I think it has literally taken me a few years to adjust to Sunday being a work day, and I have grown to absolutely love late Sunday afternoons after all the services and meetings are over. It’s one of those few times during the week I get (usually) a few quiet uninterrupted hours to spend with Deborah watching a game or to read. A while back on the recommendation from Piper on the Role of Poetry in the Christian Life I picked up the book A Sacrifice of Praise, An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century (yes, I seem to just find books with long titles). I came across this poem by Chesterton, with a short title, called The World State I thought I would share below.
The World State
Oh, how I love Humanity,
With love so pure and pringlish,
And how I hate the horrid French,
Who never will be English!The International Idea,
The largest and the clearest,
Is welding all the nations now,
Except the one that’s nearest.The compromise has long been known,
This scheme of partial pardons,
In ethical societies
And small suburban gardens—The villas and the chapels where
I learned with little labour
The way to love my fellow-man
And hate my next-door neighbour.
I love the subtle in your face presentation of the “second greatest commandment” here found in Matthew 22. There is just something about the Brits and the French that make me laugh and I can hear this poem being read aloud in a British pub somewhere like The Eagle and the Child in that awesome British accent. Chesterton was a poet, writer, and literary critic in the very early 1900′s and was friends with H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, and others. He also wrote, among many other things, Saint Francis of Assisi.
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I love this shot of Jason, Eddie (our driver in Uganda), and myself. If you are holding a machete in the middle of the woods-jungle I think it’s a rule, you have to stop to have a photo taken. Jason and I were attempting to clear a few branches away for a lady who lived on the property and to say thanks she gave Eddie these awesome avocados (you can just see her in the photo in the upper right background). Actually, we both thought it would be really cool to get to use a machete to do some actual real work, and I ended up with the machete and Jason the axe pipe thing (sorry Jason).
I know I have said it before but it still amazes me. The speed and priorities of life in Bulboa where this lady lives is so extremely different from the west, even different from just up the road in Kampala. Life down in Buloba isn’t really run by a clock on a wall like we know it, and no one seems to be in a hurry to do anything, it’s just TIA (this is Africa). I didn’t really hear that said too much while I was over there, but I did hear it a few times, which generally refers to “whenever”. I personally loved that and enjoyed the down time, especially since that pretty much doesn’t exist at all on this side of the world. I fight for it every week but it’s certainly not the norm no matter how hard you try to slow things down. The little wood we chopped up was supposed to last her about a month, although I’m not sure how, the same bit of wood wouldn’t have been enough to start a fire to me. We did spend about an hour or two walking around this neighborhood while others in our group worked on some painting. It was very low key, very laid back, very TIA.
Over here this week life moved along at our normal breakneck speed. Nothing inherently wrong with that but every minute of every day is packed full and it didn’t take me any time at all to fall back into life at hyper-speed where you have to fight for margin. Margin is where life happens, where we meet with God and remember why we do what we do.
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I’m still finding it hard to believe that in less than a week our team will be en-route to Uganda to the scene pictured above. Our church has a team in Uganda right now that comes home on Thursday and that photo was one that was taken and posted a few days ago when they arrived.
I know our culture, church, and climate are worlds apart (well maybe not the climate, it can’t be any hotter there than it is in the south in the summer) but we share the same faith in the same God and I can’t wait to see how that translates from southern speak to African. As I write this post I’m sitting in the electrical closet in our church office desperately trying to get our Internet connection to behave properly after multiple lightning strikes. After working on this issue for what seems like an eternity it got me thinking about where that connection between our two churches resides when not having the Internet shuts down all our work and productivity here and they don’t even have electricity in their church building let alone an Internet connection. Each church reaches a different culture and a different individual and we can no more pretend we are a church in Uganda than Buloba Community Church can pretend they are us.
The one constant is God. It says throughout scripture that God never changes… but you [God] are the same and your years will have no end (Hebrews 1:12 among many other places). The same God we serve here in Auburn Alabama is the same in Uganda and was the same for the Israelites as they marched into the Promise Land. This week is so crazy and for some reason my to-do list just keeps getting bigger and bigger the closer it comes time to leave so I would appreciate all your prayers and your prayers for our team. This is an all-guy trip, their names are below, and I know they would all appreciate your continued prayers.
