The Vision
If you are under 40 and have not read Red Moon Rising by Peter Greig, do so. Not that the read is all that stellar, but the content is. The story of what God is doing with 24-7 pray is phenomenal and contagious. Tell me this doesnt stir somethign in the heart of the emerging church....
THE VISION
So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground.
The whisper of history in the making,
Foundations shaking,
Revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers,
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them ?
And the generation prays...
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.
Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mould them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
Stirred? Lets get it done.
a.
Love is...
Love overcomes the dirt. I was about to say that love is dirty. That it sacrifices, it gets beaten, it is broken, it dies a thousand deaths. It is found in gutters and alleyways with bums and addicts.
But it's not dirty. It is clean. It sanitizes, washes away, covers, and paints over. It washes the inside regardless of the stench on the outside. It causes us to
get dirty, but makes us clean in the process. It is absolutely essential to life, more than air, more than drink. I can't grasp it, but I can touch it. It refuses to be placed in the box I made for it. It breaks it's bounds and grows swallowing me whole.
It waits when I want to go.
It is soft when I am hard.
It rejoices when others have what I want.
It is quiet when I want to shout.
It does not think about me but you.
It values what others have to say.
It yields.
Nothing gets on it's nerves.
It holds no grudges.
It hates injustice.
It basks in truth.
It stands tall when weighted down.
It looks foward to a bright future.
It takes beatings without a word.
It lives forever.
The Desperate Cry
I can't imagine anything that God responds to quicker than a desperate cry for help.
I have three of the most beautiful kids in the world. It's true, ask their mom. They look just like her. Both Zoe and Ezra have, at times, had night terrors. Ezra had them more often than Zoe did. Night terrors are awful, they are like a nightmare that you cannot wake up from. Our sleep will be broken by horrific screaming which will send one of both of us flying, wide awake down the hall to comfort the screaming child. With terrors, they aren't awake and it may take 20-30 minutes to get them awake and calmed down.
I think God, the Father, Abba, is like that. When his child cries out in desperation he comes running. And I don't think he comes running faster if you are a Christian, as opposed to non-Christians. We're are all His kids. In fact, it's entirely possible, that as a Christian, we possess all the necessary tools to fend off desperation. It's entirely possible that God responds quicker to the
lost soul.
I believe I've been called to intercession. That sounds like such a noble thought, a grand role, but today I was broken of that notion. I wake early (or try to, this week has been better than others) to read the Word and pray. Today, God started showing me pictures of people in desperation. Not a comfortable thing.
I saw a woman huddled in a corner after having been raped. I saw a girl looking in the mirror, hating herself for the abortion she was about to have. I saw a Goth staring at the self-inflicted wounds on his arm. I saw someone at a kitchen table, writing a suicide note. I saw the sorority girl in bed, covers pulled up over her head, weeping over feeling used. I saw prostitutes crying for a way out.
And as I starting asking God to meet them in their desperation, I broke.
I felt a modicum of His heartbreak over the lost, the desperate. I felt the Father weeping over his screaming and pained child, unable to wake them, unable to comfort them until he could wake them up. I felt a very very small fraction of His desire to lift those out of desperate circumstances. And it broke me.
I tend towards the sensitive as far as movies, sentiment, and worship are concerned. But this was more than sensitive. This was burdened. This was intercession. This was standing in the gap between God and desperate man. Connecting the two through prayer, feeling the pain in each. Melting down like a wire unable to conduct the surge of power coursing through it.
And through it all, I was ashamed. Society, and Robert Smith have told me that boys don't cry. And then I was ashamed to be ashamed. It's one thing to break over your shortcomings. Its entirely another to break over someone else's. I expect more breaking tho. And I welcome it.
Someone else I know did the same thing. And He suffered more than I ever will.
This anoallasso stuff is hard. What was I thinking?
a.
Jacob's Dream
I'm totally stuck on this piece. And it wasn't intended to "say" what it "says" to me. But that's good art.
This artist has lots of cool stuff. Please check him out and buy something. I'm going to buy this piece for my office/prayer room. His name is
Robert Scott. His website is
www.robertscottart.com.
Robert Scott has called this Jacob's Dream. To me, it sums up prayer. It sums up the Emerging Church. When I look at this, I see a 20-30 something average joe. He's thinking, reflecting, praying and being answered.
In Jacob's dream "he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it." Jesus also said "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
That's what this says to me. Angels ascend with the prayer and descend with the answer. And prayer isn't limited to church, the prayer closet, the dinner table. We are to pray continually. At work, at play, on walks, everywhere.
This piece shows me. Praying anywhere.
And angels are on the way with the response. The writer of Hebrews says it this way about angels...
Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?
