My Lord, I have no hope but in Your Cross. You, by your humility sufferings and death, have delivered me from all vain hope.

My Hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards.

My Hope is in what the human heart cannot feel. Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart.

My Hope is in what the hand has never touched. Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers, because Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.

Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health or strength or ability or human resources. If I trust You, everything else will become for me strength, health, and support.

Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence (from Thoughts In Solitude)

I finally finished one of my favorite books of 2010 so far (granted it took me forever to read it because school ended up getting in the way for a while): METAmorpha: Jesus as a way of life by Kyle “Lee’s Son” Strobel. Let me get the “critique” out of the way upfront: From a stylistic point of view, Kyle is an easy but intelligent writer who knows how to make his arguments in a fair and balanced way. This isn’t surprising if you’ve read any of his dad’s stuff, so it’s a good read from that standpoint. There are a few sections in the book that tend to drag, not due to style, but exhaustive content. These moments were few and far between, though. With that out of the way, on to why METAmorpha is great read for any believer.

Perhaps I enjoyed METAmorpha so much because it parallels what the vision that God has laid on my heart for ministry: shift in worldview and depth in spiritual formation for the purpose of inviting God’s transforming power into our lives.  I can’t begin to tell you how much this resonates with me:

Our Christianity can often look more North American and modern than distinctively Christian. Our Churches often take their priorities and values directly from the society in which they exist and simply Christianize them. The story we are telling has everything to do with the worldview we have, and redeeming this worldview should be central to our lives as disciples.

The problem is not that our hearts are not in the right place, it’s that we’ve become so influenced by our culture (and so many elements of secular philosophy) that we fail to realize how secular our faith has become.  Often when I share my opinions on how secular or American we look (rather than Biblical and/or Christian), I am met with frustration, dissension, and defense systems. “Why can’t you see the good in the church?” … “You need to get with the times!” … “We can’t reach the culture if we’re stuck in the past.” … none of these statements really speak to the heart of the worldview issue, nor do they capture the essence of what myself, Kyle, and many many others are trying to say. Because I do see the good in the church (and share the good as often as possible), i’m not against modern means of cultural relevance, etc… but I understand that until we allow our lives and worldviews to be completely deconstructed by the Spirit of God, we will not become the church that He designed us to be.

METAmorpha not only helps remove the veil from our worldview, but follows up with how we can soften our hearts so that God’s word, spirit and community can pierce us and change us in ways that only He can do! This is the crux of it all. He is the facilitator of change, but we also must open ourselves up to honest examination in order to accept His transforming power in our lives.

The other thing I like about METAmorpha is it’s emphasis on a balance between education and experience. Often, depending on theological / denominational background, Christians will hold one in high regard over the other. We are to love God with all of our Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. It is a totality of who we are, including not only our intellect, but our spiritual and emotional experiences. If we rely too much on our intellect, we become rigid and teeter on legalism… If we rely too much on our experience, we have a tendency to be tossed to-and-fro by whatever emotional or “spiritual” waves come our way.

My suggestion? Pick this book up. I got it off the bargain rack at Mardel for like $2.50 (sorry Kyle). You have to be willing to open yourself up, though, and at least entertain the thought that perhaps your worldview isn’t the worldview that God has in store for you. Or, perhaps you have already opened yourself up and God is shaping your worldview in a amazing new ways; if so, METAmorpha can be a tool to pass on to others in your life… either way, it’s well worth the read.

It should come to no shock to any of my handful of readers that a massive “Health Care” Reform Bill was passed earlier this week. For those who have followed me for a while, it will also come as no shock that I generally do not fall in line with the typical conservative Christian. Despite what most typical conservative Christian’s think, that does not make me a) a liberal, b) a democrat, or c) a bad person. If I had to give a political statement of where I fit, I am an apolitical moderate who would prefer a complete governmental overhaul, thus since “moderate” isn’t a party, I am much more in line with the governmental ideas of Libertarian’s than anyone else. In other words, despite a brief reintroduction into the political realm during the last presidential elections, I prefer to focus my attention on things other than politics.

As a moderate-libertarian, there are things I like and don’t like about the new bill… As an apolitical individual, I don’t care all that much honestly. For some of you, that is almost worse than being moderate and/or democrat… But that’s not what I want to talk about… Instead, lets look at a few after-effects of the recent days’ activities and see if we can redeem any of it…

A few that must be considered (swarming with pithyness, of course), before getting to the meat of redemption:

First, as of the writing of this post, 917,249 people, several of which are my friends, have joined the facebook group “I bet we can find 1,000,000+ People Who Disapprove of the Health Care Bill.” By the time most of you read this, the group may be well over 1mil. Congratulations, you have effectively socialized your attempts to disapprove of socialized healthcare.

