Theology Evolved?

I read a book once called "Who You Are When No One's Looking" by Bill Hybels... It is a book on Character. About being real, to yourself, and to others.

I post a decent amount of stuff on this blog, but not about what is going on with me I think.

So here is the deal...

I am going to be real about myself to you guys. I am going to post 3 real things I think I need improving on, and three things I think I do pretty good.

So...

Improvements:

1) I bite my nails... I know kinda ridiculous, but I think it is a stupid habit and I need to kick it.

2) I try and get into every conversation within a 10 foot radius of me. It isn't my business so I shouldn't try to mind it.

3) I rush people, I try and put everybody on my timer, and the world does not revolve around me.

Things I do pretty good:

1) I will be your friend, not your acquaintance, your friend, I will care and I will bend over backwards to help you if I think I can.

2) I read really fast, I love it because I retain it too. So you want me to go over something you wrote, I can read it and get back to you quickly.

3) I have a big picture mentality 98% of the time. Occasionally I fall into my own microcosm but not often. I try and get everything to happen together.

So there you go a little bit about me.


And the other big reason I wrote this, I need prayer.

I want to be in full time ministry, ministering to young people... I want to be a Youth Pastor. But I need it to be full time. My mentality runs along the lines of once you get me past halfway I am all the way. I can do 3/4 I go straight to full.

So please, be praying that God will open the doors for Karina and I to minister to the youth somewhere full-time.

Going to clean up the blog again, too much stuff going on on it. Need to make a new logo but that is gonna be a ways out.

What is it about Christianity that makes you like it? Turn towards it? That gives you hope?

Mine?

There is nothing to profit in material gain on earth or after. It is the most humble faith. There are no virgins waiting for me, no planetoid, no sense of elitism, there is just worshiping God.

Christianity gives me a hope for a world beyond my own selfishness.

okay not really, but how about a quote from the author of this blog.

"Whenever a church legislates rules/morality bylaws that are not clearly biblically-supported, they reinforce the spiritual celebrity paradigm." -- Zach Tanksley (me)

Your thoughts?

"I say the future needs artists who are called to the church who love the church and who are in churches who know how to love and lead them." -- Rich Kirkpatrick

I heard this today, and it speaks to everything that I am. I love it because I am an artist. I adhere to it because I do love the church. And I pursue it as I pursue vocational ministry, because I want to lead the church in love.

I was speaking with my buddy Matt "Supermatt" Anderson (who does some awesome psalms studies) and I was relating a crazy daydream I had while showering about a half hour ago, and i felt it blogworthy.

You see, God has put it hardcore on my heart to get back on the path he started me out on and start looking for a Youth Ministry position somewhere in the US. And as I was in the shower I thought about how much I like playing World of Warcraft (WoW), its my fun little escape despite my iBook's sluggish state, and how much I think there needs to be a balance of that with good ole fashioned outdoor sports.

So in this crazy little daydream, I was a youth pastor of a smallish church, and one of my students played WoW as well, and in order to better connect with that student I played a character and helped him out, and in return he would come out and play Ultimate Frisbee (UF) with some other guys in the youth group. It was a fun arrangement.

At UF, he eventually got a couple guys interested in playing WoW, and so I would meet with all fo them online and help out. Well needlesss to say, both our WoW and UF groups got pretty big, and in my day dream in WoW we formed a guild devoted to helping other people out, and being kind, and generous with what we had. And we gained quite the reputation and eventually we were honored by Blizzard, the makers of WoW for promoting a healthy WoW playing environment,a nd for showing a balanced way of life too.

The dream ended before my hooped for thoughts of kids coming to Christ through WoW though.... but I bet it happened.

So yah, my crazy little day dream.

A well maintenanced mac can probably last around 7-8 years maybe even longer. I am sure the new computer bug hits pretty hard before that point though. A 12" ibook G4, used by a uncareful college student, running video editing, photo editing, and then also letting it fall of their car while driving is not so great. It is amazing this little white rectangle has even lasted this long, but yet I have come to find that it is beginning to fade away. I think I can stretch it out another year or so if I keep it on my desk 80% of the time, so lets keep praying for it.

Maybe one of those new macbooks will end up in my hands. Probably not. But I would settle for any bit of grace in the form of a better working computer. So this is just me, wishing out loud, dreaming big, that I will have a better computer that I can baby like I did the old missing iMac. Maybe you have my old iMac, and the guilt is building up. Send me a comment... They are all moderated, I am the only one who sees them. you can return it, no questions asked...

