This morning at The Well we came upon Romans 8:31-39 in our study of the book of Romans. Paul begins this section by saying, “What shall we say about all these things…” Of course, the obvious question here is “what are all of these things?” Now, it could be all of what Paul has talked about in Romans or just the last few chapters, 5-8. But, I’m happy to say its all of Romans up to this point.

Here’s a quick snapshot of some of “all of these things…”

• Salvation has been revealed and God has remained faithful to his covenant!
• God’s wrath was revealed to man by giving him over to their desire to worship the creation rather than God himself, who made the creation.
• This is true of everybody. Even the religious, even those who are supposed to be “righteous” in the worlds eyes.
• It doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a gentiles, religious or not religious, all have turned away from God.
• But God is faithful to his covenant.
• We have been made right before Jesus.
• We can have peace with God
• We were once enemies; we are now his children.
• While through Adam came death to all; through Jesus came life to all.
• We are united with Christ in a way that what is true of him, is true of us.
• We have moved from death to life.
• We are now raised from the dead; so that we might bear fruit to God!
• There is no longer any condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!
• We are not controlled by sin, but we’re controlled by the Spirit.
• We are adopted as sons and daughters of God, we are co-heirs with Jesus Christ..
• We eagerly await our full adoption, for our adoption to be made complete.
• Now only we do eagerly await full redemption, but the world longs to be made whole as well. The world longs to be brought to rights.
• We long to be what we were meant to be, the world longs to be what it was meant to be.
• Through Jesus, this is possible, this is happening!
• The sufferings we are experiencing now will be nothing compared the the glory that we will experience when the world is brought to rights.

So what shall we say? What else is there to say except, “God is for us.”  God is for humanity. God is for the world. This is such amazing new eh? During the sermon, after I reviewed “these things” we stopped and sang a wonderful hymn, “How Great Thou Art.” It seemed appropriate.

NT Wright, in his excellent commentary on Romans, has a few poetic quotes in regard to this passage,

“We are back with the picture that has been there in Romans from the beginning: God and creation, with the human race poised in between, belonging within the latter but called to reflect the image of the former. Idolatry has reversed Gods intended order: humans had worshiped that which was not God, had ceded power to that which being itself, corruptible, could only bring death. Now, in the Messiah, Jesus, humanity has been restored death has been defeated, and creation itself, so far from being shunned as essentially evil, awaits its redemption….”

and…

“Paul has spoken, and we must speak, of the love of the one true God. This love of God calls across the dark intervals of meaning, reaches into the depths of human despair, embraces those who live in the shadow of death or the overbright light of present life, challenges the rulers of the world and shows them as a sham, looks at the present with clear faith and at the future with sure hope, overpowers all the powers that might get in the way, fills the outer dimensions of the cosmos, and declares to the world that God is God, that Jesus the Messiah is the world’s true Lord, and that in him love has won the victory.”

The one main thought that came to me while I was preaching is that so many of us believe, or at least live like we believe, that God somehow can stop loving us.  That there is something we can do to lose his favor. That somehow we aren’t worth loving. That somehow, he’s not for us.

But, if you believe that, or anything like that, let me tell you… You are wrong.

You may think that God has given up on you… but you are wrong.

God is for us.

Nothing can separate you and me from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Nothing.

A semi-concise, not perfect, overly-wordy description of what The Well is all about…

I have said many times throughout the last couple years that I would rather work nowhere else than at The Well. You could make me an offer to work full-time with a $120,000 salary in a well established, very respected congregation and I would turn it down to work here part-time.  I just love this community and I’d give my left arm to be part of it (I’d prefer not to have to test this commitment!)

However, sometimes I have had a hard time putting words to what makes this community special and unique.  When I find myself in conversations with people who do not know much about The Well, the conversation usually goes something like this:

Them: How are things at The Well?  Well?  Ha ha ha, That’s funny. Well…Well… Get it?!

Me: Ha! I’ve never heard that joke before! Thing are really, really…uh…Well.

Them: Awesome, so you guys are growing?

Me: Sure! In many different ways!

Them: So what do you guys do?

Me: Uh, well, we’re like a community… that like, loves Jesus together… uh, we have worship gatherings on sundays in a cool warehouse… and, uh… well, we do lots of really awesome stuff. Mostly, it’s like a family. Oh, and we did a great local missions trip this summer…

It becomes clear at that moment that either I don’t know what we actually do or what we do isn’t as easy to describe as it would be if we were all about being a series of programs and small groups and special events.

