Is This Your Church?

I stumbled across B.A.D.D., a Christian drama company, when I was looking for good illustrations for a youth group message.  They did some great modernized versions of Jesus' parables, that really connected with the students.  I hadn't been back to see what they'd been up to on YouTube in a while.  I had a few good laughs this afternoon while "catching up" with them.  Then I came across this video.

Not sure what you think, but I laughed, I was offended, I was convicted, I was disgusted, and I was left wondering how this happens.

Haven Part 3

We moved.

Just across town, but it is a BIG move for us. We went from renting to being the stewards of the amazing home I told you about in my last "Haven" themed post.

Yesterday at 12:22 I arrived at the apartment we'd been living with the U-haul.  I had 29 friends and family members waiting in the yard, ready to help us move. (That number does not include the children who joined their parents in helping us.)  By 1:33 we had all had our fill of pizza, and I was backing the U-haul out of the driveway.  By 2:30 it was unloaded. 

This amazing feat is not only a testament to the wonderful friends with whom God has blessed us, but also to my wife's amazing organizational skills. It felt like she was a part of moving day, even though she was in Hungary, because she had everything ready to go, and labeled so that we could organize it quickly on the other end. 

I arrived at our new home were other friends were already busily cleaning carpets, dusting shelves and scrubbing floors.

Some were ready to leave when the truck was unloaded, others would stay until evening helping us unload boxes and clean.  Before the amazing group of volunteers scattered, I called them all into the living room, and told them the following.

1. THANK YOU
2. This house is a gift from God
3. The owners have told us that their one condition for letting us use this amazing house is that we keep a room or two open for people who need a roof over their heads. Something we are eager to do.
4. The Bible makes it really clear that we should use the gifts we have been given to bring glory to God or we will lose them.  We intend to use it.
5. If you are ever in need or know of anyone in need, let us know, so that we can prayerfully consider sharing this blessing.

Since then two of the families that helped us move have mentioned that they know people who might be in need of just the kind of help we are looking to offer.  This blesses me more than words can say. 

We aren't yet ready to take people in quite yet.  For starters, Shandy will need to get back from Hungary. Then she and I will need to sit down and figure out how to evaluate the various needs that we will no doubt encounter, and what kinds of arrangements we will need to make with the people who come to live with us.  That said it is good to know that our friends took us seriously about the ministry we feel called to do. It seems clear that there is a need, a void that we will be able to fill.

In other news, one of our friends called me to ask if she could swing by the house and pick some acorns from our woods from her son's school project.  It is so cool that she would ask, and that we could be a blessing.

Can't wait to see what kinds of things God is going to do with Haven.

This Kicked my Butt.

I sat down with my coffee, to enjoy a little reading before starting my day at the office.  To my great delight, there was a post from my favorite blogger.  It was even on a topic that I am really wrestling with.  I thought to myself, "Pumpkin coffee and and a Carey Nieuwhof post on leadership, a perfect start to my morning". 

Then I read the post and got my butt kicked.  I hope you enjoy, and are challenged.

http://careynieuwhof.com/2012/09/the-number-one-reason-you-and-the-people-you-lead-dont-change/

Haven Part 2

You can read Haven Part 1 here. 

Haven is the name Shandy and I have given to the ministry we believe God has called us to.  As we have traveled the journey He has been leading us on, the specifics of Haven have changed, but a few things have stayed the same.

1. People, in need will live under the same roof as our family.
2. We will share our lives and our faith with them
3. We will mentor them, spiritually, emotionally, practically...

My wife and I are both the type to try to 'make' things happen.  We like to make a list, and have a plan, but not matter what we put on paper, something came up, and this mission has been hold, even seemed impossible for a long time, but as I said in Haven Part 1... Then the phone rang...

It was a couple from our church, who had also attend the church I grew up in.  I've known them for the better part of 15 years.  I helped them move into the house where they are living, enjoyed annual Christmas parties at their home, envied the way they can finish each other's sentences, and seen them be generous with all that God has given them.  The wife was there when we first saw our babies via ultra sound.  She has been there when my wife needed someone to bridge the gap between physician and friend during the battle with Bi-polar.  I've watch the husband devote himself as both husband and father, modeling the self sacrificing love that Christ calls us to as men. We've worked together in ministry, and they even trusted us with their kids on occasion.

