Too many Christ followers these days play it safe. They go to church, read their bible, attend a Life Group, involve themselves in a ministry, etc. But they do it within a cocoon. A place of safety. They don’t befriend people who aren’t Christ followers. They don’t dare to listen to secular music. They don’t bother with current pop culture. You get my drift.

Of course, we need to be careful about such worldly things that they don’t turn us from God and his word. 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

But it also does not tell us to wall ourselves off. Jesus didn’t do such things. If Jesus behaved as if some his followers do, hanging out with the disciples and doing nothing else, what value would his ministry have had? Jesus sat and engaged in fellowship with prostitutes and tax collectors. Read Luke 15:1-10. It says “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.” He drew the most despised members of society towards himself and valued their friendship.

The image above (via David LaChapelle) shows Jesus in a more current setting. It’s a powerful image. Jesus didn’t wall himself off.

Neither should we.

I’m going to impart a little wisdom I picked up from Greg Peters, the lead Pastor at our church. It has to do with apologies. Not offering them or making the, but accepting them.

Have you ever apologized to somebody? Said, “I’m sorry” to somebody else?

What was their response?

Most likely, the response was, “Oh that’s ok” or “Don’t worry about it.” How did that make you feel? You went out of your way to apologize to a person you’re sure you’ve wronged and they brush it off like it was no big deal.

Chances are, when somebody has apologized to you, the same words escaped your mouth. That’s wrong. Think about a time when you felt somebody should apologize to you. They said something or did something that hurt you. They work up the courage to come up to you and offer their apologies and you say:

“Oh don’t worry about it. That’s ok.”

Well, it’s not ok isn’t it? That person hurt you. Why say it was ok when you were hurt? Unfortunately, people have never really been trained how to properly accept an apology. Most people wouldn’t even know what to say. It would go something like this:

“Thank you. What you said (or did) hurt me. I appreciate you saying that. Thanks.”

It may not have been something somebody said. One time at work a vendor who was doing work for us seriously dropped the ball. One of the men sat there in my office and said, “I want to apologize for not doing what we were supposed to do.” Instead of offering up the usual, “That’s ok” response I said to him, “Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it.” For a few seconds he didn’t have any idea what to say and it was obvious the man never received a response like that. I had to continue the conversation because it was really starting to get uncomfortable for him.

Granted, there are times when somebody rushes to apologize for something and saying “Oh don’t worry about” truly does fit the situation. However, the next time you are faced with a situation where somebody apologizes for truly hurting you or wronging you in some way, if you recognize their apology is sincere, respond differently than you normally would. Thank them for offering up that apology. Let them know how much it truly means to you.

Image via robleto.

I believe the success (or lack thereof) in a church rises and falls on the basis of the leadership within that church. What does it mean to lead or to be a leader in the context of the church? It’s different than say, the military. A drill sergeant is the leader during basic training, but if leadership at a church ‘led’ the way Gunnery Sgt. Hartman did in the film ‘Full Metal Jacket‘, the church wouldn’t grow much at all.

One of the definitions of lead that I found says:

To guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc.

The key word there is ‘guide.’ People often confuse title and rank in an organization with leadership. The CEO of a Fortune 500 company can be the boss, but he can still be a crummy leader whereas a sales manager in a district office could be unknown to the CEO and most other people in the company, but a great leader to those on his team.

For the past few months, I was honored be asked (along with my wife) to be part of a discipleship program at our church that was named after Timothy who was a disciple of Paul. The people have been invited are either part of leadership in some facet at the church (my wife is the nursery director and we both lead our Life Group) or show leadership qualities. The program is designed to instill us with more leadership skills and abilities as the church continues to grow. As the church grows, accessibility to the Pastoral staff will be harder to come by and they need people to fill in those gaps.

I’m a little over a year away from turning 40 and in my life experience I’ve seen excellent leadership and I’ve seen terrible leadership. Here are a few things I’ve observed in that time:

1. Leaders are willing to listen. They’re open to new ideas and directions. They may disagree and tell somebody “No.” but that’s fine. The willingness to engage and hear out others is a leadership quality.
2. A boss can be a leader, but a leaders is not always a boss. As I wrote earlier, leading is about guiding. It doesn’t matter what your position is within an organization. You can lead.
3. Leaders are transparent. They don’t put themselves on a pedestal. They’re comfortable telling people about their failures and issues and how they used those experiences to gain wisdom.
4. Leaders look forward, not back. They learn from their mistakes. They don’t dwell on them. They encourage others to do the same.
5. Leaders think and act boldly, but not recklessly. Many people confuse the two. They claim to be leading and acting boldly when they’re merely following and acting recklessly which leads to serious consequences.

What qualities do you see in leadership and is your church leadership following those examples?

Image via lumaxart.

