The Fourth Church

This is the next installment of my reimagining of the Revelation to John.  You can catch the first piece here.  These short pieces draw from Revelation 2-3, and I’ll post once for each of the 7 churches.  These installments really helped me to see how provocative John’s letter would’ve been in its original context.  I’d love to know what you think.

To the angel of the Mainline Protestant churches write: These are the words of the Son of God, who has eyes that burn with intelligence and tough, sturdy steel-toed work boots on his feet:

I know what you’ve done – your love, faith, service and patience. I know that you’re doing things now that are greater than anything you’ve ever done. But I have this against you: you tolerate the likes of Ahab and Jezebel, who call themselves prophets and teachers and who are duping my servants to welcome and even celebrate fornication. I’ve given them time to repent, but they refuse to repent of their perversion. Watch out: I’m going to throw them onto a bed, and anyone who commits adultery with them I’m going to throw on the bed of suffering too (unless they repent!). I’m going to kill the children of her adultery. And all the churches will know that I am the one who explores your minds and hearts, and I’ll give each person and church what your works deserve. But to the rest of you Mainline Protestants who don’t hold to these teachings, who haven’t learned what some call ‘the open mind’ of Satan, I’m not going to burden you with anything else. Just hold on to the faith and works you have until I come. To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works until the end, I will offer the invitation,

“Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet,”

since it is my Father’s party. To the one who conquers I will also give the whitest wedding dress ever. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

The Third Church

This is another installment of my reimagining of the Revelation to John.  These short pieces  (this 3 of 7) draw from Revelation 2-3, and I’ll post once for each of the 7 churches.  These installments really helped me to see how provocative John’s letter would’ve been in its original context.  I’d love to know what you think.

To the angel of the Black churches write: These are the words of the one who has the platinum gavel:

I know your struggles, what you face every day, right in the heart of where Satan seems to be working the most, your struggles that don’t have an end in sight. Even still, you’re holding tightly to my name, and you didn’t turn your back on your faith in me even in the days of Martin Luther King, Jr., my faithful witness who was killed among you – clearly Satan’s work. But here’s my problem: some of you are listening who Achan, whose lust for wealth brought destruction on all of God’s people. And others among you have embraced the Universalists’ teachings. So repent! If you don’t, I will come soon, and when I do, I’ll crush you with the gavel of my mouth. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I’ll show the hidden doors to my treasury vault, and I’ll give you a megaphone that has a battery that will never run out and that no one can find.

The Second Church

This is the next installment of my reimagining of the Revelation to John.  These short pieces draw from Revelation 2-3, and I’ll post once for each of the 7 churches.  These installments really helped me to see how provocative John’s letter would’ve been in its original context.  I’d love to know what you think.

And to the angel of the Arab churches write: These are the words of the first and last, who was dead and came to life, the ultimate immigrant:

I know your suffering, poverty and rejection (even though you’re actually rich). I hear the slander coming from those who say they are God’s chosen nation and are not – they’re actually a Satan’s nation. Don’t be afraid of what you’re about to suffer. Get ready: the devil is about to put you through the wringer – he’s testing you, and it’s not going to be pretty. Or short. Stay strong. Stay faithful even if it means death and I’ll give you the gold medal in Life. Let anyone who has ears listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers won’t be caught in the second death.

The First Church

This is the second installment of my reimagining of the Revelation to John.  The next few pieces will pull from Revelation 2-3, for each of the 7 churches.  These installments really helped me to see how provocative John’s letter would’ve been in its original context.  I’d love to know what you think.

To the angel of the Reformed churches write: These are the words of the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden pulpits:

“I know what you’re doing, how hard you work and your faithfulness. I know that you can’t stand false teachers; you have tested those who claim to represent God but don’t, and you’ve found them to be false. I also know that you’re working hard in my name, that you’re not giving up or getting tired. But I have this against you: you have abandoned the love you had at first. Look back and see where your system has tripped you up; repent and let what you do now look more like what you did at first. If you don’t, I will come to you and remove your pulpit from its place (unless you repent!). I’ll give you this: you hate the teachings of Universalists, which I also hate. Let anyone who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.”

