I often wonder how I would have fared in a segregated America. What type of person would I be? Would I have been able to express my feelings about Christ, worship, family, life and other things the way I am today? Would I be one of the few to have a platform to share the heart for giving God the praise He deserves? Would I have the opportunity to connect with people the way I’m able to through music? How different would my life have been 50, 60, 70 years ago? We will never know the answers to those questions, but I do know that I’m here today because God put a fire in the hearts of some special people. He also gave some intelligence to Black people to invent many of the things we use today. Many of them we take for granted in everyday life, but would be lost without in most cases.

The argument is and probably always will be “Why is Black History confined to only one month?” “And why is that month the shortest one of the year?” and other ridiculous things. I have always thought it an honor that my people were given a whole month dedicated to their struggles and accomplishments and how they overcame such a torrid life and paved the way for us today to live in the freedom that this country boasts. But even Black History is deeper than that for me. The only reason we can have this discussion today is because God is in the plans. I worship a God who saw the struggle and put the right people in place to fight through it. It was the Holy Spirit and ONLY the Holy Spirit that got all those people through the torture and pain and the marches and the sit-ins and the arrests and the name calling.

There is an intense amount of pride for me that comes from being a Black person. I’m thankful for that everyday. The intensity of that pride is dwarfed by the intensity of the pride I have in being able to call Christ my Savior. I rejoice greatly in the fact that we can stand confidently and live freely in this country when there are some that looked like me not too long ago that couldn’t do that. I rejoice even more in the fact that I “once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see”. See, I’m can never be anything but the person that I was made to be. No one can take that from me. People argue about why there’s only one month dedicated to Black History. I would say that no one is stopping you from teaching your children about it everyday. You have that freedom. For me, Black History is wrapped up in a much bigger story. That’s what I choose to teach my children. Is Black History important? You better believe it. Is it more important than Christ’s history? Not even close. Does Christ’s history directly impact Black History? Thankfully yes. Without Christ nothing else would matter. And for that reason, I don’t care HOW many days or months they dedicate. In the end, the truth remains the same. We HAVE overcome.

Come and Listen-David Crowder I LOVE this song as an opener. It really sets the tone for people to shake off everything that is going on around them and prepare themselves for what the Lord is going to say.

O Worship the King-Passion

You’re Worthy of My Praise-David Ruiz

All Because of Jesus-Fee

Communion-From the Inside Out-Hillsong

This is what we are singing at The Word at Shaw this morning. You still have time to join us here. Our service begins at 10:30. Click here for a link to the promo video for the sermon series that starts this morning

Looking at that situation as it stands, it would be easy to just chalk up a week like this one as a loss. I’ve wanted to do that many times. But it’s times like these that God steps in and does what He was always planning to do. There’s no way to know just how He is going to work, but His work is ALWAYS evident. Something that hit me earlier today. I was writing out some plans on my big board and realized that when God is in the plans. It isn’t like that I didn’t know that already, but people frequently talk about how when I stepped out of the way then God stepped in. Well, my words of wisdom for today is that we (myself included) should be including God earlier in the process. Whenever I spend the time to ask God what He wants me to do before I even start planning, I find that even the planning process goes much better. Then when I get to the end and look back, I can see His hand through the whole thing. Sometimes I may want this huge band, and God wants to break things down to where we are forced to let Him fill in the voids created by silence. Sometimes, He wants to use that still, small voice to firmly guide us toward the cross.

We always look to the famous passage about God’s plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11) because it talks about our prospering and having a hope and future and all that fun stuff. But the plans won’t just pop into your lap as you’re walking down the street. The verses that follow give verse 11 something to stand on. When I go and pray to Him, He will come to me. If I go and seek Him with my whole heart, He will come and find me (my paraphrase of verses 12-13). When I’m planning out my services, I have to seek God out in THAT stage, then even those plans will be revealed as I work. When you are in the beginning stages of a plan or idea, add God then. See how much of the back end crazy gets avoided when you do that…

http://mrmokelly.com/tag/eddie-long-crowned-king/

Again I say, pray for the church.

I don’t know if this will be a terribly long post like the others have been, but I just have some thoughts to share and hopefully a discussion starts. It seems lately that we are pushing cultural agendas to strike a chord with those outside the church, instead of pushing a Gospel that speaks to any agenda that can arise in the culture. This is a scary place to be because it doesn’t take much to fall into a place where the Gospel takes a back seat to whatever is going on around you. When the church at Ephesus struggled, it was because they stepped away from their first love. The love of the Gospel and it’s ability to reach every part of the heart. In their attempts to reach the Gentiles, they began to fall into some of their practices. In Paul’s letter to them, he spoke directly to the fact that they were slipping into the sin that was going on around them.

At the point we begin to try and align ourselves with an issue over our alignment with the Gospel, there will always be the possibility that we could be “tossed to and from by every wind and doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14). When the Gospel becomes a back door issue, it has the tendency to become a non issue. That. Is. Scary.