Second, as most of my friends are conservatives, there has been an onslaught of tweets, status updates, conversations, and sarcastic diatribes blasting our government, our president, and the new health care bill. Congratulations, your voice has been heard by and you’ve successfully high fived, fist bumped, and man-hugged all of your conservative friends.

Third, as noted in serveral places in the websphere, conservative Republicans in Washington, based on the outcry from their states, chose to look for no compromise on anything submitted by this administration. There was no middle ground. This is not surprising considering the state of American politics. Congratulations, Representatives, you set idly by and the bill you hoped to kill through inaction has swept the country into a tizzy.

Sarcasm aside… there are things that we, as Christians, can learn from this whole ordeal, using the above somewhat tongue-in-cheek observations as a launching pad. Everything from here forward is no longer political, please do not take it as such:

First, we need to differentiate between real action and “Facebook action.” Social networking is great, it’s fun, and there are some pretty cool things that can happen through the various avenues for businesses, individuals, and even some level of evangelism and/or ministry. But in the end we must recognize the importance of making a difference in people’s lives through personal interaction and life-changing encounters in which Jesus shows up. Sometimes it’s as simple as helping pay for someones groceries, other times we travel half way across the world and land smack in middle of the Mid East, or it’s in our everyday lives at work, all the while allowing Christ’s light to shine through us in a real and tangible way.

I think of our church’s Servant Evangelism team. I know the heart of our pastor and the heart of our SE leader… they want to see people in our church understand what it means to live every day as if we have an opportunity to show the unique Love that Christ has to offer… it doesn’t have to be an “every 3rd Saturday thing” or only when your church offers you the opportunity. We need to be the hands and feet outside of the websphere, outside of the social networks, and get our hands and feet dirty in the real world.

Second, we need to differentiate between talk and walk. We all know this and there are great people doing great things for Christ but I still contend wholeheartedly that if the Church body was doing what the Church body is called to do, our faith would not be drowning in the socio-political US culture. I love what I see in so many of those around us, but to think that we are in large part doing what we are called to do is unfortunate naiveté. All we need to do is look at the fruit of this culture… and the stark contrast between who Jesus attracted and who we attract. Philip Yancey says it best in his book “The Jesus I Never Knew”… (paraphrasing) In Jesus’ day, he offended the so-called religious people and attracted the sinners, outcasts, and broken… Today, the church attracts the so-called religious and offends the sinners, outcasts, and broken. I think 1) he is dead on, but 2) things ARE slowly changing for the good… But perhaps this paints a picture of how this sometimes plays out in even the most grace-field lives: When Supermodels and Cafeteria Workers Fall (thanks Gabe).

Finally, we cannot sit idly by and hope that things work out for the best… I believe strongly that as Christians, we must stop thinking politically. The same people who say that the government shouldn’t be the avenue in which the needy and poor are helped, rather the church should take the initiative (which, I completely agree with) are the same ones who fight hard in the political realm against issues of sin such as homosexuality and abortion. You cannot have it both ways… if you do not want the government to do the work of the church, then we need to stop focusing so much of our energy and opinions on politics and instead refocus on rebuilding broken lives. You have to ask yourself, what fights do you want to pick? Those against flesh and blood? or those against the powers of darkness? You cannot fight both, and btw, one is loosing battle every single time.

(Check out Bob Hyatt’s take here, and Dave Burchett’s here… I appreciate both of their insights).

My intentions here are not to frustrate or take a political stance on the Health Care Bill… My hope is that we can move away from such divisive vices (as politics obviously has become), and recognize that as Christians, our citizenship is not primarily American.

Lets make sure that our walk outshines our talk, and walk much more than a mile… let us focus our attention on the Kingdom that is both here and not yet, of which we find our true citizenship…

We grew up together; now we blog together. In the B/S Chronicles you’ll get to experience viewpoints from a brother/sister team…who may or may not always see things eye-to-eye.

