Teens and Sleep

Teens are stressed out, read this article about teens and sleep. It is interesting.

Last week I cut back some brush, trimmed some branches and did some much needed weed eating. One of the things I noticed is how invading and entangling vines can be. I have a neighbor who planted a long time go some sort of green monster on the fence separating our two yards. The vine of death has virtually taken over all possible areas for growth. It thrives off the life of another organism. It grows on another plant until it chokes the life out of it.

Isn’t that the way sin works? We may let a little in, here and there. We think that a little bit won’t hurt us. But, a little bit plants itself and begins to spread. Left unchecked, it will devour our heart and mind until it sucks the life out of us.

As a minister I see this played out in the life of the teens I minister to. I hate this part of my job. The messy part. The part where I have to confront young disciples, or bring things to their parents. My heart hurts in those times. I begin to think about working at Walmart and not having to see the messy side of life. But, I know the with any area of ministry people will hurt. As long as we live between the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God we will experience heart break.

At times like these, I want so badly for Christ to come. “Come, Lord Jesus and make right all that is broken. Restore creation, restore humanity. Come quickly!”

“your kingdom come…”

Read Matthew 6:9-13″your kingdom come…”

Food for Thought: Your Kingdom Come…

When we pray this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer we are making a bold request for God to rule over our lives. This is a bold request for God to occupy every corner of our lives. When we say “your kingdom come” you are inviting the Messiah himself to come walk in your world. You are in a sense waving the white flag and relinquishing control of your life.

As children of God we need to be about the business of asking for God’s kingdom to come. We need to be asking God to renew our vision to see the church as kingdom outposts here on earth bringing the shalom of God to our broken world.

And if we are honest with ourselves, who doesn’t need to relinquish more control. We need to ask God to rule over our marriages, our finances, our relationships, our workplaces our schools. As we are asking for the kingdom to come to we need to make sure we understand that life isn’t about needs. We need radical re-orientation to the kingdom agenda of Christ where:

1. We hear him call us to a counter-cultural life where the last shall be first and the first shall be last — Mat. 20:16

2. We realize the greatest in the kingdom are those willing to become slaves — Mk. 10:42-45

3. We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, imprisoned, and welcome the stranger — Mt. 25:35-36

4. We hear him call us to radical abandonment of the self — Mk. 8:34

Praying for more of the kingdom to break into our world puts us in position of an adventurous ride, where we are living moment by moment seeing God intimately involved in our world and seeing ourselves as part of the unfolding drama of God.

“Father bring your kingdom.”

Cows moo with an accent?

What would an Okie moo sound like?

Read the article here on Reuter’s Oddly Enough.

My science teacher failed me

I am not sure they meant to, but my grade school science teacher failed me. I learned there were nine planets in our solar system, today the ninth planet, Pluto got the boot.

You can read more here:

 Astronomers Vote to Strip Pluto of Planetary Status

Thursday , August 24, 2006

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930.

The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be “quite disappointed” to look on the bright side.

“It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called ‘planet’ under which the dwarf planets exist,” she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight “classical” planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of “dwarf planets,” similar to what long have been termed “minor planets.”

The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — “small solar system bodies,” a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

It was unclear how Pluto’s demotion might affect the mission of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which earlier this year began a 9½-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.

The decision at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group’s leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto’s planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.

That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto’s undoing.

Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the early 19th century before it also got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, has nicknamed “Xena.”

Charon, the largest of Pluto’s three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.

Brown was pleased by the decision. He had argued that Pluto and similar bodies didn’t deserve planet status, saying that would “take the magic out of the solar system.”

“UB313 is the largest dwarf planet. That’s kind of cool,” he said.

The Inevitability of Persecution: Matthew 10:17-42

I got to share a little bit last night from God’s Word. I was the last in a series of men to speak from a section in the All About Jesus book (a harmony of the Gospels in an easy to read format). Our church has been using this tool as an aid in our year long quest to learn more about Jesus.  

 

 

-If you are familiar with the opening section of Matthew 10 we see that Jesus sends out the 12 to preach. 

-There message was that the kingdom of heaven was near: then they were commissioned to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons

 

-they were bringing healing and wholeness to the lost sheep of
Israel…

 

-Jesus warns them that their mission wouldn’t be easy

 

-But Jesus’ words here extend beyond the 12, his words were meant for the later church as well. So what can we glean from our time together this evening?

 

Well first:

 

• Sharing the good news will bring persecution

     

  -Not everyone will receive the message with joy

  -We will anger some and some of us may wind up    in prison…

  

• The good news about the kingdom is a threat to established authority, whether it be religious authority, political authority even family authority.

 

 -Notice in the text @ v. 17 the message of the kingdom, this in-breaking of God into our world and his demand for undivided loyalty to him alone is a threat to established religious authority (mention of trouble in the synagogue).

 

 -Notice also in the text @ v. 18 the message of the kingdom, this in-breaking of God into our world and his demand for undivided loyalty to him alone is a threat to established political authority (mention of trouble from the governors and kings)

 

 

• God is faithful through persecutions, trials and suffering

   -God doesn’t abandon us to walk through trials, suffering, or persecutions alone

 

-in v. 20 there are two words that set my heart at ease and that is  “your father.” He claims us as his own when the world will not

 

-He takes notice of our suffering v. 28

 

• Persecution is a test of our commitment

       -v. 22 standing firm until the end even in the face of strife in the   family

                       

     -Our loyalty/commitment to Christ must be greater than to anyone else

 

 

• Guilty by Association

       -Jesus tells us that all of this trouble we will endure is “on account  of me.”

