The Parable of the Brick Wall

Imagine a brick wall.

What you are imagining is not nearly big enough. Imagine yourself standing in front of a massive brick wall. Now, look to the right. The brick wall continues as far as you can see. Now look to the left. It has no end. Look up. As far as you can see - past the clouds and into outer space. The brick wall never ends.

Now imagine that this brick wall is real. And that it exists in the future. This is the wall that separates the past and the present from the future. Behind the wall exists Heaven. Heaven is a good place and you'd like to be there. What little we know of Heaven is mysterious, but we know that it is a good place - no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain. God reigns in Heaven with a loving rule. Heaven has the power to heal.

Now imagine a homeless man standing in front of the brick wall. He is in his early thirties. He eyes the wall with a crazed look. He clinches his right hand into a fist. The muscles in his forearm tighten. His triceps and biceps bulge. With one massive swing he punches the wall with his bare fist. The wall is unharmed. It's a brick wall. The man's knuckles turn red as he makes his fist again. He punches the wall harder. Blood spurts in all directions. Several bones in his hand shatter. His eyes glaze over like a soldier in a firefight. He wails on that wall. Swing after swing. Punch after punch. Eventually every bone in his right hand is broken. It is mangled - a bloody useless stump. He takes a breath. He thinks. Then he makes a fist with his left hand and begins to punch the wall over and over until that hand too is shredded and useless.

Remember, this man stands in the future. But word of his insanity reaches the present and the past. Someone is trying to release Heaven. This news threatens the powerful - the tyrants and despots, the violence peddlers, the religious con artists, the greedy self-centered tycoons. From the past and the present, these violent men rush into the future all the way to that brick wall. When they see the man, they attack him with sticks and metal rods and rocks. The man takes their blows with an unshakable gaze targeted directly on that wall. When he gets a foot free from their grasp, he kicks the wall breaking his toes. He knees the wall, shattering his kneecap. As the evil men beat him down, he manages one last open handed slap on the wall before he collapses...and then he dies.

Arrogant and proud, the evil and powerful men from the past and present turn around and stroll back to their time and place, leaving the man’s lifeless body to decay.

And then the most remarkable thing happens. One brick, about five feet from the ground starts to shake. The mortar around the brick cracks. The brick shimmies. The magic of Heaven pushes the loosened brick forward until it falls squarely on the back of the dead man.

And then all of history holds her breath as Heaven begins to leak. Just tiny droplets at first. Heaven trickles out of that hole in the wall and lands on the mangled, lifeless hands of the homeless man. When Heaven touches his hands they are instantly healed. Heaven drips on his feet, his knees. And eventually, Heaven splashes on his heart. The man's life returns. He stands to see the hole in Heaven's wall. He sees Heaven beginning to flow out of the future toward the present. He smirks and turns on his heels and sprints from the future, through our present and into our past. He sprints back to first century Palestine and pokes his head into human history. Breathless and battle-tested, he speaks one message to anyone who will listen. "Heaven is coming!" He didn't say, "You can go to heaven," but "Heaven is coming to you." He cried out, "Get ready. Turn toward the future and away form the past and present. Align yourself because Heaven is coming!" Even as he said these words, Heaven was beginning to flow into the past from the future. "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" It's all he could think to say to us…it was the whole reason he came.

Big News

Hooray.

The Power of a Milkshake

When I was 13 years old I moved from Ashland, Kentucky to Worthington, Ohio - just north of Columbus. I was a chubby kid with a thick Appalachian accent, brown glasses and a salad bowl haircut. We moved in the summer just before my eighth grade year. When school started I couldn't buy a friend. I was made fun of everyday for the way I looked or talked or acted. I've had a few rough years as an adult, but 1986 was the worst of my life. Through the real, enduring pain of that year the true course of my life opened up. That year taught me that pain eventually passes, or more truthfully, we eventually pass through our pain. The pain changes us. Without that year of pain, I may not have had the courage to make the big moves of my life - to Las Vegas, to LA, to Cincinnati. Without that pain, I may never have noticed the pain in others' eyes. Everything I do is informed through the eyes of the outcast and unwanted...I see everything in every room I enter through those eyes. As a teacher and storyteller, I see through those eyes.

What got me through the worst year of my life? A milkshake. Specifically, a 28 year-old ex-jock buying me a milkshake at The Dairy Queen on Sawmill Road in Dublin, Ohio. I have no idea what we talked about. I can't remember anything about that meeting except that we met at that particular DQ. I just know that that guy was my first friend in Ohio. I know that he introduced me to some other kids who accepted me. I know that he stood beside me when I made a public commitment to enter ministry. I know that he flew 3,000 miles on his own dime to be my best man in my wedding. I know that I followed him to Las Vegas with my wife of six months because I couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. I know that he was among the first to hold both of my babies. I know that he patiently and selflessly waited for me to learn hard lessons in my own time. I know he continued to love me through my worst mistakes and through my multiple career changes. I know that his brother is the reason I'm back in vocational ministry.

I'm just saying, a milkshake goes a long way. We just spent the last two hours together. This time he bought me coffee. Maybe at some point I should start paying for these meetings...

Iowa Flood Relief

Our outreach department is pulling together a team of people to help out those displaced by the floods in and around Cedar Rapids, IA. The trip will be July 7-13. If you are interested, click here.

The Kingdom is Coming.

Jesus came to earth with one prevailing, revolutionary, and controversial message. He came announcing a new reality for mankind, dramatically turning human history on its head. All we know of Jesus - his teachings, his morality, his claims, his story - stems from one arching idea. That the Kingdom has come...and is still coming. He spent three years teaching about it, proclaiming its reality and showing us what life within it felt like. Something so big and overwhelming could never be stated in just a few words...or could it? Jesus summed it up in 57 words:

πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ

On Independence Day weekend we start a new four-week series at VCC looking at Jesus' summary of life in the Kingdom. Hope to see ya there.

Summer Speaking Schedule

I'll be teaching a lot over the next six or seven weeks...feel free to come by if I'm headed to your neighborhood.

6-28/29 - Eastside Christian Church, Cincinnati, "No Perfect People Allowed"
7-3 - The Lift at VCC.
7-5/6 - VCC Weekend Celebrations, "New Series: Kingdom Cliffs Notes"
7-12/13 - VCC Weekend Celebrations, "Kingdom Cliffs Notes"
7-19/20 - Southbrook Christian Church, Dayton.
7-26/27 - VCC Weekend Celebrations, "Kingdom Cliffs Notes"
8-2/3 - Fellowship Bible Church, Cleveland.

Anesthesia

At 9:00 a.m. this morning I went under the knife...all the way under. I had to have a relatively simple dental surgery, but they needed to put me under for it. The last time I was under anesthesia was twenty years ago when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed not enduring the needling, slicing and prodding that took place in my mouth for 45 minutes, but the hangover has been really nasty. I can't hold food down and have a terrible headache. Typing isn't helping at all..so I'm gonna quit now.

What I Believe about Belief.

There was a time in my life when I honestly had no idea what I believed about anything. I had leanings, opinions and thoughts on everything, but no firm stances. Firm stances worry me because nothing can send a life askew quite like having a firm stance on something only to find out that your firm stance is wrong or incomplete or misguided. My mid to late twenties were years of desperation and tormented truth-seeking. When I started to come out of my questions with a few answers I wrote an essay to try to verbalize what I believe about everything. I nervously re-read it today hoping my convictions hadn't changed. Strangely enough, they hadn't. I stil believe these things, and looking back over the last ten years I can say that these beliefs shaped most every move I made. Some of my friends here have been asking what I believe about certain theological issues lately...maybe this will help those of you hoping to see a few inches deeper into my soul. (Warning: There are a few big words...when you are writing what you believe about belief big words tend to slip in...)

