Christian Life with Michael

Prayers and Blessings of Paul

2009-11-22T06:00:00.002-06:00

I've just added pages listing some (all?) of the prayers and the blessings in Paul's Epistles to the "Sides" on the menu at my Bible verses site, ScriptureMenu.com. The site is intended to be a quick reference for times when you may know you need something from the Word (verses about divorce, for example, or joy, of even Salvation) but don't have the time, tools, or skills you need to look them up for yourself. I've tried to do as little editorializing as I could in the verse lists, only providing the verses themselves without too much commentary, letting the Word speak for Itself. Some people would consider "Prayers of Paul" and "Blessings of Paul" all to be prayers... what do you think?

The "Sides" part of the menu is something that could come in really handy when you need something extra-fast: the entries point you directly to very famous things in the Bible that people commonly know are there but don't know how to find, like The Armor of God, The Fruit of the Spirit, The Great Commission, and The Ten Commandments. I've even provided a list of The Books of the Bible, just because I can. (Come to think of it, it would be fun to add a list of the books of the Old Testament in the Jewish Bible order... hmm!)

If you haven't visited the site and can't think of a good reason to do so, here's a teaser: there is a page with a list of verses about ESS EEE EX. You know, the three-letter word that everyone is interested in but nobody wants to let on. Go ahead... it's the Bible! Don't be afraid of it! :) Notice I didn't link to that article? Go to ScriptureMenu.com for yourself and find it! (It's easy... there's a link right on the front page.)

update: I've got Verse of the Day working on the new server! I apologize to anyone who was used to finding a new ESV Scripture on the page every day and didn't get them for almost a month while I got things squared away. We're back! I don't expect any more downtime anytime soon.

On a sad note, we will miss Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty very much. His accomplishments for God in this lifetime were amazing. I just know he's looking around and laughing that rooster-crow laugh of his in Heaven right now. :)

An Evening With Madeline

2009-11-20T18:00:00.073-06:00

A few weeks ago I took Cathy and Mikey to see Newsboys at Mabee Center. As we were on the way into the parking lot, we saw something on the huge LED marquee out front: a picture of none other than legendary Christian songwriter and performer Andraé Crouch! I was stoked... we love his music (who doesn't?) but then we saw that it was a fundraising event with tickets costing anywhere up to $75 or more... it was going to be a night featuring a number of sports figures, and we quickly ruled it out based on lack of funds and generally lack of interest in sports. They handed us a postcard about the event on the way out... it featured pictures of Olympics superstars Carl Lewis and Madeline Manning along with the picture of Andraé and a guy I'd never heard of named Alfred Lee. I dropped it on the dining room table and basically forgot about it.

Fast-forward to about a week ago. My wife got a call from a cousin of hers who had some extra tickets to the event, which my wife didn't even remember until I showed her the postcard. Cathy always seems to become more enthusiastic about things when someone else is interested, and especially someone she is as close to as this cousin, so suddenly we were going!

...And we were SO GLAD we did. The baby stayed with her Meme, but Mikey came along with us. Here's the whole story: since Madeline's Olympic career ended years ago, she has continued to support the teams every year as a volunteer chaplain. However, because there are no certifying organizations for sports chaplains, she goes on her own dime, pays for her own accommodations and meals, etc. while other support staff is allowed much easier access. Training for chaplains is nonexistent, so sometimes they are ill-equipped to deal with things that are peculiar to sports figures' spiritual needs. Madeline has started an organization called United States Council for Sports Chaplaincy (USCSC) (no Web site that I could find) which will be dedicated to training, certification, and then continuing education of sports chaplains. So this was a fundraising event for that, and we did give some money on the way out because we believe in Madeline and what she is doing. But it was FAR from a dull fundraiser. This party was HAPPENING!

It turns out Alfred Lee is an incredible concert pianist, but last night he was doing something very unexpected... he had a keyboard set up in such a way that he could play what sounded like a fully-orchestrated piece, all by himself. Live. No sequencers, no backing tracks. He did it while people were on the way in, and then he did it again at the end as the olympic stars... but I'll get to that in a minute. Suffice it to say that he was amazing.

So were the other entertainers! There were singers, including Madeline herself, Sara Jordan Powell, and Ernestine Dillard (you may have heard Ms. Dillard sing "God Bless America" at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial service years ago; there was the amazing Souls A' Fire Gospel choir/band from ORU; there were dance groups, a drum corps (think marching band without the horns), and of course, the incomparable Andraé Crouch. And that wasn't all! After the intermission, greats from Olympic games in years gone by started coming down to the stage, one at a time, and they kept coming and coming and coming! There must have been almost two dozen of them up there. And these weren't the Olympic losers, either... Carl Lewis is of course legendary, and others included people like Wyomia Tyus, the first Olympic athlete to win a gold in 100m dash at two consecutive Olympic games, and Dick Fosbury, who was the first high-jumper to discover that going over the bar backwards led to better results than going over it forwards, revolutionizing the sport. There were a ton of athletes from the U.S. 1968 Summer Olympics team, and Madeline gave each of them (and the athletes from other years as well) a chance to briefly share something from their heart. It was inspiring, and awe-inspiring.

At the end Andraé came back out, and he and Madeline started singing "My Tribute (To God be the Glory)" with a CD track. Everybody from the whole show was on stage. Then I heard the CD skip once, then again. At first it seemed like it wasn't going to be a problem, but then, horrors... it went totally haywire! What were they going to do? Then I saw someone in the shadows on the edge of the stage make a throat-cutting motion, and the track faded out... and the Souls A' Fire band came in, sounding 100% better than the track, to my ears! The Souls A' Fire choir knew the background vocals, too, and the finale was incredible! My wife looked over at me during the finale and said, "Why are you smiling like that?"

It was friggin' ANDRE CROUCH! Singing MY FRIGGIN' TRIBUTE!! I was in heaven! :)

I'm so excited about what USCSC will accomplish. If you read this and think you might want to help out with a donation, here is some contact information I found on Mabee Center's Web site:

P.O. Box 419
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74101-0419
(918) 296-3967

madelinemanning@aol.com

NASB Bible Unboxing

2009-11-17T23:13:00.005-06:00

A few weeks ago I got an exciting email... I had won a Bible! I had entered a contest run by Logos Bible Software to promote their new Web site, and they were giving away a bunch of brand new Bibles... and not just any Bibles, either. These were really NICE Bibles! I was gunning for a nice leather-bound ESV Study Bible. The one I won was a different one, though... an NASB Side-Column Reference Bible with a calfskin cover. When I started looking at the specs on the Bible, I realized that this was quite possibly a much better choice for what I wanted the Bible for... to take it to church! The cover would be durable, the translation would be VERY accurate (maybe even more than the ESV; NASB has a very good reputation for accuracy), and it would frankly be a little less cumbersome than the huge ESV Study Bible. I was PUMPED! I sent them my address at work so my new Bible wouldn't wind up spending a day sitting on my porch, and began to wait.

Today as I was warming up my lunch, a coworker asked me if I was getting Christmas shopping done early. She had seen something next to my door, and apparently I had walked right past it (if you're reading this on Facebook, by the way, click the link to see the pictures):

It turns out that there were actually two packages I was waiting for, both approximately the same size, and I couldn't wait to see which one it was. I was not disappointed:

"Black Calfskin Leather"... AWESOME!

I was dying to look at it, but I also wanted to share the experience with you, my blog readers, so I waited until after work to do my unboxing. Here's what came out of the shipping box:

My first look at the Bible itself wasn't terribly striking:

Just looks like a plain old black Bible, doesn't it?

Bibles always have plastic on them, but I don't think I've ever seen one completely sealed like this. Even with the plastic on it, though, I could start to smell that "new-Bible" smell... yay!

It's a fairly hefty Bible, pretty thick... the print is nice and big, so there are a lot of pages to fit in there. The cover doesn't look like much, but it is SO soft. You can't really appreciate the cover just by touching it... you have to open it and feel the cover on its own, between your fingers. It's very supple.

I definitely need to fill this out:

The Bible sits open comfortably right out of the box, as though it were already well broken in:

It has two ribbon bookmarks, one of which was marking Ezekiel Chapter 13 and one of which was marking 1 Samuel Chapters 21-22.

I've been slowly studying Ephesians from the ESV, so I decided I would read it first (which is what I did later):

There is an essay in the back about all of the books of the Bible:

I thought this map of the locations in Jesus' ministry was really nice:

There is also a concordance in the back.

This Bible is SUCH a blessing to me. It lists for almost $150, and most of that price is the cover (for comparison, the hardback version lists for $25). I expect the cover to basically last forever. The cover of the ESV Compact Trutone Bible that I've been carrying around is getting pretty worn after several years, and it doesn't have very many study helps. My favorite Bible for studying is still my ESV Study Bible, but this may be the last "carry-it-to-church" Bible I ever need. I can't wait for Sunday!

Of Course!

2009-11-14T06:00:00.080-06:00

In my dream, I was a drop of water. I was part of a raging river, and a million other drops of water and I were jostling against each other, rushing downstream. I wondered out loud why we were in such a hurry, but none of the other drops of water seemed to have any idea where we were going. "We're just doing what drops of water do," one told me. "You can't change anything." "Well, I'm doing exactly what I want to," said another. "I'm the master of my fate, the captain of my soul!" It was funny to hear a drop of water talk about his soul that way. It was also funny to hear that he thought he could control where he was going. He was going exactly where we all were, wherever that was.

Then suddenly, as people sometimes inexplicably know things in dreams, I knew what awaited us drops of water at the end of the river's course. The river was taking us hurtling toward a waterfall, but just as we were no ordinary drops of water (ordinary drops of water do not think and talk), this was no ordinary waterfall. I discovered that I knew that this waterfall dropped into a hole, and I also knew that the hole had no bottom. Water that entered the hole would fall, fall, fall and never get anywhere, and it would never come back.

