THIS, is power.

My choices will shape my character. 

Good character will empower me to be the kind of person God uses to make hard lives easier.  

Making hard lives easier is a legacy that will transform my world, one needy--and often undeserving, person at a time.  

This is the miraculous power of amazing grace.

bN tGit

Deja vu.. All over again.

It's ground-hog day (the Flim) in America.  

More debate over a government shut-down, mud-slinging from both sides of the aisle, candidates sullied by their hubris and worse, a POTUS who thinks he's a visiting Professor who can lecture the world into a better, safer place.

As a Nation we've enjoyed a two-party system that has worked for the American people, bringing the best ideas from BOTH sides of the aisle in a synergy that has eclipsed ideology.  

"Father-in-heaven, deliver that kind of dynamic environment to us again, that we might continue to be a force for peace and that which is good, here and around the world. Heal our division and elevate the aspirations of our leaders to pursue values driven by character, reflective of our diversity, and aimed at the common good. Grant them shrewd judgement to desire and do the right thing. Give us the clarity we need to select leaders worthy of our trust; restore the confidence of this Nation in those selected to govern.  Empower our leaders to work shoulder to shoulder moving us forward for future generations.  Through Christ, let it be."

bN tGit

Power Failure

The Church in America is unplugged, it's powerless.  By power I mean spiritual gravitas which is the result of a clear anointing from God.  Most of the country perceives the confessing church to be the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.  I grew up hearing my mom say, "if the shoe fits wear it!"  Unfortunately, we've been tagged with this perception the old fashioned way, we've earned it.  We've chosen to contend for the soul of America using the political process--a grave error.  The shoe fits. 

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power."  2 Tim 3.1-4 

We routinely come to cultural "waypointes--places on a journey where the traveler can stop and change course."  It's past time for the confessing church to change our trajectory and become THE church. The fact is we've settled for sloppy seconds; too many of us worship in places that are driven by forms rather than power.  We've allowed popular culture to shape our vision of what Christ's church should be, what it should look like; we have embraced the wrong set of outcomes.

Today we measure the quality and effectiveness of our ministries based on the Big 3: People, Buildings, Revenue.  In fact, it's not difficult to erect buildings and fill them with people that generate million-dollar budgets.  False religions, cults and sects do it all around the world.  Jim Jones did in San Francisco and finally in Guyana.  Jimmy Swaggart did it, then did it AGAIN in Louisiana.  

People, buildings and money aren't wrong, they simply aren't the unique signature of Christ's Church.  These, alone, won't produce transformational-redemptive power, nor are they the indicators of the anointing of God.  Powerless religion, form-driven religion has a micro focus: it sees "the church" as the end.  Forms--the way we "do church," the things we do or don't do that identify us as "christians," are paramount.  This is the kind of context Jesus came into in Judea; the context the Religious power brokers endorsed and protected.

Form-driven religion becomes a template that blinds us to the brokenness which surrounds us.  Form-driven religion makes us think in "wrong-headed ways" about what the world deserves v. what God desires--Us v. Them.  Form-driven religion becomes a tyranny which chokes our vibrancy and shrivels our generosity.

Power-driven godliness sees loving, reaching and changing the world as the end.  Power-driven godliness acts without conditions.  Power-driven godliness seeks to make hard lives easier.  Power-driven godliness understands that wealth, leadership, talent and spiritual gifts are resources graciously given by God for His redemptive endeavor.  Power-driven godliness doesn't seek relavance; it is relevant.

Outcomes are critical.  Matthew 9..."35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.  36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  37 Then He said to His disciples, 'the harvest in plentiful, but workers are few.'" 

We've come to a waypointe.

bN tGit