So I tune in the radio yesterday and find out that the Lions have canned Marty Mornhinweg and that they've had Steve Mariucci in to look things over. THAT'S AWESOME!!! I feel bad for Marty. I don't think he was as bad as the record indicated...or even as bad as his overtime choices indicated. But Steve Mariucci! The 49ers are smokin' crack to be letting him go. I just hope the Lions can lure him in with something. He's getting paid 2.2 mil to do nothing next year. If he's any kind of a family man, he'll take the year off. But for my sake, for the sake of Lion's fans everywhere, for the sake of Barry Sanders (I don't know...in honor of his legacy?), for the sake of all that is good and decent and just in this world, I pray that he takes the job.
posted by Steve 9:00 PM
I am the friend who Alan was referring to in his blog yesterday. We were talking about discipleship and what that entails.
I am extremely fortunate for my physical Dad and Mom to also be my spiritual parents. And I have come to realize that Dad did some of his most significant and profound growth while I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. This was the time in my Dad's life when he became regular in his disciplines of Scripture study and prayer. And my life has been impacted by that. He grew under such "programs" as learning and applying "basic life principles" from Bill Gothard. He was stretched even further by Navigator's 2:7 series. And both of those things became important tools in creating disciples in the church that he pastored. So I am a witness that programs are merely tools that can be effectively employed and used by the Spirit. He also did a lot of one on one type of mentoring/discipling. So it's only natural that I have followed in his footsteps.
And while I cannot claim responsibility for the choices of others, I can't say that I have been producing sold out and surrendered followers of Jesus. But The Spirit of the Disciplines have been kicking my butt. And there have been some major gold that I'll try to share here in pieces. A special analogy for me has been one of Spiritual Trainer. I would love to have a Physical Trainer, who would tell me what and how much to eat, guide me through my workouts, and generally whip me into shape. In some ways it would be kind of a fun job to have. But I have been entrusted the responsibility of being a Spiritual Trainer. Dallas Willard reminds us that, "The context [1 Timothy 4:7-8] in which Paul uses the words 'exercise unto godliness' is an intensely practical one. He is telling Timothy, his son in the fiath, how to succeed in leading God's people. In speaking of exercise or training he uses the term gumnaze, from which we get our term 'gymnasium.' Instead of spending time dwelling on godless myths and legends, Paul tells his young friend, he is to be at work in the 'spiritual gymnasium.'
By any and all means I can help people get into spiritual shape. And yes, this definitely must take place in the context of vital authentic community. But I can have a one on one impact on people as well. I can recommend eating habits and exercises, and ultimately it's up to the follower to decide whether they're going to do it. But I'm enjoying my new job title for now...ST (Spiritual Trainer).
posted by Steve 11:35 AM
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Saturday night Dan and Mandie came over. Dan brought his X Box, and we beat each other up in Halo and NBA 2K3. I brought the projector over from the church for the big screen experience. I could do that for days on end if left to my own devices.
Sunday went well...preached on silence/secrecy as a spiritual discipline. Also intro'd the subject of "why spiritual disciplines?" again with the clip from Rocky where he's training for the big fight. Obviously that ties in naturally to so many of Paul's sports analogies, but I used 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
Good Super Bowl. I wanted Oakland to win, but as with anything the Lions aren't playing in I don't truly care. Bob crushed me in 5 out of six ping-pong games, and I think I bested him in fooseball 2 games to one.
Monday I got sick from whatever the boys had. I slept like 12 hours Monday night/Tuesday morning! That was awesome! I haven't slept that long in years. Of course, I still felt like crap when I got up, but my body obviously needed the rest. I'm feeling a ton better today.
posted by Steve 2:28 PM
Saturday, January 25, 2003
I found out yesterday that I was not accepted into the Asbury Theogical Seminary Beeson Program. It's a DMin. program that is completely funded and probably the most practical education for pastors available from a school. I applied on a whim with only a week and a half before the dealine. There was a bunch of stuff that I had to complete and since I didn't have the GPA in seminary to immediately qualify I had to take the Miller's Analogies Test. If I had time, I definitely should have prepared for that, at least taken a pre-test to know what it was all about and the testing format. As it was it took me completely by surprise. I missed the minimum score by 2 points. So, I'm not surprised and not terribly disappointed either. It was just another option that seemed like we needed to explore.
