You can stream U2′s new album at their myspace site.
Just select No line on the Horizon from the drop down menu on the music player.
The album is available for pre-buy on iTunes and will be released on Monday March 2nd.
The few songs I’ve listened to sound really great. Don’t expect Joshua Tree and you’ll love it!
As many of you know we’re hosting a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class at our church on Wednesday evenings.
One of Dave’s axioms is, “sell so much stuff the kids think they’re next.”
In light of this my wife (and I stress it was her idea) thought it would be good if “we” sold “my” truck (2006 Toyota Tacoma).
So much to my dissapointment I placed an ad on Craigslist, thinking that no one would be willing to pay top dollar for my truck in this economy. Well to my astonishment I received several emails and phone calls. One such call came from a guy in Portland. His dad was in Bend on business and he wanted me to drive the truck to a local hotel (about 20 miles away) so that his dad could look at it.
Well I wasn’t really thrilled to drive the truck 20 miles for someone that may or may not buy the truck. But after being assured that this guy was very serious about buying the truck and that he didn’t care about the fact that it was filthy and that the back seat was stained I drove the truck the 20 miles to the Comfort Inn on the East side of Bend.
In talking with the father to arrange the meeting I quickly found out that he was a very blunt and offensive dude. But I wasn’t prepared for how rude this jerk would be in person. Upon arrival he gets outs of his fire engine red Chevy Suburban immediately receiving a phone call so he pretty much ignores me and begins to examine the truck. After a few minutes of him “kicking the tires” and talking on the phone he hung up and said, “those tires look like crap!”
Nice to meet you too.
“Well I told your son that it had oversized mud tires and a 3 inch lift”
“He is going to have to replace those tires right away and it really needs to be detailed.”
“Yes I understand that sir but I informed him of its present condition as well.”
This was his cue to call his son and begin speaking to him in a foreign language so that I couldn’t understand. After that brief phone call he said, “well I’ll give you $19,000″
A full $2,000 less than I was asking.
I was beginning to tire of his antics and his attitude so I said, “look I informed your son that I wouldn’t take less than 20K and he assured me that you wouldn’t play games…at this point you are wasting my time.”
His reply was awesome…”wasting your time, all I did was pull you away from your TV, you’ve got nothing to do anyway!”
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I stormed off, got in my truck and honked the horn as I exited the parking lot. I then proceeded to call his son and gave him a piece of my mind about his dad. After hanging up from that super productive phone call the Lord began to speak to my heart.
“You just blew an opportunity to apply your message from Sunday.”
Oh man…I was busted!
We are going through the book of Luke on Sundays. Last Sunday we looked at 6:12-36 where Jesus commands us to “love our enemies” “do good to those that hate you” and to “bless those that curse you.”
Immediately I was struck with how ugly my flesh is.
Paul’s words in Romans 7 came to mind, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (vs. 24)
How thankful I am to have the answer to that question…”I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (vs. 25a)
Thank You Father for the gift of Your Son.
I am so grateful for your grace without which I would be absolutely obliterated by Your wrath and my own sense of guilt and condemnation.
What a blessing to write articles like this knowing that the people in our church do not need perfection from me…they need more Jesus, more gospel, and more transparancy from me to help them to look past their pastor toward Jesus.
I’m still trying to figure who to blame this episode on…Dave Ramsey or my wife. 
Oh and by the way I haven’t sold my truck yet!
One of my passions is reaching young people, and young men in particular. I believe if we can effectively reach young men we will continue to be successful in reaching future generations with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In light of this I wanted to write some of my thoughts regarding Calvary Chapel as it relates to reaching younger generations.
It is a concern of mine that our movement is becoming increasingly irrelevant to young people. This is not unique in Church history as every “movement” throughout Church history has reached a point that it’s methodology no longer related to the current culture because the paradigm that was created within that movement was rooted in its origination decades in the past.
Calvary Chapel and its culture is rooted in the Jesus Movement of the 1960′s, and unless we desire to die a slow death with the baby boomers we must be willing to change our methods and philosophies in order to be relevant to our modern context.
