Ministry with pre existing conditions

Sometimes if feels like the very place that should be open to dealing with our issues is the one place afraid to touch them. Every person is going to have issues that they bring to God and that they are going to have to deal with in their walk with God. However, your pre existing condition should never prevent your progress. In our time together i hope to encourage you to press until you get the healing that you came for . We preached this sermon in Montgomery Alabama i hope your blessed  Ministry with pre existing conditions

A purpose driven man

What does my purpose look like ? we all come to life and livining with the anxiety of unfullied purpose. in our time together we seek to unmask the framework of purpose and uplift some purpose driven traits. As we look at the story of Samson my prayer is that the lenses of purpose give you a new perspective to view your situation.  This is a word that we shared in rome Georgia. I hope you are blessed   A purpose driven man

mutant ministry

Christian entertainment is a cottage industry that is a veritable billion dollar enterprise. The Christian entertainment realm includes gospel music cd’s, inspirational books, concerts, church conferences (mega or otherwise) and gospel getaways/cruises. These Para church gatherings are not a bad thing in and of themselves; I know many people who come to know God in a deeper way because of these events and ministry tools. I think that these are important supplements to our spiritual regime. But just as you would never attempt to live off of vitamins it is problematic to attempt to live off you’re the aforementioned spiritual supplements. You need a diet first then you can supplement the diet in order to strengthen the body.  We have usurped the diet and began to draw directly from the spiritual supplements that were never intended to be source but rather resource. God bless Oprah’s choux pastry heart but all the super soul Sunday in the world aint gonna help you if you first don’t get the soul right first.

     The institution is partly to blame; the church became disconnected and disenchanted with itself and its mission to the world. The church institution has fallen out of love with the world that it was designed to save. The check on the church has been one of failing to corporately acknowledge its failings and revise its methods to interact with the world at large. The message is complete, God is love and be transformed by that love, but the messengers are distracted. 

      How have the messengers become distracted?  We turned an open invitation to change into a show to be entertained. It's what I like to call the message of being a church dude. The message of being a church dude is simple “you came here to see me and here I am ". It’s not just men it’s the prevailing church culture; who has the most stylish preacher, best choir, best hair and nails, biggest hat, best musicians, who can give you the best bump (dance), and who looks the best. Frankly, I’m exhausted, church dudes kill me. It’s a whole lot of pomp and circumstance with NO substance.  I have not seen so many horn rimmed glasses in church since the late sixties (only through pictures cause I’m an eighties baby). The appeal for church dudes to even come to church is not development, improvement or transformation but rather it’s almost a sick fraternal order where an ultra-emotional existential experience may be sought that tickles the fancy but drops the believer back to a faithless existence. This fraternal group of believers is hyper flamboyant without the penchant of dignity or humility.  Church dudes are a danger because they tout this message that sounds just enough like the gospel to pass but ultimately devoid of any subsequent action that is literally the fruit of that gospel.  Where is the fruit of service that comes with the gospel? There is a strange spirit around choirs, praise teams, soloist, musicians and the like that suggest that ministry is all exhibition. The litmus test of church dudes is they show up for the performance but can’t make it to bible study. Church dudes can make it to the conferences but can’t seem to make prayer. Church dudes can make worship but can’t seem to make much else. 

           