"My Convictions: A personal epistemological treatise."

KINGDOM:

God is Sovereign. The Creator, Sustainer, and Consummator of the universe. He alone deserves praise, worship and homage. He truly is King of all that was, is and will be.
As King, God has always desired a people to be his followers, the people of God. In this regard, God is truly "political" in the literal since of the word, but his "polis" surpasses the kingdoms of this world, which amount to nothing compared to his Kingdom. In the Old Testament, God elected the nation of Israel to be his chosen people.
As the entire New Testament testifies, Jesus came to proclaim access to the Kingdom of God, fulfilling and completing the Law and the Prophets of the Jews. Jesus came, announcing the good news (gospel) that the Kingdom had broken into humanity in a new, fresh, and eschatologically significant way. Jesus himself was the Kingdom as he incarnated God among us. As the Messiah/Christ (literally, King) Jesus offered access into the Kingdom of God to all who would listen to his proclamation, turn from their sin and faithfully believe in his authority.
The reality of this new "Kingdom-among-us" radically transformed the lives of Jesus' closest friends and disciples. Since the death, burial and resurrection of Christ the reality and power of the Kingdom of God has been made available to all people who will continue to follow Christ as his early friends did.

MISSION:

God, by nature, is a missional being. He is a missionary God. Even within Himself, He is a sending God. (The Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit.) The people of God reflect his missional character by allowing themselves to be sent by Him, proclaiming life in the Kingdom and incarnating the love of God in their time and place. All disciples of Jesus follow Him as King and are sent by Him as his ambassadors to the world.
The people of God are called to live as resident aliens in a world that is not their own. Therefore, for every true follower of Christ, their world (their time, place and culture) is their mission field, not their ultimate home. They are residents of the Kingdom of God-both the Kingdom of the here-and-now and the Kingdom that is to come.
A true missional spirit of the people of God allows for outsiders to partake in the community and joy of authentic Kingdom living, making "evangelism" a natural and organic process that flows from any true missional community of God-followers. The numerical growth of Jesus-disciples in any given culture is always connected to the depth of love and community that the people of God share with each other.

COMMUNITY:

God is an eternal community of one-ness. Though He is Three, He is also One. God exists in everlasting love within his own being-Father, Son and Spirit. God created mankind to live in community with Himself. He desires a people.
Men and women are created with an innate longing for community with God and with each other. However, the human race both originally and continually opts to sin against God. As human beings continue to prefer their own will to the will of God, true community with God and other people becomes impossible for fallen people. However, through Christ, God has returned the gift of community to the human race.
Through the faithfulness of Christ, community occurs within the context of the Kingdom of God as followers of Jesus trust the Holy Spirit and love one another in response to first being loved by God. The Holy Spirit intercedes by giving gifts to believers for the building up of the Body of Christ.
When the Kingdom of God is proclaimed and received in a given locality, the Holy Spirit forms the people of God into a church (literally, "called-out-ones"). The local church functions as the people of God and as the embassy of the Kingdom of God in a given culture.

The Church as the eschatological sign, foretaste and agent of the Kingdom:

The Church is not the Kingdom of God. The Church submits to the Kingdom as its sign, foretaste and agent. The Church is a particularly eschatological phenomenon. This means that the church belongs to the last days (the "eschaton"). These last days came with the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ and will be completed upon his second coming to earth. The church exists in the interim days between the beginning and the end of the eschaton. The church is a pilgrim people on a voyage toward the summation of this created realm and the ultimate and total reign of God as the true and only King.
The church is the sign of the Kingdom in that it is not the Kingdom, but it points people toward the rule of God. The church is the witness of the reality that the Kingdom of God is both already alive among us and will one day fully come. In this regard, the church exists to proclaim King Jesus and his Kingdom to the world.
The church is the foretaste of the Kingdom in that it contains the true people of God. Though the Kingdom has not come fully, it has come already. The rule and love of God may be felt and understood within the church in a real and dynamic way. Life in the church prepares us and fits us for life in the Kingdom.
The church is the agent of the Kingdom in that it does the work of the Kingdom through the power of the Holy Spirit. God normally chooses his people to do his work. With this understanding, the church truly incarnates King Jesus and becomes his Body and his Family on earth. The people of God function as the hands, feet and voice of Christ to those who are both near and far from Him.

The Church as the counter-cultural community of Jesus in a specific culture:

The church exists as a community of Jesus followers. The community, however, is normally, if not always, counter-cultural to the dominant structures of the time and place where the church exists. The local church sees itself as the "polis" or city of God. Members of the church allow themselves to be led only by God (their true Lord), not by the epistemology, economy or politics of their culture.
More often than not, the politics of Jesus are different than the dominant worldview being lived out day to day by the people of any culture. As a general rule, when the church becomes too central or cozy with the powers that be, the church loses its marginality, its true power as the eschatological sign of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the church should normally have a marginal place in society. It creates its own cultural norms that are often counter to the norms of an anthropocentric worldview. The church strives to live true to the teachings of Jesus and to model his faithfulness to the world. If Jesus was marginalized, persecuted and hated (and he was), those who follow him should expect the same treatment.
Contrary to popular sentiment, the church grows in a more substantial way when it retains its position at the margins of society. The church dies when it converts to culture.
However, the church cannot afford to ignore the culture in which it lives as resident aliens. Since the church is a missional community and mouthpiece for the Kingdom, it should familiarize itself with culture so that it may indigenize the gospel of Jesus in a way that allows sinners an opportunity to repent and accept life. The opposite fallacy of converting to culture is ignoring culture.

The Church as the organic family of God:

The church is the family of God. The members of the church are sons and daughters of their Father God, and brothers and sisters to one another. The leader of the church is the head of the family: King Jesus. Jesus leads every church through the supernatural gifting and presence of the Holy Spirit. No true church is built by people apart from the guidance of the Spirit.
The church operates more like an organism than a business or an institution. It contains structure, but it is structured through spiritual direction and giftedness, not according to the popular or cultural methods of the day. The church, the Body of Christ, grows organically, similar to the way a natural body grows physically.
Churches grow optimally when they multiply and "give birth" to new churches. This "multiplication" growth, sometimes called a church planting movement, allows the church to expand in all directions while giving each church the opportunity to remain small enough to be an intimate, holistic community of faith.

INDIVIDUAL MEANING:

Whether people realize it or not, we all have a foundational need for meaning in life. Most people will eventually find themselves asking the three big questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
God has put his thumbprint on our soul. There exists in each individual what Blaise Pascal called a "God-shaped vacuum". We, as individuals, have been searching to fill the hole in our heart with everything in the world only to find that nothing in the world can fill our emptiness. As Augustine said of his search for God, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."
Individuals are created in the image of God. We naturally seek for meaning as part of our created-ness. In essence, the basic needs of meaning surpass all other human needs as they stem from the root of a person's being. God has arranged what Peter Kreeft calls the "three prophets" within the human soul. These three foundational longings are the pathways that God uses to draw men and women to himself:

Beauty:

God is beautiful and His creation reflects His beauty. The beauty of the world testifies to God's character and person. Individuals are able to commune with God through their imaginative and creative potential. For this reason, we value the arts, expression, and creativity.

Truth:

God is true and has made His truth known in the Scriptures and through the person of Jesus Christ. Reason and knowledge are from God and point the creation to the Creator. Individuals are able to commune with God through their intellectual and reasoning potential. For this reason, we value to know, live and proclaim Truth.

Goodness:

God is good and righteous. All good things are from God alone and point seekers of righteousness to Him. Individuals are able to commune with God through their conscience and innate attraction to goodness and virtue. For this reason, we value right and disciplined living.

Happy Birthday to Eli.

Eli turns 9 today! We are going laser tagging in a few minutes to celebrate. It's an honor for me to be his dad.

