Here's how I did:

Total Time: 1 hour
Distance: 14.53 miles
Average Speed: 14.4 mph

It's the first time I've been on the bike in three or four months and it shows.

“All that Christ did and suffered, from the manger to the tomb, forms one glorious whole, no part of which shall ever become needless or obsolete; no part of which one can ever leave without forsaking the whole.

I am always at the manger, and yet I know that mere incarnation cannot save; always at Gethsemane, and yet I believe that its agony was not the finished work; always at the cross, with my face toward it, and my eye on the crucified One, and yet I am persuaded that the sacrifice there was completed once for all; always looking into the grave, though I rejoice that it is empty, and that ‘He is not here, but is risen’; always resting (with the angel) on the stone that was rolled away, and handling the grave-clothes, and realizing a risen Christ, nay, an ascended and interceding Lord, yet on no pretext whatever leaving any part of my Lord’s life or death behind me, but unceasingly keeping up my connection with Him, as born, living, dying, buried, and rising again, and drawing out from each part some new blessing every day and hour.” Horatius Bonar, from the blog 'Of First Importance'

Merry Christmas to all of our readers.

I have become a fan of Sojourn Music. Sojourn Music is an extension of Sojourn Community Church. I frequent the Sojourn Music site often and included in one of the blog posts was a list of Advent related sections from different historical statements of faith. Since I have a copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith, I went and read the sections they listed. What I found in Chapter 8, entitled Of Christ the Mediator were 8 creeds, with Scripture references for each. What I thought I would do is list 2 creeds for each week of Advent, for my benefit more than yours. Nonetheless, I hope you benefit.

1. It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Saviour of His Church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom He did from all eternity give a people, to be His seed, and to be by Him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.

2. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.

BusinessWeek and Onboard Informatics teamed up to determine "The Best Places to Raise Your Kids 2009". They named one city for everyone of the fifty-two states and Warner Robins got the vote for Georgia.

Here is the criteria they used:

This year we are going state by state. Once again working with OnBoard Informatics, a New York-based provider of real estate analysis, we selected towns with at least 50,000 residents and a median family income between $40,000 and $100,000. We then narrowed the list of towns using the following weighted criteria: school performance; number of schools; household expenditures; crime rates; air quality; job growth; family income; museums, parks, theaters, and other amenities; and diversity. We weighted school performance and safety most heavily, but also gave strong weight to amenities and affordability. - from BusinessWeek

From the beginning, Business Week was adamant that they wanted places that would be representative of where regular people could live, everyone knows that Greenwich, CT is a great place to raise your kids; the goal was to identify where the “Joe Sixpack” families would live…

Together we were able to come up with filters that would cut out the overly wealthy and the economically impoverished cities leaving places where ordinary people could and would like to raise their children. Besides, using economic factors as a means to cut away cities, Business Week decided to implement population thresholds. - from Onboard Informatics

Interesting to me is, at least in the mind of this company, is the type of people my city draws: ordinary. On the surface, I would say this is pretty accurate about my city. Not a lot of obvious poverty, crime, or abundant wealth, just normal people going about their everyday lives.

But, peel back the surface of our 3 bedroom 2 bath houses, 2 car garages, SUV's, and nice church buildings, and move past a life of ordinary isolation by getting into people's lives, and my gut feeling is that life will cease to be ordinary and become messy.

Also, on a side note, Warner Robins was selected as the site for the Little League Southeast headquarters. Pretty cool!

I was browsing over some blogs that I usually read and stumbled upon two new ones that I think may serve as informative for me in my suburban context. One of the blogs is entitled Missio Dei Suburbia: Reconnecting God's people to God's mission. The blog is maintained by Matt Adair, whom I spent four days with in St. Louis at an Acts 29 Conference. I enjoyed the conversations we had and I was thrilled to stumble upon his blog because he is in a similar context: Suburbia. So, here is Matt Adair at Missio Dei Suburbia - The Suburbs and Christianity

In case we confuse life in the 'burbs with following Jesus:

Suburbs = leveraging everything in order to experience safety, security, and comfort

Christianity = leveraging everything in order to experience the love of Christ, who is our safety, security and comfort

A friend sent this to me a while back. If you're interested in creative improv, Improv Everywhere has some really cool videos you can check out. Here is one of them.

