bizarro world

Last night, when my mind was awakened to the reality of what was taking place in my living room, I had to stop for a moment and take inventory of my life...make sure I was still the person I thought I was.

My wife was reclining on the couch with both legs resting on a stack of pillows, ensuring that her sore knee was higher than her heart. Normal.

I was lying on the loveseat, head rested on one armrest and legs draped over the other, while our dog slept in my lap. Normal.

She was watching TV and I was reading. Normal.

All normal.

But there is more to the story that made this night different than any other night in our marriage.

Last week, my wife finished a book entitled Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. The book is a fictional reworking of the book of Hosea. She absolutely loved it and made me promise to read it as soon as I finished the book I was currently working on. I love the story of Hosea and Gomer and I don't read fiction often enough, so I considered it. BUT (and this is big "but" by the way) this is the cover of the book.

Yeah, I know. All it's missing is Fabio behind her with his shirt off, atop a white stallion.

But she promised me that it wasn't nearly as girly as the cover made it appear. And I am completely secure in my own heterosexuality. So last night, I picked it up and began reading. She was taking her usual evening nap, so I went a head and had the Pistons/Heat game on in the background while I read.

Well, she woke and, since she generally likes sports and the game was close, didn't ask me to change the channel. As the fourth quarter wore on, she got more and more into the game and started rooting for the Heat (actually she was rooting against the Pistons...is there any good reason not to hate that team?). And eventually, she even began vocalizing her opinions of the events that were taking place on the court.

That is when I stopped. Looked around. And realized.

We were in Bizarro World.

She was watching the NBA Playoffs and screaming at the TV, while I was curled up under a blanket reading a romance novel and snuggling with my dog.

I was scared and confused and...oh, would you look at the time. I'd better finish this up and post it.

The wife likes me to have dinner ready by the time she gets home from work.

oh my...

I have seen many things in my life.

Some made me laugh, while others broke my heart. Some filled my eyes with tears of joy and others challenged my way of thinking. Some made me question my faith and others made me fall to my knees in worship and adoration.

I have seen many things.

Then I saw this. And I don't believe I will ever see anything the same way again.

the importance of being foolish

Here are a couple quotes I appreciated from Brennan Manning's book:

"Jesus's self-awareness and unflagging zeal in his ministry must be seen in direct and unceasing relation to his interior growing intimacy with the Father. We must not lose sight of this logical link: the primacy of mission and his consuming zeal for proclaiming the kingdom of God derive not from theological reflection, the desire to edify others, trendy spirituality, or a loose sense of goodwill toward the world. Its wellspring is God's holiness and Jesus's self-awareness of his relation to God."

"Inattentiveness to the holy destroys openness to the Spirit."

blamber

This past Saturday I got to be a groomsmen in my good friend Blake's wedding (by the way, that is Blake in the picture...though, to the best of my knowledge, he was neither falling down nor mentally disabled when it was taken, so I don't really understand the picture...but I like it).

Anyways, you know the whole "Brangelina" and "Bennifer" name combination thing that people like to do with celebrities? Well...Blake, and his now wife, Amber have my favorite combined name ever:

BLAMBER!

It just sounds gross from some reason.

I don't know why, I just thought I'd share that with you. Do you know any other couples that have funny combined names?

Cause "Biltsy" is kinda boring.

good and bad

This is good.

And this is bad.

My friend, and fellow blogger, Dustin, posted a segment from the Out of Ur article on his blog today. I really enjoyed reading it and thought you might, too.

And Pat Robertson...well, he's kinda like that drunk uncle that keeps showing up to your highschool football games. He's so obnoxious and embarrassing. We don't want to admit that we are related to the guy, but we can't help it...he is one of us. Like it or not. And I don't.

a follow up to my previous post

Last night as I thought more about it, I feared that I may have been too harsh in my previous post. Not that I said anything I want to now recant, but simply that I kept it all too one-sided and may not have gotten my point across.

Truth is, I like well-done and creative videos. I went to school to learn how to make them. I thoroughly enjoy the luxury of getting to utilize our current technology in putting together worship services each week. And I don't really have that big of a problem with catchy sermon titles, or shocking billboards.

