I absolutely love hanging out with someone who is passionate about something! I just hung out with an NCCer who is considering a "long jump" into the movie industry.

I walked away energized by their thought-full approach to pursuing their passions. In one respect, he is trying to get in the "side door." It's tough to get in the "front door" when you have no "background" in the industry. But that's how Nehemiah must have felt. He didn't exactly take the "traditional route" into wall building! There was no education and no experience. But in God's grand scheme, sometimes you have to be a cupbearer in Babylon to become a wall builder in Jerusalem. They seem totally unrelated, but God is in the business of using past experiences to prepare us to for future opportunities.

I love the way this NCCer described the convergence that seems to be happening in his life. It's one of the best analogies I've ever heard. He said it feels like a rubic's cube that is about to be solved. I have never actually solved a rubic's cube :) So I wouldn't know what that feels like. But I love the analogy anyways!

By the way, I love the vision of this NCCer. He wants to produce epic parables. He made an interesting observation about the way Jesus communicated. None of his parables are overtly religious. They are like "yeast" that rises in the mind. That was part of Jesus' genius! By the way, Jesus was a storyteller. Isn't that what movie makers are? But they use props and stunts and special effects and actors to tell their stories.

Part of the reason this meeting impacted me so much is that I put my faith in Christ after watching a movie called The Hiding Place. My conversion experience is the result of someone deciding that Corrie Ten Boom's life was worth turning into a movie! So I'm grateful for a screen writer and producer and director and actors who helped lead me to Christ.

We need Christians with sanctified imaginations who can produce films that capture the human drama and supernatural storyline. I think the Bible is the most dramatic book ever written. There must be a thousand movie scripts that have blockbuster potential. Unfortunately, I have rarely seen a movie do the Bible justice. I'll often be reading my Bible and I'll think to myself, "Someone needs to make this into a movie." I know that movies based on Scripture are an awfully small genre. And I'm not talking about "interpretive movies" per se. I guess what I'm saying is this: we need more movies and movie makers who creatively communicate divine themes--truth and beauty and grace and love and power and justice--in overt and covert ways!

I just met with an NCCer who is doing a Phd in microbiology. I never thought I'd hear what she said. It made me laugh. One of the first things out of her mouth was: "I love viruses."

I never cease to be amazed at the way God has wired all of us in such unique ways. She also has a heart for Africa so it'll be cool to see the way God uses her. The HIV virus has devasted Africa. I prayed that God would use her to touch people she's never met in places she's never been in ways she'd never imagine. That is the business that God is in! Nothing excites me more than seeing people fulfilling their God-given potential by pursuing their God-given passions.

We had a blast at the Nationals game the other night. The funny thing is that the game was more about salted peanuts and cotton candy than baseball. By the way, we were in the nose bleed section (see picture). But we had the last laugh. It started raining and we were under the overhang! The cheap seats paid off :)

Here's a formula I came up with earlier this week:

In-formation + Re-definition = Trans-formation.

I think too many Christians settle for information. We're well informed. We're educated way beyond our level of obedience. But have our hearts and minds been transformed?

I think one key to transformation is redefinition. The way we internalize things is by redefining them in terms that make sense to us. All of us have filters and categories. We process things based on our past experiences. And we've got to use those past experiences to help us personalize truth. Let me give an example.

I've been thinking about the parable of the talents a lot lately. My passion is to unearth buried talent. The mental image I get is of my uncle Allen with his metal detector combing Bedman's beach looking for "buried treasure." That simple connection personalizes or internalizes the parable of the talents because I put it into my categories. I think of it in terms of my past experiences. And it becomes more meaningful. My role as a pastor is to have a metal detector in hand combing "the beach" for God-given potential. That may sound goofy to someone who hasn't had my experience. But that is part of redefinition. It's unique. A metal detector is my way of redefining that information in the parable of the talents. And it transforms the way I think about it.

I read a CNN.com article today on life before the Internet. According to Pew research, only one in seven Americans were online in 1995. I still remember when we were cutting edge because our "connection card" had a space for email. It's comical how many compliments we got by just having the option for people to write down their email address!

It's hard to imagine "asking for directions" now isn't it? Can you imagine physically "going to the bank" to transfer money? It's funny to think about "using the telephone" to get movie times isn't it? Can you imagine not downloading music? And remember when you had to take classes in a classroom? The Internet has changed just about everything!

I now get my voicemail as an email. In fact, instead of using the telephone line as a modem. Our church office now uses the Internet as our phone line. By the way, remember when you had to "sign off" because you didn't want to go over your monthly time limit online?

Broadband has changed the rules of the game. I think the day will come when everybody is online all the time or at least has the potential. The real question is this: will the church be there ready and waiting? I just happen to believe that "go into all the world" and "go into the highways and bylaws" includes cyberspace. We think of those passages geographically and demographically. We need to think about them technologically as well.

Will people someday laughingly say, "Remember when you had to physically go to church to hear a sermon!" I don't think godcasts replace the importance of the "assembling together of yourselves" (Hebrews 10:25) any more than radio or TV. But yesterday I read about a pastor of a small church (100 people) in California who is podcasting to thousands of people. My reaction is: praise God. He is impacting more people in cyberspace than he is in person! I know there is no replacement for face-to-face ministry. But I think it's "all of the above."

Thanks to Dave Jones for this quote.

D.H. Lawrence said, "Sometimes snakes can't slough. They can't burst their old skin. Then they go sick and die inside the old skin, and nobody ever sees the new pattern. It needs a real desperate recklessness to burst your old skin at last. You simply don't care what happens to you, if you rip yourself in two, so long as you do get out."

I think this is a variation on Jesus' parable about the old wineskins. It's about always reinventing ourselves. Jesus reinvented himself at thirty! The carpenter became a minister. The bottom line is this: it's never too late to be who you might have been. I don't think we ever stop discovering God or discovering ourselves. And we have to keep shedding or sloughing our old skin.

For what it's worth, that's what our bodies do as well. We're in a constant state of renewal.

· Skin replaces itself once a month
· The stomach lining every five days
· The liver every six weeks
· The skeleton every three months
· Cheek cells are replaced three times a day

Within the next year, 98% of the atoms in your body will be exchanged for new ones! You literally aren’t who you used to be. Right now you’re carrying around about five pounds of dead cells. Before you finish reading this blog, millions of cells will die. But that is a good thing because they will be replaced by new cells. The point is simple, change is evidence of life. Stagnation is evidence of death.

Luke 2:52 says, “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and with man.”

