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It’s no longer safe to sunbathe or snatch your morning paper in your skivvies. Google Earth is watching you…
This is hysterical.
I’m still enjoying John Ortberg’s book, God Is Closer than You Think, and was intrigued and moved by a simple page turn this morning. Isn’t life like that? One moment you see words on a page, black on white. You’re enjoying a book or article and moving right along.
The next moment… your breath is taken away. A simple page turn. More black on white. But what you read there opens your eyes, catches your heart, and engages you with a world larger than you, a book, a cup of coffee and Fox News in the background.
Truth. Beauty. Loveliness. Marvel. Wonder.
What do you see?
When we see beauty that overwhelms us; when we see acts of compassion that make us choke up; when we feel longing so deep and sweet that everything in our life recedes; when the turn of a phrase or a bar of music catches us off guard and takes our breath away - then perhaps it is something more than just an aesthetic experience,” according to Ortberg.
Perhaps that’s why I love Christmas movies so much. ABC Family advertised last night their “25 Days of Christmas” - meaning 25 days of some-cheesy, some-cheering Christmas shows. I’m all over it. You never know when you’re watching a Christmas movie at what point your eyes are replaced by your heart.
It happens in a moment. You were seeing actors, scenes, and snow. Then with explosive force your heart leaps, your eyes wet, your throat constricts. Something larger has happened. You have been engaged.
It’s my thought this morning that every moment of life contains the possibility of brushing beauty onto the canvas of your experience. One thing… you can’t paint on a moving canvas.
Ortberg says that in order to experience abundance, we must “refuse to give in to a pace of life that reduces His handiwork to a blur.”
In other words, slow down. Look up. Look around. Breathe.
What do you see?
What would you like to see?
Here are 10 OS X apps that you might not know about but probably should. With literally thousands of apps out there begging for your attention, this article should help weed through some of the clutter.
read more | digg story
I must refrain from all the Nutt-Dick jokes that come to mind as I write this entry. With Coach Houston Nutt demanding that Casey Dick start for the Razorbacks in the last four games, I just have to call it like I see it… nuts! After undefeated starts from the #1 QB recruit in the nation, Houston promptly benched Mitch Mustain in favor of Dick. Saying that he “saw something” in Dick’s play that wasn’t present with Mustain’s, Arkansas cruised to back-to-back victories over South Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi State.
For all those who think I’m crazy, I offer to you the real reasons for the last three wins: 2 Big D’s.
Plain and simple.
The quarterback position is a mystical, magical leadership role that inspires a team. Casey ain’t even got a wand. The Hogs’ loss to LSU was a dismal performance from under center, and yet Houston stuck with Dick the entire game. Earlier, he had said that he would go with “whoever got the job done.” Well, it tweren’t Dick.
The Razorbacks, I’ll certainly proclaim, have been a stellar team this year. Too bad they haven’t had a stellar coach. With profound talent on both sides of the ball, Nutt has found ways to NOT lose this year time and again. Saturday’s loss to LSU was not really an LSU victory. It was Nutt’s Christmas gift to the Tigers.
Let’s hope he goes to get a real job next year so that the Hogs can move on and move up.
By the way, I ain’t crazy.
Over at the thinkerup blog, a quote from Francis Schaeffer was posted that caused provocative ponderings that I’d propose you peruse as well…
“The liberal theologians in their stress on community speak and act as though we become Christians when we enter the horizontal relationship of community. But this is totally the wrong starting-point. If this were so, Christianity would have no more final value than the humanistic community.”
–Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century, 1970
Perhaps one reason my cerebellum was significantly stunned by this sentence is simply because of my own spiritual surroundings.
You see, Journey Church is all about community. We sincerely seek to include rather than exclude. We want to allow people to belong before they believe. Many other churches are the exact opposite in their approach, demanding adherence or profession of a “faith” that many times is verbal only.
That doesn’t mean that we allow folks without a loyalty and belief in Jesus Christ as Lord to serve in positions of spiritual leadership. It does mean that we welcome the sincere contributions of anyone, regardless of where they are in their own spiritual journey. If someone wants to help with a service project, go on a mission trip, organize an event, etc., and they’re not members, then that’s fine and dandy. We sincerely feel that the glorious nature and Christ-DNA of a committed disciple (especially a community of committed disciples) will be a witness and aroma of life to a person who is earnestly seeking God. In reality, there is no such thing as a human seeker of God.
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3.10-12
Yet in a seeming paradox, scripture also affirms that when God begins to call a person, they begin to seek Him. Consider these two verses;
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6.44
For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11.10
Only community that is founded upon the life-altering search of a Creator for humanity is true community. All the church’s best attempts at gathering a crowd or creating a movement will fall flat if based upon warm fuzzies, blurry theology, and worship “preferences.”
I affirm with Schaeffer that there is danger of emphasizing community. There are too many new churches, parachurch agencies, and loosely-organized “Christian” movements in our midst today that are creating belonging and never encouraging believing. However, I also affirm that it’s essential that we allow people to belong to and experience the joy of authentic Christian community prior to their heart and mental allegiance to Christ. It is in the midst of love that Christ walks again.
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4.12
The gathering of believers that is Christ-centered and saturated will intentionally and then unconsciously love each other and its neighbors. It will not only witness but experience the transforming power of Christ drawing “seekers” from the periphery to the center.
How is your community doing? Is it more horizontal or more vertical?
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