Off the chest

Sunday June 30th, my plan was to do what I do on Sundays, rest (which is the great thing about having a Saturday service), catch up (a lot happens during a week and there is always a need to finish that week and get ready for a new one) and back up all the information that I have on the computer to the flash drives, so that I don't lose any information (my usual end-of month activity)...

However, that plan got not only waylaid, but completely demolished when I received a notice on my cellphone (which is how I stay in contact with Facebook while the computer is being cleaned and backed up) and to say I was not pleased with what was said in those contacts would be a gross understatement.

There are certain things that will set me off and one of those things is statements made that while sounding sincere, in a sense show a naivety to what is going on in the world and what I try to express in this blog....

The first was about using this blog for politics....I have put (prior to this post) 137 blog entries...I looked at the 20 that I have done this year, and of them...at best, three might be considered political, the stat goes to 1 of 29 for 2012 (which if anything was a political year), 5 of 37 for 2011, and 2 1/2 out of 51 for 2010...so when you add it all up 11 1/2 out 137 which is 8% of the entries...If there is a problem that I have (and have been accused of-sometimes fairly), it is with making general statements without fact to back them up...

The next is about politics and the gospel not going hand in hand. When I comment on what is going on in the world, it is usually to raise awareness of what is going on in the world (usually what is happening is fulfilling the words that are found in the Word of God of what the end times will be like) and how that presents a danger to the ability that we have as believers to preach and live out the Gospel in our daily lives. There are many that seem to be under the impression that our lives should be compartmentalized and the areas in those compartments kept as far away from each other as possible. And also, if our leaders were to more often live and rule according to what is found in the Gospel, maybe things would be a lot better in our world.

There is also a passage in Ezekiel (chapter 33) where God talks to him about being a watchman on the wall, sounding an alarm to the people:
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman, 3when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. 5He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. 6But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’

7“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. 8When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 9Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

 

When we as believers sound out about what is going on in the world, it is to fulfill our role as watchmen and we do so because we should be loving those in the world as much as Jesus loved us and if someone hears and be warning them that they are on the path to destruction unless they turn from their wicked ways. And then we can use that to share the Gospel with them. 

A verse that comes to mind is one that Jesus spoke about when He was commissioning the disciples in Matthew 10: 16:

16“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

There are many who get the "harmless as doves" part down in their lives and that is great, but notice what He also said...to be wise as serpents and to be as wise as serpents means not to have our eyes closed to what is going on, but to be aware of things, whether it be arguments that are used by people to keep themselves from being convicted by the Gospel, trends that are going on in society that should make us aware of where we are going as a culture...of course the key is being in the world (and aware), but not of the world (being different by the fact that we are believers in Jesus).

And lastly "us vs. them"...this is a misnomer...what we should be  is what I remember reading quite often in the works of Chuck Colson: contra mundum (against the world). We should be against a world that is killing us in so many ways...killing in the womb before life begins...killing the mind by removing Godly principles and activities while endorsing lifestyles and philosophies that are vain and empty...killing us in creating a "ideal" in man and womanhood and saying that we have to get that ideal or we are nothing (and then changing that ideal so that we have to have the newest, latest and greatest), killing us by censoring viewpoints that lift up the name of God, while raising up those who believe in empty values, killing us by giving us "entertainment" that years ago, would have been called pornography and then lowering the standards of that "entertainment" and then killing by ending life early in the name of "mercy"....If there is an "us vs them" it should be us who are dedicated to living a Godly lifestyle in every area of our lives vs those who mock, defy and live their lives in a way that that shows they don't know God at all? 

I wonder if the prophets who were called by God were told not be so "hard" by associates so that others wouldn't be offended or if they were told that proclaiming God's word to kings was an improper mix of "religion and politics" or by pointing out sins in the world that they were "political"? 

This may have been a longer blog entry than usual, but I feel that there are times where brevity is not an ideal (which is why once again, I will never be a Twitter user)...

Rest in a hospital?

I was getting my WND readings this evening when I came across the following column by Joseph Farah- "Hospital no place for sick people"...http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/hospital-no-place-for-sick-people/

To me the funniest part of the column is when I saw the following lines: "I actually thought I might get some rest here. But with nurses taking vital signs every few hours – even during the middle of the night – the hospital is hardly a place of recuperation." The reason that I find it the funniest part of the column is that having spent 5 1/2 months in the hospital, I could have told Mr. Farah that rest is the last thing that you get in a hospital!

After getting to a point of  stability in relation to my condition, I found that if you wanted to get a good night of rest in the hospital, I had to go to sleep at 8:30 p.m. I know to many 8:30 seems a little early, but let me tell you why...

