Wrong Worship

What is it they say? You laugh to keep from crying, I think it is…?

LOL! – EP

Alone – Traffic Jam benefit concert

The GLOBAL TRAFFIC JAM on 11-11-11 is meeting its projected goal: 300 bands in 30 countries on November 11th, to raise awareness in the fight against child trafficking and slavery. Many more bands and solo artists are welcome to participate. Please let your musicians friends know of this amazing opportunity for exposure, while helping rescue children around the world.

A good friend Kylie B., TV producer and film wizard, did the concert visuals for Nate Feuerstein‘s Alone. My awesome friend and painter, Taryn Trousdale stars!

Alone – Concert Visuals from Kylie B. on Vimeo.

Nate Feuerstein concert details:

Date & Time: Fri Nov 11 11 05:15 PM
Location: Grand Rapids, MI US 2500 Division Ave S, Grand Rapids, MI 49507
Venue: TRAFFIC JAM: Benefit Concert

It was a lot of fun helping out with film-stuff again! -EP

hear, hear!

living sacrifice

We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself. - Oswald Chambers, Utmost For His Highest

daniel goleman “why aren’t we all good samaritans”?

social justice & the meaning of love to a servant of the loving God

I got an email today from my good friend, Sarah, with a link to a wonderful essay printed in the New York Times by Jonathan Franzen. Her subject line read “This is why social justice should be based on love.” Franzen did not write about social justice specifically but ruminates on significance of love & technology in a consumerist culture. However, his definitions & insights into love were definitely pertinent to the Christian who wants to serve because our greatest calling is to love God & to love one another.

Franzen says –

Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.

Also relevant is this excerpt from The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen –

The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing. So long as we define leadership in terms of preventing or establishing precedents, or in terms of being responsible for some kind of abstract “general good,” we have forgotten that no God can save us except a suffering God, and that no man can lead his people except the man who is crushed by its sins. Personal concern means making Mr. Harrison the only one who counts, the one for whom I am willing to forget my many other obligations, my scheduled appointments and long-prepared meetings, not because they are not important but because they lose their urgency in the face of Mr. Harrison’s agony. Personal concern makes it possible to experience that going after the “lost sheep” is really a service to those who were left alone…

All this suggests that when one has the courage to enter where life is experienced as most unique and most private, one touches the soul of the community. The man who has spent many hours trying to understand, feel, and clarify the alienation and confusion of one of his fellow men might well be the best equipped to speak to the needs of the many, because all men are one at the well-spring of pain and joy.

This is what Carl Rogers pointed out when he wrote: “…I have–found that the very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people. It has led me to believe that what is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others. This has helped me to understand artists and poets who have dared to express the unique in themselves.” It indeed seems that the Christian leader is first of all the artist who can bind together many people by his courage in giving expression to his most personal concern.

Which reminds me of the popular saying, “to save a life is to save the world entire” derived from the Talmud: For this reason man was created alone, to teach thee that whosoever destroys a single soul… scripture imputes [guilt] to him as though he had destroyed a complete world; and whosoever preserves a single soul…, scripture ascribes [merit] to him as though he had preserved a complete world. 

I serve a God that suffered & died for all of humanity but He also would have done it for a single one of my friends. In my mind He died for everyone I know but He also died just for Sarah. His infinite nature allows him to love the world yet love my friend so deeply that for an eternity He listened to each thought & prayer she would ever utter in this life with sweet, loving anticipation before making her out of clay in the unknown depths of the earth. He saw her unformed body & counted every hair on her head, and in the core of her being lie compassion, empathy and a capacity to love & these are His fingerprint. I am reminded that this is how much He loves my friend. It is also how much He loves me and that is why she & I love each other. It is from this place we carry out His justice serving the poor, defending the fatherless, caring for the widow & loving those who are foreign to this land.

Love is such a beautiful thing. -EP

shallow small group

 

A brilliant take on – as a commenter below says – “what not to do.” Awesome find, Nells! – EP

we need more uninspired christians

cross-posted from Real Spirituality

by Mark Parker

I’ve enjoyed over the past few weeks watching in person or via social media as I and my fellow ministers have experienced and celebrated mountaintop experiences. We have come together in person or virtually to be inspired by some of the best communicators in my fellowship.

