david crowder

so i'm reading crowder's book praise habit and i'm listening to his music and i'm thinking this guy is pretty cool. i really enjoy the way he writes. his book is sort of a postmodernish devotional biographical walk through the psalms and through his own thoughts of God. its not exactly absorbing but its very well written in its own way and it sort of has some blue like jazz light bulb moments that really make you think. there are also moments that really make you laugh. out loud. and i really have started to like the david crowder band cd illuminate. he has a very meaningful "all creatures of our God and King". and he does good things with many of his other songs. he works tons of different sounds in without seeming fake. his worship songs are actually worshipful. and i like the fact that his cd is more of an experience rather than a disjointed effort. anybody have any comments on david crowder? just like to know what you think...

Katrina Katrina

Kissing the forbidden fruit
And bowing to the grave, man was
Thrust into the futile struggle with the
Raging anarchy of this cursed earth. Hiding
In the bushes, bodies and souls
Naked,
Adam's children feel the brokenhearted Creator again

Killing his darlings.
And bowing to His mercy, I am
Thrust into a relentless grace that the
Raging anarchy of this cursed earth cannot destroy. Hiding
In His Son, body and soul no longer
Naked. I,
Adam's son, find undeserved, eternal safety.

house party

my wife and i went to the house party concert in charlotte on saturday. we enjoyed it.
joy williams was there; she was okay. nothing outstanding. kinda fake it seemed, but whatever.
building 429; they sing "glory defined". they were pretty good. they seemed to really enjoy themselves. i talked to them afterwards- they came in and sat behind us- they're pretty cool guys. i didn't really feel any cooler after talking to them, though. i was waiting for it, but nothing. oh well.
chris rice; he's looking pretty old.
nicole c. mullen; she made me very white. she was awesome. very powerful and energetic. even if you don't enjoy her style of music, you would probably really like her in concert.
jars of clay were really good. but i'm a fan, so take it for what it's worth. the lead singer writes for relevant magazine. very cool guy. they sang a bunch of songs from their redemption songs cd. very cool.
michael w smith finished it off. he was good, i guess. never been that big of a fan. but he was good. that's all i have to say about that. blessings

no idea what i'm going to say...

so i'm teaching drama among other things this year at the academy. and for our fall play, we're going to do the ugly duckling, which is a pretty good play for this class, because they lack experience but not enthusiasm. i'm pretty sure our cast is not what old mr. milne imagined when he dreamed up this piece of fluff. but they're pretty effective anyhow.
we're making over the church's old auditorium into a makeshift theatre. good times there. our drama budget is exactly nothing which has actually enhanced the learning experience.
if you're familiar with the play you might remember the part where the prince describes his journey over the moat and into the castle. well, we're actually going to show that. the moat will be the baptistry. stay with me here. i'm not sure if that's a unique thing to do; i've never seen the play performed. but it will definetely be unique the way we do it. our king is a blustering little ninth-grader who is visibly afraid of his queen. the prince is played as an unaware romantic. our ugly princess is a sweetheart. dulcibella is played by an over-the-top drama queen. carlo is played with flamboyance and a mullet. and the chancellor is a girl. good times had by all. blessings.

so it's been a little while

but i'm back.

an introduction...

here's the introduction to a message i preached in "big church" last night. i planned it so three of my youth group students would stand up and "object" at the beginning of my introduction. so we kind of worked in a little readers theatre. what do you think?

Read Genesis 3:1-10


Introduction

Me I love this story because every time I read it, I am reminded that even though God is huge and powerful, He is willing to use us to accomplish His mission. And we can see how awesome and dangerous it is to serve God. He has called us to…

1 I object.

Me What?

1 I object.

Me This isn’t a courtroom, you can’t just object. I’m trying to preach. Nobody ever takes me seriously.

2 I object, too.

Me Sit down.

2 No, I’m objecting.

3 So am I.

Me Ok… lets get this over with. What are your objections?

1 I don’t think it’s dangerous at all.

2 Me neither.

3 Yeah, me neither.

Me You don’t think what’s dangerous?

1 Serving God.

2 Yeah, it’s a piece of cake.

3 Yeah, cake.

Me Why do you say that?

1 Because there’s nothing to it.

2 Yeah, what do you have to do? Go to church? Say the right stuff. Own a few Bibles, read the Left Behind books, it’s really pretty easy.

3 I don’t even think pastors have it that rough. Most of them make enough money, they have pretty nice houses and cars. People like to give them stuff. I don’t know… I don’t really see the danger.

1 I know it’s easy for me. I mean, I have to read the Bible and pray for a little while, and I always give ten percent of my money to the church, but other than that, I mean, what’s there to do?

