The Perfect Storm

Cool picture huh? It's real too! This picture was captured by someone in just the right place, at the right time, with the right photo equipment, with knowledge how to use that photo equipment, and with the wherewithal to publish it. Thus, they themselves, whoever they might be, are part of serendipitous particulars of the story that was able to contribute to “the perfect storm.”

The term "the perfect storm" that I have heard three times in the last 24 hours, is not referring to the movie with George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Diane Lane, but rather the exacting situation that these three face. The use has been to describe minuscule events compiling at once to create an unstoppable force. In other terms, the individual particulars are nothing but ripples, it is only when the sum of the forces are applied at once there is a tsunami like affect. Hence, the example of the photo above. If one of the particular item is taken out of the mix, camera wasn’t charged, the photo is never produced as the end product seen above.

The perfect storm references I have heard over the last 24 hours have included the tornados in the south, the movement of evangelical adoption in America, and lastly by a man in the gym describing his life over the last week. While all these references were used in the negative fashion, I wonder if I couldn’t elicit the term as more of a positive force. Not to downplay the gravity of any of the hardships befallen anyone in a perfect storm, but to gain a new perspective.

As I look to the story of Jesus in the Gospels, I find Jesus showing up in the right time under the ideal conditions to create a perfect storm. Jesus is seen as the catalyst that acts or submits to increase the force of the storm. In fact theologians over time have argued this exact point for the spread of the Gospel. If Jesus shows up at any other period in history, under any different circumstances, it is argued that the Gospel and Christianity would not have grown at the rapid rate that it did. Time does not permit to go into all the details, or build my argument, but this isn’t my focus. I want to know how to create a perfect storm in a ministry, church, or community.

Is it even possible to create a perfect storm? Or is a perfect storm just a serendipitous event happening at chance? Jesus’ perfect storm I would argue was orchestrated, but can a finite fallible creature create one? In ministry, church, or community growth and success (we need context for correct definitions) often seems attributed to the right leader in the right place at the right time under the ideal circumstances. If anyone of these is missing, like our picture, the end product doesn’t exist or withers away. All of this is dependent on God and our response… almost if God was orchestrating and we needed to blow our trombone. (FYI the leader could be replaced with the right group) The point being, you can have a willing servant, obedient and faithful, but at some moment things have to start falling into place, and what if they don’t? Does the perfect storm pass by with no one knowing it existed or could have existed? The age old question…If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it…did it really fall?

I think I have an answer...

Context + Ekklesia + Mission and Purpose = Easter

Context! It is all about context. Context gives clarity, understanding, and definitions so that the truest form of communication can take place. This is a lesson I have had to learn time and time again. Context has cost me money, time, effort, attention spans, and ultimately, my failure to provide context has hurt and offended people. Therefore, in light of the upcoming Easter services that will take place around the world, I have started to think about the variety of diverse people that will pour into Churches. With this in mind, and the importance that I have learned about context in the business world, I believe it is even more important to define context within the Ekklesia.

Why use the word ekklesia? Context! Church, people of God, and Christians (all terms that I could have used) are all defined differently, depending on who you ask. The use of Ekklesia…that causes people to pause. They have to think, question, and confirm that the definition that I am using is the correct way that they are interpreting me using it. I will be using the definition of Ekklesia out of its Greek definition, “assembly of called out ones.” (It is made up of two Greek works EK – Out of, and Kaleo – shall be called.” Therefore, it is understood to refer to a certain set of people who come together for a special purpose. The Bible uses this term to refer to a people called out from the rest of the world, to be for God, a witness. Context? Established!

Why is context so important for the Ekklesia? First, millions of diverse people will be pouring into our sanctuaries this weekend. Second, because the Ekklesia gets confused about its purpose/mission. Purpose? Mission? Words that need context!!! The Ekklesia’s purpose and mission are things that are flippantly thrown around within the diverse groups of Christians, who meet in churches, that complrise the Ekklesia. To gain a context for the purpose and mission of the Ekklesia, I will return to the definition of Ekklesia. “A people called out from the rest of the world, TO BE FOR God, a witness.”

