Jesus and Palm Reading

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    "The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don't believe it at the same time.  It isn't unlike having an imaginary friend.  I believe in Jesus; I believe He is the Son of God, but every time I sit down to explain this to somebody I feel like a palm reader, like somebody who works at a circus or a kid who is always making things up or somebody at a Star Trek convention who hasn't figured out the show isn't real.
    Until.
    When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every ten years because I am such a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric.  I see in their eyes the trueness of the story."

Don Miller in Blue Like Jazz, page 51.

I can't tell you how many times in this book (a little more than halfway right now) I have read some experience Miller has and said, "He's just like me!"   I think Miller is right, all the evidence in the world for the truth of the Bible feels meaningless in comparison to seeing the life-change Jesus brings to someone.  Maybe if we saw that more, we would stop being so picky about our commitment to Christ.

Arizona Trip - Afterthoughts

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Thought it might be nice to make a few random comments and observations about the Arizona trip I took from very early Wednesday through very early Sunday of last week.

1. Going to the desert for golf and being rained out isn't cool.  But man is God sovereign or what???  I needed some of the rain time to work on my sermon.  He is very good.  He gave me family time with dad and uncles I love, and sermon work time, and a chance to see a beautiful part of the ol' US of A where I have never been...all for free.  Thanks to the good ol' boys of McCoy Construction.

2.  When I fly (which I haven't done for 5-6 years) I tend to feel like I'm flying for about a week straight.  I still feel woozy most of the time.  A few more days and I'll get over it.  I enjoy the act of flying, but not what it does to me.

3. Cacti are huge!  Well, some of them.  I didn't expect that at all.  You can see what I mean here.

4. Hanging with my dad and his brothers is a blast, even when they are being knuckle heads.  For example, my uncle Doug asked me without provocation in the car one day, "Steve...so what do you think about cremation?"  Sounds like a good question to ask a pastor, right?  But he asked it while laughing, and so a long list of questions in a form of mockery ensued.  "Steve, what do you think about murder?"  "Steve what do you think about _______."  It was funny.  Sorry Dougie.  Not picking on you.

5. We argued for 10 minutes about what it means to be lost.  The funny thing is, I made up my own definition and told them I got it off an internet site, and they bought it!  Funny.  Also provocative.  Some argued for a definition that means someone is almost never lost!  Curious.  I can feel a blog post on this coming soon...maybe.

6. Golf hurts your hands.  On the 17th hole of the first day I hit a great shot very close to the hole, but in the process I burst a blood vessel in my left thumb.  It still hurts quite a bit.  You focus on things like skill and talent and practice.  But just as crucial are things like callouses (or lack of).  My milky soft pastor hands didn't do me any favors.

7. I realized that I have no desire to play enough golf to be any good anymore.  I have the ability to be a good player again, but I realized on the trip that it would take too much time.  Golf used to occupy most of my time and thought while growing up.  But I'm happy that it occupies so little of my time and thought now.  It's a great game, but it's no longer a passion.

8. Getting to spend time in Phoenix and Scottsdale, and drive through Tempe and Mesa, was great.  (Though some of the time we were "lost" in these places.)  I don't think I value traveling enough.  It's eye opening in a number of ways.  It makes maps into living, breathing places.  It helps me to think about needs in new places.  I should try to travel to new places more.

9. This is the first time I've been away from home for more than a day or two where I haven't felt a pit of loneliness while away from Molly and the kids.  I was really able to enjoy my time.  On the other hand, I felt just as happy to see them and enjoy them when I got home.  It was all good. 

10.  If you have to work while on vacation, it doesn't really feel like a vacation.  My mind is always thinking about what I have to work on, and I need an open schedule to enjoy time away.

Tiger McCoy

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Las_sendas_gc_3_cactusI've been guilted (willingly!) into a 4 day Arizona golf trip with my Dad and his two brothers.  My grandpa is sick and has to cancel on them, so I'm filling in - all expenses paid (flight, golf, ya know). 

We are all pretty close so it should be an awesome trip.  But it takes up all of the rest of this week, putting all sorts of pressure on my sermon prep, Bible study prep, and other goals for the week.  I leave very early Wednesday and return very late Saturday night.  On the other hand, it's one of those opportunities I just can't pass up, especially with all the history behind my family and the game of golf.  It's the chance of a lifetime maybe, especially for someone as poor as me. 

