This post is for those of us whose summer’s have kind of sucked.
Maybe things are going fine, you’re pulling in some money at the job; but spiritually, things have been really dry.
Maybe you’ve slipped into sin you haven’t seen since high school.
Maybe you went home for the summer and found yourself turning into a clone of the 16-year old version of yourself.
Maybe you just haven’t been able to connect with the Lord this summer.
These things may be true, but hear this well: do not write off August.
Our God is a God who redeems and revitalizes. Sure, you may believe this is true in some flowery, conceptual way; but when it comes down to it, do you believe it is true right now? For you? For your next three or four weeks?
Are you honestly giving up on August having any significance? Listen to yourself. Have you forgotten that you have been saved from mundanity and hopelessness by the grace of God?
God redeems and revitalizes.
Here are some things that have helped me in the past when I am feeling dry and distant from the Lord:

-Ezekiel 9.1-14
How is this true of what the Lord has done in your life? How does it remain true now? (Does it?) How will you trust God for this now?

-Discipline in seeking the Lord.
I know, I know. We don’t like the word “discipline.” It’s not organic. It evokes feelings of guilt. It’s not “relationship”. Get over the baggage you bring with you when you here the word “discipline,” and repent. Relationships take work. If you neglect someone, the relationship will be strained, and you will have to work through tension. This might be where you’re at with the Lord right now. Enter into his presence- we have a God of grace, who will pursuit you and welcome you regardless of where you have been and how far you have wandered. Seek Him in prayer and in spending time in His Word, The Bible regularly.

-Seek community.
We are not made to live alone. Make a call. Talk to a friend, or someone you trust. Tell them where you are at. Confess sin. ask them if you can talk regularly.

-Don’t wait.
If you try to wait to do these things until tomorrow, or even later today; you will not due them. You will be standing Labor Day weekend, wondering how August passed so quickly, and making excuses for why you compromised and wasted August. You know where you are at, and what you need. Do it now. Not tomorrow, not later. Now.

-Know that Jesus alone redeems, comforts, and forgives.
You can try drown out emptiness with late night TV binges and watching The Office online as much as you want, but Christ alone brings true comfort, meaning, and joy.

August has begun. How will you spend it and remember it?
Do not compromise. Follow Jesus.

hugs,
-mike

As August gets to be a crazy time for many people’s schedules, next Tuesday will be our last summer CAM before the school year starts. Be sure to stop by and listen to Mike’s last talk of the summer.

Blackhawk church however, won’t be taking an August break, and has plenty going on. As mentioned last night Backpack Bonanza will still need volunteers on Sunday August 2nd and Madison Missions will need some folks to work with middle school students especially this coming Sunday the 26th (I hear there may be a barbecue involved). If you’re interested you can email Becca, CAM@blackhawkchurch.org.

Otherwise if your looking for something more along the line of classes, Blackhawk has a series of Journey Classes that are offered through the year. I do believe the one in August is centered around finances.

Well that’s all for now, see you next Tuesday,

-Tyler

“…If this continues, he said, ‘there will be no Christians left in Iraq’.”

Blue like Jazz by Donald Miller; an insightful look into Christian beliefs with great thoughts on faith for skeptics and believers alike.

The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel; a classic on faith, and an easy but valuable read.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis; now this one goes a bit broader than just thoughts on faith, but it’s by far my favorite.  A great read for those really looking dive a bit deeper in understanding Christianity.

I think these may be enough for now, all great books, but if you’re looking for more dig through the general resources page on the CAM website.  There’s a decent book list there not just on faith, but on all sorts of great stuff.

-Tyler

While I am aware that this may stem from my perspective as a twentysomething university student in a very liberal city (and am aware how counterintuitive to my ends that prefacing is), it seems to me that this thought is prevalent in every corner of society today, in both secular and religious realms. Further, in contemporary American society this view is becoming increasingly associated with the adjective “tolerant,” while one who feels that their is absolute truth (and asserts his or her views) is often branded “intolerant.”

