When Faith Takes Center Stage: Making the Most of Major Moments in our Culture

(This is a reprint of an article I wrote a few years ago for our church magazine at Hope Baptist in Las Vegas. I think it serves as an excellent refresher in leveraging the opportunity to speak truth into the culture that the final episode of the TV series Lost has afforded us. Enjoy!)

            “If God had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see if seeing meant that you would have to believe in things like Heaven and Jesus…”

(from “One of Us” by Eric Bazilian)

I’ll never forget the first time I heard those words come wafting over my car stereo speakers. The woman’s voice that sang them sounded so sincere and the questions she was asking were so poignant that it stopped me in my tracks.  In the weeks that followed, that song rocketed up the music charts and you could hardly turn on a radio or TV without hearing it. Whether or not you agreed with the sentiments expressed in the song, there was no denying that the subject of faith in God had suddenly been thrust into the spotlight. It was as if the songwriter had tapped into something deep within our cultural consciousness; the longing for God to be real and, more importantly, to be accessible.

Suddenly, everywhere I went, people were discussing spiritual things. Friends outside the faith were anxious to hear my take on it. “You’re a Christian, Jerry, what do you think about it?” People who had been totally closed to the gospel only a short time before were now asking me to explain it to them.!

That was a rare moment in our secularized culture, a divinely orchestrated open window of opportunity to engage our culture on its home turf. Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller The DaVinci Code was another such moment. Suddenly the question “Who is Jesus?” made headlines in every newspaper and magazine in the world.

Dick Staub, in his book Too Christian, Too Pagan says, “Jesus didn’t invite the world to come to church, He commanded the church to go into the world.” The question for us is, “Can we put down the picket signs long enough to honestly answer the deep questions of faith our culture is asking in popular music, books, TV and movies?”

So how can we be ready for that next big moment when it comes? How can we engage our culture without succumbing to its influence? Here are a few ideas to help us be “in the world but not of it”:

Pray!  There is no substitute for spending time alone with God. Like Pastor Vance always says, “We don’t pray before we work, prayer is the work, then God works.” Changing your world starts by letting God change you into the image of His Son, then letting people see that image in your life.

Stay connected. Don’t retreat into a stained-glass bubble. Get out there and mingle! Watch a little TV, listen to the radio, go to a movie. Don’t retreat into the Christian subculture or you may miss what God is doing all around you.

Affirm Truth wherever you find it. There is an old saying; “Truth is Truth even in the mouth of Baal.” Sometimes pop culture can stumble onto truth, even if it doesn’t understand why it’s true. Look for themes in pop culture that line up with Biblical truth. Point them out at every opportunity. Use them to start discussions at work or school. Some helpful resources for doing this can be found at websites like movieguide.org, movieministry.com, and Focus on the Family’s pluggedinonline.com.

Be ready with a gentle answer. People will have a lot of tough questions about faith in a fallen world. Don’t get defensive or intimidated. It’s not about being right; it’s about speaking the truth with love (Eph. 4:15) and trusting God with the result.

What LOST taught us....

Ok, ok so I am probably just one of a million self-styled pundits blogging on the final episode of what was arguably the greatest show in the history of television, ABC's Lost. As expected, the final episode was polarizing and controversial among it's fans. The first few minutes after the final show finished, Facebook lit up with Christians who were fans of the show decrying the ecumenism and universalism of the show's theology. But really, what did we expect? Lost has toyed with spiritual and religious matters its entire run. In my opinion that is one of the things that made it so compelling. But ultimately you have writers and creators who do not know the truth or the Author of Truth so can we really expect it to line up perfectly with Biblical doctrine?

So... While it's fresh on my mind I wanted to share a few thoughts on where I believe Lost got it right.


The spiritual is as real and as significant as the material. Even more so.
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, "... we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
What many of us miss in the busyness of our lives is that we are built for glory, made to last. We were created for the eternal, not the temporal. There are spiritual realities in us and all around us that are even more real than what we experience physically and will last far beyond this present world. We would do well to have an eternal perspective.

There is life after death, and the decisions we make here have an impact on where and how we experience it.
I want to be very careful that I am not misunderstood here. The Bible says clearly that Jesus Christ is the only provision for salvation. "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”(Acts 4:12) But even for the believer, how we live in this life bears heavily on the life we will experience in eternity with Christ. Otherwise why would the Bible say that "each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." (1 Cor. 3:13-15) We have hope beyond this life, and a blessed assurance that we will see our loved ones in Christ again. I found this aspect of the final episode very comforting and very moving, even if it was theologically flawed.

