Worship (Weekend Wrapup)

In case you missed I-268 Sunday Morning, here's what you COULD have been discussing!

We're in Week 3 (7 overall) of the Tough Sayings of Jesus II by Mike Kelley, a LifeWay Threads study. We took a look at "The Weeping General," the story of Lazarus from John 11. Most of you have heard or read this story as a demonstration of faith (or the lack thereof), compassion, resurrection, and miracles. But ultimately, as with much of what Jesus talked about in His 3 years of public ministry, the real point of it all was worship. Verse 4 sums up not just Lazarus' situation, but the situation of each of our lives:

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."(TNIV emphasis added.)

So the question Jesus asks all of us is, what do you consider of supreme value? Even something as noble as "another human life" becomes idol worship when it becomes more important than the glory of God.

When I first became a Christian, I had very little instruction. I was fortunate to attend a campus church at Virginia Tech called nlcf, with a pastor, Joe Pace, who loved God and preached the Word to college students without fear or sugar-coating. But in the summer after my salvation, I did not connect to other Christians in any meaningful way. If you think of salvation as being rescued from captivity or as a prisoner of war, then over 4 months passed between being freed from the prison before I was returned to a friendly camp. I joined Higher Ground, the previous young adult ministry at Mount Ararat in late September/early October of 2001. I reconnected with a friend from high school named Nikki, who I knew from high school as one of the nicest people in school (I think she was named Friendliest in the Senior Superlatives). She bought me a fabulous book by John Ortberg called The Life You Always Wanted, which was the first time I was ever presented with the hub/spokes metaphor. Rather than place God at the top of a list of priorities, place God at the center of everything and allow all other things to flow out from your relationship with God. Because of that, I've never made a list where I put God first, then had to choose from all the other important things in my life to second, third, in priority. Is being a husband more important than being a father? Is my job more important than my parents or siblings? I recognize that each of these areas are important, but only operate as they should when they flow out from the relationship I have with God and if I put His glory at supreme value.

So I have loved signing Steve Fee's "Glory to God Forever" followed by his "No One Higher/The Stand" medley the past two Sundays. What a definitive statement of priority and value! I love closing my eyes and just forgetting where I am and who is around and just expressing the words from these songs back to God.

I was going to relate these things to the NCAA tournament and the Coldplay concert I watched on HDNet this past weekend, but I think I'm going to work on fleshing that topic out a little more for another post.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Here is a synopsis of who St. Patrick actually was by Mark Batterson. Great read today!

http://evotional.com/2010/03/saint-patrick.html

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, here is a little backstory on Saint Patrick himself.

At the age of 16, Saint Patrick was captured by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland where he became a slave to the chieftain of Ulster. One night, after six years of slavery, Saint Patrick heard a voice, "Behold, thy ship is ready." He traveled two hundred miles on foot to a place where he knew no one and had never been. He wrote in his autobiographical account, "After this I took flight, and left the man with whom I had been six years; and I came in the strength of the Lord, who directed my way for good; and I feared nothing till I arrived at the ship. And on that same day on which I arrived, the ship moved out of its place."

Patrick made his way back to Britain, found his family, and could have lived out the rest of his life in relative comfort in the land of freedom. But in 432 AD, he had another vision. He saw a man coming to him from Ireland carrying innumerable letters. "And I read the beginning of the letter containing 'The voice of the Irish.' And while I was reading aloud the beginning of the letters, I myself thought indeed in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclut, which is close by the Western Sea. And they cried out thus as if with one voice, "We entreat thee, holy youth, that thou come, and henceforth walk among us." And I was deeply moved in my heart, and could read no further; and so I woke."

Saint Patrick went back to Ireland as a missionary. No outside religion had penetrated Ireland in a thousand years. Saint Patrick founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. His ministry was so influential that he came to be known as the one who "found Ireland all heathen and left it all Christian."

Weekend Recap

What a fantastic weekend to be in the presence of God!

First, on Friday night, I shamelessly weaseled my way in to go see Avatar in 3-D at Potomac Mills with my friends Mitchell Wilson of Mitchell Wilson Band fame and Cheapshot the Buffman. I saw on Twitter (follow me http://www.twitter.com/i268Ben) that they were the last two guys to not see Avatar. Becca responded that we hadn't either, and then I tweeted a "thanks for the invite" although no invitation had been given. But can you uninvite someone who has already thank you for inviting them? What would people think? So I got to go.

I'll say this about Avatar. Its visually the most spectacular movie I've ever seen. The computer graphics were so life-like and the 3-D was intense. That's about all the good I can really say about this movie.

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but goodness it was awful. I guess after Titanic and Terminator, James Cameron can do whatever he wants, but did he actually have to pitch this to a studio? Did he say, "It's Ferngully meets Dances With Wolves, but with giant Smurf-cats. Oh, and they speak a gibberish language. Also, it takes place on another planet/moon in 2154, but they will speak as though it were 1994."

