My job is to build relational bridges of connection so that the people of Cedar Ridge move more freely into all three of those areas: Love God. Love People. Serve the World. I am trying to connect our guests to our groups through need fulfillment relationships started in prayer and I am trying to connect our groups to our growth through outreach focused service. We are convinced that guests come into our Worship Services on Sunday morning to EXPLORE God and what He is doing in and through the people of Cedar Ridge. We believe that our guests will best EXPERIENCE God’s love for people as they participate in our groups. We try to EXTEND the love of God into the world around us through service in the community and across the globe.

I am charged with the simple task of connecting and moving people through this process. Simple. Not easy. But simple.

The day started in Hope with abundant sunshine and perfect temperatures. The day ended on an early Sunday Morning nearly 19 hours later in an old church sanctuary, under a huge wooden cross hanging from the ceiling as a group of men; sweaty, hot, sore, and tired labored to clean up the last piles of saw dust and nails. It has now been long dark outside the stained glass windows. The joy and fun of volunteer work had become a distant memory several hours ago. All that remained was the reality that the job had to be completed tonight for the worship service in this building would be starting soon. In just a short while the people who call this church home will show up to praise God as they have done for the past 40 years. But, this time they will be greeted by an all new look and feel!

So as I think back to my time last night, it was the sounds of the moment that impacted me most. In the final minutes of our time together as we completed the clean-up from the preaching platform project I heard so many sounds. Inside the sanctuary, endlessly roared the shrill sounds of compressors and nail guns. The sounds of the spinning saws and drills echoed from the vaulted, wooden beamed ceilings. There were also the sounds of men working together to make it all happen – but outside, in the darkness was the sound of people fighting, the sounds of awful cursing in anger as the people in the apartment complex behind the church tried to hurt with each other with words and  fists, and then as a final reminder of the battle that rages between good and evil, Light and dark, the sound of gun shots cracked in the distance outside the front door of the church.

It was a day that I will not soon forget. It was a day that I want share with others. It was a day that will live on for many years to come because of the things that God started in the SunShine, when the Church comes TOGETHER!

It all started at 6:30 am Saturday, May 30, 2009 – It all finished at about 1 am the next day. 18 1/2 Hours of pure WOW!

What if the Church?….

What if the church served together? It was amazing to see people come together in a common purpose as volunteers to meet the needs of others. I saw whole families show up in the inner city of Kansas City with paint brushes and rakes to serve together. I saw old people and young people working together to haul trash. I saw big, gruff construction workers with weather beaten faces working together with young, free-spirited High School kids to move mountains of rock. I received phone calls from people to donate hundreds of dollars for flowers to brighten the landscapes of places surrounded by cement and bricks. I worked with a group of men bonded together by the hope of what could be as we built a new preaching platform in an old church building.  The transformation was amazing! A old stage sagging and rotten in the middle was replaced by an all new hard wood platform where the message of God will be proclaimed for many, many years to come.

But, now that the dust has settled, I realize that the day was about much more than new building projects, and flowers, and paint…The day was about people and the Love of God through people.  The day was about opening doors to the Kingdom of Heaven. I was working in a housing unit for homeless mothers and children. We were painting the dinning area, (think elementary school cafeteria) the new walls were painted in a light shade of blue, the trim was all white. It looked great, it smelled fresh and I said, that I couldn’t even remember the color of the old walls that we just painted…and a little girl who lives in the shelter looked up at me and she said, ”Mr. the old walls were an ugly, grayish color and now they look so beautiful and blue! Thank You!!”

To me this day was about projects to be completed, but to this little girl the day was about adding color and beauty to her life that was so full of darkness and gray.

This is what I have been working on for the past 3 weeks. I have been part of the leadership team in charge of the SERVE DAY project. TODAY we will have 1,500-2,000 different people from 11 different churches working together at 9 different sites in urban Kansas City Kansas, and Kansas City Missouri. Notice the word, DIFFERENT? These 11 churches are from different denominations, different sizes, different parts of the city, with different visions for reaching people – But TODAY, all 11 churches are serving together as THE CHURCH, with a Big C!!

This project has been a massive under-taking. We have developed a brand new, web-based people system to get everybody organized. It has been a great experience for me to have an office in the church building once again. It has been great to be involved in Kingdom building from inside the church community instead of apart and separate from it. It has been great to be on a team again. It has been great to be doing something as my job/my vocation that more closely aligns with my calling as a Pastor kinda guy.

I am on the way out to support these Urban Ministry Partners now. I will share much more about this incredidible mission in Church unity tonight!! I can’t wait to share the stories!

In Matthew Chapter 12  we find Jesus walking through a field of grain on a Sabbath day. Not a big deal, except His guys are picking the grain and eating it. The Religious folks were there (probably following the Jesus gang just to check on their rule keeping abilities) and they caught them; They caught the Jesus guys working on the Sabbath day! Remember breaking the Sabbath was no small little sin, that was one of the Big 10 Commandments. So what did Jesus do to His guys? Did He redirect them in the ways of Holy Rule Keeping? Did He tell them that they were going to hell for that? No! Jesus reminded the religious folks that the heart of God is MERCY, not Sacrifice! Jesus reminded them that God wants their Love, more than their religious actions. Jesus quoted the Old testament Verse  Hosea 6:6 (read the Message version of this verse, for a kicker)

This is the deal for me: How do I balance mercy and rules in my life? It is abundantly clear that Jesus is more interested in Love & Forgivness than He is in rule keeping, and yet Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-20 that He came not to destroy the Law (rules), but instead to fulfill them!?! So here is the challenge: Do we know the rules well enough to know what to do when the rules seem to get in the way of love? It would be easy to just throw away all the rules and say, I don’t need no stinking rules, I am going to live my way! That is NOT what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying that if we knew God, if we loved God, if we lived for God, then we would know when the rules get in the way and when the rules ARE the way.

