Teach and beTaught

I worked as a machine operator off and on for several years in my family's company. During that time I was trained on how to use lots of different machines. From the most basic of machines to the most sophisticated. From the ones that could barely hurt a fly to the ones that could flatten a human being. Some of them I picked quicker then others. I had many different teachers who taught using their own distinct style. Some were very informative while others would hardly talk. Some would put me on the machine right away when some would have me watch them while the worked for several minutes/hours. Most would stand there and watch me after I started to operate the machine to make sure that I really knew what I was doing. I found out from all this training that I am a visual and hands on learner. Every one has different ways in which they learn. For a lot it is a mixture of ways. In fact the best way to learn something is by being exposed to all different aspects of the object being taught. Jesus the master of teaching knew them all and put that knowledge to work. For some people it took seeing miracle, for others it was listening to teachings, and for some it took being hands on ( think 12 disciples). Since hands on is sometimes a dangerous thing because of the possibility for mistakes other then spelling it can be more intimidating for the teacher. Trial by fire come to mind here. It takes commitment and responsibility from the teacher for the students. Not every pupil will be successful in their attempts from the beginning. The one that think that know what they are doing usually screw up the worst later. Some will have harder time grasping the concept then others. In order for a teacher to be able to instill all that they know into their pupils they must be kind, patient, not keep track of all the mistakes made, able to rejoice when a student finally understands, not be easily angered, selfish, able to allow them to mess up, protecting, not misleading, trusting, have hope, and perseverance. Jesus was a good teacher. He was all of these things. These attributes might be familiar to you but not in the same order: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
A good teacher loves. You must love those who you are teaching or else they will get a warped understanding. Jesus had to model, instruct, and listen to his disciples for three years before they were ready to be on their own. Even then God did not leaves a lone he gave us the holy spirit that gives us truth and power. 1 John 4:19 “we love because He first loved us.” We teach because He first taught us. When it became my turn to teach a new employee how to use one of the machines I knew and did everything right. Just kidding. I completely confused this women with so much information and so many instructions that one of the other employees who had been working there for 13 years had to come and tell her to ignore everything I had just said. It took me working with her for 2 weeks before I could have my back to her and be working on my own machine. Even then I had to help numerous times when a new problem would arise that she had not encountered. It takes a lot of time and energy to instruct someone in even on of the many pieces of knowledge you have. It takes saying no to yourself when you see them about to make a mistake and you want to jump in and save them from it. All you can do if they are to learn is to allow them to make mistakes but teach them the truth and how it is really supposed to work. Jesus had to that with the disciples and is still doing that with us. It takes repetition and lots of it before the brain has fully wrapped itself around the concept and come to an understanding. I had to train several people on that same machine and every time it was different because what that person needed was different. Some already new how to use the machine but not the specific way in which we used it. Others had never even seen a machine like it before. I had to instruct them all how to use it and make the same parts as the next person. These parts had to be so precise and so many of them had to be made that most people could not continue to do the work and needed a change but then you would get the occasional person who was made for this job and would be willing to make the same parts on the same machine for over 9 years. God does that. He wants every one to know how and even do it for a while but then someone will come along that has been made for that specific job. There are many different jobs in God's kingdom. We are called to understand them all but maybe some of us will never be at any one of them for very long; While others will find the one that is just for them and work on it until the day that they are taken up to heaven. It is up to us to teach and to learn. To love and be loved.

Hurt

Johnny Cash - Hurt
Uploaded by notpil

grass through cement

I read this today in Tom Sine's book The New Conspirators: Creating the future one mustard seed at a time.

"like grass through cement, it is God breaking through the rock-hard horror of our world with surprisingly small blades of life and promise"

My heart has been confronted with the amount of pain that exists just within the block that I call my neighborhood. As an American society we have become experts at covering up and concealing our pain with mere temporary solutions. Layer after layer the pain has been built up and the outward reflection of that pain comes in various forms. For some, drugs, alcohol, food meet that need and for others sex, shopping, money, social life are methods used to fill the void. We use any number of things to numb and dull the constant nagging that we and the world around us is simply not right.

How do we actively walk alongside of the hurting and hopeless with which our lives intersect? How has Christ uniquely gifted us to remove a layer at a time until He can reclaim them at their most innocent and honest state?

Poverty

This is a great video on the definition of poverty.

Change is a comin'

Good morning all.

Clayton and I have been doing a lot of talking about next steps, what God might be calling us to, how we see God working in the world. To be honest, it is a lot of talking. We strive to hear accurately from the Lord and let that leading guide our decisions and want nothing less than what God would have for us as a community.