They called to tell us they were moving.  She is taking a job in another state, but they love the home they designed together, and don't want to sell it.  They want someone to take care of the place until they are ready to retire, or until God says it is time to let it go. 

We were speechless.  The opportunity was too amazing to possibly be real.  We had a hard time knowing what to say because we were overwhelmed by the size of the generosity and trust they were extending.  It is humbling, and awesome, and exciting all at once.  And that's when we thought they were asking us to do it for just a year.  We littlerally couldn't talk when we found out that it might be as many as 10 years.  (I will use James 4:13-16 as a disclaimer)

A week from today they will pull out of the driveway to start the next chapter of their adventure, and we will pull in to start the next chapter our ours.

I haven't told you the coolest part yet.  The Haven part.  The "Wow, God is Awesome" part.

They had one condition.  Their condition was that we keep the house open to whomever needed a place to stay.  Be it for a weekend, a week, a month, or a year.  They know the house is a gift from God and they know that they should to use it to honor Him, and their one requirement of us is that we continue their ministry to those in need of a home.  As the Apostle Paul once said, "The very thing we were eager to do".

We don't know who God will bring into our home, or how much time and energy this style of life will take, what the implications are for other jobs or ministries, but we do know that God has provided us with a home. God has taken away the biggest line item in our budget, provided years of the financial security that we thought was gone when we said no to the job with US Customs. He has shown us that nothing is to big for our God.  He has shown us that He is the one who directs our path.  The the same God who took care of Israel in the desert, who took care of Elijah in the wilderness, who feeds the birds  of the air, and clothes the lillies, is our God, and is our provider.

Malachi - a confession

WARNING: Extremely Introspective Blog Post.

WARNING: Bible Reading Required.

If you haven't done so in a while go read Malachi.  Carve out a solid half hour so you can read it, as it was intended to be read, beginning to end.  (Seriously, please don't read this post until you have read Malachi... Malachi is much better reading anyway.  Also while I have you hear in parenthesis, I will give my standard warning about annoyingly introspective )

If you are like me, and guilty of neglecting Old Testament books that don't start with the letter 'P', you may not notice what an excellent piece of literature this little book is. 

It is the perfect punctuation for the OT. 
It puts our sin right in our face, while giving us hope at the same time. 
It doesn't pull any punches.

This is a book of the Bible written to the religious. Bear that in mind.  The people being warned are do not belong to a wide world of those who do not know God, but to a people comfortable in their theology, content with their level of understanding and convinced of their own righteousness because of how they practiced religion.

I preached out of Malachi once.  It was my last series of messages before leaving the church I grew up in.  I was young(er), (more)arrogant and disillusioned. I used this book like a weapon, as a way of railing against all of the things I thought my church was doing wrong.  This morning I read Malachi, and was very tempted to apply what I read to others rather than to myself.  But as I have been meditating on it throughout the morning, I have been convicted that I need to use the word as a mirror.  Here are some of the verses that convicted me, and my accompanying confessions. 

"I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How have You loved us?"

I am blessed beyond measure, but spend most of my time focused on my "problems".

 ***

"But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil?

Guilty.  How often do I turn in an effort that is "good enough" instead of giving my best to God?

 ***

You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied Him?"



So many hours spent talking about things of the Lord, but when it comes time to apply them, I shrink back, or stand silently by while others shrink back, and refuse to properly apply the word.

 ***

"From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts. "But you say, 'How shall we return?

Tradition has been my filter for so long, that I am no longer sure what true worship even looks like.

 ***

"Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings... Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse

I budget: "This time/energy/money is God's, this over here is for family, this is for pleasure, this is for work," etc...  I give what I feel obligated to give, and keep the rest for myself. I convince myself it is more than others give, but if I am honest I now it is less than my Great King is asking of me.  It is all His, but I treat it like it is all mine, and He should be happy with what I give Him.  I rob God.

 ***

Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name... So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.

In a sea of those who are religious there is a smaller group made up of people who actually fear the Lord. I must learn to tell the difference.  I must fear the Lord and seek out others who do so.

 ***

"For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings..." 

 

Lord forgive my arrogance, teach me to fear you.