After all of the bitterness and fear I've seen in post-election conversations (from believers and unbelievers), this quote from Al Mohler is a breathe of fresh air.

“We are people that know politics is important, but not ultimate. We know that politics has its place, an urgent and important place where, in the City of Man, decisions are made that can make the difference between life and death, injustice and justice, mercy and no mercy, commonweal or common disaster.

But we also know that there is in this world at its very best only a hint of the kingdom that is to come, where God’s reign is supreme.

No government will ever be able to say, ‘Every tear has been wiped away.’ No government will ever be able to say, ‘The blind have received sight and the deaf have received hearing and the lame now walk.’…That power is God’s alone.”

—Albert Mohler, “After the Election”

Here's us outside of The Journey, an Acts 29 church in St. Louis. This week has been great and I have enjoyed getting to know our leaders and making new friends. From left to right: Keith (my pastor), Heath, Patrick, me, Cameron, Paul. Thanks Patrick for the photo, totally ripped it from your blog.

Well, it happened. On September 29th until November 8th I will report to work at 2:15 in the afternoon and get off at 10:45 at night, rather than my usual 6:00 a.m. till 2:45 p.m. schedule. What does this mean for me? Why have I titled this post Painful Providence? During this period our missional community will kick off. The missional community that we (Heath, Kimberly and myself) are preparing for, praying for and can’t wait for will meet in our house and for six weeks of it I will not be there. Period. I let myself believe it might not happen, but that’s what I get for not being a realist. Thankfully, there are three leaders and not just two. The painful part is that I have a deep desire to be apart of the lives that will be in our home and I feel like a dad who is going overseas and will miss a crucial time in the lives of his kids. The analogy breaks down, but that’s how I feel. The providence part is that this is God’s doing and I don’t fully know why. I have some thoughts. Yesterday, when Cameron was preaching on the mission of God, he made the point that the mission was and is God’s idea. It is always in God’s hands and ultimately He is the only One who can fulfill His mission. When I start to think to myself that I am needed and stuff can’t get done without me being there, it’s probable that I am slipping into legalism. Great point Cameron and I thank God He gave you those words. The Spirit brought two different verses of Scripture to my mind. The first one is Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” The enemies of Israel had chariots and horses. They had great confidence in these things. Verse 8, “They collapse and fall, bet we rise and stand upright.” Why? Because of God’s name. For us it’s Jesus. His name means Salvation. Jesus is the one who brings salvation from sin and the wrath of God and brings us to the Father. So, this means this can happen without me for six weeks. Second, most of the time my plans are not God’s. Most of the time, for my plans to come to pass, I must be apart of them which gives me confidence in myself. God has plans and it’s His desire for His children to join Him in these plans. He has made them clear in Scripture and they will come to pass. His desire is to make every tribe, tongue and nation worshippers in Spirit and Truth. This means He is calling me to join Him on a different shift and away from the Body for six weeks. Who knows what will come of this? “For who has known the mind of the LORD, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:34-36

Here is a video to tell you about the new book by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears. Enjoy!

That's right. For the past two days (with the exception of going to the doctor) I've been at home and resting on my back. Tuesday I got up and during this process a sharp pain jolted through my back which caused me to lay back for a minute. I was able to get up, so I didn't think about and went on to get ready for work. As the day progressed, the pain in my back increased to the point that it was taking my breath away. Kimberly met me for lunch that day and I told her what was going on. I decided that I would go and see a Chiropractor. I could tell you all the exciting and painful things that the doc did, but the short of it is the thoracic region of my spine is out of alignment and it's cutting of a nerve. The analogy the doc gave is like you putting your foot on a water hose and cutting off the supply of water.






















God is good and I thank him for my wife. "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD." I have received so much grace from God in the form of my wife. She has put my shoes and socks on, cooked me dinner and served it, taken me to the doctor, brought me a fruit slushy, made and served me coffee (for those who know Kimberly, this was amazing!), and constantly encouraged me to rest. So, that's what I've been up to since Tuesday, thankful and flat on my back.

