God + Moses... BFF's

There's something about my personality -- maybe my "Ideation" orientation (Gallup Strengthfinders) -- that pushes me to approach every situation with an out-of-the-box solution. We're starting an Easter series this week at Cape Naz. What's Easter about? Jesus, right? His death and resurrection? Sure it is. You really can't preach anything else on Easter.

That's why I've spent all week studying the relationship between Moses and God.

Even I find it a bit odd. I'm a few days away from needing to preach what should be a Triumphal Entry/Palm Sunday message, and I can't get out of Exodus. I just find the relationship that developed between Moses and God to be absolutely fascinating.

Moses built something called the Tent of Meeting. It was literally a tent that was separated away form the rest of the people of Israel. Moses and his young apprentice, Joshua, would go to the Tent and meet with God personally. They would talk. For long periods of time.

We really don't have any idea what all they talked about. Sure, we've got pages of instructions and laws that God rattles off to Moses to govern the people of Isreal. But, that list certainly didn't take multiple sessions of 40 days and 40 nights to recite. We've got the rest of the Pentateuch -- supposedly written by Moses -- that God might have told Moses about while they were together.

No, I believe that Moses and God talked about a lot more than just rules and creation history. And there's a couple subtle statements hidden in the text that captured my imagination and lead me to this belief. Moses is pleading with God to come with him and the Israelites as they go up to the Promised Land. Moses says to God, "if you don't go with us personally, don't let us move a step from this place."

God replies, "I will indeed do what you have asked, for you have found favor with me, and you are my friend."

That's a pretty amazing statement that God makes. Moses was his friend! They hung out together -- God and man -- in the Tent of Meeting. Moses' face shown with the radiant glory of being in God's presence -- being with his friend. God revealed all of his goodness and mercy to Moses, his friend, as he walked directly in front of him.

What does this have to do with Easter? What does this have to do with Jesus? So much.

Jesus tore down the veil. He ripped the Tent of Meeting apart, metaphorically. No other Isrealites were allowed to come near the Tent of Meeting. None were allowed up on Mount Sinai while Moses and God were talking. Jesus changed all that.

No longer was God's friendship reserved for a select view. No longer was his presence available to only one man. That veil was torn; the tent was torn down. God's glory became universally accessible. On the cross, Jesus made it possible for all of us to experience God the same way that Moses did.

We can ask God for his will -- "don't send me where you want me to go unless you come with me!" And Christ will respond, as God did with Moses, "because of the cross, I will come with you for you have found favor with me and you are my friend!"

Profound stuff. Easter isn't just a story of Jesus' death and resurrection. It's the story of God's love for humanity and desire for an intimate friend-like relationship with all of us! How awesome is that. You + God... BFF's. It's possible, folks. Seek it.

Thirteen.31.prayer: Adoration

Thirteen.31.prayer week 1: Adoration

This is the first week of daily devotionals for Cape Naz’s thirteen.31.prayer series. We’re starting a month of prayer on March 13^th. It lasts until April 13^th. That’s 31 consecutive days of prayer. Thirteen.31.prayer. I wish I could say there is some deep spiritual meaning behind this series name, but there isn’t. It’s just prayer. It’s a month long.

We’re following the popular prayer model ACTS – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. I can’t say with any definitiveness who invented this acronym (or is it an acrostic?), but I’m basing my look at in on Bill Hybel’s excellent book Too Busy Not Too Pray.

Each week we are going to take a look at different element of the ACTS model. This week it’s adoration.

Very simply, we defined adoration last Sunday as turning your mind and self toward God by telling God about himself – who he is and what he’s done. This is modeled for us in Jesus’ model prayer during the Sermon on the Mount. That prayer, commonly called “The Lord’s prayer”, is probably more aptly called “the Disciple’s Prayer” as it is Christ’s model for how his disciples (this includes you and I) should pray to God.

Jesus’ model prayer starts with adoration: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your name, God, is holy! It is sacred. It is to be revered. It is above all names. It is the first name among all creation. It is the last name. It is a name of love. It is a name of authority. It is a name of grace. It is a name of compassion and mercy and sanctuary and sanctification.

That’s adoration. God’s name is to be hallowed! Why? Tell God! What else about God is worthy of your adoration, your respect, your honor, and your reverence? Tell God!

The Bible is full of scriptures that adore and revere God. This week we’re looking at five of them. I would strongly encourage you to take one each day for this week and make it your prayer. See what the writer has to say about God’s character, what he does, who he is, and why he’s worthy of such adoration. Then turn it into your own prayer. How would you describe God in this way? What has God done in your life that’s comparable to what he did in the writer’s life? Tell God about it!