Verb tense in the Greek language is like a secret code that unlocks new levels of understanding. The word “grew” is an imperfect imperative verb. That tense is used when something is done repeatedly or continuously—a non-stop process! Jesus never stopped growing intellectually (IQ), physically (PQ), spiritually (SQ), and relationally (RQ).

Paul describes the process of renewal in II Corinthians 4:16: “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

All of that is to say this: God designed us to live in the imperfect imperative!

Had the time of my life this afternoon editing our first "epic film" during our "summer of adventure." It's titled The War of the Water Balloons. Alright, we stole part of the title from War of the Worlds which comes out today. But other than that, it's all original material :)

Ryan Frost, our summer intern, was the editor and Parker and I were the producers/directors. I'll post a link when the final feature film is complete. That old aphorism, time flies when you're having fun, definitely applies to making and editing movies. Fun stuff.

By the way, our operating budget for this particular film was the cost of water balloons. So about a buck! Not bad.

Sometimes I laugh at myself because I'm a technology and futurology buff. My bookshelves are full of books and magazines on trends and changes that will impact the way we do church in the future. I want to be part of the tribe of Isaachar--the tribe that "understood the times." I love that stuff. But I'm also the kind of person that depends on something they don't understand (refer to shift enter blog).

Maybe the way to say it is this: I'm a non-technical techonologist (whatever that means). I do have a deep conviction however. I think churches need to blaze a trail and redeem technology. We ought to be the trend setters. I think blogging and podcasting or godcasting are opportunities to set a trend.

There are already thousands of podcasts out there, but I think this is the first wave of a tsunami. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, is right. "Podcasting is the next generation of radio." It's like the democratization of broadcasting. It's tough to come up with an appropriate metaphor for this technological shift, but I guess it's like a shifting of the tectonic plates that will reconfigure the way we gather information. We're feeling the tremors now. The earthquake is coming.

It's tough to imagine leafing through a hardbound encyclopedia digging for information isn't it? But that's what we did pre-Internet. The Internet changed the way we gather information. The day will come when it's hard to believe that we used to have CDs instead of MP3s. I think CDs will go the way of vinyl records. So will MP3s.

The form of technology isn't what's important. The real issue is this: are we on the cutting edge redeeming it for God's purposes?

By the way, one of my favorite conversation t-shirts says, "Computers...just a crazy fad." The next generation of t-shirts will probably say, "Podcasting...just a crazy fad."

I'm always saying that life is full of "one small step one giant leap" moments. I think we're taking one today. Our first godcast is being podcast today. I'm pretty fired up about it. Victor Hugo said, "All the armies in the world cannot resist an idea whose time has come." That's how it feels sending out our first podcast. We've been thinking about it for months, but we're finally taking the plunge.

Ironically, I got an email today from a college friend who pastors in another part of the country telling me that we need to start podcasting. Then Pastor Dave, our pastor of media, told me to check out our homepage (www.theaterchurch.com). He just set us up with itunes to begin podcasting or godcasting. We'll get a link up on the blog ASAP.

We don't have it all figured out yet, but I was too excited not to begin blogging about it. I'm going to do a blog series on Godcasting because I think it's so vital to the future of the church.

If you want to sign-up for the godcast, just visit www.theaterchurch.com for now.

Our Pastor of Discipleship, Heather Zempel, sent me a cool quote:

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.

By the way, I asked Heather what "bon mot" meant and she was clueless too :) Help? I'd love an explanation for those of us that are latin-challenged.

So my sister-in-law, Nina, gave Josiah (our three year-old) a camera at the Baptism by the Bay and sent me the pictures he took. Hilarious. What an insight into what the world looks like to a three-foot tall three year-old. Most of the pictures were of low-lying objects like shoes and shins. And the other pictures made people look very tall :) Yes. That is my shin below. I'm wearing my nike presto chanjos (which I love).

Sunday was an amazing day. As we stood on the beach getting ready to baptize fifteen NCCers I had this thought: I wouldn't want to be anyplace else. It was amazing to worship on the beach and see people "go public" with their faith at a public beach. I don't think I'll ever get over the incredible privilege of dunking someone (in the spiritual sense) and raising them back out of the water. It doesn't get any better than that. Helping people find Christ and take the next step in their spiritual journey is what it's all about.

Here's a picture from our group prayer. We had all the baptism candidates get in the middle of our "holy huddle" and we prayed for them. Then we shouted "Amen" at the top of our voices! I love giving God shout offerings! I think our worship services should feel like a football game every once in a while!

By the way, I totally lost my voice by the end of the day. I preached twice on Sunday. I yelled for the marshmallow toss at the top of my voice. I sang with all my heart. And by the time we finished praying my voice was nearly inaudible. But I feel like I was a good steward of my vocal chords on Sunday!

Our men's prayer group had a great time of prayer this morning. There are always certain prayers that really resonate with my spirit. One of them was on my wavelength today. One of the guys prayed for "billboard-size boldness." I don't know why, but that combination of words blessed me and challenged me. My dominant thought as we "marched" from the picnic area to the beach area at our Baptism by the Bay on Sunday was this: "I am not ashamed of the gospel." And I think baptism is all about Matthew 10:32: "Whoever publicly acknowledges me I will also acknowlendge before my Father in heaven."

I don't want to be one of those "homemade signs" on 81/2 by 11 inch paper that people post on poles at intersections. In part, because that's illegal :) I want to be a huge billboard or maybe one of those "advertisements in the sky" pulled by planes that fly by beaches during the summertime. I want to advertise Christ to the best of my God-given ability. I guess that's an expression of one of my deepest convictions: the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing.

Lord, give us billboard-sized boldness!

I love watching my kids do things they love to do. When Summer swims it's a thing of beauty. When Parker draws he is in "the zone." It's so fun to see them begin to discover their gifts and passions. I think that is how God must feel when we pursue those God-given passions He has downloaded in our hearts. It's like Eric Liddel in Chariots of Fire. Speaking of God, he says, "When I run I can feel His pleasure."

There is nothing like the convergence of joy. I eluded to it during the first evotional in The Game of Life series. But I think God enjoys our enjoyment. I think God finds joy in our joy. Maybe the way to say it is this: nothing brings God greater joy than our joy! The Westminster Cathechism says the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I think we too often forget the second half: enjoy Him forever. Part of enjoying God is pursuing our God-given passions!

Pretty dramatic title for a blog, huh? I had a great day off yesterday full of fun highlights. Summer and I had an interesting contest on the way home from swim practice. We tried to see who could make the scariest monster sound. I think all those hours of watching Scooby Doo really paid off for Summer because my seven year-old daughter can make scarier noises than I can. Of course, being competitive as I am, I challenged her to a fog horn competition. Let's just say that if a grown man can't beat a high-pitched seven year-old girl's voice at a fog horn competition he has issues! I am the reigning champion of the fog horn. I can do a pretty mean tug boat!

