I recently caught a movie on Netflix, at a friends request.  I was told that there was depth and hidden meaning in there that I may appreciate.  Well my friend was right.  The movie?  The Island starring Obi-Wan Kenobi, I mean, Ewan McGregor.

Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) is a resident of a seemingly Utopian but repressive facility in the year 2019. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to to win the “Lottery” and go to the "The Island" - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet.   Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones, generated to provide replacement organs to the owners of an insurance policy.  Lincoln makes a daring escape with a fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta. and are relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister Institute that once housed them. Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers and pull the curtain down on this charade.

Wow, there is so much to say, but I am going to leave it to linger until the next post.

I hit upon something recently that really rattled my cage.  I am a man of dreams and vision, of things I want to do to further the kingdom of God on this earth.  However, I find that I cannot pull the trigger.  For whatever specific reason or list of reasons, I hesitate, I over-analyze, I talk myself out it, and end up doing little to nothing.  Ironically, I am not this way in my career as I can be quite driven and goal-oriented.  So what gives?

My journey started with a Scripture in the Apostle Pau’s letter to the church in Thessalonica (modern day Greece). 

…we pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.  

My “good ideas”?  Really, can all those dreams, desires, passions really be of value to God?  I have not been so sure.  Many times the words of the Prophet Jeremiah nailed such desires to the wall. 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

To compound it, throughout much of my life in the church I have been taught to not “miss God”.  That it is best to be in God’s “perfect will” as opposed to His “permissive will”.  I understand the sentiment but I discovered that in my lack of confidence in knowing God’s “perfect" will” I was left me paralyzed.  Afraid to take action.  I was stuck.

Anyone who struggles with their desires should read the book by John Eldredge titled appropriately, Desire.  It served as the trigger by which the Spirit opened up this place in my heart.

Why does Paul pray for our ideas to be energized by God’s own energy? 

…so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am now taking small steps in a number of areas to bring some of these many dreams, desires, and passions into existence.

“I want to do my part for the hive but I can’t do it the way they want.”  ~Barry Bee

From “Bee Move” starring Jerry Seinfeld.

Sounds like my personal slogan…..

The story of Mary and Martha is found in Luke 10) where we see Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus as Martha was working on meal preparations for her distinguished guests. When Martha expressed her frustration about Mary’s lack of assistance to such matters, Jesus replied, "Mary has chosen what is better…" This does not imply that Martha's work to serve the meal was wrong but Mary had chosen to spend time in the presence of Jesus, listening to Jesus' words and teaching.  One is left to speculate if Martha had gone overboard in her efforts but clearly she was distracted by her service and unable to enjoy her the company of her special guest.   Jesus pointed out that Martha was "worried and bothered about so many things" and missing the "good part." Simply put, she needed to rearrange her priorities.

I am convinced that acts of service to the church, community, etc. must come from a deeply personal and passionate relationship with God.  From this place we come to know and understand His love for people and our service will flow naturally from our heart.   I heard a preacher say that there are lovers and there are workers and that it is the lovers who get more work done than the workers. Why?  A passionate lover always outperforms a good servant.

What is it about us as individuals that compels us to serve the "church" but not the "kingdom"? Does that thought shock you? Am I saying there is a difference?  Is not serving the church and the kingdom the same thing? Well, yes and no.

Most churches operate with a few paid "professionals" (pastors and staff) and an army of volunteers. The resulting situation is that the church professionals are forced to operate in a “recruiter” mindset because of the ever-present need to fill the empty slots on the roster and maintain the smooth operation of the church machinery.

This is not wrong, in and of itself, but I believe we have erred along the way.

We get so caught up in serving the church that we forget WHO it is we are actually serving. Our service to the machine becomes more important than our relationship with Christ. Many times we become PRIDEFUL as we tout our committee involvement, our years on the elder board, our years of membership, etc.  It becomes more about US and the Institution.

We have traded the BEST thing for a GOOD thing and I believe that church leadership is complicit in this (albeit somewhat unwittingly). While it is necessary that we serve the local church we must never forget WHO it is that we truly serve. We must have right priorities and it is subtle how we can shift.  It must begin with our personal relationship with God, then family matters, then the daily encounters, and, last but not least, service to the church....

I was reading a blog by a fellow who was describing the day he taught his son to ride the bike. All was going well and the son was getting the hang of it. Off he went down the street leaving his father standing there watching proudly. As the son turned for the return trip back up the street he lost his balance and crashed. The now-worried father called out, “are you okay?” The son called back, “I’m okay,” as he picked himself and the bike up off the street. The father breathed a sigh of relief as the son began to pedal back up the street to where he stood. As the son pulled in for a stop the father noticed that the boy was bleeding. The father said, “I thought you said you were okay?” The son’s reply,

Just because I said I'm "okay" doesn’t mean I didn’t get hurt.

