Watermark Is Moving West

I am not responsible for any loss of work productivity this produces in your life but this new program called Wordle is really fun.  

Here is their definition of what this is:

“Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Here are a couple of examples:

Psalm 103

Luther’s 95 Thesis

We’ve got some really great stuff happening and next week I have some exciting news to share.  HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS PEOPLE!!!!!!

Passion’s newest volume of worship music came out in February and on the album Chris Tomlin sings this song called God of this City.  Whatever your personal choice of music and worship bands might be, the story behind this song is powerful.

Tomlin got the song from an Irish band called Bluetree.  The quick story is that the band had a mutual couple friend who had moved to Thailand serve, reach, and minister to the women in the sex trade/prostitution business there.  On a mission trip to serve alongside their friends in Pattaya, the band get this idea to go down to the red-light district and do a praise & worship set.  They had someone help them find a location that ended up being a strip club called Climax.  They tell how awful the area was and how every fleshly indulgence was on full display for men around the world to come and take part of.  When I say fleshly that is code word for as dirty and awful as you can imagine times 100 (no more details needed).  At the end of a 2 hour worship set the lead singer just started singing “greater things are yet to come for this city” and as the band filled in they spontaneously wrote this great worship song.  The lyrics are great but thinking of the context they are remarkable.  

I’m going to share this story Sunday with our crowd as we start a mid-series series on Missional Living.  This story really inspires me to always have hope for those I’m around, especially when all hope seems lost.  Because it is when we finally get to the end of seeing ourselves as “good people” or trying to manage our lives on our own terms that we can see that we fundamentally broken people who use life, sex, money, jobs, friends, spouses, mountains, toys, plastic surgery, etc. as God replacements.  Until we see ourselves for who we are we can never see our need of Christ as eternal and enormous as it is.  That’s the starting point for seeing our lives as God’s platform to reveal Himself to the world.  As the old hymn goes, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ and HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Here’s the latest research from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, Religion in America: Non-Dogmatic, Diverse, and Politically Relevant.

The most saddening piece of the research:

Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions - not just their own - can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%).

An article was printed in the Denver Post this week that was based on a study of people in our region - here is the article.  The question that was posed was do other religions lead to eternal life as well.  This is one of the major issues I deal with in our area - Pluralism, all religions lead to God.

I was reading earlier today and found a great primer to this question:

How would you respond to the statement: ‘It’s arrogant to claim that your religion is the only true way’?

Let us start by considering the counter claim – that all religions lead to God or that all religions are equally valid.

1. It is untenable to claim that all religions lead to God
To claim that all religions lead to God is untenable because the claims of the different religions are incompatible. Hinduism and Buddhism, with some variations, believe the human problem is that we are trapped within samsara - the cycle of rebirth. For Buddhists this is characterised by dukkha – suffering and dissatisfaction. Escape is through enlightenment through the four noble truths and the eightfold path. In Hinduism escape is either through enlightenment, devotion or selfless action – or a combination of all three. There is no cycle of rebirth in Islam. The problem is human weakness and paradise is earned through submission to the will of Allah, particularly through the five pillars of belief, prayer, fasting, alms and pilgrimage. In Shintoism the problem is cosmic disharmony and the goal is a healthy, balanced life. You cannot easily reconcile these beliefs!

Sometimes it is said God is like a mountain and the different religions represents different paths up the mountain.

But the world religions do not even agree on the destination let alone the roads. We are not climbing the same mountain! Some forms of Hinduism believe in a number of gods who appear in different forms. Other variations of Hinduism believe that everything is god (‘monism’); that god is immanent throughout the world. Animists believe in local deities or ancestral gods. Islam believes in one personal deity, Allah, who is transcendent over the world. Indeed the ultimate sin in Islam is idolatry, believing in any god apart from the one God, Allah.