One of the highlights of the day for me was Summer telling me a Michael Jordan story. It was a "moment." I asked her how she felt about swim practice and I told her the key is to get a little better each time. She said, "Dad, did you know that Michael Jordan got cut from his basketball team but he kept practicing and practicing." Did I know? I almost cried :) My life is now complete. My seven year-old daughter told me a MJ story of her own free will.

Later in the morning I had a little wrestling match with Parker. I invented a new move I call "I'm going to take out your appendix" move! Very effective! By the way, I go by multiple wrestling names: The Tickler, The Rock of Gibraltor, and The Human Scissors just to name a few.

The highlight of the day was shooting our own family movie that we titled Summer of Adventure: The War of the Water Balloons. We scripted it and shot in one evening. Fun stuff. I did all my own stunts and starred as "The Evil Emperor 7" who outlawed laughter. And Josiah, Summer, and Parker started as the three brave children named Mosiah, Larker, and Lummer who staged a water balloon ambush. What a blast. We watched the raw footage last night and if we ever get it edited I'll post a link! I can see the reviews already: "The War of the Water Balloons. High Drama! Amazing cinematography! Tear-jerker."

So an era comes to an end. It's interesting to see the way Billy Graham is still making headlines at eight-six years of age. What a run! Billy Graham has dramatically changed the landscape of America in the last half a century. I honestly think it's all about integrity. He is definitely an anointed and gifted communicator. But the thing that really impresses me is the way he stayed above reproach all these years. I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but I think the thing that Christians really appreciated about Billy Graham is that we knew he wouldn't embarrass us!

I feel a personal connection because there is only one degree of seperation between us. My grandfather taught at Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, MN during Billy Graham's brief stint as President of that college. There is even a picture of Billy Graham with a nylon stocking over his head somewhere in our family heirloom.

One of my most vivid memories from childhood is a Billy Graham crusade in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It brought out some of my evangelism gifts. I invited several friends to the crusade and several of them went forward to receive Christ. It was a pretty powerful experience. Plus I got to stand in right field at County Stadium where Sixto Lescano played for the Milwaukee Brewers! It was a double win!

I read Now, Discover Your Strengths yesterday and took the strengthsfinder assessment online today. It was pretty interesting. I love the underlying premise of the book. Instead of trying to help people by focusing on what's wrong with them. They take a positive approach. The book is all about maximizing your strengths while managing your weaknesses.

The strengthsfinder revealed five "signature themes." My top five were:

Strategic
Learner
Futuristic
Ideation
Self-Assurance

I thought I'd do a little online introspection. By the way, I highly recommend the book and assessment. You can't know too much about yourself. I think one of the big mistakes people make is trying to figure out what to do instead of trying to figure out who they are. What you do ought to come out of who you are.

I think I'm what I'd call a 30,000 foot person. I'm really good at perspective. Not sure how else to say it. I can reframe things and explain things from a God's eye view. I think I'm part Eagle. Eagles can use thermal drafts to fly thousands of feet up into the atmosphere and they dive at 100 mph. Eagle have about six times the visual acuity of humans (something like 2000/2000 vision). And they have two centers of focus. They can actually look forward and sideways at the same time! They can spot another eagle fifty miles away! An eagle can see a rabbit from a mile away. An eagle flying at an altitude of 1000 feet can spot prey over almost three square miles! Anywho. I tend to look at things from 30,000 feet but I'm also detail-oriented. It's a weird combination. I love big idea stuff, but I care about little stuff. Call it eagle vision.

There were times when the strengthsfinder report "nailed" me! It said, "This is your strategic theme at work: what if?" I laughed when I read that. Bingo. I'd get bored if we weren't trying new stuff all the time. I also produce about a twenty-five page strategic plan going into every year. Strategic is definitely a signature theme!

Learner is a no brainer. Pun intended. I'm interested in everything. I'm energized by new ideas. I love to read. See this week's evotional.

Futuristic is another bulls-eye. Emily Dickinson said, "I dwell in possibility." That's me. I love imagining possibilities! The strengthsfinder said "loves to peer over the horizon." I often say that NCC is part of the R & D (Research and Development) department of the Kingdom of God. That's part of my DNA. I've been saying lately that "there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet." That energizes me. I feel called to try new things. One of our core values is: everything is an experiment.

Strengthsfinder said, "People want a picture that can raise their sights and thereby their spirits. You can paint it for them." I'm all about painting pictures of what could be!

Ideation is another dead ringer. I'm always talking about "God ideas." I'd rather have one God idea than a thousand good ideas! I think the kaleidoscope is a metaphor for the way I think and talk. I love seeing and saying things from a slightly different angle. I love saying old things in new ways. I love cross-polinization--taking ideas from one arena and redeeming them for theological purposes. The strengthsfinder said "you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you." Bingo. I think my conviction that the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing comes out of this signature theme. I want to present the gospel in new ways and appealing ways. I just don't think your can "over sell" the good news! I think my entrepreneurial tendencies come from this ideation theme as well. For me, an idea a day keeps the doctor away!

Even the last signature theme, self-assurance, nailed me. I have a profound sense of destiny that can't even be put into words. I know that I know that God is around the corner of my life setting me up. I say it all the time: God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. I don't just say it. I believe it. I like the way strengthsfinder says it. "Self-assurance is more than just self-confidence." I have supreme confidence in the sovereignty of God. It also means I can't be swayed when I really think something is from God (that's a nice way of saying I'm stubborn when it comes to convictions). I'm an incredibly laid back person. But if you mess with my kids or my wife or my God-given vision I'm like an uncaged Liger (only my favorite animal). I also have a hard time hearing "no." My common response is: we put a man on the moon. Don't tell me we can't do this!

Enough introspection for one day!

A record was set in the Batterson household today. A momentous occasion. Josiah, our three year-old, slept till 10:42 AM on a Saturday morning. I know. Why am I sharing that kind of information. But that borders on a miracle. I don't know that he's ever slept past 8 AM. And I'm almost positive he's never slept past 9 AM. He usually wakes up at 6 AM. Which means the rest of the family usually wakes up right around 6:01 AM :) Anywho, just thought I'd share a little "win" that happened today.

By the way, he was at the NCC kid's campout till close to 11 PM last night which may have been a contributing factor :) Now if we could just get our children's ministry team to take our kids camping every Friday night we'd be set!

