A couple random pictures, for Luke B

Most random post ever? 

Just sharing a couple ideas for some Leviticus videos, in a highly-draft form. Enjoy my far-less-than-stellar artwork, blog world.

Christmas FGFW Logos

Just posting these here so I can embed them into other sites... But I hope you like 'em!

Halloween, Worship, & Mission

“I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world… I do not ask
that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the
truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world,
so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:11, 15-18)

Two Sides of the Pendulum

I received an email this week from someone wanting to know if The City Church “keeps Halloween.” To be fair, I’m not 100% sure what that phrase means! But it raises a valid question as to why we’re encouraging our church family to “worship by loving our neighbors” well on the weekend of this cultural holiday.

The obvious answer, which must be noted, is that the Great Commission is to love our neighbors, and that obedience to God, and carrying out his mission, is worship. But my answer to the email, and my encouragement to you, City folks, starts with two extremes: on one side of the pendulum, as followers of Jesus, we can reject Halloween, write it off as automatically evil, and create sub-par, Christian alternatives to it, for Christian people to attend. Theologically and philosophically, this approach would be termed “sectarian”: huddling together with others “like us,” ignoring the non-believing co-workers, classmates, neighbors, and friends God puts in our lives, and being more and more “out of the world,” which directly rejects Jesus’ command to be “in it.”

Swinging to the other end, we can fully embrace Halloween, and dive into and support its admittedly-dark overtones, which echo of demons, witchcraft, ancestor worship, and other spiritually-confusing things. The big word for this approach is “syncretism”: for the sake of relevance, being nice, and “non-judgment,” we become less discerning, overly accepting, and in the biblical words, “of the world,” which equally rejects Jesus’ command not to!

Stopping in the Middle

So where does that leave us with Halloween (and for that matter, lots of other areas of life)? The answer is that we seek a balance between pretending Halloween doesn’t exist and embracing it fully; we try to stop the pendulum mid-swing. We accept the fact that it’s a cultural celebration, and if we trust God’s sovereignty and good work in literally “all things” (which God himself claims in Ephesians 1:11), then we understand Halloween to be one of the best opportunities of the year, provided – or at least allowed – by God, to meet, know, love, and bless our neighbors.

Here’s how that plays out: we host Halloween parties, because as followers of Jesus, we have the best reason to celebrate and want others to celebrate too. We take our kids to neighbors houses and meet them (maybe for the first time), and then we can follow up later and invite them into our lives. We buy and give out the best candy on the block, reflecting the generosity Jesus first gave to us. Another article suggests that you go a step further, and grill out in the front yard to provide dinner for those wandering your neighborhood, or that you even invite your neighbors to trick or treat with you and your family.

Bottom Line in our View of Halloween

To conclude, Colossians 1:20 teaches that in Jesus, God is “reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” All things means all things – even cultural holidays and celebrations! As Jesus’ followers, God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation… entrusting to us the message of reconciliation… Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). So by God’s grace and for his glory, let’s fulfill Jesus’ prayer this Halloween weekend, and be sent into the world and seek the true welfare of the people we live near, just as Jesus was first sent to us, to seek ours.

Thoughts? Responses? How will you combine Halloween, Worship, & Mission this weekend?

Coming this December...

We're taking a break from Leviticus for the holidays, and will spend a few weeks dwelling with and learning from John the Baptist.

For centuries, God's people have set aside the weeks before Christmas to prepare themselves to celebrate Jesus' birth. No one in history has better modeled this idea of preparation better than Jesus' own cousin, who we call John the Baptist. This desert-dwelling, locust-eating prophet was uniquely called by God, spent his life pointing others to Jesus, and died for the sake of God's mission. As The City Church gets to know John the Baptist over the 2011-2012 holiday season, we'll join him in proclaiming to our lives and our world, "Prepare the way of the Lord!"

Join us for Leviticus?

Wanna Learn Leviticus?
Sunday, October 2, The City Church started a several-month journey through the confusing, bloody, embarrassing, potentially-angering book of Leviticus. The news has apparently caused a (very minor, but very exciting!) stir: there were over 620 webviews of our first Leviticus page in the past two weeks, people in at least five states have started following our podcast specifically to get this content, and our Discussion Guide's introduction and part one .pdf's have been downloaded several times, even though we gave out hard copies to folks in The City Church.

You're Invited to Join Us Too
Whether you're in Fort Worth, Kentucky, or China, we'd love to have you walk vicariously with us over these coming months. It's very simple, but we encourage you not to do it alone - so grab a couple friends and...

1. Reply to this post and let us know a) where you are and b) that you're joining us - we'll do our best to check in occasionally
2. Listen to the podcast or watch the sermon video - both available here
3. Download the Discussion Guide (more on this below)
4. After working through the sermon and Discussion Guide, meet up and walk through each week's questions together
5. Be amazed by God, glory, grace, worship, your call, your ministry, and so much other amazing content we'll see in Leviticus!