I desperately wanted to avoid the waterfall! I squeezed my way between the other drops until I reached the edge of the river, but I discovered that drops of water cannot climb out of rivers. I did find that when we crashed against the bank in a curve or against a rock midstream, I could actually jump out of the river temporarily, but I would always fall back in among the others. Some lucky drops had managed to jump at just the right time and land in little pools by the side, but I noticed that even those pools were flowing back into the river, a temporary postponing of the inevitable. There was no way we drops of water could save ourselves! We were doomed to go over the waterfall!

In despair I looked up into the sky, hopelessly trying to think of a way out before I got to the edge. If only I could fly like a bird and escape into the sky! If only I could go up into those clouds! If only the sun could somehow draw me out of the river up to where it was! Impulsively, irrationally, I cried out to the sun. Help me, sun! Please!

All of a sudden I began to feel warm. The sun was warming me! It filled me with its own heat, and I began to feel... different. I was still water, but I had absorbed something of the sun into myself. I had been transformed into something I wasn't before. I had ceased to be just a drop of water, rushing helplessly to my doom, and I had turned into vapor. I rose up from the river, and floated up into the clouds. The sun had saved me from the bottomless pit!

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world... -from Ephesians 2:1-2

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction... -from Psalm 40:1-2 ESV

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed... -from 2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. -John 8:36 ESV

Bus Ride To Destiny

2009-11-12T06:00:00.003-06:00

Every weekday morning, a bus comes by my neighborhood.

The bus has a destiny.

That bus's destiny is to go to downtown Tulsa. It is destined to get there just before 8am. Unless the traffic is really awful or something happens to the bus itself, it will get to downtown when it is supposed to. I have ridden that bus many times, and it has never failed to get downtown. I have also driven downtown and seen the bus arrive without me. Whether I am on the bus or not, it gets to downtown.

Now, if I get in the bus, my destiny becomes the same as the bus's destiny; the bus is predestined to get to downtown, and if I am on the bus, so am I. If I am not in the bus, I may not make it to downtown, but if I am in the bus, the bus and I are both predestined to the same fate.

Just thought I'd say that. Oh, and here's a Scripture. I added some italics:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. -Ephesians 3:1-6 ESV

New Bible!

2009-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

NAS Wide Margin Reference Bible, Calfskin leather, Black
By Bible / Foundation Publications Inc

Discover the truth in the inspired Word of God by reading the New American Standard Bible. The updated edition continues the NASB's commitment to accuracy while increasing clarity and readability. Vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure have been carefully updated for greater understanding and smoother reading. The NASB remains the most literally accurate Bible in the English language.

Last night I got an email that has me all excited. Can you believe it? I won a new Bible! Here's a link. It's an NASB with the text in a single column (like a novel, except with verses separated out like an old-school Bible) and with cross-references on the side (if you want to see the layout, click the link to ChristianBook.com and then find "additional views" and you can see several pages of Genesis). And check this out... we're not talking paperback. This is Premium Calfskin Binding... the cover should last just about forever! I generally use the ESV for my personal reading; the NASB has a reputation for being marginally more awkward in sentence structure than the ESV, but also marginally more faithful to the original texts (although both Bibles get good marks in both areas). So this Bible will be GREAT for carrying to church and using during a service! We don't even have a copy of the 1995 NASB update in our library of physical Bibles... although we do have a little paperback NASB New Testament from way back in history sometime. It may be from when the first version of the NASB was brand new (it was introduced in 1971, and this Bible's cover certainly looks like 1970's styling).

The giveaway is still in progress! As I blogged here, Logos is giving away some truly beautiful (and expensive) Bibles, and they still have some to give away in November and December. Click here to find out how to enter (you can enter five times each month... check the link for details). The event is that Logos is launching an online Bible site (you can also get to it through the LOGOS Bible search bar on the right-hand side of this blog). And, in case you've never heard of the Logos company, they make some pretty cool Bible software.

But wait... there's more!

Another win-an-awesome-Bible contest is going on at the Crossway Blog. They are giving away a copy of the incredible ESV Study Bible every day... but there are only two days left, so hurry and enter! I use my hardback ESV Study Bible for my personal study, and it's dynamite!

Queenie-poo

2009-11-04T12:49:00.000-06:00

A few days ago I was watching an old VeggieTales episode, Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen. In the story, which follows the Biblical story of Esther fairly closely (with a few Veggie-style touches), the king of Persia, who is apparently quite smitten with Esther (who has been selected to be his new queen via a hilarious talent show), is approached by her without her being called into his presence. Even for the queen, this is a crime punishable by... well, in the video it's punishable by banishment to the "Isle of Perpetual Tickling" (which if you ask me, might be a fate worse than death!) The king really wants Esther to like him, though, so he pardons her, saying "My little queenie-poo can visit me any time she wants!"

Okay, so maybe that's not an exact quote from the Bible story, but it got me thinking of something. In the VeggieTales video, the king spoke about Esther with a pet name, with some intimacy, showing that he cared very much about her and wanted to be close to her, even though it came off as a little bit clumsy. He didn't care about his reputation as the king; he just cared about Esther. It made me think of the desire that Jesus must feel toward His bride, the Church. He has given us permission.. actually, He has made the way and rolled out a red carpet... for us to approach the throne of God without fear of reprisal. Before Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, people were terrified to see God, because they believed that His holiness would eradicate them completely (they were probably right). But by the blood of Jesus, we can spiritually come right into the presence of God and never have to wonder if we will survive the encounter. We won't die, because Jesus did.

Does God call us "Queenie-poo"? I kind of doubt it. :) But God does care for us with an intimacy that we cannot really understand, deserve, or fully return. So don't be afraid to enter His presence in prayer and in worship. You have already been spared and pardoned, and the King is calling your name!

Your Next Step

2009-11-02T09:38:00.000-06:00

Last night at my church Pastor Orlando was talking about this being a time of change in the Church (not just my church, but the Church including all believers currently living on Earth). In fact, he told us to get a calendar and write the word "Change" on yesterday's date. This morning I was thinking about change and how confusing and scary it can be... with our recent church change we've had a firsthand taste of that. I got to thinking abotu walking in faith... how God promises that He will take care of the individual steps even as we plan out a course. So often we get stuck on one particular step, either because we don't listen for God's direction, or because we are fearful of taking that step. Faith isn't about knowing three steps ahead; faith is about taking the one step that God tells us to take, one at a time, into the dark (not dark as in evil, but dark as in not being able to see the next step), knowing that God will not leave us high and dry if we are truly following Him.

And I started praying for myself and for my family and friends and church, and then I prayed the same thing for everyone who reads this blog post, so you are included in my prayer from this morning. I prayed that God will reveal to me, and us, and you, your Next Step. Is it into ministry? Is it into business? Is it into a relationship of some kind, or into a physical move of living space? Overseas into the mission field, or across town into a very different mission field? Whatever it is, I pray that our Next Step will be made crystal-clear to us, and I also prayed that the Holy Spirit will encourage and empower us... provide the power and courage we need... to take that one next step. After that there will be another Next Step, but I'm praying for that one that happens NOW. The old Chinese proverb says that "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Not a Bible Proverb, but true nonetheless... one step could be the one thing you need to get you moving in the direction God wants you to go. One step of faith will be the one thing that builds your confidence to take the next one. Soon you'll be able to look back behind you and see that you've walked miles and miles into God's will for you, and He has been faithful to you and taken you to a more incredible, amazing place than you ever thought possible.

And it all begins with the one step that you took today. I'm praying for you. Put on your walking shoes and take that step!

Diapers

2009-11-01T08:00:00.063-06:00

Back when my son was around two or three years old, when they sang "Jesus Loves The Little Children" in his class in the nursery at church, they would always add a new verse: "Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world..." and the rest was the same. I'm not much for reworking something that's been around a long time (ever hear someone who doesn't think he's still a "wretch" try to retrofit "Amazing Grace"? I have... whew! Not easy!) but I was OK with this change; after all, the point is to teach truths to children, and that's probably the greatest truth of all. And at least it fits into the melody. But apparently very small children have a somewhat myopic view of the world; one day I heard my boy singing it out loud and strong: "Jeee-sus dia-pered all the chiiiil-dren, aaaalll the chil-dren of the woooorld!" (Then again, come to think of it, Jesus came not to be served but to serve... and if he saw a baby who needed a diaper, gosh darn it, I believe he would have diapered that baby!)

Fast-forward to this morning. I was walking along, thinking about something I had done. Have you ever let something simmer on the inside of you until it spills out into the open? This was a sin of the heart, and nobody knew about it but me and God, but it had colored my perception of a friend and I needed cleansing. I started praying, telling God that even though I knew at the time that it was wrong, I willfully harbored those attitudes anyway, and I knew that sometimes there are consequences to our sinful actions even though we are forgiven, and would God forgive me for my sin, but also cleanse me so that my relationship with that person could be right again?

All of a sudden, I knew my prayer had been heard. I could sense that God had not only given me a gift of forgiveness, but also of a true perspective. I had been forgiven, but also made clean. I guess that's what 1 John 1:9 means when it says that not only will God forgive us our sin, but also cleanse us from unrighteousness! And then it hit me... I was a child of God that had made a mess all over myself, and I had been wiped clean, maybe had a little powder applied, and diapered with a fresh diaper! So, maybe Bible images in places like Ezekiel 16 and Luke 10 are a little less indelicate, but as a dad who deals with diapers on a fairly regular basis, I have to say, when I mess up and come to God for forgiveness, a new diapie does a lot more for me than a bandage full of oil and wine. Maybe Jesus DOES diaper all the children of the world!

