Here’s my new map!!! We had an amazing time on the East Coast. I’ll update my blog about our trip later…I gotta go to bed to be so we can get up early to catch our plane in the morning.
create your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.
About a month ago I was sitting in our (former) church during a worship service. Josh was leading worship and we were singing a Chris Tomlin song that I really liked. The words spoke to me…the music was beautiful…I felt like I was truly in the presence of God and telling Him how I feel about Him…worshiping my Creator. All of a sudden the question popped into my mind…am I willing to give up my comfort zone…my way of doing church…my preference of worship…in order to minister to a different culture?
I was reminded of a sermon I recently heard Mark Driscoll preach out of 1 Corinthians 9. (Yes…I go online and listen to other guys preach…I’m a geek!) Paul says, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.” Driscoll says, “Do you think that was fun? Try ordering a ham sandwich!” He goes on to say that Paul would probably say, “To the indie rockers, I did indie rock. To the hip-hoppers, I did hip-hop. To the tech guys, I had a blog. To the families, I talked about marriage and kids and parenting. To the business guys I did financial seminars and connected it back to God. To the environmentalist rights activists, I told them who the Creator was so they could enjoy His work. I do it all for the sake of the gospel.” This is acceptable behavior for missionaries that we send to other countries…we expect them to learn a new language and culture to reach that culture for Christ…but, are we willing to learn a new “language” and culture in our own city to reach that culture for Christ?
I just finished reading a book called Too Christian, Too Pagan. The book addresses the issue of being in the world, but not of the world. The author quotes Dwight Ozard who said, “The greatest mission field we face is not in some faraway land. The strange and foreign culture most Americans fear is not across the ocean. It’s barely across the street. The culture most lost to the gospel is our own–our children and neighbors. It’s a culture that can’t say two sentences without referencing a TV show or pop song…It’s a culture more likely to have a body part pierced than to know why Sarah laughed. It’s a culture that we stopped loving and declared a culture war upon.” The author then goes on to tell a story about a friend of his who took her kids to an amusement park and complained about the “raunchiness of the crowds with their skimpy tank tops, “F” word every-other-word language, nose rings, and purple hair. They were loud, pushy, and obnoxious.” This was ironic to the author because the complaining woman had been a missionary…”voluntarily living and working among a primitive tribal group.” The author goes on to talk about his experiences in Indonesia where everything from toilet paper to diet was different and he tried the corncob toilet paper and ate the bugs, snakes and ox tail. He even dressed in a sarong while there. His point is that we are tolerant of certain cultures but inconsistent with our tolerance of other “tribes” right here in our backyard.
So…back to the original question. Am I willing to give up my preference in order to speak the language of another culture in order to reach people for Jesus? I’ve been critical of others who haven’t been willing to make the sacrifice…those who hang on to their tradition for the sake of comfort…but, am I willing to give up my comfort? As I sat in church and asked myself that question I assured myself that I could do that.
But, what if the change of culture means going to the other side of the country and live where people call each other Mr. and Mrs. Lastname and wear suits and ties and embrace intellectual-ism and sing more traditional music? I would have to give up Tomlin and Crowder. I would have to throw away my flip-flops. I would have to keep my tattoos covered. This is all foreign to me…yet, all of these issues are non-essential to the gospel. I’m a west coast girl, born and raised. Will I fit in on the east coast? I didn’t even graduate from college and could possibly be living next door to an ivy-league university. Will people look down on my because of my “breeding” and lack of education?
I’ve been thinking a lot about culture lately. Here I am, smack dab in the middle of a beautiful city full of beautiful people sporting their Prada and Louis Vuitton bags, Gucci sunglasses and Tiffany and Co jewelry. I feel like the country bumpkin cousin in my clothes and shoes from Old Navy and Ross Dress for Less. I notice I’m a lot more self-conscience here than I am at home. It would be so easy for me to buy into the culture here. Does contextualizing the gospel mean that I need to run around with name brand everything? No…I don’t think so. I would have to guard against purchasing things I can’t afford because that would be searing my conscience. However, I can see how easy it would be to buy into the lie. In fact, This past weekend, I heard a somebody say from the pulpit at a church, “God wants you to have a nicer car and a nicer house.” It was not the main point of the sermon…but it was said and I was really disgusted with that statement. I really don’t think God cares what kind of car I drive. That’s not the reason Christ gave his life up. Having nice things is not wrong…but, where are the priorities? My priorities (at this stage in life) is to have a meal on the table for my kids…not a nicer car…because we don’t have money for a nicer car…nor do we need one at this point. Would I like a nicer car? Sure I would. But, it’s not a priority. Would I like a name brand purse? Why not? But, it’s not a priority.
I was reading Matthew 8 yesterday and verses 18-22 talks about the cost of following Jesus. A teacher of the law (a well-educated, religious man) came up to Jesus and asked if he could follow Jesus. Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus didn’t value material things. He had nothing…why do I think I deserve anything?
I guess my point is that I need to be willing to give up everything that I think I need in order to say, Yes, Lord…send me where you want me to go…even if that means selling my beautiful home and renting a two bedroom apartment for the rest of our lives.
SO…what if we planted a church in the midst of the Gucci/Louis Vuittan crowd? How would we build relationships in a community that values materialism? What if Josh and I got jobs at Nordstrom in order to support our family and through those jobs we built relationships with people in the community? What else do people do around here when it’s 115 degrees out in the afternoon? They hang out in the malls. They go shopping. They buy more Prada bags.
