Thursday, November 22, 2007

What are YOU thankful for?

We in America are in the top one percent of the wealthiest people in the world.
This thanksgiving, would you take a moment and reflect on all that God has given you?
Lest we forget our own wealth and become absorbed with our own problems.
Let these pictures remind you of the work waiting to be done.







Take a moment to remember your blessings, and those who are waiting to be blessed.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

This is the sound of the Underground....

I’m sick of the hypocrisy in the church today.
All the Christians who sit back and talk
Why to do they let the problems go?
Just sit back, relax and enjoy the show

In a world where AIDS and poverty thrive
Can the gospel truly survive?

If we are the future as many will claim
Why is it our parents who get all the blame?
All I’m saying is its time for a change
We have to get into action and stop playing this game

People don’t get it when you try to reform
All people see is a youthful drive
Those people think they know whats going on inside

This isn’t a plea for emotion or rage
This is a statement of mission for life

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...

This is the sound of the underground.

Monday, November 12, 2007

The Cross of Christ

Philippians 3:10
"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."

The Cross of Christ is the central act, even the central message of this revolution.
Only when we focus on the "man of sorrows, familiar with suffering." can we truly change the world around us.

Only by proclaiming the Cross of Christ can we faithfully present Christ to the world. We must preach accomplished salvation if we are to be truly radical for Jesus Christ.
As Bonhoeffer said in the Cost of Discipleship, Grace without the Cross is a useless religion not worth preaching. IT is a plague across our land, and it must be refuted, simply with the message of the Cross.

Only when we proclaim the words of Isaiah will we see true change.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

The revolution must be based on a call to repentance and faith, centered upon the redemptive substitutionary death of Christ on the Cross, not on a hope or prosperity Gospel. We will not change the world preaching the Kingdom of God (as important as the kingdom is). We will not change the world preaching the ability of the cross to save.n We can only change the world with the message of the Cross.

Friday, November 9, 2007

115,000 orphans and this is a "Christian" country?

"America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted. Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice "true religion" in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop "shootin' up" with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease."

Anthony Bradley in his blog made a pretty convicting argument for the sad state of American Christianity.

"The Washington Times reports that there are about 65 million evangelicals in America. So, again, why are there 115,000 orphans in America's foster care system? Does this mean that there are 65 million people missing huge sections of their Bibles? Would someone please alert Crossway and Zondervan!
Here's the deal: pagans were introduced to Jesus because Christians were taking care of the needy in obedience to Scripture. Taking care of the needy is not done only for the sake of evangelism. Practicing "true religion" is an extension of the kinds of Kingdom-oriented, salt and light, truth-bearing, grace-filled, Jesus-loving people who live to treat other people the same way God treats them (Ephesians 2:8-10).
We were all orphans and God adopted us in his family, remember? "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Rom 8:14-16). As such, the best possible home for an orphan is in a home where a family is following Jesus together as former orphans themselves.
If your church is not cultivating an ethos that practices "true religion" it may not be missional at all. It may be dying or sinking into a consumeristic, entertainment quicksand where people come to have their "felt needs" stroked. Your pastor might wear "cool" clothes, have a "cool" blog, or be in the process of trying to make God and Jesus androgynous but God seems to care that his people are being led by capable men who lead the rest of God's people in bringing the Kingdom to their local neighborhood in all its forms.
While not all Christians are gifted or equipped for taking in orphans it's pretty convicting that 65 million American evangelicals can't rescue 115,000 kids from an unstable hell. If the pagans in our neighborhoods aren't struck by how our churches are applying the Word of God to the needy it's possible that we aren't the real deal yet. May we all pray that our churches are soon as mature as James commends. The revolution continues. . ."

Anthony recommends:
Bethany Christian Services (a Christian adoption agency operating in the US and abroad; www.bethany.org)

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Luther?

There is a post coming very soon.
Being looking for the Manifesto.
I would like to see it change the Church the way another one did 490 years ago.

The Vision?

The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? They are an army.
And they are free from materialism. They laugh at the markets.
They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes:
to show and to tell, but never to hide.
They know the meaning of the Matrix; the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults break and cry.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might win, one day
the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciplined.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrades at arms.
The tattoo on their backs boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their eyes.
Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And this generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears
Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels, fasting essentials.

The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
Material clothes matter not
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives,
swap seats with the man on death row;
guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.


Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don't you hear them coming?
Here come the frightened and forgotten, with fire in their eyes.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.