Platforms

"You don't need a platform, you did more today than all the preachers I've heard in my life"

I had never heard that before this week. But somehow God placed a customer in our path that overheard an entire day of the Kingdom. Steve and I spent the day as we usually do scrubbing floors and talking theology. Not your father's theology of 'ism's and 'ation's, but life values, biblical principles, and contextualized thought. Monday, Steve and I happened to talk about our "platforms" regardless of it's ministerial context.

We spent the day discussing the gospel matter of factly, thinking that our customer was watching tv or playing with her dogs. We voiced our frustrations with those who cheapen the gospel to a mere western context and those who teach without living out the very values they speak of. Overall, our conversation was another day of deconstructing and rebuilding of our understanding of the church and the kingdom.

Without our realizing it, our customer listened to our entire conversation. At the end of the day as I was closing out with her we talked for quite a while, long enough for my team to call my cell phone to see if everything was ok. The conversation was rich in compliments for our team and our work, which she called art, but more than that she let me know that everything that had been said she had been listening to. She informed me that she wasn't religious, but she said, if more Christians presented themselves as our team did then she might think about it. She went on to make the statement I posted at the beginning. Then she handed me the check, hugged me and walked me to the door.

As I shared the story with the team they rejoiced with me in the fact that God had used something as small as refinishing a floor to touch the heart of 60 something woman. The rejoicing has turned to inward thought and contemplation as I try to process the events of the day. Generally I take about 24 hours to process an event and begin to have an understanding. After some 48 hours I am still perplexed by the events that unfolded Monday evening. God had Steve and I in her house for a reason, and I believe a prophetic word.

We are to be about the Father's business (Thanks Ken) no matter the context of our work or calling. Do we even stop to realize that as a child Jesus said, do you not realize that I am about my Father's business? The greek word used throughout scripture for business is the same exact word used for ministry. There is no seperation between the two. There is no "Higher Calling" Every waking moment we are to be about the Father's business.

There really is no need for a platform or a soap box to live out the gospel in front of people every day. If we have to resort to always using words to share the gospel then we are failingto truly be followers of Christ. Words are used for teaching and instruction, our lives are to be living examples of Jesus Christ. When we do the Father's business the world knows it. When we do the Father's business, people are drawn to it.

Why is it that we seperate ministry and work? Why do people react one way when I say I refinish wood, and react another when I say that I am a pastor? The two are the same, in fact I would argue that what I do when I am in someone elses house is more important to the kingdom than what I say from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

I am increasingly aware of the piety and superficiallity of those who claim the pulpit is of higher calling than those who see ministry as life. The pill that is hard to swallow is that I love to teach, preach, and be behind the pulpit. But just because I can doesn't mean I should. Current sociological patterns would suggest that traditional institutional church is passing away, and the role of the pastor is shifting to a more biblically based version that states the pastor is to care for souls. Scripture never suggests that the role of pastor is behind the pulpit.

Sure there is a context in which we teach and preach, but that context is devoid of the former platform. Discipleship is apprenticing Christ, or becoming His protege. But we have to ask the question, what would happen if pastors released control to the businessman to disciple and train followers within the context of the real world, not the fantasy land we go to on Sunday mornings.

The platform that transform society is one that isn't removed from it, but is an intricate part of it. Why is it that we expect the world to come to the church? Missional life dictates that the church go to the world. What better platform could we ask for than the one already provided, Business?

The church is not bound to four walls, a pastor, deacons, and pot luck dinners. The world will be reached by the example lived out in front of it. The world is our platform and abundant life through Christ is our message. We don't need pulpits, or street preaching. We don't need committees or sessions. You can reach more people today through your network than I ever will from a pulpit or classroom.

Change your platform, Change the world!!!

Reactive Church

This past weekend Katie and I enjoyed a relaxing trip out of the city, unfortunately to get out of the city we had to endure a trip through the suburbs. One observation remains at the forefront of my thoughts, the further we got outside the city limits the larger the church buildings got. Initially the thought of a mighty God movement comes to mind, God is alive in the suburbs, or so we think.

Unfortunately the realization soon sets in that the Mega Church movement, which is thankfully beginning to die out in the emerging world, was never an explosion of God's moving, but rather it began solely out of reaction to a cultural shift that clearly was an abandonment of God's plan and purposes for the cities.

Looking back on the history of Mega Churches we would be hard pressed to find a suburban church that was "mega" before the influx of housing developments and strip malls. The churches that we look at and the leaders we idolize are merely a reflection of the churches historic inability to be on the leading edge of cultural shifts.

Please note that I am well aware of the many things God has done through this movement and the lives that have been changed by it. I am only stating the obvious that the church seemingly failed society by falling into a consumerist mindset that allowed the suburban sprawl without a single thought for the negative spiritual impact upon the cities.

