a thought in regards to the future work in auckland

As I write this post we are hopeful that we will be returning to Auckland in approximately five months.  I get excited when I think about returning and beginning our work in central Auckland.  So much prayer and preparation has taken place in the last year and a half and I'm eager to get on the ground and start pursuing what we believe God has called us to do.

Alongside the eagerness and excitement though there also exists some amount of trepidation.  We know we have no strength or ability in and of ourselves to bring any success from this work.  We could plant a church and have nobody show up.  Ever.  Our time of raising support has forced us to learn to depend on God's provision in God's timing but I'm not always sure that I've learned that lesson well.  When I think about going into Auckland I wonder how to break through the relativism and hedonism, how to speak to in a way that doesn't come across as trite and cliche to those who have fully embraced cynicism, how to love past indifference.  When I think about these things I'm all to aware of my own lack of love and my own indifference, my hedonism, cynicism,  and apathy, not to mention my feeble words and weak tongue.  In times like these I need to be reminded that this mission we are being called to isn't about us and it's success doesn't ultimately rest in our eloquence or ability.  Tonight I read some helpful words from Christopher Wright on this very issue:

     We are seeking to accomplish what God himself wills to happen.  This is both humbling and reassuring.  It is humbling inasmuch as it reminds us that all our efforts would be in vain but for God's determination to be known.  We are neither the initiators of the mission of making God known to the nations nor does it lie in our power to decide how the task will be fully accomplished or when it may be deemed to be complete.  But it is also reassuring.  for we know that behind all our fumbling efforts and inadequate communication stands the supreme will of the living God, reaching out in loving self-revelation, incredibly willing to open blind eyes and reveal his glory through the treasures of his gospel delivered in the clay pots of his witnesses (2 Cor 4:1-7).  

                                                     - The Mission of God

my campaign progress

My mom sent me this link earlier today.  

Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who have backed my campaign.  However, it is with my deepest regrets that I must step out of the race.  I think there already two poor choices for our next president.  I'd hate to be responsible for confusing the election even more with yet another bad option.

good bumper sticker theology, for once

My friend Jeremy recently recommended that we watch the 1 season reality show, "One Punk Under God."  This show is basically a year in the life and ministry of Jay Bakker, son of scandal phenoms Jim and Tammy Faye.  The show is interesting on several levels.  And while at the end of the day I have some serious issues with Jay's theology I also have a lot of respect for the man.  I also think his church has produced the best "Christian" bumper stickers I've ever seen.

boycotting beijing, pt. 2

I'm not usually a fan of World Magazine but a friend of mine sent me the link to an article they wrote critiquing the current venue of the Olympic games and outlining a few of the events that haven't been discussed as eagerly as the Michael Phelps gold-rush.  Here's an excerpt:

In National Stadium we glimpsed a seemingly hapless President Bush, who removed his coat and bantered with Russian ex-president Vladimir Putin while Russia's tanks streamed across the border into Georgia. We saw an amiable President Hu Jintao and a stolid Jacques Rogge, the Interna-tional Olympic Committee president, take seats of honor knowing Hu had barred athletes and others (including U.S. Olympian Joey Cheek) from attending because of their political views.

And then there is the vast contrast between the pageantry in Beijing's stadium this month and duller echoes of oppression outside. We likely will never know the extent of the Chinese crackdown leading up to and following these Olympics. We do know that untold foreigners plus Chinese, even Beijing residents, were banished from the city.

We know that three Americans on the eve of the Olympic opening were arrested for staging a peaceful and unobtrusive protest in Tiananmen Square by unfurling a banner reading, "Christ is King." We know that Chinese officials harassed a team of Americans who host summer camps for Chinese orphans. The orphans, ages 5-18, are considered ineligible for adoption because they are disabled or too old (14 is the legal age limit for adoption). Officers shut down the Beijing camp site during the Olympics. Police kept workers at the camp's site in Nanchang, five hours south of Beijing, under what one worker described to me as "campus arrest," unable to travel outside the university where the camp was held.

If you'd like to read the rest of the article you can find it here.

the quandary of postmodern man

A few posts back I mentioned that I had picked up the new Beck album.  In that post I also mentioned how well-crafted and thoughtful his music tends to be.   After several dozen listen through's my appreciation of the man has only increased.  In many ways I think the yearnings and questions in Beck's music are often representative not just of my generation but of all who've drunk deeply at the well of postmodernism.  While all the songs on the new album are quite good I think the title track is one of the most poignant.

