Dreams Unlocked

Fred Phelps has died. Phelps was a former lawyer turned pastor. For some reason he managed to transform the Christian God from a benevolent Deity to some gross hateful monster. His weird church "Westboro Baptist" managed to garner global fame, despite only having a handful of members, all related to each other and living on a joyless campus in Kansas. Their fame came largely through the garish posters they would hoist outside funerals of celebrities or army veterans. These signs contained some of the most vulgar language I have ever read. They all followed the line that basically God hates everybody, especially homosexuals. I never really studied why or how Phelps went down such a strange route in his life. What I do know is his idiocy made it very difficult for true followers of Jesus to present the truth of the gospel. God doesn't hate homosexuals. God doesn't hate America. If there is anything we can know about God it is that his primal characteri

Every once in awhile a blog post pops up, inciting a lot of tweeting and Facebook posting with a lot of follow up comments. Here's the latest: http://www.christenacleveland.com/2014/03/urban-church-plantations/ Writer and speaker Christen Cleveland has done the church in America a great service - she has pointed out a major blind spot among well resourced suburban churches. In her post she points out that in cities experiencing or attempting to resuscitate urban renewal, suburban pastors come rushing in to plant their franchise of ministry. In doing so they run roughshod over existing ministries and urban saints that have been laboring for years. This exact same thing happens in the world of global missions. When well meaning, but completely ignorant mission agencies comes to "evangelize" a nation with complete and total disregard of national ministries. Cleveland gives an example of a white pastor who has planted an inner city church and makes the statement:

I disagree with him on some stuff but this is pretty good. John Piper's advice to pastor's concerning money: Get a car that works; that gets you where you need to go.  I'm talking about a modest entertainment budget that doesn't eat out every night.  I'm talking about a refreshing vacation, not an exorbitant one.  I'm talking about clothes that are unremarkable and undistracting, both for not being shabby and not being brand driven.  I'm talking about a home that accomplishes your family and ministry purposes leaning towards ordinary folks in your congregation, not the wealthiest.

I just wrapped up the busiest 5 days of ministry in my life. Here's a snap-shot: Thursday - Son of God Special Screening Our church participated in a theater "take-over" of the film Son of God. I organized the whole thing, along with the upcoming campaign of small group discussions and sermon series. It was a rather exhausting endeavor - but was well worth doing. We sold out 200 tickets with 30-40% of the attendees being guests (not regular attendees of our church). I introduced the film and prayed before it started and then wrapped it up at the end. Very positive response from all those who attended. Friday-Saturday - I travelled to a Bible Camp somewhere near Cortland NY. I spoke to a group of International graduate students from Cornell. There was 10 nations represented from Singapore to Eritrea, Wales and South Korea. I love this group - I've spoken at their Friday meetings in the past. I spoke Friday night and then twice Saturday AM. I headed home e