ChrisMoncus.com

I heard this prayer earlier today by Sir Francis Drake called ‘Disturb Us, O Lord”. It’s a good one.

I urge you to read this, reflect on it, and pray it when you’re ready for God to disturb you.

Disturb Us, O Lord
when we are too well pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little
when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore

Disturb Us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst for the Waters of Life;
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity.
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb Us, O Lord - to dare more boldly
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you push back the horizon of our hopes,
and to push us into the future with strength, courage, hope and love.”

In the post I wrote yesterday on a volunteer reproducing himself, Fred left a comment that I wanted to pass on. He said…

Let them sit with you while YOU do it …
YOU sit with THEM while THEY do it …
YOU get out of the booth, and let them DO IT ALONE.

My mom later commented with a quote she heard. It’s how she taught me and I KNOW it worked. Thanks mom. LOVE YA!

Tell me and I’ll know
Show me and I’ll remember
Involve me and I’ll understand

Though Fred was applying this to media during a church service, I believe this works everywhere - nursery, receptionist, youth, etc. Think about it. How can we apply this to our ministry areas?

Just remember that it should be our goal to train our replacements. Anytime we do a ministry task, we are potentially removing the opportunity for someone else to do that ministry. Feeling overworked? Reproduce yourself.

Not sure it will get done without you? Stop right now and pray for God to give you a dose of humbleness and ask Him to forgive your pride. Remember, you once were not very good at the thing you are now holding so tightly to. Think of the multiplication and the potential of having two of you in a sense. Or even ten of you.

I was the kid who got to sit with some great people who then let me try with them who then let me fly solo. I wasn’t good at sound for the longest time. I used to be horrible at graphic design. But people gave me a chance. Thanks to Adam, Adam, Adam, Lynn, Anthony, Curtis, Scott, and Larry - who right now I can think of did just that. Ten years later I am doing those things professionally in the church. Had I not had the chance who knows where I would be?

Have you experienced that?

Friends, be fruitful and multiply.

Amanda and I got home tonight from her office Christmas party to find Rob Bell’s “Everything is Spiritual” DVD placed delicately and balanced on the doorknob on the outside of our house. I do have an idea of how it might have gotten there. Maybe the person who bought me Rob Bell’s book “Velvet Elvis” was the culprit. Maybe not.

My plans for going straight to bed just got changed.

I opened the DVD and headed for the living room where I unwrapped and opened the DVD case. With a remote control in one hand and a blanket in the other I started the DVD.

In this hour and seventeen minute teaching time my eyes were opened to the complexities of nature and how it all relates to God. Rob opened his talk with the words “In the beginning God.” If you are familiar with that phrase you’ll remember it comes from the opening lines to God’s book, specifically Genesis. Rob points out the patterns and the details of what’s going on in these few verses and how they all relate to each other, the rest of the Bible, God, the universe, and us. My head is still spinning from the teaching and I must say I want to watch it again just to get anything I might have missed. On that note, anybody want to watch it with me?

I highly suggest watching it to anyone who wants new insights to how God made us and everything else with such thought and balance. After watching this it is hard to deny a Creator. As Proverbs says and Rob quotes “The fool says in his heart, ‘God does not exist.’ They are corrupt; their actions are revolting. There is no one who does good.”

A couple things on Rob Bell… He is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has written a couple books, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith and Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality And Spirituality. He also has a video teaching series called NOOMA that tackles many topics from forgiveness to serving to being a disciple.

If you just want to buy it for yourself, you can get it at everythingisspiritual.com or through other online retailers like Amazon.

I’m taking a break before Amanda and I head to my birthday party at our friend Matt’s SWEET… hear me… SWEET condo on St. Simons Island right on the beach. It’s hot.

I want to tell you about an epiphany I had during lunch. I looked at Amanda who still had a little flour on her shoulder from making cake batter earlier in the day. This cake batter was for a cake she was making me. A castle cake. With a moat. It’s pretty sweet.

What happened next might have changed my life.

