VBS

When: Friday, August 13^th – 6-8pm

Saturday, August 14^th – 10am-noon

Sunday, August 15^th – 10am-noon

Where: 5551 Hilliard Rome Office Park

Hilliard OH 43026

Sunday Funday

When: Sunday, August 15^th – immediately following the services

Where: Chic-Fil-A on Hilliard Rome Rd.

kids!!! you won’t want to miss this!!!  parents, you won’t want to miss out on Sunday Funday!  bring your friends – august 13-15, 2010!

thanks to Kim and SON Ministries, we have found an organization to whom we can give our money as part of accomplishing our goal as well as our time.  click here to check out the hilliard free summer lunch program and sign up to help.

again, Kim will be sharing with us this coming sunday morning – june 6 at 10am.  don’t miss out!  see you there!

it all starts with prayer…this is one of the parts of reading the bible that i think most people neglect.  it is easy to just read the pages of scripture as if it is just some book.  i know that on the previous blog, i stated that we have to remember that the bible is a narrative of God demonstrating himself to humanity, but that does not mean that it is just some book.

Paul says in 2 timothy 3:16 says, “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. it straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right.”  inspired by God…as God has moved and worked in and through faithful men and women, he has specifically shown them different attributes about himself.  they have been able to look back across their lives and see his hand in every aspect of their lives.

the Holy Spirit always directs the lives of those who will follow him, no matter what.  if we can say that scripture was written from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by followers of Christ in the first century, then wouldn’t it make sense for him to give insight from the scriptures for the followers of Christ in the 21^st century?  answer…yes!  here’s the deal…when you spend time reading the scripture, ask the Holy Spirit to give you insight.

the watershed crew will tell you that i say all the time, “if we don’t pray, then nothing will happen.”  i say it again now because so many of us read the bible saying that we don’t understand anything, but we haven’t even taken the time to ask God to speak to us and direct us through his own word.  we want God to show up in our living room with the shekinah glory melting our eyes out of their sockets while the six winged creatures sing, “holy, holy, holy.”  we want him to speak audibly as we rant on are commute to work, “DO THIS. GO THERE.  MARRY HIM OR HER”(all in a deep booming radio caricature voice – because that is how God would speak audibly if he spoke audibly to you or me).  so we spend our time with God asking him to speak, when the bible might as well be words screaming off the page to demonstrate who God is.

so the next time you pick up your bible to read it, remember that it IS a narrative of the works of God in, through, and with humanity – so read it like a story, but don’t forget to pray and ask for insight from the same God who inspired the writing in the first place.

now, call me a heretic if you want, but i do not believe that the bible is God’s manual for life.  it’s not a map, or a guide, or even a rulebook, even though i have heard it referred to as each of these and more.  i believe the point of the bible is to demonstrate to us who God is and what he is like.  God demonstrates himself in nature.  this is known as general revelation.  it is God’s “revealing” of himself, as the word revelation properly indicates, to all in the general way of creation.  the bible is considered to be God’s special revelation.  this is where he reveals more of himself by speaking and working through the course of human history in order to draw humanity closer to himself and his Life. He does this by conveying his intentions for humanity, how things were broken, and how he has restored and is restoring humanity through his salvific work in Jesus Christ.  the bible, then, serves as God’s narrative or his story; his work in, through, and with humanity.

the problem with reading the bible as a playbook or a guide to life comes when we read passages like Ezekiel 23:20 and major chunks of the history of Israel.  we in the north american context want to apply everything to our own lives immediately.  if we do this with the mindset that the bible is a manual for life, what do we do with Sampson’s actions or David’s rendezvous with Bathsheba, as he was a man after God’s own heart.  now, many of these can be worked through as we gather the context of the bible, but i spent most of my life trying to apply the books of joshua and judges, though stories of israel’s conquest of canaan and rebellion against God, to my life.  this is hard to do when you view the scriptures as “the rules,” but if we allow the narrative of scripture to be “the story” of God working in, through, and with humanity to restore all things to himself, then the stories allow us better understanding.

so, for starters, can we please read the narratives as narratives?  there are thousands of years recorded in the bible.  multiple generations.  let’s read the stories of God’s work with people and remember that they are the stories of God work WITH people.  God reveals himself to the people in scripture and he does it again today with us.  are there rules and guides?  of course!  but we’ll get there, ok, so just chill and read the stories like you did when you were 5 years old.