These words are dangerous. The positive and negative connotations that the adjectives carry with them seem to be counterintuitive to the worldview that the positive title often aligns itself with- as we generically assign such loaded adjectives to specific worldviews (i.e. Atheists are intolerant, Republicans are intolerant), the “intolerant card” becomes nothing but a culturally relevant method of dismissal of a view. This is not a call to accept anything somebody throws at you; I know this goes against our elementary-school-brain-storming-session-rules, but there are dumb ideas. This is a call to listen. To challenge norms. Your norms and others’.
Is there room for convictions? Yes. Goodness yes. I hold strong convictions. You should too; this stuff is important. But your convictions are useless if you are not willing to hold them up to others’ views.

I’m convinced of this all the more as I read John 3. As Jesus talks with Nicodemus, I see everything Nicodemus holds as good and true challenged by the words of Jesus. Jesus’ words challenge me too. His words don’t leave too much room for a relative, or subjective, ideal of truth. As he later directly asserts, Jesus shows Nicodemus here that his worldview wasn’t cutting it; that worth, righteousness…and truth, are found solely in Him, in Jesus himself.

The point of this: to a lot of people in our culture, Jesus’ words are offensive.

And I think they should feel that way.

They certainly would have been to Nicodemus. They meet us with the bold statement that we don’t cut it on our own, that ultimately, we fail. When we hear this, our reptilian-defensive instincts kick in. (mine do, at least). We don’t like to be told that we’re wrong. Our society is evolving within the constraints of this concept: being told you’re wrong is intolerant. It’s bad.

What happens when we confront the words of Jesus? What happens when we allow the equally exclusive worldviews¹ that we have to be held to the light of the words of Jesus Christ? For me the answers to those questions have been radical and all-encompassing. For Nicodemus? We can’t be sure; John never tells us. But as he encountered Jesus, he was left with the decision we are all left with as we encounter Jesus: to take Him at His word and follow Him, or to walk away.

¹The idea of all worldviews being equally exclusive is well presented in Tim Keller’s The Reason for God. Recommended read.

After two weeks of summer cam up and running I’ve gotten around to laying down my first blog post. For those of you that were not around this past week we took a walk through a pretty bizarre scene from Luke 7:36-50. If you haven’t gotten a chance, take a look through the passage, it does a great job of contrasting a Pharisee’s self-centered position as opposed to the selfless view of a sinful woman.

For some reason whenever we talk about the ever prideful Pharisees it strikes a particular chord with me. I’m not sure why, perhaps because I see a little too much of them in myself, but I’m always drawn to contemplate their world view. The funny thing about the Pharisees is that almost every judgment and decision they ever made, for themselves and others, was based on comparison. It was the only barometer they used to measure their self-worth, along with the worth of others. This was used especially to judge how their relationship with God was going, which turned out to be rather foolish. You have to wonder what they were thinking sometimes. The thought of pleasing God never crosses their minds, and in it’s place is an insatiable desire to out-religify the rest of the community. This of course left them thinking rather highly of themselves, while it also produced their condescending attitude towards others.

However, sometimes when I read about the pride of the Pharisees it hits just a little too close to home. The problem is that we are all like this; whether consciously or unconsciously we all compare ourselves to those around us in order to find a bit of self worth. It is a sort of sad human trait. We are all so eager to bend over backwards in many ways, whether it be giving away all time and energy for a degree, working and trimming our bodies to perfection, or spending money on expensive and impressive items, and for what? It is all too often we do all these things, not for our initial benefit, but rather to increase our standing in the minds of other people. So much of it is purely do to comparison.

The world is filled with people fighting for respect, people giving their lives to be noteworthy in the minds of others, but God proposes a different way. God would have us love our neighbor before worrying about any of our own worth. Start by serving.

That’s what we call humility. It is the kind of humility Christ demonstrated by giving up his rightful place as Lord to take the lowliest place of the cross, not because of himself, but for us. It is the kind of humility that makes people do crazy and ridiculous things for the benefit of others at the cost of demise for themselves. And this is the kind of humility we are called to.

