Archive for the 'To Think About...' Category

Hope That Changes Everything

Published
by
Justin
on March 23, 2008
in Head to Fingers, Theology and To Think About...
. 1 Comment

I have been doing a lot of reflecting as we’ve been coming up on Easter. In a lot of church circles, people have rediscovered traditional ways of preparing for Easter…namely Lent. I’ve tried to do lent, but usually forget what it is I’m fasting from until I’m half way through some fries or a glass of coke. But this year, I’ve just been silently meditating on what this day/event means to me.

In a phrase, Easter gives me hope that changes everything. Honestly, if you take away Jesus’ resurrection, He is still a wise teacher, a revolutionary leader, a polarizing historical figure, a brilliant Rabbi, but insane for sure…These things are great in and of themselves to think about (except if he were insane) and to emulate. But seeing as I believe the resurrection of Jesus really did happen it changes everything. The ‘earthly’ genius of Jesus remains intact (and given even more authority), but it is in the felt-but-not-seen realities of our world that the huge change takes place.

In the resurrection of Jesus I believe that death has no power. I believe that death has been conquered, defeated, and disarmed of fear. And when we live in a world where spiritual death is absent, then it only leaves us with life! Only life. And this changes everything.

In the resurrection of Jesus I believe that my sins and mistakes do not count against me. The reality that Jesus death covered our sins is only influential in that Jesus also defeated our sin by being restored to life. Because of this, I can believe that my mistakes do not disqualify me from also being restored. Because we are all chosen in Christ, we can each embrace the reality that we are not lost in sin, but we are forgiven to forgive. We are loved to love. And we are restored to restore. Sin has no power because of the resurrection. And this changes everything.

In the resurrection of Jesus I believe that I am also called to live a resurrection life. This is when we realize that we are gifted with the ability to reenact in our spirit and life the resurrection of Jesus…on a minute-by-minute, day-to-day, month-to-month basis. It is in the freedom found in the resurrection of Jesus that we are called to live freely. Free to love. Free to forgive. Free to be sent. And also free of shame, fear, and guilt. And this changes everything.

The hope that my life counts, that I have a purpose, that I am loved, that I am forgiven, that I am chosen…hang in the balance of the resurrection. And because it really did happen all of these (and so many more) are true.

Have a great Easter…I hope that you will find yourself continually amazed at the breadth to which Jesus resurrection can, does, and will restore all things.

The Story of Stuff

Published
by
Justin
on January 6, 2008
in To Think About...
. 1 Comment

If you click on this website you’ll find a 20 minute video that should change the way that you think about your life and the way that you live it. It did for Jen and I. I couldn’t help but feel that this video was a truth that we Christ followers should be (and should have been) preaching and thinking about.

Story of Stuff

If you watch it and think, “Tree Huggers…” or “It isn’t so bad…” or “the world is going to end and Jesus is going to come back before it gets too bad”… please watch it again (and look at our call in Gen 2 to be stewards of the earth*) and try to focus on the effect that this has on people…God’s people. God’s children. If you knew that one of your kids was getting rich by forcing one of your other ones into prostitution, you’d probably be pretty upset. Sorry God…forgive us and give us wisdom and discipline to change our ways.

*And then think of how Jesus taught about how important it is to be found doing what we’re supposed to be doing when He does come back. Or think about how in your gut this just doesn’t feel (or look) like it’s how God intended it to be, and then think about how we as followers of Jesus are left here on earth to actually be God’s ambassadors…as if God himself was making his plea (making His case that His way is better than ours) through us. If the best we can come up with is gross mis-stewardship, undisciplined and careless living, abusing strangers, and not living out God’s mandate for creation, but we get to escape all the consequences (there is a huge element to this obviously found in grace and the Gospel) it just doesn’t feel right to me. And I don’t think that this way of thinking is congruent with a biblical world view. But we’ll see one day…

Thanks to Dan for putting this on his blog…and Rogier…some Americans are speaking up. (Don’t know if he will even see this, but after a recent post of his, this stuff should be good news.