What's The Point of the Discussion Guide?
Simply put, Leviticus has too much content to cover in each week's sermon - unless we want to be in Leviticus for many decades. So the Discussion Guide comes alongside sermons and fill in the gaps. Each week contains five sections:

• How to Read this Passage: a breakdown of each week's verses, to help you understand how they fit together.
• Issues to Note: cultural nuances, technical issues, symbolism, etc - basically, details in that weeks' passage that are lost on today's readers
• Themes to Consider: this section ties themes from each week's passage to broader biblical themes, to help you see how Leviticus fits God's story
• Questions to Ask: in addition to fueling late-night thinking and prompting blog posts, these questions will inform Village discussion, discipleship groups, personal reflection, etc.
• Questions for Kids: our KidCity team has crafted a great curriculum for Leviticus, following the biblical themes the adults are covering. Parents and Villages alike can follow this simple, meaningful section with your kiddos.

How you stay on track? How do you make sure you're reading the right content each week? Here's the deal: we're addressing Leviticus in four "sections," or four "Parts." An Introduction and Part One are already available for download (links above), and we'll post Parts Two through Four in the coming months. On the first page of each Part, you'll see an introduction and schedule for that Part. But for your convenience, here's the schedule for Part One:

Ready? Go.
I think that covers the basics. As a summary, sermon + discussion guide = good Village discussion. But neither of those replace actually reading Leviticus. Our stuff, and everyone else's, is simply commentary. As we said on Sunday, "God's word reveals God, and Leviticus is God's word." Read it! Again, let us know what questions you have, and thanks in advance for walking virtually with us, through this great, unknown, rich part of God's Word! It's an honor.

ForTheGoodOfFortWorth.com

Greetings
To the two of you(?) who actually still read this blog, thanks for sticking with me since it's been so long since I've updated it!

I'm thrilled to announce one of the many things keeping me distracted from writing of late: a new, developing organization called "For The Good of Fort Worth." We're very much in phase one, building and dreaming and pressing into God for favor in his eyes and in our city's various realms of leadership (both official and non-official). But here's the scoop:

For The Good of Fort Worth exists for a very simple purpose: "to seek the physical, social, economic, and spiritual welfare of Fort Worth, through its citizens." It's a simple ideal born out of neighbors loving neighbors and everyone engaging to do their part. It's not intended to be a movement, but intended to be a gathering point for people who want to seek the welfare of our city together.


How's It Work?
So we're staring to ask folks, of all faiths, demographics, and parts of town to start asking simple questions:

• What are my hobbies? What are my passions? What are my skills? Etc.
• What are things I do anyway, everyday, week after week?
• How can I take those things and use them for the good of Fort Worth?

It's a reorientation of one's life and view - not adding extra things to your schedule, bud adjusting what you already do, for the purpose of God's mission.

As folks engaged with and answered these questions, here are a few examples of what emerged:

• "I have a passion for ESL": so a group is working together to get a class started in a largely hispanic, largely lower-income neighborhood - that's training for the good of Fort Worth!
• "I want to see men trained to love God, love their family/friends, and love their city": so we're hosting a Men's Summit, Oct 22 - that's an event for the good of Fort Worth! (a college-specific event, and a women's event, are in the pipeline for 2012)
• "I like to make music": so local musicians are banding together to play concerts for charity (including our Launch on Oct 8, 4-6pm, whose proceeds go to the Day Resource Center - see the flyer below), as well as (in the future) invest in local schools and kids to teach them music - that's music for the good of Fort Worth!
• And that's just the start: our hope is to invest in education, health care, homelessness, and the local arts culture, just to name a few realms of our local society.

It's exciting. It's a first step. But it's one step that we hope many folks will join us in taking, as together we seek "the good of Fort Worth"!

How Can I Get Involved/Know More?
On one level, if you have an idea, want to invest, or just want updates, contact us here.

On another level, pray. We all know we can do beneficial things, by our own power, for others. We've all done it and seen it done. But, if we want to see the best possible things occur for our city, then yes, we can invest in it, serve it, and love it well, and seek its welfare - but nothing will be as fruitful if we don't submit our city and our efforts to God. "Thursdays at Lunch" is a call for Fort Worthians to pray for, weep for, and beg God for the good of our city. Find out more, and if you want to pray with others, start a prayer meeting, here.

Finally, anyone can gather a group, create an event or volunteer their time to this purpose. If you're a writer, form a writers' group with friends and neighbors from different walks of life. If you're a baker, make cakes and cookies for your neighbors. If you're a college student, join an organization and get to know folks in it. The possibilities are endless. We set up a website to be a conduit for community as it informs and connects people from around the city who try new ideas, share best practices, cheer for each other's efforts and pray for the welfare of all.

But the idea is not to join this website, but to join your neighbors in making Fort Worth the best place on the planet to live, work and play. Find people who share your passion for art or music or volunteerism and begin to make a difference on your block, in your apartment complex or at your office.

We can't do it alone. Let us know what you want to do, and join us in seeking the welfare of our city.

And join us as we launch Music For The Good of Fort Worth!

So it's been awhile...

But that's to be expected by now, right?

Just a little note to say I'm thrilled for where The City Church is headed this fall. Some have said we're crazy; some have said worse. But we're gearing up for an intense run.

"What's the plan?" you ask.

Here it is folks... And it all begins October 2: