Christ, Community, Kingdom

This Sunday we will be talking about our vision for 2009 at Transformation City. I hope you can join us – we’ll be taking a look back at where we’ve been and a look forward to where we feel God is leading us in this new year.
See you on Sunday!

 

The compassion of Christ

This past week we talked about the compassion of Christ as found in Matthew 20:34. The Scpriture goes something like this: Jesus was passing by and a couple of blind guys sitting by the side of the road yelled out, “Jesus! Have mercy on us!” The crowd tried to get the blind guys to shut up, but they again shouted, trying to get Jesus’ attention. And so they did, Jesus came over and asked, “What do you want me to do for you” (wow! what if Jesus asked you this…or maybe He is?). They said, “We want to see.” (great answer by the way, maybe this should be our response as well). And then the Scripture says this “Jesus had compassion on them.” And thus He healed them.

The Greek word here for compassion is: ’splangchnizomai”

This Greek verb is usually translated “to be moved with compassion.” But its meaning is more profound and powerful. The verb is derived from the noun which basically means intestines, bowels, entrails, that is to say the inward parts from which the strongest emotions arise. The ancient Greeks believed life was in the belly and not in the “heart.” That is why in English we usually translate this as: His heart went out to them. But even these verbs do not capture the deep physical flavor of the Greek word for compassion. The compassion that Jesus felt was quite different from simply pity or sympathy. His heart was torn. His gut wrenched, the most vulnerable part of His being laid bare.

Henri Nouwen writes this:

Splangchnizomai is related to the Hebrew word for compassion, rachamim, which refers to the womb of Yahweh. Compassion is such a deep, central and powerful emotion in Jesus that it can only be described as a movement of the womb of God. There all the divine tenderness and gentleness lies hidden. There, God is Father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter. There, all feelings, emotions and passions are one in divine love.

Wow. I think Jesus wants to have compassion upon us but the question is this: We will allow him to cover us in His “splangchnizomai”?

 

The Jesus Prayer

Following up on our message from this Sunday, talking about spiritual disciplines and the importance of prayer, silence, solitude, fasting, service and gathering with the community of faith. We focused on “The Jesus Prayer” as a way that Christians for over a thousand years have prayed as a way to center themselves upon the mercy of Christ. Granted, this is certainly not the only way to pray – but it can be a useful tool to be used in prayer. The prayer goes like this “Lord Jesus Christ…Son of God…have mercy on me…a sinner” This is very good exercise to repeat softly as you breath slowly in and out, in and out, in and out. A quote that I found as fantastic was from an Orthodox site that said:

We don’t say the Jesus Prayer, or enter wordless contemplation, to get “some benefit.” We don’t pray to reduce our stress, or strengthen our immune system, or lose weight, or add years to our life. On the contrary, we enter prayer to follow Christ, to become open to Him. His way is the Way of the Cross.

I hope you can incorpoate some of these disciplines in your daily life in this new year. Peace!

 

Pearls

Jesus said this once -

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Now what in the world does this mean? It might mean a lot of thing to a lot of different people but to me – the major thing that stands out here is the world “pearls.” Now, a pearl is something so valuable, so precious that one would take an exceeding amount of care and caution with it – especially in Jesus’ day where many people would never in their whole life even see a pearl. It was one of the most valuable treasures in the day. And then I ask myself – what is the most valuable thing in Scripture? What does God value most? What should be most valuable to us?

And I come to a simple answer – life.

Life is the most valuable thing – the most precious, the most beautiful, the most important. Now why would anyone take life and throw it to the dogs, to pigs? We think we would never do this, right? But how often do we…when we fail to live out our God given identity. When we don’t value our own life – or those around us – enough to embrace the image that we were created in – God’s image. And when we don’t live within our purpose.

So often I find myself throwing my life to the pigs – my identity – my image – my purpose.

What I get out of what Jesus is saying here is this, “Value Life. Value your God given image and your divine purpose. Live within it, embrace it. And through it – bring life to others.”

