Blockbuster - An Uncomfortable Parable

...And so he sat them down and explained to them what the kingdom of church is like:

There was a boy named Lyle, who worked at Blockbuster. Lyle loved being around movies, talking about movies, and helping others find movies. He liked being with his fellow co-workers and movie loving customers. He was well liked and looked forward to going to work every day. One day he got promoted to store manager but as he quickly learned this required a whole lot of knowledge about Blockbuster and he was not prepared. Lyle was forced to resign. After leaving Blockbuster, Lyle longed to be among movie goers again. How much he missed his job and all of the great customers. Lyle loved helping customers find just the right movie. Lyle dreamed of those wonderful Tuesday mornings when the new movies would arrive and he got to see them first! Lyle was so sad and would spend most of his nights alone watching old movies while eating Toaster Strudels.

Around this time, Lyle began seeking advice from other store managers. Lyle wanted so badly to be among all the new movies again and hoped he could someday return to Blockbuster. Over and over again, the manager's advice was the same.

"Go get your Masters of Blockbuster. Then you'll be ready to manage your very own store," They would say.

"But a Masters of Blockbuster takes three years," Lyle would protest.

The managers kept saying the same thing, "Go get your Masters of Blockbuster!"

"But a Masters of Blockbuster costs over $30,000!" Lyle would plead.

The managers began to shout, "Go get your Masters of Blockbuster!"

"But Blockbuster stores are closing all over the country and the entire company is nearly bankrupt!" Lyle tried to reason.

The managers shouted louder, "Go get your Masters of Blockbuster!"

"But this model is becoming obsolete and people don't get their new movies at Blockbuster anymore!" Lyle responded.

The managers shouted all the louder, "Go get your Masters of Blockbuster!!"

Finally, Lyle stopped trying to argue. A Masters of Blockbuster just didn't make any sense. For awhile he wondered if he would be helpful among movie goers ever again. Lyle had been an employee at Blockbuster for so long, he nearly forgot of any other way to find a new movie. Then, Lyle remembered back to when he watched his first movie. Long before he had gotten a job at Blockbuster. The movie was an action-adventure flick full of adrenaline pumping, pulse pounding twists and turns. It had romance and tragedy, and a surprise ending that left Lyle in tears. He had never seen anything like it before. It stirred him deep within his soul and left him seeing the world a little more clearly. Just then a thought popped into Lyle's brain,

"New movies are coming out all of the time, I just need to find a new place to find them!" He realized.

And so Lyle set off on his journey to find new movies in new places. It felt dangerous and exciting all at once to Lyle. He wasn't even sure if this was possible but the desire to find new movies drove him onward. It almost felt like he was making a new movie himself but that would be presumptuous to think. Some of the Blockbuster employees occasionally heard of Lyle's journey and accused him of liking foreign films but Lyle just let them talk. Besides, he knew the subtitles on those movies bugged him anyway.

The End.

The Now - Gravity

"You might say you don't know, think, or believe in God, but God knows, thinks, and believes in you."

I'm a Backstabber

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”  He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. John 12:3-6

Want.

I'll be the first to admit I'm mildly obsessive when I get into a new hobby, spending hours online reading about it, shopping for it, and ultimately wanting another hobby to add to the list. Most recently I spent a great deal of time researching watches. I hadn't owned a watch in several years and I was looking for a masculine, grown-up watch that could not only reflect my personality but survive my lifestyle while making me look like a working adult. Ultimately it came down to a very particular style of watch and after careful deliberation I made my purchase. Now, I've got a great watch with all the features I wanted, but I know my sickness and I don't want to get away from my core value that a simpler life is more enjoyable.

I also work at a church, where I manage both financial records and assets. I'm glad I have oversight to keep my accounting accurate, as well as to keep me from sneaking equipment out the back door, because without it I might have ended up like the many people who are currently doing time in Uncle Sam's prisons for picking the pockets of Jesus.

I wanted to write this because I was struck by the volume of articles dealing with church embezzlement and all the people who are now behind bars instead of spreading the gospel of Christ with the world. Maybe they can do some good in the prisons, but I have a feeling it's not quite as effective as a prison ministry like Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship. And unfortunately this isn't limited to any particular area--it's happening all over the world. So why do people filled by the Holy Spirit suddenly find themselves in orange jumpsuits? Is it because they just made a few bad choices? I'm hesitant to reduce it to that.

My theory is these people entered the journey* of faith and eventually lost all the innocent enthusiasm that comes with a fresh commitment to follow Christ. They start the inward journey of learning about their faith in a deeper way, learning about themselves, and then they have to confront themselves. They've shouldered their individual cross, carried it up the hill, and now the time is near to finally begin driving the nails so they can die to themselves spiritually and be resurrected in the renewed life of Christ.

But it's difficult to do that, especially when it's much easier just to fall into a performance-based, nominal Christianity. I've been here too. I've learned the script of all the words to sound like a tremendously devoted Christian, but the script is just a mask. What's going on inside is that a person has to decide whether to confront their own self or put someone else on that cross, and usually it's Jesus who goes back on the cross. Dying to the self is scary, and since Jesus has already died for you, it's so easy just to hope that he can change you magically without any work on your part.

At this point Jesus is taken off the throne of a person's heart and someone else takes the seat. So a person takes the throne of their own life and their scepter is desire. Whatever he or she wants, they point their desire at it and bring it into their kingdom.

