But where would church be without all our rules?

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
- Galatians 5:6

Beef Shoutouts

Hey AVCLUB: this is what you get every Tuesday night, just two blocks away. Less than $20 bucks & all the salad you can eat [bring Joe Sangl]. Will Rodes, you're invited, too.

P.S. Shoot, everybody come. I miss ya'll a lot.

PPS. Tomorrow is Wings Night.

I gotta do something HUGE for God!

I've heard people say, "I don't know care what it is, I just wanna do something HUGE for God!" On my way to do laundry, that got me to thinking ... :-)

There's this dude who wakes up one morning and suddenly decides he wants to do something awesome for God. Something so HUGE its impact will be unmistakable and immediately felt around the world. He thinks about it for a few minutes, and decides to be a televangelist.

But an hour later, after calling the major networks and satellite channels, he's discovered all the slots for religious programming are full. Not to be defeated by disappointment, Dude calls his pastor on the phone (at home) and excitedly exclaims, "I've been called to preach this Sunday."

There's no record of how the pastor responds ... but the church's minister of music doesn't answer when Dude dials his number a few minutes later. Still eager to do something huge right away, Dude drives over to the church office only to find the door locked with a sign in the window reading, "Closed for Seniors' Day."

Fearful that his opportunity to do something HUGE for God is slipping away, Dude glances around and sees trash from cars on the highway blowing across the church parking lot ... and suddenly has a brainstorm of a HUGE idea.

Within the hour he's standing at the corner of the church property with a sign in each hand (one endorses blue laws and the other protests the latest Hollywood blockbuster), yelling "Is God your co-pilot?" and "When you're dying, you're frying!" to drivers cruising past.

But after about an hour of standing around in the heat without much result, Dude's ready to call it a day and go home. So Dude starts walking across the parking lot just in time to see the church van, full of seniors back from picking apples, pulling in ahead of him.

He waves, trying to get away before they stop, but then just as he's about to open his car door the wind blows a scrap of newspaper against the van's windshield ... which causes the driver to lose control and plow into dude at full speed.

The next instant in Heaven Dude opens his eyes, looks up at the pearly gates and shakes his head. "Lord, I don't get it. Here I was trying to do something awesome, something really BIG and earth-shattering for you ... and now just look what happened. Is that what you wanted from me?"

God shakes his head and sighs. "No Dude, what I wanted was for you to pick up trash from the church parking lot."

So what's wrong with a little sin?

What's the big deal? We can't be perfect all the time and God knows that. He loves us and he knows we're gonna mess up once in a while but he still loves us anyway.

So a little sin can't hurt, right?

Is there something wrong with that reasoning ... or does that kind of hostility go straight to the heart of the issue?


"The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
- Romans 8:7-8 (NIV)

For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
- Mark 7:21-23 (NLT)

Dialoguing with rocks

While channel surfing the other night I heard a scientist remark, "We have 700,000 years of recorded history telling us that global warming is a reality."

And on another night, on another channel, another scientist admits, "The fossil record, dating billions of years back to the Archean Eon, is unambiguous and establishes evolution as a fact."

Ok fine. Rocks are our friends and clouds are our neighbors.

But when it comes to considering first-hand accounts of events that occurred a mere 2000 years ago, why do skeptics become so suddenly herd of hearing?

Now there's a new Knol

I love Wikipedia's convenience, although now my second-favorite online resource has some competition: Google Knol, from the same folks who brought you, uh ... Google.

Keep it like I like it (said the enemy)

Does this sound familiar?

The chairman of the deacons waits for his moment, then calmly takes the pastor aside and firmly let's him know, "We appreciate your ideas and enthusiasm, but our church doesn't do things that way.

"And besides, we don't have the money or any idea how we'd get it. So there's no point bringing up the subject again. If you know what I mean."

The pastor smiles and forces a nod ... then he doesn't get much sleep for the rest of the week ... because his vision just revealed the tumor that's sickening the body.

-- -- --

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
- Matthew 19:26

Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
- Matthew 17:19-21

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
- John 14:12

Peacemakers

Until just a few minutes ago, I had no idea an organization like Peacemakers existed.

"Peacemaker Ministries was founded in 1982 by a group of pastors, lawyers, and business people who wanted to encourage and assist Christians to respond to conflict biblically.

"Since then we have developed educational resources, seminars, and conciliation training to help Christians learn how to serve God as peacemakers in the conflicts they encounter in everyday life.

"We also provide conflict coaching, mediation, and arbitration services to help resolve personal conflicts, business disputes, church and ministry divisions, and even complicated lawsuits.