Lenses

2009-10-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

by Michael Jones

And there in my dream, I saw a table.
On the table was a swirling cloud,
Moving and changing,
Pulsing with energy,
And I knew it was my life.
Looking straight at it I could make out nothing.
It was constantly evolving,
Reorganizing,
Developing and dissolving,
With the details always just out of reach.

But next to my life were five viewers,
Hand-held like a detective's magnifier,
With lenses five different colors.
I knew in my dream that if I used them to view my life,
They would help me see the truth.

I picked up the rose-colored glass.

Through it, I saw my family and how much they love me.
I saw that I have been blessed with food to feed them and
Money to buy things for them.
I saw my good friends, my favorite movies,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
And I also saw my blissful, willful ignorance of poverty
Illness
Hunger
Violence
Need
And I put down the rose-colored glass.

Then I picked up the sepia-colored glass.

Through it I saw my childhood, with all its happy times.
Summers playing outside
Shooting water pistols
Playing games, bought and invented
But I couldn't see the sad and hard times I remembered.
No confusing homework
Snubs by girls
Loneliness
Fear of the monsters under the bed
It was comfortable but it was a lie, so I put down the sepia-colored glass.

Then I picked up the glass with the blue lens.

I could see the day my dog died
The day my grandmother died
The days my hope died
I saw report cards with bad grades
Myself crying at night and not knowing why
Favorite toys broken
Not getting the job
That miscarriage
The friend who cheated me
The associate who used me
The year without a job
The deep, dark vortex of depression
I couldn't live without happiness — I put down the blue glass.

I hoped for better luck with the glass with the crystal-clear lens.
The handle was white, and it cast a light of its own.
And when I looked at my life in that harsh light,
I saw it with a brutal
Crystal
Clarity.
I saw that I sometimes hate, even to the point of fury.
I saw that I desire, even to the point of covetousness and sometimes lust.
I saw that I am prideful and sometimes look at others with disdain.
I saw that my selfishness often overrides my generosity.
I dropped the lens like it had just come out of a fire.
It was then that I noticed that it was nicked and scratched
Like it had been used as a weapon
And the lens, though crystal-clear, was distorted
And the whole thing smelled of sulfur.

The last glass scared me a little bit.
The lens was transparent, but it was blood red.
The handle was wooden, with a cross-beam, almost like a sword hilt.
For some reason, it seemed to me
In my dream
That this lens would show me the WHOLE truth
Not the par
tial
tru
th
...like the others.
The pieces of the truth were terrible enough;
How awful would the WHOLE truth be?

But I picked up the blood-red lens.
The lens of The Whole Truth.
And what I saw astounded me.

I saw the things that bring joy to my life: the people who love me,
My talents and my joys,
My happinesses and my comforts.
I saw the happy times of my childhood and my adulthood,
And I also saw the sad and lonely times.
I saw deaths, physical and emotional.
I saw my gaping flaws of character
That cause me to fail time and again.
And I saw the deep, dark depression that sometimes seeks to consume me.

I saw all of those things.
But it was as though they were covered with blood,
Overpowered by blood,
Eradicated by blood.
Made irrelevant.
Ancient history that never happened.
The handle was not just the hilt of a sword;
It was also something else.
And as the blood dripped down from the crossbeams
And covered my pathetic attempt at leading a good life
I knew that I was being cleansed,
Forgiven,
Regenerated,
Revitalized,
Given another chance.

And I knew I would fail again.
And again.
And probably many more agains.
But I knew that the blood-red lens would not only show me the truth,
But it would change that truth
And make me whole.

And then I woke up
And closed my Bible
And how about that?
It was all true

Copyright ©2009 by Michael Jones

Bible Giveaway

2009-10-27T06:00:00.003-05:00

Here's the blurb:

Logos Bible Software is celebrating the launch of their new online Bible by giving away 72 ultra-premium print Bibles at a rate of 12 per month for six months. The Bible giveaway is being held at Bible.Logos.com and you can get up to five different entries each month! After you enter, be sure to check out Logos and see how it can revolutionize your Bible study.

Now here's the backstory:

Logos really is giving away some beautiful Bibles, and one of the ways to enter to win is a blog post like this one. :) You'll also notice the search box on the right-hand side of this page... this will take you to the online Logos Bible search site, which includes the NIV, ESV, NLT, NKJV, and KJV translations, and that's just for starters... there are also a dozen MORE translations to look at, too. Check it out; it might be just the Bible site to help you out in your study!

I Thought I Was Over It

2009-10-23T12:02:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, I worked in the IT department at a fairly large Christian publishing company. I had made a move to that company at the urging of a friend from my previous job who had done the same thing and who said I would love it. He was right: I did love it! (And he got a recruitment bonus, so everybody won!) I enjoyed my work, I enjoyed my coworkers (some of whom I am still in touch with), and it was just an all-around fun place to work. One day I was chatting with my department manager, whom I had become pretty good friends with by that time, and we agreed that we hoped we could continue to work there until we were too old and had to retire!

Then 2001 happened.

There were several factors, I think, to what happened to me... the dot-com thing was coming to a head, and so the economy was suffering. The company had some financial struggles, and apparently some internal difficulties, most of which I didn't know about then and don't know about now and honestly hope to never know the details of. And then the September 11 attacks happened and the whole country went into an uproar. And because of some or all of those factors, the publishing company started selling off divisions and letting employees go.

For months I felt a target on my back. I was the Web site programmer, for goodness sakes. What's easier to outsource than Web design and programming? I just knew that I was going to be among the first to go... but it didn't happen that way. Maybe it was because I had a new baby (about a year and a half old by that time) and a newer mortgage (about 8 months old by that time) to feed, and my bosses knew it. Hopefully it was because the quality of my work was such that they hated to see me go. I wound up hanging on for several months, but eventually one day in November of 2001, I found myself loading a couple of boxes of my personal belongings into my car and driving away, unemployed.

I was optimistic at the time. I knew that companies were looking for seasonal help around that time of year, and I expected to at least be able to get some work in retail. And you know, that season and that next year were both scary and exciting. We saw God provide for us over and over... as soon as one source of income would dry up, another consulting job would turn up or another opportunity would present itself. I took some classes in database design that have served me well in my jobs since then. And we never even had to so much as get our cable TV turned off. All year I was incredibly optimistic. But by the end of 2002, my unemployment benefits were running out and I still didn't have a regular job, and I was starting to feel panicky. I stopped praying in faith and basically started to cry out to God in fear. I think I traumatized myself a bit in that couple of months. God was faithful, however, even though I had stopped walking on the water and started to sink, and He presented two permanent job situations to me at the same time! I took one of them, and the next three years there were a wonderful experience. (Why I'm not there now is another story, but it was a voluntary and amicable parting.)

Fast-forward to yesterday. I had occasion to pick something up at the same office building where the publishing company had been housed. I'm pretty sure I haven't been there since the day I was laid off. The parking lot has been changed up a bit, and the lobby has been heavily remodeled (it looks fabulous). As I walked into the same set of doors that I had walked out of with my boxes of stuff, though, I felt a strong sense of sadness. I love the job I'm at now, but I loved that job too... so many friends and so many happy memories. I didn't and don't feel a sense of rejection about the whole thing... just a sense of loss. When we left our long-time church recently I was reflecting on how whenever God is telling me to make a change of some kind, basically the current situation just starts to become more and more uncomfortable until I do what needs to be done. Maybe that's part of why I had that "target-on-the-back" feeling, I don't know. Maybe I should have left voluntarily, and if I had I wouldn't have had quite the sense of having something taken away from me.

But for whatever reason, yesterday as I entered the building I had once had an office in, even after the eight years in between I still felt the sting of loss. Thank God, He is good. Thank God He provided then and still provides now. Now our second child is roughly the age the first one was then. We still have the same mortgage. This is my third "permanent" job after the one I got laid off from. Even with all that, I guess there's still a little scar there. Maybe that hurt will never heal completely, I don't know. But I do know that I'm going to serve God no matter what, and one day it won't matter anymore anyway... I'll be with Jesus in Eternity, all hurts will be healed, and that day will be ancient, ancient history!

ScriptureMenu.com is moving!

2009-10-20T08:48:00.001-05:00

I am moving the ScriptureMenu.com Web site to a new Web host. My other site, GuideToPetra.com, will be along for the ride as well. The hosting service where the site has always lived has some difficulties tech support-wise, and for the second time this month the site was taken down without warning because of what they cryptically call "resource abuse". I'm excited about the new host, APlus.net; after some pretty extensive research a few years ago I very nearly moved the sites over to APlus, but had a few difficulties that made it so much trouble to switch that I gave up trying. This time my old host has backed me into a corner; I've got to either move or resolve myself to them taking my sites down periodically without warning, so I have chosen to move.

A move of this kind is tricky because the two sites are heavily database-integrated, so it's not just a matter of moving a bunch of Web pages... it means getting all of the database stuff set up properly as well. It is likely to take a few days to complete the work, so please be very patient with me as I get things squared away. I've got all of the information; it's just getting all the dots connected so it all works. Imagine that I have an engine block, a gas tank, a carburetor, and an alternator, all sitting in my garage next to my car. I've got everything I need; I've just got to hook it all together.

I have a few design changes in mind as well; probably I'll get the sites working as they are first and then make the changes later, but don't be surprised if you see something new coming up soon!

Update: ScriptureMenu.com is back up! You'll have to really search hard to find the few things that aren't working again now. GuideToPetra.com is still not fit for human consumption yet, but I expect to have it back up within a day or two.

