5 Things That Have Changed My Thinking

I got to thinking about what are the things in the last 5 years that have changed my faith, my theology and the way I view myself. And again this is just my thinking not necessarily my life, that list would contain things like, getting married, and having kids, etc..so this is my list of 5

 

5. My brother leaving ministry

*I still don’t think the dust has settled on this one for me yet.

4. The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success by Brian S. Tracy

*This was the first motivation/attitude/leadership book I ever read. I was turned onto Brain Tracy by my good friend Steve.

I read this book when I decided to go back to school. I was a B student in high school so I set my goal at getting a 4.0 and wanting to be valedictorian.(Keep in mind this was a career college not an Ivy League School).

I did get 4.0 with Honors but missed valedictorian not because of grades, but the tie breaker between me and another girl was attendance. She missed 3 days, and I missed 9. I got hosed, but I did get voted best Portfolio out of 44 people, so we’re even.

3. Erwin McManus at Catalyst 2002

* Erwin was the first Christian I ever heard talk about dreaming, and thinking big. He talks almost in a poetic way. He’s on my list of great communicators.

He introduced me to this idea that if what your prayer for can be taken care of by yourself the next day, your praying too small. We should strive to be in a situation where if God doesn’t show up, your screwed. He says maybe our prayers just aren’t big enough for God.

 

2. A series called Go Fish by Andy Stanley

*This was my introduction to Andy Stanley, who I think is the best communicator I know. Maybe it wasn’t even the series that I needed so much but hearing Andy talk is refreshing. He understands the way people think and he comes across very human.

Check out a Andy Stanley Podcast.

1. Rob Bell

*I don’t where to start with this guy. he’s had 3 main impacts in my thinking

Velvet Elvis

Changed the way I view faith. I have never ever heard a Pastor or a christian talk like this. I have read it 3 times, and everytime I re-read it I sit down with a highlighter.

Everything is spiritual Tour

I won’t ever forget seeing this in person. He had this 20 foot white board, and he just comes out on stage and starts talking non-stop for 2 hours. It was so amazing my heart was racing while he was talking.

C3 Conference

My Brother gave me an audio mp3 of Rob Bell at the 2005 C3 Conference. This guy named Rob Bell who I have never heard of gets up to talk and wow. He was talking about Jesus being a Rabbi and yet it was something that was so foreign to me even though I had been saved for 12 years. The whole conference was about Asking Questions. IT exploded within me. I put it into my itunes at work and with 3 months I had listened to it 85 times, keep it mind it’s about 90 minutes long.

 

Vick & Jesus

If you haven’t heard Micheal Vick in his press release said he had found “Jesus”.

Regardless of what you think or what you think his motives are. before we say “Oh he’s playing the Jesus card” Think about that Vick said Jesus not God. This isn’t like Paris Hilton saying “I found God”. The name Jesus is not popular in the media, he could of easily said “I found God”.

Whats so hard to believe about that, this man just lost somewhere between 130-150 million dollars with contracts and endorsements. This situation has probably brought some much need spiritual advice into his life and just because I didn’t need my life to fall apart before I accepted Jesus, I know people who did. And they are still living stronger even when people questioned their motives.

I love how Vick said ” I will redeem myself”,

I wish as a nation we were more interested in watching Jesus redeem peoples lives as we are in watching people destroy them.

My Fourth Bottle of Water This Year

I’ve tried to be more aware of how many bottles of water I drink this year. I read the average

American will drink 167 bottles of just water a year, not counting Gatorade or tea or juice

Since The End of Feburary I have had 4

1 ethos from starbucks

1 viatman water

and 2 Aquafina
I don’t mean I’ve only have 4 bottles of water all year. I mean I have only bought 4 bottles, then I refill them until they get so nasty you just shouldn’t drink out of them.
Now this number 4 isn’t exactly the truth, because I’m not counting every bottle I drank this year. Like maybe being at a Friends house and having a bottle or what not.
Still I gotta think I’m way under 167.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When You Kill God, You Kill Yourself Too

It’s easy to have days where life seems pointless. Why don’t I just live my life anyway I want, because in the end it’s worthless.

When you live this way, you limit yourself to a cause and effect world. Where man has no free choice. every decision has already been made for you, your simply playing the part.

You become a pawn

There would be no point is study science, creating art, or educational systems.