The Revelation to JR.

The Revelation is one of the most confusing books in the canon.  Why?  Mainly because John used a whole symbolic language that was very accessible to his ancient audience, but is gibberish to us.

In this series, I want to update the symbols in Revelation, to make John’s timeless picture of Christ more accessible to twenty-first century Americans.

The Prologue:

This is an uncovering and showcasing of Jesus Christ that God gave him to show us – his servants – what’s going to happen soon.  He made it known by sending his messenger to his servant JR., who preaches concerning the Word of God which is Jesus Christ.

God is with the person who reads this prophecy, and with the people who hear and live by it, because it’s almost time.

JR., to the seven churches in America:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and was and will come, and from the seven doves in his Office, and from Jesus Christ the honest witness, the first to rise from the dead and the ruler of all presidents and prime ministers and dictators in the world.

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My Favorite iPhone Games

A couple of weeks ago, I offered my favorite iPhone apps.  But since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, here are the games that keep me entertained.  Nearly every game has a lite or free version you can get to try it out first.  But they’re all worth the (meager) price you’ll pay.

Zombie Smash

Zombie Smash is a fun, addictive game in which you’re defending your homestead from hungry legions of undead.  How?  By flinging them with your thumbs.  It’s got a great set of up-gradable weapons, quite a few types of zombies (each with its own characteristics) and difficulty settings to keep it plenty tough.  Plus they keep putting out upgrades for it, so the fun never stops!

Plants vs. Zombies + geoDefense

Okay, you caught me.  I’m minorly obsessed with Zombies.  But I grouped these two games together because they’re two of the best tower-defense games out there.  In PvZ, you’re a homeowner who purchases increasingly deadly plants from your crazy neighbor to fend off the hoards of undead (who of course want to eat your brains).  gD is a much simpler game in which you construct turrets to destroy wave after wave of geometric shapes (each with their own speed/strength).  Both are challenging and addictive; they’ll keep you entertained (or, quite possibly, frustrated) for hours.

Angry Birds

AngryBirdsThis is one of the most popular games out there right now (if Twitter and sales have anything to say about it).  Two minutes of play will show you why.  Evil pigs have stolen your eggs, so you do what any bird naturally would: you hurl yourself (via a slingshot you aim with your finger) at the pigs’ homes and castles in order to destroy them.  You have four different kinds of birds and these levels are hard.  You’ll have plenty of time to work on them, because once you download this game, it’s not like you’ll be working.

DoodleJump

Speaking of reasons you’ll never work again, meet DoodleJump.  This game is advertised as the most addictive game on the iPhone and they may be right.  The gameplay is impossibly simple.  You jump from platform to platform, steering your jumper by tilting the phone back and forth.  Tap the screen to shoot monsters (or jump on them) and that’s it.  The game has several different skins (space, undersea, world cup, Halloween, etc.) that change the gameplay ever-so-slightly to keep things interesting.  I’ve only owned the game for about a month now, and my friends and I have already dumped several hours into it.  Did I mention it’s addictive?

Words With Friends/ Chess With Friends

Scrabble is one of the most maddening games imaginable.  How are you supposed to make a word with three O’s, an A, E, X and Q?  Well, I can’t, which is why I always lose.  So what better reason to play against me?  Create an account and get started.  Find a partner and then play as often as you like – each person will be notified when it’s his/her turn, and you can take as long as you need to find that killer word.  I wish more than two persons could play a single game, but it’s still tremendous fun.  My user name is jrforasteros, if you want to play (and if you’re a chess player, it’s equally fun).

SkiBall + Paper Toss

Both of these games are also good, simple fun.  They both have the same gameplay – you swipe your finger across the screen to throw your skiball or paperwad.  SkiBall is a blast, and just like in real skiball, you collect tickets you can redeem for prizes.  I already bought Manda and panda bear and now I’m saving up for an 8-ball skiball.  Paper Toss is perfect for the office – you are trying to become the world champion paper-tosser, throwing paperwads into a trashcan (taking into account the wind currents created by the fan).  Since both games track high scores, you’ll constantly be fighting with your friends to maintain your first-place status.