This is a difficult subject to write about. People often don’t like to “go there” because it stirs up way too many emotions.

That being said, I am not going to tiptoe around the issue so I expect to insult some people with what I am going to write. I bring it up in part based on Gabe Taviano’s review of the Bill Maher ‘documentary’ ‘Religulous.’ Maher is claims he is not an atheist but delights in mocking faith any chance he gets and according to Gabe he offers up the usual, “Christians hate gays” argument.

Sadly, Maher is not 100% wrong. Some self described Christ followers do hate gay people or if ‘hate’ is too strong a word, they are homophobic. Even if they are not homophobic, the language they use is not any any kind that’s going to draw people to a relationship with God. It’s going to push them away.

Here’s another some Christ followers believe:

Homosexuals cannot get into heaven as long as they are homosexuals.

This is 100% flat out wrong.

Now this doesn’t mean that I accept the contention that people are born gay. They are not. But the Bible says very clearly in Acts 2:21, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

It doesn’t say some people. It doesn’t say, “Only if you completely stop doing ________”. It doesn’t say only “this kind of person” or “that kind of person.” It says everyone. It doesn’t mean doing so immediately transforms a person who is gay into a heterosexual who is going to run out, marry somebody of the opposite sex and start a family. I’ve spoken with a friend who I admire greatly. He is not only a Christ follower but is also familiar with the issue from a clinical perspective and he said there are those whose attraction to the same sex runs so deep that it’s something that will never go away until they die and are glorified by Christ in their new body.

On the other side of the coin, gays that do want to become Christ followers must acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin and the must seek to turn from it. They also need to be made aware their attraction to the same sex is not something that goes against God’s will. It is the act of engaging in sexual relations with a member of the same sex that does. Does this mean that a person who has become a Christ follower and at some point gives into that temptation truly is not saved? No. Here is something important to remember:

We are humans first and Christ followers second.

As such, since we have a sin nature, we’re going to give into that sin nature from time to time. It happens. It’s not right. And we need to recognize that, ask God for forgiveness and seek with all of our heart not to engage in that sin again. Even with that said, it may happen again, but we have to pick ourselves up and start over.

As Christ followers, we do have to do some searching as to why opinions like Maher’s are so common in our society. I have several viewpoints on that:

1. The issue is treated largely as a political one in the mainstream media. Homosexuality is almost wholly discussed in the context of gay marriage these days. For the political, the media go to those highly involved in politics which is usually James Dobson and ‘Focus on The Family’ as well as the ‘American Family Association.’ It’s a much more hostile environment in the political realm.

2. Too many Christ followers have an air of self-righteousness when discussing the issue. They’ve made homosexuality to be a sin that is ‘worse’ that some other sins and attempt to blame homosexuality on many of the ills that society faces. They don’t focus on something like divorce. Many divorces stem from the sin of adultery but how many people are out there discussing that? How many families have been torn apart by divorce and how many children have suffered the long term consequences of their parents divorcing?

3. Anger is emoted when discussing the issue. This parallels with the self-righteousness in that people are comfortable with using words like “disgusting” and “deviant” to describe homosexuality. Do the same people use those same words to describe other sin? I don’t hear it.

Thinking about the above, how do we as Christ followers expect homosexuals to see the arms of Christ wide open and ready to welcome them into that relationship through the haze of political opportunism, self-righteousness and anger?

On the other side of the coin, there are those who are just as intolerant towards Christ followers. The notion that because one disagrees with gay marriage or because they believe homosexuality goes against God’s word automatically makes them “haters” is absurd. They too often look for the person making a controversial statement and shout, “See! This is what they’re all about!”, thereby falling into the trap of creating the kind of false stereotype they often speak out against.

The dialogue can change. In that regard, I think both sides need to take a lesson from Stephen Covey. The fifth habit: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Last night I had the privilege of taking part in an online prayer session hosted by Carlos Whittaker. Los had posted an entry asking people to comment on whatever is they wanted people to pray for. The last time I checked there were 145 comments that were left.

It basically worked like this: Carlos started from the top and went down the list. He prayed and asked those of us who were watching to pray as well. We prayed privately. We posted our prayers on Twitter and in the chat room that was set up.

It was an awesome time. While I was on (it lasted for nearly 2.5 hours), there was anywhere from 75-100+ people viewing the live feed. Those of us watching as well as following on Twitter were all praying for the people who requested prayer for a variety of reasons. Two that stood out for me were:

A single mother who lost her young son to heart failure.

A family whose 5 month old son Noah was shaken by a day care provider.

As a parent of two healthy kids, I can’t begin to imagine the pain these people are going through. But prayer is powerful and God can do so many things so we’ll see what He does with those two situations.

