Favorite Moments from The Rescue

If the Greatest Generation sacrificed for war, what will our generation be known as if we sacrifice for PEACE?

If being a voice for the voiceless only requires a few miles' walk, one sleepless night in a park in Uptown with no comfort, and a few video shoots, why are not more people here?

Injustice in northern Uganda is as vile a blight on humanity as injustice in Dallas.  Lord let us be a generation who feels rage and stands up for what is right....everywhere!

• Silent dance party, complete with silent breakdancing
• Meeting so many awesome people: shout-outs to Kyle, Krysten, Kelli, Carmen, Nicole, Dr. Brown, Chelsea, Sarita, Paul, all the volunteers, and more that I can't remember your names!
• The sprinklers coming on closer and closer toward the sleeping crowd
• Running toward the boom camera and everyone falling over
• People honking at us on Woodall Rogers as we walked overhead
• Dance competition between the two boys from Fort Worth
• Ridiculous conversation behind us while George and I are trying to sleep
• Never-ending drizzle on our faces
• Prince of Peace folk praying on our faces for Uganda

And, my favorite:

• Gathering with Dr. Brown's Mighty Men to pray, and suddenly people gathering until well over a hundred people are linked arms praying at once

Coming Together

As I write this I am watching a live broadcast over the Internet of OneCry.  A guy that I knew at UT, Jeremy Story, had a vision.  He and Justin Christopher, another friend of mine, created a ministry at UT  Austin called Campus Renewal Ministries.  They are not a ministry that does direct ministry, they are a ministry that unites the ministries!  At UT they connected all the different campus ministries together, who had different doctrines, different cultural makeups, different focuses, and different goals, and united them....without changing them!  The body of Christ is all different and God has made them all different in order to reach different people and to represent different aspects of him and his church!  At UT they demographically separated UT into hundreds of separate "communities" and all the campus ministries began going out to plant "authentic faith communities" in each so that everyone at UT would have direct contact with true Christians living out their faith publicly.  Once a year they all united in one week-long event called RezWeek that brought in big speakers, big worship bands, and served coffee and had an art gallery and a "free speech wall" right in the middle of campus.  It was a beautiful thing.

Well tonight Jeremy is up in New York City, putting on OneCry.  A bunch of people are gathered in Times Square Church praying and worshipping, but the amazing thing is that it is broadcast live over the internet and people on tons of college campuses all over the nation are gathering together in rooms and apartments to watch.  People are being united for the purpose of repentance, prayer, and worship.  The goal is reconnection with God and revival in our land.  It's very cool.

I live in Dallas.  Dallas is a city of megachurches.  Dallas churches are independent.  Whether large or small, churches in Dallas have an attitude of being self-sufficient and not needing a thing.  They operate on their own, almost in competition with other churches even right across the street.  It's a disgusting attitude that limits the Kingdom of God in this city.  If Dallas churches could come together and worship together, pray together, and be unified in vision and purpose, this city could be changed.

Jesus Pops Up Everywhere

Why does Jesus seem to pop up everywhere?  Why have we associated him with so many things?  We have asked the question: "Jesus, is it at this time that you are going to restore the kingdom to Americans?"

Jesus says, "No.  My kingdom is not of this world.  If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm."

The first was teaching evolution in schools.  We attached Jesus to this social issue and hoped that we could legislate Christianity into America.  I am not talking about legislating morality, nobody is questioning that.  What do you think laws prohibiting murder and theft are?  I am talking about legislating Jesus.  It's not that Jesus isn't concerned about teaching evolution or creationism in schools, it's that he isn't fighting the battle.  We are fighting the battle and I think that Jesus wishes we wouldn't involve him in it.  You see, the problem is that the battle of evolution in schools was lost, and Jesus doesn't like to lose.  In fact, he has never lost, and never will.  He always wins, and when we attach him to issues like evolution in school, it looks to the world like he loses.

When Christians lost the battle for evolution, they retreated and bifurcated society.  Visualize an elementary school playground and the battle over the basketball game when one kid gets pushed down.  "Fine!  If you won't play by my rules, I'm taking my ball and going home!"  That mindset is what created things like Christian coffee shops, Christian music, Christian bookstores, Christian TV channels, Christian schools, Christian neckties, and even Christian diet plans.  Unfortunately, the Christian subculture can't decide if they want to separate from the secular world or imitate it.

It's happened over and over again since then.  Abortion, prayer in schools, gay marriage, and so on.  It wouldn't be so bad if Christians won a battle from time to time, but Jesus never promised that - in fact he seemed to say that things were going to get worse.  So what's so bad about fighting for these causes?

Nothing - in fact please do fight for them.  Just don't attach Jesus' reputation to them.  The Bible has a heavy theme of God doing things "for his name's sake."  Check it out - the phrase is all over the Bible, and if you ever highlighted it, it's probably only because your hand kept going past what you were aiming for.  What is God's name?  It's his reputation.  God is extremely concerned about his reputation in the world, because that's how people come to know him - check out Joshua 2:10-11 for an example.  Rahab's response is flipped upside down when Jesus keeps "losing" battles....it's more like "We have heard about how your God can't stop abortion and homosexuality and pornography and evolution.  When we heard about it, our hearts were overjoyed because your God is dead."

Christians don't have to lay over and die.  If the Church were really salt and light in the world, bringing the gospel to many people and teaching them to be disciples rather than simply "in the club," the social issues would naturally follow.  Instead, Christianity has only managed to make itself more irrelevant to the world.

For our battle is not against flesh and blood......

Sources: John 18 and Ephesians 2