A Week of Devotion to God!

To those who read my blog,

This past week has been a week devoted to getting to know God. I would say this started with the Spiritual Retreat on Saturday and carried on through the Spiritual Emphasis Days (or if you're a woman, then it ended with Female Frenzy which I hear was a blast). I'd like to take you through this week as well as I can so you can get a picture of how Ambrose University College is reaching out to our Father.

Spiritual Retreat:

As V.P. of Spiritual Life at Ambrose, it is my job to put on Spiritual Retreat. The theme I picked out for student council spiritual stuff is "Struggling with God". This came out in a few ways throughout the retreat. First we did a prayer walk. On this walk we stopped off at a stair case that was sandwiched in between two areas with amazing houses. I told the people to look out over the houses and see the beauty of them. I wanted them to see how big theses houses are because there are a lot of people who don't get to live in houses as nice as the ones we saw. Basically I wanted the people to struggle with the fact that we have so much, and others have so little.

After the prayer walk, we went back to my house and shared fellowship over food. We got to know one another a little better and then we got to know most of the members of Team Peniel (the spiritual formation team at Ambrose) a little better through testimony. The only one who did not share their testimony was me. But everyone else on the team did! Their lives showed a lot of struggle and trust for God. It was such a blessing to see.

Beggar's Feast:

I was happy to see Corey Garnett (our Beggar's Feast co-ordinator) lead Beggar's this time round. He did a great job. He chose a very specific theme (as all leaders of Beggar's Feast will have to do) and that theme was 'Jesus is Lord of all'. I was blessed to be allowed to read scripture at this event. I chose Joshua 24:22 which reads, "Then Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve Him." And they said, "We are witnesses". I did this very intentionally so that I (a different Joshua) could charge the people in the same manner. I wanted them to say (at least to themselves, if not out loud) that they would be witnesses to the Almighty and therefore make Him to be the Lord of their lives!

I had two favourite parts to Beggar's, though. The first was being able to pray with and for a good friend of mine, and the second was how Corey ended the feast. A lot of worship leaders leave people on a happy note with an upbeat song, but Corey did not. He left the people with a song that was much more introspective. He left the people thinking about their relationship with God (or at least that's how I felt). It is so easy to do what everyone else does, but Corey went against the grain and did what he needed to do to get Jesus' love across!

Spiritual Emphasis Days:

You know those Billy Graham type guys who get up on stage and just preach it? Well we had the privilege, nay, the amazing honour, to be in the presence of a guy like that. Dr. Barry Moore (Dr. Tim Moore's father) came all the way from the beautiful lad of Ontario to bring the heat like nothing else! Now don't get me wrong, there were some things that I did not like in what Dr. Moore had to say. I did not like how Dr. Moore separated the social work of the Church completely from evangelism. Actually, it was kind of funny. There were break-out sessions. I was able to go to 3/5 of them. The first one I went to was about a Church on the Fringe. This Church meets in a bar to reach out to the broken. One of the things they mentioned was how they just lived their lives in a way that was separated from what the world does and they don't even mention Jesus all the time.

Dr. Moore talked about only mentioning Jesus and these people talked about avoiding talking about Jesus. I fall in the middle. I personally think we need to earn the right to tell people about our Saviour and God. I don't believe that with every person we come across, we have to share the entirety of the Gospel (although God does open the doors for that sometimes) but we do have to share the gospel with people who we have earned the right to speak to. A lot of people have been hurt by well-meaning Christians and so Church becomes a tough conversation. If we don't know where they are coming from, then we won't know how to tell them about Jesus.

I think this idea is backed by scripture as well seeing as Jesus did a lot of healing and feeding, and loving. I can think of one exception off the top of my head where Jesus pressed for salvation first and that was when a paralytic was lowered into a house where Jesus was because the crowd was too thick for his friends to get him in. Jesus took away the man's sins first AND THEN he took away his illness. I think this story demonstrates where God places the topic of salvation. Jesus considers salvation of more value than health and well being. So even though I say, "we need to earn the right" I still believe that we also need to give people the message of salvation as it is the most important message someone can hear! I may one day take a bullet for someone and therefore save their life, but I did nothing for that person if they don't know Jesus. Maybe it would make it easier for them to know Jesus, but it is still nothing if they do not form a relationship with Jesus.

All in all, I was impressed with the Spiritual Emphasis Days. Dor. Moore brought what we needed to the campus: an urgency for the gospel. Dr. Moore's heart was and is to see as many people come to know Jesus as possible. For him, there is not greater calling! Jesus is who he wants you to know and that is why he pushed so hard for us to evangelize.

Summary:

Between struggling, Lordship, and evangelism, this week has been phenomenal! I learned so much about what it means to have a deep relationship with Christ and I am happier for it. I want to encourage you all, oh readers of my blog, that if you don't know Jesus, get to know Him as Lord, struggle with Him on issues you don't quite understand, and then share Him with the people around you because at the end of the day, He is what truly matters!

Sincerely,

Joshua

Struggling With God

To those who read my blog,

Here is what I preached at Chapel when it was the Student Council Chapel. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed preaching it!


