Almost…(saved)

Posted on 01/14/2012 by Michael Carpenter

religion 590x493 Almost...(saved)
Does Jesus hate religion? This video that has been making the rounds says so. And Jefferson Bethke makes some valid points.

But does Jesus hate religion? That question must of kept Kevin DeYoung up all night because he took the time to exegete the poem in a lengthy blog post titled, “Does Jesus Hate Religion? Kinda, Sorta, Not Really.” And Voddie Baucham takes the video to task by stating that the “argument that Christianity is not a religion is a linguistic/grammatical fallacy.”

Anyway, this video below does a much better job of saying what I feel Bethke was trying to say.

Incarnational Presence

Posted on 01/06/2012 by Michael Carpenter

Eucharist media 141692 2 590x395 Incarnational Presence

We do not relate to God as a person on the first floor of a building relates to a person on the second floor. Rather, in the incarnation, God has written himself into the story of this world. In the incarnation, God left the culture of heaven to enter the culture of man, to bring redemption and restoration. We are called to do the same.

In John 17:15-19, we see Jesus pray three things in His high priestly prayer: (1) Do not take them out of the world, (2) keep them from the evil one; sanctify them in the truth, and (3) send them into the world. Most believers readily grasp the idea of Jesus being sent to the world. The fact that Jesus was the “sent one” is one of the most fundamental identifications of Jesus. The issue is to realize that as Jesus was “sent,” His prayer is that we would also be “sent.” The concept of a missional church is recognition that God is a sending God and we, the church and individual believers, are to live sent. Our sent and sending identity is connected with the very existence of the church.

The old adage was this: If you preached to believers, you were called a “pastor.” If you preached to non-Christians in your own culture, you were an “evangelist.” If you needed a passport to get there, you were a “missionary.” This is not helpful. All Christians are missionaries or they are not Christians. The only kind of Christian there is, is missionary.

Jesus had to be God to be able to lift us out of our sin, but had to be fully human to create the right conditions for such redemption to take place. It is from inside the human condition and experience that God fulfills his own requirements for the salvation of the human race. The incarnation embodies an act of profound identification with the entire human race. In an act of unspeakable humility, God actually takes upon himself all the conditions, even the limitations, the struggles, and doubts of humanity.

To identify incarnationally with a people will mean that we must try to enter into something of the cultural life of a people; to seek to understand their perspectives, their hurt, their real existence, in such a way as to genuinely reflect the act of identification that God made with us in Jesus. Furthermore, the coming of God among us was in Jesus constituted a “dwelling” among us (John 1:14) and geography itself took on a sacred meaning. Jesus became Jesus of what? Nazareth. Geography matters. If we want to incarnate the Gospel in a particular setting, we will have to think about “dwelling” in that setting.

Incarnation implies a sending impulse rather than one of “extraction.” In other words, we cannot and should not seek to extract people from their social circles in order to become a part of the church community. God is a missionary. He sent his Son into our world, into our lives, into human history. Incarnation implies some form of sending in order to be able to radically incarnate the various contexts in which we live.

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus

Posted on 10/26/2011 by Michael Carpenter

From NPR:

What happens when a British director known for making TV commercials and an American songwriter named Jim White get together to make a documentary about life on the backroads of the deep South?

A film called Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

White borrows a rusty 1970 Chevy Impala from a friend — for a price — and heads off down a country road, waxing philosophical all the way. Odd, random developments follow, cast against southern gothic scenes — lush, green swamps, fishing shacks and even a ghostly junkyard full of abandoned school buses. All is interspersed with gritty music from a variety of contemporary southern artists.

All the while a strange “Southern Jesus” lurks in the background.

Meet Up and 9/11

Posted on 09/10/2011 by Michael Carpenter

This morning I received the following from MeetUp.com. If you do not know what MeetUp.com is check out this post from The Upstream Collective.

The email below is a great reminder of humanity’s need for community and how we all seemed to come together after the tragic events of 9/11/01. Although that feeling has faded from our collective consciousness, the church itself has always been the one thing on earth that fills that basic human desire to live in fellowship with one another.

Fellow Meetuppers,

I don’t write to our whole community often, but this week is special because it’s the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and many people don’t know that Meetup is a 9/11 baby.

