Oh, San Diego... land of somewhat less pleasant customer service, somewhat higher prices and difficult to find coffee shops... the place where I grew up and so the scene of both my best and worst memories.
Oh, San Diego... land of somewhat less pleasant customer service, somewhat higher prices and difficult to find coffee shops... the place where I grew up and so the scene of both my best and worst memories.
I think God and I are having a "moment."
"'For the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.'”
As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?
God disciplines us for our own good. Check.
Out of love. Check.
And that looks like...?
What I didn't want to say was "crappy circumstances=God's discipline." That's an equation that's just too easy to abuse. The fact is, crap happens to the just and the unjust, as it were.
But...
If it's not circumstantial, what is it? A guilty conscience (sorry... "convicted")? A sense of God's distance or some other kind of feeling? What does it look like when God lays down the smack in your life?
So I started asking- God show me. Help me understand.
Long and the short of it is, it's been a crappy week.
I'm not ready to make any conclusions yet, but the loss, the "taking away" that's happened over the last week has been pretty noticeable. My health, my wallet, the work of my hands, relationships... all of it has been affected. I won't detail it all, but it's cost me a lot of time, effort, money and brain cycles.
In the midst of this whole thing, God has been speaking to me. Last week, as I sat out on the porch (taking the day off due to nausea and throwing up the night before) I began to hear from God about growing up in my faith- about not being the kind of guy who cuts corners in the least, about a more mature, more straight approach to God, to others and to life. There are more specifics, but those are between me and Him, at least for now.
And still I'm not sure... God speaking to me, God laying His hand on my life, God pushing me to grow up?
Sounds like what discipline is for.
And this sure feels like "discipline."
I guess I'm getting an answer- the only question left is...
Will I listen?
Maybe I should just start each new blog post with "Sorry I haven't been blogging more"?
Worship pastor/recording artist and good friend Paul Ramey has had his album picked up for national distribution by Word/Warner Entertainment! It's a fantastic album and is set to be released May 5th.
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"The gospel is not simply about meeting people's needs. The gospel is also a critique of our needs, an attempt to give us needs worth having. The Bible appears to have little interest in so many of the needs and desires that consume present-day North Americans. Therefore, pastoral care will be about much more than meeting people's needs. It will also be about indoctrination, inculturation, which is also- from the peculiar viewpoint of the gospel- care. Our care must form people into the sort of people who have had their needs rearranged in the light of Christ."
I said here that video venues threatened the gift of preaching.
Got to see this tonight from a Dutch singer. We start the Gospel of John this next week- made me think very much of that...
I'm in Maryland at the Ecclesia Network National Gathering with David Fitch (with whom I am having a free-ranging, continuing argument about Tim Keller!), Jr Woodward, Todd Hiestand, John Chandler and others. We're in the pre-conference time, talking about the future of the Network, how it can resource church planters and church planting. Evergreen is not "officially" a part of this network, but they are courting us :), and honestly, I think this is our tribe. Ecclesia is Gospel-centered, missionally minded, theologically centrist and relationship focused. Some have described it as a less anal-retentive version of Acts 29 :) They wanted me here and were actually generous enough to fly me out here, so here I am!
2.00 – 3.45 - “Engaging: Missionary Strategies Then & Now” - Eddie Gibbs, Mike Breen
3.45 – 4.00 - Stretch Break
4.00 – 5.30 - “Organizing: Structures for Incarnational Church” - Breen
5.30 – 6.45 - Dinner
7.00 – 8.30 - “Challenges: Barriers to Mission in the Western Context” - Gibbs, Breen
In the next couple of days we'll also be hearing from Darrell Guder and Jon Tyson.
More in a bit...
Lots of disequilibrium right now- more like whiplash, actually.
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