Gold_canyon_gc_3We are playing three courses in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area: Raven Golf Club at South Mountain, Gold Canyon - Dinosaur Mountain (left pic), and Las Sendas (above pic).  These courses look incredible.  I hope (if I'm not to dumb to remember) to take a bunch of pictures of my own of the trip.  Look for a post next week.

Saturate: A Fresh Start

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I have decided to post the pastoral articles I write on my weblog.  All of the forthcoming articles will be posted here and can be found in the category "Saturate," which is the name of my pastoral writing ministry.  The first article below was read aloud to begin gathered worship on 1.23.2005 at my church. Itinitiated a two week vision emphasis at Calvary. Copies of the article were given to all attenders. I prefaced the article with a note to visitors that they are hearing an conversation between pastor and people, and that I value honesty and transparency enough that I welcomed them listening in.

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When you changed your calendar from 2004 to 2005, did it feel like a fresh start? There's something about changing that last digit from 2004 to 2005 that makes us feel like we get a second chance. We might say, "Maybe this year will be better than the last." "Maybe my relationships will get better this year." "Maybe in 2005 I will finally get out of debt," or "into a new house," or "a new job." We all have regrets, or struggles, or sins that we want to bury in the past and make a fresh start. As the year begins, it’s a good time for Calvary to contemplate a fresh start too.

This isn't easy for me to say as your pastor, but we are not where we need to be as a church. I would love to stroke everyone's ego (including my own) by saying that we are better now than last year and we are headed toward exciting things. But I can't say that. I can't lie to you and put on my happy face and act like everything is okay. It isn't. We are not living as we need to live. We do not love as we need to love. We are not changing our world as the Church has been called out to do. We aren't bringing our friends to hear the truth. We aren't seeing people follow Christ for the first time. We aren't baptizing new believers.

Probably worse than any of the above, there is a lack of excitement to know and worship Jesus. It's easy to get stuck in the week-to-week rut of mouthing the words of songs without passion. It's easy to distance ourselves in our hearts and put on the Christian act. Why don't we expect God to move among us, change us, bring us to tears over sin, bring us to laugh with joy over His blessings, and move us to be awestruck with a new view of the grace of salvation in Christ? I don’t sense anticipation as we gather, believing that God will be with us and fill us with His Spirit and empower us to reach the most hardened sinner with the compassion of Jesus. These are not good signs for us. We desperately need to change. We must have a fresh start. We need a revival brought by God.

I want to be clear. I believe that we are at a crossroads. We have to decide to either be content as a very small, impotent church or passionately pursue the Savior and expect that God will visit Calvary again with mercy, grace, and power.

Friends, 2005 is the year of the Fresh Start at Calvary. We are going to go through a number of changes, from very minor details to huge visionary ideas. We are going to do some things Calvary has never done. We are going to step out in faith in a way that we never have before. We are going to plan to do things that only God can do and then we are going to pray like never before, trusting in God like never before to do them. We are going to take risks, and we will surely make some mistakes. But life is too short to be satisfied with a façade of faithfulness. I want the real thing. I want a loud and risky faith that believes mountains can be moved. And I want you to want that too.

For some of you this sounds scary. I understand. Change is never easy. And even though it's necessary, it's still painful. But the only road out of struggling with complacency is The Calvary Road. It takes us to the Cross where our desires and schedules and church ideas have to die so that the Body of Christ can thrive again at Calvary Baptist Church of Woodstock, Illinois.

Friends, I believe that the best days of Calvary are still to come. I mean that. I believe we are not a church of the past, but a church of the future. For all our problems, the remedy is very close. It's Jesus. Not the Jesus of Baptists or Evangelicals or of your childhood church. But the Jesus of Scripture who loved the unlovable, chose to serve and not to be served, and rejected the way of manmade rules for the freedom that grace provides. Let's put weights and sins aside and run the race together with endurance, believing all along with an astonishing confidence that God not only can, but will do amazing things.

In Pursuit of Christ.

Pastor Steve.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

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© 2005 Steve McCoy    

   

Emmitt and "Church"

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Once again, the main news organization of my denomination is, like most evangelicals, trying so hard to find something worthy of praise in the sports world that discernment seems to go out the window.