Once again, just wishing aloud. Hoping...

I was just flitting around those wonderful "get your hopes all up" mac rumors sites and this article caught me attention. It seems ot be saying that the old ibook based concept for the macbooks might disappear and be replaced to look something like the old 12" powerbook g4.

My hopes are that multitouch will make it into the touchpad and even a better video card. It doesn't need to be incredible.... but 128mb would make for a pretty sweet basic machine, especially when you see 512mb and even 1gb video cards out there. Mac's have a reputation as a "for the artist" computer, so lets make those aspiring video editors a bit more amicable with higher video stuff.

The Conclusion
So there we have it. We have seen that God has the amazing capacity to have victory regardless of how far (if at all) involved we are in his work. We have seen him work with Moses who feared that he was not an eloquent man in order to topple a kingdom. And despite the arrogance and pride of the elder’s of Israel we found that God could still defeat the philistines using an inanimate object. Finally, we have seen God work alongside his prophet Elijah to defeat the enemies of the faith and bring Israel into right relationship with God.
The last story is one God has tried to put forward on more than one occasion. It is the story of the faith of his soldiers moving forward and trusting in his ability to maintain them and bring about victory. We have seen this in the story of David and Goliath, Joshua and the battle of Jericho, and even the stories of the Apostle Paul. God moves with us, his victory is already assured. So with this I leave you with one final lesson.
The Lesson? God=Victory

The other lessons can be found at

Onward Christian Soldier 1.1
Onward Christian Soldier 1.2
Onward Christian Soldier 1.3

Elijah at Mount Carmel. (1 Kings 18)

It would be yet later in the days, when Israel was well into its kingships, that there would come a time for God to reveal himself before his people again. It was a time when the king of Israel, Ahab, had gone off to follow Jezebel and the prophets of Baal, taking Israel with him as a confused and very sheep like nation. This Jezebel had destroyed all but one hundred and one prophets. One of which lived off the land, and the other hundred lived in caves being taken care of by a man who had great fear of the Lord. The one was named Elijah. God had taken him aside and let him know that there would be a serious famine in the lands, and had led him to a brook where he would continually be able to drink, and God commanded the ravens to bring him food. Ahab was very well aware of Elijah, and had a feeling that Elijah was connected with the famine, So when it did come time for Elijah to go meet Ahab and speak to him about his evil transgressions that Ahab was not in the best of moods.
However, a prophet, a soldier of the most high God, is still not someone to be trifled with, and when Elijah lays out a contest for Ahab, the cocky king cannot turn it down. So all the people of Israel are brought to Mount Carmel, as well as the 450 prophets of Baal, for a showdown of godly proportions. And Elijah more or less just says he will allow the prophets of Baal to receive the kick off. He allows them to build their altar of wood, and take the choice ox, and then allows them to call upon Baal to light their altar and ox on fire. And of course being the amazing god that Baal is, he creates a giant pillar of flame consuming everything and Elijah as well… nope, nothing, not even after hours of calling. So Elijah feels free to encourage them reminding them that their God needs time to sleep, or even relieve himself so perhaps they should shout out to him. And they do so, mutilating themselves too because he delights in that, and this time the fire comes… again no.
So Elijah takes it upon himself to then rebuild the old altar of the Lord. Not only that but he also gathers 12 stones, one for each tribe of Israel. Then he cuts up the ox and lays it upon the altar. Following that he digs a sizeable trench around the altar. The he commands the people of Israel to pour out four pitchers of water upon the altar. And then to rinse and repeat. And then one more time till everything is totally soaked, and the trench is filled with water.
Finally Elijah prepares to call upon God time and time again. Only one real difference here though. He only needs to call once. Asking God to remember His people, and to help turn their hearts back to Him. And he does so. The fire falls, and it falls in power. The fire consumes, the ox, the soaking wet wood, it devours the wet stones, and not even steam is left where the trench of water was. EVERYTHING WAS CONSUMED.
And so when Israel realized their stupidity, they went back to their God, the almighty God, and worshiped him. And with this, Elijah commanded all the people to gather up all the prophets of Baal, and Elijah slew all the prophets of Baal.

