We've Seen Too Much!

To add to the previous post, I think there is one other perspective we are aiming for at CTK Durango and Farmington. Having our witness of Christ come from our own experience is paramount to reaching the people around us with the Good News.

The "other half" of our witness, I believe, is illustrated in a story in the book of Acts. As Peter and John are going into the temple to worship, a crippled beggar asks them for money. Instead of giving him cash, they heal him! They literally tell him to get up, then help him up and all go inside the temple together. The response of the church leadership is to arrest Peter and John. They don't know what to do with them since the crippled guy is standing there next to them. Finally, they decide to play the heavy with Jesus' disciples. They tell Peter and John that they can leave, but they must never preach or teach in the name of Jesus again. Peter and John basically respond by saying, "after what we've seen God do in the name and under the authority of Jesus, we couldn't possibly stop preaching his Good News.

If you are living in relationship with Jesus, the authority with which you preach the Good News comes from your personal experience with him--like the blind guy Jesus healed. There are times, however, when you are experiencing crisis, or catastrophe, or things just aren't going well. It sounds a little strange to people when your husband just died to be talking about the miraculous things God is doing in your life. Sometimes, we don't have something current to point to in terms of God transforming us--we are in process. It is at these times when I believe the testimony of the maturing Christ-follower is to say, "I don't know what's going on right now, but I've seen too much to not trust God to walk with me through this."

Our goal right now, is to live in balance (tension, maybe) between these two attitudes toward Christ. We either share from the experience of transformation and healing God has extended to us, or we are modeling faith in light of those things we've experienced in the past. The Christian who embraces and lives out these concepts will be miles ahead of the person who "knows" everything there is to know about God.

We Should All Be Blind Guys.

I've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about the idea of witness--using our story to share the Good News. Growing up in church and going to Christian colleges, I've had my share of training on how to share the gospel--all the different reasonings and arguments.

I know that if you filled the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars, marking one with an X, the odds that some random guy would wade into it and randomly pick the same coin are the same as the odds that one man could fulfill eight of the many prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah.

I've heard compelling evidence for the scientific possibility of Noah actually fitting all the necessary animals on the ark to survive a flood.

I haven't heard much about talking snakes, so Adam and Eve still confuse me to some extent.

All this to say that as fascinating and compelling as some of these ideas are, I'm not so sure they are very effective in leading someone to a place where they meet Jesus. The more I think about it and look at the Word, the more convinced I am that a relationship with God is less about learning his "stuff" and more about meeting him.

Jesus healed a guy who was blind. The guy really didn't even know who Jesus was. We know this because the religious leaders grilled him and his parents forcefully to try and figure out who healed him, how, and with what authority. Finally, the guy blurts out, "I don't know who he was or what authority he has, but yesterday I was blind and now I can see!"

How do you argue with that? What use does it serve to question his theology? Can you further convince this man of his new ability to see by revealing to him the secrets of the true age of this young earth?

At CTK, we are trying to make a move toward being blind guys--or, I guess, ex-blind guys. In our culture in Durango, there is a lot of spiritualism and a lot of compelling intellectia (is that a word?). There are a ton of smart people with good arguments to support their opinions and conclusions. I wonder what a bunch of former blind guys who have been healed by Jesus, even before they know all about him, could do in a culture like that? Maybe we'll find out.

Experiencing the Power of Prayer

Oscar started stuttering during the summer. We figured it had something to do with anticipating a new school year--starting kindergarten. Our basic tactic was to not bring attention to it and see what happened. Once school started, the stuttering got worse. After a couple weeks, though, things seemed to settle down and he was able to find his words again. Oscar has been doing really well academically and socially at school. You can tell he is about to break into the world of reading and he really loves to learn. He's also found a few good friends and seems to get along well with most of the kids at school.

This is why a week or so ago, we became concerned when the loss of words seemed to come back--with a vengeance. It wasn't so much that he was stuttering, but you could tell it was really bothering him. It was almost like he was being oppressed or held down by some weight, which is hard as a parent and especially tough with a kid who is pretty introverted to begin with. Last week, Jenn and I had been talking about some of the things we've seen God doing around us and while I was in Farmington for the worship service, it occurred to her to pray for Oscar. I'm a little embarrassed that this didn't occur to us sooner, but there's not a lot I can do about that! Anyhow, Jenn prayed for Oscar and you could instantly see a difference. It was as if something had been lifted from him. He spoke clearly (even on the phone to tell me what happened) and his entire countenance improved. For the past several days, we've continued to pray with him every morning, asking God to help him find his words and give him the peace he needs to be able to relax in his talking. He still gets caught up sometimes in what he's saying, but the amazing thing to me is the difference in his spirit. He seems more calm and less "turned in" on himself.

