Nietzsche Was Right

   That's a crazy statement, isn't it?

   I mean, coming from me. 
 
   Not long ago, the Newsboys came out with a song, "God's Not Dead". Then there was a movie. Mr Nietzsche was mentioned in the movie as an atheist. Nietzsche gets a lot of credit for being a bold atheist. I don't know if Nietzsche was an atheist or agnostic or any other $6 word you can come up with, but, I think he was frustrated. Spiritually. All this current notoriety made me think, "Why would he say that? Who is this guy?"
   Google!
   Mr. Nietzsche was the son of a minister. A minister that was dedicated and committed to his church. So, I'm pretty sure, he was taught about God, Jesus and the Spirit. He certainly had knowledge of the Bible. He may have even been a believer. I don't know. But, one thing for sure, he was very critical of the Church. Not so much so God. More so Christianity and how God and Christians related to each other and with those outside the faith. He displayed anger and displeasure with God which makes me think he wasn't really an atheist. He believed in God enough to want to argue with Him.
  Near as I can tell, Mr Nietzsche said "God is dead" three times. The first and infamous time was in a short story called "The Madman" from the book The Gay Science. The story is of a man running through town searching for God. "I seek God! I seek God!". The townies begin to mock him and then this angers the man for which he says, "God is dead! And we have killed Him!"
  This is interesting. Mr Nietzsche's claim to fame is "God is dead", but, no one remarks what comes after that. He goes on to tell that it was ..."you and I" who have killed Him. Further more, he asks who can wipe away the horizons? As if to say you can ignore, disregard God, but, He is still there. "Does empty space breathe upon us?" We can't see Him but He is there. What brought this on?
  Let's look at what was happening in Germany at the time Mr Nietzsche wrote this. From the late 1870's in to the early 1900's, Germany was much like our late 1960's. Things were happening very fast. Economic change. Ideology change. Social changes. Spiritual changes. The industrial revolution was taking off. Modern science was escalating and people were becoming more skeptical of religion.
   The Catholic church was prominent in Germany, but, alas, could not keep up with the times. Socialism was on the rise and it had the church in its cross-hairs. For a brief moment, Catholicism rose up equally, but could not sustain. The government made laws and regulations directly at the church. Religion became wildly unpopular.
   So, I don't believe Mr Nietzsche was an atheist. At worse, he was a cynic. He was saying, in my opinion, all things considered, we have dismissed God from our lives and replaced Him with, well, whatever suits us. Because, later in his story the Madman asks,"Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become gods, Merely to seem worthy of it?" The answer is yes. If we are to remove THE God from our life what are we to do but become our own god.
  Mr. Nietzsche wasn't saying that God was dead or nonexistent. He was saying that God was dead in our hearts. The Madman is the one that was labelled old fashioned. Stuck in the past. The towns people were the "modern" people. The ones that put no value in the old ways of life. That belittled traditions and values. That looked to themselves before looking up. Much like now.
   Look around. Who is #1? Me. No, me. Please don't wear that shirt. It offends me. I need my safe space. Your opinions are not mine, therefore, you do not matter to me. We try to one up everybody and everything. Better phone, better car, better shoes, better house, better job.  
  The story ends with the Madman saying that by the time they notice what they have done, it may be too late. He then takes it one more step. Perhaps a step over the line. He goes into the churches claiming the same as he did in the town. They lead him out and rebuked him. His reply was always the same because they too were just as guilty.  He called them murderers of God. "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?" Nowadays we call it playing church. Some call it being a cultural Christian. Living by a set of standards, morals. Appearing to have it together because you worship better than they do. Instagramming your devotions. "Diving deep in the Word today." Religion.  
   1 John 2:4-6  If someone says,"I know God," but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God's word truly show how completely they love Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. 
   Many people will say they believe in God. Many will say they go to church. Many will say they worship and they give. And, sadly, many will say that's good enough. "I'm a good person." Compared to who? The god you worship is you and you're banking on that?
Matt 7:22 Jesus says, "...many will say to me, 'Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons...performed many miracles in your name!' But I will reply, 'I never knew you. Get away from Me..." 
   God wants your heart and this is why we try to run from that. We don't want Him to see it. God will get in there and be like, "Oh, this is nice. I like this. Hey, uhm, what about this over here. What's this in this dark corner?" Then we're all,"Hey, whoa... don't be lookin at that. That's my comfort zone right there. That's where I can still be accepted. Come over here, where I post verses on Facebook." 
   Don't get me wrong. Stuff like that is good, but where is your heart in that? Is He alive in your heart? Or is God dead and you are your god? Is church where you go to renew your affection for Him? Or is it a tomb or monument you visit once a week? Is God dead to you? It's a valid question. No matter what you think of Mr Nietzsche.

