I've often wrestled with what we believe as Christians & how it effects our lives. One of the areas I've had particular interest in is: Salvation. What does it mean to be saved? How is a person saved? WHY does a person want to be saved? How does someone live out their salvation?

As I've explored this subject in the NT & other books I've realized Jesus' main mission wasn't to impart salvation (at least not the way we realize it), but his mission was to impart: life. No doubt we all agree, salvation is important; however, it is the result of being "born again," into a new life. He came to give "life & life unto the full." Thankfully, salvation is a part of the package.

Yesterday I visited a wonderful church. At the end of the sermon, "with all heads bowed & every eye closed," the pastor faithfully asked those in attendance, "who wants to receive the forgiveness of the cross?" I was grateful several people accepted the invitation. My question is: An invitation to what?

Within western theology salvation generally means accepting the mechanism of Jesus' death upon the cross & little else. Like a light-switch that is in the down position, my acceptance of what He's done flips the lever to the forgiven side & it's a done deal. However, is this faithful to the biblical example of what it means to be saved? No where does Jesus use such formulas; & what we've adopted as Paul's formula (Romans 10:9) isn't the silver salvation bullet we all imagine. The explicit implicit theology of Lordship is the overarching theme of this verse, not: "Just say these words in this order friend & you'll be saved." I don't assume Paul ever intended this line to be THE salvation mantra.

Too, what is Jesus continual invitation to this new life within the Gospels? Surely Jesus had one? I'm always perplexed by Jesus turning people away who seem to be interested. Why does He do this? Maybe they wanted to reduce Him to a mechanism of their salvation; instead of accepting who He is: the Living Lord of the Universe who wanted to give them transformational Life.

Jesus wants to forgive our sins is much less an abrasive thought than Jesus wants to give us a new life. Why? Because by giving me a new life He's saying there is something wrong with my old life; the way I live, my systems, my values, my loves & He's going to rearrange them to suit & reflect Him.

The mechanism of what Jesus did on the cross is amazing. However, the new life He wants to give us is so much more. New life; a life; real life; the life; Life to the fullest; Jesus' life lived out in me & through me.

The coolest thing ever.

Dallas Williard puts it so well: "So the replacement of salvation (new life in Christ) for one of its effects or components (the forgiveness of sins) has dominated both the monastic system of Christianity & the reaction against it (monasticism) in which we still live today."

What are we to do?

This last Sunday I was talking about Colossians 4:2-4
“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. 3 Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. 4 Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.”

I imagined being in the room when this letter was originally read &, having come to the end of the letter, thought of what the Colossian church would have done; I imagined they would have remembered Paul’s words to: Pray, & would have spent some time in prayer.

So, this last week instead of expounding upon the text & what it meant in the original context (I don’t think a request for prayer has changed too much even in 2000yrs) I decided we would do the very thing Paul was asking the church to do: Pray.

There were a few new visitors at our service & what happened was very interesting. Two visitors were “Christians” who were “checking out other churches,” which I don’t care for & another visitor is a man we met at the Shanti Tree who likes Jesus, but also participates in other religious beliefs. He is someone who is checking Jesus out, but he likes our church. (Not our services, as there are better church services in SC, but our people). Before the service I grabbed my Shanti Tree friend & said, “Tonight will be a bit different. I’m not gonna’ preach, but we’re gonna’ break up into small groups & pray.” His response was, “Is it cool if I pray too?” I warmly affirmed his desire to pray with us, which he was very grateful for.

The two “Christians” didn’t have such a positive experience. I’m not dogging “Christian,” & what I mean by this is: They were expecting to come & hear a message (fed, entertained?). They were not expecting to participate; ironically even if the text the teacher was teaching on was a request to: participate. I made mention that generally in the church we expect to come & hear a message, but God’s perspective on the church is much different. In God’s economy church is a people who, not a place where. I then shared this picture
& asked, “Where’s the church in the picture?” Humorously my new age friend shouted out: “The four people in front!” We had a good laugh.

