If it’s true that things will not make us happy why are we so slow to learn the truth? It’s so easy to think this or that will some how fill the hole in me and I will find fulfillment. We should figure out early in life that stuff just doesn’t make you happy. Driving home from Austin Saturday night I heard a song titled To Much Stuff. It may have been the truest statement to ever come from the speakers of a car. Stuff just won’t get the job done. Jimmy Buffets words are true also:

I used to rule my world from a payphone

And ships out on the sea

But now times are tuff

And I’ve got too much stuff

Can’t explain it for the life of me.

Having performed my share of weddings (How in the world can you “perform” a wedding? Shouldn’t it be I’ve suffered through my share of weddings? I guess this would include everyone who was present and not just the preacher. Officiated doesn’t work either. We need a new word) I find them to be one of the places you see this disease most clearly. When the bride and groom speak their vows, more often then not what I hear them saying is not the promise to love honor and obey but something along the lines of, I am a great black hole of emotional need and you are now charged with making me happy! Not only can things not make us happy, people can’t make us happy either. While relationships are important (not essential, you know what I mean Matt) they are not the source of fulfillment in our lives.

Or are they?

People can’t make us happy but relationships can fill some holes. My life would be much less if it were not for my wife and kids. The vast majority of the joy I experience in life is experienced in relationship with others. I think the key is that these people I am in relationship with don’t make me happy but the relationship its self is a source of happiness. The being in community provides something I need because I’m designed in the image of God who has and always will dwell in community.

So you can give up on that house, car, boat, dress, vacation, etc making you happy but don’t give up on the relationships you have and the ability to share happiness in them.

I have a confession to make. I’m not a big fan of contemporary Christian music. I find the majority of it simplistic and shallow. For the biggest part it strikes me as people trying to do pop rock and not doing a great job. It’s hard to compete with the world and really doesn’t make much sense to try. That being said there are exceptions. I heard two songs by the Zoe Group in Abilene this week and found them deep, meaningful and downright moving.

I’m a big believer that Christians should be writing music. Down through the ages Christians have composed the greatest music the world knows. Am I wrong to believe we should be better at it then we seem to be right now? This week I had the chance to attend a class that dealt with sacred music and how it’s evolved over the centuries. I come from an acaeppella tradition but I love instrumental music also. It only makes sense to me that what ever we do we should do our bes,t especially when it comes to worship.

So what moves you? What are the songs or musical pieces that move you to worship?

Back from the ACU Bible Lectures and while it wasn’t the best I’ve ever attended it was enjoyable. Some how I always feel guilty being able to hear all this great teaching while so many never have the opportunity. I’m convinced that more people need to be exposed to this great teaching. If they can’t go to ACU, Tulsa or any of the other events where this happens, we need to do a better job of bringing great teachers here.

I have no great interest in Rock Stars/politicians/social activist but the words from Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast need to be heard. http://www.data.org/archives/000774.php

Can you become immune to scripture? Maybe immune isn’t the right word but can you reach a point where you can read totally mind-blowing things and see them as just normal. I’m afraid I not only see this happen all the time, I actually find myself doing it. Is it over familiarity with the Bible that breeds this mind set? Is it some inborn desire to water down what confronts us? Is it just boredom on our parts?

There are some wild things in the Bible. Love your enemies, give and expect nothing in return, be willing to be taken advantage of, be merciful to everyone, deserving or not, seek to be a servant. This is just a few of the things that should blow us away but some how we’ve found a way to tame them.

Most of these things are so outrages that we would never consider using them in everyday life because they couldn’t possibly work. How do you love your enemy in business? Who in the world seeks to be taken advantage of? All of these sound like, if some one throws a left hook at you lean into it. That’s bad advice!

So how do we, who have become so insensitive to the word recapture they awe of being exposed to Gods message?

It’s been awhile since I posted and it may be awhile before I can again. Life seems to have picked up speed in the last week, and it doesn’t look like it will slow down any time soon.

