“The Ragamuffin church is a place of promise and possibility, of adventure and discovery , a community of compassion on the move, strangers and exiles in a foreign land en route to the Heavenly Jerusalem. Ragamuffins are a pilgrim people who have checked into the hotel of earth overnight, bags unpacked and ready to go. Regrouping and retrenching, squatting and debating, are not their poses and postures.

In their community worship, they reject the insidious inclination to play it safe. The inveterate tendency to entrenchment which betrays itself in clinging to the tried and true, is accurately discerned as a sign of distrust in the Holy Spirit.  The breath of God will not be bottled, and the gallivanting Spirit will not be campused. The worshiping ragamuffin will not be mummified in middle age by living in the past and refusing to attend to the present. Creativity and flexibility will give way to repetition and rigidity. The ragamuffin church is comfortable with periods of silence, sitting still, listening attentively, and experiencing the divine presence.”

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning

We often use the scripture “When two or three are gathered in my name, there am I with them” to define church.  If that is taken literally than it is short jump to assume that the simple gathering at home with the family is some level of church.

I am not here to persuade people to stop going to their church and just stay at home with the family.  I think that people need an extended community of faith that goes beyond the home that the church can offer.  What intrigues me more is the last part of that verse in that Christ is present and if Christ is present don’t you think He is looking to be excited.  He is looking to be a part of an adventure.  He is in the business of the unexpected and the creative.

Sitting here reading these words I wondering about my own life and if it is viewed by Christ as an adventure or is it viewed as playing it safe.   He gave me the gift of creativity and I see it in my kids as well.  He gave my wife the gift of organization and steadiness.  Together I think we compliment and frustrate each other.

All that to say, if the presence of Christ is with us are we boring Him?  I don’t think that God is content sitting on my coach watching TV.  I think that God wants to be about adventure with us and be about helping us instill adventure into those around us.

Are you exciting to God?

I doubt that we bore God even sitting on our coach.  I think that He is amazed at his creation no matter what, but He may be wondering why His creation isn’t being used for what it was created for.

As you gather with your family and as you gather as a church, gather in the hopes of letting Christ lead you.  Live a life that is exciting and adventurous.  This may require you to stop planting so many roots and getting entrenched in a life of comfort and routine.  It may require you to seek out a more adventurous tomorrow for you and for those around you. Doing that may take you out of our comfort zone but last time I checked the amazing stories of my life were not created in my comfort zone.

Keep your bags packed.

To begin with I want to come out and say that I am not against drinking beer or anyone that does drink beer.  My choice to not drink any alcohol is more connected to my hereditary nature and a far past experience to not be able to know WHEN to say WHEN.  If you are reading this please note that this is more of a question that I have had in my head for some time and I just felt like this was the best place to put it out there.

At one point in my career record I worked for a publishing house.  It was a Christian publishing house and I was working on an Emergent/Next Generation publishing team that would go out and acquisition new authors.  I really loved this job and the opportunity that I had to meet some fascinating people.  It was in that position that this question first starting to pop into my head.

When did drinking beer become a bullet in the description of a fresh thinking church leader?

In my current role as Innovation Director for a church in the Pacific Northwest I get the opportunity to continue to meet some great people that I look up to in so many ways.  It is in those meetings that my question is reinforced.  Through conversations of new and fresh ways of doing church it inevitably comes up that the next time we get together we should do it over a beer.  But wait a second, I don’t drink.  Was the assumption made that if I am talking about new ways of doing church that I must drink beer?  Or…that in order to come up with some even better ways of doing church we should get some beer in us.  I can speak from experience that the more beer that went into my body the ideas that I came up with would probably only qualify for a Darwin Award if they were ever followed through on.

You know when the greatest ideas come to me?  When I have sugar.  Maybe if we really wanted to talk about new ways of doing church we should get together for banana splits.  Dairy Queen could be the new “pub” for people meeting to come up with world shattering ideas.

Seriously, I just want to know what it is about beer that makes it so important to being important.  I admit that on a hot sunny day after mowing my lawn the idea of an ice cold beer comes to mind.  Or when I am at a baseball game and the smell of hot dogs and peanuts can only be amplified with a cold one.  Fortunately for me I like the taste of Dr. Pepper more than a hefeweizen.  But why is it that in order for a church leader to be seen as authentic in today’s world they have to have a keen knowledge of the latest micro-brews and the right location to get them?

I think that if I was a beer I would feel very used.  I would feel that you really don’t love me and that you are just pretending to love me in order to make friends with those that love me.  You are using me to get into the “in” crowd.  Wow!  I feel so cheap now.

There is a verse in the bible that says that “everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”.  Don’t drink beer because you think it is so beneficial to you.  I am sure you could drag up some article that validates your reasoning but I could probably Google an article that would say that it is beneficial for my relationship with my neighbor if I pee on his fence.  You are reality is that you are permitted to drink it and if you have a HEALTHY love for the taste of beer and it doesn’t cause you or those around you to stumble than I say enjoy responsibly.  But if your sole purpose in being a connoisseur of today’s most popular malted beverages is to help validate you in some way then it isn’t healthy.

For kicks I found this chart that shows when impairment happens when consuming alcohol.  I wonder at what level alcohol stops being beneficial.

In closing, if you feel strongly that it is alright for you to drink beer, than I say do it for the sake of liking the taste of it and not for the sake of what it says about you.   And remember that as much as Charles Barkley didn’t want to be a role model, he was.   Every one of us is a role model to someone…every one of us.