After sharing the four things we would pray for as directed by the text, I said, let’s break up into smaller groups to pray. Our “Christian” friends stood up & left; our new age friend jumped right in.

Without a doubt we live in a consumer based culture. So, it’s right to say that a way to engage a consumer based culture is to create an environment where the consumer will be: Awed, entertained, comfortable, caffeinated, & content. However, how do we encourage our consumers to participate when it doesn’t serve their pleasure or purpose in life? As we read we see the example of the church in the NT is very participatory; a group of people gathered for the purposes of God; not themselves. Can we say the same for the successful churches of our day; or is “success” defined by bodies in attendance?

Our culture is filled with professionals who share with us the latest ways at getting people to sit in a service we have created. In fact, we’re often duped into believing this is what a church is: A hip local & bodies. But will the bodies: Pray, serve, love, give, sacrifice, go, defend, etc? I believe this is one of the biggest reasons people are frustrated with the very faith they were created to be a part of: Those who claim to believe in Jesus don’t follow Jesus. Sadly, most have created a system devode of the living Christ & substituted it with a “Christian” culture that allows them to look but never touch, hear but never listen, & learn but rarely engage. "Where's the beef?" Too, this majority fuels the flame of the leaders who gather them into large groups & proclaim, “Church. My latest blog will detail how I did it;” primarily because the crowd is the churches biggest sign of: Success. Yet who is willing to do what is being taught?

Once again: Jesus never said Go plant a church. He did say, “Go make disciples.” There is a vast difference between what we call church & what he calls a disciple. Too, Paul didn’t plant churches; he made converts into disciples who then met as the church.

I invited our church & the visitors to participate with God during this space in history; our New Age friend was eager to join Him.

Peace Tree

So for some time now a few of us have been giving away Coffee & Chai at the local drum circle. This has been a wonderful time for us as we bless this small community of: Bums, hippies, street kids, & musicians. However, a few months ago the city decided to expand the Farmer’s Market into the drum circle territory; effectively creating a drum circle with no home.

In the midst of this we were left to follow this group around, but I asked our group: “What if we started a booth at the Farmer’s Market?” We got together to brain storm & it was evident this was something we were doing. 2 months later: Shanti Tree (Peace Tree) is an official booth at the local Market.

Our booth offers “Meditative Arts,” meaning: candles (to help one meditate) & prayer flags, which are very popular amongst the hippies, people who are into eastern philosophies & religions, & New Age people; so, really, about 90% of Santa Cruz! The belief is when you hang the flags near your house, each time the wind blows a blessing is put onto you, etc.


We are selling candles & are soon to provide booklets for people to meditate with, which will be a practice in Lectio Divina. Too, our flags are in Tibetan, but a Tibetan translation of 1 Corinthians 13. It’s awesome to have people ask us what they say & we point to an English translation of this scripture. I love watching people read the chapter from beginning to end; some people smile, others agree, & still others walk away perplexed.

Our first week was a trial run & most of the time we spent setting up & moving things around. Sadly we only made $10, which doesn’t cover the cost of the space, but we got to speak to several people about who we are & what we’re up to, which all of us agreed was more than enough incentive to keep going.
Week number 2 was a bit different. We asked to get moved to a corner slot, so we had way more foot traffic. Likewise, we set down two big rugs for people to sit down & visit with us. In no time we were selling things & at one point in time we had 3 people join for a time of prayer/meditation(?).

All of us agree Shanti Tree is a very effective arm of our community into Santa Cruz. We’re always blessed to be the church to those who don’t care to be a part of Christianity.

I recently read an article citing 5 reasons why beer is good for you. Here's reason number 4: "A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that moderate drinking may be associated with better brain function. Women who consumed up to two drinks a day scored 20 percent higher on a cognitive functioning test than those who had less than one drink."

I must admit I remember feeling pretty smart after a few beers. Well, at least I could drive better...