But this is only the way I see it. What say you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith impacts culture and vice versa. As I continue to look at it, it seems like both have been generally bad influences on each other. It reminds me of when I was a little boy. I am an only child, but with my mom being eighth of 9 and my dad being the oldest of 6, I’ve got a TON of cousins. We used to do so many crazy things and we would get the other in trouble all the time. I guess that’s just part of life as a kid. One of us would dare the other to jump off the bed. Trouble. In retaliation, one dares the other to grab an extra cookie. Trouble.  We are good at influencing each other to push the envelope, and we usually pushed it too far.

So how have faith a culture been mutually bad influences on each other? Well, as I sit here in my office and have been thinking about the upcoming weeks in our church from a worship standpoint, one of the things that continues to be at the forefront of my thinking is the relevancy of our worship experience. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that we have to be relevancy is tremendously important to the church. So I don’t see that as a negative thing. I think the line gets blurry when we are striving to look so much like the world in the things that we do that “they can’t tell the difference”. I don’t think it is my job as a worship leader to confuse the people that walk in the door. I don’t want to put them in such a trance that when the service is over they say, “I didn’t even know I was in church! How did I get here???” Especially since I’m called to be different. As a Christian, it’s an honor for me to BE different. Look at 1 Peter 2:9. Being different is part of the job description. But I’ve been to churches where the people are trying to be relevant, or cool and trendy and they pull some things off. But inevitably, there’s one thing that starts to waver when we try to look like the rest of the culture we live in. That’s the gospel. I feel that in the different times I’ve gone to places that are trying SO hard to be attractive to the rest of the world, they end up diluting the one beautiful difference between the two.

This is the hinge between both faith and culture. As I said yesterday, when we turn both of these fast moving cars toward each other, there is only one place for them to crash. What was done at the cross changes both sides dramatically. I believe the reason that the church has influenced the rest of culture negatively is because of the way they look at culture. Just as you have some churches who try too hard to be cool, you have just as many trying too hard to make sure you know that they AREN’T anything like the rest of the world. Granted, we are called to not be lovers of the world or the things of the world (1 John 2:15-16). That doesn’t mean that we should shun the people that are in the world. As a matter of fact, they are the reason we are still here. Some of us have run so far away from the line that we are simply screaming at the cruel, vile world far from the other side. The rest of the world and the culture we live in has never asked us to change ourselves and then maybe they would be a part of the church. We are to look different and they will hate us for it. Bible says so. BUT, there is a lot more room closer to the cross for us in the faith as well. When we run so far the other way, no one can hear you except for when you scream about how bad the other side is. No one wants to hear that. Come a little bit closer. A lot of things change at the foot of the cross. The other side even looks a lot different than you think.

As someone who spends his days sculpting a service that is designed to bring glory to the Father, I have to keep in mind that in my church there are some people who will have never had this experience before. Do I want to alienate them so much that they feel uncomfortable and never want to come back? Heck no. But do I want to present the gospel in a way that it challenges everything they have ever thought about life and Christ and the people around them? Heck yes. But here’s the secret: I’m doing that for you Christians as well. Think about it. Then meet me as I push toward the foot of the cross.

What about in the instance of our faith and our culture? When I look at the two of them, I see a lot of stuff connected to both that probably shouldn’t be there. There are some things in this culture that I have to actively shield my children from because I don’t want it to become a part of their lives and thought processes. And if I’m completely honest, there are some things in faith that I have to actively shield my children from because I don’t want it to become a part of their lives and thought processes. So how do we get them to move toward the middle? Do we think that there IS a middle for the two? Well, I stand here today (actually I’m sitting, but I digress) saying that there is. Why? Because the church should be part of the culture. And because the people in the church are part of the culture they live in. They are married whether we like it or not. However, we have spent so much time trying to separate the two that we forget that there’s really not a way to separate the two. Most of the time they are fighting like teenage sisters who both have a date and one is taking too long in the bathroom. The church has alienated the culture in which we live to the point that when you mention church to some people they have already turned a deaf ear to anything you might have to say. Culture has gone so far south in many ways that the church believes that nothing good can EVER come from outside the doors of the church. So they sit at opposite sides of the room staring at the wall with their arms folded, occasionally looking back to give a scowl to the other. Someone needs to get the two of them in a room and mediate a conversation. Are there distinct differences between the two? Heck yes! Don’t get me wrong here. There are some things that won’t work in either place, but I’m convinced that is because both sides have traveled so far that neither side will ever be able to release some things.

So the question remains, where is the middle? I believe that the middle sits right at the foot of the cross. To those more embraced in the culture than the church, you might already see that as leaning to the wrong side. And that’s okay. To those of you more embraced in the faith than the culture, you’re probably excited about that. But as Lee Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend!” The cross is so welcoming and polarizing at the same time that it is able to handle being the middle of this complex spot. I like to think of it as the impact point for the collision between faith and culture. When we look at all the things that we hold on to in faith, some of those things aren’t necessarily things that we should be holding on to. We created things that we were never supposed to create. And then it threw the other side for a loop. When it comes to culture, there are things that just aren’t right. When people are left to their own devices, we get some crazy mess. Unfortunately, that can be said for both sides.

