like a fire

Would you rather have a voice or be in control? It was the fourth time I had heard it asked… in succession. Each time before, I would dissimilate. Well, I want to have a voice but I want to be heard. I want to be in control, because I have been hurt and want to wall myself off to prevent that. After the fourth time, I was laughing, nervously and very uncomfortable.

I would rather have a voice, after all, since I can’t really be in control and even if I could, I would just screw it up. That means choosing to take a chance though. Do I let down my guard, put my voice out there and risk rejection, or criticism, or well, use your imagination? If I don’t, it means not really showing up at all and giving people a chance to like me.

So here I am in the car driving through O-town traffic on Alafaya Dr listening to Mute Math. Well, actually belting it like a barbarian celt from some ancient time. I stop at the red light and, of course, continue my vocal purge of my counseling session. What a great song.

Move me up through the darkest clouds
Till I’ve lost in the sun every shadow of doubt
There is no better find than to find myself with you
In a fog you are all I see
I’m inviting you closer with each time I breathe
Surrender has somehow become so beautiful

Yeah, that’s a great feeling/thought. In my head I’m thinking, “is that true?” “am I there?” “could I do that?” Then I look over beside me. I look to the people in the car next to me with a slight smirk and the look of ‘you’re busted’. I almost got embarassed but then I thought, “hey, this is my voice, my car, and I don’t really care if the people next to me see it.” And because I am the person who I am, I look them dead in the eye and keep singing. To my surprise, and possible fooling of myself, I catch a glimmer of “good for you” from the person next to me.

Surrender is definitely beautiful but it is really hard too. It’s hard for me to put myself out there knowing that I am going to get hurt for it. The other option, though, is to be hurt for never being known. Not a great choice to make. Or an easy one. Here’s to giving it a try.

It’s not myspace it’s His space, is the tagline for this new social networking site. This site offers connections to thousands of other Christians who “share your likes and interests”. The look and feel of the site is much like myspace without the racy dating ads and you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Having said this, and even acknowledging that I would rather have teens on this site than myspace, I really doubt that it will make it. I could say that mysapce is just too far intrenched in the lives of teens now or that this trend is already starting to lose interest in many teens, but that wouldn;t be the reason I think it won’t stick.

There is just something about sanitized life that most people find repulsive and contrived. Most people, not just teens, won’t opt for a sanitized version of anything for the simply reason that they want to be out where everybody is. Call it herd mentality if you want, but very few people are actually capable and wanting to be out there on their own. And that is what they will be with this site. Maybe they can get some of their friends to sign up with them, but the rest of the school will use myspace and they will be segregating themselves from that.

And that is what Christians do best sometimes to our own shame. We segregate ourselves and leave people behind. Time will tell I guess. Thanks to Justin for the heads up

OK, I have been on vacation for this week and will be for next week so all my blogging will be strictly for fun. What I mean by vacation, btw, is sitting at home being sick instead of work. So I got an email from Chris Fane who is starting a new blog that is fast becoming a favorite of mine. It’s all youth stuff and helpful articles about that.

His site though is really cool. Basically it is a windows desktop. On that site I came acros this list of Chuck Norris hits. If you like him or play WOW then here is hopefully some new material.

Chuck Norris Facts

1. Guns don’t kill people. Chuck Norris kills People.
2. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
3. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
4. Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. Ever.
5. The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.
6. There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ Beard. There is only another fist.
7. Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.
8. The leading causes of death in the United States are: 1. Heart Disease 2. Chuck Norris 3. Cancer
9. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death.
10. Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.
11. Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
12. When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
13. A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
14. Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”
15. Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.
16. Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
17. Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
18. Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.
19. Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoloy card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.
20. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of “beard”. Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus’ obvious gift favouritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related death.

Thanks Chris, hope your feeling better.

My thinking in process ministry was recently challenged by, of all people, my wife. She didn’t so much say that I was full of beans, but impressed the need on it being Biblically based. She then gave me a bunch of scripture to help illustrate it. I’ glad I married up. So she is definitely a co-author now.

Discipleship is something I have realigned my thinking on even before process ministry came along. I just have a problem with labels. Don’t call something it’s not. If your discipleship is really only Bible study, then it isn’t discipleship, just like if your prayer breakfast means you ask God to bless the food before you eat, then it isn’t much of a prayer breakfast. Just be honest and say, this isn’t really a prayer breakfast or discipleship, It’s really just a group a people getting together to eat or a platform for me to teach you some Bible.

So what is discipleship according to Paul? Well it can include Bible study, but it can’t be limited to that. I look at Jesus’ and his disciples. He didn’t lug around a cart for carrying the Bible and teach directly out of that. Instead he lived his life around them and had many teachable moments. It included what the Bible said, but it went far beyond just what it said. It was lifecoaching at its best. It was a look at what discipleship should be. It wasn’t just teachings, it was finding the meaning behind the teachings and showing how we respond to that meaning.

Discipleship is more application of truth than teaching it.

Add Cathy’s idea of process ministry to that and it starts looking a lot more like Jesus. What did Jesus tell Peter and Andrew when he called them?

Jesus called out to them, “Come, be my disciples, and I will show you how to fish for people!” Mt. 4:9 (NLT)

He didn’t say, “come with me and you will catch fish. Or men.”

He referred to a process of learning how to live in the calling that focuses on what you do, not the results you get.

There was no goal other than doing what you’re called to do.

The goal was to be faithful in your calling. Jesus didn’t say that Peter should reach about so many people at pentecost and that they would then reach so many people until we get where we are now. He said that he would show him how to live according to his calling as a disciple.

That is what process discipleship aims at. Help people find their calling and show them how to do it. Encourage them to live outside of narrow goals that go beyond anything we can control in our own calling - like bringing people to Christ. Only God can do that. We should just be faithful in calling and let God do what he does.

More later on what that looks like.

BBC NEWS | Business | Sony delays PlayStation 3 launch It’s no big shock that Sony just announced the delay of the PS3 (at least to me). This game has been surrounded by the cloud of Microsft since the PS2’s demise from Xbox’s many pronged attack. Just like it’s predecessor, Ninetendo, Sony will now have a lot of ground to make up when it does launch it’s console. Why do you care, or I care? Well, actually I don’t much. But it is interesting to see Microsoft actually beat someone out through strategic placement of a product. Especially after my last article’s gist.

What illustrations of the church can be drawn from Sony’s failure? Don’t make promises you have no intention of keeping just to keep up with the competition. Right.

- Don’t say that church will be just as fun as playing video games, or a concert, or a night at Mardi Gras, unless you have the where-with-all to actually be better.

- Don’t promise people that there lives will be nothing but peaches and cream from the time they ask Jesus into their heart.

- Don’t try to be better than everything else, just for the ske of being better.

The church is emptying out from the broken promises of the church trying to be something it isn’t. We don’t have seeker sensitive services anymore, we have leaver sensitive services, because so many have left the church of what’s happening now. It’s empty.

Better than all the don’t’s is the idea of the do’s.

- Do try to meet people where they are for the sake of bringing them to a deeper life of faith.

- Do spend lots of time talking to them and praying for them.

- Do have fun together.

- Do join in the process of seeing a king rule His Kingdom.

What happens when the church takes its call seriously? Find out.