Take a minute, what does it mean for you to be at “peace”?  What does it mean for you to be full of “joy”?  Now that you have answered that question, how will that affect you when you sing “Joy to the world” this Christmas season?  The words we say sometimes just have no real meaning to them.  The English language is notorious for this.  There are over 1 million words in the English language, so the emphasis on each word has been taken away.  But it has been said that there are only 7,000 words in the Hebrew language, so you can see that each word has significance and is truly rich in meaning.

We sometimes equate being at “peace” with a lack of anxiety or stress in our lives, and you would be somewhat right.  We even say it to someone when we part ways, “peace bro!”  But there is so much more to this word than we give it credit for.  The Hebrew word for “peace” is Shalom and can mean peace, completeness, and welfare/well-being.  The use of shalom in the Scriptures always points towards the transcendent action of wholeness.  It is harmony of life, peace within, and being complete with God.

Now the word “joy” is very interesting!  Especially if it is looked at in the Greek language.  The Greek word for “joy” is Chara which is derived from the word Charis, which is the Greek word for Grace.  Now why would the word for joy come from the root word for grace?  Rabbi’s disclaim that Chara is only produced by the Charis of God.  So if you think that joy is being “happy”, it goes much deeper than that.  If you can only get joy from the grace of God, then your joy is not a human-based happiness, but comes from a divine origin.

Just a brief, and if i may be honest, a mere glimmer of the meaning of these two words can at least open up our eyes during this holiday season.  Shalom and wholeness can only be found in God, who is the only one who can make someone complete, and Chara is a lifestyle that is chosen to be followed, knowing that life will throw you curve balls, but you can still be full of joy in the unhappiest of times.  Where does peace and joy come from?  How can peace and joy be obtained?  Everything starts with Jesus!  Which is why in 10 more days, we can celebrate that God Himself came in the flesh of man named Jesus to offer shalom and chara in a world so broken.

grace and peace to you…

if you are there, check out this article on relevant magazine’s site. hope it helps.

ok, this isn’t a line of people waiting to get into a church for the h1n1 vaccine, but i just wanted to give you a glimpse of the line i saw this past saturday.  so i didn’t realize that the department of health was giving the h1n1 vaccine at different clinics for free.  i know, i know…that tells you how much i pay attention to the news and what not.  so i found out this past weekend when my sister and brother-in-law came to visit.  she is pregnant and i guess they are out of the vaccine where she lives in michigan.  sonya, wonderful sister that she is, looked up  clinics around us and it just so happened that there was one while my in-laws were with us that was giving the vaccine out for free!!!  so we decided to go stand in line to get this vaccine.  as it turned out, the only one in my immediate family that could get the vaccine was Amelia, but we bought her a baby doll for being so tough.  we pulled up to a church where the clinic was set up, and the line twisted out the sanctuary into the lobby, through the doors, down the sidewalk, around the side of the church and into the massive front yard of the church where it wound back and forth like the line for the raptor at cedar point on a saturday in july.  it was insane!!  they gave us tickets to make sure that we could get the vaccine.  when the tickets ran out, people would be turned away.

