But they’re not because they seem to get it. It being that the most important thing is the Gospel. Many churches try their best to mold themselves as much as they can to whatever culture they’re attempting to reach. This place, from our first impression seems to get that it’s the other way around . . . that we are to imitate Christ as the body of Christ, we’re not to be showy. The scripture teaches us that there wasn’t any thing visually appealing about Christ, nothing that would attract people to him. The Church as the aroma of Christ is meant to point people to the Gospel, not church culture.

I’m not belittling the necessity of marketing, only the use of marketing as a ploy. If you show up at a church as a lost person and everything you experience there is simply just a show imitating everything the world does and is (even in the purest form you can come up with), then what have you really gained? What is there to experience that is any different from what you experience every day? Sure it may be fun, you might be entertained, and you may enjoy the time spent there, but in the end you haven’t experienced the community of Christ, but the communion of the church imitating culture just to get you to feel comfortable enough to come back again. The use of culture to reach culture should never never never be elevated above the importance of the Word and the Gospel–which have no culture.

This place seems to get the Gospel, they seem to be very missional–planting other churches and partnering to see other nations impacted by the gospel. They taught from the Word, not from opinion or feelings or convenience.

Anyways, I’m very wary of speaking too soon about a place because of past experiences, but so far so good. Looks like we’ll be sticking around. I’ll keep you updated with our experiences there and might even mention the name of the place and give concrete examples of what exactly gives me this “sense” i speak of as time goes by.

One of the joys of my business is that I can work from pretty much anywhere, something I’m going to take advantage of in my new home in Rome. I’m planning on taking up residence in a little coffee shop and/or book store, get involved in a genuine real way in people’s lives, and share the love of Christ–the love that caused him to become nothing so that he might be glorified by the lives of the redeemed (Phil. 2:1-11).

I’ve been reading “The Reason for God” by Tim Keller with some friends of mine and have been reminded and growingly blown away how he approaches the lost–with an exposition on the Gospel that dismantles the presumptions of the even the stanchest of atheists–while diminishing the pride of even the proudest of Christians. It will be a huge resource I’m bound to return to time after time when stepping out onto this new mission field of life.

Pray for me as I return to a mission field I have fond memories of from times past–the starbucks/barnes & noble. Pray that I won’t just be “that christian guy” that hangs out and annoys people that are trying to enjoy their coffee. I don’t want to approach the lost from my “superior” condescending spiritual view point. Instead I want to approach the lost from the perspective of a gospel-saturated broken servant who knows how much I NEED Christ.

Lately I’ve been listening to a good bit of stuff from Keller and the similarities are uncanny. Really there are still a lot of differences stylistically, but the same philosophy of ministry is still in everything they say. Basically everything that they say in their sermons is a narrative of the Gospel. Meaning, the Gospel isn’t just this other thing that happened that we should remember as Christians, but instead that every biblical story is an exposition of the Gospel, everything we think, say or do can be boiled down to our understanding, or lack thereof, of the Gospel.

Needless to say, I’m very grateful for both Preaching ministries and happy to share a link I just came across that has tons of Tim Keller Resources. So please enjoy by clicking HERE

Oh yes, the Piggly Wiggly. Little know the historical significance of the Piggly Wiggly as being the first true self-service grocery stores ever. This little piece of history will probably remain tucked away from the knowledge of most, but no not for me.

Soon my wife and I will be moving to Rome, GA, which is certainly known for other things besides having a Piggly Wiggly (which is one of the cleanest stores I’ve been in I might add). This little piece of heaven will be right down the road from us–something I will gladly take in the place of the carcinogenic stench bellowing from the chemical plant near our current residence in the southern part of Cartersville and the super redneck woman across the street that yells for her (unleashed) dog at all hours of the night.

My wife has worked in Rome going on 2 years now and with my business I can work pretty much from anywhere. So, when considering how much money we would save by living there, the much shorter drive for my wife, and everything else we decided it was time to pack up and head out.