Faith is a vital part of our lives, so be careful where you place it.
Every person has faith in something. They can't help themselves. It is written into our DNA by our maker. We long to know that we matter, that our lives have purpose and direction and significance. So whether it is in God or  in something else or even ourselves, we doggedly cling to that belief. Where we get "lost" (pun intended) is in the object of our faith. For Locke it was the island. For Ben it was Jacob. For Jack it was his ability to fix things. Every character had placed their faith in something. The truth is that everything other than God will fail us. Matt Chandler once said, "When you make gods of things that are not God, they cannot bear the weight of it and they will eventually collapse. And when they do, you will get hurt." Nevertheless, I loved the way that Lost fearlessly tackles the deeper issues of faith and doubt, redemption and salvation, purpose and destiny. The show handled deep issues of faith with more courage, honesty, and intelligence than all of Christian television programming combined.

Ultimately, life is about relationships.
It's not about blowing up hatches, pushing buttons and entering numbers. It's not even about smoke monsters and mysterious pools of light. This is the strongest theme of Lost. Our lives both here and in eternity are shaped by the relationships we have cultivated and invested in. How we treat people, how we love them, forgive them, comfort them, encourage them, these are the things that Bono calls "all that you can't leave behind." Your relationship with God through Christ is the fundamental, foundational relationship of your life, out of which will flow every other relationship. I appreciate that the writers of Lost never let the show stray too far from its heart: the relationships of the characters.


One final word of encouragement I would like to offer my fellow believers that may have been disappointed or upset at the universalistic approach of the final episode. Please do not get so bogged down in the details that you miss the big picture. Every now and then, God opens a rare and fleeting window for the Church to break out of its stained-glass ghetto and speak the Truth into the mainstream culture. Lost's  final episode was such a moment. All over the world today -- in break rooms, cafeterias, around water coolers, in cubicles, in chat rooms and message boards -- people are talking about spiritual matters of life after death because of Lost. People are asking questions like what happens when you die, where do I go, how can I know for sure? The Church has some very good answers to these questions. Hopefully we can stop the flaming and the hating long enough to see this opportunity and leverage it for the Gospel's sake.

Thanks to J.J. Abrams, Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindelof, and everyone else who worked so hard to make Lost one of the most compelling, intelligent, creative, and even spiritual hours of television I have ever had the pleasure to experience. Now please pray for me as I enter my period of post-Lost depression. I almost wore a black arm band to work this morning! Oh, well, there's always Wipeout! :-)

Exponental 2010

I am in Orlando, FL right now with out staff team at the Exponential Conference. It's an annual conference for church planters and pastors. I have to admit that my attitude going into it was not great.

We have just come off a whirlwind of back-to-back events at our church that began in February and ended with our big 4th anniversary celebration last weekend. In between has been a lot of stress, overtime, and being apart from my family, even when I was physically with them. At that same time we were buying and moving in to a new house, doing our taxes, teaching a class on marriage, and dealing with a series of stomach viruses that swept through the house, not once but twice! Now, don't get me wrong, there was also a lot of cool things happening: God was moving and growing me and my marriage, He was doing amazing things in our church body. There were plenty of good times along with the pressure, but the last thing on earth I wanted to do after all that is be away from my family for four days at a conference for pastors. I mean, seriously.

But in her Spirit-filled, graceful way, my wife reminded me to stop and ask God what He wanted to show me at the conference. She is so wise! I love that God put her with a doofus like me; I benefit from her wisdom and she gets to learn patience and long-suffering and mercy. It's a win-win! :-) So I asked God to show me what He has for me.

Okay, so it's only one day in and already it's been really great! Yesterday, I got to sit at the feet of one of the biggest influencers in my life, Matt Chandler, the lead pastor of the Village Church in Texas. Don't know if you know what all is going on in his life, but you can read about it just about anywhere. This dude is AMAZING. His wisdom, his knowledge of scripture, and how to practically apply it in personal discipleship is second to none. He is very funny but very serious at the same time. He will lay a truth on you that will just lay you out but you will be laughing at the same time. And he doesn't water anything down or pull any punches. I highly recommend his podcast as part of your regular intake of truth and wisdom from the Word.

Biggest takeaway from his workshops yesterday was this nugget: He was speaking on Matthew 13 about the parable of the sower and the seed. He was breaking down Jesus' explanation of it to the disciples in verses 18-23, as to what the different soils and scenarios meant. And he was framing it for church planters and pastors, who are sowers of the Gospel. We can become very frustrated and disappointed when people don't respond to the teaching or when our people fall away or don't seem to get it.

