To those who know me, it’s no secret that I dislike Mac computers for my own personal use. I find them too expensive, too restricted, and uncaring toward those who have older computers–limiting their upgrades and features to new features, new phones, and more money.

However, these arguments don’t mean that I think everyone needs a PC. There are many who work best with a Mac, and who should pay the extra money for one. That’s why I appreciate Lifehacker’s best arguments article…it reviews the advantages and disadvantages of both, fairly. Check it out here, or read the headlines from the article below:

http://lifehacker.com/mac-vs-windows-your-best-arguments-486125257

Windows offers more software

Windows offers greater flexibility

Mac’s have fewer viruses, require less maintenance

Both platforms work well for designers/video editors

Windows offers a better gaming experience

Neither OS is easier to learn

It’s no secret that the Bible has a lot to say—more than can be told in a movie, taught in a sermon series, or acquired in a lifetime of learning. God’s grand literary masterpiece, a collection of 66 books by 40 different authors is deep—and yet it has an epic, unifying message that the whole world needs to hear and understand. I am so pleased that despite all the criticism that the world brings to anyone attempting the task, Mark Burnett and ___ have been willing to use their gifts and influence to bring that grand story to the screen in their way. We need more people willing to portray the story using their unique perspective and understanding.

Here begins a short interaction of my likes and dislikes, respectfully submitted for others to consider.

 Likes:

I love the way Jesus attracts people. He carries a kind, smiling attitude that I love. He speaks the appropriate words for the situation. And He touches the heart, not just the head, when He approaches people like Peter and Matthew to invite them as followers. I will treasure that portrayal of Jesus for a long time. That’s the way I feel He approached me too, in my initial encounters with Him.

I love that many of the characters the series portrayed are NOT as I had imagined them: Sampson, Saul, and Pilate. That’s challenging to me. Did I get it wrong? Did they get it wrong? I think they got a lot right…I’m pretty certain Sampson was portrayed wrongly, but man, I have enjoyed watching these characters in action and being reminded how human they really are. How limited and haunted they are by the social pressures around them.

I love the way the political pressure of Rome and their disruption of worship causes the Jewish leaders to get rid of Jesus. They were truly trying to protect the people to some degree—and prevent a violent backlash from Rome. Too often I forget that, and think that they were simply greedy and power-hungry. In the end it was a lot of all those motives, not just one or the other. And that’s sin’s undoing. It won’t throw one good reason at us for doing wrong, it tries to stack them up.

I appreciation the adult themes of this series. So often our portrayals of the Bible are set for children. We needed a series that gave the Bible the grit and blood of the real world. I love the bloodiness of the sacrifices, the battles, and the passion. God’s story is a serious one, and our sin has made this world messy. I’m glad to see God’s work portrayed in the midst of our broken world.

Dislikes:

Jesus said some challenging things to those who knew better than they acted—he occasionally drove the religious leaders off with a righteous anger, not simply overturning a few tables in the temple, but actually threatening the money changers with a whip. Not simply telling a small girl laughingly that the temple would be destroyed, but weeping over the city’s rejection of him, cursing a tree that does not bear fruit, and speaking of the terrible judgment to come. That Jesus has some crucial points to make, and many need to hear the harshness of the call to discipleship that He calls us to. And hear the harshness of the judgment that awaits those who mislead people with their prideful knowledge of religions facts and practices.

I wish we had seen Jesus family during his ministry years. Though Mary was a key character in the story, I would have loved to see Jesus’ brothers and sisters around her as he suffered. To see James, Jesus brother and future leader of the church as his brother passed away.

A wish a few scenes had been a little more accurate. I know that this portrayal of Jesus requires some stories to be combined, and as many times as I dislike the combination of two scenes, I like it too. I appreciation Jesus’ calling of Matthew being mixed with portions of his teaching. But I wish the woman who traveled with the disciples would have been Peter’s wife. I wish the shepherds would have heard Jesus’ birth announced by a miriad of angels. I wish I could have seen the Jewish revivals in the time of Hezekiah or J____. And I wish I could have seen the pillar of God’s glory resting over the tabernacle, and eventually the first temple of Solomon.

