Tony Wheeler dot Net

The internet is a funny place.  Many moons ago, before Al Gore invented the internet, people used really neat technology to call other computers or servers.  Basically these computers would talk to each other and the owners could transmit 1s and 0s to each other in nifty green screen or if you were lucky orange screen.  They would also dial into a central computer and use something called BBS.  BBS was the early form of online community.

Now, I’m not that geeky and most of what I know about these old technologies I’ve learned from Hollywood or books such as “The Computer that Wore Sneakers”.  My foray into the wonderful world of the information superhighway came sometime in the mid-Nineties when I would use my grandparent’s home computer to dial up (probably a 9600 or 14.4 modem I don’t remember) to America Online to research and occasionally chat.  Surely you remember those days?  During college I utilized AOL Instant Messenger exclusively and services like Yahoo and MSN were loathed by yours truly.  I used to chat a ton and always had IM active when I was online.  Then I would meet one person who used Yahoo or one person who used MSN Messenger.  Then cool services like Trillian and now the web based Meebo came out where you could have one central location to manage all of your contacts.  Today, Social Networking, which is pretty much what the early BBS and IM were, has exploded into tons of networks and services.

So what?  I was thinking today as I was reading a new blog that I stumbled upon by a guy named Paul Watson about the social nature of the internet. It seems that we’ve come full circle in terms of what we use the internet for.  Sure we can get the latest news, stock quotes, pay bills, buy stuff that we don’t even need, and conduct endless amounts of research.  But by and large the internet is still used for networking of the social and professional variety. Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Forums, LinkedIn, and a whole bunch of other places are simply ways to connect with other people.

Paul’s blog has a ton of interesting info about reaching the online generation.  If you are a staff member or volunteer at a church, it is worth your time to take a minute to check his blog out.

I’ll be talking more about the online community and what I’ve done and what I would like to do to have a great impact more as the days go by.  The real eye opener behind all of this is that people are searching out connections and community in any way that they can get it.  What can we do to help fill this real need in people’s lives?

Just was reading a blog by Pete Wilson, aka Without Wax. BTW, I love that name. Sine(without) cera(wax). Sincerely.

Pete blogged about a lecture given by N.T. Wright and during the Q and A one person asked N.T. what his view of the importance of the church was. His answer came straight out of Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” I really like how N.T. put it, “we are God’s artwork created to dispense God’s grace and love to a watching world.”

Thanks, Pete and Bishop Wright. We all need those words daily.

edit: Link to Pete’s site was something else.  I should probably proofread.

Rick Warren was the final speaker at the Exponential Conference.  I’ve always liked the guy, but I developed a deep respect for him a couple years ago when I was listening to an interview he did with the Catalyst Podcast.  The guy is all heart, a heart to see the Kingdom of God advance and impact the world.  He did mention that he is no longer being billed as the anti-Christ, he is now simply a false prophet.  Oprah is evidently the new anti-Christ.  The dude is just a church planter is mega church pastor’s clothes.  He probably doesn’t even think of himself as a mega church pastor, especially when he is backstage playing ‘tubby tubby’ with his grandkids.  The guy is just a wealth of wisdom.  I’ve read his books, I even have a copy of his first book, “Rick Warren’s Bible Study Methods.”  As you might imagine, this book is pretty simple, so that ANYONE can learn to study the Bible. Following you’ll get a recap of some of the things that Rick had to say.  Rick, just want to thank you for investing in other pastors and loving God more than yourself.

• Saddleback history. Crazy idea of moving from TX to CA. “I believe in God and I believe in you, so lets go.” If Kay would have said no, there would be a lot of stuff not done. God uses wives to make us holy, not happy. Many times she is the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  (These words made me cry.  I have heard Rick talk about this before, but it is God’s honest truth in my life.  We would not be where we are right now without my wife.  She trusts and loves God more than I ever will and God is definitely using her to make me holy.)

• Comparing ourselves to others will severely limit what God wants to do with us and through us. God will not ask us how come we aren’t more like so and so. He will, however ask us why we weren’t more like ourselves.

Reproducing Churches

1.Never stop growing personally. Growing churches require growing pastors. You can never take a church where you’ve never been yourself. You cannot ask other people to have YOUR faith in God. The size of your vision must exponentially grow along with your personal growth. Viewing God’s plan as a scroll…each piece is unrolled a bit at a time. Ignore the critics and the compliments…chew on them but don’t swallow.

2.Focus on making disciples. Focus on maturity and development. Focus on building leaders. Anyone can be great for a short time…make disciples! It take time if it is going to be an oak and not a mushroom. Turning members into missionaries.

3.Have to pay attention to your family. Don’t leave your own vineyard unattended while tending other’s vineyards. Build your family first!

4.Are you totally surrendered to the word and will of God in your life?

5.Develop Kingdom mindset. God’s agenda for the world is much larger than your church, your network, your denomination. We are on the same team. Competition is not other churches, it is the world, the flesh and the devil.

What is God’s agenda? Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done….

