Video Blog

The Jesus Mold

...So if Jesus wasn’t’ religious, why the hell are we expected to be? Why is looking like you have everything together a prerequisite for entering the presence of God? That’s not the God I know. It breaks my heart but I have seen countless people in my generation give up on the Lord because of the church. Do you hear that? They’ve given up on a real God with real power, grace, forgiveness, and love because the “body of Christ” is obsessed with appearances. This problem is not new, however. There’s a nagging memory about someone calling church people white-washed sepulchers. I’m tired of a society filled with dead bones.

Renee Nyen 

http://reneesrandomrantings.blogspot.com/2009/05/authenticity.html

I have tried so hard to fit some Jesus mold that church, family, ministry organizations have tried to shove me in over and over.  I over and over again tell myself that I shouldn't care if I fit into the modern or traditional church world.  But I do!!  How did Jesus react to arrogant religiousness?  He made fun of it!!!

Here is my attempt at making fun of it.  We tend to shove people to try to fit them into our religions and we try to shove God into our religions.  As if we have some power to control both!!!

I wrote these lyrics for a song that I just demoed: 

Arise

Soaked through the seal we’ve closed Him in

Arise

Overflowing not contained

Arise

Not packaged with our slogens

So all can see His love

 

See for yourself

The walls can’t contain

His heavenly presence

The heavenly glory

Made perfect in us

By His son

The glory of God

His glory arise              

 Take a look at this video and as you watch it, laugh and ask God to challenge you:

 

Worldly Organs

If You are a worship leader or attend a church and hear the comments that worship leaders get, you will enjoy this.

http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2008/07/the-controverci.html

Lectio De-what??

Tuesday night at the highschool group, at Calvary Bible Church where I work, we mixed an ancient form of Scripture meditation called Lectio Devina into the worship time and it was rich. People were soaked in the preasence of God and He was made real to students through Scripture.

If you are interested in practicing Lectio Devina in your daily devotions, there is a great book that one of my good friends, J.R. Briggs, has written:

Go check it out!!!!

Detective Dave

The other morning Kellie and I were going to get her tags at the DMV and walked outside and saw that someone hit her car, totally side swiped it and didn’t leave a note. They did however leave a side runner from thier car stuck in the car wheel area of the car. We called the police and they wouldn’t send a police officer out without a suspect. It took us all day of driving around though all the red tape of the criminal justice system just to get paper work that we had to fill out ourselves and send in ourselves. I normally wouldn’t say anything, but I will say this...

The police should care more about taking care of crime and making the city safe than being slaves to the Department of Revenue by always writing tickets. Thier job is to serve and protect first and not second.

Tuesday nights I am up in Boulder and I came home around midnight and decided to go on a hunt for the car. I FOUND IT!!! It was parked at the top of the hill. I matched the piece that they left at the scene to the side of thier car and then called the cops. I will say this now about these officers, they were very nice and very helpful. When we explained why we didn’t have a report filed yet, they seemed just as bothed by the system as we were. They took pictures and then got a confession out of the person who hit us. Yay!!! We get to get her car fixed and justice was served!!!

The last point of the story... This pisses me off more than anything!!!! The girl who hit us had a Jesus fish on the back of her car!!!

Moments

This last Sunday night at Bloom Michael talked about Sacrament, a moment that is set apart to be holy, a moment when heaven meets where we are. Living with a heart of this is living with a heart of worship. I have been chewing on this. Moments in time can not be taken away. There is none exactly like them. As a musician I know that you can never capture a moment musically exactly the same. The instrument you play, the room you are in, everything makes that musical moment what it is and makes it unique. I can set that one moment apart as an act of worship. God is a God of moments that are life changing that can never be redone or changed. My wife and I are going to have a baby boy this summer. God says that He is there knitting my baby in the womb. The moments that God is developing my baby are moments that heaven is here on earth moments that will never again be relived. At the death of Jesus, the temple veil torn in two, the moment Jesus breathed again and was alive and sin was conquered are all moments that mattered, can never be relived. In the fast moving lives and culture that we live in, may we find times to reflect on moments that were sacraments, may we make new moments sacraments and worship God through them.

Good Article

I felt that this article was pretty good so I am posting it. It does a great job of clearing up some misconceptions of the emerging church.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=1