This Beautiful Mess

This Beautiful Mess by Rick Mckinley

So first I have to say thanks to Rick for the book, I thought it was very cool that a Pastor would actually mail people free books.

There are 3 kinds of books, those you read for entertainment, those you read for information, and those you read to challenge and inspire. This one differently inspired and pushed my boundaries. This is one of the books that you can’t rush through. It needs to sipped like hot coffee. If you read more then a chapter in one sitting, I don’t think your allowing God space to generate any feedback.

 

After the first two pages I knew I couldn’t go on without my yellow highlighter and a pen.

Here’s one of the passages I highlighted:

Levels of spirituality are perfect for a culture that deifies the individual. Our world is focused on self; the kingdom is about the other. It demands that I notice others, pray for them and serve them. “levels spirituality” does not. It allows me to do it myself, by myself. Jesus hates levels spirituality. All it does is reinforce the lie that started way back in the beginning- the one that says I can be like God. How screwed up have we gotten that we cling to a Christianity that can be lived out without God?

I wrote in the margins:

When you think about Spirituality in levels, it becomes about accomplishing something, so we can go to the next, it’s about mass producing Christianity.

Rick Mckinley is the pastor at Imago dei in Portland, I’ve blogged before about some of their great ideas, like the sock and cigarettes ministry to homeless teens. He tells that story and about their surfing ministry, and how they restored a park in Portland for the community. Just listening to Ricks podcast and reading his books, and listening to others like Donald Miller talk about him. You get the since his heart is in love with the people of Portland. It’s refreshing.

This below is another passages I highlighted, I think it’s the most radical idea about the Church I’ve in years. After I read it, I literally put the book down for 3 days and just thought about what it would look like for a church to do this.

Our dream at Imago is that one day you would come to church with your kids and travel through learning labs as families. Think about it: What if you walked into a church and instead of seeing a sign that says “Sixth-Grade Girls,” you saw signs inviting your family to the garden, a science lab, an art studio, a media room, and on and on? If the kingdom is being expressed in all of like, why wouldn’t that kind of “church school” make perfect sense?

I think the church could impact people on a far deeper level with this idea. Because instead of you coming to church to hear a sermon, you become the sermon. This idea of church labs gets people involved on a personally level. You level church every week with not just a sermon, but a story to tell about how the sermon fits into your world.

Imagine as a family you walk into a lab about “How Plants Grow“. The first week you start by learning about the seeds, what it needs to create life, the stages of growth, and so on. Then you dig a hole in some soil and plant the seed. The next week you come back and you water the seed, and give it some light, and learn whats happening to the seed, it’s becoming a new creation. The next week it starts to sprout and you learn all about how to take care of it, all the while learning about life and death, and how something must die in order for something else to live. Talking about what we need in order to grow as health people, realizing that Christ died for us in order for us to live. Now imagine having this experience with your family, The church has provided something very profound here. They having taken an ordinary aspect of life, given it a spiritual twist and have allowed you to be partakers in it.

Does this sound similar to any other ministry you’ve ever heard of? maybe that of Jesus

Sometimes I worry that the church out smarts it’s self with all the lights and videos and loud music. Jesus told story’s and he shook a culture at it’s core.

This book has marked me, I think I’ll look back in years and still feel the impact. Rick does a great job of expressing that the kingdom of God is here, is now, is present. Everything we take part in represents kingdom life. We don’t have to get saved and sit around with sour faces while we watch culture deteriorate. We should be enjoying life, beauty, and grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Music

 

Ruth

is a “newer” band I’m listening to right now.

Their have a very soft rock feel, check their pure volume page and listen to

Mr. Turner.

that’s what I’ve been humming for the last couple of days

The gods aren’t angry

Part anthropology, part history, part deconstruction –

this is new material that Rob hasn’t taught before,

exploring how humans invented religion to make themselves feel better.

So my wife got me two tickets for the gods aren’t angry tour that stops in Cleveland on December 1. The impressive thing is I didn’t even tell her about it, she saw it one a different site and just bought the tickets for my birthday without telling me.