I looked at it and smiled. She asked kind of cautiously what I was laughing at. I told her I was looking at the flour on her shoulder and it was like hearing “I love you” again. What says I love you better than a castle cake for your birthday? At that time, nothing. But later in the day seeing this residue of her love for me, I couldn’t ignore it. It was a reminder, proof, that she loves me. I got teary eyed as I told her all of this. She saw it and then I got a big sweet hug out of the deal. What a great morning.

So, just like Jesus would have done with this opportunity, here’s a lesson…

Many times we do silly things or things that really don’t seem like that big of a deal. This castle cake is both of those at it’s core. It’s eggs, flour, and icing. It’s in the shape of a castle. On the surface it’s not that impressive just hearing about it. But in my shoes… the shoes of a guy who’s wife just spent all morning making him a cake… this IS a big deal.

That cake said “I love you”. It screamed it.

The flour on her shoulder echoed it.

Right now I’m telling you about it and the echo rings again.

So guys, remember to do silly things. Do things that don’t seem that big. Do these silly little things for people because you love these people. You never know how long the echoes of this love may ring. You may never know how it will impact their lives. You may never know how many other people will receive the effects of this love.

On this note I’d love to recommend a book called “Making Ripples” by Mike Breaux. It’s all about this sort of thing.

May all of you make many echoes and many ripples of love.

READ THIS WHOLE ARTICLE. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!

Do I have your attention? If not, humor me and pretend.

I stumbled across this article today from a guy named Jeff Gill. He writes that Halloween is the second most important Christian holiday after Easter. “Huh?” was my response but after reading I FULLY agree with him. I think this will forever change your perspective on Halloween, especially if you grew up in the same type of churches I did where we did have our “Hallelujah Nights” and “Fall Festivals”, both on October 31.

Amanda and I are going to be doing this very thing on Wednesday with our friends, the Lewis’. It will be a good night.

So PLEASE READ and RESPOND back with your thoughts.

The original post is here if you care to leave a comment for him.

Otherwise, read the entire article below.

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Halloween: the Christian’s second most important holiday
19 October 2007 by Jeff Gill

Easter is, of course, the winner. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus there would be no Christianity. That is important to celebrate.

I am relegating Christmas to the number three spot because it is owned by commerce. Yes, Christmas is a wonderful family holiday. Yes, we Christians celebrate the incarnation of God (even though Jesus never said we should). Yes, I love Christmas. But frankly, we Christians just don’t own it anymore. The shops do.

We don’t own Halloween either, but we could.

I grew up hearing about the evils of Halloween – satan worship, demons, razor blades in apples – not from my parents, but from the Christian culture I lived in. I grew up going to Halloween alternative events, having lots of fun in my bible character costume, knowing that I was safe from all the devil-worshiping psychos that were certain to get me if I dared to risk knocking at the doors of the heathens in my neighbourhood.

Then one year I tried it, and I didn’t die.

As soon as my son was old enough (3) I introduced him to the joys of trick-or-treating. That was when I started realising that Halloween is the second most important holiday for Christians.

Jesus said there are two commands that matter: love God and love your neighbour. The Easter holiday is all about the first command. Halloween is all about the second.

What other day of the year can you put on funny clothes and be welcomed at your neighbour’s house? In my neighbourhood Halloween is the only day of the year that that people actually get out of their houses and chat with the neighbours that they don’t know. It is a night of celebrating community.

In the neighbourhood behind our church they throw a party at the shop and lots of people come out and have a great time. That’s where we went trick-or-treating last year.

On Halloween people let down their guard and come out of their houses. And unlike Christmas, it is not fraught with expectations and busy-ness. So here is my plan of how Christians are going to take over Halloween:

Full disclosure: I will be on holiday over Halloween this year, so for me this is more of a memo for 2008.