A few years ago I started writing a weekly evotional. I did it for a couple reasons. I wanted to discipline myself to write. Writing takes tremendous time and energy so it doesn't happen by default. I knew God was calling me to write so I decided to turn my weekly messages into an email version called an evotional. My goal was for that evotional to be "a vitamin supplement" in people's spiritual diets. I wanted people to be able to read what I said. I wanted it to be a "double dose" in a sense. I also knew that people could forward them to friends and it'd be a way to share their faith by word of mouse.

I had one subscriber when I started. Me. In the last two years, the evotional family has grown to nearly 2,000 subscribers. I never cease to be amazed at the way the evotionals travel. I'll get emails from people in Australia and South Africa and Germany that seem farther away than six degrees of seperation. But somehow the evotional ends up in their inbox. When something is traveling through cyberspace you never know where it will end up.

So here's the deal. I was thinking the other day and wondering if there isn't a subtle transition happening. A shifting of the tectonic plates. I have always considered preaching my primary means of communication. But the truth is that more people read what I write than hear what I preach even now. I've always felt like my writing will impact more people than my speaking. Don't get me wrong. I love to preach. I can't imagine not being able to say things verbally. It is a unique dynamic. And there is something special about hearing someone speak that is impossible to capture when reading what someone has written. But at some point I think my books and evotionals and blogs will be my primary means of communication and my weekend messages will be the supplement. There is no replacement for face-to-face, person-to-person communincation. But I think blogging is one key to postmodern ministry. I think it's an incredible tool that doesn't replace all the other functions of pastoring. It supplments. Or maybe those other functions supplement blogging :)

As always, blogging is my way of thinking out loud. These aren't beliefs written in stone. They are ideas etched in wet concrete.

So here's my question: will the day come when pastors view blogging as part of their portfolio?

I've been thinking about sin lately. By the way, I didn't say I've been thinking about sinning lately. That's different :) I've tried coming up with meaningful redefinitions in past years because the word "sin" is so misunderstood. Here are a few of my definitions:

Sin is meeting a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

Sin is a waste of energy. It's the anti-thesis of stewardship. You waste your time and energy and imagination on things that are ungodly. And then you waste more emotional energy on guilt and anxiety.

I've come up with mental images over the years. I think sin is the anti-thesis of vision. Sin is like a leak in the bottom of the boat. Instead of using your energy to row your boat toward your destination you end up bailing water because there are leaks in the bottom of the boat.

The Greek word for sin, hamartia, originally referred to the bulls-eye of a target. Sin is missing the mark. In other words, no one hits the bulls-eye everytime!

I think sin is the law of entropy. It is moving toward disorder in our lives. Holiness means wholeness. If you want to read more about this idea, you can read my evotional on the second law of thermodynamics in The Physics of Faith series.

I think the image I got last Sunday at our club is one of the most personally poignant for me because I felt like the Holy Spirit gave me a picture. Sin are the burial cloths that mumify us. I think the story of Lazarus is a microcosm. The enemy of our souls wants to wrap us in burial clothes by getting us to sin. Jesus calls us out of the tomb and he unwraps us via confession and forgiveness.

I think sin dehumanizes us. It makes us less human. Think about it in terms of sexual sin. Sin outside the context of a marriage relationship is physical pleasure without sacred covenant (spiritual commitment). If lust runs it's course then you express yourself sexually toward everything that moves and breathes. Is anything more animalistic?

Sin is saying, "Thanks but no thanks." It is trying to make it without any help from your Manufacturer.

Sin is disconnection. It losing connection or living off-line.

Here is my latest thought. I'm been thinking about the essence of sin. I think it's pride. Instead of worshipping God it's wanting to be worshipped. I think all of us have that tendency. And when you're a baby the world revolves around you. I know some people who still act like babies! We all need a Copernican revolution. We need to realize that the sun doesn't revolve us. To put it in spiritual terms, the essence of pride is wanting everyone and everything to revolve itself around you. But the planets only allign when we revolve our lives around God. That is when things come into orbit. So here's the deal. Sin is wanting everyone to worship you. Righteousness is wanting everyone to worship God. The problem with that is this: your world gets smaller and smaller and smaller. It's like being in the trash compactor in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi (sorry, can't remember which one). Your world closes in on you. Life gets smaller and smaller and smaller until all that's left is little tiny you. One other problem with worshipping yourself. If you're anything like me, you run out of stuff to worship real fast. But here's the flipside. When you worship God your world gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And it never stops! I can't even think of a pictorial for this. I guess we'll have to wait till we open our eyes and see heaven for the first time! What a landscape and cityscape that will be. In that sense, maybe sin is missing the forest for the trees. C.S. Lewis said that God “finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.” He said, “We are half-hearted creatures fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.”

Lewis also said, “Any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even plucking out his right eye) was precisely nothing: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation.” Sin is giving up everything for nothing. Jim Elliott said it best: "He is no fool who loses what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Sin is gaining what you cannot keep. All is lost.

All of that to say this: stop sinning.

Watched an offbeat movie called Final Cut last night that is one of those movies that you don't know whether to recommend or not--but it makes you think. The premise is about a company called Eye Tech and a product called the Zoe Implant that records your life via what you see with you eyes. Your entire life is captured and saved. Then at the end of your life, there is a rememory that is spliced together by a "cutter" who basically edits your life and shows your video to the family and friends of the deceased.

A few things strike me. I remember that song I used to sing in Sunday School, "Be careful little eyes what you see." This movie definitely portrays the significance of what you see-good and bad. It's a little frigtening because all of us have seen things we wish we hadn't recorded! The other thing that stuck me is that the technology of the movie doesn't seem that far removed from reality.

To put the movie in theological terms, it's pretty awesome to think about the way God is the "Cutter" with a capital C. He cuts the sin and He splices together the good stuff. I think a "glorified memory" is part of the "glorified body" deal in heaven. It's part of the package. It's pretty exciting to know that we'll forget what God wants us to forget and remember what God wants us to remember. Just like God.

Just thought I'd post a cool shot of Ebenezers from Station Place. Props to Pastor Josh (our church planter in residence) who wouldn't take no for an answer. He got permission to get up on the roof to get this picture! By the way, our property is kitty corner to what will be the largest office building in Washington, DC. If you pull out a magnifying glass you'll even see me. I look rather ant like from this height.

Location. Location. Location.

The most powerful metaphor in The Monk and the Riddle is what Komisar calls "The Deferred Life Plan." The Deferred Life Plan is when you defer doing what you really want to do to do what you feel like you have to do. There are two steps in The Deferred Life Plan:

step one: do what you must to do
step two: do what you want to do

With the Deferred Life Plan you often succeed at something that doesn't matter! It's like climbing a ladder that's leaning against the wrong wall. You end up doing something you don't care about; something you don't value; something that fails to express who you are.

