Do you want to know what casting vision looks like at Cornerstone Church in Auburn? Then you will need to be here either at 8:30, 10:00, or 11:30, this Sunday to hear the details. This Sunday is a break from our current in-motion sermon series “Counterfeit Gods” to address how our church is moving forward with a vision on specifically how to reach the unreached people in our local community. Cornerstone has done this for years, and specifically in a missional sense, we have done this in Buloba Uganda. But I love when a church says we can’t just sit and do nothing, because doing nothing is specifically not what we are called by God to do. It just happens to be my church saying that. But this Sunday Rusty will cast a vision for the church’s future outreach in a very missional way. Last night (photos above) was the final meeting with the Executive Council, volunteers, lay leaders and staff members before Rusty goes into specific detail from the platform. So if you are interested in where the people of Cornerstone Church are headed, be at 2123 Hamilton Road in Auburn on Sunday, or at least pick up the podcast on Monday.
Cornerstone has always tried to have a positive impact on our local community and that’s exciting. The exciting part about this moving ahead from where we are as a church right now is not seeing programs or membership grow, the exciting part is being able to see people grow in Christ, mature as disciples, then reach out to new people. This is the church. To see God’s work taking place in people’s lives through the Gospel message. It’s about a mission. It’s about people.
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Last Sunday we started a series at Cornerstone called Counterfeit Gods, somewhat based on the book by Tim Keller called Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, in a way of examining our lives to see exactly what we put in front of God, to look at the idols we worship, other than or in addition to, God Himself. Often when we think of idols today we think about bowing down to the golden calf of the old testament, not something we do today, but our idols abound everywhere in 2011. When I started taking a closer look at this it becomes obvious that one man’s idol is another man’s gift, so to speak. Anything can be an idol. Even if it’s something inherently good, if it takes priority over the Lord, it’s out of it’s proper place.
What Makes Me Feel the Most Self Worth?
This question was on a list of ten questions we were asked to look at over the week, and this one, number six in line, was the one that poked a hole through my heart. To go along with the “self-worth” question, a series of questions was posed, like; “What am I the most proud of in my life?” and “Early on in a relationship, what do I want to make sure that people know about me?”
I have spent many years of my life trying to eliminate things within my own house that preside all over our culture, but this “self-worth” question is different than looking at something like materialism. For me, it seems like it would be easier to see if Apple has a stranglehold on your life than if your wife is more important to me than God, or if my work in ministry or photography is more important than God. The “who we are” questions that make us individuals and not clones is a fine line between obsession, knowledge, and proper place.
It’s those things in life, which drive our personality, it’s part of who we are as individuals, it’s what makes us unique among each other. Other people have skills and talents I can’t even imagine having, but I also have unique abilities, gifts from God, that I can use for His glory or my own selfishness. Reading Ephesians 2:8-10 yesterday reminded me that those gifts were not something self-made, but given to me. Apart from God there is nothing I posses, no ability I have, that is or was my own doing.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
On a more personal note, the answer I gave to these questions in my own journal is this entry below.
On a surface level I would have to say my job, my photography, or my blog gives me my most earthly self worth but that isn’t it, it is the praise of man that goes along with those things that shames me in being proud. Lord I ask that you help me succeed in glorifying your kingdom in the gifts you have given me while not boasting in my own abilities. I can take a great image of a dogwood flower but I can’t make the flower bloom. I can use the tools given me but I can’t create the life that appears in my images.
What I am known for and what I want to be known for are two totally different things still. This is exactly what Michael Hyatt goes over in his free eBook, Creating a Life Plan. What do I want to be known for is for being an honest, upright, and faithful man of God who turned to God in every aspect of life, more and more as I mature in life and age until the day the Lord calls me home. I want to be the best husband I can possibly be, and then the earthly things that come along with being a successful photographer or having a significant impact on people with my career in ministry, however long the Lord chooses that to be.
What am I actually known for? I don’t even want to ask, but it’s the gap between what I am today and the above paragraph where the work resides.
