Shells

Hope you had a relaxing and reflective Memorial Day weekend with you and yours. In the spirit of remembering those things that are truly important and worth fighting for (spiritually-speaking) this Memorial Day, I found the latest Nooma video from Rob Bell, Shells, to be especially relevant. Enjoy.

Never Embarassed

Yesterday, I was working a booth at our Church's Hunger Helper market, when a friend of mine came up to me, looking panicked. She said a "street person" was hassling elderly members of our congregation in the parking lot, and she wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't quite sure what to do either. Our church is located downtown and operates a weekly soup kitchen, so it attracts its fair share of homeless and marginalized people looking for assistance. Rightfully so. This is Jesus' house afterall.

I went to the parking lot to check it out. Sure enough, there was a guy that looked like he had been living on the streets for some time talking to anyone who'd listen. There weren't many takers. I established eye contact and waved. He began walking toward me, and, as he did, I couldn't help but notice that he held his head down the entire way. It was that walk you do when you get called to the principal's office - full of shame and guilt and fear.

We shook hands and he began to tell me his story. He started by saying something like "I'm really embarassed to have to ask this..." Throughout the story he must have mentioned that word, "embarassed" like 10 times. He said he really was a Christian, but recently he's "backslid" which made him embarassed. He said he'd been giving in to old temptations. And that made him embarassed.

I have no idea if his story was true. For all I know he could have been going around to every church in the area using those same lines, looking for a quick fix.

Or maybe every word of it was true and he really was looking for a fresh start, and just needed a little help to get there. But what struck me was just how wrong it was for him to feel so "embarassed." And I believe that grieves God, too.

Don't get me wrong: I believe God gives us a conscience for a reason. There are things (many things, in my case) that we should feel embarassed for doing. But truly repenting and asking to receive God's grace isn't one of them. I believe one of the most devious (and effective) lies Satan tells us is that we're "not good enough" for God to forgive us/want to know us. God wants us to "come as we are." He just doesn't want us to stay that way.

Time and time again, the Bible tells of how God is faithful and loving and gracious to his children because they are his kids!! Of course they (we) screw up. Of course he gets frustrated - sometimes even down right pissed off - at them (us). But he never, ever, ever stops loving us. That's just not how God rolls!

Think about the parable of the prodigal son. Or Jesus with the woman at the well. Or when Jesus stops the angry mob from stoning the adulturess by saing "He who is without sin cast the first stone." Or the group of people Jesus chose to hang out with or make his disciples. There are many, many, many more examples throughout the Bible.

What I (tried to) tell my friend on the street is God's grace and mercy is a free (but not cheap) gift. The fact is, we are ALL God's children. And the fact is all of us, on our own, have fallen short. We have ALL sinned. And while our sins come in many shapes and sizes, sin is sin. My sins are no "better" or "smaller" than his. Just different.

And despite all that, God loves you and me. And that is nothing to be embarassed about.

When Good Actors Happen To Bad Movies

I've always loved Jason Lee. He cracked me up back in the day in Clerks, and now in the day on My Name Is Earl. (Even Tom Selleck is jealous of THAT moustache.) I even thought his voice over work as the evil mastermind Syndrome on The Incredibles, was, well, incredible.

So I was totally floored the other day to walk in my living room and see what my kids were watching on TV: Jason Lee starring in a modern-day remake of Alvin & The Chipmunks.

Good actors making bad movies. Why does this happen? How does this happen? Actors with big bills to pay? Bad Karma? Why o why?

I mean, Jason Lee used to be a professionally sponsored skateboarder. So how do you go from having that much indie-cred to talking to three computer-animated, helium-voiced chipmunks?

Not that he was alone. There were tons of great actors in this cinematic, um, gem. OK, well maybe not great (David Cross, one of the girls that was in Best in Show) but certainly not the types of actors that I would think "need the work"

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that no one is great all the time. I mean Bill Murray starred in Garfield. The Beatles wrote "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" Michael Jordan tried to play baseball. Even Bono went around on tour for years looking like this:



The more I thought about it, I realized that there is something strangely comforting to me that no one is "great" all the time. Even the ones that I put up on the highest pedestals have their faults. Their moments of awkwardness or regrets. Their moments of falling woefully short of expectations. I tend to fall woefully short in so many areas that it is easy for me to look to others and think that they have it all figured out. But they don't. None of us do.

And I couldn't help but think that God must have similar thoughts about us. He's our biggest fan. We are his children, afterall. But their are those things we do - whether it's a belief, an addiction, a habit - that He just can't stand. Not because he doesn't love us, but rather because he loves us. Just like I didn't stop loving Bono and U2 after listening to the Pop album or stop liking Jason Lee because I watched 20 minutes of Alvin & The Chipmunks (20 long minutes), God just doesn't stop loving us through the midst of our struggles. Actually, He uses those valleys and low points in our lives to bring us to heights in which we hadn't dreamed possible.

God loves us when we're great. And when we're not. And I have an Alvin
& The Chipmunks re-make to thank for reminding me of that fact.

Lofton on Jim Rome Show

Here's the all-time SEC three point leader and cancer survivor Chris Lofton, being interviewed on Jim Rome's TV show from last week.

Serve God. Save the Planet.

I just finished an awesome book that I highly recommend if you're interested the convergence of going green and God.

Serve God. Save the Planet by Matthew Sleeth, M.D. is a book about how Christians should respond to the environmental crisis we are all facing.

Five years ago, Dr. Sleeth and his family lived in a big house, had two luxury cars and many material possessions. As chief of the medical staff at a large hospital, Sleeth was living the American dream—until he realized that something was terribly wrong. As he saw patient after patient suffering from cancer, asthma, and other chronic diseases, he began to understand that the earth and its inhabitants were in trouble. He turned to his faith for guidance and discovered how the Scriptural lessons of personal responsibility, simplicity, and stewardship could be applied to modern life.

The Sleeths have since sold their big home and given away more than half of what they once owned. Dr. Sleeth shares the joy of adopting a less materialistic lifestyle, and reveals what was easy and what was hard about the changes his family made. I found tons of simple and practical suggestions, and felt like Sleeth made a compelling case for action without sounding too "preachy."

Dr. Sleeth is now working on a second book about the modern hang ups with "time" (as in feeling like we never have enough of it). He gave a sneak peak of the material last week as the guest preacher at Rob Bell's Mars Hill Church. Check out the podcast of his sermon here.

GodTube

In the beginning...there was YouTube.

And now, there's GodTube.

GodTube was launched in summer last year in Dallas, and has since been among the fastest growing websites online. It works much like YouTube, where you can share and search for user-generated videos, only these are all family-friendly and faith-based.

With the sites initial success (they report to have over 2 million viewers) they are also offering other features such as Godcaster (Christian Podcasting) and faith-based answer to Facebook (social networking sites). Holy Internets!

The Gods Aren't Angry

Rob Bell's second tour DVD, The Gods Aren't Angry, is now available for pre-order at TheGodsArentAngry.com.

You can also subscribe to the The Gods Aren't Angry podcast and see a new clip every week through June 6th.

And as fate would have it...this DVD was filmed at the same show I saw in the ATL. Can't wait to see it again!

Lofton!!!

Just when I thought Chris Lofton couldn't be more awesomely awesome, this story comes out.

This man is truly a legend and inspiration to anyone, sports fan or not. Plus he has the sweetest stroke and most range on his 3 than anyone I've ever seen. Here's proof:



UT can't retire this man's jersey fast enough. Long Live Lofton!!!!