The Questions Keep Comin'

This has been one of those weeks where I just can't keep silent about some of the problems we're facing here in America. Like so many, I am deeply saddened by all that took place Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech...but I have to be honest that each and every time these tragedies take place I become increasingly angry toward our country's leadership and their inability to bring change to our gun laws. We are a so-called christian nation founded on christian principles and we're so far from understanding peace and what Jesus would think about the freedom we have with arms. I simply can't understand why some states still have such easy access to guns and weapons. What is it going to take for these lawmakers to see that something has to change? I know I'm in the minority here with my thoughts on guns and peace but I really don't care. I've spent many an hour thinking about peace and what Jesus had to say about it and I'm convinced that we can't keep going on like this. And speaking of not being able to keep going on...today I got a call from a friend in Tacoma who told me that a girl who was in my youth group and lived next door to our family before we moved lost her fiance today in Iraq. My heart is crushed for her as she also lost her brother to cancer recently. Whether it's 9mm hand guns on the streets of America or the big guns in a desert somewhere in the middle-east, it all needs to stop! It's becoming increasingly difficult to make sense of any of this...it all sucks and I just pray that God will be merciful to us as a nation for using his name to justify our war and for passing weak gun laws in a christian nation that influence the hurt and killing innocent people.

Love and Peace.

Rex

Am I Cool Enough?

The other day I was headed south on I-5 to Tacoma when I drove up next to a Hummer H3 all decked out with fancy decals and lettering across most of the car. At first I couldn't figure out what the heck it was all about, but soon I noticed that it was a government owned H3 advertising the US Marines. It wasn't but one day later that I again was on the freeway when I saw a van with the same sort of artwork all over the vehicle...this time the ad wasn't for a branch of our military, it was for a church! A wave of thoughts and questions soon flooded my mind and still rattle inside me today. What made the Marines feel like they had to become cool by driving around in some pipmed out H3? It seems to me that the Marines have never had to portray being cool to anyone. They're the Marines! Are today's teenage boys and girls so wrapped up into image that even the most bad-ass soldiers in the world have to play the cool game? Since when did churches feel they have to spend money to pimp their vans? Does it really make others' who are driving down the road think..."Oooh, what a cool van, I think I'll go there this Sunday."? Why do we as church leaders have to be put out a cool product? I understand relavence and it's importance in today's culture but I think there's a fine line between being relevant and being cool. I think Jesus was, and still is today the most relevant person this world has ever seen. He lived to engage with his culture the message of God and that there is hope and freedom to be had...in all this was he striving to be cool? I certainly hope not. I also hope I as a pastor can lead a relevant church and not worry so much about being cool. I'll keep you updated as to how I am doing with this one...

Peace and Love,
Rex

Things I've been thinking about lately...

Thoughts about how our church is growing is consuming my mind! It's been so exciting, yet I still see how much there is to do to continue to reach our potential. It's stressful at times but I know God is working through us to reach people which does bring peace in the times of stress.

Easter is coming this Sunday and I'm hoping that people will respond to my challenge of praying and inviting.

The Mariners began their season yesterday with an exciting win. I watched baseball all day long...it's kind of my one day of the year to sit in front of the TV and do nothing.

I walked out of the house wearing shorts today and I wonder what I was thinking...it's freezing outside!

Both my boys have birthdays in the next month or so...Cade turns 3 and Mason 1. Time is flying, which makes me ponder my life and the legacy I want to leave. Do I want to be remembered as a great pastor or father? Can I do both? I struggle with this one...

I've been thinking about just how good God has been to me and the ways in which he's provided for my family during this year of transition...it's amazing!

Good Bye Bill...

Like many sports fans across the Seattle area this morning, I am saddened with the news that Bill Scott aka, "Bill the Beer Man" died yesterday in his home at the young age of 58. Bill the beer man was best known as the vender-turned cheerleader for the Seahawks and Mariners during the early 80's. I can remember as a young boy going to games with my dad and seeing Bill go crazy with passion as he worked the crowd into a frenzy. I used to wonder how a person could have that much energy and passion...I also wondered if in his case it actually came from too much beer. :) Bill had been suffering from colon cancer for the past 5 years and had been unable to go to many games but his legacy in the Seattle sports scene will live on for many, many years.

