At Sanctuary, staff members are required to have a monthly spiritual retreat day. We call it the DAWG day (Day Alone With God). I did mine today.

Funny enough, I spent about two hours at Barnes and Noble reading, “God is not Great.”

Atheist Christopher Hitchens makes a case for God not being so Great (or even existing at all).

It attempted to dismantle the world’s major religions through highlighting the inconsistencies in their major texts and the representation of their people. Logic, apparently, is the only fabric that should weave our understanding of the world.

I actually enjoyed the read, though I whole-heartedly, and partial-mindedly disagreed with Hitchens.

Note to self: Never try to convert an atheist… just love people…let God (or your belief in the God that you’ve made up) do the rest…

One of my favorite former atheists is doing a great series on violence in the old testament over on his blog.

So this blue collar guy who worked on the docks in San Francisco would spend his free-time on his own brand of self-educated, life-informed, motive-exposing, philosophical treatises back in the day.  

I love Eric Hoffer every time I pick him up (wow he was a big guy). Actually, I get more out of one page of Hoffer than I do out most books, save the Bible…

Today’s juicy nugget on the relationship and necessity of evil:

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealousies and self-seeking. He bocomes an anonymous particle quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass….

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: “No…We should have then to invent them. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one.”

Certainly there are things I hate. I abhor violence. I hate guns. I think their purpose is largely confined (though not entirely) to such things that Jesus never inspired. I hate litter. It makes me angry to see such social disrespect. And the list goes on…

However, the question I often ask myself is what is my response to my enemies…to the things I hate, about the actions of others and myself?

One of the ways that Christian subcultures have often gained such dramatic growth, is through creating an ‘us and them mentality.’

You are my enemy, and not only am I not here to love you, but I will set myself apart. I will associate with my own, the clean, the holy. And I will privately and publicly condemn and advocate for the legislation against your actions.

I’m not so sure that’s what Jesus was prescribing when he said this from Matthew 5,

38”You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[g] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43”You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[i] and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Read some commentary on verse 41, it will fascinate the roman pants off of you…

So what then are we to do? How are we to respond to evil? How do we avoid the mass movement of a Christianity that builds barracks and trenches, drawing lines in the sand to quarantine ourselves from the ills of our world…

Well, one thing we’ve learned through quarantine is that we do a better job of keeping the sickness in the house than keeping the germs out…

When Jesus was around, he did most of his ministry on foot going to people rather than bringing people to him. He used culturally relevant stories that made sense in people’s lives. The temple, the building, was reserved for the holy, the pure, the godly to enter into God’s presence.

Isn’t it interesting that the modern church in America is leaning towards the opposite scenario. We open the doors of the church to the unholy and ask them come inside our house, stepping out of their comfort zones and their natural settings and ask them to watch our media clip and listen to our story and then join the folds. We rarely walk the hillsides of our communities to meet people in their own natural settings. We tend to make them come to us…

I don’t think it’s wrong.
In fact, I’m a proponent of both models.
I think you can meet people where they’re at, even if it means bringing them to where you’re at.

But I also wonder if the church has done too good of a job rallying people around building buildings and maybe not so good of a job rallying the people outside of our buildings, outside of our buildings.

bottom line…meet them in a bar, meet them at the movies, hit them with your postcard so they can come watch your big screen. just reach people. reach them now. life is too short to have no model…

We need to be careful of the paths we try to lead people through as we integrate them into the church. We can create just as much isolation through forcing people into community that they don’t want, as in not providing opportunities for community for those seeking it.

Don’t we all just want a place to belong?
A place where we feel our needs are met and our desires are important?

The Church tends to try to take people from, “Hi, I’m visiting,” to “share your darkest secrets with this person who is now in your small group…” in a moments time. In most cases, I think the word intimacy needs to go. Try and find it in your Bible anyway…

We need to look at how we reach people at Public Circles, Social Circles, Personal Circles, and Intimate Circles without making the huge jump from Public to Intimate with no relationship building in between….

guilty. I’m a designer, a spinster, a pretty package maker.

Acts 17:29

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.

It’s funny to me the business I’m in. I design impressions of God. Impressions of his church. Impressions of who I think Christ to be.

And yet he’s undesignable.

It’s impossible for me to get out my designer toolbox and design God in an image that would make Him say, “That’s me. You nailed it. My justice looks like that. My love looks like that. My pain looks like that. My hope looks like that.”

I’m struck right now knowing that Islam creates no images of Allah. They refrain from attempts to paint God in a human frame. They refrain from painting a picture of God that God wouldn’t make of himself.

And so the only true reflection of God’s design is to look at God’s creation and see it for his beauty. See it for the reflection of himself that it is. in it’s diversity, creativity, intelligence, inter-connectedness, passion.

God is a designer. Me too (though I’m far less talented).

so I started taking the time to breathe.

thanks neeraj. It has actually brought a settling to my jittery caffeine filled unslept body to actually be taking the time to breathe.

It’s amazing what a deep breath can do to resettle yourself.

Remember the valley of bones. ezekial 37. the slain. the dead that god breathed into and from death to life death took on flesh.

I feel like death warmed over. I’ve had so much client work lately, and it will continue through September, that I haven’t had much sleep. Averaging 3-5 hours a night right now.

Just the simple act of slowing my breathing has completely taken away my anxiety about not sleeping. My anxiety about meeting client deadlines. my anxiety about letting the church work slip.

God is breathing life back into me.

so I started taking the time to breathe.

thanks neeraj. It has actually brought a settling to my jittery caffeine filled unslept body to actually be taking the time to breathe.

It’s amazing what a deep breath can do to resettle yourself.

Remember the valley of bones. ezekial 37. the slain. the dead that god breathed into and from death to life death took on flesh.

I feel like death warmed over. I’ve had so much client work lately, and it will continue through September, that I haven’t had much sleep. Averaging 3-5 hours a night right now.

Just the simple act of slowing my breathing has completely taken away my anxiety about not sleeping. My anxiety about meeting client deadlines. my anxiety about letting the church work slip.

God is breathing life back into me.

Esther 10

1 King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. 2 And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.

Learning recently about my strengths, I’m struck by reading Esther this morning and the last lines of the book about Mordecai.

How much of my life is for the good of the people and how much is for the good of jeremy?

I have this strength called significance. I’m struggling with recognizing it as a strength and not just a need for affirmation and affection.

Mordecai is clearly celebrated for his work for the good of his people.

Sometimes I think God wants to honor us when we are his justice in the world. Sometimes I think it’s an act of self-aggrandizement to be honored by people. I guess it depends on if you were passionately pursuing God or if you were pursuing something just to be recognized by God.