Kingdom is inevitable. Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached to all the nations, then the Kingdom will come.

Whose church is it? If it is Jesus’ church, then HE will build it. Focus on building people. Purposes of God must be done in order to accomplish this. A great commitment to the great commandment and great commission will grow a great church/community/company.

I’ve been meditating the entire day on this one simple word.  Behold.  Heard a good sermon this morning at Compass Point, pastored by my friend Chris Elrod.  Compass Point is going through a series on Baggage right now.  I was going to write something about this last week, but lost my train of thought somewhere and figured it best not to write anything at all.  Chris structured much of his sermon around 2 Corinthians 5:17.  Therein lies that one little word that has been marinating in my soul all day.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says this:   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; BEHOLD, the new has come.  (emphasis mine) ESV version

Many of you, like me, have heard this verse countless times.  Maybe you’re from a Restoration Movement background like me where you heard it in the NIV where the second line simply says ‘The old is gone, the new has come!”  I think we’ve missed the richness of this verse by translating it the way that we do and replacing BEHOLD with an exclamation point.  Behold gives the verse a new meaning for me.  Let me expand upon the new meaning.
Today’s message was all about emotional baggage.  If everyone is honest, they have tons of it.  I’ve got tons of it.  My wife has tons of it.  Our friends that we took to church with us today have tons of it.  Some of us carry baggage that isn’t even ours.  A quick summation of the message is that if you’ve entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ, all that crap doesn’t matter, so stop letting it matter and live in the fullness of life that Jesus has for you.  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; BEHOLD.  Ask a recovering drug addict who enters into relationship with Jesus if they beheld when the monkey was lifted off of their back.  Ask a 75 year old who is dying of cancer and enters into a relationship with Jesus if they behold.  Ask the ex-homosexual who is reunited with his wife and kids after meeting Jesus if he has beheld lately.

Why do I make this point?  I ‘met Jesus’, as we sometimes say, in 1991.  I’m not sure that I even knew what beholding was then and I think I just grasped the fullness of it today.  I’m pretty sure that I became a worse person after the old was gone and the new had come.  I’ve thought from time to time about my faith journey in relation to other’s faith journeys and I’m simply amazed at my own lack of beholding.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I recognize God’s work in my life.  I’m amazed that He has chosen me to be in relationship with him and to complete his mission here on earth.  But, when I look at some of the people around me and their level of beholding, I’m humbled and ashamed.  I’ve been in relationship with Jesus for 17 years.  That is more than half of my life. I’ve encountered people who met Jesus yesterday and have done more beholding than I have in my entire life.  So, why do I say all of this?

The more I have read over this verse in 2 Corinthians, the more I have decided that the entire gospel is encapsulated in these few sentences.  In Christ, I am a new creation.  In Christ, YOU are a new creation.  In Christ, WE are new creations.  The old is gone.  BEHOLD, the new has come.  So then why in the world do we carry these bags with us wherever we go?  Why as these new creations do we insist on taking the hurt, pain, embarrassment, screw-ups, addictions, etc along with us for the ride?  If we really believe that we are new creations and that the old is gone, why in the heck does any of that old stuff need to be with us?  Let me be frank.  I think it is because all of that crap is a crutch.  Jesse Ventura may think that religion is a crutch for the weak minded, but really I think all of the baggage is a crutch.  We like to have something to hang onto when we blaze the new trail ahead of us.  Chris talked a bit about this in his message today.  He mentioned that we like to be identified by those things and that we aren’t happy unless everyone else knows about those bags we bring with us.  It gives us some sort of sick and twisted false sense of security.

Here is my take and I’ll make it quick.  We need to be doing more beholding.  People who have a newer relationship with Jesus and people that have been through some crap have awesome beholding powers.  We need to lay claim to the first part of this verse that we are NEW CREATIONS.  We’re new.  We’re not whatever our past says we are.  We’re new.  We’re free to start fresh.  We get to call a do-over.  We need to stop and behold the roses.

I’ll probably write some other thoughts on this as the week progresses.  I’m headed to Orlando (20 miles away, haha) to a conference this week.  If you’re there, let me know!

The last week of my life has been pretty crazy.  I spent a lot of time hanging out with a great bunch of people, listened to a bunch of great music, looked a ton of places to live and ate a lot of stuff that was bad for me. I also got the pleasure of getting some sort of sinus problem.  That is a lot of fun on an airplane.

One of the things that I did was to take part in Humana 2.08. Humana is a leadership experience like no other.  It is basically an open source missional experience.   One of the discussions that I was able to take part in was actually a decompression from a talk earlier in the day.  Simply an open dialogue with people of opposing viewpoints converging into a practical conversation about how we “do” church.  I’ve just now (literally) ordered the DVD for the entire conference and cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it so I can partake in the entire experience.  I was challenged more by the few minutes I spent with these fine folks than I have been in awhile. I can also say that this day alone was worth the price of my entire trip. 