So he gets to verses 20 - 21:

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

Chandler breaks it down this way: This is the guy who hears it, gets it, gets saved, gets baptized, plugs in, then a year later falls off the wagon and disappears. Why? Because he doesn't make the connection between the Gospel and his suffering, He doesn't connect the dots between the Gospel and persecution. Chandler says pastors have to make that connection for their people so they will be ready when suffering comes:

"Suffering is coming for your people. It just is. You can't protect them from it, but you can prepare them for it."

Isn't that huge? Isn't how we see and interpret and handle our suffering just ginormous in our relationship with God. Otherwise we think He is out to get us or doesn't care or maybe isn't really there. My thought is this: if we fail our people in this, we are handing them over to the Enemy. We are setting them up to fall away and disappear.

Also, I got to meet Matt and shake his hand and personally thank him for being faithful. I got to look him in the eye and tell him what a difference his faithfulness has made to me and my wife. Matt has terminal brain cancer and will die, when is anyone's guess. I just didn't want to miss an opportunity to tell him what he means to me while I had the chance. It was great. He is speaking this morning and I can't wait to hear what he has to say.

There is a ton more but I gotta run and grab breakfast real fast before we leave. Later!

American Idol Finalist Predictions, Pt. 2: The Guys

Ok so everyone is talking about how much better the girls are this year but I thought the guys were much stronger this opening week. It's tougher for me to narrow it down to six, anyways. Keep in mind that my predictions are not based on who I personally would like to see in the Top 12, but rather who I think probably will end up there. So here we go...

1. Andrew Garcia - Our personal fave, as well as most other peoples, too. This guy is awesome! He has an amazing voice as well as a savvy for picking cool songs and giving them his own little jazz-indie spin. Plus he's all kinds of humble and likable. Look for this guy to go Top 3 for sure.

2. Casey James - I know, I know, I wanted to hate him, too, especially with the gooey Kara love affair thing happening. But it turns out he's not just a pretty boy, he can actually sing and his guitar chops are not bad, either. He's definitely the total package in terms of garnering votes and potentially selling records. And he kept his shirt on last night, so that's a big plus.

3. Todrick Hall - I thought he was much better than the judges gave him credit for. He is a natural performer and has tons of experience being a dancer for so long.

4. Aaron Kelly - The new David Archuleta. Nice kid. Nice voice. Kinda boring but will probably make it to the Top 12.

5. Alex Lambert - I think he's going to surprise a lot of people in the next few weeks. His voice has very cool raspy, tone and his dorky, shy, awkward stage presence is actually refreshing and fun to watch. I like this kid a lot and I hope he makes it. It would be cool to see him develop if given a chance.

6. Lee Dewyze - As much as I like Big Mike and Taylor the hippie Jim Morrison wannabe, I think Lee is more cut out for the Idol Experience. Or he could fall prey to the Shadow of David Cook and suffer by unfortunate comparison.


I hope that Jermaine Sellers goes home immediately. His voice is annoying and he is so full of himself it's nauseating. Those high notes he brags about hitting are so painfully bad I don't think I can take another week of him.

Also, Tim Urban has to go. Let Disney Channel have him. I mean, seriously, dude, you get a second chance like that and you do that lame song? You deserve to go home.

Who goes home first? I think John Parks already has his bags packed. "God Bless the Child"? Seriously? Joining him on a long bus ride home will most likely be Joe Munoz, the incredibly boring and forgettable Latino crooner. But I hope it's Jermaine Sellers. Please, oh, please let it be Jermaine Sellers!

For the ladies, I fear Lacey Brown's Idol dreams are about to get a wake up call. And joining Lacy will probably be Janelle Wheeler. So boring and forgettable I couldn't even remember her until I looked at the list of contestants.

We'll see tonight!

American Idol Finalist Predictions, Pt. 1: The Girls

OK so here are our predictions for the 6 girls that will be finalists this year...

Crystal Bowersox - very cool indie chick. Needs to belt out some Dylan or Springsteen next time...

Didi Benami - Simon had his "crack" moment last night. She was by far the best.

Michelle Delamour - I'm so sure that's her real name. Puh-LEEZE. Still has the most commercial and professional potential of the girls.

Katie Stevens - A little too High School Musical for me personally but I think she will go far.

Lily Scott - Our personal favorite. Wasn't crazy about her Beatles cover but it was an inspired choice and I think she will be the Daughtry of this year's show.

Siobhan Magnus - As quirky and weird as her name but she has killer pipes and seems pretty savvy.

Stay tuned for the guys...

It's official! We have a house!!!

Well, it's been a pretty amazing 8 months since we moved from our home in Las Vegas, NV back to our old stomping grounds of Atlanta. In those months we have packed up our house in a POD, lived with my mom for a month, and then moved to a temporary house in Woodstock and only partially unpacked. Our poor dog is going to be traumatized forever!

