Naked Pastor

That's a title that will grab your attention. That is the title of a blog created by David Hayward, who describes himself as a pastor trapped in an artist's body. His art and his blog posts are usually very pointed, insightful and disturbing. But, by disturbing, I mean creating turbulence much like a swimming pool cleaner creates turbulence within the water to get the muck moving towards the filter. In our nation, stagnation seems to occur rapidly and having a little disturbance now and again may be what the doctor ordered.
Take a look at his blog and take a look at his postings on Flickr. Here are a couple of my favorites....
The first time that I saw a few of his cartoons, I thought for sure he was some non-believer slamming Christians. As it turns out, he's a pastor slamming Christians who profess Jesus with their mouths, but deny them with their lives............ I'm alright with that; I need slammed on occasion apparently.
So, I warn you. If you are easily offended, you will be offended. But, if you are offended, chances are there is a good reason why you were offended, and you may want to spend some quiet time reflecting on your relationship with Christ.

What If You Were There

I read an interesting blog post tonight regarding "Are We Any Different Today?" The point of it was exploring the question, "If you had been around during the years of Jesus' ministry on this earth, how would you have responded to Him?" It also explores the concept of whether the church of today possesses parallels with the religious sects of Jesus' time. It is a brutal question to answer.

This post really intrigued me because I have frequently imagined myself living in various biblical eras, and pondered how well would I have behaved in comparison to the characters in the Bible. To be very honest, I am confident that no one would have ever wanted to name one of the books of the Bible using my name.

The Next Level

Coming from the perspective of residing within a church that is not quite ready to accept outmoded praise and worship songs from the 90's because it is a little too wild for their tastes, acceptance of The Next Level Church's methodology is not likely going to occur here within the next century. However, I am very intrigued by their ideas and leadership by committee approach. TNL is located near Denver, CO and was featured in an article in ChristianityToday.
More importantly, the have overcome the problem that so many churches around here have been faced with; most churches today do not have any true community and a majority of its members show up for Sunday morning services only. The solution, oddly enough, sounds much like what our pastor has requested us do. The solution was having small group activities occurring away from the church in homes and public places. I like it.

Prayer Cells

Our pastor has recently called our church to prayer. Specifically, he has asked us to seek out prayer partners to begin meeting together for focused prayer on Kingdom matters. My initial response to this request was two-fold: 1) I would love to take part in such a thing, and 2) I doubt that the request will be fulfilled by greater than 5% of those asked.
Tonight I was pondering my response.
In regards to #1, I have taken part in similar experiences in the past, and have found them to be quite rewarding from a spiritual and social stand point. I really desire to have some meaningful male relationships in my life right now, and the idea of meeting with like-minded men to pray and share with God's Kingdom as the focus sounds like something that would be worthwhile.
In regards to #2, there are a litany of reasons why few people would share my #1 response. My thought is that the top 2 reasons are likely time and fear of the unknown. Participating in something like this must be somewhat intimidating to someone who has never experienced it before.
If you happen to be struggling with this issue, I would tell you that if you could only participate once, you would likely see that it is worth making time for and nothing to fear.
If you have Prayer Cell experience, I would love to hear your input.

Too Close To Home

My wife and I saw Thursday night on the Lexington news that a local church youth group leader was arrested for seeking out sexual relationships with minors over the internet. We were saddened by this.
Well, the next day, I found out that I know the accused's father. His dad is by far one of the nicest guys I have ever met. The result of knowing the father made me shift my thoughts quite a bit. The short of it is this: If you are a Christian, your actions matter. You represent your family, church, the Christian population and our God.
Satan would have you believe that your sins are between you and God. The young man that was arrested will be spending some time in jail, and will live with some embarrassment. But the repercussions extend out to countless others. It's scary to think what an impact (negative or otherwise) that you may be able to create on so many others with your keyboard sitting alone at home in the dark.

Acts 1:8 Challenge

Acts 1:8: "And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world."

This month's edition of OnMission features a story describing the participation of a few churches in a program called Acts 1:8 Challenge. The feature story shares one pastor's comments that "We are a church of rednecks." And he goes on to say that they don't try to be something that they are not, and yet they have found that what they are consists of being a church that loves they the Lord, and they are living their love through their actions. It is inspiring to read about "normal" folks going out and doing the abnormal. They make it sound so easy.

