I came across this blog post from Tony Morgan and I was simply amazed at what I was seeing and how this could impact the teaching and spreading of the gospel.  But it also raised a thought of concern of how we think about the spread of the gospel

It is hard to consider the value of technology for spreading the gospel and discipleship verses the potential loss of what the gospel is intended to accomplish.  What I mean by this is that the good news is that because of Jesus, we are invited into participate in the love and holiness of the triune God, through grace…and this is meant to establish God’s eternal kingdom of people beginning here and now.  Jesus’ model prayer was “…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  I can’t get away from the hands-on, person to person aspect of the truth of God being lived out in a local group of people with shared experiences.  Sometimes we in the church get caught up in the idea that we are all about just getting the message out to as many people as possible.  But this is just spreading the INFORMATION of the gospel, not spreading the TRANSFORMATION of the gospel.  I believe that technology can sometimes isolate us rather than congregate us.  It can give us a false sense of community if we are not continually pursing those right next to us.

All this said, I do think that community can occur using holograms, and in the future, truly life transformational ministry will involve this type of technology.  What thoughts do you have about technology, theology, and the kingdom of God? How will this and other technology further change the face of global mission?

“Christianity is not about a new moral teaching – as though we were morally clueless and in need of some fresh or clearer guidelines…Christianity isn’t about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example, as though our principal need was to see what a life of utter love and devotion to God and to other people would look like, so that we could try to copy it…Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can ‘go to heaven when they die.’…Christianity isn’t about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself…Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding, the saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus.  He has done it.  With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all.” (N.T. Wright Simply Christian)

That is the story of the whole of scripture…God’s Epic Rescue of his creation, heaven and earth colliding and the power of grace and mercy triumphing over the power of the law.  We are to daily experience the rescue of God in our lives and be the rescue of God in others’ lives!  David Crowder’s song Remedy constantly pours through my head…

Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy
He’s the remedy

He is the one who has saved us
He is the one who forgave us
He is the one who has come
and is coming again

We are currently teaching an 8 week series through the story of all of scripture and making sure we don’t lose or cut up our scriptures into unrelated parts, resulting in just a collection of stories and truths.  I am rediscovering how by keeping the whole in perspective, it brings out the richness of the details and specifics of scripture AND how my life is still part of this great rescue story.  This isn’t something that has merely taken place thousands of years ago, but a new-life story that is played out over and over through the days that you and I live!

If you are interested, I am posting the audio recordings of each week in my podcast media tab of this site.
(We have had some problems with some of the recordings that we hope to have worked out in the future.)

Fall is just around the corner and with that season come winds of change.  An exciting time, yet for many a time that represents the dying of the summer, and a movement into the dormancy of winter.  Each season brings profound change (especially living in the Northern part of the country) but each change of the season that is seen on the outside of creation is as a result of what is going on on the inside.  Leaves will chage colors as the tree internally prepares for winter.

In the Bible, God challenges us with these words through the writer Paul:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12.2)

Conformation or Transformation are both something that happens TO us.  Something that we can choose, but can’t completely direct.  Something that we can seek after, but can’t control exactly how either happens.  We can actively resist one, which ultimately leads us toward the path of the other.  Returning to the thoughts of the season’s change…a tree could resist the Fall transformation (if it could) but soon it would find itself conforming to the death that the climate that the winter freeze will bring.

I want to choose the path of transformation in my life!  This is the more difficult path immediately…it is so much easier to stay in what I know, in what is comfortable, in what is the norm that I see around me.  But in the end the more difficult path is truly the path of conformity as it leaves us barren, lifeless, stripped of true fulfillment of the deep desires God has put in us.

“…this is fundamentally what spiritual transformation is all about: choosing a way of life that opens us to the presence of God in the places of our being where our truest desires and deepest longings stir.  These discoveries are available to all of us as we become more honest in naming what isn’t working so that we can craft a way of life that is more congruent with our deepest desires.” (Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms)

If you are involved in my life, in my journey through this land, please ask me how I am putting myself in places of transformation!  Sometimes you will ask me at just the right time when I am drifting into conformity and away from true inner renewal transformation.

Also, share ways that you have experienced God’s transformation in your life so that we can encourage one another to live in and embrace “what is good and acceptable, and perfect.”!

“…life will present us with hundreds of opportunities in a single week to take a look at our internal world, to walk with God there, to become more fully his.  Don’t let your internal life go unshepherded.” – John Eldredge, Walking With God (p. 192)

The tendancy in our society/lifestyles is to only check the internal world when something is seriously wrong, but whatever is going on in the internal world is what drives or controls that which we do on the outside.  How I deal with my kids is a result of what’s going on inside, how I respond to the “idiot” driver at the intersection is a result of what is going on inside, what I say when I feel threatened by someone is a result of what’s going on inside, and how I plan my schedule is a result of what’s going on inside.  As Eldredge said so well, we have so many opportunities daily to do a quick or deep internal check.

I have realized that the analogy of shepherding doesn’t really help most of us, because we have never had sheep, been on a sheep farm, been to a petting zoo, or even worn wool!  BUT we have all had or been coaches…a coach seems to be the closest common analogy to a shepherd.  A coach encourages, resources, challenges, celebrates, and even gets in our faces from time to time.  A coach identifies things that we need to do differently as well as put us in positions to let our strengths shine and be used for the greater good.

Are you coaching your inner life on a daily/weekly basis?  I am so thankful for friends of mine who help me coach my inner world, who push me to make the hard decisions and celebrate the strengths God has put in me.  Let me encourage you to not let your inner life go UNCOACHED so that you are more fully his, for the greater good!

