LayGuy

I came across Switchfoot’s new single “Mess Of Me” from their new album, “Hello Hurricane” and can I just say I am blown away by how good this song is!

It seems that these days you have two camps in Christianity.  The first are living their best life now following the 7 steps to success and prosperity.  The second group are those humbled and wrecked by the realisation of what their true life is all about.

Let me assure you, there are no shortage of spin doctors, I mean “pastors”, who belt out the swan song for the first group.  And the hordes that follow them do so while scratching their itching ears.

At the same time, scratch beneath the surface and you get a growing, rumbling and groaning group of people exposed to good teaching which does nothing but expose sin in their lives in the light of Scripture and points them straight to Jesus  – bypassing any hint of “their best life now” or financial prosperity.

It seems as if God is cleaning out the house these days and separating those He calls His own to those who call God their own – only when it suites them. Whare am I in this cosmic sifting?  Right about where sin is being exposed and I am starting to hate it deeply.  And that’s why I love this song, “Mess Of Me.”  Lyrics follow the clip..

I am my own affliction
I am my own disease
There ain’t no drug that they could sell
Ah there ain’t no drugs to make me well
There ain’t no drugs
It’s not enough
There ain’t no drugs
The sickness is myself
- Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
We lock our souls in cages
We hide inside our shells
It’s hard to feed to the ones you love
Oh when you can’t forgive yourself
Yeah forgive yourself!
There ain’t no drugs
There ain’t no drugs
There ain’t no drugs
The sickness is myself
- Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!
AHHHHHHOOOOO!
There ain’t no drug
There ain’t no drug
There ain’t no drug
No drugs to make me well
There ain’t no drug
It’s not enough
We´re breaking up
The sickness is myself
The sickness is myself
- Chorus –
I made a mess of me I wanna get back the rest of me
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna reverse this tragedy
I’ve made a mess of me I wanna spend the rest of my live alive
The rest of my life alive!

Well it did it again.  For the second time in 48 hours my site crashed.  Those damn old plugins are the culprits.  Working on getting things right again but it’s just gonna take awhile.

MommyZabs has tagged me on one of those “tag you’re it” thingies where you have to divulge a bit about your personal life. Zabs, seeing as you’re a nice lady, I’ll oblige to your request – although, like you , I usually ignore these types of things – especially when I have to write about my wife online. If my feed dies out, it’s because I’m dead! So I have to write 8 wonderful things about my wife. So here goes…

1. She is drop dead gorgeous! I am one of those lucky guys who married way outside his league.
2. She has given me the two best kids a dad could ever ask for.
3. At the slightest hint of a cold, she devours 5 cloves of garlic thereby putting a hole in the ozone layer above my home.
4. I love the fact that she is a pure blooded Spanish woman born in France. With me being a Slovakian guy with Polish/Austrian/Hungarian and Greek roots, our kids are European mongrels born as Aussies.
5. I never get to watch the news because it clashes with Simpsons.
6. She gave up being a solicitor to be a stay at home mum – which suited her anyway cause she hated Law anyway.
7. She is about to go into business with her best friend and I look forward to a new chapter in our lives with new responsibilities and day care, etc.
8. She was one of the flamenco dancers on Mission Impossible II

That was easy. But one of the most wonderful things I can say about my wife is the potential we share in our future as we learn to grow with each other and grow in our faith. Like any marriage, ours is not perfect. But I see many areas where Jesus can redeem things to perfection and I look forward to going on that journey with my wife and our kids.

In the last day or two, I’ve experienced a complete turn around on my views on Hillsong Church. I have written a harsh “post conference” post here. You will see on the bottom of the post, I have made an edit in order to set the record straight.

Since I wrote the post, I’ve been copping a lot of feedback from the likes of my wife, to my Pastor to the convictions of the Spirit as He stirs my heart as I read into things deeper. As I check out the blogosphere, I see Christians at war with one another over what people believe in.

