Earlier this week I was feeling creative. So, I made this video:

Like what you saw? Subscribe to my YouTube channel, and you’ll know when I post more videos: youtube.com/videxplosivo.

I wrote an article for ProductiveMinistry.com this week. And, because re-posting it here won’t get them any traffic, I’ll give you only a teaser. You’ll need to visit them for the full article.

In January, I accepted a position as the new Director of Student Ministries at FUMC Rowlett. The week before starting, a friend and I sat down to make a big list of all the things I would need to do or find out in first few weeks. Among the many things that appeared on this list was a simple question: “What is your home number?”

» Click here to read the entire article.

I heard a story recently about a scientist working to publish a paper. He was going through the footnotes and making the necessary citations when he came across a scientific journal with an article title that sounded eerily similar to something he could name his own. Opening up the journal, he found the article, and began to read. Much to his surprise, two scientists all the way around the world had been doing some experiments of their own and come to the exact same conclusion he did.

In his own words, “Of course they came to the same conclusion. I realized that they’d have to, because I was right.”

And then he began to wonder what was the point of his being a scientist. If he wasn’t specifically needed for the discovery of something, if that truth simply existed out there for anyone to discover, then his personal importance no longer mattered.

Do you know what he did next? That scientist became an artist.

Why? Because in art you create something that would never have existed without your action.

It brought to mind the book of Genesis.

In Genesis 1 we read about God creating the universe. And in creating the universe, he set all things into place. Stuff was created. How those things are put together was set. How those things interact with one another was set. From top to bottom, from largest to smallest detail, the ways in which the universe functions, all of this was set. And even though it’s taken us many, many, many, many, many years to uncover these details, all we have been doing is uncovering the truth that already exists in the world.

And then there are these verses:

(26) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

This “image of God” (or “imago dei” if you want to sound fancy) is something that gets discussed quite a bit. Does it literally mean we look like God in form and features? Is it that we rule over the earth kind of like God rules over everything? Is it that we have the ability to choose? Just what does that mean exactly?

And to be honest, I’m not exactly sure. But I’d be willing to guess it’s a number of things, one of which, I’d say, is our ability to create, just like God.

If I draw a picture, or write a song, or do a dance (or any other manner of thing), I’m bringing into the world an image, sound, movement that didn’t exist before my creating it. And these are just the most rudimentary of means for creation. Look around you at what our race has put together, things that did not exist before our imagining them. And I think that our ability to do such things is a direct result our being made to be like a God who makes things.

He created the natural world and set up laws for how those things work. And then he made us with the ability to understand the truth of how he put his world together, and also gave us the ability to manipulate these natural things into entirely new creations. This is part of the image of God, that we may create. We create dance. We create music. We create art. And even at the most basic level, we create new life. I don’t know how you get much more “the image of God” than that.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about “parking lot ministry” recently. The idea is that the people who are in the parking lots are the first faces someone sees when they visit a church, the first impression. So, putting some smiling faces out there to help everyone get in and out of the parking lot can be the start to a very positive first experience for a new visitor. This has led to increased sightings of orange vest clad men and women in church parking lots across America.

I’m not opposed to this idea.

In fact, I agree completely with the sentiment that going to church should feel totally inviting from beginning to end for everyone in attendance (first time visitor, founding member, or otherwise), especially if something as easy as putting smiling people in the parking lot is part of the equation. It is an intrinsic part of our faith that everyone is welcome (and God took great pains to establish this idea; see Acts and the epistles).

So,

with that being said,

I call churches all day long,

and I go home feeling like garbage.

Churches aren’t fun to call all day. In fact, some of you guys are just straight up mean. And I’m a little puzzled over this. What’s the deal with being all smiles in the parking lot yet razor toothed on the phone?

And let me take this moment to say, while we don’t feel like what we’re doing is telemarketing, we know it looks kind of like telemarketing. It’s unfortunately just the best way to do what we do (and that’s even taking into account that on average it takes 6-8 phone calls just to get in touch with a minister at a church). Oh, and also, we know that some of you don’t need what we’re calling about, but neither one of us really knows that for sure until we at least take a minute and chat about what each others ministries are doing. But back to my point.

