New blog

I'm migrating over to wordpress. You can find me at http://captinchip302.wordpress.com

Give the Gift of Clean Water from Blood:Water Mission on Vimeo.

Going off the grid

So I'm taking my own advice and going off the grid this week. I spend a whole lot of time on facebook, twitter, blogs, and email that it's consuming. I consume. So for the next week I'm going to go off the grid. No twitter, no facebook, no blogs, no email.....well maybe email like twice a day. Instead I'd like to use my time to create more. I'm certain that the leaders that I look up to the most do not spend their free time on twitter, or reading blogs, or endlessly researching seminaries. I do. So I'm trying an experiment here. Check back here this week and maybe some of my creations will make their way to my blog.

Hebrews 13

Reading these words from the author of Hebrews the other day brought tears to my eyes. I feel like this is where I am right now: going to Jesus, outside of the camp. For all the the critiques I have of the church I still love her and always will.

We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Hebrews 13:10-15 (NIV)

I particularly loved the way the message puts it.

The altar from which God gives us the gift of himself is not for exploitation by insiders who grab and loot. In the old system, the animals are killed and the bodies disposed of outside the camp. The blood is then brought inside to the altar as a sacrifice for sin. It's the same with Jesus. He was crucified outside the city gates—that is where he poured out the sacrificial blood that was brought to God's altar to cleanse his people. So let's go outside, where Jesus is, where the action is—not trying to be privileged insiders, but taking our share in the abuse of Jesus. This "insider world" is not our home. We have our eyes peeled for the City about to come. Let's take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus' name.

May I never be a privileged insider.

The Wisdom of Eugene Peterson

“Living with some tension, in mystery, is part of the life of faith, and it’s what keeps us growing. The minute we become dogmatic, we close our minds. There’s a lot to be said for saying, “i don’t know.” Some parents don’t say that to their kids enough.”

- Eugene Peterson in Image Magazine

The art of asking the right question

In the middle of trying to walk through a difficult situation I asked a wise friend how you give someone advice when you can clearly see the solution but they don't. He gave me the a great answer:

Often times the best thing to do is ask a slew of questions and allow the person to come to their own conclusion. People don't need your solution, but need to come to it on their own terms.

I was struck by it's simplicity. I admit I'm not very good at asking those cutting questions. I have friends that are. In the midst of all the haze they can ask a question that cuts to the point. I hope I get there someday. Even today in the middle of another tough conversation I was asking myself what is the question that needs to be asked here? I don't know if I found it, but I tried.

It reminds of a great book I read by Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak. In it he describes a Quaker tradition called a "Clearness Committee." During this process a group of friends essentially ask you questions about a particular decision, or a certain circumstance. I've always loved the idea. Jesus rarely answers a question directly, he usually answers with another question. I wonder how much better our relationships, our advice, our churches, our teams would be if we could simply learn the art of asking the right question.

MP3 Experiment