Holy Fool

For all of you who have followed this blog I want to first say thank you for doing so.  I want you to be among the first to share in my excitement in being able to publicly say that I am now a published author.

No, it's not a dense and weighty theological tome.  Rather I share a part among all of the other great author's that make up a new book from The House Studio entitled 180: Stories of People Who Changed Their Lives by Changing Their Minds.

180 is a thematic collection of over 30 essays that focus' on how in the world a group as stodgy and unbending as Christians actually go about changing their mind at a life altering level.  To borrow from the introduction:

Differences in personal preferences about music or movies (or sports teams or ice-cream flavors or computers) make great conversation over coffee, but a new band comes along and you have a new favorite. For the most part, we find it easy to change our minds about these sorts of things.  The stakes seem to get higher as the topic become more serious:

Should gays be given the right to marry?

If you oppose abortion, should you also oppose capital punishment?

Is it ever right to torture captured terrorists?

Will a devout follower of Islam go to heaven?

Regardless of how you would answer any of the above, can you imagine your views changing over time?

This book's theme embodies the heart of my last post entitled, A Personal Hermeneutic.  It's not just what do you believe, but how is it that you believe what you believe, and can that belief change over time?

As a special thanks to all of you who read my blog I have a free copy that I will be happy to send out.  All I need you to do is:

1. Write a short paragraph on something you have changed your mind about that was a big deal for you.
2. Post it as a comment to this blog post, or to the Facebook note if you are reading this on Facebook.

I will then choose the best comment via a very subjective and multi-lensed hermeneutic process and appoint a winner.

Also, please do not feel pressured to buy a copy for my sake; however feel free to support the other great authors included, like:

Karen Spears Zacharias

Mark Oestreicher - or-

Leonard Sweet

There is a lot of good that can come if we will simply open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit.

I have launched a side-blog that is called Very Short Stories.  These are twitter length short stories and I will probably update them a bit more regularly than this blog.

So without further ado here is the first entry: The Curve

My wife, Alicia, and I traveled to St. Louis yesterday to attend our friends Elizabeth's and Michael's wedding.  My wife is shooting some candid photos and helping out with her creative super powers.  I will be shooting the video of the wedding and am providing general handy man services.

Alicia wanted me to hang a poster in the gym/reception area, and as I was standing high on some really janky rolling stairs unit I saw a shadow flitter out of the corner of my eye.  It is a well known fact that there has to be some element of crazy on a wedding day.  The first thing that ran through my mind was, "I sure hope that wasn't a bat."  The only thing worse than a bird flying around is a freakishly frightened animal with both talons and razor sharp teeth that have little other purpose than to transfer and concentrate all of the illness inside of millions of bugs and then insert it into your body.

Luck would have it that it was only a bird, a frightened bird that seemed to do nothing but fly around and wonder how in the world it ended up where it was.  Some of the girls and Elizabeth were getting some food ready in the kitchen for the reception, and prepping to do the flower arrangements.  They provided me with a hand towel with which I proceeded to try and capture the bird Steve Erwin style, crawling under tables after it, etc.  Eventually though it found the open door to the kitchen where Elizabeth and Alicia were and started flying around and around, at one point it landed on Elizabeth's hair (still in curlers at this point).  Finally it settled down on this picture frame, and I was able to pounce on it with the towel and gently hold it.  There was a door that led from the kitchen and into a small lounge and then a patio door to the outside world.  I was able to release the bird safely and it flew into some nearby trees.

Being a guy I was pretty proud of myself.  It's not like I shot a bull elk or a bear while fending off a pack of ravenous wolves and a really feisty badger.  In our modern world anything that connects a man into his inner warrior is something to be lauded, even if it was only catching a 3 ounce female purple finch.

Warning, this video is not for the faint of heart....

