blog one another

evangelism: ur doin it wrong

We are blowing off church this morning, exhausted from our short trip to SoCal for the memorial service for Kay's dad. On the drive south, had time to talk about lots of things. She reminded me of the awkward time when I dragged her through the Student Union of Indiana University to do "contact evangelism" -- that is, walk up to people cold. My, my. The awkwardness of that experience was one of the first turning points that changed my understanding of evangelism.

The example of Kay's dad was another turning point. But Mr. Fiske (another missionary from Japan) summarized his example best at the memorial service:

As a young missionary, I went to Ivan because he had more experience, and asked, "What does a missionary do?" He replied, "Live in such a way that they will ask you, 'Why do you do what you do?' Then you can give an explanation at the time when they are most likely to actually listen."

Ivan Dornon 1928-2008

Kay's dad died this past Wednesday morning. He single-handedly baptized more Japanese people than the rest of the missionaries I know put together. Here are the biggest mission principles I learned from him:

Apostles among us

I know apostolic people. Also prophetic, and evangelistic. We tack on "ic" to mean, "Well, that person has a gifting in that area, but not of giant-sized 'biblical' proportions."

But what if the person in the office next to yours, or the cubicle next door, was a genuine, modern-day apostle? Would you even know? Would any local churches know?

Follow the link, my friends. I gathered my family and read it aloud to them this evening. But it was difficult. I kept choking up. Is this what happens when people actually live what the Bible says? What would it look like if I started following Jesus -- I mean, really following?

Jesus Hates Rush

Went to see Rush last Wednesday. Wow, those guys can still play! And it wasn't like a nostalgia tour -- they were promoting a new (!) album. But the most familiar songs date back to 1979 and 1981. Good, good stuff. The new stuff was good, too.

On our way into the venue, though, I saw a group of people holding large signs and though, "Oh, no." Oh yes, the signs listed all the types of people that God hates. There was a fellow with a megaphone. One of the sign-holders made a point of saying to us, "Jesus hates Rush!" If this is evangelism, where's the evangel (good news)?

It's funny that only a few weeks ago, we discussed evangelism at The Journey, particularly negative stereotypes like the phrase, "turn or burn." I kid you not, several of these so-called evangelists were wearing shirts which said "TURN OR BURN in hell".

So, why does Jesus hate Rush so much? We were puzzling about this, until I spotted the back of one person's shirt featuring the logo from 2112. Ah-ha! There's something that looks like a pentagram! Witchcraft! OK, so it's not exactly a pentagram. But it sure suggests one! And that looks like nudity!

The Geek Gospel

Today, over lunch with friends from work, I was asked to describe my belief system. "Is it mainly about being kind to others?" No, I replied, that is a necessary outcome but is not the starting point. "So what is your starting point?" And it came out something like this:

God is love. Love does not exist by itself, but exists in relationship, so God is a relationship, a community. OK, so God is a network. And the nature of love is that it wants to give itself away: God wants to grow the network connecting us to it, to each other, to ourselves and to the world. But our sockets are broken. So God came over to fix the problem from our side, so that we could be connected to him. And by connecting to God, we are also connected to each other, to ourselves and to the world.

…This has got to be the most geeky description I have ever made! There was more besides, a lot of laughter, and I think we all had a good time.

10:02 prayer meme

For two weeks, I have been practicing the 10:02 prayer meme: to pray Luke 10:2 every day at 10:02 a.m. This is something I got from reading Organic Church. Hamo describes it on his blog, and I know from Chad Canipe's passing that this practice was started by friends of Kevin Rains', and has been modified to carry on Chad's vision.

I don't wear a watch anymore; that's what my cell phone is for. So I have a daily alarm set on my cell phone for 10:02 a.m.

This past Sunday I visited the church that Kay's parents attend. Communion was celebrated. I went forward. I knelt, and held up my hands to receive the sacrament. Just as I heard the words, "The body of Christ, broken for you," and received the bread, my pocket began to vibrate madly with the silent alarm. (Good thing I had it silenced!) I smiled, mixed Luke 10:2 with communion, and felt my pocket buzz for the entire thing because the alarm does not go away until you turn it off.

It was like my own private communion by numbers!

And now I can say: God has called me.

Technorati Tags: memes

Thoughts on Christianity

Modern Single Dad weighs in with his video-blogged thoughts on Christianity.

Christians: Check it out. Listen. It's easy to come up with "I'm not that way, and I don't know any Christians who are that way" objections. Lay aside your objections and listen. Off the Map pioneered the idea of inviting non-Christians to speak to Christians and "to coach us how to best approach them in sharing our faith." Nathan Peters offers his views for free!

Nathan and others: I often hear people say, "Christians don't really live like Christ did." Well, that's painting with a pretty broad brush, but OK, I hear your frustration. But this is my challenge: Don't wait for the Christians to get their act together. Stop bitching and follow Jesus yourself. As Jesus said, "What's that to you? You -- follow me."

---

Video-blogging stuff:
I know, it's lame to respond to a video entry with a text entry. One of the reasons I used text is that it's easy to make links. How do you make links from a video? Well, I suppose I could... if I upgrade to Quicktime Pro. But the process of adding links to video looks cumbersome; are there tools that make it easier?

Church Blesses New-Agers

(Thanks Sami for sending me this link!)

'Your aura is all sparkly' was the first comment that I received after I had prayed with someone at Manchester's annual Mind Body Spirit fair. This is the place where spiritual searchers come to explore spirituality. Sanctus1, an emerging church in the city centre of Manchester, decided that they should also be there to offer a Christian alternative. [more]

In America

Kay & I watched In America on Saturday night. (You can see I'm still playing blog catch-up.) I'd never heard of this movie until I watched it with da boyz at Soliton -- it is outstanding. Some reviews I've read call it sappy. Screw them! If you, like me, enjoy sappy films, this is one not to miss.

The movie is about an Irish family struggling to make it in New York City, still feeling the aftershocks of the death of their son Frankie. I noticed something in the credits that I missed the first time: The movie is dedicated to a Frankie Sheridan, and was written by the director Jim Sheridan and some other Sheridans. Turns out he co-wrote it with his sisters, and their brother died at the age of 10.

I do not mean to make the movie sound morbid, but real. In terms of character and human touch, this may be the most beautiful movie I've ever seen. It helps that the narrator is one of the girls in this Irish family, so you get a child's-eye-view of life, full of magic.

** CAUTION ** Spoilers follow!
Read no further if you plan to watch the movie!

Open Mic

Thursday night, several homies descended on a cafe in Saratoga for an open mic -- my first experience. I see what it is now, it's karaoke without a backing track, which means the quality is (mostly) better.

Mike played, and so did Kreek't. I had the dubious honor of coming right after Teddy -- a tough act to follow! But I think I held my own. I got a few laughs when I introduced myself as "an open mic virgin..." and got a few hoots when I followed up by saying, "...be gentle with me." I played two of my own songs, "Losing Touch" and "Disconnect". It was challenging, because I'm used to playing my songs for my computer as I record, not for an audience! So I think it will be worth doing more, just for the experience.

But my main reason for going was to get out of the Christian ghetto and into the real world, to mingle with normal people. And on that front, I was stunned: After everyone was done and I was leaving, people called out, "Bye Jon!" I went back to shake hands, and was asked, "So, are you coming back next week?" I realized that it's not just a venue, it's a group of people -- and I've been invited in.