One man, One God, One Faith, One Outcome

The Lesson? God+Faith=Victory

The Capture of the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 4-7)
It would be much later on when Israel has established itself as a people looking to God for direction through his priests and prophets that the next triumphant act of God would happen. It will however have been one to show that God has no room for foolish pride and arrogance when it comes to his leaders.
You see God had appointed a judge, Eli, to preside over Israel, and Eli had two songs… Hophni and Phineas. Both of these young men preferred little gods, and did not care to know the lord, but were both priests of him. And when those brothers brought a curse upon themselves, and Eli did not do anything to rebuke them God decided it was time for that lineage to end. And this is how it unfolded.
After a devastating defeat of Israel by the Philistines the elders decided it would be best if the brothers, Hophni and Phineas brought the Ark of the Covenant to the next battle site and proclaim shouts of praise in order to strike fear in the hearts of the Philistines and that God would give victory to Israel, because obviously God would not allow his throne to fall into the hands of the Philistines. However, the Philistines girded themselves and went forth to fight despite their fear of the God (or as they saw it, gods) who struck down Egypt. And… they had a victory… a GREAT victory… they slew 30,000 Israelite foot soldiers, two high priests (Hophni and Phineas), and ultimately in a three-two-one victory captured the ark of the enemies gods. When news was brought to Eli who was sitting on a stool, old and blind, he fell over and his own weight caused him to break his neck.
Now one would assume that God did achieve his goal but at a great cost, His throne was in the hands of the pagan enemies. However, this was to be a multi-faceted lesson that God was teaching. For the Philistines needed to learn that indeed the God of Israel was bigger then their own gods.
The first place the ark of the covenant was brought to was the house of Dagon, a god of the philistines. They placed the ark before the stature of Dagon in his temple that night. The next morning, the priests found the statue laying face down in front of the ark, so they righted it. The next morning the same statue was face down in front of the ark, except, on the altar its head and hands had been cut off so only the torso remained, and the priests knew they were in trouble. This was culminated when God afflicted them with a couple of plagues to remind them of how he regards being treated like a lesser god. The people were afflicted with tumors, and mice were sent to ravage the land. And what did the Philistines do? They send it to a different city of their own… And what happens…? The Rinse and Repeat cycle through another 3 cities until the Philistines finally relent and send the ark back to Israel with a guilt offering.

So with no help by Israel, God demonstrated his power to foreign powers and foreign gods.

The Lesson? God -You = Victory

Seriously, this takes dedication

David

The Exodus (Exodus 1-14)
The first time that comes to mind when I think of God’s power being enacted in the face of overwhelming odds is when the not quite yet nation of Israel is a multitude of slaves in Egypt. They are a people have been told be meek, passive, and to humble themselves for the Egyptians and their host of gods.
And there is one slave who by the wisdom of his mother is orphaned for an hour to rise suddenly into power as a prince of Egypt. He is a young man who lives an alien life. At a crucial point he realizes who he is and tries ineffectively to show his people their true nature, and ultimately must run-away into the desert.
As this young man ends up living amidst an unchained nomadic tribe oh his people he gets to encounter his might God and learn his place in life, a Soldier of the most high God. And God sends him on a mission back to Egypt. Here one nomadic prophet, one former prince, goes before the most powerful mortal ruler who has a host of gods behind him, and this prophet has but one.
So what does he do? He tells this self-fancied incarnation of a god to release an entire people of slaves numbering in the hundreds of thousands. He does this because his King, God, commanded it. And being the all-wise, most powerful mortal ruler, self-fancied incarnation of a god, Pharaoh says… “No.”
What comes to follow is a battle of Godly proportions as the prophet proclaims supernatural plagues upon the nation of Egypt and 12 times more the Pharaoh refuses to surrender. Granted the pharaoh tried with the help of al his priests to disprove or duplicate the plagues as to diminish God’s power, but utterly failed miserably. It takes the death of his first-born son to finally release the slaves, capitulating out of grief to the prophet and his God.
But in his grief, there is also anger, and the ruler attempts to deceive the almighty God and his prophet. When the slaves are almost free, they are at a sea they must cross, the armies of the Pharaoh appear on the horizon to slay these weakened slaves while their backs are against a wall of water. But the prophet, at the bequest of his God stands before the water, and commands it to make way for the people of the God who created the water. And as the people rush through the canyon lined with water their enemies follow only to find out the terrifying truth of God’s wrath, as the water allows the slaves to pass but closes behind and crushes the armies.
The Lesson? God+You=Victory.