So, what I want do to try put some words and some language to what it is that we are actually doing.

First, We must start with a basic understanding that we are a community that is sent.  We know that God cares deeply for Feasterville, Bucks County, Philadelphia and the World. Because of this, we understand ourselves, along with all the Christians in the world,  as “sent” from God as missionaries to this world. We read Jesus’ prayer in John 21, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

The biblical metaphor of ambassador and embassy is helpful as we seek to understand what this practically looks like. As the United States Embassy is the presence of the United States in a foreign country, so the church is the presence of the Kingdom in this foreign culture.

At The Well our mission statement shows that we must keep a few different things in mind as we seek to be the presence of the Kingdom. We must be constantly formed and reformed by the Scripture and prayer.  We must always be speaking the good news as well as showing it by our actions.

We recognize that our mission field begins in Feasterville but extends to the surrounding areas, Philadelphia, the rest of the US and even to the ends of the earth.  In this, we hold up four values to guide us on our journey and keep pulling us back on mission.  These four values are:

• Justice. It is clear from scripture that we must be caring and avocating for those less fortunate than us.   This might mean we serve the financially poor.  This might mean we serve those who are poor in spirit.  The issue here is caring and advocating for those whom the world tends to ignore.
• Glocality. Caring for our neighbors in locally to globally. Glocal is a word that was coined by missionaries to describe our need to be focused locally as well as globally.
• Discipleship. We must be intentional about helping each other become more like Jesus.
• Unity. We must have a kingdom-first focus by intentionally connecting with and partnering with other Christians.

Now, with this as our starting point. Some questions naturally come.  What does it mean to be a sent community? What do we focus on?  When it all comes down to it, what are we actually doing?

At the Well we’ve mainly landed on two primary words:  Shaping & Sending.

What we are doing is shaping and sending each other into the world to be witnesses to Jesus Christ.

Now, a few things about the idea of church.   We can view the church in a few different ways.

We can view the local church as an organization.  In this description, we have an organization that runs programs and ministries (mostly through pastors and paid staff).  Through these ministries the organization works hard on shaping people and sending them out.

We can also view the local church as a family.  In this metaphor we have a community of people who live together and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, shape each other into the image of Christ and send each other out into their homes, workplaces and neighborhoods to be witnesses to Jesus.  The success of the mission depends on the members of the family.

Now for most of us the metaphor of family resonates most. We all know that a “church” refers to a group of people, not a place, organization or church service.  But the fact is, The Well is somewhat of a hybrid. We do have pastors and staff. We do have a building and we do have resources. We actually are an organization in the eyes of the state. But, the main difference is that we’ve intentionally set up the organizational side of The Well to function as a support to the family. The organizational structure that we have are meant to help us shape and send each other. I guess you could say we are famliganization?

Now, some thoughts about shaping and sending:

Shaping Since we live in a family of sent people from God we must continually and intentionally be shaping our lives after our Lord, Savior and teacher, Jesus Christ.  As ambassadors must be know and model the way of their mother country, so Christians must know well and model the life of the Kingdom. Since we live together as aliens in a foreign land we must be patterning our lives after the one we follow.  We recognize that this “shaping” happens mostly in daily life, even if we don’t think it does.  Our relationships, our jobs and our circumstances all shape us into the people we are and will become. Because of this we believe this shaping must take intentional and specific forms.

This generally happens in four spheres:

• Personal Formation (personal disciplines that help us know God such as prayer, fasting, silence, journaling, study, etc),
• Relational Formation (close friendships that help direct each other towards Jesus)
• Liturgical Formation (worship gatherings and special worship services)
• Educational Formation (classes).

We must therefore be asking ourselves what intentional steps we are taking to be formed holistically.  As an organization we are constantly looking at the opportunities and availability we create for each of these spheres in our life together.

Sending A good ambassador does not spend all his/her time inside of the embassy.  A good ambassador is out among the community that is hosting him/her to represent the country that he/she serves.  In the same way, Christians must understand that their main calling is to be in the host culture actively representing a different way of life, a life of the Kingdom. Therefore, the church does not see itself as a “place where ministry happens” but rather as an hub or outpost that ministry flows out of.  The christian must learn to understand that they are constantly representatives of a new kingdom in their homes, workplaces and neighborhoods.