Emmitt Smith, longtime running back of the Dallas Cowboys (with a career ending hiccup in Phoenix, probably for added yardage for records and such) has now retired.  He has had a remarkable career, though not very flashy.  And Smith seems eager to return to Dallas and his home church, and speaks openly of his faith in Christ and desire to point to Christ for the results of his career. 

So far, so good. 

But I'm frustrated with Baptist Press (BP) and this article because there is no concern about Smith's involvement in a church that doesn't believe in the God presented in Scripture.

Smith, along with other former Cowboys Deon Sanders and Michael Irvin, belong to The Potter's House, pastored by T.D. Jakes.  Jakes subscribes to the theological heresy called "modalism."  This is the belief that the Trinity doesn't consist of three co-equal and co-eternal persons, but rather that the one God (one person) manifests Himself in three different modes at different times.  This heresy has never been accepted as biblical and historical teaching, except among some fringe groups and Oneness Pentecostals. 

I know BP would probably rebut this by saying they are simply reporting the event, what was said by Smith, and how that would be of interest to Southern Baptists.  The problem is, they have made certain assumptions that less informed Southern Baptists will take for granted.  They assume that The Potter's House is a Christian church.  They assume we can speak of Smith's faith in the same breath as ours.  And they assume that because Smith points to Jesus that we should rejoice in that too.

I'm not on a witch hunt here.  I do believe it's all too common for true believers to be in a false movements and churches.  Smith may be deluded as to the truth of the Trinity.  But that doesn't mean that as he speaks of faith and church that he speaks of the same faith and "Church" that we speak of, especially when we can see the obvious false teaching of the particular church in question.

On top of this theological heresy, Jakes also teaches the "health and wealth gospel" and is considered a "faith teacher" which are both movements among some charismatics teaching that Jesus was a rich man and that believers should be rich and healthy, and that we can "name and claim" our desires and we will receive them if we truly believe.  It's no surprise that Jakes owns a 1.7 million dollar mansion in Dallas.

It's time for a little discernment Baptist Press.  You can read more about Jakes and his beliefs at the Christian Research Institute.

Little Stories, Big Story

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I have a lot of stories.  Some are better than others.  Some are funny, like when I cut off my little sister's piggy tail (just one).  Or when on vacation I was piloting a small fishing boat alone and rammed the boat dock by turning the engine throttle thewrong way (Yeah, the dozen people who came running to the dock to see the calamity were very comforting).  Or when I dropped a tray of Pepsi’s on the way to my table at a banquet with a hundred people or more watching. 

I have some sad stories too, like when my first dog was run over by a car.  Or when my son was diagnosed with autism.  Or when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We all have stories like this, don't we? 

Have you ever noticed how narrow our stories are?  Usually our stories are about very short periods of time: minutes, hours, or days.  They are tiny experiences in our tiny lives.

What's unfortunate is that so many of us only have our tiny stories and they don't fit into anything of greater significance.  We are myopic.

Myopia is 1. the condition in which the visual images come to a focus in front of the retina of the eye resulting especially in defective vision of distant objects (or) 2. a lack of foresight or discernment; a narrow view of something.

I think a lot of people in Western Culture are suffering from a type of myopia.  We live very self-absorbed lives.  We can talk narrowly about our lives, what we’ve experienced, stories about our sister or dog or kids or spouse or job.  But we can’t talk about the big picture, something of greater significance from a larger story that encompasses all of us.  We are nearsighted in our view of time and experience.

Have you noticed how rarely you hear people around you asking the great questions of history: "Who am I?" "What am I here for?" "How should I live?" "Is there a God?" "What is God like?" "What is God doing?"

Because we have defective "vision" and a narrow view of ourselves and the world, we tend to put ourselves in the center of our little universe.  The things that happen to us and through us then become the key facts of history (or mystory) and the larger picture of things is blurred beyond recognition.

God's words found in the Bible tell the Big Story, the Grand Explanation of all things and people and time and eternity. Instead of letting us hide in our narrowly concerned lives, God presents a very different picture that shows us where our lives fit in The Story of Stories.  Jesus is at the center of that Story, and as our understanding of His greatness and glory increases, our little stories begin to decrease, as do our problems and perceptions of ourselves.  In this Story we find out who we really are, what we were created to be, why we aren't living as we should, and how to be truly human again.