The Bema

2009-10-16T19:10:00.000-05:00

Last night, my wife, my 9-year-old son and I listened to a CD of a dramatic presentation called The Bema. The presentation, which occurred at Bent Tree Fellowship in north Carrollton, Texas (just north of Dallas), was based on a book of the same name. "The Bema" refers to a future judgment at the end of time; this is not the "sheep and goats" judgment, which separates believers from unbelievers, but the "wood, hay and stubble", "receiving crowns" judgment which will be for God's people only. It is not a judgment for punishment, but for reward. The story and drama are a narrative about a man who goes to Heaven in the Rapture, but at the Bema seat of Christ, he discovers that he has done hardly anything of eternal significance. I won't give away the ending, but the message is that we should do the work of God's Kingdom while we have the chance during the short life that God gives us on Earth. It is very similar in some ways to a chapter from The Rapture by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, which I read recently (and which was written years after this story).

My brother sent me the CD, and I listened to it myself first... after I heard it, I knew my family was going to love it. We've been thinking a lot about what God wants us to do in ministry as a family and as part of a church family, and this story resonated so much with us. Afterward we sat in the living room and talked for some time about ministry and doing what God calls us to do. We also had some really good talk time about Bible reading and how important it is to hide the Word in your heart. You know, that's what family is really all about... having other people to seek God with. I'm so grateful that God provided that time for us!

Launching Today: Glo Bible (Bible study software)

2009-10-15T06:00:00.019-05:00

Glo software at CBD

A few days ago, I got an email from ChristianBook.com about Bible software. I usually don't pay very close attention to that email, because although I've used QuickVerse and Logos both fairly extensively at various times, and sampled other Bible software packages, I've found the free e-Sword to have everything from the commercial packages that I've ever needed. Generally, what I want is to be able to compare a fairly large number of English translations of the Bible easily. That means finding them quickly and then having the other translations at your fingertips. I like to have some commentaries available to me, too, as long as they cost me little or nothing. Photos of the Holy Land, videos, that sort of thing... even maps... generally have left me cold when they come from Bible software. But in that email, the simple, distinctive packaging of one of the boxes caught my eye enough to get me interested in taking a look.

The package that caught my eye was the new Glo Bible software, which comes out today. And the more I saw, the more interested I got! Now, I haven't held a copy of this software in my hands. I haven't used it. I haven't even seen it in action in person, only on the demo videos. It looks to be fairly resource-intensive, so it might even not work very well on the aging computers I have at home. But boy, if you can get it to do what it's doing in the videos... WOW!

I'll give you a brief introduction, kind of to help you get your bearings beforehand, and then you can take a look at their demo videos and see what you think for yourself. If you've used Bible software before, put that out of your mind for a second, becuase that's NOT the way this thing works. I don't even think there's a place that you can type in "John 3:16" and get the verse to come up... this is a different interface to the Scripture text. You access the Scriptures using what they call "lenses." The five lenses are "Bible", "Timeline", "Atlas", "Topical", and "Media". You could think of them as paths that all eventually lead to the same place... the Bible text ("Media" is a little different, because in addition to Bible text, it also leads to videos, pictures, immersive 3D tours of Bible locations, etc.) The "Bible" lens presents the Scriptures in the way we're used to seeing them... starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation, and all strung out in their whole 66-book canonical (Protestant) order. The "Timeline" lens comes at it from a different perspective: Bible events are laid out in a time line from beginning to end. Events in the life of Jesus are all there in their real-time order, for example, not segregated out by each of the four Gospels. The "Atlas" lens actually plots the Biblical events out on a map of the Holy Land, so if you wanted to see everything that ever happened in the Bible in Bethany, or in Jerusalem or wherever, you just have to check that place out on the map. The "Topical" view presents Scripture by topics... the same basic premise of ScriptureMenu.com but in a much flashier way. The "Media" lens is where you will find photos, videos, and those really cool 3D tours of sites related to the Scriptures you are studying. You can also combine lenses, so, for example, you could find everything that Jesus said in Jerusalem during the Passover in the book of John (which is the example from their demo videos). Interested? Here's the short & sweet video about it:

Looks cool, huh? If you have about fifteen minutes to spare, take a look at these two demos that demonstrate the usage in a little more depth:

I was totally WOWED after watching those demos! To my way of thinking, this is the first time since searchability (which I saw happening way back in the late 1980s) that Bible software has been created that can actually do something you can't do just as easily with a paper Bible. Because the features are based on "tags" placed on the Scripture verses by humans and not straight text searchability, the relationships between the verses feel a lot more organic.

However... this may be a shortcoming of the software as well. If the people who tagged the text have a different theological perspective than you do, you may not agree with the way they've arranged things. Are you pre-Trib, mid-Trib, post-Trib? Depending on which is your theory of choice, the books of Revelation, Daniel, and even Isaiah and other prophetic books may not show up the way you'd like to see them in the Timeline lens. What about that passage from Isaiah about the king of Babylon... is that about a man, or about Satan? Your answer may effect whether you agree with the Timeline view on the placement of the passage.

I also immediately noticed something in the demo of using multiple lenses together to narrow down your search. About five minutes into the "part 2" video above, there is a screen showing the location of all of the words of Jesus in the New Testament. There are passages in each of the Gospels, Acts, and Revelation... but what about this passage in 1 Corinthians? Looks like an unintentional omission to me. And the Topical view has potential to show Theological bias even more, especially in hot-button topics like abortion or eternal security. Don't get me wrong; every single study Bible and commentary has a bias, so this couldn't be an exception. But I don't see different editions of Glo based on your eschatology or whether you sprinkle or dip. I don't see a Catholic version and a Protestant version. Whatever is there, is there.

That may change, though. Based on information you can find at BibleGlo.com, a lot of new stuff is coming down the pike... a full-length audio version, for example, and Web accessible and mobile phone versions, not to mention social networking features. It sounds like some of these new features will basically be downloadable. I can't see why there couldn't be separate flavors, using the same Bible text and multimedia materials, but simply tagging the Scritpure verses slightly differently... and then Glo owners could sort of "subscribe" to the "channel" that they fall in line with, and their own copies of Glo could change to reflect their own biases toward the text. It appears that Glo will ship with the KJV and the NIV (it's a Zondervan product, and they own the NIV text) but there are negotiations taking place to add other versions... I probably wouldn't plunk down the money for myself until my ESV was represented. The very limited number of translations available at present is, to me, another very puzzling omission.

Oddly, I don't actually see in the demos a way to do a straight word search. Can you find all of the places that the word "soul" appears in the text? Maybe so, but I don't see it... you might have to visit BibleGateway.com for that one. What about links to original-language materials? Where are the Strong's definitions and other similar material? I guess you'd better not delete your link to Blue Letter Bible quite yet. Now, I should be totally fair... those capabilities may be present in the software but not in the demos. Or maybe they have been intentionally left out in favor of cool stuff like 360-degree walk-throughs of historical locations and other stuff that would interest a more casual reader in the Bible text. Obviously, this software is not targeted at your basic seminary professor or knowledgeable pastor... this is layman's software for people who want to know what God says about something but don't know how to find out. But I do hope there is a doorway there that people can walk through and get into more depth with the Scriptures.

And that is my biggest concern with this awesome piece of software. Let's say you buy Glo, install it on your laptop, and then spend the next three weeks figuring out how everything works. You become a Glo expert, and you can find out which Scripture verses refer to insects with six legs, or which verses are about women whose names start with the letter "A", or whatever other crazy lookups you can think of. You continue to use the software every day, and you continue to find nuggets in the Word, but you never actually read all the way through any book of the Bible. In fact, you rarely read three verses in a row all at once. You use the lenses to severely limit which verses you read, based on what you tell it you want to know about. In that scenario, not only have you given yourself a bad case of Scriptural tunnel vision and destined yourself to begin to share the bias of whoever tagged the verses, but you are robbing yourself of the insight you can gain from context. You've turned yourself into someone who gets his Theology from the "promise box" on the kitchen table, or the snatches of Scripture that you hear in songs on Christian radio. I think the danger is that we can turn ourselves into fans of the Bible instead of students of the Bible. The Word is not a Whitman's Sampler where you can eat the ones with the caramel in them but leave the ones filled with pink stuff for your Aunt Gertie. The Bible is an all-or-nothing proposition. In an age where it is easy to zero in on specific verses, and where many preachers skip from one verse to another in the course of a message with no reference to context, we're not used to just plain old reading the Bible like the book it is. Now, Glo has a Bible reading plan built in (and it sounds like the plan is to have the mobile version and even the audio version sync up so that if you read a chapter at home and then listen to the next chapter in the car, eventually all of that information winds up back in Glo!) and there is absolutely nothing to stop you from reading it straight through (the Bible lens would actually be pretty great for that), so the "danger" isn't really a danger, but a caution to not let the very cool features of the software package deceive you into thinking you know all about what the Bible says just because you clicked into the Topical lens. To truly know the Word takes effort. Hard work. A great shovel is only the first step in digging up the riches present in the Bible. Software that can bring some of them a little closer to the surface for you is a great start, but it's not the whole journey.

Even the coolest, shiniest, round-buttoniest software won't turn you into something you're not. If you're not a student of the Word, this software (or any software) will not change that, although given the right circumstances, a snazzy interface may get you to engage the text in a way you wouldn't have been otherwise. When it all comes down to it, either you're hungry for the Word, or you're not. This software probably won't make you hungry. But if you are hungry, this software could be like an express train from your house directly to Olive Garden. It'll get you to places you never thought to go, faster and easier than ever before, and in ways you never dreamed of (or maybe you did dream of but never thought it could actually happen).

I hope I actually get a chance to play with this sometime. Besides being an awesome tool, it just looks incredibly fun! I doubt it'll have me giving up my ESV Study Bible (my favorite Bible study resource of all time), but it could add a dynamism to my study times that wouldn't be there otherwise. I'll be watching Glo to see where it goes next. Glad to be here at lift-off!

The same, yet different

2009-10-09T12:17:00.003-05:00

Everything is different, but the same. Things are more moderner than before, bigger... and yet smaller! It's computers!

...SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

- OX, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

This morning I was walking through my neighborhood in the rain. Sort of. When you ride the bus to work, you have three options when it comes to weather: (1) Stay home when the weather is unpleasant (not a viable option); (2) wimp out and drive that day; or (3) learn to enjoy the weather, or at least put up with it. I had decided to rise to the challenge and not let a few drizzle drops force me to have to negotiate traffic for myself. That's what umbrellas are for, right?

Anyway, when I actually got out into the neighborhood, I realized that the only place it was still raining was under the trees. The rain had stopped, but there was water on leaves and when the wind blew, the water would come on down and seem just like rain. I was either going to have to open my umbrella, or get out from under those trees.

I opted for the second option... umbrellas can be a real pain in the neck in Oklahoma wind. The only way to get out from under the trees was to walk out in the street, so that's what I did. As I walked, I thought about all of the times I've walked that particular route. I've been riding the bus for several years now, and some times of year it's hot and I seek out the shade of the same trees I was trying to avoid. I've walked in pretty heavy downpours, too, where it really didn't matter much whether I was under trees or not... I was going to get soaked. I've also walked through the neighborhood at other times when everything was frozen and there were no leaves at all on the trees.

Then something came to me. A few weeks ago here, it was pretty hot out. Then, I had sought the shade of the same trees I was avoiding. The neighborhood was largely the same, but my experience of it was different. Why? Two reasons: the weather, and my response to the weather. I could have walked exactly the same footsteps I had walked on a hot day, and my experience would still have been a little different... but instead I was altering my route a bit, and my experience of the neighborhood was quite a bit different.

And I thought about God.

Several years ago I blogged about how God remains the same, even though our experience of Him changes at different times. But it seems to me that my walk through the neighborhood sheds a slightly different light on things. The neighborhood is the same; my experience of it changes based on (1) the season, and (2) my reaction to the circumstances. What if the way we experience God changes for the same reasons? What if we experience Him differently in different seasons, and even within that context, in different ways based on our response to those different circumstances?

(in case you're wondering... here's the source of the quote, on YouTube.)

Church Shopping: We May Have A Winner!

2009-09-28T13:07:00.000-05:00

This weekend we got around to visiting The Bridge church in Bixby. It's been on our list ever since the beginning of our search; in fact, in a sense it was on our list even before we decided that we needed to change churches! The pastor was once our worship leader elsewhere, and he just returned to the Tulsa area I think less than a year ago after associate-pastoring a church in another state for something like five or six years or so. They have a monthly worship-only service that we've been invited to several times but were unable to attend for one reason or another, and several weeks ago we actually came out for one of their periodic potluck dinners. We've really been looking forward to this visit, partly because this is a small congregation (I think about 200 or so attending on Sundays) which is a real contrast with the other churches we've been test-driving (mostly in the couple-of-thousand attendees range, I'd say). Plus we have a LOT of friends who go to The Bridge already. So we were excited about coming to a real live service... in fact, I posted on Facebook a few days before, "warning" some of our friends who go there that we would be lurking on Sunday!

Early Sunday morning... about 4am... my 9-year-old boy got scared. You know how kids get scared for no reason? I know it happened to me when I was a kid, and I think it happens to us grownups sometimes too. Well, he just freaked out. A few nights before, he had gotten spooked in the middle of the night when he saw a threatening form in his room; the form turned out to be a t-shirt! He laughed it off pretty quickly that time, but not this time. I don't even know what exactly had set him off, but it was a good hour and a half before he calmed down enough to leave us alone. So we're talking 5:30am, and my wife had set an alarm for 6am to make sure she had plenty of time to get herself and the baby ready and still take the 30-minute drive to where the church is. We passed back out, and didn't wake up again until about 8. Services we've been visiting at Guts start at 11 and they're close (maybe a 5-minute drive); services at The Bridge are at 10, so that means we have to get up about an hour and a half earlier for The Bridge in order to get the same amount of getting-ready time before we have to leave. I woke Cathy up and told her that it was 8:00 so she had time to get ready and we could go to Guts or somewhere else; she surprised me by being pretty adamant that she wanted to go to The Bridge, even though it would be hard to get ready in time! So we went into four-alarm get-ready-for-church mode, and I was actually pretty surprised that we managed to get everyone fed and dressed and out the door almost exactly on time... we arrived at church nor more than five or six minutes before service time. Good thing their child check-in process is fairly simple!

We parked next to a car which turned out to contain a friend of ours from way back, and we chatted briefly on the way in. There were a LOT of familiar faces, most of them people we had gone to church with when Pastor Orlando was our worship leader, so we felt pretty comfortable and extremely welcomed. At The Bridge, the children are actually expected to be in the music part of the worship service right along with the adults, so we had them with us for that part (the baby did well until her big brother started playing peekaboo with her... we're going to have to keep the two of them separated during that part of the service from here on out). After worship the children go into separate classrooms for more age-appropiate Bible lessons, so we took them on back and were in place for the offering and the message.

The message was awesome. In fact, it was particularly relevant for a family looking for a new church home: it was about changing yourself to fit into the will of God for your life. We spent a lot of time listening to Pastor Orlando teaching the Word back when he was Music Director Orlando, and we loved his teaching style even then. In fact, I would encourage you to visit this page on the church's Web site and give him a listen. He has a very unique delivery, and what he's saying is so relevant and immediate. It's really neat stuff.

After the service we asked our son how the lesson was in his class. Apparently instead of kind of telling the kids a Bible story while they sit quietly and listen, in his class things were quite free-form, with discussion and back-and-forth between children and teacher the whole time the teacher was sharing the Bible story. To me, that is SO COOL. I hope that's the way it always is for the children, because that's perfect for Mikey. Honestly, I think most children would pick a very participatory lesson to sitting and watching what was going on, even if what was going on involved them to some extent (a game girls vs. boys with everyone cheering for your own team and everyone wins something, for example), but for Mikey, being able to speak up and put in his two cents will be so good for him. Meanwhile, the baby was having a good time playing and babbling at the nursery teacher... afterward she told me "She was talking the whole time, but I really couldn't understand her!" I told her, "Well, I saw you were watching some VeggieTales, you you probably heard a 'Bop' the Tomato a couple of times," and she nodded like she was remembering a few Bops. :)

The Bridge is a very music-rich church. We knew most of the musicians on stage, plus a number of musicians in the congregation, and most churches would wet themselves to have the quality of musicians on their stage as The Bridge had sitting in the congregation (those people do play during the services, but there are so many of them that they rotate). What else would you expect from a church where the pastor was a long-time worship leader in the town next door? And Pastor Orlando and most of the other musicians there are friends of ours and are aware of our musical talents; I doubt we'll have any trouble with this church not making us feel supported in whatever musical conquests we might embark upon. We really want to spend a little bit of time with Pastor Orlando and find out what the whole story is on his commitment to the town of Bixby; it sounds like the choice to locate there was anything but random. It sounds like Bixby was carefully selected as the spot for that church because God had laid the area on Pastor Orlando's heart, and if so, then hands-and-feet, give-someone-a-jacket-when-they're-cold kind of ministry is a logical extension of that. We want to share our desire to be involved with a church committed to that kind of stuff and see how that fits with his vision, but I expect him to be really excited about it.

Before we were even through the door of the church afterward, Cathy was making it clear to me that she thought that The Bridge is "it." The place for us. I was a little bit conflicted because we have SO many friends there... that may sound ridiculous, but if it feels like "home" I want it to feel like that because it's God's "home" for us, not just because we have a couple of buddies there. But I can't deny that it immediately felt like home, and I also can't deny that the idea of trying out the other churches on our list suddenly doesn't interest me any more. So The Bridge is going to be seeing a lot more of us! We think it may be home for good. We haven't 100% ruled out the idea that we're confused and God will straighten us out, but it sure feels good to us right now. With the amount of prayer and thought and seeking God that we've put into this, if we're mixed up, I think He'll make it clear to us and quick.

We're excited about this church! Next week they're moving into a new facility... with that comes lots of exciting stuff. We can't wait!

Ninety Feet

2009-09-25T12:09:00.004-05:00

Every day I walk, several times, past a ninety-foot drop which would end in my death.

The picture at right is the view over the rail into the open-air atrium in the office building where I work. We're on the ninth floor, and there is nothing but a short wall and a railing to separate anyone walking from their office to the restroom from falling over. So probably five or six times on an average day, I am two feet from doom. Meeting Jesus in person. Very scary!

Is it scary? Well, it was when I first started working here. I would go out into the atrium area and look down (feeling a little queasy), and then look up to the one upper floor and skylight and see the clouds (feeling a little inspired). I thought about how beautiful the atrium is, and how terrible it would be to experience nine stories' worth of open air on the way down (actually, the air wouldn't be the bad part... the floor would be the bad part!) It would always make me just a little bit nervous. You know why? Because I was conscious of the danger that is present in that situation. If someone wanted to do me in, they could do it easily (hopefully nobody does!) and if I lost equilibrium for some reason, I could tumble over that rail with no help whatsoever.

I don't worry about that any more. Why? Because the danger is less? No, of course not... it's because I just don't think about it any more. I've become used to the danger that is present there. It's not that I've lost my knowledge of the danger (or else I wouldn't be writing this) or my fear of falling to my death... it just doesn't occur to me now.

Let's think about something else. When was the last time you thought about Hell? The Bible describes flames burning people forever, worms eating them forever... it's pretty gruesome. If you are a believer in Jesus, that's not going to happen to you. We heard a pastor this week say that Christians are "disqualified" from going to Hell. You can't get in! You're not eligible to burn forever! :) Is Hell any less real or dangerous? No, of course not. It's VERY dangerous. But your fear of Hell is gone, and you probably don't think about it any more.

What if I was in the atrium and saw someone stumbling toward the rail? Would I remember the danger? Of COURSE I would! I would run to the person and try to steady them and save them from getting hurt or killed. Even though I don't think about the danger much, I'm aware that it's there. Let me ask you a question: when was the last time you thought about whether a person you met was in danger of going to Hell?

