Inconvenience

This past weekend we identified four areas of inconvenience: time, messiness, money, and reputation. Each one of these are deeply inconvenienced when we step out to help our "neighbor" (as Jesus identifies neighbor in the parable).

For me I have been focusing this week on surrendering over my time to the Lord. This doesn't mean I have given up on planning and organization. God made me that way (I am an off-the-chart "J" on the Myers/Briggs)! However, it does mean that I am capable of responding with grace and mercy to "curves in the road" that I did not anticipate. God does not seem to warn us of them. It's as if God knows that the navigation of an unexpected turn produces something in us that would not develop if we were informed that the turn was coming. So let's get busy holding tight to the steering wheel and being ready for wherever God leads.

So this has been my focus this week from the sermon. I hope you are joining in with us and becoming ministers of inconvenience!

Rob

Fast and Ashes

The Lenten season is upon us. Last night's Ash Wednesday worship gathering was particularly meaningful for me. Dr. Ken Priddy began our series on the Parables of Luke with a message about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. This morning I still have ringing in my heart the following line from his message: "Mardi Gras is for the Pharisee. Ash Wednesday is for sinner."

As I sat there last night in worship feeling hungry from 3 days of Daniel fast, challenged to allow the Holy Spirit to realign any areas of my heart that have gone adrift, a little tired, and most of all moved to tears, I sensed a freedom and weightlessness come over me. As I repeated those words to myself, "Father, I am a sinner. Have mercy on me, " I enjoyed the resulting awareness in my heart that total dependence on God is the most "freeing" posture in which one can be.

May these 40 days draw us closer to our Holy God, be a "tipping point" in our Call to mission at ComChap, and cause us to be people of prayer not people who pray.

I look forward to hearing how God is showing up in your life!

Rob

Remember the Word

I challenged us this past weekend to commit an entire chapter of Scripture to memory between now and Resurrection Day (April 4th). It can be any chapter you want from any version of Scripture.

This morning I decided on Colossians 1. It is a chapter I have admired for years so why not just have it memorized. It has a total of 29 verses so I can memorize one per day.

As you select your chapter let me know. I will keep a running list of them. We will get back to you with a Tuesday night in April to present them (if you want to do that - no pressure).

Let the Scriptural Renaissance begin.

Rob

Valentine's Day Movie

Jenn and I went to see the new Valentine's Day movie yesterday late afternoon (had no idea the matinee is so expensive, when did that happen?) Afterwards we went to dinner and spent some time talking about the content of the movie.

We live in a culture that has officially joined the ranks of total depravity and carnality when it comes to relationships. Every relationship depicted in the movie represented a complete disregard for biblical morals (the only exception to this involved a young boy in 5th grade and his mother that serves in the army).

I realize that this is nothing new. I did not suddenly see something yesterday in the movie that was "on the big screen" for the first time. Rather I was alarmed that there was not even an attempt to present thematically a higher moralistic option. It was as if the movie was communicating that none exists! Has that part of our meta-thinking as a society completely evaporated? I thought there were at least some small morsels of it remaining? Not according to the how-could-you-be-so-educated-and-stupid-at-the-same-time writers and producers of this movie!

Brokenness and relational pain will continue to get worse the more our world discards the established truth of God and replaces it with immature, cheaply imitated, self-generated, narcissistically based, pathetic examples of relationships. How bad does the pain need to get for us to admit we are wrong and God is right?

If you want to see a good example of what is acutely foul in our messed up world's understanding of relationships, go see the movie. If you want to remain enlightened and focused on God's love and truth, spend your money on something else.

I wish we had.

Rob

Lost and Found Bibles?

We are doing some cleaning up this week at Park/Meadow facility. I am astounded at the amount of unclaimed Bibles we have accumulated over the last 5 years. Perhaps the body that was originally attached to the Bible is not aware of where it was left and he/she has been searching diligently for it for many years!? Or maybe it is tragic to consider that they have not evenly realized yet that it is missing!

So we are going to give the Bibles away this weekend in worship to people who actually want to study them and go deeper in their walk with Christ. Some of you may even want to get one for a friend.

Scriptural Renaissance begins this weekend.

Rob

Holy Scripture

Paul told Timothy that all Scripture is "God-breathed." We will study this together this weekend. I am going to be challenging us to start a "Scriptural Renaissance!"

A renaissance is a rebirth or renewal of thought, idea, and/or practice. It represents that which is not new but in need of reviving, awakening. It's amazing to me that such an antiquated document as Scripture has intense power and relevance for today.

In my lifetime I have allowed many authors, philosophers, "armchair critics," coaches, teachers, acquaintances, media personnel, pop culture icons, athletes, graffiti artists, theologians, and many other communicators to "breath" their message into my life. It's impossible to live in this world and not have this occur on a daily basis. While my goal is not to close my ears to the chatter of this world (for how else will I be in conversation communicating the power of the message of the Gospel) but rather to marinate in "God-breathed" words to dispel the emptiness of "world-breathed" words.

Join me this weekend in starting a "Scriptural Renaissance." Breath on us oh breath of God!

Rob

Pray Together?

Why is it so difficult to convince the Church to gather for a time of prayer together? I have pastored for almost 20 years now and nothing even comes close to the "scattering" and "excuse making" that an announced time of prayer produces. I am left to conclude that one or more of the following is true:

1. Prayer is the greatest weapon God has given us. Satan knows it. So Satan successfully deceives and manipulates us into not gathering together wholly. And we seem to accept it.

2. Followers of Christ are so far gone in their need to be entertained in church that the ability to be together in prayer without entertainment has been completely lost. And we seem to accept it.

3. The designated night for prayer is simply a bad night of the week (accept for personal socials or other things that people choose to do on that same night). And we seem to accept it.

4. People say, "We pray at church or missional community or other places." Really? You intentionally every week pray for 60 plus minutes with a group of people in an intense strategic way? I doubt it. And we seem to accept it.

5. We don't truly believe that prayer makes a difference. Of course, nobody wants to go on record saying this so we say it with our actions and choices. And we seem to accept it.

There is probably more excuses but these are five that come quickly to mind. I'm appalled that we seem to accept it.

Rob