Meaningless Words for Worship

I'm not your typical Christian.  I don't fit in with most popular sub-cultures of religion and that's ok, Jesus didn't either.  I try to see the beauty of God in everything.  Sometimes, it is a beautiful sunset, a smile on my 3 month old's face or just a beautiful picture.  Even though those things are definitely beautiful, the most beautiful things can sometimes be when God sheds a tear for us.  The recent shootings in Colorado, Chicago and New York or even this homeless lady named Boo who has lost the ashes of her deceased child.  God has such compassion for us and often we fail to recognize it and would rather categorize the bad situations of people's lives as God's justice.  God is just, but by receiving His grace and mercy every single day I came to the epiphany that God's compassion and love for us conquers all. I could go on all day about that, so I'll save that for a different time.

I began playing guitar at age 5.  By the age of 16, I played 5 different instruments.  I love music, it is always around me.  Having grown up in church, I surrendered to Christ at an early age, so church and music kind of went hand in hand.  The problem was my church was traditional. Very traditional.  So the music was old and seemed to have died in the chorus somewhere.  The choir sang with grim looks as the piano and organ played 4 songs with similar structures and I became bored out of my mind.  I would hear things such as "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!  Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!  Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.  This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long."  Typically, the only thing long was the faces of the people singing the song.  (I really do like this song)  Then, a teenager at church brought a cassette tape in of dcTalk and I loved it, it was exciting and fresh.  After that came a rapper by the name of T-Bone and it was cool, but I couldn't listen to it because it was rap and that wasn't sacred.  I was terribly confused because this guy was rapping about how his life was a mess and Jesus came in a took his life over and he had been made this new creation.  How could that be what they called secular?  On a flip side, I could listen to all the classic rock I wanted.  Skynard, Zepplin, Pink Floyd and Journey were my favorite.  I could listen to country music too, but I've never really been a fan of country music so I refrained.  After this experience, I would eventually be allowed tapes and then cds of christian artists at the discretion of my parents.  When I was 15, I joined a praise band and would travel around to churches to play and lead them with praise and worship music.  Some churches we played at didn't really like our style, we were either too loud or there was no organ.  Then, I met my wife and we began attending at the church she had grown up in and it was worse.  The pastor would stand and preach about heathen music and how if it had a beat it was of the devil.  Yeah, the evil red guy with a pitchfork and pointy tail.  I found his theology and theory flawed as all music has a beat. Otherwise, it would be just a jumbled up mess.

A couple of weeks ago, my family was having lunch with another family from our church and they had just been to a concert the night before.  He was talking about how great of a worship experience he had at that concert even though the band was not considered "sacred".  The concert was Mumford and Sons and I already love them, so I was interested in what he had to say.  He described how at church, worship feels forced and even sometimes hindered.  I couldn't have agreed more.  He was talking about how at the concert, he was just being himself and worshiping in a way that made sense.  At this point, I almost said "Amen".  As a musician, I have some great times of worship just playing something random and thinking of things God has done, or lamenting in a time of struggle even if what I'm playing isn't attached to a particular group of words or song.  I have to believe that we can worship God in ways that most people wouldn't particularly approve of when the focus is taken off ourselves and is placed solely on God.  Isn't that what worship is all about?  I have to ask, why all the worship wars when God is the one with the opinion and His stance is He wants all of us, surrendered to Himself from our wants?  Why do we try to cater to people when people are not who we are worshiping?  Or are they?  In a Mumford and Sons song, they ask: "Can you kneel before The King and say, ‘I’m clean’?" and later in the song they sing "Lead me to the truth, and I’ll follow you with my whole life."  That's pretty awesome worship lyrics if you ask me.  It is a way of people relating to God.  How many times have you struggled with feeling like you're too dirty and too far away from God for Him to save you or even hear you?  I know I have felt that way a lot.  Too many times in Christian music today, issues that we face daily are looked over while feelings we have deep inside of us go unanswered.  Another group I like which is the band Gungor tends to do a good job of relating to people and their struggles instead of just celebrating the high points of this spiritual journey.

