There’s lots of reasons to want to start a church.  Some of them are healthy, and some not so healthy.  Are you feeling the need to start a new community of faith?  Then check out this new quiz we’ve worked on to help you in sorting out your heart as you take this big step forward.  Along with this test, be in prayer in asking God what your motivations are, and giving you a clear picture on how to best move forward.

Take the Quiz! Click here!

Here are my results…what are yours?  (Paste your results in the comments section below.

Today we enter into the Lenten season.  While I admittedly don’t dive deep into parts of the traditional Christian calendar, I find Lent to be a perfect time to “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  If ever there was a time to consider my own mortality through God’s eyes, its now.

We live in a world where we can simply ask for close to a trillion dollars from the Chinese and they will give it to us, (though they say they “hate us for it, but are forced to comply.”)  We live in a place where at the stroke of a pen, tens of thousands of lives are put to death, others sent to war, still others put to work without pay.  Mega-Corporations are the bullies of the whole earth, on panels with national leaders, deciding our fate on issues they seem interested in so far as it affects their bottom line.  This is the world where we live – where we dominate nature and forget the poor.  Where we play god until we die.  Where greed and security are penultimate values.

This is not the season of Lent.  Lent brings sanity, it brings reflection, finiteness, humility.  This is why I love and need Lent – because in me is the same vices plaguing the entire earth.

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SO!  This year I’m focusing in on how my life affects the whole world.  A “footprint” in the dust I suppose.  Each Wednesday, I look forward to fasting and living into different aspects of my life -

• my marriage
• politics
• finances
• environment
• “the others”:  enemies/immigrants/nations at war
• my witness

Each of these reflections will be done under the lens of what I’m recently calling “my purpose in life”: 

“To live in Heaven, right here on Earth.”

How might experiencing the Kingdom affect my finances?  What might it have to do with the environment?  I look forward to reflecting on these issues on this blog.  I welcome any feedback – and I’d love to know what others are doing for Lent!

BTW – Our house church is using a simple worship guide this Lent – you can find it here.

BTW2.0 – Here’s posts on previous Lents:

Lent 2007 – Oil Fast; Reflections

I’m beginning to think that Chicagoans consider their winters as a litmus test on the newbies moving to their city from more southern and sunny locales.

Take my wife and me for example.  We both grew up in icy, snowy, Midwestern cities – garnering that flinty toughness so essential to Chicago winters that the President made it his first policy in office.  But we moved down to Texas and spent the last seven winters without even really turning the heat on.  Sure, it got chilly – we even saw the snow while we were down there.  But let’s not fool ourselves by calling it winter.  My high school winter coat is as new as the day I graduated.

But now we’re back in the north, and Chicago has never been colder.   We’ve already had twenty-five inches more snow that all of last winter, and its been on the ground for longer.  There were actually a few days there that it was warmer at the North Pole!

But strangely, its not bothered us too much.  We’ve been out walking, working, and playing all the same.  We’ve got the gear to keep us warm, and a toasty apartment to come home to.  All of this is a gift from our Father.

I’ve noticed that as we move into later February, people are treating me a bit different.  Before it was, “Oh, just wait till you hit winter, then we’ll talk.”  Now its “Okay, so you’ve seen the worst of it, welcome to Chicago.”  Its almost as if winter is some sort of initiation ritual we had to go through in order to become “one of them.” Its a culture-wide phenomenon; something missionaries try to keep a close eye on.  When you cross these cultural bridges, you know you’re gaining trust and your capacity to speak authoritatively on important matters is gaining steam.

What are the initiation rituals in your neck of the woods?