One of the big challenges of being in a foreign culture is the need to be aware of the ways the local culture is affecting ones life.  Sometimes the local culture influences the ambassador in a new and much needed perspective.  Other times, the local culture influences the ambassador in an unwanted way. Still other times, the influence is neutral. As Christians, we must be constantly aware of how the culture that we are in is influencing our life together, both positively, neutrally and negatively.

Another way to look at this is to use the metaphor of a river.  The river is the culture and we are swimming in the midst of its current. The church has traditionally approached this reality in a few different ways.  Many churches allow themselves to unquestionably be taken down steam by the river as if they didn’t realize they were even in the water.  These churches don’t really even pay attention to the ways the culture is affecting their witness, good or bad.  Other churches, realizing that the culture is effecting their witness go to the other extreme and, out of fear, seek to remove themselves completely from the river. This approach holds the culture as a thing to be feared and escape.  They focus on being holy and wait for God to save them from the evil and corrupt world.

A third way also understands that the culture is influencing the life and witness of the church.  These churches realize that they have to work to be constantly aware of how the culture is effecting their life and mission.  But, instead of removing themselves from the river (and therefore abandoning the country that God has put them – think embassy and ambassador) they work together to swim upstream and live as a counter-cultural community.  The focus here is being a city upon a hill, a light in the darkness and a sign, witness and foretaste of the Kingdom of God. We know that this third way is not simple. We know that, since we are not removing ourselves from the river, this third way has dangers. But we know that this is where God has called us and that if we swim together, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to give the world a glimpse of what God intended for this world.

Some areas we should be intentional about swimming upstream:

• Generosity. what does it look like to be generous with our time, money, possessions? how does the world typically view these things?
• Individualism and community.  What does the world tell us about our need for community?
• Selfishness. How do we relate to those
• Power. How do we relate to minorities and those who are in a different ethnically or socio-economic place than us?
• Truth. How does the world view truth and knowledge?  What is more important, truth or feelings? a

All this is an introduction to what it means for us to be a community that is shaping and sending each other into the world to be witnesses to Jesus.  There is much more to be said about being a community that seeks to be a sign, witness and foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

For example:

• How do we define the gospel?
• What is the hope that we have in Christ Jesus?
• How and why do we hold the Scriptures as our authority?
• How do we deal with truth in a world of pluralism?

Part of what it means to be in community is to wrestle together in searching and discovering answers to questions like these.

If you desire to be part of this journey, we welcome you.

This is not a simple calling. Walking together in a community of faith is a complex, difficult but very rewarding journey.

For this reason we kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. We pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

And we pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

As a pastor who has spent the last nine years living a bi-vocational life (sometimes tri-vocational), I appreciated all the discussion on David Fitch’s blog post back in November. I posted the rhythm I have been living for the last nine months back in November also.  Things have changed a tad for me since I am working a lot less hours at Sbux and we are in the midst of a transition at The Well that will probably bring some changes to my current rhythm of life.   But, if you are interested in the topic, read David’s blog and be sure to read all the discussion below.  There are some really good thoughts and questions addressed.

Also, Jason Coker is going to be starting a series on whether missional church leaders should be paid.  I absolutely love the way Jason thinks so this should be a good, challenging series of posts.

My parents keep saying to me, “It’s a good thing you are young.” They are right and honestly I feel like I am getting older by the minute (wait, I am getting older by the minute…) But, the reality of life for us right now is that I have three jobs.  My wife and I also have three kids.  I guess you could say that I have a job for each kid.  I’ll say this right up front: this is probably not a sustainable life-style for too much longer.  But it is where God has us and we have chosen to place ourselves here for this moment in our lives.

Right now I serve as the Lead Pastor at The Well. I am running my own freelance webdesign company called 343design and I am also working 20 hours a week in the mornings at my local Starbucks.

My role at The Well consists of being the main visionary and key leader at the church. My role revolves mostly around keeping us on mission, keeping us focused on our goals as a community and leading our Ministry Leadership Team. In addition to the regular admin tasks of pastoring, I teach about twice a month. I also end up spending a lot of time meeting with people inside and outside of our church. My primary leadership gift from Eph. 4 is “Apostolic” and thankfully the church has given me a lot of room to express that freely.

In 2004 I quit my job at Starbucks (the first time i worked there) and ventured off into the world of webdesign. I had spent the previous few years teaching myself through designing (and re-designing) my blog.  I also got some good experience doing some work for The Well’s website.  In my learning process I had some great mentors and was comfortable enough to try and see if I could make it going out on my own.  This has proven to be a good way to be a “tent-maker” even though it has also been challenging at times. Time and time again God has given me the contact I needed to make the sale that would make it possible for us to make our payments for the last 5 years.

