The Messes Have Spoken

In or Out

2007-11-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Recently I listened to pastor who was asked whether or not he preached toward "seekers" or "believers". He replied...."I preach to humans".

Christians for generations have gone to remarkable lengths to determine who's in and who's out. In the opening chapter of UnChristian the author addresses how we often use rather derogatory labels in the process of delineating those that follow Christ and those that don't. Christians use terms like "pagans", or "the lost", and worse, which simply deepen an already growing divide between those in the church and those outside of the church. Even terms like "non-christians" or "unbelievers" are rather inadequate as they define someone by what they are not and may not necessarily be true of those outside the church. In turn, this labeling undermines our ability to see people as human beings and individuals.

As I think about this concept, I too find myself wanting to label those outside the church. At Real Life, we call them "far from God", and in all honesty, I'm not entirely comfortable with that term either as there are people who are not part of a church that act far more godly than some people on the inside.

When I look at Jesus, I see him breaking down the labels and delineations in his society. For the most part he addresses people not as "in" or "out", but as humans. There are a few occasions where He clearly draws a line, but I don't necessarily think he did it as an example for us to follow. He is God after all. He is the only one who has that right.

Image Consultant

2007-11-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

Last month I picked up a book called "UnChristian" and added it to my que of books to read in the near future. The book recently caught the attention of Time magazine who in turn interviewed the authors, published this article, and subsequently pushed the book towards the top of my pile.

I'm only a few pages into it, and already I'm seeing that this will be an important book to read if we really want to engage today's culture with the person and the teachings of Jesus and reclaim the name "Christian" to mean a follower of Him.

For those of you that follow my blog, I would encourage you to pick up a copy yourself and read it along with me. I'll be periodically posting my thoughts and questions as I move along through the book, and I would love to have your thoughts and comments as well.

Mosaics from Messes

2007-10-11T21:38:00.001-07:00

I spent last week at Catalyst (a conference for emerging church leaders) and had the privilege of hearing Erwin McManus from Mosaic church in California speak about being authentic in our humanity.

As my inaugural blog, I can't think of a better way to introduce "The Messes have Spoken" than with a few thoughts from Erwin as he described his view on all the tragedy that poxes human history and how tragedy influences our view of God and shapes us individually to the deepest core of our being.

"We have an improper perspective of our role in the creative process. We are called by God and placed here by God to create the future. We’re trying so hard not to infringe into God’s sovereign space that we sit passively by until the future happens to us and we must respond to it.

The human spirit cannot live in falsehood. We are designed to live in truth. Our souls long for the authentic and the real.

What the world needs for us is not great sermons or brilliant messages, they need us to take them to a place they cannot go without us. We have been with God, and we can take them there. They need someone that can take the tragedy of life and teach them how God is weaving his story in their lives.

Perhaps human history is a conflict between tragedy and beauty. All through human history, God is taking all the tragedy, brokenness, tears, loneliness, and garbage, and creating something beautiful with it."