A long-awaited update...

Well, maybe it's not "long-awaited." Maybe it's just "swallowed by overwhelming apathy." Either way, just wanted to drop in to say "Hi!" (Wow. I have used quotation marks three times since the beginning of this post. "Awesome!")

Anyway, some of you might remember that I was asked to preach for a few Sundays at a local church that was looking for a pastor. They asked me to preach for 4 Sundays, then for a couple more Sundays after that. It must have gone well, because the church voted to ask me to be their pastor!

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know my misgivings about traditional church. But after a lot of prayer and talking, the Mighty Mrs. J and I felt like it was something God had opened up for us. As of about a week ago, I became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bell Gardens.

It's been busy. I still have my business to run, and I'm learning to juggle work and ministry. But I think it's going to be fun. They are a great little group of people, and they've expressed a real desire to minister to hurting people. There is a lot of work to be done, with the facilities and the people. We are looking forward to the challenge.

I think for me the hardest part will be to keep teaching and living grace as a lifestyle, and not to allow anything that cheapens the gospel to creep in. It will be interesting. Pray for us!

WWJL: What Would Jesus Like?

I want to pass along a great blog post by Bob Cleveland over at Eagles' Rest. He made me think of something really profound that I had never considered. Namely, that we don't know a thing about the things Jesus liked. What was His favorite food? His favorite color? His favorite psalm? We have no clue.

The conclusion Bob draws is that we don't know these things because in Jesus' life, those things weren't important. His life was dedicated to serving others, not making sure that He got the things He liked.

There are a bunch of applications here. As Bob points out, Christians break fellowship over all kinds of things. If we were all dedicated to living like Jesus, most of those splits would never happen. Would Jesus break fellowship over what kind of music gets played in church, or when the rapture was going to happen? I doubt it.

Of course, if it's too hard to live like Jesus, you all could just try to do everything the way I like it. Then I would just tell you what you need to know, like what kind of music to play in church, and when the rapture will occur...

(In case you're wondering, the last paragraph was sarcasm. Except the music. It's awesome...)

When Christians fail, what do we do?

In regard to the whole Todd Bentley thing, I do have some thoughts on what's going on now. It does appear, from what some leaders in the Charismatic movement have said, there have been people close to the Lakeland thing who expressed concerns about what was going on. But none of these leaders were loud enough, in my opinion, in speaking out about what was going on.

This isn't to keep beating Bentley. I sincerely hope he gets the hope he needs. God still loves him enough to bring him out of the pit he's in.

But there are some things that seem clear to me:

• Bentley needed people in his life who loved him enough to pull him aside and tell him to cut out the nonsense. That's what happened in this case, with the result that Cain has repented and is seeking help.
• It's never wrong to question what someone is teaching. Apparently, someone on GodTV said that anyone who questioned what was going on in Lakeland was demonic. That statement is, I believe, pretty demonic itself.
• The problem with questioning someone's teaching comes when you assume that the person who is teaching has some sort of evil intent. What was the intent of Bentley and his group during this revival? I haven't a clue. I can't judge intent, but I can say where I believe someone's teaching lacks biblical basis.
• God is absolutely able to stop something that is damaging to His people. He will protect His children, whether he uses other believers, or gets involved more directly.

I've got some more thoughts on what this says about the state of the church, but I'm too tired to keep typing coherently. (As though that's ever stopped me before!) These verses keep tripping through the cluttered back of my mind:

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Does this passage have any bearing on how we treat Bentley from here on out?

NFTW #011--Here at last!

I finally bowed to intense public pressure, and I''m ready to resume the foray into podcasting excellence that is Notes from the Way. This episode, I try to figure out why men don't like church, and I look a little bit at what it means to be on mission for God...

Listen to it here:





Or, go on over to the Notes from the Way blog...

Tragedy...

Hey folks, sorry I've been absent for a while. My life has taken a turn for the hectic recently.

I did want to jump in for a second to ask you to pray for Steven Curtis Chapman and his family. He is a Christian musician who has sold about a bazillion albums. He and his wife have also adopted 3 children. They are big supporters of adoption, including giving a substantial amount of money each year to make it easier for families to adopt.