When I first moved to San Mateo, CA in 1998 I took a drive down to Santa Cruz to hit the beach. Along Highway 280 there is a strange building that runs under the freeway near Palo Alto. It is called the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC for short) and it is a one mile long shed like building that essentially speeds up atoms for the purpose of splitting them. Now to say that atoms are small would be an understatement. A recent Rob Bell DVD I watched stated the size (or lack thereof) of atoms as this: If you were to take a drop of water and have every person on the planet count one atom per second it would take 2000 years for all those people to count the atoms in that single drop.

So, a friend of mine worked at SLAC (workers there were affectionately known as slackers) described the process. In layman’s terms it loaded atoms in a “gun” and shot them down the lane of this mile long building to get them to split. Had the building been shorter, the very microscopic and critical work they were trying to do could not be achieved.

What does that have to do with us at the Center? I believe we are trying to do some very critical work. All around, the Church universally is struggling. We are gathered together to cling more closely to Christ and operate as He would have us be His hands, feet and voice in our world today. This is a very delicate process and it takes time. The challenge we face is that time is limited on the chosen night we currently have in place.

Many factors limit us on Saturday evenings. An ever present reality is that children have a bedtime, adults are invited to weddings and numerous other things pull at our attention and time. Just when the Spirit might begin to work within our group, our natural and earthly selves start leading us elsewhere.

The question might be raised “well where is your commitment?” To be honest, my commitment sometimes stops at 8:30 because I worked hard on the lawn all day and I start falling asleep or our commitment is really leading us to enjoy the sunshine (a limited resource in Eugene/Springfield) for an hour longer (in the case of two weeks ago when no one wanted to be inside).

So we would like to propose that we begin the process of moving to Sunday mornings. Not too early for those non morning people but early enough that we do not feel pressed for time. We want to be open to the Spirit and allow God to work within us. If we end on time so be it. But if the Spirit moves us into the afternoon we also have the freedom to go with it. We would still have time for a meal afterwards and I believe it will open us for greater fellowship opportunities with each other and the community as a whole.

We would like to begin to implement this sometime before the summer reaches full swing. Anyone who has been here for a year or two knows that this is the recreation capital of the Northwest and people tend to disappear on the weekends around here. We were thinking either May 18th or 25th, though the 25th falls on Memorial Day weekend and some people may be gone.

Please understand that this is not a decision to fall in line with the traditional church or do something because that is always the way it has been done. We simply want to open up the freedom for God to work in our group without any limitation.

Thoughts and feedback are welcome.

Earth as it is in Heaven

I was in a church a few weeks ago and the “Serenity Prayer” was mentioned. I was not familiar with this particular prayer. I was born and raised catholic. I know a lot of prayers by heart but I have not ever heard this one. There was a phrase in it that hit me like a brick wall and I could not get around it. It says and I quote “That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. “ Reasonably happy, I don't ever remember Jesus telling us that we should be reasonably happy. In fact he says just the opposite. The lords prayer that Jesus instructed us how to use says “Your kingdom come on EARTH as it is in heaven.” one earth as it is in heaven. I can't tell you how many times I have said those words growing up and how little impact they had on my life. God made earth to be a beautiful place of peace, happiness, joy, truth, love, life, freedom, worship, and wonder. What has it become? Why is it that we think that we should only have a reasonable life now? When Jesus said the “Our Father” prayer it came from his heart and was spoken to God's heart. Jesus knew God's purpose and desire for earth, His people, His children, His creation. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. He created light to push back the darkness. God created the oceans and all that are within them. He created the skies and all that cross them. He created land and all that cover it. God said it was good. He did not say that heaven was better. He did not say that angel were created in his image and likeness. We were. His children were created in His image. He gave us the Holy Spirit to be in us always. Not some of the time but always. God is among us. He is also in heaven. He is not in one place then another. He is in one place and another. God created us as temples for him to reside and live in. God's kingdom does not stop at the gates of Heaven but goes all the way to the bottom of our hearts. God is in our hearts. I pray that God would change and renew the world one heart at time.

God sent his heart down to earth as a human man. This man changed our world forever. His name was/IS Jesus. God sent his heart to touch other hearts. God lived in other hearts. I have God in my heart. He wants me to open my heart and keep it open so that other might see Him in me. So that others might experience God on earth as he is in Heaven. In all of his beauty and glory.

We can never be disconnected from God because he made us. He made us and in doing so he put apart of himself in us. Just like when we make a drawing, a lego masterpiece, pop sickle stick fort, a tree fort, igloo, or a baby we become a part of it. Since we have invested our thought, passion, time, materials, and effort into something we become invested in it. That is why we feel elated when someone commends us on our creation because it is beautiful and fulfills the purpose it was designed for or distraught and heart broken when our masterpiece is scorned, frowned at, criticized, or it does not stand up to the expectation placed on it. God wants us to be living at our fullest potential. That means being his image bearers, his multipliers, and his worshipers.

