What was the most influential moment in human history?

Time is fascinating to me.  The need to mark events and understand our current place in reference to some anchor.  I remember back before cell phones.  When my friends and I would attend an outdoor concert. We would use some physical feature at a given location and a specific time to meet.  Once you arrived at the venue there was nothing that you could use to communicate your location with anyone that you wanted to meet at the event.

“Meet me at the giant inflatable Bud Lite can.”... Generally speaking the most visible feature at an outdoor event.

Human history really is no different.  We need some system to mark our place.  We currently spend our days in the year 2012.  That’s 2012 times that the earth has traveled around the sun since some point in history.

The Hebrew Patriarch Abraham’s life is estimated from 1976-1801 BC.  All three of the world’s major monotheistic faiths find their roots in Abraham’s story.  The Hebrews great liberator from Egyptian oppression Moses lived from 1391–1271 BC.  Siddhattha Gotama... the man that we have come to know as the founder of Buddhism lived from 563 to 483 BC.  Muhammad the founder of Islam lived from 570 to 632 AD.

Which begs the question for me.  What common point in human history could be so significant as to serve as this reference?

The answer of course is controversial... if one really presses it.  The birth of a poor Jewish carpenter to an unwed teenager in ancient Israel.  How could it possibly be that such a small life could have stretched across so much of our known history. No matter what you believe about him... you have to carefully consider how that’s possible.

Don’t you?

Book References:
Who is that man?, by John Ortberg

Audio References:
Who was this guy?,  Menlo Park Presbyterian
Who was this guy?_Learning, Menlo Park Presbyterian
Who was this guy?_Humility, Menlo Park Presbyterian
Who was this guy?_Dignity, Menlo Park Presbyterian

Tangled

Really great thoughts start with about twelve feet of rope. You know those experiences in life that ordinary language just can't quite capture.

"It was like I was on fire!"

I've found in my life... this world would let me look under every spiritual rock out there for truth. Every rock that is except the one that concealed the greatest treasure.

But, I need a picture not just words... a visual metaphor to help me remember where I was. So I made this knotted ball of rope. You see these were the neurons of my mind. The over worked over stimulated synapses of my brain activity that longed for meaning and searched for it everywhere and anywhere it could.

Of course I didn't see it at the time... the world hide it behind the guise of progress or success which it suggested was my road to meaning.

How could a single religion, culture, philosophy, or practice contain an exclusive in road to truth?

Or what difference would truth make even if one could experience it?

The God the Christians believe in just wants to rob us of what brings us pleasure in this world.

Then one day in the fall of 2003 I found myself standing at the edge of my life. As I stood there it seemed as though I could for one brief moment see around to the other side. And there on the edge of my existence just like the most extraordinary sunset along the most beautiful shore stood this carpenter for Nazareth. As the sky touch the earth I could sense my past and my future in one moment... and Jesus said "follow me". So I did and then began the extraordinary process of untangling this mess.

Digging Deeper...

Mosaic in Los Angeles has just completed an extraordinary exploration called "the truth between us". Over five weeks they dove into the worlds of Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, Hinduism, Scientology, Catholicism, Mormonism, and Judaism.

(download the series here)

The Truth Between Us- Islam

The Truth Between Us - Buddhism

The Truth Between Us – Atheism

The Truth Between Us – Hinduism

The Truth Between Us – Scientology

The Truth Between Us – Catholicism

The Truth Between Us – Mormonism

The Truth Between Us – Judaism

May we all ask our questions honestly and find the God big enough to meet you wherever you are!

Prodigal Mondays

What would you say if I told you that Jesus believed "that ever thought the human race has ever had about connecting with God was wrong"?

I just finished reading Tim Keller's book The Prodigal God with a group of friends on Monday nights. We gather and offer our experience. Real... where the rubber meets the road stories about God, the good the bad the ugly. We wrestle with Tim's perspective on Jesus' story to the insiders and outsiders of his day.

My friends and I love hard questions...

• Why does Church so often look different than the picture in this story?
• Why is it so hard for me to live everyday within the reality of this picture of God's love for us?
• How can I encourage my friends to experience this kind of relationship with God?
• What if we just got out of the way and let the Creator of the Universe, "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" shape our lives?

It's a game changer... I can't wait for next Monday!

Oops... SQUIRREL! Back to Tim's book.

He unpacks one of Jesus' most familiar stories about two sons and a father’s desperate desire to love them and share life with them. (Luke 15)

If you’re curious... (additional resources)

You can hear Tim talk more about it here or you can find out about the book here.

Henri Nouwen has also written a really powerful reflection on the parable in his book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.

May we all come to see that a good God has got a really big (understatement of a life time) plan going down and each of us is playing a part in his story!

a Christmas Story

Christmas is so big… so much bigger than we can ask or imagine. Stories of hope change me on the inside. They broaden my prospective and challenge me to dig deeper and dream about how our stories could make a difference, a difference that could touch lives beyond what seems possible at first glance.

