Why I am not an NBA fan…
May 18, 2004
The NBA Playoffs are in full swing. Yawn-o-rama. Who cares? If the seventh game of the NBA Finals were across the street and admission was free, I might walk over and watch the second half. I’m sorry; what a snooze-o-matic sport. College basketball is wonderful; there isn’t much that can match the intensity of Carolina/Duke for excitement. The NBA, by comparison, is as dead as three o’clock. Herewith, 10 reasons why I am not an NBA fan:
10. The NBA regular season is meaningless.
9. The first round of the NBA playoffs is just as meaningless.
8. Nobody ever heard of Dennis Rodman until he got to the NBA.
7. The 24-second shot clock is the second-worst sports invention (behind the DH).
6. Half of the NBA’s players need to buy some vowels from Vanna.
5. The Lakers are the Yankees of the NBA, and I don’t like baseball because of the Yankees.
4. It can’t be much of a sport if the best thing about it is the commissioner (Stern is so much better than Bud Selig that it’s unreal).
3. Kobe Bryant leads All-Star balloting. ‘Nuf said.
2. There are no lakes in LA, no grizzlies in Memphis, no hornets in New Orleans, and there is certainly no jazz in Utah. Maybe Utah should be the Lakers, huh (there’s a BIGGGG lake there, remember?)? Then L.A. could be the, I don’t know, Porn Stars or something.
1. The stinking season lasts nine months. With the NBA, less would truly be more!
An Ancient/Future Paradigm
May 18, 2004
I’m preaching through the life of Christ (well, I’m just barely getting started, I should say, on what will be a several-year proposition, I believe), and I’m on John 1 this week where Jesus calls His first followers. My paradigm has shifted over the course of the last couple of years in a way which I think is much more Biblical than my previous way of thinking. I used to believe in what I now call the “two buckets” paradigm. It goes like this: everybody in the world is born into “Satan’s bucket”. Our goal as believers is to try to get as many people to “jump buckets” as possible, into “Jesus’ bucket”, so that they can go to Heaven when they die. I don’t use that paradigm anymore, not so much because it is wrong as because it is incomplete.
Instead, I now use Jesus’ paradigm: “follow Me”. In preparation for Sunday’s message, I just jotted down a few comparisons. Try them on for size:
Two Buckets: “Are you saved?”
“Follow Me”: “Are you following Jesus?”
Two Buckets: “Turn or Burn!”
“Follow Me”: “Come and See!”
Two Buckets: Moment
“Follow Me”: Lifetime
Two Buckets: “Only Believe”
“Follow Me”: “Trust and Obey”
Two Buckets: Ephesians 2:8,9
“Follow Me”: James 2:18
Two Buckets: Security looks backward
“Follow Me”: Security looks at present-tense fruit
Two Buckets: Evangelism = Convincing
“Follow Me”: Evangelism = Inviting
Two Buckets: Consider the Facts and Make a Decision
“Follow Me”: Count the Cost and Become a Follower
Anybody want to add to this list?
Leaving Church…
May 14, 2004
Now and again, I’ll read of a supposedly-committed Christian who has left church altogether on account of the imperfections of so many churches. Their voices seem to be more clear and more accepted by some in the Emerging Church movement, and I’ll concede that what they have to say may be worth hearing–to a point. No one needs to convince me that there are a multitude of churches that miss the point badly, either via theological liberalism, or via a dead orthodoxy, or materialism or misplaced priorities or an addiction to self that masquerades as a resistance to change. I could go on…
At the same time, I find it nigh unto impossible to identify with those who leave church altogether. Find the best one there is in your area, and work to make it better. Failing that, begin a new one that, regardless how small, seeks to attract others to a way of doing church that exalts Jesus and you deem more faithful to Scriptural precept. I can handle those responses. I can go a long way in redefining church, and one model definitely does not have to fit all. House church? Great! Cell churches? Super! But if Hebrews 10:25 means anything, we’ve just got to find it in our list of priorities to do the Christian life with others. I rather suspect that the person who jettisons church altogether is infected with more than simply a zeal to experience church “rightly”, but probably is plagued by an unhealthy individualism and, dare I say it, probably a bit of arrogance as well?
The church has lots of warts–because people (ALL of us) have lots of warts; that’s why we need Jesus, for goodness’ sake. But it is the instrument of God in this world, and Jesus said that Satan wasn’t going to prevail against it, and so let’s make it much better–rather than writing it off and abandoning it.
A revealing conversation
May 4, 2004
Had a conversation last week with a guy in my church who is dealing with some issues. This is a guy with an interest in emerging church things, but who only really knows of it through me, so he’s not merely repeating something he’s read, okay? And his comment re church was to this effect: “I wish church were a place where people could know the stuff I’m trying to deal with, could lift me up in prayer, could hold me accountable. I wish that church were a place where I could be honest about what’s really happening in my life.”
I’ll just throw that out there and leave it…
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
