Marc’s Musings

I have an aversion to “Christian spam,” those emails telling us to boycott a book or a movie. (Do you know how much free advertising those gave the Da Vinci Code? It’s crazy!)

Plus, there’s a part of me that “pushes” back when I’m told what I’m supposed to think or how to vote. Call it rebellion. Call it healthy skepticism. Call it an aversion to groupthink. It is what it is. And it’s served me well.

Fortunately I married someone like that. And Emily’s done a great three part blog series on The Golden Compass. She’s done them in forms of a rebuttal, a review, and a rant.

Read them for yourself, but please, for God’s sake, go and form your own opinions.

I love the example of Mother Teresa. She’s an amazing woman that took her mustard seed of faith and God used her to do great things.

I really like today’s “getting your feet wet” exercise. We’re to find three things that represent three areas of interest for us.

I think mine will be:

• laptop (writing, communicating, my blogs, Fundraisingcoach.com, etc.
• my copy of the Chumash, the Torah with rabbinic commentary, and
• a photo of my family.

Now we take these items and ask God how we can share each of these areas with him.

Let me know what you choose!

I’m so glad the authors expand the concept worship:

But please don’t confine your worship to the inside of any building. It’s not just natural…It involves discovering the gifts and talents God has given you, and using those talents to bring joy to God. This is the worship God wants–and it’s probably more exciting than you ever imagined.

This is the kind of adventure I want to be part of!!

This reading starts with this quote from the Message’s version of Isaiah 42:20-22:

You’ve seen a lot, but looked at nothing.
You’ve heard everything, but listened to nothing.
God intended, out of the goodness of his heart,
to be lavish in his revelation.
But this is a people battered and cowed,
shut up in attics and closets,
Victims licking their wounds,
feeling ignored, abandoned.

This says so much. As a church-planter, I am amazed at how often people choose to “lick their wounds” instead of receiving the revelation God’s pouring out on them.

I starting to learn that I can’t make them want healing. Starting to learn it…

I’m a bit behind on the blogging!

This week’s readings focus on the “you” part of the fountain: your relationship with God.

I love their comments on the movie Harvey.

I particularly liked their description of a relationship with God. This is from page 59:

Fresh, unexpected thoughts will “pop” into your head. Steve [Sjogren] calls these “flutter-bys”–fleeting, almost imperceptible whispers of God’s will, small voice flickering through your head. You’ll perceive them as whispers, not shouts, so it’s easy to mistake them for your own thoughts. But as God continues honing your spiritual eyes and ears, you’ll begin to tell the difference.

Loving, generous whispers–the ones that stretch you to bo beyond what you would normally do–wil stand out from everyday, self-focused thinking. The more God tunes your spiritual senses through Bible reading, Christian mentors, and time spent in prayer, the more you’ll recognize the kinds of ideas that come from God and the kinds that don’t. (Here’s a clue: The condemning inner voices that call you a loser, tempt you to exploit others, or go against clear biblical teaching–those aren’t coming from God.)

This is good stuff!

End of the first week of reading!

Boy are the writers of Outflow right! We are easy to deceive!

If we could’ve done any better than Adam and Eve, God would’ve put us in the Garden!

I love the way they end this week’s reading too:

If you’re thristy for a life less ordinary, more passionate, and unpredictably powerful, the next section will point you toward the biblical antidote to the dissease of self-centereedness. If you place a high value on knowing God more deeply, then you’ll like what’s coming.

Great reading today!

Although God created us to “love God and to use things,” the Thief convinces us to reverse that order. We start “loving things” and “using God or people” as a means to get what we want. In doing this, we not only destroy the flow of good things God intends for us, we open the door to all sorts of evil.

That’s what I meant in my Outflow 1.1 post!

I loved this quote to, on page 40 in a section called “A Life that Sucks”:

When you dance to the Thief’s tune, your life begins to suck in instead of flow out.

I think we’ve all been there (or are there now!). But I’m glad to be part of a church that’s committed on working on an “outward” focus!

If you look up the word blessing in the dictionary, you’ll find out that it’s “an indication of God’s special favor or protection.”

What a great reminder! And I love Sjogren and Pings look at the list of blessings included in Dt 28:1-14.

Check it out in the Message:

1-6 If you listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, and heartily obey all his commandments that I command you today, God, your God, will place you on high, high above all the nations of the world. All these blessings will come down on you and spread out beyond you because you have responded to the Voice of God, your God:

God’s blessing inside the city,
God’s blessing in the country;
God’s blessing on your children,
the crops of your land,
the young of your livestock,
the calves of your herds,
the lambs of your flocks.
God’s blessing on your basket and bread bowl;
God’s blessing in your coming in,
God’s blessing in your going out.
7 God will defeat your enemies who attack you. They’ll come at you on one road and run away on seven roads.

8 God will order a blessing on your barns and workplaces; he’ll bless you in the land that God, your God, is giving you.

9 God will form you as a people holy to him, just as he promised you, if you keep the commandments of God, your God, and live the way he has shown you.

10 All the peoples on Earth will see you living under the Name of God and hold you in respectful awe.

11-14 God will lavish you with good things: children from your womb, offspring from your animals, and crops from your land, the land that God promised your ancestors that he would give you. God will throw open the doors of his sky vaults and pour rain on your land on schedule and bless the work you take in hand. You will lend to many nations but you yourself won’t have to take out a loan. God will make you the head, not the tail; you’ll always be the top dog, never the bottom dog, as you obediently listen to and diligently keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you today. Don’t swerve an inch to the right or left from the words that I command you today by going off following and worshiping other gods.

Wow. May we all get to the place in our life where we believe that, rather than having to beg and plead for a morsel of blessing, we’re serving a God as generous as this!!

Reading 2 of week 1 of Outflow.

I love the whole idea of the fountain! We can’t impact our family, friends, and community/world without being filled with the Holy Spirit.

God wants to fill us as whoever we are and use us. We don’t have to become someone we’re not!

Yay!!

We just started using Outflow. I’m REALLY liking it!

It’s all about “evangelism” as a way of life, not as a manipulative program. If you’re following my sermons through Acts, you’ll know I believe deeply zealous people get so caught up in their cause that they believe the ends justify the means. Paul was fine in killing followers of Jesus because he was firmly convinced Jesus was a false prophet. God demands false prophets be put to death so Jesus’ followers would need to follow the same fate.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, the religious right’s political extremism, it’s all motivated from (mostly) a deep passion for God. But it comes out in carnal, manipulative, and often deadly ways.

Hard to see Jesus killing someone because they didn’t believe. Or sitting outside an abortion clinic screaming “murderer” at the scared woman going inside.

That affects our view on evangelism too. We so want people to not go to hell, that we feel we need to “get them saved.” And we’ve often been taught that if we miss an opportunity, their blood will be on our account.

So evangelism becomes obligation. And we do really contrived things to get people talking about Jesus or to get them “onto” our scripts where we have the answers.

Fortunately, Outflow appears to be helping us at the Vineyard Church of Waterville return to the sanity of the overflowing life Jesus promises us (Jn 10:10).

I hope to do a brief comment on each of the 5 weekly readings. So here’s the first.

I love the story of the woman at the drive-thru. Someone just pays for her meal and she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves her! This wasn’t contrived. The people paying didn’t even know she was down to her last $4.58! They were just doing something they enjoyed doing!

I love it! I love the whole grace-filled concept we talked about at kinship last night: God’s already working in people’s lives. Our joy is to see where He’s working and ask Him how we can help.

That’s a life long adventure I’m glad to be part of! I don’t even have to remember a script!