Yesterday, tragedy struck their family. Their youngest girl, who just turned 5, was hit by a vehicle being driven by one of her brothers in the driveway of the family home. She was killed. You can read more about it here and here.

I've got a lot of thoughts, because it reminds me of something a very wise woman told us when we were having some problems with our adoption. But, right now this just hits too close to home. I think I'm going to sneak into our kids' rooms while they sleep and love on them a little. Or maybe a lot...

Something I hadn't thought of before...

Luke 22:31-34

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

But he replied, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death."

Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me."

What does this say about the love of Jesus for His people? He could look into the eyes of a guy who was soon going to deny Him 3 times, and pray that Peter wouldn't lose faith as a result of what he was about to do. And, Jesus was already setting the stage for Peter's restoration. Before Peter even sinned!

That really is amazing love...

With or without God? That IS the question...[Update!]

(See the update at the end...)

About a week ago, I mentioned this article about a church in Toronto that is taking God and Jesus out of the life of the church. Instead, they are committed to re-forming God into something more palatable to their way of thinking. And the focus is going to be more on doing good deeds than believing the right things. In fact, the pastor recently had a book published, called With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe.

I mentioned before that news like this makes me more sad than angry. I mean, I agree with my brother Tim that once you strip Christianity of God, the Bible, sin, salvation, and any of the essentials of the faith, you really don't have Christianity any more. And this pastor has reduced the faith to one thing: Love one another.

Abd that's what makes me sad. This pastor and her followers want to do something good; namely, they want to spread love, beauty, and justice in the world. But they've made two critical mistakes. One, by throwing out Scripture and God, they've cut themselves off from any objective source for what is moral or immoral behavior. "Good" is whatever they decide it to be. Groups that create their own morality sometimes end up doing great evil. (If you want proof of that, look at the 'isms that flourished in the last century, nazism, fascism, communism...)

The second thing is even more sad from my perspective. They've replaced what God wants, a living relationship with us, with what they want, a moral code. God is not impressed with our good behavior. The only righteousness that God wants is the righteousness He gives us when we come to faith. And these folks, like a lot of people, are trying to do holy things without actually having any holiness. That doesn't work.

It reminds me of the verse from Jeremiah 2,

My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Living a good life apart from God is doubly sad, because you have no standard to judge good from, and God requires more than holy living. He requires holy being, and that only comes through Jesus...

[Update--Apparently, the article I mentioned at the beginning is only available now if you pay for it. Don't bother. You'll get a good idea what it's about by reading here and here...]

Keillor's take on this Easter season...

Garrison Keillor takes an sober, honest look at himself and Easter in this column. It takes guts to be that open about your faith, or lack thereof...

Great truth in an old song...

I've been thinking lately about how I need to hear the story of God's outlandish love for me over and over, because I forget so easily. It reminded me of the old hymn, " I Love to Tell the Story," especially this verse:

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.

I think it was Luther who said that the gospel comes to us as an outsider, where the law is written in our hearts. We have to be continually reminded of the reality of the gospel, because it's foreign to us. I know I forget far too often. And really, there's no message more important...

Here's a great version of the old hymn, done by Emmylou Harris and Robert Duvall:

The way I want my life to be...

I've written before about wanting a first-hand experience with God, and wanting to share that with my children. Meaning that I don't want only to hear about what God is doing in the lives of other people, or even just reading about how God moved among people in the Bible. I want to know, to see God at work in my life. And not just in big, massive things. In the everyday stuff of life.

Something happened last Saturday that reminded me again that one reason I don't have that kind of relationship with God is because I don't talk to Him that often. We were putting up Christmas lights on the outside of the house. (And, yes, we did buy Christmas lights that were NOT made in China.) We got everything strung together. We put an extension cord on the end. I got ready to plug it in...and realized we needed an adapter to plug it into the socket.

The Mighty Mrs. J and I searched everywhere--I mean everywhere for an adapter. There wasn't one to be found. We had almost given up, which meant a trip to the hardware store the next day. Then I decided to do something unusual. I called Little MacGyver into the kitchen, told him the situation, and we prayed about it. He hasn't got a clue what an adapter is, but he prayed, "Jesus, help daddy find the 'dapter. Amen."

