We started a new series on Sunday called “Does Being Smarter Make Your Faith Greater?” a parody of “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” Aren’t we clever?

What we are attempting to do is to look at the big questions, but in simple ways. I’m convinced that sometimes we make things more complicated than they need to be.

We’re going to be asking questions like:

1. Who is God? What is Heaven like?
2. What does it mean to be forgiven? How are we forgiven?
3. What does it mean to be a Christian? How do you become one?
4. How do you tell others about Jesus? Who do we see Jesus in?

I could ask NT Wright, Marcus Borg, or some other prominent theologian. Those guys have written books on some of these topics. Instead, we’re going to interview some of the kids in our church to hear their answers. And then we’re going to take a look at the Bible and see Jesus’ answers.

Somehow I think we’re going to learn that you don’t need to be smarter than a fifth grader. It’s not about smarts. God knew better.

In the words of Jimmy Buffett:

Maybe it’s all too simple for our big brains to figure it out.
What if ‘The Hokey Pokey’ is really all it is about?”

(Jimmy Buffett, “What If the Hokey Pokey Is All It Really Is About?”, from his CD Far Side of the World, ©2002)

Christmas can be a difficult time for many. Some may find it difficult because they don’t have enough money to buy all the gifts they would like to give. Others may be struggling with relationships in a family. Others may just be waiting for the season to be “magical” and it’s not living up to that expectation.

I have been feeling a great deal lately for the many in our society who feel like they are on the outside looking in. Those who feel as if they are on the other side of a window, out in the cold watching others feast by a fire enjoying the good life. I’ve been there. I still can go there from time to time.

Which makes me glad today that I have Jesus in my life. I know what it’s like to be on the outside, but because of Jesus I also know what it’s like to be invited to the banquet (Matthew 22:1-10, especially 9 & 10). You and I, and the rest of humanity, are invited. We’re welcome. We have a seat at the table.

May we, the body of Christ in the world, do a better job of letting others know they’re invited too, offering them love, worth, value, connection, and more!

Jesus loves you and me just as we are.

Amen?

Have you seen JC Penney’s Christmas ad? If not CLICK HERE.

If you stuck with it to the end you saw these words on the screen: “Today’s the day to believe. Merry Christmas.” JC Penney? Really?

In these days of people getting all worked up over businesses saying “Happy Holidays” and calling those trees we put in our house at this time of year “Holiday Trees” or “Family Trees,” maybe we need to lift up one who has done it well.

Thanks JC Penney!! Today is the day to believe! Merry Christmas to you too!

We did this thing on Sunday night at “The Body” that was very cool. It was one of our “independent study” nights, where there’s no sermon. Instead we set up stations at the front of the worship area, on the platform. At the appropriate time we invited everyone forward to “bless” one another, using the prompts at each station.

Next thing I knew, there were a bunch of people up on the platform sharing with one another. They were interacting, laughing, enjoying one another, and truly blessing one another. In the midst of it I heard myself say, “Now that’s church.”

There’s something cool about church where we don’t sit quietly and listen to one person talk. I’ve known that for a long time, but seeing it in action made quite an impact.

Brokenness seems to be a theme in my life lately. Friends struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Another in my life who battles lustful thoughts, pornography and all that goes along with that. Another who struggles with self-esteem issues. Others who feel like they cannot be the people God wants them to be. This weekend I visited a nursing home with my youth group and met some lonely, hurting people.

My own brokenness became a struggle for me this year. Surgery and a motorcycle accident put me in a place of weakness I hadn’t experienced before, and certainly did not like.

We’re all weak and broken. The Bible puts it this way:

If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. (2 Corinthians 4:7f, Msg)

Fragile. Ordinary. Not crystal and fine china, but the stuff we eat off of and drink out of everyday. An unadorned clay pot. That’s what you are. Don’t feel bad. So am I, and everyone else around us.

It would be good for each of us to get in touch with our unadorned ordinariness. It takes some of the pressure off. And knowing that God loves us anyway should give us the courage to live extraordinary lives in spite of our ordinariness.

God doesn’t make us perfect or give us perfect lives. But he does give us a perfect Jesus. Our job is to get out of the way and let God shine through.

Because we all know - it’s what’s in the pot that counts.

I read a sentence yesterday that has bugged me ever since. It’s in Phil Vischer’s book Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dream, God, and Talking Vegetables (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2006). I cannot say enough about what a wonderful book this has been for me. Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, tells the story of how he built a media empire around a tomato and a cucumber, and how it collapsed all around him. (Visit www.PhilVischer.com for more information about Phil and his continued ministry endeavors)

At the end of this wonderful book, Vischer reflects on the lessons he has learned from the collapse. One chapter is dedicated to the business lessons and another to the spiritual. In the spiritual lessons chapter Vischer notes in hindsight, that he was chasing after the success of his ministry much more than he desired a relationship with God. I had just preached on the beatitudes about being content and hungering and thirsting for God (Matthew 5:5-6), so this resonated with me. His lesson learned is this:

I don’t have to dream it up, I don’t have to read a hundered business books and craft a “vision paper,” I don’t have to try a bunch of stuff and see what works. I just have to stop and listen (Vischer 241f).

That “don’t have to try a bunch of stuff” phrase really got to me. I had recently been encouraged by a friend who told me the story of a colleague who said, “I’ll just keep putting stuff out there let God connect the dots.” For someone who is looking for the next thing God is calling him to do, I latched on to this sentence and have been allowing it to guide my thinking for the past several weeks.