What a great night at the 567! The music sounded great. I heard many compliments around the room as the night went on at how good Chuck and Megan sounded. I was even asked if Megan made her own CD's! I got to see an old friend and meet new people and serve drinks with my best friend. The place was buzzing with people and conversations. The best part for me was being able to serve the coffee bar and free up my pastor to go and meet new people. Greater things are still to be done!

I recently posted a link to Jeff Vanderstelt's blog to help convey the transformation that has taken place about how I (and Kimberly) see myself as a member in the body of Christ and a missionary on mission with Jesus. One of the terms in the title is incarnational. Of course the root word here is incarnation, which is a theological word for God becoming man. More specifically, the Son of God taking on human flesh. Fully God and fully man. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." God entered this world as a Jew and into the Jewish culture. He came and sought out sinners. He went to weddings and parties. He worked as a carpenter. He taught at synagogues. He understood the culture of His day and he taught using illustrations that Jews could understand. He didn't condemn the people with a poster saying, “the end is near.” Rather He made really good wine, healed lepers, cast out demons, made the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dead to live again and he granted forgiveness of sins to repentant sinners. He didn't tell people what they wanted to hear, rather His teaching astonished the multitudes, silenced his opponents, shamed his accusers, enraged His country men and confused his disciples and transformed people to see that He is the Son of God and Savior of the world. Grace and truth entered this world and their culture in the person of Jesus. The King who didn't come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. Now, His body is called to go and make disciples and serve at the cost of their lives. I want to quote a story from the book Total Church that is a picture of what being incarnational looks like for our day as missionaries on mission with Jesus.

"Matt rang to ask what he should do. His friend George had asked him to go street preaching. Matt wasn't interested, but didn't know how to respond. So the three of us got together. As the conversation began, it was clear that George thought we were selling out in some way. But as we talked about sharing our lives with unbelievers, about evangelism that was 24/7, about opening our homes, George's tone changed. At the end of our conversation he admitted, 'I'm not sure if I'm up for that kind of commitment.'"

"Paul Tripp...talks about how bad language is not about vocabulary so much as it is about the motives of our hearts." (Taken from the desiringGod blog.)

(Photo was taken in our front yard.)
















"Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel: "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God!" Deuteronomy 31:30-32:3

"I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." 1 Timothy 1:12-16

I have been dwelling on these verses because I was so struck by them when Keith read them aloud two Sundays ago. The one condition for me to be to accepted and loved by God is to be a sinner. Not just that, I have to know that I am so. I must be convinced that Jason Clements is bad. Not just bad, but really bad. Worse than bad. I must feel the horror of how bad I am. How does this happen? Grace. It is truly amazing. Paul says that it overflowed. Grace has it's root and beginning in the abundant love that exists between the Father and Son and overflows so beautifully to really bad people. Once our hearts are awakened to the glory of Christ we can't help but see ourselves for what we are. The one condition for grace is a bad condition.

"Father, let me forget to get cupcake liners and frosting from the store, but let me not forget to be missional wherever I am at." That's my prayer as I write this. Earlier Kimberly asked me to run to the store to pick up cupcake liners and frosting because she forgot them at the store. Granted, she was starting on the cupcakes and didn't feel like moving much because she did a total body workout this week with an instructor who was a Nazi in a previous life (to quote Kimberly). Thankfully Jesus gave me strength to love my wife and go. As I was checking out, I forgot that I was wearing my New City church shirt when the cashier said, "New City church? What is that all about?" To which I replied, "Well, we are a new plant in downtown Macon at the Cox Capitol Theatre." "O.k." She said. "Tell me about it. How does your church differ from my Baptist church?" At this point I got really excited because this is no ordinary question. "We don't focus on religion or a list of do's and don’ts." I said. "We just focus on Jesus and the Bible and reaching people. We're laid back. We have Starbucks serve coffee at 10:00 a.m." "Are you serious?" She said. "You know, that makes sense. Most people don't want to go through the tradition of most churches. I know when I go to church I want to be told what I'm supposed to do. I know what I'm not supposed to do, but I want to hear what I'm supposed to do." At this point she was done checking me out and not wanting to tick the person off behind me I said, "We are online if you want to check us out." "I will", she said. You know, even more than being told what we are supposed to, the gospel, when it is preached, transforms the human heart to see what Jesus has already done. It is by faith we are saved and sanctified and perform good works. Legalism only dusts off the surface of our behavior, but the gospel comes in with a heart transplant. I thought of this as I was leaving and thanking Jesus for His mission.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Have you ever been one of those people who comes up to a person with a tract in their hand with no intention to get to know them? I have. I know that God uses these means. As Jesus said, "do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you." It always felt a little awkward. A prepackaged one-sided conversation you might say. Have you ever been someone who spends their life doing “good” or “nice” things, but doesn't really acknowledge Jesus with their lips? I have. For me it is a constant battle to not teeter to one side or the other, but to simply dwell in Jesus.

