If-Then

If you started watching TV at the tender age of 5 and you watched the average 4hrs of TV that americans watch then you've wasted a lot of time.

4hrs x 365days is 1460hrs. The average life span of people (kinda) is 70, so we could say that we have an average TV watching life of 65yrs. If each year we watch 1460hrs of TV per year then in 65yrs we watch 94,900hrs of TV. If we divide that into 18hr days, since you have to sleep at least 6hrs a day, you waste 5,272.22 days, or 14.44yrs (of 18hr days) in front of the boob tube. Wow is right.

If-Then
If you believe that we will all stand before God and give an account for what we did with the life (& Time) that He gave us, then you wouldn't watch as much TV as most folks.

So, the next time someone tells you they don't think they can squeeze God stuff into an already busy schedule you can share our little secret.
(I don't have cable, but I do watch movies, when I have time ;-)

Once again I can’t help but notice the church flourishing in China. By 2020 it will be the largest Christian nation in the world. What do they say about our situation? (Books—Heavenly Man, Road to Jerusalem) We are Luke-warm, don’t pray enough (average Christian prays 3min a day, average pastor prays 6min, Barna—not really storming the gates of hell now are we), don’t fast enough, are consumed with media (average ??hrs), live a powerless faith, are too comfortable, have divorced mission (Gen 3:9, Matt 28:19, 2 Cor. 5:11) from church, preach a “make me happy” gospel, won’t challenge secular culture, are too tolerant, un-relational, ETC, man. The guy in The Heavenly Man speaks at churches in the US and straight tells ‘em to repent and that they need to be broken for God.

Try this: Get radical for Jesus, PRAY, FAST, get up earlier & read your word, tip 100%, smile, PRAY AGAIN, listen to worship music and sing as loud as you can, FAST, intercede, repent for not praying enough, do the un-imaginable—get rid of your cable, have fun, weep for the nations, read Voice of the Martyrs, laugh at yourself, stop watching and living in Smallville, join the real Amazing Race like Keith Wheeler (check the “carries cross” link), PRAY.

Try it for one month. If you don’t notice a difference in your life and those around you I’ll give you your money back.

A few of us from our church are headed to China (Oct 24-Nov-4). I am blessed that three people I am discipling are going with me, two of them have never left America, one has never gone outside of California! plus two of them will be planting a church with me in 2007, so experiencing cross-cultural stuff is a must.
We will work with three missionaries: Two University teachers who allow us to hang our with their students, they also oversee many house churches, so we attend church with them and talk to some of their leaders. We also spend time with a woman who adopts street kids and brings them to an abandoned chili factory teaching them about Jesus while giving them life skills.
We are in the middle of fund-raising, which is a great opportunity for some of the folks to own and admin events. My desire is that they learn how to admin a trip initiating, overseeing, and follow-through all the steps needed to take their disciples on cross-cultural journeys. We do odd jobs for our money, which is a character and team building adventure. Most of our work has come from people who don’t know Jesus, so it’s a great witness as well.
We started our college group. After much prayer and fasting God finally gave me the name for our group: The College Group! Totally PoMo (postmodern) so we’re guaranteed to bring um’ in. I’m into cell church, so The College Group will meet as a small group, evangelize (which was our topic last night Luke 10:25-36), grow, and then multiply & do it again & again & again etc… When we have four groups we’ll get together as a large group (Cell-ebration)
We had two new folks and when we started talking about taking a mission’s trip this next summer they were stoked. My intern will help me lead next week. I think he'll be ready to lead his own group in Jan? Good stuff.