This little boy’s response has resonated strongly in me since reading it about a year ago. We are “okay” in the eyes of God but sometime we will get hurt.  And as we delve deep into the wounds of our heart it will hurt yet we always remain “okay” in His eyes.  Never forget that the work of Christ has made us “okay” and nothing can change that.

Hard to believe that so many weeks have passed since my last post.  It has been a an eventful ride with plenty of ups and downs.  First, I landed a job after nine weeks sitting on the sidelines.  I am now in my third week as a contract Project Manager for a pharmaceutical company and it has some great long-term potential.  We are thankful for that answer to prayer. 

Second, I, and my group of buds, led our first Boot Camp.  This is a 2.5 day men’s event based on the themes of Wild at Heart---an awesome book written by John Eldredge.  We were pleased with the participation and can already see the impact it is having on those guys’ lives.  For a first time event, it went off pretty well.  We learned some things and plan to make the few necessary adjustment in the next event—which is tentative for this fall.  Stay tuned to my other site.

My own journey from the Boot Camp is a mixture of facilitator and participant.  The participant side is still processing things that surfaced during this time.  All I can say is that I highly recommend that all men read Wild at Heart.  In fact, if you are a mother of boys then you should read this book too…it will explain a lot about the masculine soul.

To "be" and to "be good" are things familiar to us.  For we are made in Your image, with a being that is good because it is Your gift.  But the being and the goodness we know fall so far short of You that they deceive us if we apply them to You as we know them ourselves.  Therefore, they do not tell us, as they should, that You are holy.  ~Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island, page 241. (emphasis mine)

it has been nine weeks since I was laid off.  That was quite a shocking event as I was working diligently on a project in Philadelphia and felt that being busy as a "billable" consultant would provide some insurance against this economy.  I was wrong.

It's been a tough season as my wife did not take well to the news.  She has really struggled on many fronts during this time.  It is the times of crisis where you begin to question whether God is really there and exactly how much control He is or is not exerting on the circumstances.  It does force one to examine their religion.  Yes I said religion....not faith.

We need the hard times to break the hold of religion from our minds so that true faith can stand on its own.  This has been my personal journey the last couple of years.  I despise religion bcuz I recognize the negative impact it has had on my life.  There are still moments in my day where I have to push back against the momentum that religion has achieved over my 42 years

Now I am watching my wife go thru the same struggle...trying to reconcile religion and faith.  It has not been easy for her and I figure that I went thru the same thing.  it is especially hard to not be able to help.  In my love for her I want to fix it for her.  To lift her up from the miry clay and set her feet on solid ground.  This must be God's work, not mine.  So I must remain confident that God's love and grace will shatter the religion and that her faith will find the foundation needed to stand strong.

FYI:  I start the new job next week.

Sunday in the St Louis area brought a terrible story as a pastor was gunned down in front of the parishioners as he delivered his talk.  Additionally two others were injured in the melee.  Left behind in the wake of this tragedy is the widow, two fatherless children, and 1,200 shocked church-goers.

It was not much more than a year ago when someone entered a church in Colorado and opened fire killing two and wounding three.  This time the shooter was stopped by armed security.  So is there a place for armed people in the church?

Immediately after the CO shooting the church I attended posted a sign on the door declaring "no concealed weapons allowed".  Thus disarming all of the law-abiding, God-fearing, rule-following folks that pass thru those doors each week.  In effect, the sign made it illegal for the gun owner to possess his weapon on the premises and subject to arrest.   Is that the answer...disarm the good guys?

I do believe that promoters of any event where a crowd gathers has a level of responsibility to provide some modicum of safety.  Most simply put their heads in the sand and say, "it will never happen here", or spiritualize it with, "we will pray and simply trust God".

Read the tragic story here and ask if your place of worship is looking out for you.

"Today, almost five years later, I see the man with completely different eyes. As I observe the modern day "church system," I am beginning to see things that I did not expect when I first departed five years ago. Believe it or not, I've always tried to maintain a middle-ground position concerning the man. I've been as careful as I could, to not become a sour-faced church-basher because of what he did to me. It wasn't church that did these things, it was the man."

"As I grow in the wild, and my eyes continue to sharpen, I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of him because I now see his essence. Bit by bit, little by little, I am discovering truths about the man that have brought me to the point of believing that the man is not only an unfortunate hindrance to the saints and needs fixing or rehabilitating, but that he is in fact the mortal enemy of all believers! Rather than receiving a revelation from God about how to fix the man's behavioral problem and salvage his position in God's church, I got the revelation that the man did NOT come from God, but straight from HELL!"

"As long as we are afraid of God, but still need Him for heaven, we will need the IC to keep us in line with mindless and heartless rituals to just meet the mark to go to heaven. The grace message causes people to stand on their own and love him. Once that happens, people no longer need things like accountability to keep them in line. Grace threatens the very existence of the man and he knows it."