Genesis 32:22-32 [NASB]

The theme for Chapel this year has already been repeated many times, but I will say it one more time: The light is everywhere. Jesus is the light. Jesus is everywhere. Light is a funny thing, though. It can be great for growth, but only because when we enter the light, we end up seeing the things that don’t sit quite right. We may see things that are holding us back from other people, or from doing our best, or most importantly from Jesus who we need to have remain at our center. And so we come to this passage in Genesis about a man who seems to actually wrestle with the One true God.
As people of the word, we probably all know the story of Jacob and Esau, but to give this verse a bit of context, let me remind you what is happening. Jacob is about to meet with his older brother Esau and he’s not feeling too sure of himself, and with good reason too!
Jacob was a jerk. His older brother, Esau, wanted some food, and Jacob made Esau give him his birthright for it. A birthright is the right of the older son. Instead of being a gracious brother, Jacob takes this right away from Esau. This means that Jacob, the younger son, will receive double the inheritance that his brother deserved to have.
Jacob also did another devious thing to his older brother and also to his father. Jacob stole the blessing from his father which was meant for his brother. He did this by disguising himself as his brother.
He is so scared of coming in contact with his brother that he prepares a huge gift that included 220 goats and a bunch of other animals. Jacob is seriously hoping to hopefully buy his brother out of seeking revenge.
So you’re in the wilderness and are about to face someone you have wronged so badly, what do you do? Well why not fight some random person? That seems pretty logical, right? It’s what Jacob does. When the man can’t prevail over Jacob, he strikes Jacob on the hip but Jacob would not let him go until the man blessed him. Perhaps Jacob thought, “If I can just get this one blessing, everything will be alright”.
The man responds and asks for Jacob’s name, but then renames him Israel which means, struggles with God.
If what this man was saying was true, it means that Jacob actually fought with God. Not only did Jacob fight with God, but Jacob walked out of his fight with God seeing His face. And so Jacob called the place Peniel because Peniel means face of God and that was what Jacob saw, and he lived.
Student Council this year has one central theme. Every time we make a decision in student council, we ask, “is this enriching the lives of students?” and if the answer is no, we decide to scrap it. So when it came to spirituality, the question Ryan had to ask when I brought this secondary theme to him was, “will struggling with God enrich the lives of students” and him and I agree that yes, struggling with God is good, but it is hard.
There are two ways I want you to struggle with God this year. The first is theologically. Here is what I mean. When I came to Ambrose five years ago, I was a seven day creationist. I was so much a seven day creationist that I even considered people who did not believe in a seven day creation were not real Christians. I pretty much had God figured out and I just needed to go to Bible college to polish things off. When I got to Ambrose, I encountered a certain teacher. A professor who is so amazing that he even got a floor named after him not just while he was still alive, but also while he was still a teacher. This man’s name is Gerry Hall (pause) and even people who once lived on that long abandoned floor are willing to yell out his name as you can tell.
The course that Gerry taught was called Bible and the Reader and it was eventually split up into two courses: Old Testament and New Testament. It is no exaggeration that I loved this class. It was an amazing experience. Well one day Gerry brought up the seven day creation account, and when he talked about it actually sounded as if he did not believe that the seven day account was accurate! But that makes no sense. Gerry Hall is an amazing person! He was passionate about the Bible and it showed in his teaching. How could he NOT believe in something so obviously true?
I did not know what to do, so I bugged him about this. Not just in class, either. I visited him at his office and even snagged him when he was walking back from Chapel one day. This man was more than willing to talk to me and he even was willing to listen to my views even though my views were that of a freshman who only knew what his home church taught him.
So I did my research paper on Genesis 1:1-2:4a and I got an A-. I put in a few solid nights into that paper and was close to not finishing it on time. I have never worked so hard on a paper as I did that one. I needed to know what I believed and I walked away from that paper with a good grade, but more importantly, I came away with an understanding of what it means to be willing to change your views when you are confronted with something different than you expected. I wrestled with God, and I came away seeing His face. And because I saw His face I understood that I knew very little about God and I also understood I would not just need a little polishing off, but I would need to be broken down over and over, and then built back up over and over.
Why do we fight so hard to try and be right all the time? We sometimes enter into debates and instead of trying to understand the other person, we end up just trying to be right. I am sometimes very guilty of this myself. I know the temptation to be right all the time. But it is not me I should be promoting, but Jesus and there are other people who know Jesus and a lot of them know Jesus a lot better than I do. When we wrestle with others over points of theology to be right, we are not wrestling with the right person, and we end up only seeing our own face. Our face is not who we are supposed to see.
This school is composed primarily on two denominations: The Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Church of the Nazarene. Right now I am in a class called Alliance History and Thought which I believe everyone at this school should take because it’s hard to leave that class without feeling inspired towards the things of God. Something interesting I found out about the Alliance was that it was formed around people who would have disagreed with each other in major ways. To give you an example: there was an Anglican who would have been quite familiar with the worshipful experience known as communion and also someone from the Salvation Army Church which does not celebrate communion. These people may have disagreed with each other, but they gathered around the most important person: Jesus Christ. It was out of love for Jesus that they formed that organization that would become a denomination.
So sometimes we struggle with God theologically, but there are times when we struggle with God in a much harder way. Instead of asking God, “do you do things this way?” we ask God, “why is this happening to me?” and it’s when we are asking God this, that our faith becomes so much more real and we find out what it means to follow God. Let me tell you about the end of my summer and the beginning of my school year.
I have a team to help me out with Ambrose spirituality. In a month I went from having four willing people on this team to two: myself and the Beggar’s Feast co-ordinator, Corey Garnett. At the end of the summer, I found out I would not really have enough money to take more than a couple courses, but I was also too poor to pay back student loans so I had to take at least 3 courses. Then there was an issue with how one ministry was going to be run, and then there was this huge problem between me and my best friends, and then in the first week of school I realized that my program was extremely messed up, and then my land-lord sent me an email saying that the rent cheques I sent were not signed and then I found out that the rent cheques I sent to my land lord which were signed were returned to me for no apparent reason, and then I found out that I was the victim of bank fraud, and finally, I stuck my foot in my mouth and offended one of my sisters in a huge way! During the leadership retreat a seminary student told our team that if our theme for the school year was struggling with God then we better be ready for struggle. I did not realize how right this guy would be.
I don’t know what God was trying to teach me through those struggles. Maybe patience, maybe more of a reliance in Him... I am not sure. But whatever it was, it needed to be taught and I needed to be ready and willing to struggle through this. I will walked out seeing the face of God and because I saw His face, and He was there. I just had to go along with God on this one and rely on His Spirit!
I recently fell in love with the band known as Metric. They have a song called Twilight Galaxy and in this the singer says, “go higher than high, go lower than deep, keep doing it wrong, keep singing along”. I like to insert some words there. I like to pretend she means, “If you go higher than high or if you go lower than deep, even if you keep doing it wrong, keep singing along.” Sometimes we just need to keep singing along even when the world is just beating the crap out of us!
Jacob wrestled with God, and then he had the guts to even ask for a blessing. When life is kicking you when you’re down, do you have what it takes to ask God for a blessing? I’ll be honest, sometimes I do have the guts but this past time I did not! Here’s the thing, though, Jesus always blesses. His blessing may not be something we understand, but it is always there for you. It does not matter how much life is giving you, Jesus will always be willing to bless if you are willing to go through the struggle with Him and even if you’re not! I used to think that God helps those who help themselves, but I heard Ray Aldred say something a bit different once: God helps us because we can’t help ourselves! He may not deliver us completely out of the time of trial, but He will always be there with us so that He can pick us back up once we have fallen down. He is always there when we are struggling!
Jacob wrestled with God and saw God’s face; are you willing to do the same? And so we come to the table, because that is where the brokenness of fallen humanity meets with the glory of the divine. We come to the table where Jesus is already sitting. He’s there and He’s willing to talk to you. He’s willing to go through this struggle with you because He loves you and wants you to know Him and understand Him better! At this table, God is waiting to wrestle with you. He’s waiting and He’s saying, “This is My body, it is broken for you. This is My blood, poured out for you. Come. Eat. Drink. Be with Me!” So if you’re ready, please come forward and receive communion. If you need it, there are two people here who would live to pray with you and I am here as well for the duration of communion. Come and partake! Jesus is waiting for you!

