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Our Men’s Group has been going strong this summer and now we have started a new meeting schedule where we go every other Wednesday in order to allow for the Ladies to begin meeting on the opposite Wednesday. This Wednesday we had 19 guys show up for fellowship, prayer, scripture and discussion. I am particularly blessed by the participation of Rocky, Chris and Dustin from the local Union Gospel Mission’s men’s program. These guys are on the road out of addiction and it’s great to have them part of our time together. These gatherings are a highlight of my week, I find life in our attempts to work out this Christian faith and in the relationships being strengthened and forming through this group. 

Our group is an eclectic group of men…young and old, different backgrounds and interests…but I think I am not alone in recognizing that there is a noticeable grace that is present in our times together. I look forward to seeing these men continue to be discipled and purposefully discipling one another in the way and life of Jesus. 

“Be careful then, dear brothers, make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.” -Hebrews 3:12-13

(Pics by Michael McMullen)

Chapter 3 of Hebrews speaks a lot about ‘perseverance’ and C.S. Lewis speaks to the difficulty of persistence in ‘The Screwtape Letters:

“The Enemy has guarded him from you through the first great wave of temptations.  But, if only he can be kept alive, you have time itself for you ally.  The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather.  You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere.  The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it — all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.  

If, on the other hand, the middle years are prosperous, our position is even stronger. prosperity knits a man to the World.  He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’ while really it is finding its place in him… .that is why we must often wish long life to our patients; seventy years is not a day too much for the difficult task of unraveling their souls from Heaven and building up a firm attachment to the earth.” 

Well, next Friday, October 7, marks 10 years since the United States invaded Afghanistan...and the war machine keeps on rolling. Since pre-election Mr. ‘War No More’ Obama said this summer that we will be in Afghanistan until 2014…you can bet it will just keep expanding into other new business and job creating lands of opportunity. Where else where all these unemployed, no possibility of jobs post college poor folk go? And in a country where business creation is faltering, who is ever going to convince states to end wars, when they have so many military contracts and war supporting and supplying businesses. You think the economy is bad now, imagine if we started ending the one area of it that is BOOMING! Nope…we have wed outselves to the beast and now Jesus’s prophetic words will have to be played out. “Those who LIVE by the sword…will die by the sword.”

And since everyone is barking and biting on the issue of the poor, taxes and how to eat the rich…how about I weigh in on it too. As someone who works and lives in a poor/working poor community and pastors a church in that context…I would say we need: Empowerment with ‘real’ accountability, current and forecasted real college education opportunities, stop the endless war program that creates a vacuum for the poor with few possibilities but killing for education money. Bring the war dollars home to help renew, rebuild, support and encourage a true pro-business-job creating enviorment for multi-level job creation and possibilities. Initiate a robust- trade-apprenticeship path for highschool bound students planning for the post highschool work. Support the crumbling family institution through lowering the tax burden and providing realisitc financial opportunties on folks trying to maintain the only stable building block in any culture ie. ‘family’.

Just a few morning thoughts. 

“Compared with uncaffeinated women, those who drank the equivalent of four or more cups of coffee a day are more likely to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and less likely to volunteer their time in church or community groups.” -The Spokesman Review (link)

I laughed out loud when I read this in the paper this morning, now I know the great evil behind our cultural moral disintegration…it’s coffee addiction!

A nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed, by Bonnie Ware, who worked for years nursing the dying. 

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Hebrews 13:20-21:
Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

How does a letter about mysterious characters with names like Melchizedek, blood splattering in celestial temples, dual Priesthoods, powerful eternal angels, sacrifices, rituals and mountains of fire and glory have to do with the modern Christians trying to figure out how to follow Jesus in today’s world…come watch me try to figure that out. JWC @ECCC 10AM: Intro to the Book of Hebrews.

With all the Social Media changes going on and rolling out, I feel like a Jedi trying to figure out what Lightsaber to use. I thought I wanted to be Luke and enjoy my Facebook social saber as weapon of choice. But…

I feel like Darth Maul now because I am using Facebook and Google+ at the same time but still not too sure of I can take much on while focusing on two social sabers at a time. But the reality is…

I’m more like General Grievous with Facebook, Goggle+, Twitter, Foursquare and even the old Jedi ‘Myspace’ joined the fray with some new updates to its service today. Not sure if I am going to be able to accomplish much or end up severing my head accidentally….stay tuned. 

That pants dropping guy was a pervert and Simon was guilty of using that disgusting man for his own ratings game. Sickening…I just turned it off. 

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. 

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Yesterday, I preached on David and the census in 2 Samuel 24. It was a message that looked at the issues of God’s sovereignty, man’s free will and the work of Satan and how they all come together in the outworking of life and our choices for sin and righteousness. I think it was one of the most important messages that I have given in a long time and reflected the summation of years of thought, study and pastoral experience in the matters. It was also given under heavy burden of the Spirit. If there was ever a moment of prophetic clarity it was in the delivery of this word. The call of the Spirit for His people to turn from sin and return to the Father and experience life is urgent in this moment.

In much of revivalist writing, there is a common thread of a deep work of repentance in light of God’s holiness. The old preachers speak of ‘awakenings’ that would included Diving Light shinning on hearts and minds and resulting in surrender, abandonment and a hunger and thirst for righteousness. I am being stirred in such manners and sense the Spirit working in a fresh manner that is opening my eyes and ears in ways that have been absent for awhile. I feel like God has been doing stuff in and below the surface and now is breaking out of the ground in a cleansing stream.

I pray that it will gush and storm…and that the consecration, the confrontation, the sacrifice, the prayer will testify to the sound of the abundance of rain falling in accordance with His purposes. 

“The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness.” -Ezekiel 18:20  

“Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy.” “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.” -Jesus (Revelations 22:11-12)