The scale of the Bible’s numbers and the nation of Israel is immense, and unfortunately the movie has to portray battles and the Exodus with people in the hundreds, rather than a nation in the millions. I would have loved to see a million people passing through the Red Sea, and a million entering the promised land. Alas, the camera lens is too small and the budget too tight at times.

Finished this book this morning, and let me just say, as much as I like Matt Chandler, this book was tough to read through. My initial impression was that his thoughts were scattered, some of his comments were misdirected/mislabeled the issues, and the book itself didn’t quite make points skillfully. In short order, he needs a ghost writer to make this flow much better in the future. If you want to read a better book on this subject, I heartily recommend The Green Letters.

Here’s the main point that needs to be taken from this book:

The Gospel is the core of what we believe and what transforms us–if we don’t make it clear enough, often enough in our churches and our relationships, people will assume incorrectly that we are just trying to be good to earn God’s favor–the basis of every other religious system. The gospel is about the restoration of the entire world, one heart and mind at a time, through the power of the Holy Spirit. In order to experience that, people must understand that their sin stands between them and a holy, just God. Then they must understand that there is one payment for sin–past present and future, in Jesus Christ. We must live, preach, and teach this truth.

That said, the book explains why the gospel is important, a message that needs repeated as many times as possible. While I found the book dry for me, I loved the first 30 pages, and the last 15…those thoughts were worth reading the entire thing. Here are some of those thoughts I loved:

We are wired to worship–and if we don’t know that it should be God, we find people or things to worship: celebrities, movies, sports teams–the world is full of fanatics for things that really don’t matter that much. pg 36-37

God is HUGE, and in some ways, out of our league. We need to live in awe of His power, knowledge, and love. Rather than presume that He owes us something, or that we can earn His favor, we need to start coming to God on HIS terms, not ours. pg 28-29

We need to learn to let go of the past–God forgives our past, present, and future sins in Christ. However, we let those things come back to disable us. We need to see the past as God sees it–we died to that life. It no longer matters. What matters is the present and how we move into the future, with the new life God has given us. pg 212-213

The key to defeating sin is twofold: We need to kill the root of our sin–to have our heart’s motivations reshaped, and we need to fall deeply in love with God. If we can do those things, then following God will become far more attractive than sin. But it takes time. It takes a deep conversation with God, and the insight and accountability of others. If we are just trying to cover our bad behavior or stop it, we need to make sure that we understand God’s purpose in saving us–it is not about earning God’s favor! pg 216-219

Those are the best part of the book for me. Without trying to slander Matt, whose intentions are great. Here are a few things I think he could have argued better.

Matt tended to attack messages and preachers for not preaching the saving news of the gospel at every event. He seems to think that we need to explain the work of Jesus every time we are in front of people. That’s distracting, and its overkill to me. Coming to Christ takes time, takes the full breath of teaching of what our Scriptures have to say. He took a non-believer to a True Love Waits rally for Christians on sexual purity, expecting her to hear the gospel. Wrong event, wrong person, not the wrong message, in my opinion. He was placing expectations on an event that he should not have. I don’t take non-believers to the Leadership Summit, or a Married Life Live conference to let them hear Jesus on the cross. I take them to a service intended for non-believers.

Matt tended to portray the gospel as if it would always evoke an immediate response–as if a person is changed dramatically for good or worse by a single sermon.  I think that most people take a lot of time to come to a saving faith--they listen to our sermons, watch our actions, and begin to trust God slowly by hearing about how much love and mercy and grace God has for this world. Demanding a response from people short-circuits their ability to be drawn by God. We need comfortable, yet challenging church environments and relationships with people that allow them to “taste and see” that God is good, trustworthy, and gracious without demanding an response until they are ready. pg 63

It’s been almost a year since I last really wrote to this blog…Wow. That’s a long vacation, I know. If this post comes as a surprise, then I am glad you keep my feed in your list.

