Why am I thinking about this whole concept? When we started this whole journey to Florida, I was enamored with the idea of organic ministry. The problem is that I think my idea of organic differs a bit from the widely used term. I think I view organic life as complete, as something where every aspect of life is so infused with the Gospel that they cannot be seen apart from each other. Organic life to me is something like Walt Disney envisioned for EPCOT, a community where you live, work, play, worship; where it all comes together, for better or worse.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been diving headlong into dreaming and praying. The nausea is still there, but the dreams and vision overcome that feeling. The city has been on my mind a ton. This place is dark, full of hurt, deceit, greed…and desperation. Overwhelmingly, people live an work with a ton of baggage and are like empty shells with no hope. Moreover, the gloom of economy has left properties that lay vacant, houses that are deteriorating, and local governments on the verge of collapse. WHEW! No wonder people are down! Of course, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Many sectors are on the rise, such as medicine and various research sectors.

So….City Renewal/Transformation. A lot of work to be done, but a great task! One person at a time….Starting with me!

You may or may not know the story of Jonah. Basically, his life story as we know it takes up four chapters of the Old Testament. We read of Jonah’s journey from being a called prophet of God, to being a pleasure cruiser to a land far-far-away, his journey into the belly of a big fish, and finally his moment of fulfilling his calling from God. God called Jonah to this town called Ninevah…Jonah tried everything in his power to get the heck out of dodge.

Personally, the story of Jonah is one that I have basically lived through. Not sure what my ‘big fish’ is, but I’ve literally tried everything in my power to get out of this place that God called me to for about two years. If you’ve ever gotten yourself into a fight with God, you know what happens. YOU LOSE! In retrospect, it was pretty foolish to even think that I could win this one. I never claimed to be wise, only that I want to be used.

This whole picture didn’t really become too clear for me until this past weekend. As I was sitting in a worship gathering at Real Life, the pastor made an announcement that the church would be replanting yet another church into a campus of Real Life. I literally wanted to vomit. Justin mentioned that they are looking for a guy to go and be the planter/campus pastor. Again, nausea welled up in me.  You see, this group of people are meeting in the area and dreaming about the area that I have envisioned impacting…It is sort of like the Las Vegas Strip/Hollywood BLVD without all the glitz and glamor. The area is one of the most densely populated area in town, with a great deal of people that ‘church’ normally would not reach out to…homeless, prostitutes, drug dealers, and every-day-average-joes. That is why I wanted to vomit. I’m praying that we would be used there. We are in a place currently that we can commit to something huge and we’re ready to rumble! Really looking forward to what the future holds…because I know who holds the future.

How often have you been in a conversation and had to ask the speaker to repeat? In all honesty, I do it every night when I’m talking to my wife on the phone. I’m listening in my other ear to another set of conversations, so I can really only hear one ear at a time. Too much input and I cannot compute. In my personal life, I have learned that I have been listening to too many conversations at once. I’m asking the most important speaker in the conversational cluster to repeat Himself. We love living here. We love the places that we’re involved in. We love that we can spend pretty much everyday outside. I personally love that my wife freaks out about bugs. What am I saying? Part of what I’m really hearing is that we are where we are supposed to be. Some good things are on the horizon for me in my work life, so one of the main things that really is a struggle and keeps me from doing all the things that I already heard from God is being taken care of. This process is not easy and it is actually a bit humorous that I’ve had to have minor hearing loss in order for me to hear all this. I mean really hear!

What about you? What areas of your life are you turning a deaf ear to? What part of the conversation do you need to hear again? I’d love to hear some of your story….

I’ve been thinking about how I will answer the next time someone asks me what I do. Not sure yet, but I’m sure that it will be something good!

Where did the idea of putting people in little boxes come from? I’m not sure, but I do know that the entire story of human history is woven with stories of people identified by what they did for money. This past week I have been reading Chronicles and was confronted by all the lists of people who were ientified by their role. Everyone had a job to do and had their name and role recorded in the annals of time. Were they something else outside of that role? Sure. But to some extent their “job” defined their place in history.

I think that is the part that I struggle with. I want my place in history to count. Not that I want to be recorded for generations to come to read about, I just want my life to matter.

Your thoughts?