First as Mr. Farah writes, you have nurses come in and check your vital signs and in my case also to empty the JP tubes that were draining the excess stuff out of my body. And that took place even at midnight...And I didn't have any problems with that except for a couple of times when the nurse forgot to turn off the main light to my room.

 A little humorous story....After my ileostomy surgery, I was back at Christus Santa Rosa-a little story about the roots of CSR...
CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System was founded in 1869 by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The sisters heeded the call from the Catholic bishop of Texas to care for the multitude of sick, infirm, and orphaned in the Texas frontier. When the sisters arrived in San Antonio, the population was only 12,000 and there was no public hospital - until the sisters founded CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital.
And even in 2008, on weekends down in the first couple of floors, Sisters from the order would take over as nurses...which wasn't so bad, except for the fact that the nurse they assigned to me was height-wise someone that my younger sister could post up (and my younger sister is 5 foot at best...) was very slight and had the smallest, tiniest voice...Now can you imagine someone like that trying to wake up someone who was sound asleep (and those of you who are heavy sleepers know how hard it is for a regular sized person to try to wake you up)....I felt sorry for that young lady....


Another reason in my case was that there were times when the colostomy bag that I had would lose its seal and spill out a little and I had to call the nurse to help clean up the mess....

And lastly there was the 4:30-5:00 in the morning blood sample that I had to give..each morning they had to come in and take some blood  to make sure that I was recuperating and to make sure that there was nothing else happening...It got to the point where it became so routine that I actually slept through it...they would get the appropriate tube, get the blood sample and then just leave, for me it was nothing that I had to actually wake up and start me day with...

And I guess that each person that has had their own experience with trying to get sleep in the hospital, but in the end I will use another Farah line: "My strong advice: Don’t get sick."

Beware Bible McNuggets

Today I give my time to John Stonestreet who along with Eric Metaxes who have taken over the BreakPoint commentaries from the late Chuck Colson and today's commentary is something that I think that we should be aware of...if you want to see the actual commentary go to http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/22574

Beware Bible McNuggets

When Reading the Bible Can Be Spiritually Unhealthy

I’ve mentioned before on BreakPoint the cruel game I sometimes play when I speak to Christian students. I’ll give a quiz on pop culture, with questions such as who sang this song, and who starred in this movie, and so on. As you might expect, the students get 100 percent on this quiz every time. But then, without breaking stride, I’ll throw in a Bible question like “Who was the lead character in II Samuel?”—and you can just hear the crickets chirping.

Look, when Christians know far more about entertainment trivia than the Bible, we’ve got a problem. And it’s ironic, given we have more access to the Bible than any other time in history.
According to the American Bible Society, the average household has 4.3 copies of the Bible. This doesn’t even count the ones on our smart phones and iPads, or the pew pockets in every church. We’ve even personalized the Bible for every possible life situation: we’ve got the Teen Bible, the Women’s Bible, the Dad’s Bible, the Leadership Bible...you name it. And yet Gallup has dubbed the United States “a nation of biblical illiterates.”

Paul Caminiti of Biblica, a ministry that promotes Bible engagement, offers three reasons for scriptural illiteracy: (1) We fragment the Bible into little bits that we then yank out of the Scripture and personalize. (Phillip Yancey refers to these bits as “moral McNuggets.”) (2) We don’t understand the history or context of Scripture passages, so we miss or manipulate the full meaning that it communicates. And (3) we read it alone; we’ve stopped reading the Bible in community. Well, Biblica has decided to confront these problems.

Over the years, we’ve added a lot to the Bible: a new order for the books, two columns, study notes and lots of divisions – chapters, verses, and paragraphs. And this impacts how we read it. The two columns make it look long and different than other books; the chapters and verses, which were intended just to help us navigate the text, tempt us to break up the text. So we’re less likely to read large sections and more likely to disconnect small parts.

Biblica now offers the Scripture in a one-column format, without chapters and verses. It’s called “The Books of the Bible,” and it restores the original order of the Old Testament while grouping the New Testament books together theologically in a way that shows the relationship between them. Starting with Luke and Acts gives the history of the New Testament, and then connecting the other Gospels to the Epistles that match their intended audience reveals connections we often miss.

And did you know you could read the whole New Testament in 8 weeks if you read it like other books? Me neither; but as Gabe Lyons, founder of Q, says, with this new format and the reading plan, “It reads just like a book.”

And because these books were written for communities of believers, Biblica has developed the Community Bible Experience where entire churches read together through the Scriptures as a church family. The reports they’re hearing from churches who have done this are incredible.

On the latest BreakPoint This Week podcast on our website, I interview Paul Caminiti about the “Books of the Bible” and the Community Bible Experience. I also spoke with Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby about their new Green Collection project. The Green Collection has become one of the largest privately held collections of biblical artifacts in the world. Much of the collection is featured in a traveling exhibit called Passages, and will eventually be housed in a permanent Bible museum in Washington D.C. Visit BreakPoint.org and click on the This Week tab to listen.