To Celebrate God

Published
by
Justin
on December 7, 2007
in Missional Church and To Think About...
. 0 Comments

A guy that I’ve never met named Marty posted this quote on Alan Hirsch’s blog…I especially like the definition of the Church at the end of it…It’s from 1962; “A Private and Public Faith”, by William Stringfellow

“The religious suppose that only the religious know about God or care about God, and that God cares only for the religious. Characteristically, religion is precious and possessive toward God, and institutes and conducts itself as if God really needs religion, as if His existence depends on the recognition of religion. Religion considers that God is a secret disclosed only in the discipline and practice of religion. But all this is most offensive to the Word of God. The best news of God is that He is no secret. The news of God embodied in Jesus Christ is that God is openly and notoriously active in the world. In this news the Christian Church is constituted; it is this news which the Christian Church exists to spread…The Church, unlike any religion, exists to present to the world and to celebrate in the world, and on behalf of the world, God’s presence and power and utterance and action in the on-going life of the world.”

I love the feeling I get in my heart of being able to celebrate God’s presence both in the world, and on behalf of the world…Love it!

If Only It Were This Easy

Published
by
Justin
on December 6, 2007
in To Think About...
. 0 Comments

World Metro Map

Thanks to the blog Strange Maps for this one.

Evil and the Poor

Published
by
Justin
on August 11, 2007
in To Think About...
. 2 Comments

I’ve challenged myself to begin reading through the Psalms once a month…So I’m 11 days into it and have read nearly half of the Psalms…*patted self on back.

Anyway…the real reason that I wanted to write about this is because I noticed a pattern in some of the Psalms. The ‘evil people’ that David refers to over and over again always persecuted the poor. They harmed the poor. They oppressed the poor.

I’m just saying there seems to be a link to evil and the oppression of poor people.

On the other hand…Scripture affirms over and over that God watches over the poor. That he a fortress for the poor. That he protects the poor.

So…

Community/APEPT Influence Idea

Published
by
Justin
on July 5, 2007
in Head to Fingers, Leadership, Missional Church, Movements and To Think About...
. 1 Comment

Over the past six months I’ve been spending a lot of time reading. My two favorite books so far have been The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch and The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. Both of these books really got me thinking about leadership and how it could be structured to be a greater benefit to the mission and to the whole.

I’m a visual thinker so I opened up my graphics program and started playing with some ideas. As a case study, I chose an organization very near and dear to my heart…Christian Associates. I love thinking about how CAI could continue to make a lasting impact in Europe and I believe that if there is any organization who has the courage to make gutsy changes to be more effective, it would be CAI…therefore…it’s fun to dream about this stuff with our organization in mind!

One of the basic principles of the Starfish and the Spider is that effective organizations in the future will discover the ‘unstoppable power’ of decentralization by giving away as much control as possible to the participants. Through personal participant investment, people will move from passive members to active contributers towards the vision and they will carry a real sense of ownership for the accomplishment of vision. What ends up happening is that the organizing group no longer has to be the perpetuator of culture…the participants in-and-of-themselves become ‘value conductors’. The organization will benefit as they now have every participant investing in, and being passionate about, the accomplishment of the goals. Leadership becomes less of a control and command position and more of a facilitator (think Wikipedia, Craigslist, Ebay, Amazon). There is much more, but for brevity’s sake I’ll stop here. Read the book!

In the Forgotten Ways, Alan makes a great case for the need to revitalize and restore the Church with the missional leadership of the 1st century Church expressed through the activation of a true APEPT model of leadership. APEPT is an acrostic for Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher…found in Ephesians 4:11. Alan’s idea is the same as the apostle Paul’s in Ephesians…If we want the Church to really grow up and become mature, each of these gifts needs to be actively and equally represented in the guiding of the Church. (Also check out Romans 12:1-8 and 1 Corinthians 13)

I was reading these two books at the same time and I couldn’t help but see how these two ideas go hand in hand. I asked myself this question: How can we adopt an influence structure to become more decentralized so that the voice/influence of the individual can more greatly add value to the whole? Here’s what I came up with when thinking of CAI:

Ca_leadership_structure2

My thinking is that the more we can identify the gifts of people throughout CAI the more we have opportunity to enable people to influence the organization through like-minded (or like-gifted) collaboration, diversity in mentoring, and diversity in teams.

At a fundamental level, networks are created for the sole purpose of facilitating communication. On the network side of things, the goal of this idea is to open up as many lines of communication as possible. Through conferences where like-gifted people can interact, there is a great chance of creating synergy and momentum. This also opens the door for older leaders to mentor younger ones. Imagine if a group of people who are all gifted in prayer and hearing from God (prophecy) got together to pray over a period of days for and about our organization…and then got to have a platform to share that with the rest of the organization? What an encouragement that could be! Or if teachers got together to talk about theology or how to apply the Bible in our contexts? Or if the apostolic people got together to dream about ways to expand Christian Associates and lead it into the future?