I’m looking forward to the move. As one of my friends put it, “Rome exists far enough from the gravity of Atlanta to have developed kind of a culture of its own”. I suppose we will find out how we feel about the place pretty soon.

It begs the question, “How far are we willing to go to help and serve those who hate us or mean us harm?” For me this is a tough one. In many ways it would be easy for me to make the same decision the guy in the story did. At the same time, if this were the third, fourth, or fifth time I had experienced such a thing I would probably think twice before handing over my coat.

The story reminds me of an experience my wife had at our last church while serving in a volunteer role. She was asked to help out with the Youth and gladly agreed to do so. Over a period of months, anytime she had a question or asked for help, repetitively she was ignored and treated with a sort of willful neglect. Until one day, without any thing being communicated to her, she attempted to log into her volunteer email address only to find it had been deleted.

So she acted much like the guy in the story who extended his coat after being asked for his wallet. After extending a helping hand in one area only to have it rejected, she did her best to shrug it off and moved on to serve as a greeter on Sundays. Unfortunately she experienced similar lack of communication-going as far as to just show up early every Sunday because she never knew which Sundays they needed her. After experiencing many similar circumstances myself, my wife and I decided it was time to move on.

So, how far are we willing to go?. How far starts by realizing that our treasure is in heaven and whatever we have here, we are but temporary stewards of. How far we are willing to go may need to end when we realize that what we have extended in service gets mismanaged time and time again. Wise use of what we have been entrusted with is the key. We would do well to remember the Parable of the Talents, because one day the Master will return to reclaim what is his.

So give your wallet, go as far as to extend your coat, and give with joy more of yourself than you ever think you ought to give. But, time after time, when you see no fruit, no change of heart, do as Jesus instructed us to do and shake the sand from your shoes as you leave the village.

Friendship is a selfish pursuit really–a mutual exchange of love motivated by the need to known. Jesus charged his disciples to love one another, using friendship as a way of defining love in saying that there is nothing greater than laying down your life for your friends. Who wouldn’t want friends like that?

Is that really selfish? Not if it’s mutual. If you find people that will love you with such selflessness, guess what? You’re going to in turn WANT to be the same kind of person for them. If we really love people as Jesus charged us to love people, by laying down our lives for them, imagine what kind of friends we will find ourselves with?

Jesus layed down his life for all who have and will believe and yet in his lifetime ended up with only 11 people that could be described as his true friends. Christ layed down his life for his disciples. They in turn layed down their lives for Him.

If even Jesus could be said to have 11 real friends in his lifetime, the ones he was speaking to in John 15, I consider myself lucky to be able to say I have even 3 (and you guys know who you are). Real friends are hard to come by, when you find them, be sure to show them the kind of love Christ modeled for us.

If you want better friends, start laying down your life out of love for people and you will have friends worth dying for.

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I think it’s safe to say that I have had some times in my life that I was this person with a chip on my shoulder–walking around biting people’s heads off–using my whits to insult people when they were too clueless to catch on (that was my favorite). But I didn’t get that way by accident. I needed some help to get me there. I apologize to those who had to experience me in this way back in the day (or yesterday for that matter). I might have been experiencing a series of events that caused me to spiral down the path of depression and self-loathing. There may have been something going on that you didn’t know about.

Painful circumstances are never an excuse to take your eye off of the ball, but sometimes you’re in so much pain that the only way you can muster the strength to be around people is to approach them with a sort of careless apathy. Instead of dealing with the pain eating away at your insides, it becomes way easier to point out people’s flaws to them. They probably have forgotten their flaws and need you to remind them of what’s wrong with them anyways right?

Next time you encounter a genuine douche bag in his/her element, stop and think about it for minute. Ask yourself, “what has happened to this person to make them this way?”, “what’s going on in this person’s life to make them act like such a douche?”. You may not have an answer, but there’s always more to their story than you know. This is a good opportunity to administer grace, forgive 7 times 70 as Jesus asks of us, and pray for healing of whatever this person is going through. Eventually, if they’re not really a douche at heart, they’ll come around.