Telemarketers are people too.

If the ministry of the church is to communicate the love of Christ to all people, we can’t forget that people who call our churches… are people. And just like the people who drive into your parking lots are serving themselves up to be ministered to, the people who call your churches selling things are too. Every day you are given opportunities to share the love of Christ with someone without having to get out of your office chair. You should be pumped that people are allowing you access to them so freely (and that’s even without an expensive ad campaign).

We have to remember that ministry is happening with our every interaction, even when we’re not standing inside a church. It happens when you buy coffee from the guy at Starbuck’s. It happens when you call the customer service department at AT&T. It even happens when you get that 3rd call from the telemarketer trying to sell your church mops. Each and every time two people’s lives bump into each other, it’s an opportunity for the love of Christ to be preached.

Don’t worry, I’m doing it on my end too. You really mean people, I’m going to say thank you every time you yell at me (and I’m even praying for you when I hang up the phone).

I started a new job recently.

On the first day I was supposed to get to work a little early to start some paperwork before the Monday morning meeting. Since I have time issues, I usually take some measures to ensure I’ll get there when I am supposed to (I don’t have a great internal mechanism for letting me know I’ve begun to be late). Part of my plan for this particular Monday was to drive out to the office at some point during the weekend, just to make sure I knew how long it took to get there (and therefore knew when to leave).

And then I never got around to it.

So there I was on Sunday night, relating this to a friend, and she asks me if I need to take off in order to take that drive. To which I reply, “Naw, I’ll just MapQuest it.”

And then I promptly got on the computer and used Google Maps to plot out my course.

As I thought about this later, this is what struck me. I say “MapQuest it,” even though I fully intend to use Google Maps, because “Google Maps it” just feels awkward coming out. It’s a testament to just how great the name MapQuest was when they branded their online map service in 1996. But the reality is, even though I probably say “MapQuest it” all the time, I haven’t used MapQuest since the day I found Google Maps. Yet here I am tossing their name around, and then doing something, which may look like it is associated with them, that isn’t connected with them at all.

So, this morning Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my front door. During their (disappointingly short) presentation they called themselves Christians. And, you know, they do stuff that looks like it is associated with Christianity, but in reality isn’t connected with it at all.

The church gets “MapQuest-ed” too.

And I don’t want to pick on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’ve got people in the media, people in politics, people in other religious faiths, and people in pseudo-ministries who all toss around the word “Christian,” appearing to be associated with it, but in reality having no connection at all.

It’s a testament to the power behind the movement that was started by Jesus.

Paul wrote in Philippians:

“It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice. For I know that as you pray for me and the Spirit of Jesus Christ helps me, this will lead to my deliverance.”

It begs the question, “How can you be okay with people co-opting the message of Christ for their own gain? How does that benefit the message of the gospel?”

If I were to guess, I’d say that maybe in a time when the world had yet to hear about the resurrection of Jesus, however some spread the story, priming people’s hearts to hear the truth is a good thing. And that maybe it doesn’t matter if people are first exposed to a pseudo-gospel, or even an anti-gospel, because it will just make the real thing sound that much sweeter.

I suppose that Paul believed in the power of the truth. And that when the truth reached  a man’s heart, it was more powerful than any darkness that might have already been planted there.

“So,” he says, “let them preach. They think it will hurt me, but really it will just make the glorious truth all the more powerful when it leaves our lips.”

I have to admit that I am a bit inspired while thinking on this. Today, we don’t have any control over who does things in the name of “Christianity.” Terrible things have already been done in that name, and I’m sure there are terrible things yet to be done. But our responsibility is not to quiet their voices, but instead continue to lift up our own. We speak with the power of the truth and love; the power of salvation, and there is a world of hearts waiting to hear our words.

I recently started rereading the book of I Samuel. It’s been fantastic. There are some stories in there I haven’t read for years; really fantastic stories.