Clear as mud? The purpose and mission of the Ekklesia is to be “a people called out from the rest of the world.” This is traditionally understood as the holiness, righteousness, and otherness factor. The reason that the Ekklesia is to be set apart is because they are “to be for God, a witness.” The purpose and mission is “TO BE FOR.” This means that the mission and purpose of the Ekklesia doesn’t necesiarliy have a mission or purpose. Rather they are the conduit for which God witnesses to the world. God has the mission and purpose to witness to the world, and the Ekklesia is the way in which he does it.

How is this done? God gave an example in his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, as the “Son of God” came to establish the Kingdom of God, which ultimately culminates in the cross. Jesus walked in humble obedience. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but realized his role as a servant. He was so obedient to God, that he ushered in God’s Kingdom, through death on the cross. This whiteness that was wholly set apart from the world, gave a testimony for God’s Kingdom, and is where the purpose and mission of the Ekklesia is found. The Ekklesia is simply an extension of the Kingdom that Jesus ushered in through his inauguration on the cross. This is the message we are to preach to the diverse people coming into our churches this weekend.

To do it…we need context.

Ask and you shall recieve

Donald Miller is asking for more dancing...

This church has responded

I will Surve...won't I?

Survival verses the will of God. It would appear that Jesus made a definitive statement in the cross. Survival is meaningless emptiness outside the will of God. But what is the will of God? I just finished John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus and he says that the will of God is made known in the life and ministry of Jesus, which both center upon the Kingdom of God. Yoder says all of this is pinnacled in the cross. Therefore, in a long round about to asking, is God's will for us to die so that there may be life?

I want to yes...but what about when that death comes in the form of a church? This scenario seems to be happening more and more these days, and it’s a hard reality to deal with! People, congregations, denominations, and so forth often plant churches in the belief that they are in God's will, or at least acting on behalf of it. Therefore, when churches die, or their doors are closed, people are left asking questions. Did we misread God’s plan? Did we fail to stick to his plan? Did we ever really know God’s will/plan? Did God come up with a better plan and decide to scrap the people, families, and community touched by us, the particular church, for another plan? How could God just let us die?

I attend a church where these similar questions were asked regarding our recent pastor. The board and congregation ultimately decided that it was time to cut off that branch within our history, or the pastor decided…not really sure but either way he is no longer present. I bring this up because at one point the congregation and board believed that this pastor was sent from God to lead our flock. Yet, regardless of who decided to cut ties, things didn’t turn out as one would guess (that is if this pastor was God’s plan/will as orignally thought).

This leads me to ask, how often are questions asked regarding God’s will/plan for the church/pastor/individual asked? Are they ever really dealt with? I know that in my case there was internal questioning (I am guessing) by the pastor, the congregation, and the board. However, was this ever done in a praying community really seeking the will of God? How often should this assessment be taken? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly? Yearly? And how would the people respond if the decision came back…"not so well…we are off basis and in order to get right with God we are talking about letting our pastor go or closing the church doors for a while?" I am not in this position, but I am guessing not very well. People would be asking, “Who is this team and how did the access our position? And where does their authority come from?"

As American Christians we have inherited a strong sense of self esteem, individuality, and will to win. We often trust ourselves and fail to question our deepest lying motives. Yet, when it comes to God we are supposed to follow and obey. Our lives are not our own. Therefore, when we address issues on survival verses the will of God we are asking a deeper question. Do we, at our deepest conviction trust God? Do we have the blind unswerving devotion that Christ had when he walked into Jerusalem?

This is the week, if none other, that we should take stalk of our trust in God. We should reflect on the past 40 days of lent. The practice that teaches us to control our desires, passions, and will as Christ did. We learn to model our lives after Christ, who did not believe equality with God was something to be grasped (the control factor) and completely and wholly trusted in God's will...even when it meant death.

Sporotheology

I love sports! I love theology! I love mixing sports and theology. On that note I will link this article from The New Yorker. I will admit that it does'nt get into theology too much, but what can you expect from a New Yorker?

New Life

Jesus said that he came so that we may have life until the full. What Jesus offers through his death and resurrection is a new life. This new life is the full life that Jesus was talking about. Apparantly, CEO of Gravity Defyer, a new shoe company, Alexander Elnekaveh is making a similar claim.