Quick break... check out this video from atheist Penn Jillette (from magic duo Penn & Teller)

Let's think of something else. Do you realize that every day, without the privilege of identifying with the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, you and I are lost? Every day we walk through our lives in the very shadow of Jesus' work on the Cross. So daily, we are two feet from Jesus' Salvation on one side, and two feet from the threat of Hell (which is no longer a danger to us as believers) on the other. We should be so thankful for the gift on the one hand, and so alarmed by the danger on the other hand to people around us, that we should be willing to do whatever it takes to live out our faith, in public, and with no reservations. If someone was tipping over the rail, I would run, I would yell, and I would jump in the way if I thought it would help. The threat of eternity without God is just as imminent, and is much more dangerous, than a mere fall of nine stories. If you were extremely lucky, you might actually somehow survive a 90-foot drop... but the drop into Hell is a lot longer than 90 feet, and nobody ever comes back.

Don't be afraid to hear the Holy Spirit today. Don't be afraid to share your faith. If you are a willing vessel, God will use you... you may be the reason someone meets Jesus.

One day an old man was walking along the beach. It was low tide, and the sand was littered with thousands of stranded starfish that the water had carried in and then left behind. The man began walking very carefully so as not to step on any of the beautiful creatures. Since the animals still seemed to be alive, he considered picking some of them up and putting them back in the water, where they could resume their lives.

The man knew the starfish would die if left on the beach's dry sand but he reasoned that he could not possibly help them all, so he chose to do nothing and continued walking.

Soon afterward, the man came upon a small child on the beach who was frantically throwing one starfish after another back into the sea. The old man stopped and asked the child, "What are you doing?"

"I'm saving the starfish," the child replied.

"Why waste your time?... There are so many you can't save them all so what does is matter?" argued the man.

Without hesitation, the child picked up another starfish and tossed the starfish back into the water... "It matters to this one," the child explained.

-"A Single Starfish" inspired "The Star Thrower" By Loren Eiseley... this version borrowed from all-creatures.org

[UPDATE: a very interesting perspective on Hell by Pastor John Piper can be found here.]

Church Shopping: What We're Looking For

2009-09-23T12:48:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks as we've been searching for a new home, I keep trying to weigh what we're looking for. I keep thinking about some of the things we're glad to be away from that were at the old church (face it, every church has its warts, and if you left your church, you'd be glad to be away from the warts too!) and things we'd like to see in a new church. We want a church that is reaching out to the community, like Jesus reached out to people... He fed them, He healed them, and He preached the Gospel of His Kingdom to them. He didn't just preach; he met their needs as well. We want a church that reaches out to the world with a priority placed on missions work. We want to physically be part of both of those things if possible. We want a church with praise and worship that we enjoy hearing, that we participate in, and that the whole congregation gets involved in. I personally would like to see people moving around a little bit... not just swaying back and forth and singing, but really physically participating. OK, I'll say it... I dig jumping. :) We want to hear messages that are deeply steeped in the Word of God, and are also very relevant to our lives... that only comes from a pastor who is listening to the Holy Spirit.

We want good programs for our children where they hear the Word and learn about it. We want it to be fun so they will love to come to church, and we want them to learn to worship God in music, giving, and hearing the Word. We want our children to have opportunities to participate in outreach to the community, and when they are old enough, even to have the opportunity to go on short-term missions trips if they want to. We want them to be safe from any kind of abuse by anyone in the church... it's a sad thing to have to think like that, but unless volunteers and staff are properly screened and supervised, the children are vulnerable. We want leaders who are thrilled to see our kids when we arrive, not just because they're our kids, but because they love kids and want to see them learn more about God. But we still want leaders who care enough to learn our kids' names.

We want people to know our names, too. We want to have the opportunity to get to know people, talk to them about the Word, pray with them, but also to just become friends and become part of their lives. We don't want to be faces in the crowd. There was a time in my life when that was exactly what I wanted to be, but I've come to understand that that's not what church is all about. It isn't a cool show you go to once a week; it's a family. If you don't recognize people and they don't recognize you, then it's not family. We went to a church for a year and never saw the same face twice except in the children's department where the same teachers would teach the same class ages on rotation. I never had any idea who I was sitting next to in the service. Too big. Too much. Not human enough. We're all brothers and sisters in the family of God, of course, but I think a local church is about relationships. We need that.

But we'd like people to know our names for another reason, too. Cathy and I are vocalists and songwriters, performers with a skill and people who understand a few things about worshiping God in song. We're not looking to find a church where we can become celebrities, but we do want a place where there is a place for our gifts to be utilized and treasured. We value the gifts God has placed inside of us far too much to squander them, and for far too many years we've flown just under the radar most of the time. It's time for us to be somewhere that we feel we have support in the ministry that God is calling us to. We don't even know exactly what form that might take, but our church family should be supportive.

I'm not saying that these things weren't present at our old church... some of them were and some of them were not so much. But those are some of the things we're keeping our eyes open for. The most frustrating thing in our search is that those things are what we think we want, but what we really want is the direction of the Holy Spirit. And that doesn't come from a checklist. We can't interview someone with our "demands" in hand and see if they fit the bill... because we believe that God wants us to be a part of some church somewhere and His idea of what's right for us may not fit our ideas. So all we can do is continue to pray, continue to have great patience (I wish every church in town would have a service every night, just for a month or so, so it wouldn't take so long to try out the ones we want to try out!), and continue to listen to the voice of God. Maybe He has us on this journey for a reason of His own.

Church Shopping: Guts Church II

2009-09-20T16:59:00.000-05:00

We finally made it out to Guts Church for Sunday morning worship today! It was a little bit of a different experience from the Wednesday we visited, but not as much as you might expect.

THIS time, we got there in plenty of time to get everybody checked in and find some seats before the music started. We got a nice parking space, close to where Mikey's class was... it was a completely different arrival situation than the last time, with one exception: as they did the last time, people who greeted us were all VERY friendly. I think we were probably greeted with a smile five or six times before we even got inside the main building! I know those people are there deliberately and it wasn't some spontaneous display of enthusiasm on their part, but it made us feel very welcome, nonetheless.

This time I took notice of the long line of motorcycles all parked in a special area right next to the building. Must have been at least twenty of them. Did I mention yet that this is an edgy church? :)

When we went on a Wednesday night, they put Hannah into the 1-year-old classroom, even though she's 21 months old already. This time they put her into the 2-year-old classroom instead. The teacher this time seemed enthusiastic to see Hannah, which made us feel good about that. :) I noticed something this time that I didn't notice the last time, too... there are video monitors outside the nursery area showing each of the classrooms (1s, 2s & 3s, 4s & 5s). Pretty cool that there is that degree of transparency there, although to be honest, you can't tell much from looking at the monitors... they show the part of the classrooms that is closest to the entry, and most of the activities seem to take place in the other part. So you see a big empty room with tiny little people really far away... but it does give you a window into the classrooms, which is kind of nice.

We went on in and got seats a little closer than the last time, and a little closer to the center, too. The song service did appear to be a little longer, which was cool... it ran almost 15 minutes, which is still shorter than I would like (come on, guys, give us one more song!) but didn't seem truncated like the Wednesday service did. There was a really cool video about someone who came to The Nightmare years ago and became a Christian that night, and who eventually wound up bringing his brother to Guts (he got saved) and then their mom and dad (who apparently also got saved at Guts!) It was a pretty cool video!

The message today was about finding your call and being true to it. The cornerstone Scripture was from the first chapter of Jeremiah, where God calls Jeremiah, Jeremiah tries to make excuses about why he is unable to follow God's call (I'm just a youth!), and God tells him, listen, if you say what I tell you to say and do what I tell you to do, it doesn't matter who you are, because I will do the work. It was a terrific word, especially for people like us who are in a time of transition into a new phase of God's will for us. Cathy and I love to sing, but let's face it... mid- and late thirties is not the prime time of life to embark on a music career. But if we do what God tells us to do and say what He tells us to say, we can't help but succeed!

Cathy is pretty excited about Guts. The atmosphere is very relaxed (like us), and the messages have been right on. Mikey and Hannah both seem to enjoy their classes (in fact, Mikey ran into a friend from Kindergarten in Guts Kids today!), and Mikey is getting something out of the lesson in his area. Another serious positive point about Guts is that it's really close to our house... our old church was a 20-25 minute drive, and this church is about ten minutes max. I'm still not quite sure I'm ready to commit completely to Guts, though. I'm hoping to feel a breath of fresh air and everything falling into place when we find our new home church (I've heard lots of stories like that), but I don't know if that will happen or not. There are about five more churches on our list to visit; if it doesn't hit us like a thunderbolt anywhere and no other church impresses us like Guts does, Guts may well be the place we call home by the first of the year.

Church Shopping: Guts Church/Victory Christian Center

2009-09-17T18:00:00.001-05:00

It's Thursday. Last night we didn't go to church... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Rewind a week to the previous Wednesday.

Despite the fact that we really kind of prefer to test-drive churches for the first time on Sunday mornings and then take in a Wednesday night afterward, last Wednesday we visited Guts Church for the first time in a long time. Cathy had been to Guts as a teenager when it was brand new; I've been once with her many years ago (it was in their previous building, and I don't even remember if Mikey was born yet). Guts is probably one of the edgiest churches you'll ever experience. The music is loud rock & roll, the pastor is in-your-face. The building has an almost unfinished look to it, not because it's unfinished (because it's clearly finished) but because that's the way it's intentionally set up. They even run a controversial "haunted house" every October called "The Nightmare" as one of their biggest outreaches of the year. It's certainly an exciting place to be, and the people we spoke to were very friendly!