In a week and a half we go to the National Prayer Breakfast. My Dad pulled some strings and got our whole family invited. It turns out it's a Prayer Breakfast for the wealthy. I'm sure "The Fellowship," or whoever the sponsoring organization is, sponsors all the foreign diplomats and representatives, and the American attendees kind of underwrite that cost. But I'm looking forward to it. It'll be interesting to get a closer glimpse of our country's "powerful people." But I'm mostly looking forward to the two days away with my family. That's going to be fun.
posted by Steve 5:44 PM
Friday, January 24, 2003
Another interesting thought...
Again in Simplicity, written in 1979, Foster addresses our environmental concern over this global cooling that has been taking place and will no doubt impact future generations. No, that's not a type-o, they were concerned about global COOLING. But now global warming threatens humanity for various reasons. With that in mind, Drudge runs this article.
Jessica just finished reading Richard Foster's book Simplicity. God's definitely working on us in this area. We just finished something in our church called The Kingdom Assignment, based on the book by the same name. Basically, our church gave out 10 $100 bills and told them that this was God's money that they were being entrusted with, basing the whole experiment on the Matthew 25 parable of the talents. After 3 months that original $1000 had been more than tripled and is still growing, and the stories of people helped are incredible. But the point that keeps coming home is that as citizens of the Kingdom, EVERYTHING we have, and are, and do belong to the Lord. Rick Warren in his 40 Days of Purpose basically says that there will be a test when we get to Heaven, and God has already given us the two questions in advance: What did you do with my son Jesus? And what did you do with the stuff I gave you?
Here's a quote from Simplicity:
“Today there is a heretical teaching that is an absolute plague in American Christianity. It is the dogmatic and unexamined credo that whatever we gain is ours to do with as we please. If we earn $50,000, how we spend it is our private affair. Perhaps we will concede that it is legitimate for the church to talk about tithing, but the other 90 percent is none of its business.
How utterly self-consumed and provincial! In no way can we twist Scripture to justify such a belief. Our lifestyle is not our private affair. We dare not allow each person to do what is right in his or her own eyes. The Gospel demands more of us: it is obligatory up on us to help one another hammer out the shape of Christian simplicity in the midst of modern affluence.”
Jessica and I were talking and we're having to intentionally undergo the process of moving this knowledge from our heads, and making it a practice of our hearts -- where we without thought treat all things as God's and take on the attitudes of true stewards. That's not easy. It's a discipline.
posted by Steve 9:42 AM
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
In a sermon a couple months ago I threw out a statistic that I had read somewhere. Then someone asked me for the source and I can't find it. Does anyone know where it is? The statistic was that the United States comprises just under 5% of the world's population and yet possesses like 95% of the world's wealth. It's a startling statistic if you think about. I mean, it may be something all of us already knew, at least on some level, but what does that mean for us? American's have such a distorted view of reality. Rather, the American reality is so vastly different from that of the rest of the world. What does that mean about how we relate to God? What does that mean about how we face and process financial stress? What does that mean about our responsibility?
First of all, there's no way I can consider myself poor! I'm a pastor, and we have a house, utilities and insurance provided for us. In addition we get to take home a few hundred dollars a week. Things are tight for us. But that's just because of the manner in which we choose to live, the way we have become accustomed to living. Our view and understanding of necessities is actually a bit warped!
I went to this statistical site to try and verify some of these statistics, and it does seem about right, although I didn't do the math. But I'll throw some out just for your viewing pleasure.
