The Origins Project

Check out The Origins Project.


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A new number

I changed my old "360" cell number to a local "303" number today. If you had my old number and would like the new number, leave a comment with an e-mail address and I will send it to you.

The Critical Journey: The Life of Discipleship

Stage #2: “This stage is best characterized as a time of learning and belonging…At this stage we are clearly the learners and not the teachers…We learn to be obedient disciples; to trust the teacher or leader and to be as much like them as possible. (pg.53)

The Christmas after I told my parents I wanted to be a pastor, my father bought a box full of theological books. Two Bible dictionaries, a concordance and a 2-volume commentary set. Thus started my life as a learner. In many ways I am still in this stage. Being a student is not easy for me, but it is a system I know and can excel at (hence the reason I have four degrees!).

However, there was a time while in seminary and graduate school when I was more interested in being right/correct/orthodox/non-heretical than being compassionate. I think this stems mainly from my own immaturity and less with the subject matter I was studying (theology and apologetics). Although, it seems a lot of my peers were suffer from the same condition. Hmmmm.....

I think I am most at home in this stage. If you take a posture of always being the learner, you never have the responsibility of being the authority and potentially being wrong or challenged. I feel safe here. Also this stage, for me, presents clear cut answers. Issues are right and wrong, black and white, where people are messy, up and down and all points in between.

The first time I passed through this stage my faith life was simply and it worked. I had not been touched by real crisis, I was naive to life, and I had never really questioned God or my faith. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” could have easily been my mantra. I viewed faith in a narrow fashion. Why couldn't people just believe and follow God? My learning made my arrogant and prideful (something I battle to this day). My faith was stiff and rigid.

Somewhere along here I learned I liked teaching and that I was a good speaker. Not only were other people confirming this, but so were the spiritual gifts test I was taking. Teaching/preaching is where I would find my place in the church. This is what I would do with my life. Soon, I understood what God had for me.

Attention Golfers!!!!

Why didn't anyone think of this before?

The UroClub Golf Club


I think my Father-in-Law would like one of these bad boys!

The Critical Journey: The Recognition of God

“Stage #1: The recognition of God is where we all begin our journey of faith.” (pg 33) It is the place where we see for the first time there is something missing in our lives.

For me, this recognition came when I was young, some time before the age of eight, when my family moved to California. My recognition of God did not come out of a profound adult size crisis. My brother had simply explained to me that without Jesus forgiving my sin I would go to Hell. That was it, that was all I needed to hear! Having grown up in a Christian family, I knew about Hell, though not theologically, but through caricatures and stories. What I knew about Hell was it was not a place I wanted to be FOREVER!

However, it was not until I was nineteen years old and a “sophisticated moron” (a sophomore) in college until I understood what it meant to have a real relationship with Jesus. Yes, I had grown up going to church. Yes, I knew the stories in the Bible. Yes, I had made my profession of faith (several times). Yes, I was baptized a believer. But when I was nineteen, I was hit with I teenage size crisis.

The relationship I had been in with a girl ended spectacularly. The end was traumatic enough to move me further down the path of my spiritual journey (maybe even to begin the journey!). It was the point at which my relationship with God went from being a spoke on the wheel of my life to becoming the central hub to which all other spokes are attached. I tried as best I could to devote myself to being a “good Christian.” I lacked the terms and reference points to know God was shaping me and forming me according to his will. Unfortunately, I did not have a mentor/pastor/teacher in my life in order to help me grasp what God was doing and it was too embarrassing to explain the situation to my parents who may or may not have known how to guide me.

It was in the ashes of this failed relationship, which I thought was the ONE and kept trying to resurrect, that God grabbed and turned my life upside down with a call to be a pastor. In this broken and demoralized state I was to emotionally exhausted to fight with God and too confused to argue with him. I simply conceded and reset the trajectory my life with more careful consideration for God’s leading.

This new direction for my life was not unwelcomed. I had been searching for a meaningful career path, one I at which I could be successful and would enjoy. This new path, however, was a detour no one saw coming.

Anonymous Notes

During my first week at the last church I pastored I received an anonymous note. The note was written on a blue card the church used to gather information from visitors, prayer requests from the congregation and a way for people to communicate with the church staff. The card came after my first public prayer and said, "Why didn't you end your prayer saying, 'by the blood of Jesus, Amen?'"

My first reaction was to throw the card away thinking it was from the Sr. Pastor, who was kind of a prankster. As I got to know the church people better I understood this was not a joke, but a real question! Someone doubted the effectiveness of my prayer that monring because of its ending!

From that experience and many others to follow, I learned to look first at the bottom of all notes, cards or letter to see if they were signed. If they were not signed, they were not read.

This week, my first week pastoring at The Next Level Church, I got my first anonymous note from someone in the church community. As a matter of fact all the pastoral staff received cards from the same mystery writer (I sorted the mail that day). Having forgotten my rule and being in a new and different church, I read the card without checking if it was signed. This time, however, I didn't found criticism or critique, but encouragement and welcome.

This was nice.

Someone I don't know and maybe haven't even met yet, took the time to express their excitement and joy about my family and I being part of TNL.

This anonymous note was a welcomed and appreciated entrance into a our new family.

New Poll

Vote the new poll (on left).

Starting Down the Path with your Preschooler

Debra's latest article. Pages 26-27.

Malaria

From the BBC World News on NPR (4-7-9):

"Half of the death worldwide and through history have been caused by malaria."

The End of Christian America

I learned of this article from Dan Kimball's blog and was pleasantly surprised!

I was not surprised by the main point of the article (I all ready knew that), but by the statement, "Then came the point he (Albert Mohler) could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified."

What made me smiles is not that Northeasterners are supposedly going to hell at a faster rate than anyone else, but that the time, effort and love we spent in Portland and in being in community at Evergreen made and is making a difference in a place was once called, "the most unchurched part of the nation."

Now, the change in unaffiliated residents of the Northwest is not solely attributed to me or Evergreen, nor is it limited to only Portland. But, I feel a sense of usefulness to have severed at Evergreen and to have worked in conjugation with other churches in the area to live out the Kingdom of God in a faithful and transformative way.

I hope to say the same of Denver.