The service element of church has been totally divorced from their experience. Church dudes would not have fared well being disciples of Jesus, he would have sent them back home because they love the show more than the substance of Christ.  Christ would have a difficult time making them disciples because they don’t show up unless they are on program to be seen.  Again this is not a designation for just men this is a specification for a sect of church attendees who have little to no desire to take part in the mission of Christ.  The members of this sect are addicted to the uplifted hand (seeking to receive) rather than the outstretched hand seeking to give.  Church in the minds of Church dudes should; GIVE me a feeling, I should RECEIVE a word, and I should leave AFFIRMED. This mutant form of Christianity ties whatever giving that might occur to a trigger mechanism that comes after the giving that would cause the giver to get. There is NO cross at the heart of their faith system.  The faith system, as a matter of fact, goes out of its way to never talk about the sacrifice of crucifixion at all.   The faith system then goes on to postulate that the ultimate enemy of the believer is not sin(cause who needs sin hanging over their heads) , but the enemy of the believer is the mythological hater who floats around like a wraith seeking to hijack our terrestrial experience by sabotaging what we were divinely designed to do. When we move our battle from the confines of the pneumatological to the anthropological, our worldview become myopic and we become the center.  Who is really hating on us? Have we become so narcissistic to believe that people are actually going home and thinking about us after we leave their presence ?  Scarier still is that fact that you believe that you have done something revolutionary enough to merit such concern.  Maybe just maybe all that shade that you seem to be receiving is just a culmination of all the shade that you have been giving others.

            Which leads me to another caveat of church dudes attitude. There is nothing like a Christian with attitude. A Christian with attitude is like going to the fridge and picking up a carton of milk taking a healthy pull, only to discover that the milk has spoiled.  Your expectation has been crushed and you can’t remove the taste from your mouth. The world needs Christians who are over themselves. Christians who don’t need titles to do ministry and who don’t think ministry involves a mic. The world is looking for Christians who have clean hearts and dirty hands.  The heart is ready to love and the hands have been sullied with the work of their Christ. The world needs Christians who are not Christ LITE, but rather Christ LIKE.  I cannot stress enough how awful Christians with bad attitudes are its false advertising. Now this is not a solicitation for the bright and shiny Joel Olsten’s of the world to rise up and make us all into Stepford wives. But nasty, immature, little Christians can be taken to the space ship and dropped off into the black hole; your disservice is no longer needed.  I would rather a person be straight up with their issues and say  “listen I’m working on my mouth, or my heart isn’t all together right” than give me that fake half love of Christ stuff.  Y'all know about that stuff the placating rub on the back with the Christian concern face. (I by the way have got a mean back rub granny taught me) 

             Church dudes are killing the church because the gospel of Jesus is not alive in their lives. But a mutant form of spiritualism is pervasive.  This is the mutated form of Christianity that is “spiritual” but not religious. The mutant courses through their veins and the bad news is the mutant is airborne and it is catching. The mutant loves to go to para church events but is highly allergic to the service of the church. The mutant loves the mic but breaks out in hives with authentic ministry moments. The mutant is allergic to service because service would expose the weakness of its witness.  The mutant does not reveal identity but replicates fragility.  The mutant does not want Christianity because that would require obedience to Christ. The mutant wants the shakes and shivers without the service and sacrifice. Yes dear hearts the word is still true “to live is Christ and to die is gain” the commitment still requires sacrifice. However the gospel of mutant Christians would suggest that we need to “go back to Eden and live on top of the world” ironically Christ ministered to the disenfranchised first and chose to live on the bottom rather than the top. Spectacularly enough Christ changes the world from the bottom up. This debunks the myth of the mutant that “I can’t help nobody if I can’t help myself”  the mutant acquires more only to keep more, Christ Borrowed two fish and five loafs and broke what he had and found the power of multiplication not in hoarding but in helping. The mutant wants to be seen, Jesus has to ask “who do men say I am?” he will be recognized by what he does not what he wears.  The mutant is constantly in a search for identity, the master says “I am that I am”, his identity comes not from what church he has joined this year but the God he has joined in this life. The mutant is lost in self-aggrandizement; the master was never lost to begin with.  The mutant wants duplicates, the master wants disciples.

