Missio Dei Suburbia

We're All Selfish Until Jesus Changes Us

The new issue of Relevant Magazine showed up in my mailbox today - the same mailbox with the holes in the roof that makes things soggy on rainy days - and their cover story is entitled, 'Laying it Down: Learning to Live with Less in a Culture of Excess.' The article's pretty well written - Don Miller, Shane Clairborne and Tony Campolo get alot of airplay and Miller and Clairborne painted a particularly biblical and gospel-centered perspective on issues surrounding money and finances in our consumer-glutted culture.

I'm not going to recap the article (and its not up on the Relevant website) but it begins by talking about the backlash that Bono and his RED campaign has received after spending hundreds of millions in marketing while bringing in less than $20 in profits (for more on this, check out the very good article/blog post by Ryan Anderson over at First Things entitled, 'Bono Still Hasn't Found What He's Looking For'). The criticism is that for all of the good intended by the RED campaign, the reality is that it pandered more to our consumerism than it did to cut against it. A pragmatist might be content with this approach and proclaim that the end justifies the means - but what does it say when the end isn't reached. Why are such obvious needs like the AIDS crisis in Africa seemingly ignored in terms of money and resources flowing out of areas of affluence?

Would it surprise us that the answer comes down to the gospel? The apostle Paul found himself in a similar situation as the U2 frontman - trying to connect the resources of one group to the needs of another. Yet rather than appeal to their conscience or will via emotionally manipulative stories or shaming them into giving by appealing to statistics about consumption and waste, Paul takes a different approach. In 2 Corinthians 8:9 he tells the people of this church  to remember 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.' He is not calling them to be nice or to think about the starving children in Jerusalem - he simply says, 'Remember what Jesus has done for you.' Paul's conviction was that true philanthropy and mercy takes place when the earth-shattering love of Christ becomes real and satisfying.

Rodney Stark writes this in Cities of God:

In a letter to a prominent pagan priest, [Roman Emperor] Julian wrote: I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the [pagan] priests, the impious Galileans [Christians] obvserved this and devoted themselves to benevolence...[They] support not only their poor but ours as well, everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.' But his challenge to the temples to match Christian benevolence asked the impossible. Paganism was utterly incapable of generating the commitment needed to motivate such behavior (emphasis mine). Not only were many of its gods and goddesses of dubious character, but they offered nothing that could motivate humans to go beyond self-interested acts of propitiation (emphasis mine) (page 31).

As our church struggles financially as we continue to find ourselves within this community, we're convinced that guilt and focusing on people's wills (Just Do It!) will not bring about the total transformation that God has planned and that we so desperately need.

Further Reflections from the 2006 Desiring God National Conference

Sorry in advance for the graphic-free post: this is Post #2 from Aaron's iBook G4, which I'm using to write tomorrow's sermon. He's trying to turn me to the Dark Side, but the fact that every time I type the letter 'o', I automatically get 'oo.' That makes for a lot of backspacing and re-typing - not a good way to convert me, dude.

So I'll fill you in on everything after the first day of our trip to the 2006 Desiring God National Conference. I've already written about our Wednesday in Chicago - here are the rest of the non-conference highlights:

