Sacred Digital: Chuckk Gerwig

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Some people keep their faith-life crammed into nice cardboard containers to keep their religion well organized, manageable and compartmentalized.

Some folks have tiny boxes where their spiritual life is squirreled away. The lid of the tiny cube is lifted only for a few painful watch-checking moments on Sunday and then drops silently closed immediately after the final hymn.

Some of us seem to have bigger containers like big Tupperware bins in which to store our religious urges, thoughts and inclinations. These bins hold more and stack elegantly with other large compartmentalized areas of life inscribed with Perma-marker labels that read; family, job, hobby, school, and secrets. These are bigger containers but they are still made for segregating our spiritual life from our real life in the real world.

Still others have huge portable storage canisters like the ones you rent from PODS in which they warehouse their larger than average faith-life. These large rusty mass storage units are still just compartments to stockpile religious assets and separate them from the whole of our being and our daily life.

I’ve been focusing lately on a simple truth which I’ve always known; faith is not made to be placed in a compartment - however colossal. Faith fits appropriately nowhere, it fits best in the "everywhere" of my life. My faith is designed to permeate every area of my thoughts, actions, decisions and relationships. Faith out of the box is a dangerous and wonderful force.

Mixed Metaphor Alert!

Faith isn’t an important spoke on the wheel of our life, it is the hub on which all the spokes find their anchor and drive.

Note to self: Don't simply buy bigger boxes.

On The iPod: Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

Who thinks these things up and why?

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Does your spirit ever feel dry like a mouth full of sand? If you currently taste the grit of trying to be good enough for God, I have a thought...

I just read an encouraging book called Furious Pursuit By Tim King and Frank Martin. One of the authors contacted me and asked me if I would read it and review it here on S Digital.

If you enjoy Brennan Manning's grace saturated writings and need to be reminded that God himself is in love with you, then you should pick this book up. Furious Pursuit reminds us that God knew our every stumble and weakness before He saved and accepted us and that we need to learn to quit white-knuckling it through our lives wondering if we're worthy.

Furious Pursuit is a quick read that is filled with stories about God's wonderful patience and grace with us silly mortals on this side of the portal. I enjoyed the book very much. Well done guys!

Furious Pursuit By Tim King and Frank Martin and the matching workbook are available at Waterbook Press

If you know me you know I love Tacos and THIS IS A TACO Fo Sho!

On The iPod: Wolfmother - Wolfmother

BIG NEWS!

The iPhone is coming out this summer. I am going to want one of these…

It's important to listen to non-believers to understand how they understand God. Many people see God as a disinterested and detached being who doesn't understand our pain.

This video from an old Joan Osbourne song has a soul-sadness to it but describes the sense of many folks who are not Christ-Followers. It asks the question "what if God was one of us?"

Actually he was...

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form - Colossians 2:9

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst. -1 Timothy 1:15

(Speaking of Jesus) For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. - Hebrews 4:15

We just rented the film The Illusionist; what a wonderful film! There's love story, a twist ending, Edward Norton, beautiful costumes and sets and glorious music by the incomparable Phillip Glass.

The film is mysterious; things are not as they seem... so like the way we comprehend "reality" in the partial knowledge of God's scheme in time. I love a mystery, life is a mystery.

1 Corinthians 13:12 - Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. NIV

Marko pointed out a great study on the incoming generation in his blog recently. Want to get a glimpse of how the next set of humans see the world? If you are in ministry I believe you should.

Read the Pew Study

On The iPod: Porcupine Tree - The Sky Moves Sideways

I've never really gotten into 24, but I know many of you have.
Right now as I type the new season begins for all you people who have developed an addiction to all things Jack Bauer.

Its strange how many Christians there are that speak out strongly against the simulated violence in video games but think 24 is the cat’s lingerie. Here is the official 24 kill count and the method of mayhem in every episode of every season of the show 24.

I'm not making any judgments regarding the violence in the show 24 I'll have you know, I'm just noting how some folks have double standards about violence that plays across the screen. So I think a little Halo 2 may be in order to celebrate the new 24 season. Just something to think about with a smile.

I love guitar playing and I love Eric Johnson's brand of FretMagic! If you've never seen / heard his stuff, well...

