The second (and possibly last!) episode of my new StoryMen podcast with Matt Mikalatos and Clay Morgan is up! Since December 21 is right around the corner, we welcome our first (and possibly last!) special guest, author and podcaster Jason Boyett. Jason’s sort of an Apocalypse expert, having written two very excellent books on the subject.
BONUS: check out the new StoryMen look! The art is courtesy of M. S. Corley, a truly astounding artist (who does COMIC BOOKS WHAT!?!). Check out his blog for some excellent art!
You can WATCH us (!) on YouTube. Thanks right! Thanks to the magic of the interwebs, you can watch all four of us talk! It’s 1.057% more exciting than listening to us! Though you do get to see how pretty we are, which is an obvious bonus.
From Series: "It's the End of the World As We Know It"
These days, we're obsessed with the End of the World. We should remember that when Jesus came the first time, it really was the End of the World, at least as we knew it. And the beginning of something much, much better. This Advent, we prepare ourselves to welcome Jesus' coming into the world by exploring the book of Revelation!
Over the last 100 years, our cultural attitude towards the End of the World has taken a fascinating shift. At the end of the 1800s and up until about 1915 or so, most Americans thought Jesus was coming back any day. The number of rapture predictions and End Times scenarios was staggering. And even those who weren’t Christians were predicting that the 20th century would be the new golden age of humanity.
Of course the 1900s didn’t go that way – instead it was a century of endless war, crushing world-wide depression and devastating new technologies like nuclear, chemical and bio-weaponry.
Today, we don’t look forward to the Second Coming. In fact, if you look around at our popular culture, it’s safe to say we’re downright terrified at the idea of the End of the World. How many people do you know who are a little bit worried that those Mayans might be right about December 21? End of the World movies have always been popular, but in the last few years, we’ve seen a higher percentage of them than ever. Two of the most popular shows on TV right now are The Walking Dead and Revolution, both of which ask, What would happen if we lost everything?
That’s really the question the End of the World makes us ask: What if we lost everything? What if it all just went away? Or worse, what if it was all taken away?
Amos pictures God as a lion, roaring God's judgment from Mt. Zion. We don't like to think of God as a judge. But the biblical picture of God as judge is founded in God's love as our Father in Heaven. We can hear God's judgment as words as a firm love calling us to be whole.
God’s judgment is a scary thing to consider. Anytime a national tragedy strikes, there’re always people ready to claim it’s God judging us. So when 9/11 happened, Katrina or Sandy. The earthquake in Haiti. Or on a more personal level, we often think of the bad things happening in our lives as God punishing us. So if we get an illness or lose a job or something like that, we wonder, Did I do something wrong? Is God judging me?
And to complicate it more, some who experience those tough times, those personal or national tragedies claim they’re blessings. Some claim losing a job or getting cancer or losing a home was the best thing that ever happened to them, that their judgment was a wake-up call and they wouldn’t trade it for a million bucks.
So which is it? Are tough times blessings or judgments?Continue reading
We like to compare ourselves to the world around us as say, We're not that bad. But not bad isn't good enough for God's people! Week 1 of our series on Amos
Amos pictures God as a lion, roaring God's judgment from Mt. Zion. We don't like to think of God as a judge. But the biblical picture of God as judge is founded in God's love as our Father in Heaven. We can hear God's judgment as words as a firm love calling us to be whole.
We all have a tendency to compare ourselves to the people around us. And especially in the Church, this can make us feel better about the rough places in our lives. We say, Sure I need to get my schedule under control, but I’m not as bad as him. Okay, I have a tendency to gossip. But I’m not as bad as she is. I really need to be kinder with my words, but have you heard him? We see the people around us and we think,
Well. It could be a lot worse. I suppose I’m good enough.
But according to Amos, “not bad” is not good enough. According to Amos, our standard for our lives isn’t what we see around us, but what God calls us to be. That’s a tough pill to swallow, so Amos comes at us sideways. He begins his prophecy with oracles against the nations surrounding Israel. Oracles are predictions of doom, and Amos delivers seven, one to each of the nations around Israel.
Amos is clearly getting Israel on his side.
He knows he’s an outsider, a foreigner. And he’s coming to deliver a message from God to this people that’s not his people. So he begins with oracles of judgment against the other nations. He talks about how They, Them, Those People, the Others, are sinning. But Amos wasn’t done. He goes on, in 2:6
This is what the LORD says: “The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They sell honorable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals. They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way. Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name. At their religious festivals, they lounge in clothing their debtors put up as security. In the house of their god, they drink wine bought with unjust fines. — Amos 2:6-8 (NLT)
Instead of being priests to the world around them, Israel looks like the world. They’re darkness in the midst of darkness. This is why God is so angry: Israel should know better.
And what about us? Could we be like Israel today? Are we tempting God’s judgment?
Join us Sunday as we explore what Amos’ words have to say to us today.
Ghosts are all about our inability to move on with our lives, to put the past behind us. We are haunted by those who've hurt us. How do we learn to forgive, to begin to live again after a hurt?