"The question of forming habits on the basis of the grace of God is a very vital one. To ignore it is to fall into the snare of the Pharisee—the grace of God is praised, Jesus Christ is praised, the Redemption is praised, but the practical everyday life evades working it out. If we refuse to practice it is not God’s grace that fails when a crisis comes, but our own nature. When crisis comes, we ask God to help us, but He cannot if we have not made our nature our ally. The practicing is ours, not God’s. God regenerates us & puts us in contact with all His divine resources, but He cannot make us walk according to His will."

Oswald Chambers

As of late I've been watching some of the footage on YouTube about Lonnie Frisbee. The Jesus Movement, Calvary Church, & the Vineyard movement wouldn't be the same without Lonnie, which is saying a lot! I really recommend checking out Lonnie's story; it is amazing in so many ways.

Within the unreached people groups of the world, there are 1,741,114,000 people who don't even know Jesus exists.

As Laben & I were on the road to our Luxury Suite at the A's game we both agreed: We don't have a lot of money, but living by faith is a rich life. It can be frustrating at times; however, allowing God to give us what we need when we need it is a rich life.

The Church in Santa Cruz

Today was an incredible day. In Santa Cruz we have an incredible group called EMF. It is a group of local ministers or ministries who have been called to reach Santa Cruz. This group has a long history &, from what I've heard, it's slowly changing the spiritual climate of this city. In the past each church was an island unto itself, which sadly set up conflict with other churches; yet that guard is passing, however there are still churches who are islands for one reason or another (bad reasons no doubt).

As relationships have grown 4 pastors, including myself, decided to worship together on July 4 2010. Today: Antioch Church, Trinity Covenant, Gathering by the Bay, & Faith Community Church put their ego's & differences aside & worshiped together. It was incredible. God showed up in a powerful way. God showed up because this is his heart: That the world would know he is real because of our love for one another. We've realized Santa Cruz isn't going to be reached by one church: We affirm THE church will reach Santa Cruz & we are committed to the local church winning; not my church.

Lastly, 5 churches were invited today. There is a new church plant: Missio Dei happening in town & we invited them too. We told them we were going to ask them to share their vision with us, but they didn't know we were going to give them the combined offering of the churches. The planter couldn't be there, but his wife shared with us. When we shared with her our desire to give them our offering she started crying. Why? Because the idea that the big dogs don't want to see the little ones in the yard isn't true with this group. We want everyone (orthodox & healthy) to work together to reach this city.

We affirm THE church will reach Santa Cruz & we are committed to the local church winning; not my church. It sounds like this is gonna' happen quarterly & with the success of this service I can only imagine what other churches will want to participate. Actually we already have the names of 4 churches that do.

My church isn't the answer. God's church is.

Great stuff from N.T. Wright

...we've got to tell the truth about God, that God is not the same as the world, as in Pantheism, nor is God a million miles away from the world, as in many dualistic schemes, but that heaven and earth have overlapped and interlocked once and for all and forever in Jesus, and that ultimately they will overlap and interlock entirely.

Never go near any theology which cannot play out into Isaiah 11, because if you do you'll be colluding with dualism, sure as anything.

We will discover what it means to be genuinely human as we go in the service of the Kingdom of God, should I say the Empire of God.

As I was hanging out with a friend I asked a simple question to point out a clear theological flaw. I drew a picture of a car & explained the possible positions for people to sit or be in, each of which demonstrates a different perspective within the car: The Driver's seat; Shotgun, The back seat, & the trunk. I then told my friend, imagine the car being your life; & then asked, where is Jesus in your car? With a little thought he answered, "In the trunk." After a little bit more dialogue I asked, What can you do to make Jesus love you more as He's riding in the trunk? His answers were well meaning, Christian, & sincere, but all of them fell short of the truth. I realized he was unaware of what he could do to make Jesus love him more as Jesus was stuffed in the trunk of his life.

The answer?

Nothing.

Christ's cross is such a burden as sails are to a ship or wings to a bird.

Samuel Rutherford.

