What does “People Are My Art” mean?

My wife came across this quote this morning and when she shared it with me, I was blown away — it’s nice to know that there is someone out there who is as brilliant as I am.

“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”–Vincent van Gogh

Viewing people as an art means that I have a responsibility to that person, or piece of Art.  We were created as a piece of art through God’s workmanship (Eph. 2:10), and I have a responsibility to help mold, fashion, color, and, well… love.

Love is a responsibility.  Do so as creating a great piece of art.

wii nativity

I found this a bit humorous; a wonderful addition to our Christmas decor.  Our Nativity scene peeps look an awful lot like my wii avatar.  Coincidentally, the blue-haired wise man is a world champion tennis pro.

Cumberland making a difference

This article that came across my in box made me really think about the local American church… and then I realized that much of what is described as being “good” or “healthy” in the American church, Cumberland is doing.

Obviously we are not “that perfect church” yet — but there are some really healthy aspects that we have in our DNA.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002157.cfm?utm_id=emailafriend&utm_campaign=1

Change 4 Change

Cumberland Community Church has partnered with Partners for Care and the Glory Outreach Assembly to support several projects in Kenya.  Your small change can make a big change in the lives of Kenyan people. We thank you for your support in making a true difference and being the servants we are made to be. Please find information about the projects below.

Here is how you can help:

1. Scrounge around and find any small change you have in your seat cushions, pant pockets, car consoles, kitchen drawers etc. and collect it with your small groups.
2. Bring in the change collected each week to the church and add it to one of the many larger containers you will see around the lobby.
3. Watch your small change add up to make a big change in the lives of the Kenyan people.

Please read below for more information on the organizations and projects your money is supporting. For more information or to obtain coin collectors to use at your homes, offices and schools please contact Jess Beard at jessbeard7@gmail.com or (678) 756-3784.

Partners for Care

(www.partnersforcare.org)

Partners for Care is an organization that exists to provide hope and health for people in developing nations by empowering and equipping indigenous people.  Through Partners For Care’s Beat the Drum Children’s Home CCC will be helping to raise money and support for a community of orphans.  There are currently 12 children all with HIV/AIDS living at Beat the Drum, and there are additional children waiting to be moved to Beat the Drum, pending construction of additional homes.

Upcoming projects include:

• Build additional homes – totaling 10, to allow Beat the Drum to support 50 children (each home holds 5 orphans)
• Bringing electricity to the property.
• Build a community kitchen and meeting room for the families of Beat the Drum.
• Provide a van for transportation to school each day

Glory Outreach Assembly

(www.goaweb.org )

With the help of GOA, CCC is able to help sponsor widows and their children in the Kinangop region. The children are now able to attend school at GOA Educational Centre through the support of CCC and previous donations. Six cows were able to be bought for this community but due to the drought the last cow died over two months ago.

Upcoming projects include:

• Purchasing chickens and build chicken coups for the purpose of becoming a self sustaining community

An Unstoppable Force

The last few days, I’ve come across this thought that seems to be reoccurring and probably something I should spend some time in prayer and contemplation over: do we actually believe that what we read in the Bible is possible in our time and culture?

I know… stupid question.  Of course it is possible.

But in the wise words of my father, “Do what I say, not what I do.”

Often I think we say we believe something, but our actions speak something entirely different.  Do we believe in The Perfect Church, as Alan taught on at Cumberland this weekend?  I understand we live in a fallen world where we are constantly battling between trust and control on a Teeter Totter, but could you imagine the power we could see if we actually had the faith to see it (Acts 2:43).

“When anyone takes the time to read the book of Acts, it is easy to see that the “Church” was meant to be an unstoppable force in our world and communities. Matthew wrote the words that Jesus had concerning the future of the church … “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”

// I love those words because they give us something so many need today … the clear reality of something that will last. Nothing can or will stop what God has planned or what he will do.” Read Full Article

How do we… no, how do I get there, church?

Can music become prayer?

I thought this article was interesting, well spoken by the Pope.  Not that the Pope is any final authority on the subject, but I find it comforting that music in general, not just Sunday morning praise music, can become a means of prayer.  Many have believed that to be true, and while worship music is a beautiful way to praise God, it is not the only way.  Worship music is not a style of music, it’s the heart of the people, right?

Regarding a pianist concert, Pope Benedict says,  “This concert has, once again, given us the chance to appreciate the beauty of music, a spiritual and therefore universal language, and hence the appropriate vehicle for understanding and union between individuals and peoples. Music forms part of all cultures and, we could say, accompanies all human experiences, from suffering to pleasure, from hatred to love, from sadness to joy, from death to life.”

The Pope also addressed the wide range of history covered by the performance, saying, “over the centuries and the millennia music has always been used to give form to what cannot be expressed with words, because it arouses emotions otherwise difficult to communicate. It is, then, no coincidence that all civilizations have given importance and value to music in its various forms and expressions.

“Music, great music,” he observed, “distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad.”

Thus, he explained, “Music can become prayer.”

Saint Damien of Molokai

This morning I received a phone call from my mom telling me some pretty cool news.  On my mom’s side of the family, I have a loooooong list of priests in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church.  Apparently, my grandmother’s first cousin was one of these priests.