This Weekend

I'm taking the weekend off work and producing some web video commercials for Center City Collision. My friend Kevin Rains owns the joint and it should be a good time.

Some old friends from California - Sam and Sid- are coming into film the videos. I acted in a few of Sid's student films when he was a student at Chapman University. They are very talented and funny guys. I'm looking forward to hanging out with them this weekend.

What's in a name?

I talked at VCC this weekend about the wrestling match in Genesis 32 between Jacob and a man/angel/God. Jacob wrestles with him until he is blessed. The blessing comes in the form of a name change. Jacob (deceiver) is re-named Israel (God-struggler). Afterward today I was thinking more about Jacob during Aidan's baseball game. There's a kid on the team named Benjamin. Benjamin was Jacob's baby - his last born son. Only the second son of Rachel, the love of Jacob's life.

Here's the passage in Genesis 35:

16 Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. 17 And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for you have another son." 18 As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.

There's a lot of real life joy and pain packed into those three verses. A big move, the birth of a son, the death of a beloved wife. In overwhelming pain, Rachel names Jacob's twelth son Ben-Oni. Ben-Oni means "son of my troubles/pain." Ben-Oni literally killed Rachel. He caused her so much pain that she died. As a result, she curses him with his name. Trust me. If this kid tried to make it through Genesis with a name like "son of pain" it would have been ugly. Jacob steps in. Amidst his grief, he holds his baby. He looks into that little guy's eyes and says, "No. Not Ben-Oni, but Ben-jamin." Not son of pain. But, son of my right hand. Son of my glory. Son of my joy.

He removes the curse and redeems his son with a blessing. Where did Jacob, the schemer learn to do that? He didn't. Jacob doesn't do stuff like that. But an old limping man named Israel does. Those who are blessed bless best. Genesis 49 is an entire chapter devoted to Jacob's last words on earth. They are all blessings spoken over his children. His story comes full circle in redemption: Jacob, the blessing stealer, becomes Israel, the blessing giver.

The Future is Today

I realized today that I wanted to re-read Watchman Nee's book Changed into his Likeness before teaching tonight. However, I don't own the book anymore - no idea where it went. I called three local bookstores, but they all wanted to order it for me. They wanted to charge around ten bucks and have it for me in ten days. That wasn't going to help me for tonight at all.

So I googled the book and found www.ebookmall.com. I was able to buy the book in e-book form in one minute for $3.25. A few days ago, a friend told me that books would be replaced by e-books in a few years. I passionately professed my loyalty to real books...until I needed one asap today. I'm a flip-flopping hypocrite.

I'd better go read my first e-book now...

Last Call for Improv - Tomorrow (fri) Night...

Q City Improv Show:

Friday at the Cincinnati Ballet Tech. The show starts at 8pm. Tickets at the door in the $5 range. Some PG-13 content.

The address is 6543 Montgomery Road Cincinnati, OH 45213.

Dang Tornadoes

So we survived our first Tornado Warning as Ohio residents tonight. I suppose some day they will be old hat and we will run out into the front yard like legless Lt. Dan yelling, "Is that the best you got?" But us midwest newbies spent thirty minutes huddled in the basement. I think it was justified. The weather guy pretty much called out our zip code and said to make peace with our Maker. There was a funnel cloud in Monroe a few miles away.

Side note: Funnel Clouds are so close to Funnel Cakes. One is deadly, the other delicious. Life is strange like that.

Regardless, we survived to hide in our basement another day. Should be a fun summer.

As I was saying in my last post...

I'm not really trying to make this a sports blog, but I give you the walk-off homerun:

A Good Night.

We had a great night at the ballpark. Papaw Colbert (Deb's Dad) took the boys and me to see the Reds and Braves tonight at Great American. The Reds won in eleven innings. Jay Bruce went 4 for 5, raising his career batting average to .571. I'm just saying, he might end up panning out. Maybe my kids will brag that they saw Jay Bruce's third game ever when he scored the winning run in extra innings. After the game they put on a big fireworks show. I'm not a huge fireworks fan, but it was about as good as it gets. The kids loved it and fell asleep on the way home.

I can remember seeing the Reds every summer when I was their age. We'd drive up from Kentucky to watch Rose, Morgan, Bench and the gang. Moving back has made it much easier to reconnect with the Red Legs.

Here's to summer and to baseball's oldest professional team.

Q City Improv Show

I'm part of a little improv troupe called The Q City Players. We had our first show a few weeks ago, but elected not to publicize it much. This one is open for all who wanna come by...

Our next show is June 6, a week from this coming friday at the Cincinnati Ballet Tech. The show starts at 8pm. Tickets at the door in the $5 range. Some PG-13 content.

The address is 6543 Montgomery Road Cincinnati, OH 45213.

John Ortberg

I mentioned John Ortberg this weekend at VCC in my message. John was a very influential communicator for me early in my life when I was trying to find my own voice and teaching style. Back then he was at Willow Creek church in Chicago. His wife Nancy befriended me after she had assumed the next gen ministry stuff at Willow. They were both very kind and gracious to me as a kid in my early twenties full of questions and ideas.

I lost touch with them, but recently discovered the website of their church in Menlo Park, CA. All of John and Nancy's messages are available for free there in manuscript form or in audio/video stream. I just think it's a great resource if you are looking for a new voice to speak into your life.

So, check it out at www.mppcfamily.org.

Cellulitis

I got the cellulitis. Not cellulite, but cellulitis. It's a disease. I'm sure I have some cellulite too...it just hurts less than my cellultis.

The good news is that it is now being cured, I hope, by antibiotics. Two nights ago I awoke in the middle of the night with chest pain. After ruling out a heart attack and self-diagnosisng heart burn I went back to sleep. My chest continued to hurt yesterday until I eventually grew an silver dollar sized lump under the left nip. It's since grown to tennis ball size. It feels like Chuck Norris round-housed my nipple. (I'm assuming we all know what that feels like.)

The doctor said it probably started with a rebel chest hair that decided to grow into my skin instead of out of it. My rugged manliness finally got the best of me. Darn chest hairs.

It could have been a bad thing if I had let it go for another week...but as it is, I have antibiotics and pain killers and the promise of relative health within ten days.

If only these magic pills cured my cellulite too.

All the way to Kingdom Come

Today wrapped the Vineyard Regional Conference at VCC. It was my first official Vineyard gathering. I was impressed with a few things about my new tribe, but above all I was struck by the focus of a Kingdom-centered theology. Though the idea of the Kingdom of God is all throughout the Bible, and especially in the Jesus accounts, I spent most of my Christian life (including four years of Bible College) largely ignorant of the whole concept. I suppose it was first Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy who opened my eyes about ten years ago.



From Willard I found Hauerwas, Yoder, Bosch, Ladd, Kung, Keller, Wimber and others who consistently pointed me toward the reality of the current-and-not-yet reign the Kingdom. I take the time to list these thinkers to show their different backgrounds - Liberals and Conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, Reformed and Armenian...I wonder if there is something to that. I've often wondered if there is fulfillment is Jesus saying that those who seek will find, and though we seek and find seemingly different positions and practices we find the same Kingdom. The same gospel. The same regeneration revolution. The same hope.

I've heard many people say that they were "vineyard" before they knew of the vineyard. After this week, I believe this is especially true for me.

Tackling the Elephant Update

I wrote several posts here during the Tackling the Elephant series at VCC. (If you'd like to see the TTE website, click on the green and black elephant logo over there -->)

Yesterday was a great day. We partnered with Habitat for Humanity to begin construction on a house in Lincoln Heights financed by the "Elephant" money that came into VCC last November. As a church we committed to give any money above and beyond our operating budget to this project. At the end of the series we received exactly the amount needed to build one house.

I was able to meet our partner family, the Williams, and let them know that we are honored to partner with them to see the kingdom come in their neighborhood. Lots of tears and cheers - a good morning.

