Archive for November, 2008

Black Friday

Published
by
Justin
on November 29, 2008
in Life and To Think About...
. 3 Comments

Well…today we had our own version of Black Friday…the day typically known as the biggest shopping day of the year in the U.S….we did spend money, but it wasn’t on gifts. 

Our Black Friday contained us missing our train back to Holland by…1 minute. Then having to pay a nice sum to get on the next train, despite our tickets being fully exchangeable. Needless to say, we weren’t happy about this and what made matters worse was that our (hopefully still) good friend Nadine had booked tickets to ride up to Holland with us for a trip of her own. She made it. We didn’t. Not cool. 

But I’m writing to talk about two stories that I saw on the news…both put the black in Black Friday quite well.

While the allure of good deals is always a temptation for me, I just am never dedicated enough to get up early and do the ‘first one in the doors’ game. Unlike some people at a Wal Mart in the U.S. who stormed the doors at 5 a.m. to be the first ones in and subsequently trampled an employee to death and injured four others. My mouth dropped open when reading about this…I knew consumerism was bad on the wallet and the soul, but never imagined that it could be this inhumane. Usually, our consumerism harms kids and workers thousands of miles away, not underneath our feet in the good ‘ol USofA. Here’s the article.

The second story is of two people who shot and killed each other in a Toys’R'Us in Palm Desert, California. Apparently, the two men were both carrying loaded weapons on their shopping spree and both happened to be willing to kill for the toy for their special little one. I don’t mean to make light of this at all, but this is just crazy. There are so many things wrong with this and I can’t get my mind around what would possess someone to carry a loaded gun to a toy store for kids. Or what would possess someone to shoot someone over a toy (allegedly). It’s a sad twist that they killed each other…You can read about this story here. 

What a depressing post…I guess the way that I would apply this to myself is just to ask, “How do my self-centered pursuits add to the ‘black’ days of the world around me? How do I give way for the light within me to battle the darkness of consumerism and lust of junk that I carry? Am I living in a way that brings light minus shame to the world around me?” That’s all I got…I hope that my next post isn’t so…black.

New works in Montpelier & Barcelona? I hope so!

Published
by
Justin
on November 23, 2008
in Movements
. 2 Comments

I’ve had the chance to go out with some other CA staff this past week to do some (more) research in the cities of Montpelier and Barcelona. After 5 full days of traveling, meetings, and walking I’m really tired. I’m in Barcelona now waiting to head to the airport and I’m so tired that all I feel like doing is sitting and typing on my computer! *Note: I’m in this really cool pub that I’ve walked by a hundred times and I had no idea how cool it is in here. Free wifi too! I really really wish that I didn’t have to get on a plane tonight in order to go ‘home’ and see my family. I wish that we just lived here and I could just drop in here from our apartment…that would make life a lot easier and it make Jen and I oh-so-happy to be finally settled!!!*

So the research stuff…both cities went well. Very different places and very different trips. Montpelier was virtually unknown to any of us. We had some great meetings and learned a lot about the city. It’s a really pretty place and a ton of students! People we talked to said that there were as many as from 60k to 90k students…in a city of 500,000 that’s a lot. We left really feeling like there is opportunity…also important, it seemed as though a lot of those we talked with would like to see another church planted there. Like most cities in Europe…there are only a few churches in every city that are really doing anything about the current spiritual climate here, other than just simply existing.

This has been my 4th time in Barca…and a very productive time for us. Marty planted a church here in 1992 that has since been lead by people from Assemblies of God. It’s been cool to be here w/ Marty, to hear his stories and to learn from his experience. We had a few meetings and all of them went well…Each person expressed the need for new work here and each offered to help in any way and to be a resource for us. Everyone also expressed a need to really know Spanish (and even Catalan) even though our initial work will be with internationals. We are stoked to learn Spanish and I’m really looking forward to being able to communicate here. I think that I’ll love the city even more when I feel less out of water. I saw places in the city that I had never seen and even found a great open air market with all kinds of stuff that we may be able to use someday! I feel like I have a much broader and better understanding of the work that is going on here…it’s great to know the context in which we’ll be entering…and to have the relationships with people who have experience and can provide wisdom when we’ll certainly need it! 

All in all, both places are great places where more, new, and creative forms of following Jesus are needed. I’m excited to see how Jen and I will engage Barcelona and take what I’ve learned here and put it to use…and see lives changed.

Looking Alike

Published
by
Justin
on November 15, 2008
in Head to Fingers
. 2 Comments

For some reason the line from Acts 4 ‘they recognized that they had been with Jesus’ has been on my mind a lot. In the context of Acts it was Peter and John’s boldness that provoked this statement. They were ordinary people, fisherman, yet their wisdom was bold and it was apparent that there was something different in these men. 

I’ve been thinking…How is it that we, in our time, display that we ‘have been with Jesus’? Being nice, going to church, talking about Jesus…these things are all good and a good start (if birthed from within). But I’m going to go out on a limb and say that exterior actions are not as convincing as we may think. Because our relationship with Jesus ultimately begins within, within our minds, souls, and hearts, then it is from that place that He lives through us. It is from the good stored up from within us that good things come out. We could say, “It is from the Jesus stored up from within us that Jesus comes out.” 