In chapters 4, 5 and 6, there is this really interesting story about the Ark of the Covenant. In the beginning of chapter 4, the Philistines have just attacked the Israelites, and the Israelites lost. In response to this, they send for the Ark of Covenant, thinking that they can wield it give them victory. The Philistines hear about this, get themselves hyped up, and really lay into the Israelites. In fact, not only do they kill 30,000 Israelites, but they also capture the Ark of the Covenant.

Chapter 5 continues the story. The Philistines take the Ark back to one of their cities and place it in the temple of their god, Dagon. In the morning they come back, and the statue of Dagon is lying face down in front of the Ark. This happens again the next night, and the arms of the statue are even broken off. Then the people start getting developing tumors. This freaks them out, so they send the Ark to another town. Those people also start developing tumors.

No no one will take the Ark. “Send it back to the Israelites!” they say.

So, in Chapter 6 we see them consult their wise men, and finally they decide the best thing to do is fill the Ark with some gifts to bribe God off of them, and then put it on a cart on its way back to Israel. This is what they do.

This isn’t the God of “love” and “feel-goodery” of the New Testament (not that I’m down on that guy at all). This is the righteous, powerful, “I’m-not-messing-around” God we know and love from the Old Testament.

And on the outset, some really weird stuff happens here. Some people might look at chapter 4 and be confused why Israel, and seemingly God, lost to the Philistines. I mean, everywhere the Ark went before, the Israelites kicked some tail. But here they are getting whooped, and hard. But I think the reason for that is connected to all the events that take place in these chapters. God is not a weapon that is wielded. And the Israelites and Philistines shared this misconception.

In Chapter 4, the Israelites go and get the Ark, because it’s their powerful God that is going to smite those bad guys. However, God didn’t command them to do this. They were thinking of it as though it were their own personal ultimate weapon, like an atom bomb, or say, sharks with lasers attached to their heads. But that isn’t how God works.

And they paid for that.

So the Ark doesn’t mow people down, a-la Indiana Jones, and they get themselves defeated, and they get their Ark taken.

And like many people of the ancient world, Philistine had thought they captured the God of the Israelites when they took their Ark. And sure, God manifested himself in a special way with the Ark, but he wasn’t limited to it. And they were going to find that out.

As a brief side note, Chapter 5′s incident with the idol of Dagon is one of the funniest stories ever in the Bible. This is how I know God has a sense of humor. Every morning these guys keep coming back to the temple to see their God bowing down to Israel’s God. Classy.

And then the tumors started. Anywhere this thing went, people start breaking out in tumors (I can’t imagine that was pleasant). Finally they realize that their only option is to get rid of this thing. They thought they had captured God, but in fact they were being held captive by him.

I can’t help but think this story serves as an important reminder to us about the way we interact with God. Don’t think you can wield God as your magic “whatever” to get some kind of result you want. He doesn’t work that way (you hear that Word-of-Faith-ers?). And also, God cannot be pinned down and held captive by us. In fact, some of the people who have tried that got very bad results.

“Worship music is the logical conclusion of Christian adult contemporary music—not just unappealing but unbearable to anyone not already in the fold. Every song follows the same parameters. It opens gently, with tinkling arpeggios or synthesized harp glissandos that portend the imminence of something celestial in glacial 4/4 time. In the second verse, the band—invariably excellent players—soft-pedals in, gaining volume to the bridge. And then the chorus. Heavens, the choruses. They could put U2 out of business for good, they’re so huge. Another verse. A middle eight. Then, a breakdown when the audience takes over singing. Another massive chorus. Fin.

This isn’t music to appreciate; it’s music to experience.”

- Andrew Beaujon, Body Piercing Saved My Life

Earlier in the year I read this fascinating book by Mr. Beaujon. He’s a non-christian music journalist who dives into the word of christian rock. At one point, he attends Gospel Music Association Week in Nashville, and writes the above words to describe his experience with worship music during a time of worship at the beginning of the week. He later skips out of the concert (after taking all he could bear) and writes his own mainstream Christian song:

With every drop of sweat
From every open pore
As every T-shirt stains, Jesus, I just love you more
Caught up in the lies
I take time to adore
The ruler of my life, Jesus, I just love you more.

