Tag Archives: mission

April 23, 2014

Heaven Is For Real, that’s why i won’t see the movie

By pbstone

Abrasive Alert!  Let me say this right away up front, some of you will read this and won’t like it.  I’m ok with that; but I don’t know you are. Most of us want others to think the same way we do about things and then get a little perturbed when they don’t…  But don’t let that stop you – read on!

When the book Heaven is for Real came out several years ago, I had a discerning movement in the pit of my stomach.  I believe that is God’s gift to me when His Spirit is telling my spirit that something isn’t quite right.  It happens often enough that I have learned to pay attention to two things: what is happening in the world around me and what does Scripture have to say?

Around me in the world, especially in the world of evangelicalism, this book is receiving a lot of attention.  A young boy and his family are receiving a lot of attention! That thing that happens in my stomach was happening.  So I looked to Scripture.  

Interestingly, in the Bible, nobody goes to heaven, comes back, and tells about it.  What about Jesus, you ask?  Well, technically, Jesus came from the Father’s side in heaven and has now returned back to the Father’s side.  We are still waiting for his return, when the Kingdom will be fully manifested. Even Lazarus, after several days in the tomb, doesn’t have anything to say.  I have always wondered about that…

Jesus does tell a parable about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus in Luke 16.  The rich man dies and goes to hell and the beggar, Lazarus, goes to heaven near Abraham.  In the parable the rich man, in his hellish misery, begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his family.  The funny thing is this – in the parable Abraham is abundantly clear that even if Lazarus was to come back from the dead his family wouldn’t believe.

Who has gone up to heaven and come down? The is the question of the author of Proverbs 30:4. This question doesn’t get answered until John 3:13: No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man.  In Scripture there are only 4 accounts of visions of heaven.  Over the course of thousands of years – only four accounts recorded in the Bible.  Isaiah, Ezekial, Paul in 2 Corinthians, and John’s vision in Revelation.

In all four accounts recorded in Scripture, there is also only one common denominator – a complete preoccupation with the magnificent glory of God.  

The book, Heaven is for Real, was sitting around our house.  So I picked it up.  This was years after it had come out.  It is well written.  But, the book, it is focused on the boy’s experience.  He even describes not liking the wings he was given (didn’t know we were getting wings in resurrection – that would’ve freaked out the disciples when Jesus walked through the wall!).  The book is not biblical.  But we like it, and others, anyway.  Why?

In our North American evangelical sub-culture, we have an unhealthy pre-occupation with end-times, heaven and hell.  It’s become popular.  Actually, our whole North American culture has become very distracted by apocalyptic themes.  This is why zombies are now showing up everywhere in media. I believe we, as a culture, are profoundly dissatisfied with our lives.  So we cling to those things that talk about something, somewhere else, being better or worse than our own experiences.  This way we have something euphoric to look forward to, or we can say at least lives aren’t as bad as that!  We have forgotten that Jesus came from heaven to give us a life, a full life – a life of abundant purpose.  Jesus wants us to live exciting lives.  Here.  Now. You can read about that in John 10.

But, what isn’t popular, is actually reading the Bible, believing God (different than believing in God, btw), and working hard in partnership with the Spirit for the transformation of ourselves and our world.

Getting pumped as the Newsboys sing God’s Not Dead at the end of the movie with the same title or after seeing Heaven is for Real, doesn’t make for lasting change. In many ways we have become like those who kept asking Jesus, after his many miracles, for a sign.  Jesus had some interesting things to say about that in Matthew 12:38ff.  

I love going to movies, you could even call it a habit – err… I mean a hobby! But movies don’t transform. Deep change comes in our lives when we partner deeply with God’s Spirit in working out our salvation “with fear and trembling.” (Phil 2:12)  We have to do the hard work of discipleship.  As we slowly begin to grow up and mature in Christ, we slowly begin to live lives that reflect the image of Christ in us.  We begin to slowly make a significant impact where we live, work and play.

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March 13, 2014

The Comfy Room

By pbstone

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I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. ~ Jesus, John 17:22

That’s what she called it when she asked us to meet.  The comfy room.