I’m wondering if there are times that we work too hard at trying to act like Jesus (or how we would think he would act) and not enough time just allowing His teachings and life to really absorb us at such a deep place that we just end up being like Him. I want this for myself so badly…I want to give up contrived efforts…and I simply want Jesus to be in my words, speech, actions, and thoughts without me having to think about it. I want Jesus to be unrestrained in me…

The ‘ouch’ question of the hour is….do I pursue friendship with Jesus to know Him well enough? You know how old married couples somehow start to look alike? Or dress alike? Laugh alike? Like the same food? Speak alike? It’s because they have spent their lives together! Jen and I have been married for seven and a half years now and there are times where we end up wearing the same colors, shoes, and styles on the same day even when get dressed separately! This didn’t happen on day one of the honeymoon…it’s kind of happened over time and we’ve just now realized it. If we started wearing matching outfits on purpose from day one that is just a little cheesy and would look like we’re trying too hard! (which another point could be drawn from!)

I’m not saying that I want to be an old married couple with Jesus…but I am saying that as I spend more and more time with Him I want to start looking more and more like Him without even knowing it…Here’s the scary thing: Jesus was persecuted, followed, beaten, admired, hated, healing, betrayed, loved, and was servant to all…this mixed bag is what following Jesus gets us in this life. Looking like Jesus can be dangerous stuff…but this is the journey of faith that we choose when we choose to follow Him…

“All Politics Aside — Today is a Good Day!” A great post from Greg Boyd

Published
by
Justin
on November 5, 2008
in News
. 2 Comments

Today on Greg Boyd’s blog he had a great write up about his feelings of Barack Obama being elected president. Here is the link if you want to read it on his site…

All Politics Aside — Today is a Good Day! » Blog » Greg Boyd (Christus Victor Ministries).

His words were good enough for us (Jen and I) to both copy them onto ours…I hope you don’t mind Greg! (like he reads my blog!)

Today is a good day.

I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Libertarian, Communist, Anarchist or even a Christarchist who feels called to abstain from the whole political process. I couldn’t care less. The fact that Americans have elected a black man to be their president makes today a very good day!

When you reflect on the centuries of bondage and abuse blacks endured as slaves who were bought and sold like cattle and often treated worse…

when you remember that blacks were once regarded for legal purposes as just over half-human…

when you consider the extraordinary illegal and immoral ways white politicians changed all the rules to keep blacks out of power following the civil war…

when you recall the dehumanizing injustice of the Jim Crow south, the horrors of the KKK, the heroic struggles for civil rights, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the on-going systemic racism that continues to marginalize and oppress blacks…

you can’t help but celebrate the day Americans elected a black man to lead them.

All politics aside,

today is a very good day!

Greg Boyd 

Who Would Have Thought? - Teens who watch Sex in the City more likely to get pregnant

Published
by
Justin
on November 5, 2008
in News
. 1 Comment

Teens who watch Sex in the City more likely to get pregnant - Times Online .

Another Imperfect Person is Elected

Published
by
Justin
on November 4, 2008
in Head to Fingers
. 3 Comments

 

No, I don’t know who won the election already because I live further east…I wrote this title in past tense because it is simply a future reality. 

It seems on Facebook that everyone is using their status to communicate something about their opinions on the election, but that’s just not enough room for me! And the thing is…what I’m writing about isn’t entirely about the candidates, it’s also about the voters. 

The truth of the matter is that either candidate is going to let us down in some way. None of their short-comings are going to be a surprise to God. In fact, it is God who allows them the authority they have. Early Christians had to wrestle over this while they were persecuted under a Roman authority that was far more irreligious than anything we’re seeing today. 

The conclusion that I come to is that God must think very little of earthy power! I think that God chooses a different form of influence in the world other than the power constructs that men erect to feel influential or in control. 

As Christians, I think we’re left with a choice: Do we put our faith, hope, and trust in the offices and kingdoms created by man? Or do we put our faith, hope, and trust in the Kingdom of God and its ways? 

Lets just say we choose the first one…

There are two possible outcomes: One is that our person wins and we feel like all is going to be right. We trust that this person will govern in a way that gives us the life we want. How does having this person in office point you to trust God and His Kingdom? Does it mask our yearning for God’s new Kingdom? I don’t believe that God’s top priorities are controlling the kingdoms of this earth. I believe that His top priorities are inviting people to live into His kingdom and it’s ways. So if we get everything that we think we want from an elected official in a kingdom of this earth, do we still pursue God’s Kingdom with the abandon that He calls us to? 

The second outcome is that the other person wins! The other group is rejoicing that they won…the other candidate is enacting policies that we don’t want. They are governing in a way that we think is wrong. And it frustrates us because we need the government and it’s policies to give us the life you want. The joys in our life depend on how man’s elected offices handle earthly matters. Maybe I’m just missing something…but how do man’s earthly policies and government control anything related with the God’s Kingdom, the one we as follower of Jesus have chosen allegiance to? If we believe the policies of man have power or influence over the Kingdom of God, then either we don’t understand God’s kingdom or we think way too highly of earthly government! 

If we are placing our faith in earthly government over the Kingdom followers of Jesus are called to, win or lose we have some issues to deal with. 

So, let’s say we choose the second option from above…

For me, choosing to put my faith in God’s kingdom allows me to be fruitful and joyful in any situation. Ultimately, my fate, the quality of my life, and my hope rest in what I find in the Kingdom of God…not in what I don’t find in the kingdoms of earth. 

As another imperfect person is elected into office, I am choosing not to trust in either of them to give me the life that I want. I choose to only trust in Jesus…I choose to trust that the Kingdom He initiated is where I’ll find the solutions my hearts deepest longings. I choose to believe that God’s Kingdom, truly lived out by those of us who acclaim to it, has more potential to impact this world that any kingdom that man could create. 

I will sleep well regardless of who becomes the next President of the United States.