I was talking with some Muslim friend the other day. I was trying to persuade them that Jesus was God and they were trying to persuade me that he wasn’t. We can’t both be right! Either Jesus is God or he’s not. It’s not a question of different perspectives on the truth. They are mutually exclusive assertions.

Some people have tried to get round this by saying that religious truth is not like ordinary truth. Religious beliefs refer to ethical intentions. If I say ‘God is love’ I am really saying, ‘I ought to be loving.’ But this is not what the major religions believe. Pluralists start out arguing every religion is true, but in order to do this pluralists must say that in reality every religion is false.

2. It is disrespectful to claim that all religions lead to God.
The only way you can claim all religions lead to God is by ignoring their central truth claims – and that is disrespectful. The only way you can say all religions lead to God is by ignoring what they actually claim and viewing religions as stories made up to convey profound experiences. You reduce religion to something that societies constructs either to control or to comfort the members of that society.

You may say religion refers to an inner reality that is true for the individual concerned, but not true for everyone. The problem is this is not what adherents of the major religions claim. They claim to make metaphysical statements. So the only way you can say that all religions are true in some inner, personal sense, is actually to say that all religions are false.No-one wants to be told that we don’t really believe what we really believe. You are not taking religious truth claims seriously. They start out by trying to value every religion, but in the end pluralists value no religion.

3. It is arrogant to claim that all religions lead to God
There is a traditional story called ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ which was written as a poem in the 19th century by John Godfrey Saxe. It begins:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The first blind man feels the stomach of the elephant and concludes it is a wall. The second feels the trunk and concludes it is a snake. The rest conclude it is a spear, tree, fan and rope, depending upon where they touch. Saxe’s conclusion is:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

What the story purports to show is that all religions are blind attempts to understand ultimate reality that all reflect the truth, but none grasps the whole truth. But the real question is: How do you know it’s an elephant? How do you know it’s not a wall and five of the blind men are wrong? The story actually reveals the arrogance of the pluralists or relativists. They claim to be the sighted ones in a world of blind men. They claim the know the truth towards which others can only partly, blindly stumble.

4. It is intolerant to claim that all religions lead to God.
The move to religious pluralism is often driven by the question: How can we live together in a pluralistic society? Pluralists claim that believing Jesus is the only way is intolerant. But tolerance is not saying every belief is valid. That is often how tolerance is conceived in our society, but it is a perversion of true tolerance. True tolerance says: ‘These are my convictions, but I respect your right to hold different beliefs.’
Indeed, far from leading to tolerance, saying every religion is true actually leads to intolerance. As soon as this attitude meets a claim to absolute truth (and that after all is the nature of religious truth claims) it cannot tolerate it. You can say what you like, the pluralist says, as long as you don’t say it is true. A claim to absolute truth must be rejected, even suppressed. When it comes to absolute claims, pluralists are extremely intolerant.

True tolerance, in contrast, can cope with absolute claims.True tolerance says: ‘These are my convictions, but I respect your right to hold different beliefs.’ True tolerance depends on love – not on pretending everyone and everything is right. True tolerance is conviction plus respect for others. Jesus said we are to love our neighbours as ourselves. So Christians need firmly to oppose prejudice against Muslims and other religious adherents. Christians need to be loving our Muslim neighbours. If we keep at a distance then our communities will become polarised. Jesus says: ‘The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.’ (John 14:10) God does his work through the words of Jesus – not through , law, manipulation, or financial incentives. When they came to arrest Jesus one of his followers drew a sword, but Jesus said, ‘Put it away’. God’s work is not done through force. God’s work is done through the message of Jesus. So Christians may try to persuade you to follow Jesus. But no Christian who is true to Jesus will ever want resort to or the law or manipulation to do God’s work. God’s work isn’t done that way.