This is what we are talking about this week at Transformation City. I hope you can join us as we explore the value of pearls.

Peace.

 

Service

Thanks to everyone who helped out on Monday at the Wisconsin Nazarene Compassionate Center – a great time was had by all. But more importantly we were able to serve the resident of WNCC by cleaning up and painting a bathroom. I know it wasn’t much – but it was something. And a fundamental principal of Transformation City is service. We believe that the church is at it’s best when it serves, sacrifices, and loves – caring about the things God cares about.

We are planning to do projects like this at least once a month and as we embrace the vision and mission God is putting before us. We don’t simply want to be people who come and serve somewhere once-in-a-while, but rather, we want to be people that live a life of service to those around us. I hope we can grow into this type of community.

A great question that was recently asked of me is this, “If your church shut its doors today, would your community, neighborhood, city miss it?” My prayer is that we can grow into a community of faith that engages those around us in such a way that we are making a difference in people’s lives – always.

Thanks for being a part of what we are doing here.

 

Happy Earth Day!

So today is Earth Day. How are you celebrating? Actually, its turned into more of Earth week. This day has really picked up a lot of steam lately in the media and in our culture. Stores are giving away free canvas bags, discounting mini-florescent light bulbs, and more. What does Earth Day mean for you? What have you done to give back to the environment? This past year we installed mini-florescent bulbs throughout our house – trying to cut back on our water usage – got rid of a gas guzzling SUV and are dedicated to having one car – and made a greater commitment to eating locally grown organic foods that put less stress on the environment. I’d be interested to hear some of the things you have done…

I think this day is great. I’m certainly not a “tree-hugger” but I am very interested in how I can do my part to help the environment. As a Christian leader I think that the church largely ignored this issue for far too long – and only now are we getting more behind the trend. Shouldn’t we be in complete support of creation – since the God we worship created all things, shouldn’t we work to preserve creation? To me – our lack of support for creation in the 20th century shows an alarming foundation of consumerism that runs rampart within the western church. We are consumers – plainly put, first and foremost we are consumers. We consume in a way where we want more of what will benefit us and are generally unwilling to give back – we consume God & church, we consume our leaders, we consume goods and services, and we consume creation.

I genuinely hope that a new day is coming where the church won’t be a bunch of consumers – but rather we will be people who would be a prophetic voice against consumerism, that we will be out in front leading the way to preserving creation, that we would be dedicated to living on less and giving away more, of bringing life to those who are suffering instead of making our already easy life even easier. Maybe instead of living as consumers – we would live to give our lives away. Maybe instead of consuming God and church we would be willing to give them our lives, be willing to be consumed. What would the world look like if we really did this?

 

A Great Quote

“The only statistic I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable.” -attributed to Queen Victoria

 

A sad night for a Carolina fan

I live in Wisconsin and I do love it here but I have some deep southern roots. As a young boy growing up on Tobacco road NC one of my first hats given to me by my father was powder blue and had a Tar Heel logo on it. As a teenager I even attended their summer basketball camp and had my picture made with the legendary Dean Smith. During this time of year I live Carolina basketball so tonight’s loss was tough. What’s funny is that I’m a pretty calm guy – but when these guys are on TV I’m all over the place – screaming at the TV – rising with every big dunk – eyeing the officials at a bad call. I’m on the court with them. Simply put – I’m a Tarheel.

Flat out – they played so terrible in the first half tonight they really never had a shot. But oh my – it was exciting to see them draw within 4 – for a moment, I thought they had it, and then like a hand full of sand, it slipped away. I don’t think I’ll sleep much tonight, it hurts that bad. Even for a historic program such as UNC – National Championships are so very rare – this team had a real shot at that prize but it was denied. I can only hope that they will find their way back to this pinnacle again soon.

And tonight I quietly and humbly, seemingly to the tune of taps, sing the Carolina fight song – “I’m a Tarheel born, I’m a Tarheel breed, and when I die I’ll be a Tarheel dead so ra-ra Carolina, ra-ra Carolina…” Sigh.