"The good news is that because God is in control, it is possible to view conflict as an opportunity to glorify God, serve others, and grow to be more like Christ."

The page titled "Get Help With A Conflict" is particularly worth checking out.

Reaching for The God Switch

You know the feeling.

Suddenly, no matter how honest your hopes and expectations, the world seems about to fall apart and come crashing down in boulder-sized chunks. Never mind how it happened. You just need a way out because Life is coming from every direction ... and it's too late to do anything but reach for The God Switch.

It usually goes something like this: Oh Dear Lord I'm so sorry, I've learned my lesson this time. I promise. If you'll just help me out this one time I promise I'll turn myself around and do exactly what you want me to do with my life. I really mean it this time and, and ... and ... well God, how about it? Aren't you listening!

We reach for The God Switch to ask him to turn off all our problems, and make what's wrong go away.

Wow. Since we're all about being fair, wonder what life would be like if God had a [insert your name here] Switch?

-- -- --

You're in the middle of something important, when suddenly the [insert your name here] Switch turns on. It's God again ... and there's something only you can do. He wants you to invite your neighbor to church. Or forgive your co-worker. Or admit an error of judgment you've made about a friend. Or witness to your spouse, and share what Christ means in your life.

What's your response?

Oh no, God. Please not now. Things are going along so good and I don't want to cause trouble or make anyone uncomfortable by bringing you into the situation. What would people think? Can't it wait? Can't you just handle this one on your own? Dear Lord, I mean, what have you done for me lately?

-- -- --

Seems like so long as Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't interfere with our hopes/plans/expectations for our relationships/career/sinful habits, we tend to forget that salvation creates a permanent and eternal relationship.

At least until our plans fall apart, and we find ourselves reaching for The God Switch one more time.

The 3D God Box - pt. 3

Ever wondered how "The Big Bang" got its name?

I mean, everything that blew out of The Big Bang ... the stuff that would eventually slow down and cool off to become stars, galaxies and planets, all of it ... came from a single point scientists estimate was no larger than one molecule across. So why isn't it called The Itsy-Bitsy Bang?

Regardless, people sometimes have a hard time grasping that not just matter but space, billions of light years' worth of emptiness for the universe to expand into, also came flying out of The Big Bang.

But folks have an even harder time grasping that time itself came blasting out from The Big Bang, too.

-- -- --

Some of us visualize Time as a river: the past flows off behind us as we're paddling to keep up with the present, while the future is somewhere "up ahead," about to come smashing into our lives like a runaway train if we don't carefully plan and provide for its arrival. (It's time I stopped mixing metaphors :-)

The paradox is that Time is a quantity, a man-made concept, "a capacity for change" we've created to help our puny brains sequence events. We'd stay confused, for example, if we couldn't determine the chronological order of non-casually related events (imagine if the correct answer to "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" was Always).

That's one reason we have a hard time (sorry) imagining how God can exist independent of what's familiar (our space and our time) to us.

So, mistakenly believing Time's on their side, the last step for folks trying to fit God into a box is to make him stay in there ... by folding all the corners, squeezing down the Time lid and wrapping the box with man-made rules and theologies.

(concludes next time)

But how BIG is it really?

-source here

The 3D God Box - pt. 2

Imagine if you lived your life inside a painting.

Imagine if the painting where you live is 25,000 miles from the bottom to the top and 15,000 miles wide. It's a beautiful painting, full of colors ... and because you have imagination and curiosity, for as long as you live you're entirely free to walk, drive or swim from one end of the canvas to the other, or from the top to the bottom if you choose, as many times as you like.

But because you live inside a painting you live in a 2D world, and cannot ever leave its surface.

-- -- --

Flying is out: not only is it impossible for you to move even one brush stroke up from the canvas surface, it's also impossible for you to imagine, much less explain, what a 3D world might be like.

Your brain simply isn't wired to think in three dimensions

Scientists living alongside you in the painting are no better off, because their perceptions are also limited by what they can see, test and explain around them ... in two dimensions. They'll argue that three dimensions cannot exist ... because no experiment can be conceived, much less performed, in 2D that will prove three dimensions exist.

Three dimensions can't fit inside a 2D world. Or be described by 2D brainpans.

-- -- --

If you lived inside a painting would you argue that God, the creator of the painting and the universe, had to live within two dimensions as well ... the two you're familiar with ... restrained by the same physical limits as you, otherwise he couldn't possibly exist?

Or could God simply be too awesome and big ... that's what infinite means ... to fit inside our 3D box?