World Population Milestones · 1 billion in 1804 · 2 billion in 1927 (123 years later) · 3 billion in 1960 ( 33 years later) · 4 billion in 1974 ( 14 years later) · 5 billion in 1987 ( 13 years later) · 6 billion in 1999 ( 12 years later)
Um, does anyone else find this trend alarming? Discounting a major catastrophe, does anyone know how long it will take before humans literally cover the face of the earth? It can't take that long because those figures above seem exponential. OK, maybe not. Another population chart actually shows a slowing down trend in the growth rate. I have heard that the world is a huge place and is ideally situated to handle human beings, even in exceedingly large numbers. And in fact there are plenty of resources to go around, it's simply the systems we have in place which tend to reflect a fallen and selfish human nature which doesn't yet know how to share, play nice, and don't hit (rules currently enforced at our house -- for Spencer and Carter mostly).
Population by Country China 1,284, 303,705 India 1,045,845,226 U.S. 280,562,489 Indonesia 232,073,071 Brazil 176,029,560
Gross Domestic Product U.S. 9.963 TRILLION! China 4.5 Trillion India 2.2 Trillion
There's a handful of other countries -- mostly European and Brazil -- in the trillions, but everyone else in the billions and lower.
OK, just did a little more research on "The Passion" and feel a little silly now. Of course, the Romans will be speaking Latin, probably not Jesus. We know he spoke Aramaic. Probably Hebrew, but then he could've been reading the Septuagint. Then he'd have to know Greek, which we don't know. He may have known Latin too. Somebody knows all of this! Don't look at me...all I've got is an MDiv.!
posted by Steve 12:52 PM
So does anyone know...is Mel Gibson going to play the lead role in the film he's putting together on Jesus?
I saw on Drudge last week, that he's getting some kind of heat from somewhere because he's doing this movie. My favorite quote from the article is that this is "a film he is making in Aramaic and Latin for authenticity...." Um...Latin? Maybe the Catholic Jesus spoke Latin. But no complaints here. It'll be a refreshing change from the traditional British Jesus. I hope he at least looks somewhat Middle Eastern.
posted by Steve 12:25 PM
That last post was originally from Sunday. I had to repost it today from work. Nice!
Check out the John Maxwell poster on Jordon Cooper's site! It's the posting entitled, "nice picture" on Friday, January 17. That is awesome!
posted by Steve 12:14 PM
OK, it posted that, so I'll recap.
Had a great weekend. We started playing roller hockey again in Pontiac. I can't tell you how much I enjoy playing sports. Specifically, I always look forward to the days in my week when I'm playing either hockey, soccer or football. I even start dreaming about it. Any Freudians out there wanna take a crack at this?
I also got to play racketball later on in the day with Dan, my brother-in-law. I hadn't played racketball since Greg Rensberry used to routinely kick my butt in seminary. We just found out this morning that Dan and Mandy are pregnant! We're really, really excited for them. That's an answer to prayer.
I preached on solitude this morning and even got a little into silence. I hate solitude. I'm totally a people person. So my first and only silent retreat last April was hellish (those of you who got my abbreviated journal reflections know how tortured I was). It was at Manresa -- a beautiful Jesuit retreat center in Birmingham. I also enjoyed getting to know my director, Father Fennessey, a bit and getting his take on things. I know it's good for me -- it's soul stretching. I'm going to make that at least a yearly event.
We had some visitors from Alpena in service today. Two couples who were down for the weekend to see the Auto Show, and they stopped in to our church for worship. As with most people who stop in, the major question is, "so what's a Free Methodist?" Or "what's the difference between Free Methodist and regular Methodists?" Anyway, we took them out to eat afterwards and had a good time. It's always cool to get to know perfect strangers when everyone's a follower of Jesus. It's truly a family connection.
AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGH! I just wrote out another major blog and tried to post and publish and the connection failed or something to that effect. This is why you will not see many weekend blogs from me. My stinking AOL dial-up connection is useless!
posted by Steve 12:21 AM
Friday, January 17, 2003
Is there a flaw in my thinking?
My observation is that people who know how to pray -- and by that I mean, they spend serious amounts of time doing it -- and by serious amounts of time, I'm thinking hours...consecutive hours -- these people are the ones who lead powerful lives, fully marked by the Spirit and the supernatural.
