Do it write.

A good blog of mine comes around only 2-3 months.  I'll tell you now.  I could write anything, write about anything.  I can tackle a passage of scripture or I can analyze a situation.  It doesn't matter.  I used to write poetry too.  That was big for me in High School.  I used to go to poetry readings at Barnes and Noble, and it was awesome because I wasn't privy to the stuff that I got into later in life like Keruac, Bukowski or E. E. Cummgs, T. S. Elliot.  I kept it real and I kept it interesting.  In that situation ignorance was truly bliss because I had no benchmark, no standard to apply myself to constantly.  It was freeing to know that I had unconditional acceptance amongst the league of crappy other authors and poets.  Occasionally, sponsored writers or guest poets would dive in trying to show us how it was all done, but they were the misfits, because we ran stuff there.  It was great.

Later I got into reading fantasy novels like the Dragonlance books.  Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman showed me the ropes, among other greats like R. A. Salvatore.  I'm sad that I can't write fantasy like I used to, I had a real knack for it.  Full exploration of verbalizing one to one combat and gut wrenching depictions of gore and injuries were my specialty.  I guess my heart left it though, I got in a little too deep with the fantasy stuff... ha!

So why do I tell you all this?  Why do I waste (possibly) my time and your time to flesh out these little glimpses of my past as a writer.  Well, I guess two things are important here:

1.  I never write unless its authentic.  By the way, a good tip for writers is this; I don't mean that if you don't feel like writing you don't write at all.  That's posing, and its undisciplined.  If you sit, write fifty paragraphs and erase them all, paragraph fifty one will be fabulous.  

2.  I can't promise to be a blogger that "regularly updates".  That's one of the tips they give you to increase blog traffic.  Sorry.  That's pressure I just can't handle.  That's something I just don't feel is write.  In as much as writing is intentional, for me it has always been familiar to the analogy of pregnancy and birth.  Writing can't be produced before its time, and something my professor said to our class the other night rang so true; taking the things you want to write about and sitting with them, letting them age.  How sublime!  That's something our culture can't understand.  In our task-obsessed, conquer and fall, done in five minutes world there's no room to let things sit, or let things age; to allow time to perform its due task.  

I could go on and I should go on, but I feel like this is enough for right now.  Keep writing, even if you're not getting it right.  Or write.  Even if no one gets it or you don't get any praise.  Hope this helps.

"Hey look, I'm just a ham and egger."

-Rocky

Living in the Garden of Delights

Here's an excerpt from the sermon my Pastor preached last Sunday.  I'm not exactly sure how to explain what a service at King's Gate is like, but I can tell you it goes something like this...

"That (Eden) is the only time in the Bible when the Kingdom of Heaven was totally manifest. It was in the Garden of Eden. God was there. His presence was there 24/7. God, Adam and Eve had constant communion with You! There was a river with four arms and the four arms, the four tributaries of this river expressed the qualities of the kingdom. It expressed flow, it expressed fruitfulness, it expressed abundance, it expressed joy. It was the garden of delights, because that expresses, that illustrates what the kingdom of heaven is like. It gives joy, there's abundance, there's authority and God says in the Kingdom, you will take authority over everything. Listen to what I'm gonna say now: When God allows chaos, its because He wants to manifest His kingdom."


Now, there's eons that I could ramble in fruitless attempts to unpack the meaning of what all of this actually says, but I want to say one basic thing, and dwell on one basic conclusion from all of this, and that is that I live in the Garden of Delights.


How  many of you reading this believe that your life is awful I wonder?  How many of you feel like your life is a nightmare rather than a dream come true?  


That's something I used to say to myself a lot.  I used to feel like my life was so bad, that it was like a nightmare, except there was no waking up, it was simply something I had to deal with.  But the truth is that I couldn't have been more wrong!  The moment that I received Christ, the moment that God imparted His Holy Spirit into my body, I became one with the God of the Universe.  Our souls collided.  There was an explosion!  And what once was sinful flesh that would be destroyed before God, was absolutely EMPOWERED with the Blood of Jesus to withstand the entrance of the Holy Spirit into my frame and AT ONCE..... 


I was in the Garden of Eden.


The Garden of Delights.


And I never want to leave.

So I think that's what it means.

Worst-Ship

Sometimes it's hard to go to church.
There are scores of reasons behind this statement.... I mean the physical aspect, ya know, maybe general fatigue.  Or maybe you're just not feeling well and need to stay in bed.  Sometimes people don't want to spend a couple of hours in sub-par seating because it runs amuck on their lower back.  To name a few.