We can experience heaven now in this very moment. God created this world, my life, and your heart. We are on display. People look at us and judge us. Do they see the creators spark in us? Would they criticize God's creation or marvel at his work? I don't know how many times I have been to museums and was just bored to my wits end looking at pictures, paintings, sculptures, and pottery etc. It was not until I STOPPED and strolling and studied a piece and read the “little” excerpt next to the art work or was told about the history of it by a tour guide that I was able to really appreciate it. This is what would make the art worth looking at, studying, and appreciating. It takes a story to truly understand, relate to a creators work. Sometimes it is our story and experiences we have had that create that connection. My point is that God's creation has a story. It has significance. It is a part of Him. We need to to take the time and interest to share God's story/our story. We need to let others see god in us so that they might see God's beautiful creation on earth as it is in Heaven. This is not a reasonable life we have been made to live but a LIFE of fulfillment, purpose, and love.

Hands -- Will Wingard

Hands
So tonight I had a thought.

I was looking at my hands and it struck me all things that my hands have done. Hands are funny things that don't make noise on their own. You have to make them. They are not always the most notable thing either. When we meet new people we don't stare at their hands. We just shake them, or use them for hugging, or maybe slugging. Our hands do have a way of being very useful though. Some of the things we do with our hands can make people stop and wonder or send them running. Back to me looking at my hands though. I was thinking about the different places, accomplishments, dirty work, pain, services, hands shook, and other various duties my hands have done. It is pretty amazing and yet tragic. These things that are attached to my body don't always seem to be attached. I have trained my hands to do certain things through repetition. Sometimes my hands will do things with very little or no thought put into it at all. I can scratch myself, pick my nose, dress myself, turn pages, change the channel, play video games, tie my shoes, feed myself, turn on my blinkers/wipers (thanks to Oregon), wipe myself, tear paper, and dial numbers with pretty much no thought. It is pretty interesting to think about. How often do our hands/bodies do things without or conscious thought (our brains on cruise control)? What have we trained our hands to do?
On the flip side of this there are times I have to think very hard about what my hands are doing. When I am typing, hammering, drawing, cutting, around my girlfriend, working on machinery, or fixing my car (if i am not careful this one will join the previous list), or taking pictures I must pay very care attention to what I am doing. It is not always easy to monitor my hands even though my mind controls what they do in the end. MY hands make me who I am. MY actions make me who I am. My actions reflect what I think. For my hands to even twitch I must first have a thought. Then I must choose to act on that thought. Next my muscle must respond to my choice. At this point my hand begins to move but in order for my hand to finish the action my mind must continue that thought to the end. My muscle must have the strength and endurance to finish the task. When i embrace someone's hand to shake it I am embracing all of their actions. They are embracing ALL of my actions. It is a special moment. I know people who judge character on a hand shake. What are they sensing about me in my hand shake? What do I want them to feel/see?
I want my hands to be pure, humble, strong, steady, unconditionally loving, just, loyal, serving, merciful, and patient. In order for this to be true I must change my thoughts. What I fill my head with should be exactly what I want my hands to do. What I train my hands to do should be exactly what I am thinking. I have made many mistakes. My hands have done things I regret. I apologize for my actions. Because my hands are connected to me what my hands do directly correlates to the rest of me. I cannot be hammering a nail if my body is not fully engaged. Unless I am giving that nail my full attention. My eyes must be glued to what I am doing, my hands must be moving, my heart must be beating, my legs must be supporting, my back must be strong and steady, and my mind must be fully present for me to hit the nail and not my hand.
My hands, my whole being has no choice but to do what I tell it to do. My hands happen to be the part that stuck out tonight. My actions have not always matched up to my words and my words have not always matched up to my actions, but when they do and when what they are doing/saying is from God and not myself it is amazing. I could do what God tells me to do each and every hour. Why I don't do what He tells me is not so much as a mystery as much as stupidness. I want to be the light I was made to be. I want to do what I was made to do. I want my hands to do what my hands were made to do. For this to happen it is going to take an act of God. God is going to have to show me how to use my hands. He is going to have to train my mind/heart/soul/strength how to use my hands. So here I am waiting before God, for Him to instruct, to show, me how to use my hands. How do you use your hands? What are people going to feel when they shake YOUR hand? What have you trained your hands to do? This is getting pretty long so I will end it now and get off of my "blog" box.