Take a look at the story: OnMission feature story.

And take a look at the Acts 1:8 Challenge site.

Adopt An Annuitant

I learned about GuideStone Financial Resources via an article at the back of our church bulletin yesterday. Paul encouraged the Galatian believers to do something with their faith - to worship with their actions throughout the week as well as with their hearts and voices on Sunday. This organization's Adopt An Annuitant ministry allows you to make a positive impact for retired ministers and their widows.

Taken from The GuideStone website:
In 1918, the Board of Ministerial Relief and Annuities was born of a vision in the heart of Dr. William Lunsford. Burdened by the plight of retired Southern Baptist pastors and their widows, Dr. Lunsford sought to provide care for his brethren and their widows in their declining years. Decades later, GuideStone Financial Resources continues its commitment to Dr. Lunsford’s vision and to those who have labored in the Lord’s work by offering an array of personal investment, retirement, life, health, and disability plan option. But the realization of Dr. Lunsford’s dream is seen most clearly in the Adopt An Annuitant ministry.

Through the Adopt An Annuitant ministry, GuideStone provides financial assistance to retired Southern Baptist ministers, workers or their widows whose regular income is insufficient to meet their needs. Often, this small monthly income makes the difference in paying the electric bill or obtaining needed medications. The Adopt An Annuitant ministry relies on the support of churches and individuals to provide this vital assistance.

You can participate in this ministry by sending a gift, funding a Charitable Gift Annuity, designating the ministry as the beneficiary of your life insurance, will or estate plan, or requesting materials to share with others.

Get Service

If you've never been to SermonSpice.com, it is worth the visit. It is a for profit site that sales video clips that can be used in church services or at Bible study type events. There are a bunch of Mother's Day items available right now; some that are sappy and sentimental, and some that are just funny or thought provoking.

I have a bunch of favorites:
MeChurch - depicts a church that tries to bend over backwards to meet everyones needs.
Evangelism Linebacker-linebacker goes around tackling people who are not sharing their faith.
It's All About Me - worship singer sings selfish praise songs to himself.

Tonight, I found one that was profound. It has some Matrix or 6th Sense qualities to it. It is called Get Service, and it makes you wonder how different your response to the world would be if you really understood the needs of others.

What's In Your Offering Plate?

The topic of stewardship has been interesting to me over the past few years because a few years ago I learned that my long-held notion of stewardship was only partially right. In the past, as soon as someone said "stewardship" I immediately tuned out because I knew that they were talking about giving money, and I felt I already knew what I needed to know about that. Well come to find out, there is so much more to stewardship than the offering of money.
Likewise, there is much more to giving an offering to God than just putting money in the plate. Psalms 27:6 gives one example of this: ...I will offer sacrifices in His tent with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the Lord.
The Lord counts our praises as an offering as well. So, as you receive a blessing from God, voice your pleasure and thank Him sincerely.
Also, as you are singing hymns of praise and worship to God at church, remember that you are not just singing a song to set the mood for your worship or for your enjoyment/entertainment. Remember that you are offering Him your shouts of joy and singing as a sacrifice because your Creator is so deserving of the praise.

National Day of Prayer - GFBC Event

Garrett FBC will be holding a National Day of Prayer evening prayer event tonight at 7pm. The primary focus of the National Day of Prayer is for praying Christians to unite to petition God on behalf of our leaders and those who are in authority over us, as we are instructed to do in 1 Timothy 2:1-2: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."
As you humbly come before the Lord and seek His face, please pray that these men and women will be granted divine wisdom, guidance and strength to fulfill their important roles.
For a better understanding of what the National Day of Prayer organization would have you pray, take a look at What To Pray.
Pay particular attention to THE FREEDOM FIVE just passed the midway point of the page.

The 3 Young Trees Parable

The following story was taken from the daily devotional page at Persecution.com, which is the website for The Voice of the Martyrs which is an interdenominational organization working with Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. They have over 30 offices around the world with staff members from many different denominations, all working with the common goal of helping the suffering church.

The Parable of the Three Young Trees
In a forest one day, three young trees all agreed to pray that they would be used for some noble purpose rather than decay from old age.