Called Back?

Monday night I got a personal call from a relatively big time casting director in LA. I'd read for her a few times last year and she always seemed to like me. She had called my agent in LA who told her that they didn't rep me anymore. She asked for my cell number and called me directly to audition for a new Disney sit-com pilot. When she called I wasn't prepared for her at all. I've been out of that game for nine months now. Her normal LA industry tone was jarring: "Hey, Joe. It was hard to find you. Your old agent gave me your number. I need you here at 5:00 tomorrow to go straight to producers for a Wednesday shoot. You're perfect for this and I gotta fill it fast." Then she started giving me directions to her Hollywood office. I interrupted. In the heat of the moment all I could say is, "I'm in Ohio." I meant that I had moved here. She assumed I was visiting. "Can you get a flight back by 5:00 tomorrow?"

See how they think? I said no. She seemed upset - they always do. She said she'd call next time. I didn't have the heart to tell her not to bother. For a moment afterward I was stunned. These were similar conversations to what I would have on a weekly basis a year ago. For three minutes I was back in the middle of the industry. I honestly miss it some, but not all the time. They say a big part of making it as an actor is just having enough good auditions with someone that they eventually call and make it happen for you. I'm sure in a parallel universe I'd be reaping those benefits this year in LA.

Months ago someone commented on my blog that if LOST called me and offered a recurring role I'd move back to LA without thinking about it. I don't think that's true. Mainly, because LOST films in Hawaii, not LA, so I'd be moving there. Just kidding. I wouldn't move back. I'm here - called here. I think this phone call was one more confirming piece to that realization. I didn't call in sick yesterday and jump a plane to LAX. Could have. I didn't even consider it. I got a callback for my last five auditions in LA - the longest callback run of my life. I missed all five callback appointments because of my interviews here with The Vineyard. That's part of how I knew what was about to happen. I was happy to miss them to explore what God was up to here.

Last thought on these things...I told some friends that this casting director's recent call felt like a crack dealer calling a year into sobriety and telling me to come over for a free hit. Strangely, the intoxicating and addicting part of acting in LA for me wasn't the actual performing, but the competition of it all...doing whatever it takes to get that call at the expense of someone else is what the business side of acting is all about. When she was on the phone, it all came back. The inner dialogue of "she remembers me - she likes me - my work is paying off." There's something very unhealthy about that. Ohio's unhealthy because of greater access to fried foods and Greater's ice cream, but I don't find myself as desperate for approval or advancement as I did back in socal. That's unhealthy too...

Softball Take Two

This is a follow up to the previous post. Today ESPN did a more comprehensive story, just click below to see it...

Softball Story

Told this story at VCC this weekend...here's the original segment that I saw on ESPN:

Road Trip's FInal Leg

I'll be speaking this weekend on the final week of our Road Trip series. We'll also be showing the video of our arrival to Emmaus and the events that took place there. The main idea of this week is that we continue our spiritual journey by inviting others to take the next step with us. I've learned a lot from my friends in recovery, but chief among them is the importance of living a 12th Step lifestyle. We'll be looking at how that plays out for us self-addicted people this weekend. I like to think we are all addicted to something, even if it is the pride of thinking we aren't addicted to anything.

For your consideration: The 12 Steps of AA:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

103!

I made it! 103 pages in 30 days. The script is finished. I think I like it. I'm not sure about the ending, but at least it is finished and I can now think about editing and figuring what I want to do next with it.

The Power of a Deadline

I just hit 91 pages on my script. That would be 91 minutes...and that would be a legit feature film. I still need to write 9 more pages by tomorrow at midnight to be an official winner at www.scriptfrenzy.org, but I'm amazed at how just committing to write an entire script in one month motivated me to do so. I'm great at starting big creative projects, but struggle with following through. It's going to need hours of editing and reworking, but the first draft will be completely done by tomorrow night. I'm also a little surprised at the amount of time it took me - probably about 20-25 hours total. I just wrote a few nights per week after the kids went to sleep.

I'm off to try to find the ending of the story before gathering at VCC at 7:00 for the improv workshop...

The Resurrection of Clyde Benner

A few posts back I mentioned that I was going to attempt to write a screenplay this month. I'm calling it "The Resurrection of Clyde Benner." I'm 63 pages in and have 37 more to go to meet the requirements of the Script Frenzy contest. Counting today, I only have four days left to write the remaining pages. That's hard, but doable. It's all going to hinge on my day off tomorrow. If I can knock out about 20 pages tomorrow I think I'm home free.

I haven't had too much time to develop the plot, but I think that's actually helped me to write faster. I'm still not sure how it will end, but the story is finding itself as it goes. At this point, it has a mind of it's own. Novelists talk about letting the characters write their own story and I'm closer to understanding that than ever before. There's a mystery to it for sure. I'm not even sure exactly what the title means, but I think I will discover it's meaning in the third act.

Turns out, it's a comedy. I wasn't planning on that. It's going to need plenty of doctoring, but it could be something. Right now, I just want to be able to say on May 1 that I wrote a 100-page screenplay in 30 days. Better get back to writing...

Once Again...

There are certain things you shouldn't t take for granted...like soaking in Michael Jordan when he played in the NBA or Tiger Woods playing golf today. We'll be telling our grandchildren how great they were when they try to convince us that whoever is playing basketball or golf in the future is the best ever.

SNL has been male dominated since day one. Sure, there have been a few female greats - Gilda hands down. Amy Poehler is very funny in my opinion. I loved the years with Molly, Cheri and Ana. But, Kristin Wiig is consistently brilliant. If you don't watch SNL anymore because you have heard people say that it's not what it used to be then shame on you. You're missing the coming of age of the female Tiger Woods of sketch comedy. Shame, shame on you.

Improv's coming to VCC

For you locals...

I'm going to be helping my friend Missy Whitis lead an improv workshop for people at VCC. Most of you who know me have an understanding of how the rules and community of improv have shaped my life. Apart from just being fun, improv has a magical way to create intimacy, community and trust. It's a spiritual activity.

If you want to join us, come to The Vineyard main stage this coming Tuesday, April 29 at 7:00 pm.

"Improvisation, it is a mystery. You can write a book about it, but by the end no one still knows what it is. When I improvise and I'm in good form, I'm like somebody half sleeping. I even forget that there are people in front of me. Great improvisers are like priests, they are thinking only of their God."

-Stephane Grappelli

Tell me a story.

It's nice to be home today after a busy weekend. I spent Sunday in Cleveland speaking at Fellowship Bible Church. They are good people who accepted me in spite of my being a Bengals fan. I hope to see them again sometime. Their student ministry is coming to SOS at The Vineyard this summer, so I'll see several of the kids when they get to town. Their church is currently talking about the spiritual disciplines, so I shared the stuff with them from Nouwen on intimacy, community and ministry. I also shared that at the CCU small groups conference on Saturday...and at the VCC weekend last week.

I felt a little bit like Barack Obama giving his "change" stump speech. I can't imagine how tired he and his staffers must get of hearing him say the same things everyday to a different crowd. We generally live in a "one a done" culture these days. With the youtube and the internet and the phone cameras and all...just record everything and you don't have to say it or do it again.

I'm not a techno-hater, but I wonder if the simple, oral repetition of truth and story have a unique power in the transformation of both hearer and speaker. I've probably told the story of the woman at the well over 100 times, including five times in the last week. The same with the woman caught in adultery, the healing of the blind man on the Sabbath, etc. Those stories are in me now. I don't have to prepare to tell them - I just tell them. They evolve and morph to different settings, but they never change. They are my personal love stories. I've also told the story of how I met my wife at least 100 times. Our story contextualizes to different people and settings as well, but it never changes. It simply is. Those Jesus stories have the same real meaning and personal historicity to me as my Debbie stories or my childhood stories, or my parenting stories. They shape me - make me - and I am being made to fit into them still.