I know if you have listened to Mumford and Sons though, you are probably thinking "they use a bad word in one of their songs."  Why yes they do.  Have you ever thought you blew it?  That thing you did and you're hiding or it became public probably made you think "I really f---ed it up this time".  Well, they just sang it.  A moment experienced by the listener is one of total surrender and confession.  It's a realization of the need for repentance.  I do love a statement made in another song later in the album.  It says "In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life.  Awake, my soul. You were made to meet your maker."

Worship to me is the total eviction of me and total focus on God and His mercy and grace.  It is a profound conversation between a creation and it's Creator regardless of context.

Luckily, God is so great I can come to Him with questions and He has answers.  I can come to Him hurting and He has love.  I can come to Him happy and we celebrate.  By sending your Son to die and to carry the sin weight of the world, I'm pretty sure God understands my questions and pains.  There is no need to hide that, especially in music.  Those meaningless words are secular and sacred worship.  What does that even mean to call something sacred and something secular?


I created this blog with a verse in mind.  Psalm 33:3 "Sing unto the Lord a new song.  Play skillfully with a loud noise."  God wants our creativity and He wants our praise.  He wants our music and apparently, He wants it to be noisy and loud!

Death Sentence

It's 62 A.D., Paul is sitting in a jail cell for following Jesus.  The Roman Empire is bearing down on Christians for following the Renegade rather than pledging allegiance to Caesar.  Paul has been stoned (by rocks of course), shipwrecked twice (one time a snake bit him when he came ashore), beaten multiple times, as well as, suffered many other attacks.  His faith does not waiver despite these indignities.  He was sold on Jesus.  When someone who has died shows up in front of you to confront your actions, that is a huge game changer.  Paul was sold on Jesus, even though the punishment was to die.  This group of people who had been taught by Paul and who considered Paul to be a father of the faith were concerned.  They had nothing, yet they gave all they had and then gave more.  Paul states in chapter 4 of Philippians that he had received their gift and realized the sacrifice necessary to send a gift of that magnitude.  As Jay DePoy, my pastor, stated "Every act of love increases your ability to love".  These Philippians loved Paul.  My point though, comes at the very end of this letter from Paul to the Philippians in a very peculiar couple of sentences.   

Philippians 4:21-23 "Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you.  All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

Those brothers in verse 21 that Paul is speaking of are fellow inmates who were either imprisoned for their faith, or were converted by Paul upon his arrival.  They say "thank you".  The next verse is great.  "Especially those of Caesar's household."  They send a big "Hey".  Do you realize the implications of that?  These are people who are part of the empirical domain of Rome and they greet the Christians in Philippi.  The very people who were supposed to be persecuting and squashing this Jesus movement were now a part of it.  I imagine Nero's bed linens being changed and them being prayed over.  Or a feast for Nero's court, being blessed before it goes to be consumed.  I don't think they left tracts though, no tracts.  If theses folks were caught, I am sure that an example would be made of them as well as their families.  They didn't care.  They loved Jesus.

Is your faith strong enough to stand in the context of a death sentence?

