Can you have orthodoxy without orthopraxy?

Another day at UC Santa Cruz.


"The regents — making an official campus visit for only the second time in 40 years — were forced to cancel the remainder of their campus tour when roughly 150 students protesting a host of issues, from cuts in humanities programs to UC nuclear research, blocked the doors to a campus lecture hall aoround 4:30 p.m."

"The activists demanded the release of three protesters who had been detained inside by university police."

"In a scuffle at the hall's entrance, police pulled the three into the building and used pepper spray and batons to subdue the crowd outside. The three — two students and an alumna — were arrested; one will face three felony counts of battery against a police officer, according to campus spokeswoman Liz Irwin, while the others face misdemeanor charges of disrupting a public meeting. One officer was injured, though the extent of his injuries were unknown."


"With clusters of students blocking every exit to the new Humanities/Social Sciences lecture hall, administrators in the building used cell phones to talk to officials who were negotiating with student leaders outside to clear the way for the regents to leave."

"This isn't the best situation — people are essentially being held hostage inside," student leader Samantha Aranke told fellow students."

Don't trip, we'll be down there in two months. I've put in 5 different applications at the University. I want to meet these folks and put that passion to it's intended purpose: Jesus; and his church.

Pastor Ambushed by Hindu Mob - VOM sources/persecution.com
Pastor Bhadikar Barshi was on his way to conduct a regular service at his house in the Barshi area of Solapur district in Maharashtra state on July 5th, when two youths approached him. Asking him to join them in a prayer for a friend who had been suffering from a sickness over the past 15 years, the young men walked alongside the pastor for some time until a Hindu mob ambushed him. He was violently struck with wooden clubs all over his body and received a deep gash on his right eye. After hospital treatment, including stitches on his forehead, he was released and remains faithful to his ministry. Give thanks to God, asking Him to strengthen this faithful servant who is following his Master. Luke 9:23, 24

The preacher delivered a compelling message, but what made me send in my $1000 was this statement at the bottom of the screen:
"Send in your $1000.00 seed gift and recieve your free copy of The Secrets of the Richest Man who ever Walked the Earth."
Evidently for $1000 I can learn his secret.

"Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, renders discipleship excessive, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially opposed to the whole conception of following Christ. With an abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of formal knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into practice; but it can never be followed in personal obedience. Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ." (The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer pg. 59)

Interesting stuff.


By Clark H. Pinnock, Professor of Theology at McMaster Divinity College.
GOD AND THE OPEN VIEW
In contrast to other, more abstract approaches to theism, the open view of God is a relational model of understanding. In conventional theism, God is seen as an all-controlling and unchangeable Being who determines directly or indirectly all things that happen. He exists out of time and is unaffected by anything. He knows all things in advance and sovereignly ordains what he knows. The open view, on the other hand, sees God as a relational and triune God who exists as a community (Father, Son, and Spirit) and seeks loving relationships with creatures. In order for such relationships to be possible, God imparts genuine (or “libertarian”) freedom to human beings. This freedom allows them the possibility of loving God or of acting in ways unconstrained by God’s will. God chooses to achieve his goals by means of collaboration with humans rather than by predetermination.

















Second, I have noticed that the debate over the openness of God has opened up an area in which evangelical thinking needs to experience reform. Surely the glory of God does not consist of his exercising total control over the world but of his self-giving and self-sacrificing love. This is not just a partisan interpretation. According to the gospel, God has the properties of a lover, not the properties of a tyrant. While God is certainly the “most” and the “best,” there are different kinds of goodness and greatness. It is a divine perfection, not only to rule, but to be vulnerable for love’s sake. God is not an impassible Buddha, untouched by the troubles of mortal existence. We do not endorse the Aristotelian ideal of a self-sufficient God, who devotes his time to contemplating his own existence. We worship a God who became one of us and shares in our condition. 




We just got back from our camping trip to Santa Cruz. God did some wonderful things in all of us and we are all expectant of the new season ahead. Each day was filled with good God stuff and each night was filled with raccoons! (at one point there were 14 of them in the tree above my tent).

It is sobering to think we will be down there in 3 1/2 months. We are all challenged by this. However, where God guides, he also provides, so our task is to rely on God.

I am about to take my last class and am pressed to accomplish what I need to, but once again God reminded me through his word that he is the source of all my accomplishments.

Isaiah 22:8-11
Judah's defenses have been stripped away. You run to the armory for your weapons. You inspect the walls of Jerusalem to see what needs to be repaired. You store up water in the lower pool. You check the houses and tear some down to get stone to fix the walls. Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the old pool. But all your feverish plans are to no avail because you never ask God for help. He is the one who planned this long ago.

1Peter 2:4
Come to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by the people, but he is precious to God who chose him.

Let us: ask God for help at all times being dependent on his ability to both test and rescue us from any situation; and remember to come to Christ (daily), since he is both living (not dead), and the cornerstone (the most important piece) of God's temple (you, me, us).

SANTA CRUZ — The number of killings is climbing.

It's not a return to the "Murder Capital of the World" era, when two serial killers ran loose in the county, but with 13 homicides already this year, 2006 could become one of the deadliest since the mid-1980s.

