Can You Help With a New Missional Austin Blog?

Hey Austinites, I could use your help.

I’m considering a second blog, solely focused on Austin, with an eye toward missiology.  Here’s the big idea:

Let’s talk about Austin.  Things we love, like our favorite restaurants, local bands and festivals.  Let’s talk about the people of Austin, what makes them unique and how to reach them.  In the process we’ll discuss what God is doing in our city.

Think Yelp for missionaries.

This is just a tool to learn how to share about Jesus in our unique culture.  Best practices, worst failures, lesson learned, and questions roused.

What would you like to know more about?  What do you have to share?

I don’t plan to do this alone.  I’m looking for leaders and lay people alike to share their two cents.

So, who’s in?

Tags: Austin, Missional

What, You’re Still Single?!

Hard to believe, ladies, but I’m still single. Good looking blogger like me, crazy, right?

It’s easy to start moping.  Our culture is a pretty lonely place, and we assume that if we found the right person we’d have all that we long for.  It doesn’t help that churches tend to aim at couples and families.  We throw ourselves in our jobs, or pick up a hobby or drink a lot.

This has been rightly called “the selfish years,” a time for you to do your thing and establish who you are.  Which makes a lot of sense to me, except for when I read 1 Corinthians 7.  Paul, the most famous of all single Christ followers thought that being single was the best possible option.  Without a spouse and children, a single person can focus solely on kingdom goals.

It feels like I have been waiting around for my life to begin.  In my down time, I get caught up in my career and relational failures, or ignore them by going to a party or watching Hulu.  If I told Paul this, he would read me a laundry list of hurting people in my community, homeless people in my city and entire people groups who know nothing about Jesus.

Still single?  Good.  There’s a lot of work to do.

How do you navigate the single life?  What examples have you seen of people devoting that season to God?

Tags: kingdom of God, Singleness

A.J. Jacobs’s and Sacred Agnosticism

On my journey through 40 books in 2010, I have to say that A.J. Jacob’s Year of Living Biblically has been the most fun I’ve had so far.

The Esquire Magazine writer and “Immersion Journalist” shares a diary of experiences as an agnostic Jew attempting to live the Bible out as literally as possible.  This causes him to grow a tremendous beard, wear white, carry a walking stick and avoid his wife a few days out of the month.  It also causes him to consider the reality of sacredness, and his need for something beyond himself.

Christians expecting a Disney ending with tears and baptisms will be disappointed.  However, the life change recorded in this book is an experience I wish more believers were open to.

Jacobs takes the Bible very, very seriously.  He reads it daily, makes a list of the laws, and tries to take them literally.  This leads to some funny situations, occasionally points out the ridiculousness of religious literalism.  However, it mostly leads to a change in Jacob’s view of God, himself, community, and how he should live in the world.

I wish that more Christians would approach the word of God with the seriousness that Jacobs did.

Thanks to Trevor for turning me on to this book.

Tags: 40 Books in 2010, A.J. Jacobs, Year of Living Biblically

Why God Hates You

What is the What is an engrossing tale that straddles wars, decades and hemispheres.  It follows Achak Deng, a real life Sudanese refugee from his days as a child in southern Sudan to his struggles adjusting to American Life.

The book really has it all:  tragedy, war, love stories and hope.  Dave Eggars narrator captures the voice of African refugees, with their zest for the small things in life and their deep understanding of tragedy.

The book makes it clear that refugee camps don’t go away.  Achak grows up in a refugee camp: a tent city built on a barren desert plain.  With no agriculture and little schooling, and the only economy at the mercy of the foreign aid workers,  there is little to do but wait.

Although Achak seems indomitable, he can’t help but struggle with theodicy.  Having lived through wars only to arrive in the U.S. and experience continued tragedy, he asks the question “does God have a problem with me?”  Neither Achak or Eggars ever answer the question directly, yet the hero never gives up, neither on his faith or his desire to build a better life.

This question is one that we have all asked in our lives, and What is the What is a reminder that there are many who have persevered through much more difficulty than we can imagine.

It is also an invitation for Christ followers to respond from the very core of their faith.  From the time of Abraham, God’s people have been refugees in a world not their own.  God loves them, and has given us the privilege of demonstrating that love.

Have you read What is the What?  How should we respond to stories of orphans and refugees?

Tags: 40 Books in 2010, Dave Eggars, orphans, refugees, theodicy, What is the What, widows

Sex, Lies and Preaching to Birds

On the quest to read 40 books in 2010, I’ve just knocked out #s three and four.

I picked up Dark Nights of the Soul, because of the St. John of the Cross reference, and because of my life long wrestling match with depression.
It’s mainly pagan dribble by some New Age dude trying to work out his childhood catholic guilt.  It had a few nuggets that jumped out:

1- Reframe “depression” as a Dark Night of the Soul: not a problem to be fixed, but a chance for spiritual growth.  You are like a ship adrift at sea, just because you’re not moving forward, doesn’t mean your not moving.

2-Dangerous lust and sexual desire are often just undirected desire.  When you’re overwhelmed with an unhealthy sexual desire, you should search for what it is that you really want.

Now The Life of St. Francis of Assisi is the kind of book that will change your life.  As a protestant, it’s hard to know what to do with stories of the medieval Saints.  But we have to remember we are a 2,000 year old family, with an immense amount of wisdom to learn from. Francis, like Paul before him, is one who could honestly say, “follow me as I follow Christ.”

Of the many beautiful things about this man, let me highlight a few:

1- He had a deep love for poverty.  He called it “his lady,” and strove to be faithful to it as a man would his wife. He owned nothing more than his robe and belt.  When he begged for alms he would then give them away to someone “worse off.”

2- He was known for his gentleness, to the point that even animals noticed.  My favorite story was of how he agonized through prayer and fasting over whether to dedicate his life to prayer or preaching.  When wise counsel urged him to preach, he ran as fast as he could to find an audience.  The first he found was a flock of birds that he exhorted to remember their gifts from God.

3- He pain was a blessing.  His passion for the lost led him to believe he must become a martyr.  He went to the middle east to preach to a powerful sultan.  The Muslim king was impressed, but would not convert.  Francis was not given the chance to die like Christ, yet “instead” was given the stigmata, a painful sign of Christ, that would give him pain for the rest of his life. This painful miracle gave many people faith in Christ.

It’s hard to explain the effect Francis has had on me.  It makes me want to be more like Jesus than ever, and gives me an idea of what that might look like.

Tags: 12 Plans for 2010, 40 Books in 2010, Dark Nights of the Soul, following Christ, St. Francis, St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Moore