Here are some tips for church planters, elders, pastors, deacons, teachers, and anyone who anyone else in the church is following.

Disclaimer: I have done every one of these, so I speak from experience.

From 10 to 1, 1 being the very best way to try to kill your church:

10. Preach while you pray.

9. Treat people as instruments for ministry.

8. Ask questions and bait people for the right answer.

7. Put on annual outreaches.

6. Teach about biblical heroes.

5. Favor the educated and rich.

4. Manage your leaders.

3. Stick it to the unkempt sinners.

2. Be anxious about more conversions.

1. Show the gospel is for conversion only.

If you have a fascination with something, if you obsess over something, or if you just can’t stop thinking about or arguing against something, that means that you are worshiping that thing.

What you value is what you worship.

That which you worship is that which you claim will get you by. It is what you think will help you. It is, in effect, your savior.

Do you think all day about watching a certain TV show? That’s your savior. It makes you better. Thoughts of it get you by.

Do you think all day about your next break from work? That’s your savior. It gets you by. It fuels your work.

Do you think all day about your child? He’s your savior.

About your dog? How to make your dog more entertained?

Your bird?

Someone else? A woman? A man?

A belief? A system? A job? A trip? A soda? A church? A gathering?

A check, an exercise plan, a day off, a movie, a game.

These are all things that get you by, keep you running, keep you motivated.

Think about it. We need something that is more eternal than that next cup of refreshing coffee.

The lyrics to a song by the band Skillet say it well:

“What you got, what you want, what you need?
Gonna be your Savior
Everything’s gonna crash and break
But I know, yeah I know
What you got, what you want, what you need?
Gonna be your Savior
Everything’s gonna crash and break
Your Savior”

Some of my friends fascinate over how some people have a savior in Jesus Christ. This means that their functional savior is an antagonistic belief. In the end this anger and fist-clenching mindset will not save them. It will be their regret when they hit age 30 and realize they’ve only been against something and never really for anything.

Let’s examine our functional saviors.

Grab a Brew Share your view

Notes

Brian - environmentalism touching every little part of our lives. Lot of questions about what it means.

?1 What does GREEN mean? There is disagreement.

T. I go out of my way to not recycle. I don’t do this. I go out of my way not to recycle.

Nick: what about the aluminum tree farmers. Truth in what Trevor said. Aluminum easiest thing to recycle.

? Even tho not as efficient, we should strive for doing it. In China, 60 minutes, documentary on computer parts recycled. Heated over coal stoves, led soldering melted off, $8/day to do it. They get sick. Computers themselves create paperless economy, save a lot of trees. Computers not as easily recycled. Right now GREEN means put my clear glass. I recycle 90% of packaging from HyVee. Some people take stuff out of the garbage.??

Eric: What if the earth - gets rebalanced - we should try to recycle, to not pollute the earth, or put chemicals out there that are waste. If we don’t regulate ourselves the earth will regulate itself back into balance.

Trevor - weshould only recycle if it’s the efficient thing to do.

Cody: If people aren’t striving to make it more efficient, then how is it going to work? Is the only thing holding you back the cost of recycling?

Christina: Amazon is cutting back on the packaging materials - the issue is not if you should recycle but cut back on the amount of packaging used?

B: Lots of types of resources. Recycling saves on space. Italy is overpounded by garbage. the mafia controls garbage control. It’s in the streets. It costs a little more energy to recycle, but it saves on space.

?: Digress from ???

If you don’t like recycling, I hope you throw out your TV, batteries, computer, just throw it into the water system

T: scare tactics, it doesn’t contribute anything to this argument. Disagree with Cody’s view. Nobody really uses alternative fuels - we’re working on innovations.

Darren: if we switch to things it takes years to adopt. 2 years to figure out how to swap an antenna.. What do people think the time frame would be for some things to beocme implemented?

? We’re talking about biodegradeable packaging that starts on a corporate level. Just because something’s an easy way to make a product, that’s where we get waste. We need to change the corporate level. The Subaru factory that is a wildlife preserve. It starts at that level.

Nick: look waht happened to car co.’s is they’re tanking b/c of the supply/demand level. We have to make it eco. feasible for co’s to produce alternative energies. Solar power will become a consumer product in the next few years.