"We're on pace to have a very busy year," sheriff's Lt. Phil Wowak said.

The Sheriff's Office has investigated six homicides in unincorporated county areas since the Jan. 28 stabbing death of 23-year-old Chris Carr at a La Selva Beach house party. Santa Cruz police have arrested four people suspected in three homicides in the past month, and Watsonville police have recorded four homicides so far this year. No killings have been reported in Capitola or Scotts Valley.

According to Relevant Magazine
Vineyard City Church is a relevant church. I had my concerns, but my worries are behind me; I can now start inviting my friends to Vineyard knowing they will find relevancy here. They listed pastor Steve Schenk as the young adult pastor (this is important to know in the world of relevancy), so rest assured Buffalo is in for a real relevant revelation revealed rightly by Steven.


Something else struck me as I found out our church is relevant:





I guess pastor Mike is cool after all.
Who knew?

Well I've been back from India for over a week and have adjusted well.

Our trip to Chennai was incredible. Our group worked with a local Vineyard church there that has their hands in many things: sunday services, small groups, church planting, a weekly rock-&-roll concert (we played there--Sweet Home Alabama!), a school for fisherman's children, a shirt making group of widows, feeding of widows, etc. Basically, we helped them do what they normally did within any given week. Most of the team that went is going to Santa Cruz in January, so it was also a great team building time for us.

I am in the middle of 5 graduate classes in 5 months, so my blog is one of the low men on my totem pole. I was reading another guys blog who is in the middle of defining (for his life?) the apostolic five-fold ministry. Needless to say, I won't be unpacking subjects like that (by choice) anytime soon.

I'll have pictures up from our trip before 2007. Promise.

I haven't been a good blogger lately.





















These asian gals make it look easy.












Sadly, I am still learning how to spin many plates at one time. I have been praying, so the spiritual gift of platespinning is about to be released into my life. Please pray for an increased anointing of plate spinning in my life.


We leave for India today. We are staying there for two weeks and will be working with Acts of Mercy, which is a relief organization who has been working with Tsunami restoration. Not totally sure what we will be doing. We'll probably do similiar things to what we do here; however, there will be more Indian folks than we normally see in Redding.

*This is not a knock on people trying to spend money alone on the ills of the world; although I believe Jesus is the answer. Nor is it a knock on the people involved, although one of them said it, and they might all believe it. I only wanted to highlight the "Being good gets me to Heaven" thinking to the billionth degree.













Buffet's contribution of about $1.5 billion a year to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be used to seek cures for the world’s worst diseases and improve American education, Bill Gates said Monday.

“There is no reason we can’t cure the top 20 diseases,” Gates said while appearing with Buffett during a donation ceremony at the New York Public Library.

The Buffett and Gates families, as well as onlookers, were beaming as the so-called Oracle of Omaha officially made his benevolence a reality.

“There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way,” said Buffett. He presented the biggest gift to Gates, and $1 billion donations to his own foundation and the foundations run by each of his three children.

Today is the first day of our (the Santa Cruz church plant +1) Daniel fast.
















We are taking the next 21 days to fast: meat, sugar, processed foods, caffeine (ouch), nicotine, alcohol, fried foods, and that’s right, burritos too!













We have also set up numerous prayer times for the fast, so that we stay focused on Him and not on what we are not eating: This Friday we will have a 24hr prayer time in which each of us (9 people) take shifts throughout the night praying (I drew 1am to 3:40am!?!!?); Sunday nights we will worship and pray together; each person will have a nation to pray for; and each member will share a prayer request for the group to pray for during the fast.
Too, we are praying for our trip to India. We go July 14-28 and are eager to see what God would have us do in this nation, both long and short-term. India has the greatest amount of unreached people groups (those who have never heard of Jesus!) on earth. God our Santa Cruz church wants to be a part of what you’re doing. What would you have us do?








We would love for you to join us; just a small buy-in cost: your life.

This has been an interesting bit of posting. Join in.
I dedicate this post to my friends.

Here are two churches that do a great job at raising disciples and releasing them to make more disciples. As a matter of fact, both of these churches have planted over 30 other churches out of their communities to various parts of the world (including Iraq & Redding!). What do they do that's so special: cool Sunday services, awesome music, relevant messages, fat salaries, great locations, best-selling books? Maybe. The one thing both of these churches focus on and measure success by: Christ-centered discipleship relationships through small groups.

Waco Texas: http://antiochcc.ccbchurch.com/app/w_page.php?id=1&type=section
Santa Cruz California: http://ctw.coastlands.org/

I just got done with a great class at Simpson U in World Religions. My prof. said some great things and one comment was really great. She said, "we've replaced discipleship with education." By education she meant a western school style approach to information transfer: teacher speaking to students.














With all of the "conversations" happening I still think this is one of, if not the main issue. How do we communicate the gospel vs. how did Jesus communicate the gospel? "Come follow me" vs. "Welcome to our 'What is a Christian' class;" or "Imitate me as I imitate Christ," vs. "Come, listen to my sermon on...."











