Bigger Fish to Fry

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Bigger fish to fry”? Basically, it is an attempt to get your efforts focused on something more important than you are currently. And it seems that many Christians feel they have big fish to fry. From protesting abortion clinics to signing email petitions to get prayer back in school, to railing against the homosexual agenda, to making scenes at local school board meetings decrying evolution and teaching it in our schools, it seems that Christians have many fish to fry. One might say too many.

And at what cost? We have replaced people with protesting and loving with legislature. Sure, some might say that if we can make things illegal that will somehow enforce a standard of morality. But, to extend the metaphor, there are too many fish to fry, and the longer they go uncooked, the worse it smells. So stop catching and frying up fish.

Let’s focus not on issues, but on people. Jesus never wanted us to catch fish, but be fishers of men and women. When we turn our attention to policy instead of people, our witness suffers, and the church suffers. The message portrayed is that Jesus cares more about issues than being involved in our lives as King and Savior. That is not the gospel message.

I am calling for us to return to a concept that is not new and is not original, but seems to be ignored regularly so that we can fry up our fish. Let us be known and remembered for the things we support, not the things we are against. May the name "Christian" evoke images of love, care, and compassion instead of protest, alienation, and hypocrisy. Let’s be fishers of men and women – not fish fryers.

A Marathon in Spurts

I’m good in spurts. That’s probably a nice way of spinning my lack of consistency and persistence. However, I am successful with new goals for short times. I can do one week diets. My exercise regimen can be fast and furious for a month or so. I really enjoyed the ten weeks I was on the read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan.

I know this is a weakness, and I am working on it (in spurts). I once read the first three chapters of “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”.

But in the meantime, I’m also trying to work with what I have. I know that I am good in spurts, so I’m trying to harness those spurts to go deeper into the life of Christ. So, I’m often looking for ways to apply the truths of God into an explosion of activity.

Reading the Bible, prayer, service, fellowship and worship are BIG ideas that take the rest of one’s life (eternal) to get down. That’s too big for me. I need to break it down into spurts.

Here are some spurt-style disciplines that have helped me:

1. Reading the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds to the date is always a good spurt.

2. Praying Scripture.

3. Three Stones. Put three stones in ones pocket. Every time you say something encouraging to someone else you can take one stone and put it in your other pocket. This serves as a reminder to me that I want to be encouraging people.

4. Brag. Paul says that those who boast should boast in the Lord. That is not a discouragement from boasting, if anything we should boast all the more. The psalms are great place for practicing this. 125 says, “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion which cannot be shaken but endures forever.” Bold. So, say it out loud, “I trust in trust in the Lord, therefore I’m unshakable!”

5. Spend time in honest introspection, making a list of the people your sin has hurt. (This definitely is a spiritual practice to be done in a spurt, and not daily.)

Do you have any more ideas of how to use my tendency toward spurts for the cause of maturing?

Prayer Time Tuesday

We have dedicated this day to prayer. You are welcome to post prayer requests, concerns, praises, or whatever else needs to be bathed in prayer by the three of us and our thousands of readers.

Sunday was Pentecost in the Christian Calender. This combination with Memorial Day Weekend made for an interesting meshing of Christ and Culture. The following is what I prayed in the service:

Father of light, from whom every good gift comes,
send Your Spirit into our lives with the power of a mighty wind, and by the flame of Your wisdom open the horizons of our minds.

As we celebrate Pentecost, may we be reminded of your gracious, enabling presence actively at work among your people, calling and enabling us to live out in dynamic ways the witness of being your people.

On this Memorial weekend, we honor the men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our Nation. Though their sacrifice has brought peace to our nation, we pray for the peace that arrives only by the outpouring of your Spirit. May the peace that surpasses all understanding come and pervade our world.

Loosen our tongues to sing Your praise in words beyond the power of speech, for without Your Spirit humans could never raise their voices in words of peace or announce the truth that Jesus is Lord.

We pray all these things through the name of Jesus,
who lives with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Milestones Cause Us To Change

I turn thirty years old tomorrow. This milestone has caused me to evaluate my life, and it looks like big changes will follow. I feel like I need to change and start doing what I want to do, or I will never be able to do it. At thirty, it seems like I am almost out of time.

Now, that might be irrational. Thirty is not really all that old, but there are times and events in our life that cause us to reevaluate the path we are on. This happens whether those milestones or events are rational or not. Some people label this feeling depression and decide to medicate the feeling away which causes them to miss the greatness that awaits them. Others just ignore it and lumber on through their life like a zombie. As I age, I do not want to feel like I missed an opportunity. I want to experience life to the fullest, so I am going to take my thoughts to heart, grab them by the horn, and hop on for the ride.