"Our logo is deliberate. Our customers feel like they are getting the beginning of a new life when they try our shoes. We are not embarrassed by it."

Elnekaveh doesn't use a cross to symbolize the new life his. His symbol is a little more ....well you see.

Are you afraid of the Gospel and Church? So much so that you need to carry firearms to Church? Is the suffering servant image of following Christ's command to follow him to the cross to weighty?

Truth be told it should scare you. Suffering and servanthood often go hand in hand when we take on Christ’s call to minister to our brothers and sisters, renounce the lordship we hold over our life, and abandon our earthly security for the sake of the Gospel. However, these are not the costly and painful things that we have to worry about. It is the antagonism of the world's response to the threat of the suffering servant. Jesus put the powers of this world on their heels (in a meticulous way)and it is what we are called to do too. This call is not forced. Jesus reitereated free choice and foretold of the cost required to follow him, he continually told the diciples the cost of embarking on his path...will we acknowledge what we signed up for?

Casey at the Bat

Casey at the Bat. The classic cartoon that parents show to their kids to teach about the importance of making the most out of every opportunity. The audience sees Casey with so much potential, so much promise, and yet…he never came through. He squandered the opportunities set before him. He is arrogant, prideful, and overconfident. So much so that he watches two perfect pitches go by while reading the newspaper. Casey had the opportunity to be great, to fulfill his purpose, and become one of the greatest stories in baseball. Casey had the opportunity that most people wait their entire life for. Two outs, bases loaded, and the chance to win the game and become the hero. If you know the story or watch the clip, then you know the result…he, and his team, lose the game.

This last week I felt like Casey. I had to opportunity to do what I have been training to do. The circumstances were set. The stars had aligned and I was called to the plate…for Christ that is. The first pitch…I was coming back from lunch (pulling through the parking lot) and I saw a homeless man, his name is Ed{I met him two weeks ago}, with a sign asking for money. As the pious priest in the story of the Good Samaritan…I quickly passed by. I was running late….excuse. As I drove away the story of the Samaritan popped into my head…much like the priest and the beaten man…I knew that the beaten (whether physical or mentally) had seen me…and I failed to act…STRIKE ONE.

Strike two came a couple days later while I was failing to engage in the act of loving my wife. The excuse, much like Casey, the time for living out my calling wasn’t yet. I figured, like I always do, there would be another opportunity to be the person that Christ has called me to be. I figured I still had another pitch coming…besides, as always, I was right in the argument, and therefore, I would wait for the next pitch to take action and represent Christ the way he has called me too. Then I heard the umpire call…STRIKE TWO.

So now I stand with two strikes ready to play ball…I am ready now…the game is on the line. My team needs me…as the pitch winds up the thought crosses my mind…will I end up like Casey?

Hot Cross Buns...or Hot Topics

In a blog I started, finished, and then had my Mac laptop freeze on me so I was unable to post, I discussed how people who give Christianity a bad name really frustrate me. Well these people are back in the news (as always) and not letting up on the fight to give Christianity a worse name. Here is a video that was linked to another blog yesterday that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

As I cringed, blood curdling and boiling at the same time, I wanted to hide and irradiate him from being synonymous with Christianity and the Church. As this was not possibility, what is done is done, YouTube will keep this video available until the ends of the ages. (Side note- I am thinking about how the digital age has helped St. Peter, he no longer needs to keep records of rights or wrongs in his book, he just hyperlinks YouTube clips, Facebook photos, comments and the rest). I moved on in my day, rationalizing with myself what’s done is done. Hoping next time someone speaks they show a little more humbleness, meekness, and love. I mean these are only the attributes that Jesus teaches about in the Sermon on the Mount and calls us to partake in as ambassadors for his Kingdom.

This morning the video was almost out of my head when an article in The Christian Post regarding Joel Osteen’s Upcoming San Jose Visit brought it screaming back to the forefront. However, as I read the article, particularly Joel’s comments, I realized that Joel, as well as the young man in the clip above, isn’t necessarily trying to be the arrogant bigot that the world sees him as(maybe that is harsh), but rather they really believe that they are speaking is the Truth and God has called them to preach it. Where did they get this truth that they so feel so compelled to preach? Their church, their community, and their mentors that helped raise and shape them into the people that they are today. They were bred into a societal view which was still clinging to a modern understanding of enlightenment.