The first tree wanted to become a manger where tired cattle could feed after a long day’s work. God rewarded the tree for having such modesty. It became a very special manger—the one in which the Son of God was laid.

The second tree prayed that it might become a boat. The prayer was answered, and soon its fine wood sheltered a very special passenger—the Son of God. It heard Jesus calm a fierce storm by saying, “Peace, be still.” The tree counted its life as worthwhile in order to witness such a scene.

The third tree, however, was made into a large cross to serve as an instrument of suffering. The tree was initially deeply disappointed in its fate. However, one day Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to its limbs. Strange, but the cross did not hear groaning and cursing as on other crosses. Instead it heard the Son of God offer words of love and divine forgiveness —words that opened paradise to a repentant thief.

The tree then understood that its part in the crucifixion of Jesus provided for the salvation of humankind.

Devout Non-Belief

I don't know if I was naive, ignorant, blind, shielded, deceived, non-perceptive, or just did not pay attention in the past, but until recently I always thought that people could be classified fairly easily: either they were theists (believed in a supreme being) or were atheists. And with the latter classification, I believed that the non-believers either had never really heard a believable form of theism or had heard it and rejected it. End of story.
I have recently seen more and more indications that many non-believers are not merely just non-believers. They are, in fact, ardent, devout, pious, fanatical, staunch believers of their non-belief. I have come across article after article, blog comment after blog comment, YouTube video after video, etc., of some non-believer spewing their non-belief beliefs. In a sick way, it is somewhat humorous to me to think of this spewing non-believer as being the identical twin of the Bible thumping Holy-roller that he so greatly despises. It would make a great comedic movie having some poor average Joe living in a home directly between the two.
My point is this... There is a very intelligent, highly motivated, highly dedicated, overly ardent, mobilized army of non-believers that are progressively becoming highly organized, focused and committed to their ideals and beliefs. They are not sitting back and being merely humored by "those silly Christians and their ridiculous beliefs." No. They are, frankly, quite upset with the God believing people of the world, and believe that a majority of the world's problems have either been created or have been perpetuated by God-believers.
There are multiple concerns that could be discussed regarding the organization of non-believers, but I want to address 2:

1.) With organization comes political persuasiveness.
2) The non-belief promotional information seems to multiply daily in mass and in creativity.

Regarding #1, take a look at FFRF which is The Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. The FFRF is an educational group working for the separation of state and church. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to non-theism. This is one organization and one website among a multitude of similar ones. It is nearly impossible to Google a religious type keyword without getting hits by one of these type sites. More importantly, the organizations and sites, for the most part, are not fly-by-night type ventures. They are well thought out, well articulated and highly persuasive.
To understand what I'm sharing regarding #2, take a look at a site like GodTube.com and read the comments that follow some of the content. You will find comments from people who are ranting regarding their agenda of non-belief, and often the comments have very little or nothing to do with the content of the video. Or, go to a site like YouTube, and search for Christianity content. You will find, again, very well thought out, well articulated, highly persuasive and extremely creative God-belief bashing.
It would appear that, in a world desperately in need of a Saviour, the pathway to the Way, the Truth and the Light is becoming increasingly harder to perceive.
So, if you, as a Christian, believe that you are serving God to your fullest by attending church services on Sunday mornings, praying on occassion and reading some scripture, maybe you could learn something about living an active life of belief by studying the life of some of these flag-waving non-believers. Just a thought.

Camp Nathanael

My wife, Debi, and I took part in a "Couples Retreat" at Camp Nathanael in Knott County, KY this weekend. It was an excellent experience for us, and will likely be an event that we will look back on years from now and say, "That really made a positive impact on our relationship." This event takes place annually, and is held the last weekend of April. If I remember correctly, this was the 16th such event held here. Our cousins Tim and Kim, who invited us to attend, have been to the retreat 13 different times, and plan on returning as many more as the Lord will allow.
The retreat was remarkable for many reasons: excellent speaker, thought provoking knee slapping skits, excellent subject matter, excellent food, calming environment, fun activities, excellent food, great accommodations, lots of laughter, great worship music, great staff, great fellow retreaters, and did I mention excellent food?
I highly recommend that all couples consider attending this event next year. Further, I recommend that you go to the Camp Nathanael website, and learn more about this amazing place that has been performing an amazing ministry for 75 years now. They have events going on year round for all age groups. I will be creating more posts in the future regarding events.

