like a fire

I am really lame. To start with, the first app I downloaded to my iPhone was the lightsaber. Not particularly useful, but impressive. Proof in the pudding is that when people see it, they don’t care about all the other really cool things it can do.

So here I am one afternoon entertaining my girls with the lightsaber app and Jane asks what it is. After a brief description followed by doe eyes from Jane, I can tell she doesn’t get it. So we watch some Star Wars. I edit some of it through fast forward, but she is enamored. Anytime I need a buddy to watch Star Wars, she is in.

So what’s better that Star Wars with your daughter? THIS!

Nothing says I love you like chocolate carbonite.

I just started a new teaching series at my church based on some of John Eldredge’s teachings called Becoming Fully Alive. I would call it Waking the Dead, but there were some objections on our team about endorsing a book that heavily. Anyway, I taught the first night last night and thought it turned out pretty well. It is here, if you want more details.

This last month has been pretty hectic. I have been cranking out all the promotional stuff for the church’s new service and a lot of smaller events, like this one (pictured here). I have also been trying to plan the rest of the year for youth ministry stuff and discipleship stuff (my new responsibilities in the church).

This last Saturday, I was in the midst of detailing the context for the youth teaching series (transformers) and just was completely unisnpired by any teaching that came up. I thought that most of it was good, but I just wasn’t inspired by any of it. At that point I knew that I had allowed some bad habits to resurface. I hadn’t been spending the time I needed with God, I hadn’t been praying, hadn’t been reading my Bible for anything other than lesson prep. Basically, I had checked out of my relationship from God. Not a great thing for the average person, even worse for a pastor.

I don’t know why, but for some reason it is very easy for me to get distracted. Almost everyone I know is as busy as they can get, most of the time. I am definitely like that. At the same time, I know the value of checking out of busy-ness and checking into God. I had a great time with God this morning. Hope I keep it up and stay focused.

I start my first teaching series for the church as a whole this Wednesday. It is some of the themes from John Eldredge’s Waking the Dead and some of my own thoughts mixed in as well. I really like what Eldredge says about the heart and what he points to in the Bible about the heart.

I wonder sometimes that I never saw it myself. It really is apparent that God wants us to have full lives. That’s not very surprising. The surprising thing is that He wants to do it through our hearts. I grew up in the church very suspicious of my heart. It was the source of all those things that were bad in my life (like emotions). The Bible shows something fairly contrary to that, though. Hopefully, I’ll post more about it as I prepare for the lessons.

I have read this book recently and have been amazed by it. On the one hand, the pictures of the Trinity, our path of redemption and the amazing beauty portrayed in the book are overwhelming. On the other hand, the controversy surrounding it is baffling and maybe more interesting than the book itself.

I read the book without trying to break it down theologically. I just read it to experience it. It didn’t hit any of my alarms, which might be a miracle, sense I am pretty critical. Having reflected on it, there are things that I wonder about. For example, there is no mention of Satan. The idea of punishment leads me to believe that, if the book were true, that God never punishes. Yet we have examples all through the Bible, from the flood to God hardening Pharoah’s heart. So while I do see some things I question, I didn’t have any worries about recommending it to others (which I apparently don’t need to do since so many are already reading it).

What I wasn’t expecting was the adamant reaction of others to the book. I have heard claims tat it is anti-church, universalistic, anti-heirarchical, and monarchianistic. I really didn’t think that this book would shake so many trees.

So having thought through the book have decided to read it through again with my magnifier out. I can’t promise that I will see ay more in it than before, but I am going to give it a shot, just to dignify a response to some of the criticism.

I would say that I read the book first as a… book. That is to say, not the Bible or a theological treatise. I kind of hate to ruin it as a book because others want to try to make it something it doesn’t claim to be, but for unity’s sake, here I go.