• Have you ever gotten to an airport so early that your bags get to your destination three hours before you? We arrived at Midway Airport around 6:15 am after a 6:00 pickup (on the advice that we didn't want to get caught in any rush hour traffic - that definitely wasn't a problem). After breakfast at Harry Caray's restaurant (pancakes, mmmm), we arrived at our gate to find we were so early that there was another flight before ours filled with blue hairs heading to Sarasota for the winter. So Vestal got a rather awkward nap (and battled a sore throat for a few days - didn't stop him from eating like he just graduated from college - enjoy that metabolism while you got it, dude).
• The two other times I've been to Minneapolis, the city has been covered in snow and blanketed in sub-zero temperatures. I figured I'd at least get some fall-like weather, but after freezing my tail off at Wrigley, the rest of the trip was marked by temperatures warmer than those down here in Georgia. The city itself is one of the more clean city centers and the weather allowed for getting out and seeing more of downtown (including Aaron's personal highlight of going to a Nick Lachey show - actually, he didn't go to the show but for some strange reason, he did take some pictures of the marquee with the former Mr. Simpson's name in bright lights).
• Thursday night's Twins game was wild for three reasons: 1. Brad Radke was coming back from a month-long injury and made what was probably was the last start of his career in the Metrodome. He pretty much was throwing the ball up there underhanded but he was effective for five innings. Think John Smoltz and you'll understand what Radke means to Twins Fan. 2. We sat next to Trevor and Isaac. Trevor is a 39-year old semi-retired owner of a couple of liquor stores. Isaac was a very friendly and boisterous drunk who kept the entire section entertained, conjuring the spirits of Jack Black and Will Ferrell, while borrowing Albert Einsten's hairstyle. 3. The Twins tied the game with two outs in the ninth inning on a Joe Mauer home run (think Jeff Francouer with talent), then won it in the tenth.
• Aaron took five years off of our lives by buying and sharing a batch of freshly deep-fried mini-doughnuts, complete with cinammon and powdered sugar. We went on to buy more before Sunday's game, insuring that I will die before I turn 60.
• Sunday's game was the best environment I've ever been in for a baseball game. 45,000 crazy fans in a dome who hung around for 30 minutes after the Twins beat the White Sox to watch the Royals come back from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Tigers and give the Twins the AL Central Division championship. Unfortunately, the Twins went out and promptly got swept in three games by the Oakland A's.
• We had a great time hanging out with Robert Prusa and some of the guys from Campus Outreach at Georgia Tech and UGA. We ended up at a place called GameWorx to watch Georgia's lackluster performance against Crooked Miss. Too bad we didn't find NBA City at the Target Center, with its 41 Hi-def screens, until Sunday when we stayed there for a few hours to watch NFL games.
• It was also great to spend some time with my boy Jason Gammons and Jamie Peterson, who's the assistant pastor at Faith Pres. in Birmingham (where I used to be on staff). I'm also really glad that my dad made the trip up and converted everyone to Ireland-ism (if you've met my pops, you know what I'm talking about).
• We stayed at the same hotel as the Chicago White Sox and the Michigan Wolverines football team. I was also asked by three marathon-running soccer moms to kiss them for good luck - I respectfully declined.
  

For those of you wondering if we actually did anything that had to do with Jesus, we did and here are some of my brief thoughts:

• I still can't believe the lineup of speakers that John Piper was able to put together. It was a dream lineup and with expectations high, all of these men delivered.
• For a detailed overview of each of the sessions, check out Tim Challies live blog here.
• I've really enjoyed David Wells' four books on theology and culture, with Above All Earthly Pow'rs serving as the thematic basis for the entire conference. I sometimes struggle with British guys like Wells, whose presentation is usually very rich but rather dry. I found Wells to be rather warm and delivered one of the best lines of the entire weekend during the roundtable discussion on Saturday when he publicly declared his desire 'to be hip, man.'
• Voddie Baucham was the least known of the speakers and having heard him several times before, I knew he would be a guy who presented the Scriptures with eloquence and passion. He delivered on both counts, getting things off to a heartfelt, Gospel-saturated start on Saturday morning.
• Tim Keller was his usual professorial self, mixing a wealth of content with wry humor. His focus on the future of evangelism was very helpful, even if I had heard most of what he had to say in various other talks and sermons and papers.
• Mark Driscoll was probably the most anticipated speaker at the conference, more for the fact that his inclusion as a speaker was the most controversial decision Piper has made in almost twenty years of hosting conferences. That very fact is simply ridiculous since Mark has shown himself to be biblically and theologically faithful, but the simple fact of the matter is that there are a number of people in the reformed community who don't like Mark's style and quite honestly don't know what to make of him. He's an outsider to the conservative, upper-middle class majority within the reformed nation. Mark had a huge target on his back and was noticeably nervous (at least to me, who's heard him at least 100 times), but got into it after ten minutes or so and was very effective at reminding us of the importance of contending for the faith, while contextualizing our message to reach as many people as possible.
• I've benefited greatly from Don Carson's academic ministry via books and commentaries. This was the first time I've been able to hear him speak and his message on love from John 17 is still working on me. It was a bit tough because it was congitively rigorous at the end of a long day, but the truth of what Carson said with great fervency reminded me of how little I know of Christ while creating a greater hunger and longing for him.
• Piper was Piper at his patriarchal, pastoral, passionate best. Mark Driscoll has posted an e-mail exchange between him and John that took place in response to some comments John made foollowing Mark's session at the conference. Vintage Piper. His message on Sunday was both gentle and searing and spot-on in his assessment of the emergent conversation and its aversion to propositional truth. More than anything, he made me want more of Christ and renew my commitment to lead people to see and savor Jesus as infinitely valuable.
• Ran into CJ Mahaney a couple of times and was able to thank him for the impact that his ministry has had on me personally and more than a few people in our congregation. I noted to someone that one of the things I admire about CJ is the fact that he was willing to show up at a conference and just sit and listen, a trait which is rare in a day of Christian celebrity. I don't know of too many 'big name ministry leaders' who show up too simply participate and grow in grace.
• Check out Piper's reflections on the conference here. Actually his focus here is bigger than the conference, but as a nameless pastor among thousands of pastors at this conference, John's words are timely.
   