I have also observed that in western society, God and the supernatural are not as readily visible as in other societies and conditions. I lived in Brazil for three years and the supernatural was always on the surface, it was tangible, visible. I believe there's a combination of affluence and security that render the Jesus follower impotent and fairly innocuous. It's possible to live in it, follow Jesus in it, live a good life and even impact people positively for the Kingdom. But it's hard to be utterly and truly dependent on the Father when we've got so much taken care of and under control. There's no room or need for God to intervene when we have absolutely no basic physical need and we can even incur a certain amount of calculated debt with no fear that it can't be paid off.
My ruling question that I'm wrestling with, is how can I live a life where God is unmistakeably present, alive and absolutely essential to my life. My motivation for asking is that I can think of no greater way for acquaintances, neighbors and family to desire to know Jesus for themselves. Even closer to home, my kids. What would it be like for them to grow up and never even have to wrestle with "the faith of their parents" because they've been a witness to the living Christ in their home for years.
And of course, the greatest point of my wrestling is essentially with me. I have answers to my questions about how to live that kind of life, but I don't readily fall into that kind of life and pattern. As a matter of fact, I resist it.
This whole train of thought arises from my meditating last night on Matthew 8:18-22 in The Message. A religious professional asked for permission to follow Jesus, and in essence received the reply, "it's fine with me, but there's no going back to the creature comforts of home." And we have no idea what this "clergy" person did. Another follower of Jesus asked for permission to do his duty and take care of his Father's funeral and stuff. Jesus said, "you're priorities are with me, let's go, we've got important stuff to do." Matthew was trying to communicate something to his readers of the nature of following Jesus. And of course, that message would be timeless. I agree with Dallas Willard who reacted to another similar passage by saying "the entire point of this passage is that as long as one thinks anything may really be more valuable than fellowship with Jesus in his Kingdom, one cannot learn from him." I get that and think it applies here too. One has got to have their priorities in line, but how does my life speak of these priorities? Not just am I spending time with Jesus, abiding, praying, etc. But how does the activity of my life point to the fact that it doesn't matter whether I have a house, or a bed, or a car (if in fact I do have my values straight)? How does my daily routine and decision making declare that I follow Jesus at the cost of other things that seem important? And what are those seemingly important things that need to be dropped?
posted by Steve 2:19 PM
Thursday, January 16, 2003
I just ran across an article at theooze. I know there's absolutely no original thoughts or actions in this world, but I find it interesting that I read this article the same day as posting my tiny thoughts. Still no comments. Maybe this isn't an interesting topic.
posted by Steve 4:45 PM
I'm trying to start a new pattern for myself. Since I'm preaching on spiritual discipines, it all starts with me, right? I've got my Bible reading, prayer, journal time consistently carved out in the evenings, but what of the rest of my day? Being a pastor I've struggled with how to best use my time. But it's such a privilege to be freed up for spiritual pursuits, I can't be wasting it. So I'm experimenting with a 9:00, 12:00, 3:00 type of practive. 9:00 is when I review verses I've been memorizing and learn new ones for meditation throughout the day. 12:00 is for prayer. 3:00 is for silence. We'll see how it goes.
So I just reviewed some verses. Last summer I started memorizing James with the goal that when I got to James in my schedule of preaching through the Bible, then I'd just be able to "dramatically" quote the book. That time roles around and I had only 2 chapters memorized. Obviously I had problems with making it a steady discipline. At any rate, I reviewed chapter 1 today. It's all a great, challenging book, but the last verse has been batting around in my mind.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
In the traditional role of "pastor," the responsibility for the most part falls upon the paid professional clergy types to attend to these kinds of needs. And of course, at the time of James's writing, "distress" was a good, solid, if not understated word for the plight of orphans and widows. Fast forward to now, in western countries, where societies have become indelibly impressed by the advent of God among us in Jesus, and have systems built specifically to address such need and distress. And here I am in an affluent suburb, and the widows in my congregation have their own houses or apartments, they receive all sorts of assistance from the American people, and they all have family near by to attend to them and their needs regularly. So these particular widows are well taken care of and any distress is readily addressed. So what's the church's role? Visitation. The pastor visits old people.
