Cheese Wiz

I will start this post with a warning. If you are a Christian and you are easily offended, stop reading now.

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If you are still with me you either didn't heed the warning, you're not easily offended, or you're not a Christian.

First, if you are the last, I want to apologize for the majority of Christians who by their actions and they way they behave give a bad example of what the Christian faith is supposed to be.

Now, to explain that, I want to talk about the phenomenon in the Christian Church that I call Cheese Wiz.

I have been dealing with something for the last couple of years that has recently went from an annoyance to a personal quest. I am on a quest to show believers in Christ that they can no longer be cheesy. Thus the name Cheese Wiz.

First, I want to examine the actual product of Cheese Wiz. Well, it comes in a pressurized can. It kind of looks like it could be cheese, but deep down, or maybe even right on the surface you know that it's not. You know that, if you change a molecule here and there, you just have semi-solid, almost liquid plastic. You squirt this substance on a cracker and it usually just ends up making you sick.

Now, how does this apply to the church as a whole? Well, when a Christian is talking to a non-Christian and there needs to be a translator present, that is Cheese Wiz. When a church has no relevance in the community, that's cheese wiz. When a Christian artist only performs in churches, that is cheese wiz.

How are we to be salt and light if we are disconnected from the community that needs Christ? Do we really think that if Jesus came today for the first time that he would come into our churches? I contend that if he was on the scenes today, he would turn the tables at any of our churches, just like he did at the temple. He would call us "White washed tombs filled with dead mens bones."

I, for one, don't want to get so caught up in church that I forget the reason for church, and the call that is placed on us as the church.

I'm tired of placing silly, contrived rules on people. Rules that are only convenient for the church, rules that God never put in place. Lets stop taking one verse out of the Bible and building doctrines around it, instead of taking the whole council and seeing what God is really trying to say.

We could look at the verse that says that women shouldn't talk in church, while ignoring the fact that Paul had two prophetesses (women preachers) that went around with him. Things like that upset me, because doctrines are built around things like that and they severely limit the power of the church, because of ignorance.

Another one that gets me is the holiness churches. The take a verses that say, "Be holy as I am holy.", or, "Be perfect as I am perfect.", and think that it has to do with the way a person looks! When are we going to stop looking at modern translations and to back to the original meaning? Concordances are out there for a reason. We need to learn how to use them. When the bible says be perfect, it doesn't mean to be without flaw, it means to be mature. God is saying GROW UP!

And I'm saying it now. We need to grow up. We need to stop acting like adolescents and start behaving like mature people.

I have had many people call me irreverent. That I say things that shouldn't be said. That I'm too offensive with the positions I take on a lot of issues. I had parents up in arms when I was teaching the youth group about Daniel translating the vision of the statue for Nebuchadnezzar. What was it that I said that would get the parents up in arms? Part of the passage talks about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I was talking about them for a second and I said "My shack, your shack and a billy goat." Ahh, that is soooooo offensive!?!?!? How could I say something like that. It's sac religious!

My response to that is... Yes, it is sac religious and we need more of it. Don't we understand yet that religion is bad? Devotion is good, religious devotion is bad. I'm devoted to Christ and His call on my life. I'm not going to get into a rut of doing this and doing that to prove that I'm devoted. I'm going to do what he called me to do.

My point? If you're going to call me irreverent, answer this question, is it more irreverent to act foolish, when you're called to act foolish, or is it more irreverent to act like a board when you are called to be foolish?

I try to present myself in a Hallelujah fashion. The word hallelujah comes from the Hebrew (or Aramaic, forget which.) word halal. The word halal means to "Act clamorously foolish." The word jah is shortened form of Jehovah. So, hallelujah means to act clamorously foolish before the Lord.

All of these things get to me. And they all, in my opinion separate the people who need Christ from the Christ that they need. Can we, as a church, please get back to the true call of Christ, which is:

Matthew 28: 19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Kicking Against the Goads

Acts 26:14–15 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.

goad (noun)
1. A long stick with a pointed end used for prodding animals.
2. An agent or means of prodding or urging; a stimulus.

 

Ah, the ultimate image of rebellion.  It's like when a parent tells a child not to touch the hot pan, what does the kid do?  They grab it and get hurt.

Kicking against the goads is like that.  Imagine begin an ox pulling a plow.  The master is using a goad (a cattle prod, if you will.) to get you to go where he wants you to go, but you, being a rebellious and disobedient ox, start to kick.  Who do you think kicking against the cattle prod hurts?  Surely, it doesn't hurt the master, it hurts the ox.

I am a youth pastor.  Last night I saw Saul.  He was right there in front of me in the form of an 18 year old kid.  Like Saul, he had grown up in church.  Unlike Saul, he had fallen away from the faith the last few years. (Saul never fell away from the faith, he just killed Christians in the name of Judaism.) 