I could not stop laughing the entire movie, which is fine if you've made a comedy. But there was not a single laugh intentionally written into the movie. My biggest problems were

1) the 20th-21st century dialogue. For all the painstaking care in creating a new world, creatures and native language, why couldn't Cameron spend any time thinking about how a 22nd century human would talk? I guess its hard to promote radical environmentalism and anti-US military-ism without such comments as "they're going to do some kind of shock and awe," "they're going to drop daisy cutters" or what-have-you. References to jujubees also were disconcerting. To think that in 2154, a genocidal Marine colonel would compare the way the natives (Na'vi, how original) defeat humans to eating them up like jujubees would be like me talking about how I get chewed up by mosquitos like I was parrafin wax.

2) the amazing/terrible technology. The main character gets placed into a chamber that allows scientists to transfer his brain into a fully-formed giant Smurf-cat that becomes the person while his real body sleeps. Yet, to get into this hyper-advanced chamber, he has to wheel himself to it in the same wheelchair used by FDR. I love the not-so-subtle dig at the health care system too.

Despite the movie's lameness, it was great to hangout with some good friends. Memo to that car on 610, *I see you*. We all see you.

Saturday. Woke up and met up with over 70 other men from church for a day of community service projects. Some of the guys helped chop firewood for the SERVE ministry, as well as to deliver to people in need. The rest of us went to Fredericksburg to clean out trash from various Tent Cities, where area homeless reside. We went to an area off of 95 behind the U-Haul store where the old mini-golf course used to be. It was raining, it was chilly and extremely muddy. What I saw was heartbreaking. I didn't have the chance to meet any homeless, but I know that some of our guys did. It was hard work, but well worth it. It became even clearer in purpose to know that the next day, two of the people we encountered met Christ. The project is certainly ongoing because we just scratched the surface of cleaning these areas.

Saturday night Becca and I went to MarriedLife Live. Becca, Molly, Cheapshot, Matt Fitz and Dina played live and sounded awesome. The message from Mark Gungor was hilarious and so timely for married couples. The only problem is that in talking about how couples keep score, every small act of kindness since then has brought about a "ding" from Becca.

Sunday. Becca, Molly, Cheapshot, Matt Fitz, Troy and the gang led worship on Sunday morning. It was awesome. At least the parts I was there for were awesome. My baby girl Chloe decided she had some things she needed to get off her chest, so I spent the message and end of the service in Noah's Cafe. From the looks of things, Pastor Todd was on fire and the congregation really connected with Steve Fee's "No One Higher/The Stand" Medley.

At I-268 Sunday Morning, we had a small but fantastic group participating in the "Tough Sayings of Jesus II" lesson on the Fig Tree, the Parable of Sheep and Goats, and Jesus clearing the Temple from Mark 11 and Matthew 25. In case you missed it, Jesus cursed the fig tree in what looked at first glance like a world-class temper tantrum. But on closer inspection, you discover that the fig tree was not producing "taqsh" which is a spring-time precursor to the actual fig fruit of the summer and autumn. No taqsh=no fig fruit. So this tree was not valuable to do its job; in fact, since taqsh was primarily consumed by the poor and travelers, it was not making itself available to the least of these. In parallel with the sheep and goats, the sheep were rewarded--not because they tended to the poor and suffering, but because in obedience to who God is, they acted as sheep and although they did not even realize that they were serving Jesus directly, it revealed their character. Similarly in clearing the Temple, Jesus was highlighting that the Israelites had sacrificed honest worship for the appearance of worship and manipulated the poor and the traveler by charging extra for exchanging currency and forcing them to buy overpriced doves for sacrifice. We learned that Jesus is looking for followers who have substance, who desire to live authentically and humbly.

In the afternoon, we had a chance to have Chloe dedicated, and I can't say enough about how special that time was with Pastor Todd, Susan, Staci Rowenhorst and all the friends and family who came to support us. It is such a tremendous responsibility to raise a child, and we are blessed to have a community like this to be a part of it.

Sunday night, Becca and Toluca Road led worship for Elevate, the student service, and Pastor Zac continued the "Story" focusing on Adam and Eve, and the fall of man, the introduction of sin into the world. He did a great job, especially when I turned on my GPS and the voice lady started talking--really really loudly. He didn't skip a beat, even though I was fumbling furiously to turn her off and the students were laughing. Awful awful. I love this series Zac is doing. It is so vital to let students know that they fit in to the story of God, and not just in the "you're a sinner, Jesus died on the cross and your saved" part. But the, "look at how and why God created the world. See what it was intended to be. See why it isn't like that anymore. See why Redemption is so important. See how redemption leads to restoration, not just of you as a person, but you in the context of the beginning of things to make it how it was supposed to be."