Bo Morrissey
Christopher Mills
Fred Riggs
Graham Hill
Jason Welstead
Jordan Ross
Mark Fuller
Scott Fillmer
Myron West
Brian Johnson
As always, Thanks so much for your prayers and your continued support for this trip and my upcoming October trip as well.
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So I almost felt obligated at this point to do a post about Google+ just because it really wasn’t what I was expecting from Google. What I was expecting from Google was another failed attempt at doing something social (they do have a good long history of trying social networking and missing big time), but this time I think they created something that just might work long term. Of course, it works, because basically they finally developed a format stream that is just like Facebook except without much of the garbage that is Facebook. When (not if) Google adds an iPhone AND an iPad app they will have surpassed Facebook, at least in functionality.
When Zuckerberg made the statement that the iPad was not a mobile device, and therefore Facebook would not be developing an app for the iPad, he pretty much told everyone using Facebook that Facebook is whatever Zuckerberg says it is. Google, even though they seem to have the biggest rival with Apple, can no doubt see beyond this and will very quickly release apps for the iPhone and iPad. Once Google+ hits the iPhone/iPad users they will grow at an alarming rate. It’s the “mobile” users that will feed Google+ and the easier Google makes it to use on ANY mobile device the faster they will grow Google+. The misses right now with Google+ remain the lack of an iPhone app and some other minor functionality issues like being able to hide comments in a stream, being able to view several circle streams at the same time, and at the moment people. The people thing is a plus and a minus at the same time. The millions and millions of masses on Facebook are what makes Facebook work. Google+ has a different genre of people right now and I don’t see that as a bad thing, but they do need more buy in.
Why is Google+ better than Facebook already?
- No Ads
- No Spam
- Design is Cleaner
- Messaging System
- Integrates with Google Everything
- People Who Don’t Like Social Networking Will Like Google+
- It isn’t Facebook
- It is Google
- It’s New and Has a Lot of Potential
- Facebook still Doesn’t Give you Ownership of Your Data
so far (who knows how long this will last) there are no ads, anywhere. This is top on my list, and key. This is why I like twitter, this is why the experience on Google+ is better right from the start. All that junk on Facebook’s sidebars is the worst. You never know what’s going to come up but you know you don’t want to look at it.
Facebook and spam go together like spam in a can, or something like that. Spam is not the telemarketer calling you at dinner anymore. Spam is ANYTHING sent to you unsolicited. Facebook is full of this stuff from Mafia Wars to stupid games and poll questions, event invites, and all the other stuff that clutters up your feed stream with stuff you don’t want to look at. The stuff you do want to read is so buried in the mess of Facebook I often just give up trying to find actual real high quality content.
everything is cleaner, but making a cleaner design makes it easier to read, has less clutter, call it whatever you want but Google+ is just flat out easier on the eyes. Google has long since prided itself on simplicity of design, and in this case it works so much better than Facebook
while Facebook has been vastly improving their messaging system, trying to overtake email, the message system on Facebook has always been one of their weakest points, and until recently, no one wanted to look at that inbox, it was just annoying. Google+ has made sending a message to a single person, or a select group, extremely easy. I would expect this since Google has built it’s non-search business around Gmail, but Google+ has the potential to be able to do away with email all together.
this is a no-brainer but it’s worth pointing out. There are some things I like better off Google, like their photo system Picasa (Flickr still has better functionality) but overall everything you do throughout the day is basically run on Google’s cloud anyway, you are already there, so adding Google+ isn’t too much of a burden.
there are still some people that are not attached to a social network at all (really, I know this for a fact). For those people, Google+ is a way into that social networking circle without being in Facebook or Twitter. For many (or most) of these people they are already on Google. They use Google, they use Gmail, they are familiar with Google and in some ways have a trust built with them as a company. If you aren’t on Facebook or Twitter or anything else, you are probably already on Google, and Google will make trying Google+ a breeze for the non-adopters.
there are many people who just hate Facebook, for them, this isn’t Facebook and that is good enough for them.