            For those of us who believe that we have overcome the mutant allow me to further extent this metaphor. The Mutant speaks the language of legalism rather than the language of relationship. The mutant loves judgment and scandal because it further perpetuates the uniqueness of its own abnormality. The mutant loves topics like abortion because it’s a place of high contention where it can spread its virus. It loves the divisiveness of sexuality and sensuality because that’s where the scandal lives. It loves racism and sexism because quite as kept the mutant loves oppression.  The mutant loves these areas because the mutant knows that Christians who have been changed will not let any point of disagreement separate them in love.  The mutant exacerbates the speck in our neighbor’s eye blocking our view of the plank in our own eye.  How do will kill the mutant?  My suggestions

·         

Hard dose of anti me medication make community more important than yourself

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  Get out of survival mode, scared to risk, scared to attempt, and scared to try different things.

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  Every vision for the church should not include a new building without envisioning a new way for community to take root. Especially when you are under-utilizing current facilities

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Service requirements you love to sing/preach great….now I want to know can you serve?

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   Professional Counseling … I cannot tell you how many of us are suffering from severe narcissistic disorder, I am Not laughing.

Maybe if we stopped getting high off of our own supply we could get back to changing the world. But that might hurt a little…

Moving to celebration

I preached this sermon on Christmas Day At Beautiful Zion A.M.E Zion Church.  In every life we all move through seasons of transition. These transitions take place for a myriad of reasons. In our time together i simply wanted to lift up how Mary was able to navigate the dynamic changes in her life and move from anxiety to exhilaration. take a listen i hope your blessed.Moving To Celebration

Sir Please step away from the rubber duck

      At this point in our collective human experience I am flabbergasted. We seem to have reached a zenith of stupidity, better than a zenith a reality shaking paradigm collapse.  We have reached that point because we simply are not thinking. Collectively we kinda shut down. Lance Armstrong decided to tell the truth, and  Manti Te'o decided to catfish the world and kill of his fake girlfriend.  I mean really, we have entered a social intellectual space where we commit violence against women who never existed in the first place?   And if the assassination of fake girlfriends was not enough, (its more than enough for me in a single week), we have preachers taking baths with their granddaughters. 

Please understand, I think that have grandparents are God’s built-in support system for raising children in the village ethic. Grandparents understand the parental value set and have special bonds with their grandchildren.  Grandparents are good for instruction, deliberation, and affirmation. Grandparents have enough skin in the game to care but not so much that they stifle identity. It makes them wonderful places to receive additional love and support. Got the warm and fuzzzies yet ?

With the aforementioned being stated, get the heck out of the bath tub with your granddaughters.  As a minister I am keenly aware of my interactions with the opposite sex, you have to be it’s the time that we live in. when I counsel doors stay opened or another female minister is present in the room for the duration of the counseling. I have mastered the side hug and the shake your hand like a man for women. I do these things because I am aware of how preachers can look even when trying to be open and authentic. When a family comes to church I greet the husband first acknowledging that I recognize his presence and importance in the family system. If the husband does not come to church I ask about him EVERY Sunday. Again to acknowledge the fact that there may be a point of discomfort in the interaction.   My goal is to be approachable, warm and inviting and in that same action subtly establishing boundaries. Usually it works… usually, it was this one time a dude kissed me on the cheek , (he kinda snuck me , I was fire hot , I just don’t like being kissed by dudes) for another time.  

I can imagine what the preacher was thinking as his granddaughter wanted to take a bath with pop pop. “hey this is my little bear and I love her with my whole heart” so yeah jump on in.  NO, this is not ok , it’s not cool.  First think of what your granddaughter is going to say afterward,  “oh I bathe with pop pop” , the teacher exclaims “oh” runs to teachers’ lounge calls DHR and you go to jail do not pass go do not collect a 100 dollars.  I’m not talking , I stole billions of dollars AIG jail (by the way no one has gone to jail for the theft of America) I'm talking OZ adebisi , imma meet you in the shower, did u drop that jail. And you a preacher… bruh, that’s not a good look.