Read the whole article here.

This last week my wife and I ventured forth on our first cruise to celebrate her 40th birthday.  This was a long-planned surprise which was announced only three days prior to departure.  To say she was shocked would be an understatement and further underscored by the fact of my layoff in January.  It was simply too late to change/cancel/reschedule the trip so my wife had to pack and prepare for the adventure.

Well, long story short, she had a blast.  We arrived in Fort Lauderdale and had the privilege of lunching with my Best Man and his wife, whom we had not seen in over 15 years.  Then it was on to the ship...Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas for five days of tropical adventure.

We spent the first full day cruising with our arrival on the morning of day two in Cozumel.  My wife was born and raised in Mexico so this was special for her.  Sure the town was touristy but she enjoyed knocking around town.  As we walked thru town she commented on the flood of memories and the sights and smells that reminded her of childhood.  We ate authentic food, spent money on stuff, had an awesome Margarita, etc.

We left Mexico around dinner time and headed south to Belize City.  The next morning, anchored 5 miles from the city, we boarded a tender ship for a "private" island.  We spent half a day relaxing on the beach of this very small island.  Surprisingly, to me, the water was very cold and not exactly enjoyable for swimming.  Then back to the ship.

The fifth day was spent cruising as we headed back to Florida.

More to come in the next post...

Sometimes my friends look at me like I am crazy when I talk about the deficiencies in the contemporary church, and my associated frustrations.  This is further exacerbated by the fact that I have withdrawn from obligatory participation and attend only when the mood strikes me.  To so many that action is as close to heresy as one can get.

Many may disagree with me but I have drawn closer to God in the last number of months than ever before.  My heart has come alive like never before.  And yes, I have done it without the homage to an Institution.  My heart cries out for God to be more real in my daily life and to walk in the freedom found in God and in the community of His Followers.  I am seeing it happen it me and so desire that my friends learn to experience the same thing.

I ran across the current blog post from my favorite author and his words are so close to my own heart that I could plagiarize it and be willing to fight to the death that it is my own work.  Enjoy...  Finding Church

On the 22nd of January Microsoft enacted a cost-cutting measure by reducing headcount.  My name was on that list.  Considering I was managing a long-term project this came as a total shock and surprise.  When I got the call I was in Philadelphia working on said project.  That was a tough day.  Microsoft is a great company and would love to return if the opportunity presented itself.

But today is a new day so one must move on.  I am an optimist by nature so I know there is an upside to this transition.  Example:  I have been looking to get out of the travel lifestyle for some time.  Well, I am off the road now!  Not exactly how I would have planned it out but so be it.  So, in one respect, this is a partially answered prayer.  I am off the road.

When I explained to my three boys what it meant to be "laid off" their first question was "does this mean no more trips?" My 'yes" was met with a cheer from all three boys!  I choked up.  I knew they did not like the travel but the reality hit me like a ton of bricks. 

So onward and upward...to find the path that lies before us.

Well, the church I attend has officially started a capital campaign to raise $5mm for a new auditorium.  So no one misunderstands me, I will state it clearly...I am against this on so many levels.  The church runs a little over 1,000 attendees spread across three services and the plan is to build a 1,000 seat room for weekend events.   I won't tackle all of their justifications but point out a few things. 

They claim a fourth service would strain the volunteer base.  Why don't they expand their volunteer base?  Why don't they change their current operating model?  The reality is the new auditorium merely reduces services from three to two.  To handle the current attendance the new space requires TWO services from day one so $5mm is spent to eliminate ONE service.  Ouch, that is costly !

They talk of starting "campus" churches but don't expect (or desire) them to siphon people away from the central campus.  Why?  If your space is too crowded then plant a campus, install a pastor and worship team, siphon a few hundred away, and keep going and growing at the central campus.  A new campus is a lot less money than $5mm.   In fact, plant lots of campuses.

I am not against big church and larger crowds.  I am against any environment that does not foster COMMUNITY.  As it stands there is no community in this church now (it's regional, attractional, and at times shallow in content...which means it could be a widely successful church in terms of attendance).  Making the weekend event larger simply exacerbates this situation.  Church is not about events it is about PEOPLE.

What really makes me puke is how the financial proposition is framed.  It's all about giving-to-get.  How God will bless me if I give money to this project.  And implicitly, how I will be cursed if I do not participate.  This results in "performance Christianity."  I must do something to EARN God's favor.  This simply is not Biblical.  In fact it is LEGALISM.  Yes, God's blesses our generosity but not when it is contrived or manipulated.  The church leaderships claims the church is different (and are in some ways) but they are taking a page from the what's-hot-today, church-growth-playbook.  They are simply doing what is in vogue  In fact, most parishioners do not realize that capital campaigns are a business complete with consultants and their fees.  They build up a program designed to get people to commit money over a three year period.