It was a phenomenal weekend and has led into the start of a pretty tremendous week. Zac said something in the contest of the fall of man that has stuck with me. One of the consequences of sin was that the earth, which man had been given dominion and stewardship over, would become an antagonist. Man would be forced to battle with the earth in labor, to produce food, etc. We also started fighting against time. So when it rains or when you lose an hour of sleep to daylight savings, it can create weariness. Weariness is defeated when you become other-focused. This kind of weekend highlights the benefits of being other-focused. The challenge is to be other-focused daily.

Lost Analysis in a Minute

If you know me, you know that I love Lost. I jumped into the show after the 2nd season. Our old ministry, Higher Ground (YES!) attempted the first of many Lost-athons. At this point, I feel like the only person I knew who watched the show was my good friend Molly. We had the Season 1 DVD, and we popped in the first disc and started. Three and a half episodes later, I was hooked. We never finished the Lost-athon, but I got the DVDs and prepared for Season 3's debut. I spend the morning after a new episode airs going to various recap and review sites, reading about whether these guys saw the same things in the episode I saw. I am consumed by the meta-analysis of the show. Best of all, I see so many spiritual themes, Christian and non-Christian, interwoven into the fabric of the show, in a nondemeaning way, that I think Lost actually DOES have the ability to reveal truth of the reality of God.

One of the best examples of this was in last night's episode, titled "Dr. Linus." If you don't know Lost, or you're waiting to watch the episode, don't worry. I will not spoil anything. Linz, I'm talking to you.

Although you should probably stop reading if you don't trust me.

One of the characters, Richard Alpert, has been an enigma for the past few seasons. We have seen him in different decades, but never aged--sometimes he's dressed as a business professional, sometimes dressed as Robinson Crusoe, but always the same dark guy-liner. What we know is that he's old. What we know is that he has a connection to the island that provides a central focal point of the show. What we know is that he has been a disciple of Jacob, another mysterious character that we are learning more about as we move to the series finale. In this episode, he made one of the most profound statements I think I've heard, as though a copy of "Purpose-Driven Life" had been Dharma-airdropped onto the island right into his lap. In a bout of desperation, Richard says, "Why do I want to die? Because I just found out my entire life had no purpose."

To me, this is the truth of the existence of a divine Creator who intentionally formed each of us. A life without purpose is a meaningless life not truly worth living. A life lived without purpose is called "existing." Things without a purpose can only simply exist. I stare at the paperclip on my desk, and I know it exists. It is useless in function and serves to only create clutter until it is used to join two pieces of paper together. It now has a purpose. Paperclips are not self-aware and created in the Image of God. The Bible tells us from the very first chapter of the first book that we, humans, were. A life lived on purpose and for a purpose does so much more than allow us to look forward to the future, make plans, or give us a reason to do something. Its so much more.

Purpose means that I have value. You have value. It means that life is to be cherished and respected. It means that we are not limited to being born, breathing air and then being turned into ashes when we die. Purpose is the only reason to have a morality or ethic. Life without purpose makes living well and thinking of others before yourself utterly pointless. If we are given 70 years to exist on this earth and then in a blink, we cease to be, death simply becomes another random function of a purposeless universe. We shouldn't care about suffering. We shouldn't care about injustice. What is the purpose of being nice or kind if the end result is that being cruel and selfish results in the same final outcome. The difference is that when the Creator of the Universe tells you that you exist to glorify Him and walk according to His truth, it matters how you treat people. It matters what you value. It matters that each person has intrinsic value and a purpose from that Creator just as yours. It means that in this life, as we struggle with our deficiencies and sins, unable on our own to ever meet our own standard for how life should be lived, the same Creator, wanting us to realize our purpose, sent His own Son to be the sacrifice required to restore us into relationship with Him and raised that Son from the dead in final victory over death; to redeem us and declare us to be righteous because we have no ability to do it ourselves. It is the reason why Paul declared that if this wasn't true, we were to be most pitied because we believed a lie and we are ALL still dead and just existing. Richard Alpert (and the Lost creative team) leads us to basically the same conclusion.

It means, as I mentioned in the I-268 Sunday Morning class in discussing The Parable of the Shrewd Manager, that understanding how much God values us, gives us the shalom, the peace, to withstand the temporary things of this life to fight for and use those temporary things, for the eternal things.

Don't look to Lost for perfect theology. But don't ignore the fact that even a show like Lost can bring us insight and raise the basic and most important issues of life.

We're back!

Hey, gang! This is an exciting time for I-268, as we've been linked to the Mount Ararat Baptist Church homepage! Seems like a minor thing, but when your website URL is www.microcities.google.christian.alphabravo.yahoo.biz, sharing it with people who might be interested in what we're doing gets complicated. Linking to the MABC website is a great way to expose our church to the fact that we have a heart from the 18-20something singles in our community.

The blog is a companion piece, as we from time to time will comment, post and discuss any variety of issues. If you look back, you'll see discussions on marriage and divorce (heavy), the death of Michael Jackson (my lowest moment of melodramatic prose), as well as a spiritual analysis of Dancing With the Stars (new season to premiere March 22, live on ABC!!)

Join us in conversation as we press forward into the heart of God for this generation.

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