You know, Chuck Colson frequently noted that we in the West had morally starved ourselves by disconnecting from the truths of Scripture. And biblically illiterate Christians are in no condition to help if all we’ve feasted on is a diet of Bible McNuggets.

 

Something I wish I had

When I had my reverse ileostomy (when I had my intestine reattached), one of the things that they had to do was put staples to close the incision, which while I had them, looked real ugly and of course had to stay there for a week and were not exactly easy to remove.

So it was with great joy that I saw this article http://israel21c.org/health/say-goodbye-to-surgical-stitches-and-staples/ about  a company in Israel has created something called BioWeld1 which works with cold plasma (Plasma is a gas in which a certain proportion of the particles are ionized) which will close incisions without using stitches or staples and seals the incision completely. This has the benefit of not leaving ugly scars and leaving people less prone to infection.

To me it is amazing how the Lord has given these people talent to create things like this and use it to benefit others. I pray that I never have to use their technology, but I am glad that if I do, that there is something like this out there!

YouTube service

After the last couple of entries that were on the heavy side, let's go with a somewhat lighter fare today...

You know while I was in the hospital, one of the things that I missed of course was going to services. I mean the people from my congregation came to the hospital and ministered there to me, and of course I had my time of morning reading of the Word;  but not going to an actual service and having a time of corporate worship with my brothers and sisters was something that I missed....

Well now due to the invention of YouTube and other advances, that will be part of the past...we now have our services at http://www.youtube.com/user/BethSimchaSA. Now if I ever miss a service, I know that I can go and have that time of fellowship and catch up on the messages that I may have missed....

Of course on the other hand, with YouTube you can also see yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbR2QJ9pAU8 and wonder "Is that really me?" Now with some, they've been in so many videos and appearances that it feels comfortable for them...this is the first time that I have seen myself on video and think "He's got a face for radio..."

But you know it gets me to wondering, with video that there is a lot of life that is exposed, but it's nothing compared to when we get to Heaven. Many times throughout the Scriptures, we are told that we will be accountable for every word, thought, deed, etc...which gets you to thinking...when you make a mistake for a video, you can edit it so that it makes you look go, delete it so that no one ever sees it, or include it on a blooper reel...but when you make a mistake in real life, you can't change it and it'll be seen by everyone and be there for all time....so remember, be careful in how you live your life, you may never know WHO is recording it...

Rich Mullins movie

One of my favorite musicians is Rich Mullins http://1ncisfan.blogspot.com/2012/09/rich-mullins-awesome-god.html and for a while they have been planning on doing a movie about his life, which should be coming out soon...here is a trailer from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF7qbCTFja0

And like some, there is a part of me that asks "Why do a movie about Rich? He probably would have dismissed any thought about a movie done about himself..." So here to answer part of this question is a guest blog written by the producer of the movie David Leo Schultz http://davidleoschultz.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/chips-salsa-and-a-drive-through-the-cornfields-of-indiana/

Chips, Salsa, and a drive through the cornfields of Indiana

We (The Rich Mullins Movie “Ragamuffin” ) get a lot of questions and emails.

Like, what’s your favorite Rich Mullins song? For me it’s ‘The Color Green’, but it’s hard to explain why…

We get all types of questions, messages, and emails…I’d like to talk about one of those questions tonight.

P.s. if you are new to my blog. I don’t spell check. Enjoy the bad spelling and grammar:-)

So I received an email tonight asking a very serious inquiry asking why I (we) would make a movie about Rich Mullins, who according to his perception on stage and the book “Arrow Pointing to Heaven” by our friend Jim (James Bryan Smith) ..would probably be the type of person who would not want a movie made about himself.

Great question.

It reminds me of how this whole thing got started. About six months before I met Dave Mullins I remember driving around in my beat up toyota corolla on a long road trip, I don’t remember where…and I got out a stack of CD’s that are usually filled with scratches and are usually stacked about 7 or 8 inches high and jammed into whatever crevice I could find in my car. I pulled out a CD, that I had listened to a hundred times before, that a buddy from college gave me. It’s a collection of rich mullins radio interviews. I popped in the CD ( I know I’m old school…it’s sad I know…) and I started day dreaming as I listened to Rich …I started day dreaming about what a movie would look like about Rich. Although an honest confession is I’m not sure I was terribly intentional  about the whole thing. In other words, I’m not sure if I purposefully dreamed it up, or out of child like day dreaming I just started seeing the movie in my head. But never the less that’s what happened.

6 months later I was speaking at a Church in Indianapolis and I found out
That Dave Mullins was one of the pastors at that church. Without even thinking about it I asked my friend who booked my speaking engagement at the church to ask his friend to ask Dave Mullins if he would have lunch with me.