I'm sure I'm missing something, but this has been an all-day post, written around football games and Jonathan-chasing. I'm happy to be home and am looking forward to our worship gathering tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll be back to regular blogging this week.

Happy Birthday, Drunk Generous Weird-Haired Guy - Desiring God National Conference 2006 Day One

Hello to all of our friends in Canada - I don't have to yell as loud as I normally do for you to hear me since I'm only a few miles south in the glistening metropolis of Minneapolis. I'm on a bit of a road trip with Aaron Slaten and Matthew Vestal (who is single and available and has been described as a rather attractive man), specifically for the purpose of attending the 2006 Desiring God National Conference. Here are a few of our highlights:

• Two mornings that began no later than 6am. Aaron normally doesn't begin to function until around noon, so this was a bit of a challenge for him. But he carried through like a trooper.
• We can report that AirTran runs a very smooth operation. Short lines, little biscotti squares and planes that take off and land without incident. Plus, they have XM radio which I didn't listen to but apparently makes them pretty cool.
• Our man Omar set a world land-speed record in getting us from Chicago Midway airport to our hotel near Wrigley Field. We were in a 1971 Ford Econoline van with windows that had been rolled down and probably couldn't be rolled back up. This created an experience tantamount to riding inside of a tornado. We survived - including the fish-tail we did heading into the final turn at the Best Western Hawthorne Terrace. If you're ever in Chicago north of downtown, you need to check out this pretty cool little 4-story hotel. My wife wanted to know if it had a neat bathtub - the consensus here is that the tub was rather ordinary in appearance.
• We walked north on Broadway (no, not that one) and then turned west on Addison for almost a mile, the light standards of Mecca beckoning us to come and worship inside its hallowed walls. But that was later - first order of business was food. So we stuck our head inside Wrigleyville Sports and asked for the best pizza place around - he directed us to Giordano's which was about 15 minutes away. Wrigleyville is such a cool neighborhood. Rows of brownstones and shops and beer gardens (the concept of which was explained in great detail at lunch today by Jason Gammons) - a lot more life and activity than we see in the cloistered life of the 'burbs.
• So we get into Giordano's, which is well known for its Chicago-style stuffed pizza, and order a medium sausage and pepperoni (which our waitress assured us would be enough). 35 minutes later out it came in all its golden glory. Aaron considers it the greatest pizza he has ever had and while I'm not ready to put it into that kind of stratosphere it was very good. We also learned that Giordano's will half-bake your pizza, freeze it and ship it same-day air via UPS. It would be well worth it to try it out...
• After we got back to the hotel and had a nap in between the latest news of Terrell Owens attempted/accidental suicide, we headed back towards Wrigley for the first pitch. We were there early enough to catch most of batting practice, which included listening to a few dozen high school students doing everything they could to get Cubs reliever Will Ohman to give them a baseball. Ohman hooked a couple of them up and kept us laughing pretty hard.
• The vibe at Wrigley is so good. We were surrounded by something like 4 different groups of people - little communities of people who gather together around their common love for a very bad baseball team. I already mentioned the students, but in addition you also had a gaggle of Milwaukee Brewers fans (the Cubs opponent on Wednesday night) who were fairly obnoxious for people whose team consistently finishes with a worse record than the Cubs. You also had a couple there with their nine-year old son who left the park $150 richer than he was when he showed up. Why, you may ask?
• See, there was this guy who was celebrating his 30th birthday with about a dozen of his closest friends. They had already been drinking a bit which apparently had led to some kind of prank because by the time the birthday boy showed up, all of his head had been shaved except one scraggledy patch of hair in the middle of his head that had been lacquered up and would have skewered you like a rhino if he had chosen to do so. So the Old Style is flowing freely and so is the bowling language. Pretty early on, drunk birthday guy notices the 9-year old and declares that for the rest of the night, anyone who used said bowling language would have to give this boy $1 - he goes ahead and gives him $10 just to buy himself some credits. So now you can use your imagination to figure out how this little boy Jared made somewhere around $150. Drunk birthday guy was actually very generous and nice, spending time talking with Jared's parents and giving the little man high-fives any time the Cubs made a good play.
• The game itself began pretty crappily but ended up  really well as the Cubs scored two runs in the bottom of the 9th inning to beat the Brewers. Understanding that I am biased towards the Cubs, watching a game at Wrigley is a great reminder of why going to the Ted to watch a Braves game is such an inferior experience to something like this. First of all, people are here to watch baseball, not go  to an amusement park. Second, people love the Cubs and sport a ton of Cubs gear. Third,  they provided pretty good evidence that Northern people are actually nicer than Southerners. I saw community, generosity, laughter, and besides the verbal abuse that went back-and-forth between Cubs Fan and Brewers Fan, you got the feel that everyone there was part of one, big, happy family.
• We went home and went to sleep...a 6:00 am van ride back to the airport awaiting us.