This paradigm shift will take pastors with guts, vision, and the leadership ability to get older men and women to die to themselves and their ways of doing things in order to reach younger people.
There is a question that is begging to be asked.
Why is it that Calvary Chapel is becoming irrelevant to younger people?
I believe there are three main reasons:
1. Rooted in the past - We have become a movement that is being defined by events that happened 40 years ago. I routinely visit CC church websites and under their “history” or “about us” pages are paragraphs about the Jesus Movement and the events surrounding the explosion of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. Should we be proud of the legacy that’s been handed to us? Absolutely! Is it wrong to include that in the history of a particular CC, no of course not but what is God doing in your church in your local context at this time? We’ve got to move on. Young people don’t care about what happened when their parents or grandparents, in many cases, were young. They crave something fresh, they desire to see God work among them they way He did amongst previous generations.
2. Rules and Regulations – Somewhere along the way our movement has become what it originally set out to change. The Jesus Movement was born out of a need for young people to have the freedom to express their faith in a fresh and relevant way. Now as we fast forward 40 years we have created our own traditions and ironically enough are forcing young people to look elsewhere to express themselves. We must break this legalistic proclivity if we have any hope of reaching young people today. One such issue that is at the center of this legalism is, alcohol. The consumption of alcohol is typically looked down upon in our movement and while certainly the abuse of alcohol that leads to drunkenness is forbidden in the Scriptures, the moderate use of alcohol is actually encouraged. Another such topic is entertainment. We have bought into the world’s rating system as our litmus test for what is appropriate and what isn’t, meanwhile making ourselves hypocrites as we have to explain why it was permissible to view The Passion of the Christ. Young people are taught to think critically about these issues and realizing that there is no biblical standard for much of these rules and regulations is making them flee to churches where there is more freedom in these gray areas.
3. Restriction of thought – “We don’t need no education…we don’t need no thought patrol.”
Pink Floyd is not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea. We’ve got to quit being so afraid of the bogey man that lies behind the pages of books that have been deemed taboo by hack apologists. It’s perfectly acceptable to read books by authors that you don’t agree with! That’s how we learn. It helps us to think outside of the box. Reading books you already agree with does not enable you to grow. Young people don’t want to be force fed their theology by grumpy old men they want to have the freedom to read books by a wide variety of authors and be given the opportunity to make biblical decisions about what is sound and what is questionable or in some cases what is heresy. Good pastors and church leaders will be available to help young people make these decisions, but paranoid pastors and leaders will restrict this type of learning wanting their people to only read “approved” books meanwhile cutting off the stream of fresh thinking that will allow their young people to flourish.
I have written this article out of my love for this movement and with the understanding that many Calvary Chapels are doing a phenomenal job of reaching young people. I speak in general terms in light of what I’ve observed over the last decade or so. I don’t write this to toot my own horn, and while we are reaching many young people in this small and predominantly “older” town I do not claim to have it figured out. I, like many Calvary pastors, simply want to reach as many people as I can before Jesus returns.
Here is a link to a video on “movements” by Mark Driscoll, a pastor who while very controversial is also very passionate about reaching young people and is doing so quite effectively in one of the most godless cities in America, Seattle.
We are a Movement – Mark Driscoll teaching at an Acts 29 boot camp for church planters.
Hey all I just wanted to pass along a few links to you and catch you up on some things I plan to write.
Mark Driscoll’s short book on porn – This is very well written and to the point. I encourage every man, especially young men, to read this.
Art Azurdia’s “How to Study Your Bible” class at our church – The audio from all four sessions and a pdf of his notes are available there.
Spurgeon Fellowship Journal - Helpful articles for pastors and preachers.
I plan to write the second part of the Women in Ministry post early this week.
I also hope to write some of my thoughts about some recent events within Calvary Chapel including a new CCOF website.
The following link is an interview with Dr. James Earl Massy, a distinguished African American pastor and author. The interview is conducted by
Dr. Art Azurdia for the Spurgeon Fellowship Journal.
click here for interview with Dr. Massey
If you are a pastor I encourage you to read this article as I think it has some great insight for modern day preachers and teachers.