1. Ignore the demons and the occultists. (Almost) no one else in your neighbourhood cares in the least about that stuff. They are interested in costumes and sweets. Paul tells us to overcome evil with good, not with huddled prayer meetings in the church basement. If you want a prayer meeting, do it on the 30th. If you want to do some real spiritual warfare, put on some silly clothes and go hang out with your neighbours.
2. Cancel your anti- and alternative events. In the words of Disney’s little mermaid, ‘I want to be where the people are.’ Hint: they live around you in those house-shaped things. Stay home, put some pumpkins in the window, hand out a bunch of sweets (not tracts!) and have a nice chat with all the witches and axe-murderers that come by. Even better, go outside and meet the little ghouls’ parents lurking at the bottom of the drive.
3. Be positive and proactive. Find out in advance where the nervous old people live. Let them know that there will be adults out and about and that you will keep an eye on their house. Have some extra glowsticks to give to kids who need to be more visible. Find good places to hide so you can jump out and scare the trick-or-treaters. If you are feeling really ambitious, have an open house/garden with games and hot chocolate and snacks.
4. Check your motivation. You are doing this because God commands us to love people, not because you are trying to score crowns in heaven by getting converts. People can smell a rat a mile away.
5. Make Halloween the starting place. Probably sometime over the course of the evening you will meet somebody and there will be a bit of a connection. Go with it. Invite them to join you for bonfire night. Have their kid over to play with yours. Give the relationship opportunity to grow. And remember it is about loving people, not converting them. That is the Holy Spirit’s job.

Doesn’t that sound like a lot more fun (and useful) than anything else you could be doing Halloween night?

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Below is a critique on this post and my response to it. Enjoy. I’d love to know what you think so leave a comment.

Marvi says on October 31st, 2007

Was searching the internet on Christian responses to halloween, and unfortunately this was the first on the list. This article reminds me of Jesus’ temptation, shows how cunning the devil can be by using scripture for his own purpose. There is nothing Christian about halloween whatsoever.

1Cor. 10:21 “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.”

Found this article which i hope will help. http://www.christianhelps.org/halloween.html

My response to it the next day…

Hey Marvi. Thanks for dropping by.

I hate that you say “unfortunately” in response to coming by my website. You charge me with using scripture for my own purpose, yet I did not quote any. And I do agree that there is nothing Christian about Halloween. There is also nothing Christian about our lost friends… or the hurting family across the street… or us before we knew Christ. Still somebody reached out to us.

You quote scripture to show me that I’m taking part in demonic actions. Since when is giving underprivileged kids candy a demonic action? Since when is a kid dressing up as Spiderman or a princess a sin? Since when is sitting on the front porch with ten friends a sin? I guess the only day that it is a demonic sin is on October 31. If our neighborhood were to do it in mid January you would have no adverse feelings. In fact, last week I gave a kid who wears his Superman costume all the time a mint. I guess I’ll have to ask God’s forgiveness.

Does that just sound silly to you? It should.

You may still be stuck on Halloween though. How about the fact that Easter’s date was chosen not because that’s when Jesus rose from the dead but when a religion’s fertility festival was going on. Or to be more blunt… it was the day when the whole community had a sex fest orgy. Should we not have Easter services for this reason? NO!

How about Christmas. Most theologians will tell you that Jesus was probably born in late summer… of 6BC, not 0AD. The day we celebrate Christmas on was determined for a few reasons. From Wikipedia…

In part, the Christmas celebration was created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations. Most of the most important gods in the religions of Ishtar and Mithra had their birthdays on December 25.

That sounds a lot like what you are accusing me of doing… taking a pagan holiday and using it to win souls to Christ. If you want to stick to your guns then I’d recommend you not celebrate Christmas or Easter ever again. You wouldn’t want to drink the cup of demons would you?

Sound silly? Radical? Crazy?

It does. And it’s what you said to me. You are saying Christians shouldn’t use bad for good, shouldn’t take Christ to the world on a very opportune day, and shouldn’t be a part of anything resembling non-christianity.

That, my friend, is not Christianity. That is ultra-conservative religion.

For that reason, I pray that God will open you up to see Him and true relationship with Him, outside of the rules placed on us by denominations and pastor’s opinions.

Your thoughts?

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What do you think?