Denver, Baby

This week I finally made my final decision. I am going to Denver for two years! Six months ago I decided to move here to North Carolina, live with my brother, Andy, and learn more about the church plant he is helping to lead in Denver. Soma Church(which means body, as in the body of Christ)is going to be in Denver metro, and the vision of the church is to love God, love each other, and love the community. Doesn't that sound great? Well, the tricky thing is this... all kinds of churches have vision statements just like that. The way I have learned what Soma is really all about has been by living here with the team, praying with them, confessing sin with them, studying the Bible together, hanging out, and "doing life" together. They are all sinners! They know that and are quick and open to tell you that. However, they are genuine people whom I now trust, and I am happy, excited, and, let's be honest, a bit nervous to be heading out there with them in about a month.

Doing life together has been great, but it has not been roses and peaches the whole time.


(Picture from carolchambers.biz)

I have been learning about my idols, learning how to take responsibility for myself in a lot of new ways, learning to embrace confrontations, and learning how to cut grass! Yes, I have had the privilege of being on a landscaping crew with a few really cool guys who have patiently trained me in the art of lawn care. While it is a fun and rewarding job, I hope to be able to use my civil engineering degree eventually, and I have been putting out applications like crazy in Denver. Here is a small example of a confrontation I've faced: at one point, about three months ago, I literally said out-lout to God, "I don't want to go to Denver with Andy, I don't even like him!" We had just had an argument about me "stealing" his peanut butter, and I was pretty mad at the way he treated me. (Isn't that ridiculous?) However, and this is what I want to mark everything in my life, we applied the gospel, the good news of Jesus. God covers up all my offenses, yes, all of them, and he gives me the perfect record of Jesus the Messiah, instead. How in the world should I not forgive my brother? We admitted our selfishness, we followed Jesus in forgiving each other, and we agreed on a good peanut butter system to avoid confusion in the cupboard. That is a dumb story, I know. However, I pray that God will teach us, Soma Church, to apply the gospel to everything we do in Denver Colorado, specifically, in loving God, loving each other, and loving the city. Actually that is the vision statement of the church sending us, The Summit. Our vision is the same but we say Gospel, Community, Mission. (I guess we love the idea but want to appear original.) I want to see a gospel movement, because Jesus is worthy!

Things We Couldn't Say

I just finished an amazing book called "Things We Couldn't Say," the story of Diet Eman, a Christian woman who lived in the Netherlands during WWII and worked with the underground resistance and helped protect Jews. It is a very graphic, genuine account of her life, including her thoughts, prayers and frustrations during all of the sufferings she went through while helping others. Diet's decisions bring up very interesting moral questions that I have never had to face, since she had to decide whether to obey what the Nazis were telling her to do, whether to lie to them, who she could help and who she could trust, etc. However, the message I found most important from her story was the truth of God's promise that gave Diet hope throughout all she went through, the words of Jesus that she carved, at one point, in Dutch into her prison wall, "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." I believe there is a reason Jesus gave these as some of his last words, knowing that we would need to remember this promise especially through the sufferings that we are privileged to go through for his sake. I recommend this book for everybody.

Quran Burnings

I have had many thoughts and questions as a result of the planned burnings of the Quran in Florida this Saturday.

The biggest question in my mind is this: What does it mean that Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world, and how then do we who love him also fight the spiritual battle we are in, specifically against the lies of Islam that enslave people we love to an oppressive life and eternal death? (Yes, it's a mouthful of a question when I actually put it into writing!)

Then part of me wonders, what if this guy is right? That possibility scares me, and it's hard to explain why.

This is my only personal conclusion: I know what I believe about Islam. I think it is a powerful, manipulative force of falsehood and evil that is sweeping the entire world. Most significantly, it keeps people from knowing and loving the real Jesus. We are in a war for the glory of God and the souls of men and women, whether we ever realize it and fight or not. I want to fight this war whole-heartedly, just as Jesus did. He gave his life to conquer sin and death and to put Satan and all evil powers to shame. All I know to do is to pray and to proclaim the gospel in word and deed. The times of killing people and burning their property is over. God's Kingdom is not of this world, so we don't use weapons of this world. I feel like this Pastor in Florida is truly zealous but ignorant and misguided. I want to and ought to love and serve my individual Muslim friends, to seek more of them, understand their world view, love them, and be prepared to well-articulate to them the truth that Jesus is our only hope. I want to pray earnestly and ask God if I should be one of the people to go to a highly Muslim populated area to be a light for Jesus.

