Forgotten Roots

And we begin again. A new series, a new journey, and really the beginning of a much larger journey in which I hope to answer three big questions:

1. Who is God?
2. Who is Man?
3. What is the Church?

These questions will lead us down some interesting paths into scripture, history, our culture and into ourselves. Have no fear - we will take our time and plumb the depths in a leisurely way, taking as long as it takes. But, as they say, "a journey begins with the first step," so lets get going!

To understand our world, to understand how we function as The Church within that world, and within our culture we have to really understand who humanity is.

• · Not western cultural, secular representations of what humanity is
• · Not religious characterizations of who humanity could be
• · Not a capitalist dream or a socialist ideal
• · We need to see humanity in all its glory and all of its messiness

To be able to follow God, to serve Him well, to share Him with others and live out Christ’s mission in the world, we need to know who God is.

• · Not just cultural representations of Him
• · Not Sunday School answers, happy-cartoonish characterizations of God
• · Not the inoculate (shot) of the story that prevents us from seeing
• · We need to see God, as He has revealed Himself to us through Scripture in a long history of interaction with His people

To understand who we are and who God is we need to take a journey back in time to the very beginning of our history of faith, into the Genesis of our relationship with God at the beginning of all things. This journey will lead us into the soil of our reality today and there we will find the forgotten roots of the human story and the Divine Identity; the story we find ourselves in – our real and truest selves, our intended image and God’s ever-changing, never-wavering love.

This Journey begins “in the beginning” and starts with God, Man and a garden.

We will spend the next 6 or 7 weeks (with a brief intermission) exploring the book of Genesis. If you would like to study ahead, let me suggest a few framing questions for your reading:

1. How is God portrayed in Genesis? What sort's of speeches come out of His mouth?
2. How is Man portrayed in Genesis? What sort's of speeches come out of their mouthes?
3. What is the author of Genesis trying to say and how does he use words to say it?

It is my hope that, at the end of our tour through Genesis, we will all have a much better understanding of God and our identity in relation to Him. And, I hope that along the way, you will rediscover some ancient practices of the church that bring new meaning and rootedness to your faith (Hint - this means some experimentation on Sunday Morning!)

Looking forward to the journey - Pastor Jamie

How can a good God judge people and send them to Hell?

Right on the heals of Exclusivism, the perceived Judgmental nature of Christians and of the Christian God is a hot topic in the culture.

If religious exclusivism is the primary barrier to world peace, then the judgmental nature (who's in and who's out both here on earth and in eternity) of religion simply supports the problem. We have all heard sermons on sin and punishment (hell in particular). The concepts of Judgment and Tribulation (from Revelations) has been used literally to "scare the hell out of us." No one wants to go to hell! (at least no sane person!) Right?

But how do we reconcile Hell and Judgment with the Truth of God's identity as "Love?"

Yet, if we dig and explore this essential theology we will discover that the Christ teachings on Hell and Judgment are crucial. The Christian understandings of Hell and Judgment help us to understand our own hearts, help us to live at peace in the world and teach us the Love of God.

To many of us this sounds backward. So, lets explore it.

• Do you have a story of encountering someone for whom "Judgment and Hell" was a real problem to joining the Christian Way? Why was it so difficult for them to accept?
• Is it personally difficult for you to reconcile these concepts with a Loving God? Why?
• How do you reconcile these teachings with a Loving God?
• What is sin? (seems unrelated, but we have to understand "sin" in order for God to have a base line from which to Judge humanity.)

Can there really be just one way to heaven?

Twenty years ago, if you were to ask the question "what is the greatest barrier to world peace?" the response would have been a resounding - "Political Idealism." In other words - communism vs. democracy/capitalism - this conflict was the most eminent threat to world peace, and to human life in general!

Today, if you ask the same question, most people will respond with "religion." They may not immediately boil it down to that; they may talk about terrorism, radical fundamentalism, middle eastern land conflict, or even (in America) social concerns (ecology, abortion.) But, at the heart all of these major national and world conflicts lies religion and beyond religion an exclusive claim to absolute truth. Every major religious organization and philosophical system has one (or two, or three, or four).

The problem with absolute truth claims is that they can create a spiral slide into some pretty bad places. If you accept a truth claim then you must reject all others. The statement goes: "My truth is the only and supreme truth, therefore your truth is inaccurate, inferior, or just plain wrong." This sets you up for feeling superior to other religions or belief systems. Superiority leads to a separation from community with other faiths. Separation leads to lack of knowledge (we cease to know them), and lack of knowledge leads to stereotypes and dehumanization. Once you have been able to see them as "enemies," "fundamentalists," or "dangerous" it is an easy step toward violence - whether passive or active.

But if this is true, how should we Christians live? We are not silly people who want the wars and terror attacks to continue. We really do "just want everyone to get along!" But, how can we all "just get along" as long as the major world religions continue to assert their own spiritual superiority to the exclusion of others?

At this point, many of you are saying, "wait a minute here - is he going to pull one of those inclusive, unitarian, 'I'm ok -your ok' arguments? Be at ease my friend!

I face the same problem that every Christ follower in our world today faces. Absolute truth claims which exclude people from salvation/heaven are the main cause of violence and injustice in our world- and yet I desperately believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation/heaven.

What do I do with this? How do I hold true to my beliefs without contributing to the problem?