I’m not going to lie to you… Leadership is a tough topic to rant about because it’s one of those topics that everyone knows enough about that it becomes a bit bland. Take my current Group Leadership class for example… for the most part, every discussion and reading assignment is generic and cliche. The case study and essays are pretty interesting, but most people have a decent understanding of the characteristics of good quality leadership. Granted, not everyone implements these into their own lives, but I digress…

I was struck with an interesting question concerning leadership a week or so ago and how it related in my role as a father as one of (along with my wife of course) the leaders of my family. From a spiritual perspective, it’s pretty simple for me to equate the two: I want to lead my family by example. If my life continually reflects Jesus, then I’ve done all I can do.  I do other practical / hands-on things to try and develop a sense of spiritual responsibility to help my family reproduce the relationship with Christ that I have, but I accept that I cannot force the issue.

Reflection and Reproducing: perhaps at the end of the day, that is all it takes… but I also know that in my life, considering my personality and habits, I have to find creative ways for reflection and reproduction to take place. Some people are natural story tellers… not just with their words, but with their actions… not just at bed time, but at all times… They teach life-lessons and reflect Christ so naturally that their kids can’t help but glean something. That’d be great, but i’m just not that way. If I’m completely honest with myself I know that if I’m not intentional as a spiritual leader of my family, I could easily be one of those dads who loves his kids a great deal, maybe even has a decent amount of influence on their life, but still knows very little about them.  That’s not something to be proud of…

It’s a weird balance… sometimes intentional blows up in my face. You know, like the guy who makes every movie into a Christian Allegory? or the one tries to make every situation into a profound learning experience? Who wants to be that guy? Not me… it’s annoying. But there are definitely times when i’m left sitting in awkward silence as my girls smirk at me in that oh so snarky way that screams “WHATEVER WEIRDO!!” But, hey… I can take that if it means that other times turn into great conversations … – It’s amazing how much a 10 year old can teach you about love, forgiveness, and grace…

Thankfully I’ve got my wife by my side. She keeps me honest with how much or little time I’m spending intentionally developing my relationship with my girls. It’s not always easy, but it’s certainly always worth it… … …

Check out Lindsey’s take (the S of the B/S Chronicles) on Leadership here

The other night I watched an indie-film adaptation of the short story book Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, by David Foster Wallace. I know very little about the author other than what I’ve read from wikipedia, but the movie closes with one of his own quotes that I have been chewing on ever since:

The truth will set you free but not until it is done with you.

In my pursuit of spiritual freedom, I recognize that complete and perfect freedom is not obtainable overnight… we are pressing towards our completion, allowing God to transform our very being. This is where we find freedom, and how the truth ultimately sets us free.  What is perhaps most profound about this statement is the heaviness the man whom quoted it lived with. In 2008, at the age of 46, David Foster Wallace committed suicide. For David, there was no freedom from his internal depression; the emotional pain that tormented his soul won out over whatever truth had a hold of him. We could debate whether David allowed the Truth to enter his life or not… but I doubt any of us are in a position to have that discussion.

But it does beg the question: Am I letting the Truth hold me? Does the Truth penetrate my the depths of my soul in such a way that I allow Him to transform me?

(Originally posted at MentorMeProject.com … Join the conversation, here or there)

I lead a Life Group/Community Group/Home Cell/Cell Group/ Splinter Cell/Jihadist Group for our church called “Inhabited.” The vision is “to invite God’s transforming power into our lives through various forms of personal worship” and the focus is on spiritual formation.  Ultimately, the “various forms of personal worship” point towards how we approach our relationship with the Holy Spirit, thus much of it centers around our prayer life.

I’m going to start posting our notes. Of course, as a community group, much of our night is discussion driven, which is hard to capture by just copy-pasting our notes. I’ll interject some nuggets that sprinkled our discussion to at least sort of gives an idea of where we went (of course, nothing directly personal, just guide posts). This week was a discussion of relational honesty. The original idea has been working in me for a few weeks, but the current book I’m reading (Metamoprha / Kyl Strobel), provided much of the support and helped me round it out as a lesson. I’d love to continue the discussion here for anyone who wants to jump in, especially considering I may not always convey it correctly as i convert discussion based stuff to text.

Our journey will probably have to look much like the psalmists’, who often cried out to God with utmost honesty about their inability to find Him near. Our honesty will be the place where God teaches us humility, trust, and how to really be loved. I have found in my own life that the Spirit longs for me to come to Him as I honestly am, with what is really going on inside of me and how I actually see the world. When I do, he takes me and shows me how little I understand and how much he has to teach me. – Kyle Stobel, Metamorpha

A really short film…

I did this right at 5 years ago, and posted it here almost 2 years ago, but it’s time to revisit it for reasons outlined below. Unshaved, unkempt hair, glasses instead of contacts, overacting, goofiness, etc… There ain’t no shame in my game!