A friend (I honestly can't remember who - maybe Murph?) told me recently that I've made a living out of telling people stories that have already been written, and that most everyone has already heard. I had mixed emotions when I heard him say that. It is true, by and large. The part of me that wants to be original would rather he had said that I've made a living telling my own stories. I have told some of my "own" stories, but they pale in comparison to the stories I plagiarize. I'm a hack compared to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Especially, John - forget about it. He's a master storyteller.

The last eight days have been full of opportunities for me to tell my stories. I'm just strangely struck today at the work that storytelling does on the storyteller. I'm left wondering today what would happen if the church embraced storytelling not as a teaching style, but as a leadership ethos. What if we all saw ourselves not as story-listeners, but as story-tellers? What does that sort of community look like? What if we quit saying, "How are you today?" and started saying, "Tell me a story."

Friend Collector

I spent today at my Alma Mater (CCU) for the Small Groups Conference.

Today was kind of like my wedding day. Only not as exciting or life-changing or nerve-wracking or expensive or meaningful...

Correction: Today was nothing like my wedding day.

Except for this one thing...

There were LOTS of people that I knew there, but many of the people that I knew did not know each other. There were about 50 people there from the Vineyard. I knew (or at least recognized) most of them. But, there were also a few dozen people there whom I knew from college. Most of them I hadn't seen for 15 years...people like Shawn Spradling, Cheryl Garrett, Scot Myers, Jason Galley and others. Some friends I hadn't seen face to face for over a decade. Then there were the old professors, pastor friends, etc. The topper was Mitch Harrison, a friend from Canyon Ridge in Las Vegas. Mitch and I are the speakers tomorrow at the conference. We think that's funny. Two Canyon Ridge boys speaking at a conference...if only they could have seen us back when were making it all up as we went along...oh yeah, we still are.

The fact that it all happened at CCU only added to the surrealism of the day. It was a good day. Not as good as a wedding day, but much better than a regular day. I'm looking forward to more of the same tomorrow...then I fly to Cleveland to speak at a church where I don't know anyone at all...yet.

This week I heard someone say, "I don't collect anything in the world except friends." I like that. I think it was Roger from The Biggest Loser who said it. Seems like you shouldn't go around quoting Biggest Loser contestants, but, alas, I just did.

Henri Nouwen

I mentioned Nouwen as one of my mentors this weekend at VCC. It's really not fair to call him a mentor since he had no choice in the matter. I never met him. Regardless, he's been a huge influence on me through his books.

This weekend I talked about Nouwen's idea that ideally we move from intimacy (with God) toward community with others. From community we can move toward ministry and acts of service. Many of us try to do this backwards and end up lonely and frustrated. If ministry is first, community becomes simply a method to accomplish a task. Intimacy with God is sacrificed in the name of service and we end up alone and isolated. There is a thin line between intimacy with God and isolation from God.

I found an article that Nouwen wrote in 1995 about these issues. If you'd like to read him yourself, just click here.

Busy eight days...

I have several teaching engagements coming up over the next eight days. Should be fun, in an exhausting kind of way. Feel free to come by if you are close to where I'll be.

4-11/12 - VCC Weekend Celebrations, "Road Trip: Honesty"
4-13 - Alpha at VCC, "Who is Jesus?"
4-18 - Small Groups Conference, Cincinnati Christian University (the alma mater)
4-19 - Guest speaking at Fellowship Bible Church in Cleveland.

35

Today I am halfway to 70. I spent my 35th birthday in an all-day staff meeting at The Vineyard, then teaching at midweek. I'm exhausted. We had our meeting in the new Student Union building. I played basketball with the very tall Micah Odor. It was half court and low impact, which is why I would never admit that I am a little sore right now. It's not like I'm in my mid-thirties or anything. Crap. I'm getting old.

Greatest Female Talent Ever on SNL

Spam-a-lot

A few years back it was all the rage for spammers to post comments on blogs so that people would go to some website. Looks like I've been targetted again, so if you see someone selling cigarrettes or porn sites in my comment section I would advise not to click. I'm erasing those I find.

That said, click here to get a great deal on ring tones!!!!

Opening Day - Maybe

Aidan is very excited because today is the first day of baseball practice this year. I have a hunch it will be rained out though...he might be bummed about that. Griffin Murphy will be on his team this year, but Sean will have to work Saturday mornings and miss practices. I just hope Griff doesn't start calling me Dad - that would be awkward.

The Disciplined Life

It has been difficult to get into some proper patterns in my life. It's hard to believe that it has been seven months since we moved to Ohio. That means it's been about seven months since I was able to really stick to a diet or exercise plan. When my life gets nutty, those are often the first few areas to go sideways.

I've driven a stake in the ground this month. April is the month that I regain control. I went to the gym for the first time since January yesterday and I'm going back today. I'm eating better - trying to just watch portions and calories more than anything else this go around. (I've bounced from diet to diet for almost twenty years - another post for another day.) Everything is connected with me. Just 36 hours of thinking healthy makes me want to pray, read and write more. It's hard to break the cycles we fall into.

I'm not going to try to motivate anyone else here. I've had enough alcoholic friends with two days sobriety who love to lecture drunk people to know what that is like. This is more just a coming out party - an acknowledgement that I've been stuck in a prison and I'm clawing my way out.

Script Writers Unite

I've toyed around with three different ideas for my next screenplay over the last few months. My friend Chuck Schierbeck invited me into this website where people try to write a 100-page script in the month of April. I'm gonna go for it.

If you want to join us, check out www.scriptfrenzy.org. Only a few days left to sign up!

My user name is joeboyd77 on the site.

Worth 20 minutes...

Got time to kill? Here's a great clip from Ken Robinson from the Ted Conference on creativity and education...

Easter 08

It was a good weekend at VCC. Easter is a strange time for me. It's exciting because so many people come together. There's lots of energy and happiness - more smiles and handshakes than a normal Sunday. There are fond memories from childhood and Easters past - like Christmas but with less build-up and credit card purchases. That's the good stuff.

On the weird side, it makes me wonder why we as disciples put so much focus and energy into one weekend over another. It makes the faith feel a little event-centered and that freaks me out if I think about it too long. The older I get, the more I force myself to embrace that life is almost always more of a "both/and" than an "either/or." Life is organic, natural, free-flowing, and relational. But life is also organizational, ritualistic, traditional and, at times, predictable. I don't necessarily drift toward the latter as easily as I do the former.

But leave it to me to rain on an Easter parade. It was a great weekend and I love being part of this new community. Thousands of people celebrated the resurrection. Hundreds of people formally crossed a line of faith and began their journey with Jesus. It was great. If you want to watch it on the web, click here.

Tooting my own Blog-horn

Yesterday I was watching election coverage on MSNBC and one of the guest analysists was the writer of a political blog. Under his name it said, "Innovator of the blogosphere. Blogging since 2002."

I had to check my old blog to make sure, but I've been at it since August of 2002. I was in my twenties when I started...I'm turning 35 in a few weeks.

Therefore, I hereby humbly accept the title of "Innovator of the Blogosphere."

This concludes blog post #589.

You're welcome, world. :)

Road to Emmaus, PA

When I was in high school I went on a week-long "mission trip" to Tijuana with Amor Ministries. We built a house for a family there who was living in a gutted out school bus. It was an eye-opening spiritual event for me as a 15 year old white suburban American kid. I'm sure that what my youth group did there changed the lives of the Mexican family we went to serve, but I remember feeling even then that the experience was somehow more for us than them. We went to serve and were served. We went show God's love but came home more aware of our need to receive it.

Since then I've probably gone on a half dozen short term mission trips with the same feelings everytime.