Baseball, Coffee and God

    A certain Sunday school teacher stood before his class and placed a large, empty pickle jar on a table. He then dropped a baseball into the jar and asked,"Is this jar full?" With puzzled looks on their faces, they shook their heads.
   He then dropped in a bunch of golf balls. "Now is the jar full?" The young people began to chuckle and replied,"Yes...", not knowing where their teacher was heading with this. "Are you sure?" he asked. Some changed their answer and reasoned their choices.
   As they discussed, the teacher brought out a bag of corn and poured it in the jar. The kernels filtered down into the gaps between the golf balls and some reaching the baseball. "Now is the jar full?".
  They all agreed that now the jar was full and nothing more could go into the jar. With that, the teacher then brought out a cup of ground coffee and poured it into the jar. He then gave the jar a couple taps and the coffee settled down between the corn and golf balls leaving no room at the top of the jar. Patting the coffee down so that it was even with the top of the jar, he asked,"Now is it full?"
  "YES!" they exclaimed exasperated by this nonsense.
  "You see", he explained,"if this jar is your life, you have a full life. The ground coffee is the stuff that doesn't really matter. It's like Facebook. There's stuff there that grabs your attention and occupies your time, but, it really doesn't matter in the long-run.
   "The kernels," he continued,"are the the things that do matter. Your material needs. Clothes, money, job or school. Things you should care about but shouldn't obsess about.
   "The golf balls," ignoring the comments about obsessing over clothes,"are the important things in your life. Family, relationships, your health. These things require your attention. Although, most of the time, these are the things you take for granted. When was the last time you really noticed your parents? Took out your ear buds and asked them about their day?"
   "And the baseball?" someone asked.
   "The baseball is what we take for granted the most." Pointing to the baseball in the jar, the teacher continued, "Although the baseball is a huge part of our life, we give it the least amount of attention overall. The baseball represents our relationship with God. In Matthew 6:25-33, Jesus says,   
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?... ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." 
   "By 'seeking' Him first, all the things in your life fall into place. I'm not saying it will all be butterflies and cupcakes, but, you can have order if you start your day with seeking God first. Pray, read your Bible. Sincerely seek God"
   With that, he pulled out another jar just like the first. He then poured a cup of ground coffee in the jar. Followed by a bag of corn and the same number of golf balls as . Not all the golf balls fit in the jar and 2 or 3 fell to the table.
  "What about God?" a young man asked.
   "Exactly Jesus' point! If you aren't putting God first in your life, where does He fit in?!"

How about you? Is your life full? Are you occupied by the things that don't matter? How do you start your day? With God or coffee? 
  
  
  
  

Freeze Dried

It's snowing! Well, sorta. In Washintons' Puget Sound area, we have what is called a convergence zone. Apparently, it runs from the Canadian border to the Oregon border. I think it's an excuse for the weather people so they don't have to admit they really don't know anything. It's all guess work.

Anyways, it snows like nobodies bizness in places while the sun beams down in other places. Thats the way it was here for awhile. All of Washington was in a panic. Here where we are, glorious sunshine. Then when it did snow, an inch, at the most. We have icicles now. Those are neat.

The kids are on break and tonight, we are having a movie night for the youth. When there is no school, we don't have YG. It used to be nothing would happen. Just a week off. Then I shared how "back in the day" my YG would get together for unofficial youth events. We would make up reasons to get together. They were unofficial because no youth leaders were around. Usually, we were at someones house and their parents were there. So, we weren't totally unsupervised. Man, we had some fun.

One of kids thought 'why can't we do that?' and now we have movie nites. Which is very cool. I go and one of the other leaders go but, it's still all them. The real reason why we go is because we just like hanging out with them!

I hope the snow doesn't stop anyone from going.

Tecate' 2009

This should have been done along time ago and perhaps as it was happening but, whatever, right?


I cannot tell you how many times God revealed His awesomeness to us and myself while on this trip. There are times that we may not know about until we go back next year. This year, we almost bailed on the whole trip for economic reasons and the belief that we weren't doing any good in Tecate'. But, I think it is safe to say that at least three things happened every day that can only be accredited to God. I think my big lesson was trust and listen. My philosophy, if you will, is if you want something done right, do it yourself. God was letting me know that aint so. Don't tell anybody, but, I was really nervous about this whole trip. I prayed more about this adventure than anything else. Ever. That's just dumb. The cool thing was, I was so at ease by the time we were leaving. It was like we were just going down the road to the store or something. God had this. I just had to trust and listen and do.