We’re talking about sharing our faith in our church and I showed this to my pastor just for kicks… now, just for kicks, he’s showing it at church this Sunday (the high quality version without credits, that is)… I’m not sure if i should laugh or cry about it being shown to a bunch of people that have never seen me like this… but the video still makes me laugh. Enjoy:

As of this morning, I am officially a contributor of a project that I believe is of the utmost importance: the MentorMeProject. Where God takes the project itself is yet to be seen; there is a great heart behind the vision, and great potential behind the purpose, but as with everything in today’s internet culture, you never really know the effectiveness until it gets rolling.

But you cannot deny the need… consider an excerpt from “The DREAM” page:

The simple part is saying these words, the difficult part is putting these words into action.
Generation X (ages 27-41) and Y (ages 9-26) are called the connected generation. But more and more people are becoming disconnected and looking to connect.

Why do people consider these two generations connected? Because they have unlimited amounts of information? Because they have constant access to anyone? These two could be true on the surface, but serve as a poor way of being connected. There needs to be a redefinition of a connected generation before we move forward and connect with others.

We all can attest to the truth in the statements above. We are far more “connected” now than we have ever been, but to what level exactly are we connected? We have weaved a web that demands connectedness and community but forgotten at the core why community is so important. I am glad to partner and contribute along side of Kyle in his quest to see authentic, mentor-style relations borne out of the technology that is so readily available at our fingertips. The question is, can we move it beyond the web? Can we use the technology as a launching pad for something real and deeper? Perhaps…

So, read my post here, and join the conversation.

I need to preface this review by saying I have never read a book from cover to cover about parenting, much less specifically about fatherhood. I’ve been a father for over ten years now, but I admit that I have much to learn. So why haven’t I read a parenting book up to this point? I dunno. Maybe pride, maybe because I’ve done a pretty decent job so far, maybe I just haven’t found the right books to keep my attention. In any case, I wanted to give this one a fair shot.

The central concept of Influence Of A Father is the idea of transference: You can’t give away that which you do not have. As such, Tom focuses each chapter on two ideas. First, do you, the reader/father, own, practice, and reflect the Biblical value discussed in chapter; and second, once you do, how can you and why should you transfer it to your children.  This does open the door for some very base level discussions about values that I already hold to in my life. As such, I found myself skimming parts of some chapters that dealt with the heart of the reader rather than the art of transference. For this same reason, I barely touched the “Concluding Thoughts” at the end of each chapter, a two paragraph section focusing on self-evaluation questions.

This isn’t to say I skimmed parts of EVERY chapter; indeed, many of the values I thought I held were challenged and enhanced through this book. The three chapter section on Discipline, a subject I felt I have handled consistently and fairly throughout the years, illuminated areas within my disciplinary values that I had never thought through. Am I disciplining for the here and now only? or to instill life long values in my children? I hope the purpose is long term, but I also see definite times where the only thing I care about is getting the here and now controlled. While that is natural, it also opens the door for me to discipline when discipline is not really in order, or worse, to discipline without teaching and helping my children avoid mistakes in the future.

Other highlights include and outstanding chapter on mentoring and the role it plays in fathering. The wisdom in this chapter transcends fatherhood and can apply to any mentor relationship. Tom also provides a breakdown of unhealthy tendencies that fathers often embrace, how to find strength through partnership with your wife, and even what to do when kids go rogue (a discussion of the Prodigal Son parable).

From a standpoint of style, it is pretty predictable. Stories of his own childhood and fatherhood highlight his points, while scripture peppers the meat of his discussions. Tom is both straightforward and compassionate, understanding that fatherhood is a difficult task that many of us don’t feel up for, but he refuses to back down due to the heaviness our influence carries. All in all, it was a great read for me. I’m not too far along where I am set in my ways, and my eldest is not too far developed for me to fix some of the subtle things that I would like to do better. Besides, I still have two that are 5 or younger, and at least one more in the plans. My hope and prayer is that God will continue to impart wisdom into my life in order to see my children grow into the adults God desires them to be… God knows I can’t do it on my own!

Bottom Line: 4 out of 5 stars for content and usability.