Wes White on Shalom at our Leadership Summit

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Dr. Wes White is a friend and fellow church planter in Glasgow, Scotland. This is the end of his talk for the Missional Theology track at our Leadership Summit. I greatly appreciate Wes’ heart for people, his ability to articulate big truths, explanation of what means to live out shalom, and his patience for people like me who don’t understand all of the scholarly words! (His unpacking of the parallel between Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21 is alone worth watching the video)

And thanks to Jeff Shaffer for putting the video online.


Freeing Jesus

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So, I actually have a minute to sit and write on my blog.

I want to write in part because I don’t want to start on the 80+ emails in my inbox and party because I just want to prove to all 3 of you out there that I can still write on my blog.

Last week we had got the chance to go to Madrid and to a conference just outside of the city for 4 days. Along with another CA friend, we drove the 6-7 hours through the north of Spain to get there. I was happy to take the long way because in the 2.5 years we lived in France, we barely saw anything outside of Paris. And, to my delight, the drive was beautiful: mountains, mesas, castles, villages, snow, cherry trees, fields, canyons, Montserrat…Spain is a diverse place.

While in Madrid I went out with a few CA guys to a burger place (obsession) in Malasaña (a really cool neighborhood where our friends the Krulls live). That night we got into a pretty significant and lengthy conversation with two girls about Jesus, the church, and their experience growing up in a catholic environment. While Spain might be diverse geographically, the story of a control, shame, and guilt heavy religion is all too common. There is a lot more to the story, but in the end we were able to communicate that following Jesus isn’t about following a tradition or a set of laws that put you either in or out of the group going to heaven. It was an honor to being able to say to them that following Jesus is about waking up everyday, doing our best to hear God’s voice, to follow Jesus, and to live the way He would if he were alive today (aka Jesus living through us). I hope a light bulb went on for them…I hope that in some way the shame, guilt, and oppression of their past experience with Church went away and they could be freed to see Jesus for who He is…and to no longer see him as a dying man hanging on a crucifix who started a religion that made them feel bad about themselves.

I had another conversation a couple of weeks ago with a Catalan guy and after I told him what I am doing here, he immediately said, “You have a very hard job.”

He’s right. We do have a hard job, but it’s not an impossible one. There is a hunger for spirituality here and there are people that are open to Jesus when we free Him from stereotypes, painful religion, oppressive human control, and the non-relevant traditions of men. It is the Jesus who has been resurrected into life, defeating sin and shame, empowering us with wisdom, grace, and truth that I want to follow. I want to follow a man who has been freed so that I can be free. I think many others in Spain want the same thing….


God isn’t a white man?

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Insert sarcasm here: What? God’s not a white bearded guy? Thankfully, the band Gungor, turned to the pages of the Bible to see what God has to say for himself.

Thanks @mikegoldsworthy for this video


Smoking Ban in Spain

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So, it’s has actually happened. Smoking has been banned from inside of most restaurants in Spain. (Also from playgrounds in outdoor areas as well). I had heard that the ban was going to take place, but I was skeptical because the 2006 legislature didn’t really seem to be effective.

Most of the press I’ve read about the ban seem to be expressing that the ban will not be good for the bars and restaurants in Spain. Saying that they will lose customers and business. I wanted to take a second to offer some thoughts on why this ban is good for Spain and the economy here…beyond the fact that smoking kills people.
1. Smoking is an expensive habit. As a nail-biter, I take pride in that fact that my bad habit is free. However, smoking is really expensive. A pack of cigarettes in Spain is around 3-4€. So let’s say that a person smokes a 3 packs per week (which I know might be low because a lot of people smoke a pack a day). At 3€ per pack, this is 1008€ per year. Let’s say that because of the ban a person decides to quit smoking because they don’t want to stand outside or a restaurant and smoke anymore. That’s 1008€ that will go somewhere else in the economy. If 100,000 people stop smoking because of the ban, then that’s 100.8 million more into a different sector of the economy. Maybe travel, maybe, buying homes. But at least the money isn’t going up in smoke…
2. Because Spain is a socialist country, the entire economy would benefit by people being more healthy. So, the more people that quit or the less people smoke, the better.
3. Restaurants will now be more attractive to families who, before, would not go out to a smokey restaurant with kids. I know that our family will be more likely to go to a number of restaurants that we wouldn’t have gone to before because it was so smokey inside. Even today I was talking with a restaurant owner and he was so glad that the ban has started…he was thankful because it does change the dynamic of a place…not to mention that the employees of restaurants will probably be able to breath while working. And speaking from experience, I know that a family of four costs more to eat out that just two.
So, I’m thankful that there is no smoking in bars anymore…And I don’t think that this will be the downfall of the Spanish economy.