It was snowing when Tal, Steve, Doug and left Tal's house on April 4th. How crazy is that? As we went south, snow turned to rain then clouds then beautiful sun. Our big concern was getting to Siskous before the deer start roaming. If we hit a deer with the church van it may end in a draw.


Anyhow, we didn't make it, but, with Tal at the wheel(as he likes driving thru the Siskous) we got behind another truck and he "plowed" the path for us. He didn't hit anything. That's just the word Tal used.



So, from there to Sun Valley was uneventful and smooth sailing. To avoid morning rush in LA, we cut across Bakersfield, down thru Hesperia to I-10. I think. I was driving but Tal was navigating and I just trusted him.



That was also a blessing. To have Tal along. Tal is an "Ol Truck Driver". He knows stuff. He's been on these roads many, many times. I know enough to listen to experience. This was my first time to run point on trip like this and Tal has done it before. I was in his ear the whole 10 days.



Now we are at Al and Brendas' home in Desert Hot Springs. Hot springs... aaahh. Tal couldn't figure out why I wanted to drive straight thru and get to Al's so early. Hot springs. we sat in the jacuuziis and swam and relaxed. We had plenty of rest so that we could get an early jump Friday for whatever we would encounter in Tecate. We all slept very well that night.



Brenda's son was there, too. He's a missionary in Mongolia. At dinner I had a great time asking him questions about mission trips and relationships and experience. What I came away with was you can't put a value on relationships. Meaning, this is our 6th year going to Tecate. On the surface, it may not appear that we are doing much good. It may not appear that there is much progress or growth. But, we have developed a relationship with the Leons. We have a bond of love and trust with them. For any REAL growth to happen, you need that first. Wow, that was cool. You know whatelse was cool? He wasn't supposed to be there. He was there for his mom's birthday but they didn't think he was going to able to come. Somehow, it worked out that we were all there together. Weird



Let's go to Tecate!! We got there and hooked up with Dan Bender right away. Dan is the short term mission coordinator. From there, we went into Mexico to the church and found Pastor Leon and his wife Letti. This is a recon mission. We survey what has been done and what we need to do before we can start, yadda, yadda, yadda. I let the other guys do all that while Letti and I sat and talked. I needed to find out what's been going on down here.



This church does not appear to be growing. They have 40 -45 people every Sunday and Thursday night. It's been like that for the 6 years. It's been like that since the church started 20 years ago. But, the thing in Mexico is you go where the work is. People come and go all the time. It's unusual for a family to stay in the same location for more than 3 years.



So, even though they have a steady 40-45 people, it is a different 40-45 year after year. This is the cool part. Pay attention. Families come to the church, get saved, baptized, discipled then leave. They go to where the work is or tend to family members in other cities and, are you ready? Share the gospel and leading others to Christ! The Leons know this because as people migrate around they come to the Leons and say,"Yeah, I know so and so in Mexicali and he said I should come here because I'm a Christian and you share Jesus with him and he shared Jesus with me..." This happens all the time.



There is a family that lives behind the church. When we show up, we use their backyard for game time. Last summer, the lady came to Letti and asked why we built that roof. Letti explained the practicalities of it. The lady said "No,why do the Americanos come here and do these things for you?" Letti said, "This is how they can show you how they love you because God loves them. And that God loves you, too." That clicked in her head and she started coming and bringing her kids. They are all now believers and were baptized.



There are 2 other churches that visit the Leons' church. Our group is the only one that the locals ask,"When are they coming back?"



We were to demo the kichen and rebuild a 2 story structure in it's place. It was also supposed to rain our first day. Sunday night we prayed for no rain. Monday, no rain. "It's going to rain tomarrow" they said. We all prayed. No rain. "It will rain tomarrow for sure" we were told. We all prayed. No rain. It didn't rain until we had all the kids home and all tool put away on the very last day.



Thursday night was our big parents night. The kids were to go home and invite their parents or signifigant adult to come. The regulars and even Pastor Leon said no one would come. We all prayed. We canvassed the neighborhood and prepared for a crowd and believed. That night, 4 families that have never been there before came and continue to go to this day. Never underestimate God.



This is just my experience. I can't tell you all the things other people have shared with me. All I can say is trust, listen and do