Urban Mission Blog

Incarnating Jesus in the Concrete Jungle

Quiet Desperation

I didn’t know what to say to the boy sitting in the seat next to mine crying. I didn’t know what was going on, or what’d just happened for him to be tucked deep into his hoody, and crying. all I know is that my heart was moved, I felt the Holy Spirit’s nudging to do something…and I did nothing.

Maybe that is a familiar scenario for you as well. They weren’t crying, they weren’t a 13-year-old boy, but you knew they were suffering. You knew they were existing in a quiet desperation. and still, like me, you did nothing.

I left that plane, knowing I should have said something. Something comforting…something meaningful, but for fear of looking foolish, or perhaps being embarrassed I missed a great opportunity to show the love of Christ.

This is reality. The entire world, even those that follow Jesus, are often existing in a quiet desperation. They suffer silently…quietly, and often, we pass them by or pretend we don’t notice and we miss opportunities to show the authentic love of Christ.

I want to want to show that love more. I want the world to know Jesus, in all His glory. I want to comfort those who mourn and suffer. I want to glorify God in all these things….I pray you will want the same.

Filed under: Growth and Journey, Jesus, Life

City Prayer for Atlanta

This morning I had the privilege of spending time with and praying for our city with 8 other men at City Church Eastside in Inman Park. We gathered there, had some good conversation, and then prayed for our city…every hurt, fear and doubt. The pain, shame and broken-ness, and for the gospel to penetrate hearts as God’s Church made His kingdom visible in Atlanta.

Though all of us are pastor’s of current or would be Churches, this time is open to anyone of any denomination in Atlanta who loves the city, and wants to see Christ Kingdom made a reality in Atlanta.The next gathering is Thursday/January – 7th

Come and be a part…for the Church…for the city.

Filed under: Atlanta, Church, Community, Gospel, Grant Park, Renovation Church

What Would You Do

What would you do if:

Your life began with being put on steroids at the age of 2

You took a javelin in the spine at the age of 9

Those steroids caused you to lose 60% of your lung function by the age of 13

You should have died by the age of 16

Your parents insisted you were a worthless failure because of all of the above issues

They told you that you should pray to die, so that you did not bring shame on them

I don’t know what you would do if this is how your life began, but I met a young man from India last week who took all of these things, and moved forward to serve God with ever-increasing boldness.

Though he has terrible arthritis, he plays the guitar beautifully, and because of that has now ministered in over 51 countries (mostly muslim), and now on all 7 continents.

He is now a missionary for YWAM, and spends 300 days a year sharing the gospel all over the world…he found identity in Christ, and that is all he needed to have the opportunity to change the world.

We are very often moved to believe that because of the circumstances we are in, or have come from that we are of no use to God…or anyone. Benny Prasad begs to differ….

Filed under: Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Mission

Ordinary People : : Earnest Prayers

I was challenged this morning…. I had the opportunity to hear the heart of a young musician named Benny from India, who above all things shouldn’t be alive, but also, shouldn’t be able to play the guitar….and yet he does.  God has given him amazing influence as a missionary to muslim countries particularly, but seemingly everywhere, as he has now been to over 60 countries and 7 continents…including antarctica!

I was challenged in two ways. You see I have this tendency, the same tendency many young, impetuous, entrepreneurial types have, I leap before I look…I act fast, make critical decisions without fear, but I often do so before ever uttering one word in prayer, or stopping long enough to listen to what God might say in light of what I think is the right way to go. This is a problem in more ways than I can list in one blog post, but one I openly confess, and am dealing with…even now…even through Benny’s challenge.

The second way it challenged me was in how I viewed people listed in the bible. As much as I hate to say it, even after several years of following Jesus, there is a tendency to make those in the bible heroic in some way…as though they are superior in some way to the “average” Christ follower today. To some degree this is healthy, especially looking at the lives of those listed in Hebrews 11, but, it is unhealthy when it begins to limit what we believe God will do in and through us because we will never be “that great.” What is most ridiculous about that thinking is that most of these people were jacked up in some way…form Noah the drunk to Peter the load mouth, arrogant denier, and if not severely jacked up, nothing more than ordinary…yet God worked amazingly through their lives, and often amazingly through their prayers to Him.

Benny shared this verse in the midst of sharing his story, James 5:17 “17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”

One translation says that Elijah was just an ordinary man…like us…ORDINARY, and yet, because he prayed earnestly, God did things that defied reason…I have yet to pray and see it stop raining, but I have seen God do things beyond reason, and those moments were catalyzed by earnest prayer, not my greatest ingenuity, or ability, but praying that God would do the unbelievable.

What I am not saying is that if you pray you will always see what you wanted to see happen, and that it will be unbelievable. That is a popular television preacher mode of thinking, but it is not biblical. What I am saying is that if we lead with earnest prayer, as ordinary people, that God will, in His sovereign will, do the extraordinary, even if that extraordinary is opening our eyes to the beauty of a relationship with Him, and life of constant communication with Him.