Gift of Remembering

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On Christmas Eve I went out for a walk and stopped into the cathedral in our neighborhood. I sat in the front row and looked up at the statues of Mary holding Jesus as a baby. I’ll be honest, normally I struggle with the fanfare around Mary. But in this moment I feel like I was able to imagine her as she was: young, obedient, humble, risky, and trusting. The nobility that so many people put upon her (crowns, robes, etc) was taken away and I was able to see something new. She was unmarried, engaged to a carpenter, soon to be on the run to Egypt where her ancestors we’re once enslaved…

These young girl’s arms mothered God in the flesh…in very difficult times. Her journey to Egypt and back makes our inter-continental flights with kids look like an hour massage. It’s not just she mothered Jesus as a baby, but it seems as though Joseph may have widowed her before Jesus was 30 (no mention of him in Jesus’ later life).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the character of God in the past week. To be honest, with the difficulties that we’ve had (relative to our lives of course) there have been times when I haven’t seen God as being for me the way that I once felt. I think that this is more about me and than God (imagine that…not so stunning of a conclusion).

But this season I’ve been drawn to remembering that it is God’s very nature to be for His creation. If there is anything that helps this argument it is this: God became one of us…not to teach himself anything about what it was like to be a human, but to teach us that he is willing to be a human to reach out to us. There are some things that I can get my head around, this is not one of them. If God is truly unimaginable, which I believe He is, then it is hard to fathom him choosing to become so tangible. If anything to become knowable in a new way.

So this season, my greatest gift was/is the gift of remembering (again). Remembering that God is for me(us). Remembering that God wants to know me(us). And that this creative force wants me(us) to continually know him in new ways.

ps…I wonder if to truly know is to fully trust…maybe for another post.


Let us all…

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“Let the just rejoice,for their justifier is born.
Let the sick and infirm rejoice,For their saviour is born.
Let the captives rejoice,For their Redeemer is born.
Let slaves rejoice,for their Master is born.
Let free men rejoice,For their Liberator is born.
Let All Christians rejoice,For Jesus Christ is born.”

- St. Augustine of Hippo

Thanks to my friend Tim Bower for posting this earlier.


Movember 2010 Begins

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I’m participating in Movember this year. Basically, a group of guys thought it would be a good idea to grow mustaches all of November to raise awareness for men’s health issues. You can read about it on the website: Movember.com

When I was in high school my grandfather died of prostate cancer. It’s ‘funny’ how it seems to be a bigger issue when a woman has a mom who’s had breast cancer…maybe it’s because guys don’t talk about sickness a lot because it would make us seem weaker or something lame like that. But if you think about it, shouldn’t I be just as concerned? Or at least aware?

Thus Movember…increasing awareness.

I’m a bit afraid to see what type of heinous mustache I have 31 days from now. Having very little hair up top will make my mustache a bit more prominent…we’ll see. But I’m going to take a picture at least every couple of days so you can track my upper lip hair’s growth.

My first picture is from the night of the 31st…just to get one last clean shave in.

And here’s a video just to further educate on Movember…


Can we clean our own backyard?

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About two years ago I had the pleasure of attending a Christian Associates event called Thinklings. The topic was something like: “What does it mean to make the claim that Jesus is Lord in the pluralistic landscape of western Europe?” To be honest, this event was a hinge point for me and my view of the question. I left with the belief that to declare Jesus as Lord was not meant to be an ‘evangelistic’ statement, but rather a ‘discipleship’ call.

The early followers of Jesus called Him Lord in light of the Roman emperor’s command that he himself was Lord. In a sense, saying Jesus was Lord, was telling Caesar, “You are not Lord.” Saying that Jesus is Lord is not a phrase that we use to give Jesus another title. The phrase is a movement from ‘the competing Lords of our culture’ to a faith in Jesus as Lord. I believe that it is in this movement from one thing of ‘lordship’ to following Jesus as Lord that we find our meaning, hope, grace, and redemption.

I just got done finished reading excerpts for Chris Wright’s final address at the Third Lausanne Congress on world evangelisation. You can read it here if you want to.** I am both convicted and encouraged by what his points were. He said ‘Christians had lost their integrity and succumbed to the idolatry of power and pride, popularity and success, and wealth and greed.’ His last part on unity is also a crucial point.

Here are some quotes I ‘liked’:

“To be obsessed, or even concerned at all, about status, office, power, in the Christian Church and in Christian work, is in sheer disobedience to Christ and the Bible. And it destroys the very thing that we seek to accomplished. We are called back, in repentance, to humility.”

“The tragedy is that so many Christian leaders, including mission leaders, fail these tests [of power, popularity and wealth] at precisely the point Jesus overcame them.”

“The whole church pays the cost of their failure in the lost integrity and credibility. And so when we even dare to point the finger of criticism at the sin of the world we are told bluntly and rightly ‘clean up your own backyard’.”

I felt like this was the same message that I left the Thinklings event with. What leg do we have to stand on when we tell the world around us they need to follow Jesus when we don’t ourselves? I have a feeling that we’re living in a time where it is communicated that it is more important to be good Christian (go to church, read your Bible, be moral, tithe, etc) than it is to actually follow Jesus (redeem people, reject power, enter into suffering, etc). I think it is time that we as a collective Church start taking more seriously the reality that majority of the Bible was written to God’s own people who were not appropriately following Him. Personally, I would rather have Jesus tell me, “I know you followed me with your whole heart.” than to have say, “I know you worked hard to be a good Christian.”

Ok…off to get started cleaning my own backyard…or terrace seeing as I don’t have a backyard.

***You can also watch the talk online here: Integrity – Confronting Idols | A Conversa Global Lausanne