God's love is real

I looked into the eyes of an angel today. And as I gazed at her cherub face, the voice of God was never truer than right there when His words echoed in my head, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” At that moment, I knew that God loved Kasey more than I could ever know and I got to play some small part in showing her.

Some friends of ours recently came home from a journey to Africa to bring their adoptive daughter home. It has been a 2 years process and after spending almost 2 months in Sierra Leone, they finally brought her home.

Two years of praying, paying and paining for their daughter, Kasey. It seemed like an eternity at the time, but now it seems like almost yesterday when we first saw her newborn picture on the internet and began to pray for Kasey to come home.

It was amazing to see the body of Christ rise up as one and be the arms of God to bring her home. Many people gave financially to make it happen. Even more prayed endlessly to open the way for her to come to the US. God was recognized as the orchestrator and His people the instruments. And the song they played carried this melodic little girl right to the arms of 2 people who love her deeply and to a community committed to support them.

I believe God does do miracles today and I saw her and touched her and her name is Kasey Clark.

Kites, strings and tails - Life in harmony

As I type this I’m listening to the melodic sounds of my sons at play. They are singing, laughing and being children. There is a wonderful beauty in their freedom that brings a smile to my face; an innocence and freshness in their banter and frolic.

I feel that inside. Most of the time I’m wanting to run around like a fool, but on the outside, I am getting old. My bones creek and my joints hurt and my hair is getting gray, yet I don't feel old inside. Worse yet, my mind is feeling old. It beckons me toward maturity and responsibility. It tells me I should be acting my age.

I say my mind, because that is where I process what I think. I don’t think it is my mind as much as the expectations I perceive. My heart still wants to run free. And I think God wants me to also.

Some people are just born old. From the moment they start talking, they are just old. I don’t mean that in a bad sense. I am just saying that their propensity for stability and foundation and rootedness is ingrained early on. We need people like. But that’s not me.

I am bouncy, energetic and have a hard time sitting still. I have always been that way. School was literally painful for me. Sitting that long in class hurt. I barely graduated from seminary. I was not made for the classroom. Even church is hard for me. I would rather be pacing the platform preaching rather than sitting in the seat staring at the stage. At church I rarely sit.

Is it possible that God made some people more energetic for a purpose? Some people are contemplative and enjoy deep meditation. Some people are methodical and deliberate in their movement. Others are poetic and fluent as they glide. Me, I’m more like a jack rabbit or Jack Russell terrier. Don’t pin me down. I gotta keep movin’.

If I am a kite, the other group of people are the string. The kite could not fly without a string to give it tension. And the string would never soar without the kite. The poetics would be the tail that keeps balance and adds a sweeping beauty.

I think we need all of them. If we were all like me, there would be no stability in the world and we would keep flopping in the wind. Change would be a four letter word because it would happen all of the time. If everyone was contemplative, nothing would change and life would be always on the ground. If we were all poetics everything would be pretty and nothing would be useful or practical.

The balance comes when we value each others bents. My wife likes her circle of friends and her favorite restaurants. I like new people and discovering new places to eat. Without someone challenging her to try new things she would not have meet the friends she has or found the restaurants she now enjoys. Without her influence, I would not have deep friendships and an appreciation for regular local establishments.

Now I don’t mean to over generalize. I do like some things to never change. I love my wife. We have been married for 20 years. I told her that she is not allowed to die. Ever. I like what we have. I don’t ever want to reenter the dating scene again or have to get to know someone new. We have enough change in our relationship to keep me happy. She still surprises me almost everyday with something new about who she is. She is all I need. And she likes to be challenged. She is not an old soul, she just likes familiarity.

I have an incredible group of people around me that are about as diverse as the colors of the rainbow. They are energetics, methodics, poetics and more. I am engaged with the challenge of creating a place where they all can thrive; even more where they can thrive together. I echo the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream” where white, black, energetic and poetic, liberal and conservative will be able to sit down together, work side by side together and fight back to back together for the common good of all.

Some might call it a pipe dream. Others may say that I have been smoking a pipe to even dream it. Still others would say I’m dreamin’ to think it could even happen. But then again naysayers will never change the world and, call me a cock eyed optimist, I think the world could us some change and I think it can happen. I would rather go out fighting for it, rather than wishing it would, and never doing anything about it.

The Power and Passion of God

There is something about the power and the passion of God that beats with the rhythm of His Spirit which calls to us in the echoes of His grace.

It is a deep resonating pulse pounding in our hearts. So strong, that we skip a beat when we feel it. You have to catch your breath when you realize that, at that very moment, God is more than present than you can ever imagine. He is moving, active, alive and working in you.

I must admit I am uneducated in this way of living. I am a novice when it comes to imagining more and reasoning less. There are those who have been a espousing, even living this way for some time. I am challenged to seek them out.

We need intentional adventures into the unknown. Deliberate encounters with mystery. Not pulp fiction, although let’s not discount even incidental exploits of the like, but actual movement into the unseen.

I am not so convinced that UFO’s, mythological monsters and fairy tales are only figments of our imagination. The line between reality and what we call fantasy is growing less distinct. Call them Matrixian glitches or scientific anomalies, they are difficult to explain but far too evidential to dismiss.

My point is not to breed controversy, but raise the issue that things are not what they seem to be or even worse, what we have been told.

God exists in the mystery. Trying to remove the mystery relegates Gods power to a natural force or logical outcome. God is neither.

My 95 Theses (part 1)

O.K. I figured that I need to start somewhere. So here I go. Most of these are things I have been writing down or thinking about for a long time.

My 95 Theses (in progress)

The first 25

1) The church was never meant to be big business.

2) Church growth is not meant to be a goal, but the result of God intervention.

3) Social change is a product of Christians living in community, not a soapbox for them to stand on.

4) The Bible is not God. Stop treating it that way.

5) God is a mystery. Stop trying to second guess Him.

6) Tithing is the response to a changed heart, not the requisite for church membership.

7) The pastor is not the CEO, but the caregiver of the flock.

8) Far too much weight is put on the position of senior pastor. Teachers are no more important than those with the gift of hospitality.

9) Don’t put words in Gods mouth. God can speak for Himself.

10) God is not sexist or gender biased. Women and men are the image of God.

11) When God stops talking, so should you.

12) Bullshit is bullshit. Stop trying to candy coat your words. God never did.

13) Sunday attendance and "not forsaking the assembly" are not the same thing.

14) God still speaks, heals and does miracles today whether you believe it or not.

15) Megachurches are not models for success, but illustrations of effective implementation of vision. Big does not make one right. The Mormon church is big.

16) No one church can capture the essence of the body of Christ.

17) No one church or denomination can contain all truth.

18) Theology is changeable. Truth is not. Beware of what you label as one or the other

19) Silence is not a lack of God speaking, but an intentional pause so we will be. Far too many pastors don’t turn the volume off when God does.

20) Failure is not a lack of divine intervention, but it can be an opportunity for it. Conversely, success is not proof of God’s hand at work and often leads to a lack of opportunity for it.

21) Taking care of those in need is more important than a balanced budget.

22) We are sexual beings because God is a sexual being. The church is far to prudish about our sexuality. If God created the orgasm, shouldn't we encourage more of it?

23) Holiness is not something to strive for, but a condition we exist in. When our goal is to not sin, we loose sight of God's redemption and we end up failing every time. When we focus on Christ, we regain our sense of God's great gift and live in our Holy state.

24) The church has far too many chiefs and not enough indians. We don't need another sermon. We need trail blazers and fire starters.

25) Comfort is a luxury. God never promised an easy road. ...damn.

To be continued...