Fun Realization

To those who read my blog,

A funny thing happened yesterday and I thought it would be a good thing to share.

I got on the bus to head out to meet a dear friend for coffee. I was not in the best state of mind.

I get to the bus stop which is right outside my house and I find one of the freshmen standing there. We strike up a conversation and talk about a lot of different things. I suppose because I was in a weird place at the time I was more prone to whining and when she asked about a few past ministries I have been involved with which ended up being places where more people were hurt than cared for, I speaking negatively about them. I was putting these places down because they were not the greatest examples of Christian love that I have seen. Places that turn away people because of religious belief and cared more about the numbers they could get rather than the love they could share with the people coming in.

The girl I was talking with stopped me and said something along the lines of, "Wow Joshua, you seem to have had a lot of negative experience with Christian organizations and yet you're still a Christian yourself".

I then had one of those very rare moments where I displayed utter brilliance. I said to her something like, "I love the people, it was just the way they were going about things that I hated. Also they helped inspire me to do good. Also we are all fallen people. Even now someone could have heard something I said in Chapel and said to themselves 'that Joshua guy seems a bit off-base in what he's saying, I don't know if I agree with that at all'". I think essentially I was saying two things:

1) I was saying that it doesn't matter what people do or how they treat you in a given circumstance, they are still lovable (something I am grateful for because it means I am still lovable).

2) Just because I have Christ in my life it does not mean I will be perfect in conduct or in speech. I will mess up, my theology at times will be a bit wonky, and I will need to be forgiven. However, even though all those things are true, my fallen nature can still serve in inspiring others to do good. I guess that's a complicated way of saying that the Father can work all things to His good... even the terrible ones.

