Missio Dei Suburbia

God's Grace Is Enough - More Than Just An Idea

Thanks to those of you who e-mailed to let me know that you were/had been praying for all of us at Christ Church as we gathered together for this year's Reformation Conference. This conference is part of our quarterly CrossRoads equipping series - weekends designed to strengthen community and practically connect life and the gospel. Each weekend has a particular theme and this time around our focus was on the sufficiency of grace in our lives.

This was our sixth CrossRoads weekend and in my opinion it was our most 'successful.' Alan Carter, senior pastor at Faith Church in Birmingham, preached on Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning and preached three of the best sermons I've heard him preach - unfortunately, the audio recording demons have struck again and somehow all three sessions didn't record *insert bowling language*

Along with the main sessions, we also offered three separate breakout sessions connecting grace to relationships, generosity, and the local church. By the end of the weekend, we had spent over eight hours eating together, laughing together, sharing studies and opening the Scriptures to be reminded of the hope and mission that we have because of grace.

Our worship gathering on Sunday was one of, if not, the most powerful expressions of the presence of God in his grace and mercy to his people since I've been here at Christ Church. Good to know that grace isn't something you just talk about...

Where Football...err, Jesus...I Mean Football, is King

Alright, I've been sitting on this one for awhile, but some of you know that before I moved to the Athens area, I lived in Birmingham and among other things, served as team chaplain for my father-in-law's high school football team. This is a pretty sweet gig - getting 10-12 minutes a week to point 85-100 guys to Jesus. I had a blast going with the team to pre-season camp, stopping by practice a couple times a week, and getting to know the players and coaches.

So I start watching this show on MTV called 'Two-A-Days' about another football team from Birmingham, the Hoover Buccaneers. Interesting stuff and because I spent five years as chaplain of another successful team in the 'ham, I perked up when they showed clips of the Hoover team chaplain (who I know since I went to his church in college) addressing the team the morning of their first game in 2005 against Nease High School out of Florida. You can see what I saw below (it takes about ten seconds for the audio to catch up with the video):

Interesting, huh? Well, this bothered a few folk in Birmingham and after two other episodes showed him twisting and turning the Scriptures into a motivational talk that seemed to have alot to do with chasing a bag of wind and very little to do with, you know Jesus, a minor firestorm started, resulting in this front page article in the Birmingham News.

Now, I know that what MTV shows isn't his full talk. And I know that they're trying to create a caricature of southern culture and football. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out how what I'm sure Terry said about Jesus is congruous with statements about 'football being king' and some pretty sketchy interpretation of the scriptures.

Only in the South can we give people just enough of the Scriptures to inoculate them to Jesus. Yeesh.

And You Thought It Was Hard Getting Your Kid To Church!

Former Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jesse Barfield was hospitalized after his 18-year old son pushed him down the stairs of their Houston home. That's bizarre, but what makes it more bizarre is this, from the report on ESPN.com:

    The arresting deputy said the Barfields were getting ready for church, and went to check on what was delaying Jeremy, "and they got into an argument," Martin said.

Is Faith Day Missional?

So the Braves hosted a 'Faith Day' yesterday following their debacle of a game against the Marlins (and proving even further why all this wild card talk is as ludicrous as those who think that Mike Vick is one of the best 15 QBs in the NFL - but I digress). The premise was, Christian baseball fan brings non-Christian baseball fan to a baseball game, then leaves said game after the Braves lose, then pays an additional $10 to come back into the stadium to pick up some Jesus junk (a camoflauged Bible for when you're trying to hide it from the deer on your next hunting trip and a baseball with some of the Veggie Tales characters on it), hear John Smoltz give his testimony and listen to a couple of Christian bands. From what I could tell from this article, the goal is to convince your aforementioned non-Christian friend to make a decision for Jesus and make your life better.

If I sound cynical (and if I'm worth a hoot-and-a-half as a writer, I should), let me first say that I'm thankful that people want to see other people know and follow Jesus. I'm grateful for God's work of grace in the life of John Smoltz and for gifting Aaron Shust and others with musical gifts that they use for the sake of Christ. I sincerely hope that lives were changed by having arguably the most famous and popular athlete in Atlanta talk about the change that has occurred in his life since his conversion.

Having said that, however, I usually find that the Christian community often points to these things as proof that we're making a difference in our world. And maybe we are, but it does seem that we often base our hopes on events that are disconnected from the seedy underbelly (what a great phrase) of life. For instance, let's say that someone did decide to 'choose Jesus' (and we'll ignore the theology of such an idea for now) - what steps were put in place to help this new brother or sister in Christ be able to follow after Jesus? Why do we look to events when statistics tell us that presentation evangelism in which a decision is expected 'on contact' is increasingly less effective in our time and culture?

