name above all names

A few years back I was with a good friend and mentor at a weekend retreat in the rockies and the band there was a band from a community outreach from San Francisco's tenderloin district. The lead began to tell a story of how they often do prayer walks around the city and recently they have been gathering with homeless, middle class, rich, whoever around the district and just saying the name of Jesus...at first my friend and I both looked at each other and were like "that's kinda dumb, you are just standing around saying Jesus' name" and as soon as we got that out he made the statement - "though this may seem silly we really believe that Jesus name is the most powerful name and that his name alone cast out oppression and the forces of evil". I stood amazed and convicted. I was reminded of this today, as believers we are a part of something supernatural, I know that its not practical but Jesus did not call me to be practical he called me live by faith not by sight and that is supernatural. As I live by faith I believe that Jesus name really is something incredible and it is even more incredible that he loves me enough to let me say his name.

learning

So here I am sitting in the offices of the Journey Manhattan. I am here to learn and see what God is doing in the city, I am pretty pumped. Something about this place just makes me start to think about leadership and all its faces. I am not the greatest leader in the world but I am distinct in the style in which I feel I best use what leadership gifts God has given me. I have been hanging in Nashville with Eddie at Cumberland Church, this guy is legit, I can't really get into all the details on the blog but I have rarely if ever been challenged by a leader that is so willing to listen and be humble. There is not an arrogant bone in him and I have seen his willingness to do whatever it takes and to think through whatever it takes to see God's kingdom move forward. All that to say that I have learned a great deal over the last month and am excited about serving alongside him in the coming season. What I have learned is that passive leadership is a freaking joke....let me put it this way, I used to think being humble was being passive, being positive was being Godly but from Eddie and I am pretty sure that I will see here at the Journey that being realistic is fruitful and often times comes across as negative, but most of the time "positive" people positively suck at evaluating a situation much less doing anything about it. Don't get me wrong, Eddie is probably the best I've seen in a while at taking the best from a situation but that is very different than being unrealistically positive. I am learning that 95% of being a leader is hard work, for example, I hung out with this guy Mark this morning and we drove all over new york to load granola bars into vans for a servant evangelism effort, not flashy, its just hard work, but while stacking boxes I listened to this guys heart and watched him work hard and realized that he is a guy worth following, not because of what he said or his "ministry philosophy" or witty jargon but because he worked hard. Unfortunately I have been around people who don't work hard in the last few years and at times have been guilty of that, I believe now that the only thing that is really healthy to dictate in the form of top down leadership is hard work, if the man in charge does not set the example in work ethic then the rest of the team will suffer, right? I am really in this cool leadership learning process where I am learning that sometimes I talk too much and sometimes I don't say enough, sometimes I work in vain and sometimes I dont work enough...I am sure that God is trying to teach me balance and trying to break me out of the ridiculous 80/20 rule that I heard from a guy who sits in an office all day like a fortune 500 CEO, I am not a fortune 500 CEO nor do I believe that the church should operate like one, so I am going to stop reading Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell for now and I am gonna start reading the Gospels again and see if I can learn how to lead like those cats did. Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell are great men who teach a lot we can all learn from but they are not trying to live out "thy kingdom come, thy will be done"....thats not fancy but its freaking awesome and difficult.

Thoughts?

Top Ten

Here are my top 10 flicks in the last couple years:

No Country for Old Men
Dark Knight
The Departed
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
Michael Clayton
Gone Baby Gone
Transformers
Bourne Supremacy
Live Free or Die Hard

Election 2009

So I have had a few phone calls today where people were asking what do you think about the election. I think this......its over. I have never seen all these note writing folks write notes about loving their neighbor or about reaching the unreached so I think that all this election spirituality is people trying to feel better about themselves not really being connected to the mission of Jesus. Read Driscoll's blog.....

http://www.theresurgence.com/in_god_we_do_not_trust

feel good about that.