When this girl mentioned that I had bad experiences with Christian organizations I realized I have not fully forgiven these places for what I went through because I was speaking bitterly about them. Forgiveness is essential for anyone to live a free life. Bitterness is a poison that you yourself drink, but you expect the other person to get sick.

So here is where this kind of comes to a head and become really cool. After my coffee date I went off to Swing as it was a Friday and I was itching to do some dancing. At the dance I re-met a girl who I accidentally hurt a couple months back. Her feelings were damaged even though it was not my intent to hurt her whatsoever. However we are fallen people and fallen people are hurt people and hurt people will hurt people. She was not over this hurt and I could very much tell in the way she was talking with me. She kept bringing up the hurt and would not let me forget. It was within a Christian context that I had hurt her. She may go away from that and never forget it, but thankfully we both serve a God who works all things to His good. The Spirit can guide her within her hurt and might use that experience to help others not get hurt in that way. At least that's what my prayer for her is. I would rather her not forget this hurt but use it to spread love.

It was kind of cool to see this come full circle. Anyways... that was my fun realization. I hope you enjoyed.

-Joshua

Awesome Ladies, Singleness, and Ontario!

To those who read my blog,

Yes, I know, it's been forever. I am sorry if you are thoroughly enthralled by my blog. I'll try to be a bit better at updating this here space!

So. Women, eh? The school year has started and I have met some fantastic women at Ambrose. Women who have a desire to seek God. Women who are fun. Women who enjoy life. Women who are beautiful. Women who I will not be dating.

I realized something this past summer something kind of cool. Lately I have been getting closer with my family. Last Christmas when I went home, it was big for me. I loved it. There is now one girl in my life who I want to see more than anything and that girl is my niece. In fact,so I can spend a good two weeks with my family, I am going to be working this Christmas break non-stop to save up for a trip to Ontario next summer. I love my family.

Well, this past summer I let my eyes wander a bit and I fell for a young woman. She is amazing in many ways. She is an environmentalist, she cares deeply for people, and she is beautiful. In fact, there was only one quality she lacked but this quality was the one quality that was necessary for me to really want to pursue a relationship with her: a relationship with Christ. Besides her not being a Christian, she was perfect. One of the best things, though, was her love of family. Not just her biological family, but also the family she had in fellow performers of an opera company (that's right, opera! I told you she was awesome). She once said she would not be willing to leave Calgary because of them.

Here is my thought: if part of the reason I want to move back to Ontario is so I can be close to my family, then what right do I have to ask a lady to move back with me when she has to leave her family? The answer? No right. I have no right whatsoever. And actually, if I care about family as much as I say I do, then wouldn't I be wanting to spend time with my in-laws as well?

I think I will meet my future wife in Ontario. I am done school in 2014 so that's when I'll be back in Ontario (probably). I think now is a time for me to recognize the women God has put into my life, and love them for the friends they are.

Please do not misunderstand. If I meet a special lady here at Ambrose (or Calgary in general) and God says, "Dude, what are you waiting for?" I am going to pursue her. I just don't think it's going to happen yet. I'm willing to wait for this woman, though. As awesome as other ladies are, in my opinion, the woman God has in mind for me is going to be a billion times better (or at least better for me)! When all is said and done, this is just another way to trust in God for His plan to be revealed in His time ^_^

-Joshua

Prostitution

To those who read my blog,

Today I am going to do something a bit different. I work as a security guard in a business building down town. It is located right behind a strip club which means there are a bunch of prostitutes who also hang around. I am going to post something written by me last night right after an encounter with a prostitute and then I will talk a bit about how it played out in my life today.

Last Night

I work right behind a strip club called The French Maid. As I am right behind a strip club, the area I work in has a lot of prostitutes. Today I came across one as she was doing business with a man. As I approached while on patrol the man left and she remained. I could not help but look at her face. Her sweet innocent face had swelled with fear and looked upon my face. As I had made eye contact I felt compelled to say ‘hello’ and so I did. She asked me where I was going. I told her quite simply that I was doing a perimeter patrol. I walked on. After I passed her and got about ten to fifteen feet ahead of her, she started walking my way and it had occurred to me that she was going after the “John” (“John” refers to men who hire out prostitutes instead of a specific person) she had been talking to earlier.

My heart near stopped. I did not know what to do. I still don’t know what to do. How am I to respond to her question of “Where are you going”? Do I ask her in turn where she is going? “Are you going into the arms of a man who is only going to use your body and then dump you? Are you going to perform some act upon a man that will be the ruin of your soul and his?” Seriously, how does one react to this?

I immediately thought of my four older sisters, and my nieces, and my mom. I thought of how if some guy came up to any of them and offered them a few hundred bucks for a “good time” that I would feel honor bound to kick that guys ass so hard he would not be able to poop for a year! There is no “good time” for either the prostitute or the man “renting” their body.

I got in front of my building and I started praying. I asked God where He was. I asked Him if He truly cared for the prostitute. I asked Him if I did enough in that situation or if I could have done more. Truly, I don’t know what I could have done. Some prostitutes do it because they have no other way of getting money. Both last summer and this summer have been quite tough on me personally. The job market is just slim pickings right now. I know of a few friends who have had little success in the job market this year. If all it was, was money then maybe after saving up a lot of money I could help them out. I am dirt poor though! I am barely making it through on my own! How am I supposed to pay for another human being to get off the streets and away from harmful people?