New Rhymes

I would like to share some lines I enjoyed writing recently.

Crucified with Christ
Justified by faith
Incredibly surprised
To stand in Jesus' place

For he came down and stood
Where I deserve to stand
Nailed to a cross of wood
Blood dripping down his hands

Paying out in full
What I deserved to pay
Tragic, dark 'Place of the Skull'
Then on God's judgment day

Angels bow to you,
Kings and rulers, too,
And yet I see you do
Have so much care for who?

For anyone who will
Quite honestly confess
That he was hopeless 'til
He saw your righteousness

I see he offers us
Life so abundantly
It's metamorphosis,
He's really changing me

To follow in his steps
I'll daily reach for him.
Discovering the depths
Of mercy he has given.

I take his righteousness
And immortality,
and ne'er grow tired of this:
My God is pleased with me

And though my greatest deeds
Are just a crappy pile,
O, for a heart that beats
to see my Father smile

To know my Father well
And nothing more than this,
I trust no one can tell
Me of a greater bliss.

David Brainerd

I just started over reading The Life and Diary of David Brainerd. It is very interesting and encouraging to read and see into the heart of this man. He struggled so long and hard to try to earn God's love by being disciplined in prayer and bible study but found it so hard to meet God's Law's demands especially on our thoughts and affections. He found that every time he thought he was doing well, he was really acting out of pride and selfishness, not for God's glory. He finally found the sweet truth that we can never earn a right standing before God but must submit completely to the righteousness that Jesus offers. I love this quote from the time the gospel became so real to him...

"I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ."

He is one cool puritan.

Remember the Cross

I just read the first two chapters of Jeremiah tonight and realized how little my view of sin and, in turn, Jesus is. Throughout the overtone of the whole dialogue, it should be obvious to any reader that God is a personal, emotional being. He is sad, angry, confused and frustrated over the inconsistent and unfaithful hearts of his people. They have the ridiculous ideology to turn away from loving and delighting in God in order to pursue worthless things. That's the word God repeats again and again. Worthless. It even made them become worthless. The hard part is to realize that I have the same ridiculous tendencies, whether I always realize it or not. It's sickening how easily I can forget that God is a person, my Father, my best friend, and settle to be happy with all the stuff I can get from him. What am I talking about specifically? One thing, for example, is the realization I had a few days ago that the only time I tend to talk with God is when I have absolutely nothing else to do and no one else to talk with. I've been doing that instead of making it my joy and my business to remember God. Is that how to treat your best friend, the one you enjoy the most?

Maybe it's not that big of a deal when I do that, though, right? No, no, NO! That gets to the very heart of why Jesus came to die. He, the unique Son of God, always at the Father's right hand, his best friend, had to die, to be forsaken, in order to make my twisted heart clean. That is an enormous price to pay for something that is not that big of a deal.

Thank you God for that reminder from Jeremiah.

Home

I haven't posted anything new for a while, and that is mostly because I have been trying to work through some important personal decisions. I didn't mean to cut myself off from anyone but have been trying to discuss things that have been on my heart with just a few people.

I decided I needed to come back to the US, to Tennessee a bit early. After praying considerably, talking with mentors and eMi staff, and writing out all my thoughts and feelings, I decided to come home two months early. It was a tough decision but one in which I have an increasing amount of peace.

Before leaving, I was able to say goodbye to my closest Ugandan friends and all my eMi workmates. I even got to go fishing with Denis and Mathias! It was the first time I ever ate a fish that I caught myself. That was a great time to enjoy together with them before leaving.

I left Tuesday morning, May 18th, and arrived in London at 4pm. I had a one night layover and decided to venture into the city and see what I could. I walked around the city for a few hours and saw some of the famous places. London is a beautiful place! I slept in the hostel and left early Wednesday morning to catch my flight to Chicago, on which I was able to lie down across three seats and sleep like a baby while listening to country music.