So, as I sit in Starbucks this morning writing this blog I raise my cup (because it's too early for beer) in honor of Bill the beer man and everything he meant to me and all Seattle sports fans. May his life of passion and energy live on and may more
cheerleaders like Bill come along...because let's face it, sometimes in life someone as simple as Bill Scott can make our day just a little easier.

Peace and Love.
Rex

Grace and my Spiritual Bank Account

For much of my life I have struggled to understand grace and it's power to change my life. I know that God always has and will love me unconditionally yet I have been trained through traditional religon to believe that his love for me comes only after I have taken some form of action. What I mean by this is that it was communicated to me that I MUST believe that Jesus died for me...confess my sin...and then I will recieve his grace. Before I go any further, I want to express that it is very important to believe in the death of Jesus and that owning up to my sin is very important...but I can no longer accept that after doing this I receive acceptance. I read something this week that continues to float in my thoughts..."Salvation involves faith, not belief". The experience I grew up in was one of information and knowlege equals salvation, meaning that once I have knowledge of the events of the cross I'm safe. The problem with this idea is that the church has converted thousands every year with alter calls and sermons asking the question..."if you die tonight will you go to heaven?". So people respond in eternal insecurity but with very little desire to be changed by grace. Maybe we don't experience salvation because of what we believe but because we have faith in the experience of grace in our lives. The "sinners prayer" as I have prayed hundreds of times in my life is not a prayer I find in my Bible...yet it's widely regarded as the way slavation comes. The problem with this idea is that we use grace as a bank account from which we make withdrawls when needed to keep us assured of our eternity. I don't know about you but this doesn't seem like the kind of conversion Jesus offered or what the disciples displayed in the early church. I like what Spencer Burke says about conversion..."We need to be converted to a fresh understanding of God's desire and vision for us". My spiritual journey is one that seems long and sometimes frustrating but I'm learning that along the way I'm not stopping to make some kind of divine withdrawl from God's love bank, but rather grace is in me throughout my entire journey. It resides in me...changing me...leading me.

Simply accept that you are accepted! IF that happens, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed...and nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but accaptance. -Paul Tillich

May we cease in trying to grab grace and learn to just live in it...

Peace and Love
Rex

Interesting Times...

Today is the last day of Winter and yet it feels like we're entering the month of November! I so look foward to consitent days of sun and warm weather. Today has been tough as I've thought so much about two of my closest friends struggling to keep a marriage together. It's hard to see a couple who I had the honor of marrying, question their comittment to each other. Actually, it's more than hard; it's painful. It's made me realized on a deeper level just how messy life can get when we risk love. It's also made me take a hard look at what I believe about divorce. I'm not sure we can say "God hates divorce" and expect two christ-followers to be happy together, yet I cringe at the thought of even thinking it's ok for my friends. I believe God can do any miracle, but it won't happen if one of them becomes unwilling to put forth the effort to stay together...I'm glad God gives us choices and free will but this is one case where I wish He would just fix it! Please pray for me to have wisdom and godly insight...

Peace and Love.
Rex

Revolution Pt. 4

Today I sat in Starbucks reading from a book when I noticed a lady do something very strange. She sat alone at a table drinking her coffee while reading the newspaper. Now this doesn't seem strange at all, in fact it seems quite normal...but it's what she does later that caught my attention. When this lady had finished her coffee she stood up, took her paper and walked out the door. She then proceeded to go to the garbage can and put the newspaper in the garbage! I don't know about you, but when I buy a newspaper at Starbucks I never throw it away...but rather I leave it in the used paper bin for others to read. What makes her decide not to leave her paper there but instead throw it in the trash? Is she a selfish person? Could she really be that person who says, "buy your own paper"? In my mind a newspaper is valuable beacause it contains important information and thoughts about our world and local community. True, much of it is sad and frustrating...but it's still important.

I like to share my paper because there are always those who don't want to buy one, but just might read it if it's free. When we talk about the Revolution Jesus invites us to, we have to as Christ-followers be very honest about our faith and ask ourselves if we are taking something (grace / freedom) that was freely given to us and withholding it from others around us. Let's be honest about how comfortable we can be going through life with our faith tucked deep inside refusing to share it. Is it because we've forgotten it's value? Have we become selfish with what God has given us? Like buying newspapers some people may never go find faith on their own...but they just might take God into their life if he's offered to them. This means we need to be open to conversations...open to messiness...open to investing in others' lives. This is the shared experience the disciples had in Jesus. Maybe it's the way it's supposed to be for all of us, all the time.

Peace and Love,
Rex