StretchyChurch

A quick intermission in the hospitality/incarnation series…

1) My parents got me this really cool book for my birthday called The Quotable Lewis: An encyclopedic selection of quotes from the complete published works of C.S. Lewis. This book is awesome!

It’s organized alphabetically by theme, so if you want a C.S. Lewis quote on, say, salvation…you just look up “salvation” and you find 11 quotes. Here’s a quote from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe:

“Please–Aslan,” said Lucy, “can anything be done to save Edmund?”

“All shall be done,” said Aslan.

Or if you want something non-fiction, here’s something from Mere Christianity:

We must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world–and might even be more difficult to save.

For mere improvement is no redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.

2) The second thing I want to mention is this really great website my brother showed me last night: Techdeals.net. You need to check this site every day! They’ve got phenomenal deals on all kinds of stuff–mostly technology, but not only technology. And there’s new stuff everyday!

I found a deal on a 1GB SD card for which I paid a total of $5.47 on Buy.com! That’s after a $15 rebate and $20 off for checking out with my Google account.

Anyway, check it out–Techdeals.net.

Ok. So let’s talk about hospitality.

First of all, let’s admit that when we hear the word “hospitality” we don’t usually think of it as something especially spiritual. We think of inviting someone over for dinner, cleaning the house, lighting some candles to set a warm mood, fixing a nice meal, offering good conversation.

And that definitely is hospitality, but when we start looking at hospitality in the Bible we see something that’s much deeper and much grander than just fixing a nice meal for someone.

One of the best examples of hospitality in the Old Testament is Abraham when he provides for his three visitors (who turn out to be God and two angels). Here’s that passage from Genesis 18:2-8:

Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.

Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”

“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.

It’s clear from this and other passages (like Lot in Genesis 19:1-8 and Job in Job 31:16-23 and 31-32) that hospitality is extremely important in the Old Testament.

In fact, the practice of hospitality is commanded in the Old Testament. Israel is commanded to leave some of their harvest for the aliens and the poor. We see this specifically in passages like Deuteronomy 24:19-22 and Leviticus 19:9-10. It’s also how Ruth, a Moabitess, was able to provide for her and her mother-in-law, Naomi (Ruth 2:2-17).

The Leviticus 19 passage is, I believe, particularly important in understanding why hospitality is so important to God. The command ends with God saying, “I am the LORD your God.” Why does God end with this? I believe (and I admit this is my non-academic opinion) that God is saying in regard to hospitality, “This is my nature–my character. I am a God who welcomes the outcast and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.” So Israel is commanded to care for the alien, because God cares for the alien.

And lastly, Israel is commanded to allow the alien to worship God among them. Here’s Exodus 12:48-49:

“An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it. The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you.”

God does not discriminate; God welcomes worship from anyone. I love that last line: “The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you.”

So, it’s clear that hospitality is extremely important in the Old Testament. And it continues to be important to Christians in the New Testament. I’ll talk a little bit about that in my next post (or one of my next posts).

I’m preaching this weekend on the biblical concepts of hospitality and incarnation. Both of these, I believe, are incredibly important for living life as a follower of Christ.

Hospitality is the welcoming of others into our midst. Incarnation refers to going and embodying Christ in another place, culture, or people-group. They are two sides of the same coin–the coin of God’s compassion.

I think it could be argued that almost anything we do as Christians ought to fulfill one of these two Christian concepts. In other words, anything we do ought in some way to reflect the value of either hospitality and/or incarnation.

Over the next several days, I’ll post some more ideas regarding these two themes. I’ll also post my sermon on this topic (if I don’t forget to start my digital recorder this week!!).

I just came across this on SCI FI Wire. Sci-fi buff that I am, this sounds like it could be kinda cool. It’s a miniseries that just got green-lighted by the Sci-Fi Channel with a brand new take on The Wizard of Oz. Here’s what the article at SCI FI Wire says about it:

The miniseries is a sometimes psychedelic, often twisted and always bizarre take on The Wizard of Oz. It centers on DG [not my friend, D.G.!], a young woman plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a fantastical realm filled with wonder, but oppressed by dark magic. DG discovers her true identity, battles evil winged monkey-bats and attempts to fulfill her destiny. Her perilous journey begins on the fabled Old Road that leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man. Along the way, she is joined by “Glitch,” an odd man missing half his brain; “Raw,” a quietly powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage; and “Cain,” a heroic former policeman (known in the O.Z. as a “Tin Man”), who is seeking vengeance for his scarred heart. Ultimately, DG’s destiny leads her to a showdown with the wicked sorceress Azkadellia, whose ties to DG are closer than anyone could have imagined.