I was suprised that this recent road trip left me feeling much the same way. We went expecting to find some stories that we could share with our church to help them grow. Maybe that will happen, but ultimately we found our own story on the road to Emmaus. We transitioned from reporters to receivers. We went looking for the story and became the story. We went as filmmakers and came home as pilgrims. God showed up in the most mysterious and practical of ways. He literally directed our steps each day - not in a "Christain speak" way, but he flat told us what to do and we did it. One of the most beautfully terrifying weeks of my life.

I am torn as to how much to tell you. I don't want to spoil the videos that will start coming your way next week. Let's just say that my faith is at an all time high and I can't wait to share our story in the months to come.

One more thing...Happy Birthday to the best life-long traveling companion I could ever ask for. Love you, Deb.

Road Trip Wrapped

We returned this morning just before 5:00 a.m. Four full days of travel and meeting people all across Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. RIght now I don't have the energy or mental fortitude to get into the details, but I will go out on a limb and say that it was easily one of the top ten spiritual events of my life. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it. God moved in a different and playful way with us.

We have around 60 hours of video footage to go through now. Bobby Frisch will be editing starting this weekend so that we can have a trailer for Easter at VCC. The task is only half finished...

More to come this week as I detox from the journey and the truth settles in my heart.

We are all travelers, all pilgrims, all wanderers...sometimes it takes going on a journey to remember the reality of the larger one.

Road Trip!

We are a few minutes away from leaving on a four-day adventure. Five of us are taking a road trip from Jerusalem, Ohio to Emmaus, Pennsylvania in an aging RV. This Easter at VCC we are launching a series called Road Trip about the journey of Christian discipleship. Dave will be kicking off the series with the story of the Road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Two of Jesus' disciples encounter him on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus after his death and resurrection. We are leaving today to see if Jesus still walks the road from Jerusalem (OH) to Emmaus (PA).

Along the way we will be picking up stories of faith, community and courage. We are banking on several "divine" appointments as we will pulling into strange towns and seeking to find the most interesting and compelling God-story wherever we happen to be. If you are the praying sort of person, we'd appreciate your prayers.

Luke 24:13-35, NIV:

"13Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16but they were kept from recognizing him.
17He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?"

They stood still, their faces downcast. 18One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

19"What things?" he asked.

"About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

25He said to them, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

28As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.

30When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

33They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." 35Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread."

The Perfect Storm?

We are in the middle of our first official "blizzard warning" as Ohio citizens. It seems a little late in the year for the first blizzard, but there's about five inches outside my house with another five or so predicted tonight and tomorrow. The kids were let out of school early and the natives here are running in circles prediciting the end of the world tonight.

This weekend was supposed to be the VCC Elder's Retreat. We got most of today's meeting completed before knocking off a few hours early and we'll reschedule tomorrow's stuff for another day. I was somewhat looking forward to it tomorrow, but I'm also teaching this weekend, so an extra few hours of preparation won't hurt.

That's assuming anyone shows up. I'm a little concerned that the mixture of a blizzard and time change weekend could merge to create the perfect storm of nobody showing up this weekend. If you missed it (most people did) Congress passed a law moving Daylight Savings Time earlier a few weeks this year. We are springing ahead this Saturday night. Seems to have been lost in the local news here what with the white death falling from the sky and all.

The E-Word and our Metanarrative

I guess I am post-modern. I've never tried to be, but whenever I decide to google the things that I really believe in I end up on some obscure website reading about post-modernism, post-liberalism or post-Enlightenment thinking. Kinda makes you wonder what the "pre" to the "post" is. I mean, I guess this means that my entire worldview somehow rejects what was popular thinking when I entered the world making me "post-everything." A thousand years from now people like me probably won't be known as post-anything. Maybe we will be known as pre-narratives or pre-neotheocommunists or whatever. At any rate, the same thing they were saying about my generation twenty years ago is still true - all we really know for sure is that we don't know who we are yet.

Maybe I believe that story matters more than anything because I am a storyteller. Or maybe I became a storyteller because I believe that story matters more than anything. Either way, it probably doesn't matter. The problems I see associated with faith in America boil down to the fact that people refuse to believe that their faith-story is actually their metanarrative (I'd define this word as "the biggest story I live inside.")

For many people the biggest story that they live inside is their own story. We call these people all sorts of things from sociopaths to egomaniacs to shallow thinkers to go-getters to a-holes. But they all have one thing in common - they are the main character of their main story. This thinking is not only incompatible with the metanarrative of Jesus, but it is antithetical to it. It's more or less the opposite.

Then there are all the -isms of the world. There are those people who have broken out of thinking that their own life is their own big story, but have latched onto some popular (or reactionary) communal metanarrative. This can be as simple as believing that your biggest story is that of your home state or town, your family, your nation, your political views, your religious denomination, your sports team, your career, your race or class, etc.

We all live in overlapping stories. I am an American, for instance. Regardless of how I feel or think about America, I cannot really change the fact that I live within the reality of the story called America. My story is also that of an Ohioan and a transplanted Nevadan. I cannot divorce the story of Las Vegas from my story because the ten most formative years of my adult life were entwined within that story. I also have family and religious heritage - I'm an Appalachian Campbellite if you must know. (At times this has evoked pride, at times shame and at times indifference, but it has never not been one of my big stories.) When I was finally eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild there was a temptation to make that my metanarrative as is the case for many performers. Our metanarritive produces our primary self-observed identity: "I'm an actor." "I'm a quarterback." "I'm a good person."

Here's the point - none of these things are my true metanarrative - the biggest story that I align with, or more accurately, the biggest story that has made me who I am. (See Chesterton quote below.) My big story is not that I am an American, a caucasian, a pastor or a SAG member. My big story is that there is a living God who created all that is. He made us and we rejected him in order that we could live apart from him. Apart from him, though, our lives are meaningless, painful and shallow. My story is the story of a nation called Israel because my God selected that nation to reveal himself to the world. Again, through Israel, we rejected him. So he sent a real man named Jesus who called us from the world to follow him in order to be reunited with our God. He came to start a Kingdom ruled by Love that would never end. We rejected him too and killed him, but he was resurrected three days after he died. (I never said that my metanarrative was easy to believe.) His death also paid the price for our pattern of rejection and his resurrection set in motion a conspiracy to see evil conquered in the world through the power of love and life and hope. He then asked us to tell others the good news of our big story and to invite others into our story. This is evangelism to me. Inviting others to turn in all of their stories, including their biggest story, for the story of God and Jesus. It's kind of a ridiculous thing to ask of someone - to be willing to change their prime identity. But for those who are really ready for change (now I sound like a presidential candidate), for those who are ready for a new life, it really is good news.

" ... I have attempted in a vague and personal way, in a set of mental pictures rather than in a series of deductions, to state the philosophy in which I have come to believe. I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me." - GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I don't know, dog. It was just a'ight for me, dude.

Couldn't resist telling the world that my friend Charlie spent this morning with Randy Jackson.

Seriously, I brush my teeth a lot

For the second time in twelve months one of my teeth fell out of my mouth. This time it was more of a cap, but still. I've had two root canals in my life. One earlier this year (when the first tooth fell out mid-hamburger) and another one about four or five years ago. The one from a while back gave way this week and plopped right out of my mouth while chewing gum. Now there is a strange toothless hole in the back of my mouth. The dentist can't get me in until next week - this happened last weekend.

Since then I have been on a two-day planning retreat to plan the 08-09 teaching calendar for VCC, taught at midweek and performed a little improv gig. All while toothless. I'm finally old enough to just start losing body parts willy nilly.

Speaking of improv, I have become a fan of the TV show 10 Items or Less on TBS. It's an improvised comedy similar to The Office.

Tomorrow will be my first day in several weeks to just hang out with the family and relax....as much as one can relax with a huge divot where his tooth used to be.