I believe one of the best things any of us can do is to learn a new Story.  We need to dive in to God's Grand Explanation of everything and see what's important, what's not, where significance is found, and Who is at the center.  In this Story we won't always like what we find, but what we find there will be tremendously good for us and will show us a significance beyond the stories we know.

Place and Leisure

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I found this quote from an article on the PCA and emerging church movement.

"You can’t have a hit-and-run approach to ministry. You have to love a place to minister to a place. The people need to become your people. We push for a geographical integration of church, neighborhood, and work. The closer these things are, the more natural it is to live a seamless life. The more distance there is, the more you need artificial props—programs—to create community. Relationships need leisure to develop. That’s why we talk about a long-term commitment to a particular place (2-3 mile circle)."

Abandoning Teenagers

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Hurt_2I've read a few chapters of Chap Clark's book Hurt: inside the world of today's teenagers.  It's pretty good so far, and very challenging to some preconceived notions society makes of teenagers.

His basic premise is that adolescence today is fundamentally different than it was a few decades ago.  In particular, society has systematically abandoned the young in a variety of ways and left on their own to navigate the path to adulthood.  But instead of realizing the problems of abandonment, society judges our youth as menacing and an inconvenience to the ways of life we intend for ourselves, leading to more abandonment. 

Teens are now forced in a culture of isolation to "band together and create their own world." (p 44)

Clark writes, "Adults will highlight [extra-curricular] activities as proof of their commitment to the young.  'I drive my kid to all activities.  I sacrificed my own life, work, avocation, and enjoyment in order to take the kids to soccer games, concerts, and competitions.'  This statement is in and of itself another subtle form of abandonment.  We have evolved to the point where we believe driving is support, being active is love, and providing any and every opportunity is selfless nurture.  We are a culture that has forgotten how to be together.  We have lost the ability to spend unstructured down time."

Clark then mentions two consequences of parental and adult abandonment: a lengthening of the adolescent journey (no one is there to help them develop and mature) and a sense of aloneness in the world.

The real hope for youth is genuine relationships with adults who will go as far as necessary to build trust.

I think Clark is on to something.

Conscience

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Touchstone_205I've been struck a few times in the last few days with the role of the conscience for preaching and evangelism.  Most recently I found a helpful section in Russ Moore's article "The Child Not Taken" in the current issue of Touchstone Magazine. 

Moore writes, "For the unbeliever, the conscience is not Disney's Jiminy Cricket, offering a friendly, understanding, welcome guide.  Instead, it is a universal gnawing within the heart that points to a coming judgment, which men and women desperately want to deny exists at all.  It is found everywhere, in all people in all places at all times--and it is always smothered by people who do not want to hear its voice."

"This is the Achilles' heel of so much of our preaching and witness.  Some of us try to reach the culture by offering 'life principles,' twelve steps to personal peace and so forth.  Some of us try to offer rigidly organized doctrinal explanations of Christianity.  Some of us (though far fewer) try to scare unbelievers into thinking aobut how miserable hell will be.  None of these is the way the apostles preached."

"Jesus said that through the gospel the Spirit 'convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.'  Paul said that his preaching explicitly appealed to the consciences of his hearers.  These consciences are 'seared' by years of self-justification, but it is the forthright proclamation of the gospel that pierces through this satanic deception."

Though you can only read the rest of this article in Touchstone Magazine, you can read more of Moore at The Carl F.H. Henry Instutute for Evangelical Engagement.

From Monument to Movement

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This is the new and improved Reformissionary weblog.  The original blog is found here. 

I'm on a mission to seek the continual reforming work of God's Spirit in my life and church.  The burning church building in the blog header is meant to express the need of the hour in our American established churches: we must change from monuments to movements if we are going to impact our culture as Jesus intends.

I'm seeking to follow the path of faithfulness that isn't about isolation from the world or getting comfortable with the world.  I want to live like Jesus who had no trouble fitting in at parties where the world meets and talks and sings.  I want to live like Jesus who had no trouble piercing the conscience of the people around Him with words of life.

The_radical_reformission_125Mark Driscoll said it well in his book The Radical Reformission...

"Reformission is not about abstention; it is about redemption. We must throw ourselves into the culture so that all that God made good is taken back and used in a way that glorifies him." (p 152)

That's my goal as a reformissional Jesus follower.  I want to be close enough to those who don't know Jesus that they can see the natural outworking of the gospel in my life, and then invite them to know the King.