In June of this year, we decided it would be best for me to go back to Starbucks again because we needed the extra cash and the extra-good (is that a word?) health benefits that Starbucks offers. Up until then the church had been covering our health insurance but the coverage we could get from starbucks was much better. Also we needed the extra cash from hourly wages.  Thankfully, I was able to work a pretty good schedule where I only work weekdays, I only open and I never work past 11 am. In fact, many days I get off as early as 9:00am. Of course, this means I have to be up at around 4:30am everyday, but after a while you get used to that.

So, with these three jobs + a family my life rhythm looks something like this:

Monday – Friday mornings I spend my mornings steaming milk and taking orders in the drive thru at my starbucks.  Like I said, I only open so that means I have to be at the story by 5.  But, most days I am out by 9am.  The weeks that I only work four days a week, I get of a bit later. Basically, I need to average about 20 hours a week in order to qualify for the benefits.

I spend Monday and Tuesday afternoons concentrating on my 343design needs. This means I usually have room for two main clients at a time + support needs for current clients. I then use Saturday mornings (or afternoons when the kids are sleeping) to tie up loose ends from the week. This usually works out well until I have a project that needs attention during the rest of the week. If I can, I try and let those needs ride till Saturday.  But sometimes I need to spend some time during the day or even in the evening to care of that. Of course, by the time evening rolls around, I’m pretty tired so evenings aren’t very productive for me anymore.

I then concentrate on church work on Wednesdays – Friday afternoons. This means that at least one of those days is usually meeting heavy. Recently I’ve been using Wednesdays and Thursday’s for that and then trying to let Friday be a day where I finish my sermon or spend some time studying/planning. On the weeks that I preach, I tend to try and have less meetings so that I can spend more time studying. Also, when I do preach I try and get the text in front of me on Monday sometime so that I can spend the week working with the text bouncing around in my head. I have found that this is some of my most important and helpful sermon prep time. This way I get to live the text instead of just studying it.

I try to be home by around 5:30 or 6:00 so that I can be in time for dinner with my family.  After dinner these days means wrestling with the boys and finishing up Cole’s homework.  We do our best to get the boys in bed by 8:00 if possible. If they are in bed any late than this, it means bad things for the next day.  This usually means by 8:30 or 9:00 Melanie and I are able to spend the rest of the night cleaning up, relaxing, reading or watching some TV.  This is pretty much every evening of the week unless its Monday or Wednesday.  Every other Monday night Melanie goes and knits with some women from the church and then each Wednesday I c0-lead our church’s midweek bible study.

One of the things I’ve learned in the past few years is that when you have kids, it changes everything.  Like it or not, our lives revolve around loving and caring for these three small lives.  I’m so thankful that these four wonderful individuals are the people that God has given to me to journey through the second half of my life.  Our challenge as a parents is to find ways to give time and selves away to others, especially those less fortunate than us, and let the gospel direct the this journey we are on together.  But, that’s another blog post for another time.

Why do I share all this? It’s not for you to feel sorry for me. Remember, my wife and I have chosen this way of life.  I tell people all the time that I would rather serve part-time  at The Well the way we do then full-time at an established church where I am not able to live out my calling as freely as I do.  The Well is a fantastic community and Melanie and I feel such freedom to be ourselves.  We don’t have any need to put on some kind of fake “Pastor Family” faces.  This is not only great for us, but it is also great for our kids.

Rather, I share this because there is a new reality for those of us who feel called to plant churches.  Many students graduate from Seminary expecting to be able to get a full-time job in a church or find full-time funding to start a church plant. Sorry folks, but while those days are not gone, they are definitely changing.  If you are passionate about church planting and/or starting something new, you have to be face the reality that you might have to take a different approach to supporting yourself.

Also, I think my story is a good example of why it is important those who are called to serve the church to have other skills that will allow them to make an income.  I have been blessed to have developed a skill that gives me a pretty decent income (no, I’m not talking about Starbucks).  I don’t make a ton of money and freelancing has its ups and downs.  But, I know too many ministers who can’t imagine how they would make a living if they couldn’t be employed by the church.  To me, that is a scary place to be.   Nobody wants to be making decisions how to lead based on the welfare of their family.  But frankly, far too often organizational decisions are made in ways that ensures the paycheck of the employee before the success of the mission. And, I think this happens in businesses as well as churches.