So what religious things am I doing in my life simply for the sake of religion, and what religious things am I doing in my life because by doing those things I am becoming more like Jesus in my love, and my character, and my mercy? I will ponder, perhaps you should do the same?

Bottom line: 10 days ago, when we all got together, it was all about leaving our crap at the door. We all have junk in our lives. For some of us the junk is an addiction. For some of us it is a broken relationship. For some of us it is a current relationship that is killing us inside. For some of us it is a boat load of messed up sexual stuff. For some of us it is a past that haunts us daily. For some of us it is simply us that we can seem to get beyond.

10 days ago, 19 of us decided to leave our crap outside the door. Part of the junk we left outside the door was the various masks that we wear in our normal lives. The masks of happiness. The mask of success. The mask of cool. The mask of tough guy. The masks of “you can’t hurt me.” I was uncomfortable without my masks. But I healed a little bit in the vulnerablity of that group.

So Today I leave for a five day retreat. I leave my front door without my masks. I leave not on a pleasant retreat. but a retreat of inward honesty. Who am I? Why am I? how did I get to be who I am? I leave to meet the real me! A few months ago I left for Poland, partly to get away from me. Today I leave not to get away from me, but instead to get closer to me than I have ever been. I hope to meet God inside of me the way I met God in a country far, far from home! I think this is all part of the same long journey that started on a trip to Poland.

Off to the mountain i go…to find me, maskless, hurt, and real.

Apparently the message and mission of the Jesus Movement is so radical that even John The Baptist wonders if Jesus is a bit crazy?!? Remember John had a powerful ministry! People were pouring out of the cities to hear his message. He too was outside of the religious establishment pointing the way to the New Kingdom! He too was being persecuted by the “church leaders” of his day. In fact, he had been thrown in jail at this point for his radical message of the new world order. So… even this radical guy John was wondering if Jesus was too radical to be the Son of God!?!

This is the obvious question for me, right now, “Is Jesus too radical for me?”

What if I was there, would I follow Jesus? Would I go against the grain of my church? Would I go against the grain of my family tradition? Would I be willing to be an outcast in my home town? Would I be willing to proclaim that a New Kingdom is at hand? Would I be willing to go a different way than the popular way? Would I be willing to reject the American Dream for God’s dream? Would I be willing to leave my church and be known as a heretic? Would I be willing to put everything I own, am, and will be on the line for the Jesus Way?

I think that the answer is YES, I will follow Jesus, but the truth is…sometimes as I read the story of Jesus in Matthew, I ask myself…”Is this Jesus guy too radical for me? is there a better way? is there another I should be following?” The answer for me is, I am with Jesus, “Yes”

But…

It is easy to “Yes” Jesus, in our American culture, however the reality is that many times our “Yes” in the American version of the Jesus Movement is far short of the Radical Movement as described in the Gospel of Matthew!

And now the tone changes a little bit!  Matthew 10 

Jesus seems a bit ticked off to me?!? I get the sense that Jesus recognized the opposition to Him and His ministry and instead of trying to compromise and ear-tickle, He went into attack mode. He sent His guys out with this charge:

Travel light, do not let a lack of money and resources slow you down, start where you are; with those closest to you. Begin proclaiming the new way of life to the “church folk” they should know a thing or two about God anyway. Spend your time with the people who like you and are receptive to your message. Be gentle AND smart! Expect persecution from those of your own faith, family, and friends! The message of the New Kingdom is more important than peace in your relationships! Jesus reminds them that He also is being persecuted by those He came to save, so too will His followers be persecuted by those who reject the New Kingdom, the New Economy, the new Way of life in God.

So…no more Mr. Nice Guy! It is time to confront the world with the Kingdom!

David is a warrior and a king, and as a man of war David relates with his God as a man of war. Perhaps you may be uncomfortable with a prayer that asks God to utterly destroy people. Perhaps you are not comfortable with the fact that David was rejoicing that his God answered his prayer and helped David overtake his enemies until they were in fact utterly destroyed. He wounded them until they could not rise. David rejoiced that his God gave him victory by cutting the necks of his enemies, he beat them into a fine dust in the wind (not a pretty picture.)  David rejoices that a conquered people will now serve and obey him as slaves do a king.

I would rather not think of God as a Lord of war. I would rather relate with God in this way of thinking – “Blessed is the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”, kinda God. But, the reality is that I am not a man of war. I am not a king. I am not ruling a nation. I am just a guy trying to pay the bills, raise a family, help my wife be what God has called her to be, and live out my purpose in His Kingdom. So…I do not need a God of War in my life. I need a God of the boring, over-weight family guy in suburban America.

But…God is God! He is God of David and of War! He is God of me, the boring family guy who spends his weekends watching girls softball games. God is the God I need when my lawn mower won’t start. I don’t need a God to help me destroy my enemies by cutting their necks and beating them into dust, but I do need God to help me with 3rd grade math as I feebly attempt to help my son with his homework. God is just as interested in my life as He was the life of David! I need to trust God as David  trusted him! I too have enemies, but I don’t need them killed!

Sometimes I am reminded that I truly am a Neanderthal in the emotional realm of life. As I read the Psalms for today, I recognize that far too often I approach God with my head and not my heart. I THINK about God and what He wants from me. I THINK about God and how I can please Him. I THINK about God and how I can get other people to also THINK about God. I THINK about God to undersdtand Him as I THINK about a political situation to understand it.

But not so with David! David has an emotional relationship with God. David feels God more than I do. David’s heart is more involved with his God-relationship than mine often is. 

Help me God to feel today! Help me to love you today with my heart and my soul, not just my head!