Then last night I read Phil’s sentence and I got mad - frustrated. I had really liked his story up to that point, but now he was dumping on my new thought process.

After a few hours of digesting this, holding these two sentences in tension, I’m not so sure they are as mutually exclusive as they appear on the surface. As in most cases, I believe the truth lies somewhere in between.

The common thread in these two ideas is God. Listening to God for direction does takes some sitting still. But that doesn’t mean we do nothing. Our job is to continue to be faithful to God in the little stuff, even as we stop and listen for God in our day-to-day living – a point Vischer also makes.

The difference seems to come in our definition of success. Is our success measured by our impact, by numbers, by dollars? Instead, God measures success by how close we live to the center of God’s will for our lives. There’s quite a difference between being successful and being blessed. The key is to offer all our endeavors to God, and see what he does with them.

So, how could God use you?

In Relevant magazine’s e-newsletter called 850 Words of Relevant (10/22/2007) they interviewed David Kinnaman, president and strategic leader of The Barna Group, and co-author of the book, UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity…and Why It Matters. Kinnaman and the Barna Group had done years of research into America’s current perception of Christianity and the church. This short interview highlights some of what’s in the book. I can’t wait to read the entire thing.

According to David Kinnaman, “Christians are primarily known among young people who are not Christians as anti-homosexual, hypocritical, judgmental, and too political. There’s this growing sense that they feel rejected by Christians. And consequently, they reject Christianity.” Every part of that description is negative.

Jesus told us, “You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree. The health of the apple tells the health of the tree” (Luke 6:43-44, Msg). So, what is the “apple” saying about the “tree” in this instance?

In this interview, Kinnaman shares four practical ideas for the church:

• Realize that “being defensive about critics doesn’t get you anywhere.” Good advice, I think.
• Focus on relationships. “You can’t change people through out-propagandizing media. You have to actually live life together with people.” I think we do a really good job of this at “The Body.”
• “[B]e creative communicators about what the message of Jesus really is.” Again, this is one of the primary goals of “The Body.”
• Recover “our heart for outsiders - to realize that the message of Christianity is a message about pursuing people who are in the margins of society.”

That last one cuts to the core of it all doesn’t it. So often we do church for church-people. It’s time to change that! Let’s work together to find ways that we can be the body of Christ for the world.

This morning I was thinking about how cool it is to have Christians at work in the media. I was thinking about Evan Almighty, and its writer, Steve Oedekerk.  It’s fun to discover Christians in the culture - like Tony Dungy in the NFL, Johnny Hart on the comic pages, and others.

But then I started to think about us rank-and-file Christians.  We seem to like flying under the radar. Why is that? Can you imagine the impact we would have if we had the courage to really live like we believe? Rick Warren says it well when he asks, “When did we stop being the hands and feet of Christ, and start just being the mouth?” (my paraphrase).

I think it’s time for some radical, Bible-based, Jesus following. And I’m not talking about what passes for Bible-based faith in the culture. I mean the real, radical, counter-cultural stuff that Jesus was about: touching lepers, loving the unloved, feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely and in prison, and so much more. Can you even begin to imagine the impact of a church of radical love, radical hospitality, radical empathy, radical reaching out?

May the church rise up and be the body of Christ in our world!

Have you seen the bumper sticker or T-shirt that says, “Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite.” It’s made me smile more than once - because I take it as just silly. But I wonder how many people live that way.

Seems to me there are some who believe it. I’m God’s favorite. Or maybe more prevalent is the my church/political party/denomination/country/nationality/insert your group name here is God’s favorite.

I’ve been teaching about grace and love lately, so it’s been on my mind. God’s love is available to all, and our arrogance in thinking that we’re more important in God’s eyes than others is ridiculous.

Let me throw a couple of Bible quotes out there:

But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ… Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything (Ephesians 2:11-13, Msg).

This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God…
We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first (1 John 4:10, 19, Msg).

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8, NIV).

Enough said?

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A random thought:

David Crowder is the best songwriter of our time. The theology and emotion that he gets into the lyrics of a 3 minute song are astounding! Google some of his lyrics.

I am still processing my trip to the Leadership Institute of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Resurrection is the largest UM church in the US, I believe, with a membership of approximately 15,000. It’s an amazing place that offers much to its community.

I was asked the other day what makes Resurrection into such a “successful” place. I could focus on the amazing choirs and bands, or the large screens and TV ministry, or a youth room that makes me break at least one commandment - the one about envy, or a narthex that houses The Well Bookstore and The Spring Cafe (my latte was very good), or one of many other peripheral pieces. But that’s not what makes them effective. As I continue to process the question, I believe the answer is simply this - focus.

Resurrection’s purpose statement is simple:

“To build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians.”

This sentence is in 40″ letters in the narthex, memorized by just about every member of the congregation, and directs everything that they do.

I like their purpose statement, but the statement itself isn’t the point. What is important is that the purpose statement tells them who they are (a Christian community), who they are trying to reach (non-religious and nominally religious people), and what they are trying to do (becoming deeply committed Christians). The answers to those three questions allow them to be good stewards of their resources.

As a church, as a pastor, as a human being we all need to be able to answer those questions: (1) Who are we? (2) Who are we trying to reach? (3) What are we trying to do?

We all need a little focus.

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PS - I tried to put success in quotes each time I used it to describe Church of the Resurrection for one reason only: I don’t think numbers equal success, effectiveness does.