Let me tell you the Meetup story. I was living a couple miles from the Twin Towers, and I was the kind of person who thought local community doesn’t matter much if we’ve got the internet and tv. The only time I thought about my neighbors was when I hoped they wouldn’t bother me.

When the towers fell, I found myself talking to more neighbors in the days after 9/11 than ever before. People said hello to neighbors (next-door and across the city) who they’d normally ignore. People were looking after each other, helping each other, and meeting up with each other. You know, being neighborly.

A lot of people were thinking that maybe 9/11 could bring people together in a lasting way. So the idea for Meetup was born: Could we use the internet to get off the internet — and grow local communities?

We didn’t know if it would work. Most people thought it was a crazy idea — especially because terrorism is designed to make people distrust one another.

A small team came together, and we launched Meetup 9 months after 9/11.

Today, almost 10 years and 10 million Meetuppers later, it’s working. Every day, thousands of Meetups happen. Moms Meetups, Small Business Meetups, Fitness Meetups… a wild variety of 100,000 Meetup Groups with not much in common — except one thing.

Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors. And what often happens next is still amazing to me. They grow businesses and bands together, they teach and motivate each other, they babysit each other’s kids and find other ways to work together. They have fun and find solace together. They make friends and form powerful community. It’s powerful stuff.

It’s a wonderful revolution in local community, and it’s thanks to everyone who shows up.

Meetups aren’t about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren’t for 9/11.

9/11 didn’t make us too scared to go outside or talk to strangers. 9/11 didn’t rip us apart. No, we’re building new community together!!!!

The towers fell, but we rise up. And we’re just getting started with these Meetups.

Scott Heiferman (on behalf of 80 people at Meetup HQ)
Co-Founder & CEO, Meetup
New York City
September 2011

Remember that “Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors.” Take the time to simply say hello and as you go, love your neighbor as yourself.

G.O.S.P.E.L

Posted on 08/29/2011 by Michael Carpenter

A spoken word performance explaining God’s movement through the pages of the biblical story to save and redeem humanity using the word “gospel” as an acrostic.

Did Jesus Preach the Gospel?

Posted on 08/04/2011 by Michael Carpenter

From the Q blog:

The most influential piece of literature in the twentieth century was the gospel tract. Why? Because it reduced the gospel to sound bytes and because it has framed how many Christians now understand the gospel message. What might surprise us is that the central idea of Jesus’ teaching—the coming kingdom of God—does not appear in any of the gospel tracts. Why is that? Have we only relied on Paul’s version of the gospel? Is it possible, many are asking, to combine the gospel of Paul with the gospel of Jesus? Which leads to this question: What is the gospel? And to this one: Did Jesus himself preach the gospel or not?

This is an important discussion to be had because “the Gospel” has recently been hijacked to describe virtually everything. From coalitions to a lifestyle.

Is that really what Jesus had in mind?

Thanks to David Phillips for posting these videos yesterday.

I Didn’t Earn It

Posted on 07/13/2011 by Michael Carpenter

Came across this amazing story this morning from Good.

The story is worth quoting a length.

The Kansas City Royals pitcher Gil Meche is retiring from baseball this season thanks to a chronic shoulder problem. Meche is 32 and he’s been in the majors for nearly 12 years, a lifetime for most professional athletes.

Like every MLB player, Meche is guaranteed the money in his contract regardless of whether he plays or not, which means he should be getting $12 million in 2011 without having to play a single game. But Meche is not getting that money. He’s refusing it, because, in his own words, he “hasn’t earned it.”

“When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche said this week by phone from Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

People often call the salaries paid to actors and athletes “crazy,” but rarely are those people the actors and athletes themselves. In a way, Meche seems remarkably old-fashioned for refusing something he believes he hasn’t earned. Increasingly, the world feels like a place where people expect huge rewards for small efforts—Kim Kardashian, for instance, is paid thousands for simply tweeting that she likes a certain product, and some reality stars are paid exorbitant fees in return for appearing at nightclubs.

People, celebrities especially, seem strikingly comfortable with getting something for nothing anymore. So when Meche stepped back and said, “No more,” we couldn’t help but stare in awe a bit. It was his last great curveball.

Turning down 12 million a year for doing nothing. Amazing right?

Yet, I know people who have turned down the most precious, priceless gift of all because they felt like they had not earned it.

That gift?

In a word . . . grace. The unmerited favor of God.

Some people live their lives trying to earn it. But as Tim Keller has pointed out this is the difference between religion and the gospel.

