Looking at life through stained glass windows.

I am currently taking the most thought provoking class of my academic career. The class is called the Life of Christ. Yea I know, should have been an easy class for a guy who has been in church for the majority of his life. How much more is there to really learn that hasn't been covered in Sunday School or a sermon. This class has challenged me to strip away the preconceived thoughts that I had about Christ and how he lived while on earth. In other words to throw out all the baggage we bring with us. The effects are troubling. We no longer can hide in the pews and feel safe. Thankfully this journey had started a few years earlier for me but others have had their cages rattled.

We have pretty much put the ways we do things under the microscope of scrutiny to see how our value system lines up with Christ. We have examined the way Christ lived, who He walked with, and how He taught those around. One of the most recent questions we had to ask ourselves was "how does the life of Christ and the values He clearly held and taught inform the way we engage culture? contextualize?" After going over this question in my mind I wrote this response. "We have done all these things to bring the world to us. We set up programs, fall festivals, Christmas plays, and the list goes on. We do all these community outreach events at our church with a come and see attitude expecting them to flood our services but fail to engage them where they are. I do not see a biblical example of this anywhere. I believe it tells us to GO. What if instead of planning our own events we were to be involved with their events? You know be Jesus to them where they are? Instead of creating our own culture embrace the culture we are already a part of. Stupid things such as handing out water at a local art show may actually allow us to teach in a much more profound way then having a hayride at our members only church meetings!" I am not saying these events don't serve a purpose but they can not take place of living a life of love. Living a life where we are called to LOVE. If we are to be the salt of the earth don't we have to be alive on this earth. It does not tell us to be the salt of the church. We have withdrawn to our churches and look out through stain glass windows at a world going to hell. It looks pretty as we view it through the colored glass that distorts the image of the single mom who struggles to put food on the table. Everything we see is bright and vibrant. We are so comfortable sitting in our pews and voting on a committee to recommend how we will help those with needs. We make ourselves feel better because we recognize a need. All the while afraid to get dirty. One student, Richard wrote a quote that we may not even begin to understand the truth of. "The problem however is that there are too many christian eunuch's that are either too afraid or unwilling to engage the culture." How true. We are so afraid of the culture we create our own. One that if we don't leave we feel safe.

What a weekend!

We went to lakeland this weekend for our second annual trip to the Mirror Lake car show. The weather was warmer than it was supposed to be but much cooler than the previous weekend. We had a bunch of housework to do but sometimes you just need a break. Enjoy the pictures.






We then returned to Orlando for MelissaFest! It was amazing how many people turned out to support her and her family. She looked great and seemed to be handling the situation well. Her and her family are truly inspirations.

Dow drops and frankly I DON"T CARE!

I got up early to hear the news at 5:30 a.m. predicting the Dow would fall 300 points upon opening today. They had financial analyst all over the place. Should we sell? Should we buy? Gold? Silver? How do we invest for the future? Are we headed to another depression? Who will bail us out? Obama? McCain? Should the government try and throw more money at it to try to disguise the problem? These were just a small sampling of the whirlwind of questions being shot around.

Does this scare you? Should it scare you? NOT ME! Maybe it is because I don't have a single dime invested into the markets? I am so sick and tired of hearing about the people who have invested thousands in the market only to lose big. I am equally disgusted with the people who refuse to get a job because they can't find anything that fulfills them. Or I have too much going on to get a full time job. I don't like my job. Quit your whining, make the best out of it. We, as americans have become a bunch of spoiled rotten, whining, babies. Easy for me to say right? I have a job, house, two kids, and only been married once! Well you know why I have those things and I am satisfied. It is easy. I have realized I am not in charge. Everything I have and am is dependent on my relationship with Christ. We still struggle but we don't stress. We worry but we do not let it consume us. I am at a job I absolutely hate, haven't got a raise in 5 years, when 10 weeks without a paycheck. I feel your pain. BUT I do not conform to your I deserve better than this attitude.

We have this idea, a perverted one at that, telling us we deserve to be taken care of. We whine when we get off schedule and eat lunch and hour late. We are envious of the new house that has more square footage than ours. We are not satisfied with a car we desire a Lexus. Not you? Look in your closet (mine too) several outfits? How about the shoes you are wearing, only pair? Just maybe they are, Praise GOD for them. That is one more pair than many third world kids have. We sit and watch the market fall and commiserate with people losing thousands as a mother holds her starving baby in her hands waiting for them to take their last breathe.















I am daily trying to understand what these verses look like when they are lived out...

Matthew 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.







We are also reminded that God takes care of the Sparrows so how much more does he care for us. No matter how bad the economy gets, no matter how financially strapped we are God is Good! If we focus on the kingdom the things of this earth seem to matter a little less!