I must confess, there has been a huge transformation in my thinking about the church and it's mission. I hope to in the future elaborate on the title of this blog, because these two terms are crucial for what it means to be a missionary. For now I give you a link to a blog that I ran into while reading our pastor's blog. The Beginnings of a Missional Church Plant

Well Heather, here goes nothing...5 worship songs I consider to be weird.

In no significant order...

1. 'Prepare the Way' by Charlie Hall. I think he is using the phrase 'prepare the way' as a call for God's people to clear their hearts for the work of God. I don't know. But what I do know is that when I have listened to this song I didn't get it and I didn't worship.
2. 'I will call upon the Lord'. Yeah it's fun to echo, and the words come from the Psalms. But it's at the point when I hit the 'liveth' I just want to laugh. It sounds so weird coming out of my mouth.
3. 'Micah 6:8'. I feel like I should be singing this song in a bar in Germany or Ireland really loud, along with other men who are singing this song really loud.
4. 'Above All'. The theology of the atonement in this song is weird and quite foreign to Scripture. The verses are great and I love to sing them. They exalt God above everything. Then you get to the words 'you took the fall and thought of me, above all'. How can we look at the cross and think that ME, my worth, was the driving force of His passion? He went to glorify the Father and to uphold the honor and beauty of God's righteousness that I once hated. He was becoming my sin and bearing the wrath of God against me, against the church universal. He was restoring communion between God and man and the whole kingdom of the earth now belongs to Jesus. Everything that was lost at the Fall He has and will make new. The cross isn't just about me, it's so much bigger than that. Yes, Jesus died for us. But, we are not the end. The glory and kingdom of God being restored is the end. These words were so contrary to Scripture that a friend of mine changed the words when he led worship to 'You bore it all to pay for sins, once for all'. Ahhh, much better. Let's sing about what He's really done.
5. 'Party' by Chris Tomlin. I'm still thinking about this one. When I first heard it I thought, "Oh Chris, no you didn't..."

Tim Challies over at challies.com has a great article challenging Christians how to think about this Economic Stimulus Payment we'll receive this month. I hope the title doesn't give the impression that I'm advocating that we only use the money for others. My hope, and what I got out of the article, is to challenge myself and others to pursue our joy in what will last, namely, Jesus. Yes, we should pay off debt if we have it. We should provide for our families. But their are so many needs and possibilities of meeting them if we only pray and dream. You can read the article here.

'And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16-21

Kimberly and I picked strawberries today at Lane's Packing. It was a glorious day outside. The sun was so bright, which made the ripe strawberries even more visible. Kimberly looked beautiful. (That's all I have to say about that!). Anyway, here is some gee-whiz info about strawberries that I didn't know: 'Madam Tallien, a great figure of the French Revolution, who was nicknamed Our Lady of Thermidor, used to take baths full of strawberries to keep the full radiance of her skin.' ' Fontenelle, centenarian writer and gourmet of the 18th century, considered his long life was due to the strawberries he used to eat.' ' Though originally from the New World, strawberries were considered poisonous in Argentina until the mid-nineteenth century.' 'Over 53 percent of seven to nine year olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit.' 'Eight strawberries will provide 140 percent of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C for kids.' 'The strawberry is the only fruit with the seeds on the outside of the fruit.' And what is interesting is that the 'seeds' that you see on the outside are the actual fruit.
