I cannot tell you my excitement in reading through Houses That Change the World, by Wolfgang Simson. I resonated with it on so many levels, I only wish I was blogging at the time. At any rate, in a later chapter addressing the positives of the house church, I was thrilled with seeing the potential for how a house church addresses the orphan, widow, handicapped and the elderly in general. It was so obviously simple and right. They are a valued member of the community!! If a person can't get out of their house for the SERVICE or are physically unable to be active in the PROGRAM centered life of the church then there's a natural ostricism and the implied sense of worthless conveyed to these people. But the house church can have and "do" church at these people's homes! These people are an intregal part of the community because of the life, personality, gifts and wisdom that they contribute to the gathering. And if there are needs among them, they can be readily seen and addressed. Their elderly status can be a tremendous asset to the community, and they MUST remain vital in order to continue discipling those who meet at their house.
Of course, this is all very exciting in the realm of the ideal and theoretical. Now to make it happen. I'm just curious, how many of you out there in this movement have people in your house church or network that are over the age of say 50? I'm guessing that the emerging church in western culture is definitely going to more readily lend itself and be more attractive to a more postmodern generation and mindset. But what if I can make this a vision of vitality a reality in my church of 30 people whose primary constituency is over the age of 65? Hmmmm.
I'd love to get your thoughts. Or as Jim Rome says, "React to me!" (If you don't know who Jim Rome is, don't worry about it. It's not worth investigating.)
posted by Steve 10:02 AM
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Sorry to all two of my readers, I haven't been posting daily. I promise, I will faithfully develop the spiritual discipline of blogging. I just ask for a little slack for the rookie.
So, Jessica and I were invited to the Car Show last Monday. We've been a part of a parenting group for the past four years, and one of the couples invited us to hang out with them for the afternoon and evening. It was a lot of fun. I'm not big into cars, but I like them well enough. My wife insists that I'm a bit girly because I've always been partial to the VW beetle. And now I'd really love a Mini Cooper. They're sweet little cars! I just tell her that I don't have compensation issues like most men do.
Detroit's a great city. I wish it were Chicago. By that, I mean that I wish the city of Chicago was located in the SE corner of Michigan and was now called Detroit. And I wish that Detroit were that state unto itself just above Illinois and just below Wisconsin. But, as I was reminded by my friend, it took a good 15 or 20 years for Mayor Coleman Young to destroy the city, so it's going to take a while to get it back.
So last night I read chapter four in The Spirit of the Disciplines, entitled "Little Less Than a God." The new thought that jumped out at me was this: "We were not designed just to live in mystic communion with our Maker, as so often suggested. Rather, we were created to govern the earth with all its living things -- and to that specific end we were made in the divine likeness." I had a professor in seminary (Joe Dongell -- Pentatuch EB) who actually initiated this whole understanding for me. And it's precisely because we were so divinely linked to the created order that made my eschatology so much more clear. In other words, because part of our purpose is to almost assist in creation and dominion of the earth, it only makes sense that the entire created order will be redeemed and be made new. For the first time, eternal life wasn't solely some unfathomable mystical, spiritual, unearthly existence. But in some way that we will only know once it happens, there will more than likely be a very real physical new heaven and new earth, a new created order. And that seems to make sense of Paul's eschatology too. This may be nothing new for you, but just reading that again last night got me all excited.
