New Direction

I'll be taking the blog in a new direction over the next few months. In the past, I've used the blog as a sounding board of sorts to process ideas and occasionally rant about...whatever. I would like the blog to serve as a tool for growth in understanding how the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth has bearing on modern life and culture. Therefore, I will be using the blog to supplement sermons, counseling sessions, classes, etc. When it seems like I can't fit ideas into the time frames I have when I meet with people, I will do my best to articulate them here. Perhaps when we kick off the new Missio Dei Church website, we can have others join me in sharing their thoughts.

Baseball Season

I've lived in the South for almost 12 years and have only found a handful of baseball fan buddies in all that time. By fan, my standard is one who enjoys watching the games. Unfortunately, when we moved to Asheville, we moved away from those guys.

So now, with baseball season underway, I'm going to go where the fans are made. I will be coaching my four year-old's t-ball team. Spring training gets going tomorrow and the games begin in two weeks. My purpose and goals for the season are to make it as much fun for the players and parents as I possibly can.

Sports are an often overlooked and under-rated tool for development. Sports teach many biblical values like community (learning how to function as a team), accountability, setting priorities, humility, etc. In fact, Brian Kilmeade (one of the obnoxious guys on FOX and Friends on the Fox News Channel) wrote a book that I read several years back entitled The Games Do Count. He relates the role sports played in very prominent cultural figures and how various aspects of sports shaped their lives.

So this Spring, our family will pack into the white whale (our minivan) and head out to the ballpark to celebrate my four year-old's development. And perhaps we'll homegrow a baseball fan, because the Braves are playing the Mets and the Braves have not started their season well thus far...and I need someone to cheer them on along with me.

Men's Night

Join the guys of Missio Dei Church every first & third Thursday at Barley's Taproom on Biltmore Ave. We hang out on the second floor to shoot pool, throw darts, enjoy a pint and discussions of theology, politics and life. The next Barley's night is this Thursday between 5 and 8.

The Reason For God

Tim Keller released a book earlier this year entitled The Reason for God. Below, he gives an explanation of why he wrote it.




Perhaps this would be a good resource for you. For more on the book, check out the link The Reason for God.

We're Moving

For the past several months, our community has been renting space from a Baptist Church in our West Asheville neighborhood. While it has worked out "okay," it has not been an ideal situation.

In Jan., I caught wind of a downtown congregation that was dissolving and contacted several people to find out what was happening with their building. They are doing good things with it and we wanted to join them in keeping it a multi-use facility and continue the worship of God in their "sanctuary."

After several months of proposals and discussions we have secured use of the building to house our offices and worship space. We are elated at this move as it will allow us to move out of our core group phase and into a public worshipping community. Please continue to pray for us as we are seeking to bring the gospel of the kingdom of God to the people of Asheville.

We will continue to meet as a core group in West Asheville and in July, we will make our move into the new location at the corner of Patton and Haywood St. downtown.

Thanks!

I want to give an extra special thanks to folks that are part of our Missio Dei Church community.

I spent Holy Week taking care of my boys while my wife traveled up to Cincinnati to help her parents as her mom was recovering from Emergency surgery.

Our people pitched in to help so that I could prepare to preach for a group at UNC-Asheville on Tuesday and prep for our Passover Seder for Holy Thursday. I wouldn't have been able to minister without God's people ministering to me. Our people continually checked in on us and prayed for us.

It's great to see that folks who just months ago were total strangers have, in the name of Christ, very quickly gelled into a believing community that behaves like a family. Thank you my brothers and sisters.

Vintage Jesus

One of the fringe benefits of being part of a great network like Acts 29 is the resources. Mark Driscoll, the founder and president of the Acts 29 Network, of which Missio Dei Church is a proud member, has just released his latest book, Vintage Jesus. I received my copy early this week and have been thoroughly enjoying it.

Vintage Jesus offers a fresh, winsome, down-to-earth look at the real Jesus. One doesn't need a Masters degree to unpack the bold truth in the book.

Let me whet your appetite with a quote from chapter two, "How human was Jesus?":

Jesus was a dude. Like my drywaller dad, he was a construction worker who swung a hammer for a living. Because Jesus worked in a day when there were no power tools, he likely had calluses on his hands and muscles on his frame, and did not look like so many of the drag-queen Jesus images that portray him with long, flowing, feathered hair, perfect teeth, and soft skin, draped in a comfortable dress accessorized by matching open-toed sandals and handbag. Jesus did not have Elton John or the Spice Girls on his iPod, The View on his TiVo, or a lemon-yellow Volkswagen Beetle in his garage. No, Jesus was not the kind of person who, if walking by you on the street, would require you to look for an Adam's apple to determine the gender.