When I consider how many strawberries are produced each year(1 billion pounds each year in California) and that 'on average their are about 200 'seeds' (which are the actual fruit) in one strawberry' I think about Psalm 104. 'You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate,that he may bring forth food from the earth...'(vs. 14), 'O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all...'(vs. 24), 'May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works...' (vs. 31). 'He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together' Colossians 1:15-17. Finally, with Psalmist, 'I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord' Psalm 104:33.

To those who are hungry I set before you a feast that will be released in October. I am so excited about this. The ESV bible is my translation of preference for two reasons. One, it's a word-for-word translation rather than a thought-for-thought translation. The difference is pretty obvious. Here is an explanation from the intro to the ESV: "The ESV is an 'essentially literal' translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, its emphasis is on 'word-for-word' correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original...A thought-for-thought translation is of necessity more inclined to reflect the interpretive opinions of the translator and the influences of contemporary culture." The other reason is that it is readable. Again from the intro: "As an essentially literal translation, then, the ESV seeks to carry over every possible nuance of meaning in the original words of Scripture into our own language." I am by no means advocating that thought-for-thought translations are of no use. In fact I have one, the New Living Tranlation. But if I'm going to study or read, I'm going to use the ESV. You can read more about it here.

Click here to view the Good Friday video. To those of you who are squeamish around blood, I caution you this video is pretty bloody.

You can read his biography here.

The following list of songs are the top 25 songs I have played the most in iTunes since Kimberly and I got the iBook. The picture was taken straight from my iTunes library with Grab, another cool feature on the Mac. Thanks Josh P. for showing me that. By the way, thanks Heather for sharing your list, now here's mine.

Thanks to Josh over at the Smoak House for this one.

Jason

Have you ever been around someone who forgot to put on deodorant? I'm really speaking to the men here. Guys, have you ever been around someone who forgot, or just refuses, to put on deodorant? It's bad isn't it? To me it's so bad that if said guy isn't apologetic about the smell, I either have to say something or go away, depending on the circumstance. If I'm working with the guy, I say something. If I'm waiting in line behind the guy, I move to the next line or pray one opens up. Well, during my workout at the gym today I smelled really potent body odor. So, as usual, I look around, but there is no one else around the machine I'm using. As I continued with my repetitions I continued to smell the odor, but what I noticed is that it became really strong when I lifted my arm up. Then it dawned on me, I forgot to put deodorant on. Then reality set in and I realized that I was that guy. Then shock set in at how bad I smelled. Then I ceased from doing exercises that involved lifting my arms. The end.

In case you are misled, I am not a fan of Joel Osteen. I do not wish to promote any of his books. My only purpose for the above picture is to compare it with the one below.
















Notice any similarities? If not, maybe a couple of more observations will help. What do you notice about Jesus? Yes, that's right! He isn't real, he is plastic. Now, watch the video below.




If you haven't made the connection by now, go back and read the title. Enough disapproval has been blogged about Joel Osteen that I almost feel like posting this is pointless. Notice I said almost. I have been looking for a good way to use my Jesus action figure picture for a while, and this seemed like a really good opportunity.

I was reading this hymn this morning and I was illuminated. I've either read or sang this hymn before, but until now I never 'saw' what I was reading. The last verse of this hymn sums up our whole worldview. The keyword here is 'sums'. There are so many implications and applications from having a cross centered view, or rather a God-centered view, of all of life. Here is the last verse of the precious hymn.

Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that thro' all time abide.

“It is the cross that gives God his credibility. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche (the nineteenth-century German philosopher) ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

In the course of my travels I have entered a number of Buddhist temples in different Asian countries. I have stood respectfully before a statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, serene and silent, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while, I have had to turn away. And in my imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerable thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.

The crucified one is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us, dying in our place in order that we might be forgiven. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.”

- John Stott, Why I Am a Christian, 63 Taken from the blog Of First Importance