Genesis 1

Good morning! Long time no blog. This winter and spring I would like to blog through the book of Genesis. Nothing too deep – I’m not pulling out the Hebrew or anything – but rather some observations I pull from the text that teach me about God and/or challenge the way I live for Him.

So we start with Genesis 1, which tells the story of how God made this world come into existence. The five most important things I learned from this chapter:

1. God created. Some of you are thinking, “Yes! We get to hear Kai’s wisdom about how he thinks God created the world.” Well, I am glad to share that with you: I don’t know. I have no idea, and I don’t care to ask until I get to heaven. We were not meant to know how God created the earth (I believe the topic can be answered by Romans 11:33-36, just like Job’s deep questions could be), and if we approach this chapter trying to figure that out, then we miss out on a ton of truths that are more significant and more substantial than that.

   So today, rejoice with me and be in awe of God with me over this fact: God created the earth from nothing.Have you ever tried to bake a cake from nothing? I’m not talking about from scratch… I’m talking about from nothing. Of course, it’s impossible. It’s absolutely incredible to me that God was able to make an entire universe out of nothing. There was no source, no blueprint, no instructions, no store to buy supplies from; God wasthe source, the architect, the artist, the creator. Our universe is so unbelievably complex in every sense, and I am in awe of a God who is simply able to create that.

   Next time you enjoy creation, let it sing to you about the power, greatness, and love of God. (“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” – Romans 1:20)

2. God created us in His image. Man is the crown jewel and final piece of God’s creation. Why? Because He made us in His image and likeness. From the very moment we began growing we had the image of God in us. Let this truth encourage you today! If you are feeling discouraged, incapable, or not good enough, remember that you were modeled after the same God who created our vast universe. Your potential to grow, learn, love, be creative, find peace and make an impact for His Kingdom is incredible!

   Also, let this truth encourage you because every person you meet today is also made in the image and likeness of God. No matter how their past has formed their present, they have the same incredible redemptive qualities you do (even if they are buried pretty deep) because they are made in God’s image. Every person has the potential to love, serve, make an impact, put others before themselves, etc. because they were made in the image of God. Even if the potential has been diminished significantly, no person is beyond hope of ever coming to that point.

3. God rested after completing what he started. (Technically this is Genesis 2:1-3, but who’s counting?) This truth was a big encouragement to me because I am not living a balanced life right now. In order to keep up all my responsibilities, I have too often taken away time for resting and replenishing. Even though Jesus would later say that the Sabbath is made for man (Mark 2:27), it’s good to know that God used – and, in fact, created – that time too. In the age we live in, observing a Sabbath is harder than ever, because there’s always something else to do. But the more we pour ourselves out into our work, families, and the Kingdom, the more we need this time. A little bit of rest (and a little bit of God during that rest) will go a long way.
4. There is evidence that the Trinity has existed since the beginning of time. In the beginning, God created (1:1). The Word, Jesus, was with God in the beginning (John 1:1). The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (1:2). You’ve probably heard those. But I missed this one – “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (1:26). It’s not just a singular God, but a plural – Father, Son, and Spirit, three in one. The Trinity is a concept I’ll never understand, but it supports the validity of that concept (to me, anyway) when I see that all three persons have existed eternally.
5. Be fruitful. What’s the first thing that God did after he created man? He blessed them and said to them, “Be frutiful and multiply and fill the earth.” God’s identity, characters, and desires have been consistent since the beginning of creation. He wanted man – he created man – to be fruitful and enjoy the fullness of life. What a loving Father! It encourages me to know that God wants that for my life and for yours as well. I want to make that happen even more than it is now and I know that starts with praising Him as creator and putting Him at the center.

why i love my mom

My mom has had a profound influence on the person I am today. And in order to prove that to you, I typed in my journal entry from May 23rd, 2009 to this post.

Some background info about this entry: I had been dealing with some heart palpitations that had flared up and were freaking me out, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. As much as I was glad there was nothing wrong, I hated not being able to understand why they started in the first place, and I wanted there to be a way to fix it. Of course, I ended up having to man up and learn to deal with it. This day was the turning point in my own life in coming to terms with that. Here’s the entry:

Yesterday, I had a breakdown. We were coming back from our attempt to get my blood drawn (too busy), and I was really discouraged from all this heart stuff. Instead of answers from the cardiologist, he wanted more data, so I’m back to wearing a heart monitor and collecting more info. He said he wants me to understand what’s normal… i.e. I might have to learn to deal with it.

Mom was telling me the same thing, and out of all the things I want to be told, that’s the last ting I wanted to hear. I started to cry. And when she pulled in the driveway, she hugged me and started to cry too and said, “I Love you and I don’t know why this is happening, but we’re going to get through this. My heart is breaking for you and I would give anything for you to not have to go through this, but I can’t.”

I just have to think more positively. With God’s help, we can get through this. I’ll remember mom’s words for a long time.

P.S. Please don’t call me a pansy for crying…

st. patrick

Part of my morning routine (which is inconsistent, but consistent enough to label it as such) is to read Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. They have daily morning and evening prayers which are intended to be prayed by a community, but can also be prayed by an individual.

Today’s morning prayer, not surprisingly, includes material from St. Patrick. I don’t know very much about him, so I was glad they included some biographical information int the book. He was from Britain, but was kidnapped and taken to Ireland; after working in slavery for six years, he escaped back to Britain. But, soon after, “He convinced his superiors to let him return to Ireland in 432, not to seek revenge for injustice but to seek reconciliation and to spread his faith.” He ended up having a thirty-year ministry in Ireland, and he established churches and monastic communities across the country.

In the book, they attribute the following prayer to him:

‎”Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.”

That quote definitely encourages me to take a second look at the way I live my life. Do others see Christ in me? What do I need to change to ensure that is the case? Those are questions that are definitely worth asking, and St. Patrick’s prayer is an ideal we should all be pursuing. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

P.S. I wholeheartedly recommend that book! The introduction makes an outstanding case for taking part of traditions seen as ‘liturgical’ in nature. It will definitely inspire more blog posts.

P.P.S. How did St. Patrick’s Day become a celebration of alcohol for so many? I’m sure there is an answer… it just doesn’t make much sense to me.

transcendence and immanence

It’s hard for me to wrap my small, human mind around these enormous concepts and come to a complete understanding of how they exist together, but lately I have tried. Our God is god of the macro and the micro, the large and the little, the big picture and the small picture. He is creator of the galaxies NASA is currently discovering and the handful of protons, neutrons, and electrons in every atom. He speaks through his power and majesty and through a still small voice.

I see transcendence in Exodus 19. In this chapter, God decides to come down to Mount Sinai to talk to Moses, and it will happen within the sight of the Israelite people. But he is so great and powerful – and his presence so overwhelming – that they have to wash their clothes and spiritually prepare themselves just to see him. (Even the mountain itself was off-limits, because it had to be set apart as holy.) When the moment finally came for God to descend on the mountain, “there was thunder and lighting, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast… Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire… and the whole mountain trembled violently.” Even though they were prepared, the people still trembled (wouldn’t you if you saw a sight like that?).

It’s hard to believe that the same God who did that left his Spirit to exist and work in and around our lives here on earth – and even live inside of us. That’s immanence, and that’s the aspect of God I sometimes forget is real. The same God who rules over everything not only loves and cares about each one of us individually, but lives inside all those who have come to rely on his grace! To have those two existing together creates an indescribable God.

 

Last weekend my friend and current roommate, Ben, went to the Passion Worship Leaders’ Collective in Atlanta. Matt Redman was there and did a live recording of his new songs for his upcoming album (which, by the way, is going to be a HUGE blessing for worship leaders around the country; thank you, God, for working through him). In one of those still unreleased songs, he expressed a good view of immanence and transcendence existing together:

“You are higher than we ever could imagine, and closer than our eyes could ever see.”

When I sang that, images filled my mind of vast galaxies. Then, I imagined the Holy Spirit dwelling in my body, and even behind the back of my eyes. Together, both of these form a picture of our God; he is higher and closer than all else.

hesed

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Hosea 6:6

 

I always thought this was a “good” verse. But did you know that what the NIV translates as “mercy” is only the tip of the iceberg? Yesterday, I learned that “mercy” is translated from the Hebrew hesed, which is the biblical word for a committed, faithful, not-based-on-emotions love. In a nutshell, consider it “unconditional love.”

So change out the word “mercy” for “unconditional love” and see how you read the verse differently. Then, substitute the Israelites’ worship practices for our worship practices today.

For I desire unconditional love, not empty singing,
and acknowledgment of God rather than tossing your spare change into the offering basket.

For I desire unconditional love, not weekly church attendance,
and acknowledgment of God rather than verbose public prayers.

It all goes back to God’s core desires of how we live our lives. Instead of being satisfied with our spiritual lives when we act out our traditional worship practices, he calls us to let our worship transcend those things by loving Him and others unconditionally. The same way he showed his love for us through the cross and empty tomb. The same way he left a door open for Israel as they turned away from him time after time. The same way Ruth stuck with Naomi, no matter what (I think of this story whenever I hear the word ‘hesed’).

I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a long way to go with this. Unconditional love is a concept many in the church have heard many times, but the scope of that concept is still something that escapes us. What would our lives look like if we unconditionally loved God and others 24 hours a day?  Would we serve others more? Would we invest as much in the worlds of entertainment and sports? Would we make our entire resources available to our friends and neighbors? Would our churches become more welcoming? Would they get their hands dirtier?

Not sure. But this much I do know: Christ’s love would be spread… and it would be done so quickly and effectively.

the marketing side of outreach

I am just into the beginning stages of taking on the “marketing” duties at Crestview. It’s an area that I’m pretty interested to see how it really works in the church, and without a doubt I have quite a bit to learn about the subject. At our church, our “marketing” basically needs to be built from the ground up. (I use the word “marketing” in quotes because there are some differences between business marketing and church marketing, most of which I have yet to put into words.) I’m happy to be able to explore this area, though, because there will be a lot of things to learn from it for future church planting.

Anyway, one immediate benefit of digging deeper into this subject is that Seth Godin’s blog immediately became more pertinent to me. Which is a good thing, because Seth Godin is one of the wisest and most innovative minds in the business world today (in my humble, non-businessman’s opinion). Tonight I came upon this post of his, where he writes about the fact that people might realize they need something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will act to meet that need (just like a person who realizes he needs to lose weight still chooses to eat a bag of potato chips). His thought was, “If you want to help people lose weight, you need to sell them something they demand, like belonging or convenience, not lecture them about what they need.”

Really good quote. Really good thought. My question: how does this apply to the church?

One of the things I’ve struggled with at Crestview is that if we just do the traditional marketing efforts in the community (newspaper ads, billboards, etc.), many of the unchurched and dechurched are likely to tune it out (or jump to conclusions) as soon as they see the word “church.” Same thing would be the case if we just decided to start quoting Scripture. A person may realize that he/she needs to make some changes, but just seeing an advertising piece about a church has to have more than a website or a Scripture reference to encourage him/her to act on it.

Godin’s statement has some truth in the church. But at the same time, you don’t want to sell the Gospel short by overemphasizing things that you think people might want (especially something like convenience; trying to manufacture convenience is a big reason for the consumer culture that’s developing in churches today).  So there’s a paradox between those two schools of thought – and really, you’re better off catering to both. And if you do the job right, you’ll help somebody realize that what they really need takes care of what you think you need.