The samuai were ancient military attendants commissioned to serve or wait upon people in the upper ranks of Japanese society.   They were to be close protectors to anyone in nobility.  Close enough to lay their life down for those that they serve.

Some of you may or may not have seen the movie The Last Samurai.  If you haven’t seen it because you think Tom Cruise is a little off his rocker than I would just tell you to get over it and watch the movie.  It is an amazing account into the loyalty of the samurai and their unwavering desire to serve.  No matter the forces that surround them, they stood true to their initial calling to serve and understood clearly  whom they were supposed to serve.

American society could take a page from the history of the samurai and actually change the face of our culture.  I don’t think that we have any trouble understanding serving but we struggle with understanding the term nobility.

Matthew 25: 34-40 Then the king will say to those on his right, “My father has blessed you!  Come and receive the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world was created.  When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.  When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”  Then the ones who pleased the Lord will ask, “When did we give you something to eat or drink?  When did we welcome you as a stranger or give you clothes to wear or visit you while you were sick or in jail?”  The king will answer, “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how important they seemed, you did it for me.”

If we feel that Christ is King than he would be of nobility.  If we take the scripture above literally than we could say that those in need would be nobility.  When is the last time you served someone of nobility?

I think Bob Dillon has it right in his song Gotta Serve Somebody.  “Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody”.   In other words you either serve the world or you serve Christ.  You either act in a way that is pleasing to the world or you act in a way that is pleasing to God.  If you try to keep one foot on each side of the fence all you get is a tug-of-war that results in the top of the fence hitting you in the balls.  Not good.

The samurai were a small percentage of the Japanese population and even though they have died out the remnants of their teachings can be found in some forms of martial arts as well as everyday Japanese life.  Our culture today can’t afford for the act of serving to die out.  Serving can’t be a remanant that shows up randomly in faint teachings.

When all is said and done, we will be asked what we did with the gifts that we were given.  Did we use those gifts in a way that served nobility or in ways that served the world.  It has to be one or the other.

Are you among the living or the dead?

I don’t know about you but I sit back at least once per day and ask myself if I am really living my life to fullest.  Am I really doing what God created me to do?  For the most part the answer is yes but there is always something in the back of my mind that keeps asking if there is more.

Have you ever watched a zombie movie.  They are actually the easiest of the scariest movies to watch because it just seems that no matter how messed up they make a zombie it is always funny that a guy that is among the dead that can barely walk seems to catch and suck the life out of a perfectly healthy person.  The way I figure it, is they are not smart enough to get away from a brainless half-life then they are probably destined to be a half-life.

Here is a description of a zombie and I just want you to see if there is anything that you think resembles you or the people around you.

• Have the appearance of the living but lack any free will or a soul.
• Lack an expression on their face, almost a vacant stare.
• Their walk is lacking purpose and at a stumbling pace.
• Have an endless desire to consume the living.

I can tell you that I have felt that way at time but the two that hit me the most is when someone lacks any free will or soul and that they have an endless desire to consume the living.

There is nothing worse than going through life without any free will.  I think it starts there until it reaches the point where you lose your soul or any reason to live.  Whether it is the economy or just the everyday struggles that chip away at you, over time it can beat the will out of you where it is just easier to survive than to thrive.

You probably have heard that misery loves company.  The thing about people that have nothing good to say is that they say a lot to the people around them.  It is one thing to just be in a rut but more often than not you tend to drag people into it with you.  It is hard being around people that are living life when you feel like life is dragging you down.  We have all been then as well as experienced it on the other end.  We have our life sucked out of us to the level of the one that sucks.

All that to say, I come back around to the fact that God never intended us to live that way.  We were not created to just get by.  We were not created to be a part of the masses even if they are running off a cliff.  We were designed to set ourselves apart.  To not let money or status be our map but to let the healthy God given desires of our heart be our guide.  To not buy into the saying that “this is the new normal so we need to get used to it” as if the new normal was some sort of punishment. Remember that the majority of the world would give up their life in order for their family to be able to live in our “new normal”.

So what is the protection against falling under the spell and being part of a culture of zombies?  I think there are many things but the ones that I feel play the most important role in it are Creativity, Persistence, resilience, Focus, and Spiritual Guidance.

Do you know what HP, FedEx, Hershey’s, 20^th Century Fox, and Apple have in common?  They all started during some of the toughest economic times in America.  They started because certain people didn’t settle for the “new normal”.  They had a dream and saw that it could happen no matter what.  Would it be easy?  Absolutely not.  It is easy to become a zombie but hard to live.  The payout is much better living.

In writing this I was thinking about Moses.  He is most remembered by letting God use him to free the Isrealites from slavery in Egypt.  His greatness was never achieved during his life in the palace.  His greatness was achieved once he left the palace and began to live the life that he was created for.  He could have stayed in the palace and had all that he could have ever wanted.  He could have enjoyed a life of luxury with all the trimmings.  It is the best case of a person proving that even having everything can lead to the creation of a zombie.  Even zombies can be dressed in the finest clothes but still have the potential to live a soulless life.

My prayer is that people of this country will not settle for a “new normal” and begin to see life as it was meant to be.  Instead of dwelling on what the world wants to deal you, create your own game based on the will that God has placed on you.  He has something in store for each person that is life giving and that will overflow into the lives of those around them.  He wants us to be a people that breathes life into our friends, our children, our spouses, those in need that we may not even know.  “Job well done good and faithful servant” is meant to be said when we seek out our uniqueness that God created us for and we use it for what He planned us to use it for.  Are you ready to kill the zombies?