this is just like the Apple vs Android thing. Some people think Apple is straight from the devil himself and think Android is not. Facebook has a lot of “you are the devil” fans so being anything but Facebook is a plus.
everyone doesn’t necessarily like change but new is always a big seller. Since every company puts out products or services today that are a work in progress (beta) and not a final completed entity, Google will continue to develop and improve Google+. Yes I know Facebook does this too, but they seem to take 2 steps forward and one step back and make everyone mad in the process.
some will say Google doesn’t either, but they have made far more progress in this realm than Facebook has, and Facebook has no intention of ever letting go of your data. Every time you put content on Facebook instead of your own blog or somewhere that you have access to your own data you are building up the mother ship, not your own history. Google+ has a really cool download data set functionality that will probably improve over time. Facebook has nothing. Facebook owns everything you put on there and you own nothing.
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It’s Friday, and since we didn’t go anywhere exciting today other than to drive over to Columbus, my Friday Feet pic is rather boring, but there were some “great” church signs along the way as usual.
I have a pretty additive habit-hobby of church sign reading, sometimes it’s just like train wreck TV, you just can’t turn away. It is, at least in the south, a method of communication for local churches, and for Christianity in general (a very very broad range version of general). Since we spend so much time contemplating, discussing, and meeting about communication in our staff meetings at my own church I have no doubt that many of the church signs I see and read are not accidental. Church signs represent as broad a range of Christianity as their are Christians, and it shows. I just wonder if they at least think about the greater message they are presenting to the drive-by sign reader. I’m sure not everyone reads every single church sign they drive by like I do, but still, what message are you trying to communicate to the casual non-church-goer reading your sign? I have nothing against any of these churches of course, I’m sure their all great churches… but the last 2-3 weeks I have driven by this one church they have had two different, negative signs, which drives me nuts, but I’m not on their communication team, so oh well.
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One of the things I love about our particular church is that we are always talking about reaching the unreached… reaching deeper into the community of Auburn and Opelika trying to find ways to bring the Gospel to those who haven’t heard the Good News (a command throughout the New Testament I might add).
One of the ways we do that is once a month the entire staff gets together and walks through the various issues that are the church. Yesterday we discussed the “status quo” of doing church in our culture today and the above image was one page of my notebook where I took notes as we all discussed the topic. I love being a part of these discussions and talking about what the church body looks like in 2012. Since my job is generally on the administrative side of ministry and not that of a pastor, (sometimes it’s hard to remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:27-28, the Church needs everyone’s gifts and talents to reach the unreached) but God’s church needs everyone to be involved, not just staff members and volunteers, but everyone.
Will Our Generation Respond to Scripture?
In one of John Piper’s books I’m just finishing up called Jesus: The Only Way to God – Must You Hear the Gospel to Be Saved? he makes this conclusion for the church today.
The question for the church in every generation is: Will we submit gladly to the Scriptures? Will we devote ourselves to understanding them truly, valuing them supremely (under God himself), applying them properly, obeying them wholeheartedly, and speaking them courageously and publicly?
I think this is a great challenge for the American church today. We have built a culture around consumerism church instead of our worship services being a joyous celebration of what God has done the previous week. This is the status quo of “church” is something that takes place for one hour on Sunday morning where we get to hear some good music and an encouraging 17 minute message.
If we truly believe Paul’s words in Romans 10:13-17, then we have a great responsibility to reach at least those unreached people in our immediate community and then beyond.
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Do We Continue to “Sit and Soak”
Question is, how will this play out in our churches in 2012? How does the “sit and soak” mentality of the American church leave Romans 10 unfulfilled (among many other verses as well), and how will we reach those people right here in our own community? Fulfilling the status quo is the most comfortable thing to do, but it’s not very productive for reaching new people for Christ.
The church today should not be about a specific building, or a specific cultural group, or time frame, or a set format. Yes, scripture, orthodoxy, sound doctrine, and at some level, traditions of the early church, are very important and should be a strong foundation, but buildings, times, formats, and everything that goes along with all that, should not be a barrier to those seeking to know the Lord.