He agreed. I had no plan. No money for a movie. I really didn’t know what I was doing.

He wanted to meet at a Mexican Restaurant.

I was early. I sat at a table and in walks Dave Mullins. It’s funny thinking about it now. Cuz now he’s one of my favorite people on this planet, and three and half years ago he was a stranger. Adventures and time can bond you that way I guess, among other things.

Later I found out he knew why I asked him to lunch. At the time though he appeared to seem clueless. He’s a great poker player that way. He holds his cards close to his chest. If you don’t know Dave let me tell you he would’ve made a great cowboy in the old west. Quiet and sharp.

I on the other hand was like a  Chris Farley sketch on SNL. I was so nervous. Why? I’m not sure I don’t really get nervous.

This is where I’m not sure I’ll be able to quite paint the picture. You might have to read through all my blogs, listen to the occasional radio interview I’ve done, or watch an old VHS recording of me preaching to see a glimpse into how much, like many of you, Rich Mullins means to me. God has continued to ambush my life with his love through a select few. Some I know. Some I don’t. And one of those few, was Rich Mullins. So to simply give a satisfactory answer of why were making this movie, may always remain somewhat of a mystery to anyone that doesn’t know me. Because the answer is very much intertwined into God’s story in my life.

But I’ll still try. Dave Mullins sat down. We had a few chips dipped in Salsa, and I just blurted out. “I want to make a movie about your brother.”

What Dave said back to me through he course of the day is kind of a blur, partially because I was nervous and partially because David is on the quiet side. In a very good way. He has a wisdom that is beyond me. I’m the jump in the deep end and learn how to swim later type of guy. This usually isn’t good, but sometimes has it’s advantages.

Dave did say a few things that day. He asked me, “Why do you want to make a movie about my brother?”

I said to him, “First, I know your brother probably would not like a movie made about him.”
He said, “You’re right.”

And I said, “But to answer your question, I didn’t know Rich Mullins, but I was an audience member to his life, and God used that to change me (that’s the short answer), and I simply want to give other people the same opportunity.”

We had a deeper and longer conversation about life, how God used Rich to change my life while we had our burritos.

Then as I rambled on like Chris Farley. Dave said to me, “Do you want to go for a drive?”
No the nerd part of me in that moment was like, “Rich Mullins brother just asked me to go for a drive through the cornfields of Indiana.” I was so excited. So dumb I know. So nerdy. But that’s what I was thinking. Now that Dave is my friend, it’s almost embarrassing, but I can honestly say that I’m more excited to spend time with my friend Dave now then I was then, cuz he is a mixture of friend, brother, and pastor all wrapped up into one. That’s a different story.

But I will say a fun little tid bit. A few years later Dave told me, “You know if you hadn’t gone on a ride with me through the cornfields I would’ve said no.”

And I said, “Well, I’m glad I said yes.”

In the car as we drove, he asked me, “If we let you make the movie how would you do it?”
Remember. I didn’t know. I had no plan. No money to make the movie. Nothing. All I had was that Daydream. And I told him exactly that.

Even through all the drafts of the script (with even abandoning that day dream in the script) eventually that original idea for the movie. That day dream I had. That’s the idea we shot for the movie 2 and a half years later.

Now what I won’t tell you is why Dave and the Mullins family let me make the movie. That’s for them to answer. Not me. But what I can tell you is that it didn’t happen right away. We met a few times, hung out a few times, and by God’s grace and silly love they let me go forward with “trying” to make the movie.

A honest confession while we were shooting the movie, as we were reflecting on all this stuff, Dave Mullins turns to me and says, “I never thought it would really happen.” And I said to him, “Me either.”

I love when God surprises you.
I still probably didn’t answer your question, your question that I think even goes deeper that the character of Rich’s spirit. The question of why? Why make this movie? There are more fun questions to add to that pile like how? But a simple answer to all the questions is “We are not quite sure, except it seems like it’s beyond us somehow. Or at least we hope so.”

I will say that for the Christian- we don’t own much. Not our money, not our possessions, not our friends, or even…our story. It’s this crazy thing Jesus does in our lives, he wants it all. Maybe this is why Rich signed his autographs “Be Gods”? That’s where many of get confused about a testimony. A testimony isn’t ours. That’s a biography. A testimony is Gods story through your story. Not the other way around.

To get a better picture of the why…well, you never know. Maybe one day you’ll find yourself in a Mexican Restaurant and you can have some chips and salsa and  then we will ride through the cornfields of Indiana as we tell you the story of how it all happened, but I’ll warn you it will be a long car ride, as my head is still spinning and the beginning of the story for me starts when I was just thirteen, and my cousin put in a cassette tape in the car, and for the first time ever I heard, “The Color Green.”