Faith and Politics

This Saturday night at 7pm Rick Warren will be interviewing Barack Obama and John McCain on CNN and online. This is the first time in history where both candidates will meet with a pastor to talk about faith's role in politics. This should be very interesting. There is more information here: Saddleback Civil Forum

Article about our denomination

Christianity Today wrote an article about the changes that the EFCA made to its doctrinal statement. I was very happy to see the inclusion of "God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed..." Check out the article and the changes here.

Great Gospel Articles

The Christian Vision Project is spending all of 08 asking the question, is our gospel too small. I have enjoyed several of the articles, but I particularly liked this interview by Andy Crouch of James Choung called From Four Laws to Four Circles. I would be curious to hear your thoughts. Also, on the gospel, I would recommend Christianity Today's article by Tim Keller called "The Gospel in All Its Forms."

unChristian

I recommend unChristian as a great book that everyone should read. The book records 20 somethings' views of Christianity. Unfortunately we all know that Christians have not always represented Jesus very well and the research confirms it. I appreciated the research, but I especially liked the end of the book where respected leaders discussed how to positively contribute to culture. I found it interesting that almost every responder said Christianity must change the way it is responding to the major issues like Aids, poverty, injustice, etc. Our gospel has to be bigger than the individualistic version that is so common today.

on the way

This week as I sit in a coffee shop in rainy Seattle, I keep having these few words running through my head. "Come let us go to the other side." We all know that Jesus spent time with the prostitutes, tax collectors, cheats, lepers, but now Jesus was taking it to a whole new level. The other side is the pagan area called the Decapolis or the land of the Gerasenes. This is a place that every good Jew avoided for a lot of reasons. This was their Ninevah! On the way to mission in this pagan place, they face the mother of all storms. And what comes out - FEAR.

This week as I am being challenged to go to the other side. My fears have become front and center. Fear of rejection. Fear of change. Fear of the costs. As we take steps toward mission toward people God truly loves (interestingly enough as Ron Ruchruff said today that Jesus loved the demoniac enough to destroy the economy of the decapolis by killing the pigs in order to deliver and heal him) the evil one wants to put fears front and center. Jesus' answer shouldn't surprise us. It is radical faith.

my new friend

Today I met some of the most amazing people that I have ever been around. People from all over the world like Kenya, Nigeria, Taiwan, India, South Africa, Holland, Reno, Seattle, San Diego to mention a few. I talked to many people today and was quite overwhelmed by all that these people are doing to demonstrate and declare the gospel of Jesus in our world. But one new friend is Jack. Jack serves as a bishop overseing over 400 churches in the Kibera Slum in Kenya. The Kibera slum is the biggest slum in Africa and has over 1 million people living there. I was amazed as he told me stories of ministry in the slums especially in light of the tribal tension this year. Needless to say, my perspective is being changed.

Hotel Rwanda Clip

This week as I was preparing for a sermon about the poor and the oppressed, I was reminded of this convicting clip in Hotel Rwanda. It is a film that talks about the genocide of 800,000 pople in 100 days in Rwanda in 1994. Just as a comparison: 2700 people died in the Twin towers and the Pentagon on 9-11. The genocide in Rwanda would be the same as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon tragedy happening at 8am, 4pm and midnight every single day for 3.5 months.

Here is the clip on Youtube from Hotel Rwanda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QMKv3vRHtg