It’s been a great year–and its not for terrible reasons that this blog has laid silent. However, it has also been my first year as a “pastor” officially, and that has meant a lot of change. New city, new house, new jobs, new companions to hang out with, new hobbies, and a chance to rediscover life for both Stacy and I. I confess that I am unprepared, but learning to adapt to the challenges of ministry: counseling, programming services, etc. It’s good work, but I is taking some time to adjust and develop my skills for it.

And the great news is, we are LOVING life! This journey God has us on is exciting and challenging–we wouldn’t want it any other way.

By way of an update, here are a few photos that jump out to me related to recent events. And along with that, I hope you hear the message that after a year of adaptation and consideration, I believe I’ll be adding blogging back into my routine. I hope you’ll continue to follow me.

First year as a pastor, first chance to do some very fun baptisms! Here’s Kyle Burney, a good friend, and a soldier who deploys this week. Be safe my friend, I’ll miss you on this trip of yours. It’s a tough assignment to be a soldier–I hope our church can serve them and their families well.

Here are some other friends I’ve been blessed to get to know–and then send off these past few months. It’s unfortunate, but the military only gives us a few years with most couples. Tara and Tyler are now in El Paso, TX, and Steven and Jessica Stillwill have been moving to Arizona these past few weeks. It’s heartbreaking to lose their close companionship, but exciting to send them off to new opportunities to grow. It’s because of couples like them that we have started live streaming our services at www.onechurchmedia.tv so that they can stay in touch with our church when traveling, training, sick, or transitioning to a new location and searching for a new local church home. It’s our hope that one day we will be able to prepare many of these people to plant churches in their new homes–small groups that reach their communities and grow into movements of God that reach the unreached people in their city.

One of my favorite events to program and put on as a pastor is our Marriage Ministry’s Married Life Live night. Every quarter we gather couples for a night where we emphasize one of six key marriage principles that we believe will help couples transform their marriage. Here’s the set of principles, which I hope you’ll enjoy checking out:

Follow God

I will let God direct my marriage. He has a pattern for marriage and a plan for our lives will make our lives the best they can be.

(catch God’s vision for your marriage)

Nurture Romance

I will make my home an environment that nurtures our romance: safety, honesty, respect, and trust.

“Hurry Home” – I will make quality time together a priority.

Cultivate Communication

I must seek to understand before I can expect to be understood.

We will resolve our differences in a respectful, conversational manner.

A Lifestyle of Caring (Practice Your Promise)

I recognize that my spouse has specific needs, and I try to meet them on a regular basis.

(The Love Bank – Emotional Needs)

Celebrate Differences

I will appreciate the way God made my spouse and encourage them to grow their giftedness and passion.

Fight FOR One Another

We resolve to work as a team, fighting to create systems and habits that benefit us and help us manage our family, our finances, and the mission God has called us to live out as a couple.

(Teamwork, One-ness, Financial Management, Family Issues)

Geoff Surratt recently commented on the power of Biblical community, and I wanted to pass along some of his words,

I think the mistake we make as church planters is that we try to plant a service. We hire a band, we rent a school and we put on a show. There’s nothing evil or wrong about the show, but there is no one in your city sitting at home on Sunday morning thinking, “Man, I wish there were a really good show down at the middle school cafetorium. If there were, I’d be there. And I’d give my life to Jesus if the show were awesome.”

There are, however, a lot of people in your city thinking, “Man, I wish I could find community. Life is lonely and I’d love to feel connected. If I could belong, feel like I’m a valuable part of a team I’d consider giving my life to Jesus.” They wouldn’t express it that way, but that is the longing at the bottom of their hearts. They aren’t finding that community at work, or on Facebook or at the gym. If they show up for your weekend show its only because they think they might find community.

In my heart, as I serve at oneChurch, this is what I hope for. Leaders who are so transformed by their connections in group that they continue to build more and more groups until they impact the entire city of Clarksville and far beyond. An impact that has nothing to do with buildings, parking spaces, or a highly planned 90 minute event.

How about you, what do you think?

Read more from Geoff Surratt at www.geoffsurratt.com.