Light-work

What Church is Emerging? Pt. 1 of 5

What is the emergent church movement about?  A great place to start is in the writings of Brian McLaren, a key figure in this movement.  For Mr. McLaren, an important doctrinal distinctive of the movement is found in its critique of the "exclusivity of Christ."  He has written an article entitled A Reading of John 14:6 which was considered for inclusion in his book, The Secret Message of Jesus, and which provides his closely reasoned treatment of John 14:6.  This is the passage where Jesus declares, "No one comes to the Father, but through Me."  I will be posting a few comments on this article late next week.  Between now and then, look over his article and make some notes.  I will look forward to your comments.

Dan's 100+ Winning Streak!

This guy is having an amazing streak of luck.  He sits at a blackjack table in Vegas and has beat the house 75 straight times.  Needless to say, his pile of chips is HUGE and growing.  He is definitely getting noticed (especially by casino management) but just keeps raking it in.  After 100 straight winning hands, he pushes back from the table and calmly demurs, "That's all for now."

No one is this lucky!  There has got to be something going on here to account for such an incredible feat of defying the odds.  This is precisely the conundrum men face when it comes to Daniel 11.  You remember Daniel (the guy who was invited to the Lion's Club for dinner).  He was a prominent figure in the Chaldean and Medo-Persian empires of the sixth century BC.  He was also an amazing prophet. 

Late in his career, he described a series of future events with amazing specificity.  In the first third of chapter 11, he outlines a sequence of 60 key events that will occur in the Middle East between his day and the second century BC.  In the next third of the chapter, he details 40 key features of events that will occur in the reign of a leader who can be identified as Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 BC).  I have attached two documents that show in two columns what Daniel said would happen(left column) and a brief summary (in the right column) of what actually happened.  Taken together, these prophecies and their historical counterparts blaze a prophetic winning streak that is 100 events long.  Here - check 'em out:

Download daniel_11_part_one.pdf
Download daniel_11_part_two.pdf

So, what's going on here?  How is it possible for someone living in 534 BC to predict with such precision an extended sequence of events spanning over 300 years?  Is something fishy going on here?  Or could it be that Daniel actually has a hot-line to God?

Eat More Beef - Postscript

Wouldn't it be great if we could take a pill which provides an instant and lasting ability to distinguish between a "good fight" and a "bad fight?"  Alas, no such pill exists!  Fighting the good fight is not a singular event or even a "stage of life."  It is life.  And discerning the fights worth fighting is a day-to-day process.  I appreciate the great comments!  And I appreciate the fact that knowing which hills to die on is a daily and daunting challenge.  So, I've created a category titled, "The Good Fight."  Look for future posts under this category and treat them as a collection of "good fight" discernment pills.

Eat More Beef!

Heading East toward Amarillo on Highway 40, we weren't expecting this!  An attention grabbing bossy wooing the famished to gorge themselves.  Draped on the cow's ample flanks are emblazoned the words, "Free 72 Oz. Steak."  The big fella is the PR invention of The Big Texan Steak Ranch, RJ "Bob" Lee's legendary Amarillo attraction where over 40,000 have tried, and 8,000 have succeeded.  Those whose names are enrolled on the "Wall of Fame" have eaten the required salad, shrimp cocktail, baked potato, dinner roll, and, yes, a four and half pound slab of beef in less than 60 minutes.

As a marketing strategy, I can't fault The Big Texan.  They got my attention with their bodacious bovine.  But I wonder, does something not seem a little skewed here?  Is there anyone out there who would champion the benefits (health or otherwise) of such a rapacious act of consumption?  What, exactly, has someone gained by "winning" this challenge?

The apostle Paul enjoins his prodigy Timothy to fight the good fight.  His words suggest that there is nothing good served by fighting well the bad fight, the fight that isn’t worth fighting.  His words call us to be selective about hills we are going to die on, the places where we are going to make our stand, the goals toward which we will strive.  A HS football coach once told me, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”  I don’t question Coach B's counsel, but I also know that the winner in a contest worth fighting refuses to dissipate his energies in lesser pursuits.

So today, I purpose to fight the good fight!  I will seek to apply my best efforts to the things most worth doing and avoid the lure of "winning" at what doesn't matter.    

I Like Seeing

How weird is it to take an elevator to a cave?  That's what I did at Blanchard Springs Caverns in Arkansas.  You descend 200' and emerge in the "Cathedral Room" where lights have been installed.  (Yes, it was rough spelunking with elevators and installed lighting.)  At one point on the tour they kill the lights.  And that's when "total darkness" becomes more than just a figure of speech.  I waved my hand in front of my face with zero visual cue to what was happening!  You could feel the group's swelling anxiety.  The lights remained off only briefly, but, when they came back on, no one was pleading - "Please, oh please, we want to spend more time in the dark!"  We liked seeing!

I built the house we now live in in my spare time.  (I confess that I chose this of my own freewill - what was I thinking?  More on this debacle in a later post.)  Much of this "spare time" was at night.  So, in order to be able to see what I was doing, I installed lights in the trees.  When the job site was lit up, I was able to get things done.

That's what lightwork is about.  Think of it as a place where we can talk about how light from the Bible gives us the illumination we need to live, to be effective, to get things done.  When I think about what I want to accomplish as a person, a father, a husband, and a pastor, I like seeing!  How about you?   Let's  put some light on life and get productive!