Donald Miller was at Willow in Chicago last week! Awesome story about Bob Goff a really bright light in Rwanda! (Download here)

Restore International (http://www.restoreinternational.org/)

Books by Donald Miller (http://donmilleris.com/books/)

I have a theory...some vision sharing for "the light of all mankind"

For any new faces to my blog I thought I'd share just a little about the genesis.

I am an avid podcaster. I love my local Church (Gateway) and I'm deeply inspired by the work, transformation, and teaching that Jesus is inspiring throughout the world.

Today thanks to technology we can all share in the collective experiences of our brothers and sisters around the US and beyond I'm sure. Currently, this is just where my knowledge and exposure ends.

On the evening that Jesus was arrested, tried, and ultimately sentenced to death he spent the time leading up to that moment in prayer. In the course of what is his longest recorded prayer in his follower John's biography of his (Jesus) life.

He prays...

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:20-21 (NIV)

I believe deeply that Jesus is the biggest visionary the world has ever known and the "all of them" which he refers to is only limited by our imagination.

May we all be one!

Back in 2008... as I was taking my first tentative steps into the podcasting world this peculiar character showed up one Sunday morning in Grand Rapids. Approximately forty minutes later I was hooked!

It was the most inspiring, enlightening, creative, and thought provoking forty minutes I had spent in my life.

Enjoy!

Grasping and giving
Mars Hill, Grand Rapids Michigan

faith building through the lens of a trapeze artist

Have you ever seen Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire? It's the story of an angle that falls in love with a human trapeze artist and chooses to become mortal to pursue her love.

That's an interesting leap of faith don't you think?

I've always been fascinated by the trapeze. Particularly the team work associated with the art. The typical team consist of two members the thrower and the catcher. You can't have one without the other. The catcher waits patiently hanging upside down with arms outstretched. But, someone has to jump out grab the bar and swing themselves through the air only to let go, reach out and trust that the catcher will catch them.

Do you think that they were born ready...or do they have to build up there trust in the catcher?

My local faith community Gateway Church held a pubic Q&A a few Sunday's past. They allowed the audience to text and email questions as the pastors sat on stage ready to answer.

They begin the Q&A with what I thought was a really valuable description of three levels or categories of questions we commonly ask about faith or spirituality. The moderator drew a target with three rings and described them as level 1, level 2, and level 3 questions. With level 1 questions being those things that are most important to our beliefs about God and level 2 and 3 being more secondary and debatable ideas.

It was great stuff and they answered some wonderful question however; it did leave me wondering a few things. Most significantly... what is central, what things are at the middle of the target and who determines there importance?

It's a really a big question one that most of us will spend our lives exploring, answering, and living out. For me it's the most important thing.

A first century Jewish man name Paul wrote these words to his friends in Philippi about the God he had grown to know.

1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:1-11 (NIV)

A group I hang with recently challenged me to carefully consider and write down my world view. Which I would suggest is just a shorthand way of saying what is at the center of your target in life. I came up with this.

The heart of my world view is my core conviction that Jesus is Lord.

I’m compelled by the reality that a good being (most commonly referred to as God) created the know universe and beyond. This God loves us ALL (is for us, not against us) so much that the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE lived and human life (as a first century Jewish Rabbi for the Galilee region in Israel) so that we all could know what he would be like if he were human.

His life, death, and subsequent resurrection has inspired a rescue mission through relationship, which we all are invited to join him on every day and in every moment.

What’s on your agenda this week...who's the catcher on your team?


Digging deeper...

Plane and Pine Together (download MP3)
Mars Hill, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Main Thing (download MP3)
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Menlo Park, California

The CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE wants to be friends on Facebook.

I was thinking the other morning.

Spending some time imagining how I would communicate with humanity if I was the creator of the universe.

Now before you judge me... I understand this may sound a little far fetched or even dangerous. Of course for others I'm sure being the king of your little kingdom is not a challenge at all.

Anyway...I was pondering and BAM it hit me.

Clearly...I would use my facebook status, I'm sure I'm a little behind, I should be @twittering to my facebook status or some other combination of technology that that my ten year old nephew's knowledge of is immeasurably superior to mine own.

But, then the obvious question that's next is...

Would God friend me or would I friend God?

Or... perhaps we've been hitting that NOT KNOW button for awhile!

A traveling companion to one of the earliest followers of Jesus named Luke wrote a biography recording the life of his rabbi (teacher) because he was compelled that something far beyond the ordinary had occurred.

He felt in some profound way God had communicated with us.

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
Luke 1:1-4 (NIV ©2011)

I mean it... seriously what tools would a good God use if a good God were to use tools to communicate with you, me and anyone willing to listen?

Digging deeper...

Why Austin Doesn't Believe: Close Your Bible. Open Your Mind
(Gateway Community Church, Austin, Texas)

Isn't the bible a myth
(Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Menlo Park, California)

Literalism
(Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York, New York)