E-Word and Second City

I should be finalizing preperations right now for what I'll be saying in a few hours at VCC. We are launching a new series on Evangelism, called "The E-Word." Our hope is to reclaim the word "Evangelism" from the fear, division and creepiness so often associated with it. I still haven't landed on exactly what stories to tell tonight. Thus, the writing of this blog to put off the decision a few more minutes.

After church tonight Debbie and I are going to see The Second City traveling show. I studied and worked with the Second City in Las Vegas. It's kinda like being a part of a fraternity, so tonight may be a little homecoming. I'm hoping someone I know is on the team, but I may be far enough out now that it will be a whole new crew.

Life is improvised. That's what I believe anyway. One great improv show can change the world.

Icelandic Kids Can Fly

Several people asked for a copy of my statement that I read at VCC this weekend. I've copied it below. We showed images from a music video by Sigur-Ros during the reading, which is also linked below.

Imagine a community of people who are different. They live as strangers and foreigners in a world that is not their home, They are on a journey, always moving toward a better place. They are not agreeable with mere survival or content with so-called “contentment.”

They hold no secrets. No closeted skeletons. No unspoken agenda. They readily admit what they once were. “Once we were nobodies,” they say with a knowing smile. “Once we had nothing.” They grin. “Once we were the worst of the worst, the poorest of the poor. Once we were vile, and ugly and conceited and desperate and dirty and foolish.” They stubbornly smile as they admit, “Once we were on the brink of death, but now…

You see, that’s their power. They can say “but now.” The fuel of their rebellion is not in their past so much as in the present reality of their future. “But now,” they say, “we live.” “But now,” they say, “we love.” But now we laugh. But now we give and sacrifice and serve and stand united. Once were not a people, but now we are God’s people. Once we were nobodies, but now we are a heavenly nation. Once we were stalled in the muck of the mess of our lives, but now we are a movement. We are a growing grassroots heart-burning movement of sold-out, unwavering, completely reborn and re-envisioned followers of a living God who prefers that we call him our Father. Under his love and power, we advance our revolutionary, world-wide conspiracy of kindness.

And our agenda is as simple to understand it is seemingly ridiculous to see fulfilled. Our agenda is love. Love reigning everywhere like benevolent dictator. Love in the back rooms and love in the boardrooms, love in the alleyways, by-ways and highways. Love in the city. Love in the country. Love in the suburbs. Love in the ghetto. Love in the barrio. Love where the black folks live, where the white folks live and where the brown folks live. Love that breaks through language and color and race and prejudice and ignorance. Love for the doctor and the drug dealer. Love for the prostitute and the police officer. Love for the jailor and the junkie, the pusher and the plumber, the under-appreciated, the over-worked and the under-paid. Love for all and all for love.

We are ragtag rebels. Rebelling against hate, war, prejudice. Rebelling against loneliness, boredom and meaninglessness. Jesus didn’t die so we could just come to church once a week sing a few songs and pretend to learn something. Jesus died to launch a revolution. He suffered and bled and died to see evil destroyed once and for all…and three days later he quit being dead to seal the deal and give us our marching orders.

Go, he said. Love as I have loved you. Love them all – every creature, every nation, every soul. We all can do our part, because we all can love. And when we love…we live.

To gig or not to gig...

Regarding my previous post, I've written 2 of 5 pages this week. I thought I'd knock it out on my day off Monday, but it didn't work out so well. I still have a few days to find the time to finish. I'm speaking at VCC for the next two weekends. Add in midweek and a few other teaching gigs this week and my brain is getting a little tired.

My agent here landed me a nice little gig as the spokesperson for Time Warner. It would mean regional tv spots, etc. I'm not sure that I'm going to do it though. It's straight to camera stuff and I wonder if some folks wouldn't be able to see me as acting vs. somehow endorsing a company. This is stuff I didn't have to worry about as much in LA, but several thousand people in Cincinnati are starting to recognize me as "The Vineyard guy" and I wonder if seeing me sell cable service would be confusing. I think this is going to be a lifelong struggle. If I was an accountant who became a pastor I could do people's taxes in my spare time and nobody would care or notice. Acting is such a very strange career, and it would seem especially strange as a second career for a church leader. Dropping out of the scene completely would feel like losing touch with the one thing that connects me to the local culture and economy. There are lots of things less visible that I'll get to do though, so I'm thinking I'll pass on this one. The worst part is telling your agent who works hard for you that you don't want to do a gig - that's how they pay the bills, so it sucks to say no to them.

It's been a long time since I've written about this stuff here...funny how a blog shows clearly the things a person is into at different stages of life.

Writing

The WGA strike is about to end. It's made me think more about writing. I'm a writer. I think I might even be a good writer. I've never been a professional writer though. I've had a few things published and a few screenplays in various stages of production, but those things feel like strange spurts of creativity vs. a lifestyle of writing.

I used to hang out some at different coffee shops in Hollywood. They are all full of writers. The same guys and gals were there everyday. Laptops open and typing away. Most of them are probably more "aspiring" than working, but they all have something that I lack as a writer: they write. Everyday. For hours.

I was calculating last night that if I had written five pages per week since moving to Ohio I would have completed one screenplay by now. It might not have been the best thing ever, but it would be done. I've always lacked that sort of discipline as a writer. This post is some mixture of confession and invitiation. I'm going to commit to write five pages per week for the rest of the year. For me, this is probably only a 1-2 hour/week commitment. It seems so easy, but historically it has been difficult for me. I'm not going to try to write the great american novel or screenplay or memoir. I'm just going to write. I may start all of those things and jump back and forth between them. I just want to start a new habit and see what emerges.

If you want to join me, let me know in the comment section. Maybe we can set up a facebook group to hold each other accountable. If some locals join in, maybe we could meet once a month to encourage each other. Just some thoughts...let me know if it strikes you as interesting. Hah. "Strikes" you. That sort of bookends this post, so I'll stop writing now so I can start writing elsewhere...

Prof. Banjo Boyd

I was invited to guest teach for two different Public Speaking classes today at the Art Institute of Cincinnati. It was fun to teach in that environment about storytelling, teaching, comedy, etc. They let me show a ten minute clip from one of my messages at The Vineyard. Both classes ended with some students doing some Improv with me. They all did very well considering they had never tried it before.

It was good on many levels - good to be in the real world and with aspiring artists in an academic setting. I also found it a worthy challenge to talk about preaching in a non-Christian environment. Also, there's nothing like showing a sermon to a room full of college students outside of the church setting to see what works with non-church people and what doesn't. The day was fascinating.

On a side note, everyone at work has taken to calling me Banjo. I'm not sure why really, but it is an organized and deliberate attempt to nickname me. It feels a little less than organic, but I will answer to it for the first week to see where it goes from there.

Out of Africa

The team is back from Nigeria! Here's the recap video we showed at VCC this weekend. Pretty cool stuff.

WGA News

Looks like the writer's strike may be over soon. This whole thing would have affected me a lot more if we were still in LA, but many of my friends have struggled to find work for the last three months.

It could mean new episodes of The Office in 4 or 5 weeks...SNL could be up quicker than that.

If you care, here's the LA Times story:

WGA News

Facebook meets Midweek

I've started a discussion group page on Facebook for the Vineyard Midweek class I'm leading. We can discuss the Dallas Willard article linked below there and post things for others to see. If you are a facebooker you can join the discussion by clicking here:

Facebook Group

How Smart was Jesus?

Here's the thing: those who follow Jesus are invited into a discipling relationship with him. Fundamentally, this is a student-teacher relationship. It's an apprenticeship. Jesus pushed the discipling relationship of his day to it's extreme. He said it was a slave-master relationship. To this day, anyone who follows Jesus enters a student-teacher, slave-master covenant.