Here's Eric doing his thing.

If you are a guitar player in our SCBC Youth Worship Community, listen, look, learn and dominate!

If you are a church leader : consider how you might invest in the musical skills development of your worship folks by posting great musicians showing their skills through internet video on your blog or through email.

This is a great news story. Communicators, is there an illustration here?

If you know me you know I love environments that illustrate a message or series that I might be teaching. Check out this cool set for a series on heroes at Grace Point Church in Las Vegas.

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There are more sets from Grace Point Here

The Lead Pastor at Grace Point has a wonderful church planter blog worth reading. Looks like God is doing cool stuff in Vegas through Grace Point. Hopefully what happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas.

Question for church leaders: How could you utilize metaphoric environments to bring visual learning and memory retention better into play in your messages and series.

On The iPod:Tom Waits

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As many of you know, my friend Smittie of Tako Productions and I have been shooting some less conventional videos exploring faith and life. We call them Sacred Digital Videos.

We have an Online Vault where all 6 episodes we have shot so far reside in one place - They're also on YouTube, Google Videos, Yahoo Videos and iTunes (in lower resolution than the Vault versions). It's been a fun project allowing me to share from God's Word, compose, record and play some music and explore video.

Here's the location of the Sacred Digital Videos Vault . Remember, these videos are pretty big files shot and presented in high quality and they take a few minutes to download.

We'll be shooting onsite in an a funky moldering cemetery next month focusing on post death life - What happens after the big dirt nap?.

In the iPod - The Who: Live at Leeds...
...pure visceral rock and roll thrust from the past :: prepunk punk from Valhalla on high!

I was just reading my friend Dan Kimball's excellent blog - Dan mentioned a new article by Scot McKnight.

Scot McKnight's recent article in Christianity Today is an excellent look at the 5 Streams of the Emerging Church. If you're trying to find out which way is up in this controversy take a look at McKnight's article.

I'm in a Florida hotel right now and really feeling sleepy. Last night just after 2:00 am the hotel's fire alarm screamed to life. The speaker in the wall informed us that "fire had been detected in the building - we should leave our room and proceed to the exterior of the hotel". I got my kids and wife up, grabbed my laptop and iPod (because some things you just CAN'T leave behind – and these are emergency provisions) helped an elderly lady down the stairs and joined the crowd in the hotel lobby.

The lobby was filled with sleepy hotel guests, (and the fetid smell of communal morning breath) but not the smell of smoke. It was truly surreal, everyone as trying to figure out what was happening, firemen running through the doors, lights and sirens flashing and... then someone's iPod boombox began to play the song "Light My Fire" by The Doors. A few minutes later the ‘box belted out Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" … the throng began to sing along. It took me a full 10 minutes to realize that the music wasn't coming from the emergency alert speakers in the hotel walls - I had been thinking how strange it was that the fire alarm played classic 20th century music in burning buildings.

It turns out there wasn't a fire in the high-rise; it was just a power surge. Life is strange and wonderful. I took video on my camera phone during the gathering in the lobby. Through the wonders of technology, here it is, presented for your viewing pleasure.

"and it burns burns burns , that ring of fire, that ring of fire" (hey, wouldn't that be a great theme song for Preparation H hemorrhoid cream?). I am sleepy.

I'm in Jupiter Florida, honored home of Burt Reynolds. They have a Burt Reynolds Museum and 2 Burt Reynolds parks here, evidently he's the shizzle. I just came in from the hotel balcony; trade winds blowing, lighthouse beaming.

One of the privileges of being a Pastor is performing weddings for people you love and this weekend I'll be officiating a wedding for my good friend and past partner in MinistryCrime, Brian Martin.

Brian Thinks...<em>"I have an idea... I will get married!"

Now that Brian has a wife, a real job, and a mortgage I fear his mohawk days are over. Cheers B!

On The iPod: Radiohead - OK Computer

>--U2's music continues to be adapted to spiritual settings. An Anglican church in Great Britain will be celebrating a U2-charist communion service this weekend.

On the iPod: Jet - Get Born

On a Personal Note...Brian Martin is a married man!