Besides that, I think there has to be something more behind it than just money. Perhaps this woman has a need for companionship that she does not know how to satisfy. Maybe she has a longing to be with men and this is the only way she thinks can express it. But after so many men have used and abused these women, how am I supposed to show her that I genuinely care for her? And going on from there, do I genuinely care for her?

As a man in the social and economical standing that I find myself in I feel utterly hopeless to help these poor women who are getting hurt time after time! I am useless! The only thing I feel I could do is pray but even that seems a bit fruitless as it just seems like God is not here in these streets. I know God is everywhere, but where is He in the lives of these precious women who I know He loves so dearly? I am at a loss! How can I be of any consequence to any of these women? How can I show love in this situation? What is the proper response for the question, “where are you going”? The only answer I can think of at all is, “to pray for your safety” but I did not give her that answer, did I?

Today

I got up early today (around noon… for a night guard, that’s real early). I did not have work but rather a more important appointment to spend time with some good friends. At some point I went on the bus to see these people and I had my Ipod on. Although the music was playing, all I could think about were the prostitutes and how I could not do anything for them.

This thing, this problem obsessed my mind. I could not shake it. Eventually it drove me to shut off my music and pray again. I cannot remember exactly what I prayed for but I started to get the feeling that maybe there was one thing I could do. I thought about how these women may not have been loved even as children which could of either drove them from their homes at an early age where they needed to fend for themselves and prostitution became a means to an end, or maybe because the men in their lives did not show them love, they sought it out in different ways.

I thought about one of my nieces. Her father is amazing! I love him so much. My sister could not have picked a better man for her life partner than this guy. Part of his charm is that he loves his family so very much and would do anything for them. I don’t really have to worry about him not showing love to my niece, but there are other men in my nieces life. One of those men happen to be me.

I can do nothing that I can see for the ones who walk the street right now. I am not equipped with training to help them, nor would they necessarily be able to even talk to a man after the abuse they have seen. All I can do for them is pray (which is still a lot but is frustrating when you might never see the results).

What I can do is act in the lives of any girl or women I come across. I can treat them like a human being. I can treat them as my equal. I can love them. I can hold open doors for them so they know they are worth something because they are worth something. They are valuable. They are my equal.

I called up my niece and talked to her dad, my brother in law, about what happened to me last night and I told him how much I respected him and think he is doing a great job but that I needed to also do more. Eventually my niece came home (her and my sister went to the store for salad dressing) and I got her on the phone and I told her how I felt about her. How I love her very much and that she is important to me. I want to do my part in keeping women off the street, and it started with making sure my niece knew someone loves her and thinks she has value.

One final thought. One of the people I respect the most is Mother Theresa. I really want to read her autobiography entitled My Life for the Poor. I have read snippets and the one thing I have noticed is that when Mother Theresa looks at a person, she sees Jesus in them. For Mother Theresa, there are no whores. There are only people carrying the Imago Dei. Should we not work our butts off to make sure the Imago Dei, the image of God Himself, not be tarnished? Prostitutes need love as well and also… well, the Johns and pimps do as well. They may be the ones who are the main help in creating the oppression that is prostitution, but they also carry the Imago Dei. We are all humans and as such, we need to love one another as if the other person is a gift from God… because they are!

-Joshua

Perfect Theology: The Myth of Being Right!

To Those Who Read My Blog,

Hi! It has been a while, hasn’t it? I need to be better at updating this thing…

So, let me just get you caught up on what’s been happening in my life before I get into the meat and potatoes of what I want to talk about.

I’m done school for the year but don’t know how I did. I have some things about this past year that I love. Men’s ministry and Swing Dancing are the two most important things I think. I have one huge regret. That regret is not spending enough time with my last Church.

Speaking about this Church, I left. I felt God telling me not to be in ministry this summer because I’m going to be in ministry this fall and winter at school. As my church is small and I have a bit of training it would have been hard for me to not do ministry there. I miss those people so much right now. I don’t know if any of them read my blog but if you do, I think about you all daily and you’re not far when I pray!

Well, seeing as I did leave my Church, I have been looking at other places. One was a Jewish Synagogue that I don’t think I’ll be returning to as they do a few things I am really against (tract ministry being one of those things :s ). I also went to a Catholic rally that happens every Tuesday night and it is here that I want to dwell as the focus of my blog post.

A guy came up to me afterward and immediately after finding out I was a protestant he said to me “You know in John 6 when Jesus talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood? How is it that you can think that he’s speaking figuratively when he is so clearly speaking literally”. That bugged me for a while and I did not know why, but then it hit me today. It bugs me because how did this guy know Jesus was speaking literally? The reference is John 6:25-59 (though more so near the end). I find whenever Jesus speaks, He goes in and out of figurative language so it’s hard to tell when He is talking figuratively and when He’s not.

This guy I was talking to was referring to transubstantiation which says that the bread and wine actually become the flesh and blood of Christ which I am not against but don’t think is the way communion works. And that’s my point, really. This guy took an offensive approach defending his theology and saying that he was right. He also criticized my thinking by phrasing it as “how can you believe…” as in “how could you be so stupid as to even think that for a second”. He did not say it like that, but that’s the way it came across. I am sure that he left that argument thinking he won, I left that argument wondering why there was an argument at all.

The truth of the matter is that Jesus is special. He is special because He is mysterious and we can’t get Him completely figured out. We can get ideas about Him, and we can even say some pretty solid things about Him like the things proclaimed in the Nicene or Apostle’s Creed but some things are a mystery. One of those things being the mystery of communion. What does happen in the Eucharist? What is so special about it? Truth is, we won’t know until heaven. This guy might be completely on base and it might work out as transubstantiation… or it could be what I believe… consubstantiation. We won’t know until Jesus tells us and to say we got God figured out and are completely right in our Theology is just a pompous stance and a lie.

I guess where I come down with this guy is that he seemed to want to be right. I just want to be with Jesus. What are we pursuing? Are we pursuing a complete and thorough knowledge of exactly who God is and how He acts? Are we pursuing a perfect theology? I don’t think so. I don’t think God leaves room for us to do that. Instead we should just aim to hang out with Him and maybe He’ll shed some light on His workings, but if He doesn’t we can just chill with Him and wait until we are in heaven to know Him more.

We should celebrate our differences and take joy in them. If we appreciate one another then we do not separate ourselves. We can love one another fully. I think this is especially important for Catholics and Protestants (yes Protestants need to chill out a bit and take a humble stance of respect… we get things wrong too… I mean probably)

I don’t know. These are just my thoughts on the subject. If anything comes to your mind on this, please comment. If not I hope to write again soon as I have been a jerk and not writing at all! Talk to you all later.

 

-Joshua

The World is Yearning. Can You Hear it?

To those who read my blog,

I want to share with you one of my favorite bands. This band is notorious for being party animals and doing crazy things. In one of their music videos, you can see them streaking through a city. These guys are out of control! They are the band Blink-182, and I love them!

Some might tell me that I am listening to bad music and that God would not approve but I have come to realize a few things in my own walk with God. The Father is one who encourages our creativity. Some of the best psalms, you would think (if you just heard them out of the blue) that it was something that God would be completely against. For example, what about Psalm 22 which begins with “my god, my God, why have you forsaken me?” which seems to me like something God would never do, so why even accuse Him of it? But it made it into the Bible!

Now I am not saying that the lessons of Blink-182 should be preached from the pulpit, but one thing that might be good to preach is how we should be honest and truthful and not hide behind a falsehood. Blink-182 is a very truthful band and the author of Psalm 22 was willing to be completely honest with God instead of just sugar-coating his prayer and just saying ‘o God… you are so great’. Sometimes our prayers need to be raw and gritty and full of something that is not too pleasing to our Maker’s ears. Or should I say seems to be not too pleasing to our Maker’s ears? I think God appreciates our honesty more than anything else. These people are being real and true and because they are being real and true, sometimes they say stuff that I really take to heart… for example, check out these lyrics from their song Not Now:

“Come here, please hold my hand, Lord, now

Help me, I’m scared please show me how

To fight this, God has a master plan,

and I guess, I am in His demand

Please save me, this time I cannot run

And I’ll see, you when this is done

And now I’ve come to realize

That you are, the one who’s left behind”

The song goes on from there, but did you notice the lyrics? This band, the same band who streaks and parties hardy, they just called out to God for Him to be a part of their life and admitted that He cares for them enough to include them in His master plan!

There’s this thought among Christians, and I agree with this thought, that there is a God shaped hole in all our hearts. We yearn for God. We want God in our lives oh so badly! Every once in a while, that craving is seen… but only if we’re willing to be honest with ourselves and look deeper. This is what Blink-182 has done with this song of theirs.

I’d love to sit down with Blink-182 and ask them just what they were thinking when they wrote this song. How were they feeling? What was their message?

This is why I don’t think as Christians, we should shy away from the things the world does to express themselves. We are not called to put our head-phones on and only listen to *Insert Christian Band Name Here* (especially seeing as a lot of Christian bands are really bad).

I once heard a good friend of mine tell me she stopped listening to one band because even though they said they were a Christian band, they had become very secular. Well what is secular about them? Are they denying Jesus flat out? Or are they just not mentioning Him in their songs? And even if they are denying Him flat out, shouldn’t we listen to them because at least they are being honest with us?

Besides all that, a lot of Christian bands that I hear seem to be afraid to talk about issues they are having. Five Iron Frenzy (my favorite band and also a Christian one) is willing to speak out against racism and other prejudices, but I don’t see that a lot in other bands. They seem to only be concerned with superficial stuff, and I do not believe for a second that God is after the superficial.

He wants honesty. He wants truth. He wants all of you… even the doubts! He wants us to pray things like, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (psalm 22) and then bring us to a place where we will pray, “come here, please hold my hand, Lord now help me, I’m scared please show me how to fight this” (Blink-182), and maybe when we’re done praying that, we can pray, “Thank-you Lord, for being there for me” (me).