Flood-It!

lrg

Last, but by no means least is Flood-It!  Again, the gameplay is pretty simple.  You’re presented with a board comprised of squares of six different colors.  You begin in the top-left corner and change the color of the squares until the whole board is one color.  Oh, and you have an extremely limited number of moves.  If you like puzzle games, don’t miss this one.

That’s it.  My best-of-the-best.  What are your favorites?

Preaching From Weakness

This is Kevin Powell. I don't know anything about him, and he's not on here for any reason other than because he's a handsome fellow.

If you read my post on CEO Jesus, you know that I have a minor obsession with the strengths-based, leadership culture.  And since I’ve recently begun preaching a lot more often, I’ve been reflecting more and more about my own strengths.  If you know me, you know that I struggle with pride, which in a lot of ways is a quest for affirmation/approval from other people.

And whether they’re just being nice or not, a lot of people tell me I’m an excellent communicator.  And I take pride in that because I work hard on crafting my communication pieces – both in the study and the proclamation.

And there’s my greatest temptation to pride.  The gathering I’m leading right now, EPIC, was formed to communicate the truth and power of the Gospel to persons who are (in our vernacular) “dechurched” and “unchurched” – that is, those who have had negative experiences with the Church and those who have never been exposed to Jesus and his Church.  When I craft a piece of communication (whether it’s a small group study, a discussion gathering, a prayer, responsive reading or teaching/preaching piece), I keep in mind that I’m speaking to these persons – using language that, while full of meaning to the believers who are gathered to worship, is also understandable and accessible to a person who is unfamiliar with what’s happening.

My problem is that it’s really easy for me to forget that and prepare talks that are meant to impress other Christians.

I can actually do this in real life. What's that? No, I'm not going to show you. I'm not your dancing monkey.We have a lot of visitors to EPIC week in and week out, and a lot of them are ‘church-shopping’ – they’re already believers and are trying to find a church that ‘meets their needs’.  These are also the people who are most likely to come talk to me after our gathering, to tell me what they thought of my communication.  And, God help me, I get (a sick) pleasure when they tell me that I’m better than another minister.

And not only do I feel pressure to entertain, I want to because deep down inside, I want to be the best speaker in town.

Of course that’s fed by the celebrity culture that’s developing in the Evangelical Church at large – we want to find a pastor who’s just like Rob Bell or Erwin McManus or Andy Stanley or Mark Driscoll.  But now consider Paul’s words to the Corinthians:

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom.  For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.  And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.  My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. – 1 Corinthians 2:1-5*

Paul was (apparently) not a very strong speaker, at least compared to some of the other guys he was up against.  And the Corinthians (apparently) were being swayed by other speakers who presented their version of the Gospel more eloquently.  But Paul reminds them in this portion of the letter (beginning back in chapter 1) that the Gospel doesn’t rest on human excellence – quite the opposite in fact.  The Gospel is for the poor in spirit, the broken, the humble, the least of these.  We shouldn’t rely on our skills to proclaim the mystery of Jesus – to do so is to negate the power of the Gospel.  Our communication needs to be full of our own journeys towards (and with) Jesus.  We need to be communicating from places of weakness, where God is working in us, changing and transforming us.  If we’re not, then we’re no better than the so-called super-apostles Paul condemned.

I’m afraid this is a tension I’ll always feel – I desperately want only to do the best job I can, utilize the gifts and talents God has given me to share the power of the Gospel in the clearest and most compelling way possible to those who do not know Jesus.  But I’ll always be tempted to start thinking more about becoming a preaching celebrity and putting on a show for the Christians who are evaluating how well I stack up.

At the end of the day, I don’t want to be concerned with what church shoppers think of my talks.  I want to spend my energy proclaiming the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection to those who have not heard.

Am I alone here?  Sometimes I feel like I’m crazy thinking these things.

*For the record, I don’t have room here to discuss how this passage has been abused in recent years by certain super-apostles in the contemporary Church.