2 And sure there have been days when I kind of didn’t do my devotions and I didn’t really talk to God, but its not like He struck me with lightning or something. I mean I didn’t even realize that I missed them. Or Him.

Me So you’re saying if you didn’t talk to God that you wouldn’t miss Him?

2 Well, no. I guess after a while, I would probably miss Him.

3 Yeah, after a while.

1 But honestly, there are weeks when I really don’t even think about Him.

Me So you’re saying that usually you don’t really need Him.

1 I guess so, I mean that sounds really bad, but I don’t really ever see most Christians I know actually relying on God. I don’t know.

2 Yeah, me neither. Because you hear stuff like, God being the “air that we breathe” and “our all in all”, and it sounds really cool and emotional, but I don’t really see that in real life.

3 And I can’t think of many Christians that really act like God is their all in all. I mean that’s pretty dramatic.

1 So I guess what we’re saying is most Christians we know don’t really act like they need God. Like God has called them to do something dangerous.

2 Yeah, so honestly, I don’t really see the point in talking about a dangerous God,

3 Even if He did call us to do something dangerous, I don’t think we would have time, because I think our lives are really too full of things that we like better than God.

1 Like eating, and making money.

2 And shopping, buying what we want, when we want to.

3 And talking on our cell phones.

1 And watching tv.

2 And being comfortable.

3 Yeah, we’re getting really good at being comfortable, and we’re only teenagers.

1 Yeah, we’re gonna be the most comfortable generation ever.

2 You know, I kind of like the way we do Christianity.

3 Me too, so go ahead and preach Mr. Rahn.

1 But while you’re preaching, I’m gonna sit in my comfortable pew, wearing my comfortable clothes, and be thankful for my safe, comfortable relationship with God.


Wow, that almost sounded rehearsed. Like we meant to do that or something. And maybe the girls were exaggerating. Maybe we don’t worship comfort in America more than we worship Christ. But when I look around at most American Christians and I look my own life most of the time, I am compelled to agree with these teenagers. We are living our lives in tribute to comfort. We have surrounded ourselves with the nicest things that we can buy, whenever we have the urge, we go get a cappuccino from Starbucks or a blizzard from Dairy Queen. We buy new clothes or tools or games or books or DVDs because they’re on sale. We redecorate rooms because they need a facelift. We spit out short, choppy prayers when we feel needy or hurt. We argue about whether we should tithe on our net income or our gross income. We set up a twenty-minute appointment with God every day like He’s our therapist or something. Like maybe He’s going to bill us for each session we have with Him. And then we rush to work so we can make money and then use that money to buy more comfort, and then rinse and repeat. And that’s us in a nutshell. We have reduced our relationship with God to talking to Him a little, reading our Bible every once in awhile, going to church and giving money, and that’s about it. And I’m not sure we always do even those things because we want to serve God. Maybe sometimes we are just trying to feel good about ourselves. Maybe we’re just trying to feel comfortable. And occasionally we will mix into our Christianity a whole list of stuff that we don’t do. We don’t go to certain places, watch certain movies, listen to certain music, wear certain clothes, talk to certain people, and the list goes on. And it’s not a bad list; it is very good to have certain things that we don’t do. But what is it that we are doing? God hasn’t separated us from something so much as He has separated us to something.

Experiencing and enjoying God is not found in a life of temporary satisfaction or comfort. Nor is it just found in a life of moral restraint. Instead, it is found in a life of action. Once we step out and do something for God, this is where the fulfillment comes. After God calls us to do something dangerous, and we get off of our couch, we shake loose of our inhibitions and we follow him into places where the only map is in His mind and the only comfort is in His arms. This is true Christianity.