I'm an idiot
For 30 years, 30 STINKING YEARS, I have been tying knots. WRONG. This image to the left, this is wrong. Note the bows lie more
along the show than
across the shoe?
I've been trying shoes for the better part of 30 years and i've been wrong the whole time. Now I am trying to (to quote a mentor of mine "unlearn what I have learned". Its not easy.
This image shows how the shoe SHOULD be tied. Many of you (both of you) may find yourself in the same dilemma. Thankfully, Ian will show us how it's done, along with some fancy new knots. And, and, and.... new ways to lace a shoe too.
You gotta love the internet. The great leveler. Sure, you can ridicule a guy who is this into knots, but once you realize how right he is and how wrong you are...all self righteousness fades. And where else can you practice a hobby as obscure as knot tying.
Gotta love it. Site is
here.
Are the rocks crying out?
But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."
I have a theory that all these natural disasters we have experinced in the last few years are in fact the rocks crying out. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and praise the same way. Basically, we are to worship Him with all that we are, give Him everything we have, pour out all that we possibly can before Him. We are to give Him our very best.
So what does it look like when nature does the same because we don't or won't?
When waves give Him their best it's a tsunami. When wind worships with all it has, it's a tornado or hurricane. When the earth praises with all it's strength, it's an earthquake.
Maybe instead of asking if Katrina was God's judgement, or asking if it was satan's wrath....maybe it's our own fault. Maybe if we learn to praise Him like He asked us to we would see fewer natural disasters.
He did say if we wouldn't, they would.
If you like, then try...
A while ago, God dealt with me on some issues pertaining to music and Christianity. I've been putting them into a book. The book will basically be 9 essays with these being the essay "promos" if you will. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
In the Beginning, God CREATED! The first thing we learn about God is that He has always existed. The second thing, is that He is creative. We are created in His image. We are creative. Whether you are a painter, a dancer, a singer, a thinker, a marketing genius, an ad wizard, or, yes, even good with numbers—you are creative. We have been taught through various means that 1) creativity is not Godly and 2) that creativity is what we hear on the radio. But we were created in the image of the One who has been from the beginning and who is a creative genius. That same genius is in us. Create Oh Creation…Create!
The Swine That Threw the Pearl Back Do not cast your pearls before swine the scripture says. What about when the swine is the one throwing the pearl back at us? There are books, movies, plays, songs, etc. that are created by the unregenerate that express the heart of God, cry out to the heart of God with desperation, and stumble on truths that we in the church have horded so as not to improperly throw them in the mud. I love to find the pearls that the swine threw. I love to polish them and see the image of the Creator reflected in them.
Make a Joyful Noise…Command, Suggestion, or Happy Thought?Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. Psalm 95:2
If it is a command, can we make an angry noise? If a suggestion or happy thought, can love your neighbor be a happy thought too? What are the Biblical rules governing art and creativity? What are our boundaries?
Is it Ministry or is it Memorex? (or it’s all about me being about You) Ok, much of the audience wont get the reference but I’ve been told time and again by xtian musicians that what they do is a Ministry, but is it? After a long period of examination I had to answer that question myself. No, it was not ministry. While the text may have had ministry aspirations, my own subtext was fame and fortune.
Stealth Ops As a kid, I loved to play A-Team. Being me, I was always Hannibal. I had to lead, be in charge. But we loved to sneak around, to spy. Jesus said to be wise as serpents…to be sneaky. Where are the sneaky Christians? They are out there. They are making a difference but you wont see them, they are in stealth mode.
Perversion in A-minor. Country music is depressing. Rap is violent. Rock and Roll is all about debauchery. Blues is about losing something, everything, or being blue because you lost nothing and have nothing to sing about today. How has satan perverted music? How has he poisioned the church with an
if you like…then try mentality?
The Surfing Spirit God once told me that the spirit in which something is performed is the same spirit in which it will be received. Is it performed angry? Anger received. Is it performed in Worship? That same spirit will be there in the listening. It will transcend the airwaves, the speakers, the instrument and become a minister of life or death.
Lyrics Only Tell Part of the Story Christian music is the only music defined by the content of the lyric and not the style of the music. If the lyric is stripped, is it still “Christian”? Harmony, melody, rhythm and lyric all combine to make up a song. Plato has some thoughts on this, as do I.
What is this Postmodern crap?
So what exactly is postmodern thought? What does it look like? And why do we think this way?
As I've mentioned before, I hated being labeled a postmodern. I've since learned that hating being labeled is in itself very postmodern. The more I read about postmodernity, the more it resounds. And the more I learn, the more I feel like I can connect with people in a postmodern world. I offer some thoughts hoping that this will help all of us in anoallsso connect a bit better.