Therefore, if I am a Christian (disciple) of Jesus, then he is my teacher and I am his student. As my teacher I trust that he is smart. That's part of what it means that he is worthy. I can't think of a reason why I should be Jesus' disciple if I don't think he is smarter than me or smarter than anyone else I could follow.

Maybe when Jesus walked the earth he didn't know as much about physics as Einstein. Maybe he limited his actual knowledge to cultural norms. I'm fine with that. But I find it hard to believe that he wasn't the smartest person who ever lived. I think it is hard for modern people to see anyone from antiquity as intelligent. They didn't have the internet or PBS or MIT. Maybe they had less access to data and accumulated knowledge than we do, but does that make us more intelligent?

I think it is hard to follow Jesus and still believe that someone else is smarter than him. I'm teaching a class at Vineyard midweek on discipleship for a few hundred folks. In a pre-survey, 31% of the attendees checked that they do not believe that Jesus was the smartest person who ever lived. 98% of them labeled themselves as followers of Jesus. I don't mean to come down on anyone, but I wonder if this isn't key to our discontent as disciples. (Over 61% also said that they felt something was missing in their faith.)

Looking back on it, I might have phrased the question a bit differently, but it has given me a lot to think about. I wasn't trying to trick anyone. I'm assuming most people get hung up on the fact that Jesus, while he was on earth, may not have known the atomic weight of Barium, but our high school physics teacher did. So, how could we Jesus is smarter than him? Yet, I'm pretty sure Jesus is smarter than Mr. Wilke when I compare the two in my head.

I'm not sure I have all this thought out yet, but I think there is something to it.

If you want to think more about this, read this short essay by Dallas Willard:

Who is Your Teacher?

Forever

Sandy Maudlin is a new friend of mine who is also part of The Vineyard. She's an artist - a very good one in my opinion. We found each other here on the blogosphere before meeting in person.

I rather shamelessly "offered" to host one of her paintings in my office until it sells. She was kind enough to loan me this one:



It is called "Forever." I'm kind of like a foster family until it finds a real home. If you're in the market for a piece of art, check out her blog at www.sandymaudlin.blogspot.com. If you want to buy Forever, just let me have for a few weeks before taking it away :)

Subjectively Honest

Some powerful things happened all weekend at the Vineyard. God seemed to "show up" in a different way. It seemed like lots of people were open to God. There was a good heaviness in the room at each Celebration.

So much of what I do at VCC is totally subjective. I probably get asked over 100 times each weekend, "How'd you do?" It's a more difficult and loaded question to answer that you might think. I really never know how to answer. I always do my best, but who knows what that means? For every ten people that say something nice, someone will e-mail something very negative. (In my first two months here I was called an anti-Christ with an agenda to destroy the church and a demonized egomaniac, but others have thrown around similarly ridiculous comments on the positive side.) Like I said, it's all way too subjective. It's forced me into apathy in terms of any performance language surrounding my teachings. I can't care too much if other people (or I) think I did a "good job." As a teacher my hope is that people learn, and in learning that they are moved to action. That's the only way to know if I'm doing a "good job." My experience has shown that it takes a few years to see if a teacher is really impacting a community.

So if you ask, "How'd it go?" and I seem disconnected or apathetic, that's why. It's a hard question to answer and it makes me uncomfortable on about twelve different levels.

Jesus dealt with this stuff. He was called a demon and a prophet - a trouble maker and the promised King. I'm not saying I'm like Jesus, but I do follow him. Maybe when your master is a polarizing figure, you end up that way yourself. Left to my own I'm very content to not make any waves, but Jesus followers always stir things up...maybe it's part of our cross to bear.

These are the things about my work here that make me uncomfortable. I hesitate to even write about it here, but it is a constant theme in my life and hard to ignore. One of the things I loved in my time away for full-time vocational ministry was not having to deal with these issues on a daily basis.

That was a lot of me talking about me to try to say it's not about me.

This brings us back to Gideon, whom we studied this weekend. I told 2/3 of his story, but omitted the ending found in Judges 8. It was a struggle to leave out the end of his story, but there simply wasn't time. His story is a much happier one without his final chapter. Gideon leads the people of Israel back to God. The people follow him for many decades and receive God's blessing. At the end, the people come to Gideon and ask him to be King. He gives them the perfect answer when he declines their offer and tells them that God alone is their King. Then he makes a huge mistake.

Gideon, in lieu of kingship, asks the people to give him their gold earrings to make a memorial for his battles and leadership. The people quickly comply and they make an ephod out of gold. (As I understand it, an ephod is some mixture of armor, underwear and a girdle - sounds very uncomfortable.) The people decide to worship Gideon's Ephod and it becomes a snare (trap) for the nation. It leads them back into idol worship and away from Yahweh. The second that Gideon dies, the people prostitute themselves to the Baals, the fake gods. It seems to be clear that their journey away from God started when they worshipped the ephod. Gideon made the best and worst decision of his life in one moment. He let God be King, but gave the people something shiny that they could worship apart from God.

Maybe my previous personal ramblings connect here. It is easy for people to see another person's gift (contribution to the body) as just another shiny thing to worship. Most church leaders are not so bold as to try to take God's role as King, though some are. Most leaders are content with just a little of God's glory, not all of it. "Just a few earrings melted into a golden girdle to remember me by." Forging just a small token of my accomplishment, my "good job," can't hurt anybody, right?

Yes, it can. This is the problem. Perhaps the greatest and most counter-intuitive task of a leader within the Kingdom of God is to reject the earrings. To turn down the mini-monuments. Truth is, if the gift is really God's anyway, who am I to worry if you dislike the gift or the person entrusted with it? Who am I to accept the glory if you like the gift?

It's all about being faithful. Let's pray for one another and build each other up as God builds his church using us as Living Stones to build his eternal temple with our lives.

What it Really Means to Follow Jesus

Let's just call it out.

Christianity is more than a religion. More than a nice option. More than a belief system. More than a series of events and meetings. More than some spirtiual legal transaction between me and God.

Following Jesus used to be hardcore. Kinda' all or nothin. No half-hearted fans allowed. Jesus spent most of his life attracting crowds and then running them away. Relatively few actually followed him. He called very few who really knew him as their Master. He had the twelve, but even one of them turned out to be just a crowd member - a turncoat ready to flip flop for thirty coins.

Even after his resurrection and appearances only 120 actually believed...and that counts his mom and brothers. It aint easy to follow Jesus. It's hard. It's the kind of thing that leads to a gnarly death upside down on a cross or a lifelong banishment to some critter-filled island. It should be no surprise to us. This is the guy who said, "If you want to follow me, pick up a cross." Today he might have told us to strap into an electric chair. Joining the Jesus Club is a death wish. A true follower ends up dying to everything he once loved and valued. And death isn't easy. It hurts. A lot.

But then there's the trade-offs. Though we die, we live. We are revolutionary zombies on a secret mission from God. The undead who have died but cannot be exterminated. Our death reeks of life to the dying. We are Neo. We flip the Matrix upside down and tell the world that they are dead. We wear grace and life like a letterman jacket through the high school cafeteria. They won't admit it readily, but they want what we got.

I don't believe in just being a good person. I don't believe in just going to church. I don't believe that simple religion and mindless morality are the hope the world. I believe in Jesus. And I follow HIm...even when it sucks....even when it means picking up a cross and extending my left hand for the first nail to pierce my wrist. I don't lead, I follow. I give up. I need help. I do what he says because I'm out of ideas and out of options. Like Peter I say, "I'm with you because I got nowhere else to go."

Just thought I'd rant for a minute.

I'm teaching about this over the next four Wedneday nights in the main auditorium at The Vineyard. If you're ready to die and quit playing the cultural christianity game, come check it out.

7 pm. Four Weeks. Starting Jan 30.

What It Really Means to Follow Jesus.