My Interview With The Devil

We are currently in a series at RVC called FAQ. We’ve been getting our community to submit questions and have been answering them from a biblical perspective. The questions have been great and it has been a lot of fun answering them. It’s clear the devil has a lot to say on these issues. I did this interview with him at the beginning of our message this past weekend. Here it is:

Shane Claiborne at Exponential

I still have lots of notes from Exponential last week that I haven’t posted.  There was a lot to process.

What I enjoyed about the conference was the diversity of content and speakers.  You had guys sharing from mega-churches to house church movements, to anywhere in between.

Shane Claiborne shared one of the afternoons on community transformation.  

I had read bits and pieces of his book but never heard him live.  His talk was fantastic and easily one of the best presentations at the conference.

Here’s a little recap and some notes and quotes. 

Shane Claborne

 ”Transformation takes more than a doctrinal statement”

 ”Doctrines are important things and we need to have that right but it is love that draws people to community”

 ”Discipleship is more about than just what we believe”

“The final judgment will not require you to submit your doctrinal statement”

Listen to what Jesus says about us standing before him… 

Matthew 25: ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“What do your doctrines look like?  What are you practicing?”

Transformation is more than: 

1. Transformation takes more than ideologies.

How are you proactive?

2. Transformation takes more than just a good vision

“The person who is just in love with the vision of community will destroy community”

 ”You can be obsessed with social justice and still be mean towards each other”

I’ll pipe in here and say BAM!  I’ve run into a lot of people who are Claiborne groupies and heavily opinionated about social justice yet treat people like crap.  

3. Transformation takes a neighborhood

“Move in… Learn… Listen…”

“It takes patience”

“One of my greatest temptations has been to come a church planter”

What he means by this is that it could be easy for him to start a church in Philly where he is because of the need.  His philosophy is that he wants to join God in what he is doing and help the churches that are established in the area.

“In my neighborhood we don’t need more churches, we need the church.”

 ”There’s a whole lot of counterfeit community” – talking about virtual community

 ”Do something crazy.  Go face to face to someone and ask them to be your friend!”

What Does Transformation Take?

1. Transformation takes imagination

 ”We’re all addicted to something.  We are all recovering from something.”

He shared a powerful story of gun violence in Philly and how the community came together to not just transform the problem but transform the root of the problem (gun shops selling guns illegally).

2. Transformation takes humility

“It isn’t about the donkey.  It’s about who (Jesus) rode the donkey.  We are just the asses that get to bring Jesus in.”

For more on Shane check out the Simple Way.

The New Covenant

Credit for the clip at the end goes to Churches Helping Churches.

Killer Stuff From Keller

Tim Keller is a hero of mine.  He’s an amazing teacher, writer, leader and pastor.  Everyone should read the book The Reason For God.  Keller pastors a church in Manhattan and has planted about a bazillion churches everywhere. 

He recently did a talk at the Gospel Coalition on the Gospel and Idols.  There is definitely some good stuff here for our series coming up in January called The Journey.

Here was an opening video used to introduce him at the Leadership Summit:

Here’s the talk from the Gospel Coalition:

Grace

Preparing for tomorrow at EMG.  We start a new series called God Is…

Tomorrow we will be talking about Grace.  

God is Grace.

Grace is… “God the Father in love doing good for ill deserving sinners through God the Son by God the Spirit” – Mark Driscoll

To be honest I can’t even wrap my mind around grace…

So undeserved…  So thankful…

Stop Apologizing

I had lunch today with a great friend and key guy on our youth team.  He’s growing tremendously as a young man and he called me on something that I though was appropriate.

We got talking about 5 Questions in 30 Minutes from last night and he said to me…

“Quit apologizing for speaking truth…  You’re to nice.”

I laughed… but what he was saying was true.  

I have a problem…  

I want to be the nice guy!  

I’m not confrontational at all and often in my speaking I will apologize for things I don’t need to.  

It’s been something I’ve done even since Jr. High.  At school, on the playground or on the sports field I would go out of my way to make sure nobody would have an issue with me.  I would apologize for everything, when in reality there was nothing to apologize for.

There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but sometimes the Truth hurts.

I’m glad he said something!  He challenged me…   

STOP APOLOGIZING!

God Make Us Leaders

Had a great weekend!  

Friday morning I went golfing with my dad.  He hadn’t golfed in 30 years but did really well!  We’re looking forward to playing a couple times a week together.  It’s a great way to hang out, get exercise and work on our game.

Saturday we helped Bev and Dom move.  Good times!  The best was the pizza guy running through the hail story and staking it on the front step.  WOW!

Sunday we had Bill Morrow share with us at RVC.  He spoke a fantastic message on God Make Us Normal.  You can listen to it HERE…

Germany is through to the semi’s!  Italy and Portugal are out.  How good is that!

I’m working on my message for tomorrow night @ EMG.  We are talking about God Make Us Leaders.  

I found a great article online by Rick Holland titled THE MYTH CALLED ADOLESCENCE.  It addresses some things I have been thinking about for a while!

To view the article click HERE.  

The Gospel

I listened to a good teaching from John Piper this morning on the Gospel.  He was speaking at the Text and Context conference that theresurgence puts on.  He made six points in which he says if one is missing then it is no longer the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:1-5

 

1)     The Gospel is a plan from before it happened

2)     The Gospel involves historical events

 

3)     The Gospel involves the accomplishment of something

 

4)     The Gospel involves an offer to all

 

5)     The Gospel is an application to you of what was accomplished objectively over 2000 years ago

 

6)     The Gospel is an eternal destiny for those who believe

Fear

FEAR

“God has not given us a spirit of fear but of LOVE, POWER, and a SOUND MIND.“

2 Timothy 1:7

1) Replace fear with LOVE

Matthew 22 – The Greatest Commandment

2) Replace fear with POWER

Acts 2 – The power and presence of God

3) Replace fear with a SOUND MIND

“Tell me O Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.” Psalm 26:2

Press On

Tonight we conclude our Heroes sereis as we look again at the apostle Paul.  We will be talking about “Pressing On”.  I will be showing this video as part of my message.  It’s pretty powerful.