but as i stood there waiting and watching the people in the line, i couldn’t help but notice that there were whites, blacks, latinos, asians, middle easterners; all invariably from every walk of life and religion or lack thereof.  there we stood, in a huge line waiting to get into a church for the cure to some pandemic disease.  i thought, these people are waiting to get in to “God’s house” for the cure to a disease that is wreaking havoc on many and causing panic on the rest.  they are hoping that they will get the cure and not be turned away to the sound of “we’re sorry, we’re all out.”  i could only think of the fact that the church has the eternal cure for sin, yet instead of having people waiting in droves for hours to get in, we have churches closing their doors and dying because people are turned off by us or worse, we aren’t doing what it takes to find them and bring them to Jesus.  i was saddened by what i saw that day.  my thoughts turned to watershed.  i don’t want people to come to watershed in droves because of my pride.  i want people to come to Jesus as they realize he is what they need.  i want the people of watershed to be a church that truly shows the world around us what it means to follow Christ in a community of love and servanthood.  i believe that watershed exists because there are tons of people in the greater columbus area that don’t want to be part of any church based on past experiences, and it is our job to show them what “church” really means.  i want watershed to be a church dechurched and unchurched people want to attend.

here’s the deal…i believe it was craig groeschel who said, “if we want to reach people that aren’t being reached, then we have to do things that aren’t being done.”  i whole heartedly agree.  so i leave you with this…

what do we need to do differently in order to reach people for Christ that aren’t being reached by the church today?

ok, now that you have some insight into the day of atonement (yom kippur), we can talk about a problem that luke and i have been discussing for the past couple days.  so, here is the question… does it really matter if Jesus was God or not?  don’t worry, we aren’t asking this because we are beginning to think that it doesn’t.  we just have some questions about those who claim to serve or strive to follow Yahweh God, but do not believe that Jesus actually is God.

first, why is this a problem for people to believe?  there is too much historical evidence that the man, Jesus, existed or even that he was executed on a roman cross to say that he did not ever walk the earth.  to disagree with this would be far too arrogant not to mention ridiculous since there are multiple non-biblical historians who speak of Jesus.  But the issue is not with the fact that a man name Jesus lived in the first century and died on a cross.  the issue is whether or not he is God in flesh.

people want to say that Jesus was a good man or a great teacher, but they get all squeamish when you say that he was God.  Some religions believe in the same God of Christianity (Judaism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witness to name a few), but they do not believe that Jesus is God.  now, before i go any farther, i am not the ultimate judge and i hope in the mercy of God for all of humanity, so this is not a hellfire and brimstone kind conversation.  But my question comes because there are religions such as Jehovah’s Witness that follow the God of the Bible and even believe that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, but do not believe that he is God.

here’s the issue…if Jesus is not God then what would the passages where Jesus claims deity prove?  here is an example out of mark 2:

and when he returned to capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  and many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door.  and he was preaching the word to them.  and they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.  and when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.  and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “my son, your sins are forgiven.”  now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “why does this man speak like that? he is blaspheming! who can forgive sins but God alone?”  and immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “why do you question these things in your hearts?  “which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘rise, take up your bed and walk’?  “but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” –he said to the paralytic– “i say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”

Jesus claims he can forgive sins!!!  and who can forgive sins, but God?  no one!  Jesus is saying that he is God because he can forgive sins, and he proves this by doing what no one else could do for the paralytic – he heals him!

now, if Jesus is not God, then what is going on here.  is he still a great teacher and wise healer?  of course! and i don’t think anyone wants to discount that fact.  however, he is claiming to be God, and now we are forced to deal with that fact.  so, what does this prove?  if Jesus is not God, then this proves that he is a liar.  and if Jesus is a liar, then he is sinful.

now comes the issue.  if Jesus is a liar and so a sinner, then he could not have died for the sins of the world.  here is what happens…God sets up the Israelite sacrificial system where the lambs must be “without blemish or spot.”  they had to be perfect!  translation: when Jesus is called the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the sacrificial lambs were all pointing to this one Lamb who would be without spot or blemish and would be the ultimate sacrifice.  that is why hebrews 9:13-14 says, “for if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

if sin is what separates us from God who is Life, as James says that one sin separates us from God as far as a lifetime of sins, then Jesus’ lie would separate him from God and subsequently his death would serve as his own.  he could not die on behalf of anyone but himself because he himself was a sinner.  even if he did resurrect after his death on the cross, his death covers only his sin and we are all still steeped in our own sin with no way out.