Komisar talks about a defining moment in his life. He was on the fast track to partnership in his law firm when Apple offered him a job. He looked down the long corridor at this firm and realized it was a dead-end. "What I had to weigh was whether I should stay on a well-defined path to professional and financial success as a lawyer or venture into a creative life in business with no specific destination in mind." Komisar said, "When I considered the risk of staying at my law firm, I had to face the possibility of an unfulfilled life, of working endlessly on things that did not matter and that at times violated my core values."

Komisar opted for The Whole Life Plan. He said, "I chose to pursue what seemed most important to my life at the time."

Too many people are opting for The Deferred Life Plan. I just don't think God intended for us to start enjoying life when we retire at sixty-five. We ought to love what we do so much that we never want to stop doing it.

I have an acronym to counteract TGIF. I know too many people who live for the weekend. On one level there's nothing wrong with that. But it ought to be counterbalanced by TGIM. If you really love what you do, you don't need to dread Monday morning. You can look forward to Monday morning and Friday afternoon.

So here's the $64,000 question: is your ladder leaning against the right wall?

I'm headed to Minneapolis, Minnesota next month to do some reconaissance at a church there. I'm going to drive about two hours north to a town called Alexandria where our family vacation the first twenty years of my life.

It was in a cow pasture near Lake Ida that I felt a call to ministry in 1989. That prayer walk changed the trajectory of my life forever! I'm going to hire a photographer to shoot some pictures for me. I want my office art in the coffeehouse to say something about who I am. I think more people ought to use personal pictures to remind them of who they are and what they're about. So there will be a picture of a cow pasture in my office. I might even turn it into a t-shirt.

I think it's so easy to learn how and forget why. Every once in a while I need to "go back" and remind myself of why I'm doing what I'm doing. The trip to Alexandria is a personal pilgrimage for me.

I had some interesting thoughts today:

Did Paul ever go back to the "mile marker" on the road to Damascus where he was blinded by lightning? Did Jacob ever return to "the ring" where he wrestled with God? Did Zaccheus ever climb the sycamore tree where he first saw Jesus? Did Lazarus ever go back to the tomb he was in for four days? Did Moses ever go back to the burning bush? And was it still burning? Did Peter ever row out to the spot on the Sea of Galilee where he walked on water? Did the paralyzed man ever climb on top of the roof his four friend's lowered him through? Did Jesus ever visit Golgotha post-resurrection?

I have a hunch that they did. I think all of us need to set up sacred memorials along life's journey to remind of us how we got to where we are. To remind us of the faithfulness of God.

I just read a great book titled The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar. Komisar is the former CEO at LucasArts Entertainment. He's also worked with start-ups ranging from WebTV to Tivo. He is a start-up guru. I love his perspective on life and business so I thought I'd blog a few reflections.

Komisar says, "Business isn't primarily a financial institution. It's a creative institution. Like painting and sculpting, business can be a venue for personal expression and artistry, at its heart more like a canvas than a spreadsheet." I love the perspective and that approach to business.

Ephesians 2:10 says we are God's workmanship. It's the Greek word poeima which means "poem" or "work of art" or "magnum opus." You are God's canvass. That is how God sees us. And that's how we ought to see each other. When I preached in Ethiopia last month I had this thought. If you look from a human perspective all you can see if poverty and deformity. But if you look from God's perspective, you see beauty. It's all about your perspective. Are you a horizontal person that looks at life from the human vantage point? Or are you a vertical person that looks at life from God's vantage point?

I'm fired up about Willowcreek's Leadership Summit in August for lots of reasons. I'm actually part of the panel doing the multi-site forum the day before so it's cool to be a small part of the event. In my estimation, it's one of the premiere leadership development events in the world, bar none. It'll be broadcast to more than 100 satellite locations. It'll be videocast to ten countries after the event. And 50,000 people will attend this year!

All of that is to say this. Bill Hybles, the founding pastor of Willowcreek, sent out an email update on the summit today and something he said really resonated with me. He said, "It was a whisper from God that led to the development of the first Leadership Summit in 1995." And I couldn't help but think to myself, "Every move of God seems to start with a tiny whisper from the Still Small Voice of the Holy Spirit." If we tune Him out we miss eternal opportunities. If we tune Him in we experience miracles.

My latest book manuscript, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, is being shopped to publishers right now. I got a few follow-up questions from an interested publisher and I thought I'd post my responses to their questions. I found that the questions really helped me remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm preaching about pursuing your passions on Sunday so this post is particularly fitting. Writing has always been one of my passions. It has also been one of my frustrations :) Here's the Q & A:

Why is Mark writing books—what does he want to accomplish as an author?

My passion is helping people reach their God-given potential. The best metaphor is probably the parable of the talents. I feel called to help people unearth the talent they've buried in the ground. Everything I do is an expression of that passion. It's the way I approach parenting. It's the way I approach pastoring. And it's the way I approach writing.

I write for several reasons. My primary reason for writing is that I feel as called to write as I do to pastor. I hope I leave a legacy in the lives of the people I pastor. But I also want to impact people I'll never meet face-to-face this side of eternity. For the past couple years I've been writing and emailing a weekly evotional (www.evotional.com) that is a written version of my messages. I never cease to be amazed at the way I'll get emails from people in Australia or Germany or South Africa who have been impacted by something I've written. My evotional is read by several thousand people each week so my writing is impacting more people than my preaching. My writing gives me leverage. It allows my voice to be heard by people who are out of earshot.

At the end of the day, I want to be doing things that I'd do even if I didn't get paid to do them. That's how I feel about writing. I don't do it for extrinsic reasons. I do it for intrinsic reasons. I have a philosophy about preaching that applies to writing. You can preach because you have to (you're scheduled to speak) or you can preach because you have to (God has given you something to say). Those are two very different reasons to preach and write! I preach and write because I have to. God has given me something to say.

Does he want to write to the same market that he is reaching via his church, or is he after a broader audience? This specific proposal sounded like he may want to go broader.

I think my writing and preaching resonate with twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings because I'm "in tune" with the issues they're facing. I'm in that life stage. I definitely feel called to be a voice to emerging generations and I love pastoring a church that is 80% single and 80% twenty-something. But I also think my preaching style and writing style resonate with fourteen year-old kids and eighty year-old grandmothers. The way I communicate has universal appeal because I try to use metaphors the way Jesus did.