Speaking of getting all excited, I concluded preaching through the Bible in a year a couple of weeks ago, and wrapped it up with Revelation. I LOVE Revelation thanks to the best seminary class I've ever had -- NT 666 by Dr. Mulholland. I won't get into it, but I get all excited when thinking about how practical Revelation is now. I actually did a 5 month series on Revelation a couple of years ago. They're the only sermons I've ever kept the tapes of, and I'm just now getting around to making copies for some friends and relatives that asked for them. Only now, I'm ripping off the cassettes onto my hard drive and then making them into CDs! I'm so proud of myself!
posted by Steve 2:53 PM
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Alan told me to write something deep on Friday. I chickened out. Saturday nights are for fixing up the sermon. And last night I had a fire in my belly. Nope, it wasn't the Holy Spirit, and no it wasn't a Mormon mystical experience. I had Thai food and I ordered it hot. It was HOT!
I started a series on Spiritual Disciplines. Today was introductory -- as in answering the question, "why do we want to know anything about spiritual disciplines?" Now the series. Any suggestions on which disciplines I should highlight? I'm reading The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard right now. Maybe I'll include a quote from him later. Of course I'll reference The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. And I'm also going to lean heavily on John Ortberg's The Life You've Always Wanted. I've heard Ortberg referred to as "Willard Light." I like Willard Light. He tastes good. Mmmmmm, Willard Light! Definitely the epitome of an effective communicator. Extremely practical, down to earth, knows when and how to tell a story, and it's usually always a really good one. Oh, and I might use the Bible too, a little.
It's true that pastors are always looking for good illustrations. My boys are 4 and 2, and Saturday nights are always a good time to tell them to go do something that will make a good illustration. What results is seldom anything I can mention for the audience I had in mind.
I ran into John Ortberg last summer. He was at a church that I went to visit outside Grand Rapids called Mars Hill Bible Church. It's about 3 years old now and they have around 10,000 people attending their services. For those of you who like labels, it's a very postmodern church. My favorite three things about it were that it was in an abandoned strip mall, and all the stores were now different departments, offices, coffee house, library, information, etc. 2) They don't advertize, they don't have a sign out front, and it's difficult to find unless you're looking for it. They think word of mouth should be good enough. 3) The seating in the auditorium was in the round, the stage was a square and the band all faced inward around the stage. That's a cool creative way to eliminate the performance feel, unless your bass player is self-conscious about how his butt looks.
I've got about 10,000,000 things to say, and I want to say them all right now. I was going to do a little bit on "Christian celebrity" with the John Ortberg thought, but I'll spare you. You'd think I'd have gotten it all off my chest this morning. But I'll stop rambling from stream of consciousness and just introduce myself. I know, the two of you reading this know all about me. But just in case someone else wanders into this site...
My name is Steve. The ".us" in my domain name is not a nationalistic statement. My name's just too common to secure a .com, .org or .net. I'm 31. I'm married to Jessica who is pregnant and beautiful...especially today. Spencer is 4, Carter is 2, Raven is a dog, and Jack is a cat. I've been the pastor of a small Free Methodist church for 4.5 years now in Auburn Hills, MI. I love this area. It's about time for the Simpson's.
Here's the Dallas Willard quote I promised. (Does anyone else picture Willard Scott when you think of anyone with a name of Willard?) It's one of several good passages that I highlighted. I pick this one over the others for no special reason except that maybe the Simpson's are about to be on. (Did you ever see the one where the Springfield Community Church can't rebuild after a fire so they take on corporate sponsor's? It's a classic. It's also the episode where Lisa becomes a Buddhist) Anywho...
"The American Church has overestimated the good that comes from mere scientific progress or doctrinal correctness, or from social progress, missionary work, and evangelism. The chruch has been shaken to its foundations by ideological, technological, and military movements on a scale never before experienced by humankind, as it has been smothered by mass culture, mindless "prosperity," insipid education, and pseudo-egalitarianism. And as a result, the church at present has lost any realistic and specfic sense of what it means for the individual believer to 'grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,' as 2 Peter 3:18 expresses it. In fact, it has lost sight of the type of life in which such growth would be a realistic and predictable possibility." (The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 16)
Mmmmmm, mindless prosperity!
posted by Steve 7:40 PM
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Here's my new website. Thanks to Alan, I've finally got everything hooked up right. Now I just have to learn DreamWeaver. See you in 2004!
posted by Steve 4:42 PM