The most dangerous thing in the world is wanting. From dictators who want power to children who want toys, this little monster likes to pop up its ugly head all over the place. Want is a scepter, and it's only good for something when it's being held by Christ on the throne of your life. Examine your heart and let him decide what you should want.

To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Hebrews 6:6

*For more information about the journey model of spiritual growth see my post, The Bookmark.

The Opposite of Love

If you know me, you probably know that I am a complete nerd and know way too much about the latest and greatest gadget. So sorry if the nerd talk it a bit too much for you to handle. :)


I was thinking about technology and how in the tech world people get labeled either and Apple FanBoy or an Apple Hater. I view myself in the middle. I love apple, but with the same breath I despise Apple. Either way these feelings have kept me interested and talking about their products, and even purchasing some. Apple finds itself so close to perfection that when they miss the mark it causes a feeling of hate to dwell up inside of me.


On the other hand there are companies like Microsoft that I have struggled with for so long that I have become numb to feelings toward them what so ever. I am completely indifferent with Microsoft. I do not care about them what so ever. 


This leads me to believe that the opposite of Love is not Hate, but actually indifference.


When someone I love misses the mark, a feeling of hate, not for that person, but for the circumstances around the situation. 


Love and hate often go hand in hand.


But the one thing that can not be apart of love is indifference. It would be impossible for me to love someone and at the same time not care about them.


This is probably the same for God. 


He always loves us, He always hates our sin, but He is never indifferent about us and our situation. 


He always cares. 


He Always Loves.

Follow up to "Check...Check...God, can you hear us?"

A few days ago I wrote about worship and how I believed that it has become a show more than actual worship. I have received some feedback about how it was pretty critical of people and their personal worship styles. That is why I am writing this post, to follow up on the previous post and set right what I was trying to say and maybe explain better where I am coming from.

First and foremost, I want to apologize for being too critical in my post and if it was too offensive. Part of my reason for writing for this blog is the chance to write about relevant topics that make people think and at the same time appeal to those in the secular world by disproving or breaking down the negative stigmas that Christians have gained. I fear that I may have done the exact opposite in the way that I wrote my previous post. My intention was purely to try and make people think about the way that we have began to worship and to be cautious of the way that we do so. I believe that what happened instead was venting about negative examples that I have seen rather.

Many people worship in different ways. Worshiping God is a communication of showing appreciation and respect of God for all he has and all he will do for us. We show our love for him and connect in a spiritual way. How this happens is unique to the individual. Like someone pointed out about my last post, some people can truly connect to God through the loud, concert style worship. Maybe this acts a way to keep them on track, keep them focused by being loud and bright so that no matter where they look or when their mind strays, they are instantly brought back to the moment by the noise and light. Others, like myself, find that to be distracting.

Personally, I like the more relaxed, even acoustic style worship. This seems to allow a connection to be made that could not happen when I have noise and lights all over acting as a distraction. I feel that I am able to hear and have heard God better when the worship music is not too loud and too light shows too bright. However, that is my opinion. I was aked to give an example of how I like to worship and connect with God and saw fit that I should include that here.

Now, onto correcting my point of the last post. That was directed to the fact that what tends to happen in some cases, is that it becomes a show. My post was meant as a warning that we can’t turn worship into a concert. When this happens, it becomes more of an act in my opinion. The transformation from worship to a concert is brought in two folds. One, when the worship leader is more concerned with performance and looks rather than worshiping. In my experience, I have seen people pushed of to the side or put in the back, not because of their voice (they were amazing and better than the chosen singers in some cases) but because they didn’t look young enough. When it comes about appearances, that’s a show. The second way it becomes a show is when it is choreographed. There is nothing wrong with organization, but when it becomes choreographed, it seems to take out opportunity for the Holy Spirit to intervene. However, this is not limited to the stage presence but also the congregation as well. Some people look around, and when people raise their hand to the Lord, they do the same. Not to worship, but they have been conditioned to feel that if they don’t then they are not good Christians, or aren’t worshiping.

Having said that let me say again that there are those who are sitting in a choreographed worship performance and are connecting with God in a way that some of us may never understand. For those people, they are worshiping and therefore the worship team is doing it’s job in some aspect.

My point is that we need to be careful how we worship. When it becomes more of a show, than we run the risk of beginning to worship the band rather than God. Not worship in the same sense; rather we pay more attention to cool light and sound effects rather than connecting with God. When the worship band becomes more concerned with how they look and who is front and center, than that takes away from the meaning of worship. On that same line, when we have visitors come to our church or when a new believer is looking for a home, how does it look when we pay more attention to how we look when we worship than to the God that we are worshiping?

I say this to make us think. We are supposed to building the Kingdom of God and bringing people to Christ, right? If we do and they see us not taking worship seriously than how can we do that? What does that say about our commitment and us? What kind of example is that?

Before I said that lighting and concert feeling music has its place in church and limited it to events. I would like to take that back and say that there is also a need for churches that provide that because there are people who connect through that and with out providing that need then we are not doing our job of leading to Christ. However, egos and appearance can get in the way of the meaning of worship and that is what we need to shy away from. If the band presents worship in a way that is loud, has effects, and is truly about God, than by all means that is accomplishing the meaning and purpose of worship.

All in all, worship is about connecting with God. When bands make it about themselves instead of God, that doesn’t please him and defeats the purpose of the act.