“Our assumptions control our interpretation of events, and they supply a great deal of momentum and direction for our lives.” (John Eldredge – Walking With God)

It is amazing how many times recently the realization of mine or someone else’s assumptions has been part of conversations.  We each see life in very different ways than others simply because we come to the exact same situations with a whole different set of assumptions.  This can get you going down the wrong path very quickly and lead to conclusions that are WAY off and dangerous.

One of the biggest of these assumption categories is making assumptions of other people.  Whether it is their motives, desires, or beliefs, they are coming with assumptions and we are making our own assumptions.  To complicate things more we communicate a lot these days through more impersonal ways like email, blogs, facebook, twitter, IM, etc.  This is why I think the best policy is to always assume the BEST of other people.  Mandy and I seek to do this in our marriage, and have to sometimes ask each other, “are you assuming the best of me?”  Our staff team at work has a covenant with each other to always assume the best of each other.  When people criticize me, I dig deep inside and ask God to give me the ability to assume the best motives and intentions…and when I do that, it usually is right AND I learn a whole lot more from the experience.

Thinking about it, I realized that our justice system is based on assuming the best. “Innocent until proven guilty”  Some might say that this is a naieve approach which sets people up for being taken advantage of.  And there are certainly people who, knowing I try to think the best, will seek to take advantage of a situation.  But assuming the best doesn’t mean that you don’t gather the facts and seek the truth about a situation.  And it is key to always be ready to have your assumptions corrected and act accordingly.

So, our assumptions range from what we think about God, to our life, to other people, to the mundane…but these assumptions all have a profound effect on the outcome in a given situation!

It may be difficult, but try it to have your assumptions challenged or extend an “assume the best” attitude toward a coworker, spouse, or friend, and see how many problems are solved!

Well, I am seeking to re-start regular blogging for ministry, personal musings, family life, and more. So to get back started I am thinking that I will share a page from the journal…in fact as I read over my journal, I think I will take selections on a regular basis and share what is appropriate and helpful here.  So here is a thought from just the other day.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15.1)

I was reading this passage (read the whole passage now) and meditating on the imagery and pondering the abiding concept…when something really jumped out at me, and this is what I wrote down:

2/26/2009

Love – Abide – Fruit – Joy – Obey – Ask

Vine + Branches = Fruit – Pruining = More Fruit + Asking Receiving
or
Vine – Branches = no Fruit = Throw Away – Withers – Burned Up

My focus must be on abiding in Christ, living in Him, dwelling in Him, trusting in Him, existing in Him, clinging in Him, falling in Him, placing all of who I am in Him… Living with the reality that without him I can do nothing; Not giving in to the facade or mirage of our world that calls on human power, thought, and effort to accomplish. 

I must also allow and recognize His pruning…ouch…wait I liked that relationship…ouch…I needed that ministry…ouch…why did you cut that off, it was so fruitful…Oh, you are going to bring MORE fruit??…Right there where you cut??…I don’t see how God, you just cut it off!

I’m scared God, but I ask in your name Jesus for greater fruit, for deeper love in you and deeper love of others, for stronger support in abiding…to produce fruit that will not be mistaken for anything else than from you to bring others to worship you fully, to experience complete love, to enter into the fullness of total freedom through Christ alone.

You are most glorified by the greatest amount of fruit that is possible to come from my life, and I have maximum joy with abounding fruit.

But my single focus and pursuit is abiding in you Christ!

Ok, we finally got our pictures posted from our Costa Rica Trip!

http://gallery.themooresonline.org/main.php?g2_itemId=3873

We went for 10 days, mainly working with Green Earth Coffee in a village of the Cabecar indians in the Cartago Provence.  This was our first mainly humanitarian type trip that we have worked with (even though we ended up in a 2 hr. church service in the dark with some Cabecar people each night after 10-12 hr work days).  What a fantastic team we went with!!  I have never lead a team where everyone was so eager to work hard with ANY job and not complain.  I know that the connections we made there will stay with us for the rest of our life!

I have begun to be a contributor on a collaborative blog www.insideoutpeople.com seeking to encourage conversation and life change in being authentic followers of Christ who are making a difference in their immediate community and the global community. I want to encourage you to go there and check out what the other contributors have to say, it is challenging on all levels.

We were asked to each give a perspective on what it means to be an inside out person. I want to share my posts here as well as encourage you to go there to read others.

“Full of It”

What are you filled with? What am I filled with?

At first that seems like a difficult or weird question to answer. But if I ask someone else to describe you or me, they are probably going to use some words that begin or end in “full”! And honestly on different days I might be described in different words…one day I may be described as “joyful” but another, “spiteful”, or “full of love”, or “playful”, or acting in “hurtful” ways, etc.

We describe each other like this because we see the things coming out of a person as what describes the stuff that is on the INSIDE. What’s on the inside COMES OUT, one way or another. We can pretend for awhile (and we all have done it), but the stuff in there will spill out. So what’s in there??

“…Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” -Colossians 1.27b-29

So the biggest concerns for me are…

first, is Christ in me and is he my hope?

second, is HIS energy working powerfully within me?

and third, HOW am I working and struggling with his energy spilling out of me to others?

If Christ is in me people should be able to call me “Christful”. Certainly it is less complex to say that someone is “joyful” rather than “Christful”. But the more you and I get to know the Christ of the story (the living Christ understood through the Scriptures), the more we become like his character, his thoughts, his heart, his everything! Are people seeing you and I spilling over with Jesus and describing us as full of Him? Are we living out the life of Jesus in other lives, with those who are hurting and those who are rejoicing?

This describes the basis for my understanding of being an Inside Out Person and describes my mission, my purpose, and my cause for my life and all the relationships in my life. I need others in my life to challenge me and encourage me to be living this way! So join us as we go through the ups and the downs of seeking to be Full of it!