So why is the cross an impact point? Well, when you bring all of your baggage to the foot of the cross, it just can’t all stay there. Some of it was never meant to be. When two cars collide, there are parts of each car that are impacted. Neither of those cars come away looking like they did before they hit each other. They end up exchanging paint, losing windshields, denting doors…they both change. Both cars are changed individually, but they both end up sharing parts of themselves with the other. I tend to believe that the close faith and culture come to the cross, the faster things will fall off from either side. And if they ever collide at the cross, both sides will be amazingly surprised at what happens. Faith will be left with some bits of culture in it and the other way around.

What does this look like? Well, what does it look like to you? It’s my blog, so I can take your hypothetical question and turn it around on you. HA!

I don’t claim to be political by any stretch of the imagination. I try to stay current on thoughts an ideas because I believe it is a good idea to know where money is going and what my country is doing to keep us safe and educate our children and keep us moving forward for years to come. But I notice that every time I try to get a little deeper than that I’m turned away by the ugly underside of politics that shows its head in times like these. Something tells me that there has to be a way to wade through some of the egos to get to a working medium. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m sure that people are being paid to stand and clap, you would think that everyone had a great working relationship and was willing to take major steps toward fixing the problems in our country. But if that was really the case, I don’t think we’d be sitting here in the constant aftermath of problems that beset us.

After watching this whole thing, I thought about the church and how we relate to each other. I saw some nasty similarities. Unfortunately, lots of times there are people in the church who always feel like they can do a job better than the person doing it. There are factions and cliques that use harsh words in relation to the leadership and it creates instant division. At the same time, people spend time talking to the pastor or leaders and encouraging them to keep up the good work. It reminds me of the initial walk into the room for the President and his exit after he finished the speech. That may be the most superficial parade I’ve ever witnessed…except for right after church in the foyer. Eerily similar again…

Unity seems to be the one thing that everyone is asking for and no one is willing to really work toward. Maybe I’m speaking with cynical overgeneralizations, but that’s what I see. I see it in our country and I see it in the church. I don’t know if will ever happen in either place. But when it comes to the church, there’s one thing that always stands in the middle and if we continue to move toward that, we have a better chance to get this right. The cross, has been, is and always will be right where we need to be. If we aren’t moving toward it, then we will find unity a fleeting thought. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to keep praying for my country and I’m going to keep moving toward the cross. Who’s with me?

This past Friday night was The Perk:(the event) at Missouri Baptist University. They take the gym and turn it into an enormous coffee house and people perform and they give you coffee and food and it is a fun evening for current students as well as alumni. Anyway, I was there and performed a couple songs and got to see some friends that I hadn’t seen in a while. As is customary, I got my cup of coffee and began to walk around the room. Upon my first drink I realized that this coffee had some punch. So over the course of the evening I nursed this one cup of coffee. I never finished it. I finally got home around 1am and wanted to jump straight into the bed. I tossed and turned for a couple hours and got really frustrated. Around 3:30 I stopped for about 30 seconds. It was then that I realized that my heart was pounding out of my chest because I was so wired from that coffee that I started drinking at 10:30 the night before. I was thinking about taking some sleeping medicine because I was feeling some other “symptoms” as well. Once I slowed myself down, all I needed was to drink some water and start reading.

I was actually considering treating a condition that I didn’t even have because I hadn’t slowed myself down enough to see what the real deal was. As I thought about it later, I found that I was guilty of not slowing myself down enough to listen to what God had for me. Everyone talks about the passage 1 Peter 5:7 where it says “casting all your cares on him because he cares for you”. But there are 2 things that got overlooked by me because I wasn’t looking for myself. Verse 6 says “Humble yourselves therefore before the mighty hand of God…” That tells me that I have to slow down and shift my focus. We always think that we know what we want and need. As a result we go and try to take NyQuil when really all we needed was to sit down a second and drink a glass of water. Sometimes we jump into another relationship when we really need to stay single. Sometimes we buy that car when the one we had was more than adequate.

Like I said at the beginning, there is a lot going on right now and my hope is that in the near future I’ll be able to share some of it. In the mean time I need to sit back and process it all and make sure that I’m sharing what God wants me to share.

A couple weeks ago we had a sermon on prayer and how it was important to those of us who call our church home. We have to be committed to praying for our church and its leaders and the people that walk in the door. Then it struck me. As the one who plans our Sunday services and the scheduling of people and the times, we give VERY little time to praying each Sunday. I have worked so hard in the past year plus to craft a service time with all of these different elements and creative moments and looked back and saw that some of the staples were missing. I had successfully planned out Jesus. We didn’t leave much room for the Holy Spirit to really work. So what did we do? We made a change. We decided that we would devote time each week to corporate prayer during the service. And people have really swallowed it up. And then I sit back and wonder, “What took us so long?”

Are you able to look at your life see ways that you have planned Jesus out of it? Are you recovering from realizing that you had done it before? I can’t find any situation where planning Jesus out of the picture is a good thing. Have you planned your family so perfectly and some sort of way Jesus fell out of the plans? I know that I have made this mistake. I know that I need to change it. I’m taking that step. Wanna join me?