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.

What We've Learned So Far

You asked for updates, so here you go...

We've done nothing...well, that's not entirely true but our main goal on this vacation was rest. Plus, having a 19-month old = working around his schedule, so I spend time in the Word and prayer and workout before Jonathan gets up; we spend the rest of the morning getting ready to go to the beach (imagine trying to put suntan lotion on jello) and spending about an hour down on the beach (more on that later); lunch and naps for Lindsey and Jonathan (reading for me); Lindsey works out (or keeps sleeping) after Jonathan gets up, so I have gotten some really good time to read books and play cars with the boy; dinner and more play time before Jonathan goes to bed around 9:00. That's left the rest of the night to finish up the first season of Lost (we hadn't watched it before now, but we're hooked and Lindsey has started a countdown until Season 2 is released on September 5). Not the stuff they make TV movies out of, but it's been perfect for us.

Jonathan is quite the fan of the ocean. When we took him out for the first time on Thursday, he went crazy when he saw the waves and tried to toddle in without Mom or Dad! We hadn't brought down his little inflatable floatie, so we took turns trying to hold Jonathan while he tried to dive in - we got smart by Friday and so Jonathan spent Friday and Saturday riding the waves in freedom. We haven't been in the ocean the last two days - the caution flags are at yellow and after about ten minutes of getting drowned by the waves, Jonathan had enough - not because of the waves (he laughed every time he got doused), but because of the salt in his eyes.

We worshiped with the people of Grace Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Gulf Shores on Sunday. We've probably worshiped there 10-12 times over the years that we've vacationed down here at my granddad's place. Different vibe then at Christ Church - older crowd, feels like the Baptist church I grew up in (and I don't mean that as a slight to either church) - but it's been fun to watch that church grow over the past 8 years or so. They're in the middle of building a new worship facility and are meeting in their gym/fellowship hall - that felt like home!

We'll watch fireworks set off of a barge in the Gulf of Mexico from the comfort of our tenth floor condominium. We're hoping Jonathan will stay up long enough to be able to watch.

Plans are to head back towards Watkinsville early tomorrow morning - hope everyone has a great rest of your 4th of July!