I hope this is helpful to you, oh reader of my blog, for it has been to me!

-Joshua

Learning Not To Cut Ourselves

To those who read my blog,

This post is a long time coming.

So, over the holidays, a friend of mine had changed her status to something along the lines of “First day at Mars Hill Church, and they stick me in the nursery”. When I read this, I thought, 'Mars Hill? That’s where Rob Bell preaches! I love Rob Bell! He’s my favorite preacher! With that thought process in place, I quickly commented on her status in an excited fashion (in all caps so she would know how excited I was) exclaiming that I love Rob Bell and why had she not told me she was going to his Church.

Here is where I encounter a problem. A friend of hers quickly responded to what I said telling me that it was a different Mars Hill and that Rob Bell is a heretic who did not know his Bible.

Let that sink for a moment.

I then went to the defense of Rob Bell as he cannot defend himself from accusations that are said behind his back and are done without his knowing. As I have been listening to Rob Bell sermons for a while now, I know at least that he knows his Bible better than most and so far I have not seen any problems with his theology going against dogma (dogma being the things that are absolutely true about Christianity without question. A great example of Dogma is the apostle’s and the Nicene creeds). “Sir, I am sorry, but you are mistaken. Rob Bell is not a heretic and he knows the Bible better than most”. He responded with a quote from Rob Bell (and I am sorry, but I cannot for the life of me remember what the quote was) that sounded quite bad on Bell’s part. He then claimed that Rob Bell’s heresies were beyond counting.

I left it that. I did not want to start a fight with someone that I didn’t know on a subject I felt passionate about. Also, I wasn’t informed enough. I needed to do some thinking.

I mentioned to my friend that I was going to write a blog about this stuff and she told me to listen to the sermon of this one guy before I did. I didn’t think it would make a difference, but I did. I chose to listen to this guys sermon on the emerging church as I felt it would be the most relevant to what I was thinking and feeling.

I had a few issues with this guy, but he seemed to have his head on straight on a few issues and the ministry he’s involved with is growing, so I don’t want to bash him (which is why I’m also not mentioning his name) but he mentioned Rob Bell. And he talked about Rob Bell. And He said that Rob Bell denied the virgin birth in Rob Bell’s book, Velvet Elvis. I thought to myself, This can’t be, Rob Bell is on the level. He would never  deny the virgin birth which is considered to be dogma by the church!

Well, I had two choices. I could take this other guys word for it (let’s call this other guy Luke). I could take Luke’s word for what Rob said, or I could read Velvet Elvis. I read the book. Sorry, Luke, but I needed to see this for myself. I only saw one reference to the virgin birth of Christ in Velvet Elvis and I am going to quote it word for word in order to explain what I think Rob means by what he says because I am of the same thought process in this. Here is the quote:

“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers through in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods have virgin births? But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the Gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at the time, the word virgin could mean several things. and what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?” (Bell 26)

That is the only time Rob Bell mentions the virgin birth in the entire book. I know because one of the reasons I put off writing this blog for so long was because I wanted to finish the book first. Where in that paragraph did Rob Bell say ‘I don’t believe in the virgin birth’? No where. He merely poses a question. And if you read it in the context of what he’s saying, you understand why he’s asking the question. He wants people to not have their faith completely torn down if one thing from their faith experience is proven different from what they thought it was. The virgin birth is a great example because when Isaiah wrote the word virgin he probably did mean a woman who got pregnant the first time she had sex. Rob Bell was giving us Christians a way to still believe if something turns out different than we expected.

All of this to say that Luke, the guy who preached on the emerging church, was misquoting Rob Bell. How can I trust a man who misquotes someone in order to bring him down. I think a more relevant question to ask is why was Luke trying to take down Rob Bell in the first place? Isn’t Rob Bell a Christian? Isn’t Luke a Christian? Don’t they both have Jesus as their personal savior? Isn’t that the place they should start from? Actually, I once heard a sermon by Rob Bell on that very subject. He basically said that Christians should not fight over the small stuff.

Here is where I finally get to the point of this blog. Christians should not fight over the small stuff. Doctrine can be the small stuff. For those who don’t know, doctrine is what can be disputed about. The 7 day creation account is doctrine. Women being pastors is doctrine. This is stuff we need to hold loosely and when we come across someone who does not believe the same as we do, we need to sometimes just agree to disagree and go back to what’s really important: Jesus.

What happens if we continue attacking our brothers and sisters? Did anyone find it weird that I named this blog, Learning Not To Cut Ourselves ? Who are we, as Christians? We are members of the Church. What is the Church? It is the body of Christ. So what are we doing when we attack people unjustly who are in the Body of Christ? We are stabbing ourselves in the arm!

I am not saying that we should not go after things that are truly heretical, but we need to think critically about them before we go after them. We can’t just misquote people and attack them. This Luke guy, he is a big shot. He’s the teaching pastor at a huge multi-site Church in the states. He has loads of people in his congregation and he just blatantly lied to them about what a brother in Christ said.

