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  • Mark 9:28 am on May 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: future perfect, John White, Kent Smith,   

    The 9:11 Question 

    “Since we have invested in you spiritually, isn’t it right for you to invest in us financially?”

    So many churches invest in things other than apostolic church planters – some even working off unfathomable debts for things like parking lots and new foyers.  One church in a major U.S. city purchased a parking lot for 80 million dollars!?!!?  Sounds like a scene out of an Austin Powers movie!  These are not inherently bad things – they are just not given much precedent in the earliest Church.

    Many missionaries are left barely holding their bills together, while others enjoy lavish upgrades to this or that wing of their giant building.

    But what would it take to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close reach of every person…geographically and culturally… on the planet…and in our context in Chicago?

    What if this ACTUALLY happened?  This is our “future perfect” – our miracle we’re waiting for and working toward.

    It would truly take a new mindset toward budgeting.  It would take a re-orientation toward how a church invests their money.  It would take asking the “9:11 Question.”  (1 Cor 9:11)  “Since we have invested in you spiritually, isn’t it right for you to invest in us financially?” It would take a spirit of generosity toward those who truly were called to do mission work, coaching, and church planting.  It would take putting the interest of others over my own interests.

    I think it is happening.  I see green-shoots of hope appearing across the landscape.  Churches willing to put aside their traditional budget-line items and think again about what is most important for the sake of the Kingdom.

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  • Mark 9:30 pm on January 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Sterile 

    Sometimes its easy to see the tree and lose sight of the forest.  “Without oxen a stable stays clean,” the proverb begins.  Just think of the owner of the stable – if he’s lazy, he might find himself relieved to see that his daily work of cleaning up after the ox is no longer necessary.  If he’s short-sighted, maybe he’s more interested in a clean barn than in a harvest.

    “But a strong ox is needed for a large harvest.”  (Proverbs 14:4)

    How many cars are washed and detailed but never driven?  How many homes are spotless but everyone living there is miserable?  How many McMansions with pools and “entertainment rooms” have gates surrounding them to keep their guests out?

    Now, how many small huts are filled with hospitable hearts that give everything they have to the stranger that needs a place to stay?  How many clunker cars are what get a day laborer to his job each morning to help him feed his family?

    The word “sterile” comes to mind when I read this proverb.  The double meaning of sterile is at once “free of dirt and germs” and “fruitless.”  What is the purpose of YOU?  What stables in your life are empty and clean, yet sterile and fruitless?  What would it feel like to get those areas dirty for the sake of truly fulfilling their purpose?

    This is a great time of year to re-examine your life’s purpose – and to get focused once again on the harvest.  Don’t lose sight of the purpose of the things you have.  Don’t lose sight of your own purpose.  Make sure there are no “sterile stables” in your life.  Yes, try to keep your stables clean, but do it so your ox is happy, and so your harvest is that much greater.  This makes your life messy – you’ll say things like, “my life was so much simpler without the headache of working in this field.”  But when the harvest comes, you’ll be glad you got a little dirty.

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    • millertalbot 9:16 am on January 6, 2010 Permalink

      great reminder brother. i love the imagery! some of us need a little more bull crap in our lives… and i like the double entendre in the word “sterile”, i think both meanings apply. in fact, in this instance it would be difficult to apply one without the other.

    • Mark 11:41 am on January 6, 2010 Permalink

      miller – thanks for the comment! i tried to find a photo of “bubble boy” from Seinfeld (remember that episode?! PRICELESS). But I realized that they never showed him – only his tubular arm as he choked George in fury. Haha.

      He was both meanings of “sterile” too. He might have stayed clean all his life, but its hard to imagine bubble boy “bearing fruit” or multiplying…in fact I’d rather try my best NOT to imagine such a thing… :)

      Bring on the bull crap!

  • Mark 6:48 am on August 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    For Which… 

    My friend recently wrote a fantastic paper on grace – grace given to us from God, and the grace we offer from God to others.  In short – there is a grace by which we are saved and a grace for which we are saved.  Much of the Church has experienced the insights on the grace by which we are saved through the Reformation – but we are only beginning to unpack what it means to live into the grace for which we are saved.  What significant grace do you have to offer a desperate world?

    Read these two quotes below from two radical Jesus followers (borrowed from the paper) and consider what grace may be hidden in you just waiting to save the world in your own small way:

    “Let it be clear to us in our Head the very source and spring from which grace pours forth through all his members in accord with the measure of each.”

    — Augustine

    “In elevating us, grace also heals us, for it corresponds to our nature’s deepest aspiration. God in giving us participation in the divine inner life gives us to ourselves and releases within us the authentic powers that make us who we are as humans. One is finally free to become one’s genuine self.”

    — Aquinas

    “Let there be clear to us in our Head the very source and spring from which grace pours forth through all his members in accord with the measure of each.” and Aquinas: “In elevating us, grace also heals us, for it corresponds to our nature’s deepest aspiration. God in giving us participation in the divine inner life gives us to ourselves and releases within us the authentic powers that make us who we are as humans. One is finally free to become one’s genuine self.”
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