The other day I was listening to a radio program that discussed the power of the exclamation mark.  The purpose of the show was to help the listeners understand that the exclamation can be both overused and underused thanks to text messaging, email and facebook.  The punctuation mark once had some punch to it. Now it is overused making it seem cheesy or, underused, making it seem harsh.

Let me show you how this is true in both cases.  Have you ever seen a text message or facebook message of a tween?  “OMG!!!  LOL!!!  !!!!!”.   That would be considered an overuse of an exclamation point.

The undeuse of the xclamation mark would look something like this (let me set up the scene for you):  An employee is asked to put together a business strategy for the upcoming fiscal year.  Hours and hours went into this business plan by the employee.  Finally the document ends up on the desk of the CEO a day early.  The employee is beaming with pride and anxiety as it is delivered.  The employee leaves a note for the CEO to text the employee with some thoughts on the business plan.

Two days later the employee receives that message.  It says:  Great.  We’ll talk.

Can you imagine what the employee was feeling when receiving that message?  They are wondering if this is good or if this is bad. An exclamation point would change the whole feel of that message.

The person doing the radio commentary of the exclamation point said that the power of the punctuation marked died when talking and the hand written letter died.  I think he made his point.  It’s true, we don’t write many letters anymore.  But there is a positive side to our lack of writing letters.  Since we don’t write letters much anymore, when you do get one it has great impact.  You feel extra special (or extra angry depending on the contents of the letter).

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Remember the movie that starred Charlton Heston called “The Ten Commandments”.  For the year it was made in, the special effects were top of the line.  I remember two scenes from that movie.  The first one being the mass exodus of the Israelites through the Red Sea.  I watch it now and I cannot believe how cheesy the effects are – but back then it was considered the best.  They left Egypt because they were slaves.  All they did was make bricks.  And I also remember Moses holding the Ten Commandments on the mountain.  Awesome!

Well, the reason for the whole movie (and the bible story) is this:  Israel were brick making slaves, and now they are not.  The Ten Commandments were a guide for how this new community were going to live.

Now, when Moses finished getting the 10 Commandments from God, God had a couple more things to say to Moses and Israel.  God told them “Don’t build any altars with cut stone”.  What does that have to do with anything?

Well, let me tell you!  Israel is going to worship God.  Worship takes place somewhere – in their day it was at altars.  If they start making fancy altars they will be doing what they did in Egypt as slaves, making bricks.  In other words God says “You were slaves in Egypt, you will not be slaves again – even religious slaves”.  God sets a standard here – he wants a relationship, not a religion.

Hundreds of years later a guy named Paul (who was an Israelite) wrote a letter to a group of people who had the same struggles as ancient Israel did – that religion verses relationship struggle.  Do you know what he wrote?  Paul said “There is nothing that can separate you from the LOVE of God”.  Love is a relationship word.  God is looking for a relationship – not a religion.

This Sunday we are going to look more closely at this command by God and how Israel always seemed to want to be back in slavery.  Check in later for the audio!

A classic for your viewing pleasure!

There are two things I need to admit when reviewing this book. 

First, I had written Brian McLaren off.  If you have read any of his books you would quickly realize that he was being extremely repetitive.  I understand that the general public may not read all of his books, but it  just seemed that since the “New Kind of Christian” series to “The Secret Message of Jesus” to “Everything Must Change” Brian went on and on about the same themes.  Those themes being:  the Kingdom of God, Jesus in his historical setting and how the current systems (economic, spiritual….) are not working.  I am greatly indebted to his insight but honestly, I was getting a little bored.  BUT, when I realized that this book was part of a series edited by Phyllis Tickle and that Scot McKnight was doing one of the themes, I decided to pick it up and give it a try.  In short, I bought the book not because of McLaren, but because of all of the added features that came along with it.