Here are the scriptures. Will you join us in 31 straight days of prayer? Will you start with adoration? I’m praying that you will!

Day 1: Exodus 34:1-10

Day 2: Psalm 46

Day 3: Psalm 8

Day 4: Philippians 2:1-11

Day 5: 1 Chronicles 29:10-13

Day 6: Psalm 63

Day 7: Psalm 145

Going the 2nd Mile

"Go with him 2 miles," Matthew 5:41.

Let me start with a statement of faith. I believe that God has given us the land around Cape Nazarene Church (2601 Independence, Cape Girardeau, MO) as our Promised Land. We're placed here for a purpose. We're planted on a hill overlooking the city as a beacon of God's light in a town full of darkness.

Cape Girardeau hides it's needs well. It's a small, clean town. Driving around, you would have a hard time seeing the darkness. You won't be able to point out the people with addictions. You can't see the violence. You have to step through the white-picket fences to find the depression, grief, loneliness, hurt, hunger, oppression, poverty, racism, and more that are prevalent here.

Neighbors grow accustomed to looking the other way. Parents put up a facade in public. School kids hide it from their friends and teachers. The needs, though, of the people of Cape Girardeau are very real. As is the need for God.

Who is going to take God to them? Who is going to serve those needs? Who's going to pray for those people?

That's what going the 2nd mile means. Cape Naz Church is committed to pray for (1st mile) and serve (2nd mile) our community. We're going to get our hands dirty. We're going to get our knees dirty. We're going to win back the people that God has given us from the enemies that have taken them hostage. We're going to help God redeem Cape Girardeau!

We're starting small. This week, we're forming a partnership with the SEMO Safe House for Women. It's a shelter that takes in victims of domestic abuse and their kids. Chatting with the director of the Safe House last week, she told me that she doesn't get many pastors or churches willing to help them. I wasn't terribly surprised.

Most pastors and churches are unwilling to look beyond the facades that their town constructs and see the real needs hidden all around them. For those pastors and their people, "going" is really "targeting" the people that look like them -- the already saved, clean, collected families with nice SUV's and big bank accounts.

Sorry if that you're a pastor or a church member and that offends you. But, if you are offended by it, you should ask yourself why. There's nothing wrong at all with reaching out to the people in your sphere of influence (the people that largely look and act like you) -- that's our primary strategy for relational evangelism. It's important. It's fundamental.

But so is compassionate ministry to the lost, the hurting, the fatherless, the widow, the orphan, the addict, the grieving, the depressed, the oppressed, the underprivileged, the abused, the victims living among you.

Will you go the 2nd mile to reach them? Will you pray for them. Will you serve them? As I told the director of the SEMO Safe House, "Cape Naz will!"

Prayer and Outreach

Sorry I've been away from blogging for awhile. I've been blogging out of my status updates on Facebook. It's not quite the same, I know. I apologize.

Today, I'm exploring the connection between prayer and outreach (or "going" as I prefer to call it and will call it in this post).

First, let me give you some very simple definitions. What is prayer? Basically, it's communing with God. What is outreach, i.e. "going"? It is serving people. Those are drastic oversimplifications, but sufficient for our purposes today. (If you're the kind of person who can't stand simplicity like that, then feel free to expand on those definitions in the comments section below!)

Let me ask two other questions that get to the point of this post. Can you have prayer without "going"? Can you "go" without prayer? The answer to both questions are yes, respectively. Both prayer and outreach are good by themselves. But, by themselves, neither is best.

The idea of prayer without "going" immediately reminded me of the question that God asked Isaiah. "Whom should I send?" he asked the wannabe prophet. That was God's idea of a rhetorical question. The answer God desired was obvious. Isaiah was standing right there, available, and invested in the situation already. He was God's man for the job. Isaiah didn't just intercede on behalf of his people. He was sent to (i.e. "go") to God's people.

Consider what happens when we pray for others. God, help this man who is sick! God, provide for this person and their need! God send your angels to clear the way for this person to find help!
During our prayers, I can easily imagine God in heaven asking, rehtorically, "Whom should I send?" Like with Isaiah, I think the answer is fairly obvious. Me. You. Us. We took the time to pray, to stand in the gap for others. We're invested in the situation already. Here I am, Lord, send me!

On to the second question. What is "going" or outreach without prayer? What are we really doing when we go help someone, serve someone, feed someone, or teach someone, but we leave God out of it? There's value in that activity. But it's not Great Commission "going". It's volunteerism. It's charity, maybe. It's philanthropy. It's probably not ministry.

I'm a pastor. Imagine me going to the hospital to visit someone who was about to have a critical and dangerous surgery. I say hi. I shake their hand. I tell a joke. I excuse myself without praying for them. Would I be blessing that person in that situation? Maybe a little, but I'm certainly not giving them what they need at that moment -- the power of God!

