Yesterday, I found myself staring at my bookcase.  For starters, since I moved, I have not yet put them back into alphabetical order.  This simply drives me nuts.  I keep them in order by genre and by the last name of the author.  It helps me to find whatever book I’m looking for faster if I do this.  As I was looking at the books, I decided to make myself a reading list for the next few months.  I then decided to share the list with whoever reads this.  I think it could be helpful for everyone to make a reading list.  It’s good to have goals, and it’s also good to be intentional in reaching goals.  I have found that if I put order to certain aspects of my life, it helps me to reach my goals.  Therefore, I made a reading list.

Maybe you would like to join me in reading a few of these.  I’m not suggesting any of them, because I haven’t read any of them yet.  But here is my list of 13 books that I will be reading in the near future (I may not do it in exactly this order):

-  Hearing God by Dallas Willard
- Outliers: the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Sway
- Death by Love by Mark Driscoll
- Mortification of Sin by John Owen
- When People are Big and God is Small by Edward Welch
- The Courage to be Protestant by David Wells
- They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball
- Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley
- What Jesus Demands from the World by John Piper
- Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
- The Sacred Way by Tony Jones
- The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever

This is what my coming future looks like in book form.  What does yours look like?

Well, it’s Christmas Eve.  This is my second favorite day of the year.  My favorite being tomorrow, of course.  I will soon make my way out to the mall, as I do every Christmas Eve.  For some reason, I enjoy experiencing the “hustle and the bustle” of the day.  I tend to save one gift to purchase on this day so that I at least have an excuse to go out.  I simply love going into the crowd and watching the crowds of people go through all of the emotions that waiting until the last minute causes.

I am under the impression that this holiday has a great deal to do with people.   Don’t get me wrong though.  I definitely believe and cherish the fact that this is the day that we have set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus, God made flesh.  If you really look at the story of the incarnation though, there is no divorcing the celebration of the birth of God the Son without also realizing that the incarnation has a great deal to do with people as well.  The people that are going to be out shopping today are the very people that Jesus came to save, and that should redefine how many of us that call ourselves Christians look at this holiday.

I leave you with this quote, which I am stealing from the resurgence

“The idea that God, if there is a force of Logic and Love in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in [crap] and straw . . . a child . . . I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry . . . Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came streaming down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this.”

- Bono

“Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior. All other topics in Holy Scripture are important, and none of them are to be cast into the shade. But the death of the Son of God is the central sun of all these other minor luminaries. May this house be utterly consumed with fire before the day should come here when there should be given an uncertain sound about the atonement. This is not merely a doctrine of the church; it is the doctrine of the church. Leave this out, and you have no truth, you have no Savior, and you have no church.”–Charles Spurgeon

Josh Harris posted that quote on his blog today, and I have had it running through my mind all day.  With the realization that you may not read his blog, I thought I would post it on mine for your mutual edification.  Enjoy!

To begin this entry, I must first give a bit of background information.  For the last few years, I have lived in Lynchburg, VA.  For years, this was a town that existed with the void of any quality burrito establishments.  For a great deal of time, one would drive to Charlottesville for the sweet satisfaction of a Chipotle burrito.  Then, almost suddenly, a new establishment appeared in Lynchburg.  This burrito restaurant was one that I had never heard of or seen before.  It is now commonly known as Moe’s Southwest Grill.  My friends and I had not been to Chipotle in quite some time and were salivating over the mere notion of a quality burrito.

As we sat there, taking our first bites into our meal our eyes lit up with such glee that we barely said one word until every bite was consumed.  As a bonus, Moe’s includes chips and one of five varieties of salsa for consumption.  It was not long after this that one of our friends made a comment that made me question the greatness of the meal I had eaten.  “Sure, we have a Moe’s, but what we really need is a Chipotle.”  For a moment I saw his point.  My mind wandered back to all of the wonderful meals I had shared with friends at Chipotle.  We enjoyed many and the food was so good.  For the time, I accepted that there was a possibility that Chipotle was superior.  There were arguments, but I sat them out, as I hadn’t actually had the opportunity to compare the two.

Then, it happened.  I moved to Richmond, VA.  This fair city is the home of both Chipotle and Moe’s.  As a matter of fact, I literally live within walking distance of a Chipotle.   I live so close that upon moving in to our current apartment, my wife and I were given coupons to enjoy free burritos from this wonderful eatery.  The decision was quickly made to go enjoy a couple of burritos on the house.