Thus concludes some poorly crafted, yet-to-be-fully-developed opinions about church “marketing.” What do you think?

in spite of me

I am being confronted with something important tonight. It’s keeping me up. It’s a truth I haven’t allowed to soak into my life; one of those that you say so often, you forget what it actually means.

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” (Isa. 30:18)

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zeph. 3:17)

Sadly, my instinct often seems to drift towards a kind of deist perspective when it comes to God – that almost everything he does happened already, and now He is mostly sitting around, watching and waiting for us to accomplish His mission so He can finally get up off his living room couch and do the whole “End Times” thing. (Note that I don’t actually think this, but this is the default setting that rooted itself in my mind long before I came to college. Same with the next paragraph.)

I also instinctively take a slightly “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” perspective in how he views us. We all get one free pass when it comes to God loving a sinful self: the time we accept his salvation. Afterward, God loves the self who is doing great things. He looks down and smiles at the me who comes up with a great idea or shows a servant’s heart or hears about an impactful worship service from the congregation. The imperfect self? He wants nothing to do with that mess!

Tonight I realized how far I have drifted back towards those thoughts.

You see, these two passages were written to people who were struggling, who had turned their backs on God. These people weren’t looking for a reason to worship; in fact, they stopped caring about worshiping God or depending on Him years ago! These verses were meant to be heard by people anyone else would have given up on a long time ago.

So what happens when I have weeks like this one where I put myself first way too often, didn’t spend enough time with God, said things I shouldn’t have, taken poor care of myself, etc. etc.?

God is still strong enough to save.

God will quiet my restless, confused, wandering soul with His love.

God LONGS to be gracious to me!

He rises (up from His couch, maybe?) just to demonstrate His compassion to me! (And somehow he still is a God of justice? I sure feel like I am messing that one up.)

When I turn away, He still loves.

i set a goal for myself

Last week, I read this blog post by Donald Miller; it was about his reaction to a New York Times article about people in their 20’s taking longer to grow up. This was one of his tips for 20-somethings to push their lives along:

3. Write down your goals for the next five years, one year, one month and one week: Do this now. If you don’t know what you want, that’s a very serious problem, so just write down anything and start moving. A body in motion stays in motion. It doesn’t matter if you change your mind later. You can’t change your mind about what you want until you start moving forward.

I read this to myself and thought, “I really don’t have any goals for myself right now.” And I wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not, but for some strange reason I did feel at peace with the fact. It’s not like I actually have no aim in life, just not a lot of specific goals, especially for the long-term future.

That is, until yesterday.

My mom and I were driving through Rocky Mountain National Park – an incredibly beautiful place with skinny air – and we talked about church planting. I’ve always been interested in it, but I’ve also been hesitant as well. I have always been interested in starting things from the ground up (as long as there isn’t already a crowded church landscape), but I have never thought I was good enough to be able to do that. But yesterday, something clicked. It became something way more tangible, way more possible, something I was way more interested in doing. My mind started clicking with some ideas I had to make it work. So I’m going to start setting my sights towards planting a church!

Here’s my goal: in 5 years, I want to plan a church… to launch it somewhere between August 2015 and January 2016. I don’t know where, and I don’t quite know how yet. What I do know is that I still have a lot of learning and growing up to do before I get to my point. Here are the ideas I have so far:

• Church name: Second Church (or maybe Third Church or Last Church). We would emphasize putting God and others before ourselves.
• Service structure: We would only have worship services twice a month. The other two weeks, we would have service projects which would benefit the community (these in themselves would vary from relationally-focused, to picking up trash, to visiting a nursing home, to holding a block party/neighborhood BBQ, etc.)  After the service project we would gather together for 30 minutes to celebrate/praise God for the good things that happened that day. For every fifth Sunday, we’d bring in a special speaker.
• I would want it to be in a pretty urban or pretty unchurched setting. I don’t want to be the person that sets up shop in-between two churches who were only two blocks apart before I came.
• This church would primarily spread through relationships. I think small groups will be really important to this type of church structure. It would function at its best with a close-knit, but still inclusive, sense of community.