The problem…we live in a postmodern (possibly post postmodern) world. Things are not as black and white as we once thought. The Enlightenment Project didn’t turn out as we once anticipated. We are left with the reality that we are a particular people living at a particular time. I am not sure we can know timeless truths that we once believed we could. I am not saying that there aren’t timeless truths, but the way we can interact/know them is limited.

Therefore, in light of our misconception I am offering a new way to address the Joel Osteen’s and homosexuals in the world…as broken individuals who, like all of us, are offered God’s grace. We are all sinners and fall short…or at least some theologians think so. I believe that if our starting point is a correct interpretation of ourselves we cannot help but give grace to others. It is when our teachers and community stress the work of Christ and how he has lifted us out of our filth that we can see the long way that Christ has brought us. I believe when the starting place is what Christ has done for us that we start to automatically pick up those kingdom traits that we find in the Sermon on the Mount.

This pattern of thinking should be essential to the forming community known as the Church and the way of disciples people that we are raising up under the guise of Kingdom ambassadors. It should yield a product or model ,as the one I will propose, for dealing with issues like the one Joel and our young friend are so passionate about. I think it would be leading people into the Church instead of away (or at least to talk with).

The starting point for my model is an apology. Whenever there is bad blood, miscommunication, or tension with my wife I find this the best place to start. An apology says that I care more about you than the issue at hand, and I want to work with you to restore our relationship. Our apology should go out to the LGBT community, chosen from the issue above but could go out to any hot topic group, and say that we have failed to like up as the representatives that God has called us to be. In this case, the Church could easily say that we have failed to treat the LGBT as Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount and by doing so have failed to love you as Christ loves you. We may not be forgiven right away, but I believe that we would catch them off guard enough to at least let them hear us out.

The second step, is acknowledging that we don’t know everything(tough step). We could possibly highlight that we, the Church, have been wrong before (Galileo, Slavery, Women’s suffrage…and down the line). By apologizing, acknowledging that we don’t know everything , and admitting that we could be wrong would open a door to further be heard/communicate…possibly evangelise…the method works at least for my wife.

The third step, is to hear their point of view. We cannot just listen and respond. We need to hear and understand their view. Repeat their view in their words to them. Possibly to know it better than they do. To acknowledge that we have heard them and see them as people who God wants to have a relationship with.

It is only after all of this that we can share our position. Our position coming from a position that shares…this is what tradition has taught me. This is what is accepted by my community. Knowing verses and looking at them together within context is key. “Because the Bible tells me so!” Is not an answer.

We have a long way to go.

Jesus, I am your Father!

For the last two months I have meeting with a group of teens on Sunday morning. These teens are not your normal teens. They love reading and collecting books. To be honest I wish that I was more like them in high school. If I only knew that it paid to be smart, push yourself, and not cheat or skate by. Over these last two months I would say that science fiction has come up in almost everyone of our meeting. The last three weeks have led me to start to relate the Bible, our faith, and our reading/interpretation of the Bible to Star Wars (it's the only sci-fi back ground I have). I was super excited to read to read James McGrath blog this morning linking me to a church in Australia that has befun having sci-fi based services. Maybe it the move of the future...

John and the Heavier things...

Pornography is an epidemic and getting worse Little is being done and I am guessing that it is because of stats like these:

• Every second, 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography and $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
• The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink
• There are 4.2 million pornographic websites, which is 12% of all the websites on the internet
• Every day there are 68 million (25% of the total) search engine requests for pornographic terms
• 42.7% of internet users view porn
• The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old and 80% of 15-17 year olds have had multiple hard-core exposure
• The 35-49 age group is the largest consumer of internet pornography
• 47% of Christians say that pornography is a major problem in the home
• 17% of women struggle with pornography addiction and 70% of women keep their cyber activities secret
• The USA produces 89% of all homographic web pages (Germany are the next biggest producer, producing 4% of all pornographic web pages)

Our culture oozes with sex and sensuality. While porn statistics are commonly, the effects of porn on individuals, marriage, the family and the community are rarer. With reports like the following There are endless amounts of negative affects of porn. One I was shocked over a recently forwarded a link by XXXChurch where they gave a quick snippet of John Mayer’s interview with Playboy. In this interview John discusses his porn addiction and how he would ultimately rather view porn verses be with a real person. He talks about staying in bed all day and how people are late to work because they need one more fix.

