way to be among the poorest of the poor and be where Jesus would be.

My spiritual leadership is dependent upon understanding true reality, and that reality has to involve the reality of what's happening in our globe and with the majority of humanity.

If I don't go, and go regularly (we so easily forget or switch off) I will move towards a self focused existence and a skewed view of reality.

But it does more.
It pushes me to maintain spiritual leadership as a faith exercise.

Let's be honest. Sometimes in the leading of a local church autopilot can kick in.
I've been doing this for over 10 years. Putting together a preach, leading staff, leading a congregation can too easily be done out of experience and not out of faith.
But when you enter Huruma slum and you see the chaos, hopelessness, desperateness of daily life, the though about seeing transformation come through the presence of Christ - the only way such could happen is through a moving of God. that is a act of faith, not an act of experience or professional pastoring.
Going to Kenya, Africa and the hardness of going ......renews the call of faith, the cry for more faith, the reliance upon faith and faith alone.

Going - is a spiritual necessity for effective spiritual leading.

Anyone want to join me?
Anyone want a shot of renewed, invigorated, desperate faith?

Day 260 Elder Brotherism.

Day 260.
So I'm writing my fourth preach on the Prodigal God.
Strange thing happened. An angry lady left an angry message on my phone demanding that we take down our banner that promotes our series "The Prodigal God". She was mad that we would call God a prodigal. She indicated her Christian faith was insulted by our heresy.

Last week we defined Prodigal as "recklessly extravagant".
We explained that everything in the Prodigal Son story Jesus told points to the reckless extravagance of the Father. He runs to his son who wanted him dead; he kisses him and gives him the robe of honor, he throws a party to celebrate the return of the son who broke his heart, stole his money and spent it all.

......and God runs to us in the incarnation; God takes on human flesh; God hangs on a cross; God allows us to slap him, nail him, spear him, kill him.

Recklessly extravagant.

What a prodigal God.

What grace.

But the irony of the phone call was ...... I was penning thoughts about the Elder Brother.

Here's a line I preach tomorrow:

"When you become a Christian, either you will start becoming more like the Father or you will start becoming more like the elder brother. "

Listen in tomorrow to find out more.

This elder brotherism is so subtle and yet so destructive.

Day 257 - big smaller things.

Day 257 and I continue to read the autobiography of Tony Blair.
Fascinating read.
Fascinating leader.
Among the things that have impressed me is the determination to make his time as Prime Minister focused on things of importance and not trivia.
It was while at university that a Ugandan friend, Olara Otunnu, impressed upon him that the world was not debating the trivial debates of the Labor Party. Instead, the world's population was focused on issues of life, hope, health versus death due to the ravages of poverty, conflict and disease.

Of course we are all experts at assuring ourselves that our trivia is not trivia but of world changing significance. We are experts are shrinking the world down to our context.
But in our sane, honest moments we know we are pretty small with regards to the whole.
But those sane, honest moments should not reduce us to viewing ourselves with disdain or disregard. Rather, they should propel us to involve our lives in the bigger, substantial questions of today.

I'm having this thought percolate around in my head for the past few weeks.
What would my life look like if I really took serious the bigger issues?
How could I involve myself in them?
How do I avoid spending a day, a week, a month, a life specialising in trivia that truly makes no or little difference in the global scope, the eternal scope of life.

Jesus obviously did this. Yet whilst literally saving the world, he still had an amazing propensity to do little things.
He had this uncanny capacity to touch the eyes of a blind guy, visit the home of a sick little girl, take his disciples fishing, go for a mountain walk .......and make all this connect to the biggest purpose possible.

Being about the bigger things is not sitting in rooms debating philosophical issues, or making grand speeches about them. Being about the bigger things is as much about making the little things bigger than they appear and making the bigger things more tangible than people think.

Jesus was brilliantly local, while global, while eternal.

Makes you rethink how you're doing most things.

Day 253 all about sons.

Day 253 and I'm sorry I missed the last 6 days. Not a lot of Internet access at 8561ft. I scraped ice off my car on Thursday .....not even double figures in September. Imagine how cold it will be in January .....they say 40 below!

I was in Colorado taking our oldest son to Timberline Bible School nestled in a beautiful valley not far from one of the best ski resorts in Colorado. He's there for a year.

As for me leaving him alone in a new place surrounded by new people miles and miles from home - he coped with it much better than his dad! [You see I do have a heart!!]

As I drove away fighting back the tears, my first thought was - imagine if I was a single parent dropping off my only child. I couldn't imagine that emotion. I know he's doing a great thing, he knows it too. Its going to be life changing, life shaping - but we're going to miss him like crazy. Just as your son reaches the stage where conversation with him is good and meaningful; your his parent but also his friend; and he keeps his room clean and is bothered about personal hygiene - just then he leaves you (with you picking up the tab for it!).
My first thought was imagine how a single parent would cope with this.

That night, alone in my condo waiting my return flight, I began writing a funeral preach for the 22 year old son who tragically was killed in a road accident on Labor Day morning. I imagined his mother and sisters emotions. How do you cope with that? My tears moved from leaving my son in a good place for a good reason for a short time to tears for that family, and few tears of regret over my lack of perspective.

Quite a week.
A week with significant thinking about sons leaving.
Working on two preaches about the leaving of the prodigal son.
Understanding even more the leaving of God's only Son.
Wondering about how God feels when I, his son, leave.

A good, difficult, deepening week.

Day 248 - an insulting Jesus!

Day 248 (otherwise known as Labor Day; otherwise known as last day of summer vacation mood; otherwise known as the day I set the barbecue on fire; otherwise known as our oldest sons last day in Reedley before flying to CO!)

So I'm chewing over yesterdays preach, the first in our new Prodigal God series. The insulting Jesus. Let's start by calling everybody listening to me "stupid sheep".
Jesus at his blunt best.

Normally I applaud Jesus' subtleness. He always was the 'come in the back door' communicator, the stealth bomber.
(I learned much from that tactic, especially spending much of my time communicating to people who've heard it all before. But come in the back door and you catch them unaware, off-guard and it forces a response - either emotion to reject or emotion to change. If I was teacher of homiletics I'd shout loudly about the need to preach this way 80% of the time.)

But this time - Jesus went front door, blunt, offensive, maybe slightly crude.

Why?

His bluntness, insult in calling people stupid sheep .....was within a series of three parables (Luke 15) that shout GRACE.

Interesting.

His bluntest insult matched His greatest presentation on GRACE.

Maybe the answer lies in the nature of grace.
Is grace not blunt?
Does grace not look every blunder, mistake, failure and yuck we're ever done and say - grace!
There is incredible boldness in grace.
Incredible audacity.

There's also incredible stupidity in grace.
Grace can be badly abused.
Grace can be trampled all over.

The bigger insult is not Jesus calling us stupid sheep; the bigger insult is what we do with grace.

It's got me really nervous, excitedly nervous about next Sunday's preach.

There is something deeply curious and perhaps confusing/conflicting about this Prodigal God.
Going to be quite a week working on Part II.