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After months of looking at “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” by David Platt, i finally decided i had to go ahead and read this book. Having read and studied several books and/or articles that discuss the concepts and failings of what we call the “American Dream”, I already had my own opinion about the topic, but still think it’s a worthy topic today. Radical ended up not really being focused so much on the American Dream as it was to focus away from the concept.
Whether we acknowledge it or not we are probably influenced by this concept in one way or another, and much of the time it tends to be a self-focused concept, how do I maximize my 401k, get that house, car, computer, whatever. Radical attempted to remove that self-focused concept and replace it with a global evangelistic focus that Jesus calls for in Matthew 28.
The book is a compilation of a sermon series given by the pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, Dr. David Platt, after he returned from several international missional type trips a few years ago. i have read a few other reviews that have also suggested listening to the complete sermon series in addition to reading the book. Many have said it takes the book even deeper, so eventually I hope to listen to those as well. After a longer introduction period of a few chapters, Platt goes through seven truths, which are the premise for the text and lead to Platt’s conclusion, and eventually to his call to action. The truth statements come from this evaluating proclamation…
If people are dying and going to hell without ever even knowing there is a gospel, then we clearly have no time to waste our lives on an American dream.
The Seven Truth’s of Radical:
- TRUTH 1 : All People Have Knowledge of God
- TRUTH 2 : All People Reject God
- TRUTH 3 : All People are Guilty Before God
- TRUTH 4 : All People are Condemned for Rejecting God
- TRUTH 5 : God Has Made a Way of Salvation For the Lost
- TRUTH 6 : People Cannot Come to God Apart From Faith in Christ
- TRUTH 7 : Christ Commands the Church to Make the Gospel Known to All Peoples
With each explained in detail, Radical proceeds into the final call to action with, what I read as the ultimate conclusion of the text.
…that means there is only one potential breakdown in this progression [of truths] —when servants of God do not preach the gospel to all peoples
This leads into Platt’s call to action. A one year plan, in five steps (or points), that intend to bring the believer into closer alignment to the truths in the Gospel message instead of continuing on a path towards the elusive American Dream.
Concluding Critique About Radical
For those with an evangelical background Radical will be a hard but familiar call to constantly evaluate our lives against the truths of the Gospel. Not only does it cause us to examine our lives more closely but it gives specific, tangible examples (or points) which are easy to evaluate, like reading the bible completely in one year (either you did or you didn’t).
Some may see this as works, or a process or program, but I don’t believe that is Platt’s message to believers at all. The Gospel is a call to live a radical life unlike that of the world, and Radical confirms this. It isn’t about a program to do this or that, it is about a life changed, and living a lifestyle for God not for self.
For those with a more liberal theology, or those who view some sermons as annoying guilt trips, Radical will probably be seen more as another radical pastor calling on people to give up all their worldly possessions, give them to the “poor” and go somewhere overseas to spread Christianity (which actually is in the bible too, but no doubt some will find it annoying to say the least). While they will appreciate the social consciousness aspect to Radical’s call, some will see it as an “evils of riches” guilt trip.
It is not a book that is going to answer all the questions, but it will stretch the believer into thinking beyond ourselves and the small boxes we tent to live in, especially here in the United States. Some questions that came to mind were:
- How much is enough?
- What can we live without for the sake of the Gospel?
- Where do we spend our time and is it worth our time?
- What do we see in ourselves when examining our life against scripture?
- What will we do with the five action items in Radical?
It is always interesting to see if a book stands the test of time. One way I look at the effectiveness of a book is how well does the author make their arguments, and will the book survive the initial pop culture publication. In other words, does the author make convincing enough arguments to make the book either (1) entertaining, (2) does it make you change or examine the way you think, or (3) does it even change your actions and how you live. In short, does the book shape you in some way or form.
Since I rarely read books for their entertainment value, I hope for one of the latter points, and that is where Radical lands. It made me think, it changed the way I do a few things, and it caused me to take a hard look at my long term calling. I would highly recommend Radical to anyone who has a teachable spirit and is willing to take a new look at old ways of doing Christianity beyond Sunday morning.