I believe that there is a way, but I'm not going to post it here. Rather, I'd like to leave the problem as a topic for discussion.

What do you think?

Out of the Questions...

We have started a new school year, and a new season of plumbing the depths of faith, culture and experience; the depths of God! I am super excited about the new series we have started, "Out of the Questions and into the Mystery. I hope that this will be a good opportunity for you to think through your faith (nominal, absent, burned out, or passionate) and ask some tough questions that will lead you into deeper faith. I know that living through these questions has caused my faith to grow stronger, rather than falter - and I hope you will join me in the journey.

So, on to the questions. This week we will jump into a discussion that is foundational to all religious belief - "Does God Exist?"

This is obviously not a simple "yes or no" question; it invites us to expand and explain our thoughts. Most people will find that, when this questions is posed - the answer they have is never definitive, but actually subjective - subject to interpretation. And, that's ok.

Sunday I'll share some of the barriers to belief in God that I faced and how they were overcome and a few reasons for believing in God. I hope that it will intrigue those of you who are struggling with concept of a personal God, encourage those of you who are questioning, refresh those of you who are disillusioned, and empower those of you who are passionate.

So there it is: Our question is, "Does God Exist?" And, more importantly, "How do you Know?"

Post here and in Facebook - lets get the discussion going.

Ideas for Risk-taking mission

At our Sunday service a while back we made a list of things we can do to work toward accomplishing the mission of Christ in our community. Below is that list and a few notes of encouragement about how to go about it.

OUR IDEAS

Interact with the needy through volunteering

- Work at the food bank

- Volunteer at Care Net

- Food drive for the food bank (tell your kids why your buying an extra bag of food!)

Have someone over for dinner

- An international student or two

- A stranger in the neighborhood or from the store

- A next door neighbor that you haven’t connected with

Random Acts of Kindness

- An organized day of service (does someone want to plan this?)

- Randomly act kindly on your own! Clean a yard, mow a lawn, bring a meal, buy someone’s lunch!

Celebrate Recovery

- KO Spangler leads groups that help people struggling with addictions and hang-ups to overcome them. Join her in starting a group right here!

- Three or four people are needed to join KO in a group training to make this happen here in Pullman.

Do Good to your enemies

- An extremely difficult step – but worthwhile.

- Find a way to bless someone who curses you or give to someone who would harm you.

Some Cautions and suggestions

Don’t go alone! Every idea we have can and should be accomplished in community with someone else. Jesus always sent his disciples in two’s and threes – it increases our safety, and our joy!

Listen to God. The Holy Spirit will prompt our words and actions as we listen. He has prepared the soil of hearts and minds ahead of time, if we are listening He will direct us into effective mission.

Don’t wait, act! Sometimes we don’t hear the voice of God, but we should act anyway. Don’t let lack of “spiritual direction” paralyze you into inactivity. God’s grace is sufficient when we miss the mark, the point is to try in love!

What are some other ideas? What have you done to move toward making these ideas a reality? How can we creatively reach our culture?

How do you see?

About seven months ago I got my first pair of “full-time” glasses. It’s amazing to me just how distorted my vision was before my glasses. Things far away became fuzzy, things up close gave me headaches, and everything in the middle just was not sharp.

Of course I didn’t really notice any of this until I got the glasses (except the headaches of course). Without the little warning sign of pain I would have gone through my life never being able to see everything clearly. Thanks to the miracle of science – I can really see well.

Yesterday, in my sermon, I made a statement about the role of Scripture (The Text, or the Bible – you choose the name you like best) in helping us see and understand our human experience. I said that the Bible is “the lens through which we interpret everything we see.” When we look at good art we see many things, but when we look through the lens of scripture a piece of art may say something completely different. When we spend time in Nature, we may experience transcendence and the lens of Scripture shapes that experience and helps us make sense of it.

Reading and studying scripture is like getting the right prescription for glasses. When we finally put on those glasses we can really see things for what they are.

The thing is, before we put on Biblical lenses – we were already wearing glasses. These glasses are the glasses of culture, personal experience, politics and others opinion. These other glasses, just like the lenses of Scripture, shape how we see.

So my question (this one rhetorical) is, “How do you see?”

Here are a few not so rhetorical questions that will help you answer that question…

How have the scriptures informed your politics, your view of others, your daily living? How has the Bible transformed you as you have grown in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ?

Missional?

This weeks post is not so much about the sermon as it is about a conversation held at the quarterly leadership meeting held at the Cordova last night. If you've been listening closely to my sermons, you have most likely picked up on a theme flowing throughout each message - and that theme is the theme of the mission of Christ and our calling to continue it.

Wikipedia offers a very clear and concise definition of Christ's mission and our calling to that mission. (If you missed it, just click on the colored wikipedia and it will take you directly to that page.)

After you've read that I'd like to discuss how we as Pullman Foursquare, at the Cordova Theater, near Washington State University, in Pullman Washington - can be on mission for God. I'd like you think of the specific area that you serve in, and answer the question: How can we the (Children's team, Youth Staff, Worship Team etc) shape our ministry to accomplish the mission of Christ on earth? What would it look like if every ministry in the church was working toward bringing the kingdom of God to earth? What creative ideas arise and what practical steps can we take to get there?

Comment away! - Jamie