This section of Bible includes a story often referenced when discussing the tithe, the story of Abraham and Melchizedek. I have already written my thoughts on this elsewhere so if you are interested feel free to read them.

My personal thoughts on the matter are much more unpretentious: “I don’t want to do that.” I have a wife and a daughter, whom I would prefer to not endanger by inviting a stranger into my home. I understand that this maybe wrong in some fashion but I can not avoid it. I do not pull over to help people on the side of the road if my wife and daughter are with me; ok I don’t really pull over if I am alone either. I think about it and I have gotten better at actually doing it but I wish I cared more.

Regardless, I am not sure how to go about this. I am not going to invite the guy on the corner with the “will work for food” sign into my home but I have often wondered if he is an angel. I am not so naïve as to think all of those people are supernatural beings but I suppose all of the strangers welcomed into homes through history weren’t all angels either.

Shrek even went as far to say that “Twas the night before Christmas” is the best Christmas story.  I watch the story of the British teacher being put in jail for allowing the children in her class to name a teddy bear ‘Muhammad’ I think they are extreme but at least they take their God and their religion seriously.  I suppose it just bothers me and there is very little I can do about it but make sure my family honor Jesus above all but I hate to watch Jesus be systematically removed from CHRISTmas and replaced by the spirit of commercialism.

Almost three years ago I made a new year’s resolution to read the Bible cover to cover I assumed it would take me an entire year, because that is what all the plans I found online say, but it only took me nine months. The following year I asked Dale to Join me and we created the Bible forum, which is now defunct, and we read through the Bible with several of our friends it was great because I got to hear several different views on things that I may not have thought about personally.

This year I plan to read through the Bible again and I ask you to join me. I am still deciding on the details but it will be a one year plan, perhaps cover to cover, perhaps chronologically, perhaps a mix of old and new testament. But if you are a Christian I implore you to read God’s word and make it a focus of your life in the coming year. Here is a past post from Dale Sackrider on reading the Bible that may help you understand where I am coming from.

http://www.blog.godfidence.org/2007/07/02/what-does-it-mean-to-read-the-bible/

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I suggest you start with this article. And if you have time watch the video’s the one with Greg Hawkins almost had me jumping out of my chair and screaming “YES, thank you!!!” but I was at work.

Basically, Willowcreek has discovered that the popular model of church which says “participation in church activities produces disciples” just ain’t so, that simply being part of churchianity doesn’t make you any more of a disciple (defined by WC as one who is characterized by their love of God and love of people). They have done surveys of 31 congregations including their own and have found 5 segments of the church population — Exploring, growing, close, centered and stalled. Their discover it that the church is really only doing well meeting the needs of the ‘early’ explorers and growers but as people grow enough in their relation ship to ‘centered’ on Christ they are more dissatisfied with church and they either leave or ‘stall’. Oddly enough they also discovered that those people who have their lives centered on Christ are the most likely to be dissatisfied with church and looking to leave.

I couldn’t help but screaming “Duh!” it is the way I have felt about the local church for quite some time, but perhaps when one of the worlds most influential churches says it someone will listen. This probably has been one of the best things I have read in quite some time, and it may very well change the face of many local churches.

Please make time to watch the videos linked in the article or here because I believe this may be world changing.

Greg Hawkins short version (3 minutes)

Greg Hawkins Long version (13 mintes)

Bill Hybels Video

Key finding of WillowCreek Study — If you can’t watch the videos.

It was difficult because I agreed with many of their points but without getting to deep into issues it is hard to disassociate myself as a follower of Christ from those who have left the gospel behind but kept the “Christian” language in order to attract nominal Christians and their tithe dollars.

The greater part of the conversation centered on the business of religion and the apparent lunacy and hypocrisy of those who are famous in the business of religion. I can’t say I don’t agree with many of their points and I did my best to point out with my limited time and common language that Jesus probably agrees with them as well but I don’t know if I did much good. I want so much to be able to accurately proclaim the love of Christ and his gospel but I still am unsure of how to even go about it.

The changes I feel are hard enough to express with a language common to those in the church, like our negative denotation of religion, let alone someone on the outside.

Perhaps more common yet is the tendency to assume the gospel, whatever that is, while devoting creative energy and passion to other issues—marriage, happiness, prosperity, evangelism, the poor, wrestling with Islam, wrestling with the pressures of secularization, bioethics, dangers on the left, dangers on the right—the list is endless. This overlooks the fact that our hearers inevitably are drawn toward that about which we are most passionate. Every teacher knows that. My students are unlikely to learn all that I teach them; they are most likely to learn that about which I am most excited. If the gospel is merely assumed, while relatively peripheral issues ignite our passion, we will train a new generation to downplay the gospel and focus zeal on the periphery. It is easy to sound prophetic from the margins; what is urgently needed is to be prophetic from the center. What is to be feared, in the famous words of W. B. Yeats in “The Second Coming,” is that “the centre does not hold.” Moreover, if in fact we focus on the gospel, we shall soon see that this gospel, rightly understood, directs us how to think about, and what to do about, a substantial array of other issues. These issues, if they are analyzed on their own, as important as they are, remain relatively peripheral; ironically, if the gospel itself is deeply pondered and remains at the center of our thinking and living, it powerfully addresses and wrestles with all these other issues.