This past Sunday, October 11th, my 3rd Cousin was named a true, straight-up Saint from the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI.  Jozef De Veuster, later known as Father Damien, did some pretty amazing miraculous things on an island in the Hawaiian islands (obviously, when this was going on they weren’t part of the US).  Saint Damien (or, as I like to now call him, Saint Cousin Jozef) set up a mission to those suffering from Leprosy and other serious diseases.  Pope John Paul II beatified Saint Cousin Jozef in 1995, and he was officially made a Saint this weekend!  Read this wikipedia article or here for more information… or just search it out on Google.

Think I can get a ticket into the Vatican now?

More insight into “missional”

In my opinion, one of the most insightful extra-biblical writers on the modern day word, missional, is Australian author Alan Hirsch.  Many of you may have heard me reference a book called, The Shaping of Things To Come, another of Hirsch’s books.

In this short 10-minute video, Hirsch breaks down 6 major shifts that he believes are essential for a church to become missional… again.  This is all taken from his book, The Forgotten Ways.

1. The most essential place to start is that we must recover Jesus.  The heart of the church must start and end with the heart of Jesus.  The incarnation of Jesus must be brought to the fallen world.
2. The art of Discipleship.  If we fail here, we fail.  A disciple is simply someone who is becoming more and more like Jesus – progression.
3. Encountering the world in a missional and incarnational manner.  We are a sent movement of people.  In order to understand missional, we must understand our mission.  To be amongst the people.
4. Apostolic environment – missional and apostolic are the same word (latin/greek).  Ephesians 4 outlines the 5 essential church leaders, which is almost always void in some capacity in modern-day Western churches.  In the west, we focus primarily on Pastor/Teacher as the church leader(s).  However, Ephesians 4:11-13 clearly identifies 1) apostles (modern day apostles are gifted in starting new endeavors and ways to progress the church into the fallen world), 2) prophets, 3) evangelists, and then finally 4) pastors and 5) teachers.  I have actually spoken in depth about this at Cumberland, listen here.
5. Organic Systems – how the church should organize itself.  The church should have less top-down ministry approach; paid pastors coming up with all ministry outlets and directions.  The whole body of believers have the power of the Holy Spirit to provide outlets for ministering to people, either collectively with others or independent.  Organic ministry can simply mean ministering opportunities can come from any angle, the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:4-5, 9).
6. Communitas – the idea of the type of community we are forming.  Does the community exist for us, or do we exist for the community?  We move from merely being friends or a collective crowd who attend the same church to becoming comrades who lock arms and are sent out into ministry together, both in order to survive and thrive.

Anyway, here is the video.  Alan is a bit difficult to understand at times, so I’ve tried to sum up his statements in short.

Click here for video.

My new favorite website

A friend of mine showed me this website, where you can search for any musical artist and it will search the web for any free mp3.  It’s a great place to find new artist that you’ve never heard before, preview their music, read about who they are (from blogs) and download their music for free.

Enjoy

Justifying, Rationalizing, and Contextualizing Your Faith Away

I have become painfully aware of how much I question away what’s in the Bible.  Wrestling with scripture is great, and part of the growth process, but questioning its “original intent” has left me paralyzed all too often.

In Bible Universities and Seminaries across the world, we are taught that in order to understand what the Bible means “correctly,” we need to look at the original intent of the author, his culture, his readers, the language it was written, and so forth.  Most of the time I agree with the use of this process known as exegesis.  However, recently I’ve become aware at how justifying, rationalizing, and contextualizing takes so much away from the faith we are called to have.  So many scripture, when looked at in plain black & white seem so ridiculous, even irrational.  What I have been challenging myself with is this: when I come across scripture that says to do something, then to just do it.  I don’t want to go back and do the exegesis because all too often I find myself rationalizing it away saying, “it doesn’t work in this time and in this culture.”

Here are just a few examples:

• When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  Luke 18:18-25 (esp. vv 22)

• There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.  Acts 4:32-37 (esp. vv 34)

• Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.  Romans 13:8

• Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  Matthew 28:18-20

• If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also… Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Luke 6:27-31 (esp. vv. 29,30)

• Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

• Do everything without complaining or arguing Philippians 2:14

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  James 1:27

Now, I comprehend that some of these scriptures are direct commands to specific people and therefore may not be direct commands to me… but does that mean that we should not do them anyway?  And I certainly don’t always endorse using this method for teaching people or a congregation, but for life transformation to happen in me, its something I need to do often.

Here’s something you know instinctively. You can memorize every bit of cereal box information about ingredients and nutritional value. But for that cereal to do you any good, you have to pour it out, top it with milk or cream, and eat it.  Eugene Peterson says it’s the same with the Bible. “This is a book to be experienced, savored, dallied over. If we’re always studying something, then we’re going to miss it,” he says.  Read here or here about Lectio Divina, a form of scripture reading that is far more conducive for life transformation and not as much about information.

My friend Sarah says this, “It seems to me that rationalizing and justifying our actions is what makes Christianity a sub-culture rather than a counter culture.”