We are ordinary, He is extraordinary, and yet we have access to seek Him for the unbelieveable…for those things beyond reason. Lead with prayer, know the character of God, and see how amazing He is….

Filed under: Discipleship, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Teaching, Worldview

David Crowder Band-How He Loves

Filed under: Random

A Lesson in Contextualization from Optimus Prime

I recently saw the new Transformers movie, and to my surprise Optimus Prime said a cuss word. It was following a fight scene in which they’d engaged the decepticons (I’m more nerd than I ever let on). When prime killed him he said, “punk a@% decepticon”…it was hilarious, and strange for it to be coming from him, but it made quickly realize that this wasn’t the Transformers I grew up with. This was a contextualized prime, contextualized to earth in the 21st century, speaking the language of 21st century earth.

I know this is silly, using Transformers as a lesson in contextualization, I knew that as soon as the idea popped into my head, but my mind works in strange ways sometimes, and in this instance it reminded me that as a missionary in the city of Atlanta, I need to know the language of downtown Atlanta. I need to know the language of my context, so that in sharing the gospel I say it in a language that those I am sharing it with understand what I am saying.

This is no epiphany, just a reality check. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the work of ministry that we forget to sharpen the tools it requires. Learn the language of your context, and share the gospel in that way.

Filed under: Atlanta, Gospel, Grant Park, Leadership, Mission, Random

John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel

John Piper discusses the heresy involved in the health and wealth or prosperity gospel… which is no gospel at all (Galatians 1)

more about "John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel", posted with vodpod

Filed under: Church, Controversy, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Teaching, Worldview

The World Impact of the Prosperity Gospel Exported from America

A sad reality, and must watch video

more about “The World Impact of the Prosperity Go…“, posted with vodpod

 

Filed under: Church, Controversy, Gospel, Teaching, Worldview

Who’s Ya Daddy!!

42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

So what does that text have to do with daddy’s? Everything! When I was boy I emulated everything my father did. I wanted to walk like him, talk like him…I wanted to be him, and until I came to know Christ, he held the highest place in my life. He was a great dad.

This is a natural outgrowth of our nature. We come to emulate, hold the desires of, and do the things that those we hold in the highest regard do, even if we don’t perceive that we do.

Jesus was pointing this reality out to a group of blinded men who believed that God was their Father, but looked and acted nothing like Him…as He said, these mens works, ways, and desires all looked like Satan. They were murderous, liars, deceivers, and falsely pious. None of theses are characteristics of God, but of Satan, the enemy of our soul. So what story did their lives tell? Though they said with their mouthes that God was Lord and Father, their lives betrayed their profession.

So the big hanging question is this…what or who do you hold ultimate in your life, and what story is your life telling? Does it match the story of your mouth? Does it match your profession? Or do you pay lip service in an attempt to create a reality where your life, though it doesn’t match that of God the Father, is excused by Him because of a prayer you prayed or profession you made?

There is no neutrality in this, you have a father, beyond the flesh and blood one you may or may not know, and your life tells of which one you emulate, and hold in the highest place in your life…so, who is your daddy?

Filed under: Discipleship, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Life, Teaching, Worldview

Jesus is the Way of Jesus

I have heard many leaders from the emerging church movement,including Rob Bell and Brian Mclaren, consistently reference the “way of Jesus,” which to the careful ear ends up being an emotion driven attempt at replicating the be-attitudes for the good of the world. I want to believe these men are sincere in their desire to tear Christ away from rigorous religion that is wrought with rules, but empty of life. I want to believe that this is their desire, but what is being shaped by their words and message is a Christ-less Christianity focused on replicating chosen behaviors and words of Jesus, without any significant relationship with or replication of Him.

The “way of Jesus” can not be reduced to replicating what He describes in the sermon on the mount. Even Ghandi, a man quoted as saying he found nothing miraculous in Jesus death on the cross found comfort in the way of doing life presented in the sermon on the mount, but he was not a follower of Christ. And this is what this message of “the way of Jesus” deeply implies. The ability to do life in a manner that seeks to imitate Jesus’ words from that particular teaching,  but not to have Him in all His strength and glory.

If we wish to replicate the complete “way of Jesus” then we must talk about hell…alot. Money…alot. And fight religious rule making in an effort to exult the Person of Yahweh. We must speak strongly against sin, and honestly about grace, and humbly about the cost of discipleship. What I have described is the true way of Jesus, and even this limited survey is not complete.

Jesus said that He, in fact, is the way…that Him, in the fullness of His Person was the “way of Jesus” and the only way to replicate that is through His power…in Him, by His Spirit, those were His words.  As long as we carve up the scriptures to support the things we wish to define ourselves by, and ignore those that cause complications in our manufactured theology, then we will never know the way of Jesus, and certainly won’t be able to live or communicate it to others.

Jesus is the way of Jesus, He is our great treasure, and without this understanding we are simply green peace, red cross, or the salvation army…and oh yeah, we sing songs about Him sometimes too….

Filed under: Controversy, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Worldview

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