Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Great quote...

Heard this in staff meeting today:

Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted. Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their life-styles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot."

Gordon Dahl
Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure-Oriented Society


Ouch. Truth hurts, don't it?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Salt Ain't No Use in the Shaker!

This past weekend our lead pastor Steve Whipple was preaching on Matthew 5:13:

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." (NASB)


He talking about all the properties of salt and why Jesus would use it to describe what His people should be like. He talked about salt having a distinct flavor, that it created a thirst in people, it prevented the spread of corruption, and that it was also used as a fertilizer to promote growth. As I listened, a thought occurred to me about salt: It doesn't do a thing if it stays in the shaker!

For salt to do any of these things it has to leave the shelter of the shaker and go down into the thing it's effecting. It must come into contact with food to flavor it. It must come into contact with the meat if it is to preserve it and prevent it from rotting. It must be worked down into the soil for it to help promote growth. It cannot stay in the shaker if it is to be of any use at all.

Imagine someone asking you to pass the salt at the dinner table. You reach over and pass it to them. They take it and set the shaker down next to their plate. "No, no," you tell them. "You have to put it on your food." They pick up the shaker and set it on the food. "No, you have to actually turn it upside down and shake it until the salt comes out!"

Sounds silly but we do it all the time. Jesus called His followers "the salt of the earth," the flavor-enhancing, thirst-creating, corruption-preventing, growth-promoting agents of this world. How often do we mistake the presence of the shaker for the participation of the salt? If the shaker is the church building where we gather and become salty, then we will never be what God intends us to be unless we allow Him to turn our churches upside down and shake them until we are willing to go out into the world and actually be the salt of the earth.

Can you imagine salt refusing to come out of the shaker, no matter how you shake it? What would you do with that salt? Jesus said, "It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." (Matt. 5:13b, NASB) What is God doing to turn us upside down? What has He dome to shake us out? Is there some area of your life that He is challenging you to let go of? Is there some program or tradition or way of doing things that we are reluctant to change because that's how it's always been dome? Is there a need in your community that God has revealed to you, but it's outside of your comfort zone?

One word of warning about coming out of the shaker: You will not always be welcomed warmly. Another property of salt is that it stings and irritates when it comes into contact with a wound. Like the old song says:

"We sting like salt in the wounds of a wounded world." (Wounded World, Jacob's Trouble)


Sometimes our saltiness will irritate and anger the wounded areas of a fallen world. We will inevitable be called upon to stop the spread of corruption in areas where sin and wickedness have become so accepted and even embraced that our presence will not be welcomed. We will be opposed. That's where one last important thought about salt comes into play.

Salt always works in group. When you apply salt do you ever use a single grain alone? Now, make no mistake, a single grain of salt possesses all the flavor and properties customary to salt. But it was not intended to work alone. Similarly, the New Testament knows nothing of a Christianity lived out in a vacuum. Jesus followers were created to live, work, play, and worship in communities. Jesus said, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35, NASB) It's hard to love one another if you are all by yourself.

father, shake me. Turn my world upside down. Show me where I am needed. Use my life, my marriage, my family, my church to create in others a thirst for Jesus. use us to take a stand against the spread of corruption, even if it stings and irritates. Leverage us to help people come to know you more and grow more deeply in their relationship with You! In the precious and powerful name of Jesus, Amen!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Can't Entertainment Just.... Entertain?

This is a great question! It has a lot of bearing on our lives as we try to navigate and engage the culture we find ourselves in as Jesus followers. This came up in a conversation elsewhere on Facebook but the original post was deleted so I wanted to repost it here.

Someone asked the question, "Can't entertainment just be entertainment? can't Harry Potter just be a wizard and fly around on a broomstick? Does everything have to have a message?" He then went on to say that C.S. Lewis would call that nonsense or something like that (the original post was deleted so I can't quote it exactly).

CS Lewis most definitely would not say that about stories communicating messages whether we want them to or not. Not only Lewis, but such great Christian authors and thinkers as George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkein, Dorothy Sayer, and Madeleine L'Engle all believed there was a powerful connection between Story and the communication of Truth.

Understand that I am not not only talking about artists, authors, composers, and filmmakers who intentionally try to communicate theology. EVERY work of art communicates some worldview, even if the creator of that piece doesn't realize it. The best filmmakers know that, it's one of the reasons they get into filmmaking. They know they have a shot at shaping what people believe, at shaping our culture, our values, our THEOLOGY. But it doesn't require the creator's conscious participation. It happens because it is impossible for it NOT to happen.

Hollywood screenwriting teacher Robert McKee says, "Stories are equipment for living. We go to the movies because we hope to find in someone else's story something that will help us understand our own. We go to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality." (Quoted in Epic by John Eldredge).

That is the work that art does. That's why it's awesome. If you want to know what any given culture belives about God, about life, about itself, look at the art that culture produces.

A few examples, if you will indulge me, of some popular films and the message they communicate...

* Slumdog Millionaire: Everything happens for a reason. Love is stronger than anything.
* Avatar: All is God and God is all. (Pantheism, by the way, not fiction but an actual religion) Jack into the life force with your magic ponytail and get connected to the universe. To be fair, it also has some good things to say about engaging other cultures and accepting people's differences.
* Twilight: Romantic love is to be exalted above all else, even at the cost of your own soul. (Sorry, I calls 'em like I sees 'em.)

NOW... Having said that let me point out that I do not believe that just because you watch a movie you are buying into what it is selling. I don't think you are all zombies blindly accepting and acting out whatever a movie or story tells you. I confess, I like to listen to the occasional KISS tune but I don't really want to "rock and roll all night and party every day." But I would be foolish not to be aware that they are encouraging other people to do exactly that, to abandon their moral compass, to indulge in hedonistic behavior, and lose a lot of sleep. We cannot afford to be naive about this. We must practice discernment actively and diligently. As Proverbs says, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life."

Listen, I'm not trying to be a party pooper here. I love entertainment as much as the next guy. But it is naive and foolish to simply open your mind to whatever a film or book or story in whatever medium is dishing out. That's what makes story-telling so significant and powerful. That is why film has risen to be arguably the single most powerful way to communicate truth -- as well as deception. Why do you think Jesus told parables that were fictional? Because He knew it would connect on a deeper level and have more of an impact than mere doctrinal statements. Our Enemy knows this too and we would do well to remember that.