B? I disagree with the fact that the human is the greatest natural disaster.

Tyler: Rampant militant… Renee - the Christian fundamentalist doesn’t care about the environment - Brooks 1 Cor. 15… Brooks you are in the minority - Sarah Palin - believes that are not willing to admit there is a problem…

Quick question - if God is going to renew the earth… why not run it ragged..

Eric - Christian experts - that Christians believe that Jesus will come back - some day that Jesus will come back and reign for 1000 years…. Does it say Jesus will get rid of all the garbage?

Darren - why don’t we just trash the earth b/c Jesus is coming back anyway… “no one knows the day or the hour”

Pigeon-holing people on their positions… people in Jesus Camp - run-of-the-mill Christians - people’s end-goal… mixed up version of what their views are… I don’t know many people who that’s their one thing

Cody: we have to look out for people in the future…

Renee: there are people who believe that - they are growing in number “That money is not going to conservation”

Brett: fundamentalist movement is very small - never met someone who doesn’t care about it. ‘do whatever we want with the earth’ is not a popular view at all. Check out the Chrsitianity Today magazine to see that. First commandment - “care for the earth” Screwed up in it because we’ve wrecked it. We *all* have the same view - we are consumer oriented. We rip through resources like thy’re infinite. If we are to take the whole nation of India, and raise them in resources like how we consume? it would take 5 earths.

Nick: Douglas Adams - greatest 5 books ever read - restaurant at the end of the universe - 3rd book - prophet Zarquon with 30 seconds to go in the universe. Somewhere in my head is being “stewards of creation.” I would want to do everything I could to protect.

Brian: “Ecotainer” taking a sustainable engineering class - what’s better - paper or styrofoam cup? Both are terrible. If you cared about environment you would take a cup and use it.

Brian the Moderator: UCLA Len White Jr. Historical roots of ecological crisis - attitudes toward nature from judeo-christian. World created solely for benefit of man. No item in physical creation - separated humans from nature. Part of nature vs. Ruler of nature. It all had to be respected. In contrast with paganism, insisted it was God’s will to exploit nature for their own ends. Chrsitianity and Western Civ as a whole held a view of nature that separated humans from rest of natural world.

Trevor: greed is the reason? I’m greedy for wanting to save the earth? I’m greedy enough to have a world to live in. I’m a really greedy person. But I don’t recycle.

Cody: Brett you said being stewards of the earth was the first commandment. Is there any forethought for following a command?

B: role that religion should play is that we would want to have the flowering of human kind. Fruitful and multiply. Multiply.

Cody: I don’t think it solves the problem I have.It would be a moral attribute to think you want to do the best thing - presupposed so following his commands would be the best. The act of following the command is not a moral action. It’s just following the command.

Tyler: I am suspect of the Christian theology of this issue.
#1: God is sovereign so it doesn’t matter what we do.
#2: this world is not my home, i’m only passing through.

Brett: it’s not in spite, it’s because of the Christian position.

B: Just following a direction does not have a good moral or bad moral connotation. But when you do follow direction, you can logical figure out why you should do it. If it’s this figure we call God told you to do this, if he made a lot of commandments in the past, then you put trust in this person…

Cody: Trevor recycles aluminum cans. But doing it b/c of something they told you to do, it’s not a moral attribute.

Tyler: do not love the world or anything in the world, doesn’t that preclude recycling. “I’m just passing through.”

Brett: When you’re trying to understand the intentions of a verse, you can’t pull it out of context. …. Tyler …. “Show me in the Bible” Romans 8: The creation waits eager longing for the … hope the creation itself will be set free… It’s in decay.” We do it b/c it is a joy. It is a lot of fun.

Tyler: talk about context Romans 8: did you treat that the same way - did you take it out of context… if he didn’t mean it that the rocks of the ground Genesis 3: God would command weeds to come out of the earth in response to original sin.

?: Accusing someone of taking it out of context - point fingers - trying to put it into the bigger picture.

Moderator Brian: Discussion we’ve had is great so far… Sometimes that means let’s be calm. I played on one side the foundation of western civilization, the earth is here for us to use. But on the other side. The stewardship idea is not a new thing. Calvin: man steward of God’s earth. Thomas Aquinas man has some responsbility towards animals. On one side, there’s that view, then there’s the other view that says we’re stewards of what we’ve got. Which way is it today?