Purpose Driven Life in Neutral?

Anyone who has experienced 40 days walking through the Purpose Driven Life book of Rick Warren's may be able to tell you what their purpose in life is. Hopefully so.
However, based upon postings on sites such as YouTube.com, and the like, one of the major turn offs that the unchurched world has with the churched world is that the vast majority of the churched world really doesn't have a very firm grasp of what their purpose is, what they believe and why. There are multiple individuals that I've seen on YouTube.com, who submit, on a regular basis, video discussions in which they rip to shreds an individual Christian's beliefs utilizing passages from a book that the Christian was not real clear on.....The Bible. These non-believers' biblical knowledge blew the Christian's knowledge away, and the non-believers were able to expose the Christian's lack of knowledge and lack of conviction. The non-believers sum up their videos with "the moral to this story is: Christianity is bonkers because it's followers have no clue what they believe."
This is unsettling to me on so many different levels. However, tonight I have spent some time reviewing short-clip documentary type videos created by a group of Christ followers at a site called Highway Video. (Look in the "Classics" section.) A majority of the 2-7 minute clips were simple roving reporter type films in which a guy with a mic would stop people on the street and ask various questions. Among the questions were: Do you pray?, What happens when you die?, What does it mean to be a Christian?, Is it always okay for 2 consenting adults to have sex?, Are people evil?, Why don't people go to church?, and How do you connect with God? The one that compelled me to create this post was, "What is your calling?"
The answers that were given to this simple question made me realize that humans, regardless whether they are of faith or not, really don't spend much of their time investing in meaningful soul searching pursuits. We are so caught up in the temporal issues that we are unable to even give hardly a moment of pause to something that would seem so vastly more important, such as "Why are you here? What is your purpose?"
Now most of us think that we know what our purpose is, but take this test: Write or record your purpose in five minutes or less. A majority of the people polled in the video, when initially approached with the question, "Do you have a calling?", the answer was absolutely "YES", but when questioned further with, "What is your calling?", these same folks obviously had never really given it any thought before or had become so far removed from their calling, they couldn't remember what it was.
In addition to non-believers not knowing their purpose, they also demonstrated a very poor understanding of what they did believe when it came to things such as life after death, morals, prayer, or the existense of a Creator. A majority of the answers sounded something like this, "I've never really thought about it all that much."
Now for the point. If Christianity is bonkers because a certain number of its believers are not fully clear on what they believe and why, then Non-belief is bonkers for the same reason. In reality, it would serve us all to spend some meaningful time understanding why we believe what we believe and having a clear understanding of what our individual purposes are.
If you would like to start today, here is a good starting point: The Purpose Driven Life.

The Church You Know

I have recently discovered a website created by two guys who say they want to "see the body of Christ (i.e., the Church) transformed into a greater likeness of Christ. We love the Church. We are a part of the Church – not above it, not outside of it. All followers of Christ are on this journey together – a journey that starts with Christ, and remains in Him eternally."
At their website are multiple short video clips that remind you of a public service announcement. The clips are humorous, but also are quite thought provoking. The message of the clips appears to be less about humor, and more about making the point that to be in a relationship with Christ requires some effort on your own part. This could be said in regards to any type of relationship, I suppose.
Again, the clips are humorous and thought-provoking; however, they are definitely not for everybody. Some people will watch them and get their shins bruised. Some people will watch them and feel that certain clips are overly silly for such a serious topic. And some people will watch them and feel that they are being out right disrespectful.
I could see all three of these different peoples viewpoints as having merit. However, the value that I see that these guys' ministry provides is a fresh perspective. These two guys are church going guys who love and serve God. They are stepping outside of their Christian shoes for a moment and are asking, "Are we being relevant? What is the unchurched world seeing when they see us? Are we being Christ-like, or are we being driven by tradition or the desire to please self."
Although you and I may not agree with their type of humor, if we truly want to reach the people that we are not reaching, then we may want to ask got to radically examine us, and to reveal to us the ways in which he wants us to serve Him.

Take a look at www.thechurchyouknow.com and let me know what you think.