(HT: The Daily Dish)

Today there are countless Iranians protesting, and some dying for the right to have their voice counted in free and fair elections.  I am not of any illusionary belief that democracy is a God ordained institution, however it is by far the best thing humans have ever come up with for self-governance and it sure beats the theocratic fascism that Iran's conservative Muslim leaders are now fully revealed to be in favor of.

I have friends that have served bravely in the military and they are willing to die for their country and fellow citizens; even to die for another country and her citizens.  The earliest Christians and the underground church today are persecuted and martyred for their faith.  But is it really worth dying for?

The question of death and life and viewing some measure of worth as being associated with it is an interesting phenomena.  Is your earthly existence less valuable than your right to vote?  Is your hand being intact worth some tangible amount which once is met you agree to have it lobbed off?  Is there anyway a well fed white mid-westerner whose most dangerous experience was a brush with a 5th grader on the tetherball court after recess can identify with and say that they would indeed die for anything?

The things worth dying for are often identified as existing 'outside' of ourselves, they are bigger than our own footprint.  Will we die to save the life of another?  Will we throw ourselves on the grenade tossed before our friends?  Will we stand in front of the tanks and bullets thrown at us by extremist governments with terroristic visions of domination?

Do we have a faith in a God that sent a son that had something valuable to do, something worth being killed for?  Is the hope of reconciliation of God and his creation worth dying for?  I ask these questions because I don't think most Christians serve that God.  They have faith in the God of the Sunday morning concert, the God of the felt needs, the God of the 'feed me' consumption of targeted Christonomic Americanism.  That is surely not something worth dying for, because there is nothing 'outside' of ourselves to die for.  That is a Christian faith that is personalized, and internalized.  It is filtered, packaged, and made 'just for you' so that you can feel as though you are somehow being Christian by listening to it, reading it, or watching it.  That is the ingrown and inbred faith of 'Christian Yellowbooks' and only letting your kids play with other Christian kids.  It is a faith that is stained with red, white, and blue.  It is a farce, a false religion, a heretic gospel, and I won't die for it.

So what will I die for?  I will die for a Christ that is fully God and fully man, that was really born of a virgin, that was really a historical person, that really died on a cross, and really raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty!  I will die for nothing less.  I will die for a faith that causes me to embrace a radical and trinitarian love that is eternally focused on the well-being of others at the expense of my flesh.  I will die for a faith that transcends consumerism.  I will die for a faith in which all I am and all I do is but worthless unless it is bathed in the shadow of the cross.  I will die for a faith with teeth, that stands up for it's beliefs in the face of syncretism and pluralistic pandering to a culture bent on diluting everything to a pale grey.  And in paradox I will only die for a faith that is so radical in it's love for the other that we will be accused of being drunkards and harlots, sinners and tax collectors.  In short I will die for nothing less than the Kingdom of God come to earth through the incarnated hands of Jesus Christ.

Do you have something worth dying for?  If you don't then what are you living for?

If, after my lack of writing, you are still subscribed to this blog than I say thank you.  Let me bring some context to my pause.

In my life I tend to routinely go through times of learning, processing, and production.  I have been spending the last few months learning and processing quite a few things that I am sure I will have to 'get out there' in some form soon.

That being said, there is only so much time in the day, and blogging has fallen down the list as I have intently focused on cultivating my relationship with my wife, kids, etc.

On a leadership side of things, I am a little more than half-way through a sabbatical from doing anything other than being present at Trinity Family.  I appreciate everyone for respecting my decision to pull-back, re-evaluate, and in the coming weeks re-emerge in a different direction.  While I have greatly enjoyed and been challenged to grow as part of the leadership these last two years it had the ironic side effect of distracting me from my relationship with God and my family.  As passionate as God is about his kingdom, I reject a mentality and work ethic that teaches an unhealthy balance in it's leadership.  God built us for relationships first and formost; the politics of leadership, and putting on a fancy show on Sundays are pretty far down the list in my book these days when it comes to where we need to be headed as a church.

So grace and peace to all of you.