Yeah, you got a degree in pastoral studies, and that's great, but who have you: pastored, loved, discipled, prayed for, admonished, reached out to, argued with, or released into ministry? Yeah, you preach to 1000 people each Sunday, but where are your (They would still do what they do without you paying them) Timothy’s?

Well, we are officially in fund-raising mode for our India trip. God was tugging on my heart about India, and after sharing my thoughts with others, God spoke through many “coincidences” and we are going to India hoping to find our next clue as to what God wants us to do.

Although the typical way of raising funds for missions is: bake, garage, yard sales, or support letters, I have always felt pressed to get out and work (any jobs that come up) for our support. “For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’” (2 Thess. 3:7-10). I don’t think inviting others to support us in our missionary endeavors is wrong; in fact, many people want to be a part of what God is doing in our lives and they might not be able to physically go, but can financially support us. However, we, like Paul, should contribute as much as we can so as not to be “a burden to any of you.”

So, last week we (Laben, Paul, and I) painted a two-story house for a woman in the church. We did a good job and did it for about half price, so she was also blessed. I had a great time hanging out with the guys “modeling” for them what (in part) Paul modeled to the churches he fathered: no spiritual bums please. “Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?” “In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast.” (1 Cor.6; 14-15) “I would rather die…” Why, when he had all the rights in the world to be paid by the churches he started did he choose to “not have anyone deprive (him) of this boast(?)” WDPD

THE LAUSANNE COVENANT
Paragraph 9
9. THE URGENCY OF THE EVANGELISTIC TASK
More than 2,700 million people, which is more than two-thirds of all humanity, have yet to be evangelized. We are ashamed that so many have been neglected; it is a standing rebuke to us and to the whole Church. There is now, however, in many parts of the world an unprecedented receptivity to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are convinced that this is the time for churches and para-church agencies to pray earnestly for the salvation of the unreached and to launch new efforts to achieve world evangelization. A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church's growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelized areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service. The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and to receive the good news. We cannot hope to attain this goal without sacrifice. All of us are shocked by the poverty of millions and disturbed by the injustices which cause it. Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple life-style in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.
(John 9:4; Matt. 9:35-38; Rom. 9:1-3; I Cor. 9:19-23; Mark 16:15; Isa. 58:6,7; Jas. 1:27; 2:1-9; Matt. 25:31-46; Acts 2:44,45; 4:34,35)

So how do we reach 2,700 million people who have never heard of Jesus?












I know there are a lot of "how to do it right" books and we are emerging into a new missional era, but for some reason I can't help but think we're just complicating things (again-still).

"Аз съм лозата, вие сте пръчките; който пребъдва в Мене, и Аз в эяяя"

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

"Ich bin der Weinstock, ihr seid die Reben. Wer in mir bleibt und ich in ihm, der bringt viel Frucht, denn getrennt von mir könnt ihr nichts tun."

"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing."

أَنَا الْكَرْمَةُ وَأَنْتُمُ الأَغْصَانُ. مَنْ يَثْبُتُ فِيَّ وَأَنَا فِيهِ، فَذَاكَ يُنْتِجُ ثَمَراً كَثِيراً. فَإِنَّكُمْ بِمَعْزِلٍ عَنِّي لاَ تَقْدِرُونَ أَنْ تَفْعَلُوا شَيْئاً.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

"Mwen se pye rezen an, nou se branch yo. Moun ki fè yonn avè m', moun mwen fè yonn ak li, l'ap donnen anpil, paske nou pa kapab fè anyen san mwen."

No matter how many different ways he tells me I must admit--I have trouble with this one; "apart from me you can do nothing."













Oh, but I keep tryin'

Christ, at the last supper said, “take this bread, it is my body broken for you.” Do I dare say those words back to Him? How can I read these words “my body broken for You” and not realize that my life is not broken for Him. In contrast my life is given tactfully, thoughtfully, piece-by-piece, so that the pain, and therefore the joy, He experienced will not be fully repeated in me. How can we experience the fullness of Christ if we are not willing to follow His lead, our purpose: Total surrender to the will of our Father in Heaven.
We would do well to repeat these words to Him in prayer, “this is my body broken for You.” Of course even Christ Himself felt the despair that follows a prayer such as this or else why would He say “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.” Often times this is where our prayer ends. We have asked that God have His way in us, but when it becomes too much we say, “enough.” Don’t we see this separates us from the fullness of God? We imagine God as the dispenser of “good” things “fun” times and prosperity. We cry out to God so we will never have to experience suffering. This however is the gospel robbed of its fullness, of its joy. It places God in an all too modern wardrobe.
Don’t we know that we would still be slaves to sin if Christ followed our example and said, “that’s too much, you’re asking too much.” But that is exactly why Christ is the example, the Teacher, the Shepherd, the Messiah! Where our prayers end is where His prayer begins, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.” Then He says the words that are not said enough by us, “Yet I want your will, not mine,” His body broken for us; an example of what our relationship with the Father should be like.
A culture's mantra: Expect More, Pay Less.



Paul had a different mantra.
Romans 12--1And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice--the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.