RB

standing trial

So tonight I was reading multiple accounts in Acts where Peter and John stood trial before the Jewish High Priest and I began to think about how they were speaking. Not necessarily what they were saying but more, How they were saying it. I then tried to put this situation in a modern day context. I imagine a hot, tense and emotionally violent room that has the 10 commandments posted behind the committee that is seated elevated and looking down on the accused. The committee is full of over weight kentucky fried Southern Baptist deacons that have been doing the same thing for their whole life and have not really given much thought to whether it was right or wrong or somewhere in between. On trial is a late twenties youth minister who has seen exciting and life breathing ministry and sits in his office all day reading driscoll and listening to chandler wondering when he is gonna get his chance. He read a book called "why revival tarries" by leonard ravenhill and decided that the best thing for his students was to venture out of the regular wednesday night schedule of :

1 game with a giveaway
3 Chris Tomlin songs played by a mediocre guitarists and some tracks off NP music.
20 minute sermon on why the students should not drink beer and that they should invite their friends.
1 invitation that he has to manipulate a little in order to keep his baptism quota headed in the right direction so he doesn't get called into the pastor's office.

and venture into 6 weeks of Jesus. Looking at pictures of Jesus, watching movies about Jesus but most importantly standing and reading the story of Jesus. He starts in Matthew 1 with a preface of how Matthew 1 really begins back in Genesis 3:15 so he takes most of the first night explaining how The Promised One got to be The Promised One....

In this series he does not explain anything with his feeble language he just reads it the way it is written for 20 minutes, gets as far as he can and then he prays asking the Holy Spirit to turn the truth over in the lives of his students until they get it. As the 6 weeks goes by he is applauded for his commitment to the bible and encouraged for thinking "outside the box".

But at the end of 6 weeks his student's are not any different than they were. They are not acting justly and they are not walking wisely. They are showing up but their lives don't look like Jesus. So Thursday morning after the last week of reading Matthew he sits in his office and prays/thinks long and hard about what he should do. He decides that the right thing is to do it again. Read the story of Jesus in Matthew and trust the Holy Spirit to do what only he can. So he does. Then he does it again. And after 18 weeks of reading Matthew he finds himself in the "courtroom" standing before Col Sanders and his infinite church growth wisdom.

Col. Sanders: Son, we applaud your love for the students and your love for the word but we think it is time to go back to the old format, students are getting bored and starting to go to young life down the road where they can play four square and texas hold em.

Young Minister: Students are getting bored because they don't love Jesus and thus don't love his word.

Col. Sanders: My son is in your youth group, do you think he does not love Jesus?

Young Minister: Do you?

Col Sanders: My son is a good kid, he does not get in trouble and he comes to church all the time.

Young Minister: Do you think that your son loves Jesus?

Col Sanders: I think he loves Jesus as much as anyone else does.

Young Mininster: Well Colonel, I believe that Jesus said that if we are to come after him we have to leave all that we know and follow him. I believe that Jesus really is the Son of God and he wants a lot more than for us to show up, he wants us to believe and act on that belief, he wants us to know that he is all that is good and not be like everybody else but be like him. I believe that Jesus say if we are in him that we will bear much fruit. Do you think your son is like Jesus or like you?

Col Sanders: This is not about me, this is about you not wanting to connect with my son and his friends.

Young Minister: I want your son and his friends to connect with Jesus, If they connect with me in the process that is fantastic but that is not goal number 1.

Col Sanders: Son, I think that you need to think real long and hard before you answer this next question:::: Are you going to keep doing what you have been doing or are you gonna switch back to what the student's enjoyed?

before the young minister can answer a pudgy little 7th grade girl stands up in the back of the room as her father grabs her arm and tell her to sit, she pulls away and grabs a red bible from the pew in front of her and holds it close to her tummy and says while looking at Col Sanders in the face:

I don't think you should judge or one day you could get judged. I mean don't you think that you do bad stuff? What is somebody one day calls you out for doing something you think is right? What about right now, can you name 1 thing that you are doing that is wrong, if so why are you trying to find the wrong stuff about him? Don't you think you need to leave him alone and maybe think about you and yours, I know your son, he could use you thinking about him."

Col Sanders: I don't think what your talking about is what we are dealing with here, I think he is the one that is here to face change, what you said is sweet and its nice that you are taking up for him but right now you need to let the adults handle this, sit down sweetie.

Little Girl: well, i would but i just want to correct you on one thing, I didn't say this, Jesus did in the beginning of Matthew 7.

At this point the young minister sits down and begins to cry because the truth had taken hold of one little girl and that meant that his effort was not in vain and that the Holy Spirit again had been faithful to produce fruit. Col Sanders stammered a little trying to break the gut wrenching silence that had befallen on the crowd gathered there. He dismissed the young minister and called a closed session for deacons to consider the best course of action for the youth ministry of their church.

Know this does not exactly match up with the extremity of Peter and Johns situation but it helps their situation make a little more sense to me.