The modern incarnation of the church is distilled down to Buildings, Budgets and Butts.  It is more about the building and the system required to sustain it than it is about the people that actually come to the building.

Honestly I don't need more church services to grow in my faith.  I need people to walk the journey of faith alongside me.  I need people who are real and open and honest...people who desire to share life with the good and bad, the ups and downs.  I don't need more motivational speeches giving me "three points to a better you" or "five ways to get rich from God".  I need authentic relationships in my life.

Church is the loneliest place on the planet for many people, full of shallow "hi" - "bye" relationships that never extend beyond the lobby of the church.  We must not forget that they throw in the "2 minute drill" to greet a total stranger that you will never see again.  When I have spoken to pastors in the past about the fallacy behind the "drill" it was always twisted to point to blame on the individual (me).  I am very outgoing but find the church and our culture has programmed (brainwashed) people into an existence where we PLAY church but never really live as "the church".

I am NOT against the Institutional Church but I am against it's current incarnation.   I am convinced that most full-time pastoral staff are too far removed from the reality that most of us live in and are living within the bubble of "church"...and it shows. 

I truly suspect that church leaders do not fully understand or see what they are doing.  They believe that their plan is right because everyone else is doing it that way.  Sadly, no one can think outside the box.  Or simply are not brave enough to venture outside the box.  So I am not judging their motives to be evil...just ineffective.  I am not judging their actions as malicious...just wrong.  My 2 cents.

I flew to Philly Monday night and typically enjoy the isolated time to read and catch up on my favorite podcasts. So I plugged in my Zune and cracked open The Divine Conspiracy.  Well, the guy across the aisle saw the book and asked to see it, as he was aware of the book.  I never got back to reading my book.  We had a great conversation about the Father, our respective faith traditions (his is Catholic, mine WAS charismatic), and how to pass on our faith to our children.  So...

How does one pass along their faith that they were brought up in yet leave behind the baggage?  Yes, there is baggage in every faith tradition...that is why it is called 'tradition'.  Tough question for me.  

I struggle to do the formal things like having devotionals and reading the Bible together as they feel awkward and stilted.  In truth, I struggle with anything that rings of religiosity.  What I am left with is modeling a life of faith.  This means openly reading my Bible, participating in the community of men, church participation, saying a quick prayer before they climb out of the car at school (along with the obligatory knuckle-bump), etc.  I also try and catch teachable moments as we go through the day.  All I really want is to make the Father real to my boys and foster in them an authentic relationship without the religiosity and 'performance Christianity'.

My flight was a wonderful conversation between two men on their respective journeys to know God better.

Here is part two of this revealing exercise.

1. I believe that most people don't have authentic relationships and that the church makes mattes worse.
2. I believe there are too many people suffering in silence as they journey thru life.
3. I believe the the intuitional church makes matters worse but it can be fixed given revolutionary church leaders.
4. I believe in the importance of the local church but refuse to sit idly by as it does nothing but the same.
5. I just completed reading "When God Becomes a Drug" by Leo Booth.
6. I also just completed "Authentic Relationships" by Wayne and Clay Jacobsen.
7. I am currently reading "My American Journey" by Colin Powell.
8. I am also reading "Four Views on the Book of Revelation" edited by Stanley Gundry and C. Marvin Pate.
9. I am just starting to read "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard.
10. I told you that I read multiple books at the same time.
11. I just upgraded my Motorola Q to a Samsung Omnia.  Cool Phone.
12. I jammed with my band, Pandora's Regret, yesterday.  The wife fled the house. ;)
13. I had a crown fall out last week leaving me with a gaping hole in the front of my mouth. 
14. I need to lose about fifty pounds.
15. I like my head shaved.  Even more as my hair falls out.
16. I have traveled heavily in the I.T. consulting arena for about ten years now and ready to get off the road and stay close to home and the kids.
17. I love my brown Zune-30 mp3 player.  Yes it is from Microsoft.
18. I worked as a computer geek for about eight years.  For the last eight years I manage computer geeks.
19. I never foresaw I would see so much of our great country. Tally stands at forty-two states and five countries.
20. I plan to take the family to Florida this spring for a "beach vacation."
21. I emceed the 70th birthday celebration for my father in December.  There was 83 people in attendance.  It was a ball.
22. I am learning to enjoy "freedom" like never before.  having been steeped in church traditions and the like have led to a stunted life.  Too much "performance Christianity."
23. I am a certified Project Manager...thru the Project Management Institute.
24. I am evaluating further post-graduate work.  I need more hours before I can start a Ph.D. program so I may shoot for another Masters degree.
25. I am finding to harder and harder to identify things about my life.  Does that make me boring?