None of it is bad.

My point is simply that all of that stuff is really just marketing, but what we lack is passion and authenticity.

My point is that we work so hard at updating the church, when she is really in need of revival.

My point is that I am tired of the church trying to improve her appearance, all the while it is the existence of nothing but a dwindling ember inside of her that is the cause of her irrelevancy.

The church doesn't need to be re-invented, it needs to be re-ignited.

To steal a metaphor from Jim Cymbala, it is like dressing up your baby daughter in the prettiest little pink dress, thinking to yourself how all of your family and friends are going to absolutely melt when they see how cute she is. You put her little stockings on, tie a bow in her hair; then pick her up in your arms, carry her out the door and go on your way. Meanwhile, the whole time, you never noticed that she wasn't breathing.

That is why I am so annoyed. I love the church, but the truth is she is lifeless. And dressing her up and trying to make her look appealing to a world who has seen it all anyway, is not going to help. We need life. We need passion. We need fire.

God help us. We need You.

(read Christ's admonishments to the churches in Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea as recorded by John in Revelation)

cool. hip. relevant. cutting edge...and totally missing the point.

This article annoyed me greatly.

I'm okay with the whole 'church embracing technology' thing. Personally, not being a tech guy myself, I couldn't care less. But I'm sure its a good thing for people who do have ipods and BlackBerrys and who are into all of that.

No, what grates on my nerves is the crazy billboards and the cool sermon titles; the "zany" videos and the hip jargon. I am not saying that any of that is wrong or bad. I'm saying it annoys me.

I know that one of the churches mentioned grew from 1,000 members to 6,000 in one six-week span because of a sermon series about sex. And good for them. I'm sure their ministry staff and elders were as happy as they could possibly be about that. They are probably working on the blue-prints for their new state of the art worship facility as I type.

But I can't help but wonder, is that growth anything more than a bunch of people who, because they live in Indiana and are going to go to church anyway, decided to hop on over to that cool and hip church down the street. I mean, why not. They don't make you feel uncomfortable or stretch you at all. They'll let you just sit in back row and be entertained.

And in 5 or 10 years is the next hot church going to grow by 5,000 when these people realize that there is a new show in town?

Please know that I am being overly cynical, and purposely unfair. I have a point.

"Don't sound preachy. Avoid "churchy jargon" — words like ministry, salvation, redemption, even faith. Draw nonbelievers to Jesus (or attract "unchurched" Christians to your specific congregation) by presenting the church as an upbeat, uplifting community of friends."

According to this article, that is the "top tip" from the Internet Evangelism Coalition.

Really? Avoid those words? Why?

It sounds to me like that is a great tip for "winning" people to a church, or winning them to the subculture of Christianity. But I don't buy for a moment that avoiding those words will help in winning someone to Christ. Not for a second.

Mostly because Christ came to establish His ministry here on earth, and charged us to...by His Holy Spirit...continue it after He ascended. He died and resurrected for the redemption of our sins and the salvation of the world. And faith? Do you really think there is a person alive who doesn't know what it means to put their faith in someone? Or to take a step out on faith in something?

These words do mean something...something beautiful, something wonderful. Don't avoid them in an attempt to patronize, or cater, or pretend you are something you are not. No. Instead, I say define those words...breathe life into those words. Don't avoid them.

"We dare not change the Gospel. But the method of delivery? We better change it for each new generation."

That is another quote from the article and frankly, it is something that I have heard hundreds of times. And It sounds good, I suppose. But, personally, I think it is a horrible reason to avoid using "churchy" words, or to start using giant video screens and flash technology.

Because here's the truth: those things are not really methods of delivery for the gospel. We are.

Passion, life, relationships, love...those are the only methods of truly delivering the gospel from one person to another. And we can spend all our time worrying about the side-show; concerning ourselves with the tools of ministry (which, granted, can be very good and effective tools)...and miss the only thing that really matters.