It troubles me that I waited to hit this milestone to start to pursue what I want to do. I wish I would have started earlier.

Every morning that we wake up, we can choose to change if needed. Today we can start to be who we need to be. I am hesitant to say we can be who God wants us to be because many of the issues in our lives are not directly spiritual, but we should make changes if we know God wants us to be something we are not. I would like to think the change I will make is God-directed. I have bathed it in prayer, but I cannot be sure; however, I am sure that we do not have to waste another day lumbering along if we feel that there is something else we need to be. Why wait any longer to change? Today is the day.

Sunday Pulpit

Excerpt of Shannon's May 27th sermon. It is from a series about our journey toward God from the Psalms of Ascent.

This journey requires a lot of faith. A lot trust that where he is leading is better than where we are and better than anywhere else we could go. And that getting there will be worth all the sacrifice that journey demands.

Trust is essential. Trust is like the gas in the car. There is no journey without it.

So just as it is important to gas up for a long journey, it is important to build into our faith. To strengthen our trust in the Lord. To fuel us for our long journey.

This is the intention behind retelling all those stories of faith we find throughout the Bible. This is also a major purpose behind the psalms of ascent. While they journeyed toward God, they would sing songs like this to fuel their faith, to keep them going.

Psalm 126
When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,
we were like men who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."

The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negev.

Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

There is something in the structure here that I don’t want us to miss. Verse 2: Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Verse 3: The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Verse 5: Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

Past. Present. Future. The Lord has delivered joy. The Lord is delivering joy. The Lord will deliver joy.

Let’s start with the past. When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."

I love the language. The picture is of people being shocked and overwhelmed with the good fortune God has delivered. Have you ever been so surprised by joy that it almost seemed like a dream? It seemed like it was too good to be true. Have you ever been so blessed that you couldn’t help but laugh and sing?

Sometimes the faith to plow forward on the journey comes remembering the joys he delivered in the past.

One Banner

It was a warm summer day in 1996 when the three of us first met. The campus of Great Lakes Christian College was bustling with the excitement of a new school year. Little did we know that in the next 4 years we would eventually room together in the dorm and spend countless hours formulating theology, worldview, politics and more. Often as the discussions unfolded Regan, Shannon and Sam would be on opposite ends of a subject. This diversity made for lively and helpful discussions.

Now, a mere 10 years later, we are all married and have families, but our penchant for debate and sharpening one another’s theology has not waned. We all serve the church in some capacity. We have all begun blogs to put our ideas out there. We have all contributed to a currently defunct forum of alumni from Great Lakes Christian College. And yet, none of us has the time to really excel in all of these areas. And so, as we sat around a lake in Hamilton, Indiana one beautiful May day, the idea came – why not combine our efforts and each contribute something to one project? And perhaps, through this, we can continue the process that began so long ago.



Enter ChiRhoLive:

Legend has it that Constantine I's conversion came with a vision from the Lord. He was shrewd enough to see the problems with having an army of men who all bowed to different gods. Therefore he sought the counsel of the One God. God subsequently showed him a sign in the sky. It was the Greek letter Chi (χ) overlaid with the Greek letter Rho, (ρ). Attached to the symbol was the phrase: Εν Τούτω, Νίκα! (In this, be victorious!)

The symbol became known formally as the labarum, and more casually "The monogram of Christ". Chi and Rho are the first two letters in χριστος (Christ). Later, in Christian art it was linked with images of Jesus as emporer (see below), and to the Latin term Christus Rex (Christ the King). *

We do not like everything that has been done under this banner. We even mourn some of it (including the actions of Constantine I). But the banner of Christ is still the most worthy of banners. It is still a banner under which we will happily subject ourselves. It is still a banner under which we are victorious.

Perhaps the goal of this journal may be best summed up with a quote from Rene Descartes: “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” There will be plenty of doubt and questioning on this journal. At the same time there will be plenty of challenging one another to be what God has intended us to be.

In the end, we will come back to the simple truth belied in the title of the journal, ChiRhoLive. And regardless of where our views lie on the political or theological spectrum, living lives subject to Christ remains at the heart of what we do and say.

* Most of this information comes from wikipedia and some google searching. The information on art came from a documentary Shannon saw on PBS about the images of Jesus throughout history.