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Maybe its photography over the past 20 years that has made me over sensitive to our cultural demands for productivity, which in turn has given way to our two worst developed habits in search of better productivity, multi-tasking and skimming text. I am probably the worst at putting aside distractions but photography is one of those art forms that takes time, sometimes, a lot of time, and has helped me immensely over the years. Photography takes time just sitting there doing nothing, waiting, waiting on the right moment (hunters will appreciate this too). This one shot of the bird above took me at least an hour to capture last night, and it wasn’t a multitasking hour, it was a setup and wait hour, something almost unheard of anymore outside of photography, hunting, and maybe a few other tasks like actual Christian meditation or prayer.
I am trying to walk (not run) my way through Tim Challies new book, “The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion” where he talks about these very issues. In one section on learning to live without distractions (because we live in a world of constant and continuous distractions) Challies points out that when we turn to the bible we see very little demand for constant productivity, especially in ways we measure today. What we do see is a constant effort by Jesus to slow the pace of life, making time for meditation, prayer, and communion with the Father and His friends. Challies puts it like this:
What is unique in our time is that skimming has now become the dominant form of reading… The danger for Christians is apparent. If we grow so accustomed to skimming words, to passing quickly over texts, we will eventually impose this practice on the words of God… The danger today, in an era of skimming and fragmentation, is that we will fragment the Bible into small bits and have no time or ability to craft unity from the parts.
Being Productive is Not Our Higher Calling in Life
Productivity is one of those things that came out of our big factories decades ago, something that has never diminished, and has only gotten more and more intense as the years go by. Brought on by an insatiable need for being productive (in anything) we multitask and skim. In fact, if you have actually read this far, you are a rare breed among readers today. Most of us just skim text, especially text on the Internet, in approximately 2-3 seconds, and then move on.
According to Challies research, when we “multitask” we really aren’t multitasking as much as we are just jumping from task to task, paying little attention to either. In fact his research showed that it takes us 50% longer to complete each task than if we had done the one task and then moved on, and when we have completed each task the overall quality was greatly reduced as well. It forces us to give partial attention to the task or person right in front of us.
We Can No Longer Give People Our Full Attention
One of the most annoying traits I run across today is that very few people are actually capable of giving me their full attention. I rarely have a conversation with someone without them constantly looking at their cell phone, checking their email, sending text messages, or whatever. Face to face may be more rare today, but even when we do give someone our time, we don’t get but a part of that person in return. I will often just stop talking and wait for them to finish what they are doing, but many times the person won’t notice at all (something Deborah has done to me for years as well).
The point to all this is that, at least in part, is that we as Christians are in a faith that requires us to learn. And one of God’s biggest chosen methods is text, completed paragraphs of thought, made into full letters and books. Thoughts that flow from one book to another and are all connected from Genesis to Revelation. The Bible isn’t full of bullet points, it’s full of completed thoughts. The more we multitask, the more we demand productivity, the less ability we have to sit and read full blocks of text.
It’s like a drug. The less we sit in one place working on one single task, whether that’s reading, photography, or work, without regards to productivity, the less we can. Over two years ago I wrote a blog post called The Internet is The Church’s New Drug of Choice and it’s quite fascinating to see how much father down the road of distraction, multitasking, and skimming text, we have come in only two years.
Thoughts About the Constant Search for Productivity
Because I know for a fact that almost no one is going to read the above 775 words, I give you the bulleted version. In case you didn’t guess by now, I am far less concerned with the productivity factor in life than I am in developing a history of quality. I personally want to be able to do a few things well, never a lot of things in a mediocre fashion.
Photography has been one of those grounding things for me, because it takes time to perfect. There are no shortcuts to learning how to be a good photographer, it takes time no matter what equipment you buy (even if it’s a cell phone). As the time I spent shooting went down in 2009 and 2010 I had forgotten the value of time spent doing just one task at a time, until I got to this point. Since then I have taken more shots (spent more time) in the first 4 months of 2011 than I did all last year, and it’s a good reminder that productivity isn’t the most important thing in life.