I’d write more about it but my plane is about to board. Keep me accountable for reaching this goal!

airplane conversations

One of my favorite things about flying solo when it comes to air travel (pun mostly intended) is that you never know who you’re going to sit by. Sometimes it’s a hit, other times it’s a miss. Sometimes people want to talk, other times people don’t. Sometimes you’re sitting next to a 70-year-old woman, other times a friend of yours walks on the plane! That latter scenario only happened once to me, but it was still pretty great.

I’ve got a few different conversations that stick out in my memory…

1) In 8th grade, I flew to Tampa on the way to the Bible Bowl national tournament and sat next to a woman who was from New Jersey. When I told her that I was on a church trip, she told me how she had been recently sexually assaulted and asked me (in a truly inquisitive way, not as though she was harsh or yelling) how a loving God would permit that to happen. I don’t have a great answer for that now, so imagine the one I had in 8th grade.

2) Last summer, on my way back to Kansas City via Detroit I sat next to a older woman (late 60’s?) who was going to visit her son’s family. At first I thought she was quiet and reserved, but over the course of the flight she talked to me about how her husband of many years had passed away within the past six months. She painted a picture of a good man who was a war veteran and dedicated his life to creating good lives for the rest of his family. I remember thinking about how she held back tears when she was talking about him, and how the temporary breaking of such strong bonds take time to heal.

3) On Sunday, I flew from Atlanta to Savannah. I thought I was going to have a row to myself until a young woman and her 2-year-old son sat in my row at the last minute. As they sat down, she spoke to him in a different language. Turns out that they were an extremely interesting group! She was 20 years old and was born in Ukraine; then they moved to Seattle when she was young and started attending her father-in-law’s church. Her and her husband now lived in South Carolina, and they are raising their son to speak both English and Ukraine.

The best part, though, was when she told me about her father-in-law. He was a pastor in Ukraine when it was controlled by the USSR, making his job illegal. He and his wife went from town to town at night tending to different underground churches in secrecy. Unfortunately, at some point he was caught and sent to die in the gas chambers – but he didn’t die! He lost 75% of his lung capacity, but he survived. The woman told me that the stories he told (that one, of course, being one of them) were significant evidence of God’s existence to her. I think they’re also evidence of the Holy Spirit being alive and working in our lives today!

I’m flying back to Kansas City tomorrow, and I hope to meet another fascinating person along the way. To say that it’s a witnessing opportunity waiting to happen sounds a little cliche to me, but definitely not out of the question. At the very least, it’s a learning opportunity!

a good kind of community

“Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the ’cause’ is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal.

“Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s purposes, this remains true. We want the church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a clique. The church herself is, of course, heavily defended and we have never succeeded in giving her all the characteristics of a faction, but subordinate factions within her have often produced admirable results.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
_______________

I think that C.S. Lewis just hit the nail on the head. When we become too small, too stagnant, too content, we can become too much like a clique. We may strengthen our sense of community when we are a clique, but if we do, then it is more of a self-serving community that a welcoming one. Instead of “love God, love others” we become “love ourselves, snub our nose at others” without knowing it.

In a book I’m reading called The Tangible Kingdom, the authors outlined the need for a church to be an inclusive, not exclusive, community. All of us would agree, but I started thinking about what that would look like practically. What if the needy in society start coming to Crestview and we figure out that they are people we rather wouldn’t make friends with? What if they take part in things we consider undesirable? Would we give them the cold shoulder?

I think that a healthy, non-clique kind of church community requires even more sacrifice from its Christ-followers. Not only do you need to “bear with one another in love,” but you need to be ready to do the same to people you don’t know, to people who make you uncomfortable. But the spiritual reward far outweighs the momentary sacrifice.