One of the ideas that  I came away with was the idea of structure (and have subsequently been wrestling with).  I think that  a large part of our western culture struggles with ideas and organizational models.  I think that it makes us uncomfortable when we aren’t exactly able to place a name on something and put it inside a nice little box.  Take a look at the churches that we form.  We have nice little names for everything, complete with descriptions of each little thing.  (On a side note, I think that with an formal organization of any substance or size, these are needed, so no flaming) Truthfully, one of the things that I have become uncomfortable with is the entire idea that everything has to have a certain order and structure.  When I started my church planting journey, my pastor showed me all of the stuff that he had compiled and categorized and honestly it made me sick.  It made me sick that I thought I had to do that same thing.  I’m not saying that it was bad that he did those things by any means, but the thought of me doing those things just didn’t sit well with me.  Another thing that never sat well with me was the idea of a church planter assessment.  I couldn’t really explain it at the time, but it really got under my skin.  I’m beginning to realize that it had a lot to do with the whole thought of being stuck inside a certain box, for better or for worse.  (Now, I’m not against assessments, I’m just against them for me…at least for now)

So what does this all mean?  It means that I honestly feel freedom.  Freedom from the structures that I have built up in my mind.  Freedom from the models and modes of ministry that have been ingrained into me for the past ten years.  Freedom to embrace who I actually am both as a Christ follower and as a person on mission.  I’m energized by hanging out with people who are looking to the future and engaging the culture in which they live in ways that are actually relevant.  (I’m not saying that everyone else is irrelevant, so please don’t take  it that way)  I’m excited about what the future holds for my family as we begin this crazy journey to the end of the world.  I’ve got more questions than answers, but what I’ve come to embrace that as a good thing.  The secret isn’t thinking outside the box, it is knowing that there isn’t a box.

 So, what are we going to do in Orlando?  We are going to live the lives that God has for us to live.  We are going to fight to make the world a better place to live.  We are going to connect as many people as possible to each other and to their Creator.  It won’t look like what you think it should look like.  It could be a music festival, it could be a gathering of people for a barbeque in the backyard.  It probably won’t look anything like a church and that is okay too.

I’m not anti-Church as the west knows it, I’m just convinced that there are ways of engaging people that aren’t inside of a building or around some structure.  I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  There is a harmonious balance that we must find.  We are on the same mission.

For those of you who have been supporting us with your words of encouragement, prayers and guidance…we are thankful for you.  Please continue to do so. 

The title of this post has led a number of people to this blog via keyword searches. In August I wrote a post that outlined some areas of my life that I was felling pretty sucky at. Evidently, there are a lot of people who feel that the suck at things in life. In all honesty, absolutely everyone has areas of their lives that aren’t perfect and need work to improve. I have a feeling that the people who are searching for reading material about sucking at everything they do have some other issues that they need to iron out. I have had times in my life where I very much felt this way. Times when I didn’t know where my next meal was going to come from because I quit yet another minimally paying job in hopes that something better was around the corner. Times when I had to beg my mom for money yet again because I screwed up in my financial life. Time when I was not doing well in a class that I really needed to do well in. I’ve been there. We all have. I get the feeling that the people who are searching for this phrase are looking for some hope in the midst of the pain. You see, they probably want to take one of three courses of action.

1. On the positive end, they are looking for some motivational material to find a way out of the mess that they’ve created (or someone else has created) in their lives. If that is you, I’d love to talk to you. I would love to help you make a plan to discover your purpose in life. You see, everyone was made on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose. We’ve just got to figure it out. Contact me if you so wish.
2. On the semi-negative end, they are searching for others who also think that they are failures in life. Why do this? Misery loves company. If this is you, stop looking for company. Misery does love company, but that company only makes you more miserable. Again, if you need someone to talk to, contact me. I can probably put you in touch with someone in your area that would be more than willing to help you iron things out.
3. On the extreme negative end of things, they are at the last resort before doing something harmful to themselves or others. Desperation necessitates action. You’ve heard the saying that desperate times call for desperate measures. This could go either a good way or a very bad way. If this is you, you have a choice. You can choose to not take the easy way out and figure out what is “wrong” with your life and how to fix it. Of course you can also choose to knock over the corner gas station or take your own life, but honestly that is the punk way out. Ending up in jail/prison because you are sad or things aren’t going the way you thought is just plain stupid. I know people who sit behind bars who you can ask if their decision was a good one or not. I also know some people who have taken the ‘easy’ way out and taken their own life. Unfortunately, you cannot talk to them. Ever. Again, contact me, I’d love to help you figure things out and if I can’t help you figure them out, I can probably point you to someone who can.

As I ended the post that I previously wrote, I’m still a man in need of a savior. The same is true for you, especially if you think you suck at everything in life. Truthfully, I’m not a bible thumper, but I do think that there are times when you and I need to be hit over the head with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God sent himself (Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit make up the one triune God) to earth to take away all the sins of the the people so that the people could once again enter into an intimate relationship with him. He did it for you, he did it for me, he did it for everyone. All you have to do is believe and respond to that lump in your throat.