So while this could be cool, it could also be really cheesy (as miniseries often are). Click here if you want to read the whole article.

In any case, regardless of how good it is, it sounds like it might include some interesting spiritual themes. Something to keep an eye out for….

Dustin Reynolds has two great posts on prayer over on his blog. Check them out here:

1. The Efficacy of Prayer
2. Prayer or maybe something else…

Another seminar I attended at the National Youth Workers Convention was called More Than Noise: How Yoday’s Music and Media Impacts Your Students, led by Walt Mueller of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (CPYU).

This was a phenomenal seminar! Mueller takes the approach that we as parents and youth leaders need to be aware of what our kids are listening to, watching, etc. He doesn’t suggest that should try to shield them from the media, but think through with them how they are being influenced by the media.

Mueller talked about the fact that, according to a Johnston Company survey, in 1960, adolescents were being influenced by family, school, friends/peers, and church (in descending order of influence). In 1980, the Johnston Company found that the top four influences (again in descending order) were friends/peers, family, media, and school. He noted that the advent of MTV in 1981 was a huge factor in terms of the media’s influence on teenagers.

Today, Mueller suggests that (based on his own research) the top four influences among teens are media, friends/peers, family, and school. In regard to media, Mueller said that a few years ago he would have said that most powerful media influence was music, but today he would say it is advertising.

Now… Here’s the best–and most eye-opening–story Mueller told:

He recently attended a marketing-related convention targeted for marketing executives. Mueller went as a researcher.

One of the seminars he attended was called something like, “Creating and Marketing a Pop Star.” The person who led the seminar introduced herself as the person who “single-handedly engineered the Britney Spears phenomenon” (as Mueller put it).

She said that what they discovered back in the 70’s was that a pop star marketed to teens had a shelf life of only a couple of years. For instance, girls who were in love with David Cassidy as 10-year-olds were incredibly embarrassed to have been a Cassidy fan by the time they were 13.

So here’s the solution they discovered. For the first two or three years, the pop star (think Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake) is marketed in such a way that parents love the star–cute, wholesome, pure. Moms are more than happy to take their daughters to concerts, buy them CDs, etc. But after a couple of years, the pop star is reinvented in such a way (and these are this woman’s exact words) “that it pisses the parents off.”

Now that Mom and Dad no longer think Britney Spears is a good influence on their daughter, daughter continues to think that Britney is really cool–because now she’s a bad girl!

This realization is obviously incredibly eye-opening. I will never look at a pop star gone bad the same way again. You know that something like this is going to happen with the latest batch of cute kid stars–JoJo, Jesse McCartney, etc. I’m actually kinda looking forward to seeing them turn “bad”–now that I know what’s going on.

Later on I ran into Walt Mueller in the men’s room (great place for casual conversation!) and asked if I could have permission to make copies of that seminar for parents. He said, “Of course! You don’t even need to ask about that.” So, I’m gonna try to get this seminar into the hands of parents in our church. I’ll also see if I can get an mp3 of just that section about Britney Spears and post it here. No promises, though…

I was in 7th grade the first time I ever heard of Tony Campolo. Our Sunday school teacher played a cassette of Tony Campolo after repeatedly telling us that he is “so funny!” Well, Tony Campolo may be an entertaining speaker to an adult, but certainly not to a 7th grader.

I got to hear Campolo as an adult this weekend at the National Youth Workers Convention (though I was still only 33 on Friday afternoon!) and he was definitely engaging. The title of his seminar was “Becoming Red-Letter Christians.”

The label, “Red-Letter Christians,” he said, came from a DJ on a radio station who used that expression to refer to people like Campolo and Jim Wallis–people whose life-hermeneutic is based on the words of Jesus, the red letters in many Bibles. Red-letter Christians, Campolo said, interpret the rest of the Bible through the words of Jesus.

In his lecture, he covered a pretty wide range of social issues: poverty, abortion, gay marriage, war, torture, and the Israel/Palestine issue. The two subjects that really stimulated my thinking were abortion and gay marriage. I’ll try to summarize briefly what he said about each of these.

Abortion

Campolo’s argument was that simply making abortion illegal will not in itself eliminate abortion. While he didn’t cite a source for this, he said that there were just as many abortions being performed in the 1950’s as there are today–even though it was illegal back then.