When you live life with out choice you limit your ability to love, and forgive, you no longer need emotions because there would be no such thing as a surprise or a tragedy.

Everything becomes scripted. It was meant to happen.

You limit mans ability to be man.

When you put all of life inside the frame work of
“pointless”

God dies, and then a part of you dies

And then morals, and freedom, and love die

and we all become less human and more like parts of a machine.

My Psalms 012

I have carried this yoke around for years
that being a Christian is living week to week
Sunday is HOLY

knowing no matter how hard Monday is
in six short days You will make it all better

When I live this way
I feel disconnected from you
It leaves no room for questions and emotions, and tension

It’s not until I make my best effort
To live the gospel day by day
When everyday becomes HOLY

To rest on Monday
To laugh on Tuesday
To be tired on Wednesday
To cry on Thursday
To love on Friday
To fall apart on Saturday
And be renewed on Sunday

that I feel accepted
that I find hope
that I have rest

Living daily means
it’s ok if I’m wrong
I don’t have to act like I have the answers

I have space in life to breath
to grow
to make mistakes

The Sin Exchange Program

I heard this Pastor talk very honestly about how he sees most churches operating in America. We have taught people to trade unacceptable “worldly” sins for more acceptable “churchly” sins.

In his own case he says that when he got saved he quickly realized he had to stop going out to bars and getting trashed every night, it was just looked down on by church people. So instead he started over eating because a fat man is more acceptable in church then a alcoholic.

Then talks about the pressure of being a Pastor and dealing with your own junk. And it wasn’t until he started dealing with him self that he started to notice the people in his church change.

This is why so many people have given up on church. They don’t see or experience true change in their life all they see is a sin exchange program.

It may not be right or wrong but his interview was powerful and compelling.

How Should We Then Lve by Francis A. Schaeffer

How Should We Then Live by Francis Schaeffer

This is a book about how we came to the Western civilization. He notes the progress that each major moment in history has had at evolving us into our current condition.

He talks bout art, music, literature, politics, and religion

It’s not a book for the faint of heart, It’s deep in places and packed full of history.

This was one of my favorite quotes;

*Romans didn’t not have something big enough or permanent enough to relate their thinking or their living. Consequently their value system was not strong enough to bear the strains of life, either politically or individually. All of their gods put together could not give them a sufficient base for life, morals, values ,and decisions. These gods were dependent on the society that made them. And when the society collapsed the gods tumbled with them. [21]

The Other Parent by James P. Steyer

The Other Parent by James P, Steyer

This is a interesting book about how media not only effects kids, but how media companies actually target them. It’s written by a guy who started a children’s Television network because of his love for kids.

He makes a amazing point that the movie rated system is broken. The morals of what is for kids and what is for adults gets closer together every year. He stats a movie that is rated PG-13 today like Coyote Ugly, would have qualified as R in the early 90’s. But because morals keep getting blurrier they keep changing what the ratings mean.

And of course the hours per week that kids watch TV has sky rocketed in the past 2 decades. On top of that there use to be a unspoken rule that you don’t show adult content tv shows until after 9pm. Which is why when I was little my parents made me go to bed every night at 9. Now you can see over 4,000 acts of sexual content a month just by watching network tv from 7-9 at night.

The Industry has changed from providing family entertainment to just making money.

Brink of Disaster by Mae

The New album by Mae, Singularity is addictive

Just listen to this song Brink of Disaster

Pastors and Moral Breakdowns

It seems everywhere you look in the media we hear about another Pastor who’s been caught in some kind of moral breakdown.

Gambling, embezzlement, sexual affair, pornography

And then quickly fired

Is that the right action?

Someone has sin in their life, or has a breakdown and we fire them and replace them with someone else. Is that the message we are sending to the church and Christians. That Pastors are suppose to be Super Hero’s.

I no you can’t just make a blanket decision for all Pastors, you have to take it case by case.

And there is a big difference between getting caught and coming clean.

But are we creating healthy safe environments where pastors feel like they can deal with their sin publicly without losing their jobs?

Theres a part of them that wants to promote a place where Pastors can come clean no matter what they are dealing with and instead of firing them, help them rebuild their lives. Maybe that means they shouldn’t be preaching on Sundays for awhile. I’m not sure how exactly you deal with it. But I don’t want to be part of any organization that consumes people and when they are of no value anymore kicks them to the street.

What do you think, fire them or rebuild them?