Seemingly harmless actions can have unexpected consequences.  More than that when you fail to think about the impact that your actions might have you are making a plan to fail.  But let’s look at it from another perspective nowhere in your mind are u thinking that this looks pervy , you’re a 60+ bishop taking a bath with your granddaughter . And not one moment do you step back and say “wayment” something aint right here.  You never stop to think, with the churches current struggles with sexual abuse that this is probably not what I need to be doing cause it just looks bad.  The fact that this was overlooked is troubling and shows a lack of godly judgment. This is one of those shun the very appearance of evil things. Kinda like I can do evangelism in the strip club but it’s probably better if I didn't.  

But I don’t just blame the bishop. I blame whoever took the picture and whoever posted it to Facebook. Come on yall help the Bishop out who in his circle says “oh bishop its ok, you cool, post the bath time picture on Facebook” It speaks to the kind of people you have following you when nobody speaks up and will give you sound counsel.  Clearly this is a case of the emperor has no clothes and his people are content to let the man walk down the street butt naked and be embarrassed.

It speaks to the need for ministers in this highly sexual climate to think about how things look. Our intent may not be to create a scandal but we can’t just think of what we do from the warm and cozy Jesus loves everybody room of life.  We live in a world with some sick people and we cannot afford to be numbered as being morally deprived just because we forgot to put on our thinking caps.  So a bit of advice, one stop laying on people cause it’s time for their ordination, you can ordain people with your hands. It is not necessary to belly flop ordain people. Two, get out of the bath tub with your grand-kids it just looks wrong. Three stop taking boys on trips with you (you are not a mentor you’re a pedophile).  Four, If you need that much security you probably need to take a sabbatical.  Five Stop speaking in tongues on twitter it looks like you having a seizure on the keypad. Six, Get rid of two of your yes men and find some people to encourage you who don’t need anything from you and whom you cannot do anything for.   And for Pete sake get out of the darn bathtub who are you B. Slade???

But remember all of the aforementioned might hurt a little.

Hush up money...

Somebody blessed me with this....i asked no questions!

Malpractice

Preaching Christ without sacrifice is theological malpractice.

Christology in context and in crisis

Christology is the pursuit to understand and reclaim the person, pneumatology, and purpose of Jesus as a messianic device. The idea of Jesus as a messianic device is important as a deus ex machina of the anthropological snare of substitutionary atonement. This atonement type suggests that Jesus serves as a replacement /substitute for sinful fallen man.   Jesus takes not only place But bears the weight of sin in the stead of humanity.

     Christology in this light places Jesus as the ultimate foil to sin and sinfulness. Jesus us the ultimate foil because he is man enough to feel and yet God enough to heal. Jesus is the ultimate foil because he is man enough to see and yet God enough to save. He is the ultimate foil because he is man enough to suffer and yet God enough to suffice.  Jesus is deus ex machina ,or God in the machine.  Jesus solves the problem that was too big too bold and too bad for us to solve alone. Jesus is the answer to the unsolvable problem that rest in the fabric of man.

     The problem is how can a holy God love sinful man? This problem is solved through the reconciliation of man through Jesus Christ unto God.  Jesus exchanges and interposes himself for us in order to transform us.  The enemy of freedom is defeated not through violence but through sacrificial love.  Jesus becomes that which we cannot bear to birth that which we must become. James Allison calls this sacrificial love the exposition of violence.

     But what happens when we subvert the identity of Jesus? What happens when we live in a culture where everybody is ok?  What happens when Jesus is reduced to a motivational marionette? We reduce his life to cannon fodder in context and catastrophe in praxis. We preach the gospel as if we are theological snake oil salesmen pushing an existential experience that makes us feel good but rarely causes us to actually be good.   This experience can’t be stamped with the label of worship because nothing is surrendered. Worship will cost you but playing worship will exhaust you.   We play musical chairs with membership moving our affiliation when we lose that special feeling. We fall in and out of love with preachers like newly minted American idol contestants.  And we drop doctrines faster Kim drop Kris only to get Kanye.
  

