Butt, butt

Ok so this is another one I didn't write, but it's a good one. I'm running all over the place right now, but I thought I'd toss something up just so you who read this wouldn't be disapointed.
Anyway here it is.

"I heard a good one today. I was asked how you can distinguish the goats from the sheep in your flock. As I was trying to come up with an astute answer I was told it is easy. The goats are the ones who are always responding with "but, but" while the sheep are those saying "a-bba, a-bba". It made me wonder how often I'm guilty of responding with a 'butt' when leadership is sharing a vision or asking for participation in an endeavour. It's easy for some of us who see things in black and white to respond with a forceful 'butt' when we're asked to participate in something outside of our comfort zone. 'Butt, my passion is for ______', 'Butt, I don't have the time for that, I'm already involved with ______', etc. I purpose to leave the butting to the goats and start working on responding with an 'a-bba'. When I have concerns about a vision or request I want to be turning to the Father, saying 'Abba, what would you have me do?"

It made me smile :D

Some people are like Slinkies. Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Patty Boy

Well Pat Robertson has done it again!! Once again I have to hide my head in shame because Pat opened his mouth. The latest goes like this…

“Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting “intelligent design” and warned them Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck. “And don’t wonder why he hasn’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for his help because he might not be there,” he said.”

Does God really send disasters to destroy places? Or is there another reason (E.g. Natural causes) for things like Katrina and such. There is an interesting conversation on Gil’s blog called Disasters it’s worth checking out. It is an interesting question to think about. I don’t have much else to say except this... If Pat is calling down God’s judgement on a town in Pennsylvania for rejecting intelligent design, then I am going to call down God’s judgement on ALL of North America for gross injustices, oppression, and lives of rampant sin. All of which seem to have a more Biblical backing for God’s wrath than rejecting one theory about how God MIGHT have created the world.

Cynicism

Funny how you say something and then a little while later you read something about the exact same thing that you were just thinking about. So in my last blog I shared about how I felt pretty cynical after the 7th Day Slumber concert. I was just reading The Vision and the Vow by Pete Grieg (great book by the way) in it he says,
"We are predisposed to cynicism because we don't have an all-consuming, cause the way previous generations did. Instead we have trends. We have products and technologies. We have our immediate circle of friends. But we don't have something bigger than our own little selves. We were never called up to fight for freedom. No ration books. No Cuban Missile Crisis. No man on the moon. No Martin Luther King, Jr. Just disposable heroes sponsoring products. Stuff. Things that come and go."
Is he right?? I think so. Now we do have causes, Tsunami relief, Aids, Hurricane Katrina relief. But (again here I am the cynic) most of the people who jumped on the Tsunami relief forgot about it and moved on to the next tragedy. With the exception of a few people most of our “heroes” jump from relief benefit to relief benefit without sticking to one Cause. I respect Bono and Ricky Martin (I know I shudder as well) but they have stayed the course with the work they have chosen. Bono, with Debt reduction and Ricky Martin, building houses for Tsunami survivors. But what do we need to truly stand for a cause?? Do we need a common enemy (Like Hitler in WWII) but are we blind?? We as Christians already have an enemy a million times worse than Hitler could ever hope to be. We fight not, “…against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms (Eph 6:12).” I think that we need more than a common enemy. Do we need a vision? Yes! What is that vision. It is as Grieg says, “The vision is Jesus - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus. The vision is an Army of young people. You see bones? I see an Army.” What do we need to do to free us from cynicism? I think more than an enemy we need our vision to be Jesus and our focus to be on Him and what He wants for our lives. And then we can unite as an army against our REAL enemy.

The Cynic in me

Sorry this is a long one (aren't they all) ANYWAY! Last night I went to a 7th Day Slumber concert. I have to admit that it was my first concert in ages and all in all I would say that it was a pretty good time. I’ve been a fan since their first album came out so it was pretty cool to see them live. I mean they’re nothing spectacular I’ve certainly heard better music, better lyrical writing, and seen a better live show. I don’t think I’d even say they are great musicians (even though they sound really good together) but then again they made it pretty clear that music is second on their priority list. They are about winning people to Christ. I’m sure that if they could find away to draw as many people in without the music they would do that too. But that brings me to the title of this blog. These guys played a few songs, shared a bit, played a few more songs and then had everyone sit down on the floor for the last song. It is sort of their worship song and the lead singer was down on his knees in front of everyone praising God (good no problems yet) but then after Joseph (the lead singer) got up and shared his testimony with us (also good). Unfortunately it was word for word what he said last time in Steinbach, and we have a CD at the Hub that has the same thing, again word for word. Which also is fine because he has come out of that place and he dealt with suicide and drug addiction and all of that (but sometimes I like to hear a bit more about what God did YESTERDAY as well as ten years ago… maybe that’s just me). Anyway Joseph talked and the guitar player played a nice lick over and over and Joseph asked people to raise their hands if they had ever thought about suicide, if they had thought about suicide this week, if they had a plan to do it this week (It was amazing to see how many hands went up) and so on. Well then came the Alter call and Joseph called up all those who wanted to change their lives. And about 70 or so youth came up. And now we come to the part that bothers me. As Joseph’s voice reaches the crescendo the bass comes in with the low deep notes, and the drummer starts hitting the crash and everyone’s hairs stand up on end and the emotions start to go overboard. And then the music fades and there is this huge group of people standing up front and Joseph says, “I’m not trying to get my numbers up but I know that there are at last 40 more of you out there and you need to come up.” And so he counts to three and then probably at least 40 more kids go up to the front, and once again the bass kicks in and the drummer plays those symbols. Now I appreciate what these guys are doing, but I also have enough experience at concerts/youth rally’s to know that most of these kids are emotional and not totally thinking straight. I also know that enough about music and psychology to know that if you play music a certain way you can get people to shiver and get all goose bumpy. Well after this the band tells all these kids that they want to talk to them privately, so they lead all the kids into a back room. And Lee and I decide that we’ll go and see if we can help out and pray for some of these kids. The band came in said some stuff and the 98% of the kids left right after the band, no prayer no anything. Watching most of the kids leave it was kinda like, “hmmm well I guess that’s over when’s the next emo high?” Now Maybe I’m a cynic, and maybe I don’t know all that happened there. And I certianly know enough not to limit God's power to change poeple. I also know that the church will attempt to do some follow up, but it all seemed manipulative to me. I struggled with this when I was doing door to door in Peru as well. Is using the wrong method (e.g. creating an emotional high for commitments) a good thing? Is it at least better than nothing? Would as many kids gone up front if Joseph had just shared and said, “If you want prayer go to the back and someone will be there to pray with you?” Somehow I doubt it… but like I said maybe I’m just a cynic who has experienced the emotional high too many times.