All the extra stuff will someday fade away...but the real and only method of delivering the gospel will remain the same...for every generation.

the iceman cometh

That's me. The ice man...and the drink man, the pillow man, the blanket man, the "my ankle itches can you scratch it" man. Yep, that has been my existence since my wife's surgery last Wednesday. And I have cometh, and goneth, from the living room to the bedroom to the kitchen to the bedroom to the...back and forth, back and forth, all hours of the day and night.

She was given orders to not get out of bed, except to go to the bathroom, from the moment she got home from the hospital until she went back for her first physical therapy appointment this morning.

That's 5 days! That is a really long time to lay in the exact same position.

So while, yes...its not always fun being "the Iceman Cometh". I absolutely have no room to complain or whine. I would much rather be that, then "the Drugged-out Girl Layeth in the Same Position".

But she is doing well. And her physical therapist was impressed by how far she could already bend her knee only 5 days after surgery, which is a testament to her faithfulness in sticking with her doctor's excercise routine while lying in bed.

And this morning she was given the okay to get up and move around, granted with crutches and not for extended periods of time, but enough to assume her normal daily routine at home.

So now that my duties have lessened a little, I am able to come back to work and assume my regular role as "the Procrastinating Man Typeth".

going under the knife

For all you praying-types out there: my wife and I would definitely appreciate your prayers tomorrow morning around 8:30am.

She is going in to have knee surgery for a torn ACL.

She is understandably nervous about the whole deal. But actually, she is more scared about the rehab and healing process that will follow. This is the second time she has torn her ACL and the first time around was the most traumatic experience of her life.

So pray for her. And pray for me, that I might be a good husband and caretaker.

Thanks.

(note: Luckily, we do like the surgeon who will be performing the operation. He seems stable.)

acceptance / approval

These words are not synonyms.

There is actually a significant difference between the two. A gulf that is as wide as the sea.

Think of the Atlantic Ocean: a large body of water (to say the least) that seperates North America and Europe, a distance of roughly 3,000 miles. But...from far enough away you can actually fit both continents in the same photograph. From far enough away, 3,000 miles can look like an inch. And from even farther away, it can appear as though there is no more than a sliver seperating one coast from the other.

But try telling that to Benoit Lecomte. In 1998, he became the first person to swim across the Atlantic Ocean...from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, France...a feat that took him 72 days, swimming 6-8 hours a day.

I think the problem with the church is that for a long time we have been standing way too far away. We are afraid of acceptance because, from where we are standing, there seems to be practically nothing seperating it from approval.

But that simply is not true. See, Lecomte experienced the reality of the Atlantic ocean. He tasted its saltiness and fought its waves. He knew the fear of jumping off one coast and the exhausted heroism of crawling up on the other.

The church needs to step out of outer space and back into reality. We live in a highly pluralistic world where most people do not share our worldview. And that does not mean that we have to choose between either imposing our standards on others or alienating ourselves because of them. I think that those are both bad choices.

No, I believe we are called to jump into relationships; to take the plunge. To fight the currents of popular opinion, navigate the difficult waters and experience the ocean of blessings.

Let us no longer steer clear of accepting someone who holds a differing belief or practices a certain behavior because we are afraid that doing so will give the impression that we are approving of their choices.

Jesus accepted with out approving. Paul did too. The Pharisees, however, did not.

Acceptance and approval are not synonyms. There is an ocean between them. An ocean we need not fear.

song of the month

Myrrh Worship has selected my song "Beautiful as You" as the song of the month.

What does that mean?

Well, it means:
- it will be reviewed by the Myrrh A&R and publishing teams
- possible distribution on future Myrrh Worship compilations
- it could be represented by Myrrh/Word Music Publishing through a single-song agreement
- and it will be streaming on the front page of their website all month long

What does all of that mean? Yeah, I don't know...probably nothing. But it is still really cool.

So...click the link above and go to their website and check it out. Just scroll down to the orange 'Song Search' box and hit the play button to listen.

And I hope you enjoy.

(note: 'Beautiful as You' is off of the Majesty and Meekness EP which is available in the upper left-hand corner of this page...just in case you wanted to buy it...which I think you should...right now.)

shh...i don't want words to ruin this

just click here