In the middle of this race it occurred to me that there is a danger in trying to get better. We all want to be better this year as compared to last, and better today then we were yesterday, but I’m not sure that’s possible. Today is not the same as yesterday and therefore it’s hard to compare the two. Life is a lot like that river that you can never step into twice. As soon as you step into it its changed and it will never be the sane river. Yesterday is not today. Today holds different challenges, different people, different weather and even a different me.

Now I certainly want to get better but I also want to enjoy today for being today rather then getting caught up in a comparison test.

Syndicated columnist David Ignatius writing about globalization observed, business today is the leading agent of social change. To support his position he quoted a venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla who said innovative bottom up methods will solve problems that now seem intractable- from energy to poverty to disease.

Two things jump to mind when I read these words. First it disturbs me that business is the leading agent of social change. While it may be true, it bothers me that the church is not seen as the leading agent of social change. If our society is going to follow the change agent called business, I’m afraid we are all in trouble. While business has done great things, especially in America, it has also caused great damage. We are a nation of consumers, materialistic to the core and continue to grow in these vices in great part due to business. A society that follows a business mind set will be primarily driven by competition. Competition is a nice word for, me first, which is about as far as you can get from biblical truth.

The second issue I take with Ignatius’s observation is the idea that business will solve the ills of society. If the business ethic were capable of curing the world of poverty you would think it would have done it by now, at least here in the good ole U.S.A. I’m still convinced that the Kingdom of God is the only hope for disease, poverty, war, crime and all the other sin driven ills of society to be cured.

While business may or may not be the leading agent of change in our society, it is the Kingdom of god that needs to be. Surely Gods people empowered by his Spirit should be leading the way to peace.

For those of you at central, and anyone else who might be interested, I need some help. We have a men’s retreat coming in August and I’d like your input on theme and format. We have traditionally done a Friday night and half a Saturday. If you have some different ideas let me know. I really do want your input on a theme. I need to get a resource person pretty soon so let me know.

It has been requested we have a couple’s seminar or retreat some time soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this. It’s been a long time since we’ve done something along these lines so I would think it’s high time we did.

The need to be proactive when it comes to things like marriage is so essential it cannot be over emphasized. The odds of healing a broken marriage are so small when compared to building a strong one. It takes a whole lot more effort and time to try and save a failing marriage then it does to keep a healthy one healthy.

The idea that we are some how saved collectively as well as individually is still swimming around in my head. Because it’s lurking in the background every conversation seems to get filtered through the idea. This weekend I had a conversation about roller coasters with some friends. Now I’m not a roller coaster, fan but I have more then my share of stories. What struck me is that during the conversation the observation was made that roller coasters are designed for fake adrenaline. Roller coasters are very safe by nature but they designed to make you feel unsafe. On the other hand the church is a very unsafe place that makes us feel safe.

Ask Ananias and Sapphira if the church is a safe place. All they did was try to look a little better then they were, and it got them killed. The church is a place where you can die if your not careful. While the church may look warm and safe, and in many respects is a place of safety, the reality is, the church is a place you can lose your life.

Because the church is such a dangerous place we are even more dependent on one another. The church’s journey through this world is something like trying to get through a jungle. The closer we work together the better chance we have of surviving. Going it alone is a death wish.

Since we are dependant on one another for survival is it reasonable to assume that our salvation is somehow linked together? I believe it is.

Is there anything in this world that doesn’t deal in community? Marriage is more then just a union of two people. Aunts, uncles, children and parents that help support and nurture the marriage form a community. Churches are communities of faith. Neighborhoods in spite of privacy fences function best as communities. I can’t seem to think of anything that exist outside the bounds of community. Work places are communities.

I think because of our being made in the image of God we are designed to function in community. When we fight this natural function we start to produce all sorts of strange behaviors. Most twisted behavior, great or small is in some way related to a break down in our communal design. Healthy relationships (community) help build healthy people just as unhealthy relationships (a breakdown in community) help create unhealthy people.

I need health relationships to be who God has designed me to be so, in a very real way my ultimately being formed in the image of Christ depends on the community I am a part of, just as other in the community being formed into the image of Christ depends on me.

The bottom line is we better take care of each other.