Sometimes there are time constraints.... ya know, maybe a conflict of scheduling.  You double booked, you're cutting it close to something else going on on Sunday.  Moms? Soccer practice maybe?  Who knows, there's many issues with time and sometimes, a full 2 (or in some cases 5-8) hour block is too big of a commitment.
And it's not like we can just pop in and out; once we're in we're in.  That's it.

But here, at this last stop of church going difficulty is the most daunting of all.  Sometimes, the spiritual disconnect is so vast, the mood is so wrong, the feeling of obligation... infinite.  Sometimes, we just don't have it in us.

Sometimes we sin.
And therefore, we are not fit to go to church.
(I might get to this later.)

Let's go deeper, shall we?

Sometimes we get hurt, maimed even or so sorely disappointed at church folk, church ways, whatever it may be about those numerous rows of seats has gotten to us in a way that brings us to the point of no return.  Sometimes all hope in this setup, this prayer/worship/announcements/sermon/prayer/ditch setup has completely run dry..... we've completely run dry.
And then where do we go?  This is the House of God we were going to, not some shabby church that Joe Schmoe down the street that doesn't know as much as me goes to.  I mean, we had an awesome experience with God there, or this is some place that God moved in the past.  This is where they're speaking my language and making my moves but something about it is disconnected.  Or something about me isn't connecting like it used to.  Sometimes we come in, and we plop down on the seat, almost forced down by the heaviness that we wear over our shoulders.  And we survey the list of our most recent activities looking for the action tripped the gate of iron bars in front of our soul and kept it imprisoned.

What happened?

While I can't reiterate enough that we see in part and we will see in whole I maintain that I can't do much in explaining the spiritual reality we're touching on here.  But there is something.... and it's ruining our Sunday morning.

We have found something that we are clearly not in control of.

We've been tricked by this idea that experience dictates absolute reality.  I tend to think that it's the chief dilemma of our time.  Despite the information on the table, or what we can be absolutely sure of, a profound enough experience can trump anything we think we know.  But mentioning all this leads me to one simple concept; How much of our conclusions are experienced based, or dangerously misinformed by our experience.

What if the Bible says that you are unconditionally loved and accepted, and every day of your life up until that day has said the exact opposite.

See what I mean?

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that I have at least one person still rolling with me here by this point.
See church is funny like this... it's the great equalizer.  All people, big and small, face one direction and worship one God in the same way.  Your distinctions and features are no longer factors that can alter an outcome.  All focus is supposed to be on the King of Kings.  Maybe this is where we lose it.
All the same, worship is a unifying force.  It's the bond of all creatures to their God and King.  It's the age old tool of mortal man to reach out to His creator in expression, in sentiment, with feeling.

And worship can either key you in, or keep you out.

So know that we've outlined the problem, let us come to the solution.
No matter what church, how innovative your tradition or how unique your church model, I'll wager you do the same thing every Sunday.  In one way or another.
You walk through the doors and you know what you're getting (to an extent at least).
The spiritual disconnect comes from a method of connecting with God that is not fit for this time and place that you are currently in.  You may not need to stand there, with arms raised... you may not need to lift up a shout.  You may need to stop a while, and listen.
You may need some time to be known.
Rather than know.

Still rollin' with me?

The point is that worship becomes a system that we can bank on, or a formula to produce a desired result, I guarantee the Holy Spirit will pull the E-brake on that thing so quick your head will spin.  If that's what you want, of course.  I'll put it this way, as a kind favor to us, the Holy Spirit will not allow himself to be controlled, or manipulated.  Instead, He'll run across the room and make you chase Him.  He'll make Himself scarce until you wake up and realize your operating on just flesh and bones.

HE'LL LEAVE THE CHURCH AND TAKE YOU OUTSIDE SOMEWHERE.
Where did he go?  The street corner?  Maybe the 7-11?
One thing we know, He's moving and shaking us, and in more ways than just throwing us on the floor and making us vibrate. (as cool as that is!!!!)  What are you gonna do when you're using Times New Roman and the Holy Spirit is using Helvetica??

What if, for one Sunday, God wants you to take a break from glorifying Him? (yeah, you heard me!!!) What if he wants you to quiet down and have a seat, so He can sneak up behind your soul and tell you what's wrong (cuz I guarantee, you don't even know.) What if God has work He has to do, and He needs the Sunday morning time slot, but nooooooo, these hands need to be raised and I'll be darned if Sunday morning, I'm not looking like I'm getting my picture taken on the Great American Scream Machine!

Forgive me, I'm not making fun of worship by the way.  If you know me personally you know I'm the biggest hand raiser out there... sometimes just one hand (kinda subtle but powerful)  Sometimes both arms, biiiiiig praise!