There are so many amazing people out there. I’m thankful the Internet has allowed me to connect with some of them for something like this.

UPDATE: Here’s what some others had to say:

Kyle Reed who made up a really cool video.

Luke DeMoss

Our church has been doing a series entitled, ‘Who Are You?” The following video was made by our worship Pastor. The young man in the video is an excellent artist and presented a powerful message to those who go to that church week, imploring them to use the talents God has given them to glorify Jesus Christ.

Here is an image of all four of the paintings David did. The remarkable thing is, he painted them during each of the four Easter services.

- What did it feel like to be Joe Carter when he hit that walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series or Aaron Boone when he hit that walk-off home in the 2003 ALCS?

- Did God create the platypus and sloth to show that he had a sense of humor?

- What would happen if the major servers that pretty much run the Internet were to shut down completely for a day?

- What is the fascination with sushi? It’s raw fish and seaweed.

- I’d consider being a vegetarian…..if only they classified bacon as a vegetable.

- Why is easy listening music so hard to listen to?

- I’d rather go back to renting a home than owning a home.

- I wonder if I will ever get a chance to take a trip to Israel?

- One of the best things I have done in the last few years is give up watching cable news shows.

- How different would our lives be if we made a different choice years ago over what seemed at the time to be something inconsequential?

- No matter how much my children annoy me or anger me, I am going to love them unconditionally.

- It would be nice to live in simpler times like during the days of the founding fathers or even during the time of Jesus except I couldn’t do without being able to take showers on a regular basis.

- If I could eat only one kind of food the rest of my life, pizza would be it.

- I have the greatest wife in the entire world.

- People have invented robotic vacuum cleaners. Why not robotic lawn mowers?

James 2:14 says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?”

Many people use this verse and the passages around it as ‘evidence’ the Bible contradicts itself about salvation but that’s not true. James was merely saying that true faith brings about the kind of life-change where one wants to take part in doing good works.

This weekend, my family and several other families from our church had the opportunity to volunteer at the Trinity Rescue Mission in Jacksonville, Florida. TRM provides programs for people (both men and women) to kick addictions to drugs and alcohol and also prepare them to again be productive members of the community. This is accomplished through a four step approach that is centered around a biblical foundation. The mission relies largely on volunteers and donations. Unfortunately, in this tight economy one of the employees told a friend of mine that while the number of volunteers has increased, the monetary donations have fallen. However, they did also say they’ve been very blessed as they plenty to make food for people every day.

They serve hot meals each night to anybody that needs one and our group was helping out in the kitchen. They run a tight ship, with very ordered procedures and structure which many of the people there need. It was something to see with the people who were there. I can’t imagine for a second what some of them have gone through in their lives. Abuse, addiction, homelessness, etc. It was all there. The eyes do not lie. In some of them I unfortunately saw an emptiness. Sadness. However, in many of them, behind the weariness you could see a sparkle. In that sparkle was hope. And that hope grew from the commitment of the people who work there and emphasize the importance of the work Christ can do in the lives of those who walk through the doors of that facility.

There were 15 of us helping out. We got there around 4:30pm and left around 9:00pm. 4.5 hours and I was pretty beat. Some of the guys in the kitchen had been there since 4:30 am. These guys work hard. Below are some photos from our time there (click on any one to display a larger image and scroll through them)

This is Wes. He’s one of the “programmers” that is going through the four step process offered by Trinity. He makes some mean fried chicken. He gave me and two others a tour through the entire facility, showing us the storage area, laundry, clothing area and the sleeping area. The area where the men sleep is a large room made up of a bunch of bunk beds. The “overnighters” as they are referred to are those staying a night or two before moving on to wherever. The “programmers” get a more permanent area of the room (wooden bunk beds up against the wall as opposed to the metal ones in the center of the room) during their stay.

On the left is ‘Kit Kat’ and that’s a friend from Parkview, Joel Fallon. Kit Kat is full steam ahead when he gets going and amusingly got a little testy late in the day when he needed people to “spread out” as they were in his way.

On the left is Candy, one of the volunteers. On the right is Papa Doc. He’s not one of the programmers, so I’m not sure exactly what his role was, though he knew his way around that kitchen like nobody’s business. He should. This man works there and does so seven days a week. Wow.

Wes was able to attract helpers by offering up some of that chicken while everybody else was chopping mushrooms and washing dishes. That’s Soraya Zapata who wore a number of different hats that day.

Soraya, my wife Sylvia and my daughter Ally helping with the chicken!

Ashley helping out with the fried chicken.

Soraya and her family (with Lynn Fallon in the background). That young handsome dude is Steve. That’s his older brother Chris. Then there is Soraya’s niece Ashley and Soraya herself. See this is where Soraya was on dishes duty.

My family. Ally, Sylvia and Michael.

