Organic Weed and God's Dust

This past week God gave me a great lesson on how clueless people are about reality. On one side of the spectrum we have the sheltered Christian that has spent their entire life within the walls of a Christanese Culture. On the other side is the person who has never been exposed to true faith and doctrine and has lived like a freak, lunatic....unChristian.

Picture of this Spectrum

Christian <-------------------------> UnChristian

I was sitting in class this past Thursday next to my good friend Wendy. Wendy and her new fiance (congrats guys!) Scott go to our new church. They are passionate about international church planting. I love having them on the team. The night before I gave our church the mission of going out into our neighborhood to survey them about our new church name. Our church came up with a top four: Metro Church, Ecclesia, Vintage Church, and Organic Church. Wendy told me that after church a group of members went out to eat at a local restaurant. There was a table of guys from Tulane University at the restaurant. Ben, another stud from our church, went up to them and asked them what church name they would choose and why. One of the guys looked at Ben and said, "Organic Church". Ben asked, "Why?". He replied, "Because ORGANIC WEED is the best kind of weed". Ben laughed and asked the rest of the table. They were sold on the first guys reason and unanimously voted for Organic Church.

After Wendy told me this we laughed our heads off and I told her how much I loved being the church in Uptown. I love the people in Uptown, but most of them don't have clue. They have been hypnotized by Satan and his heretics. This mission is going to be extremely difficult. I am praying that God will use our church to display true faith and true doctrine to a truly lost world.

As we sat in that class, I was exposed to the other side of the spectrum. Our professor (who is a good man with a good heart) began to teach us about real worship. He began to teach us that true worship comes when we realize how amazing God is and how pathetic we are. He talked about the discipline of laying face first on the group before a great and sovereign God. And then he began to share with us that he would love to develop a bumper sticker to display to the world. On this bumper sticker would be "LICK GOD'S DUST". It is kind of like the cool church signs you see around the country. Check out my good buddy Perry Noble's blog. He came across some classics.

Now I don't disagree with the basic concept. But put yourself in the organic weed dude's shoes. Can you honestly say that this will be a great way to display true faith and true doctrine in his life?

True Biblical evangelism has become nothing but a variety of cop-out options. Don't lead someone to Christ...bring them to church. Don't talk to someone about Christ...put a bumper sticker on your car, wear a t-shirt, or pass out a tract. Don't love the world...get behind a so-called Christian political party. It seems like Non-Christians aren't the only ones who don't get it.

I don't have all the answers, nor have I ever claimed to. But I have united with a small group of people in New Orleans that have a desire to learn how to bridge this gap with the purpose of proclaiming God's glory. I would recommend two books to start this journey.

Book #1: UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
(This book will help you understand how the world views Christianity because of the misrepresentation of so-called Christians)


Book #2: Starving Jesus by Craig Gross and JR Mahon (XXX Church Pastors)
(This book will tick you off and I struggled with a lot of their input, but if you want to be challenged "off the pew, into the world"...this is a great book for you)


By the way...the new name of our church is Vintage Church.

New Church Start

I haven't written a blog in a long time. Honestly, it has been the last thing on my mind. Our new church has gone through some new challenges. Here is a basic summary that I shared with our church this past week:

Brothers and Sisters,

God is leading our group in a new direction. Over the past 4 months, we have served at the Valence St. Baptist Church with hopes of revitalizing and replanting a church. During this time we have grown as a church, improved and revived the church, and spread the love of Christ in Uptown. Unfortunately, the original church pastor and membership has chosen to go a different direction. God has led our new core team and leadership to voluntarily resign from VSBC and begin a fresh vision and work in Uptown NOLA. This past Sunday Night the core team unanimously approved the recommendation by the pastoral team to love and leave VSBC. There are a lot of uncertainties as move into the future. But one thing is for certain: Christ has called us to an amazing opportunity in Uptown and He is in complete control. On behalf on my family and the pastoral team, we are so grateful to God for giving us the privilege of serving with a group of people who desire to "Love God and Love People" above all else. We are excited to see where Christ is going to lead us as we make disciples in New Orleans and beyond. See ya on Wednesday Night at Tulane University!

Rob

Pray for us as we launch this brand new mission in Uptown. We are extremely excited as God leads us into the future. I will keep you posted on what God is doing through our church and I will also keep you connected with what Christ is teaching me through this process.