It was a soggy, rainy night when we got there, and since we were right on the very edge of service time when we arrived, we wound up parking quite a distance from the sanctuary. We trudged that way through the gravel parking lot, and a young lady in a golf cart pulled up and offered us a lift! We took her up on it, and she drove us over to the children's building where Mikey would be. She told us she had been attending Guts for something like seven months, and she LOVES it. Mikey went into his service (where they have a cartoon "lounge" which was showing some Tom & Jerry cartoons, a rock wall, and several other fun diversions for the kids for before & after service time), and then we crossed the street into the main building.

The baby area is in the same building as the sanctuary. It's a castle! I mean, really. It's decorated like a castle. Stone walls, flags and tapestries, the whole nine yards. We got checked in (which wasn't too bad, with help from a friendly volunteer) and went over to drop off our baby girl. This was one of the strangest parts: in the 1-year-old classroom they actually had both halves of the split door closed. We had to knock on the door and then wait for them to come open the top so we could drop Hannah off! The nursery workers didn't particularly look enthusiastic about our arrival, either, even though there didn't appear to be very many babies there (maybe I couldn't see them in the other part of the room).

Anyway, we went into the service, which was already in progress. The praise & worship music was REALLY loud... if you're not a rock fan, you would POSITIVELY NOT like it. But we did. :) It was way too short, though... we walked in a minute or two late, and only actually heard two songs (we didn't know either of them, so we did more listening than singing). We hope that on Sunday the music will last a little longer. After that part, we got to hear a little bit about The Nightmare, which is in the preparation stages right now. Last year they hit a milestone with The Nightmare... a five-digit milestone. They had 10,488 decisions for Christ last year! How many churches that you know can even lie about those kinds of numbers and be taken seriously? What an impact on the community! We saw a video from last year, and then they welcomed us and the other visitors (they gave us three candy bars... each!) and took up the offering, and then Pastor got up to share his message.

What a message! The first part of it really hit home for us... he was talking about people having a possessive attitude toward their home church because it's "my house." That's what we're looking for... a church we can call our house! Our old church, for all of the many years we had been there, never quite felt like a place that we could call ours. We want someplace that feels like home to us.

Anyway, Pastor Scheer went on to compare several Scripture passages about building. Jesus indicated that each of us is building a "house" which is really our life. We can build on a foundation of the Word and have a strong house, or we can not and have a house that won't stand up to opposition. But we don't build alone... God builds alongside of us. One day our building will be tested by fire, and only works done for Christ will survive that. We are to bring God's light into all parts of our life (remember, the "house" is our life). And, in fact, all of our "houses" will one day be within God's house (in the ESV the word translated "rooms" is really more often translated "dwellings"; see note in the margin). It was a message that had me thinking for days afterward.

When the service was over with, Cathy wanted to see if we could get some more "information" about the church... any materials about programs going on there. We were directed to an information booth where two young guys spoke with us at some length, even asking our names and chatting about the church, before they finally told us that the lady who was supposed to be manning the booth was actually away for a few minutes, and they were just there scamming for some gum inside the desk! We thought it was pretty funny, but it was also pretty cool that they treated a couple of strangers who were visiting so warmly, even though it wasn't even their duty to talk with us. They could have just said, this isn't our booth, I'm sorry... but they didn't! And eventually the lady showed up, and she was very friendly and got us the pamphlet that they have about the church.

Hannah seemed to have had a good time... Mikey had a GREAT time and really enjoyed rocking out to their praise & worship service in the Guts Kids building! Overall the experience was very positive; they are a church with a vision and compassion for the local area (actually, including some outlying towns as well) and that resonates with us as a family. Guts doesn't appear to be as missions-centric as World Outreach Church, though.

Sunday morning we all got up and ready to go to Guts for the 11am service, and got partway there when Hannah exhaled the hugest booger I've seen in quite some time. With that kind of congestion, there was a good chance the nursery folks wouldn't want her in class, so we turned around and went home (we were kind of tired anyway). Sunday night, though, we went to Victory Christian Center for a special worship service led by a singer we can't help but love: Kari Jobe. Kari is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet; her music reflects that, and everyone who ever gets to hear her sing or speak seems to just fall in love with her. Anyway, we were definitely late getting to Victory. Victory is a HUGE megachurch... certainly one of the biggest churches in Tulsa, if not THE biggest... and we had some trouble figuring out where the children's area is. The check-in lady in the children's area apparently gave Cathy a little bit of trouble getting checked in; there was something about not enough volunteers in the nursery rooms. To me, that's something that a visitor doesn't need to be privy to. First of all, it's sad for a church that large to lack for volunteers anyway, but that kind of wrangling belongs behind the scenes. It's not the visitor's job to supply nursery workers. But we finally got Hannah checked in, got Mikey up to his children's service (turns out he really wanted to see Kari, although he did enjoy the service he was in!), and got on into the main sanctuary.

I'll suffice it to say that the sanctuary is HUGE. It has been used as a venue for a number of concerts and other events. It's big and it's beautiful, and if we were members there, there is no way we would ever meet even one tenth of the people in the room. Several friends of ours were there and we didn't see any of them. My own mother was at the service, and we never knew it until she called my wife's cell phone when we were on the way home! That's too many people. We want a family, not a county. I think we can consider ourselves friendly toward Victory, but it's not our "house".

So that brings us up to yesterday. It was payday, and we were running low on supplies at home, so Cathy opted for us to go to the grocery store instead of a church service. Which says to me that we probably haven't found "home" yet... if we had, then we would be so excited to be there that we wouldn't want to miss! We haven't hit that level yet.

I also want to point out again something that I find disconcerting: at neither of these churches did the workers in the baby's class seem happy to see us! What does it mean when the nursery volunteers look like they consider your baby an inconvenience? Hannah received the warmest welcome so far at World Outreach Church... the teachers there seemed almost overjoyed that another baby had arrived. THAT'S the kind of nursery workers you need! The ladies at Evangelistic Temple were quite friendly as well. But we almost felt like we had to assert ourselves at both Guts and Victory to get our treasure, our precious little girl, checked into her class. Cathy actually emailed Victory that evening after we got home to tell them about what happened to us when we were trying to check in. It was pretty inexcusable.

Cathy had a dream shortly before we left our old church. A friend of ours who is passionate about hearing from God and who knows a thing or two about dream interpretation, not knowing at all that we were thinking about leaving the church, told us that she thought the dream sounded like it meant that our ministry was trying to go somewhere but we weren't getting any help from the people around us, but that I, Michael, had the determination to find the help that we needed. The support that our ministry needs is a supportive local church to form our base of operations. And my wife and I are determined to find that exact place that God has in store for us.

Rewind

2009-09-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

If I knew back then what I know right now,
You know I'd be the king of the ladies!
And if I knew back then what I know right now,
There'd be no ifs, and buts and no maybes!
- Extreme, "King of the Ladies" from Saudades de Rock

A few days ago my wife and I were watching the movie 17 Again. It's about a late-30s guy (about my age) named Mike O'Donnell who has made some mistakes in his life and wishes for a chance to do it all over again. George Bailey-style, he is granted his wish by an old crackpot guy; suddenly Mike is the age of a high-school senior. Of course, it's not 1989 any more; it's still the present day, and Mike winds up in school with his own daughter and son. He finds out some things about high school, about his daughter, and about his son that he probably would rather not have known; hilarity ensues, lessons are learned, and Mike gets to be is real age again, reconcile with his wife (who had been on the very edge of divorcing him), reconnect with his kids, and live happily ever after.

A few weeks before I had discovered the newest CD by an old favorite band named Extreme. The lyrics to one of their songs (quoted above) got me thinking: if I could take my 39 years of understanding of people, life, and particularly teenagers, back with me and get back into that high-school-age body, what would I do? Well, I certainly would do a better job with girls than I did then, because I've always been impossibly shy with females (my wife is the happiest exception to any rule that I've ever found in my life!) If I had the self-confidence that I have now instead of the self-doubt I had then, I imagine I would have had any number of girlfriends. It would be easy pickin's, I imagine... having the understanding of human beings that four decades brings, and unleashing it on unsuspecting teenage girls. Not a particularly fair match-up.

Mike in the movie did not to that, to my surprise. In fact, several girls pretty much threw themselves at him, making it clear that he didn't have to "respect them in the morning" or even, in one case, "...remember my name!" He didn't jump at the chance to use those very-available girls for pleasure. Instead, Mike spent all of his time on two projects: pursuing his adolescent dream of getting discovered by basketball scouts, and helping his kids get out of the messes that the kids had gotten themselves into (his son with getting picked on by peers, and his daughter with getting mixed up with a no-good boyfriend).

And that got me thinking... what would I really do if I could go back? Probably much of the same stuff I did at the time... I would probably still drag my Bible to school, go to school, go to youth group. Play trombone in the school band. But there would be a difference, because I would be different on the inside. On the outside I would be a zitty teenager, but on the inside I would be an adult. I would be inside the teenage world, like Mike O'Donnell, but I would not be a teenager. I would be an adult. I would be "other." If something happened that would have crushed me as a teenager, I would be able to laugh it off, knowing that as an adult, I probably wouldn't even remember it.

I would be "in" the teenage "world", but not "of" the teenage "world." Sound familiar?

So often I don't do something because of how it will affect me. I don't say something that I should say, because I'm afraid it will affect my social standing, or my career, or just my self-image. The Word makes it clear, though, that this world is very temporary (James 4:14) and that we should not consider it our home. One day I, and you too if you are a believer in Jesus, will "graduate" from the world in which we now live, and go on to the things God has in mind for us for eternity. I am no more a permanent resident of this world than a high-school senior is a permanent resident of his high school. Why should I care any more about the ins and outs of life pre-eternity than I would care about the social jockeying for position if I were 17 years old and back in high school?