Okay, that’s probably enough for now. There is so much more to say about this whole topic. There are positives and negatives to this kind of approach for pastoral leadership.  Maybe I’ll get into those at a later date.

In his excellent book The Monkey and the Fish, Dave Gibbons asks three questions as he talks about the massive shift that is going on in our world. How are we to figure out how to navigation this rapidly changing world as followers of Jesus and as faith communities? Alan Roxburgh has referred to the kind of change we are in as “discontinuous change.” This phrase is defined by Webster as, “Non-incremental, sudden change that threatens existing or traditional authority or power structure, because it drastically alters the way things are currently done or have been done for years.”

In light of this, Dave Gibbons brings up three excellent questions that I think we would do well to spend a lot of time pondering the answers. In answering these questions, we begin to get an understanding of where and how God is calling us to love and serve others.

Where is Nazarath?

By this he inviting us to look for the broken places in our world. He writes,

“Who in your community is the outsider, the misjudged, the misunderstood. Maybe the one who seems weakest? Who are the strangers and the friendless? Focusing on them as a church may mean you won’t grow fast. And you may lose some people. But your church will be fulfilling the most beautiful expression of who God is.”

The fact is, far too often we want to serve and love those who are “cool” and “fun” to serve. We wouldn’t say this outright, but just take a look at our churches. What would it look like for us to intentionally step into the “Nazaraths” of our communities as Jesus did? This would have to be intentional because, frankly, its not going to happen unless we make a decision for it to happen. Our normal way of life will not lead us down this path automatically.

What is my pain?

It’s funny, I talk all the time about understanding our giftedness and talents as we talk about understanding and discovering God’s calling for us as individuals and as a church. I think this is legit because of the amount of time Paul spends talking about spiritual gifts in Romans and Corinthians as well as the leadership gifts in Eph. 4. But, Paul also talks about God’s power being made perfect in weakness and that God will use the weak of the world to shame the wise. By asking this question, we begin inviting God to use the broken parts of our lives to love and serve others. This is actually kind of counter-intuitive and that’s exactly why I think its so important. Gibbons writes,

“And I’ve realized again and again that my pain was a gift from God. As I’ve met people around the world and shared my pain with them, it is the pain that draws people in, far more so than my limited talents, skills and accomplishments. It disarms all the things that can be used to divide us – race, economics, culture, politics, nationalism, dogma, language.”

What is in my hand?

This last question helps us stop comparing ourselves to others and it allows us to stop saying, “if i/we only had…” Instead, Dave writes,

“instead of dangerously comparing myself with others, what is within my grasp relationally, historically, and resources-wise right now?”

The simple point is this, God will provide us all that we need to accomplish his purposes.

I encourage you, spend some time journaling (if you do that kind of thing) and praying (I hope you do that kind of thing!) around these three questions.  I think you’ll be surprised with where God takes you…

Now, I’m a big fan of technology. Frankly, I’m kind of a sucker for it. I always seem to find a way to get the latest toys in some way or another. I design websites for a living and do a lot of my pastoral work with a computer in front of me so needless to say, I believe technology is helpful when it comes to ministry.

But I also think it can be a hinderance.

I heard a quote from (I think) Patrick Lencioni recently where he said the following:

“Don’t get in the habit of using technology do what you can/should do in person.”

Think about this for a minute. Last time you had to deal with a hard situation, was your first inclination to shoot off an e-mail or, worse, a text message? Working through a hard situation over e-mail is one of those things that works just well enough to make us think that we should keep on doing it.

I’m becoming a believer that in hard situations, using technology is the easy way out. It allows you to think you can say what you want to/have to say without any of the emotional challenges. Of course, if passive aggressive behavior, avoidance and confusion is what you are going for in your relationships, then by all means, e-mail your leadership team member next time they say something you passionately don’t agree with. Of course, you could just call them or meet with them and work it out the old-fashioned hard way. Sure, face to face can stink, be more uncomfortable and even more painful. But at least it accomplishes what you are looking for: clarity. In my experience, things like e-mail usually just cause more confusion.

The other thing about using e-mail, facebook, text messaging, etc, is that it often doubles the amount of time that it takes to get something accomplished.