So we went, and we ate.  During that meal, I finally understood that there was definitely a HUGE difference between Chipotle and Moe’s.  It may disappoint some loyal devotees, but I have to say that Moe’s is WAY better than Chipotle.  I also feel that Chipotle needs to take drastic steps in order to stay on top of this game.  Now, when people try to convince me that Chipotle is better, I simply brush it off to either stupidity or ignorance.

There are a few reasons for my strong culinary opinions in this matter.

1.    The taste of the burrito – I find it quite interesting that both have very similar ingredients, but Moe’s seems to have a distinctively better taste in their burritos.  Chipotle offers a much drier burrito, whereas the burritos at Moe’s are the perfect combination of moistness (forgive me, for I couldn’t think of another word to use).

2.    Chipotle Ranch Sauce – Believe it or not, this sauce is only found at MOE’S!  Are you kidding me?  Chipotle doesn’t even have chipotle sauce?  That’s right folks.  Let me just tell you, that this sauce adds so much zest and tanginess to your meal that you will not regret telling the clerk to put extra sauce on the burrito.

3.    Chips and Salsa – Let’s be honest here.  I’m simply offended that Chipotle wants to charge me for this stuff.  Moe’s offers chips and five different flavors of salsa for you to indulge in at no extra charge.  This adds a ton of value to my meal.  To make the test even more interesting though, I went ahead and purchased the chips and salsa at chipotle, and what I got was stale and dry.  The salsa had lost all its freshness and it was just bland at best.  If I have to buy it, it should definitely be better than what I get for free at Moe’s.  The fact is though, that on this point, Moe’s more than dominates in value and definitely in taste.

4.    Customer Service – Every time I have been to Moe’s, I have been greeted with glee.  I realize that they are paid to do this, but it is actually really nice and adds to the experience.  When I go in Chipotle though, I’m greeted by a crew of people that act as if they are only making about 7 dollars an hour.  While I realize that is, most likely, their salary, I also realize that the folks over at Moe’s can’t be making much more than that themselves.

Feel free to argue or test these yourselves, but for my money, and my burrito desires… “WELCOME TO MOE’S!!!”

If you have a few minutes and you’re in the mood for a good laugh, please check out Nate Schlomann’s blog.

What is risk?  I ask this in the context of a life lived for the mission of Jesus (this being defined by the Great Commission).  I realize that with God there is no real risk.  All takes place under the banner of His sovereignty, and if we are obeying Him then we can trust in his provision in our lives.

What I’m writing about is what should we be willing to risk? Better yet even, what should we be risking for the mission.  If we look at the book of Acts, we see the apostles and first century believers taking unbelievable risks for the sake of Jesus.  We specifically see Paul constantly risking life and limb to spread the message of the Gospel throughout the world.  He had to trust in God providing odd jobs (he made tents) and donations from faithful churches to feed and clothe him.

So how should we live?  How “responsible” should we be?  Are we trusting God enough?

Has anyone else noticed the amount of name dropping that goes on in blogs?  I know I’m a beginner at blogging, but I find it interesting that many popular bloggers seem to try and fit as many links to their friends blogs, sometimes pointlessly, into their posts.  I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers or anything, but could someone explain this?

I’m guessing it is to increase the traffic to their buds blogs or to raise their technorati rating or whatever, but is this the point?

I’m just curious….

If you know where that phrase actually comes from, then you possibly grew up in a family that was was obsessed with 70’s country music as I did. Now that I have the comedy portion of my own personal welcome back party to the bloggerdom, let us get down to business. Most people apologize for not blogging for an extended period of time, but not I. I had to make choices over the past few months as to how to spend my time, and my little blog just didn’t make the cut. Perhaps a time in my life is coming when I can spend a tenth of the time that others spend on their blogs on mine, or maybe that is as much of a pipe dream.

To update everyone on where I, and conVerge Church are on our path to world domination (maybe I should say evangelization instead). We are now well into our Summer Series. There has been much confusion and possibly even criticism (gasp!) over what we are doing this summer. A few months ago, Nate and I decided that over the summer we would experiment. What if we stripped down the formalities and rituals that we take part in for a brief time, and simply come together and be the church? What if we were to gather, share meals, pro-actively create environments where the people of conVerge are almost forced to have conversations that could lead to relationships? What if we could do this during the service? What does a service even look like?

