Dum dah dah, doo, doo, doo..

This week is Indiana Jones week. Thursday night the new movie comes out and i got to tell you, i am wicked excited. When i was a kid there was NO ONE cooler than Indiana Jones, for about a billion reasons. I honestly thought all adult males were just like him, even my own dad. i loved it.

This week we are actually teaching about the movie in our contemporary and early services. I will be preaching a message called "the Gospel According to Indiana Jones". It will be all about how we just feel we need total comfort in Western Christianity, but God wants us UNcomfortable. We will have tons of clips from the 1st 3 films and i gotta tell you, it is a dream come true for me. Granted it is a little self-indulgant to do a topic i love so much, but the scripture behind it will be very convicting and challenging. Should be cool. And with that said i have to tie all this together. So i shall do it now. Thanks, and keep up the e-mailing about my posts. Thanks,
Matt

Why I dont wear "church clothes"

Before i answer a question that i field often I wanted to explain things for those of you who have been wanting me to answer the follow-ups to "Love & Respect". The truth is i answered them once, for about an hour, and then my laptop froze up and i lost the whole post plus alot of research. So now if you want my response just call or e-mail me and i shall let you know. But on to the fun stuff.

I often get asked why our ministry team in the Contemporary service doesnt wear "church clothes". Well to be honest with you i have a few answers i always give, but they all basically mean the same things. I will give you 3 reasons here

1.I think the idea of church clothes is all together odd.
What i mean is, the American/Western way of church has risen so far into how church should LOOK or ACT, that it even places requirements on how to DRESS. Its a little silly. I wear a shirt and jeans most sundays, and for me, that is church clothes. To a certain outfit like a tie, jacket, dress shoes, etc, for the one-hour Sunday service makes very little sense to me. What i mean is, why portray a professional outfit to people, when, we arent? We arent a BUSINESS. Some say we are, but they are 100% mistaken. Jesus isnt a product, he is a creator, lover of everything good, and a savior, but not a product we are selling. E-mail me and i will expand on this thought.

2. Worship on sunday is killing worship monday-saturday.
What I mean is, as a church we emphasize so hard on that hour, that we leave very little reverance or importance for the entire week. Worship is so many things, from service, so appriciation, to effort, to love. And to be frank, listening and singing songs and hearing we talk for 30 minutes is sort of "mailing it in" as far as calling yourself a worshipper of God. When we ask people to dress different (or better as some say) on Sunday, we are calling Sunday the numero uno of days so get ready to experience God, and that is, well, stupid. Every day is a new chance to serve and experience. As scholars say, worship is a positive response to what God has done, is doing and will do in your personal life. For why call Sunday a "worship service" and not the rest of the week? So to me, to dress up on that day only furthers the importance of that day over all others.

3. I'm not traditional.
I know, no surprise, but i am not. The old songs are just that, OLD. They arent evil, they arent lame, but they are out of touch with today's society. If you dont listen to that style on your radio, why choose it to praise Christ? And with the tradtional type, i think you border on being religious. And when we are religious we seem to lose touch with Christ to begin with. It seems like we kind of forget that we arent hear for religious "practices", but we are hear for Jesus. Now i know we have many who consider themselves traditional, and i am fine with that. You have your woredrobe i have mine. Dont tell our contemporary tribe how to act or dress, and they wont do it to you either.

And a bonus forther:

4. I am who I am.
If you are coming to join us on Sunday or Saturday night (will explain this later) then you are here to see us, not someone else. People who identify with me, do it because i am 100% transparent. I will tell you my weaknesess, my faults, my loves, and the things that annoy me within a 30 minute sermon, because you need to see me, not someone i want to be or someone that anyone else wants me to be. AS the author John Burke once said, when it comes to church, No perfect people allowed.


So yes, i wont change, at least not anytime soon. I have been approached to, but i respectfully decline, always. But if you have anymore questions, let me know.

I have lost 30 pounds so far!! (and other useless information)

So yes, i lost 30 pounds so far on my diet, just short of 2 months in, which is, great. its really cool to know that the exercise, dieting and all that is paying off, and i havent felt better in years, but then there are the tough issues. Emily and i have been saving up for a car for quite a while, and waiting for the beloved stimulus check to come in the mail. Today we got it and i get zero dollars for me, so instead of 1500 we get 900. which by my estimation makes it virtually impossible to get a reliable car anytime soon and we need two. so to say i am bummed is the understatement of the year. Not sure what we are going to do at the moment i guess, like alot of us right now. Gas prices are huge, everything is expensive and bills keep coming. But hey, prayer works, so we will see.

