What Will Consume you?

     Our cohort is taking a look at the impact of economics on culture. Of our reading material, I was so interested in the concept of consumption. What consumes you and what do you consume? I appreciate the potential Christians have to speak to this issue. Check out these videos. 

What challenges you about the concept of our consumer culture? 

I want to be missional.

I've been a way a while because of work and school, but I have been reading a lot and I'm ready to start posting again. This one is longer than usual, but it encapsulates what I've been chewing on and wrestling with in my life and calling. I hope you enjoy!


The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.

The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.

The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 4. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts.

Frost, Michael; Hirsch, Alan (2001-01-01). Shaping of Things to Come, The (Kindle Locations 346-356). Baker Book Group. Kindle Edition.

The story of Stuff

I first saw this video a few years ago and thought it was pretty cool. Then Marie and I had a short run small group based off of the trade as one curriculum and this video showed up again. It has profound statements about what it means to be a person of worth and value of this world that every Christian should take seriously. It's a little on the long side to use in youth groups, but it makes for great small groups. If you are looking for something to start a conversation about consumerism and being a Christ follower, this video is a good start.

We booked a screening!

In November, we booked a screening of Invisible Children's newest work. Here's a little preview.

Missions Trip

Saturday night, at 11:59 PM we will pull away from our church in a bus headed for Mescalero, New Mexico. We'll be there for a week long mission trip to serve the Apache Indian Nation with several work projects.

Historically, Indian reservations represent injustice and deep resentment toward the harsh and unfair treatment Native American's endured at the hands of European settlers. Our prayer is that we can be a part of healing these very old wounds. What an honor.

We're going with the Group Work Camps organization. I've been impressed with their logistics. They've told us exactly what to bring, what to tell our kids, and what to expect out of the week. This trip is an answer to prayer.

I don't have a ton of construction experience outside of Stagecraft in Technical Theatre class.  Can you imagine me managing a construction site? This should be really interesting. I'll post from my phone next week, so please be gracious with grammar and spelling errors due to the small screen.

Here are some of the activities we'll do next week:

• roofing
• building handicap access ramps
• painting
• drywall
• morning and night meetings
• and probably much more!

A Short Reflection

"Is our quest for justice a way of expressing our grief?" -Father Sirico
A brief look around the world gives the observer an overwhelming felling that something is not right. Father Sirico notes the paradoxical nature of the human condition by pointing out our hunch that we were created to live forever paired with the brokeness that surrounds us. Some people try to do something about that brokeness. What motivates that urge? Particularly, what motivates that urge in a person who is not consciously surrendered to Christ?

Could it be that our destiny and a deep understanding of who we really are motivates acts of justice? Could there be a deeper connection between the creator and His creation that overlaps when it comes to making wrong things right?

Shoreline East

Jhi gave their strongest showing to our church's outreach campus in easy campus. I love urban Austin.

Fundraisers

One of the things that I came away from the ILM conference with, was an awareness of the opportunity ministries in America have to raise funds and get them to the people who need stuff.

I dislike the vibe of people raising funds for the sake of getting rich. Unfortunately, I've let that limit my thinking. There are lots of things we'd like to do at lift, but don't because we don't have the funds. I'm thinking of starting an Amazon store for lift student ministries so that we can have the funds to help ministries overseas, do mission work, and take youth to camp.

Have any good fund raising ideas?

How I misjudged Joyce Meyer

I'm pretty skeptical of televangelists and politicians. When I found out that Joyce Meyer was going to be speaking at the INTEGRITY Leadership Ministries conference I was a little confused, but I also have a bigger distrust of the media. I thought I'd just listen to her for myself and I was not prepared for what she had to say.

She gave a passionate call to action in the area of social justice. She encouraged local churches to address the CAUSES of poverty, slavery, and the sex trade (human trafficking).

I was prepared for her informal style and some nuggets of wisdom from her many years in the ministry. I didn't think I'd be challenged and moved to act.

I am a fan now...not an uncritical one though. In the future, I will not be as quick to offer my opinions.

The Last Televangelist

Phil Cooke, www.Philcooke.com spoke this morning about the biggest mistakes Christians make withe media and branding. Here they are:

1. We over estimate the importance of Christian media. -> no one watches.

2. We fail to understand the difference between culture change and political change.

3. Poor branding. -> what do people think about when they hear your church's name.

4. Mass marketing is dead. Its all about the nitch.

5. Culture is more important than vision.

6. Don't understand that we live in an open media world. Church isn't a 1 way conversation anymore.

7. Strategy matters a lot.

He said that preaching in jeans does not count for changing strategy.

He had more but he stopped there.

Shoreline East

[posted from my phone]

Our team just finished ministering at shoreline east, our church campus in the midst of many homeless and section 8 communities. It is always an honor to be close to people God loves so much!

Today Pierre and Skip (the mustache guys) lead worship songs, Angelica did a great job teaching (she is our director of our south campus youth ministry), and Rudie shared about being a single mom and in high school. She was SO powerful and the guests really connected with her.

The creative element for todays service had a schedule conflict so I filled in with a lip sync from a Whitney Huston song, "Nowhere To Run" I can't quite understand why me taking my shirt off in front of homeless people can be used by God, but it seems to bless. Can't wait for next time. Looking forward...

Shoreline East

Every other month our middle school ministry has the responsibility of providing a church service at our East campus. The campus is located in a part of the city that helps us serve a lot of homeless and section 8 communities. Every week a different ministry from the church provides a service for the guests that includes a song service, creative element, a testimony, and a teaching. After the service, we serve our guests some food. In march one our young teenagers helped preach part of the message to our guests there. I was so proud of him telling about what God did in his life and sharing scriptures and what they meant to him.






After James shared, I came up to transition into a song service and it seemed to work well. All the guests and volunteers were hanging on his every word and I think that having a teenager share from the scriptures enabled all of us to hear truth from a different perspective. As Rob Bell says, "let familiarity breed unfamiliarity." That's what happened for us when we heard scripture teaching from someone we weren't used to listening to.







At the end I was thinking that I shouldn't have got up to tie things together because it wasn't really necessary. James did a great job of sharing and not much needed to be said. However, since this was our first try at tag team teaching with a teenager, I think it went well. One problem we have is actually getting our teenagers 20+ miles south to downtown Austin. I want to get better at communicating to parents that this can be a family thing and all of them can serve in this ministry environment together.







I also wanted to point out Thomas Wright. He's the director of Shoreline East and does an amazing job. Click on his name to check out some of his art. He's incredibly talented and such a good guy. He's pictured here to the left.