Religion says, “I obey. Therefore I am accepted by God.”

But the Gospel says, “I am accepted by God because of his free offer of grace. Therefore I obey.”

Kudos to Gil Meche. You don’t deserve to earn 12 million a year for not being able to perform your job. Sorry about the shoulder. What Meche seems to understand is that his identity is not wrapped up in what he does.

In the same way, we do not deserve the free gift of salvation, yet God gives it anyway. Our identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died while we were still sinners. In this, God demonstrated his love for us (Romans 5:8).

You didn’t earn it. You are saved by sheer grace.

Elephants Dancing With Mice

Aside

This is the fourth in a series of posts on the need for solidarity in global missions.
You can read the first three posts here, here, and here.

Miriam Adney illustrates how destructive the “making a difference in the world,” Western missions can be at times by retelling a story an African friend had told her.

Elephant and Mouse were best friends. One day Elephant said, “Mouse, let’s have a party!” Animals gathered from far and near. They ate. They drank. They sang and danced. Nobody celebrated more and danced harder than Elephant. Continue reading →

Don’t Believe The Hype

Posted on 06/01/2011 by Michael Carpenter

I came up in the 80′s. Graduated high school in 1990. The punk scene that gave birth to “grunge” and record labels like Sub Pop were not unfamiliar to me. Actually I became immersed in that scene. Then it all became fashionable.

I still remember walking into a convenience store and hearing Nirvana coming through the sound system. I knew right then and there it was over. Not longer after, punk became a fashion statement with grunge clothes being displayed on manequins in the mall. The film HYPE! (embedded below) traces the taming and eventual domestication of punk as we knew it.

From Snag Films

Tracing the steps of “grunge” from its subversive inception in neighborhood basements to its global rise to the multimillion dollar pop culture phenomenon, HYPE! incorporates hilarious interviews with rare concert footage of bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and The Melvins. Filmed over three years in 24 track digital sound, HYPE! casts a discriminating look on how the fuse was lit on the northwest rock explosion.

Watching this film also caused me to reflect on the domestication of Jesus. Following Jesus is the most punk rock thing I have ever been a part of. But I digress.

The question is: “Have we really forgotten how wild and untamed He really is?”

Jesus has become…

Our homeboy rather than our Lord.

A national symbol rather than our King.

A picture on a wall rather than our Messiah.

You cannot tame Him. You cannot domesticate Him. You cannot contain Him to a box.

But what I mean by the domestication of Jesus is just something that I have done (do) in a thousand different ways.

How have you domesticated Jesus?

How do you see Jesus being domesticated in the church?

Ubiquity of the Cross #LoveWins Chpt 5

Posted on 04/11/2011 by Michael Carpenter

The point of this series of posts is an exercise in how I would answer the questions Rob Bell is asking as if I were in an actual dialogue with someone. This series is not meant to be read as a critique, review, a medium to bash Bell, or a way to prove I am “right.” See the first six posts in this series here, here, here, and here, here, and here.

This chapter begins describing the dangerous ubiquity of the cross. We see it everywhere. More often than not as a fashion accessory.

There is even a web site devoted to cross wearing celebrities.

I know a family that named their first child Cross. I just smiled and held my tongue because I desperately wanted to ask “Why did you name your child after an instrument of torture and cheapen the atoning work of Jesus in that way?”

Familiarity has bred contempt.

When first the Fox saw the Lion he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself in the wood. Next time however he came near the King of Beasts he stopped at a safe distance and watched him pass by. The third time they came near one another the Fox went straight up to the Lion and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning his tail, he parted from the Lion without much ceremony. – The Fox and the Lion, An Aesop’s Fable

What do you think happened the next time the Fox passed by the Lion?

Yep. The Lion had lunch.

If we were to rewrite Aesop’s Fable, it may go something like this:

When first the Sinner first saw the Cross he was terribly frightened, and ran away and hid himself. Next time however he came near the Cross, he stopped at a safe distance and pondered its meaning. The third time they came near one another the Sinner went straight up to the Cross and passed the time of day with him, asking him how his family were, and when he should have the pleasure of seeing him again; then turning away, the Sinner parted from the Cross without much ceremony.

What do you think happened the next time the Sinner passed the Cross?

Yep. The sinner didn’t even notice it or ponder its meaning.