But this morning the phone rang.

It was a man in Colorado who works with a Mennonite community there. These people bring the “orphaned” children of prisoners into their home and raise the children while the parents are incarcerated. Upon release, the family that cared for the children helps the parents integrate back into society. And they reunite the parents and children.

I’ve never seen anything about that on Twitter. I’ve never heard of a “take a convicts kid into your home” seminar. Not sure they even know the word missional.

The contrast was disturbing: people humbly changing the lives of “problem” children versus . . . well, versus people just like me:

• Tweeting about helping the poor on a $200 iPhone with a $70/month data plan.
• Working at elite schools and churches while calling for social justice.
• Choking up at pictures of white guys surrounded by happy African children he has just helped in his one-and-done mission trip—ignoring the kids he’s never visited living in the slum he drove past as he went from his suburban home to the airport.

Through books and blogs and tweets and conferences, we never have to leave the mountaintop. We are addicted to inspiration, regardless of how insubstantial. We want to have the emotional rush of being called to something greater, but not have to do the hard stuff to actually be part of that greater thing. As much as I like them, I have to admit that sound bites rarely facilitate the reign of God.

Talk is cheap. Tweets are cheaper. And there are plenty of both to anesthetize me to the reality of hurting children whose parents are incarcerated, or who live in nearby slums, or live anywhere and need Good News.

May we never be satisfied with the allure of mere human inspiration. Let us seek God as he works, and become a part of what he is doing.

****

Reminds me of  Oswald Chambers. -EP –

Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live.

9 reasons *not* to live in community (humor)

cross-posted from front porch

1. A recipe for disaster.

Can you imagine coming home from work and someone else had cooked you dinner? There’s so many ways this could go wrong. What if you had already be planning to eat Tuna Helper? What if this new chef created something you’d never tried…like Peruvian food or something his grandmother makes? Or what if she threw in someone you’re skeptical of… can anyone say eggplant? It’s better to stick with the tried and true and leave any new grandmothers out of it.

2. Ice cream makes you fat.

Every once in a while, when you happen to drive by that favorite spot, you treat yourself. Now, you have someone texting you to say that she’s passing by that special place, and would you like her to pick you up something. This can only go from bad to worse…

3. Knives should point up in the dishwasher.

Running a household takes a lot of work. And other people can just slow you down… they might wash dishes differently than you, take out the trash before you would, or mow the lawn horizontally, when diagonal is clearly more visually engaging. Thanks, but no thanks.

4. Why?

When your toddler asks his 60th “Why?” of the day…YOU want to address this. You do not want a close friend fielding these important life discovery moments. You want to answer him… every, single time. And if you your response isn’t quite what your kid was after… there’s another “Why?” close behind and you get the opportunity to try again.

5. Who likes BOGO?

If your housemate shared her crock pot, lawn mower, TV, or even dining room table, you wouldn’t be able to buy one yourself. She might even lend you her clothes, effectively doubling your wardrobe for free. Where’s the fun in that?

6. The efficiency model.

Building true, lasting friendships consumes a lot of time and energy. You could make hundreds of Facebook friends in the same window of time. Definitely more bang for your buck.

7. It’s like dying your hair purple.

When you explain that you bought a house with friends, or that you’re married and have roommates..people have questions and uncomfortable facial expressions. Who wants to have to explain themselves all the time or feel like an outsider? It’s better to fit in.

8. To thine own self be true.

What if you learned something new about yourself? Then you might have to address that weakness. Or maybe it’s a strength you’ll then need to sharpen and grow. Another person who lives with you day in and day out might affirm gifts and talents in you that cause your life to begin to move in a different direction. That all sounds like a lot of unnecessary trouble.

9. Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Intentionally loving others is time consuming and challenging on every level. And what does it really get you anyway? Someone to care for you when you’re sick? Someone to talk to late at night? That’s what Twitter’s for! Someone to love you through the hard times and celebrate the good times? Maybe…