This young man and a friend came to the youth group for the first time last night.  They both sat in back and were as close to the door as you can possibly be.  At that point the difference between the two became apparent.

Let me explain, first, I am not a normal youth pastor.  I don't, for the most part, just get up and read a passage and talk about it.  I like to, on occasion, act out a parable or something like that.  Last night I taught on Matthew 25, the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  I had a couple girls act out the rolls of the foolish and wise virgins, and a couple guys act out the rolls of the bridegroom and the herald for the bridegroom, and I was the humble, yet exceedingly talented narrator :)

As I started the mayhem, and it was truly mayhem, this young mans friend came up and joined the rest of the group.  He was getting into the way this lesson was being taught.

Now the young man I am talking about though, got even closer to the door, and after I was done with the narrative he got up and walked out.  He came back a couple minutes later.  Sat for a few minutes and walked out again.  Rinse and repeat.

I talked to him after the class, and he apologized for leaving, but, he told me he can't handle religion.  I asked why.  He told me about growing up in church and how his mom really beat religion into him (metaphorically beat of course, not literally).  So now he is rebelling against that which his mom thrust on him.

Rebellion is a funny thing.  You think you are rebelling against bondage, but all you are doing is getting yourself bound up all the more tight.  Most of the time, the thing you are rebelling against is the very thing that could, indeed, give you freedom. 

If you are in a spiral of rebellion, I want to encourage you to step out of that cycle and make peace with that thing you are rebelling against.  It may just be the thing that sets you free.

 

Dive Deep!

Music to My Ears

There are many things that are music to my ears.

I love hearing members of my family telling me that they love me. I love hearing birds in the morning, etc., etc. These things are those that most of us love to hear.

I'm not addressing those things today. Today I want to talk about actual music.

My wife and I are on the Praise and Worship team at our church. We have actually started to record some of our original songs that we've put together over the years. So far, this has been a very rewarding pursuit, as I believe that we have put together some of the best praise and worship music out there.

Yes, several of our songs are cheesy and hokey, but most of them are not. They reflect different times in our walks and the struggles that we've gone through.

This sets the stage for something that I was able to do last night. I took the first song that we recorded (after much mastering) and created a ring tone for my cell phone! (If anyone wants it leave me a comment and I'll get you a copy of the tone.)

Now, when my phone rings, the music to my ears is my wife's beautiful singing voice and my bass (as well as everyone else on the team)!

This is exciting for me because I love what I do with the worship team. If I could make a career of playing music, I would. I am completely aware that at the tender age of 35 that I am a little past my prime as far as performing in the music industry, but it would be fun.

At least in the short term I get to hear something that I helped create every time my phone rings, and that my friends, is music to my ears.

Dive Deep,

Shaun

Fathers Day

This is always a weird time of year for me. I'm torn between my past and my present and there is a battle inside of me.

My past is sad, in that I've never known my Father.

My present is very happy, in that I have 3 beautiful boys of my own now.

The conflict over being a Dad and never having an example of a dad is always present on Fathers Day.

I'm not going to write a whole lot. I think that ultimately the best way to describe how I feel is to listen to the latest message from my church. Toward the end of the message, I take time away from the sound board and my recording duties to go up and talk about my past, and my present. I said it much better there than I ever could here.

Here is a link to the podcast for Family Fellowship Christian Center and the actual message.

Magesty in the Mundane

There is magesty in everyday life. Sometimes it's something big, sometimes it's taking time to notice the little things.

An example of real life, big time, show of the hand of God, in my life was when my mom was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer (at least the early stages..l pre-cancer). She had second-opinions, everything came back agreeing with the diagnosis, so she had a historectemy. The doctor who performed the historectemy said she didn't need it, as there was no trace... yes, NO TRACE of the pre-cancer cells. There was no indication that anything was wrong with her uterus at all. We had been praying for weeks, thanking God for healing her, and... He did.

If she were the only one that I knew that had that same story, or a slightl veriation of it, then I might chalk it up to coincedence, but I've known at least 5 others who have had that testimony alone. Medicaly verifiable miricles.

But those types of things are easy to see when they happen, and they don't happen in ones life everyday. I'm talking about thos things that happen in everyday life. Like when you get a call from a friend at just the right time to help you get through a tough day. Or, when one of my kids gets up early, just to say goodbye in the morning, and it turns out to be a tough day, and that last hug and kiss serves as a reminder of why I get up and go to work in the morning.

I just want to remind you to take notice of the small things. There are little miricles that happen everyday, they are just waiting to be noticed.

Ultimately, I just want to remind myself to not over look the little things. I have a habit of ignoring the little things in my life, and helping people to achieve big things in their lives. That is just the type of person I am. I have to remember that I need big things to happen in my life as well, and if I want that, I need to recognize and thank God for the little things that happen every day.