Let's do what God has called on us to do, today, without reservation or timidity. Whatever age you are right now, and wherever you are socially, jobwise, schoolwise... you can't go back ten years from now and be in that exact same situation again. God has a job for you to do right now, right where you are. If you take yourself out of the picture, that job may not get done. God has a call for your life! Are you going to follow Him today?

Church Shopping: World Outreach Church

2009-09-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

This morning was our first Sunday morning test-driving World Outreach Church, pastored by Mark & Janet Brazee. We've actually been there a couple of times before; Cathy was in a service back in the 90s when the church was first starting up, and then she and I attended a service a few years ago with my pastor from the church where I grew up (he is a friend of Pastor Brazee), and then we all visited again together the Wednesday before last. I didn't comment on our visit then because frankly, we don't want to judge any church by its Wednesday service alone. Every church puts its best foot forward on Sunday morning, so although we do want to visit churches on Wednesday, we want to make sure we get a Sunday in there, too.

But first about that Wednesday, a week and a half ago. We showed up unannounced (in fact, I think this was even before we had told friends at our old church that we had decided to leave) and immediately found our dear friends Mardy & Jamie. I've known Mardy since we were in choir together in college; Cathy and I got back aquainted with him and met his wife many years later at the church we just left. Mikey got to be friends with their son, who is a year younger than Mikey, and Cathy even babysat for them at one point. Anyway, they've been at WOC for some time now, and we spotted them right off. Jamie was characteristically enthusiastic to see us; for one thing she's an enthusiastic lady! ...and for another thing she and Cathy have been really good friends. So we sat with them through that service.

I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, though. First we had to check in the kids in their classes! Hannah went to the nursery area, where she seemed really ready to go play with the other children. Mikey went upstairs to their beautiful brand new facility for the older kids. He was hooked when he saw the Wiis in there. :)

Anyway, we were with Mardy and Jamie in the adult service, and we had a wonderful time, and enjoyed it very much. When we asked Mikey later what he liked about his experience, he said that "Everyone was so friendly!" so he had a great time, and Hannah apparently had a good time playing and she left happy (actually, she left with one of their board books... I had to go bring it back!) About a week later, I got a follow-up phone call, which was very appreciated (I talked about that here). Then this morning we loaded up again for our first full-fledged Sunday morning service!

The church was pretty packed for the Sunday morning service. At the same time as they were expanding their children's areas, they were expanding the sanctuary as well, and they clearly needed it! It was Missions Sunday, and when I heard that, I knew Cathy was going to really love it; foreign missions are something that has been strong on her heart ever since her (Southern Baptist) childhood. I have a love for missions too, but not nearly to the degree as she does. And as is obvious from their name, World Outreach Church is definitely a missions-focused church! We got to hear some exciting testimony from a missionary that the church supports, and then Pastor Brazee spoke on missions for a while. He talked about the four men who carried their friend to Jesus to be healed, and then he brought out a table, had a man lie on it (to represent "Mongolia") and then called up a young lady who is about to go on the mission field to Mongolia. He told us that she couldn't carry "Mongolia" to Jesus (he called up another man to be "Jesus") without help; she can only carry one corner of the table by herself. But one by one, he called up people to be her team back home; the people back home who would be praying for her; and the people back home who would give so that she would have funds to stay out on the field (Pastor Brazee was visibly overcome, and briefly unable to speak, when he talked about missionaries who have to leave their mission field because of lack of funds). Then the four people each lifted one corner of the table to carry "Mongolia" to "Jesus", and I never thought I would be so moved to see four people carry a guy on a table across a stage.

Meanwhile, Mikey was also having Missions Sunday in his class. Mikey told us a story afterward about a crusade in Argentina where 4,206 people received Jesus at once! There were so many hands, Mikey told us, that from the front you couldn't even see the hands in the back. Once again everyone was friendly to Mikey, and he has nothing at all bad to say about the experience.

I've got nothing bad at all to say about either visit either; the building is beautiful, the people are friendly, and actually we've got several friends that already go there so it's not even entirely like a different church. We love their emphases on the children and on outreach, both foreign missions like they talked about today, and local outreach, which we understand happens quite frequently. If we should decide that this is our new church, the one thing that I'll need to get used to is the music. I'm saying that knowing that our friends Mardy and Jamie are heavily involved in the music, and they may well read this, so I hope they won't be offended, because I'm just being real here. The music is well-performed and clearly heartfelt (in fact, this morning the lady who plays percussion... shakers, tambourines, that kind of thing... was nearly dancing right there in place, she was so into it), but it's not so much my "flavor". I'll have to get used to the style (which is kind of part 80s charismatic, part black Gospel... actually very similar to the music in the church I grew up in) in order to be able to lose myself in worship there. That is by no means a deal-breaker; I learned long ago that the music and the worship that occur are completely separate things, and you can worship whether the music is your "thing" or not (heck, you don't even need music at all in order to worship God!) so if this is where God is calling us, I'll get used to it and have no trouble during worship. Cathy has no problem with it at all. Am I being petty? I hope not. Music is a big part of my life (I majored in music composition in college, for crying out loud!) so it looms large for me. It may turn out that it's just a hurdle I have to overcome. But if it is, it's a hurdle that I've put in my own way, not something that World Outreach Church has created. What they've created is clearly a vibrant, active, involved, caring, friendly church body. I think I could handle a couple of Charismatic two-step songs in exchange for the chance to be a part of something like that!

Church Shopping: Follow-Ups

2009-09-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

We didn't go to church last Wednesday... we already visited one church for the first time on a Wednesday (World Outreach Church) and we really want our first time at new churches to be a Sunday. Plus, Cathy and I were both really wiped out this week. So we stayed home. But then Thursday at about 2:30pm my phone rang, and it was someone from World Outreach calling to say hi, thanks for visiting with us, do you have any questions, that kind of stuff. It was a really cool conversation. Then not more than ten minutes later, I got an EMAIL from Evangelistic Temple church, welcoming us and thanking us for coming, the same sort of stuff. THEN: Thursday night we were at home when the doorbell rang. It was a lady from E.T. who had brought us a bag with a 2-liter Coca Cola, some Orville Redenbacher popcorn, and some literature about the church in it! She even prayed with us that we would find the right church for our family. It was awesome! WOC and ET churches, you're doin' it RITE!

We're really looking forward to making our first Sunday visit to WOC this Sunday morning coming up!

Romantic language between us and God, revisited

2009-09-04T06:00:00.113-05:00

Forgive me now, 'cause I have been unfaithful
Don’t ask me why 'cause I don’t know
So many times I’ve tried, but was unable,
But this heart belongs to you alone

Forgive me, I’m ashamed; I’ve loved another
I can’t explain cause I don’t know
No one can take your place, and there is no other
Forever yours and yours alone
-Skillet, "Forgiven" from Awake

How the faithful city
     has become a whore,
     she who was full of justice!
Righteousness lodged in her,
     but now murderers.
          -Isaiah 1:21, ESV

Several days ago I linked to a video where Matt Redman had some interesting points to make about "blokes" (guys) not necessarily being comfortable using "romantic" language in worship to Jesus... kind of a vaguely homophobic squeamishness to saying that you "love" another man. I think Matt has a valid point in that we as songwriters need to be sensitive to the kinds of things that the casual worshipper may not be comfortable saying as part of worship, but God has no problem with talking about us as though we were His wife.

- Isaiah chapter 61 was quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18-21; He clearly proclaimed that He was the fulfillment of that Scripture passage. If you look back at verses 3 and 10 of Isaiah 61, there is clear wedding imagery between Messiah and His people.

- Ezekiel 16 is a description of the relationship between God and Israel which is beautiful and erotic, heartbreaking and tragic, and finally quite brutal. Israel is portrayed as a woman who was rescued from death when she was born by God, grew up and became a beautiful woman, was married to God, became very loose and began sleeping around with anyone she could find, ultimately earning the accusations "adulterous wife" and "brazen prostitute" from God Himself.

- In Jeremiah 3:1-14 God again bluntly accuses his "wife" (Israel) of sleeping around like a whore. I am NOT making this up, and I am not exaggerating at all... take a look for yourself!

- Many Theologians see the Song of Solomon as not only a story of a love between a man and woman, but as an allegory of the love between God and His people.

- The book of the Revelation speaks of Israel as a woman (for example, Revelation 12:1-6) and the people of God, dwelling at that time in the New Jerusalem, as God's "bride" (Revelation 21:2).

- In Ephesians 5:25-27 it is made clear that the relationship between a man and wife is intended to be a picture of the love between Christ and the Church.

Men who are uncomfortable with the idea that they are loved by God in a way that closely resembles the way that a man loves his wife... well, they had better get used to it. I've read in C.S. Lewis that "What is above and beyond all things [God] is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it." Should we as songwriters shy away from saying "I love you" to God, or saying God is "beautiful?" I don't think so, although "beautiful" has been used in contemporary praise and worship music so much that probably different words would inspire a clearer picture at this point. I think that we should be sensitive to the congregations we are asking to sing our songs, but approaching God with a feminine frame of reference to me is like approaching a knife as if it is sharp, or approaching a campfire as though it is hot. God thinks of us as though we were his fiancé. We are loved, dreamed about, protected, and the inspiration of jealousy when we are "unfaithful" (isn't it funny that we use that word about our relationship with God all the time, but it never occurs to us how serious a charge of unfaithfulness in a marriage truly is?) We need to remember that when we betray Christ by willful sin, it is as though we have slept with another man on the eve of our wedding. That's how serious it is to God.

Praise God that He forgives us in our unfaithfulness, and dreams of the day when we will be finally and forever faithful to Him!

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
-Jeremiah 31:31-33, ESV, also quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12

Now I’m in our secret place
Alone in your embrace
Where all my wrongs have been erased
You have forgiven
All the promises and lies
All the times I compromise
All the times you were denied
You have forgiven
-Skillet, "Forgiven" from Awake