I can't help but want to ask John if he realizes the addiction he has? Does it bother him? Does he even care that he has lost relationships over his obsession? Like all drugs...they get harder and more frequent with time and usage. The gateway of porn can be disastrous and yet in this interview the interviewer from PB does not seem to be bothered by John's eccentric taste. And it is with all these negative consequences to porn I am left wondering why the temptation is still there.

Please Model our Church after Drug Dealers

Most people who know me, know that I don’t drink coffee. In fact, when people ask me if I would like a cup of coffee I often respond, “I don’t do drugs!” Some people smile, others are confused, and others have heard me say this enough to butt in and say it for me while rolling their eyes. Part of my disgust for coffee is the taste, but the real issue I have is shelling out $4 to $5 for a drink. Call me a cheap skate but to spend $1,116 a year on a drink is ridiculous (5 days a week X 4.50 a day). This is before you add in the accessories, complementing items, spouses drink, gift cards, and other miscellaneous items that people buy at these modern day crack houses. I use the term crack house because crack houses are where addicts congregate to get high. Coffee, like crack, is a highly addictive drug that changes the mood and being of a person. Just ask an addict if he hasn’t had his morning coffee fix. And despite all of this I still want to model our churches after these crack houses.

You are probably asking why? It has to deal with the drug king pin Howard Schultz(Starbucks CEO). Recently, Schultz gave an interview to NPR regarding his new book Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul. The title alone was to catch my attention, but NPR titled their interview “Starbucks CEO: Can You ‘Get Big and Stay Small’?” These two titles ripped my attention from what I was doing (solid marketing). As I see it, these two questions could be posed to the Church. On the larger scale: Has Christendom lost its soul by becoming Christendom? Is Christendom fighting to retain its soul amongst the power it holds? To a smaller scale: What is the correct size for a church? Can a church turn into a mega church without affect? Can a mega church stay small and committed to its core ideals?

Indirectly, I have been questioning these two themes over the last couple years (power and influence verses Christ's calling). Arguments can be made for both sides and I would argue that both are pretty convincing. However, as I read Schultz interview he brought to the forefront the issues that arise when growth happens. Values, core ideas, principles, and mission statements can be lost when power and prestige are given. What makes a company/church succeed at a smaller level can easily be lost. It takes a continual commitment to hold fast and/or return what made you great. I can’t help but see this delimma in the church today. Listen to his comment and ask yourself if it doesn’t relate to something else within the church:


“Pouring espresso is an art, one that requires the barista to care about the quality of the beverage. If the barista only goes through the motions, if he or she does not care and produces an inferior espresso that is too weak or too bitter, then Starbucks has lost the essence of what we set out to do 40 years ago: inspire the human spirit. I realize this is a lofty mission for a cup of coffee, but this is what merchants do. We take the ordinary — a shoe, a knife — and give it new life, believ¬ing that what we create has the potential to touch others' lives because it touched ours. Starbucks has always been about so much more than coffee. But without great coffee, we have no reason to exist.”

WOW!!! How many people in culture, let alone the church, talk with this much passion and conviction? As the Church, called to make disciples, do we put this kind of love and attention into people? Do we see the ordinary and give it life? Do we see every moment as the potential to touch others’ lives because someone has touched ours? Do we seek to create much more than followers or a church, but true passionate disciples for Christ? Do we believe that without this purpose that we have no other reason to exist?

Schultz in his belief that Starbucks had changed from who they set out to be did something drastic. In order to gain perspective and show the corporation how serious he was to holding to their mission statement and passion, he shut the company down for 3 ½ hours. The estimated loss was 6 million dollars in revenue. The media, his company, competitors, and the team around him all questioned his decision. And yet in the midst of all the doubt and negative impacts he believed that Starbucks “had to restore the passion and the commitment that everyone at Starbucks needed to have for our customers. Doing so meant taking a step back before we could take many steps forward.”