An Event to Remember

In my current occupation as a firefighter, I have to see and do things that I typically do not wish to do.  On the rare occasion, I am able to see something great and even more rare, I am allowed the opportunity to just stand back and watch something amazing.  Today was one of those extremely rare occasions.  It's rush hour in Candler, and people are cranky.  I had the opportunity to park my 24 foot long big red truck in front of an intersection and prohibit people from passing.  It was anything but pretty for just a minute. "Just hold on, you will soon see." I told one lady who was very inquisitive as to the why I would not allow her to pass through.  Just peaking over the horizon, I saw the red an blue flashing lights and heard the faint sound of a siren yelp.  Everyone immediately stopped trying to find a way around my truck and began looking in the direction of the faint, yet familiar sound.  A Chief from the City of Asheville Fire Department, high ranking officers from both the North Carolina Highway Patrol, City of Asheville and Buncombe County Sheriff's Department as well as a motorcycle officer and other police cars filed through one by one.  They were immediately followed by motorcycles from The Patriot Guard and directly in the center of the 40-50 motorcycles came a white SUV.  Standing  out of the sunroof opening, breathing the air of home, stood Staff Sergeant Christopher Ollis from the United States Army to thank us.  After serving three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was home.  The procession was taking him to McCormick Field in Downtown Asheville not to enjoy "America's favorite pastime", but to throw ball with his son.  His son had won a chance to throw out the first pitch of the game tonight.  His dad would appear out of the dugout before the game dressed as the team's catcher.  This excited kid would throw ball with what he presumed to be the catcher of the Tourist baseball team and then when he threw the first pitch, with the ball safely secured in the catcher's mitt, the staff sergeant would remove the catcher's mask revealing to the ecstatic child that his father had returned home safely.  In the above picture, the staff sergeant embraces his children much like he caught the baseball, wrapping them up tightly, safe and secure.  This day, I will remember for a long time.   Welcome home Staff Sergeant Ollis.

The Intentional Gospel

What I am writing about is scandalous.  It is so controversial people have been killed for spreading its message.  I'm sure there are people who dislike or even hate me because of my stance, but it's ok, I know the risks involved.  See, we have this epidemic spreading throughout churches of America.  There is an epidemic of omission spreading from our pulpits and street corners.  We have people on this "special agenda" from god.  It's the agenda of comfort.  People love their comforts, that's why we have churches growing stagnate at an alarming rate.  Being born into sin, we have this want and a catchy motto to accompany it: "If it feels good, do it."  Good church folks refuse to acknowledge such a motto, however the evidence is irrefutable.  In a recent survey, the number one reason behind church controversy is the style of worship.  Really?  Did I read that correctly?  How we worship God creates controversy.  Someone call a doctor, this thing is broken!  High on that list is the translation of Bible used in a congregation.  I'm not saying that all translations are inspired or even accurate, but I do know the King James Version of the Bible isn't the original, nor did it fall out of heaven to the early church.  By the way, those are two examples of why I have been given regarding my heathenism of carrying an ESV Bible.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the KJV is incorrect or shouldn't be used, I have one I use.  However, my point is we have strayed so far from grace, we are blinded to it.  We have this comfort and we take everything out of the equation as long as our comfort is securely in place.  So I ask, why not be more concerned with the wants of God?  I refer to the verse that inspired such a blog, Psalm 33:3  "Sing unto the Lord a new song, play skillfully with a loud noise".  It is my belief that God wants our creativity, He did put that within us.  Evidence, look around.  God was creative when He made us.  People are all very different, unique and loved by God.  God doesn't want to hear the same stuff over and over again coming from us.  He wants us to find new ways to uplift Him.  There's a reason dripping water on one's forehead in equal intervals is referred to as water torture.  Think about it, you'll see the connection.

Secondary issues are placed in pulpits along with opinions and the Gospel is neglected.  Having been called to pastoral ministry, my calling and what God wishes for me to do is preach the Gospel.  When someone told one of the greatest preachers in history, Charles Spurgeon, his messages all sounded alike, his response was simple.  He replied he read the text and made a bee-line to the cross.  Our churches need more pastors with a heart for evangelism as well as a love for the lost as Mr. Spurgeon had.

The people from a certain church recently protested Billy Graham here in Asheville.  They have their signs that say God hates and at the bottom they have some group of people listed.  I also have had the misfortune of seeing people from other places come into Asheville and "preach" to people downtown with bullhorns and other media saying that God hates and the list is long.  If these people are correct, I'm doomed.  So are you.  However, I know that they are incorrect and have overlooked a crucial part of who God is.  His very name is Love.  Even in the most quoted verse of the Bible (John 3:16), it states that "God so loved the world".  It doesn't say God loves this group, but not that group, this denomination, but not them because their music is too loud.  It says God loves the world.  That's everybody.  He loves me and He loves you.  He doesn't care what you have done in your past.  He knows about it, so don't be fooled, but He loves you anyhow.  Even that stuff that no one knows about, He knows and He loves you.  