I'm a both/and thinker. I feel a unique calling and capacity to speak to emerging generations. My first book, ID: The True You, definitely targets the quarterlife crisis. It's primary appeal is to twenty-somethings who are trying to figure out who they are. But preaching and writing are all about versatility. I speak and write on a wide variety of topics that have inter-generational appeal. I think it's the issue or theme that determines the audience. While I feel an affinity with emerging generations, I also want to write for a broader audience. I'll certainly produce titles that target a niche. I'm working on a manuscript, Paint Your Church Purple, that is exclusively written for pastors and church planters. I'm in a message series right now, The Game of Life, that will be converted into a book for twenty-somethings (The Game of Life, Quarterlife Edition, Ages 20-29). But I think most of my titles will appeal to a broader demographic.

I had coffee with someone yesterday who told me there are more than 40,000 interns working in Washington during the summer. And I think there are about 25,000 at any given time during the year. I think part of our calling as a church is to impact the intern community.

We've always had a ton of interns attend NCC over the years. Many of them will be with us for a summer and then move back to DC permanently. Hearing that number, 40,000, made me realize what a unique opportunity we have to impact interns. It'd be cool for someone to start a small group or do a seminar called Intern 101 to help interns adjust to life in DC. I think there is a ministry opportunity that we need to tap into in an even greater way.

We used to be frustrated by the fact that so many NCCers were here for such a short time. How do you build a church when your turnover rate is 50% per year? Then we had a paradigm shift and started viewing everyone who comes to NCC as a missionary that we'll send out in a few months or a few years! We've got to carpe diem, seize the day, and make the most of that small window of opportunity we have to impact people.

Ever feel like a total idiot? I'm ashamed to even reveal this, but hopefully it boosts your self-esteem at my expense. So I've been frustrated for months about not being able to hit "enter" and create paragraphs in blogger. I've been cutting and pasting.

Today Pastor Dave told me I've got to hit "shift enter." It feels like I found the westward route to the Indies! All I want to do is create paragraphs! Shift enter has revolutionized my blogging.

Here's the picture of Ebenezers that I promised. The cinder block wall wasn't there yesterday morning! It's amazing to see this dream become reality day by day!

The Game of Life
06.23.05
Night School: Keep Asking Questions

This evotional continues The Game of Life series. Last week we talked about getting out of the boat. Next week’s evotional will focus on pursuing your passions. This week our stop is night school: keep asking questions.

Deep Thoughts

One of my favorite philosophers, Jack Handey, has written one of my favorite books, Deep Thoughts. I thought a few “deep thoughts” might help get your mind in gear.

One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one. I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn’t know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me.

Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around and pin the guy’s arm behind his back. Now who’s asking the questions?

Children need encouragement. So if a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling.

As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.

If you’re traveling in a time machine, and you’re eating corn on the cob, I don’t think it’s going to affect things one way or the other. But here’s the point I’m trying to make: Corn on the cob sure is good, isn’t it?

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically, it is made up of two separate words—“mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean? It’s a mystery and so is mankind.

Keep Asking Questions

I read a fascinating study a few years ago. According to the research of Rolf Smith, kids ask 125 probing questions a day. As the father of three young children, I believe him. In fact, I did a little experiment myself a few years ago. When my oldest son, Parker, was five years-old, I kept track of his questions for a week. Here is a small sampling:

Where do hills live?
Why do whales live in water?
Why do planes go over cars?
Why do caterpillars turn into butterflies?
Why do stars come out at night?
Why do houses have doors?

My favorite question that Parker asked during my week-long experiment was: “Why do horses bounce?” I said, “Do you mean trot?” He said, “No, I mean bounce.”

As part of my little experiment, I wanted Parker to know that there isn’t always an easy answer to every question. So I decided to turn the tables and ask him a question. I thought long and hard to come up with a question that I thought would stump my five-year-old. The best question I could come up with was: “Parker, why does it rain?” Without a moment’s hesitation, my five year-old lowered his voice to what I’d call a “let me tell you the way the world works” tone, and replied, “Because everything is thirsty.”

I tried.

Take another look at those questions. They aren’t the “two plus two” garden variety. Those questions require tremendous knowledge of geography, oceanography, aeronautics, entomology, astronomy, and architecture. For what it’s worth, I have an educational theory. I think we send our kids to school not just because we want them to get smart. We also send them to school to keep ourselves from feeling dumb!

Here’s the bottom line: kids are interested in everything. There is an innate curiosity that is God-given. That’s why they ask 125 probing questions per day. Want to know how many probing questions adults ask each day? Six! That means that somewhere between childhood and adulthood we lose 119 questions per day!

Here’s my point: keep asking questions.
I love the way Albert Einstein said it: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” I love that last phrase: “never lost a holy curiosity.”

I think that is part of what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.” The people who ask the most questions have the most answers. The people who seek the hardest find the most. And the people who knock on the most doors have the most doors opened for them. It’s that simple. It’s all comes back to a simple principle: you have not because you ask not.

By the way, Jesus didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk. We only have one glimpse into what Jesus was like as a child, but don’t underestimate the significance of what Jesus models even as a twelve year-old. Joseph and Mary took the entire family on a road trip to Jerusalem for the Festival of Passover. When the family went home, Jesus stayed in Jerusalem. He was MIA for three days. Luke 2:46 says, “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”

Jesus was prodigious, but don’t overlook the fact that the Son of God gathered information the same way we do: He asked questions. So if you want to be like Jesus, you need to keep asking questions. He modeled it and commanded it.

The Original Job Description

God gives humankind these instructions in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Genesis 1:28 is humankind’s original job description. I think some people assume that if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit they would have never ventured outside the Garden of Eden. That is a misreading of the text. Long before Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, God told them to “fill the earth and subdue it.”

Stop and think about it. God was inviting Adam and Eve to explore. Everything outside Eden was terra incognita. They could travel 24,759 miles in any direction and never see the same river or mountain twice. There were 196,949,970 square miles of virgin territory to explore.

Not unlike Columbus who was commissioned by the King and Queen of Spain to discover a westward route to the Indies; not unlike Lewis and Clark who were commissioned by President Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase; and not unlike Sir Francis Drake who was commissioned by the Queen of England to circumnavigate the globe; Adam and Eve were commissioned by God to explore planet Earth.

One way we glorify God is by exploring what He’s made and praising Him in the process.

Hold that thought.

The word “education” means “to draw out.” Maybe we’ve got it backwards? If you observed what happens in most classrooms in most schools you’d be tempted to think that education is trying to cram as much information into the cranium as possible. I’m not suggesting that we don’t need information. But education at its best draws us into discovery. Unfortunately, that happens too infrequently in classrooms. I think Plato was right: “Do not train youths to learn by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Here’s a thought: graduating from college is like exiting the Garden of Eden. The learning process doesn’t stop. It starts. That’s why it’s called commencement. Our formal education is preparation for the informal education that begins the day we walk the line and receive our degree.