    This is not to say that church should be boring or dry.   I like engaging preaching, the rhythm and artistry captured in the exchange between preacher and congregation. But I am not a fan of life coaches, motivational Muppets or prophets for profit.  Preach a word if you’re gonna preach, I don't need the first three chapters of from "Good to Great", can do without delusional relationship advice from people who have no empirical data, oh and miss me with the thinking like a man. We have hustled the Gospel of Jesus Christ unto no end.  In our attempt to make Christ fit culture we have lost the revelation that Christ recreates culture. Jesus takes a blind man that found himself on the fringes of society and re-introduces him, not as a seeing blind man, but as an avatar for liberation through revelation. The blind man sees clearly but his first vision is Jesus. The sighted blind man cannot return to nomenclature because the blind man who now sees, understands what the modern reader misses, Christ is not a captive to the rules of the machine he is the key to escape the machine.  Christ does not twist and cajole himself to the pressures of culture he reaches into culture and reworks what culture could be.

          Christology is in crisis because “give me Jesus” no longer satiates the pallets of his followers. And why should it when we replace Jesus with “mo money mo money mo money”?   Christology is in crisis because instead of looking for a savior we don’t even think we need to be saved. And if we don’t need to be saved surely we don’t need to be led. And if we don’t need to be led than what exactly are we following?   The never ending cycle of self-satisfaction tells us that if we buy more we will love ourselves more and if I can just love me more than I will have the solution.  If I can just do more for myself I can finally be happy because I am the problem, oh but im also the solution.   Just one more pay raise will get me ten thousand square feet so I can put all those people who keep taking my happiness from me , on the other side of the house. Just one more car and then everybody can know im successful.  Just one more surgery and I can finally be happy with my face. Just one more relationship and all of my loneliness will just float away.  The solution for all of our ontological tension, I am happy to say, is just do more for you. Thousands of years of philosophical musings and thought for what marketers can show you in a thirty second infomercial.  

          My friends you are not the solution. Sorry! it pissed me off when I discovered that I am not the solution either. I so wanted to be the solution. I needed to be the solution. I dream at night about walking up to my problem and giving it a dragon upper cut (google it) just demolishing my problems because I’m the solution. I would be an awesome solution. (A guy has to dream)  It exhausts me to no end to keep digging inside myself for solutions that don’t answer my questions. The end of all my digging just creates more desperation, wanting and anxiety.     Where is Jesus ? Why can’t we see him ? Why won’t he heal us if he is here? We can’t see him because Jesus comes to give we follow him, but we come to take.  Jesus is not found in the act of taking in life he is found in the act of giving.  He gives his life away and we reduce his sacrifice to pitiful paltry punch line preaching. Jesus asks his disciples to give up everything and follow him but what does it cost to follow Jesus today?   Does it cost everything to follow Jesus today? Today is cost even more to follow Jesus because you have to actually try. Putting forth effort is so 1993.

          Please do not sell your cars, houses, or cash out your 401k and move to Middle America with a commune where you sell jam on the road side.  But learn your neighbor’s names. Don’t take to the streets with bullhorn telling people to repent for the “end is nigh”. Do take the time to say hello to people you pass in your goings and comings.  Don’t pull a “seven pounds” and donate all your organs while you are still using them. Do hold your neighbors hands. Don’t stop celebrating holidays cause now your too holy. Do celebrate every day because Now you serve a Holy God.  Don’t get all mystical and spooky, that’s just weird. Do talk to people, I mean really stop and talk, yes I mean those uncomfortable talks that exhaust you.  Give your life away.  Yes it’s uncomfortable, yes it’s exhausting, yes it’s a pain. But when you give a hug you get a hug. With each act of kindness we reclaim a little more of the face of Christ put enough acts together and we see him clearly to love him dearly. With each act of giving we see that God is not pulling a biosphere standing over us looking on our condition but doing nothing to help. God is deus ex machina , inside the machine with us pushing and pulling us. So give a little bit, but you know that might hurt a little. 