We meet on Sunday evenings right now because of space and the stage of church planting we are in.  Tonight we are going to be talking about what Jesus had to say about Conflict.  I’m really fired up about equipping our crew how to fight boldly and biblically.  The catch is that teaching a topical sermon on preaching can trap you in a moral pit if you don’t bring the gospel to bear on why how we deal with conflict can only be understood through the cross.  BUT, as we understand the past, present and future implications of the Gospel, we participate in bringing in the kingdom today through fighting to reconcile and restore relationships with one another.  This gives us the chance to model and taste of the future kingdom in which all relationships are restored to perfection through Christ.  As a leader and a teacher, any failure to connect the gospel to the action will result in people who practice good religious forms but experience a lifeless faith.  

OOOOOOHHHHHH, no he didn’t.  Yes I did.

So as I prepare to teach tonight this is my prayer - that through the context of conflict people may see the unique reconciling grace that flows through the perfect life of Christ, from the cross of Christ, to the eternal glory we will one day have in Christ.  The answer to how we do that is answered profoundly by Dr. Piper:

“In the end, the form is not the issue.  The issue is whether the excellency of Christ is seen.  Worship will happen when the God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” shines in our hearts to give us “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

We must see and feel the incomparable excellency of the Son of God.  Incomparable because in Him meet infinite glory and lowest humility, infinite majesty and transcendent meekness, deepest reverence toward God and equality with God, infinite worthiness of good and greatest patience to suffer evil, supreme dominion and exceeding obedience, divine self-sufficiency and child-like trust.”

Pray with me that Watermark would have that big and bold of a vision of Christ in His fullness.  Pray that as we live and interact with one another and our community that our identity in Christ is so clear and sought after in the good times that when conflict arises we would know how to fight to hold fast to Him in the trying times.  I pray that we would cling to the life change that happens when our whole lives are changed by the gospel, not just good actions that produce comfortable lives, that God would give us the chance to be a radical mediator of reconciliation to our whole community.  

I say to our crew almost every week that unless you have a big vision of who Christ is and what He has called you to be IN HIM, the story of Christ will just be some magic genie that keeps you relatively happy and makes you the hero of your own little world.  But when we must grasp the greatness of grace we can’t help but to experience the audacity of full, overflowing, and never failing JOY that Hebrews 11:6 dares us try on for size.  Or as CS Lewis like to put it, “It is a Christian DUTY, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can.”  (BTW-this has nothing to do with cars, homes, wealth, or comfort)  Our joy in Christ is like kryptonite to our sin and struggles, especially an issue like conflict.

How do we do that as a new church?  Never fail to paint the biggest picture of Christ you can through your words but equally as important through your actions.  And in the case of tonight, through a little mix martial arts experience we like to call doing life with other people who aren’t perfect . . . yet.

One of the things we are working on is to think through creative ways to live out our call to be “salt and light” and to “become all things to all people.”  A big reason I am so passionate about church planting is because it is THE MOST POWERFUL EVANGELISTIC TOOL IN THE CHURCH’S TOOLBELT.  3 weeks ago I got to lead the first person to the Lord since the start of this journey to plant Watermark Church here in Broomfield.  It was such a significant affirmation of what we are doing and how we are making the right thing the main thing - letting the Gospel shine through our lives to others as it changes us from the inside out.  We never know how we are going to be used by God in His master plan to change lives but thinking and living missionally is the gift we are given as people who know and walk with Christ.  1 Corinthians 3:6 is a great reminder verse that we find ourselves interacting with people at different stages in their life and understanding of Christ and it is our job to be available and prepared to share, love, and invest in people while it is God’s alone to supernaturally change their hearts.  Are you being faithful to prepare yourself by walking intimately with God daily?  Are you being faithful to live like a missionary in your culture as you look for the every day opportunities that are available to be light?  Do you have stories to share of how God is changing your life and growing you?  Do you have stories to share about people’s lives that are being impacted with the gospel because you reached out and invested?