- Productivity is not what we are called to achieve in life
- Multitasking is just doing several things at once, poorly
- Multitasking leads us to ignore people standing in front of us
- Skimming leads us away from thinking and ultimately knowledge
- Skimming text is detrimental to our ability to read completed thoughts
- The bible rarely calls us to hurry up and be more productive
- The bible is not a book we can skim, we have to actually read it
- There is a difference between taking your time and being lazy
- The more we live a distracted life the more we need it
- Embrace tasks that can only be done by themselves
There you have it, my ten bullet point thoughts from this post. Better stop now, 1,138 words is certainly WAY longer than any successful blog post is supposed to be, next time I’ll try to shoot for the standard 250 words… but don’t count on it.
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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.
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I haven’t posted consistently here since November because every time I went to write something, words didn’t suffice. This week, and the past several weeks, have been so unbelievable that I really can’t describe my feelings into coherent words yet (see Deb’s blog post in brief). The ups and downs of life that have occurred is something I have never faced before, and I don’t really know where to start, other than to say we have a great God, worthy of every ounce of praise we can muster.
As a way to just get myself started unpacking the events of the last few months I thought I would start with my job at Cornerstone and go from there. I’m well into my third year (see I Have Now Joined the Ranks of Church IT), and starting in 2011 I moved into a slightly different role, one that I am really looking forward to in the year ahead. It has been quite an adventure, something I would never trade if I had to do it all over again, and this past week was a big exclamation point on that statement.
Thinking over the reasons why I love my job I started realizing there were 100′s, so in a nut shell, here are five off the top.
1. It Combines My Life Passion and My Career A “life passion” is probably inadequate to describe my faith. Being a Christian isn’t about being passionate about something, like I love Auburn football, or love to eat, it is who I am. Being able to go to work every day and play a small part in something big is huge to me, but it’s more than that, it’s the combination of the 100′s of reasons I love working for the Church.
This is a catch all reason. Everything about my faith is played out each day, for better or worse, and I have the honor of being supported by the members of Cornerstone. The support that I receive in my life, especially over the last few months, transcends a “job” and has become a way of life.
2. The People I Work With are Unbelievable I can’t say enough about the staff at Cornerstone. In the almost 25 years I have spent in the work force so far, I have never worked with a greater collective group of people than those staff and those who lead the church than at Cornerstone. I could write a post about each of them and how much they mean to me individually, and as a group.
3. Cornerstone’s Vision and Direction This is something the staff and leaders talk about all the time. Where is God leading this church, and how can we best follow His direction. Much of what goes on at Cornerstone Church comes from the statement Leading People To Know and Serve Jesus, and our jobs, whatever that job is, should ultimately work towards that goal, and I love that.
4. Margin, Prayer, and Study, are Expected Finding time to live the life we are called to live out as Christians can be hard. We get so busy with work and everything else that is life, but as a Christian we are called to live out our faith Monday through Saturday too. At Cornerstone, the leaders expect us to live out a life of faith that is taught in scripture, and I love that about my job.
5. The Willingness to Learn and Adjust An amazing quality of Cornerstone Church is the willingness of the leaders to listen, learn, try something new, fail if needed, then adjust and try again. This is no small thing at all, and few businesses, let alone churches, can stop that train once it gets rolling, or try something new to try to make a difference in someone’s life.
That’s my top 5. If you’re in the Auburn area please come by on Sunday morning (or during the week), we would love to meet you.
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Sunday, we started a new eight week look at the book of Nehemiah. A few years ago I completed a class study (about 4 months long) just on the book of Nehemiah, scripture by scripture. Prior to that class I really had no idea who this man was or what he did. After the class I had such inspiration for how God had used Nehemiah and what he, through God, was able to accomplish for the people of Israel, that it has stuck with me ever since. Now, years later, I have certainly not rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, but I am still influenced each day by that study.
Now, I almost get to look at this series with fresh eyes and a new understanding of what God can do, with any of us, who have a passion and/or burden for the Lord and His work. To get the series started, Rusty put out three points about Nehemiah and I thought I would share them here, starting with Chapter 1, verse 4.
