Jesus The Artist

Having recently gone through Rory Noland's The Heart Of The Artist with the Hannaford Praise Team last Fall, I've encouraged us to look at ourselves as artists - both the good and the bad. Noland's book is quite good and reveals the challenges we artist deal with when serving God and working with artists in community.

Recently I read a blog article by Mark Batterson which spoke of Jesus as an artist as well. Batterson wrote...

We don't tend to think of Jesus in artistic terms, but I think we underestimate how artistic Jesus was.

For starters, Jesus created the heavens and the earth. Looks pretty good on your artistic resume! But let me put it in incarnational terms. During his tenure on earth, Jesus spent most of his time as an artisan. He was in carpentry much longer than he was in ministry. Almost a 10:1 ratio. And I'm pretty sure he took pride in his carpentry craft. He sanded till the wood was perfectly smooth. He measured twice to make sure the angle was just right. He cared about color. He cared about contour. He cared about quality. And like any carpenter, I'm sure he wanted his work to bear his unique signature...

\I think we underestimate how much his artistry influenced his ministry. Read the gospels. Jesus was a wordsmith right? He chose words like an craftsman. Each word was measured like a carpenter measures wood. Any way you slice it, Jesus was an artisan first. And his ministry was shaped by his artistry."

The point is this. Jesus gave his best and we are called to give our best as well - a wholehearted effort for our master. As Dorothy Sayers is quoted, "No crooked table legs or ill-fitted drawers ever, I dare say, came out of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth."

May it be the same with us through the power of Christ!

Quotable Quips - Tell Me Something I Don't Know

"Tell me something I don't know... The church ought to be the place where original thought is most prevalent. We have the Holy Spirit to illuminate us and lead us into all truth. But all too often I hear what I've heard a thousand times. So I tend to tune out. Challenge my assumptions. Violate my expectations. Shift my paradigms. The best speakers have a way of saying old things in new ways."

Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor of National Community Church< in Washington, DC, and author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. As quoted from his post Tell Me Something I Don't Know (April 27, 2007)

Mark really has something here. There are so many people that find church boring - and it often is. The problem is that God is NOT boring. I truly believe that it is a sin to make God and His truths boring. This is one sin the Church really needs to get past. We need to repent and find the true joy and creativity that only comes from the Creator of all things.

And Speaking of Bananas?

...and maybe even nuts. I may be stepping on a few toes here, but I think that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron of The Way of The Master have finally gone bananas! Perhaps you heard, or perhaps you saw, but these guys have gone head-to-head with athiests on ABC's Nightline.

Now, a debate is one thing but here is the nutty part...Ray Comfort "claims he can prove the existence of God, scientifically, without mentioning faith or the Bible."

I'm sorry, but this is just wrong on so many levels. One (as CMS points out), Ray thinks he is going to address and answer "the single question humanity has wrestled with since the dawn of time - does God exist?" Two, if we really could scientifically PROVE the existence of God, there would be no need for faith. Jesus said, "...blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).

I mentioned CMS, and that's where I came across this sad, sad story. I encourage you to read their post here. (And on a side note and a slightly different subject, check out the Banana Argument they link to - more sadness.) I just think the approach of Ray Comfort and The Way of The Master is an approach that leaves out relationship. And without relationship, we really don't have others or Jesus...we don't have anything, really.

Going Bananas?

You may think I'm going bananas, but I did an experiment this week. Seth Godin suggested on his blog that "it's a lot easier to peel a banana if you start from the 'wrong' end." I took those words as a challenge! I went way out on a limb (not literally) and tried out this new wisdom at lunch on Tuesday.

First, I carefully examined both ends of the banana to see if Seth's claims seemed plausible. Considering that I like a rather pre-ripe banana, the stem is usually a bit difficult to open. Usually, a gentle incision with my front teeth break the stem open enough to begin peeling. This time I focused on the other end. I looked carefully and then I started...It was a breeze. Seth was right and I told everyone in the office!

Here's the point. Will I continue to peel bananas this new way, or will I go back to the way I've always done it? Will the rest of the office try it? (Andrea did.) Will people consider me strange for peeling bananas this way?