I feel like one of my goals is to model and give our core group opportunities to do this.  Here are some of the creative ways we are attempting to engage our culture:

1. Chamber of Commerce - I recently joined so that I can meet business leaders around here and continue to understand the needs of our city so that we can be a church that allows seeks to serve others.
2. Poker Nights - This is a simple way to get people who love to have fun but would never attend a church or even think about hanging out with Christians, to spend 3+ hours getting to know one another.
3. Basketball/Soccer/Sports Leagues - I am helping out with my kids sports teams and we have people that have joined sports leagues as a part of doing what they normally do with the goal of engaging with people we would never otherwise be exposed to.
4. Neighborhood Parties - We are committed to hosting a party every 2-3 months that gets our neighbors to have community with each other and gives us a platform to get to know them and naturally share who we are and what we are about.
5. Community Events - We have a running calendar of what is going in our area so that we are good citizens who attend city events and are also looking for ways that we can help/serve.

No matter where you are at there are tons of easy ways to do what you are already doing with a kingdom minded focus.  What happens as you do this is you get to see God at work in your life, you’ve got hope to offer, and you get to see God work through your life.  That’s living.  Get some . . .

Found this great quote last week:

“Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact?

The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.”

—Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

 2 Weeks ago a crew from Watermark in Dallas came up to Estes Park for a family camp.  On the way back I invited Todd Wagner, the Lead Pastor at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, to come hang out with us on a Sunday night to share with our group the joys and vision of being a part of a new church as it starts.  Todd knocked the ball out of the park as he and I did a Q&A together that had him share tons of great insights into what a community of Christ followers should look like as they live on mission together.  One of the big questions I asked was why they felt compelled to plant a new church in an area that is seemingly so church saturated.  One of the big reasons I asked this question is because I get the same question about why we decided to plant a church in Broomfield, CO.  His answer was spot on - because the Spirit gave them a conviction and they saw a huge need.  All over the US the church is digressing and simply not keeping up with the population growth.  At the same time there is a hunger that people have for spiritual things.  More and more though, they are seeking out answers away from the organized church.  Why?  Because many “churches” are calling people to events (ex: Sunday morning services) or programs but they are failing to call people to live out the Gospel.  

Todd also hammered the importance of the church reflecting the authenticity and involvement in one another’s lives that we see happening at the end of Acts 2 and 4.  The church should be a place where people who are in different stages of their walk with Christ are invited in to real and meaningful relationships with one another that intentionally finds its goal to push one another towards Christ first and foremost.  What happens when Christ is the center and goal of that community is that life change happens, acceptance happens, physical needs being met happens, spiritual needs happens, healing happens, discipleship/growth happens, miracles happen, favor with the community happens, healthy gospel-centered growth happens, and FUN happens.  What?  Yeah, I said fun.  If you are given the chance to enter into a relationship with a God that is so powerful that with His words spoke the universe into existence, so loving that He graciously through His Son pays the price of the brokenness of this world and our own love of things that are meaningless compared to Him so that we are called His sons and daughters, so creative that He gives us friends that point us back to the freedom and fulfillment that alone exists in Himself as we use our gifts and passions to encourage one another daily, and so eternal that in His plan to redeem this world back to the perfect form that He originally designed for His glory and our joy that we are given the right to be His tools in that redemptive work - you better be ready to party!  So if God’s exultation is His due, and our satisfaction in Him is our reward, then having a flat out blast as we live together for His name should be the expectations.  If that is what the church is then give me some of that.

 As with any church and any human being Watermark and Todd are not perfect, but because of their sheer and undeterred focus on Christ they are a great living example of the invisible God.

One other thing - on their way back to Dallas our friends blessed us in a significant way.  They gave us all the sound equipment we would need to more than adequately serve a 500 seat room.  The verse that comes to mind is 1 John 4:12 - “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Thank you our friends in Dallas for all your help, support, prayers, and encouragement.  It will be a fun day when by God’s favor and grace we get to turn around and bless others in the same way.