A simple example: this week I need to schedule a time for our Leadership Team at The Well to have our annual all-day winter planning meeting. Now, I could send out an e-mail about this but we all know what will happen. One person won’t check their e-mail for three days. Another person will read it and plan on checking their schedule and will forget all about it because the Office is on. Another person will get back to me and say they can’t make it that day and would like to propose three others days but they won’t CC everyone so no one else is in the loop. Finally, another person will accidentally delete the message and not know how to get it back again because they haven’t used a computer before.. okay, you get the idea. (Btw, this is not a one-to-one description of the people on my leadership team!)

But seriously, do you know how much easier it is to take 30 minutes and make five phone calls and just get it done? Now, I might still use e-mail to follow-up and even send one to prepare them for my call.

I’m not anti-technology. Far from it.

But frankly, I’d rather take 30 minutes to make phone calls than spend the next two weeks in a confusing e-mail exchange with five other people. (And yes, I know a phone is technology, but its a heck of a lot better than e-mail and I think you get my point).

In all of this, e-mail isn’t evil. Sometimes it can even be a starting point for a conversation so that one person can get out what they for some reason can’t do in person. But e-mail is a terrible way to resolve conflict or something that needs lots of coordination or deep discussion.

All this makes me think, how do you think our parents and grandparents led churches before Al Gore invented the internet?

I think it would do us well to remember what it would have been like to pastor in 1989.

Trying to decide what I think of this interview, some provocative thoughts.

For example,

“The problem is that evangelical/fundamentalist faith revolves around two directives: Be successful and evangelize. That leads to bad choices.”

Probably a lot of good stuff that is true to a point but might be an over-reaction on some level. But, this section really caught my eye:

I can’t prove this, but I think that any person who remains a “professional Christian” in the evangelical/fundamentalist world for a lifetime, especially any pastor, risks becoming an atheist and/or a liar. Such individuals put on an act of certainty. Sooner or later they become flakes faking it, or quit. Worse yet, some just stop asking questions. The very fact that a preacher can fool others when he or she has so many doubts makes the self-appointed mediator of faith the deepest cynic of all if, that is, he or she doesn’t embrace paradox. If you have to be correct all the time, while knowing that you are wrong most of the time, you become an actor. Been there, done that. If you think that to “be a Christian” means you have to identify with a club you loathe, you’ll have to choose to redefine your faith or lose it — even if it costs you a paycheck and your “good” life.

I have noticed this tension in my life. Good thing I am bi-vocational! That way this is only half true. :) Seriously though, I sense this as a pastor. But, I’m thankful that I really do have a community that allows me to work out my theology and doubts in their midst. For example, two Easters ago I was really struggling with doubt and my faith. I had to preach on Easter sunday. This was a serious struggle for me as Easter tends to be the most important celebration in the Christian faith.

How could I preach the resurrection when I was in the midst of such a funk? Well, what I did was preach with the doubt, preach with the frustration. How did it turn out? Well, for starters, my sermon was only 12 minutes long. Everyone was not only excited about its brevity but I think that is one sermon where people went out of their way to express their appreciation for my thoughts. I basically got up and said, “I can’t prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I need the resurrection to be true. If its not, I have no hope..” If you are interested, its archived here. Heck, its only 12 minutes :)

We are made in God’s image.

As eikons of God our role in this world is to point others to what God is like.

This is our role in this world individually.

This is our role in this world communally.

“That’s community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.” ? – Henri Nouwen

One thing I think is important to get in this is the individual and unique nature of you being an image.

One of the truths that has changed my life more than anything in recent years is for me to understand that who I am and have been created to be is good. In fact, its very good. I can’t tell you how freeing it is to be comfortable in my own skin, in my own shoes.

But here’s the thing. Here’s the kicker.

I’m broken. Despite all the beautiful ways that God has made me, made you, we’re broken. Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. Our greatest efforts sometimes totally flop.

As I briefly touched on last week, this image is broken. And make no bones about it, this is the result of sin.

You are broken. I am broken. We all are broken.

Hi, my name is Todd and I’m broken.

Or as the current lingo goes, we’re borked.

But I think it’s important to know that our own personal brokenness is not the bottom issue.

We live in a broken world. The entire cosmos is cracked, and we are part of it.

Sometimes, we talk about sin from only a personal perspective.

All I learned about in regards to sin growing up (at least, all I heard) was that I was a sinner.

I lie. I steal. I covet. I break one of the 10 commandments. Maybe a few at one time if I’m having a bad day.

But this isn’t the deepest level of the nature of sin.