Sure, we are asked to contend for the faith and some people are worthy to be picked on. But the vast majority of the on-line war BETWEEN Christians is trivial in nature and serves no other purposes apart from inflating ego’s and giving an unbelieving world another reason to dismiss the message we proclaim as being irrelevant because we can’t even get along with each other.

Jesus prayed that we are unified in order that the world may believe that the Father sent the Son. It’s a sobering thought to think that at times I am actively violating the prayer of Jesus in my online attitudes. And for this I repent.

In this spirit, I wish to write my post Hillsong Conference 2007 post.

Now that I have recovered from my flu and have to actually interact with the world, I find my soul craving for more of what I experienced at Hillsong Conference. Being immersed in worship and teaching was a balm on my soul. I guess my initial struggle with it all was that it was quite different to anything I have experienced before.

In 1998, I traveled to Israel to participate in the Jubilee celebrations of the country. The ICEJ holds an annual conference from delegates all over the world during the Feast of Tabernacles and attracts about 5000 delegates from 105 countries. Hillsong Conference was close to 30,000 delegates and is the largest conference in Australia – period.

What fueled my initial negative response to Hillsong was the Pentacostal mindset. I was raised ultra conservative, then rebelled. I found Jesus in a conservative church and have since moved to a more missional, emerging church plant. I still am theologically conservative but culturally liberal. I love the depth and authority of the Word and long to see it played out in my modern cultural context.

So when I attend a 30,000 delegate conference and am bombarded by the Pentacostal mindset, I am somewhat blown away. What I experienced can be described as a “powerful emotionally driven zeal which lacks the theological convictions I so cherish.” Initially I responded in a negative way to all this.

I hold the Word of God with such a high degree of perfection and purity. I love its simplicity, depth, mystery and the never ending questions it raises in the human spirit and soul. And much of what I experienced at Hillsong washed over all of this in the “emotionally charged zeal” of the Pentacostal mindset.

But in the last couple of days, I have realised that it’s ok cause these guys are in the Kingdom also and we are on the same mission. Hillsong cops a lot of crap from all angles, but Jesus asks us to look at fruit to determine motives. And so I did my search on Hillsong. My conclusion? I wish all the churches had the kind of fruit Hillsong produces.

Hillsong often gets criticised for it’s emphasis on financial matters. But if the nay sayers knew what Hillsong does with these funds and the plans they have to expand their church and the Kingdom, they would be silenced – just like me.

Below are two sets of playlists. The first is the video blog of the Hillsong Conference 2007. This gives you a day by day take on the events at the 2007 Conference. The second playlist is the Hillsong 2007 Vision. I encourage you to watch all 4 clips if you have 40 minutes available. You want to know what Hillsong is all about apart from the music? Check out these video’s.

Hillsong Conference 2007 Video Blog

Hillsong Vision 2007

In conclusion, I am a blessed guy to have had the opportunity to attend the Hillsong 2007 Conference. I can now see more clearly why they do the things they do and how they do them. They may be foreign to me, but their reality is also foreign to mine.

I see clearly now how God worked in my struggles to give me a much clearer and greater revelation of what He is doing on earth through His church. And in conclusion, my hope is that the Christian blogosphere will realise the following words from Christ…

“John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us.” Mark 9:38-40

Tags: hillsong, hillsong conference, vision, brian housten, hillsong united

The LayGuy Eye is a new thing I want to incorporate into my blog. Having been absent from my feeds for a week, I was bombarded by hundreds of posts I had to wade through. A lot of them, I simply skimped. A lot I read and enjoyed. But some really grabbed my attention.

As my avatar is a big fat blue eye and the fact that “eye” rhymes with LayGuy, it only seemed natural in my non-marketing mind to name this segment the LayGuy Eye – it’s my “eye on things” lol – I should stick to drinking wine. Hope you enjoy my selection of posts I found interesting. And for those of you I personally interact with, rest assured, you will get on this list eventually, I had to cull this list right down to the meds I’m on.