This is the season of the year when people start to think about monsters - ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. We normally don't think of monsters having anything to do with the Church, but we'd be wrong. The reason people tell monster stories is that monsters are a safe way to talk about things we're not ready to admit about ourselves. We don't want to see ourselves as selfish, unforgiving, ill-tempered. So we tell stories. We create monsters.
So today, we're going to shine some light in the cracks of our lives. Expose the monsters to the light. And hopefully it'll be fun!
Today’s about Ghost stories. Though they appear in many forms, the quintessential ghost story involves the spirit of a dead person who’s stayed around (usually a haunted house) because they have unfinished business. Maybe they have to deliver a message or ensure proper burial or get revenge. Whatever the case, once their business is complete, they leave into the afterlife.
Unlike our previous two monsters, today we’re not ghosts. Rather, to quote Peter Rollins,
We are the haunted houses. — Peter Rollins
We move through life collecting hurts, wounds and scars, evidence of pain inflicted on us by other people. Some may be slight, exaggerated in our heads – maybe someone who cuts us off or says something cruel or who causes us harm by accident. Others could be huge, life-altering. A spouse who left. An abuser. And there’s a whole range of hurts between.
Whatever their source, however legitimate or not, these people, these hurts don’t just exit our lives.
We carry them around with us, in our heads and in our souls. They haunt us, returning again and again out of the ether to drag us through the past, to relive history, to reopen old wounds.
The problem is we don’t know what these ghosts want. We don’t know how to resolve their business and get them to leave us. We can’t escape their haunting – especially if the person who hurt you is still a part of your life.
If we want to escape our ghosts, if we want to be free from the haunting of our hurts, we must learn the difficult art of forgiveness.
Join us Sunday as we learn how to forgive and find healing.
This is the season of the year when people start to think about monsters - ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. We normally don't think of monsters having anything to do with the Church, but we'd be wrong. The reason people tell monster stories is that monsters are a safe way to talk about things we're not ready to admit about ourselves. We don't want to see ourselves as selfish, unforgiving, ill-tempered. So we tell stories. We create monsters.
So today, we're going to shine some light in the cracks of our lives. Expose the monsters to the light. And hopefully it'll be fun!
Of all the monsters we’re looking at in this series, the Werewolf is the most ambivalent. Culturally, we like werewolves, we’re interested in them, but we don’t want to get TOO interested. They’re not as sexy as vampires. Ghosts are scary. Zombies are cool. But Werewolves? It’s almost as if we don’t quite know what to do with them.
Well, that’s not quite true. It’s that werewolves are just… more… dangerous. There’s an edge to them that other monsters don’t quite have.
Werewolves are humans who occasionally transform into wolves or wolf-like monsters. The wolf is terrifying, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Once the person transforms, once the monster comes out, there’s no telling who or what is going to be hurt. Usually the transformation is brought on by the full moon, though some more modern incarnations like the Twilight wolves and the Incredible Hulk are triggered by anger.
The Werewolf is a person who has this monster, a beast, a Wolf living inside them.
They know it’s dangerous. And most of the time, they’ve got it under control. They have ordered their lives in such a way that the Wolf can’t get out. They’ve built a cage for the monster with structure, with rules and discipline.
But inevitably, in every story, the Wolf breaks out. The monster hurts people around them, destroys their lives. So afterwards, the person tries to put things back together, apologizes for the damage the monster has done and starts rebuilding the cage, hoping to make it strong enough next time. They make new rules. Stricter schedules.
But we know they can never make the cage strong enough to hold the monster. The Wolf will always find a way out.
How do we overcome the Wolf Within? Join us Sunday as we find out!
On the Sabbath Jesus rested the Tomb, we keep watch, anxiously awaiting his resurrection. These prayers, ordered according to the traditional hours of the Church, help us to watch and wait.
As of today, I am the Interim EPIC Pastor for my church family at Beavercreek Church of the Nazarene. Jason, EPIC’s founder and lead pastor is moving to Olivet Nazarene University to become a professor of Church Leadership.
A little background: EPIC as a worship gathering was created about five years ago as a church for the un-churched and de-churched. Over the past five years, EPIC has grown and changed quite a bit. I’ve been a part of EPIC for not quite a year and have been helping to lead by preaching, leading in prayers and other stuff.
So now I’ll be preaching nearly weekly, at least at first, until we develop a teaching team (which will initially consist of myself, our High School pastor Jonathan and our Children’s pastor Sheila). We’re excited about the direction we’re taking.
This summer, we’re in a series called “True Story”, in which we’re exploring what it means to be a part of God’s story. As such, in July and August we’ll be exploring various episodes in the Gospels (pericopes for you nerds) in which a person encounters Jesus and how they’re transformed.
As such, I’ll be exploring various images of Jesus I find in our culture, interacting with them, querying the extent to which those images are helpful and harmful.
So a question for you:
What is your picture of Jesus? What are his most important attributes and characteristics?
The second (and possibly last!) episode of my new StoryMen podcast with Matt Mikalatos and Clay Morgan is up! Since December 21 is right around the corner, we welcome our first (and possibly last!) special guest, author and podcaster Jason Boyett. Jason’s sort of an Apocalypse expert, having written two very excellent books on the subject.