On the other end of the spectrum are the health, wealth and prosperity people who believe that God will give you good vibes, euphoria and everything you heart desires if you follow Him.  They are correct in a sense, but their timing happens to be a little off.  Jesus and His followers were persecuted.  Hated.  They were often times homeless and hungry.  They were beaten, imprisoned and left for dead.  We are told though that when we have finished the race, given our lives, not 10% of our lives (just our money) to Christ, we then will receive the health, wealth and prosperity of spending eternity with our Savior.  

I want to wrap this up by telling a story.  Soon after the resurrection of Christ, the Jewish hierarchy was pretty ticked off.  There was a group of people that just would not let this Jesus thing go.  They were growing larger despite the opposition and the Roman empire breathing down their neck. The Jews were convinced that this Jesus was trying to overthrow their comfort zone (and He was).  They paired up with the Romans and convinced the Romans that this Jesus movement would create an uproar to make the Romans look bad.  Neither group could allow that to happen.  They knew of this Jewish rabbi who had studied with the best.  He was also a killer.  They sent him from town to town like the Orkin man to exterminate these Christians.  He was on a mission from God, or so he thought.  That is until a once dead Jesus stopped him.  On the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to Saul and  changed his heart and his mission.  Now known as Paul, this revolutionary was key to the early church and it's growth.  Paul didn't give Jesus part of his life, or part of himself.  He gave it all.  Everything Paul did was for the church and the message of the scandalous grace of the Gospel.  In my head, I picture the Romans would approach Paul and say, "stop spreading this Jesus or we will kill you".  His reply was, "to die is gain".  Frustrated, they would say, "ok, we'll leave you alone".  "To live is Christ", he would say.  Even more frustrated with this guy having the uncanny knack for getting under their skin, they would say, "fine, we'll beat you and throw you into prison".  Paul would laugh and calmly say, "that's fine, just give me a song book and I'll sing then lead your guards to Jesus".  He was unstoppable!  You have to love Paul.  But Paul's life was about Jesus.  He lived out what it meant to take up your cross and follow Jesus.  

I leave you stating that I have made some big mistakes in my life.  Even on my best days, I still come short of the standard of Christ.  But, so do you and that puts us in the same place of emptiness.  God works on a pass/fail grading scale.  We all start with a failing grade.  This guy Jesus that I've been talking about, He's our ticket to pass. Christ lived a perfect life to be the blameless replacement for us.  It's kind of like that report we did in school.  We received an F on it, but when Jesus was on the cross, he put His name on our paper and gave us His paper.  Jesus, on the cross, took all of the mistakes I made and all of the areas where we don't make the grade, and exchanged them for His perfection.  He only asks that we do one thing, we surrender.  We give up our hopes, dreams and well, everything to Him.  We get rid of our plan for life that in the end would be ridiculous and messed up leaving us in a pile of hopelessness and we embrace His plan.  It won't be easy, and we will still mess up, but He knows.  We will still have daily struggles and issues, but He loves us regardless.  People will hate our message and hate us, but that's ok too.  They hated Jesus, but He overcame them.  The Good News about this is we don't have to change ourselves first.  We just have to surrender.  Daily.  In the end, if we surrender, His love for us wins.  It conquers our anxiety, addictions, bad habits and imperfections.  If we don't surrender to Christ, we keep our F and we are doomed.  However, with His love, it is never too late. You can never be too far from Him to receive His grace.  He's looking for you and pursuing you relentlessly.  He is waiting on you and waiting to place that passing grade on your permanent record.  His grace covers us, His love for us never fails and it is so sweet.  Love wins.

It's not over...