Nehemiah Had Deep Concern
After hearing from his brother about the condition of Jerusalem, scripture says Nehemiah wept, mourned, fasted, and prayed. Obviously over great concern for the state of the people of Israel, Nehemiah’s first step was to seek God. Although he was a great man of physical action, this wasn’t his first step, it was to seek out God, and show his genuine concern for what had happened.
Frequently the first thing we want to do when we see an injustice or something of concern is jump in with everything we have. As the Israelites had seen many times before, without God, much of what we do can be pointless, even if we are passionate about the issue at hand. When the Israelites refused to take the land, which God had promised to Abraham’s descendants, God punished them, not allowing them to take the land at that time.
They decided they were just going to go ahead and go anyway after being admonished by Moses, but then it was too late. In Deuteronomy 1:40-45 Moses recounts what happened. “And the Lord said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; otherwise you will be defeated before your enemies.” (v. 42)
The Timing Was Deliberate
As with the example above, the phrase “timing is everything” is not just an empty saying, in many cases, it really is everything. Nehemiah didn’t just rush head first into a plan of action, he waiting on God’s timing. The text says he waited “for some days”, for God’s timing. It turns out Nehemiah waited about 4 months before putting God’s plan into action.
Often when we wait for God, we find God. God is in the waiting. Our 21st century culture knows almost nothing about waiting for anything anymore. We are just about as instant a society as one could be now, so waiting on God’s timing is hard. Do we not generally think our timing is God’s timing instead of the other way around today? Many times, I know at least in my own walk, I often can only see what was God’s timing through the lens of history.
Looking back it is easier for me to see when the timing was purely my own and when what I deemed to be doing nothing, was actually waiting for God’s own timing. Psalm 27:14 says “Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord .” A tall order for us today, but one Nehemiah did before he went on to build a wall, and renew the spiritual life of a broken nation of Israel.
Nehemiah had a Deferential Attitude
Perhaps one thing that made Nehemiah such a great tool for God was his attitude. He was the greatest coach of all time, and it eventually translated into the people he lead to build the wall. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I love that verse. We are not restricted in doing things for the glory of God on Sunday mornings, it says, “whatever” we do.
Nehemiah’s attitude was a game changer, he made the small picture big, the little things, huge, many times just with his attitude towards the work at hand, for the glory of God. When we are in the midst of the struggle, we cannot always see the whole picture, but God can. John Piper explains it in his classic book Desiring God that God can look through a wide angle lens or a narrow lens. He can see both our own seemingly small struggles, and yet see the entire picture and how it turns out in the end, we often can’t, but we can have the attitude of Nehemiah.
I am looking forward to the next 7 weeks to see what God has in store for Nehemiah, and His local church here in Auburn.
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I am continually amazed at what boxes we tend to put God in over and over again. I am reading this amazing book called Chasing Francis by Cron about Francis of Assisi and it has been a true eye opener to see how many different places Francis found God that we (I) have disregarded in our sophisticated and technologically advanced society today. The box we put God in on Sunday mornings is a way for us to make sure we don’t experience God’s fullness through the rest of the week.
A few days ago I read this passage and thought about the different ways we think God can or can’t talk to us. It has to be the right location, the right time, place, attitude, do’s or don’ts, with or without’s, but those are limits we put on God, not the other way around.
A few years ago I went to a U2 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, just three months after 9/11. Most of us in the arena that night probably knew someone who’d died in the Twin Towers; we’d lost three people in our church alone. I’ll never forget the end of the concert. As the band played the song “Walk On,” [lyrics] the names of all those who had died were projected onto the arena walls and slowly scrolled up over us, and then up toward the ceiling. At that moment the presence of God descended on that room in a way I will never forget. There we were, twenty-five thousand people standing, weeping, and singing with the band. It suddenly became a worship service; we were pushing against the darkness together. I walked out dazed, asking myself, “What on earth just happened?’ Of course, it was the music. For a brief moment, the veil between this world and the world to come had been made thin by melody and lyric. If only for a brief few minutes, we were all believers.
We may look and listen for God in the “normal” places, but He is present in His creation… birds, music, paintings, literature. Maybe we don’t hear God outside of Sunday morning “church” because we aren’t looking at his entire creation.