Sometimes I just sit and cry up until the point of making a total scene in the middle of church because that's all I can do.  Because I think of the lost, the hurting, the broken and what are they worshiping?  Sometimes I think of a Christian who did me wrong, and yet here I am, in church again, at risk for getting hurt. Stupid me.

Sometimes, it's just about me and God, and where we've been and where we're going.  And that's why I go, no matter what.  Because God's got something new for me every day.  And every day He wants to show me, all I need is a fresh set of eyes.

An Ounce Of Evidence...

I rarely post stuff like this, but when I do, I believe it holds some merit.

Here's where I stand on apologetics and other scholastic endeavors of that caliber; I believe there is a call, even a requirement for the Christian (in a balanced and purely inquisitive approach) to study the finer points of his or her faith as they see fit so long as they handle such a task carefully, with respect for other viewpoints and with an ultimate submission and appeal to the truth of God's word.

You see, we can talk about our differences so long as we protect the dignity of other people, value convictions through we might not share them, and ultimately respect each other's humanity at the end of the day.  This is a peek into my own personal struggle. I have a nasty habit of thinking I'm better, or more enlightened, or more sophisticated than someone who believes that the 1611 KJV is superior to other versions.  This spite may partly exist because the KJV only assertion insists that it has an undue superiority and in the very fabric of its claim, discredits my personal practice of faith as it relates to my choice of Bible translation.  Regardless, more is demanded of me than being nice to people so long as I think they deserve it.  Anyway, check out this video which gets into some of the basic points of Bible translation.  Be careful!  You might learn something!  Also, this features a really young, 80's fabulous Dr. James White, President of Alpha and Omega ministries, when he still had hair!! I love it.  Let's check it out!

Well, there you have it.  I love the John Ankerberg show, even though the setup is a little unfair.  I mean John Ankerberg basically destroys any viewpoint that he disagrees with before the objection's very eyes.  Then they're given a thorough cross-examination.  But I digress...

It's all educational.  And an ounce of evidence is worth a pound of presumption.  My one question to KJV only proponents would be, where does all the presumption come from?

The short answer in my humble opinion: Religion.  Other parts of this interview show the KJV only side arguing that if someone wanted to fully understand the Bible who didn't speak English, they would have to then learn English (and, also King James English) and then they could finally, clearly read the word of God!  I'm sorry, but that's absurd!  AND, if you don't mind it sounds like another faith tradition's treatment and understanding of how divinely inspired scripture works... (ahem.... ISLAM).  You know Muslims believe that if you want to read the Qur'an, you have to be fluent in Arabic before you even get started, don't you? Sorry Penguin Classics, your version of the Qur'an is merely a frolic.  Whoops, sorry, I digress again.  In other parts of the episode, the KJV only side then concedes that someone could use the NIV or NASB, but if they did it would have to be a starter version that would eventually help them reach the KJV. And then only at that point, would you truly be reading God's Word.  Here we see an eerie reflection of Catholicism's great mistake of keeping scripture locked up in Latin, far away from the lay person to access.  What if an institution that governed the church mandated that KJV be the only translation, and all others be destroyed... what would happen?

I'll tell you what would happen.  The lay person would lose access to the truth of scripture.  Why? Because language inevitably changes through time.  And give or take a century or two, the KJV can be completely outmoded and incompatible with contemporary society. What follows next is that we would have a church with the same mindset that it had before the reformation, before Tyndale, before anyone broke the chains of religious, institutional Christianity that reserved the Word of God for the spiritually elite!

I guess I've allowed myself to say this much about it because, there lies a real issue with how we view God's word, and the biases we bring to it beforehand.  The rabbit hole goes much deeper, but I've said enough.  In my Biblical Foundations For Worship class, the point was brought up that when man encounters God, he instantly constructs an altar.  Peter never wanted to leave the mountaintop, as a matter of fact he wanted to live there, or at least build a temple!  When the King James Version touched the lives of so many people through so many amazing preachers with it's amazingly constructed language and beauty, who would ever want to let it go???  Nostalgia, and a fidelity to a moment in time where man met with God exists to create a bond of traditionalism so strong, you'd think it could never be broken. And nothing can break it, but the Spirit of God.

One day... we'll realize that God wants to do something new with us.  He's not a boring, repetitive, unoriginal Dad.  He's got new stuff, every day.  New translations, new evangelism techniques, new worship songs.  He's so cool, and an awesome designer of new stuff.  We need to give Him the chance display His creativity, and when we see it, and marvel at it.... we'll walk away just like Him. Then we'll have something new for the world that will change their hearts and bring revival.