Incredible.

I happened upon a random person's myspace blog I don't know directly, and saw something incredible today. I'll share the beginning with you, and you can click the link to get the rest...it's a little long. Called "Vision"

From: Red Moon Rising: How 24/7 Prayer is Awakening a Generation
-By: Peter Grieg, David Roberts

So this guy comes up to me and says, "What's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this...

The vision?

The vision is JESUS—obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.

They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.

They wouldn't even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations. They need no passport... People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.

They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.

Link here

And if you don't have a myspace account, I copied the words into a link here.

Though some of these proclamations are a bit too simplistic (read: "it will come easily, it will come soon"), what a tremendous vision to have! I'm so sick and tired of just thinking the only way I can affect the world around me is with what I say or write...things others can see, hear, taste, touch, feel. I carry tremendous potential spiritually built-in at my creation for much more than that...and if I can catch that vision, discipline myself to live into it consistently, and find a group of folks to link up with that desire together...who knows? Honestly, who knows what could happen.

The problem here exists in placing before Christfollowers the vision (the ideal) without taking practical steps to seek to live into that ideal (cold, hard, sometimes painful daily reality). I especially like the comment "It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars"...echoes of John Howard Yoder there that the commands and teaching of Jesus were not the maximum level of faithfulness...reserved only for a special class of super-Christians...but were the minimum floor of faithfulness commanded by God for ALL followers. Proper goal-setting is what this is all about.

No messin' around here...that takes transformation! Sho' nuff!

ohhhhh noooooo!

I've only seen 11 seconds of this video, but it's already lightened my day of slogging through thick reading and writing that made my head feel like sludge. So, completely unawares of the end, I post because I trust.

ht: jessica

Dan Kimball...such a timely voice...

I keep making promises to myself about writing out some of my thoughts here on life in general, how I'm processing thoughts, and things like recent books, music, or movies that are pushing me to continue moving, transforming, and changing in my life, but it's sooooo hard to sit down and spend some time thinking sometimes; what with seminary and church, etc. In short, I still have major work to do in my life in the area of discipline in general (though I'm growing), and I continue to appreciate friends and others holding me to accountability...


Dan Kimball at a worship conference in above pic


Now ignore that little preface, because I'm giving a link here to one of the most balanced, innovative, and visionary Christfollowers I know, and hopefully this link will greatly enhance your life; the way you think, the questions you ask, the conclusions you come to, and the details along the way. The post is called Pews, Pulpits, Pastors, Preaching, and other things that can get in the way of the "church" being the church, from Dan Kimball's blog (a pastor at Vintage Faith Church in CA). Dan's written two great books, The Emerging Church, and Emerging Worship that I have purchased and would recommend to anyone with a sense of discomfort about the present state of the church and a longing that we would live into our destiny as followers of Jesus.


So, though I haven't launched into the opportunity to get this mass of thoughts, ideas, and junk all pinging around inside my head out primarily for my own therapeutic good and secondarily in the hope that someone might identify on some level with where I am...enjoy Dan's blog. The link above is to the specific post. His blog, quite simply, is http://www.dankimball.com/ But you probably already figured that out by simply deleting off the specifics of the post and going right to the central site anyways, didn't you, you little Internet-savvy computer literate 21stcentury-ite. :)

Change

An incredible quote from Donald Miller in Through Painted Deserts.

"I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child...keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire."


This has been a crazy last three weeks for me...lots of work, lots of people going through low times (some riding a little more easy), officiating at my first funeral ever (scary! but i made it), feeling broken down and torn apart inside, feeling whole and fulfilled inside, new friendships (one growing faster and deeper than I ever could have predicted), aching, mindbending stripping and building up going on (thanks God?)...this is the stuff of life. I'm fooling myself and leading others astray if I ever give the picture it's anything other than this.

Sometimes I want to give up.

If I'm honest, I'm petrified of the future. How will I make it? Will I make it? Can I grow up? Can I be faithful to what God has called me to? Will I be faithful to what God has called me to? Will I leave a "mark" on people's lives? What will that "mark" look like?

Beyond all the questions, there are several things I'm sure of.

God is good.
He asks of me radical faithfulness and committed love.
I must not be afraid to trust...to open the door of my heart (just a crack?) to let others see me for who I really am...to live with integrity and transparency.
As a Christfollower, the ordinary events of my life are charged with a transcendent reality that over and above my humanity, the more I am committed to Jesus, the more my light blooms in the darkness and reflects into the lives of others...
I am nothing special, and yet, my willingness to pursue life can transform my little corner of the universe and leave a legacy. What will my legacy be?

And yet, I am still afraid. I am growing to hate fear...

Authenticity. And honesty.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, because I hear it often. In one of my classes, the authors of a book kept talking about "authenticity" this and "authenticity" that, and that a leader is full of integrity and knows who they are...but they never really defined what authenticity is, and the temptation I think we carry to do and be something and justify it by saying we're being authentic...as if that's the trump card in a conversation that should cause people to step back and concede our point...

But doesn't being a Christ-follower kick up the conversation another notch?

I'm reading Erwin McManus, and he puts the itch I've been experiencing well.

"In recent times in our culture we have put an increasing value on authenticity and a decreasing focus on integrity...when calling for authenticity, we need to take seriously the brokenness and sinfulness of the human heart. Our claim that we are committed to being authentic can actually be a facade for self-indulgence. If we're not careful, authentic can be the new word for arrogance. As long as you're true to yourself- say what you mean- just get it out- how can anyone fault you in any way?

Authenticity can establish a self-righteousness that justifies abuse..

If we're committed to being the genuine article, we'd first better look closely at what we're made of. Authenticity without integrity is lethal. To be authentic when our hearts are dark and corrosive is equivalent to opening Pandora's box..."

I'll add some thoughts to this (maybe) after the youth gathering tonight but does that strike anyone else as they think and live?