Church Relevance has a great article on the top 25 multiplying churches in the US. Make sure to check out the original article from the Outreach Magazine to get into the meat of this great story. Included is a link to a PDF file of this list one could email to his or her friends if they were so inclined in order to learn what these churches are doing.

Emerging Church guru and Elvis Presley wannabe, Dan Kimball has a great article on how there are heaps of “online bashers” who like to diss their fellow Christian bro’s and sis’. Yeah on ya Mr Kimball, you are one of the convicting voices I spoke about in my edit of my “pumped” post. Kimball refers to the story on New Ager Jon Gordon’s acceptance of Christ through his conversations with Erwin McManus of Mosiac. McManus is one of my favourite “inspirers” and cops a beating from heaps of conservative Christians out there. A very interesting story to follow through.

LOL – I haven’t read the article yet but my favourite science brother Hugh Ross has a post published at The Resurgence on “The Physics Of Sin.” Trust Ross to write about the scientific consequence of sin. I will read it in due course. Mr Ross, one thing I don’t understand about you is your assumption that eternity has multiple time dimensions running through it. My question to you is, “why does eternity even have a time dimension?” By definition, eternity is a reality void of time – no the abundance of it! Oh my head ache! Love ya brother!

On the lighter side, my [spiritual] brother Seth is a funny fella. He loves to see the funny side of things on his blog. A series of posts which made me laugh are his cartoon Calvinism posts. Calvinists have a point in their 5 pointed reality called “Unconditional Election” and it has everything to do with “pre destination.” Poor old Calvin would have greatly benefited from modern physics where the pre-destination question is easily solved. But because he isn’t around for this and because it’s funny, here are Seth’s posts on Calvinism 101, part 1, part 2 and part 3.

My favourite Youth Pastor in the world – which by the way I haven’t met cause he is on the other side of the world, is Stuart. This guy’s onion layers have been peeled away time and time again on his blog. What’s left is a funny blog about his views on the world and his experience as a missionary to the youth of his area. I salute you Stuey! One thing I have the EYE on are his posts on Rob Bell’s NOOMA series. Rob Bell is the Pastor of the “other” Mars Hill (sorry Stuey, my allegiance goes to Driscoll) – placed 13th in the top 20 Churches in the US. He has a bunch of short videos called Nooma. Stuart is a legend and has posts on the following episodes. Lump. Flame. Noise. Rain. Check them out. Bell has his critics but he is also critically acclaimed – go figure!

Talking about top churches, LifeChurch.TV is seen as the top church in the US. Craig Groeschel is the Pastor and like any relevant Pastor on this planet, he has a blog. He has a series of posts he titles, “oops” where he outlines the biggest stuff up’s in his journey at lifchurch.tv. I love it when Pastors are transparent. The absence of pride gives me great joy! Moving right along, be sure to check out his posts on his 4 biggests “ooops” – 1. Stinginess. 2 Building Small. 3 Let My People Go. 4 My Ministry.

Nothing earth shattering at all. But when the Pastor of the US’ top church speaks, I listen!

Finally off to Goodmanson – the dude they say you need a dictionary to decipher his blog with! Drew Goodmanson just came back from an Acts 29 Pastors retreat where a number of very interesting things occurred – in the EYE of the LayGuy! It seems as if Acts 29 is defining “missional” and distancing itself from the “other” missional group led by John Franke or Alan Roxburgh over at Allelon.org. Led by the input of brains the likes of Keller and Stetzer, Acts 29 is repositioning itself as a “movement instead of a network.” This may mean nothing to most of you. But to me this is exciting cause I love the work these guys are doing. Make sure to check out this little multimedia take by Goodmanson before you go – a sobering thought of the reality of church in the US.

Good thing I’m an Aussie! That is until you check out the latest Census data reading religion…..

Tags: layguy eye, missional, mark driscoll, erwin mcmanus, craig groeschel, dan kimball,