The Gopel

The audio can also be found here.

His story started when a friend of his asked him who he would most like to smoke pot with in all of history and his reply was Jesus Christ. Assuming that this would make some people upset (as if all of his other jokes wouldn’t have) he began to use a preaching and debate technique of answering the opposition.”

“Now, he shouldn’t say that, he isn’t a very good Christian” he said in a voice I really think I have heard a Pastor use before to imitate his detractors.

“Why, because I want to hang out more with Jesus? I think that makes me a great Christian, and you don’t know if Jesus smoked when he was on earth, it isn’t recorded but you just don’t know, you just don’t know.”

Jesus had long hair, a beard traveled around in sandals with twelve other guys with no jobs, he had to be a hippie and hippies smoke pot, was his conclusion but he also did a part where he acted out the smoking act, and at the end, parodied Jesus miracle of feeding five thousand, by Jesus turning seeds into a couple pounds of pot.

A stretch, sure; blasphemy I doubt it; interesting, to me it was I think it was. If Jesus first coming was today, how would it look different? Now in this country it is illegal to smoke pot so I think Jesus would obey that law but I believe there is a benefit to relating the Gospel story to different cultures just as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did. They all wrote different ways while trying to read different audiences and the church has been trying to reach the church for years. The problem is those people we need to reach are no longer part of a church generation; they are not familiar with our stories, traditions, or ways of thinking. We must stand less like Jesus in the synagogue and more like Paul on Mars Hill, quoting their philosophers and their poets quoting things about Zeus but telling them about Jehovah. I pray God gives me the wisdom to do just that.

How many classics have you only read those passages that were required reading in high school or college? There is value in this method of study, but what a shame that we have neglected so many great books, because we see them as ‘required reading’. We forget that they are great books! Sadly, the Bible is often lost in this same method of reading.

The Bible is a wonderful collection of writing that should be read in its entirety! Did you read the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye? Or maybe the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis? Imagine if we read those books like we read the Bible. You could certainly study them, pulling out passages to be dissected, gaining better understanding of what the author was saying. But would you then say you had read them? You wouldn’t think of starting in chapter 8 of Book 3 of the Left Behind series. And so we ask, what does it mean to read the Bible?

That’s a simple question right? Well, maybe not. Most Christians read the Bible like a text book. We are told often that the Bible is a Life Manual, a guide to Righteous living. Life’s How-To Guide. The problem with looking at the Bible this way is that we start to read it that way. Nothing kills the story of a great book like studying it.

Bible study and Bible reading are different both in purpose and process. When I read for the study of a work, I pick it apart. I contemplate things like why did the author say “dread poured into me from my head to my toes” instead of “I found I was gripped with fear, unable to move”. I look for symbolism and parody. I don’t read the whole story again, and I’m not concerned to start from the beginning. I can jump from chapter 8 to chapter 3 without stumbling over the story itself.

When I read for the sake of the story however, I look to understand the whole story. I want to meet the characters, the antagonist and the protagonist. I want to understand the conflict, get lost in the struggle, hope for the hero, and despise the villain! My purpose is to experience the story being told. When I read for this purpose, I read from the beginning. I try not to stumble over the mode and method of the work. They are details that don’t add to the story and so, I don’t focus on them. My purpose determines my process.

The Bible is one of the greatest stories ever told! Everything you could hope to find in the latest novel is found in this Book! Have you ever read it? Maybe you have studied it, and covered the ‘required reading’ but never enjoyed the story itself. If you have never read this Book in its entirety, allow me to recommend it to you. It truly is the Greatest Story ever told.

I know several families that foster and adopt children as a ministry and do a great job of it.  My own spiritual father (Don Nonnenman) had more children through their house then I can remember, but it seems like we should be able to eliminate the need for orphanages if we were truly to live missionally.

             Heather and I have talked about our desire to have a lot of kids in our home although not all biologically ours.  We have decided to wait until we are done having our own to bring others into the house, but I can’t wait for that day.  I don’t try to be cynical but I can’t help but notice that a lot of the churches and Christians that I know are more interested in receiving the blessing of God in the form of a new car than helping a widow or an orphan.  If the missional church is going to be more than just the newest catch phrase for churches to use in their marketing it is going to take all of us as Christians stepping up and making sacrifices in our own lives that help those around us.