Some www wanderings...Francis Chan and Children Labeled 'Bipolar' 02.10.2010

So, I really like Francis Chan. He's the pastor of Cornerstone Church (cool website, btw) in CA, and author of some cool books including an interactive one called Crazy Love (check it out at Amazon, but if you're gonna buy it new, but it from Hearts and Minds). But I don't get to hear him often. Last I heard him was at Nazarene Youth Conference 2007 and that was a blast.

But I stumbled across somebody's sermon notes from his session at Verge2010. My favorite line: "Be courageous – Biblically. Erase what you’ve seen everywhere else – and just go to the Bible. Don’t just go around to other patterns – to tweak what other people are doing. Have the courage to read the Bible and do what it says."

I also heard that Flannel (the guys who do Rob Bell's Nooma's) is putting out a new series featuring Francis Chan! I'm looking forward to these and will most likely feature them in our Sunday morning format with our teens!

In other news: the diagnosis for children who show symptoms of bipolar is being reconsidered. It will be interesting to see how this plays out...In between all the posts on this crazy winter weather, I found this post.

from I, Francis

Some thoughts that I thought were appropriate for our week.

"Jesus' cross was humanity's happiness, love's answer to all the whys, the resolution of every conflict, the overcoming of every tension and polarization, God's victory over death."





If the Son of God had died on the cross, I was saved.


All sadness would have to be banished.


Every one of us was lord of the world.


Every pauper was rich.


Every heart was satiated.


Every project was possible." p15





"Do you not know that my Most High Lord is God's Son?


And do you not know that he became a human being, and as if that had not been enough, a poor person? And how poor he became!


Just see how poor he is. He has nothing left at all.


He, the creator of heaven and earth, has himself come among us.


He did not send someone else, he came himself!


He did nothing to get himself accepted in the high places, nor did he bring anything along to make himself more comfortable.


He did not hide behind the wall of his might and his divinity; he accepted life as the last and least of us.


He was God and he became the poor one among us, the weak one, the wounded one, the calumniated one, the imprisoned one, the condemned one!" p16-17

Experience

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

C. S. Lewis

Ikiru

“The best way to protect your place in this world is to do nothing at all. But is this really what life is about?”

The greatest Christian revolutions come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen when somebody takes radically something that was always there.

Philip Yancey

Quote from Life After God

"For so many years I lived a life of solitude and I thought life was fine. But I knew that unless I explored intimacy and shared intimacy with someone else then life would never progress beyond a certain point. I remember thinking that unless I knew what was going on inside someone else's head other than my own I was going to explode."

143, Life after God, Douglas Coupland

some interesting thoughts on the need for community and intimacy that all people have...

Irreverence

"Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion...Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe."

Spoken by Leto
Children of Dune
pg. 269

Brothers Grimm

Saw Brother's Grimm with Joe and Chris yesterday. It was a good flic. Good mix of action, suspense, myster and laughter. A funny take on fairy tales too.

There was a point in the movie where Jake Grimm (magic beans guy) is talking to the Angelika about the mystery that surrounds the village.

And he says something like:

"All the stories before haven't been real. This one's real. It's alive. And we're in it."

Would love to get a clip of that. Made me think of our story as followers of Christ. It's the first real story. It's the first story ever. It's alive. It's real. And we're in it.

Thoughts from "How to be Good"

So I picked up another book...fun stuff...

Anyway, there were some interesting thoughts on cynicism and it's role in our society now.















“Cynicism is our shared common language, the Esperanto that actually caught on, and though I’m not fluent in it—I like too many things, and I am not envious of enough people—I know enough to get by. And in any case it is not possible to avoid cynicism and the sneer completely. Any conversation about, say, the London mayoral contest, or Demi Moore, or Posh and Becks and Brooklyn, and you are obliged to be sour, simply to prove that you are a fully functioning and reflective metropolitan person.” (163)

A common language...think about it. People are always downing something...even if it's small and inconsequential. Even yesterday, I was in the postoffice...and the lady was talking with a customer and for no reason at all said that certain postcards are stinky...

What if we walked around defying this common language?

Further Thoughts on Just Worship

"An ancient saying suggested that there are two wings by which we rise, one being personal piety and the other community charity. No one can fly by flapping only one wing. It is impossible to be sincere in our worship of God without expecting to do the will of God. It is equally impossible to do the will of God without the guidance and empowering of a vital personal relationship with God."

Harvey and Lois Seifert "Liberation of Life"

I have been reading Ephesians 5 where it talks about imitating Christ. I had never noticed before, but in verse 10 Paul talks about finding out "what pleases the Lord", and in 17 he says "understand what the Lord's will is." I believe these two are connected. What pleases the Lord is what his will is. Worship that pleases God is worship that flows out of a life that understands and lives His will.

By the way, I am posting this from Panera Bread...yeehaw free wireless...thanks Brian for the enlightenment...