Jesus must've heard, because within about 2 minutes, I had the strongest impression to look in a place where there should not have been any adapters. But, there was not one but two adapters, sitting there waiting to be found. Little MacGyver and I thanked Jesus a lot, then we plugged in our Christmas lights. Which we enjoyed immensely (especially knowing they weren't put together by Chinese prisoners).

Did Jesus help us find the adapter? I think so. I know it's a minor thing, but if he really does care about everything that happens to us, then why can't He show me where the adapters are hiding? Maybe it was just a chance for Him to show Little MacGyver and me that He really loves us. Maybe He wanted to remind me to come to Him with all my concerns, no matter how small.

I wonder how my life would change if I really did that?

What am I thankful for?

I'm completely turkey-laden, so normally I would skip posting for the night. But I've gotten this far on the NaBloPoMo, and I won't give up now. So here are 2 things I'm very thankful for:

1. My terrific family, of course. They are a constant source of love and joy for me, no matter what's going on. They are teaching me what it means to really love someone else.

2. Recently, I've realized that I have several friends who have a special gift: they still believe that God can use them to make a difference in this world. Most of them don't have a web site or blog I can link up to. (At least one does.) I used to believe that about myself, but I lost it a while back. I'm not happy about it. I'm glad I know people who still have that faith, and my prayer is that God will continue to use them in greater ways as days go on. I'm thankful God put them in my path.

And, in case you're wondering, there will be a bunch of turkey/kid pics as soon as I download them off the camera...

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

I am so irritated right now that I may not even post a cute picture of my kids. (And that is pretty irritated!) I read this article at ChristianPost.com. Some Christian group, probably a well-meaning bunch, has a list where they rank retail stores as either "Naughty" or "Nice" based on whether they use "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" in their advertising, greetings, and decorations. Naughty stores use Happy Holidays, while Nice stores go with Merry Christmas. This group says that Christians should only shop at stores that celebrate Christmas.

Why does this bug me so much? I guess because it's so unimportant. I don't think saying happy holidays destroys Christmas. Buying gifts made in a country that imprisons Christians for their faith? Now that comes a lot closer to destroying Christmas. But this group has nothing on their website protesting China's treatment of our brothers and sisters. Seems to me that someone's priorities are a little mixed up.

Oh, and one of the "nice" stores is Target, which sells these little beauties online. Which does more to dishonor Jesus: saying happy holidays, or your kid being able to pit Jesus and Spiderman in a caged deathmath? I wonder...

I'm doin' some readin'!

I know it will come as a surprise to many of you, but I am not only able to read, I actually enjoy it. Now usually my reading is at this level, but I do occasionally get to read something a little deeper. Right now, I'm reading this book by Dr. J.P. Moreland. So far it's a great look at how Christians have lost contact with culture, and how we might regain the kind of impact the church had in its early years. I'm not through with it yet, so I can't give you a full review yet. But here's a quote I thought was powerful:

"...the life of self-denial is, indeed, the 'easy yoke.' In contrast to the path of self-absorption, the path of self-denial for Jesus corresponds to the way we were made to function and to reality itself as God created it. The really hard life is the one lived in opposition to Jesus' path. All you need to do is to look at how hard life is for folks who cannot forgive others, who desperately need to be the focus of attention, who have to be in control of everything, who are driven to succeed to prove they are significant. This is the life of self-denial, not the life of self-denial. As one gets good at self-denial for the Kingdom, life gets progressively easier."

Isn't that true? It's the life that's lived outside the call of God that's hard. Maybe that's the reason the Psalms tell us not to envy evil people. Whatever the reason, a quote like this makes me realize that the life God calls me to live is the life He created me to live. And that life isn't terrible. God wouldn't do that to me. He loves me too much...

Real truth from an old song...

I live in southern California, where singing the old Christian hymns went out of fashion about the same time as 8-track stereos. But I grew up on the old songs, and I still love to sing them. Fortunately, I church with a group that still sings the "golden oldies" sometimes.