The problem, he said, is primarily economic. He gave us this scenario…

A young girl is pregnant (”And don’t tell me she shouldn’t be pregnant in the first place,” he said. “She’s pregnant!”). She lives in inner-city Philadelphia and her family is among the working poor (those who earn enough money to be just above the poverty-line, effectively excluding them from any state assistance). If she has this baby it will cost at least $2000 at the hospital. This is money that her family doesn’t have. In addition, she’ll most likely have to get childcare for the baby, which will cost her at least $10 per day, or $200 per month. Again, this is money the family doesn’t have.

For a family in this situation, the only way to stay afloat financially is to end the pregnancy.

This, Campolo said, is the problem. We can legislate against abortion all we want, but people living with these conditions will do what they must in order to survive even if it’s illegal. “And we think,” Campolo said, “that putting this girl in jail is the right thing to do!”

Gay Marriage

This is an issue that I’ve been struggling with for some time. I’m conservative in my view of gay marriage. However, the culture is clearly moving toward the legitimization of gay marriage. I don’t think it’s effective for the church to fight against this, because in so doing we damage our credibility with those to whom we are trying to minister. That said, I think that within the next 10-20 years gay marriage will be a reality in our culture.

The question I ask myself is this: “How can we authentically be the church in a society in which gay marriage is a reality?”

Campolo said that he, too, is conservative in his view of marriage. Marriage, he believes, is a sacred gift for a man and a woman. He said that he does not believe that the government should legitimate gay marriage. However, he also said that he does not believe that the government should legitimate heterosexual marriage.

He said that any two people should be able to go to a courthouse and enter into a legal contract with one another and be able to enjoy all the rights and privileges that go along with being bound by a legal contract. This is not marriage. It’s a contract.

If those two people wish to get married, they should then go to a church (or other religious institution, I suppose) where they can be united in marriage.

Campolo added, “Some of you will say, ‘But wait! Won’t they be able to go to a church that will marry them?’ Yes, they probably will.”

—-

As to abortion, Campolo’s insights helped me to get a better understanding of what’s really going on. If we’re to help mothers bring their unborn children into the world, then we need to deal with the economic issues that are at the root of a big chunk of the problem.

I’m not sure yet if I completely embrace his solution for the gay marriage issue. But I do like his distinction between a legal contract and marriage. The challenge for us as Christians if (and probably when) gay marriage becomes a reality will be to figure out how to maintain our integrity and our convictions without becoming judgmental and exclusionary. How will we be like Jesus, who was neither neither of those?

Finally, I want to share a brief quote from this seminar that I thought was pretty funny. In regard to the mixing of politics and Christianity (in terms of Christians taking office and using their political power to impose their religious beliefs), Campolo said, “Mixing Christianity and politics is like mixing ice cream and manure–it’s not the manure that’s gonna get messed up!”

(My camera is with the Geek Squad right now, so I don’t actually have any birthday pics. This is me and my college buddy, Ted, a couple of months ago.)

Yes, as of yesterday (can’t believe I forgot to mention it!) I am now older than Jesus ever was when he was on this earth. On Sunday, November 19, I turned 34.

On the one hand, I’m becoming more and more comfortable in my “oldness”–y’know, not being a hip 20-something anymore. On the other hand, 34 sounds so much older to me than 33! Thirty-three is still arguably your “early thirties.” At 34, you’ve clearly reached your “mid thirties”.

Yikes.

But I’m ok with that. I’ve grown a lot personally in the last couple of years. And I feel like my age is reflective of my life experience. And that’s a good thing.

So life is good. And I’m happy to be 34!

Just found this news feature from ABC News about something called “Jesus Camp.” Two things about this:

1. “Jesus Camp” seems like a pretty manipulative, dangerous form of propaganda.
2. Chap Clark (who it seems I can’t stop talking about) is interviewed in the news feature. It should be noted, however, that he states on his website that he does not support what he sees in the footage of “Jesus Camp.”

Personally, I’m pretty suspicious of any organization that so blatantly indoctrinates children. While I don’t mean to be over the top in this comparison, it would seem used similar tactics with his Youth.

The National Youth Workers Convention ends tomorrow. It’s been a really great conference! Most of my time at the conference has been spent with my friend and really great youth leader, Troy Hitch (check out his website–I promise it is one of the best websites you’ve ever seen!).

I’ve got a lot to share, but not tonight. Real quick, here are the highlights of the convention for me so far:

• Phil Vischer, the founder of VeggieTales and the voice of Bob the Tomato, shared about how he’s grown in his faith since losing his production company, “Big Idea!“
• Tony Campolo talked about what it means to be a “red-letter Christian”
• Walt Mueller seminar on the impact of music and media on teens
• worship with the David Crowder Band
• getting to chat with my old professor and mentor Chap Clark once again