We, those who met in the comfy room, are the vision team for a Gospel Movement in our city.  In that room today was this amazing mix of people: male, female, pastors, leaders, hispanic, african american and caucasian.  We come from a broad spectrum of denominations and traditions; but have a deep understanding that we are all part of one Church.

We also have a deep understanding that we form a community with a commitment to stewarding this movement God has entrusted to us.

We met in the comfy room.

The comfy room is an intimate place in the congregation where I serve.  It heats up nicely in the winter (which seems to be long this year), has nice lighting, several nice sofas and arm chairs.  It is a comfy room. But it really isn’t the lighting, the walls or the furniture that makes the room comfy. It is the authentic community which is both expressed and experienced in that space that makes it comfy.

Each one in that room, in the pattern of Scripture, possesses great leadership gifts and callings which are expressed in a variety of ways and places.  Each one in that room, the comfy room, walks in the authority of Christ’s anointing and the Spirit’s filling.

They made the room “the comfy room” today. We met to pray, debrief, evaluate & plan following up on an event we sponsored in response to God’s call for repentance and unity in the Church.  This community I am privileged to be part of made the room comfy through how we are learning to be together.

This community on mission together, and filled of lots of personalities, was able to listen deeply to one another. We spoke passionately and prophetically to one another.  We asked hard questions – some of which we can’t answer yet.  We put relationships ahead of agendas. Sometimes, over time, we hurt one another and have to reconcile and pursue relationship all over again.  We love one another and are learning to love one another better.  

Sometimes we laugh and play and get off track.  I think that is part of it, it knits us together.  

Paul says this in Colossians 3:12-14 “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

We met in the comfy room.  But every room with this group of freaks is a comfy room.

Do you have an authentic community of people you meet in comfy rooms with?

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February 12, 2014

Mission in the Morning

By pbstone

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Was Jesus a morning person?

So, can I be brutally honest with you?  I hate mornings.  I am not a morning person.  I think over time, because of kids and getting up for work, my body has learned to wake up in the morning.  But I am not a morning person.  And as much as I am high on anyone’s extrovert scale, I don’t like people in the morning.

I love my kids. I love my wife.  I work hard at being somewhat bearable in the morning.  I drink coffee and eat a piece of fruit and as the kids make their way to school I head to the gym to work out.

Because Jesus is perfectly loving…

We’ll call him Bill (not his real name).  He is a morning person. And, he likes to talk – a lot!  He works out in the morning where I do and he is HUGE.  At first it was fine.  For about the first year of going to the gym before I should even be awake, Bill would work his way around the fitness center chatting with everyone he knew.  He didn’t know me and so for months I thought I was safe.

Then one morning we both wanted to use the same machine, and he did it. He stepped over what I thought was the understood line and introduced himself.  With his hand outstretched (attached to a massively muscled arm) he said, “how ya doing?”  From that day forward we haven’t not talked when we see each other at the gym.

At first it was superficial.  Then he took the initiative and began to give me some pointers about my gym routine – and my eating.  Soon he began telling me he’s taking a class in college and struggling with it.  In between sets of cable crossovers I casually ask him, while gasping for breath, what class it is. Bill tells me he is in a creative writing class and had to read some essay about happiness from a “something David somethingorother.”  “Henry David Thoreau?” I ask.

He’s amazed at my knowledge at what he is reading and gives me a fist pound.

Jesus told us that because he is perfect, God will give us only good gifts.  Being on mission with him is one of those gifts!

Over the next several weeks Bill shares with me about the abuse in his childhood which led to his dropping out of school in the late 70’s.  Somewhere in the last decade or so he finally got his GED after 3 years of trying.  In the process of getting his GED they discovered he has a reading disorder called Dyslexia.  He’s taking a college writing class just to “better himself” and keep his mind active. I asked why a creative writing class if he doesn’t read well. He replied, “Why bother learning something you already know? That’s the point of school, to learn what you don’t know.”

Now my morning workout is filled with conversation, between sets of course, about the meanings of words, reading strategies (thanks to my reading teacher bride) and the meaning of what he is reading.  Bill is learning to read, really read, and I believe the Kingdom of God is coming in his life while we talk about “happiness.”

This morning he asked me what I do for a living. When I told him I am a pastor his response was…  Well, we’ll write about that another day maybe…

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