I was thinking a lot during my trip to Mexico about the Great Commission.  It is usually lumped into missions commissioning services.  Something along the lines or, “And Jesus himself said that we are to go into all the world.  So we commission you to go to Mexico.”  At some point I asked myself why in the world they don’t mention the second part.  The part where we are called to make disciples of all men.  It really started to get to me.  It was like they hadn’t quite figured out how youth mission trips to Mexico fit into the Great Commission, so they use it as much as makes them comfortable, but recognize that the long term effects of short term missions can be minimal.  I know it may sound harsh, but those are thoughts I had that led me to thinking about what it means to make disciples of all men.  I think it would be at least somewhat valuable to look at how Jesus made disciples.  Sometimes we get the wrong picture and it ends up looking like this:  (thanks to vintage21.com for this excellent video)

I thought a lot about what Jesus did, and I don’t want to reduce it too much, but I probably have.  Essentially, he did the right thing, and he invited other people to live with him.  Then, he just kept doing the right thing.  When people needed correction he corrected, but it wasn’t really as important as doing the right thing.  When they asked questions, he told stories.  When he had to, he used words like “Get behind me Satan.”  That was just that once though.  I think it is often debated what it means to make disciples, and it is better to be debated than to try to make them the way that jesus did in the video.  Perry Noble just posted a blog about this very thing, and I think he has at the very least a solid direction.  I love that they are doing everything they can to make disciples.  That’s way better than just whole heartedly embracing the first part of the Great Commission.

I really liked this post today on the Catalyst website. Tim really took what I don’t like about Starbucks and flipped it and stuck it to the western church. I think he at least has a valid point. There are some obvious generalizations that are not across the board. Either way, I agree with shutting down. At least cutting some of the crap, the sacred cows that do nothing save lateral movement, to make time for self-evaluation. I think it would be healthy to say the least.

I went with our church staff down to Lodi on Wednesday to listen to Reggie speak on Missional Church Architecture. A lot of the discussions I have had with the staff include parts of Reggie’s Present Future stuff. He really makes me think, examine, and question what is going on in me, my circle of influence, and my church. I will just list some of the things he said that I think are important. If you get a chance to hear him speak, I would definitely recommend it. Disclaimer: these are all in some context and I jotted them down as he spoke, so think deeply, tread lightly.

• People used to make stuff (manufacturing to service)
• We pay for stuff we don’t want to do
• We outsourced spiritual formation to the church
• Most of our churches are too secular for our culture
• They look for God and they find church instead
• The church becomes a way that the kingdom is breaking into the world
• Jesus is the hope of the world, not the church
• We are not running this sucker
• The church isn’t the destination
• The church is like an airport, it’s just a connector
• Are we releasing people and resources to bless the world
• Release people into leadership
• People count even if they don’t show up to a building

This article is pretty interesting. The guy takes a sabbath from his tech stuff and he feels “connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop.” It’s strange that most Christians don’t have enough time for a sabbath, but the pseudo-benefits of it can be felt by anyone. God made us with the need for a day off. It’s just a good reminder.

In line with this post from Dave H. in C-Town, I present to you “Embarrassment in Caleefornya” courtesy of the SacBee:

Today at Capitol Alert: Ralph Drollinger, the controversial Capitol chaplain who created a stir this week with remarks that some legislators are “disgusting to our Lord,” is firing back at his critics with a second Web posting, where he says tolerance of nonbelievers is “to neuter the message of Christ.”

It’s not just that he makes us all look like chodes, it makes him look like one too. I think in order to believe in ‘the message of Christ,’ you kind of have to admit that you are ‘disgusting to our Lord.’ Otherwise you haven’t really understood the message. This sucks.

Seriously. The whole study done about the decline of religion in America is ubiquitious. It’s in my e-mail, on the radio, in at least 10 different blogs I read, on the news, etc. One group does a study, and it points out what we all new anyway. It’s not news. I kept debating whether or not to post about it, but I have decided to leave you with this: Read this article from Time magazine. It’s way better than that stupid study. Somebody, please, stop talking about that stupid study.

you heard of this guy? i read this article in newsweek that tony morgan posted on his blog. interesting. i wish i would have known about this guy when we were in the city last november. the article makes him sound interesting, a little self involved, but that might just be the spin that newsweek puts in it. i’ll check out a couple podcasts and post my feelings later this week.

I’ve seen confession sites before like post secret, where people send in post cards to get secrets off their conscience, or christians confess, where christians confess to the world what they have done wrong. Both have been thought provoking, but neither really took my breath away like this new one. I’ve been reading Perry Noble’s blog for a while. Since Tony Morgan, one of the Simply Strategic guys, moved to South Carolina to work at Perry’s church, I have been very impressed with their honest approach to Sunday mornings, sharing Jesus, and being the church. They are starting a new series soon that they just put up 6 billboards and one website for. Parents Are Clueless takes it to a whole new level. Reading these confessions, quick to the punch, reveals the brokenness and need for restoration in real, real ways. It gets me thinking about all the baggage people carry around with them, and what some good old fashioned honesty and time spent on our knees together could do to restore a lot of the relationships that are compromised by self made walls like ignorance and fear. I’m looking forward to the podcasts.

About a week ago, I set our DVR to record this CNN report called God’s Warriors. Christiane Amanpour spent 3 nights looking at the big 3: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. For each, she talked about how they think they are the most righteous, the importance of Jerusalem, and the ways that they go about waging war. We just finished the Christian one this evening during dinner. I am embarrassed. I knew it was bad, but not this bad. We both thought that Greg Boyd, who Christiane said all the big wig Christians called a heretic, was the most down to earth guy on the show. Just to show how bad it was, Ron Luce looked quite moderate compared to some of the other guys. These guys are giving Pat Robertson a run for his money. After reading Shane’s book, it was almost horrific to see how much money is spent on getting people to vote one way or another, like enforcing a law in America introduces people to the love that Jesus brought to earth. Now I just want to know what Christiane thought about all of it. She was very unbiased, with a few moments of “Are you serious?” poking through. She’ll never tell though.

This book has gripped me. It is like I have lived in this shelter, and this book has deconstructed the shelter. And now, ideas that were just small inlets of light into life are vivid realities, all around me. I’m gripped. It’s like I’ve realized all of these personal and corporate limitations on God, and now that I know that I’ve been suffocating myself, I need to shake it off. It’s a process that I need, and I can’t even explain it in a way that is going to make sense, but this book just makes sense.

Velvet Elvis made me think, “Where was all this info before, and why didn’t my sunday school teachers know this stuff?” Then Blue Like Jazz vocalized the things I felt inside in a way that led me to tears as I dealt with the words on the page breathing life into thoughts that had just been bouncing around inside my head, like Donald Miller was speaking for me. And this book just ripped the blinders off. It was like here are some ideas, these are how these ideas worked for me, and now, these ideas are real, and this is what it looks like to take Jesus at his word. I finished it this morning, and I brought it with me to Mugshots in case I needed to quote stuff from it, but I can’t think of just one thing. I guess the most real part to me, the part that sets the stage for everything else is in the beginning when he talks about how we hear over and over how people’s lives were going to crap, and then they met Jesus, and they just can’t thank him enough for pulling them out of that life. But when you grow up in the church, and you hear that story over and over, this new life doesn’t really feel so much like life. “If God was as boring as Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure I wanted to have anything to do with him.” He goes through what it was like to really follow Jesus, and as he is introing this idea, he says “…me, I had it together. I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life.”

As I process this stuff, it starts to freak me out, but I hope for fire. I hope that I live in this community, and the sparks catch kindling, and another world clashes with this one.