These guys who go after Rob Bell (like the guy in my friends facebook status) are not thinking critically about these issues and are instead attacking people unjustly. They pull apart quotes from books and from interviews and they give a new meaning to what these other guys say and it is wrong!

I listened to a broadcast of what was called ‘Pirate Christian Radio’ and the name suited them. When I think of pirates the first thing that comes to mind (after Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates) is an image of people who attack other things without mercy or bias. They are people who attack the other as long as it is different from them, and that is what these people did. They did not listen to what Rob Bell was saying in his sermon, but picked apart every sentence they did not understand at first. It could have made sense and even fit into what they thought about God, but they never gave it the chance.

Today (or perhaps yesterday as it is past midnight) was community day at my school and the ministry department had a guy come in and talk to us about a bunch of things. One thing he touched on was a group of two camps. ‘The New Reformers’ (who are starched Calvinists) and ‘The Post-Modern Thinkers’ and he said that both camps could learn a lot from one another instead of trying to tear each other apart.

I agree.

We need to learn from one another. We need to show love to one another and we need to stop stabbing ourselves in the arm. We are all in this body together, after all!

-Joshua

Trinitarian Baptism FTW??

To those who read my blog,

So, I am taking this Theology of Worship course at school and the big emphasis in this course is participating in worship with the focus on the Trinity rather than one aspect of God. I don’t get it. Well, it’s not that I don’t get it, but that it’s something I’m wrestling with.

James B. Torrance has a book that I’m reading for this course called,Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace where in it he says:

“Firstly, I have been a child of God from all eternity. Secondly, I became a child of God when Christ the Son lived, died and rose for me long ago. Thirdly, I became a child of God when the Holy Spirit... sealed in my faith and experience what had been planned from all eternity in the heart of the Father and what was completed once and for all in Jesus Christ” (Torrance 76).

Now Torrance is talking about baptism at this point in time. Here’s what I think: I believe in freewill over predestination. I do not believe God sits “up there” on a cloud and looks to heaven and makes a list saying, “yeah, he goes up, but him, he goes down”. I know there’s more to that thought process than all that, but that’s what I get out of it and I really don’t like it. I have an understanding of predestination because the Bible does speak of it but I don’t subscribe to it as God making the decision for us. It’s more that He knew before all things that I would choose. So when I first read this quote I thought to myself, “That’s all well and good, but how do you argue this whole Trinitarian thing from the whole freewill stance?” Then I realized that I don’t have to. Torrance (whether he meant it or not) argued it for me.

Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I look at this quote and think of God working in a stance of freewill. If God knows all things, then He would know that I would choose Him from when time began (and perhaps even from before that). He might have already cherished me as a child at that point.

If I was made a child of God when Christ lived, died and rose then perhaps my view on the cross is actually skewed. I look at the cross as something that was done once 2000 years ago. Now, doesn’t the Father exist outside of time? Then would He not look at the cross as not a moment in time, or as an eternal standing that is a significant today as it was yesterday and as it would be tomorrow? When I chose Christ, He took my hand and led me to the Father and it was the cross which He needed to get by in order to allow me to see the Father. He needed to bridge the gap with the cross. The cross that does not exist 2000 years ago, but here and now and also there and then, and even still there and soon. It did exist, it does exist, it will exist tomorrow. I really don’t think that means Christ is experiencing the cross all the time but more so that the Father sees the Cross when He sees those who chose Him and it is in the Cross that we are made children, even back then.

What really made it come together for me was when Torrance says faith and experience. He does not separate the two. He goes onto say that the Father planned this from eternity, but maybe the Father just knew about it from eternity. I don’t know. That experience thing really sticks with me. I don’t know if I would have gone to Christ if my experiences were different. If I didn’t have the people praying for me that I had, if I didn’t get so wrecked so many times in my youth, if I wasn’t so utterly broken that weekend, then perhaps I wouldn’t be musing on the Trinity at 2:40am and instead be  in a bed in Brampton Ontario wondering if there was more to life than my atheist views allowed me to see. I don’t know.

So what does this have to do with baptism? Well a lot, actually. We are called to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. We are to baptize in the Trinity. What does baptizing in the Trinity mean if not recognizing how the Trinity has been active in our lives? It means to recognize that the Father knew you and what you would do from the get go, that the Son’s bridge was set up and is in place in eternity for all to cross if they wish, and that the Spirit takes our faith and our experience and draws us to that bridge so that we can meet with our adopted dad who has been waiting such a long time to embrace us and as I write this I am so filled with emotion right now. I am realizing this love, maybe even for the first time (truly for the first time) or perhaps I’m just re-falling for the same God that I fell for almost 7 years ago. This Father who has taken me out of such crap and blessed me with true love over and over again.

I am not saying that I understand the Trinity or that this is what Torrance meant when he wrote these words (in fact, he might be quite upset with the conclusions I’ve drawn up for myself) but I am saying that I love my dad, my ‘Father who arte in heaven’, my papa, and I’m glad I have Him to run too.

Back to work. Sorry for rattling on.

- Joshua