But why do we trade true Christianity for what one author calls the “middle class gospel”? We understand from Christ’s teachings that most ministry is going to be done outside of our comfort zone. He was God on a sinful earth; He never once experienced any degree of comfort while He was here. So He understood His words, “pick up your cross, and follow me…” on a level that we will never understand them. And the journey we take following Christ will undoubtedly lead us way outside of our comfort zone. So the question is, “when is the last time we did something uncomfortable or dangerous for God?”
And for some of us, it may have been quite awhile or perhaps we have never left our comfort for God. And why is that? Why is it so difficult for the typical American Christian to truly experience God?
One reason is that we have turned God’s blessing into something negative. God has richly blessed the country we live in. We experience freedom and wealth that most of the worlds citizens don’t even dare to dream of. And we soak it up and we do nothing with it.
We do not understand what it is to really need God. Now I believe that we sincerely love Him, and we might even say that we need Him. But our beliefs are not conveyed by our words but by our actions. And hardly anything about the way we act defends the idea that we need God. Many of us don’t have a list of prayers that God has answered. We can’t remember a time where we told God that if He didn’t help us we wouldn’t be able to make it. Christians all over the world serve a necessary God, and they do it naturally. They live with the constant realization that God is everything to them; without Him, they would not have food, shelter, clothes, or safety. He is their Provider. But here, the American Dream is our provider. We don’t look to God for our next meal. We don’t beg Him to keep us safe from persecution. We don’t need to pray that our pastor doesn’t get arrested, or that our families don’t get separated. We complain about overpriced doctors, when many war-torn and AIDS-ravaged places all over the world beg and pray for just one clinic, one physician, one nurse.
Imagine what we could do if we really relied on God, if we sought Him before we sought our next paycheck. If He, instead of our 401k, or our college degree, was our ultimate necessity. Imagine what we could do with the opportunities, the wealth, the freedoms that He has given us. We have been equipped by God to do wonderful, dangerous, eternity changing things. And we are taking what He has blessed us with, saying thank-you, and sitting on it. We were meant to live for so much more. Our adventure could be huge; God could use us to take what He has given us and impact the world. But instead, many times we just sit there, like a sponge, soaking up His showers of blessings.
A secular musician named Sarah McLachlan made a music video. Now most of us probably haven’t seen too many music videos, but I think we all have a general idea of what they are. But Sarah’s video is quite different. At the very beginning she explains that most music videos cost $150,000 apiece. She said this one cost the same, but only $15 was spent in actual production. And then as the video goes on, she explains where the rest of the money went. Here is just a sampling:
$200 pays for one personal assistant on the production set, or 100 Ethiopian children’s schooling for a year.
$480 pays for 10 office phones, or equips 10 Afghani schools for a year.
$5000 pays for makeup and hair for one day or it pays for one years schooling for 145 Afghani girls.
$500 pays for sound playback or for all the nuts and bolts to hold 50 houses together in Bangladesh.
$1150 pays for filming equipment, or for 5 bicycle ambulances.
$10,200 pays for 2 hours of film stock, or 6 wells in 6 different countries.
$3,500 for a production supervisor, or for schooling and support for 70 children of war in Sierra Leone.
$3,000 for catering for a one day shoot in LA, or 10,950 meals for children on the streets of Calcutta.
$5,400 of studio costs, or independence for 100 widows in Afghanistan.
$15,000 dollars of camera and art department cost, or a machine to generate power to an entire rural community.
$2,625 for an electrician for one day, or livestock and food for villages all over the world.
$15,000 of other miscellaneous costs, or one mobile medical unit in India that will treat 150,000 people in its lifetime.
$2,500 for editing, or for a year’s worth of schooling for street children in Tanzania.
$11,000 for all editing and post, or to run a street children’s hospital for a year.
$16,500 for a director, or to run an orphanage in South Africa for a year.
$7,500 for a producer, or six month’s medicine for 500 patients.
$22,500 to the production company, or a 12 room clinic for the largest slum in Kenya.

Now, maybe we don’t have $150,000. Maybe we’re not millionaires. But compared to most people in the world we might as well be. Where is our money going, where is our time going, where is our strength going. Think about what God has given us. Did He bless us with extra money so that we could spend it on new decorations for our house? From all we know about God, what makes us think that God is equipping us to splurge in a life of self-indulgence? And let’s look past just money, time and strength. Let’s think about the eternal love and grace God has given us. How are we sharing that? God has called us to love Him like He loves us. And to love others like He loves us. He has called us to minister to the outcasts, the poor, the destitute, the widows and orphans. And when we love sacrificially and when we are kind to the least of these, we are sacrificing for Christ and we are ministering to Him.
We have bought the lie that says life is about us, that the main goal of life is to enjoy it, and to be comfortable. But the Bible says the truly happy people are the ones who have forgotten and forsaken themselves. The poor in spirit, the meek, the lowly; these are the blessed people. We have decided that we must be close to God and pleasing Him with our lives because we have some money in the bank and our family is in church, and we sing in the choir or teach a Sunday School class, and we feel okay about ourselves.
The truth is that life is not about us. The Bible says we must lose ourselves for His sake. So much is said about “finding yourself” and “developing the real you”, and on and on. But satisfaction only comes when we decide that finding God is more important than finding ourselves. Indulging the wishes of an Almighty God, instead of indulging our own desires. And that is where life gets dangerous. Because God only knows what He will call us to do. But wouldn’t it be awesome to be in on God’s eternal plan. To hear Him whisper to us; words that He has wanted to say forever. How can our comfort compare to the wonder and danger of an almighty God?