What does that have to do with Genesis 1:28? Let me connect the dots. The word “rule” in the NIV or “dominion” in the KJV literally means “to draw out.” God wanted Adam and Eve to educate themselves about everything He had made. He was drawing them out. He was inviting them to explore and discover.

Can you imagine studying about an artist like Pablo Picasso without looking at his paintings? Can you imagine studying about a composer like Ludwig Von Beethoven without listening to his music? Can you imagine studying about an author like Shakespeare without reading what he wrote?

It seems absurd doesn’t it? It’s about as absurd as studying about the Creator without studying creation. It’s about as absurd as studying theology without studying neurology or astronomy or ornithology.

Just like an artist who wants others to enjoy his art; just like a composer who wants others to enjoy his music; just like an author who wants others to enjoy his books; God wants us to enjoy His creation. He wants us to explore it and study it and name it and admire it.

What I’m trying to say is this: exploration honors God. The astronomer who charts the stars; the geneticist who maps the human genome; the researcher who seeks a cure for Parkinson’s disease; the oceanographer who explores the barrier reef; the ornithologist who studies and preserves rare bird species; the physicist who tries to catch quarks; the chemist who charts molecular structures; and the theologian who studies God have one thing in common. All of them are explorers. They are fulfilling humankind’s original job description.

Cat and Mouse

I’ve always been intrigued by something Solomon says in Proverbs 25:2: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out the matter is the glory of kings.”

Francis Bacon had a fascinating take on that verse. He said, “Solomon, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of fame and renown, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith, ‘The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out!’; as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, in the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s play-fellows in that game.”

It is almost like this cosmic game of Cat and Mouse. And here’s the exciting thing. The game of life doesn’t end the day we die. That’s when it really begins. Life is the pre-game warm-up.

Brent Curtis says it this way in The Sacred Romance:

He who has been faithful in the small things will be given even greater adventures in heaven. We long for adventure, to be caught up in something larger than ourselves, a drama of heroic proportions. This isn’t just a need for continual excitement; it’s part of our design. Part of the adventure will be to explore the wonders of the new heaven and new earth, the most breathtaking of which will be God himself. We will have all eternity to explore the mysteries of God, and not just explore, but celebrate and share with one another.

Did you know that astronomers now estimate the existence of eighty billion galaxies? That’s more than ten galaxies per person! And it’s taken thousands of years for billions of us to explore part of one planet in one galaxy!

Capture Your Thoughts

Two verses have captivated me lately. Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Write down the revelation.” There is an old proverb: the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. If you don’t write down the revelation then the revelation will be lost.

The other verse is II Corinthians 10:5: “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I think that is one of the most important verses in the entire Bible because the battle is won or lost in the mind. We’ve got to control our thoughts because we become what we think about. I think that verse is multi-dimensional in meaning and application, but I think one way we “take captive every thought” is by writing down our thoughts. It’s that simple.

A few years ago, Catherine Cox did a study of three hundred of history’s greatest minds. She found one common denominator: all three hundred geniuses recorded their thoughts and feelings, their ideas, insights, and observations, their reflections and questions in a journal of one kind of the other.

I think one difference between successful and unsuccessful people is what they do with their ideas. I love the way Atari founder, Nolan Bushnell, put it: “Everyone who's ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”
Successful people have a mechanism for capturing their ideas and then acting on them. Unsuccessful people forget about them. I read a fascinating interview with Jeff Taylor recently and he shared how he got the idea for Monster.com.

He woke up a 4:30 AM one morning and began writing down a flurry of graphics and text on the pad of paper next to his bed. Then he got up and went to a coffee shop and spent the next five hours jotting down his business plan for the job search engine.

He said, “It would have been pretty easy to have rolled over and gone back to sleep, and that would have been a multibillion-dollar opportunity I would have let go by.”

Here’s what I’m trying to say: write stuff down. I think it’s a spiritual discipline. That’s why I blog. That’s why I write notes in the margin of every book I read. That’s why I write stuff on napkins from restaurants and barf bags from airplanes.

For what it’s worth, Leonardo Da Vinci never went anyplace without his notebook. He was constantly recording ideas and observations. Even on his deathbed he took detailed notes about his symptoms. We still have seven thousand pages of Da Vinci’s journals. In 1994, Bill Gates purchased eighteen pages for $30.8 million!

I’m not sure our thoughts will ever be worth that amount of money, but they are worth capturing. Especially God ideas! In the words of Victor Hugo, “All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”

You are What You Read

II Timothy 4:13 is one of those verses that you barely notice, but there is an important principle buried in the biblical footnote. Paul says, “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.”

Here’s my translation: take a book with you wherever you go.

That’s what I’ve done since I graduated from college. I never go anyplace without a book. I read on airplanes. I read on the metro. I read at restaurants while I’m waiting to be seated. If I’ve got a few minutes between meetings I’ll read a few pages.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always been inspired by Abdul Kassem Ismael, the Grand Vizier of Persia in the 10th century. He was such an avid reader that he took his 117,000 volume library with him whenever and wherever he traveled. His books were carried by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.

So what’s your excuse?

I know that most of us feel like we’re too busy to read, but if you simply put a book in your bathroom, there isn’t anybody who couldn’t read a book a month. Some of you have even more potential than that! It’s about redeeming the time and being wise with the spare moments in our day.

Stanford physician, Walter Bortz, coined the term disuse syndrome to describe how negligence in the area of physical activity can destroy health. It’s a basic principle of physiology: any part of the body that falls into disuse will atrophy. That certainly includes the mind.

I remember reading a sobering statistic a few years ago. A study found that the average college graduate reads two books a year. I just don’t think that’s good stewardship. I’m not saying that all of our learning ought to come from reading books. Books are just one piece of the pie. But I’m not sure that two books a year is good stewardship of your mind.

The word “disciple” comes from the Greek word mathetes which means “learner.” By definition, a disciple is someone who never stops learning. Your brain only weighs about three pounds. It’s the size of a softball. But did you know that neurologists estimate that you have the capacity to learn something new every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the next three hundred million years? God designed us with unlimited storage capacity! You were designed to never stop learning!

I read a fascinating book recently titled The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs. It’s subtitled: one’s man humble quest to become the smartest person in the world. To make a long story short, A.J. Jacobs read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. That’s thirty-two volumes. That’s 33,000 pages. That’s forty-four million words!