The best thing about this for me is the fact that Oscar has always been our thinking kid. The whole concept of God as been a little strange to him and he's always hesitated to pray (in fact, he still doesn't like to pray out loud). I love the fact that God had mercy on us and met the boy in a very real and very tangible way. Whatever Oscar does from here on out in his faith and relationship with God, he will always be able to remember a time when God moved in a big way in his life. It inspires me to seek God out in my own life as well.

Settling Down

Things are starting to settle down a bit for our family. Jenn is getting a rhythm at school and developing relationships with the kids. Oscar just celebrated his sixth birthday (we had a couple kids over and carved pumpkins), and Piper walks around all day saying she loves you to "bits and pieces". I'm even gaining some equilibrium as my mom has offered to take the kids to school M-W-F which gives me a little margin in the morning to do work. It's good to see the kids feeling more secure and Jenn and I are able to communicate more and bring each other down less.

I also bought a car. After ten years of living by the philosophy of, "I'd rather fix it than make a payment" I finally caved and decided I'd rather have a payment than spend my life under a car on the side of the road. I opted for wisdom over ego and ended up with a Mitsubishi Outlander (imagine a minivan and a station wagon having a baby). It's a good car, but by no means what I am used to. I'm realizing that part of my comfort level with driving kids to school and buying groceries has had a lot to do with the fact that I still drove a badass Jeep. Now that that's been stripped away, I'll have to find my identity in something more appropriate.

Church is going great. Last night we had Food Night (can you guess what happens there?). I love just hanging out with our community "on God's time". There is no sermon or program we could launch that could ever legitimize relationship like a food night! Farmington is going well too. We are about to start some small groups out of the main worship that's been happening on Wednesday nights. It's pretty neat to have these guys coming to me saying, "hey, we're ready to start some small groups!"

Family Camp

This weekend Jenn and I took the kids to Moab, UT to go camping. Moab is about three hours away in the red desert of Utah. It is a beautiful place with massive red cliffs and tons of natural arches. It's pretty much the next mecca for mountain biking, off-roading, and river activities after Durango (maybe before Durango depending on who you ask). We had a great time checking out the town and looking for future camping spots. The highlight was our trip through Arches National Park. The place was a mind-bending overload of desert rock scenery. I can't wait to go back.

The Good, The Bad, and now for some Ugly

It's been a few weeks, now, since school has started. The kids are doing well. Oscar is adjusting to kindergarten and Piper loves her preschool. Jenn and I are still struggling with our transitions. The logistics and administration are not going well at her school which is a new program this year. Teacher morale is extremely low and the students are pretty under motivated, to say the least. Add to this the change from being with the kids all day long to only seeing them in the evenings and things begin to get a little muggy. She's handling all this with grace and doing a good job of surviving work and making good use of her time with the kids in the afternoons. It is difficult to watch. I would much rather be going through the stressful stuff myself than have to watch Jenn suffer.

We decided to go this route so that I could continue to pastor our campuses when there is not enough funding to support us. This arrangement allows me to work my office hours around school schedules and not be required to work another job part time. I guess the bottom line is that we've chosen a difficult path. I believe we made a good decision, but it is going to be a tough year.

Day 1: Farmington

Wednesday night we had our first meeting in Farmington, NM. A few of the guys from Durango came and led worship which was cool. We had about sixteen people there which is encouraging after last year when one single person came to our first Durango meeting (and she only came to explain to us how evil the NIV version of the Bible is).

We talked about acceptance, love, and forgiveness. Actually, we talked mostly about acceptance through the eyes of Levi and the notorious sinners who had dinner with Jesus. I think the sixteen people there that night are set to reach out to Farmington with the acceptance that Jesus modeled. We are quite the group of ragamuffins, but I think that's what will make this campus effective.

It will be exciting to see how things develop over the next few months.

A Thought On Scattering Seed...

In our staff meeting this last week, we had an interesting conversation about evangelism. We were talking about different methods of sharing the gospel and complaining about some that we didn't think were very effective. It got me to thinking about Jesus' parable of the seeds. In Jesus' story, a farmer scatters seed in a bunch of different places...thorny soil, rocky soil, the path, and good soil. The parable basically describes the process of sharing God's love and how different people respond to the Message.