Second, like all books, there is nothing new said.  This book is a “Readers Digest” version of other great books about the “comeback” of sacred practices.  (Just a side note:  I am co-reading Jacques Ellul’s “The Subversion of Christianity” at the same time.  The premise of his book is that the only things that should be considered ‘sacred’ are God and redeemed humanity.)    Back to my point.  In the introduction McLaren mentions a few authors that influenced this book.  I highly recommend just reading those books.  Those books include Eugene Peterson’s “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places”, Dallas Willard’s “The Divine Conspiracy” and Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline”.  If you do not have the energy to read those books, McLaren is the way to go.

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 Have you ever botched something up so bad all you could think about was how you were going to fix it?  It happens to me frequently. 

As we continue our journey through Exodus, we come to the part of the story that directly follows the Ten Commandments.  It is an odd little story where Israel says to Moses “You talk to God, we’re too scared”.  This was the beginning of a long line of things Israel botched up.  What do I mean by that?

Since Israel decided to use Moses as a mediator between God and themselves, that was how things would be done from then on.  In other words, God would speak only through priests or prophets from that time forward.  They really messed things up.

But that is not the end of the story.  Listen in on Monday to hear how the author of Hebrews reconciled a history of mess.

This song searches the soul.  It is also really good.  Enjoy.

As I was browsing the theology and christian section at Chapters, I came across this charming book called “The Unlikely Disciple”.  The author, Kevin Roose, was A.J. Jacobs (“A Year of Living Biblically) intern who went to Jerry Falwells church to do reserach for his book.  There, they both met students of Jerry Falwell’s university called Liberty.  Roose was intrigued by the stories.  So with some interviews and his parents permission, Roose quit Brown University and spent a semester at Liberty.  His intentions were to write a book about life, religion and relationships at Liberty and to tell an “undercover” story of Jerry Falwell.  What really happens is surprising.

What I liked about the book:

Roose struggles with the idea of hiding his true intentions of being there.  When he came up with the idea of being a “undercover journalist”, he did not realize that he would fall in love, create friendships and actually connect with the staff.   There is a real humaness struggle going on.

Roose also is surprised how normal most of the students are.  They struggle with faith, sexuality and living in a world that is hurting just like everyone else.  As his story unfolds, you can see him getting more and more comfortable with the people around him and his surroundings.

What I did not like about the book:

What I don’t like about the book is the same as what I like about it.  Roose is an undercover writer trying to get a story.  So there is this sense of dishonesty and fakeness to it.  He get’s deeply involved in peoples lives superficiously and it makes the reader a bit uncomfortable.

He also digs up dirt on some of the main characters of the book that is not relevant to his story.  He cloaks this in a shroud of context, but really it can be taken as defamation of character. 

All in all, I really have enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone interested in an “outsiders” look into the world of religious education and community.  This book can create some amazing dialogue with those who are uncomfortable talking religion and it also gives hope for the future of faith.

Pick it up and read it in your summer holidays!

This week we are going to look at the last six of the Ten Commandment:  Honour your parents, do not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie in court, or covet. What we need to understand when looking at these six, is that they were not just rules to live by, but a covenant that told Israel they had worth.  They (Israel, you and I)  mean something to God.

What do I mean by that?  The Big ten told Israel that god, THE GOD, was interested in how they lived with each other because everyone had worth to him.  The God who created, breathed life into humans, that parted the Red Sea and created a new non-slave, liberated community valued humans. How we treat each other reflects that.

You see honouring your parents is much more than just doing what you are told.  It gave dignity and security to the aging.  Do not murder was more than just not taking a life – it was showing deep reverence for God’s creation.  Not committing adultery was more than not sleeping with someone other than your wife; it put value on relationship. Do not steal was way more than taking a sheep, it made sure that the poor and down trodden were not robbed of life.  Not lying in court meant that God’s plan of justice moved forward.  Not coveting your neighbours possessions brought the hearers back to the first three commandments – no other god’s, no idols and no misusing the name of God.

God believes that you have worth – how we live in community is a reflection if we believe that or not.