I was thinking of a line from one of my favorite hymns this morning, and the truth of it struck me in a new way. It was "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing." This is the verse that got me thinking:

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

The lines, "Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee," really resonated because I see now that God's goodness is really the only thing that binds us to Him. And all the things we use to try to bring us closer to Him are pointless at best, harmful at worst.

How many things have I used to try to build my relationship with God? Well, let's see, there's Bible reading, prayer, fasting, church work, Sunday School teaching, pastoring.and on, and on, and on.

There's nothing wrong with any of those activities, but so much of it was just me trying to gain favor with God with my own effort. Really it is God's goodness, ALONE, that draws me to Him. All those things can take the place of the Holy Spirit's work of growing us to be like Jesus.

In fact, I wonder how many programs int he church have grown and developed over the years for 2 bad reasons: we don't trust the Holy Spirit enough to do His work His way, and we have a lot of people attending services who don't demonstrate the Spirit's transforming power because He's not in them? Both of those possibilities frighten me.

More on this later...

Podcast, Episode #2...

I thought I probably should mention that the second episode of my award-winning podcast is available by clicking here. The blog that gives you all the juicy details is right here.

Basically, this week I talk about the marital troubles some popular Christian leaders are having. I'm also wondering about the things we put between ourselves and God.

BTW, the award the podcast won? It was voted "Best Podcast Produced in our House Last Thursday and Friday." Very small award, but quite prestigious...

Do I expect God to be present in my life?

I just finished the book, The Naked Church by Wayne Jacobsen. It's got me thinking about a lot of things. A lot of those things make me really uncomfortable.

The one thing that sticks in my mind is a survey that Jacobsen quotes. The survey is of US Christians, and over 70% of them don't expect to encounter God when they go to a worship service. Think about that for a minute. 7 out of 10 people at the next worship service you go to are probably not expecting God to show up.

This brings so many questions to my mind. Do these people ever experience the presence of God? How far is this from the New Testament church, where it seems God consistently interacted with His people? Can a Christian go through his entire life and not feel God's presence in his life? I don't think so.

Granted, God lives in every one of His children. And we don't always feel that truth, even though it is true. But I'm afraid we've lost something that was a part of the early church's life: the expectation that God was powerfully at work in their midst. It was His presence that gave them the ability to preach with authority, see people saved, see people healed, have people give their belongings away, have many suffer and die for their faith.

It was His presence that caused the church's enemies to call some New Testament Christians, "These men who have caused trouble all over world..." Are we causing trouble all over the world to Satan's kingdom? Is evil on the run in our cities because God's people are unified and showing God's power and presence? More personally, am I experiencing God in my life? Is He changing me, molding me to become like Jesus? Is my goal really to know Jesus, and the power of His resurrection?


Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I don't see it, either in the church as a whole, or in me. What needs to change?

Am I bitter toward the church?

As some of you know, I left a traditional church pastorate a number of months ago. It was totally the right thing to do, because God is calling us in a different direction. One of the reasons I left was because I see how often "church" actually keeps people from experiencing God's presence in their lives.

I don't want to go into the details of it here, because I've talked about it a little before. (Like here.) But one thing I do know, I don't want to be a bitter burn-out. It's too easy to see the weaknesses in an institution, and then blame the people in the institution for everything that's wrong. But the fact is, the majority of traditional churches are pastored by good men and women who love God and want to serve Him. They really want to see people reached and God glorified.

I still see traditional church structures as fatally flawed. And, I have a feeling I'll have more to say about this in future posts. But, I just wonder if anyone else is thinking about how to keep from developing bitter feelings when traditional church has shown itself to be lacking...

10 reasons why the Mighty Mrs. J is the best mom/wife ever!

1. She laughs easily, at herself and at the ridiculous situations we get into.

2. When someone she loves is in danger, she turns into Rampaging Mama Bear, ready to pounce on anyone who threatens her cubs.

3. She thinks gross medical stuff is cool and interesting. So does my son. They're weird and wonderful like that.

4. At her core, she is happy and content.

5.She loves to read. She loves books so much she has trouble getting rid of them. Even if she's never going to read them.