Jacobs said he did an “intellectual swan dive” after college. He said, “I crammed my cranium with pop culture jetsam.” If we aren’t careful, we can fill our minds with meaningless things. The average American is bombarded with thousands of advertisements every day. There is more information in a Sunday edition of The Washington Post than the average person living in the 18th century would digest in a lifetime. There are hundreds of magazines and thousands of books published each week. Even if you’re in great remote control condition, it’ll still take several minutes to click through the hundreds of channels available on digital cable. And you could spend the rest of your life googling the Internet. Two words: information overload.

Jacobs said he knew the names of ‘N Sync’s singers, including their choreographer. “But this meant anything profound got pushed out. I could talk confidently about the doughnut-eating Homer, but I’d forgotten all about the blind guy who wrote long poems.”

Learning is not a luxury. The most important law of ecology is this: L ≥ C. In other words, for an organism to survive, the rate of learning must be equal to or greater than the rate of change. In his book Megatrends 2000, John Naisbitt says, “Learning how to learn is what it’s all about.” Alvin Toffler adds, “The illiterate of the future are not those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Learning is a stewardship issue! Mathematically speaking, the Great Commandment is 25% intellectual. The mind is one of four dimensions of love referenced by Jesus in Matthew 22:37. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.”

I remember getting a cup from Amazon.com a few years ago with a quote that is one of my all-time favorites. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

That’s a pretty good approach to life: keep learning!

I just an email from an NCCer that made me laugh at me. For what it's worth, I have this conviction that the healthiest people in the world are the people who laugh at themselves the most. This NCCer was in a t-shirt shop and they started thinking about "Pastor Mark" quotes that could be sayings on t-shirts. Here are a few they came up with: "let's connect"; "let me tie this in a knot"; and "I am so out of time." I didn't realize I said those things so much that they've become "markisms." I got a good laugh. Of course, they forgot my personal favorite: "let me move toward a close." I've been thinking for quite some time about a clothing line that would enable people to wear their faith on their sleeve. But I now have another idea. What if we wore shirts that made fun of ourselves? It'd keep all of us humble! By the way, I'm taking nominations and suggestions.

In case your interested, Ken Dean did a great article on emerging churches in an e-zine called The Church Report. Here's a link to the article.

http://www.thechurchreport.com/content/view/423/32/

Here's an Excerpt:

Pastor Mark Batterson founded National Community Church in the movie theatre at Union Station in Washington, DC, and after filling multiple services, moved "up the tracks" on the transit system to Ballston Mall and started an additional venue in the movie theatre there. He says, "Our strategy is to be in the middle of the marketplace, to take the church where the people are instead of trying to get them to come to us." Batterson describes their macro vision as trying to be part of a movement instead of single location. "The Temple was a place where people went to meet with God, but the Tabernacle was a meeting place that followed God. It was the first mobile church. When the cloud moved so did the Tabernacle and National is more of a Tabernacle model."
Other churches like The Next Level in Denver, CO, are another exception to the typical post-boomer gathering of believers. At their Tuesday night normal meeting time, approximately 1500 mostly young people gather in rented or shared facilities that have changed over time. Once meeting in a warehouse, they now use the facilities of Denver First Church of the Nazarene on Tuesday nights. They eye also have an additional meeting called "The Core Gathering" on Sunday nights, using the facilities of Greenwood Community Church.
David Sherwood, lead pastor of Mosaic in Fort Worth, TX, describes his ideal facility dream as "finding an old, cool-looking Episcopal Church that we could renovate and turn into a Rave." Sherwood also says many of his contemporaries expect future changes in our country that will affect the old church models. Many younger church leaders believe the tax advantages given to churches will go away and, "We know we are going to have to have a better business model with facilities that are used by the community seven days a week. We will build community centers with church people as the board of directors."
Interestingly, National Community Church has purchased an old building on Capitol Hill and is renovating it into a first class coffee house with offices on the second floor and a caféstyle large meeting area in the basement. The only building they currently own is a "Third Place" where they will serve coffee and connection space in the hub of our nation’s capital.

I just read a newsletter from a missionary who is in a country that can't be named. He refers to it as "Narnia." What he wrote really resonated with me having just returned from Ethiopia. Sometimes convenience is a curse. Here are some excerpts:

The last two weeks I have been enjoying how easy North America is. All of the roads are paved and well marked. I can use a visa card to buy petrol at the pump. Machines in the bank "read" the checks I deposit and spit out a receipt. At the post office a machine weighs my letters and spits out a stamp. I can connect my computer to my cell phone and send e-mail from anywhere. I can buy anything off the Internet and have it shipped to my house. Everything works, everything is relatively inexpensive, everything is designed for convenience.

The ease of life also carries over into spiritual things. There are churches in every town. There are Christian bookstores, radio stations, periodicals, conferences, and information everywhere. We constantly meet people who love Jesus in banks, post offices, and public parks. Ironically, it is this ease of spirituality which can make it more difficult to love and serve Jesus with diligent obedience.

In the words of G.K. Chesterton:

"The point is, that the [Christians in America] are not left alone, but rather deafened and bewildered with raucous and despotic advice. They are not like sheep without a shepherd. They are more like one sheep whom twenty-seven shepherds are shouting at."

I know that in Narnia we sometimes wish for more freedom, convenience, and availability of teaching. I want to encourage you to be careful what you wish for. There is a blessing inherent to living in a country that is frustrating, isolated, and spiritually challenging. In some ways it is easier to live for Jesus in Narnia because there are fewer distractions.

So my friends and the saints of Narnia, let us be thankful for every frustration, opposition, and inconvenience. They unwittingly serve as a filter--they allow our souls to remain uncluttered and our attention fixed on the one true Shepherd. In difficult times and difficult places, Jesus tends to be heard much more clearly. What a gift the hardship of Narnian living affords us. Let us be sure to take advantage of it.

I have certain prayers that I pray all the time. They are almost prayer mantras. One of my prayer mantras is "help me help people." I pray that all the time as I prepare messages or go into meetings or write evotionals. One of my deepest desires is to help people. There is no greater feeling that knowing that something you said or did really made a difference in someone's life. But sometimes I feel so impotent. I have this acute awareness that I need God to help me so that I can help others.

As part of my message on Sunday I talked about blogging as a way of "taking captive every thought" (II Corinthians 10:5). An NCCer who is part of my ministry mentoring group launched into the blogosophere this week (www.transformmymind.blogspot.com/). I love the title of his blog because I love double entendres! By the way, I even like saying "double entendre." Try it. It feels so good coming off your tongue. And it makes you feel smarter than you really are. Anyways, back to the name of the blog. He titled it bittersweet: the flavor of life. That is so cool I only wish I would