I need to learn to speak their language of the culture…wherever we go…in order to find a creative way to tell them about Jesus to win as many souls as possible (not as many as convenient).
For my “Thirsting for God” friends…I’m reading back through The Soul At Rest…Prayer of Detachment. Anybody else want to pray through that with me? BTW…I got Josh reading the book. :) He’s also reading through Velvet Elvis again and McManus’ new book, Stand Against The Wind. It’s amazing how much time we have to read when we’ve got no job! :) I’m also reading Abba’s Child, by Brennan Manning (Excellent!) and The Great Omission, by Dallas Willard (scary good).
I miss all of my friends tremendously!!! Josh and I are flying to the East Coast next weekend…please pray for us while we travel and check out a church. We really want to hear from God about our upcoming ministry decision.
Just a quick update on us…
We are adjusting well to our new life in the desert. Two weeks ago we went to our last church service at our former church. We didn’t get to go to church last weekend because we were in the middle of central California…and there’s nothing there. However, this morning we got to go to the church my brother and sister-in-law attend.
The very best part about not being staff pastors is that we get to go to church together as a family. We’ve only got to do this one other time this year and it’s one of my favorite things about going to other churches. We slept in. Josh gave the kids a bath and made coffee for me while I slept. (That’s one of the reasons I keep him around. 
) We arrived at church 15 minutes before it was supposed to start…but, since we were visitors and the campus is huge (and we didn’t know where we were going) it took us about 20 minutes to get the kids checked in…so we were a little late coming into the service. It’s a large church (I think it’s 6,000 or 7,000 people) and we walked into the auditorium and I had to laugh. That may have been an inappropriate response walking into a church service, but outside the church everybody was walking around in flip-flops and shorts and inside the church…let’s just say that I can’t remember the last time I saw that many ties. Not only were a lot of men wearing ties…they also had suit jackets on! Josh was the only person in there who remembered that we were all in the middle of the hot desert and the temperature was 107 degrees today!) He was wearing flip-flops and an orange “Battle of the Bands” T-shirt. LOL!!!
The music had already started and up on the screens I saw a huge face of a guy worshipping…it was my brother…in a suit and tie!!! This was even funnier to me…but, I refrained from laughing because I already received some dirty looks…and was walking in with a man who didn’t get the “suit and tie memo.” 
We enjoyed the preaching. The pastor is in his 70’s and has just as much passion and energy as Josh does when he preaches. The thing about that is that people are always commenting on Josh’s energy level and tell him that he’ll slow down some day. People seem to think that he’ll loose his charisma. Both Josh and I highly doubt that…he’s still in denial about being in his 30’s…I don’t think that’ll change. (Seriously…ask him how old he is and he always says he’s younger than he really is!) So, it’s refreshing to see a man who never lost his passion to preach and still works hard…even into his 70’s.
The sermon was about having a heart after God’s own heart. He talked about the importance of solitude with God, taking time to serve others (especially when we receive no glory for it and the serving is monotonous) and how our painful situations shape us. I just finished reading a book called Too Christian, Too Pagan and there’s a chapter in there that addresses the importance of compassion. The author, Dick Staub, says, “Some people cannot be compassionate because they have never allowed themselves to experience and understand their own pain.” This is one thing I’ve discovered about myself. Except I wouldn’t say that I’ve never allowed myself to experience and understand my own pain…but, I would say that I have minimized pain in my life. This is one thing I’m asking God for…as crazy as it sounds. I don’t allow myself to experience deep emotion…I’m really great at recognizing pain and stopping it before it hits my heart. I don’t think this is healthy and I do want to experience that which could shape me into being a better person.
On another note…I’ve discovered what I want to do with the rest of my life. There’s a huge children’s hospital here and I went online and discovered a ton of volunteer opportunities. I told Josh that wherever we go…we need to make sure there’s a children’s hospital nearby so that I can volunteer my time there. This makes Josh’s decision a little bit more difficult…but, that’s my job, right?
The kids are doing great. They are constantly begging to go to the pool. Last night we met my brother and sister-in-law at an outdoor mall where we sat and listened to live music and watched the kids play in a water foutain. They are making a lot of new friends.
That’s about all that we’re doing here…I’ll update more later.
create your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.
This was a fun map to play with…the red states are the states I’ve visited.
O.K. Pop Quiz. I will be adding 3 (possibly 4) new states to this map by the end of the summer. Does anybody know which 3 states I will be visiting? Bonus points for the 4th possible state.
Hello, from the hot, hot desert!
We have decided to take some time off from life and spend time together, as a family, with God. We have arrived safely and are enjoying our new little space. We figured the desert is a great place to get away…because that’s where Jesus went to spend time with God right before the launch of his ministry. However, I was reminded that Jesus ate nothing during that time and probably didn’t have air conditioning. 
Just a quick update for those of you we haven’t connected with. The church planting boot camp was cancelled and so we enrolled at the next available boot camp in August. So, from now until then, we’ve decided it’s important to get out of town and spend time alone with God.
Josh and I both had separate quiet times yesterday and both felt that God was asking us to lay aside our own desires and goals and rest in Him…enjoying time with Him. He’ll reveal His plan for us at the right time, but for now…He just wants us to enjoy time with Him.
Our prayer request this week is that we will be able to let go of our agenda and take advantage of the time we have to spend with God.
We love you all and miss you. Thanks for your prayers!