That’s Chris and Kayleigh at the serving window.

And a couple of group shots. You can spot Papa Doc eying the camera in that last shot. I thought I was doing a stealth shot and he was like, “I saw you man. I saw you.”

As we were leaving, the ‘programmers’ were all having their dinner. They loudly applauded us on the way out. In my view, they were the ones that deserved the applause.

Self-righteousness.

It is a disease that afflicts Christ followers like no other. Thankfully, it is curable.

How do you know you have it? It’s very simple. If you’re the type of person that does a lot of finger pointing, laying the blame for the problems of the world on all other types of people, then you have it. I had it once. I was one of those people who said, “Man, _________ are really screwing up this world!” I’d use words such as “deviant”, “disgusting”, “unholy”, etc. not to describe an action but to describe people. It even causes us to point the finger at other Christ followers and say, “Some Christian that person is!”

By being self-righteous we are in no uncertain terms acting against God’s will. In short, it is sin. It is something that cuts us off from God’s grace. He doesn’t take it away, but we become so caught up in our works we use it as a substitution for grace. It gives us a sense of superiority and instead of looking out across the nation and across the globe at all of the hurt, misery, hunger, pain, violence, disease, sickness, and saying to ourselves, “I’m a part of why this is happening.” We look down to that mound of people we’re spiritually standing on top of and say, “Look what has happened because of you!”

There is no clearer example of this affliction than in the wake of the 9/11 attacks when Jerry Falwell said the following:

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

My purpose here is not to single out Reverend Falwell, but to show how a Christ follower can be overcome by self-righteousness. I have no doubt there were many people watching that day who cheered what he said, wallowing in their own self-righteousness. How exactly do we uplift Christ by telling somebody that’s gay they were partially responsible for 9/11?

The fact is, everybody helped 9/11 to happen.

Everybody. You. Me. Heterosexuals. Homosexuals. Christ followers. Buddhists. Muslims. Atheists. White people. Black people. Asian people. Young people. Old people.

In a purely physical sense, Jesus took the place of Barabbas on that cross. As my Pastor said recently, in a spiritual sense, every single person who ever lived is Barabbas. Romans 3:23 says that all “fall short of the Glory of God.” Not some. Not many. All.

And because it is all, then we all share the burden for what is going on in this world. We’re all a part of it.

Remember that.

People who love the church they attend, often involve themselves in various aspects of the church and in many different ways.

I’ll never forget in December of 2004 when I told my wife I wanted to play the drums with the church praise team. She thought I was crazy. I had never played the drums before (though I was certain that I could) so this just came out of left field. Well, I bought a used Pearl drum set with cymbals for $550 at the end of January (using tax refund money), took a few lessons and started playing. Although I could keep a basic 4/4 beat, I was pretty bad. Didn’t matter. I had a passion for it and wanted to glorify God with it.

In May of 2005 I played with the praise team for the first time. It was that fast. The Saturday night service was pretty uneventful. Nobody I knew attended on that night so if I messed up I really didn’t care. It was the first service on Sunday where I was extremely nervous. So much so that that my legs were shaking so badly that at one point my foot started triggering the electronic hi-hat (we use e-drums) in between songs. I got through it ok.

Four years later and I am still doing it it. I love doing it. But it’s time for a break. I play every other week. Now at first glance, some people might think that’s no big deal. However, when you break it down, it’s a pretty big commitment. There are four services. Rehearsal is Tuesday night at 7:30. That usually lasts around 2 hours. Saturday service starts at 6:00 so we’re there at 4:30. By the time we’re done and heading home, that’s another 2 hours. Sunday we have three services. One each at 9:00, 10:30 and noon. We get there at 8:30 and usually leave around 12:30. That’s 4 hours. That’s a total of (at least as it is often more) eight hours of time given over to the church every other week in ministry. For most volunteers it is only one hour as they do their ministry for one service.

As much as I love it, I’ve also realized that my attitude has changed a little to the point when I see that weekend coming up on the calendar and know that it’s my weekend, it starts to feel like a grind. I find myself not wanting to do anything on Saturday because whatever it is must not continue past 3:00pm because I need to home by that time to get ready. On Sundays I want to do nothing because by the time I get home and eat lunch and relax a bit, it’s 2:00 in the afternoon. The day is pretty much gone.

So therefore, I need the break. I want to focus on my family, my Life Group, my photography and influencing and helping our church to utilize social media to lift up Christ.

Have you checked yourself in that way? Have you looked at what you’re doing? Do you find yourself being resigned to doing whatever ministry it might be instead of fired up about it the entire time? If so, maybe you need a break as well. There is nothing wrong with breaking away from that activity for some time, ‘sharpening the blade’ and returning to that activity with a renewed vigor.

Image via Phil Romans