The church of the modern American era has been a people of reactive or even passive action to cultural problems. It failed to condemn the theft of land and massacre of native Americans, it failed to call for an end to slavery, it never called for equal rights, nor did it call for Christians to stand in the gap for the cities. The church always seems to react to cultural movements instead of being on the front lines fighting for the very least of these.

I was saddened by the site of these large churches, not because of what God has done, but because of the lack of understanding of what was left behind. The church today stands on the threshold of a new age, we call it Postmodernism, the corporate world calls it the Communication age. Regardless of what we call it, the church has a chance to be proactive rather than reactive. I don't entirely know what that means, but I desire to seek the answer.

24th and Bryant - Flip Flops and Ripped Jeans

This morning I discovered the wonderful world of Sugarlump Coffee Lounge. I came here because I'm taking a part in a discussion
here Thursday night. What I found when I got here was the epitamy of what I thought SF life would be. As I write this I am looking out on the intersection of 24th and Bryant.

This section of the Mission is wonderfully eclectic. Every class and color can and will walk by within any 15 minute time frame. This gives way to an internal prayer that I have not known before. It is a prayer for the city that I don't yet understand. I see emptiness and loss of hope in the faces that walk by, but yet I see a longing for something just out of reach.

Across from me sits a gay couple that are very chatty. I've enjoyed listening to them plan their day and being included in their lives with simple smiles and hello's. My heart goes out to them, not because they're gay, but because I want them to know My Jesus. My dad has always said that the only Jesus most people will ever meet walks around everyday in leather souled shoes. Today I hope they see Jesus through a guy wearing flip flops and ripped up jeans.

There is a little girl running around, her father says she's 13 months. She just hugged my leg and played with the umbrella by the door getting me slightly wet. My prayer is for her. That she know Jesus during her life and that she see him even today at 13 months old. My prayer is for her parents who obviously love her very very much. She seems to bring so much joy to their lives, maybe they see Jesus in her.

I have placed myself far away from the fire because I wanted to be in the corner to work on my book, I wrote a few pages but I am consumed with these people. Hipsters, Bohemians, disfunctional families, beautiful families, color, and differing family roles all seem to make up this little world within a world.

All around me there is talk, talk of real estate, bio medicine, very little politics, except the occasional Bush bashing which I heartedly partake in.

This place is apparently larger than I thought, I've been here for an hour and a half and people are leaving I never saw come in, or was I too consumed with myself to notice.

This place intrigues me, I'll come back, I wish it was everyday, but at least once a week. Hopefully this prayer within me can be birthed. Maybe this place can be a haven of peace for the city, I don't know, but I can dream.

And maybe just maybe someone saw Jesus today, I just hope someone saw him through a guy in flip flops and ripped up jeans.

I see Him

Today I saw God, I saw Him in my teamates. I experienced life together, and I saw the fullness of God. I just wanted to share that. Take a look at who God has placed in your path right now, that's where you'll see Him. It's in the lives of those around you that you learn what He is teaching and you hear what He is saying.

Today I saw God, tomorrow, maybe you will too....

peace~

Shhhh

Lessons are learned everyday. Life taught me today that being still and knowing must happen in the midst of chaos. I can't run off to my cave, the country, the coffee shop everytime I need to connect with God. Today I learned that "silent retreats" must happen in the course of the day, in the midst of the mess.

When we learn to be still and know in the chaos we can see evidence of God being exalted right in front of us. After all isn't that what it's all about? Or did we forget and make it about us again?

haircut

So I got my haircut today, I don't like it. I feel like a televangelist who let Tammy Faye Baker style his hair. I was going to put up a picture, but I'm too embarrassed.

praying that it grows out quickly....

Question

Today I was asked, If I could paint the perfect picture of the next 6 months what would it be? After beating around the bush and half answering the question I gave up. For the first time in my life I don't know what the perfect picture looks like, all I know is who the central characters are. And maybe that's the answer, Who and Why is more important than What and How. Maybe.

Soul Graffiti - April 13 - BUY IT!!!

Mark Scandrette
If you don't read it, you'll regret it.

Today

Today I watched the Super Bowl with dear friends and realized that this is what Church is suppose to be. When we gather, we are supposed to celebrate together around our lives lived well within a Kingdom perspective. I smoked a cigar, I laughed, I listened, and most importantly, we loved. We were together, sure the super bowl was our excuse to have the party, but the Kingdom was the binding force. How beautiful the worship of God in the context of simple togetherness. I wish that I could articulate the fruit that was shown and the abundance and joy of our lives, but mere words simply can't contain this life together.

Today I worshipped, with my brothers.