The odd thing is that postmodern thinking is what allows people to justify a "what's right for me is right for me and what's right for you is right for you (except if Christianity is right for you, that's always wrong)" mentality. The idea that truth is contextual and truth is fluid allows people to do, basically, whatever they want, even change beliefs in the middle of a thought. We saw this a little bit with presidential hopeful John Kerry. Not so much in his flip-flopping but in the fact that the supporters saw no problem with it. We saw it a bit with President Clinton revising such basic English words as "is".
So, how does one connect with this type of thinking? Personally, I think that in as much as this thinking can be used by the enemy to justify bad behavior and sin, it can be used by God for good. Once someone comes to the REAL truth, there is less resistance to abandoning a previous belief system.
::questions::We are fine with them. We are fine with them being unanswered. Smarter people than me call it deconstruction. So far as I can understand it, deconstruction is code for relativism. Basically, knowledge and truth are so big and pieces of it are everywhere. No one person can ever come to the total truth because they will never assemble the entire puzzle. The knowledge that you have, your piece of the puzzle, is truth to you and you base your life on that truth.
It is from this
deconstructionism that we see the emerging church emerge. We are not content with religion for the sake of religion and tradition without explainable basis. Legalism is, in particular, an anathema.
WHY can't we dance?
WHY can't I have a beer?
WHY can't I smoke? I think we are open to Truth if it can be Biblically justified, but if it is a loose tie, or a tradition of men, or is contradicted elsewhere in Scripture, forget it.
We are searching for truth. We are asking questions. And we are fine with not knowing the answers to a degree, just don't blow sunshine up our butts if you don't know either.
::subtext::This is a weird one. Postmoderns are always aware of the subtext, what's NOT being said. We read between the lines, above the lines, under the lines and between the letters too. We have been raised by mass media and are used to being "spun". When we are marketed to, we know it. Fading is the day of subtle advertising. We count product placement in movies, we know that songs on Smallville are on a WB record label.
We have been marketed to with reckless abandon our whole lives. We don't want to be marketed by the church. We want a REAL experience. Hyper-reality be damned, we want the Truth. We are so into finding the Truth that we look in places we shouldn't for it.
The benefit, is once converted, we will devour the Word. And the Word stands up to the subtext test. What it is NOT saying is as important as what it says. And what it is NOT saying is to be relevant. What it IS saying is to be counter-culture and to connect with people.
::art::We don't make anything anymore, we buy it. Grandpa used to make things in his shop, but we go to IKEA. You can't make it for as cheap as you can buy it. And when we are done, we throw it away. We don't have anything worthy of passing down.
So get this, this creeps into our art. Our artforms are hip-hop, electronica, collage. Sample heavy hip-hop takes what has been created and re-packages it. Collage takes existing images and places them meaningfully on a page or sculpture.
What does this mean? I don't know. Ideas?
::media::We are well versed in media. Video, print, music, whatever. We have been shaped by media. Not just "The Media" (sounds a lot like
The Family (use mobster accent when reading)), although that has shaped us too. We are bombarded by media and "imprints". My friend Derek will tell you what that means.
Does this mean we use media to connect? Or should we back off and use silence? I think silence shouts in this world of noise.
This is just a small peek at postmodern thought. For now, I've got nothing else to say here, except that we have a lot of thinking to do and a lot of questions to ask.
Black and White
I've often been accused of thinking in black and white. The funny thing about thinking in black and white is that no matter how black or how white the thought, I still live is the gray. Lewis would call it the Shadowlands. David would call it the valley of the shadow.
I view it as standing under a solitary lamp on the corner of a black street. Right around me, things are clear and visible, but moving out from the lamp, things get grayer and grayer until they succumb to the blackness. In my view, the further we get from the Light of the Word, the Truth, the grayer and grayer it gets until it turns black. The gray areas are simply matters in which I dont know all the Truth. The more time I spend in the Light, the more obvious it becomes where the Light ends and darkness begins.
Of course, thinking this way doesnt necessarily translate into living this way. I so often step out of the Light and into the gray. On rare occasions, leaving the Light behind, I venture into the darkness. Sometimes it's accidental, chasing something that catches my eye until I look around and realize I can no longer see. Other times, it's "justified", as in, I go into the darkness so that I can better appreciate the Light. Whatever the reason, the darkness offers little solace and I run back into the Light as soon as I recognize my folly.
Presently, I am wondering how much of the things I had categorized as black or white are really grey. Or rather, how many things that were white are only white because I had kindled my own light by which to illuminate my way. Which, when exposed to the True Light, becomes
very black indeed.
And often, even with True Light shining over my shoulder, all I can see is the shadow I cast. Unless I turn my back to the darkness and walk slowly toward the light, I will always be led by my shadow and not the Light.
In the Shadowlands of anoallasso,
a.