Last Thursday I met a great guy named Steve Van Diest who is involved with a ministry called Project Revive.  The goal of the ministry is to help churches to serve the needs of the city.  Guy is an all-star and his heart to take the Gospel to the city is compelling beyond words.  He invited me to take part in another ministry called Prayer One which every Monday takes pastors up in a helicopter to fly over and pray over the city.  So we show up at a small airport on the south side of Denver this morning and met with a group of about 15 other people who are in and around major ministries in the city.  The group was really eclectic which made the time fun and chock full of different perspectives of reaching the city for Christ.  

One of the guys I met introduced himself simply as Isaac.  Nothing stood out about this guy besides the fact that he loved the Lord and was overall a nice guy.  So we jump in the chopper and he tells us that he is a part of a small band called The Fray and that his full name is Isaac Slade.  (For those of you who have never heard of The Fray, they are one of the top bands in the last couple of years and have a huge hit song called “How To Save a Life“)  It was really cool to hear about how they are in currently in studio wrapping up their next album.  Not every day that you get to kick it with a rock star.  Can’t wait to hear their next album - you should buy it!

On the way back north we noticed a small sign on the side of an orange and blue building that said “Denver Broncos.”  We walked over to the gift shop and noticed their was a chain link fence and lo and behold, the Broncos were having pre-training camp drills.  There was a mess of news people there and didn’t realize until this evening that it was because the Broncos let go of their starting, yet troubled, running back Travis Henry.  

All of that before 10 a.m.  What a fun day.  Oh yeah, Denver is a beautiful city and it was another big affirmation that there is a huge need here for solid communities of believers who have a passion to reach this area with the Gospel of Christ.  Keep praying for our new community.

Don’t know if you’ve ever had that dream where you were standing naked before your whole 8th grade class before but you get the gist.  I’ve done lots of weddings and really enjoy preaching/communicating so it was a none issue when my friend invited me to do his wedding.  We did the walk through on Friday night at this beautiful wooden chapel in the Missouri woods.  It was overcast, with a temperature around 65-ish in the late evening.  Everything went smoothly and the ceremony was set.  This couple was about to take part of a sacred ceremony and right of passage that bajillions of people throughout history have walked through - and I was to be the tour guide.  No pressure!

[Switching to narrative because it will help you more fully realize my personal hell.]

As I walked out into the chapel I realized that it was much warmer in the chapel then it was the day before.  It was hot and humid outside and just as the bride is coming down the aisle with her dad it hits me that the AC wasn’t turned on.  No worries, in 30 minutes we’ll be done and on our way to the reception.  5 minutes into the ceremony I’ve got this couple 2 feet in front of me, there are 10 bridesmaids/groomsmen to either side of me, and a chapel full of friends of family, all of whom are noticing that I’m getting squirmy.  Above me are roughly 6-8 beautiful, but old, lights that are putting out enough heat to turn the whole room into a sauna.  I’m moving from being hot to actually having small beads of sweat build on my brow.  10 minutes in and I’m thinking, “Dear Lord, is my jacket on fire.”  Why you ask?  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because I’m 6 inches from two huge unity candles behind me for the later part of the ceremony.  15 minutes in and my shirt is drenched with sweat as huge dime size drops of salty bodily fluid are falling from my head on to my jacket and bible at roughly an every 5-10 second rate. (NO KIDDING)  I am now profusely wiping my face off, trying to continue to use words that resemble a wedding, and can’t look at the couple in front of me.  Once again, why?  Because they are so in awe of the horrible stunt that was happening in front of them that for a good 20 minutes they are on the verge of busting into uncontrollable laughter. Seriously.  Kraig later told me that he didn’t hear the last half of what I said because he couldn’t stop counting the drops of sweat and willing them to race down my face in his own personal and cruel video game.

Awful, awful, awful day at the office.  The reception was fun because none of the family or friends failed to remind me of what I had just experienced.  One woman replied, “what a great example of grace under pressure.”  Yippee for me!  All in all it made for a great self-deprecating story for you and a perfect memory for my friends.