In December of 2010 I made a transition in employment. My previous full-time job was at Calvary Chapel of Crook County, where I was on staff as the worship leader/Office guy/tech dude/graphic designer/web guy. Due to economic difficulties in our area (at the time, our county had the highest unemployment rate, hovering around 18%) I was laid off in December, and officially unemployed as of January 1st. For several months I was able to do some short-term jobs and collect unemployment, but in March I had an interview for a position as a server tech, here in Prineville. I was blessed to be able to get a three month contract as a server tech, and I recently had that contract extended by another month. I’ve been loving every minute of it. A mistake that we can make as Christians is to think or say something along the lines of, “If I just had a church job then life would be so much better. I’d get to be around Christians all day long!”. While I understand why thinking like this might creep in, it’s not a biblical, gospel-centered way of thinking. If I am a follower of Christ, then it stands to reason that I’m going to do many of the things he did, and obey him in the things he has required of me. Well, Jesus hung out with the people that the religious authorities of His day had deemed “sinners”. This upset these religious people greatly, but Jesus didn’t care. He loved people and wanted to see them come to a saving relationship with Him. We get off track when we start to think that avoiding non-Christians is somehow part of the great commission. No matter how you slice it, you can’t go into all the world and make disciples by preaching the gospel if the only people you ever hang around with are, in fact, other believers.

This kind of thinking can make many so-called “Good Christians” uncomfortable. This is usually because “Good Christians” are failing to understand the gospel. They believe that sin comes to them externally, from all of those “darn sinners”, so avoiding them will keep themselves living in sinless perfection. This is a great tragedy and mis-handling of the truth. Christians are not called to avoid sinners, but to cease sinning because they have been set free from the slavery of sin by grace through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Nothing more, and nothing less. We recognize that we have done nothing to earn our salvation, nor can we do something to earn it. We understand that Jesus is the one who has performed perfectly before the Father on our behalf. We don’t get arrogant toward non-believers, or even fearful of being around them; we become humble because we are absolutely floored that God would save us. We become gracious because we have experienced the amazing grace of God. We begin to see things as God sees them; badly broken and in need of His perfect Son to fix it. This is what it is to be a Christian. This is what it is to be a disciple. This is what it is to live in the gospel every day.

I for one am so thankful that God has saved me, and is continuing to change me. He is making me more aware of how badly all of creation needs His redeeming love; especially mankind. The fact that I not only receive salvation from the Father through Jesus Christ, AND I get the Spirit of God living in me is enough to completely explode my head. Then to add to that the great privilege of telling others about Him in word and deed is just too much. What a good God. The more I learn of the gospel, the more excited I am to share it with others.

Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I really wanted to make a quick book recommendation. I recently read the book, “What Is the Gospel?”, but a guy named Greg Gilbert. Let me just tell you, this is a great book, and it’s a super easy read, too. The author does a great job getting you to truly consider what the Gospel is and isn’t, and, hopefully, you’ll leave with a far better understanding what it truly is.

Here’s a little bonus to those of you who have an Amazon Kindle reader, or a Kindle app on your iPhone, Android Phone, or computer; you can download the book for free. At least that’s what I was able to do. It may no longer be available, but I encourage you to get it even if it isn’t free. I found myself constantly wanting to post quotes from the book on facebook. Almost every line of the book is quotable. Greg Gilbert does a great job communicating in a simple and concise manner.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon. It looks like it may no longer be free in digital format, but don’t let that stop you.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Gospel-9Marks-Greg-Gilbert/dp/1433515008

I’ve realized something about myself. Like many, if not all people, I enjoy a good story. I think this is built into all of us by our Creator. We were made in His image and likeness, which means we are spirit, mind, and body, and those three bear resemblances to our creator in many ways. I think one of the similarities we share with our Creator is the desire to be creative. This also produces an appreciation for the creative, I.E.; art, music, and especially story. I believe in all of our stories we are quite often telling a story within a story. A narrative within a much bigger narrative. In our stories, we often deal with the struggles of good and evil; darkness and light; love and hate; condemnation and redemption; sin and salvation. I’m persuaded that this is because we are part of the bigger story, and we’re all struggling trying to understand it, even if we don’t realize it… even if we don’t want to believe that we’re in this divine meta-narrative. The Bible says that God has put eternity within our hearts.We have an awareness that there is something more. How we go about dealing with that awareness can be quite the story.

As I said earlier, I enjoy a good story. One of the first stories that I remember having a profound impact on me emotionally was the Velveteen Rabbit. Yes, I was probably about 4 years old, and I sat at home on a lazy Saturday with my dad, sitting in his lap, watching this tale progress. As it finally came to it’s climactic ending, and the rabbit was turned from a toy in a real rabbit, I was so excited and I was rooting for that little guy to end up back with the boy who had loved him so. But, shock of all shocks, the boy let him go and be free to be a real rabbit. I was devestated! I broke down crying right on the spot, much to my dad’s surprise, and he asked me what was wrong. I don’t remember my exact words, but I remember telling him that I was so sad because the rabbit and the boy didn’t end up together in the end. I look back on that time and realize, that was one of the most shaping moments of my childhood. Not because that story is full of life-changing truth for me now, but because it opened my eyes to the poetic and bitter-sweetness of story, and how I can have my eyes opened to love people, simply because I could hear their story and be moved.