The full reality of sin that goes a few layers deeper.

Sin is not only personal, but cosmological in its nature.

It’s not just you and me that is broken.

It’s the entire created order.

You can try and argue with me.

But look around…

We see the evidence in the newspapers.

If we don’t read the newspapers we the evidence on the news.coms

Heck, we even see the evidence on facebook.

We see it in the church.

Sin is global in scale and doesn’t discriminate.

Our world is broken.

I believe that as we seek to understand the nature of our own sin, we need to be sure to frame the conversation in the midst of the brokenness of our larger world and it’s need to find healing.

Now, if we have a broken world, we have a broken humankind.

And, if we have a humankind, we have our own broken souls.

And our own broken souls need, along with the rest of creation, to find healing.

In the same way that I don’t think I need to convince you that this world is broken, I don’t think I need to work really hard to convince you that you are broken.

?Most of us feel it every day in some way or another.

Sometimes it’s subtle. Other times it’s deeply intense.

Others of us have done a great job of numbing ourselves to it.

No matter what, we know that we don’t “work” the way we were meant to.

Sin has had its effects on us and sin continues to have its effects on us.

Our own personal sin has done its damage.

We knowingly walk down roads that we just shouldn’t go.

We continue to make decisions that we shouldn’t make.

We don’t go places we know that we should..

And it breaks us a bit more and more each time.

We carry the shame from this stuff around like 500 pound weights on our legs.

It desperately handicaps us from being able to live out our calling and to give the world a unique picture of the Triune God.

We usually refer to these things as the skeletons in our closets.

Perhaps for some of us they aren’t in the closet, and they are out there for all to see.

Either way, we carry around the shame and effects of this sin.

Sin has also been done to us and it’s also long taken its toll. This sin is often the harshest because its just not our fault.

Often this kind of experience takes the form of a careless (or worse, intentional!) word or action by someone else.

I remember when I was in high school, my youth pastor jokingly called me the black sheep of my family. For the next four years I lived scared to death that I would be the one of the three brothers that fell off the deep end and brought disgrace to the family.

So here we are.

We were created in God’s image.

Our primary calling in life is to represent God here in this world.

And sin makes this sometimes close to impossible.

So much so, that sometimes we just consider giving up this vocation and give our lives to something else.

Perhaps we have already given our lives to something else.

Maybe not intentionally. Maybe we’ve masked our calling for something that seems pretty good but it’s not as good as our full calling.

Maybe we’ve subtly moved from a vocation of representing God to others to a life of managing our own reputation and our own image.

Maybe we’ve subtly given up on ever having hope of really living as we were meant to live.

Maybe the idea that we can actually be unique representations of God is beyond us. Not possible.

Maybe the idea that we can be unique representations of God in this world is something that doesn’t even excite us anymore.

You’ve heard it said…

You aren’t good enough.

No matter what you do you will always be this way.

The deficiencies you have will never let you amount to anything.

The wounds that have been given to you by others will never be healed.

Your situational circumstances are beyond redemption.

You will never really amount to anything.

But I tell you…

We confess together the Jesus died.

?That this death had significance.

That it actually did something.

We also confess together that Jesus rose from the dead.

That this rising from the dead had significance.

That it actually did something.

And mysteriously, in Jesus lies the power of a new hope that we are not stuck here.

II Corinthians 3:17-18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

I’m breaking out of my blogging slump to make sure you know about a conference/seminar that I’m really looking forward to.

On Saturday October 24, 2009 from 10 am to 4 pm The Well and Renew Community will be co-hosting Dr. Darrell Guder and Andy Crouch for a conversation about Culture and Scripture. The event will be at The Well in Feasterville, PA (a suburb NE of Philadelphia).

In the morning, Dr. Darrell Guder (Dean of Academic Affairs at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of the seminal work The Missional Church) will help to answer the question: How do we read and interact with Scripture as communities of faith?

After lunch, Andy Crouch, author of the book Culture Making, will wrestle with the question: How do we read and interact with culture as communities of faith? (You can read more about Andy here).

This event is not just for pastors. This is for anyone – clergy or laity – who is interested in wrestling with the topic of how local churches can engage with their contexts more. And for those of who you are are planting churches or seriously considering being a church planter this seminar should be a priority for you to attend. More information about the seminar can be found here.

You can register here

You should go read this post by Alan Hitt called “A Fool’s Defense.”

That is all I have to say about that.