We're going through Colossians right now. Here's what one commentary said about Chapter 1.

(1) The head of the church. If Christ is the head of the church, it means that the destinies of creation and the church are bound together and that God’s purposes for all creation gestate in the church’s congregational life. The church does not exist to meet the needs of its members or to insure its institutional survival, but to fulfill the redemptive purposes of Christ, its head.

Here's my response to what I see as a misunderstanding by church leadership.

"Greetings Church,

Our Spiritual Transformation Class will begin on June 20th from 9:00-9:50am in the Yaks conference room. Make sure to order your book ahead of time. The text we will be using is Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. The book can be purchased on sites such Amazon.com, Half.com, CBD.com, or by checking out our local Christian book stores.

Blessings,

VCC Staff

....doing the things that Jesus said and did."

My Response:

Isn't a book titled: Celebration of Discipline an oxymoron?

Shouldn't it be: Celebration of my feelings/desires/wants; or something like that?

Sean

“I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.” - James Hudson Taylor

Edwin Friedman is a well respected Jewish Rabbi. He has written several leadership books. I started reading “Friedman’s Fables,” which is a series of short stories that share a great deal of insight into the complexity of relationships & communication. The fables are separated into four parts & Dr. Friedman desires to reveal these four wrong ideas:

That communication is a cerebral phenomenon rather than an emotional process.
That insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change.
That resistance to your message can be overcome by trying harder.
That seriousness is deeper than playfulness.

Here is the intro to the first set of fables. I thought it was pretty cool!

“Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, & they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech. “

This is a sample picture from our new church directory.

Prayer requests & cool updates.

This next week I am getting together to brainstorm with some people in our church about the future of our church. We are going to dream & put onto paper 3 key things we feel like God is doing.

1) A DTS here in SC. After talking with some of my coaches we believe inviting 5 people to be a part of a year long DTS, put on by our church, in Santa Cruz is what God is doing. The DTS would be a mix of classroom & outreach into SC. The students would move here in order to be missionaries to our wonderful city, which I believe is on the cutting edge of culture; therefore, it provides an incredible opportunity for someone to grow in their Faith. The primary goal of the DTS wouldn't be church management, but that they would learn how to "know God & make him known" in Santa Cruz, which hopefully would result in some students seeing that they too could start a church.

2) Each Wed. 3 of us head downtown to love on the unlovables & hippy kidz. Through this we are brainstorming about starting a booth at the Farmer's Market in order to create a simple "storefront" where we would engage more people with Jesus. This is no simple task, but not impossible. We're not sure what we're gonna' sell, but there are some options. We've had this idea before & have seen the success with Yaks up in Redding. We'll see...

3) We want to get a college group started on campus. The largest group at UCSC is Inter-Varsity, which has 60-70 students (& we love Inter-Varsity) (Cal Poly...Campus Crusade...over 1000!). UC has roughly 13-15,000 students; so do the math: We need more groups on campus! Wow. I've recently been speaking with an alum who is stoked about getting something going on campus & I'm willing to go with him. Once again this is no simple task, but not impossible either.

Fun to have 3 ideas focused on "Knowing God & Making Him Known," in Surf City. Please pray that God would guide it.

At the age of 63 when his critics told him to go home, that he had done enough, C.T. Studd replied, "God has called me to go to Africa, and I will go. I will blaze the trail though my grave may only become a stepping stone that younger men may follow."

C.T. Studd--a missionary to: China, India, & Africa.

"Our recruits come out from home vastly raw and are largely parrots. They have been crammed with religion as though for an examination, and seem to come out to carry on their education rather than finish it. So many are just taught doctrines without ever having thought them out or searched the Scriptures for themselves. They come out like infants with pop guns. They need to be trained into soldiers with real devil-defying weapons. Some arrive thinking they are the last thing in high-class Christianity and have to find out they know little. That is why I keep the newcomers here at base for a time till I can make them really think out things and settle questions, not from hearsay but from Bible-say."