For those who aren't familiar with the area, Woodstock is an hour away from Hiram where the church we serve is located (it can be 2 hours in afternoon traffic). I think we added it up once that we spend as much as 18 hours a week in a car driving back and forth and spend around $400-500 per month in gas for the vehicles. Add to that the extra early wake up times required to get out there on time for work and church and it can be a pretty exhausting lifestyle. So believe me when I say this will radically change our lives!

The house is a great old single story ranch ult in the early seventies but recently renovated by a professional renovation company. It's only 1600 sq. ft. but has a huge garage that we will close in and use for living space. Best of all it is on 1.5 acres of grass and beautiful hardwood trees. It's not in a subdivision so there is home owners' association. That means we can grow our own vegetables and have a few chickens like we have wanted to do for a while. After 7 years of claustrophobic Las Vegas suburban life, this will be a wonderful breath of fresh air. I know, I know, we will have to know all 1.5 acres but, hey, that's what kids are for, right?

It's kind of a cool story of God's goodness how we ended up here. It was really important to Cheryl and me that we have a place with at least an acre where we do the garden and the chickens, where the kids could be outside, and where people could come and hang out and feel welcomed and loved. We knew it couldn't be a subdivision. An older house was okay, in fact we preferred it as long as it was in good shape. And we wanted it for around $100,000 or less. How's that for parameters!

When our realtor, Michelle Bullock, first told me about the place I (Jerry) went and looked at it. The lot was great but no work had yet been done so it still looked a little rough. And too small. I came back and said, "Yeah, the land is great but it's just not what we are looking for", and we forgot about it. A few weeks later, we were out looking at houses and not really finding exactly what we were looking for. We were beginning to get discouraged, thinking we were going to have to compromise on what we wanted, even though Cheryl especially felt strongly that God had lead us to look for that kind of property. There were houses and land like what we wanted but not in our price range. And there just weren't any houses with land like we wanted that were not in a subdivision that would restrict what we did. So at the very end of the day, after we had looked at the last house, Michelle said, "There is that one house on Clonts Rd. I told you about." I just sort of blew it off. "Yeah, I looked at it and I can tell you right now it's not what we are looking for." But Cheryl said she wanted to see it anyway. "Okay," I shrugged, "but you are not going t like it."

As soon as we drove onto the property it was clear this was the place. It had been beautifully renovated in the time since I first saw it. Cheryl looked at me and raised her eyebrows with that "So I'm not going to like this?" I was shocked. "I swear to you, this is not the way it looked when I saw it!" It has new paint inside and out, new flooring (even new floors in some places), new roof, new AC, the garage had been redone. It had a big screened in porch in the back. The backyard backed up to beautiful pasture land. And the best part was it was only $109,000!

We began to get really excited about it. We decided we wanted to put an offer on it. So we gathered in the front yard, held hands in a circle and prayed that if this was the place God had for us He would make it happen, but if not, we knew He had something better. When we called, the selling agent said there was already an offer on the house, but it was lower than their asking price, and that it had not been put under contract yet. So we said, we will give you what you you are asking for it. She was very happy to hear that. Unfortunately, a few minutes later we found out that another agent who was also working with the seller had just signed papers with a prospective buyer. They were very sad to hear that because they wanted to sell us the house. They said, "We would love to sell you the house but we can't back out of it now. There's no way to get out of it unless they're financing falls through."

It was disappointing but we had given it over to God and knew He had something for us. So in the weeks that followed we continued to look, but couldn't find anything quite like that. I found myself driving by on my lunch hour and looking wistfully at it. I would drive slowly by and just say to God, "Lord, if it pleases you for us to have this place, would you make it happen?" Michelle, our realtor, said she would do the same thing every time she drove by.

One day the next week, Michele called and said, "Are you guys ready for some good news?" The financing had fallen through and they wanted to know if we were still interested. So the rest, as they say, is history. There are some other smaller but no less awesome God-moments in the story but suffice it to say He has made it clear that this is where He wants us to be.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us through this time. Stay tuned to this blog and to Facebook for details on moving. We will need lots of help on both the Woodstock and Douglasville ends, but we are blessed with many wonderful friends and encouragers on both sides.

Click here to see the new Davison homestead!

The Outsiders, Episode 1

Here is the latest of my video projects for Church at the Ridge. We shot it Thursday, in the freezing cold, on the corner of Hwy. 61 and Mustang Drive, and in White Oak Park, and at the home of John & Lora Bower. My son, Erik, did the camera work. I edited Friday and Saturday, and we showed it to the church this morning. It went over well, I think. We are already planning the next one.

This is part f our current series at The Ridge called "The Outsiders." Come join us and check it out! For more info on Church at the Ridge, you can click here!