Going without praying reminds me of something Paul told his young protege Timothy: they have a form of godliness but deny its power. This passage doesn't speak directly to outreach ministry, but the warning Paul gives Timothy is applicable anyway. Godliness without God? Its oxymoronic. It's not real. It doesn't work. Service without the Spirit? It's not real. It doesn't work. It's positive, but it's not powerful.

The power of God comes when we choose to both pray and go. Prayer and outreach. Touching heaven while we touch the earth. It's a simple formula and one followed by most every Biblical example I can think of. It seems, though, that it's lost on many of us in the ministry. I know too many churches that pray but don't go. I know others that go but don't pray. I've been part of both and witnessed firsthand the lack of power in both siutations. Cape Naz won't be one of those churches.

You want a good example of this in action? Valparaiso Nazarene is a church that prays and a church that goes. And they've had a powerful impact on their community. Watch the video called Cecilia from the recent M11 conference in Louisville, KY. Just follow this link and click on the video called "Resurrection - Cecilia": http://www.graceandpeacemagazine.org/en/resurrection-stories

We'll be talking a great deal more about this topic on Sunday at Cape Naz. See you then!

Day 2: In Quito, Ecuador

We landed in Quito, Ecuador last night! Currently, I'm in the dining hall of the Nazarene compound.

So far, things are going great! It was a long day of flying. Started at 6:15 am Nov. 1. We drove up to St. Louis to catch our flight out. Made it to Atlanta in mid-afternoon. A breif layover and then the 5 hour flight across the caribbean and down into South America.

Today we're heading up the mountains to Riobamba, where we will be staying, and then it's on to the worksight.

Everyone is healthy, happy, and ready to get going! Continue to pray for our health and saftey. Pray that the work goes well and we stay ahead of schedule.

I'll have more thoughts on the country of Ecuador after we travel through more of it. I have some snap judgements about it after our breif drive through Quito, but not enough to get a more complete picture of what the country and culture are like. Needless to say, it's a lot different than the states. They certainly need as much prayer and support from us as we can give!

Blessings to my readers from Ecuador. Please continue to pray!

Ecuador Work and Witness

For the next 14 days I'm going to be coming to you from Riobamba, Ecuador as part of a Missouri Nazerene District Work and Witness trip! We're leaving today, Monday morning, and should arrive in Quito tonight around 10 pm.

I'll be updating my blog as much as I'm able to, hopefully every 2-3 days. Please pray for our trip, for the safety of the team, for safe travels, for productive work, and for us to reach the people of Ecuador with Christ!

The next time you hear from me, it will be from the field!

SpongeBob SocietyPants?

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? I know you know the rest. I've done my research and there are three groups of people that regularly watch SpongeBob.

1) Kids. Obviously this is the target audience. For over a decade now, kids age 2 to, oh, 18 regularly agree that nautical nonsense is, in fact, something they wish.

2) Parents of kids. Most of us in this life stage have invested in a nice TV, a nice place to sit and watch that TV, and even a nice cable/satellite package in order to have the best programming on said TV. In the end, though, we all know that our kid's are in charge of our TV's. Deny it if you wish, but I know that you know that "absorbent and yellow and porous is he".

3) Grandparents. Yes, Nana and Papa, you might talk big about "the good ol' days". You might also wrongly believe that the canceling of Howdy Doody marked the end of society as it should be. You too, though, have had your grand kids over and at their request, you've enthusiastically agreed to "drop on the deck and flop like a fish".

That's right. We've all been subjected to "spongebob squarepants, spongebob squarepants, spongebob squarepants, spongebbbboooooobbbbb squarepaaaaannnnttttts!"

Did you know that Spongebob is Nickelodeon's highest rated show? That might not surprise you, but it's also MTV Network's most distributed property. In other words, it's one of the most popular cartoons ever.

SpongeBob really doesn't have any redeeming educational or moral qualities. It does, though, have some very interesting things to say about society and the value of community. In many (disturbing) ways Bikini Bottom and the Krusty Krab remind me all too much of our neighborhoods, school groups, and, dare I suggest, churches.

After all, if an amiable sponge, a pretentious squid, a dim-witted starfish, a tight-wadded crab, and an under-water squirrel can discover true community through krabby patties, secret formulas, and bad clarinet'ing, then why can't we?

Community, a new sermon series, starts this Sunday at Cape Naz. We'll be looking at the earliest church -- itself formed from a comedy of errors cast -- and how they managed to come together in a model community (through a common unity).

So, catch up on your SpongeBob this week in preparation for this Sunday. Consider it research to get a head start on the message. That's what I'm claiming!