 

 -Our association with Jesus makes us guilty 

 -But are we as Christians living in such a way that if we were on trial for our faith, would there be enough evidence to convict us of  bring guilty of being a follower of Jesus?

 

                 

a tough decision

I began classes on Monday. Today I dropped both of them. It is not because they were to hard or I don’t have the time to devote myself to the work. But, our financial state is not well and hopefully over the next 12 months our desire to eliminate some massive debt will put us in a position where I can start school again.

You would think that chosing to care for your family is an easy choice. It is. My struggle today was I sat out last semester for the arrival of our new daughter. So I was hoping to continue now with my educational training. I learned something today…

Life isn’t all about me.

I know that is profound. I know this learned truth didn’t originate with me, but for the last couple of years I have been focused on my classes, on my stuff. So, I am learning how to put the needs of others before my own. I am looking forward to the quaility time I will get to spend my little one’s and my wife over this next year. I am confident there are just as many lessons to be learned in the university of parenting and family as their is in my M. Div. program.

“hallowed be your name”

Read Matthew 6:9-13″hallowed be your name…”

Food for Thought: Making a big deal out of God…

Again as we continue to explore the Lord’s prayer, let me just say again that this is more than a form prayer meant to be mechanically repated over and over. What we are introduced to in this prayer of Jesus is a way to see what’s really important. Today we are examining the second petition, “hallowed be your name.” What is being said here is the idea of revering God’s name. To hallow something is to make something sacred. It carries with it an awe. So, when we are hallowing the name of God we are agreeing that God is Holy. In Hebrew thought a person’s name revealed his character, so when we pray “hallowed be your name” we are recalling the faithful character of our God as it’s been revealed throughout history. Think about if for a moment, when has God’s character failed his people? Was it in the days of the Garden? What about Noah’s day? Did God’s character fail at the foot of the Red Sea when the Israelites stood trapped between the approaching Egyptian Army and the Sea? What about the wanderings in the wilderness, did God’s character fail his people?

I know my questions may have been a little to easy, but the point is this. God’s character reveals that he is holy, just and faithful. Because of his faithfulness we can trust him to do what he says he’ll do.

I think another aspect of the Lord’s prayer that we need to consider is making a big deal out of God. When we make a big deal out of God we are forced to take the focus off ourselves and focus solely on God. Be sure to hallow the name of our Father.

“Our father…”

We would do well to begin to see the Lord’s prayer as more than a rutualized form prayer to be prayed mechanically. Really what this model prayer is all about is seeing what is really important. Set in the Sermon on the Mount, this prayer is about living a kingdom life.

So we begin with the phrase, “Our father…”

In a world of brokenness we all need a father. Someone to love us, to protect us, to hold us. We are introduced to a whole new way to relate to God through these words of Jesus. No Jew dared called God Father, and now this carpenter from Nazareth is boldly addressing the Creator as Abba. Abba is an intimate family term, kind of like my daughter calling me daddy.

There is another aspect here I want to consider, because we can call God father, this means we are his children. We have a family and have also accumulated brothers and sisters. Calling God Father also tears down racial, ethnic, and national borders. You see God is the same Father to the villagers of rural Africa, to the persecuted Christians of China, to middle class, to the poor, to the rich. We are all equally in need of the same loving Father.

There is something else about calling God Father. We all at times have moments that we are not always the people we are called to be. We resemble the Prodigal way to often. We have those times when we mess up and think God wouldn’t take us back. We may even be willing to stop being his child, but he is not willing to stop being our father.

Kingdom Come

A while back I had posted my early reflections on Kingdom Come: The spiritual legacy of Harding and Lipscomb. I just finished reading this book today. This book needs to be required reading of all serious Bible students, church historians and disciples of our Lord. The kingdom thinking and living of Harding and Lipscomb was ahead of their time. It is unfortunate that their robust kingdom theology was replaced by a deistic rationalism that has infected the church universal. The church of Christ in 2006 would do well to get reaquainted with these two giants of faith and the teachings of the Nashville Bible School of Theology.

The kingdom teachings of Lipscomb and Harding are not innovations or additions to Holy Writ. No, their understanding of the kingdom arises out of their time in the Word of God and their understanding of the Sermon on the Mount, as well as their living with the real hope of the 2nd Coming.

Lipscomb and Harding called the church to a kingdom life. For these two men, the only agenda worth living and dying for was a kingdom agenda. A kingdom agenda seeks to right broken relationships, eradicate poverty, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the orphaned and widowed, anc care for the earth. Harding and Lipscomb saw allegiance to the kingdom of God as their first priority. As a matter of fact, Hicks and Valentine share a story of an accusation of treason to the Confederacy at the time of the Civil War. Lipscomb was accused of being disloyal to the cause of the Confederacy, so a Conferderate military man was sent to check him out. What was said about Lipscomb is amazing, “whether or not he is not loyal to the confederate, I do not now, but he is faithful to the kingdom of God.” I want to have others say that about my own allegiance, that it is to the kingdom of God over any earthly kingdom.

The real tragedy in all of this is that since the death of these two men, a once robust kingdom theolgy has been replaced by a rationalistic, complacent, nationalistic view that has crippled the church. We would do well to encounter the kingdom teachings of Lipscomb and Harding. Our postmodern world needs the church to rediscover the kingdom agenda. One that is more than saving souls, for the sake of saving souls, but one that seeks wholeness and the shalom of God.

Whatever is on your reading list, move it down. Read this book first. And once read, let’s start living out the kingdom agenda of God. Our world needs us to let the light of Christ shine.