The sisterhood and secular Christianity

On January 1st 2013, TLC debuted its newest reality T.V. program , The Sisterhood.  This is the latest in a long line of so called reality programming that does little to depict actual reality, but much to pervert actuality. The sisterhood depicts the life and trials of 5 metro Atlanta pastor's wives navigating their way in Christian ministry. 

The introduction of the sisterhood to the reality tv landscape is a reflection of a greater secularism that has pervaded the contemporary church. This secularism is marked by a rough edged "keep it real" quality that is drenched in the bad behavior that has become zeitgeist of our era. This brand of Christianity is high on rhetoric and low on functional regeneration this is a secular Christianity. A Christianity that enthralls itself in appearance without substance. This Christianity is loves to be seen but hates to serve. This Christianity can raise an offering but cant raise a hand to help. This Christianity loves the authority of titles without the power of scholarship.  This brand of Christianity is a peacock spreading its feathers , colorful as they might be , without a brain to back it up. 

This brand of Christianity has "a form of godliness but denies the power".  This is a "take me as i am " and leave me just that way Christianity.   This Christianity is not the result of the transformative power of the grace and love of God , this is the result of narcissism on steroids.  When the pervasiveness of such narcissism reaches to the upper echelon of the ordained priesthood and their families we have to ask what quality of ministry are we giving our people? 

At question here is not whether the sisterhood disparages the image of the church, but rather does the church disparage its representation of Christ?  this form of public spectacle only reinforces the idea that church is just a show.   I am not an advocate for well behaved people for the sake of modernity, or for the adherence to traditional misogynistic contrived values. i do not believe that the Pastor's wife is some aberration of virtue that floats around the church affirming Emily Post's books on decorum.  Im from Alabama and i like my people just like some like their whiskey straight up.  Im not a fan of delusional nut balls passing themselves off as ministers of the gospel.  I'm also not a fan of self aggrandizement and glorification , i am a fan of humility and grace. i am not asking for the sweet old lady approach to the gospel , i am however, asking that we take into account that the world is watching how we represent ourselves as Children of God. 

it is my belief that Christians do need to be present and  active participants in the creation and in all arenas. But if our presence in the world at large leads people away from God and not to him  are we following Christ or creating a crisis? Maybe we have put so much makeup on our ontological reality that we lost sight of our hope in glory.  One thing is clear last nights episode was a testament to the brokenness in our world more specifically to the brokenness in our houses of worship. This was a hyper representation of how deep the well really goes. 

What did we really see? We saw a mother struggle to communicate with her teenage daughters and a father struggle to be relevant as well as prophetic. we saw the pressure that new parenthood can put on a marriage. We saw a woman's search for identity and voice as she bullies her way to network television relevance.  We saw the apprehension that financial pressures create in a marriage. Yes we even saw some bad hair.... really bad hair.  But most of all we saw agendas 

What didn't we see?  we didn't see much listening there was a lot of talking, too much talking , but not much listening.  We didn't see much support , there was a lot of talking that looked like preaching but there was no affirmation. We saw parents try to be cool and missed their chance to be human. they missed their chance to talk frankly to their children about sex because they were to busy pandering to cameras. Oh we didn't see anybody eat that banana. We didn't see mercy. We didn't see God through these people we heard a lot of Jesus like language but we never had that moment where we believed that God truly resides in these people. 

So as we push forward in this post modern experiment where preachers are rock stars and worship leaders are hype men. i hope we reclaim our souls . You remember your soul? its that thing below the custom suits and red bottom shoes. The soul the very make up of our being, that speck of the divine that dwells within us and seeks to reconnect the creation with the creator. Maybe if we reclaim our souls we could have a real brother or sisterhood. 

But.... This might hurt a little....