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Heroes and Damsels in Christian Community

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We all love to be the hero and save the day. But the pride of isolation wins out when we are in need of help. What if we saw our times of needing help as chances to make somebody feel like a hero? I know that goes way against a John Wayne Republican Protestant work ethic, but really, consider it!

I need help. My chainsaw is stuck in a tree that weighs 6,000 pounds. If only I had another chainsaw, I could cut a wedge here and get my chainsaw loose. My buddy Paul has a chainsaw and he is mowing grass at his house today.

“Paul, I need your help!” Paul becomes the hero, I’m the damsel in distress, and he does two cuts in the log and my chainsaw is free. Some high fives and thanks, and he’s back to mowing and I have my saw back.

I wish that’s what happened. Instead, I was in “I’ve got this!” mode and I hacked on that log with a maul for an hour.

Hack

Hack

Sweat

Breathe

Hack

Hack

I seriously thought I was going to have a heart attack. My callouses had blisters and the blisters were busting that clear fluid out. Really, it’s true. An hour later my chainsaw was free and in need of repair.

I know how that story should have gone. But by trying to be the hero myself, I neither became the hero nor allowed anyone else to be that guy.

As part of living with my brothers and sisters in community, John Wayne needs to have a funeral already.

Every time my boys argue I quote Proverbs 17:17 to them.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
Proverbs 17:17 ESV
http://bible.com/59/pro.17.17.ESV

 

When I’m out having a heart attack at the park while I cut up fallen trees, I need to quote it to myself too! (or have a brother quote it to me in advance!)

We need to live in a culture where we admit that we need each other and we aren’t afraid to ask for help. As we grow and become of “one heart and one mind” like the group in Acts 2, our humility and trust in each other will grow, and Christ will show off in us more and more as the true Hero.

Two Excerpts I Want You To Read

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Here are two excerpts from “The Forgotten Ways” by Alan Hirsch

A Note to Leaders and Introduction: http://www.cmaresources.org/files/ForgottenWaysHandbook-excerpt.pdf

and

Introduction and Chapter 1 – Confessions of a Frustrated Missionary: http://assets.bakerpublishinggroup.com/processed/book-resources/files/Hirsch.pdf?1362591025

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to these or not, which is why I am not hosting them on my own pages but leading you back to their original sites.

Here is a good overview of the whole book, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to link to it either.

This book is really good and has a ton of thought-provoke for Christians in churches, especially you mega-church folks.

The real thing I was looking for was the addendum at the end. I’ve quoted A Crash Course in Chaos before here, but I came across some of it again today and I just had to promote it again. Check it out, you won’t be sorry.


“The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church” (Alan Hirsch)

Don't talk bad about the building or the customs!

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There is a section in Acts 6 that shows how sometimes the things people argue about aren’t really the things they are thinking about.

Acts 6:11

Then they secretly instigated men who said,“We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

Acts 6:13-14

and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.”

I can count three times these guys change their story. As you pick apart their words, it gets a little more revealing every time.

  1. Their story is that Stephen is against Moses and God. The Law is a big deal and it came from God to Moses, so those two are the sore spots in Judaism. You can talk ideas all day long, but don’t talk against them specifically
  2. Their story is that Stephen is against the holy place and the law. Ok, now we are getting more specific, and seeing that it isn’t really God or Moses that Stephen is talking about, but the holy place and the law. The building is a building. It represented a lot to the Jewish people, but at the same time the building they were in was far beyond God’s design and had a ton of improvements from an evil Gentile ruler. Kind of like hanging a “Brought to you by Jack Daniels and Victoria Secret” backlit electric sign on your church. Sure, it was intended to be a holy place, but it was funded and built up by evil.
  3. (This one is really the best.) Their story is that Jesus of Nazareth (whom they killed and claimed His body was stolen) is going to destroy the temple and change the customs of Moses. If their story that Jesus’ body was not really back from the dead but rather was stolen, then how is this possible? And have you seen the temple?! A man can’t tear that thing down anyway! I think it is so interesting that they bring that as an accusation because it’s either preposterous to think something is possible or there is some genuine fear.

All in all, the truth comes out that God isn’t really the point of this at all, but their building and their customs.

My Take on Christian-Speak

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It seems like a lot of people are talking about the silly way Christians talk lately. Some of it is from some recent videos on YouTube, some of it is in trying to talk about being Missional at some recent conferences like Verge and Exponential.

The thing is, we invent new definitions for things when we are trying to talk about something and we want to differentiate it from what we think people would normally think we mean when we say something.

For instance, when I was a kid there were two kinds of cars in my life, Hot Wheels cars and the cars that human beings fit in. A Hot Wheels car was called a car, and what my mom drove was called a “car car.”

It’s the same way with things that we talk about in the church. People don’t typically get together and hang out and talk about the Bible, so when we get together with the intent to talk about the Bible, we call it a Bible Study. I’m not going into the big list here, but instead I want to turn on your radar to the funny words you might use to describe things, and why.

Why do we say weird things like, “We’re building relationships with our unchurched friends?” Do we have to justify having a friend that doesn’t go to church on Sunday by making it a pragmatic mission trip every time we are around them?

I will never forget the time I mentioned a small group to a co-worker and he asked me, “A small group of what?” And what does it say about my perception that every single chair in my house being filled = small?

No criticism or cynicism here, just thinking about the words we use and the bigger pictures and paradigms behind those words. My use of the words “car car” showed that I felt like my mom’s car was more real than the cars in my pocket. What words are we using that reveal a greater reality behind the scenes?

If you have already seen this video, after you watch it once, turn on the automatic subtitles for an entirely new experience. You’re welcome.

What do we do with this bucket?

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John 4:28 NET

Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people…

So many times people focus on the woman leaving the jar like she didn’t care about water anymore because she now had the living water.

and that’s fine

But what are we going to do with that bucket/jar now? NONE of the disciples would want to touch it! If a dog ate off a plate, they would wash it and use it for people. If a Samaritan ate off of the same plate, it would be smashed to bits because it was so defiled that no self-respecting or God-fearing Jew would eat off of it!

So there is Jesus, who has been talking to the Samaritan woman. There are the disciples, that had a rough search around the area to find some Kosher food to eat. (either they had to leave Samaria or find some outcast Jew that lived in Samaria ((no way))). And they have that bucket that nobody wants to touch.

The great thing is when that woman comes back from town, they are all going to be invited to stay with the Samaritans and they are going to eat and drink off of their stuff for TWO DAYS!

Get ready boys. You wandered around Samaria on your own (they would have surely never been there before) and then you saw Jesus talking to a woman alone and then you had to deal with an abandoned Samaritan water bucket and NOW you’re gonna be their guest for 2 days. I love it.

Jesus busts us completely out of our rules, prejudice, customs, and lifestyle to focus on doing what He is living breathing doing inside of us.