Thanks,
Matt

Questions Answered (Finally)

Online Community

Is it me or is anyone thinking of distancing themselves from the online community all together? I mean i used to be a huge myspace person, but anymore everytime i log on all i can think about is how much of a breeding ground it is for videos driven by women and young girl doing things that would give me a heart attack if as a father or just people who need to work. I remember the days when chat rooms 1st came out, it was sweet. I am from southern ohio so i can remember when we had this thing called MIRC and a chat room called the LOBBY. We would use it to talk to people we never though we ever would and hook up with desperate women, which in hindsight caused much more problems that solutions. But now it seems to have gotten worse.

I go on facebook, and it is about 95% cleaner than myspace, but yet still i find myself really not caring about any of it. I guess the question i have is, has the online community made us a global community overnight, or has it killed community all together?

Take shows like "To Catch A Predator". Now i will admit, i couldnt love this show more, it is both sad, scary and hillarious (when the guys say they just came to "talk"). But it is amazing how much a impersonal world has evolved into a world where you say seemingly say or do anything as long as you are in the friendly confines of your computer. And almost every time a guy gets caught he has seen the show before, but yet still does it, but why?

To me it is because we have created a new fantasy world like for the nerds (sorry if thats you) that play world of warcraft, or the people that find a mate on eHarmony (once again, sorry). You want to be something you are not, so you go the extra mile to make certain you are. The worst part to me is that parents still dont get it, that they just need to stop allowing computers to be in their child's bedroom and not out in the open so that they can be safely monitored. so you know, the question stands, is all of this a good thing?

Well yes and no. I love the net because of all of the information. to prepare a sermon or to learn what is going on in the world has never been easier to access. But we must be careful, otherwise we are only fooling ourselves.

Plus a new observation about myself when it comes to this, does anyone else think of To Catch A Predator when you see that a male adult friend has a IM or Yahoo screenname? I honestly do every single time. my fault i guess.

But anyway that is my take on the online community. I would love to here yours as well.

God and money....

I noticed something rather special today in my reading about Jesus time. We kind of dont pay much attention to Jesus' words at times because we sort of take them at face value until we finally realize that he meant something pretty great and we missed it. Take my wife's favorite passage from the Bible, this is Matthew 6:25-34.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[a]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


Now read that section one more time.


Okay see the thing about this is we always place this all of just the big worrying thing of those times, because after all, they were a bunch of people under Roman rule and they were a bunch of people who were among other things poor. But look at this part of it though. Read now the verse before this whole section, he says,


24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.


This section seems to really be inspired by money. And i know we both love and hate money. If you are like me and have very little, you dont love money so much, but you would like more. But here as Jesus says, we shouldnt let it be our slavemaster, it is after all, just cash. My challenge i suppose is just for you today to think about all of our finacial worries in this economy and think about how important it really is.

Should everything be Christian?

One of my favorite sites on the internet has been www.Godtube.com. Its a great site, it is basically Youtube, but with a big Christian side to it. I usually hate the idea of Christians taking something from the world and claiming it as their own, but when it come to things like youtube or myspace, i see it as a need. I think that myspace and youtube alot of time are a breeding ground for dirty web-cam videos or porn-spam messages, but with Godtube you get a sense that it doesnt have to be that way. It is all clean, Christ-centered spirituality, and i pretty entertaining too. I mean yes, you have have some horrible Michael W. Smith or Steven Curtis Chapman to contend with, but overall, it aint too bad.

But that brings up the question of the day though, should we have things like these? Well one thing i believe is that we should. Almost all the videos that appear on Godtube also appear on Youtube, so if you say the message is hidden from the world, it isnt. Also it is actually a web-site that you can go on and believers can actually converse without any creepy atheist or gnostic intervention. So yes i enjoy it.

One cool thing i got from it was that i found a great video of American Idol Season 7 contestant, Jason Castro, singing the K-Love favorite, "Clumsy", and it is great. I want it on his album. He is singing it at his church just before he left to be in the top 24. He actually is a great Christian kid with a deep faith, so i used to say his big smile was on the count of pot, now i believe it is because of Jesus, which is....better.

Anyways, i think Christians can claim anything they wish to as far as i am concerned, it is all art, and art is up to interpretation by the beholder, so you choose for yourself. i guess. Plus as the Bible says, all truth is God's truth, so i guess God can claim whatever he wants. Anyways, I tried to attach the video of Jason Castro singing, but it didnt work, i will try later,

Matt