Like Seth says, I think we have a tendency to continue to do things the hard way because it just "feels" like the right thing to do. It's hard to change and it's hard to get others to change even if it easier or more effective.

How often do we approach ministry this way?

Hearing From God

I mentioned before that the Hannaford Praise Team and I are going through Buddy Owen's The Way of a Worshiper. This week we discussed “Hearing From God.” Owens points out that some people believe that God no longer speaks. He says...

“How sad it must be to worship a God who doesn’t speak ... To believe that God no longer speaks is a frightening proposition. Throughout scripture when God is present, He is speaking. If God no longer speaks, is He no longer present? ... If God no longer speaks, then what makes us think He is listening?"

Thankfully, God does still speak.

Owens continues, “He speaks through the scriptures, through the wise counsel of others ... In Christ, through providence bestowed or withheld, through circumstances, opportunities and closed doors, and through the still, small voice of His Spirit...”

Here's a question. I understand and believe that we can't spend every waking moment trying to discern our every step. "Do I cross the street? Do I eat this sandwich?" And yet, at what point do I say "I don't need to hear from God anymore?" Andrea says, and I agree, that it's really not about determining whether every little thing is God's will or not, it's about making ourselves available to hear His voice and follow Him whenever He speaks.

While preparing our discussion for this last Sunday, I came across a post from Mark Batterson entitled, “Ten Ways I Hear From God.” Here's a few wonderful insights. Check out the original here for the whole list.

• I hear God better after I've confessed my sin. Somehow confession gets rid of the static. Besides, when I'm living with unconfessed sin I don't always want to hear God's voice.
• I hear God better when I'm worshiping Him. Worship is one way I tune into God's frequency.
• I hear God better after I've read my Bible.
• I hear God better when I'm not in a hurry. Blaise Pascal said, "All of man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone."
• I hear God better when I'm fasting. I hear God more clearly when I do a TV Fast--sometimes we have to tune some voices out so we can hear the voice of God.
• I hear God better when I'm out of my routine. Change of place + change of pace = change of perspective. God seems to show up in burning bushes in the middle of nowhere!
• I hear God better when I'm going after a dream. God doesn't speak to me when I'm not stepping out in faith.

Quotable Quips - The God Of The Actual Bible

"I began to slowly realize that the God of the Bible, not the God of formula and bullet points that some have turned the Bible into, but the God of the actual Bible, the old one before we learned to read it like a self-help book, had a great deal to say to me."

"Perhaps if we stop reducing the text to formulas for personal growth, we can read it as stories of imperfect humans having relations with a perfect God and come to understand the obvious message He is communicating to mankind."

"I wondered what it would it would have been like to have studied the Bible and not be tainted by lists and charts and formulas that cause you to look for ideas and infer notions that may or may not be in the text, all the while ignoring the poetry, the blood and pain of the narrative, and the depth of emotion with which God communicates His truth. I think there would be something quite beautiful about reading the Bible this way, to be honest - late at night, feeling through the words, sorting through the grit and beauty. It wouldn't bother me at all to read the Bible without all the charts and lists because a person could read the Bible, not to become smart, but rather to feel that they are not alone, that somebody understands them and loves them enough to speak to them - on purpose - in a way that makes a person feel human."

Excerpts from Searching For God Knows What, by author and speaker Donald Miller.

Here's my two cents. The book of the Bible is NOT THE OBJECT of our faith. Instead, it points us to the person of our faith - the one and only triune God.

I've heard it said that we need to develop our relationship with the Bible. That thought seems blatently wrong to me. We need to develop our relationship with the PERSON of God. We need to know Him.

I am tired of the Bible being referred to as my "text book," my "instruction book," or my "authority." (I am not questioning the authority of the Bible here.) To me, these labels belittle the Word of God and our faith. For that matter, I am insulted when I am told that the sum of my Christian life and God's purpose for me on the earth is to sit in the "classroom" of our worship services and be a good "student" of this text book.

I believe our lives, our faith, and especially the Bible are something different - something much more important. The Bible is the very breath of God spoken to humanity. It is a narrative of how God has interacted with mankind since the beginning. It shows us who He is and what He is like, and more importantly - how desperately God loves us. By reading it, we begin to know his nature and, more importantly, we begin to know Him.

'Nuf said.