[ht: not my blog blog]

This amused me. Evidently Johnny Mac would approve of Flannelgraph Jesus.

“Not all those that wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” - Luke 19:10

Often times as Christians we like to toss around certain words or terminology. After a few tosses, these words tend to lose meaning to us, but we continue to use it. This term of calling people “lost” is one of them. Typically by lost, we mean those who have not chosen to follow Christ; those who do don’t share the faith.

My question is this, do we treat the “lost” like they are truly lost? I mean, if they are lost, and we find them, shouldn’t we be more excited? We run into lost folks ever day. Does the faith within us beg to get out? Do we see the lost not merely as people outside the walls of our faith, but merely brothers and sisters who should be inside with us?

So two thoughts to ponder:

1) if they’re lost, why do we tend to make them feel unwanted

2) just because they’re lost to the faith doesn’t mean they don’t have a clue where and why they’re where they are at.

As you walk through your day today, look around and notice the people you come in contact with. Really think about the way you look at them. Do you look at people the way that Christ did? I know I don’t always do that. I want to change. Anyone with me?

One of my more popular posts has been my review of Acquire the Fire. I continue to get feedback arguing with my opinion of the event. So instead of continuing to defend my stance that youth ministry should be more pursing Christ than a wicked-awesome (pronounce with thick Bostonian accent) entertainment extravaganza, I’ll let Mr. Mike Yaconelli speak for me:

“If I witness one more Jesus cheer, if I hear one more “let’s have a hand/round of applause/praise offering Jesus,” if I have to endure one more pep rally for Jesus, I’m returning my youth ministry I.D. card. Because as much as we criticize and complain about our media-ravaged society, as much as we rant about the evils of MTV and pop culture, we’ve imitated them by rushing to create the world’s biggest youth event.

At these events we parade around and glorify all things “beautiful” - the dazzling musicians, the laser shows, the foxes and studs for Jesus. At these events we mesmerize young people with how “cool” Jesus is. These pep rallies give teens the illusion that God is cool, that God is winning, that God is the majority - and that their ministries and youth leaders are cool, too. But what these don’t dare say that the even cool, dazzling, “beautiful” youth workers are screwed up, broken and consistently in need of God’s grace.

So rather than cheering our young people into the kingdom, maybe we should point them to the broken, inconsistent, uncool followers of Jesus found in the Bible. Maybe we need to stop pressuring our young people to cheer long enough to prepare them for a world in which the real heroes are powerless, tiny, and considered insignificant. - Mike Yaconelli

Amen.

It’s Friday. I’m brain dead. Here’s some good food for thought. A little Oswald Chambers. He’s like the Barry White of devotionals. Enjoy baby.

Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.

Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you— with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go . . . and make disciples. . .” ( Matthew 28:19 ), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.”

Warning: this is not a pretty sight. Too much fundamentalism for Stuart is much like too much Mountain Dew for middle school students - both end up caustic and cranky in the end. This grumbly rant is a cautionary tale. A week filled with Way of the Master ministries, Kirk Cameron and John MacArthur don’t mix well.

I’ve learned from this and it won’t happen again.