Modern Guilt

I feel uptight when I walk in the city  

I feel so cold when I'm at home

Feels like everything's starting to hit me

I lost my bearings ten minutes ago

Modern guilt, I'm stranded with nothing

Modern guilt, I'm under lock and key

Misapprehension is turning into convention

Don't know what I've done but I feel ashamed

Standing outside the glass on the sidewalk

These people talk about impossible things

And I'm falling out of the conversation

Like a pawn piece in a human shield

Modern guilt, is all in our hands

Modern guilt, won't get me to bed

Say what you will, smoke your last cigarette

Don't know what I've done but I feel afraid

I can definitely relate to these feelings.  There are many times when I focus on the harsh realities of life and on my own weakness and failings.  When these things are all I see then life is truly bleak, it's like floating adrift at sea.  Fortunately there is an anchor that grounds me in an eternal reality which may not give complete answers to all the horror and indignity of the present realities but which instills the hope that they will be righted.  This hope draws me out of myself and the darkness of hyper-introspection.  It takes me past all of my imperfection and guilt to a place of healing, forgiveness and acceptance.  I hope this hope finds Beck someday and frees him from his misapprehension.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:18-19

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." - Hebrews 10:23

boycotting beijing

Last night Brooke had a group of girls over and at one point several of them were talking excitedly about one of the current Olympic showdowns and they asked me if I had seen it.  When I replied that I was actually boycotting the Olympics this year I received several confused looks.  One of the girls asked me why I would do such a thing and when I told her it was because they were being held in China I got a very dismissive response of, "Oh whatever." 

I realize that since the Olympics started over four days ago making mention of my "boycott" now is a bit anti-climactic but I figured I might as well put up a few of my thoughts as well as a couple of links for consideration.  It's not like many people view this site or that even those of you who do will care much about my opinion on this issue but I figured, what the heck. 

I don't need (or want) to go into much detail here so let me summarize by saying that allowing Beijing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics just seems to me to be a clear demonstration of global hypocrisy and ambivalence.  My reasoning here is simple, China has been and continues to be one of the worst human's rights violators in the world.  Despite full awareness of this fact many nations seem to simply be ignoring China's record as they join in the games there this week.  This wouldn't be a big issue if it weren't for the fact that many, if not most, of these nations didn't also claim to be defenders and proponents of liberty and justice.

Maybe I'm just cynical (okay, I know I'm cynical but that doesn't make me wrong on this) but it seems to me that this is mainly about the money.  The fact one of the worlds most repressive and brutal communist regimes also happens to have a bursting economy that many nations want to trade with seems to me to be why there hasn't been more of an international outcry over holding the Olympics there.  Let's not make them angry so we can get some of their wealth.  

Oh yeah, and in all the talk of global warming and climate change over the past few years let's not forget that China is unabashedly one of the worst polluters in the world.  I don't know man, it just seems to me like the world's moral compass is way off on this.  I've heard that during the opening ceremony much was being said about peace and harmony.  Unfortunately the Chinese government doesn't really believe in these things and actually upholds repression, brutality, persecution, and censorship as their values.  Why are we injecting their economy with billions of dollars by allowing them the privilege of hosting the Olympics?

Here are some links for your perusal (if you care):

Amnesty International's report on China

To Change the Olympics, Change the Channel

Why I am Boycotting the China Olympics

Reporters without Borders: Beijing Boycott

Boycott 2008 Communist Olympics

It's Happened Before, Why Not Now

Olympic Watch

U.S. Olympic Sponsors

sad but true

     "The world is rarely neutral toward the gospel.  Like the evil spirits cast out by Jesus, the powers and principalities of our world recognize that Jesus is a threat...  They may evade his clams by rejecting him; there is constant evidence of that rejection.  Their more effective strategy, however, is to enlist the Christian community in various forms of gospel reduction, by subtle or more direct means persuading us that there are good reasons to domesticate the gospel, tame Christ, and make him and his kingdom fit into our patterns and plans.  What Satan could not tempt Jesus to do in the desert, the church has constantly done as it has allowed the gospel to be 'conformed to this world' (Rom. 12:2)." - Darrell L. Guder

quote-worthy

I read this line last night and chuckled with delight over the utter truthfulness of it:

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves." - Albert Camus

In my thinking this observation is correct on both counts.

travelin music

Brooke and I leave first thing in the morning and head to Minnesota for 5 or so days. As a late first father's day present Brooke let me pck up a couple of new CD's (thanks baby). I love having the time to sit and listen through an entire CD while driving long distances. I find that it helps me absorb the music much more fully and clearly. Anyway, I got 3 CD's for the road so here are 3 videos for your enjoyjment.

Modern Guilt is the new album by Beck. Beck is one of the few artists whose album's I don't need to preview before purchasing. While I don't like all of his stuff everything he puts out is well crafted, thoughtful, and worth listening to. I couldn't actually embed a video from this album for some reason but you can view the Orphans video by clicking here.

Next up is the "White Winter Hymnal" video by Fleet Foxes from their self-titled album. My friend Irum recommended this band to me and I'm glad she did. However, when I was previewing the album I realized I'd heard some of it before. White Winter Hymnal in particular is a song that I know I've heard either in a movie or on a TV show. I can't figure out where I know this song from and it's driving me nuts. Anybody know where I heard this?


Lastly, another recommendation from Irum. Deer Tick is basically the brainchild of John McCauley and according to the website the music "plays like super sweet blues, country, and grunge influenced music." That's a fair enough description but you can describe it yourself after you watch the video.