What do I mean by a funnel?  Well this is an analogy that just came to me so please bear with me.  But if you think of Church as pulling in from all types of people in all sorts of situations (the wide part of the funnel) and we work to help disciple people and, probably unfortunately, force them all out of the same small end of the funnel.  It is almost like a twelve step program.  You follow the pattern and you come out the other end of the funnel a nice perfect church goer right?

But what do you do when people don’t fit into your funnel?

Mike Yaconelli wrote a pretty cool book years ago called Messy Spirituality and in it he talked about a young couple in the church who had gotten pregnant before getting married which normally results in quietly getting married while everyone ignores the issue or the couple completely disappearing from the church.  This couple however was welcomed back with a wedding reception after their elopement.  Shortly after reading this I was faced with just this situation.  A young couple in our church found them selves “in trouble” as my parents’ generation put it.  They got married and we as a church threw a reception for them to let them know we loved them.  They are still together to this day and I am so happy they are still in a Godly loving community.

I have found however that even though I hate the idea of the funnel I am so used to it that I don’t know how to function without it.  If there isn’t a program where you take this class and join that ministry I really am not sure what to do with myself.  “Be a Christian”, “Live out the Gospel” you may say but I am still doing a lot of de-toxing when it comes to these things so that isn’t as easy as it looks.

I have recently found myself again in a situation where people didn’t fit in the funnel.  They did things out of order and I am struggling to know how exactly to deal with it because it is messy.  There isn’t one right answer and I want there to be one right answer.

What I have found is grace is messy.  It finds us in the strangest places and brings us along providing all that it demands.  You really begin to see the power of God’s grace when you live outside the funnel.  When you are involved with people who don’t follow the “right” paths, you see God all the brighter.

Everyone has heard of Mardi Gras but how many of us know that it is connected to Lent and the Christian Tradition?  I best most people don’t make the connection.

You know spending most of my walk with the Lord in modern Evagelical churches I was never really taught much about older traditions in the Church.  Having gone to a Lutheran church when I was first saved I have at least heard some of the titles.

Today is Ash Wednesday, it marks the beginning of Lent.  Lent is a traditional time of preparation, via repentance, prayer, alms giving and self-denial, for the Holy Week and celebration or Easter or Resurrection Sunday.  Mardi Gras literally “Fat Tuesday” was the last chance to eat the rich fatty foods before a period of fasting.  A sort of “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” kind of day.

Most people think of Lent as the 40 days before Easter but many denominations count these times differently. (See this article for more information)  No matter the duration you observe the purpose should be the same.

No matter which way you choose to observe the season it is a wonderful experience.   The years when I have taken is seriously it has been an enriching time of growth.   Take some prayerful time to consider what God would have you to do to observe Lent and prepare for the Holiest of day in the Christian year.

There are traditionally three types of Justice to be observed in the Lenten Season: Justice to God, yourself, and others.

(God)Dedicate more time to prayer by giving up: TV, Video Games, sleep or something else that takes up your time.

(Self)What can you do?  Many people give up a certain type of food: meat, red meat, caffeine, candy and sweets.

(Others)Dedicate the money you save in doing these thing to give away to others, your local church, homeless shelter or other ministry.

I am live blogging from the Act Like Men conference from Veritas Community Church.  Check out the live feed.

It is kicking off with awesome worship 300 men singing unto the Lord. (no prom love songs here)

Pastor Brad is welcoming the crowd, today is going to be a day of speaking to men as men.

I love Joe Byler’s Worship we hit the old hymns and sing song that are perfect for men, they sing of the power and love of God in a way that doesn’t make me feel  like I am Jesus’ Boyfriend.

No Guilt of life

no fear in death

This is the powe of Christ in me

From life’s first cry to final breath

Jesus commands my destiny.

The call from scriptures is not to get in touch with your feminine side, we don’t have one.  It is a call to true manhood that we are called to.  Our idea of man hood has been shattered by sin.

Life working against you is an opportunity to see God’s grace because you now understand how you are working against him when he tries to work in your life. — Dan Montgomery

Dan Montgomery makes a good point that without proper church discipline you will never challenge men properly to rise up.  You will build a culture of passivity or sin because as long as you aren’t doing anything obviously sinful you are OK.

You must start to think differently about how you use your time.

@nicknye made the point that you can not confuse efforts with results and that he sometimes make the mistake of confusing business to commitment.

Now hitting the Q&A for the first time.  We are hearing from some awesome men on how to practically live as men.

How can you be masculine without offending women, because when you are a Godly man you are easy to follow.

Too many men are preoccupied with find a wife and not thinking about becoming a man — Dan Montgomery

All right not on to how to act like men in your family.

Many men have selfish reasons for getting married and having children.

See @jasonrfisher for all other updates.  Or see my witter round up tomorrow.

A recent Time magazine article looks at just that. The author notes that these prosperity preachers have been telling people for years:

That God will “make a way” for poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house.” The results, he says, “were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers.”

It also caused some people to ignore their current income and the obvious results of an ARM assuming that God would have doubled their income by now, but in most cases he hasn’t.

That branch of the church has been left with very little good financial sense, people are just as in debt as the rest of the world. I myself and struggling with the hangover of a little of this easy credit drug, I do not feel able to give what I would like to because of my current financial situation, and believe me, I am not as bad off as some people I know. Or lack of biblical sense and financial sense along with the financial situation of the time has left us washed up on the beach after being pounded against the sand.

It seems that we have gotten into a place as a people where we don’t want to know about God through old fashioned ideas like doctrine; we simply want to know God through what ever means that could be. We are super humans who can ignore common sense and the rules of the universe and human nature. You can not know someone if you know nothing about them; human or divine.

I am becoming more and more convinced that it will be this group of “Christians” that will be part of the great falling away because they have no root of doctrine to hold to but are like that double minded man James talked about; thrown about by every wave of doctrine. Orthodoxy (correct thinking) leads to orthopraxy (right living).

Extreme Christianity III

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship.

– Rom 12:1

I have read this passage many times, in fact it is one that I have memorized but the context has alluded me to a great degree.  Most commentators divide the book with this verse as the beginning of the second part of the letter, which may be true but the word therefore means that the beginning of the book predicated this verse.  Why would we present ourselves as living sacrifices? Because of all the reasons listed by the apostle in the first 11 chapters.  What it is in those chapters?  The greatest dissertation about on justification by faith in Christ.

Just go and read it out loud to your self it is wonderful…

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe….we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…

It is this that drives the therefore of 12:1.  Can any of us say we have presented our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord?  I doubt it.  What would it be like if we would strive in every area of our life to bring Glory to the Lord and his Gospel?  If we lived this life not as our own but purely as God’s what could we accomplish.

I have heard it said that the Christian life is one of moderation but I am starting do doubt that.  I believe it may be intended to be an extreme one, one of extreme love and sacrifice.  I just don’t like what that looks like and how to do it.

Ok, I am trying really hard not to be so critical but on our way to King’s Island this past weekend my wife was flipping through some radio stations and stopped on some music that isn’t really my style but I started listening because it seemed pretty good.  Half way through I had to ask, “Is this a Christian song or a pop love song?”  My wife laughed out loud and responded with “That is why I love you, you are straight forward about that stuff.  It is a Christian song”

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Last week Heather and I took a dinner train excursion for our anniversary and we were seated at a table with a lovely older couple.  It is because of this trip I decided that I need to get a book on the art of conversation.  We were able to maintain a slight level of conversation but when it comes down to it I am good at talking about three things and they are all forbidden in pleasant company.
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