Those are just a few of the questions I have been asking myself over the past few months about “services.” I still believe in them, and even believe they are the best way to formalize a church. I do think, that at this point in the infancy of conVerge that we have done something that has actually brought about friendships and conversations that wouldn’t have taken place without this move.

“But how are you preaching the Word?” you might ask. Well, on a few of the nights I have brought 10-15 minute talks about the passage of Scripture our missional communities are in (our communities are spending the summer in Ephesians). Also, once a month we are coming together to partake in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. This is a time of reflecting on the death of Jesus and the reconciliation that He brought us through it.

So what are we doing? To sum it up, we are trying to be the church instead of going to church. I don’t think this is the model of church that I would ever do on a full time basis, but maybe sometimes people need to strip away the formalities to form relationships. If the church doesn’t make it happen, it probably never will. I think that’s where being the church can really start. I love the freedom to experiment, and I hope I never lose it.

I have neglected my blog for the past few weeks, and have no excuse other than lack of time.  I would like to say though, that when people excuse themselves from doing something because they did not have enough time, what they are actually saying is that they did not either a) desire to do one thing over another thing they felt more time efficient or b) are lazy and are using their time unfruitfully or c) are terrible at time management.  c) may actually need to be combined with b), but I will leave that up to you to decide.  I would though, at this time, like to list a random list of things that are going through my mind this morning.

1)  I love the C(c)hurch

2) I visited Richmond, VA yesterday and was overcome with excitement for this fall when we make the move to plant conVerge Church in Charter Colony.

3) No one said it would be easy, and Jesus actually said it would be hard.

4) Jesus wasn’t as nice as my flesh would have liked Him to be.

5) People that wear formal attire to church have no clue what the term missional means.
6) God has been really convicting me of so many things this week.

7) I am scared of the message I’m sharing out of God’s Word tonight.

That’s all for now, and I hope to see you tonight.

We faced a decision a few months back.  We were continuing to begin our movement towards a church plant in Richmond as well as all working jobs and attending college or seminary.  We were making connections, talking to professors, rearranging our lives, and trying to learn what it actually meant to live Missional lives.  We had two Bible studies that met every week and studied Scripture, prayed for each other, and talked about being Missional.  We had formed a community of people that cared for each other, prayed for each other. 

There was only one problem with what we were doing though.  We were constantly talking about being Missional, but none of us were actually being Missional.  The system that we had set up, and most of the students studying for “church ministry” have set up is a system of theorizing and vision-casting for a few years down the road for when they will begin to obey the commands of God concerning Missional living.  We felt, and they feel, that we were on a “time-out” from being on the mission of Jesus while we were learning everything that we could about Jesus in a classroom. 

There are some problems with this though.  Let it first be understood though, that I am a champion of education.  I am college educated, have one Masters in Pastoral Counseling, and am currently earning a Master of Divinity degree in theology.  I am not advocating that people should not be educated.  I actually advocate the opposite.

What I am advocating is urgency for living Missional right now, wherever you are, and in whatever circumstance you are.  In Matthew 28: 19, 20 we find one of the most heralded verses for the New Testament church, but also, one of the most misunderstood.  For the sake of the reader, I will not cover every aspect of this passage.  What I will lay out are some key things that need to be taken from this verse, especially for those preparing for “ministry” right now. 

There are four basic actions commanded in this verse.  Those four actions are: go, make, teach, and trust.  We are to “go” in the authority of Jesus, “make” disciples, “teach” them to obey, and “trust” that Jesus will be with us to the end of the age.  I believe that the order they are laid out in that verse is very significant to how we live.  Most followers of Jesus currently follow a system that uses those concepts in a reverse order.  We follow this pattern: trust, teach, make, and go.  The problem is that in that order, it becomes completely self-centered.  We spend a while learning to “trust,” then we get people to “teach” us what is right and what we should do, then we have that person “make” us into disciples, and then we consider “go”-ing on the mission to reach the world.

The main problem with that is that it is in the wrong order.  It also usually becomes very self-centered, which will usually take people right off of mission, and people get swallowed up by the “thorns” of this world (cf. Luke 8:7).  By thorns, I mean the cares of this world (career, family, material possessions, romance, etc.) swallow them up and they never make it to “go.”