I feel this is one of the most accurate dissections of the modern worship music formula that I have ever read. And the fact that he was able to synthesize our process so easily left me wondering, are we too formulaic?

There’s something about the existence of “the worship music industry” that I’ve always found a little unsettling. Don’t get me wrong, lots of music to choose from for putting together worship services is a good thing, especially for most of the worship leaders in the world who don’t write their own music. However, the fact that there is an industry pushing these albums means there are several sets of people who go along with this kind of set up: those who are writing and recording albums, those who are releasing and distributing albums, those who are looking for new artists, and those who are wanting to become new artists. And this means you have a whole bunch of people sitting around trying to write words and music for this industry, and a whole bunch of people encouraging the aforementioned people to get after it.

And so what’s unsettling about all that? Well, I guess it’s the thought that there are people who have created a “process” for writing songs to God. When I think about it, I guess I tend to think that worship music should come into being as a response to God. That people have had some kind of experience that prompted them to write these words. It’s not the result of a formula, a deadline, or the obligation of a 7 record contract. And, so, that somehow makes it more genuine, authentic.

But for someone to be able to write a formula like that

that says something.

It says to me that it isn’t out of the question that people could be sitting around their tables just putting this stuff together like a mad lib. And my intent is not to draw into question the credibility of worship music. But maybe to say that this stuff is really important to think about, because assembly line isn’t really good enough for God. In fact, “good enough” should probably never be used be with anything pertaining to God.

It’s just too important.

You know what is interesting about being a missionary? The awe people have when they find out what you do. It’s surprising most times, especially after having been a minister in the states.

I hear there was a time when being a minister was viewed as a very respectable thing to be. You’d tell someone you’re a minister, and instantly you’d be considered some kind of trustworthy authority. Not so much anymore.

It’s funny, because it seems political office has pretty much gone the same way. Tell someone you are a senator, governor, or what have you and they’d think you were a fine person for serving the American people. These days, not so much. Not even the president can catch a break.

What happened? I’m guessing it’s because people used the offices they held at one time for indecent and immoral behavior. Politicians and ministers alike are often times associated with hypocrisy and selfishness at the cost of others. Ministers are lucky enough to have the added benefit of also being viewed as judgmental.

Good times.

But you know what comes to mind when you tell someone you’re a missionary? They immediately associate your actions with sacrifice. That you’ve forgone the comforts of your home country for a nobler life.

It’s a bit silly, really, because you probably have the same percentage of missionaries who are scam artists as you do stateside ministers who are scam artists. That is to say, some but not nearly all. However, when stateside ministers go bad, they get the benefit of television coverage.

It’s a shame, really, that a few people can taint the image of men and women who are desperately trying to serve people. But it’s not a new thing.

In the early church, there were people who went around doing things in the name of Jesus that were actually for their own selfish benefit. At one time Paul was written a letter about some of these people, and his response was a bit surprising.

[They] “do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.” (source)

I think Paul was confident that the true message of the gospel is more powerful than even those who would use it selfishly. In the end, it still conquers and changes men’s hearts.

You know, my natural reaction is to hate those who co-opt my faith for something sinister. But over the last couple years God has been teaching me a lot about his love for people. And even though he finds their corruption of the faith vile, his love for them remains the same. I’ve come to think that maybe my love for them should also be the same, and maybe I should also trust that the message of the gospel is more powerful than those people too.

And maybe, if we all keep this in mind, after a time people will begin to associate love and hope with our faith again, along with the messengers of our faith.

I have this statement rolling around in my head:

It’s not about turning Republican Christians into Democrat Christians. It’s about pulling the Christian faith out completely.

We find that our faith has been mortgaged for political gain. Co-opted, if you will. And we’re really not comfortable with that. But what is there to do? How do we fix this mess?

The trouble is this, it’s not merely about switching political parties (save your breath you “Jesus would be a democrat” people). It’s about de-politicizing the Christian faith completely. We were never supposed to be a political movement. Believe me, if we were, Jesus would have done a much grander job than the temperance movement, the moral majority, and the new christian right could have done combined. But he didn’t choose that route.

Instead, he chose a social route.

If you think about it, the mosaic law was about as perfect as any religious political group could hope for. It put all the power into the religious leaders. It dictated the kind of behavior people were allowed to have (and not allowed to have). And it severely punished those who dissented.

Perfect. Except that it didn’t work.

And Jesus

and God

and the Holy Spirit,

they knew this.

They knew that the key was not legislating morality, but instead changing hearts. Rules hadn’t made the world a better place. Rules hadn’t brought God’s people any closer to Him. No, rules pretty much just showed how terrible people were. And also how terrible they were at following rules. (And also gave them lots of good terrible ideas to do.)

Tell a man he can’t do something and you’ve created an opportunity for him to disobey. Change a man’s heart and he’ll come to you to find out how he can be a better man.

Yes, Jesus chose a social route. And you know what? It served us remarkably well. You know it did, because look around you, the Christian faith went everywhere. And the message which changed the world then is the same message we have today. And it’s just as powerful today. It posses the same ability to change hearts today. This is our business, like it has been from the beginning.

Our faith can no longer endure being manipulated.

And the world can no longer wait to hear the hope of our message.

When I was a student at bible college, we had an assignment where we had to memorize Matthew chapter 5. It was an assignment that every student who went through the school eventually had to do. It wasn’t particularly hard. The chapter isn’t very long. But the reason we had to memorize it is because it comes from a very famous section of scripture called The Sermon on the Mount. It’s a sermon that Jesus gave during his ministry.

What makes it so important is that it was a time when Jesus made a declaration of what the faith looks like, and it kind of turned everything that people had traditionally heard on its head. He used this phrasing,

“You have heard it said… but I tell you… ”

And what would happen is, he’d say, like, “You have heard it said, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.”

and,

“You have heard it said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

It was this thing he was doing. He was saying that the faith isn’t just about actions, (what you do, behaving a certain way), it’s about the heart. It’s about what is happening inside you. Jesus would later go on to teach that someone’s sin doesn’t come from the doing of an action, but from their heart that desired it long before the action ever happened. It was in their heart that it lay in waiting for the opportunity to escape.

Jesus talked about these things because he knew that getting people to behave a certain way didn’t make their life any better. They still had the struggle in trying to resist the darkness inside of them, and then they also had the guilt that followed when they succumbed to this darkness.

None of that is good.

But if you can change people’s hearts, if you can remove the darkness and replace it with light, then you’re really making something better.

And I bring all this up, because there is a section of Matthew 5 that I was reminded of today.

You see, Ted Kennedy died. And since his death there have been some people “dancing on his grave.” The outpouring of celebratory comments about his going to hell and now paying for his crimes has made me sick to my stomach.

But today was just the breaking point.

For a while now Christians have been acting increasingly crazy. We’ve got people showing up with guns to places. We’ve got people wanting to kill politicians. We’ve got people celebrating that someone might have gone to hell.

Did you read that correctly. Let me type it again.

We’ve got people celebrating that someone might have gone to hell.

Things

nuts.

What happened to us? When did it get like this? When did we mortgage our faith for political gain? When did we trade our King for a convention?

“You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! … In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. … If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.”

Those were the words of Jesus that one day on the mountain. He said it wasn’t enough to just love the people who love you back. He said that to really make a change, your love had to be for everyone, even the people that it makes sense to hate. Even those people. It’s not enough to just love the ones and not the others. You love them both. Just like God loves them both.

This stuff is coming straight from the mouth of that Jesus guy. You know, our main guy. We can’t ignore this.

Dear Christians,

Enough is enough.

I’m going to say this once, and I hope that once is enough.

Christianity is not a political party, and Republican is not a religious faith.

Let’s not lose track of who we are and what we are doing here.

Seriously.

Love, Tim.