6. She is teaching our kids to love reading as much as she does.

7. She's smart, and she's not afraid to challenge me when I'm muddle-headed (which is most of the time).

8. She's patient with our kids, even when they're trying to drive her insane.

9. She loves me just the way I am. But she supports me when I try to make myself better.

10. She's more like Jesus than anyone I know. Our kids will grow up to love Him partly because of what they see in her.

And, a bonus reason:

11. She doesn't complain when her husband wants to smoke a cigar outside, even though I know she doesn't like it!

Happy Mother's Day, baby!

Jesus, the Easter bunny, eggs, and a belated Happy Easter!

This past weekend we celebrated probably the most important holiday on the Christian calendar: Easter. And we did it right, with colored eggs and egg hunts, a big family dinner, candy, the whole thing. And we celebrated the spiritual, "important" aspect of the holiday with the folks we church with.

I grew up with all the trappings of Easter--getting a big Easter basket, coloring eggs, egg hunts, the whole deal. Of course we also celebrated the resurrection of our Lord. And the resurrection part was always important to us, and I grew up knowing that was the "serious" part of Easter.

When I became an adult, I went through a particularly virulent (see especially definitions 3 & 4) case of militant Christianity. During that time I was all too eager to tell anyone I could pigeonhole about the evils of pagan-inspired holidays like Easter and Christmas.

Of course, instead of setting the Christian world right, which was my mission, it made me look like a can't-have-any-fun, know-it-all, self-righteous-pig Christian. And, of course, that was a pretty good description of me at the time.

Thankfully, I grew out of that. Now I appreciate the fact that we who are Christians really celebrate 2 Easters--the religious one, and the social one. (The same is true for Christmas, BTW.) And they are both important. I'm not afraid that my kids will confuse the Easter bunny (or Santa) and Jesus. Kids confuse a lot of things. (For a very funny story about kids who are a little confused about the Easter story see this terrific blog.) One of my parenting jobs is to help them NOT be confused about such things.

And to help them have a little fun. Maybe they won't have to go through a I'm-the-world's-most-spiritual-Christian-and-I'm-gonna-set-you-straight phase like their dad did. It's really a huge burden to be the world's most perfect Christian, and very few people appreciate how wonderful you are...

(As you may have guessed, this entire post was just a pretense for showing more pics of my cute kids. They really are adorable!)

The Easter CD is finally done!!!

It's been a tiring couple of days. We've been working on a project that will hopefully be a blessing to the people who are part of it. Every Christmas, our little ministry participates in Angel Tree. Angel Tree is a program where local Christians buy Christmas presents for kids who have a parent in prison. It's a great chance to show God's love to people who are often forgotten by society. Last Christmas, we got presents for 25 kids.

Anyway, we are reaching out to these same families in a really cool way. We asked several independent Christian musicians to let us use one of their songs, and we put together a CD. The CD has 6 great songs, a reading of passages out of the Bible, and a short message I recorded on what Easter really means. We mailed copies of the CD out to each of the families we gave gifts to. (Plus a few others we've had contact with recently.)

It's kinda labor intensive to put the CD's together, and get them set up and put in the mail. So it's been a couple of let nights for me. But, we know that the folks who get them will be blessed. The work is totally worth it.

And a great thing for me is that my boy helped us work on it. (The pic is him and the Mighty Mrs. J holding up the finished CD. She designed the cover. Yes, she's as talented as she is cute!) We explained to him that the CD would help people hear about Jesus. He was really excited! He worked hard to put mailing labels on envelopes, and stamps on postcards that we included in the mailing. People can write prayer requests or needs on the card, and send back to us.

It's very exciting to know that this CD will be a blessing to a whole bunch of people. But as a father, it's a lot more exciting to see my boy eager to help other people hear about Jesus. One of my goals as a parent is to help him see his faith as not just something he possesses, but something he lives and shares with everybody around him. I want him to learn early on that God lives and moves in this world through him and the other believers he chooses to church with. It's taken me a long time to learn that. I want him to pick it up early.

BTW, there are links on the left to some of the musicians who donated music. They are terrific! The fact that they are so generous with their talents shows they have their hearts in the right place. Check out their music. I guarantee you will be blessed!