Mary missed her Lord, she wanted nothing more than for Him to still be there.  Mary Magdalene, and another friend went with her early that morning to anoint Jesus.  They had no idea how they were going to get into the tomb, but it was irrelevant. The stone was gone.  All the emotions of just a few days ago were rolling up inside them again.  Panic was running through their veins and fear was written on their faces.  As they rush in to confirm their fears they see some guy sitting there.  Wondering who this guy was and what he was doing there, they were scared.  The guy told them to not be afraid, that Jesus of Nazareth, the very person they were looking for was not there.  I think Mary M probably gave him a "duh" right there.  He wasn't finished though, he told them He was risen and to tell the disciples and Peter what they had seen.  That was some amazing grace at it's finest.  Peter who had denied Christ just days ago was dealing with some heavy stuff.  He thought he could never be forgiven.  Could you imagine having denied Christ only to hear that He wanted you to know personally that He was alive and everything was better than ok?  The ladies rush away from the tomb, scared out of their minds and they told no one.

Jesus showed up to Mary M's house one morning and performed yet another miracle.  She rushed to the disciples and told them but they did not believe her.  Then Jesus appeared to two of the disciples and they told the others with excitement, but again they didn't believe.  I think Jesus chuckled as He showed up in front of all of them.  "Really?  I showed up to 3 of you.  I even told you I would rise from the dead before I died and you still didn't believe."  That's Nateaphrased...

Fear turned to hope, anxiety turned to passion as He spoke.  He told them to go into every nation and every nook and cranny of those nations proclaiming this hope.  So they did go to many nations preaching Jesus through love.  Jesus had sent the Holy Spirit to guide them and us as we proclaim that

He is ALIVE!!!!!

It is finished...

It happened, just how He said it would. He was arrested, tried and falsely convicted. They saw Him beaten, forced to carry a cross and nailed to the cross. They saw Him raised up, mocked and forsaken by God. He took the sin of the world on Himself and died. Jesus is dead. They carried Him to a borrowed tomb and watched as the Romans rolled a stone to seal them out, posting guards by the door. There's confusion and chaos everywhere. It seems that no one knows what to do. So they go back to the last place, the last place they met and they pray. They pray for wisdom, for peace, for understanding but mostly they pray for their Rabbi whom they had followed giving up everything. They followed Him homeless, hungry and in doubt, but He always had a plan and their needs were always met. Already they miss His teaching and His way of pulling things together. Judas is hanging from a tree, Peter is in disbelief that he actually denied His Lord and thinks He's doomed. The only thing "good" about today was that the prophecies had been fulfilled. There was no doubt in the mind of these 11 radicals that Jesus was the Messiah. They had witnessed history be changed forever. History was no longer customs and traditions, it was now His story and they were going to change the world.
It's not over...

The Silent One

Have you ever seen a speech delivered by Adolph Hitler?  Being of German descent, I have to admit I have no idea what he's saying.  However, due to history, I know that it isn't good.  That isn't really the point though.  The point is Hitler moved people.  What he said and how he said it had a way of connecting and moving the people into following him by the masses.  Ghandi, Churchill, Lincoln, Stalin as well as a few other political and religious leaders could move people as well in this magnitude.  Let's face the music though, we all can't deliver a speech to such a mass amount of people such as these people.  We can, however, have a huge impact.  I want to look at the life of who I consider to be an often overlooked disciple.  I give you none other than Andrew.

He was formerly a follower of John the Baptist.  He met Jesus before actually being called by Christ.  In Luke we read that he brought his brother Cephas (Peter) to meet the Messiah.  This played a crucial part in Peter's later announcement to Christ that he was the Messiah.  He returned to being a fisherman and it is believed that almost a year passed before Christ came to the shore side and told Peter and Andrew to follow Him and He would make them fishers of men.  I believe that Jesus to these two because he knew what Peter would do in the future of establishing the church and reaching countless people.  He also saw that Andrew was the one who would bring people to Him.  We don't see a lot of Andrew throughout the Gospels, but his small appearances make a huge impact.