I’m pumped

Invisible Christianity

I was watching CNN and they were discussing faith and values and how it effects society. One of the correspondents said

” Imagine if you were a total foreigner to the United States, and all you were told is that it’s a Christian nation. And when you got there you watched the popular movies, listened to the popular music, ate at the popular restaurants, and shopped at the popular stores, and read the popular books….you would have no idea that it was a christian nation.”

Our Christianity is invisible to the rest of the world

We act, talk, look, and consume just like everyone else.

Ouch!

Foo Fighters // Stranger Things Have Happened

One of the new songs off Echoes Silence Patience & Grace

This ones called Stranger Things Have Happened

1984

The second “Banned Book” I’ve read

some of the main themes are  Big Brother, surveillance, corruption of language and control of history. indoctrination, thought police, and mass brainwashing.

Some of things I thought were really interesting.

New Speak
When the new versions of dictionaries comes out, instead of adding words, they take words out. To simplify and dumb people down. You can’t protest something if you don’t have the words to even describe it.

“the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year”

so for example for GOOD and BAD. and they would remove bad, so now to refer to something that was opposite a word, you just add the “un” prefix. so you now say UNGOOD.They also would eliminate the words Great, so you have to add a “plus” to the beginning of words. It’s PLUS GOOD

The underlying theory of Newspeak is that if something can’t be said, then it can’t be thought.

Thought Police
The Thought Police used psychology and omnipresent surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who were capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.

It is even referred to as ” The only crime that matters”, nobody wanted to commit a thought crime.

Overall it’s one of those books that pushes your beliefs about government and authority. At times it was a very scarry book about the what happens when Government gains to much power, and what they are willing to do to hold on to it.

It’s a real feel good read.

The Shape of Love

 

This was a very different book from what I usually read. It had some compelling ideas, and then some ideas that I would say are just pure fantasy. I guess you take it or leave it.

Dr. Emoto, studies energy and vibration, mainly in water which is called HADO.

“Hado creates words Words are the vibrations of nature
Therefore beautiful words create beautiful nature
Ugly words create ugly nature This is the root of the universe.”
by Masaru Emoto

He states that words affect our hearts and create vibrations. A good vibration creates good energy and bad vibration creates negative energy.

Because 70% of the human body is water, if you study the affects that words have on water, you can conclude the affects words have on the body.

So Vibration means life, and life means rhythm. When someone dies the doctor takes a pulse and says “This persons Dead” death comes when the heart stops vibrating.

His research which is really interesting, shows that when water is talked to in a positive way, and then frozen, it creates beautiful ice crystals that resemble snow flakes, but when water is talked to in a negative way, it doesn’t from a crystal at all.

It gets deeper. He test water from different sources like lakes, oceans, water supplies. He wants to know if a whole body of water like a lake can be effect by it’s environmental surroundings. so for example public water doesn’t form a crystal because it has too much negative energy, either from pollution or the energy from it’s surroundings like the city it was taken from.

It all comes down to that words have some kind of effect on a microscopic level, somehow they have the ability to change the rhythm that atoms vibrate at in a positive or negative way. All atoms vibrate to create energy, and everything is made of atoms. People, dogs, trees, plants, books, cars, everything.

 

Jesus in the Margins

This idea has been on my mind for weeks.

Margins // the edge or boarder of something, the amount by which something wins or falls short

I think the majority of people live in the margins of life. We feel as if we have just fallen short. We’re not good enough, smart enough, rich enough, important enough, and so we define ourselves by our circumstances.

You know what I love about the Gospels.

They are full of stories of how Jesus steps into the margins of peoples life and pulls them out, and gives them hope, and restores their value.

American homes are full of bibles, and yet we have no idea what they say.

some own them out of respect, some because of tradition, others because it feels right.

When you set the bible on your bookshelf it becomes just another book, that collects dust.

But when you write yourself into the margins, the gospel becomes part of your life.

Do you want to know the differences between someone who respects the gospel and someone who lives it?

Look in the margins of their bible.

Real Life Groups

I heard a church refer to their “small Groups” but he didn’t say small groups, or home groups or cell groups

they called them “Real Life Groups”

interesting, huh?

It’s finally Here // Everything is Spiritual DVD

It is finally here, The everything Is Spiritual DVD.

I’m so excited!

I smell a perfect Christmas Present for me

This is the mind boggling 20 foot white board.

2 hours, 20 feet, and 1 marker