On a spiritual level, the main goal of this is to raise awareness of the depth of giftedness across our organization. We could then equip people to use their gifts to serve the other individuals, teams, and in turn live out their own giftedness more. I believe that the more people we have using their giftedness to serve one another, the greater our organization will feel connectivity and the greater overall feeling of unity there will be.

On a practical level, if we increase the number and diversity of people investing in teams then that means that we’ll be able to cover more areas of need and give a greater perspective of how to encourage teams. This would also bring a community aspect to investment as opposed to a one-person oversight idea…this would align with nearly all other levels of leadership within CAI better.

There are so many more thoughts that have been running around in my head about this! This post doesn’t even touch on the details! And I don’t even know how the professional side of an organization is structured. So there are holes…probably big ones. But I’ve partially put this idea out there to see if it peaks any interest, but partly to just get it out of my head! I’d love to hear what you think…

I know that I’m an idealist and that all of this is easier ‘blogged than done’, but I am ever curious as to what we as an organization can do to greater equip each other to influence Europe for the good of the Kingdom…who knows…

The Game

Published
by
Justin
on June 18, 2007
in To Think About...
. 1 Comment

I first saw the movie ‘The Game’ when it came out in 1997, but there wasn’t much to choose from at the video store tonight so I picked it up again. Michael Douglas plays a character name Nicholas Van Orten, an investment banker who has grown up to be rich, cut-throat, self-absorded, and lonely.

His ‘less-together’ brother Conrad, played by Sean Penn, shows up with a special gift that Nicholas reluctantly pursues. This ‘gift’ is an experience that that sends Nicholas on a wild and confusing ride that shakes him from all the things that he once thought were so important and brings him face to face with who he really is…in essence the gift that Nicholas receives is brokenness.

Brokenness is a gift who’s value is only fully realized once it’s over. But when we see it for what it is, brokenness has the greatest potential to lead us to gratitude, and gratitude to maturity.

May each one of us, when feeling broken and tired, remember James 1

Consider it a gift (pure joy), my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Where does this come from?

Published
by
Justin
on June 16, 2007
in To Think About...
. 1 Comment

Last night Jen and I watched the movie “Fast Food Nation”. When we rented the movie we thought it was a comedy…but it wasn’t really a comedy at all…and there was certainly not much to laugh about.*

At the end of the movie Jen and I were both feeling really heavy. I know that movies have a way of manipulating ones senses as most of life isn’t set to music, strategic camera angles, or perfect lighting. But this movie really got me thinking things about our culture, lifestyle, and choices that I’ve always been comfortable not thinking. And more importantly it made me think about the effect my life choices end up having on other people.

When I eat piece of pizza, or buy a t-shirt I don’t often think of the places and people that exist to make my life conveniences a reality to me. The truth is that in our culture today we are so out of touch with the origins of the products we consume. Most people don’t farm their food, butcher their meat, sew their clothes, or harvest their beans for their daily cup of coffee…but we all consume things like this, and in our age we can’t escape this reality.

But I wonder…What ends up happening in our souls because of this disconnection? How is our view of the world around us distorted because of the acceptance of this type of consumerism? Are there things that we can do prevent our depersonalization decline?

I’m reading a book right now called “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places” by Eugene Peterson. This is what he says,

…I don’t want to be just a consumer. I don’t even want to be predominantly a consumer. To be reduced to a consumer is to leave out most of what I am, of what makes me me. To be treated as a consumer is to be reduced to being used by another or reduced to a product for someone else’s use. It makes little difference whether the using is in a generous or selfish cause, it is reduction. Widespread consumerism results in extensive depersonalization. And every time depersonalization moves in, life leaks out.

The essence of the Christian mission and message is that God loves relationships and wants them to be right. He wants our relationship with Him to be right. He wants our relationship with our own soul to be right. He wants our relationships with the world (by this I mean people) around us to be right. I just feel like something in me is saying, “That’s not right” when I know that other people are being de-humanized, de-relationalized, and de-valued because of my choices to consume and maintain the quality of life that I feel like I have a right to.

I think it’s fair to say that luxuries we give money for, others give life for.

I want to return to ‘the matrix’ or ‘la la land’ and pretend that I never had this burden (in essence, commit the sin of forgetfulness), life would be easier if I could go on enjoying my freedom at another’s expense. But I hope the question, “Where does this come from?” will haunt my mind and push me to continue to desire to make the world look a little bit more like the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus prayed would come to earth.

*Another surprise of this film was the sexuality in it. So please be aware of this. You can read the book that it was adapted from instead!