While I do not wish that any of these things were different, I cannot help but try to read the real motivation behind them. I’ve come to the conclusion that it boils down to identity. Many of the careers that I have pursued have distinct identity associated with them. Police Officer, Pastor, Motorcycle mechanic, zoologist, doctor…all of them hold a distinct identity. So what does that say about me? It says I’m normal. It says that for the most part I’m not sure who I really am. A lot of the deep introspection that I’ve been doing lately has revealed that I’m just a dude who loves God, loves my family (and therefore want to care for them well), and loves people. I’m pretty sure I have said it many times before, but basically that is who I am and at the end of the day that is who I want to be known and remembered for. Sure, there are a lot of things that I want to accomplish in this life. Lots of dreams in my heart and mind, but those are really secondary until they become primary in their own time.

What about you? Do you struggle with identity? Are you okay with who you are, or are you like me and waste substantial time and energy trying to be someone else? How can we encourage each other in this journey?

I’m just a fellow sojourner…praying for your journey!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

  John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word. He was with God and he was God.  Everything in existence was made by him and through him.  In the beginning was this man named Jesus.  We’ve been studying this man named Jesus’ life for the past few months in our worship gatherings at Real Life and it has certainly been interesting.  I always love to hear other people’s takes on scripture and the story of God and humanity and Real Life has some gifted teachers who bring new life to old stories.  This morning was no different.  Allow me to share a bit about my take on what the preacher shared. 

You’ve may or may not have read the Gospel of Matthew in which he records the genealogy of Jesus.  I say you may not have read this record simply because most people don’t.  Unless you are Mormon or really into genealogy, you probably skim over it like I have done many times.  The intersting thing about this section (and book) is that it is written primarily for Jews.  Jews would probably have taken great interest in what Matthew laid out.  Who is this man named Jesus?  Well, he was begotten by Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, the son of Eleazar…..You get the idea.  In all, 42 generations spanned from Abraham to Jesus.  A  Jew reading these names would know most all of them.  Names like David, Solomon, Uriah, Josiah, Obed, Ruth, Jesse, Rahab, Tamar…All ‘famous’ names in Jewish writings.  Some of these folks accomplished great things.  Some of these folks did great things…Most of these folks had something in their past or present lives that would exclude them from looking great on the outside. David, one of the most beloved Kings in all of World history, an adulterer.  Solomon, the wisest person to ever live.  Josiah, the good king.  Rahab, a friend to spies, but also a friend to many, many men who left money on the bedside table before leaving.  Tamar, a likely candidate for the Jerry Springer show because she pretended to be a prostitute so that she could seduce her father-in-law in order to bear a child in his line.  

The line of people that God chose to use in order to fulfill literally hundreds of prophecies simply amazes me.  And it gives me hope.  If there is hope for people like Tamar and Rahab and David and Jechoniah, then there is certainly hope for the rest of us.  If you think your family line is disfunctional, take a look at Jesus’ family line.  There are more miscreants and screw ups in this line that you shake a stick at!  I’m still amazed that I get a great deal of traffic to this site from the phrase “I suck at everything I do”.  If you’re here because you think that, this message is especially for you.

What is God’s message through all of this? His message is this (quotation and paraphrase mine): 

 ”I’ve been working through the entire span of human history, using ordinary, messed up people to accomplish what I wanted to do from the beginning.  What is that, you might ask?  I’ve been searching for you.  I’ve been longing for you to be near me so much that I used a long line of adulterers, prostitutes, and really bad kings to give you this man named Jesus.  All of history has been building toward this day, this day when I can be reunited with you, my child.  I love you.”

Christmas is undoubtedly a special time, even for people who don’t celebrate the birth of Christ.  Record attendence at churches across the land show time and again that there is still something amazing about this man named Jesus.  This year, more than ever,  Christmas is returning to the celebration of this man.  The glitz and glamour of presents and wrapping paper are fading, people are being humbled by life’s curveballs, and they are returning to the Bethlehem manger to gaze at the Christ child.  Whatever your leaning, I implore you to take a moment and relect on the monumentous accomplishments of God through a bunch of misfits to bring you grace, love, and peace through this man named Jesus.  At the risk of sounding corny, He is the reason for the season. 

From our family to yours, have a merry and blessed Christmas!  We wish you nothing but God’s blessing in the New Year and pray that you would start living life with this man named Jesus. 

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?

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.

• 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.

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!