The next time we see this quiet apostle is at the Sea of Tiberias among a multitude of hungry people who were following Jesus.  Phillip, when asked by Christ how to feed such a large amount of people, was frightened and even said it was simply impossible. Then Andrew spoke up and begin asking what sort of provisions there were.  He then led the boy with five loaves and two fishes stating that it wasn't much, but it was all the boy had to provide for all these people.  If you're unaware of the remainder of this story, Jesus performed a miracle by using those five loaves and two fishes to feed the large crowd of people.

Next, when Andrew shows up, the disciples and Jesus are on the side of the Jordan.  There were some pagan converts who were in Jerusalem to worship God during the Passover.  They approached Phillip asking to see Jesus and Phillip delegated the task to Andrew.  Andrew took the request to Christ, and though it was not said if Christ met with these converts, I believe that Christ would not have turned them away.  However, they received a tremendous surprise.  Jesus responded in John 12:23-29, and it reads:  23 Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.   24 “I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.[g] 25 The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me. Where I am, there My servant also will be. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.   27 “Now My soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save Me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name!”[h]   Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again!” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said that an angel had spoken to Him. (HCSB)

While sitting on the Mount of Olives, Jesus, Peter, James, John and Andrew took part in an event with Christ that upset every Jew tremendously when Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem.  In Mark 13, we read that Jesus was asked to reveal when this will take place and what will be the sign.  Jesus' reply proceeded the question, and you can read that for yourself.

The next time you hear of Andrew occurs after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  The disciples met in the upper room, full of anxiety about what was coming next, to pray.

It's neat to look at the other disciples and their personalities contrasted to the personality of Andrew.  He wasn't outspoken like Peter, he didn't ask for special status such as James and John.  But more curious and unusual is the fact that our Lord Himself let Andrew stand by in silence. Jesus had not called him to a place of superiority among His disciples; it was his brother Simon, who owed his acquaintance with Jesus to Andrew, whom our Lord had called to be the leader of the apostles. But would not Peter's brother also have been capable of holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven, even more fit than the impetuous Peter? And it was not Andrew whom our Lord permitted to rest on His bosom, but John. Did Andrew therefore love his Master less than John? No. He too experienced with John the joy of the "tenth hour."

Andrew simply did not belong to the circle of the entrusted three whom our Lord especially had chosed to witness the most important hours of his life; at least not directly as did Peter, James, and John. When Christ was raising the daughter of Jairus to life, certainly this apostle was waiting with the other eight outside the small room. With them he remained behind also when our Lord took Peter, James, and his brother John and ascended Mount Tabor for the Transfiguration. Even in the Garden of Olives, Andrew had to remained with the other apostles; he was not permitted to go off a distance with our Lord and the privileged three-although he might have been the only one to keep a watch and pray and not fall asleep.

The fact that Andrew was sometimes with the three "elite" apostles and sometimes with the other eight is clearly shown to us throughout the Gospels.  Jesus didn't consider Andrew less important than the first three apostles. Think about it though, what seems to be an oversight on the part of Christ is a great act of trust and confidence I believe. Andrew was the first one to be called. Between Jesus and him there was an understanding.  He is loved even when there are no special favors. This, it can be rightly judged, was the relationship between Jesus and Andrew, a silent understanding and love, a real happiness.

One of the lessons we are taught through Andrew is that the one who holds a place of honor must not always be the one to speak; and if he is the first, he should also be as the last. It is easier to fall from a high place than from a low place. Andrew showed that it is possible, though difficult, for a great person to practice true humility.