My Most Useful iPhone Apps

A bunch of my friends have recently gotten iPhones, and since I’ve had mine for about a year now, many of them have asked what my favorite apps are.  So may I present my favorite, most useful apps! (Games are coming later)

Let’s start with Social Media

Google Mobile
GiPhoneNo surprise that Google would put out a great mobile app. It’s got a voice search feature and is pretty well-integrated with the full range of Google apps (mail, reader, ect., including the Maps app that comes on the phone).  Keeps you connected and informed – everything you need to thrive on Web 2.0.

Facebook

FBAgain, probably a no-brainer, but Facebook’s app just gets better and better with each update.  They just added a geo-tagging piece, presumably to compete with Foursquare.  A few (very) minor complaints aside, this brings the full functionality of Facebook to the iPhone in an intuitive, beautiful interface.

Twitter: Echofon or Twitter (duh)

echofon

I used Echofon for quite a while (the pro version is $5), and I like it a lot.  I recently started using Twitter’s own (free) app, and it’s definitely comparable – especially for free.  If you’re a regular Twitter user, these apps are the best two options (with TweetDeck a close runner-up).

Byline

This is a reader app – it syncs like a dream with Google Reader.  It’s a bit pricy, but fantastic.  The interface is beautiful and intuitive and the sync is quick.  It’s easy to customize and syncing it once a day lets you read your posts anywhere you go, even when you can’t access wifi or 3G.  Oh, and it’s a snap to send posts to friends and colleagues.  I tried several free reader apps before I broke down and bought Byline, and it’s well worth the price.

And now for productivity and lifestyle!

Evernote

If you own a Mac, I’m pretty sure your iPhone and computer have a mystical, incestuous relationship where they’ll read your mind and transfer whatever you need back and forth.  If you have a PC (and yes, I’m refraining from making jokes here), transferring files can be a bit trickier.  Enter Evernote!  Evernote is an excellent note-taking app that incorporates voice, picture and text and syncs it all with the desktop app (you can find here).  I use it to jot down sermon ideas, create shopping lists, and books I want to buy later.  You can do pretty much anything with it.  Which is why it’s awesome.

Couch to 5K

This app is designed to take you from couch potato to 5K runner in 10 weeks.  Amanda and I are only in week 2 of the program, but the nicest thing I can say about it is this: I hate to run.  Hate it more than almost anything (except cats).  And yet I can still imagine completing this.  The interface is great, well-integrated with the music player and the stepped program is easy to use.  Well worth the $3.  If I can do it, so can you.

iFitness

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’m not exactly a gym rat.  I’ve always hated exercise, and lifting weights is no exception to that.  iFitness is a great gym companion.  It’s got tons of exercises, well-explained and easy to track and chart.

Lose It!

A big part of a healthy lifestyle is eating well, and if you’ve never counted calories, it can be tough.  Lose It! is a simple app that’s easy to use and lets you figure out basically how many calories you’re taking in in a day.  And since you can add in a surprisingly wide range of exercises, along with how many calories you’ve burned, it’s fun and easy to keep track of the goals you set for yourself.  Again, well worth the small price.

Yelp

yelp

Long story short: this is the best app to find new places to eat.  We’ve been frustrated since we’ve moved to Dayton because it’s been difficult to find good, local eateries.  No longer.  Thanks to Yelp, we’ve found tons of great out-of-the-way places, and with the added social networking features (geo-tagging, reviews, friends, etc.) it’s easy to share the best (and worst) of our finds.

Epicurious

If you like to cook at home, this app is indispensible.  Easy to find delicious recipes, rated by ease of preparation.  The app prepares a shopping list for you and then guides you on an easy-to-follow, step-by-step cooking adventure.  If you have even a modicum of cooking skill, do yourself a favor and discover some delicious meals starting now!

Chipotle

Chipotle_Logo

Delicious.  Simple.  It finds the nearest Chipotle (or you can tell it to go to your favorite) and sends your order.  You get a pick-up time and you’re good to go.  Show up, skip the line and leave happy.  It’s that easy.  I’m shocked more companies haven’t jumped on this band-wagon, but kudos to Chipotle for taking full advantage of the beauty of the smart phone!

That’s a good start.  What about you?  What apps have you fallen in love with?