Cody: If we are just following a command then we aren’t really being moral

Darren: why does anyone do anything? That’s not…. How much space does an aluminum can take in a junk yard… Aluminum is the most abundant metal

Renee - I haven’t met those Christians who are really avid economy-savers.

Nick: Pale blue Dawn: carl sagan. Look at that blue dot. That’s us.

Cody: it’s a deep and nuanced question: I don’t not-rape people because I am following a command. I’m going to move.. I’ll talk later.

?: Defining morals and ethics… Morals: way of looking at the world. We act within a set of mals. Ethics is a set of reflecting on those morals. Kids act the way that they’ve been trained…

Nick: Charles Darwin - origin of species is long. Had an idea that every creature on the planet were all related somehow. Gets a lot wrong. We’re all related. I don’t kill insects for fear that that I feel what that bug may be feeling. I know this is just the one planet that we get.

Trevor: born as anything - born as anything else…

B: getting more nuancy about following orders. Sometimes we do things we don’t know why it’s moral. We don’t have reasons behind it. We don’t ahve logical reasons but we eat the food and later we say it’s OK we’re not hungry anymore. We don’t know why we don’t go out into the street, we don’t even know that it keeps us safe. We can’t construct the full logical reasoning. We do that in sciene. Evolution we don’t understand the full biological - scientists have a lot of faith in the things we do. Science and other fields are a chain of trust. That belief that lets us know what we think is right to do.

Nick: The basis of science is that it’s repeatable. Darwin got a lot wrong but it’s because they didn’t have genetics yet. No I don’t have a soul but I think I have consciousness. I am moving in the direction of vegetarians.

Darren: the world can by our best estimates support 12 bil. people as long as everyone’s a vegan. We’re at 7bil. Can conservation save our children? Is convservation also limiting populations.

?: It’s not about food it’s about delivery.

Cody: Does population control save our children. Would abortion save our children? Population control.

Trevor: Having abortion be legal - they can’t afford another kid for whatever reason. They more than likely resort to crime. They couldn’t support them. They resorted to crime. Crime significantly dropped.

?: I thought you had a really good point. Command just to obey a command for the sake of obeying the command. God gives us this choice.

Cody: Morality is choosing to obey the command but not the action to obey the command. Following a command - being stewards of the earth - a moral action.

Tyler: Choosing. Omnipotent. #1. We don’t have free will. #2 Commandment is not an ethic. #3. 1 Samuel 15 go into and kill everybody there.

?: the one giving the command is the moralist. Following an order in and of itself is not moral. The fact that we can’t know if actions are good, we can’t follow that…

Brett: I don’t want to go back and forth between that. Free will not debateable here.

My friend and fellow Pastor Matt is having a boy today. We are praying for his wife and their son and their new baby, safety, health, the love of God to indwell richly.

Then, going through some of my ancient files (OK, a couple years ago), I found this little entry hanging out there. Thought I’d put it up here for posterity.

== Baby Boy ==

The cold, earthy air curled up the nostrils of my chilled nose, and I tried to not succomb to the stench of a barn much-needing a good clean. The farmer told me he would get around to the day-long chore, but with the company, mainly curious neighbors, the delay seemed unbearable.

The shepherds left us over a week ago, according to the farmer. It was nice of him to afford us charity in this room. This town had its share of well-wishers and then, like the farmer, a handful of well-doers. Quite a difference between them indeed. When we first arrived we saw the difference as clearly as we could see the stars that night. The rooms could have been filled, but also, it could very well be the news of our approach scared those “in the know.” As I sit through another viewing of recent memories, I am once again visibly thankful for the man who gave us this shelter.

I must head out to trade for food. The gifts from the shepherds, our first visitors, included some mildly valuable goods, worth a surprising bit in the Bethlehem street markets. Or perhaps they heard of our situation, a man and someone they think is his wife, and the young baby boy. (Baby boy, yes, not a girl, and it makes quite the difference here.) Pity could very well be the most valuable gift I bear today. The Gentiles here seem to be full of it. Like a woman told me yesterday, it is hardly believable that my son (is he my son? I’m still trying to figure that one out,) is the Messiah, but it is quite believable that someone who looks like me could need some food and wine. I do not attempt to convince these people of Mary’s son’s heavenly origins. I am fine with collecting on pity without redeeming the shepherd’s gifts of clothing.

Cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, rough shod and needing a strong boiled-water bath. Certainly humble audience for a humble baby’s birth. But for the one Son of God? I cannot understand why it was me God chose to be part. Certainly any man would do. My theorization is usually exchanged with a calm sense of wonder whenever the baby cries for milk.

The boy is Jesus. The name was chosen by the angel in Mary’s dream. Mary is my fiancee. I am betrothed to her only to make cover, so people would believe the baby was legitimate. She and I have not shared a bed as of yet, though here is baby.

This morning I walked into Hy-Vee Gas (for you outside the Iowa/Minnesota corridor, Hy-Vee is a grocery store based in Iowa, and the “gas” portion is an attached gas station). I appreciate Hy-Vee because they are convenient, and while their gas tends to be poor-quality (yes, I said it), it is convenient.

One of the things I appreciate about gas stations is their convenience, but one thing I hate is their ability to quickly take wandering eyes and shove them into the body of photoshopped women’s anatomy. My sons will be soon entering the phase of manhood which will require much godly teaching and life experience sharing from their Dad about this.

In Des Moines I remember going through a phase where I would not get fuel from a certain gas station chain which I will not mention here because many of you may go check them out immediately. It was a boycott because of pornographic materials sold at this chain.

Back to Hy-Vee.

Nothing against Hy-Vee at all, but this morning’s visit reminded me that sexual innuendo and graphic advertising gets my attention. I must not be alone, because on the corner of one of their shelving was sitting a few containers of sunflower seeds. This new brand (or newly in Hy-Vee) sells their seeds with quite seedy images of women in a couple states of undress. While it is nothing compared to what is on the magazine racks in many other stores, it is amazing that now even sunflower seeds do what they can to get a male’s attention.

I did not buy them but honestly, if I was in the mood for sunflower seeds, I would avoid that brand because of the conversations which would unfurl and also because I would probably stare a bit at seedy badness as I chewed on salty goodness.

Today also I witnessed a popup on my screen at work with a young attractive female sitting in a very unnatural position working on a computer. The ad was for getting a degree online.

Just some thoughts.

There is much talk today is about finding your strengths… and leaning on them.

The Bible talks about a different kind of living. Saul of Tarsus, an intelligent character from the 1st century Mideast, was educated in the highest of Jewish educational systems, a Rabbi, a teacher of the synagogues. He was most likely a child prodigy.

Yet when it came time to go and do what he learned, he was struck by a new kind of learning. He had an encounter with the God he had studied his whole life, according to an older traveling friend and physician. This doctor essentially blogged that Saul went on one of his teaching trips, actually killing those who went against his beliefs. On this very road he had the one encounter that did not shape him; that did not change him; but completely undid him.

This is the nature of the gospel: God created us and set us on a smaller path of human choice within His grandiose, mysterious providence. We lost His way and set ourselves onto our own way. It is not only the “bad people” who are off of God’s track; even a church-going, religious sort of person still has a natural inkling that his or her own way is *the* way. The gospel understanding is the understanding that God sent Jesus Christ, his own son, to live, die, and be resurrected all to pay for the penalty that we deserve. God is satisfied with his son Jesus’ payment.

Therefore, if you simply by faith trust in Jesus Christ’s payment, you have been made right with God Almighty.

Back to Saul.

God so radically undid Saul that everything changed. That is why you have never likely heard of Saul, because with the changing of a person comes the changing of a name; ergo his new and most famous name, Apostle Paul.

In a parchment sent to a group of people following this new Jesus-faith in the vicinity of Italy (the Bible book of Romans), he thus said - speaking from his own experience - that this new faith called people like himself to look at the mercy that God had on his enemies. While facing the cross (the expression of this mercy) of Jesus and all that it entails (a God-man dying for his enemies, you and me), a person cannot simply focus on his perceived strengths. Instead, his weaknesses are exposed.