Humility like this is hard to come by, but I can remember the last time I saw it played out. It was on the corner of Mifflin and State St. about 3:00 pm a few Sundays ago. Some of you may know that is where you will find something called free food revolution every week. It is an unofficial group of random servant-hearted people that provide food for the homeless every Sunday. The scene I saw was unexpected. When I arrived a substantial line had formed, not made of your common street-folk, but of men, women, and children all in need and waiting for a meal. Looking at these people induced an almost automatic servant attitude. To have been occupied with self-value or comparative pride would have been absolutely absurd. Instead only a response of giving was left. There is simply no concern of self when you see a mother and child on the street with not enough food to eat. It is an experience I would recommend to anyone.

So there is my more recent challenge to those of us prideful people who might like to play the deadly game of comparison. Stop by Mifflin and State some Sunday and see what measuring up to the homeless feels like (and you may want to bring some food), maybe I’ll see you there!

’til next time,
-Tyler

Some of you know this, but Tuesday night I talked about Matthew 4.18-20, where Jesus calls Simon and Andrew to follow Him. I’ve been thinking a lot about this all week, trying to get my mind around the worth that these men must have seen in the person of Jesus to follow Him to the lengths they did. Here’s what Webster tells me about worth:

worth: the value of something measured by its qualities or by the esteem in which it is held

I think that worth is usually contextual. I was looking through my music collection the other day, wondering why I would ever spend money on some of the CD’S I’ve bought. (I’m looking at you, second and third Hootie & the Blowfish albums.) If you talked to me in middle school, you’d probably have to mug me to stop me from buying those albums, though. It’s funny how our conception of worth is affected by where we’re at and what we’re surrounded by. There’s not too many things that we attribute worth that have staying power with us- we seem to go after what works for us until it stops working, then move on to the next thing.

Then I look back at Simon and Andrew. I see them walking away from everything they had because of the worth the saw in the man Jesus. I look at the how far they followed that man; without shifting to other desires, without attributing old Hootie and the Blowfish albums in there closets; the worth they found in Jesus was enough to forfeit everything else for- and in this it’s unique.

Ultimately, we attribute worth to something. I think that in our culture, it’s usually in success: we find worth in our careers, sex lives, status, and rely on them to give us worth. Where are you at? What are the things you’re attributing worth to? Please don’t think that’s a rhetorical question. Really; what do you think is worthy right now? What are you counting on to give yourself worth?

The worth Andrew and Simon saw in Jesus had the transformative power to reorder everything thing else in their lives: all the things they once found worth in no longer meant the same things to them that they once had. The worth of Jesus Christ is truly a terrifying thing.

Have you ever seen that in Jesus? True worth, worth that shapes everything else you know and care about? If this worth can not be found in Jesus, then He is not worthy of being followed with everything we have.

I don’t know where you’re at. I don’t know if you know the kind of worth I’m talking about. But it can only be found in Jesus. If you’re not sure about that; I want to challenge you to encounter Jesus. Open the Gospel according to John this week and read. Be confronted with the person of Jesus. See for yourself. That’s how it happened for Simon and Andrew. It wasn’t until they encountered this man that they deemed Him worthy of being followed.

Cookies,
mike.

Who? All College students
What? Summer College Age Ministry
When? 8:00 PM June 2nd
Where? The Regent Apartments Basement EAST SIDE
Why? What better place to be on a Tuesday night? Free Food, great discussion and worshiping God.

Come to worship, praise, talk, play games eat free food and have a rockin Tuesday Night!

Summer CAM kickoff in the Regent basement on the East Side. For those of you who have attended before, this is OPPOsite of last summer. Go in the frint doors to the Regent and turn to the left and walk all the way to the CMA office, and take the elevator downstairs.

We look forward to having you all there for CAM and great hang out time after!

The CAM team

Well, we wrapped up “school-year CAM” (I don’t know what else to call it!) with a send-off for our graduating seniors, a talk about change from Matt Metzger (the college pastor), and the first annual CAM bake-off. We are taking the rest of May off, but look for us again on Tuesday nights in June and July for Summer CAM.

Join us for the day and do what you need to do! As always, there will be TONS of food, quiet and group study areas, tutors available, places to relax and hang out, or gym and outdoor spaces to run off a little stress, and an awesome time of worship in the evening! Be sure to invite friends! Tutor schedule to come, and you can get the campus-church bus schedule for the event on the CAM website blackhawkcam.org.