I have no doubt that the intentions of the ministry that organized this were admirable (it is hard to imagine that the Braves organization saw this as much more than a marketing opportunity), but to the degree that we lean on these type of celebrity-event things to bring people into the Kingdom, the less effective I believe we will be as agents of God's kingdom redemption and renewal where we live, work and play. We won't connect with the people around us and listen to their stories and believe that our common, ordinary lives can be used by God wherever God has placed them. 

Your thoughts on all of this?

Where I've Been

Last Sunday afternoon, I drove to Birmingham with Jared Bryant and Aaron Slaten, who are on staff with me at the soon-to-be Christ Community Church (we changed the name from Christ Church Presbyterian - that's a whole other post). Given that our church is still in the start-up, creative, entreprenural phase, we needed to get some time together and brain storm and plan for the future of the church (more on that later). It also gave the three of us some time to hang out and eat way too much food together. We also found out that Jared talks non-stop in his sleep which is why he never talks in real life and that Aaron will be struck down by God if a razor ever touches his face. That last sentence is as totally fabricated as Floyd Landis' Tour de France victory, which the cool kids tell me is a bike race. I used to have bike races on my Mongoose when I lived in Montgomery - good times.

National Holiday

As I type, thousands upon thousands are enjoying the end to one of the great days in the calendar year - the release date of this year's version of EA Sports NCAA Football 07 - simply the greatest sports game franchise of all time. The past two years I've been almost worthless leading up to this grand and glorious day - preordered the game, waited at the store for the game to arrive, driving home like a drunk who can't open his bottle of Colt .45 quick enough, putting the game into the XBox and experiencing nirvana when you hear those magic words - say 'em with me: 'EA Sports...if it's in the game, it's in the game.'

This year, there is no national holiday for me. By a decision of my own making, I decided not to buy the game this year and until today, I've only made scant mention of it. But man, I'm sweating like a crystal meth addict three days into detox, especially after I saw the screenshots and video from the XBox 360 version. I will say this, if I had a 360, I'd definitely buy the game. But I don't, so I'm not.  But if you'd like to buy me a 360 and a copy of the game, I probably wouldn't turn it down!

And since we're on the theme of college football, why don't we all just sit back and enjoy one of the greatest plays in the history of college football, complete with soundtrack by Van Hagar (who I usually don't mind, but in my opinion, 'Right Now' is VH's most over-rated song). I love Tyrone Prothro...

War Eagle

Well, our friends down on the Plains are always fussing about not getting any attention. Well, they've got everyone's focus now!

War Damn Eagle...

Jesus Is Coming Soon (Sign of the Apocalypse)

Between Juan Pierre hitting a home run and the Cubs actually winning a game, my guess is that I won't have to ever prepare another sermon because Jesus will be back for all of us very soon  - how else could you explain such a bizzare occurence?

Talking Out of Both Sides of My Mouth

OK, I know I just ripped on the church for bragging on athletes who are on our team, but I do think that there's a way to celebrate God's gifts and wisdom in putting people in all kinds of arenas where Jesus can be made much of.

For instance, there's this dude named Matt Hughes who is the World Welterweight Champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship - and may be the single best fighter in the world. I mean, if you had to walk into an alley with one other hombre to take out the entire Tennessee Volunteers football team (sorry, that's the best example of thuggery I could think of), Matt would be your guy. But here's the deal - the guy's a Christian and a Presbyterian to boot!

So what do you think? Am I being a complete hypocrite by griping about Kurt Warner hosting the Dove Awards, while being thankful that God has Matt Hughes fighting on our team?

College Football - The Countdown Begins

So the first college football preview magazine is out already - only 14 more Saturdays until the 2006 season begins (go ahead and click here to get you in the mood). For those of us who think the the college football season begins with the release of EA Sports NCAA Football, the season begins in 59 days. To expose the pathetic nature of my idolatry, I've already told Lindsey that she's going to have to be very stubborn in not allowing me to buy this year's game, since I simply don't have the time to do what's really important AND play a video game.

You also know it's football season when a major SEC player gets arrested - this time it hits close to home as Juwan Simpson got busted this morning - winning himself today's Red Forman Dumbass Award (by the way, 'dumbass' is not a curse word when it is a statement of fact). The most humorous part of the story is that Simpson won Alabama's Community Service award this spring. Actually, it's not that funny - Juwan is probably a really nice guy. It's a reminder that we all tend to live in two worlds which both seem real - the public world where we put our best foot forward and the private world which few know about us and ain't quite as pretty. May we remember that the gospel tells us that it is only by God's grace that we don't find ourselves in their shoes.

My buddy Doug Mann is taking off to Virginia this week with his family to join the Jerry Falwell cult at Liberty University - actually, Doug would be the last guy to drink that Kool-Aid which should make for some fun times in Lynchburg. I have said that it is evidence of the grace of God that an Alabama guy and a Tennessee guy can be good friends, and in the spirit of our friendship, I want to dedicate a song to my good friend.