When your weaknesses are exposed, you feel like a weakling. People tend to hide their worst parts of their bodies, and show off their best parts. We hang around people we like not because we are different but because we feel we can speak their language. In fact, while our nation today believes it is built on differences and cross-cultural influences, if you pay any attention you will notice that we continue to hang onto racial tensions and philosophical, religious, political, and socio-economic likenesses. Our culture is a culture of radical polarization within these categories. The only blending occurs because we are forced to live with each other.

But being “undone” is the nature of the gospel. It is in effect a freeing of inhibitions. Paul, for example, was set free of his need to kill people who opposed him. Since God loved Saul, Paul could love others. Our strengths put up walls when they are opposing our weaknesses. Instead, our strong points should assist our weaknesses in exposing them through confession to each other and to God.

As long as we put up a front to others and to God we will not understand the gospel. But as of recent I have tried with all my might to give up that wall, and while I thought it worked, it did not. It took some hard things such as repentance and emptying of myself to understand more of the gospel.

The gospel is not a plan, not a method, not a way of life.

The gospel is not a religion, not a faith, not a church.

The word ‘gospel’ comes from a greek phrase meaning “good news.”

In your life you believe that you can be a good person. Rarely does anyone think, “Today I will be bad.”

Even criminals believe that their way is correct. It’s based on a self-validating nature with which we are all born. It is our mission to believe that we are correct.

I was advising my friend recently, attempting to explain a point of counsel to him, advising him on women. I have been married for thirteen years and he is a new relationship which may or may not result in a life-long relationship.

After advising him in a loving manner, his response was, “I can see where you’re coming from, and I can also see where I am coming from.” He did not need to tell me that he can understand his own points. We all believe that our points are valid; otherwise we would believe something different.

We all think we are correct. How do we find out if, in all reality, we *are* correct? What is our compass?

The gospel of Jesus Christ states that - unlike any other faith system or religion - we are by nature incorrect in our very nature. We are not right. We are not holy. This leads us to say, “how can I be correct?”

The good news - the gospel - implies that you can never be correct. You can never strive enough to be good enough to even be satisfied in your own life. We can never sleep with enough girls, we can never earn enough money, we can never achieve what our own hearts tell us is a place of peace and rest.

Take it or leave it, the gospel says that someone else (Jesus Christ) performed enough goodness for us. And something deep inside of us resonates - wants - someone else to do the ‘dirty’ (good in this case) work for us.

To wake up one morning and cry out to God, “Do the good for me so I can stop trying so hard” is a part of the gospel. The rest is realizing that Jesus Christ is that person who achieved for you the payment for our self-affirming (sinful) nature.

That is a quick view of the gospel.

Do not let anyone tell you that the gospel is “trying to be a better person.” The person who told you that probably was set up by someone who told them the same thing.

To me the lives of many of these
Are worth their death in many degrees;
They’re so unique they fill up the seas;
We’re few and far between?

And in my life I scurry about
To make inside worth living without.
The pain goes on, then ends in a shout:
Dry chalking in the breeze.

So bear connections light with a touch.
Do not become the center of much.
Breathe souls; not faces, bodies nor such;
For we all once shall die.

The podcast is up now.

Enjoy the discussion here.

Make sure you listen - even through the people you might disagree with - and then post comments!

Visit GrabABrew.com to get all the other links to UNIFI, Kaio Church, Facebook group, and to learn about our next event!

Next Tuesday the University of Northern Iowa’s Maucker Union (Hemisphere Lounge meeting room) will hold Grab a Brew Share Your View.

The topic was introduced by friends of mine Nick Covington and Cody Hashman:

“Critiquing Christ”

I hope everyone reading this can show up and either just listen or speak in a very winsome manner about why we need Jesus at all.

For those of you thinking you’re going to show up and “get yer debate on!", please calm down, drink some decaf, and relax. The point of Grab a Brew Share Your View is *always* to make friends after the discussion time and usually the heavy debaters get frustrated and leave early.

Therefore, if you love Jesus Christ because he loves you, and died for you, and lives for you, remember that he did not come with a Halloween mask and a scythe but with a wise, humble approach.

7 PM Maucker Union Tuesday Sept. 9. Coffee is the brew this time (no beer).