Last night we played indoor soccer. Laben, Jeff, and myself joined up with the league to make some friends with folks who don’t know Jesus. We’re not sure how it’s all gonna work out since the guys on our team take off pretty quick to go drinking. No joke, last week we had a late game (9pm) and most of the team didn’t show up because they were too ripped to make it. One guy came hammered and played better than I would have in that state. There is one guy, Brian whom we all agree seems interested in hanging out, so we’ll see when we can hang out with him. It is pretty awesome though to be teammates with these guys. We’re gonna give them free drink cards to the Koffee shop our church owns www.yakskoffee.com; we’ll see how it goes.
Well I set a great example last night by almost getting in a fight! Go pastor Sean!! This dude runs into me hard and I grab his shirt for two reasons:
One-I’m pissed off
Two-I’m trying not to fall over.
Of course the guy starts yelling at me. I wasn’t trying to start a fight; I was reacting wrongly to a wrong against me. I told the guy “You know you’re in the wrong man, you slammed into me.” He continued to tell me to “-----------!” Well we were both wrong (the ref did give us the ball!), but I know better. (Once again, just knowing something doesn’t mean you’ll do it) After the game I apologized to him, which is never easy. He shrugged me off. Hopefully I see him around town and I get a chance to talk to him. Maybe we’ll laugh about it; exchange stories.
Nobody said I’m doing it right, but I’m out there trying.

Scene 1-Sean's living room, morning time, after the coffees been had.

Sean said, "Lord what books must I read to gain eternal life?"
Jesus said, "How do you interpret the law?"
Sean said, "You didn't answer my question Jesus, what books will tell me how to live rightly?"
Jesus said, "Matthew 22:37-40."
Sean said, "Matthew who?"
Jesus said, "Love your neighbor."
Sean said, "What's that got to do with what I'm asking you? Anyways, what's your definition of love? I know what Luther says, Augustine says, Clive says, and what Richard says, but I'm not to sure what to think yet. I am going to this conference soon where there's a workshop on post-modernistic ecclesastical soteriology as it pertains to hamartiology. I hope it changes my life."

Sean hears a sound outside, stands, looks out the window where his neighbor is changing his tire.
Sean exits the room, goes outside.

Sean says, "Ya need some help with that tire."
Dave says, "Thanks man, I gotta get to work quick."
Sean says, "I'd love to help."
Simple.

"Given that the center of Christianity has now shifted to these poorer countries...Ironically, those who boast the highest standard of living and display also the greatest spiritual poverty are also the ones who write our theology texts; meanwhile, those with the least often have much to teach us about prayer and dependence on God." William A Dyrness-Diversity in Mission and Theology: Fuller Seminary
The majority of Christians who are living today are not Anglo-Saxon, are financially poor, and are people with whom we have little in common with; if you can overlook the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Their Christianity is not our Christianity; our faith is not their faith. They compose a majority of the church, yet as Dr. Dyrness says we compose the majority of theology that affects the body. Can't we say that our theology, and therefore the body, is lacking without the contribution of those who experience Christ-centered life in ways we don't? I believe that our understanding of God is deficient without the contribution of those who have a dependency on Christ that most of us only read about. Yet we write the books on ecclesiology (church), which is ironic since our culture provides us with a context that leaves community as an option, whereas community for them is often a means of survival.
Shouldn’t they be invited into dialogues about church since they live what most of us attend? They really know what it means to "share all things in common" (Acts 2), we "sacrifice what we don't need, keep what we want" and then write about community while living in neighborly isolation.
The church is the body, the bride of Christ. The body and therefore our understanding of church is out of proportion. We need the emergence of a global perspective.

This is my second blog of the day. I guess I'm turning into a blogger. Jesus is pretty dang cool. I love Him. Grad school is great right now, I'm writing a paper about the character of a Christ-like leader: God Dependent, Church Dependent, Teachable, and a Servant's heart. There could be much more written on the subject (and better?), but it's a start.
I joined the city indoor soccer league with the other guys who will be planting a church with me. We really wanted to hang with some people who don't know how cool Jesus is, so we decided to join a soccer team. We got picked up by a team (all three of us), which was a miracle in and of itself, and we are stoked. Some of our games are at 10pm, so our goalie informed us that instead of getting drunk after the game he has to get drunk at the bar (at the sport's complex) before the game. Laben, who is one of the three guys planting with me, and I totally busted up because that sounded like us before we met Jesus. We are certainly in the right place. My devotional life has been weak lately, but the team is fasting the next three days, which always ends with a renewed passion for Him. Keep loving Jesus.