God in his infinite mercy knew that we would not be able to bear the separation from him that our sin would cause.  that is why he became a man, Jesus, to live the perfect life that we cannot live and to die the death the we should all die.  in this way he satisfied the death that sin brings, demonstrated his unconditional love, and provided forgiveness for us all.  if Jesus did in fact die for the sins of the world, then he is in fact God.  if he is not God, the when he died on the cross, he only died for his sin and we are all without hope.  we are all very much in our sins and as a result, we will all face eternity without God.

christians don’t celebrate yom kippur as our jewish friends do, but we most certainly celebrate the day of atonement at easter when we remember good friday when Christ died in our place and resurrection sunday when he defeated death and brought eternal life to all who will take it.  interestingly enough, easter is set around the same time as the jewish celebration of passover, which incidentally is where jews remember when the judgement of death came, but those who were covered by the blood were passed over.  i don’t at all find that to be a coincidence.

Luke 6:27-36 (ESV)

to get started i must first say that asking Jesus to come into your heart is not the same as giving your life to Jesus Christ.  one tends to be a statement we make about when we “asked Jesus to come into our hearts” when we were four years old, and many people today say that they are “christian” because they followed some prayer chant that asked Jesus to come into their hearts.  for some that has stuck and more than likely they have given their lives to Christ, but for most people, they think they are good to go with “the big guy upstairs” because they said some prayer when they were four.  now they simply do whatever they want.  on the other hand, when a person gives his life to Christ, he hands over control of life to God and lets him truly decide where he goes, what he does, what he says…basically, every aspect of life that we all so very much want to control.  the latter of the two would be what we call discipleship.  honestly, i’m not really sure what we can call the former.

that being said, let’s get into it shall we.  my buddy, luke, has been wrestling a lot lately with this whole idea of what it really means to follow Christ.  one of his big hang ups is that so often we claim that we are christians, but then we don’t let the scriptures effect the way we live and act.  he made the statement that if i am walking down the street on a cold winter day and see a homeless man without a coat while i have one on and one at home, am i not obligated by the teaching of Christ to give my coat to that man?  this has really bothered me because i have a tan leather jacket that i really like.  honestly, i wouldn’t want to give it up.  that has bothered me for weeks.  sadly, i think most of us would agree with me that we wouldn’t want to give up our coat.

here’s the deal.  we take the golden rule as “don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to you,” but that isn’t what Christ said is it?  in fact, if you read that whole passage again, you see that in all reality, Christ really is saying to love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.  so, the idea is not “don’t hit those who hit you” for those of us who have children.  it is, for we adults, put yourself in the position of the homeless guy in luke’s scenerio – in the cold without a coat.  what would you want someone to do for you?  if you were hungry and your children were starving, would you want someone to feed you and your children so that you didn’t have to hear their sad cries and growling tummies?  if your daughter, sister, or niece were being sexually exploited or forced to service 30-40 men a day, if not more, what would you want done?  would you not want someone to end that?

question, then.  what are you doing?  it’s easy to love those who treat us well.  in fact, there is psychological idea in sales that is called the rule of reciprocation. this rule says that people are more likely to do what you want when you do a favor for them, even if they didn’t want you to do the favor for them.  people feel obligated to “return the favor.”  it’s easy to love those to love us and treat people well who treat us well, but Jesus isn’t saying that.  you see, just as it is easy to love those who love us, it is easy to hate those who hate us.  we even think it is our right to do so.  but Christ says that his followers don’t live by the same rules as the rest of the world.

we love those who hate us because that is how we usher in the community of heaven.  we treat others the way we want to be treated because in doing so, we bring heaven to earth.  so, are you bringing heaven to earth, or are you just simply trying to keep from doing to others what you wouldn’t want done to you?  we do not follow confucius who made that statement.  we are followers of Jesus who told us to usher in the community of heaven by treating others the way we want to be treated.  that means that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, free the slave, seek justice for the oppressed, help the single mother, adopt the unwanted child, and give freely of ourselves and resources so that those who don’t know the love of Jesus can taste a drop of heaven.