Another lesson I believe, is that we may not be our brother (Peter) and reach thousands upon thousands of people, many at the same time.  However, if you look at Andrew, he was constantly bringing one, two, three people to Christ.  My point is, we may not be the next Dr. Graham, we may not be the next Peter or Paul.  We may, however, be the next Andrew and a constant, steady flow of people to Christ.  The church of today should have this picture and hang on to it.  While it's great to bring in thousands and thousands of people to Christ at one time (I might add that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, it's completely Biblical), however I can't help to think that most of us don't have that spiritual gift.  Most of us will be bringing the one person, the two people and so on.  If you are part of a church that has say 100 people, your fellow Christians as well as yourself should have no problem reaching thousands of people.  

The moral of the story: instead of being a mega star, be humble, brave and silent while leading people one at a time to the Rock Star. (That's JESUS)

I'm a Saint

I hope you like the new look.  I really liked the idea of making my own banner for the site, so I made one.  It's right up there, yep above this.  I hope you like it!

I'm a saint.  There, I said it. Saint Nate is my name and well, my game is pretty lame.  Sometimes rhyming gets on my nerves so I'll stop for the sake of you as well.  If I had to choose my saint name though, it would definitely be Saint Liechtensteiner or something cool like that.  Nate will suffice though.  So I know I talk a lot on here about Christian hip-hop, but I am very impressed with these men and their influence on urban culture.  The subject of this is really based off a song by Christian artist Tedashii titled "I'm a Saint". These guys have recently released an album entitled Man Up.  This album by a group of these guys called the 116 Clique is a great charge to urban men and even includes a Bible study and ways for men to "Man Up".

Back to the scheduled program, I am a saint.  No, sainthood has not been granted to me by a church, religious organization or country, but by Christ who gave His life for me.  When He came to earth for me, he saved me from my filth.  It doesn't stop there, and that act wasn't a free ticket to heaven and eternal cloud surfing.  I had to reach a place in my life where I realized that without Christ's forgiveness, I would be eternally doomed.   When I reached that place, I had no idea about the work but joy that came next.  A lot of people and even pastors think that saying a little prayer will get you riding the clouds.  Wrong!  The key to salvation, which is a far cry from cloud surfing, is repentance.  When Christ died, He became an atonement for our sins.  What is atonement you might ask?  The best way I've ever heard it defined is like this: at|one|ment.  When we turn away (repent) of our sins, filth, bad habits, etc. we become at one with God.  We don't become God, but Children of God.  The key there is we have to die, yes die.  We have to die to all our wants, dreams and selfishness and totally give ourselves to God.  We have to want His will and we have to give up sin.  That's the only way to go to heaven and eternally give praise to God who sacrificed paradise to come down to earth and suffer, be beaten, mocked, humiliated and die to raise from the dead and defeat death for our sins.  So, being a child of God, this has put me into the status of sainthood.  Not so I can boast, but that Christ can get all of the glory and praise.  I am second...

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Business vs Ministry

I think I'll take on the area of churches operating as businesses. I've seen a lot of things that even my own church has done that, while making perfect sense as a business practice, have absolutely no logic to it ministry-wise. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should be bad stewards of what we have been given, or that we shouldn't try to bring money in. I'm saying that the money we bring in as a church, should go back out and invested in the eternal lives of people.

When we look at our church finances and begin to make cuts because we are worried that the money may not come, we have essentially taken God out of the picture. There isn't any faith in that, so what are we teaching our congregations? Again, great business decision and a poor ministry decision.

I recently read an article about a band who were beginning to set up a live recording of one of their concerts live. I love live recordings, they are artistry at their best. However, when creating a set list they were faced with omitting a song that their church worshipped to in a remarkable way because it wasn't really a record selling song. They had to ask themselves if their purpose was to sell records or facilitate worship. They chose to worship, but how easy would it have been to sell more and essentially make more abandoning their call and purpose? How easy is it for us as believers to forget our call and purpose?

I was taught as a child to never question your elders, pastors, or church staff. I didn't listen very well and I will do my best to never teach that. Even in the Bible we are told to have discernment, and to test spirits. So, I encourage you to test everything. Your pastor, Sunday school teacher, myself, the bands you listen to, everything. If nothing else, you will learn more about God's word and additionally, your own faith.