Later, when asked about his decision he gave this response:

“There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead. This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold. ‘Life is a sum of all your choices,’ wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way.”


If the Church answered the questions I listed above honestly I think that they would respond negatively. We don’t have the passion, love, and belief to endlessly pour into people. We don’t believe that our purpose really matters. We don’t strive for excellence in all that we do. We look at the drastic steps that we need to take to get us on track and think it is too difficult or unpractical. We look at Jesus’ commands on the Sermon on the Mount and say "not possible. It would be easier to lose 6 million dollars." Schultz responds to us “acting ethically (and purposefully), even if it costs more” is what we are called to do.

It's the tall order that has been given. Our job is pour out our lives as it has been modled for us, no matter the cost.

Mission Impossible

Last night as I was sitting in bed I pulled up my Google reader… only to find 88 articles. Last week was a busy week, Fresno to Yuba City to Menlo Park to Bakersfield to San Jose to Oakland and back home. I logged about 1500 miles and didn’t have much time to catch up what was going on in the blogosphere. As I quickly flipped through the blogs, only clicking on those titles that grabbed my attention, I kept asking myself, when do these people find the time to blog? By the time I got to bed I was exhausted. As I came into work this morning I flicked open my Google reader (out of habit)…24 more posts…What on God’s green earth do people do? Really, does anybody do anything anymore or do they just blog?

Feeling insignificant feeding my small blogger complex I thought to myself, “I should blog and contribute to the endless amount of garbage on the web.” But what to blog?

Blogging/writing continually is like Mission Impossible for me. My mission which I have chosen to accept, is not to endlessly pump out my thoughts, but to sort through them in a meaningful way so that I can process the endless loads of crap that I take in. What I have been working through is Stassen and Gushee’s book, Kingdom Ethics. Stassen and Gushee build a Christian Ethic on Jesus’ largest block of teachings in The Sermon on the Mount. As I set off to embark processing and synthesizing my reading of their work I was looking forward to linking in Rachel Even blog Jesus, The Impossible Mentor , and yesterday’s sermon by Humberto Reyes The Mission Impossible, Loving One’s Enemies (Matt 5:43-48).

These three sources posed a question to me, how serious do I, or should I take Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mont? My conclusion, after 250 pages of reading, Yoder’s Politics of Jesus, Rachel’s reflective blog, and Humberto’s sermon… I should be taking it PRETTY GOSH DARN SERIOUS. With my solid commitment to challenge myself, and without the motivation to blog through my thoughts, I decided to work through my newly found vigor with my wife. As chance would happen, an opportunity had presented itself where I could help my wife work through an issue of loving a difficult person. As I “helped” her discern her actions I soon found myself giving a pious mini sermon on exactly how she was supposed to follow Jesus’ teachings and apply what we had learned that day.

I should have stopped in the middle of my beautiful mini sermon to my wife, but I was on a roll. I was pulling in my reading from class, the sermon we heard that morning, our Bible study, and lastly what I have been learning in Revelation. It was all so brilliantly systematic and solid doctrinally. Everything came together as if I was being led by the Holy Spirit. As I sat in bed patting myself on the back for being the wonderful spiritual leader of our family that I am, I dozed off to sleep in my pious bliss. My last thought was, “God, I am so thankful you made me so smart and that you are tying everything I am learning together so well…” I wish the story could have ended here, however, a couple hours later my alarm signaled the start of my day.

The alarm really signaled that I was off to the races. The rubber was about to hit the road. It wasn’t that long till I was into my day and I realized that my sermon last night was impractical. How could Jesus really expect me to love people who were trying to steal from my company? Had Jesus really dealt with the inspectors that I have to deal with? I instantly started to rationalize and chip away at Jesus teachings. I imagine that I am not the first person to do this. The rationalization process makes Jesus teaching easy…palatable. I mean he couldn’t really want me to wash my enemies feet as he washed Judas’s right?

It all seems to paradoxal, radical, and inconceivable. Then again…if it was easy everyone would be doing it.

Hot Press...not really

I don’t know what the big deal is. I have a bunch of these; some signed by Jesus and others by scattered apostles—I couldn’t get Judas’ signature for some reason; he would hang out with us!