It’s Easter weekend, or as I like to call it, “The Time of Year When The Entire Staff at My Church Gets Their Collective Panties in a Bunch” weekend.
I love the church, but I *hate* church hierarchy and bureaucracy. The church was never meant to be run like a business, but the American church largely continues to do it this way. Jesus isn’t a product that you can sell, and ministry isn’t about pleasing the parishioners with the deepest pockets. Taking ownership of the church means that we’re cutting Jesus out of the equation. I almost hate calling myself a christian because of all the horrible connotations that come with that label.
It’s Christmas time.
Action shot.
We have tended to see mission as something we do in “heathen nations” and not on home base. We evangelize here and do mission there. This has rightly been called the “geographic myth.
— Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways
Church advertising.
I hate hate hate hate hate it.
Commercials are for selling products, not for expanding the Kingdom.
If God’s way of reaching his world was to incarnate himself in Jesus Christ, then our way of reaching the world should likewise be incarnational. We need to exercise a genuine identification with those we are trying to reach so that they may come to know God through Jesus.
— Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways
The band today. I look so humble.
Jesus - the Jesus we might discover if we really looked! - is larger, more disturbing, more urgent than we - than the church! - had ever imagined. We have successfully managed to hide behind other questions (admittedly important ones) and to avoid the huge, world-shaking challenge of Jesus’ central claim and achievement. It is we, the churches, who have been the real reductionists. We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety, the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience, and Easter itself to a happy escapist ending after a sad, dark tale. Piety, conscience, and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself.
— N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus (via invisibleforeigner)
(Source: invisibleforeigner)
Band rehearsal this morning.
(My friend Taylor took this pic, and I stole it from him.)
This is my tired face after 7 hours of work then 5 hours at church playing music.
And woodchucks are tasty.
And comfy chairs are comfy.
#profound
I drew this in about 7 minutes… while in church.
Maybe I should pay attention more…