This brings me to ‘LOST’. As I write this, it’s the day after the series finale, and I have to say, I was quite moved. I don’t know that I’ve ever watched a show that has better pulled me into the lives of the characters and made me feel for them than ‘LOST’. I recall watching J.J. Abrams (one of the creators of ‘LOST’), speak at the idea conference known as ‘TED’. He summed up his basic philosophy on making good shows and movies by saying something to the effect of, “Great stories are about people! At the end of the day it’s not about how great the special effects are, it’s about the lives of the people in the story”. I was quite impressed with his speech and remember thinking, “Wow, for a guy who isn’t a Christian, this guy gets it better than most Christians!”. What I mean by that is this; Jesus summed up all of the commandments in two things: Love God and Love people. As a Christian, I have to admit that we often fail to obey these two commands. I’m a firm believer that we have these truths buried within us, but because of our flawed fallen state, they have been corrupted. We were created to worship God but instead we worship idols. We were created to love and serve each other but instead we use each other and love and serve ourselves. These are all symptoms of good things that have been corrupted by sin. But every now and then certain stories come along and awaken the truths of eternity that God has place in our hearts. We have compassion on people and desire to see them redeemed. We are forced to confront evil and admit that it is terrible, and that we are terribly enslaved by it. We are presented with our own inability to save ourselves; To change ourselves; To redeem ourselves. We are left broken by the human condition. We desperately want hope, help, comfort, forgiveness, deliverance, acceptance, identity, dignity, value, joy, and redemption, but can’t seem to find them on our own. Truly great stories often confront these issues.

I believe “LOST” is such a story. While I certainly don’t subscribe to the very ecumenical nature of the show (especially as displayed at the end of the last episode with the stained glass window depicting all of the symbols of the major religions), I still think it digs deeper at our desires and needs more than any other show I’ve seen. It admits that we are broken, flawed, lonely and Lost. It shows people seeking their redemption and restoration. It speaks to those embers of truth in our own hearts, and perhaps even forces us to ask the questions, “What must I do to be saved?”, and “Who will rescue me from myself?” “Who will redeem me?”. These are questions, however, whose answers aren’t going to be found in a TV show, a movie, or just any old story. That’s because the answer is found in the greatest and most outrageous story ever told. It’s great because it’s been going since the beginning. It’s outrageous because it’s actually true! The very God who has placed eternity within our hearts, stepped out of eternity and into time. He became like one of us, knowing all of our temptations and weaknesses, but without being overtaken by them in sin. He came to redeem us and restore us into relationship with Him once again. He did this through his perfect life, death, burial, and resurrection, where he conquered Satan, sin, and death. He now lives to make intercession for us, so that we can freely have access and relationship to God the Father, and has promised to return for us to take us to be with Him for eternity. All of this He made possible because He loved us first. How can we not be moved by this? How can we not be absolutely floored with His great love?! How can we not begin to see people as those whom God loved so much that he gave His only Son for their redemption? Suddenly, loving God and loving people doesn’t seem so far off, when we finally realize this great truth: What once was LOST has been found and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

We showed this at our men’s group at Calvary Chapel of Crook County on Saturday, 5-8-10.
The ending really hammers it home, but you have to watch the whole thing for it to really have it’s full impact.

This past Saturday morning we kicked off our first Men’s Group of the year. We’ve done things like this in the past, but we really feel like there is a clear direction from the Lord with this latest one. Myself and one of the elders, Kevin Vaughan, are heading up the group, and treating it as a sort of “Man School”. Our intention is to steep the men in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and let the Holy Spirit use us to get to the heart of the matter with the men in our church.

We are breaking things down into short series’, usually less than 6 weeks long. Our first series is called, “The Reason for Man”. We took the idea from the first question of Westminster Shorter Catechism, which asks, “What is the chief end of man?”, then it answers, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”  After a great men’s retreat the weekend before where we looked at worship and idolatry through the lense of Romans 12, we felt like this was a great place to start with our men.

So many men today, especially in the church, don’t have a clear reason for their existence. If asked about their reason for being, they would probably each answer with something a little different, and “God” probably wouldn’t be in the majority of the answers. It is our desire to point our men to the truth of their existence as found in scripture, and see them changed by the grace of God.

Well, I think the graphical changes are coming along nicely. I went through a few theme layouts before I settled on one that I felt I could make my own through custom graphical changes. I settled on the Mocha child theme from studiopress.comstudiopress.com. I’ve been very pleased with them since I purchased my first theme from them almost two years ago for our church’s site. They do a great job with keeping their themes fresh and current, and their support is great. I have to tip my hat to Brian Gardner, the creator of studiopress. (if I actually wore hats then that would probably seem like a more significant gesture.)

Anyway, I plan on doing a few more changes to the site’s structure and organization of content in the future, but for now I think things are looking decent.