Listen in on Monday to hear the whole message.

But for your viewing pleasure, here is a clip that is not “worthy!”

One of the great battles of Christianity are the two ideas of grace (Paul) vs. works (James).  We continually wrestle with the notions of just believing or just doing.  Jacques Ellul in his book “The Subversion of Christianity” wrote back in 1984 an amazing response to weld together this dichotomy.  He writes:  Practice (works) is the visible criterion that we have seriously received grace and also that we have entered effectively into God’s plan.  For Paul, as  for Jesus, practice is the touchstone of authenticity.

But that is not the clincher.  He then adds to his argument why Christian faith is not affecting the world. 

“Those who attack Christianity usually do it, then, by pointing first to our disastrous practice”.

Now, this is how us “postmoderns” interpret this.  What we do is a response to what Christ did.  The problem though is that we have not had great success in practice.  Ellul would say  “Maybe there is something wrong with your faith then.”  Which really is the point of his book.

The basis of “The Subversion of Christianity” is that:  what the church has become is not at all what Christianity is portaryed as in Scripture.  There is not just contradiction on one point but on all points.

This is a great read for those who want to be challenged about the modern church and how we live out our faith in grace and practice.  And this book comes to me at a great time as we look at the Ten Commandments and christian consumerism.  Let’s hope that the church can be brave enough to have a good look at ourselves and ask the questions Ellul asks, “How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul?”

Growing up my mom would ask me what I wanted to do for my birthday.  I always chose to watch a movie.  But back then it was not just going to the video store to pick the latest release.   Video stores were not around yet.  Nope, we would go down to the library, rent a projector and look at the very few National Film Board children’s movies.  And every year I would pick the same one.  A sad movie about a sparrow who did not know how to be a sparrow.  Things have somewhat changed. 

I now have 19.7 days of music on my iPod.

This has even trickeled into the religious realm.  I recently talked to a fellow pastor who made the observation that his community seems almost over churched.  Our culture may be the first ones to say “We are church shopping at the moment” when we relocate.

This week we will be looking at the first three commandments God gave to Moses.  And honestly, things really have not changed that much.  The first three commandments are a response to the shopping spree of different gods in that culture.  Today we can look for a pair of shoes in 50 different shoe stores, department stores, mini malls and strip malls.  Back then you would go from town to town and “shop” for the most powerful god.  The first three commandments face the religion of consumerism, politics and  slavery and gives it hope.  This is relevant today just as much as the day it was written in.

Listen Here:

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This is “worth” the watch -- “Selling Jesus: Christian Consumerism”

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Just recently our family started the brutal process of getting our passports.  It was a rather inconvenient and intimidating process.  Inconvenient in the fact that we had to drive to Thunder Bay, get our pictures taken, fill out endless forms, spend a lot of cash and make sure that our documentation was in perfect order.  Intimidating in the fact that when our picture was taken it was studied for approval, the application needed references, you had to meet a “passport officer” (was I going to be retained for not crossing a‘t’) and waiting for approval.  Do you know what the scariest part of the whole process was though?  Signing your name in the confines of a small green box.  It took me two tries!  My wife did an amazing job of filling out all five applications for the family and of course I botched it up by signing just outside the box with the ‘L’ of my last name.

I fought this whole process for a number of reasons:  the cost, the repetitiveness of information, the inconveniences, and the control factor.  And everyone that would give an ear to my cries would just say “Well, that is the way it is done, you have to do it”. 

Today we are going to begin looking at the Ten Commandments (The Decalogue).  This God given document given to Moses and Israel was not something that original though.  As my friends continually reminded while applying for my passport “that is the way it is done”, so it was with the Decalogue.  With a few variances, the 10 commandments were a contract that resembled other contracts before, during and after the Decalogue was given.  So today we begin a multi-week journey with some goals.

Goal one – try to understand the document in its historical setting

Goal two – understand the contents of the document in its historical setting

Goal three – is the Decalogue relevant for today

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