This parable has taken on new significance to me recently. I've often become excited about some new way of sharing Christ and equally as animated about evangelism that I don't agree with or like. One of my greatest frustrations has always been with guilt or death motivated evangelism. I can't bear to watch Kirk Cameron brow-beat some poor guy on the street until he agrees that he's scum. Of course, there is truth to Kirk's method--we are scum. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. I believe, however (you may see a pattern in my posts here) that what you win people with is what you win them to. If you spend all your energy convincing someone how horrible they are (as if we need someone to point out where we fall short!), the faith they live out will be one of always looking over their shoulder wondering if their salvation ever really took or if God is going to give up on them because they keep sinning. On the other hand, if you introduce someone to Christ through his love and sacrifice, the next thought on a person's mind is how unworthy they are of that kind of love which leads to the idea of grace. This person will live out their faith with a sense of God's acceptance for them. Seeking forgiveness will become a matter of reconciling relationship as opposed to "settling accounts" with God.

This is where the farmer sowing seeds comes in. In Jesus' story, the farmer seems to be walking around throwing seeds all over the place. Some of it doesn't get off the path, some goes in the thorns, etc. What if the farmer chose a fertile setting, plowed the ground, planted the seeds purposefully, and then irrigated the field? He might experience a more effective harvest. This is not to say that Jesus' farmer was mistaken, lazy, or incompetent. Sharing the message of God's love is a beautiful thing in any form--inspired by love. Too many people never even go as far as the farmer scattering seeds. Fewer people, however, go one step further to purposefully bringing Christ into fertile places, taking the time to build relationships and trust and model the gospel as well as share it. Too many of us are so anxious to seal the deal, we end up throwing seed out that only gets picked up by the birds a minute later. In my opinion, using a Sunday church service as a faith community's primary form of evangelism is scattering seed. How one man speaking for 37 minutes can say what a thousand people need to hear is beyond me. It seems to me that the Christian friends and families of the thousand people would have a better shot at knowing what they need than the one preacher. Of course, being a preacher, I believe there is evangelistic as well as other kinds of profound value to preaching, but is the sermon or the Sunday service, for that matter, the best place to put all our evangelistic energy?

This is a motivating thought to me. I want to be sure I am sowing seed where it will be most effective. I suppose the bad end of this spectrum of thinking would be to "withhold" the gospel from someone we imagine will not be receptive, but I'm not sure that's a good enough argument to not be purposeful in how we go about communicating the great mystery of God's love.

Countdown to Farmington

Next Wednesday, we start our new Farmington, NM campus! I'm pretty excited and everyone seems to be working hard to get things ready. Music is pretty much the only thing we really don't have, but it has been amazing to see some old guitars and keyboards being dug up to give it a try. I absolutely love our Farmington crew. I can see people doing what they are gifted and empowered to do and I can only assume this means God has some big intentions for this new community.

This last Sunday night, we got to commission Melissa and Christine, two of our key leaders in the new campus. It was so fun to pray for them and see the Durango group embrace these new leaders.

World Speed Record For Bad Day

Learning how to be the "stay at home--while working in an office--and driving Hummer tours" Dad is definitely presenting it's challenges. I love the time I spend with the kids. Piper and I, in particular, are getting to hang out a lot in the office--days full of coloring pictures, picnics on the floor, and designing tiaras on the My Little Pony website.

This morning, however, was not fun. I've been having trouble getting Oscar to school by 8am. Today I was stressed out because we didn't have any groceries, so I was sending the boy to school with no lunch (of course I was going to bring him one later). On the way down the hill, we stopped to help our neighbor who was broken down on the side of the road. This set us back a little, but we made our way to Starbucks (did I mention we didn't have any breakfast food either?). With school only a mile away and only two minutes late, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I pulled up in front of the school ready to get on with the day only to find a police car stopped behind me with his lights on. Admittedly, I was driving 30mph in what I thought was a 25mph zone, however, kind officer Murphy informed me that during school hours the limit is 20mph putting me a heinous 10mph over the legal limit. The officer was kind enough to let me walk Oscar to his classroom while he wrote me up.

Needless to say, this took all my emotional energy and coping skills to manage myself--not to mention meriting the all-time speed record for ruining a day before 8am (actually, it says 802am on my ticket)!